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[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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[withoutrhetoric]

[ What they do isn’t planned. What they do is impulsive, what must necessarily follow from a sudden air-kiss at this specific moment, in this particular place. (Their place, together; Null Set is Sen’s just as well as Rin’s; dependent on Sen’s schemes and marks and discovery.) Sen drifts that kiss, and Rin tilts their cheek toward him, nudging at the empty air to catch that gifted kiss. So that it lands light against their cheek, and so they tilt their head again, as if to let the kiss settle, as if to coax the kiss in-place.

They can almost, they think, feel it; a kiss light as fallen snow, warm with sunlit affection. A kiss like the scent of hyacinth.

Rin could drift on this sensation for hours, for days. (Could take Sen’s hands and keep hold, if they could spare both hands to do so, if this counter didn’t hold between them.) And they favor Sen with a soft smile, pleased smile. Then offer one more fluttering of lashes, for good measure.

(They don’t think into what they’ve done; how it differs from past years and would-be-kisses. How they’ve never once permitted a kiss to land, or caught it without batting it aside. The game has always been evasion. The game has always been a bit of fun. One way of playing along with Sen, they’d thought. One way of flitting through the world, uncaught and uncatchable, as they were ever wont to do, as they most often needed to do.

Sen was different, though. Sen has always been apart from the gnashing world and its demanding machinations; Sen has always been a force against the forms that the world imposes, a hand helping to bat off artifices that crept too close. A hand that welcomed and permitted and accepted; that encouraged.

A quiet wondering, swimming briefly, barely up from deepest waters: what might Rin have missed, discarding all those kisses?

And, on its tail, appearing and disappearing just as swiftly: What had Sen thought of that game? (And had it been, for him, a game?)

All of this plays out beneath Rin’s present knowing. Spells pieces that begin to tick their way toward coming into place; pieces that will make themselves more present over days to come. When Rin’s had space to let this moment settle. When Rin is less caught up luxuriating in the moment.) ]

Why speak of hellfire when you herald spring with such simplicity of eloquence?

[ A breath, almost a sigh, and their smile brightens. ]

You make your point, rugged philosopher.

For you and you alone, I will be… That term. That name. A word uttered only by my Sen; not to be borne from any other, never to touch even these lips.

[ They purse their lips lightly - these lips, right here! - a gesture that shifts into another tilt of their head, as if distracted by the air-born kiss that they’ve ben granted. Now they let their eyes slip shut, lingering in a moment’s lull, their thought become little more than a pleasant hum, their self mostly wrapped, rapt, in this moment gifted by and shared with Sen.

To have both Sen and this place, the home, this haven; there can be nothing better.

How terrifically fortunate they are.

Adjusting carefully, they open their eyes and lilt a hand to their cheek, a light tap where the kiss landed, a tap that turns into a settled, drifted touch, as if to marvel at and seal the kiss in place. ]

I think I’ll keep it, hm?

[ultimatenegative]

[ If Sen's expression reads of nothing, it's because he's fallen too stunned to properly -

Anything.

Breathe. Think. Emote. God forbid he should try to find words; what capacity does he have any longer for speech in monosyllabic English, much less his usual forays into lectures, diatribes, multilingual odes?

He can't even move; if he moves, it might not be real.

(It's real. He knows it's real. He can't accept that it is, because accepting that Rin, after a quarter of a fucking century, caught a kiss on their cheek means Sen can't avoid asking why.)

He can't avoid accepting that it happened. He can't stave off the slow crawl of confusion, wariness, bafflement (destruction) in his expression. Sen blinks up at them, in the sunlight of their smile, at the corner of which is the kiss he gave that they didn't dodge, or bat aside, or avoid with laughter he loved and loathed.

With his heart in his throat, he thinks, Rin, you ruined the game.

And he thinks, A curtain's been pulled aside, and a comfortable lie's been called out. The illusion's been shattered.

And he thinks, Rin. What the fuck have you done? What the fuck have I done?

This is what it is to be devastated. To have wanted, and then not wanted, and then learned that there's a way to lie to oneself about not wanting and pretend to not want anyway, for so fucking long. And with a turn of their head, they undo him. They jerk the lifeline away.

(They accepted it.) (They turned aside an admirer, stood leaning over him, and accepted the hundredth or thousandth kiss he's sent their way in jest.) (It was never in jest.) (Neither was the refusal of all previous kisses.)

(If he and Rin weren't playing before with all those uncaught, neatly sidestepped kisses, are they playing now with this one caught?)

It's what they say that drives home a final blow: that the endearment is his alone, untouched even by them. (Fuck, he doesn't know what to make of that. Whether it's a joke, or a bone tossed his way, a scrap of never-was for him to die on. Or whether it means something, and if he should think about it too hard.)

By the time they open their eyes and speak that final pronouncement, Sen has covered his mouth with one hand, horrified or pensive (as though, perhaps, to prevent further kisses, or further utterances of the word that is all his own.) (He will, he knows, beat the living shit out of anyone who encroaches on it. Anyone who tries to call them what they are only to him.) (It's all Rin will ever be to him. Sen's one square inch of heaven.)

I think I'll keep it, they say, and he nods faintly, his eyes a little distant. Please. Please keep it.

He should say something. Lowering his hand a fraction, he manages: ]

Do. Imagine -

[ Faltering, he clears his throat and offers them a rueful smile that dims quickly as he speaks. His words come soft and wondering, the same almost-musing tone from a moment ago (before the world changed kaleidoscopic.) (Before it heaved beneath him yet again.) (Before they let a kiss fall, and gave him one word all his own.) ]

Better that it should have been dodged again - than caught and discarded, unwanted. Imagine the wreckage of me, to see it deemed unfit for even that glancing landing.

[ He breathes out a unharsh snort and looks away. At Andi. At the patron he startled. Down. Finds himself resentful of the audience that is valiantly pretending not to be an audience.

Well. He can't run. He can't hide. He can't retreat. And isn't he, Senan Wilkes, a master of radical acceptance when it comes to Rin Renault?

So he smiles. So he shifts, nevermind the ache in his thighs, nevermind the ache in his chest; he draws his cheek beside theirs - this nearness to afford them both even the simplest privacy, and his hand laid gently at the back of their neck, his arm a shield between him and onlookers. His voice drops to a low murmur (if he gave it thought: a seduction, a coaxing, far more intimate than any flirtation.) ]

Your Sen - your philosopher, your knave, your rogue - speaks of hellfire because he has grown accustomed to being scathed. He knows the agony of every flame - a thousand, thousand uncaught kisses over a quarter century's run. And now he has learned a warmth more scorching than any other: this kiss caught and kept, upon the loveliest cheek he has ever known.

How expertly I've learned the art of burning. How exquisite it all has been at your deft avoidance.

How perilous now.

[ His eyes half-close, and Sen brushes the rough of his jaw against theirs and wishes for the first time that he had thought to shave. Drifts his lips without purpose (without kiss) near their ear. ]

Do you feel springtime in my words, Rin? Truly? No, that's nonsense.

You perpetual youth, you eternal beauty - you fucking fool.

You are springtime. You are dawn, the bright rays of a rising sun on the horizon after unendurable night. You are all beginnings, renewals, and dreaming days. You are resurrection. A man may burn to blistering again and again with a lifetime of uncaught kisses and still stick his own foolish hand back in the flames - and you are both the reason why he does so, and the how of his survival.

My words are just kisses uncaught, cast out in hope that one of those multitudes will chance to be liked, and kept.

[ He stills, then draws back just enough to turn his head and regard them softly, fondly. With faux pensiveness, he draws his hand down so the backs of his fingers trace the very spot where they caught his kiss. ]

Which words do you suppose might fall beside this kiss, and remain? What promise, or thrall, or poetry? Assume that none fall short; assume that there is in all the world even one combination of sounds that could ever do you justice. What would it be? That my fingertips are blackened and my heart singed, but I've forgotten yet again what it means to be burnt?

Or - Rin. Rin, let it be that I've missed you. I've missed you terribly, having been not in any sort of hellfire, but frozen in distance from you - oh, longing to be burned by you. Such a long winter it's been. Such a cold night, aching for springtime and sunrise.

[ (Should he be speaking to them like this. Intimately, intensely, in a tone wrapped in unspoken temptation. Promising.

He wonders it distantly, without alarm or unquiet.)

(They're just words.) (Loaded as any gun ever was.) (Laced like a poisoned drink.) (He's never done this to Rin. He's never done this to anyone; it never took more than a half measure to coax people wherever it was that he wanted to take them. (Where is he trying to take Rin, now?) (Doesn't matter.) (They're just words.) Fucking wonderful, isn't it? To turn the full force of himself on them. To show them how brightly he burns.)

(...Well. It's not smart.

But they started it.) (Probably.)

With a soft tsk, he presses his thumb against their cheek, as though to confirm that it has, indeed, been sealed forever against their skin. ]

How dare you catch that kiss now, and take away the fire I hold so dear. What unfamiliar warmth is it you've given me instead, and what relief is there for it?

[withoutrhetoric]

[ Where is this coming from.

Or.

How is this possible.

And.

How they find themself undone.

As if the world’s spilled over and rewritten itself. As if Sen’s reached into the heart of them, or found them at their core.

They’re—

Oh. Captured. Rapt. Thrummed through with warmth, their cheeks flush, breath too-shallow and jarred by deeper, jagged inhalations.

They are— Tender and struck voltaic, Sen’s words a tempest spun around them, Sen’s words a splendid razing, and yes, yes, in every nerve Rin would welcome more, could yearn for more. This man could undo them. These words could undo them - have undone them? - do set them stirring, molten heat searing coiled through their chest, an agitated kindling at their groin.

They’ve lost the world around them. The counter beneath them, the chatter - if there is chatter; if any chatter could sustain against the stagger of Sen’s words - flickering through Null Set, the intake of air against their lungs.They know they’re breathing or they expect they’re breathing because that’s automatic, that’s existence, but gods, fuck, gods, what can they hope to feel?

And Sen’s eyes fixed on theirs. And Sen’s eyes permanent, and real, and so, so bracingly close.

(And Sen’s thumb at their cheek. And Sen’s touch a burn of its own; does he know? Does he know his own fire, and how can he talk of searing of burning of freezing when his own touch settles so intense?)

He said— So many words. Thoughts. Images and half-filtering suggestions. Words striking deep; words striking chords scarce-guessed, or guessed and then discarded years ago, or words lighting receptors never quite discerned, or something, or something, or Rin can’t take hold of any of it now. Hears and feels the words move through their being, but binding anything to sense is beyond them.

A deluge. They stepped into the water, they splashed beyond familiar depths, they plummeted.

Not to their detriment. Only. Only. Just now, it’s all that they can do to keep above the water. To take in intermittent breaths. Overwhelmed, half-drowned, half-struck with shock, they can only paddle automatic, letting the whole world wash around them.

Where the whole world is Sen, and all of Sen’s words.

Rin’s heard clever words before. From admirers and paramours-to-be, sometimes-artful efforts that never achieved a quarter of this potency. Sen himself has been a font of electric wild romping words, words forever driving back the mundane horrors of the world, words forever inviting engagement, words forever forging bonds between Sen and Rin, but those words were never toned like this. Has Sen ever spoken like this? Has Rin ever heard this… this hushed and transfixing focus, the voice like attar, permeative, spellbinding. This voice that merges through them, that whispers down through every corner and could stay forever.

What Sen means is (difficult) (simple; a truth long-writ, if never rightly seen) (clear, if Rin could only fix a hold on anything) (unlikely?) (an echo that runs back through years, he said a quarter of a century, a quarter of a century, a quarter of a— yes, there’s meaning there) beyond Rin’s hold right now.

(What Sen means is not beyond their unparsed knowing.) (What Sen means will filter to clear understanding with time. With space.)

They caught Sen’s kiss (the first time; the only time) (they ventured far beyond the shore). And Sen returned with turmoil, astonishing and monumental. And beautiful, and glorious, if Rin could only step back, if Rin weren’t so blinded in this shock of could-be-light.

Sen called them a fool. Exposing them, they felt. They feel. Rin, struck with plummeting. Rin, thinking, yes, yes, I suppose that’s so. I am.

A fool, and presently struck dumb.

They should respond.

They want to respond. Or… Do anything. Something. (Reciprocate?) (Take Sen’s hand.) (Speak Sen’s name.) (Breath.) (Blink?) They try to search for words. Try seeking voice across every language in their knowing, but nothing suffices. Nothing offers any hold, or root to cling to.

A question forming behind the shaken blankness of their eyes: ’What can I do. What can I possibly do?’

What they’d say if they could begin to speak: ’I know nonsense when I speak it, Sen. I know springtime when I feel it.’

Or. And.

’Forgive me. Forgive me.’

Or. And.

’I have kept all of your words.

‘Without effort. With and without intent; they have found my veins inevitably; they have strung their way to becoming part of me. Do you think a single word has been wasted? Do you believe one voice, one breath of yours has been lost?

‘Not from me; never from your Rin. I have kept your memory and I will keep you, be kept with you always.’

If only they could speak. If only they could unseal their mouth, or even express with a subtle shifting of expression, a deepening in their eyes, the heart of what they feel.

It’s impossible, however - torturously, regrettably (what do they lose by not speaking?) (have they mistaken everything?) (they know truth when they hear it; they know their own heart when it clamors) - to put voice to any of this. Impossible, almost, to think them. In Rin’s knowing, they compose an atmosphere, a backdrop and suffusion woven of impressions, uncatchable in any singular idea. Impossible to clearly glimpse just now, however deep the truth they feel.

It’s— Oh. A lot.

Exquisite.

They try, again, to breath. To take a little more air; to center themself, come back a step or two toward the present. (Toward Sen, whose touch rests still upon them. Toward Sen, whose eyes are ease, are promise and the focal point of awe.) Dimly, Rin thinks it’s impossible that they haven’t gone slack, but they’re still upright, still balanced on the counter. Their knuckles have turned white, fingers gripping the bar, gripping to keep them upright, here with Sen.

They don’t want to move an inch.

They don’t want to lose this moment, impossible as it is to comprehend.

Rin swallows, a difficult endeavor. Manages to flex the fingers of their left hand, barely. Thinks ’How,’ and ’How,’ and ’How?’

And finally, their hand moves, tremoring near-imperceptibly, to seek Sen’s hand and - if they find it - to rest, to gently press.

And - quietly, in French - they speak— ]

You.

You remarkable man.

Please.

Let me never leave you cold.

[ Watching now with more presence in their own eyes, they think, ’You’ve undone me.’ And, pressing again, light at Sen’s hand if they can— ]

Always, you belong here.

There will be no more winter, for you. My Sen. I vow it.

[ultimatenegative]

[ There is an old saying rising from the recesses of Sen's mind: to have gone off the edge of the map. When maps had edges. When beyond those explored reaches, there were serpentine monsters and, beyond, the edge of the world.

They are, both of them, in vast and uncharted waters.

He could ease back from Rin - who is staring at him in a way Rin has never stared at him, as though seeing him for the first time. As though, in seeing him, has realized Sen is nothing they have ever seen before. (It would be gratifying, if it wasn't the way a deer stares at an oncoming car.) He could ease back from them, true, and steer them back to safe, known harbors - or leave Rin stranded.

Would they be? Would they, now that their eyes are fixed on him, now that they see him not only as their Sen, but as someone other, someone they had no idea he could be - would they fall, or drown, or shatter if he turned away?

(He doesn't know the conclusion of these questions. He doesn't know the alternative to walking off and pretending this never occurred, save that staying means clinging to them. Save that staying means something about perilousness of not clinging. The potential, the likelihood, of wreckage.)

Look at them, staring. Barely breathing. White-knuckled and struggling for thought. Was that all he ever had to do to reach them?

(What has he done.) (He doesn't want this. To reach them only for a moment. For a night.) (He wants -) (He wanted. Would have liked. To set them ablaze for a lifetime. That chance is - Fuck, what was he playing at? To turn their head when he'll be gone soon?) (Granted. With that in mind, he might only have a night, so that does rather solve the problem of -)

(He's not going to fucking think about that. Any of that.)

He keeps close. He drowns in their eyes, with his fingers caressing (soothing, reassuring) their cheek (would they stare like this -) (don't think about it) (he hopes not, though; he hopes Rin, in the hypothetical twining, the infrequently imagined coupling, would be the bold, courageous, confident null he's known.)

His hand falls still under theirs, and he registers dimly that they're shaking. (He struck deep this time.) (But they have untold depths; how could he know where his words would land, and that they would prove seismic?) (He knew. Of course he knew.) Sen rests his forehead against theirs, briefly, lightly, offering comfort and hush.

But no apology.

He'll never apologize for this. (They caught his kiss. Oh, it's still there on their cheek, an his heart swells again. His smile flickers soft, devoted - happy. One kiss for a lifetime.)

They've found their voice but lost their English, and that - oh, that is gratifying, enough that he catches his lip between his teeth to stave off a laugh. And he listens.

And his brows raise in gentle dispute. Or acknowledgement, perhaps, that what they said is already terribly true. His hand remains motionless beneath theirs, save for a sweep of his thumb along their cheek. ]

The only cold I've known has been in the absence of you. Whatever we have been to one another - near-friends, or friends, or lifelong companions - I have always been happily - happily - warm in your sphere. Of course there will be no more winter - I promised to remain for all my days. For good, with you - Rin. My Far-From-Nothing. Antithesis, opposite of nothing. Embodiment, soul, thought of all that is.

[ He's so damned near, and they've caught him again with a touch and a glance. They've fixed him to this spot, where he can do nothing but gaze at them, and offer words.

They are everything he has.

'They'. His words.

'They'. Rin. ]

Rin, whose name ought to have been 'Tous'. In 'everything', there is a fire in the dark. A blanket. A blazing sun rising. Rin once spoke my own name on a cold night in Germany - do you recall? Three times, and a touch of their hand like a charm, and so brought warmth into my world. So long as you are near, of course. So I have kept near.

Never touching springtime, true. But the winter is a dim recollection, fading ever faster before my delight in you. There is my own vow, 'Pas Rien':

In your company, no matter its form, I am warm to my most hidden heart.

[withoutrhetoric]

[ It will last.

It will linger.

All of this.

What Sen has said and every resonance it carries. How the air within Null Set altered, turned supernal and rare, flickering their lungs with tickled chill, with speechless knowing. How they - Rin Renault, 47 and proprietor of a flourishing nightclub, life-long thief and former scam artist, well-traveled and self-taught and deft with survival - clung to this counter for dear life, or for understanding, or for the sake of retaining some nearness to this impossible man.

This man who sets his forehead against theirs; a port of respite and an anchor. A promise, perhaps. (Of what?) (Toward what longing?) (They can suppose. Or could suppose, if thoughts would stick to knowing; if thoughts didn’t form themselves only to disperse without a trace.) (Later. Later, all of this will circle back around.) This man whose touch draws gratitude from Rin, drawing appreciation through their stagger of expression.

There is - luckily, luckily - something they can follow in words. A point requiring response, impelling enough to drag their words from humming numbness. And their forefinger brushes Sen’s hand, gently, briefly. (It feels not brief at all. Feels like an era of its own, the soothing rough of that skin, the map of bone and veins beneath, the potential in that hand to hold, to reach, to gesture with such wild grace.) ]

Of course I remember.

I have—

[ They blink; they swallow. Perception flickers; they lose the thought, though the impulse remains. They seek certainty in Sen’s eyes. ]

When light first dawned in the form of a man. When a person presented himself as invitation. As welcome. Of course I took your hand. To find that you were real. To—

[ A slight tilt of their head; a slight, distracted smirk. ]

To reach the instrument capable of such absurd gesticulation.

To find what you were; improbable man.

Your name. Your hand. Your spontaneity in speaking; your proficiency with what can be put to voice. You have ever held my notice, Sen. The fullness of my attention.

[ What attention they possessed. What attentiveness they knew to give.

Which didn’t account for or perceive the fullness of Sen. Which missed much, because.

Because there were signs Rin knew to look for, and then there were signs Rin never let themself consider. Signs that - they thought, they felt certain - couldn’t amount. Signs toward ends that held no place with them. Signs spelling long-term relationships wanted, or sought, or wishing.

How often has Rin said, and felt, and known that they held no intention of seeking partnership, or commitment, or anything beyond a one-night fuck or two?

Nothing else would have been sustainable. And, they’d thought, nothing else could ever be sustained. Not with their existence; not among the pieces they were chasing.

But.

And.

But. Sen has always been there. Present and expected. His place never questioned; his place never, by Rin, put to any particular term. Sen has ever been instinctive and compulsory, harmonious and accustomed. And Rin had never ventured much beyond that understanding.

But Sen said, ’Whatever we have been to one another.’

But Sen speaks of friendship, of companions, and so conjures other words, potentials, relations.

And what if. What if.

(‘What if,’ a long-unthought question. A realm of suppositions Rin never gave themself the luxury to consider. What use in looking back, in regretting or revising what couldn’t be changed, when there was so much to be done, and managed, and effected?

‘What if,’ a question that arose only once Sen was taken, a question rising in pervasive and recurrent forms: ’What if Sen had never confessed,’ and ’What if Sen were here now,’ and ’What if the court hadn’t believed Sen, what if he’d been tossed out without retalation?’ And. ’What if the gun was never fired. What if all of this had been avoided.’

Queries that vanished with Sen’s return. Because what need could Rin have now for ‘what if,’ when Sen is here, and will remain? What more could they possibly ask?)

Sen moves the world with every word, with every breath.

And known facts can be altered with a single fall of words. And known facts can shine brilliant, variant, with a burning light shone sudden.

Sen is compulsory. And. And.

What else, in what words?

Hard to say. Impossible to tell just now. Thinking—

Or. No. Speaking, not precisely intended. ]

I would like to see your hidden heart.

[ It’s true they know Sen’s heart better than any other; nearly as well as their own. It’s true Rin understands their heart and Sen’s as sharing resonance, beating in consonant existence. But it occurs to Rin that sharing isn’t knowing, that there are realms of Sen haven’t glimpsed.

Rin thinks… Yes. Yes, hey would like to glimpse, to venture toward, to know and tend that unguessed heart.

If they could speak their meaning. If they could know their meaning. If they could do more than hold desperate to this moment.

What they can manage for now is another press of Sen’s hand, and a breath. And, voice hushed but steady— ]

I have always been reaching toward you.

[ultimatenegative]

[ The breathless moment of suspension - of hope. Sen knows it, has lived his adult life quietly starving hope. Has within him that lightning rod constructed of the knowledge that Rin Renault doesn't want him.

But how to turn the fucking thing on and attract all that hope to ground, when they're staring at him like he's a revelation. When they're breathless. When their finger shifts across his hand and the air crackles around him, and his blood remembers that it knew how to boil for someone.

They speak of that night when they took his hand and spoke him into some new form of existence, and he realizes he's never asked them why they did it. He never knew. It never seemed important to try and comprehend Rin; he only ever wanted to allow their existence. Whatever they wanted him to understand, they told him.

(Unbidden, a question of comprehending Rin: why do they want him to understand this, now?) They say You have ever had the fullness of my attention and he feels his knees go weak - already precarious, his stance, and he has to adjust again to keep from sinking to the floor. Away from them.

Have I? he thinks. (Not like this. Not like right here. Not like now. But yes, in a way, he supposes he has always felt terribly present, and known, and real in their eyes.)

The moment of suspension: when they speak of his heart, and everything stops. Sound, and sight, and his own breath in the base of his throat with a helpless sound. (He's betraying himself. (He can't do this to them.) (He's going to hurt them.) They're watching him so closely now, they're going to see every desperate flash of longing he ever tried to disguise as something other behind a smirk or a laugh or a roll of eyes. They're going to see love fierce and unabashed and unabating if he doesn't get control of himself but they said -

Oh, they fucking - said -)

(He'll hurt them.) (He can't jump at this.)

But they said -

Wait.

Wait, what?

I have always been reaching toward you. He could laugh and catch hold of them and spill every word he has inside himself for them, for the paltry remainder of his days. He could sink to the floor -

He does. He huffs a soft, winded sound and settles to his knees, still near, still touching their cheek in wonder. He could sob, and might.

Because he wants it.

Because - he can't have it.

And none of that matters,, he realizes.

His thoughts taper off and his expression grows uncertain. For a moment outside of time, the world turned golden. For a moment, hope ran rampant, and every part of Senan Wilkes believed he'd just been mistaken and blind and a fool all this time. (He still - might have been.) But as the moment passes, and another spins itself out between himself and Rin, he thinks -

Twenty-five years.

You'd think he'd have noticed them reaching back. Badly as he wanted it.

It's not true at all. Or - it's not true in the way he thought it was. The way he wanted it to be. They've always been honest with him, or mostly honest; it's a shame to suggest they aren't being so now.

They mean something else, something other than "I've wanted you all along", and he's too drunk on loving them to sort it out with any kind of grace but bad.

His eyes drift, settle pensively on nothing as he considers his next words (counts his cards) carefully.

Well. He's an expert at radical acceptance, when it comes to Rin, not wanting him. And the right thing to do is reassure them. (And then. And then get the fuck out of here for a few hours. Go lick his wounds somewhere.)

So he offers them a tired smile that threatens to desert his expression the moment he meets their eyes again. And he shakes his head minutely - No. Not so. - before turning his hand to catch theirs, and drawing it to his lips.

One more kiss they can keep, if they like.

(Maybe he ought to stop with that game. It's old. He's old.)

A sigh follows, and he replies gently. ]

No. You haven't, Pookie.

[ Aware suddenly of the sounds of the bar around him, and aware he had slipped from French, he hums and continues: ]

I would have noticed. Content - happy - as I have been beyond your reach, and you forever beyond mine, and grateful for the times you did grant me your attention. My Not-Nothing, don't you know I learned to read your every line, and between all of them if I could? You tell me what you want me to know, and always have.

I would have noticed you reaching toward me. I would have known.

[ He releases their hand, both of his spread as though it's some sort of dreadful magic trick, and his smirk is settled, even if it's a ghost of itself, and his eyes don't quite seek theirs.

Sen places a hand on the counter and pulls himself a little unsteadily to his feet. Maybe he won't slip out, after all. Maybe he'll go collapse in bed for a while, truth be told. He feels -

Well.

Normal. This is normal, or familiar, this dull-edged melancholy.

If they haven't drawn away, or gone far, he leans in to press a kiss to their head. Friendly. And when ended, he remains to add softly: ]

It's all right.

I'm happy, Rin. My Not-Nothing. My All.

And I have been, all along. I've known you, you see. I've been your friend. I would do anything to protect that, and you from any wreckage. Your friendship is sacred. It's precious to me.

Nothing needs to break. Nothing needs to change.

Rin, I never reached for you. Not on any of thousands of days. I never looked upon you and wished you could, somehow, be moved. I never ached. I never wanted more than you gave, though I was happy with what was given.

Not from the first moment I met you. Not today, either.

[ He pauses there, purses his lips, and then nods. With that, Sen draws back, straightens - turns away and raps his knuckles on the bar as he goes. ]

I've an appointment to keep with my pillow. One never should take for granted the creature comforts that simply don't exist in a federal penitentiary. Lots of catching up to do with my bedding.

Thanks for the drink, Barkeep.

[ And. ]

Good girl, that Andi.

[withoutrhetoric]

[ They don’t—

Understand.

Understand? Or understanding doesn’t have a thing to do with this. Or their understanding’s slipped awry, or Sen’s misunderstood them, or—

It’s a lie, what Sen is saying. A pleasant story of acceptance, of ‘we’ll forget this happened.’ Rin wants to speak, to protest. Rin wants to fucking leap after Sen, but.

But Rin can’t fucking move, or speak. That kiss seals - those kisses seal - them into place. Along with - oh - that devastating smirk, untrue, ill-fitting, manufactured. Along with Sen’s coolness, and the distance avalanched between them. Along with certainty that they themself have misspoken. Or erred in—

In.

They’ve done Sen wrong.

Which part spelled the worst sin? Their lie— Or, no, they didn’t lie. Their words were earnest, their words held truth of meaning, but they muddled it, or the words they chose weren’t right. The impulse was true, but the words settled ill, tripped a fault that marred intention.

And there have been all those years. Of… What? Of Sen watching. Reaching or not reaching. Never wanting, never… missing. ’I don’t miss you’ he wrote, again, again.

The liar.

The wretched man with his noble gestures. His mistaken would-be-good intent: he’s tried to sacrifice himself again.

(They won’t allow it.)

(They won’t allow it. Would reach for Sen, would take his wrist and pull, only—)

Sen’s gone. Sen’s vanished (not for good) (but it feels, it feels as if he’s banished himself; as if it could be final), and Rin scarcely registers the others at the bar. Doesn’t try to look at them. Doesn’t scan the room. Only registers the not-presence of Sen. Where a man was and now is not.

It’s empty. It’s hollowing and harrowing, and they feel as if they’re falling, have fallen, could fall for the rest of their days and find no landing.

(It won’t be that way. They won’t let it be that way.)

(If they didn’t know before. If they didn’t know Sen’s mind or their own tendings. They know now.)

They blink, or try to.

Their eyes ache; their nerves burn cold at every end. (They’re going to need a drink, a smoke. Several. Smokes. Fuck it, they can break their rule this once.

When they move. If they can ever fucking move.)

They blink, and flex their hand. One; the other. Slow and shaking.

Piece by piece they’ll pull themself together, well enough to move from the bar, out into the alley. Well enough to begin slowly, slowly recovering themself. And later. Tonight, tomorrow; when they’re able. There is much to consider.

This isn’t over.

And they won’t forget. ]