.
.
.
"Isn't this what you wanted?"
.
.
The question of the day. Soft as the breeze, warm as a fever, these unspoken words bounced around a sleepless youth's head. Bobbing from corner to corner, worming into his brain, dimming out the sounds that surrounded his ears, the query was all his mind could perceive and see. There was no accusation in them, not a hint of disdain or hatred - just the tidbits of worry hiding along each letter and dot.
The ceiling presented no answers. Darkened plains of bleak and faded paint remained silent and oblivious to the demons tormenting the youth's soul, nor would they ever care, had a hand of a higher deity poured the gift of wishful thinking between their fibers. Andy blinked and allowed his eyes to rest for a moment.
Lungmen at night. The grand fortress of neon lights and concrete pillars, of glass houses and slum-mires that stretched as far as the eye could see, provided the eye gazed beyond the attention grabbing billboards of commercial moxie. Slithering between it all, klaxons of hurried annoyance wailed across the city, each with a purpose to fill and a place to be. Metal beasts of ori-powered contraptions crawled through the mechanized landscape, as it, in its own, prowled the sour earth laid beneath its steel paddles and titanium tracks. The buzz never quite left. The sound of engines, the soft hum of metallic ambiance, the cancer-rocks at work.
Tap, tap, tap,
They mixed and blended with the gentle droplets of rain which graced the structure's concrete stalagmites. The constant rain was like a plague to most night dwellers, just a bothersome vagary of Mother Nature, who loved toying with her tenants and soaking them from head to toe when they least expected. And the smell it brought?
Earthy, despite the moving giant being mostly void of any annoying dirt patches, wormy and homey. Familiar. Andy knew it all too well. Years spent running across the golden wheat fields sprawled across the outside of the White City's walls welded the smell of warm, wet earth into his brain, and associated it with the rainy summers that came and went. Peach orchards, wet marble, cigarette smoke, fresh pastries. The smell of vacation.
The image of a young girl by his side.
Always there, never away.
Lying underneath the blooming peach trees, faces and hair caressed by the warm wind coming from down south, the two gazed upon the open plains of the night sky, as two dumb teens should. Lost in the world, one more hopeless than the other. A gray kitten, a red fawn, nestled in the grass, with two bright rings of light sauntering around their heads, nudging and grazing by from time to time. The cat never truly had a place to call home, but found solace in the rhubarb wainscots that lined the hallways of the fawn's house. The only spot on Terra where he truly felt like he belonged.
And her?
Bright, graced with a never-faltering beam plastered over her face, Lemuel somehow managed to always worm her way deep into his gray cells. Deeper than that, somewhere where no other glimmer of light dared reach - the endlessly beating instrument that pumped fuel through his entire body.
Somewhere into his heart.
Who would've thought?
Who would've ever guessed this is where life would lead. To this tiny, cramped apartment, with just barely enough space to splatter one's thought matter across the walls. An apartment so familiar, so foreign and distant. A place from his dreams, the room at the very end of his beloved, red hallway. The boy made an effort to open his eyes and gaze upon the prison he found himself in.
Two prisons. One, located within his mind, with walls of moving flesh constantly closing in on his poor conscience, and spewing boiling tar of growing regret. The regret of last night's actions. Regret of his inability to say no. To stop and think. To think, not do, and to speak, not act. Long gone were the broken restraints that toppled along with the deluge of alcohol that slithered through his gray cells, and poisoned any oases of reason, now replaced by the indomitable pillars of morality and the usual righteousness. Doers wrong valley, the pit his pathetic soul crawled into and refused to climb out of. The other cage, the four surrounding walls, all stuffy, holding him in a tight chokehold. Wherever he looked, darkness blurred his vision, took away sight and made him think of last night's antics. Piles of clothes laid scattered all over the room, somewhere within them rested his own rags, the sweater that's seen more spilled blood than most veterans of Terra combined, his endlessly pocketful cargos and the more intimate rest. Andy cast his gaze downwards, for he couldn't bear to look to the right.
He felt lost. Utterly lost, on the verge of falling apart.
He felt her presence. Felt the warmth, heard her soft, even breathing which broke through the city's ambiance and drowned out even the air conditioner's whirring. It was hot. He couldn't tell whether it was the temperature, twenty seven or more celsius, that tormented him most or the feel of her, just her pressed right to his side. Uncomfortably hot, the night felt. Not even the AC unit could wipe the drops of sweat forming over the boy's forehead, the waves of salty produce that soaked his curls and swam around his pillow, or the burning flames of regret raging beneath the stake someone tied his soul to.
He felt her shift. A light and uneven force tugged at the sheets he covered them with after they were done, like a child's hand grasping onto the sleeve of their mother. The child in question being void of any innocence, desperately holding onto the cotton fabric.
Or was she?
"Something fun." she said. "A night between the two of us, to make up for the days apart~."
The days they spent apart.
.
Seven whole years.
.
Her mind was clouded by the fumes of alcohol when the words slithered past his defenses, whispered clear into his ear. He caved. Time came to reap what he had sown.
Andy took a deep breath. His lungs faltered, quivered and filled with emptiness, all in the same few moments it took him to breathe out. Slowly, his cheek pressed against the warm, wet surface of the pillow, long stripped of its homey softness. His eyes met her lids, warm and shut tight.
She was right there. Close, in the literal sense, radiating heat off her bare shoulders and the rest of her robe-less body snug beneath the sheets. He could feel their hips touching, their thighs just barely making contact. Skin pressed to skin, droplets of sweat sliding and joining together in one pool of moisture soaking through the wide fabric they occupied. The very same fabric that enveloped them during the most intimate of moments, shielded the most shameful of actions from the eyes of anyone unfortunate enough to stumble upon the feral dance that had taken place just a few hours ago. Away, in a sense far different. Brains disconnected, feelings null. Just a piece of heaven to enjoy, to throw away and forget in the morning.
She said it herself.
.
"Promise, Andy."
"Promise me it won't last. Promise it's just for tonight. Just for this one time. Your first time~."
Her eyes betrayed nothing. Just drunk eagerness.
What else could he have done, but agree mindlessly?
Hours. Just hours separated him from the moment he lost it all.
A night of heavy drinking, of loud sounds and noises that filled the mind with grandiose thoughts of nigh immortality. You could do anything when you're drunk. Lift a truck, clear a compound of armed devils, challenge the light above your head, or kill a god. He did neither. He let himself get carried away and lost the red hallway that invaded his mind each night forever.
Andy stared at her face. Such soft contours, perfect lines and colors. A gentle, red hue spread around her cheeks, the saffron forest spilling equally over her forehead and eyes - not quite how he remembered her, but more than anything he could've ever asked for.
Did it matter?
Where does a body end? Where the mind begins to wander, search for strings to connect the tissue together into a cohesive pile of thought-juice and memory filled despair, that's where a person loses their mortal form and transcends into something more than just a ball of flesh. A pile of meat to be used and cast away.
She was just that. Not a body, but an idea. An ideal piece of his mind, ever present and unwavering, even in the most dire of moments.
How many times have you thought of ending it all, Andy?
How many nights have you spent pondering the sweet release of death, while sleeping in the mud, snow and barbed wire that laced Kazdel's mire stained floor?
Too many, was it? The thought of suicide loomed, ever present, over the boy, each night he spent crying himself to sleep, each day he lived in fear, hiding from the hounds that tore the land apart with hooves burning with hatred. A more favorable alternative to surviving, not living. To taking in each sunset not with the feel of beauty and elegance it presented, but as a reward. A reward for making it through each day, for not succumbing to the overbearing void that laid down graveyards upon graveyards onto the rotten soil, strung nameless corpses from trees that thrived on their decay.
And she was there to wipe it all away.
To lay the worries to rest.
She waited at the very end of his hallway. The hallway of red, of thousands of photos all hung up for him to glance across. Memories of Laterano, pictures taken straight from his mind and animated with a force far beyond his own understanding. Three souls standing shoulder to shoulder, smiling, at the ethereal camera that captured their grins forever and put them up on display for him to remember and bawl over.
The pictures of three innocent souls plagued his vision, even now, as he stared into the warm, closed lids of the real thing.
The actual Lemuel.
The person, not the idea.
The girl from his mind.
An image shattered in minutes.
It all happened too fast. Alcohol speeds up time, whips it to a pace more suitable for regretful decisions to happen - such was the case at that moment. The blinding lights of Lungmen sped past his eyes, each billboard unintelligible and foggy, like a mere memory of last night's dream. Faces, rivers of contours and shapes, they all mixed into nothing and passed by, the currents of people scraping the concrete below to get wherever Terra needed them to be in its grander scheme of things. There was just one image plastered over his eyes. One set of warm, apricot eyes bored deep into his own, bored deep enough to drill a tunnel straight into the most secluded confinements of his soul.
She stared at him. In the middle of the busy street, each Lungmenite around hurryingly scurrying to tend to their own celebratory endeavors, she stared at him. At his eyes, his gray, empty ovals.
They lacked life. They lacked the radiance that once animated the boy she used to know. Hours spent digging around her room, snuffing around her sister's computer, even just gobbling down fresh apple pastries or mulling over homework - all gone. Memories, never to return. She saw it all, saw the hurt and the pain, the days survived in subliminal silence, the blood dripping from his eyes and down his clothes. The stained innocence that somehow slithered from beneath his mask.
On that warm night, she took his hand.
Embraced it in pity. Pity, and nothing else.
She led him there, to her den. A place he's grown to love and long for, a somewhat divine spot sprouting within the apartment complex's concrete walls. A place of pure warmth, bright light and shed tears. Where despair met hope, mingled and held it tight, where he once let her tears soak his sweater through and her words, his mind. Words of regret, promises and memories of longing, all thrown away in favor of just one night spent with their legs entangled.
Andy closed the door behind. Locked it shut, threw away the key. Just like then, at the end of the crimson hallway, a long awaited memory laid atop the couch, smiling softly and eagerly. Once he stepped close, he noticed something more to that beam - A little bit of sadness, maybe even a sprinkling of gentle pity. "Where does a body end?" he questioned, as the girl sat him down on the sofa and stood. Holding onto his hands, the false smile was all that remained, all the familiarity she had left. Mountains of letters riddled her furniture - the cupboards, wardrobes, paint-splattered desks, the dusty guitar lazily rotting away in the corner - all covered with guilt. To and from someone close, closer than anyone else - a revenant of the past, bound to a wheelchair and long forgotten. With a heavy heart, she sauntered by the envelopes addressed to Lemuen, her gaze averted.
Her fingers flicked away a few photographs. Familiar faces, familiar colors. They all fell, all turned to face the floor. None needed to see their drunken ritual.
Standing atop a drawer filled to the brim with work clothes, all neatly jumbled up into one, large ball of mess, a tiny, marble saint held onto a white rifle. The girl's apricot eyes met his, but neither said a word. She turned the statue away, flipped it over to stare at the wall. Let the Law guide the holy and the wicked, not peep on two long-lost friends pretending to be strangers.
She came back to him with a bottle. Andy couldn't even read the label, as the girl straddled his lap tight between her thighs. A certain feeling of warmth shot through his brain, wormed apart the fibers and crawled into the very core of his thinking-instrument. The gentle taps of fear's fingertips resonated by his spine, uncertainty and worry followed right by, sending his entire body on a rollercoaster of temperatures, lighting his face on fire and freezing his hands in place. No amount of training, of ori-dust lit and shot could've ever prepared him for this moment. She was right there. On top of him, both their sweaters pressed close into one another. Andy dared look up into her eyes and saw her apricot ovals glowing brightly in the dark. No other part dared glimmer - both her halo and wings remained absolutely dim, as if the Law had taken those divine attributes away from her, away just for that night, just to make it easier to pretend. To make it hurt less.
Slowly, his hand rose forward. Crawled up her woolen arm, taking in every soft and delicate thread of her, refusing to miss even a single centimeter. It reached her face, eventually. The moment he's been waiting for his entire life, the feeling of her skin beneath his own.
He caressed her cheek. Cautiously, carefully, as if he were some tasteful art critic examining a billion LMD piece, his touch grazed across her face, bringing about a tiny hue of red spreading over the meadow of white roses, like poppies blooming in the warmest months of summer. It was unexplainable. Unreliably related, had anyone ever dared ask Andy how the night went. Underneath his trembling fingers, the softness of her skin remained unlike anything he's ever experienced - warm and fuzzy, tender like a fawn's hide.
Andy couldn't stop.
Couldn't stop himself from touching her face. From running his fingers across her scalp, from brushing through her saffron hair with careful, quivering strokes.
She's never been touched like that. Never, not one person thought of gracing her with such loving care and gentleness when it came to late night intimacy. Not during the playful school-years spent with Mostima's gaze reflecting the twin moons' radiance, not during the long, Yanese mornings with all those faceless Lungmenites. The way Andy caressed her face, it felt... new. Completely and utterly new.
And yet,
She noticed his hesitation. The glimmer in his eyes, the unsaid deluges of pure, unbeknownst to him, unrequited love - all crawling from the deepest pits of his soul, all laid out plainly in the shimmering moonlight that cast its veil over the room. No other source of light existed, no other buzzing lightbulb dared break the moment. The city outside, the bustling labyrinth of concrete, steel and glass, it all died in that very moment, turned to ash and disappeared, leaving the apartment wrapped into a bubble of pure intimacy, where two lost children found themselves again, found one another in the other's eyes.
She knew they had to stop. Stop the flow of unspoken words, the stream of feelings rubbing across both their bodies with their fiery tongues that warmed them from the inside. Not a touch more, not a single gleam of hope in his glassy eyes.
So she took his hand. She took his hand and brought it to her side, just barely beneath her chest. As if working on pure instinct, the boy's fingers clinged to her sweater like a shipwrecked survivor's arms clutch to a piece of driftwood. He kept staring at her, mouth void of reason or pleading, eyes filled with seven years of longing and dreaming. The girl sighed.
Where does a body end? Where do the feelings begin?
She had to cut the life-pouring spring which let his gray ovals turn wet. The source of all the redness splattered over his cheeks, all the hesitance that came with all his touches.
She wanted him to forget who they were, even if just for that night. Let the alcohol take over, think of the repercussions later - later, when they're both sober and wide awake, both remembering the night as nothing but a quick and simple time of idyllic relief. Just a fling, no feelings involved.
Her fingers brought the bottle to her lips. With a little effort, given how much she's drunk already, Lemuel bit the cork off and flung it to the side. It didn't even matter what the substance lurking within was, all that she needed was for it to promise her a quick getaway into the better world that waited for those willing to pour liters of mind numbing mucus down their throats, to let that poison run through their veins like blood. She took a deep swig.
Andy watched in utter awe, caught up in the moment. His eyes widened at the sight, widened even further as she stopped to take a breath and swallowed the gulp without as much as a twitch of her face. A few droplets escaped her lips, made their way down her chin and disappeared further away, somewhere along the shaky contours of her collarbone. Andy stared. He stared at her skin, at the stuffy fumes surrounding both of them, at their invisible breaths mixing and embracing in the tiny ring crossed between both their mouths.
He gasped.
He gasped, as he felt her own warm fingers cradling the side of his neck. Slowly, up they went, creeping past his unshaven stubble tiny scars that spread everywhere across his face. Each of these imperfections told a story of its own, each had a reason and a meaning, a source and a memory attached.
Memories.
She couldn't bear looking at him for a prolonged period. Couldn't face the reality of having this wreck of a person straddled underneath her weight, the reality of pulling through with what she's planned, what her drunken mind thought would be the best for him.
He needed someone to hold onto and cherish, not a warm body for the night.
A mountain of warm puff to suffocate him from each side for the rest of his days, not a living statue taken off its mighty stool, to touch and caress for a few hours, before it turned back to a cold pillar of marble.
But that's all she had.
That's all she could give.
No love, no real warmth to envelop him in. Not a single embrace truly worth his life's struggle.
All she had was the bottle and his wide open eyes, that saw something within her that she herself couldn't.
She took a swig. A deep, hungry gulp. The alcohol burned its way down her throat, somehow numbing the pain and washing away all the ivory hands of guilt that crept up the fleshy walls. It felt good.
It felt numb.
That's how she needed to feel. That's how she needed him to feel.
Detached.
Away from it all.
Gone, lost in the poison's embrace.
With care and resignation in her gesture, Lemuel pressed the bottle's tip against his lips. He did not protest in any way, did not squirm or twitch when the fiery substance swam down his mouth, caressed his tongue and dripped onward, down his gullet. He did not jerk away when she lifted the bottle steeper, allowing more alcohol to stain his lips and innocence. He only leaned further in, basking in her touch.
That only made her feel even worse.
"Andy..." She whispered, her voice laced with any remaining crumbs of regret that hadn't yet been taken by the alcohol's numbing grasp. "... I need you to do something for me."
And he obeyed. Whatever she wanted, he would do without a question. At that very moment, nothing else existed but her - her legs around his thighs, her chest pressed to his sweater - her eyes bored deep into his, and the feeling of her fingers wrapped over his cheek. He gave a silent nod.
"... I need you to be someone else."
The words slithered past her lips and brushed past his earlobe. Like warm, sweet honey.
"Someone who isn't you."
Burning.
Scorching.
Honey.
"... I need you to pretend, Andy." Her voice asked, gentle, not pleading. Eager to explain, like the basics of algebra to a small child, the reason for which she needs him gone from his body, replaced with a flesh-hungry beast.
"I need you to feel nothing. Nothing, but me."
The flesh of her sweater strangled the very last bits of resistance swimming cross the empty plains that once housed his brain. The pitiful organ now laid curled in the corner, shriveled and dry, missing a busker to tap its keys.
"..." Nothing could he say. Nothing would fix the gnawing hole that she dug into his ventricles, the most secluded and guarded pieces of his heart, the ones that laid bare and open in front of no one but her. Just her.
Always her.
.
Andy shifted. He wanted to protest. To pipe up and wallow in seven year long pity, drown in the sea of tears he once spilled and left behind in a land torn by war - forgotten, long buried and dry. His hands reached forward, snaked around the girl's sweater and soaked in its softness.
This tiny, gray cat. A homeless stray.
He hugged her tight. Nestled his face, first into her shoulder, but the wool bit and tingled, so he moved to her neck. She did not protest even a bit, as he laid his worries to rest, buried into the side of her neck, where his lips latched onto her skin and refused to let go.
She felt warm against his weary eyes. So incredibly warm.
It could've been the alcohol. Could've been the surge of feelings.
Feelings. Where did they end? Where did her body begin?
The smell of her perfume wafted by his nose, teased his nostrils playfully and sent them sniffling to gather more. Soon, came the familiar scent of sweat, an inseparable companion of their summer-time escapades, the stench that Andy had long since learned to live with. It wasn't repulsive in the slightest, not at all. Her neck was soft. Her sweat was sweet. Her words, silent, as she reached for the back of his head and sunk her fingers deep into the lush forest of gray curls.
Their halos met. Rubbing off one another, gently bumping and touching, no Lawful force dared send even the slightest of shivers down their spines. Not now, not when she held onto his hair so gently, so delicately and carefully. Running her fingers across the messy, gray carpet, Andy couldn't help but close his eyes and soak in the closeness.
His lips caressed her skin gently, trailing up and down, even if just a little. Eyes closed, he couldn't see anything, couldn't do anything but feel her, just like she asked him to. His hands ran across her back, touched, grabbed, pressed down into each inch of her sweater, held onto her shoulders tight - almost as if afraid she'd disappear once his grasp falters.
Lemuel allowed her fingers to run across his hair a few more times, before they slid down to his cheek. She wanted something from him. Something, but what? A few hours of warmth, nothing else. A night to wash away whatever guilt she had left. To forget she sent him there, to flick the thought of being the cause of all his pain and suffering away.
Andy felt her touch. Warm, gentle against his skin. Without thinking, his lips pressed just one, final, parting kiss to her neck and slid away. Their eyes met.
Two apricots.
Two gray gems.
Lost in the world.
Found in their own reflection.
He stared at his own face, bounced back by her glassy mirrors. A little taller, courtesy of her position, Lemuel gazed right back, unable to stop cradling his head in her shaky arms. Bones like jelly, yet fit to hold him tight. She shifted. Went from close to suffocating. Pressed her hips close to his waist, entrapped his legs between hers, tight. Staring down into those colorless pools of uncertainty, the girl found herself unable to hold it together. There they were again, the tiny bruises and cuts, all peppering his skin like unwelcome zits and acne volcanoes - all reminders of the pain she once inflicted.
"... I said it would be fine. I let you leave."
Mere thoughts, strings of words that her voice refused to give life to and spread in the night air. It was all done, all gone now, now. Their memories were worth less than the dirt he spent countless nights sleeping on, than all the prayers she whispered in vain, all the words that fell on deaf ears.
So she decided to make these few count.
Carefully, she rubbed the palm of her hand against his face. Thoughtless, Andy nuzzled his cheek into her skin, like a stray clinging to its new owner - someone who cared enough to take it in and not kick across the street.
"Andy…" She began, voice nearly as quiet as the soft, subdued sounds of Lungmen's lively streets breathing outside their window. "... Do anything. Do anything you want. Whatever you desire, whatever you've had on your mind these past seven years."
These seven grueling years. The boy felt himself unable to gaze away. Those two apricot ovals had him captivated, locked in a cage with a key long thrown away, drowned in the river of tears that ran down from his tent each night. Each night he spent alone, yearning for the embrace of a girl he'd once called home, now turned to a night surrounded by nothing but her warmth. Her fingers were all over him - on his face, in his hair, on his skin, on his soul, tugging at his heartstrings like an elegantly love-struck harpist. Love-struck beyond belief, was he, himself.
.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
.
With each passing second, the heart beating unsteady deep in his chest sped up, pumped more crimson life-wine through his veins than ever before. He could have anything he wanted.
.
Anything.
.
Her.
.
Just her.
.
All to himself.
.
Not her body. Not her warmth, not the promises of soft flesh hiding beneath the woolen carapace, not the minutes of pure elation spent crawling between her legs. Not the corporeal person. The idea.
Where her body ended. Where did it even begin?
It began in front of him. It never crossed his mind. It never invaded his dreams clouded by superficial love born from pain and hurt, cold and rot. It began in his arms, as he held onto it tight and gazed upwards, let his eyes slide over each tiny dot that made up her skin. Each strand that made up her wine-red hair. Each little apricot that fell from a blooming tree and allowed its juice to be squeezed into her irises, to form this image of utter perfection.
Finger by finger, Andy placed his hand over her cheek.
It felt warm. It felt familiar. Like home.
Anything he wanted.
Everything he needed.
.
Just a whisper. A tiny, warm breeze.
.
.
"I love you."
.
.
Terra fell silent. The fowlbeasts roaming the night sky, hounds and creatures that prowled across the lands untouched by the modern man's hand - the cages of Feranmut bones, forests of dead skin and valleys of guts all spread out across the world. A single sound, the echo of his words, that's all that was left. Just a few soundwaves, an insignificant whisper bouncing across the false sky high above, across each fake star, basking in the twin moons' softened gazes. They grew dim, honoring the planet's silent pledge.
Nothing dared break the nothingness. The null void of sound. Nothing but a rustle. A gentle touch.
.
Lemuel stared back, silence lining her lips. At the words, her eyes jumped a little. Just a bit, just enough for the boy's heart to stop. There was no disdain in those apricot rings. No hatred, no disgust. Nothing but soft understanding.
Her eyes understood. Her mind processed, chewed the words through, but however it tried to approach the subject, each result boiled down to the very same bottom line.
Guilt.
Hurt.
Knowing that she shouldn't have ever heard those words. That they belonged to someone else, anyone but her. With a soft smile, the levees surrounding her pools of tears threatened to fall and let the eyes overflow. She shook her head and took his cheek in her hand once more.
.
"... Anything but that, Andy. Anything but that."
.
Each stroke of her palm soothed the heart. Covered it in balm and cooled, calmed it down, slowed down the rapid beats. Andy was left staring. Wordlessly wandering through her eyes, aimlessly searching for even a glimmer of hope, finding none. Like a naive child, desperately clinging to a memory, his gaze pierced hers - searching, looking. Finding nothing, doing anything but the dreamed up result. The opposite - scraping a barbed wire's entangling vines across the girl's heart.
.
.
"You can't say that, Andy." She whispered. "Promise you won't ever say those words to me, ever again."
.
.
The words lingered in the air. Two faces met in silence, closer than ever before.
Broken more than ever.
Voices, sweeter than ever.
.
The boy nodded. A part of him tore off, shriveled up and died. A part integral. Anesthetized by the alcohol and her warmth.
.
"I promise."
.
A gentle smile was all she gave. All he ever wanted to see.
.
"Good." She said. "Good."
.
It wasn't good. Nothing was good, and nothing ever would be. She knew it all too well, even despite the deluges of pure percentages spilling all across her organism.
But she'd make it better. She'd make it all better. There was a stranger in front of her. A boy she's just met tonight, someone she barely knew. A piece of fun. Some time to blow. A warm pillow to hold and hug, to caress and pamper, even if only for a few hours.
And in the morning?
In the morning, they would find themselves to be completely two different people.
Just fodder for the other's fingers. Food for their lips, instruments of pleasure.
.
"Good." She whispered, and closed her eyes.
.
Andy followed suit, as her breathing grew warmer and warmer on his mouth. The uncertain darkness enveloped him whole and offered its embrace for the weary soul to slump into. The boy caved and let it take him in.
.
Their lips met.
.
Skin against skin.
.
Wet with longing. Moist with the tears that had long been spilled, they found themselves in the other's embrace. And they fit like two puzzle pieces, perfectly designed to display a picture of blissful ignorance. A few shattered dreams, a sleeve of words cut apart.
.
Just two people pretending to be someone they're not.