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

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"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...?"

When Kaworu sits up Paul slips a loosely anchoring arm around his waist, the one dislodged from the affirming press on his chest. They must look a sight from the outside, he thinks, tangled up into a heap like sunning half-grown cats.

"It's usually easier that way. Close them like you're asleep, not like you're squeezing them shut." Paul is only a little bit teasing in his instruction, his bare wrist pliant and relaxed under Midoriya's thumb. He's rarely had this done for him, but he has seen it done many times, though never by someone sitting on his lap to someone he just finished sketching.

He idly wonders how close he came in his drawing. He's curious to find out, and while he waits, he starts counting the visible freckles he can see again. He's still not sure he got the number right the first time.

Kaworu shifts forward, knees around Midoriya's waist, seated on his leg on almost a straddle, perched there like a little bird. Not that it matters since Kaworu weighs next to nothing, just a comforting warm weight to someone like Midoriya.

"That's right, just shut them gently." There's a gentle thumb across Midoriya's eyelids, bringing them down in to a gentle closed position. Then he cups Midoriya's round, freckled face by his cheek and tilts his head back. Then he leans forward, tongue between his teeth, and gently paints dark thin lines across Midoriya's eyelid, ending in a sharp wing at the outer corner.

How is he so good at this? Unexplained. Pure gay angel power.

Edited 2022-04-21 00:50 (UTC)

He doesn't move, but he does find himself redistributing tension and weight in little ways to accommodate Kaworu's shift--awfully close. Midoriya feels warm. The last thing he sees are Kaworu's red eyes cut sharp by his own delinations.

A lot of nerves are concentrated in the face. Each one of them tingles under Kaworu's hands. Midoriya's lips part slightly in surprise. He should have thought spice-senses would make it feel like this. His quiet breathing sounds like an entire ocean to him as he tries to stay very still. He resists a strong urge to scrunch his eyelids as something traces their delicate skin.

Kaworu proved he was good when he improvised on paper, so he trusts him. It's not quite the same on skin, but a steady hand helps. When it seems he's done, Midoriya opens his eyes and blinks experimentally. He used to express wide and round with his eyes, as he does briefly now, but nowadays they often suggest a steady, gently almond-shaped point. The liner accentuates this.

He hardly feels different of course. He might forget it's there, smudge it, and belatedly remember to wash it off. Lacking a mirror for a second opinion, he looks at Paul instead.

No, Paul decides, he didn't quite capture the reality of it. Girl or boy, there are nuances to the way light falls across Midoriya's face that he didn't express, the eyeliner drawing attention to the varying angles and curves of his face like an artfully set brushstroke on canvas.

It's not just that. Paul didn't draw Kaworu leaning over him, casting gentle and rippling shade, his hands moving delicately and surely in their work. Like the eyeliner, it evokes more of both of them, Midoriya's cool dark greens complimenting Kaworu's starker pales and more vivid reds.

He forgets he's looking at his friends. He forgets his social graces. He is openly and unabashedly mesmerized, his pupils dilated with avid appreciation.

"You look good," he says, simply.

"He looks excellent," Kaworu amends, reaching out to smooth the wing with his thumb. Then he runs his fingers down Midoriya's face, appreciating the freckles and the way his eyes seem to have so many shades of green that he didn't even know existed. His eyes drop further, down to the collar bones, appreciating the way his shirt clings to his muscled shoulders and chest, shifting into the grooves when he moves.

Yes. It's very good.

He drops back down into Paul's lap, looking quite pleased with himself. "Which is what Paul meant to say."

Paul has told him he looks good before, an affirmation one friend should give to another. This is different. The longer one pair of green eyes stares at another, the more Midoriya is convinced Paul is not simply very fascinated by eyeliner. Midoriya can't turn away from a sincere, bare look from someone he cares about. Paul, who wields words as skillfully as swords, now drops them like stones.

Attracted to the warmth of the spot, and because Midoriya knows it's close, his fingers curl and find Paul's pulse. It's something to hold onto while his own can't decide what it wants to do.

Paul's drawing failed to capture rosy flushes like the one creeping across his nose and freckles under the scintillating touch of pale fingers. Midoriya looks at Kaworu, but his eyes--the color of luck, passion, and human blood--travel down. This affords Midoriya a similar steady view, unbroken by being known, of lashes and dark strokes lining pale, sharp angles.

It's a relief when Kaworu sits back, now a little less close than inexorably so. It's also a relief to shyly smile away people staring at him. He'd have squirmed under such scrutiny, except he realizes he'd be a hypocrite, so he lets the camaraderie of being embarrassing condense around them in a spice cloud.

"Nagisa-kun's hard work--I wouldn't know, I can't see... Oh, wait--" It hadn't occurred to him at first, having spent so many years with no reason to use it, no friends to send things to. He fumbles for his Omni and its front camera. It's a poor, flattened facsimile of what his eyes can see, but he grins down at himself anyway. (Still, he likes looking at the other two better, and it reminds him of what people usually do with front cameras.)

"Here. Get in." He sticks out his arm and scrunches into the back of the couch and his friends, trying to fit them all into frame. He's poor at this.

Paul laughs lightly at Kaworu's correction, inclining his head in concession. Midoriya looks excellent. They all do, and it softens the amber-warm stretch of the moments between them, contextualizes the press of Midoriya's fingers against his skin and the weight of Kaworu sinking into his lap.

Ebb and flow. They're all playing with a kind of power none of them are sure what to do with yet, and there's no one he can think of he trusts more to do that with. It's like sparring in a different arena. It's like leaping off a roof and knowing he'll be caught mid-air, but by kind hands instead of humming power.

So when Midoriya hits on the idea of memorializing their matching looks, he doesn't think twice about shifting closer. He keeps his arm locked around Kaworu's waist, the other boy not so difficult to move as long as he keeps the support of the couch, and readily settles against Midoriya's outstretched arm. He flings his own around Midoriya's well-muscled shoulders and tucks Kaworu's head under his chin as he smiles winsomely at the camera.

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Birthday Party

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