It's Christmas!

[alderwood]

Characters: Baby turtles and you!
Date: December 25/26/27!
Location: All over Keeliai!
Situation: The baby turtles are hatching, and Christmas spirit comes with them!
Warnings/Rating: Please include warnings in comment subject lines, otherwise have at!

OOC Announcement

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[imaginate]

[He reaches out, to rub the inside of Jim's wrist with his hand, asking permission. There's moments when they're outside that he wants to grab him in the centre of a square and kiss him until his knees go weak, and while he's sure Jim wouldn't say no to that, he always stops, to think.]

[It's funny how that's become his default around Jim; one of them has to be what the other is not, to form the complete whole, even if some doors are shut, or others locked away in the darkest, dankest parts of their souls that nothing can touch.]

[He knocks. The sensation more than the sound echoes, and everything goes silent on the mental plane. Taraja senses Kyle's intent, and goes quiet.]

[For a few seconds, nothing happens.]

[The first tongue of flame is small, tentative. It flicks at Jim's toes, warming them, crawling on his skin like a blanket and moving slowly past. A breath of cool, dry wind follows it.]

[Then, Jim's surrounded by fire.]

[Vibrant, unyielding, it buries him in warmth; the realm shifts and becomes dizzying before it narrows, intensely intimate, littered with infinite stars glittering; a tenuous balance of light and shadow. The world shakes with an unknown, powerful force, draws Jim in and carves pure, fierce love into his mind, brands every secret endearment and calm, protective care into his skin, deeper than any tattoo, pours into his lungs and makes him breathe it all in, everywhere, everything, every beginning, every ending, all comes together and squeezes itself into Jim's frame; and for several moments nothing else exists but that vast, vast ocean.]

[The world goes still again, and quiet. The flames are the edge of his vision, the wind tickles Jim's cheeks, in play.]

[Hi, says Kyle eventually, and it's shy. Did you know I love you?]

[jirk]

[It's hot and cold and bruising, bright as a balm, and Jim thinks about poetry, the one by Frost about Fire or Ice. This isn't the end of the world - his or any other - but it feels like it a little, it's like watching the birth of a star or the death of a planet.

Jim holds his breath, at the sensation of that creeping flame, and then everything around him erupts with it, a conflagration that razes everything in its path and leaves nothing but a fierce and gentle heat in its wake.

Despite the burn, Jim thinks about oceans, impossible unknowable depths that mirror the black of the farthest reaches of space and also the glimmer of its distant stars. And he touches them, gathers them up like sand and they fall through his fingers each their own ocean swell. It's overwhelming, but he doesn't drown. It's intense, but he doesn't flinch. Everything aches, but it recedes like a tide, and he's left standing on the shore of this great gift.

The words that follow echo, and Jim... doesn't have a response for him, mentally or otherwise. Instead he just grabs Kyle up, shoves him back against the turtle's shell and kisses him breathless. He doesn't have to spell it out, Kyle knows this language best, and everything he does is saying, guess what? Me too.]

[imaginate]

[He laughs, and it echoes everywhere, returning the affection in full, as Taraja moves to obscure them from general view. Kyle's fingers curl inwards where they are, on Jim, partially clinging to him, and for a moment the warmth is fire again, in their veins, throbbing like a pulse, everywhere.]

[Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, and danced the sky on laughter-silvered wings...]

[jirk]

[Jim grins, bites at his neck.]

Sap.

[But he completes the poem, in the way his touch whispers against Kyle's wrists and the knee he slides between his thighs.]

[imaginate]

Graduated to nerd last week, remember?

[He squeezes Jim's hand and then pushes him away gently, having had his fill of public affection, and Damian will be back any second.]

[jirk]

[He allows the separation without comment, though he does grin, just a little, and pat the turtle's shell in affectionate gratitude.]

Sappy nerd, maybe. Just maybe.

[imaginate]

Jerk.

[He's all affection and pride as he leans against Taraja, still a grinning a little lopsidedly from Jim's kiss.]