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 Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 6:40 pm
& YOU HAVE NO CONTROL
who lives--
who dies--
who tells your story.
│CREATED BY nowSERENITY
│· After Julian is released from prison.
│· Roughly a week after this.
│· Closed thread.
│· Julian St. Jude & Krish D'Juan
│· Best friends 5eva.
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Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 10:18 pm
   I N T E L L I G E N T E Y E S I N A H U N G E R - P A N G F R A M E
He got the letter when they handed over his other personal effects. The clothes he'd worn on the day he'd been brought in were a little loose now, but they were better than being handed something out of the thrift bin. They were at least familiar-- a simple teeshirt in a deep navy, splashed across the front with graffiti lettering. NOT ALL WHO WANDER ARE LOST. One pair of jeans, faded from a thousand washings instead of as a fashion statement. The belt still threaded through the loops had just enough holes that he could pull it tight and keep the jeans from sliding down his hips, and that was how Julian realized how small he'd gotten. How thin, how frail. Suddenly he wished he had another month to prepare, so that Krish didn't have to see him this way. Of course, that was absurd.
His backpack held things that were mostly useless now. Phone and mp3 player, both long dead from a lack of charge. Wallet with his debit card completely out of date by now. So he shifted these things to one pocket and filled the main compartment of the bag with things that mattered-- Krish's letters, the books and pictures he'd sent. At least, all the ones that had survived. He tied his sneakers and listened, unspeaking, as an officer explained the rules of his release.
Before the next three days were over, he had to report to the supervision office. Obviously, no further criminal activity would ever be acceptable. Even the smallest infraction could land him back inside if he wasn't careful. Between the first and third day of every month, he would have to submit a "completely truthful" report to his supervision officer about how his life was going, noting changes of address and changes of occupation as they happened-- and he would have to find a job quickly, because working regularly would be another condition of his parole. No excessive alcohol consumption, no drug use, no ownership of firearms. Submission to drug screening as seen fit by his supervision officer. Because of the nature of his crime, his income would be under intense scrutiny at all times. Group therapy twice a month until he acclimated to life outside of prison. Individual therapy once a week to address his sexual assault.
All of these things, Julian could bear with, except for one: He would be expected to submit to searches of his person, and his residence, by his supervision officer, on a regular basis. In his own apartment, that wouldn't have been an issue. But he tensed at the thought of anyone rifling through Krish's things, disordering Krish's space, just because the man was kind enough to allow Julian to stay with him.
But debating the fairness of the situation with the blank-eyed uniform who'd slid paperwork across the desk at him and then sarcastically waved 'bye-bye' wasn't going to get him anywhere.
No money, no bus ticket, they let him out through the gate and the azurette thought the first feeling he'd have was a soaring, howling happiness. The reality was all anxiety. The suddenness of all the open space, the asphalt under his shoes, the sights and sounds of so many people as he walked for hours, navigating his way back into the city proper. Things were still mostly familiar-- only a few completed construction projects to give him a wrong turning or make him worry things had changed more than he'd realized. On a busy overpass he paused for a little while, the muscles in his legs already burning from exercise after a year of being almost unused. Down below, the cars whizzed by in an unbroken wall of chrome and paint, and for a moment Julian could vividly see himself vaulting the safety rail. Plummeting the distance to the highway below and exploding like a jello balloon onto the windshield of someone's Citroen.
The thing was, he'd promised.
So although he stared for longer than was probably healthy, his fingers stayed wrapped around the railing and his sneakers stayed on the ground. When he finally let go, it was with a gentle push, turning himself in a swinging arc so that he couldn't look down at the traffic anymore and had to navigate his way along the sidewalk. Past businesses and concession carts, apartment buildings with laundry hanging down from the fire escapes. He ducked inside a music store because of the HELP WANTED sign in their window and came out half an hour later with a one-day-a-week job, standing outside with their logo Inked across his body. Not much, but better than he'd expected. Sign work was something anyone could do, and it didn't put him in a position to touch the register or merchandise, so his prison time didn't bother the owner.
Somehow, Julian figured that wouldn't be the case at a lot of other places.
Everything was too loud, too open, too bright. Crowded street corners made him feel nervous, and the presence of anyone behind him, even if they were just waiting to use the crosswalk, was enough to make the azurette want to bolt. Tense and resigned, he kept his hands balled into tight fists at his sides, as though that could help him stay rooted to the spot instead of making a fool of himself, but the mage still visibly flinched when anyone brushed against his back. It was something he'd need to get under control before he arrived at Krish's place.
The Supervision Office was a grey building three miles out of his way, and the woman assigned to him was a redhead with her hair pulled into a severe side-bun that Princess Leia would have been proud of. The nameplate on her desk said Emer Pritchard, but all the while that she spoke to him she never said her own name out loud. Her tone and the way she looked at him were both indifferent, making the azurette feel about two inches tall. She pushed a folder across the desktop, and the pages inside listed contact information for herself and the therapists he would be expected to see, as well as a laminated copy of the regulations that applied to him now. Before he left her office, Julian made the mistake of trying to shake her hand, but the woman didn't even rise from her seat, and she kept her own gloved fingers steepled in front of her. Green eyes speared into his own, and then dropped to the hand he'd offered her. And without a word, the redhead made it clear that she considered them to be on two very different levels of existence.
Julian had gotten the hell out of there as quickly as possible, but it had still been another three hours before he managed to walk himself back across town to Krish's neck of the.. well, city. No bus pass, no motor-car, not a single lux-ur-y. He probably could have just jumped the gate and used the subway, but it seemed a petty thing to get in trouble over on his first day. The digital clock in a pawn shop window read 10:43pm, but he wasn't sure whether it was right or not. It was dark enough, out, but what were the odds the shop owner had cared enough to actually set the damn thing?
For a long time, Julian just stood outside the door, mentally rehearsing how this was going to go. He would smile and he would laugh, and they would make light of things, and he'd apologize for arriving so late. He'd make some excuse for not having called Krish to come get him, for traipsing through the city on foot until his legs were screaming. He would pretend that things were fine and he had never been away and the backpack slung over one shoulder wasn't 95% full of the things Krish had sent him in prison.
When his hand came up to knock, there was a tremor in it, and once the sound was loud enough that he knew it would be heard, Julian tucked it into his pocket to hide the shaking. And his smile still stayed on.
Progress.
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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:56 pm
  Krish goes into work and has two meetings, one with a couple whose main contention laid inside (both literally and figuratively) a new slave. It was a torrid counseling with crescendos of volume and meek responses on respective sides for the wife and husband. Krish helped the parties work through their issues but it was one of many recurrences in their relationship that put a strain on his head, challenged his ability to withhold all vague snark that could threaten to ruin his professionalism. The hour finished with him seeing them out and replacing the now empty box of tissues with a refill. Afterward, a former client came in to get some medication and update his situation. It was a reminder that sometimes the slave still had ties to the medically-inclined world for the people of his past. They said goodbyes and the only thing to keep him company was a computer and radio.
He was leaning back in his chair and watching the ceiling as he spun idly from spot A, then spot C, swinging to and fro in lazy arcs. Lunch time came in the form of an empanada and boba tea. The shopowner under his feet was very kind to feed him; he buzzed around urging constant bites and sips until Krish got up to leave and then the slave would find himself still seated as they talked about the goings-on in the plaza. If he had to guess, the man would say that the decline in weight on his part could have brought this on, but he remembered the bakery's owner and its workers being very kind to him regardless. It would be a fifteen minute and then, finally, he took the small red-painted stairs back up to his place. It needed a receptionist or something. That's what the shopowner had said. 'You're like a candy, you're like a hidden thing, a goal, you should give an introduction through a speakerperson and then be found' well. Krish didn't prescribe to all of that hubbub but putting out a job offering for someone interested in answering calls or greeting people that came would probably be more inviting, huh? For the remaining four hours, the man worked himself over application drafts and correspondence with one of the psych ward's nurses about the possibility of a joint program. Which had been going on for at least a month now- a month, two weeks, seventeen days, but who was counting? It was just a casual observation.
The dark had started coming in when he left work, texting an associate about doing dinner. He grabbed five croquettas from the bakery, did besos, and went on his way.
Life had taken a turn towards the involved.
He'd ridden his bike to work that day to enjoy the breeze and let his own car rest from the stress of riding an hour out of the city towards the rich bends and cut lawns where shubbery and bushes did have distinctions. Home-calls were rare but maybe it was time to be more open to them. Then he had gotten himself involved in the whole business of personable relations. A man he often saw at yoga had been so kind as to strike up conversation. This became a lunch after class, then sitting down and texting here and there when time allowed, two more lunches, now a dinner. Krish found it alarming. He didn't think he could do those things without Julian. He and Julian had texted and touched and tittered over food in public domains. The months of absence were interesting, yes. But this last month seemed particularly odd. Only weeks and his life was rushing.
A former classmate made him a profile on some dating app. Krish spent the whole day trying to understand how to uninstall an app while avoiding being assaulted with random phalluses that projected themselves from his phone's screen. It was all pretty crazy. Apps for finding people. How did no one get killed? His classmate didn't seem to understand the problem with posting his face and initials, but Krish left the radar that afternoon. Now this thing. This date.
As wind moved past him, Krish worried at his lip. There had been no call, e-mail, falcon, text, screamer, no form of communication from Saxon City Prison in regards to the release of one Julian St. Jude. He'd counted; it was going to be this week. But without anyone having contacted him, Krish had allowed the spare chance that maybe being distracted by other affairs had side-lined the countdown in his mind. Tomorrow, tomorrow, or a tomorrow's tomorrow-- it would come. But what if he was wrong? And what if something had happened?
"Hey, you're on your way now? Yeah I just got in so... No, no, take your time, don't worry." Krish dropped off his keys and nudged the door closed, turning the locks. He didn't smile but the warm tone on the other end of his phone did strike something good in him. "I'll see you then. Of course, no really, it's my pleasure. Yeah, I'll meet you out on the street when you turn off Keller. Okay? Okay, mm. Bye." For a while all Krish did was stare at the thing in his hand and scroll to the "Saxon Prison" contact with a finger hovering over the call button. It could very well cause unnecessary damage to Julian's already fragile case. So the man made pasta instead.
It was a casual dinner. More of a discussion than anything. Just breaching personal boundaries and inviting a disgusting stranger into his home. That was fine. Though he wasn't disgusting. Just not Julian. No one would be Julian.
An hour and forty-five later, Krish had served fettucini and was sitting comfortably with a man on his couch, with an arm behind him and extremely aware of the proximity of everything. The hairs were standing up on his arms and tickled his senses. Wine was good and made his lips feel chapped. Other things made his lips feel chapped. Like nerves and sudden awareness at the lack of vaseline. It was 10;08, someone was nosing on his neck. He didn't know if it was fair to say "like" could be used to describe the sense it gave him. It did trigger the "throttle" switch, which Krish did like, but that was tempered by laughter and the disappearance of that nose and its meeting with neck skin.
For the evening, he'd felt his face smile and there had been warmth to it.
The movie was good. Some time in, Krish had to rise to answer the summons at his door, dressed comfortably in a sweatshirt and similar pants. His hair was messy becasuse he'd made the mistake of allowing his guest to play with it and hated that it had felt good. He hated that he was self-conscious of the plugs of hair missing because of stress leading to fallout, hated that his guest noticed and commented that he didn't care and it had been nice. Krish hated a lot right now. He was not a fan of this sudden, jarring appeal to physical responses. And the fact that his plant- which he'd hanged- was obstructing the view out of his peephole. The mistake was all on him. Slowly, Krish opened the door, wiping alfredo cream on the back of his sleeve and coming face to face with someone blue-haired and broken-smiled and thin.
There were situations that people could replay in their heads and make up numerous actions and reactions. But actually enacting the master plan proved to be much more difficult than the slave had anticipated. His brown skin showed a noticeable flush, eyes widening imperceptibly behind store-bought glasses.
Julian. It was Julian.
Slowly, Krish stepped out, then back inside, then out again to hold his arms out and ask, "Is it okay to hug you?" because god knows what the man had developed in response to the treatment at prison.
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me...
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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 5:11 pm
I N T E L L I G E N T E Y E S I N A H U N G E R - P A N G F R A M E
He'd thought he remembered, but a year-- it turned out-- did strange things to memory, and Julian felt instantly embarrassed by how much his mental image of Krish had faded around the edges while they were apart. Krish had dark hair and hazel eyes and tan skin, and he would have been of a height with the azurette if he were only an inch or two shorter. And those truths still held, but they were vague and dim next to what Julian saw when the door was pulled slowly inward. The way Kansas had been grainy sepia next to the vibrant Technicolor of the land of Oz. And suddenly the ink mage felt twice as thin and ragged and grubby, and he had the impulse to turn and dart back down the stairs and into the dark before his friend could see him there. Except it was too late, of course.
And Krish, in reality, was comprised of so many details that had somehow slipped his mind, and Julian saw every one of them in a blink. Not just hazel, behind the glasses, but tending toward green. It somehow made a feline of him, with the sleek angles of his face and the deep darkness of his hair. Ink, the tousled locks-- and Julian tried to remember if he'd ever seen Krish tousled like that before, but couldn't-- the sweep of his lashes, the sharp precision of brow and facial hair. He had seen this face wearing so many expressions in the time Before. Stern and cross and grudging humor, and eventually the full bloom of joy that had been so familiar, part and parcel to all their silly jokes. Even here on the dim landing, with the dialogue of some movie playing far off in the apartment, Julian knew-- remembered, from a thousand park walks and food-truck ventures-- that Krish had never just been tan. His skin was a shade the azurette associated with warmth and sweetness, caramel and sunlight, flushed at the cheeks in the most endearing way. He was dressed for comfort, and the sight of him that way was correspondingly comforting. And terrifying. Because for all the times that people had called Julian "pretty", Krish was the beautiful one here, and how had the ink mage ever been selfish enough to consider marring his friend's life with all the ugliness he'd been steeped in?
It seemed monstrous, suddenly, that he had come here at all.
They were, for a moment, almost dancing in the doorway, the azurette stepping fluidly back as Krish advanced, and forward again once the other man retreated, but he balked at the question, unsure what his answer really was. He wanted to say that a hug from his friend would always be welcome, always be a source of security and calm, but the truth was that he wouldn't know unless it happened. Here, now, Julian felt far less of the anxiety that had plagued him through the busy streets. It could have been because the man standing in the entry was familiar to him, known and trusted. Or it could have been because Krish was simply in front of him, where he could be seen, and that made a threat far less likely. That last made him feel ashamed, because if there was anyone in his life that deserved his faith it was this man.
He wanted to say, Of course. Wanted to turn one corner of his mouth up in a lopsided smile, as though the question had been unnecessary. Wanted to put levity into it and bat his lashes. Anything for you, Krish.
Except there was a fragility in this moment, and he didn't want to make a mockery of anything that had gone before, or any of the things he would inevitably have to say to the man in front of him. The smile clinging to Julian's lips was soft and sad, a weak thing that he wished he could improve on.
His hands were curled tight around the strap of the backpack that slashed a diagonal across his chest, and Julian forced them to relax. Forced himself to let go, the white leaving his knuckles as his fingers relented in their grip. For a moment, he wasn't sure what to do with them-- and there was another Will Ferrell joke in there somewhere-- and they jumped to his sides. But slowly, slowly, they rose again, wrapping around the cheap nylon of the strap as though it were a lifevest he was wearing and not a knapsack full of letters. In some ways, they were the same thing, and the azurette reminded himself that he didn't have to latch on so tightly anymore to pieces of paper, because the source of the words was right here. Damnit, right here, with his arms out, trying to welcome Julian back from hell, and still the younger man couldn't quite bring himself to move. He just stood there, letting the silence stretch, eyes slipping to the floor in a way that had become characteristic not in the last year, but in the last six months. Odin had always hated being looked in the eye, and Julian wasn't sure when he'd learned to just keep his gaze down, but now it happened all the time whenever he felt worry. Whenever he was sure he was doing something wrong, handling things badly.
And for the thousandth time, the azurette reminded himself that Odin wasn't here. Odin was gone. And who cared what Odin had liked or hated anyway? He was never going to see Odin again, not in a million years, so it didn't make any difference if he was behaving in a way that some stupid, ginger werewolf had conditioned him to behave. It didn't matter. Odin didn't matter. Odin didn't exist. None of the things he remembered in the dark when he woke up in a sweat with his heart lodged in his chest mattered. Whether he'd been sold or bartered or shared made no difference. He didn't wonder if it had made the werewolf angry. He didn't wonder if Odin had just been completely indifferent, not caring at all. He didn't think about how long Odin had let him feel guilty, thinking that all of it had been his own fault. Julian told himself he didn't remember any of it. Told himself it had never happened. It was like he'd just been in a coma somewhere for the last year.
It was time to wake up.
So he stepped forward, his own arms still folded in close to his body, until he was there in Krish's personal space, bowing his head against the other man's shoulder to rest his forehead there. This close, all the scents of his friend were present, warm and clean, mixed with smells that were less familiar, which were probably part of the last year. He would have to learn so much, acclimate to so much. Julian felt proud that he was only half tense as he acquiesced to the embrace. There was no abject terror, no sharp spike of anxiety, because he sensed that if he stepped away Krish would allow it. The older man's arms weren't a cage around him. His hands had never, never, gripped Julian in a way that would leave bruises mottling wrists and thighs and throat. Eyes closed, his lips moved soundlessly, brushing against the sweatshirt over his friend's shoulder as the azurette mouthed the words that he couldn't say out loud. This is safe. Krish is safe. He won't. He wouldn't ever. You know that.
The sound of someone clearing their throat-- too nearby, unexpected-- startled Julian enough that he lifted his head from his friend's shoulder, quick, sharp, golden eyes falling on the shape of a stranger in the room behind Krish. And the first feeling was alarm, because the ink mage didn't know this person. But he could read the expression on the unknown man's face easily enough, and there was confusion there, mixed with displeasure. Something more than displeasure, which at first Julian didn't understand, until he paired it with the sound of the movie in the other room, the soft hint of alcohol from Krish, suggesting wine with dinner. The comfortable clothes and the tousled hair and--
He stepped back immediately, one of his hands combing through the mane of his hair, as if getting the strands out of the way had suddenly become of paramount importance. Color slid across his cheekbones, natural and immediate, a blush that twinned easily with his embarrassment. Julian couldn't remember ever seeing Krish on a date-- ever even hearing about one-- and he'd always assumed that the other mage was just incredibly private in that way. And here he was, arriving unexpectedly in the middle of the night, curled against Krish like some Nicholas Sparks love interest. It was no wonder the stranger was staring that way, arms folded, one brow raised as if to say, Well? You're obviously not related, so what the ******** is this?
So Julian gave the only rebuttal he could think of that made any sense.
He turned and ran back down the stairs.
OOC: Sorry I took control of the NPC in the room without asking. But I figured this was pretty likely. XD
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Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 5:06 am
When they'd gone out together, it was easy to see how Julian looked to the outside world and fall in the similar line of thinking. He'd always been attractive. It wasn't something of opinion anymore, just one of those facts. There had always been a health to Julian's face and a personal glow as he walked around and smiled at people. His eyes would widen just a fraction when he smiled and people realized how bright his eyes were, golden in hue instead of what they associated with dimmer and duller things. And how they were charmed. Krish would stand back and watch; ordering food from a truck, getting them tickets for a movie, Julian had been a charismatic example of the elegance the slave had so long associated with targets. Pictures, videos, they were nothing to show the impact the azurette still had in the light of real life. He was so gorgeous and so real.
But the solidness was almost gone. Julian looked barely anchored, if not by anything but shock. They were both buzzing and sluggish at once. There was a leanness to him. Krish had always thought his friend as slim, and he'd had the nourished and healthy body of the masters, honed for pleasing. But hunger paced around him. There was new spaces and falling folds in the shirt Krish had seen, a slackness to the jeans, tightness to the mouth. Who had dulled his friend? The flakes peppering brown had sparkled before, but the overhanging hallway light two feet away did nothing but show a shine from anxiety. Uncertainty. Something about Julian now seemed very lackluster in energy, all more affecting in person. 'Who hurt you,' was the immediate thought. 'Who's done this to you, my friend, sucked you away?' There was a poem, there was a poem, where a woman had struck the earth and begged to be admitted, "like he was, and feed me honey from the rock"-- taken greedily and leaving this person who he had called friend, who looked like his friend, a copy of him.
Beneath the brambles and weeds of the months in captivity there was Julian St. Jude amongst the thicket. He just needed to be found. He needed to know the world was a place that needed him, because so selfishly, Krish lived in it.
Not a lot to call one's own as a slave in the household he'd grown up in. Krish had known nothing of possessions and the powers of the self had been smothered day in and out because he was no fool to them either. On reflective days during the year, he'd scorned himself for accumulation and held Julian as someone higher than the greed that somehow grabbed at all that could be had. Friends were not slaves and certainly had the autonomy to stop being close. But that didn't stop him from feeling greedy. Before the ink mage's imprisonment, their time together had been so often and expected that the slave sometimes bitterly regarded the outings and escapades. Greedy to get used to it and want it again and again, greedy to miss for it and want it like an ache.
Memories belonged to him, and he'd never want to own Julian, but his mind was running a hard bargain for just plain keeping him at the apartment. Forever and a day.
Look at all the healing, look at all the pain. The ache for his friend rivaled with true fisticuffs with the anger that was twitching inside him like a ghost ready to bring the reckoning. Krish didn't remember feeling this kind of rolling anger recently. He knew it didn't show on his face, certainly wouldn't affect how he handled the situation and Julian, but it had heightened his senses for the pickings. Every little thing that the metal mage had noticed became fuel for the acid forming in the sac of his stomach, rolling with despair and sadness and anxiety and fear. He wanted to launch a thousand fists in the vicinity of faces who had directly contributed to this torrid act. Look at him- just look. Something in him had changed to avoid conflict. Restraining himself by finding a place for his hands; the eyes- down; taken to not speaking- like he couldn't, like he had to measure. Together they had been a fearless pair of raucous laughter and impassioned discussions. Now things were so different even if their tie had not loosened. At least on Krish's side. He kept himself hoping, arms out and ready for him, the ache for it behind his heart as he kept himself still.
Eventually, yoga paid off for that.
Krish folded his arms around Julian and held him without squeezing tight. His head bowed, nose to head, with a thousand unsureities laid to rest. Firstly, Julian had not been killed and replaced during the year for an amazing replica, robot or otherwise. Secondly, he did not have a tracking chip implanted within the recesses of his body by the government or any other malicious entity. And for thirds, he was not a projection or heavy visual lie. Krish was not having an episode or hallucinating as a side-effect of pills. He was real. He real real, warm and beating. Slowly he rocked, gently from one foot to the other, to synchronize the waves of emotions they both had to ride. It was so easy to forget with Julian back, the missing cut-out far and near for a year.
Which explained why he, too, looked almost incredulously behind him when there was the sound of another living person. 'Who are you and why are you in my house?'-- Oh, he'd invited someone, that he had. A guest. A person. Why was he here again? Why was he still there? One part of the mage said 'how rude can you be' but the other only knew Julian in that moment, and how this apartment was rightfully his, from pies de la cabeza. Krish quickly returned his attentions to Julian to apologize and invite him in, while he invited this other rando out, how he'd made pasta and there were leftovers and he could always change the movie, all while telling him who that was and how okay of a person he so happened to be--
The warmth was gone. Julian looked very confused as to the reasoning why. His gaze rested on the azurette in open confusion until blue hair was no longer in front of him. So Krish acted fast. The man had gotten up to take his hands, but Krish was already grabbing his keys, letting the other follow him out as he closed the door behind him and smiled like he was sorry. Maybe there was some apologetic emotions in there. But mostly complete wonder. Did he think this evening-meeting would still continue and Julian was out there, somewhere? No. Bye. Krish read to kiss cheeks so he did and was not a little peeved by the peck on his lips because who gave the man clearance to do that? A clear violation and infraction.
The slave could have been dictated a prisoner to his own upbringing. One you're taught it, you never forget how to serve and obey command. You never stray from your master and learn to protect the weaker masters who were slim of waist and face that needed the bulk. Running after Julian was not tiring or even an effort, body humming as he called out the man's name, feet hitting the stairs before he managed to nab the other man to a stop. Krish inhaled and exhaled, touching Julian's face with tears in his eyes as he gasped.
Krish had to bend his head, draw in breath after breath. Then the slave straightened, looking at Julian with a dizzy head. ""Come home. Please?"
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me...
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Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 10:37 am
I N T E L L I G E N T E Y E S I N A H U N G E R - P A N G F R A M E
He didn't get far.
The last year of his life had been spent in boxes of varying sizes, and he'd walked more in the last day than in all the days that he'd paced circles around tiny rooms made of cinderblock. How long had it been since he'd really run, flat out, for the speed of it and the play of adrenaline through his system? How long had it been since he'd moved at more than a snail's pace? Impossible to consider all the unspoken rules of don't-don't-don't if he moved too quickly, so in the cell Julian had slowed to a crawl. Uncertain. Always so damn uncertain. What will happen if I--? Better not to know. Better to curl in and twine tight around himself. Better to live inside his own head than to let his thoughts shine open on his face where people would see them and be tempted to beat them out into the open. His sneakered feet hit the stairs, hit the pavement, and his speed had suffered in the last year as much as anything else. He used to be so fast, so fleet, so free, and now--
There were a thousand ways to die and still be walking around. Shuffling, shambling through every day. Inanely, suddenly Rick Grimes made a lot more sense, and the absurdity of that thought almost jarred laughter from the azurette, except that was another thing he didn't quite remember how to do. Instead he clamped down, hands lacing over his own mouth to trap the lunatic sound that wanted to escape from his throat. All for the better, really. It would have been a broken thing, hysterical, the laugh that sometimes follows excruciating pain. Was he the only one that did that?
He took the stairs at a suicidal rate, the heels of his shoes skittering over the edge of each step as though he weren't walking at all, but actually sliding. And he was at the foot of them, body turning in a pivot that would have swung him out of the stairway and into the open, when he heard pursuit coming, felt the hand that caught at his shoulder. Krish. It was Krish. The voice that had been calling after him was familiar and laced with concern-- and how guilty he felt about that, how ashamed-- and even that couldn't keep him from thrashing wildly once he was caught. Peter Rabbit in the gooseberry net, stuck by his little brass buttons. Nothing could stop the way he flinched, tensed, broke from the contact so he could turn. So he could see who it was.
They'd never needed to chase him, because there had never been enough room to run. So many hands, the first time, to hold him down and keep him in place. And he knew the hands by their roughness and their tattoos, the way he knew the voices by their accents and their crude words, but the faces were a blur. Made-up images that swirled and shattered when he tried to focus, tried to know. Because all he knew was dirt in his mouth. All he knew was the sudden knock-out red-black of his head against cold tile, dazed and damaged. Always when he couldn't see or didn't notice, always when he couldn't run.
So he had to turn. Had to wrench himself out of the other man's grip and look at him with eyes gone panic-wide and terror-bright. But even out here, in the dark, nestled away from the hall light, Julian could tell it was Krish. Stupid, to run from this person. Stupid to be afraid, or flinch away from those hands that had never once harmed him. And slowly the expression softened into something else. Embarrassment. Shame. He had come here without warning. Inconsiderate. Spoiled. Hadn't thought about what Krish might be doing, or how a sudden arrival might inconvenience him-- No, he had, but he hadn't expected, hadn't thought-- And now he'd ruined things. Given the wrong impression, caused unnecessary friction, maybe damaged something that his friend had considered precious and important. He'd looked so comfortable when he answered the door. So settled. Maybe even content.
And still, he'd come running out into the night to find Julian. Sprinted off, probably to the annoyance of the man who was likely his boyfriend. Stood here gasping, asking the azurette to come back upstairs. Come home, he said.
Which one of them was supposed to be the saint here?
Julian's body eased back, putting his spine against the wall. He barely even noticed what he was doing-- making it impossible for anyone to get behind him, making his line of sight as wide as possible so he could register the stairwell and the access to the street. Like an animal gauging all the escape routes, and he didn't even think about it really. Didn't register it as a conscious thought. It was only that he felt more comfortable in that spot. Why didn't occur to him in the least.
"I'm sorry."
For showing up unannounced. For ruining things with whoever-that-was. For running off instead of trying to communicate like a person. For not calling first. For not really preparing Krish for this. For being gone so long and coming back wrong. There were so many things to apologize for that Julian didn't even know where to start. He tipped his head back, skull thunking against the wall behind him, and sighed. Exasperated at himself. Before, he had been almost fearless. He had been quick to laughter, quick to a joke, quick to stand up against the things he felt were wrong or unjust. He'd been quick Before. And now here he was, acting like Buffy Summers circa season six.
Yeah, well. Life is just this: It's living.
"I mean. s**t. What are the odds I cockblock you my first day back?"
There. Levity. He could do this, if he really tried. If he pushed himself, he could behave like a person instead of a bunch of broken pieces. He could speak here. He could speak to Krish. In his head he repeated it over and over. It's alright to talk now. It's okay. And The things Odin hated don't matter anymore. Julian combed his fingers back through his hair, getting the flyaways out of his face, trying to feel like things were in order. Trying to feel like he had some control over himself, or this situation. Anything, really.
Change gears. Start again. Pretend nothing is wrong. Smile. Come on, Julian. You remember how to do that much, at least. You're not that ******** far gone, are you? Now. Do it. Smile.
And somehow, he did it. Pulled the corners of his mouth into a smile that felt confident and sure. The reality was tentative, a giveaway of how little he'd had to smile about in the last year. It curved his lips just softly. Never reached his eyes, which had flashed and glittered Before. Even the language of his body was closed, guarded, and Julian seemed utterly unaware of it. How his legs pressed together and his back never leaned away from the wall. How one hand curled to hold the opposite arm just below the elbow. What had happened was written in every second that he didn't step forward toward his friend, and what was worse was that Julian thought he was doing well. The azurette had spent so little of the time he'd been in prison actually communicating aloud that he measured his success purely in how many words he was stringing together.
"You should have said you were seeing someone. I'd have found somewhere else to crash, you know? Give you some privacy."
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2016 12:20 pm
Immediately he wanted to take it back. In his line of work, sometimes discomfort was necessary to break through but feeling Julian thrash away from him was almost a vice around his throat. And it angered him briefly how the influence to cut came. He needed to be punished. Why would he do that? If his mind didn't know Julian so well, he would have stayed prepared for a blow to the face, but since he knew it wouldn't come, he didn't do anything to show that he was physically effected by the reaction. Instead, Krish made sure that there was a safe distance. The slave did not corner or box. Physical closeness was important but not to the extent of suffocation. When those gold eyes turned to him, Krish knew it had not been his fault, but the fault of others who had saddled Julian with a newly learned safety mechanism. Enough freedom to know not to acquiesce but the presence of mental wounds fresh enough to survey.
His throat felt heavy with tar. His head fuzzed with it. There were things he wanted to do, to say. The only way to fix those who hurt was to show them the pain-- no, that wasn't true. But he didn't care. How could this have happened? He imagined his teeth sunk into throats and his hands made for ripping. He'd tear out their fillings and make portraits because even the hardest still had the softest bits made ripe for someone hungry enough to find them. And Krish had siphoned himself, but the instinct of even the most prim and proper collared tiger was to lurch.
It was inappropriate to have these thoughts while Julian was having t fix himself. Why was he the one who wanted to impart the pain? Take away what had happened from the azurette? It was vile and rude- again, so greedy. Krish stopped the thoughts because it was easy to do. In normal society, he had to learn that not every person could be met with broken teeth.
This wasn't Animal Planet but there was a precarious balance. He felt himself forcing the heels of his feet to the ground so he wouldn't remain on the balls, tension in his spine but a forced relaxation of the shoulders, the face. He wanted Julian to trust him and come into his arms. Not his arms- his general... space. But he held himself still. 'Let him come' and Krish told himself that in these situations, the importance lied in giving the saint his justly deserved power. Greedy greedy greedy. Krish watched the man move, so slender and thin, the anxiety in his body, paleness of his skin, was the only thing keeping him from becoming a shadow in these lights and shades. A trapped person looking for outs. Caution. Sureness. Krish was reminded of himself in so many ways and it peeled strips of skin away. The realization was corrosive. This time the slave had to fight back the real acid that bubbled up. It went down bitter and burning.
Slaves acted like that. Not masters.
Slaves, abused, young slaves who knew the signs of a room on the attack. With smiling faces offering him a reward if he rose the occasion and passed their challenge. And hadn't that slave darted forward, pitched between the legs of one noble, saw the side door open a crack and slimmed himself- attempted to- hand out, through, torso, hips, and screamed as he felt the slam of that door and the laughter at loss.
Slaves looked for escapes. Abused ones-- ones that still had their skin to show and not bruises. The middle-ground between bad and worse.
He didn't care to listen to the babble, for once. The words were buzzing in his head. Krish realized that he was having a delayed reaction to the anxiety and anger that was overwhelming his body. A blackout was approaching. He was tensing, the muscles clenching so hard he almost thought he'd break himself. Wiggle your big toe. Bat an eyelash. Move. Move. You have to move. Breeze ruffled his hair and his eyes teared in response but the unlocking of his limbs was like the decompression of a blood pressure's sleeve. A slow release. Another beat of silence, and then the slave was moving. His arms wrapped around the azurette, forehead falling against the wall (bruising obviously didn't matter) and he sighed deep against the shoulder of the man who he had missed for so long.
"You talk a lot of s**t, Julian."
Krish pulled away because he was caging, and he knew how that must have felt. His hand went for Juliann's- he had to control his voice to prevent a plea. Tongue swiping over his lips and gently tugging, the man spoke again.
"Please, come home. I couldn't give less of a s**t about the guy, it's a physical impossibility, I need you, in my house, on the couch, right now, as we are speaking, five months ago, needed you on my couch and your a** is going to become so intensely familiar with the holes and strings and general fabric and broken bits of that couch that you will name it, something stupid, like Indigo Montoya, or Big Betsy, do you? understand me? Am I making sense here?"
It was a little desperate. But he couldn't help it. His heart was hurting for Julian, for himself, and the openness of the street. Away. He needed Julian home and eating something edible, and actually delicious, which his pasta just so happened to be- verified and approved by six classmates! The hurt was too much; his vision threatened on "compromised", he physically could not stand seeing Julian this way and knowing what had happened to him. He couldn't.
At least, when he was a slave, Krish had a chance to escape. If he was faster, stronger, better, he could have ran and ran and broken every part of himself to get away. But Julian had been trapped. He didn't get to juggle and let the knives fall. It was crushing.
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me...
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2016 4:47 pm
I N T E L L I G E N T E Y E S I N A H U N G E R - P A N G F R A M E
The wall was at his back, and the night was dark, and maybe somewhere else it was full of terrors, but here-- When Krish's arms found him, the tension in his too-thin frame was there for only a moment, with all the anxiety of being trapped. This time, there was no impulse to slip through the gaps between them. Lucky, because there were none. He could see the man in front of him, could feel the slight dishevelment of the other mage's hair just there against the bend of his throat when the brunette nestled closer, and Julian eased a little at a time. Brought up one of his hands, making a low sound of concern as his fingertips ghosted across Krish's brow. All of his effort at being cavalier seemed to drain away in the face of even that one small injury, and the azurette turned his head to look, to check for blood. It brought their faces all the nearer, and there was no fear, no crushing anxiety, no sign that this form of closeness had been turned into a nightmare for him. Julian smiled again to find the other man's skin unbroken, and this time the expression was a little more at home on his face. Not joy, but relief that turned sheepish at the quip. Had he really thought he could fool Krish, of all people? No, but he'd thought it would be kind to try. And clearly that had been a misconception on his part.
He wasn't sure what to say, or how to explain himself. Wasn't sure where to begin, and for a moment he stayed completely silent. For so long, that had been what was expected of him, the preferred level of communication. None. But the other man's hand had laced with his as Krish pulled away, and that much Julian was still able to understand even before the words started. Follow, the fingers between his own said. Come with me.
It was a deluge, this communication. A stream of speech that threatened to disorient him, there was so much of it. How long had it been since someone had focused on the azurette enough to say these many things? In reality, it had maybe been the full year, because the spoken word wasn't something he'd been given to indulge in. His backpack held thousands of the words that Krish had written down, but now the man was saying things out loud, and Julian could hear the hitch in his breathing, the disjointed pauses that Julian associated with pain. And for the first time, it really hit home that he had been missed. That his absence had meant something, to this one person, and that--in trying to be considerate, in trying to avoid causing inconveniences-- he had very casually offered Krish even more of it. Had so much as told him that he was about to be abandoned right after the azurette returned.
The last thing in the world that Julian wanted was to cause this man any further pain. When others had let their correspondence lapse out of annoyance, Krish kept writing. His own family had disowned him as a disgrace, but here Krish was, telling him to come home. Welcoming Julian into his personal space as though nothing had happened even though the younger mage had very clearly ruined a date that had been going just fine. Every single other person that the azurette knew had just cut him loose and kept on going without looking back. And for the first time he actually thought about what he'd been putting the older man through. Thought about the monstrous pressure it must have been to keep those letters coming, keep them positive and light.
So his free hand came up, fingertips pressing gently to the warmth of his friend's lips, stopping the torrent of those words neatly, tenderly. When he spoke again, his voice was free of the feigned humor, empty of the levity he'd tried so hard to bring before. Krish didn't seem to want those things. He didn't want the lie, even though Julian had meant it to be comforting. Something about that went through the azurette like a spire of glass, and for a moment it felt as though his heart was too full and deflating all at the same time. In a fairer world, so many things could have been so different. But they weren't.
"It's okay." The way he said it was a hush as soft as the touch of his fingers. It was a bedside voice, the way doctors speak and nurses, and yes, Krish would know from experience, therapists. But it's also Julian's voice, the tone and timbre identical to the first time the metal mage had ever heard it. Their first meeting, when the younger male had still been wearing the fading cuts and scrapes he'd earned in Haven territory, trying to prove that even a master could be good. Trusted. Helpful. That he, whatever the circumstances of his birth and upbringing, actually cared. "It's not going to be like this forever."
I'm not going to be like this forever.
The soft pressure of his touch lessened, grazed down the taller man's lower lip so that Julian could tap the side of one knuckle just under Krish's chin. Familiar and affectionate, the contact. The physical embodiment of that thing people always said to one another. Chin up. And somehow it centered him, focusing on someone else's comfort. Someone else's wellbeing. His anxiety shrank, grew distant as Julian stretched more toward the role he'd once inhabited. Gentle, but firm. Comforting in his decisiveness. Directing the situation from a place of good will.
How long had it been since he'd given voice to anything he wanted to do?
"This is what we're going to do." The same as when he'd laid out Krish's new life for him in a set of printed papers. You seem to have everything in order already. The way before you has been prepared. "We're going to go back up these stairs, and I will use your shower. I will ask if it's alright to borrow some of your clothes, because I'm fairly certain the contents of my apartment aren't just sitting around with the new tenant, waiting for me to come back and get them."
The smile he offered was apologetic, but the beaten-dog quality had gone out of it, and Julian gave the hand still holding his own a reassuring squeeze. There was still strength in him, somewhere. Still some shred of the gallant that he'd always been before. And he summoned it now for the man in front of him, who was probably the only person on all the green Earth that really deserved it.
The azurette turned, fingers still woven together with those of his best friend, and began the ascent, tugging Krish behind him. And every few steps he glanced back. Made himself register those hazel eyes, and the sharp cheekbones, the cut of the older man's jaw. Memorized anew how the metal mage moved and the play of light and shadow over his features. Each time the anxiety threatened, closing his throat the way Odin's hand had closed it, Julian looked back, and forced himself toward center, toward calm.
He couldn't do this for himself. But he could do it for Krish. And by the time they were back where they started, standing there in front of the therapist's apartment door, Julian felt almost solid. Almost real.
Almost like a person.
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Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 10:58 am
One of these days he would reflect on that evening and feel a massive pang of guilt, embarrassment, and gratefulness. If he could reflect. The haze of his mind pumping him with the adrenaline he knew he didn't need would sufficiently muddle the specifics of this moment. Even the pain of hitting his head had been dulled. The tenseness of his jaw, to crushing urge to stream out his words- because he could feel it dawning on him, the loss of communication, where things became choked nothings and silences. He wouldn't remember what he'd said to deserve anything that Julian had to give, but the offering of physical contact and language that was imparted for both their sakes would most likely be the clearest thing. If there was ever a positive case to use the term 'sore thumb' it would have been that, the ease of Julian's voice and the sadness, gentleness of his smile. Dimmed but no less brightening. It curdled his insides-- how privileged was he, a witness to this, better yet the recipient after all this time? It was a special thing. He savored it, every second. It would be so standout in the memory.
In the present, he felt them fresh. His insides went soggy and the reaction to such a blunder clouded his vision again. But he was so thankful to have been stopped. Krish was by no means a motor mouth, but his fingers and mind worked faster than his mouth. For someone who had just stepped back into the louder world of the faux-free living, he probably honed in at over 120 decibels; bad for such a close range, an unfortunate mistake to have consciously been a part of. He would have opened his mouth again but knew he shouldn't, remaining still with trained attentiveness. Every vibration of their contact rocked through him. Krish was floored, rushed, stilled and then lulled by the past and the present Julian that moved through him.
What could he say to this?.
Krish went where those gold eyes wanted him. A master's touch had become something to watch warily. From the cradle, to the class, and at clambakes, to a couch. He was aware. He was always so aware and his mind always despised how easily it was for the body to fall back into the role of 'moldable'. Hyper-sensitive and acquiescent. He liked it. 'It's Julian.' That's the reminder. It's his friend, he had to kick himself in the a** a few times, it's his best friend who's earned every right of way to initiate little intimate gestures- however simple or massive. Again, how rude. This wasn't about him; Julian needed this too, he did it as much for himself as Krish. Obviously give and take had been marred to ribbons of snatching in prison; reclaiming the ability to talk, to converse and touch, that's what he needed. The slave could face the facts about himself and swallow them down for now. He'd had years to vent silently or audibly. His best friend had not. Meaningful, close; why did he spurn Julian like this on the inside when he liked it just the same?
'Why are you thinking about yourself is the better question-' Yeah, he knows that, but all pieces of mind turned to listen without instruction.
They absorbed. They agreed. Krish also agreed, his own smile small but so proud that it was a thousand hearty cries, the warmth back in him with desperation lurking back into its pits. A voice said he couldn't stray from his roots as he followed behind the saintly younger man without protest or question. It was noise in his ear and he saw the tv-bilzzard, grainy-grainy, buzzing out of his peripheral as it tempted him to be consumed by the storm. His eyes had favored the set of Julian's back and the broken ends of his hair instead. They appreciated the head that turned to look backwards and the threat of being swallowed was smaller when there was someone else who already had him whole.
"It's good to have you back."
His door was locked and Krish took away the clinks that held it that way. The movie had been paused graciously and the room still smelled like pasta sauce. It was warm but the a/c was still going, restarting after the absence of people as if it sensed the arrival of bodies that could stand to be comfortable. Still holding hands, he led Julian to the master bathroom, switching on the light to his untouched looking bedroom (he had cleaned, almost certainly) and then to the adjoined room. The curtain had stylish ducks on them, different from the last set of balloon-suspended elephants the slave had excitedly bought on seeing them. Pulling away was hard but the other returned with a fresh towel and better bar of soap, placing them both on the sink's countertop for Julian to do as he pleased with.
Krish was scared that if he left, so would his friend. It seemed too good to be true, like an episode on Punk'd just waiting to happen. He was scared an accident would occur, an episode, that he was going to be needed and not there- again. Foolish or not, foul's not fair when it came to this mystic slave, and he lingered a beat, to smile again with a sheepish look around the space he used every day, as if just realizing the new paint he'd slabbed on.
"So... Should I, if following canonic storytelling, wait for the specified cue of your question to offer you clothes?" he began, glancing to the room behind him before settling his smile back on he who deserved it, and more. A good deal more- more than what could have been repaid to him in damages of a false case (even though that court trial would probably land flat in the dismissed pile if he was being honest with himself).
"Or can I just lay them out on the bed like I know what's automatically comfortable to you?"
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me...
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Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 1:06 pm
I N T E L L I G E N T E Y E S I N A H U N G E R - P A N G F R A M E
Each step upward, he tried to remember.
Who had he been before? How had he been? And yes, this had been a part of it. The gentility, the concern, the deep empathy like a reservoir that he never even needed to tap. The pain of others, their problems, were immediately and effortlessly his own, to be solved or salved so that their recovery could be as complete as possible. He had never been able to stand it-- seeing other people suffering. Still less, those he loved and respected. Valued, cherished, adored. But it was his own kindness that often made a victim of him, wasn't it?
The stubbornness, the determination, the idealistic zeal. Those had been part of him Before, too. Julian had employed passive resistance through beating after beating, carrying a knife that he never made an effort to use, knowing that the people he might hurt with it were the very people he meant to save.
Ah, yes. The white knight, the little saint, borne back home again time after time on bloody knees. He'd never fully understood his own arrogance, the sheer hubris of believing that he had any right-- or any ability-- to decide what was best. To save anyone, when he had no experience or true knowledge of what it was he meant to save them from. More accurate: he'd known, but he could never fully comprehend. Servitude. Slavery. The shackles that bound free will and turned the very world around them into a cage. And if escaped? Well, then circumstance became the trap. Lack of opportunity was the new kennel. The law supported these things. His own upbringing supported it.
And so Julian had said ******** them both, never understanding that he was still-- might always be-- a product of the culture in which he'd been raised.
After all, didn't he truly believe that it would be comforting for his friend if the azurette stepped up to direct their interaction? Tender and firm, the way he'd led the other man up the stairs, stopped his words so neatly, so sweetly. Not a manipulation, but a manifestation of what Julian had been Before. A leader by habit rather than inclination, showing his concern by carefully drawing the other mage back the way Krish had asked him to go. It had even been, in its own subtle, broken way, a display of trust-- a momentous effort against anxiety and fear-- to draw the brunette behind him that way. I am doing as you have asked, and in the way that is most terrifying to me, so that you will know you are not the cause of my problems. It wasn't a thing he could say aloud, exactly. Not there on the street. Not in the stairwell.
He could not do it in a box, he could not do it with a fox.
So he'd done it with his fingers laced through the older man's, leading him up those steps like a lover being drawn to bed. Done it with the way his eyes turned again and again to Krish's face, memorizing anew the details that had become hazy in his long absence. And Julian never considered the temerity of it. Hadn't thought once of himself as a master in relation to the man behind him, even though the law made that class distinction incredibly clear. Krish was not a thing, to be owned or bought or ordered. He was a person, a friend-- the azurette's dearest friend, his only friend, when all others had fled. The idea of commanding the metal mage, trying to negate his free will, was repellent.
From the moment he'd met the man, Julian had always assumed if Krish disagreed with him he would just say so. Had thought that 'No' would be easy to say, if the brunette felt a cause for it. But then, the ink mage had always had that word at his disposal Before. Had learned from a young age that when he said it, it would be listened to.
Only in the last year had he really learned anything.
"It's good to be here." The appropriate response, surely, but it carried the weight of so many different sentiments. So much better to be here than where he'd been. So much better to be treated with this kindness, so priceless after everything else. So much better to have stayed, to be able to experience this, instead of making a third attempt on his own life. Words are a precious treasure that he has had so little of in the last year, but for this they are insufficient, because his command of them has gone rusty. He came from the grave much graver, and even feeling like a pitcher filled to the very brim, Julian couldn't bring himself to spill.
Again they were dancing, hands never breaking contact as his friend altered their positions, drawing Julian effortlessly behind his slightly taller frame. Krish's letters had talked about the changes to his living space, but it's another thing to see them, and his eyes traveled the walls and furniture as the other man led him to the shower. Searching for and seeing the differences like a child circling hidden pictures in an activity book. Everything he sees seemed to provoke a charmed little smile-- one that quirked with honest humor at the shower curtain--but he didn't move from his spot when Krish let go of him briefly to find towels. Julian simply stood there, one hand against the door jamb as though he'd been tethered to it. A new habit, this disinclination to venture into a space he didn't consider his own, the way he refrained from exploring or touching things to which he hadn't explicitly been invited.
Odin had always appeared to hate having the azurette in his way-- something that was a near constant given how close their living arrangement had been. And Julian had internalized a set of rules without even having had them explicitly laid out. Things that were thrown on the floor were for him to discard or clean up, and he was permitted to touch the sheets of the lower bunk before morning inspection so that he could fold them properly-- but at no other point, ever, during the daylight hours. Only in the dark was he ever allowedexpectedwantedgiventherightto enter the werewolf's sleeping space, and his conduct then had been subject to just as many unspoken rules-- maybe more.
How long would it take before he stopped living his life that way, trying to apply all of those methods to situations that were so vastly different?
His smile returned with Krish, curving the bow of his mouth as though the other man had simply carried the expression back into the room with him, and Julian consciously eased. His friend's presence was becoming a touchstone-- the sight of the brunette like the snapping of fingers to wake a subject from hypnosis. The first question provokes a sound that, in another lifetime, could have been laughter. Just a soft exhalation, paired with the smile touching his lips, so that what came out was a meaningless syllable, hnn.
"Anything that you choose will be appreciated. I trust you, Krish."
At his current weight, almost anything was going to be too big, but the azurette didn't seem overworried on that score. More important, more embarrassing, the request that came after. Softer. Murmured with his eyes on the towel there beside the sink, a sign that he understood he was asking for something that a normal person-- a healthy person-- wouldn't need.
"Is it alright for me to leave the door open while I'm showering?"
The words were self-conscious, but the hands that curled in the hem of his too-large teeshirt weren't hesitant at all. Navy fabric tugged upward, baring stomach and chest and shoulders, and whatever bruises there had once been were healed by now, leaving the azurette pale and delicate. Robbed of what definition he'd had before, Julian's leanness would have left him androgynous, the slightest curve of his hips enough to lend credence to doubt, even in tandem with the smooth planes of his chest. By habit his hands folded the garment, and he moved far enough into the room to settle it beside the towel Krish had provided. And there seemed no discomfort now, with the older man behind him near the doorway-- perhaps because his friend remained visible in the mirror, reflected for Julian to see.
"It's better.. when I can see an open exit. Less.." A pause while he considered how to say it, standing there half bare, the belt he wore holding his old jeans low over his hips. Slim and pale and so startlingly unmarked by everything that had happened, except. Except for the tiniest extension of three parallel scars, running a steady curve along the wing of one hip. Spaced too evenly, the strokes too smooth. Not an accident, then, but a conscious effort. One, two, three, still with the slick pinkness of skin newly healed. Too perfect to have come from a hand that needed to remain steady against the struggles of the canvas. Tallies. Three of them. The only marks on a body that had otherwise healed any other sign of abuse. ".. Troubling.
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Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 10:54 am
Carving someone into his heart had not been a task he'd taken on consciously or even wanted. Julian's existence in relation to his own came about as a bond that snuck up on the both of them, he'd imagine. Those years ago Krish knew he had not been very personable, he had not been very kind, he had not been very sociable, and he had not given others much mind. Their closeness was a testament to Julian's personality all of its own. A drive, an inherent gift at helping and understanding, reserved strength and dignity, stern but open. Being around Krish was not easy. He'd been a helpful hand at Haven but that was the extent of his reach, a sullen and quiet man with his own pot cooking up a slew of goals and prospects. He'd been quick for violence after stress, he'd been cynical and at times biting, always with shoulders up and army boots on ready for a war.
Those years ago, masters were not people. Just corruptible beings walking without caution in the midst of infestation. They were targets of hate and bred it on their own. He looked at the ones with their slaves out in the open with rage in his stomach. He looked at the free, the ones who had the choice, and thought nothing of what their actual nature could be- all that mattered was the beast that latched on. When he walked, he would see it and smell it, in the sway of the hip, in the flow of living.
Sometimes, he was scared Julian would turn around and reap what he'd sewn. Krish did not see himself as any sort of bounty but the azurette had given him his agency, his life. Who else got to boast that? It had taken a while to melt out of the habit of watching too close for threats. He would have nightmares of the lecherous vulgar crowd mobbing his dear friend only to emerge greater and stronger, black goop hanging from him, corrupting him, the upturned muzzle of the upper-crust, the slender fingers made for holding a vice around his neck until he, too, perished under the grip of one of the many victims of slavery: trust. It was easy to be friends with Julian, it was easy to become close. The thoughts that plagued him began to die down after a few months in. His anger redirected in questioning his own gall. And now, the similar frustration that bubbled back up again with the return of Julian to what the metal-mancer would call his hovel.
He fit, fit right back in. His hair went with the muted green of his couch and fall hues of his walls, pale body in contrast to the dark woods and linens. Julian had a figurative placemat and had only come home from a very long day at work. Krish had never, could never, erase that or even alter it. Shifting couches and spaces, clearing clutter, it made no difference, his friend belonged here. In such a place Krish would even go far as to consider sacred.
His own privacy. A slice of his personality.
With bookshelves overstuffed and small piles almost making tables near it. Drawers that stuck with the amount of random take-out menus and pamphlets, well leafed through. Their greasy fingers tapping and grabbing at them; did he still have the Thai restaurant's number on speed-dial? Krish was almost sure of it. The careful maintenance of Julian was effortless like loving him. You couldn't rub him out even if there was a desire to. His memory remained fresh and the house seemed to hum brighter at the return of the other half of the pair. For all his bits and quirks, Krish was not himself without the mostly-daily presence of the other man by his side, either rousing him from a nap or joining him, playing mancala and old games into the hours that threatened to knock them both out.
Now Julian was in his bathroom and there was the strong urge to touch him. There was blood pulsing in his veins. Redness on his skin. His chest was rising and falling. Krish had never known such a contentment like the feeling of coming back into that room and seeing the other man there, unharmed, unhurried, smiling at him. Trusting him. He could feel himself basking in it. Krish hated himself a little more and tried to control any visible signs of excessive glee.
He made to point out where the loofah was but then an ink mage was speaking. In the already brighter lights of the bathroom, everything shined and assaulted his very weak eyes. But the glare of Julian's pale body very well could have blinded him if he didn't blind himself. Helen of Troy launched ships, but Lakshmi escaped the captivity of all her suitors. She was a golden goddess, a woman wanted, but never held down, and the dirt of her feet and hand was washed away by the cosmic ocean that constantly waged within her. A star-child. Julian was no golden goddess. But the situation seemed apt. There was no denying that Krish had witnessed the interest his friend sparked and always made sure to discuss his disgust with the whole matter. He never said he didn't understand.
They were opposites. His skin, marked and pickled, foreign. Krish hid it away whenever he could. The bags of his sweatpants and sweatshirts rid up during yoga but only to ankles or mid calfs, stretching up the although only slivers showed of his stomach and arms. He had things to be ashamed of. He had oddities that attracted notice. The eyes went his way (and only sometimes) because it was not very often, no not at all, to see a man with a dot on his forehead and a black tattoo peeking from the heights of a collar. But Julian was followed because he was beautiful, coveted, untouchable and happy to be happy. It made him sad now. Other things also made him sad.
Julian had an amazing ability to exist two places at the same time.
The parallel marks sliced down his skin was the present him, but the smile and manner was a glitching image of what-once-was, and maybe could-still-be. His mind and eyes were active in reality. His body was a manifestation of clashes, his habits behaviors outside of the allocated space in the continuum. Anger slammed into the side of his head; dimly, Krish heard the side of it thunk against the door frame as he nodded.
"No problem. I understand." He smiled to reassure him that he was telling the truth and leaned backward, curling around on the ball of his foot to make his way to the bedroom and open the closet to begin looking through clothes, so Julian did not see tears.
"The shower takes 18 seconds to get hot water going, by the way, so when it sprays, be prepared for a personal icebucket!"
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me...
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Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 7:33 pm
I N T E L L I G E N T E Y E S I N A H U N G E R - P A N G F R A M E
The words from the other room didn't bother Julian. It was never something he would say to Krish so bluntly, but if all he had to worry about was cold water, then it would be the best shower the azurette had had in the last year. And of course, he could have asked to bathe instead. Could have avoided the feel of water spraying against him from above and the tension that it seemed to cause now. But Julian hadn't jumped from the overpass, and that meant life had to go on. The thing about life was that it was full of rooms where you couldn't see the exits, and fields with chainlink fences. It was full of shower stalls and unmade beds and loud sounds without readily visible sources. To run away from those things-- to avoid them here, where he was probably safest-- would make him feel better for a little while, but nobody could move forward when they chose to hide in a coffin. And he had promised. So his coffin would have to wait.
"Good looking out!" He called back, tone as light as he could make it, even while he pulled the be-ducked curtain all the way back, unable to make himself reach in to turn on the water until he could see every corner of the shower. It felt stupid to be that vigilant, but Julian did it anyway, drawing the material into place again to avoid causing a puddle on the bathroom floor. Counted slowly in his head, listening to the patter of the water on the porcelain, eyes slipping every so often to the open doorway. There was nothing in the look that had anything to do with modesty, even though he had been embarrassingly self-conscious Before-- the kind of person who swam with a shirt on, regardless of compliments or interest from others. No, the way he glanced out through that rectangle of open space was just verification that he could bolt if he needed to.
But he wouldn't. It was something the azurette told himself again and again while he counted seconds, while he slipped the belt from its buckle, while he dragged faded denim and the simple cotton underneath down his thighs to leave himself bare. All things neat and orderly, all things folded, shoes tucked to the side of the door, before he had to return to the stall. Putting it off didn't do any good, of course, so Julian stepped in under water just starting to go lukewarm. Winced when the spray hit him, every muscle tensing at the sensation that carried the weight of unpleasant memory.
Tile against his cheek, slick and cold. Sharp collision making his skull feel like all its contents had been jarred loose. Too dazed, slow and stupid, vision greying at the edges, blinking back to focus, but unable. Pain, then, pressure, then. Water in his hair and in his eyes. Patter and spray, collecting at the small of his back, beading over hands bruising him. Behind him. Out of sight, and going far away, the part of him that can't be reached. A thing they didn't want. What they wanted was outside. What they wanted was the shell that carried him. They. Thumbs that threaten to bury deep into the sockets of his eyes at the first sound he makes, and after that he is gone, he is quiet, he is against the tiles, and he knows who these hands don't belong to. Again.
No.
His hands moved over his face, back through the mane of his hair, and Julian made himself look. Look at the hazy outline of those silly ducks on the shower curtain. Look at the soap he had been given. Construct the world as it now was, building it around himself one image at a time. Safe, here in this place without strangers. Safe, in this room with its open door. Safe, with Krish, who was his best friend in all this frail and fractured world. Reality was an oasis in the sea of memory, and the azurette moved toward it with every pass of the soap over his body, as though washing away the sweat of the day could rid him of the things he saw behind his eyelids.
Breaking down served no purpose. It made no sense. He had promised. What was the point of that promise if the body kept on living and he allowed everything inside of it to die?
Clean. On the outside, he was clean, and the water that swirled down the drain eddied to a stop as the mage's fingers turned off the flow. He stood on the mat outside the shower, towel moving slowly over arms and legs and hair, without being quite sure when it had happened. Time moved too quickly for Julian, each moment bleeding into the next one without even the slightest warning. In prison, there had been schedules for everything. Places to go perforce. Tasks to complete within allotted times. Now, his hands folded a towel in half, draped it over the rack on the wall to dry, because he didn't know its proper place.
How had Krish done this?
When they'd met, the other man had been as sharp and cold as the metal he controlled. And in those traits, Julian had observed a depth of strength and focus that were admirable. He'd also, in his own stilted, unenlightened way, considered the life that could have made those behaviors so necessary and made an effort to show the other man patience and compassion. Krish had been hurt by someone, used by someone, and his initial hatred for all masters wasn't the exception amongst the members of Haven. It was the rule. But where others had turned the bite of their suffering on those around them, the metal mage had been willing to offer assistance-- at least to those who'd experienced the life he'd come from. Julian had always had a gift for kindness, and it was one he had given Krish unreservedly, even in the face of suspicion and anger. Not out of pity, but because the azurette had looked on the man's efforts to assist others and felt admiration. The world Julian wanted to hatch into being could only ever be made if more people were willing to do good, even when they themselves had been wronged. His friend was such a person. And now, with his own demons lashing at his ribs from the inside, the ink mage wondered even more at that strength of mind, and of character. The worst thing he could imagine was somehow letting Krish down. Disappointing him. Driving him away or making him uncomfortable. For this person-- this remarkable person-- Julian knew he had to find the will to do better. Be better. Get better.
Moving on silent feet, he went from tile to carpet, entering the adjoining bedroom slowly, slowly. The azurette wore the mane of his hair, still slightly damp, around his shoulders and down his back. A narrow band of black cotton was his one concession to propriety, and the colors of him stood in stark contrast. Pale flesh and dark fabric and the cerulean-to-cyan fall of his hair as he approached the bed, fingers brushing the clothing laid out for him there, and yet so careful never to touch the linens beneath. A lonely bead of water clung to one collarbone, missed by the towel, but skittered downward as the younger mage turned his head to find Krish's position in the room. And once found, his eyes caught on those hazel ones. Green and gold, locked for a single moment. What he wanted to say was, Thank you. And also, I'm sorry I'm putting you through this. He wanted to make a joke to take the weight out of the air between them, but there was nothing casual or trivial that could do that. The last letter he'd sent this man had promised an explanation would be coming, but--
"I keep waiting for it to come to me.. The way I should say it. How I should explain. Like there's some segue that will lead into it easily.." The words were out before he could stop them, because if he didn't leap he'd never land, and surely there's nothing worse than hanging in space like this, unsure of how to reach the ground. "But I see it, you know..? What I'm doing to you, coming back like this, jumpy and ******** up.."
Julian's voice never rose. It remained as soft as his expression, his features carrying the markers of a strangely mingled affection and sorrow. Yet he stayed right where he was. Fingertips pressed to the clothing Krish had provided for him, like it somehow kept the azurette anchored even though he'd made no move yet to pull the garments over himself.
"One second I'm fine, and the next I'm a trainwreck. And we both know why."
OOC: Julian's underoos are pretty much these, if it matters. We'll ignore that the example is totally a lady.
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2016 7:39 am
Where do you go when here fades away?
As Julian traveled miles back, Krish stood six feet away watching a man be swept away. He let the sleeve of a shirt fall lightly back into place with the damp spot where his eyes had been. He didn't interrupt. Just feigned normalcy. But he was, again, observant. And one thing that he knew how to do was memorize a body and a personality. He knew how to identify cadence and the moods of it; he knew what someone sounded like before an assault and after, open bodies almost constantly bowed to curve away from sudden movements. Julian had been carved. Again. Carved. And now he was chipped away, and Krish couldn't get his mind off of the injustice. The crimes under his belt were far heftier and more deserved of "justice" than what the gavel had smacked down as proper. What did the prison system do except punish and feed its own endless waste cycle, anyways? His head hurt thinking about it. Because now Julian was gone and battling the hands that dragged at him; Krish watched him breathe and fight at them. His head kept turning back to watch the struggle unfold.
During some instance, Julian had stopped caring about the eyes that got lost in the lines of baggy sweaters and Krish looked at a body exposed. He watched him unashamedly and wondered if he should have been mindful of where his eyes landed. But he wasn't. Seeing Julian's body wasn't something incredibly intimate because there was no involvement of a preventative boundary that marked anything as scandalous. Except for, well, basic decency. For the metal mage, being able to pick up on Julian's movements and thoughts was partially unsettling. The moment the waves crept back to bring the pain with it, in the duck of his head, and he saw the diminutive tightening of muscles.
He'd seen it in patients. Victims and survivors.
It made his breath go cold and things go crisp to know what someone had to do, what people had to do, to get him like this. Julian, effervescent and clear. Conscious but still beautiful. Loving and trusting. Someone so open. How could they use him? Krish knew the answer to that, too. A pandora's box of memories were innocently opened. The mage was temporarily thankful for the rewiring that snapped into him as the sadness that was threatening his borders was hardened like snap-ice and he felt the webbing crawl out, spines shattering and filling with the venom and the tar. Looking for clothes became second-nature as his mind went to planning again.
Blood-shed was happening and he liked it-- which was bad, because he shouldn't. But sometimes Krish had to indulge the more honed parts of himself and no college class could compare to what he was meant for. At least he had been violated for a reason. What was going to be Julian's skill? Flinching? Hurting? Krish had things he could do. He knew how to break a man's trachea, he knew how to manipulate the body, he knew how to take advantage of the human form. He was broken. Through fire justice is served. The chemicals embedded in his skin were the flames of a rebirth. This was no baptism. He was not pure nor searching for semblances of it. It was meant to make him something new.
Krish had no Before because his life was only known as After. The boy that he was, he didn't know. All that the metal mage was rested in people that had been. Dead, rotten, bodies drained, cool and thick and then flowing through pipes into whatever sewage system. Bodies that had given him a name, given him a body, fingered the potential out of what was still raw and human and here he was, as if life had been some form of... technical college. His pains were old. His scars, healed.
Seeing the freshness of Julian was just too much. Krish sighed as he pulled out a worn, old sweater that smelled like cinnamon and had a faded patch that said "Las Frutas!" that he'd found particularly cute. It fit short on him but should be able to comfortably hang over the azurette. He pulled out a pair of lounging trousers and placed both spread out on the bed. His head turned back to the shower and the blurred silhouette that embraced the water. Eyes dropping away, he looked at the picked apart and faded things that made up his room.
Where do you go when you're not here?
Once Julian had been a crashing wave, tide strong, a beautiful ocean- smooth. Elegant in execution. Now it seemed his own ferocity had lifted him off his feet. Krish wished to take him from the calypso that strangled that mind and reminded the body of all that had gone. Not weaponised; only molded, pushed and shoved and bent which way and that.
It made absolutely no sense. None. Krish could get it, but it wasn't smart, there was no means to work towards, Julain wasn't going to be there forever- is that why he was taken advantage of like that? But what was the point? Fear doesn't smell good. It doesn't! Pushing past walls that are up for good reason doesn't feel good either. Why weren't beards imagined as the locks of a woman; why didn't anyone do anything; what was the point?
Krish found he'd moved himself to toy with other things in his drawers. His senses told him to turn and he took in Julian without a word. Slowly, the slave approached the bed, leaning his knee against it. He listened and took up the sweater, shaking his head. As he rolled up the end and widened the head, offering Julian his assistance like a mother hen born for the pecking, Krish swallowed down the oil and spoke with something like the him that Julian knew.
"You have to go at your own pace. Spoken and unspoken... I..."don't get mad" I understand why, you wouldn't say anything, but I mean- I know you. I do." He tried smiling but the muscles in his face stayed weighted to make it small.
"I knew something was wrong. I know- what the wrong is. Not extent wise. But I know what's wrong. And I want-- I will help you. But you don't have to tell me everything if it's not ready to be unloaded in its full. We have the night. And then days and nights after that. You just got out." Floundering. How could he do his job and help strangers but here he was, barely able to talk to his closest friend and offer helpful advice.
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me...
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Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2016 6:41 pm
I N T E L L I G E N T E Y E S I N A H U N G E R - P A N G F R A M E
Julian had always saved all his patience for others, and the result was that there was little-- if any-- left over for himself. Maybe it was the weight of a thousand unmet expectations that had caused it, or perhaps it was an innate belief that he should somehow be able to do more, be better. His mother had said, once, speaking into the center of his mind with the briefest brush of her power, A moth will never be an eagle. She had given it for him to know in the midst of one of their family gatherings, when he had listened to his father rain praise down on brothers who were so much older than Julian that he barely knew them. First-wife sons. Second-wife sons. Boys who had grown to manhood with fire in their blood, or stone in their fists. Brothers who-- like Krish-- could bend metal to their will. And Julian, the littlest and least of them, was only an embarrassment. Only a splotch on the family pedigree. An unfortunate child whose gifts and body were both so unimpressive. Unimportant.
A moth will never be an eagle. It will never fly as high or as swift. It will never drop like a stone and find prey in its talons. It is only what it is, and can be nothing else.
And the azurette had known then, as a small boy, that the woman who spoke those thoughts into his mind was trying to console herself as much as him. She had brought a weakling into the world, even when her lineage showed such promise. And there was a facet of her that blamed Julian for the way the family's eyes held her only for a moment at a time, and then only with pity or contempt. She might have been venerated, like the wives before her, if her son had been born to call the lightning or split the earth.
But he could only be what he was.
As much as he wanted to, the azurette knew he couldn't protect other people. Not in the way it was most expected. Not by winning physical fights or causing damage. Those things were outside his power and just as much outside his inclination. Julian had once safeguarded his mother's bitter heart with each pilgrimage to her apartments, drawing her from her loneliness with music and dance. He had shielded Krish's future-- and countless others-- with ink and paper. Even Odin, although the man would likely never know it, had been the recipient of that desire to protect and provide. Each moon that had come and gone, the mage had wheedled until he'd been allowed to bring the werewolf meals while he recovered, preventing the need for Odin to leave the safety of their cell while pain left him vulnerable. And always, for everyone, Julian felt that he should have been able to do more. Give more. Be more.
But never as much as when his eyes dropped to the sleeve of Krish's sweatshirt and found the fabric still wet.
That single image was enough to make the ink mage wish to disappear. To have been erased from existence completely. Because this man, who had already suffered-- this man, from whom Julian had had to draw laughter slowly and painstakingly, as from a deep well-- deserved to be happy. And yet here the little saint was, making his friend cry. Causing pain, not to the body that the other man lived inside, but to that precious and irreplaceable spark that was the essence of Krish.
The azurette wanted to run a thousand miles away. He wanted to dive deep into an endless sea. He wanted to butterfly effect himself out of existence. But instead he let his best friend fold him into the sweater, arms sliding into the sleeves. It was a measure of his trust to do it-- surrendering his sight and mobility for even that short time. There was more worry in that brief moment than in all the time he'd gone bare-skinned, ignoring decency because to him the body had become just another set of clothes. The full length of his hair pinned itself against his back with the help of the garment, but Julian made no effort to free it, too busy listening to how Krish brought the words out. Like lancing a wound, that permission to be damaged. The acknowledgement that no matter how much the ink mage wished otherwise, recovery would take time. And the azurette saw what it must cost to say it.
It was not the first time in his life that he'd wished for the length of leg, the breadth of shoulder and chest, that would let him cradle the metal mage to him. To give comfort, to show care, to protect him from worries and sorrows. If he'd been able, Julian might simply have scooped the older man up and promised that everything would be fine tomorrow. But he was small, and he was fractured, so he could do neither.
What he could manage was to let his forehead dip against Krish's shoulder, which seemed to be what the ink mage defaulted to in lieu of an embrace. The sweater around him was warm, softy scented, a comfort so perfect it almost inspired tears. But his fingertips brushed his friend's sleeve, a silent sign that yes, Julian had seen, and was sorry to be the cause. Whatever his own pains were, there could never be an excuse for hurting Krish in this way.
"I kept thinking.. once I got back, I would be fine. I'd forget. Instead.. I run from you because I'm scared of everything else, or cling to you because you're where I feel safe."
And as much as all of that, always at the back of his head the fluttering of a thousand night moths, battering themselves against a flickering light. What had it all meant? What was it all for? Had he mattered even once, or had it been only a delusion he'd built to try to keep his mind whole in the face of a reality too harsh for him to accept? In every moment of lessened cruelty, had he imagined kindness-- imagined this-- only because the alternative had been oblivion? Or were those moments of gentleness real, and only overshadowed now, by this warmth and this safety-- by Krish, who was the embodiment of both those things?
"If you ever thought I was needy before, just imagine how high maintenance I'll be now." It was something like a joke, quipped against the front of the other man's shirt, and the bitter quality of his smile was lost there, too. "I'm practically a backpack at this point."
Like a pendulum, he swung between the earth-shattering honesty of all the things he wasn't sure how to say delicately and the shreds of humor he cobbled together on the fly. The result had to be disorienting. Confusing. Probably frustrating. How was Krish supposed to deal with such an utter lack of equilibrium? Here he'd been, living his life, and Julian was crashing through like-- well, he came in like a Miley Cyrus smash hit with a controversial music video. The azurette couldn't just keep derailing everything, wrapping his friend's presence around himself as his own personal thunder buddy. He had upset the other man, thrown him into this situation with little warning, and Krish was right. None of the things Julian had been grappling with in the last year could be-- or should be-- handled here or now. But..
"I'm sorry. That I made you cry."
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Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 2:04 pm
There was surprise in him because Krish had always thought of himself as someone that was so below the radar, so insignificant, that his emotions didn't matter. To be noticed was something that still shocked him. The closer the more he expected to be looked over. He was the one that paid attention to details, meticulously hammering away and chiseling, tools of different kinds to dust away the smoke and debris. So his own minute ticks being looked at put him at a weird mental position because it begged the question of what else Julian had been able to perceive, and how much more Krish would have to hide now knowing what he did. Although not insistent, the grip on his sleeve spoke volumes of what even an expansive collection of analyzed poetry could not cover. An urge to shed tears again tugged him deep within his core; Krish wanted to close out the feeling and live in a place where Julian didn't have to care about him and maybe even didn't.
Judgment was cast from all sides of the equation if certain variables were introduced. Julian being so obviously acquainted with privilege was unaware of his status and the jarring presence of Krish within his presence. People had their right to immediately jump to conclusion. The metal mage dogged the man's heels persistently and they were never quite lined up in pace at first, Krish lagging behind a half step as they strolled. His immediate position as the defensive wall had altered their external dynamics. Krish was a slave still in so many ways. They saw his dark skin in white cotton blends and Krish felt his own pores open. The dirt smeared all over him, doing nothing to hide the discoloration along his body or markings, only a messy glob that sullied Julian, the streets and park areas. Someone better may have hung their head and accepted their fate; someone else would have struggled against the bonds of their mental tethering. But instead, here he was with no ill-will. There was only love to be given because after the suffering and pain in silences with only voices dredged up from memory to mimic, what could there be but? Krish hadn't expected to cry without being in the confines of a dark, dark room but a blister in his foot yearned for the solidarity and binary choice that made emotion either there or not. What was he to say or do? Only apologies were clenching at his throat.
They fit well together and it inspired tears.
This time, Krish wouldn't let them fall. His arms came around to encircle the azurette and held him because that was something the slave could do. He could provide this. He was a provider. He gave. It was almost so weird, for Julian to initiate contact and speak on his feelings clenched tight in his chest. Like a trunk weathered by time and storm- a hidden thing, the slave imagined it didn't cower away but sat still behind the curtains of time and waited for a dusk to creep and turn its head forward to a different and better time. Of all the pains Julian had, Krish didn't want to be one of them. He didn't want to make him feel negatively.
Krish was quiet for a while, struggling through thoughts and spoke only when his voice was clear. "You shouldn't be sorry. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm just a sap." His arms felt right around the other man and the puzzle filled a little more. He rocked slowly with him before bending and picking him up. It was supposed to be fun but the shock of weight that was gone took some readjusting. His legs were ready for a buckle but the missing fat made him pause with nothing to catch up to. So he went with a waddle, bent backwards to shuffle Julian out of the doorway and to the couch located comfortably in the living room. There a butt was sat.
"Food helps. I need to build your palette up again,"the slave said with little to no explanation of his actions. Spontaneity. Spontaneity! He walked away, pulling up the sweatpants that were sliding low and went to the remaining pasta that had cooled- along with the chicken- in the absence of warmth and mouths to be stuffed in. Turning the pan back on, Krish added a drizzle of oil and threw in a fresh dash of pepper to liven up his noodle dish.
The menu of the movie they'd been watching had been defaulted to once the whole mess went down. Suggestions were floating along the bottom, recently watched showing an array of John Hughes movies and the occasional telanovella series. Krish stood at the pan working up a tizzy. Crackles started to sound in response to the reintroduction of chemical reaction. If he were poetic enough, the slave would have squeezed out a tear to add salt to the fray but that seemed excessive and almost certainly unsanitary. Instead, he turned to get a plate and scrape out the remains of the reheated food, alfredo, chicken, pasta, and all the grit of pepper and previous seasoning that came with it. Presentation aside- Krish thought it would be appetizing enough to enjoy.
"You can sleep where you want. I can take the couch unless you want it."
He was searching for a glass to pour some water in. Maybe juice. Something simple and not a kick in the throat; Caprisun pouches were bland enough to do the job but Julian deserved a little more sophistication.
ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆ ℳ i s s ed ▆▆▆▆▆▆
xxxxxxxxxnow you've got to kiss me... ooc;; i'm sorry it's so small I have no excuse
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