there's a person behind those eyes

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

Danta must have successfully convinced the barstaff at the front of house that he's actively working, because his office door has been closed for some time now and no one has come to bother him. Granted, 'working' is often a loose term that covers anything from blanket forts right up to actually taking inventory, making orders and being the Theocrat of the Hollowed Grounds, and he's never blamed them for not knowing which.

Todays work, for instance, involves tents.

He has planned for he and Asta to flee the Grounds for the first couple of weeks of Leafchange when his fiance's feirw shift is likely to be at its most volatile, and the region that has caught his eye is, of course, Hak Etme. (Where better for a couple of horny Ancients who are missing Longheat to go on a quick vacation, no?)

The tent he's chosen likely belonged to a carnival at one point; colourful, obnoxious, and large enough that he'd thoroughly regretted messing with it in his office the moment he'd opened it, Danta's task now is to try and get it all back into the duffel bag it had arrived inside. Which, as you will know if you have ever tried to pack a tent in your life, is challenging to say the least.

Anyone who attempts to walk into his office will be greeted, in fact, by Danta's best impression of a ghost at mardis gras; the Maverick is thoroughly swamped by the colourful fabric, and he can no longer seem to find which way is out. His patience for the task hasn't yet worn thin enough to burn his way to freedom, but it's only a matter of time.

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

Your touch, so foreign, it's supernatural, extraterrestrial

The office door does not open as much as it detonates inward, Kaisel barreling through on momentum and panic alone. "DANTA!” He cries, tone rising with a keen desperation. His hair’s a complete mess, run through by fingers one too many times, and his shirt matches, black fabric overly loose in its halo at his neck where he's fisted and pulled at it over and over. Which is a shame, because this fresh Hollowed Grounds merch he picked up upon his arrival here. It touts Danta's title in lettering that's meant to look sprayed on, THEOCRAT, bold across the front in red lettering. Less obvious, the raised brand of Danta's eyes watching dangerously over the font, nearly indistinguishable from the main shirt color.

In a rush, Kaisel continues to blurt out the dilemma at hand. “IGOTCHARLIEPREGNANTAND—” He stops suddenly, words dying mid-breath as the reality of what he's walking into hits him in the face, quite literally. The room looks like a travelling circus has been violently murdered, colorful fabric hanging in chaotic drifts from ceiling to floor, meaning it must be cotton intestines that are buffeting his flushed cheeks.

Kaisel recoils on instinct, breath sucking in with a loud and alarmed gasp as he nearly stumbles back out the door. "What the fuck!?" he demands of the lurching fabric, reason pouring back in, confusion displacing the concern, which has left him with a strong cocktail of too many feelings at the moment.

Kaisel

Your kiss is cosmic, every move is magic, you're from a whole other world

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

"KAISEL." Danta assumes it's the soldier by his voice, because of course he can't see him through the array of colours over his face right now. He only half hears the next garbled sentence too, the words bleeding together and muffled by the whisper of fabric as he tries to free himself. Eventually the Maverick's head pops out at what he assumes is a window or a doorway in the tent, fair hair a mess and slightly on end from the static, his fanged grin bright.

"You got Charlie a peg lamp? I mean, that's weird, but go off." His hand appears to scrub across his face and through his hair to unsuccessfully flatten it. "Hey, you wouldn't mind grabbing some of this would you? I need to find some... corners? Which is fun because this is a round tent." Danta grins and disappears back into the mass of coloured fabric, but he seems more oriented now, able to pop out of it properly on the other side of the office.

"That's better," he says through a laugh. "Anyway, tell me more about the lamp."

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

Your touch, so foreign, it's supernatural, extraterrestrial

He squints at the vague, writhing silhouette trapped beneath the body of fabric, brows knitting. “Danta?” It’s less wonder at the man who’s been devoured by a festive phantom, more, why. Another shift of colour and canvas, and then the Maverick’s head pops free, looking very much like a groundhog predicting lightning rather than spring. Ordinarily, the absurd sight would spark a laugh, or even crack a smile, but it’s all he can do right now not to double over and dry heave.

Sagging into the doorframe, Kaisel instead shakes his head and sighs with enough drama to earn an Emmy. ”No. No, not a peg lamp…” The truth now stuffs itself in his throat, the rush petering out into a prickle that crawls up the base of his neck. He offers no clarity, instead pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers as if willing the pressure to wake him from this nightmare. He has tried several times, but he’s still stuck in this reality.

Peeking around his hand at the carcass of a carnival, Kaisel is more than happy for the offer of distraction. He grabs at an edge of fabric and flaps it into something partial enough to control. ”Wh-what is all this? You running off to join the circus, or?” Kaisel might like to go with him if so. More canvas rustles as Danta vanishes again, tunneling through folds with all the alacrity of a cat helping make the bed.

Danta reemerges with an ease that Kaisel is deeply envious of in this moment. ”Not a lamp,” he huffs, staring a hole into the fabric he’s snapping in his hands like a pair of thick reins that could pull this beast of a tent in. ”Pregnant,” he mumbles, like some child being forced to apologize when they don’t mean it.

Kaisel

Your kiss is cosmic, every move is magic, you're from a whole other world

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

Oblivious to the soldier's acute distress - which might just be Danta but also might be the mass of colourful fabric currently taking up most of the floor and surface space in his office - the Maverick offers a relieved smile towards Kaisel as he grabs part of the tent. "Thanks - I don't know how I expected to stuff this back into the bag it came in without help, but I wanted it to be a surprise, so..." He shrugs.

Remembering the peg lamp that isn't, apparently, Danta raises his eyebrows towards Kai as if he's the one who has been caught doing something absurd. "This? Oh! I'm taking Asta out to Hak Etme for the first couple of weeks of Leafchange," he explains easily, starting to get control of the fabric now that someone else has a grip on another part of it. Determinedly, he begins to try to squash the air out of the tent and to fold it up, which is always easier said than done. "He's got this stag shift that goes a little murdery in that season," he continues. "Murdery in a sexy way."

Already smiling to himself at the thought, the expression drops into clean shock at Kaisel's clarification, Danta's eyes snapping up towards the Accepted. "I'm sorry, what? You got Charlie pregnant?" He shouldn't laugh - but he does, the sound rich and amused and ever so slightly terrified for Kai. "I mean, congratulations and commiserations, I guess? Unless... was Flora there too?"

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

Your touch, so foreign, it's supernatural, extraterrestrial

Circles are tricky business when it comes to folding, and while it seems like it should be clear if you unfolded it (which Kai, did not), it is never that easy once something has come out of the box. Freedom seems to innately resist containment, even among the inanimate.”A tent this size and you almost can’t call it camping,” Kaisel offers over a grunt of fighting with said luxury item. Maybe it’s not so large outdoors, but in an office, it feels like an Olympian structure to stave off the inhospitality of the desert.

While Danta continues to lay out some WWE maneuvers on the trapped air, Kaisel skirts past whatever sexy murder even means, not that he’s surprised to hear the last part associated with Astaroth in the least. ”A well-deserved trip after your engagement as well. Congratulations, by the way.” The ordinary joy at extending such has escaped him today, the extension much more flat, which has little to do with the way he and Danta had fought last season and everything to do with his mind still circling the conversation with Charlie.

It is a wonder he’s come to the Maverick at all, or so it should seem, but he doesn’t retain any ill will towards Danta, not that he ever truly had any. A misunderstanding, hurt misplaced in the moment, but he’d always wanted Danta and Astaroth to thrive, in fact, hoped it might resolve some of the issues just by doing so. Flora has since baked some better understanding into him, and wrinkles have been smoothed out by time and apologies, although he still owes one to Danta himself.

Lifting his attention from folds to the ancient, Kaisel dryly swallows and a cracked, ”yeah,” responds. The laughter strikes him like a wrong chord played in a concert, and more of his color drains away as his grip slackens, hands going limp back at his sides. Gods, he probably should have run to his mother. The congratulations only continues to crescendo the ugh that he feels, and he shifts uncomfortably under the weight of it, lips thinning out into a magnificent frown.

”No,” he admits with a grimace, in near physical pain over the thought of how Flora will take it. ”No, just Charlie, Dygra, and me. Although we didn’t do anything. I was just there Danta. Just standing there when Dygra said she gave her a—a spill.” His hands have slowly crawled up to his throat, arms criss-crossed over his chest, as if he means to choke himself out and be done with the problem that way, and not just a subconscious bid for comfort among pressure.

Kaisel

Your kiss is cosmic, every move is magic, you're from a whole other world

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

"Mhm, that's what I'm hoping," Danta says cheerfully as he tries to get his elbow into a particularly stubborn fold in the tent. Perhaps it would be easier if it weren't an Ancient and a traumatised Accepted who already has form for chaos attempting such a thing. Alas, this is all the tent has in its (lack of) corners today, and if the Maverick does have to pull out his best Stonecold Stunner to get the thing to play ball, so be it. "Asta is used to roughing it outdoors," he clarifies, "but I'm hoping this will be a more bougie version of it."

They've managed to fold the fabric in half during the conversation, but as Kai's hands go limp Danta also takes the opportunity to catch his breath. "Thanks," he says warmly in response to the congratulations - and he means it, too. Though now his mind is fully on the conversation, it would be a lie to say something fiendish doesn't slip into the Ancient's expression.

"Didn't you say Flora was the only one for you?" he asks, sly and a tiny bit accusatory. "This all seems a little hypocritical, even if-- wait, Dygra?" His petty banter immediately forgotten, Danta lights up and also drops the tent to step closer. "Dygra blessed you? Damn, Kai - I underestimated you. Congratulations for real." He grins and claps him on the shoulder.

"That sucks that you didn't even get to really take a tumble with Charlie, though. She's amazing." And yes, he says that from experience. "I sense you're not quite as excited about it as she probably is, though?"

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

Your touch, so foreign, it's supernatural, extraterrestrial

With the tent half tamed and some of Kaisel’s owed debts paid to Danta, he sinks thoroughly into the original reason for running here. The task’s distraction had only ever been temporary, and though he feels none of the relief yet, there is some sure to come at finally getting a hand on this dilemma rather than pacing scores into the room he’d woken up in. Less the wild panic of before than the cold clutch of dread returning, rooting him into a stance of despair, Kaisel lists like the undead while Danta takes his respite.

The dissonant sounds that keep coming out of Danta cause Kaisel’s features to flinch, too raw to handle something he might normally brush off. ”She is,” Kai responds sharply, gaze flicking from the floor to the Maverick, copper set with the hard lines of insistence. Danta cuts himself off before Kaisel can interject further, dismay tiptoing the edge of destruction. How easy it’d be to slip into something more familiar, more actionable—anger.

The flare of it is snuffed out rapidly by the chilling splash of the praise. This particular strand of chorus whines against him, filling the space where he waits for joy to bloom, but horror instead persists. His grip tightens around his throat—so blessed. ”I didn’t even know something like this could happen,” he grates out past the vice of his teeth, body slouching beneath the clasp of Danta’s touch. He turns his head to regard the Maverick before offering a small shake of it. ”She is properly estatic.” Which has made this feel all the more isolating. He does not want to dull her shine with his shadow.

”And I would be, if I’d planned for this, if I’d thought I had even done anything remotely close to signing up to be a father now. If it’d been with Flora…” He thinks so anyway, but let’s not add imaginary additional children to his mental load. ”I adore Charlie, and of course I’ll be there for her—for them,” he corrects swiftly, despite pulling a face thereafter. ”But…”

Suddenly, standing upright feels too much to keep asking of himself, and Kaisel sways into the nearest chair or ledge that will have him. ”Please,” he resorts to a beg instead, hands now squishing his cheeks, fingers pressing in on his eyes. ”I need your help trying to break this news to Flora. I don’t think it’ll go well.”

Kaisel

Your kiss is cosmic, every move is magic, you're from a whole other world

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

"Mmhm," Danta drawls, sounding unconvinced as he resumes his attack on the tent. With it having been folded once (kind of), Kai is free to reel and stand around like an NPC at a party while the Maverick tackles it into a shape suitable for stuffing into a duffel bag to be forgotten for a bit. "No one ever gave you the birds and the bees and the chaos goddess talk?" He raises his eyebrows, trying and failing to hide his grin as the other man wilts into a chair.

Part of him is dying to ask Kai which of Danta's personality traits he thinks makes him equipped to give advice on matters like this, but that would spoil the fun. Instead, dropping to his knees to start smooshing the tent into submission, the Maverick hears him out enough to take the please seriously. Lucky you, Kai.

"Well," he says slowly, arching an eyebrow up at the soldier, "isn't this kind of similar to how Flora and her twin were conceived? Y'know, without all the..." He curls his hand into a circle and thrusts a finger into it a few times. "So maybe she'll surprise you. Besides, it's not like you did anything to make it happen, is it? And Charlie will vouch for that."

Sitting back for another break, he swipes a hand across his forehead. "Y'know, I didn't even realise Dygra made house calls in that way."

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

Your touch, so foreign, it's supernatural, extraterrestrial

Oh he knew all about fucking around and finding out, babies or otherwise, but no he never knew Dygra would sometimes just tell you instead of waiting for either f-bomb to drop. What normally feels like baking, everything measured and following set steps, Dygra instead turns into soup. Ingredients just whirling in each other’s vicinity enough to make something edible.

Glancing over at the Maverick as he makes an excellent point, the first spark of hope dares to catch in what had rapidly begun to feel like an endlessly dark cavern. ”I think that was a big part of it,” he huffs, meaning the hand gesture. Both to the conception, and to the way the betrayal might land. In that respect, Danta has the strongest argument (and the first, really) that Kaisel’s heard. ”Right!” he exclaims, more breath than word as his hand slowly liftsd from the cage of his hands.

”I didn’t do anything.” He’s the victim. ”Once she understands that, should be easy breezy, right?” The Flora aspect, at least, not the, y’know, parenting a tiny person to adulthood and hoping they aren’t fucked up because of anything you did. Not like you can really practice raising someone into a good person, although gods know Kaisel tries every day with Steve Stone. Oh, himself, too.

Beginning to melt into some version of relief, Kaisel sinks back deeper into his chair, hands smoothing down to his knees. One leg slides out onto its heel, the other half folded in, creating an image of a man that’s been cracked open and spilled into the seat. ”Is it really a house call if it’s her house?” Although he hardly thinks location played a role, except perhaps on the turn of phrase. ”Besides, it’s a demi-god, so Dygra had to have a hand in it.” Momentarily scrunching his brow as he wonders if Dygra has hands, he quickly gives up, shrugging away any additional problems for the day and leaving the chaos goddess to whatever metaphysical body parts she damn well pleases.

”So how do you think I tell Flora so it lands the best? Send her out to a spa all day first? Make her favorite dinner? Spit the healing water out and just lay it out?”

Kaisel

Your kiss is cosmic, every move is magic, you're from a whole other world

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

"I didn't say that," Danta says of the sudden easy-breeziness of explaining to your girlfriend(-fiance-secretwife) that you stood around and got a chaos priestess pregnant. "But it might be better than the catastrophe it could be if she were anyone else." Then again, regardless of the logic behind it, Flora might go batshit crazy anyway. Her theatrics are one of the things Danta likes most about her, and also why he thinks she'd make a spitfire of an Ancient if she ever put her mind to it.

Wisely, perhaps, he doesn't voice those thoughts aloud.

"A demigod?" he repeats with suddenly wide eyes, and whilst this isn't the time, his opinion of Kaisel has just jumped up a few notches. "Damn," he says. "She must really like you. Then again, though, doesn't that make Dygra the baby daddy, not you?" Danta doesn't want to take away from the joys of parenthood if Kai is coming around to it, but - and forgive him for thinking so - if Dygra is the one to have put a baby in Charlie, surely the soldier's being there is... well... surplus to requirements?

Pausing to think, and also to finish rolling the tent into a tight cylinder that will likely spring open into his face like a jack-in-the-box if he lets it go, Danta grabs for the empty duffel bag. "You could always have Charlie explain if you're chicken," he says. "Or bring her to a Dygra shrine. Maybe you'll get blessed twice." Grinning, the Maverick starts to wrestle the tent into the bag. "Either way, I probably wouldn't do all her favourite shit before telling her, otherwise she'll forever expect bad news when you're nice."

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

Your touch, so foreign, it's supernatural, extraterrestrial

Too late for Danta to take his hope away now, Kaisel’s got his teeth sunk into it like a dog with a bone. Afterall, he didn’t do anything, other than leave Flora’s side, which always seems to get him into trouble now that he thinks about it. Although admittedly, sometimes at her side he gets into trouble too. Maybe there’s a common denominator here…he’ll figure it out one day.

Nodding as Danta echoes demigod with all the severity that name deserves, the praise only causing another quirk to his lips, clearly preferring not to be in Dygra’s good graces if this is the result. ”I thought the same thing!” Kaisel says suddenly, leaning sharply forward, fists balling under his chin as his elbows rest on his thighs. The flint of his gaze rests squarely on Danta, sharpened with the same focus of a surgeon trying to extract a tool that could sever something vital if mishandled.

”Except, why would Charlie act like it’s mine then?” He should perhaps not so freely trust a woman who’s already duped him once (pretending to be possessed counts as fool me once…), and who admittedly serves chaos with an intimate passion. Yet, Kaisel doesn’t dare assume to find fault in his friend. ”So I figure, since other rules are thrown out the window, maybe the child does have three parents?” His eyebrows lift in patient expectation that Danta might have a solid answer.

Watching Danta struggle is a welcome distraction from his thoughts, and he’s momentarily entertained before he remembers decency. Struck by the sudden recognition of it, Kaisel vaults to his feet and sinks down on the other end of the uncooperative tent and bag, assisting where he can. ”What about me implies chicken?” he scoffs in return to Danta, before throwing him a guarded look. ”You have implied I’m finger licking before, but that’s not what I mean.” Nor what he wants, and he warily keeps a sideye on the brothel owner as they work in near vicinity.

”Might be done with Dygra after this,” Kaisel admits wiuth a huff of air blowing into his bangs. Which means, no, he’s not taking the joke of trying to get blessed twice by bringing Flora to the shrine. Danta has a good point about the approach of setting her up for a false idea of luxury when it’s anything but. She has never shied from hard truths with him, even when it sends them to the ground. ”You’re right, I just, I gotta tell her. Straight up.”

Kaisel

Your kiss is cosmic, every move is magic, you're from a whole other world

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

"Maybe Charlie knows something you don't," Danta suggests all too reasonably; chaos incarnate he may be, but he doesn't presume to know the inner workings of the Dygra priesthood. "...Or maybe she's just fucking with you," he nevertheless adds with a slanted smile, the words almost muttered under his breath. Because that wouldn't surprise him either, though if their dark goddess has granted Kai the privilege of her presence during such an occasion, there must be something special about him, surely.

"Hey, three parents makes it a lucky kid, right?" He shrugs, continuing to fight the tent into the duffel bag and murmuring his thanks as the soldier comes to lend his assistance. "I didn't have any, so three would've been a riot." Sighing in relief as they finally beat the canvas into surrender, Danta fastens the bag and clambers back to his feet, staring at it for a moment or so like it might explode back out.

Bouncing his eyebrows at the implication of Kaisel being finger-lickin' - and no, he won't take the sentiment back, and maybe one day the other man will get over his fear of dicks enough to realise what he's missing - the Maverick instead offers him a rough but friendly clap on the shoulder. "Ah, don't say that," he says of being done with Dygra. "Besides, you might be done with her but she might not be done with you. That's how gods work. Good luck telling Flora either way, though. And if she kicks you out and you need a place to stay, send a letter and I'll hook you up."

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

Your touch, so foreign, it's supernatural, extraterrestrial

Kaisel is most certain that Charlie knows a great many things he doesn’t, largely given that she’s lapped his age something near a hundred times or something. Maybe more, he doesn’t really remember, and he’ll certainly never be asking her. ”I probably should talk to her again,” he considers with something of a sigh. ”Didn’t exactly end our last conversation in the best way.” His body had made the only choice it could to protect itself and promptly fainted, which is admittedly a weird choice in a high-stress situation. Seems less aimed at intending survival than just blocking out suffering, but it had accomplished both for him this time.

Hearing the low mutter over the wheeze of the tent’s defeat, Kaisel glances skeptically at Danta. ”You really think she’d fuck with me over something as huge as this?” Pranks are things Kaisel could always get behind, but surely she wouldn’t be like Winston from New Girl and take them too far, into parenthood?? Then again, the answer, as he’s swiftly finding with all ancients, is never to assume there’s a line that they won’t cross.

Grumbling some sort of acknowledgement about the rather strong grip of godsm he ruffles the stress through his hair like dry shampoo with a swipe of his hand. ”Thanks, let’s hope it never comes to that.” For many reasons. He grows quiet for a moment then, glancing sidelong at Danta with a frail smile. ”I’m sorry, by the way, for the way I lost my head last time we talked. I realize now though, you’re a cookie, and even though I’m a cupcake, both have their merits as a dessert.” He holds up a fist to bump with Danta in a true sign of bro forgiveness.

Kaisel

Your kiss is cosmic, every move is magic, you're from a whole other world