Birthday Party

[peripheries]

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

Comments

[wannasmash]

He tightens his grip in response as Paul does, scars pulling slightly against familiar hilt-callouses. The warning is done. Saying any more would be too much information to be safe. His job is done, and if Paul would like his hand back... Midoriya tends not to keep comfort for himself. He can't smile back, but he can answer numbly,

"I didn't want to take it alone." However inadvisable it all is in retrospect, he was always going to have a safety net somewhere. "I knew I'd be safe with you."

He presses his lips and eyes tight, breathing in. He tries, with the natural cycle of taking good air in and expelling bad, to purge his unease. Something else replaces it. It's all so much, so much, and he's just one person, hardly worthy, carrying the hopes and efforts of several others.

He allows himself a rare, brief indulgence in shackling self-pity. It trickles from his eyes, retraces the wetness on his cheeks, and flows back into his hair. Then his face smooths over, and it passes in the space of a few sighs. His eyes fall open again.

"What was supposed to happen?" he asks in a small voice.

[terriblepurpose]

Paul judges that the moment of potential toppling crisis has passed. As such, he twists around on the couch to slip his free arm around Midoriya's shoulder in what he hopes will be taken as comforting solidarity.

"There's no thing that's 'supposed to' happen," he says, gently, not letting his attention fall to the gleaming dampness still on Midoriya's face. "I've heard of things like this before. You didn't do anything wrong."

That's not exactly what Midoriya asked. It may not be exactly what he meant, either, but it feels important to Paul to make sure that's established. They both like getting things right. They like having done what they were supposed to do, and if he knows Midoriya, there's a risk of him imagining he's spoiled something. And he says he knows he's safe with Paul, and Paul wants that to be true in every way it can be.

"It's just meant to make you feel good. If it didn't, that's the spice's fault, if you think about it. It should know better than to be unkind to you." That makes sense to Paul, in the moment.

[wannasmash]

"I am sorry for the trouble," he says anyway in a thick and slightly rueful voice. It wasn't what he expected. Midoriya accepts his own folly in it, but he doesn't dwell on it. One For All really is uncharted territory. He just wanted to know, in a lonely moment, what he missed out on--what other people have that he can't have.

He shifts and attempts to sit up more properly within Paul's arm. He can't say he agrees with Paul's assessment, but he does accept his sentiment. It does comfort him enough to mirror Paul with his own arm slipping around him. The heightened sensations of fabric, warmth, and the shape of his friend are a balm. Even the coolness of his tears is soothing, and he forgets to wipe them--not that he was ever particularly ashamed.

"What have you heard? What things?" he murmurs, looking at him with hazy disquiet.

[terriblepurpose]

"What trouble?" Paul asks, magnanimously, lifting his hand from Midoriya's shoulder just far enough to make a flicking dismissive gesture. Swept sand, he thinks, not remembering why.

"And just - stories. Any drug can be dangerous." It's a well-known fact where Paul comes from, as commonly understood as the dangers of fire. This of course means that many people ignore the risks anyway, plunging into reckless abandonment or the spiralling loop of misuse.

"Spice gives a specific kind of insight. Not everyone is meant to look into themselves in that way. That's not a reflection on them," Paul assures Midoriya, and now he's inventing. Under strict orthodoxy, it does reflect on them, and poorly. Those who are not masters of their own minds are unpredictable, and prone to be mastered by them.

But it's Midoriya tucked under Paul's arm, not some abstract stranger. He's trusted Paul with his secrets, with the keeping of his name. He's not pathological, not in any way Paul has ever sensed before that many voiced communication.

"You're all right." You're safe. "Don't get caught up in it."

[wannasmash]

"I see," he says levelly and feels the ripples settling. "I won't." He punctuates this with a slight squeeze to reassure Paul. His thoughts stroll quietly by, carrying what Paul has told him and his own knowledge, some of which he can't say.

Someone does a drug, has a bad trip, the usual. The only weird thing here is the Quirk passed to him, but he knew that anyway. He's not possessed or mentally ill either. One For All's collection of vestiges have always remained at the subconscious level of every wielder, including him. He's only had contact with these less-than-ghost imprints a few times. Midoriya has always had his own will.

"I am still sorry," he murmurs more quietly. "I freaked you out. I shouldn't have. I still feel high, but not as much now. It won't happen again."

[terriblepurpose]

"Midoriya-kun, I'll fight you if you keep talking like that," Paul says, with a boisterous cheerfulness not his own, "I swear on my House and my honor as an Atreides. It's fine. You're fine. You didn't do that on purpose, did you? No? So what are you apologizing for?"

Paul's universe is not one that's kind to any apparent deviation from the norm. For all their advancement in some areas, there are others they've regressed, whole arenas of thought Paul accepts implicitly because he's never been exposed to anything that would persuade him away from them. Illnesses of the mind are primarily viewed as either biological defects or moral faults, both of which should be overcome by force of discipline, and if Paul sometimes struggles to accept that, it's only another failing on his part.

(And if he finds himself, at times, pathological - that's a thought which has no place here.)

"How about I get us some more drinks, instead? Water or liquor, your choice. We may have some fruit powders left for the water, if you'd like that." When in doubt, Paul's found resorting to beverages a good trick.

[wannasmash]

Midoriya isn't in the habit of mentioning people not present by name--a subconscious regard for privacy--but someday he will have to tell Paul more about Kirishima, the gregarious yakiniku guy. For a moment, it seemed as though Paul was channeling his spirit.

He smiles and thumbs away his tears. Midoriya isn't prone to hiding and turning his emotions in on himself to save his dignity. His outpourings give him the superficial appearance of being weak. Anyone who knows him experiences the opposite. He has been uncommonly resilient since he learned, at the age of four, the world isn't fair, especially to people born like him. This makes him want, all the harder, to clutch his friends' hands when they shake, wrap them in kindness when a forlorn cloud strikes, and shield them from their fears.

He shifts, passing Paul a quick but grateful hug. (If he presses the tears he missed into his shirt, what of it?) He puts his hands out slightly when he stands, not for balance, but because the air is fascinating cotton. He admires colorful motes dancing on Paul's dark hair, and he makes his peace with the spice.

"Not actually looking to pass out again. Water's fine." He thinks, too, he'll go for a starchy snack rather than eldritch Tang.

[terriblepurpose]

The brief hug is returned firmly and warmly before Paul follows Midoriya's cue to stand. It's good to be on their feet, Paul thinks, even if his head performs an interesting series of acrobatics when he does rise from the couch. He counters this with an arm raising stretch over his head. It's good to be moving in a direction away from that tense, strange series of moments.

It is fine. Paul reminds himself of that as he slings an arm around Midoriya's shoulder again and proceeds with him to the kitchen, where water and possibly eldritch Tang await them.

"If you do, you can stay with us," Paul assures him, grandly, because they're still having fun - they're going to have fun, he's determined, until Midoriya forgets all about whatever has him so upset. He's always looking out for everyone else. Paul may not be as good at it as he is, but he's capable of this much: of closeness, of hospitality. Of a glass of water and secrets kept. These are the critical things in the world, at least for tonight.