||self destruct mechanisms
x•x•
—of empirical formulas
|each is more spectacular than the last|
x•x•
"Believe my lies" - was her disjointed catchphrase, spoken out loud through glittering smiles and flashy winks. And he had believed them, at least in part: he'd thought that maybe in the deepest part of her shallow heart, those whispered confidences and trite confessions were half-true.
Thought not much was true when it came to Julie; princess of wishful thinking. So how had he - critical minded and so, so world-weary - gotten caught up in her staged love affair?
He supposed he was lonely. But he liked this, the dulled pang of his single heartbeat; he liked sitting alone, with no one but that familiar ghost to talk to. He liked being lonely, because then he didn't have to think about them, and their annoying persistence.
"Man, you know her." Julie's other half grinned easily, leaning back and letting the shingles cushion his head. "She wasn't trying to hurt you or anything. That's just how she is."
He shrugged in turn, letting the wind carry away the leaf held between his thumb and index fingers. The brunette watched him curiously, brushing wayward strands of hair away from warm eyes.
"Just don't get all pissy and go back to that staring-out-windows phase."
The corner of his lips quirked in spite of himself. He said nothing.
Dan rolled over on his side, sighing at the wisp of a moon suspended in the near-morning sky. "If you're gonna be like that, fine."
He almost spoke then, if he weren't so sure his words would've been lost on the wind. It was too ethereal - the glow in Dan's eyes, the way he managed to make bungling idiocy seem so sincere. He almost felt guilty; and that was the worst part of this sad revelation.
"Just don't blame her."
Warm sepia is fixated on him again. Shun holds the earnest gaze for a moment, before returning his eyes to the pinprick of light metaphorical galaxies away.
"I won't blame you," he murmurs, voice not quite loud enough.
x•x•
She meets him with a smile on her face and a bounce in her step, hair swishing around her shoulders in a way that resembles elegance. Untrue, he thinks, arranging his expression into one of schooled indifference.
"Hello," she sings, brushing her fingertips along his forearm. "I haven't seen you in forever."
He regards her carefully, trying to read her scrambled signals. How could he have let her this close - that she knew his vulnerability, how he wasn't as unfeeling as he tried to be, and why exactly he was so fond of staring out windows? He'd let her in and she'd shut him out in a flurry of bright eyes and hollow laughter.
She's looking at him now, watching his mind spin like clockwork. He starts, turning away with a frown.
"Aw, you're not mad at me, are you?"
He recognizes the delighted irony dancing in her eyes. "No," he answers honestly, because he's beyond anger now. She leans closer, hands finding his shoulders.
"Good."
As she leans forward, protest stirs within him, among the fragmentations of something broken. But his voice is silenced when her lips find his.
To her, he is something borrowed. She holds his brittle feelings - what he has left of them, anyway - in the palm of her hand; something to amuse her when others tire of her games. And he knows, to Dan, he is something unreachable; the recipient of subtle feelings that had existed maybe even since the beginning of time.
But to neither does he belong - if only he had the resolve to tell them so.
Julie's fingers run through his hair as she presses herself closer still, and all the unwritten words die in his heart.