#kinslayr

@kinslayr​ said: ♬ :^)

a dusky haze, choking and encompassing and it’s the kind of place you’d hope not to get caught dead at. or alive, for that matter. these kind of dives are only good for a fair number of things, with similarly barely lucid people tending those who can remain upright. the air is thick with smoke and vapor and the hot humidity of a night spent far south, deep in the darkness. 

so imagine his fascination when this den of iniquity’s flow is interrupted, however briefly, by a man who should not be here, so overt... it might be covert. he pulls himself out of his daze, momentarily, and sidles towards the bar -- for a refill, of course. his glass has gone dry. 

                        "I know you're not boring"

YOU LIKE CRABBY PATTIES, DON’T YOU SQUIDWARD?

kinslayr said: ❝ you make this cold world beautiful. ❞

                                       florence + the machine.

fifteen years and his thoughts have never stopped, not once -- a talent, really. even lena couldn’t hope to keep up. someone had set this kid along a path and had given him the words to do it, and never once did those words fail him -- there was use for his silver tongue and his careful way of picking words and forming thoughts while his limited vocabulary weaved in an out and through this loom, train of thought. a grandmother quilt of worrying wordplay that had served him well, and

          here. dumbstruck. brainless, in only the worst, the best of ways. 

the gravity, the weight of words had never occurred to him. and how easily they were lifted with only careful, paced tongues. it was magic. words of a degree he’d experienced but only ever stood beside. directed at? a marksman shot. a stone on his chest and down he goes, the bottom of the river. tracing scales until they looked like whitewater. 

he takes his hand, because its all he can do. he raises their clasped hands together, to his lips. their hands, their arms. he ducks his head and finds solace in these cavernous spaces of warm air between them. 

moonlight on the mountain. below, whistling trees that throw their songs to the air in a faint hum that vibrates along the threads of the world, moonlight on every branch. a lonesome, mirrored safehouse set into the rock, a relic, a time capsule. space enough for these antiquities among these freezing walls. he chases the feeling.

he lays him down. cards on the table. 

royal flush. ace of hearts. 

kinslayr said: Beep 😘

                                   as if you need an excuse

roadside service, that’s what the sign says. not that the humor of the midwest, southwest has changed much in a hundred years, the same ideas cycled around until what you find somewhere in the middle of the oklahoma panhandle is an abandoned chapel. someone still pays the bills though, the neon still hasn’t died in its cupid’s arrows and pierced hearts, flickering and fading from however long it’s been trying to hang on. it bathes the ground in bright red, blood spilled out into the prairie air at midnight, under a pale, swollen moon. 

however desperate their bid for shelter is, the irony perhaps burns worse than the sacrilegious overtones. he drops his pack in the dust covered foyer with a loud thud, and beckons him inside. 

that night is spent preparing. discussing. sussing out the odds and ends that would lead them somewhere new, towards a better score, another chance for another paycheck that might set them up easy for a while. it’s not an easy life, but it makes for a decent one. he sets up his sleeping arrangements in a pew. he’s never been religious, he knew a man that was once, who taught him ins and outs but never practiced, who knew just enough to make him keep a rosary under his vest. he knows bits and pieces of old scripture. 

sinners in a church. a money-scheming church, but where else would they be in better company?

three in the morning. he sits beside the archer just beyond the reach of the neon in the darkness. every thud of his own heart against crumbling infrastructure rattles him, and the quiet complacency they’ve discovered between each other seems an echoing expanse. they grasp hands first. they inch closer. 

he cradles his cheeks in his hand, his machine. it’s all he can do.

       “clearly!”

       the older of the shimada brothers joining overwatch had been a divisive decision. meeting the cause of the former blackwatch agent’s hatred &. anger had brought out the worst in many, communicated only within their own circles, entrusted to none.

       she’s not sure about much of the older shimada. she’d never asked— it was too sore, she knows that. it was a line she would never want crossed, &. one she’d never expect, never want to be the exception to.

       she never even asked how their reunion had gone.

       “I have never seen someone be left as angry as he had been after you. maybe it felt like nothing and meant nothing to you, but it meant everything to him. maybe if you—”

       she stops. she takes a deep breath. she can’t afford to be close-minded— she doesn’t know the whole story, &. above all else, she needs to remember that genji was his brother. she can’t afford to pick sides. her tone is morose when she continues, the liveliness of her anger dissipated.