Bune shook his heads, his body trembling in Marchosias's grip. "You are a bastard! A lying bastard!" The dragon theatrically wailed, gently pounding on March's chest with his clenched fists, much like a toddler who is too tired trying to reject being carried to bed.
"Those words I said," March said softly, "they were not for you."
Zac strained to listen, leaning out just a little further from his hiding spot.
"I was upset," March continued, his voice thick with regret. "I had thought the Avatar was defiled. When I had found him with you nowhere to be seen... I was rash." March struggled, trying to find the right words before finally saying, "I know how much the Avatar's presence has been helping you these past few days. I cannot let the others kill him."
Kill me? Zac thought, affronted. No one's tried to kill me but YOU, March. I'm literally dying of thirst over here. Why can't I slurp you up?
Bune's heads looked down at March's feet, unable to meet the wolf's gaze. "I am sorry, too. He was not in the room I left him in. I was trying to find him when I overheard your... words."
"Look at me," March said. "In the eyes."
Bune slowly lifted his heads.
"We suffer so that we might overcome," March said, his voice finally beginning to return to its normal cement-mixer rumble. "If there was no struggle, it would only mean the goal was not worthy."
Bune sniffed, a small puff of smoke escaping each nostril. He nodded his heads slowly, repeating the mantra back to March in a whisper. "We suffer so that we might overcome."
The blinding light in the hallway finally started to subside. March's ethereal silver wings flickered and then began to fade out of existence, dissolving into motes of light that drifted away like dust in a sunbeam.
March stood in front of the dragon butler, both of them looking disheveled from the brief quarrel. March's uniform was singed and rumpled, and Bune's scales were still shifting colors slightly.
"Now," Marchosias said, smoothing down the front of his coat with a rough hand. "We should probably go find the Avatar before he drinks any more coffee."
"NO!" Zac suddenly shouted, emerging from the doorway like a leopard-print avenging angel. "THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU KISS!"
The hallway went dead silent. Marchosias and Bune slowly turned to look at the human, who was now marching straight at them, his fists clenched and his face twisted in fanfic-fueled fury.
"THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU HAVE NASTY, PASSIONATE MAKE-UP SEX!" Zac screamed, gesturing wildly between them.
Bune and Marchosias looked at each other, a flash of shared panic in their eyes, before quickly separating themselves as if they were repelling magnets.
"Avatar!" Bune sputtered, his Left Head looking scandalized. "How did you escape your room?"
"You look like you're feeling better," Marchosias growled, his voice a low rumble as he crossed his arms, trying to regain his composure. "Good. No excuses for your lessons."
Zac stopped dead in his tracks. "Lessons? Lessons? Wait... again? Really? I thought I learned everything I needed to know about monotheism and all of its many gods."
Marchosias let out a long, weary sigh, rubbing his temples. "Bune, did you not give him a dictionary to help follow along with the lecture?"
"I did not," Bune said, frantically trying to pin the tatters of his newly ripped shirt together. "But that is a wonderful suggestion."
"Good," March added, looking down at Zac with a stern eye. "And he has already used the bathroom, so he shouldn't need a restroom break until lunch."
"Hey, wait a sec!" Zac tried to say, waving his hands. This was quickly turning from fun voyeurism to educational enlistment. "I never agreed to-"
"Perfect," Bune said, shaking off his earlier emotional vulnerability like water off a duck's back. He marched over to Zac, his demeanor shifting back to that of the efficient, slightly harried butler. "I will be sure he does not leave my sight." He rubbed his face with two hands, his expression resolute.
"But... but... but..." Zac's mind was reeling. The hot demons just had some real, profound emotional breakthrough shit, and now they weren't even gonna kiss or anything? It didn't make any sense. Where was the payoff? Where was the smut?
"I will be back at lunch," Marchosias growled, finally turning in the opposite direction. His boots crunched on the stone. "I need to have a word with a certain gutter bird about unauthorized beverage distribution."
Bune gently but firmly took Zac's arm, leading him away from the scene of the almost-crime. Zac looked back over his shoulder, desperate for another fleeting glimpse of the increasingly caring, increasingly emotionally mature, increasingly hot wolf man.
He saw Marchosias's back as the Captain walked away. The fabric of his uniform coat had been burned away in two large patches near his shoulder blades, revealing grey fur that looked singed and patchy where the angelic wings had manifested.
It was tragic. It was badass. It was so hot Zac nearly tripped. The wolf's wings were a personal debuff he used to console his dragon friend.
"Time for fun with books," Bune chirped, dragging Zac toward the library.