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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[Kaworu has been generous with praise tonight, and Paul has eased himself into a state of temporary acceptance. He's been playing at the part of princeling to make it possible, and it's been a kind of fun he hasn't had in months. But this - being given an invitation for outpouring, after having his own glass filled - isn't a game the way that is. He takes his time thinking about it, a whole three heartbeats long.]

Like the questions you ask. [He echoes the beat, slowed and softened, on the top of a cervical vertebrae.] You want to know why things are, not just how. It matters to you that things have an order. It's hard for you to understand why people do things that hurt themselves, or each other.

You're kind to people. Not always nice [with a press of reassurance] but kind. There's a difference.

[And Paul can sense it, a glimmer within the vast brilliance of the soul housed in the small body he's cradling - a sun-warm tidepool of self, not wholly angel or human, but something of both, and something only of Kaworu.]

Things like that.

Edited 2022-04-10 19:09 (UTC)

[Kaworu had been expecting something simple. A further compliment about his musical skills or newly discovered talent for surprise parties. But words coming from Paul's mouth (from his heart) make Kaworu feel oddly frozen in time and space.

Can he really be kind? Does he even understand kindness? He's rarely experienced kindness in his life. Mostly, he knows it to be the opposite of cruelty. But does that mean he knows what it is to be kind?

It makes him curl up a little, burying his face into the crook of Paul's neck as if to avoid being seen, even though Paul can't even see him at this angle and obscured by his own attempt to hide. Kaworu is silent a time measured in heartbeats as well, hand resting over Paul's heart and the other still firmly entwined with his.]

I didn't know that about myself. I think... that's why humans need others. To see things they can't. Even mirrors... those aren't true images of you.

[Kaworu tucks himself against the vulnerable column of Paul's throat, and when Paul thinks of teeth he doesn't think of them drawing blood. He's only aware of them, hidden behind soft lips that nearly touch Paul's skin when Kaworu speaks, and he thinks his pulse must almost be audible as it rushes inside his carotid artery.

There's nothing abstract or esoteric about that sensitivity, which has him catching his breath in that very throat at the same time that the meaning of Kaworu's words process on those more rarefied levels.]

You're right.

[Does Kaworu hear the faltering note? Does he notice the dampness of Paul's palm, the acuteness of his focus? The thought is agitating either way.]

We need other people to know ourselves. [And he could stop there. He could stop, and it would be enough, and he could have refrained from adding, voice low and husked:] Do you like what I see in you?

Yes. Very much.

[Kaworu wonders if Paul can hear how breathless his voice is, even as he tries to muffle it against the other boy's shoulder. He's far too wrapped up in his own body, his own mind to take notice of Paul's damp palms or the notes in his voice. The only thing he can place out of ordinary is the more rapid tempo of Paul's heartbeat. He would have to adjust the time of his rhythm to match what he had created just a few minutes ago.

He does not know how Paul can see kindness in him. It was the last thing he expected to hear. But he likes the idea that he could be kind. Kindness is something many humans are poor at and something no angel has ever been. It is better than cruelty and he's learned it has a place next to truth. It's a curious puzzle to unlock at a later time.

Kaworu's messy head lifts out from the nest between Paul's neck and shoulder to look up at him.]

You've already surprised me. And I don't think you even meant to.

[He reaches up to cup Paul's face, shifting upwards slightly, moving closer to a staddle as he leans over the young Duke. (Paul does look young, right now, he realizes. He looks flushed and wide-eyed in a way that Kaworu has never seen before.]

Do I have to fulfill my end of the bet now?

[Paul's charm is a discipline he began his training in earlier than any other weapon. Before he could curl small, clumsy fingers around the hilt of a knife, he could smile winsomely and curl them around a heart. Flirtation is just the most recent nuance of a well-developed system, and he learned at the feet of a master of the fluttering lash and the coy invitation.

But that training only ever went so far. There was an abbreviation of practice, a sharp line his mother cut through the teachings of her order. Paul can promise almost anything with a crook at the corner of his lips, but he's never learned how to give any of it.

So when Kaworu leans over him, luminous and mussed, his slim fingers hot where they curve along his face, Paul's wide eyes aren't feigned. The tentative splay of his hand where it's slipped to Kaworu's waist is not played at. The hitching tremor of his breath isn't a performance for anyone.

He shouldn't be surprised. Isn't this what he agreed to? Isn't this the flame he's played with all evening, finally catching on tinder?]

You don't have to.

[His boldness has deserted him. There's too much vulnerability in his voice, shy and faltering, and of course Kaworu doesn't have to - Paul thought he believed that, he'd push him out of his lap to await an entirely different conversation in the sober light of day.]

I've never- [he swallows a dry mouth, his hand still on the back of Kaworu's neck twitching] -I don't want everyone to see.

[At first, Kaworu feels like he did back in the catacombs when Sayo kicked him in the ribs. A sharp, unexpected pain in his chest. Did he misunderstand? Is Paul doing one of those things that humans do when they make up a nice excuse to hide their true feelings? Did he open up only to find a shut door?

Paul's hand on his waist is warm and unmoved, even as the hand on his neck twitches and presses moisture into his skin and fine hairs. It steadies Kaworu, pulling him back from his head and into the world again. He looks at Paul again, who looks shy and nervous, eyes wider than the plates in the kitchen; all of his usual boldness lost to a delicate, skinny boy in his lap.

This is power, Kaworu realizes. In this moment, he has power over Paul and there's something delightful about that. There's something fun about deciding how far he'll go, how much he'll give into temptation. A smile plays on his lips as he stares down at Paul, and he reaches down to brush some curly hair out of his face in a gesture both affectionate and teasing.]

Oh? Are you shy?

[Between the spice and his existing attunement to Kaworu's moods, Paul nearly feels the kick of pained uncertainty under his own ribs. Or perhaps that's his, too, in the fretful moments after thinking about how his words will be misunderstood, how Kaworu will end up hurt thanks to Paul's relentless playing of games, all the things he's always done and never understood were wrong -

Then Kaworu's expression tilts knowingly, and most of Paul's thoughts dissolve into fervent white static when he brushes at stray curls and asks if he's shy.

Of course he's not shy. He's Duke Paul Atreides, first of his name, and his mother would have his tongue out of his mouth if he ever hesitated to use it. Shyness is only another word for fear, and fear will never be permitted mastery over him.]

Yes.

[He says, hushed, and it's as if Kaworu's pliancy has flowed into him. He melts into the couch, his head tilted back as his throat bobs. His hands stay very still, and his tongue is a tiny pink point at the corner of his mouth as he looks up at Kaworu like an exquisite puzzle.]

Is that all right?

Hm.

[Is the response as Kaworu gives him a thought look over, eyes raking Paul's prone form, how he sinks into the couch, the tip of his tongue in his teeth, the bob of his throat. It's (mostly) far too intense to be real. Just for show. A little game.

He leans closer and tucks some of Paul's hair behind his ear, so he can't hide behind those needlessly long and floppy bangs. He watches it cascade through his fingers, a sensation and visual pleasure heightened by the spice.]

It's not a bad look on you. Cute, actually.

[The temptation to squirm is nearly unendurable, and if not for the possibility that squirming might burst whatever delicate bubble of balanced potential enfolds them, Paul isn't sure he could stay still under that look. He knows he must be coral pink in blotches he's never thought were flattering, his blood vessels in rampant rebellion.

Kaworu's toying with his hair reminds Paul, in floating association, of his Omen's paws kneading in Paul's lap, the faint prickling of claws in the midst of plush, affectionate pressure.]

Thank you.

[If that's the game they're playing, then doesn't Paul know what his role is? It's playful, then, to glance away, his hand slipping tentatively towards the curve of a hip.]

...do you still want to?

[As much as Kaworu likes their games, he isn't as good at them as Paul is. Paul has had years of training to construct an image of himself to present towards other people, warping it and forming it just so that it matches to them. Keeping one's mouth shut and their face neutral is part of that.

Kaworu, on the other hand, is rather lacking when it comes to a "poker face". There's so many new emotions in his heart, new feelings, that they simply bubble up to the surface and take over.

So when a hand moves towards his hip, he makes a little noise between a hiccup and a gasp, shattering the smirk like it was nothing but glass. Paul is flushed and Kaworu imagines he's in an even worse state. He can feel heat all the way up his back like electricity in his spine.]

I do.

[Then he ducks closer so his lips are nearly brushing Paul's forehead as he speaks.]

But people will see...?

[The tone starts off breezy enough, teasing, but he did promise to be Paul's guardian angel. So that means making sure he knows what he's doing even if every nerve in his body is begging him to just let it happen.]

[Paul has never heard anyone make a noise like that before. It snaps his focus to it in fascination, his eyes skimming the pulsing hollow of Kaworu's throat on their way to his gently descending mouth, disappearing from his sight to stop just short of touch.

He may be shy, or something almost like it, but he's also swift and sinuous. It's barely more than a flicker of thought to twist in reconfiguration, lifting them both in a half-turn that lets him catch Kaworu under his knees and tug him into a hold.]

Then we can go somewhere else.

[It's not inflected like a question, but there's still an echo of one in the faint tremor of how it's said.]

[There's another funny noise from the angel-turned-boy, but it's delighted, somewhere between another gasp and a laugh. It's very bold. Very dramatic. Exactly the sort of thing that he likes. There is a beauty in honest and unrestrained emotion, he thinks, like the dazzling splitting of a lightning bolt across a dark, stormy sky.

Kaworu wraps an arm easily around Paul's neck to let him be lifted like a protagonist right out of a shoujo manga. A very slick move. Unfortunately, unlike the boys in those manga, Paul has the relative muscle strength of someone his size and even Kaworu, in all his delicateness, is still an impressive lift for him to maintain, especially while intoxicated.

So there's a brief moment where they nearly stumble before Kaworu simply activates his Darkblood powers to make himself light as a feather. He shifts, wrapping his arm tighter around Paul's shoulders and pulling himself up so they're nearly face to face.]

So. Where are we going?

[If anyone were to make the dramatic mistake of questioning Paul about his choices now, he'd insist he could have carried Kaworu, and wasn't at all counting on the welcome thrum of blossoming assistance that would have him reeling in the opposite direction if not for all their practice. He readjusts readily in the wake of the shift instead, cradling Kaworu close.

He knows it's something Kaworu likes. He's never been quiet about his preferences, outspoken in every way Paul isn't - and yet, Paul thinks, sweeping them through the loosely gathered crowd with his head high and no trace of self-consciousness (everyone carries their friends, from time to time, his imperious tilt suggests) in his demeanor - and yet. The tremor of nerves between them isn't all just Paul.]

You'll see.

[Or: the first door he comes across, one he would tell the aforementioned foolish questioner he's sure was a guest bedroom, and not the deep closet it turns out to be, stuffed with light spring coats and an inverted bucket in one corner. He sets Kaworu down as lightly as he carried him, but he's slow to unbend, straightening in the dim light that slips in around the door's edges with his burst of heady confidence already evaporating on the threshold of-

He doesn't know what to do with his hands once they're no longer holding Kaworu up. He doesn't know where to look. He hasn't seen what happens next.

He needs to say something. He absolutely needs to say something.]

...is this all right? Is this-

[One hand finds its home buried in his own hair as he tucks his chin, staring at the ground between their feet.]

Are you all right?

[The movement through the house seems to happen all at once. Like he's so familiar with this house that he and Paul move through it like everything around them is fluid and they're the only things solid things. Colors, voices, lights, faces, flow around them, moving back just as they move forward. Each step and there's more behind them. Then Kaworu's feet touch the ground in... a closet. The world is suddenly very still.]

A closet...?

[He asks, in a tone that suggests he finds this an unusual choice in a fun way and not a disappointing one. He glances back from the spring coats to Paul just in time to watch him diminish, like the last rays of sun overtaken by storm clouds. It's curious to see how he moves from confident to shy. Just like any human unsure of how to reach out and connect with others. Which he's come to learn are his favorite parts about Paul.

Then suddenly Paul won't even at him and now that won't do. Paul can be shy but Kaworu doesn't want him to be afraid. Not of him. Not of them together, no matter how they are together. In a flourish, Kaworu turns around and moves the bucket closer to Paul with limbs that seem too long for his height. Then he leaps onto it, landing lightly as he always does.]

I'm alright. I'm always alright when I'm with you.

[A gentle hand reaches forward to rub a thumb against Paul's cheekbone and deep red eyes stare into soft sea blue-green. He's missed the softness of the color.]

But the question is... what do you want, Paul Atreides? What did you come here to do? What is your will?

[Paul brings his hand to Kaworu's wrist as his head is lifted, a tentative touch that neither captures or forbids. He's the one caught, fixed under Kaworu's heart-red intensity of focus, his skin so heated he imagines the places Kaworu's thumb brushes as incandescent blue-white.]

This is where I say I don't know.

[The words bubble up and over his lips like foam, the soft residue of tumult. The spice simmers in skeins in his blood.]

Or I think of what you want me to want, and I tell you that.

[This isn't what they came in here for. This is a conversation for another day, and that day is never. This isn't the answer anyone would ever want to that question, not while they're flushed and joyous in anticipation.

He's ruining this, some part of him knows. They haven't even begun, and he's ruining it, treacherous honesty coming to him unbidden and unwelcome.]

If I tell you what I want...what if you don't want to give it to me? Or what if you do, and you shouldn't? What if it hurts you?

[His other hand rises from his side, his knuckles brushing under Kaworu's jaw along the tender, vulnerable skin there. He unfolds his half-closed fist to curl around the side of Kaworu's neck, feels the thrum of his life under his palm, and Kaworu could shatter him like glass with a thought, but it doesn't feel that way. It never feels that way.]

I don't want to hurt you.

I don't know. I think... that's why being with others can be so difficult. Because knowing these things means we need to know what is in the hearts of others and our own.

[Kaworu lets the touch on the back of his neck push him forwards so his forehead bumps against Paul's as though the hand was heavy instead of light. Perhaps Paul is ruining this. But Kaworu can't think of it that way. He has his nerves trembling inside of him and it's easier to talk that it is to do. His normal boldness is deserting him in an odd way, like it's collapsed into something stagnant instead of pushing forward, ready to accept what comes instead of moving towards it.]

You'll probably hurt me. And I'll probably hurt you. Because we are separate beings and so it is inevitable. But because we are separate beings we can do things like this.

[His hand shifts from Paul's cheek, sliding down to his jaw, brushing against his lips.]

[Kaworu's fingertips alight on Paul's half-parted lips, and it's his turn to make noise, a furtive, shivering note between gasp and keen. It almost sounds like pain; it almost hurts, in his dazzled, liminal state, like his newly pierced ears almost hurt.

There are times that Kaworu seems to know so little, in his innocence, that Paul only wants to slip him into some safe pocket of the world and keep him there, untouched. There are other times, like this, where he unfolds like great, pale wings, where he opens like a brilliant eye of sacred fire, and Paul feels like the one who is small, and at his mercy.

And isn't that what he wants? To be at someone's mercy? To set their hand at his throat and their mouth at his temple and let them decide, one way or the other, what is to become of him? Isn't that it?]

I don't want to be difficult.

[He could slant it teasing, and still save himself, if that's what he wants to call raising up his shuttering defenses. He doesn't. He doesn't do anything with it except say it, in the way it wants to be said, a softly bewildered confession.

He doesn't want to be difficult. He doesn't want to complicate things. He always does both. He always ends up playing games, setting what he won't ever let himself ask for inside a shifting puzzle box he never gives anyone a fair chance to solve.

He wants to be solved. He wants someone to forgive him for things he hasn't done yet, and for all the things he has that no one else will blame him for, and he wants someone to shatter him, and he wants too much, and he wants it wrong, and he doesn't know how to make himself stop.

And he wants this. He wants this, the heatwave shimmer of everywhere they're touching, the building magnetic tug between them, the trace of salt he can nearly taste on Kaworu's fingertips when he speaks again and his tongue all but touches them.]

It's all right if you hurt me. If it's you.

[He doesn't make a decision. He rediscovers the one he already made, and he doesn't let himself want things like this, because the way he wants is a riptide, a gravity shift, a dark and molten promise in his boreal green eyes.]

I want to know what a kiss from a guardian angel is like, if you still want to show me. Do you want to show me, Kaworu?

Edited 2022-04-15 16:44 (UTC)

You will be. It's in your nature. And that's alright.

[The blue of Paul's eyes knock at a door within his heart, stirring emotions he didn't think he was capable of and hasn't admitted he was capable of. He's captivated and Paul is the only thing in this world that he can see.

To him, Paul isn't a puzzle to figure out. Instead, Paul too is a series of doors in a long corridor with things in his heart locked tightly behind each one. He's given Kaworu keys before, often late at night when they talk quietly, or once on a bloody and broken beach. Other times, Kaworu finds bits and pieces of keys that don't quite fit into locks until, slowly, they click into place and the door swings open to invite him in.

Paul has just given him a key. So he takes it and gently, inserts it into the lock, it fits perfectly.]

I do. You know, I've kissed a boy before.

[It's playful and serious at the same time, an acknowledgement that he holds the cards here and Paul has shown his entire hand. He leans forward, on tiptoe, steadying himself with the hand cupped on Paul's face and presses his slightly parted lips to Paul's.

Kaworu turns the key and opens the door.

The spice in his blood makes the soft touch of flesh to flesh feel like a thousand stars exploding at the center of the universe and in the middle of those thousands of stars are them, in a little closet in an unknown place.]

[The contact between them is such a slight thing, the barest press of a soft mouth against his own. Inexplicable, then, the cascade of light behind his eyes as he closes them and presses his own barely parted lips back. Unexpected, how feeling expands in his chest like a delicate, iridescent bubble.

He has no reference point for what this should be like except gauzy dreams a thousand worlds away from this one, dreams that always stopped just short of tactile reality. In the dreams, there was no trace of mingled spice and golden liquor at the corners of the mouth on his, or the faintest catch of his own slightly chapped lips. There was no heightened throbbing of his pulse in punctured ears, barely out of sync with the muffled sound of music. There was no bucket for his foot to tap against as he shifted closer. It's not at all alike, except that in both dream and reality, it's a plunge into strange and dazzling waters.

His arm loops around Kaworu's slender waist somewhere in the midst of these reflections, gathering him close as Paul's fingers find the spot just above the raised curve of his hipbone to curl into the softness of his shirt. He skims his other hand to the nape of Kaworu's neck, a mirror and an echo of only minutes before, because Paul has always been a quick study.

For a precious, suspended moment, he doesn't think of anything but this, anchored fully and perfectly by the present at his fingertips.]

[The previous statement about having kissed a boy before seems silly when Paul's hands wrap around him and pull him closer. Like wading in a pond and thinking it was the entire ocean. There's so much... more here. So much in the smallest of touches. They've been close before, holding each other safe and warm, but now the contact is hot and fiery, like the two of them are a sort of chemical reaction waiting to explode.

It's exciting.

His body pulsing in time with the distant music, Kaworu twists his fingers in Paul's hair, pulling him close but careful of his newly pierced ears (which are... extremely sexy to be honest). The other wraps around his shoulders, twisting into the slippery fabric of the too small shirt.

It's also a perfect little moment. Just for them.]

[There’s a thud against the closet door as Johnny drunkly stumbles into it. He slides down against it to the floor and just lays there for a briefly.

He hears something from the other side but can’t quite make out what it is.

But he has a pretty good idea.

He leans in against the wall.]

Strike first.
Strike hard.
No mercy.

Cobra Kai
Cobra Kai
Cobra Kai!

[He raps his hand against the door each time he says Cobra Kai for emphasis before taking his leaving by rolling away on the floor cackling.]

[It's not possible to distinguish between the melting warmth of their bodies, so Paul stops trying somewhere around the twist of Kaworu's sharp fingers in his hair wringing a dark caramel note out of his mouth and against Kaworu's. He's kept the briefest distance of restraint between their chests until then, when it suddenly is unbearable not to know what it's like to encircle Kaworu's waist more insistently, weaving his own fingers deeper into pale hair -

- so of course that's when the door thuds, and Paul startles, pulling away with a damp little noise of discontent to cast a withering and entirely wasted look at the closed door.]

Sensei. [He all but hisses it, exasperated, embarrassed, and exhilarated all at once.] You -

[But there's no point. Johnny is already (rolling?) gone. Paul groans, dropping his forehead against Kaworu's shoulder, still blisteringly conscious of the roiling storm wherever they're touching. He's shivering with it, or something else, a reed in spring winds.]

I'm sorry.

[He turns his head just enough to tuck his face under Kaworu's jaw, and perhaps Sensei Lawrence's attempt at motivation helped after all, because he finds himself pressing a soft, closed kiss to the graceful stem of his throat.]

You were right. [Another, as gentle as a falling petal.] It was special.

[Kaworu too, has lost track of his body, unable to tell where he begins and Paul ends. It's exhilarating. Like something clicking into place and fitting perfectly. Two pieces coming together, each complementing the edges of the other to become one perfect whole.

When the knock sounds at the door, Kaworu gasps like he's been underwater and broke the surface to fill airless lungs. He can feel himself again, his hand in the sweaty twists of Paul's hair and Paul's arms around his waist.

If Kaworu could fire laser beams like some of the other Angels, Johnny would be dead from the glare that he shoots through the door. But then the moment passes and he's brought back to Paul, a smile returning to his face as he plays with the other boy's hair with the hand that holds his head close, only making a pleased noise when Paul kisses his neck.]

Oh? Tell me more about how I'm right.

[There's more encouraging chanting from outside the closet, but somehow, the soft sounds Kaworu makes drown them out. His smile is hidden in the shadowed crook of Kaworu's neck, but he makes his voice smooth and cool, like polished river stones.]

While all that's going on? [He bumps the bridge of his nose against Kaworu's jawline.] Do you want me to go out there and fight them?

[As they discussed earlier, for the sake of Kaworu's honor. (Paul's, as Kaworu noted, is long in tatters.) Then his veneer of sophistication lapses back into shyness, the prospect of spontaneous dueling less intimidating than the question he asks as his fingers tangle in the hem of Kaworu's shirt.]

Or we could do that again, so I can think about it?

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Cw: drink sensei

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cw: homophobia????