kingdomsofrain | tfln open post

I am most emphatically not calling flower girls 'sluts', if that is the direction you were heading with your question.

- A question which, by the way, has arrived almost two years to the day since our last word exchanged via text.

I am at present sitting at the entrance of a very gay establishment, ensuring no one attempts to enter said gay establishment before they have reached the arbitrary age of twenty-one, at which time they may legally enter and be as gay as they please. And drink, if they so desire.

And you are right where I last saw you, it would seem. Cut off from your Manhattans? Excellent. We can pick up where we left off. Prior to the last text, sent at 3:45 a.m. on March the 26th, 2019 - 'Fuck you and the cock you rode in on' - we were discussing the merits of neo-classical architecture. I can assure you that I still find it laughably pretentious, particularly in its American iteration. Thomas Jefferson should be resurrected and beaten with Monticello's tacky "Doric" columns.

Have you come to your senses?

Flower girls notwithstanding. (Don't slut-shame flower girls, Darius. Don't slut-shame anyone under 18. In fact, don't be in the same room as anyone under 18. You're a walking moral violation. A man of equal caliber to de Sade, himself.)

Edited 2021-03-26 07:53 (UTC)

What the fuck.

[ That wasn’t his intended recipient. Darius knows who it is - impossible to mistake, even after two years of silence - but it takes a minute to process that this is Senan the incurable bombast, who, last Darius knew, had been eminently unreachable. Who hasn’t crossed Darius’s mind in months. Who Darius apparently messaged while awaiting Enri’s return.

And, yes, who Darius hadn’t felt any particular urge to speak with again. Ever. Christ. ]

The question foremost in my mind right now: Why for fuck’s love is your number in my phone after two years of blessed silence?

You live and breath again. A Lazarus for our modern era.

Pursue this line of conversation and I’ll condemn you back to that old cock. We are not doing this. Surrounded by shit music and chattering skulls as I am, I’m not going to risk adding Monticello to the mix.

Christ.

~~So you found~~

Renault’s put you to work. Careful; someone might mistake you for a responsible adult.

(Don’t, by the by, tell them I say hello.)

As for this wreck of a wedding and my choices in behavior, ‘Il est très doux de scandaliser.’ And I’m bored.

And the flower girl IS a little slut.

Asshole.

Edited 2021-03-26 23:53 (UTC)

I live as I have lived. I breathe as I have breathed. My resurrection is in progress, and progressing apace.

Rin has been accommodating. My salvation, my ally, my truest friend, my light in the darkness, etc. (I abbreviate my praise of them for your sake only; I'm certain your time is limited, and I could wax poetic about my Not-Knight, Not-Damosel, Nor in Shining Armor for hours yet.) Bread and board, and means by which I might repay the cost of both in some small way.

If that small way is standing guard at the gates of their empire, then I am pleased to repeat until I am hoarse the none-too-ignoble refrain: "Let's see some ID."

Rin received your not-greeting with not-indifference - which is to say, they attempted to suppress a murderous glare, said 'no', and stalked off. It was a very swishy sort of stalking, but stalking nevertheless.

Je sais que vous adorez scandaliser, mais si ça ennuyez-vous, peut-être que vous pourrez trouver un autre divertissement. Or do you still take pleasure in impotent complaint?

Whose wedding, whose wedding. That of the illustrious Waverly, I should imagine. A gauche affair? My invitation must have been lost in the mail. (Or Rin shredded it in the garbage disposal.)

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)

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?

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.

[ 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.

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.)

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)

[ 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.

'Alice,' 'Alice.' The name doesn't ring a bell.

Tell Rin they're shit out of luck.

~~Tell Rin they can fuck right off.~~

~~Why the FUCK do they~~

~~Fuck it, fuck off, fuck THIS~~

To quote the band: Oh, where do we begin: the rubble or our sins?

Our sins, I think.

First:
You must have been very drunk, indeed, to recall them as shrimp. They were lobsters, and in sobriety, one is unlikely to forget three dozen crustaceans freshly liberated from their prison into the nearest source of water.

(That was ALSO the fountain incident, for the record. There was only the one occasion, though you have been notoriously drunk on many of our misadventures.)

They still have a restraining order against Rin. The Boyles, not the lobsters.

Which leads me to sin the second: the cousin.

You prefer them younger and male. That leaves Enri and Felix. (Which? Not both, surely.)

And regardless of which: have you ever heard the adage 'don't put your dick in crazy'? Perhaps they are the picture of sanity, but fuck one of them, you're fucking the entire Pendleton name.

I believe that was crossed off your bucket list two decades ago. Is there some lingering appeal to the madness? A death wish? An aggravation wish, perhaps?

Edited 2021-03-28 03:52 (UTC)

The rubble:

Seeking and going gentle.

[...]

[...]

[...]

For a plethora of reasons I don't care to examine, I will likely be awaiting medical attention well beyond the gentle going or good of night.

Before you ask - there is nothing to be done. No one to bribe, no wheels to grease. Unless you have a spare liver lying about, let's move on.

[...]

I see you've encountered the illustrious Pendleton-to-be. Winning friends and influencing people, are you?

Edited 2021-03-28 03:58 (UTC)

Clean out your fucking ears, Wilkes. I don't know who you're talking about.

As if I follow the comings and goings and engagements of the Pendleton runt.

IS that shithead engaged? I didn't know.

Fuck you.

Fuck off.

Real fucking clever.

Fucking.

Asshole.

THAT shithead. Is a real fucking asshole.

Fuck you.

Why the fuck do you know who

Additionally, what do you fucking know about Enr

...I'd keep that decades-old bucket list incident buried somewhere deep. If you want to keep the self-righteous twat off your case. You cunt.

I don't want to hear you talk about En

You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, Wilkes

Maybe I DO want to fuck the Pendleton name into the ground. Set your sights high, raze the fucking family.

As it happens, I don't make a habit of keeping loose livers.

[ ... ]

~~Are you certain~~

~~Don't tell ME what can and can't be fucking greased~~

~~Asshole~~

~~If you need~~

[ ... ]

Go out in glory. Lobster Liberation Front 2.0, Hudson River Edition: New York is empty and all the lobsters are here.

Of course I was very drunk.

Those fucking Boyles.

[ ... ]

If - IF - you can secure a vow from Renault that I will remain unpunched and unaccosted, once I've finished with THIS fucking wedding, I might make a point of stopping by.

I see you've not only encountered Alice, but conversed with him for more than five minutes, but less than sixty.

Difficult individual. Affable past the self-important miasma.

Disgustingly loyal.

All right. No more discussion of the Pendletons' dog.

Forgive me for needling you. I believe I was aiming for fifty percent less vehemence in your winding-up.

[...]

If Rin won't agree to a cessation of hostilities, I'll come to you. Where and when you like, so long as it is in some near future, of course.

[...]

Perhaps sometime within the next eight to twelve months.

I'd like to see you, Darius. Consider it a fault of my nature that I am at times overly sentimental, and (perhaps unwisely, and oftentimes without reciprocation) count you amongst my friends.

[...]

A meager host, thankfully. A handful of personal attachments is more manageable.

Can you imagine the emotional labor of comforting dozens of lifelong friends after delivering the news of one's own impending demise?

No, I'm fortunate. I have you, emotionless prick that you are, and.

Well. You. [...] Who will not tell Rin.

Or I will take you out with me and the lobsters.

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