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 Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 1:30 pm
Alois immersed himself so deeply in thought that the constant writhing at the small of his back barely registered, much less the rain that fell in sheets about the misanthrope. With clouds so dark and heavy, midday afforded little more lighting than the dregs of twilight. Even now, street lamps kicked on in register of the dim, dreary prevalence haunting the town. Puddles formed in potholes, coated in a thin film of road tar, oil and grime as heavy showers continually overfilled its basin. Cars passed brazenly through the torrential downpour, headlights blazing through the thin fog as wheels met solid ground only on occasion.
The streets were flooding, yet no tantalizing voice called to him from the storm drains. Just as well, for Alois knew of nothing more to chase than dead friendships and a life broken long before its time.
What are you doing here, Alois? Why pursue this man when you've already burnt what rare bridges he offered? Nothing good will come of this, nothing more than scorn and spurning, be it from you or from him. Quenton won't want you here; this is a waste of time. Is that what this venture is all about? Wasting time? Ticking away the seconds for hands to close about your neck twice over? How pretentious. Maybe you just want to taste the whip again, a breath of nostalgia on your neck for every acerbic word that falls from his marred lips.
Or maybe this damnable attempt stems from plain and simple excitement - excitement in knowing that you're breaking something down, inciting adversity, forcing a part of you and a part of him to crumble a little faster than before. Simple games for simple minds.
He won't take too kindly to it.
The apartments themselves stood as an easy find - each set of individualized living spaces stood towering in their own allotted spaces, separated only by greenery and winding paths to link toward their next location. They stood on the outskirts of a campus he wuld never call home, with each structure identified by a large letter crowning its visage. Already possessed of Quenton's address, locating his residence proved little more than a test of patience in the sullen downpour. You'll show, and he'll be gone. No - wishful thinking. It's Sunday. Even in America, it's preposterous to hold classes on a Sunday. Perhaps he'll have departed to a grocery store, or left for a visit with a friend. But what use has he for friends? His convictions pit him far beyond human interaction - not above, but...
Wenn es möglich gewesen wäre, den Turm von Babel zu erbauen ohne ihn zu erklettern, es wäre erlaubt worden.*
I cannot touch him in these lofty goals. It's much the same. To attempt such would be asinine. He's transcending humanity without you, and he's not even becoming a youma to do it.
Standing before the unremarkable door, complete with its dings and chips and its shabby gunmetal paint job, he hesitated. He eyed the nickel-plated round knob, the dings in its surface from use and abuse, the marks atop its locking mechanism where too many a key struck around its passage in a drunken misappropriation of residences. He scrutinized the metal track beneath the door, bearing a host of scuffs and marks from a thousand students graduating to alumni, to sophomore, to dorm status, to dropout. And in examining this door, he faced the futility of the individual.
He knocked. it sounded curt against the backdrop of rain.
Was baust du? - Ich will einen Gang graben. Es muß ein Fortschritt geschehn. Zu hoch oben ist mein Standort.
Wir graben den Schacht von Babel.**
We're too far apart now, Quenton. We carve out our progress, but with each step we take, we move in opposite directions. Even if I look back now, I cannot see you anymore.
He sighed, breath fanning out in hazy vapor before fazing out entirely. His fingers twitched for a cigarette. He bit his tongue and wished for a stronger dose of nicotine, a second patch, a real cigarette to sate his addictions.
"I'm stuck," he muttered. An admission.
You'll die someday, Alois, he reminded himself. You'll die and no one will mourn your loss. Not the Negaverse, not Richard, not Quenton.
You've lived for nothing.Ivynian *If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without ascending it, the work would have been permitted. **What are you building? - I want to dig a subterranean passage. Some progress must be made. My station up there is much too high. We are digging the Pit of Babel.
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 6:35 pm
Quenton looked up from his reading, ensconced in a blanket and stretched between a chair and the foot of his bed. There was almost never a knock at his door- Stroud had a key to let herself in if she really wanted. There was no cat-calling accompanying it either. He set his Latin dictionary and notes aside, crossing the space in few strides to hear beyond a single phrase in a familiar voice.
Alois. The voice is unmistakable. No one else sounds that same level of acerbic and hateful all the time and in all company. Apparently even his own.
Was it an admission for him, or only for Alois himself- between the walls and soul? The sculptor threw open the door, eye's widening. It was not the other man but his drowned corpse. He'd gone out in this weather without umbrella or raincoat? While it was mostly water that moved on the man, puddling the floor, it was the furiously moving bag that drew attention next. You came.
Even after all of that? What reason could there be for want of my company or space?
You bagged Faust?!
He reached out, hooking long, iron fingers around the bag strap and hauled the other inside by it, "Get that rot off before you get hypothermic. I'll get you both towels. I have extra clothes- we're near enough the same size."
Quenton shut the door quickly, uncertain how long the German had been wandering. "How much longer is that bag was going to hold Yog-Sothoth?"
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 7:20 pm
Quenton's shocked stare met with an equally surprised glance from the misanthrope, as he expected the blonde to simply shrug away the disturbance and continue in his solitary affairs. Who yearned for company on nights like these but the ones desperate for it through any occasion? Richard came to mind. Katarin, to a lesser extent. But Quenton? Why would he bother with the outside world?
More importantly, why wasn't the blonde hurling every iteration of intelligent insults at it for the manner in which he ended their last meeting? Alois dodged future interactions since then, both due to his own worsening health and the advent of ruminations on his father. Given his reticence, he avoided Alexandre just the same. He never considered it personal to Quenton, though he always suspected that once thoroughly wronged without wit or biting humor, he would either lash out in equal retaliation or alienate him further into long and awkward hours whittling away his project.
Even now, he hated how quickly it passed.
A hand drew out and curled into his strap, leading him to instinctively exhale to avoid the strong brush of fingers against bony ribcage. And after being hauled in, his freshly-splinted wrist from the night before collided with the metal doorframe, drawing a seething hiss and pained groan. Alois immediately drew his good hand near the injury, fingers frozen over the gnawing source of pain festering in his wrist. Already it hurt enough to curse him with lightheadedness, and he leaned against the wall for but a second before sharp claws teased the small of his back.
Jerking forward, Alois shirked his burden almost immediately. Once the bag touched down on the floor, lightly when in Quenton's presence, the overly-large feline inside tried his damnedest to wriggle his way out. With no success against the zipper, Alois drew the teeth apart to suffer a bundle of claws against his forearm as the feline used him as a springboard. Soon afterward, Faust shook himself of the worst of his troubles and darted beneath the bed.
Alois ran a hand through his hair to squeeze out some of the rain water. It spilled into the old, worn carpeting as he spoke. "You're not going to call me an a*****e?" Gold eyes fixed on fire, unsure whether to proceed. Still he stood near the door, handle still within arm's reach. Despite his uncertainty, he began unbuttoning his heavier coat. In looking back, hooks lined the wall near the door; he mounted the collar of his coat thusly. Beneath he wore an unsurprisingly black jacket, laden with zippers, which protected a still-soaked, grey-and-black striped shirt. "Why not?"
The jacket came off next. It found a similar perch parallel to his coat. Even now, his long-sleeved shirt clung to his body in dampness. The slow-moving air was unwelcome. "I sink zat bat stopped holding him about halfway here, but he preferred meager shelter to none at all. He would like it better here, I sink." They are thinking, feeling beings. Eyes cast downward, he fiddled with his splint. "I brought you somesing, but it might be soaked by now." Even wrapped in clothing, the rain might've seeped through.
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 8:14 pm
Quenton's gaze followed the nursing of the wrist, catching the splint in the dayglow rim of the lamplights. Why did you flail if your wrist was hurt? That's right, Alois, I'll swallow you in like this door and room. More than carnal imagination or human teeth. In my lair I can peel back this tawdy skin and wrap you in wings of flame.He left the other to his nursing- the WC was thankfully or annoyingly right there. Being injured often and an artist both meant the want of an armada of towels. Four large and steel coloured pulled off a shelf of them, Quenton threw one on the floor for Alois to stand on, one under his sopping clothes hanging, and handed him one to wrap in and dry off with in the interim of dry clothes retrieval. The fourth he carried to the cush chair with its blanket and made an estimation of what might be enticing a nest to a damp cat. "Faust." He didn't expect the cat to actually care, but it was strangely warming to be able to speak to a furry creature in his own space, "fsssss fsss fsssss." After that, it was a quick for clothes. He hates himself. Long sleeves. Long pants. The sculptor returned to the 'foyer', holding out loose lounge pants and a threadbare Henley. "You've already said, often. There's no need of me offering it. It tastes bitter." "You've always eaten more of the desserts at our lunches and work than the sandwiches." You have a sweet tooth. More with honey than with vinegar? Except you are here at my door, and not at Alex's...perhaps this metaphor falls flat. "Stay the night." It was a question, really, but he didn't raise-inflect the end of it. He didn't really want to offer the option of a no. "At the least."
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 8:55 pm
As Alois followed his companion-turned-host with watchful gaze, he discovered the bathroom stood quite close to the door. This bade well; he wouldn't have to endure the careful pronunciation of the word to find out where he might possibly change out of his utterly soaked clothes. And when Quenton emerged immediately afterward with a pile of towels in hand, he quirked a brow as one found his feet with an anticlimactic thwap. Alois stared at it a moment longer.
Are you trying to save your security deposit? Because you can't possibly give a s**t about this floor. Finally alois raised the wet hems of his pants to unzip his boots, propping the pair together on once side of the towel. Lacking all compunctions about his persnickety mannerisms, Alois stood damnably parallel to his boots. He even shifted an eighth of a centimeter to the left to correct spacing.
Faust, however, paid no heed to the blanket resting atop the chair. Upon hearing his name, a rolling grunt emanated from his throat, and gold eyes with pupils as wide as dinner plates stared out of the bed skirt toward the source of the strange noises. Faust did not immediately come to Quenton; instead, the unusually large feline hugged the wall until he reached a proper venting system for central heating. Satisfied with his find, the cat crouched near the vent as a means to warm up and dry off. He huffed.
"Maybe I was looking for reasons to use needles. Diabetes seems as good an excuse as any." Alois refused to outwardly admit to a sweet tooth, though he was fully aware of it. Instead he simply accepted the clothes and turned toward the water closet without so much as an ask for permission. If Quenton fully intended for him to stay for any length of time, bodily needs should not depend on his yae or nay. But I could wake him up at some asinine hour just to ask to use his bathroom... Or if I could turn the lights on. Even politeness can feel like pulling teeth.
A quick glance at the mirror confirmed that he fully regretted it. Poised with his back to the offending object, Alois stripped of his soaked clothing and pushed it aside with his foot before donning clothes just vaguely too large and too long. He suspected that, had he not come out of detox recently, they'd have fit otherwise. Quenton looked like he struggled with maintaining weight as well, though likely for different reasons. Out of curiosity, Alois caught a fistful of collar in his hand and brought it to his nose. Strangely it smelled like no detergent he bough before, and likely laundered without any dryer sheets to augment its scent. Just as well; he doubted such would suit Quenton as a frivolous purchase and a pointless effort. Paying for cancer, effectively.
Curious eyes darted about the bathroom, scanning for easily abused sources of information: drawers, a medicine cabinet, maybe even a travel pack for quick departures. A rushed investigation procured Q-Tips, one immediately swiped for tracing around the metal plugs in his piercings, and the remainder nothing but bandages and other medical needs for injuries light and serious.
Alois reopened the door after he discarded the stolen toiletry. Leaning against the frame, he watched the blonde. "Open my bag and I'll spend ze night," he returned, gesturing toward the nondescript black shoulder bag still half-open from Faust's recent explosion. "It should be wrapped in zere somewhere. I put it in a plastic bag.
"If you feel like extra credit, you can tell me why you want me here. Especially after what was said." After all, I can't read you for s**t.
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 9:46 pm
When the other disappeared into the WC, Quenton took the opportunity to shift to hands and knees and more thoroughly situate towels and sop up the leavings of water on the floor. It was the work of a moment throw what was no longer useable into a laundry hamper. It took longer than he expected it would to just drop trowel and change- Maybe looking for medicine for his wrist? There's ibuprofen. No, no narcotics left over from surgery so he should be safe from temptation with that.When the door opened again, he was across the small walk at the kitchenette table, removing the stack of papers to one of the shelves. It was strange to see his own clothes on someone else. I suppose I understand why they put it in movies, now. The Henly... I didn't get a good look at his tattoos before. Has he always had them? Alois was saying something. His brain caught up, Quenton finally blinked, and he crouched to the bag, fishing for the mentioned parcel. "I value differing ideals and opinions. You speak, Alois. When you aren't spouting venom, you offer challenges to my opinions that have reasoning and basis behind them...even if you haven't offered all of it yet. It's like living in the Dialogues. " "Even when you piss me off, there deliberate action behind it. You challenge my choices, offer tests I do not expect. I want to do the same by you. I would like us both honed. After ...our last meeting, I found I do not mind the bleeding." "Besides, you never rant so except at something you find value in. Your happiness seems to coincide with sharpness. " So cut away.
Plastic...baggy..and cloth. Quenton stood again, leaned against the tiny two-burner stove to work at unwrapping.
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 10:19 pm
"Sacher-Masoch was onto somesing when he wrote Venus im Pelz. I'f found zat when I haf' to endure company, zey prefer to suffer a little zan abide by trained pleasantries. Sometimes ze cattle prod is more motivating zan ze carrot, is it not?" Tired gold eyes combed his surroundings - quaint, minimalistic, condensed to a soup can of an apartment. In some ways, it reminded him of his stay in Dresden. Both company and architecture stood worlds apart, though. Alois wondered briefly if she married yet. "Do you want to be my Severin, Quenton? Is zat dialogue you speak of wors' ze flog?"
And Quenton soon answered his inquiry. "I could be nice, but it does not suit me. Ze same is true wis' you - you could be warm, like Alex, but it does not suit you. Instead you make demands zat present company stay at your apartment and claim purely intellectual reasoning for such." A teasing grin crept into his features. "Do you know what emotions are? Haf' you seen zem before?"
That streak of mischievousness soon departed when Quenton cited his own prediction of Alois' reasoning. He approached the kitchenette table, fingers tracing the rounded surface just before the lip. He picked at the epoxy as if agitated. "It's arrogant of you to claim zat I find value in you. You're not wrong, but I dislike being figured out quite so easily." In other words, I'm losing the race - while you chip away at me, I'm still no closer to forming a coherent understanding of you. It's frustrating, at best. Alois tapped the sealant with a sigh, fingers tracing the ghosted edges of pennies. "Sharpness hurts."
The misanthrope glanced toward the opaque package as Quenton opened the material. It seemed the crinkling had summoned Faust, wide-eyed and attentive, but Alois trained his sights on Quenton's face instead. "When you take morphine... When I take it, you cannot feel an ounce of pain. Zat is a given - most people wouldn't find zat terribly interesting. But zere is somesing else to it... A reprief' of different sorts. Zere is no feeling bad on morphine, and it's much like pessimistic soughts are only a dream. Nossing feels wrong. You haf' zis... utterly convincing feeling zat everysing is right. Zat you don't need to sink, or mof'e, or breaz'e. You can just sleep - so I slept. A lot.
"I passed a lot of days wis'out being conscious." Pulling out a chair, Alois took a seat and rested his elbows atop the table. Thin hands covered the pair of wings adorning his neck. "When I stopped taking it, my mind got sharp again. Painfully sharp. Ze callouses must'f worn away, or ze scars gone soft. Zat is all I can liken it to. I figure awareness is supposed to wound - if we are not in pain, zen we are not feeling anysing." Breathing a sigh, Alois caught sight of the familiar navy blue spine. Afterward he sighted the patterned cream diamond marking the center of its cover.
Perhaps it was time to explain.
"My family ran a bookstore back in Germany. It's basically a family tradition by now. My Opa owned ze book you're holding - a first edition copy of Der Process by Franz Kafka. I wasn't allowed to read it - not zat one. It's... fitting, to many sings." Afterward he gestured to the black strand parting from the center of the book, adorned with small bones punctuated with a set of three beads with a feather fixed to the final bead. A larger, more ornate collection of bones and beads hung from the opposite end, just beneath the book. "You can use zat as a bookmark - it's what I made it for. Rodent's bones, so zey should hold, provided you don't let Faust get into zem. I'm not making a second one."
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 11:13 pm
" Do you despise who accede to your brutality?" Can you be only a despot or a slave? Should I ask you for a leash, Alois? There is a difference in the violence of taking a saw to a tree and the deliberate training of a bonsai. The admonishing authority that misunderstands the point of looking for a Van Gogh in a graveyard. The description of the morphine, deliberately ignoring the barb about emotions, was fascinating. He'd only ever done drugs when they were strictly legal. Prescription painkillers precisely for pain. He'd never examined or dissected what they were doing other than allowing him to return to function at a more distractable-than-usual rate. The impetus to dull oneself was wholly foreign. Alois' accusations of his acting out of boredom came back to mind in the face of it- Being unable to think, unable to come up with more than transient dream, was something of a nightmare scenario. The revelation of the book and its history made the thing more precious in hands already unused to gifts. He drew his fingers along the edges and spine, the headband and finally the bones of the bookmark. Your own family's item? There is some story behind that. I wonder if it is flattering, considering. But even not, that level of thought and regard... Flame eyes looked up from the gift, direct and intense, "It is a kingly gift." And ominous. The grinding march to the inevitable? A warning to me of my own hope, or to me of your own expectation for yourself? Who says it has to be one or the other, Quenton. He held the book gently with both hand splayed over either side of the cover, the spine brought in pensive thought to rest intimately against the thick of his bottom lip. There was a faint smell of aged paper native to the book, and the cigarettes that followed a habitual smoker's everything. "Is it a warning, Alois."
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 11:38 pm
Hawkish eyes watched him draw fingers across the book. A kingly gift, he says. "You know it isn't."
Two fingernail taps to the table and he stood abruptly. As if suddenly coming to life, Alois' attentions shifted throughout his surroundings. He looked - and felt - more aware than before. A pins and needles sensation culminated in his legs, something he passed off as the afterbirth of sobriety. He disliked it, so he began a short pace about the table, fingers never leaving the edge. "It is a lot of sings, Quenton. Zat is why I can gif' it to you." These bouts of awareness, they come infrequently - brought on by nothing that I can discern. Are they a second wind for the ex-junkies of this world, the ones who try to make something of their wasted, paltry lives? How pretentious. Why now, of all times? Why not awake, alone, away from Quenton while he nods off at this godforsaken table?
It's not so difficult to win a debate with a sleeping man. He normally poses no argument.
"I despise zose who can't return it. By forking out brutality, as you call it, I am putting more effort into you zan anyone else I'f put up wis'. But I wonder if you would understand it as a gesture of a different sort - an intent to harm as a means to provoke change. We bos' recognize zat everysing must continue moving - stagnation is inherently unnatural. Nossing remains in stasis; even mosquitos frozen in amber might find zemselfs cracked open and examined millions of years from now. At ze molecular level, electrons never idle. Radioactif' compounds break down in half life atop half life. So why should we be different, Quenton? Why should we fight to stand beyond zis stream of change, when our own bodies clamor for it beyond our wits?
"I don't want to be like zis forever." But I am stagnant - even now. Even with you around. "I called you a Phönix once. Show me you can burn somesing beyond yourself. Change somesing, Quenton.
"Change me."
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Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 1:10 am
The distance from where he leaned back against the little stove to the table where Alois paced was negligible, really. The demand for action, for change, was heady an aphrodisiac as could be offered. It is also in direct opposition to what you are trying to do. The body is a distraction, love not platonic is too much a bias. And very, very human. I am distracted.
Sun and seas, he's not even been in the place for an hour. He doesn't like anyone. Even the first once over- the reaction was volatile. Is a few months enough to change that?
How much patience is necessary for all we would both do. How funny we are, walking on razors edges. The simplest solution is the one youthful excuses for thought cling to. It would be the greatest display I could offer, even being the crudest, most predictable. He set the book down gentle and crossed the step to meet Alois up on the near side of the table. Getting decked was plausible and an acceptable risk- at least they were near enough in height that it wasn't awkward to try to catch the other in a kiss.
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Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 7:06 pm
The word 'patience' comes from the same Latin root as the word 'passion' - pati. It means 'to suffer'. I want to suffer.
I want you to suffer.
He lacked the time to complete another round before Quenton approached. Even now, he lingered so heavily in his own mind that juxtaposition barely registered, with even the natural bristling caused by the breech of personal space sent barely a whisper through his thoughts. When I called you a Phönix, I meant it. You would reduce yourself to ash only to rise in renewed form, thus transcending the humanity that plagues us all from birth. You determined this path for yourself in a means far more creative than mine - you need not shirk your physical appearance to achieve your goals. I envy you for this.
Pati.
Bitter and better are two words too close together, so barely differentiated from each other in speech and spelling that I often confused them growing up. But now I feel that I was right in my initial forays into the English language - they are homonyms.
Pati.
When I look at you, I can see you're in the midst of combustion. I learnt of its literal horrors long ago, when I razed a field to prove the dangers of half measures. I know how it feels - your emotions must be roiling beneath that skin.
Pati.
In all my talk of suffering, of the need to avoid stagnation, I've learned a lot about how humans undergo that change. I started this strange span of studies in my captaincy, when newly awarded power and weapon beckoned me to more freedoms than I knew existed. And from those trying times, I learned a simple truth: humans cannot suffer alone. They don't change - nothing takes without fertile soil. It leads one to foster an appreciation for 'misery loves company'. Were I in possession of a single man all those months ago, perhaps my initial experiment would've met with more success. But those hostages supported each other - for what I initially took as feeding off each other. They bond in suffering, a marvelous occurrence, and through such, change to surmount the tribulations they faced.
I am still human, Quenton.
Wie ein Phönix, will ich sein.*
The touch of lips ceased all rancorous thought rattling through his mind, stymied the roaring flood of comparisons and conjecture and complaints. A moment of silence - a mourning. Twice now, he brushed fates with flames. Now that fire threatened to consume him once more, he found it essential to capitulate. It hurt in many ways, in methods and manners he could not explain across all known languages - an utter breakdown of communication.
The fall of Babel, he thought morosely.
His lips mouthed a wordless phrase against Quenton's own as an undamaged hand sought purchase in the midst of the blonde's shirt.
Disce pati.**Ivynian *I want to be like a phoenix. **Learn to endure.
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 12:01 am
He tastes of city ozone carried in rainwater- faint oil slick and acrid silt.It took every thread of will to fashion iron rein and pull back without bruising mouth to mouth. As it was, Quenton's lips felt flushed and the skin round the scar that crossed them either itched or ached. The difference in that sensation in his awareness was minimal comparative to others. The grip into his shirt was not expected- was it warding or holding him guaranty? The mouthed words made everything worse. He could follow the syllables clearly. Forcing himself to speak would be enough to breath. Enough to claim oxygen for thoughts and bring back his own hands from however they'd gotten to the table fencing in Alois. He endures bodily contact, anyway."So hale made are the souls seared with scars." "Until each additional pain, and every pleasure, as both unbearable and trifle." The idiot thing to do would be to apologize for taking liberties, or asking worriedly if Alois even liked men. Quenton wasn't sorry, nor did it feel like at that moment gender much mattered except as a consideration of logistics. "- refining flame from wild red to molten white takes a crucible not an open hearth. " "You teach a valuable lesson that I still fail the simplest tests without conditioning," Quenton stepped back once to give Alois his space again. "I forget guest rites, which doesn't begin with swallowing them whole, ignoring their hunger for my own, and supplanting weariness with my own ...interest. 'Change' made so is immediate enough, but not one you couldn't find in many beds. Nor more efficacious or lasting than morning frost. We will need more truth between us to understand best what viscera to remove."
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 8:16 am
He never let go. "You cannot swallow whole what you can't fit your jaws around." Your words are true - you still fail the simplest tests, but mine was not a test of resistance.
Change does not immediately strike me as an invitation to ******** - nor do the two sound remotely similar. Does talk of philosophies and fates excite you, Quenton? Were we having sex all this time? What a long stint for lovers still stranger to each other. I think I know you now. If not...
Then I know how to make you suffer.
The only give between them was the shirt caught taut in curled fingers, pulling back against his grip as Quenton sought to make space. Alois would not back down. I've been doing this for far longer than you. Entrapment is every bit an art as sculpting, as painting, as poetry - and every bit as pretentious. Disce pati - 'learn to endure', but it can also mean 'learn to suffer'. Suffering alone means nothing.
I'll take you down with me.
Alois parted from the table in response, though not with the intent to depart through newly open paths welcomed by parting arms. It would stand as retreat, as admittance of defeat in wake of a war that newly opened to his favor. Rare advantages yielded themselves, and Alois fostered no apprehension toward opportunism. Fingers once coiled in cloth now met the nape, where fine blonde hairs grew upward. I've been burnt too many times to be stranger to flames, Quenton. Once in teaching, once in conviction. Once only last night... I wonder if you can still taste the smoke on my lips. I don't remember how I left that fire. I suspect someone dragged me out. I can't... Taste anything anymore.
I will burn you to the ground.
He sought Quenton's lips, if only to chase his scent in a long breath. A slow kiss, one far beyond pain but laced with the intent to suffer. Even if he didn't respond, the statement lay in Alois' actions alone. How strange oxygen feels when inhaled so close to skin... He smells good. That means you like him. Skin prickled in both numbness and sharpness alike. Memories of flames. Breath taken did not replenish breath lost; the pounding in his chest garnered more attention than the lingering touch of lips once parted from Quenton.
How curious. Love and suffering often stand on the same bodily reaction. To love is to suffer. These are truths I learned long ago, against my better wishes. Strange how we are as an ocean - to ebb and flow, to dance between shore and sea in such a cyclical, futile fashion. We're drowning in currents meant for people better than ourselves. To feel... Ich fühle.
Is this panic or is this dread? I don't know myself well enough to tell. How strange this skin feels, even when I've lived with it for twenty years.
"Guest rites are stupid and trite," he rebuked, voice barely a whisper yet the force of it carried breath to the other forced to linger in his presence. "You must be a stranger to change if you can dismiss such motives so easily, Quenton. It is not morning frost, but a start to a much longer road." I've done this before. "You are wrong - for that change I've found in very few beds, but one so far." You should know this, surely. The only sex so well-compared to morning frost is one bartered between whores. I am not a whore, Quenton. But the fact that you regard it in such a cold, dismissive fashion... You've never done it before, have you?
Virgin.
"Ze phrase 'to mount' applies to bos' taxidermy and sex." Supplant my organs with polyurethane foam, or go older - cloth and straw torn from those who no longer need it. Yes - steal the clothing from the dead, for they don't need it anymore. Assail all the bodies that lay in the streets from our trite little war, and line every cavity of my skin with their knotted, crusted fabrics. It could be an epitaph of its own, a monument to all the people laid to rest through fate's hands, by mine. "Frost may melt, but ze dew left behind still nourishes ze plants lucky enough to meet its good graces.
Mount me, Quenton."
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 11:28 pm
It would have been easier to have never known. One cannot miss so much the unattended party, the undrunk wine.
This risks closer attachment, liability, someone to lose. Accepted...expected?
No point to half-measure.
He hooked his hands down, grasping Alois' weight to lifting him to waist and carry the german by his a** back to the table. The goth wasn't heavy compared to anything in the sculpture labs. "May ashes greet the dawn."
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