[closed] i been getting used to waking up with you

[goldcuffed]

who: Laurent and Damen
what: It doesn't take them long to find each other.
when: 24 hours after their arrival
where: Floor 7, Apartment 3
warnings: Feelings for now. Will update.


[Damen arrival through the portal is a jumble of memories. He barely remembers the moment he planted feet on the moon - maybe because he probably fell through it, still bleeding out from Kastor's knife. Being rushed to the 'hospital' is a blur, and then blackness while they treated his wound. Upon waking in a thin paper gown in a narrow bed, a man from the Perimeter Guard told him about this place, where he is and why he's here, how they cannot yet send him back to Akielos. He gave him something called a 'phone', a hand-held rectangle of glass and plastic, and showed him how to use it to access 'websites' and 'apps', to send 'text messages' and 'call people'.

They released him 24 hours from his arrival in Riverview Quarantine, his injury now seeming days or a couple of weeks old, not freshly given by- His head spins whenever he thinks of Akielos. Of the baths. His brother's lifeless eyes and blood on the marble floor. Laurent, holding his hand.

A dearth of painful memories that leave him feeling small and tired.

The guardsman shows him to a tall building, the tallest he's ever seen, but he can hardly take in the wonder of steel and glass; he takes the stairs to the seventh floor, with the key he was given in hand. He still doesn't trust the mechanized box they call an elevator. When he reaches the apartment he has been given, he slides in the key and opens the door, stepping inside with barely a glance. He must look a sight, his curls a dark bird's nest, bandages wrapped around his torso beneath a thin white shirt, hospital-issued sweatpants just a bit too short. He doesn't care. He just wants to sleep, and hope to wake up from all this tomorrow.]

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[redoublement]

[ It had been the longest twenty four hours of Laurent's life. He had tried to find Damen, to see if his broad Akielon husband-to-be had been brought with him. He had arrived with Damen's blood still on his hands, the fear of losing him very real. It was the closest to frantic Laurent had ever come. To think that he had left the love of his life during a time when he was needed most. Being told that they didn't know if he was here, that he had to pass through orientation-

Everything passed in a blur thereafter.

Laurent was alone, as far as he knew. And while Laurent should have been used to the feeling, there was something crushing about the prospect, now. Having come so far. Having made such promises, such confessions. He and Damen had been through so much. To be parted now was a blow that Laurent needed time to come to terms with. To compartmentalise.

He was in what was to be his apartment; his home while he was here. It felt painfully empty, leaving him achingly bereft.

Laurent was still familiarising himself with the technology of his new home, when abruptly- the door opened. He had been in the bedroom, examining his device, scrolling through the 'apps' and clicking them at random, just to see what they did. All at once though, Laurent was instead on alert. The last time someone had entered his living quarters uninvited, it hadn't gone well for them. He intended to make the same case here.

He slid silently from the bed, angling himself away from the door in order to keep whoever had barged in from catching sight of him, from hearing that anyone else was there. Positioning himself beside the archway, Laurent did his best to peer around the corner, unseen. To assess this intruder.

What he saw instead, made his heart drop- and then soar. ]

Damianos. [ He gasped softly, stepping out from where he had been hiding, his phone clattering to the floor. The only evidence that he was taken aback by the sight of the other- before he forcibly relaxed. Leaning in a forced, casual way against the frame of the door. ] You are late; what kept you?