Keir flinches as a locker around the corner from his slams shut, and a voice shouts, “Fuck off!” He noiselessly pulls his work shirt out and slips into it, hoists his bag over his shoulder, and carefully closes his locker door with a small click and slow twist of the combination before stepping away in the opposite direction from the commotion. It’s the end of his first day of school at Melitown High, and he’s not looking for trouble.
“I ain’t done with you, Fenley Starme!” yells another, followed by the thud and squeaking of boots on the waxed floor getting closer. Keir stops and turns back to look in time for a shorter, thinner body to barrel into his solid frame and freeze when he automatically throws his arm around them to keep them from bouncing off of his chest. The body gasps.
“Sorry,” rumbles Kier, removing his hands; one had spread across a damp t-shirt, and the other had curled around a bare neck, cool to the touch.
“Y-you… shit! You’re gonna need a shower,” huffs the guy pushing around him to get away. Kier flinches and frowns and looks down at himself. He inhales but can only smell something new that hasn’t been part of his day and couldn’t be from him. He knows he smells faintly of the outdoors at any given time. But it’s not bad. And this new smell? It’s fresh. The earth after a thundershower: loamy earth, petrichor … Ozone. And something else? Something sharp. Metallic.
The pursuer has pulled up short of crashing into him. The Obvious guy Keir was certain was an athlete asks, “Did you see that beanpole bastard?” He tries to see around him before pausing and slowly raising his eyes up to Keir’s unimpressed face squinting down at him, head cocked to the side.
“Oh, um, s-sorry to bother you, man. I thought… never mind,” he says, blinking quickly and backing away.
Keir snorts, turning away as the guy scrambles off, and continues out of the building into the autumn air and leaf-strewn sidewalk. Passing under the tree-lined path to his new house, a fast movement overhead stops him.
“Hey man,” says the voice from earlier. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you. Are you ok?”
Looking up at a branch above him, he gets a better look at the wiry punk: black eyes and freckled skin, an orange and black undercut, and a World’s Best Dad t-shirt with the neckline ripped out. Two loosely tied scuffed combat boots swung beneath him from thin gray denim-clad legs over the branch that barely swayed at his movements. Exactly his type. Shit.
Kier nods and looks around. “Why do you ask?” His voice is deep and rough and unsure. He’s not used to speaking.
The guy in the tree cringes and grips the branch tighter. “Well, when we touched, I wasn’t really controlling my toxin. I don’t think I was goin’ all out, though, but I don’t want you to get sick.”
“Oh,” Kier says, nodding. “I’m fine.”
“Just like that?”
Kier nods once more.
“But you’re… wait. Aren’t you… a Minotaur or, like, Sun Oxen?” He squinted down, trying to focus more on the sizeable figure below. He can’t see his eyes, hidden in the dark waves dipping over them until a massive hand pushes them out of his way. The silver ring in his septum glints in the afternoon sun as he peers up at him with his large grey-green eyes and asks, “You gonna introduce yourself before we get personal?”
The other shivers at his low baritone—not with a chill but pinpricks of electricity traveling from his core to his extremities, and a light rain begins to fall, startling them both. Looking up at the sky, he hops up onto his feet, balancing gracefully on the branch without holding on, sending a few crisp leaves tumbling down around Keir. “Yeah, sorry. Name’s Fen. Since you’re sure you’re ok, I’ve gotta jet,” he says, lightly stepping toward the trunk. He grips it and swings around to the opposite side, disappearing before Kier can react.
Kier Douglas, never once in possession of an umbrella, tips his head back, enjoying the gentle sprinkle of the unexpected sunshower, and sets off again for home.
The drizzle turned to a heavier fall and continued well past midnight, and now, in the morning, only puddles and dampness to the air remain. Fen slows to a stop, seeing the oversized figure waiting at the school’s entrance. The Ten Courts are missing a guard. God, he’s somehow bigger than I remembered. He feels the prickling shocks travel through him again. A mist descends, hurrying everyone to the doors except them. Fen watches him head tilted skyward, smiling at the clouds forming above and then turn to look at him with one grey-green eye from under his shaggy mop. It’s wet, like he hurried to school straight from the shower. Fen’s previous night’s dreams flash through him in a foggy montage—those shoulders wet, that skin slick, as he perched above, looking down on those laurel eyes, his tail wrapped around his thigh. Shit. Shit. Shit. Stop.
The mist is swallowed by a sudden downpour.
Kier opens the door and holds it open, waiting for Fen to come up the stairs, watching him linger at the gate, hair and clothes plastered to him in the un-forecasted deluge. It takes him a moment to get over his confusion and acknowledge that they really hadn’t gotten better acquainted last night, and every word and filthy act they’d shared had been (not so) purely his imagination.
“Oh, shit, I didn’t mean to get you drenched,” Fen says, taking the stairs two at a time and bursting into the school, his chivalrous classmate pulling the door closed behind them. They drip onto the industrial-grade safety mat at their boots, eyeing each other before Fen sweeps his aqueous black eyes down the hall on the soggy students peeling off their soaked jackets and fussing with limp hair in front of mirrors magnetized to the inside of their locker doors. “Not really the place to continue our conversation—but can I get your name?” he asks, finishing his visual assessment with a slow crawl up the massive form standing next to him until his neck cranes to look him in the eyes focused on his exposed throat. It takes a moment before Kier notices the thin leather cord tying a disc of obsidian around his neck, matching his eyes perfectly, and another to realize he’d been asked a question.
“Kier,” that rumbling voice offers, stepping away before adding, “Later, then, Fen.”