Logs:(Get Your) Freak Out

(Get Your) Freak Out
cn: mild sexual content
Dramatis Personae DJ, Lily, Matt, Ryan
In Absentia Polaris, Hive	2023-08-13 "Y'all going or coming?"
Location <NYC> Freaktown - Riverdale
Like many of these mansions, this place is luxurious, several large and well-appointed bedrooms on the sprawling lower floor, marbled bathrooms with enormous soaking tubs, several balconies, large rec room, large kitchen, a spacious lounge. Most of these rooms are currently occupied, the sounds of talking and laughter, moans and breathy pleading, headboards thumping quiet against the well-insulated wall, telling of the Commemorative Edition Sex Party that is taking place here. That's those rooms, though. This one, smaller, tucked between two much more crowded bedrooms, has avoided the rush, probably due to not having a lot of comfortable furniture available to sprawl on. Possibly in its previous life as a Filthy Rich Person's house it was an enormous walk-in closet judging by the amount of built-in shelving in one wall but it has since been repurposed into a quiet working room, a small desk at one side, a small table at the other, several people's various books and bags affixed with labels and stern warnings in the cubbies where probably once an extravagant shoe collection lived. Some time earlier in the evening Ryan was out with the other people, that much is clear from the wristbands he wears and the drink he has in hand. He does not look like he's been Getting His Freak On, hair still neat, clothes very much on. The chair he's in is a sleek and minimalist electric one; he's pushed the desk chair slightly aside so that he can slump with an exaggerated melancholy at the desk. Then (perhaps realizing he has no audience) sits up again and simply takes a swig of his drink. Had no audience. The door opens a moment later to admit another Sex Party Refugee -- well. Maybe DJ isn't fleeing; he looks like possibly he could simply be lost, also very much dressed in excruciatingly boring khakis and a red polo shirt, though the intricate art that decorates his arm -- a pair of people on a luminescent raft on a river past a moonlit grove -- is more eye-catching than his outfit. Reflexively the man is starting to apologize almost as soon as he's entered, but then stops, pushing the door half-closed but not heading out. He's looking over Ryan with slightly wider eyes, and takes a half-step towards him before checking himself. "You --" he starts, a million questions clear in his expression, curiosity mixing with worry mixing with a perhaps expected grief in the feelings that wash clear and strong off him. His tongue just swipes anxiously at his lips and he doesn't ask them. He's looking at the chair, and looking at Ryan's drink, and looking at Ryan's face. Back to the chair. "You don't want to be out there?" he ventures, finally, with a gesture towards -- either of the doors, really. Ryan is rapidly rearranging himself the moment the door starts to open -- leaning a little more forward onto an elbow, ~~forehead in hand, fingers raked into his hair and his eyes downcast~~ no, scratch that, too mournful for this party, how about ~~chin propped on his palm and a quick smile lighting his expression~~ no, scratch that, not somber enough for the "hiding away at a funeral" vibe. By the time DJ addresses him he has not actually settled on the appropriate posture and instead just looks back at the other man, hiding his expression behind a longer sip of rum. His smile is smaller when he lowers the glass -- just a tiny lopsided twitch of thing. "Naw. I mean, yeah. I mean -- guess that's complicated. Can't say I expected you, you -- uh -- enjoying --" He mimics DJ's gesture towards the doors. Is DJ judging this hasty attempt to find the right pose? He's certainly watching it, and in the quiet puff of laughter that follows there's an ache almost palpable. But maybe that's expected, too, maybe it's just -- "Complicated." The yearning is stronger when DJ is looking at Ryan, tapering but not much when he drops his eyes. "I didn't expect me here, either." He hesitates noticeably before blipping away from the door to fetch up against the side of the desk, hip resting against its edge. He's giving the wheelchair a closer examination, one hand kind of unthinkingly going to squeeze against the opposite mechanical arm. "Is that --" He's gesturing towards the chair with a heavy uncertainty. "Can you -- are you going to -- is that for good?" There's a visible tension that goes through Ryan, and he looks sharply down and away when DJ indicates the chair. That same yearning is tangled back through the faint empathic ripple that slips his control, mingling with the grief, fury, shame, guilt, that was already there. "Naw," again, but then immediately, "I don't know. Maybe. Figuring that shit out. Figuring a lotta shit out. I'on even know what the fuck I was looking for here, you know? Just wanted to be around people who -- fuck," this truncation comes out at the end in a tired breath, a thicker wash of feeling. The yearning doesn't leave -- the grief grows heavier, but a bright crooked smile flashes across DJ's face together with a fierce blush. "Hey, man, success, you definitely found people who do that." His head nods towards the heavy-breathy sounds from an adjacent room, some faint flutter of arousal in this acknowledgment that he is not giving much space to. He shifts a little closer when the other man goes tense, and there's a small hesitation before his hand drops to squeeze at Ryan's shoulder. "I don't think you have to know. Yet. Probably -- a lot to to sort through." The other hand lifts slightly, falls back to the desk with a plasticky clacking sound. "But whatever it is, I hope you find it." "Please, what I found is you." It's light, amused, though when Ryan's eyes track to that quick-crooked smile his breath catches for a moment. "Shit, sometimes you still --" This breaks off, rougher, and he just swallows hard. His eyes fix on the intricately painted mechanical hand, growing faintly blurry behind a sudden sting of tears. He's lifted his hand to rest on the one at his shoulder, squeezing back gratefully. Maybe he was going to say something more but it doesn't come. His head rests lightly against DJ's arm, thumb brushing slow at the other man's knuckles. Somewhere between that half-finished sentence and the hand against against his, something in DJ is giving way. It's small but not subtle, outwardly; the widening of his eyes, the hitch in his breath, the small tremor in his fingers as they brush down Ryan's arm. Inwardly it batters with grief, desire, a need so strong it feels like this small touch might break him, his uncertain-quiet voice half-lost behind the music and conversation and pleading around them but driving a fierce and frenzied storm at Ryan all the same. "Am I -- Is that bad?" It's his other hand, slower and clumsier, that lifts, fingers hard and cool beneath Ryan's chin to turn the other man's face up towards his. Ryan's eyes are bright and wet but they meet the other man's steadily, search his face intent. Does he find what he is looking for? Maybe the storm just takes him or maybe, in part, that intensity was what he was seeking. He doesn't say -- not aloud, but where his hand squeezed now it tugs, pulling DJ in closer. That desire, that need, is reflected and then some -- in the hand that slips beneath DJ's shirt, plucks at the garments beneath in silent request; in the hard press of his mouth to the other man's; in the small whimper that shivers a desperate ache through the other man's mind. DJ slips down, only slightly awkward as he shifts Ryan's chair a little farther so he can better straddle it. His shirt and the garments beneath are in the next moment very obligingly gone, dropped in a heap on the actual desk chair nearby. His own hand is sliding beneath Ryan's shirt, pulling up at its hem but then just drawing fingers up, running over Ryan's chest and the knotted scars there with naked hunger. Where his ache ends and Ryan's begins it might be hard to say, but he falls readily into the kiss, chair rolling back to thump hard against the desk. Ryan pushes his shirt back down, some distant flutter of fear and discomfort rising there that is gone again in the next moment. He presses up into DJ's touch, though, one arm wrapping around the other man's waist and his other running higher -- tracing the heavy straps of the prosthetic's harness, tracing the scars around it, something only growing now in the intensity of his touch and the cloying-thick desire that floods the air. DJ, unfortunately, only half-closed the door. It's swinging fully open again, a woman with back-length light brown hair in a pastel-green shirt and black boxers backing over the threshold and pulling a taller man in after her. Her words carry with them impatience, frustration, and a tangled sideways half-grief she is trying to ignore. "-- Leave my piercings alone, and I need a warning before actually fucking me, I don't usually bottom --" Whatever other disclaimer Lily might have added is knocked out of her when her lover pins her against the door, eyes fluttering closed as Matt kisses her lips, her neck. Has she noticed they are not, in fact, alone in here? It doesn't seem likely. "That hurts," she says when Matt drags his teeth across the bruises down her throat, the arousal dripping off her voice lined not with lust but palpable relief with each stinging scrape. "Keep doing that." Matt doesn't look to be in much danger of taking "that hurts" as discouragement, but just to allieviate any concerns Lily might have along those lines he bites her harder. At her reflexive attempt to escape he just shoves her back against the door harder than is probably altogether necessary, the soft puff of his laughter in the crook of her neck delighted and desperately hungry. He finishes unbuttoning her shirt and pushes it down to bunch at her wrists. Now, he does stop, evidently to stare at the tattoos he's just exposed along her sides: a lily with a double helix of DNA as its stem on her right and a woodpecker with its beak aimed towards her heart on her left. But what he actually says, surprise blunting the jagged edges of his clawing need, is, "DJ?" Only at a slight delay does he ease off of Lily to turn and stare at the two men, his expression blank and bewildered. DJ's soft moan is half lost where his mouth presses to Ryan, but it's acutely felt all the same in the need that curls deep into the other man. His body shifts, pressing hard into the wandering caress of Ryan's hand. Though an uncertain-fearful shiver ripples through him when Ryan's fingers meet the harness he does not pull away. Just gasps, drops a hand to trace questing-questioning against Ryan's fly -- -- and then, abruptly, he is not there -- planted between Ryan's chair and the newcomers just a split-second before Matt speaks, hand dropping to his belt but then halting when he sees who has just arrived. "Wha --" might be to Matt or might be to the whole situation; his face has flushed deep (deep) crimson as he looks from Matt to Lily. He swallows, eyes lowering guiltily. Ryan does not quite have time to sort through what he thinks of that questing hand before very suddenly his lapful of Potential Hookup is a lapful of nothing at all. He hasn't actually looked towards Matt and Lily quite just yet but he's certainly clocked them all the same, his brows hiking waaay up. He isn't blushing, isn't looking particularly guilty, isn't looking anything except very curious as his gaze ticks between DJ and Lily and back. He rubs slowly at his beard -- maybe to stifle a smile? Maybe not. It's not there by the time he lowers his hand to pick his drink back up for a long swallow. "Y'all going or coming?" "Oh fuck --" might have started as a moan but it's ending in panic, Lily's pain-pleasure euphoria crashing down through the fricative into shock and shame. Lily's eyes go wide when she looks past Matt, meeting DJ's flush with a ruddy pink spreading blotchy over her face and neck. She scrambles to pull her shirt back up around herself, shrugging out of Matt's grip when his hand impedes pulling the sleeve over her shoulder. Doesn't wrap it tight around herself fast enough for the other men to not see at least a flash of the tattoos on her ribs, the o-ring harness in her boxers -- there's no covering the wristbands but she's doing her damnedest to hide them behind Matt. She looks up at Matt -- nope, she's slapping a hand over her bruised neck, that's too exposed -- to DJ -- nope -- before looking at Ryan's drink with deep envy. "Uh," betrays a rolling nausea to Ryan's senses, "-- going?" Maybe this is her declaration of intent -- or a request to her not-quite-twin. Matt breathes out heavily and does not roll his eyes but shifts his weight, almost as if to hide Lily better, for all the good that would do her against DJ's nervous system. "When did you guys open up?" is soft and careful, and in it Ryan can sense amusement and anger and longing prickle like static beneath the flat surface that Lily had briefly ruptured. When he finally takes his eyes off DJ and glances to Ryan, his expression is still blank, though certainly not from shock by this point. His voice betrays perhaps just a touch more longing with, "I'm glad you made it up, darling." "When did -- what?" Confusion and shame are quite rapidly throwing very cold water on DJ's arousal, and perhaps his horrified expression at Ryan's question is answer enough. He does not move from in front of Ryan, though his reflexively defensive posture does ease, weight settling back and his arm wrapping around his chest. It's this gesture that seems to remind him that his shirt is in fact Not There; though he barely seems to move, a faint distorted shimmer in place, his clothing is back in his hand a heartbeat later. "You don't --" He shakes his head, wringing at his shirt before he remembers to put it back on, tugging the white garments down into place before smoothing a little fussily at his polo. He has been very intently avoiding looking at Lily. "-- don't have to go, I'll g..." Though here he's stopping, uncertain, turning to look at Ryan. "... are you going to be okay?" Ryan's mouth has clamped firm shut, now, and he's pressing his knuckles to his lips hard as he watches the not-quite-twins. "You and your wives," he clarifies lightly, "I kind of assume anyone here," he's rolling his wrist idly, calling a subtle attention to the wristbands there, "is supposed to be." Though his eyes are lingering on DJ's clothes as he dresses, on the white garments he pulls on first. He looks away, back to Matt and Lily, and somewhere indistinct between them and the emotions washing off them his expression has gone just a little tighter. His smile is small, and where a moment before his own desire and longing had been lingering heady in the air there is abruptly a sharp quashing of those empathic ripples. His voice is carefully light. "Always am. Probably out past my curfew, though, probably should find Joshua before I get someone worried. Hope y'all have fun, now." "Is Polaris here?" Lily's eyes are tracking to DJ now, to his bare arms, to the garments before they disappear under his polo, then quickly away again. "Is this --" The nausea is settling more heavily, thick around her confusion and embarrassment and, small but quick-growing, anger tinged with disappointment. "Fuck, DJ." Her hand drops from the bruised side of her neck as she turns towards the door, -- glances back quick at Ryan at Joshua's name, a small swell of irritation and pity rising and falling in a soft huff of breath. "--gotta find my pants, anyway. Sorry," could be to any of the three men in the room, and maybe it's to all of them -- for interrupting, for stopping, for being, -- before it curdles into some old bitterness, "to spoil your night." Matt does not looks surprised, does not really react at all except with a very soft "Ah." The rage is a discordant roar of white static, now, a different kind of amusement winding faintly hysterical beneath it. He's mostly shoved it down by the time he continues, his eyes unnervingly steady on DJ, his voice careful again if not exactly neutral, "That is certainly a choice." He draws a breath and looks very much like he wants to say something else, but ultimately just lets it out in a quiet scoff. Whatever he was struggling to summon up collapses back into nothingness with that breath, his expression still unchanged even if his posture has subsided subtly. "Good evening, then." He doesn't apologize, just turns away and slips out into the hall, leaving the door half-open. Perhaps Lily's nausea is contagious, because DJ has picked it up fierce and shamed as the others depart. "I'm sorry," comes in a near whisper, and the sick heaviness is joined by a yawning chasm of emptiness that rends right through him. "I don't know what I --" He shakes his head, hard, and then is gone.