System Glitch: In The City: Ship Ahoy! [location: Osten]

[theextras]

The day of July fourth was spent dealing with annoying, static-ridden transmissions from the tablets. Hisses, bleeps, pops, and occasionally what might have been an indistinguishable voice saying something unintelligible. The interruptions ceased in the evening, and the city went back to being quiet and empty.

The fifth brought more of the same, but shortly after noon something curious happened: if one consulted the map, they'd note a dot out in the ocean. Zooming in on the dot showed that it was not one but many dots, each with a familiar name attached, and observation would show that the dots were headed toward a never-before-used ferry terminal on the Osten waterfront.

Go meet your people, Taxon, and send them to get showers post haste!


ooc: The ferry terminal is a proper building so our vampires aren't in danger of going foom.

And that's that! Thanks everyone, this plot's been ridiculous fun, now back to your regularly scheduled hijinks.

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[Bagoas' (new) place]

[thepersianyouth]

Bagoas sits silent as his skin prickles in the wake of Josef's touch, unaccustomed to being cared for like this, with what seems little to no pretense. Though the mind is willing, and the body not quite able, there's nonetheless no hiding the effect on him. He'll exert no effort towards it. Like Josef, he's resolved not to hide.

Four-hundred years, senses not of this world...and twenty-four years prior...

"You're no older than I am." He smiles, charmed by the notion, a touch baffled by it. "And you can hear my heartbeat, very probably smell my anticipation, rob me of my breath with a few choice words and little else..."

[Bagoas' (new) place]

[loveawkward]

He moved the sponge in a slow circle over that spot before sliding it along to the other shoulder, fingertips brushing against his skin as well though not aggressive. Merely the touch of slick soaped skin to wet fingertips as he lavished care on someone that had become important to him.

No older than I am.

"You are a charmer," he whispered, leaning in a bit toward him. "And you leave me stunned every time. I like that. I like you make me feel that I am no older than you are," he admitted.

"I'm most happy to know I can steal your breath, because my words with you mean a lot to me." He smiled, a bit shy, ducking his head. "Why I end up sounding like my youth and not now." Not hardened by years of watching mankind do its worse.

[Bagoas' (new) place]

[thepersianyouth]

There's another saying of Bagoas' people that springs to mind at the added compliments: a thief knows a thief as a wolf knows another. The same can be said for charmers, in his own not quite humble opinion.

He mirrors Josef's gesture, lowering his eyes to his arm and trailing his own hand along the line of it until he clasps Josef's larger hand, lifts it to press the back of it to his cheek.

His eyes flutter closed, and through his lips passes a soft sigh. "You tempt me, like sweet fruit, Iosef. I don't think you know how much; but I digress: bathe with me, and let me sleep beside you for a while, feeling like myself again?"

[Bagoas' (new) place]

[loveawkward]

He let the sponge fall to the water with a small splash, leaning in closer to Bagoas. He didn't hesitate as he leaned in, kissing the corner of Bagoas' mouth just as his hand touched the back of the other man's cheek. Just the smallest of kisses, a soft touch that showed as much need as care.

"I have no desire but to hold you close and sleep for a good year," he said with a crooked smile. Leaning back, he dipped the sponge and rinsed it before adding more soap to it. "Now, sit back and let me do this for you. I promise to behave."

[Bagoas' (new) place]

[thepersianyouth]

The kiss brings a smile to his lips, his eyes slit open, full of fond, suddenly mischievous warmth. "You hardly know what you ask of me, but so be it: I shall do your bidding gladly."

That same smile playing over his lips, he brings his feet up, close together and pointed, to run the tips of his toes along the center line of Josef's torso; the soles of his feet pressing close, pushing him to his end of the tub.

Then bending his knees, he sinks below the water momentarily, shaking some of the dust from his long hair. He comes up grinning, scrubbing his face clean; his feet still where he left them. "And who said it is your restraints I doubt?"

[Bagoas' (new) place]

[loveawkward]

"You could tell me," he said, though the words died a bit on his lips as Bagoas moved.

Josef noticed so much. The sluicing of water over his skin, the fresh flash of scent. Skin and water and soap. Even beneath the sharp citrus, he could scent Bagoas' skin as he always had before they had been stranded. Before he had shared a tub with the other man.

His gaze dropped, staring down at the other man's legs as he raised the sponge to run it over one calf in those same circles meant to being soothing and still clean at the same time. It pauses though as he sink beneath the water and Josef leaned back against the coolness of the tub, just watching the other man with an intensity he was usually quick to dampen.

"I'm seeing your point," he said, smiling crookedly. Suddenly his hands, the sponge floating in the water, run over both of Bagoas' calves. "I only promised I would behave. Not that you had to."

[Bagoas' (new) place]

[thepersianyouth]

He could. Oh, but he could tell Josef a thing or two regarding how difficult he finds it to sit back and let someone else care for him. But sit back is just what he does, watching his enigmatic friend with a warm, contemplative gaze. That, and draw nonsensical patterns over Josef's chest with the tips of his toes. That he does too.

"Mhmm."

[Bagoas' (new) place]

[loveawkward]

Despite how much he savoured the feeling of Bagoas in his arms from time to time, the moments of stolen sleep below deck in one another's arms. They were moments he cherished, and those he thought of when he was hiding in the coolness of the jungle. This though, this was different.

This was nudity, and sleek, wet limbs and feelings Josef hadn't had for more years than he could count were beginning to surface.

The same feelings that had his fingers tracing over the tops of Bagoas' feet, up to brush against his knees and just barely touch his thighs before circling around to the back of his knees and tracing down his calves once more.

"Does it help to know you're doing a lot for me right now," he teased.