psltagon | EVENT 01: Welcome to the Pentagon!

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ic: events

EVENT 01: Welcome to the Pentagon!

WELCOME TO THE PENTAGON!

Picture a Las Vegas sized hotel, but with no casino. It's just very big. And there is no gift shop.

The Pentagon welcomes you...

You wake up from a doze seated in a firm lobby chair. Walked through a set of automatic sliding doors, bag in tow. Where did you get that bag? Listen, don't worry about it.

- All guests to the Pentagon arrived with a medium-sized standard rolling bag. It is filled with any items they would have brought with them if they had time to pack a standard rolling bag before they left. Weapons are okay!
- All guests may bring one living animal. The animal will retain any powers it may have as long as it is not worldbreaking.
- All guests will have their powers. They will not be allowed to use it to break the world. They may break other things, but they will be pulled aside by one of the receptionists for a Talking To. They may be barred from the hotel for the night and it gets cold outside the Pentagon!
- Guests are not limited to standard entry to the hotel. However, if they break hotel property upon entry, they will be expected to pay for repairs. Method of payment will come as soon as I'm not fuckballs tired.

Things to do:

- Check in! There is a handy dandy receptionist at the front desk ready to take your name and your reservation. Yes, you have a reservation! It's here, in this shared suite. You don't remember making that reservation? What a pity. Well, while we get you resituated in the system, I suppose you will have to make peace with your roommate. Please don't fuck up your relationship with your roommate, that would be so terribly awkward. If you would like to trade rooms, that is fine, but please notify the front desk with all involved parties with the details of the room change! Also, please allow one day for admin to catch up with bookings before you trade rooms! Try to be nice to your one night roomie okay okay

- Get breakfast! A free continental breakfast is served from 6 am to 10 am. Please come by for fresh food!

- Chill in the lobby! When it isn't doubling as the breakfast area, the lobby area functions as both a waiting room, a meeting place, and a chill seating area in case you don't want to eat your gas station hotdog at the gas station like a neanderthal. wow.

- Find your room!
Each suite has a:
- kitchenette (one pot, one pan, plastic silverware, paper plates and bowls. no food. that's at the gas station across the street.)
- microwave
- fridge (with drinks! you will have to pay for them if you take them. it's going to be Esspensive.)
- two beds (small, but very comfy)
- bathroom with bath and shower (with standard toiletries. if you need more, you can call the front desk! there are towels, but if you make a real mess, call the front desk for fresh ones.)
- toilet (no bidet)
- closet (3 hangers, one extra set of sheets, one extra comforter, two extra pillows, a small ironing board, an iron)
- shared side table (two drawer compartments, one for each bed; there are outlets for electronics)
- wardrobe (just one, but it's big! please share.)
- desk with rolling chair (just one! again, please share. also: a notepad with a cheap ballpoint pen, a phone, and a phone directory for standard hotel amenities)
- pullout bed couch (for more guests! this bed is far less comfy than the standard beds.)
- television (with standard cable and standard trash programming. nothing particular stands out about the programming.)

- book shop? ... There is a bookshop where the gift shop should be. Where did it come from? Perhaps it's always been there, in the same way the faceless staff of the Pentagon have always been there. There is currently caution tape over the front entrance. Although the entrance isn't locked, it is not advised to enter the bookshop early. Who knows what might happen (the people who were in the City knows what will happen no don't touch that—)

- gas station? across the street? The street stretches into the horizon. This place is flat. so very flat. but there's a gas station.
- fresh produce (limited, but good variety. may be slightly wilted.)
- standard basic groceries (including pet food for your Living Creatures)
- liquor section (we in the south now boyzzz)
- lotto ticket machine (?)
- chargers/small electronics
- wall o candy
- basic amenities and toiletries(fancier than hotel amenities but not by much)
- magazines!
- slushy machine
- coffee machine
- rolling hotdogs
- hot fast food
- car maintenance products. you know. for your car
- gas station guy. nice guy
How do you pay? the gas station guy will charge it to your room! Who's paying for your room? Erm. Tehe. pero

You can also go to the gas station guy and buy a bus ticket to Sin City for a vacay. Sin City is great! Lots to do in Sin City. Buses to Sin City leave every Wednesday evening — don't be late! However, after a month at maximum, you will be back in your room in the Pentagon. Guess the hotel likes you!

Other hotel amenities. This hotel isn't 5 star, but it isn't 3 star either! Standard fancy hotel amenities, such as a small gym, a pool and sauna, a well maintained laundry room, a small spa, and a business center with computers and print station also exist. The only amenity that does not exist is the standard fancy hotel restaurant. Make your food yourselves!!

welcome nerds. enjoy your stay!

OOC:
- I will make a receptionist thread. please feel free to add your character to the queue for a randomly selected room! if you would like to also have a conversation with one of our three randomly selected receptionists, please say so in your comment. thank. EDIT: room assignments are here! please add any new characters to any random rooms you like. if you change rooms, please be sure to update the spreadsheet. thank yoooou
- i'll make up how to make money and pay for stuff later. for now please don't starve just buy stuff it's Fine
- electricity works. there's local internet but search engines bring up very little about the area. gps does NOT work (for now)
- uh that's it i'm tired please tell me if i missed anything

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[ A nod. A deep, cavernous sigh, the kind dogs let out while lying in their down beds with no particular reason why they'd sigh. It feels nice to have Kaveh's weight on top of him, the scent of his hair in his nose. ]

I was very foolish with him, I think. I've broken my promise, if only in spirit.

[ He mustn't bring harm to Alhaitham. Now that he thinks about it, he didn't even try. ]

[ kaveh is very, very still. ]

Did you... kill him?

[ A soft sound of surprise, but... of course. He's never given Kaveh a reason to believe that he wouldn't kill him. ]

No. I simply don't process rejection well enough to hide the less than beautiful parts from his all too keen eyes.

[ something in kaveh gives out. the relief leaves him boneless. his fist uncurls from midnight's collar as he breathes in, then out, and then makes a face like someone's just served him an entire lemon whole. ]

Ah, you didn't kill him. That's good. [ that's more than good. it's not the only way to hurt someone, and it's not the only thing that kaveh wouldn't forgive, but that's good. ] But in translation: what that means is, Alhaitham saw through you, and you reacted badly? Don't skimp on the details now. We've gotten so far. Tell me everything.

[ Because Midnight has no choice, because they've gotten this far, that's what he does: he briefly explains the nature of Sin City, the way he avoided speaking to Alhaitham at first, how the nature of the city and Alhaitham's own inquisitive nature made Midnight's attraction very obvious. How Midnight figured the kindest thing to do was to keep Alhaitham at a polite distance, as far as that was possible in the city, at least until he and Sin City's Kaveh worked things out.

He failed, obviously. He tries to explain why. ]

He saw through my efforts to stay distant, but couldn't fathom why I might do so. I'm... afraid that I may have given up the lead too quickly. Told him that he had to talk to Kaveh first before he continued things with me...

[ ... A weak shrug. ]

I shouldn't have let him apply pressure to me. He told me he could give me what I wanted... It was only after I told him what I wanted when he realized that he'd offered more than he could give.

[ kaveh listens. he does not interrupt, not this time. the words come slowly, haltingly, but he takes them in as they are offered, each one settling into place with a quiet inevitablilty.

somewhere in the telling, he understands.

this is what kaveh understands: that he should have fought tooth and nail against the sinducer for holding the three of them against their will in a land as twisted as sin city is. that he should have seen through the bravado midnight had put on during that one fated phone call across dimensions and put a stop to it. that he should have understood better what was it that alhaitham had wanted. the shape of this understanding is familiar. it's the same gravity pulling at the same fault lines, the same careful distance that had never truly been demarcated after all. kaveh sits on a crumbling continent of his own making. he had set the fault lines himself, and watched midnight bleed.

for a fleeting moment, something like pride touches kaveh. through it all, it was both sharp, and bright. alhaitham had seen through it. of course he had. alhaitham always did see through things eventually, once he decided they were worth examining, and he had offered kindness whereas a lesser man might have taken advantage. had been cruel. kaveh knew that about him. but that pride only lasts a faint heartbeat, because the thought can't bring comfort. kaveh won't allow it. beneath the pride is the realisation that midnight had wanted something. not a game, not a passing curiosity, not a cruel joke or a barbed taunt, but something real enough that he had risked it saying aloud. risked the mortification of being known just so that he could have a chance at something that kaveh had put out of his reach.

the sudden weight of it lands. his hand curls against midnight's chest without any conscious recognition of it, fingers tightening in the fabric there as the understanding settles deeper. pride gives way to a hollow stillness the kind that comes when the midn moves ahead of the heart and finds the place where blame waits.

midnight had only walked the path that kaveh himself had laid down, built the architecture that had caged him. for a moment, kaveh can't quite breathe. ]

Oh, Midnight. [ he says, slow and devastated.

'i did this, didn't i' are words that kaveh has no right to say. he has lost the right to do so the moment midnight walked into the distance that kaveh had built. a distance that that is only measured after someone tries to cross it. ] You were only trying to honour a promise I never made easy to keep. I'm sorry - I'm so, so sorry.

To think that you were avoiding me because you thought I would hurt you over this - I ought to have run from you in shame.

[ A beat. A soft snort. ]

There you are. Blaming yourself for something you could hardly control. I did say that I did very little to discourage him from getting closer, didn't I?

[ Midnight's hand comes up to stroke down Kaveh's spine. ]

Blame my relentless optimism, darling. I thought I could stay just far enough. That I could stay in his periphery, revealing nothing, being nothing but an admirer. To partake in occasional enjoyment in the company of that serious, all too earnest man. I'm not nearly strong enough to resist him, as it turns out.

[ Kaveh's hair and skin are warm, scented with jasmine and soap. Any bitterness, any indignation Midnight could feel about his situation seeps from his body, pressed out of him with Kaveh's weight. How could it not? He is loved and loves in return. ]

I only blame my ignorance. I did break my promise, after all, and I haven't much experience with what comes after a broken promise. I tend to keep them, you see... I apologize. I didn't know what kind of person you would be in light of my failed duty.

[ the hand on his back is midnight's kindness. it's meant to soothe. it moves with the steady patience of one might use for a restleass cat, or a nervous animal coaxed out of hiding, and kaveh wants badly to feel comforted. but comfort, like architecture, depends on its foundations, and kaveh has never trusted his own.

what kaveh's foundations have wrought: midnight should have been allowed optimism. it should have been allowed. admiration drifting into companionship, two men who loved books and loved learning sharing that same, cloistered space with their heads tilted into one another. and yes, both of them drove him absolutely up the wall, but there's a shared language there that kaveh had imagined for alhaitham and midnight a long time ago. nothing about that deserved the weight of vows and promises and invisible boundaries no one had thought to map.

if kaveh had not laid those foundations so poorly.

midnight should have been allowed to walk towards alhaitham without feeling as though the ground might colapse beneath him. to need to resist him-

...

the thought grounds to a delicate halt.

resist him?

kaveh lifts his head. he looks. ]

Midnight, [ the words come before kaveh has had a chance to think them through, which is not an unusual state of being for kaveh, ] do you love Alhaitham?

[ ... A soft huff. ]

Really... Why would you ask me a question like that?

[ Neither a yes nor a no. Midnight's eyes look into Kaveh's, the deepest, purest, vampire red. What can he say? What could possibly be done? ]

Foolish man. How can I answer that question in good conscience?

[ Kaveh's promise isn't the only one he must keep, here, so what kind of answer could Midnight possibly hope to give? Midnight's voice remains gentle, though, even indulgent. He smiles. This is all very comical, really. ]

[ that's not an answer, kaveh thinks. and then - it is an answer, for it all being not an answer. ]

Midnight, [ kaveh says, again, because he will never learn his lesson. he will never think things through before he says what he means, because doing so will make him less him. ] you love him.

I love everyone, Kaveh.

[ It's confirmation. It's also a denial. ]

You do not. You treat yourself with less love than I would afford for the men and women who trapped us in the City's simulation! [ says kaveh, his finger driving itself back into midnight's chest. ] Don't lie to me, Midnight, by omission or otherwise!

[ Midnight takes Kaveh's hand and leaves a kiss on the palm. ]

I love him as much as I love you, my heart.

[ The truth, but probably not in the form Kaveh wants. Less because it's sidestepping the point, more because it's doing quite the opposite of sidestepping the point. Midnight wonders if Kaveh will notice this time. ]

[ kaveh's fist winds against into midnight's collar. he drags him in by the throat until their foreheads bump. it's not a gentle bump. ]

Didn't I just say to stop lying to me? [ but the exasperation is something lighter, something relieved, as if a single, recalcitrant puzzle piece has finally found its way back into the jagged cloiser of its home. something begins to make sense - midnight's distance in the city. the way he ran from kaveh. the way he pushed alhaitham away. he way he always looked to kaveh first and alhaitham next, before he thought of himself. 'and let me tell you that I would not think a second to remove him from your life.', midnight had said, with his face very, very close. kaveh had thought he meant death.

he loved, and loves alhaitham. kaveh's fist in midnight's collar softens. he knows what that is like. ]

But luckily for you, I believe in what you have to say, even if you consistently choose to put it in ways that obfuscate what your wishes are. [ that hand reaches up to steady midnight's cheek. his other hand follows. ] Stop it, with the running, and the hiding, and the distance. I'm sorry if I've scared you. You scared me. It seems that we've scared each other, and I'd like to do less of it. But for what it's worth, I am sorry that I put you and the other Alhaitham into that position.

You needn't hold yourself back from anyone.

I needn't hold myself back...

[ Another soft laugh. Unfortunately for Kaveh, Midnight had always meant death. ]

You needn't apologize for that which was never your fault. Darling, don't you know what it is that Alhaitham couldn't give me? The one impossible thing I asked of him. If he cannot give me that which I desire... Then nothing changes. You were never at fault from the start.

Oh, now I'm just angry. You haven't given him a chance, and you haven't given yourself a chance!

[ there is frustration in the way that he shakes midnight's head, just a little. ] But that's neither a conversation that I ought to have in your bed, nor is it something that we need to address right now. Midnight, are you going to continue to run from me?

I gave him a chance. He said he couldn't.

[ Another laugh as his head squishes between Kaveh's hands, In a perfect world where Midnight started over with the cleanest slate imaginable, it still didn't work. Alhaitham told him no. So it goes.

A soft hum. ]

Will you always love me, darling?

He hardly knew you. With Alhaitham, it takes years. That was no chance, that was a calculated heartbreak.

[ to break his own heart, kaveh thinks. nobody else's.

he breathes out. ]

Of course? Why wouldn't I? In every form, in every iteration, with every success and mistake - it's still you.

He was never meant to get that close, love.

[ Heartbreak, but it was hardly calculated. Alhaitham pried the truth from Midnight's lips, but couldn't have possibly predicted the shape of that truth. If Midnight had exercised his due diligence, Alhaitham would have never gotten close enough to find the fulcrum to Midnight's heart... This, too, was Midnight's doing. Kaveh's promise wasn't a cage. It was a palace, and Midnight chose to step outside its walls for a conclusion he had known from the start.

(He hadn't realized how difficult it would be to breathe with Alhaitham bearing down on him for the truth.) ]

Then you will always find me, and I will come to meet you. It...

[ ... Midnight looks askance. That isn't quite true, but the caveat is so flagrantly selfish that he has never put the idea to words. Not love, not forgiveness, not acceptance. What does Midnight truly want...? ]

... I will contact you. I promise.

I don't believe that, so this matter is not settled.

[ as with many things that are left unsettled. but kaveh has started realise that nothing in life is ever settled. a broken home, a woman's cries, a house without a home and its roof come crashing down - that had once seemed like something settled, too. but a single stone tossed into that ripple of a well had caused a stir, and kaveh had realised that there had been water in the desert after all.

this is all too much for a single day, and the fact that midnight is whole, and hale, is everything that he's need this past week. kaveh pulls midnight to him. he presses a kiss to where their heads had bumped, warm, and fierce. it's a kiss that's less promise and more threat of what is to come. ]

Do so, because this matter is also not settled. But Midnight - [ kaveh's expression finally breaks the way storms dash against indomitable coasts, ] I'm glad you're alive. I'm glad you're here. And I'm glad above all else that you are precise the Midnight I remember. One that loves, and is kind, and is just a little cowardly, too. I would not have it any other way, love.

I fear nothing in this world.

[ And perhaps that is a little cross as it comes out, as easily mollified by Kaveh's kisses as he is. Little windows of Midnight's true nature pop through whenever Kaveh comes to see him: the love and affection, sure, but also the sullen, sulky flare of his all too well hidden temper. He can't seem to stop it from happening, and he can't fathom why Kaveh keeps pushing to see those parts of him. Perhaps that's why he fears him so terribly well. The more Kaveh pushes, the more likely something truly awful will come out of him someday...

He pulls Kaveh back to him for a moment, thinking while their hearts pound against each other. ]

Kaveh, darling. It... hurt quite terribly. To be without you. To live in your absence.

[ Midnight's eyes flutter shut. ]

I will always have my adel, but they are not you, nor are you them. I felt your absence specifically, keenly. Do you understand?

[ midnight pulls kaveh to him. kaveh allows it, because this is midnight. aside from the obvious faith that he would never harm him, there is the knowledge that midnight needs this, and kaveh, for all of his inadequacies, can provide it with something so little as his mere presence. he doesn't understand it, nor does he quite understand what it is that midnight needs, but his instincts tell him so, and he's never been able to turn away from them.

i feel your absence keenly, midnight says. kaveh snorts, an inelegant little sound against midnight's shoulder. he wraps his arm around in a hug, fierce, and just a little exasperated. ]

If that is truly how you feel, Midnight, then you ought to at least fear the threat of me! Especially behind closed doors. Don't start that with me - I know for a fact from your own lips that there was another one of me there. He must have gone easy on you if you can forget him so easily. [ kaveh's fingers dig into midnight's back. ] That is to say - you've never lived in my absence. Not once. If you are hurt by even the notion of it, then I will simply have to teach you what it's like to have me around all the time, so that you won't forget it this time.

[ A muffled hum. Midnight's buried his face in Kaveh's shoulder. Kaveh's nails dig into his back. Good. ]

Never leave me again, then. Please.

[ ... And here are where the waterworks come in. Midnight, as it turns out, deals with partings with very little grace and dignity, His massive shoulders tremble as he cries quietly for a moment or two. ]

[ it seems to kaveh that midnight fears rather a lot in this world. of anger, of loneliness, of partings. it's that sort of tears that soak into kaveh's shoulder, has kaveh pull midnight in closer, as if by doing so, he can stem its flow. but sometimes, you simply need to cry. he wonders with that self-same guilt if midnight had allowed himself to cry, after he had left the city and were consigned to a new land with netzach and yesod in tow. if he had allowed himself even a single moment of vulnerability knowing that he had two loved ones to protect, who looked to him for support and protection and safety. for him to be strong.

his mother had cried, when his father had died. he didn't think her weak for it. rather, those were the tears that were the proof of her strength, of her love for her father. kaveh had been there to witness those tears. they proved without a shadow of doubt that she had once existed. kaveh's nails scrape themselves back and forth along midnight's back, as if to carve that truth into him without words. he will never succeed, but that has never meant that kaveh won't try. ]

I won't, Midnight. I won't leave you to shoulder this alone.

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EVENT 01: Welcome to the Pentagon!

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