by R. Cooper
They looked to the machine behind him and then at Clematis and laughed.
Clematis twisted to see the yellow Ms. Pac-Man with her lipstick, hair bow, and high heels. The humans were laughing at him for playing this game because of her. His psych textbook would have had something to say about that as well.
He turned back toward them and leaned against the machine, his elbows by the controls, his hips forward. It was warm outside, but the AC in the arcade had his nipples tight. He put his mouth to his wrist slowly, searching out a piece of candy with his tongue, then catching it in his teeth.
He couldn’t hear them gasping or breathing harder, but he could see how their mouths softened in aroused reflex.
“What the actual fuck are you doing?” Flor’s harsh question jolted him back upright.
Flor glared between Clematis and the two humans before he shoved a cone of pink cotton candy at him. “Eat,” he barked before looking at the humans again. They were both now pretending to care about the game they were playing. Something with guns, naturally. They probably watched each other fondle those guns and didn’t ever think to question it. Flor raised his eyebrows, exasperated. “Do you honestly want to fuck those guys?”
Remembering how much Flor hated it, Clematis wisely didn’t shrug. But he kept his tone light. “They found it amusing to see a fairy playing this particular game. Most humans find it difficult to think I’m a joke when I’ve made them hard, or wet.”
Flor opened his mouth, then snapped it closed. His wings were a hurricane, his face a storm cloud. “What?” he demanded. Strands of his hair flew into his eyes. The flower shivered but stayed in place.
Clematis studied the sharp clench of Flor’s little fists and spoke softly so Flor would understand. “So many humans think of us as silly or beneath them. But they all beg the same when they want to come.”
Flor violently shook his head. “No. Nope. You did not just….” He fixed his dark eyes on Clematis before Clematis could think to turn away. “Oh,” Flor finished at last. “Oh,” he said again and sighed so deeply his wings seemed to slow with the release of air. “Just”—he flapped a hand at Clematis—“eat that, okay?”
Clematis pulled some of the cotton candy off and let it dissolve on his tongue while Flor frowned into the distance and pulled out his phone only to put it away.
“More,” Flor commanded distractedly. He took a piece too and when it was gone, he spoke again. “Is that why you’re always on with people?” Flor met his eyes. “Is that why you do that thing? Didn’t you ever think that when some humans treat you like that, it’s because they want to provoke that reaction from you?” The storm cloud was gone. In its place was sadness. “Silly, slutty fairies, only good for fucking, they say, and there you are, giving them what they want. Do you think they care that they begged—if they even admit that to themselves later, which I doubt? I bet they excuse it, blame us again, say it was fairy magic or glamour that made them do it.”
“Glamour isn’t real,” Clematis said in a rasp. His heart seemed to lurch with a sudden sick feeling.
Flor slowly shook his head. “No, it’s not. But it’s close to it, isn’t it? That thing you do.” He sucked in a breath. “Is that why you seduce everyone? It’s not fake; it couldn’t be. But you switch on this weird version of you, or switch off the real you, and it’s so fucking annoying. Every time. There you are, being somewhat normal, and then someone gets in your sights and you—” Flor floundered. “—turn it on, that thing where you aren’t pretending, but you are still full of shit. Revenge fucking. Shit.” Flor looked up. “David didn’t deserve that. He’s not one of them.”
“I didn’t turn on anything for David,” Clematis told him for at least the third time. “I didn’t have to. He came to me looking for—” Clematis remembered himself in time to stop there. Then he crossed his arms, or tried to, and ended up taking another bite of the cotton candy. The clinging sweetness was too much. “I don’t turn it on for everyone,” he admitted instead. He could hear the sulk in his tone.
Flor gaped. “You know you do it?”
Clematis filled his mouth with more quickly dissolving sugar.
“You, what? Decide to play up that you’re a beautiful fairy?” Flor went on, more astonished than mad, although he was definitely getting pissy the longer Clematis avoided answering.
Clematis held out a small cloud of cotton candy for Flor to take. Flor batted it away. Clematis bent down to pick it up off the ground and put it on top of his empty coffee cup.
“All fairies are beautiful.” Clematis absently straightened their collection of trash. “Even imps are beautiful. Humans are beautiful. Trolls, kitsunes, weres, any cat shifter. Beauty doesn’t mean anything, Flor. But I am very beautiful. They all love to tell me that. So that is what I am, what I do. I become what they expect all fairies to be and none of them are, because real fairies aren’t like that.” He took a breath. “Anyway.”
“Anyway?” Flor demanded. He almost seemed outraged, except for how quiet he was.
That made Clematis look at him again. Flor was the one who’d wanted to talk about this. “I am all the things they say about fairies. Even you think so. Well, that’s what most people want. What they can’t resist, some version of a fantasy fairy.” Even David, who had wanted so much to be in love with a fairy who loved him back. Clematis couldn’t do that, but he had made him come, and that was close, wasn’t it?
He glanced around. The two laughing humans were gone, likely too embarrassed to stay in the area. He looked at Flor. “Did you want to play something else?”
“Clematis,” Flor began carefully, a little furrow in his brow.
“Even you, Flor,” Clematis said abruptly, voice rough. “Even you are only friends with me because you can’t go home yet and you need something. You’re used to keeping someone, and you don’t have him anymore, so you’ve been fussing over me. I don’t mind.”
Flor was silent for too many rapid, scared beats of his heart.
“Have I been bothering you?” Flor finally demanded in such a horrified voice that Clematis dropped the cotton candy and reached out to touch his shoulder. He pulled back at the last second.
“It’s nice to be kept,” Clematis said instead. “Or I imagine it is. Even knowing it isn’t personal still feels nice.” He didn’t know what else to do, so he smiled. “It’s okay.”
“Is it?” He’d made Flor sad again, and he hadn’t meant to. “I’m using you?” Flor asked in this shocked voice, as if he didn’t want to believe it of himself. “Why do you put up with it? Why are you friends with me?”
Clematis flinched. “I’ve always liked you. You just never liked me.”
It didn’t help. Flor’s eyes got bigger, shinier, as if he was close to tears. But then he swiped a hand over his face and lifted his chin to glare at the world. “You shouldn’t let me use you like that.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” Clematis snapped back without hesitation, then paused. “Unless you’re sleeping with me, but that won’t happen. So just forget it. This is fine.”
“It’s not,” Flor disagreed. “But you think it is and believe it enough to say it, so there’s no point in arguing now.”
“If I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t be here.” Clematis should eat more, but his stomach was still churning with strange nerves, and his thoughts bounced back and forth from the fury and tragedy in Flor’s eyes to the idea that humans had lied when they told him he was good. Or they had meant it but would never say it in front of others.
Flor blinked. “Oh my God! I made you play video games!”
“And I liked it.” Clematis kept speaking even though he knew he should shut up. “You made me, and I liked it.” Flor closed his mouth and looked at him, really looked at him, until Clematis’s skin tingled and his cheeks stung. “What?”
“Are you happy when you do that thing?” Flor asked, his mouth soft and sorrowful. “Because if you are, then I won’t say anything again no matter ho
w much it bothers me. But if you aren’t, then I think… I think you shouldn’t be like that with people who don’t respect you, or who you don’t even like. You did like David, didn’t you?” He didn’t wait for Clematis to nod; they both knew he had liked David enough to tell everyone. “He’s giving and sweet and so passionate when he cares about something, or someone.”
“Flor—” Clematis didn’t need Flor to bare his heart. He wouldn’t have, even if Flor hadn’t worn his on his sleeve.
“Maybe you should try only sleeping with people you want to sleep with, and only spending time with those you want to spend time with.” Flor finished his little speech with a nod. “And telling me to fuck off for using you.”
Clematis felt a lurch in his chest. A terrifying, terrifying jump in the quick beat of his heart.
“I don’t want to do that,” Clematis answered without thinking. “If it’s what I want, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to tell you to fuck off. I don’t want you to go.”
Flor shook the hair from his eyes to study him intently. He seemed to be thinking lots of things but deciding which ones to say, which was an enviable skill not many fairies had. “What do you want, then?”
Clematis curled his toes inside his shoes and took a deep breath. “We could play another one.” He gestured toward all the different games.
“You want to?” Flor seemed surprised. “You don’t want to go home or do something else?”
“I… did not like losing so much at this game,” Clematis admitted. “But you didn’t laugh. So this is good so far.”
“You’re good so far,” Flor muttered grumpily. His pout shouldn’t have been cute, but somehow was. Flor’s personality shone through everything he did. He glanced away, then up. “I’m going to keep asking. I’m not just going to assume you want me around or anything. And I won’t force you to eat anymore. Even if—”
“I’m still hungry,” Clematis broke in quietly.
Flor made a breathless noise and then scowled at him as though Clematis had committed some great crime. “Are you doing that thing with me right now?”
“A little.” Clematis pointed to the cotton candy. “But I really am hungry.”
The scowl did not ease. “It’s so annoying that I know this and I still want to feed you.”
“It won’t be forever, if that helps.” Clematis sighed. “We both get something out of it.”
Flor pursed his lips, as if he had things to say about that and couldn’t say them. Finally he raised his chin. “I am going to get you something to eat,” he declared with dignity. “What do you want?”
Clematis stared at him in amazement. “I wasn’t asking you to buy me things, Flor.”
“Shut up your face,” Flor pronounced each word precisely, “and tell me what you want. You didn’t like the cotton candy.”
Clematis went twitchy at how much Flor saw even when he clearly didn’t want to. “A chocolate milkshake and french fries,” he whispered without blinking because he had no idea what Flor would do. “I dip them in the ice cream. I… saw humans do it once and it looked good.”
Flor stared at the ceiling for about half a minute. “Okay,” he agreed, almost calmly. “And then you pick a game.”
Clematis felt more than his wings flutter. “You really don’t have to—”
“Are you going to go back to work tomorrow?” Flor interrupted. “In the dark, all alone? With nothing to make you sparkle?”
“I’ve never sparkled a lot, Flor.”
Flor ignored this the way he always did. “Then pick a game. And stop being nice. It’s weird, and I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Fine.” Clematis huffed and crossed his arms. He jerked his chin toward the machine across from them, the one with the giant monkey or gorilla on it. “That one. I expect to waste at least ten more of your dollars there.”
“Oh, ten easy. You suck at these,” Flor agreed, then hesitated. “You want ice cream and fries and Donkey Kong?” he asked as if he couldn’t believe it. “For real?”
“Yes, Flor.” Clematis nodded. “I’ll clean up while I wait.”
“You are so weird,” Flor told him, but in a strange, gentle voice. He gave Clematis another long look and then headed back toward the concessions area.
Clematis fell against Ms. Pac-Man, weak in the knees for no reason he could think of, unless he was hungrier than he’d thought.
Chapter 5
CLEMATIS LAY on his stomach on the grass in the full light of the afternoon sun and flipped through the paper version of the university’s course catalog. He was too late to enroll for this semester, and wasn’t sure the institute would give him any time off he asked for, but he liked to look.
His skin itched in places, a reaction to the dust and cobwebs he imagined still clung to him although he had washed off before leaving work today. He had removed his shirt and shoes not too long ago as well, piling them neatly next to him while he absorbed all the light he could.
He hadn’t taken any history classes in a long time, but he’d never been a fan of large lecture halls, and he didn’t think they would tolerate him auditing upper division classes even if they were smaller. Math wasn’t his favorite. He wasn’t terrible at it, but he’d found math and the hard sciences to be even less tolerant of a fairy among them than the humanities.
Typical of humans to name the world’s culture after themselves and to forget so many early influences.
Clematis hummed and flipped the page to look over seminars on American Folk Art and The Feminine in Late Renaissance Florence. He liked modern art better, but he found quilting sort of fascinating, as far as folk art went.
Flor was on his phone talking quietly to someone. From his tone, it was probably David, but it might have been his troll fuckbuddy or boyfriend. Behind him, Tarō and Annabeth were at the MCC table, talking about some movie. Annabeth, gorgeous and tall and focused, was half-were, half-elf, and had refused to speak to Clematis for several minutes when she’d met him because apparently he once flirted with her at a party and then forgot about her when someone else arrived.
Flor found it hilarious and left Clematis to apologize. Which he did. He’d told her he was sorry, then settled down a little farther away from the table than he usually did to give her some space.
“Date for tonight?” Clematis asked without looking up when Flor went quiet. A shadow crossed over the catalog.
“It’s not a date!” Flor sounded huffy. “I’m not dating anyone. I told David I am not looking for serious right now and I meant it.”
“Was that David?” Clematis closed the catalog and rolled onto his side. He propped his head on his hand.
Flor was staring down at his phone and typing. “Nope, although I saw him this morning. I got some muffins from Lis for him.”
Taking care of David was a longstanding habit to break. And Tulip likely didn’t mind too much as long as Flor kept his concern to the occasional muffin. If Flor had been Tulip’s type, or vice versa, they would probably all be together. But Tulip was as bossy as Flor, just sneakier about it.
“Lis has good muffins,” Clematis commented quietly. He shouldn’t have told Flor so much last night. They had played a game called Donkey Kong that had no donkeys in it, and Flor had watched him eat french fries in fascination and disgust before having one and admitting begrudgingly that for human food it wasn’t so bad. But Flor had been careful and kept his distance, and after about an hour, he got a text and left, smiling and insisting he’d see Clematis later.
But he clearly hadn’t liked anything that happened last night. Clematis must have upset him a lot if the first thing he did this morning was run to see David. At least Flor was still talking to him. That was something.
Clematis rolled back onto his stomach and hid his face in his arms.
“Lis is really nice,” Flor continued, probably still messaging whoever he’d just been talking to. The troll, definitely. “Not looking for anything serious” sounded like the opposite of
what Flor did. Flor loved serious. He liked taking care and giving presents and knowing someone’s favorite drink. No wonder he thought Clematis was such a freak for never having had that. Flor’s tone was teasing. “It’s funny that she’s friends with you.”
“Yes, it is.” Clematis didn’t raise his head.
“What’s got you all pissy?” Noise and movement next to him indicated Flor sat down. “Was your job worse today? You ate, right? I mean—” He almost thought Flor was embarrassed with a pause like that. “Did you get to talk to… what was his name? The one you think is so shiny?”
“Sasha.” Clematis exhaled against the inside of his arm. “His name is Sasha. And yes. I went in early to speak to him, and Mr. Harbaugh called me into his office to tell me they don’t want me bringing snacks downstairs because it will attract vermin, and when I came up for lunch, everyone was gone except Collette at reception, who stopped what she was doing to stare at me again.” He sucked in a breath. “And now you—” He swallowed, stopped himself, and tried again. “—I should be avoiding the shiny ones anyway.”
“They are a lot of trouble,” Flor agreed, but fondly, wistfully.
Clematis let out another shaky breath. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You had David, and I know you still sleep with Stephanie, and she’s pretty bright too.” Flor shifted. Maybe getting more comfortable.
“I never had David and you know it.” Clematis wished he had wider wings he could hide behind. But even open and laid flat, they didn’t cover much of him. They were too sheer to do any good anyway. “We fucked, but he wasn’t mine. I’m not meant for keeping anyone, certainly not someone who shines like he does. And Stephanie… I’m convenient for her, and she’s good at making me feel just enough. You’re meant for shiny ones. You and Tulip and Lis. If I’m very good, though, perhaps Sasha will fuck me someday. Hey,” he added, after several moments of silence. “Hey, did you know Sasha is an English major?”
