Admissions 1.9: Forever Changed (Cylus)
Welcome (back) to Europa University: Admissions! Quick links if you need 'em:
Content notes (chapter-specific):
- Fingers on face and in mouth (with sexual fluids!)
- Orgasm denial (accidental and intentional)
- Deadname [redacted]
Cylus could have screamed.
He'd had him. He'd felt it, rippling through Emile's body, a shivering buildup bare instants from climax. All he wanted to do was push Emile out of the elevator and up against the corridor wall so they could try again; or to put him on his knees and fuck his mouth after all—
He withdrew his hand from Emile's pants and stepped back, closing his eyes and breathing hard. His heart raced as though he'd run a mile in high grav. He clenched the hand still wet with Emile's slick, resisting the urge to inhale the smell of it, or lick it clean himself, because...
Because something about Emile made him want to go much, much too far, much too fast. Fortune, he'd been half a second away from actually pulling his knives out down there. If he didn't keep his more innocuous thieving tools stored so close to his blades, the trick with the seam ripper might not have occurred to him, saving them both from a much more dangerous dalliance. Cylus trusted the steadiness of his own hands, even intoxicated; but if that leviathan had surprised him while he was slicing through Emile's expensive underclothes...
"Are you okay?"
Cylus' eyes shot open to find Emile gorgeously disarrayed in the corridor's dim lights: sea-green hair thoroughly mussed, glasses askew, throat covered in marks and framed by Cylie's red scarf, shirt untucked beneath his now buttonless vest, pants riding low under the soft swell of his belly, one sock slumped down to the shoe. But his soft-edged face was all guileless concern.
"Yes, yes!" Cylus summoned his wickedest smile, affecting the tone he hoped Emile still wanted to hear. "Just thinking about all the things I still want to do to you."
That sent Emile into a flustered wriggle that forced him to acknowledge that he'd been partially speaking the truth.
"Tragically," Cylus forced himself to continue, widening the distance between them as he approached the ladder back to the street, "I really ought to get back to my sister. It's late, and she's got to be wondering where I've been." Hopefully Emile wouldn't ask any sensible questions, like why Cylie hadn't just sent her a quick message hours ago. They'd brought a pair of Windfall-compatible comms, but he'd not wanted to activate them—and link them to their dear-bought identities—until he was sure of their course. "Is there anywhere you know of that serves tea and food at this hour? I ought to bring her back something in case she's waited up."
"The same place we were earlier, actually! It's open quite late!" Emile's voice was bright, but a thread of brittleness crept into his tone as he trailed Cylie back down the corridor. "Do... do you want me to lead you back? Or, I can just give you the coords, if you need to be off in a hurry... Or, directions, if you don't have the local map data yet!"
Shit. The lad thought Cylie was giving him the brush off, and he was offering an out; awkward, but obviously genuine.
But Cylus, no matter how foolish it was to draw this out, didn't want to go. Didn't want to leave this strange, sweet, achingly sincere young man thinking that Cylus had just used him for a bit of fun and was now just going to disappear... no matter how close to the truth that might be.
Then again... if he and Cynthia moved forward with his plan, Emile could be a more lasting asset.
If his wager paid off, they'd be students at the same institution. How could it be anything but useful to have someone there who already knew him, and held him in positive regard?
Relief bathed him. Yes. He'd already been thinking about this, albeit primarily in the context of wanting more of... whatever they'd just had. But it made sense. This was the right plan. And that meant...
He turned around as he reached the ladder, waiting for Emile to approach. He raised his hands: the dry one to stroke red silk, and the still-damp hand—fortune, it smelled good—to brush Emile's face, dragging the pad of his thumb across Emile's lips.
Which parted, of course.
The words Cylus had been shaping fell completely out of his mind. Their eyes locked as Emile sucked him clean, tongue soft and wet and warm against the sensitive pad of his thumb.
No sense in not doing the rest, Cylie thought dizzily, as Emile happily took his other fingers one at a time. He finished by licking Cylie's palm and knuckles, eyes half-lidded behind still-crooked glasses.
Different words fell free, buoyed by greed, absent all forethought. "Next time, I'm going to make you come so hard you forget your own name. So wait." He stepped forward, placing them chest-to-chest again as he cupped a hand over the scarf covering the back of Emile's neck. "Hold onto this for me until the next time we meet," he pressed through the silk, "And wait until then. Think of me, while you're waiting. Touch yourself if you want. But save that final pleasure for me."
The look in Emile's eyes as he nodded drove any nascent doubts from Cylie's mind. "Yes, Cylus," he whispered.
They stood together outside Callisto's, Cylie laden with a bag of pastries and a beverage holder with two cups of tea for Cynthia to choose between. Emile had paid for it all unasked, and Cylus hadn't argued.
They'd tidied each other up before leaving the tunnel, though there was only so much to be done with no buttons on Emile's vest. Still, Cylie had improvised a loose knot with the red silk scarf to evoke a casual cravat, trying to make it look as though their disarray were at least somewhat intentional.
The scarf’s color looked beautiful on him. His brown skin was almost luminous under the streetlights and the waxing light of Jupiter above.
"Thanks for spending this evening with me," Emile said earnestly.
"You too," Cylie answered, frightened at the honesty in his own voice.
Emile's expression settled into resolve. "And if you meant what you said earlier, I'd be delighted to share more." Fishing inside a pocket of the now-buttonless vest, he removed a pale sea-green rectangle and extended it towards Cylie.
A commcard, just like the ones rich people handed each other in entertainments. It looked like nothing but expensive paper—itself a rarity—but Cylus knew that an array of wafer-thin electronics resided within, holding a variety of contact codes compatible with major comm network platforms.
He accepted it, examining the calligraphic script stamped into the surface, limned with dark golden ink:
██████ Devigne
Devigne Wineries and Holdings
And below in smaller text:
a Windfall Company
That first name... Emile’s old name, presumably. But more importantly...
"Devigne." He breathed in soft shock. "Like..."
"Like the wine. And the planet. Yes." Emile fiddled with dangling threads on his vest, eyes cast down. "Sorry I didn't say earlier, I was just..."
Afraid to see how Cylus' opinion of him would be forever changed. As it inevitably must be.
But Emile wanted so badly for that not to be true. It was written across every inch of his body; head bowed, posture tense, waiting to become a means to an end rather than a person.
Devigne’s Paradise was a planet that celebrities went to get married on, or celebrate the majority of their firstborn. Reality entertainments were set there; the kind about attractive people misbehaving in socially acceptable ways. The enigmatic Devigne family never appeared in those shows; their names were rarely mentioned in mainstream media.
Once in a while a tabloid would run a story about a Devigne. One of them was slightly famous as a scandalously enjoyable party guest, rarely appearing as the same gender more than once in a row—
My third-sib... changes often—
Fateless fortune. This was happening. He'd just committed crimes in front of—with—then fucked a boy whose family was notoriously secretive, incomprehensibly rich, and deeply tied to the very organization Cylie had come to Europa with the hope of infiltrating.
And now that boy had all but handed Cylus his heart and an effortless means to break it.
He didn't want to.
After all, it served Cylie more than ever to give Emile what he wanted; how better to preserve the perception of a unique bond between them?
Putting his shock and his opportunity assessment aside, Cylus found it effortless to lie, the three words he knew Emile most wanted to hear tumbling from his lips without hesitation:
"It doesn't matter.” Emile's relieved smile broke like a new dawn as Cylie continued. "I just want to see you again."
"Then let's.” Emile, still beaming, sketched a bow: long vest flaring open, traces of cut threads fluttering down the center; Cylie's red scarf brilliant at his throat, highlighting the bruises on his neck.
Cylus inclined his head in answer, hands too full of food and drink to follow his desire to reach out and touch Emile's lips again. "It'll be my pleasure,” he said as he turned to go." Goodnight, Emile."
"Goodnight, Cylie," answered Emile's sweet, soft voice, and it took all of Cylus' remaining willpower not to look back.
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