not_every_mage | Room 322, Tuesday Afternoon

Room 322, Tuesday Afternoon

If Anders was being honest, he'd have to admit that the tall box from Kathy that Ringo had given him some months before had fallen completely out of his mind.

It had started with good intentions: He'd dragged the parcel back to his room and stuck it in the closet so he could save it for his actual birthday and feel like Kathy was there, just for a moment. And then there had been the madness of trying to summon a demon, and the dull terror of the Circle, and by the time he was home again his birthday was some weeks past and the tall package entirely forgotten in a back corner of his closet. The fact thinking about Kathy hurt and he avoided it when he could had only added to his amnesia.

It might have stayed there forever, if Lachlan hadn't managed to hit one of his toy mice deep into the closet. Anders went digging through a mess of discarded paper to find it, and ended up bumping into the box. The tall, slender package wobbled worryingly for a moment before he was able to catch it.

And then there was nothing to do but open it. Lachlan's mouse was forgotten as he pried the paper off and found --

A damned fine staff. The kind he'd never expect to afford on his own. He could feel its power singing to him as he held it in his lap. Some part of him couldn't wait to get to a space where he could test it safely.

The rest of him mainly wanted to cry.

"Dammit, Kathy," he muttered. "Just ... damn it."

[OOC: Cracked door, open post.]

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Anders smiled, shook his head. "I don't know what else to say," he admitted. "I just -- miss her. And I'm angry. And we just have to get past it, don't we? All the powers we have, and nothing we can do about this."

"Powered but powerless," Dante said. Thoughtfully. And-- a little halting, as he tried to keep talking. Doing so to another human being who was listening wasn't something he really knew how to do, and he knew it'd been showing already. "It's... not like that was new to either of us, even before."

It'd just been their own seperate little tragedies, instead of the one they shared.

"Keeping going right past it's... not hard for me," he said. "I get reminded about her all the time, but... Stopping and thinking about it is harder. You know?"

"I know," Anders said. "I think about her every time I order takeout, or play on the internet, or see a picture of ~~meta~~ Iron Man. Sometimes it's nice, but sometimes --"

He shrugged, also halting. "Sometimes I wish I hadn't known her so well. Especially since it's different for her to be gone completely than it is for Nathan or Karl to be alive but not with me, you know?"

Dante was silent for a second. Two. Three. Maybe longer, he didn't know. "I do and I don't," he said finally. "I didn't have friends like you guys before I came here. Before that, if people gave a shit at all, they were there, and then one day they just-- weren't."

A beat.

"Here wasn't supposed to be like that."

"It is, though," Anders said softly. "Maybe everyplace is like that."

There was a depressing thought.

"Probably," Dante said quietly. "Guess I let her get my hopes up about something anyway. Fucking Kathy."

Anders sighed in agreement instead of answering, swaying against Dante.

This was just hard, was what it was. He didn't know what more to say about it.

Sometimes there wasn't a whole lot to say. This just hurt. He knew Anders didn't hurt quite the same, but it was close enough.

Dante turned to kiss Anders firmly on the cheek. Brought his hand up to undo Anders' hairtie so he could run a hand through his hair too.

Fuck.

Fuck. This was stupid. But they were better at it than they were at talking about feelings, so ...

Anders turned his mouth to return a warmer kiss, pressing his lips to Dante's.

That wasn't what Dante'd been going for. ...Or maybe it had been.

He slid his other arm over Anders' shoulders, too, sighed, and kissed him back. Slow, with no real purpose in mind.

Maybe he was just starting to discover he had a real problem saying no to Anders.

Anders would have said he understood, that he knew he was hard to say no to.

He relaxed into the kissing, taking a cue from Anders to keep it slow. Light. Even as he leaned back onto the bed, it was more about comfort than lust.

Probably there were arguments against having this kind of comfortable physical relationship with Dante, especially after the man had made it so clear that he might have to leave someday too. But right then, Anders couldn't think of any.

And because it was light, Dante managed the presence of mind required to put the staff down on the floor before it just tumbled right off the bed. He settled over Anders, trying not to break contact for too long. His hand slid up and under Anders' shirt, just... touching.

Sex, distraction and comfort had always had a weird, unhealthy relationship with each other for him anyway; if there were pitfalls there, it didn't even occur to him to think about it.

Anders started and then giggled when the staff hit the ground, then brought his hand up to rest on Dante's back.

After a few moments, his kissing became more intent.

Dante managed a brief, soft chuckle at that giggle.

Anders was distracting him more fully shortly after, though, and he let his remaining thoughts drift off to the wind. He pulled on the shirt, tried to work it over Anders' head without breaking away too much, his hips pressing down of their own accord.

Anders' hips rose to meet Dante's, and he moved his arms so his shirt would come the rest of the way off before tugging on Dante's in return. He could never resist skin on skin.

If he was thinking at all, he was thinking that this was probably the best end to his breakdown over Kathy's gift that he could have asked for.

Dante smiled faintly to himself as he tossed his shirt aside. And then it wasn't so much smiling to himself anymore as smiling at Anders. "Hey," he said softly, and kissed Anders again, cupping Anders' face with both hands.

"Hey back," Anders said, and something about the way Dante was looking at him made his toes curl in happiness. "I think this is making me feel better."

"Good," Dante said quietly. He dipped down and kissed Anders' throat. Gently, for his standards. "I want you to feel better."

"And I want to feel you better," Anders said, which he knew was probably terrible even as it amused him. "So we're a good team."

He reached to unzip Dante's pants, just to make the point a little more obvious.

Dante chuckled faintly, because he had to appreciate the attempt if nothing else. "Fine, fine," he said, as he moved to return the favor with Anders' pants.

He nipped at Anders' jaw and whispered, "So what do you wanna--?"

Anders squirmed happily. "Would it be boring if I said just kissing and hands?" he asked.

Dante pressed a few kisses into his neck. His hand slid into Anders' pants, wrapping around his length.

"Nah," he said, his mouth working its way back up. "I think we can rock it."

"We always do," Anders returned as he grasped Dante's rod and worked his thumb around the head. He kissed Dante again, letting his tongue tangle with Dante's.

Dante made a soft noise in the back of his throat as Anders touched him, channeling the feel of it into the kiss. His hand pumped Anders slowly, until it slid further down still to play with his balls, but he wasn't thinking all that much about technique or-- any of that.

It was Anders' tongue that drew a shiver out of him, made him press closer, shutting his eyes and following Anders' lead entirely.

Even when Dante wasn't thinking about technique, his technique was nothing to complain about. Anders whimpered in need, toes curling against the sheets.

He kept working his hand over Dante's flesh, keeping his touches as slow as he thought Dante could stand.

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