Worldly

[Laszlo]

The mattress sagged beneath them, old iron springs complaining under the weight of two men when ordinarily it was accustomed to the featherlight build of one Symenestra. The gravity of the incline pulled Laszlo's lighter frame against the Eypharian, who laid so many palms and fingertips across his wan outline that he could almost forget Ifran was still only one person. The desert creature's skin was so warm, almost hot, and with the intimacy of their bodies pressed alongside each other, all Laszlo's discomfort began to melt away entirely. "Not at all…" Laszlo replied in a meandering whisper, still watching his vision slide as he stared up at the rafters. A clawed hand slipped over one of the many forearms which seem to cage him, the tips of his blackened nails drawing experimentally over his taut skin. A mix of ale and comfort weighted his eyelids, his skin tingling and warmed under Ifran's attention. "Wide awake." Laszlo was out of poetry, but had appreciated Ifran's. The Eypharian still regarded him highly, but the false Symenestra had learned to loathe his form outside of Kalinor. Aside from the nightmarish tales associated with the race and his gaunt, unsettling appearance, this body was frail and weak, unable to ward off any conceivable threat. Even lying next to Ifran, who might have even doubled his own weight, he felt vulnerable and fragile, but the warmth in his voice had done well ease his fears. He felt safe here, and protected, embraced, appreciated. Possibly for the first time he could remember since he fell from the sky. For the moment, he almost felt in love, and was inclined to think of Ifran as an agent of Syna come to shield him from the world. The sore stiffness of his limbs arrested his agility as Laszlo shifted to lay upon his side, his candid lavender eyes scouting over Ifran's broad chest. The fangs set in his upper jaw ached, and rested upon the inside of his lower lip. He wanted what ifran did just as greedily, but he was numbed by the night's exhaustion and bitter amber. Laszlo reached out, looking to tease his skin with a playful swipe of claws and the invigorating threat of harm, but the gesture lost its momentum. In one moment Laszlo desired to kiss the Eypharian. In the next, his eyes had shut themselves and he only nestled in Ifran's shoulder.

[Ifran]

Ifran had not exactly expected this, but the turn of events was not outside the realm of possibility. He chuckled soft as sand on silk and settled himself carefully beside the sleeping Symenestra. His hands continued to explore that rangy body, its long limbs and delicate joints, the similarities and disparities between its anatomy and that of a human man or an Eypharian. But eventually he too began to doze, whatever covers could be had pulled over them to mimic the Eyktolian heat. He slept a little, but mostly drowsed, not wanting to miss meeting the dawn with Laszlo whether he awoke for it or not. It was difficult to tell with Alvadas, but when his senses began to speak to him of the impending day, he roused himself, ignored the faint gnawing in his belly, but did not ignore the feel of skin on skin, the excitement of waking. He debated waking Laszlo, but instead waited for what would come naturally.

[Laszlo]

A foreign warmth brought Laszlo from the blackness of sleep, chasing away fragmented dreams and scattered images of a white-haired woman. Distantly he remembered a deeply restful feeling, gliding like a gentle pressure along his limbs and body, sending him deeper into his own head and further away from the world. But the world had returned again, and half-formed emotions and distant knowledge weighted his mind and heart as he parted his lids to reveal citrine eyes. The Ethaefal tensed, uttering an open mouth gasp as he realized he was staring at a man's chest. When his body shifted under the warm layer of bedcovers, he felt bare skin against his own. "Er…" One of Laszlo's sleek, curved horns drove into his pillow as he angled his head upward. Ifran was awake and watching him. "Oh, I…" Rapidly the night before returned to him. His keen night vision had gone, so the room was darker than he remembered. A gray dawn barely penetrated the window, and everything inside the room was colorless but for the remarkable sheen on Ifran's skin. "Ifran…" Laszlo said in a breath, a smile teasing his flush lips. "You're still here. Uh, I don't mean…" A peach colored arm, thicker than the one he'd wielded last night, rolled beneath the blankets and slipped into the cool air, brushing aside his dark, dull brown hair. "I must have… I'm sorry. I'm not usually so disappointing."

[Ifran]

The transformation had been something to behold, and of a surety Ifran felt a pang of jealousy. The divine blood in his veins was diluted, its magic not so flashy as that of this one, his friend. Was that the word? They were not lovers, thanks to Laszlo's inability to cope with drink or the lateness of the hour. Certainly there was something growing between them other than anatomy's morning salute. They were both full of grace now, though he wondered what Laszlo would look like in the dim of an Eyktolian sunrise, the contours of his body lying under a faint veil of silk, or perhaps his limbs shackled and collared in ivory and gold, a divine slave. A horned pet. That, perhaps, was not exactly friendship. "You will make it up to me sometime," he said, a benevolent lilt to his voice, though surely he meant it. He tugged on Laszlo's horn playfully. "You are a marvel of a creature, friend Laszlo. Not man, not god, assuming no fixed form. A wonder and a delight, if prone to narcolepsy. "That is to say, good morning."

[Laszlo]

At Ifran's compliments, a slow, stupid smile spread across Laszlo's dry lips. The molten amber of his eyes slid to the side, under heavy, still-drowsy lids, to get a glimpse of the hand which had found his horn. It wasn't often that people were bold enough to touch them. He decided then that he liked it, and slid his hand over Ifran's to capture it there. Interestingly, Ifran's skin's skin with its almost like metallic bronze, struck suddenly familiar. Laszlo's skin had the same property. It was dizzying to remember that the Eypharian still had six others to spare. The majority of them were still hidden under the bedcovers, where their naked bodies were sidled alongside each other. Rolling further onto his back, so he could more comfortably stare up at Ifran's face, Laszlo's hip brushed something that wasn't a hand. His stomach tightened and he released a surprised sigh. Ifran's ensnared hand was unconsciously squeezed. "Yes, morning…" Laszlo laughed softly, caught between the desire to either withdraw bashfully and curl into a ball, or to finish what alcohol had started. It had been so long since Laszlo had woken up next to anyone, and remembering everything that had happened over the last few months this season, found it to be more of a relief this time than before (when he had politely asked the other to leave). To not wake up alone, and to have such sweet things said to him first thing in the morning… Laszlo had no reason to fight the knotting feelings in his chest. "I can't believe we slept like this," he remarked through a lingering smile. "Or that you didn't leave. Ifran, I…" There wasn't really anything he could think to say. When it occurred to him that his fangs would no longer be in the way, he gave up the idea of talking altogether. He shifted in bed against Ifran, a little more boldly. As Laszlo pressed his body into Ifran's, considerably less slender than it had been several hours ago, he dared to steal a kiss from the Eypharian. It was experimentally gentle, but insistent, leaving Ifran the option to strengthen it if he wanted. Meanwhile, the Ethaefal reclaimed his own hand so he could slip his arm between two of Ifran's, feeling along the middle of his back.

[Ifran]

At first he thought he might have caused offense, touching the horn, but Laszlo did not seem to mind, in fact. His hand was warm for the warm bedclothes, but there was a touch of something that reminded Ifran of the feel of sunlight in the holy precinct of Syna back in Ahnatep, some echo of her grace. Then Laszlo was gushing like a schoolgirl, the which amused Ifran to no end, this eternal being displaying some of the more ungainly behavior of the young. The irony of this juxtaposition was not lost on him. He smiled like the sun coming up, which it was outside. And then there was the kiss, and while he tasted alcohol, it was the faintest miasma over something that just might have been holy. Ifran second-guessed being there, wondering if he would give affront to the sun herself, but Laszlo seemed lonely more than anything, and Ifran could understand that. His lips parted, his weight shifted, and he lay upon Laszlo like a comforting blanket of sand, as if this bed were some tropical beach holding him safe from harm. The hands on his back were welcome; there were few he let into his life these days. The anatomy of an Eypharian was likely as interesting as an Ethaefal's horns. When they paused, when the kiss ended, lapis eyes were open, curious. "It seemed to me that you needed a friendly face when you woke. I assure you nothing untoward happened, despite our flagrant state of undress."

[Laszlo]

"Hah," Laszlo replied nervously, a short laugh breaking through his awkward smile, still tasting the Eypharian on his tongue. Ifran's weight over top of him had sent his heart racing, a feeling that bloomed in his chest and rolled through the rest of his body like a wave of warm water. His hips shifted automatically, adjusting against the titillating intrusion below his waist. Something about Ifran made him feel so awkward and uneasy. Instead of being uncomfortable, however, it made Laszlo feel… curious and electrified. As if he were a virgin. A shaky breath crept its way into Laszlo's lungs past chapped lips and a dry mouth. The musculature across Ifran's back was unusual, but interesting; a hand drew itself across the toned contours of one of his middle arms. Ifran's eyes were so piercing that Laszlo had to distract himself with other parts of his body, sweeping warm gold across his already gilded skin. When he built up the nerve, he looked back up into his face. "That's too bad," he finally replied, his words a little quick and running together. He forgot the half of Ifran's remark which implied he could at all understand his loneliness. It wasn't some common mortal's despair, but it didn't matter that it couldn't be understood. "I was yours all night, and you weren't even tempted?" His horned head slid twisted into the pillow with the tilt of his head. "Had I been a little more conscious, I might have shown you a Symenestra's lust."

[Ifran]

"The unhappy vice of my race is the lack of discipline in their passions." One hand or another moved a lock of hair out of Laszlo's face, the better to see it, surely. Another hand might, perhaps, have been exploring a southerly route. "The true hedonist understands the value of self-abnegation, or at least the delay of satisfaction. Perhaps now you will think me nobler, more caring, a true friend..." His smile was too self-aware; he might have been telling the unvarnished truth or weaving a screen of lies. By pointing out any number of motives, they might all or none have been his. "But forgive me if I mistake the language of ethaefal anatomy, but I do not think that you suffer now from a dearth of lust. Perhaps it is only the morning salute to the sun..." He took it in hand all the same, one of those many hands attending to Laszlo just then.

[Laszlo]

"Can't it be bo—ungh…" Laszlo's reply was caught in his throat and transformed into a groan of pleasure as the ministrations of Ifran's many hands interrupted him. Ensnared under Ifran's weight, he writhed and pressed against the warmth of the other warm body, occasionally cringing at an alarming breach of physical sensitivity and gasping. The Ethaefal was sorely outmatched with his mere two hands. One clenched at the bed sheets in some kind of sweet desperation, while the other squeezed Ifran's top shoulder, begging him to stay close. Laszlo's perfect lips were buried in Ifran's neck, where his teeth grazed flesh. The Eypharian was more calculated than Laszlo had thought, both in mind and body. Had he really held back in self-abnegation, rather than awaiting Laszlo's consent? Or was he merely clever with words? There was something in the desert creature's steely eyes that made him wonder, a spark, a flame, an observant awareness that nearly made the Ethaefal uneasy and wary. The hypnotist in him suddenly feared being used, but any coherent thought was lost to primal desires. Laszlo's lust made his fear into excitement and surrender. He gave Ifran control, that morning. Though Laszlo fought to keep up and reciprocate, Ifran cut him off at every turn, and the Ethaefal's defeat turned the moans that echoed in the upstairs hall through a locked door. Never did he beg for mercy; he didn't want it. Whenever Ifran seemed to slow down, Laszlo would beg him not to. Even after the both of them were finished, and Ifran took his leave, Laszlo stayed in bed another few hours to recover. His roommates would notice him with a slight limp for the rest of the following day, though if asked about it, Laszlo would only flash a smile and shrug. OOCI'm cool with ending it here.

[Bedlam]

Thread Completed!

Laszlo

Experience:
3 Bartending
3 Seduction

Lores:
The Problem with Narcolepsy
What Six Hands Can Do
Eypharian Bodies

Ifran

Experience:
1 Philopshy
5 Seduction

Lores:
The Inside of a Sun
A Spider Sleeping
Laszlo, A Spider by Moonlight

Notes:

A year ago I would have been a little terrified of grading this sort of thread. Now it’s just a daily excursion. You people are building up my tolerance for romance, I think. A good thread, and I hope for more.