Update and Preview: The College of Locks and Keys 3

Minor update: I upgraded my home sound studio! I've got a snug little booth now, surrounded by foam, where the chaos of the big intersection outside can't bother me (mostly). It's been a huge game-changer for speeding and simplifying my process and getting better sound. Looking forward to putting it to some erotic use in the near future :)

For now, getting some words on the page for CLK 3, in which Nate's magical shortcuts are starting to catch up with him.

Preview time!

***

Ruby

Oakley has been given an emergency housing transfer, and her status as a WCLK student is under official review. For the first time since I’d first arrived on campus, I can lock my bedroom door and go to bed feeling safe.

I’m sure to be assigned a new roommate soon, but as Nathan keeps reminding me whenever I get nervous about it, they’re almost sure to be a step up.

Our midterm project hasn’t officially been graded yet, but by the approval on Professor Chicory’s face when she calls on us in class, I’m hopeful we’re going to be happy with the results, at least for the first half.

It feels like an awful lot to live up to, as Nathan and I brainstorm ideas for the second half of the project. The half where I have to take the dominant position.

Nathan substantially improved my living situation with some really impressive possession magic on his turn. Meanwhile, most of my best ideas so far have involved conjuring bouquets of flowers for him.

“What do you wish for?” I ask, sitting in the study pod across from him. “What can I do for you that you really, really want?”

This is how he found the inspiration for the first half of the project, by asking me questions like that until he’d finally coaxed the truth about Oakley out of me. It was embarrassing as all infinite hells to admit how much my klepto roommate’s bullying was getting to me, but ultimately, it turned out to be a clear, fixable problem. Perfect for a project.

Nathan’s wishes seem to be a lot more nebulous. Or maybe I’m just not doing a good enough job at the coaxing part.

“I wish… I wish I could get into the flow of things,” he says.

“Uh, okay,” I say. “In what way?”

“I wish…” he sighs. “I wish stuff flowed through me the way it’s supposed to. You know, energy, magic… everything.”

There are definitely words trapped behind his tongue, words more useful and specific than “everything,” but I have no idea what they are.

My best guess is that he’s still beating himself up over freezing in the in-class exam and getting us switched over to the homework project option. But he isn’t always freezable. His magic worked just fine when he was possessing me and sending me all over town following Oakley.

Maybe he gets hung up on the flaws even when things are going great. I know what that’s like.

And I know what a relief it was to let someone else take responsibility for all that for a while. To feel myself live as a braver, more confident version of myself, puppeted by someone else.

“What if I could channel a firehose’s worth of magical energy through your body, while you just sit back and let it happen?” I ask. “Would you enjoy that?”

His face warms, and the corner of his lip pulls upward, still at a frustratingly secretive angle, like I’ve said something I don’t fully understand, and he isn’t going to explain it to me.

“That sounds amazing,” he says, “but you make it sound so simple.”

“Maybe it can be,” I say. “Maybe we’re overcomplicating this. What if we just go over to the combat range? I’ll turn you into a cool, perfect weapon, and make you shoot every kind of magical projectile we can think of out of every appendage you’ve got.”

I wish he’d tell me, or just let me see, what’s behind the three quick blinks and the nibble of his inner lip that precede his answer.

“Yeah,” he says. “Whatever you want.”

#

Miranda

“You have a serious problem,” I tell Nate, with my hands over my face, still trying to soak in the contents of his latest panicked spew of words.

“No shit, I have a problem!” he says. “I’m useless, okay? I’m a complete fraud who can’t do the simplest magic without your help.”

“That’s not true,” I sigh half-heartedly. He’s so talented, and I want to tell him so, but I know he’s trying to get me to tell him that he can do anything, and also that doesn’t have to do anything, because I’ll take care of it.

And why shouldn’t he expect me to? I always have before.

It was the easiest thing to do, when it was just one more test to pass, one more group assignment to hold up his end of, one more little nudge, and one more.

It wasn’t even technically cheating, most of the time. I was just being a good friend, a good study buddy. After all, there are no truly solo achievements at the College of Locks and Keys. All of our magic requires collaboration, so who cares if I just collaborate a little extra?

Well, I care, it turns out. Not for the sake of school rules or grades or any of that, but ever since Nate brought me to the table with Ruby, and made me watch the way the two of them look at each other — like so much more than temporary project partners — I’ve had this gross, guilty feeling gnawing at the back of my head.

It gets worse every time I think about helping him out behind the scenes, behind her back, again.

I’m almost certain I’m not doing either of them any favors.

But the sparks between them… that’s magic, plain and simple. I’d hate to watch it fizzle out if there’s something I could have done to save it.

And maybe there’s a tiny sliver of me that can’t get enough of being part of it.

“Please,” Nate is straddling the bench we’re sharing in the quad, wringing his hands together in front of him, the way he does. “I put her in this situation. I can’t let her down now.”

“You just have to play the sub this time,” I remind him. “That’s what you’re best at. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that’s what Ruby’s best at too,” he says. “She’s going to be out of her comfort zone, and she won’t have someone in her ear to keep her on track like I did.”

“Most people get by without one, you know,” I say.

“I know, I know, I just want to give her as much support as I can,” he says. “I want to make sure I react right to whatever she throws at me.”

“There’s not one ‘right’ way to react,” I tell him. “If you’re liking what you’re getting, that’s right. If you’re not, that’s important. She doesn’t need a canned laugh track, she needs accurate feedback she can use.”

“But what if she does everything perfectly?” Nate protests frantically. “What if she reads me just right, pushes my buttons as well as can be expected, what if she does stuff my mind genuinely wants to cooperate with, but my body, my defective fucking magic plumbing, won’t get with the program? She shouldn’t be penalized for that, right?”

He makes a compelling argument. As usual.

I picture Ruby’s fragile beginner practice at dom magic, her frustration with trying to predict a mind as convoluted and self-defeating as Nate’s, her inevitable and pointless fits of blaming herself for whatever pit he burrows his own way into.

I sigh again. “I’ll hang out in the background, just in case. But you’re going to forget I’m there and give Ruby absolutely every chance to handle you herself.”

“Deal!” Nate grabs my hand, kisses my knuckles, and springs to his feet. “Thank you thank you thank you you’re the best!”