Hijinks Mingle

[potentite]

Who: Everyone!
Where: Anywhere around the hub!
When: Days 103-105
Open/Closed: Open mingle!
Notes: See this post for details on the moon prompt and this one for the telepathy/dream/spirit prompts!



[A | Flower Gleam and Glow]
[The nearby moon is still passing close to the hub island, meaning the effects are still in play. Perhaps now is the time to stop and smell the large lit up sparkling moonflowers that have bloomed? Or be annoyed by the mosquito-like insects that came with them.

Alternatively, the deer seem to draw some sort of energy from the moon's light. Given their size, at least their sudden aggression and proximity to the base camp isn't the worst thing in the world but a kick would still break a rib or other bone so be careful! Possibly help each other deal with these cute but troublesome fauna.]



[B | Eavesdropping]
[For some reason, the telepathy will suddenly get rather wonky. Characters won't know why it's happening, though of course no doubt there will be ponderings, but it means characters won't be in control of their ability to broadcast — or more specifically, not broadcast — their thoughts. Time to find out secrets of an embarrassing nature. Or maybe something sadder is going on in your character's head.

If this wasn't bad enough, the area around the signet might experience burning or tingling. Just try to keep a lid on your brain for the day and distract yourself from any annoying pain.]



[C | Talking In Your Sleep]
[Or maybe your character just doesn't have the most interesting thoughts. Maybe they're busy thinking about pie instead of their upsetting childhood. That's fair. Pie is great.

But surely sometimes it haunts their dreams. With the telepathy running amuck, it's no wonder dreams and nightmares are leaking through, too. Of course, it doesn't have to be an accident. Feel free to grab a friend and share a fanciful dreamscape together on purpose! But for those nuts that are tougher to crack, accidents can and will happen.]



[D | Who You Gonna Call]
[Last but not least, as Friday rolls around, there seems to be something odd going on with the island. If your character is inclined towards the spiritual or supernatural, they'll no doubt notice the strange heavy thickness hanging around. There are whispers in the air and all of new energy just feels solemn. Might be good to give people a heads up and keep an eye on it.]

Comments

[reckoner]

[ How many hands how many eyes how could he kill him and kill himself for him it will tear him apart and literally does has does. How could he kill him and kill himself, as though he could save him, as though he accepted responsibility, as though he would mete his own punishment, as though he agreed that only by killing they would understand.

But Gaelio does not understand.

This offering, truth without understanding, death without solace.

The boy that crawled from the fracturing body, the body that appeared and pushed, the boy that he became: if his sleeves are clean and white, but for the seeping, he bunches now carefully into his palms. The boy, tears streaming with such a thick flow as to blind him, mops at that blood soaked face, trying to clean and clear it. How gently he presses the cloth to skin, as though afraid it would stick and tear. ]

I don't understand.

[ Voice warbling with his weeping, strangled and weak with it. ]

I'm alive. Then don't kill me. Tell me who you are and don't kill me.

[ He doesn't want to be thrown away either, his mind rebelling against any shred of comprehension, against how McGillis could kill him, will or had, when he dies in his arms, and dies, and bleeds out dying. The corpse in the grass, rasping and convulsing, knows. Would speak, would say, the man aside and watching, the man gone boy, they know, but they hadn't wanted to discard him, either. To deny is not to discard, to kill with those methods, to understand, it isn't throwing him out.

And he can't throw him out like this, can't see him die like this, without power, without conversion to brute force.

Leave the corpse in the grass and let the boy hold him, the boy not yet dead not yet betrayed, still trusting, still seeking with open face heart hands, still gushing and simmering sincere, still bright and brighter to have been pulled from the orbit around imploding rotten stars to that of the sun.

Leave the corpse in the grass and let the boy clasp this boy and promise he won't look away, he won't let them come apart, he won't let go of his heart. Though they do, though he never had it, not really, or lost it, couldn't save it, saw too late he had to try for that, too.

But --

It's a nice dream. ]

I want to know, it's all I want to know, tell me and I won't let you kill me. You don't... if you want this, then you can't want to kill me. So don't.

[ Corpse twitching, spasmodic snapping, cannot sound the protest against what his erstwhile murderer wants, doesn't want. In that voice. Boy's sleeves sopping, dripping, with all this blood McGillis should already be dead. If he could will him alive, clean, he would, and he tries, he tries, he's trying. Gaelio hugs him again, burying his face in the crook of neck and shoulder, his face coating red, but he's crying too hard to mind, to even feel it. Tears pool in the red. ]

I won't throw you away. Even if you die, please don't die. Let me keep you.

[ Leave the corpse in the grass and be with him, just be with him.

God, but it's a nice dream. ]

[finagles]

[ A bunched, white sleeve passes over his jaw. McGillis lifts his drooping head once he senses that, coming face to face with wet blue eyes as large as discs, and the sleeve wiping over his cheek.

Slowly, slowly erasing the streaks of red, some magical component in the cloth, or in the owner of the sleeve.

Gaelio crying, smeared in blood, one way or the other. He's always kept too close, never to his own benefit. The blood is lifting, though, McGillis's eyes crumpling and clearing when faced with his efforts. The only tenderness known in his life. The first, every first that ever provided a contrast to his overall existence, the fixed point, the gravitational center of it -- but there's a man's corpse on the ground, twitching with the terrible weight of knowledge. After all that, even the boy that emerged from him has flayed and silenced him, for the sake of someone who doesn't deserve the effort. He's always kept too close.

Tell me who you are and don't kill me.

So simple. Tell me who you are but he can't, he won't, he can't, he can't --

McGillis exhales, not with dying, instead with the terrible knowledge that he won't die. That terrible weight. A spark of life returning to his eyes.

But it's a nice thought. It's a nice dream.

It's all I want to know and you can't want to kill me and his fingers clutching, tightening over fabric, holding onto Gaelio when he hugs him and disappears into his shoulder. Hanging on to keep from trembling, a small tremble sweeping through him. Red all over him, red all over the both of them, then -- as quickly, none. As quickly, clean and breathing again, something inside snapping with the violent realization that he, also, wants to keep him. It snaps up all the blood.

It's not fair, it's not fair that he can't, that he won't, though that's too childish, too simple, and there are greater injustices, but -- but why his only friend?

Why be that cruel to the both of them?

He shifts small arms, away from clutching and into an embrace. Cupping the back of Gaelio's head and falling back into an endless, white backdrop, becoming the only shape that has form. Everything else blurs out and away -- tree, skies, buildings, corpse -- eaten up by the white landscape. He floats in it.

He takes the other boy with him. ]

Isn't it too late?

[ Something wet sliding from his eyes into that soft cloud of pastels against his cheek. Trembling that snakes through his young voice, not cracking it. ]

Let's stay here, where it's never too late. Let's not go back.

[ Not to waking, not to their families, that artificial world, that severe existence -- a warm body against his, here. A heartbeat against his.

No need to construct safety through any other methods. ]

Would -- would you --

[ But he doesn't know what he asks, trailing off on a shuddering breath. ]

[reckoner]

[ Relief compounds.

Relief that he could see McGillis's skin beneath the blood, porcelain revealed as his sleeves sopped. Relief that he could then believe it abating, receding. Relief in the force of McGillis's fingers clawing in his shirt, not weakening, not beginning to slip and fall. Relief in holding and being held, in yielding reciprocation, in a tremble answered by one of Gaelio's own.

Relief, though impeded by his delayed realization, that the blood disappears, both unmarried and unmarked, as though it had never oozed. He weeps still, unable to stem the frantic flood, his hysterical terror at losing, at almost losing the dream onto which his eyes had already firmly fixed. At almost losing this boy whose hands and arms shift, hold him soft, softer than Gaelio had thought he could, had thought he ever would.

Grass and root and dirt no longer grind into knees. He doesn't want to disrupt McGillis's hand, but he lifts his chin tentative, peering with bleary eyes at the white, and the white, and the encompassing white.

Patchwork man and mangled corpse, every iteration swallowed and gone.

Though gone, the protest that would sound for too late never reaches tongue, never caught by teeth, dissolving in the acid of his gut. A deeper knowledge, known past him, beyond him, what would cast shadows in the white if they let it. If they left it.

The single tear he cannot feel, but here, can sense, and he gazes at McGillis with eyes still seeping, nose dripping, a flushed and quietly blubbering mess, the convulsions of emotion slow to drain from him, the force of it in a slow fade, accepted into the white.

Let's stay here.

Gaelio gazes, and gazes, no less transfixed, weak with the relief that McGillis lives, stunned by the way he holds him, gentler and closer than he ever has, a boy whose need for space Gaelio could nearly feel, like invisible thorns in the air when he neared. A fairytale castle with the sleeping, distant prince, guarded by thick ivy, the wall of thorns he sought to slip through, wary of cutting them down, but ever pricked and torn.

Dizzied, dizzy, by the conviction that McGillis lives for him, came back for him, took him here, kept him. Holds him. No one else holds him like this. He doesn't want anyone else to hold him like this.

By the heartbeat he feels, by the gradual synchronization of two, a warm pulse through the cradling air. McGillis doesn't finish his request, but he doesn't need to. Whatever it is, Gaelio can have only one answer, one firm in the thrumming of their hearts.

Slipping one arm loose, he wipes at his face with a no longer blood drenched sleeve, and with a self-conscious, timid smile, pads at the tears gathered in the crook of McGillis's neck. Then, with a faint exhale, he curls his arm, arms more securely around that neck, sidling, settling close, closer. How warm, how right this fit. He wants to curl into and against him, to close his eyes, to keep like this until time forgets them.

Time enough for, because it won't ever be too late.

Gaelio keeps his chin high, face a breath from McGillis's, and beams, broad and watery relief. His eyes a sky blue sheen, an ocean blue surface, reflecting sun, his sun. ]

I would, I would, I would. I would.

[ Ebullient, exuberant breaths, and he leans, bumping their noses, tipping, lips brushing just below nose and above lip, tilting, brushing cheek, a vow clumsy and peppered, before with an exanding glow over his cheeks, he cozies his face again into that crook. Heavy and hot, the contented sigh against soft skin. ]

If you're with me, I don't want to go back. Let's stay. I will.

[ Thank you.

Don't wake him. Don't ever wake him. ]

[finagles]

[ If they let it --

Whatever happens in the future, they don't have to let it, if they stay here. As young as he is, the obsessions that bind him to life are still half-formed and forming. As prepared as he was to leave in a different way, he's content to stay in this place with the only company he's ever truly felt the desire to keep. He understands that now, understanding it a little more with each day.

Though it amazes him in turn, to feel his limbs working this way. To feel them clutch and hold the way he holds onto Gaelio.

Who doesn't come apart or begin to bleed in his hands. McGillis doesn't crawl out of his skin from the proximity, the pressure. How starved he's been without knowing, starved nearly to death for something like it.

How he's never known anything like it. How right the fit feels, when there should be no such thing as a fit that feels right.

When Gaelio lifts his chin, his face a mess of tears, there's a smile buried beneath the wet streaks that gives him an answer before the string of woulds do. I would, repetition that cushions like a cloud cover. His own lips turn up at the corners, despite a gaze that remains weighted. With that expression so close --

An expression that snares his heart, each detail absorbed in full. An enthusiastic answer to a question unasked. Close, closer, their noses touching and lips almost brushing, lips that plant against his cheek. A feeling that flowers in place and nearly knocks him dizzy -- a feeling that blooms strange color, shades never seen. He huffs on an amazed sound, almost, but not quite hiccuping on it after he lets it out in earnest.

It's as simple and amazing as this: Gaelio wants to stay in a place like this, kisses his cheek to confirm it, and settles contentedly against the crook of his neck. As young as he is, it amazes him to stumble on something so simple, so free of stain. Changing his hold, he hooks arms over the back of his shoulders, trapping him in in response.

Maybe this is the only place he can protect him.

So he won't leave, or allow him to leave. He'll protect them both. He can protect them both here. ]

We'll stay. We'll stay like this. Thank you.

[ Sealing them into eternal white space, he bumps his mouth to the top of the other boy's forehead to exchange the vow. ]