[it is not often viktor comes by pal's work for lunch, though he attempts to make appearances from time to time in order to keep pal's little fanclub of blood ministers on their toes. to be fair most have grown less uneasy with him, friendly when they nod hello, but a few still look unsure and viktor still finds it hilarious. icing on the cake of getting to bring pal lunch.
today it's dumplings he's skewered himself to lure pal in with the utility of food on a stick, laid out on the desk as he settles in himself. he takes a seat at the window, pal's office or a breakroom of some sort, whichever, ready to ask about his day when fluttering at the window has him glancing through the glass.]
Ah, snow already. [because that is very much what's beginning to fall thickly over the haunting flowers around, big fat, white and fluffy snow that looks storybook and normal compared to everything its coating.] You may get stuck here if it continues like this into the night.
[This isn't Palamedes' first snow, here in this world— it was icy and frozen the day he first arrived, so long ago, even— but it is one of the first snows he's actually caught live. Snow on the ground, that's something, sure, it's pretty, but his extremities get cold so easily for obvious reasons, he can only enjoy the snow for so long.
But active snowfall? Oh? He's behind his desk, which is just as cluttered as all of his desks, rooting around on a high shelf to find a very particular form he needs to have one of his adoring employees complete over again. Viktor's arrival as always is a welcome thing, there may very well be a couch in this office purely so Viktor can come and relax whenever he likes (as long as he doesn't mind sharing some space with a pile of file folders Palamedes has left on one of the cushions). Palamedes pauses and looks at Viktor over his shoulder, then towards the window.]
Really? [He sounds, hm, a little excited— this office isn't as cozy as the big private lab in the Sanctuary, buuut...] In that case, you'll be stuck here right alongside me, you know. Unless I can find this form in the next, hm, twenty seconds.
[He will not be finding the form in twenty seconds. He might just give up to consider the sticked food in twenty seconds, he'll find out!]
That sounds like a threat. [he says, amused of course because it's funnier if it was the threat of, oh no! sleeping at the office, something he himself has never once done and isn't the reason they became roommates in the first place.] I am beside myself with horror at the idea of doing such a thing. Truly the weather strives to ruin our work-life balance.
[as though it doesn't all blur now. case in point: viktor sitting at the window sill, watching pal move around with great affection unfitting for a workplace. fonder still at pal's excitement.
he does get up, not to help but to move toward the couch, a much more comfortable perch despite being another surface for pal to put things on. yup, clearly giving up on the dream of pal finding that file, given he's unlatching his knee brace to settle in for a good couple of hours at least. he does have a tendency to just stick around pal's office and check the network or draw up blueprints.]
[Ha ha; Palamedes hums with open amusement, wagging a finger back at Viktor - or at least in the direction of the room, as he's turned back to his shelves.]
Of course, the ever-delicate interweaving. In a few hours the ministers will go home, and tomorrow they will gossip.
[This he says with even more amusement, because the ministers don't need to gossip at all, but they're still going to. It's in their nature. He finds the form in a folder on his shelf, brandishing it with a triumphant-] Aha!
[—And then frowning, holding it up closer to squint at it; no, this is the wrong one. This is an older form, and anyone else might let that go, but Palamedes can't reconcile with it. He sighs and pushes back from the shelves, coming to seemingly join Viktor on the couch, but actually he crouches down in front of his pile of couch-stored files to rifle through those, too.
Not without a look up at him first, open affection, and reaching for Viktor's hand to press a kiss to his knuckles. Hello, hi, it's time for the slumber party.]
Do you want me to run and get anything? [he hasn't even finished his first task....]
They always gossip. It is their truest joy in life as far as I'm aware. [viktor offers right back, placing the brace aside when he's done and stretching his legs out a bit. comfortable, and a free show as well in watching pal putter about.
he settles for reminding him about stick food in another five minutes. it won't go entirely cold by then, he's doing his due diligence for his husband. he rests his elbow on the arm of the couch and them his head against his knuckles, brow lifting with the swift up and down of that discovery.
see? dinner and a show. better when pal comes over and breaks from his search to kiss viktor's knuckles, which gets a truly sappy sort of look as he turns his hand to caress pal's jaw. hello indeed.]
Have we given up on the wayward form? [the wind makes the window creak a little, and a glance towards it shows it really is only getting worse. definitely sleep over.[ No, barring beast attack and some new hellish psychological monthly drama I believe we are set.
[Palamedes hums, eyebrows raised; he's actually pretty sure the ministers' greatest joy in life is when Viktor concedes to make them baked goods, but the gossip is a close second. Either way he basks in the sappy look for just a fe extra seconds before he squeezes Viktor's hand and sits back, whapping the topmost file against the rest determinedly.]
You're tempting fate with talk like that. But no, of course not, there's no such thing as a wayward form. I'll find it, once I sort through the tangle of form-related anxiety sitting here.
[Hashtag psychometry. Maybe he should have the ministers take a class on stress relief...
Back to flipping through papers, anyway, with the occasional glance up at the window.]
How much of it do you think will fall? For the optimal experience.
You are welcome to hand me stack and tell me what we are looking for. As much as I enjoy watching the pre-dinner show with blood magic to follow, it may be more efficient if your dumplings are to remain warm.
[maybe cold food is more efficient.
for all his dry commentary he really does look like he's enjoying watching pal in his element. checkmark on the reminder to bother pal at work more often, he spends too much time in sanctuary lately trying to make sure all the rooms would be suitably heated for the trench's typical batshit weather and monsters to follow.
speaking of he glances to the window as he considers.] Several inches would be my guess. My preference would be less, even if Rio will be quite pleased with digging through it at this rate.
[Cold food might have a weirder texture, hmm-- does he look over at the dumplings very obviously, clearly thinking about this? Absolutely. What if they become Slimy...
But here, give him a second to shuffle papers, then he splits the stack and holds half of it out to Viktor.]
Stuck in here while I could see Rio playing in the snow, really? I think I'm going to collapse.
[Ha ha, but really, how long until they get to take best girl out for a playdate with snow? He's very interested in this, too.]
We're looking for a requisition form, by the way. The new one, with the updated seal stamped in the upper corner.
[is it wrong for him to sort of from experience the basics of what pal is probably wondering and not assuring him the dumplings would probably be fine sitting out a little while. no slime, and even the secrets of reheating...?
maybe, but he's learned to sacrifice in the name of the greater good. aka getting pal to eat a dumpling. he has high hopes for these, maybe the fact they're food packaged neatly in other food will appeal to him. if they could break into the dumpling market that would be a huge win for pal's future meals.]
Try to land on the couch if you do. If it helps I plan on watching from the window like a sensible person not gifted with particularly robust blood circulation.
[disgustingly cozy really, to do work with a hot mug of something likely mushroom related given the trench, watching rio wiggle her way through the snow banks and terrorize anyone foolish enough to get close. he grabs one of the piles to start leafing through though, excellent help that he is. it says a lot about love that he actually knows what form pal means without any further clarification.
listening to your husband when he talks about the paperwork and retaining it, it is a love language.]
lord have mercy i am here to tag about food neuroses
[His little joke, because of course they both know he's only selectively sensible. Can he be sensible about Rio, ever, at all? Absolutely not. He's going to swoon multiple times from how cute she is, it's already a done deal.
Anyway, they are on the hunt for this form, and he settles in to leaf through his half of the pile with laser focus... mostly, because his concerns about the dumplings are still there, bothering him nonstop. They're cooling? Right now? The imaginary slime quotient is rising in real time, like any boiled flour product left out to cool for longer than, say, five minutes. He's probably done actual threshold tests on how long a food can exist before he can't tolerate it anymore, but dumplings have only barely passed the "willing to eat that" test, so the data is insufficient.
He simply can't trust food he can't see all of at once, of course. All this to say that he does, of his own volition, reach over to pluck a dumpling off the plate and pop it in his mouth. He makes several faces around it. Were he not fully aware of the overall feebleness of his constitution he would try to swallow it whole.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deer, their mutual good end
today it's dumplings he's skewered himself to lure pal in with the utility of food on a stick, laid out on the desk as he settles in himself. he takes a seat at the window, pal's office or a breakroom of some sort, whichever, ready to ask about his day when fluttering at the window has him glancing through the glass.]
Ah, snow already. [because that is very much what's beginning to fall thickly over the haunting flowers around, big fat, white and fluffy snow that looks storybook and normal compared to everything its coating.] You may get stuck here if it continues like this into the night.
no subject
But active snowfall? Oh? He's behind his desk, which is just as cluttered as all of his desks, rooting around on a high shelf to find a very particular form he needs to have one of his adoring employees complete over again. Viktor's arrival as always is a welcome thing, there may very well be a couch in this office purely so Viktor can come and relax whenever he likes (as long as he doesn't mind sharing some space with a pile of file folders Palamedes has left on one of the cushions). Palamedes pauses and looks at Viktor over his shoulder, then towards the window.]
Really? [He sounds, hm, a little excited— this office isn't as cozy as the big private lab in the Sanctuary, buuut...] In that case, you'll be stuck here right alongside me, you know. Unless I can find this form in the next, hm, twenty seconds.
[He will not be finding the form in twenty seconds. He might just give up to consider the sticked food in twenty seconds, he'll find out!]
no subject
[as though it doesn't all blur now. case in point: viktor sitting at the window sill, watching pal move around with great affection unfitting for a workplace. fonder still at pal's excitement.
he does get up, not to help but to move toward the couch, a much more comfortable perch despite being another surface for pal to put things on. yup, clearly giving up on the dream of pal finding that file, given he's unlatching his knee brace to settle in for a good couple of hours at least. he does have a tendency to just stick around pal's office and check the network or draw up blueprints.]
no subject
Of course, the ever-delicate interweaving. In a few hours the ministers will go home, and tomorrow they will gossip.
[This he says with even more amusement, because the ministers don't need to gossip at all, but they're still going to. It's in their nature. He finds the form in a folder on his shelf, brandishing it with a triumphant-] Aha!
[—And then frowning, holding it up closer to squint at it; no, this is the wrong one. This is an older form, and anyone else might let that go, but Palamedes can't reconcile with it. He sighs and pushes back from the shelves, coming to seemingly join Viktor on the couch, but actually he crouches down in front of his pile of couch-stored files to rifle through those, too.
Not without a look up at him first, open affection, and reaching for Viktor's hand to press a kiss to his knuckles. Hello, hi, it's time for the slumber party.]
Do you want me to run and get anything? [he hasn't even finished his first task....]
no subject
he settles for reminding him about stick food in another five minutes. it won't go entirely cold by then, he's doing his due diligence for his husband. he rests his elbow on the arm of the couch and them his head against his knuckles, brow lifting with the swift up and down of that discovery.
see? dinner and a show. better when pal comes over and breaks from his search to kiss viktor's knuckles, which gets a truly sappy sort of look as he turns his hand to caress pal's jaw. hello indeed.]
Have we given up on the wayward form? [the wind makes the window creak a little, and a glance towards it shows it really is only getting worse. definitely sleep over.[ No, barring beast attack and some new hellish psychological monthly drama I believe we are set.
no subject
You're tempting fate with talk like that. But no, of course not, there's no such thing as a wayward form. I'll find it, once I sort through the tangle of form-related anxiety sitting here.
[Hashtag psychometry. Maybe he should have the ministers take a class on stress relief...
Back to flipping through papers, anyway, with the occasional glance up at the window.]
How much of it do you think will fall? For the optimal experience.
no subject
[maybe cold food is more efficient.
for all his dry commentary he really does look like he's enjoying watching pal in his element. checkmark on the reminder to bother pal at work more often, he spends too much time in sanctuary lately trying to make sure all the rooms would be suitably heated for the trench's typical batshit weather and monsters to follow.
speaking of he glances to the window as he considers.] Several inches would be my guess. My preference would be less, even if Rio will be quite pleased with digging through it at this rate.
no subject
But here, give him a second to shuffle papers, then he splits the stack and holds half of it out to Viktor.]
Stuck in here while I could see Rio playing in the snow, really? I think I'm going to collapse.
[Ha ha, but really, how long until they get to take best girl out for a playdate with snow? He's very interested in this, too.]
We're looking for a requisition form, by the way. The new one, with the updated seal stamped in the upper corner.
no subject
maybe, but he's learned to sacrifice in the name of the greater good. aka getting pal to eat a dumpling. he has high hopes for these, maybe the fact they're food packaged neatly in other food will appeal to him. if they could break into the dumpling market that would be a huge win for pal's future meals.]
Try to land on the couch if you do. If it helps I plan on watching from the window like a sensible person not gifted with particularly robust blood circulation.
[disgustingly cozy really, to do work with a hot mug of something likely mushroom related given the trench, watching rio wiggle her way through the snow banks and terrorize anyone foolish enough to get close. he grabs one of the piles to start leafing through though, excellent help that he is. it says a lot about love that he actually knows what form pal means without any further clarification.
listening to your husband when he talks about the paperwork and retaining it, it is a love language.]
lord have mercy i am here to tag about food neuroses
[His little joke, because of course they both know he's only selectively sensible. Can he be sensible about Rio, ever, at all? Absolutely not. He's going to swoon multiple times from how cute she is, it's already a done deal.
Anyway, they are on the hunt for this form, and he settles in to leaf through his half of the pile with laser focus... mostly, because his concerns about the dumplings are still there, bothering him nonstop. They're cooling? Right now? The imaginary slime quotient is rising in real time, like any boiled flour product left out to cool for longer than, say, five minutes. He's probably done actual threshold tests on how long a food can exist before he can't tolerate it anymore, but dumplings have only barely passed the "willing to eat that" test, so the data is insufficient.
He simply can't trust food he can't see all of at once, of course. All this to say that he does, of his own volition, reach over to pluck a dumpling off the plate and pop it in his mouth. He makes several faces around it. Were he not fully aware of the overall feebleness of his constitution he would try to swallow it whole.
Anyway, eventually,] It's flavorful.
[he didn't even dip it in the sauce]