Oh, you touch my tra-la-la

[moonshadows]

“Ohhh, you touch my tra-la-la!”

Illidan covered his blind eyes with one hand.

“Mmmm, my ding-ding-dong!”

“Tessa, are you dancing?”

The sounds of clothing rustling paused. “Maybe?”

“You probably look ridiculous, you know.”

The sounds resumed. “Maybe. But neither of us will ever know that.” She paused. “We could ask your brother.”

Illidan snorted. “He won’t care. He’ll just go off on the evils of the batteries in your radio or something.”

“We could ask Tyrande.”

“She’s probably still in her Student Council meeting.”

“You could look with your hands.”

As Illidan opened his mouth to angrily decline, the song reached the section voiced by a female singer and the tiny Thai girl gleefully sang along. Hearing her come on to him, even through the lyrics, made his cheeks burn.

“You tease me, oh please me, I want you to be my love toy…”

“Stop,” he demanded, hands fisted around the strap of his backpack.

The music cut off and a few seconds later, the stone of the low wall scraped as Tessa carefully sat next to him. The silence stretched, oddly enough becoming more comfortable until Illidan unknotted one hand and blindly felt around for hers. She felt his hand out and laid her fingers on his palm, and he curled his gently around them.

“Oh lookee, Blind-”

“Garrosh!”

The deep, rough voice chided the bully in Russian. Garrosh snapped back in the same language, but a threatening tone from Thrall made it clear that he wasn’t going to win. After a moment, two sets of heavy footsteps moved off as the big mulatto was led off by his bigger Russian cousin.

“You wanna come over this weekend?” The Thai girl asked casually. “My mom can pick you up. She’s making lemongrass soup with wontons tomorrow.”

The thought of coming face to blind face with the woman who regularly packed her daughter double meals so that she could share with him made him squirm inside. He was grateful to her, but it rubbed his wounded pride raw to be forcibly reminded that he was accepting her charity.

“I’m going over to Tyrande’s tomorrow,” he said sullenly. “I take sculpting lessons from her dad.”

“How about Sunday, then?”

Illidan squirmed again. Malfurion had been brewing more of his stupid organic juice moonshine again, and he had no doubts his twin would be getting wasted this weekend. Part of him wanted to be home to act as a wet blanket and keep his brother from getting so drunk that he puked all over their room, but most of him wanted to get away from the reminder that his accident had driven Malfurion over the edge into eco-whacko-land. Damn it, he was the one who’d lost his sight, his academic and social slide to the bottom of the heap was fully excusable. Why did Furion have to go crazy?

“Illidan?”

“Fine,” he snapped.

“Ten? You can have lunch and supper with us.”

“Whatever,” he muttered, knowing that she’d take it for the ‘yes’ it was. Not for the first time, guilt prodded him that he was consistently rude to her.

“Hey, you two!” Tyrande’s no-nonsense voice cut the air, making them jump and release each other’s hands. “Illidan, you ready to go?”

He glanced in the direction of the tiny Thai girl next to him, not wanting to leave her by herself to wait for her mother, but not wanting to be caught expressing concern, either. “Where’s Furion?” he asked instead.

Tyrande hadn’t missed that glance, nor what it hinted at. She perched on the wall next to him. “We’ll give him a few minutes. Tessa, I saw you dancing out the window. You looked very cute.”

“Nnnnyeh,” the younger girl made an exaggerated stick-my-tongue-out-at-you sound. “Told you so.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Thankfully, a honk and a Thai woman’s voice calling Tessa’s actual name distracted everyone and with a brief shoulder-nudge, the tiny girl hopped down and counted the steps to the curb. Illidan listened as the girl’s fingers scrabbled against the side of the vehicle. A door opened, there was rustling, she called out “Sunday at ten!”, and the door shut. A few moments later, the vehicle drove off.

“Thanks,” Illidan muttered.

Tyrande considered commenting on the fact that he seemed to be edging closer to the blind girl, but decided not to risk scaring him away. “Malfurion went on ahead,” she said instead. “His bike’s gone.”

Illidan covered his eyes and groaned. “Great. He’s getting a head start on boozing up. Maybe I can lock him out of the room while he’s yelling at cars, or something.”

“He’s under-age.” Tyrande frowned, lips compressing into a hard line.

“That’s why he’s not doing it anywhere near school property.”

The Student Council President sighed. “And if he’s not on school property, I can’t report him and don’t have to get him expelled. Illidan, what am I going to do with him?”

Jealousy reared its ugly head. “At least I’m not deliberately throwing my life away,” he said bitterly.

“At least, not anymore?” Tyrande teased.

“Two years is the grieving process, right? I’ve still got six months.” Illidan sighed. “At least I’m not stuck in denial.”

She put her arm around his shoulder and leaned her head against his. “You’re doing much better,” she soothed. “Ready to go now?”

The blind boy would rather stay in that position for a while, but he wasn’t going to say that. “I guess,” he sighed.