kingdomsofrain | tfln open post

tfln open post

***

either leave a message (or set of muses) for one of my assholes, or request a message from one of them. choose messages from the classic source, from your own skull, or whatever you may please.

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And - why do I have your number? To answer a question with a question: did you not intend to text me?

I'm [...]

Wounded.

[...]

No, I mean that truly. I'm rather wounded. After Rin, you are, I had thought, one of my oldest and dearest friends. I realize now, I've seen neither hide nor hair of you since my incarceration.

You degenerate cunt. Say 'hello' and mean it.

And come see me when you're free of your scandalizing.

Edited 2021-03-27 00:41 (UTC)

Rin, you nag like an golden age housewife and demand I don't refer to you as 'old'. Do you see the conundrum? The paradox? The shit-eating irony?

It's not a matter of influence. I'll smoke if I like, as befits a man whose financial means are limited, affording little luxury save the occasional pack of cigarettes. As befits a man who is, or ought to be, free to smoke when and if he chooses.

(I should not be smoking, no.)

It has nothing to do with why I should wish to join you for that infrequent indulgence of yours. Your life of leisure, afforded by this burgeoning empire you've built, is far from leisurely. How much has changed, while I enjoyed the hospitality of the criminal justice system.

- In short, plainly said. You are a busy (youthful!) null, and I have missed you. Your weekly cigarette is opportunity for me to enjoy Rin at Rest.

A bargain, then. Give me a luxury for the sacrifice of a luxury: your time, when it is free, and I will cheerfully vow not to smoke in your company.

Edited 2021-03-27 00:55 (UTC)

[ He might be standing with the half-empty syrup bottle in-hand, surveying the kitchen and musing aloud over what other chores might be knocked out with a little maple magic. He might be asking Hope for her input, and eyeing the toaster - it's got crumbs in it! - when Alice's text comes through, and Treavor's face turns to grinning. Which just leaves dropping (...oops, literally dropping, sorry floor) the bottle and leaning further into the counter because standing's getting a little difficult and he doesn't remember drinking but then, drinking and not remembering drinking can go hand-in-hand, right?

Also, hey, wasn't Sheldon here? Where'd he go, maybe boats? ]

alice!!!

:3 :# :3!

hm but who wilm tuck me into the blankets hm? i would ask hope, but her paws! very small. most adorable! but small!

hm i will kiss them for you!

kiss kiss kiss!

[ Is he kissing those paws between writing each word yes of course he is! ]

she has been kissed and says hello night to dad!

I see no irony, no paradox: the golden age housewife's come back around and found her retro hay-day. What do you think: Were I to don pearls and serve up a monstrous jello mold, would the illusion be complete?

I would much prefer your company without the mold. The pearls are dependent on the day, and on my whimsy.

For the rest, I have been remiss. Caught up in the work-a-day life of a null, and negligent of MY dearest friend, I haven't seen near enough of Sen. I intend to mend my ways and - please - it is no sacrifice to share my time with you.

Tonight, if you're of a mind. We'll find a quiet corner and ward off any would-be-interferers. Business can hold for the space of an hour, hm? Perhaps two, if I'm daring.

And any time you find me spun heedless by what I've styled my duties, you need only grab my sleeve and say, 'Slow down, you dizzy little null.' I encourage it: give me reason for a moment's pause, Sen. Grant me the harbor of your philosophy, or of your scheming silence.

I have missed you, too.

And you are welcome anywhere I go.

~~Senan, why~~ ~~What is it that's got hold of you?~~

[ ... ]

Smoking or not smoking, as you please. I prefer not to discourage your company. If you must smoke, or if you choose to smoke, I'd just as soon you do so within rather than outside my presence.

Funny, that's funny, you're

Beg your pardon did you want a welcome basket, or a get out of jail free card?

As if I make a habit of being associating with known felons and

I didn't ASK for a treatise on dotage featuring our mutual acquaintance

You can fuck

[ ... ]

You have a nasty habit of leading me to think twice about what I say.

Senan.

There are worse unintended recipients a man might entertain.

[ And Darius is still talking, and Darius hasn't tossed the phone aside or blocked Sen's number, which says rather a lot on its own. ]

A point: If you wish to incur the grace of my presence, I’ll need you to name some neutral ground. I have the distinct impression that my ‘impotent complaints’ and I are unwelcome in the empire within which you’ve taken refuge.

Otherwise. Well. What is it they say? Aside from living, and breathing, and exuding honeyed nonsense, how HAVE you been?

[ Is he smiling, a cigarette hanging from his lips, forgotten? Has he mentally set aside a portion of his meager finances for the purpose of acquiring a Tahitian pearl necklace for Rin?

Is he absolutely ignoring the reason behind either?

Yes to all. ]

When did you get so damned charming?

Times were, you'd be the first to tell me not only to stop my smoking, but swallow the whole pack and choke on it, should it please me. Now I've got your promise of undivided attention and your blessing to enjoy my vice, as well?

'The harbor of your philosophy'. You've grown poetic, too. In your ever-youthful age, I do believe you've grown into yourself. You inhabit yourself differently now.

Perhaps I don't miss you. I hardly know the you you've become in the intervening years since the you I might have missed was they who kept my company.

No.

I would like to make your acquaintance, Pookie.

I believe it will have been, in the future past-tense, an honor to have known you. As it has been, ever, an honor to know you.

Tonight, hm? I'll clear my schedule.

Now, there's an affable gentleman if ever there was one.

I'm afraid that "neutral ground" is a passé concept in the new millennium; one must always be for or against any subject, from raisins to racism. Either you or I or both will find any empire inhospitable. You might as well come here; the monarch of this kingdom is nothing if not the perfect host.

And as I am the muscle (laughable, yes), you will find there is little to fear in that quarter.

It's a nice place, Null Set. Quiet, after hours.

Be tempted. There's a karaoke machine. (It rather pointedly does not have any version of 'I Touch Myself'. I wonder why that could be? Shall have to put that inquiry to Rin.)

~~Honeyed nonsense?~~

As for me, I am as I was and will ever be. Immutable, ineffable, indefatigable, and incorrigible.

Edited 2021-03-27 04:06 (UTC)

[ And. Because that was...nice. Darius, being nice? He'll just tack on: ]

Rather painless segue from "Asshole" to "Senan".

You've got a fresh one, don't you.

There's no need to say 'I'm sorry.'

What was it earlier, Puppy? That you didn't have an answer prepared?

I asked what you knew: you gave me geometry, flawless Greek, and an apology.

You offer a feint that might barely be called a lie, and you speak what I assume constitutes a necessary lie. Nothing fatal, hm? And you offer an apology.

We are all permitted our mistruths, Enri. Even before god.

I don't want to hear you apologize.

My space of doubt was not that you COULDN'T wield another language; Greek happens to be - as you have yourself indicated - a relative rarity here.

You aren't a dull young man.

Edited 2021-03-27 04:12 (UTC)

[ A space of silence again. In this, Enri staring at the words Darius sent, and then looking slightly right, as though to see -

Whether he's being observed. Whether someone might spot him indulging in something he's not permitted. (Seeking anyone who might come along and laugh. Who might call him a dumb fuck for wanting to believe Darius.)

He has to. He has to remember, this is only for now. This is only for the week (which is now shorter, which is so much shorter than he wanted it to be), and when it's over, no one's going to tell him not to apologize. No one's going to say he's not 'a dull young man'.

But. It feels good.

To have Darius's approval.

No one needs to know. ]

[...]

i know a few.

other languages.

[...]

latin, french, russian (can't write that one though, no keyboard for cyrillic)

[...]

german.

some arabic, but i wasn't there too long. enough to order food and ask for directions or tell someone to drop their weapon i guess. (can't write that one at all)

trying to learn cantonese but if greek is a 'relative rarity' then chinese is a unicorn in iowa.

[...]

my brother says it [...] gives us the opportunity to be dumbasses in multiple countries.

[...] his name's Felix

[ And then, recalling his earlier comment about a lie he couldn't rectify, Enri offers a piece of information rarely shared. Thinking -

Not thinking at all.

(But wouldn't it be nice. Not to have secrets from Daddy. No lies, nothing hidden? Only them, and pure honesty?) ]

we're twins.

[ And - and. Darius asked about earlier. Enri should, he thinks, answer that question. ]

earlier we were talking about ~~cor~~ 'choric'.

maybe you don't think i'm stupid but i read what you said four times and still don't get it.

so i am sorry, even if you don't want to hear it.

[...]

if you say i'm not dull people are going to look at you like a fucking flat-earther

~~probably should keep that with 'the moon landing was faked' and 'i saw bigfoot'.~~

Suggesting that this null hasn’t always been charming?

I kid, of course; it’s an accurate assessment. My circumstance has changed, and so I have leeway to mingle shit-stirring with expressions less brusque. And I— Shall I say I appreciate the sentiment? A word too weak to convey my gratitude, but it matters that you have seen me in and as myself.

Still, do I seem so changed? I believe at heart I am the Rin you always knew, and have known—and for whom, were truth to be told, you have played no small part in permitting them to be their nullest self. I shouldn’t like to think myself a stranger to you. Or that I’ve grown beyond your reach.

No, I simply don’t believe it’s possible. You have always known the center of me. And What is a Rin without the knowledge of Sen, hm? You are, as it happens, compulsory. And my acquaintance is yours, as long as you’ll have it.

(Do you know, I nearly missed that ridiculous sobriquet. 'P'; you know the one. I refuse to repeat it, or to hear it from any other, but its absence was felt.)

[ Damn the man; he managed to draw a smirk, bringing up that fucking song. (Jesus, that feels like ages ago. A different life, or Darius just doesn't really think about it. Doesn't think about much he's left behind, at all.

Sen should have been left behind. It'd be wisest to let this conversation drop. And yet.) ]

There he is: Senan "Asshole" "The Muscle" Wilkes, professional bullshit dealer and purveyor of non-answers. Companion to the monarch most liable to break my nose. Curator of the new millennium's conceptual trends. ~~Please, Sen, tell me all about what you learned on the cutting edge of prison.~~

Nice to see nothing's changed, after all.

Please, it's a fucking wedding, and what's more, a wedding populated by Boyles, Pendletons, and every other head-up-their-ass family Manhattan can supply. Would I be here without a source of interest?

So. No, I haven't been drinking alone.

Don't think the absence of a karaoke track will stop me, by the way. It's a nice trick of Renault's, but with will, all things are possible.

You are altered; one is, you know, over the course of mere weeks, much less years. We are not as we were yesterday or an hour ago, shaped as we are by the world’s influence.

Are you not forever changed by a chance encounter with a purveyor of methamphetamines? Has your thought process not undergone even a subtle alteration, such that, where once you might not have considered such a questionable product around which to build a sales model, now you are vehemently arguing its merits with the neighborhood junkie?

The world changes us. We change ourselves.

But. You are likewise still Rin as I have known you - “my Rin”, as it were, though this new Rin has so situated themself in a more comfortable situation, where less of my Rin’s bite is necessary.

In time these two selves will [...] conspire to become singular.

And you will be ‘my Rin’ again, familiar as a childhood home.

[...]

Of course. You are similarly compulsory to me. You and I are fated to remain lifelong companions, if for no other reason than this: much like a mongrel dog, I go where I am fed, and a where a friendly hand scratches behind my ear.

[...] It’s true, you are never out of reach.

Out of specific reaches, perhaps. Particular or pointed reaches. But ever an arm’s length away.

Which is to say, I see you over there, you utter pissbucket. (“P” word? Pissbucket.) Stop hovering.

Edited 2021-03-27 18:10 (UTC)

There he is: Darius Scarlett, whose pseudonyms, bynames, and appellations will be stricken from the record; only boys half our age can be led down any such primrose path.

What answer would you like? You asked only how I am, and the social contract states one ought to keep to the lighter side of such conversations. (More to the point, Darius, I suspect if there were an answer that was not a non-answer, it is an answer you would not care to hear. It would be an imposition.)

[...] Well.

You know my abhorrence for lies.

And it seems you are, as the kids say, butthurt that I withheld a straight answer from you.

[...]

I'm not well.

[...]

If you repeat that to Rin, I will let them break your nose. They don't know and they don't need to know. I am telling you because I trust you will have the good grace not to treat me as any sort of invalid.

And because you are, my dear Scarlett, butthurt.

Now, the next time a man gives you a non-answer, perhaps you'll let it fucking lie.

As to the subject of the Boyle wedding (populated by Pendletons? Who is she marrying?) I suggest you lock Emma and Lydia in a room together and give odds on which one comes out alive. Do you remember

Esma.

Her name's Esma, that's the one.

Do you remember that summer in, oh, 1995? 1996? That was Lydia, if memory serves, who cracked Esma across the face with a pool cue for some trespass with one of the Pendletons. ('Trespass'. Tried to fuck him on the billiards table in the middle of that wrench of a party you dragged us to.)

[...]

The feral one. Outwardly, seemingly possessed of an intellect rivaled only by that of garden tools. (Not so. A feint, a sleight of mind to catch one unawares.)

Morgan.

Are they there? Don't tell them I said 'hello'. I owe one of them a rather large quantity of illegals, and I'm unsure which. Regardless, you can imagine I'm in no position to supply.

Edited 2021-03-27 22:32 (UTC)

I relayed your precarious (but not solitary) circumstance to Rin, and they have reminded me that Trevor is one of that lot, and so, by proxy, is his fiancé.

Have you met Alice?

Tell Alice that Rin says 'hello', and asks that he drop by, won't you?

Please and thank you. There's a good youth-destroying consumer, corruptor, and compromiser of naïve young men. (In that vein, give my regards to your newest acquisition.)

[ It’s true they’ve left the alley behind, and it’s true they’ve wandered their way toward sighting Sen across the room.

Sen, who appears the same, and altered. Diminished; unwell. (Sen who never should have been taken, or kept away, but there's no altering the fact now.) (He is here. That's something. He's here, and just might stay.) Sen, whose presence still alters the light of any room, and whose words bring relief with every winding phrase.

What happened.

What is happening? It isn't Rin's business, and if Sen wished to share, he would.

Still, half-formed worries nag. (And so, Rin nags. Not precisely intending to, and almost surprised at themself, but unable to wholly refrain.)

Still, Rin would like to... Fix it. To ferret out some solution, and there must be a solution; with enough determined seeking, there always is. Rin’s brought together so many broken pieces, fragments of self, of half-cocked business plans, of improbable dreams. They've turned the tail ends of nothing into a properly legitimate business, a nightclub and a haven and the nearest thing they’ve known to a secure place in the world. Why, then, should this problem be beyond them?

A trouble is, Sen hasn't asked. Or responded well to Rin’s attempts to pry. And Rin is reluctant to push harder (and risk, perhaps, pushing Senan away).

There will be time. (There has to be time. Please.) There will be time, and talk, and perhaps the problem and solution both await within the near-oncoming future.

Sen’s message catches them watching, attention perhaps yes, a little bit too fixed on Sen. And after reading (a series of emotion registered quietly, without outward show and difficult, oh, difficult to piece apart) they make a show of rolling their eyes, head shaking once. Expression studiously neutral, they raise a finger, wag it twice at Sen. Shift into a grin and remain right where they are, beginning to type. ]

Sha’n’t. c:

It is the purview of a Pissbucket - particularly when they preside over a premises - to hover as they please.

Perhaps I am only overlooking the floor, hm? Perhaps I’ve come to gauge the mingled crowd, or greet the night’s opening act.

Or is it that I wish to remind you how adamantly I - your Rin, or/and this other Rin, or/and any guise of Rin that might exist - remain within some form of reach?

An object lesson, Sen; an incontrovertible display. Your fate on-view: a pretty picture, eh?

I allow that time and circumstance work changes on us. Certain alterations are no more than glancing; the back alley encounter will fade quickly, its ripples scarcely amounting. Others… There are influences that might be called endemic. Unforgettable. Present in their reach through every iteration.

(You do my past self too much credit if you think some form of me hasn’t considered the questionable merits of dealing in any substance you can picture. The road between then and now has been paved with plenty of mis-starts and dubious intentions.)

I must insist upon one certitude: You are not and never have been a mongrel. You know I don’t keep dogs, and therefore I refuse to allow that you might be one.

No dog could manage such eloquence. Nor any mere man. No, such wild and resolving ramblings are the purview solely of a Sen. [ … ] My Sen, if I may speak so bold.

Or, perhaps, my once and future Sen.

[ ’Familiar as a childhood home,’ Sen had written. A phrase that fluttered warmth in vines on reading. A phrase that recurs now again, again, firefly gleaming recurrent, soft and beguiling. ]

[ There are false starts and lengthy pauses as he reads what Rin wrote - and while they have all manner of proficiency in disguising their thoughts from display, Sen's every shift of expression can be read plainly.

The catch of breath and furrowed brow. The closing of his eyes and hard swallow.

How he sets his phone aside, face down, at one point, and feigns needing his drink as he looks anywhere, anywhere, but at his "fate on-view". (Yes. Yes, they're a pretty picture.) He closes his eyes and sees them there, too. (His Rin. A thought not unaccompanied by a faint twitch of a smile.)

There's untold warmth in this. The texts alone could sustain a starving man for years. (Nevermind that there have been other things. Conversations long into the night. Rin leaning against him, their back to his side, his arm slung around their waist. Several times - an undiscussed occurring. When it was late, when the conversations had worn through to their natural conclusion, when Rin was leaning and Sen was arm-slung beside them.

Without passion, or intent, he tells himself.

Friendly. Just - friendly. An offer of something possibly needed, intimacy afforded without expectation or price - those occasional kisses. One does need intimacy. (Who between them needed it, though?)

Nevermind that Rin has ever been close and constant.)

(Nevermind that the starving man hasn't got years.)

He reads the last line, unaware that he's nodding, assenting silently, because his Rin is not his Rin, but he is their Sen. He has been. Will be until the day he dies.

Which is looking to be another fate on-view, a not-so pretty picture: soon.

Which is why there's no approaching them with any of this. Ever.

But - ]

Not a mongrel, no. I merely liken myself to the habits of one.

For instance, a mongrel dog will form an attachment to the being that shows it such depths of fondness. Have you read - I'm sure you have. The MRI studies, dogs shown photographs of their people. A dog's brain will prove to spark alight at the sight of its human companion, much in the same way said human's does when they experience happiness.

The same regions of the brain activate for a mongrel. They feel pleasure at the sight of their singular, select companion.

You might find a similar reaction from me. Little happiness that I experience. But here is a singular, select companion who hovers, and gives me shelter, who ensures I have eaten when I forget, who plays games both absurd and elaborate with me.

The fate on-view does spark me alight.

A pretty picture, indeed. ~~Prettier than any, a view to inspire two years of yearning~~

[...]

Pookie, are you fishing for compliments? If you want your vanity stroked, stop playing helicopter null, and I shall aspire to render unto you no less than three compliments, one of which is sure to draw a blush to your (youthful!) visage.

(Your past self, by the bye, is held immaculate in memory, and I will not permit you to besmirch my Rin. Shh, new Rin! Shh! Their hands were pure as fresh fallen snow, and one may be permitted to entertain fancies of criminal mischief.)

Boggling at me one moment, bleeding from the nose the next.

What do they know, hm?

You'll find that few people possess more than an ounce of cleverness. Fewer still prove capable of recognizing acuity that doesn't vaunt its competence.

There's no need to listen to them, Puppy. They are unworthy of your belief.

You're sharper than they know. And I'd wager that no more than two or three of them own your apparent facility for language (and your brother's?). It isn't nothing, my boy. And I don't believe it scratches the surface of your capacity.

You'll have to show me what you know. If you care to. See if you can charm Daddy in six languages, plus change.

Edited 2021-03-28 02:30 (UTC)

The word was used conceptually, Puppy.

The salient point: Your voice sings with the strength of a chorus.

It can. It does.

There's resonance in the sound of you. And there is more that might be said - about your cries, about your choric intonations - but the lesson would be more potent with a demonstration.

Something I can readily arrange. I'll set you singing, my Enri, and so conjure the choric in you.

Edited 2021-03-28 02:38 (UTC)

Would it crush you to know I've no wish to hear any such appellation from your mouth?

At the risk of repeating myself: Asshole.

Yes, it was Lydia. Was that the site of the shrimp heist? Or the fountain incident; I was, if I recall, painstakingly blitzed on both occasions.

You're thinking of Custis. Who, I'm given to understand, has no further use for that particular supply. Self-righteous twat. And who is owed a piece of my goddamn mind.

Related: I'm fucking their cousin.

Edited 2021-03-28 03:13 (UTC)

[ The word makes absolute perfect sense now. And truthfully, Enri is more than eager to hurry back to their (their!) suite and make some choric noises. Or make Darius make some.

Again.

Enri has in a few short days learned that he has an aptitude for fucking. And for being - thank you, again, Google - submissive. (If all he’s good for in life is getting off his Daddy in six languages and change, are things really that bad?)

(Yes. Because that’s not his life.)

What catches his attention isn’t any of that, however.

(Mostly. He does veer into French for the sake of the challenge put to him. ]

You’d hit someone because they said I’m not smart?

[...]

Fuck, that’s hot.

Edited 2021-03-28 03:03 (UTC)

[ It doesn't escape his notice that Sen's revelation - it is a revelation, given the framing, given the claim of keeping it from Renault, given everything Darius knows about this wreck of a man - was quickly buried in a rush of reminiscence. Or that 'I'm not well,' from anyone as long-winded as Sen, must be a vast understatement. ]

Which is it, Sen? Seeking medical attention, or going gentle into that good night?

[ ... ]

Rest assured I will continue to address you as the life-long clown you are.

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