Around 10.30pm


Virgil was replenishing himself at the bar, not quite breathless from dancing but feeling the heat of it thrumming all throughout his body. It was the weekend and it was doubly deserved - anyone else who had burned through seven time loops[1] would no doubt agree. Nick knew that, though their companions tonight[2] did not.

For them, the silver hair was simply part of his choice in clubbing threads this evening.

"I hate this song," he sighed, typically melodramatic, as Nick joined him at the crowded counter. "I'm waiting it out."

It was just one of those things you jumped around to instead of actually dancing. Virgil finished his sparkling water and turned properly to his flatmate, wearing that sleepy little smile he always wore when he smoked the perfect amount of kelp.

He wasn't genuinely sleepy. Francis Pepper, Merlin bless his radiant soul, had lent him a time-turner to catch up on the toll Halloween had taken. Not simply the seven loops but whatever magic worked itself through him to rewind the clock.

"You think it suits me?" V ran a hand through his hair - this was not the first time he had asked and, vain wizard, it would not be the last. "Do I look like I'm trying too hard?"

The vibe he aspired to emanate was playful, expressive. But it often felt contrived when he put it all together and the hair colour was not helping. Blond... blond was effortless.

1.	Broken Clock
2.	Malachi Reid and Maviolo Zabini

Nicholas had been bouncing around to the new song, when he felt someone push against the skin of his back, he'd lost his shirt not long after they'd arrived.  He turned, expecting Virgil but finding another bloke instead and spotting Virgil at the bar over the man's shoulder. He pulled away from the man and went to the bar. 

Tonight was for celebrating and his drink was empty.  Empty wasn't allowed, they'd won and his bosses only remembered his part in the success, not all the previous failures.  Got to love a time loop. Virgil could have given them more time though, there hadn't been time for any of the fun things people got up to in time loops in the movies.

"I hate this song, I'm waiting it out."

"If you say so, it's all music to me." Nicholas could have a good time regardless what was playing as long as he could dance and flirt.  And between his companions and everyone else else at the club, he wasn't lacking for either.

"Do I look like I'm trying too hard?"

Nicholas laughed, reaching up and lifting a few of the silvery  strands up.  "It works. Looks like you are trying the right amount. Do I look like I'm trying too hard?"  He gestured to himself, shirtless with his low slung jeans and lion pendant necklace.

His smile stretched wider and more smug, pleased as ever to be reassured of his looks. Nick could be nice. Not all the time, which was part of the appeal, but usually when it mattered and in a way that mattered.

Virgil bit his bottom lip as he considered the other wizard's appearance, and he reached out to idly touch the pendant. Lion. Gryffindor, courage, foolishness. All those things that had been of use to them in preserving the Statute of Secrecy earlier this week. It seemed surreal that they were at all here to enjoy the night.

A hesitance flickered across his expression. He remembered, briefly, the first endless fall[1] into death and the knowledge that one day there would be no return. It would stalk him at his heels like a shadow all his life.

But it was only a flicker.

"You look like you don't need to try," he replied carelessly, realising he had let go of the pendant; his fingers were splayed flat against Nick's collarbone.

Warm, human. Nick was flushed with life, and with everything else that made it sweet. "It works for you, anyway," Virgil's hand dropped and he glanced out across the busy dance floor. "I think the music will change soon."

1.	Face to Face, Heart to Heart

Well, Virgil was in a good mood.  Given the question he'd asked, Nicholas had been expecting a cutting remark especially when Virgil had focused on his pendant instead Virgil had complimented him and well he wasn't sure what the touch had been.  Higher and he'd have been sure Virgil was about to go for a kiss, lower and he'd be copping a feel. He'd be down, he was nearly always down, and it was still his birthday weekend as well, and he hadn't ticked off that birthday gift yet.

Of course, Virgil couldn't leave the compliment completely unqualified.  But he could ignore that.

"I think the music will change soon."

He threw a sweaty arm around his flat mate.  "Well then, we need drinks before it does.  Drinks and shots, you missed the birthday shots last night."  He waved down the bartender and ordered both for them.

Shots!

He didn't like to mix kelp and alcohol but this was a special occasion - not only a celebration of their success but his flatmate's birthday, too. Virgil wouldn't object. After all, he wanted this, he wanted to lose himself to anything that made him feel alive and brought his thoughts away from that final glimpse of his older self.


"How many of these are we doing?" he wrinkled his nose, laughing as he put down the second (third?) empty shot glass. "I feel like rocket fuel."

Virgil recently learned about muggle rockets and space travel. At least the shots didn't taste like rocket fuel. He had shrugged off his jacket - looking at Nick made him feel claustrophobic in it - and was perched on a bar stool, his entire being buzzing with energy and face flushed pink.

"Oh--" he interjected before Nicholas could reply, "-- do you, like, count all that time we were, you know..." V gestured vaguely, nearly smacking one of the clubbers next to them at the counter. "Saving the world. So your birthday's not really accurate isit?"

The shots, the drinks, he was really feeling the music now.  Nicholas hadn't stopped moving with the music while they took the shots and didn't even try to stop the laugh that bubbled up at Virgil's question or declaring that he was rocket fuel.  His plan was either to end up going home with someone, or get shitfaced.  Frequent shots ensured he had a chance at either.  Of course Virgil didn't let him say that of course, instead asking time-travel questions that were beyond what Nicholas ever wanted to contemplate.

"Nope, doesn't count. Definitely doesn't count.  I'm not changing my birthday because of you," he poked Virgil in the chest to drive his point home. "And," he added clearly starting to feel the shots, "that would make this one during one of the loops, which is not fair."

He threw his head back in what could only be described as a joyous cackle, as Nick poked his chest accusingly. Virgil loved it all. He knew how infuriating he could be - sometimes it felt like an innate knack, knowing in his gut how to annoy or antagonize or simply irk.

"Oh, please, yo--" he stopped suddenly and looked over his shoulder, the music turning. "Finally! Something I can fuck with!"

It was some kind of wix remix of a muggle bop he recognised. Virgil didn't muck about with muggles very seriously but music was another thing. He clasped his friend's hand, tugging.

"Let's go go go!" All this energy had to go somewhere!


It was a little miracle, at least to his high and drunken mind, that Malachi's group found them on the busy dance floor. Virgil had slung his arms around the Reid wizard's neck, kissing him ecstatically and then doing the same to just about everyone else who'd come with them tonight, and a few startled strangers.

Maviola, on being released, laughed and tugged V's choker. "Someone put a leash on his collar!"

"Rubbish!" Virgil exclaimed through the booming music and the voices around them singing along to catchy bits. "I self domesticate!" he bumped into Nick pointedly, grinning.

Laughing at how impatient Virgil was to get to the dance floor, Nicholas let himself be pulled along. Clearly the music made a difference to Virgil in a way that it did not for Nicholas.  And maybe the shots had been rocket fuel.

They were joined by Virgil's little group, had Virgil said if he'd slept with them all?  Nicholas couldn't remember though it certainly seemed like he might have.  He was singing along with the music bouncing around between their group and others dancing with anyone who seemed interested, having a great time.

"Someone put a leash on his collar!"

"Rubbish! I self domesticate!"

Nicholas laughed at the back and forth. "A leash wouldn't stop him." Virgil bumped into him and gave him a look.  "What?"  He ran his hand through his hair.  "Fine you are domesticated."

Everyone around him was so overwhelmingly alive, he could barely keep their thoughts out of his own - they skittered across the surface of his mind like skipping stones and each one sent ripples all throughout.

Virgil felt drunk on everything. But he wanted more. More of life, more of the things that made life so worth living. He wanted it desperately: as if trying to prove a point to what had happened on Halloween. Life in all its loud, messy  reverberations in the face of death.

The dance floor was crowded, and he happily allowed himself to be jostled closer to Nicholas. Nick didn't know about the Death Chamber part and that made him all the more alluring as a source of life.

"Domesticated?" Virgil declared in mock offense, resting his hand on the other wizard's bare waist. "Self-domesticated!" he corrected before pulling at the waist band of Nick's jeans.

Yes. This felt right, it felt inevitable almost. "It means I do what I want."

There was nothing to it. Virgil sent into his friend's mind a visual of what it was he wanted, of himself dropping to his knees exactly where they were. Of taking Nick into his mouth, like he needed it more than anything else right now.

Rolling his eyes at Virgil's response, turned into laughing when Nicholas was pulled into Virgil.  "Of course you do." And Nicholas was happy to go along with whatever it was the Virgil wanted.  The closeness was nice, too bad his flat mate had only lost his jacket.  Nicholas wouldn't mind some skin-to-skin contact—a thought though that was interrupted by an image of himself with Virgil going down on him. On the dance floor.

Damn he looked hot. The image was definitely from the wrong point-of-view.  Nicholas's own fantasies didn't tend to focus some much on him, but on the person going down on him. And there was an intensity to it that wasn't his.

His mind was racing with the possibilities though that Virgil could mind-fuck, in a good way, anywhere. Not that that was what he wanted right then though, no, Nicholas definitely wanted Virgil in the real world in the middle of the crowded dance floor.

He leaned forward nipping Virgil's earlobe, "Yes. Fuck that's...A-plus birthday gift." One hand reached up to pull Virgil in for a kiss while the other went down to unzip his jeans. At the moment it seemed like this birthday was going to rank among his best.

Having sent the image into his friend's mind, Virgil sensed the ringing of thoughts in response. Like little Christmas bells - the trill of excitement Nick felt about a literal mind-fuck, the preferred point-of-view he would keep in mind for the next time he tried that with someone.

It was new to him as well. He had been too scared to try it with Cepheus, who hadn't reacted well to him gleaning his thoughts. And Robin didn't even know he was a Legilimens (yet).

But then Nick was nipping at his ear, close, pulling him in for a kiss, and all those notions disappeared, replaced by the urgency of now and here. Virgil kissed back hungrily, sloppily. He was burning up with the need to do something, to do this.

        "What is h-- Virgil!" he heard Malachi exclaim in laughter as he dropped to knees. Perhaps their little group closed in on them.

It both mattered and didn't matter if people saw. He wanted them to see what he was: alive. And he could ignore the other part of him, the part that didn't want anyone to percieve him at all.

Virgil lifted his gaze to Nick's face as he took him in.

Nicholas leaned heavily on Virgil, his knees felt like jelly and he needed the assistance to keep himself upright on the dance floor while he tucked himself away.  "That...you...fuck."  He wasn't sure what to say and his current inebriated and post-orgasmal state words weren't exactly jumping to his lips in any kind of coherent way. He needed a moment to steady his legs and his thoughts.

It was a lot to have his fantasy come to life in such an explosive way.

And for lack of clothes to adjust, he reached up with one hand to fix Virgil's hair so that it didn't look like both of Nicholas's hands had been gripping it.

"You are amazing, just say the word and it's your turn."

He felt like a column of fire when he stood, bracing himself against the other wizard's weight and the roar of thoughts tumbling through his mind. Nick's taste in his mouth, blood rushing still to his face (and other parts).

Virgil was in trouble - he knew it, vaguely, by the way his mental barriers wavered to let in the din around them. Other people's drunken, lusty, broken, ecstatic notions glancing off his own intoxication. Everything seemed large in his mind now: a cavernous echo chamber.

       "You're bad!!" Mal suddenly behind him, laughing, hands wrapping around his hips.

He was, yes, and it felt wonderful. If he could just think straight about how fucking horny he was right now. Virgil tried to say as much.

"Up," he said instead, and giggled, because his mouth and brain were suddenly not on talking terms. A side effect Nick Bevan's cock, apparently.

Malachi pulled a face at Nick. "I think he means..."


They did eventually make it to the rooftop. V wasn't sure how. He snapped out of his daze just as they stepped out and the cold November air hit him like a slap to the face.

"Merlin's balls!" the blond exclaimed, blinking at the lights around them.

Being a Saturday - and early yet - most of The Closet were still tearing up the dance floor. Up here the scattering of chairs and tables, grouped around outdoor heater lamps, were plenty available.

Somewhere between downstairs and now, he'd gotten an Orangina[1]. Virgil let Malachi and Nick choose a corner - he followed, sipping, enjoying himself.

"God I feel like fire," he told them. "I feel amazing. It's so nice up here."

1.	Sparkling orange drink!

Nicholas followed Virgil and his friends to the roof, his legs were steady enough to make the trek without the assistance that Virgil seemed to need. He was kind of proud of himself for leaving Virgil in such a state, he wasn't sure he'd done anything to warrant it or actually cause it other than being a body for Virgil to act out a fantasy on, but he was proud nonetheless.

He stepped outside and for a moment it felt nice until he stepped into the breeze. Virgil was going on about it being nice, which Nicholas might have agreed with had he had a shirt on and his nipples weren't trying to turn into diamonds. 

"Fuck that, it's cold up here," he said, arms wrapped around himself he moved towards the closest heat lamp.  The heater wouldn't stop the cold wind though, so he pulled out his wand and conjured himself a jumper and pulled it on.  He'd have cast a heating spell on himself to keep him warm, but between the drinks and how revved up he still was, he didn't trust his charm work enough to cast anything on himself.

Either out of preference or necessity for heat, they had chosen a nearby corner next to a trellis of fairy lights. Stools and battered armchairs were loosely gathered but Virgil went straight for the seater sofa, collapsing dead centre with dramatic flourish. It was cold. Not that he minded, yet. Cold was good. Cold kept him from sleep.

He stretched lazily, perfomatively, and smiled at the two wizards.

"That was fun," the smile settled on Nick with a smug raising of his eyebrows.
       "Should have known you liked an audience," Malachi remarked, dropping next to him, a hand on his knee. "Not quite Stardust material though, is it?"

Virgil pulled a face, nose wrinkling. "Not the same thing!" he protested and nodded for Nick to join them. "You look cosy."

Funny to think of his flatmate as cosy but he really was. Like a sexy teddy bear, in that jumper.