#don't wake me i'm not dreaming -- wingsdreamt

[steeleidolon]

Scars.

Starter for @wingsdreamt

It makes a certain logical sense to keep military departments close at hand when stationed at headquarters--a concentration of resources that can be mustered out swiftly and efficiently when the need arises. When these resources are clustered together, it is also a simpler affair to keep them contained, at least in theory.

The Wutai war is in full swing. Cohorts cycle in and out on deployment week by week, month by month. Some choose the army proper--the infantry abroad, Public Security and Peace Preservation at home.

SOLDIER is an ideal. A dream for many. A success for comparatively few. Those with aspirations are considered climbers, using the storied, proud, battle-hardened division as a stepping stone for their own edification. The rivalry is and always has been bitter at best.

The barracks levels are crowded. Chaos is a common state between fitful moments of order. Men off of rotation must adjust to the rhythms of time off of the field, away from the need for constant readiness. In a way, the walls, ceilings, and floors feel like a cage, magnifying and concentrating restlessness. Some find outlets on leave. Some do not have that luxury.

Some find other reprieve.

Discord is not uncommon - shouting, chanting, arguments, challenges to the training rooms, bids for space when space is at a premium, cheer around intoxicating contraband and the corresponding hush to keep it from becoming more than an open secret. Thudding boots and elbows against tables, laughing, wrestling, jostling, establishing a pecking order without the distraction of patrols or latrine-digging or mess tent meal services, without concern for the elements since the elements cannot reach them here.

Less common for it to pitch strident, to the point where blowing off steam, jockeying and play breaks into violence.

Furniture slams into a metal wall. The general barracks for each cohort are comprised of orderly rows of bunk cots sectioned out with footlockers and standing lockers, with a minimum of privacy- even in the shared shower quarters.

Sound carries.

The scrabbling of feet. Boot-treads squeaking on concrete drawn wet. Shouts, growls. Fists strike flesh. An overturned desk, smashed glass.

"Got his legs. Get his arms! Get-"

"Fuck!"

"-Lanoue!"

"--rabid fucking dogfucker bit me! Get him off me! Let go! Let-"

"-go!"

…

Tenuous calm can shatter in an instant. Kunsel slipped into the barracks to quietly and efficiently gather his things per instructions, prepared for his move to his new quarters. While the acceptance rolls for SOLDIER were provisionally anonymous, they weren't, really. Not with the lines of disappointed aspirants hoping to see their serials on the printouts, and certainly not with certain commanding officers letting roster changes slip before they're finalized, not with the air of celebration for some.

Anything can happen in the transition.

Anything at all.

In and out, he promised himself. No goodbyes. No gloating. Just another faceless individual among faceless individuals--except things are never so simple. When so few make the cut, grudges are a matter of course.

Fighting for life and limb warrants a ferocious edge - no holds barred. Even unarmed, the terrain can become a weapon. No rules. Fang and claw. Tooth and nail. Headbutts, kicks below the belt. Disrespectful open-palmed slaps to ears, gripping hair and shoving.

No matter how combat trained, they are still only human. Four on one is hardly a fair fight, especially an ambush.

So he is here, now.

On his back, arms and legs restrained, duffel bag contents scattered across the hard floor. Blood on his lips and chin, a sock stuffed into teeth smeared crimson, stringy with ripped skin. Lanoue cradles his forearm and stands guard. Wheeler watches the other direction, a knee planted on the stripped sheet wound into impromptu shackles.

Kunsel digs his heels in and heaves, hoofing his shin directly into Golden's crotch. For his trouble, he earns Tanner's metal-shod boot directly to his ribs - and then the broader man drops the whole of his weight onto Kunsel's stomach, straddling him wholesale.

"Fucking Cosmo coyote-"

The combat knife gleams dully in the overhead light, eye contact blistering and enraged, anticipatory. No amount of breathless arching can escape the hand latched to his jaw, and no amount of cloth can stifle the guttural sound as the first cut falls.

"Lotta guys would give their right eye to be in your shoes. Gotta make sure you don't forget your place."

[steeleidolon]

🍒

@wingsdreamt

The timer starts as soon as the doors close, they said. And the doors are latched from the outside. A suggestion of containment, really. They could bash right through if they wanted to contend with the paperwork - and jeers - afterward.

“Seven minutes,” Kunsel muses, scruffing at his nape and shifting from foot to foot in a test of balance.

He could keep mum the entire time, probably, but Zack, well.

“You were asking about this, hn?”

What the hell is he even saying? It’s probably weird. Almost as weird as poking his tongue out to wiggle the silver barbell. Sure, it’s against regs like most modifications, but he also knows how to keep his mouth shut. Figuratively and literally.

It’s only against regulations if you get caught.

“Little hard to explain, easier to, uh, show you.”

Planet.

“If you want.”

At least he can play it off with a grin and a shrug. Something about infused alcohols, and they never really got an answer as to infused with what. It’s strange to actually feel it. 

Yeah, just the booze. Clearly.

[steeleidolon]

@wingsdreamt

There are muffled voices outside, scuffling footsteps, laughter, then derogatory comments directed at parental figures. Restless troops, stationed in one place for too long with too little to do. He has no desire to join them. Zack stares at the military-green canvas lining of their tent as it billows against the wind snaking its way between the line of trees outside.

They’ve been holding this position for the better part of a month.

High valley walls and a wide river, flowing adjacent to their campsite, make this location a perfect choke point to catch enemy forces looking to regroup in the north, close to the massive fortress nestled at the base of the hills. The nearby village hardly abides their presence. Peace is a tenuous thing, held under threat of an occupying force that could decimate the oppressed. A huff and a puff and they’ll blow the houses down.  

Not that brick walls can stop SOLDIERs.

Wutaian forces and any parties willing to aid and abet them are to be attacked on sight.

Whether the local farmer and his wife are willing to risk harboring combatants looking to slit their throats in their sleep, well– Shinra had made its position clear when all the villagers had been lined up on the first day and warned that the Company would be mounting an attack on Fort Himeji within a fortnight.

The first person caught attempting to sneak beyond the bounds of the village was summarily executed.

Zack remembers that night clearly. Under normal circumstances, the inky blanket of darkness thrown over the sleepy village on the night of a new moon would have provided the perfect cover for a late-night departure. A native can easily navigate the deepened shadows, slip away and warn his countrymen before Shinra can launch their attack and decimate one of Wutai’s greatest strongholds.

But this is a new type of war, waged not with conventional weapons, but with weapons forged of blood and bone. SOLDIERs. Superhuman, enhanced. Faster and stronger than anything these poor farmers have ever witnessed in their lives. There is no hiding from a predator that can perfectly adapt to most any environment.

Nothing can prepare a man for the sight of another human being keeping pace with a chocobo sprinting at top speed.

He remembers that night because he was the one who had caught the runner.

Zack turns to roll over onto his side and face the other side of the tent, where he knows Kunsel is still lying awake. “Do you ever wonder if…y’know…you’re cut out for being SOLDIER?”

The tent breathes.

Everything out here is so alive. Wutai is more green than Kunsel ever thought to see--much less traipse or carve through--in his life. Nothing could be further from arid mirage-shimmer deserts or sheer cliff crags into rivers below; nothing could be further from canyons of steel and mountains of garbage. It is a different world that ShinRa hopes to modernize, answering a call from the people for a better way of life.

Something to that effect. Kunsel is skeptical.

He’s skeptical about a lot of things.

Like the strange concept of sleep at night. Zack knows this well enough to know he is only half-there, half-dozing, senses extended out to the tapestry of sound beyond the tent, beyond the camp, out to fresh water and chirping crickets and breezes whispering through woodland- and river-bordered fields. Hyper-awareness and semi-awareness in the same instance.

A breathy hum answers at first, before he rolls onto his back on the creaky cot. Right, right, that’s not a response. Not a coherent one, at least. So, then, he shifts again, swinging his legs over first, pulling himself upright and leaning his elbows to his thighs.

“I don’t think SOLDIER’s cut out for being SOLDIER, if I’m being honest.”

Scruff-scruff to his nape.

“Not like there’s any handbooks on this shit. There’s not much of a ... uh, a history for us, not much to compare it to, you know?” He wrinkles his nose, tempted to bust out a razor right now. “I mean. You’ve got Honor-face--err, you’re working with Hewley, and that’s. Good.”

Squint.

“But um. Overall. Just means we gotta figure it out, make it better. More to it than throwing bodies and swords at a problem.”

A pause.

“...or did you mean me personally? Heh, hell no. That’s why I’m building tutorials.”

He grins broad and lopsided in the dark with another scritch-scratch-rasp at the base of his neck.

“Did you wanna go for a run or something?

[steeleidolon]

🚿

[Kunsel -> AllsFair | 01:32]: You're a brain. You are inside a skeleton. You're piloting a bone mech that's using meat armor.

[steeleidolon]

✿ wingsdreamt + breathofthearth :3

Aerith and Zack. Oh. Oh.

PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP MEME 0.2

bold for things i could definitely see or want,italics for things i could see or am unsure of and strikethrough for things i don’t want or cannot see

FRIENDSHIP.     childhood friends  /  work buddies or coworkers  /  family friends  /  friends with benefits  /  smoking buddies  /  adventure buddies  /  fake friends  /  recently friends  /  party buddies  /  friendship of need  /  dying friendship  /  circumstantial friendship  /  partners in crime  /  old friendship  /  [ your muse ] is the good influence  /  [ your muse ] is the bad influence  /  [ my muse ] is the good influence  /  [ my muse ] is the bad influence  /  opposites attract  /  ride or die  /  frenemies  /  roommates or flatmates  /  penpals  /  exes to friends  /  enemies to friends  /  other-"AND MY AXE"

ROMANCE.     childhood sweethearts  /  [ your muse is mines ] childhood crush  /  [ my muse is yours ] childhood crush  /  exes  /  exes to lovers  /  forbidden lovers  /  highschool sweethearts  /  secret relationship  /  opposites attract  /  long distance  /  unrequited [ from your muses side ]  /  unrequited [ from my muses side ]  /  unrequited [ from both sides ]  /  skinny love  /  friends to lovers  /  enemies to lovers  /  spurious relationship  /  power THROUPLE /  newly entered  /  soulmates [ metaphorical ]  /  soulmates  [ literal ]  /  awkward  /  turning toxic  /  toxic love  /  cheating [ on your muse ]  /  cheating [ with your muse ]  /  other 

FAMILIAL.     siblings [ half ]  /  siblings [ step ]  /  [ my muse ] is an older sibling figure to your younger sibling figure  /  [ my muse ] is a younger sibling figure to your older sibling figure muse  /  [ my muse ] is a parental figure to yours  /  [ my muse ] is a child figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal guardian  /  adoptive child  /  foster child  /  [ your muse ] is taken under mines wing  /  [ my muse ] is taken under yours wing  /  other-Surprisingly functional unit even if they sometimes share one (1) brain cell

ANTAGONISTIC.     dangerous to each other  /  dangerous to others  /  unpredictable  /  rivals  /  petty  /  developing into sexual or romantic tension  /  based off family matters  /  based of off circumstance  /  based of professional matters  /  based off misunderstanding or lies  /  conflict of ideology  /  betrayal  /  hero - villain dynamic  /  enemies  /  fight club  /  friends turned enemies  /  lovers turned enemies  /  exes turned enemies  /  other-lemme double up on the 'dangerous to others' situation

[steeleidolon]

✿ (buahah)

PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP MEME 0.2

bold for things i could definitely see or want,italics for things i could see or am unsure of and strikethrough for things i don’t want or cannot see.

FRIENDSHIP.     childhood friends  /  work buddies or coworkers  /  family friends  /  friends with benefits  /  smoking buddies  /  adventure buddies  /  fake friends  /  recently friends  /  party buddies  /  friendship of need  /  dying friendship  /  circumstantial friendship  /  partners in crime  /  old friendship  /[your muse] is the good influence  /[your muse] is the bad influence  /[my muse] is the good influence  /[my muse] is the bad influence  /  opposites attract  /  ride or die  /  frenemies  /  roommates or flatmates  (oh my god they were roommates) /  penpals  /  exes to friends  /  enemies to friends  /  other

ROMANCE.     childhood sweethearts  /[your muse is mines] childhood crush  /[my muse is yours] childhood crush  /  exes  /  exes to lovers  /  forbidden lovers  /  highschool sweethearts  /  secret relationship  /  opposites attract  /  long distance  /  unrequited [from your muses side]/  unrequited [from my muses side]/  unrequited [from both sides]/  skinny love  /  friends to lovers  /  enemies to lovers  /  spurious relationship  /  power couple  /  newly entered  /  soulmates [ metaphorical ]/  soulmates  [ literal ]/  awkward  /  turning toxic  /  toxic love  /  cheating [on your muse]/  cheating [with your muse]/  other-reunited requited

FAMILIAL.     siblings [half]/  siblings [step]/[my muse] is an older sibling figure to your younger sibling figure  /[my muse] is a younger sibling figure to your older sibling figure muse  /[my muse] is a parental figure to yours  /[my muse] is a child figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal guardian  /  adoptive child  /  foster child  /[your muse] is taken under mines wing  /[my muse] is taken under yours wing  /  other

ANTAGONISTIC.     dangerous to each other  /  dangerous to others  /  unpredictable  /  rivals  /  petty  /  developing into sexual or romantic tension  /  based off family matters  /  based of off circumstance  /  based of professional matters  /  based off misunderstanding or lies  /  conflict of ideology  /  betrayal  /  hero - villain dynamic  /  enemies  /  fight club  /  friends turned enemies  /  lovers turned enemies  /  exes turned enemies  /  other 

[steeleidolon]

♫!

send ♫ for me to list 3 - 5 songs that i associate with our muses — @wingsdreamt

die for you -- starset

i know your eyes i know inside the walls you hide behind and i saw the truth inside the real you because i know you're lost when you run away into the same black holes and black mistakes taking all my will just to run alone when are you coming home?

feels like home -- sam tinnesz

feels like home feels like home my fingers down the map yeah, this is where i wanna be i'm always coming right back yeah, this is where i wanna be

start a riot -- banners

i will wade through the fire and smoke like sunlight through the haze i will fight til the flag waves white until my dying days through the bombs and blasts we will take it back if your world falls apart i'd start a riot

other lives -- stealth

lying next to you what the hell did i do? i must have done something right in my other lives

past lives -- BØRNS (martin arteta cover)

past lives couldn't ever hold me down lost love is sweeter when it's finally found i've got the strangest feeling this isn't our first time around past lives couldn't ever come between us sometimes the dreamers finally wake up don't wake me i'm not dreaming

[steeleidolon]

📂

Kunsel has relatively narrow feet (and relatively long fingers).

Bonus:

Since uniforms demanded gloves and boots at all times, Kunsel would acquire 'contraband' polish, typically in a matte or metallic bronze shade--or something ridiculous and UV-reactive--and paint his nails. Something about precision and fine motor function. Plus it looks good and feels good.

[steeleidolon]

Any selection and combination of AFJK for Kunsel and Zack! Sorry mobileness :c

Sexy ABC List Prompts

A ─ After care. Do they take care of each other after sex ? How ?

After care is important even if it's not rough. Clean-up can be a pleasure all its own. And cuddles.

Can't forget that.

F ─ First time. How was their first time together ?  Was any of them nervous ?Did it live up to their expectations ?

Completely unexpected and unplanned 'holy fuck we're alive' succumbing to skin hunger and wonder right after waking up. It hit like a truck. Whatever expectations he might've had, it wasn't that, and he's not complaining in the slightest.

J ─ Jewellery. Do they own any sexy jewellery  ( like butt plugs with rhinestones, piercings in intimate areas, cock rings, collars, etc... ) ?  What do they think about it ? 

Yes. Yep. Kunsel is pierced. Tongue, nipples, apadravya genital, occasional navel (when he could reasonably expect to not be wearing the turtleneck uniform shirt that rides up). He likes gold as an aesthetic choice--silver for the tongue because he's a cheeky shit. When he was more active clubbing as a nobody, he'd like to string chains between various points of his anatomy, sensation play jolting southward and whatnot. Depending on reaction, he might be inclined to wear them again.

The apadravya is a deliberate enhancement. It was incredibly painful to get, but was worth the investment in his estimation; it feels amazing, and partner-responses make it even better.

Very worth it.

K ─ Kissing. How important are kisses in their relationship ?  Any favourite kind of kisses ?  Do they have any rituals involving kissing ( never leaving for work without kissing the other, always sharing a kiss goodnight, etc… ) ?

Kissing is like an art and a language rolled into one. Vital. Important as breathing. No specific favorites, they're all favorites.

Forehead touches are a kiss-like ritual though. Warm and grounding and intimate.

[steeleidolon]

KunZack: L

Sexy ABC List Prompts

L ─ Lingerie. Do they enjoy wearing it and/or seeing their partner in lingerie ?What kind of lingerie do they find the sexiest ? Any other clothing they love seeing their partner in  ( like grey sweater pants, wearing nothing but an apron, really short shorts, etc… )? Do they often wear what the other likes, just to please them?

Kunsel wears lingerie... sort of? Kind of.

It's mostly a matter of personal preference - but that is not to say he doesn't like reactions. He'll play it up based on responses. The man knows how to highlight his assets, just like he knows how to hide 'em. Look good, feel good, with concessions for what can be hidden under 'uniform' or 'street' clothes, like a little secret only they know about.

Nice socks, for instance. Specifically over-the-knee or thigh-high socks, the kind that are smooth on the skin and cushioned on the feet, in stark contrast to the crappy thin standard issue, that may or may not need sock garters.

...okay, so maybe the jockstraps count too. They are strappy.

...

And the mesh/cut-out shirts, and sheer ones for layering, and compression shirts. And titty window shirts. And harnesses of varying types. Okay. Okay, yeah, that's fair.

End of the day, Kunsel has an eye for fitted things, especially when fitting a body he finds attractive. Any shirt Zack borrows is probably going to look fitted, or close to it. Beyond that? Sleeveless things. Comfortable things. Custom things. Uniforms. Silly t-shirt and jeans.

Catch Kunsel admiring.

Who knows? The contrast of something relatively delicate on sheer strength is intriguing.

[steeleidolon]

@wingsdreamt

🍇 

It’s interesting, seeing Zack like this--excited-nervous for something outside of pursuing SOLDIER-related goals.

It’s...

It’s good to see him happy. Something to look forward to after so much crushing disappointment and harrowing danger.

And he’s here. Asking for advice about something outside of HQ. Why, Kunsel does not know, not really. They no longer room together thanks to the housing authority’s insistence. His career has taken him elsewhere, to places he has wanted to go, and to places he hasn’t.

If he were to be completely honest with himself, Kunsel would say that Zack’s happiness is all that matters. Jealousy has no place. Zack is happy. Buzzing with it. And that is good.

A genuine relief to see him like this. A pleasure too, what with the sheepish grins and the touch of a blush Kunsel decides not to tease about at the moment. It’s in his face, though.

“Okay, okay, so- um. Well. She’s a civilian, so... precautions. Wouldn’t recommend getting frisky right after a lab visit, but that’s just me. Spirit and flesh might be very much willing, but the grip strength might be too much, y’know?”

Zack typically doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Certainly not someone he cares about, but he shows mercy even with enemies when he has the opportunity.

More could stand to be like that.

“Condoms, lube, wipes, the usual. Don’t keep ‘em in your wallet, last thing you need is for your gil card to just - pbtt out of your hands. Can get you a little case for supplies.”

How romantic.

“Look, I’m not... you know me. I don’t exactly have a great track record with relationships. Go with your gut, go with what feels right and good, with what she feels good with. Pace doesn’t matter, really, if you want to see how things play out. Just keep in mind our NDAs. Find stuff you can do and talk about otherwise.”

He scratches his chin and muses on practicality.

“Um. I’ll see about getting some transit passes so you can bring her up-plate. Sector 8′s always nice. It’s bound to draw less attention if I make the requisition. Got your back, man.”

Then, finally, a little shrug.

“Have fun. The most important part.”

[steeleidolon]

“C’mon, man. I’m sorry I didn’t read my messages!” 

For about a week, give or take, but who’s keeping count? Coming and going for missions, Angeal (that’s it, just, Angeal), collating all the data for his post-mission reports so Lazard can rubber stamp them– that stuff takes time. Gets in the way. Company-wide memos aren’t that important. If it were really important, someone would have told him. Probably.

Zack gently raps his knuckles over the door and gives the handle a meaningful jiggle. The stiff clacking of the handle in its socket tells him the door is locked. He has the keycard to get into their room, of course, but that’s not the point. The point is that he must explicitly be welcomed back by Kunsel, or else things are simply not right.

“Let me in. I prooomise I’ll make it up to you. It’s raining out here,” Zack pleads with his best kicked puppy whine.

No doubt, Kunsel’s next question might be: how could it be raining if they were indoors and there were no open windows in the hallway?

It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Zack is holding a running hose out of line of sight to sprinkle water over his head and definitely should not be considered a complete misuse of company property and resources to attach a hose to the chemical rinse off station faucet down the hall and around the corner so that he could run it to their door for dramatic effect.  

Silence is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can be incredible for focus, for getting into a flow, for completing tasks that distractions would absolutely disrupt. Boring things, data-related things. And in those cases, silence isn't silence, not really; there is always some sort of backdrop, a background hum, white noise, the din of distant conversation. HQ is never completely silent. (He does not know what he does not know--that he will learn the truth of silence in these halls).

Silence in the context of communication, though, is maddening. Kunsel has his finger on the pulse of comms--that is one of his specialties on the field. Except this time he was not on the field, sidelined for intensive materia training and then recovery. Not time off, recovery. No liberty to leave HQ, mandatory appearances at medical, with all of the poking and prodding that entailed.

Zack is capable, the men of their cohort are competent, and Angeal is known to run tactically sound missions. Kunsel knew that. He knows that. His mind can't help but fill in the gaps, no matter how he thinks his way through it logically.

Kunsel has already decided on forgiving Zack--Angeal runs him ragged, after all, and generally does not provide much time for PHS use. He decided on that when he received word that the cohort entered Midgar airspace. Probably before.

Giving him shit, on the other hand.

He doesn't answer. Not at first, as he stands there with his PHS, recording.

Not for a while as he listens to the characteristic whine Zack has weaponized to shocking success against many (and shocking annoyance with many more).

Not until... water, of all things, begins to intrude past the metal threshold, darkening the low-pile carpet panels that run from wall to wall.

He toes against the floor - it squishes - and then opens the door to capture a few frames of Zack with the hose, standing there like a wet puppy.

"...Well, well, look what the cat coughed up."

Flat. He manages a stony face for .03 seconds before breaking into an incredulous grin.

"What the hell, man."

[steeleidolon]

[ AWAY ]:  

“Hey, are you awake yet?” Zack is hanging upside down over the black railing of his top bunk so he can see Kunsel. A bolted-to-the-wall bunk bed, more specifically. It wasn’t always that way. 

Few guesses are needed as to why.

The sky outside is still gray with cloud cover. That took some getting used to, not being able to see the true color of the sky behind the ever present cloak of smog that gathered like a bad crowd around Midgar’s tallest buildings. He keeps his voice low. Any louder, and he fears he might shatter the morning quiet. “You were pretty messed up last night.”  

Reaching out feels natural, easy, and right. The messy curtain of cowlicks covering Kunsel’s face is gently pushed back by one of Zack’s hands, shifting the curled auburn strands away from his eyes. He quirks a smile when Kunsel blearily looks at him from the tangled nest of sheets. “How ‘bout this.”

Zack holds up a finger to represent his one very good idea. “You stay here and sleep in a few more hours andddd…I’ll go keep Angeal busy, huh? Can’t help him with the VR stuff that you guys were planning to work on but eh, I’m sure he’ll come up with some way to torment me with extra training while I’m there.” 

The room is dim but everything is bright, haloing Zack's face and bedhead spikes in light tinged green to Kunsel's sight. Like thunderheads over the desert, warning sign, promise of a gust front. No danger here. Not of that sort anyway.

Rousing feels impossible. Kunsel must squeeze his eyes shut to blink a film away, sleep-tears limned and luminous as the mako settles in his bloodstream, in his system. It has only been a few hours at most, appointments slotted later in the night to account for more SOLDIERs and fewer technicians.

Something like that, anyway.

"Mmmnnnh..."

Soft, soft. Belated, he tips his cheek toward the nearby hand, squinting to follow Zack's gestures. Voice. Tone. Suggestion. His brows furrow and his nose scrunches--

And then he seizes the dangling forearm with freshly-juiced strength to pull Zack bodily from the upper bunk and into the lower. It is not graceful, not at all, for all that he bridges up to ensure a gentler landing for Zack and a pancaked landing for himself.

Huffy, his smush of face to his friend's shoulder. Or something. Somewhere. He can't quite tell and doesn't care at the moment except for pressure.

"Nope."

It's muffled.

More like 'nophe' in this instance.

"...mmnf. Half an hour. If you want to roll my carcass there. Then you can."

[steeleidolon]

Tag Dump

[steeleidolon]

@wingsdreamt

"...oh that bodes well," Kunsel murmurs against his own folded arms, eyes wide in the flickering blue-green. The laptop is a glowing window, the only point of light in the room apart from the clock on a nightstand. The dull red indicating the hour lends a little something to the deliberately dark ambience of the shared quarters -

And to the clarity of sound projected through speakers. They broke out the good ones for this, a rare off-duty night in while the rest of the squad enjoys leave time out on the town. They can blow their paychecks on Wall Market hooch and whatever else, lights and noise and crowds, instead of resting. Popcorn tossed with real butter, a truckload of movie theater boxed snacks, glass-marble bottles of colorful soda, and other sundry junk all fly in the face of their rations and nutri-bricks and carefully crafted SOLDIER chow, and it is all worth it.

A fraction of the gil, and in the comfort of the futon-style sleeping surface unfurled flat. Bunk sweet bunk, pillow props and the slightly less-scratchy blankets against the air conditioned 'cold' post-jungle operations, and enough space to stretch out prone without worrying about getting stepped on by someone fumbling around.

Kunsel slides the bowl of popcorn in Zack's direction without looking away from the screen, scarcely blinking throughout. He eats his own handful of them like an idiot, one kernel at a time, tapped with and sticking to the tip of his tongue for the inevitable crunch. It's timed. Deliberate.

Lost with the slippery squeak of a boot tread on a humid-slick surface, the infrasound rumble transmitted down through the mattress and to their ears. Clunky space suits shff-shff, clarion as the high-pitched whine as hands and arms and feet and a body breach the shimmering layer of mist into a murky field of giant urn-shaped objects.

There's a certain realism to the comms chatter through the helmet -- wait a minute, there’s movement, it seems to have life, organic life -- almost overshadowing the crackle like a living bivalve shucked with bare hands -- to the pulsing unctuous shape inside.

And then an inarticulate yowling screech, punctuated with the fleshy THUD of something impacting dome glass.

Silence.

Howling wind.

“Oh.”

[steeleidolon]

3. neck kiss

Rare, those moments of quiet. Zack is generally a live-wire of energy, practically vibrating with vitality no matter what it is that he is about. He lends even the most mundane tasks a thread of excitement, especially when he tries to sort out ways to make them less boring.

This is anything but.

The raven is asleep. He must have dozed off at some point between Kunsel dismissing himself to shower and now. Leaned into the corner of futon-arm and backrest, eyes closed, he looks like he fought it and lost.

Kunsel does not want to disturb well-earned rest - it has been a difficult past couple of weeks - but that will not be a comfortable way to wake.

That is not all that motivates him, much as he might cheekily insist otherwise to anyone who might ask. But who would ask, really?

Easing down onto the seat, Kunsel leans in close, arms flowing around Zack's middle, a leg wedging into the gap where the futon folds on its frame. Unhurried, plush kisses trail warm breath from the top of his singlet-bared shoulder upward, upward, to just beneath his earlobe.

"Hey." Soft, and there Kunsel lingers, eyes hooded, crinkled at the corners as if they are getting away with something.

They sort of are.

"C'mere-"

A whisper is the only warning he offers as he tightens his embrace, pushing with his foot and pulling Zack's bulkier frame closer, letting gravity do its work. They ease down horizontal, more stretched out, and more importantly cushioned together. Kunsel sighs with his face tucked in against Zack's neck, perfectly content to play body pillow and mattress here and now.

He wouldn't trade this for anything.