sweet little lie

Master Mizzrym is in trouble. Vizaeth can tell by the fact that the Archmage is interrogating him—something happened last night, an apprentice is missing, or perhaps an artefact. He isn’t paying close attention to the exact words, but Archmage Baenre is displeased. This isn’t new, or hard to fathom; he is often, it seems, displeased. Vizaeth supposes he shouldn’t be listening, lingering in the corridor where he can overhear conversations he ought not to overhear.

Overhearing things can be fatal at Sorcere.

But Pharaun is in trouble, as he frequently is—he should not be, in Vizaeth’s opinion; he is too brilliant, too beautiful, to be in trouble like a common apprentice—and the Archmage’s voice thrums with drow anger, poisonous promises of repercussions hidden beneath silken threats. The classroom is dark around them, just a flicker of a dimming flame clinging to one of the iron sconces on the wall. Anything can happen in the dark, Vizaeth knows. Anything could happen to Pharaun.

He steps into the doorway. Both of them look at him; Archmage Baenre with a mildly irritated frown, Pharaun with an eyebrow cocked in amused curiousity. His hair is excellently braided today, Vizaeth notes, glittering with a masterful arrangement of ruby clips.

“Master Mizzrym was not involved in what happened,” he says, and his voice is quiet, deferential, a knife-edge whisper. “He was with me last night.”

Archmage Baenre flicks a glance at Pharaun, who merely shrugs. He turns back to Vizaeth.

“Elaborate, apprentice Thaezyr. What exactly was Master Mizzrym doing with you that had him so conveniently occupied for the entire evening?”

Vizaeth looks Gromph Baenre dead in the eyes, and lies.

“Fucking me.”

The Archmage’s expression does not change. He huffs, the sound vaguely disappointed yet somehow unsurprised. “Well, Pharaun, it seems you are in the clear for the time being. Try not to lose this one.”

He leaves, and Vizaeth scarcely dares to look at Pharaun, his heart going a thousand miles a minute; the thrill of lying to the Archmage makes his blood sing with triumph and terror in equal measure. Only when Gromph’s footsteps have died away into the cold depths of Sorcere does Pharaun speak.

“Why?”

Vizaeth does look at him now, and is rendered, as usual, momentarily speechless. Pharaun Mizzrym is indescribable; everything Vizaeth wants in every way. If Lolth Herself had deigned to sculpt a male with Her own hands, Pharaun would outshine him—he’s something past divine, something much more wickedly real. Vizaeth swallows.

“If he’s angry enough with you, he’ll make you leave Sorcere. Or kill you.”

Pharaun’s immaculate brow creases in a frown as he tilts his head. “Why do you care if—oh. Oh, I see.”

Understanding puts a smile on his face, and Vizaeth wants to devour it, so no-one else can ever set their unappreciative eyes on it. Pharaun takes a step towards him, and he’s not that much taller than Vizaeth is, but the power in him is a towering aura that dwarfs them both. He grasps Vizaeth’s chin, manicured nails digging into his jaw.

“Brave of you, lying to the Archmage,” he says. “Fun lie, though. You could have said anything—why that?”

Vizaeth can’t lie to him. Unwise verging on suicidal in a drow, to have someone you can’t lie to, but he’d rather rip out his own throat than do it.

“Because it’s what I wish were true.”

“Thought as much,” Pharaun says, and kisses him.

It’s softer than he expects. Insidious. Pharaun’s tongue finds its way into his mouth, and he just stands there and lets it happen, moaning quiet and low in the back of his throat. Pharaun’s teeth graze his lower lip for a brief second before he pulls back, chuckling. He pats Vizaeth’s cheek.

“My thanks, apprentice Thaezyr. You’ve been most helpful.”

“Vizaeth.” His voice is a rough whisper, rent all to pieces by Pharaun’s kiss. “It’s Vizaeth.”

“I’ll make certain to remember that.”

Pharaun takes a small folding mirror from his pocket and checks his—still perfect, always perfect—reflection. He adjusts one of the clips in his hair, rubs a slight smear of smudged makeup from beneath his eye. Then the mirror snaps shut, and he looks at Vizaeth like he’s surprised he’s still there. Vizaeth stutters syllables of nothing, stumbling away like an apology with limbs, and he’s never so clumsy, but he can still taste Pharaun’s mouth, and bites his lip so hard trying to fix it in his mind that it bleeds. Fuck, he’s an idiot, he should have done that before Pharaun kissed him, should’ve bitten Pharaun too. They could have merged then, in part; Pharaun’s blood with his blood. The very thought fills his veins with fire.

At the end of the corridor he stops, glances back, but Pharaun is gone. Vizaeth takes out his own small mirror and straightens the ruby clip at his temple. His face is bare—he should start wearing eye makeup. He swipes the blood from his lip, and rubs his thumb over his eyelid, leaving a dark, streaked smear. Pharaun would like that, he thinks. Like him.

The next time the Archmage asks what he’s been doing with Master Mizzrym, maybe it won’t be a lie.