[There's a slow dawning awareness that something's wrong, at least. As he leans in to check the thing's even translating right (the tenses are all wrong)–]
[Oh god. They're making fun of him. That's what this is? Richie's gut drops to his knees. His feet. Through the floor. He ends prone on his belly on the coach, moaning into the pillow. He's angry still, but that bile has been pounced upon and gobbled up by a bigger, badder monster.
Absolute humiliation. God, he didn't expect this to sting so bad. Stab, more like. A knifish wound to the gut. He should have known better than to turn to Byerly, he should have taken his picks of the pills and marched straight out the door.
But he hadn't. Now he's a joke for them to share.
Miserable and heavy limbed, it takes him another few minutes to reply. Prior had seemed...well. Above this stuff. Kind-hearted. Guess you couldn't really know a guy after a month, no matter what kind of hell you trekked through together.]
Don't. I know when I'm licked. Just have your kicks and kindly fuck off for good.
[So there are a few minutes before the next response. Minutes where Prior reads the username (fuck) and scrolls up, and takes significantly less than three guesses to reach a conclusion.]
Richie?
[And if there's no response, another little wait before a message comes in.]
Aelfred. From work. Asked me for some tips, rusty as I am on the subject. I believe some wires may have crossed.
[He doesn't respond to the first. Just scoffs and glares, burying back into the pillow. The next one doesn't even get looked at until he's had a good, long stew, dreading the words behind that deceptively cutesy bing.
When he does look, he hesitates. Was there an Aelfred at Shades Darker? The name seems familiar, but the burn is still running hot and Richie's already knee deep in shame over the entirety of his last few weeks. If he buys it off the bat he'd be a bigger chump than he already is.
So his answer is nothing more than a curt and simple:]
[This is bullshit, he's as indiscreet as suits his purposes, and significantly less discrete with Prior than most. But no. No, Prior did not know this one.]
[...All right. All right then, it's not what he thought, but that queasy lil something? That's still rolling around in his gut. He could type out a ton of protests and he's sure each would look worse than the last, no matter how true. They were high, they were drunk, he was miserable and he'd been dead, he wasn't, he wasn't—
But they still had. And he's still swimming through the muck of it. Namely, that it hadn't been half as obscene as he might have imagined mere months ago. That it hadn't "shattered" him, as Byerly himself put it. That he couldn't speak about it to anyone either, work out what was happening. There was so much else to dwell on besides that he was almost happy to write it off as a by-product of his existential misery. Which was the spark that ignited it, sure, but could that be blamed on the whole?
So what does he say now?]
okay
calling off the hit, tell him he's free to leave the house without fear again
[Prior doesn't know if he plans on telling Byerly anything. He feels a little strange, himself, a sensation he tries to pin on unease over drawing out a confession he never meant to hear.]
As are you, I hope. There's nothing to worry over, really. You didn't make a terrible choice. Now you're but one grain of sand on a vast and varied beach, and even if someone could pick you out, less people would think less of you for it, here.
[Then, because he can't help but worry at his own little scars-]
[Or an even bigger cradle. People swung around so freely here. It wasn't like sleeping with a man was going to put a target on his back, or a black mark on his good name.
And is he a monster for fearing it would? He's antiquated, his whole world was. Hippies spoke of free love but gosh weren't it still so kooky to put man on man, woman on woman? His frame of mind needs a renovation and he knows it, but you can't shake nearly forty years of hearing one thing with just a pat on the back and a welcome mat.
Prior wants to know when. Richie huffs, rubs at his face. All right. Context would help. Maybe.]
The 28th.
[After he'd woke up. Before he'd been brave enough to reach out to closer friends. He hopes whatever Prior is looking for is answered there.]
[After they'd been taken. After the release. After Prior had walked Byerly's dreams to drag him out by force. After relief and terror pushed Prior into running any which way but home. It does give it context. And a little sting: the timing. But he'd have no right to complain over not being somewhere he walked out of.]
Something like that. Less scratchy and prone to chafe, one hopes, although everyone has their proclivities.
[Prior's all too aware of the kind of inculcation boys of their time grew up with, he was one. And he soaked it up too, albeit in a different way, that varnished coating of shame even he hasn't completely scratched off. He knows how their world sees people like him. How he's supposed to see himself.
And he's met enough straight men searching for answers in public restrooms or on the ramble to have a few clues of what a mess it can be when they find them. The date adds some context for that, too, and the knowledge that the only other time Richie's mentioned Byerly it's been with open distaste. There are numerous equations here, all adding up.]
[What does he even say? The natural response would be to spit back fire. No, of course he's not all right. Back from the dead and world view upended for the third or fourth time in as many months, living off bullshit and vices and trying to slip back into life like it's all hunky dory good times, problem solved folks! Nevermind that he'd slid into Byerly's bed and hoped to dissolve there. Stop being somebody, cease to be anything but the electric pops from pharmacy stimulants, back-alley snake oil cut into white lines. Forget what he felt like, floating in the eye of the storm. Forget the fear of what's watching them, what has them under their thumb, life and death turned to child's play for a purpose obscured in a hundred shrouds. How closely it aligns with the questions he'd been asking just before the Storm hit, tangling with powers that saw fit to scoot you around as they needed, put words in your mouth and ideas in your head and deceive you into thinking they were your own.
This isn't anything to lay on Prior, though. He doesn't need to be part of that story. Richie isn't so sure what the connection is between the two men outside of their being roommates, but he remembers how Byerly's eyes had narrowed when the name slipped out of his own lips. They cared for each other, of course. Probably had more in common than the obvious, and the obvious wasn't something Richie was supposed to be privy to.
Yet here he fucking is. Can't he climb out of it? Somehow?]
Hate to break it to you Miss Lane, but the jury's in recess and Superman has flown the coop. Will the press please hold questions until court is back in session?
Ask a stupid question, I know. But the world's all fucked up, Richie, what sensible ones are left? It's not supposed to be an interrogation, I just mean-
[That he'd listen. To any number of the things he's fucked up about. It seems to him someone used to pouring out words for a living could feel ready to spill with no available outlet, and Prior has a high tolerance level for lengthy diatribe.
Prior doesn't say any of it. Opts for a small olive branch instead.]
Well, I've agreed to bed rest for a while. It's dull. I hate the quiet, it always feels like a premonition. So if you wanted to come over when the nurse is off duty, you'd find a willing audience for... whatever. Nostalgia if you wanted. We of the New, old, World.
[The nurse has a fine moustache and cold-war accent and Prior assumes Richie would rather encounter her again on his own terms.]
[This is more in line with what he'd expect. Prior is just one of those souls. Have so little, give so much. Self-sacrificing little sod, even if he's not tethered to Richie by anything better than an innate familiarity with Watergate and the rise of Prince.
Richie drops the phone to his forehead and lays still. Thinking it over. His gut says he'd lose his lunch if he leaped for the offer right this instant. Now's out of the question. Later?
Does there have to be a later? This old town's big enough to lose a pair of yokels in, but that's a myth and he knows it. The refugees keep hurtling back to each other. He doesn't think a one of them has gotten more intimate with a local than the time it takes to roll between the sheets or a brawl in the streets. There and gone again in a flash, and all that remains is what the Storm cast aside.
Richie plucks the phone from the top of his head and finally replies.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
what did he say to you exactly? i need it verbatim
no subject
What did who say, exactly?
no subject
Absolute humiliation. God, he didn't expect this to sting so bad. Stab, more like. A knifish wound to the gut. He should have known better than to turn to Byerly, he should have taken his picks of the pills and marched straight out the door.
But he hadn't. Now he's a joke for them to share.
Miserable and heavy limbed, it takes him another few minutes to reply. Prior had seemed...well. Above this stuff. Kind-hearted. Guess you couldn't really know a guy after a month, no matter what kind of hell you trekked through together.]
Don't. I know when I'm licked. Just have your kicks and kindly fuck off for good.
no subject
Richie?
[And if there's no response, another little wait before a message comes in.]
Aelfred. From work. Asked me for some tips, rusty as I am on the subject. I believe some wires may have crossed.
no subject
When he does look, he hesitates. Was there an Aelfred at Shades Darker? The name seems familiar, but the burn is still running hot and Richie's already knee deep in shame over the entirety of his last few weeks. If he buys it off the bat he'd be a bigger chump than he already is.
So his answer is nothing more than a curt and simple:]
that so?
no subject
no subject
tell him good luck then.
no subject
so he didn't say anything to you?
no subject
No. The soul of discretion, as you say.
[This is bullshit, he's as indiscreet as suits his purposes, and significantly less discrete with Prior than most. But no. No, Prior did not know this one.]
no subject
But they still had. And he's still swimming through the muck of it. Namely, that it hadn't been half as obscene as he might have imagined mere months ago. That it hadn't "shattered" him, as Byerly himself put it. That he couldn't speak about it to anyone either, work out what was happening. There was so much else to dwell on besides that he was almost happy to write it off as a by-product of his existential misery. Which was the spark that ignited it, sure, but could that be blamed on the whole?
So what does he say now?]
okay
calling off the hit, tell him he's free to leave the house without fear again
no subject
As are you, I hope. There's nothing to worry over, really. You didn't make a terrible choice. Now you're but one grain of sand on a vast and varied beach, and even if someone could pick you out, less people would think less of you for it, here.
[Then, because he can't help but worry at his own little scars-]
...When was it?
no subject
[Or an even bigger cradle. People swung around so freely here. It wasn't like sleeping with a man was going to put a target on his back, or a black mark on his good name.
And is he a monster for fearing it would? He's antiquated, his whole world was. Hippies spoke of free love but gosh weren't it still so kooky to put man on man, woman on woman? His frame of mind needs a renovation and he knows it, but you can't shake nearly forty years of hearing one thing with just a pat on the back and a welcome mat.
Prior wants to know when. Richie huffs, rubs at his face. All right. Context would help. Maybe.]
The 28th.
[After he'd woke up. Before he'd been brave enough to reach out to closer friends. He hopes whatever Prior is looking for is answered there.]
no subject
Something like that. Less scratchy and prone to chafe, one hopes, although everyone has their proclivities.
[Prior's all too aware of the kind of inculcation boys of their time grew up with, he was one. And he soaked it up too, albeit in a different way, that varnished coating of shame even he hasn't completely scratched off. He knows how their world sees people like him. How he's supposed to see himself.
And he's met enough straight men searching for answers in public restrooms or on the ramble to have a few clues of what a mess it can be when they find them. The date adds some context for that, too, and the knowledge that the only other time Richie's mentioned Byerly it's been with open distaste. There are numerous equations here, all adding up.]
Are you all right?
no subject
This isn't anything to lay on Prior, though. He doesn't need to be part of that story. Richie isn't so sure what the connection is between the two men outside of their being roommates, but he remembers how Byerly's eyes had narrowed when the name slipped out of his own lips. They cared for each other, of course. Probably had more in common than the obvious, and the obvious wasn't something Richie was supposed to be privy to.
Yet here he fucking is. Can't he climb out of it? Somehow?]
Hate to break it to you Miss Lane, but the jury's in recess and Superman has flown the coop. Will the press please hold questions until court is back in session?
no subject
[That he'd listen. To any number of the things he's fucked up about. It seems to him someone used to pouring out words for a living could feel ready to spill with no available outlet, and Prior has a high tolerance level for lengthy diatribe.
Prior doesn't say any of it. Opts for a small olive branch instead.]
Well, I've agreed to bed rest for a while. It's dull. I hate the quiet, it always feels like a premonition. So if you wanted to come over when the nurse is off duty, you'd find a willing audience for... whatever. Nostalgia if you wanted. We of the New, old, World.
[The nurse has a fine moustache and cold-war accent and Prior assumes Richie would rather encounter her again on his own terms.]
no subject
Richie drops the phone to his forehead and lays still. Thinking it over. His gut says he'd lose his lunch if he leaped for the offer right this instant. Now's out of the question. Later?
Does there have to be a later? This old town's big enough to lose a pair of yokels in, but that's a myth and he knows it. The refugees keep hurtling back to each other. He doesn't think a one of them has gotten more intimate with a local than the time it takes to roll between the sheets or a brawl in the streets. There and gone again in a flash, and all that remains is what the Storm cast aside.
Richie plucks the phone from the top of his head and finally replies.]
I'll give it a thinksy. Rest up, Slim.