citylogs | [ open ] kaveh's permanent catch-all

[ so in the next divorce alhaitham is taking the kids, except for boltcutter-kun, midnight takes him. kaveh gets visitation every other saturday. Useless

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...? ]

[ they need a lawyer. where's alex at.

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?

[ god, anime, and marriage counseling can only dream of rescuing them now, never mind a court of law.

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. ]

[ ur not wrong, face in hands.

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. ]

Mm.

[ 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.

[ we'll both be up in an hour, midnight says. kaveh is summarily tugged down. he doesn't question the lack of an alarm being set, nor even the missing perfunctory gestures that would suggest it. midnight is midnight. midnight has not and will not make promises, not to kaveh. in turn, kaveh shifts so that there is room on the cot for midnight. it's not a cot meant for two; it is the memory of a cot that has never been meant for two. the metal squeals in tinny protest beneath the weight of their bodies. it shudders and creaks and, as all protesting little cots wont to do, holds with the grudge of something that will one day come alive to snap the two halves of its jaws shut.

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.

Shoes off, love.

[ 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. ]

[ this is neither a scene from a memory or a dream: two men slip into a bed only meant for one, nose-to-nose, chest-to-chest, breath-to-breath. it is neither a memory or a dream because it is a haunting. kaveh's shoes toe off against the heels of midnight's midnight reaches for his phone. he tugs kaveh down. he kisses him.

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.

[ A puff of air, a momentarily satisfied sigh. Midnight isn't opposed to the concept of repose, just the hours that must be devoted to the activity. What his body does to refuse to let him rest. Everything he needs to get done before he runs out of time.

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. ]

[ midnight kisses him again. the kiss misses. it skims somewhere above the tuck of his chin. kaveh breathes out. the breath starts in kaveh and ends somewhere in the recesses of midnight's chest. they are bound by a single, unending loop of it. when did it begin this way? from where must it go? and from when must it end? time is non-euclidean until it ends, in which those experiencing it realise that it can be quantified after all - and then, nothing.

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?

[ The kiss is met with a tiny smile, another kiss. He feels his face warm, his hands and feet heating with affection, with delight, with the first curlings of giddy, swooping want. The swoop turns to a hairpin turn with the feeling of fingers in his hair. The next sigh is shaky, accompanied by a soft moan. More touching than he needs, not nearly enough of what he wants. He feels both full and ravenous, drifts in the yearning between the two as he listens to Kaveh and dutifully continues to assign words to meaning. The sort of hurt he enjoys. ]

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. ]

[ midnight's breath trembles. kaveh's heart hurts for it. midnight misses netzach, is the thing. the sailors say the rain misses the cloud even as it falls through light or dark into the sea. midnight must miss him as he falls through life, through sleepless time and the veil of overwork. it is longing. it is only longing. kaveh thinks - as creatures of the heart, we want things so much sometimes. it is the way we are; it is the way midnight is.

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.

[ As much as he'd like to surrender himself into the gentle ache at the grip in his hair, the conversation's turned. He turns his head instead, nose to the inside of Kaveh's wrist, enjoying the way his skin smells there, lips brushing against where the thin spiderweb of veins stains just dark enough to see. His eyes do not open. ]

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...) ]

[ if they return to their city, it will be the end. midnight says this as gently as one does, passing into the unbroken night. kaveh closes his eyes in turn. the back of his eyelids burn. they are intertwined too much so for midnight to not feel it - the leap in kaveh's pulse, the fury that burns in it, then too-quick drumming of emotions that couldn't possibly be contained in a mortal body.

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.

[ Silly, a triangle is the strongest shape. Midnight rumbles at the strokes, a purr in all but true name. He leans in, eye closed, and kisses over that raised pulse, over ghosts of bruises from a bite in the dark. He wonders, not for the first time, if the emotion Kaveh feels is possible in himself. If it would hurt if he lapped that anger from his body, from puncture wounds in his neck. ]

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? ]

Nonsense. [ says kaveh, with a dismissive little laugh of his own. his hands continue. you let a riboshland tiger lay its head in your lap. you must never forget it is a riboshland tiger. but when you love the tiger - what can you do but do so? and midnight is no tiger; he only thinks of himself as one, and he isn't even a particularly good at being one, at that.

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.

'Course I haven't. If you wanted to give me your heart, you would've done it already.

[ 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? ]

[ midnight is warm, and kaveh is cold. midnight's hands surround kaveh's. it really is warm, the warmth is lovely. kaveh can't quite reach the phone at this angle. he tweaks a lock of midnight's hair as he rolls his eyes. ]

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.

I am not in much control of what my heart does, love. Perhaps if I did, I would make wiser decisions.

[ 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. ]

[ kaveh would say, that only the poorest of thieves would seek to steal something that is freely given. kaveh would say - that the terrible has already happened. kaveh looks. midnight's voice goes low, and sweet with the mischief of it, and kaveh's reproachful tug to the back of midnight's hair says exactly what he thinks of that. ]

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.

[ A satisfied, strained little moan. His eyes slice open, his lips slightly parted. Why can't it always be this easy to have what he wants...?

A thought so cursed that the universe divests him of the time to indulge in it immediately. If he leans in for another kiss, he will seem mad or a clumsy negotiator, but all he wants, even now, is another kiss. He whimpers, just a low, soft sound in his head, but tries to pay attention, at least. ]

Did you expect me to? It's done. You know what my thoughts are on dwelling on the past. And I wasn't precisely alone in the moment, you understand.

[ ... Are either of them going to get any sleep, at this rate? Midnight sighs. He understands that this is very important to Kaveh, but he did want to see if either of them could rest. ]

I know. You gave Netzach a fright. [ midnight squirms, and sighs. kaveh, who hasn't slept in five days, looks. ]

And perhaps I didn't expect it so much as I wanted it. [ kaveh stills. it came at the heels of a rejoinder, it came at the heels of blame. but kaveh says it, and it feels true. he wanted it, just a little, for the choice to have been made. hadn't he been like this with alhaitham, too? that he had wanted alhaitham to choose to say so, to tell him so, whether it was needed or not.

the guilt comes immediately. it sits as a pool at the bottom of a derelict well. ] No, forget what I said. [ kaveh says, after a beat. he hunkers down until he and midnight are fully at eyelevel. he leans in until their foreheads touch. ] I- [ kaveh's throat hurts, for the words that need to be said, that want to be said. kaveh should not want things. there is so much that he wants. ] Just spare a thought, Midnight. For those of us who love you. Spare a thought for me, mm? Because the next time you are harmed beyond repair, and the next, and the next, I will have to reach in and break you in half for it.

I did. He was... too kind.

[ Which is an odd thing to say about one's murderer, but self-defense certainly is its own beast. Heaven knows he's thought about that before.

It is very unfair for Kaveh to keep pulling him in like this and expect him to simultaneously to think of things as boring and irrelevant as the past. He puts another kiss on Kaveh's lips. It's becoming too easy to stop thinking before he does it. He always... needs to think. ]

You've defeated your own argument, love. I keep these things to myself because I think of myself first. Perhaps what I want is the capacity to live my life close to that which harms me beyond repair. Perhaps that is all a life is. A gradual accumulation of wounds in search of some sort of meaning for it.

How you feel about that, what you would do to prevent that, is certainly not my affair, outside of what mad things you would do to dissuade me from my choices. How then do I make the decision to tell you anything?

He is. [ kaveh says, of the person who murdered midnight. ] And I am not. Observe:

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. You choose words the same way a Haravatat does, but I have lived with the most confounding version of one. You keep these things to yourself because you think others have better and more important things to think about. Yes, perhaps this is coming from me, Midnight, but in this, I am willing to admit that we are cut from the same cloth. This is a death spiral I will engage in with you. I will take myself apart to take apart you.

[ kaveh returns the kiss where it began. he deposits it back on midnight's lips. he pulls back midnight's hair from his brow so he can see his eyes, the pink of them, the blood in the water. midnight looks younger like this. more vulnerable. he is still midnight. ]

But how should I know what will move you to make a decision or not? That's why I changed my answer. I merely ask you to spare a thought. And know that I do know you are capable of choosing otherwise. You chose to get into this bed with me, to keep me here. [ kaveh sighs. ] I'm not above using that against you. Not-good, not-kind, not-decent.

One must wonder, if neither of us are under any illusion about this, why we can't both try for a bit of sleep.

[ He knows, though, that they'll have to pick on each other for a bit before either of them can settle. He presses one eye shut as Kaveh's palm brushes over it. No one's done this for him since his mother, probably. Probably where he picked up the habit, come to think of it.

Midnight cradles Kaveh's hand between his, thinking for a moment. ]

You're trying to have me confront my pain, still. I'm still not terribly certain if that's at all valuable. Or possible, really. I am happy, Kaveh. In this moment, I am. I rarely think beyond that.

[ He sighs. ]

My motivations aren't nearly as complex as that, love. I just want to be happy enough to make others happy, and that's a process, not a goal. I want you to be happy someday, even if I'm not around to see it. I'll kip down with you, if that's what it takes.

[ ... He can see it though. Lying on the edge of this road like a dead fowlbeast. What he wants is to love others, Kaveh and all, properly, in the way they deserve. What he is inclined for isn't that. One step off the road is enough to kill. He knows it. He can't risk that. ]

im so sleeby, dude. I am, in fact, not woke as fuck

im struggling to find a good rhyme for woke that isn't broke. be a good bloke? don't choke!

crawls in. Lonetrail,

GOD..... YEAH............................ rubs face... dog on the moon....

that nonsequitur finally makes sense... also i thought kristen was a birb this whole time LMAO

HAHAH she's based on the first dog in space! along with the fate of the first dog... lies down

:'( miss laika... rip to a good dog

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