IC Inbox - Ryslig

[blap_blap]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, TIMOTHY LAWRENCE. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 011.11.201.45 *** mrhandsome69 has joined 011.11.201.45 <USERNAME> First sentence of message. <BANNED USER> SCREENED MESSAGE. UNSCREEN? Y/N -- sample for when you ban someone <USERNAME> First sentence of message. <USERNAME> First sentence of message.

Comments

< mrhandsome69 > god this username kills me every time i type it

[blap_blap]

hi

i guess if it's going to be a serious conversation we should do it in person.

[Also because then Tim couldn't just ignore the message if he got uncomfortable. He knew himself well enough to be aware of the fact that the distance of texting would make it tempting to just... not answer, and Majima deserved some answers.]

what an excellent username

[justbeingknife]

Sounds good to me.

I'm on the east side of Lake Dala right now, near the edge of Bavan. You know, where that little park is? There's no one here, but I can head back to my place if that's better for ya.

[blap_blap]

no it’s fine, i’ll come to you.

just give me a few minutes to get there.

[It took him around fifteen minutes or so to get there— longer than it had to, because he’d wasted a little time worrying before he’d left— but it wasn’t hard for him to find the place. One of the perks of being a bull man.]

Um. Hi.

[justbeingknife]

Hi. Feelin' better?

[ Well, obviously Tim had been feeling well enough to leave Majima's place. The park was quiet this time of day, with a few birds around but little else. Nice couple of benches, some trees, some flowers grown a little wild. ]

Sorry to call ya out like this, but I thought it'd be worse to just ignore everything.

[ Majima was perched on the edge of a small stone wall, on which some moss was growing on one side; he gestured to one side, in case Tim wanted to sit down. ]

[blap_blap]

Yeah, I’m okay.

[As okay as anyone could be, after a fiasco like that wish-dream-thing. But the park was beautiful, quiet except for a little bird chatter and the sound of the wind in the trees, so that made it feel a little more distant. More like just a shitty nightmare than something had felt real.]

[Tim sat on the wall in the place that Majima indicated, his tail held between his hands. He was fidgeting with it, kind of how he would fidget with his hands, but with a long, bovine tail between his fingers instead.]

I mean, you’re not playing to my strengths? [He was good at ignoring things that made him uncomfortable.] But, uh. I guess you have a lot of questions about... all of that?

[justbeingknife]

Yeah. So many I don't know where to start, really.

[ He was keeping his body language fairly open, but it probably wasn't the most relaxed Majima had ever been, to be honest. ]

But I guess the one I most wanted to ask was how much of that stuff was true.

[ It was nice out here, wasn't it? Majima had come out here because it seemed less claustrophobic than indoors. Also because of the implicit message that Tim could get up and leave whenever he wanted. That was something Majima hadn't gotten after they'd let him out of that black site. Of course, he also liked to think he was less of a ballbuster than Sagawa. ]

I know you said they put ya in a body double program, but I've met people who changed their faces before. I thought... I don't know. That it was plastic surgery, studying what Jack was like.

But it looked more like they'd been torturing you.

[ Only a few more sessions, one of the men had said. ]

[blap_blap]

[It was more than just plastic surgery, it was surgery and gene mods and eight-hour sessions of feeling like he was being stabbed in the face with a rusty screwdriver. It was studying Jack's actions, the way he walked, the inflections of his voice, and then doing it while pointing a gun at somebody's face and pulling the trigger.]

[But he was an actor. A victim of his own poor decisions and Hyperion's opportunism, maybe, but not of brainwashing.]

It was... they hadn't done that to me. The whole Clockwork Orange thing, I mean.

[Not yet, anyway. But Tim was also nothing more than property to Jack, so if the boss decided that Tim's acting just wasn't cutting it anymore, that it needed to be stepped up, well. You could do whatever you wanted to your own property.]

That room that I was in? With the, with all that stuff? It's not real, or it wasn't when I was on Helios, anyway.

[justbeingknife]

Is there anythin' I can do to make things easier on ya?

[ Well, that was... good? Even it sounded like it could have been possible, which was kind of a horror in itself. ]

I mean, ya don't talk about it that much, and I can see why. But...

[ There was a pause as Majima stopped to try and articulate his thoughts. Ultimately, he didn't really care about Nisha or Wilhelm or the loader bots. The only person he'd given a single fuck about in that whole nightmare was Tim, and as far as he was concerned, Tim could keep his secrets as long as ]

Look, I don't understand half the shit that was even goin' on back there.

The reason I'm askin' about it in the first place is because if it were me, I'd be missing my old face and my old body and wondering who the fuck I was any more. I can't really tell how much it's bothering you, but... I don't want you to think the only reason I like ya is because you look like some rich asshole, or even because you put on a bunch of muscle. I care about you a lot and I'm glad I met you, even if that means the monster mash 24/7.

[blap_blap]

[I'd be missing my old face and my old body and wondering who the fuck I was anymore.]

[That hit so close to home that Tim would've thought that it was purposeful, that he was trying to cut him right to the quick, except that Majima had never seemed like a cruel person. Not to him, anyway. But the truth of it was that the things he said hit Tim hard, like a goddamn harpoon, so much so that he could almost feel the haft sticking out of him.]

[He almost wished that he hadn't come here at all, that he'd just told Majima to do this over text-- then he could've ignored this and hidden himself in his bed until he had pushed all of these emotions into a little box and just, like... buried it somewhere. And then he could just keep that mess locked up there until he died.]

I... What do you want me to say?

[He had to let go of his own tail, because he was squeezing it hard enough that it was starting to hurt.]

That I miss my face, and my body, even though I was ugly and ginger and poor? That I hate it every time I wake up in the morning and have to look in the mirror because it's his stupid face looking back at me? That it scares the shit out of me that I can't remember if some of the things I do are things that I've always done or if they're Jack's?

[His voice had been climbing, both in pitch and volume, as he dumped this whole mess of shit right onto Majima's lap, apparently. He'd kind of asked for it. He stood, probably kind of abruptly, half because he kind of felt like he wanted to just fling himself into the fucking lake so that he wouldn't be in this conversation anymore.]

I do, okay? I miss being me even if being me sucked, but I have to just freaking live with it because nobody can fix the shit they've done to me. And it's my fault! [He went to Hyperion and signed the papers. Nobody held a gun to his head and put a pen in his hand. Tim pushed his hands into his hair and gripped at it until it hurt.] God. God, and I can't even touch the rest of that, with you-- god. I can't.

[Because Tim knew certain as anything that a guy like Majima wouldn't have glanced twice at him if he had looked like the kid that left Tantalus. If he'd just been some skinny little ginger kid.]

[justbeingknife]

[ Majima listened quietly, letting the words wash over him while a kind of dull ache settled down in the core of his chest -- a feeling both oppressive and increasingly familiar. He'd hated himself for a long time after what had gone down with the Ueno Seiwa. Before, too, as the sum of his decisions had always been a slow arc towards the death he claimed to be ready for. Unlike so many others, he didn't rate better.

But it had always been his own face that he'd had the luxury of staring down in the mirror, and it was so easy to spot in others the value that was difficult to find in himself. The hatred that Tim directed at himself now was hard to hear because it was so obvious (to Majima, at least) that he didn't deserve it. ]

I'm sorry.

[ As always, what Majima was thinking was difficult to nail down at a look. But as Tim spoke, his expression softened. There was concern, regret, but with them was something else. Gratitude... or maybe relief? His voice was subdued when he spoke, and while he didn't follow Tim at first, he stood when the man started to pull at his hair and reached out to touch a hand to the curve of Tim's upper arm. ]

I asked because I wanted to know more about you. I didn't want to hurt you by sayin' something stupid, but I couldn't tell what you were thinking, either. Suppose I only made things worse.

[ He'd had a feeling Tim was leaving things unsaid, but the sheer extent of Timothy Lawrence's hurt was something Majima had never gotten the depth of; it was like kicking out with his feet and realizing the bottom had fallen away. ]

You're not him, you know. Whatever papers ya signed, whatever habits you picked up, you don't deserve to suffer the way you have.

[blap_blap]

[That's the funny thing about deserving-- does anyone really deserve anything? Did Tim deserve to look in the mirror every morning and hate what he saw? Did Majima deserve to feel guilty for being forcibly separated from his brother when he needed him? Maybe not. Maybe bad shit happened to otherwise decent people and there wasn't any speck of justice to it.]

[Tim wasn't expecting an apology, though. He kind of figured he'd get told to calm down or stop making a scene, the stuff that he was usually told to do when he was upset. Maybe he should've expected something less, well, shitty; Majima had always been kind to him, so why would he act differently now?]

[His hand rested on Tim's bicep and the gentle touch stopped him in his tracks, pulling the breaks on his stupid rant. He let go of his hair-- now a mess from how tight his fingers had been grabbing at it, and not in a hot way-- and lowered his arms a little.]

I... I wish I could believe that?

[Not the Jack part, he knew that he wasn't Jack-- he'd said it as much to the man's face, just once when he'd too briefly had enough spine to talk back to him. It had been a short-lived moral victory, though; Tim didn't stay brave for very long.]

[He wished that he could believe that he was a decent person who didn't deserve what he'd gotten, but at the end of the day, he'd helped Jack every step of the way. He'd had a hundred chances to stop Jack, and he didn't take any of them. And each time he'd had to do something terrible he'd told himself that he was just following orders, that he didn't have a choice, like that was any kind of excuse. Like that made him any less culpable.]

[He was a bad person who did bad things because he was too much of a coward to do what was right.]

God, you barely know anything. I barely told you anything.

[justbeingknife]

For what it's worth, I'm here for anythin' you want to tell me.

[ Something Tim had said to him, once. Majima wasn't sure exactly what Tim was thinking, but he could reason well enough that a man working for Jack wasn't a stranger to hurting people under the guise of orders. And the way Tim could just pull the trigger on the men back in the Cube, leave their faces a ruined mess of blood and bone? There was that, too. ]

I haven't told ya everything about myself, either. Hard to know where to start.

[ Part truth, part excuse. Telling someone about yourself meant making yourself vulnerable. Letting someone know you in your entirety? He ran his hand lightly up over Tim's arm and shoulder, traced the tip of his thumb over Tim's cheekbone. ]

But I'll try. I think you're worth it.

[ He also thought that Tim might listen, might actually want to hear instead of preferring as others did, to hear pleasantries and downplaying -- the 'How are you?' 'Fine' of actually knowing who someone was. ]

[blap_blap]

[It was amazing what someone could get used to-- what Tim had gotten used to, working for Jack. He'd gotten used to being pointed at other people-- bandits, sure, but they didn't stop being human just because they had guns in their hands too-- and pulling the trigger. He'd gotten used to being in danger all the time. He'd gotten used to following orders to do horrible things.]

I just... I don't want to scare you off by unpacking my baggage all over you?

[And tell him something that would make him never want to talk to him again. Majima had been understanding about killing people who were trying to kill him first-- that was basically self-defense-- but what about the ones that weren't? The civilians, the noncombatants, the... friends?]

[Majima's hand was a comforting weight on his arm and his touch was gentle and that made him feel somehow guilty, like he didn't deserve it.]

I hope you're right. [Is he worth it? God. That wasn't a question to ask somebody with his level of self-esteem.] I just... god, talking shouldn't be this hard?

[Communication is magic or whatever. It just also could feel about as easy as trying to pull teeth out of an angry skag, which, for the record? Is not even a little bit easy.]

Look, I'll... whatever you want to ask, I'll tell you, and I'll listen to whatever you want to tell me, and... I mean, I don't even think I'd know what to ask of you?

[Majima was still kind of enigmatic; Tim only knew bits and pieces about his life before Ryslig.]

[justbeingknife]

Another round of questions, huh?

[ It was getting to be kind of a Thing? Not that he minded. Majima moved his hand up, smoothing unruly strands of Tim's hair back down while only half-registering the feel of it against his fingers. ]

You know I used to work down in Sōtenbori, right? Osaka? A civilian job, runnin' a cabaret?

It's not the kinda job a yakuza typically does. That's because at that point, I wasn't one. My boss deep-sixed me after I disobeyed orders, but I had to get back in. So he sent me outta Tokyo and stuck me in Osaka, workin' for his sworn brother in the Omi.

Sagawa.

[ He said the name like it was an unpleasant taste, yet familiar. How could it not be, after all that had happened? Majima's gaze had sort of slid off into the distance while he was talking about the past, but now it returned to Tim. ]

What's 'ginger'? Ya mean like... spicy? Or something ya include on the side?

[ Protip: The incidence of red-haired people in Japan was very, very low. Majima thought of the vegetable first. ]

[blap_blap]

[Tim had kind of expected Majima to ask a question that was, well... more pertinent? Like why his coworkers were all psychopaths, or why all the robots had huge guns and were allowed to kill people, or just, Wilhelm? Wilhelm's whole deal?]

[Instead, they're talking about ginger.]

No, it's... it means that I have red hair. Had red hair.

[Since he really didn't have it anymore, he's got Jack's dark brown.]

Sagawa?

[It was an unfamiliar name with unfamiliar syllables. Sounded like an asshole, though.]

Is that the guy you told me about before? The one you were making a ton of cash for, who didn't want to let you go?

[And wasn't that something that Tim could empathize with-- working for a shitty boss who wanted to get his hooks into you and never let go. Use you up for everything you're worth, wring every last cent of value out of you.]

If your first boss tried to get rid of you, how were you going to get back in with this Sagawa guy?

[justbeingknife]

...Really?

[ Majima had sort of expected 'ginger' to be as apparently undesirable as ugly and poor, so it seemed like kind of a good idea to request clarification. But now he was leveling a look at Tim that could be described as... curiosity? Intrigue? ]

I would've liked to see that.

[ Okay, definitely intrigue. Tim had asked a question, however, so Majima would supply an answer: ]

That's right. If I behaved, he was supposed to put in a good word for me -- convince Shimano to let me back in instead of leavin' me in limbo. But we both knew it wasn't gonna happen. The guy dropped in to the business just to jerk me around, had dudes watchin' my every move. Couldn't even leave Sotenbori.

I hated him. He was right about some shit, though.

[ A pause. ]

What did ya mean before, when ya said you couldn't touch the rest of it?

[blap_blap]

[Well, red hair usually was considered undesirable-- at the very least, it was a major hurdle to being attractive, something that you had to overcome, especially as a guy. Pair that with freckles and being pale and skinny and you basically had the redheaded stepchild joke standing right in front of you.]

[So the whole intrigue thing there was weird, because nobody really wanted to see his ginger ass unless they were planning on beating the shit out of him. Or, like, wanted to turn him into a doppelganger.]

[But, Majima asked him to explain his own stupid ass and god, Tim wished that he knew how to keep his own dumb mouth shut sometimes. This was what happened when he ran off at the mouth, he had to explain the fucking nightmare mess that was his own brain. No one wanted that! Tim didn't even want to have to deal with his own nightmare brain, nevertheless show it to someone else.]

God, I should just never talk again.

[That was mostly to himself, because, like. Yeah. He should just never talk again.]

Look, I. I'm not trying to say that I don't believe you when you said that you like me? It's just that I know how things work, okay?

[Pretty people liked other pretty people and everybody else watched porn. Tim pinched at the bridge of his nose, looked away from Majima. He was supposed to be a writer, why was he so shitty at doing the thing that made words?]

And I'm not trying to come at you for having, like, standards, but. Let's be real, okay? You wouldn't have looked twice at me if I wasn't all--

[He gestured down at himself, at the body that wasn't really his.]

[justbeingknife]

[ Holy shit, Tim. How did someone develop negative self esteem? ]

I did tell ya what a cabaret is, right? Worked with beautiful people all the time. But I never touched any of 'em.

[ If anything, Majima also worked with so many average/ugly/aging men whose faces looked like they were melting off that it seemed normal; he didn't kick dudes out of bed for being irregular produce. ]

I mean, I like strong dudes. And it's real nice the way you can fill out a shirt. But there's plenty of bulked-up muscleheads that ain't got a bite worth their bark. You could've just bailed in Felfri, or let me go up on that roof by myself. You didn't leave me hangin' when that revolver lady was trying to punch holes in me, either.

[ He was studying Tim's current face. Or rather, Jack's face, which was... average? Nice, if he smiled the way Tim did, though god knew he doubted its original owner was even capable of emotions that weren't 'asshole'. ]

It's not like I know what ya used to look like, so I'll say that odds are, yeah. If we passed each other on the street, or if you were too shy to talk to me, I probably wouldn't remember ya. If we got to talkin' like we did the first couple times, though, even if you were still that guy before the surgery, I still would've cared about you. Probably wouldn't have made a pass at ya if it seemed like you hated fighting; I wouldn't feel right dragging you into the bullshit I've got going on, and I don't know if you'd even be interested in me.

But ain't that just a bunch of what-ifs? It's not what happened.

[ He paused, searching for words that seemed frustratingly inadequate. His accent had slipped once or twice while he was trying to find a way to tell Tim all this, and now he simply dropped it. ]

I don't know how to convince you of this, but between the ugly guy who's sweet and a looker who's got a shit personality, I'll take the first one every time. And if you were asking yourself if I'd be into Jack just because he's got the same face, not in a million years.

[blap_blap]

[It took about twenty-odd years of the slow erosion of whatever confidence and self-worth his scrawny nerd body contained to develop the kind of negative self-esteem that Tim currently had. It was like anti-esteem, he had the miraculous ability to bum out other people with his own crushing depression.]

[Worst superpower ever, to be honest.]

[There was a moment when Majima was explaining that Tim kind of felt his stomach dive, the confirmation of these stupid insecurities-- I probably wouldn't remember ya-- but it's not unfair. It wasn't ever really Majima's behavior or inclinations that would've been the limiting factor, it was the fact that Tim wouldn't have ever had the balls to actually walk up to a guy that looked like him and talk to him. His own anxieties would've hamstrung him and it was kind of shitty for him to say you wouldn't have noticed me when the reality of it was that he wouldn't have let himself be noticed.]

I, god, okay, you shouldn't have to convince me, that's... that's not how relationships are supposed to work, I know that. I should trust you when you tell me you like me for me. And I do, it's just, I'm a mess from like the neck up? Seriously, shrinks would have a field day with me if I ever, like, actually went to one.

[Tim's whole, like, universe fucked up a perfectly good boy, that's what they did. Look at him, he's got anxiety.]

And uh, that whole Jack question hadn't actually entered my brain yet, which, hey, I'm kind of surprised that I haven't compulsively run through absolutely every worst-case scenario in my brain yet? But I'm glad we can just cross that off? Because that is a literal nightmare.

[Majima wanting to get with Jack. Thanks! He hated it.]

[justbeingknife]

We talked on the network and he told me he had vibrators for hands.

[ Okay, so that wasn't 100% completely factually accurate, what Jack had really told him was that "my hands vibrate", and something about other stuff vibrating and how many fun functions he had, but long story short -- ]

It was disgusting.

[ But you know what, Majima didn't really want to devote a lot of mental energy to considering how horrific that mental image was. He'd rather talk about literally anything else. Which was exactly what he was going to do. ]

Overthinking, huh?

[ Majima looked at him for one moment, dropped his gaze to Tim's lips in the next, and then leaned in for a kiss. He was only aiming for a brief bit of contact, really, but... ]

Hell, I'd say you had more reason than most people to be kind of fucked up -- you've been through a lot. But I'm glad you believe me, because I'm kinda into you. Not that I wouldn't mind doing a little convincing.

[ He could be pretty persuasive? When he wanted to be. Maybe it was something about that smile. ]

[blap_blap]

[The topic of conversation was shifting away from Jack and his vibrator hands, which was, like, great? Tim had to deal with Jack on a regular basis, he really didn't want to have to give him any more thought than he absolutely had to. Especially not if they were going to talk about his gross vibrating functions.]

[And he wasn't even going to ask why Majima's conversation with Jack had somehow gotten onto the topic of what bits of him vibrated. Knowing Jack? He probably just shoved that fun fact into the conversation whether anyone involved liked it or not.]

[He was going to say something about that overthinking thing, probably something along the lines of if overthinking was an Olympic sport, I wouldn't even be there because I'd be too busy overthinking it, but he was stopped by Majima's lips against his. Which was fine, honestly, he wasn't going to say anything that was of any particular value anyway. Kissing him was probably a better use of everybody's time.]

Oh. Well, that's great, because if you didn't notice, I'm super into you.

[It wasn't like he was subtle about it. But, god, Tim had the shittiest luck in most everything, except apparently the boyfriend roulette? Because he hit jackpot on that, Majima was just a really great boyfriend?]

What, uh, kind of convincing were you thinking of? I mean, a little convincing might not be a bad thing? Just to make sure?

[justbeingknife]

[ That got a little laugh out of him, and Majima took the opportunity to wrap an arm around Tim's waist and kiss him more thoroughly this round. By this time, the little birds up in the trees (probably Ryslig's version of sparrows) had gotten impatient, and had started flitting back down to the park and hop-skipping around the path, unwilling to wait for the dumb monsters to finish before continuing the hunt for their next meal.

It was really nice, actually, which was pretty strange because they'd just been talking about Tim's baggage but now one of Majima's hands was wandering in the vicinity of his boyfriend's ass.

Maybe it was kind of related, though. Maybe he just wanted to get a measure of the junk in Tim's trunk? ]

Wanna take a walk? Or I guess we could stay right here.

[ He didn't really care either way, it sounded like, staying right here and making out would be just fine with him, but they might get a little more actual background story out of each other if they headed back to town and talked while they were at it. ]

[blap_blap]

[There was some junk in Tim's trunk for Majima to check out if he was so inclined, but in terms of junk versus baggage, he probably had way more baggage. But Majima was also apparently willing to deal with the current baggage to ass ratio that they had going on right now, which was a way better outcome than Tim had anticipated.]

[Which... kind of described how this whole thing with the two of them had gone in general. Better than expected.]

[Tim put both hands against Majima's jaw, framing his face.]

God, how are you real? Did I just, like, dream you up?

[He kissed him again, quickly, just because he could, before putting his hands down on Majima's chest. (God. Things that he was continually thankful for-- Majima's tendency to never button his shirts up all the way.) It was tempting to just say that he wanted to stay right here, but he knew that if they did he'd probably just keep making out with him, and they were kind of in public? No one was around yet, sure, but that could change pretty quick.]

Yeah, let's walk a bit. It's really nice out, anyway?

[Not that Tim was exactly, like. Moving away from Majima's hold or in the direction of walking, but who could blame him?]

[justbeingknife]

[ Majima was grinning as Tim broke the kiss. ]

I assure ya, I'm a hundred percent real.

[ He'd just take up Tim's hand instead, lacing their fingers loosely together as he did so. It had been a while since he'd walked with anyone like this, someone he was sweet on who had actually penetrated his general aura of invincible obliviousness.

As they walked back in the direction of downtown, he'd pick up where he left off; Tim hadn't asked, exactly, but in the interest of sharing, certainly it'd be better to fill him in on some details? But only after a little bit of walking first. ]

Anyway, uh... that's why I was working for Sagawa at the Cabaret Grand. Took me about two years to dig out of the hole it was in and make it to the top of the industry -- enough to get him the profits he asked for.

Only after I got there, he changed the terms. Wanted 500 million instead of the 100 he'd originally asked for.

[ Majima's smile had a bit of an acerbic edge to it now. ]

Like I said, we both knew the hooks were in. So when he offered me another way out all of a sudden, I jumped at the chance. Knew it was a bad idea, but... at that point, I didn't give a damn.

[ It was hard to articulate the desperation, the cumulative effect of years of having to bow and scrape and put up with Sagawa constantly pushing his buttons. The willingness to do anything, for anyone, so long as it meant somehow making it up to Saejima. ]

[blap_blap]

[It really was a nice day for a walk, especially near the lake. And there were all those cute little birds hopping around, which kind of made Tim think that he ought to come back sometime with bird seed or something and feed them. Was that allowed?]

[A little bit of walking later and, well, it was back to the serious stuff. Not that this was a bad thing, Tim wanted to have some context for the things that Majima had told him already.]

[But, boy. This was a familiar story-- some asshole moving the goal posts so that you could never quite get out from under his thumb. And he couldn't completely understand the full desperation of it, the fallout of what had happened between Majima and his brother, but maybe Tim understood a little better than most.]

I don't think anyone could blame you for wanting to get out of that situation. [Especially considering what he'd mentioned about being watched and jerked around. Sounded like hell.] What did he ask you to do?

[Tim figured that it was nothing good. It sounded like a set-up-- two shitty choices, with the one that Sagawa really wanted done engineered to look like the less unbearable of the two, even if it would be unthinkable under normal situations.]