|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 4:27 pm
It was deja vu when he hit the concrete, trying to curl his body to keep his abused skull from striking the ground. Odin had pushed him out of bed too, so the mage took it as a signal that the storm had passed. And for half a second what Julian felt was relief, because surely if Hotts kicked him away it meant that the older man intended him to crawl back across the hall and be a clear message. The deal was off, and Hotts had taken his anger out on the azurette, and now it could be over. Julian would worry about the consequences later, would always be more aware of where Hotts was in a room after this, would feel the appropriate fear that he hadn't before. He'd apologize for what Odin did to the man's face. If could just get away right now.
He didn't even have the chance to roll over, to try to drag his bleeding body to its feet, before the ravenette was on him again. Julian's hands reflexively came up, forearms trying to bar his throat as Hotts moved above him, as though he believed the larger man's knee meant to bear down on his Adam's apple. It would crush his laryx, turn his airway into a broken ruin, and he would die like that, choking. But Hotts had other ideas, others ways of strangling him, and no matter how much he thrashed under the ravenette's weight, Julian couldn't dislodge the prisoner straddling his chest. Crushing him. Making his lungs burn with the inability to expand. A feeling the mage knew from a dozen nightmares, except now it was worse. Because it was Hotts above him, blood falling in warm metallic drops from his broken face. And his hands were razors and his words promised pain and humiliation and Julian was only a moth so he couldn't break free-- onlyamothonlyaninkmageprettybutuselessprettybutuselessprettybut--
The thin line of his Ink twisted around Hotts' wrist, too little, unfelt. Even the mage didn't realize it was there, didn't remember what it was a portent of, what it was capable of doing if he just applied himself. There were a thousand moths at the back of his mind, battering themselves against a bare lightbulb, and the image was so clear, so precise, that it had to be his brain starving for air, just the fear, just the certainty that he was about to die here. Every part of him would die like this, outside and in, and they would tell his family, who didn't care, but no one would tell Krish. And he'd keep sending letters, or maybe they'd return them stamped Recipient Deceased and then what? Then what? Then what? The thread at Hotts' wrist was so small, so fine, but it twisted slowly, rubber band tight, circling the joint where hand met forearm, a minor irritation, nothing compared to the man's ruined face. But it spun and it tightened and--
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON ?
Thin as spider silk, the line on Hotts' skin snapped, dissolved into harmless droplets of black ink that dripped away at his first movement. The only evidence it had been there at all was a perfect ring of reddened skin, similar to a mild rope burn, where the constantly shifting liquid had rubbed away at the ravenette's flesh. It was nothing. A tiny detail barely noticed. And not noticed at all, honestly, by the smaller man. He was still on the floor, breathing in short, panicked gasps that shook his frame, but he knew better than to correct Hotts' version of events-- no matter how much the man's explanation made his skin crawl-- or ask for help. The guard wouldn't believe him. Would think he was trying to get out of his reprimand, not understanding that Julian's real punishment had already started. And if he did? Worse still. The way Hotts behaved made Odin's treatment of the mage seem saintly by comparison. Maybe Julian could hide for a little while, but not forever, and if he stoked the ravenette's anger by snitching then he'd probably wish Hotts had ended his life here.
So the azurette rose. Slowly, painfully, bleeding from dozens of small cuts over his chest and stomach. The split just under his eye. His inner thighs. A multitude of new pains to add to his old ones. But Julian wiped the tears from his cheeks, hissing softly when he touched the bruised and bloodied half of his face. His uneven breathing hitched when his hands came away smeared with black, and his throat constricted inexplicably. There was no chance of looking normal, no way to construct a facade. Even if he changed the color now, he would still be wearing his own blood, and every person in the place would see. Odin would see. Hotts had actually called for the werewolf, and what did that mean? Why would he do that? Julian couldn't focus on it enough to form an idea. His head hurt too much, and finally the azurette reached back to feel for the cut there, where the shifter-- that's what he was, wasn't he?-- had slammed him against the bars. He couldn't feel broken bone, so it couldn't be as bad as he felt, but then Hotts touched his shoulder and the mage flinched under the contact. Jumped. Felt the world tilt a little at the movement and knew there was probably a concussion in there somewhere.
But he had to move. Hotts was watching him, expecting him to go. So the azurette took one small step, and then another, trying to put the width of the hallway between them so that he could lean against the wall. Winced on the third stride from the way movement pulled at the cuts on his thighs and made what was between them ache painfully from how it had been handled. He felt sick through every fibre of his being. Didn't lift his eyes from the floor to see if Odin was going to move with them down the corridor, because it wouldn't do any good. He didn't want to see the confusion or revulsion or both that always washed over a person's face when he bled and the color was wrong. Wrong inside. Abnormal. It's supposed to be red, Jules! Why did that look in anyone's eyes always make him feel guilty?
Julian had tried to secure safety for the blonde in the only way he could, but obviously he'd failed. Obviously Hotts would never consider the trade now, and who knew how long the werewolf's sentence was. Even in his cloud of hurt, Julian knew there were worse things than what had happened today. Many of them would likely happen to him in the next twenty four hours.
And now, it would all be for nothing.
So when Odin passed near, the azurette didn't lift his eyes from the ground. The mage wrapped both arms around his own body like folding in on himself would cover the black stains on his uniform, or the oil-colored liquid still lazily welling from the cut on his face. And there was no greeting.
Only an apology that never made it to his mouth.
Ooc: Sorry for how s**t this is. D: I was forced to type it on my phone. Also, assumed Odin would come out of his cell. If not, I'll edit. XD
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 10:13 pm
Odin's head began pounding. He disliked the lights. He still wasn't sure what drug he was on. At first it felt good. His brain moving a million miles a minute while his body struggled to keep up. The feeling was like walking on clouds. But then it started to feel as though it was dragging him down. His body heavy, the lights too bright. Body pulsing. Thump. Thump. Thump. His heart beat was everywhere. The werewolf placed his blankets over his head to try and stop the lights from giving him a bad trip. Maybe I'm just sobering. He thought as he tried to pull the blankets tighter round his body. He needed his skin to feel like it wasn't going to fall off. He needed his whole body to stop pulsing as though he was one giant heartbeat.
Smack.
Odin heart a lot of movement across the hallway. He could hear the low voice as Hotts spoke, the timid noises and quiet begging Julian made. The noises carried over, but the words didn't. Odin couldn't do anything but imagine what was happening. When the werewolf did imagine the scene, it wasn't Hotts and Julian. It was Odin. Himself shoving Julian around and making the boy let out those desperate squeaks as he begged for breath or freedom. It didn't feel right though. Odin knew he wasn't the one doing any of that. He had so many feelings swelling around and didn't know if it felt wrong because he was on comedowns or a bad trip. Or if he was guilty or possessive or what. This was for drugs, wasn't it? For jail to be tolerable. What if Hotts just had a bunch of shitty drugs that Odin wouldn't like? Why couldn't he just have normal s**t like before prison? How was Odin going to feel if he had Julian do all this for nothing?
Screams. Not Julian's. A guard's. The werewolf stopped twisting and turning which was his only line of defense as he attempted to stop the pulsing that was aggressively tearing through his body. He went still as he tried his hardest to disappear. If the guard were to notice Odin's eyes were dilated or he were acting silly. If the guard were to notice the blond's jittery digits or the beads of sweat dripping from his forehead for no reason. God knows Odin didn't want time added to his sentence. His eyes went wide as he realized Hotts and Julian had definitely just been caught doing something bad. He hadn't listened to the words that the guard and inmates exchanged, but he did hear something about commissary taken away. Who took it? To where? Odin lost track of time as he shut his eyes tighter.
"Cypress." Odin was ungracefully dragged back into reality. "You'll miss lunch if you don't get up." Hotts. Saving Odin from being trapped behind that mental brick wall that kept him glued beneath the covers. Odin quickly pushed the blankets aside and sat up. A flood of lights hit Odin's face all at once which honestly spooked the ******** out of the male. He cringed before noticing the guard and took one awful sobering breath as he got to his feet. Natural. Odin needed to act natural. How could he do that? By just listening to whatever Hotts said. "Let's go." Odin trotted behind the raven headed shapeshifter catching the taste of iron in his mouth. No, his nose.
You did that. Odin thought to himself. "I know." He whispered barely audible. It was difficult not being able to talk to himself when sober. Now that he wasn't right in the head it was impossible to prevent. Good. Some piece of the male's brain said rewarding the monster with a rush of endorphins. For that moment, everything was alright as Odin walked down the hallway following the leader. Odin wasn't sure how many people they passed. He wasn't sure what the message was when he submissively followed Hotts staring at the ground as he tried to look sober, sullen, and scary. It was too hard to be relaxed and act high when he was going to a crowded place like the cafeteria. Hell, it was too hard to even experience all his comedowns if he was at that stage of the high. He still wasn't sure if he'd been given shitty drugs or not.
Hotts lead the two straight to the line for food. Odin mindlessly grabbed a tray and followed the stragglers who were getting food so late into their lunch hour. Hotts had a couple of his small group of misfits saving him a seat. When he approached their half the lunch table Faulkner, the elf, was particularly impressed. "What the ******** happened here?" Odin finally glanced up to make his first contact with other people since he left his makeshift blanket fort. Hotts looked like s**t, but he also looked proud.
Odin's eyes dropped to his food as he quietly forced the pre-frozen spinach down his throat. Odin never appreciated real food so much until he tried prison food for the first time. Once he cleared the fake tasting greens he turned his head freezing up as he saw what shape Julian was in. It was one thing to hear everything and paint his own imagry in his head as to what happened. It was another to have to face reality and see the truth. Odin sent Julian in so he'd be able to get more prison makeshift drugs. More drugs that hardly lasted more than a half hour. That made him feel awful so quickly. Addict destructive behaviors. A lot of words that were constantly thrown around during the prison drug support group began to knock around from one side of Odin's head to the other. Odin glanced back down at his tray of food.
"Hm?" Odin slowly glanced around at each face to see everyone staring at him. He'd zoned out so much that he ignored the bickering and chatter that had been bouncing around the table. "Sure." Odin muttered, not caring what he was even agreeing to. He was too bummed out to care. Odin's eyes drifted back to Julian. He stared at the boy's stained skin. Black. But then again, Odin already knew. The familiar text that wrapped around the boy's skin when he was trying to be silent and communicate with Odin. He glanced towards Hotts. Did the shapeshifter get to see Julian's text? For some reason, Odin didn't want anyone to read Julian but him. It was their thing.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ LOCATION ● Saxon City Prison. xxx SONG ● | X | xxx FEELING ● ******** style="font-size: 11px">▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 10:44 pm
There was a ringing in his ear that wouldn't quite stop. Maybe it never did, and he only got used to it, so the lulls were just periods of deafness. That was probably a bad sign, like the dizziness, and the way the back of his head felt like it was throbbing slowly. A concussion, or maybe the result of whatever he'd leeched out of Odin's arm earlier, or both. Julian had tried to keep himself next to the wall as he followed in Hotts' wake on the way to the cafeteria, using the flat concrete surface as a means of making sure he could stay upright. Even more, he'd tried to keep the werewolf between his battered frame and that of the ravenette. Odin didn't need the shifter's ire any more than Julian did, but the blonde was more equipped to handle it than the mage, whose every step was a lesson in pain. Each one made him worry that Hotts would turn around to collect him because he was going too slowly, but that fear at least seemed unfounded. There were guards out here. Not enough privacy for the older man to continue savaging Julian without the threat of punishment. But the azurette didn't want to chance it. Not when he knew that Hotts could just wrap the razors of his hand around his upper arm and dig deep, looking like he wasn't even doing anything. He had thought of the shifter as a pest before, like a mosquito. Now, Julian understood better how bad things could get.
The smell of food made his stomach turn, but the azurette chose a tray in an attempt to avoid any further attention-- which was impossible, considering how he looked. He wouldn't be able to eat, not now, but extra portions of food never went amiss with other prisoners, no matter how foul the stuff tasted, and Julian wanted nothing more right now than to appease. So the ink-stained young man followed Odin in line, glancing up only once to check the dilation of the werewolf's eyes. Did his own look that way? Probably not. What little effect the azurette had felt was long gone now, flushed from his system with the kick of adrenaline that had accompanied his fear and suffering. He certainly didn't feel calm, or shrouded in a light fog of wellbeing, as he had before. His pulse was still beating in the back of his head, and that feeling seemed to fit into every vein in his body, but he believed that had more to do with the head injury. What he wanted to do was ask whether Odin was alright, but doing so would almost certainly earn more of Hotts' anger. And in this place, with other people milling around, inking a message onto the battered canvas of his skin would almost inevitably go awry. The werewolf was too out of it to notice, seeming to only realize that the mage was there when the azurette settled-- tentatively, casting a questioning look at Hotts to determine whether it would result in violence-- beside him at the table. Mercifully, the shifter seemed to be basking in the attention his lackeys were showing him, as though the dark-haired man had roped the moon. Considering that he'd walked into the cafeteria looking for all the world like he'd gotten a werewolf to join up with his group, maybe that comparison wasn't so far off the mark. But with the ragtag circle of Hotts' cronies gathered at the table, the azurette definitely wasn't going to hazard Inking anything to Odin. The last thing Julian needed was for anyone here to realize his potential as a method of sending covert messages to other prisoners.
Because he couldn't entertain the idea of eating anything, the mage pushed his tray carefully to the center of the table, within reach of the others assembled. A tiny effort at establishing good will where it was likely that none would ever find root. It was unfair to judge the other men at the table just for their association with the ravenette. After all, Odin was there too, and he wasn't nearly as bad. Maybe the elf and all the rest had been roped in by Hotts over time. The optimistic glimmer that had once shown so bright in Julian's mind was tempered now by experience, but it wasn't gone entirely. The probability wasn't very high that the shifter could maintain a reign of terror over too many others-- and the rest of them looked like they could probably hold their own if they needed to. Not like the azurette. That meant they were with Hotts by choice or because he could offer them something that they wanted. Like safety. That was the entire point of the deal Julian himself had made, even if it wasn't exactly that straightforward. Nobody did well in this place without someone to watch after them-- the mage himself being an excellent example. He'd been physically safe during his months in solitary, but once the mental and emotional toll had gotten too high he'd returned to the aquarium as a very small fish in a gigantic tank. And everyone in it wanted to make him a remora.
Julian stayed silent while the rest of them ate, listening as they nattered on and griped at one another, or otherwise congratulated Hotts with sly remarks that the azurette didn't like at all. Faulkner and the rest seemed to regard the mage as a new acquisition, and Julian wasn't sure how he felt about it. Terrified. Disgusted. Absurdly, in the tiniest measure, relieved. He hadn't failed, then. Not completely. Whatever it meant-- and he wasn't stupid enough to believe it would mean anything but pain-- if he had been traded, then Odin wouldn't be alone if anyone else came after him. Stupid to still be worried about that, stupid to feel like the cuts all over his body had meaning again, or that that somehow made them easier to bear.
But it did.
The world needed moths, too. Even if only to crush them.
It was the weight of the blonde's gaze that made him look up again, furtive, because eye contact wasn't something Odin liked on a regular basis. But the werewolf wasn't exactly looking at him, as much as the splotches of black that covered his body. Immediately, Julian bowed his head again, embarrassed, trying to focus on drawing the ink back down, into the filtering layers of his flesh, the same way he'd blot a tattoo from anyone else's skin or the words from a book. What covered the mage wasn't synthetic, but his own organic supply-- what passed for blood in Julian's body. It wouldn't make him sick the way other kinds would, although it was painful at the moment to force the oil-black liquid into injured skin. The cuts didn't melt away, didn't close or heal, but each stain grew smaller by increments, drawn out of the cloth of his uniform, out of his hair, and off of the surface of his body. It took the rest of the meal to manage it, his fingers curled around the edge of the table, eyes down so that Hotts wouldn't see the way the black blood crawled back up his cheek and into the split there, on a slow rewind of its former path.
He hid in his own mane of turquoise tresses when the cafeteria was cleared, letting the fall of it shadow the sides of his face as the remaining inmates were ushered back into the halls by uniforms and warned that there damn well better not be any stupid s**t before lights out. The words were pointed enough that Julian was sure they referred to Hotts and himself-- and the disgusting lie that the older man had told. The hyena cackle of the other members of the ravenette's little group made him tense, because it seemed that they had a joke amongst themselves that the mage didn't know. Or maybe he was the joke. Maybe now that the deal had been witnessed by every man around that table in the cafeteria, the time before lights out-- when Julian would be locked again inside the cell he shared with Odin-- would be a new circle of hell. The way they muttered to one another, not quite close enough for the azurette to understand the gist of the words, brought the clawing panic back into his throat again. Hotts looked so pleased with himself. So smug. So proud, even with his broken nose.
How long would it be before that face was snarling down at him again? How long before the ravenette smashed his head against the floor or the bars or the frame of a bed? How long before--
The hall was almost empty, figures milling about in-or-outside their cells or those of members of their respective gangs. And Julian wanted to slip through the door of the little concrete room that belonged to he werewolf-- and to a lesser extent, himself. When had that cell started to seem safe? Probably as soon as he'd become acquainted with Hotts' razor-tipped hands and he weight of the dark-haired man bearing down on his chest.
He knew where he wanted to go. What he didn't know was where he would be expected or allowed. His eyes moved to Odin, questioning, then veered to the shapeshifter, realizing that it might earn him further punishment if it seemed like he was ignoring Hotts' authority.
Please. And the thought was so loud that it had to show on his face, a pleading look. Let me go, this time. I swear I'll do what I promised, but just this time, let me go.
Somehow, he didn't think he'd be so lucky.
Ooc: D: Brain crapped out. Too tired. My apologize for this shitpost.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 4:52 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 12:05 am
Life was all about choices.
People often said that they didn't have a choice. That they had to do this thing, or that thing. And Julian himself had fallen prey to that feeling, more and more. He didn't have to help Troy counterfeit all that money. He could have stood his ground and waited to see whether the ex-slave would make good on his death threats. He didn't have to come back from solitary. He could have found a way to get thrown back in the beige box and stayed there until he wasn't Julian anymore. Until self harm became suicide and they put his body in a box or cremated it or donated it to science. Whatever. He didn't have to decline every offer he'd received once he was back in gen pop. He could have crawled under Hotts the first time he asked, or one of the others. Someone who would treat him like a pet or a puppet and pass him around like a favor until, again, Julian no longer existed. Until the shell they wanted was there, and the thing inside it had gone away. Maybe he would have even learned to like it. Maybe his touch-starved skin would have made the pain acceptable. And it had, hadn't it? With Odin, it had. He didn't have to twist things the way he did, subverting the violence and turning it into.. something else. That had been shameful. What he'd done to the other man was unforgivable. And he'd done it thinking that there was no choice. But there had been. There always was. No one wanted to choose suffering, but it was still an option. In the real world, nobody went through with the heroic ideal of I'd rather die than.., but the truth was that fear didn't absolve anyone of the things they did to avoid that path.
Julian didn't want to go with Hotts. More than anything in the world, he wished for the beige box, for a foreseeable future without a sky, for the right to end his own suffering when and how he saw fit, instead of succumbing to an abuse that would break him down to the foundations. That hand was on his wrist, and it clamped down with enough pressure that the bones ground against one another under his skin, but he didn't have to go. He could yell and kick and struggle until a guard came, and he could tell the truth, and maybe he'd be sent back to solitary. And for however long he was there, Julian would be almost safe. The only threats to him would be the silence and himself. Not so for Odin. If the azurette made that choice, his cellmate would be the one to pay for it. The one who suffered, and the one who hurt, and maybe the one who died.
So when Hotts pulled him by the arm, Julian went. Like a ragdoll, the mage allowed himself to be dragged through the doorway, and this time he didn't make the frightened mouse sounds that had accompanied his earlier thrashing. He didn't say Please, although he winced sharply when the shifter's hand caught the center of his wounded chest and propelled his smaller frame against the bed supports. And although he'd never been devout, the azurette prayed one prayer over and over inside his head.
Don't look. Don't look. Don't look.
But everyone would. He could hear them milling in the hall, leaning in the doorways of their own cells, their attention drawn by how intent Hotts was on parading his victory before all the other inmates. There was a man on the bunk above but Julian didn't try to appeal to him for help. If he had, would it have come? Unlikely. The look on that face, visible for only a second as the ravenette repositioned his victim, was rapt interest. That one would have a front row seat, but Hotts intended to play to a full house.
The ink mage curled his fingers around the bars, trying to keep his head from knocking against them when he was shoved forward. His stomach rolled in equal parts nausea and revulsion, feeling the older man behind him, pressing close, a hand in Julian's hair pulling hard enough to drag the azurette into a better angle. Forcing him to stare out at all the rest of them, with their knowing smirks. He saw approval from many of the ones who'd stepped out into the corridor, and wasn't surprised to recognize a few. Men he'd turned down, whose pride he'd unthinkingly scratched. The ones who had tripped him or hurt him in small ways, always waiting for this moment, but unwilling to take the risk themselves to make it happen. They would enjoy this, would draw a vicarious pleasure from seeing Hotts use him.
Don't look. Don't look. Don't look.
But they would. And in time, they would make their offers again. Not to Julian, but to the man standing behind him. Or would it be to Odin? He tried to bow his head, to hide his face and the way the fear was there so plainly on it, but Hotts used the mane of his hair to keep him in place. Started to drag the loose cotton bottoms down his hips with his other hand, and the azurette tensed, sure that any second those fingers would be tipped with razors again and the ravenette would carve him apart there in front of everyone. But when the shifter yanked his head back up, there was a shape blocking out the light in the corridor, and Julian flinched back from the bars. Not afraid. Ashamed. Embarrassed to open his eyes and find his own cellmate standing just there. Because it was worse, somehow, for Odin to step over the threshold and be in the same room as what was happening. Worse, even though it made Hotts' hands disappear like a magic trick, so that Julian's skin wasn't crawling as much and the tension at the center of his chest slowed its winding, coiling, so that his airway didn't close completely. Worse because there was a vagrant hope that Odin would call it all off, would choose to help him. And that hope was so selfish, because it would mean trouble for the blonde if he did it. It would mean suffering later. It would mean pain. They had agreed, him and Odin and Hotts, and you couldn't get anything without paying for it. But the werewolf didn't seem to be thinking about that. In one simple motion Odin picked the azurette up like a sack of potatoes, making the whole world sway and the scant contents of Julian's stomach lurch. He'd made such an effort not to cry this time, not to be a baby about it when Hotts was so cavalier about keeping him after lights out, joking about it as if Julian were something inanimate. A thing, not a person. Like a pillow or a chair. And the mage had tried to delve down deep, into the still and quiet core of himself, tried to ready his mind for what would happen now to his body.
But Odin pulled him back up again.
So hanging there over the werewolf's shoulder, cuts on his chest and stomach opening again, stinging, Julian didn't try to lift his head or even move. He was like a dead thing, laying there, the long fall of his hair sweeping Odin's back. If dead things could feel relief. If dead things could feel apprehension about how the next time would be worse than the last, because this tug of war act had to end sometime, and Hotts would make him pay for it. Make them both pay for it. Didn't Odin know that? Why did he keep doing this-- stepping in this way-- protecting Julian? He'd said it couldn't be so bad. Twenty minutes. Just shut up for twenty minutes, and then--
Everything tilted when the werewolf turned toward their own cell, and for the azurette things kept spinning, stayed dizzy, for just a little longer than they should have. Any second, someone would be there at Odin's back to bring him down. Any second now. Any moment. But that moment never came. He was only deposited on the concrete beside the blonde's bed, there on his knees, and for an absurd moment Julian thought this was all about the sheets. That he hadn't straightened them, and that once he had he'd be returned to the man across the hall. Except Odin was sitting there in front of him, and the werewolf had to know that even Julian couldn't make a bed when someone was still in it. So he looked up, tentative, because it was embarrassing to stare into the other man's face with silent tears running down his cheeks. He'd been trying so hard not to cry, so why now?
The hand at the back of his neck made him tense, made him hesitate against its guiding pressure, because of where he would wind up. His eyes widened, fixed on Odin's face from that odd angle, startled. Because from where he was sitting-- and where that hand was pushing him-- it was obvious that that was the last thing on the larger male's mind, so the implication was confusing, the expectation unclear. Whatever the prompting, Odin didn't seem to want anything, and Julian's heart was taking up all of the room in his throat, so that was for the best. Words flashed across his cheeks in rapid succession, the simple, silent method he'd gotten used to employing with the blonde. For avoiding the annoyance the werewolf seemed to feel at the sound of his voice. For secrets that others weren't supposed to hear.
I DON'T-- And the Ink stuttered over the split just under his eye, faded, came back again across the bridge of Julian's nose-- UNDERSTAND KNOW HOW HAVEN'T-- fractured over parted lips and ran in a marquee across the lids of his eyes when they closed in embarrassment. YOU'RE NOT and WHY DID YOU and THANK YOU BUT all curled over the backs of the mage's hands when they came up to brace against Odin's splayed legs. On the azurette's throat and up over his face, text rolled in quick succession, like movie credits on fast forward, tripping over one another, the rattling inner monologue of a person who couldn't slow down the anxiety-ridden prattle of their mind. HE'LL BE SO ANGRY, but Odin had to know that already, because with Julian still staring up at him the werewolf had turned his eyes away, and the direction was all it took to tell the kneeling mage who was on the receiving end of that look. It was a challenge, then, or a threat to Hotts' reputation or power, but it wasn't wise-- HE'LL HURT-- and no matter how grateful Julian was for the reprieve, he couldn't justify the risk--YOUMEUSBOTH-- that the blonde was taking in doing this. Whatever this was. This embarrassing, awkward closeness that Odin didn't seem to enjoy at all. Maybe all of this was just a display of dominance, or maybe the werewolf expected-- WHAT SHOULD I HOW SHOULD I-- him to do something and if he didn't Odin would take him right back again but--YOU'RE NOT AND I'M HURT AND THEY'RE-- the pressure of his hand where neck met shoulder gave one clear direction, so as mortifying as it was--WATCHING THEY'RE LOOKING HE'S-- the azurette let himself be brought closer, until his cheek was against the other man's inner thigh. The wet of his tears splotched Odin's uniform there, and it wasn't clear whether Julian gave a slow shake of his head-- noIwon't-- or a gentle nuzzle against that spot-- I'lltry.
Everyone assumed, looking at him. They thought he should know how things like this went. Between men. And Julian did know, academically. Understood mechanics from being on the receiving end of ministrations from attentive girlfriends. Wasn't disgusted by the concept the way so many more masculine types seemed to be, because to the azurette people were only people and contact was only a way of expressing affection. But this was mortifying. Leigha had always looked up from between Julian's legs and made kneeling seem like a position of power. But she'd only had a fourteen year old ink mage to contend with, easily misled and easily excited. When his eyes climbed up the body he was nestled against, the subject was infinitely more intimidating, and the objective entirely confusing. What Hotts wanted had been obvious, pressed against Julian's body and terrifying him. But Odin.. he'd already been acquainted once with what it felt like for the werewolf to be.. interested. And this wasn't it.
Why was that one more source of embarrassment?
Ooc: Oh, Julian. You silly little braindamaged twit. XD
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 6:04 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
