text, un: gautier, cw: some references to alcohol use and sexual content

[laidtocrest]

[Specifics tbd, but there's a drunk Midnight involved and he doesn't have a shirt and might've lost his pants. he's fucking naked.

But for now.]

a guy lost his clothes to the washer. anybody saw a pink shirt?

[Attached is a picture of Midnight. I have no fanart, so you must imagine this guy: no shirt, Jojo-posing, wearing a pink feathery thing, drunk, fly open.]

and here's the guy who lost his stuff

Comments

[laidtocrest]

[Sylvain wants to say...he's not sure what. He wants to say something, though. There's something he wants to ask, or do, or think, or feel, and if he has enough time he'd just...figure out what it is. Whatever it is.

But Dimitri keeps talking, and, much like marches back home, helps them find their way to steadier ground once more. It's reassuring, to the point in which he laughs, a little disbelieving, at the end.]

Smoke?

[He doesn't quite hug Dimitri again, but he does turn and sling an arm around his shoulders like they do this all the time. Which...

They didn't in Faerghus. Not exactly. Gustave would've chewed him out if he disrespected the prince that much, that blatantly, and after...well. Anyway, might as well make up for lost time, yeah?]

Sure, no sense in hanging around here. I'll help you clean. How bad is it?

[stubboarn]

I believe my culinary creation is a lost cause, [ dimitri says, shaking his head. ] So it's just a matter of ... tidying up the rest of the things I used.

[ it doesn't often happen that someone puts an arm around him. and he can say there hasn't been a lot of instances in the school year for it to happen - even the first day wasn't as jovial, with all of his classmates falling in line despite his encouragement of asking them to call him by his name, something he had insisted on because it was proper, but also, because it felt less lonely in doing it. that sylvain would be the one to do it here is fitting, perhaps, but he also can't help but wonder how he wouldn't do this back home.

he thinks, briefly, of shoving off his arm. he had to fight his good breeding to do it. the result is dimitri reaching up to brush his fingers against his, briefly against the inside of his wrist, before he pulls his hand away and shoves it in his pocket instead.

he glances at sylvain with a smile. ]

How was your day? [ seems like it was rather interesting. ]

[laidtocrest]

[He expects Dimitri to shrug off his arm, as he usually does; he thinks Dimitri's about to, and then his prince...doesn't. Dimitri smiles at him, instead. And Sylvain smiles back, though it dims a little at the question, before becoming...not something sad, something wry, well aware that pretty much all of what happened was his fault.]

Well.

[Well. Where to begin.]

I feel like a lot happened, even though I'm pretty sure not that much actually happened. Confusing. Confusing's a good word for it, I think. Short version is that I found a drunk guy and I felt like I couldn't just leave him here, and kicking up a fuss on the network was the quickest way to find someone who could take care of him, so...

[...yeah.]

[stubboarn]

... 'Confusing'?

[ huh. not the kind of thing he was expecting from sylvain. ] I know you'd mentioned he was drunk ... was he rude to you? Do I have to talk to him?

[ concernicus! dimitri looks at him expectantly. he'll make a drunk man apologize, just let him at 'em. ]

[laidtocrest]

No- I mean, I guess you can? Midnight was pretty nice. Friendly. Might be too much for you - he was almost too much for me. He-

[Sylvain looks around. Is there anyone around? Anyone at all? Besides Dimitri.

...they seem to be alone.]

Hugged me?

[???]

In a drunk, friendly way, I guess, but I never would've called myself a hug person. Well, at least, not unless it's leading into something else, Dimitri.

[Wink- okay, maybe now's not the time for that sort of joke. Also, disregard the earlier hug, disregard the current drape, that's different.]

I kinda feel like I'm lying to everyone.

[stubboarn]

[ he's lucky they're friends. dimitri raises an eyebrow in disbelief when he winks at him, because - he hugged him, and he's currently draped on him right now, is there an expectation there? smh. dimitri just shakes his head.

but he thinks about what sylvain says, and how he phrased it, which he finds worrisome, though dimitri frets about everything. he's glad, all things considered, that the problem was resolved amiably, although it was obviously awkward for sylvain, which he is sorry about. but the rest of it - ]

You are the only person who can know who you are, and who you wish to be.

I know it's a bit rich, coming from me, but I think you're overthinking it. [ he says this to him gently. ] And I think you're being too harsh to yourself, when you say it like that. You have your faults, but that's not all that you are - nor is it all that you will ever be.

[laidtocrest]

You're right - I'm not just a collection of faults, I'm a handsome collection of faults. [This is said brightly, firmly, like this is the big takeaway from what Dimitri had told him and he's inspired by the realization that he's a collection of faults in a pretty package, but then...Sylvain laughs. A little shivering laugh.]

Sorry, sorry, I had to. [Arm squeeze!] Thanks, really. You're the only person who really gets me here, for better and for worse.

[stubboarn]

Where did the handsome come from? That wasn't anywhere near my statement.

[ just kidding. also, don't worry. he's going to - what can he do that won't kill sylvain, his equivalent of disagreeing and arm-squeezing and so on - okay, he's going to shake his head in great disappointment yet again. ]

But it seems like this encounter really affected you, if we're back to your terrible jokes. [ dimitri looks at him thoughtfully, staring at him askance in a way that at least makes his blue eyes less intense at him. ] Do you need to take your mind off things? Want to go somewhere else and kill time before we head back? I'm sure the cleaning can wait.

[ yes, he'll postpone chores for him if it means he'll feel better. ]

[laidtocrest]

[...he's so tempted to take shameless advantage of this.]

...how bad's the mess?

[It might gnaw at him. The mess? It might bother him. He might need to clean it.]

[stubboarn]

Oh, er - [ dimitri frowns as he tries to remember how badly he'd done in the kitchen, which is hard because he wanted to Block It Out. ]

- well, two of our pots have black char at the bottom, and there's several containers around. [ glancing quickly at his face - ] But I put all of them into the sink, and I wiped down the counter and the stove? So it's ... not too messy, I don't think, it's just that they're all piled up in the sink at the moment.

[ is that ... ok? .... ]

[laidtocrest]

[Okay, he's nodding, he's envisioning it, he's imagining the damage, not too bad, not bad at all. It's workable.]

Let's grab some snacks on the way back and then see how bad things are. [Knight girding himself for battle, let's go.]

[stubboarn]

It's good to have nice things for yourself - especially after your hard work trying to help someone.

[ dimitri remembers something and briefly tells him - ] I saw a different kind of snack in this one store I went in. It was a chocolate bar, of some sort. The chocolate covered a mixture of granola with nuts and seeds, and it had a chewy centre.

[ a PERFECT mix of textures for him. ] We should try it.