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Stiltskin took his time finishing his notes at the end of the lecture. The medical students around him took to packing up their satchels and began to bundle up against the anticipated blast of cold weather once they stepped outside the heated lecture hall. Stiltskin’s unique alien physiology made him able to handle colder temperatures with ease, so he only wore a thermal uniform under his white lab coat, which provided him with ample heat. He had no need to bundle up, so he used the spare couple of minutes to complete his thought before the next class was due to arrive.
The doctor who had given the lecture was just exiting the hall as Stiltskin finally began to make his way down from the stadium-style seating to the open door. However, he’d lingered just a hair too long and someone from the next class barreled right into him in the doorway, making them both drop their belongings.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” cried a female voice with an unusual accent he couldn’t place. Her long brown hair swooped forward as she crouched to pick up her things, hiding her features from view. She had on a large coat, but had unzipped it, allowing him to see the standard uniform she was wearing, marking her as a student as well.
“No harm done,” he said, feeling charitable since she’d apologized so quickly. Stiltskin took to one knee to retrieve his satchel and the scanner that had fallen out, then assisted the young woman by helping her to gather the papers that had scattered.
They both regained their feet and he held out the papers for her to take, but she made no move to do so. He looked up into the most beautiful pair of blue eyes he’d ever seen, his mouth going dry as she gazed at him with wonder. It was odd, to be viewed with awe instead of curiosity. As he watched, her cheeks flushed a becoming pink.
“I’m sorry, again, I shouldn’t be staring,” she said, flustered. “That was rude of me. I’ve just never met anyone like you before.”
“I’m used to it,” he said. “I’m surprised no one mentioned ‘the freak’ to you.”
Her mouth dropped open. “People here call you that?” she asked, horrified. He shrugged in response and she frowned, her eyes narrowing to thin blue slits. “That’s despicable! If anyone does that in my hearing, I’ll let them have it!”
He could help but smile at her fury. He wasn’t a tall man by any stretch of the word, but this female was even smaller than he was. He couldn’t help but wonder what the ‘it’ was she intended to let the imagined harassers ‘have.’
“That’s quite unnecessary,” he assured her. “Don’t go to any trouble on my account.”
He held out the papers once more and this time she took them, stuffing them into a bag at her side.
“Honestly, you’d think people would be more evolved by now,” she muttered. “Prejudice just has no place in advanced society. You’d think that prejudiced people would steer clear of going into a field associated with space travel, I mean, they’re going to run into other species sooner or later, it’s almost guaranteed!” She blew a strand of hair out of her face on an exasperated huff of air, then blinked, seeming to realize that she’d been babbling. “Oh! You probably want me to get out of the way, don’t you?”
He smiled again, utterly charmed by her impassioned rambling as much as her lovely appearance. “Well, I would like to leave the lecture hall at some point,” he quipped, totally unprepared for her light giggles that followed.
They did an odd sort of pivot dance to allow him out of the hall and her inside. She turned back to him, offering a smile that seared its sunlight into his brain. “I’m Lacey,” she said, extending her hand.
“Stiltskin,” he said, taking it and giving a firm shake. Her hand was cool, probably from the weather outside, but warmed quickly to his touch. Was it his imagination, or did her thumb caress the back of his hand for just a second? No, surely not. Perhaps she was just noting the scaled texture.
But when he would have let go, she held on. He was about to ask if something was wrong when he noticed her attention fixed over his head. Following her gaze, he saw that someone had pinned some kind of plant clipping with white berries over the door frame. When he looked back down at Lacey, she was still smiling, but her cheeks had flushed again.
“What?” he asked.
She angled her chin at the plant. “It’s mistletoe,” she said, as if that explained everything.
“Alright,” he said, waiting for her to continue.
Lacey seemed to take this as permission and tightened her grip on his hand, pulling him down towards her as she stood up on her toes.
Time froze the moment her lips touched his cheek. In that forever and an instant, his mind catalogued the petal softness of her mouth, the dewy exhale of breath through her nose stirring the curls near his ear, the clean scent of lavender soap subtlely wafting from her, his hand still held in hers trapped between them, pressing against her abdomen. And the electricity coursing through him at the contact.
It was over before he knew it, and yet his whole life could have been encompassed in that moment. Lacey rocked back on her heels and finally let go of his hand, a coy expression on her face.
It took him a moment longer to clear his throat in order to speak without squeaking. “Not that I’m complaining,” he broached, tentatively, “but what was that for?”
Surprise animated her expression before embarrassment weaved its way in as well. “You… don’t know about mistletoe?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Does it somehow stimulate the desire to kiss in females? How peculiar!” He took his scanner back out of his satchel to analyze the plant. “It appears to be quite poisonous,” he said, looking at the results, “but other than that, hardly anything special.”
“No, no, there’s no science behind the kissing, it’s just part of a holiday tradition,” Lacey said.
“What does it have to do with your holiday? Is there a special significance?”
He appeared to have stumped her. “I don’t know, actually,” she admitted. “There’s probably a story behind it… but it’s just something that we’ve always done. People who get caught underneath the mistletoe have to kiss.”
“They have to?” This was the first he’d heard of such a thing, but then, it wasn’t as if he’d been invited to many holiday parties since he’d had to leave his home planet. He’d slowly adapted to life amid mostly humans, but things such as this were still new to him.
“Well, I guess they don’t have to, but… well, don’t you have any winter holiday traditions?”
“Of course,” he said. “Just… nothing so…” He gestured vaguely, searching for a word that wouldn’t embarrass her any further. “...physical.”
From the way she was biting down on her lower lip, he could tell that the incident had made her self-conscious, and he wished there was some way he could reassure her. Falling back on his humor, he lifted his eyebrows at her and smirked, “But now that I’ve experienced this tradition, I can see its appeal.”
Slowly, Lacey’s smile began to return and it felt like the end of a rainstorm. “Is that so?” she said, taking a tiny step forward and making his heart rate double in response. “I don’t think you can really have a clear opinion of it unless you experience the tradition in full.”
Before he could ask what she meant, her arms were around his neck and her soft lips were pressed against his. A small noise of surprise escaped him and she began to pull away, taking it for rejection. Of their own accord, Stiltskin’s hands found their way to the small of Lacey’s back, holding her to him as he dipped his head and reclaimed his kiss. Well, if he was going to experience this tradition, he wanted the full effect.
Though the kiss stayed fairly chaste, a mere exchange of breath, it completely blew away the first kiss she’d given him on the cheek. Lips against lips, bodies connected from chest to hip, his neuroreceptors were firing like mad, sending all sorts of pleasure signals to his brain, telling him unequivocally that Lacey’s lips were the softest texture he’d ever felt, that the lavender soap she used combined with her own scent was the loveliest smell he’d ever sampled, that he could easily spend the rest of his days happily breathing the same air as she did.
When they parted, Lacey seemed to be as reluctant as he was, her fingers idly toying with the ends of his wavy hair as her hands lingered around his neck. “What do you think of the tradition now?” she asked, her voice low and thready.
He took a deep breath, feeling light-headed. “Irrelevant to the holiday,” he said, but his amber eyes were soft as he gazed down at her beautiful face, his voice warm and thick. “But highly effective.” At her smile, he went on, feeling brave from her kiss. “It may require further study.”
“I’d be happy to help,” she said. “The tradition does require two people, after all.”
“Of course,” he said, keeping up the game. “Otherwise the experiment would be completely inaccurate. And I don’t often make a habit of kissing myself.”
“Your loss,” she said, then slapped a hand over her own mouth. She obviously hadn’t intended to let slip how much she’d enjoyed their kiss. “Um…”
Stiltskin was glad of his unusual scaly skin that hid his reddened face from her, he didn’t quite know what to say to that. Should he admit how much he liked kissing her, too? Was that part of the ‘tradition’? This whole interaction had left him wrong-footed as Lacey just effortlessly pulled him down this tangent on traditions and kissing.
The sound of someone clearing their throat behind Stiltskin saved both of them from having to come up with a response. Lacey leapt back as Stiltskin whirled around to face the doctor that had arrived to deliver the next lecture, but had been unable to enter the hall with Lacey and Stiltskin standing in the doorway. Stiltskin had no way of knowing how much the man had seen, but chose to bluster his way through it regardless.
“Apologies, doctor,” he said with a slight little bow, a remnant of his homeworld upbringing. “I was just taking the properties of this plant. I’ve never come across it before.” He pointed at the mistletoe and showed his scanner as proof.
The doctor lifted an eyebrow and didn’t look convinced, but he just moved past Stiltskin with a grunt of acknowledgement. He was obviously more interested in getting on with preparing for the next class than calling a couple of medical students out on their behavior.
Stiltskin breathed a sigh of relief once the man had gone into the hall. He was stunned at how quickly he’d forgotten that they had been standing in the doorway, in a public area. He wondered how many people had seen them. Probably not many, as they were between classes and he didn’t remember hearing any catcalls, but then again, it wasn’t like he’d been paying great attention.
Unable to fight his desire to see Lacey just one more time, he cautiously edged nearer to the door and peeked inside.
The doctor was busy with his notes and paid him no mind. Stiltskin looked up at the stadium seating and saw Lacey sitting in the middle of the desks, looking at a tablet. She truly was stunningly beautiful. Whatever had possessed her to kiss someone as strange and alien as Stiltskin? He had no idea. He wondered if he’d ever know.
As he watched, she lifted her gaze to his and her smile returned. His heart skipped a beat, making his breath catch in his throat. And he thought that maybe, possibly, he’d have the courage to ask her why the following day.