tfln open post

[byanyname]

***

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.

Comments

[honeystuff]

jesus

i'm trying to get back there as fast as i can

[...]

do you want me to tell you when you're turning me on or do you already know?

not that it's hard difficult to do.

i don't know if it's a thing you like to be told all the time. maybe sometimes you just want a conversation and not an unsolicited dick pic update.

[...]

and i kind of get the idea that fucking isn't the fun part for you.

really isn't easy to get you hard

seems like it works okay so you're not impotent righ

[...]

i can't answer the russian right now. i'll dl a keyboard later.

we can take as much time as you want to invent some euphemisms. it's not just your [...] attention that calls me out. everything about you [...]

you're magnetic. or quicksand. i haven't decided yet.

not that it matters either way.

[...]

how many languages do you know?

[withoutrhetoric]

[ There, that smile. Kindling the world and twining together all the years they’ve known this man and borne delighted witness to this smile. And in this moment it is easy to feel how many of Rin’s days have been spent in Sen’s company, and how well they feel each day defined in large part by the breath and heartbeat of this man.

They let their hand hang in the air in the wake of Sen’s kiss, fingers gently flexing, as if the motion could capture further the impression of that kiss, as if Rin could feel and know the feeling of that press deeper and deeper with every shifting muscle. They let their hand linger, and they smile, nearly laugh, teeth briefly visible. Noticing the way Sen’s mirrored their language shifts in reverse. Knowing the way that mirroring echoes through the years, as well.

Knowing they’ll remember the impress of this kiss, and the sense of Sen against them, of Sen’s arm around them. The way they’ve always remember moments or hours spent with Sen. The ways scenes write themselves into Rin’s being, every raucous venture and quiet respite marking upon the walls within their veins.

They focus their attention on their hand, studying the site of the kiss, smiling and flexing their fingers again, again. Then, looking up at Sen— ]

Forty-five years? Tsk, imagine my surprise, to find I’ve been communing with an old man.

[ A wink and a gentle poke, and never mind that Rin’s got three years, give or take, on Sen. ]

And yet, to look at you, I never would have guessed.

[ A statement spoken in plain truth: it’s difficult to look at Senan and not recognize the youth within his heart, and the trace of every younger self he’s been. And now, even worn as Sen seems (worrisomely worn; not altered at heart, but something is flagging, dragged ragged in Sen’s wake), there’s captivation in those eyes, in every sprawling gesture and subtlety of ticked lip or softened brow. This man moves with a rhythm of his own, familiar to Rin and tangential to the world. This man is the being, the voice, the sight they’ve sought again and again, constancy in a far-flung, scrambling life.

They reach up, and set the backs of two fingers against Sen’s jaw, tilting gently upward, just enough to shift the fall of light and shadow, just enough to tilt their own head and feign to study - and in fact study, eyes tracing stubble and contour and all the way time’s touched (and incarceration touched, and the unknown trouble’s touching) that cheek - expression a scrutinizing neutrality, then blooming into a sudden, beaming smile. Their hand twists lithe, forefinger tapping twice against Sen’s jaw, then withdrawing to rest upon his chest. ]

What a rogue and pleasant sage you are, hm?

[ In Greek— ]

I could look upon this ragged jaw in perpetuity, and never ask a better show.

[ French— ]

No pageantry could gleam above the sight of Senan Wilkes with his well-regarded stubble.

…Strange to think you have a surname. Strange to hold it on my tongue. I’m afraid, mi pensador, I’ll have to dispense with that ‘W’ appended to your name, and call you ‘Sen’ alone, rascal of your own creation.

[ Without a beat, they plunge onward in Italian, and yes, they are flaunting, preening a little, relishing this chase through language and favoring Sen with a pleased and decidedly shit-eating grin— ]

You make an art of cultivated bristle, an aesthetic of polished impishness. To look at you is to recognize some glint of devilment, yes, but who outside your acquaintance could guess the depths of your commitment to roguery? Who could be so privileged to know how well you are you, a confirmed Sen’s self straight to your core?

What I mean to say is I am fortunate. Blessed, it might be said, and I might say, and I, in fact, do claim. And I am pleased, Senan—

[ A pause, and, in French— ]

I am gratified, to find you here again.

[ For a moment - passing, yes, but in this moment as if snared in amber - their smile flickers vaguely troubled, traced in sorrow. Because that ‘again’ conjures the time that wasn’t. Those two years out of twenty-five (they’ve known him, and he’s known them, for over half their lives) where Sen was distant, or Rin was distant, or in any case space and circumstance intervened.

(Hard now not to know how the world felt in Senan’s absence. How daily living hummed along, how life thrummed vivid all around, and yet some core was ever absent. And yet there was a hollow at the heart of things, and Rin felt at every step a little bit - a lot - like haunted. A little like a ghost, themself.)

They won’t dwell on that. There’s no good dwelling on that, and in any case, just now they feel warmed through and through. Just now, they feel at-home, and easy. And, smile turning fully to pleased appreciation, Rin presses a kiss to their fingertips, then sets those fingertips against Sen’s jaw, and lets them linger. ]

Never doubt that I am anything less than contented in your presence.

My life lately has been less harried. It surprises me, sometimes, how well I’ve settled into relative ease. And yet.

It is only here, beside my Sen, that I find complete tranquility.

[ultimatenegative]

[ Sen watches their hand hover in the air, charmed to silence by the gesture. His own hand lingers near, fingertips tracing the warmth of space near their skin as though their aura can be felt, bare centimeters from their physical boundary.

There is always something otherworldly about Rin. And Sen, in Rin's presence. Before their irreproachable and unapproachable beauty. The glow of candlelit poverty and time that ceased, never to be a moment past 7:34 on November 2nd. The dance of their hands in the air now. Rin is a daydream.

Rin is every dream.

(What is Rin thinking of now as their fingers flex? Does some part - does any part - of them feel singed by his kiss? What would it be like to set them on fire?

Senan believes they're merely charmed; that they love beauty, they love works of art. (They don't love him. Not the way he'd like them to.) They are enamored of the idea of their hand having been kissed.) (He's pleased by this.)

His eyes shift past their hand just as it leaves the company of his own, seeking the familiarity of their face, and is delighted - faintly surprised, to feel the press of their fingertips to his jaw. He permits (conspires with) the silent direction of touch and angles his head, his eyes slipping close. Written in the lines between pleasure and mischief and contentment is something euphoric - the way he looked when that first kiss ended.

(He doesn't remember who began it, be he remembers who ended it. He remembers he had to end it, for fear of a ruptured heart. It would have been the most lethal dose of pleasure he'd ever found, if he hadn't drawn away. He had spoken, too, hadn't he? Oh, Rin, soft and smiling and rueful, and between all those lines, there had been perfect (but not lethal) bliss.)

He loves when they touch him. When has there ever been anything but appreciation in their (caress) touch? Along the unkempt grain of two days' growth, and it's a wonder they think him attractive. It's a delight of its own, and their multilingual praise summons another low laugh from him.

(Privately. Privately, he thinks - he would dispense with the Wilkes, given the chance. But only for an upgrade. Only if leaving behind his name meant taking theirs. (A dangerous thought he doesn't consider often.) (Has only dared to approach it a handful of times, drunk or high and alone long after everyone - including Rin - has fallen asleep. It's a dangerous set of words stolen in the dark and whispered to no one, just so Sen could hear the sound of them. So Sen could taste it. His own name, appended to theirs. A warmth in his chest, verdant blooms of longing and satisfaction. Senan Rinault.)

(In this far-off daydream where he appends and Senan to Rin, he has tested the weight of their name with his own, and found Rin Wilkes to be distastefully common.

Which says something. About the likelihood of Rin in conjunction with Sen. He is, himself, distastefully common.)

He senses the shift of their mood as surely as a change in the weather, and his eyes open, himself falling still from the was-inclined angle of his head, the invitation for further trespass of their fingers. They look troubled.

They're thinking of the two years without him.

(They're blaming themself? Or, like him, they dislike the distance? Hard to say.)

He shakes his head minutely at them - it's so much nothing, those two years. When he's lived more than half his life with them. When he survived the separation on the notion that he would come and find home.

It happens in a perfectly formed crystal of time, slow and rapid, unmoving and bolting forward, all things occurring at once and all things frozen: they kiss their fingertips and the kiss is given. Sen's hand drifts across theirs, finding it still at his jaw, hearing words (my Sen) (tranquility) resound in gentleness.

There's a kiss on their fingertips. It's a thought snagged on a nail in his mind, and he can't help himself. He draws their hand, their kissed fingertips, to his lips again. (How many times has he kissed the air and watched them feign tossing those kisses aside. Batting them away. Dodging them. How long has it gone on, that now it's simply a game they play: Senan kisses, and Rin avoids, and Senan pretends there's nothing more to it? That he doesn't wish they would just catch one.) (They have to catch this one. Or, at least, let him take the trace of their lips against his own, conveyed by fingertips.)

Over the crest of their hand, he offers a quiet reply. ]

Another role I am glad to play, for the sake of Rin. Be at peace with me; be tranquil and happy. These odd hours when you and I may take refuge from the world together are precious - incomparably precious to me. What more could I ask than this: to hold you near and steadfast, and know your heart beats contented - to watch the play of movements, a shift of hand, a smile, a gestures, a fluttering hand, and know in each is the same note of tranquility?

[ He releases their hand in favor of brushing their own cheek in the same manner they offered, fingertips light as a breath.

Exploratory. ]

But.

There is a problem you and I must address, Pookie:

[ His smile turns impish, just as he's been so sorely accused of impishness, though he quickly recovers and affects a somber note. Feigned concern. ]

I promised to give you cause to blush. Are you so inured to compliments that they no longer give you cause for such an absurd reaction?

Or perhaps you don't feel the flush of pleasure as mere mortals do?

[ He shifts, settling lower so that his eyes are level(ish) with theirs, and draws nearer - inches away and conspiratorial. His language shifts, following the backwards track of their own. ]

Or am I to blame, hm? Do you require more praise, until your heart splits apart and all your lifeblood burns crimson?

[ Another shift of language, another fine-honed, pleasant smirk. ]

The problem is, you see: if I did employ the most incisive of compliments for my Rin, how on earth could I mend their heart after? Poor Rin, bled out by pretty words.

True words. Pretty, and true. But though I can give you tranquility, and I can perform open-heart laudation, I am no healer.

[ His hand drops, and presses their chest above their heart (his smile returning, fond, terribly fond as he regards his hand against them.) And again, he veers from one language to another. ]

No. Better to leave it unscathed. It wouldn't do to break it, when there is no other like it in the world.

[ A tsk, and he chucks them under their chin gently, affectionately. ]

Keep your blushes, then. Miserly null.

to Lydia

[onefellswoop]

(( following this thread.))

I’d like a moment of your time, Lydia.

Your choice: face-to-face - alone - or we can do this over text.

Sooner than not would be ideal.

[harpsibored]

[ She shows Morgan. Of course she does.

There aren't that many people here who would want a word with her. By process of elimination - those whose numbers she does and does not have - and with a little common sense, she decides it's Darius.

A question: why does he (still?) have her number.

A question: why is he asking for her time. (Asking, not demanding.)

To run interference between himself and the twins? No, he wouldn't be that stupid. He can't believe she'd ever help him, choose him over her own.

But there was the incident today. What occurred: Darius spoke out of turn, to Enri's bystanding detriment. Why this should matter to him, that he did so in front of her, that he should message her, is a mystery.

Some deliberative thought.

(Enri told him.) (Something occurred. Enri told.) (This could be a problem.) (...Maybe.)

She has conclusions. It wouldn't do to speak them to this creature. ]

What ever for.

[onefellswoop]

[ She responded. That's something. ]

Promises made in the wake of miscalculation.

[ ... ]

I've spoken with him.

[harpsibored]

[ Unusual. Darius Scarlett, who puts young men in hospitals.

Promised Enri? Or Enri promised -

No. That's the wrong shape of this.

Another thought occurs: the vibratory (and almost familiar - kin to a known rage) shouting an hour ago. ]

'Spoken'.

It requires some manner of speech when they howl. Perhaps you did speak with him.

What you mean here is that you listened in the quiet aftermath.

No, I won't help you learn their moods.

Miscalculation.

He gave you a number you were missing in the mathematics.

It was not an oversight, that two and two fail to equate to four. It's a calculated subtraction, not a unit created through the common processes of addition.

[...]

What do you want?

[onefellswoop]

[ ...Christ. Right. This is Lydia Boyle. Not detestable; also perpetually veering incomprehensible.

Or, no, not incomprehensible. She speaks with logic of her own; just delivers it like some kind of jacked-up oracle. ]

To apologize.

More accurately: Enri would like this apology, and I am not unwilling to pleased to oblige.

The boy is owed I owe the boy amends.

I have been led to understand that I owe you, as well.

[harpsibored]

[ An apology given because one is bid to do so is worthless.

She doesn't say that. To him. She muses it out loud, to Morgan and herself. (Alerting him to the nature of the texts.) (That Enri told Darius to apologize, and so Darius is apologizing. For something he said.) (Darius. Is apologizing.)

What is not worthless: that the apology is not to her, specifically. It's a gesture for the boy.

For the words spoken in front of his people? She hums doubtful.

Curious. But not her business.

Another point of curiosity: Enri told her this was only for a week. This...encounter.

(Fling.)

That is very interesting. (Darius has, she thinks, bitten off more than he can chew.) ]

Enri set you to offer apology to his [...] me. And you are obliging.

[...]

Presumably, I am expected to forgive. (Or is that beside the point, I wonder. My own participation is necessary, but not focal? I am an incidentally wounded party?)

Very well. We'll speak our lines. As he wishes.

First you.

[onefellswoop]

Wonder as you like. I have no cause to believe you are or are not wounded. ARE you wounded, Lydia? Nor to believe any pardon is required.

I am obliging, yes. I might say I appreciate your tolerance. Your tolerance is appreciated.

[ ... ]

Owing that I did not know you were his

My cause for regret: that I spoke flippantly of Enri before you. That you were party to my flaunting, and to the boy's discomfort. It is an unfortunate position to witness one's [ ... ] family cornered into. It was my error, to place you, and to place him in this position.

I am

Believe me what I say I am

I regret that

It is to be admitted that

I'm sorry, Lydia. For whatever agitation I might have caused you, and for what must have seemed and may have constituted ill-using the boy in your presence.

[ ... ]

Your son is not unimportant to

[ ...N o p e. Delete delete delete that last line. Forget its prior existence. Then send. ]

[harpsibored]

[ Lydia has known Darius, oh - all her life.

Darius does what he pleases, unapologetic, without care for the mores of the world he inhabits. (She respects it in him. Even if she doesn't necessarily appreciate his actions.)

This.

It's an. Actual. Apology. Not rote words, but consideration of what occurred, and what fault there was, and what amends might be made with communication.

She is (somewhat) astonished.

Darius has not bitten off more than he can chew. Darius is enmeshed. ]

A fine apology, indeed. Genuine. Or as genuine as a directed apology may be. I assume Enri will be party to this exchange, else what is it good for. So: believable, and heartfelt.

A reason for wondering.

And while my forgiveness is not relevant to your situation, you have it. I am not agitated. I do not believe Enri to be ill-used in any way he does not wish.

He can not be coerced to behave beyond his own will.

What's more, he is an adult.

[...]

You and Enri.

It is only for a week?

[onefellswoop]

[ Recognition like a jolt: Enri's spoken at length with her. (How much does she know? It doesn't, really, matter.)

He'd had an inkling. After what Enri had said about Lydia being on his side (whatever the meant, precisely) (Darius doesn't need anybody anywhere near his side, doesn't require any fucking defenders) (still, it's worth noting, and recalling). And given Lydia's subtle keenness. But it's strange to think of anybody knowing the terms of their agreement. (How much does she know, precisely?) Darius doesn't quite like it. Darius grits his teeth. But ultimately, there can be no harm in her having heard, or in Enri having told.

(If any other Puppies had spoken the details of their contracts, there would have been some minor hell to pay.) ]

No; that boy won't bend beyond his wishes.

Enri possesses [ ... ] an uncommon strength of conviction.

[ ... ]

Our agreement is for the week, yes.

You may breathe easy after.

[harpsibored]

[ A length of time here while she confers, to the extent that she confers, with Morgan.

And then - ]

I will breathe as I breathe.

[...]

Our initial reservations were built upon unsteady foundations; that Enri might not know the mire of this world into which he has forayed; that your intentions to the sum, and not the subtracted one, were malicious; what destruction you might most unwisely attempt to level upon the one, which might leave some lesser quantity.

And. That he might not know what he was getting in to with you.

[...]

I and we now see the situation is other. With this apology. With your amends.

You don't know what you might getting in to with him, do you?

Have gotten in to.

You please him. Had you kept company as you liked, for whatever length of time you wished, there would have been no objection. So long as he continued in his pleasure.

But as you say. Your agreement is for the week.

[withoutrhetoric]

[ Simple, so simple, to tilt their head into Sen’s touch, to enjoy this slight increase of pressure, Sen near and nearer still. To smile at the touch of that hand, as they’d smiled at Sen’s kiss, a gesture at once theatric and writ earnest, as everything with Sen tends to be, as they themself incline.

Who else echoes their mood and language with such clarity or depth? Who else both receives and reflects their every twirl and whim?

Who else could hope to keep up— A moot question, because Rin would not entertain, and has not entertained any other person’s presence in this way. Because no other’s being has called like to like. Because no other person has echoed the timbre of their heart.

Rin doesn’t often dwell in particulars of memory. There isn’t time, or their energy is needed elsewhere, and anyway, they’ve no need to go digging through old archives. And anyway, most memories linger near and always in brief but potent impressions, reminders that flicker through like vivid shivers. Everything and every place they’ve been lingers with them, inevitably resurfacing. Beautiful sensations briefly crystalline, then receding once again.

A recurrent, a consistent presence in these recollections: the knowledge of a name and face and voice, a form that’s been with them for years. Brilliant oddity of a man who has almost from the start felt as natural as breathing. So that Rin regularly feels a sense of—

Damp grass under a moon grown full, a night fuzzed with whiskeyed haze; Sen’s voice spinning discursive on constellatory misapprehensions. Letting their clothes soak in the damp and fading in and out of consciousness, returning over and again to the sound of that habitual voice, and Senan lounging long against them.

And.

Scent of smoke and sweat, distant sirens, panting ragged breath, the ground rough beneath their feet and Sen beside them, grinning wild, conspiratorial, his laughter strung along the lambent sky.

And.

Cold candlelight on a rainy evening, in a flat perpetually haunted by chill and thawed by twined camaraderie, the rough of a woven blanket, the scent of bergamot stinging their nose, and an unexpected grace of soft lips, warm breath, a feeling of dawn mingled with dusk, epochal and then ended. Ever lingering in memory, in the charge of neural knowing and through the paths of every vein.

If they could live in time forever, it would be with this man. If time could be cast truly in a spell, held captured in a moment and another’s breath, it would be for and because of Sen.

Now, they huff a small breath at that ‘Pookie,’ as if so very affronted! Now, their smile belies any show of irritation.

Now, they drift their hand to cover Sen’s above their heart, pressing briefly, glinting a pleased grin. As if to suggest, ’Caught you now!’ As if to suggest, ’Look at us fools.’

Now, they smile at that ‘tsk,’ that soft gesture. Warm with joy, caught in the light of Senan’s smile. When they speak, it’s through a fluttering of varied languages, shifting from once to the next when a thought catches them, or to underline the import of a phrase, finally landing again in English. ]

Audacious, most admirable poet.

Perhaps I am too staggered to cultivate a proper blush, hm? What am I to say, when you dizzy me so? How is my being - this form of mine, in its chemical components and every stuttered electrical impulse - to function when my Sen speaks such fairness into being? Perhaps my every atom has frozen, and I have turned to truest null!

You speak ‘fairness,’ I say, when even ‘transcendence’ could scarcely describe what words and consequential images you’ve wrought. You, yielding gardens from your vivid visions. You, Senan, possessed of a mind unblanched by forty-five entire years of persistence in this grating world. Few people could know your years and still hold an ounce of insight or artistry. Mm— Few people could know half our years and possess as much.

It is not only my vanity that flourishes under your depictions, étrange poète. The whole world blossoms from your speech.

[ And, back to French— ]

And you, oh! You dare to claim you cannot heal? False modesty, or a dire mismeasure of your gifts!

All that you say, every breath you afford fortifies my heart. Who could mend me but you, hm? A question lacking answer. A question whose answer blinks static, bleats nothing. There is no balm better suited to this null’s existence.

Well, and if I were to fold myself into the dire end’s arms, could I ask any better agent than dire words, your words?

What is it? Oh, half the line’s not relevant, never mind that, I’ll twist my liking through the line and say, I’ll take thy words, and never mind the brush of hell, to die upon the hand I love so well.

[ (A bright and flickered thought: how well it feels to speak of love. (How the word resonates through with implication.) They don’t linger on the notion. They don’t question the form of their fondness, or any piece of its meaning. They and Sen have always been part of one another, so why not speak in every form of care and closeness?)

They press Sen’s hand again - feel the pressure of his hand against their heart again - and cock their head, voice theatrically hushed. ]

I warn you, though, Sen - or do I promise? - you are mere steps from driving this null to a desperate blush.

1/2

[onefellswoop]

[ This message arrives hours later, long after midnight. ]

Point of fucking order: If I wanted to raze that family, I would have done so years ago.

As if I've got nothing better to do with my time.

2/2

[onefellswoop]

Don't fucking say anything.

1/2

[onefellswoop]

Oh, plenty. Perhaps I'll run you through them sometime, hm?

I'll admit to certain gaps in fluency: My Japanese was never what I wanted, my Danish is half-hearted at best, and my Farsi could use some polish. Beyond that, I'm no displeased with what I know.

[ultimatenegative]

[...]

Point(s) of order:

First: If I didn't respond, you would continue to text me until I did respond, at which point you would castigate me for responding.

Second: what an odd thing to say at [...] half three in the morning.

Were you anyone else, I would venture to suggest you'd had a twinge of conscience. But of course, that would imply you have a conscience at all, and that it was being impacted by [...]

Your new toy?

Fuck right off.

Old age? Late night? Drink?

Anyhow.

It's a little late / early for razing. Didn't we establish no razing or raising, of families or hell, ought to occur past three a.m.? I believe that was not long after the stolen squad car, as a matter of fact.

2/2

[onefellswoop]

I believe I have a fairly solid sense of when I've engendered my Puppy's excitement. Though I'll never say no to your updates.

Your updates or your updates.

What gives you that idea

Do you have a problem with

[ ... ]

Regarding your supposition. If I were to say It's a small part of the picture.

Which is to say, Enri, that you aren't entirely misguided.

Meanwhile...

[honeystuff]

come back to bed daddy

<3

1/3

[honeystuff]

[...]

[...]

well that's one way to really make a guy feel special: enthusiastically fucking him when fucking's not your thing.

2/3

[honeystuff]

[...]

and i guess letting him finger you before breakfast.

[...]

probably goes without saying because you have a pretty good grip on doing what you want and saying what you don't want.

but you can tell me 'no'.

as darius, i mean. just in general. if something goes where you don't like or maybe you're not feeling it.

[...]

i'm not giving you permission or anything. just saying i won't be a shithead about it.

doesn't bother me if you're ace.

i get off either way. ;)

3/3

[honeystuff]

japanese is a grind. tried it but the only people to practice with were those weebs girls with hello kitty bags that sit up in the manga section of b&n.

and i don't like j-pop.

[...]

easier to learn a language when the music's good. good rap out of france. some of the best rock comes out of germany, but more from denmark. makes it worth learning. that one's been on my list.

can't be half-hearted if you like the music.

[onefellswoop]

Go fuck yourself.

Lucky thing you know the man you’re dealing with, and there’s no need for entertaining any misconceptions.

I don’t want misconceptions. Regarding razings, raisings, or otherwise.

Enri’s kin are of no concern. They’re tangential, at most.

Also. Fuck you, Wilkes. One whole extra year’s ragged youth to your name and you come rolling in with this ‘old age’ bullshit. Piss off.

[onefellswoop]

My Puppy. Did I wake you?