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[redforce]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

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SHANKS

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[redsoil]

[ yes he is ]

Are you sure I have not won another off you by now?

I would not want to save myself with it, anyways. This will be an entertaining end, I hope.

[redforce]

You left me on read ( as the kids say, he is so hip and with it ) the last time I reminded you of our
Dalliances.
I might consider trading another vote if you at least admit you enjoyed yourself.

( then, because he suddenly isn't sure: )

Did you enjoy yourself?

( not because shanks needs the approval or the praise or someone to stroke his ego — he isn't even trying to embarrass set, really, as entertaining as that may be. it's more of an assurance shanks needs, that he hasn't taken advantage of something or misinterpreted this thing slowly taking shape between them, that they're at least in the same book if not entirely on the same page. )

[redsoil]

And then, I came to you to keep you company!

[ Set doesn't like to examine himself. Doesn't like to look at things in retrospect, picking them apart in an attempt to comprehend the innermost workings of his own disheveled mind. But, Koby had said something. That Shanks had mattered in some way, and so, with sullen reluctance he types back without fucking around. #tsundere ]

I did. You let me take my time, and that is — more than most.

[redforce]

You did. Which I did enjoy, very much.

( it does feel important to say, despite how obvious it may have seemed at the time. and while there's something about that more than most that doesn't sit well with him, it doesn't feel like his place to pry. not yet, anyway. maybe, in time, when things feel less precarious between them, when the foundation beneath which they stand becomes more solid than wet sand. for now, it simply sets a crease in shanks' brow, something quietly protective simmering in his chest. )

We've nothing but time, here.
I'm not so foolish to think I could rush a god.

( a god who exists infinitely, in time and space, a god who will certainly outlast and outlive the world in which shanks knows. what is time, to a god, but a blink? to demand set's attention, his body, anything more than set is willing to give, purely to satisfy his own burgeoning desires in these moments of brief coalescence between god and man — that would require arrogance shanks simply isn't capable of. who would he be to expect the desert to move like the sea? )