fellas is it gay if you can magically read your best bros thoughts (OPEN)

[heerequeerandfulloffear]

Who: Rich and others
When: Morning and noonish, November 15
Where: Jeremy, Rich, and Michael's home
What: Rich and Jeremy's Bonding ceremony and celebration
Warnings: none



i. Bonding (Closed)

[Jeremy shows up at Rich's door bright and early the next morning. Despite how Rich claimed that suits weren't required, Jeremy still put together the nicest-looking thing in his wardrobe. His hair is slicked back, his skin is clearer than usual (where did he find concealer?), and he's used up a good chunk of his precious deodorant that he brought with him through the mirror.

The SQUIP had a lot of drawbacks, being an evil mind-controlling robot and all, but it taught Jeremy a valuable lesson: Jeremy cleans up good.

When Rich opens the door, Jeremy's waiting expectantly, hands behind his back and bouncing on his toes. It's clear that he's been there a while.]

You ready to go?


ii. Announcement (Open)

[To announce their Bond and to celebrate, Rich and Jeremy have opened the house up for any and everyone who wants to check it out--both quietly not mentioning how empty the space seems with Justine's recent disappearance. At Rich's suggestion, they've sent an open invitation out on the watch network to anyone who wants to drop by and offer congratulations.

Their budget isn't huge, but Jeremy's insistence on hospitality means that they've got enough finger food and drinks for people to try out. There's no alcohol.

Jeremy's still nervous even though the deed is done, so he's bustling around constantly to make sure that everything is perfectly neat, that they've got enough seats, and that nobody needs a refill. In his rush, bringing a hot tray of cookies from the oven straight onto a serving tray, he bumps into you. As he turns around to see who he's plowed over, he rushes to apologize. The niceties run into themselves before he even sees your face.]

Shoot--I'm sorry--thanks for coming!


iii. Wildcard (Open)

[Jeremy and Rich are both available to talk about their new bond with your character. Let me know if you want a specific situation!]

Comments

[hearthebell]

[The fluttering lurches of expectations dismantled and then accounted for, rebuilt more accurately, is initially anxious and unstable. Truly knowing and being known by another was a privilege L never assumed or aspired toward; it was simply a piece to an alien jigsaw puzzle with no place slotting into his own. Now, there's an audacious inkling that perhaps it could, and it inspires both optimism and dread. Knowing that something is inaccessible is an absence of feeling, but having, and then losing on this scale, can tear a person to bleeding shreds of flesh with every raw nerve exposed and reeling.

No one sane or reasonable would want that, even if the temporary gift it paid for was sublime... right? But L believes he does want it, standing across from Myr as the faun tenderly kisses his knuckle, accepts the futile strange bracken that is a part of his life now. No one's ever done that, before, at least not without the ulterior belief that they had something to gain through a connection to this title's wealth and power and tireless fixation. Without those things... he's still a man, and a mind, and it fully appears that Myr would still want them without the millstone of that illustrious and deeply damaging legacy that has shaped L, and Mello, and the other contenders.

The Bond allows him to probe deeper and more discreetly than mere divining would allow him to; when used in conjunction, the combination gives him enviable insight to a partner's thoughts and motives. His training and skill as an investigator only give him a further edge, to the point where it comes naturally and he almost doesn't realize that he is reading Myr as deeply as he is. He'd intended to hold off on it, at least while the Bond is so new, but Myr's mind is a clean, well-lit and welcoming place, at least on this surface level. If he was bold and brazen enough to assume as much, he'd believe that this was a deliberate invitation exceeding the inherent invitation of a Bond... is Myr really so willing to share this much with him?

He wants to be the kind of person who deserves that, in the end. Sisyphean and hopeless, there are still things here worth trying for, aspects and elements that he wants to appropriate for himself.]

I believe you.

[Now, of course, remains only the troubling matter of ensuring that his best can actually be enough for an entirely new sort of task.]

[faithlikeaseed]

[I believe you.

Three little words, and they mean as much to Myr as any more elaborate vow would. Framed as they are in his knowledge of L, both new and old--oh, it makes his heart leap to hear them, to know he has that trust.

He hopes he's earned it fairly; he hopes it is something he will continue to live up to, from here. (How strange some outside observer might find it, that two men who were so wholly different in how they responded to the world's reception of them, in how they navigated the vast universe of social understanding--one well, one poorly--might come to their Bond with such similar concerns about worth and ongoing worthiness. But then it's that willingness to try that made for the best friendships, families, marriages--it's finding that willingness indelibly present in L despite everything that gives Myr so much hope.

Of course, he's hope for everyone he meets--but how much more for someone he recognized as instant kindred, whose life had echoes of his own?)]

Let me ever be worthy of that, dear friend. [The word he uses is intimus from Tevene, the language of serious scholars of magic...and half Myr's heritage, though "fraught" doesn't even begin to describe it. The endearment seems utterly right either way for someone he'd connected to first as an intellectual sparring partner, then a friend, and now... Now this, the absolute openness a Bond could permit, should they let it.]

Let's give them their circle back, shall we? I'd like--[to get to know you better still,] to spend a little time alone with you.

[Or more than a little, but they'd walked out rather unexpectedly on something and Myr's notions of social propriety would eventually bite him over that. ...To say nothing of the entire rest of what he owed to Rich, given the apparent shift in loyalties this Bond would appear.

But let that bide a moment; let him bask a little longer in this newlywed sort of glow with L beside him a little longer. Let them find somewhere to sit and sort themselves out--

Myr squeezes L's hands, reassuring, before letting one go and taking a careful step back. He came from that way; it's likely a safe path of retreat until L can lead him elsewhere.

Despite the clouding of outside worries, Myr's side of the Bond remains as open as that first moment.]

[hearthebell]

[Doesn't Myr realize? If he is able, then he is worthy... and so few people are able. So few have the patience to understand. Something of the sentiment radiates through, plaintive and soft, but it's not entirely new. There's something about it that feels as though it's been worn before, or applied out of necessity as a painter might with very limited colors in his palette and no ability to mix them for new shades, added nuance. It's not that Myr isn't uniquely special; it's not that L views him simply as a parent or a protector or a lover. But this same shade has been painted over the SQUIP, and further back, an elderly inventor. Even further back the gloss might even have belonged to the first to know and subsequently reject him.

While he doesn't believe that Myr will reject him, he doesn't expect to be a priority. A treasure among several, perhaps, more rough-hewn and raw than some of the rest, an interesting texture for curious fingers to explore. It's why he's surprised when Myr suggests what he does. The part of L that still struggles to accept that others would willingly spend time with him outside of a professional and necessary capacity swells and stretches like some caged thing finally given space to move... but another part of him is all too glad to snap the lock back in place, count the familiar bars from his smaller but far safer world.]

I want to, but...

[There's always a but. All the connections he's formed in Aefenglom, whether or not they've resulted in a Bond, have been longer and messier than any glancing interactions in his own world. While Light Yagami was his mortal enemy, as Kira, L hadn't lied entirely when he'd called the younger man his first friend. Days passed at his side, and he was still there, never mind that he was handcuffed to the detective and didn't have the freedom to walk away.

So much has changed since then. Conflict and uncertainty tumble against each other, wrestling without intent, indecisive and mewling infant expressions. They want to be part of that open, gentle suggestion that Myr's continued presence offers.

Or, he could run, and hide, and save something that merely being here feels like he's in the process of destroying.

The note cards and pens he always carries, as a dedicated etcher who is always prepared at a moment's notice for some custom job, are pulled from his pocket. He murmurs indistinctly to Myr, using a nearby podium as a back as he carefully scratches out a set of runes. He flutters the card a few times to speed its drying before nudging it, folded, into Myr's hand. ]

It's only a one-time use, but... it'll fix things. Provided no one's tried to force it and damaged the table. Just touch the edge against any part of the sign.

[faithlikeaseed]

[For one so devout as Myr, worthiness was a tricky concept. It isn't merely a mortal standard he's bound himself to but a higher, stricter one requiring constant striving. Accordingly he tries to be many things--patient, kind, understanding--and often succeeds at them; but he is also mortal, also in possession of needs he cannot always silence or ignore. The good regard of those he loves is among them and for one long, heart-bruising moment he hears rejection in that but; he hears his own failure that cut him from his Circle and it presses on too-fresh scars.

But. But he does not withdraw or recoil, and the moment passes, fear erased by reason; this isn't, can't be about him, about that (about the thing his mind shies from even in vaguest reference) because L knows what he had done, knows and had not turned him aside. The shallow pool of comparators L has to draw on gives the clue: It is not a deficiency but a surfeit that makes L draw back, and that too is cause for heartache. (He remembers that feeling of cage-cramped wings unfit, he thought, to bear weight; he still isn't sure he belongs out, or that he's flying rather than falling this far from home.)

Each Bond is different. Where a warm and open closeness had been key to mending what was wounded in Everett, L--it seems--would require protected space to grow into. It hasn't been the style of Myr's affections (for fear those not immediately acted upon would vanish), but he is willing to learn--more than anything, he is willing to learn, to become what L needs of him.]

I understand. It's a lot at once, and you're frayed already. [I'll be here when you need me, and never far.

The urge is yet there to trail after L as the Witch pulls away to do--what exactly, Myr isn't sure, though the scratch of a pen is familiar. He follows after a step or two, halting to not hover and waiting to know what will come of this.

...A slip of paper, as it happens, and an explanation that reinforces--as if he needed it!--Myr's choice in taking L as his Bonded. The road before them is long and dark, but not lonely nor without waypoint, and that's all Myr would ever ask of such a journey. He catches briefly at L's fingers--you are mine and I am glad of you--then tucks the spell-slip away with the careful regard such a thing is due.

An anxiety dispelled, a trust vindicated. The smallest actions are often the most meaningful; restitution could be easier than an apology and as effective.]

Thank you. I'll take it back with me. [He favors L with a smile, bright and sweet and yet a little sad.] Where are you bound next?

[hearthebell]

[Myr's understanding brings with it tangible relief that the faun can likely feel through what they've so recently forged, more intensely due to the foundation that they've spent so many months building before this point. L's astonished at what a difference that seems to make, because while he had a sort of intimacy with the SQUIP, and history with Mello, somehow neither of those things are really the same as what he's experiencing now, or even on a comparable level.]

I was going to...

[And L, himself, is disquieted at the utter void that gapes wide where the formulations of a plan are usually sitting. They're locomotive rails that end abruptly, twisted and snapped forcefully away, a complete shock to the conductor who expects to see more track. It really suggests that on an unconscious and intuitive level, this part of him expected to be stardust and fragments of an indifferent universe by this point in the evening.

An overbright smile masks a rapid and necessary recovery that's more of a patch job than anything else, but holds up to the task sufficiently enough.]

On Halloween night, apparently I came home soaking wet. It suggests that I either fell or was pushed into the harbor after I left the bar.

[There's a third possibility, one that L means not to burden Myr's mind with on a night he is returning to someone else who would do himself harm in a dark and trapped moment.]

Furthermore, I never kicked my shoes off, so I probably didn't make it out on my own. It's quite a mystery and I never really sorted it out, so... no time like the present.

[faithlikeaseed]

[Even if tonight's been a night of shocks and revelations, hidden depths and hidden sorrows revealed, Myr's known L long enough to feel like he's on steady ground with the detective--knows his patterns (the ones he's shown) and the way his (public) mind works.

So that hole where a plan should have been trips him, too.

Not so profoundly as it does the one who'd been staring down the end of his own life with those too-sunken eyes, but there is a palpable hitch in Myr's manner; he rocks back on his heels as if from a blow in perfect time to how L trails off.

They'd cut it so fine. Maker and Lady, too fine.

But let them not look too closely at that for now. Nor that third possibility Myr catches vague shadows of in regard to that particular night (his own recollections of what he'd done, where he'd gone after parting from L hazed yet with panic's aftermath--something he cannot worry over because doing so means remembering why he'd panicked).]

Ah, [a breath out of acknowledgment,] and I'd like to hear what you've found when you get to the bottom of it; if someone did push you, I've of course a vested interest in preventing it from happening again.

[A note of faint, recovered humor laces the words.] Though when you grow weary of the trail, intimus, [this one, or all the many others you're following,] and it grows dark once more, you might come back to me.

[There are other ways out, I promise you. I found them once.] I'll make time.

[hearthebell]

[There are glancing, tentative little flickers of insight into what L shows the world with his thought process... and what he chooses to guard and conceal more jealously. A Bond will inherently blur the line between those, and it's further complicated by the fact that he likes and trusts Myr to such an unprecedented and disarming degree.

What feels like a punch to the gut when his path ends so abruptly is something that Myr physically reels back from; that alone proves handily what L knew from their first conversation, that connection is not only possible between them but practically inevitable, Bonded or no.]

Yes... I might.

[Truly, he means it. Maybe even tonight, if he suspects for a moment that Myr has returned to someplace he can access the faun. He knows that the intentions of his Bonded are pure, but also that he is kind, and time is finite, and likely to go foremost to those who appear to be the most in need. No matter how dark it grows for L, he's determined that he will not need too openly and honestly.

Even though he perhaps could have benefitted to do so, tonight. Before things got so dire and desperate.]

I... think I'll know, if you return home. But don't rush any matter on my account; I'm likely to be out late, now that I can think clearly again.

[Thank you for that, my friend.]