deercountry | Birthday Party

Birthday Party

Who: Paul Atreides and all his CR
What: Throwing everyone’s favorite Duke a surprise birthday party
When: Forwarded dated to April 1st
Where: Bone House in Gaze

Content Warnings: Drinking, underage drinking, drugs (both fictional and not), drawings of space worms, skeletons, will add further warnings if necessary

When you arrive at the house in Gaze, (affectionately known as Bone House), a skeleton will open the door and offer to take your coat if you have one. No need to take your shoes off or anything!

The large house has been decorated with black streamers and confetti. In the entryway and hung on the railing to the second floor that overlooks the entrance to the great room are large banners that say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL” (though one looks like it used to say “Jaune” but was just painted over? Whatever).

In the Living Room, there is a large board and various colored markers for people to write messages to the birthday boy. There is also a table full of bottled water and various couches, chairs, and beanbags to collapse into if the party gets to be too much and one needs a quiet place to rest or a place to chill if you’ve imbibed too much… well, whatever you had.

It is also where all the food and drinks are.

There’s an extremely large charcuterie board with the usual meats, cheeses, and olives as well as an extremely eccentric collection of snacks ranging from individual sized Cheez-it bags, to humungous bags of Doritos and salty chips, as well as nearly every kind of Oreo one can imagine.

There are also various cakes, all angel food. Some are misshapen, some have an attempt at being frosted with whipped cream and fruit, one even says “Happy Birthday Ka-” before that was hastily covered with a bunch of strawberries jammed really close together.

At the island, a skeleton is playing bartender. Surprisingly, it can seem to take and understand individual orders, but there’s always a constant flow of tequila shots being made and sent out to the great hall to be served by another skeleton.

And, no, of course it’s not going to check your age to see if you’re legal. It’s a skeleton. Why would it care?

The Great Hall is the center of activity and where everyone is encouraged to mingle and have fun. There is a skeleton on the grand piano in the corner gleefully playing piano covers of the hits from the Shrek Soundtrack with the occasional cover of “DaRude’s Sandstorm” when it has another one to help out.

In another corner, on huge piece of paper that spans nearly 6ft wide and 8ft tall is drawing of an Arrakis sandworm and it’s giant maw. The game is Pin the Tooth on the Sandworm and it’s… very easy… because the worm maw is most of the board. Even if the skeleton spins you as you’re blindfolded, it’s pretty hard to lose. If you manage to do it, which is likely, the skeleton running the game will award you a tequila shot! If you lose, the skeletons will award you a tequila shot (but it’s rail).

(It’s a drinking game, isn’t the point to drink?)

There’s also a table that has many candelabras on it, numbering up to seventeen. They’re still lit and burning even though there is a sign that says “make a wish!” even though it almost looks like a shrine for the dead.

…It’s maybe clear that the concept of “birthday candles” was greatly misunderstood.

There is also a skeleton dealing out small doses of “Spice”, a psychoactive drug straight outta the Duneverse. However, you must check in with this Skeleton to get a dose. There will be no “permanently melting your brain with ancestral memories” at this party!

Teacher’s/God’s/Jod’s/The Emperor Undying’s study, adjacent to the main hall, is closed and locked. Though, the lock is fairly easy to break if someone really wanted to get in. There’s not even skeletons guarding.

That said, many things are warded with eerie runes of blood and bone.

So, fuck around and find out.

The upstairs is generally off limits. Party goers can climb up the stairs, and it’s encouraged if they want to look over the Great Room from above, but all of the bedrooms are carefully guarded by more skeletons who will SCREAM VERY LOUDLY if you try to enter and will become hostile if done by force.

Of course, this won’t happen if you are with someone who lives in the house.

Enjoy the party! Mingle away!

((ooc: if you have any questions or anything, please hit me up at

worldtype)) or via PM.))

Birthday Board | At the Party | The Morning After | IC Party Games | Spice Dealer

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

To Midoriya's credit, he remains still, apart from a small huff of surprised breath. His small revenge (copying Paul) worked out, the drawing is almost done, and the spice helps. When everything pulses with rainbow light and he can still feel the imprints of emotions around him, it's hard not to calmly lose himself in it all. Still, he has to blink away the afterimage of someone flopping down, catlike, and his augmented nerves clamor for importance when the slight weight of legs tumbles on him. Even the hairs on his arms tingle.

"Paul-kun hasn't said anything, so I don't think he wants you to spoil it," he says, low and dreamlike.

It's been two months since he came back from home and reacclimated to his memories here. He recognizes the feeling for what it is now: It's less confusing this way, being pretty sure why his eyes linger on the rise of Paul's shirt a few seconds longer. As long as no one draws attention to it or flusters him, Midoriya enjoys an inner peace knowing that, yes, boys are cute.

Midoriya is less cute these days. His smiles are warm but hushed, his laugh a rare surprise even to himself. Even the faint pink tint that blooms on his cheeks as Kaworu reminds him he's under scrutiny isn't accompanied by stuttering or moving. The forest dragged something relentless and resolute from within him and put it on the outside. It lowered his lids, dampened the expressive freedom of his mouth, and put shadows in his voice.

There is a stamp of permanence to it like the doubling of his scars. Nothing will be the same, including him, but the party helps to remind him of happy times. Sometimes, when Midoriya is caught off guard with a bright smile, Kaworu's hard work pays off not only for the birthday boy, but also for the people around him who joined the same fight.

Paul is accustomed to Kaworu's tendency to fling himself around without regard for gravity. His stomach braces reflexively before the mild impact, then softens underneath Kaworu once more to form a rather flat but still warm cushion.

"Midoriya-kun is right, but you won't, will you, Kaworu?" Paul accommodates the tipping of the notebook for inspection readily. His own inspection of Kaworu's face is the reciprocal other half of it - he's too much a Bene Gesserit not to appreciate the fleeting and subtle arts of self-expression. So he resists the urge to card through Kaworu's gathered hair, settling for a fond brush of knuckles across his cheek.

It's good, being like this. Having two of his friends so close, tangled together, reassuringly corporeal. Midoriya may be trying not to lose himself in the moment, but Paul is long-lost to joyous thoughtlessness.

So he leans in to whisper to Kaworu, with skill born of extensive practice: "It's him as a girl. Don't say anything."

The picture Kaworu has examined is a reasonably good one. It captures Midoriya's expression in the instants of his bright smiles well, and highlights his best features flatteringly without veering from reality. In fact, it barely veers from reality at all, besides the penciled application of eyeliner much like Kaworu's own.

"No! I kept this whole party secret. didn't I?"

This is slander! And the tequila is getting his fighting spirit up! But the spice is making him feel more ease the longer he rests against Paul, as though he can feel the all of Paul's dedication to his task thrumming in the air. Midoriya's knees thighs underneath his knees are solid but still soft enough to be comfortable.

All of this is very comfortable. Kaworu leans, cat-like, into the knuckle brushed across his cheek, enjoying the odd tingling, almost ticklish, sensation it brings. Then he leans up, pressing his ear to Paul's lips, to receive the whisper.

His nose wrinkles in confusion, eyes flutter between, the image and Midoriya himself. It's good but it's also... It's interesting (unsure)! There's a dramatic flop back onto Paul as he tries to rearrange his expression into something neutral.

"It's really good."

See! No spoiling!

"I am sorry Paul-kun, but for your sake, we were all in on it."

He didn't hear the whisper, but he caught the tail end of Kaworu's insistence. He relaxes his thighs and settles into his previous state, bar the occasional tingling thrill across his nerves whenever Kaworu shifts. Kaworu is lucky: Midoriya doesn't skip leg day. Midoriya doesn't look one bit sorry for being complicit in the grand birthday conspiracy. He is looking at the different, interesting pull of Kaworu's hair, no color and every color in it. He blinks slowly and lazily, picking up on Paul's fondness like cotton in the air. It's so soft. As ever, he forgets to look away, but this is good for the drawing.

The back of the notebook arrests his eye as well. Such suspense, but Midoriya is patient. In fairness to this hypothetical girl (and Midoriya), there are subtle differences: a very slight softening in nose and jaw and a lack of adam's apple. So, the picture really is not that different from reality. The eyeliner, as evidenced by the two sitting in front of (and in Kaworu's case, lounging on) him, is incidental when it comes to gender, but all-important when it comes to style, which Midoriya lacks.

"He seems to have worked hard on it." Kaworu seems unsure, but oh well, as long as he's comfortable...

"Oh, so we're reminding me that everyone fooled me, again? What a gift," Paul says, in the mildest of mock-affront, and then laughs at himself wide and bright enough to rock Kaworu's resting head on his stomach.

It doesn't bother him, which is a surprise all on its own. Possibly because it's not the kind of conspiracy against him he's trained to look for, or possibly because he trusts them enough to allow for surprises - to lower his guard to the degree that he's finally stopped sifting their every word and gesture for secondary meanings automatically.

People here, especially these two, tend to say and do what they mean the first time. Paul is trying to emulate that, even in his pleasant, simmeringly warm state, although he still tends to circle his meaning first, as intentional about honesty as he is about deception.

"I forgive you both, again," he says, magnanimously, and taps his pencil against the back of Kaworu's hand, "Do you think it looks done yet?"

"I'm not sorry."

Kaworu clarifies, trying to look detached but he grins when Paul laughs bright enough to rock him gently, a proud, almost self-assured little grin that feels foreign and yet comfortable on his face. The sound of that laugh will echo in his mind.

For a few minutes, he settles, closing his eyes and letting the rumblings of the party around him, and the soft rhythmic rise and fall of Paul's stomach slowly soothe him into a peaceful trance. Then Paul taps his hand and he blinks his eyes open. There's the picture of Midoriya and all his features captured, perhaps just a bit softer, with eyeliner.

Hmm.

The boy-turned-angel sits up, settling easily into Paul's lap without even thinking about it. He squints at the picture again.

"There's something missing."

He takes the notepad and adds a pair of respectable breasts to the image of Midoriya. Respectable both in size and in drawing skill. These aren't out of these world anime bazongas, they are classy boobs worthy of a hero-in-training.

He breaks form and forgets that he's being drawn. An open grin spreads on his face. The Midoriya before the battle giddily shines through as he catches the joy of that uninhibited laugh. Once, Paul's glowing Corrupted eyes carved themselves on Midoriya's heart as a defeat. Paul's laughter is a victory.

These past months left little time for things like sitting like this, close and comfortable. His nerves thrill again as Kaworu moves without thinking. Midoriya resigns himself to this pleasant electricity. Belatedly he rearranges himself back into Paul's stupid, attractive pose.

"A team-up?" he asks mildly, using the jargon of Heroes as he watches Kaworu begin to draw. For the first time, he doubts his friends--or rather, he trusts them. He trusts them to be up to something. "Don't know if I should be excited or nervous." Even if it's just all the talk about fooling one of their number already, it's funny.

He'd leave it at that, but he's floating on clouds. He gives Kaworu's knee a gentle poke and Paul a similarly soft punt with his foot. (His red sneakers are... somewhere. Oh yes, just over there. They're comfortable, but socks are more so.)

Paul captures Deku's socked foot in one hand, thoughtlessly quick, to press his thumb against its arch before releasing it (to fall, casually, onto Kaworu's belly). He does this without looking up from the drawing, his mouth a very carefully pressed, inexpressive line as he considers the additions Kaworu has made.

"Excited," Paul says, nodding with utmost gravity, an appraiser approving a piece for inclusion in a grand hall's portraiture, "You remember when I was a girl, don't you?" As if Deku would forget. "I've felt like that wasn't fair for a while now."

Fair, the language of friends at play. Paul isn't trying to right an injustice or settle a debt, and the only thing he wants to prove is that - given time - he can learn to make better jokes. He can be the kind of friend that other people would like him to be, the kind of friend he finds himself wanting to be.

"Why should I be the only one who gets to know how good looking I am as a woman? So - " Paul turns the notebook with a flourish, presenting the collaborative work produced by the team up of two intoxicated clownfish teenagers "- behold - your other self."

"You were a girl?" Kaworu asks with something that sounds like incredulous relief. He is, quite thankful, he met Paul as a boy and not a girl. Not that there's anything wrong with girls. He likes many girls and they're all pretty to look at, not to mention fearless. But there was just... something about boys. "You'd be a cute girl, but you're a cuter boy. Izuku-kun too. Cute boy."

Oh, wait he's getting off-topic and his face suddenly feels hot. He retreats back to resting against Paul's chest but raises his hands and does a jazz hands around the notebook presented in a gesture clearly meant to be "ta-da!" to someone who doesn't know the phrase.

"Surprise! Look at you Izuku-kun." It's such a nice drawing. "I added these because Paul forgot them." He points with flourish to the chest.

The arch of the foot is protected by the nature of its shape and not accustomed to being pressed. The sinews of the leg flow into it in concentration. It's a hard target to hit in a real fight, almost negligible for the sake of practicality, but Midoriya knows of it. He knows why his breath very briefly and quietly hitches. (He mustn't draw his leg back or twitch in any way; that's an admission to--something.) He is powerless to prevent his foot from being deposited on Kaworu.

"Hm?" He doesn't know why he's bringing Pauline up, but Paul's shown he's dwelled on that before. Paul thought he, as Pauline, had some uncool moments, apparently. Paul hasn't told Kaworu--it's not significant, or perhaps too much so--until now, and Midoriya puts a pin in that.

Midoriya was the one who got pranked. He still isn't entirely sure why Pauline, too, turned pink. He was a little--preoccupied--himself at the time. He was busy not thinking of himself through someone else's eyes, because he doesn't think of himself, as a habit. If he did that, it would be--weird. If he did that, he wouldn't be, tragically, himself.

So he very much does not think of himself when Kaworu's pale skin shows its heat, and a similar flush threatens to overtake Midoriya's freckles.

He's in the middle of innocently reaching for the notebook. His eyes widen, blink, widen again. His mouth falls open.

"HUH??" They got him.

Paul's face falls like a toppling egg from a proverbial wall, his shoulders dropping precipitously as Midoriya reacts with such stunned shock. That's not at all the reaction he was going for, and it even distracts him from Kaworu's declaration that Paul is a cute boy - partially because he's heard it before, even if it sparks brighter like this, tangled warmly together.

"You don't like it?" He asks, leaning over to peer at the drawing with narrowed eyes, looking for whatever hideous mistake has evoked this. There must be something wrong with his perspective, because it still seems flattering. Perhaps he didn't make it enough so. Fleetingly, he ponders if making certain aspects larger would have helped.

"I tried not to make her too different from you-" And that is, of course, when he hits on the answer that should have been obvious all along. He looks up from the drawing with concern, his eyebrows pulling together.

"Do you not think you're good-looking, Midoriya-kun? You are. Kaworu is right."

“Maybe I should have made the chest bigger.”

Kaworu says, like he still might, and reaches out to affectionately pat Paul’s hand. It’s not his drawing. At least, that’s what Kaworu thinks. And thankfully, Paul makes the connection about Midoriya, something that Kaworu could have never considered. Midoriya is cute. It’s as simple as that.

“I could put eyeliner on you if you want.”

"I--that's not--" he breathes like someone dying. His incandescent flush indicates he is very much alive. There are two attractive people looking at him and saying these things baldly to his face. "Guys--listen--I was just surprised. You got me."

He lets slip a snatch of laughter, because this is all so silly, and objectively, the joke was good. He expected them to laugh, especially Paul. Why is Paul so serious about it now, so earnest?

He snatches the notebook to him (quickly but gently, in the careful way he handles other people's possessions). He observes, more properly now, the care with which she was drawn. He's not used to thinking of himself as being looked at like that. It's vastly more important than any other artist's rendition, because of the person who drew it (and the one who added to it). His fingers curl gently around its edges.

Himself, through someone else's eyes.

Looking up at them again deepens the pink in his face, but he doesn't look away. He feels too much sincerity and fondness to cheapen it. The imploding bloom in his chest almost hurts. He doesn't know what it is, exactly, or what to do with it.

"Thank you."

The look of someone genuinely and deeply touched is a rare one. It's a thing that happens every day, but only ever witnessed by one or two people at a time - or so the flitting soft-logic of his thought goes. Midoriya looks like a dappled pink orchid framed in glossy green leaves, blooming right before their eyes.

If he was good-looking in surprise, he's luminous in his happiness. Paul has noticed that happens to people, thinks about it as he rests his emptied hand on Kaworu's chest.

"You're welcome," Paul says, softly sincere, because a thank you like that deserves an answer as heartfelt, "You should keep the notebook. You might like the other drawings. They're of things I saw out in the woods."

He says it, and contemplates the chances Midoriya will try to offer it back. He decides to employ a proactive strategy of distraction.

"All kinds of people would be willing to duel for both of your honors."

Kaworu watches Midoriya's face, his eyes growing so wide as he looks at the notebook that they reflect all the light dancing across the room like a galaxy in a green sea. It's a genuine emotion, but one Kaworu can't quite place. He thinks, no he is certain, that Midoriya is happy but it's not a kind of happiness that he knows. It's something very new and Kaworu can't quite decide if it's something very far or something near to him.

His eyes drift from Midoriya's face up to the ceiling again, as if staring at the empty space will index his thoughts and give him the answers he desires. There's nothing but a pleasant chorus of voices and twisting dancing light as his body seems to drift somewhere between here and there.

Then Paul says something and Kaworu is suddenly aware of the weight of the other boy's hand on his chest. Red eyes glance upwards. Honor... it's something humans talk about. Especially in Japan. Something that harkens back to Samurai and old eras. It's about families and structures and things like that. Distant things.'

He moves to pull his knees to his chest but realizes that the gesture would shift Midoriya so instead he simply knots his fingers and watches how they seem to blend together.

"I don't know what that means."

"But it's yours, you should--" He stops himself. He thinks Paul could, with the timepiece of his mind, simply recall what he studied. He doesn't need the drawings like Midoriya needs his notes; he could still see them with perfect memory. Midoriya still debates removing the drawing of himself and leaving it here. There's a joy and potent sentimentality in being able to touch something, and Kaworu can look at it too. Midoriya is just thankful for this moment that they gave him, fleetingly intangible, permanently rooted.

Paul's words do still make him blush, his fuchsia cheeks already blooming at capacity, but he is distracted by something else too. He's turning the pages of plants Paul found and thought captivating enough to study by hand. (Midoriya, too, was something Paul and Kaworu found in the woods, but they were unable to capture him then.)

Sensing an unrealized shift in the person whose legs are jumbled with his, he answers Kaworu's unspoken question,

"I guess it's what makes you hold your head up high? Dignity you give yourself and others? It can mean different things to different people. What Paul-kun means is that he thinks we are good-looking enough to have people fight about us." If he ever entertained a hope that his flush would subside, it is lost now, but it won't stop him from giving back even just a tenth of what was given to him:

"He is too, both as a boy and a girl." Important information.

Paul could stem the brush of color in his own face, if he wanted to, but it strikes him as unfair, so he refrains. He has pictures of his other self (recorded by her, for posterity), and he knows his own looks. Really, he should take it as an objective assessment.

But it's not quite meant that way, although he doesn't think it's meant another. It has the same quality as Midoriya's comments about his form during sparring, which opens up an avenue of thought Paul steers himself away from immediately. Midoriya's heart is in his own open palm more often than not, and there's nothing to be read into that.

"He's right," Paul joins Midoriya in explaining, anchoring Kaworu down with the hand on his chest, sensitive to the minute twitch that often signals Kaworu's withdrawals, "He's also right about honor. But I wouldn't let anyone fight over you like that. It's presumptuous."

Naturally, it's not presumptuous of Paul to decide that certain duels involving his friends are off-limits.

"I am...?"

Red eyes look between the other two, trying to scrape further any further understanding he can find from their eyes, their expression, anything he can get. Kaworu never thought much about what he looks like. For most of his life, he's felt caged by this form that humans created for him. And all he's known is that he's not put together right, made up of bits and parts that don't go together. At best, he's known that humans to find him eerie and disconcerting, which was probably helpful for viewing him as a creature and not a child.

It's strange to suddenly realizes that he quite cares if Paul and Midoriya find him attractive and that he would feel ashamed if he saw them that way and yet he wasn't much to them at all. It is, he vaguely understands, not an uncommon human dilemma.

Paul's hand suddenly pushes harder on his chest and there's a brief moment where he trembles, as if he considers running away, before he collapses back against the other boy, hand coming up to hold and confirm the steadying force. Midoriya is there too and the place where they meet is warm. He doesn't want to leave or to break this.

"It might not be so bad." Kaworu says, a little quietly. "If someone were to fight over you, it must mean you matter to them."

Even if Paul had suppressed his blush, Midoriya can feel it plucking at the spice-webbed air encapsulating the three of them. He hadn't expected that, and he stares too long at the new coral added to the angle of his cheek. He darts his eyes away from it, looks at Kaworu--This does not help.

"Yes," he answers him immediately. Whether or not he is attracted to someone, he gives compliments just for their own sake, without thought. Midoriya can't flirt on purpose to save his life. The boy who doesn't think of himself or his wants has, of course, never entertained wanting someone for himself.

He cannot identify the implosion in his chest, which resembles the strong feelings he has for his close friends anyway. Even if he did, would he burden someone with such a thing? It's not selfishness in his eyes when other people do it, but someone so extremely selfless can only spend his waking hours thinking of how he can help others. He only knows how to be a good friend.

"Sometimes people fight about their idea of a person, without considering them. But yes, maybe not in a duel, but... I think fighting for someone when they're in need of help is the coolest thing. An honorable thing. So, that time, when you said you wouldn't let anyone hurt me, I was so grateful," he ends softly. He rests the notebook and an arm over Kaworu's legs. He's not going anywhere.

The uncertain vulnerability that opens up in Kaworu's expression like an old injury does make Paul want to fight something, an impulse that skates across the backs of his knuckles where Kaworu clings to his anchoring hand. He's grateful for Midoriya's intervention, glancing warmly at the other boy briefly from underneath his eyelashes before returning his attention to Kaworu.

"You are handsome." Paul brings the hand not on Kaworu's sternum to his jaw, skimming his fingers along it to tilt his head at an angle similar to the one Midoriya held for him, although altered for the horizontal position. "And we'd both fight for you any day."

He states these facts as facts, with authority that belies his dishevelled state and the casual arrangement of the three of them on this couch.

(He did fight for Kaworu, once; it's better that he doesn't remember.)

"You matter to us." He taps Kaworu once, on the graceful corner of his jawline.

"I wouldn't let anything hurt you," Kaworu insists, almost childishly, so that it's known he didn't mean it as a sentiment or a gesture of affection. He meant it quite literally. There might have been more, before Paul gently takes his jaw and shifts him into a more regal position that shows off his sharp, but delicate features, long neck, and thin shoulders.

A deep flush rises from his collar bones and up his neck to his face even though he's happy. It's nice to be the object of affection and praise. The tap on his jaw is soft, yet it feels like it sends tremors through his entire body and he has to repress a shiver.

"You... matter to me. You both matter to me. I'll... protect you. And fight for you."

Midoriya briefly meets Paul's eyes to return his sentiment. Midoriya, for his part, thinks it best not to give in to the anger he feels when he thinks of the people who would put needles to either of his friends. It's the directionless sort he's felt before when he's met people like them in Trench--young people his age who were already hurt so much by others--because the perpetrators are not here to atone. Life's not so neat. Hinging closure on another person doesn't always work anyway.

He puts his anger into something he can do. Midoriya firmly believes in choosing a kinder life for oneself, and to encourage a kinder world than the one that hurt the people he knows. Even this one can be kind, if only for its lack of the old dangers.

Seeing Kaworu so--affected, Midoriya feels an odd urge to keep him from flying away. Spice makes him forget he's already got Kaworu's legs anchored. He, too, anchors himself by leaning on his side against the back of the couch, at the risk of making half his curls stand on end later. Belatedly, he's realized he doesn't have to sit up for a portrait anymore.

His brow knits a little with concern, even as he admires the impressive saturation of Kaworu's entire face and neck contrasted against the delicate touch of Paul's fingers.

"I know." He knows Kaworu didn't say it idly. Midoriya has said similar things himself with absolute sincerity, so he knows what it looks like. "Just remember to look out for yourself, okay? You can't protect anyone if you don't protect yourself. That's a difficult lesson to learn the hard way." He rubs his right arm where, under his shirt, the largest scars are. He smiles. "Wouldn't want you to smudge your eyeliner either. You did it so well."

Midoriya says everything that should be said, so Paul at first only follows it with a nod as he slides his hand to the side of Kaworu's face to lightly stroke from the outer edge of that eyeliner towards his temple. (An impulse to bend - to cast a shadow over - slips through him like quicksilver, but he lets it flit away.)

"We'll all protect each other," he agrees, and lifts his hand so he may reach over to clasp Midoriya's shoulder, this time obeying his impulse to close the circle between them. "And look out for ourselves, or we'll answer to each other."

He knows that's an unrealistic expectation, given what this place is, and who they all are, but he can believe it while they're here like this. He can believe they'll try, which counts for something, as they're teaching him.

"No smudged eyeliner." That one, on the other hand, he knows perfectly well won't happen - although, when he thinks about it, who's to say what angels are capable of with cosmetics?

For a moment, Kaworu lets himself just be in the space, surrounded by two people he likes very much and who, apparently, like him back. It's affirming, like for once his strange existence isn't out of step with everyone else and the world around him.

Like Paul, he knows it's an unrealistic expectation that they can protect each other. But he likes to think if they stay close like this, perhaps it's something that's possible.

Then at the possibility of some fun, his third eye opens and he abruptly pops up from prone to sit in Paul's lap and give Midoriya a look.

"Izuku-kun isn't wearing eyeliner."

Out of seemingly? Nowhere? (Thanks Darkblood powers) there's a little pen in his hand that he spins through thin, pale fingers.

Edited (good lord structure ) 2022-04-19 19:43 (UTC)

He clasps Paul's arm in return and finds his wrist with his thumb. Midoriya's magnified, filament nerves note the difference between how Paul feels on the scars versus the unblemished skin of his hand. Midoriya looks at two people he couldn't protect and does not allow himself the luxury of guilt.

He blinks. Kaworu produces something in his hand--rather like how Midoriya sometimes pulls his notebook from nowhere, as if dictated by some unseen hand of genre. Kaworu did offer to put eyeliner on him some minutes ago. Midoriya would protest, be hesitant to attempt pulling it off, except he already knows what he'd look like. The drawing told him. He has no reason to refuse.

He sets the notebook down on the couch and scoots closer so Kaworu won't have to reach, curling his legs under his. They bump against Paul's. Midoriya settles languidly again, tilting his face slightly up as his neck finds the curve of the back of the couch.

"Do I close my eyes, or...?"

Birthday Party

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