#hypnos;

Hypnos is intoxicated. Not, for once, by his own design, but by proximity alone. He is not yet used to her vapor. He prays he might never be. She is sitting across from him now, in the pretty bleed of evening, and Hypnos is afraid he might drown if he steps any closer. The flowers bow towards her, equally as drunk in her company, petals trembling as if caught in a slow, syrupy dream. Hypnos feels it too— the pull, the drowse— his heart heavy and liquid in her orbit.

He is shaking. He stumbles forward then, falls to his knees in a jagged drop of his limbs and her eyes, half lidded, prettier than any dream, and Hypnos' influence welts wider in response, a carousel of dreams and unbidden lullabies.

"Can I—" he starts, falters, shakes his head suddenly as though confused, his monologue falling short at the incidental brush of her fingers against his wrist. Hypnos moves slowly, collapsing in on himself a million times over, a kaleidoscope of color slotting through his vision, only his eyes ever and instant dark, and molds his lips to hers. Her mouth is impossibly warm, exhilarating and soft, and he nearly weeps at the bright, floral scent of her. His voice comes out keening against her lips, hands lifted numbly at his side, pawing at air, unsure of where to put them.

@morteuse

Thanatos is not larger than him. Well, maybe he is. Hypnos had never stopped to consider it. He supposed there had always been such a sameness between them, that any distinction in physical form held little company in his mind. However, Thanatos was still massive, as large an uncontainable as a shadow, and to see him mellow and minimal against his side makes Hypnos preen with affection.

He stretches out beneath the weight of his twin, shaking a soft, starlight from the halo of his hair into the others face, a dusting of moon dust, and wraps his arms secure, unbreakable, one around his shoulders and the other fanning absently through his hair. It is so rare they get to rest together, and Hypnos nuzzles giddily at his temple, already humming out a soft lullaby, a hazy, far away sound, static and old like an antique recording.

ASKS—ACCEPTING:

The idle march of an overhanging clock comes to a standstill, a slow, hypnotic drip starts up from the nearby faucet. Something indistinguishable has shifted in the air. Hypnos steps through the ajar door feigning security between the outside world and the foyer.

Still, curiously, he resembles his brother, looming in the threshold as quiet as death, and studies the wreckage of Spencer's silhouette, perpetual bruising around the eyes of the god, irises black as Styx. The rest of him is as pale as moon dust, nearly glowing as though to deter anyone from looking at him directly, the buzz of what could only be described as a faulty street light sourceless but apparent is his presence.

Dilaudid. Hypnos can smell it on him—under his skin, and his nose recoils into a wrinkled grimace. Not as evasive and playful as some of his elixirs. Dilaudid makes the blood heavy, pins you beneath its pleasure, does not merely distract but erases. But then again, the mind becomes a fog, and even Hypnos can scarcely structure a dream around its influence. Instead they come out half baked, and wrong. Hypnos' canines only drip it under the most acute agony of his existence, few and far between. How mortals ever got ahold of it is beyond him.

Hypnos is all legs when he crouches down in front of Spencer, his knees up to his ears and his gaze black and animal, but—there is something soft and sympathetic that retreats briefly into his pupils.

ASKS—ACCEPTING:

@morteuse

Hypnos' face is the moon, the haunting edge of his canines glinting beneath starlight. Even the white of his eyes are yellowed now and elusive, a deer lit up by headlights. When his voice comes, it is the slow, steady lull of an anchor cutting through fog, and sinking.

"Promise?" he teases, his voice thick and curling at the edges before fraying into smoke. Beneath the mirage, Hypnos' eyes soften, skirting over their surroundings with reservation. He loves death, reveres it. Death is his brother. Still, at times it can be rather final for Hypnos' taste.

"I was just having the strangest dream...." his voice sloughs off, heavy and frightened, pouring his head to the side to study him.

Sacred Romantic Moments ASKS: OPEN

Hypnos blooms beneath her voice, the carousal of his eyes alive and vivid. His hands are clasping over her palms in an instant, her tiny frame cornered under the willow of his immense torso, hanging over her, brushing his lips feather light over her nose, her eyelids, burrowing at last into the crook of her neck to breathe in her deep, immense scent, rich as roses and languid like summer. Although his lips stay shut in a gentle seal against her throat his laughter, drenched with affection rings out in a cacophony of sound around them.

"Yes, yes, of course. Here? Now? And what else? Anything you ask of me and it's yours."

Nevermind Hypnos hasn't the faintest idea how to dance, a disembodied waltz of joints, swaying like a lullaby. His hands are moving through her hair, dazed as though she were a dream he expected to evaporate before him, sweeping her low, then back up and around and around and around.

My Year of Meats— ASKS: OPEN

Hypnos is a pellucid outline of a person, flickering and staggering every time the breeze bleeds through him, warm and sticky and settling into his bones despite his best efforts to use caution. Armand is sharper around the edges than most humans, strikingly beautiful, though not in the permeable way of man, savored in their briefness, though not as all together abstract as any God. Hypnos sinks back onto his heels, the white of his hair a billow of smoke before his eyes, black and heavy with starlight, now too intrigued for caution, his curiosity a fatal flaw, were he to ever have one. He smiles then and it splits the seam of his face in a too wide grin.

"What of my blood— my ichor— Is it warm? Can you smell it?" His voice refracts, slightly off key despite its gentle tone, a nightmare in disguise, though his words drip sincerity, curious if the opium coursing through his veins might taste as sweet? Burn a wound through his stomach?

Hypnos doesn't want to kill him, of course. He is not entirely sure he could anyway, sure it would sour Thanatos to him. He steps closer into Armand's personal space, without intending to, oblivious to the rules of contact and extends his wrist to him, the soft pastel of his fingers brushing through the air between them.