sorserer | ( office hours & overflow )

[Nostalgia generally isn't Hakkyuu's thing, especially not in Duplicity where, as Stephen already alludes to, so many associations seem to overlap with earth. So many people take that sort of thing for granted and it's one of the things Hakkyuu always notices with Stephen--if he's talking about something very earth-specific, he takes the time to add context, just as he had with the piano. Most people overlook that and he and Vrenille end often play informational catch-up as a result.

He shakes his head at the question though, eyes closing as he does so kind of ruefully.]

Nah, long before the guild. Before a lotta things, really. The Crystal Desert's south of Ebonhawke, so that's where I ended up after everything kinda went to shit.

[After taking another sip, he points at Stephen.]

I would not recommend waking up to a pack of choya rolling through your stuff in the middle of the night. Like, if you can imagine a chunky cactus with arms and legs and ugly jerk faces makin' weird noises and causin' trouble after dark? That's what we're dealing with.

They didn't make it to the morning and... the tequila from them was pretty terrible. Sick for days, man, it was awful. [He rolls his eyes faintly, then mutters into his glass.] Aurus was just fine.

[ stephen nods along. he has a mental compendium, imperfect but well attended to, of vrenille and hakkyuu’s corner of the multiverse; he figures at this point it has the same relevance as being back home and reading from a lonely planet guidebook before visiting italy. at this point, nothing’s off the table in terms of where people end up and how long they stay, and vrenille and hakkyuu are vital enough in his life for this information to be important either way. ]

Overnight fermenting probably didn’t do you guys any favors. That’s pretty much prison toilet wine science.

So like regular wine, huh?

[The alcohol wars may be a cold one, but they're still at war. He gives a little headshake then and offers a mild correction.]

Nah, this was a while after. We already had these dead choya with all their fleshy cactus bodies laying around, so we sort of did what we could with them. It was probably like their belated revenge on us. We didn't make anymore after that first attempt, mostly since I think Aurus felt kinda weird making moonshine from another semi-sentient plant.

[Placing the glass down for a second, he puts his hands on the edge of the counter and hoists himself to perch there. Personal guest behaviour.]

Just a word warning when you come to Tyria—someone offers you choya tequila, I'd turn it down on principal.

[... When? Not if? Huh. Well, he's not going to correct himself or let on he's noticed that slip and instead take up the drink again to sip.]

How's that food coming? You're not ordering from the place that make their delivery folks show up with dildos on their hats, right? They make their stuff way too salty.

Noted.

[ it’s the inevitability of that statement, not hakkyuu’s personal observations about him, that registers with stephen. he hides an inscrutable expression in the lip of the glass and pointedly doesn’t think about how the tools at his disposal have changed since he first came to this realm four years ago, and with them his sense of possibility.

he drains his glass, the first one of the early evening, and tops himself up again with a careless glance at his phone. he turns to lean against the counter too, less string bean than hakkyuu manages but still a picture of easy, pensive relaxation. ]

It’ll be here in ten. And no ... the place with the ... [ thinking out loud, rather than out of any sense of propriety ] couriers with the unfortunate hats ... they don’t serve noodles.

[Casual and relaxed, if he stopped to think about it too long, it would start to freak Hakkyuu out for how easy it is to slot into a version of comfortable closeness where he can just lean over to peer at the tracker on Stephen's device over his shoulder. Then, he flicks his eyes to catch Stephen's with a slow smirk.]

Shame, I was going to ask 'en to leave one of those hats for you. It'd work with any outfit.

After that little gift of yours I think I’m good on bedroom accessories for the rest of my natural life. Plus I don’t really do hats.

[ at this proximity it is difficult to resist the urge to just pull his hair or something, not even to any apparent purpose. since his return--since his first night back in duplicity--stephen has become oddly aware that, when hakkyuu is close and they aren’t fucking, he uncharacteristically doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

he can’t remember if he had that problem before. he drums his fingers on the edge of the counter. ]

What was your favorite thing to drink back home?

[He isn't even remotely embarrassed about the house warming gift he's sent to Stephen and every reference to it just amuses him and confirms the key purpose has been achieved as he finishes up his own drink.]

Same as my go-to here: whiskey. But I'd also take Canthan rice wine like a Skritt on junk if I stumble over a place that serves it.

[He tips the drained glass back and forth to let the stray ice slush shuffle around.]

There's not much from home you can't get here though and most places serve a bourbon or scotch, so I'm easy.

[He blinks, then frowns.]

You used to drink a buncha spirits too when you were here last, but I never thought to ask if that's your go-to left to your own devices or if you're, I dunno, a flutes and suits kinda guy if given the choice.

[ stephen snaps his fingers, a little unnecessary showmanship as a substitute for passing his hand directly over hakkyuu’s glass: it refills. the gradual deterioration of the cut fruit on the countertop is visible, with more on their way; they disappear methodically from a basket in the kitchen corner. sometimes magic, for stephen, is a series of skipped steps. ]

I like the classics. Or at least they’re classics back home. Martinis, gimlets, nothing too ridiculous. I’ve been drinking darker stuff since I got here. [ his head lolls to one side, contemplative. ] That might be on you, actually. And the fact that it’s harder to drug your drink when there’s only one thing in it.

Edited 2022-06-19 16:04 (UTC)

It almost feels like you're calling my tastes basic.

[He gives Stephen a squinted side-eye, though the ghost of amusement dances in his eyes and haunt the corner of his lips.

The kind of magic Stephen uses with ease is similar to what they'd see with Loki, and is a little different from the kind of magic they use in Tyria. It's still pretty fun though and feels quintessentially Stephen to just have the presence of magic floating in the air for even mundane uses.]

Those also exist at home. Or versions of them, anyway.

[There's a fleeting moment where he wants to do something with his hands on Stephen. Touch him somewhere. Anywhere. He manages to push the impulse down by focusing on the crisp cold feeling of the refilled glass against his palm as he sucks a small breathe though his lips then shrugs.]

You do know I'd drink whatever you put in my hand, right?

[ you can’t spend even a brief tenure under the same roof with people like vrenille and loki odinson and another iteration of stephen strange without picking up a few tricks. sometimes the scent of some of his spellcasting reminds him of one or another, stephen cherrypicking influences from among people he will always eventually admit to having respected. ]

Don’t give me any ideas, now.

Oh, your head's so empty now that you need me to give you ideas? I'm not sure I buy that!

[ he huffs, purestrain amusement. ]

You’ve been in the fighting game longer than me. All those whacks to the head do start to add up.

So wait, whose head are you trying to insult now, mine or yours?

[It's a purely rhetorical question that comes coupled with a sideways lean to nudge his shoulder against Stephen as he takes a sip.]

Besides, you just do your best. Set yourself up a nice little bar--[He reaches out with his free arm, casting it across the kitchen to illustrate what's in his mind.]--then get me to try what you make so I can pretend you're bad at it. How's that sound?

[ the kitchen does have the space. stephen folds his arms with his tumbler still clutched in his unsteady fingertips, a thumb swept down to steady it, surveying the layout. ]

I just got a new hobby. Do people normally have more?

[ amused, a little. ]

[He tilts his head, giving Stephen a flat stare.]

You tryin' to tell me that's more than you can handle?

I suppose not ...

[ trailing, thoughtful. the door ringer goes off; stephen lifts his eyes again to hakkyuu’s. he makes that brief amused huff again. ]

Well. If I do it, you’ll have to start tipping.

[ he sets his glass down on the countertop. his hand grazes hakkyuu’s knee in passing, a neutral touch that has shades of guiding someone briefly aside by the hip to get around them in the hall but even more unnecessary, and then he’s going to get the door. ]

[That fleeting touch, accidental or otherwise, has Hakkyuu's eyes flickering downward as Stephen sweeps past before shifting his gaze to follow the planes of his shoulders and back as he heads to the door, not moving himself just yet though as he sort of takes the moment to just enjoy the moment and the view.

There are so many little things that similar to when Stephen was in the house, a difficult reminder of attraction that Hakkyuu had tried to sour and spoil and yet ended up settling into easy comradery with some lingering, unspoken tension around it.

It's also different now too. The tension feels changed, not so oppressive and sharp and instead more like a game of chicken that could last for as long or not as they each want it to.

The problem is, Hakkyuu can't quite keep the incredibly dumb, immature joke behind his own teeth as he lowers his head to stifle a chuckle.]

Wow. You only want the tip?

Even less, most days.

[ half-called over his shoulder across the room as stephne opens the door, pays the poor deliveryperson who shifts from one foot to the other in the face of stephen’s disinterest, and takes the food. ]

[Slipping off the kitchen counter, Hakkyuu follows behind Stephen with amusement in his step as the scent of take-out filters through, peering around curiously when he reaches Stephen's elbow before flicking a glance upward to his face.]

You do know if you feed me I'll keep coming back, so this is your last chance to make the smart call.

[ the words bring unbidden to mind something logan had said when he’d broached the subject of hakkyuu as a mutual acquaintance: boy’s like a goddamn stray cat. goes where he likes.

in his previous tenure in the city, stephen hadn’t brought anyone to his little dormitory in the down very often--he always had a roommate. and while he was typically welcome at vrenille’s home, he’d hesitated to overstay his welcome for a dozen reasons, some of which had to do with his normative sense of propriety and only very few of which had to do with the dysfunction his social graces experienced under the heat lamp of vrenille’s unflinching warmth.

time with hakkyuu was therefore best enjoyed in neutral territory. bar, pub, patio, alley, bathroom. shared slices of night, cut exactly to preference. and then in the manor, the territory so thickly saturated with tension so as to ultimately level out to further neutrality: stephen was in his 40s, he was tired, he’d dragged a universe kicking and screaming through an infinity war; he wasn’t about to fight a fellow grown man in a house they had to share.

now stephen finally has his own space. nothing neutral about that. if he has his way nothing happens in these walls he doesn’t command.

so he shuts the door and says, ]

The smart call. As if I’m not currently masterminding repeat future visitations.

Edited 2022-06-19 20:34 (UTC)

[If Stephen's words rattle Hakkyuu in any way, it doesn't show outwardly. He's still standing there, watching Stephen with a carefully locked stare and a small sideways cant of his head, glass in one hand and the other tucked in the pocket of his pants.

It does tell him a lot though. About where Stephen's head is at, about what Stephen wants, about what he's thinking of using this space for. At least it means some of the cards are on the table. Not all of them--some still face down, some palmed and hidden up sleeves.

There's still a sense of skating on ice that's getting progressively thinner though, like he can see the hairline cracks forming and has the choice to head back or keep going forward to see if it'll hold his weight.

And given the way he pulls both shoulders up toward his ears and says:] Look, I'm just makin' sure you're well-informed, that's all. It's basically a public service. [He's made his choice. The ice is still in tact for now.]

[ stephen, neither especially good nor especially bad with people, does not spend enough time considering his interpersonal relationships. things get complicated without his conscious permission all the time; he dredges up the occasional impulse from deep subterranea whose origin he can’t name, and sometimes it makes or breaks a conversation, starts a fight, ends a friendship. (we weren’t friends, we were barely lovers--)

so he can’t say why he’s certain he knows he could give hakkyuu a look of some kind right now, to mark the way his shoulders drew up; to make sure hakkyuu knew he’d seen it. he knows he has the rare gift of knowing what makes hakkyuu uncomfortable, and he knows he can manage it, in this very moment, and that it would matter.

he ... has no idea why it would matter. they play a lot of games for all that stephen doesn’t even look at the damn board. he carries the food back towards the kitchen, where there’s a breakfast nook space, a set of barstools adjacent to a counter. ]

Warning labels are for lesser men and electricians. But I appreciate the thought.

[Stephen and Hakkyuu are people with a come back for every occasion. Sometimes they're even funny. Sometimes they're mean. Sometimes they're a deflection. But there is always something to say and is there isn't something said it's not for a lack of words but an active decision to withhold something.

Stephen's here is a flex, something of a challenge: do your worst, is what Hakkyuu hears.

Which is in and of itself both a daunting prospect and one that he could opt to ignore the far-reaching potential for, just hover around the surface with nudging teases and flirtation the probably leads to fucking.

Like they did the last time Stephen was here, before Hakkyuu forced him to wake up all the frayed nerves in his hand with that punch. He will never forget that and it wasn't far from his mind watching Stephen's fingers fly across the piano keys. Because Stephen is within his rights to keep that away from Hakkyuu now, to say you broke it, you don't get it back now and it would have been justified. But Stephen hasn't done that.

Something, something, the warnings come after the spells, something something.

Long and short is though, Stephen's sentiment is one Hakkyuu relates to and he's not going to coddle a fully grown wizard moron anymore than he'd want anyone to coddle him.]

Yeah well, we keep up this pace of the drinking and that's the last thought you're gettin' outta me tonight, even with the food.

[Mostly a lie, but a lie in service of setting that round of emotional chicken to the side as he trots along into the kitchen after the food. Not Stephen, the food. Obviously.]

That’s the idea.

[ it is, in fact, the idea. because the food is good, and he keeps the palomas coming until he’s out of grapefruit; then he follows up with shots, but he doesn’t have shotglasses so he’s just pouring a couple of fingers of tequila in two coffee mugs (one of them the mug, the other one another cheeky mug that says arguing with a neurosurgeon is like wrestling with a pig in mud you’re not going to win and after awhile you realise the pig likes it)--

anyway, it’s fine, he’s fine, they’re breaking in the couch as promised. it’s not the most intuitive position, stephen halfway kneeling on the couch, columbia shirt lost somewhere in the short strip of tile between the kitchen and sitting area, pushing hakkyuu’s leg back up against his chest so he can shove three magically-steadied lube-wet fingers into hakkyuu’s ass. he has their foreheads pressed together, kissing him only now and then, grinning with that slack tequila sleaze. he’s always had a thing for hakkyuu’s bendiness. ]

--fuck. Fuck.

[Somewhere along the lines, and Hakkyuu can't exactly pinpoint where between various ostensibly significant moments, Stephen's hands and what they do and don't do. It's not really a fixation either, he just notices. Like he notices a lot of things. It would be easy to just point to the day of Hakkyuu and Stephen's fight several years ago as the real salient moment of awareness, though that doesn't feel right--he always noticed the scars, the difference between when Stephen's hands would tremor and when they wouldn't, the surrounding circumstances, and the things he'd avoid doing compared or used magic for comparatively.

He notices things because it's just something Hakkyuu does about a lot of details. And here, he notices Stephen opting to use his hands to finger Hakkyuu's hole when there's a perfectly good and readily available centerpiece of vibrators and dildos.

It says something about Stephen, as most choices people make tend to say something about them. Hakkyuu's not about to fret and coddle a man over what his body can and can't handle, but he's aware that even slicked from top to tail that assholes are just tight and encourage resistance, all things that are surely going to be felt along the length and knuckles if Stephen's hand.

And maybe it's selfish, but beyond trusting the sorcerer to know the limits of his own body, Hakkyuu can't bring himself to tell Stephen to stop for how good he feels. The upwardly coiled position Hakkyuu has ended up in after their virtually inevitable snatching and grabbing of each other means his core is doing some work to stay out and give Stephen the easiest access possible. It's a nice sight too--all his muscles engaged and clearly defined, rippling with deep, steady breathes and already boasting a faint sheen as his neck cranes up to drag his tongue across Stephen's teeth with a low, pleased puff of hot air passing between their lips from Hakkyuu.]

You gonna try and tell me this is PT too now?

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