Welcome to Gaia! ::

“You are the best souvenir.” Holden beamed. “I can’t think of anything else I’d rather see brought safely back from your trips. But I’ll take the receipt if it can count as a good luck charm.” He beams. “I’ll make it a paper star.” He adds, “And I’ll put it in a little jar, like a history of safe returns.”

And he wishes, hopes, that Jace will return always to him in one way or another.

He pushes open the door to his room, painted greens now, when they had first met the color had been…quite different, the room had grown up a bit like it’s the owner. Silk vines are tacked to the ceiling at odd intervals along with fairy lights, the door into the room is painted brown on the inside, like a tree, and pined over it are a variety of colorful silk Wisteria branches. Various birds are painted on the walls as well in various degrees of skill, one for each year since Holden put his mind to being an artist and being himself as well.

He half bounces as he leads them to the desk where he was working, pots of paint and muddied water litter the desk, one of them might have been tea that has been reduced to brush water because of distraction.
He sorts through the little postcards until he turns up the one he’s searching for and turns to hand it to Jace.

“The…. top corners are very badly done, just a little attempt to remember some of the tattoos some of my family have, but the Lotus, and… I put some little Koi in too, but I am VERY bad at painting fish.” He sighs wistfully.
“Eventually… I will get the hang of weeping willow branches and I will make you something proper.” He adds with a nod and then realized he hasn’t pointed out where to set the bag, which he assumes is heavy despite any protests to the contrary.

“oh! Bag! There!” He half drags Jace towards the daybed, a carved wooden affair, rustic white where it isn’t deliberately sanded to look older than it is. At least a dozen large, squishy plush birds sit on the bed judging the world.

“I’ll get you fresh sheets and one of the good blankets.” He adds. “The birds can sit on the floor, I haven’t figured out a good way to make a branch for them yet but I will!” He explains. “Except it can’t be so low that I’ll brain you or Brother… which is why I haven’t figured it out yet.” He adds. Because he’d very much like for all parties to survive his room, for various reasons.

“While I know for a fact that the birds make -exceptional- pillows, I would sooner drag you onto my bed and use you as a pillow than I would let you sleep on the floor!” He scolded.

He reached out, half thinking to help with some of the buttons. Poor Jace, so exhausted! It wasn’t as though he hadn’t needed help not so long ago.
“Here, let me help! If you were thinking of sleeping in your car I can’t imagine! We might have to figure out homemade espresso just to revive you in the morning!”

“If you’re too tired, I can bring dinner up to you too!” He added flushing as he realized he was fumbling at Jace’s buttons.

“It’s no trouble at all, I have lots of little tables, and if you fall asleep we can always warm it up for you…and…” He rambled to a stop.

“I am so glad you didn’t sleep in your car, that's when people with hooks who escaped from criminal institutions show up…. at least according to the campfire stories… I am not seeing you… hooked on my watch!” He added trying to sound scolding.

“I am Positive, I think the only way to offend him would be to suggest that BokChoi is in some way inferior to cabbage.” He teased.

“Here… sit down before you go change, I can help undo your hair alright?” He reached up and brushed Jace’s cheek.
“You’re always free to use the bathroom, there is even a spare robe you can borrow, the Blue one with the stars on it should fit if you want something snuggly. Then, we can eat, and catch up! I would…. I would enjoy that VERY much.” He added with a small nod, “If there is nothing good out, we will watch something terrible…and it will be just fine because I’ll be watching it in good company.”

It was so good to see Jace start to…well, almost unravel a bit, unwind, relax into something that showed -his, patterns if you wanted to call them that. His nature his…kindness… his everything, not just what he thought he had to be. That was a painful cage no matter how long or short a time you had to live in it.


“Just… do not open the window if you hear anything tapping. I will be very mad if you are wrong about people with hooks and one followed you here.” He smiled.

“I’ll go get food and bring it up, you go change, and if I’m not back first then make yourself comfortable, either bed!” He added with a nod.

“If you tried to leave it up, I would have spritzed you with water so you would have to face the curls when you finally let your hair down! Don’t be silly.” He didn’t sound the least threatening, part of him wondered how that would look, but he suspected Jace would be… uncomfortable with beach waves or anything close to them.

His thumb traced Jace’s cheekbone, affection, softness, and a sort of fuzzy feeling in his stomach, the desire to kiss him again, god…

He leaned up and pressed a feather-soft kiss to Jace’s cheek.

“Do you want to change first? If I have you sit down now, I worry you’ll never get up again.” He murmured, letting all the love and worry and warmth creep in.

He glanced at the shirt, and the smile widened a bit, cheeks coloring and he thought just for a moment that he might cry, the happy kind, the kind that slipped out with small and helpless laughs because the joy was just too much and burst out at every seam.

Holden had never quite understood what the Grinch would have felt like when they said his heart grew five sizes.
He thought, in that moment he did. Like he couldn’t breathe, but it was -wonderful and hopeful and dangerous all at the same time.

He was so red in the face and he knew that. He thought, if it was possible that Jace must have been able to see his heart skip in his chest, hammering against his ribs like a cartoon.
He was -comfortable- he was… here for HIM.
He nodded a little bob at first and then more eagerly.
“I-I’ll be right back, I promise.” He said and hurried from the room and down the stairs, almost but not quite as fast as when he’d run down the first time.

“Callen! Brother! Brother! W-w… we need a plate, for upstairs, please. He’s very tired, I promise I’ll bring all the dishes back down and I’m very sorry not to eat at the table with you, we’re going to watch television and not think about law things for a little while and oh my god Callennnnn.” He shuffled over to lean against his big brother unable to quite articulate why this was SO VERY important.

“Please please please before he falls asleep, I said I’d help him with his hair so he doesn’t sleep on that knot.”

He was still blushing, he thought that the words ‘doki doki’ or ‘flutterpated’ must surely be written on his forehead to boot, not that Callen didn’t know that anyhow but, surely he would see it was so much worse and better right now.

“Oh, I love you so much!” Holden said carefully taking the containers and settling them into his arms, warm and ready. “Best big brother ever oh my gosh….” He hesitated. “I would… actually ask about pick up lines but I think He falls asleep on me.” He makes a soft distressed sound in his throat.

“Best big brother, I will make it up to you! I’ll work with the war fans harder, something… I promise.”

Unable to comfortably hug or kiss his brother back he opted instead to lean into him, a sort of ‘my arms are full but I love you and thank you for saving me’ hug without an embrace and making up for it with SO much blushing.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” He said again and hurried, as best and as safely as he could back up the steps.

“Jace? When you’re ready my Brother is a genius!” He called on the way up, shuffling towards the room and casting about for free space to set the things down so he could move a table closer to the bed that had the best view of the computer where he’d probably pull up ‘Netflix’

“He put dinner in these!” Holden said lofting the Tupperware carefully so as not to tip the thermos of coffee out of its own lean against him.

“He says when we’re done he’ll bring up dessert too if everyone is still awake.” He looked amused as he said this last part.

“Here… you sit down um…” He turned and took in the room and then finally ended up pointing at his own bed, If Jace fell asleep he deserved the most comfortable spot, no one said he had to admit that was why. “There”

“I’m going to drag over the rolling art desk and then turn the computer so we can eat and watch! We can… put some of the birds on the bed as backrests too!”

He added as he hustled over to set the Tupperware onto the rolling table, which was only a little bit shaky, and better when he spread things out.
He then rolled it towards the bed and angled it to be best in front of Jace before hustling to pick his favorite (don’t tell the others) fat bird plushes and returning with that armload.

“OH! I can get a quilt from the closet! We can pull it over if we choose a creepy movie!” He added. Though he also needed a brush for poor Jace’s hair. He added that to the detour, fishing in a drawer till he came up with one and returned with that and the thin cotton quilt.

“Make yourself comfortable ok? I’ll brush out your hair, we can eat, and then we can decide what to watch?” It was a question so that Jace could decide if he wanted a different order of things, but that hair was getting brushed out -before- Holden ate. He wasn't going to let that continue to add any sort of tension or headache, period.

“You don’t… he wouldn’t have done this if he didn’t want to, trust me,” Holden assured, plumping pillows on his bed even as he watched with a still blushing delight at the hand smoothing out the blankets.

He settled enough to hand Jace one of the sets of utensils and then kicked off his footwear to climb onto the bed and kneel so he could reach Jace’s hair more easily.

“Tell me if I pull too hard alright? I know if I lave my hair up it can get into a dreadful knot, and I haven’t got HALF the length you do.”

“I know we want you to get some good sleep, but let me know if you need more coffee too alright?” He added and started gently as he could, working to undo the twist that held back Jace’s hair.

He helped guide it to fall so that it wouldn’t swing anywhere and so that he could then more easily gather up the ends of it and start to work his way up, brushing it carefully from the very ends of it and working back up.

“I can braid it too! If it’s easier to sleep that way!” He added, ‘discretely’ pausing to draw one of the fat birds closer so it at least can nest against Jace’s hip. A squishy invitation of comfort in the form of a vaguely disillusioned-looking pigeon.

He’d have moved the loon, but that poor plush has an expression that says it has seen some things’, sometimes Holden tries to prop it up to see nicer things, but there is no changing the embroidered expression.

As he finally worked his way to the roots of the long beautiful black hair, he took a risk, one he hoped wouldn’t result in instant sleep because he suspected Jace hadn’t eaten… and tentatively massaged Jace’s temples. If he enjoyed this, perhaps he could suggest…. laying back on his lap and letting him do this properly.