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She didn’t know how to get in contact with Babylon, but she knew she had to. If she was to leave the country tomorrow, as her ticket stated, she wouldn’t have another chance. Avalon wished, bitterly and only once, for the powerless signet on her ring finger to work just one more time--sign of a power lost, though she had gained ever so much more. The sword. The speed. The silencing of that awful song in the back of her head.

Arthur my king lay dying--

“No,” she said aloud, her head twitching to the side, a hand slapping up against her temple. “Stop it.”

It wouldn’t do to go too far, she decided, sitting on the bench for the E bus and crossing her legs before her. Usually she found Babylon around here--and her aura could be felt for miles. He would sense her. He would sense her, and he would come.

“Shut up,” she said, sourly. Of course he’d decided to sidle on up while she was having one of those annoying resurgences of knight sentiment. Sometimes it did seem kind of nice to have a place to go where no one else would be able to interrupt or summon her, but then she remembered all the other baggage that came with a Wonder, and it… sure wasn’t a restful thought like in her imagination.

She shifted on the bench, toyed with the thin string tying her coat shut. “That’s about the sum total of it.” Not that she didn’t want to make one last attempt at corruption, but--if she was getting sent to ******** England for fraternization and treason, she was going to ******** fraternize at least. Avalon reached out and cupped his jaw in one gloved hand. “Nothing much,” she lied. She was good at that by now. Weaving truth and falsehood to protect a Crystal Negaverser’s cover, hiding the truth of where she’d been from her roommates… She sighed. “I just wanted to see you. Laurelite’s concerned about people like you, and not in the way where she wants to corrupt you.”

That was believable. Avalon did not want him dead. She wanted him in her arms, as her partner in every way that mattered. “So, can we talk?”

“She’s a General-Queen,” said Avalon, letting her hand slip down the side of his face, to the collar of his jacket. There, the awful blue glow of his Mercury sigil pendant. She wanted it to go away, forever, to just be broken like hers were. Wanted him to love her, to be hers--Nymph, in all thy orisons be my sins remembered. Hamlet. It was appropriate. She leaned across the distance between them and pressed her lips chastely to his. “I didn’t tell her about you. But she encountered that blonde-haired senshi. She knows people like you are possible, now.”

The request to move to a less public venue was… alright, she could accommodate it. She had that power. Still with her palm pressed to his throat, she focused on… somewhere else. Somewhere safe.

Her classroom. That would be embarrassing if it ever came out, but she was already going to leave tomorrow. Who cared? “I wouldn’t let anyone know about you if I seriously thought there was a chance they would kill you, you know,” she said, quiet, sulking at the implication. “I love you. You’re a spineless coward lacking the brains you were born with, but I do.” It really made no sense. But every little thing about him was… perfect. Even the stupid things, like his fear of her and her darkness.

She leaned in to kiss him again, hands cradling his head.

“Shut up,” she said, and there was a terrible fondness in her voice as she pulled him closer. She didn’t want this time to be wasted in anger, though she felt it burning in the back of her throat like a coal. After this, she would be gone--maybe forever--and asking them to corrupt her illicit Order-side lover would be like hiding a small child from ***** in a pen of wolves. Like, the kid wouldn’t be molested, but it sure would be eaten. By wolves.

That was really the difference between their sides. They were children playing a game; the Negaverse had goals, and order. She hissed out a breath between her teeth and pulled off her gloves, dropping them to the ground behind him. His hair between her fingers was soft, long enough to clench her fists in if she chose to. “I don’t suppose you’ve broken up with that boyfriend of yours yet,” she said, looking at him with dark, hooded eyes--his eyes glowed bright blue in the darkness, and it was enchantingly beautiful. He was enchanting.

She sighed, and bent down to rest her forehead on his. “I know you haven’t,” she said. “Do you care?”

She shrugged, easily. Maybe she would have stabbed him, at that. It was impossible to say. She gently unclasped the Mercury brooch at his throat and threaded it out of his collar, tossed it over her shoulder and went for his cape next. "So do you want me, or not? This is not a difficult proposition." Avalon wanted him. Anyone could see that--others had seen that. It was why she was being sent away. But while she was devoted to getting what she wanted, it would not be at the cost of his love for her.

He loved her. That, in itself, told her he was a little brave.

"If you don't," she said, "you can go. I'll take you back, no harm, no foul. But if you do..." She let his cape slide of his shoulders to pool on the ground and kissed him again. "I don't think I'm imagining that you like this."

His pauldrons come off easily, and she focused on setting them aside quietly before she answered him. “Don’t you want to see me,” she asked, reaching up to move his hands from the apple charm--it was nothing more than a long chain of barbed gold, and his pulling tugged it uncomfortably tighter--to the cords at her waist. Her face burned hot, and if she was blushing she decided to pretend she didn’t know it in favor of leaning forward to kiss him again, her hands busy with the buttons down the front of his jacket.

No one would come in here; there were no cameras online in the classroom after classes ended; no one would hear, the dorms were in a different building and the dorm mother would be ensuring that all her little charges were asleep. She had him all to herself, at least a little, at least for now, at least in her head.

“Babylon,” she sighed, pushing his jacket off his shoulders and stopping there. His glamor would fall if she took much else, and that was a secret she didn’t want to force out of him yet. She would get there… in a moment.

She shrugged. Her uniform wasn’t her decision; it was handed down from Chaos itself, and if it thought she needed three jackets, she would’ve accepted its whims. “I don’t care who you are,” she said, leaning in to press her lips to the shell of his ear. He smelled sweet and safe, like a crisp clear night with a bonfire. Almost woodsy. And the too-cold brainfreeze tang of his aura, that was intoxicating too. Avalon did not mind pain simply for the fact that it was pain; so much of Chaos was pain. But this ache was sweet and good. She never wanted it to stop.

Avalon settled back on her desk, and carefully undid the clasps on her top; as she peeled the corset away, her henshin fell. Vanya felt her dress settle around her again, the thin-soled black flats she wore to work pinching her toes where her boots had been a moment before. She toed out of them, a little self-conscious.

“Do you care who I am,” she asked, with careful emphasis, as her long loose hair fell over her shoulder. Too late now, if he did; he already knew. If he wanted to kill her, now would be the time.

She couldn’t smother her smile, and didn’t want to. It all fell into place now--why she had felt so pulled to both of them, to Babylon and to Finn both. Her worries over her fickle heart were all for nothing; her desperation to keep him close made sense. She leaned forward, tipping his jaw up with two fingers, and kissed him. “I’m happy,” she said, when she drew back. “It all makes sense now.”

She pressed kisses to the corner of his jaw, down the side of his throat, and slid her hands beneath the hem of his shirt. “Do you still want to,” she asked, running her thumbs over his hip bones. “With me? Like this?”