I blame the Nintendo 64 for brutalism.

[wrathfulkhan]

Characters: Gene Khan, Miles Upshur, Aly Haskell, Kai, and y'all
Date: throughout February
Location: Aifaran and environs
Situation: Why does February feel like one big Tuesday?
Warnings/Rating: Will be added as they arise

[A] | Gene | Xin de Kaishi Dojo | early February, prior to To the Waters and the Wild | open
The dojo's been doing well - better than Gene expected, really. He's got some regular customers and new people poking their heads in regularly, at least to try it out. Unfortunately, he's a little short-staffed, and it's starting to show. He's running himself ragged to the point where his students are landing hits on him more than usual.

When a Castian apologizes profusely for knocking him to the ground, he gets to his feet and congratulates her. "That's fantastic, Chel. Now see if you can get that consistently. You're getting good at spotting openings."

[B] | Gene | the apartment | February 14 | closed to Tony
Valentine's Day had never been a thing in Konryu; the closest was Tine's Commemoration, which luckily fell over the Earth holiday. Gene had never been one for sappy declarations of love, since his emotions were usually locked down tighter than Fort Knox, but he was willing to show it a little more than usual around Tony, and more than that on Valentine's Day.

The dojo is closed today, so he's spent a few hours cooking and making sure everything is shipshape (tidying Tony's mess, mostly, because WHO LEAVES SHIRTS ON THE FLOOR?! Miles. When Tony gets back from the mechanic shop, everything is almost done.

"Hi," Gene says, and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

[C] | Gene | a park | early February | closed to Pepper
Gene had talked to Valdis about kaa, and the only other person left who could help him is Pepper. He's done a lot of thinking about what Valdis had told him, and he'd begun to accept that she was right. Hard pills to swallow, washed down with a bitter brew.

He's sitting on a bench, eyes closed, trying to calm himself to a sort of meditative state. He wouldn't be able to summon Tolui if his mind was full of chaos.

[D] | Miles | the docks | prior to To the Waters and the Wild | open
There's a lot going on lately, and Miles has made his way down to the docks to do a little bit of reconnaissance on the three odd ships that have docked. Naturally, he has his camera, and is filming everything he can, hoping to go over the footage later for anything interesting or anomalies. If he's not filming, he's sitting on the ground - far away from the water - taking notes and interviewing anyone who may have information on it. He'll confront the woman who emerged from the ship later, but he's doing his own investigation for now.

[E] | Aly | the streets | mid-February | open
There's a certain degree of calm to Aly lately. She's been helping with the cleanup and restoration, but she knows that it's time to go home and see her self-appointed mission through. She knows that she can't do that entirely, but she's heard that she can go meditate at one of the turtles' heads. Meditation comes easy for her when she can calm herself down enough to clear her mind, and she's been practicing. She doesn't want to get agitated and fall out of the Dreaming in the middle of what she has to do.

She's preoccupied, walking around with a thoughtful look on her face, and might not hear if you call her name, and might even walk into you. She thinks better on her feet, but maybe she should just pace in her room instead of doing it in public.

[F] | Kai | a park | after To the Waters and the Wild | open
Kai is thrilled to be done with that fishy form, and as a result she's been running everywhere, glad to have the use of her legs. And the ability to transform again, of course.

"Woohoo!" She's running through one of the parks, shooting the ground with ink, and diving into it as a squid, jumping in and out of it to shoot more ink on the ground so she can cruise around. She's having the time of her life.

---

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Comments

B

[highprofilerichkid]

"Hey." Tony smiles at the kiss and shrugs off his bag. He almost drops it on the floor right inside the door, but then he notices how clean the apartment looks, and wisely hangs it on a coat hook instead.

He also notices how great the apartment smells, which means Gene has been cooking. Cooking and cleaning? How domestic, Gene. (He has completely forgotten what today is.)

"You made dinner? Sorry, you didn't have to clean, I should have, uh, done something about that earlier..." He has the grace to look a little sheepish, at least.

[wrathfulkhan]

Good, Tony. You're learning. (And with his co-teachers bullying him into taking a break, he has to find something to do.)

"Yes, you should," Gene says, and smirks at him. "I know it's a habit of yours, but if you could keep your organized chaos to the shop, I'd appreciate it." It's not so much a scolding as a reiteration of a point he's long since resigned himself to being ignored.

"Of course I made dinner," he says, looking at Tony blankly. "I figured that was the thing to do, since going out seems a little cliche at this point."

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony wastes half a second trying to come up with an appropriately contrite lie about how he will definitely change his slobby ways, but before anything comes to him, he suddenly clicks on why Gene cleaned and made dinner in the first place.

"Oh. Oh. Shit, I—" Valentine's Day. Shit. "I totally forgot."

You can hardly blame him, after several months of time displacement, but, still. He feels terrible.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene laughs a little, because of course Tony would have forgotten. It was probably at the very bottom of his things-to-remember list, what with everything. He's been a little restless after his forced 'retirement' from the Dojo while he stopped trying to run himself directly into the ground.

"So I shouldn't expect flowers?" He's not hurt, just performatively exasperated.

[highprofilerichkid]

"I, uh. I can get flowers. Do you want flowers? I can order some, get them delivered." Tony nervously pats his pockets in the universal 'hunting for my mobile device' gesture. He is looking increasingly distressed about his lapse.

[wrathfulkhan]

Tony, much to Gene's mild annoyance, is really cute when he's freaking out about having screwed up a normal human behavior. It kind of makes Gene feel a little bit better about his up-until-recently utter lack of emotional intelligence. Tony's just forgetful sometimes, though, not the bag of wet cats that is Gene's ability to function in society.

"You can make it up to me later," he says mischievously.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony's smile returns, a little more hesitant. But he does chuckle, and gives up on trying to dig out his yimo and make an emergency online order for 45-minute flower delivery.

"Yeah, okay." He puts his hands on Gene's hips and tugs him closer. "Whatever you want," he says, and follows it up with a kiss that carries noticeably more heat than the earlier peck on the cheek.

"I really am sorry," he continues once he pulls away. "The whole Dreaming time displacement thing... I just totally lost track of the date. And it's weird living in a place that doesn't have real seasons." Tony crosses his arms and huffs, jokingly indignant. "How am I supposed to remember that it's Valentine's Day if it's not thirty degrees and sleeting?"

[wrathfulkhan]

Giving Tony a little bit of a scare like that had been fun, actually. More fun than that, though, is the kiss that Tony gives him. For all his forgetting about Valentine's Day, it couldn't ever be said that Tony was a bad boyfriend.

"Sleet? Ugh." Gene makes a face at him. "Horrible. I grew up with snow as a child and never understood sleet. What's the point of it?"

He rests his chin on Tony's shoulder. "This place's seasons are fine," he says. "It reminds me of Hong Kong. Monsoon season and all."

[highprofilerichkid]

Well, that's a relief, because between the forgetfulness and the sloppiness and the occasional 36-hour lab binges, Tony sometimes worries that he's a pretty terrible boyfriend.

But Gene's stuck with him this far, so his annoying habits are apparently not dealbreakers. Upside of dating your former archnemesis: any annoying habit is still an improvement on 'frequent attempted murder.'

"It's supposed to have a point? It's weather. I don't think there's a bug reporting system," Tony teases. "Really, you don't miss the snow at all? I think it's got a few things going for it. Hot chocolate, fuzzy socks, snowball fights, sitting in front of the fireplace cuddling..."

[wrathfulkhan]

Hey, some people like frequent attempted murder. Not Gene, though.

"Okay," Gene concedes when Tony extols the virtues of snow. "Snow is acceptable. When it's just cold and doesn't do anything, that's when I start needing to complain to someone." Tony and Pepper, probably.

(Pepper's probably having a shitty Valentine's Day.)

"I'm glad for one thing, though. Even if I completely screwed this up, you're still going to eat it," he says with a grin. Tony would eat anything if it was put in front of him. "Hopefully I didn't."

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony grins back. "Yep." Even if he forgets their dates sometimes, at least he's not going to forget how to appreciate Gene's cooking. "I'm sure you didn't screw it up, though. You haven't screwed up a meal since the mystery vegetable incident, and that one wasn't really your fault. I didn't even know we had giant squash-mimic beetles."

[wrathfulkhan]

"I didn't either," Gene said, laughing. "I'm sure I could make that work better now that I know. What do you think about buttered beetle?"

Hey, it's a good source of protein.

[highprofilerichkid]

"I think I'll love it, as long as you don't tell me what it is before I eat it," Tony says agreeably. "It's probably not as weird as sea prunes." He's not wrong.

Now that the topic of conversation has moved to the food, Tony drifts towards the kitchen. He's hungry. He's literally always hungry. Damn Extremis metabolism. "You want help serving?"

[wrathfulkhan]

"We've already learned our lesson with the sea prunes," Gene says with a grin. They still haven't found a way to make them taste like anything other than vomit throwing up after an ill-advised pub crawl.

"If you're going to serve and not eat things before they're plated," he says.