Entry tags:
- arknights: midnight,
- cobra kai: daniel larusso,
- cobra kai: robby keene,
- genshin impact: alhaitham,
- genshin impact: cyno,
- genshin impact: kaveh,
- genshin impact: tighnari,
- genshin impact: wanderer,
- library of ruina: chesed,
- library of ruina: netzach,
- library of ruina: yesod,
- limbus company: don quixote,
- limbus company: vergilius,
- magia record: tsuruno yui,
- original: ghost
[ open ] kaveh's permanent catch-all
WHO: kaveh (
fussiest) & y'all!
WHAT: this is a perpetual catch-all for kaveh because i'm too lazy to make a new one every month. this is for closed starters, tag-ins, visits to kaveh's workshop and the like! be wild! be bold! be free!
WHERE: all around the city, and especially at kaveh's workshop, the pairidaeza architectural design studio in district 1
WHEN: everywhere! everywhen! all at once!
WARNINGS: bickering, probably - everything else will be warned for on a thread-by-thread basis
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WHAT: this is a perpetual catch-all for kaveh because i'm too lazy to make a new one every month. this is for closed starters, tag-ins, visits to kaveh's workshop and the like! be wild! be bold! be free!
WHERE: all around the city, and especially at kaveh's workshop, the pairidaeza architectural design studio in district 1
WHEN: everywhere! everywhen! all at once!
WARNINGS: bickering, probably - everything else will be warned for on a thread-by-thread basis
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[ kaveh wrinkles his nose. he casts a glance at the far wall where the mirrors have been mounted. a cursory glance tells him that they're level. kaveh observes the edges of the mirror. there are thin LEDs, aren't there, that would fit just beside and a little behind the mirrors. the effect will have the mirrors themselves seem as if they were the sole lighting source.
kaveh considers this. ]
And like I keep reminding you - your night vision is far better than the majority of the residents of this city. If you don't intend on having each guest stub their toes on their way in, your dream of a world of light needs to be a little more solid. [ midnight approaches. kaveh tucks in the ends of his ribbon so that it doesn't drape over his neck. as if midnight had asked: ] The jar is lip balm. Yours were dry, possibly from chronic dehydration. [ and then - ] More importantly, what about strip lights along the edges of the mirror?
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[ Quite blatantly, a large, heavy boltcutter leans on the wall next to the cot. The lock is nowhere to be found.
Midnight, in spite of himself, touches his mouth with the back of his hand, frowning. He's... always strived to be hydrated enough that his lips wouldn't start bleeding, at least... ]
I haven't any idea how that would look. Show me.
[ Definitely not a no, and not even an "impress me". Much more of a "dazzle me once again with your magic, you gorgeous man." He reaches over, snags one of the cans at random, and cracks it open, tugging Kaveh over one handed, eyes keeping a careful watch to make sure that Kaveh doesn't stub a toe in the low light. ]
good, stay asleep ✨
How am I supposed to show you? I haven't any lights. [ but kaveh is thinking as he is tugged forward, stepping past a pile of wooden planking that will eventually turn into a semi-private slat wall divider so he can take a closer look at the mirrors. five kaveh's look back. the crow's nest of his hair hangs somewhere along the line of his jaw, outline in pale swathes. kaveh looks, he thinks, as if he hasn't slept in three days. kaveh feels as if he hasn't slept in ten. his nail-bitten fingers skim the line of a polished mirror, and then turn his head so that he can give the edges a proper look. ]
It'll be a line of lights around here. Gentle light, very dim, almost the same as the glow you have in some of your VIP rooms - the shadows will cast along the sides. It'll give the impression that not only are your mirrors slightly aglow, but that they're suspended along the walls.
[ hm. ] Perhaps I'll find the lights that can change colour with the touch of a button. You can set the ambiance based on the theme of the week or the month, or whatever incomprehensible rubric you've picked for your theming.
i live, but at what cost
Anyway, Midnight stares at Kaveh through his explanation, patiently waiting out his irritated pique and imagining the mirrors as Kaveh describes them. Eyes dragging down his irascible form in the same way gravity, in turn, drags Kaveh down into its very depths. He's making the way Midnight carries himself through constant, water-drip constant exhaustion look graceful. ]
I'd like to try that, too. Another day, when we're working on the lights. And please do not be alarmed... I haven't the creativity to come up with theme nights in the plural. You'll be fighting Miss Fearne or Miss Don on that front, I think.
[ ... He can't help it; he reaches out, touches the birdnest at the base of Kaveh's neck. Where are his hairclips? The modicum of self-awareness one needs for a bit of grooming? Forget his lips; Kaveh could use some overall moisture, metaphorically speaking. ]
friend... im praying for u
midnight reaches for kaveh's hair. kaveh's head tilts at it. the contact jarrs something, or is jarring. kaveh isn't certain which, or rather which ought to come first in its order. absently, he reaches back. he pulls a stub of a pencil from the nest of it, and then tweezes it back into place as a makeshift hairstick in all but name. the look kaveh gives midnight is a wry one: ]
Like I said, an incomprehensible rubric. You're the one who has let them choose, are you not? It follows that that was an incomprehensible rubric to begin with.
[ but, kaveh thinks, there's potential here. new ideas, incongruent ones - were those not the birth of innovation? or disaster, but this isn't kaveh's host club, even if he's getting rather attached to the custom bar. that had been work. ] Anyway, it's an idea. I'll bring the lights in. They come in strips, now. You can also have it under the bar, if we're going there. I'll fish out a few extra strips and you can see how they fair.
Did you figure out what colour you wanted the last room to be?
im so sleeby, dude. I am, in fact, not woke as fuck
Midnight's eyes narrow in the dark, quietly putting his dishevelment together in the frame of Kaveh he's built in his head. Cat-lenses flashing in the gloom, from behind Kaveh's back, where he can't see. ]
For aesthetics, or to let any prospective bartenders have a precious bit of illumination? Really, so long as your suggestions remain this lovely, I'll always let you have your way.
[ The third chandelier was not a lovely thing, and Kaveh expressed it, but Midnight stands by it. A fantasy isn't always lovely, after all... ]
Plain black for now, I think. I don't have any specific plans for it or room five; Miss Don hasn't gotten back to me on that front and I'd like to keep the possibilities open. You've done quite a bit with the greenhouse and coffee station anyhow.
[ ... He tugs at the back of Kaveh's collar, first softly, then a bit more insistently. If Kaveh turns to see what the hell he's on about, Midnight will put his hand to his face, fingers in Kaveh's unkempt hair, peering at his tired red eyes. How long has he been up this time...? ]
im struggling to find a good rhyme for woke that isn't broke. be a good bloke? don't choke!
kaveh's expression twists. he can see it in the mirror five times over. ]
Or have a little ray of light in this place that isn't fostered by that hideous block of a chandelier. Yes, there's illumination. No, it's not illumination that anyone in their right mind ought to want, and also it destroys the sleek line of the suspended ceiling. What did you have against nice potlights? Even a basic track light would have been better.
[ and, on a day five, the next thought comes without pause - that kaveh is absolutely never rigging another irrigation system indoors, because who is he to pretend to be a fluid dynamics engineer? it had taken him three whole days to figure out why the system didn't have enough pressure in it, and that was through painful block by block, tube by tube testing until he found the dip - and then another good five days before he could engineer his way into a solution that didn't involve opening up the next room over. that thought collides with the lack of a quality grinder for the coffee station, which then careens into don's admission that angela, of all people, was her boss, and did midnight know what that she had done to netzach?
midnight's hand tugs at his collar. kaveh turns. his thoughts still. midnight is looking at him much in the way of a man sizing up a puzzle. kaveh looks back. day fives feel like day ones again, with the only real difference being kaveh's perception of time. it has been five minutes, and it has been five hours, and kaveh lifts his hand to match itself against midnight's cheek. he pushes it into the black shock of midnight's hair. ]
- what? [ kaveh asks. the rimmed-red of his eyes narrow. ] Are you hungry? Did you not eat? In how many ways must I call you a fool before it finally sinks in, by the way of a particularly verbose well?
crawls in. Lonetrail,
Midnight pauses, then reaches behind Kaveh's neck, tugging him in only the two or three centimeters needed to feel the ends of his frizz, notes if it's too dry, if it's at least been combed through. ]
For someone who prides himself in subtlety in aesthetic, you really don't do much to put up a facade around others. Or perhaps I'm simply noticing these things for the first time.
[ Midnight takes a breath in, lets it drain out of his nose slowly, making a decision that is just as unpleasant for him as it will for Kaveh. ]
I've liberated your cot, love. Let's have a liedown, then. Both of us.
[ The gentle threat-and-promise behind the suggestion is quite clear: if Midnight's going to be fussed over, Kaveh will have to acquiesce to a certain level of fussing himself, or Midnight will find his own ways of getting underfoot. At this point, they both know this. They're at an impasse of mutual, tacit understanding on how hard they both work, tireless in all but the mortal coil. How long it will take for them to get from where they stand to the five or six steps they currently stand from the cot will all depend on how badly Kaveh would like to go down swinging. ]
GOD..... YEAH............................ rubs face... dog on the moon....
anyway: midnight pauses. he tugs kaveh in. his hands feel for the dry ends of kaveh's hair. kaveh looks at him. for a moment, panic rolls through kaveh helplessly as if a predator through a shoal of fish, three hundred shimmering lithe bodies in coordinated chaos as their bodies carve open between them a senseless void. what did kaveh forget? he'd dressed properly, he'd put on foundation, he had on hand-cream and a scarf for the still-purple bruise. kaveh didn't forget anything, and then kaveh remembers - his clips. he had given them to netzach. he hadn't had time to make new ones.
kaveh opens his mouth. he closes it. the panic is down to the pit of his gut, where it swims like something silverine and cold and trapped. ]
Both of us. [ he repeats. it's an impasse. it's an impasse with attitude. kaveh's expression flits between seven distinct emotions before it settles on a cross between exasperated and frustrated. in the silence that stretches, kaveh and midnight have thirty different permutations of the same argument, culminating in this: that's you, and there's me. midnight knows too much. kaveh is bare. the truth of the matter is this: kaveh hadn't expected midnight to be here.
finally, with the weariness of a hibernating creature lumbering in spring, kaveh closes his mouth. his jaw tightens with it. ]
No more than an hour.
[ it's not a swing. it's a frustrated tap. ]
that nonsequitur finally makes sense... also i thought kristen was a birb this whole time LMAO
[ One of those affirmative noises that promises nothing except the fact that it's there. Midnight drops both hands to Kaveh's waist, tugs and prods and pushes until they've traversed the five-to-six steps to the cot, unlocked and bedding slightly askew from a hurried tidying. He removes his shoes, toeing out of them and shifting them to the side, sits, then tugs Kaveh down next to him. ]
I'll set an alarm. We'll both be up in an hour.
[ This is a lie, but only if Kaveh is still asleep after an hour. Midnight completely plans to leave him there as he goes back to work. He only plans this because he knows Kaveh is planning the same, if he even plans to sleep at all. ]
Your eyes are so red, love. Were you redrawing the barista station? I told you that your blueprints were fine, love. Even if the scaling is off, we're the only two on the project. It needn't be accurate.
HAHAH she's based on the first dog in space! along with the fate of the first dog... lies down
the red of kaveh's eyes roll. the gesture hurts more than it ought to, but day five is a little like this - the succumbing of body to gravity can be felt in every micron of kaveh's body. it acts first on the surface of his eyes. ]
My eyes are red because they are red, Midnight. I can hardly will my eyes to be a colour that they are not. [ kaveh says, ] And I did not redraw the barista station; the scaling was only off in the back pipes, and even then, that's hardly something that can be winged. Did you want a flood on your hands? I'm not putting back in the hardwood flooring if it gets water damaged. Luckily, I spent yesterday going through the greenhouse and I've found piping that works. They're back at my workshop, and they're undergoing treatment before I bring them here. And yes, there will be a custom filter for the water. Hard minerals are terrible for the taste of coffee.
And you - didn't I tell you to do the slat walls in batches? You've already put up four of them. If you do the rest of them, you won't be sleeping tonight, which I know was your plan. You cut the lock off this cot and you hardly use it. That's what pisses me off.
:'( miss laika... rip to a good dog
[ Oh, that alarm is getting set. In fact, Midnight takes his phone out and sets the timer on it as Kaveh complains, as Midnight settles, as Midnight uses his other hand to pull Kaveh down next to him, until both their noses touch, bodies pressed full against each other as a poor furniture item barely meant to fit one 180+ cm man sighs to occupy two. At least the whole thing is rather stiff, refuses to sag. It will break, first.
This means every complaint Kaveh has past the water damage is breathed against Midnight's mouth. Midnight sneaks in a very quick, chaste kiss when Kaveh pauses for breath, a soft thing at the corner of his mouth. Because his complaints about the work are all well and good, but his mouth is right there, isn't it? ]
We're using it, silly thing. Currently, even.
[ Midnight tucks his phone behind him, slightly under his own half of the pillow. Equally because there isn't any room for it otherwise and because he wants to be in control of turning the alarm off. He pulls the blanket over them both. ]
Now, please continue until I fall asleep. Because I will, if you're here, or at least I'll try my hardest.
[ Netzach is spoiling him, honestly. Reminding him how nice it is to fall asleep with someone soft and warm next to him. If Kaveh doesn't fall asleep, that truly his own affair, but he knows that the only way to convince one that another person has stayed by one's side for a nap both that long and that short is to simply stay in bed with them, at least. He hopes gravity will do the rest for both of them. ]
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kaveh feels, all of a sudden, claustrophobic in a way that he has never felt before. kaveh feels, all of a sudden, that he is small. both can be true. the thoughts come - that there may or may not be enough glue for the slats. that kaveh had been meaning to mix the paint, and will need to before the impetus overpowers him. that the rubber at the back of midnight's heels had been worn, and kaveh will need to take a look at it, to better see the wear pattern. see where it began and ended. in kaveh's mind, there is a storm. the briefest skim of midnight's lips is like perfunctory punctuation at the end of a long sentence, a grace note in flight. kaveh closes his eyes, and opens them. ]
Really. [ kaveh says the word with all the exasperation of a man made of it, and continues to be made of it, on a day five. ] Do you have trouble sleeping alone? Be honest. I'm rather miffed at you right now, so that's the complaint that I'll start with. It's the gentlest one I have.
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Another kiss, poorly aimed, just under Kaveh's lip, tucked above his chin, then Mifnight closes his eyes. Another sigh. It's good to be allowed to kiss. All he needs is a kiss. Just a few to stave off the hunger. ]
I have trouble sleeping regardless of company. Netzach does more that he should to help, and he does, but.
[ A silence. His hand finds Kaveh's wrist between them, curls around it. ]
I told them I didn't want medication to help me sleep. I was already taking too many, I wanted to work it out on my own. The work helps.
[ Except when he's filled with thoughts of his work, about the time left, about how the hours feel too, too fast when nothing is ever finished, and too slow when his eyes burn with unachieved goals, even when they're closed. When he's tired and he doesn't know which fatigue it is, if it will ever properly go away. ]
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kaveh leans in. he returns the kiss that had been misplaced, returns it to the curve of midnight's lips, deposits it where kisses go: where the warmth begins and ends, where the breath begins and ends. this man is a foolish man. a hopeless man. the work helps, he says, and kaveh doesn't want it to resonate so much, the way a curled hand around his wrist is like a reverberation of a tuning fork. ]
Doctor Daan saw fit to prescribe me melatonin. [ is what kaveh says, ] It turns out that you need to know what your sleep cycle is before you know when to take it. Now, I'm sleepy and awake; it's quite remarkable, how a body can refuse both states and encompass them all the same. There's an art to it. Perhaps I'll paint it into a picture.
[ kaveh's unheld hand reaches. it cards through midnight's hair the way you would a beast's. ] Has Netzach been staying with you more often?
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He should spend more time with you painting, if you'd like to paint the concept of being in between. But Mr. Roland's returned, so he spends quite a bit more time back at their place. He does still come by now and then to talk me to sleep, but he's been occupied with the affairs of that library of his.
[ With Miss Angela, and the consequences thereof. He doesn't pretend to understand half of it, but the weight of what he does understand along with the waves of eternal fatigue lapping up his feet, his knees, softens his voice, lowers it. Leaks some of that yearning into the timbre. I miss him, it says, but he isn't mine entirely to have. ]
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midnight starves.
kaveh's fingers continue their ministrations, one-two and long, silken strands, spun dark and shadowed spider's silk much in the way of an unkempt mane. midnight is messy. perhaps they all are. netzach loves you, kaveh thinks. but these are not words for kaveh to say, and in any case, this is something that kaveh knows: that love cannot bridge the gap of the fontanian sea. love cannot bridge the gap of twenty years. love cannot bridge the gap between the letters unread and unsend, the ones that cut so deeply, when you look up and you no longer remember the shape of the sender's face.
the affair of that library of his, midnight says. kaveh's heart sinks to the bottom of where his shoes still dwell. the hand in midnight's hair tightens, just so. ]
... do you know? [ kaveh asks, soft as dust, ] What Angela did to him. To them.
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I understand enough about the shape of it, I think. I understand that if they return to their city, it will be the end.
[ Quiet, even, but not without passion. Sad, but lacking hatred. He loves Miss Angela too. He understands what loneliness is, and what it isn't. ]
I don't want them to be alone. Perhaps I've kept others company professionally for too long, but if there's even a possibility that they might feel lonely...
[ He knows there's only so much he can do, but he feels like there must be more. Something else on top of something else until there are only reasons to smile.
(People must smile. Even if it's at his own expense. Even if they're relieved to see him gone...) ]
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kaveh is furious. this is not unusual. kaveh knows that midnight knows - and midnight knows that kaveh knows that midnight knows, and so that hierarchy of understanding maintains itself on a three-point plane. it will collapse. it must. this is the mortifying ordeal of being known. but kaveh allows it today, on the cusp of a day five, midnight's kiss along his wrist. ]
I don't want that to be their end. I don't want to lose this fury in me. And even if they should accept it; even if the rest of the universe were to accept it, I don't think I can, Midnight.
[ kaveh shakes his head. his grip in midnight's hair relents. the apology comes carding through, nail upon scalp. his nails are red today, or rather, they are still red. netzach did a wonderful job of it. ] Says you, though. You. There's nobody more lonely than you, Midnight.
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Your heart needs to survive for the fury to stay alive. Fury without the body is a ghost, and between the both of us, I don't think I'll believe in one until I meet one properly.
[ He says this in the way one would soothe an inflammation with aloe, with water. Breathe, Kaveh, don't make your heart burst before its time.
At the last declaration, though, he opens an eye, face still hidden in Kaveh's neck. He huffs a laugh. ]
Bold words, love. Even if we weren't living amongst excellent examples of some terribly cloistered souls... Loneliness lives in bad company, and I am always with myself.
[ With himself, not by himself. Sure, being alone can hurt every now and then, but it always passes, and once it's in the past, he gets moments like this, kissing skin and touching fingertips to work-scarred, work-loved palms. How could he feel anything but gratitude? ]
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kaveh says, ] For whom does your heart exist when it's not being perceived? What do you do for yourself in the intervals when the shadows fall between the warmth of the light? You aren't thinking of yourself.
[ you are drowning, in the work and the business of it, in the shadows of the unsaid and the unseen. his heart falters at it, like a crack in stone, but for a different reason. this is not fury. this is an ache. this is sorrow. ] Who are you to speak of my heart, anyway, when you haven't asked me to give it to you? Hm? Ridiculous man.
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[ Midnight sighs, continues to push into Kaveh's hand, laces fingers in between Kaveh's with his other, letting his other hand come to rest on the other side, sandwiching Kaveh's hand in between. Midnight, as usual, is quite warm. People with anemia tend to be a bit cold, don't they? ]
I'm not out to take anything that isn't already mind, darling. I can do without. [ A small inhalation. ] I have myself, and I think of myself constantly. I have things I'd like to do, things I do without thought for others. Things I do because I enjoy them, and simply because I enjoy them.
[ ... Midnight draws back ever so slightly. ]
One must wonder if you suspect these things in me because you are, in kind, so unused to thinking of yourself.
[ Kaveh, you aren't projecting, are you? ]
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Am I not only thinking of myself when I'm with you? Who gave a heart away, and who didn't? Regardless, I always end up choosing myself. Around you, I haven't even been able to pretend otherwise.
[ kaveh breathes out. ] In truth, I was going to go look for you at some point to scold you. But now that you're here, I am reminded of the fact that you don't have it in you to be terrible.
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[ Rude. And here he is, doing his best warm and soft Netzach impression to scam Kaveh into falling asleep with him. Here: if Midnight feels like he wants another kiss, and steals that kiss, is that enough to distract Kaveh for another moment? Midnight's not the tactical sort, this is pure desire. ]
Scold me? Have I done something specific? Tell me what it is anyway, before I do something terrible out of sheer curiosity.
[ ... Mischief. The crackle in his voice goes low and sweet. ]
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If you had meant that tone of voice just now, there wouldn't have been a single thing I could have said against it. But this is you, and this is me. [ kaveh pulls the hand back from midnight's hair. it curls around midnight's cheek. it holds him there. ] And if I had learned it from anyone but Netzach, I would have torn you apart all over again myself. You died in that haunted house. You didn't tell me.
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sorry it's backstory time again (tm)
takes out my crazy straw and slorpseslrplslpslrp
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why are they so fucking crazy (affectionate)