gooseberryhigh | FLIRTLARPING

Who: Diego Morales and Ravinder Dhaliwal
When: Saturday, September 2, 2013. During the Back to School Party.
Where: The Grotto
What: Ravi introduces Diego to LARP during Seven Minutes in Heaven.
Status: FINISHED

The door didn’t so much close as drop uneasily against the remains of the doorframe. It was a bit shoddy, but still enough to block out the lanterns they’d hung in the stone building, so there was nothing but a few strips of light in the musty old closet. Was this actually a closet? Diego wasn’t sure. It was too small to be anything else, which meant he was standing nearly on top of Ravi.

Ravinder Dhaliwal, Ribbonfin prefect, all around nice guy, the kind of nerdy that people found perfectly palatable. Diego was friends with him in the way he was friends with more than half of the school. Their conversations never got deep, and they’d never shared much about one another. He didn’t even know where Ravi lived, or what hobbies he had outside of pretending to be an elf. Not that it mattered much. Surface level was where Diego lived. Besides, the point of these kissing games to make out with strangers.

And this was going to be strange. But Diego could play along. He’d imagined getting paired with nothing but hot girls, but statistically speaking, at least one guy was going to end up locking lips with him. (It turned out it’d been way more than just one guy.) Diego was a few drinks into the night, though, and he wasn’t the asshole who hemmed and hawed about how straight he was. He didn’t need to do that. With casual confidence, he removed his glasses, folded them, and hung them off his collar.

“Ready?” he asked quietly, grinning like this was a great joke. It would be later, when his friends asked Did you really? And he would say Of course I really. His hands reached out and immediately found the other guy’s waist.

Ravi was too much of a Ribbonfin to jump when he was touched, but if Diego was observant, he could probably detect the way Ravi tensed and held himself even straighter. The space was narrow enough that he couldn’t fold his arms without brushing Diego’s chest, although that would’ve been rude anyway, considering what they were here to do.

Ravi found a smile to answer Diego’s bright grin. He tried, and failed, to not think about Tabitha and Anuhea waiting outside, and all the chaos which had been sown last year. It was just a game, but he felt uncomfortable anyway at how close he was straying into a messy situation. Just a game, Ravi. Don’t overthink it. He’d come to this party for a reason, although what exactly that reason was escaped him now as he stared across the few inches separating them.

“I suppose I have to be,” Ravi said with remarkable equanimity. “Um… how do we do this?”

Diego shrugged, but his smile didn’t flag much. He felt Ravi tense under his hands, though, and that made him let go. The silent signal implored him to get serious for a moment, and provide an out. He always suspected half of the people that were made to do this just stood around whispering about how embarrassed they were. So if that was what Ravi would rather do, Diego would oblige.

“Are you okay with this?” His eyebrows raised as he tried to communicate to Ravi that it was fine, really, you can say if it’s not. “We don’t have to do anything. There are literally no consequences. Hey, I’ll even go out and tell everyone you floored me with what a great kisser you are.”

“No, no,” said Ravi, almost before Diego had stopped talking. It was a flaw, he knew, to never want to be an inconvenience, but he couldn’t help it. And really, he was okay with the general concept of Seven Minutes in Heaven. He wouldn’t have agreed to play if he wasn’t. “It’s fine. Maybe I’m just a little nervous because this night is the first time I’ve kissed anyone while ‘out of character.’”

He laughed, softly self-deprecating, and caught his lower lip between his teeth as he looked at Diego. It wouldn’t exactly be torture to kiss a boy for seven (or six-and-a-half) minutes. Maybe he should finally listen to his friends and learn to loosen up.

Diego smiled back crookedly as he casually admired Ravi’s suddenly embarrassed face, which was wasted on Diego. He felt vaguely bad for all the cute nerd girls outside that would have been going weak in the knees at that lip bite. Maybe they would have been less surprised by the strange admission, too. ‘Out of character’ was a phrase Diego might have heard from Levi at some point, but it was hard to place.

“‘Out of character’?” he parroted, and even tilted his head in a manner that was vaguely birdlike. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I mean…” This time, Ravi’s hesitation wasn’t shy, but thoughtful. He’d spent a lot of time in the last few years providing explanations for the finer points of LARP, but he always liked to take a moment and make sure he didn’t rush through it. “In LARP, it’s the way to distinguish between what’s real or not. So when you’re ‘in character,’ everything you say or do is the character you’re playing, and when you’re ‘out of character,’ it’s simply… you.”

He laughed again, realizing how funny that probably sounded. “So I suppose what I’m trying to say is that Ravi Dhaliwal has never kissed anyone, but Ser Viraj Orinmaris has.”

“I think I get it,” Diego said, even though he was almost certain he didn’t get it. He’d watched the LARP players before, running around laughing until they were out of breath, throwing beanbags at one another, but the finer points of how it worked were lost on him. Ravi’s explanation only made it slightly clearer. If Ravi was out kissing warrior maidens, it was still Ravi, and it was still a classmate, and they were still locking lips. Right? However, what was most surprising was that there was kissing going on in LARP at all.

“So, if I start calling you Ser Viraj,” Diego continued playfully, “you won’t feel weird?”

“I’d feel a little weird,” said Ravi, although he was smiling, “if only because he sacrificed his life for the kingdom at the end of our last campaign.” There was more to the story, as there always was in LARP, but he suspected Diego wouldn’t want to sit through a play-by-play of the years-long misadventures of his favourite paladin.

Or maybe he would? Ravi had never been close to Diego. By chance, he was good friends with several of Diego’s exes, but Diego himself moved through school with a haste and insouciance that kept him only on the edges of Ravi’s awareness. Still, in the few times they’d chatted over the years, Diego never acted dismissive. The Azurcrest had always seemed like a nice person, until last year.

“If you don’t want to be trapped in a closet with a zombie, it would have to be someone new.” Ravi tapped his chin thoughtfully, but ideas never took long. He’d been planning new characters all summer, unable to settle on how exactly he wanted to start the new campaign. “A young knight who’s been training his whole life to protect the crown prince? He’s inexperienced but extremely loyal, since the prince actually saved his life long ago.”

“I’m the prince, right?” Diego put his hand to his chest in a refined, regal way, and his attitude shifted visibly. His posture straightened as he pushed his shoulders back. It wasn’t a prince he was imitating, but his far-flung pureblood relatives. They were the sort of people that Ofelia told him to to retire all his flannel for, and instead wear robes around when they visited. He didn’t play his favorite Muggle songs for them, no matter how complex and impressive the compositions were.

“I don’t think the prince and his loyal knight are in a very good situation.” Diego surveyed their surroundings. Dirty grey bricks, probably full of spiders, and only scant slivers of light slipping in where the door and the frame didn’t quite match. “This place has always kind of looked like a dungeon.”

Ravi laughed in surprise when Diego struck a princely pose, but quickly sobered, as befitted their dire predicament. For what was supposed to be an amorous setting for makeouts, this really did look like a dungeon. And not even a sexy dungeon, not that Ravi knew anything about sexy dungeons outside of trashy fantasy books.

“Well, obviously they’ve been captured by an enemy kingdom. Now the prince is being held for an exorbitant ransom—or worse.” Ravi put his hand on the wall, trying to get a sense of the scene. It was pleasantly warm in the building (either from heating charms or just so many people packed into a small space), but the stone was cool to touch, cool enough to help him imagine a harsh tower dungeon. “Perhaps they mean to execute you.”

Diego nodded along solemnly. “Maybe if they ransomed me, my parents made the heartbreaking decision to refuse.” This was easy, Diego realized. Despite all the silliness of pretending to be a prince, he was tipsy enough to jump into it with little hesitation. It reminded him of the old fantasy video games Johanna had started showing him when she first moved in. They had stories so complex that sometimes they were hard to follow.

“I’m not their only kid, and they can’t sacrifice the lives of our subjects just for me. I’ve accepted their decision,” Diego told Ravi, as he pretended he was on stage and these weren’t just lines he was making up, “why can’t you?”

“You know why I can’t.” His voice was quiet, still sounding like the same calm, unshakeable Ravi Dhaliwal most people knew. But there was something else in him as Ravi bowed his head, trying to imagine the fear he should be feeling, fear warring with the need to stay strong for his liege. He decided the young knight was named Narain. That seemed appropriate. “I swore on my life that I would protect you.” His hand closed into a fist against the wall. “Without you, there is no purpose or meaning.”

At first Diego grinned, wide and inappropriate for a man in the position he was supposed to be pretending he was in. Diego tried to get himself back on track. Princes, princesses, knights, kingdoms, and something that would lead to making out. The last part was honestly where he was most experienced, everything else he was going to have to fake. Diego ducked his head, took a deep breath, and when he looked back up again his expression was dire. But despite his best efforts, Diego’s eyes were still lit up with drunken amusement.

“No,” Diego shook his head, “no, I refuse to believe that. All isn’t lost. There’s time for you to escape when they take me to the gallows. If I could walk out there knowing you and my home were safe, I would die with no regrets.”

“Don’t.” Ravi suddenly looked up, eyes wide with desperation. “Don’t ask that of me. I… it’s… an oath is not something so easily tossed aside, especially not when it involves you. Everything I have, everything I am, is thanks to you.” The character was forming quickly in his mind, helped by Diego’s willingness to play along. He could see why Narain was so loyal to him, and how deep his regard for the prince went. Ravi lifted a hand as though to touch Diego’s shoulder, but pulled back, conscious of their difference in station. “Please, Your Highness…”

Diego met Ravi’s gaze, speechless for a moment before saying in a hushed tone: “Why aren’t you in drama?”

Diego recognized his mistake quickly, and gave a sheepish grin. Outside, the crowd had burst into laughter over something neither he nor Ravi could hear, but Diego tried to ignore them.

“Uh, sorry, I mean,” Diego cleared his throat, and hurriedly got back ‘in character.’ Where Ravi had hesitated, Diego didn’t. He grabbed Ravi’s shoulder, taking a handful of his shirt. “Swear a new oath. Swear to me you’ll keep going. Lie to me if you have to.”

Ravi didn’t drop character at the surprised question, but there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth when Diego grinned. Later, he’d be glad to explain why exactly he wasn’t in Drama Club, not the explanation would be very interesting, but for now he was surprisingly enjoying himself. Ravi always loved the process of playing against someone new and figuring out the dynamics between their characters.

“Lie to you,” he repeated, soft and despairing. Ravi finally let himself touch Diego, one hand going to the opposite shoulder and squeezing. He leaned in slightly, but was unable to meet the other boy’s eyes. “You ask as though that’s a hard thing, but it feels as though I’ve been lying to you since the day we met. I wish…” He sighed. “I wish the gods had granted us more time together. Maybe then I would’ve grown into a braver man.”

Ravi was good at this, Diego mused as he looked away, using the dramatic pause to think of where to take this next. He could only imagine how much kissing was going on in LARP, because it was obvious that Ravi had practiced this romantic knight routine before. It was funny to think of someone as well behaved as Ravi being a sort of role-playing Casanova, but here they were. Later, Diego would wonder how he’d allowed himself to go from jokingly suggesting he call Ravi a knight, to getting a strange piece of the LARP action. One thing led to another and then he ended up doing something stupid, as was usually the case with Diego.

“Say it,” Diego said suddenly, deciding to just go for broke. He stepped in dangerously close. “Our time’s running out,” which was literally true, “I can’t pretend I haven’t noticed how you look at me anymore.” Privately he wondered if that sounded more like a prelude to pornography than a romance.

Ravi’s gaze lifted again and didn’t look away, even though Diego was standing almost close enough for Ravi feel his breath on his cheek. He tried to look at him the way the prince had glimpsed in quiet moments, time and time again. “It’s unbearable to think that I might never see your face again,” he whispered. He moved his hand up to cup Diego’s face, his thumb brushing over Diego’s cheekbone. “I love you, my prince. I have loved you since—”

There was a sudden scraping noise, and a shaft of light widened in the dark space. Ravi blinked and turned towards the entrance, his face completely losing the intensity of just a second ago. His hand had already dropped from Diego’s cheek before the door was completely open, and he moved to step back.

Wow, Diego thought. Well. Wow. He was starting to finally realize that maybe this had gone too far when the door opened and dozens of curious eyes fell upon them. That had been a lot of (bizarre) buildup for (basically) nothing. And what was he going to tell everyone when he sat back down? That they just stood there and talked about knights?

After everything, it just kind of seemed like a waste.

So Diego grabbed Ravi before he could start to leave. One hand behind his head, an arm around his waist, and a sudden kiss.

Ravi wasn’t expecting it. He probably should’ve, given the trajectory of their impromptu LARP session, but when Diego pulled him into a kiss, Ravi was too shocked to respond, half his mind on all the people who were just outside and watching them. But the other half of his mind was still in that cold dungeon tower, torn between love and duty, passion and propriety.

So he kissed Diego back. He’d already kissed a couple of people tonight, but this was... new. None of those kisses had involved him pressed against someone’s chest, their arm holding him firm while someone who was probably—no, definitely Levi Kramer chanted Diego’s name in the background. When they finally broke apart, Ravi’s face felt warm.

“Ah. Thank you,” he said, at a loss for what else to add.

“Sure.” Diego stepped back and clapped Ravi on the shoulder with one hand as the other put his glasses back on his face. “See you around, Ravi.” He wore a big, breathless grin, and didn’t feel like there was anything else to add either. It wasn’t like they hadn’t done plenty of talking. He slipped out of the closet, past Ravi, to rejoin his cheering friend and his unfinished drink.

FLIRTLARPING

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