terriblepurpose | Deer Country Contact

[It's the middle of the afternoon but the thick, swirling storm clouds are so thick over the trench that feels like it's deep into the evening. It's disorienting and easily drags the body into malaise as the rain against windows beats a soothing pattern and the distant rumble of thunder sounds like a murmured invitation to shut close your eyes and welcome the infectious sleep.

Kaworu doesn't know how long he's been asleep when he wakes up as the room is dark as when he dropped onto the mattress for a light nap. He isn't even sure what woke him up. Out of habit he reaches up to rub at his nose with the heel of his hand to sooth the now ever-present itch (thanks pollen) with a soft sigh before rolling over towards the window onto his back, stretching out his pale limbs as much of the bed as possible.

As he turns, his shoulder collides with something hard, but not sharp, and a little warm. Oh... Paul. By now, Kaworu can recognize how the other boy breathes in his sleep (deep and through his nose) to know who it is without looking, though a midday nap was not particularly common. For a few moments, he lets the sensation of the gentle pressure of Paul's lungs filling with air against his body soothe him, eyes slowly fluttering back closed.

Then the itch is too much to handle and he rolls away, covering his mouth and nose, and tenses all of his unimpressive muscles to suppress a sneeze into nothing more than a soft hiccup and a twitch of the body. Ow. He sits up, rubbing at his chest to soothe the soreness of containing the obnoxious paroxysm. His eyes trail down and then over to Paul.

He marvels a little that Paul looks like a child when he sleeps, even though he is one, barely older than the angel-turned-boy watching him. It's good, he thinks, to see Paul sleep like this. He doesn't sleep enough. There's too much moving around in his head, weighing on him. Like if he sleeps, he'll never be able to pick it all back up.

The blankets are tangled up in both of their legs but the lion's share has ended up in Kaworu's lap and his side of the bed. Gently, carefully, like he's holding delicate gossamer fibers instead of blankets that John found in the closet, he takes the blankets and drapes them over Paul's shoulders.

Then he drops back down, curling up under the covers instead of caccooning in them like a little thief, thinking: what does it mean to protect someone? To spare them from death and from physical pain. But they can handle those things. And Paul can fight and lead and yet there's something small instead of him that the angel wants to protect. Kaworu doesn't know how to name it but he wishes could reach out and grab it, cradle it against his chest in his hands, and not let anyone harm it. Not even Paul himself.

What does something like that mean? And then... what do you do with it. A heavy sigh, louder than he intended through his congested sinuses, as he wonders what he's supposed to do with feelings like this.

He thinks there may have been someone he could ask. But he can't place his finger on who. Like that person has faded into a crowd and now he can't find them amongst all the faces he holds in his mind's eye.

Hm. Kaworu shuts his eyes and watches the thoughts he doesn't know how to grasp and make real turn over and around in his head.]

[There was no intention of sleep when he stretched out on the mattress next to Kaworu. It was only that he felt the pull of gravity too much when he was vertical, a dragging down through his limbs and his blood that persuaded him that he could monitor Kaworu's sleep lying on his side, and how would he be able to see him clearly from the floor?

He wakes up on his belly, one eye gummed with sleep slower to open than the other as he surfaces from a cold dream. He knows the breathing behind him, lightly clotted with pollen, moving in a rhythm that tells Paul he's not the only one awake. He's not sure what color his eyes are, so he brings his fingertips closer, to see what shade spills over them as he rubs his encrusted eye.

A pale blue wash over his skin, so Paul turns his head, the lines of crumpled sheets stark red on an otherwise bloodless face.]

It's still raining.

[There are whispers under whispers in the multi-part hush of his voice, but at least they're in harmony.]

It is. I think it's almost evening.

[The response is also hushed, slightly raspy, easily lost underneath the sound of rain on the roof and windows.

The whispers don't disconcert him. The first few days that he was pulled from the sea, as his soul struggled to endure the demands of existing in a single reality, they were comforting. Like additional tethers he could use to tie himself to the world. Paul's turn away is what disconcerts him, like it's an erosion of that little piece he so badly he wants to protect.

But he doesn't know what to say. And angels don't have time for wasted words. Speaking to fill space is distinctly human. So he says nothing, simply accepting what is. Instead, he takes the opportunity of Paul being awake to blow his nose more loudly than he could have before.]

Did I wake you?

[It's only a few moments of scanning the room before Paul returns his radiant gaze to Kaworu, just in time to witness Kaworu's still-surprisingly loud clearing of his sinuses. Paul pushes himself up to his elbows and pulls a clean handkerchief out of the sleeve of his soft borrowed shirt, offering it to the other boy in a gesture that's already almost second nature.]

No. Did I wake you?

[He knows he hasn't been the soundest sleeper, lately; and he should sit up, if it's almost nightfall, but it's soothingly warm under the blankets he doesn't remember pulling over himself, and he can spare a little longer in the half-wakefulness of this moment.]

No. Just allergies.

[He says with a sniffle to really make it clear that he's suffering. In case the memo has not been gotten, which is always a risk, so he has to remind everyone at least once an hour about it.]

You were saving that for a moment like this. [Kaworu shakes his head at Paul, but his tone is light, teasing. Though, when he reaches for the handkerchief, just as his fingers brush the fabric, his heart clenches and suddenly, it's like his lungs are trapped in a vice. There's something familiar about this and he doesn't know why.

His eyes catch Paul's searing ones and the vice loosens. They're not Paul's, and he misses the gentle sea-green, but there's something comforting in their unearthly radiance. Humans have tales that seeing an angel would burn away mortal eyes, unable to witness such a being beyond human understanding. Paul's eyes let him create a story where he and Paul are alike in their stations of something beyond mankind and so he's less alone in the universe.

Grasping the handkerchief, he slides back down in the bed onto his back and settles next to the other boy, pulling the blankets back over his chest and letting their shoulders rub gently.]

Were you dreaming?

Edited 2022-03-02 22:30 (UTC)

I don't remember.

[He was. He does. But the little lie comes easily, when the truth is such a bitter thing. Paul brings his hands under his shoulders and settles back down on his stomach, content to be the slim barrier between Kaworu and the rest of the room.

(He's not oblivious to their closeness. He's acutely sensitive to it, careful of how they touch, of the implications that might arise from a thoughtless gesture or word. Kaworu is his friend, and Paul will let no miswired signal come between them, especially not in the depths of his vulnerability.)]

I was. Saving it. But I have more. Do you want me to help?

[There are a combination of pressure points and angles that encourage drainage of the sinuses, the little tricks of biology he's been applying to everyone in the house who will bear them.]

I was asleep. But I think I heard the ocean. I don't know if that's a dream or not.

[He rolls over onto his stomach, mimicking Paul in the way that he unconsciously does when engaged in conversations with others. But this time, the move is conscious for a specific reason.

If he's with other people, touching them, holding them, being held and touched in return, then he'll have something to grab if he's pulled back under again. There will be someone to save him. There more distant he is, the more dangerous the undertow is, able to yank him under before he can even cry out.

He twists his fingers in the handkerchief.]

Yeah.

[(Paul would save him, he's sure.)]

[Paul doesn't break contact with Kaworu completely once as he shifts to sit cross-legged at the head of the mattress. His anxieties mirror Kaworu's, whetted on the unforgiving shape of a promise to someone whose absence looms like a great shadow of outstretched wings.]

Roll over.

[Simple, gentle instruction, accompanied with a soft nudge to Kaworu's shoulder. His hand lingers on it as he waits for Kaworu to comply.]

It could have been a dream. What did the ocean sound like?

[Kaworu obeys. It rarely takes much from Paul to get him to do so. The other boy has already well earned his loyalty. And lately... perhaps... Kaworu hopes the more agreeable he is, the sooner Paul will return to himself, full of that essence that the angel wishes he could protect.

Once on his back, he crosses his arms over his chest, like a corpse in a casket, staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling.]

Not much like when we stand on the shore's edge. It was loud. Sounds from all over, not just creatures in the sea, but the very movement of the ocean itself and the shifting of the earth below.

Mm.

[A non-committal hum as Paul rubs his hands together briskly to warm them before pressing index and middle fingers to a point just above the outer edges of Kaworu's eyebrows. He begins to rub in small, outward and slightly upward drifting circles.]

Like you were underwater, or like you could hear better?

[There's an echo of words Paul didn't say that trails after the question, quite literally; they're untranslated, obscure, unlike any language Paul has ever heard. He tries not to think about it too much.]

Both. And I felt safe there.

[Kaworu closes his eyes, unable to meet Paul's gaze if Paul so happens to look down on him. He doesn't want to explain how he knows about being underwater and strange pods he spent time in to help him survive despite his broken biology. It feels like it would only be troublesome to bring up now.]

[Once his fingers reach Kaworu's hairline at his temples, Paul flips his hands to press his thumbs beside Kaworu's nose, below the ridges of his orbital sockets. He repeats the circular motion there with firmer pressure, tilting Kaworu's head slightly back as he does.]

That does sound like a dream.

[The veils of trailing pinkish hyphae over Kaworu's skin aren't real. They shred and dissolve too easily when Paul brushes against them. They aren't real, and they don't look like tears.]

Do you feel safe now?

[A sigh out his nose then a little cough from the clearing congestion. He doesn't have to continue. There's a clear line between his state of dreamlessness before and this dreams now. But if he doesn't name it, perhaps he doesn't have to face it.

The pressure Paul exerts on his face is slightly odd and makes him want to squirm a little bit. No one's ever really touched his face other than to medically inspect it. Sometimes, when he presses it hurts a little, but the contact is still soothing and he can feel the gentle intent.

He turns his head to look up at Paul, red eyes bright even in the dark room, and wide, meet Paul's bright blue ones.]

I do. It's just... it was a different kind of safe. Like I was nowhere and yet everywhere, floating. No boundaries.

[Paul squirms closer and lifts Kaworu's head to rest on one of Paul's shins, adjusting the drainage angle before he changes the pattern of touch one last time: middle and ring fingers to the inner corners of Kaworu's eye sockets, applied with the most insistent pressure yet. He holds it without moving for long seconds.]

When people have dreams like that, they're often about before we were born. Womb-dreams. [His eyes meet and stay with Kaworu's, ambiguous behind their glow.] It is different. That's okay.

[He still feels safe here, and that's important. Paul releases the pressure and strokes softly down the sides of Kaworu's nose with still-rigid fingers, coaxing and repetitive.]

Was anyone else there?

I wasn't born in a womb though. Not real one anyway.

[There was a time where he would have felt pleased that he was able to have a dream at all. Now, he just felt perplexed about it. It wasn't like how he imagined dreaming, he thought there would be more than something so intangible.

When Paul's fingers move to the sides of his nose, he squirms a little at the ticklish sensation, pressing his head into Paul's shin, twisting his bed head into further colicks and curls.]

No. But I don't think I was alone either. [There wasn't a someone but... he didn't have that pang of loneliness that sometimes creeped up on him when he spent too much time by himself.]

[Paul breathes out a slight, hushing sound as Kaworu squirms, shifting his shin to offer more flesh and less bone, although there's not much of that to cushion him. Paul has always been lean, but his time in Trench has both sharpened and hardened him, his body more a weapon than ever.

Killing hands relent their stroking of Kaworu's clogged sinus cavities. Paul leaves them to drain on their own and sets one hand on top of Kaworu's head, sinking his fingers into that messy hair.]

How were you born? If you want to tell me. [His choir-woven voice is unpressured, calm.] And did it feel like anything? The being that wasn't there?

Humans found Adam, the creator of all Angels, frozen in the Antarctic and decided they could play god by attempting to fuse human DNA into part of his body. I am the result of that experiment. Most Angels are born from eggs, formless, only deciding what to be once they are ready to exist. But I was grown SEELE's facilities in an artificial environment from an embryo.

[There's a lot more to it than that. But as Paul rests his hand on Kaworu's head, a warm and comforting weight, he can't bring himself to explain the rest. What would Paul think if he knew that Kaworu's birth resulted in the death of over three billion of his fellow humans?

He sniffles and wipes his nose on the handkerchief.]

It felt... very big. Like it was holding me in its hands. But within that was also the entire ocean.

[The Bene Gesserit are insistent on the sacredness of the blood of the womb, on the innate necessity of life-transmitted-to-life that occurs in the web of the human body. It is one of the great sources of contention with the Bene Tleilax; it's also one of their great sources of power, with so many of the birthing-bodies of the empire's elite under Bene Gesserit control. It's a thing Paul has considered in new lights, lately.

If Kaworu is abominable, then so be it. He's Paul's abomination, with a sharp-featured face and always cold-seeming feet, and a very human case of the sniffles.]

I'm sorry they didn't let you decide what you wanted to be.

[Paul reaches over Kaworu with his free hand to tuck in already tucked blankets along his side. He lets no trace of his thoughts into his tone.]

How did that make you feel? Being held like that?

[Kaworu blinks once then and then again, as if trying to parse the words in such a simple sentence. No one had ever apologized for his creation before, nor had anyone apologized for what was denied to him. Words like that are how Paul managed to stake such a firm place in his heart and it seems like the words come to him without thinking.

He idly taps out a rhythm on his sternum.]

I suppose there's nothing to be done about it now. Besides, if I flew in the air or swam in the sea, we wouldn't be able to talk like this.

[A sniff and he curls up a little.]

Protected. But also guarded.

[Paul tilts his head as he observes the rise and fall of Kaworu's fingers. He slides his hand in Kaworu's hair to one side, sets his thumb against the thickest ridge of his skull, and mirrors it back to him, soundless and soft as the faint suggestion of an upturned corner of his mouth.]

Is it worth the allergies?

[Paul understands the distinction between protected and guarded well enough not to have to ask about it. Safe, but also constrained.]

Edited 2022-03-05 00:02 (UTC)

[Don't call him out like this! There's a little huff and squirm and Kaworu hopes that it's too dark to see his face turn a little pink. Then he feels the gentle taps and settles, instantly soothed by the feeling of affectionate fingers against his hair. A tether and a reminder of a promise.]

Maybe. [A new rhythm.] If I get to pick the next film for movie night.

[Considering that no one in this house or its constituent Houses knows any films, Paul thinks this is a compromise he can manage. It's good to see Kaworu taking an interest in something that requires being conscious, too.

(He worries about the dreams, their pull. He should have worried more, before. Now anything that anchors Kaworu is a thing Paul wants to give him.)]

I think we can do that. What do you have in mind?

[Mirrored, again, and then repeated with a slight alteration.]

Mmm.

[He taps back, as easily as breathing. It's soothing, like the sound of the water in his dream, but it anchors him in his body. A reminder of where he is, what his body is like, how he exists next to another.]

We could try the wizard movie again.

[Last time he was out like a light before they even showed the ring.]

[Paul had pretended to be pinned by Kaworu's draped legs over his lap for the rest of it, blankets pulled up under his chin in the dark room.]

Do you want me to wake you up if you fall asleep this time?

[There's yet another blanket piled up where the bed meets the wall in the corner Paul shoved it into (more defensible, out of the line of sight of the window - and who puts glass in a bedroom, anyway?), this one smaller. They've been accumulating steadily, although Paul isn't quite sure how. He reaches for this one and absently shrugs it over his shoulders against a feeling of cold that's either new, or just remembered.]

I won't fall asleep! I'm better now.

[(As long as he doesn't take any benadryl or anything.)

Still, he had tried to stay awake, he really had, but back then his body just kept getting tugged back into dreams. Simply existing as a single entity had been exhausting, almost painful, so curling up and sleeping while Paul sat next to him had been nothing but relief.

And he's still a little on the sleepys ide but he can manage much more now thanks to Teacher. A lot of things were thanks to Teacher.

Noticing Paul's reach for a blanket, Kaworu shifts a little so the blanket covering him can go askew and cover more of Paul's legs. It's probably meaningless but still a gentle gesture.]

I want to understand these stories you like so much.

ic contact

action; bonehouse; late in early march.

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cw: gender essentialism

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