[it's been a little more than three days since they've seen each other, which isn't out of the ordinary -- as much as Badou lingers, he frantically scatters (ashes) too, and Genkaku's stoner-sedentary lifestyle is too slow for extended exposure]
[even the radio silence, while estranged from them, isn't what's weird, what's making his hands twitch (that's probably Too Much Coffee and Nicotine at work again) and his thoughts (sick)lical]
[it's the fucking circumstance of the absence that turns it into a ...hole. there was almost-threat in those last words; you should get rid of me, like whittling a knife to carve out more loss]
[the ache (not in notes, but sub-zero degrees) is familiar and safe, although he... doesn't embrace it, doesn't pull it into a frosty chest, for once]
[there's heat in the heels of his feet as he tracks and trails, spots welt red hair moving this way, that way
( ... )
[ the blurry lines between Truth and Lie are too ambiguous for him to differentiate properly. for all he'd sworn to learn Badou's lies (from mouth), the ones written in ink confuse him the most. unbefitting, as much as he's been mystified over scripture and sutra, burnt in bedding like everything else. ]
[ he burns this one, too. the unclean writing beneath his polluted own, the flame of his lighter making it go up in easy black and charred remnants that fall downdowndown the spiraling stairs (the top would take him no closer to Nirvana, anyway). ]
[ the yellow paper taken from his own pocket contains more scratchings: the grocery list from days ago, the notes he'd ached out in a haze of confusion and distilled uncertainty. ]
[his eye flickers too quick across the smudge, crushed in his hand as he jumps to his feet]
[the door is shut before he's banged up the stairs, but he rams the side of a bony fist into the keypad, not even breaking his stride as the door opens swiftly in front of him]
[he's a much faster runner than the monk. Genkaku doesn't fear like he does, the fight in his fight-or-flight reaction always overpowering the impulse to flee. Badou is anxious, Badou is reactionary, and he's run from a lot (too much) and it's made his legs strong and his sprint faster than aliens with extra legs]
[ -- which he weaves and dodges around to avoid tripping, in the throng of bodies]
[the back of the monk's robes are caught and fisted, and it's only because of that helterskelter momentum he's built up that he's able to bodily drag the other man into a wall. a trashcan beside Badou gets hip-checked as he closes in after him, yanking the taller man frontwards]
[the rasp of his voice is taxed, a direct opposite from the compartmentalized movements in the stairwell; his vocal chords strike together desperately, as if to light a goddamn fire]
You fucking -- what kinda ex-con can't lie, anyway? What kinda --
[there's no cigarette between his teeth, which grind the anxious chatter to a halt - he needs to do something right, just once, this one fucking time]
[ he's near breathless and near-tripping over himself, over trash, over slick boots on slippery garbage that makes his footing half as certain as it had been, and when he snaps his mouth open to rebuke, to argue, to cry, he gets cut off. he knows that addiction to words is one that's more powerful than whatever it is about a hypocritical monk that draws him in, more engrained into his psyche than noise, and Genkaku can do nothing but ... accept it, and accept those words. ]
[ if he had wanted to do something right, that was -- ]
[ that was it. ]
[ his body tightens up like he might have been preparing for a blow, like there weren't already fists in his robes and a wall into his spine, as if the threat to his limbs wasn't what he had to worry about but the backlash tidalwave of emotion both stilling Badou's face and thrashing across his own would swallow him whole. ]
[ -- he's afraid of it, he realizes, in a distant thundercrack across his skull. for all of his fight-more-than-flight, the coil of energy in thighs certainly feels like he wants to run. ]
[ in his mind's eye, he can see it happening: a spray of mercury and embers straight into limbs and he falls, collapsing onto blood and ruined bones, and the man just ... sitting there with him, being with him, bloodstained and visceral and ... were his etymology not so fucked up, he'd hesitate to call it loving. ]
[ with Badou's hand sinking low, Genkaku's goes with it (no you push; I pull bullshit here, but real, live let's do it together promises), bigger hands wrapping, all magmaheater palm, calluses fitting perfectly between knuckles. ]
[ he guides the hand, a daring make good on your promise ultimatum in the ministration, but it's not to his legs that he points the gun but to his own sternum. ]
[ and he fires it off himself, with both of their fingers wrapped tight on the trigger. ]
[ the bullets shriek out and into his skin and then some, throwing him harder back into the wall with a wet shleckt, robes sticking to the gore carved out by guns and skin alone. he bleeds into the robes, carving out more tattered holes into the filament, his body twitchcollapsing around Badou's hand where he forcesforces him to stay, to witness, to be his audience. ]
[ the only one in the audience that ever gave a shit. that ever, too, gave him a chance in return -- ]
[ Owl might have, if he were Saved, if he were Sane. ]
[he becomes half caged beneath the monk's crumbling weight, the hot, hemorrhaging blood pumping over his arms (intohiscoatdownhischest) more trapping, more ensnaring than the muscle mass]
[the sense of relief (much like the stench of gore and gunfire) is overwhelmingoverflowing]
[he presses a palm to the wound, not to stem it, but to drown his jagged scar in the thick red butchery and bullet-bitten tatters]
[ it's an accidental gasphiss, oversexual in a way that it hadn't meant to slip out, with slick, smeared, dirty hands all over his wound, tainting them both. he wants to arch into it, pretend it were slicked with cum instead of blood, toss his head back and moan like he's needy and ready, like Badou's fucking his wounds, but he's just -- ]
[ he's too fucking tired. ]
[ so he slumps and wraps a hardened muscle arm around the man's shoulders, keeps bleeding on him to incite more of the electric touch, beguiling Badou's pacifism. on that same peaceful frequency, he murmurs a low; ]
[even the radio silence, while estranged from them, isn't what's weird, what's making his hands twitch (that's probably Too Much Coffee and Nicotine at work again) and his thoughts (sick)lical]
[it's the fucking circumstance of the absence that turns it into a ...hole. there was almost-threat in those last words; you should get rid of me, like whittling a knife to carve out more loss]
[the ache (not in notes, but sub-zero degrees) is familiar and safe, although he... doesn't embrace it, doesn't pull it into a frosty chest, for once]
[there's heat in the heels of his feet as he tracks and trails, spots welt red hair moving this way, that way ( ... )
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[ he burns this one, too. the unclean writing beneath his polluted own, the flame of his lighter making it go up in easy black and charred remnants that fall downdowndown the spiraling stairs (the top would take him no closer to Nirvana, anyway). ]
[ the yellow paper taken from his own pocket contains more scratchings: the grocery list from days ago, the notes he'd ached out in a haze of confusion and distilled uncertainty. ]
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[ he doesn't stick around for the reaction, climbs the floors and sways into the crowd on a dizzying notion, vertigo clawing at him. ]
[ the note reads, simply, an Important word scribbled out in a black, tumorous and still legible mass: ]
fracture -*l-ove- for me.
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[the door is shut before he's banged up the stairs, but he rams the side of a bony fist into the keypad, not even breaking his stride as the door opens swiftly in front of him]
[he's a much faster runner than the monk. Genkaku doesn't fear like he does, the fight in his fight-or-flight reaction always overpowering the impulse to flee. Badou is anxious, Badou is reactionary, and he's run from a lot (too much) and it's made his legs strong and his sprint faster than aliens with extra legs]
[ -- which he weaves and dodges around to avoid tripping, in the throng of bodies]
[the back of the monk's robes are caught and fisted, and it's only because of that helterskelter momentum he's built up that he's able to bodily drag the other man into a wall. a trashcan beside Badou gets hip-checked as he closes in after him, yanking the taller man frontwards]
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You fucking -- what kinda ex-con can't lie, anyway? What kinda --
[there's no cigarette between his teeth, which grind the anxious chatter to a halt - he needs to do something right, just once, this one fucking time]
[the Undergrounder tries again.]
Fine. You want truth? I can't. I won't --
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[...he accepts it without a twitch]
I ain't goin' nowhere, and I won't let you fucking ditch me. I'll shoot out your goddamn knees and don't think I won't.
[a hand falls low, wrapping smoothly around the handle and trigger of his gun (a quick-draw cancerstick kid)]
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[ I never asked to be taught to lie. ]
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[ that was it. ]
[ his body tightens up like he might have been preparing for a blow, like there weren't already fists in his robes and a wall into his spine, as if the threat to his limbs wasn't what he had to worry about but the backlash tidalwave of emotion both stilling Badou's face and thrashing across his own would swallow him whole. ]
[ -- he's afraid of it, he realizes, in a distant thundercrack across his skull. for all of his fight-more-than-flight, the coil of energy in thighs certainly feels like he wants to run. ]
[ in his mind's eye, he can see it happening: a spray of mercury and embers straight into limbs and he falls, collapsing onto blood and ruined bones, and the man just ... sitting there with him, being with him, bloodstained and visceral and ... were his etymology not so fucked up, he'd hesitate to call it loving. ]
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[ he guides the hand, a daring make good on your promise ultimatum in the ministration, but it's not to his legs that he points the gun but to his own sternum. ]
[ and he fires it off himself, with both of their fingers wrapped tight on the trigger. ]
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[ the only one in the audience that ever gave a shit. that ever, too, gave him a chance in return -- ]
[ Owl might have, if he were Saved, if he were Sane. ]
[ but he wasn't. ]
[ he was Kengamine Nagi. ]
[ and he was an Imperfect Carnage. ]
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Don't threaten me with shitty, cheap insults. You got better aim than that, Fox.
[ the chafe breaks up the too-playful wheeze of the statement, wet and slick on his tongue. ]
[ finally, after breathing blood into his lungs, he sighs out; ]
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[the sense of relief (much like the stench of gore and gunfire) is overwhelmingoverflowing]
[he presses a palm to the wound, not to stem it, but to drown his jagged scar in the thick red butchery and bullet-bitten tatters]
Reply
[ it's an accidental gasphiss, oversexual in a way that it hadn't meant to slip out, with slick, smeared, dirty hands all over his wound, tainting them both. he wants to arch into it, pretend it were slicked with cum instead of blood, toss his head back and moan like he's needy and ready, like Badou's fucking his wounds, but he's just -- ]
[ he's too fucking tired. ]
[ so he slumps and wraps a hardened muscle arm around the man's shoulders, keeps bleeding on him to incite more of the electric touch, beguiling Badou's pacifism. on that same peaceful frequency, he murmurs a low; ]
Take me Home.
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