Now Kiss!

[unheiring]

Who: The Entire (Adult*) Population of the Grove
What: Spin the Bottle Round Three
When: Somewhere in Magic Month
Where: The Inn Lobby
Warnings: Magic will probably go haywire because what's funnier than your emotions spiking and making your windy magic go woosh

*Younger muses can set up their own Spin the Bottle behind the Inn or whatever. Be some punk little rebels I don't care, I'm not your dad.

After two months of terror, it's time for a little whimsy — or so Luca Aurelius says, at least. And since Ain is a perpetual bad influence on him, Luca defaults to the most menacing game he knows: spin the bottle.

The rules are simple, plop down in the middle of a circle and get comfortable. Or maybe you got roped into this by a friend and now you're trying to put on a brave face? Either way, it's time to wait: the bottle will land on you eventually, right?. At that point, the rules are simple: kiss!

You can be brave about it and lock lips, or something mildly more. Or if you're trying to play it cool, a kiss on the hand or cheek should suffice. Luca isn't really enforcing any strict rules. The bastard isn't even playing, what the hell.

(Or, to put it all simply and break the fourth wall: drop your character. Add a little description about their behavior/demeanor prior to the kiss, if you want. Then, wait for someone to tag you, while you do some tagging out of your own! Spinning the bottle is a mutual affair, after all. Just remember to take any escalations off comms and to your inboxes, you fucking menaces)

Hope you're ready to resolve some of that tension you've been ignoring!

Comments

[souninind]

[It would mean a return to normalcy, when nothing about any of this is normal. It would mean reaching for a chance that had been lost in the face of the very reasons that chance was lost in the first place. It would mean ignoring why Kyojuro has been held at arm's length - and the choices he'd made to give cause to put him there.

And Tengen wants nothing more in this moment than to give in to those impulses.

He knows he shouldn't. He knows, too, he'd crumble if he suddenly found the other man on him.

So it's probably for the best he pulls back. Tengen should, probably, pull back, too, but he finds his fingers curling in the back of Kyojuro's shirt instead of pulling away, and he steals one more light, fleeting kiss when he averts his gaze.]

Careful, I might get used to this.

[Is it a threat? A promise? A question?

Or maybe just a door left unlocked in the walls that had been forced up between them.]

[tempurahair]

[Once more, Kyojuro is left to wonder if the Sound Hashira can hear the way his heart skips. He wants Tengen to get used to this, after all. It would mean a way back in, a return to how things were before the Mugen Train. Perhaps he could never return home, but if his friends were here...

Kyojuro's mind threatens to whirl. He drags it back in, even as his body shifts to lean further back into that hand. He wants this. Is that so wrong?]

I hope you do.

[The words are hushed, or at least as close as Kyojuro can get to hushed. He glances up through his lashes, hopes Tengen can see the want there. The desire to at least have This be unmarred.

Is it truly so much to ask for?]

[souninind]

[More than hearing how his heart skips, Tengen feels it in his own chest, in the way the beat of his own pulse both slows and quickens to match the Flame Hashira's. It's a flicker of hope - if they can return to something akin to what they had before that awful mission...

It feels like they can't. Like the difficulties are too insurmountable. But maybe, in little moments like this, they can pretend. Maybe, if they have enough of these stolen, pretend moments, it can become real.

It's something.

That comment nearly gets a biting response - that he hopes Kyojuro does, too, that he hopes he lets him, after all this time, but the look in his eyes, the want, the desire, the need for this, if nothing else, to be untouched, makes the words die in his throat.

It's a lot to ask for.

He doesn't want it to be too much. Not now. Not for them.

So he lets out a breath, a quiet something between a sigh and a self-deprecating laugh instead.]

I'll hold you to that.

[He shouldn't crumble so easily, and yet.]

[tempurahair]

[Tension lingers between them, Kyojuro would be a fool not to notice it. But for a moment he lets himself believe that maybe it will be alright. That things will not go the same way as they had with Shinobu. Even if they had come around to each other eventually, it had been a painful journey.

He would hate to hash the same thing out again with Tengen.

Maybe that's why he leans in to steal one more kiss before he stands. Better to end it on a positive note, right? It's the same reason he flashes a broad grin, as if they had not only just been struggling beneath the weight of his decisions. As if everything was fine, and would remain that way.]

I am glad we could agree on this matter, aren't you? [A loud laugh, one that covers up the way his heart thunders and his head races.] I look forward to what may come in the future.