The full seasonal event can be read here! Below are the main seasonal items for quick reference:
1. A thread reacting to the season's weather in some ways.
2. A thread in the part of the city your character doesn't live in!
3. A thread relating to your vocation.
Of The Season
Quote
"Tell Dr. Nate that Gale sent you, and he still owes me for the mushrooms. Except that it takes you a while to reach the clinic, and by the time you do your fever is spiking, and so instead of the requisite message you instead tell the poor soul who greets you that 'A gale'a m'shrooms sent me cus'a my hands.'" - Zephyr in Oh help me, please doctor, I'm damaged
don't know what you're thinking of do i chip away or keep defenses up?
“To hide the sunburns.” Comes Sunjata’s jest, a piss-poor attempt at a joke despite the awkward feeling in his stomach, the shift of the conversation drifting this way and that in a way that ties knots in his brain. It isn’t supposed to be like this – he shouldn’t be latching onto the first person that showed him any good kind of affection. But he does, just as he had with Savera when he’d extended her help, wore her down enough to date him long before they realized they weren’t good for each other.
And here he is falling down that stupid rabbit hole again when he can’t stop himself from bringing the conversation back, when he can feel those bright blue eyes on his back, when he hears Nate ask him to explain it further.
He keeps his head tilted away, focusing on the wall opposite of the doctor when he feels the hand at his back, his shoulder twitching with the start of a flinch with the initial touch he isn’t expecting before it relaxes with the warm relief it offers. And with it, the young Bratena sighs. “Being soft has always had the worst kind of negative connotation associated to it for me.” Especially for him. “I suppose it’s nice to hear that it isn’t entirely a bad thing to be called.” That someone cute might also find it cute as well.
don't make a sound, if it gets too loud will you hear me come around?
A rough chuckle leaves Nate, some of the tension leaving his shoulders as he laughs at the joke. He’s fucked. He’s in so much trouble. He can feel it in the back of his head, that pressure of infatuation, of quiet, one sided obsession. Again.
There’s something about the way the conversation flows that reminds Nate of noodling. The way you reach into places you can’t see into, without knowing what you’ll find. When he was young, watching others catch the fish, they would occasionally butcher it without removing the fish from their arms. Even more occasionally, they’d misjudge, and their blood would come pouring out of the cold wound as well.
Nate takes a short breath to steady himself, then presses the knife into the fish’s belly. “I meant why does my opinion matter so much to you?” Maybe things are less one sided than he thinks. “Stand up for me?”
don't know what you're thinking of do i chip away or keep defenses up?
It’s always one sided for Sunjata, never being able to explore or figure things out on his own – force fed things in a way to try and get him to believe it even if it wasn’t believable. He supposes it helps that his father stopped trying after a certain point, when Sunjata was young and there were more interesting things to do than wrestle with friends, when he became a teenager and showed little to no signs of the bloodthirstiness involved with being the kind of person he’s supposed to be.
He's certainly nowhere near the clone of Shaju he was supposed to be, but that’s probably why he has his brother and sister. To make up for every single thing that Sunjata lacked, even despite the age gap.
The question keeps him from looking at the doctor, but he’s forced to at least look somewhat near him when he’s asked to stand and the Enforcer does as asked, pushing himself up off the table, relief swelling in him with the sensation of pressure that’s released, the bruises that hurt far less. He finds his feet quickly, turns to show his back to the doctor again before he actually gives an answer, keeping his face away for fear it might give something else away. “I don’t know… I guess it’s maybe because I think you’re cute too.” It’s said quieter, his head ducking slightly as red flares along his neck and ears and cheeks again. It’s certainly not something that he should be admitting, knowing full well the types of traditions the Bratena’s keep.
But in the spirit of honesty and being the Aristocrat Dreamer? What’s the worst that happens? Maybe all this anxiety is for nothing if he never sees the doctor again. Maybe he can just dump his thoughts here and vanish into the Plates never to come back down again.
don't make a sound, if it gets too loud will you hear me come around?
Quick hands make short work of the initial loose lacing, clasps shutting and locking the cord in place, ready to be tightened. It’s professional, easy to distract himself with; rearranging the pads to best help with the rubbing, double checking the bandages. He forgets about the knife and gets to work tightening the leaves when finally Sunjata decides to answer.
The blade pierces him with a handful of soft words and a stain of red on the enforcers neck. Nate thinks he might have forgotten how to breathe, thinks about biting Sunjata’s neck, about pulling the cords tight enough to make him whine. He doesn’t do any of that.
Instead, he hums softly, his hands slowing down just to prolong this moment. “You don’t even know me, puppy.” Nate tries to sound stern, and not giddy. Rational, and not needy.
don't know what you're thinking of do i chip away or keep defenses up?
The brace gets into place, the clasps shutting and the cords moving slowly against still numbed skin while Nate focuses on it. It’s enough to drag the admission out of him, to hope that it sends him into the abyss of nothingness – that he can disappear shortly after before Nate can laugh at him like it’s been some terrible joke he’s goaded himself into.
Instead, he gets a slight hum, the hands slowing while they start to tighten the lacing, Sunjata’s hands finding the edge of the table to both ground himself and settle himself. And while the doctor attempts to sound stern and rational, it comes out to Sunjata as a unique mix of an attempt at a passive brush off – like the fact that if they knew one another better that it would change it. Sunjata doesn’t think so, but he doesn’t want to sound naïve and dumb, so he hums a soft laugh instead – bleeding through the awkward unease set in his stomach of his nerves.
“You don’t really know me either.” He points out, head lifting from between his shoulders where he’d sunk them in with his own internal awkwardness, turning slightly to try and glance back at Nate but it fails – instead only revealing part of his freckled cheek, warm with red. “Would it change anything if you did?” He turns the conversation back to the other man, as if his answer would be the same as Sunjata's own. He hopes so.
After all, Nate is like this forbidden fruit, a light in the darkness of the Drench that he’s become a moth to unintentionally. And even if whatever this is doesn't last, perhaps it'd be fun for the time that it is.
don't make a sound, if it gets too loud will you hear me come around?
There’s another attempt to sound stern, Nate clearing his throat to make his voice extra rough. “I know enough about you.” He bites. “I don’t give a shit if you have some gutter fantasy, but I’m not some fuckin’ flat top hopeful about to open my legs for any airhead.” Hands start to work faster, then pause completely.
A heavy sigh shifts Nate, his breath breezing along mottled skin. “It’s not about knowing you. Don’t think there’s any moderlung under your raft.” Moving again now, Nate leaves the other half of the equation unsaid, a bone for Sunjata to chew on to buy himself a few moments of silence.
don't know what you're thinking of do i chip away or keep defenses up?
Well he certainly doesn’t expect the shift in the conversation, the tightening of the laces in a way that burns with the bitten comments. He huffs a laugh that ends in a breathless half wheeze at the shift in tone, the way the gentle lacing has grown so blunt before it completely stops. “That’s not…” He pauses, as Nate continues to speak.
The hands at the table clutch a little tighter, a heavy sigh leaves him. “What I meant was that do I need to know every detail about you in order to think you’re attractive?” His chin tilts down now, head hanging slightly between his shoulders again. “Besides, I’m engaged. S’not like I can do anything. And if I did then this wouldn’t be the worst of my problems after.” He makes some terrible gesture to the brace, gaze focused ahead at the table.
don't make a sound, if it gets too loud will you hear me come around?
Guilt twists uncomfortably in Nate’s chest, his hands softening once again and tending carefully to the brace. This isn’t what he’d wanted, what he’d meant to start. But it’s for the best.
“You don’t need anything to think whatever you want, least of all from me.” The bindings on the brace are finally tightened completely, Nate’s fingers lingering near the top too fits with the overhang, the edge of padding he’d set down to keep the edges from digging in. “But you’re not thinking it. You said it.”
“You want something.” Nate leans back, crossing his arms over his chest. “And even if it was, yknow,” fingers gesture between them, “it doesn’t work.” The gulf between them is too wide to dream across, not that he’s done much dreaming lately.
don't know what you're thinking of do i chip away or keep defenses up?
The hands soften and Sunjata keeps his gaze ahead, focusing on the table and the wall opposite, torn between staring at the wall and closing his eyes and hoping that maybe when he opened them back up that he could take back the previous comments, that he could disappear into nothing, pretend none of this even happened.
But he can’t, and doesn’t really do either.
When Nate withdraws, Sunjata moves, grabbing the undershirt of his uniform and slipping it on with still an amount of stiffness but not nearly as much as before. He turns to Nate as he slips on the outer shirt, buttoning it up. “The only thing I want is to not be who I’m supposed to be.” He shrugs, fixing the collar on his shirt before moving to grab the outer vest.
don't make a sound, if it gets too loud will you hear me come around?
Blue eyes watch the other man until he can’t anymore, taking careful measure of how the other man moves to try and figure out how the pain has abated. There’s more he could do, but… not in the time they have, and maybe not at all considering the grave he’s digging.
The tile on the corner is always cracked, and the doctor sends hell bent on shattering it compétent with the weight of his gaze. “Well fucking me isn’t going to change who you are.” Now with Sunjata facing him, Nate can’t even muster his old stern growl, his voice just coming out flat and resigned.
