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[sorserer]

call; text

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[sorserer]

Incapacitated.

Did you try the pizza?

[shadowstrikes]

got company?

and didn't know you cooked

[sorserer]

Not presently.

I don’t.
It’s in the fridge, unless your housemates were feeling peckish. Don’t say I never did anything nice for you.

[shadowstrikes]

i don't say you never do anything nice for me. i just heavily imply it

so is it magic pizza or pizza doesn't count as cooking to you?

[sorserer]

I made an exception. I make exceptions sometimes.

[shadowstrikes]

they're your rules; make & break them how you want

incapacitated not occupied?

[sorserer]

Precisely.

Unoccupied. Not suited to host at the moment. At least graciously.

[shadowstrikes]

you sick?

[sorserer]

[ SICK OF THE BULLSHIT, MAYBE ]





I spent three and a half hours in an exam room on enough aphrodisiacs to send a herd of elephants into an orgiastic frenzy with a man who was nine inches soft.

Ergo




bedrest.

[shadowstrikes]

[Okay, that stays on read for a couple of seconds. First so Hakkyuu can re-read while blinking rapidly, then so he can have a real good laugh.]

lyssa's left tit stephen

why is it you have to outdo everyone including & especially yourself at everything even taking cock?

[sorserer]

Did anything I write just now make that sound as if it were on purpose?

[shadowstrikes]

i know where we are & saw what you said & still stand by what i said

[sorserer]

Oh, this is a joke to you.
My internal cartography has been remapped and you think it’s funny.
That’s fine. I’m not going to remember this later.
Good luck finding New York-style pizza in this hellhole after the one in your fridge is gone.

[shadowstrikes]

you're talking to the wrong guy if you're looking for sympathy over someone thoroughly ruining you

but i get it--recovery's important especially when you've not done it for a while

you taking advice from your local physician? drinking lots of fluids & whatever?

[sorserer]

Yeah, yeah.

[shadowstrikes]

don't need to teach you to suck eggs or nothing

[ ... okay fine.]

for real though you good?

[sorserer]

Yes.



But if you’re worried, I wouldn’t say no to something from the deli.

[shadowstrikes]

not worried but i got time

whatcha hankering for? not something with sausage i bet

[sorserer]

Something with soup on the side. Vegetarian. As an advance warning, I’m capping this interaction at three jokes about no meat.

[shadowstrikes]

i can do a lot with 2 more shots at meat jokes don't you worry

rest up buttercup

[sorserer]

yeah yeah

[ just gonna go back to minding his own AGONIZED BUSINESS ]

[ action ]

[shadowstrikes]

[There should probably be some time taken to examine how Hakkyuu knows he doesn't need to check that Stephen's place will be unlocked and he won't be stopped by any magical wards--it's just not something he's ever had to pause on and wonder, so he's not going to start now.

He does, at the very least, have the sense of mind to rap his knuckles against the door first before shouldering it open, brown paper bag held in one arm as he peers into the room to get an initial sense of how bad the situation really is.]

[sorserer]

[ the wards for stephen’s apartments in duplicity, as well as for the room in vrenille’s inherited manor in which stephen had barely settled before he was ripped back through the cosmos, have always operated on trust. not even documented trust, for all that stephen loves lists--like the cloak he wears every day, his quarters respond to something more intrinsic to stephen, something marrow-deep.

whether stephen knows it or not, hakkyuu has had access from day three.

anyway the apartment is clean, and familiar, because stephen always does his rooms up the same. keeps the standard-issue furniture, uses magic to fix the vents and the window trimming. there are protective carvings in the wood of the doorframes and windowsills, a set of mismatched candles on various ledges, a scatter of books haphazard on the floor.

the cloak of levitation peeks around the doorframe to stephen’s room and gives hakkyuu a little enthusiastic wave of its collar in ready recognition. stephen, in his room, is on his bed: sweatpants, no shirt, oddly highly arched feet. there’s fading bruises on his body in the shape of a tenacious roll in the hay. most importantly, stephen himself is in bed, on top of the sheets, a book abandoned for now low on his belly above his interlaced fingers. his eyes are closed. ]

Hey.

[shadowstrikes]

[Being welcomed by the cloak feels like a sort of approval that is incredibly hard to put into words and yet he appreciates all the same.]

Hey.

[Said to the cloak, mind you, not Stephen just yet, who looks quite comfortable where he is right now so Hakkyuu can focus on him a bit later.

In the meantime, he gives the cloak a brief glance over, realising in all the catching up there hasn't really been a moment to even passingly reacquaint with the semi-sentient item of clothing and that somehow feels... rude. Look, no one ever said dealing with Stephen and things adjacent to him need to make sense. He reaches out to give the front of the cloak a light nudge with the back of his knuckle before frowning and peering more closely.]

Oh man, what did he do, huh? [Referring to the blue section now in the back.] Is he not taking good enough care of you? Because if you want someone who can, y'know, talk, I'll have words with him, yeah? I gotcha, buddy.

[sorserer]

[ the cloak in question, whose behavior when not in battle is some mix between hyperfocused dog and misguidedly helpful child, seems to appreciate the attention but ultimately defers to stephen for the explanation. it even turns halfway to him again.

in his usual dry register he says, ]

A witch blew a hole in it. It’s fine.