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 Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2015 5:28 pm
timeline
Unlike other people, Chance has never really had a first crush, or a first love.
It's relatively unsurprising, considering his upbringing and his personality, but still, he wonders what it would have been like if things had been different. He remembers the first kiss he got at fifteen, Angelica Smith's hands gripping his arms as she held him against the wall of a closet. She was a thin girl with too much chin and eyes that seemed permanently narrowed, scars on her fingers from some sort of abuse that Chance hasn't ever asked about. Her lips were dry and chapped against his own, and he supposes that he should have moved, maybe kissed her back, but instead he just stood there, as still as a stone, more surprised and slightly bemused than anything else.
His first kiss with a boy is Jackson Keller. Tall, handsome, pretty boy Jackson Keller, in St. Clarence's Home for Boys because his parents were drunk alcoholics more concerned about getting high than taking care of their son. Jackson is broken in a different way than Chance; he keeps up a pleasant facade, pretending he is the Golden boy of the home, and only Chance knows that he climbs out of the stairwell window to the fire escape and smokes a cigarette every day around three. Or that he's actually gay, and doesn't like any of the girls that fawn over him constantly from their sister home.
Chance only knows this because of what happened on the second of February the year he turned sixteen. He's standing in the supply closet, looking for a mop to do his afternoon chores, when he hears someone walk in, turning around to find Jackson standing there.
"Hey," is all Chance says, and offers a light smile. "What's up?"
Jackson had smiled; Chance still remembers it after all this time, because it seemed a little crooked, not quite as blindingly sweet as the ones that he gives everyone else in the place.
"Not much," he had said, and then he'd shut the door behind him. Chance blinks at him, not alarmed, not frightened, not worried, but critically, trying to figure out what he's doing, why he doesn't want to be seen. He wouldn't have closed the door otherwise, and it's a mystery to Chance, who, while friendly and polite, doesn't really integrate himself into the rest of the home.
"Looking for something?" Chance had asked, and he remembers that Jackson had seemed jittery, tense, but the smile had never left his face.
"You," says Jackson, and then, "You ever kiss a guy before?"
Chance doesn't react. "Nope."
Jackson's eyebrows raise, like he doesn't quite believe him. "Seriously?"
"Seriously."
There's a long pause, and then -
"Okay."
And Jackson's hand has snaked out, catching him around the back of his neck, and suddenly Chance is being kissed, hard and deliberate. He doesn't quite respond at first, eyebrows still raised in a gesture of mild surprise, but after a few seconds he realizes he's supposed to react, and, well, it feels kinda nice. So he curls his hands in the front of Jackson's shirt and pulls him closer.
They make out every day, the same spot, the same time. Sometimes it's only for a few minutes, time enough for brief pecks; and sometimes they spend hours there, doing much more than simple kissing. Jackson is Chance's first, in several ways, and he finds he kinda likes it.
This keeps up for several weeks, until Jackson gets transferred out of the home. Chance finds he's only slightly disappointed, but it's not because of Jackson, but because of the sudden lack of physical contact. He only spends a day in mild curiosity before he's moved on.
After that, he doesn't hook up with the same person more than once. There are many, over the years, gender notwithstanding, and he likes the brief heat, the simple pleasures that stem from becoming intimate with someone, but there is still the distance between them. Chance keeps himself deliberately separated on purpose, because drama and emotional ties are something he doesn't particularly like.
This changes when he gets to Deus. He makes friends for the first time, and it's strange, a new sensation that he's entirely unfamiliar with. A few one night stands occur, but they're with people that he sees again, and that's a foreign concept to him. It's not unpleasant, simply different, and Chance finds it's kind of nice to have friends, even if there are a few times when he screws things up unintentionally.
He still hasn't had a first love, or a first crush, really (he doesn't even know what that means). But he's lying here with his arm around a dozing Otto, tangled in sheets on the floor of his room, and lately Chance has been finding it easier to fall asleep. There is a peculiar sense of being comfortable that has stemmed from this...whatever it is...with Otto, and Chance isn't quite sure he can put his finger on it. But he likes the way it feels, likes this strange and new relationship that doesn't need a label to define it; that's filled with space and closeness all at once, an easy balance between the two. Whatever it is, it's pleasant, and he wants more of it, and maybe that makes him selfish for the first time in a long time, but it's true.
It's sometime early in the morning. Chance doesn't know how long they've been sleeping, but they will sleep more still, and he shifts onto his side, curls an arm around Otto's waist and presses a light kiss to his brow before his eyes fall shut again, and Chance drifts off.
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Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2015 5:42 pm
draco
His first tattoo, Chance decides, is the constellation Draco, because he likes dragons and he likes stars, and this is a nice compromise between the two. He'll get more tattoos, of course (he wants one to help mask the cigarette burns on the right side of his ribs), but for now, Draco will be the first.
He's eighteen and thankfully doesn't need parental consent in Michigan. Chance does a bit of research and finds a good place to go, takes a few weeks to earn the money at his job and finally gets the opportunity to go. His chosen tattoo artist is a tall black man named Dante, surprisingly unmarked himself except for the elaborate bands around his forearms. When Chance asks about them, Dante laughs and explains that they have no real meaning, he just wanted something intricate and impressive looking.
Chance can appreciate that; not all tattoos have to have a meaning behind them, after all.
The ribs are a delicate place to work, because the skin around them is very tender, very thin and soft. It's almost excruciatingly painful, and Chance clenches his teeth the entire time, gritting back annoying tears that don't have anything to do with his emotional state and are entirely due to a physiological response to the needle digging into his skin. After the first hour it's still terrible, but he learns how to tolerate it. Chance has always been a reserved person, so he doesn't show anything much, but the tattoo parlor is, at least, private. He doesn't care about the opinions of others, but he also is glad that he doesn't have to bother to not care when it's just himself and Dante.
It takes two times to get Draco. The bandages stay on for two weeks after. Three months later, Chance goes back, this time to get a much more complex constellation on the other side of his ribs, and this one is even more painful than the last and takes three trips to complete. The one across the back of his shoulders is delicate and simple - only one trip is necessary, for which Chance appreciates, and then he doesn't get another one for almost a year following. When he does, it's the one on his upper chest and shoulder of the dandelions, and when asked about it, Chance explains that it's neither sentimental nor meaningful; he just simply likes it.
That one is the last one he gets before coming to Deus. After, he gets the one on the inside of his forearm from Zac, and it's not nearly as painful as the two on his ribs. The one on his temple, the stars sprinkled partly over his brow and forehead, hurts like hell, almost as much as the constellations, but thankfully is a lot quicker than those were.
He likes they way they look when he sees them; marks that remind him of what he likes and who he is. Chance has considered getting more, but has refrained for a while, because he remembers the throbbing pain of the needle, and he doesn't like pain, but he does like the tattoos.
Maybe next time he'll get something that has to do with Deus, or maybe more stars, because, in Chance's opinion, there can never be enough stars.
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Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2015 8:39 pm
texts from last night (pt.2)Quote: Text to Maebe:it just occurred to me that you probably couldn't see the picture I sent so Quote: Text to Maebe:(a shame, I take amazing selfies) Quote: Text to Maebe:anyway here's a better text to say I hope you're feeling better Quote: Text to Maebe:if you need anything, lemme know
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