[closed] (loud screaming) BOAT PARTY

[pocketspa]

Who: Taako, Lup, Barry, Kravitz, Magnus, Lance, and Nate.
What: 7 assholes, two boats, heading into the ocean for the chance to look for some buckwild stuff.
Where: Out at sea!
When: The entirety of the voyage; August 13th-September 3rd.
Warnings: Idk PG-13 levels of shirtlessness, curse words, maybe somebody ends up overboard at some point. Should be cool.

This is a catch all for the boat party for this group! Make top-levels for threads within this time and go friggin' wild. For convenience, I've provided 3 toplevel headers as general timeline assistance; as far as events of the voyage go, it'll basically be:

Week One: (August 13th-19th) Leaving the city and traveling to the fragment!
Week Two: (August 20th-26th) Still traveling, picking up whatever they find somewhere in here, since it's about the middle.
Week Three: (August 27th- Sept 3rd) Traveling and arriving home!

Feel free not to use exact dates, I sure don't care, this is just to help figure out if things happened before other things, OTHERWISE GO WILD

Comments

[pocketspa]

[Lord, he's going to throw up his own heart on the deck of this boat. That would almost be less embarrassing than trying to talk about this.

He nods, his chin jabbing into Kravitz' leg, but he's pretty sure he gets the message.]

Yeah. Like, seasons here are kind of fucked, but we got really good at tracking what a year was.

[That's probably the one weird but incredibly useful skill they have.]

Also, you saying shit like that is part of the problem, my dude. You're out here being fuckin'-- caring, and. I don't want to be fishing for you to say nice shit to me, we're kinda past that. You just. I think. We--

[He's never been madder in the back of his mind that Lup and Barry got a fucking sonata and didn't need to use words for this. He turns around with his back to Kravitz' leg, tilting his neck back so his head is resting on his thigh instead so he can look up at the stars.]

... I told you I came from out there, right? Not just like, to this city. Like, to Faerun. I'm not from that plane.

[knockthemdead]

I suppose I lost touch with keeping track of time long before arriving in this place.

[Kravitz sighs at that admission, and then clicks his tongue.]

Taako, you're not fishing. I was just saying what I-

[Whatever. They'll just have to agree to disagree on this front.]

You have, yes.

[pocketspa]

[He kind of rolls his eyes, though Kravitz can probably see him now that his head is tilting up. He isn't focusing on Kravitz, though, but off towards the stars as the boat moves underneath them.]

So we spent, like, a hundred years running around out there, everything about the Hunger, you like... know that part. But the thing is we didn't really like-- okay, so you met Lup and Barry together, but we didn't know him when we stared that bit. It took them almost fifty fucking years to get together and I had to sit and watch them lose their shit the entire goddamn time. Y'know Barold told me he liked her the first time at cycle twenty one? It was crap.

[He's gesturing with his hands, but still not looking at him, tracing the patterns of the stars with his irises.]

And I watched them do this and I thought, like... they were being ridiculous, duh, but. I kinda thought it was crazy that she could obsess over somebody like that? It was always just us, and... this guy was suddenly all in it, and she was finding something in him she needed. And I remember thinking that I was never gonna do that. Messing around was fun but love was for people who could... trust.

[He slants his mouth, still not finding it in himself to properly look at Kravitz even though he fucking should, after this entire day's display. God, this is so hard.]

And I don't trust people? I just, it's dangerous to do that on principle and who has the time, right? But I've... said some shit to you in the past. And you just keep coming back, and it's probably not healthy to latch on to the one guy who will like talk to you and you can deffo find somebody better than me in terms of attention, but if I wanna keep this and you mean even half the shit you say I should probably say one thing, so I guess this is that... thing.

[He heaves a breath before he can stop himself.]

Because I trust you.

[Wow, that's almost worse, and he finally tilts his head down and puts his face in his hands.]

And maybe even... y'know, that. Thing. I was talking about.

[knockthemdead]

[Kravitz goes from nodding patiently and laughing at the Taako Brand (TM) retelling of Lup and Barry's love story, to barely containing himself as the conversation takes a turn he did not anticipate it taking.

It doesn't sound great, to start with. Love is trust, and Taako doesn't trust, and a very sharp, frightened part of Kravitz's brain leaps on a train rocketing towards 'he's going to dump me' station.

This is not what happens.

He had always pictured his reaction to this moment as emotional, but composed. The good kind of messy, where sure, you cry a little, but nothing ugly or blotchy. A fantasy Hallmark moment.

That doesn't happen either.

What happens is this: Taako says he loves him in the most Taako way possible, and Kravitz isn't prepared for it. He has no sweet words, or assurances, or instincts to follow. His boyfriend hides his face in his hands, and Krav basically has a seizure in the meantime.]

[pocketspa]

[For a few seconds, everything is quiet, and Taako starts to kind of panic.

Kravitz isn't saying anything. There's no sweet fingers in his hair or hugs or even words, just silence, and Taako knows he's made a huge mistake. He opened up to this guy, he fucking said something he shouldn't have, how could he have done this and let him in and he's so stupid to be searching out this kind of love from someone outside his family it's only been a year--

He dares to look out from his fingers, turning his head to peek over his shoulder with his face still mostly in his hands, just... looking at him sit there like a robot that's utterly shut down.

He rolls his lip in his teeth as he struggles for words on his end, too.]

Fucking gods say something, okay, you got three seconds before I'm off this boat as a shark and I'm never coming back.

[Did he actually break Kravitz? Did he finally do something that just shatters him? Why did he ever take a single piece of advice from Lup?]

[knockthemdead]

[The noise that comes out of Kravitz's mouth is ugly and strange, something caught between laughter and fear- fear because he can't imagine anything worse than Taako leaving, right now. Or ever.

Krav surges forward, and wraps his arms tightly around him.]

Don't. Don't do that. Sorry, I-

[His eyes are not wet.]

I'm just very happy.

[pocketspa]

[He has no idea how to feel about this. He thinks Kravitz might have laughed at him, and he brushes down the indignant feeling it gives with the reminder that when Kravitz said those big words for the first time, Taako also scream-laughed at him here and back in Faerun. For once, he kind of has no right to say fuckin' anything.

But thankfully Kravitz moves, even if he still sort of feels like he wants to bolt into the ocean and die there. He's restrained, but it's good, Kravitz might be crying, but that's good too?? What the fuck???]

I-- y-- I mean, that's what I do, my man, bring the uh, the good shit.

[These words don't even mean shit right now. He feels like his heart is moving so quickly it's going to shoot out of his ribs and he's going to barf it up on the deck. It sucks. It's wonderful.]

Just, it... I was just thinking about it, okay? Recently. And Lup found out and gave me shit until I said I'd tell you.

[Just let him leave out that he thought it for the first time over a missing body, over a leveled block, over eight months ago and he's been stressing since then. It's fine! It's so fine.]

[knockthemdead]

I love you.

[He hasn't said it since the first time, and it's such a relief to do so again.

When he speaks the words, they are not the easy admission they were the first time. They are a little heavier, but also, Krav hopes, an affirmation that Taako shouldn't feel afraid or unsure. His feelings haven't changed. He can't imagine they ever will.

Okay, but, also-]

Recently, you say, though? How, ah, recently?

[He mumbles the words, faux-casual, doing an entirely awful job of disguising his curiosity.

By this point his fingers have gotten back to their favorite activity, tugging and weaving through Taako's hair with the utmost care. He's on cloud nine,dude.]

[pocketspa]

[He actually feels like he might just throw up and die when Kravitz speaks again, so stuck in the emotions of this whole scene. All of him is screaming to say something back. That Kravitz can't love him, that there's nothing that Kravitz should love about who he is. He's terrible. He's self-absorbed and too rough around every edge, he can never love him right and he knows that, that he's made the roughness out of fear and the knowledge that he will be broken if he hands over any part of himself. And yet here he is doing it, the words giving him the acute sensation of plunging his hand into his chest and taking out his still beating heart, damn the consequences. He wants to. Why does he want to. Why would anyone ever want to do this?

He slides upwards, twisting on his knees so he can press his face into Kravitz' chest and try the words on his lips one more time. I love you. There's no noise, no indication he's done it other than the movement of his jaw on Kravitz' sternum before he forces himself backwards to be able to breathe and speak where Kravitz can hear him. He's still lower than Kravitz is, head somewhere around his middle, but that hardly seems to matter.]

Just, like-- like recently, okay, what does it matter.

[He can't get that sappy at this stage, Krav, check back in six months for another roll of the dice.]