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.

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[thatminx]

[ If it's a choice between...?

What on earth.

Did she hit a sore spot with that joke about him getting old or something? She thinks about the pictures on his Instagram, the ones that scream 'I am having fun, fuck you', and she thinks about how often he says he's a deviant, how counterculture his behavior seems to be, how he wants it to seem to be.

Is being a deviant - or a rebel, or, ha, a 'bad boy' - something he's trying to hold on to like, what, a badge of honor? His social circle pushed him to the fringes and once there, did he decide to own it? Lean into it hard and completely?

Oh, fuck, and she's been teasing him about it. Wasn't that the first thought she had about him - that he's too old to be doing this shit?

He must have some sensitivity that he's edging closer and closer to forty, must think that there's a limit to how long one can play the black-clothes-I'm-so-hardcore game.

She needs to do some fast thinking, which would be so much easier if she wasn't nuzzling the hand at her cheek, if she wasn't burning with her own apology for making him feel badly, if that finger on her nose didn't make her smile that stupid, daft smile all over again.

Think fast. Fix it. ]

I told you, pinky rings and long hair don't make the deviant.

[She nestles closer, draping an arm over his waist, pressing her forehead to his. ]

You know what does? Marrying a girl you've known for less than two weeks, in Vegas, while wasted, and giving her the tackiest ring possible to wear until death do you part. And deciding, fuck it, you'll stay married to her, and by the way, you're going to occasionally bring her into work with you and make out with her on the desks of people you hate.

[ She grins, gives a little playful tug as though to shake him out of whatever idea is making him think he needs that particular ring for deviance purposes. ]

It's not a choice between deviance and your wife. You're just finding new, more creative ways to be deviant now that I'm wearing your ring. Which I'm keeping. It's still yours, but only because I'm yours, too.

[sweatycoward]

[ He’s heard it before, the querying ’how long do you think you can keep this up,’ the ’dear, this act’s getting old.’ The ’haven’t you aged out of whatever this is’ and the ’it isn’t cute to be so messy anymore’ and the ’Treavor, this became a cry for help six years ago.’ He’s heard that you can drink and frown and give the world the bird in your twenties, but beyond that it’s trying too hard, it’s pathetic, it’s something you’ll have to give up someday and recede into… what? The nothing otherwise that he is?

It’s true he’s learned to make a touchstone of his status as an outsider. True that he’s found fuel from prodding at others and acting contrary, that he’s built a self - however fragile, however often and easily damaged - from these acts and ideas. Treavor Pendleton, outsider, sounds far far preferable to Treavor Pendleton, unwanted piece of nothing. (The same way that Treavor Pendleton, looks like he fell off the alternigoth wagon, sounds better than Treavor Pendleton, what a weird fuckin’ face what a bug-eyed fuckin’ creep.)

But it all circles back, doesn’t it? But he’s never really ceased to amount to nothing, and maybe his hair won’t save him maybe the rings have never been more than a trace of cover. Just a whole lot of, fucking. Nothing. Die young or die a sad, empty bastard.

It’s a pit of thought he shouldn’t fall into. It’s a pit of thought he does sometimes fall into, and finds a hard time climbing out of. Can stay in that pit for hours, days, trying to drink his way out of it because there’s never really an answer, is there? Or there hasn’t been much of one, hasn’t been much promise beyond that resounding empty.

Now, though.

Now Katrina’s offering a rope before he’s even really fallen, pointing his attention toward what he’s done, what he’s actually done and doesn’t dislike, what eases him a little bit (maybe, maybe much more than a little bit) to think about. Now she’s making promises toward a future, now she’s…

Shit. She’s good. She’s very, very good.

All right. He nudges his forehead against hers, slight sign of a nuzzle. ]

The fuck did I ever do to deserve you.

[ Eyes closing for a moment because he wants to feel her, only feel and be aware of her, the fact of her beside him, the way she grounds a world that seems so often fractured and uncertain. ]

It’s luck, isn’t it? I’m the luckiest bastard, and I never knew it.

[ A thought. Hm… ]

Hey, but.

What would you do if I did cut my hair?

[ Not that he would. Not that he’d ever consider it, he’s fond of his hair, but she brought it up. ]

[thatminx]

[ The important question isn't what she would do if he cut his hair. The important question, she thinks, and which deserves her full attention, is what he did to deserve her.

It's crucial. It's important to say the rote words, people don't earn other people, being in a good relationship, a healthy relationship with a good person, isn't about being deserving. Because people aren't rewards.

But that's really not what he's asking, is it? What he's asking is why the universe finally cut him a break. What kind of karmic balance finally happened, that he should be with someone who curls close and whispers sweet everythings to him instead of clawing him, making him sleep on the floor, instead of being a joke on the internet, because everything he's ever known has been so bleak and harsh. Because he's been such a dick, because his life hasn't been kind, and yet, he still managed to luck out.

To end up with one (two, counting Wallace) really good thing going for him, and she's going to move heaven and hell to make his life better.

He's asking how this happened. He probably wasn't paying much attention before she came waltzing onto that plane.

Katrina shifts, strokes a tender hand over his hair, down the back of his head. And softly, she starts to talk. She lets the words come, soft and sad and loving. ]

You told me I didn't know pre-Katrina Treavor very well. You never got to know pre-Treavor Katrina. I was a mess, Fish. I wasn't nice, okay? I did things I'm not really proud of, things that don't get to be funny stories later, like breaking a doorknob or sneaking into someone's house.

[ Things like spitefully fucking Waverly Boyle's fiancee. Things like spitefully fucking a lot of Brom's friends. Or strangers from bars, picked up on lonely nights when Brom wasn't taking her calls, or when she wasn't taking his. Things like dating men, hot and heavy and full of promise, and then deciding she was bored and not even giving them the courtesy of a ghosting: flat-out telling them she was bored. It wasn't working out. It's not me, it's you.

Symptoms of a heart not-quite-broken.

Things like keeping the various aspects of her life separate, not telling her friends about her boyfriends, not telling her parents about her writing, not inviting anyone to her apartment. Not telling Brom much of anything. Folders in her phone easily deleted and not so easily forgotten.

Symptoms of a broken spirit.

It's no excuse, though.

Her breath draws in ragged through a smile. ]

But then you happened. You found out who I really am, and you made space for me. You make me feel wanted and special. Both you and Wallace. I woke up yesterday and you guys were both here, and we were holding on to each other - and it wasn't weird, you know? I felt like I was home. I've never felt at home, or like - everything was totally right in the world. And I've never been loved like this. No one makes me feel the way you do.

[ She's careful. Her touch is careful, fingertips following his jaw, tracing the curve of his mouth as though she can learn him by touch alone. ]

If you cut your hair, I'd still love you in a way that I didn't think was possible before I walked onto that plane. I'd wake up every day and see Wallace there, and you here with your stupid short hair and think I'm the lucky one. I'd still think you were the most beautiful man I've ever known, and I'd still thank god you're my husband.