(no subject)

[best_thief]

Lila discovered her back was blank when she dragged herself from her training warehouse for food. She wandered in a slight daze, after, wondering what to do with herself. She'd locked herself in to practice using her magic and purposefully ignore the curse across her shoulders, and now that it was gone her mind told her to go back to normal, back to routine. Only there was no routine in Darrow. She hated the mere idea of it. In London it had mostly consisted of thieving and sleeping, and in Red it had been better on the Spire. But here? She still didn't know what to do with herself.

Eventually she goes to Kell's. Just to show off her new skill, she tells herself, which she uses to unlock his door when no one answers. She strolls inside and looks around, and realizes why no one answered when she hears the sound his shower running. She could use a shower. Hygiene is so easy here, so convenient, that a few days without leave her skin feeling noticeably itchy.

Lila toes off her boots and slips into the bathroom. She can't see Kell, just the shape of him behind the steamed glass door. "Mind if I join you?" she asks, already pulling her tank top off.

Comments

[bloodandflowers]

"Not even me?" Kell asks, sounding more curious than anything, devoid of judgment as his thumb strokes along her cheekbone. He holds her gaze. Kell won't press her for answers, but he will search for them in her expression.

[best_thief]

"You already saw it," Lila snaps, feeling raw all over again. This isn't why she came here. This isn't what she wanted. "Every time I looked at you I knew you knew. I didn't need you thinking about it."

She pushes Kell's hand away from her face and slides the glass door open with hardly a thought, climbing out of the tub and grabbing a towel to dry off with.

"I don't want to talk about it."

[bloodandflowers]

Kell remains in the shower for a moment. She's taken his towel, leaving him with only his arms to wrap around himself. He follows at a more sedate pace.

"I don't pity you," he says, walking dripping to his chest of drawers where he fishes out a shirt. "You grew up with nothing but ugly choices - I grew up with no choices at all. Who could say what is worse?" Kell pulls the shirt down over his chest. "I won't try to. You are always so angry at me for the things you think I might say."

[best_thief]

Lila doesn't know what to say. She can think of a dozen hurtful things, the same of which she would have used on Barron. But she doesn't want to. The thought of him still hurts, which is only a reminder of the way it always ends up with her. She carries trouble around three paces behind like a storm cloud.

She scrubs her hair with the towel to get most of the water out, and realizes the only clothes she has with her are filthy.

Lila the room to take one of Kell's button up shirts from the closet. She pulls it on and doesn't bother to button it yet. Turning around, fingers curling over the long sleeves, she finally says, "What do you expect of me, Kell? I'm not some lady of the court. I'm not polite company."

[bloodandflowers]

Kell pulls the loose undergarments favored here over his thighs and shakes his head. "I don't expect you to be," he says.

He looks at her wet from his shower, his clothes on her shoulders. She was gone for a week this time, not months, but his heart had ached the same for it. Sometimes, Kell has no idea what it is she wants from him.

He sighs. "Brandy?"

[best_thief]

Lila wonders what Kell does expect of her, but she doesn't ask. She doesn't like to think of any expectations others may have of her because she can't help but think she'll only fail to meet them.

"Sure," Lila says, combing her fingers through her damp, messy hair to get it a little under control. "Can you lend me a pair of those shorts?"

Lila pulls the undergarment on when Kell hands it to her, and then wanders into the living room and flops down against the pillows on the couch. "What have you been up to? Gotten into any trouble I've sadly missed?"

[bloodandflowers]

Kell shakes his head. "I'm afraid I'm as boring as you've always suspected," he says, fetching the brandy to pour them both glasses deeper than any truly happy man would pour.

He sits on the chair and thinks of Sirius, so much in pain and trying to hide it, and decides it is not a tale with which to regale her. "I was almost a victim of a singing sport here they call karaoke. Perhaps that will amuse you."

[best_thief]

"Oh, Kell, you aren't boring, you just don't choose to do fun things." Lila takes the glass and tips it briefly toward Kell in cheers, watching him sit across from her alone in a chair. "Look, you won't even sit by me. You're adverse to enjoyment," she teases.

"I know what that is, the karaoke," she adds, wondering if Kell had gone in to the same place she had. On a different night, the same one? "It's awful. People who can't sing shouldn't be allowed a microphone."

[bloodandflowers]

"I have learned that is the point," says Kell with a faint smile. "To make a spectacle of oneself. The more outrageous, the more one is lauded." He sits back in his chair. "This city is ridiculous."

He sips at his brandy. "What fun things might I choose, then?"

[best_thief]

"I wouldn't mind seeing you make a spectacle of yourself," Lila says, smiling around the rim of her glass and trying to imagine it. With just a few sips the Brandy's already warmed her, already affecting her after days of not eating and sleeping well. It's a pleasant feeling.

"Things that would have involved you not putting on that shirt, for one thing," she says, taking another drink. "When I steal a motorcycle I'll show you another."

[bloodandflowers]

"Kings, what does that mean?" asks Kell with a deeper sip, but there's no hiding his smile. "You have already made a spectacle of me," he notes. "In the park, in that club. Both of them," he amends, remembering the first. "I used to be quite proper."

[best_thief]

"A six hundred year old woman took me for a ride on one. They're fast, like the cars," Lila says, leaning forward a little, her eyes dancing at the memory.

She leans back with a smug sort of smile, nearly laughing. "Maybe you just hadn't met the right people," she suggests, since she knows he's been with others before her. She briefly lets herself wonder how she compares to them for Kell, but that's a question she keeps to herself.

Lila takes a long, thoughtful drink, watching Kell.

"Say, I'd like to know something. Are you attached to a fragile, fabricated concept of masculinity?" she asks, quoting Magnus' words.

[bloodandflowers]

Kell's smile fades, more in thought than from any dearth of happiness. As ever, the madness that falls from Lila's mouth serves to surprise and confuse. "I have...very little idea what that means," he says at length.

"I don't belong anywhere, Lila," he says, blinking his eyes, one light, one dark, at her. "I suppose that means I can be what I want."

[best_thief]

Lila gently swirls the liquid left in her glass, her own eyes on Kell's. She likes the idea of him doing what pleases him, as that's how it should be for anyone. But maybe especially him.

But that isn't what she meant.

"Mostly it means, if I were to touch your arsehole would it upset you?" Lila asks plainly, ditching Magnus' flowered speech. People from other worlds have so many terms, so many unfamiliar ideas of sex and gender. At least to her, who knew very little as it was.

[bloodandflowers]

As ever, no manner of preparation could quite ready Kell for her response, and Kell raises both brows. "I suppose not if you warned me," he says. That particular region of his body is not one that's ever been explored for pleasure's sake - he has no experience to recommend it or dissuade him apart from Rhy's ravings, always better taken with a grain of salt.

"Do you want to touch my arsehole?"

[best_thief]

"Yes," Lila says easily, knowing she did the moment Magnus showed her those strap-ons. She takes another long drink until her glass is almost empty, looking thoughtful.

"Sirius and I watched an entire movie of two men fucking," she says, raising her gaze back to Kell's. She downs the rest of the drink. "I want to try it."

[bloodandflowers]

"You watched - " begins Kell, diverting from the first extraordinary comment to the one that follows it. He rubs his forehead. "I suppose you're not bothered by the fact that you'd need a cock for that, I - oh." Kell's expression goes blank with surprise. "That store of yours."

[best_thief]

Lila nearly laughs at Kell's expression, and she does, actually, she thinks. Things have gotten a bit dizzy.

"They make them for girls, can you believe it? I thought maybe for eunuchs," she says, grinning, and leans forward, toward Kell, even though he's so far from her. "I bought one. It's different from the kind I wear sometimes when I want to look like a boy."

Kell is too, too far away, so Lila gets up, going over to his chair to sit down on him so they can really talk. "Even if you don't want it in your arse there are other things we could do," she says, her eyes wide and innocent.

[bloodandflowers]

Kell sucks in a breath when she stands, his heart pounding as it always does when she approaches and blessedly sits down. Chin tilted up to look at her, Kell tries to imagine it, her with some fake cock attached to her, wanting to put it inside him.

"Perhaps I'll consider it," he says, "If you'll consider having a meal with me. Somewhere out."

[best_thief]

Lila lets out a startled laugh. "Okay?"

She isn't sure how having a meal has anything to do with sex, but she won't say no to food. Right now, though, she's far more interested in the warm body beneath her than dinner. She plucks Kell's glass from his hand and finishes the rest of his drink, enjoying the burn of the liquid. She absently sets the glass aside and tips her face above him.

"I saw lots in the movie we could do," she murmurs, bracing her hands on his chest.

[bloodandflowers]

Her hair has begun to dry, still damp at the edges. Kell runs his finger through the tendrils that have escaped over her ear, his head cocked. "Will you tell me why it appeals to you?" he asks, curious. "What pleasure can you take from a fake cock? Or is it undoing me that draws you?"

[best_thief]

When he says it like that, undoing me, Lila has to admit there's a certain appeal. So much that she already feels a faint aching between her legs. But she hasn't thought about it, the why, and when she thinks about it now she isn't even sure.

"Maybe. We haven't done it yet, so it's something to be discovered," she says, her eyes drawn to his mouth. "Do you know that they sucked each other?" She traces his lower lip with her finger and returns her gaze to meet his.

[bloodandflowers]

"I can't believe you've watched a sex film with my best friend," says Kell in tones that suggest he believes it completely. "But yes, I imagine they did," he adds, pulling her finger between his lips. "Rhy was never shy about describing his many lovers to me."

[best_thief]

"Have you had it done, before?" Lila asks, feeling a shiver along her skin when his lips close around her finger. Her sharp smile fades into something more yearning. She wants his mouth on her everywhere, to feel its soft heat again. She feels suddenly touch deprived when she has never wanted anyone to touch her before.

[bloodandflowers]

Kell spreads his hands over her hips, squeezing when he feels her shiver. "Yes," he admits. "Sometimes I think it's even more intimate than sex, taking someone into your mouth, or to be so much at someone's mercy. Or it could have been," he says. "It was not that way at home."