"Is Rowan's name actually Rowan, then? Originally he had me call him Absinthe, but Cooper Cole called him Rowan last night, and that seemed to really piss him off." Another thought came to mind. "Are you really Ferris, or is that an...alias?"
Ferris smiled at him in the mirror, suddenly. "That's the first smart question you've asked. None of those names are people's true names."
So then he was at a disadvantage. Rowan and Ferris both knew his name, because he'd very easily offered it up in greeting. "Power..." It was soft, Fletcher laying his head back against the seat as he thought back to the night before and how almost euphoric it felt every time Rowan said his name when introducing him. "Why no iron?" It was the strangest of the rules he'd found in the first section.
"Makes us uncomfortable." He shrugged just a tiny bit, crookedly. "Burns, a bit. Some worse than others."
Strange. Not what he'd been expecting. "And when you say us, what do you mean? I tried to ask Rowan last night, but I didn't get a straight answer."
"The fae." He looked up again into the mirror, then, eyes bright. Waiting for cliches, probably.
He didn't say anything, seemed to be thinking it over as he ran his finger back and forth along the edge of the pages in the binder. It was certainly outside the scoop of his known reality, the idea of lore being real, magic, and maybe if he hadn't had that first night and the last it would have seemed silly. But he'd told Ferris he was going to keep an open mind, and when he applied that label to the more...puzzling things he'd experienced, it wasn't so hard not dismissing it out of hand.
"Like from Gaelic folklore? Just not...lore." He glanced out the window, at the city drifting by. "The brownies comment makes sense now. Is that why his skin feels like that?"
He smiled again, a little quirk, amused. But maybe not displeased. For the first time. "The lore can be a sore spot."
"I can't imagine it's all entirely accurate, so I can see why it would be." On that first night Rowan had mentioned magic and Fletcher had just shrugged it off as something said in the moment. "The wine, it's not normal wine, is it?" Which would explain how he'd gotten drunk on two swallows.
Magic was heady shit.
"Depends what you mean by normal wine, I suppose." Ferris sounded almost cheerful, now. "It's definitely his norm."
"Normal being..." It wasn't the best way to explain what he meant so he abandoned the terminology. "Is it..magic? It's stronger than any drink I've ever had before."
"It's fae food." He pulled around the corner onto Fletcher's block, shrugging a little bit. "As opposed to what you ate this morning."
"Is it all that potent?" Familiar scenery outside the window had him sitting up, and capping his water bottle, closing the binder.
"For you, probably. Unless he gave you something to protect you...?" It lilted a little, questioning.
His head tilted, regarding Ferris in the mirror. "Like what?"
"Some kind of charm? Necklace? No? You'd know..." He pulled into a spot opposite Fletcher's building, leaning back to look at him through the divider. "In that case, you're sink or swim."
He shook his head as Ferris listed possibilities. "No, nothing like that." He slid to the edge of the seat, ready to get out into the mid morning Georgia heat. "Would that be a part of the 'is this food safe' thing, it being fae food?"
"That's most of it, yes." He raised an eyebrow, and then climbed out of the car to get the door for Fletcher.
"Good to know." Then he slid out.
It was already hot, and if he hadn't already had his hands full the bassist would have stripped off the jacket. That not being an option, he moved quickly across the street, leading Ferris into a modern, posh looking lobby and into an elevator.
Ferris seemed unbothered -- locking up the limo and just leaving it there, on the street, like nothing could happen, as he followed. "It's the gift problem, too."
"Magic in gifts," he repeated lowly, thumbing the button for the 12th floor. "Is it all just like walking carefully through a minefield?"
"You don't give away more than you're willing. It's not that complicated." Ferris leaned next to him, shrugging a bit.
"It's hard for me to say no to people." Which was something he probably should have kept to himself, but talking through the car ride over had lowered Fletcher's guard considerably. The elevator slowed to a stop, doors sliding open silently on a clean, monochromatic hallway with very few doors.
"Uh huh." Ferris was -- unsurprised. It was hardly enlightening. He gestured Fletcher along first.
He pushed away from the wall with his hips to lead the way down the hall and around the corner, all the way to the end. As he walked he popped the bottle end into his mouth to hold it so he could fish his keys out and unlock the door one handed, shouldering it open to let Ferris pass.
It was a spacious floor plan, very open, with living area to one side and a kitchen separated by a large island. The walls in here were shades of blues and greens and tans, and there were a lot of windows. Hardwood floors were covered by numerous rugs, and there were instruments tucked away everywhere.
There was a beat before Ferris headed in before him -- just a bit tense, just a bit wary, eyes raking the place for trouble before the rest of him followed. He looked over the instruments in a cursory way, and then the windows in a more serious, slightly concerned way.
Emotional lability more often than not, Fletcher was very emphatic. He picked up on the changes in a person's mood and demeanor, however subtle they might be. Usually to effect of his own heightened anxiety, but every so often it actually proved useful. As he set the binder and bottle on the island he watched Ferris, the way his eyes slid over the apartment, lingering on the windows. "What?"
"I hate this apartment." His eyes were on the windows more than anything else; they put tension between his shoulders. "You must not be at risk in any way."
Keys were dropped into a basket beside the door as he locked it again. "We're on the twelfth floor, what are we at risk from?"
"Anything that can fly, to start." He moved around the place, carefully, until he found somewhere not too exposed to the windows to sit.
A challenge, that. The couch and the rest of the more comfortable seating was beside the biggest window. There were stools tucked under one side of the island, a bench at the keyboard, and a few others. The safest were probably anything near the instruments. "Remembering for a moment that I'm just a measly human, what flying things should I be looking out for?"
"Dragons." He smiled just the tiniest bit at Fletcher, shoulders raised in a quick shrug. "Let's see the binder then."
He stopped short with a hand resting on the handle of the fridge. "Why hasn't anyone seen dragons...?" Not doubting their existence, though that was by far the hardest stretch of reality thus far.
"Um." He opened the door. "Do you want something to drink?"
Ferris leaned back with a sigh, slow. "At our fancy lunch, I'll drink plenty."
"Okay." The door closed without Fletcher having taken anything out. He scooped up the binder as he headed over to take a seat on the keyboard bench.
Ferris held out a hand to take it -- a little impatient -- and then went through it carefully, but quickly. An experienced skim. Searching. "Do you have questions?"
"The bits about rooms and things that are off limits is pretty straight forward, but I'd like to go over party etiquette, just to make sure I'm understanding it all properly." Hands on his thighs, he rubbed the heels of his palms along the thick denim.
"It's probably just easier if you try not to talk to anyone, and definitely don't go off alone with anyone." He mused, looking that page over with his head cocked. "I assume he'll boss you around a whole bunch, so that'll make it simpler."
"So can everyone....or does everyone," he floundered a bit, trying to figure out how to ask his question. "It feels almost like a low current of electricity coming off his skin, will that be the same for everyone? Can you do it?"
"I'm not....." Ferris brushed at his hair, brief, slightly annoyed. "I don't have a knack for glamour."
That's what it was called, then. "Do they?" It was the whole reason he'd followed Rowan in the first place, why he'd looked for him for so long. Why he'd made the deal. If there were other people he'd be interacting with that could do the same, it'd be good to know.
"It's most of what he does." Ferris turned the page, idly. "Which isn't to say it's not a lot, but..."
A relieved sigh, hands curling against the tops of his thighs. "Good, that's good." Baby blues flicked down to the book again, then up at Ferris. "How often does he host parties?"
"It's not parties." He cocked his head a little debating. "Or, I guess I wouldn't call them parties. It's diplomatic. Business."
One hand came up, waving vaguely. "Whatever they are, does it happen often? Am I meant to be there every time?"
"I don't know, you'd have to ask him that." Ferris looked down again, eyes skating down the page. "It seems likely, though. At least one a week."
He chewed on the side of his thumb before stopping himself and placing his hand back on his lap. "Is there anything else you think I should know? Any warnings?"
"You're already in up to your neck, so running isn't an option." He stretched his legs out, watching Fletcher's expression thoughtfully. "Do you actually like him? Or is it just the magic?"
The question made him blink, like he hadn't actually considered that until that moment. "I don't know." Brows creased, gaze sliding away as he thought it through. "I think so." Especially when Rowan showed interest. Fletcher was weak for that, always had been.
He crossed one leg over the other, and in this light, his features looked a little softer. A little finer. The freckles weren't visible, and his chin was delicately pointed like Rowan's. "You're into men, though."
He did a bit of a double take when he noticed the freckles, the shape of his chin, and it left him staring for a long moment before the question snapped him back to attention. "I like men and women..." Brows dipped. "You had freckles earlier, and your jaw was more square."
"This wasn't your first, then? With a man?" Ferris leaned in -- he definitely looked more like Rowan, and maybe that would be attractive to Fletcher. Maybe that was the point.
Fletcher straightened, back hitting the keyboard as he stared at Ferris. "No." It was disconcerting looking at Rowan's face on Ferris' body, the latter's voice coming from that pretty mouth. "Is that your knack, then?"
"You'll need to be more specific." He smiled, rubbing a hand along his jaw. The hair was still short; it wrecked the effect a little.
"Changing your appearance. I wasn't sure at first if maybe I just hadn't remembered right, but you didn't have freckles that first night, and you look like Rowan now." There was wariness in his posture.
"Yes, that's my knack." He smoothed a finger down the length of his nose, still leaned in a bit toward Fletcher. "It makes for a useful bodyguard."
"I can see how that'd be useful, but why are you doing it now?" Unless he was just showing it off, but then why was he leaning in like that.
"Watching for signs of interest or arousal. I could go the rest of the way." As he said it, his skin lightened: it was like a mirage, impossible to tell when it happened, but he looked more like Rowan, slowly.
The flush was sudden and dark, eyes widening. "But why?" It wasn't quite the same as having Rowan sitting there talking to him. It wasn't his voice, it wasn't the way he talked.
"You wanted to know if it was just the magic." He reached up idly, to brush at his hair -- and it lengthened under his hand.
He made a sound at the back of his throat. "It's not just physical I'm into, though," he protested, gaze following the sway of that long, pale hair. "It's more than that."
Ferris closed his eyes for a moment, thinking -- and then opened them green. And the amount he looked like Rowan was almost uncomfortable, in that moment. He fumbled for the voice. "You don't say."
He pressed even farther back into the keyboard until it was digging into his spine. "Did he ask you to do this?"
"No, you did." Rowan's imperious tone broke into something distractedly annoyed, instead; Ferris tapped fingers against his knee.
That was just down right creepy. "Regardless, It's not just how he looks." Which was beautiful, undeniably so, but he needed more than that.
"Yes, I can do the rest of it. I can tell you to sit --" And his voice shifted, a good imitation of Rowan's as he tapped fingers against his knee again. "Stay."
Very very disconcerting. Fletcher pulled his gaze away, looked down at the floor between his boots instead. "It takes more than that, too." Though he did like that, as evidenced by the darkening color in his face.
Ferris sat back, then -- and as he did, he folded back into his own shape. Not the one with the freckles, more masculine and matched to Fletcher, but the androgynous, hard to figure out one, skinny and long. Licking his -- his? -- lips, he thought that over. "Well, I mean, that seems to answer your question anyway. You know what you like."
He breathed out a sigh as Ferris sat back again, looking up almost cautiously, but once he had his head lifted, eyes widening again as he stared. "That really is incredible." A little frightening, but still incredible.
The color faded slowly, a hand coming up to to smooth his hair back only for it to fall into his face again. "Am I more or less fucked because I actually like him?"
The hair was still long; they grimaced as they shrugged it over one shoulder. "I'm the wrong person to ask. I'm about the only person I've ever met who didn't want to fuck him."
"Immune to his charms." Charms could have been--probably should have been--sarcastic but actually wasn't. Fletcher was too nice for that.
"No, it's not personal. I've never really been interested in anyone." Another shrug, leaning back a little. "Not in me, I guess."
"Ah." Nothing wrong with that. Fletcher'd wondered at one point if that might have been the case for him, but clearly not. It just took more than a pretty face.
He shifted, realized he still had the jacket on, and shrugged it off his shoulders to lay it over the bench beside him. "Any more advice or words of warning?"
Ferris closed green eyes, head cocked to think it over. It hadn't nearly been an hour yet; only fair to give Fletcher his full value. "He's mercurial. He can get angry."
His lips pressed, drawing back in almost a grimace. "I did notice that. Last night."
"Just follow your rules. Any rules." When those eyes opened again they were brown, dark and warm, assessing Fletcher. "And don't let your attention wander."
He did like rules. Rules made things uncomplicated. Fletch nodded, glancing down at the book on Ferris' lap, before looking up again. "It would have been nice to know them last night." He could have avoided pissing Rowan off about the tie, maybe. "And I don't think that'll be a problem."
"You say that now, but they just --" He paused, digging for some kind of explanation. "It's all games. And you're human, which makes you a pawn."
"Well, shit." Resigned, he got to his feet, stretching his arms up over his head with a yawn. The more they talked the more nervous he felt about the whole thing, and there was only so much preparing he was going to be able to do short of making sure he memorized to information in that binder.
"Rowan mentioned something about giving me a phone, do you know anything about that?"
"Oh." Ferris blinked, brushed at their hair, attention turning toward the door. "It's in the car. We can grab it when we go to lunch."
"That's fine. I want to change before we go. Whenever that happens to be." He glanced back down at the book and held a hand out for it. "I need to sign that first page, right? Do I get to hold onto the binder for a bit?"
"The binder's yours, but I'll take the first page back to him." Ferris refocused on Fletcher, thoughtfully. "Are you going to put something less...extreme on?"
He'd take the binder over to the counter, opening a drawer to dig out a pen as he flipped to the first page. His signature was sweeping and neat, and when he was finished he removed the page to slide it across the counter.
Only to look down at himself at the comment, frowning. "What's extreme about jeans and a tee shirt? It's a lot more tame than the pants I was wearing the first night." There was literal fetish gear less extreme than the stitched up leather pants he'd worn to the warehouse party...
Ferris hesitated over that, digging a little bit -- trying to put something in words -- "I don't like to get noticed."
Fletcher frowned, plucking at the shirt as he looked down at himself. "Well, what would you suggest, then?
Dark eyes raked up to the piercings, and the hair -- and with a grimace Ferris shrugged it off. "Wear whatever you'd like."
He waited, just in case Ferris had something more to add, then moved through the kitchen to head back to his room, drawing his shirt up over his head as he disappeared through the door.
He came back a few moments later in a very low-key pair of jeans, neat but ordinary, a plain great tee shirt, and a pair of black converse. The bruise on his neck peeked out now and again as he walked.
He still looked eminently fuckable; he was still going to turn heads, for sure. Ferris sighed, and for his part, he looked more...indistinct, now. Nothing that would stand out. Just a guy. He rolled up to stand. "Maybe everyone'll be too busy looking at you."
"I'd rather they didn't, but you're probably right." Now more than ever, if possible. Tuck Fhis breaking up had launched all of them further into the spotlight than success had. Gossip and social media. "There's probably not a lot of open parking, especially not for a limo. It might be easier to walk, it’s only a block away."
Ferris raised his eyebrows, looking aside -- and then nodded a little bit, agreeable enough. "I can walk. If it's safe here."
"It should be, not a lot of active crime around here." He grabbed his phone, still on the verge of dying, and his keys, and went to hold the door open. "Let's grab the phone out of the car, though." More just to have it than out of any fear of it getting stolen.
Ferris nodded a little, getting the door for Fletcher; he could lead the way out and down to the car, to fish the phone out of the cup holder to offer up.
