Rafael wakes up to someone resting between his legs, a heavy weight on his stomach and his sleeping top shoved up his chest. He blinks awake easily enough and twists his head to peer down.
Nicholas is lying under the covers, the blanket tucked around his head like a hood, forearms on Rafael’s bare stomach as he eats a flaky chocolate bar, dropping bits all over Rafael’s stomach – some already having melted into his skin.
“Mornin’ Raffy,” Nicholas says around the last chomp of chocolate.
Rafael surges up and Nicholas scrambles, the blanket goes flying and Nicholas is hurling the wrapper at Rafael, flimsy plastic fluttering frantically through the air from the toss and misses entirely. Nicholas is out the door and Rafael is only two steps behind as they sprint downstairs to the common room.
Rafael snags Nicholas’ arm and they topple onto the floor at the feet of a pack of year-nine girls sitting around on couches. Nicholas chokes and wheezes, trying to cough as he grabs his throat with one hand, the other reaching back and scrambling for Rafael’s shoulder.
“Good, fucking choke to death!” Rafael snaps, because the moon is too close for this shit, even as he gets up on his knees and drags Nicholas with him, thumb into the stomach and other hand bracing the fist for the Heimlich manoeuvre.
On the first thrust, Nicholas moans loudly, high-pitched and pornstar-exaggerated. Rafael drops Nicholas and walks away. Behind him, Nicholas half rolls onto his side and cackles.
Rafael gets back up to the dorm only to find Hearth very deliberately slobbering all over Rafael’s pillow and rubbing the scent in with a paw. Rafael dives for Nicholas’ bed and snatches up his pillow, whacking Hearth on the ass as the fox sprints past and explodes back into Stavros who slams out of the room.
Rafael hurls the pillow away and gives chase but Stavros is already gone by the time he gets down and the year-nine girls are peering over the back of their couch, not that a hidden Nicholas’ giggling is very quiet in the first place.
Rafael turns on Phaedra, sitting innocently by the side.
“He went that way,” Phaedra says, pointing at the wide door with her sparkly gold nails, literally the only other way Stavros could have gone.
Rafael scowls but runs after Stavros.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Twenty minutes later, after having lost Stavros’ trail because the asshole knows how to hide his scent, Rafael pushes open the door to the dorm and finds it strung up with streamers and cute animal-shaped balloons bobbing around.
A pile of presents sits on his bed, with a cake box, and the two troublemakers are clustered around grinning widely at him.
“How did you circle around me?” Rafael complains to Stavros even as he starts feeling warm and fuzzy in his chest. Bastards, both of them.
“I ducked into another door halfway down the stairs, everything else was an illusion,” Stavros admits. “Phae owed me one.”
“Presents!” Nicholas yells, impatient. “No, wait, cake first. Cake first? No, presents!”
“We can do both,” Stavros declares and hurls a present at Rafael then opens the cake box. It’s wonky and homemade but slathered in icing and dense just the way Rafael likes.
They spend the day lazing around the room, greeting everyone who drops by to wish Rafael a happy birthday and end up amassing quite the crowd despite exams being just around the corner.
Flick stomps in, snaps at everyone to be quieter, and hurls a rock-shaped present at Rafael’s face – which is actually a very thoughtful set of coloured pens because coloured writing helps his dyslexia. Phaedra sprawls over Stavros’ bed like an art piece and doesn’t move even when Stavros’ past flings and fling-hopefuls crowd around the bed wanting to take a seat.
Aeneas comes by for a brief moment to politely hand over a perfectly adequate present of various high-end chocolates because Rafael gave him a present on his birthday a few months ago and Aeneas must return the favour. Nicholas grabs onto him and messes up his cute hair like Nicholas always does to Stavros. Aeneas leaves with an afro of white-blond curls and a purse of his lips that’s too polite to be a frown.
Others drop by. Mariana with her friends, almost all the InCore of their year, Rafael’s little study group he hides away with when Nicholas and Stavros have Loops practice.
In such a crowd, in his own territory, Rafael sits tucked in to remind himself to behave rather than letting his long limbs splay out. That’s fine anyway because Nicholas sits close enough to shove Rafael up against the headboard. Stavros is on the other side, arm over Rafael’s shoulder and gripping Nicholas’ collar. They’ll use air-freshening charms to clean the place up later so Thoth doesn’t get too riled up.
The lazy party ends when one of Rafael’s study group mentions how hard the alchemy tests are going to be and people groan and file out to get some last-minute cramming in.
----------------------------------------
During the practical portion of his charms SC exam, Nicholas tries twice and finally manages a more solid mist for his sentinel spell – which snaps into a corporeal, heated orange when Nicholas realises what his sentinel animal is and the joy hits but it hurts.
Adam’s raccoon form ghosts through the air, scampering cutely as he patrols around, the spell meant for scouting. When he finds no issues, he runs back to Nicholas and sits up, little front paws raised adorably.
The examiner is saying something, complementing Nicholas, but he's just staring at Tycoon with an elated smile.
"Hey," Nicholas whispers. "Handsomest thing I've ever seen."
Tycoon seems to preen exaggeratedly like Adam used to.