Simultaneous release

RE: Simultaneous release [KYROS]

He took in the information about her sister and then Lochlann paused.

"It's your birthday?" he asked, clarifying that she'd just said. For someone who didn't know when his birthday was, Lochlann placed a great value on everyone else's birthday.He was far too aware of the cultural significance.

"I'm sorry you have to spend it in here," he said, almost spitting the word here like it was a curse. But he did seem sorry, and there was an unexplained sadness lining the tension in his face.

It didn't fade even when she responded to his joke, because Lochlann was still preoccupied with how horrible it was to spend your birthday here.

Her laughter surprised him and drew him from his thoughts. He blinked at her, both because he enjoyed the sound, and because what she'd said went right over his head.

"I don't know what that means," he said. There was no shame in his voice, just interest. "What exactly is a hentai?"

Lochlann had not seen enough hentai to know how the comments about squids had ended up here. When she said that he didn't have to keep laying there, Lochlann blushed and sat up slowly, conscious of every movement and how it might jarr his head. So far, the pain stayed at the subdued level, but it was still ever present.

"Sorry," he said.

RE: Simultaneous release [KYROS]

She laughed when he asked what a hentai was, and Lochlann wondered if it was something obvious. He'd been in America for almost a decade before he came to the academy, and Lochlann thought he'd gotten a good grasp of most things.

"Porn," Lochlann repeated.

She was blushing and waving her hands around. The anticts started to bring out a slow, hesitant smile on his face.

"It's monster porn. With tentacles."

He chewed on the inside of his cheek and thought about what she'd just said. "You have strange friends if they want to talk to you about animated monster porn, but not show you any."

He was quite nonplussed about this whole affair. Lochlann was not easily put off by the discussion of sex. Still, now that it was on the table, he couldn't help but wonder if she had seen it.

So he asked, "Is it any good?"

RE: Simultaneous release [KYROS]

He watched her play with her hair, and Lochlann was suddenly posessed with the need to touch it. This sudden need caught him offguard, and he felt his hands twitch in his lap as though they were going to reach out against his will. He held his shaking fingers in his hand.

"I haven't seen much of it," he confessed. "It's always very expensive in stores."

Yes, it was true: Lochlann Cabyll-Ushtey, sex fanatic and pursuer of all things woman, paid for his porn. Someone needed to introduce him to the internet.

She covered her face with her hands and sighed, peeking through at her fingers at him, and Lochlann offered her another soft smile.

"No," Lochlann said. "Sex is pretty normal. Seeing or not seeing porn is up to a person's individual tastes. I don't think you're weird at all."

Lochlann looked away for a moment and his smile faltered, as though he was remembering where they were for the first time. The common room reminded him of the waiting room in a hospital. It was clean and smelled faintly of bleach and lemons. The florescent lights buzzing overheard made his chest ache for the feel of the sun on his skin.

"I'd go as far as to venture that you're the most normal person I've met so far," he said.

RE: Simultaneous release [KYROS]

"I suppose it doesn't matter, being normal or being weird, as long as you're alive," Lochlann said, and then regretted it, because what a fucked up thing to say. He wasn't trying to look deep or poetic--it just escaped from his mouth. "But it's nice that you haven't tried to turn me into a cat or something because I looked at you weird."

Then, he scrunched up his nose and said, "Not that I would look at you weird. I don't glare, after all."

Her compliment, if that's what it was, caught Lochlann offguard. He had not been expecting it, and it was evident in the small, almost shy way he returned her smile.

His smile was a flighty thing, easily scared away, but just as easily brought back.

Her top of sex made him blush, but he was very casual when he responded.

"I do prefer the actual thing than porn," Lochlann agreed. He looked at her, and now, for the first time, Lochlann was looking at her like she was a woman, not like she was a woman in this hellhole. His eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch and, even though his hands were still shaking, they weren't clenched like they were before.

"A lot of the stuff in porn is pretty unrealistic, though," he said.

Unrealistic unless he was fucking Guinevere Haze.

He tried to force the thought from his mind. He'd touched his neck when he'd thought her name without realizing it; his hands were back on his lap.

"I mean, I don't know about you, but generally I don't find being upside down for long periods of time while my head is shoved against a bedboard pleasurable," he said.

If Guin did that to him, he'd still probably come, but he brushed the thought from his mind.

RE: Simultaneous release [KYROS]

It took a moment for what she was saying to sink in.

"oh!" Lochlann said, and then he followed up with, "I'm sorry. I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable."

He was so used to bringing up sex that he'd actually forgotten it was sort of her fault they were on this subject.

Lochlann did not have a thing for virgins. He didn't think too much about one's virginity or lack there of either way. He know some people placed a great value on it while others seemed to lament that fact, but the only time Lochlann worried about it was figuring out how it might factor into someone's mindset.

He caught someone staring at them and Lochlann glared. He leaned back and rested his arms on the back of the couch, making himself look bigger and almost daring the onlooker to come and fuck with him.

He should really thank Guin for the bruises on his neck. THey made everything he did look much more serious.

When he'd turned his attention back to Dani, Lochlann blinked in surprise, and then his flighty smile landed again.

"You flatter me," he told her. "Unfortunately given our surroundings..."

He can't believe he'd just turned a girl down. He made a face like it pained him, and it did, or maybe that was just the headache still pressing in on him.

He hated it here.

He hated that he'd just met someone and he had to turn her down because they were here.

RE: Simultaneous release [KYROS]

"See?" She said. "There you are. Glaring again." She gestured to his... well, his entire everything.

He looked at where she was gesturing which, for a second, Lochlann thought meant his cock. Luckily, it was behaving where it should be. He shifted a little just in case.

"Yeah, but I'm not glaring at you," he said, pouting out his bottom lip as though he was hurt that she hadn't taken this into consideration. And then, she shifted, and her butt was pressed right up against his thigh and her legs were stretched out over his legs.

It was a familiar gesture, and one that softened Lochlann to her considerably. Or, at least, softened his heart, because his cock was already another story.

He watched her stretch from the corner of his eye, trying hard not to make it look like he was watching, but he was. He sighed when she said she was kidding, and then felt a small flutter of something in his gut when she said she was kidding about kiding.

"I don't know when I'm getting out of here," Lochlann frowned. "I've already been here for a few weeks now. It's hell. I can't imagine anyplace worse. How long do you have left here?"

RE: [Event] Simultaneous release

She didn't know how long she'd be here, either. He didn't know if Lochlann was comforted knowing that he might have someone he could look forward to seeing, or scared that he wanted to look forward to seeing her.

They'd just met. Why was he thinking about seeing her again?

She asked why he was here, and then teased him in a sing-song voice. Lochlann guessed she'd seen the hesitation on his face.

It wasn't that he didn't want to tell her. Lochlann didn't know.

For him, waking up, still drunk from the night before, was not a problem. Damaging his liver so that even magic and medicine combined almost couldn't save him was not a problem. Overdosing on sleeping pills was not a problem. These were solutions to the problem of his existence.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said, because it was better than saying I don't know. He wasn't mean when he asked, just a little caught off guard, so his voice sounded strange, "Do you know why you're here?"

RE: [Event] Simultaneous release

"Oh," Lochlann said, and then he shifted a little, because he'd pictured her with a black bandanna and a gun and for some reason that made him hard. He swallowed and was glad her legs were far enough away that she wouldn't discover it.

"Well, shit," Lochlann said, and then he laughed, because he was not expecting that. It was a high, wirey laugh, the kind that always caught him off-guard. "I don't know what I was expecting, but bank robbery was not it."

He tilted his head and looked at her with new eyes, as though he was trying to surmize how exactly she would rob a bank. He didn't want to assume she cuted them to death because that was sexist, but she was really cute.

He was blushing again so he swallowed, but he kept forgetting about the bruises on his neck. His right went and rubbed it without thinking. His left hand was somehow on her ankle, drawing small circles with his fingertips through her stockings/jeans/IDKWAHT SHE WEARS.

He was going to surprise her for her birthday. Lochlann was pretty good at surprises.

"Tell me about what kind of birthday bash you were going to throw," he said.

RE: [Event] Simultaneous release

"Renting out an amusement park would be fun," Lochlann agreed, an when she mentioned the hentai theater he laughed alongside her.

His laughter faded at the reminder that they were here.

Lochlann closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of the couch. For a long while, he let the fabric hold him up while he drew the circles onto her ankle. He didn't even realize he was touching her until she called him out on it, and then he pulled his hand away to look at her pants.

Now he was thinking about taking her to bed.

Couldn't he go a god damn conversation without thinking about what she'd look like peeling off those pajama pants and crawling under the covers with him, whispering, Lochlann i'm cold, warm me up?

"You're cute," he said, but then he realized his mistake, because he'd meant to say they're cute. "They do look very comfortable. I like to sleep in sweatpants myself for that reason."

His headache was returning and Lochlann shifted as though trying to burry himself into the couch.

"I did not know," he started a story, feeling a little embarrased. This was the most he'd spoken to anyone here in weeks, and now here he was telling a story. "That there were different sweatpants for men and woman. So when i went to buy sweatpants once, i just bought what ones felt comfortable. When I came home and wore them, I discovered they'd said SEXY across the butt cheeks. I thought it was weird, but it wasn't until my sister was wearing the same pair that I realized I might have made a mistake."

He had no idea why he was telling her this.

RE: [Event] Simultaneous release

He liked her laugh.

Then, just like that, it happened. It was a conscious thought, just something that happened when he shifted his body ever so slightly to be angled towards her.

Lochlann decided he liked her.

"I still have a pair, " Lochlann confessed. He actually had several pairs. "What can I say? They're softer than the ones they make for men."

He looked at her and then, Lochlann said, "I would like to kiss you one day."

It was a very forward thing to say, especially to someone he'd just met and who'd shown no interest in him besides being friendly. But it was on his mind, so it came out of his mouth. Lochlann closed his eyes and leaned back into the couch again.

"I have to ask you, do you have any other family here on the islands besides your sister, Riley?"