cloistered

RP and ask blog of 4 DBZ OCs. Selective. Slow replies. Side blog to kaioshin-sama.

[ofgoldenfruitborn]

talonedbanshee:

His reflection approaches hers, joining her image while gazing only at his own smoky grey eyes. Tora stands next to her in a way that suggests he’s found himself here quite by accident and taken the opportunity to indulge his vanity (something honestly not out of the question for either of them). Moira continues to work at the last remnants of her makeup, listening to the question he’s asking aloud (and the unspoken ones he’s trying to avoid). She draws in a deep, slow breath as he teases the back of her neck.

“Well…” The word rolls heavily off of her tongue, building to something even she cannot anticipate until it’s falling out of her mouth. “I can’t give you an exact date,” Moira begins, her lips twisting in a wry smirk, “I suppose that would be…when I began to realize that I didn’t need you around. But…I still wanted you around.” She shrugs, waving one hand in the air dismissively, “Sometimes, anyways.” A cotton ball is thrown into the nearby wastebasket, bringing the convenient distraction of her nightly routine to an end.

Moira turns to face him, studying him with the sly air she always seems to grant the world around her, though it lacks the sharpness of her usual intentions (to research, to dissect, to poke and prod until her subject has given up every bit of usefulness). She wants this to last, whatever ‘this’ even was. Of course, it isn’t going to break her if the sentiment isn’t returned, mirrored exactly. She supposes that’s precisely why she’s able to confront it, now that it’s been disentangled from the mess of circumstances that brought them together in the first place.

Something wry pulls at his own mouth as well. “Sometimes,” he agrees. And somehow it feels like the correct acknowledgement to give.

(That he’s difficult, maybe, with a spirit full of hungry teeth. That he’d be too much for quite nearly anybody else who wasn’t, in that way, very much like him.)

Still, Tora isn’t altogether prepared for Moira to turn in her seat to face him when she does, and so he only lasts for a few strange, arrested moments of quiet, studying her right back, before he shies from the look and instead coaxes her up to her feet and into his space, fingertips fanning upon the shelf of her jaw. “Come here,” he mutters as she rises, more faintly than he would have liked, and, “Kiss me,” fainter still; but then her face, odd-eyed and knowing, is filling his field of vision, and he is kissing her, holding her to him with a gentle insistence he hadn’t expected of himself. When at length he turns his face, only slightly, he lingers there with her, cheek to cheek, words he isn't quite ready to say growing heavy on his tongue again.

Breath on each other’s necks.

Pulses warming the air immediately above their skins.

He swallows.

“--I don’t need you any more than you need me, you know.”

Halting, muted intensity. Groping his way through a language he only half-knows and finding himself dissatisfied by his own limitations.

“If you wanted to leave -- start again somewhere else, by yourself -- I’d let you. I don’t need you here, but I--.” (Breath hisses through his teeth.) “--I like you here. And. I want you here. With me. If that’s how you’d choose to have it.”

At last he leans back and chances to look her in the face, brows drawn low and eyes guarded, mouth set in a hard line like he doesn’t know what expression to make. Lamplight halos in Moira’s hair. His jaw tics.

“Understand?”

[ @talonedbanshee ]

[ofgoldenfruitborn]

amministro:

The answer is almost poetic, in a way he thinks that Fisk would enjoy. It certainly hits the nail on the head; the very reason his ‘job’ even exists: the voracious hunger of this city and the people who fight for control within it. He fills the hands of his employers while tempting lesser, weaker dogs with scraps of meat and watching them fight among themselves for the prize. Fool’s gold.

“We’ve all got our own appetites to appease,” He agrees, washing the words down with the pleasant sting of his drink. Of course, that brings him to the next point, the seemingly elusive question of what a man like James Wesley sought in such a depraved world of crime rings and warring gang leaders.

“What I want…” He pauses, eyes aimed thoughtfully at the view before him, though his mind is elsewhere. “What I want is what my employer wants. I want to see this city run by someone I believe is best equipped to do so. And I want to use my abilities to that end, instead of being trapped in one of those board rooms,” He motions with his glass to the far-off towers that looms beyond the high rise apartments. “Fighting a pointless battle, for men whose goals are as shallow as a puddle of rain. Men who lack a vision beyond the next wrung of the corporate ladder.”

With that, his attention is back on Tora and a smirk tugs at his lips. “Not to say that I don’t have my own more base desires.” His eyes very purposefully flick over the length of Tora’s form beside him, and though he turns back to the cityscape, his reflection shows a very devious facet of James Wesley draining his glass of its last drops of whiskey. He takes care to set it down on the nearest flat surface before turning in the other’s grasp, putting their faces within inches of one another. “And now, what do you want?”

Tora doesn't do Wesley the disservice of nodding along to the answer, for all that he exudes something like approval in its wake.

Ever the strategist. Ever too steely to ally himself with those who burn too dim to suit him, and who fail to know a blade of a man when they see one. Wesley understands the world in which he moves far more intimately than Tora does, but already -- in simply listening, and watching -- even Tora is inclined to think the same: that Wesley would be ill-suited, utterly, for brushing elbows with average men, much less their average ambitions.

Why humor the mundane, when he can guide the course of those whom even he -- lofty, arrogant thing that he is -- can respect?

Still, when the question turns back upon him -- ('what does he want', indeed?) -- and Wesley draws himself pointedly close, that line of thought melts away into another, and Tora’s lips thin into a slow, keen-edged smile.

His hand heavies just so upon the small of Wesley’s back.

“Me?” Interest laces thick through his blood. “The universe. On my platter.” (And why settle for only one, some dark, restless corner of himself asks, when such is simply expected, even of the weakest among his kind?) “But. More immediately than that, I suppose you mean--?”

One eye trains, smug and amused, upon the man lingering all too deliberately within the circle of his arm as he turns his head and slowly drains his own glass as well. His thumb paints a pleasant stripe into Wesley’s spine.

He thinks about how Wesley might look with the roots of his hair gone damp, and the soft, open moue of his mouth smeared, panting, into a pillow.

His voice drops to a low, musing place.

“I think, for the moment--.”

(Head tilting, smirk drawn muted and self-aware. The empty glass lists easy in his fingers.)

“--I’d like to try finding out just how base you’ll let yourself be. If it pleases you, of course.”

[ @amministro ]

[ofgoldenfruitborn]

Bonto: are you in LOVE, Tora? >:3 is Moira your GIIIRLFRIIIEEEND Tora: oh, you got fuckin’ JOKES, huh? that’s it; you’re gonna get it, you little shit--

[ofgoldenfruitborn]

Bonto tags at Toras sleeve to get his attention. The little Kai boy grins wide at the older one, before his hands starts to sign. "You are spending a lot of time with this woman. You are nice to her and she is nice to you. Do you love each other? Do you like to kiss? What does it feel like? Please, tell! Please, please!"

(How obvious has he been if even a child can put that name to the emotion swimming between them?)

Tora’s first impulse is to deny; to simply scoff and carve a dismissive ‘as if’ into the air with his hands. However, for all the wolves in his heart and for all the cutting, difficult edges of himself that he intends never to buff away--?

He lifts his chin, lids dropping.

It isn’t his way to lie. But, so too, there are some things he won’t say to anyone but Moira herself.

“Oh--?” he signs back, as if to challenge an accusation. “So I treat her nicely, and that means I’ve gone soft for her, huh?” He’s not above reaching down and squishing Bonto’s baby-round cheeks, if for no other reason than simply because he can. A smirk -- a question of his own -- plays around the edges of his mouth. “And what makes you think that?”

[ofgoldenfruitborn]

amministro:

His mind is rarely ever truly ‘at rest’ in any sense of the term. The present is always slipping away into the future, and so Wesley has always been determined to gain as many footholds as he can in the face of its uncertainty. Days, weeks, months ahead. Plans are laid out neatly in front of him, ready to be modified, cancelled, or adapted as necessary. That’s the most important trait he carries: adaptability. Nothing is ever sure in his line of work, nor is everything cut and dry with a man like Wilson Fisk. Intelligence plays its part, sure, and the connections that he forges are invaluable. But at the end of the day, any loose end, any oversight can come back ready to consume everything they’ve worked for.

For the moment, Wesley’s phone sits in his pocket (though hardly twenty minutes ever go by without a glance at the stream of notifications that crowd his lock screen). The touch at his back pulls him back into the present, the ever-fleeting now. It’s something that he doesn’t often appreciate and so he tries to, the same way he appreciates the sting of his drink. It’s the situation rather than this exact moment that gives him something to consider. He is adaptable, yes, along with everything else that Fisk needs him to be, but he is still human and by no means immune to the pleasures of intimacy. Even he needs the occasional respite, a single moment to catch his breath. Ironically, the question doesn’t allow him to stray far from the realm of work (not that he minds, it’s an interesting query from a…well, to call Tora ‘interesting’ seemed a vast understatement).

The corners of his mouth tug back into a faint smile as his eyes remain locked with pinpricks of lights that tower over the constant motion of the streets below. There are other lives behind those lit windows, wealthy ones living happily in their high-rise apartments. He doesn’t envy them. “That’s not an option that I have the privilege to consider.” Not a trace of bitterness is to be found in the words. “The view is nice, but there are plenty of views and five star hotels in the world. Staying in one place, seems…” Suffocating. “Inconvenient.” A raised eyebrow turns Tora’s way. “Taking a liking to city life?”

It’s a sensible reply, as he’d expected. The question which follows, however, amuses him in its own right, and he can’t help but curl a slow smirk around the rim of his glass, cutting his eyes sidelong and raising a brow of his own as if to say, ‘Oh? Do you need to ask?’

Warmth, not entirely the doing of alcohol, forms a lazy coil in the pit of his belly.

In truth, Tora can think of a number of things he’s taken a liking toward. What he thinks of first -- at self-indulgent length, and as if by example -- is the noise that he’s learned Wesley can be coaxed to make with little more than a mouth on his neck and arms twined heavy around his middle. What Tora says instead is simply, “It has its perks; easy.” He can see the briefest flash of his own teeth in the glass when he glances through the window. “Mostly though--?”

Beyond the black of the Park, an island of light glimmers back.

“--It’s the churning I like. The, ah--. Marriage of directed intent and chaotic impulse, I think.” A fleeting, sardonic smile twists his mouth. Imprecise, vague words for an imprecise, vague idea. “I’ve seen many cities, all the universes over. And the thing which holds true for quite nearly all of them--? Is that they’re dissatisfied, hungry places, full of people who want something. So. Maybe what it comes down to is that I just find that relatable.”

He nurses again at his drink -- a figurative period upon the end of his own sentence -- and turns slightly deeper into their shared space, as if following the flitting trajectory of a thought. His more artistic faculties admire the play of yellow light and blue shadow across Wesley’s face. The more animal admires the shape of his mouth.

“Or, in this case--? Maybe I'm just curious about what it is that you could want."

[ @amministro ]

[ofgoldenfruitborn]

It’s neither the first place in which they’ve met, nor likely to be the last.

The hotel in question stands among its fellows at the southernmost edge of Central Park, equidistant, more or less, between the rivers bounding the City to the east and west. The room itself -- (modern, he’s been told; with all its wood, metal, granite, and glass) -- faces the Park at an angle, and, beyond, the towers and lights of the Upper East Side.

It’s ten minutes from here to the docks on the Hudson by car. Twenty-five by foot.

Tora isn’t one to be impressed by the ostentatious and artless, for all that he has a liking, and an eye, for the expensive. It’s for that reason alone that, when he rounds the sleek bar top -- two lowball glasses in hand -- and drinks in the full effect of Manhattan in the night, laid in a glittering sprawl across the glass wall, he smiles.

He knows enough about this city by now to know that it’s a view which costs more for a single evening than what many earn in a month.

He knows too that James Wesley is a man with a deep wallet.

Tora’s smile, if faint, sharpens.

James Wesley, for his part, cuts a tailored silhouette into the skyline from his place at the window, back dimly lit by the warm glow of interior lighting behind. Tora makes little secret of his approving scrutiny as he crosses the floor to join him, appearing at length at Wesley’s elbow and slipping a customary drink into his waiting hand. Already Tora can smell him, and he thinks in lazy pieces about simply pressing his nose into the short, neat hair just behind Wesley’s ear, and breathing. Contenting himself instead with a fleeting smirk for now, and the barest touch to the small of Wesley’s back, he looks away and nods past their dual reflections in the glass. Outside, the cityscape gleams.

“--Do you like this?”

(He finds that he’s genuinely curious about the answer, in much the same way that he’s aware, mutedly, that the Kitchen, Hell’s Kitchen, lies but a stone’s throw behind the hotel, to their southeast. He isn’t fool enough to think it unintentional on Wesley’s part; that, while Wesley may have chosen to put his back to the Kitchen for the night, in a building which rears up and away from it as if from a bad smell, it nonetheless remains impeccably within his periphery. Tora swirls the contents of his own glass idly.)

“Even if your--, work, were concluded; or if it could come with you. Would you stay here?”

[ @amministro-blog ]

[ofgoldenfruitborn]

talonedbanshee:

It’s what she expects, more or less, and any disappointment she feels over his responding jest is buried deep, to be examined later at her own leisure. There’s no place here for unnecessary (unwanted) emotions and so she closes her eyes, content to let the moment fade into an intimate silence, the touch of his lips, breath warm against her skin.

The memory ebbs (the words she spoke, the words she didn’t hear back, the question of what she had even wanted, expected from him). But like the tide, it’s never gone. Moira goes about her life as usual, for no matter what, the scientist is driven by curiosity and there is no shortage of research for one who studies life itself. Yet she’s distracted, admittedly, confronted for the first time by the evolution of what had once been nothing more than the pleasure of thrill-seeking. They had come to a mutually beneficial arrangement of sorts, something she hadn’t had to think about, a single constant in a then-tumultuous existence.

Then the human mind did what it did best, complicating everything with emotion. A variable, the likes of which she delighted in when applied to an experiment, now threatened to ruin one of the few good things she had found post-psychotic-god. Moira knew one thing: she would not try to run from it. Rather, she would watch it unfold as she would a chemical reaction (and with Tora, always a slow one, but never less interesting for it). His question catches her off guard, but only for a moment. There’s no pause in the mechanical motions she employs to rid herself of a thin base of foundation, though her eyes shift slightly to lock with the reflection of his gaze.

“Of course.” She replies, offhand, as though he’s just asked her if she’s going to brush her teeth next. “Why,” Her brow quirks, and one corner of her mouth twitches in the ghost of a smirk. Her amusement isn’t entirely a facade, for navigating such matters with Tora is a research worthy topic in itself, though her heartbeat has undeniably begun to drum a bit louder against her chest. “Does it bother you?”

Tora releases a soft huff of air through his nose in reply, eyes sliding sidelong toward some indistinct point in the glass. While far from forthcoming, his mouth nonetheless echoes the phantom of her smirk.

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

(A pause before he hoists himself at last in a too-measured arc to his feet.)

“And yet, here I am, aren’t I? Thinking about it.”

Gravitating across the space between them -- as if inevitably compelled, by something beyond himself, to close it -- he settles into place at Moira’s shoulder, appraising them both in the mirror without quite meeting her eyes. His mouth hesitates, air pregnant with waiting as he grasps restlessly after the shapes of questions which don’t come naturally.

They look good at each other’s elbows, he thinks.

He likes how they fill the frame, together.

His lids droop.

“--So.”  (He realizes only now that his hand has risen to the back of her chair. Voice pitching to little more than a rasping murmur, thumb petting slow, gentle lines up and down the length of her nape--) “When did that happen, then?”

[ @talonedbanshee ]

[ofgoldenfruitborn]

sunniapple:

The sudden visit was a surprise for her, and she wasn’t prepared. Fuji had received Heyva coat covered in oil, her goggles propped up on her head and black splotches across her cheeks. She felt a bit embarrassed but this was Heyva…. he probably didnt notice what a mess she was. Besides, the flowers were beautiful, a sign the gardens of Kaishin were in full bloom. She smiled towards him, her cheeks warming a bit.

“You’re always so sweet…” she mumbled, reaching for the vase— ah! Her gloves! They too were stained with oil, so she paused a moment to remove them. Then, she took the case from his hands and sniffed at the larkspur. “They’re beautiful, thank you! Ah. Come in! We can put these in my room!”

There’s some part of him -- still foreign, still strange -- which stirs like a small, many-feathered thing between his ribs as she takes the vase from his hands. Spidery fingers mapping each other’s joints, he ghosts along agreeably at her elbow.

“I’m glad,” he only half hears himself say, low and earnest. “It’s odd to me still, I think. I, ah--. I think of you, you know, at the strangest times. Or--...well. I suppose any time makes as much or as little sense as any other, really. Doesn’t it?”

His thoughts visibly fork in multiple directions for the space of several steps before they manage to rejoin, only with some measure of effort.

“--Still. You’ll forgive me, I hope, for ah--” (he rolls the words around curiously in his mouth,) “dropping in on a whim--?”

[ @sunniapple ]

[ofgoldenfruitborn]

Mina, Fuji, Venan, teen or adult Bonto, or literally anybody else who knows Tora finding out about his committed, stable, emotionally fulfilling romantic relationship with Moira like

[ofgoldenfruitborn]

ahigherdestiny:

Mina lets out an angry growl. Despite the distance, it could easily be heard by anyone near them.

“Brood hen!” Her body tensed up with these words. Though, she let his comment slide aside and doesn’t honor it with another word. The woman gets restless the longer she has to be in the tall Kai´s company. Every freaking time, it was like this! Every time he somehow finds something to get her fired up like this! Like a lioness, she begins to walk back and forth in front of him. The boiling energy in her has to go somewhere!

“Well, the bad part in this story is that I CAN´T get out of your ass, buddy! I would love to!! Seriously, there is nothing I wish more to do than getting rid of your ugly face by breaking every fucking bone in it! But I can´t! You are the only one over on Kaishin I dare to … “trust” of looking out for the boy. His teachers even give less fucks about him than you do, and you know that. They would love to see him dead…! Also, Bonto likes you. He doesn’t stop talking about you the whole time! Beats me why he is annoying me with you every ten minutes, but he even likes you that much to bake you an extra treat alongside his own! So, I hope you fucking appreciate that ONE SINGLE PERSON, out of every fucking living being in all the universes and beyond, is willing to waste his time with an asshole like you!

… the least you can do for this kind soul is to take care that the next time I see him, he isn’t missing a tooth or got a broken arm, ok? He is just a helpless kid! Or are you even too stupid for THAT mission, mister lone wolf?”

Mina is right. Bonto´s wounds get more and heavier every time she sees him. Even with the kid sleeping soundly next to her, she couldn’t rest well at night imagining the other kids hitting him with sticks and stones every time she wasn’t around. It isn’t a bad idea to not tell Tora, that she would love to grab everyone of the little pests and punch them into the ground. She knows that even mentioning to hurt a godly kid would take away her permission to see Bonto ever again. And then even Tora, who of all people talked to the teachers and helped her and Shin to let the kid visit them regularly, if he was the one teleporting him there and back, couldn’t do anything about that! So, she comes to her spot again and stands still, remaining silent.

Tora makes a great show of rolling his eyes, just for her. Even so, he’s quickly growing bored, and her insistence upon this  – (this interaction, this shit, every  time, as if she has anything new to say) – ignites his mean streak like a resting coal brought sharply back to flame at the first errant breeze.

“Thought-provoking as always,” comes the level, but caustic reply. “Here’s the thing though. You trust me in this–? Then shut up, for once. Make it easy. Just once – you idiot child – try seeing the virtue in holding your tongue, and understand that what you’re getting out of me is a favour, at best. I can stop any time I like. And really, I’d be more than happy to spare myself the trouble. So. Instead of trying to give me orders – as if you have either the authority or the strength for it – your time here would really better be spent, uh–?”

(He flips his fingers vaguely in the direction from which Mina had come, lifting his chin.)

“Fucking off, for a start–?”

[ @ahigherdestiny ]

[duca-bianco]

Profumi Duca bianco

[requiem-on-water]

by *Nishe

[saddfuture]

[glazecake]

[apollo-aesthetic]

I’m so ready for summer

[grayskymorning]

[arsvitaest-deactivated20260111]

Katayama Bokuyo, Forest, 1928, ink and mineral pigments on silk, Minneapolis Institute of Arts