snowblindrpg | [log] I Think We're Alone Now [semi-open]

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[log] I Think We're Alone Now [semi-open]

Characters: Anyone in the Bunker!
Location: Bunker, Building 326 (high school), and Building 317 (hot shower house)
Date: Day 404-409
Summary: Goings on in the bunker post-event, and travel outside for House and Will. Brought to you by this cover.
Warnings: Please add them to subject lines, but likely body horror discussions, examination of vomit.

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[House turns off the water when it seems like Will has everything in the bathroom and mostly settled, then just sort of waits. The towel being offered is a nice surprise. He figured he'd have to grab it himself. Taking it, the doctor dries himself off as much as he can before wrapping it around himself and pulling back the curtain. He'll do his best not to step onto the mattress, but it's not a big bathroom. It's probably going to get dripped on a little as he steps over it and onto the cold tile.]

Kinda hoping the our clothes don't freeze overnight. It's getting colder.

[Which... when it's already hellishly cold is impressive.]

If Holmes was right about this whole place being some kind of super quantum computer, might be it's gearing up for something.

[Thinking. Theorizing. It'll keep his mind off watching Will moving around, maybe setting up the sleeping bags together. The puzzles are a little more distant right now, though. His eyes follow the other man as he shifts the towel up to dry his hair.]

When the temperature drops like this, something bad's about to happen. [Then again, when the temperature rises to room temperature or higher, bad things tend to happen, too. There's a happy medium of mostly-freezing that they live in now.]

[ House was in luck.

While the doctor distracted himself with quantum computer something or other, Will was keeping his eyes firmly on the job of zipping together the sleeping bags. He was not desperately hoping his body behaved long enough to get into the bags, nor was he allowing himself to sneak peaks at the way water was sliding down House's chest.

Down his chest, across the soft skin of his abdomen and then beneath the towel. Will absolutely was not thinking about how his fingers had traced a similar path, up to the point where they were stopped.

Sleeping bags secured and laid out on the mattress, the ex-profiler wasted no time crawling inside. He hoped that it would just look like a man who was cold, trying to get to the warmth. ]

Before you fuss, I've already taken care of my teeth. [ Because he knew it was not above House to insist on good oral hygiene. Just to make Will move, if for no other reason.

The material of the sleeping bag felt strange against his naked skin. Will tried to recall if he'd ever slept naked in a sleeping bag before and he couldn't recall a single instance. He'd always been clothed, in one way or another, not stripped bare.

In more ways than one. ]

I think we've all accepted the fact that something bad is on the horizon. [ The ex-profiler finally circled back to the puzzle. Though he sounded more resigned than anxious. ] I suspect the deck has always been stacked against us, just perhaps in varying degrees of negative consequences.

Perhaps it's better to have it done with, than to continue on; trapped in this horror. We had tastes of what that would be like.

[ Hunkered down in the sleeping bag nest, arms wrapped around himself as he tried to warm up, Will peeked up at House with a pointed glare. ]

If you try to drag that wet towel in here with us, I will feed it to you.

[ He knows what you're like with loopholes, House. A wet towel, despite affording the illusion of some sort of physically barrier between naked skin, is NOT invited. ]

Edited 2018-10-23 17:23 (UTC)

Kinky.

[Enjoy the sass while House takes care of his own oral hygiene. He has the towel cinched around his waist for the moment as he steps around the mattress and uses the sink and the diminishing remains of his toothpaste along with the toothbrush he's thoroughly worn through. Still, it's better than nothing.

It also offers a few more precious moments to prepare himself for this and tell his body to behave. He drops the damp towel on top of Will's head once he pulls it off, purely to be a brat, then sort of... slides into the sleeping bag. It's immediately apparent there there are two grown men trying to share a very small space. It's physically impossible to get in and move to zip up without being aware of how naked Will is beside him. At his back, as he shifts to his side to work the zipper all the way up. Normally, House would demand to be the 'big spoon' in this situation. It's sort of expected. He's larger. The whole skin-to-skin warmth will work better if he's 'cuddling' Will.

But cuddling Will means having an extremely telegraphic body part pressed up against the other man.

Decisions.]

So, I'm guessing the whole weird feeding fetish came from Donner Party?

[Cold water. Cold water. Think of cold water-inducing things to say while they just settle and sleep.]

[ The problem was going to be House would have to try to sleep with an equally telegraphic body part pressed up against him. It was a lose/lose (or win/win) situation, either way you cut it.

Sputtering at the towel being dropped on his face, Will pulled it off and tossed it off to the side, trying to hook it on something so it had a chance to dry. Lining it up and tossing it, allowed him to keep his head turned while House crawled into the bags with him, but it did nothing when his throat went dry as a result of the skin to skin contact.

House was warm. Warm, familiar, and the scent of comfort. Months and months of comfort, in amongst the points of awkwardness and pain. With the towel in place, he lay down, studying the back of shaggy, brown/grey hair and surprisingly broad shoulders. ]

Nice try. [ He said softly, when House rather artlessly attempted to bring up the subject of Hannibal. No doubt an attempt to douse the mental and emotional heat, as well as the physical. ]

House ... [ Will started, paused and took a breath. ] We're grown men. If there is a reason why we're being ridiculous about this, then I need you to tell me. I'll respect it, I promise.

[ But the two of them, laying as they did now, both trying to ignore their bodies' reactions to one another, reactions fueled by an intimate connection that neither had ever expected, tried to rein in, and inevitably lost the battles? It was a little too high school for Will.

And they were running out of time for high school shenanigans. ]

But will you respect me in the morning?

[Okay. Glib comments are really only going to carry them so far. He doesn't do this. He doesn't do heartfelt conversations about feelings. Luckily, not having an excessive amount of them means that he doesn't have to. But they've already been through this when House had been helpless to stop expressing himself. Now they're here, the silence around them as deep as the cold in the air. It's just two of them. Alone. Alone and nothing but the night ahead, quiet breaths, skin pressed to skin, the scent of soap.

He's quiet for long enough that Will might wonder if he's actually going to say anything else. When he does, his voice is quieter. He's still turned away.]

I've screwed up every relationship I've ever been in. I can't... afford to screw this one up.

[Not when he can see 'final boss' written all over the exit to the Bunker in his mind's eye. Not when losing Will now for whatever reason, might well be the straw that breaks the camel's back. The man is important enough. They don't need to add another crippling layer to that.]

[ Will isn't even going to dignify that initial comment with a response, and also because he understands it's a throw away line for House. Probably words out of his mouth before he was aware of speaking.

As the older man spoke, the ex-profiler inched over onto his side, facing his friend. He watched the haggard profile, as House gave one of those rare glimpses, into his vulnerable heart. The reasoning was sound, and Will knew the man struggled with these types of fears. Not without reason, House was the master of self sabotage.

Reaching under the warming cocoon of the sleeping bags, Will lightly curled his fingers around House's forearm, tracking it down, until he could grip the other man's hand. ]

House. [ He began, in those soft and solemn tones. ] I highly doubt any of us are going to survive long enough for even you to screw up this relationship.

I sat there, while you were in that induced coma ... and all I could think about was the very real possibility that this time you weren't coming back. [ He'd gone and he'd done his investigating, like a good boy, but there had been a few hours. ] There seems to be a line drawn in the sand, between the few of us who weren't infected through our tablets and the rest of the group. If this place is true to form I suspect we'll find ourselves separated, and not by choice.

[ Pushing up on his elbow, he looked down into brilliant blue eyes, his own calmly serene. It had been the same serenity he'd felt, when he realized he'd lost the ability to save himself.

Zero sum game. ]

[When was the last time he even held someone's hand when he wasn't freaking out? Ecks, maybe? Quark? Ginger in Miller's cells? House can't remember. It's been long enough that the simple connection is almost foreign to him. It's associated with trauma, with fear. There's fear here, of course. He can't really dispute the words Will's saying. He's seen the divide, as well. It's like the lights or the lines. Except this time, most people made the wrong choice, were marked for the crappier side of things.

Will picks himself up and leans over House and the doctors stares up at him, momentarily frozen. This conversation is going to end one of two ways. His lizard brain, the part that works only on fear, on a sense of danger, on a need to protect against all hurt says to rebuff Will. Laugh it off. Change the topic. Just straight out tell the other man to lie down and go to sleep.

But there's another option here.

House stays where he is, but he turns his hand, laces his fingers with Will's. Yeah, this is stupid, but he's never made particularly good life choices.]

You realize you're just giving me a challenge right?

[ He was equal parts expecting House to push him -gently- away, equal parts figuring it would be for the best if he did, and equal parts relieved when skilled medical fingers tangled with his own. Will flexed his hand, settling his fingers even more comfortable and then returning a firm grip:

I'm here.

Still leaning slightly over the older man, the ex-profiler quirked one corner of his mouth upwards, just a touch higher than the other, as his eyebrows rose innocently into his hairline. ]

Did I? Don't know what I was thinking.

[ Only that challenges were good. That if this place did take them away from each other in the next day, or the day after that, House would at least have the challenge to keep him driving onwards. It was about the only thing any of them could promise the other at this point.

But that was in the future hour, and Will was tired of trying to sort out the next step. It seemed a good time to simply exist in this moment. ]

This is where I awkwardly kiss you, [ he shared, a twinkle of wry humor entering into his blue eyes. ] If afterwards you tell me you can't because I'm unstable, I am kicking you out of the sleeping bags tonight.

[ No. No he wouldn't. House could stop things at any time he wanted, and they would just go to sleep. ]

[He squeezes back.

I know.]

I mean, the Joker kissed me once. You're a hell of a lot more stable than he is. Anyway, I think the crazy's supposed to make it hotter.

[House finally shifts, rolling so that he's more on his back, looking up at Will properly now. His blue eyes are half-hooded]

This is also where I point out I'm not cleaning the sleeping bags if anything more than a kiss happens.

[While he's interested in dipping his toes a little deeper into whatever waters they're stepping into here, the thirst needs to wait for the morning when they can see about a shower before heading out.]

Edited 2018-10-28 22:00 (UTC)

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[log] I Think We're Alone Now [semi-open]

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