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 Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 12:05 pm
 
Banter was harder than he'd been led to believe. Things with Julian flowed exceptionally but no one else. Socialising with others had been difficult, even when the other man had been a physical fixture in his life. It was like all the benefits had been relegated only to him and maybe assisting in making Krish's smile seem less-threatening and twisted. That it came back so naturally made the slave nothing but suspicious, happy, bemused, generally thankful, heartbroken all over again. He took a hold of the side of the counter and smiled small. It still hurt his face. It felt like he hadn't had such a pure response in a while. Practiced behavior had become more solid. When Julian saw, he hoped he would be excited.
Krish was excited. Wasn't he? It's not as if he hadn't made conscious efforts to further improve himself. On occasion the mental judgment that it didn't matter as much because it was dependent on one person did mellow out one reckless thing inside of him. Just a little. It was important to be in control. Didn't that take away from Julian's own sense of handling on this conversation? Their interactions had to give him the feel of power-- this thought train was stupid. He wasn't taking power away. Being strong was a forte once held in spades and in the face of speaking with a saint (the one thing he'd wanted for so, so long now) it was more important to use his skills for good. Don't crack. Don't break. Unbreakable. With texture.
Julian had been his crutch. Now the time came, with that hoarse voice, and that focus on lightness, with the uncertainty, for Krish to get off the ground and stop nursing what was unneeded. And that was self-pity and concern. He's not the hurt party here. Even if he did have some injury on his side, the azurette's was grievous and ******** knows what else he hid and nursed. Krish looked at the reflection of himself in his microwave mirror and practiced breathing. A lost effort when he laughed almost immediately after. Snort included! Laughing was not a weakness. He wasn't weak.
Breathe easy.
"I'll add the bacon on one side, and split the other, like they do with pizza. I hope you like things being burnt." Krish would not burn the food. He recognized the plays at normalcy. He would respect it. No need to push. There was a time and a place. Not at jail, two months away, in a cozy apartment. Krish had a list of plans. Slow-growing as they were, the bloom was coming.
It had to be nurtured and efforts came from equal parts. Julian had done an amazing job of that little saying, what was it? Keeping the dream alive. As a important component of that dream, the for-now-prisoner had done a great goddamn job. It must have been difficult. Krish also realized his perspectives were swinging from side to side like a loony-bin pendulum counting down.
Rubbing a cheek against his shoulder, Krish smiled down at nothing and held back a snort that would have been less sweet and more donkey-esque. This was a disgusting tender moment. Krish felt so soft and fought the compulsion to spill his disgusting emotions. His resistance stopped the calamity that would be a shower of praise and love. Instead, he settled for closing his eyes and taking another breath so it could release through his nose.
Was time upon them? Was this their last hurrah?
At least phone-wise.
"I get it. I know. It's good. Two months can pass-by. Listen, I'm really glad you called, and... you know, I miss you, I'm here for you. Take whatever time you need to write. I'm settled. That you're, uh, you know? Like, here. There. And talking. Home's always open for you, Julian. I got the blanket fort ready and a host of indulgences. It'll x be great."
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me...
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Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2016 12:21 am
   N E V E R L E T Y O U R F E A R D E C I D E Y O U R F A T E
'Home' was once a full suite of rooms in a building owned by his family. It had been a maze of plush carpets and polished mahogany, with floor-to-ceiling windows of thick suicide-prevention glass. Outside those windows, the city sprawled in a forest of glimmering lights and floating neon shapes, all the way out to the water at the far edge of the world. From the other side, staring over an equally thick stand of architecture, far away, had been the hint of trees where the city calmed down into far-flung suburbs, and then the green-belt that separated the crush of urban life from the more stately properties of the very wealthy. A few of those manor houses and lake houses and country houses and hunting cabins belonged to cousins, or uncles, or his own father, but Julian hadn't been to any of them since he was very young. He preferred the staff in the family building, because they understood that the little sir was very different from his brothers.
'Home' used to be following Teak through the penthouse that belonged to his parents-- usually his mother, really, since his father was so often away-- and straightening the delicate porcelain vases, or dusting the elegant curlicues on the cabinets. Climbing the stairs to the roof, with its lovely private garden, to net the pool there for any debris. Even sixty floors up, there were sometimes leaves that had been carried by a vagrant breeze. Sometimes his nieces and nephews would be there already, splashing merrily through the water, while their parents left the surveying of their safety to Willow or Maple. There was a little sign that listed the RULES OF THE POOL: No running, no rough-housing, no skinny dipping. At the edges of the roof, high fences made sure nobody could fall by accident, and outside the fences there were suicide nets to keep people from falling on purpose.
Every day, his mother was awake at 6am. Julian knew this about her, even though he rarely saw her on a day-to-day basis. He knew that by 7:15, she was dressed, hair done, face painted, listening to Liszt as one of the household slaves prepared an egg-white omelet for her breakfast. At 7:45, she was walking the penthouse in five-inch heels. Julian had never seen his mother be anything less than camera ready. Ink-black hair scooped into a sleek chignon, she was a delicate figure in a traditional ao dai, both the spoils and the prisoner of the war that was his father's third marriage. There had been such high hopes for her, but even with her illustrious lineage and her own prowess in the Psychic arts, she had only managed to give one small and insignificant son-- one who was touched only by one of the lesser magics, useless when his older half-brothers could harness fire and stone and poison. The cousins whispered that it was even her power-- one of the things that had once made the marriage seem so beneficial-- that was the real cause of her husband's absence. No one liked a woman who knew and saw too much, especially when she inevitably flew into rages about it. Some things were better unknown, unseen, unsaid. And so, she spent her days in the quiet, a doll made presentable every morning, on the off chance that someone may come to take her down from her shelf.
And 'Home' used to mean Julian trying to do that, if only for a few hours a week. He would dance her around the room, marveling at the tinyness of her waist and complimenting her rare smiles, trying to remind her of the times when she had felt free to venture out. Trying to remind her that, whether father came home or didn't, whether he lived or died or went to the moon to mine it for cheese, she had been Wèn Nhu Linh before him and she could be Wèn Nhu Linh now. But of course, she was set in her ways, and in the traditions of the family she'd married into. So she'd only gone all Good Will Hunting on him and told him that he didn't understand, because he had never loved anything more than he loved himself.
But he had.
He'd loved an idea.
And after that, 'Home' was a one-room apartment with a side-of-the-road sofa for a bed, and it had been robbed twice within his first year of staying there. At least he'd learned one thing from his extensive film-watching through the years, because Coyote Ugly let him know never to hide money in his freezer. The heat barely worked, and the air conditioning didn't work at all, so that in the summer he walked around the place all but naked, and in winter he wore every piece of clothing he owned. The water pressure was terrible, but the temperature was usually good, as long as no one else in the building was taking a shower, or doing dishes. It was a long and far cry from the high ceilings and tasteful decor he had known as a child, but as cliche as it seemed, it was at least his own. Something he improved on a little at a time, with every new job he took on, juggling shifts, taking extra hours, working out a dozen different side hustles to cover lights and food and phone and rent. At first, his father had even approved, thinking that Julian would inevitably come back with his tail between his legs, ready to succumb to The Plan that had been laid out for him. Or maybe it would "make a man" out of him, like getting down to business to defeat the Huns.
Instead, it had all shaken out in such a way that the family patriarch didn't want him to come back at all. No help, no lawyer, except some public defender who hadn't even really seemed that interested. "I have six other sons, Zhǔ Lì Ān. Sons who have made something of themselves, instead of resorting to petty crime. Understand that you are dead to us, from this day on. You no longer exist."
Sometimes, with the solid warmth of Odin pressed against him, fingers stroking through his hair, Julian had felt a twinge of that Home feeling. Like he was safe, and where he belonged. As though there were some kind of order to the world, some balance to all the chaos and brutality, just as long as night finally came and the werewolf was wrapped around him like the azurette was his favorite pillow. It had been.. a weak kind of sentimentality, that. Saccharine sweet, projecting his own muddled feelings onto the person who'd turned aside when Julian needed him most. And if Odin tried to hold him now, he'd feel.. what? He wasn't certain.
So the first Home was gone. Gates barred. The second Home was probably just as inaccessible, now. He hadn't exactly paid rent through his prison stay, so it was likely that all of his junk had either been stolen or sold off by the angry landlady who kept the building, unless Krish had somehow sweet-talked her into letting him box it all up to put it in storage. And the third Home had never really existed to begin with. It was a figment of his imagination.
Yet every letter he'd written, he'd kept telling Krish that he was coming home soon. Even now, when they were finally getting the chance to speak, that was what he'd said. Maybe 'home' was as simple as 'out-of-prison.' Or maybe it was something more complex than that. Maybe coming home really meant a return to the things that were normal and comforting, the things in the world that were good. Like taste-testing Krish's cooking, or spending hours playing Mario Party even though all the joystick-spinning minigames ruined both controllers and hands. Like being the real-life equivalent of MST3K through pretty much every film they had ever watched together. Like the time he changed Krish's contact photo in his phone to a picture of grumpy cat with a mustache. Just normal. Just the wash of happiness that came from knowing you were understood and accepted. That was home.
"I'm good with burnt. I always order 'burnt' here at the caf. That way, I don't ever have to question what I'm eating. Because, you know. I hear soylent green is people." A smile, which died as he cast another glance at the guard, who-- to his credit-- was kind enough to gesture for Julian to wrap things up instead of just yanking the phone from his hand and hanging up. "Look, Krish.. They're telling me I have to go now.. But uhm. If you don't mind, I may need to live in that blanket fort of yours for a little after I get out, if that's.. okay? It'll only be 'til I find a job or three, and then I'll only be at your place 14 of every 24 hours, like usual."
Guilt, immediate and heavy, settled in his stomach. After everything, here he was putting more on Krish's shoulders. Making himself an inconvenience, not being able to take care of himself. He'd make it up to the other man somehow, but until then Julian would go on feeling like ten pounds of s**t in a one pound sack.
"I have to hang up, but. I miss you, you know? I missed your voice. It's. It helped a lot. Getting to hear you, out loud. Take care of yourself, yeah?"
OOC: Of note is that Julian's father, in his little memory, is using his name as it's written on his birth certificate, wherein his middle name is listed as "主力" or "Zhǔ Lì", and his first name is listed as "安" or "Ān", indicating that these names were chosen for him by his mother, who is of Chinese and Vietnamese descent. This was later Americanized by the rest of the family (who have typical Anglo-Saxon names to match the paternal lineage) into "Julian." I am NOT fluent in Chinese, but I have constructed the calligraphy of Julian's name to HOPEFULLY mean something along the lines of, "The main force of an army, harboring good intentions."
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:49 pm
After they hung up the phone, Krish looked around his tall walls and ceiling that looked like guano and vowed to make many changes. He had made himself falsely accessible to many things and people in the world- except Julian- but even that had began to wall up. With a new life fitted with oddities and accomplishments, with revolving-door faces and names that wouldn't matter to him except as memories, Krish had the mentality that he would take care of me and mines. He'd killed without remorse for himself, stolen goods for himself, he'd provided services to help his own status and used services for his own gain. The only giving back that had began was in his practice and hell, sometimes that s**t he got paid for.
And like a Paramore song, who was the only exception?
Krish didn't know what it was like to feel this way about a person. He'd never gotten attached in his life. He knew people inside out and used it to appease rather than please. He'd known the inside of a cage and the false freedoms a room all his own promised. He'd known how to provoke his master into whipping him in front of all the guests, mind numbing the welts laid across his back and a**, rocking back and forth in the sea inside his mind until things calmed. He'd known how to twist the hurt to pleasure and took twisted pride through hazy vision when someone who'd taken his provoked bait got theirs. That's what he knew. The days of roaming that mansion were etched in every inch of him. If there had been a hard part, it was learning to preserve the boy who wanted freedom. It was learning to feed the boy who wanted freedom the morsels of hate that sustained him.
As he had been taught, the boy inside opened his mouth, on knees, hands under thighs, and allow himself to be fed in long intervals of silence. It fueled him. Excelling at swordmanship and gymnastics, stretching every part of his being until it was white hot and flowing with it.
Fenrir, because he was so wild and beautiful, a lone slave amongst the others. He stood separate, feared, hated. There was no one else before Krish or Fenrir, no one before Stripes or Spots, no one before the little wolf that woke up on a bed in pain without memories. Surrounded by so many, he'd been alone. The hold of his master had been comforting once and then he realized that he couldn't trust a human touch, he couldn't trust beauty or grace, he couldn't trust dainty things that made him feel as if he was more than the dirt he'd been born on. The overwhelming smell of roses had dominated his senses whenever he remembered that house. Roses and Barolo. Too sweet, filling the senses. Sometimes it painted the edge of his vision with spikes. Beautiful things couldn't be trusted. A home needed to be bare, plain, ugly, simple, void of any artistic effort or characteristic. Just a place to hide and heal when the thick of life knocked at you.
And wasn't that what he'd created?
It had clear markings of effort and respectability but there was nothing fanciful or lived-in looking about the place Krish called home. Maybe because he'd always been ready to run from anything that came for him, maybe because he'd never completely settled. Krish had planned a strategic way of existing where there were no roots to anchor him.
"One can never grow out of one's roots."
But he had none. His roots were forgotten after they were dead and he'd killed anything else that resembled them. What did he have? Who tied him
down?
You-know-who.
Could there have been resentment there? It was easy to hide what he did from Julian, and the sewing kit with its needles and slim blades was used for all purposes. All the days that he'd said he didn't care, however, were now rudely thrown into his face as Julian reaffirmed how gross Krish was and how gross Krish felt.
Did Julian have other friends? The slave knew that his personal life could be summed up to 'If Found, Return to ____" and Julian held the paired shirt. What little time they spent apart before Julian had gone away was usually filled with work and pains on both sides. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but what they needed to depend on was one another. And it made Krsih feel like someone who mattered. And that feeling was a good one.
So even though his smile hurt, Krish kept at it. It'd still pull at his face and muscles that would rather not be exercised, but eventually some of that poetic pain would ebb away.
"Of course I don't mind. There is always an open blanket in my make-shift fort, also made of blankets."Krish wanted nothing more than Julian being within immediate touching contact and half-way wrassled with the urge to take a week off of work to spend it with the azurette. There were patients that needed him- people need me- but god damn if his loyalty wasn't tampering with all kinds of things. Krish knew it was the end of what could be considered a good run. The conversation had lasted all of a few blinks. Maybe 30. His desires wanted to beg Julian to ask a guard, someone nearby for five more minutes. But that wasn't going to fly.
Tender. "All of that, and a bag of chips, the most... heart-felt of words cannot express how "same" that statement is. But, y'know. Ditto."Krish had never ditto'd so hard in his life. That ditto contained months' worth of heartfelt emotions. There were sonnets written in Julian's honor expressed in that d-i-t-t-o, and Krish hoped they all came through clearly.
"You're golden, Julian. I'll see you soon,"Krish promised and had to deal with not becoming overly emotional at the click of the phone's disconnect as his phone beeped, flashing the Call Ended screen.
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me...
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 12:39 am
N E V E R L E T Y O U R F E A R D E C I D E Y O U R F A T E
Hanging up the phone was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do.
For the few minutes he'd been given to hear his friend's voice, it was almost like Julian had never been gone to begin with. A tiny speck of normalcy that he clung to, running over the details of it every morning when he woke and every night when he succumbed to exhaustion. Cadence and tone and even the parts where one or both of their voices had hitched, caught, cracked, betraying that nothing was real and nothing was right. All of it played again, again, again, between his ears, and Julian used it as a safe haven from the other thoughts and memories that invaded in the wee hours and wouldn't leave. One day, none of those things would be real anymore. One day, he would forget. One day, he would use some of Krish's heavy psychology books to pin the corner of a blanket on top of a table, and then tie the other corners through the rungs of different chairs. And they would sit in the little cave it created, grown men lounging on the floor in a tumble of pillows with mismatched cases, laughing as they watched some old, terrible movie. That would be reality, and everything else would disappear.
The men whose hands had held him down would disappear. And their leering eyes and their grinning mouths. Smug faces and probing fingers and-- One day, Julian would forget the way they had looked above him, jeering while he struggled. The way they laughed, like his begging was the best joke they'd ever heard. How it had felt to be torn open and turned inside out, left in the dirt to bleed and cry and know that he had only ever been, would only ever be, just a body. All those things would be gone. The beige world with its walls and sky and floor all painted a no-color-- it would be gone. The little cell with the metal bars and the sheets he needed to straighten every morning would be gone. And Odin.
Odin, for whom he had felt.. something. Sympathy, concern, curiosity, gratitude, anxiety, admiration, fear, want, fondness, trust--
Had Odin watched?
Julian had searched the crowd of inmates that had screened the show from the guards, turning his head this way and that in frantic hope that the werewolf would be there, would keep him safe. And then there had been hands in his hair, pulling, wrenching him into a new position, and he'd realized how stupid he had been to search for the help that wasn't coming. Odin, who could be so gentle when he wanted to be. Odin, whom the others had so quickly learned to fear because of what he was and how strong he'd become in such a short time.
In time, even the sick weight of betrayal would be gone, like none of this had ever happened.
It was what Julian told himself with the water streaming down his body, pooling at the small of his back from the exaggerated arch of his spine. Chest and cheek presses to cold tiles, hair a wet cascade around his face, so blue and bright. He didn't bother to brace himself against the wall, arms slack at his sides as the shower rained down on him. He was only a body now, and the two who were on him could take, and take, but they would never find him. The body was just the shell he lived inside. The livid bruises on his flesh, the marks of their fingers where they dug in at his hips and thighs. The angry red of teeth on his throat, along the curve of his shoulder. All of these things were real now, but one day they would disappear too.
Julian promised himself these things in the dark, lips moving, slow and soundless. In the daylight hours, he wrote and posted as many letters as the guards would allow. All of them went to Krish.
He'd had friends once, or people that he'd believed were friends. Co-workers from his many jobs. People he had known at school. Haven members that he had helped. Julian would have even added his ex-girlfriends to the list. The thing was, a lot of those people didn't know or wouldn't accept what the azurette wanted to do with his life. Of the people who did, many had a distrust of him regardless of what he'd done for them, because of his upbringing. They didn't want to associate with a master, no matter how benevolent he might be. Once they had what they wanted from him, they went on to their new lives.
The metal mage was a different story.
Krish was his best friend. He had gone to such lengths to send Julian letters and books. And maybe one day, Julian would be able to really explain how those things had saved his life. How, every day, he would unfold paper after paper and read about all the things they were going to do once he was free. One day, just maybe, the azurette could say, "When it happened again, I climbed down deep inside myself, where they couldn't reach me. And I was able to do that because of you. Because I knew somebody, somewhere, gave a damn."
My cellmate's sentence is up. And you might say: But Julian, won't they just give you another cellmate? And what I would say to you, dear Krish, is that actually, my mystical ability to get a fever at the drop of a hat has finally paid off. That's right. All this coughing, aching, and sneezing has finally culminated in yours truly being allowed a cell that's one-hundred percent my own. Sure, there's only about a month and a half left of me being here, but better late than never, right?
The truth was that he'd been sexually assaulted three times in the last four months-- all of them in places where the guards should have been paying close enough attention to realize that something violent was happening. Julian doubted that the single cell was an effort at protecting him, so much as it was probably an effort at protecting the prison from his father's wrath. If the staff had been aware that he'd become persona non grata, they likely wouldn't have bothered, but the azurette didn't see any reason whatsoever to correct them.
I'm telling you, first off, we're going to watch Big Trouble in Little China. This is, of course, after we have taken a year-long walk through every park in the city, on account of my newfound appreciation for things like sunlight, trees, and topiaries. Are topiaries technically trees, or are they shrubs? Is there a difference between a shrub and a shrubbery?
OOC: I apologize greatly for how crap this post is. I'm half asleep, writing this. Boo. Hiss.
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Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 10:25 am
"So your horrible constitution has finally given you more than a reason to store up on my blankets and soup. Try not to run yourself into a mind-fry from joy, I'm afraid of all the ways this situation will only result in you getting even sicker. Victory by fear of plague! You've hit the scoreboards. The crowd goes wild and I, as your soccer-mom-screamer, am the loudest one of them all."
Hot breath was pooling against his neck and Krish, again, yearned for the comfort of one of his knives, one of his blankets, and one of his life-lines. The push to live a steady enough life to be emotionally succinct for Julian was a trying experience. He didn't understand how he'd dealt with this as a teenager or how his friend had dealt with it as a man. The talks of being an experimentation was probably supposed to excite him but the slave reveled in none of the new status granted to him by the resurfaced annoyance from First and Only Date. Except this was Technically Second, seeing as how a study session had slowly morphed into a foray with alcohol and touching. Krish didn't know what stopped him from throwing a fit and his arms and legs weren't working as they should yet. A part of him leaned into the affection like the trained mutt he was. Shame was curdling him again. He looked forward and saw nothing but Julian and wished he was there.
The hot breath was driving himself home while inebriated and Krish didn't have the push in him to argue. He paid for the bill. He paid for his sacrificed time, wiping at his neck as he walked home. Affection in words he could do. After trying to be casual and extend his boundaries, it did not seem very possible to be or do anything but verbal communication. The months of communication with Julian had shaped his new preferences (another problem he saw with how heavily he weighed the prisoner) and progress physically had declined, an unchecked meter caked with dried liquid as it receded to its source. Though there was no doubt that he certainly wanted that kind of thing. Did he? He didn't know anymore. Words were intimate in their own way. He'd been denied them for so many years of his life, not knowing how to speak properly, barely comprehending text he saw on walls or name plates. Kept dumb to prevent any talk-back, any intelligence, to live in ignorance and only know one world. How hard had he tried to spell his master's name and the names of his other torturers only to give up, angry and in tears?
They meant something, words. He couldn't use them very well when he spoke. He had to rehearse basic conversation for quite some time. But he let them come across the pages and he made sure he felt the weight of each undotted 'i' and slanted 't'.
So how could he make things better with them alone, when Julian was certainly in need of something more?
Returning to class to feel eyes on his was not foreign to him and all the more unwelcomed. Krish took notes and stared at the man several seats up from the dim reflection of his laptop's screen. His throat was tightening uncomfortably and the slave realized he could never get a license to carry because the inspection would be too deep. So anything he did to defend himself would be illegal, and have to be hidden, and have to be isolated. The violence in him was shuddering for an excuse, just one misstep to quench him. His body was wrung tight. He needed release. He needed something.
Krish left feeling entirely selfish and went to lettering almost immediately after.
"Can I also nominate horror flicks into this mix? I'm thinking a binge on pure scares. Something like the Poltergeist. No, wait, it's Exorcist isn't it. I will never not mix up the names. Also, The Grudge. Get a few found footage, a lot of laughables. Throw in a few foreign ones so we'll be forced to stare at the screen and not hide in each other. But we'll probably end up cowering and asking every five minutes what's being said with our heads in the popcorn bowl like a bunch of ostriches. It'll be Patented Greatness."
Yoga was certainly helping ease out the worry. There was a month and a half left. Krish had to crystalize his apartment space to flow good energy, and make sure he expelled any lingering bad things- save himself. He also needed to find a place to hide his medication more conveniently and perhaps think of using the broom closet as an actual storage facility instead of somewhere dark and closed to feel safe.
But it could be done. That was the important part. And it would be. A month and a half. If Julian could make it, then Krish certainly should be able to breeze through no problem. The days were capped off on a desk calendar to add to the growing excitement and distinct fear bubbling inside of his veins.
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me... ooc;; you're fiiiiine, you're FIIIINE, I love all your posts with all my heart's worth
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Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 8:02 pm
N E V E R L E T Y O U R F E A R D E C I D E Y O U R F A T E
By the time you read this, I might actually be on your doorstep like the Oliver Twist extra I am, so I debated whether or not to send a letter when it's only a difference of a couple days now.
Time passed slowly, for as little of it as there was left. The cell was no smaller than it had been before-- and it should have seemed larger, really, without Odin in it, taking up space, pacing the floors. But most days, Julian didn't move from his place on the top bunk, staring at a crack that ran its way across the concrete ceiling. A new guard came in on rotation and asked once if the azurette had fried his brain on drugs or if he'd always been a space cadet. For his part, Julian hadn't answered at all-- only trained his too-bright eyes on the floor and kept them there until the uniform went on his way.
He'd had a schedule to keep for exactly half his own sentence, barring, of course, the times he'd been in infirmary, or solitary confinement for his own protection. Wake up. Make his own bed. Wait for the werewolf to make enough noise that it was clear he, too, had left the realm of sleep. Make the lower bunk before guards made their rounds. So much of what he'd done for months now had been in reaction to Odin's habits or anger or demands, and now, with all of those things absent, hours stretched for what felt like days. The aches and pains of his body subsided in the relative safety of seclusion, close enough to hear the other inmates, but far enough away that they never touched. And for that, every part of him was grateful.
At night, he'd wake from a nightmare and find that he'd somehow climbed down in the dark to curl on the empty bottom bunk. Embarrassed and angry at himself, the azurette climbed the ladder again, back to his own territory, but inevitably found himself in the same position a day or two later. It was stupid and sad, really, but it wasn't like he chose to do it. Wasn't like his mind, warped out of comprehension, could possibly still associate Odin with safety even after he was gone. Whatever their arrangement had been, it hadn't been affectionate. Not even friendly, exactly. In the silence after the lights went out, Julian thought about it until exhaustion claimed him, but he still didn't have any answers.
What had those small moments of gentleness been? What had they meant, if the mage was just a teddybear to hold in the dark, or a doll to ******** into the mattress? There was a part of the azurette that understood implicitly how it had been, at least on his own end. He had fabricated the possibility of attachment to make himself feel better, to make himself believe that the way he'd behaved with Odin had been more than pragmatism. More than survival. Those seconds of tenderness had been, for Julian, evidence he clung to that the other man wasn't just using him. And he had become ridiculously sentimental, finding a sharp, fierce beauty in the harsh lines of Odin's face. Had felt a vague pride that the other man was so strong, so ruthlessly capable of defending himself if necessary, that the other inmates learned to keep well clear. For a time, Julian had fallen under the umbrella of that influence, and been protected by it. And because of that, no matter how rough their coupling became, the mage reminded himself to be grateful that Odin never shared him.
At least, not at first.
He wasn't sure whether it had been a trade, or a lapse in the werewolf's typically territorial nature. All Julian knew was that the things that had happened to him had appeared accepted by the strawberry blonde. And not knowing why, not having a reason.. It festered at the back of the azurette's mind. Not knowing what all this had been for, whether there had been any ounce of feeling to any of it, made the reality he now had to live with that much more difficult.
And there was never going to be an answer.
In less than two weeks, he would be sent back to the outside world, and after a year in what amounted to a series of concrete boxes, the thought was as overwhelming as it was enticing. Julian was a different person than he'd been before, chipped and scuffed, all his smooth edges cracked. And suppose the people he'd known out there couldn't understand that? Suppose he couldn't function anymore outside of walls like these? Suppose there were things about him now that made it all to obvious how soiled he really was?
And what would he say to Krish, who had written so much and so often? What could he say that wouldn't be a crushing revelation of how many of his letters had been lies?
There's so much. There has been a lot that I haven't said. Written. Things that I'll need to explain to you when we see each other again. I guess part of me is scared that you'll look at me and I'll seem like I'm this alien, this stranger. If I'm honest, I'm scared of a lot, now. I'm scared of how probation will be, and whether I'll be able to get a job. Scared mostly that I'm not the same, and that I won't know how to get back to the person I was before all of this. If that person exists anymore. I'm not sure about that.
The urge was there to just throw the letter in the bin and start again. Make up something more lighthearted. Create the necessary banter. But he owed Krish a lot, and Julian put the pencil back to the paper, resigned to giving his friend this warning, this chance to get out of the way of the trainwreck that the ink mage had turned into.
I feel like everybody will know when they look at me. Like it's on me, the way my fingerprints are on me, and from now on there won't be a single set of eyes that doesn't look at me and see it.
He could have meant the prison sentence. He could have meant that mark on his record, for the stupidity of following a plan implemented by lackwits without the skills to get through the job. But then, he and Krish both knew that Julian considered those things getting off easy. If he'd been caught forging papers for slaves instead of counterfeiting currency, he'd be in the Slaver Division right now, and what they'd put him through would make Odin and all the rest look delicate by comparison.
I don't want this to be all I am. I don't want any of this to have happened at all. Because there's no ending it, it just goes on and on in my head. What-if this meant this? What-if that was really that? No answers. No saying anything that matters. No way of knowing for certain.
I'll explain better soon. I'll make sense of this for you, even if I never tell it all to another soul in this world. I swear I don't mean to upset or worry you. I swear that the times I've lied have been to protect you, and myself.
I swear I won't kill myself when I get out.
You are, as ever, incredibly kind. Thank you. ; ;
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Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2016 3:40 pm
One day, Krish was scared he forgot. It had been a culmination of disastrous implications taken from the events that happened. He'd woken early with an aching body and set to lazy yoga to ease out his pain and sleep, made a really note-worthy cup of chai tea, and went for a walk before he arrived at work. The office had been coming along well. For now he was the only one working there. The welcoming table had arrived a few days ago when Krish had taken to painting. A radio played Stromae and Sango as he smoothed warm colors over the cracked wall, alone in a space meant for others, happy to have time to himself. The threat of imprisonment dogged his heels but he'd left his shoes at the front and walked around like he truly had no care in the world. He pushed around furniture and hung small paintings. He put minerals in jars and shook them, leaving them by crystals on the window in his office. He burned sage on a string and let the room smell like incense.
There was no drawer filled with pills and cocktail recipes. There was no sewing kit filled with sharpened blades, and he wore a tanktop and a pair of khakis like he was proud of the pain he'd been through and what he'd done to himself. They didn't exist. He was floating on normalcy. He was every neurotypical middle-aged man who was just enjoying a day of renovation at the office.
He'd left in the afternoon, putting a jacket on and heading to the grocery store. As he trailed up and down the halls he was fine. No one was staring into his back. He didn't need to worry. Krish pushed a curry packet into his cart and continued, ignoring the small bounces that his cart gave from the shotty back wheel.
When did Julian get out?
"I don't know if you'll get this in time, but I'm hoping it goes through anyways."
All the times he'd wept over a saint, all the times he'd grown distant in his own life, felt lost and anxious, felt nervous, felt guilt. Had he forgotten? The numbers were spinning in his head and Krish couldn't move. Julian's smile and laughter hadn't faded but he found himself thinking harder, reaching to claw the bright memories of hands and scrawled text. Had he forgotten?
Sitting at his desk at home, he fought back the tears and had a bowed head. There was no hard battle. He kept strong and held on, because it was something he had known. Krish's intuition hardly faltered. If he believed something, he kept the hold strong. Julian's banter and quirks and lightness had only assured that his friend was alive and that he could use his hands. But was he okay? He'd always asked that. But was Julian St. Jude okay? Why ask that if he knew the answer and that was a non-negotiable 'no.'
The letter only confirmed it. It tore at him, on the inside, that he'd let these things happen. What kind of friend had he been, to not even ask? What kind of friend was he to forget the release date of the only person that had been there for him throughout so much time?
"I've always known, just a little, that things weren't peachy. And I don't want you to think I'm hurt that you didn't tell me. I'm not upset or angry. I wanted our correspondence to be a good one. That you could back on and smile. Reliving things textually wouldn't have helped".
Julian would be home in a few days. He was wondering if he'd get a message to pick him up. He hoped that they gave the azurette money and maybe a bus ticket to find his apartment complex. As time clocked past, doors became more important. Ghosts no longer lingered in his dreams but their manifestations came elsewhere. Always near doors. But he had purchased a small hanging pot of miscellaneous thin flowers and put it nicely on the underside of his address plate. He cleaned more. He didn't cry as much. He worried, fretted, but didn't cry.
He had to be strong. He promised that.
We'll say more words when we see each other. Know that I support you Julian, I always will. It's going to be a lot of hurting pains but I'm here for you. You're going to figure things out. It's going to be a lot. But you won't be alone doing it. You're still Julian, even if there are little things missing, even if there are new parts. The original design is there.
It was getting closer now. Krish closed up his shop and walked home with his car in the shop, hands dug deep in his pockets as he continued. The seasons had changed so many times with Julian gone. He wanted to show him that there was still enjoyment to be found in the world. That there were things that held who he was. That they could go together on a dark road and they could surface.
There's a lot to be said. And they'll get said. I believe in you, Julian. All parts of you, shamelessly, I believe in you. We'll see each other soon. There's going to be a lot of food. And a lot of love."
Krish scheduled to take a week off of work.
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me...
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