( maybe he doesn't understand entirely, but he understands enough. seen enough, too. he can feel ephemera's eyes on him, contemplating him, like he's a thing to be understood instead of a thing to be feared or otherwise avoided. you make sense to me. did he make sense when he allowed ephemera to live repeatedly? when he kissed him and begged him to come?
chorus made sense. ortez made sense until he very abruptly didn't. the way of the fucking universe: survive, at all costs. nothing else matters. no one else matters. you're either exploiter or the exploited. )
Yeah.
( the slow-growing realization that he gives a modicum of a shit, spreading through him like dryrot. there aren't words for that. he doesn't know how to stop that. he doesn't know how to flay that feeling from his ribs and silence it. an inevitable catastrophe.
he squeezes his throat and considers making this violent as his pulse kicks beneath his thumb. force it back. make it make sense.
fuck this. fuck ephemera.
his quiet stillness goes rigid in a dizzying flash, tension running his shoulders taut. icily, he says, ) Go home, asshole. Before someone sees you.
( then – before he can respond – he turns on his heel and leaves. )
no subject
chorus made sense. ortez made sense until he very abruptly didn't. the way of the fucking universe: survive, at all costs. nothing else matters. no one else matters. you're either exploiter or the exploited. )
Yeah.
( the slow-growing realization that he gives a modicum of a shit, spreading through him like dryrot. there aren't words for that. he doesn't know how to stop that. he doesn't know how to flay that feeling from his ribs and silence it. an inevitable catastrophe.
he squeezes his throat and considers making this violent as his pulse kicks beneath his thumb. force it back. make it make sense.
fuck this. fuck ephemera.
his quiet stillness goes rigid in a dizzying flash, tension running his shoulders taut. icily, he says, ) Go home, asshole. Before someone sees you.
( then – before he can respond – he turns on his heel and leaves. )