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 Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:11 pm
Maybe prison hadn't broken Julian completely. Not yet, at least. Hale didn't usually hear people talk about themselves like this. Some piece from the outside world was still vibrant in Julian. Caring? No. Crying. He cried. Julian cried earlier even though most prisoners would rather be caught dead. He had always been so bruised up or hidden away. So hesitant to just give up and do what needed to be done. Hale didn't understand why. Odin had forced Julian into that dark place... Yet here he was, acting like Hale was the only one trying to take advantage of him.
Hale used to believe he loved people. He used to think his friendships meant something and his allies were not just a strand of resources for him. Julian must have still had that piece in tact. The ghoul wasn't going to break Julian's heart. So his lips remained still. There was no point in telling Julian prison relationships never lead to anything. How many happy couples did he see? A couple with the lycans. A couple of Hotts' crew over the years. The lighthearted type. Hale only had two recently. One pair was always sitting on each other's lap laughing through lunch like obnoxious high schoolers. The other pair had broken up over some bullshit. Like hell if Hale would know.
But he knew what happened once couples were released. Once one couple went off and re-entered the real world and had real civilized people to choose from. How most realized they clung to whatever piece of normalcy they could inside of prison. How most didn't want to be reminded of the bullshit. They didn't want to be in the real world but they didn't want to go back to prison.
It was ******** great.
The type of things that always depressed Hale. His eyes landed back on Julian, his fingers slowly reaching out to toy with Julian's lips as he ran one of his fingers along it gently. Lips were always more sensitive than fingertips. Soft. Plump. "How long is your sentence?" The ghoul wanted to know. He paused, patiently waiting for the response. He couldn't stop from wondering how many times Odin had kissed the boy, if at all. How many blowjobs it took until Julian had puked. "You're not selfish anymore." Hale finally pinged Julian's chin, two of his fingers angling the boy's face upward as he leaned forward stealing a small taste. His lips gently gluing to Julian's for a brief moment before he was sitting back up again removing himself from the ink mage's small space between his legs.
"How long is Odin's sentence?"
If Julian learned to like Hale half the amount he believed he liked Odin, everything would fall into place the way it was meant to be. tab
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Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 10:37 pm
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-- ❝i'm just so tired of waking up on the ground❞
He'd learned to look out for trouble, to mostly stay out of arm's reach of other prisoners because of all forms of unwanted contact. But he wasn't, yet, terrified to be touched at all. In the dark, with Odin, he'd never shied away after the first time, never tried to struggle away anymore. Julian had learned to accept and even look forward to the warmth of after. But 'gentle' wasn't the word for the way Odin was with him, during. It felt strange, being in someone else's space for such a long period of time, even though the azurette had specifically come here worried about the relative privacy. Worried about what it would mean.
Even the most skittish animal learned not to flee if, when it encountered people, they didn't do it harm. Hotts had tried the technique for all of two minutes before pushing Julian down onto Odin's bunk, and that had gone badly for the shapeshifter. Hale was more patient, it seemed.
Asked to stop, he stopped. Not because he had to, but.. The truth was, the inkwell still wasn't sure why. Except that, like Odin on the night he'd taken Julian away from Hotts, the ghoul hadn't exactly been ready to go. That in itself was a small relief. But more confusing was how casually Hale kept touching him, lightly and carefully and slowly, until it was hard to remain tensed and terrified. Until feeling that way also started to feel stupid. Because as surreal as the entire situation was, as sure as he'd been that horrible things were going to happen to him, all Hale did was talk to him. And kiss his fingers in that odd, half-threatening way that Julian actually had to focus on, because it was important to remember who he was dealing with. The kind of things that Hale was prepared to do. The kind of things that he'd done.
But Odin had opened that deck of cards earlier, expecting to find something inside. Expecting to find the bit of meat Hale was sending him. And even though the mage knew rationally that it meant Odin had consumed that flesh before-- that he had eaten a piece of someone-- it was hard to really believe it. Hard to accept it. He knew it, but he didn't know. There were too many other things clamoring for attention. Too many tiny unresolved traumas. Too many nuances to what was happening right here, in this tiny space.
His eyes widened when the ghoul reached out to touch his mouth, and as with so many situations where the azurette wasn't sure what to do, he froze, trying not to press his lips together, or worse, part them under the contact with Hale's fingertip. The cut at the corner of his mouth still stung where Julian had been constantly tonguing it during his work in the laundry. He tried to focus on that, instead of the warm pad of the older man's fingertip tracing the seam of his mouth. Confusingly benign. Guilt crawled up the mage's spine, coiling tight around his throat. Because he should be repulsed. He should be scared. He shouldn't be grateful that Hale wasn't hurting him.
How long is your sentence?
Embarrassment was clear on Julian's face as he tried to work out how to speak with the ghoul's fingertip still against his lips. He had to clear his throat to summon his voice again, even as quiet as it always was, trying to move his mouth as little as possible.
"I'm.. It was a year.. but they extended it.. because I kept.. getting put in isolation at first.. So it's.." A momentary pause as he added and deducted in his head. It would be easier if he could look at his arm, but that wasn't an option. Not until he had time to think about everything. He wasn't even sure why the ghoul wanted to know about his sentence. What bearing that could have on anything. " Something close to..eight months.."
You're not selfish anymore.
It came out of nowhere, that assertion, and the inkwell made a vague sound of confusion when Hale's hand slipped to his chin. It was muffled for just a second. Not against the ghoul's fingers, but against his lips. The touch was brief, and oddly chaste. Different completely from the first time the azurette had been kissed by a man-- Hotts' tongue shoving artlessly into his mouth. How long had it been, before that, since he'd kissed anyone? He wasn't kissing Hale. That wasn't what had happened. It was the other way around. But before prison.. Had it really been that long? He'd kissed Deirdre the day before she left him, and he'd been almost twenty-two then. A year and a half, easily, from the last time he'd chosen to kiss anyone.
And then Hotts had done it. And Hale had done it.
But not Odin.
Flustered, the inkwell looked away, keeping the pigments in his face neutral. Keeping the question of why Odin hadn't kissed him carefully shoved to the back of his head. He'd never asked himself that before. It wasn't like that between them. It was.. something else. Odin took care of him, and held him, and often left him sore and uncomfortable and strangely unsated. But they weren't.. together. That wasn't what it was. That wasn't what Odin would want it to be. Why was it suddenly so pressing? He was here, without the blonde knowing. He'd let Hale get this close to him. It was his own fault. And it didn't matter that Odin had never kissed him, like that or at all, because the werewolf wouldn't want anything to do with him after this. After Julian being this way. After everything.
How long is Odin's sentence?
His eyes didn't lift at the question. They stayed turned away. For just a second he bit his lips together, like he was trying to rid them of the shadow of that small touch.
"..I don't really know that. He makes it sound.. like a long time.. But Odin and I.. don't talk very much."
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Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:18 pm
"I'm... It was a year... But they extended it..." Ah. Of course. Of course he isolated himself from general population. It was almost a smart move.
"Do you regret it?" Hale wanted to know. Eight months left. If Julian hadn't been a bad boy he would be out by now. "If you had come to me sooner, you wouldn't have needed solitary." Hale reassured the ink mage, setting a small safety net. With Hale, Julian would have been safe. All his problems wouldn't have escalated so terribly. Which, well, may or may not have been true. It's hard to tell what route he would have took with the ink mage. If Hale kept someone like Julian around too long everyone would have been hassling him for a chance to borrow. But Julian wouldn't have been like Cedric. It was rare to meet someone who deserved the treatment Cedric got. Heavy drug addicts put themselves in that position. Mentally ill. But not many others fit in that category. Even after the ice mage had been put on suppressors for using his powers he continued to fight. To bite. To scream. He had to be beat over and over again. He had to be raped over and over again. Each time his shrieks grew a little quieter. A little more hoarse. A little more defeated.
Eventually, you just stop fighting.
Not many people need to have their identity beat out of them. Julian would have cooperated. He would have been gentle and calm. He would have kept those little wide eyes asking what was needed of him. The type of personality that you felt compelled to keep in tact. The type of personality that would never hurt another person. Odin was a selfish pig. He probably just missed woman so much that he was too ungrateful to understand just who Julian was. Hale would help Julian see eventually. By the end of his sentence he would leave prison hating the wolf. Hale wanted to believe Odin would never be distracted by petty things like fake prison relationships. It was sad, really.
"... I don't really know that." Julian responded, still timid as ever as he struggled to get a fluent sentence out, the broken up words coming in ungraceful clumps as though Hale might stop him mid sentence to punish him for something he'd said. "But Odin and I... Don't talk very much." Oh? How pitiful. Chasing after someone and placing them up on a top shelf just to be blinded by the fact they don't care about you back in the slightest.
"I need you to start speaking to him more, then." He leaned forward and gently placed another kiss on Julian's lips. "Like we are now. I need you to learn what he likes. What he dislikes. Who he trusts. Who he hates." And another kiss, this time placed on Julian's forehead as he brushed back a handful of shaggy hair. "We need to know Odin better than anyone else." Hale was displaying enough, wasn't he? He was showing Julian how to be gentle. How to tell people what you wanted and ask what they wanted in return. He was teaching the boy patience and how to start slow. Small conversations like this would quickly spiral down into people's darkest secrets. Nobody wanted to live in isolation and that's all prison did for you. It kept you trapped away where you never got to express your ideas or feelings. People were practically puking their darkest secrets in Hale's direction just for the ******** hell of having an ear that was willing to listen to them.
The loneliness would get to Odin too. He'd learn he didn't want to keep up the act of being a lone wolf for very long. As long as Julian approached Odin like Hale had been doing here, they'd be able to learn everything.
"Are you confident yet that you want to belong to me instead of him?" Hale asked. Julian had to understand they were polar opposites. Odin, brutish and rough. Harsh. Quiet. Hale, chatty and bright. Lively even though he was nearly ten years Odin's elder. So gentle. So much restraint compared to the werewolf. The light freckles lining Hale's nose that contrasted Julian's porcelain skin. "I still need to degrade you to be sure you're someone I can rely on... But by this point, it's hardly anything close to a degrading task between the two of us now, isn't it?" Hale could have switched it. Could have told Julian he'd strip down and let Hale ******** him properly. The idea bounced around for quite a few moments before the ghoul decided there was no point to trying to scare the mage. He wasn't here to manipulate Julian.
He was here for Odin. Julian needed to learn Hale wasn't a bad guy when it came to matters to do with his well being. tab
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Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 8:02 pm
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-- ❝i'm just so tired of waking up on the ground❞
If you'd come to me sooner, you wouldn't have needed solitary.
"Mm.."
It was a soft sound, but hesitant, noncommittal. Not an agreement, because Julian hadn't come to Hale. The ghoul had been the one to corral him against the fence in the yard and lay down ultimatums. As ungrateful as it was, Julian hadn't asked to be saved. He still wasn't willing to believe that he'd needed to be. He was here because the ghoul had made it sound, earlier in the day, like he had two options: Cooperate, or Odin would suffer. But the more Hale spoke, the more he ignored or painted over the things he'd said before, the further he pushed, little by little. It was graceful, in its own way. But it was still a silent pressure. A steady weight, being applied again and again, like the ravenette was trying to get a certain piece to slip free in Jenga and didn't realize how the upper part of the structure had started to wobble.
You're not selfish anymore. He'd said that, like it was some kind of absolution. Like with the brush of contact between their lips, Julian was meant to be free of concern, free of guilt. Like those words were supposed to put the inkwell's moral compass in Hale's hands, and he was supposed to be relieved about that.
Of course. Because Hale wasn't hurting him. Hale was being reasonable, and oddly gentle, and it had kept the azurette in check like a charmer's flute, zeroing the snake's attention down to make it weave back and forth as desired. But..
Remember what you know.
But the ghouls were the dominant power within the prison right now, and nobody came to that position by handing out fresh-baked croissants. But however softly he was speaking now, Hale had also used a conversational tone talking about destroying Odin, even though he'd clapped his arm over the werewolf's shoulder in the showers as though they were the best of friends. But even though he'd spared the digit that had perched between his guillotine teeth today, there was no guarantee that he wouldn't collect it later, and with interest. But as much as he liked to vaunt that he protected what was his, what had that meant for Cedric?
Odin had never sweetly kissed the azurette. He wasn't gentle, he didn't move slowly, and they didn't have conversations with one another. Many times, when Julian asked the wrong question, he would be ignored completely, or met with a sound of annoyance that suggested he was a complete moron. On other occasions, the mage ended the night pulling himself off the concrete floor of the cell and climbing to his own bunk still sore, with the addition of scuffed knees. Sometimes he shoved or nudged Julian out of nowhere. Earlier in the day, he'd lost his temper completely. Even the inkwell could remember how it had felt to be under that much stronger frame, having Odin look down at him like he was nothing. No one.
But he also remembered the hand that cupped the back of his skull, so that it didn't slam against the dirt with the rest of his body. He remembered the hand that met the wall of Leon's cell when Julian was in the way, instead of smashing him like a bug. The hand over his mouth, and the one that touched him there, just briefly, shockingly warm. The hand that petted through his hair in the dark, or traced the webbing of his fingers, or brushed along his stomach, just beneath the hem of his uniform.
I need you to start speaking to him more, then.
This time, when Hale leaned forward to brush their lips together, Julian's head turned. It was a slow, careful evasion, the look on his face a fragile kind of worry. Not revulsion, not precisely fear. He seemed tired, and strangely sad. The weary kind of sorrow that a person knows they've only brought on themselves. Because in all of this, all the ghoul ever told him was how he would be safe, how Hale would protect him, how all he needed to do was submit and obey, and he would be part of the fold, with every asset that that entailed.
Like we are now. I need you to learn what he likes. What he dislikes. Who he trusts. Who he hates.
And Odin, whom he'd threatened earlier, was going to be wound in slowly on the knots of those things that Hale wanted Julian to find out. He outlined it that way, and the inkwell had to close his eyes for just a moment against the wings beating over the inside of his skull. Crashing against one another in the dark, barbed legs and fanned antennae. Fragile things. Hurting themselves trying to get away, trying to get loose, trying to break through the fractured shell of his skull and fly from this place where Hale told him to pretend to do the things he wanted to do for real.
We need to know Odin better than anyone else.
If they got out, he was going to die. If they burrowed through the back of his head, the things that made him Julian were going to pour out. They would slide down his back in a wet cascade and he would die with his knees on the floor of a prison bathroom. Hale's hand was in his hair again, the ravenette's lips against his forehead, and the skull beneath the skin felt to Julian as delicate as an egg. As delicate as old clay. As delicate as filament glass. He wanted to tell the older man not to lean against it, not to put weight on it, not to help them break through, but his lips just moved without sound.
Are you confident yet that you want to belong to me instead of him?
It would feel good, wouldn't it? To be spoken to like a person. Like the way he'd been so touch starved at first that it had been shamefully good even when Odin had bitten his throat to hold him in place. He'd mistaken Hale's words for something that they weren't. All the promises were things that would save the ghoul face-- if Julian was his property. If Julian agreed. But not a word about Odin. Not a word about Leon. Not the words the azurette needed to hear to accept willingly what Hale kept telling him he had to do.
But by this point, it's hardly anything close to a degrading task between the two of us now, isn't it?
There was always a choice.
He hadn't lied. He didn't want to be alone tomorrow. Didn't want to walk through the prison halls and know that nothing stood in anyone's way. With Leo beside him, to suffer the same indignities and dangers, it would have been no contest. But as horrible as it had been, living inside that beige box, living without any sky.. No one had come in to get Julian while he was there. Odin would shift there, and maybe he would stay there to recover. Maybe Leon's punishment would extend that long. For that long, they would both be safe. And Julian, if no one killed him, might still be there when they returned.
Himself. The parts that mattered.
"..I'm sorry." And he sounded it. As though he understood how he'd wasted Hale's time. And how dangerous that was. But the words brought a soothing kind of quiet to the inside of his skull. A stillness. The pain there, where something felt poised to wrench free and leave him bleeding to death, abated. "..You've been.. very patient. And I know.."
That I will suffer for this. That you will probably be the one to make me suffer.
"..But I can't, Hale.. I'm sorry, I can't."
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 5:10 am
"... But I can't, Hale... I'm sorry, I can't."
The ghoul reached out taking Julian's arm and without warning, his teeth dug into Julian's flesh. He tore quickly. As the ghoul sat up there was only a slight pause before he was spitting the disgusting bit of flesh back onto the bathroom floor. It took him a few moments to realize what that had been. "I don't bleed for strangers." Hale told Julian as he stood up and walked past the ink mage.
Julian already made his choice.
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