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[specifics]

Never liked this tradition. I mean, I'd rather not take orders from a plant. Seriously, just...

[ - annnnd, some subsequent mumbling, as well as the words - you know it's a parasite are articulately audible but not much else before the device turns off. ]

[ ooc/accosting reference: Arthur today will have been in order - getting coffee,

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[specifics]

[ The words register but it's like the curse has tapped into real things even while compelling what neither of them would otherwise allow - Arthur because he wouldn't think Dom would want this to begin with and always with Mal in mind too. On an intuitive level that's visceral as Dom's fingers in his hair slipping away and his mouth finding his again, something bitingly real, Arthur gathers that Dom is starved in more ways than Arthur perceived or understood. It's stupid when he thinks about it, because it should have been obvious. But Arthur forgets sometimes that other people don't operate the same way, other people don't just shut off or shelve things up high out of sight to trick themselves into accepting not having them - dead or alive - that really that's not the usual thing, that the normal thing is to grieve and to lose and to long.

It's as if all of Dom's cumulative need or want or both come barreling together here and Arthur can't think of any time he's been able to deny him much of anything. Loyalty sounds too simple at this point for something made of snarls and knots. But there used to be something beautiful about those too. Arthur doesn't have any words, just kisses Dom back and braces his hand against his collarbone in a way that will leave a thumbed bruise at the base of the other man's neck. He kisses him like an apology though whether for not pushing him further or not doing something else altogether he doesn't know.

Not quite realizing he's saying it out loud, into Dom's mouth against his teeth or his tongue, it's a murmur, ] Sorry.

[ All kinds of lines have been crossed and it's not like it's just starting here. This is just a very different kind of line. And that's the strangest thing, to find himself without the control and the restraint he would sometimes try to impose on Dom, remind him to hold back or to stop if he could. This place or dream strips them of it here and there, their own volition and gives or calls up everything else. They're in the thick of a curse, yes, but it's an entanglement of sorts that's much older than that. With his apology he shifts his weight to send them both stumbling sideways.

It's enough to get out from under the plant, the curse's compulsion dissipating slowly this time, like a warm haze to blink out of. ]