[M] Fake it till you make it

Ishir has a rare lucky night, free from nightmares. When the sun falls on his eyes, all he can think is just a few more minutes, but once he feels some movement next to him he opens his eyes and blinks a couple of times to get used to the light. His gaze settles on the man next to him. It's the first time he can properly look at the other as his features aren't obscured by the dark of night anymore. "Morning, he mumbles, still half asleep.

His hair looked a bit more golden under the light as he squints at Ishir. Luke blinks at him a few times... then glances out the window... and lets out a breath. "Morning..." Wish it wasn't, then I'd have an excuse not to get up. He can't quite keep the little pout off his face when he thinks about making the trip all the way back home. Ugh, nooooooooo.

So, instead of dealing with his problems, he shifts onto this side to properly face Ishir. Huh, so that's what he looks like in daylight... "...Sleep okay...?"

“Yeah…” he says, almost surprised by his own answer. Nights like this where he sleeps alright are rare and he isn’t used to waking up completely rested. Then again, he knows he sleeps easier when there’s someone around.

He moves his arm from under the soft, warm blanket—the soft fabrics and warmth truly were some of his favourite aspects of moving to the Upper Ring—and puts his arm around the other’s side as they lie facing each other. “You?”

"Same..." He had to admit, it had been far too long since he managed to get a full night's sleep without any interruptions... He appreciated it. Luke blinks when the other's arm settles on his side and curls up a bit closer. Cozy... Ugh, I don't wanna get up.

He found he couldn't indulge that option very long when his stomach growls. ...Oh, yeah, I skipped dinner last night. He frowns a little, caught between his general hunger and his laziness.

Ishir is definitely not a morning person and so he cuddles up to the other, closes his eyes again and presses his head into his pillow. He is happy to stay where he is, but then he hears Luke's stomach growl. "Are you gonna make me get up because you're hungry?" he asks, burying his face further in his pillow, voice slightly annoyed. That feeling only grows when he realises he could use some food himself and should really get up to get some.

Luke would happily snuggle him back... Though he bites his lip to poorly contain his amusement. He fails utterly once he realizes Ishir is hungry, too, bursting into laughter. "By the sound of it, one of us is gonna have to... And I don't know where your kitchen is," he says, a little grin on his lips.

Ishir opens his eyes and narrows them as soon as the other starts laughing. “I can always throw you out,” he says. With a deep sigh, Ishir gets up, grabs some clothes and starts to put them on. Once he’s done, he snatches the blanket off of Luke. “Not gonna get up on my own,” he says with a smirk.

"Boooo," he murmurs in response to the threat, fairly certain he wouldn't actually do that. Luke smirks just a little once Ishir gets up and out of bed, and, for a brief moment, relaxes against the pillows... before the blanket is snatched away. "...Rude." Luke sighs a little to himself, but puts on his pants and follows him, pouting just a bit.

A satisfied grin spreads on Ishir’s face when he snatches the blanket away. “Only fair,” he replies while he waits for the other to follow him. He’s still buttoning up the buttons of his shirt while he goes down the stairs—putting a couple of them in the wrong hole—; finishing when he gets down, he turns left and enters the kitchen. He opens some of the cabinets and looks inside. He actually has no clue what kind of foods are stored in the house since he only sent a servant for groceries the day before and doesn’t know what they brought back.

Luke follows, but doesn't bother with a shirt, fully intending to just dive back into bed after they grab food. He lets out a yawn and squints. "So, whatcha got for breakfast?"

Ishir looks behind him. Now that's a view he doesn't mind. "No clue, he says before he focuses on what's in the cupboards. "Eggs, bread…" His eyes travel over everything that's there. It's more food than he's eaten in the week before he came to the upper ring. "Basically anything you want."

"And you live here?" He asks incredulously, a snicker on his lips. Luke peeks through the cupboards and yoinks some eggs. "Well, if there's pretty much anything... Let's experiment." He rifles through for a pan to use.

He stopped what he was doing and turned around to the other, his face scrunched up and eyes narrowed. "I only just moved here!" he argued, taking a step backwards as Luke delved into the cupboard and grabbed some eggs. As he watched the man take a pan from a different cabinet, Ishir leaned back against the kitchen counter, curious as to what the other would make. “Surprise me,” he grinned.

Luke huffs and pokes him. "You should still know what's in your pantry, dumbass." He sets the pan down and starts a flame to cook with. He cracks the egg and starts working. "Fiine. I'll make breakfast."

Ishir is caught between getting angry and laughing, so he settles for huffily watching the other cook. His mood instantly lifts when Luke agrees that he’ll make breakfast. “I’ll make it up to you later,” he says as he moves closer and places a kiss on the man’s bare shoulder.

Luke grins at that as he carefully sets about cooking up those eggs. "I like the sound of that." He hums idly as he cuts a little hole in the center of the toast, then goes to make some bacon alongside the eggs.

Taking a step back, Ishir leaned his arm on the counter and watched as the other cooked. It felt strange to have someone do this for him. His entire life, he’d had to take care of himself—of course, he’d spent his first years of life in the Upper Ring with everything his heart could desire, but those memories had mostly disappeared or distorted—and while he was too tired to really think about it right now, he wasn’t sure whether he liked that someone was caring for him or dislike giving this out of hand because it took away his control. And so he carefully watched what Luke did, struggling with his thoughts while his eyes followed every movement the other made.

Luke hums a little tune under his breath while he makes the food... and eventually sets down some crispy toast with egg cooked in the center of it alongside a few slices of bacon. It wasn't anything complicated, but it was enough for both of them, he thought... Or maybe he just didn't eat healthy breakfasts too often. He usually just... didn't have the time. He gives Ishir a little poke and hands him the plate. "Hope it's not bad."

Ishir jumped up at being poked. "Don't do that," he growled while he accepted the plate—he wasn't going to let food go to waste. “Better not be,” he answered before he guided the other towards the dining room. He'd forgotten how much you needed to walk in houses like this. Everything was so far away as there was a separate room for everything. He sat down and gestured towards the chair next to him for Luke to use. Yesterday, Ishir had let his emotions lead him and that had been easy, but now it was just them quietly sitting next to each other, he had no idea what to say or do except eat the food on the plate before him.

Luke rolls his eyes the second he's told not to do something. "And here you were last night, just begging for me to touch you," he quips sassily. He follows him to the table without much complaint, just happy to eat some breakfast for the first time in...

...Oh, he had to think about this. He blinks a few times mid-bite of the fairly decent food he'd made. ...Ah, shit. He labels the number of days since he's had breakfast as a while, and refocuses back on eating first.

Once the first immediate distraction from each other was gone, Luke blinks at Ishir. "So, what kinda things do you usually do?"

“That’s different,” he states before facing the other and grinning, “Though I recall someone else as the one that begged.”

Luke breaks the silence first, making Ishir look up at the unexpected question. “Whatever I feel like,” are the first words out of his mouth. He hasn’t really done much ever since he came to the city—at least not that he can tell the other about. “I’m new in the city, so I often just walk around, explore the city. Sometimes there’s parties.” The upper class of Alderrath has so much money and so little responsibilities that they find nothing better to do with their time. It’s awfully exuberant, but delightful at the same time. And while Ishir’s been doing everything he can to get his revenge, he’s also been enjoying the new circumstances he finds himself in while he’s at it. “And sometimes I have business meetings.” He really has the easy life now; the life he’s been dreaming of ever since it was taken away from him; or at least part of it.

He snorts, but doesn't retaliate against the comment. Fair game was fair game. Instead, he listens, resting his cheek on the palm of his hand. Rich people sure do have a lot of free time, huh?

No worries to be had when you were swimming in money, after all.

"Where'd ya come from before you got here?"

He could ask about the business meetings, but he holds off for now, asking tinier questions to better understand who's in front of him right now.

His life couldn’t be any more different from what it was like before he came to the Upper Ring and Ishir could barely believe his own description of what his days looked like now. He was happy when Luke interrupted his thoughts with a question. “Imos,” Ishir answered. “It’s across the sea.” He’d done as much research as possible on the place and he was confident that he could keep the illusion up as long as the person hadn’t been there.

Luke blinks a few times. "Never heard of it. 's it nice over there?"

Across the sea, huh?

Ishir wasn’t surprised the other had never heard of the place. Ashmoor really loved to keep its citizens dumb, isolating them in this tiny part of the world without an opportunity to ever see anything else. “It is,” he said. “But anywhere you spend too much time gets boring after a while and I like it here so far.” At those last words he smirked at Luke.

“So how about you? What do you normally do? Anywhere else you need to be today?” he changed the focus of the conversation. He could of course keep lying about where he was from, but that would only increase the chance of Luke seeing through his facade. And on top of that, he preferred talking about someone else instead of about himself.