[And therein lies the biggest difference between them. While McGillis will fortify his walls for the inevitability of being proven right - while leaving a small window to be proven wrong - Celeste will do his best to make the most of the time they have left. He'll put on a hell of a show all the way to curtain call. He'll live intensely, love deeply, and make sure there are no regrets.
If whatever is constructed manages to persist on after, then so be it.
But if it cannot, he'll refuse to look back on it with bitterness.
If he can stubbornly convince McGillis to do the same - to whatever extent he is able - all the better. Especially now that he's changed his mind, now that he wants to be proven wrong.]
That's a dangerous admission, you know.
[An invitation to climb through the little window in his walls. A request for someone to try to tear them down. Trust and care that McGillis still insists don't exist within him.]
[ After all, McGillis is destroying the person he used to be.
He's doing it in homage to someone he once rejected so thoroughly, but he's also doing it for himself so as to not repeat the same regret he died with, however addled by blood-loss it might have been.
And all of him is screaming that he's making a mistake and straying from his path, but his path has been cut off by a bullet already. There is nowhere left to go, so he's forced to be right here. Wedged between friends, as they bother him while reading his book. Or sitting in dimly lit restaurants with a man he does not love, but who makes him feel like his heart is beating again. Or ordering too many appetizers in a karaoke room and talking about sex, like schoolboys... or like lovers would.
Comforts he once would have killed to put an end to.
They taste like chocolate milkshake. ]
I've given myself to three creatures with sharp teeth, but not to worry... I have my own fangs.
[ And he'll devour them and they'll taste like blood and chocolate too. If the happy end is not to be, then it will be a beautiful and haunting tragedy instead. ]
[And not just for McGillis. There is danger down this path for each and every one of them, and yet each and every one of them have decided to set off down it, for better or worse.
With nowhere left to go, with the path forward cut off, there's no choice but to forge a new one. McGillis could do that alone, sure, but he isn't. He's making the decision to reach out, and the rest of them are all taking his hand in turn.
What they are at the end of it can be nebulously defined. Celeste can freely admit he loves the three of them, certainly, but the depth and intensity felt towards Eli is something... more. He suspects McGillis and Izou have a similar distinction, whether or not they'll admit it openly.
But there had been curiosity, before. There were similarities that brought them together, and differences which threatened to tear them apart. Painful realizations. Confessions. Growth, even, if he dared to admit as much, all leading to them ending up here.
A simple little double-date in a cute little karaoke establishment, with too much food spread on the table and the terms laid out between the snacks far more simple and easy than expected.]
Then stop holding yourself back and bare them for us.
[They'll have to devour one another wholly, and hope to come out the other side unscathed.]
[ It's hard to believe how intense these two high school theater dropouts can get when bouncing off one another. Eli quietly munches on fries while they exchange all of this, though there's only so long he can suppress his typical stupid questions. He leans towards Celeste and in what could more or less be considered a stage whisper, asks, ]
...this is all metaphor, too, right? 'cause he has stubby human teeth. Though I'm pretty sure he'd make it work regardless.
[ It's honestly a good thing that Eli breaks the theater tension here. Left to their own devices, McGillis and Celeste could probably keep going like this for an eternity, increasing the layers of metaphor and melodrama bit by bit...
But what is mostly metaphor is not entirely metaphor and McGillis does catch the hidden meaning. He and Celeste have certainly talked about it before, even if it was so many weeks ago that it feels like a very distant memory. ]
Human teeth can still cut, it's just a matter of using enough force.
[ Izou also has human teeth and god knows he made McGillis bleed with them. Which was incredibly annoying after the fact because of the healing process, but pretty sexy in the moment. Such is life, dating a demon. Between the Izou bites and the Celeste bite, McGillis really is only lacking Eli... hm.
Eli is who he turns to now, also. ]
I think your boyfriend is coming on to me.
[ And after the tense part of these conversations is now over, McGillis feels a bit more receptive to it. ]
[ McGillis will have to ask nicely for a werewolf bite (non-turning, thankfully). Well, either that or knee him in the balls like a certain manslayer did in that scuffle of theirs at the beginning of this entire mess... ]
Yeah?
[ Here, Eli offers him a crooked grin instead of a scowl for saying such a thing. They wouldn't be having this conversation if any of this upset him, after all. ]
Can't say I blame him. He's got great taste in men.
[ The surprise is exaggerated for effect. McGillis knows he's an attractive man and also that Eli is incredibly weak to muscles. That the general attraction web here might form a full square has crossed his mind before.
Funnily enough, way back in the first week, Eli was the first person he'd considered attractive. Things have changed since then but... ]
Come to think of it, he does. I'll not it down for his strengths.
[ No actually the first mouth opening was still attractive, but it did go downhill from there. And then moving uphill again through the slow process of actual fondness. There's a whole graph in here somewhere. ]
Now you just sound like you're trying advertising him to me.
[ Ha ha, he knew it. McGillis sees Izou that way. See? Eli's smart, after all. Knowing to tell Izou he had to talk to the big guy first. Someone give this man a gold star. ]
Huh. I'd say... nah? I mean, I'm giving you all the reasons you should totally get with Celeste. That's wingmanning. Not to say the terms are bad or anything.
[ As for the lack of jealousy, well... ]
And it is a little weird. I would have thought we'd all be super jealous about this, but the more I've thought about it, the more it's like... I love Celeste. That doesn't mean I own him? Plus, he's a vampire. Sex is probably an easy way to get blood? Like, the vampire gets something out of it, the human gets something out of it, that kind of thing.
I can't go "oh, since we're together now, you gotta go hungry". That'd be insane.
[ It's only because Eli told Izou to talk to McGillis that McGillis is now comfortably dropping the term 'boyfriend' whenever and wherever - which means Eli is indeed the greatest wingman of all time. ]
Well, Celeste has said that he won't take any partners except for us here - so we'll have to try hard to keep him well-fed, is what you're saying?
[ There are other ways to get blood (such as stealing from bloodbanks, which he's sure Celeste has also considered and/or done) but... They're talking about this in context of half-flirting and wingmanning so there's no need to get into the actual logistics too hard, is there now? ]
[BOYF???? FRIEND??? BOYFRIEND??? HE JUST SAID IT SO CASUALLY LIKE IT'S NO BIG DEAL??????
He's his.... He's been claimed with such a powerful term. If he had a tail it'd be wagging but with his still subpar emotional processing the only thing Izou can think to do besides going red in the face is to just bite McGillis's neck.]
[Hey, wait, hold on, what's this?? He'd just been about to tease him for that comment on his taste in men, when he starts in on all this.
And, okay, his self-esteem is pretty good, so it's not like he'll deny any of it, but having it all laid out like that, by Eli, to go on this hypothetical strengths chart? Please.
It's a good thing they're already tucked close because he kind of just faceplants into his hair to halfway hide the blush that creeps up way too quickly for his liking.]
[ Looks like it's a rare moment where Eli is the one doing the flustering. There, there, Celeste. He gives him a pat on the leg and absolutely leaves the aforementioned hand there once he's done. ]
[Okay, well, in that case! He can get it together enough to tease. A bit. Via a very put-upon pout and a returned hand squeeze to show he isn't nearly as serious as he might seem.]
Oh? That's all of them? That's not very many things, you know.
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If whatever is constructed manages to persist on after, then so be it.
But if it cannot, he'll refuse to look back on it with bitterness.
If he can stubbornly convince McGillis to do the same - to whatever extent he is able - all the better. Especially now that he's changed his mind, now that he wants to be proven wrong.]
That's a dangerous admission, you know.
[An invitation to climb through the little window in his walls. A request for someone to try to tear them down. Trust and care that McGillis still insists don't exist within him.]
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[ After all, McGillis is destroying the person he used to be.
He's doing it in homage to someone he once rejected so thoroughly, but he's also doing it for himself so as to not repeat the same regret he died with, however addled by blood-loss it might have been.
And all of him is screaming that he's making a mistake and straying from his path, but his path has been cut off by a bullet already. There is nowhere left to go, so he's forced to be right here. Wedged between friends, as they bother him while reading his book. Or sitting in dimly lit restaurants with a man he does not love, but who makes him feel like his heart is beating again. Or ordering too many appetizers in a karaoke room and talking about sex, like schoolboys... or like lovers would.
Comforts he once would have killed to put an end to.
They taste like chocolate milkshake. ]
I've given myself to three creatures with sharp teeth, but not to worry... I have my own fangs.
[ And he'll devour them and they'll taste like blood and chocolate too. If the happy end is not to be, then it will be a beautiful and haunting tragedy instead. ]
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[And not just for McGillis. There is danger down this path for each and every one of them, and yet each and every one of them have decided to set off down it, for better or worse.
With nowhere left to go, with the path forward cut off, there's no choice but to forge a new one. McGillis could do that alone, sure, but he isn't. He's making the decision to reach out, and the rest of them are all taking his hand in turn.
What they are at the end of it can be nebulously defined. Celeste can freely admit he loves the three of them, certainly, but the depth and intensity felt towards Eli is something... more. He suspects McGillis and Izou have a similar distinction, whether or not they'll admit it openly.
But there had been curiosity, before. There were similarities that brought them together, and differences which threatened to tear them apart. Painful realizations. Confessions. Growth, even, if he dared to admit as much, all leading to them ending up here.
A simple little double-date in a cute little karaoke establishment, with too much food spread on the table and the terms laid out between the snacks far more simple and easy than expected.]
Then stop holding yourself back and bare them for us.
[They'll have to devour one another wholly, and hope to come out the other side unscathed.]
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...this is all metaphor, too, right? 'cause he has stubby human teeth. Though I'm pretty sure he'd make it work regardless.
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Yes, this is metaphor, too... mostly.
[He's also caught a glimpse of the bites on Izou when he's shown them off, he knows that McGillis could probably make it work.]
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But what is mostly metaphor is not entirely metaphor and McGillis does catch the hidden meaning. He and Celeste have certainly talked about it before, even if it was so many weeks ago that it feels like a very distant memory. ]
Human teeth can still cut, it's just a matter of using enough force.
[ Izou also has human teeth and god knows he made McGillis bleed with them. Which was incredibly annoying after the fact because of the healing process, but pretty sexy in the moment. Such is life, dating a demon. Between the Izou bites and the Celeste bite, McGillis really is only lacking Eli... hm.
Eli is who he turns to now, also. ]
I think your boyfriend is coming on to me.
[ And after the tense part of these conversations is now over, McGillis feels a bit more receptive to it. ]
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Yeah?
[ Here, Eli offers him a crooked grin instead of a scowl for saying such a thing. They wouldn't be having this conversation if any of this upset him, after all. ]
Can't say I blame him. He's got great taste in men.
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[ The surprise is exaggerated for effect. McGillis knows he's an attractive man and also that Eli is incredibly weak to muscles. That the general attraction web here might form a full square has crossed his mind before.
Funnily enough, way back in the first week, Eli was the first person he'd considered attractive. Things have changed since then but... ]
Come to think of it, he does. I'll not it down for his strengths.
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I could go on about aaall his strengths if you'd like. You know, flexible. Very flexible. Gorgeous. Real smart. Funny as hell.
[ Sorry, McGillis, he's so in love it's gross. ]
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Now you just sound like you're trying advertising him to me.
[ Which is kind of amusing. ]
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[ insert "this is my boyfriend and this is my boyfriend's boyfriend" gif from parks & rec here ]
Although... I guess I, uh. Shouldn't be wingmanning my own boyfriend...? But he is all of those things.
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[ Except for himself, he's probably the most jealous guy here. But not jealous enough to stop this, not with this group of people. ]
I wonder if giving you leave to sleep with my own boyfriend would count as wingmanning? Or does having terms preclude it from that?
[ It's the first time he's called Izou his boyfriend out loud, yay! ]
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Huh. I'd say... nah? I mean, I'm giving you all the reasons you should totally get with Celeste. That's wingmanning. Not to say the terms are bad or anything.
[ As for the lack of jealousy, well... ]
And it is a little weird. I would have thought we'd all be super jealous about this, but the more I've thought about it, the more it's like... I love Celeste. That doesn't mean I own him? Plus, he's a vampire. Sex is probably an easy way to get blood? Like, the vampire gets something out of it, the human gets something out of it, that kind of thing.
I can't go "oh, since we're together now, you gotta go hungry". That'd be insane.
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Well, Celeste has said that he won't take any partners except for us here - so we'll have to try hard to keep him well-fed, is what you're saying?
[ There are other ways to get blood (such as stealing from bloodbanks, which he's sure Celeste has also considered and/or done) but... They're talking about this in context of half-flirting and wingmanning so there's no need to get into the actual logistics too hard, is there now? ]
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He's his.... He's been claimed with such a powerful term. If he had a tail it'd be wagging but with his still subpar emotional processing the only thing Izou can think to do besides going red in the face is to just bite McGillis's neck.]
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[ HELLO??? HE DID NOT SEE THIS COMING??????
McGillis is number one Being Bitten By Izou Enthusiast but TIME AND PLACE??? He's so startled, help. ]
What-- What was that for?
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[Hey, wait, hold on, what's this?? He'd just been about to tease him for that comment on his taste in men, when he starts in on all this.
And, okay, his self-esteem is pretty good, so it's not like he'll deny any of it, but having it all laid out like that, by Eli, to go on this hypothetical strengths chart? Please.
It's a good thing they're already tucked close because he kind of just faceplants into his hair to halfway hide the blush that creeps up way too quickly for his liking.]
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Aw, c'mon. You know it's all true, Celeste.
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[...Okay, having a hand end up on his leg makes it worth it, and he's rather quick to put his own hand over Eli's, lacing their fingers together.]
That all is besides the point, right now.
[But is it?]
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[ He gives Celeste's hand a squeeze. ]
There's reasons everyone here thinks you're hot as well and those are all of 'em.
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Oh? That's all of them? That's not very many things, you know.
[Compliment him more, please and thank you.]
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hot as well... how did they happen lmao
they're disasters ur honor
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