hadriel_logs | there's a stranger in my bed, there's a pounding in my head

Entry tags:

there's a stranger in my bed, there's a pounding in my head

Who: Taako (

pocketspa) and Magnus Burnsides (

armcollector)
What: After partying a little too hard, Taako and Magnus realize Hadriel is a more formidable foe than they expected.
Where: Starting on the streets, likely to move, we'll see where the night takes us.
When: June 3rd, around the afternoon
Warnings: Mentions of nudity, alcohol use, and injuries. Again, we'll see where the night takes us.

[Magnus makes a noise that could be, upon close inspection, a human groan, but sounds more like the death rattle of a very large bird. He thinks Taako must still be nearby, but he's not sure he wants to open his eyes yet, as he drags a hand down his face. Okay. Okay. Eyes gotta open someday. Okay. He tries another groan to work up the effort to open his eyes. Okay, not working. He peels his eyelids open with his own hand. There, okay, that's a start.

Alright, so he's on the ground, outside, completely nude. Again. There's some tiny pinpricks of shattered glass embedded in his knees, an angry red burn on his shoulder complete with a chunk of missing arm hair, and a whole mess of bumps and bruises. He thinks he hit his head on something; either that, or he drank way too much alcohol crossed with energy shots. He feels around on his dome and discovers the answer is both.

He groans again and pulls himself up to a seat with a considerable amount of effort. And it's with a crushing and sudden weight that the realization of the things he did while clearly under multiple influences comes to him, all at once. Magnus has partaken in parties, but this week-long affair was something else entirely.

He's not sure how to broach the subject with the grace it demands.]

Ngh... Taako? There's, uh, [ahem] I think there's glass shards in my ass. Also, I'm weirdly sticky? Are you weirdly sticky?

[He's weirdly sticky. Maybe it was from pouring tequila all over himself. Multiple times. He sort of remembers that.]

Taako, I hope you're there and I'm not just talking to no one.

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[Objectively speaking, this is the worst Taako has felt in nearly a decade. He's done some benders- rowdy caravans who were more than happy to take shots and eat late into the night- but Taako's usual MO with this sort of thing is know when to quit, duck out when it gets to deep and the punches start being thrown.

This... was so decidedly not that. This isn't even on the same plane as that.

When he finally pries open his eyes, he finds himself in a heap under a nearby tree, and by the feel of it, he started the night a few feet off the ground and was drunk and tired enough that he didn't even feel the landing. He's not an especially vital person to begin with, especially after Wonderland, and the sensation of the machinery falling off the ceiling and hitting him in the gut is especially relevant now, considering that's all over and almost worse. There's dried blood on the corner of his mouth, bruises and slight burns littering his arms, and his pants are summarily wrecked. He pulls his torso slightly upward to find himself on top of his Umbra Staff, the handle having left a rather angry mark on his right shoulder where he's surmising he landed on it. He doesn't even want to think about what his hair looks like right now or how many leaves are undoubtedly stuck in it. He needs a bath. He needs ten baths.

Taako flexes his jaw a bit, still feels blood in his mouth. God, did he eat someone as Dupree? Everything's a blur. There was fire at some point? There was fire at multiple points.

Undoubtedly, they have been taken for the ride of their life, and they didn't even know.]

Yeah, I'm... wherever here is, I guess.

[He kind of turns himself upward so he's sitting under the tree, leaning his back against it, and tries to look forward at Magnus before-- right, he's naked again, and fuck, that was his fault. He lets his head loll to the side and stare a bit down the destroyed pathway.]

Dude, we've died a ton of times before, and somehow I feel worse now than after all of that.

[Magnus breathes a sigh of relief when Taako's voice comes in, somewhere near that tree. Wow, his vision is kind of blurry. It's hard to focus on anything. He feels like a train just hit him and he somehow survived.

He starts to try to stand up to go get Taako, but instantly the world starts swimming while the movement pounds into his head, and, fuck, yeah, there's no way that's happening right now. Magnus leans over, curling up to wait out the dancing of his senses.]

Ahh, fuck. Vertigo. Hang on, I'm looking for ya. Just gotta... wait this out.

[When he thinks it's starting to pass, he pulls himself with great effort to his feet, but he instantly realizes it's way too early as he instantly faceplants back onto the ground.]

Oooookay. Yeah. I'm on my way, dude. Never fear. Magnus is coming.

[He groans again and pulls himself up on all fours and just fucking crawls over to where he heard Taako's voice. He makes it about halfway before...]

Wait, shit, I'm still naked. Why is this happening again?

[He just collapses where he is.]

Can we just walk of shame home, dude? I don't know where the fuck I left my clothes.

[He doesn't even have the spirit to mock Magnus for slipping all over the place, because he's not sure he could even put his feet under his body at all at this point.]

Mag, Magnus, just, just sit down buddy, this is a comedy of errors and I don't even have the energy to laugh right now.

[Seriously, you could put yakety sax over this, but it'd basically just keep getting slower and slower until it sounded like the depths of hell were crawling out and it would stop being funny super quickly.]

And I dunno, can we walk? Because you're not doin' too good with that either. I guess- I guess I could levitate us but we still have to move.

[Why is teleportation magic hard and also not what he's trained in, at all. Besides, his head's pounding, and the very idea of having to concentrate on anything is making him want to vomit.

Actually, that may be completely unrelated to spellcasting. He might just be very, very sick. He wasn't downing the Delight brand shots, for the most part, but alcohol is alcohol and it gives hangovers.]

Listen, we've spent, uh, probably the last couple days on the ground, I'm up for a few hours more.

[Taako has a point. Magnus feels like he could do whatever he sets his mind to, but his body right now has other ideas. Magnus just lies flat on his stomach.]

Yeah. Okay. Do you have, like... a cloak, or something?

[He needs his junk covered again. Please, Taako.

He tries to remember how he ended up naked, and... Oh, wow, the more he thinks about how he ended up in this situation the more he doesn't want to think about it. It's a horror show is what it is. Magnus covers his face and groans.]

Ugh. Ugh. I've never wanted to Voidfish my brain into oblivion more than in this moment.

[Unfortunately, Taako's only in a shirt, pants, and shoes at the moment; he shed the extremities of his wardrobe for the sake of partying even harder, because apparently he didn't have the sense to not light his friend on fire, but he did have the presence of mind to not wear his cape in case he ripped it. He's got some priorities.]

Honestly though. Just, just reset me, or... ugh. Everything. I can't think of funny bullshit like this.

[He starts using what little brainpower he has to try and figure out what to cover Magnus with, at this point.]

I mean, uh... I have the umbrella, I guess--

[As soon as those words leave his mouth, the Umbra Staff rattles, shakes, and bumps upward, hitting the funnybone on his elbow. Taako hisses in pain in response, reaching over to cradle it a bit.]

Okay, nevermind, that's off the table too. Great.

[Uuuuugh fuck just. Just fuck.]

We just... what if we just leaned on each other. A lot. Do you think if I turned into something else then, uh, the bigger surface area would mean I have less injuries?

What the fuck, is your umbrella hungover too?? We all have bodies, Umbra spirit. Or whatever you are. Fuck.

[But if he can't convince the umbrella, he can't convince the umbrella. Magic comes outta that thing, he's not gonna test it when he's at his weakest.]

No, dude, my guess is that would prob'ly like... stretch 'em out and make them hurt worse. You don't wanna test that. We can lean. Leaning's good. Lean with me.

[Magnus crawls with a lot of effort over to Taako and just kind of leans his shoulder on top of half of him on the floor.]

Is it working yet? Are we leaning?

[Yeah well Umbra Spirit doesn't want to be in proximity to your dick, Magnus. And yeah, testing it probably isn't a plan. Taako continues to just sit there until Magnus finds his way over and... technically speaking, it's a lean, even though Taako's not throwing any of his own weight into it, so Magnus is essentially just draped over him.]

Yeah, if you wanted to be my new cape, maybe.

[Which he doesn't want, and he also doesn't want to be under this tree in a bunch of pain forever. He shifts a bit, grabbing the Umbra Staff and trying to use it like an actual cane to prop himself up.]

Okay, so... so we just lean, all the way home, we figure out how to order delivery because I'm sure as hell not cooking, and then we never talk about this again. Because. That's what I'm in for.

[Magnus tries to let Taako's pulling himself up catch on with his own useless self, leaning heavily against him the whole way up until he's sorta-kinda standing himself.]

You think Hadriel has Fantasy Grubhub? Probably not, right? Like, we woulda heard about it, probably. Also, I've already completely forgotten what happened. Not, like, I blacked out, because I definitely did not black out, but I'm reasonably sure I just visited my grandma for a week or something. She fed me. It was great, and you can't convince me of anything different.

[Yeah, he's leaning into the leaning a little too much, and he slips, faceplanting on the ground yet again. He gets up quicker than the last time, though, so. He's recovering, bit by bit.]

I'm good. Shit, actually, I think I chipped a tooth just now?

[He spits out something tiny and white. Yeah, that sure is a tiny little chunk of tooth.]

Aw, shit. I'm gonna have fucked up teeth dreams for months after this.

[Even if Taako had his reflexes about him, he probably wouldn't have tried to stop Magnus from dropping, considering he's much heavier than him and Taako trying to intervene would've just ended up with both of them on the ground.]

Nah, we're probably dealing with, uh, only a Fantasy Eat24 situation, so half the places aren't even on there and the ones that are aren't prioritizing the orders. Could be hours. Maybe days.

[He winces as Magnus spit out a bit of tooth, because oh, oh jeez. This is... this is excessive. He rolls his jaw a bit, reaching up to touch his own mouth, suddenly uncertain the whole thing isn't gonna fall the fuck off.]

Listen, I'm not even sure I didn't eat somebody. Everything's a little hazy, and I'm electing not to think about it forever.

[Taako steadies himself, grabbing halfhazardly at Magnus to reinstate the side-lean.]

But I'd also rather not think about it with, uh, a bed, or a bath, or all of those things.

Maybe I just won't eat. That seems like the easiest thing at this point. I mean, you definitely ate a person, so you're probably not gonna be hungry for a while.

[Maybe the teasing is a little meanspirited in context, but Magnus is too worn out to care about it at this point.]

Yeah. We can just. Make our way home and that'll be that. I'll sleep for another year and we'll be just fine. Everything's fine.

[For a while, he's just content to be quiet and struggle along to support Taako as well as put one foot in front of the other to head home. But then he suddenly interjects,]

Hang on, no, it's not fine. People probably got hurt for real here. I'm fucked up, you're fucked up. What the fuck were the gods thinking!?

[Magnus can probably feel Taako shudder at the implications of the first thing he said, even if he doesn't exactly believe it, but believing it requires thinking about it and that is so far off the Taako Table it no longer exists. He just groans in response when they start walking, keeping all of his mental faculties on putting one foot in front of the other and not collapsing.

And of course, because this is Magnus, they get about halfway there before he finds his conscience and Taako has to groan again.]

Trying to fuckin' kill us, maybe? Or kill somebody. Maybe they're not picky about who gets drunk and dies.

That's not their MO, Taako!

[Magnus whirls around on Taako, just flabbergasted that's Taako's assumption, but that just means he has to catch himself and ease himself back into the lean.]

Ahh shit. Shit. Okay. I'm good. No. Fuck! They need us alive, that's how they keep their batteries chuggin' away! It was... Those two that left. Delight. Delight and Rage, I think? They're off to like have great, life-threatening adventures. Getting almost killed by machine things. She said-- Be super happy for her! She threw this party!

[Okay, now he's pissed again, and it's taking up too much energy, so he starts to take deep breaths and try to calm down.]

Fuck... I'm good. I'm good.

[As soon as he moves, Taako's grabbing for him again before he goes down, and thankfully they're back in it quickly. Don't make him use extra muscles, Magnus, he'll die. He'll just die.]

Then maybe that was like... the point? Get everyone drunk and belligerent until it turns into a riot? Then it's for both of 'em and they end up with all our shit and we're fucked no matter what.

[Because now they're gone and not giving them more parties, and they both-- and undoubtably a ton of other people-- feel like they've been hit by a fucking train.]

I think the thing we're getting out of this is 'they really suck', which was, uh, my opinion before this happened, so nothing's really changed on the ol' suck-o-meter.

I thought Delight at least must've been okay. God, I can't believe I kind of felt bad for yelling at her. I'm taking back my apology. The apology that I never said. It's never gonna get said now, how 'bout that?

[He can kind of see their apartment spire in the distance now, at least. They weren't really that far from it, thankfully.]

Fuck. They're worse than liches. They don't just charge up on emotion, they can force us to feel it.

[He hates to admit that Magnus is right here-- not because it's Magnus, but because the implications of the god damn truth are truly staggering. There's spells to take over people temporarily, charms or laughter or making them do things. But those are actions. Not feelings. Not days and days of it, of slipping until he hurt people. Until he hurt Magnus. Fuck everyone else in this goddamn city, he could've killed him and he wouldn't have cared.]

Yeah, 'fuck' is about the level of shit I think we're in at this point.

[Should've caught on sooner. Should've figured out what had happened. Should've been stronger, better, faster.]

Fuckin' reverso liches. Just create a bunch of goddamn feelings nobody needed and inflict them on us in their little cave for fuckin' fun.

[Now he's just griping out of lack of a real answer, but god, at least soon he can sleep for like a fucking year.]

Nobody important died, so whatever, I guess.

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