EVENT: TRUTH BOMB

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: TRUTH BOMB
WHEN: Bloomingtide 15-17
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC information. Use appropriate content warnings in your subject lines, please.

It’s an ordinary day—so not a very pleasant one. The weather is dreary and muggy, and the day’s lunch is a soup that’s a little too watery and bland. The griffons are being their usual level of noisy and swoopy. The work is its usual level of urgent and difficult.

But in the storage rooms, something wiggles. Then it hums. Then it pops.

Outside of the storage room, there’s no actual sound, no shift in the wind, and no visible sign of a change. But the pop might be felt—like the moment something finally clicks, or two ideas suddenly fit together, except the opposite. In the heads of everyone in the fortress, something is suddenly not connected quite right.

The first sign of what’s gone wrong is that someone immediately stands up and tells the cook how bad the soup is.

A lot of people’s days are about to get exponentially worse.

Comments

[libratus]

[ Dark eyes flash pointedly to track that wavering of expression, less slight at this distance, and return to meet Leander's gaze head-on.

Yes, clearly, that is the face of a person who has everything under control. ]

For as long as I permit you to continue on here, with these people whose trust you might earn, and-- [ And. A glance is cast quick over one shoulder, checking yet again they are within no one's earshot, before his head ducks nearer still, fear sharpening his caution-- ] And speak not a word of the things I know of you, yes. It is my responsibility too, what comes of that.

[sarcophage]

[Nearer, then, and even nearer than that, their cheekbones aligning so Lea's low murmur may find its way to an ear in adjunct secrecy.]

I don't need your permission to live.

[Nor does he need to throw worried looks to feel comfortable, confident that any consequences lie within his power to navigate—but then, it's always been that way.

The space between them leans wider once more, casual, Leander's head turning to receive one last fragrant lungful, and just like that, he deposits the crystal in Ilias's hand before he's done. It's as if he's meant to hold it just temporarily while Lea licks his own finger and thumb and takes his time pinching at the cigarillo's lit end until it stops smouldering.]

I've been good, haven't I?

[libratus]

[ It's Ilias's turn to turn empty air on his tongue, to leave words hanging unspoken in the sudden space between them. A breath heavy with smoke and spice catches in his throat, the scent too well entangled with more intimate memories to separate now, for all that he's tried. His temper falters, twists in the pitch of his brows and the pit of his stomach. ]

I know you are trying.

[ It's not soft, but softening. It also isn't an answer. Perhaps Leander has been well behaved, or perhaps he's been well-behaved where Ilias can see him — perhaps Ilias doesn't want to measure his life in those terms at all. His fingers close around the crystal, an uncomfortable victory, eating at him as surely as the words he's still biting back. ]

You must know— [ slipping now, from between his teeth, ] It is not only them I want to protect.

[sarcophage]

I do.

[They know so much about each other, intuitively; in other ways, very little. It's a gap Leander is greedy to fill, but neither of them will learn anything by stuffing one another into their mouths like animals. Better that they feed each other in pieces.

Still...

There's no one else out here, the distance between their bodies is negligible, and the air is thick with a curse—no one knows how or why or what, except that it's raked them all raw. So perhaps, when his hand selfishly crosses that distance to test the both of them, it can be forgiven.]

I want to tell you that you can't have it both ways, but you can. [Fingertips along his jaw, his neck, tracing the softness of his earlobe, the thumb so gentle at the corner of his mouth. So quiet.] You can ask me for anything, Ilias. Ask me and you can have it.

[libratus]

[ The muscle goes still as stone beneath his touch, the skin cool save for the creep of a flush from his collarbone, as if the absence of a response might exempt him from having to decide on one — to lean in, to pull away.

There are a lot of things he'd like to have both ways.

(What a curious, chasmic thing it is, to hear that potential spoken aloud and know there's no lie in it. He could have anything he wanted. Anything. This isn't the way he felt with his fingers wrapped around the hilt of a knife at his lover's breastbone; perhaps it is the way Leander did.) ]

Come with me, [ he says at last, a hand rising to cup over the other mage's, his eyes imploring no matter Leander's promises. ] Until this passes. We'll each keep to ourselves, and away from everyone who might come to harm.

[sarcophage]

I offer you anything, and you ask for this. This small thing.

[His thumb moves across the edge of Ilias's lower lip, just halfway, before the entire hand drags down to the base of his neck, the way it's done so many times before. Nestled there against collar and bone, the slightest curl of fingertips around muscle.]

It's perfect. [The decision makes itself: space is shrinking again, the scent of smoke on his breath, words ghosting dangerously close—] You're perfect. [—to touch only their foreheads together, not their lips. Noses brush, perhaps, if he's allowed to stay so long.

Whether or not Ilias draws back from him:] I'd follow you forever.

[libratus]

[ Forever.

The fingers curling at his neck feel like slipping under. How many times has Leander spoken to him in these impossible absolutes? Promises no one but the Maker himself could keep, and it took so much blood to make Ilias finally begin to doubt them, but this — after everything they've done to each other, these words are as true now (truer) as every time they've been spoken, tucked away in their makeshift tents and locked rooms and the not-so-hidden alcoves where it had first occurred to Ilias he could want something only for himself. (Want and have.)

The movement is barely one at all. The inevitable rotation of the planes of a two frontal bones, the cresting of the ridge of one nose past another, air held in his lungs for a bare few degrees tilt of the chin

—balked from in the same motion, like swinging out over the abyss. Fuck. Breath looses in a barely-voiced curse; closed hand set to shoulder, as much to push himself back as Leander. Fuck fuck fuck. The recoil is worse than the lead-in, the opening of space a ragged pull of a bird in a snare. ]

That wasn't— [ but wasn't it, almost? ] I didn't mean— [ but didn't he? ]

[sarcophage]

[—But the snare slips upon realizing what it's done.

Leander is moving, too, leaning back even before Ilias's hand reaches him, likewise dissuading his own impulses with a light and steady push. Even though the world beyond them had begun to shrink down to the soft tunnel vision of intimacy, of no time, of nothing but breath and pulse and anticipation—still, reluctantly, he takes his hand away. Gently, he clears his throat.]

I know. [An obvious pang behind his smile. (There's no perhaps in its transparency; not for him.)] I'm— [sorry. He isn't. It's what you say, what he tries to say, but.] I can't even blame the spell for it, can I.

[No, he can't. Neither of them can, any more than you can blame the smoke for burning down your house.

That same hand reconnects with Ilias, the lightest guiding touch at the small of his back, and Lea turns to stand more alongside him. Softly,]

Here—let's go inside. You can tell me about him on the way.