Charades |Denver & Taz
taz--wolfe:
denverrkane:
[He knows he waits too long. Caught up too much in the swing and crash of the moment, and unwilling to close his door in this boy’s face. He’s encased in the moment, twisted and tangled in his own truths and how they are choking the life out of what surrounds him.
This isn’t Evan’s choice. To let Denver ruin him. Evan had no idea what he was consenting to, the first moment Denver’s lips touched his skin.
The least he can give him is the courtesy of illusion. As hollowed out as it makes Denver feel, as much as he clings to the denial of an impossible happy ending, the least he can do is let Evan absorb himself in it. Let Evan pretend, if he wants to.
Denver hasn’t taken a breath, feels the knife grate against the bones of his ribs as he inhales.
It’s full static up his spine when Evan laughs, chilly and wet. And he turns, finally, unable to keep the distance that his back affords them. He’s across the threshold of his own apartment, Evan hovering on the other side, pulled tight and shivering. He could close the door if he could get his arm to bloody move. His hands are clenched so tight on the frame he can feel the wood grain setting into his fingertips. But he’s transfixed by that slim tipped nose, the watery bright tracks across mole-dotted skin.]
You’re better off than most. [It’s a whisper, shadow light, and he doubts Evan even hears it under the next tight wave of words.]
[He can’t take his eyes off him. And yet, he knows his own go cold. Flecks of flint and arctic sea glass. To be a hero for this?] You deserve more than that rubbish. Someone who sees through the gossamer nonsense of ‘Taz’ is a foolishly low bar to set. Don’t paint me a hero for giving you basic human decency.
[He folds his arms, closed off, standoffish, the word ‘whore’ echoing like tin in his head. Not out of disgust, but the knife is slipping out and he can feel his blood dripping on the floor. He’s too sentimental.
Too stupid, these days.
He’s slipping. Grits his teeth. He can’t teach him. He can’t tell him more. All he can do is leave the boy with some semblance of wisdom he hopes he’s gleaned from his own ashen life.]
If you’re going to pretend… you owe yourself a better fairytale.
[Enough, Evan.
Stop.
The words play themselves like a mantra over and over in his head until he starts to slowly get a grasp of his emotions. Closure wouldn’t come for him—not that he expected it, but there was still the little voice in the back of his head that hoped for it. That hoped for the happy ended that was never meant for him to have —that hoped he deserved it.
Stupidstupidstupid
There was an annoying nagging reminder of how much of a fucking idiot he was. He didn’t think; he never does and that was his main problem. Evan always thought that he was fucking invincible and that nothing could ever hurt him, and that simply wasn’t the case. Had Evan just fucking thought about what the hell he was doing then maybe all of this could have been avoided.
He eyed the way Denver’s arms crossed themselves, almost as if he was tired of dealing with their trainwreck of a conversation. And maybe he was, Evan couldn’t exactly blame him.
When Denver’s words came, rejection left an acrid taste on his tongue and Evan just wanted to sleep. To slide under the cool sheets of his bed and act like nothing ever happened. Denial was always there when no one else was.
His lungs felt too tight, causing Evan to open and close his mouth twice before he could find the words he wanted] ...Yeah, I get it. I’m just bein’ stupid, yeah?
[He trailed off with a shake of his head, a hand coming up to tug at the chestnut strands of his hair, pulling until they prickle. Evan was trying to save face; trying to save himself from going through anymore embarrassment.]
Ya don’t owe me anythin’. It’s not my place to ask that of ya.
[Run.
Leave. Now, you’ve made a big enough arse of yourself already.
Evan kicks at the carpet and he shoves his hands in his back pockets, inching away from Denver.] I’m sorry Master Denver for ‘causing all of this [Evan motions to the space between the both of them and for the first time since he’s met Denver that Evan allowed Taz to take over.] it won’t happen again. It’s not professional [His voice gets lower and his words were nearly inaudible – his own personal surrender.]
[He’s gritting his teeth. His whole body is grit. Dirt and stone and blood and bone.
This is the way it has to be.
In any other arrangement, in any other universe, maybe they make it this time. Here and now, Evan scuffing along the floor of the hallway. Denver half out of his mind in circular anger.
But Denver is helpless as he watches Evan recede into himself, a feeling he is so utterly unfamiliar with that it threatens to overrule all other logical thought.
They cannot be anything other than what they are.
An escort and his employer.
A murderer and an innocent civilian. Likely to be caught in the crossfire.
He's lost to the inevitability of reality. And it’s the first time it’s ever deeply mattered.
I’m just bein’ stupid, yeah?
Of all the words in the english language. Stupid. Stupid does not encompass the complexities, the sheer art of Evan’s bright naïveté. And that’s what drew Denver to him, isn’t it? Someone who wrapped themselves in light, even when the edges of their vision were just starting to tatter with hints of the world’s darkness.
And yet moments ago Denver had accused him of just that. Stupidity.
Evan was not owed this. This was Denver’s selfishness. Drawing this boy out of his constructed shell only to shatter any fragile hope under an ugly boulder of Denver’s own reality.
God, it leaves him raw. He cannot help but let it ridge under his skin, that Evan has no idea of his own value. And that’s the bloody crux of it, isn’t it.]
Evan. [And he doesn’t know if he’s allowed this any more.]
Don’t. Don’t slip this on as an excuse.
You owe it to yourself. [Stop asking this from anybody else, to be a hero, to make The Apartments feel something other than paper thin and transactional.
Nobody can give you that. You have to take it for yourself, if you think you deserve it.
But Evan is on a shifting tide even Denver cannot reverse and there is the murmur. The head tilt. Whiskey eyes go a little duller. The space between them becomes immeasurably wide. The word ‘professional’ dropping from bowed lips like punishment. Like a bruise.
The shame will come later. Once Denver’s simmering, prickled hot anger over his own shortcomings or his own lack of heroics dies down to coals. The shame will roll in and over the fact that Denver let his bullheadedness get the best of him. That Denver only saw his own dark shadow and was blinded by it.
But he cannot be this.
He was never born to be the hero, and has been molded by his life into something warped closer to villainy than anything else.
Months of calling this boy by his real name, months of peeling back personas and etiquettes, months of something other than a whore and his paying customer does not unmake that.
Evan is not his.
And he will not be Evan’s illusion of a hero.]
Go home, Evan.
















