"...While Angelo sat there, in a tiny apartment in Shivington, watching the slight rise and fall of Dex’s chest from across the room, he could feel the bleeds and margins framing the scene he imagined for himself. A perfect, ink-washed scene, where Dex woke up with a smile and the twinkle in his eye which only appeared when some grand scheme resided in his head. He’d quip some witty one-liners, ones inspiring a flow of blood to certain parts. Then naturally, at least as the script called for it, the scene would progress to Dex pinning Anjo against the floor, his mouth on his neck... "
Gee, I haven’t posted fic in a very long time. Thanks to @hunnybadgerv for her beta work!! You can read the fic at AO3 or by clicking the read more link below!
Nothing processed but the rush of adrenaline pounding through Anjo’s head. A wave of panic and anxiety filtered out the smell of burning metal, rubber, and human remains as he ripped through Stilwater’s streets in a black, unmarked Eiswolf.
Dex shouted from the passenger seat, the accomplice--no, the mastermind of their plans. He knew when Monroe’s funeral procession would cross Lombard Street and align into the perfect spot for assassination. He picked the getaway cars. He organized the backup crews holding back their incensed pursuers from the crime scene. He knew the route back to the safehouse, barking directions at every intersection they crossed. And Anjo followed obediently, not because the rush of adrenaline impaired him from self-direction, but because he trusted Dex’s ultimate wisdom to keep the both of them alive.
The police sirens prevailed in their deafening noise, but they made it to the safehouse unharmed. Dex had watched the last patrol cars trail away from their path, lost in the chaos he’d planned with meticulous precision. At least, that’s what he said had happened--Anjo never once looked at the rearview mirror, too frightened to peel his eyes from the road ahead of him. Dex told him to park in front of an unfamiliar apartment complex, and Anjo listened. He broke out in a raspy, exhilarated laugh, clapping Anjo’s trembling shoulders with a firm hand; the blow triggered Anjo’s lungs and suddenly he felt like he could breathe again. Then he lost his breath altogether, because he realized Dex touched him, and his head didn’t stop pounding like it should have in the calm of their remote location.
The two men hid their car and fled into one of the apartments, Dex scrambling for the keys like he paid for the water and gas there on the regular. He bolted the door and pulled back the window curtains with relaxed grace, as if his thin fingers were parting gossamer threads of hair.
“The damn feds have no clue where we are. I’d say our hit’s a success.” He beamed his pearly whites with cocky assurance. “I think we’ve proven the point the Saints are people you shouldn’t fuck with.”
He peeled back his jean jacket and draped it over the dusty recliner, one of the few pieces of furniture in the apartment. “Want a beer? I’m sure there’s a couple 40s stashed in the fridge.”
Anjo shook his head. “I’m not thirsty.” That was a lie. His racing nerves and their adrenaline-filled getaway had left him parched.
“Suit yourself,” Dex said with a shrug. “After all this excitement, all I wanna do is relax and unwind. Johnny’s probably brewing a shitstorm out there, so I wanna be good and ready when it’s time for me to sort through it.”
“‘Relax?’ ‘Unwind?’” Angelo forced a grin. “You the Dex I know, or are you fucking with me?”
“Man, shut your goddamn mouth.” Dex tossed a pillow at Anjo’s shoulder. “Seriously. Watch the phone. Manny will call any second, but I wanna get some shuteye before we hit phase two of our plan.”
He sank into the recliner, propping up the foot stand with a satisfied sigh, and shut his eyes.
Anjo had never seen Dex look so ... content. And after counting the number of times his broken wristwatch pedalled between 11:35 and 11:34 am over and over again, Anjo realized he also had never spent this much time alone with Dex. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his clammy hands fidgetting over his lap. Temptation suggested he say something. Anything. But he felt at a loss for words. Thinking about the Saints and their next move against the city struck fear in his heart, more so since he had been designated the gang’s figurehead after Julius’ disappearance.
Then, of course, came the realization that Angelo did not want to break the silence at all.
Angelo liked comic books. Not enough to have lived his teen years in a suburban nerd dungeon, but he’d flipped though enough of his father’s collection to understand how a sequence of images could command fantasy, and how carefully patterned words across a page created the illusion of time. Those stories didn’t end until your eyes tracked through every dialogue bubble on the page. And while Angelo sat there, in a tiny apartment in Shivington, watching the slight rise and fall of Dex’s chest from across the room, he could feel the bleeds and margins framing the scene he imagined for himself. A perfect, ink-washed scene, where Dex woke up with a smile and the twinkle in his eye which only appeared when some grand scheme resided in his head. He’d quip some witty one-liners, ones inspiring a flow of blood to certain parts. Then naturally, at least as the script called for it, the scene would progress to Dex pinning Anjo against the floor, his mouth on his neck.
But ... that was just a sequence of images in Anjo’s head. The real Dex had broken into a snore, his visor covering his eyes and his hands twitching oddly like they were finishing the blueprints left back on his desk. The real Anjo sat on a seat best described as a large cushion on a couch frame covered with tattered cloth. The floor didn’t look safe enough to walk on, let alone look comfortable for a love affair which would never happen.
He flipped through the burner phone Dex gave him during his first week as a Saint, the one which would ring when the business with Monroe boiled over on Johnny’s end. He really, really didn’t want the phone to ring, but the truth was that it would. It was dialogue already set in motion.
The thought of shutting the phone off, or at least turning it to silent, looked more and more like an attractive option. Because then time would move forward only if Anjo set the dialogue down himself and let the words he’d been holding back for so long out in the real world, after months of holding his feelings in and letting them fester into bouts of nausea and uncontrollable heart palpitations. He could keep himself and Dex together only in a quiet, delusional stasis, one existing only in the ether and preserved with silence.
But, to his disappointment, that was mere fantasy. Reality, on the other hand, made him feel ashamed and embarrassed for his grandiose dreams. Reality decided, then and there, that the burner phone needed to ring. And Anjo couldn’t deny reality any more than he could find the courage to master his own narrative.
hunnybadgerv replied to your post:Wow. I have way too many writing drafts that...
*raises hands excitedly*
Here’s a small snippet from a fic that’s only written in dialogue:
ANJO: “Things good between you and Johnny?”
AISHA: “They are. I mean we fight and things get messy, but we go way back, since before he landed in juvie. That kind of history isn’t something you can just easily let go of, you know? I don’t think we’ve ever been with anyone else. Johnny’s just as much a talent at apologies as he is with a shotgun.”
ANJO: “I never figured Johnny for the sweet type.”
AISHA: “He’s always full of surprises. You know you’re rather sweet too. I’ve never just had a chill conversation with someone like this in a long time. ‘Course, all my friends think I’m dead.”
I don’t think I want to write anymore. It triggers so much of my self-loathing and anxiety that I hardly enjoy it.
The main bit is that I suck at putting words together. I don’t feel like I’m making any sense, that people don’t know what the hell I’m trying to put across. No matter how many rewrites I do I’m just not making things as articulate or perfect as I want it to be, and thinking about it right now is close to making me cry.
And I know people are trying to be kind, but it actually frustrates me when people say “oh, being unsure or displeased with your writing is part of the process!!” I don’t want to engage in an activity with the full expectation it’s going to make me unhappy. It also feels a little patronizing, or trivializing? I don’t like being told my suffering is a normal thing I have to go through in order to make good work. I enjoy making art, and I still do good work (relatively speaking.) Please don’t tell me that agonizing over whether I’ve structured a sentence or not for the past hour is ‘part of the process,’ because I know obsessing over word a simple sentence is not something you should stress about.
But it’s frustrating to just quit because apparently I just have so much potential. There’s a crapton of ideas that keep popping up in my head which no one else will think of or work on, and won’t get out there until I work on it. (Well, I was just gonna waste it anyway by trying.)
I hinted at a major spoiler here for my post-SRIV timeline, jsyk D: And this turned out a little sad and angry T_T
“Bloody hell, where did it go?”
Matt tossed the couch cushions on the floor and ran his fingers across the ledges between the seat and the arm.
“Oh, this is just impossible!” Matt moaned. After a dry search, he let out an exasperated scoff and switched to the couch’s other side. “It couldn’t have gone far!”
Hana flitted not too far from him, composed yet curious as she watched him scurry about his workspace for the past half hour, him tossing things about while she played with the end of her braid.
“Usually when you get worked up about things, you don’t think too clearly. Why not rest and look for it later?” Hana asked.
“No, no, no!” Matt shook his head fervently, then ducked to check underneath the couch. “I won’t rest or relax until my limited edition Bloody Canoness figurine is found. I’m not going to let it sit around in some godforsaken place alone and uncared for until I discover it’s broken by some unwitting fool!”
Matt found nothing under the couch as well; he growled in frustration as he kicked its side, puffing his bangs away from his cheek.
“Sweetie, perhaps you’re being a little dramatic?” Hana tapped her finger on her chin. “We could always visit Zinyak’s old archives and check for a replacement.”
“Oh right! How silly of me!” The lanky hacker swerved to face her, eyes wide under furrowed brows; she could almost see the fumes puffing from his nostrils. “Because surely the archives will provide everything we need! Perhaps when I lose my sixth replacement, I’ll give up on the sanctity of human possession in this post-apocalyptic society of ours and see if the comic book store I bought the original from is still open!”
Hana bit her lip while a warm tremor crawled up her back. Her nerves almost inspired a bitter laugh, one as small and petty as the conversation they were just having. “Right. Sorry. I forgot the Earth exploded because I was too damn busy watching you scramble over a figurine.”
She saw Matt’s jaw unhinge, the tremble of his chin inspiring a fantasy of him digging through his mind searching for something, anything to counteract her outburst. But she knew what he was thinking now by the way he picked at his nails anxiously.
Your writing doesn't suck, it's awesome! You capture the voices of all the characters really well, and it always seems to strike just the right balance between funny and heart-rending that Saints Row is so fond of.
Sorry I missed this last night! >.<
I’ve been feeling bad about my writing all around for a really long time, and I’ve mentioned that I’ve not been feeling confident about my writing recently. Sometimes I can’t help but measure myself up to all my writer friends and I just feel so inferior T_T Thank you for believing in me though; I do try hard to match the Saints in my fic as close to as they are in canon, and I’m glad you noticed ^_^
