fandomhigh | Fandom Library, Wednesday, February 12th

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, February 12th

Arden had been dreading heading into the library today, unsure what she was in for. Would the gremlins be having a speeddating event like 3MD? Would there be safer sex displays holding lectures? Would the safer sex book displays be lecturing speeddating gremlins? She didn't know. All she knew was that the library would absolutely, positively refuse to be normal about this week.

And she was right.

Not about the book displays or the speeddating gremlins. Instead, there were just a thousand different romance genres everywhere. Shifter romances were flirting with erotic myth retellings. Historical romances were fluttering their pages invitingly at post-apocalyptic ones. Romantacies were insisting to their friends that they could 'fix' graphic celebrity tell-alls. Glossy art books featuring nudes canoodling with cheaply-printed translations of BL light novels. Everywhere she looked, there were piles of books an the susurration of paper brushing against paper, the scent of ink heavy in the air. Worse was when she'd accidentally glance somewhere and catch the books delicately sliding their pages together in an intimate--

"N-no thank you! Absolutely not!" she snapped, knocking two books (an overly-sexualized murder mystery and a copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover) apart with a yardstick she was keeping handy for just this purpose. "If you wanna do any of that, there are any number of private bookshelves available. Go on now, shoo."

She needed to talk to Constantine about hazard pay for this week.

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Please remember that this week is about survival and not social niceties, okay?

Gray slunk into the library, flopped himself across a table, and muttered something to the wood that might have been, "So I got kicked out of a club for having a fake ID," because clearly the universe hated him and wanted him to suffer.

"Wait, you don't need a fake you're like a million--ohhhhhhh." Don't judge her, Gray. Thoughts had to seep through layers of smutbrain before she could make sense of them and you weren't helping with your whole...everything...Gray!

"Did you actually get into the club, or...?"

He would have you know it was a very high quality fake ID, Arden! It even had a last name on it and everything!...it was just for California, which apparently rang false to bouncers in Maryland, when you had Gray's baby face going for you.

He sulked harder at the tabletop. "No." Could you die of sexual frustration? Gray might be headed that way. "Maryland should have a Krave." He could get laid there.

Maybe if he stopped asking if men were eunuchs he'd have better luck? (Arden, stop victim-blaming.)

"There's gotta be a Maryland that has clubs catering to the supernatural set," Arden said, trying to be a good, helpful friend, one who did not at all think Gray had a stupidly attractive pout. "I...I'm pretty sure that mine does, now that I think about it."

Gray lifted his head and gazed unfocusedly ahead as he considered it. "No," he concluded. "No one in your murder universe deserves this ass." The sacrifices he made for you, Arden.

Then his gaze sharpened and he had to ask, "What are those books doing?"

"Which books--dammit!" She raised the yardstick up and waved it menacingly. "The two of you separate right now or so help me I will come over there!"

She gave Gray an exhausted look. "It's been like this all day."

"I didn't even know books could do...that," Gray admitted. "I'll never look at Alastair's library the same again." Or maybe he would, once he was back to his normal level of frustrated horniness. "Who knew books could get pollinated? Wait. That sounded wrong." Everything sounded wrong this week.

"I for sure did not," Arden said, reaching over to thwack another book pair - err, trio - with her ruler. "This is just the worrrrrst week."

"At least you have a boyfriend!" Gray said, landing somewhere between 'look on the bright side' and 'which is SO unfair of you.' ~~Why could he feel the Regency girl glaring daggers at him?~~

"Gray!" Arden hissed. "We haven't done anything more than kissing."

The narration would like to apologize to Gray for having to hear that with his own ears.

"What? Why not?" Gray demanded. A week like this, there was only one reasonable explanation: "Is he a eunuch?"

"No, he's not a eunuch!" Arden said, indignantly.

And then she had to pause, because you know? She didn't know. ~~Somewhere, Lydia lived in hope~~

"...Probably not? He's just a Jedi." So, you know. Broken in different ways.

"Well." Gray paused. ~~Gray, no.~~ "Have you asked him? Or like...checked?"

Arden blushed. And flailed. "...No!"

Oh no. Now she was thinking about it.

"He woulda said something, I'm sure!"

...Were you, Arden? Were you?

"How long have you guys been dating and you're still on kissing?" Gray asked pointedly. "Bellamy made you a PowerPoint." Technically Daman did most of the actual making of the PowerPoint, albeit not of his own free will. "And there's pollen."

"We're going slow!" Arden protested. "...And I only started getting affected by the pollen yesterday!"

...She was not going to get into how many times she, ah, consulted that PowerPoint since yesterday, either.

"Yesterday?!" Gray demanded. "Rude! Very rude!" He was suffering.

Arden tapped the side of her nose. "Internal air purifier," she reminded. "It takes about two days for the pollen to overload the magic and then I'm just as susceptible as anyone else."

Gray flopped back over onto the table and whined, "This is so unfair!"

"You're a magical, super-hot immortal with wings and like any number of other cool powers!" Arden protested. "I'm a glorified HVAC system, come on!"

Gray countered that with, "I can't get laid here on Hot Guys Island," also populated by hot girls, of course, but...Gray, "and that's entirely separate from the whole thing where I was cursed by God!" So there, Arden. "What even is 'taking it slow,' anyway, what if you only have like a human lifespan? You're gonna be retired before you get to third base." Assuming Cal had a third base, which Gray had in this very conversation called into question.

Wait, Arden thought he was hot? No. Irrelevant. Gray knew he was Grade A Prime Twink, which he had been very generously trying to provide to the patrons of one of Baltimore's hottest gay clubs last night when he was so rudely bounced.

Right? That Gray was hot was pretty unsurprising in the general scheme of things. Normally she was better about ignoring it, but she got a pass this week.

"Okay, but like I guess the Jedi are all celibate and stuff," she explained, a little lamely. "So even just kissing and dating is new stuff for him to consider."

"You're dating a monk?" Gray translated. "Bold choice." Especially this week.

"Ex-monk!" Arden protested. "He's an ex-monk! ...Mostly."

There was nothing weird about Cal going to visit Arden at the library. He'd done it before! He should support her important work! There were loads of reasons that had nothing to do with just wanting to lay eyes on her. The cups of tea he was carrying were a peace offering as much as anything else.

"Heeey," he said slowly as he approached. "Would you like me to hand this off and disappear, or stay?" As always, what she wanted was more important than anything else.

"Stay," Arden said, before her brain could catch up with her mouth. And, granted, even after her brain caught up, her answer remained the same, though now it at least acknowledged this was a dangerous idea. "This week is terrible, but at least we can be terrible together...?"

Brain. Brain, she did not need those mental images you were so helpfully providing. Really. Did not.

Cal snickered a little and set the tea down. "I like the sound of that. Better than just sitting at home. And I can help swat the books if needed." He'd tried not to see what they were doing on the way in, but it was hard to miss.

"You're gonna wanna use the Force," she warned. "It's safer from a distance. I used my hands at first and they came back all..." She made a face. "Gummy. Like cheap cover glue."

This place was legitimately the worst sometimes.

"Are you still just...magically ignoring everything?"

"I mean, the amount of meditating I'm doing makes it feel less like magic, but yes, you're safe with me," Cal said. "It's getting harder though, that's for sure. How are you holding up?"

In Cal's defense, innuendo wasn't part of his vocabulary, these things just happened.

"Oh good," Arden said. You know. Like a liar. "Cause, uh. Definitely what I was thinking, yeah."

Certainly not trying to figure out whether or not she should be jealous or anything, don't be absurd.

"So, I realize I get about two days of freedom before the pollen starts overpowering my ability to filter it. So, uh. Yeah, as of yesterday, I'm just as, ah, affected as everyone else. Maybe I should try meditating, too?"

"You could. Or I could try to help," Cal said after a moment. "Maybe help relieve some tension, in a way."

"Please give me enough time to leave," BD added.

Arden sputtered before her brain caught up and realized he meant with meditation. Not...any of the other ridiculous number of scenarios it had tried to put into her head instead.

"I. Uh." Brain still rebooting. "Sure!" Reboot clearly failed. "Relieving tension sounds good."

Abort! Abort! Abort!

BD was already traveling down Cal's back, and Cal nudged him back up in place. "Relax. We're not going to do anything here." Probably. Maybe. "This is only going to last a few more days, right?"

"Probably?" Arden said. "This is only my second one, but everybody talks about it lasting a week, so..."

Gray's voice chose this moment to echo in her head, causing her to wince.

"What, what's wrong?" Cal asked. "Did I say something wrong? Should I go? Maybe I should go."

"No no!" Arden said. "No I just--okay, weird question. It came up earlier and I realized I didn't know and I've been assuming and honestly, it's probably not even any of my business!"

What a great lead up, Arden.

"But like. You're not a eunuch, right?" Beat. "I mean! You could be! It would be fine! I phrased that wrong! Cause whether you are or not, it doesn't matter, right? I'm just assuming not because, like, nobody assumes you are...Not you-you, the general you. But also you-you. Nobody is assuming you specifically are a eunuch, either. But! Even if you were! It would be totally fine!"

Gray, Arden hated you so much right now.

Well, that didn't help Cal's concerned look, and as BD leaned up and chirped in his ear his eyes got wider. "No! I--no! Everything that's supposed to be... down there is down there. Totally functional. The Jedi aren't barbaric, that would be awful. We just don't, you know, do certain things with everyone we meet. Is that something you've been worried about?"

Gray was going to Special Hell and Arden would meet him there because she was about to be deceased. Didn't even need to walk into the ocean this time. Embarrassment would do the job nicely. There was a radio squirrel already succumbing to secondhand embarrassment over there! RIP radio squirrel! Sorry about your beat today.

"No, no!" She insisted, because the last thing she wanted was Cal to assume that she'd been thinking he was a eunuch this whole time. "I never assumed you were, or that the Jedi maybe had a practice of--that. Or whatever. Just Gray asked and I said of course you weren't, and then I realized that, like, I was just making an assumption, because we never had the, you know, 'Are you a eunuch?' talk--" Because those weren't a thing, Arden. "--So I just figured I'd ask and let you know that no matter what, it wouldn't matter because I like you for you and not what is or isn't in your--I'm not gonna finish that sentence."

Could she be dead yet?

Edited 2025-02-13 15:42 (UTC)

If BD-1 could laugh, he would be losing it at both of them. For now, he was just making mental notes for how much therapy Cal might need later.

"Is this a thing? Do I need to tell people I'm not a eunuch?" New nightmare unlocked, thanks Arden! "I thought it was a given. I know I'm not from Earth but I thought we all just assumed everyone has..." Cue the uncomfortable motioning to his bits. "You know, the same stuff going on for the most part. Wait, why were you talking to Gray about this?"

Maybe coming here had been an awful idea after all.

Hmm. How much did Arden want to cop to anymore of her conversation with Gray than she already had?

Negative a billionty percent? That sounded accurate, yeah.

"Gray has asked a several if they're eunuchs because the crazy vampire doctor lady told him to in class one time," she said, which was true, if not exactly the answer to the specific question. "Captain Flint, definitely, and I think possibly Mr. Logan? I think the general assumption is that most people assume you're not a eunuch unless there's reason to think otherwise. Which was why it never came up before."

"Of course this is the crazy doctor's fault," Cal said with a sigh. "Well, now you know and we never need to talk about it again. At least, not this week, because I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

Ignore how he was the color of a tomato, his discomfort was not the issue, obviously.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, February 12th

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