Harp's Song

Part VI

Falling. He was falling, and for a creature with wings it was the most disconcertingly unfamiliar thing Harp had ever experienced.

And then there were oncoming lights, blinding in their brightness in a way not even the sun had ever been for Harp. Then pain, excruciating pain. A familiar human voice screamed, and then nothing. Blissful, needed nothing.

Harp opened his eyes to the artificial lighting of a school classroom. He was at the front of the room near a chair and table. Facing him, human students were packing up their laptops, their textbooks, and note-taking supplies. Harp looked down at his own messenger bag, began to pack up his own teaching notes.

"Excuse me, Professor Renault?" Harp looked up. And up and up, into green eyes and bright, spiked red hair. Axel, Harp thought, as the person whose body he was inhabiting simultaneously thought a different world entirely: hot.

Harp scrunched up his nose into an expression of distaste. "Roxas, please. I'm just a grad student."

Those alluring green eyes seemed to glint as the young man smiled at him. "Okay. Roxas. I was just wondering how flexible your office hours are."

Harp raised an eyebrow. "Depends on why you're asking."

The student in front of him nodded almost imperceptibly. "It's just I've got a class conflict, and my Jurisprudence professor isn't going to care if I'm late for a legitimate academic reason."

Juris-what, Harp thought, but the red head continued on before he could ask for clarification.

"I'm just really lost on noun cases, to be honest, and I was hoping to go over some of the readings to ensure I was understanding them properly."

Harp nodded slowly. Cases were a difficult concept for students who'd never encountered them in a language class before. English didn't even have them.

"But the ABA's got this restriction where you can't take your finals if you miss more than three classes."

"The ABA," Roxas echoed, his voice a question.

The student gave him a scrutinizing look. "Yeah. American Bar Association. I'm a law student, just auditing this class since I thought it might help me get a little ahead in my law classes."

Harp scoffed. "What, you mean with all of the 15 or so Latin words the court system uses nowadays?"

The law student's face reddened. "Okay, so it was a dumb idea…at least I got a cute teacher." The last words were muttered under the grad student's breath, just loudly enough for Harp to hear.

Harp felt a pleasant tingle make its way up his spine, and now it was his turn to blush. He cleared his throat, looking down at his planner as he pretended not to hear. "I can probably make arrangements, yeah. Just email me."

The student nodded, a sly smile on his face. "Cool."

He turned to go, but Harp called out at the last minute. "Sor-sorry, what's your name?" With 30 students and this being the first few weeks of classes, he hadn't memorized any names yet.

The red headed law student merely smiled. "Check your class list, professor. I'm guessing I'm the only law student enrolled."

And then with a wink — a sultry, suggestive wink — Harp watched Axel leave, and Roxas bit his lip trying to calm a sudden assault of butterflies in his stomach.

—

His hands were tangled in red hair, gasping at teeth on his neck, fingernails raking his back. The only thing Harp could compare the way his body was currently feeling was to fire. His wings were gone — eyes were probably blue, for that matter, if he understood this dream at all — but Axel still paused to look over Harp's bare shoulder, sliding a teasing finger across a black mark Harp could only just make out from the corner of his own eye.