Wildfires and Whirlwinds

Chapter 9





To say Kyle was pissed would be an understatement, it had taken Pan most of the weekend to convince the blond that he hadn\'t kept the demon\'s food just to mess with him, and that was after dealing with Kyle\'s hour long rant of why letting demonic food into an all-human household was completely imbecile in the first place. Xane, on the other hand, found the whole situation hilarious. As soon as he found out what happened he teased Kyle relentlessly, asking him if it was \'hot in here\' and calling him different names, but it was when he started to call Kyle \'smoke stack\' and \'Smokey the Bear\' that Pan finally had to ask him what the hell he was talking about.



"Oh, did you not get to that stage?" Xane asked curiously, Pan and Kyle sending each other worried looks across the apartment before Kyle finally asking, "What stage?"



"Eventually if you didn\'t get treated quick enough, you would have started smoking from the mouth. It\'s quite entertaining to watch," Xane said with a grin before his face suddenly became somber, "Though at that point you\'ll definitely want to be getting to hospital."



"Why…?" Kyle asked, though Pan could see even from the kitchen that the blond wasn\'t looking forward to the answer.



Xane shrugged, "Because too much longer and it\'d be fatal."



Pan\'s eyes widened in slightly, and he heard a choked sound from the living room where Kyle was sitting before the blond suddenly found his voice again, "You\'ve got to be shitting me, right? P-please tell me this is just some \'ha-ha let\'s play a joke on the stupid human\' thing? There\'s no way that they could create something that could kill somebody off that easily and serve to people at restaurants!"



"They have, and they do." Xane said pointedly, "Oh, come on, it\'s not liked you\'d die instantly or anything, you\'ll still have a good fifteen minutes or so to get some proper medical treatment."



"I still could\'ve died!" Kyle voice was almost at screaming levels now, before he suddenly doubled over the couch holding his head in hands, "Oh… gods, I think I\'m gonna be sick."



Pan looked away from where Kyle was desperately trying to keep his food down to the demon sitting across from him at the table, "What exactly is in the food that\'s so dangerous anyways?"



"There\'s an additive that reacts with your stomach fluid, on fire demons and the like it gives you\'re food an extra little kick, on anything else it starts to burn you alive from the inside out. The smoke is a warning sign that it\'s really starting to take root and you only have a little longer before it becomes a raging inferno in your gut."



Kyle stumbled to his feet and rushed down the hall, the all too familiar sounds of retching could be heard seconds later causing the two seated at the table to grimace. "Man, he\'s really taking this hard."



"He took a bite of food and almost died. I think anyone would take that hard." Pan shot at the demon, feeling a little glad at the guilty look that flashed across Xane\'s face. "By the way, is there some sort of law prohibiting bringing dangerous food like that into a human residence? Because the doctors were very interested in knowing where we got that from."



Xane shifted uncomfortably in his seat, looking uneasy, "You… didn\'t tell them, did you?"



Pan sighed, "No, we told them we weren\'t sure how this happened. Just cooking some stuff we had picked up and Kyle suddenly started feeling unwell. The doctors didn\'t buy it, of course, they kept trying to convince us to tell them what really happened. They even kept assuring us that we weren\'t in trouble because we didn\'t do anything wrong. You\'re lucky I\'m not more of an ass or you\'d be in deep shit right now."



Xane let out a puff of breadth, looking relieved as he flashed Pan a quick a smile, "Thanks for not saying anything."



"Just keep your toxic food to yourself from now on, alright?" Pan grumbled before focusing on the work in front of him.



"Aw, but that\'s no fun." Xane said with a light chuckle, earning a hard glare from the brunette. "I\'m kidding, jeez, no more demon food."



Pan glowered at Xane for a few moments longer, not that it seemed to affect the red head, quite the opposite if the grin he was receiving was anything to go by. Giving up on trying to intimidate the other, Pan started in on his homework once again. He wasn\'t able to help Xane with notes tonight, not with the large amount of work his professors had oh-so graciously buried him under. He swore that they were trying to make him go insane with all the stress, although Kyle had assured him that it wasn\'t just him, they were trying to make all the students go bonkers. Apparently it was they\'re way of weeding out who would put in the right amount effort to succeed in their chosen field, but Pan was surprised they even had any graduates with the way they\'d been piling everything on. And it didn\'t sound like it\'d get any better the next few years, just a constant barrage of homework. It made him actually glad of Xane\'s intervention in his life, just so that he wouldn\'t have to go find all the books and text that he needed for his report on top of everything else. He glanced at the pile of notes sitting at the end of his dining room table with a slight grimace though, he had tried to tell Xane that he could\'ve perhaps typed the translated notes, or even use the electronic note book that Kyle had gotten from his parents, a handy little device that saved everything on a small disk instead of wasting tons of paper. But Xane had insisted of writing it actual paper, saying it would be \'easier to manage\' this way. Pan had no clue what the demon meant by that, he was sure that lugging around several stacks of paper so he could work on his report was in no way \'easier to manage\', but Xane had been adamant on writing out all the notes.



Pan closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache forming again, a disturbingly regular occurrence in his life at this point. He\'d like to say it was Xane that was causing them, but the headaches ha, and they\'re increased regularity seemed more dependent of his school stress than an annoying demon. Ignoring the growing pain only worked for so long, and Pan had to eventually abandon his homework and retreat to the small balcony for some fresh air. Medicine had never worked, instead making the head splitting migraines worse, the only thing that ever helped was getting outside into fresh, clean air, so he had resigned himself to spending several minutes outside every time they hit.



It took longer than usual for the headache to begin easing up; the stuffy, stale autumn night wasn\'t providing any relief. An occasional soft breeze was his only help, but over a quarter of an hour had passed before the headache had even started to fade. It was no surprise when a few minutes later the door slid open and Xane joined him on the tiny balcony, only glancing at the human once before leaning his forearms against the railing, both of them facing out to the drab neighborhood that surrounded Pan\'s apartment. They were silent for several minutes, long enough for Pan\'s headache to lessen a dull ache between his eyes before Xane finally spoke up, "Are you okay?"



Pan cast a look at Xane before replying in a terse voice, "It\'s just a headache, it\'ll pass in a bit."



Xane sighed lightly, straightening up so his palms now rested on the rail, "Seemed pretty bad for just a headache, and you didn\'t take any medicine before heading out here."



"Medicine doesn\'t help."



"You\'ve had headaches like this before?" Xane sounded concerned, and at Pan\'s slight nod he asked, "Have you gone to a doctor?"



"Several, none could figure it out."



"Does the fresh air help?" Xane was now watching Pan, turned completely so he was leaning against the side railing with his arms folded over his chest. Pan glanced at him again, "Yeah, a bit."



Xane nodded slowly, gazing at the floor in thought, "That\'s why you went outside to the balcony when we were at the library, you thought you were having one of these headaches… Where are you going?"



Pan didn\'t pause on his way back into the apartment, "Headache\'s gone, and I still have a ton of work due tomorrow. No time to waste talking."



When Pan sat back down at the table, Xane was almost right behind him, taking his own seat across from Pan with a slight frown. The brunette knew Xane wanted to keep talking, he had been much to short with his answers before to satisfy the demon, but the surprisingly Xane remained silent. In fact, he didn\'t mention the headaches for the rest of the study session; finishing up the books he had brought in peace before quickly bidding Pan goodbye. Even at the next study session Xane didn\'t say a thing when Pan got up and headed out to the balcony, nor the next several after that, regardless that at every one Pan was needing breaks to save his poor head. What he did instead was increase his visits to almost everyday, even multiple times a day on occasion. The visits varied in duration, from a few minutes to well over an hour, and Pan had the feeling that the demon was checking in on him, because the brunette was suddenly going to keel over from a headache, regardless that he\'d relatively fine on his own until now.



But none of that truly bothered him now that Xane kept his hands and his lewd comments to himself, what had him stressing was that he had no idea what the count of their \'study sessions\' was now up to. It was impossible to tell with every time Xane showed up he was dropping off a stack of varying sizes of translated notes, talking about Pan\'s classes or how far he was on his report, and various other things that would all constitute in some way as \'studying\'. It was to the point that if Pan counted everyone of their meetings as a study session, the fifteen they had agreed upon had already been used within the couple weeks of the deal, which was way too soon for Pan\'s liking. A rational part of his mind reasoned that there was no way the times Xane was only there for a few minutes could count as an actual study session, but that didn\'t alleviate his worry. Xane could end any one of their sessions with the announcement that he had fulfilled his side of the deal, and there would be no grounds for Pan to argue on. Belatedly he was realizing he should have lain out more ground rules, such as was counted as an actual \'study session\' and what didn\'t. But at the time Pan had no idea the demon was going to make his presence such a regular occurrence, not with his limited visits before.



And on top of that stress Pan had a new worry bubbling under the surface, he had turned in what the topic of his report was going to be about, the final step to fully cementing Xane\'s help for the next several months. If his professor wanted to he could turn down Pan\'s idea, force the brunette to go a completely different direction for his final, something that he was well known for if he did not agree with the subject matter. Kyle had even warned Pan that he might get called out on his choice, it\'s different from what people usually do and extremely ambitious, which was what the professor seemed to target. But there was nothing he could really do right now except wait until this Friday, when his professor finally would give his verdict on everyone\'s chosen subject. Which why he was sitting at his dining room table, furiously tapping his pen against the table top in agitation, not noticing the several annoyed looks Xane was giving him. "Do you need to keep doing that?"



Pan looked up at Xane from his homework, "What?"



Xane sent an scathing look to the offending pen before glancing back up at the human. Pan stilled his hand and set the pen aside, looking sheepish, "Sorry, it\'s a habit."



"A habit that you seem to only do when you\'re really nervous about something." Xane pointed out, earning a glare from Pan. "So…?"



"So what? I\'m in college with a crap load of work to do, I\'m a little stressed." Pan said defensively and turning back to the current paper that was kicking his ass. There was silence from across the table, but Pan ignored it, he had better things to be concerned with than an overly curious demon. That was until Xane suddenly plopped down into the seat beside him, rudely leaning over Pan\'s shoulder to see what he was doing. "What are you working on?"



Pan glared at the demon and pushed his chair away, "Homework, I told you that."



Xane ignored the exasperated tone, "What kind? Is this for your demonology class?"



"Yeah." Pan mumbled sullenly, and jumped slightly when his laptop that currently had his textbook loaded on it was pulled out from in front of him. "I was using that."



"So what is this? A work sheet of some sort?" Xane was once again ignoring Pan\'s complaint, grabbing the piece of paper Pan was writing on to look it over as well. He got another annoyed look from the brunette before Pan bit out, "It\'s a study sheet for this next chapter, I need it done tonight so I can turn it in for tomorrow."



"If it\'s a study sheet why do you need to turn it in?"



"Because it\'s pointless to have the sheet if your answers are wrong, the professor wants us to find the answers on our own to understand the next chapter better." Pan responded, leaning his arm against the table and resting his head on it, looking positively beat.



"Would you like some help?"



That had Pan sitting up, "No. You\'re already helping me on my final for this semester, I don\'t need you doing my homework as well."



"But it\'s pointless if you do good on the final if you fail the rest of the class, and I\'m not doing it for you, just helping you out." Xane pointed this out with a slight smile, watching as Pan frowned slightly, debating the offer. Picking up the notes sitting at the end of the table, Xane flipped through them before selecting one and handing it to Pan. "Here. In these are answers to a few of the questions your paper."



"You\'re having me work on my chapter study sheet by using notes not from the book?"



"If they\'re correct what\'s wrong? And just from what little I read from your \'book\' you\'re pretty much screwed from trying almost any kind of answers. How have you been able to get through the class this far? I\'m a demon and even I couldn\'t really understand what that damn book was saying."



Pan sighed and ran a hand through his short hair, "With lots of help from Kyle. I think I would\'ve failed by this point with out him." He made a frustrated sound, bringing up both hands to now clutch at his head, "Gods, what the hell am I doing? If it wasn\'t for all the help I\'m getting from you two I\'d be royally screwed. What am I gonna do when I can\'t get any help?"



Xane frowned at Pan\'s sudden admittance, watching as the human leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table, hands still tangled in his hair. Cautiously he put a hand out and rested it on Pan\'s back in a reassuring manner, rubbing slowly when the brunette didn\'t protest to the contact. "Can I ask you something?"



"What?" The reply was muffled, and Xane fought the slight smile that tugged at his lips. He knew it was wrong to find this humorous in any way, but the human\'s rather overdramatic reaction was kind of… cute. Though he definitely wasn\'t going to say that out loud.



"Are you having this much trouble in any of your other classes?"



There was an annoyed sigh, "No, I\'m doing fine in those, but I\'m not in college to become a geologist or any thing else, I want to work with demons, something I can\'t do if I fail my first semester."



"I already told you that this-" Xane held gestured to the computer, "Is completely useless."



"Not to the rest of my class, half of them have already read the whole damn thing."



Xane just shrugged that aside, "Reading doesn\'t mean understanding, I know people that have read through an entire Shakespeare play and have no idea what they just read."



Pan didn\'t look convinced though, "I didn\'t notice anyone else having troubles though, seems like most of them just zoom through this crap."



"\'Seems like\' being the important term, are you only using this book for your work?"



"Yes… It\'s what we were told to."



Xane snorted, "I can guarantee that most of your classmates don\'t follow that rule. Has Kyle mentioned anything about how to do your homework?"



Pan frowned, "He\'s suggested something of looking around at other sources for information, but…"



"Great, take these," Xane pushed the notes towards Pan again, "And start using them for your project. While you do that, I\'m going to show you that you are supposed to be in this class, despite what your text book makes you think."



"And you\'re going to do that... how?" Pan asked, sounding doubtful as he sifted through the notes shoved at him. He didn\'t notice the scrutiny he was under across the table, the demon watching him carefully as he noticed just how tired the human was looking, making him wonder just how long this had been bothering Pan. Xane had mistaken Pan\'s tired demeanor as just having a hard time with this assignment, but under closer inspection it was apparent that the stress over this class had been wearing him down for a while.



"I am going to translate these books straight, no notes or anything like that, just pure straight from the book to paper." Xane said in an official tone, getting a rather unimpressed look in return.



"How will that help?"



"These books are kind of like demon college books, it\'s the same level of education. So, if you can read these no problem, then that means you\'re not dumb, and that whoever wrote this book is an idiot." Xane tapped the laptop for emphasis before flashing Pan a grin.



Pan still didn\'t look convinced, but just shrugged before turning his attention back to the notes sitting in front of him. Xane made a frustrated sound at the reaction he received before heading back over to his seat, though he was glad to see the brunette going through the paper at a much quicker speed than he was before. It took a bit longer to get through the rest of the textbook now that he had to write out all of the text instead of a quick notes version, giving Pan plenty of time to read through the notes. As soon as Pan had done with his work, Xane started feeding him the pages that were already translated, noticing how much more eager Pan seemed as he read through the notes then he had been when working from his own book. Obviously the brunette was interested in learning about demons, it was just how they were trying to teach it that was stressing him out. It didn\'t make sense to Xane, why burn out the students you want to be the leaders of tomorrow before they even set foot into the actual world? Perhaps it was because \'this is how it has always been done, so this is how it is\', a kind of thinking that Xane was loathe to admit plagued both human and demon societies.



Once he was completely done with his translating, Xane watched Pan as he read through the remaining pages, easily tearing through the translated text and looking up expectantly when he had no more to go through. "Where\'s the rest?"



"That was the rest, you just finished the second half of a demonic textbook in one sitting." Xane replied, getting a skeptical look in return, "Honestly, that was the rest of the textbook."



"That\'s impossible, this is maybe a couple dozen pages and there was almost a hundred pages left in that book." Pan nudged the book in question with hand to emphasize his point, it had some girth to it, not quite as huge as some of the big ones Xane had lugged to the apartment but still good sized.



"That would be because written demonic language is extremely wordy and long winded." At Pan\'s doubtful look, Xane grabbed the book he had been working out of and opened it to the last page, taking the last page of Pan\'s notes to compare the two. After finding what he was looking for, Xane picked up both the book and the translated page before walking over to Pan and setting the two in front of the brunette. "Here, look at this. See the last translated paragraph?"



"Yeah…"



Xane pointed halfway down the second to last page, "Here is where that paragraph starts."



"You\'re kidding, right? That\'s a page and a half of text for maybe eight or nine sentences! That\'s more than just being \'wordy\'."



"I didn\'t say just \'wordy\', I said extremely wordy, there\'s a difference." Xane got a glare in response and sighed before motioning back to the book, "Look, do you see how the Demonic language is written?"



"Not really, it looks like complete gibberish, what is this even written in?" Pan questioned, looking closely at the Demonic text. "Did you guys just decide to grab some symbols from all languages to make a language for yourselves, because that\'s seriously what this looks like."



"Good catch there."



Pan frowned at the grin Xane was giving him, "What do you mean?"



"The Demonic language isn\'t really a \'language\', there\'s no way to speak it, and translating it is more like breaking a code, it\'s made up of all the different languages to confuse any humans trying to read it. Seems to work pretty well, though they change how it\'s written every 100 years or so to add an extra bit of confusion."



"Demons made an entire language up just so human\'s couldn\'t read it?"



"Yep, like I said before, Demons don\'t like people knowing too much about them, this was a great way to record years of history without people getting a hold of it and knowing all our secrets. Of course it makes it a little hard for demons to understand it as well, but I guess that\'s one of the upsides of being a student for the first 50 to 100 years of your life." Xane said the last part dryly, obviously not agreeing with the sentiment.



Pan\'s face a picture of pure astonishment, "It took you that long to learn how to translate this?"



"Oh, no, it only took about seven or eight years for me to learn how to translate this era\'s language, I can actually read back to the 1500s or so, but that\'s about it. There\'s a few demons that specifically specialize in learning all of the different versions of the language, all the way back to when demons were at war with each other and didn\'t worry too much about the humans. Which trust me, that was a long time ago."



"Should you be telling me all this? It sounds like this is something that files under the \'humans should never know\' category."



Xane smirked, "As long as you don\'t go to the nearest demon and tattle on me, I think I\'m good. Now that we\'re done with our little mini history lesson, ready to get back to work? I\'ve got one more book to translate before I\'ll be out of your hair for the night."



"Yeah, sure, I\'ve got some biology I need to work on still though, if that\'s okay?"



"Fine by me, though if you need a live model to help you with any anatomy, you\'ve got a willing subject right here." Xane\'s smirk could only be described as predatory, and Pan gave him a look that said loud and clear that the demon was treading thin ice. "I am only offering so that you can get the best college education you can."



"Right. Get back to work Xane."



"Aye, aye sir." Xane responded with little mock salute, noticing Pan rolling his eyes as he started extracting his next set of homework.





……………………………….





It was apparent by the tension in the room that everyone was stressed about receiving the professor\'s approval over their chosen topic for the reports, although by the laidback way their professor was going about the day\'s lecture made it seem like he was completely oblivious to his students current stress, either that or he was ignoring them. Pan highly suspected the latter; he had learned a while back that their demonology professor was pretty much an ass when it came to concern for his students. Finally, they were reaching the end of the class time for that day when the professor approached his desk, clicking a few spots into the inlaid computer system. Seconds later the room was suddenly filled with beeping and ringing as everyone\'s cell phones started going off.



"Don\'t open your phones, mute them please." Serentio called out to the classroom, not looking up from the desk as he continued to press commands into the computer. A little bit later all of the phones started buzzing as they received the second group of messages from the teachers. "I told you to mute them, not put it to vibrate."



"That is the results from your assignment earlier this week as well as my approval or disproval of your main topic for the report due at the end of the semester. If you have been denied your topic of choice, I have already assigned you a new one and it is in your email. And if any of you come into my classroom next week with your phones not on mute or not turned off, please be prepared to be immediately flunked out of the class, understood?"



There was a rumbling of agreements as the bell rang out to signal the end of class, the room suddenly loud once again as the students began to pack up their things and headed for the door. Pan, however, was taking his time in gathering everything, his phone hadn\'t gone off during either spam of messages, and to say he was worried would be an understatement. Did the professor not receive his work? He didn\'t think that was possible, he remembered turning both and surely the teacher would have mentioned something if he hadn\'t.



"Mr. Myers, approach the desk, please." Serentio\'s voice called out clearly in the almost empty classroom, and Pan swallowed his nervousness, noticing the few curious glances as the rest of the students emptied out of the room. Slinging the strap of his bag over his shoulder, Pan started the slow walk up to the front of the classroom; dread growing in his stomach with every step he took. He received an impatient look from his teacher as he approached, and knew from the look that this wasn\'t going to be a friendly conversation.



The professor sighed as Pan took those last few steps up to the desk, still messing with his computer, "I might as well get to the point, you flunked the assignment from this week. By a rather large amount, in fact."



"I-what?"



"You failed," A few more clicks and several pages appeared on the desktop surface, his homework pages, Pan realized as he looked closer. Every question except for the first few were marked wrong, a quick glance and he noticed it was every question that he had used Xane\'s notes to help him, Pan\'s gut sunk further. "As you can see, you were able to accurately answered your first six questions, so I don\'t understand what drastically changed between those and the remaining questions. Did you have help on them?"



Pan debated about lying, knowing that the professor had made his point rather clear on not getting outside help for his assignments, but he surmised that he was enough shit as it is, so might as well just tell the truth. "Yes."



"As I though, let me guess, one of those websites that think they know everything there is about demons?" Serentio questioned, frowning when gave Pan a negative shake of the head, "No? One of the older students then?"



Again Pan shook his head \'no\', and the teacher\'s turned aggravated, "Then who, boy? I\'d like to know who is giving such horrible answers to my students."



"I have a tutor right now that\'s helping m-"



"His name?"



"Xane, I don\'t know his last name."



"Hmph, and where did you meet this \'Xane\'?"



"D-District."



"D-, you mean Demon District? And here I thought you were just foolish, not suicidal as well." Pan gave his professor a glare at the comment, but stayed quiet. "So you meet some stranger in Demon District and decide that since it seems he was able to survive there that he should instruct you in you college classes."



"No, he\'s a demon and offered to help." Pan responded, enjoying the surprised look on his professor\'s portly face.



"A demon?" His professor scoffed, "You must think I\'m an idiot, boy. There\'s no demon that would willingly help out some college student on his homework."



Pan frowned, "I\'m telling the truth."



Serentio gave the brunette an appraising look at his tone, before finally shrugging, "Then prove it. Have your \'demon\' fill out a simple D.I.A.R. and turn it into me on Monday."



"A… what?"



"Your demon, if he exists, will know what I\'m talking about. Now go, I have more important things to do than to argue with a failing student."



Pan grit his teeth, just barely holding back from throwing out an insult, instead he said in as even of a voice as he could, "And about my topic choice?"



"On hold until you bring in your proof, though as of right now it\'s denied and instead your report will be on the varying differences of insect demons. Something that I find fascinating yet it seems like most of my students don\'t seem to share the same view on." The professor said this with a slightly miffed tone to his voice, but Pan could definitely understand the students feelings on that, the small bit of reading he did on one type of insect demon was boring enough, but multiple ones? He wasn\'t sure he\'d be able to stay awake while working on the report. "Now I will not repeat myself again."



Pan sent another glare at his professor before he readjusted his pack and headed out of the room, knowing that the sooner he got away from the asshole teacher the better. That and he really needed to talk to Xane, now.





_______________________________





AN: I am so very, very, very sorry this took so long to get up here. I\'m so ashamed of myself for my lack of updates on stories. Just like for Just Ignore It, I\'m going to be putting all the author notes for this story on LiveJournal.



http://mikken05.livejournal.com/3236.html