Extreme Makeover: Keeliai Edition - March Log

[wrathfulkhan]

Characters: Everyone who's interested in pitching in!
Date: Throughout March, until the 21st
Location: The Palace of Landed Sky and surrounding environs
Situation: Let's tear this bitch down.
Warnings/Rating: Drug addiction/withdrawal references in the Dust threads, most likely

The demolition is now in full swing and will last until late March, largely run by Zanru and the Metalworkers (as part of the deal), though individual Foreigners can be hired to help (and the help would likely be appreciated, as the Foreigners are going to get some of this too). Hired Foreigners will report to Xuiyu, as Zanru herself is too busy to be on-site. Gene can be found helping with the destruction, in his armor more often than not, over the course of the demolition project, and answering questions and taking suggestions from Foreigners and kedan about what to do with the newly freed land.

However, from the 4th to the 11th, there is Dust contamination, which is sickening some of the workers - Foreigner and kedan alike. It's not too much of a hindrance, and the demolition seems to be on track to finish on-schedule, by March 21st.

---

OOC Note: If you need a big-name NPC, please contact the mods directly! Kedan workers can be NPCed by anyone. If you want Gene specifically, please make a note in the subject line and I will throw him at you! (Also, I apologize for not getting to last month's starters; February got away from me. Please feel free to reuse them!)

Comments

[highprofilerichkid]

"You've had trouble sleeping before and you've never acted like... this," Tony points out. "And if you can ban me from the lab for working too hard, I can ban you from the work site. I'll get Raine or Milyn to back me up." He's got that stubborn set to his jaw that means he's not going to budge.

[wrathfulkhan]

"This is different," Gene says hotly, "I can't just disappear for days, I need to be on site, I need to show my face, this is crucial to building good relations with the kedan and--"

Gene's raising his voice, and he can feel himself getting angry, which is surprising - frustration is normal in a situation like this, but anger...! He stops, taking a deep breath. His head is swimming, and his emotions are apparently either 'on' or 'off' right now, with no controlled gradient.

"Please don't ban me from the site," he says when he trusts himself to speak again, his tone subdued.

[highprofilerichkid]

Gene, you are really not helping your case right now.

Tony's now upgrading from 'concern' to 'moderate alarm': Gene is an intensely emotional person, but he usually keeps tight control over himself. Too tight, if anything. This rapid switching between uncontrolled emotions is starting to freak Tony out.

Normally he might try to just out-stubborn Gene (which usually doesn't get anywhere, but, you know, force of habit). But the way Gene's acting, Tony thinks that's not a good idea.

"Okay. But will you at least take the rest of the day off and let somebody check you out? And maybe take it easy for the next couple days. You know, shorter hours, and leave the manual labor to the people who are getting paid to do it. Go hands-off for a while."

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene nods, defeated, his heart pounding loudly in his ears. He's still trying to get a leash on the surge of anger that had coursed through him, and he wants to yell and punch things.

"Yeah," he croaks after a minute, "yeah, okay." He looks at Tony, raising his gaze from the ground, his eyes haunted. "Could you come with me? I'm not sure I...trust myself to go back to the hotel on my own."

[highprofilerichkid]

"Yeah. Of course," Tony says, returning Gene's gaze with a worried one of his own. He's starting to doubt that this is something that a good night's sleep is going to fix.

"Why don't we stop by the clinic on the way home?" Gene's not going to like that, so he adds, "even if they don't find anything wrong with you, you can get something to make sure you sleep."

[wrathfulkhan]

"No," Gene says. "I'm not going to the clinic." Because what if they do find something wrong with him? He doesn't want that. He just wants to go back to the hotel and lie down. Well - what he really wants is to keep working, but that's not going to happen.

"I've always had problems sleeping. It's not a big deal." Tony knows about his nightmares.

[highprofilerichkid]

Sigh. He was pretty sure Gene was going to say that.

"It's a big deal right now," Tony insists gently. "You need to rest."

Given how Gene's acting right now, though, logic is probably not going to sway him, so Tony breaks out the big guns: the Sad Puppy Eyes. "Please?"

[wrathfulkhan]

He sees what you're doing there, Tony. GENE used Protect! GENE protected itself!

"If I need to rest, I'll just go back to the hotel and sleep there," he points out. Truly, remaining ignorant of the problem's true cause couldn't cause too much harm. Right? Better to act as though it wasn't a big deal, and it wouldn't be. That is definitely how things work.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony narrows his eyes slightly. "Okay, fine," he acquiesces - too easily. "...But no sex until you get a healer to look at you."

Aha! Checkmate! If those lowered inhibitions are making you all hot and bothered, Gene, prepare to spend the next couple days very, very frustrated. Until you go to a healer, of course.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene makes an exasperated noise. He sees the logic, but he finds it hard to care.

"Fine," he says, sounding a little put out. He would have thought Tony would be more enthusiastic about him being as unguarded as he is right now. "Let's go back to the hotel."

Now he's just refusing to see a healer out of spite.

[highprofilerichkid]

That's called 'taking advantage,' Gene, and no, he's not going to do that.

Having exhausted all his options (short of dragging Gene to a healer or vice versa, whether he likes it or not), Tony huffs out an exasperated sigh, and relents. "Okay. Yeah. Let's go home. But if you're still feeling off tomorrow, will you go see somebody then?" Come on, Gene. A compromise, at least?

[wrathfulkhan]

He's not really in his right mind right now, so he doesn't care. Sober-future-Gene thanks you for your discretion, Tony.

Gene sighs, mirroring Tony's own exasperated exhale. "I guess." Compromises are for losers and the French, but at least it'll get Tony off his back.

[highprofilerichkid]

"Okay." Tony nods, mollified for now. "Come on, let's get out of here."

He takes Gene's hand and pulls him away from the wall, and starts steering him in the direction of the nearest Hotel entrance.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene follows Tony back towards the nearest Hotel entrance, the touch of his hand burning like fire. It's so painful and frustrating to be this close and have Tony tell him no. But he's also aware that he isn't quite acting like himself right now, so he doesn't object any further.

Once they reach their room, Gene kicks off his shoes and goes to lie on the bed, face-down, confused and angry and frightened and feeling very alone.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony removes his own shoes and sits down on the bed next to Gene. He brushes his fingers through Gene's hair a few times, then asks, "How about a massage? To help you relax?" Just from running his hands over Gene's shoulders, Tony can tell that he's pretty stiff and tense. Going to bed with his back full of knots can't be good for his sleep patterns.

[wrathfulkhan]

"Mnnn." Gene kicks his legs a little, weakly, petulantly. "Okay," he mumbles into the pillow. If that's the closest he can get to having Tony's hands on him, then so be it.

He takes a couple of deep breaths - well, as deep as they can get with a pillow in the way, anyway - and he can feel the blood pounding in his head. He knows he needs to calm down, and he hopes this'll help.

[highprofilerichkid]

"All right." Tony squeezes Gene's shoulder comfortingly, and doesn't give him grief about being a whiny petulant baby - but only because he's sick. "Shirt off," he instructs, giving Gene a gentle nudge as he shifts to kneel next to him.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene shifts, and wiggles, and somehow manages to de-shirt with the absolute minimum of effort possible. His head is still swimming, and it might even be worse now that he's lying down.

"Dunno what's wrong," he mumbles, half-confusion, half-apology.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony wishes he knew. He leans over Gene and starts to knead the knots in his shoulders. "Just try to relax, okay? We'll see how you feel when you've gotten some sleep."

What Tony lacks in trained massage technique, he makes up for with strength and persistence. For an amateur, he gives a damn good deep-tissue massage. He focuses on Gene's shoulders and upper back first, making sure to give every inch of muscle the full attention it deserves.

"Feel good?"

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene laughs a little, sounding a little desperate, when Tony tells him to try and relax. If he knew how to do that, he wouldn't have gotten himself in this mess to begin with, he's sure.

The massage is actually quite good, and Gene groans into the pillow whenever Tony works out a particularly stubborn knot. Though his desire and sensitivity haven't abated, so there are many reasons he's pretty glad he's lying on the bed face-down, no matter how much he keeps reminding himself that Tony's holding a doctor's visit over his head before they could do anything really interesting.

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you," he mutters.

[highprofilerichkid]

"Doing what?" Tony asks, grinning a little as he works his way down Gene's back. Okay, he has a pretty good idea of what Gene means. But he wasn't doing that on purpose, he swears! It's just a massage, Gene, gosh, get your mind out of the gutter.

[wrathfulkhan]

Never. In the gutter it is, and in the gutter it shall stay!

Gene just makes a petulant noise and buries his face in the pillow. Rude.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony almost chuckles, but manages to stifle it. He doesn't want to tease Gene too much - that would just be mean.

So he focuses on the massage and thinking chaste thoughts until he's satisfied he's worked loose all the knots in Gene's back. When he's done, he slides his hands back up to Gene's shoulders and leans down to kiss him on the temple.

"There. How's that feel? Any better?"

[wrathfulkhan]

Meanwhile, Gene has been thinking of anything other than what he wants to do with Tony, which is more difficult than it sounds. Kind of a don't-think-about-pink-elephants scenario. But eventually his mind had wandered, and gone onto his other favorite topic: his own self-hatred.

Well, we were going to end up here eventually.

"Uh-huh," he says when Tony kisses him on the temple, and slowly raises his head from the pillow. "You didn't have to do that, you know."

[highprofilerichkid]

"Well, I wanted to." Tony rolls over and stretches out on his back next to Gene. That's not the only thing he'd wanted to do, and it had been a struggle to keep his mind from wandering with Gene sprawled shirtless underneath him, but he's sticking to his guns.

"Anyway," he smirks, "I didn't hear you complaining."

Did you know that some echinoderms can modify the collagen in their body and essentially liquefy themselves? Because that's a lot like what Gene does when he gets a massage.