deercountry | Birthday Party

Birthday Party

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

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

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

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

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

It is also where all the food and drinks are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, fuck around and find out.

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

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

Enjoy the party! Mingle away!

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

worldtype)) or via PM.))

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Midoriya has always been agreeable about his friends' autonomy. A person's reputation is theirs to ruin. To do that properly, it must be ruined in full knowledge.

On their heads be it. Midoriya has historically had a difficult time remembering to call people anything deviating from the usual. Inevitably, as he slips up, he will correct himself, and he will hope to see Kaworu brighten again when he makes this effort. He notes how Kaworu's eyes glance down over him, and it's not the first time. It doesn't necessarily mean anything--until it does. His legs feel electric, as does his side where Paul's knee brushes him.

Even as his face returns to its original color, he can muster no answer to either of them. He blinks at Paul, caught out in a half-lie, a flash of a small confusion and vulnerability in his eyes. Midoriya does somewhat know of rules, even if it's just part of his deep-rooted consideration for others. Sometimes that lends him an air of wisdom, a surprising understanding. He watches others and feels it out. The boy who can overanalyze combat strategies and even the taste of good food can hardly explain this thing.

Though he doesn't advertise it, in moments that he feels someone needs help, or when he feels particularly singled out and challenged, the mild-mannered polite hero-in-training breaks rules with impunity.

He watches them rise, taking their warmth with them but leaving a little behind on the bed and on Midoriya. He's relieved. He's not relieved. He wants--an unfamiliar feeling, wanting--the warmth back. This is all very exhausting. He's tempted to lie down on the bed again if he has to wait. Instead, he retrieves certain small wrappers and looks for a place to dispose of them.

Kaworu moves to the bathroom with a little half-skip walk, hand swinging backwards to brush against Paul's fingers to ensure the other boy is following. Like if he doesn't check, Paul might suddenly have vanished the next time he turns around, just something to be found in a dream.

He shivers a little, missing the warm bed, but his stomach is actually twisting and growling for food which is... highly unusual but spurs further action than he'd normally prefer to take in the mornings. So he lets himself lean against Paul's side, bobbing there slightly as he tries to not let himself collapse back into sleepiness.

A few times, he pokes his head out of the bathroom, toothbrush still in his mouth, to be sure that Midoriya hasn't left either. Thankfully, Midoriya is still there, cleaning up bits of condom wrappings, and unaware that he is being checked on.

Good. This is all good.

The domestic ritual of getting ready in the morning is something Paul rarely shares with Kaworu. Besides a few rare cases of oversleeping, he's awake before the other boy, out of bed as the first pale rays of sunlight brighten the horizon.

He's definitely being sentimental, to find brushing the sour film from his teeth next to someone else endearing. He leans back against Kaworu to provide steady support, bumping him with his hip whenever it seems like he really might be drifting back towards dreamless sleep, and watches him cross back and forth to check on Midoriya with more of the soft fondness that's coloring so many of his actions today.

Showering should be the next step, once their mouths are as pure as they're ever going to be, but now that he's standing up that seems like more effort than he's ready to expend before breakfast. He starts to shuck his shirt, intending to at least pat down his torso, but - maybe not with Kaworu and Midoriya so close, after all of that. There have been worse things at the breakfast table than a sweaty body, he decides.

"Just don't feed them to Shinji-kun," he says, emerges from the bathroom with his face still damp from the splash of cold water he settled for, "He has a sensitive stomach. Shall we?"

Go to breakfast, and possibly, as his compensation for making life so difficult, assist with whatever is left to do.

It's nostalgic, Midoriya thinks as he finally catches Kaworu peeking at him. (How long was he doing that?) Midoriya got very used to getting ready alongside the boys in the UA dorm. Living alone in Trench was quite the adjustment. He desperately wants to shower off the party from last night, and he can't fault Paul for thinking similarly. Midoriya is about to ask if he may invoke guest and friend privileges and ask to borrow a much-needed shower and shirt--

Damn it. He skates his eyes away when he remembers the curve of Paul's smile as he teased him. A guy at least has the right to be comfortable in his own home, and the baths at UA are communal. Midoriya is very capable of not looking like an idiot. He definitely does not look look an idiot as he belatedly, as Paul reminds him of the lizard, picks up the condom-wrapped eggplant and tosses it in the trash. It's for Shinji-kun's sake.

Putting breakfast in their faces first will cure the hangover faster. Midoriya finishes the cooking, but he does ask the others to procure their own drinks and sundry of choice. He folds rice flavored with stock, ketchup, and leftover chicken into a large pan of slightly runny scramble. The end result is rice wrapped with a thin scrambled egg sheet. (It's slightly open on one end, because the cook is hungover.) He piles ketchup on top, and it barely has time to run down the side before he divides the omurice into three.

There's silence for a bit as they tuck into breakfast with the efficiency of three hungry teenagers. Midoriya wants to follow through on his earlier thought and assign Paul and Kaworu dish duty.

Kaworu would have let them all change shirts, though he didn't think of it himself as, unlike Paul, he's not a sweaty creature due to being both an angel and much more prone to being chilled than overheated.

Likewise, he doesn't usually eat much, having a small and sensitive stomach that doesn't require much nutrients to make his body function. However, this morning he feels oddly... hungry. Perhaps this how humans feel when they dramatically declare that they are "starving". So he finishes more of his omurice than is typical and even drinks all of the juice that Paul gave him.

Then he promptly drops his arms onto the table, puts his face in said arms, completely unconcerned that this is right next to his plate. "Okay, we can go back to bed now."

Ketchup is a condiment Paul at first thought belonged on some variety of dessert, from the taste of it, but he's discovered some of the secrets of its alchemy since. The sweetness of it fades when blended with the salty-savory omurice, and Paul devours the meal in front of him with an elbow on the table and decorum totally abandoned. He's shameless enough to steal a bite of Kaworu's with his chopsticks as he leans over, grinning crookedly.

An outsider might not even recognize the wolfish looking boy if they caught him in passing, his eyes still clouded in cosmetic black and his ears studded like a sailor's. Those closest to him, now lost, would know this Paul; those closest to him here are learning this look, bit by bit.

"Not before we clean up." He nudges the leg of Kaworu's chair with his foot. "But you can stay here to distract Midoriya-kun."

He pushes away from the table and stands up, stretching luxuriously, and knits his hands behind his head as he considers the two boys at the table.

"Or do you want to go up to bed with him?" He asks, nonchalantly.

He's in the middle of poking Kaworu's foot with his own to chide him. He chokes on the last of his green tea instead.

"--Shouldn't lie down just after a big meal," was what he was going to say to Kaworu, and what he coughs out now, in a strained mutter as he avoids their eyes and tamps down a blush. He should be thankful they allowed him a break to eat in peace. He has a fleeting thought that Paul and Kaworu joking like this to him must be a fluke and doesn't make sense... It's not joking. It makes perfect sense--just like, well, sitting tangled close together. That felt right. In a bid to keep what felt right, Midoriya doesn't want to leave one of them, even if only for a few minutes.

"I can wait for you, and keep Nagisa--I mean, Kaworu-kun awake." The first of many stammering corrections, his face mobile with self-consciousness.

Midoriya stands, gathers dishes, and turns to hand them to Paul. While Kaworu is blatant in his wants, Paul tends to choose his words carefully. Midoriya suspects what Paul is doing, again. Why does he feel like Paul is daring him? There's only so much Midoriya can take. He lets a soft breath out through his nose. Midoriya's response to being pushed is to push back, but he doesn't know how to do it with words like silk.

He only knows how to flick his eyes up to Paul's, his face set and unmoving. It's an open, direct look that will be familiar. It belongs near a sparring ring, not a kitchen table, though it's not unkind. Steady and quiet, it's lost some of its frenetic energy after the battle in February. It's a look Midoriya wears before deciding to improvise something he doesn't know how to do, whether or not he has the confidence or skill. It's ruined by a thin rosy wash slowly spreading across it like the dawn that won't come.

Why is everyone at poking him? This is cruel and mean and he doesn't deserve it. He even let Paul steal food off his plate and didn't even complain about it. (He wasn't going eat it but it's the principle of the thing, really.)

And the opposite of Midoriya, he responds to Paul's question without fluster. Sleep sounds nice but the appeal was returning to that warm comfortable place with both of them. It doesn't seem right to go without everyone. "No. We'll wait for you. And I don't need to be kept awake. I can stay awake."

With great effort, he heaves himself into a standing position and goes over to where Paul is gathering the dishes in the sink and just slumps, completely against Paul's back as if his intent is to sleep standing up. This is probably not the first time that he's done this.

"And Izuku-kun will keep me awake." He paws at the air, as though expecting Midoriya to come to his side at command.

Paul knows the look on Midoriya's face from the first times the Bene Gesserit conditioning began to connect with him. It's the pivotal instant of synthesis, the threshold of choice to reach beyond one's self-understood limits. It looks like Midoriya is about to do something that puts Paul on his back, and that's a differently inflected thought in this context.

So he may be a little quick in collecting the plates and making his way to the sink to show off one of his newly acquired skills, his skin flushed past the explanation of his heightened temperature.

There's more to doing dishes than he thought there would be, but he's come to find a meditative calm in it. This is only slightly disturbed by Kaworu falling against his back. He twists to look at him, and so ends up following his gesture to Midoriya anyway.

"You don't actually have to listen to him," Paul says over the running tap, bordering on apologetic, "Or me."

"I know," he answers Paul, looking at Kaworu. Midoriya is momentarily pulled by a different motivation, but no less focused, and already striding over to Kaworu's side. Though he knows Paul is capable of supporting the weight, or of catching Kaworu quick as blinking, and that Kaworu makes gravity his plaything, Midoriya can't help turning to slip an arm behind Kaworu's waist to secure him there. It's an easy, automatic movement, placed expertly to prevent someone from falling and concussing themselves, but not one he's accustomed to doing in this context.

(Kaworu's weight is slight. Midoriya only let Paul steal food off Kaworu's plate because he was too hungry and hungover to stop him. Some subconscious part of Midoriya worries that if Kaworu got sick and lost what little weight he had, it would be trouble.)

"That's why Kaworu-kun isn't asleep at the table."

Midoriya turns his head and rests his cheek against Paul's warm shoulder. This is at least more familiar, a way they have touched before, and he needs that to ground himself while his heart drums against his ribs with something that isn't apprehension. He realizes with an internal jolt that, despite haplessly panicking and doing nothing he expected all morning, he has done as he wanted. These are his dear friends who he wants to hold, keep safe, and give whatever he can.

When they are done in the kitchen, though there are stairs to navigate, he's not sure if he wants to disentangle himself. He experiences a moment of déjà vu.

Kaworu relaxes against Midorya as well, tipping a little sideways, face still pressed against Paul's back, so he can rest his his head on the slightly taller boy's shoulder. He makes it known that he wants to be near people. He wants their attention, and above all else, their affection. So he always reaches for it, even if he gets pushed away.

Paul never pushed him away. Sometimes, he's afraid Midoriya will, but he's learning that Midoriya's affection can be quiet, looking after others from afar. It's easy to miss, but it still fills up that hole in his chest like water poured gently into a cup.

Still, there's a desire to take a little more that he can't fight off. He shifts, so his cheek is against Paul's back and his chin on Midoriya's shoulder.

"Hey, Izuku-kun. You've really never kissed anyone? Aren't you older than me?"

It sounds cruel. But hopefully Midoriya has learned this is just another way of reaching out, just inexperienced and clumsy.

"I could fix that for you."

Edited 2022-05-07 20:22 (UTC)

Midoriya's arm lies between Kaworu's belly and the small of Paul's back, already preoccupying even before Midoriya sets his cheek on his shoulder, the two of their weights combined enough to press his hipbones against the counter and stutter the rhythm of his breathing. He twists the tap closed with slightly more force than necessary, misjudging it in his distraction. It's not a bad thing. If anything, it's some kind of relief, a wringing out like a sponge - which is what he should be doing, he reminds himself.

The dishes are obscured under a layer of foamed soap, and Paul thinks absently of the important lesson of 'letting things soak', which would provide an excuse to disentangle them. He won't, of course. If he steps away, he already suspects Midoriya will try to do it himself, and he's already put in than his fair share of effort this morning. Paul takes a bracing breath before he starts scrubbing, hair falling around his face as he bends over the steaming sink.

When Kaworu breaks the brief reverie, the sudsy water sloshes around Paul's wrists when he half-startles, laughter coming out of him like the curl of a question mark.

"Kaworu," he says, twisting to glance back at as much of them as he can see, which isn't much, and then he's quiet in a way that echoes the softly inexorable determination of Midoriya at the table earlier. He flicks from green to pale hair, eyes shaded by his lashes.

"...he is good at it." Softly, like an extended hand, palm up. "If you want to."

They did brush their teeth.

He flushes and wonders if Paul can feel the heat radiating off his cheek through his shirt. Kaworu really had to ask that when they were all pressed together, didn't he... But Midoriya resolved not to shrink away from these two people he cares about. Midoriya decided this when he looked Paul in the eye. He doesn't avoid Kaworu's now.

He lets out a small breath. A few of Kaworu's hairs move with it because they're close. He tilts his head up to look at the slant of Paul's face, also close, and the tangle of curls around it. His familiar sweat-smell is reassuring. Paul seems less mercurial than when he threw that pillow, and it's the sort of clarity Midoriya was looking for in the ambiguity of his flirting. (Midoriya can call it that now.)

"Yes. With you two. Not in here," he breathes before thinking. Midoriya is very aware they are in a public part of the house. They're alone, and there isn't an entire class of his old neighborhood's kids to laugh at him at a vulnerable moment, but some old irrational discomfort nags at him at a very inconvenient time.

He presses his fingers slightly against Kaworu, gives Paul an extra bodily nudge against the counter because he's somehow taking forever to wash a few plates, and leaves. It's relief and torture to drag himself away. It isn't the first time he's jumped into something before thinking, but all his nerves crackle anyway as he pads down the hall. He waits at the foot of the stairs, reconnecting with their original plan to return to the bedroom, and it comes to him all at once. He nearly cracks with laughter held back. When the other two appear, he turns with a wry grin,

"...I remember now. I carried you both."

For a variety of reasons--shyness from being set apart in childhood, the way he carefully and respectfully handles people, and new situations like this--Midoriya doesn't usually initiate contact. There are exceptions for when his dear friends are drunk, or when he is called upon to keep one awake while the other does dishes.

When Midoriya raises his head, Kaworu drops his, slumping into Midoriya's shoulder, face pressing against his neck. But it's strategically planned, as Paul actually bears most of his weight, further melding their bodies closer. There's a mumble of "why?" as he tries to presses further against Midoriya's neck, trying to tuck his nose into a soft corner. "Here" nor "there" really matter, it's about getting as close as possible to those he cares about.

When Midoriya pulls himself away, he opens red eyes, trying to focus on Midoriya like the sun casting the first light over the earth. He doesn't quite understand why he pulled away. So he just blinks, curious and sleepy.

"So... carry us again. To "there"."

Edited (i'm stupid don't let me tag when tired) 2022-05-08 14:54 (UTC)

The loss of Midoriya's extra pinning pressure is an unhappy one, but it does serve to hurry along Paul's dishwashing. He proceeds in a clatter of plates, pans, and utensils, his face as heated as the water.

He knows exactly what they're agreed to. He has no idea what they're doing. It's a paradox for the ages, a heady mix of confidence and nerves roiling in his stomach as he drains the sink and rinses his hands clean before turning around to sweep Kaworu under an arm and guide him towards the stairs where Midoriya is waiting for them. He smiles tentatively at the shorter boy, splitting into a wider chagrin at being informed he was carried to bed. It must have been quite a sight - Midoriya is strong enough to do it, but the physical logistics might explain some of the aches in his body. They certainly explain the new one that comes across him as he gently pushes Kaworu towards Midoriya, speculation rising in his expression.

"I can walk this time. Him, on the other hand..." Paul shrugs lopsidedly, his nonchalance a poor fit over the restless anticipation that has him shifting his weight back and forth on his feet.

Like an afterimage, he still feels Kaworu's murmur and the press of his nose on his neck. He tries and fails not to think about how that raised his heart rate and lowered his voice to a sigh.

He moves towards him as he lets out a small laugh.

"Paul-kun was on my back," he retraces his memory. Midoriya was trained how to handle someone like they're made of glass, but he purposefully allowed Paul's feet to drag along the floor last night. "And I carried you."

He approaches Kaworu, starts to curl an arm around his slim back. But he can't help catching the shift in Paul's feet, the tartness widening his smile, the shift of his shoulders in a bid for casualness. The Midoriya of a year ago wouldn't have scented and pursued this like the Midoriya of the present does now. He allows Paul certain dignities in certain contexts out of kindness and fondness for him. This is not one of those moments, though the kindness (inherent) and fondness (ardent) remains.

"Wait," he whispers into the shell of Kaworu's ear, mimicking the way he pressed a single word into the crook of his neck, but with a soft shyness instead of insistence, one that carries an if you please.

He steps away and presses a confident hand to Paul's chest, pushing him into the support of his other arm gently enough that he could easily duck away. He slides his foot into a stable stance and scoops up Paul's legs with a smooth enough swing that his head doesn't wobble. Midoriya is strong enough to carry a person without his Quirk, but he calls up that thrumming energy so the ride will be smoother. He turns his head playfully to Kaworu,

"Get on!" He doesn't mean his back, though he will adjust for that if Kaworu wishes. One For all is strong enough to put both of them in his arms.

"I don't remember," Kaworu says, a tinge of sadness seeping over the sleepiness in his voice. He would have liked to remember. It was nice, being carried by Paul, even to just a closet. It made Kaworu feel like he was something to be protected, valued, instead of something to be used for once. Like he was actually as fragile as he feels like he sometimes is and he hates he can't remember it.

Still, when Midoriya asks him to wait, he does, just rubbing at his arm and watching the other boy, curious to see, what he does. Then just before Midoriya moves, Kaworu understands, and steps back to avoid Paul's feet from being swung into him. However, he doesn't expect Midoriya to encourage him to join in. He still expects to be on the outside unless he forces himself in because he can't stand to be left apart.

Unusually cautious, Kaworu approaches, trying to think about how it would work for Midoriya to carry them both. But as he gets closer, the caution fades, and the cheerful intoxication of closeness takes over. He jumps into Paul's lap, wrapping his arms around Midoriya's neck with a cheerful laugh.

At first, Paul doesn't fully understand what Midoriya is doing, and it speaks to his trust that he goes pliant instead of rigid, in a bewildered sort of way. His consternation only grows when he does put the intention together, but by then his feet are already being literally swept from underneath him.

He opens his mouth to say something, arranging his arm loosely over Midoriya's shoulder only because it's ungainly to place it anywhere else, but his protest is quashed literally and figuratively by Kaworu flinging himself joyously into his lap. This leaves Paul no choice but to wrap an anchoring arm around his waist, and now in order to free himself he'd have to unseat the giddy angel. He maintains one more moment of awkward poise before he relaxes into it all with a sigh meant to come off as long suffering and instead sounding like the profound relief suffering leaves in its wake.

"Incorrigible," he says, of either and both of them, but there is again something in the warm pressure of bodies against his that unwinds some part of him he didn't realize was so tightly strung. (Or he stopped recognizing it, repressed so long he forgot what it was like to be at ease.)

At least it's still before dawn. The only person they're likely to run into is Gideon, and she would be as impressed as Paul is at Midoriya's might.

He flashes his biggest grin to further encourage Kaworu, who usually flops onto people he likes without reservation, who for a moment looks like--himself, two years ago. Then all caution is thrown to the winds (except Midoriya's care when carrying people). He bites his lower lip to contain his laughter, afraid of waking anyone up, and buries his face against the two of them before he must look where he's stepping. Paul isn't the only sentimental one around. Sometimes Midoriya can hardly believe he's been lucky enough to know some of the people in his life.

He feels blessed.

If the previous night's sight of Midoriya carrying these two properly was something, it's nothing compared to the jumbled stack in his arms now. He instructs one of them to open and close the bedroom door in a conspiratorial whisper brimming with barely contained joy. To avoid a harsh landing, he deposits them on the bed in a mess of limbs both long and short, bending and ultimately slumping on the bed himself to follow the arms around his neck down. His feet dangle over the edge. Though the arcing energy of his Quirk dissipates, he still feels heat under his skin.

He raises his face (pleasantly pink) and half his chest from where they squashed against Paul's side. Midoriya lets out his first heedless laugh since an eggplant sailed through the air and hit the wall. He feels the same as then, forgetful of his nervousness. He curls an arm around the nearest part of Kaworu he can reach--probably all of him, since he's so slim. He doesn't know what he's doing or how, but he wants the closeness of their breath against him again, heedless as the laugh on his face.

The ride up the stairs is nearly as memorable as last night's trip to the closet. Midoriya's strength is certainly impressive and seeing it in action, along with the anchoring arm around his waist, means the idea that this might actually be silly doesn't even enter his brain. Kaworu drops easily onto the bed, cushioned by the mattress and Paul, their limbs tangled together in a familiar way.

He shifts a little, settling his head on Paul's chest, then he's suddenly, and comfortably, weighed down by Midoriya's arm coming to rest around his waist. Red eyes come to meet green, his hair flutters from Paul and Midoriya's breath against him, and Paul's heartbeat drums pleasantly in his ears.

"So." Matter of fact and yet somehow shifting into slyness. "Do you want me to kiss you?"

Everything about their return journey to the bedroom is ridiculous. It's the kind of silliness that Paul was too old for when he was eight, and is distinctly too old for at more than twice that age, which may be exactly why he drinks it down as avidly as golden liquor.

He finally voices the laughter he'd been containing when they fall onto the bed behind closed doors, an uncharacteristically unpolished sound out of a boy trained to vocal instrumentation. It's as ungainly as his limbs sometimes still are, as they are now, necessitating some squirming(always worms with you) manuevers to situate himself around the boys stacked against him like timber. Someone's legs end up stranded between his while he stretches his arm out as far over and around both of them as it will go.

Then Kaworu asks outright, and he stops laughing. Not because he's upset, even if it occurs to him that he could be, but - the opposite, his eyes brightly intent over his momentarily stilled tongue as he gauges Midoriya's reaction with nearly as much anticipation as Kaworu.

"I don't mind," he says, after a hush that feels longer than it was, and if he's violating some unspoken norm for either of them, that's how it is. He needs to say it for the sake of his own, for whatever they're worth in this uncharted territory.

He draws his legs onto the bed and shifts closer. They're pressed together again, his side and leg against Kaworu's, one of Paul's legs between his, and half his weight on Paul, whose laughter reverberates against the other two. Midoriya settles easily against Paul's known black-clad form, lines strong enough for acrobatics, blade-smooth, and gentle. He's less familiar with Kaworu's pleasantly strange, wispy allure.

Midoriya's eyes flick from Kaworu to Paul, and he realizes that he has no idea what he is doing or what it might be called, and he doesn't care. He's never been able to adequately explain any atypical relationship in his life. He only feels what is right and cherishes it. His chest aches with a warm permeating joy. His fingers smooth Paul's curls away from his newly studded ears in reply, and it takes him a moment to remember why the movement is easy.

He resists an urge to redundantly ask if this is all right. Kaworu has made himself clear, and so has Paul. Kaworu seems confident. Midoriya can't be sure, but he thinks perhaps it's his way of making his own life on his terms. Midoriya always thought that if by some slim chance he got to experience something like this, it would be because someone roped him into it. This is still true, but he's changed so much in the last few years. He doesn't want to just acquiesce. He wants to observe and act. He's always been one to give to people. ("You're a giving place. Things grow for you.")

He looks again at the angel who was given nothing, or not enough. He remembers Kaworu plaintively asking in a spice haze questions that circled around his own worth.

"Here," Midoriya says in soft offering as he moves forward--awkwardly negotiating their noses while pinprick-red eyes blur up close--and presses his lips to his. He knows how the face is built, but this pliant touch is still unexpectedly soft. He closes his eyes. He doesn't know how to kiss. He doesn't know how to move in a way that entices a heady rhythm. He does know how to hold someone, and his arm secures the perfect curve around Kaworu to draw him closer into his and Paul's beating hearts.

Kaworu watches Midoriya tenderly stroke Paul's curls and he shifts, resting the urge to butt his head against Midoriya's hand in hopes that he'll receive the same gesture. Instead, he curls closer to Paul, apprehensive about if his question will be met with rejection. The anxiety that humans face when trying to understand others... it can become crushing and how easy it is to overthink something that should be simple. It always seems so simple to him until it isn't.

"It's alright. If you're afraid. It's normal-" He tries to offer some reassurance before Midoriya moves forward and presses his lips against his. It's not like the crushing, desperate, intoxicating way that he and Paul kissed last night and earlier. Instead, it's tender, almost uncertain, and it makes him feel at ease more than it lights any flames.

He leans in, pressing his lips against Midoriya's with a confidence to balance out the other boy's (both of their) inexperience. It's firm and his fingers come up to cup a soft freckled cheek as Midoriya pulls him closer to Paul and himself. He finds there's a distinct pleasure in being held.

Paul has seen people kiss, but never this close, and never as some as-yet undefined part of this once more closed circle of current. He's never had anyone brush his hair back like that before last night, tenderly electric, his pulse caught hot and throbbing in his neck, around his piercings, and deep in his belly as he watches Kaworu and Midoriya come together in a new kind of intimacy.

He hadn't been able to see what Kaworu looks like when he kisses someone, not really. He'd never even pictured it with Midoriya. It's fascinating, magnetic; he watches Kaworu's pale hand cup Midoriya's face, his freckles like stars between clouds, and he knows what that feels like, even if the words to describe it evade him.

The words for many things are evading him, dissolved in the newness and reconfiguration of this way of relating to other people. He doesn't know what it means that he wants to kiss those fingertips and the warm spans between them, or why the hitch of his breathing and the dryness of his mouth are the same and not the same as they were yesterday, lost in shimmering heat waves of other wants stretching out beyond them.

He doesn't speak, the moment too delicate to risk, but he breathes deep, a swell of movement that presses against them both, and he bites his lip in a gesture he doesn't even notice below his wide eyes.

Midoriya is very used to being in a position where he has a lot to learn. Immediately he can feel he has no idea what he is doing. He is someone taking one step at a time in deep darkness lit only by a small dim lantern. He... forgot to breathe. It escapes him now, the exhale through his nose trapped in this closeness between them. His nerves prickle, ache, and spark along the line of mingled bodies, legs tangled and interlocked. Midoriya knows the longer he remains in a comfortable jumble with these two, the harder it is to distinguish between all their slight movements and altered breathing.

This is different than Midoriya's habitually reciprocal touches. Here, he is to give more, he thinks. That's the surging call and response that makes his chest implode like a star, that shift into someone's heart with a touch, a word, an observation, an action. Later, Midoriya will look back and wonder when exactly it became so with Paul or Kaworu, and, due to the intense way he feels about close friends in general, he honestly cannot say.

He should do this properly, whatever that means. (He's still preoccupied with should, clinging to any knowledge he has of something so foreign.) He pulls his hand away from Paul and cups the back of Kaworu's head. It's a familiar gesture in an unfamiliar context. He presses him closer. He matches Kaworu's firmness, copying him for lack of instruction, and tries to build on it. He finds his own mouth more pliant than he thought. It opens on Kaworu's, and Midoriya makes a small hum in his throat, half apology, half something else. His hand splays on his shirt, fingers dipping in the funnel of his lower spine and the edge of one hip. He gently brushes his fingers down through his hair and finds the shorter gossamer above the nape of his neck.

He wants to give and give and give, but--careful. Midoriya is still finding his dear friend (what does he call him now?) in his explorations. He is responsible for someone in his arms.

He breaks the kiss and presses his curls to Kaworu's forehead. He looks at Kaworu, and at Paul. Was it too much? Not enough? His hands, at least, remain sure. He bears a similar expression to when they teased him about his personal name and left him sitting on the bed pink-faced, lips slightly parted, eyes round. Here, the difference is the quick rise and fall of his chest, made quicker by the look on Paul's face: in need. It calls Midoriya as inexorably as a command.

He slips his hand where he had it before in his dark curls and shifts up to him without thought. He has the spatial awareness to maneuver over a person in one smooth motion, but he does not expect the slide of his body against two others to be so--like that--particularly when he doesn't want to relinquish his other arm's press on Kaworu. Thus, he's breathless and hapless as he hovers his lips over Paul's waiting for him to accept or refuse what is offered, Kaworu's taste still on him.

Birthday Party

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