Tessera 14th, 81381. Every last one of the mother-fucking cock-suckers could burn in hell. His mother was more than welcome to burn twice. As clichéd as the expression is, it was just another rowdy night in the large, empty space with the killer sound – famously nicknamed the Hell Pit for being little more than an oversized bunker equipped with scuffed floors, some sort of ceilings, and would-be walls. It seemed the only thing required to draw a crowd was a sound system capable of blasting god of his cloud. For atheists, that would correspond to a 9.2 on the Richter scale. And the thing did its job, bringing in more profit than any downtown five star club could hope to make in a week. People loved it, and came crawling back after school and work, thirsting for more of what was in reality, not very much without the people craving it. But it wasn’t called the Hell Pit without reason. Gabriel was supposed to meet Khodan here at precisely 10:00 PM, but it didn’t seem to be the be the type of place the khell would like. People would probably laugh at the two of them, Khodan on his non-traditional instruments and Gabe with his beautiful voice and yellow shirt and skinny jeans, his eyes shaded with kohl and eagerly searching out his friend. He pressed onwards, his hands shoved in his pockets.
Ah, the Hell Pit. The kind of odd, grimy club likely to be crawling with those silly holier-than-thou music snobs Khodan disliked so very intensely. He knew them well enough, the ones who got that look on their face as soon as they noticed the glockenspiel under his arm or the recorder in his paw, the look that said accusingly You can't be a musician here without an electric guitar. But that was okay with Khodan: he enjoyed himself and his music, and he seldom even noticed the audience's reaction when he played. He had a habit of zoning out as he plucked the strings of his acoustic guitar or tapped the keys of his tiny, gleaming metallophone with wooden mallets. He had a habit of zoning out sometimes during boring conversations, too, though he always kept a happy-puppy smile fixed firmly on his face. But back to the present: He wormed his way through the peculiar-smelling bodies of the crowd, clutching his glockenspiel protectively to his chest, and his eyes flicked back and forth over the faces in search of that single familiar arden -- Ah, there, in the flashy yellow shirt and skinny jeans (Khodan blushed under his lavender fur at how tightly skinny jeans could hug the lithe lines of one's legs). Clinging to his precious instrument as if it were a life-preserver in this sea of bodies, he bobbed over to Gabriel with a soft, genuine smile. "There you are," he greeted. "I was feeling a little lost without a familiar face -- this isn't usually my sort of.. place." And again that smile, as he awaited a reply.
"Hey," Gabriel said, a grin running across his face like water sluicing down a wall, tearing his face wide with mirth and two rows of white teeth. The artist gave Khodan a one-armed hug, slinging his free hand around the shorter arden and pulling him close. He looked down at his drink, swirling the potent liquid around in the glass. It seemed to etch the glass at the waterline, and Gabe wondered that if the drink was so powerful as to destroy glass slowly, what would it be doing to his intestinal track? With a careless shrug, he downed the remainder of the drink, and slid it onto a nearby bartop. All things happened because of his choices. There was no predefined nature for him to have. Things passed, and death was a very real thing. His alienation and loneliness were a part of the fact that he was an individual in the world of herd animals. Being was questioned, reality was questioned, and science was an essential part of his life. This was how he knew how to make his skin knit, and this was how he knew how to mix cocktail fusions of drugs without killing himself. Gabe looked over Khodan, his eyes catching on the glockenspiel. "Love that thing," he said quietly. "You ready to play? We can sit in a booth and do it from there, unless you have any other ideas."
The one-armed hug made Khodan's smile grow just that much larger, his soft grin widening almost imperceptibly, and he felt a small burst of sensation when the arden pulled him in. There was something about Gabriel that Khodan enjoyed being around; something about the arden's smile that made Khodan feel like he was on familiar territory. Upon being released, he eyed the odd drink suspiciously and intoned, "What is that?" with a vaguely repulsed expression. Khodan watched as Gabriel swigged the last of it down, adam's apple bobbing, then the lavender arden half-smiled uncertainly. "You ready to play? We can sit in a booth and do it from there, unless you have any other ideas." "Sounds good to me," he agreed, fishing the sheet music out of his pocket with one hand, hugging the glockenspiel and mallets to his thin torso with the other. Referring to the music: "You have yours, right? With the lyrics and everything?" Today, he had a medley of songs tucked away in his pockets, a few of his originals (the third ode to flatulence among them, one of his favorite songs at the moment) but mostly well-known songs he'd deemed shallow enough. He hoped that Gabriel had remembered to bring the corresponding pages for vocals, though he was also almost certain Gabriel wouldn't forget. "Well, it's now or never, huh?" he asked rhetorically, flashing a quick smile at the other arden. "Let's just hope they don't have any rotting vegetables around for throwing."
Gabe raised an eyebrow coyly, a smirk tugging at the edges of his lips. "I dunno. Just hope it doesn't kill me." The tone flavoring the words may as well have said 'I wonder where my car keys are' or 'I should have some dinner before I go home'. Casual, like a bland, obvious truth that didn't need spelling out. He surveyed the Hell Pit. On the surface, this area of Aurius was a quiet, conservative place - few people reached out beyond the social circles they had been born into, and fewer still thought it appropriate to make friends from with weird instruments from the middle of nowhere. The singer tossed a sideward glance to the music, pushing a curtain of hair black as the proverbial crow's wing and lemon-yellow from his face. "I'm ready," he added to Khodan's words, pulling a few neatly folded pages of vocals from his bag. Nodding towards their destination - a threadbare corpse that could barely be called a booth - Gabriel beckoned to Khodan to follow. The came on their quarry a few moments later, and, folding his long legs beneath him, Gabe began to sing, drumming on the table with his hands. "We'll wake up your mothers, we'll start a commotion - we'll take you apart, we'll swallow your ocean. And just when you've labeled us one of your types, we'll fly our flag right up out of your sky..." He laughed heartily, his eyes bright and wild at the crowd gathering 'round them. "So puff out your chest in some weird dusty fight we're taking no part in your cracked antique life we're believing everything that we have heard we're taking our turn with the kids that don't learn... you know I'm going to take my turn - let us be free, let us sing songs along at bottoms of barrels; let us be free! So out come you clowns, all you wolves, all you martyrs you holy rat-rattlers, holy-found-fathers we're selling ourselves so ourselves can find we're living at night trying to pull out the light. We'll turn up the heat as we burn up you boxes we'll loosen our wrists as we fill in your foxholes you've got your bad apples to ruin your bunch yeah we're all right here so you better eat up oh yeah, there's nothing you can do..."
"I dunno. Just hope it doesn't kill me." Khodan paled slightly at the words, and his frown deepened with worry. "Well.. Be careful with yourself," he said quietly, perhaps with a more somber tone than necessary, following Gabriel to the booth he'd nodded at. It was a dismal little thing, skeletal from so many bodies pressing down on its thin upholstery, and it reminded Khodan of a very, very old chuchip. Gabriel folded himself into a seat and Khodan did likewise, tucking his thin limbs into that stereotypical Indian pose. "We'll wake up your mothers, we'll start a commotion - " Khodan grinned at the arden's song choice: the lyrics had meaning behind them, but not in the pretentious way Khodan disliked; and besides that, the melody was just too sweet to refuse. He set his precious glockenspiel down on the table and popped open the case, revealing the rows of gleaming metal bars. Then he rifled through the papers 'til he found the right sheet music, and he laid that next to the instrument. With the two mallets gripped gently in hand, he began plinking along to Gabe's smooth vocals with the tinny notes of his glockenspiel, filling the air with that special metal sparkle. If a crowd was gathering, Khodan didn't notice; he was too busy glancing alternately between the sheet music and Gabriel's bright face, a smile of his own spreading to match that of the other arden's. And he thought as he played, with a wry sort of smile: Maybe the Hell Pit isn't so bad after all.
Gabe finished the song off with a grin on his face, surveying the informal crowd around them. His voice, when it touched upon the air, was as hollow as a bird's bones, and just as birds drift upon the zephyrs, so too did his voice. It was a light, soothing voice, but unsettling in its lack of emotion or spirit; a tenor voice that others had the unspoken permission to ignore if they so wished. "Look!" he cried, in response to the soft clapping, suddenly grabbing one of his musical partner's hands and squeezing it lightly. "They liked it!" His trademark half-grin plastered over his face like fresh egg tempera, Gabe looked to the peacock palette of color that was Khodan. He was beautiful, in the pretty-boy kind of way that Gabe liked, with a grin to match the flashiness of the sun and eyes the color of peridot - hard, a sharp green, and just a little too brittle around the edges, like precious gemstones. "Good job," he added, sqeezing Khodan's hand again, a shiver running up his spine.
Khodan felt a momentary letdown when Gabe stopped singing; he wanted to hear more, more right now. It was so sweet and lilting, like something pale and delicate caught in an updraft, and it seemed to carry Khodan with it, getting him lost in the drifting sounds. The emotionless quality hardly bothered Khodan at all, so caught up was he in the expression on Gabe's face and that flicker of vocals. But of course it had to stop eventually -- all songs end at some point (except the one sung by Lamb Chop), and this particular song was no different. Last note concluded, he set the mallets down in satisfaction, blushing a little as he noticed the applause of -- Rational thought abruptly fled his mind as lithe fingers surrounded Khodan's own, giving a gentle squeeze of confidence. He glanced down at those two entwined hands, his mouth and uneven o of surprise, and then he was grinning broadly at Gabriel, pale-furred face suddenly warmer than it had been before. "Yeah, they-- they really liked it. Let's play another." But he made no move to take back his hand, especially when Gabriel gave it another gentle squeeze. The lavender arden's mind had gone on standby for the moment, it seemed, and it probably wouldn't return until that warm, welcome pressure on his fingers went away.
Khodan wasnÂ’t drawing his hand back. There, safely safe in his own company, he experienced the earthquake of realization as if through a news report on the other side of the world. GabrielÂ’s head tilted towards his left shoulder, as though it'd occurred to him that it wasn't Monday, but Tuesday. His mouth drew into a wide, Cheshire Cat grin, his blue eyes sparkling like deep seawater. His hand wandered away from the lavender maleÂ’s grip to brush the glockenspiel. "Khodan," he spoke into his lap, then turned his bowed head towards the other arden. "Khodan, that wasÂ… great!" He finished with a flourish and even had the nerve to laugh, but considering he'd been about to saunter into a trap without bait, one might feel he was entitled to it. Even so, it lightened the atmosphere in the room somewhat. "Can we sit here? For a while," he asked, sounding oddly conversational for someone who had only minutes ago been staring into the devil's empty sockets. "JustÂ… sit." He found Khodan's hand, and gripped it loosely, relaxing slowly back into his seat.
The release of his hand immediately brought his mind rushing back in lots of tiny pieces, and realization struck him bit by bit in a confusing jumble of thoughts. I should've pulled my hand back, probably. Gabe now thinks I'm odd, probably. I've invaded his personal sphere, probably. He pulled his hand back first. Does that mean..? ... Oh, but his eyes... they're so deep and blue. Like an ocean. All of that, in a matter of seconds, screamed through his mind like a runaway freight train. His blush grew deeper, this time from embarrassment at what he thought might be an offense, and he grabbed up the mallets just for something to hold, pawing through the papers for another song to grab at. "Khodan, that was... He cringed, awaiting his dismissal, an insult, a glare or a harsh word -- "...great! His whole body tensed in anticipation of a verbal blow, but instead he heard that single shining word of encouragement. The music... was great. The glockenspiel... was great. Khodan, that was... great. Great! He breathed again, suddenly realizing that he needed some oxygen pretty badly after holding his breath for so long, and he flashed a quick, shaky smile at Gabe. "Thanks. I-- um, your voice is amazing." "Can we sit here? For a while." Khodan was partway through nodding amiably when his hand was once again grasped by those fingers, this time with a more permanent feel. That familiarly unfamiliar weight, warmth, the arch of a thumb -- he found himself running the index finger of his free hand tentatively along that soft, vulnerable part between the thumb and forefinger of Gabriel's hand, unthinking, his body on autopilot while his mind took some time off. Common sense fled; but this was surreal in the best possible way.
Gabriel had been about to give up. No, really, this time, he had been about to throw in the towel - he was riskily addicted to Khodan (the boy was as bad as heroin, and he hoped he wasn't as dangerous), but it was too much. He was in over his head, trying to swim to the beach when the ocean waves just kept battering him over the head. He wasn't good enough for him, was he? He opened his mouth, maybe to say something about how maybe they shouldn't have met up after all, or maybe about how this entire thing was a mistake, but then Khodan carressed his hand, and Gabe shut his mouth and smiled tenderly at him. His head felt tired from this. Not too tired, though, to carress Khodan's hand in return, to tug at his arm, possibly suggesting that he come a little closer. He had the overwhelming urge to pull the other boy closer to him, smuggle him away from whatever was going on in his friend's head, but had the impression that it would kind of be like thrusting his hand into a barrel of snakes to save the kitten wrapped up inside. "I - uhhhhh."" He stopped, his eyes caught on Khodan's. "Do you want to go get a drink with me? I'm in the mood for some juice..."
Vaguely, rational thought bobbed to the surface of Khodan's mind even as his finger traced the flesh between thumb and forefinger, and he almost drew his hand back in sheer surprise at what he'd been doing. But body won out over mind, and his conscious drifted back down into the gloom, letting subconscious override once more. It was the smile that did him in -- that sweet little smile from the blue-eyed arden. It held so much promise, so much possibility. Khodan felt an odd warmth in his belly, and he smiled back in that same tentative manner with which he'd stroked Gabe's hand, sinking willingly into the feeling of Gabe's fingers on his own. The tug at his arm did, indeed, urge him closer, shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee, sitting side by side with his body resting lightly against Gabe -- but he was afraid of getting any closer, of moving in too quickly, of invading that sphere each 'dragon usually reserves as their own private space. "I'm in the mood for some juice..." How could Khodan refuse? His own hand, property of himself until mere moments ago, suddenly felt as if it would be unbearably cold without Gabe's surrounding it for warmth. All he could do was nod mutely in agreement, a grin settling onto his features as if was planning on staying there a while.
Whatever contemporary musician wrote the words, “life is a roller-coaster, you just gotta ride it" had no fucking clue what they were talking about. Beyond the shallow wisdom embodied in that single line, no mention was made of the harmful effects that particular take on life had on one’s health. The heart palpitations, unnecessary stress, mood swings, and tendency to be misunderstood by the majority of society just didn’t fit the glory bill, thus requiring their removal from the text. Those with actual experience of such roller coasters would do well to shut up and retreat to their corner, and most did – Gabriel included. It just wasn’t the sort of thing you wrote a song about. Khodan was a poem that belonged in bold ink on an old piece of paper, or maybe in a color photograph with too much hard lighting. He believed that Khodan would stay holding his hand about as long as he'd believed he could fly after he'd jumped off of the railing of the second floor in his house. Granted, he was about seven, but he'd still landed a broken arm and a near-concussion from it. However, he was proved wrong a moment later when the other arden didn't run off screaming from him - why couldn't he ever form normal relationships with people? - and Gabe relaxed visibly, the mane on his nape, previously standing upright, coming to flutter against his neck. He pulled Khodan up and gingerly led him towards the bar, sitting on a green-upholstered stool and patting the one besides him for his friend to sit on. When he told the 'tender that he wanted orange juice, the man stared at him as though he'd told him the rapine were coming. "You want something?" he asked Khodan, sipping at his OJ.
OoC; Beautiful metaphors. I really like the "...bold ink on an old piece of paper..." one. x) BiC; Khodan noticed as the mane settled back against Gabe's neck, and for a fraction of a second he considered touching that mane, too; imagined it, silky and sleek under his fingers. But that impulse was crazier than the first, the hand-touching impulse, and it was something one just did not do to a relative stranger like Gabriel. For later days, he thought with satisfaction, images of future meetings forming in his head, the gradual process of getting to truly know the arden that now bobbed ahead of him through the Hell Pit. Unquestioningly, he followed, drifting along with a soft smile turning up the corners of his mouth. This meeting was turning out to be so different from what they'd planned, but Khodan was enjoying it. When Gabe patted the barstool next to him, Khodan pulled his short, thin frame onto it obligingly. "You want something?" Khodan nodded, his face turned toward Gabe as he said, "Um.. Orange juice, too, please." Ever polite, little Khodan. He smiled.
ooc. Awr. Thank you, Beastie. ic. Gabe sipped at his orange juice. His breathing slowed dramatically in the space of only a few seconds. Bit by bit, he scooted closer to Khodan, and his his body melded against every curve of the other’s, inefficiently exchanging degrees at the same rate, making no gains and losing just as much. But it was nice. A unique brand of contact he didn’t recall having with anyone else, binding Khodan unusually close for having only been acquainted for the briefest time, then with a month-long period of silence between the first and second meeting. But it didn’t matter – he’d developed an instant addiction. Whether that was a good thing or not was yet to be uncovered. But buried in Khodan’s soothing skin, body shutting down and consciousness trailing after it, Gabriel – for once – hadn’t the energy to consider it. "Sorry," he muttered at the end of an extended sigh. Very quietly, hardly distinguishable as a word and easily mistaken for a random hum. It had no tone, no character to betray anything but a dictionary meaning. Like a password into a form; a set of uniform stars typed in quick succession, but with so much more hiding behind the input mask. Not the most articulate apology, but the best he could muster, and one of the few ever meant. Funny, the things a bit of warmth can do.
OoC; Khodan's personality is changing so much through this rp. xD I should probably rewrite his profile a little -- I didn't like that original concept for him anyway. BiC; Every move Gabe made, every breath and every bob of adam's apple, had Khodan in a sort of entrancement. The arden's fingers curving gracefully around the orange juice glass; the length of his throat as he tilted his head to drink; even simpler things, like the tiny sounds of swallowing. A second glass was placed on the bar in front of them by the bartender, with a decisively hollow thunk as the 'tender set it down and slid it a little closer to them; but Khodan didn't notice it. He was no longer thirsty. He just sat and he watched the other arden blatantly, his eyes blank with a sort of enthrallment, and he seemed to want neither more nor less. Watching satisfied him for the moment. Then Gabe started moving closer. And suddenly, quite suddenly, as skin began touching skin, watching was not enough. The slight warmth against his shoulder, hip, leg, increasing proportionally with the nearness of Gabe -- it was too much, not enough. Khodan found himself snuggling closer, trying to be subtle about it but failing somehow, wishing there weren't so many strange people pressing around them. It was too public. It bothered him. And then, from Gabe: Sigh. "Sorry." With the closeness of everything, how could Khodan not hear it? He pulled back a fraction of an inch, turned his muzzle to face Gabe. Cool green eyes that tensed with concern around the corners. "What? Why?" A simple enough pair of questions. Worry made Khodan's voice quiver.
<blockquote>He leant into his hand, looking the part of a hunter practicing self-restraint with his target being served to him on a silver platter with sweet peas and gravy. He took a shallow breath, rotating his eyes to the the table and then back to Khodan's face. Because Gabriel was stuck in Limbo. Balancing between a relapse of the condition that had plagued him during the period of time they hadn't seen each other and making a full recovery. Greatly lacking in a Khodan to distract him, his mind had once again begun to wander – he'd failed, despite his valiant efforts not to think about his feelings and now his mind began to focus – god forbid – on an actual something. The look on Khodan’s face when he left. What it meant. Fluffy, corny things like that. Gabe looked distinctly annoyed with himself, wearing a bitter frown that intensified as the minutes ticked by. "Because... see, I - I like you, Khodan. Really, really like you..." He turned his head to the other side, sighed softly, and shut his eyes.</blockquote>
Gabe wasn't looking him in the eye. That was a bad sign. The arden was glancing back and forth, seemed jittery. The fidgeting, the bitter look. Khodan felt his hands getting cold with detachment, blood heavy in his veins. Gabe was about to tell him something bad, he felt it, and his mind spun off in a million directions at once -- how many different ways could he pin the blame on himself? How many paths of logic led back to Khodan at fault? Khodan moved too quickly. Khodan moved too slowly. Gabe thought he was too interested. Gabe thought he wasn't interested enough. Disjointed sentence fragments flickered through his head, and he wondered if he'd gotten too close just now? What if, mortification of mortifications, Khodan had misread the signs completely? What if Gabe didn't like arden that way? Khodan paled beneath his lavender fur. "I - " he began, but then Gabe started talking and Khodan promptly closed his mouth. "Because... see, I - I like you, Khodan. Really, really like you..." At first, he didn't seem to get it. His breath was still caught at the top of his throat, held taut with waiting. Then the meaning of those simple words sunk in more readily, and he blinked twice in disbelief. Clearing his throat awkwardly, he tried to formulate the right reply in his reeling mind. Finally, seven words that approximately represented how he felt managed to slip through his tingling lips. "I think I really like you, too."
<blockquote>Part of him desperately wanted to get home, play the loser and leave Khodan and his emotions here. The other part, small and weak as the whisper in his head, knew one step over the threshold would guarantee him failure but hadn't the courage to yell. The unexpected break between his words and Khodan's nearly stopped his heart, but nothing above his collar really noticed. He instinctively curled up, waiting to die by the cold hands of rejection as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Khodan's words took time to reach him, and when they did, the space between them had robbed each syllable of any deeper meaning. Slowly, very slowly, he leaned fowards and gently kissed the other arden on the lips, before pulling away with a soft smile on his face.</blockquote>
OoC; Lulz drama. xD Khodan's mood changes with like each post. BiC; Relief. The first thing Khodan felt as soft mouth touched lightly upon his own was relief. Relief that was so overpowering, he almost forgot to kiss back. Almost. When Gabe pulled back, Khodan felt his muzzle pulled further toward the other, magnetically -- his subconscious didn't want him to get too far away. But he suppressed this feeling with a slight blush, straightening up shyly and glancing at the orange juice that sat on the bar next to him. The 'tender quickly feigned business with a dirty glass and cleaning rag in his hand. For lack of something better to do, Khodan reached out one slim hand and picked up the glass, bringing it to his mouth purposefully. He drank about half of it in breathy gulps before deciding that he should probably say something to Gabe regarding that kiss; he didn't want Gabe to think he hadn't enjoyed it. He had enjoyed it. So much that he wouldn't've minded doing it again. And again. And again. But he placed the glass carefully back down on the bar and smiled lightly at Gabe. Twitched his fingers in his lap and glanced down at them and then back at Gabe. And finally, a little hoarsely, the words came: "That was perfect." And he half-blushed and half-smiled again, his two hands clutching each other tightly with the exhileration of it all.
