#is this anything... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hypnostanatos · 7 days ago

Note

what about "please explain how this is my fault", for the please prompts?

Hi Pulp, not me writing doomed Chentega with some future poly...

You knew this was bound to happen. As a calculated risk and as a particular brand of revenge on Kadm's part. You were not so blinded as not to see how conflicted he felt over the truth you let slip past your defenses. You were almost morbidly curious about what kind of face he would make, while taking your strained relationship into consideration. Perhaps, now as you examine your motives, it was just as well a kind of reproach and self-harmful behavior. The days when someone's comment about your sexuality would get to you were long gone but recently you've been feeling too comfortable and domestic around Kadm. This was all Spoon's fault really. Kadm being decidedly partial towards cats surprised you once again by taking so well to your dog. Or maybe he wanted an excuse as well. To be near you.

It felt ridiculous to consider, until that last phone call. His voice coming strained and regretful through a receiver. You knew Ricardo immediately set off to escort him from the therapy session not so long ago, so you were concerned to receive this phone call so abruptly. Did something happen? What did Ricardo say again? How many creative ways could he find to put his foot in the mouth?

Except, Kadm did not even touch on that matter and immediately set off, familiarly asking if they could take Spoon on a walk together. You weren't sure if a man sounding on a verge of tears should be in a park minding a dog, but this again was your well established simplicity. Like the first time you met him sitting alone and despondent near that dog park. You still weren't sure if he even liked dogs and the question gnawed at you, almost like an accusation, like Kadm was lying to you for some imperceptible reason. Like what you've been reluctantly building for weeks could turn out to be a delusion any moment.

But you accept.

Then maybe, because of these swirling thoughts and because you could never help yourself but pull on Kadm's chain and test his restraint you let the truth slip through the cracks. Not all of it but just enough to give him food for thought. You knew Kadm couldn't keep a secret. Not from you. Not about this. Your shameful crush on Ortega that's been going nowhere for about a decade or so. Maybe more. The emotions that made you feel even more disillusioned as Kadm died, as if his undying corpse put an eternal wedge between you and Ricardo. You were still telling yourself that you just wanted to be a little mean to Kadm, but that was just easily crushed pettiness within you.

Kadm looked alarmed and a little wondering, but not disgusted, no. Not even exactly threatened and that makes you want to laugh. Just how threadbare his ability to hide emotions is and how sure he is that if Kadm asked "jump" Ricardo would only ask "how high" and if the jump included a bridge to throw yourself off, Ricardo would still feel honored and rewarded to do him such favor. You shook your head. You didn't want to think about this self-sacrificing idiot right now.

Kadm is almost being sensible right now, asking polite follow-up questions about your history with men. It makes you wonder, that if things were a little different and an atmosphere slightly less hostile back in a day, you two could have smoothened out these edges and stopped the grudges from festering in time.

Spoon is doing an easy enough job of distracting you two. By the familiar faraway look that haunts Kadm's eyes from time to time, you can tell he's tuning in to your dog's mind like a person attentively listening to a radio put on the lowest volume. He's probably unaware of his own expression when he performs these telepathic tricks and you will not be the one to make him wise of it. Spoon looks happy and unharmed. You noticed he stopped chasing as much in recent days, calmed down a little. You wonder if Kadm has been whispering some sweet nothings to his doggie ear to make him listen to you more.

It's strange. You always fear, an instinctive predatory feeling like putting your hand too close to the fire, that Kadm's telepathy is capable of seriously harming other human beings. There's a potential of cruelty swirling inside of him that never truly went away and instead kept being channeled in different ways over the years, unable to ever fully be depleted. But you have no such fears seeing him interact with animals.

You've seen Cat in Ricardo's apartment two months ago or so, still as skittish and mercurial as ever, a king in his little cat sized castle. More than ever a spitting image of his original owner. You don't think Kadm would be capable of harming another living thing if he couldn't sense malice inside of them.

More than once you've seen his scratched up bleeding knuckles and long slashes of claws from his excursions to feed stray cats and he never looked angry or resentful or bothered by any of it. Something's been unravelling within you recently and made you review your previous biases on him, even as other conclusions amassed on the horizon like dark clouds following the recent events. Seeing him happily playing around with Spoon, you are tempted to say he's incapable of violence. That as long as he won't feel threatened, Kadm will remain serene and free of burden. Something inside of you that's growing rapidly has been striving to make it happen. The voice growing louder and louder even as you helplessly regarded the notion without a slightest clue yet as to how make it reality. How to cross this final hurdle in a form of documents locked up in your safe. Of him laid bare and open in front of you without a shred of consent.

So, you are starting slow by revealing your other dark secret. Kadm's more comically caught off guard by the fact you fancy men, rather than you fancying the particular man he sets his sights on.

***

Once you enter the room, you immediately know that Kadm must have spilled the beans. Admirably, it took him more than a week to do so. Perhaps he marinated in the knowledge, perhaps he has more important matters to attend to that you're not allowed to pry into. Perhaps he's been practicing self-restraint by not seeming too eager in visiting Ricardo as often as he did in recent months.

Ricardo's mouth is a tight and solemn line as he looks at you. You are left wondering what kind of reception did Kadm's announcement receive. Ricardo probably tactfully dismissed it. Maybe even joked about it. Kadm was a sensitive creature that nevertheless sought out any traces of blood in the water. If anything about Ricardo's impeccable performance gave him means to be concerned about stability of their relationship, he'd never let it slide. Ricardo probably sat on coals burning his ass for very uncomfortable couple of minutes. Okay, you were a bit of an asshole.

"Uhh, hey." Ricardo greets you from across the room with a casual but abrupt hand wave as the palm of his hand immediately goes to self-consciously massage the nape of his neck. You raise an eyebrow but decide not to mind him. Go about your business heading for the coffeemaker. You'll still have to walk past him to achieve this goal but Ricardo doesn't move as you brush past him and instead just sighs heavily.

"Please spit out whatever it is you have to say before things get too awkward." You propose. You are glad for the steadiness of your mechanical limbs. There's a brief sense of bitter panic in the back of your throat that you didn't expect. As you said, that was a calculated risk. You'd never be able to bring yourself to tell Ricardo of your feelings. Doing so, more than never, felt pointless after Kadm came back from the dead. This was both indulgence and a punishment to you.

"Okay, so. He told me."

How mysterious.

Nevertheless you nod, still not looking at Ricardo.

"Are you... planning to do anything about that?" Ricardo surprises you by stating the matter so directly. You've been friends for years. You don't think that bond's about to be threatened. If anything, you feared Ricardo would be flattered in that insufferably suave way of his. You can stand to be rejected, but not mocked in such manner.

"No."

"You knew Kadm would blabber."

"It was a low hanging fruit, I admit."

"Did you... lie to him?" Ricardo now asks tentatively. Now that was an interesting line of interrogation.

"Lie about having feelings for you, just to piss him off? Do you really think I'd go that far. There are easier means."

"No, I mean... You've been hanging out together a lot recently." Ricardo suddenly asks suspiciously. That makes you pause, new venues of mental calculations opening up.

"Maybe he's been feeling lonely." You say without any particular expression.

Ricardo wrings out his hands like he's tasting the sound of it, looking slightly rattled as he starts to pace around the room, now avoiding your gaze as well. He scratches his head a little, swaying on the balls of his feet with his back to you and looking pensively out of the full window overlooking nearby skyscrapers.

"What did I do wrong?" He asks in a sudden honesty. It comes out in a silent burst of fury, like perhaps he wants to run out of the room and seek Kadm out right now to receive an answer. This restless side of him has been concealed from Kadm long enough by now but you are more than a little familiar with it. You've been so shocked to see Ricardo to dust off his old playful and protective act in front of act when he came back a year ago. Kadm seemed too fragile back then, on a verge of collapse but curiously incapable of introspection that would allow him to address these issues. Ricardo has painfully, slowly shaped himself back into the mold that no longer fit. Trying to be heroic and reassuring, popping more pills lately like he's been desperately trying to even out the scales by appearing more sane than Kadm was. But it still lingered underneath the surface, an unhealed hurt of so many years spent ruminating on his loss.

"You're not doing anything wrong. Kadm's in the process of healing. It could take years. A lifetime. Maybe never." You reply, calming your heart by repetitive motions of steeping the mug of coffee.

"I... want him to be happy. But this... Why did he suddenly mention...?"

"I just told him a few days ago." You hate needing to be a stabilizing wedge between the two of them. You shouldn't be willingly putting yourself in this position to begin with. Tell Ricardo to go to hell. It already felt like he's been trampling all over your feelings by casually dismissing them right now in favor of asking about Kadm. Kadm Kadm Kadm. Same thing as with Kadm. Ricardo Ricardo Ricardo. It was making your head hurt. Maybe it was better to state these matters clearly. Kadm served his purpose as your accidental messenger. You hoped to maybe get over yourself seeing Ricardo's apathy but now you needed to nail it in.

"I was being honest about my feelings. I don't expect anything in return. I just thought it was finally time to come clean, seeing how things are progressing rapidly between... the two of you."

More domestic than ever, really. If the way they danced around each other, one avoidant and the other fronting could really be called domesticity.

You can tell by Ricardo's restlessness just how much he doesn't want any of this.

"This is a little too ridiculous." Ricardo's laugh comes out too mirthful to be believable, like he's trying to unload the tension between two of them but genuinely feels too lost at sea to do anything concrete about it. "We are... friends." He reaffirms after a moment "Maybe more than friends. Intimate friends?" He tries valiantly with a smile that's a little more truthful as it there was some inside joke between two of you about the matter.

You just helplessly nod at your self-inflicted torture of a crush for this idiotic man.

"Do you like Kadm?"

"I wouldn't tolerate him for so long around Rangers if it wasn't so." You answer without a hitch.

"Be serious."

"You think just because I'm gay, I'm attracted to all men now?"

"So why... Are you two spending time together now? So sudden?"

"He likes Spoon." That wasn't even a lie. You were convinced that you've been a convenient chaperone to your mutual dog therapy. "Shouldn't you finally be handing over his cat as well?" You follow that line of thought.

Ricardo seems sheepish.

"Cat is old now. He's already had enough misery in his little life to last him a lifetime. And he's ungrateful and thinks I'm his slave or something... But I don't want to hand him over."

That sounded both selfish and pitiful. But it was true enough that they shouldn't be moving Cat into another unfamiliar place, even if he'd be back with Kadm.

"So you've won the custody battle over him?"

"By mutual agreement." Ricardo finally grins and then sighs again as if chastising himself. "So you don't like him?"

" I do like Cat. I wish he wasn't so adverse towards Spoon."

"Be serious."

"I do like Kadm as well. I wish he wasn't so adverse towards me."

"Okay. But I'm not gonna hand him over without battle."

"Ricardo..." The argument has finally reached the ridiculousness levels that you aren't willing to tolerate anymore and you turn towards Ortega with a barely concealed scowl. "There will be no fighting over Kadm. He's an adult man who can do whatever he wants."

"Just tell me you aren't interested in him like that."

"Didn’t I just say, very publicly that I had feelings for you? What did Kadm tell you, exactly?"

"He doesn't have to say anything. I can read him like a book. You can do so as well. Someone should really talk to him about concealing all reactions, actually."

You remain stunned for a brief moment. Consider the fact that Kadmos is an alpha level telepath. Reevaluate your recent emotional levels and thoughts you've been manifesting around said telepath. Start to consider, with a growing panic that once again Kadm has proven to have some unloved, hidden depths that eluded you because... You must have let something slip through. Or it was a stroke of dumb luck. Or perhaps Ortega has been that paranoid and possessive around people Kadm interacted with. It didn't slip your notice how he lingered in the room when Kadm came over for his weekly training session with Daniel and how he innocuously asked about progress. And how he treated Daniel separately afterwards.

"Ricardo, perhaps you need to do some soul searching of your own. You've been tangling yourself in a knot over this for some time now, don't think I didn't notice."

"Don't change a subject."

"I'm not."

"It's just... Your fault. Why did you dump this on me right now of all times? Would it kill you to keep this to yourself for a little while longer?"

"Ricardo, I am fifty three years old. I'm a Marshal of Los Diablos, thanks to you may I add. If I'm going to get blown up to smithereens tomorrow by Caine, I hope you won't weep too heavily and drink yourself under the table mourning for my loss."

Like a slap.

"How exactly is any of this my fault?" You finally let a slight tremor of anger slip past your lips. It feels like an old weathered question you used to ask yourself a lot in what felt like a lifetime ago. Unfair. Lonely. You didn't ask to get attached to anyone. It's not your fault it's been thrown back in your face like this.

All traces of tightly woven geniality slip from Ricardo's face like rain falling down the windowpane. Some dark, hollow misery is left behind.

"I would... mourn you. You know that. You'd mourn for me too... which is why you simply chose not do go down that path."

It takes you a brief second to realize what Ricardo's alluding to and it makes your throat constrict now more than it ever did in previous years. There was no point in wondering any further about the departed. But now everything's been so complicated it makes you feel sick. You wish you took Spoon to work with you today. You wish to be in a presence of a creature that won't bare its fangs at you in malice when you outstretch your hand.

"Just stop antagonizing him. I don't care whether it's true or not. We'll deal with it once this crisis is resolved."

But it never would be. There would always be a new crisis. A hand waved dismissively. And one day one of them would die again and it would be too late. Again.

You don't want to fight. If this was a more forgiving world, that would prove to be a moment of climax in which it's revealed Ricardo has been suppressing how own brand of fondness for you for so long. But instead you are stuck in a silent clash with Ricardo apparently seriously wounded by a belief you've been eagerly playing on Kadm's heartstrings. As if you'd dare to outdo the master himself in this regard.

"Give me... some time..."

Shockingly, just as you are about to give up on the matter Ricardo addresses you again in a very small voice, this time looking you directly in the eye as if he's steeling himself to come to terms with some monumental weight. You think you are left gaping just for a brief moment, before attempting a shaky nod.

"I don't want you to burden yourself with my feelings. Just forget I said anything. It was wrong of me." You are scared of this expression Ricardo's wearing now. The waging internal battle that he's kept under wraps long enough, only now for pressure to break from beneath the surface.

"You know you are very important to me, right? Hey?" As if suddenly snapping out of it and regaining some of his old vitality, Ricardo makes a sudden lunge for you. It's just a few steps but it feels like an outrageously long couple of seconds before he grabs your metallic wrist. You are left staring at the point where grasping flesh connects with cold metal. Heat feeling almost pulsating. You don't understand Ricardo anymore, you admit with some newfound sympathy for Kadm.

"You are... important to me as well. That goes without saying." You exchange these vows and you exhale softly, waiting for the dam to break.

"So can I try something? As an experiment?"

You don't have time to think and just nod dumbly again, more than once as if your life depends on it. The pressure on your wrist tightens as Ricardo suddenly moves closer, pulls you closer right into his personal space until your breaths are left intermingling softly. You can feel it across your face and a brief scratchy feeling of that beard he's grown so fond of. Heart thundering in your chest, your body hungering you are left suspended in this moment, feeling the soft touch of his lips over your cheek. It can barely be called a kiss. You can smell his cologne as the scent envelops you with something akin to desperation. But then Ricardo huffs out a self-depreciating little laugh. His lips landing on the curve of your jaw, a tiny kiss there, on the base of your throat, a tiny kiss there. And then he moves away. The dream's over.

"This is your fault." You grind out the words.

#fhr #sidestep #chentega #is this anything...

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