I just said this is not something that should be undertaken lightly, darling Dazai. Crime and Punishment may not kill you if we touch but that's is a poor reason to try this.
[ ...fyodor, god lord, please ] And I don't like you enough to let you that close either way.
I am not exactly sure what you want from me here. I offered before and you said no, and now you are offering but it's not-[ fyodor looks momentarily frustrated. it had been easier when the choice hadn't been entirely his, but now. ]
The physical is less important to me than the emotional, Dazai.
That's exactly the point. I said 'no' because you thought about me and my needs, instead of your emotions, and I'm offering to take care of both. It's completely different, Fyfy! Ultimately, however, your decision!
(he won't push. he just wants to make the difference clear.)
Ah, you said you don't like me enough for it, so... I don't think I even understand why you offered it in the first place. What do some things mean to you, Fyfy?
I thought it was what you wanted, that's what I thought. Better to satisfy your need than have you become compromised or distracted by someone here.
I might not understand it entirely but I am intimately aware of the effects it has on people. [ you know, like from gogol ]
You said before that I didn't know what I want, but you're wrong. I do. In this- if I ever were to consider it, I know. [ he is speaking a lot, honest in the way he gestures ] People love Him without every seeing Him or touching Him.
Sad that you think I'd become compromised or distracted even if I was sleeping around left and right. I'm perfectly good at multitasking, Fy, and it can mean something or it won't. It's not like that for me.
(this conversation is confusing, but certainly enlightening.)
That's devotion, but neither of us is untangible, Fyodor. What is it that you want from me?
[ what fyodor isn't outright saying, for someone like him: sleeping with someone would compromise him because the physical and emotional are linked.
fyodor deals in absolutes, he can't do something halfway, half-heart in and the rest out. not to mention his ability's complication and everything else that came along with that. ]
Devotion.
[ but not really. not exactly the same devotion he holds for God. ]
My devotion doesn't look the same as yours. Would you expect so?
(he assumes, at least. not when dazai's physical and emotional needs distance, converge, and distance again. he can't promise his entire heart, but he can promise that the space fyodor takes up in it is solely his, his own to hold, his own to find himself in adoration.)
You're not a God-fearing man so I expect that your devotion wouldn't. [ but then again, fyodor doesn't exactly fear god. why should he when he's already very much set to go to hell?
this discussion does feel a little like hell. the discomfort itching under his skin.
fyodor is not dazai, he doesn't have the tools to know where and how to split those distances, where to allow them to converge again. how can he know what he's never done? where a heart is not for one single person—he is not sure he even has one. when dazai asks what he wants from him and 'devotion' is the one word he can conjure up, and the meaning is opaque. after all, fyodor would say ivan is 'devoted' to him and that's a whole morally questionable experiment that has nothing to do with romance or sex. ]
In this time we have spent here, the differences between us--I don't like them.
Should I change? Should you change? Or will you simply accept them, Fyodor?
(the two first ones seem unlikely. dazai is ever-changing, yet, awfully the same, like a maze that ends in the beginning, and changes the rows once it does. a never-ending attempt at goodness, where he fails, where he succeeds, reminiscences, dwells and moves on, like a wave that crashes and returns to sea.
fyodor, he thinks has lived in the same way for so long, he hasn't been shown something different, something better and more beautiful, even if that might seem unlikely to someone who believes they're embraced by god themselves.)
[ dark hair obscures fyodor's expression briefly as he dips his head in acknowledgment of dazai's questions. divergences in their philosophies are rooted in one single point: the death of a man to whom dazai made a promise, one kept, even in this place. the details and intricacies are not for fyodor to know (yet). to him the death of a man during a conflict is a much repeated story that has no real impact, it's a footnote in the mental file he keeps on dazai's deflection from the port mafia.
dazai's ever-changing, whimsical nature is, and what fyodor is, what crime and punishment truly mean is still fyodor's secret. the avulsion of soul from flesh—precise, clean, simple in a way dazai's mind is not. answering those questions is unnecessary because while they are different they are also alike, two of a kind. that's the point. dazai understands him, knows his mind but he doesn't surpass fyodor's intelligence, and by that same measure, fyodor understands dazai, knows his mind but fyodor cannot predict dazai's moves with the simple ease he does others.
and fyodor is not arrogant enough to think he ever will manage that dissection of dazai's mind, that an incursion into the labyrinth will allow him to emerge at the centre and not the beginning. the centre where the very essence of dazai's soul could be made and unmade by pressing the pads of his raw-bitten fingers against it. sometimes, fyodor thinks he would want that because then fyodor would be able to craft a mirror from that fabric and see himself cleanly, clearly. as god intended him to be; no crime, no punishment, no longer human.
that is, however, a flight of fancy.
fyodor is six years old and six-feet deep inside a grave—only god answered then; now, fyodor is twenty-two years old and sitting on a patch of grass in a world that seems a cruel parody of limbo, and god doesn't speak, instead, dazai still sits here with him. it is unbearably human and it burns like hell. listening because of some misguided, manipulated glitch of emotion overriding his rational mind.
this is, undoubtedly, a colossal mistake.
and yet fyodor answers so there is nothing left to chance and assumptions. he answers dazai when he would answer no one else. ]
I cannot do anything but accept them. [ after all, manipulating dazai like he does others to shape them wouldn't work, nor would a physical approach—a scalpel would ruin a mind like dazai's. it'd be worse than just killing him outright, and fyodor's cruelty has reasons, a greater purpose. trying to change dazai serves no final goal, no lofty ambition, nothing of value worth the effort would come from it, and fyodor is not a man to focus on worthless endeavors and lost battles.
someone must clean those sins in the aftermath of said conflicts; if humanity cannot stop sinning, cannot stop being foolish, cannot stop killing one another then—
salvation of the soul depends entirely on being released from the yoke of sin: death. infinite in its embrace; not finite like a maze that ends in the beginning but an all-encompassing horizon. a vast sky with no end, unchanging, steadfast, unmoved by the slaughter below its gaze. he can bear witness to the labyrinth dazai traverses, and the water, sand, and salt that compose the waves dazai follows but fyodor does not how to be part of those changes, those movements.
the enormity of what dazai has brought up between them is an incipient spark in the periphery of fyodor's emotions; he's not devoid of feeling after all. but he only knows what he can see bloom between others, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to find that same thing dazai has obliquely alluded to in this conversation. he knows what he wants and he also does not, what a pathetic contradiction for a man of blacks and whites.
there is a heavy wariness as fyodor lifts his head, palpable in the way his eyes turn to dazai; the smile drawn out—no teeth, no malice, only a placid sort of acceptance. ]
Very well played, Dazai-kun.
[ besides, how can fyodor ever truly explain?
the embrace of his god isn't beautiful, it's cruel. ]
(in another world, in another universe, their difference would be nothing. intellects and minds alike, breathing from the same darkness, selfishness, of doing the worst for their own goals. dazai's never seen much of a difference, good, bad, those things are so poorly put together, separated, a gray area that never fits right. from fyodor's point of view, he is solely a bad guy because he is trying his most to do good, even if it burns him with sin. dazai? dazai is a bad guy, trying his most to do good, while his tactics might pour the same darkness they share deep in their hearts - both save, or try to, in their own minds, in their own rights.
a younger dazai would find this to be exciting. everything had bored him back them, everything was too awfully obvious, his life a pit of numbness he could never climb out, and fyodor would have provided him with just what he searched. the carnage, the sin, the worst of the worst, right in front of his eyes to watch closely as their blood spilled against a wall. this dazai would rather stop the hand that touches one into their demise, take it to his lips in a kiss, and try to show fyodor there are other ways to save.
the smile is warm, it makes his heart skip a beat, even though he should always be in control of it. fyodor is beautiful, and there's no bloodspill that could make dazai think otherwise.)
[ drowning had been a natural choice for obliterating his opponent, for removing the one person who could stop him from achieving his goal. it also did not require him to use his hands, or even himself directly: no gun, no knife, no axe. that had been why, upon arrival here his impulse had pushed him to drag dazai underwater despite his own dislike of cold and wet—those two discomforts lodge themselves under his skin, always without fail. in truth, the sweet sweeping touch of water along his skin, whether cold or not, had not disturbed him once upon a time. it had only been the passing of sin onto his person that had slowly leeched the comfort, as well as the ability to view beauty and be moved by it. fyodor is aware of beautiful things, the plucking of his cello, the stained glass cathedrals, dazai's face illuminated by the glow of meursault's cells.
for all his investment in humanity, fyodor has strategically placed himself outside of it. perhaps a self-imposed banishment or, more obscure, a product of his origins and what he is, bathed in red strokes across the sky—a scene from his younger years as he peers over the edge of the bridge and the neva flows beneath his boots. to be saved is such an alien concept to him, it is not a desire nor a consideration. there lies another split difference between himself and dazai; the other, human and no longer human, had been saved. fyodor had no such fortune, as what he is would not be categorized as human.
as long as this delineation exists, can dazai truly say those words and mean them when he doesn't know what fyodor is?
(wet and cold with a bullet lodged in his flesh—that is the setting of his end. the black waters of the little neva are closing in—all goes into the water and it is finished. if his existence is to bloom in failure—then what does acceptance even matter?)
furthermore, is one person even enough when said person could not be fully his? fyodor entertains that thought for a split second, watches in the back of his mind as a myriad of pathways open but always lead to the same conclusion. the muted way he feels or does not feel; he's not smitten, he does not believe dazai to be smitten either despite prior words— it is irrational, the pieces do not connect. that is the conclusion he settles on, even as he takes his hands back and very tenderly cradles dazai's head between them.
upon his brow a light press of lips: an offered blessing, a quiet acceptance of the words i accept you as you are, too but that has to be truth that will turn into a lie because dazai knows fyodor but he does not know what he is but for now fyodor will embrace those words as a momentary truth, a brittle fact. and there is a pond, a lake, an ocean of secrets between— and it is so very lonely to be cast adrift at sea, so fyodor will not be the sea, he will be the sky and observe. ]
Thank you. [ sincerely given despite his own hesitations on the matter, fyodor can extend mercy or grace or appreciation, he is not just malice. either way, it will not matter once they're back. probably for the best dazai turned down fyodor's offer of sex before. ]
Then let us speak no further on this, and instead focus on finding the secrets of this place. I trust you to do your best, Dazai-kun, to be good, even if we're both bound for hell.
(it is true. whether fyodor is human, whether his heart beats in the same frequency as dazai's own, whether he's something else completely, those things hardly matter. none of it does, because right now, what he sees, what he knows, he accepts that he doesn't know everything. acceptance is simply that, to observe, and feel alright with what one sees. matters of perspective, matters of light and dark, for both of them, they come together, and they separate, and dazai too accepts.
the hands on his cheek bring him to a myriad of emotions - confusion, expectation, once again, acceptance. it's no surprise to him that those hands are so cold, thin, he feels the bits of skin that could gently scratch from all the nibbles and bites fyodor inflicts on his fingers, but once that kiss comes, all he can do is close his eyes and enjoy the feel of lips. it's not what he had gambled for, but it's what fyodor can give him, and for now, he's not in the business of taking more.
instead, his arm wraps around his waist, loosely so it doesn't seem like he's seeking more, and he smiles. once fyodor's words enter his ears, all he can do is laugh a little.)
Please, as if the Devil himself could deal with both of us, Fyfy.
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(PLEASE HE'S ALREADY DYING.)
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[ ...fyodor, god lord, please ] And I don't like you enough to let you that close either way.
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The physical is less important to me than the emotional, Dazai.
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(he won't push. he just wants to make the difference clear.)
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I might not understand it entirely but I am intimately aware of the effects it has on people. [ you know, like from gogol ]
You said before that I didn't know what I want, but you're wrong. I do. In this- if I ever were to consider it, I know. [ he is speaking a lot, honest in the way he gestures ] People love Him without every seeing Him or touching Him.
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(this conversation is confusing, but certainly enlightening.)
That's devotion, but neither of us is untangible, Fyodor. What is it that you want from me?
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fyodor deals in absolutes, he can't do something halfway, half-heart in and the rest out. not to mention his ability's complication and everything else that came along with that. ]
Devotion.
[ but not really. not exactly the same devotion he holds for God. ]
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(he assumes, at least. not when dazai's physical and emotional needs distance, converge, and distance again. he can't promise his entire heart, but he can promise that the space fyodor takes up in it is solely his, his own to hold, his own to find himself in adoration.)
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this discussion does feel a little like hell. the discomfort itching under his skin.
fyodor is not dazai, he doesn't have the tools to know where and how to split those distances, where to allow them to converge again. how can he know what he's never done? where a heart is not for one single person—he is not sure he even has one. when dazai asks what he wants from him and 'devotion' is the one word he can conjure up, and the meaning is opaque. after all, fyodor would say ivan is 'devoted' to him and that's a whole morally questionable experiment that has nothing to do with romance or sex. ]
In this time we have spent here, the differences between us--I don't like them.
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(the two first ones seem unlikely. dazai is ever-changing, yet, awfully the same, like a maze that ends in the beginning, and changes the rows once it does. a never-ending attempt at goodness, where he fails, where he succeeds, reminiscences, dwells and moves on, like a wave that crashes and returns to sea.
fyodor, he thinks has lived in the same way for so long, he hasn't been shown something different, something better and more beautiful, even if that might seem unlikely to someone who believes they're embraced by god themselves.)
...i am so sorry
dazai's ever-changing, whimsical nature is, and what fyodor is, what crime and punishment truly mean is still fyodor's secret. the avulsion of soul from flesh—precise, clean, simple in a way dazai's mind is not. answering those questions is unnecessary because while they are different they are also alike, two of a kind. that's the point. dazai understands him, knows his mind but he doesn't surpass fyodor's intelligence, and by that same measure, fyodor understands dazai, knows his mind but fyodor cannot predict dazai's moves with the simple ease he does others.
and fyodor is not arrogant enough to think he ever will manage that dissection of dazai's mind, that an incursion into the labyrinth will allow him to emerge at the centre and not the beginning. the centre where the very essence of dazai's soul could be made and unmade by pressing the pads of his raw-bitten fingers against it. sometimes, fyodor thinks he would want that because then fyodor would be able to craft a mirror from that fabric and see himself cleanly, clearly. as god intended him to be; no crime, no punishment, no longer human.
that is, however, a flight of fancy.
fyodor is six years old and six-feet deep inside a grave—only god answered then; now, fyodor is twenty-two years old and sitting on a patch of grass in a world that seems a cruel parody of limbo, and god doesn't speak, instead, dazai still sits here with him. it is unbearably human and it burns like hell. listening because of some misguided, manipulated glitch of emotion overriding his rational mind.
this is, undoubtedly, a colossal mistake.
and yet fyodor answers so there is nothing left to chance and assumptions. he answers dazai when he would answer no one else. ]
I cannot do anything but accept them. [ after all, manipulating dazai like he does others to shape them wouldn't work, nor would a physical approach—a scalpel would ruin a mind like dazai's. it'd be worse than just killing him outright, and fyodor's cruelty has reasons, a greater purpose. trying to change dazai serves no final goal, no lofty ambition, nothing of value worth the effort would come from it, and fyodor is not a man to focus on worthless endeavors and lost battles.
someone must clean those sins in the aftermath of said conflicts; if humanity cannot stop sinning, cannot stop being foolish, cannot stop killing one another then—
salvation of the soul depends entirely on being released from the yoke of sin: death. infinite in its embrace; not finite like a maze that ends in the beginning but an all-encompassing horizon. a vast sky with no end, unchanging, steadfast, unmoved by the slaughter below its gaze. he can bear witness to the labyrinth dazai traverses, and the water, sand, and salt that compose the waves dazai follows but fyodor does not how to be part of those changes, those movements.
the enormity of what dazai has brought up between them is an incipient spark in the periphery of fyodor's emotions; he's not devoid of feeling after all. but he only knows what he can see bloom between others, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to find that same thing dazai has obliquely alluded to in this conversation. he knows what he wants and he also does not, what a pathetic contradiction for a man of blacks and whites.
there is a heavy wariness as fyodor lifts his head, palpable in the way his eyes turn to dazai; the smile drawn out—no teeth, no malice, only a placid sort of acceptance. ]
Very well played, Dazai-kun.
[ besides, how can fyodor ever truly explain?
the embrace of his god isn't beautiful, it's cruel. ]
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a younger dazai would find this to be exciting. everything had bored him back them, everything was too awfully obvious, his life a pit of numbness he could never climb out, and fyodor would have provided him with just what he searched. the carnage, the sin, the worst of the worst, right in front of his eyes to watch closely as their blood spilled against a wall. this dazai would rather stop the hand that touches one into their demise, take it to his lips in a kiss, and try to show fyodor there are other ways to save.
the smile is warm, it makes his heart skip a beat, even though he should always be in control of it. fyodor is beautiful, and there's no bloodspill that could make dazai think otherwise.)
I accept you as you are, too.
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for all his investment in humanity, fyodor has strategically placed himself outside of it. perhaps a self-imposed banishment or, more obscure, a product of his origins and what he is, bathed in red strokes across the sky—a scene from his younger years as he peers over the edge of the bridge and the neva flows beneath his boots. to be saved is such an alien concept to him, it is not a desire nor a consideration. there lies another split difference between himself and dazai; the other, human and no longer human, had been saved. fyodor had no such fortune, as what he is would not be categorized as human.
as long as this delineation exists, can dazai truly say those words and mean them when he doesn't know what fyodor is?
(wet and cold with a bullet lodged in his flesh—that is the setting of his end. the black waters of the little neva are closing in—all goes into the water and it is finished. if his existence is to bloom in failure—then what does acceptance even matter?)
furthermore, is one person even enough when said person could not be fully his? fyodor entertains that thought for a split second, watches in the back of his mind as a myriad of pathways open but always lead to the same conclusion. the muted way he feels or does not feel; he's not smitten, he does not believe dazai to be smitten either despite prior words— it is irrational, the pieces do not connect. that is the conclusion he settles on, even as he takes his hands back and very tenderly cradles dazai's head between them.
upon his brow a light press of lips: an offered blessing, a quiet acceptance of the words i accept you as you are, too but that has to be truth that will turn into a lie because dazai knows fyodor but he does not know what he is but for now fyodor will embrace those words as a momentary truth, a brittle fact. and there is a pond, a lake, an ocean of secrets between— and it is so very lonely to be cast adrift at sea, so fyodor will not be the sea, he will be the sky and observe. ]
Thank you. [ sincerely given despite his own hesitations on the matter, fyodor can extend mercy or grace or appreciation, he is not just malice. either way, it will not matter once they're back. probably for the best dazai turned down fyodor's offer of sex before. ]
Then let us speak no further on this, and instead focus on finding the secrets of this place. I trust you to do your best, Dazai-kun, to be good, even if we're both bound for hell.
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the hands on his cheek bring him to a myriad of emotions - confusion, expectation, once again, acceptance. it's no surprise to him that those hands are so cold, thin, he feels the bits of skin that could gently scratch from all the nibbles and bites fyodor inflicts on his fingers, but once that kiss comes, all he can do is close his eyes and enjoy the feel of lips. it's not what he had gambled for, but it's what fyodor can give him, and for now, he's not in the business of taking more.
instead, his arm wraps around his waist, loosely so it doesn't seem like he's seeking more, and he smiles. once fyodor's words enter his ears, all he can do is laugh a little.)
Please, as if the Devil himself could deal with both of us, Fyfy.