TW!!! R-word

Well, there it was. He found the final boundary and behind that would be freefall. Samuel's movement halted. He forced himself to take his own reins into his hands and he got off of Don Juan and stood up. In a flash he became aware of his own image, a pressurized and unpredictable vortex of a man, who seemed capable of the worst imaginable; with black eyes and the weapon he had intended to wield against Don Juan on full display, dark against the white of his shirt.
His heart beat loud in his chest, so loud. With shaking hands, he buttoned up his trousers. He looked at the frightened man on the bench, then he looked around the Orchid, the flimsy paper walls, all drenched in the stink of opium and stained with the sticky residue of thousands of wretched nights. Patrons had scribbled things on the walls, he noticed: 'John sucks cock', and 'I love getting flogged'.

He had a splitting headache. His hand touched his forehead, which ran hot like he had a fever, but he knew it was likely just the poison. The space seemed to fold in on him. He saw, blearily through his haze, that all around him was a black cavern, where his manhood and humanity would be destroyed, and where he would be locked away forever. He turned and he looked briefly at the man he had almost raped tonight, and giving space to that word in his mind was only possible because he was too numb to quite feel the weight of it yet. There was such a thing as going too far to ever turn back and regain the innocence one had sacrificed for power. He knew that. He had told her, and he was right.

Samuel turned and exited the séparée. He cast a spell of invisibility over himself and as soon as he was out of reach of the warding spells, he disapparated.

---

The following 2 users Like Samuel Griffith's post:2 users Like Samuel Griffith's post
   Don Juan Dempsey, Themis Lyra

---

Threadlog

Griffith drew back and the absence of him was almost as unbalancing as the pressure of his assault had been. Don Juan was a house with a load bearing beam removed; in danger of imminent and catastrophic collapse. He stayed where he was, frozen in place except his pounding heart and heavy breathing. Even when Griffith buttoned himself up Don Juan didn't fully believe it was over. Griffith had done this earlier, when he'd held Don Juan's head in place while he struggled and a moment later mussed his fingers through his hair. The carrot and the stick. The way one trained an animal.

Griffith looked at him and Don Juan's stomach clenched with anticipation, but then... he left. Don Juan waited, still tense, distrustful of the absence. Griffith may have physically left but the idea of him lingered, taking up space in the dank booth, looming larger than anything else. The lack of his physical being began to feel more and more conspicuous as the feeling of him that lingered behind settled on Don Juan's skin and in his lungs. Eventually he fumbled to get his clothes back on, purposefully not looking at his skin to see if any marks had been left. He needed to get out, but he didn't know where he was going to go. He didn't feel any particular drive to be anywhere, just a growing conviction that this was the wrong place to be. He couldn't stay in the Orchid, in the booth with the opium he wouldn't smoke and the lingering absence of Samuel Griffith and the growing conviction that he had never been more alone.

He was tucking his shirt back into his trousers when the drug finally hit him, ensuring he wouldn't be able to go home after this. It was different this time, the way it hit — more sudden, and more powerful. He was mixing it this time, because he'd already smoked... Griffith had let him do it, but he'd said it might be unpleasant. A spark of worry triggered in the back of his skull, distant and muffled under the strength of the high. This stuff had killed him once, and he was off the beaten path with it now, and Griffith was gone. Griffith wouldn't have let it kill him, Don Juan knew. He'd brought him back once already. He wanted Don Juan alive. He may have been frightening or cruel or hateful, but he was also, in that one respect, safe — and now he was gone, because Don Juan had said stop and he had listened.

He hadn't expected Griffith to listen to him. In hindsight, with the sort of emotional distance that came effortlessly in this state of mind, he didn't know why not. Hadn't Griffith always given him precisely what he'd asked for, all along? But Don Juan hadn't been thinking logically a few minutes ago — far too many emotions for that, tangled up in the rush of action and the struggle and the shame. He wondered now: if he'd believed Griffith would really listen to him, if he'd known that it would get Griffith to leave, would he still have said it?

It was difficult to finish dressing. He was high to the point of distraction. He needed to get out of here. There was really only one place to go.

---

The following 2 users Like Don Juan Dempsey's post:2 users Like Don Juan Dempsey's post
   Samuel Griffith, Themis Lyra

---

MJ made this <3