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
no subject
[…]
I tell him about you. Only the good or funny, so if you soil your name in front of him, it’s your own fault - but I don’t believe you will. I’ve heard too much about Enri to think you would ‘shit the bed’ in front of Sergiy.
He’s six, but he’s smart enough to know when someone isn’t worth the air they breathe. (I speak from how I’ve seen him behave toward others, not from suggestion of your value.)
And a correction, please:
I didn’t “keep” the marriage. This divorce process has been dragging and stalling and restarting for eight years. Allowing me the divorce means she wouldn’t have the luxury she knows now.
[…]
I assume with Deforest. Senan mentioned something of that kind. Sergiy has mentioned it, as well.
I won’t cut her off so long as she has my son and she knows it.
[…]
The war has made it harder to do more than sit impotently by; life is going on in Ukraine, but then, it isn’t what it was. A fucking limbo of invasion and tentative existence.
I […]
Nova. He’s been […] encouraging. Helping.
[…]
You knew Enri only a week when you loved him, isn’t that so? And Senan, we all know Rin was love at first sight for him.
So it isn’t strange, is it.
Not so very strange at all.
Do you remember when I talked to you of Madeline all those years ago and I called her formidable? I said to you that I admired her. Was fond of her. I thought I loved her, didn’t I? I felt adrift in her presence, clouded, wanting the life I thought she symbolized.
[…]
Nova eases me, Darius. A word from him and my mind is clear. We’ve been talking as though writing letters, every day.
I understand something now about you and your Enri. About Senan, about people who fall in love so quickly that it changes everything they know: there isn’t a choice. How inevitable it all feels, now that I’ve met him. You don’t “fall”; you simply are, and there was never anything else you should have been.
That’s what he means, you know? Senan with his stupid tattoo. All my days, all my heart? It’s what’s past as well as what’s promised. A heart -
My heart.
My heart and all my days until now have been Nova’s. I simply didn’t know it.
He has a soul unlike any I’ve ever known, full of brilliance and shadow - like the night sky. He chose his name so well, didn’t he? Nova like newness, like starbursts, like perfect beginnings taking place in a cosmos older than can be conceived. Here is something that has existed countless times before, but never quite like him. Never with his beautiful nuance.
My Nova.
[…]
And then my Sergiy, who is breathtaking in a different way. My heart is composed of him, has been beating for him from the moment I first held him. Another kind of love, but just as inevitable.
He and Nova are so similar, do you know? Both of them so full of joy and simplicity, both prone to malaise.
I can imagine a life with them. A family. A time when I can speak with my son without the use of the internet or a twelve-hour flight. When I can have Sergiy in his own room in our home, without the sorrows that plague him, and also.
And also I can wake to Nova beside me in a bed we share. I can do this without worry for myself, or for my son. He makes me feel how possible - probable! - it all can be if I can just unshackle myself from Madeline.
[…]
Well. I mean to say I love him.
I mean to say I want to raise Sergiy with him.
I mean to say, as well, that I want you to be part of Sergiy’s family.
And mine.
You and Enri.
[…]
Yes, I’m rambling, but I have had to sit through Enri texting for two days about your many virtues, half of them sexual in nature and more than half of them unspeakable. Endure.
1/3
You’re rambling, yes, and along the most disgusting themes. Disgusting, doubtless, but I’ve no censure for you. I might [ … ] nearly confess some appreciation for this development.
I do confess it. It’s [ … ] good to hear you drawn from woes. It’s heartening, to hear you’ve found yourself perhaps received, as you always ought to have been. That you have found [ … ] your heart.
Your effusiveness alone speaks volumes. It’s no meager sign nor testament, when Vitaly Kozak takes it on himself to wax verbose. When you wax verbose, regardless of intent or calculation.
We ought to have introduced the two of you years ago
What might have been avoided, if only we hadn’t
[ … ]
[ … ]
I recognize your meaning in myself.
Enri - his presence, his words, the knowledge of him - frees the air around me, and turns all that’s tangled into clarity.
Makes myself clearer to my knowing, and brings me back to being.
Here’s some small measure of what he has been from the start: After one encounter and one night’s messaging, I forsook private flight for public for the sake of his pursuit, and regretted nothing, not for a single moment.
I nearly went to him that first night, mid-message. I needn’t tell you, I think, how that very impulse was unheard of. How it struck me to the core, this desire I had to be with a boy, a man. With anyone at all.
He is so much I’ve never known before, and everything I’ve needed. Everything I’ve wanted, even beyond my own knowledge.
I mean to affirm, confirm again: There’s nothing strange in what you’ve said, or what you’ve found.
And I’m pleased, Vitaly.
You have always been capable of happiness. It sounds as though you might find it yet; it sound like you’re well on your way.
[ … ]
Regarding your son. [ … ] My [ … ] godson.
Sergiy.
I can’t for a moment imagine Madeline as an affectionate mother.
This is no judgment on you. None of us knew what she was. [ … ] Perhaps I ought to have expected, knowing what my ex-wife was. What I will say is Madeline has a talent for deceit.
[ … ]
I’m sorry, Vitaly, I am, that your son has been in her keeping. I trust she’s seen aptly to his care in general, if only because I believe you’d tolerate no less.
I also expect Sergiy would be far better off with you.
I can only think you’d be a disgustingly attentive father.
As I understand, Nova is liable to be the same. [ … ] I understand as well that he has been just that in the past, in circumstances I assume he’s spoken to you.
You’ll have Sergiy in your keeping, as soon as it possibly can be managed, and with all eyes on his security. On his well-being. I expect my lawyers - Colling, likely? - have contacted you. As I said, they are efficient. All will be managed, make no mistake.
[ … ]
I daresay all will in fact be well, and - though long overdue for all involved - will be made well sooner than not.
2/3
You said it well, yourself: That it isn’t a matter of falling, or of something entirely new. To find someone [ … ] or to find what might be termed and what I would term one’s someone and one’s shared heart is to feel discordant pieces at once slipping into place. Is to feel existence align itself at last; for all to turn clarion, and bring hush upon a thousand needless questions.
I won’t say I didn’t make it difficult for Enri. [ … ] Well. You know what I am; what I have been. ‘Difficult’ has come to stand hand-in-hand with my name. He has been nothing short of miraculous. He has, Vitaly, done nothing less than sing my resurrection.
[ … ]
You know that I’ve ended my decades-long affair with cocaine and its associated ilk. I expect someone has mentioned it was for Enri’s sake, and it was indeed. He set forth his needs, his expectations. An ultimatum, perhaps, though it was nothing more nor less than his right to speak, and I admire infinitely how well he stands for himself.
It happened early on. The first night we took for ourselves, I did as I was wont to do, fell back to feigning distance when [ … ] feeling came too close. I felt for him; I balked against it, turned flatly imperious. He withdrew inside himself and Vitaly, I couldn’t bear it. He told me he wanted what was real, not pretending.
[ … ]
He wanted and he has always wanted what I am, beyond theatrics, beyond the bare guise of godhood. He is the only man who has ever brought me closer to my divinity. And he showed me, he shows me still in countless ways, that the truth of divinity isn’t apart from being mortal.
[ … ]
That first time was in a chapel. Fitting, yes?
He brought me a rose; I have it still.
And after. [ … ] After, he held me. I [ … ] hadn’t know what that might feel like. What it might be, let alone become.
He is everything, Vitaly. My world, and my reason.
[ … ]
What led to my agreeing to rehab. I [ … ] made a mess of everything, and might have lost Enri through my own stubborn headedness and [ … ] a culmination of many of my own poorest decisions.
[ … ]
Simon took it on himself to interfere. You know the one I mean. [ … ] There are apologies to be made in that direction, as well, though I can’t say it would have ended well had I not [ … ] been the ass I am.
It was my paranoia and my stubbornness that turned a string of troublesome texts into cataclysm. My fortune is that Enri agreed to see me. My fortune is eternally, entirely, his love.
And I know myself far better, far more vivid than I could have guessed before.
3/3
Given that my brother is liable to be in attendance at the wedding and perhaps the party before. And given that [ … ] I hope for and I count upon your own attendance.
[ … ]
I have some inclinations toward tearing the sodden prick a new one regarding his [ … ] engagements with Madeline.
But.
I ask you, Vitaly, whether you’d prefer I refrain from speaking with Deforest on this subject. Beyond the usual perfunctory warning to keep clear of you. I recognize the potential value in giving no sign that I know of your long-drawn marriage. And it may be best to keep from alerting either of them to whatever gears have now begun to turn.
I expect discretion might be advisable in this regard. And there will be occasion down the line to dress my brother down as he requires.
He is, by the by, still scared shitless of you, a fear developed alongside every muscle mass you’ve discovered for yourself. A fear which clearly has done nothing to deter his fuckheadedness in action.
The rancid rot of entrails failed to mention that your marriage still holds. This, despite my having referenced a presumed divorce. [ … ] The shit knew what he was doing.
I understand he’s been thrown over by hisFuck me, are you aware that[ …. ]I hadn’t considered until this moment that[ … ]
Are [ … ] you aware of the relationship Deforest maintained most recently? An association spanning the past two years or so, ended recently by the [ … ] second party.
[ … ]
I confess myself nearly at the point of rescinding any and all protections I’ve placed on his name. There would be no argument from Delphina, as I suspect you can surmise. Nor would I argue that any penalty is long past due.
[ … ]
There are plans in progress for inflicting a conservatorship. He won’t be pleased; he will also accept it, if he wishes to see a single cent beyond this month.
One way or another, he will be receiving some portion of the comeuppance he’s due.
It ought to have happened long ago, and I won’t feign that it wasn’t my own stubbornmindedness that kept him guarded.
Still. His consequences will come home to roost.
1
[...]
I do know about him and Sheldon. We still speak; we're still friendly. It wasn't his fault, what happened - nor was it mine, save that those were my people. The fucking press, they did wrong by him and I've told him so many times.
Anyhow, it wasn't meant to be. I didn't feel for him the way I thought I should, or would have liked to. I didn't feel for him after a year anything like I feel for Nova after only a week.
I regret this still; he deserves goodness.
I don't think that goodness is what he has in Deforest, but I refrained from mentioning any of this to Sheldon. I didn't tell him about Madeline; perhaps I should have done so.
[...]
Deforest -
No, nothing should be said to him.
Let him have my fucking leftovers. He won't have anything more from me - not even thought. Not time, not emotion.
Certainly not money. I assume that a good deal of that has been funneling into his pocket.So, whatever you do with him, don't concern yourself with my feelings. I have none, not about him.
[...]
Well, why should I, eh? Maybe he saved me by showing me what she is. Maybe the rest was only a matter of the time that lay between the scales falling from my eyes and the first speaking with Nova.
If I'd been more loyal to Madeline, I wouldn't have continued that conversation.
It isn't forgiveness, but it's cause to ignore him.
And - I think a conservatorship is probably a fine idea. I know you feel bound to him out of fraternal obligation; if things are as troubled as they seem, this is best for your sanity.
2
He makes you feel like the god you think you are because he brings you flowers, eh?
Do you ever read the things you say and wonder if you've become tame?
[...]
Ah, but I'm teasing.
Darius, I'm happy for you. All that you've said here aligns closely with his own testimonials about your - Daddy's - goodness. He very openly calls you that, I've noticed; it isn't something I recall any of the others doing, when they were permitted to speak. (Another distinction, this: he speaks freely. Quite a lot.)
He mentioned the chapel, as well; do you know he stole that rose for you? I know he stole that rose for you. He's very proud of it, in the way a golden retriever is proud of anything it might do for its owner.
Which I don't say to denigrate him; he says other things, prideful of you in the way one would expect a husband-to-be. Your sobriety, the decision to go to rehabilitation at all, your current stability and calm? He's very proud of you.
He's been good for you, my friend.
[...]
Which was Simon?
[...]
Oh, no, not that one.
Is he still alive?
I hated that one, Darius. You know I did. There was something perverse in him in a way different from the others and your own perversity. I've only ever seen it in the sick-minded.
Not mentally ill.
Sick-minded. People who harm animals for fun, or take pleasure in the suffering of innocents.
Deforest and MadelWell. I'm glad Enri is aware of what he is, and keeps you for himself.
3/3
(I've spoken also with Alice Colling. Thank you, Darius. Truly, thank you.)
I [...]
Nova said something to me that set me reeling in a way no one ever has.
He said he can imagine a day when he raises Sergiy as his son, with me. (I am paraphrasing.) He said this, and I didn't balk, Darius. I didn't recoil in defense like I might have if anyone else had said it.
I had to stop myself from answering unwisely.
But [...] I felt it in my bones that he should have been Nova's son. He should have been ours, together. This man, who I have known little more than a week, but who I love so fully, loves my son.
His own mother doesn't love him. Fucking despicable.
Not to be repeated; this is between us alone.
You're right, what you said of her behavior. She takes care of him specifically because I won't have anything less, because I pay for a caregiver and doctors and education and anything he needs or thinks to ask (within reason.) But he tells me things, Darius.
He rarely sees her. She won't touch him.
He says she doesn't like him.
A six year old boy shouldn't say such things about his mother. He shouldn't know these things.
He's smart, though. He's smart and he knows what she's doing, keeping me from him. I haven't spoken against Madeline where he can hear; I tell him his Mama loves him and he fucking corrects me. "Mother, not Mama." To others, this. 'Mother' when he speaks of her.
I ask him what he calls her when he speaks to her; he only shrugs.
He says Deforest is no kinder to
Nevermind this.
I don't understand her. He's a little boy. Why keep him this way if she can't love him, eh? Why -
[...]
Ah, до біса це.
I hope the past two years haven't done him damage. His caregiver, Svetla, she's very good to him. Czech woman, but her mother is from Odesa - a friend of Oleksei's mother.
She speaks Ukrainian and English to him.
If things work for the best, I'll keep her with us if she's willing. He needs normalcy.
I'll stay in New York with him for the same.
[...]
Well, and so he can know his godfather.
Nova has mentioned he might like to live there, also.
And I have mentioned I'll do everything in my power to connect him with his children. [...] I haven't mentioned to him what that might entail, of course. But I wonder if you have any thoughts? You're more familiar with the situation than I.
I'd like to do all I can to bring happiness to both of them. My boys.
[...]
He's hardly a boy, though, my Nova. Ah - I mean he is an adult, not anything other about him. I feel that's a disservice to say it. Some of the things he says, Darius. None of them vulgar, but still I feel myself blushing.
How is his fucking voice so deep??? (How is yours, for that matter?)
1/?
Secrets of the tiny bastards.
no subject