fandomhigh | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

Fandom Library, Wednesday, February 12th

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide