Chapter Text
“Hey Alex, check this out.” Morgan bounced excitedly into their apartment, waving a small orb smugly. “I stole it from a wizard. Apparently if you open it, you’ll be cursed so that everyone who sees you falls in love with you, and the only way to break it is true love’s kiss.” They sounded like they were kind of entertained by the cliché, sprawling across Alex’s lap where they had been knitting on the couch and smirking up at them.
Alex shifted the half-finished sweater they’d been working on before Morgan smeared wizard juice all over it or something, and viciously crushed the impulse to offer themself up body and soul to break this hypothetical curse. “You should… probably put that down before you accidentally open it,” they said instead. They eyed the orb uneasily. Now that they had dragged their eyes away from Morgan, they could see the curse sitting in the centre like a particularly fat and malevolent spider, its rose-gold limbs pressing against the confines of its prison, barely-leashed magic pulsing in time with Morgan’s heartbeat as it tried to latch onto the nearest host.
Morgan scoffed. “I’m not going to accidentally open it.” They tossed the orb up and caught it, narrowly missing Alex’s chin. The curse quivered eagerly, as if in response to Morgan’s cavalier attitude. Absently, Morgan started spinning the orb in one hand, fingers tap-tapping nimbly around its circumference.
“Y’see you say that, but no one ever intends to get cursed but it always h–” click “– happens anyway.” Alex sighed, setting aside their knitting entirely. I thought I was the one with unimaginable hubris.
Morgan peered up at them, their face a mixture of guilt and… something else Alex couldn’t quite identify. The opened orb rested innocently in the palm of their hand. “Are you –?” They didn’t seem to want to finish the question.
Am I in love with you? Obviously. Am I cursed? Alex scowled. “No.”
“Oh thank god it wasn’t real,” Morgan almost exhaled the words, clearly relieved. Alex wasn’t sure how they felt about that. Or, well, they were, but they didn’t really want to think about it. One more stray emotion to tetris into the Eternal Closet of Feelings, no big.
Morgan relaxed back into their sprawl on Alex’s lap, throwing one arm across their face and letting the orb drop from their hold. It rolled under the coffee table and came to rest amid a stack of takeout menus. The curse itself had already sprung fully into reality, crawling gleefully up Morgan’s arms and sinking beneath their skin, its tendrils seeking their vital organs where it would rest until it could be broken.
The curse sensed Alex’s eyes on it and reached out to them, trying to warp their perception. Alex let it for a moment, faintly curious.
“Oh no,” said Alex, mildly entertained as the curse tried to convince them Morgan was the most beautiful person they’d ever seen, “it was very real, and you are one hundred percent cursed. I can see it plain as day.” Alex tried not to sound like they were judging Morgan too hard. Everyone got cursed once in a while – even Alex had allowed the odd curse through now and then for shits and giggles.
Morgan sat up abruptly, leaving Alex’s legs feeling strangely cold. They absently adjusted their core temperature, but it didn’t help. The curse crawled across Morgan’s chest with every thump of their heart, pink and gold and hungry.
“W-wait, i-if the curse is real why aren’t you –?” Their voice sounded… off? Kind of high-pitched and careful.
The curse, sensing it wasn’t getting anywhere with its mental snapchat filter, touched briefly on Morgan’s attractive qualities (smart, funny, chaotic evil, stubborn as fuck, distressingly oblivious, yes, I already know, thanks curse) and, realising it had found its in, switched straight to trying to get Alex to confess their love. Suddenly less amused, Alex stopped letting the curse affect them. (The urge didn’t go away, of course, but it did return to a more manageable, everyday level.)
Alex focused on their outrage, refusing to identify the odd tone in Morgan’s voice. “Because I’m me,” they said, folding their arms. “Like, do you honestly think some piddly little love curse would affect me, like, come on.” Yes, they were definitely outraged. Nothing else.
There was a minuscule pause, so small that Alex was fairly certain they were imagining it. “Right. Of course.” Morgan’s eyes darted around the room, refusing to rest on any one thing. A sure sign of discomfort, and one Alex knew they were privileged to see. They tucked the moment away; Alex maintained that they weren’t a dragon and didn’t have a hoard, but if they did, it’d be full of little things like these. Expressions Morgan didn’t let anyone else see. Uncertainties only they knew about. Secrets.
Morgan was obviously contemplating… something. They sounded very slightly strangled when they said, “So would you be able to break this curse, or…”
Initially, Alex resigned themself to an afternoon wasted picking a curse apart when Morgan could have just not messed around with a magic orb. It was all very well to have the true love’s kiss caveat in there but Alex could see the filaments of the curse taking root and the thing about curses? There was always small print. Not to mention Alex’s unwillingness to out themself for nothing when they could just enjoy a slightly different flavour of torment than usual instead of Making Everything Awkward Forever. Love curses were… sticky. Removing it without accidentally taking bits of Morgan too was going to take hours. Ugh.
Alex let themself see through the fourth wall for a moment. They focused on the curse, metaphysically separating the strands of magic that made up the central conceit of it, and… yep, there it was. The small print. If Alex was going to unravel this it was going to take more than an afternoon. A lot more.
“Nope,” they said, trying to come across as amused rather than despairing. I mean, it is going to be funny, they told themself. Just because Alex had skin in the game didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be objectively hilarious watching Morgan deal with this whole love at first sight thing.
“No?!” Now Morgan really did sound panicked.
“Well, okay, yeah,” Alex admitted, “easily. But… it kind of depends how much you like being able to, y’know, feel things?”
Morgan eyed them suspiciously. “...How so?”
“I can totally just tear it out, right now,” Alex hooked their hands into the curse fibres demonstratively, tugging a little, “but –”
Morgan gasped as the curse pulled at their whole being, tearing at their… well, for lack of a better word Alex would call it their soul.
“...Yeah.” Alex let the fibres slacken with a shrug. “Exactly.”
“So… you’re saying I’ve got to…”
“Find true love’s kiss, yeah.” Alex did take a small amount of satisfaction in Morgan’s obvious distress. They weren’t above revelling in their platonic spouse’s misery when it was so self-inflicted. They pasted on their best shit-eating grin. “Good luck.”
Morgan faceplanted into the couch and groaned into Alex’s left knee.