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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[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?

Hmm.

[Kaworu makes a noise like he's in deep thought but it fades into a soft sigh, attracted to the smoothness in Paul's voice, like something tactile that he wants to explore.

When Paul's fingers curl up in his shirt, he reaches over to stroke Paul's hair soothing and encouraging.]

Well, I've already seen you fight.

[The soft observation sends a ribbon of warmth from where Kaworu's hand strokes his head, down his spine to his tightened stomach, where it tangles up in his restless anticipation. It's like an ache, Paul thinks, pulling back so that their faces are just barely still touching as he does, one that longs for alleviating pressure.]

That's true.

[He tilts their foreheads together, meeting Kaworu's eyes under his heavy eyelashes, and this is still a puzzle to approach, a new set of rules to explore in its solving.

So he experiments: he brushes his mouth over the corner of Kaworu's before he brings them flush together, this time running the pointed tip of his tongue along the seam of Kaworu's lips.]

[Kaworu doesn’t mind being puzzled out. A chance to be seen for a boy that no one was interested in who he was, only what he was. He presses his forehead against Paul’s firmly, letting his eyelashes flutter against a flushed cheek. (Or he thinks it’s flushed, if it’s anything like his own face, it’s hard to see in the closet)

He follows Paul’s lead, parting his lips and closing them around Paul’s lower lip. He nips gently with his teeth against soft flesh, not to hurt but to tease, in some strange compulsion he can’t explain

His slide forwards to wrap around Paul’s neck, keeping their chests pressed together, Paul’s heartbeat reverberating in his ribs.]

[Everything about Paul feels flushed, especially when Kaworu's teeth close so gently on his lip, a tiny tug just below pain. The sound he answers with is low and needy, a murmur crushed between them like grapes spilling dark sweetness.

The skin under the edge of Kaworu's shirt is heated, flecked with scars, and it feels urgently necessary to press his fingers against it as his other hand sinks wholly into pale hair. It slakes one want and gives rise to more, a desire for ever more closeness, for immersion - he could swim in this, dive in it, plunge into the surf and let it have him.

He tilts his head to put them at a slant, his mouth parting further, the slide of lips and tongue losing structure and tentativeness as he sinks into the kiss.]

[As Paul's hand moves to the skin beneath his shirt, Kaworu hisses softly, it's like the touch is burning him in a way that's deeply pleasant, like stepping into a hot shower. He sinks into Paul, letting his body meld against his, pulled ever deeper.

(It's a familiar feeling. Being drowned. Just in body, not soul.)

There was a part of him that was concerned about how to do this. Like a doll who needed to play at being human to believe in its own realness, it's gone now. He can't pretend to be human because he's never felt this level of humanity before. Despite being the instigator, he follows Paul's lead: pressing his lips against his, diving deeper, letting his desire lead as he loses track of whose lips end where and whose tongue is doing the fervent exploration.]

[It's messy and imperfect, this feverish contact, dissolving into the licking of flames as much as tongues, teeth clicking together like flint on metal. Paul kisses like he fights, but with none of the skill - only the same whole-hearted and absolute commitment.

When he finally pulls back for a breath his mouth feels nearly bruised, slick and hot. He slips his hand higher under Kaworu's shirt restlessly, slides it back down in decorum, so all he achieves turns out to be petting.]

I...

[Paul feels his heartbeat in the tips of his fingers, nestled in the base of his throat. He presses their foreheads together again, nose to nose, and lets out a long, shaking exhale, his eyes still closed.]

Thank you.

[Paul's determination, and whole-hearted commitment to things, stirs something in Kaworu. Like it did back in that tent when they learned wrestling moves, a time that seems so long ago and also like it was only yesterday. It pushes him to do better, to compete, to participate instead of just watching for amusement.

There's no skill in him either, but he determinedly rises to meet Paul's level of commitment.

Then Paul pulls away, brushing a hand far up his back beneath his shirt, brushing the vertebrae before pulling back down and Kaworu wishes he hadn't, savoring the tingling sensation across his back. But the press of Paul's forehead is soothing and he leans into it and answers Paul's question with a voice barely above a whisper.]

Why? It's your birthday.

[If they weren't pressed chest to chest, Paul's ripple of silent laughter might go unnoticed. He pairs it with the sweep of his thumb along Kaworu's neck in assurance, because he doesn't want Kaworu to think he's laughing at him. He's just - light, unburdened.]

So that was just because it's my birthday?

[He doesn't believe that. He traces a circle on the warm skin above Kaworu's hip, feather-light and deliberately slow, and imagines he feels its ghost-echo slipping down his spine.]

Thank you for all of this. For staying with me.

No. But I don't think you need to thank anyone on your birthday. Otherwise, you'd be too busy to do anything else.

[He lets the silent ripple of laughter flow through him, disturbing the quiet stillness of his body, then letting it settle once more.

The gentle sensation of Paul's hand on his hip makes him sigh softly, both soothed and seeped in the desire for more. Kaworu runs a gentle thumb down the edge of Paul's jawbone, taking in his features, noting the colors in his eyes.]

Of course. You came for me.

[He doesn't remember a lot of what happened on the beach. Maybe because he can't. Maybe because he doesn't want to. But he does remember seeing Paul, abandoning everything for him, begging an uncaring god for him, holding him.

After that, else could he do but stay?]

[Paul can remember. He remembers everything, from the first dream to the last fall. He remembers Kaworu asleep on the edge of the ocean, water tugging at his fingertips, and he remembers the shattered parody of a kiss that the thing inside him had pressed to Paul's jaw where Kaworu's thumb traces now.

He can't forget. But perhaps he can supplant. He can alter the order of recollection, put this memory before that one, fill himself up with enough fragile happiness to make the rest of it bearable. Connect, and be tethered.]

I promised.

[He bends to kiss Kaworu's slender jaw, mirroring his tracing touch on Paul's. Colors spiral out from the sparking of nerve on nerve, and Paul teeters on the precipice of another dive, but -]

I have time for you. [Another kiss, closer to his ear.] But we should go back soon.

Not everyone keeps them.

[Is the murmured reply as he leans into the kiss like a warm shelter from rain. Perhaps it's better that some of the details on that beach are hazy. It allows for brighter memories to overtake them, casting them into the shadows at the corners of his mind.

He waits to see if Paul will take another dive, sighing softly in an alluring way, but... it is his Paul's party and he need to put on appearances. He presses his nose to his the other boy's cheek as he kisses his ear.]

I suppose a duke and a birthday boy have to keep up appearances.

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Birthday Party

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Cw: drink sensei

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cw: homophobia????