[Samhain] This Feels Like Soap Opera

Mitch returned after twenty minutes of assisting in Henley's ritual, a little drained but light on his feet. When he realized Yuan had not budged from the spot he had left him in, he paused for a beat as familiar anxieties routed his approach to toxic patterns of mitigation and distance.

Snapping fingers to himself, he counted under his breath and lifted the imagined feeling of incoming disaster; rules made up to cope with his Durance. It was the awareness that was the ultimate irony⁠—knowing that your logic wasn't logical, but powerless to break from it as everyone pretended you didn't just take an extra ten minutes to park your car. His mien manifesting the searing punishment might have been validating, with a different mindset, but for Mitchell he absolutely hated a mundane consequence of trauma jumping the boundary into his fantastical experience. It blurred the lines. In a way, Oren did get his Summer vengeance, whether he was aware of it or not.

Mitchell wanted a distraction from the fact that he would ultimately lose his humanity. Spring agreed.

And so Carr chose to lean into the rush he got as he approached the gorgeous Playmate and slid next to him in a flawless motion. 

"I didn't take you for an adrenaline junkie," he laughed, acknowledging how they were about to blitz through the Hedge on the night were spirits passed the boundary. Henley did have a point that the chaos would make a group of Changelings not so special. He didn't seem condescending about Yuan being able to carry himself, given the events of the Ashen Hunt and the fact that the Beast had looked after himself as a vulnerable immigrant in the underworld. "We can chat privately if you want⁠—Komi taught me a trick way back when where I can take someone and planeshift." His head tilted, still smiling with some self-aware embarrassment. "The catch is I have to lift you, though, so if that seems like a lot... You're weightless afterwards. I can literally just balance you on a foot...or something."

Normally it was to remove someone from the immediate area before they caused harm to themselves or others, but it was a nice thought that it didn't have to be connected to violence. He didn't want to admit that spilling his private business to two strangers in a public gathering had been taxing on his pride. He would put down money that some Whisperwisp was already trading the gossip with the Magpie; the idea of just fucking off to the ephemeral was amusing.

He didn't seem stung by Yuan's word choice; between his experience with awkward Elementals and the Playmate speaking multiple languages, it was unfair to jump to conclusions. With confirmed permission and Yuan sharing his feelings on spilling guts in front of an audience, he positioned his feet and extended a hand.

A few of the Freeholders paying attention to such things momentarily gawked. The Bishop didn't dance with other Lost.

Instinct didn't really give Yuan a chance to try and match the Dancer's footing, immediately knocked off balance and his weight being spun before he could even process where things were moving as Mitchell literally took the lead. The human eye tracked seamless steps and enviable execution, but the Fairest inwardly cringed as apprehension got the best of him and he clocked several mirco-movements that could have immediately been done better. Nevertheless, Yuan was lifted into the air as the Contract flickered through his frame, turning flesh to untraceable light, and the Dancer emerged into fractal patterns and wings of cutting shard, ripping through the Mask as he shifted alongside.

Reality corrected Mitchell's mien, appearing normal after the split second of terrible grace as he did exactly as promised; allowing the Playmate to drift back down as he balanced on his feet. His hands trembled a bit from the white-hot crystals that had split the skin; a reminder for coming up short. However, the moment of Performance had passed and the Fairest could smile again, "It'll stop when you let go," he instructed, giving Yuan the out for whenever he wanted his personal space back. The Freehold gathering appeared slightly muted, blurring in the background as walls and objects ceased to have tangible quality.

Mitch's smile took on an element of sadness at the gesture, a little worried Yuan would get cut, but then remembering that deadly miens needed will to effect reality.

Oh, right.

He was self-aware of his impulsivity, flushing silver as he mulled what exactly he was trying to say or accomplish. "This meant...a lot?" he said with a slight inflection, "I know you started talking to me because this was like a-"

Don't say 'project'.

"-a validation thing- That the Freehold isn't going to pick you apart. Did it help? I don't know those two, so that means something, right?" He glanced the Beast over, reading reactions as he muddled his way through. "Once we're done- I guess I was wanting to ask where do you want to go from there...?"

His throat stuck, with the quiet edge of a sob getting suffocated as the Playmate practically begged to be believed that he was altruistic, obsessed in the heated moment. His experience with other Changelings demanded extra measures to ensure sanity prevailed, feeling the ever-present resentment they all felt about the Gentry as he squeezed Yuan's waist.


Dancer nodded, at a loss on what to say as he sorted through his own hard lessons on how his reluctance to float relationships had hurt people. He blinked back the gold that was starting to pool in the voided marble of his eyes, as learned fear burned through thundering pulse. He opened his mouth more than once as he tried to offer some sort of reassurance that felt like it was a lie before it even passed his lips. 

"O-okay- yeah, I care about you too. Umm,"  he stammered as his eyes widened a bit, the image of claws digging into his skin fluttering away with his own chaotic emotions, "I'm not going to abandon you. I'm bad at this," he chuckled quietly, smile finally fading. 

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Seriously, you're not," Carr reassured, attitude sobering as he got past the hurdle of his own bad habits and Yuan handled it with more resilience than he expected. He leaned his head a bit like he missed the contact as the Beast withdrew his hands, listening to what Yuan was asking and considering.

"I could. Something...I didn't really get into with Henley and Gavin was that the- those pieces? They can tweak personalities, sometimes. Uh," he shrugged, breaking eye contact. He wasn't used to stumbling so much when explaining his thinking, "What I'm getting at is that I can dig into this now, but after the shit we're trying to pull, you might not- You might regret it? Like, not want me to be sitting on that sort of information if I'm not the same person."

He didn't want to worry anyone; it was filling cracks over something to be feared. However, the Playmate highly valued his privacy and was guarded about who he relied on. It was a raw nerve he was potentially going to tread on.

The Fairest seemed momentarily hung up on the idea that he was somehow messing with Yuan's trust, catastrophizing that the Beast was going to potentially move on or dislike him after obtaining an Icon and then regret that Carr knew deeply personal information about him. It was either a byproduct of him carefully guarding the last reserves of his mental health for so long, or he was bouncing off Yuan and just having his own bout of insecurity. He was being defensive and already gearing up to sidestep a conflict before it even had the chance to exist.

To Yuan's question, he shook his head. "I'm not being clear. I'm fine using the Contract," he said, taking on a more professional tone to mask how silly he suddenly felt.

"You don't get a say in what you get back. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a happy memory or a positive trait? But you end up being more grounded in reality, because you're getting a piece of yourself back from Arcadia." That's how Snow explained it, anyway. He quietly hoped that's as deep as the questions were going to go on occult matters; he was decidedly more comfortable affording opinions on other people's situations than his own.

The Dancer smirked, flushing again and pulling the Beast right back in for a more heated kiss, taking the moment to weave the Contract he had requested. Focus split, the image stuttered, demanding the tithe be paid to break past Yuan's innate defenses, and he ran his hands through the crystalline hair. Yuan's greatest desire mapped, he pulled back.

 
"You want to stop caring what people think," he murmured, attention flashing momentarily with the Spring vision before properly looking at Yuan. "Or be beyond those expectations, at least. And cherish the sense of freedom that is promised."