— quinze ; fifteen —

"WHAT HAPPENED THIS TIME?"

Henri didn't reply to Soren's question straightaway, taking his time to close the door behind him and kick his shoes off. It was obvious which side belonged to who — Soren's was neat and tidy, his books stacked in careful rows and his clothes carefully packed away in contrast to the untucked bedsheets and scattered clothes that Henri hadn't bothered to put away. Already, he knew his wardrobe looked like a bomb had gone off. He found it hard to care. Soren ragged on him about the mess sometimes which was just more incentive to keep it looking like a pigsty.

"Hey," Soren said sharply. "Don't ignore me."

"What do you think happened?" Henri sighed as shoved a messy pile of clothes off the floor and into his wardrobe. "I'm good at pissing people off and they already hate me. You put the dots together."

He turned around to find Soren standing in front of him and rocked back instinctively into the wardrobe to stop himself walking into him. Soren ignored that and studied his face as if searching for something. Henri stared back at him as he raised a hand and ran a light finger along the sore area Jude's fist had caught him. He hasn't seen his face but he was sure there would be a red mark blooming along it that would soon fade to a bruise. The hard look on Soren's face was at odds with the careful way he brushed Henri's face, tracing the pattern of Jude's rage with warm fingers.

"Benjamin?" Soren guessed.

"Jude," Henri said, swallowing around the sudden thickness of his throat. Standing this close to him, it was impossible not to remember what his lips tasted like and his body was straining to cover the distance. "Bringing up your name in conversation is a surefire way to get hit. You should try it some time."

Soren's jaw tightened. "Don't speak to him about me."

"Hey, he said that too. You guys should talk it out — you have more in common than I expected."

"Henri," Soren snapped. "Don't test me."

Henri tipped his head up towards him until their faces were inches apart. "Then tell me what happened between the two of you. What really happened, Soren," he said in a low voice. "Because I don't believe the story the rest of the team are going along with. It doesn't add up."

"Why do you even care?"

"Humour me."

Soren responded by kissing him hard enough that his back hit the wardrobe and his head was tilted back to meet the forceful demand of Soren's kiss. Henri felt the tension and frustration in every line of his body, in the way he pressed himself against Henri, and wondered if this was how he'd kissed Matthias. Full of baseless rage. Henri returned the aggression as he slid his hands under Soren's shirt and dragged blunt nails along his smooth skin, thinking about the fear in Lucas's eyes and the way Jude's hands had wrapped around his throat. He really would have tried to kill him. Henri had seen his expression when he'd said those things to him.

Henri shoved Soren back and scowled at him. "You can't shut me up like that."

"Then how?" Soren's eyes were blazing with a confusing whirl of lust and irritation. "With a knife in your side?"

"I'd like to see you try."

Henri meant to argue his point further but seeing Soren's flushed cheeks and huge pupils was enough to make him hard, and all possibility of conversation flew out of the window. Henri grabbed his face and now he was the one forcing the kiss, biting his lip and slipping his tongue in when Soren's lips parted. He wanted the control and seized it as he let his hand move down, stopping between Soren's legs. The involuntarily moan that left his mouth made Henri shiver with pleasure and he smirked against Soren's lips. Soren must have felt the smug twist of his lips, because he caught Henri's bottom lip between his teeth, in warning or reprimand.

It became a fight for dominance neither of them were willing to let go. Henri touched him, through the material of his jeans, and Soren ghosted his mouth across Henri's skin until he reached hollow of his throat. Henri gripped the hard outline of his dick at the same time Soren sucked the tender skin of his throat, and they both gasped. Henri finally hooked his fingers in the zipper to Soren's jeans in refusal to lose this fight.

"My turn," Henri said, waiting to see if Soren would reject the offer. He'd pulled away last time Henri had tried and Henri needed to know what Soren would do this time. He half expected him to move back but Soren's only response was to bring his face back up and kiss him, all the confirmation he needed.

He lowered to his knees, trailing kisses along his abdomen before yanking the zipper down. Henri felt himself burning with unrestrained desire as he tilted his head forward, teasing just the end of Soren's dick with his tongue. "Fuck, Henri," Soren ground out, gripping both hands in his hair so tightly it hurt. "Don't fucking — "

He broke off with a shudder when Henri swallowed him whole and it didn't matter that he didn't know what he was doing, because Soren was guiding him with his hands and in a strained voice. Henri knew when he was doing it right, because the only thing Soren could say was his name and his breathing was coming faster with every dip of his head. Henri always blowjobs were only good for the receiver but this felt better than he thought possible, knowing he was the one taking apart Soren like this. Henri heard his breathless warning he was about to come but didn't pull away.

He braced himself and was pleasantly surprised at the taste. Henri felt when Soren was finished, in the way his body quaked before relaxing with burnt out need and exhaustion. Henri moved his mouth back up to Soren's and guided him back towards Henri's bed without breaking the kiss, pushing him down on his back. Henri just stared down at him for a few moments, drinking in the sight of long eyelashes feathering his high cheekbones and the deep pink of his lips, swollen from their kiss. He was allowed to stare for as long he wanted and the thought send a curl of delight through his veins.

Soren looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes. "Who decided you could take control?"

"I did," Henri smirked, sliding forward so he was straddling Soren. He liked the way Soren lifted his hips to Henri's in response. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"Children shouldn't have opinions."

Henri kissed his neck. "I should kill you for calling me that," he murmured against Soren's hot skin. "I'm not a child. There's less than two years between us."

"Less?"

"My birthday is in two weeks."

"Still two years," Soren said, closing his eyes. "My birthday is two weeks after that."

"Fuck," Henri grumbled. "I hate you."

Henri tangled his fingers through Soren's thick hair and moved to kiss him again when he heard the knock on the door. Henri froze and felt the way Soren tensed beneath him. Henri couldn't remember if he had locked the door behind him and was surprised any of the Ravens has bothered knocking in the first place. It would only be a matter of time before impatience won and they barged in.

There was another knock accompanied by a distinctly feminine voice. "Soren? Are you in there?"

"Loren," he muttered, and shoved Henri off him.

Henri sat up on the bed as Soren got to his feet and knew he couldn't see Loren looking like this. Soren might have come, but Henri was still hard and didn't think he'd be cooling down any time soon. "One second," Soren called, seeming to come to the conclusion as Henri. He pointed to the bathroom and Henri nodded, jumping down from the bed. He'd closed the bathroom door behind him and slid the lock into place. It was another minute before Soren let her in, probably tidying himself and making sure his zipper was done.

Henri had no qualms about eavesdropping. He pressed his ear against the door and managed to make out their words with some effort.

"...Henri not here?" Loren was asking.

"He's in the bathroom."

"Is he okay?" Henri's eyebrows furrowed at the concern in her words. They'd exchanged little more than five words and she sounded worried about him. "Lucas and Kit told me what happened in the locker room."

"With Jude." Henri could imagine the dismissive wave of his hand accompanying the words. "I heard, yeah. He should have known better than to piss him off."

"Fuck you very much," Henri muttered under his breath. And to think, he'd just given this prick a blowjob.

"Soren, that's not okay," Loren said with a frown in her voice. "I know you said that's how things work here but you can't just choke people, no matter what they way."

There was a beat of silence. "He choked him?"

"Yeah. He didn't tell you?"

"No." Soren sounded pissed off and Henri wasn't sure whether he was the recipient of that. "He didn't."

Henri probed his fingers along the skin of his neck and winced a little. He'd been a little preoccupied by Soren to notice the pain earlier but he was certain there'd be fingerprint bruises marking his skin by tomorrow morning. He suspected it would look worse than it felt. Feeling like he had been dying for a few seconds had been worth to see Jude snap like that. Henri wondered if maybe he was a little fucked up fundamentally. That just meant he'd fit in perfectly with the Ravens.

Henri left them alone to their conversation after that, needing to deal with himself first. He wasn't about to finish himself off while the two of them were in the next room over so he cranked the shower up to ice cold and tried to wash the lust off him. It was difficult, considering every time a fragment of Soren's voice managed to drift over the stream of water, he remembered how that voice had sounded when it moaned his name and he was hard all over again. Just thinking about it was proving to be problematic and Henri wondered exactly he had become such a mess of hormones. The last thing he wanted to deal with around the Ravens was accidental boner.

When Henri came out of the bathroom, towelling off his damp hair, Loren was nowhere in sight. Soren was sitting on his bed with his laptop open but looked up at Henri's entry. "She's gone?" Henri asked.

Soren ignored his question. "Why did you lie to me about Jude?"

"Where was the lie? He did hit me," Henri shrugged. "After he tried to choke me. Which he failed to do, by the way."

"You are the most suicidal idiot I have ever met," Soren said through gritted teeth. "How can you say that in such a calm voice?"

"Would you rather I freak out about it? Because that's counterproductive and a waste of everyone's time."

Soren glared at him. "You are a waste of everyone's time."

"Tell me something I don't know," Henri said in a bored tone. "If we're going to talk about things we never said, why did you never mention your cousin was joining the Ravens?"

"You never asked."

"And you didn't ask about Jude either," Henri pointed out.

"Okay, Henri. Next time someone tries to choke you, feel free to let me know about it without having to be grilled about it."

"Did you just use sarcasm?" Henri tossed his towel aside and eyed Soren with suspicion. "Soren Solberg? Is that possible? I thought your sense of humour was too flatlined to ever try." 

"Stop speaking."

"That sounds about right," Henri said. "Shall I go the extra mile and just stop breathing?"

"Please." Soren had already turned his attention back to his laptop. "You'd be doing us all a favour."

It was only ten but Henri clambered into bed anyway, feeling tired enough to sleep now. Getting a good nights sleep these days was rare enough so he might as well try to get as many hours in as possible. He stared up at the ceiling and wondered when his exchanges with Soren had lost their heat. When they'd first been forced to share each other's space, the venom in their insults had been as real as the contempt Henri felt for him. Henri thought he still hated him, that when they touched it was purely physical, but he wasn't so sure now.

Henri rolled onto his side and studied Soren's profile. He was playing a dangerous game, fooling around with Soren. Because that was all it was. Fooling around. He doesn't even do love, Xander had said. Henri wasn't thinking about love, not at all, but rather if he'd end up like Jude if he let himself get in too deep. Cast aside when Soren grew bored of him. The thought prickled under his skin more than he wanted it to so he closed his eyes and tried to will his thoughts away through sleep.

— — — —

Xander approached him in the kitchen the next morning before practice. "Morning," he said, stealing the banana Henri had been about to chop up onto his toast. Henri considered stealing it back and settled for flicking an unimpressed look at him. "How's your throat?"

"Nice and bruised," he answered. He'd seen the results in the mirror this morning, dark purplish marks splashed along the sides of his neck. "How's the psychopath? Not that I actually care."

"You seriously fucked him off yesterday," Matthias said, pulling open the fridge. The twinkle in his eyes was all amusement despite the fact he was talking about his friend. "What the hell did you even say to him, anyway?"

"Secret."

"Aw, c'mon," Matthias protested.

Henri was unmoved. "Ask him yourself if you want to know so bad."

"Yeah, no thanks. I like living. I can bet it was about Soren," Matthias said, as if hoping to bait Henri into answering, but Henri just took a bite of his toast. "Fine, be that way. Xander was probably going to warn you to keep your distance from Jude for a few days if you want to keep your head on your neck."

"I'm not scared of him," Henri said.

"Uh, you should be." Matthias exchanged a disbelieving look with Xander. "Have you seen how much he presses at the gym? Not to mention he probably has a foot on you. Remember that day he attacked me in the club? Yeah, it would be like that, except you're smaller and he actually wants to kill you."

Lucas caught the last part of his sentence as he walked into the kitchen and paled. "K-kill you?" he stammered. "That's a joke, right?"

"This one will be fun to break," Aria said, around a spoonful of cereal. She winked at Lucas's wide eyed look of alarm. "Don't worry, honey. We only kill the mouthy ones like Moreau Junior over there. Hold your tongue and we'll get along like a house on fire."

Lucas looked like he wanted to die and Henri figured he'd be the first one to have a mental breakdown in this place. Someone like him should have just gone off with the Trojans and been done with it.

Practice felt strange with most of the team missing, on planes heading home for their summer break. Meanwhile, the twelve of them — four freshmen and eight upperclassmen who couldn't wait to break them — were stuck with in the unenviable position of playing Exy right up until the start of the season. Henri couldn't decide whether he was grateful or not the other Ravens had gone. On one hand, there were no witnesses if one of them tried to kill him. On the other hand, none of them would have stepped in anyway and they were just more eyes watching and waiting for Henri to fail.

The definite good aspect was the shortened practice hours. Henri didn't understand where that small mercy had come from, seeing as the Master was the last person likely to easy up just because of a holiday, and had said as much to Soren.

"It isn't out of the kindness of his heart," Soren had said, as if Henri was being particularly stupid. "It was another of the terms the university made him abide to. He wasn't allowed to work the Ravens to the bone and they needed some time in the year to spend with their families."

"Does the university know some of us are still being worked to the bone?" Henri had wondered.

"It's a choice. At least for the rest of us," Soren had said, looking at Henri. "Is there a family you want to spend time with?"

Henri had gritted his teeth at the low blow and turned away. Now he was on court and immensely grateful that practice was limited to the morning, because their low numbers meant all of them could play on court at all times and Jude seemed keen on bulldozing Henri whenever possible. He knew better than to start a fight with the Master's keen eye watching, but he went out of his way to check Henri unnecessarily just as he'd been subjected to when he first came and whacked his racquet so many times Henri was surprised his wrist hadn't shattered. He could feel his temper rising and wanted nothing more than to break Jude's arm, but the repercussions from last time he started a fight on court weren't worth it.

The whistle blew to signal the end of the practice but Jude didn't slow in checking Henri, slamming him into the wall so hard he could have sworn something popped in his shoulder. "Fucking asshole," Henri hissed, the force of the hit knocking both racquet and ball from his hand. This kind of illegal play would never be allowed in Class I plays, but it had nothing to with unchecked style. Jude just wanted to hurt him.

Loren fell alongside him as they walked off court and Henri was attempting to massage the feeling back into his arm. "Are you okay?" she asked. "That looked painful."

"I'm fine," Henri said. "I want to kill him, brutally, but otherwise I'm fine."

"Oh shit," Aria said, staring with wide eyes at something over his shoulder Henri made it onto inner court.

He turned around to see Soren and Jude were the last people to leave, as they had to walk from far court from their position as strikers, but the former stepped in front of him before they could reach inner court. Henri couldn't possibly make out any words exchanged from here but whatever turn the conversation had taken, Soren didn't seem pleased. He curled his fingers through the grating of Jude's helmet and dragged him down court, away from the others. The Ravens watched in stunned silence as their argument was taken further away with more privacy.

"Is he defending your honour?" Kit wondered.

It took Henri a couple of seconds to realise the question was addressed at him and he snorted. "If you're going to make a joke, at least make it realistic."

"It's the only thing that makes sense," Lucas pointed out. "Anyone could see he was checking you out of turn. What else would he be talking to him about?"

Them, Henri thought, but didn't say this. "If Soren's chewing him out about anything, it's reckless playing," Henri said, yanking his helmet off. Sweaty hair fell in his eyes and he impatiently pushed it away, knowing it was past time for him to get it trimmed. "If he's stupid enough to play like that in actual games, he'll be chucked off with a red card before the end of the game. The Ravens can't afford to tarnish their reputation any further."

"Hey," KJ scowled. "Our reputation is fine."

Henri slid him an unimpressed look. "Denial won't get you anywhere."

The Ravens lingered on inner court even though the Master had dismissed them and even though no one would say it, Henri was knew it was because they all wanted to see the outcome of Soren and Jude's talk. Or maybe they were staying if things got violent and they had to intervene. But there was no need, because ten minutes later, Jude stormed off and a quick glance at his gloves confirmed there was no blood. He tossed his racquet into the case and slowed only long enough to look at Alixis. She seemed to understand whatever she saw in his gaze, because she followed him with a quick glance at Aria. The second girl fell in step alongside Alixis.

Soren was off a couple of seconds later and at first glance, his expression gave nothing away. It was unreadable as always. But Henri had been around long enough to decipher the truth behind that deceptive calm — he saw the tense set to his shoulders and white knuckled grip on his racquet. He was seriously pissed off. He disappeared from inner court before anyone could even think about asking what happened.

"Well," Matthias said, breaking the silence that lingered. "That was enlightening."

Henri was torn between curiosity and self-preservation. On one hand, returning to his room would give him the opportunity to ask Soren what had just happened even though he was always certain he wouldn't be getting any kind of helpful answers. On the other hand, going anywhere near him right now seemed to asking to get his head bitten off and Henri wasn't in the mood to deal with a snappy Soren.

"Maybe give him some space," Loren suggested gently, as if reading Henri's thoughts.

"Great," Henri said. "He had to pick today of all days. I need a haircut, but he's the only way I can go anywhere and he'll probably throw a lamp at my head if I ask him."

"I could do it," Loren offered.

Henri stared at her. "What?"

"Cut your hair," she clarified, at his confusion. "I used to do it for Soren, when we were younger. I have practice so you can trust me not to scalp you. Only if you want."

"Okay," Henri said, still surprised at the seemingly random offer. He had to remind himself that in the real world, away from Caste Evermore, people could actually do nice things without expecting anything in return. He'd been around the Ravens too long. "That would be great, if you don't mind."

She smiled. "I don't mind."