[ 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.
no subject
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.