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  • Aditus

    Talk Talk

    By Aditus

    Conversations. Sometimes it’s too much, sometimes too little, formal, informal, clumsy, artificial, with another word: difficult. Let’s practice, Shall we? #253 Someone is on the bus. The guy beside them fidgets the whole time with an irritating tinkling bangle while telling them, it seems, their entire life story, including very personal things. It’s time to pop in the earbuds. When it’s time to get off the bus, the talker has disappeared and the strange bangle is now on th
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Busted chapter 55

[From the mouths of babes, and suchlike things]   Joe came downstairs, his hair still wet from the shower. Chris had gone first, as he needed to get ready for work. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee hit his nose as he walked into the kitchen.   Toby was sitting at the table. Chris was at the stove. Joe could hear sizzling.   "Breakfast?" Chris asked. There were two coffee cups on the counter next to him.   "Thanks. What is it?"   "Scrambled eggs and toast. You like them soft, right?"  
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Busted chapter 54

[Less angst here than I expected. Chris is taking this all remarkably well]   Joe woke with the sun in his face and a warm body spooned up behind him. It was a nice way to wake up, and the erection pressed up behind him was nice too. They'd gone to sleep back to back, but at some point Chris had rolled over and wrapped himself around Joe. It was something he hoped he'd have a chance to get used to.   He shifted a little, so he could look at Chris. The motion made Chris stir, and his hand sli
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Busted chapter 53

[And we get all cuddly. Awww... ]   Joe yawned. He was surprisingly comfortable, sitting on the floor, his head on Chris' lap, with Chris stroking his hair. He probably could have stayed there all night. Chris needed to get up in the morning, though.   "Chris?"   "Mmm?" Chris had fallen into a daze. He was feeling secure in a way he hadn't really ever known. Everything just felt so right, in ways he'd only ever felt with Toby. This was different, but just as good. Better, really. He felt
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Busted chapter 52

Chris just watched Joe dumbly as he walked past him and into the living room. It was like he owned the place. That felt natural. It also annoyed him a little.   "What are you doing?" he asked.   "Sitting," Joe called back.   Chris moved to follow and found Joe in the recliner.   "What are you doing there?" Chris asked.   "If I sit on the couch, I'm going to be next to you," Joe answered. "If I'm next to you I'm going to touch you, which means I'm going to be kissing you, and from there
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Busted chapter 51

[The beginning of this harkens back to the missing chapter 45. Chris ran into his ex, and the guy she'd cuckolded him with, and caught enough of the last encounter between Joe and Alex to realize they'd split, just not the exact circumstances. Short section too -- seemed like a good place to stop, and I've not had a lot of time to write]   It was late, and Chris was lying on his couch wondering how things had managed to get where they were. He wasn't a bad guy. He was pretty sure of that. He w
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Busted chapter 50

[so much cliffhanger material, so few words to make it work. This is definitely going to need a good edit and rewrite. It's very rough, and didn't quite go where I had planned on it going (mostly, but not quite) but it's solid enough to work with. Later.]   The remainder of Monday had been miserable. Joe had tried drinking in his apartment, but that hadn't worked too well. He was feeling abandoned, and lonely, and drinking made that feel worse. It helped numb the pain some, but not enough.  
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Busted chapter 49

[beware the bear, man!]   Joe drove home by reflex, his brain numb. He'd had the presence of mind to call in sick for the rest of the week. That was about all he could manage. He hadn't said why to Joan, but she knew. He could tell.   He just sat in his car when he got to his apartment. He should go in, maybe go lie down. Maybe go drink. Drinking had a certain appeal. It was safe enough, in his apartment. The monsters never came out when he did. He'd made sure of that. There were enough char
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Busted chapter 48

[Yes! I know how to menace Joe now! Not that it's in here, but that's fine. Dashing for the home stretch now, I think. Three or four big scenes and we're done. Woohoo!]   "They gave me the key because the apartment was vacant, and has been since February."   Joe was paying almost no attention.   It wasn't just that the apartment was empty. It was that it was huge. He was looking into a good-sized living room, at least the size of his own. There was a large kitchen off it, and there had to
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Busted chapter 47

[Y'know, I think I like this cliffhanger thing...]   "I'm surprised you came here willingly," Steve said as he slid into the booth across from Joe.   "Yeah, well," Joe said, "it seemed like the best place. I ordered already."   "Not a salad, I hope," Steve said.   "Learned my lesson," Joe said as the waitress came over.   "Hey, hon," she said. She put a pitcher of Coke and a pair of water-spotted glasses on the table. "Pizzas are up in a minute."   "Thanks," Joe said. He gave her a b
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Busted chapter 46

[Right, you'll notice that chapter 45 is missing. I'm working on that, and it's turning out to be more involved than I thought. I'll post it when it's done, but in the mean time... 46!]   Monday morning Joe was a wreck. His conversation with Alex had not gone anywhere near where he thought it was going to, and now he was questioning his whole relationship. He thought things had been going fine. Sure, Alex was a little flighty, but he hadn't expected him to just
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Busted chapter 44

[The first of a few short ones. Probably ought to be collapsed together into a single chapter when they're done. There's also going to be an out-of-order thing going in, since I realized this evening that I need something before this, but I don't have it written. Ah, well, discontinuity works]   Joe had begged off coming over to Steve's that weekend. More than anything else he wasn't ready to face Chris again. When he was alone he could keep things under control
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Busted chapter 43

[Note I'm using the 2005 moon tables, but the dates are needing fixing. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.html. More notes at the end]   Steve sat watching Chris as he ate his lunch at his desk. He hadn't said anything when Joe had dropped Toby off, he hadn't said anything when Chris asked him for a lift to the gay bar he'd seem Joe and Alex at, and he hadn't said anything the whole morning as they both dug through a mountain of paperwork and research. He was finding it hard to keep
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Busted chapter 42

[i didn't know Joe was a mime, I swear!]   Chris woke up, feeling more rested than he had in months. For once his sleep had been undisturbed by the raw dreams that always heralded Alex's appearance, or the erotic dreams of his own that had been as bad in their own way. There wasn't any trace of the fatigue that Alex brought either.   His first alarm went off then. He hadn't been up before his alarm in a very long time. It was nice. He gave the pillow he'd grabbed one last hug, then rolled o
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Busted chapter 41

[Aren't mornings after great?]   Joe woke up to the sound of twittering birds and the morning sun shining on his face. There was something not quite right about that, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It was early, well before coffee, and he wasn't thinking too clearly.   Alex had slept in, something that was unusual for him. Unless Joe was staying over his apartment, which he'd only done a few times, Alex was usually up first and off to work, doing whatever it was. Joe gave a sleepy smi
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Busted chapter 40

[in which we find out exactly why Chris' day was such a crap one. And the fact that Joe uses the same nickname for Toby as Chris does is entirely coincidental. Really]   The drive back to his house was long enough that the good feelings Chris gotten from the club had time to fade away. He was back to brooding again, and staring out the window without actually looking at anything.   Joe could tell he'd faded. Something was seriously bothering Chris, and it worried him. He'd hoped that time in
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Busted chapter 39

[Chris definitely needs to loosen up some. But, then, he's had a really bad day...]   Chris hadn't been paying much attention while Joe drove. He was too caught up in his own thoughts. It had been an exceptionally bad day, one he was trying to forget, though he couldn't. He'd thought maybe some target practice would have helped, but it hadn't, no matter how many times he imagined the target at the end was someone real. He'd actually been relieved when Joe had decided to drag him along somewher
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Busted chapter 38

[And it's the end of a very bad Tuesday, and the start of three parts of it getting better. I really need to go see what the gun laws in Connecticut are -- I'm not even sure if some of this is possible here.]   Thursday evening Joe was in the parking lot of the firing range when his cell phone rang. The call came through with no phone number attached. Joe smiled
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Busted chapter 37

[Apparently the B story will not be denied...]   Tuesday evening Joe tried to knock off work early. He was supposed to meet Steve at the firing range. It was his third time there and Steve was right
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Busted chapter 36

[since you can post comments to draft entries, I think I'm gonna leave my notes until the end for this one. I posted 35 and 36 together, since I've a backlog, and a bit faster than normal. If you missed it, here's 34, and here's 35]   The last place Joe thought he'd ever go back to was the Peddler's Pony. It was a dive, a run down neighborhood bar whose sole claim to fame was it was established before indoor plumbing was common. A hundred years later they still hadn't gotten around to putting
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Busted chapter 35

[isn't family swell?]   Joe had been staring at his phone for the better part of an hour. The Chinese food he'd ordered for lunch had gotten cold and congealed while he stared at it. He didn't care. He didn't have much of an appetite.   He shook his head. Putting it off wouldn't help any. It would make things worse, really. The later it got the more likely someone would be drunk. He didn't need to deal with that.   Sighing, Joe picked up the phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. He h
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Busted chapter 34

[The first of three parts for this particular monday in the story. I'm tempted to group them all together and title it 'Dodging the Bullet']   "So, had a fun weekend?" Steve was munching on the last chocolate chocolate chip muffin as he watched the steam rise off his coffee. At least he presumed it was steam. There was always the possibility that it was smoke from the Styrofoam being eaten away by the coffee.   "Don't even start," Chris growled. He still felt like hell. Toby hadn't made it a
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Busted chapter 33

[Joe almost used the word 'execrable'. Correctly, too. But oh, boy, that man's got a temper. Things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get, so since this isn't a tragedy that must mean it's all up-hill from here!]   Chris woke up with a headache so bad he wondered if he might be dead. Probably not, he decided after a few agonizing minutes. If he were dead it wouldn't hurt so bad.   He felt like crap. Besides the pain in his head, he was pretty sure something had crawled into his
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Busted chapter 32

[in which we find that the author can't quite manage to work in the phrase "something under the bed is drooling". Dammit.]   Chris' couch was damned uncomfortable. Joe had spent the better part of two hours trying to get to sleep on it, but he just couldn't. It was so old the lumps had lumps, and the ones that didn't had springs sticking through them. He had no idea how Chris had managed to lay on the thing, drunk or not.   Joe's anger had died down as the evening passed. He was still annoye
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