fandomhigh | Fandom Library, Wednesday, September 4th

The library was on some kind of origami kick. At least, she was assuming it was the library? There were origami how-to books scattered across the table, crumpled up sheets of origami paper from attempts that didn't quite work out, and even a few interesting finished pieces. Arden was charmed right up until she saw a bunch of books huddled on the safety of the circulation desk, their pages also folded into the beginning of shapes.

"All right!" she called across the library, not fussed about whether or not she was making too much noise for a library, this was important. "We do not use other library materials for origami paper! Not books, not magazines, not periodicals, not things I'm forgetting off the top of my head! Origami paper only!"

She wasn't sure if it was gremlins or the very stacks themselves that sighed and grumbled at her announcement, but she didn't care. Not since she was going to have to spend the rest of the afternoon attempting to unfold and flatten pages in much-abused books.

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So, funny story, Gray. 'Boot camp for eight-year-olds that you kidnapped' was not a normal sentence. Just as an FYI there.

"Did you ever go and find your dad again?" Arden asked, which meant she wasn't focusing on a little kid living near-feral in a forest, even if that kid had (would have?) more power in his pinky than she probably ever would.

Oh, he knew. But it was what it was, and he hadn't come up with a gentler way to explain it.

"My dad's still around. He's the...sort of the co-leader of the forces of Hell with this demon named Phoenix." Who was apparently Bellamy's fated mate, and every time Gray thought about that he felt like he was going to have a nervous breakdown. "I see him around every now and then, but it's usually on like...a battlefield. It's not...we disagree too fundamentally. On, you know, the subject of enslaving humanity. So." Gray shrugged. It was what it was.

Okay, Gray. You needed a few Raiden-sized bottles of ambrosia and to just drink until you forgot everything you'd learned.

Great. And now Arden had to think about how if Lazarus hadn't kidnapped Gray, he might also have ended up as part of the forces of Hell and that would almost certainly put a damper on their friendship.

What with the planned genocide and all. And also, probably not coming to Fandom.
But the planned genocide was also a pretty big one.

Instead of articulating any of that, Arden just blew out a long breath of air. "Fuck," she said eloquently. Because how else do you respond? "Uh, so circling back around. Any other advice for me? Don't take it personally if Daman's kind of a dick to me for no reason, try not to envy him when it's just me, check my stuff before I leave, don't lie to Alastair...?"

Gray was acutely aware that if he had not been kidnapped by an asshole, he would probably have grown up to be a monster. It was something he and Castor, who had also loved his father, had talked about sometimes, after they had been exposed to what was really going on and come down on the side of humanity.

Alastair, who had been raised by his father and Lucifer until Lazarus took him, never shared his thoughts, but Alastair never shared his thoughts about a lot of things. It probably said a lot that Alastair had not hesitated for a second to kill Azazel when he got the chance.

"Yeah, this got kind of heavy, didn't it?" Gray asked rhetorically. "I think that's pretty much it? You already know about me and Ray, and, well, there's no way to prepare you for Krave except to go there. There's really nowhere else like it."

"I mean, it's no shitty society based on way too much murder," Arden teased, because, honestly, that would be a hell of a competition that she absolutely did not want to indulge in. "But...yeah. It did. And I'm glad it did? I feel like I know you a lot better now."

She tilted her head. "So why are you here? Pretending to be younger than me?"

"Oh, this is gonna sound dumb," Gray warned her as he scuffed a hand through his hair, and then shrugged. "It looked like so much fun in the movies? I watch a lot of anime and stuff when I can't get out of bed, and...yeah. Being a teenager looked nice." Because he had never gotten to do that before. He had been in boot camp the whole time. "And I've got this baby face so I was like...let's see if I can pull it off."

Arden did laugh, but it sounded fond and amused, not mocking. "And?" she asked. "Worth the experiment? As fun as you'd hoped?"

"Well, everybody thinks I'm jailbait, so. That's a problem. But they probably would have thought that anyway, because." He gestured toward his baby face. "'How old are you, anyway?'" said as suspiciously as possible, "is totally what every guy wants to hear from every guy he ever hit on, don't you know."

"You start having to begin every conversation with, 'Hi, I'm Gray, yes I'm older than I look, I've graduated college, I've just got one of those faces that'll look this way forever.'" She winked at him. She was called that clever, whether or not the Nephilim judge agreed or not. "If you sound all world-weary enough, I think you can sell it."

"Worth a shot," he said. "Probably won't work on the hot pirate, though. I already asked him if he's a eunuch." Yeah, you were probably screwed in the not-good way there, buddy. "Pro tip? Even if the vampire lady's advice sounds good it probably isn't."

SORRY NAVAAN.

Arden blinked at him, and then blinked again. "...You thought advice from the crazy vampire doctor sounded good?!"

A pause as she somehow managed to sound even more flabbergasted than before. "Especially when that advice is ask a guy if he's a eunuch?!"

Gray. Gray. Gray.

Edited 2024-09-05 03:27 (UTC)

Gray groaned and slumped over on the desk, hiding his head in his arms. "I know," he said, muffled, and then looked up and repeated, "I know! But he was not picking up what I was putting down and I couldn't remember what the right slang was in the eighteenth century!" And seriously, Arden, left to his own devices his pickup lines were so bad.

Don't ever tell her about the squirrel one, Gray. She enjoyed respecting you.

"Have you considered asking, y'know, Bellamy for ideas?" she asked. Or literally any of his other brothers. Maybe a few people at Krave. Some very personable demons. Lazarus--mmm, the jury was still out on that one. "Goddess, at least 'nice shoes, wanna fuck?' isn't also insulting."

Maybe in the new and improved future where Gray spent the next few years yelling at Lazarus to suck less, he came up with a pickup line for his soulmate that did not involve squirrels!

Gray scoffed at that. "Bellamy doesn't have to hit on people," he said. "Bellamy's Bellamy. He looks like that and people come to him. Like...sex moths. And, honestly, at Krave..." Oh, was he going down? That was a yawn. He was going down.

"Oh no," Arden said, and went to try to catch Gray to settle him somewhere comfortable until he could wake up again.

Maybe she should start stashing blankets and a Squishmallow here just in case.

"Sleep well, Gray," she said and went back to straightening pages.

Fandom Library, Wednesday, September 4th

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