Through a Mirror, Darkly

Chapter 1

Being in a relationship was a new experience for Edwin Payne. His situation was made more complex by the fact that he was dating a man - or rather, a cat spirit in the shape of a man. The circumstances that had led Edwin and the Cat King to get together were an adventure worthy of any of the great cases in the files of the Dead Boy Detectives. It involved a cursed sorcerer and matching wits with the personification of Desire of the Endless.

The latter had yielded a prize even if it had also made them a very powerful energy. Edwin wore a piece of Desire's heart in a signet ring with a red-inlaid letter 'E' on his pinky finger, while Cat wore his inlaid over a red jewel on an ostentatious ring that suited his eccentric and bold sense of style. As a ghost, Edwin experienced the mortal world with dulled sensation. The rings, as they contained a piece of the realm of Desire, allowed them to feel each other.

Edwin and Charles had their own small rooms within the offices of the Dead Boy Detectives. They were currently in Edwin's space - which featured a desk cluttered with alchemical and potion making tools and shelves lined with overflow books from the main space. It also featured a Victorian fainting couch and an overstuffed armchair.

Decades of being touch-starved and only ever feeling pain while in Hell had made Edwin absolutely ravenous for touch and smell and taste. It wasn't even the sex - though he'd quite enjoyed that - but just the pure joy of sensation. And Cat always wore such interesting textures.

Edwin was currently on top of Cat on the fainting couch, straddling his hips and stroking the mottled faux fur coat he was wearing while kissing him and tasting him in a way that he found deeply pleasurable but was agonizing for a creature of Cat's libido.

Fortunately, Cat enjoyed a bit of agony.

Cat slid his hands up Edwin's side, grabbed his cheeks in both hands, squeezed, then slid up to cup the narrowest part of his waist. He nipped at Edwin's lips as he pulled away, catching the lower one gently and pulling until it released with a clack of his jaw. He looked up at Edwin with hooded, slitted eyes and gave him a crooked smile. "Y'know, I didn't come here to have you...ahhh..."

Cat's words got cut off as Edwin bent his knee and pressed it gently between his legs.

"...didn't just come here to make out."

"Are you seriously complaining?" asked Edwin as he pulled back and lifted his expressive eyebrows. He braced his arms on either side of Cat's head.

Cat was a smug, arrogant, slippery, and deeply horny person. Nothing about them made sense, at least on the surface. But his relentless and oddly romantic pursuit of Edwin - and a series of actions that proved his good intentions - had brought him around. The literal and figurative animal attraction between them certainly helped. The longer Edwin knew Cat, the sexier he found him. Now that he had the ability to feel, he'd discovered his own buried libido beneath decades of repression and lack of sensation.

"Does it look like I'm complaining?" drawled Cat as he nodded towards the tent in his trousers.

Edwin settled himself to drape atop Cat and threaded his fingers through his snow white hair. The hair had changed from black to white after Desire had enacted their revenge. He feared for a few moments that he'd lost him - but he'd merely lost another of his nine lives - and had a new haircolour and a new scar across his throat to show for it.

That scar - gained because Cat had defied Desire and helped them, received some attention from Edwin. He kissed the line starting at the side of his neck, then he hummed a note against the most sensitive part of his throat. "Then what's the issue?" Then he paused and blinked, suddenly self-conscious. "Am I doing something wrong? If I'm doing something wrong, you have to tell me so I can fix it. I am rather new at all of this, you know."