𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐁𝐈𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐒.

CONTINENTS subsist beneath a person's skin , remaining forever undiscovered , entire civilizations collapsing into silence : but rydal does not demand completion , instead he savors the pieces willingly revealed . there is something catastrophic in proximity , some ancient instinct that mistakes nearness for permanence [...] yet he does not wish to own jesse / still , he kisses him like a claim , a need verging on animalistic . perhaps seemingly paradoxical in how they crowd into this small space , but in the wake of jesse's moans , the rise and fall of his chest , the thrumming of his pulse beneath starved lips and teeth , this , rydal knows , is what it means to be free [escaping, running, ravaging] hands so often gentle now verge on violence , clawing into jesse's shirt before greedily mapping out skin , nails daring to inscribe their own story there to be traced and reminisced upon later (but a cost of having a taste of freedom is the consequential , impatient hunger) scraping down his stomach , his hand slips beneath the waistband of jesse's jeans in an urgent sort of reverence . 〝 i want to hear you . 〞

〝 i'm not trying to hurt anyone , dean . 〞no deception mars the words , nor does a plea hide beneath them . instead they emerge with a soft - spoken , unadorned certainty of something he has believed for longer than civilizations have endured . indeed , rydal has never thought himself the author of despair : only its witness and final confidant , the quiet room in which hope , having exhausted every other source , has at last confessed its absence , 〝 no one else answered . 〞

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS asserted that beauty was a fragment of something higher , some impossible truth reflected imperfectly through the world and all its fragile things , that to witness beauty was the first step towards knowing the divine . rydal wonders then , if they were right : that every beautiful thing is a staircase (...) but no one ever promised that every staircase leads upwards . [later, when he writes of jesse, he thinks he'll use the word exhilarating ... no, intoxicating. yes, that will be closer] he does not want to own the story of him insomuch as he desires to drown in it ; to drag himself through the ink of his trajectory and emerge carrying the stain ,〝 i have a friend ... 〞 not a demand nor an interrogation , but the need to understand / take my hand , even though it may hurt you , 〝 i could get you in . 〞

RYDAL KEENER is one of the two reigning rulers of the crossroads . he is the most empathetic - sounding entity in hell [...] and the least emotionally invested in what that empathy does . to the desperate who need a hand , an ear , a heart ... all rydal asks for in return is the concession of that which they're already willing to lose . he does not rely on intimidation or cruelty ; he is subtle , patient , and deeply attentive . people are regarded as more than contracts , but are scripture [his forbidden fruit] his interest in humanity over the centuries borders on obsessive curiosity , fixating on how easily one will rationalize suffering and consent to their own damnation once relief is offered in a familiar voice that promises release . it's not coercion , it's understanding . they talk , he affirms ; they kiss , he collects .

RYDAL SEARCHES her face for translation , a futile wish that meaning might still naturally unveil itself between them , but instead finds the offending knife [TOM , carved brutally into the surface] hatred : instinct before articulation , recognition before proof (embedded in rydal's very marrow) aflame in eyes resigned to indifference . and he knows she reads it in him ; he is her book . for her , he held his tongue / for her , he confesses , 〝 i don't trust him , elizabeth . 〞

A BORROWED NOWHERE , dingy motel room exists to be left behind . another time (the other times) were all urgency and fracture : a desperate hunger trying to outrun itself in the rare moments it was allowed to surface [...] tonight is indulgence , attention and submission to appetite , unhurried / [why should tonight be different?] in the way one savors a last meal . there is no tenderness in it that knows its own name , only the quiet suspension of consequence , the world held at a distance for just a few more hours . the threat of rydal's father , the promise of reformation and disavowal , looms just behind and creeps ever closer through albuquerque / a locked room he refuses to enter , and in this refusal [in his moments with jesse, spent like this] was the impulse to spit in the face of his father and in the face of the world attempting to write his ending . jesse is not escape nor salvation , but stands as proof that rydal is allowed to choose the direction of his own disappearance (you have to keep moving) tomorrow is already forming , and in hours he will be gone : a state , a city , a road . but before then ... the perverse need to be remembered by someone who won't follow , someone who has already been - and will continue to be - immortalized in his own private writings ; it is not attachment , but a sort of depraved fascination , an unintended and unexpected connection destined to be severed but forever lingers . the slow drag of his lips finds a temporary fleeting place of belonging against the bones of jesse's hips , answer easy and unconcerned , 〝 i'm leaving tomorrow . 〞

RYDAL FIRST THINKS of aristotle : the notion of eudaimonia and internal coherence ; kant : autonomy the condition of dignity , the self as something meant to stand unassisted . he looks down to her then , soft pause as his hand stills against her cheek [... and philosophers be damned] the thought does not survive contact with her , for she cannot be captured by theory , nor resolved into principle or contradiction . indeed , the self is never singular in the way it pretends to be . if there is a soul , it is not something balanced between parts ; it is the quiet insistence of her presence against him , it is the way the world recedes until only what is necessary remains / Her , without her , he is nothing , 〝 you are everything that i am . 〞

HER VOICE REACHES him from behind , unexpected and yet he does not startle , eyes drifting calmly to an apparition resurrected / no longer a flicker amongst others , but a presence with edges he can study . there is hunger in wanting to know , a demanding and unbridled ache to understand pieces still hidden , every detail of her denied to him a thread begging to be pulled . rydal lowers the cigarette from his mouth and gestures for the waiter (a second glass, please) , smoke slipping away as the world around them loses its importance , 〝 would you like a drink ? 〞