Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/223264.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Mana_Khemia:_Alchemists_of_Al-Revis
  Relationship:
      Vayne_Aurelius/Roxis_Rosenkrantz
  Character:
      Roxis_Rosenkrantz, Vayne_Aurelius
  Stats:
      Published: 2009-05-19 Words: 5046
****** Can't We All Get Along? ******
by Miko
Summary
     It would be nice if everyone in the workshop could all get along for
     once.
It was really quite unbearably hot in the workroom. Summer was still weeks off,
but they weren't so deep in winter that the heat should have been set on high.
It was almost impossible to concentrate on his book when all he could think
about was the prickling rush of heat over his skin.
Sighing, Roxis pushed his glasses more firmly into place. He kept expecting
them to slip, but despite his discomfort he wasn't actually sweating. Strange.
At least he had the workshop mostly to himself for the moment, and he wasn't
sharing it with one of the loudmouths. Looking up from under his bangs, Roxis
watched Vayne puttering at the cauldron. He had a lot of issues with the son of
Theofratus, but Vayne's inability to keep his mouth shut certainly wasn't among
them. If anything the other boy was too self-effacing, too shy and unwilling to
speak up. But at least it meant Roxis could share space with him and still be
able to read his book in peace.
Not that he was reading now. He'd gotten distracted by watching Vayne. The
other boy seemed to be having difficulty; he was frowning and looked
frustrated. The tip of his tongue was showing as he bit his lip in
concentration. It was cute. And also hot. Idly Roxis wondered how Vayne would
react if he went over there and added his own bite marks to that well-chewed
lip. Would Vayne jerk in surprise and freeze? Or would he moan and melt against
Roxis, opening his mouth to let the other boy...
Realizing where his thoughts had gone, Roxis jerked his eyes away from Vayne.
Stunned and horrified, he searched desperately for something to distract
himself with. What was wrong with him? He didn't think about Vayne that way. He
didn't think about anyone that way. He didn't have time for that sort of
teenage hormonal nonsense, he needed all of his energy and thought concentrated
on his struggle to get stronger.
Though, if he was going to think about someone like that... Unwillingly his
eyes were drawn back to Vayne. The other boy was certainly pretty enough,
almost delicate and ethereal, but with just enough strength in his features to
save him from looking like a girl. Roxis found himself contemplating what Vayne
might look like when he was lost in pleasure. With a tiny whimper that he
couldn't quite manage to stifle, he pulled his attention away again.
Vayne was occupying the synthesis equipment and Roxis certainly wasn't going
over there, so the only things left in the room to distract himself with were
his book and the bowl of taffy someone had left on the table. Roxis had already
eaten a few when he'd first arrived, but the book obviously wasn't going to be
enough to hold his attention. He grabbed a handful of the taffy and forced
himself to eat them slowly while concentrating on savouring the flavour.
They were quite good, actually. He didn't normally eat many sweets, but these
were almost addictive. He made a mental note to find out who'd made them and
offer his compliments. Unless it had been Vayne, of course. But he wasn't
thinking about Vayne, damn it. He definitely wasn't thinking about pouring
sticky taffy over Vayne's naked body, or licking the sugary stuff directly off
the other boy's skin...
"Ah, I give up!" Vayne's sudden declaration thankfully derailed Roxis' current
train of thought, but it also brought his attention back to the other boy.
There was black smoke rising from the cauldron, and Vayne looked disgusted.
"Mrrow?" Sulpher said, going up on his hind paws and bracing himself on the
wall so he could get a better sniff. He promptly sneezed twice and backed off
to paw at his nose.
"I don't know," Vayne said, apparently in answer to something the mana had
asked. "I just can't seem to concentrate today."
"Mrr."
"Yeah." Vayne sighed, and wandered over to plop himself into a chair across
from Roxis. He snagged a piece of taffy and popped it into his mouth. Roxis
could feel his teeth creaking with the effort it took him not to stare at the
look of bliss on Vayne's face as he chewed the candy.
"Hmm? You look as flushed as I feel, Roxis." Vayne laughed, and sure enough
when Roxis reluctantly glanced at him there was a soft pink stain on the
normally pale boy's cheeks. That combined with his expression of pleasure made
Roxis draw in a sharp breath and shudder. Vayne blinked at him, surprised,
which at least got that damned debauched look off his face. "Are you feeling
okay?"
"I am... not myself at the moment," Roxis admitted. In the back of his mind he
heard a soft chuckle from his mana, but he ignored it with the ease of
practice.
"You, too?" Vayne now looked sympathetic. "Must be something going around."
"Mm." Roxis rubbed a hand over his face, trying to ease the prickling sting of
what he now realized was his blush. When he looked up again he found Vayne
staring at him with a pole-axed expression, eyes wide and startled and lips
parted slightly in shock.
"What?" Roxis was thrown by that look, which was far too close to what he'd
earlier been picturing as Vayne's reaction to being kissed. Now all Roxis could
think about was kissing him just so he could compare the two expressions.
Purely in the interests of scientific curiosity, of course. Oh, hell, he wasn't
even kidding himself.
Vayne glanced away, blushing hard. "N-nothing! I just..." His eyes fell on the
candy dish, and he paused. "Oh... no."
"Mrrup?" Sulpher tilted his head curiously as Vayne buried his face in his
hands and moaned.
That was the absolute limit. Roxis slammed his book shut and stood, nearly
tripping over his chair in his haste. He had to get out of there right now, or
he was going to do something he would never forgive himself for. He had no idea
what was wrong with him, but maybe if he went back to his room and... took care
of things, he'd be able to stop having such depraved thoughts about his rival.
"Roxis..." Vayne's call stopped him halfway to the door, and despite his better
judgement Roxis looked at him. The other boy's expression was now a mixture of
resignation and embarrassment, and... arousal?
No, gods, he was projecting his own issues onto Vayne. Roxis shook his head
sharply, and was grateful when his voice came out steady. "What?"
"Did you eat any of the taffy?"
Bewildered, Roxis nodded, and Vayne groaned. "That's what I was afraid of. Jess
made this."
"Mrrow!" Why did it sound like the damned cat was laughing?
"Jess? What does she have to do with..." Realization dawned, and Roxis felt his
jaw drop. "Oh... no," he echoed Vayne's earlier words, and the other boy
nodded. "She couldn't have... she wouldn't..."
"Oh, yes she would," Vayne countered, now reluctantly amused as well as
dismayed. And, yes, that was definitely the heat of arousal in his eyes. "She
put something in Nikki's lunch once. I wouldn't put it past her to leave
doctored candy out for people to eat. I think we both just became experimental
subjects."
Slowly Roxis' hands clenched into fists, and he growled. For some reason that
made Vayne shiver and his flush increase. "I'm going to kill her," Roxis
declared. "Painfully." Vayne whimpered, and Roxis was seized with a sudden need
to be elsewhere. And 'elsewhere' was not defined as 'wrapped around Vayne
kissing him until he makes that noise again'.
He turned to go, but froze with his hand on the knob as the sound of voices in
the hall reached him. There were people out there. People who would be sure to
notice and comment on the painfully obvious state of his body. People who might
be easier to persuade to help him deal with this, actually, and that was... not
a good idea. Really. Groaning, Roxis thumped his head against the door hard
enough to hurt, but it wasn't enough to distract him from the increasingly
urgent throb in his groin. If he went out there he was going to end up jumping
the first moderately attractive person he saw, and he'd never be able to live
with himself afterwards.
If it came to that, he'd rather jump Vayne.
No, he wouldn't, damn it!
His mana chuckled again, and he snarled in return. "I'm glad you're finding
this so amusing," he muttered under his breath.
There was a flare of light and sound as it manifested beside him. He'd been
contracted to it long enough to recognize the look of almost sadistic amusement
on its lupine features. Actually, he'd known what that expression looked like
long before he'd finally convinced it to contract with him.
"Hohohoh. This is far better than anything that redheaded boy and I could have
cooked up," it commented, tail wagging gently as it laughed. "But don't you
think you'd best go find someplace a bit more... hmm. Private?"
"There are people out there," Vayne said in an eerie echo of Roxis' own
thoughts. "We can't leave!"
"Hoh? But the redhead might be coming back soon," it said, flicking one ear as
if it didn't care in the least. Roxis wouldn't have been fooled even if he
hadn't been able to see the wicked gleam in its eyes. "Or the swordswoman.
Or..."
"All right, we get the point," Roxis said hastily. He felt himself go pale as
his mind unwillingly followed the thought to its logical conclusion. Getting
Flay or Anna involved in this disaster would be bad enough, but what if Nikki
came in? Or, gods forbid, Muppy? With a last chuckle the mana of light
vanished, having made its point.
"Mrrow!"
"It's not funny, Sulpher," Vayne complained.
"No, it's not funny at all," Roxis agreed from between gritted teeth. "We can't
leave, but we can't stay here, either." Even if none of the others came in...
well, at the rate they were going, Roxis gave it about another five minutes
before one of them succumbed and pounced the other. And he didn't think the
other would remember to object until whatever Jess had done to them had worn
off. However much his body might be enthusiastically endorsing the idea at the
moment, Roxis knew he would hate himself and Vayne afterwards.
Vayne swallowed hard, closed his eyes and drew a deep breath as if steadying
himself. When he opened his eyes again, he looked determined. "We'll just have
to keep an eye on each other, not let the other go anywhere but straight back
to the dormitory. We can do it if we work together."
Roxis snorted. This was the weirdest setup for an 'anything is possible if we
do it together' pep talk he'd ever encountered, but Vayne had a point. "Agreed.
Let's go."
The moment the door was open, they ran for it. Seeing people from their
workshop dashing through the halls with frantic expressions was normal and
didn't provoke so much as a single whisper. For once Roxis was grateful for the
strangeness of the workshop he'd been forced into.
Then again, if he wasn't part of this workshop, he wouldn't be in this
situation in the first place, so maybe he wasn't so grateful after all.
The halls were crowded, which turned out to be a good thing. With so many
people around, no one person stood out to catch his attention. Vayne stayed
close enough to him that they could grab one another if they had to, but
thankfully it wasn't needed after all. They reached the boy's dormitory a
little winded, but otherwise unscathed.
Once in the dorm they had to slow down a bit. Roxis was shaking with need and
it actually hurt to walk, he was so hard, but he drove himself with the thought
that it was just a little further. Up the stairs, down the hall and into his
room, and then he could deal with the problem and his mortification in private.
Vayne's room was closer to the stairs, only a few doors down. "Made it," the
silver-haired boy gasped as his hand touched the knob. He managed to look both
desperate and relieved at the same time.
For a moment Roxis hated him bitterly again. His own room was all the way at
the other end of the hall, and... fuck. There were people between him and it.
Specifically, Tony was lounging against the wall, hands in his pocket as he
conversed with another senior. The older boy was a sleazy creep at the best of
times, but it wasn't that hard to see why Renee was so interested in him. He
was hot enough, and Roxis knew from a few hints Tony had dropped when he'd
still been part of their workshop that the older boy wasn't opposed to the idea
of a roll in the hay with a hot boy.
Actually his exact words had been, "Fuck, you're pretty enough to be a girl,
ain't you. Bet I wouldn't even be able to tell the difference in the dark." But
at the moment, under the influence of whatever evil drug Jess had fed them,
that was enough for Roxis.
He didn't quite manage to stifle a moan in the back of his throat, and he took
one helpless step towards Tony before he could stop himself. The older boy was
even right outside Roxis' room. All he had to do was grab his arm and drag him
inside, and Roxis was willing to bet Tony wouldn't even fight him once he
realized what Roxis was offering...
Before he could take a second step - or worse, run down the hall to pounce the
older boy like his mana would jump a monster - a hand closed over his sleeve
and yanked him forcibly sideways. He yelped and stumbled, and found himself
inside Vayne's room with the door safely closed between him and the rest of the
world.
Or maybe not so safely. Vayne was far too close, wide-eyed and panting, with a
flush on his cheeks that Roxis found irresistible. Now they were alone again,
but the room was completely private and there was even a nice, convenient bed
just a few steps away. It took everything Roxis had not to push Vayne back
those few steps and shove him onto the bed. "What are you doing?" he demanded,
flattening himself against the door in a futile attempt to get further away.
"Sorry, it's just... you looked like... and there was... Tony," Vayne explained
awkwardly. "I mean... Tony."
Oddly enough Roxis was able to follow that, and he couldn't argue with any of
it. Gripping his self control with every ounce of will he possessed, he nodded
stiffly. "Fine. As soon as he's gone, I'll go to my own room." He hesitated,
then added grudgingly, "Thank you."
"Mm. It's not a problem." Vayne shifted from foot to foot, looking pained. "I,
um. I'll just, uh... be over here." He dropped down to sit on the bed, gaze
fixed firmly on the floor between his feet, and Sulpher curled up on a pillow
in the windowsill.
Roxis glared at him. Granted, sitting on the bed put Vayne as far away from the
door as he could possibly get in the tiny room. But it was also the bed, and
that was putting thoughts into Roxis' mind that he didn't want to entertain.
Or, well, it was encouraging those thoughts, anyway.
Turning, he pressed himself against the cool wood of the door, hoping it would
soak up some of the heat raging in his body. He felt like he had a fever,
overheated and oversensitive.
He bit his lip as it occurred to him that from this angle, with his back to the
room, Vayne probably wouldn't be able to see it if he slipped a hand into the
front of his pants. If he could just relieve some of the pressure, ease the
ache a bit so he could think...
No. No, no, no. No. What the hell was he doing? Roxis forced himself to stop
before his hand got lower than his belt, but he couldn't quite muster the
willpower to pull it away completely. It didn't matter that Vayne might not be
able to see what he was doing. The other boy would certainly be able to hear
him, just like Roxis could hear the little gasps and moans Vayne was making,
and oh gods, Vayne had already given in to the pressure, hadn't he?
Roxis couldn't stop himself from peeking, but he found Vayne curled up in a
little ball on the bed with his hands innocently fisted in the sheets. Vayne
was clearly hanging onto control by the skin of his teeth, and Roxis knew
exactly how he felt. Tony or no Tony, Roxis needed to get out of here right
now.
"Ho? Decided you don't want me as a mana after all?" The mana's voice was
cheerfully unconcerned in the back of his mind, but Roxis froze.
"Of course not," he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut. "Do we have to discuss
this right now?" What on earth had brought this on? Come to think of it, the
inappropriate timing was probably the whole point. His mana did seem to live to
torment him.
"Have you forgotten your promise? That boy doesn't look very happy right now,"
it taunted him.
"Wh-what? That's not my doing," Roxis sputtered, forgetting to keep his voice
down.
"But you could do something to help, and instead you're leaving him to suffer
alone. That doesn't seem very friendly in my books."
Roxis stiffened, his spine going as rigid as a burdock straight. He glared at
the door, since he couldn't glare at his mana. The blasted creature had
demanded a lot of unreasonable things from him over the last year, not least of
which was the promise to never make Vayne unhappy. He'd hesitated over its
ultimatum that he shake Vayne's hand and smile like he meant it for over an
hour, but he'd done it in the end.
To be fair, he'd since come to find Vayne... tolerable. For the most part. But
this! This was asking far too much of him. Doing something personally abhorrent
to him was one thing. What it was demanding now was another synthesis entirely.
"I. Am. Not. Raping. Vayne," he hissed. "And if that means losing you, so be
it! I will not lower myself to that level."
To his surprise, he felt a flicker of shock from the mana. It was, of course,
replaced almost immediately by amusement, but there was an unusual overtone to
its laughter. Affection, maybe, or even a touch of pride. "Oya? You can't rape
the willing, foolish boy."
"He's not willing, it's just the damned drug," Roxis insisted, fists clenched
with rage now instead of desperation.
"Um..." Vayne's hesitant interruption reminded Roxis that he had an audience.
Gods alone knew what Vayne was making of the one-sided conversation he could
hear. When Roxis glanced at him again, he expected to see the sheepish smile
that usually went along with that shy little attention-getting noise.
Instead he found Vayne staring at him with a mixture of desperation, hope, and
lust. Lots and lots of lust. His gaze seemed to be fixed on a place
considerably lower than Roxis' eyes. "You could try just asking me if I'd be
willing," he pointed out breathlessly. He paused, and when Roxis only stood
there staring at him in shock, Vayne blushed deeper and added, "Er, the answer
is 'yes', if that's not completely obvious."
Roxis wanted to protest, wanted to say that Vayne wasn't in his right mind. But
Roxis wasn't in his right mind either, and the combination of Vayne's obvious
desire and being given permission was too much for the last fragile strands of
control Roxis had. They snapped, and before he knew what he was doing he'd
crossed the room to kneel on the bed by Vayne's side.
He had no idea which of them initiated the kiss, but it didn't really matter.
Vayne gasping and moaning against his mouth was the most erotic thing Roxis had
ever experienced, and he wanted more. Now.
He leaned over Vayne, one hand pinning the smaller boy to the bed by the
shoulder. Vayne didn't seem to mind having Roxis in the dominant position - far
from it, he was arching up and squirming against him, making little pleading
noises in the back of his throat like he was begging for more.
Roxis liked those noises. He liked them a lot. For too long Vayne had always
been one step ahead of him, one step higher, and he did it without even trying.
Now Roxis was the one above him, the one in control, and it was a heady
feeling.
Vayne squirmed a little too hard, like he was trying to get out from under
Roxis. With a growl Roxis tore his mouth from Vayne's and bit down on his
throat instead, a punishment and a subtle warning. To his intense
gratification, Vayne gasped and stilled beneath him, submitting to the implied
command.
With his free hand Roxis fumbled with the belts and buckles and buttons of
Vayne's clothing. Why did their uniforms have to have so damned many layers?
Roxis was seriously tempted to just tear the fucking things, except he knew he
wasn't the physically strongest person in the world and he didn't want to look
like an idiot if he tried and couldn't rip the sturdy fabric.
Vayne had both hands free, so when he tentatively reached for Roxis' uniform he
had considerably more success. Roxis gasped and jerked against him, momentarily
losing control of the situation when Vayne's fingers brushed against his
throbbing cock. Vayne made a pleased noise and did it again, curling his hand
around the shaft and squeezing.
Then Roxis finally managed to get Vayne's pants loose so he could retaliate,
and it was Vayne's turn to cry out and rock helplessly into the touch.
It became another kind of battle between them, as they stroked each other hard
and fast, each trying to make the other moan the loudest and squirm the
hardest. In a vague part of the back of his mind Roxis acknowledged that this
was one contest he wouldn't mind losing so much, but his fiercely competitive
nature and longstanding rivalry with the boy beneath him meant he refused to
give an inch.
Before long Vayne was mewling in the back of his throat, completely losing the
rhythm of his hand on Roxis' cock as orgasm hit him hard. He came all over
Roxis' hand. Normally fastidious, Roxis might have been disgusted if he hadn't
been utterly entranced by how hot Vayne looked when he came. His eyes closed,
his mouth opened on a silent scream, his body arched into Roxis' touch, and an
expression of startled bliss was on his face. It was incredible.
Not half as incredible as what Vayne did with his fingers a moment later. Roxis
choked on a cry, his hips snapping forward into the tight circle of Vayne's
hand as the other boy's thumb teased over the head of his cock. Then it was
Roxis' turn to lose track of the world for a moment, literally seeing stars.
He collapsed, panting, next to Vayne on the narrow bed. He had the vague
thought that he probably ought to say something - a thank you, an apology, or
maybe just some creative swearing - but when he opened his mouth nothing came
out.
Vayne was watching him with an expression that was caught halfway between smug
satisfaction and nervous concern. "Roxis, I'm sorry," he said after Roxis had
given up trying to speak.
This time when he tried to speak Roxis managed to get a word out. "Why?" He'd
gone hoarse enough that he'd probably been screaming. How humiliating.
"Because..." Vayne's shoulder's hunched and he ducked his head miserably.
"Because you didn't want to do this. You're right, it was rape."
"But why are you sorry?" Roxis said, frowning. "You're no more at fault than I,
and no better off."
Vayne blushed fiercely and buried his face in the pillow, mumbling something.
Roxis was shocked. Surely he couldn't have understood that correctly. "What was
that?"
Miserably Vayne peered up at him though messy layers of hair. "I said, I
wouldn't have said no," he repeated more coherently. "E-even without the drug.
I never wanted anything like this, though!"
There was a part of Roxis that hated Vayne for the way everything - alchemy,
friends, grades - came so easily to the other boy. That part wanted him to
leave things as they were. Vayne was hurting, feeling lost and frantic, and
that part of Roxis experienced a dark sort of triumph at the look in Vayne's
eyes.
There was a much larger part of him that would never be able to live with
himself if he did that, however. Vayne's distress was too intense, too sharp
and painful to look at.
Besides, knowing his damned mana, if Roxis left things like this the creature
would abandon him a moment later.
"Don't be stupid," he said gruffly, keeping his gaze carefully fixed on the
ceiling. "Like my mana said. You can't rape the willing."
"Roxis... you...?"
"I might have entertained thoughts of something like this," Roxis admitted
grudgingly. "Once or twice." A day. Damn it, that wasn't true. Roxis twitched
when his mana started laughing again.
"Then," Vayne began shyly, and when Roxis glanced at him he saw the other boy
looked hopeful. "Then, do you think maybe... oh, no!" He broke off whatever
stupidly sappy thing he'd been about to ask and sat bolt upright, staring at
Roxis.
"What?" Roxis demanded, wide-eyed. As little as he wanted to answer the
question of whether they would do this again, this wasn't quite the sort of
distraction he'd have preferred. Vayne looked horrified.
"The taffy," Vayne groaned, hiding his face in his hands. "We just left it
there."
"The..." Roxis felt the blood drain from his face. Vayne was right, they should
have destroyed the tainted candy or at least removed it, but neither of them
had been thinking straight. "Shit," he breathed out, trying to keep himself
from contemplating all the many and varied ways this could end horribly. "We
haven't been gone very long. If we hurry..."
Vayne nodded frantically, and they both scrambled to fix their clothes and make
themselves more or less presentable. Catching a glimpse of Vayne as they ran
into the hall, Roxis grimaced. They were definitely still on the 'less' side of
the scale.
Once again they tore through the school, attracting no more attention this time
than they had before. They burst through the door of the workshop, both of them
winded, and Roxis' worst fears were realized. Almost everyone else was there -
and Anna was just about to bite into a piece of the taffy.
"Don't eat that!" he and Vayne exclaimed on the same breath. Anna paused with
the candy an inch from her lips as everyone stared at them in shock.
Taking a deep breath, Roxis felt a little calmer now that the immediate
disaster had been averted. He walked into the workshop and let the door swing
shut behind him. "Jess," he said, his tone conversational but his smile
dangerous. "We need to have a little talk about using people in your
experiments without permission."
"Ehhhhh?" Nikki's tail stood straight on end, puffed up to three times its
normal size. "Again? Jess!"
"What did you put in it this time?" Anna asked with a resigned sigh, dropping
the candy back into the bowl.
Jess ducked her head and toed the ground, but Roxis wasn't buying her repentant
act in the least. "I wanted to make something that would help everyone get
along," she explained. She peered at them through her bangs, and smiled. "And
look, it worked! Roxis, usually you can hardly stand to be around Vayne, but
you were obviously off doing something together."
Roxis stared at her for a long moment, trying to come up with a reply to such
absurdity. He certainly wasn't going to explain just what he and Vayne had been
'off doing together'.
"Jess..." Vayne groaned and shook his head.
Roxis cursed under his breath as he felt his body stir. That groan had been far
too similar to the noises Vayne had made when Roxis' hand was wrapped around
his cock. Maybe the damned drug wasn't completely out of their systems after
all. With an effort Roxis wrenched his thoughts off that train, and glared at
Jess. "You have no idea what you just put us through, or how much worse it
could have been," he ground out. If it had been anyone but him and Vayne, or if
one of them hadn't been at least marginally interested in the other to start
with, it would have been rape, plain and simple.
"But I tested it on myself first to make sure there were no side effects," Jess
protested.
"Yeah, how many pieces did you guys eat?" Nikki asked, her ears twitching. "
'Cause I've had, like, five, and I'm fine."
"This would have been my second piece," Anna agreed. "I do not seem to be
suffering any ill effects."
Automatically Roxis looked at the one remaining member present, and felt like
an idiot when Pamela's lower lip wobbled. "I can't have any," the ghost pouted,
sniffling.
Roxis and Vayne exchanged bewildered looks. "Maybe it's only potent for a
certain length of time?" Vayne hazarded, then shook his head. "No, Jess would
have... er..."
"Perhaps it has to set for a while, and then wears off," Roxis suggested,
shrugging. "In any case, Jess, you got lucky. I promise you, if this happens
again there will be dire consequences." She squirmed under the force of his
glare.
The door to outside opened, and Flay came in with an armload of wood for the
synthesis pot. The redhead looked flushed and uncomfortable. "Does anyone else
find it hot in here?"
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