Bright College Days (Vorkosiverse, PG-13)

[browngirl]

Title: Bright College Days
Fandom: Bujold's Vorkosiverse
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Bel Thorne / Miles Vorkosigan
Summary: Bel reminisces about college coursework.
Warnings/Spoilers: For crack, maybe.
Acknowledgements: lomedet, who is far too good to me, and quietann for being among other niftinesses one of my strongest connections to Bujold fandom. Also, jadelennox, petronelle, and hyel.
Disclaimer: None of these characters or their settings belong to me.
Title from the Tom Lehrer song of the same name.


"Barrayarans!" swore Bel Thorne. Rather like my mother, Miles thought, although Bel added a certain flourish by brandishing its fist overhead. "Backwards, inbred, uncivilized, mudsucking Barrayarans!"

"Right here, Thorne," Miles drawled, propping his feet on the table and trying not to give Bel the satisfaction of his laughter. "Also, bankrolling your pay chit."

"Don't remind me." Bel swung its hand down to grab the bottle off the low table, stroking Miles' foot familiarly on the way. Miles noted, with a dispassion as clear and alcoholic as the bottle's now-scant contents, that he didn't flinch from Bel's touch when he was drunk. Luckily, Bel, being Betan through and through, got more ethical as it got drunker, saving Miles from having to make himself mind if it made an attempt on his virtue.

Tipping its head back as it tilted the bottle ceilingwards, Bel's hair looked that much longer streaming back, hardly any masculine bulge to its long throat. Bonelessly warm with liquor and a job well done, Miles sprawled a little more and watched Bel drink, swing the bottle down liquid-smoothly, and wipe its mouth with the back of one long hand.

"You're staring," Bel said, looking sideways at Miles, who blinked, made a command decision to ignore his flaring cheeks, and tilted his chin up. Bel grinned, bright and wide as something sleekly predatory, and plunked the bottle down on the table. "You don't even look Barrayaran like that."

"On the contrary," Miles murmured, "getting drunk is a time-honored Barrayaran tradition."

"On nasty sludge fermented by wild germs, no less," parried Bel. "And what kind of sex do Barrayarans have afterwards? Do you even have more than two sexual positions? I bet down there female on top is considered dangerously deviant." Bel dropped its silky head besides Miles' on the couch, gesturing as it gazed off into its memories. "Back when I was in University I took a couple of course on the LPST track."

"LPST...oh." It took Miles a moment to remember that the acronym stood for 'Licensed Practical Sexual Therapist', whereupon he really blushed.

Fortunately, Bel didn't visibly notice. Blessed alcohol. "I never had any plans to become one -- I'm not nearly diplomatic enough." They both chuckled at that. "But it was such a pleasant field of study. Surprisingly complex, but with lots of incentive to show up to class."

"No doubt," Miles murmured encouragingly. This was shaping up to be one fascinating reminisce.

"My favorite was the course covering sexual positions -- an entire term! The number of different assortments would make a factorial problem. Herm/herm, herm/male, herm/female, male/female, male/male, female/female, and that was even before we got to the basic threesomes..." By now Bel was drawing shapes in the air that looked positively obscene. "Advanced threesomes, foursomes, and orgies -- the technical term was 'further multiples' -- those were mentioned briefly, since they were covered in another course for subject majors only. The professors probably thought the rest of us didn't have the stamina." Bel waggled its eyebrows, and Miles realized he'd been listening raptly.

Bel paused, then said too casually, "Oh, and you should have seen the lab segment of the course."

Miles gave Bel the satisfaction of a shocked choking noise. It was one thing to envision a classroom of bright young faces taking notes off a pornographic chalkboard, but thoughts of the lab practicals made his head spin and heat curl in his vitals. "Just imagine it. College kids getting naked for schoolwork, three times a week. The instructors made us switch lab partners every two weeks; we herms were always very popular because we're so... versatile." Bel leaned closer, breath softly warm on Miles' cheek, settling its hand ever so lightly on his chest. Miles breathed, feeling Bel's hand over his heart, and didn't melt towards it, and didn't shift away. Possibly, he'd misestimated Bel's ethics while drunk. Quite probably, he really didn't mind if he had. "What do you think, Miles Naismith?" Bel purred in his ear. "Would you have liked to do your lab work with me?"

Comments

[dsudis.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is lovely! Miles getting all unwound and Bel getting him all wound up. ♥

[caiusmajor.livejournal.com]

Ahahahaha, this is brilliant. Oh BETA COLONY.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

/snorting coffee out my nose

Well done!

[vass]

Ahahahaha. Oh Bel. How I wish you and Miles (or Mark for that matter) had gotten together.

[thette.livejournal.com]

I really want to know what an "advanced threesome" is! ;-)

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Oh, brilliant. I kind of adore Miles and Bel, and you write them so well. And, uh, if you were going to write more of this? That would be a very good thing.

Plus, it gives me an excuse to think about Beta Colony. I have this whole thing about Beta Colony, where it's this combination of ultra-accepting, but it's also the place where Cordelia's "therapist" drugged her with what seems like fast-penta* without her knowledge or consent, the fact that it made Miles suicidal, because he was a novelty there, while being the place that was so good for Mark.

My view is that Barrayar has very narrow roles of what people can do, most of which are predetermined-- you are a female, of this class, these are your options, you are a male of that class, you can be this, but not that. Beta doesn't have roles like that-- it has a spectrum of "appropriate", which is mostly attained (you want to be X, so you become X).

But going outside of that spectrum makes you crazy - so Cordelia needed therapy because she didn't fall in that spectrum, criminals are by definition mentally ill (if they were sane, they wouldn't commit crimes!), and where people have good genes**, great health-care, good nutrition... and probably very limited exposure to people that are genuinely *different*.

*which is also why I reckon Mile's reaction to it is maybe genetic.

**Barrayans may still commit infanticide, but on Beta, that's not an issue because -good genes, bottle-births, etc.- I doubt it ever gets that far. Everything is cured.

[lomedet.livejournal.com]

have you decided on Miles' answer yet? *g*

[azurelunatic]

*snerk*

[vensre.livejournal.com]

♥____♥

[wombathouse.livejournal.com]

tee hee. Lab work... lab coats... cold tile... warm.. uh... ok, going back to what I was doing a minute ago now.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Luckily, Bel, being Betan through and through, got more ethical as it got drunker, saving Miles from having to make himself mind if it made an attempt on his virtue.

What a beautiful sentence that is, and it totally makes sense as a statement of Betan sexual ethics.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

I luckin' fove it!

[jadelennox]

Oh, huzzah!

Betan through and through, got more ethical as it got drunker

Heh. So very true.

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

AND THEN??????

Hilarious, btw. :-D

[strangerian.livejournal.com]

This is fascinating. I've always liked Bel, and from the way it got more sensible as it reached middle age from a fairly busy and, er, *pragmatic* career, it really should have been something of a wild card as a youth. And, clearly, during Miles' early career as an admiral.

(I think "they" is a much better pronoun than "it" for the case, but LMB's usage is explicit.)

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

BWEEE is all I have for this story. Bwee, and the voices, oh BEL, oh Miles' internal narration, LOVE.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Delightful snapshot, oh Beta! an oh, Bel! and WHY STOP THERE? XD

[keerawa.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated by Miles' having to remember to be offended. Of course, he's more aware than most that culture and identity are masks we wear over our too-naked selves, between his mother and his ability to become Barrayaran or Betan at need.

[fawatson]

I've only just seen this. Wonderful!

[jumpuphigh.livejournal.com]

I love Miles and Bel. Imagine my delite to find this!!!!!!!! Do you have more somewhere?

[insatiable-nick.livejournal.com]

I think you have a different definition of "crackfic" to me, because this all seems far too sensible and realistic. My definition of crackfic tends to include things like unicorns randomly turning up in the real world, not a perfectly plausible and in-character conversation between two members of the same canon ;)

V. amused. Thank you. (And hope you have comment notifications turned on, so know that I've posted this over a year after you wrote it).