[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
They DO have goats here. Little baby ones. I took a lot of pictures of them. Do you want to see?
[because it feels normal, because running around and showing people pictures of baby goats is something koby would do normally, on his daily trips around the house, their house, their home, and he misses the restaurant and the club and his room and his life. and that makes him want to die because what if thatās gone forever? what if this is it, and they have to start over and he doesnāt know to mourn it because he doesnāt know himself anymore?
and maybe itās selfish, to beg not to be alone, for a distraction while heās lucid enough to ask for one, holding himself together with his hand too-tight on someone elseās. but those threads held in place by people he cares about (his friends, his family, his crew) are drawing thinner, and kobyās grasping at what he can like a drowning man, hoping he doesnāt lose himself on his way to aniās.]
( her tongue throbs under the pinch of her teeth, halfway to shrieking no. fuck baby goats and fuck these heaven's gate prophecy-slinging psychos. fuck everything in this ass backwards hellhole. because what she wants is as impossible as every other wishlist she's drafted: a chance to pause time and hit rewind, make a different choice, let life run another course. skip back to the good parts she couldn't cherish right. not until they vanished into the black film reel of the ending credits, happier scenes broken down to montage — just fleeting flashes of what they've lost, played on a loop behind her eyelids.
she wants to be anywhere but here. wants koby's lectures on undiscovered sea life to drown her brain until it's sinking into the mariana trench, tugged under by weightless sleep. wants her reign of the pink slip back, where she was as respected as any princess writing her words into law. she wants a bed that isn't a torture chamber draped in the disguise of linen sheets, waking with her own hands wringing the dreams and breath from her lungs every night.
she wants buffy and sam clean, before their promotion to grim reaper's debt collector tinted their hands dark from every blood tax paid in full, dirty work that never rinses out. wants to return to those sunny weather days when jake's insufferable smiles were a forecast so predictable she could time the roll of her eyes to the fucking second. when a twitch of his mouth meant trouble and turbulence heading into her afternoons, and not — the distant look of someone who's finally questioning whether bright horizons really carry on for miles and lifetimes.
she wants, as desperately as she's ever starved for anything. that simple shit. that small, impossible, soul-destroying shit.
and none of that matters. not any of it fucking matters. she swallows around the lump, types, like that can keep koby from going up in flames with the rest of it: )
only š is the one i see in the mirror babe but sure. these bitches better be cute and not something satan cooked up they got any names? if you say billy i swear to god
Edited (sry i forgot something i was originally going to write don't look at me) 2025-09-29 23:55 (UTC)
[koby thinks (in the spaces between the thrumming noise in his skull, pulsing in his teeth, his sternum, his gut) about how many of them had wanted to leave, when first waking up in saltburnt. how it had seemed alien, dangerous, untrustworthy. and now he misses it like heād missed the group home, out at sea, desperately lonely and aching for something familiar, mundane, knowable. washing the dishes and chattering while ani paints her nails and yells at jake or saber for slacking. busing tables at the restaurant and laughing at the crew. his books, his notes, his projects. himself.
saltburnt was inescapable, unyielding, but it was home, now. and theyād left it, come here, made themselves vulnerable to (what, what, to what?) whatever would come.
but if koby thought about that too much, heād start screaming and never stop. heād give up desperately trying to hold onto his sanity, himself, and just surrender to the oblivion offered by being an oracle, because then he wouldnāt have to think about what theyād lost.
so, instead:] Explain why āgoatā is a good thing again, please? [IMAGE ATTACHMENT]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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
no subject
Little baby ones. I took a lot of pictures of them.
Do you want to see?
[because it feels normal, because running around and showing people pictures of baby goats is something koby would do normally, on his daily trips around the house, their house, their home, and he misses the restaurant and the club and his room and his life. and that makes him want to die because what if thatās gone forever? what if this is it, and they have to start over and he doesnāt know to mourn it because he doesnāt know himself anymore?
and maybe itās selfish, to beg not to be alone, for a distraction while heās lucid enough to ask for one, holding himself together with his hand too-tight on someone elseās. but those threads held in place by people he cares about (his friends, his family, his crew) are drawing thinner, and kobyās grasping at what he can like a drowning man, hoping he doesnāt lose himself on his way to aniās.]
no subject
she wants to be anywhere but here. wants koby's lectures on undiscovered sea life to drown her brain until it's sinking into the mariana trench, tugged under by weightless sleep. wants her reign of the pink slip back, where she was as respected as any princess writing her words into law. she wants a bed that isn't a torture chamber draped in the disguise of linen sheets, waking with her own hands wringing the dreams and breath from her lungs every night.
she wants buffy and sam clean, before their promotion to grim reaper's debt collector tinted their hands dark from every blood tax paid in full, dirty work that never rinses out. wants to return to those sunny weather days when jake's insufferable smiles were a forecast so predictable she could time the roll of her eyes to the fucking second. when a twitch of his mouth meant trouble and turbulence heading into her afternoons, and not — the distant look of someone who's finally questioning whether bright horizons really carry on for miles and lifetimes.
she wants, as desperately as she's ever starved for anything. that simple shit. that small, impossible, soul-destroying shit.
and none of that matters. not any of it fucking matters. she swallows around the lump, types, like that can keep koby from going up in flames with the rest of it: )
only š is the one i see in the mirror babe
but sure. these bitches better be cute and not something satan cooked up
they got any names? if you say billy i swear to god
no subject
saltburnt was inescapable, unyielding, but it was home, now. and theyād left it, come here, made themselves vulnerable to (what, what, to what?) whatever would come.
but if koby thought about that too much, heād start screaming and never stop. heād give up desperately trying to hold onto his sanity, himself, and just surrender to the oblivion offered by being an oracle, because then he wouldnāt have to think about what theyād lost.
so, instead:] Explain why āgoatā is a good thing again, please?
[IMAGE ATTACHMENT]
I named this one Peony.