orendalogs | IT'S YOUR DESTINY!!!

As far as rises went, Mac actually didn’t get too much of one. Certainly nothing approached an outburst. It did get Aoba’s eyes up off the table, brows drawn down as the disparaging remarks piled up and weighed against confusion of, wait, wasn’t Mac supposed to be Declan’s friend?—but there was nothing for Mac to interrupt.

Aoba ended up averting his eyes again, though now with more tension in the lines of his expression. What was this, all of a sudden? If he hadn’t known completely better, he’d have wondered if this was why Declan had proposed that he could stay with Mac. Except he did know better, and apparently Mac had volunteered, and the Mariner had been left behind so that Aoba could ‘escape’ to it if need be.

“He’s not on a pedestal, but I’m down in the ditches,” he countered. Declan was extraordinary and Aoba did view him as someone so much better than so many other people around him, but he didn’t consider it to be a pedestal. To Aoba, it was a level he simply couldn’t rise to right now. It was different.

“I don’t know…who I am, or what I am. I haven’t done a single thing for myself since he started helping me. Right now, it’s just…it’s better for him to keep thinking I couldn’t like him,” Aoba slowly pieced the words together, staring down at his hands, clenching into tired fists in his lap. Ren gazed up at him mutely, gazing out of his carry-bag, but Aoba held back from reaching to his fur for comfort.

“It’s one less…complication.”

Edited 2018-11-17 17:58 (UTC)

"Declan seems to think you're the best thing in the universe. Kind of an insult to his opinion if you're saying he's wrong," Mac mused, clapping his hands and rubbing them together when a massive starship-shaped platter arrived full of sashemi in various styles including sashemi, maki, and temaki. Mac immediate picked up a greenish meat sashemi and popped it in his mouth, chewing in thought.

"If you want to do things on your own, insist. Declan is a pretty giving guy by nature. He tries too hard and tends to run people off by being too nice, because people expect more hardships and independence. Doing too much for a person is smothering. He doesn't get that. Yell at him sometimes," Mac shrugged, arching a brow and pointing at the food.

"Eat."

Sniffing loudly, Mac made a few odd noises with his mouth before shaking his head.

"You guys should just fuck. It's plastered all over both of you with your see-sawing between moping and googly eyes. You like him, he likes you, where's the hang up, really? If you're worried about the logistics of sex, I sent Declan several books. I'm sure he's read them, he's like a fuckin' sponge for the written word. You want copies? They have pictures."

Edited 2018-11-17 18:32 (UTC)

Well, that was a—sort of familiar-looking platter of food. Aoba watched that piece vanish down Mac’s gullet and wondered what the heck sort of future fish was green. The conversation was putting something of a damper on his appetite, but the platter was bizarrely eye-catching with all its shapes and styles of sushi…which, as far as Aoba was concerned, was a special occasion type of food rather than a meal staple. Curiosity served well in getting him to pick up a pair of chopsticks and starting to investigate…until Mac went and said that last thing that he did.

Aoba jolted, the flush of color in his face refreshed, frustrated to hear it said so indifferently by someone outside his head as well as inside of it.

“Definitely not!” he blurted, flustering in place for a moment before just grabbing a random piece of sushi to shove in his mouth and silence himself with.

…it was a surprisingly strong assortment of flavors, but not bad.

Edited 2018-11-17 18:54 (UTC)

"Your loss," Mac shrugged, picking up a maki roll and chewing quietly for a time, giving them both a breather. The Warlock, unlike Declan, didn't have the least problem with pressuring others or pushing delicate topics indelicately.

"Try the gray stuff, it's delicious," Mac grinned and winked, perfectly well aware of his quotation.

"So then, let's clear the air here straight up. You aren't attracted to Declan. Yes or no. Do not give me some convoluted answer. There's more than one question involved here, so answer short and simple. Yes or no."

Mac was well aware. Aoba wasn’t. His Disney repertoire right now consisted solely of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, so the wink earned something of a wary look, but he did go ahead and try the indicated grey sushi. Given the opportunity to eat a bit more, Aoba’s appetite made a bit of a recovery, while his so-called ‘moping’ went from less sad to more sullen.

It was pretty messed up to think that he would have preferred to deal with more of Mac’s obnoxious flirting than this, but there it was.

He could have just stayed silent, one supposed, and refrained from engaging Mac’s questions entirely. If he wasn’t going to lie, then it was either speak the truth or just shut up completely.

“No,” he muttered, before putting another bite in his mouth. Was this going to be one of those things where Mac tried to catch him in a double negative or something?

"If Declan were from your home, or you were from his, would you hook up with him?" Mac asked, tilting his head and propping his elbows on the table, stretching his legs out underneath to either side of Aoba's feet.

"You are harassing this man," Mac's Ghost intoned in a voice much deeper and drier than that of Declan's. The construct was in a very different skin as well, and his single eye was a tad more on the green side.

"Well, he looks like a tree that needs it's coconuts shaken loose," Mac snorted softly with a roll of his eyes, waving a hand in a swatting motion at the Ghost.

"I apologize for my Guardian. He has no manners, poor social skills, and his ineptitude in social situations is legendary."

"Man kick rocks!" Mac barked, grabbing the Ghost and shaking it a second, only for his hands to clap together when the construct dematerialized itself. He was smacked on the back of the head a moment after when the little thing returned behind him.

"Goddamn glorified GPS!" Mac hissed, rubbing the back of his head before looking back up at Aoba.

"Forget that question. How about this: Do you wish you'd never met him?"

The first question had Aoba bristling, gaze sharpened for a very immediate and vehement ‘no’, before the Warlock’s Ghost cut it. It was startling enough to keep the word from leaving Aoba’s lips as he looked up at the construct, perhaps with an expression not much different from that of someone who didn’t expect Ren’s voice to be as deep as it was.

The whole exchange that followed was—something else completely. Though not unfamiliar in the long scheme of Aoba watching people and even Allmates interact, it defused him a little, even if only temporarily.

The question presented next was a tame one again, and also one that he didn’t have to deliberate over. In fact, it had him putting down his glass of water with a frown, perturbed that Mac might suggest as much that it was a question that could be answered 'yes'.

“No.”

"Establishing a baseline here, bear with me," Mac remarked, nothing Aoba's expression. Making a few raspberry sounds with his lips flapping quietly, the Warlock glanced over at his Ghost, then Aoba, then the Ghost again, who 'shrugged' in response before Mac returned his gaze to Aoba.

"Stop getting all agitated. You know these questions are for your own good, too. So tell me this: he's in love with you, he's pretty much all about you these days, he's struggling to make sense of everything for your sake, and you said you're okay with guys...to a degree...and you like him as well. To a degree. So what's got you hung up, from either perspective, your more chill and broody side and your firecracker bang-it-til-it-breaks side? I mean if you're both interested, why are you hesitating, for real? It seems like you're making yourself miserable. If you could see your face right now, you'd agree."

I’m starting to think this guy is me without a you.

That’s not exactly points in his favor.

“Why shouldn’t I be agitated?” Aoba wanted to know in return. “Declan can decide what he wants all he wants, but so I can I, and if that decisions is to not be with him then I should be just as allowed to say that!”

"No disagreeing here. If you really don't want him at all," Mac pointed, arching a brow and shrugging it off. "If he's not the guy for you and you don't like him, ain't actually my problem. But as a friend to both of you, I thought I'd try and air out what you two are too shy or whatever to do yourself."

Inhaling deeply with a long sigh and shaking his head, the Warlock leaned back again, taking a rolled cone of sushi along with him, taking nips off it idly.

"What I don't get, though, is where the whole misunderstanding happened, if you weren't interested. Like....why come onto him at all, if you weren't? For all that you've got some kinda randy side, like everyone does, like it or not, you don't really strike me as the kind of person to lead someone on. At least not anyone you're actually friends with. What made you back out if you were comin' on strong in the beginning, man? You get spooked or somethin'?"

“Because-”

Now it was Aoba’s turn to rock back, sans sushi, hands instead occupied by the fists they made upon the tabletop. It wasn’t as simple as Mac, and the movies, kept trying to make it. It just wasn’t. Because if it was, what was even the point!?

“Because it’s backwards!” was finally all he had to say for himself. “And now I can’t get away from the first impression made by a side of me I don’t even completely understand!”

"Okay, okay. Now that's getting somewhere. Backwards how? What's this first impression that was a problem? Because as far as Declan seems to think, everything you've said and done was fine, he just wasn't prepared. Which is where he came to me because he thinks I'm ahead of the game somehow," Mac shrugged, not sure where Declan got the impression. Sure, Mac talked a lot of shit and said what he felt like saying with impunity, but that didn't make him any more experienced; just less inhibited.

"Ahead of him, maybe. I mean I'm at least not squeamish about my intentions, anyways."

Aoba’s appetite was gone again. At least he’d gotten some food in his stomach while it had lasted, he supposed, but only very vaguely. In the back of his thoughts Desire still remained mostly quiet, seemingly satisfied to let Mac wear Aoba down from the outside for a change.

“…Because if that’s all it is, I don’t want it,” Aoba murmured, as aware as anyone that the words sounded even weaker outside of his head than they did within it. Even he wasn’t dumb enough to be told, repeatedly, that someone loved him, and to somehow take that as a ‘but only physically’ remark.

And it wasn’t like he was some prude, either. He’d had to ‘take care of things’ in the shower, for god’s sake. The thought of physical intimacy with Declan got him worked up in a variety of ways that he was well aware of.

But of all the things he knew he wanted, there was one that he insisted the others hinge on.

“I don’t know who I am. And I can’t get involved with someone until I do. Not until I can hold my own.”

"Hey man, I respect that," Mac intoned animatedly, reaching over and thumping a fist on Aob'a shoulder. "Don't look so glum! Seriously, if you're this down about it...I'd suggest you be completely open. Declan is a really sincere and direct guy, in case you haven't noticed. He doesn't understand dancing around things the way other people do. Why don't you just...tell him?"

The Warlock glanced at his Ghost as if daring him to say something. The construct turned away and looked up, making a humming sound, exaggeratedly minding his own business.

"I mean like...'Yo I'm into you and all but I want like a really fulfilling relationship and I feel like I could have that with you but not until I really really know myself so I gotta go soul-searching and when I figure myself out I wanna revisit this topic', or something to that effect. But what do you mean 'if that's all it is'? All what? All love or all lust? Dude. It's Declan. He doesn't really do things in half measures..." He paused, serving a few of the more flavorful and typically choicest pieces of the dish onto a small plate, pushing it over to Aoba. The highest courtesy at a meal coming from someone who liked to play at being as self-serving as Mac.

"What's giving you the impression it's all one thing or another? You guys have some kinda intimate hiccup?"

The friendly thump rocked Aoba in his seat, unexpected as it was, but it got him looking somewhere other than the tabletop and it had him listening as Mac’s chosen tactic (as Aoba viewed it) seemed to relent. As seriously as Aoba was taking everything, there was less for him to be knee-jerk defensive of when it looked like Mac was finally taking him seriously.

He glanced down at the little side-plate as it was pushed to him, quietly considering it, before finally tugging it a few degrees closer. Accepting the peace offering, as it were.

But the hole had been made in the dam, and the words kept coming.

“…This other side of me,” he said, after a piece of sushi had been eaten. “The last time he was up front, things went okay, but the time before that was just…vulgar. It upset Declan. I don’t want to do that to him again, and I don’t want him to think that that was all that I am.”

This was no longer Aoba trying to argue a case. This was straight up airing his fears, irrational and all.

"Well, at the risk of being way too spilly with details of an otherwise technically private discussion, I can tell you he definitely doesn't think that's all you are. Declan fully understands you're all one person, but like you keep saying you need to know who you are before you make any decisions, he feels kind of the same, for lack of better description. He told me a bit about the whole thing..." Humming to himself a moment in thought and tapping a finger on the table, Mac eventually shrugged off whatever loose lock he had.

"Declan thinks - or thought - you might have personal feelings for him. Like romantic ones. But that the other more, uh, scandalous bit of yourself maybe takes a little 25% and turns it into a 175% full tilt, throwing your emotional weight and hungers around too top heavy. He was extremely afraid it was like being drunk. I've been totally shitfaced around him before and he only has that for comparison, but the way he said it was he thought everything was honest, but weighed too heavy, and that he worried you'd bottle up and back off if you thought you'd done anything 'untoward', I think was the word he used. Which kinda seems like that's probably what you did anyways..."

"You...do realize that for all I talk shit on him and he talks shit on himself, Declan is actually a pretty perceptive and smart guy, right? He knows you're all one person with a lot of shit to sort out, and likes you anyways. If you worried about the vulgar approach you maybe took - or definitely took, I dunno - I wouldn't too much, if I were you. He came to me asking how to figure it all out. I didn't really have any advice for him on how to make it all work, especially with those weird fuckin' hang-ups he has. He doesn't have so many words, but I know he's got this weird thing about intimacy like...I dunno..." Mac paused, gesturing with his hands one over the other in a stacking motion.

"Hierarchies? It's absurdly outdated, if you ask me. He thinks he'd be demeaning you somehow. I have no idea where he got the whole idea, since I sure as hell didn't give him any literature of that nature, but he thinks whatever role you take when you're doin' the deed actually matters, like socially. As if it were anyone's business anyways." He snorted, stuffing a few pieces of meat into his mouth and chewing idly.

"So he was trying to read up on the whole thing to see how it all works so he could make sure anything he worried about he could do first, so if things, you know, swapped out, then he wouldn't feel guilty. I think he knows it's stupid, but...fear is fear, man. Sometimes they're really ridiculous but there's nothing you can do about it. Like I have full-blown freak outs if something genuinely sticky gets in my hands or between my toes. So...I pretty much hate honey and sugary things," he shrugged, volunteering an unnecessary amount of information on pretty much everything. If Declan said too little, Mac definitely said too much. But...he did at least offer a lot more insight than his friend was capable of articulating.

While Mac kept talking, Aoba kept eating slow bites and clearing his plate of what he’d been given. He felt…odd. Maybe some of it was in the fact that Desire was no longer looming at him quite so hard, and some of it was in things feeling weirdly…anticlimactic. But also stupid. And now his stupidity was out in the open, spilled to a total stranger instead of just kept to himself. Even Ren finally squirmed out of the satchel and into his lap, offering his fur up for comfort-petting, which Aoba’s free hand found and did indeed take advantage of.

It sure made for a déjà vu sort of moment when Mac hit on ‘fear is fear’, though. Honey anecdotes aside.

“So we’re both afraid of ourselves,” Aoba sighed, rolling a stray fish egg around his plate with the tip of a chopstick. Sounded like a real healthy basis for a relationship, that.

After a few moments more, Aoba gave his head a shake, making one last grasp at retreat. “There’s no reason for me to get his hopes up. He thinks I don’t like him that way now and I should just—leave it like that. That way if I never figure myself, he won’t….”

And then all he could do was trail off, conflicted. Wouldn’t what? Be left hanging? Be actually strung along? Things Aoba would never do to him, not willingly. And he and his other side were already getting along better, so it wasn’t as if Aoba had much basis to think that things wouldn’t continue to improve.

Fear was fear.

"One of these old songs I heard a ways back made a pretty poignant point in regards to this: the greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return. Personally I don't think it gets truer than that. If you spend all your time being afraid, when do you ever get to do the things you want to do? I believe it's worse to give in to fear all the time and cut off from what very well make you happier. So what if you both get hurt because it ends up not being everything you imagine? You grow, right?"

Another shrug, hand reaching for another roll.

"It goes one of two ways: it works or it doesn't. If it works, it's amazing, all rainbows and sparkles and magic, right? Awesome. But what if it doesn't work? Okay...then here's how that scenario pans out: Declan likes you, you like him, you try things, it doesn't work out. Declan is a really genuinely good guy, so on his end, he just keeps loving you, even if just platonically as a friend. Then the rest is on you and how you handle it. You can run off and never look back; that's totally an option for you with your particular set of skills. Or you can be mature about it, break things off, and still have a solid and loving relationship. Realistically, everything works out either way you take it."

"Personally, I'd just drop all the preamble and politics and you both be natural. If you guys get heavy, deal with it at your own pace. But I think you're being unkind to yourself, Aoba. Being different doesn't mean you don't deserve to be happy, and being you doesn't mean you don't deserve Declan. If even some part of you actually wants it, I think you guys are grown ass enough to handle it, and you owe it to yourselves to try. I mean shit, how many people can say they literally crossed oceans of time and space to meet each other? It's disgustingly romantic, even you have to admit."

Aoba was red in the face again, but this time it was mostly because his heart had kicked up a notch and gone to softly pounding. It had an apprehensive feeling about it, like when you were psyching yourself up for something you were afraid of doing but…still wanted to.

It had been the more upsetting story to Declan, but The Notebook had ended better for the couple involved than the titular character of Hunchback. Shaky (and admittedly embarrassing) though the parallel was, did he really want to be the Esmeralda to Declan’s Quasimodo? Something about Mac’s final statement stirred some vague memory, too, some story he’d been told at some point or another about an older tradition. Something about the Milky Way and the wings of magpies.

“Hikoboshi and Orihime,” he murmured, digging up the bit of trivia from whatever patch of neurons had clung to it. Finally he slumped in his seat somewhat with another sigh, though it was body language that radiated ‘surrender’ more than ‘relief’.

“You…may have a point….”

"I won't let it go to my head," the Warlock snarked gently, snorting a soft laugh. His Ghost made some small sound suggesting he felt that was untrue. Mac would definitely let it go to his head later. Still, a point was a point.

"That other side of yourself does too, y'know. Kind of. I mean it obviously causes you some grief, but at least it's not too chicken to admit what it wants. There's nothing that says you can't have it both ways though. You can want something and go for it without throwing yourself into it. Pacing yourself is just good sense. But honest final opinion," Mac paused, holding a hand up, "Do what your heart says. You're doing way, way too much listening to your head. You're stuck a~ll up in there. Man just follow your instincts and do what feels best. If that's really, truly running off without any doubts, do it. But if even one tiny bit of you wants Declan, well dude, he wants you, too. Be adults! Do adult things! Don't get tied up in the details and spook yourself. If Declan's big crybaby ass can get over his anxiety enough to try, you sure as hell can."

Aoba managed a soft scoff there, eyes lowered as he stroked Ren's fur. "But that's the problem in the first place. The other me has all the instincts, apparently."

And then, relief. He'd been grilled enough, conceded the point, and was companionably shouldered out of the way, hazel going gold.

"And overthinking is basically his job description," added the lower tone and more relaxed speech of Desire as he reclaimed a chopstick and stabbed a maki roll. "Guess it just goes to show, sometimes you just gotta hear it from someone other than yourself."

"Hello hello," Mac grinned, wagging a brow garishly and poking a spicy bit of meat from Venus over the platter towards Desire.

"Fancy swap there. Mood-Swings-R-Us, double daily discount," the Warlock hummed to himself, tilting his head and looking Aoba over. It was his first time witnessing the difference. Without as much personal experience as Declan had, he couldn't say he noticed all that much, but then he was definitely very accustomed to tumultuous moods. His 'Dear Prince' was notoriously salty and sweet.

"Don't get all smug, though, acting like the other tactics aren't part of the problem, too. Flat out sweaty paw lusting isn't thinking with your head, it's thinking with your dick. You gotta find a good middle ground, man. If you legitimately want to go for broke, learn a little patience. Declan will come around if you give him time and try not to choke on his ideas of propriety. Not that I have any idea where that plays between the sheets, but he's got his ideals and no one should begrudge him those, when they're all about how much he cares about you."

"I gave it my best shot, okay?" Desire replied without offense, dismissively waving his free hand at the air while his chopsticks made a move on the offered bit of meat. "Middle ground only exists where we agree on something, and we're still working on that part. That's why his preferred tactic is to not say a damn thing until we figure ourself out, remember?"

Into his mouth went the meat, complete with a brief pause of appreciation for the unexpected heat of it. But Reason was finally doing a round of thinking in a less self-deprecating way, so Desire left him to it, taking on the role of 'protecting' him for a while by coming forward to resume facing Mac.

"The big guy treated me normally from the get-go. I'm smitten. I'll do anything he wants me to, as long as it's something."

"Then you should just decide what you want to do and do it with him. Well, I mean of course with his stipulation in place it all depends on how you want to do it, but his hitch has a real simple caveat: once it's done to him he's got no reason not to do it to you. I guess kinda like 'do unto others as you would have done unto you'? Something something, insert clever wisdom here. I'm not the Speaker, I don't know what's best, just what sounds like the path of least resistance. Otherwise you're probably just gonna have to accept the fate of a life of hand-jobs and sixty-nines," he shrugged, uttering a long-suffering sigh.

"Why can't Uldren be more like you? Tch. Man. Here I am, a fuckin' snack, and I get blanked. I'd let that man use me as a footstool just for a little recognition. I'd complain about how lucky Declan is except you guys are on the rocks right now, and that sounds about as bad."

“Pretty sure he’s plenty like me,” Desire pointed out, both off-hand and indifferent. It was actually kind of companionable, for him. He’d been watching the Sovs from behind Reason’s fronting too, after all. Arrogant, aggressive, watchful, and not afraid to make his opinions known. If he wasn’t giving Mac the time of day, it wasn’t out of playing hard to get.

Handjobs and sixty-nines, though. Mac said it with a degree of resignation, but Desire got a pleasantly warm flush at the thought of Declan doing either of those things with him, gazing off for a moment at nothing in particular. Either one would be a far cry more than the nothing they were currently getting.

“Well if it’s a matter of swapping with me going first, that’s easy,” he said with a distracted little grin, as much for himself (meaning Reason, who squirmed) as just as commentary. “Hard part’s just getting all of me to fess up. Least we got a couple days before our big guy comes back to think it through.”

Unless Declan did one of his check-in calls. Now that might be a trainwreck.

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