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[knowmyplace]

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[knowmyplace]

"I didn't until this moment," he confesses to him, sliding his arm all the way around his waist. It's the opposite of grounding; he wants to feel this, too. Without, of course, losing his wits. "Show me," he murmurs, leaning close to him.

[deuceoftears]

Iago feels the tilt again, gentler this time - only it doesn't go in any direction. It's only that the eternal constant of the weight of the world lifts, grows lighter and lighter. He doesn't float away, but he feels like he could, as though nothing tethers him to the earth; his short hair is floating as though he were underwater.

"The stars are singing," Jedao murmurs, his hand finding Iago's wrist, stroking idly up and down his forearm, as though for the sheer pleasure of tactile sensation, rather than gripping. "And the earth is full of deep, slow churning. And everyone here is a droplet. Humans are just water. Just water and a little salt, and singing. Everyone is moving together. Droplets in a wave. Ebb and flow. When the songs ring out, crest and crash and dazzle and spray. Now, in the night, the softer ripples, the rills and seeps. The great sighs as the beast rolls in its sleep, and the starshine pets her great soft side."

[knowmyplace]

Iago closes his eyes a moment, basking in the feeling of him close, in the sound of his voice as it creates pictures for him, images of icy mountains and oceans and beautiful, beautiful skies of grays and greens. He conjures up those thoughts on his own as he seems to float away while his feet stay rooted like a great tree.

"Such poetry," he murmurs, opening his eyes to him again. "Tell me what you feel."

[deuceoftears]

"I feel the rushing around me. Blood, pulse. Grass, wind. I feel like...a drop of ink in water. Like there's no edge of me. Like there's no edge of the world. Your veins are my veins are everyone's veins."

Jedao presses his face to Iago's hip and rubs like a cat.

[knowmyplace]

If only this was part of Iago's plan. He'd be happy to let this continue, but - it's not. He's not ready. This isn't the time.

It feels - wrong.

He doesn't focus so much on that last part.

He dances away with a hint of grace and smiles instead, kneeling down to kiss him, hoping that might distract enough.

[deuceoftears]

Jedao makes a soft, wordless noise when Iago slips away from him, half hunger and half deeply pitiable sadness, a plaintive unfed-cat noise, but the prospect of kisses soothes him immediately. He kisses Iago with a lazy, completely unguarded languor, open and unhurried, kisses that feel almost the same as the floating weightlessness that ripples back and forth over him. Jedao's hands coming up to touch Iago's face, fingertips tracing his beard and his cheekbones, back into his hair.

[knowmyplace]

It's an odd weightlessness that takes him over. He's tempted to fall face first into it, into Jedao, and he tightens an arm around him as he contemplates it. The press of people around them only seems to spur him on, and the music that he feels with his ears and in the thrum of his heart is enough to lower his defenses.

He pulls away from the kiss, breathless and dizzy, the vertigo almost too much.

"Come on," he murmurs, trying to pull him up. "Back to the Barge."

Iago is a master of self control, but he can feel Jedao knocking on the edges of those walls, cracking them with deep pits, and he isn't going to let it all crumble for the sake of something simplistic like momentary pleasure.

[deuceoftears]

Jedao makes another soft noise, not quite a whimper, a little innocent-impertinent protest.

"But I like the sky," he murmurs. "And the people. The beast breathing around us." He laughs softly, a sort of sighing chuckle as he realizes he's floating, and drifts gently down onto the crushed grass. "Stay with me."

[knowmyplace]

He sinks down onto the grass with him and spreads his fingers across it.

He can do this. He's - clear and he's free and he's fine. "Then lie down and watch the stars," he tells him, settling down on his back to do the same. "Tell me how they sing to you."

[deuceoftears]

Jedao tucks himself against Iago's side, so that he can feel the barely-real edges of him, the surface as well as the weight, the soft warmth of skin at his wrist, impossibly dry for water and salt, the weave of his clothes. He breathes, matches their breathing together.

"Like -" he hums, and croons softly, vowels rising and falling, simple undulating rhythms, resonating chords splayed across time. "The dance," he murmurs after his voice starts to get scratchy. "They spin. Their far-off light is the flare of a skirt swirling out as they spin, and burn, and shine."

[knowmyplace]

"They do," he agrees. "For all of us." He takes a breath, lets it out, feels Jedao's chest rise and fall in tandem with his. He curls his arm around him, toying gently with the ends of his hair. "What does their dance say?"

He speaks softly, barely above the strum of a guitar a million miles away on a stage that they'd never be able to reach.

[deuceoftears]

"Alive," Jedao says, feeling suddenly breathless, a little too loose to explain better, like watercolor overflowing the lines of a sketch, untethered to the outlines of his own skin. The endless crush, the endless bursting-forth, the seething forge sizzling and turning over and over and over, the plunging warp, nestling sharp and deep into the fabric of the world, like a ring clasped in velvet, like a brooch in an eye, the helpless effulgence of pouring-out heat into the void, spilling its weightless curving arcs up and up the deep well of their gravitational beds, the effortless endless flinging-off of glittering glory, in every direction, perfect, replete. The burning up of their own life, the perfect balance, the lambent crown.

"Alive, alive, alive. Every feeling. The deepest rest, the most urgent effort. Falling into themselves. Pouring out of themselves. Dying, changing, burning. Alive, alive, alive."

[knowmyplace]

It isn't about explaining; it's all poetry and nonsense to Iago, though there's something of crumbs of truth to be found. Still, he holds him close as he talks. Still, he keeps a tight grip on him as they lie there. Still, he doesn't let him go, as if he might float away and into trouble if he does.

He turns and kisses him again. "It's beautiful," he mutters. "Like sand sifting through your fingers on its way to the river. Like water that clings to the leaves in the dawn."

[deuceoftears]

Jedao kisses him back, sweet and slow and deep, then beams at him.

"Yes." Yes, like that. He has seen few dawns from the ground, but he has loved them all. "I should show you skydawn. When we go back. The blaze of light kissing the whole curve of a world at once."

[knowmyplace]

"I'd like that," he assures him, though he isn't certain how much he will remember from this moment of lucidity. "For now, stay here," he encourages him, gently trailing his fingers along his shoulder. "You should try and sleep."

[deuceoftears]

Jedao hums in pleasure, soft acquiesence.

"You'll hold me?" It feels so good to be held right now, to be touching, pressed close and present, an anchor as his mothsense flutters on the vast winds of the crowd.

[knowmyplace]

He doesn't let any hesitation show. "I'll be here," he promises. "I will hold you as long as you wish."

He doesn't want to let him go. Maybe he wants to indulge in the touch himself.

[deuceoftears]

He nestles in a little more, letting his eyes close, letting his mind drift. He drifts a little bit literally, too, occasionally starting to float for a few seconds until Iago tightens his hold and tugs him back down - at which point he always settles again, even as he drifts into true slumber, his body reflexively trusting the arms around him, content to be bound by them.

[knowmyplace]

Iago manages to stay awake for the most part, keeping Jedao literally grounded. The first time it happened, he was startled enough to almost let him go, but he flexes his arm around him and smiles as he settles in right beside him again.

Despite himself, despite his talk and his thoughts and his worries and his arrogance, he's - relatively happy here. Confused as to why he didn't completely give in to him. It would have been easy; he can see that now.

That feeling of wrongness sits with him, cold and hard in his chest, so he simply attributes it to not wanting to be caught out. Not wanting to destroy whatever goodwill he had accumulated.

He manages to doze off and on, though the moving people and aliens and - everyone - ensures that he doesn't actually sleep.

[deuceoftears]

Jedao wakes up with no high and no hangover, his strange version of immortality burning away all the effects of the dubious poisons when he isn't consciously stopping it from doing so. He just feels good, relaxed and rested and full of lingering connectedness, contentment, goodwill.

"I hope I didn't impose on you too terribly," he murmurs, as the dawn glows around them.

[knowmyplace]

Iago, in contrast, feels like he might rather be hungover. He's exhausted, the world seeming a little blurry around the edges.

"Not at all," he tells him and his smile is a little lopsided but completely, strangely, genuine. "How are you feeling?"

[deuceoftears]

"Lovely," Jedao says after a moment of thought. Beyond good. He feels lovely.

Jedao brushes Iago's hair back from his face and laughs gently.

"Thank you for staying with me. Would you like to go rest in a real bed now?"

[knowmyplace]

He leans into that touch. "I should, I should. But you are right that the ground is quite comfortable." He places a hand over Jedao's. "Are you offering to walk me to my cabin?"

[deuceoftears]

"You liar," Jedao says, utterly fondly. "I don't think you got any real sleep out here at all."

He pets a little more, indulging them both.

"I am, yes."

[knowmyplace]

Liar Jedao calls him and Iago smiles with warmth, finding nothing but amusement in the word.

He pushes himself up and away for a moment, stretching his arms over his head. He feels - sore in all the wrong places, but sleeping in a bed is exactly what he needs. "How do you wake so refreshed? Do you - recall anything of the evening?"