( right? ani recognizes it from the short-lived stint of being a kid, tucked in her babushka's shadow. that child's nighttime search for reassurance — tell me the monster under the bed can't drag me under. no, tell me it never existed at all. that i'm wrong, that my imagination is conjuring domovoi out of empty spaces — let me stay small and safe and stupid to what's lurking outside this memory, waiting for me to grow up. the innocence ani knows you're born to lose, once you wise up to a world that's cold concrete instead of warm quilts, more lies than lullabies, prayers with the spending power of pennies: worthless shit fished out from the rock-bottom of a purse. too broke and too bankrupt on miracles to bribe your way to good luck, but desperate enough to collect them, still. like maybe it'll amount to something, like maybe your sorry ass can save your way to better days.
ani tallies the options. considers the coin flip between cold honesty and a comforting lie. pretty fiction won't rewrite ugly facts. she cares enough about koby to draft him a better bedtime story, anyway. sweet, embellished. close your eyes and sleep now. nothing's there. the heroes always bleed their way to a happy ending. except reality says koby's fucking sick in the head, and the only prescription ani's got in stock is an echo of the lies they all dose themselves on, console themselves with. everything will get better. just swallow the bullshit being measured and spooned out, and try not to choke on the taste.
it's easy. exactly what she can sense koby wants her to say, nodding along with his excuses. )
yeah sweetheart i know your power mode is always set to on but no sleep puts the screws to your head makes you ready to flunk any psych eval
you seriously STILL haven't finished star wars, koby? do or do not. yoda doesn't fuck with do-nothing bitches
so do something about it and come hang i got methods of knocking you out if i gotta
[koby may normally resist the comfort -- he wants to be seen as strong, capable, able to stand up beneath the weight of his own fears and anxieties, to be a true member of a team (a crew) that won't consider him dead weight to be jettisoned at the first inconvenience. he's built his entire existence at saltburnt around this desire.
but they're not in saltburnt anymore. and the things koby sees and hears and feels now are immense, all-encompassing, weighing him down until he gives voice to each and every strange name and phrase and title, every word that means nothing to his ears but everything to the person he speaks to. he thinks about ani and thinks of ring and house and big wide windows looking out across the city and you can stay one more night here, but tomorrow you have to go and he doesn't want to know these things without being given them. it feels violent, invasive, something he hasn't earned, and he hates that. but he can't stop.
and he's scared. he's so scared.
so:] Can I? You aren't busy?
And I haven't finished Star Wars because there are no TV's out here.
( can i? koby asks, and ani thinks: how much she fucking hates that question when she's already signed her name on the bottom line, already offered herself for the job. that polite courtesy that reeks of desperate johns, cocks already capped in the raincoat of their condoms, a heart's beat away from getting themselves wet with her. begging for her cue, waiting for their wallet to make their existence worth the breath and bread they spent: tell me you need this, tell me you want it. tell me you're not just tolerating me. pretend they're not paying premium rates to feel less pathetic, as if ani hasn't thumbed through their sweaty bills, checking and double-checking they haven't fucked her before she's even spread herself.
it isn't fair to koby, she knows. but she can taste the raw edge of his ache, imagine the pleading eyes above her, his insomnia inching down her throat until she's gagging with it. a chase for relief his own hand can't bring. it isn't enough she's volunteered to work that emotional blowjob dry, everyone's convenient hole to dump their load off and leave — he needs her to choke down his needy pulse for reassurance, too. she scrubs a knuckle over the pinched bridge of her nose. tries to remind herself koby has earned the right to need her body, even if it's still learning the difference between carrying a friend's weight and suffocating small under someone's shadow. )
busy with what? milking a fucking goat? just come over dude
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no subject
ani tallies the options. considers the coin flip between cold honesty and a comforting lie. pretty fiction won't rewrite ugly facts. she cares enough about koby to draft him a better bedtime story, anyway. sweet, embellished. close your eyes and sleep now. nothing's there. the heroes always bleed their way to a happy ending. except reality says koby's fucking sick in the head, and the only prescription ani's got in stock is an echo of the lies they all dose themselves on, console themselves with. everything will get better. just swallow the bullshit being measured and spooned out, and try not to choke on the taste.
it's easy. exactly what she can sense koby wants her to say, nodding along with his excuses. )
yeah sweetheart
i know your power mode is always set to on but no sleep puts the screws to your head
makes you ready to flunk any psych eval
you seriously STILL haven't finished star wars, koby?
do or do not. yoda doesn't fuck with do-nothing bitches
so do something about it and come hang
i got methods of knocking you out if i gotta
no subject
but they're not in saltburnt anymore. and the things koby sees and hears and feels now are immense, all-encompassing, weighing him down until he gives voice to each and every strange name and phrase and title, every word that means nothing to his ears but everything to the person he speaks to. he thinks about ani and thinks of ring and house and big wide windows looking out across the city and you can stay one more night here, but tomorrow you have to go and he doesn't want to know these things without being given them. it feels violent, invasive, something he hasn't earned, and he hates that. but he can't stop.
and he's scared. he's so scared.
so:] Can I?
You aren't busy?
And I haven't finished Star Wars because there are no TV's out here.
cw: sex work
it isn't fair to koby, she knows. but she can taste the raw edge of his ache, imagine the pleading eyes above her, his insomnia inching down her throat until she's gagging with it. a chase for relief his own hand can't bring. it isn't enough she's volunteered to work that emotional blowjob dry, everyone's convenient hole to dump their load off and leave — he needs her to choke down his needy pulse for reassurance, too. she scrubs a knuckle over the pinched bridge of her nose. tries to remind herself koby has earned the right to need her body, even if it's still learning the difference between carrying a friend's weight and suffocating small under someone's shadow. )
busy with what?
milking a fucking goat?
just come over dude