necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (brick and mortar thick as scripture)
ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ ᴜɴᴅʏɪɴɢ ([personal profile] necrolord) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2022-03-06 02:02 pm

06 . the sleepy town expedition.

Who: [personal profile] necrolord, Gideon, Harrow, Paul, Kaworu, "Shannon," Mako, Ford, Shiro, Ruby, Luna, Faith, Willow, Ezra, Zhongli, Perell.
What: An intentional family-and-friends roadtrip to a forbidden holy ruin. A less-intentional catacombs adventure.
When: 3/14.
Where: Sleepy Town and the Catacombs.

Content Warnings: Sleepy Town-typical themes of grief, loss, and surreal landscapes. Catacombs-typical horror per the March event. Also, note all the usual warnings of this character.

[ See this doc for info! ]
peripheries: (they didn't sit close in the hot tub :()

[personal profile] peripheries 2022-03-21 07:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Crying is good, like draining an infection from a wound.

Paul once said that to him about tears and Kaworu debates telling it to him now. Then he realizes, if Paul told it to him then he must know and it would do nothing to ease his pain now. Perhaps later, if it seems like he needs a reminder.

Tears, sharp like knives, form at the edges of his own red eyes, and for a moment he's overwhelmed by confusion, in the face his lack of understanding of what causes Paul to suffer. He reaches up with his free hand to wipe them away and then takes a moment to examine the wet sensation on his fingers, marveling at how it's almost delicate in the soft light.

Ah. A moment of clarity. Tears allow others to share in your sorrow. Even if you can't cry like someone else, you can cry for them, or with them. With his free hand, he reaches up and buries it in soft curls and gently pulls Paul towards him, pressing their heads together, moving his hand slowly down the taller boy's spine, feeling every vertebrae until his arm is around thin shoulders.

With his shorter stature, Kaworu can't embrace Paul like Paul once did for him, crouched over his crumpled form, as if misery were shadowed attacker one could be protected from. All he can do is hold him in place with all his strength and try to ward off the dark things that want to swallow him. Not protecting but standing guard.
terriblepurpose: (094)

[personal profile] terriblepurpose 2022-03-22 06:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Kaworu may not be able to echo exactly Paul's shielding, but that's not nearly so critical as the effort to be there for him and with him at all. Paul doesn't quite slump over Kaworu, conscious of his smaller size (as if the angel couldn't bear him up; but it's more than that, it's the principle of it -), but he does let himself be drawn in and curled to fit. He wraps his arms back around him tentatively at first, then tighter, and he hides his face against dandelion-pale hair.

He still belongs somewhere. He still belongs to someone, to someones. If they'll still have him, if they still want him, after this, and everything else he's done -

(And he lets them, and he wants them to, and he wants so much, and why shouldn't he?)

"Thank you," he says, thickly, and nothing else at all.