MISTLEGLOW: a kissing meme

[riverviewmod]

mistleglow: a kissing meme

Some residents may remember that back in September, a love-drunk and confusion-spell-addled newlywed mage from Gramarye Magic Research let loose some pretty little fairy lights that trapped people in the city in little invisible bubbles until they kissed (and any kind of kiss would do). Well, the same slightly-less-newlywed but no less romantically-inclined mage happens to really, really enjoy the winter season, and thinks it's totally romantic. That particular sentiment is pretty common in the Quarantine - while Hygge is the celebration of familial love, the residents of the Quarantine all agree that that family often includes partners and lovers. Besides that, the folklore of mistletoe as being representative of love and friendship is something that the Quarantine has in common with the universes many residents inhabit.

So, as the last week and a half of December rolls around, residents around the Quarantine will see the result of the resident romantic trying to share a bit of Hygge love - small, glowing sprigs of mistletoe will be floating around the Quarantine, ready to trap people up and make them share a bit of affection.

how it works

● Two or more characters walking under one of these glowing, floating sprigs will get stuck for one hour, trapped inside an invisible enclosure with an approximate three foot radius. The only options are to either wait out the hour, or to kiss! Characters will know they're meant to kiss, because part of the magic spell is the sudden and intense knowledge that they should kiss in order to break free. There is no compulsion to kiss, just the knowledge that that's how to get free. This time, instead of any kind of kiss working, there will be different types of kisses that will work to release the trapped residents depending on the color of mistleglow:

RED: MOUTH ● ORANGE: NECK ● YELLOW: CHEEK
GREEN: FOREHEAD ● BLUE: HAND ● VIOLET: BUTTERFLY

Trapped residents will not know what kind of kiss will work for each color and may have to experiment before finding the right one.

● Post up a top-level for your character with the types of kisses you're interested in threading out, and then go forth and have your character kiss (or refuse to kiss) others!
● This meme is for characters already accepted into the game to play with the mistleglow prompt from this month's test drive meme. If your character is not yet accepted into the game, please use the TDM post!
● This meme is GAME CANON, so any threads played out in this meme can be carried through into the actual canon of the game.
● Much like the TDM, threads on this meme can count for Activity Points, but not the monthly Activity Check.

header image is from santa's factory by Clement Danveau

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[technospeak]

[The only thing that could make having to kiss someone he wouldn't choose to kiss a little more pleasant is for that person to be someone he trusts. Rodney knows that John wouldn't kiss him if he'd been drinking lemonade, that he'd have rather waited an hour in the cold outside than risk putting Rodney into anaphylactic shock.

But what he is surprised by is how okay the kiss feels. It's not like kissing his brother or something, like he would've imagined. It's not gross like he would've thought kissing a man was, not like how he'd felt after his body had been used to kiss Carson, that strange wrong feeling. It just feels like a kiss, and when John's hands go soft on his arms and slide down to his wrists, he softens even a little more, tilting his head and pressing his chin forward, deepening the kiss a little.

Later on, he'll tell himself that he did it because he wanted to make sure that the kiss would count, that it would 'take' and free them from whatever this is. But right now, kissing John, his mind is empty of any excuses.]

[deploy]

[It's probably not the mouth. They're kissing, really kissing, and John can still see the glow of the mistletoe through his eyelids.

Just to make sure, John's tongue darts out to tease against Rodney's lower lip, dragging against the ridge of his teeth, pushing the kiss into French territory before breaking away. John's hands fall away from Rodney's wrists and back down to his sides, his fingers curling into loose fists, and nails biting just hard enough into his palms to bring him back down to Earth. Or more accurately, the moon. A moon. One of many.

Thinking about space really doesn't make the bubble feel any less crowded. He's hyper-aware of the rise and fall of his chest, just a little too fast to go under the radar. John doesn't go red easily, but there's no denying he's a little hotter under the collar than he started. He can feel the flush in his throat and his ears, and he turns his face away to clear his throat, and hopefully give himself a moment to cool off.]

Mouth's out. [In case that wasn't obvious.]

[technospeak]

[When John's tongue brushes against his lower lip, Rodney's pretty sure his mind short-circuits. It's not entirely obvious whether the response is surprise or something else, something that Rodney can't (and frankly, won't) put a name to. Something slightly dark and buried deep inside himself that thrills a little at the feeling of John's tongue, the way he presses his mouth against Rodney's like he's actually into it, like he wants it. Rodney's never felt that particular thrill with a man, and the fact that it's John Sheppard he's feeling it with leaves him somewhere between relieved and horrified.

So he makes sure all of those complicated twisting emotions are buried deep down inside himself to be re-examined when he has the time and mental fortitude. So, essentially, never again to see the light of day.

When John pulls back from him, Rodney is left huffing slightly for breath, his cheeks pink, his eyes a little wide, and he purses his mouth up as John turns away from him. It's irritating, because Rodney had seen the flush but not had time to translate it, to understand what might be going on in the other man's head.]

Well, obviously, considering... [Reaching out, Rodney shoves against the invisible wall of the bubble.]

What other options are there?

[Rodney's voice comes out sounding rather reedy, maybe a little pleading. This is really not the kind of experimentation he wants to be doing with John and not...well, Sam, or some other gorgeous blonde woman.]

[deploy]

Well, I mean. There are a lot of options.

[John does himself a favour by not thinking of most of them, given that a decent amount are below the belt. He doesn't think that's what their mistletoe overlords are asking for, and he's not about to go there with Rodney Mckay in the middle of the street.

The fact that he might go there if they weren't is enough to make his stomach do a cartwheel. All of this would be easier if it were like any other mission, vaguely annoying, a little embarrassing, a lot awkward.

Instead, John finds his eyes flicking over Rodney's face. Marking everywhere that's kissable. Leaning in to kiss him before the buzzing in his body goes away, and kissing Rodney becomes more torture than exploration.

He kisses the corner of Rodney's mouth, across his cheek, all the way to his ear. His lips linger there for a moment, because he can feel Rodney's breath against his neck and for a moment John feels both strangely fond, and vulnerable, before moving on to the crook of his jaw.] Here. Here.... Here.

[He scrapes his teeth there, because he's a jerk, and Rodney deserves it.] Here.

[technospeak]

[John is looking at him. In and of itself, that's not unusual, because John looks at his face all the time, even tries to read it the way he's reading it now. But somehow, it feels entirely different in this moment, with what Rodney had asked and John had replied, because Rodney knows that when John's green eyes are searching his face, they're looking for places to kiss.

And then suddenly John isn't just looking anymore, he's leaning in to press his mouth against Rodney's cheeks and the corner of his mouth, his ear, his neck, breathing out a soft 'here' at every location. Rodney's face screws up out of some complicated emotion somewhere between excitement and horror and shock and enjoyment. He makes a soft noise in his throat when John scrapes his teeth against his throat, and lifts his hands, pressing them against John's chest, but not exactly pushing him away.]

John...

[It's somewhere between enticement and rebuke, but there's no heat in it at all.]