|[ Oyunwi Nhul | Gaza ]| (supersight) wrote in beyond_evo, @ 2017-05-23 02:27:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | gaza, lupo |
Log: Lupo and Gaza
WHO: Lupo and Gaza
WHERE/WHEN: The lakehouse; Backdated roughly a month
WHAT: The Savage guys are having an entirely normal evening until suddenly their relationship is forever changed.
GAZA: To the casual observer, Gaza might appear to be a solitary person. He didn't attend parties or dances as a rule, and if he was pestered into doing so he would spend his time on the edge of the hubbub, silently watching, somewhat sullen expression unchanging. He didn't make small talk as he roamed the halls of the school, didn't sit at occupied tables at lunch, spent much of his time alone in his room with the door locked and only the tinny voice of the man in his radio box for company. Nobody could be blamed for jumping to the conclusion that he was standoffish or just a loner. It wasn't true though. Gaza didn't like to be alone. He was comfortable with it, certainly, but in reality he rarely felt entirely alone because he could always see others, hundreds of others, going about their lives around him, in the school and beyond. Sometimes it was easy to forget they weren't right in front of him, that he couldn't just reach out and touch them. No matter how cut off he might have appeared, loneliness was something he'd suffered acutely in his past but now now, not here.
It wasn't that there were lots of people living under the mansion's roof. He'd been similarly surrounded by bodies in his times with the Sun People but had felt isolated and unhappy all the same. The difference here was that he had touchstones within the population of this community, people he could shift his attention to no matter where on the grounds they may be, however physically far from him, and feel warmed by the sight of them. People who let him feel he was never alone even if they weren't in close proximity. Even in his darkest moods, he could twist his mind's eye in the direction of Whiteout in the library or Dee amongst the flowers or Lupa on the hunt and the world would seem like a kinder place. He'd spent years thinking of his fellow former playthings of Essex, years longing to see them again, for them to be figures in the dizzying scope of his vision, and then the fates had seen fit to grant him his fondest wish. Gaza didn't think he would lose that feeling of wonder and gratitude and love every time his mind caught a glimpse of their beautiful shapes.
Just seeing them wasn't enough though, there were times when he needed to be close to them, which was why he could regularly be found in the company of one or more of the other Savage Landers, standing still and watching the world go by from behind blank eyes, a silent statue. Gaza didn't need to talk to enjoy their presence, knowing they were at his side was nourishment enough for his soul. This evening, as he often did, he'd appeared at the lakehouse once the sun had set as Lupo was shrugging the sleep from his bones and had quietly taken up his usual position, standing in the centre of the room and staring vacantly and sharply at nothing and everything. This was the best part of the day for him. There was no presence he found more reassuring than that of this man, nobody who made him feel more safe, free to carry out the duty Gaza firmly believed was his - to just watch. For some reason, though, his attention was wandering tonight, unfocused. With his back to Lupo as his friend went about his business, Gaza watched Amy briefly, then switched to Beau, to the maze, to Nemo, Hector, the woods. He exhaled slowly and deliberately through his nose, knowing what would bring him to a more peaceful frame of mind. The usually still Gaza moved, lowering his chin a fraction and then turning his head fully to the side. He changed his expression, his stance, so rarely because every move he made had a meaning behind it, but only those who knew him as intimately as his fellow Mutates could decipher them all. This one meant that he'd zeroed in on something, that he'd focused his attention fully and wholly on one single shape and was studying it in forensic detail, the rest of the world no more than a background hum. And then something especially uncommon happened - a smile flickered across his lips.
LUPO: Lupo had been heading the charge of not only coming to this place, but of acclimating to it -- learning everything that they could about it, finding out the histories and customs of these cultures, looking for clues in their past and their present that might help he and his own with their futures. He'd never been able to settle for the idea that the world simply ended at the borders of the Swamp Lands or the areas they conquered in war. Or that it did at the ends of the Savagelands itself. He could see the stars from where he slept in the trees (much more clearly than he could in this new world, sadly), and even that meant that there was more to find. But so few people around him had that same mindset. The Swamp Men only cared about what else might be out there insofar as they might be able to find new lands to invade and people to war with. His sister lived too much in the present to care for things of other natures. Essex had known of other worlds, but thinking to align himself with that man at all was enough to make Lupo's feral side start to surface.
With all of his need to look only at the future and the possibilities, he had left himself completely defenseless to the idea that missing things from the past might one day hit him.
It was a feeling that he woke with often, anymore, whether he was in the lakehouse or at the school. There wasn't a word for it in the tongue of his people, and he hadn't tried to find the one for it here. Homesickness. Nostalgia. A quiet weight at the pit of his stomach that sliced at him unexpectedly when sounds or smells or sights (or the lack thereof) flashed by. The unforgiving cold outside had made the indoor sleeping more of a necessity, and that in turn had made this unsettling sadness more of a normalcy than he would have liked. He missed waking up in the trees. Even the sometimes-present feel of Walter's body next to him didn't make that go away. Walter was a friend, was more than that. But something in Lupo kept clawing for home.
The feel of the room changed though, when Gaza entered it. Lupo knew who was coming the same as his sister's wolves did, able to scent him from far away and able to distinguish Gaza's particular footfall from others. Gaza of the Sun People. It was a fitting tribe for him; to Lupo he brought the warmth of that star with him when he came in. It was comfortable to have him there, as Lupo pulled his leathers on, careful with his left shoulder, where the bite that had infected him days before was still angry and healing. More scars to add to the litany that were already there. He could feel the slight shift in the air when Gaza's demeanor changed and he looked to his friend. "What is it?" Nothing dangerous, nothing to send tension through Lupo's body to prepare him for something. But it was something, all the same.
GAZA: That was a sensation Gaza could relate to. Homesickness, that yearning for something familiar that was so out of reach to the five refugees from the Savage Lands. It didn't make sense in his case. He recognised the feeling for what it was but he didn't understand why it was one he was experiencing. It wasn't as if there was anything he should actually miss. Memories of his past were almost uniformly bad. He'd been unhappy as a child when his people had treated him as the lowest of the low for being born broken. He'd been unhappy as a captive of Essex. He'd been unhappy as the revered but entirely isolated false seer of the Sun People. He'd been unhappy when they'd spent months hunting him down for his deceptions. This place, this bizarre school in these baffling lands, was the closest he'd ever come to a happy existence. He was reunited with those he loved most and though he remained an outsider here, he was accepted as a part of a greater whole. Given the choice, Gaza would never set foot on Savage soil ever again.
But home was home. Despite himself, he couldn't help longing for the shapes of the trees, the beasts, the penetrating heat of his blessed Sun. None of it was the same here and as pleased as he was with his life in the United States, he only felt truly at peace in the company of the Mutates. That was why moments like this, with this man so close to him he could hear his slightest movement, were so treasured.
"Nothing," he murmured, his voice quiet but still characterised by it's depth, like the shifting of a rock at the base of his throat. He hesitated because no, it was something. "Nothing bad, okeo." That word. Friend in their tongue. He no longer used it for anyone else, though there were many who fitted the bill, both Mutate and mutant. But it had come to mean something slightly different to him, it had formed a deeper resonance in his mind. It was Lupo and it was nobody else. Never had been.
Turning, he faced his friend. He didn't need to do that to see him better and might look to an onlooker as if he were simply shifting his weight but Gaza never moved without purpose. Again he hesitated. "Sometimes, my mind... it strays. When this happens I must focus on a single shape to find my calm." He didn't know why he was explaining this. It wouldn't be news to Lupo. Still, he found the words falling from his lips as he took a step forward, closing the distance between them. "When we were young, that shape was you. Always you. My mind would have been lost to me without you, Lupo." Why was he saying all this now? He'd wanted to since the moment they'd met again outside the ruins of Essex's facility but wisdom had kept him quiet. He'd been so strong. Until now. Weakness always struck when it was least expected, he supposed. Tentatively, he raised an arm and rested his fingertips on Lupo's shoulder - his good shoulder - with a touch that was lighter and more gentle than one might imagine from a lunk like him. "Now you are a man and you have changed, grown. But still you..." He trailed off, lips working as if forcing himself to find the words and speak them. Or doing the opposite, desperately wanting to speak his mind but trying to find some way to hold it in. He couldn't. His usually impassive expression faltered, revealing the one thing he always fought hardest to hide. Vulnerability. His fingers moved slowly across Lupo's shoulder, tracing his outline until they brushed against his neck. "Still yours is the best shape I have ever known."
LUPO: All of their lives had been difficult, dangerous even, in different ways. Dee had perhaps gotten off the easiest in that sense, but even then her tribe had to live under the constant threat of attack and enslavement by others that didn't care to respect their boundaries. Lupo and his sister had grown with a tribe whose bread and butter was violence and death, Whiteout had to live as a scavenger in the ruins of their prison, and Gaza -- while revered as a prophet -- had the constant threat of exposure hanging over his head like an axe. And here the threats were….different. Not even things that Lupo would be able to mentally categorize as such, as the spectre of death so rarely came with the dangers here. In his own estimation, at least. The threats were of an emotional variety, and that was something he was sorely unprepared for. Pains were discovered deep inside of his chest without warning, that his body wanted to protect itself from by reverting to its base form. Only, when he was cognizant again, the pain hadn't necessarily gone away. It was just sated a bit, until the next unexpected jostling that brought it back to the forefront.
The others helped to soothe it some. Gaza, actually, more than most. That should've been Lupa's position, but her will was stronger than his and she still hadn't forgiven him; she wasn't going to be offering him comfort or support any time soon. Dee was young and there was something in her near-innocence that he liked, didn't want to tarnish. And Whiteout was strong, logical -- nearly a choice, except that they were still on the path to becoming closer. Not there yet. Gaza was the one he turned to, even if the other didn't know it, even if it was only in his own mind, when he needed that balm of familiarity, the steadiness of the rock that he was. That feeling came back when Gaza used that word for him, made a slight smile hit his lips.
Gaza couldn't see it, but there was a tinge of concern at his eyes when Gaza kept speaking, mirroring the words that Lupo was feeling as well. He'd...honestly had no idea that he'd meant something so important to Gaza when they were younger and in Essex's care. He'd been barely more than an animal then, even less human than he was now. Gaza had been able to pull him out of himself even back then though -- he just hadn't realized he'd been able to have a similar impact on his friend.
Then the other's fingers brushed against his neck, and things changed in an instant. Like heat and fire at once in the spot where his fingertips were, raising the hair at the back of Lupo's neck and sending a rush out from that spot. His head tilted slightly towards the touch, his eyes scanning over Gaza's face even though he knew the other couldn't see the depths to which he was taking him in. He wanted…. He didn't even know the ending to his own thought. Just knew that he wanted. A hand went up to cover Gaza's, to hold it there. And then moved to touch the side of Gaza's face, thumb slowly tracing over the outline of eyebrow and cheekbone and jaw.
GAZA: He couldn't stop himself now. He knew that as soon as they made contact. There could be no turning back. This had always been inevitable and he should have known that from the start, he should have known it from the moment they were reunited outside the ruins of the house of Essex. These feelings could never have been contained forever. Locking them up deep inside himself had always been a temporary measure. Sooner or later, the dam would burst. Gaza and Lupo both knew there were many prisons in life, many cages, but they also knew that eventually all walls fell down.
His eyes closed when Lupo's hand moved to his face, tilting his head to lean into the touch. It was enough to make his mind fog, for dizziness to set in. The rest of the world, the miles and miles of landscape Gaza's mind was forever surveying, fell blissfully out of view. All he could see now was Lupo. Every line and curve, every strand of hair, every pore in his skin, the perfect shape of him. Essex might have been a curse upon their lives but he'd left Gaza with the greatest gift. Nobody saw beauty the way he did.
Lupo wasn't pulling away from him. That was the clearest thought in the heat of his mind. He'd imagined this moment of honesty many times but rarely had he dared to believe he'd be well received. It wasn't just a fear of rejection. Deep down, he'd been afraid that what he truly represented to Lupo was something bad. Gaza had convinced himself he'd held back because of Walter, that the Canadian had beaten him to it and Lupo was happy so it would be wrong of him to make an obstacle of himself. But he realised now that it had never been about Walter. Gaza respected the man, liked him even, but not so much that he wouldn't have challenged him in a heartbeat. No, he'd stayed silent about his feelings for Lupo's sake. He'd last been part of the Swamp Man's life during his darkest days, days of science and cages and suffering, and he'd feared being a symbol of that. He didn't want to be a reminder of everything his friend must have wanted to forget. He didn't want to take him back there. So he'd stayed quiet, which he was so good at doing, shown no hint of his desire to Lupo or to anyone else and watched another man step forward in his place, a man with no bad memories attached. It was for the best, he'd told himself.
But now, the past felt far away. The shadows of their shared history had proven unable to darken the bond between them. That was why his resolve had crumbled so suddenly and so completely on this entirely ordinary day, unplanned. That was why he'd closed the distance between them out of the blue like this. Because there was nothing to stop him. Why now, he'd asked himself seconds ago. And the answer was... why not now?
"I still think of it," he murmured, his hand travelling up Lupo's neck to tangle his fingertips into the edges of his beard. Gaza wanted to stop talking but it felt like there were things which needed to be said. "The last day we spent together. What we shared. I have always thought of it. And I carried it with me, okeo, across all the sunsets and to the other side of this world." His fingers moved further, gently touching, searching, just as he did whenever fate conspired to blind his psychic senses and he needed to feel the familiarity and strength of his friend's features under his fingertips. It felt different this time. He moved from cheekbone to mouth, his thumb running slowly across Lupo's bottom lip. The space between them had somehow dissolved and he could feel the heat of the other man's breath within his own. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Your kiss has always been on my lips." He paused, looking into Lupo's eyes as if he could see them, and he knew the time for words was over. "I need to feel it again."
Neither man was afraid of expressions of brutality, on the battlefield or in the bedroom, but when Gaza leaned in to press his lips against those of Lupo, he wasn't rough or aggressive. There was no bite in his kiss. Instead, it was tender, soft, at least to start. He needed Lupo to know that this wasn't just physical, he hadn't taken this leap only because his blood was hot. For Gaza, this ran deeper.
LUPO: Gaza did represent another life to him. A number of other lives. The life they'd had with Essex, the cages and the bonding that they'd all done to get through it because they were all that they had. The life outside of it, with their tribes that were supposed to be their family. The Savagelands, the world entirely separate from this one that they no longer had access to. And now this one, this new world that could offer hope or just an end for them all. Gaza was a constant throughout, a memory for each that managed to somehow pull it from being a dangerous or frightening memory and take it to something that he could hold onto when he needed strength. Lupo was Gaza's shape to focus on, and Gaza was Lupo's reminder that wherever they went, Lupo could find something good about it in him.
This was different from Walter. So very, very different. With Walter there had been a sudden, animal instinct, the kiss all teeth and blood, shoving each other against walls, his nails tearing skin even as his mouth tore the kiss.
This was… This was two dangerous creatures, mutated to fuller potential than they'd had before, grown as lab rats and raised to fight. Living their entire lives as targets, as things to be feared. And there was good reason for it too. Everything about Lupo risked hurting another person. There were no gentle kisses from him, no imaginable happy ending. Trying something like this, with the two of them. It was walking a mine field covered in dirty bombs, things designed to stab and tear and kill and ruin. It should have been any number of things -- passionate, waited for, needed. But above all the violence would be unavoidable. Two warriors, trying this, testing this thing and not entirely sure how the other would react, practically inviting in a fight and that wasn't to say anything about their powers being added to it.
And yet, it wasn't that. There was no attack, no hurting, not even the fight for dominance that Walter had put up. The gentle touch of Gaza's lips to his own was met in kind by Lupo, albeit unsurely. Unsure, from a man who usually had unsure go hand in hand with every bit of him turning into a feral, razored monster. There was the careful tread of someone who knew the wrong touch could ruin this all, and who very, very much wanted it to continue. His fingers stayed light against Gaza's skin and the kiss shallow, taking his time to drink in the sensation of Gaza's lips and what they were saying when neither of them spoke.
GAZA: There was something blossoming in Gaza's chest, a heat, an urge, blooming from deep behind his ribcage and up towards his throat. It was familiar, the usual response when he found himself in a position like this. Aroused, anticipatory. His body wanted him to move faster, harder, to challenge and grapple for dominance, to tighten his grip until he drew blood. That was how it had always been for him, with every casual lover. Violence was a fundamental way of life within the Sun People, from the way they selected their leaders to the way they punished their inferiors to the way they waged war. Their lovemaking, as the people of this world sometimes called it, was no exception. It was combat because everything was. And since that was how he'd always experienced it, that was how his body was conditioned to respond. There wasn't an animal inside him in the way there was within Lupo, but there was a beast and it wanted to claw its way to the surface.
But it didn't. He felt the aggression of desire swelling inside him, felt the rush of heat sizzling across his flesh, the dizzying sharpening of his senses, and he recognised all of it but it was different this time. It was all overwhelmed by something greater. Because this was Lupo. This was Lupo. And what he felt for this man was something far greater than lust. He couldn't put a name to the depth of this feeling because his people had lacked the words for such things and his ability to think in English had collapsed for the moment, but he didn't need to label it. He knew what he felt and what that meant.
Lupo was tentative, Gaza could feel that much and was matching it in his own careful, tender touch, but his friend was still here, responding, and the knowledge of that, of what that meant, made the edges of his lips curve through the kiss into a smile. It wasn't often that expression forced its way past his own self control but he couldn't help this one. This was what happiness felt like, a kind he hadn't experienced since the last and only time he and Lupo had kissed, so many sunsets ago, a reminder of just why he'd spent so much of his life since yearning for him. Finding his confidence, he deepened the kiss. His eyes remained shut but his mind's eye wandered, across Lupo because he was all that existed, following the contours of the shape he knew better than any other. Gaza let his psionic senses pause at the one spot on a person he usually avoided because he considered it the most intimate - the chest, above the heart. He could see the tiniest shudder in Lupo's skin there, the infinitesimal vibrations generated by the beating of his heart, imperceptible to anyone but Gaza himself.
He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against that of the other man, feeling overwhelmed and needing a moment to gather himself, even if that was a hopeless cause; he could only lose himself in Lupo now. His eyes were open once more, unseeing yet still somehow betraying the tumult of sensations flowing through him, the anticipation, trepidation, desire, vulnerability, joy, love. One hand curled at the back of Lupo's head as the other grazed over the leathers stretched across his chest, coming to rest over his heart. Words found their way to his lips once more, in their native tongue this time, exhaled more than spoken. "I want you, Lupo. Only you. I always have."
LUPO: He remembered that kiss from years before. In Essex's labs, when they were barely more than children. Being lost in his animal side for days, maybe more. Feeling pulled out of it, his human side in control again not because his sister had commanded it, but because of the scent and touch of Gaza. A kiss following, not passionate and adult and leading to something further. Just a kiss that simply was what it was, an expression that neither of them knew the full meaning of. Resonating through him again today, now, when he could better understand what it truly meant.
He didn't want the kiss to break, but when it did he realized that he was light-headed and needed the air. He kept his eyes closed as Gaza touched their foreheads together, the scents around them painting enough of a picture for him to not need anything else. He wasn't sure that he could breathe if he looked, anyway.
He gave a small nod to the words, even though it likely wasn't necessary. Everything in him was agreeing. "You have me." For however long he wanted him, in whatever capacity -- friend, brother, lover. He kissed him again, deepening it, mindful of his teeth and that they didn't tear at the other's mouth like they were made to. He wanted more of this, to see if (as he suspected) the further things went, the stronger those things he was feeling would become. His hands tugged at the edges of Gaza's shirt, wanting to pull it away, to see and touch and taste and smell what was underneath. And with the weather warmer and the wolves migrating back to the forest, he knew that they had all day to explore that and more, without fear of being disrupted. A single day wouldn't be enough, but he knew already that this wouldn't be the end of it, that there would be more to come.