strangetrip | [GP] Shoot that poison arrow

[GP] Shoot that poison arrow

None of the guests noticed when the spiky-haired man-child in jeans and purple t-shirt, wrists wrapped in cheap leather and metal bracelets, arrived at the Madonna Inn a few hours before midnight on February 13. That, in itself, wasn't all that surprising. Eros, otherwise known as Danny Valentine, had millennia of experience doing his job without being spotted.

What was surprising was that the dude at the front desk did see him. Tall and Nondescript waved him over and then gave him a room number 'in case you wanted to rest'. But Danny didn't.

Want to, or rest. He spent the time before the clock struck midnight polishing his love gun. Not like that. He'd find a girl to spend his nameday with. He always did. No, this little beauty was made by Hephaestus himself. It shot love darts that disappeared on contact.

At midnight, kitted out with more love darts than there were people in this pink and gold monstrosity, Danny left his room and shot the first person he saw--and didn't wait to see what would happen.

No point getting a slow start. He had a lot of work to do.

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It was probably a measure of his surprise, part of Ignis thought, that he didn't react to the shattering dishes. A man climbing onto the counter should have earned more of a reaction even than that, and taking his glasses as well... really, he should have stopped the whole thing as soon as that warm hand started up his arm. Should have stepped away, reestablished the impersonal (did either of them even know the other's name?), should have....

But of course, Ignis didn't do any of that. Instead, he marveled at the grace that could move a body from beside him to before and above him with, as far as he could tell, only a gentle brace to the back of Ignis's neck as an anchor. And he responded almost embarrassingly quickly to the mouth on his, moving to taste the other man in return as his own hand slid and found a resting-place on... yes, that was definitely a man's waist.

Warm, and willing, pliant and returning such touches, he was utterly delightful, deserving of the whisper-soft moan - if not for the protective restrictions of his armor, the other would have seen the full extent of Vax'ildan's bliss. And then their clothes were suddenly a hateful problem that needed fixing. Talented thieving fingers had no trouble in both holding one arm of the glasses and plucking open the first few of the chef's shirt buttons, making short work of...

Then the compulsion abruptly faded. The arousal itself pointedly didn't, but it wasn't the all-consuming craving it had just been. His body still agreed that this all felt like a wonderful idea, the sex. Vax's mind, however, woke to reason once more as if splashed with a bucket of cold water. What the fuck was he doing?!

He withdrew from the kiss, careful, but with a purposeful break of their mouths, the line of his body shifting back. "Holy...fucking... What am I doing?" He really didn't know if the question was for himself or the fellow he'd just attacked.

Thinking about anything other than how to get back to the sudden but shockingly welcome intimacy felt monumentally difficult, but Ignis was used to discipline and forced his mind into gear at the question. Whether or not it was actually addressed to him, the question itself was meaningful in one specific way: the other had not been in his right mind during the brief interlude. Had he been, there would be no need to ask what he was doing, he would already know.

It was, in all, less harmful than the delusions that had ended in Noct flinging Prompto - a dear friend - off a moving train. True, there was some little pain to Ignis himself, it was an old pain that could be crushed down and ignored quite easily. He'd known better, or should have, and gone ahead anyway. For reasons that would bear considering, however unimportant in practical terms they were likely to be.

Regretfully, he traced the other's arm just to reach the hand that yes, still had his shades, take them back, and slide them back on, covering his eyes and a portion of old scars once again. Thus re-armored, he attempted lightness. "Breaking dishes, climbing on my counter, and borrowing glasses, among other things."

All of which was awful behavior to begin with - but nothing compared to the real dick move perpetrated here. Vax actually stared at him for a beat, marveling at the relatively unfazed reaction. He might've chuckled, if he wasn't currently rattled.

Vax'ildan slowly extracted himself from the man's personal space, looking especially pale as he slid back down off of the counter. "I... Sorry doesn't begin to cover it," he tried feebly. "I don't know how it happened." He knew more or less what had happened, having seen others go at it all day, but still not the how of the thing. "Gods, but I am sorry. I'm not usually a raving sex maniac. I don't even know your fucking name," he admitted.

Not knowing what else to do to try and make it right, Vax started to collect in his hands the bits and shards of the dishware he'd broken in his...enthusiasm.

"No apologies required." Really, they were only a reminder of the various unrealities involved in the whole thing. "The last time I experienced someone being compelled to act against their actual will, a dear friend ended up flung off a moving train, captured, and tortured." And it had been, all things considered, the purest good fortune that they'd recovered Prompto alive if not precisely unharmed. Ignis paired the explanation with casually redoing the buttons on his shirt that had been... undone. More armor, returning to the straightforward (and empty) normal becoming easier and easier moment by moment.

"This is decidedly not that, my name is Ignis," and his head turned at the distinctive shower of clinks of ceramic bits being gathered, "and you'll drop those, please. I've a broom somewhere around here, and adding your blood to broken glass would only call for a mop as well."

Maybe he hadn't tried to kill Ignis, but still. Though now that Vax considered it, Ignis hadn't exactly tried to fend him off either.

"You're cool as a cucumber, aren't you Ignis?" He twisted a wry smile at the man in spite of it all, obliging to let the shards fall to the floor and clearing the counter of the other stray bits similarly. "...And a fine kisser, for what it's worth," he tried to make light of the spectacle, rather than letting the guilt of it weigh on him too heavily in mixed company. He could do Ignis that much, at least.

"Neither, in truth." Though the compliment, however little it meant as anything other than playing along, was secretly, stupidly warming. "I'm simply practical." Ignis shrugged slightly and moved to fetch the broom he'd mentioned, as well as some items to clean off the countertop in case food needed to rest there again. "I should have realized something was wrong from the start, given everything. In that light, it's far more appropriate I apologize to you. And, incidentally-"

Ignis called one of his daggers to the hand not gripping a broom as he passed the other man's presence, held it up, then dropped it back into the armory quickly enough to be demonstration, not threat. "I assure you that if I'd had any objections you would be feeling them in your spleen."

"You're one of those, at least," Vax offered a friendly compromise. He'd even let the other man figure which would be which.

His eyes widened, once he'd seen that little flash of magic. "So much the better for my spleen," he answered, though his past tense personal safety was less interesting than whatever he'd just seen Ignis do. "You've got magic daggers?"

"Daggers, a lance, and various types of grenade." It was remotely possible that the weapons themselves weren't magical, and that property belonged only to the armory that contained them, but... well, most weapons didn't touch daemons, and his did. Magical enough for anyone. "

Nearly the same level of magic as the emphasis being on the 'magic daggers' rather the 'you' in that question, really. Even after ten years, the idea that he couldn't fight without eyes stung. "My preference is the daggers, but the others have their uses. All of your internal organs are safe, for the record."

"My innards thank you very much for that," Vax suggested, reaching to take the broom away from Ignis. It was his mess, after all, and keen vision did have a few things going for it.

"Where exactly are you keeping those lovely toys of yours?" He wondered if Ignis conjured them, or if it was a bag-of-holding type of situation.

Ignis let the broom go without a fuss - eyes did make sweeping-up easier, and clearly helping out in some way would soothe him. The counter likely needed a more thorough wiping-down than could be done easily while talking, so he set down those supplies and moved to a different, nearby counter to start thinly slicing cucumber. "I have access to a sort of extradimensional space called an armory." One of many instances of borrowing Noctis's magic, he'd always thought, but even if that had been true originally, the armory continued to work and exist even when Noct... didn't. "Weapons specifically bonded to me rest there, for me to access readily at need. As I am unable to store anything else within, it's less useful than you might think. Beyond, of course, never being unarmed."

So more like the bag, from the sound of it. But without needing even a bag.

"I wouldn't dismiss that so quickly," Vax countered, lamenting his sweeping of a few dirty pear wedges that had doubtless been artfully arranged before he'd gone and upset them. "I never leave home without a little something if I can help it."

"Ah, there's our difference. I've not had a home to leave in over a decade, and would thus have found the ability to hold supplies in the armory infinitely more useful than hidden weaponry, had I the option." Being limited to his own carrying capacity had necessitated a certain amount of creativity, over the years. "I imagine being visibly armed would have had certain benefits as well, if only in reducing any appearance of being easy prey for daemons."

'Home' was a flexible concept for Vax'ildan as it was. It had been a simple life with Vex and their mother, once. It had never been Syngorn, really. Home certainly wasn't a place, not Emon or even Greyskull Keep. It was his sister and Vax Machina, if it was anything.

Having whisked up what broken shards he'd found into a pile, Vax noted a shallow, angled shape clipped to the pole of the broom. It came off easily for sweeping his mess into. Clever, that.

"You say you were fighting demons?" He didn't pronounce it the way Ignis had done - not to correct the man, so much as being used to it.

Ignis let the slight difference pass; there were many who didn't include the subtle 'a' sound in the word, and he had to admit it made very little difference. "Indeed. Each one I killed was one less to challenge the sunlamps." Theoretically, anyway. The people huddled under the lamps felt better for knowing others fought for their safety, but whether his efforts had actually reduced the horde's numbers at all, Ignis couldn't say.

Cucumber sliced, he moved on to pull a heavy ceramic dish out of the oven where it had been keeping warm and stir the contents of a large pot. "Are there no daemons where you come from?"

Vax stopped for a moment where he stood with the pan full of debris. Flashes of memory flickered through his mind - that creature wearing his dear friend's snarling face, blade cutting deep into Vax's abdomen. Throwing himself out a second-story window. The tearing of his flesh under a cruel robe. That thing was still out there, biding his time.

"Yeah, there are," Vax admitted softly, moving to dump the clutter into a nearby trash bin. "And other monstrous things besides."

That was decidedly the voice of experience. Ignis bowed his head slightly - respect for whatever the loss had been, but easily construed as simply a nod if that was better. "There were things other than daemons in my world as well, once. The daemons took care of them, at least." It wasn't remotely a relief or a mercy, that.

Putting the broom back from whence it came, Vax only then remembered he'd actually come in for a bite. ...For food. Not that he'd earned it, but he decided he may as well see what it was Ignis had going back there. The man didn't seem like he was intending to hold a grudge about the whole thing, so he might still be willing to feed his molester.

He drifted back to the stools in front of the counter, having a seat to watch. "Is your world overrun with them, then?"

"Almost entirely." Ignis spared a quick smile in the general direction of where Vax's movement had stilled; he hadn't missed the sweeping-up sounds, the trash being disposed of, or - wonder of wonders - the broom being put away again. He wouldn't have to clean up after his help cleaning up.

Focusing on cooking was perhaps not as easy as usual, but Ignis chalked that up to having an audience when he was no longer used to one. Nevertheless, it was probably a good thing that what he was doing was simple assembly. Some pork belly from the pot, steam-bun-like bread from the oven dish, cucumber slices, lettuce.... "They used to come out at night, and were destroyed by sunlight. Once the sun stopped rising, nothing much stopped them. Fortunately, there are a few areas with sunlamps and such, so some civilization still exists."

The half-elf's empty stomach kept Vax's attention fixed on the unusual combination of salty, savory-smelling meat and light, crisp veg with pillow-soft looking bun, so that he didn't look up until be heard something too big to be ignored. "Your sun stopped rising? How could that be?"

"Rather a complicated cosmological tangle. Suffice to say that several gods died as well as the people keeping the whole demon scourge at bay." It was a vast, gross oversimplification that didn't even go into Noctis's role, but Ignis felt that, on the whole, he'd prefer to be much drunker before getting into all of that. Certainly for talking about Noctis.

Ignis finished putting two buns together, folded them over, put them on a plate, and set them in front of where he assumed his companion was sitting. "There, try those."

The concept of such a thing was too vast for a cutthroat to understand in so few words. And the attempt made Vax consider a hard drink himself. "At a time when I'm not already reeling with bad impulses, I'd like to hear more of your stories," he left it at that.

Vax studied the buns as they were presented directly before him. They were pretty enough that he hesitated a moment before lifting the first for a bite. He savored it for a good, long minute. He wasn't used to the combination of flavors and textures, not in the least. But that wasn't to say the bite was anything less than delicious.

"I could kiss you all over again, dear chef," Vax'ildan suggested, sounding as if he were giving it some flirtatious consideration. "Your skills are much needed in this place."

Ignis chuckled, taking the joke - as it surely was - in good part. "I imagine there are others with culinary skills about the Inn. I simply took over the kitchen before they did. But I'm glad you approve."

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[GP] Shoot that poison arrow

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally

Re: Ignis - for Yasmeen, Vax, and OTA - in the kitchens, naturally