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

[he couldn't be certain they'd both acquiesce until it happened. a small part of the tension he holds leaves him in a slow sigh that curves his shoulders, made to look more delicate beneath the flowing fabric draped over them. he's stubborn regardless, though.

come for me. what else could he ever do? his to bind, his to take-- it's a more appealing thought than it should be allowed to be, even if this is only a story, even if he knows kaveh cannot belong to him in truth. neither of them can. kaveh's heart fits better inside other hands, and midnight's shouldn't be held in his palms alone.

he lets kaveh remain facing midnight, steps forward behind him. kaveh's shoulder is a resting place for his head, arms draped around him, settling in the space between his wings; netzach extends a hand to midnight, then.

realization is beginning to settle in: there's a natural reaction this shape of his has, with his face nudged up by kaveh's neck, unable to escape the scent of him. he smells too good. he needs to--

ah, so this is the shape of that blood ritual.

he exhales a little shakily. if it's like this, he wants midnight here.]

[ Midnight sheathes his sword swiftly at the proffered hand, and it's as though the demon king was never there. Just Midnight the host in the costume of a demon he is not.

He takes Netzach's hand, then Kaveh's bared elbow, then tugs them to a wall. Not the throne. There isn't room for all of them to sit. ]

Sit with me, both of you. I can keep you warm.

[ Midnight will insist on this too, herding them with soft encouragement until Netzach sits with him, and Kaveh rests against him, his wings tucked to his back. He has Netzach's hand in his own, his other hand stroking through golden hair.

He puts a kiss on Netzach's temple. His eyes are open, watching the shadow of the spire in the sky blot out the sun, casting the trees into early, suffocating night. No stars, no moons. Just the rumble of distant thunder, and the threat of silence afterward. ]

Go slow until you're ready. We have time. I promise.

[ netzach settles against kaveh's back. he can feel, kaveh thinks, the beating of that gentlest organ of his, that heart that makes him so. warm and kind and sorrowful. it isn't until netzach lingers that kaveh realises it - that netzach, too, has fangs. netzach presses his face into kaveh's neck, and kaveh is reminded of it, the tunnel, the haunted house, a vampire and a man compelled to be one. how kaveh's life has become so embroiled with those who like that very specific patch of his neck is something that kaveh can't verbalise, but it has him huffing out a laugh as the claymore finally dissipates back into nothing.

midnight's hand corrals kaveh's elbow. kaveh, after a moment, goes.

against the wall, midnight settles them both as if in a cradle made from the circle of his arms. his hand carves through kaveh's hair. for a moment, kaveh thinks - the shape of him won't fit. between the three of them, of course it's kaveh who has wings the size of small parachutes. kaveh's shadow casts itself against the wall; two human-shaped creatures, and one an amorphous, nebulous blob of a thing outline in its own, sunlit light. midnight tugs him in. kaveh's wings settle awkwardly. kaveh settles awkwardly. with his wings turned to the side, tucked tight against his back, kaveh almost looks and feels as if he belongs.

he shakes his head. kaveh reaches out. he pulls netzach into his arms. the hug is a fierce one. ]

I'm sorry. [ kaveh says, to netzach, to midnight. ] I am. Though how is it that you're also a vampire, Netzach? There's an irony that I can hardly voice, that those I'm most fond of have a predilection towards blood.

...good. It should be warm, in the end.

[he wants some type of warmth that won't come from kaveh's blood.

it's just that-- well, the rest of what he wants right now is kaveh's blood.

he curls into them both, all of them entangled in each other like one creature made up of three, surrounded with warmth and touch. comfortable. comforted. this time, he's gentler with kaveh's wings when he reaches for one, fingers stroking over the feathers.]

And I don't know. Why can you fly?

[what he means is 'hell if i know', but he also thinks once again-- the wings really do suit him, in multiple ways. maybe kaveh should fly.]

Well, he strikes me as rather birdlike.

[ He kindly refrains from using the word Liberi, and instead arranges blond hair over where he had plumage in another dream. ]

A vampire for you, though... My, I do find that rather strange. I half expect to find you sleeping in the embrace of a flower.

[ He doesn't clarify, of course, that such gentleness and understanding isn't a part of demon culture, as that should be pretty obvious on its face. Midnight, after all, is a terrible vampire, so it follows that Netzach is quite the same. Hasn't the temperament for it, either of them.

He's grooming them both with his hands now, arranging their clothing and tossing his own overcoat over the tangle of their legs for weight, warmth. There's a certain part to dying that feels like falling asleep, and if Midnight can manage to keep Kaveh warm enough through the end, perhaps it will feel just like that. Like falling deeply asleep, with the promise of something lovely waiting in one's dreams. ]

Do I? I've been called a tiger and a lion before - hardly a bird. Though if I had to guess, there's meaning in having wings, but choosing to be on the ground. I'd rather be here, than in the air.

[ it's something to think about, kaveh supposes. something about the irony of these stories playing with their natures. netzach isn't suited to be a vampire. not really. neither is midnight. neither is alhaitham, if he had to be honest about it. there is an inherent gentleness to them that the world has yet to stamp out in its entirety.

kaveh doesn't intend to be the one to do so. but he is only kaveh, and this is the story that's written - this is also the only ending that kaveh can accept. midnight tosses his coat over them. his hand cards through kaveh's hair. kaveh's wings flutter beneath netzach's touch. and then, slowly, kaveh stretches it, one of his golden wings. he stretches it above the three of them like a canopy. a shadow is cast. the halo of kaveh's existence is bright beneath it. the canopy of his wing drowns out the world; he builds a world for just the three of them within. it's just the three.

finally, lastly, kaveh tips his head. it's the gentlest of touch, the way it butts into the palm of midnight's hand, and then to the curve of his neck. kaveh lets himself rest there. he says: ]

Ah, but perhaps it's your influence, Midnight. I always knew you were a terrible one, for Netzach.

[ kaveh says so, and he is smiling. ]

You still should've had the sky.

[he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world; he mouths idly at kaveh's neck, careful not to let his fangs scratch the skin just yet.]

And anyway, I'm not a good influence either, so it's fine.

[he's a drunk, he's an addict, he has a history of unethical research and murder despite what he feels were pretty good reasons for the former and a lack of choice in the latter. a lot of people, he knows, would not look approvingly upon the way he pulls kaveh and midnight both from their work and insists on lazing around the majority of the time.

(and neither of them is bothered in the slightest, as far as he's ever been able to tell.)]

It doesn't have to suit me. The story was written with blood at the end, and so it has more of a reason.

He's right, you know. The sky is yours.

[ In response to Netzach, aimed toward Kaveh, followed up by a rather flippant, gentle kiss to his head, where the bone of his forehead dips into the hollow of his temple. As though this is another lazy afternoon in Kaveh's atelier, sawdust caught in a golden spray of failing light around them.

(He reaches for Netzach's hand, holds his fingers in his palm. This isn't forgiveness, as there is nothing to be forgiven here; this is the kind of hold one needs when the sky is falling, or the water is rising, or when someone beloved is about to die.) ]

A reason... Hmm.

[ Midnight laughs slightly, but lets that thought rest in him. Imagine if this wasn't a story. If this was reality, where people die to no fanfare, with no sense of poetic justice. Where people are tossed the bodies of their dead and have to work out the meaning of missing someone where there is, realistically, no meaning at all.

(Midnight thinks rather realistically, actually. It's the optimism that makes him keep such things to himself.) ]

When we escape, let's make a happier story, mm? I promise I'll come up with something grand.

[ Honestly, Midnight's squad A6 would question Netzach's sanity first, then thank him. As everyone knows, Midnight needs someone to check in on him every now and then. Several someones. It takes a village, actually, and he knows it, which really thwarts every inroads on the endeavor, to be honest. That Netzach's so patient with him, that Kaveh cares enough to push him, is no less than a miracle. ]

Yes, but has anyone here considered that I've never wanted the sky?

[ kaveh says with a smile, because of course he does. of course it's true. kaveh loves the sky. he loves the colour of sumeru's sky at dusk as it descends into the inky blot of purple shadow; he loves the colour of that long-imagined fontanian sunrise, the one that bathes the sky in ardent pinks and purples. but kaveh has always loved being able to build more, and you couldn't build anything in the sky. not yet. and even if you could, the ones who would turn that building into a home are the ones who exist within kaveh's reach. life sprouts from the ground. kaveh is dendro in ways that even lesser lord kusanali likely won't be able to express, though kaveh supposes that even thinking that is a kind of blasphemy. he doesn't think she would mind, though.

what kaveh also doesn't mind - the kiss to his temple, the way netzach mouths at his neck. kaveh allows it because it's midnight, and because it's netzach, and because in no universe could he stand against their desires when they have so little of it. in turn, kaveh's hand reaches up and cards through netzach's hair. he rests it there, warm and fond and perhaps a little helpless. it always came down to vampires in the end, it seems. ]

You are a good influence, Netzach. [ says kaveh, firmly, gently - ] You've made our lives for the better. This, I can say with the certainty that the sky is blue and that the story Midnight has prepared for all of us will be terribly cheesy and my blood pressure will spike because of it. A terrible fate.

[ but kaveh is smiling. the top of his head nudges the crook of midnight's neck, just once. ] Well, as long as Midnight doesn't make a villain of himself again. I'm tired of that particular story.

...mm. One where everyone ends up happy, then. I don't get to hear many of those.

[not even here. especially not back home, where every story extracted from living people is written in the ink of the city's streets, its influence in all the punctuation. nothing born of the city is happy, not really.

he's beginning to sound more distracted, though, his hand gripping midnight's a little tighter, head tilting into kaveh's touch with a sound that's very nearly a whine. the story wants him to do this, but you know what? so does he. he's drowning, a little, in the scent that's uniquely kaveh, one fang scratching his neck without breaking skin before he inhales a steadying breath.]

I want-

[to get this over with. to not drag it out too long. to finish this and go back to the way things are supposed to be. to taste him.

the last thought is almost what he says, but not quite, because there is one thing the setting of this story allows to him that reality does not: midnight said he can bleed.]

...I want to taste you both. Before we end this.

[insane thought? maybe. he doesn't really care.]

Me either. I've a talent for fantasies, though. I'll think of something.

[ ... Ah. Midnight looks down at Netzach... Then at Kaveh. He immediately knows what Kaveh wants as well.

He looks down at Netzach, runs his hand up to his shoulder, then to his jaw, watching his breath come deep, slow. He knows that as well.

Wordlessly, he readjusts, opening himself to Netzach. He pulls up his sleeve, he tilts his neck to him. Either works. Whatever makes him happy. Anything that makes him happy. Anything at all. ]

[ taste them both, kaveh thinks. ah - vampires.

in turn, kaveh makes room. he shifts aside so that midnight can bare his neck, gently detaching netzach from his own so that he can reach. his wing stretches, up and wide, a canopy for the prying ends of the god and all else that observes this world. this moment belongs to netzach, and to midnight. this moment belongs to them alone. ]

Go on, Netzach. [ kaveh says, and gently rests a hand between netzach's shoulder blades, just so. a steadying one. a calming one. ] But be gentle.

I know. I know, I don't want...

[to do it wrong, to do it painfully, to do anything that will harm midnight past breaking his skin. he leans in as if drawn by a magnet, lips pressed to the bared skin of his neck, and murmurs a little helplessly:]

Stop me if you have to. Do it.

[it's to both of them, because he doesn't know for sure how this will go. this form probably has experience, right? so hopefully, he won't be lost in what is not technically his first time.

gently, carefully, his fangs pierce flesh just as midnight has done to him before. just where he'd done, but mirrored onto midnight's body. he trembles faintly as he holds himself back from letting them sink deep, sucking at the wounds instead--

and inhaling a little gasp of a breath at the taste. at the proof of it happening at all. the sound he makes, muffled against midnight, is only for the three of them to know.]

[ Midnight's response, on the other hand is a surprised, satisfied sigh. He holds Netzach to his throat, fingers in his hair, softly murmuring his approval; his other arm curls around Kaveh's waist, pressing into him. Midnight closes his eyes, feels the gentle sting at his neck, and realizes, swiftly, that of all of the advantages of being free of Oripathy, he will miss only this. ]

Take what you like, love. I'm fine...

[ Eventually, his eyes flutter open, and he's met by Kaveh's face. He smiles peaceably. I could die like this. It would hurt a bit, but many things in life do, and this one is at least lovely to start. ]

[ netzach begins to drink. to see if from an outside perspective is not quite what kaveh had expected. it's the scent of it, the blood. netzach drinks, and the sound he makes is a little star of a gasp, the starvation of which has kaveh's own heart ache. but he hadn't expected the scent of iron, the way it permeates. the way it sinks into hair, and clothes, and the golden-gilded fringe of kaveh's feathers. the three of them here are bound by blood, kaveh realises. at the end of the world, perhaps that's all that there is.

midnight is smiling. of course he is. kaveh looks. for the first time in a very long time, kaveh realises, there is peace there. he had always known that midnight's smiles were like little pantomimes, lined up against one another, each a differing degree of honesty in pleasure and joy. in this world underneath an unfamiliar sky, it's only here that kaveh has seen this one. instinctively, kaveh thinks: that is radiant smile of a man who has come to his end.

kaveh's hand reaches. it skims first the crown of midnight's head. kaveh says, ]

What a hopeless man you are. You are only happy when you've reached the last of what you have to give.

[ kaveh kisses his fingers, the scarred callused pads of it. he presses that kiss with his fingers to midnight's lips.

then, gently, he pats netzach's back. ] Netzach, I'm sorry. That's enough.

[ quiet as dust: ] I can't let Midnight die here. Not this time.

[at first he's only half listening, attention taken up by what he's occupied with. by the approving sounds midnight makes, by the blood on his tongue; chocolate without the chocolate, he remembers midnight saying, and he understands better now just what he'd meant. that's what it's like, rich and intoxicating in a different way from alcohol.

then he feels the pat at his back, kaveh's voice finally breaking through. he makes a little noise of complaint at that's enough, but he's grateful neither of them can see his face at that last soft reminder. not this time. not again-- and it had been at netzach's hands before. it had been midnight's throat, and netzach's hands around it, just like his teeth have pierced the flesh now. for a second, the richness is overshadowed by the metallic tang, going slightly sour in his mouth.

he pulls away, careful of his fangs. licks at the wounds, presses an apologetic kiss to them before he straightens once more and leaves a second kiss on midnight's cheek.]

...thanks.

[for letting him have this, a little part of him, while they have the opportunity at all.]

Kaveh? You ready?

[ Midnight hums, kisses Netzach back, then hums again. (He was about to say "any time". Silly.)

He readjusts everyone to their original positions, hand in Netzach's, Kaveh on his shoulder, gold light reflecting around them from Kaveh's wings, like the speckle of sunlight through tree leaves. He catches his fingers in Kaveh's hair, combing out the tangles. (It really is a good thing he's so warm. Dying is so cold...)

He squeezes Netzach's hand one more time, but says nothing. He's ready. There is nothing he won't do, at this point, to be sure this is peaceful. To ensure that this is a simple passing from one place to the next. ]

[ netzach asks kaveh if he is ready.

there is a right answer to this. it also happens to be the answer that kaveh is prepared to say. it is, after all, not the first time. it is not the second. but it's odd, kaveh thinks, that it's happened twice from bloodletting, which in itself shouldn't be odd considering the vampire, and now vampires, that he's involved with on a regular basis, but it's still a little odd that it's happened twice now. it comes back to blood, and fangs, and blood in that ever-sifting stream. red diluted by the waters of a tricking river is pink.

netzach's lips are stained with it, the pure, unadulterated form of midnight's blood, the blood that is healthy, and good, and doesn't cause him pain. kaveh lifts a finger, he gently runs it over netzach's lips, wipes that blood from it. he brings it to his own, and runs his tongue over the pad of his finger. it tastes like blood. of course it does. it's rich, it is bitter, it is the taste of iron. humans aren't meant to get used to it, or angels, or sankta. perhaps sankta.

no, kaveh nearly says, he is not ready. this is a world where midnight does not have oripathy, and once again, it is kaveh who ends his world.

what kaveh says instead, is this: ]

Of course. [ kaveh leans in. he leaves a kiss on netzach's forehead, warm and true. ] I'm glad that it's you. Come.

[ kaveh knows how to do it now, how to bare his throat. ]

You know I can't be glad it's you, though.

[he shouldn't be ready for this. shouldn't have to be. but a story that's already written has an ending determined for it: in this one, three individuals who care for each other ultimately have to sacrifice one of them to preserve the existence of all else, and in this one, he couldn't kill midnight twice.

in this story, he leans in with his lips already smeared a little bit red, breath warm against kaveh's neck, midnight's hand held tight to keep him grounded. one more time, he reaches for the lines he knows are there.]

...'then give yourself to me, and to the heart of the world. May rivers flow from your blood, forests grow from your body, and life spring from your soul; for I am the conduit of that heart, and through me will you reach it.'

[in this story, the one he plays cannot bring himself to say i love you, i'll miss you, i can't.

the goodbye is only this: his fangs piercing flesh a second time, a little of midnight's lingering blood mixing with kaveh's as he begins to drink, his pace measured despite the struggle of keeping it that way. a steady, easy drain that he'll keep up until he feels kaveh begin to go slack, until he has to work harder at it.]

[ Midnight does very little from this point. He carries them both well, he keeps them both warm, even when the strength in Kaveh's wings finally fail and begin to lower. He does not let go of Netzach's hand, nails biting into his skin if he sees him falter, thumb stroking tenderly over the back of his fingers. In Kaveh's ear, he hums that song one more time. Young soldier, young soldier, come home.

He is here. There is no past, no future. When the temple crumbles, the sky falls, it's a snapshot of irrelevant beauty that means nothing. There's only this: warmth, hands, his blood and his blood on their mouths, their lips.

He closes his eyes and continues to sing. ]

[ open ] kaveh's permanent catch-all

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