[Thank goodness by this point Ford has more than enough experience with Prismal technology to know why his communicator is yelling at him. It was a learning curve without Mabel to ask for advice, but by now he's comfortable enough with it that he can intuit what the green and red marks on the screen mean and that he ought to press the green one. No one has ever directly called him on this thing before. He doesn't have many friends, remember?]
[Larry's tempted to say something along the lines of "you worry too much about saying the right thing" but honestly they both know that, so proper live feedback it is.]
[Ford is going to graciously assume what Larry means by that is 'I hope you are also able to get your dick wet at some point in the near future' and not 'when are you going to settle down and get married? Your brother Shermie got married! What are you doing in that cabin in Oregon that you don't have a girl living there with you? Get a move-on!' Marriage, for a lot of reasons, has never really been on his radar. Sex, for a lot of reasons, currently is.]
Noted for the future.
And here you were concerned about being 'left behind'.
[On the evening of December 22nd, Ford will find a small gift on his doorstep. It's a box about six by four by four inches, wrapped neatly in dark blue paper and tied up in delicate white ribbon. Instead of a bow, the excess lengths of the ribbon have been tightly curled into spirals. The hand-written attached card reads:
To Ford From Larry
Happy Hanukkah!
Contained in the box is:
One rugged plastic pencil box. Its corners are rounded off and the edges are lined with rubber gasketing with a tight fit that implies it's waterproof. Inside the box is a full set of brand new artist pencils with the full range of lead hardnesses, as well as a two pure graphite pencils, and one vinyl eraser.
One black velour drawstring bag with yellow ribbon. Inside the drawstring bag is two dozen dark milk chocolate gelt. They're pretty obviously hand-made, because the foil they're individually wrapped in is uneven, but not sloppy, and one side of each of them has what looks like the Star of David quickly drawn in them with a toothpick when they were molten.]
claims ownership over ford's inbox, april 2020 cordis
Larry called Ford over shortly after lunch to get the last details of Wanderlust's website ironed out. As of today, the site is now live! Marketing will come later, but this is a big milestone that deserves celebrating.
With food, booze, and sex.
Obviously.
And when it's late and the vibe is good there's no need to send someone home, so it only stands to reason that they would fall asleep together after a shared shower and cuddling. Larry gets to treat himself to using Ford's sizable bicep as a pillow while simultaneously wrapped up and clinging to his other arm like a blanket. His ankles are stuck between Ford's legs, in the space between his knees and his calves.
He's been asleep for long enough to fall into the earliest stages of REM sleep, where nothing really that vivid is happening in his dream -- just a pleasant pressure sensation in the soles of his feet. Kind of like...getting a massage? Hmm...yeah, something like that.]
[Over the past few months falling asleep in the same bed as someone else has become more familiar than Ford ever expected it would. Look at him! No more one night stands with aliens he's never going to see again. Now he's got a dedicated fuck buddy who has remained stubbornly human through at least a dozen Cordis cycles. Is that character development? Maybe, if you squint.
He's even allowing himself the luxury of dozing, something that he used to strenuously avoid. But this is a bedroom, not the wilderness on some unknown undeveloped planet, and it's nice to turn off the part of his brain that's always on high alert and focus on the feeling of having another body curled up against his.
Of course what this means is that he's instead funneling all his usual heightened awareness into paying attention to Larry: to this evenness of his breathing, to any little shift in his position, and to... whatever is going on with his feet? That doesn't feel like sleepy re-positioning but Ford cannot for the life of him place what it does feel like. Maybe he, too, is falling into the dreamy state between sleeping and waking where he's imagining things? Cautiously he moves one of his feet to try and feel it out.]
[As soon as he feels the pressure around his ankles let up a little, Larry feels compelled to stretch out his legs.]
Nhh.
[Problem is, he doesn't really have, well, feet anymore. Normally stretching his legs out like this would free them, but now they move together and have more breadth to them than usual. Conversely, his "ankles" have become significantly thinner, demanding less space between Ford's calves. Instead of getting frustrated with the fact that he can't straighten out his legs, he settles back down and enjoys the pressure as it creeps up his shins, following a menthol-like tingle that starts an inch or two earlier.
He hasn't shaved his legs in a while and it was showing earlier, but whatever is rubbing up between Ford's lower legs is suddenly smoother than the freshest shave...]
[Yeah, that's... Hm. His own legs just don't have enough nerve endings for him to figure out what's going on down there but he can tell it's something drastic. There's nothing for it. He's going to have to move one of his arms. Not the one Larry's head is resting on, but the other one. He very carefully extricates it from Larry's grip and slides his fingers downward. He's a little bit less cautious about waking up his bedmate at this point if only because Larry might want to be awake for, uh, whatever is happening. The question is what exactly he's going to feel.]
[Ford frees his arm without much complaint, but that doesn't mean that -- a few seconds later -- Larry's half-heartedly groping around for something to cling to again. The best thing he finds is excess duvet.
The skin that Ford will find below the covers is slick, moist, and surprisingly thick. Normally Larry's flesh is quite pliable, but the new skin that's crawling up his legs and subsuming them together has a resistance and bounce to it that only a layer of blubber would. After its texture changes, so too does its thickness, muscle shifting and reconnecting and widening as they physically reprogram themselves for swimming rather than walking.
Larry's still out cold, but he murmurs something incoherent at the touch.]
Nghnm...?
i'm glad i so many icons of ford getting progressively more concerned
[Heavy sleeper. Ford cannot conceive of it; just one of the things about Larry Laffer that he can't conceive of. Wondering about it takes a backseat to trying to puzzle out this moisture situation. The hips feel normal, soft, just a hint of hipbone, perfectly human, but around his calves there's moisture and that's definitely abnormal. He's used to there being fluids involved when he's in this bed with Larry Laffer but not in this capacity.
To investigate he has to bend himself in around Larry a little more so he can reach down with his one free arm. It's awkward but what else can he do? What he feels is both not what he was expecting and exactly as strange as he figured it would be. His fingertips find the upward-moving divide between human skin and this new thick stuff growing in, slip around to where Larry's knees used to be--]
Woah!
[WAKE UP, BUDDY, THERE'S SOMETHING UP WITH YOUR LEGS. LIKE REALLY UP. LIKE WIGGLING AROUND UP.]
[It sure is. As soon as Ford's hand touches it, it tries to wrap around his finger.
He's not a hard enough sleeper to get through another dude yelping in surprise. Larry wakes with a startled gasp and pushes himself up onto an elbow when he catches Ford sitting up in his peripheral vision. Boy does he feel weirdly randy right now. It's not weird to feel like this in general, but usually being spooked into wakefulness is enough to get his focus elsewhere.]
What? What's wrong??
[He reaches out with his free hand to turn on the bedside light. It bathes the room in a sudden warm incandescent glow, revealing that all of Larry's skin has turned a startling pinkish pale. Now that he can see, he notices that Ford is looking down at him, and he follows his eyeline to--]
Oh my Gawd!
[His legs are already fused together like a cheap toy whose mold didn't quite finish separating the legs. Black marks creep their way up his body unevenly, carving elegant swooping curves into that pinkish skin and followed shortly by muscle and fat filling him out. His dick has relocated to someplace far more south, and it squirms around like an exposed worm in a desperate attempt to find something to grind against.
Larry stares at everything in horrified awe for a second -- then once his sleep-addled brain puts it together, he grasps tightly to Ford's shoulder, grinning wide enough to split his face in half.]
[Some people might find Larry's reaction odd or perhaps even funny. Ford's seen the sentiment here among the moonblessed that it's not something to enjoy or look forward to far more than he's seen anybody genuinely excited about it. Luckily he's in that second smaller camp; Larry will probably remember vividly how put out he's been any of the handful of Cordis moons he hasn't gone the full furry. He does laugh but it's only because Larry's joy is so infectious (and his smacks are so ineffective).]
I told you it would eventually!
[Now that the lights are on and he can actually see it... wow. He reaches over to the bedside table to grab his glasses and slip them on, because this is something he very much needs to see clearly. There's a lot here to appreciate and he takes it all in with a similar awe to the sort Larry's feeling. And unless he's mistaken...]
I've never seen anything like this. You're something entirely new.
[He says it with all the wonder as someone else might say 'you've never looked more beautiful than you do right now', which frankly is exactly what he's saying, just in Fordese.]
[Larry is exhausted. Not because they've been going at it for a while -- compared to their usual dalliances, this one edges on "a quickie". He's tired because they're in a beachside changing stall and, considering how busy it is on this beautiful day in Prismatica, this usually very vocal lover had to spend far too much mental energy on trying to keep himself quiet enough to keep them from being caught. Thankfully he didn't have to be completely silent -- which is good, because he wouldn't have been able to -- amongst all the chatter and play-screaming from other beachgoers.
Ford's jism drips off of Larry's idle fingers and into the sand below as he holds him from behind. He's also physically exhausted too because doing it standing up with someone significantly taller than you is a lot more of an endeavor than he was expecting. Larry presses his forehead into Ford's back as he "dismounts", and the condom slips right off of him thanks to a combination of several orgasm's worth of cum and his exceptional shrinking ability.]
[Sometimes your good friend asks if you want to have impromptu sex in a public place, and sometimes you say yes because why the hell not. Between the two of them they pretty much always have the right supplies to make it happen, it's just a matter of dealing with the rest of the logistics. Thankfully sound isn't a problem for Ford. Not that he doesn't like vocalizing or doesn't do it normally, but a puberty spent in a very small house sharing a set of bunkbeds with his brother means he is very practiced indeed at shutting up when he has to.
He leans his forehead against the wall of the changing room and takes a few steadying breaths. Cleanup shouldn't be too hard -- just kick some sand over the evidence, palm the used condom into a trashcan when nobody's looking, it's fine -- but he's not yet at the point of thinking about that. He reaches back with one hand, finds Larry's upper arm, and gives it a light pat.]
[Hey, he doesn't deserve to be teased like this! He did very well considering that he's not nearly as fit (or perhaps more accurately: have the same mix of strength and endurance) as Ford.
Larry crawls his way to occupy the space between Ford and the wall, kicking cummy sand around in the process. He stands on the balls of his feet, and his hands come up and he presses some suggestive amount of pressure to the back of Ford's neck, the usual indication that he wants Ford to bend down so he can give him kisses.
After several moments of peak-moment afterglow liplock, Larry breaks off by dropping his heels back to the ground. He slouches forward, getting his forearms tangled up behind Ford's neck in a loose embrace. His eyes are unfocused to some point in space beyond Ford's shoulder, voice breathy.]
Ford, I...
[He develops a dopey smile on his face and finally looks him in the eyes.]
[Luckily at this stage in their relationship Ford is more than used to having to bend down. There's a pretty big gap in their heights to mitigate and it's easier for both of them if he bears the brunt of that. It's probably dangerous to think of it as a relationship considering he very explicitly isn't after one of those, but it hasn't escaped him that it's the longest... uh... something he's ever had. He's not counting Bill, he refuses, and that leaves him with the few months he spent 'dating' a siren (read: following her around like a lost puppy until she dumped him for someone who was less of an asshole) and nearly a decade of quietly pining over a married man. Neither of those really compare.
So, sure, he's happy to settle into the afterglow and really enjoy it. He's happy for the kisses and the little touches and the fact that even after getting to know him, Larry still wants to be around him. He's happy for that dopey smile, too, until words come out of it. His face does something very interesting. It doesn't quite fall, exactly, it just stumbles. He opens his mouth and it hangs there for a few seconds before his brain catches up to it.]
[In the time it takes Ford to say something, Larry closes his eyes and presses the side of his face into Ford's furry chest, enjoying their shared warmth and sweat and the sound of Ford's heart beating away in his chest.
Do you ever have one of those moments where you say something so habitual and natural that you don't really consciously realize that you've said it until someone replies to it? Larry is having one of those right now. Combined with the fact that it took a while for Ford to even respond, he has no idea what he's reacting to.]
Love me. That's just the oxytoxin and dopamine talking.
[He says it like it's a joke. Because it is, right?
It's not that Ford can't imagine being loved. He has a family that loves him a great deal. It's also not that he thinks he doesn't deserve it: a big part of his character development was dunking that notion squarely in the trash. He knows he's as worth loving as anyone else, despite (and sometimes because of) his quirks and flaws.
The issue is that the love he got used to was familial love. Romantic love is another ballgame, one he's wholly unfamiliar with and terrified of getting wrong. There's expectations he doesn't know if he can meet, rules he doesn't know well enough to follow, baggage he isn't sure he can unpack-- though Larry's heard some of it. It was part of that long upset diatribe that came on the heels of finding out he was fictional, and even then he barely went into it. If it's just friendship with a side of sex it's easier. He knows he deserves it, he just doesn't think he'll be good at it.
In the end it's more about what he thinks the other person in the equation deserves.]
[And just like that, Ford took away more control from Larry than a player or a German programmer ever did.]
Y--...
[Not to mention that this makes it abundantly clear that Ford doesn't feel the same way. If that's the case, then what is this between them? Larry's considered this one of his most fulfilling relationships, probably just under Patti and above Kalalau, for the longest time. It's only happenstance that this is the first time Larry actually put words to how he feels.
He figured he didn't need to.
He figured he said it every time they spoke to each other. Every time they touched or looked at each other.
They say the eyes are the window to the soul, and with their faces only a foot apart, Ford gets a front row seat to watching Larry's heart break right through them.
just the oxytocin and dopamine
Did Ford view this as nothing other than convenient and physical this whole time?
Right. Because Larry did too. That's the joke. Larry's only in it for the quick fuck.
Right? Right.]
Heh.
[Larry smiles, but the act of closing his eyes draws the veneer of tears to the corners of them. He draws his arms away from the back of Ford's neck, removing him from his embrace.]
N-no, you're right. I just need to walk it off.
[He steps away and towards the door, hiking up his tropical-print swim trunks back over his hips. He unlocks the door to the changing stall, opens it, and steps outside.
It slams shut behind him with an uncharacteristic amount of force.
A keen eye might notice that the feet visible under the door don't walk away. They just vanish in the blink of an eye.]
when you know there's a narrator out there somewhere and you're Mad at them
[Ah. Ford gets the distinct impression that he's made a massive, massive blunder. Not unusual for him. Honestly this is what he's been waiting for the whole time: the eventual irreparable fuckup. Things were going too well. This is more like him. He opens his mouth to say something but what on earth can he say that won't just dig the hole deeper? He's not good at this, that's the whole problem. And then Larry's gone and all there is is the echo of the door slamming in his ears.
He stands there for a very long moment looking at the door, then sighs, shakes out his shoulders, and pulls up his own swim trunks. This means cleanup falls to him, which he imagines is fair. It's something simple and mechanical with which he can occupy himself. Keep moving. That's what he's good at. Push forward even when things are bad because that's how you survive, and worry about the collateral damage after it happens.]
Great, thank you. This is exactly what I wanted.
[He realizes he's talking to no one-- or rather, he's talking to someone he isn't sure is listening. It doesn't stop him from giving the sand a particularly petulant kick to cover up the last traces of their indiscretion. If he really is fictional then this is something engineered, a dead end he was destined to slam into, and that's more frustrating than he can put into words. Why bother trying if he's simply written to fail every time?
When he emerges from the changing room it's with a much more dour expression than someone should really have after a public quickie. At least no one will suspect. He's just your standard old man in galaxy print swim trunks who's very much not enjoying a day at the beach. Once the condom is safely disposed of in a trash can he's faced with the question of what to do with himself. He could go home, sit in the artificial void and mope. That's a tempting option. He could send Larry a message, but this isn't something that it feels right to do over text (he distinctly remembers Mabel telling him to never do important things over text and he trusts her judgement). Eventually what he winds up doing is simply continuing to walk parallel to the beach with no particular destination in mind. That's about all he has in him right now.
God, he wishes he was wearing his coat. His coat has his flask in it.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
voice; after The "Morning" After Triple Moons of November 2019
Ring ring!]
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Yes?
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Ford!
[He sounds...worse for wear, yet in exceptionally high spirits.]
Guess who just got laid?!
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Congratulations.
... That's the correct response here, right? I haven't engaged in much locker-room talk.
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Oh, only one of many valid responses.
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I would've also accepted "atta boy," "gudonya," "bravo," or "well done".
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Noted for the future.
And here you were concerned about being 'left behind'.
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i hope you were ready for this to be how this subject comes up
absolutely.
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he drew a plumbus into journal 3 i'm allowed to run with this headcanon
as if I would ever try to stop you
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Delivery - Dec 22
To Ford
From Larry
Happy Hanukkah!
Contained in the box is:
One rugged plastic pencil box. Its corners are rounded off and the edges are lined with rubber gasketing with a tight fit that implies it's waterproof. Inside the box is a full set of brand new artist pencils with the full range of lead hardnesses, as well as a two pure graphite pencils, and one vinyl eraser.
One black velour drawstring bag with yellow ribbon. Inside the drawstring bag is two dozen dark milk chocolate gelt. They're pretty obviously hand-made, because the foil they're individually wrapped in is uneven, but not sloppy, and one side of each of them has what looks like the Star of David quickly drawn in them with a toothpick when they were molten.]
claims ownership over ford's inbox, april 2020 cordis
Larry called Ford over shortly after lunch to get the last details of Wanderlust's website ironed out. As of today, the site is now live! Marketing will come later, but this is a big milestone that deserves celebrating.
With food, booze, and sex.
Obviously.
And when it's late and the vibe is good there's no need to send someone home, so it only stands to reason that they would fall asleep together after a shared shower and cuddling. Larry gets to treat himself to using Ford's sizable bicep as a pillow while simultaneously wrapped up and clinging to his other arm like a blanket. His ankles are stuck between Ford's legs, in the space between his knees and his calves.
He's been asleep for long enough to fall into the earliest stages of REM sleep, where nothing really that vivid is happening in his dream -- just a pleasant pressure sensation in the soles of his feet. Kind of like...getting a massage? Hmm...yeah, something like that.]
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He's even allowing himself the luxury of dozing, something that he used to strenuously avoid. But this is a bedroom, not the wilderness on some unknown undeveloped planet, and it's nice to turn off the part of his brain that's always on high alert and focus on the feeling of having another body curled up against his.
Of course what this means is that he's instead funneling all his usual heightened awareness into paying attention to Larry: to this evenness of his breathing, to any little shift in his position, and to... whatever is going on with his feet? That doesn't feel like sleepy re-positioning but Ford cannot for the life of him place what it does feel like. Maybe he, too, is falling into the dreamy state between sleeping and waking where he's imagining things? Cautiously he moves one of his feet to try and feel it out.]
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Nhh.
[Problem is, he doesn't really have, well, feet anymore. Normally stretching his legs out like this would free them, but now they move together and have more breadth to them than usual. Conversely, his "ankles" have become significantly thinner, demanding less space between Ford's calves. Instead of getting frustrated with the fact that he can't straighten out his legs, he settles back down and enjoys the pressure as it creeps up his shins, following a menthol-like tingle that starts an inch or two earlier.
He hasn't shaved his legs in a while and it was showing earlier, but whatever is rubbing up between Ford's lower legs is suddenly smoother than the freshest shave...]
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The skin that Ford will find below the covers is slick, moist, and surprisingly thick. Normally Larry's flesh is quite pliable, but the new skin that's crawling up his legs and subsuming them together has a resistance and bounce to it that only a layer of blubber would. After its texture changes, so too does its thickness, muscle shifting and reconnecting and widening as they physically reprogram themselves for swimming rather than walking.
Larry's still out cold, but he murmurs something incoherent at the touch.]
Nghnm...?
i'm glad i so many icons of ford getting progressively more concerned
To investigate he has to bend himself in around Larry a little more so he can reach down with his one free arm. It's awkward but what else can he do? What he feels is both not what he was expecting and exactly as strange as he figured it would be. His fingertips find the upward-moving divide between human skin and this new thick stuff growing in, slip around to where Larry's knees used to be--]
Woah!
[WAKE UP, BUDDY, THERE'S SOMETHING UP WITH YOUR LEGS. LIKE REALLY UP. LIKE WIGGLING AROUND UP.]
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He's not a hard enough sleeper to get through another dude yelping in surprise. Larry wakes with a startled gasp and pushes himself up onto an elbow when he catches Ford sitting up in his peripheral vision. Boy does he feel weirdly randy right now. It's not weird to feel like this in general, but usually being spooked into wakefulness is enough to get his focus elsewhere.]
What? What's wrong??
[He reaches out with his free hand to turn on the bedside light. It bathes the room in a sudden warm incandescent glow, revealing that all of Larry's skin has turned a startling pinkish pale. Now that he can see, he notices that Ford is looking down at him, and he follows his eyeline to--]
Oh my Gawd!
[His legs are already fused together like a cheap toy whose mold didn't quite finish separating the legs. Black marks creep their way up his body unevenly, carving elegant swooping curves into that pinkish skin and followed shortly by muscle and fat filling him out. His dick has relocated to someplace far more south, and it squirms around like an exposed worm in a desperate attempt to find something to grind against.
Larry stares at everything in horrified awe for a second -- then once his sleep-addled brain puts it together, he grasps tightly to Ford's shoulder, grinning wide enough to split his face in half.]
Ford! Ford, it's happening! It's finally happening!
[Larry smacks his hand excitedly against Ford's arm repeatedly.]
It's happening!!!
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I told you it would eventually!
[Now that the lights are on and he can actually see it... wow. He reaches over to the bedside table to grab his glasses and slip them on, because this is something he very much needs to see clearly. There's a lot here to appreciate and he takes it all in with a similar awe to the sort Larry's feeling. And unless he's mistaken...]
I've never seen anything like this. You're something entirely new.
[He says it with all the wonder as someone else might say 'you've never looked more beautiful than you do right now', which frankly is exactly what he's saying, just in Fordese.]
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twitch streamer voice okay chat lets put it to a vote
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congrats on freedom from prell
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i like the part where ink talks about ford pines sexual history for a LOOOOOOONG time
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mid-may 2020
Ford's jism drips off of Larry's idle fingers and into the sand below as he holds him from behind. He's also physically exhausted too because doing it standing up with someone significantly taller than you is a lot more of an endeavor than he was expecting. Larry presses his forehead into Ford's back as he "dismounts", and the condom slips right off of him thanks to a combination of several orgasm's worth of cum and his exceptional shrinking ability.]
Nyuhhh...
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He leans his forehead against the wall of the changing room and takes a few steadying breaths. Cleanup shouldn't be too hard -- just kick some sand over the evidence, palm the used condom into a trashcan when nobody's looking, it's fine -- but he's not yet at the point of thinking about that. He reaches back with one hand, finds Larry's upper arm, and gives it a light pat.]
Very eloquent. You need a moment?
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Larry crawls his way to occupy the space between Ford and the wall, kicking cummy sand around in the process. He stands on the balls of his feet, and his hands come up and he presses some suggestive amount of pressure to the back of Ford's neck, the usual indication that he wants Ford to bend down so he can give him kisses.
After several moments of peak-moment afterglow liplock, Larry breaks off by dropping his heels back to the ground. He slouches forward, getting his forearms tangled up behind Ford's neck in a loose embrace. His eyes are unfocused to some point in space beyond Ford's shoulder, voice breathy.]
Ford, I...
[He develops a dopey smile on his face and finally looks him in the eyes.]
I love you, babe...
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So, sure, he's happy to settle into the afterglow and really enjoy it. He's happy for the kisses and the little touches and the fact that even after getting to know him, Larry still wants to be around him. He's happy for that dopey smile, too, until words come out of it. His face does something very interesting. It doesn't quite fall, exactly, it just stumbles. He opens his mouth and it hangs there for a few seconds before his brain catches up to it.]
No you don't.
[Nailed it. Great job.]
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Do you ever have one of those moments where you say something so habitual and natural that you don't really consciously realize that you've said it until someone replies to it? Larry is having one of those right now. Combined with the fact that it took a while for Ford to even respond, he has no idea what he's reacting to.]
Uh...I don't what?
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[He says it like it's a joke. Because it is, right?
It's not that Ford can't imagine being loved. He has a family that loves him a great deal. It's also not that he thinks he doesn't deserve it: a big part of his character development was dunking that notion squarely in the trash. He knows he's as worth loving as anyone else, despite (and sometimes because of) his quirks and flaws.
The issue is that the love he got used to was familial love. Romantic love is another ballgame, one he's wholly unfamiliar with and terrified of getting wrong. There's expectations he doesn't know if he can meet, rules he doesn't know well enough to follow, baggage he isn't sure he can unpack-- though Larry's heard some of it. It was part of that long upset diatribe that came on the heels of finding out he was fictional, and even then he barely went into it. If it's just friendship with a side of sex it's easier. He knows he deserves it, he just doesn't think he'll be good at it.
In the end it's more about what he thinks the other person in the equation deserves.]
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Y--...
[Not to mention that this makes it abundantly clear that Ford doesn't feel the same way. If that's the case, then what is this between them? Larry's considered this one of his most fulfilling relationships, probably just under Patti and above Kalalau, for the longest time. It's only happenstance that this is the first time Larry actually put words to how he feels.
He figured he didn't need to.
He figured he said it every time they spoke to each other. Every time they touched or looked at each other.
They say the eyes are the window to the soul, and with their faces only a foot apart, Ford gets a front row seat to watching Larry's heart break right through them.
just the oxytocin and dopamine
Did Ford view this as nothing other than convenient and physical this whole time?
Right. Because Larry did too. That's the joke. Larry's only in it for the quick fuck.
Right? Right.]
Heh.
[Larry smiles, but the act of closing his eyes draws the veneer of tears to the corners of them. He draws his arms away from the back of Ford's neck, removing him from his embrace.]
N-no, you're right. I just need to walk it off.
[He steps away and towards the door, hiking up his tropical-print swim trunks back over his hips. He unlocks the door to the changing stall, opens it, and steps outside.
It slams shut behind him with an uncharacteristic amount of force.
A keen eye might notice that the feet visible under the door don't walk away. They just vanish in the blink of an eye.]
when you know there's a narrator out there somewhere and you're Mad at them
He stands there for a very long moment looking at the door, then sighs, shakes out his shoulders, and pulls up his own swim trunks. This means cleanup falls to him, which he imagines is fair. It's something simple and mechanical with which he can occupy himself. Keep moving. That's what he's good at. Push forward even when things are bad because that's how you survive, and worry about the collateral damage after it happens.]
Great, thank you. This is exactly what I wanted.
[He realizes he's talking to no one-- or rather, he's talking to someone he isn't sure is listening. It doesn't stop him from giving the sand a particularly petulant kick to cover up the last traces of their indiscretion. If he really is fictional then this is something engineered, a dead end he was destined to slam into, and that's more frustrating than he can put into words. Why bother trying if he's simply written to fail every time?
When he emerges from the changing room it's with a much more dour expression than someone should really have after a public quickie. At least no one will suspect. He's just your standard old man in galaxy print swim trunks who's very much not enjoying a day at the beach. Once the condom is safely disposed of in a trash can he's faced with the question of what to do with himself. He could go home, sit in the artificial void and mope. That's a tempting option. He could send Larry a message, but this isn't something that it feels right to do over text (he distinctly remembers Mabel telling him to never do important things over text and he trusts her judgement). Eventually what he winds up doing is simply continuing to walk parallel to the beach with no particular destination in mind. That's about all he has in him right now.
God, he wishes he was wearing his coat. His coat has his flask in it.]
What narrative purpose is this supposed to serve?
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I have completely rewritten this like five times
god me this whole thread tbh
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