#curtains up;; ( ic )

[orangetintedglasses]

@forgivenpunishment // guess we're camping for the night

Traveling while there were outages was something ill-advised all across the planet. Even moreso when it wasn't just some localized thing-- with nearly an entire quadrant just one big question mark in terms of gang activity, weather patterns and a number of other hazards common to a hellish sand planet, no one knew what was going on and most public broadcasts were pretty heavy-handed in reminding everyone to stay safe, and not travel anywhere outside the influence of Octovern and May, labeling the entire area in-between as a dead zone until further notice.

How the cities themselves managed to get away without a scratch, though, no one was sure. But there was quite an uproar building about leaving the active cities and settlements not within their jurisdictions to the wolves...

Especially at the start of sandstorm season.

Vash was doing his part as passenger by keeping an eye out for trouble where Wolfwood couldn't as they went along their merry way, driving across a massive expanse of nothing but sand and half-ruined structures (which he assumed were old rest stops and brave attempts at making camp, torn down by weather and time), headed towards the first set of coordinates given to them by people in the last town. There, they'd said, they could find a couple of Plants who wouldn't see engineers for quite some time still-- and yeah, it was nearly a three hour drive, but get out there, calm them down and get them working again? That would hasten some of the recovery for people and places at least a hundred iles out. Maybe more, if they were willing to share.

So of course Vash-- ever the altruist --insisted that they give it a shot.

They were getting fairly close when the Plant spotted it: the beginnings of a storm gathering on the horizon. A dark smattering of wind, sand and lightning; not directly in front of them, but coming at them from the side, and coming at them fast. They had maybe half an hour, tops, before it caught up to them; Vash relayed this information to Wolfwood and the pair quickly detoured from their course, seeking out the closest structure that had a ceiling and four(ish) walls before the storm could strand them out in the open.

What they found wasn't... perfect, but it was definitely good enough. An old wooden structure with scuffed-up glass in it's windows, and big double doors still firmly on their hinges that Angelina could fit through to keep her out of the storm, too. It... had clearly had more floors at some point in the past, but the floor between the first and former-second floor was still there to provide them coverage, as well.

It was the best they could do on such short notice; the winds were already howling when they rolled up, and kicked up wisps of sand and dirt up and around their legs as they hurried the three of them inside. A bonafide blessing in the middle of nowhere.

"Yeah, this doesn't look like it has plans to let up any time soon..." Vash said idly, frowning out the window. Flashes of lightning and ominous, rumbling thunder overhead appeared to agree with him as he turned to face his companion, walking back into the center of the room.

"Guess we're sandwiched until further notice. Just glad we got here before it got dark..."

[mezzomorendo]

[ @sentmail continued from here ]

[ txt: Kunkun ] no idea

[ txt: Kunkun ] proteins? growth agen

[ txt: Kunkun ] agents? he keeps looki

[ txt: Kunkun ] looking at me hard to text

[ txt: Kunkun ] help !

[appalamutte]

spending this sunday morning pondering how the long and convoluted network of decisions we make everyday leads us to the people and places we love now

[hot-wire-this-old-car]

not to be sentimental on main but life literally gets so much better when u grow up

[dissociache]

Just received a $12,700 hospital bill from the worst and most traumatizing ER visit of my life from last month l m f a o o o

[asinglesock]

send help. it's supposed to be 91 degrees tomorrow. on my day off :(

[nightmarecountry]

“I’m so tired. Tell me a story.”

Huge blackout curtains over the windows hide the city sprawled out below, and with it, the coming light of dawn. The Corinthian's apartment--if it is his at all--is dark, dimly-lit. It has the vague feeling of being lived in only sparingly, with little in the way of personal effects or anything else that might convey the homeowner's personality beyond rich enough to afford a sprawling apartment in New Jersey of all fucking places.

Severen, sprawled dog-tired on the couch, stinking of death; the Corinthian, cross-legged on the coffee table, cleaning his knives. Enclosed together like this, the Corinthian can feel Severen's fatigue - not quite as if it were his own, but as if he were consuming the beast's eyes even now, seeing what he sees, feeling what he's felt...

"I'm not a storyteller, I'm afraid."

Thinks of Cain and Abel, of Eve, of Lucien. Of the Prince of Stories himself, locked in a basement far from here. The Corinthian can still feel him too, distantly... though he can never tell if it's really Dream he's feeling, or if it's just the fantasy that he can.

The sunglasses removed, he glances over with open eyes at the thing lying on his sofa, and hums in thought. The sun is rising out there, beyond the curtains. Soon Severen will be dead to the world--but not to the Corinthian, who has to fight these days to keep from entering his dreams each morning, and doesn't always succeed. They go tumbling into the fractured, dead Dreaming together most days; the Corinthian loves and hates him for it, knowing neither of them will shrink back from the other now.

The Corinthian could stop. If he wanted to. Cut the cord; sever the tie. He could find a way.

"Okay," he says, and spins himself halfway to face Severen, already feeling the tug, the cell door starting to open the closer his companion gets to dreaming. "You'll like this one. It's about a pair of brothers..."

[themissilesilo]

Temporary Pinned!

Until I get a proper promo set up, this is going to be my pinned. Finally have the rules and muses page set up, so feel free to peruse! Fair warning, activity is sporadic.

Rules + Muses

[fuck-my-addiction]

How hard is it to be considerate of others and clean up after yourself or not be loud as hell at inappropriate times?? Like genuinely do not understand why this is a hard concept

[orangetintedglasses]

@forgivenpunishment replied to your post “He's looking a bit distracted today... and a bit...”:

"Hey, I've been lookin' all over for you... you didn't say anything when you left. Wasn't sure if you were pullin' a fast one on me." Wolfwood puts a hand on Vash's shoulder and shakes him playfully. He doesn't figure that Vash will run away from him again, but the distant way he's been acting is odd, to say the least.

"Ah...!"

The contact ripped through him like a shockwave, and it took every synapse in his brain to keep from crying out (in pain? In surprise? Something else?). Crap, r-right, he... should've said something, went back and said... but he hadn't been thinking...

The blond made himself perk up all the same, though, trying to ignore the way his stomach flipped and surged now that Wolfwood was close-- "s-sorry! Sorry-- n-no, just needed some air, and... kind of wandered off."

[orangetintedglasses]

@forgivenpunishment // one taser might not do it, but what about...?

Holding off a wave of people was no small effort.

Keeping an army off the back of another person while throwing yourself in harm's way, regardless of your strength, was something noble. Something that deserved praise, recognition; the undertaker's efforts would not go unnoticed.

... unfortunately for him, though, it wasn't Vash that they wanted. It wasn't Vash that would be swarmed by fully-amped stun batons and tasers and more bodies trickling in, crowding the hall to prevent escape, or even basic movement that might've allowed him to get the upper hand as some old, croaking voice shrieked don't kill him! We need him alive, he's useless to us dead...!

That had been nearly an hour ago, now, though. Trivial. Shouts and crackles of electricity had been replaced by the din of machines; the hum of glaringly bright surgical lights; the slow, steady blip of a heart monitor keeping track of vitals as six men bustled around the surgical table that they'd strapped him to. They'd cut him out of his clothes to save time, as well; naked save for the various nodes and monitors they'd fastened to him, and a clean, white sheet over his hips that went down to mid-thigh.

Was that sparing his dignity, or theirs? It didn't really matter, did it. No, no, what mattered now was how the subject was feeling whenever he came to again--

[orangetintedglasses]

"I was born on one of those ships-- that probably has something to do with it~." he says light-heartedly, dropping down beside him on the bench. He'll even sling one of his arms over the back of the bench, basically around Wolfwood's shoulders as he throws one leg over the other.

Seems the menace is back to feeling fairly comfortable around the other man. Maybe even more than before.

Vash'll take another bite of his snack, maybe chew a few times before talking through his mouthful, "got some things I need to do over there... might be nice to spend some time in the observatory with the plant-life. Wouldn't be there too long."

A sort of 'vacation'... and maybe some other things. He wouldn't call it business, but...

@forgivenpunishment (continued from x)

[orangetintedglasses]

@forgivenpunishment replied to your post “He seems... tense about something.”:

"Penny for your thoughts?" (Mothwood)

He's quiet for a few more seconds until he... blinks. Once, then twice rapidly. The pensive look disappears in an instant; all the tension seems to evaporate like it was never even there. When did Wolfwood get here?

"Hm?"

[orangetintedglasses]

Wolfwood doubts that Vash bothers celebrating Christmas, and he can't blame him. He doesn't really either, he just does the gift-giving part. Usually the people celebrating the holiday worship the two Angels, and while Wolfwood will gladly get on his knees for Vash, he'd rather not think of him as some holy deity, thanks. Angelic, yes. An actual angel? Well, he'd expressed discomfort with the idea in the past, so an angel Vash is not. Finding a gift for someone who doesn't ask for anything other than a box of donuts from time to time is harder than it seems. How's he supposed to pick out a gift that fits perfectly between the 'casual' and 'you may as well propose to the guy' categories? He hasn't even had the courage to tell Vash how he feels about him yet either, so maybe this would be a good opportunity to. Maybe. Hopefully. It'd also be a good time to give Vash a different kind of present, but that's neither here nor there. Trinkets of any decent quality are rare finds on Noman's. Rarer still are the ones without any kind of religious inspiration. Eventually Wolfwood finds an eclectic collector's shop with myriad baubles. Immediately, what catches his eye is a whiskey flask with the words "Holy Water" printed on it, so he of course needs to pick that up as a little gift to himself. It'll probably ignite one of Vash's contagious laughs—a brilliant light in an endless dark void. What in the world is worthy of being given to Vash the Stampede? He grumbles over this for some time before the owner of the shop takes pity on him and approaches, concerned. Immediately, she picks him out as a 'boyfriend getting his partner something for their first Christmas' type. As embarrassing as it is, Wolfwood relents, which leads to the present moment, when Vash convenes with him at their hotel room: "I know you… probably don't care about Christmas—I don't really either—but I wanted to get you something," he begins, nervous as all getup. Wolfwood pulls a gift bag from behind his back, then offers it to the blond. "I like to do stuff for the kids, you know? But this time I had to give a gift to you as well. You're pretty hard to shop for, has anyone ever told you that? Jeez…" Inside the sparkly red bag is an instant-print camera and a brand-new journal—oversized, presumably, to fit photos into. "I know you got a photographic memory, but… thought it might be nice to, uh, keep some, I guess. You know, in case you go forgetting stuff again. And also for the sake of those of us who don't have the ability to remember what they had for dinner 75 years ago. Might be nice, is all." He turns away to avoid watching Vash's gaze, but remembers that he's absolutely guilty of wanting to see the way those blue, glassy eyes glimmer with excitement, so he braves the fear and meets them head-on, determined. "I… have another gift for you but I still… need to wrap it. Go get us some hooch or something and come back in an hour." @forgivenpunishment

Well now! Didn't that put his little gift idea to shame?

In a funny way, of course-- Vash didn't actually think of it like that. It was just kind of a funny coincidence that Wolfwood had also gone out to find him something for the whole holiday thing, and apparently had a difficult time of it. Which was fair; he'd been told quite a few times that he was hard to get gifts for in the past. Partly because he didn't really ask for or openly want anything, and party because he was happy with anything people were willing to give him, which apparently just made that even more difficult? But even just thinking about him was more than enough--

This, though, this gift was... not only very sweet, but extremely thoughtful. Both of which had seemingly caught the Plant a bit off-guard as he looked into the bag.

"This is..." even just those two words, ushered out with the tail end of an exhale and barely audible, sounded completely awed by what Wolfwood had found. Vash lifted his gaze from the contents of the bag; summer sky blues positively sparkling with adoration as they caught the light at that angle.

Then Wolfwood mentioned having another gift, and that sent dark brows shooting straight up.

"Something else...? Y-you didn't have to-- I mean, this is more than-- I--" the poor thing blustered, flushed and a bit all over the place (and a little confused: he needed another hour to wrap something else when this had been put in a bag?) now that the situation called for his brain to be put to use. Eventually he caught himself, and just... nodded. Smiled and nodded. Beamed and nodded, really-- "y-yeah, okay. An hour. You got it~."

He did still have to set the gift down for safekeeping (no way was he risking bringing this outside yet!) and grab the rest of his cash before he set off as requested... buuut not before stealing a quick kiss from the undertaker; catching his upper lip in something sweet and warm and, again, quick--

"Thank you. Seriously, this is... really amazing, Wolfwood." he said. Decent as he usually was at withholding his lovesick glances until Wolfwood's back was sufficiently turned, the blond just couldn't help himself this time. His moony gaze drifted slowly from his boyfriend's light blue eyes down to his mouth, then back up again before he finally pulled away to get himself sorted and headed out the door.

The Plant was reluctant to part, but Wolfwood had specifically asked, after all.

"Be back later, yeah?"

[orangetintedglasses]

@typhoonvash said: “Everything I love has always had a tendency to be taken from me.” stay with the high lord, and live to see everything righted // acotar memes

"... yeah. And you'd think that would've made it easier... to avoid feeling that way about... anything, you know? Anyone. But..."

Their paths, as far as he knows, are too similar for him not to understand that feeling; their timelines near identical, unlike the others he's met. And this Vash, too, has progressed as far as he has-- maybe farther, he isn't sure, and he doesn't know if it's right to ask --so Star understands, entirely, what the other means when he says something like that.

Something that makes his heart twist and writhe inside his chest and try to escape by way of launching out his throat--

But Star returns the sentiment with a wry smile of his own. Maybe he doesn't know Canary's full situation, yet, but his own has... definitely shifted. So, he continues, and he asks with a light, mirthless laugh: "hey, did you ever try and make that promise to yourself? That you'd never let it happen because of how badly someone else would get hurt? Especially after everything happened..."

And then that smile tightens, just a little bit at the corners.

"Did you break it, too~?"

[orangetintedglasses]

@millionsnife said: "Is something going on over there?" He's been a bit intentionally out of the loop recently, but something is yanking and it's getting annoying.

"It's... it's just a disruption with the Plants, we're trying to figure it out. But things should start calming down now, sorry--"