a/n: for the july '13 fic exchange. This should probably have been joyous —the prompts spoke that way. However, when I started writing this I wasn't exactly in the best mood since my doctor thinks I have anorexia. Sorry about the short length and countless errors; it was meant to be longer, but I couldn't think of anything else and the deadline came up soon, too. I don't know, it's pretty messed up and weird and I'm not even sure what this has turned into anymore; anyway, hope you like it, :)
dedication: to hearts dreamsareinfinity
prompts: a wish on a dandelion, a field of red flowers, and apple juice
(it's not a) love story
dylan/josh
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Glazed over eyes ransack the canvas, deteriorating the work of art combined with the delicate handiwork smelling like a secondhand bookstore, audible sighs heard as heat is forcefully applied onto bare skin, folds of cellulite brushing against one another as the day spins away. She tries to imagine that every aspect of the room is a shadow, formed where the water was near the top of a spinning chandelier, dizzying glory spinning downwards onto a wrecked china table, shards upon the ceramic plates that cover a delicate piece of hardwood, because if Dylan can convince herself that he is nonexistent, then forgetting him will not be quite as difficult, though the sun still shines.
He would have like that —the sun shining, and at one point or another she remembers that she enjoyed fresh air through the sterling silver as well. The smell of cranberries and moldy pieces of bread appeal to her now, replacing the preferred stenches of parfum and sweat running down a smooth surface. She reaches for a book; it is not a diary, with its creaking binding of several additions of tape applied onto the previously smooth silk, giving off a pleasant odor in the dark of the night.
Eyes open to an older couple, hands held and bodies intertwined with one another, lips meeting another pair as the words subside into willowy bodies, never blinking to miss the signals of love. They roughly push her into a car, and all they hear are her screams of the blood in her hands, running down freshly painted walls and soaking into carpetting skin, stains everlasting. Bodies, creatures from an alternate universe stand above her with their snide remarks and malicious words, cutting into her carefully pieced heart which feels good. Though it is not help, somebody remembers Dylan enough to hate her, to which she is pleased, genuinely pleased.
.
It's a test, a doctor drawls.
She can tell that much, but it doesn't stop Dylan from doing the real thing. There is a silver utensil in one hand, in the other a knife, its blade inches away from cutting into senile folds, to cut away the danger, and they are giving her a choice. She is much aware of the correct, westchurian decision, but she decides otherwise, plunging the knife into delicacies, and protests, screams of outcries are heard, racing around the room, but only her horse will win the race, only she will be the best. The knife rolls across her tongue, cutting into delineated veins but she ignores the noise, muting it out with numbness.
For a while, there is no pain —only the numbness. They diagnose her with a disease, and she ends up being thrown into a room where only the birds will bother to listen to her cries, shut. She does not want this, she had only wanted that rush, that feeling of the savory goodness falling down her throat, stuck in her stomach, remainders bunched in pale thighs. Nonetheless, Dylan gives mickle thanks to those friends of her, who sit with their saccharine smiles, striding down the street as though it is not freshly paved and the pain will not be in their fashion runway lives, where their biggest concern is the loss or gain of weight: which is soon becoming hers, as well.
Sometimes, Dylan likes to presume that she is different. Tongues roll, entwined with one another as the sickly sweetness falls down a throat, caught in motion as it falls back out again, into a ceramic surrounding, where the closest thing to a friendly ambiance is the wad of cleaning utensils, carefully and forcefully pushing over yellowed teeth, the brightness and shine of a previous joy turned to sorrow and hate. The worst is yet to come, however. At one point or another, her careful fingers would wrap around each other, fangs of venom spilling out onto a cold surface, wrapping around one another, as hair would become strangled, tied to an anchor.
.
The lights guide her home, through the peril of eternal darkness, managing to stumble along the way, fingers intertwined in the bark of trees, sliding down her throat until it jams, mixing in with apricot jams and watermelon black seeds. They send her back to Octavian Country Day (an interesting name, true enough) the next day, and Massie wonders aloud. Her stomach growls —she shovels down.
Angels entwined, fingers curled into obstinate fists, an anomaly, test their waters, banes and kryptonites set aside in pursuit of a better future —one that consists endless aberrations. In a way, nothing has changed, a fact she soon realizes, salt stains and bruised fingerprints, crimson lipstick smudged with golden crumbs, fingers dipped in a gelatin blood, stained, a process that is similar to the circle of life. Successions soon follow, afterward, cantankerous natures replaced by hand-wide itches, ringlets falling around her chipped nails as blood is drawn out, rosy cheeks and spicy legs turning rotten, thrown out.
The other girls find out, bringing casuistry to a conversation mostly consisting of kleenex offering, cheek aggravations, and tears wasted. They offer to help, but tell her that she has to stop; she locks herself into a room, chewing through braids of skin hair, grimacing at what these peccadillos have led her to commit. She laughs, knowing that she hasn't even come close to her pièce de résistance, spun sugar dripping from oozing lips until the saccharine-sour-bitter successions start to abolish themselves.
With the absence of light, mellifluous, honeyed voices turn into piercing, strident calls, and within moments, the wood has been broken through, blood falling, bones breaking, muscles strained, carrying themselves to tumble down the steps, blood circulation cut off as faces grow pale, and she hears a symphony of screams.
.
The guardians proceed to send her to a distant country; she is malcontent with their decision, but hospitalized at the time as her body is drained, Dylan is in no position to oppose. Life has left its battle scars, and wandering nomads stride by, a limp to their crossing steps, and the depredations will take forever to heal. She is weak —her body screams, and men in green scrubs inject sleep into her veins.
Bodies scream, panders lost in the abstinence of normality, lackluster hair splits, individual ends falling onto the floor; eyes snap open to erupt in pandemonium. By the end of the hour, she feels numb, propped up upon a strawberry shaped pillow, white sheets surrounding her naked body, acknowledging the existence of a hairless life, a cheery Dora the Explorer cap placed upon Dylan's blank slate head. It is a harbinger of remembering the worst is always yet to come, troubles springing from fatal coils.
Visitors arrive in the day following, tired eyes and melodramatic gasps a mere result, four girls standing next to the bed of their unconscious best friend, constant beeps from open hearts, sores wide awake, crimson nails cutting into bare skin, pinkies bled free; the smallest one, a blonde, suggests an idea, head moving faster than mouth, and the other friends nod in fervor, slowly leaving the room, teary.
The next time Dylan is wide awake, she is silent, watching the arrival of four girls as they uncap themselves, openly showing their hairless heads. We're best friends, Dyl, so we do everything together. Her expressions change, a mixture of sadness, amusement, surprise, and then endless happiness —something she hasn't felt in a long time, because they were her best friends, and they were going to help through this; all she had to do was try. Definitely a ten, she replies, smiling. Dylan's openly crying, now, tears falling faster than snuffled sobs, and somewhere, somebody smiles.
She devises a plan, fervid omens of hedonism, an overall shared awareness to attain beatitude, that glorious heyday. The glorious cruise embarks the following morn, ships set sail, drowning somewhere out there; light saber in one hand, out to conquest alien invaders, because it's all a game. Her aunt, the one with the poofy red hair and the sailor parrot, Auntie Muriel, that's her name, takes her to South Africa —it's for a National Geographic movie, and Dylan is forced to tag along, thoughts of summery air and light freedom abolished from an unstable mind, always on the edge of the line.
.
There's no place like home.
There's no place like Africa.
There's no person like him.
There's no person but Josh.
.
She recalls the journey, an expedition nevertheless, fully accompanied by trained professionals, but she knows what's really going on when they take her to the starvation sites, leaving in tears, fully formed rubies as she loses herself into fields of red flowers —she had always preferred irises—; hot breath on her hands as she makes a wish, floating into the air, on a dandelion, loosing herself as the day spins away, lights flashing, eternity's demise. Pacific days quell nightmares, foggy breath on windowpanes, misting into unforgettable images, the spectrum of officials rising stood upon, flashing lights, symphonies of screams, and they all fall down.
Do you want to meet up some time? They've met, yes, they've met, and the next week they do meet up, but he sees bits of jewelery, gilded belts and splatters of red and white, crimson watches flying upon the ground, stacked upon crackers creamed high, mess piling up upon each other, but it just feels so warm and welcoming, but then she sees him, and then it's not so perfect anymore; Josh doesn't run away, kicking and screaming, uproar and fuses left behind, and just holds her. They hold hands, together, waiting for the end. They are forever altering themselves into believe that something can happen, but too on the brink of disaster to even care.
.
Weeks later, she returns to the mansion; constant supervision, privacy virtually nonexistent, but it's still home, and inhaling the fresh air, it's not perfect, but it's enough to be thankful for.