darius scarlett (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
onefellswoop) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pm
onefellswoop) wrote in kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pmtexts texts texts
this one is for texts!
onefellswoop) wrote in kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pm
3/3
Bless you for a saint or and an academic through and through.
Not that I doubted you would read. Only [ … ] it’s not often any take an interest, yeah? Beyond asking after what it’s all about and expressing either ‘aye that’s well’ or ‘fuck of with ye.’
Isn’t to everyone’s taste, that’s a truth. But then I make a point of sorting out the chaff as I can, nixing the need for any more, eh, disconsonant reactions.
Can’t say I’ve heard it likened to a Reebok pump. Won’t say you’re wrong about the likeness, or that you didn’t crack a laugh from me. Sure, it’s something like that. The device part of it, which I find I’m glad for. Adds something to the experiencing, aye?
For what it’s worth, I try to keep honest about the time it’s kept up…
Mostly, any rate. c;
The function helps do the job. Doesn’t hurt for self soothing processes, either.
There’s an amount of choosing the look, aye. Depends some on how much can be taken from a grafting and the site it’s gleaned from, and how much eh mass you’ve got at said site. Suffice to say I figured I’d try to keep proportional, aye?
Rest assured were it any other part of this body, I’d’ve shown you already. As it is, had to remind myself it’s not so refined to send photos of the thing.
Might be sometime you’ll see for yourself. Might be sometime I’ll witness your own satisfactory componentsThere’s no pain to it, not beyond the surgeries and healing spans. And the good that stems of it’s a far sight better than what I knew or felt before, if you ken my meaning.[ … ]
Don’t know if I’m bein too direct in all of this. Tell me if it’s discomforting or eh coming on too strong, aye? It’s brilliant what’s technology’s got to, is the point I’m getting toward here.
And a year-plus in, I’ve got a solid handle how to wield it.
1/2
[...]
No, no, don't change yourself for my sake, or any other's! But I'm trying to be respectfully academic about your shoe pump and you're talking about self-soothing and solid handling of wielding!
I'm not uncomfortable - only scandalized by the unexpected.
(But of course I read all of it. It's part of you, and you shared it with me. Did you think I wouldn't be ravenous for any detail about you? I want to know you. The more I do learn, the more I want to know.)
[...]
[...]
Well, you opened the door; I'll ask what I'm curious about but can find no way of asking delicately.
Surely you've handled at least one other, so you know generally how they work. Is it different? How your body responds compared to [...]
Verne is a bad example, only because I don't want to hear about Verne's dick and then see him in New York afterward.
Someone's, then. Another man's.
And -
You took a graft from where?
[...]
[...]
Are you only not sending a photo because it isn't a "refined" thing to do?
What a highly suspect thing to say after talking about self-soothing.
[...]
I'll confess something to you. You made me laugh, as well. You, this conversation. I feel I haven't laughed in a long time, not like that. Not [...] freely. Not with humor or happiness.
I knew that part of myself was strangling, not just from one thing or another, but the sum of it all.
I didn't know how much it had died out, or how good it would be to feel it revive.
[...]
How I've needed you, Nova.
2/2
I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me. It's a complicated thing to tell someone. You'll pretend not to have read it, won't you?
[...]
It's something I would tell a lover. Maybe I'll have the chance to say it in the future to someone who deserves most to hear it.
Anyhow, please. You wrote so much, but I worry if I try to answer everything and then ask questions of my own, we'll create a thousand conversations. So, briefly for some: yes, I would like to meet Roza. I would love to hear your music. My siblings live in Xania/Kyiv - Iryna, Kyiv - Andrii, and California - Maksym.
I get along with my family very well. They're good people. Iryna is [...] a little odd, maybe, but good.
Sergiy is taking music lessons, but what he plays changes often. He hasn't found what he likes, except for football.
Real football.
And -
It doesn't surprise me that Madeline will be there, but I had hoped she wouldn't.
[...]
[...]
It's your place to mention, Vevay.
And you don't need to worry. I won't pretend not to know you, and I wouldn't care to leave your side for her.
Well, you don't need to hear that.
I may have to speak to her at some point to be civil, maybe to arrange a visit with my son, but that's all.
[...]
Here, this must be said again because I can say nothing else that I'd like: it's your place.
As though those words hold worlds in them.
Please, know your place with me. Know your right.
1/2
[ … ]
Shite.
That’s me floored, is what that is.
[ … ]
You ought to know yourself free to laugh. Ought to know yourself that way, feel the extremities of what you are and how your soul you heart’s got breath, got worlds of life within however you can find it.
Damn her for striking that from you
Damn everyone who let it slide, keep sliding
Fuckin beyond stratospheric, you are.
You are a marvel of a man, that’s so. And see the thing about us beings on this earth is we’ve got capacities for flitting free, turning to something beyond what we’re told and given, imposed into aye? Thing is as well we’re quashed each corner that we turn, or the most of us are.
Meaning it isn’t everyone who feels this or reaches for it. Isn’t everyone can acknowledge the rightness in this reaching.
All the strangling you’ve been given, and still you remember how to breathe, still you open up your lungs when brought to the moment for it. Still you’ve got vision for what’s more than slammed upon you.
If I can give you cause for laughter, best believe I’m glad for it. Honoured too, that’s so.
I’d like to keep doing the same long as I draw breath.[ … ] It’s an aim. Eh, a dream I’d like to entertain and seize in my own hold. To keep doing the same as long as I draw breath.There’s little better, little more important, aye, than to give breath to find breath or, aye, share a breath with those holding meaning.
With those who matter and hold mattering, and aye, I’m speaking here of you, Talik.
It’s fucking wretched, your not having cause to laugh freely
But we’ll fix that, eh?
It’s no small part of what friends
and other than friendsand other academic [ … ] co-adventurers are here for.Nothing to be faulted. Nothing to be pressed. (Unless some pressing’s wanted.)
[ … ]
I’ve some sense what you mean about strangling. Different avenues, likely. Eh, surely, but with similar results. What feels like, is like losing sight of what’s shining all above, or having that sight stolen. Like forgetting there’s air to breathe at all.
There’s lots of bodies want to bury a man, bury any self tries to speak beyond what the most vocalizing arseholes want of a man.
Resilient, you, for not holding in burial. Blessed, lauded for the same.
For myself, I’ve kept myself free enough not to be drawn in too deep, but then I’ve been lucky, or else I’ve known myself forewarned. See enough, of eh [ … ] scathing early on, one gets to be primed wary.
Used to be more wary. I’ve got a better knack for sussing out when something’s off or someone wants what I’m not giving.
[ … ]
That isn’t you, is part of what I mean.
You’re like no one I’ve met before, and I speak that as the keenest complimenting.
If I’m cautious, Talik, it’s that I don’t want to be a cause of undue discord, or set off
her[ … ] any body’s ire with you.If I know my nerves all shaking at the thought of having place, well. Well, what man and else what being is there to fault? And whose opinion would I care a damn for?
When there’s one name and one opinion, just one belief I hold dear above all else.
The fact is I’ve needed you as well. I know it know, and’ve known myself in lacking for a while, years now.
Isn’t anything that asks acknowledging just now. Only I wish to speak it. Only I know it and so share it as my truth, and as a truth writ apart from my opinion.
Aye. Perhaps someday I’ll have opportunity to speak the whole of my opinion and the fullness of my feeling to the one who draws it, who is eminently worth of it.
Someday, aye, that person supposed, that person in fact shall hear it. And I’ll know my own joy in this speaking.
2/2
I get a little free with speaking sometimes. Comes of having to speak it, maybe, or having to speak what I am before I had, eh… Proof to show, like?
Feel fuckin clarht headed saying so, seeing as I know there’s no need for ‘verifiable proof or whatnot.’ Shite gets in your head, turns itself to mind games and the truth is I knew from the get go I wanted a drink, aye, but thinking turns murky among matters of well what makes a man and knowing it ain’t the organs, yeah?
[ … ]
Mindfuck of a world we’re living in, Talik.
Though it don’t feel that way with you.
Thing about Verne’s he’s got a damned decent dicking down game, and asks fewer questions than one might think.
Fuck of it is I nearly believed there had to be more than fix or six neurons firing up in that thick skull of his. Eh, more fool, I. Christ, ain’t the Lollycentric therapy hour
Can’t speak ill of his dick though.
In terms of responding, it’s not so far different now. Helps the path I took with the surgeries, integrating the bits I had before with them I have now. Clitoral burying, that’s the term for it. Showing excitations means pumping up the Reebok, but it terms of eh tension through the body, nerves gone star shot, it’s not so far different. Far as I understand it anyway, and it’s truth I’ve cases to compare against. Have been with plenty of men and people all along the scales, is what I mean.
Never anyone of your stripe, that’s sure.
And my speaking, guess I meant to nudge that door open. I’ve no qualms against speaking what I know and’ve experienced. Doesn’t need to be anything other than academic, or doesn’t need to be otherwise in speaking. If I’m say crass, it’s just a way of speaking, aye?
What’s explicit’s more in photographs, or so I feel it, or in [ … ] witnessing, personal experience and sharing one to one.
…Guess it’s worth noting monogamy’s my way. Eh. For the sake of academic data, call it.
Right. So. Graft’s from the right thigh. Scarring’s visible still, even beneath the tattooing, but that much is all right with me. I’ve no plans on veiling where I’ve been, where I’m come through aye?
And the rest, eh, put a little space between talk of all that
And talk of what else you’ve mentioned.
Credit to your Sergiy, football’s a fine sport for taking up. And finding the right instrument for singing through, if any instrument at all and not everyone tends that way like it or not, takes time. [ … ] Didn’t know my fondness for a cello til I met my aunt’s, took it up as my own.
Added to which, there’s nothing you’ve said that I’ll feign to have slipped over in reading, though I’ll stray from its speaking now. Not driving it out from my memory, is the thing. Can’t see it’s wrong form me to keep, and hold now as my own.
And for the party [ … ] all I ask’s you tell me if she’s liable to turn explosive on you, yeah? Truth is I’d like to spend that evening ahead beside you. Truth’s also we’ll have days beyond for meeting here or and there. Take care of yourself and your Sergiy, Talik. Promise me that, aye?
One more thing, and I’ve touched on it but it bears lingering. It’s more than I’d’ve thought to ask, having any place with you.
It’s what I’d like, that’s sure. Or it forms no small part of my wishing.
That place, that right. I’d value and do value. And do the best by [ … ]
myTalik I possibly can.1/3
She doesn't need your presence to speak that way, or any other reason at all save that I'm not relenting this time.
But of course, I'll take care.
I won't say I'm not disappointed, though. More caution becomes necessary when I know she might be watching.
[...]
Unless[...]
Nova, would youWe [...] could meet before. Sen (Rin, more likely) is collecting me at some unnamed hour from my hotel. In someone's limousine, I hear, in order to perturb Esma. "Spilling out rogues, wretches, thieves, and peasants like a clown car," he claims.
Maybe you could come have a drink with me before. If the meeting goes poorly, we can sit at separate ends of a limo and pretend it never occurred, eh?
[...]
Or - suppose it were to go well. If I were to hold your hand in the car, no one would speak of it to herEither way - drinks or at the party - it makes no difference; I'll meet my Vevay. I'll see you, know your presence near my own. That means the world.
2/3
I enjoy tattoos, and I am often awed by those done over scars.
And I have a suspicion that you've already seen many of mine if Senan showed you photos of me. It's only fair!
[...]
Unless you'd like to wait for some future situation. I could respect that.
[...]
For the rest.
I think you know how I feel. What there is growing within me, what has grown enough with these talks of ours that I no longer feel lethargy about my divorce. I feel urgency to end it, to meet you as you should be met. To end any waiting as soon as I can.
[...]
Whatever door it is you're trying to open, I should say that I don't take hints well. I speak English well, but sometimes [...] context clues? I miss them.
Do you want to tell me personal things?
Academically, of course.
Or are you looking to ask me questions, as I've pried so about you?
If either, I've been a willing participant in this conversation from the start.
[...]
I think here is where I should say - I'm not particular about whether my partner is polyamorous, so long as we discuss it before I learn they have another in their life.
I'm not so.
There's only one for me.
I'm growing more certain of it by the hour.
[...]
No, don't ignore the meaning of anything I've said. I told you to know your place with me, after all. Know your importance and your right to every word I've said.
3/3
Please comePlease, only consider it.
1/3
Moreover and more critical, meeting you before’s precisely to my liking. Read your proposition and my eyes lit themselves, is the thing. A chance to find you one to one, have time to take you in and begin to learn your voice, know your presence?
There’s nothing needs considering about it. I’m in and I’ll be there, that’s counted on. And I’ll consider the car ride with yourself and at your side a savoured bonus, nor will I hear talk of staking out opposite ends.
Fact is, I’d’ve otherwise shown up at Boyle’s and begun seeking you straight off. There’s something of the romantic in finding your not so stranger through a crowd, aye, but I’ll choose one to one time with my Talik any day.
Got a lot to look forward to once that plane's landed, I do. Got a place I mean to find, and stay beside, often as I can.
2/3
Caught me, eh? c:
And fairness sake, you yourself revealed some of your marks, that sofa shot with Dodo. For Sen’s, eh, there’s you and he and couple of bathroom signs. You and the motorcycle I’m guessing’s yours or was? (The longer hair’s good on you, though fair to say all hair looks good on you, or all I’ve seen.) Yeah and then the, eh. Yourself in what looks for all the world like a pool, cigar in hand tattoos bared.
To quote myself, words redacted once for propriety’s sake, now given with total appreciation: Fuck me running.
See. Right. For sake of full disclosure and at risk of coming off shallow, not to say I’ve no touch of the superficial in myself, you are a full on stunner of a man.
I’d be wild for you even were you not, that’s so, the way you had my interest from the go, the way you’ve gleaned it further every word you’ve sent. Add in that face of yours, that laugh that smile, that body and fuck me you’re a tall one, I’m slain five time’s over’s what I am.
Five times, minimum.
Won’t pretend I didn’t save every photo for my keeping. Won’t say I’ve not reviewed em time and again, the ones Sen sent and yours with Dodo.
I’ll take any and all photos you’ve got. You’ve a face and you’ve a self a man couldn’t begin to tire looking at, that’s so. What I mean to say is jesus, my suspicion’s I won’t be keeping my eyes off you, nor my attention off your speaking.
Well, right, but that still leaves me with a view of your ink, and you with no shot of mine. So here’s the photo, or rather photos.
[ The first photo shows most of the tattoo’s breadth: It begins gathered at Nova’s thigh, spreading up across his back, to his shoulder, ending with a few searching ends of vines, leaves, and a small floral bloom at his neck.
The second focuses on the graft site, where the tattoo’s colors are particularly vivid, the flowers most numerous.
The third gives an image better showing the way the tattoo’s climb foray’s along Nova’s side, his chest, where the tattoo nears but doesn’t cover the scars left by years’-old top surgery.
The tattoo is a spread of vines and flowers, somewhat abstract and twined here and there with music staves that read a partial, darting melody. Through this series of photos, it’s clear the colors turn softer, more muted as the tattoo winds its way up Nova’s back, his shoulder, until the ink that shows upon his neck is unfilled, its lines lighter than the rest. ]
Took a fair few sessions, aye?
3/3
Meant and I mean the ink, but while I’m on it, the scars as well, if you’re of a mind.
No need talking what’s discomforting, of course, but all that’s writ on skin has stories and so forth. My own, there’re the obvious, those taken on through surgeries and choices. Got plenty of others beside, origins more grown from impulse, my own or others’, and from not shying out of what’s rough in life, sometimes not having much say in shying or no.
[ … ]
Bears saying also I’d like you to see my own tattoo in its fullness and in a future situation, supposing that future situation should ever be, which I’m thinking it won’t surprise you to hear I’ve hopes toward. I’d like it, that’s sure. To have you see my full self. To see you in your own.
Like to trace the outlines of your tattoos, that’s true as well.
Not pushing nor rushing, I mean it for when time’s right
and if you still feel, but then why give voice to doubts I’ve no interest or belief in. Take it careful Talik, aye? I’ve seen enough of Scarlett’s eh more social circle based acquaintances to know there’s vindictiveness aplenty and money to back it up. Which is telling you precisely nothing you don’t know, sure, but what I mean’s I know the need for keeping cautious til all’s sorted with you and Sergiy.And, bears repeating, I’ve no grudge against a wait, however long. And whatever keeps for waiting, still speaking with you’s worlds itself, and now I’ve got this meeting, these drinks for looking ahead to.
Got a lot for looking ahead to, could be and I’d like to think it’s so.
What you said, re polyamory and discussing, that’s the rub of it for myself as well. I’ve had partners who had other partners, more power to em. I’ve no call toward it myself [ … ] and less so at the present moment than I’ve known before. Having myself a certainty that there’s one match for my self, and one man I’d wish.
I’m getting toward saying transparency’s what’s needed or it’s what I ask, and I’ve got no cause to think it’d be a trouble with you. You keep speaking, I’ll keep speaking, we listen alike and don’t leave each other blind, yeah?
Chattering away again, I am. Last to say for now, I don’t know there’s any particular door I’m opening. More pushing what I come up against, giving a nudge to see what follows, what’s for speaking what’s for knowing. Showing also, or trying to show maybe, there’s no flinching on my own end from talk of any sort, casual convo or Real Talk or flirtations or talk of body, talk about desires.
All’s open for the speaking, and nay, there’s no ignoring every meaning held.
[ … ]
Thank you, Talik. It means more than I’ve words for telling, your speaking that your meanings stand. I’m holding each one dear, and would like to keep them so. Between yourself and I at least, until all’s sorted.
Speaking it again, you’ve a wondrous heart. Sets me reeling all of its own.
1/2
[...]
I ask, as though I can pretend I hadn't thought the same. To be in a crowd, to turn and see you in a parting of bodies like water. I've been thinking all this time of what I would say to you, of whether I would take your hand. I'll confess to you that I'm oftentimes imaginative, and in one or ten of these hypotheticals, the meeting took on a very cinematic nature, accompanied by a soundtrack. One of the composers you mentioned before. Or a blues strain.
(I'll leave you to draw conclusions on your own about how I greeted you then.)
My romantic notions didn't involve an interruption to our meeting at all, much less by - Well.
It's a disappointment.
Less so with this new possibility. I do want you to myself, for many reasons. We all act differently in a crowd of known faces, isn't that so? And conversation would be difficult. Of course, I mean nothing untoward! I won't invite you to my room or sequester us in some shadowy corner.
How fortunate I'd be to have a few precious moments apart with you.
[...]
I suppose if any text might damn me should she read it, this would be the one. I still mean not to be caught in breach of that contract, but what can be done about maybe-wishful thinking?
It's still only that. What I would like, what I dream, how [...] a single word wakened my heart in a way little else has. 'Romantic'.
(And 'my', echoing 'my'. Yes, Vevay, I think I am that in a way I have been for no one else.)
[...]
An offer - one which you might not need, but which I feel is only right. Please, at some time in New York, let me show you the divorce papers. Let me give you evidence that I'm being truthful about my situation.
If you mean to wait, then you should be sure of my intentions.
[...]
You asked early on in our conversations to say what I want.
I want my son.
Oh, Nova - I want you, too.
More than either, I want to be the kind of man who would do anything for
those he lyou both.2/3
I'll hold my comments on the rest for now. Words for speaking in person someday - perhaps if I am ever able to see the entirety of the tattooing?
But I think you might have sent more limited photos if you didn't intend me to say that you are breathtaking.
[...]
Strange to think you find me attractive. I'm not [...] what is it. Fishing? Fishing. I don't feel myself to be particularly so. I will tell you I wish Senan hadn't sent the bathroom sign photo; I was at least drunk and at most on three other substances. I barely remember it.
...The pool photo? I don't remember that one at all. Would you send it to me?
The most recent of what you've seen is the one I sent of me with Dodo, but my hair is still a little long. Comes and goes. The motorcycle, I crashed, but I'm not opposed to another.
And that is the story of some of my scars; motorcycle accident.
The one on my face, a soldier with a knife. It isn't as bad as it could have been.
If I missed any questions, ask me again, won't you? Each time I try to read back, I'm caught on the same words and feel -
Closer to myself than I have in a very long time, Vevay. Closer to someone I once was, and liked.
[...]
Something more!
May I see other photos of you?
Perhaps with clothes on, eh?
[...]
Hold, now, how tall are you?
3/3
Madeline can be vindictive, yes, as we can all be now and then.
Madeline does not have money.
I do.
Our contract gives her access to a portion of my assets.
Of course, too, I provide for Sergiy - and whether I like it or not, I provide for her...well. And whoever's filling her bed these days. Deforest, I suppose.
1/?
The parting of a crowd and music with its motion, collision of discordant notes to harmony, something eliding high and rooted deep, prelude to the limitless. Not a point of ending, nay, and the song to follow’s not been written yet.
[ … ]
Related, I’d say. My tattooing, the music therein’s bits and pieces. Phrases from songs written I’ve played, from music I’ve writ myself. Nothing culminated, nothing that begins nor ends nor forms a eh completion outside myself.
Romantic I am, and I’ll make no claims otherwise. Try to keep grounded, but there’s room for a daydream always, and hope for daydreams brought to life.
So I’ll dream on how you’d have greeted me, and how I’d greet yourself. How I’d like to greet my Talik, and someday shall.
When that contract’s a past thing, and no act, no text can turn to hazard.
Know that I’d have let my hand seek out your cheek and settle. Know I’d have met you with all the romance kept within this frame. Know I’d’ve stared at you like looking to a universe new born.
Aye, and I warrant you’ll see that look, regardless. No harm in nor helping the way a man looks when he’s stricken. Happens it’s more propitious still, this taking drinks before, this meeting you apart from any crowd’s disrupting. Means there’s one man only who’ll bear witness to the way I look at you on first sighting.
That’s yours, for my Talik alone.
Others can see my look in recurrence and renewing, but that first’s yours to have, and yours alone. Can’t say that I mislike the idea. Couldn’t say that, at all.
2/3
And I’ll look forward to those someday words in person. Something more for I to dream on, aye? Truth.
Guess I started on the meaning in the ink above, because part of it’s that eh it’s a thought on continual creation yeah? Creation and discovering, something grown of what I’ve always been, given chance for [ … ] flourishing, that’s it.
[ … ]
All these words I’ve sent you and still I’ve trouble pulling speech together on that art. Feels pretentious when I set it out in texting, that’s half the trouble. Worrying I’ll speak it wrong, might be. Part of what I mean or what it means for me’s that there’s no barren land about this body, or it’s nothing needs to feel unnatural, aye? The way it did before, I mean. And sure, what flourishes is from the ways I’ve had it changed to meet myself, be one self more whole.
The music’s intrinsic, aye. The reaching upward, toward what’s beauty, that as well.
[ … ]
Here, look. There’s more to be said sometime if you’re for hearing. More I’d put maybe better into speaking than to what’s before me on a screen for thinking and rethinking. I appreciate your asking, means a lot your asking. It’s my responding doesn’t meet with the occasion, and I [ … ] want to say it right, or maybe what I mean’s I want for you to see it for thine self before I speak it more.
That. That, I think’s the case.
And on tattoos, here’s this for you, that photo sent by Sen.
[ And there it is, the infamous pool-maybe-a-pool-def-a-cigar photo. That Nova gives himself a minute to appreciate before sending along. ]
Don’t mind sending it at all, nor the chance to look it over once again. More than once again, I’ll gladly cop to that.
I say again, jesus shite but you’re heart stopping. Breathtaking, as well. Christ alive.
At the risk of [ … ] steering into troubled waters, I’ve got to wonder what’s got you thinking yourself less than mesmerizing. Not something you need to speak nor dwell upon (don’t I know the causes for eh self misliking or else downplaying can be rancid), nor is this to say I doubt you at all, only it’s strange to me you’ve not seen it. Even setting aside my own tastes, there’s no refuting the beauty you are, the absolute appeal.
Added to which. Much as I admire that photo above, I think my favorite’s that with Dodo. Both touch my heart, aye, but there’s something something to the sight of you, in your home relaxed looking alight with happiness, effected so by your girl’s presence.
Does me in, it does.
[ … ]
I’d like to set it to my phone’s background, if you’d not object?
Before I neglect answering your question, my height’s dependent on the shoes, yeah? Truth of the number stands 5’8” so middling I suppose.
Yours I can guess at right enough, having seen that shot with Sen. Guessing that’s part of the reason he passed it on, alongside his habit of quenchless trolling. Man’s of the fae, he and Rin alike.
Man knows my tastes, no denying. He’s also been speaking well of you, hopes for you, so figure it wasn’t too hard on the trolling there.
Any rate, fair’s fair and I’ll give you for that photo you’ve no remembrance of one I can’t recall myself.
[ The photo’s taken in what looks to be a particularly grimy dive bar or pub, location unknown. Nova - his shirt a neon-bright tank top, head adorned with a wreath of strung-together napkins - has one foot up on the bar, one on a precariously balanced stool. In one hand there’s a bowl of crisps half-tilted, their contents spilling through the air. The other’s fixed in a three-finger point toward someone out of frame and he seems to be attempting adamantly to assert some point or other. Behind Nova’s someone’s clearly approaching, could be a bouncer or a patron, arms out to pull him off the stool.
A second photo follows, taken shortly after the first. In this, Nova has indeed been restrained by the figure from the first photo, arms crushed at his side feet not quite touching the floor. He’s evidently aware his picture’s being taken, because he’s giving the camera an exaggerated wink and grin. ]
Like I said, there’s no memory of this night remains in my head. Gone out drinking with Lolly, Sen, whoever was around. I’m told there was some point I was making about the ascendency of simply salted crisps, none of that bbq shite.
Shame of it is, I’ve no quarrel with barbecue. Don’t know what had me up in arms that night. Do know or understand that’s where I chipped a molar. Also’s where the eh, there’s a burn scar to my wrist, came from that one.
Speaking of. That knife wound of yours, pub fight or something other? Know you said soldier and there’s no need elaborating should you prefer not, just had a few encounters of the military much inebriated stripe.
Ah, fucking [ … ] what I mean to say’s I don’t care to assume one way or another, and also I mean it about your not needing to say.
There’s other photos I’ll send your way, not leaving you with those two alone, though the rest’ll take some thinking and I've likely poured enough on you as is by way of words. Anyway, figure I’ll let those two stand in their glory.
3/3
If you prefer it, I’ll take a look. Fact is I’m sure of you, and sure of your intentions as it is.
Put otherwise, I know and I believe it well that you’re precisely the kind of man you want to be.
On the matter of papers and contracts, think is I’ve been speaking with some people. Lawyers, like, trombonist and another professional she knows, and from the sounds of it there’s a chance that contract’s been
Nay. More to be looked at yet, and maybe best left out from texts.
[ … ]
Thing about me, I never know what to say around matters of money, not really.
Seems right fucked, her taking from you all this timeSave to say it can’t strike me as right, this having been taken on top of everything else. And that Deforest Scarlett’s a fanged fuck of a weasel. Didn’t say it before, but I won’t believe for a moment your the only man’s brought him up against a threat, nor that he doesn’t call each one on hisself. Watched Rin near lay into the boy once, ended in Senan’s hand bloodied in intervening.Can’t say I wouldn’t end in a punch up with the shite, were I in his company long enough.
It's right fucked, Vitaly, and that's a fact.
1/?
By touch, if you'd let me.
[...]
It feels disrespectful to ask that of you. Seeing it written out so, it's unworthy. Something to be spoken, not asked in a text. [...] I've never been good at that sort of thing. Intimate texting. You see, I'm anxious for having asked to touch your tattoo? The irony of it is, I don't have reservations about intimate acts -
Only speaking of them.
I don't mean sex. Or I do, but everything else, as well.
...All of this, for academic knowledge. Of course.
[...]
Something else of intimate nature:
Vevay, will you play your music for me? What you've written: I'd like to hear it.
For the rest, I won't say more except that my daydreams have new depth to them. New suppositions of touch and sights.
And that my heart is pounding as though it hasn't beat at all - for a lifetime. I feel [...] anticipatory? Yes, that word. As though I'll shudder apart with waiting for two weeks to pass.
Well. I've waited this long already; what do two more weeks matter?You spoke 'romance' first. Remember that when you grow tired of a fool's romantic notions, eh?
2/?
For a moment - only a moment! - I felt that dreadful sinking when one sees the worst is coming. Or simply dread.
He took something from me; I've been stranded in this entropic fucking marriage -
Well. What if he took something I think I might value beyond measure?
[...]
What if. So many 'what ifs', but then I remembered that I'm thinking of Deforest, but not of Nova.
Would my Vevay ever, after all we've spoken? Could I imagine you doing anything like that?
Not to me, no, but as well, not to anyone else.
All at once, I felt warm again - confident.
Why am I so certain of you?
3/4
The scar, though, runs from my [...] by my hair. [...] Hairline. From my hairline, across my eye, to above my lip. It isn't disfiguring, and my eye was unharmed, thankfully.
No, it wasn't a pub fight.
You know what's happening in Ukraine, but probably were surprised like the rest of the world?
We weren't. We knew it would happen sooner or later. Everyone had been preparing for it for years - soldiers and people like me. Citizens. Irregular or partisan warfare, that's how it's called in English. Children - teenaged, but children - learned to shoot Kalashnikovs. Mothers learned how to hear and what to report.
When the Russians came to Kharkiv two years ago, I went, also. And then Pripyat, and then Obolon. Me and my brother, several more besides. What the military couldn't do - for whatever the reason, a crime or because they're too obvious - we did.
I like to plant explosives and disable vehicles.
We did other things that I'm not proud to admit, but were necessary.
We killed - ah, but we still kill - traitors. Informants.
The soldier was Ukrainian. He was passing information to the Russians. I [...] imagine he didn't want to die; he struck out at me with a piece of glass.
Andrii shot him.
Russians, we left as warnings to other Russians. Signs over them, like "If the Americans bombs don't get you, we will" and "Putin is sending you to die."
We left him face down in the dirt.
[...]
If you ever want to see evil, look in the face of a Ukrainian man who helps Russians murder his neighbors and steal his country's children.
[...]
I don't fight anymore; too many close calls. Too many scars - you'll see, if you would like to see. And Sergiy -
Well.
A bullet too close to the artery in my leg made me decide I could do other things. So, I find help. People who know explosives, people who can teach new things to our irregulars. People who know how to make traps.
Other things.
4/4
This is from Majorca four, maybe five years ago, when we took Sergiy.
We. Me, my family. Not her.
[...]
I still look so - well, I think. I don't often look at my own back.
1/3
[ … ]
[ … ]
I’d give my apologies for dredging up [ … ] the abject horrors of war and its brewing. But I can’t regret knowing it, not when it’s your truth and not when it’s what you’ve lived among.
[ … ]
Sen mentioned something touching guerrilla tactics. Hadn’t known whether it was bombast in speaking and sort of figured it was so, Sen being Sen. My mistake, there, and I ought to’ve been more careful in asking. Had cause for suspecting, and whatever I don’t know or haven’t gleaned about your country’s no cause and no excuse for ignorance or rough trodding.
As if it would’ve been a pub fight for fuck’s sake on myselfShite.
Point being, ain’t fucking easy, any of that. For you, I mean, not that you need my telling it. And it goes without saying, maybe, but who’m I to let sleeping words lie when I mean to say I appreciate your telling, and would rather you hear it’s so.
That informant you’ve spoke of. Sounds no less than what he brought down on hisself, or called to coming for him. Needs to be that fist driving restitution, fuck of it being there’s human costs at every side. Gift of yourself and your fellows being you’ve brought it, some piece of what’s needed.
Rank betrayal it is, what calls a threat to living, to keeping free in life, and that’s a crime can’t be denied or left on rampage. Some destruction’s only to be met in its own kind.
Not an eye for an eye, what you said about the fruitlessness in that’s correct as I see it, but where there’s lives at stake and protection to be made, there’s blood must run and messages to be driven.
Seen some evil myself. Can’t say I’ve witnessed it in that same form, and fuck me if that’s a betrayal doesn’t speak hell itself gazing through.
I’ve naught but respect for what you’ve done and where you’ve been. Aye, and sorrow, though neither’ll do a spit of good for atrocities occurred and underway.
Glad your brother was with you.
Can’t say I’m not selfishly glad you’ve stepped back from the fighting, and glad moreso for your own and your Sergiy’s sake.
Well and. Can’t be denied there’s prodigious use in gathering aid. Brings more than a body can do on one’s own, or that’s the case most usually. Builds the scale a little larger, tilts odds further from those forces and them beings perpetrating.
Fucking costs, and fucking calumny.
[ … ]
Might’ve said. I know people who know people, more in the way of products but not only so, and know a few things myself. Might be people might be things you know yourself already, but. Might be matters worth discussing, when there’s no gap of space to separate us.
Regardless and any rate, one more thing for saying this part of my message.
I’d like to see those scars or yours. Hear every word you have for sharing, whatever you’ve a mind to speak.
Your marks and your knowledge, your speaking, worthy of witness, I’d say.
Worthy as more so and above any else, you are yourself.
Let me witness you in perpetuity, Talik. With all the open scope you've offered up to now. With everything you can and care to give in sharing. That’s my ask, and always shall be.
2/3
Seems as well, and is as well, the case you’ve been forthright with myself, more than I’d have thought to ask.
What I mean here again’s my thanks for your offering. Speaking what you’ve known and what’s brushed by you.
I expect I didn’t say about Deforest, no. ‘Knowing’s a generous word for it; I’ve met the fucker at a distance, seen him in some action, but anything that rancid’s made for keeping clear of and aye I’ve been in a same proximity as him. Guessing he’s no knowledge of my self, and I’m pleased for it to keep that way, fucker’s got no right, nay.
Eh. Still, that’s closer knowing than anyone ought ask for, and I’ve no fault to you for feeling alarm. After everything stolen from you and what he’s done, can’t see how his spectre wouldn’t grow beneath the skin in ways difficult to guard against.
It’s how some of the direst ghosts a long lasting pains get started and attach theirselves, or that’s the way I think it, have seen it.
What’s gratitude for me is that my bringing about that name didn’t call you downward fully. And as much as a man’s own word can be believed, I’d say you’re right in trusting your Vevay. Won’t say I’ve never fucked up with anything, but in partnerships, aye, I take my care, guard any heart I’ve touched to with the caution I’d best grant my own, whether that care runs deep or shallow. There’s something to be said for defense, something to be said in keeping caution for the ones brought close. That’s a responsibility I take above all else.
Aye, see, line from a poet, American maybe, about responsibility’s in keeping the ability to respond. Means an exchange and recognition, means liveliness and keeping with awareness, not always draining inward, means a leaning into attentiveness. Responsibility of the self’s one thing, less thorned to track because its language is your own, known better to you than to any other. Responsibility external brings a work of moving pieces.
Fuck, my point, my fucking point, is I’ve made a point of taking care with others, and I mean to take care with yourself, as well. All the more with you, as you speak all the clearer to my heart, and I’d like to think your heart my own.
[ … ]
Like or not, granted or not, I think it is. And I call my own heart yours, if you’ll have it.
Might be our trust springs from a source similar, mutual. Call it the font of the romantic. Call it what grows of adhering to the heart and heart’s care.
[ … ]
There’s a word for that, as well. Older language, older form of English might be, hert hært or heorte something. Eh, fuck the finding of it, point is the phrase I’m fixing on is heart’s care, and point is I’ve got that fixed on you from my heart, and feel a mirror of it in yourself.
Point as well is I mean to be equal to any trust you care to give, and I’ve no cause to believe I can’t be that. I’ve my downfallings and errancies, that’s so, but lacking steadfastness’s not among em.
3/4
(I'll have a look at that back of yours while I'm at it, shall I? Let you know its comparison to the Majorcan photo, though I'm guessing now no photo can compare with the honest sight of you.)
With the self same fervour, I want your knowing on my tattoos, every mark and every corner of my skin, my self. I want to know the shadow of your hands, my Talik, and your breath against my neck.
Academically speaking, and then non-academically speaking in future times, when all can be discussed and acted without hazard of reprisal. At present, it’s a thought to dream on for my self. Warm in shivers through my being, and true it’s kept my company each day, each night since the potentiality first showed itself.
Going to be a lengthy two weeks, full on interminable, but it won’t lack dreaming, and there’s more company in a message written from you than I’ve known in years. Closer and more wanted company than ever I’ve known.
There’s nothing you’ve said that takes me as disrespectful, nor unworthy. Nothing you’ve said that doesn’t match my wishing, or what I’d care to hear.
Every line you give, I value. Bright or romantic warmed or sharp with grief, I wish it all and value all.
What’s this worry or wariness for speaking, Talik? Take that question rhetorical or meet it with an answer, no censure either way. What I’m finding’s there’s not words enough to say the measure of my meaning fully. Might be there never can be words enough, and part of speaking waits in gesture and in eyes meeting eyes, hand slipped into hand.
For myself, there’s meaning can be spoke only through playing it, that cello of mine filling gaps where I lapse inarticulate. Which is also to say I’d like to play for you and shall first chance I get, aye those songs I wrote and rarely play for hearing. Might also be to say I’ve songs for writing yet, outside my glimpsing before knowing you and now, see Talik, now I long to find em.
Don’t for an instant think your Vevay could weary of what’s romantic, particularly when it’s from your self. If you’re a fool, then I’m your fool to match, and we’ll keep these romantic notions as an arboretum of our own, to flourish and bask in precisely as we please.
4/4
The third is a recent photograph of Nova, taken by a fellow player during an out-of-doors quartet rehearsal. He sits relaxed in the dappled shadow of an ash tree, arms wrapped above the body of his cello, bow caught loose in one hand, chin settled on his forearm, hair ruffled by a breeze. He might be listening to strands of song or conversation, might be watching a bird or cluster of park-goers in the distance. Whatever the case, his expression's dream-laced, smile soft and pleased, as if the world might be not so rotten; as if knowing there are wonders in the world yet to be found. ]
Maybe that?
(no subject)
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1/3?
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Around the same time that he receives Nova’s texts…
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video!
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2/2 - Several hours later
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3/3 BUT NOVA IS NOT THROUGH WITH U
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3/3 An Update
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sometime mid-morning
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text to Iryna
text from Iryna