TDM #4 ( revised )

[duplicitymods]

« « « TEST DRIVE MEME » » »

« « « HERE WE ARE AGAIN

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It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. Yet, solace is found in the lies we tell each other, comforted by the peace of knowing that we're not alone in our depravity, and once on this path, sin itself becomes the lesser of two evils masked in a cloud of normalcy. This is how Duplicity has functioned since the beginning. The divide of power and social standing is overt in that Dominants influence the decisions made both publicly and privately while Submissives cater to the rules presented to them. It is the way of Duplicity to assign random designations at birth with no leeway in altering what has been given. Climate in the Up is far stricter than that of the Down; violating outlined personas for a Dominant or Submissive while in full view of others is punished by degree of infraction. In the Down, many tend to turn a blind eye to these sorts of offenses. To counteract the discovery of the Deceit Gene – a natural "negative" response to all stimuli – the L.I.E.S. program was founded. The program had been designed to introduce new subjects to the current environment and test for the Deceit Gene through immersion in Duplicity's standing society. Sexual impulses and encounters increase the chances of detecting the gene within these individuals. Participants are typically released from L.I.E.S. after a year; however, results have remained unsatisfactory and testing still continues. You’re here! Finally! Welcome to Duplicity. After choosing a door and stepping through to the other side, the first thing that greets you are the enthusiastic faces of people in medical scrubs and pristine lab coats. Their enthusiasm translates to eagerness as they strip you of your clothes to perform a thorough examination—you will be healed, bathed, and given a paper gown to wear until your items can be processed and delivered to your residence later in the evening. You are also given a device that accesses the network as well as the time and location of orientation. If you enter Duplicity into the Up, congratulations! You’re a Dominant, which means you are immediately picked up by a limo after processing and taken to your highrise. Here, it is two Dominants per floor with separate apartments. If you enter Duplicity into the Down, congratulations! You’re a Submissive, which means you are directed towards public transportation with the address of the motel you’ll be living in. Here, it is two Submissives per room with a shared common space for all rooms. Enjoy your free time until orientation! Participation is mandatory by all new and old arrivals. Oh, and one more thing. It's fucking cold. Better bundle up.

» » » LIES TRAVEL IN COMPANY

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After stepping through the door and participating in orientation, LIERS are assembled together in the Up for a tour of Duplicity in its entirety. Seats are in pairs and randomly assigned to Dominants and Submissives alike. Traveling from Fiddler's Square, the train journeys through various parts of the Up, showcasing society and examples of lifestyle. Along the way, frequent stops are made; a variety of passengers can be seen exiting and entering the doors. A Dominant with a kneeling Submissive takes a seat near the front of the train at one stop. A small group of Submissives board and sit closer to the LIERS at another, all seemingly content in their roles. As the tour continues through the Up, the train passes close to the Market and White Wall Bridge and zips by North Park before heading into the Down and bypassing Red Wall Bridge and South Park. The train makes a "final" stop at Riddler's Square, where inhabitants of the Down are instructed to return to their temporary housing. Those who live in the Up are permitted to stay on the train and revisit the same locations while returning.

« « « END IN THE DISCORD

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While the societal climate between Dominants and Submissives remains somewhat neutral throughout Duplicity, there has been the occasional whisper of defiance and call for equality. Yet, demonstrations and visible proof of this unhappiness spreads faster by word of mouth on a day exactly when you need it most. Welcome to Autonomy, a "traveling" nightclub that is never in the same place twice. People wanting to attend only learn of its lucrative location and password hours before it opens for business. Tonight, I choose the third door will get you inside and into the temporary freedom club Autonomy has to offer. In this circle, there are no assigned designations and no consequences for taking a role that isn't the one given by society. So, a Dominant may become the Submissive they've always wanted to be—or vice versa. Dominants and Submissives alike are able to mingle without repercussion and be themselves. Food, drinks, and private areas for more intimate – or if your preference is sexual – encounters are provided. Donations are accepted at any point during the night to further Autonomy's attempts of spreading the fulfillment that comes from being untitled. On the night you choose to visit, Autonomy is holding a random lottery for temporary connections. When entering, you have the choice of submitting your name into this drawing to be paired with someone else in the club regardless of designation. A short while later, a message will pop up on your device with the name and information of your partner, and whether or not you choose to meet them is purely at your discretion. Having more than one connection isn't completely unusual either.

» » » TABLE IT FOR LATER

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Gratification of being a successful Dominant or Submissive isn't necessarily simple. Learning curves are to be made, and mistakes will happen. Led by a Dominant and Submissive couple – Miriam and Victoria, who have been paired for twenty-two years – a monthly meeting for unattached Dominants and Submissives is held in the conference room of Morning Wood motel in the Down. The meeting starts a few minutes after nine and has no designated end time. The couple introduce themselves and explain the purpose of the meeting: learn the proper method for a new kink and possibly find your perfect partner. The space is intimate and well-stocked with refreshments. To begin, Victoria, while blindfolded, balances on her hands and knees with her back perfectly level. Her partner, when ready, places various items on the level surface–a full cup, a plate. The Submissive is meant to hold the items until the Dominant believes she's reached her limit. The exercise is one of trust and understanding. The demonstration is a short one, followed by Miriam removing the blindfold and soothing her Submissive. The words are whispered low and with care, clearly a method that is specific to this couple. The process is concluded with the pair handing out workups, videos, and answering questions. Anyone wishing to practice Purposeful Submission can do so in the open room with a random volunteer, aided by the couple, or can find someone to take to one of the rented rooms. Sex may follow any scene but is not necessarily included. Experimenting with unattached Dominants and Submissives allows for new relationships to form.

« « « MOD & OOC NOTES

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Please read carefully. On each Test Drive Meme, there will be a section noting character roles based on birthdays; these will vary each TDM. On an IC level, character will still have gone through the doors but assignments OOCly are still randomized. When applying, there is a section of the application that denotes whether the character chose "left" or "right". When participating on the TDM, there will be a third option. Players may link either a top level or a thread (five or more comments from their character) from the TDM and title the link as "Door Pass". This means that the player is choosing to take the designation that they were randomly assigned on the TDM, rather than taking the designation of a door. If the player decides to select a door rather than use the pass, then they are trying their luck; they may get the same designation they had on the TDM or the opposite. Once the application is submitted, players can't change their choice. To assign roles to characters for this TDM, use the following guide. All characters who have blue eyes or one blue eye and another color are Submissives. All characters who have brown eyes or one brown eye and another color are Dominants. Characters with any other color eyes are Dominants. To use this TDM as a door pass please link this on your app and place whether it is Dominant or Submissive. Please remember to mark any necessary content, and have fun!!

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» » » MAIN NAVIGATION « « «

Comments

[baneful]

[He pauses mid-stride at the sound of his soft-murmured name, something so fluid and intimate that for a moment it catches him off-guard and as he begins to turn he just has time to discern who he's seeing, the colours and shapes of him insinuating themselves into his consciousness. Recognition comes over him just as Asra moves to wrap his arms around him, body-close and fingers curled into cloth, face buried against his chest and all of this, it isn't something he can make any sense of.

From Asra of all people, it's not the kind of welcome he could have predicted.

For a moment he stands there awkwardly with arms hanging loose at his sides, before finally he moves to wrap long fingers around the other man's upper arms in what passes for an awkward embrace.]

Asra? Well, um. This is a surprise.

[Faintly, he feels the heat rise in his cheeks.]

[mastermagician]

A surprise, don't-- don't you dare mess with me--

[ He leaned back just enough to touch his tears away from the corners of his eyes, before they could spill or muddle his makeup. But his shoulders hadn't been shaking with sobs, or fear, or grief, or worry--

The expression he turned up was liquid with relief, as bright and soft as dawn, and his tawny hands... twitched up, tentatively reaching for Julian's face, meaning to frame it between his hands. ]

You wouldn't believe how panicked I was. First you didn't show for dinner, and then a day became two became a week...

[baneful]

[None if this is adding up. Asra leans away from him and looking down into his face he sees his eyes are full of tears. Tears, and a relief so obvious and bright that its almost blinding. A lot of time has passed, it's true, but he didn't think the coolness and the distance and the sharp-edged memories that stood between them could give out onto something like this purely because they were both here.

Asra's hands reach for his face, and though something tenses up in him he doesn't pull back, either. He's too surprised, too thrown, to push him away now. Besides, the tears and the relief, they awaken the usual things in him, the strong desire to protect, even at the expense of his own feelings.

Deep in his chest, old wounds reopen.

He stands there awkwardly, hands still clasped to Asra's biceps, and as the other man begins to speak his confusion only grows. His auburn brows furrow even as his voice grows soft and careful.]

Asra. I wasn't here a week ago. I've been here for barely a day, if that.

[mastermagician]

[ The light which illuminated the magician perished as soon as the words were said. Not slowly, not in bits and pieces, but all at once, and with force, as if a great, grandly gilt mirror had been smashed so utterly that there was nothing bright left. Only sharp shapes, reflecting shadows.

He slips out of Julian's hands like smoke, puts a long stride of distance between them. And he stares at Julian as if he's become a viper. ]


... You're not joking.

[baneful]

[And there it is. A sudden severing, fast and sharp and jagged-edged. He sees it in Asra's face as he abruptly slips away from him and despite himself he feels pained, sliced open. For a moment, it shows in the lines and angles of his face, an overt hurt. The coolness, the distance that seems much further than the one wide stride between them, the look he takes for open dislike-- this is something more akin to what he expected.

Wrongfooted now, he's left mentally chasing after what he has done wrong, only knows that - as usual, as always - its something. He runs long fingers back through thick auburn curls, takes a breath--

--and then he's standing a little straighter. Manufacturing a smile.]

Now there's the Asra I know. I was beginning to wonder what you'd done with him.

[mastermagician]

Let him be happy. Foreign concept to you, I know.

[ It comes out of Asra little louder than a whisper, smooth and even and sharp as a needle... but one of his hands reached between them, tawny fingerips brushing the back of Julian's hand, too gentle for the barbed snipe. And then sighed, slow, eyes closing, shoulders lifting as he drew another breath--

Find center, don't be a child, you can do this--

Asra's fingers encircled Julian's wrist, giving a small, leading tug. ]

Come with me. Somewhere quiet, to talk.

[baneful]

[The barbed comment comes, cuts like a blade between the ribs and despite that he knows there's truth in it, he readies himself for retaliation all the same, for the verbal digging and slicing at each other that is all time has reduced them to. But then there's the featherlight brush of fingers over skin, and it surprises him enough to steal whatever words he'd been readying.

He casts his eye down to where Asra's fingers have circled the pale flesh at his wrist, bites his lip. There's a fractional moment of hesitation when he considers pulling away, but Asra is a familiar presence in a strange place and the fact is he needs that kind of grounding. That and, ultimately, he's always been too ready to give himself over into someone else's hands. That much hasn't changed.

So he sighs with some irritation even as he goes pliant in Asra's grip. Allows himself to be led.]

Well, all right.

[mastermagician]

[ Asra led them towards the rickety stairwell, heading down. There's not much movement beyond themselves, and he speaks while he walks, thin cloth shoes soundless on the stained carpeting. He doesn't let his hand fall away, and continues leading Julian by the wrist, somehow always the perfect distance ahead despite the length in the taller man's stride.

He looks back over his shoulder often, as if he expects Julian to disappear mid-step. ]

I've been here for nearly half a year.

We're going to sit down, and I'm going to teach you a few valuable things. Give you a map. Tell you what to expect. And... answer questions.

[baneful]

[And despite the jitter and thrum of mixed feelings in him, he continues to follow along in Asra's grip with a quiet, if sullen, obedience. Because the fact is its too easy to do when caught up in something so big and strange and incomprehensible, to allow someone else to take control. He's being selfish, he supposes. Selfish in the way, he now knows, he's always been, wanting too much and expecting far more than anyone is prepared to give, even whilst holding people at arms length from himself. But right now he's prepared to be selfish, too confused to be anything else, a confusion that only grows in him when Asra says he's been here for nearly half a year.

Almost, he misses a step, nearly stumbles over the surprise of it. But the shock of it all is enough to leave him all too ready to take those words for small orders, and to obey them.]

Um...right, right. Half a year, you say, that's...yes. Sitting down sounds good.

[He thinks he needs to.]

[mastermagician]

[ Asra takes the landing for a lower floor, and slows a little bt when he feels the tension of the missed step and stumble flutter between their arms. His fingers tightened, fractionally but palpable, on the wrist he gripped. A command running through touch, traveling up Julian's arm, to stay upright.

He slowed before a shabby-looking long placed opposite a room door identical to all the others on every floor they'd passed, glancing back and up to Julian again. ]

Follow me through. It'll be a little cold, but not... not unpleasant.

[ Still holding the other man's eyes, he reached out with his free hand to touch the surface of the mirror. Its surface rippled like water at the intrusion of his fingers, which sank past, and through... whatever manner of portal it was meant to be.

And then, more quickly, Asra ducked in, pulling Julian after himself.


The mirrored stuff was cool. Damp-feeling, though no wetness was left behind. And on the other side was a plain bricked room with neither windows nor doors but a twin to the mirror they'd stepped in from. But the walls were painted in lively pinks and purples, bleeding up into darker shades on the ceiling, which had been painted to remember familiar constellations. A few lamps like those from home hung from sconces on the wall, casting a low but golden light over an irregular pile of cushions in one corner, books stacked against the walls, and a few narrow tables set against the opposite wall to form worktables. They were scattered with papers and writing, and across them marched a series of fancifully-bound books with no titles on their spines. Journals, no doubt.

Above the worktables was pinned an impressively massive map, a list of ten names in big, bold print. The map itself was peppered with push-pins in a rainbow assortment of colors, some with notes, photos, ribbon-ends...

Asra picked his way over the broad spread of cushions like a cat, and eventually folded his legs to sit, releasing the join of their hands and breathing out a heavy whoosh of a sigh. ]

Sit. Gloves off, then give me your hands.

[baneful]

[There's the tightening of Asra's grip and automatically Julian attempts to steady himself, bodily attuned to casual acts of control like no other. It serves him well here though, helps to ground him back inside of himself enough to keep his head as they continue to move, as Asra pulls him along behind him.

They reach the mirror, and something in him momentarily stiffens, a brief bright hesitation because even now, his feelings toward magic are complicated things. He's not given much time to think about it, though, as Asra pulls him through after him, and for a moment there's a sweep of cold over skin, like pushing through a wall of cool water. His eye closes against it and he lets out a quiet utterance of surprise but in the next instant they're in and through and the room beyond it is-- well.

Is more like home than anything else he's encountered since his arrival. It seems, very much, like a reflection of Asra, and briefly brings an image up into his mind, of the magician lounging cat-like amidst a pile of coloured cushions in another time, a place that is now lost to them.

He shakes his head, collecting himself, and when Asra finally releases him he moves to do as he's been bidden. Crosses his long legs underneath him as he begins to peel off one glove, then the other. Extends pale and long-fingered hands for the magician to take.]

Well um, this is cozy isn't it? Very nostalgic.

[His chattering to soothe his own frayed nerves.]

[mastermagician]

Isn't it?

It's funny, how often in life people walk in circles. Heading away from a thing just to inevitably, inexorably circle back.

[ He talks while he takes Julian's hands, his own covering their backs, turning them palm-up, while his thumbs draw with a firm pressure up from the thin skin of Julian's wrists to the center of his palms, making his fingers splay. His voice smoothed and softened, rewarding obedience. ]

Close your eyes.

Breathe, deep, and let your shoulders relax. [ With more suppressed laughter than accusation, ] You're so tense I could snap you like a twig in winter.

Focus on the feeling in your hands. Let everything else melt away. A little more gone with every breath. I know it's been... a lot. How it all gets muddled into a buzz, there's no clarity to help cut through...

[ His fingers skimmed up, massaging along the center of Julian's hands, before pressing thumb and forefinger firmly hard along a pressure point along the outsides of his hands, sending a jolt of pain up through his wrists and into his elbows. ]

Eyes closed. Keep focusing. Ask me any question you have.

[baneful]

[And perhaps it is funny because, stiffly, Julian laughs. Walking in circles, he knows something about that he supposes, having fled Vesuvia believing himself guilty of murder only for the uncertainty and his own weighted guilt to drag him all the way back again, looking for answers. Looking to die for his crimes. And now here he is in this room with Asra, a long way from home perhaps but strangely close to it all the same. He should do more to protest it, maybe. Shouldn't give in to his own bone-deep compulsions quite so readily, considering where it has got him time and time again before.

Instead though, he closes his eye.]

Can you blame me? This is all a bit...much.

[He says it even as he does as he's been instructed, not without a little trepidation and reluctance, but he does it nonetheless. Tries to will his broad shoulders to fractionally loosen, for the tight-wound tension in him to come undone. At first he feels nothing in particular besides a flustered uncertainty at having Asra's hands on him after all this time, but when soft sensation turns to firm pressure and slides from gentleness into pain he lets out a breath, soft and low, and his hard-held shoulders begin to drop.

Ask questions, the magician says. He certainly has plenty of those.]

How could you have been here for half a year? It's not an easy thing to believe, you know, when I've seen you far more recently than that.

[mastermagician]

[ How has he been here half a year? How? An absurd laugh wants to bubble up Asra's throat, high and trilling and half-mad. Because our memories, like our bodies, are manufactured. It's entirely possible we never existed at all. And they can change us on a whim, make us dance like puppets to whatever sick rhyme they've devised. I fought so hard to get back, you know, fought and fought and fought, but now I realize there isn't any 'back'.

Asra sooths the pain away with careful, clever fingers, only to make it hiss forth again. Steady and smooth, like waves rushing up a shore.

When he answers, his voice is measured. ]

I don't blame you. I had... a terrible time, when I first arrived.

Don't think too hard about the lapse in time. You're here, yourself. Pulled into a fantastical other world on the whim of a people who've also decided, offhand, that you should have a slave-status. That shouldn't be possible, either.

I've been here half a year. Long enough to have fought and railed to go home, suffered defeats, gone more quietly. Wonder in circles what's wrong with me that they'd make me a Submissive, when I...

[ He bit the end of that statement off, and gave himself a small shake, and attended to the movements of his hands as if it were as anchoring for him to focus on someone else as it was for Julian to feel. His fingers flowed to the fine bones of the other man's wrists, pressing viciously in a place he knew would make the other man gasp. ]

... Next question.

[baneful]

[And gasp he does, the sound at once pained yet also soothed because that's just how it works for him, a desire to be hurt that stems from self-perceived failures and bone-deep self-derision that stretches a lifetime and yet which brings him genuine pleasure all the same, something like relief. A relief he could certainly use right now and that Asra is in some small way giving it to him--

--it's not the time to think about it. The sharp ache that flares up at the vicious pressing of Asra's fingers gives him a moment in which to contemplate that answer, to try to feel out the gaps in it, at what the carefully measured tone is concealing. There's something there, something underneath, but as has always been the case Julian can't lay hands on it.

Isn't sure, in this instance if he wants to.

It's not a real answer, makes as much sense as anything else he's seen or heard or done today, but for the moment he accepts it purely because there's just so much to take in, and he isn't sure how much of it he's ready for. And so his lips part on a rebuttal of Asra's half-finished sentence, means to tell him that there isn't anything wrong with him, that he himself has just said that all of this has been decided on a whim. But he can't say that, not to Asra of all people, and so he asks something else, instead.]

Are you...all right? That is, um, you don't seem all right.

[It isn't the question he'd meant to ask.]

[mastermagician]

[ The gasps comes, fulfilling all expectations, at the pitch and force Asra had intended. There's something soothing about that, that simple, instinctive constancy. Julian's reliable in absolutely no other way.

And then after is the silence, as Julian collects himself, and then thinks, and Asra feels he can almost see the gears turning based on the tightening of his expression. The question is...

... perfect, somehow. So very Julian. Comfortingly so, such that he slipped his hands around, tucked them up underneath Julian's, palm-to-palm, like small songbirds nestling and hiding under the wing of another. The sigh that trickles through his lips is relieved. ]

No, I'm not. But this is.. grounding.

Comfortingly familiar.

... Thank you.

[baneful]

[And again, this is all very unexpected. Once again there seems to be some measure of relief in the way Asra responds to him now, not the brilliant gilded relief of earlier, but even this quiet emanation of it isn't what he'd expect from the magician. Back then there had always been coolness and distance and something that seemed like enticing derision, something he thinks he better understands now, having remembered more of the ways in which he'd failed.

So this is confusing, it is, cements all the ways in which the last twenty-four hours have been confounding and strange, yet when Asra's hands move to tuck neatly under his, he still makes no move to pull away.

Because it's a sentiment he shares, at least. Grounding and comfortingly familiar-- when thrown into a world so far from everything he's ever known, sitting here with the magician like this, that's exactly how he would describe it. And as is so often the case for Julian, it settles something in him to move away from his own concerns and questions, to place someone else's needs above them instead.

He clears his throat. Uncertain. Answers anyway.]

Oh. Well, you're welcome, of course. Is there anything I could do? Other than this, I mean.

[mastermagician]

Just this, Ilya. [ Voice smooth and soft as silk, strong as steel. ]

I'm... tired of running in circles. It's one reason I have to be grateful to this place. You break often enough and you start to see the patterns.

So let's not ever go to that place again. Where you'll do anything to help, to avoid doing anything for yourself, and I pour all my frustrations and loss and hurts into you as if that'll make anything better.

[ He curled his fingers up, dragging his nails along the topographies of Julian's palms in a slow, outward-moving starburst. ]

Next question.

[baneful]

[There's some uncomfortable shifting, his face tightening around indefinable emotions, or perhaps more rightly a mix of them, passing from one to the other and back again as he thinks that through. He could answer bitterly, bring up words that might hurt and sting and bring momentary satisfaction before blossoming out into more consuming self-hatred in himself. Or ignore it entirely, pretend he hadn't heard. Or listen to the quiet parts of himself that have realised his mistakes from the past, or at least the outline of them, of asking too much of someone who is unwilling to give it whilst simultaneously keeping himself held apart, of falling into some twisted and unhealthy trap because it satisfies the needs of both parties in ways that would best go unsatisfied to begin with.

A game of indulgence and avoidance that has very little to do with love.

But his head is a mire, still tangled and pulsing with all the things that have happened in so short a time and he doesn't trust himself to know what to say, certainly doesn't trust himself to do what is right or wanted, and so he answers just a little coolly--]

Just this, then.

[He's silent for just a moment, eye closed, hands held motionless against the bright points of pain that come from the press and drag of Asra's nails against his palms.]

What is this, anyway?

[It's another question he hadn't quite meant to ask.]

[mastermagician]

This is cheaper and safer than a stiff drink, in a place we can talk freely.

[ But he draws his hands back a little, and with only one hand sharply pinches the fine skin between two of Julian's fingers. If it feels a little like revenge for even asking, well-- it is.

But he also doesn't risk saying any more. This isn't his Julian, and he's muddled with fate and timelines and this place enough to know when to hold his peace.

Besides, it's not the first time he's lost a lover. Or second. Or third. He was, wearily, terribly, beginning to get used to the feeling.

He doesn't smooth away that pain, though; follows it up with another, a hard press between the elegant bones of both Julian's hands, radiating uncomfortable heat down into his wrists and up into his fingers. Focus. ]

Next question.

[baneful]

[And he's tempted, for just a moment, to say he would have preferred the more expensive option, but he manages to hold his tongue, bite back the bitter words because there'd be no truth in them anyway, and if he's said the wrong thing and evoked Asra's irritation then it is, he suspects, deserved.

He never has known when to shut up.

And so he accepts those small bright punishments with a fractured exhalation, takes the hint, turns his mind instead toward the situation at hand.]

So what do we do from here, just accept this?

[mastermagician]

Open your eyes, and look at me.

[ Asra covered Julian's hands with his own, and pressed them down to the other man's knees, so that the bridge no longer existed between them. His quicksilver-purple eyes were grave, and the fine skin around his eyes was tautly tense.

He looked... older. Just a little. There were fine lines around the edges of his eyes which hadn't existed before. The edges of his face were sharper, leaner. His shoulders more defined, where his scandalous neckline revealed too much of them. Asra crossed his arms, toes curling into his feet as he pensively watched the doctor. ]

You... need to determine for yourself what you want to do. How you want to respond to what this place is, and what it demands of you.

I know... that in some ways, this place is everything you could ever want.

[ Not just the dominance and submission, the sex; but the luxuries it affords his sister, the high degree of amenities and even public health. There aren't even venereal diseases to worry about. Food was far more plentiful here for an enterprising Submissive than it had been for scrawny orphans on the wharfs of Vesuvia.

Asra's eyes flit over Julian's expression, his own thoughtful. ]

Going home... is impossible without any major miracles. They've amputated what parts of my magic might have allowed for it. And done the same to all other magicians who might, at one time, have been capable. That doesn't mean that I'm not investigating other opportunities: but you should know, at the outset, that in the shortest possibilities, we might be here for months.

Years, even.

[baneful]

[Open your eyes the magician says, and he does so. Looks into Asra's face, really looks at him for the first time since he'd caught him in that surprise embrace out on the street, an embrace that hadn't ever really been meant for him. And he does see it, the knifey angles of Asra's face, the whittling down, the parring back as though parts of him have been artfully sliced away.

It's disturbing, honestly. The subtle changes in him, all the things that go unsaid and act to compound the impression that Asra has already given, himself. That something is wrong, that it's all wrong.

He wants to do something, of course he does, because perhaps things between them have always been strained and strange and somehow quietly twisted but it doesn't reduce the fact that Julian cares about him, that Asra left marks upon his heart that won't easily wear away, even if he knows that what played out between them never should have happened. It did, and he can't take it back. Wouldn't want to, despite everything. But he's already been told once, just this, and so he holds himself back from making offers that Asra wouldn't want to hear.

Never mind that he has, of course, already noticed that there are aspects of this place that could make it everything for him, everything in a way that their world couldn't be. But Asra seems to have been harmed by what they've done to him (Asra isn't like him, is he, wouldn't take to this in the way he could), and there are things left open and undone back in Vesuvia that - for the moment at least - still feel most pressing to him. It's these things that tug and tear at him, along with all the strangeness and the alarming changes in people he thinks he ought to know and the fact is that right now he doesn't know what he wants. How he will or should respond to this.

It's too soon to say.

But Asra has given him his answer.]

I um, I suppose I knew that. That if you've really been here for half a year then something must be...missing, or simply impossible to do.

Months. Maybe years, then.

[He says it as though speaking it aloud with his own lips might make it feel more real to him.]

[mastermagician]

[ After only a beat, and so deadpan that only someone like Julian might be able to gauge whether Asra were jesting or in earnest, ]

Just pretend everyone's a pirate.

[baneful]

[For a moment he says nothing, only stares at Asra in stony silence. But then that silence breaks around the sound of his laughter, and the shape that his brows make, the curve of his smile-- it's incorrigible.]