april showers

// i get a toothache every time i lie to someone i love //

The only spot of color that flares from inside their room reflected against the window is the orange cherry glow of their cigarettes as they take their drags, the plumes of smoke curling around their heads and bodies, adding to an already perfect evening. He frees one hand as well so that he has something to snag the cigarette to ash it before it has a chance to fall on the Maverick’s shoulder or the blanket.

He’s doing as such when the kiss is pressed to his cheek and he nuzzles in, the arm wrapped around him is tightening slightly. “You could tell me I was still in Torchline right now and I would thoroughly believe you.” He chuckles along with, setting to take another drag and exhale the smoke against Danta’s shoulder.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, given Asta’s confusion regarding geography these days. Though he likes to think he’s gotten better with all of the charts and maps he’s looked at, seeing how the world had changed over the last few centuries. “If you were not the Theocrat or the owner of the Dusklight, would you continue to stay? Or would Torchline have stolen your heart?” Curious to say the least, the butcher thinks it likely the shifty region would have snagged his own. But the Grounds has every single thing the butcher could have ever wanted for himself.

Astaroth

// please just look me in my rotting smile and tell me i'm the only one you think of //

in space the stars are no nearer; just glitters, like a morgue

"Mmm, but is that because of the view or the fact that we're literally staying in what I'm sure used to be someone's captain's cabin?" Danta wants to know with a sly smile. Probably a mix of the two if he had to guess, taking another long drag from his cigarette and flicking the ash into a clever little tray he pulls out from a compartment in the windowsill. Humming his approval at it, he settles back and closes his eyes for a moment to hear Asta's voice rumble through him.

"I don't know," he says honestly, considering it even as he speaks. "I did start out in Torchline, so something obviously made me prefer here. I think maybe I'd take Torchline for granted if I was there permanently." Shrugging and blinking over his shoulder to the other man, he tilts his head. "Why? Flora that good you thinking of moving?" he teases. "Or is Thal trying to persuade you to join her crew?"

Dantalion

// i get a toothache every time i lie to someone i love //

“Certainly the cabin.” He drawls playfully, even if it was a mix of both. The waves were different here - the Brizo more inclined to harbor the black waters of a more forest-like region, versus Torchline with their crystal clear, sea glass waters. But even still, he could pretend for as long as they needed to - content to sit here like they were taking an extended vacation back in Torchline, like they hadn’t just spent hours on a sky ship and the only thing preventing them from going home was a wagon-ride.

But he asks his more curious question, and he drags lightly from the cigarette as he listens, exhaling the smoke from his nose when Danta shrugs and looks over his shoulder to him. The question sparks a chuckle and an immediate shake of his head. “No.” He confirms quickly - because moving had never been an option for him, unless Danta were to go somewhere of his own volition.

The words that follow are ones he says without realizing the complexity of it, though, because he reaches over to flick the ash in the crafty compartment ash tray Danta had found rather than the floor when his lips brush against Danta’s cheek with the movement and answer. “My home is you, darling. Perhaps I was simply curious if you had other thoughts once upon a time.” It’s so casual, that when he withdraws and goes to lift the cigarette back to his lips, he hesitates to see if Danta’s answer changes.

Astaroth

// please just look me in my rotting smile and tell me i'm the only one you think of //

in space the stars are no nearer; just glitters, like a morgue

"No? Not even for cocktails and threesomes?" Danta grins around his cigarette, shifting with Asta automatically to let him flick the ash from his smoke into the tray he'd found. The movement is as casual and easy as the words that slip from the other man's lips next, and Danta has to take a second to realise what he's actually just heard. That he hasn't imagined it, that it hasn't been a joke or something said by accident. My home is you.

Almost wanting to swat at the butcher for consistently spilling out poetry this evening, the Maverick eventually wins the fight to keep his hands to himself (just), but he's thoroughly silenced for a long few seconds. Stubbing out his cigarette without thinking, it allows him to shift just enough to properly curl against the other man, nosing against the side of his neck and breathing in the scent of him, as if to sear it into his memories.

"My home is you too, Asta," he mutters, loud enough for his ears only.

Dantalion

// i get a toothache every time i lie to someone i love //

“Mm, not even for cocktails and threesomes. Those are vacation activities.” He informs Danta so easily, that it falls in along with the casual way he tells the Maverick precisely what he’s thinking when he thinks of home. It only occurs to him that he’d said it when silence overcomes them, when the cigarette is stubbed out, when his lover’s turning in his arms to nestle in further, nose pressed against the side of his neck above the still darkening necklace Danta had left him.

He takes the moment to set his cigarette down into the ash tray as well, so that his arms can wind around him completely and he can rest the side of his jaw against the currently hornless crown of blonde that greets him. “I am so very glad, darling.” He tacks on, now that he’s realized he’s said it, but that warm pit inside of him that feels wanted only seems to glow now, the embers of being home for the person that is very much home for him too.

A connection that seems unbelievable. Terrifying, to be so attached, but beautiful because it happened.

Astaroth

// please just look me in my rotting smile and tell me i'm the only one you think of //

in space the stars are no nearer; just glitters, like a morgue

"Well," Danta purrs, "maybe they can be at-home activities too, now that we know where home is." Not that he's going to complain either way, not as Asta's arms tighten around him and he lets his eyes slip shut. Finding himself relaxed and at peace in a way he'd not considered he needed so badly until it happened, Danta nuzzles in close enough to leave a string of soft kisses against the butcher's throat, before he settles back into the embrace.

"Yeah," he agrees, "me too. Sorry if the house is a bit broken, though. I'm working on it." His voice is pitched low and already his attention has vanished from the view outside and whatever else the residents of Jack Tar might be up to. And any good intentions Danta might have had about staying awake are entirely ruined from here - wrapped up in the butcher's lap, it's all too easy to slip into a doze, wanted and loved and still trying to get used to it.

Dantalion

// i get a toothache every time i lie to someone i love //

A snort leaves him, soft and airy at the purr – because technically that was true. It had been at home because home had been with him all along. But Danta’s eyes slip shut and Asta curls into him enough that the series of kisses against his throat settle him in more ways than one. He takes a slow and long inhale, breathing in smoke and citrus and salt and iron and it grounds him further. The cigarette long forgotten in the hidden ash tray, smoldering away slowly in little trails of smoke until it eventually goes out.

The mention of the house being a bit broken has him tightening his arms, a comfortable cradle where he can plant his head gently on the hornless crown of his lover and peer out the window to watch the ships in the harbor, shifting with the winds and tides ever so slightly. “Me too, darling.” Comes the soft and quiet admission, unsure if the Maverick even hears it. He’ll feel it, though, in the way Asta remains curled around him to hold him as he sleeps, as he peers out the window until the rocking waves lull the butcher into a soft and deep doze too.

- FIN

Astaroth

// please just look me in my rotting smile and tell me i'm the only one you think of //