@thesuburbia ㅤ ㅤ ››› ㅤ ㅤ nonverbal prompts: patching my muse up after they got hurt ㅤ .
it wasn’t unusual to find the two of them were caught up in moments of such latent, inarguable intimacy, though it had been disastrously more common to find finn in the patient’s position. and isaiah finds himself startlingly relaxed under the careful tending of another, having only ever fixed himself the moment he could ball his hands into fists and make people hurt the way he did. as isaiah could recall, their childhood had been a long, desperate wish to be older, forcing their malnourished limbs through the arms of expensive coats that practically drowned them, in hopes they one day could fill the shoes of deities among men, astride those of whom had strangers kneel for them as they passed by. a wish fulfilled, and they still remained perpetually dissatisfied: as though there were more godliness to be gained. so the drugs ate away their boredom, the booze too, until the morning took over the night and they’d wake to their malcontent and begin again. every single day spent together and it felt nothing close to enough, taking girls into the back offices as though any of it had even a minuscule amount of meaning behind it. isaiah longs to be able to recognise what was missing from it all. dark pupils find themselves trained on the striations of finn’s forearms as he tends to flesh wound rather meticulously. a dramatisation, perhaps, of what resides upon his skin: isaiah didn’t think it needing of this much attention. though, he had consumed far more of the alcohol than initially prescribed, and his body was succumbing to an almost paralysis: the pain practically gone, and the presence of an old friend all the more recognised in their proximity.
“ who knows, in another life, what could have been? ” an airiness soon accompanies whiskey-taste as it is siphoned from the bottle, the coarseness turning smooth as the briny flavour loses it’s complexity the more it’s ingested. and for a moment, he’s numb to all sense. he finds his face as candlelight burns beside them. isaiah, then, is looking at finn moderately the way he looks at girls in the garrison, with an air of attractive arrogance utterly mystified by the intensity of hard, speckled green irises. one might describe that peering into them feels vaguely like getting lost among the sticks, shades of sage and fawn resembling that of the trees. a desensitised playfulness toys with the corners of his mouth, pushing a cavern deep into the apple of his bronze cheek. “ doctor finn shelby. imagine that. ”
the wars that had been waged beneath bloody knuckles and the remnants of gunpowder that still lingered on skin, forever encapsulating the pain and the rage that had only grown inside the cavity of chest. it was all you had ever known, the childhood games you played in the shadows of older brothers, actions being mirrored when no one was watching. the taste of copper was not foreign to your tongue, alcohol soaked rags pushed against wounds created from own boredom, chasing shadows down alleys in order to feel something. as if a thursday confessional, the confessions of your sins being chased down with the burn of liquor, trace of white powder still engrained on the wood. used to these situations, normally yourself under the scrutiny of watchful eyes, the neck of the bottle being your very savior. [the first bullet to pierce skin kept;] as if a memorial to the boy you were before. it seemed strange now, how easily you would bleed beneath the knuckles of another, own weapon providing the glint of metal in the moonlight before upper hand was given. the blade became your legacy, the man stepped into the light unrecognisable to others. it was always isaiah by your side, learned how to bandage wounds under the intoxicated gaze given to your own, chasing any sense of rush similiar to that of fists against skull, the raw rage that would grow under your skin, overtaking the senses. you had yearned for that power your whole life, watched as brothers rose among the ranks and fit perfectly into the new lifestyle offered to them. you never quite fit, always malnourished limbs playing make believe night after night.
“ fuck off. ” you catch his eye in the glint of the light, fingers trembled beneath the weight of such a statement. two gods amongst men, the night having overtaken the senses only hours before, intoxicated on the smog that set over the city, only source of heat being that of a lighter being flicked beneath lamppost. these moments of casual intimacy, moments that you would spend with no one else. your own gaze is heavy, weighed down with bruises already blossoming against flesh, liquor having only added to it. there’s a certain type of silence in the air that you do not want to break, heavy, hunger, it devours like a fire would a pyre of your own making. tongue darts out from between lips, shaking your head as attention is drawn from his face and returns to the wound by hands. “ .. no other life worth livin’. ”