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[ 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. ]

Midnight, I will only say this once, so listen carefully. [ kaveh leans in close. they are eye-to-eye, mouth-to-mouth, chin-to-chin. midnight's eyes are large like this. pink. there's something catching in the back of it, like a coloured foil. like a cat's, kaveh realises, the light in the night when you raise your lamp and an entire colony gazes back to you like earthbound stars.

kaveh holds midnight's hand with his. he keeps him there. ] If I weren't at some level pleased to be here, and pleased to be happy, with you, I would be anywhere else but here, letting you see the worst parts of me. It means little to me if you aren't there to argue with me about it. This is valuable to me because I want to see you there in that future. I will be very miserable otherwise. I may never sleep again.

[ sumeru is a land of knowledge. from a young age, the children of the land of knowledge are taught to give thanks to the archon of knowledge. therefore, the children of sumeru know how to give thanks, proper thanks, the kind that stems from the bottom of the soul. kaveh pulls midnight's hand between them. he kisses it, with the fervency of t the religious. this is a proper thank you. ]

Well, I suppose that isn't saying much. I haven't slept in five days, Midnight. I doubt today will be different.

You can't say that and expect me to believe that we won't be expiring at around the same time. You may even go before me. A lack of sleep kills, my darling.

[ Midnight sighs, though. He's perfectly aware that his sleeping circumstances were... less than ideal before the Oripathy, but he knows that if the fatigue that comes with gradual loss of oxygen in his blood wasn't physically kneecapping him, he'd be in similar straits.

The only analogue Midnight has for this is what he's read in books of courtly literature from Victoria and Kazimierz. It's strange. He never counted on anyone seeing him as someone to be blessed, which is why he takes such blessings so seriously. Kaveh's red, red eyes are too bright with fervor, with a deathly lack of sleep. How do these things come to you so easily? ]

I'm not Netzach, darling. I only know one sure way to tire someone else out in bed.

[ There is a very slight change in his expression at this. He nudges their hands out of the way, then lands another kiss on soft lips. This one is very slow, languid. With the confidence of someone who could have been landing accurate kisses for the past ten minutes, but really made a conscious effort not to bother.

He's looking at Kaveh's mouth when he draws away, licks his lips. Kaveh's lips are so very carefully moisturized. He must have used that lip balm too. ]

Regardless of what you might like to do next... Might I propose that you simply might be allowing yourself too many thoughts to sleep?

[ The tone of his voice suggests, among other things, that Midnight would be perfectly all right with helping Kaveh rectify that problem. (Among other things. The other things mostly revolve around his concern about Kaveh's safety with power tools in proximity.) ]

Edited (grammarn't) 2023-11-13 01:41 (UTC)

[ midnight kisses him. this isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a new thing. midnight has been peppering kaveh with kisses between words for the past thirty minutes with varying degrees of success, and only now chooses to show that he could have had proper accuracy something like four kisses ago if only he weren't such a little shit about it. the kiss is warm, and thorough. kaveh experiences through it an entire five stages of grief. not because midnight isn't a good kisser or this isn't a proper kiss, but the look that kaveh gives midnight in its aftermath is two-parts stricken because the issue is that it is a proper kiss, that always has kaveh contending with the fact that the person being kissed is kaveh, and kaveh didn't always deserve one.

this is a form of a mistake. kaveh remembers another one. alhaitham had been skirting its edges. everything on a day five loops back in an unending samsara to that one, flashbulb of a thought, and kaveh is exhausted - alhaitham exhausts him, midnight exhausts him, existing exhausts him. he exhausts himself. ]

Counter to your proposal [ is what kaveh says, instead, letting very real and weary exasperation leak in to cover it, ] I would have to ask you if you were a physician or a psychologist? And even if you were one or the other, I'd ask you why you thought I wouldn't have considered what you were saying somewhere in the two decades that this has been happening? And I can't believe that you would only have one way of tiring someone out in bed. Did you know that I was considering asking you to feed on me until I passed out? I want to sleep, Midnight.

[ kaveh nudges midnight's side. suddenly he wants to bury his face in his shoulder, and suddenly he can't even look at him. both things can be simultaneously true. so he nudges him, and then gives him a gentle shove. ]

Get out of bed, and go sit by the wall. Argue with me, or don't - but this isn't going to work, and I can't stand looking at you right now, so I'm going to draw you.

[ Midnight whines. A thin, soft, unhappy croon. ]

Your hand is still cold. And that's too far away to keep kissing you.

[ He also mutters something about getting a proper doctor to tell him the exact same thing, but Midnight sighs, gives Kaveh one more kiss, and then another, and as he clumsily gets up and slithers out of bed, he continues kissing Kaveh until he can no longer reach him. Sitting on the hard concrete, head still resting on the mattress, he looks at Kaveh, the half-lid of his eyes not at all hiding the plaintive look in them. Like a hound who isn't certain of anything except the possibility that he's done something wrong. (This is completely emotional manipulation, but Midnight's also not actually sitting by the wall, so the disobedience is present on too many fronts to be anything other than wilfully obtuse at this point.) ]

Miss Deepcolor's drawn me before. Netzach too. They both have to look at me to do that.

[ This doesn't actually solve anything, dummy! ]

[ like peeling a bandaid, or nudging aside a small, furred creature. kaveh's heart swells with affection and exasperation both for this utter fool. kaveh slips out of bed. his socked feet rest on concrete. his hand scrapes through midnight's hair in a gesture that manages to be both affectionate and entirely irreverent, a five-clawed thing that only just manages not to take midnight and shake him. ]

Didn't you know? There's looking at you, and there's looking at you. You look at different things, when you're trying to draw. [ though for a brief moment, kaveh smiles - he lets himself swim in a bit of that yearning - he'd liked to have seen what netzach drew, the shape of the midnight that netzach saw through the lens of his eyes. but an artist's portrait is a private thing. you revealed entirely too much of your heart through it. it could only ever be shared as a gift. ] And did I stutter, Midnight? You're as far away from the wall as you were a few seconds ago.

[ Midnight gazes up at Kaveh, eyes sad and pleading even while he leans into Kaveh's touch, relishing the stimulation at his scalp... then, with a much put upon pout, he puts his hand out to Kaveh, making a grabbing motion. ]

Give me your scarf, love. I want to smell you.

[ Midnight's goal was to fall asleep, but enjoying Kaveh is an ever present directive, here. And it seems like a completely fair exchange for him having to keep himself away from the only person with his heart in his vicinity. ]

[ kaveh looks. for one, he's asking a favour of midnight. for another, it's merely a scarf. at the last, it's a singular piece of cloth that acts as a symbolic barrier. but midnight is the one asking. ]

I ought to ask, really. What is a sense of smell like to a vampire? I suppose you can't tell me whether you're better or worse at smelling things.

[ kaveh unravels the scarf from his neck. it's a burning, sunset orange in his hands, all scars and chipped, red-painted nails. he hands it over to midnight. its dearth reveals the still-healing bruise from his neck, above where midnight once bit him. alhaitham had been less gentle. ]

For example, can you smell it? What's in my lipbalm.

[ kaveh can't. it had been an accident, really. it had been his mother's recipe. beeswax and coconut oil, more or less scentless because it got in the way of properly tasting food. but kaveh has spilt a little jasmine extract, and it had infused. ]

[ Midnight takes the scarf. He looks up again. While Kaveh speaks in his very Kaveh way, Midnight rolls onto a knee, straightens, and touches his neck where the skin stains purple. His fingers are very gentle, the instinctual raise of his blood pressure raises.

It was Netzach, Netzach wouldn't, then who, who would, with mine, with my with mine mine who with who my skin my blood mine— ]

Not sure. Beeswax, certainly, and coconut oil. Something else. Reminds me of tea. Herbal, floral.

[ Tea was never his forte, though, and neither were florals. He's an appreciator, not a connoisseur. Pink eyes do not move from where Midnight runs his fingers over Kaveh's neck. ]

Kiss me again and perhaps I'll have a better notion.

[ somewhere between scent and lipbalm, kaveh's lost midnight. he's just not certain how, or why, or where such a thing happened, but he feels the disconnect in the drift of midnight's fingers across his neck. the skin there is tender.

kaveh draws in breath. the breath is sharper than he remembers it to be. for a moment, his fingers slip over midnight's. it's not until his hand completes the motion before kaveh realises its existence. his fingers curl around midnight's in a gesture that kaveh can only read as possessive. he isn't certain if what he's possessive of is the touch of midnight's fingers, or the bruises beneath. ]

Jasmine. [ kaveh corrects. the red of his eyes searches midnight for a moment. upon reaching no real answer, kaveh cants his head. his lips part as he chooses to receive him, because kaveh suddenly thinks - midnight needs it. he simply isn't certain why. ] Come here, then, Midnight.

[ Midnight is in Kaveh's lap before he can tell himself to calm down, to focus, to think, to remind himself that Kaveh belongs entirely to himself and the idea that he might own him is a purely vampiric instinct telling him to eat before another claims him—

When he comes to, he's in the midst of a kiss so crushing that he can feel Kaveh's teeth behind his lips. He's seated himself on top of Kaveh's thigh; both his hands are gripped into blond hair, just a bit too tight, too close. Midnight's weight is fully on Kaveh. One tip, and Kaveh will fall back. His head will most certainly hit the wall behind him before hitting the cot. It really is far too small.

He draws back only to make enough space to lick his lips again. ]

Ah. [ It's a sigh. ] There's the jasmine.

[ midnight kisses kaveh. kaveh is drowned in it. day five has the world in scintillating motion. the very weight of midnight's body comes with it its own sound. it takes a moment for kaveh to place it: it's the sound of blood rushing through his veins, the pounding of his heart, the scrape of feet against concrete and the creak of a cot not meant for two. midnight is a scalding brand. frankly, kaveh thinks, it hurts. midnight's weight bears down on him. it's only the snap of kaveh's arm that prevents him from careening into the wall, from midnight careening into the wall (no headwounds, kaveh suddenly thinks. never. not again. no blood matted in hair, no concussive force-), and kaveh is the only thing that's holding up to the two of them. his thigh aches, his elbow aches -

his mouth and the taste of midnight. rough, the way a cat's tongue is rough. but for a moment kaveh tastes midnight's need, and that's all he needs to hold them steady in the moment as midnight's hands come for his hair.

in the aftermath, kaveh breathes. midnight is a curl of pink tongue in the dim, smoky lighting of a half-finished host bar, and kaveh - he opens his eyes. he remembers when he'd closed them. his hand, pressed into the bed, peels itself from the mattress to cover midnight's mouth. ]

Forget about the jasmine. [ kaveh says, breathless, kiss-bruised and aching, ] When was the last time you fed? You're hungry again, you fool.

[ Midnight sighs, presses his face to Kaveh's hand. Somewhat for the pleasure of pressure, somewhat in a silent plea for another kiss, even if the last one had been, colloquially speaking, rude as fuck. ]

Last week. [ ... ] Netzach asked. Doesn't have to be more than that, you know.

[ And timeline-wise, Midnight knows that Alhaitham will be around on the weekend to give him another dose. He's far more well set when it comes to blood than he used to be.

(Losing Welt Yang... Well, that was a bit of a shock. But there's nothing to be done there.)

He sighs out. No time but the present. He lays a very gentle kiss on Kaveh's fingers. Comical, as though he's forgotten that that possessive wave washed over him. (He has, or at least it's not in his thoughts. He's having very few thoughts.) ]

When did Netzach put this on you, then?

[ He lowers his hand, covers the bruise with his palm. He sighs. ]

Though I rather think this isn't quite like him.

And do you only feed when people ask, now? Do you ever ask yourself?

[ as if a puppet's strings have been snipped from their mooring. midnight presses his face into kaveh's hand, and kaveh takes the time to bring him close, to observe his pallor and the colour of his eyes. kaveh, in truth, has no idea what he's looking for. there aren't that many tells on a human being; kaveh has no baseline of what a vampire looks like when healthy, and he's fairly certain that never actually seen midnight healthy to begin with. there are no answers. there is no existing schema. kaveh is searching for something that is very much like nothing. he keeps searching anyway.

midnight's hand covers the curve of his shoulder. kaveh looks up. ]

Oh, no. [ kaveh says, and the bemusement is a beat late as it flits across his expression, ] No, Netzach wouldn't. [ kaveh reminds hi self - but netzach killed midnight. ] Well, he had no reason to. No, [ now the bitterness comes. kaveh's voice still. ] this was Alhaitham.

I was wondering what set you off. You are still hungry. Once a week is a terrible timeline to follow if it doesn't satisfy you, Midnight. Will you drink from me today?

No, I had certain arrangements.

[ ... Now that Welt's gone, Midnight's going to have to make some new arrangements. Preferably a few he won't be likely to miss later.

(Grim. Maybe best not to think about it like that.)

... Midnight then pulls away a bit, tucks around Kaveh's hand with the confidence of a man who certainly could have done that a few seconds ago, lifts his hand from Kaveh's neck and chucks him gently under the chin. ]

I have been a vampire longer than you've been alive, love. I've taken classes on the topic, if you'll believe me. Once a week is fine. More than, really.

[ Ideally speaking, he could maybe try taking something a bit closer to a pint per week, but as long as he's eating other food, it's not actually necessary. This is no longer the years of war leading up to the nth fall of Kazdel; there's no need to stock up. He can afford to be humane. He wants to be.

He settles on Kaveh's side, slipping off his thigh. The momentary pique is gone, now that he's gotten his explanation. Alhaitham, huh. ]

... If you tell me what happened with Alhaitham, I'll promise to be a little more transparent about last week.

[ With the haunted house, and just how often he was drawn back in there. Midnight doesn't mind trading a card for a card. ]

[ 'had' midnight said. kaveh has lived with the most infuriating haravatat known to mankind. it's a tense that kaveh knows well. but he doesn't do much more than note it, carefully shifting so that there's space for midnight on the cot. circulation returns to his thigh. netzach had been the weight of a small bird in hand, a duskbird in spring. midnight is the weight of a carved-edge sea. it's not necessarily his mass, so much as it's the weight of his being. kaveh thinks - the sword he'd made for midnight based on his best estimate of his weight was off by a margin. he'll have to go and shave it a little, have it properly balanced.

still: ]

Then you're a poor scholar. Age certainly hasn't done your self-preservation any good. The only thing you're my senior in is orneriness, and that's hardly anything to be proud of. [ midnight shifts. kaveh shifts with him. drawing plans, kaveh thinks, can be put on hold. he nudges midnight, then bears his weight down, slides him back onto the bed with a grimace. ]

Bribery. [ kaveh says, obfuscating, ] Or hostage-taking. One of the two. But there really isn't much to tell. The haunted house robbed him of his autonomy, as it did to many people. He bit me when he wasn't himself. [ kaveh stops. kaveh starts again. he's never been a particularly good liar. ] ... truth of the matter is, we're not on speaking terms right now.

I like to call it semi-transparent negotiations.

[ But Midnight listens, allows himself to be led down. Curls around him, arm around his waist, breathing in his warmth, the scarf still lightly folded between Midnight's fingers. ]

Was it because of that? Tell me what happened.

[ And because he did just promise, he does intend to be... well, honest enough in return. Now that he thinks about it, there are many things that happened last week that one might call rather significant, but Midnight is struggling to figure out which one won't lead to the unraveling of the rest. Which he's willing to give up, which he wants to keep close to himself. Which one will spare Kaveh of the helplessness of being in present and not in the past. Not with him. ]

Ah, haravatat.

[ kaveh says, and then falls silence. he studies the line of midnight's body. he is curled the way a cat would be, seeking out the last vestiges of a setting sun. there's an irony in that midnight is curled around kaveh, who only ever knows how to burn out - but he supposes body heat is body heat regardless of ironic connotations. still, kaveh's certain that this isn't enough. that this won't be enough. kaveh has known starvation. midnight seems more prone to it than anyone he has ever met.

slowly, kaveh's hand begins to move through midnight's hair. soothing strokes, contemplative strokes. midnight does not have to promise anything, kaveh thinks. kaveh has always been a poor negotiator. ]

Alhaitham and I had a fight. [ kaveh tells midnight. there's rue there as he cants his head, ] As we do. It's not as though it's our first fight or our last, and it's not as though it's the biggest one we've had. The biggest one... it tore us apart for years thereafter. This one will not, and cannot. But it was a fight nonetheless. You're going to think it's terribly silly - but remember, you asked.

[ kaveh mulls. then: ] The haunted house took away Alhaitham's autonomy. I thought it had taken it all. He bit me, over where you bruised me last. But perhaps Alhaitham had more control over it than I'd thought. He's done quite a bit for me over the years, you know. More than I know. More than I deserve. We argued. I asked him why - why me? [ kaveh draws breath. it's a seething thing. ] He said it was because it was me.

No, just an appreciator.

[ Midnight hums, sneaks in another kiss, because Kaveh's only half-right when it comes to his hunger, but settles in to listen, but mirrors the fingers in his hair with his own embrace, stroking down his spine with long, slow caresses. For the repetition of the motion, the soothing pressure of it.

(Kaveh leaves no warmth for himself. Midnight realizes he is warming ashes. He believes there is a coal in there, red and beating, and persists.) ]

And you find this unbelievable.

[ An observation like a mirror. If Midnight finds it silly, he finds reality itself silly, and Midnight tends to treat reality with the same sort of irreverence he does his past, the unremarkable parts of it. It's just a fact. Midnight is all right with a fact, so long as he's allowed to look at the whole of it. ]

[ kaveh's eyes close. midnight's fingers drag down the long line of spine. simultaneously it's touch underwater, twelve mattresses stacked in terrible, fairytale random, and it's scintillating overstimulation, too much at once. ]

Of course I do. That's because it is unbelievable. He knows what I'm like better than anyone else. Not-good, not-kind, not-decent. [ kaveh tweaks a lock of midnight's hair. he tucks behind a pointed ear. it's cartilage, kaveh realises, same as any other ear. kaveh's hand skims it, unbidden. he wonders if it pinks like any other ear when flushed. it's something to focus on as it comes: ] It was a deflection, Midnight. No more, and no less, and I was a fool for expecting otherwise. I won't forgive it.

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