Hungry and Hollow

Well sharpen your teeth. Tell yourself it's just business.

[evan-wolfe]

Charades |Denver & Taz

[denverrkane]

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.  

[evan-wolfe]

Charades |Denver & Taz

[denverrkane]

taz--wolfe:

— denverrkane:

[There’s the snick of a safety unlocking, and then there’s the slide of a knife between the ribs. One leaves your whole skin on alert, the other bright sheer agony in a place you know you can’t reach.

There’s a pendulum of a moment, where everything is in upswing and free fall, where Denver is simultaneously outraged at himself for seeing them as anything other than a transaction, and outraged at Evan for buying into the lie of goodness just as much. 

And then it all crashes. Slow motion jerks on the downswing, and sends shards scattering and violent in every direction on Evan’s choked inhale. And Denver knows, without turning around, can hear the wetness of it, can hear the harsh abrasion of Evan’s hand on his own cheeks as he wipes away an errant sign of weakness. 

Denver has always destroyed everything he’s held in his hands. 

And now Evan too. 

He’s utterly, preternaturally still. Barely breathing as he surveys the damage behind him. The wreck he’s made without even using his fists. 

He will punish himself later. He will run until his legs go numb. Will work through defensive drills and offensive hand to hands until he can’t stand up straight, can’t breathe, can’t feel anything at all. Will drink enough whiskey to quiet the world. His rage isn’t always outward. 

Is pretending such a bad thing?

Is it? 

Pretending gets you killed. Pretending is a death sentence. Or something far more sinister. 

Pretending leaves you hollow. Empty and constantly ravenous to keep up the illusion. Until you start to believe it, and then you’re utterly vulnerable. You’re perched atop a house of cards, poised to tumble and never recover.

But god, Evan deserves to pretend. Evan deserves whatever illusion comforts him, not what rancorous truth Denver was trained to break apart with his teeth. 

His shoulders are bedrock. His jaw clenched, his ribs creak. The boy behind him is crying, and Denver cannot look him in the eye. The knife between the ribs is slowly killing him. The truth is killing them both.]

Some of us… cannot afford such a luxury. 

[ Denver’s words left Evan’s bones deflating and sagging at the corners. He wishes that he knew what to say, but he doesn’t. He’s left bared and vulnerable, desperately grasping at the fragments of his resolve the best he could. 

He wonders if he could ever build himself back up. He spent so long crafting another persona that he barely knew himself, and that was killing him. His father used to say, ‘as long as you know who you are, you’ll be fine’. And l Evan didn’t know who he was, and he was absolutely wasn’t fine. 

Just breathe, Evan. 

Breathe. 

Evan wonders if he could afford to pretend. Does he deserve to? 

His first answer would be no— he doesn’t. He’s been running away from his problems for so long that now when it’s looking him in his face, all he could do was cry. It was pathetic.  ] When I started workin’ here, I thought I could—afford to pretend. 

[The laugh that escapes him is more sarcastic rather than genuine, but it makes him feel better nonetheless. He’s rambling and he doesn’t know how to stop. Doesn’t know if he could. ] I thought it would be easy to act like everything would be okay, ya know? 

[ Evan was desperate, and he was tired of being desperate. 

Just breathe, Evan.

You’ll be fine.] 

Ya right, I don’t know anythin’ about ya and I kinda wish I did. [Evan rubs the back of his neck, slowly rocking on the back of his heels. Things felt too real for Evan’s comfort and he didn’t know how to handle it.]  Ya know my name…no one knows it, ‘cause no one cares to know it. It’s a whorehouse for christ sake. But ya did—

[Evan doesn’t know if Denver really cares about any of what he’s saying, but he knows that he has to. If anything it was more for him than it was for Denver…maybe it could be for the both of them.] Maybe in a weird, fucked up way I do think you’re a hero. [Evan pauses] For me anyways. ‘Cause ya wanted to know me and it meant something. I wasn’t just a whore, I wasn’t Taz…I was Evan —and I’m not allowed to be that. 

[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. 

[evan-wolfe]

Charades |Denver & Taz

[taz--wolfe]

denverrkane:

[Hot bitterness leaves in an oceanic rush with only an ache left behind. Something smoking and dark that Denver doesn’t want to delve into. What is he even doing here. Evan doesn’t belong to him. Evan has barely let Denver touch him, has spent a handful of nights in Denver’s bed. Evan doesn’t wear his marks, doesn’t still under his hand, still has no idea what he is capable of, still spends nights wrapped up in other’s sheets. 

It’s caustic and harsh truth that Denver has deliberately been ignoring with this boy, but Evan is an escort, being paid to perform a service. This is nothing more than being paid to cook him dinner. To wash his auto. To press his clothes. The intimacy is a lie, a better way to sell a product and Denver truly has become soft if he’s let his vigilance lapse. 

Evan is an escort, who performs his service beautifully. But it is a transaction, nonetheless. And Denver cannot keep him. Not without a price.]

You’re right. It’s your decision. I hope you get the appropriate compensation for it.

[The words leave his mouth like ashes, like limestone and bile, dead as they hit the floor. He’s turning to step into his room, to shut the door as quietly as his rage will allow, to drop into a training routine that will exhaust him before he smashes something else in his flat, when Evan spits out that last sentence, the bloody needle under the armor, in all the wrong places, and it’s like the click of a safety. All the hairs on his neck stand up at once, his body primed and balanced to lash out. He refuses to turn around.] I’m not who you dare to think I am. I am not who you want me to be in that bloody foolish head of yours. This is not a fairytale, or a comic book, Evan. Nothing is simply tied up with a bow and a joke and everybody gets to go home. I won’t be saving the goddamn day. 

Don’t project safety onto me. Don’t be so stupid. 

There are never happy endings. 

[His knuckles are bone white in that toxic rush of rage around the doorknob. Evan hasn’t the faintest fucking nuance of an idea who he is. Who he truly is. Who he has chosen and shaped himself to be, in a mold so splattered with violence and viscera that it’s become fused with his soul.

And the most sickening part of it all, the part that makes the air in his chest roll and go hot and tight, is that he wants.

Just for once. He wants to keep. He wants to be someone’s safety.

The sentimentality of it all makes him sick.]

[’There are never happy endings’ the words hit Evan harder than it should have. For someone who talked so much, he had never been more silent—he was speechless.Evan felt the emotions that he tried so hard to contain, seep into his core, transforming into a storm he couldn’t control. He could almost feel his eyes widening, from the slight raise of his eyebrows to the watering forming along his bottom lashes.  

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid 

You’re so goddamn stupid, Evan. 

All at once, his anger quickly turns into exhaustion and he can almost feel his body release everything he’s been holding in for three years. Evan quickly bites into his cheek, the sudden sharpness should make him flinch but he doesn’t move. He tries everything in his power to shove the sound that attempts to force its way out of his throat—and effort succeeds for a moment.

Until it doesn’t.

He almost freezes as he feels the slow moisture roll down his cheek. He’s never allowed the facade he’s spent years on making waver for a minute, and yet it’s shattering like glass. 

He can’t let this happen. 

Quickly as he wipes his eye, he takes a deep breath and forces himself to get it together. Not because he wants to, but because he had to. 

He couldn’t look at Denver anymore, and a watery amber gaze divert their eyes to the small creases near the bottom of Denver’s shirt. It was too much, and as shaky fingers pinch at the seam of his jeans, Evan was tired.] Is pretending such a bad thing? [His voice sounds weak and he feels pathetic]

[denverrkane]

[There’s the snick of a safety unlocking, and then there’s the slide of a knife between the ribs. One leaves your whole skin on alert, the other bright sheer agony in a place you know you can’t reach.

There’s a pendulum of a moment, where everything is in upswing and free fall, where Denver is simultaneously outraged at himself for seeing them as anything other than a transaction, and outraged at Evan for buying into the lie of goodness just as much. 

And then it all crashes. Slow motion jerks on the downswing, and sends shards scattering and violent in every direction on Evan’s choked inhale. And Denver knows, without turning around, can hear the wetness of it, can hear the harsh abrasion of Evan’s hand on his own cheeks as he wipes away an errant sign of weakness. 

Denver has always destroyed everything he’s held in his hands. 

And now Evan too. 

He’s utterly, preternaturally still. Barely breathing as he surveys the damage behind him. The wreck he’s made without even using his fists. 

He will punish himself later. He will run until his legs go numb. Will work through defensive drills and offensive hand to hands until he can’t stand up straight, can’t breathe, can’t feel anything at all. Will drink enough whiskey to quiet the world. His rage isn’t always outward. 

Is pretending such a bad thing?

Is it? 

Pretending gets you killed. Pretending is a death sentence. Or something far more sinister. 

Pretending leaves you hollow. Empty and constantly ravenous to keep up the illusion. Until you start to believe it, and then you’re utterly vulnerable. You’re perched atop a house of cards, poised to tumble and never recover.

But god, Evan deserves to pretend. Evan deserves whatever illusion comforts him, not what rancorous truth Denver was trained to break apart with his teeth. 

His shoulders are bedrock. His jaw clenched, his ribs creak. The boy behind him is crying, and Denver cannot look him in the eye. The knife between the ribs is slowly killing him. The truth is killing them both.]

Some of us... cannot afford such a luxury. 

[evan-wolfe]

Charades |Denver & Taz

[denverrkane]

taz--wolfe:

denverrkane:

[Denver almost flinches. Almost lets his muscles clench perceptibly at the choked off nickname, and then he does tighten, going taut and pained at the sound of the title from Evan’s lips. Somehow, it doesn’t ring with the same arousing effect, it feels dull and leaden, cheapened by Evan. A title he’s never held before with the boy. A title he’s content to never hold, quiet in his stubbornness to never remind himself that this is nothing more than a transaction. A service performed. And yet it’s never felt like that before. Not with this boy. Denver grits out the question, reluctant to talk, trying perversely to keep the silence between them when he knows Evan has done nothing but try to sneak his way into it.] But you have now. Otherwise, what are you doing here. [He can’t help the way his jaw seems to snap out the words, fueled by the white-hot, insatiable heat of jealousy. Denver pushes his own door open, delighting in the harsh reverberation that rings out as it hits the drywall behind it.] 

[He turns to the tight sound of Evan’s voice, strained in a way he’s never heard it before, and despite the sour flare in his tendons, he faces Evan head on, a contemptuous look etched into his face. It’s easier to show contempt than vulnerability. He leans against the door frame, the jab doing nothing but hitting muscle and bone, and Denver glances down at it, a scoff carried on his breath. Until Evan hones in, buzzing around the poisoned tip of the argument between them and Denver narrows his eyes. Bitter and guarded.] It’s not like you very well gave me a choice. 

[He snarls the last word. And he doesn’t know… he doesn’t know if he’s really fighting Evan anymore. If that is something more, some deep seeded resentment dragged, smoking, into the light.] 

[All Evan wants to do at this point is sleep. He wants to get away from Denver and this shit storm of a conversation because as much as he wants to apologize, his ego won’t allow it. Denver’s words were harsh and distant, leaving Evan with a disgusting taste of regret on the back of his tongue. Denver was a Master and Evan was an escort, that was how things were—and he was foolish to think that it was any different. At the statement, he rolls his eyes and bites at the hangnail on his thumb; an anxious tick that he was never quite able to get over. A part of him wants to knock on Master Price’s door out of spite, but thinks better of it. ] I don’t think that’s any of ya business, Master Kane.

[He momentarily curses himself for being so petty, but it’s too late to take it back. Still, a part of him would be lying if he said that it didn’t make him feel better. Denver was one of the few people that made him feel like he was something more than mere currency, but now Evan wasn’t so sure about that…and he hated it. He hated the consistent reminder that he was something inferior—but that was no one’s fault but his own. At the realization he feels like he can’t breathe, like a ton of weight has been placed on his chest and he can’t move it.] It’s my decision to make. [For a moment, it seems like he was talking more to himself than he was to Denver. Maybe that was the problem, Evan had inadvertently made Denver his ‘safe space’. A place where he didn’t feel like a whore and didn’t feel anything less than what he wanted to be. Maybe Evan had placed Denver on a pedestal that he didn’t ask to be on—and Evan had to take responsibility for that.]

[Evan’s mouth curls in frustration as he listened to Denver. Choice? What did that have to do with anything? If anything, the whole foundation of their ‘relationship’ was about choices.] That’s a bunch of bullshit and you know it. I never forced you into anything. 

[Hot bitterness leaves in an oceanic rush with only an ache left behind. Something smoking and dark that Denver doesn’t want to delve into. What is he even doing here. Evan doesn’t belong to him. Evan has barely let Denver touch him, has spent a handful of nights in Denver’s bed. Evan doesn’t wear his marks, doesn’t still under his hand, still has no idea what he is capable of, still spends nights wrapped up in other’s sheets. 

It’s caustic and harsh truth that Denver has deliberately been ignoring with this boy, but Evan is an escort, being paid to perform a service. This is nothing more than being paid to cook him dinner. To wash his auto. To press his clothes. The intimacy is a lie, a better way to sell a product and Denver truly has become soft if he’s let his vigilance lapse. 

Evan is an escort, who performs his service beautifully. But it is a transaction, nonetheless. And Denver cannot keep him. Not without a price.]

You’re right. It’s your decision. I hope you get the appropriate compensation for it.

[The words leave his mouth like ashes, like limestone and bile, dead as they hit the floor. He’s turning to step into his room, to shut the door as quietly as his rage will allow, to drop into a training routine that will exhaust him before he smashes something else in his flat, when Evan spits out that last sentence, the bloody needle under the armor, in all the wrong places, and it’s like the click of a safety. All the hairs on his neck stand up at once, his body primed and balanced to lash out. He refuses to turn around.] I’m not who you dare to think I am. I am not who you want me to be in that bloody foolish head of yours. This is not a fairytale, or a comic book, Evan. Nothing is simply tied up with a bow and a joke and everybody gets to go home. I won’t be saving the goddamn day. 

Don’t project safety onto me. Don’t be so stupid. 

There are never happy endings. 

[His knuckles are bone white in that toxic rush of rage around the doorknob. Evan hasn’t the faintest fucking nuance of an idea who he is. Who he truly is. Who he has chosen and shaped himself to be, in a mold so splattered with violence and viscera that it’s become fused with his soul.

And the most sickening part of it all, the part that makes the air in his chest roll and go hot and tight, is that he wants.

Just for once. He wants to keep. He wants to be someone’s safety.

The sentimentality of it all makes him sick.]

[jesperfahey]

[denverrkane]

taz--wolfe:

denverrkane:

taz--wolfe:

denverrkane:

Are you… I really don’t understand why you think I’m a hero. I… Evan, you don’t… How do you even know? How can you possibly have inferred any of that? I’m not… You don’t know. 

I’m not a hero. I’m not Batman. I’m not Wolverine. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. 

What…I didn’t mean—just forget it. 

It was a mistake texting you, won’t happen again.

It was a mistake to make an assumption based on no evidence at all. 

Don’t be dense. Stupidity does not suit you.  

But being an arse suits you. 

This discussion is over. 

[jesperfahey]

[DATABASE SMS] REPLY to "Taz"

[evan-wolfe]

Damn right it is, it fits every scenario in my life. Hmm, well Wolverine was misunderstood bloke that people assumed was a dick because he scowled all over the place and growled from time to time, but he was actually a good guy. He was a hero that just had a lot of shite thrown at him but he was able to beat all obstacles and end up being really wicked and you’re a lot like that. Well I’m assumin’ a lot and sorry if I’m out of line with some crap but you’re the good guy, you’re a good guy. A little frown-y but not bad. Just misunderstood. And that’s why I call ya Batman too, for the same reason. 

One day at a time, yeah?

Technically, I said not creative but if that’s what ya took from it then yeah, but it’s not a bad thing! Some people like the whole vanilla shag. S’no one’s fault.

[denverrkane]

Are you… I really don’t understand why you think I’m a hero. I… Evan, you don’t… How do you even know? How can you possibly have inferred any of that? I’m not… You don’t know. 

I’m not a hero. I’m not Batman. I’m not Wolverine. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. 

[taz--wolfe]

What…I didn’t mean—just forget it. 

It was a mistake texting you, won’t happen again.

[denverrkane]

It was a mistake to make an assumption based on no evidence at all. 

Don’t be dense. Stupidity does not suit you.  

[islayme]

[chasing-denver-kane]

[It’s so light until it’s not. So light and airy, until something shifts, and it’s not hard, or frightening, but rather the opposite. It feels soft and frightened, maybe, and for Denver, that’s significant. It’s something, but it’s something that clashes with the teasing words.

‘You’re a menace‘—and they are both affectionate and weighted. They are more than just play, at some point something had given way, and they had stepped beyond play and into something else. Into something vulnerable, something starkly new, for them, because Denver is so often sure and solid, with Chase, (at least in Chase’s eyes) and when he is not sure, he is angry, or when he is not angry, he is withdrawn. But this self-induced softness, this reaching out and this figurative baring the back of his neck—this is something else, and Denver’s large paw is subtle but firm on Chase’s wrist now, and large robin’s egg eyes flick up.

Everything pauses. His hand stills, but everything else does too.

And then he is sinking, sinking like the hot beads of melting candle wax,  softening into the moldable flesh of semi-solid and warm, before dripping over the edge in a kind of surreal,  slowed gravity.

Because it feels surreal, this moment, when everything falls down and Denver is giving back in such a gorgeous way that Chase nearly chokes on it. Remembers so distinctly, so irrecoverably why he needs him.

And why Denver needs him?

Because it feels like Denver needs him now, as he wraps himself around Chase’s slender frame, all heat and muscle and give of warm flesh, pulse of a large, thumping heart. Chase’s fingers leave the knife, carefully letting it rest to the counter top as Denver’s stubbled-jaw (dear LORD that thing will be the death of Chase, if nothing else of Denver’s unforgivably perfect existence gets him first) seeks solace in the curve of Chase’s long neck.

Chase inhales, and it’s sweet and peppered. The merging of something. His smile is warmed butter and cream, his eyes half-hooded as his right hand comes up to touch at Denver’s cheek and neck.

He’s careful about when he speaks. The moment feels fragile. But he smiles. Sinks into it. Curves into it. At some point he thinks he’s lost track of where he stops and Denver begins—as it should be. As it often is when they’re together.

His fingers slip into the short buzz of a hairline over and behind an ear, stroking briefly. His smile turns to a grin, and he turns his head gently. He can’t quite see Denver’s face, considering it’s still tucked into his neck, but the sentiment of connecting with him is there.]

Yours, yeah? More than you’ll ever know.

[And he hadn’t planned the words, exactly, but it’s all he can think to say. Because they’re so, starkly honest. Actually, they are the most honest Chase has been to himself in a long time. Being with Denver is the most honest thing he’s done all year. It’s the most honest thing he ever hopes to do. He knows that now, has known it for a while, he thinks, only it’s been a slow revelation. Something he’s learned over time. He’s at the point now where he’s just… waiting for the chips to fall where they may. Maybe neither of them are quite at the precipice, maybe he’s still entangled in his ‘has been’ and his ‘now’. Maybe that makes it hard to admit that Denver feels like his future, without getting the pang of fear of what it means for his losses. The things that would inevitably have to fall apart so that Denver could pick Chase up and put him back together.

But it’s sort of a silent acceptance that change would come, that She was coming now, violently and in abundance, and he’s just doing his best to prepare himself for the aftershocks. Knowing there’d be someone there to catch him.

He’s still smiling when he gently shifts to turn in Denver’s arms. Narrow waist rotating in the man’s large hands and heavy grasp, so that it’s his nose that’s now pressing into the man’s cheekbone, nuzzling there gently, leaving wandering kisses on his cheek, on his jaw, over the tense muscle at the back of it, trying to kiss the twitch of it away.] 

[He’s too big for his skin, too much, too stifling. He should pull back, he’s smothering the boy, weighing him down, smog blocking the sunrise.

And then Denver feels the give, feels the way Chase just melts into him, accepts every ounce of weight Denver is pressing down on him and then some. 

Denver is cold. So fucking cold he can feel the shiver-tremors wrack his body except for where his skin is touching Chase.  Except for where he is breathing puffs of body-hot air over that delicate shoulder, And the breath he takes in seems to turn into ice, to shatter in his diaphragm, and yet when it touches Chase’s skin, it’s warm. He’s soaking in the scent of Chase, hickory and green grass, salt and citrus. Something he could come home to. In his kitchen. In his bed. 

He’d always wondered, vaguely and dismissively, whether home was a thing that happened to a place after a while, or if it was something that you found in the end. If you simply walked and waited and willed it long enough.

And he can feel them in his core, those seismic shudders but he doesn’t think Chase can. Hopes Chase has no idea. 

Because he was wrong. Home has nothing to do with walking and waiting, and everything to do with an impish grin and slender slant of hips. 

He wants to wear Chase like a bomber jacket, bury himself in Chase. Sometimes Chase makes him so crazy with want that he wishes he could just crawl into his skin with him and just stay there, sharing space, tucking himself close to the beat of Chase’s heart.

Chase’s right hand comes up to cup Denver’s face, and he is so lost. So unmoored in the storm, can’t understand why Chase is comforting him, sweet and soft and heartbreaking, so he buries himself deeper, eyelashes brushing Chase’s jaw, closing his eyes because he doesn’t want to see, can deny for just a moment longer how vulnerable he’s made himself. A mess thirty years in the making spread out all over the kitchen counter, rusted and bleeding. 

It’s nothing but weakness. Foolish sentimentality.

But god, it’s exhausting, being so angry all the time. He aches like he’s a hundred years old, dust and sand grit over bones, and Chase is the only thing holding him up.

He feels the grin against his temple, the words hushed and sacred even for the way Chase delivers it with a lilt of lightness. And he feels the moment of silence, the space between heartbeats as it settles. Filling the vastness, softening it, cushioning every flood of blood through his veins. Making it softer, kinder. More forgiving of the harshness of his heart. 

He’s still, and pliant for once in Chase’s arms and he turns, but he can’t… 

It’s too much. Chase is giving him too much, and for all that Denver wants to reach out and take with trembling, calloused hands, that is exactly the reason he shouldn’t. 

Denver grits his teeth, blocks out the light and surrounds himself with the familiar stark comfort of darkness, god he tries, but he can’t stop the feel of Chase’s lips on his skin, soft and spritely and guileless. Stubborn to the last second, refusing to be shut out as every mountain Denver’s ever built is flattened in a landslide. 

Home is here. In the thin circle Chase’s arms, in the narrow waist beneath his palms, in the gentleness of his mouth. And in the cheekiness of it, in those lemon-bright moments that only Chase achieves, that force Denver to remember that he is human. He may not yet be condemned to darkness and gunpowder, blood and ash. 

Chase fits right in his hands, and he can’t block out the sunlight anymore, it’s bleeding around the cracks in his eyelids, searing through the thin membranes of skin.

So he releases the breath he’d been holding and hauls Chase up on to the counter, knife clattering and skittering over the countertop, the soft thumps of potatoes rolling around haphazardly, an echo of a distant time. But he stops…

stops….

stops himself, breathing hard and distant, before he turns this tide again into something roughshod and raw. Something, he bleakly realizes, he doesn’t want with the same fury he usually does. It’s a terrifyingly long time he spends looking down at the counter, at his hands splayed on Chase’s knees. On the boy’s socked feet bouncing softly off the cabinets. 

But against every instinct, every screaming nerve in his body not to open himself up, he raises his head, eyes searching Chase’s face with something flayed, and ugly, and desperate.] 

[edge-of-kane]

[It’s terrifying to realize it. 

It’s terrifying to realize, as he’s realizing now, that this had always been his destination. Denver had always been his final stop, ever since that first day the man had found him smoking on the patio, wrought thin and shaking like a leaf in the chill of the air he’d been desperate to ignore in favor of letting a cigarette soothe his nerves. Numb away the pain of having been caught int his web of first loves and their second loves. Hunter, and his second love. Though Chase might have been his first in this chapter of his life he’d not been his only. Hunter, who had claimed to love Chase, who loved him still, but whom Chase had fallen for so exclusively, at first. Chase had fallen so irrevocably, (or so he’d thought) and then Owen had come about to turn his world upside down. 

It’s funny, how long one can make upside down work. 

For a while, he’d even thought he’d been happy. Hunter was and remains a beautiful person. So full of love, so full of passion and brightness that Chase will cherish and hold dear the rest of his life. And Owen had come to mean a great deal to him, he’d even loved Owen, in his own way, and between them they’d found a harmony that seemed to work. 

And Chase loves Hunter. A part of him will always love Hunter, in the magical and unforgettable way a first love always lasts, lingers in the creases of crowsfeet as they age. 

But he realizes now, as Denver encircles his waist like it’s something precious, something that belongs in his arms like nothing else, as Denver flicks with heat like the sudden onset of a roaring fire, surged into something suddenly scalding and thrilling as his large hands haul Chase up onto the counter like the boy weighs nothing at all. Like he is feathers, like he is air, like he is whipped cream and sugar, nothing more. 

Nothing less. 

He realizes that if Hunter had been love—puppy love, perhaps, or the genuine adoring love of your closest kin, longest friend—that this is something else entirely. This is the kind of thing you read about in books or hear about in movies but know for a fact doesn’t exist. This is the kind of thing that, when you have it, you can’t remember a you that exists without it. Like the foreign version of you before this feels oh-so-far-away and blurry. Like a dream that’s still drifting from your memory, soon to be forgotten entirely. 

It feels like fate. It feels like something that would remain just as true over the span of lifetimes. Alternate lives, second lives, parallel lives. 

Always here. Always Denver. Always this. No matter which way you look at it.

And it both hurts and comforts because with the rush of understanding comes the knowledge of what loss might taste like. Just how it could poison you. And it’s funny, the feeling of wanting something so aggressively, that is already so close to you you can feel its pulse under your hands. Like you need it impossibly closer, and nothing will be righted until the impossible is achieved. Like it’s the only way. 

Chase frowns. Pretty, stenciled features frown as Denver stops… stops… stops… and the man is nothing but breaths now, but so much more than his silence. He is loud, actually, he is screaming in this mute-struck moment, and the stillness causes a ringing in Chase’s ears. Like the aftermath of something nuclear, only preemptive to the explosion. Like its patiently waiting for Chase to step on the trip wire.] 

Don’t stop… [words that are barely words, they are so much made breath and air.

He frowns, and those eyes, honey and gold and granite, look up at him so full of something unspoken that Chase almost chokes. His hands come up, finger tips curled at their first and outermost knuckles; his nails find the texture of Denver’s scruff along a hand jaw, set cheekbones.]

Denver… [he’s not sure if he’s speaking, actually, because he feels a bit removed from his own body. Like he’s so engulfed in it that he’s seeing it in reverse. Not from a bird’s eye but from the inside looking out. And he can see himself as he loses track of what’s real, and clings only to what he knows he wants to be real. Needs to be real.

And it’s this. He needs this to be real. Needs this thing with Denver to be undeniably, irrevocably real. In tangible, spoken form, just as it has been in the unspoken for months and months on end.]

I love you. [He’s someone else, he’s far away, but he’s never been closer. He’s but a huff, a wisp of heat in his own breath as it rolls across the space between them and touches the man’s face. His fingers seem to move, shift, as if searching for purchase on Denver’s face.] Master, I love you, [it’s a whisper, this thing he does. But a whisper.] And I need ya so much. More than anythin’. And I’m all yers, if you’ll have me. Only yers, if you’ll have me, sir. 'Cause I can’t do this like this no more. Pretendin’ it ain’t true, I mean. And I know this might make ya leave and if it does then I’ll respect tha’ and let ya go. But I love ya so fuckin’ much, Den. It’s always been you. I need it to be you. 

[A breath, and he thinks he might be crying. He can’t tell, but his eyes feel warm under the infrequent blink of his long lashes.] Please.

[denverrkane]

[Denver’s whole world is rearranging. 

A whisper, a feather-light slur of three words. 

It starts slow, a hushed murmur falling from cupid’s bow lips, until entire cities are being rewritten, crumbled to dust and reforged, bright and sharp. It happens in a heartbeat, but it’s irreversible, it has spun the galaxy Denver thought he knew, thought he only existed in, on its axis. Rearranged the poles. 

Truths become vagrant lies. Nothing more than the dust of collapsed stars, red giants folding in on themselves. 

And the only truth he’s ever clung to, ever known intimately in the bedrock of his own soul is his own darkness, his own stilted and withered and incapable heart. 

And it’s a lie.

It’s the only thing that’s kept him centered, kept him anchored in the wash of blood, of violence he’s slogged through. The sluggish sewage of his humanity rose up around him, and it had been the only thing that kept him upright, his true north. And now that lie has shattered apart beneath his feet in the space of a breath, leaving him with nothing... nothing but this slender whip of a boy to desperately grab as he goes under.

He’s breathless with it. 

Hope and air roll over his skin, pull him magnetically back to his own body, a container that shouldn’t fit his revelations, shouldn’t fit him anymore. 

...And I’m all yers, if you’ll have me. Only yers, if you’ll have me...

He feels the rasp of fingertips on his jaw... can that really be his jaw, hard and sharp underneath those sweetly questing fingertips? Are those his hands, calloused and scarred and far too big to fit over those delicate hips they’re curled around? 

He feels softer than he can ever remember. Gone, beyond his reach, are his granite walls. Gone is his anger, his exhaustion, the ash in the air gone. His heartbeat is clean and sharp, fresh and green, on the cusp of spring.

Is that his breath, gasping and hoarsely exhaled? 

...'Cause I can’t do this like this no more. Pretendin’ it ain’t true...

There’s a hint of pain there, and Denver can feel his throat close around a whine not of his own voluntary making, sympathetic and clawed apart all at once. The truth a bright, fluttering bird desperate to be uncaged. 

They’ve been hurtling headlong into this for months. A storm head gathering rain, sweet and clean, and Denver had known...

Denver had hoped. In his traitorous heart. Proof that he had the organ after all.

It’s too much. It’s too much and not enough at the same time, making him dizzy with want, and he’s only just come back into his bones. 

He’s doesn’t know what he’s capable of, anymore. 

...It’s always been you. I need it to be you....]

“Chase.” [It’s a prayer, it always has been, the way it leaves his lips. Sacred and soft, desperate and humbled, choking on the onslaught, seared and raw.

He doesn’t know what comes out along with that one word.

It’s you.

I need you.

Stay. God, please… stay.

Chase’s lashes are sticking together, eyes shiny and bright with promise, with fear, with…

The truth consumes him, swallows him with thoughts of Chase’s sleep-softened eyes, with his cheeky, crooked grin, with the soft lilting whines that spill from that mouth as he twists in their white sheets. Their white sheets. With Chase’s never ending persistence, his wild ability to say what is truly in his heart, in his mind. The way Denver’s hands steady their constant tremors every time they reach for him.

How many times has this boy come back to him, come back to his bed, his hard silences, his rough hands? How many times has Denver ever truly been able to let him go?

Denver’s inhale takes years, he can feel the weight of it filling his lungs, can feel every atom of his rearranged being screaming in thin tinny voices at him. Chase’s eyes are on him as if he is the sun, the moon, and everything in between and Denver aches. Has to close his eyes against the force of it.

I never let myself dream I’d have this.

The words don’t come, get sewn into the roof of his mouth on the way up, but he presses himself to Chase’s lips, slow and steady. It’s nothing short of as sweet as the first time, and Denver’s hand rise to Chase’s wrists before sliding to cradle his jaw, to sweep softly through that inky swath of hair as Denver pulls back for less than a heartbeat.

He starts at Chase’s forehead, dips to taste the tears on his eyelids, gentle… more gentle than Denver thought himself capable of, leaving soft and short presses of lips along the line of one of those cheekbones, kissing a temple and feeling a sparrow-fast pulse beat beneath the skin.

Before breathing words against the delicate shell of an ear...]

“I’m yours. Only yours.” [The words are steel-heavy in his mouth.] “I —“ [his hands clench, involuntary, on the parts of Chase he’s holding. Anger, old and slow, rises through him at his own inability to articulate and he braces himself, protects his new green shoots of grass, the tender parts of his heart he’s only just discovered.]

“You’re mine.” [He shakes Chase a little as he says it, vehement and intentional, and he knows he’s leaving bruises with his fingertips.] “Only mine. All mine.” [I need you. I’ve never needed anything before. And now if I let you go I’ll fly apart into a hundred thousand shards.]

“I need you. I need it to be you.” [I love you it echoes.] 

[yesyes]

Cities are smells: Acre is the smell of iodine and spices. Haifa is the smell of pine and wrinkled sheets. Moscow is the smell of vodka on ice. Cairo is the smell of mango and ginger. Beirut is the smell of the sun, sea, smoke, and lemons. Paris is the smell of fresh bread, cheese, and derivations of enchantment. Damascus is the smell of jasmine and dried fruit. Tunis is the smell of night musk and salt. Rabat is the smell of henna, incense and honey. A city that cannot be known by its smell is unreliable. Exiles have a shared smell: the smell of longing for something else; a smell that remembers another smell. A painting, nostalgic that guides you, like a worn tourist map, to the smell of the original place. A smell is a memory and a setting sun. Sunset, here, is beauty rebuking the stranger. But to love the sunset is not, as they say, one of the attributes of exile.

Mahmoud Darwish, In the Presence of Absence (via yesyes)

[dailyderekhale]

[denverrkane]

He wears the smell of blood and death like perfume  there is fire in his eyes  and ice in his veins

[herzdieb]

[tylerknott]

Typewriter Series #737 by Tyler Knott Gregson

[allseriescaps]

[tylerknott]

Typewriter Series #731 by Tyler Knott Gregson

[tifferini]

A Study in Hale: 3.24 “The Divine Move”

[alphalewolf]

[denverrkane]

we’ve won again, here we are at the place where I get to beg for it where I get to say Please, for just one night, will you lay down next to me, we can leave our clothes on, we can stay all buttoned up? or will I say Roll over and let me fuck you till you puke, you owe me this much, you can indulge me this at least, can’t you?

Excerpt from Richard Siken's Wishbone