I had a dream the night before last that I *was* him and Lily was 14 again by the looks of it? And still I/he was all smitten with her trying to land kisses on her face? What in the hell?

That was weird.

I mean I could argue a lot that they don't even breathe the same air until she's 17 and he's 20/21 depending on where in the story (still a problem in many states) but I just-- I do not believe for half a second that his sexual inclinations towards her are recent. *chokes in horror*

The whole situation is -- yeah, it's just weird, because even I think that if he were a few less flavors of fucked up they would really hit it off as a couple and the age thing was just kind of an accident. And lord knows many of my readers are even more adamant about them being a couple, and seem to focus almost exclusively on the fluff. It's like in the YYH fandom when people just want to produce and consume endless amounts of fluff about Kurama and it's like... Dude's shady. Think about it a moment and the dude's shady, sorta not human, sort of a sadistic self-righteous murderer sometimes, etc. etc. I'm not saying I don't like Kurama fluff, just that there is such thing as wanting too much of it and wanting fluff so sweet all your teeth should be falling out and never wanting anything else when it is painfully clear there ARE other things about him, things glaringly unpleasant and bound to get in the way.

Bless her heart, I have a friend who is like that about "Erik" and Lily. And she always feels bad for him, and gets uppity when they're fighting, and excited about all the innuendo.

Meanwhile I'm like wanting to go along with it because he's like my fictional son whose life I ruined in the first place so the least I can do is give him some moments with this girl who means everything to him. Knowing all the same that I wrote him specifically to come off like a creep, because he is. He's also one of those people who's aware he's a creep, aware of the boundaries he's stepping, but has all these explanations and does it anyway. Then he does that thing (by the end of where Patrice was reading) where he tells her up front "you know, I really am kind of trespassing, this has been really not okay but I have feelings and all that", knowing that she will say something-- wanting to be soothed by her saying something that forgives him for his transgressions. Knowing she's dependent enough upon him not to drop his ass. I mean it almost makes it worse than if he just didn't know things, especially in your love life, aren't supposed to happen this way. He's not off the hook for being schizophrenic, either. I repeat: he is not off the hook.

For a second I was going to find something wrong with Lily but she really is kind of a cinnamon roll that wants to pull love out of her pockets and sprinkle it on him like glitter and-- well, you know, do the impossible: fix him. And when she does feel guilty about something she's doing? Frankly, she's showing him too much pity. Or he's made her think a perfectly reasonable reaction she had was unreasonable. He knows this about her too: that there's probably a way to bend her kindness backwards until it's unproductive and painful for her. Doesn't everyone who's damaged need to seek these kinds of people out, since everyone else won't put up with them? Mariam certainly wouldn't. Paulina has in the past but has learned from it. But unfortunately for Lily, 1.) Mariam's low tolerance just seems cold and judgmental, 2.) Paulina knows Lily has to learn for herself. 

Anyway, yeah, their quirky age/disposition gap. I think these two moments speak for that:

(From chapter 11): Sometimes, it was great fun, and I'd be like Alice chasing a dozen white rabbits through “Crew Only” corridors and staircases while he idled behind me. (...) “One time, Mariam and I... I mean, little Meg Giry and I, we came in there,” I told him, about the hall to the control room, “and we ate candy from the bowl on the front desk that we'd stolen during dress rehearsal. Is that stupid, or what?”

“It sounds just like you,” was all he said with fondness, but with his hands wringing. If he ever seemed quiet when I told him stories during lessons, he was even more reserved when I went on those adventures, almost like I was an experiment of his. Once I had tripped my whole way up to the automation booth and ogled the levers and screens, I caught him propped against the doorway, clutching his pocket watch and fixating straight ahead. When I asked what was on his mind, he said I made him see everything anew; he had a vicarious joy about it the way a parent would with a child. “But you're better than having a child, because I can't stand them.”

(From chapter 15): The King of Mischief's steps were too heavy to flutter like his Spark's, so he carved a steady path through the pines while I pranced all around him like an erratic moth that had found their favorite street lamp. We passed the theater towards the path where we had first met, and he made no mention of going inside. The ever-looming subject that had brought us together was clearly weighing on him, making my fluttering rather nervous, so I balanced across fallen tree trunks and turned up stones just to give him time to find his words. (...) Maybe I was the only one who'd be stunned by it, but the rings of chocolate brown that burst to life as he glanced towards the sun had me tripping and staring in secret awe. Well, I guess it wasn't such a secret anymore after that. 

“Careful,” he told me. He probably didn't need to lay his hand on the small of my back to steady me, but there it was. As if the tree roots rippling in the dirt beneath our feet might sweep us away like the river current, I threw my arms around him, though only briefly. That perfect shiver overwhelmed me enough that I broke away. After that, I told him he should have something and crammed the stem of the flower I had been holding down his breast pocket. The fact that he didn't immediately react was somehow hilarious.

I don't know, I actually love what the two bring out in each other because even though Lily suspects him to be older, this isn't typical behavior. All this childish jumping and wandering and staring in enthrallment is not what she's known for, she's just so damn smitten, and energized because of it. Her feelings for him, on the whole, are transparent and make her very happy. That is also what he is attracted to and has been attracted to from the start. I think he's in love with her by the end of that first moment's day, like legit "I was not planning on this, and now this whole thing we're doing seems 10x as scary as it originally did... WHAT AM I GOING TO DO TO KEEP HER. I HAVE TO KEEP HER NOW? Oh I'll just keep hiding everything because she wasn't supposed to know anyway, or have to know, because we shouldn't have been doing this."

I mean HELL to the NO he did not think she would want to stay after lessons! As the authoress, I just laugh at imagining his giddy, perplexed POV of that stuff. "You want to stay here. With me. Alone. After midnight." Then I also don't laugh at all because he must have been staring at her a lot, and testing his physical boundaries with her in the smallest least conspicuous ways he could manage. And no one is around to witness this or hold him accountable. They're in a little land of "anything goes", and she likes it, and in her heart of hearts she never meets anyone so enticing again, not for years. Despite what I know he puts her through and how horribly everything ends. Even in her mind it gnaws at her that he was her soulmate or something. And he certainly feels that way about her and doesn't keep it a secret. And she's prone to believing things he says because he is "Erik" after all -- he is "maestro", he is clever, he is prodigious -- and if nothing else he is intense enough to seem right.

Yeah they are like kind of fucked up and four years apart at a key time that defines whether their relationship is legal, but. Well, I do enjoy writing them. o_o