deercountry | Welcome Back to the Playground

Entry tags:

Welcome Back to the Playground

Who: Reaper & Disaster House Occupants/Visitors
What: He's moved back in.
When: Mid-February
Where: Disaster House; Cassandra

Content Warnings: None yet

Breakfast

Reaper had made no announcement when he finally returned deep into the night. Most of the occupants should be asleep, but even if they weren't, it wasn't as if he would disturb them as he snuck in through the bedroom window to where he had his old room. It was exactly as he had left it, of course. He eased in, set down his items and slept for a few hours.

He was used to being up first - unless Varian had another one of those all-nighters - and he ghosted on silent feet downstairs. After exploring the traps and usual affairs of the household to be assured that not much had changed since he had left months ago, he then went to the kitchen and began his old usual routine of preparing breakfast.

The morning would bring an extra bit of Reaper to the mix as he prepared pancakes with the choice of butter, syrup and jam. For those that might not enjoy pancakes, he cooked up some bacon strips, sausages and very special eggs sunny-side up. There was, of course, opportunities for toast, but those would come with requests.

Once he had the table set and the food had been cooked, he moved to start cleaning up. Wraith, who had been observing the whole affair like a supervisor, suddenly began a famous and classic peacock call to wake the household up. The black peacock would walk the upper halls like the most annoying alarm clock then move to the basement to be certain Varian - if there - would be a harassed enough to come up.

The first words that Reaper would say was, "if you want a cup for juice or water, there's some silver ones in that bag over there." Because he was still stealing cups in the night.

Room

Reaper could also be found back in his room once the breakfast riot had come to a close. As it had been before he moved out, his bedroom door being open meant that anyone of the household was welcome to come in and talk with him or just hang out.

He would be found putting out his limited arrangement of items neatly or digging through his medical duffel bag or even sitting in the window sill - don't ask how he managed to fit himself - to watch the world beyond the house.

If he knew he were being observe or potentially observed, he would keep his usual air about him which tended to be strictly business or on the verge of going to troll someone in the household. If someone caught him at his activities without him first noticing them, his shoulders would be set stiffly or he would be staring off into space like he was pondering some deep subjects. He might even give an air of stress and sadness. However, he'd do his best to hide it as he worked or relaxed.

Wildcard

[Feel free to write a specific starter in the household! He'll be hanging around and will come upon anyone that needs a good bothering or is open to being bothered.]

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Luca's drawn down to the kitchen soon after he wakes up. He smells food and he wants some. When he sees who it is doing the cooking, he lights up and lets out a happy little squeak.

"Reaper!"

Luca rushes over and hugs him. Sure, he got to see Reaper when he was away during his training sessions, but this is different. This is Reaper being back home.

"I'm so glad to see you!"

As someone who had just dealt with being a bloodsucking corrupted creature for a time, Luz had been trying to keep things minimal. She slept in more the next few days, and was recovering slowly, just so she didn't get overexcited.

That went right out the window, however, when she heard the sounds of breakfast. Rapunzel never wore shoes, so she knew her footsteps right off the bat: these were not her footfalls in the slightest, and she knew of only one person who would be making breakfast this early.

She ran down the stairs and, sure enough, there he was.

"Reaper! Hi! Are...are you back?!"

Maul was still coming by the house even if he didn't stay long. Sometimes, he just stayed on the roof, watching the comings and goings of the Disaster House. He wasn't sure he was the most popular person right now and didn't want to make things tense, so aloof he remained.

There would be a soft sound like something shifting on top of the roof before Maul's face appeared, upside down, in Reaper's window while he was sitting there in the window sill. "Oh, good, you have come back here," He said. Exactly how Maul was managing to talk so casually from such a position and what the hell he was holding onto at the moment to prevent himself from plunging to the ground headfirst could only be chalked up to alien ninja magic.

"Only you would be sitting with the window completely open on the sill in the middle of wintertime," He said in a tone that held a slight teasing note. Maul was well aware of his mate's moodiness by now and enjoyed it most of the time.

Reaper paused from his setting of the table when Luca appeared and basically squeaked at him. Then he had the fish boy attached to him, and he sighed as if this wasn't a reaction that he cared for - no, he did. He had been training Luca, so it wasn't as if they were absent from each other, but apparently being back in the house was exciting.

"Are you hungry? There's plenty of food and we don't want it to get cold," he said, though he made absolutely no effort to shake Luca off. He might not admit it, but he did feel good to be welcomed back, especially considering how he left.

Reaper turned at the sound of feet pattering down the stairs to the kitchen, and he could already guess who it was based on the foot falls. Sure enough, it was Luz, and she looked far more exciting than she probably should be to see him. These kids and their getting attached to the wrong sort of people. Some adult should teach them better.

"Amiga" He stood up from dropping off a plate of hot food on the table. "It does seem that way, doesn't it. Come on, don't let breakfast get cold." He watched her for a moment before pushing out a chair for her to sit in. "You look pale. Are you alright?"

Reaper was aware of the presence of the roof. When he was hanging around, there was very little that he wasn't aware of that happened around Disaster House. If it wasn't him listening, watching and snooping around, it was Wraith who also enjoyed worming into all the places that the Omen definitely shouldn't.

The cold air from the outside didn't bother him. He was kind enough to shut the door to his room so that the cold air remained in his room rather than freeze out everyone else in the house. Sometimes, an edgelord just needed time to freeze himself in the most dramatic way possible.

Speaking of dramatic, he spotted Maul doing the creeper thing and hang down from the roof edge. He hummed softly to admit to the fact that he had made his way back here on a far more permanent basis again. "I see you're still stalking the residence of the house from time to time."

He tilted his head as if to question if Maul was really making a comment about his choice of sitting in a cold window. "You can't comment. You're hanging from a roof in the same cold weather." After their first real fight, they hadn't spoken too much, which was good so they could both cool their heads. He expected Maul had plenty to deal with surrounding the Obi-Wan issue anyway.

"There's no better way to keep warm in the wintertime than climbing on rooftops," he countered. It certainly burned a lot of calories and required a lot of athleticism, so Maul felt quite comfortable right now. His face disappeared for a moment, there was a skittering sound on the roof, and he appeared right side-up as he lowered himself from the roof onto the small bit of sill that Reaper wasn't already occupying. His arms were taking most of his weight until he was able to get his footing.

Once he had his bearings, he shifted around and came directly into the room. He would have liked to sit on the sill with Reaper but there was no way two full grown men were going to be able to both fit there. Once he was inside, he sat down in the space beneath the window, looking up at Reaper. This was also deliberate, putting himself into a position where he looked a little more vulnerable.

"I came to say....I'm sorry." Apologies from Maul were usually like pulling teeth but this one came easily. "I said some very cruel things to you in the heat of the moment. Upon reflection, it reminded me far too much of the way my father used to speak to me, and we both know I never want to do what he would in a situation." The similarities that Sidious and his adoptive son shared was something Maul had been becoming more aware of lately. It was disconcerting for him to think sometimes that his master's claws were still firmly entrenched in him.

"A jog on the beach would do similar." Though, with no heat generated from Maul's prosthetic legs, it might actually not be true. Now there was something to consider; it wasn't as if he had asked if Maul running around actually produced heat for the rest of the body. It seemed like a strange thing to think about.

He shifted his legs on the sill to allow Maul room to step and them push into the room at large. He supposed they were going to have another talk now, were they? He had a feeling that after their little gift exchange for Valentine's Day that they had both suitably cooled their respective jets about the argument.

Reaper, as a rule, never apologized. He'd also never been in a situation with Maul where he thought one would be necessary. So he waved off a glove and set his bare hand to the top of the Zabrak's head, lightly scritching the skin there. "You don't have to apologize, Maul. You know I don't expect those things," he murmured. "We both said a lot of things in the heat of the moment, likely things that we had a lot to think about." It had been... a very revealing fight.

Maul closed his eyes, leaning into Reaper's touch. For him, actions always spoke louder than words, and those that had come to know Maul well knew that often what he wasn't saying was more important than what was coming out of his mouth. That was why what he was doing with his physical actions meant a lot more to Maul than anything else he did when it came to people.

He hummed a little in the back of his throat as he spoke, a pleased sound with feeling Reaper touching him again. Maul was prickly about who he allowed to show him any sort of physical contact, but if he was being honest, he was a little touch-starved. It had gotten better now that he had friends but there was absolutely nothing that beat Reaper caressing him. "Mmmmm, I know, but I felt it needed to be said." Maybe Usagi and her talks of what he had to do to earn forgiveness had finally started to worm their way into his brain after hearing them over and over again.

"Yes, I suppose after spending such a long time together a fight like that was a bit inevitable." They had a lot of issues that had been festering under the surface and they had finally all come to the surface. "What you said about me not be willing to change....it stuck with me. I have given it much thought."

He would be able to tell if Maul was still upset with him if his touch was denied. Normally he could get his hands on the Zabrak when others couldn't, so he did use touch as a barometer on what Maul's mood was going to be. It seemed that this hopefully wouldn't go the way of a snarling match again; he didn't want another. It was lonely without Maul.

"If you say so," he murmured in return, though he wasn't going to commit to such a thing himself. Not yet; it would require a lot for him to apologize. It was why he almost never required one from someone else that he was close to. "It was far more revealing than most fights that I've been in. Normally I don't say as much," he said with a sigh, letting his head fall back against the sill.

He grunted at the fact that something he had slung at Maul had stuck. He too had been thinking, though he wasn't about to steal Maul's thunder, easy to slip back into their old methods of conversation. "Have you found a path you think you're going to travel? I know you've been making moves to change yourself, difficult as it is."

Maul reached a hand up, tracing patterns lightly along the exposed skin he could feel on Reaper's hand and wrist, pushing upwards a little to get at the skin on his arm. This felt good, it felt right being with Reaper, and he knew his decision to stay with the mate who had been by his side through both Deerington and Trench had been the best one to make. His feelings for Obi-Wan may have been intense but what he had with Reaper was too special to deny.

"What have you done in the past? Stand there and glare at the other person while you brood?" Maul said, only half-teasing. He knew Reaper had other romances in his past that Maul knew nothing about which had colored his experience for this sort of thing. "What was your longest relationship before me?" He asked. One of the things Reaper had (rightfully) accused him of was not showing any interest in his lover's past. Time to rectify that.

He nodded. "Yes. I'm still forming in my mind what I need to do but...it is coming together." While some people in Trench saw Maul as an impulsive animal given over only to obeying his own whims, the truth was he often was planning what to do several steps in advance. He wasn't stupid and rarely did he set out on a course of action without already having an idea of where things would end up. Deerington and Trench had made it far more difficult given how often the game rules changed but he was starting to get his footing back after being in the Pthumerian-run towns for going on close to two years now.

Reaper growled as if Maul was forcing something on him when, in fact, it was quite the opposite. He shifted where he sat, swinging his legs off of the sill now that more skin was demanded of him. He moved one leg up and over Maul's head, coming to set next to the left shoulder while the right tucked in on the right shoulder, centering Maul between his legs. He reached back to shut the window as he also let his jacket melt away from him.

"No," he murmured softly. "I let them yell at me then antagonize them with short sharp accusations to get them really riled up. Eventually they burn their anger out and I still haven't revealed too much." He shrugged his shoulders. Back home and especially back then, he had been a shit when it came to fights. Now he was older and perhaps he invested more because he had less, so he heated up more than he had when younger. "Longest? Fourteen years. Couple of years of that I was at war." Not that it made a difference.

He hummed softly as he stroked the one hand over Maul's head, letting some affection show. The other arm hung down where the Zabrak's hand could continue to touch it if Maul wanted to now that his jacket sleeve wasn't in the way. "What have you put together so far on this plan of yours?"

Hiii, I'm here for breakfast —

[ wait hold up. ]

— Mr. Reaper! What are you doing here?

Oh shush, Reaper. Luz had never wanted you to leave in the first place, and it wasn't as if everyone in the house had a squeaky-clean image anyway. Besides, Luz had already been having a pretty bad month, so something good happening was definitely welcome.

"I won't! I'm starving!" And she'd felt weak as a kitten the past few days, so she couldn't even make breakfast for herself let alone for everyone in the house. Thank you, Rapunzel.

"Oh, you know. Tired. Ennui. Blood corruption due to mental stress..."

Fern has been happily sleeping away in his and Varian's room. He had a big day yesterday, a lot of monster fighting in Ache, so he's slept like a log. Almost literally, given the whole plant thing.

He isn't happy to hear the peacock squawking going on outside his door, and after it starts him awake he crawls out of bed and swings the door open to stab whatever it is that's woken him up. Of course, when he sees the familiar omen he stops, stares, and then follows Wraith down the stairs to the kitchen. Clad in pajamas and with his incredibly long hair trailing along the floor, he stares at Reaper cleaning up. It smells delicious.

That staring only lasts for a few moments before launching himself at the man to hug him. Who cares about juice and bacon, Reaper is back!!!

Reaper's closet was bursting with more skeletons than most, and he oftentimes would never admit to the full extent of them. No one had that much time on their hands, and he just plain preferred to be a secretive person. However, since his leaving, he had experienced getting closer to the kids than when he had been around. Trench was a wild time it seemed.

"Good, there's plenty and I can always make more," he murmured. He was more than willing to share food preparation duties with others, but he was usually up and about before everyone else - or maybe just didn't bother to go to bed - so breakfast was easy to throw together.

"You should probably work on the blood corruption thing. We've seen where that goes." Ehm, Varian.

[Oh, the duck had come for breakfast. She seemed in good enough spirits.]

Apparently I live here. And I made breakfast, so take a seat and help yourself.

[ she brightens immediately. ]

Thank you! It's nice that you moved back in. What made you change your mind?

Wraith stopped making the most annoying noise on the planet when the door swung open, staring at Fern as if to dare the kid to stab the peacock. Then, the Omen turned and strutted down to the kitchen, fluttering up to the back of the chair to observe the reaction and also to just plain be out of the way in case a hug was directed at Wraith.

Reaper spotted Fern wandering down, and he clucked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. Really, Fern, braid your hair for bed. Not that he had an opportunity to say anything about that when he found Fern launching at him. He didn't bother to avoid the contact for once in his life, but he did sigh heavily. "Shouldn't you be saving that for Varian?"

Fern requested I come back because he was starving all the time.

[No, that wasn't the reason at all, but he was going to use that line anyway.]

Besides, someone has to make certain no one hurts you.

[Bond or no, he'll definitely kill someone for Ahiru.]

[ starving? news to her. but she suspects the reason isn't all that important, so she puts it aside with a pout. ]

I don't think that's going to happen.

[Reaper moved over to the table and kicked out a chair for Ahiru to take.]

You're right about that. I won't let it.

[ he really is like fakir sometimes. ahiru just smiles before politely taking a seat. ]

I know, Mr. Reaper.

Will you still be able to help me with the spell?

Trench certainly was and didn't show any signs of stopping anytime soon. How fortunate for them.

"I can always eat more too!" She joked, though she was already starting to get full. Besides, the house was BIG, it was going to have its fair share of people who were hungry.

"I HAVE been working on it, or I've been trying to ever since Varian. But this month's kind of thrown all of that out of whack. Doorway is proving to really be all about bonds and relationships, and I have attachment with some baggage I should have dealt with months ago."

[He pushed in her seat so she was where she could pick and choose what she wanted to eat from the table.]

Of course. I'll be able to do research from here easier. And I need to build that dance studio of yours too.

[Which also meant researching building stuff like that.]

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Welcome Back to the Playground

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Room

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( breakfast )

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Breakfast

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