#opposite. tegan. abjecterror.

[godblooded]

@abjecterror

“you have.” You say calmly, and you listen to them stir and stir and listen to the way that excuse rolls off their tongue— it’s not an excuse. That’s not the right word, not at all. Excuse would mean something almost cruel. You don't think of it that way. Or them. You think if they’re protecting anything, it’s themselves. And that okay, you remind yourself. (It’s a moment before you functionally realize that there’s a frightening thought— when did you start to pick things apart this way, this viciously? Now you can only stare into your tea and think and think about what you’re trying to do here. You’re trying to think about it and you almost cringe when your brain says accomplish.)

How much of him did he leave in you? You don’t know. You shake it off. And your eyebrows raise slowly. You speak softly.

“you did just use the phrase no time to do anything good for yourself,” you point out— and avoid the urge to point with your spoon. You won’t. It would be rude. (Getoutgetout he hisses from the corner.) “i’m just... worried.” And i like being near you. I think you’re smart. I think i understand you. I want to understand you. That’s you, not him. Sincere. “concerned? I’m—” those beats of thought, “—concerned. And it was more an observation than an accusation.” There you are. Those parts of you.

“There’s this very foreign concept. I know it’s odd and a little out of left field to even consider it, but i’m your colleague and i worry about you,” friend is a heavy handed word you don’t deserve to use, “—and also, i’m not trying to be intrusive, but there are some kinds of tired it feels, sometimes, not even sleep can cure. And i understand that feeling.”

[godblooded]

@abjecterror​ (x)

“you are aware what you’re discussing is my specialty, correct? i’m catnip for killers, tegan.” the words come at you tensely so you volley them back with an almost equivalent tension, challenging them with the dip of your gaze to steel that energy and then a glance upward. to meet those eyes with your own blue, ground held. your head tilts. you fight with the urge to fire back at them-- and what of lecter, then, tegan? what about him? what? all he can tell us about is what, dismembering, turkeys? what? did he teach me, you, us, the bureau nothing? you don’t know where this acid comes from, but it sloshes in the back of you throat.

you need to take it down. your emotions are blurring, and it’s the sheer proximity that’s doing it. “they won’t hurt me. if we need someone to be a plant parsing out detail from an informant, you know, you know i’m very familiar with the process.” what, do the days escape you, you want to say, when you watched me sit across from cruelty itself and receive only the cloying verbiage of honeycomb sweet diction? you’re almost bitter, almost defensive, almost angry at the concept of protection. i will harm me if i choose. 

[godblooded]

@abjecterror (x)

you want to touch them. it’s an aching in your fingertips. it feels like they’re being left to the cold, left to the chill, and the only warmth would be closeness. to be gentler about this and to teach what the fuck it might be to know tenderness. you don’t know that definition anymore. your hand settles beside the bottle but doesn’t go to it again. just... doesn’t. an active thought that you keep in your mind and don’t let go of. stay to it. you feel across the wooden boards and count them in your head. one. two. three. four. back. four. three. two. one.

you won’t touch them. you don’t know how. your leather gloves are colder than your hands, and your hands are somehow colder underneath your gloves. you want to curl in, too. your body doesn’t move that way. you speak.

“i’m worried about you.” it’s almost a hesitant sigh. it’s almost please don’t tell me to go. “old hat, i know. no one wants to listen to me worry. it’s a concern with no end,” you smile for a second, a far away thing, “when ed lived in chicago and i was here, i used to make him call me at the beginning and the end of his shift, no matter what time.” it’s true.

“you look like you could use a very safe nap.”

[godblooded]

@abjecterror (x)

“i think of you always. each hour of every day. when i sleep, my mind still holds you until waking. a presence. is that not always thinking of you? it has to be the definition of it,” there’s a crushing vulnerability to alana in this moment. it’s so honest and so raw that it’s absolutely clear what lecter saw, what lecter fell in love with so deeply. his Beatrice. beatific is her smile.

“—god. fuck. sorry,” head in hands, she’s red up the neck and behind the ears to the very tips, “fuck. that was excessive. you were just being funny and then i was a d&d bard.” she winds her arms around a neck anyway, and burrows in that slight embarrassment. “—not that— i don’t genuinely just love—“

someone stop her. please.

[godblooded]

@abjecterror (x)

“mhm. yep. everything you just said, right down to the black cup of coffee and the martyrdom you’re holding in your vessel of a body, they have nothing to do with this attitude, do they, special agent lark?”

you don’t really care much about whether or not you’re intruding. you always seem to intrude. your eyes are bright and your smile throws the sunshine where tegan certainly needs it. they might not want you at this hour, but they need you. and that matters more. your heart makes a soft pang, not unlike the lyre of orpheus plucked.

“would you mind letting me in? it’s very early and i’m very, very deprived of sleep. —i’ll trade you a cup for a promised future dinner with my dogs?” an honest question. it is your finest invitation.

“let’s sit down. on any soft surface. at risk of being the one with the war injury, the cold bothers my bad hip,” your bad everything, to be completely and totally honest. your every inch is bad, bad, bad. you’re downright terrible. if you could trade your whole body, you would.

[godblooded]

@abjecterror

how very still you are, how very immovable, how very impossible to break. your expressions are always unafraid and neutral in their pause. your eyes close and open tiredly and scan a face that may seem familiar to you. david had called you ‘divine purity’ and none had understood until your beloved had said quietly jus’... ya self. and it had made sense. you were always quick and fearless to comprehend the complexities before you. it should not have shaken you that you, also, are one. not now that you see clearly.

you hear the voices constantly within your brain. a thousand and twenty years has still not given you perfect practice. their brain is intrusive to yours as well. it is like a magnet, drawing ever closer. you cannot help but glance down this counter in this starbucks toward the emotion you share— not a difficult feat at six-six.

your symmetrically cupid lips twitch into a smile when you realize their drink seems to be coffee, black, scalding.