"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
11-15-2020, 08:34 PM (This post was last modified: 11-15-2020, 08:34 PM by sleaze.)
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
He has thought often of the boy, and the peace that came with him.
He had not questioned it – still doesn’t, not really – had instead fallen into it like a starving man into a feast. The way the quiet has risen in him, soothed his frenetic mind in a way he had not known since before his world had been upended, his reality thinned to near-transparency.
He never put a name to it, what had happened, his lips skimming across him, river-water at their knees, but oh, he dreams of it. Sleaze is surprised at the joy of having good memories to reflect back on, as so many of his are pained or unremarkable.
He has looked for him, in passing, but never found him. Beqanna is a large place, and he supposes he may never find him again, and will be left with only the brief memory, worn to the smoothness of sea-glass.
He is back at the river, though at its bank rather than in the water. The sound of it is comforting, the way the ground is softer here, beneath his feet. He watches the water as he moves, half-hypnotized, and when he looks up he has to blink, because there he is – Isakov.
He does blink, and the form does not change, only drifts into sharper focus. Sleaze takes a step closer, but he is downwind of him, and cannot catch his scent, cannot affirm him to be real and not some mirage.
“Isakov?”
His name is a question and Sleaze still doesn’t know the answer. His mind can be so unreliable, sometimes.
throw me in the water, don’t think about the splash i will create
leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
He remembers.
There is so little that Isakov forgets.
Sometimes he thinks he can still feel the heat of the purple stallion’s skin against his lips. And he thinks about the absolute stillness that had collapsed around them like some living, breathing thing. The silence that had consumed them.
He has never known anything like it, Isakov, and he finds himself craving it.
And Sleaze, too. Because he is older now, the boy all draped in galaxies, but he has not yet become cruel. His cruelty is still years off, a thing that he knows by name but has not learned to master yet.
He draws his mouth across the surface of the water and looks up sharply at the sound of his name. And there he is, the purple stallion, Sleaze.
Isakov smiles, just barely. He lifts his head, dripping water from his mouth, and goes to him. Touches him with his wet mouth, exhales a sigh that sounds like relief.
“You found me,” he murmurs into the heat of Sleaze’s skin. “Sleaze, you found me.”
01-02-2021, 07:01 PM (This post was last modified: 01-02-2021, 07:02 PM by sleaze.)
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
He shivers at the touch, a small rivulet of water tracing its way down his shoulder. He is unused to being touched so easily, but he welcomes it with an eagerness that is strange to him, lets his own mouth rest briefly against Isakov’s skin. He shouldn’t want this so much, he thinks, with the knowledge that there is such danger in wanting.
But Sleaze has wanted so little in his life.
(Aside from quiet, calm from his fractured mind. God, how he wanted that.)
Isakov speaks - you found me - and his words are sweet too, because they are welcoming. Because some part of Sleaze had feared that Isakov would turn away from him, would want nothing further to do with him, this fractured man at the riverside.
Sleaze is like his father, in that way. Always surprised at their return, their gift of presence.
“I did, I found you,” he says, repeating the words back, solidifying the moment. He isn’t sure what to say, after that – almost doesn’t want to say anything, wants to instead draw his mouth over more parts of him – but he is not so bold.
“How have you been?” he asks instead, and his words are steadier now, even if his mind is not.
throw me in the water, don’t think about the splash i will create
leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
Sleaze touches him back, so gently, and that same peace settles over them. Slows Isakov’s heart and his breathing with it, eases him into something soft and warm and (beneath it all, wrapped in cotton) electricity.
If only he could stay here for the rest of his days, his head laid so tenderly on Sleaze’s purple shoulder. Just breathing, existing, sheltered in the calm that they create together (because he could not create this peace on his own, not without Sleaze’s influence).
He goes on touching without ever worrying that it might not be welcomed. How deeply he adores this stallion, how far Sleaze has sunk into the soul of him.
It is such a simple question, how he’s been. But he does not have a simple answer. He has spent the interim trying to learn how to navigate the magic that lives in his chest. He understands now how he is able to create the peace that seeps into the air around them. But he will not explain this, not now.
“I’ve missed you,” he tells him and this is not a lie, “I’ve missed you so terribly.”
01-05-2021, 08:13 PM (This post was last modified: 01-05-2021, 08:13 PM by sleaze.)
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
That same peace falls over him, and he no longer knows now if it is magic or Isakov, or some blend of the two. He welcomes each touch, feels warm and lit beneath them, and he returns the motion. His own mouth is bolder now, made hungry by time and distance, by Isakov’s own eager advances.
The truth: Sleaze doesn’t know how to do this. His experiences with romance – with love – are so limited, so skewed. His father and those strange embraces that were never untoward but weren’t normal, either. Malis, with that same distorted reality, bonded not in love but in trauma. A shared nightmare reality.
He knows that he wants - a vague verb, a hungry one, ill-defined yet all-encompassing. He wants Isakov, he wants to touch him, he wants to whisper to him, he wants these moments to stretch on and on for days or years.
He cannot say this. He is trembling. He is wanting.
I’ve missed you, Isakov says. Sleaze is warm at the thought.
“I’ve missed you too,” he says, then, “I’ve thought of you often.”
So often – Isakov was a dream to pass his sleepless nights. He cannot say this, though. He cannot be so brazen.
“I’m not sure what to do,” he confesses – brazen in another kind of way, “you’re different. It frightens me.”
01-31-2021, 04:01 PM (This post was last modified: 01-31-2021, 04:03 PM by isakov.)
throw me in the water, don’t think about the splash i will create
leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
He knows there is something cruel about the magic that lives inside his chest.
This is not the sort of thing born from goodness, he knows that.
But he feels good and whole and real here, wrapped quietly around Sleaze. Breathing. Feeling. Perceiving. He can think of nothing he has wanted more than this. He wants to ask if they can stay this way forever, just the two of them, protected from the world outside of this moment.
How his heart spasms to hear that Sleaze has missed him, too. That he has thought about him.
How it thrills him to think that he must mean something to this dark purple stallion.
He smiles something secret, something quiet.
He does not withdraw until Sleaze confesses his fear.
He separates himself entirely, though does not wedge any more space between them than he has to in order to steadily meet Sleaze’s gaze. He reaches out to gingerly bump his nose against Sleaze’s and exhales a soft sigh.
“There is nothing to be frightened of,” he murmurs, still holding that dark gaze. “I won’t hurt you.” And he means it. In that moment, he means it with every fiber of his being. He doesn’t know if it’s a promise he will be able to keep, but he sinks into another embrace and holds the dark stallion close.
02-13-2021, 08:29 PM (This post was last modified: 02-13-2021, 08:30 PM by sleaze.)
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
He has dealt with many unknowns in his time – his father’s abandonment, his foray into other worlds, the slippery unreality that followed – that this unknown should be laughably simple. This is the unknown faced by scores of horses, feelings ignited and confessed without surety of their requital. A laughably common problem. Sleaze should know this. He does know this, somewhere deep inside, but he is self-centered in this moment. So focused on this boy who fills him with calm and who touches him like there’s nothing to it.
Such a small thing. Such an amazing thing.
I won’t hurt you, Isakov says. Sleaze is not sure that that’s what he’s afraid of. He’s not even sure is fear has any real home, it’s just the general unease that forever haunts his bones, now honed into this thing – this one good thing – that he has found, this boy in the river, this boy with his power.
“Even if you did,” he says, “I would want to find you.”
Oh, he is so like his father.
“I am afraid, though,” he says, “of hurting you. When I was…taken, I came back with something I couldn’t explain. I could go into other’s bodies. I couldn’t control it. I’m better at it now, mostly, but sometimes…I fear it.”
He can feel it still sometimes, a distant ache in the bones, the feeling of unused power. What if it was loosed? He would not want to violate Isakov in such a way. And surely he wouldn’t – he has kept it dormant for so long – but he is made vulnerable here, and besides, Sleaze can never entirely trust himself.
Sleaze
@[isakov]
lmao just to be complicated...in this current thread timeline sleaze has possession. that's since been changed by the monsters but he mention it/wave it around one last thread
hey and on that note @[The Monsters] let's play with thought projection and Incendia Intus again
throw me in the water, don’t think about the splash i will create
leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
How foolish Isakov had been to think he was the only one capable of inflicting hurt.
Had he not also sacrificed his heart? Made himself vulnerable to this dark purple stallion?
Had he not thought of Sleaze so often that the edges of his voice had been worn smooth?
Had he not let Sleaze into the marrow of his bones?
Why should he be impervious to pain, Isakov?
It had not occurred to him that Sleaze might be the one to orchestrate any amount of devastation. But he cannot help the thrill that steals through him with the thought. (Isn’t there some dark delight in being vulnerable? In knowing that someone is capable of hurting you but trusting them not to?)
How terribly naive the star-strewn boy is, standing there in the river, urgently touching the dark stallion like he is the last molecule of oxygen on earth.
Even if Isakov hurt him, Sleaze would forgive.
There is some thrill in this, too. A dark thrill. Cruel.
Isakov takes a strand of Sleaze’s mane between his teeth. He releases the illusion of peace so they can bask in the unease instead. Sink into it. Drown in it.
“Will you show me?” he asks, quiet, intrigued. Curious. There is so much darkness in the world. So many things he has never seen. And he trusts Sleaze, whether or not it is wise.
“I trust you,” he adds, as if this will convince him.
