fade away | {zoe/tris/dars}

[dars]

B R Y C E
breathe you in again
just to feel you

Mothers and Fathers want to raise good little darlings with good morals and good intentions. I was never that girl. I was never the sundresses and shy smiles. I was the life. I was the sunlight and the darkness all in one and I confused even myself with who I was: what I was.

But one thing was certain: I was not a good girl.

Which is why I found myself in clubs shrouded in smoke and the smell of spirits, surrounded by boys who would never care and girls who would care too much. I swallowed back the spirits and I let them touch my waist, and I danced to feel my heart thumping against my chest, danced along to it's always constant rhythm. And that is who I was in the night, when Mommy and Daddy Dearest laid their heads to sleep. Night was for me, day for them. I trained and I was a golden student and I did what I was meant to do in a place like One. And I watched my sister begin to hate me for being the robot she had always fought against becoming herself.

This was not the day, though.

This was the night.

My night.

And his name was Nathaniel, or so Petal said.

"Nathaniel Graives is staring at you." She said as we danced.

"Who?"

"Hot guy over by the bar. He's been watching you through the whole dance."

I saw him there, drink in hand, gaze against mine. "Damn." I said simply.

"He's like... the resident dream boat of District One. How have you never heard of him?"

"His name is Nathaniel?"

she nodded, bobbing in place as she sipped from a straw. She peered at me with a knowing gaze. "Well? Go talk to him! I'm gonna circulate." Before I could answer, she was on her way.

But I did as instructed. I flipped my hair and marched right over, finding myself a bit too close to him as I leaned across the bar and waved a twenty in the bartender's face. "Another, please?" We were lucky to have a haven like this, a place where alcohol was served without the need for identification, a place where we could become whomever we chose and in the morning, it was as if it had never happened.

"Whiskey, huh? Men only drink whiskey for one of two reasons: either to forget the crazy shit that's already happened in their lives, or to create more shit they wish they could forget. Which is yours?"

He was angled slightly away from me, a beautiful girl with dark hair and blue eyes on his other side. I guessed that perhaps I was stealing her thunder, but storms like me needed all the power they could get. Sorry, Pretty-girl. He was tall, with thick shouldes and curly dark hair and the kind of smile that would have made everyone -- even those who prided themselves on the disbelief of anything stronger than a night of fun like me -- weak in the knees and light on their toes. Petalite was right: he was a dreamboat. I just wondered if he was strong enough to handle the bad weather on the horizon.

"I'm Bryce." I said, extending a hand. "And you are Nathaniel Graives."

Mothers and Fathers wanted good children, and good children is what they thought they had. Bryson Graff was no good child. Bryson Graff was bad, an omen of bad fortune and a promise of one's wildest dreams. Bryson was no good child. Not on nights like these.

[✨ zozo.]

.: NATHANIEL  GRAIVES :.

My father raised me on the finer things in life and my mother taught me the beauty of compassion. I taught myself to pick and choose between the two (and anything else in this world) as I please. Whiskey in one hand and a poor lost girl by my side, I balance in-between as both of my parents' child.

"So we've got the druggos over there" I explain between sips, pointing with one finger and leaving the others to balance the glass in my hands. "Stay away from them if you'd like to remain in this dimension - unless that's your thing." I wouldn't know. The girl was a stranger before tonight and I have a habit of picking up the lost souls and taking them under my wing, but the thing about doing any sort of business with strangers is that you have to build trust, something I don't give lightly but earn as quickly as the night ends. She called herself Maisie and kept babbling about her lost sister and a spark flared up in my mind. Show her the ropes and leave her to cut herself loose, and make sure she doesn't wander into the wrong sort of crowd while she's at it.

"Fight club" I nod to the loiterers outside, made of charcoal and blood not fit for a world of diamonds and glass in a room like this. A wave of bouncing heads and tell-tale genetics pumped up on a mixture of expensive wine and neglected parenting were crowned "Rich Kid Careers" - fellow comrades of the night and the battlefield of One. A red-head climbs up onto the highest point she can find and gets the crowd screaming with excitement as she dares to jump into the sea of people and I smirk - "Crazies. Led by Lia Irvine - she's mad, yet impossibly normal at the same time."

I cannot think of where else her mystery sister may be - if she even exists. There's something strange about this girl with the wide blue eyes like a little kid from Twelve caught in the wrath of a ravenous career, but strange isn't boring. Strange is interesting and fascinating and a distraction from the shitheads around here who think that they're better than everyone else. "Preps" I continue, eyes trailing disinterested until they fall on a piece of art that reminds me of-

I can't even think of her name.

I won't.

(I don't want to think about her anymore but I can't stop.)

I didn't mean to cut my tour of the social scene short but my glass hovers empty beneath my chin and a work of art brings herself forward. "Looks like you'll get to meet one yourself" I muse to Maisie, eyes not moving from the approaching storm.

"Men only drink whiskey for one of two reasons: either to forget the crazy shit that's already happened in their lives, or to create more shit they wish they could forget. Which is yours?"

I grin. "I suppose it's a bit of both. I sort of have a strange interest in crazy - isn't that right Maisie?" Whether she heard me and felt my elbow in her side or not. I am caught between two opposites, two disasters, two potential landslides, two mysteries I want to chase, and feel myself slipping between the cracks they've caused. 

"I'm Bryce. And you're Nathaniel Graives."

I am impressed, to say the least. Returning the handshake but not leaving the side of the dark-haired stranger, I feel a deal of sorts constructing itself between us. "I see you've done your research. Or at least," raising my eyebrows and flicking back to the crowd of girls and glasses of alcohol, "Petalite Shore has."

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

MAISIE HARMON-FRAY

---

(When a child goes from living in the slums of One, to spending the majority of her life in a community home, and then finding herself thrust into a life of splendors and grandiose living -- fuck, it isn't easy.)

Kellan had insisted that I accompany him to the club, telling me that I hadn't had the full 'rich bitch' experience until I downed shot after shot and woke up in a stranger's bed, to which I was more or less confused, but decided to go along with. There was still tension between the two of us, what with I suddenly appearing in his life without much of an explanation, but there was a certain easiness to our friendship. Perhaps it was due to my reserved nature, as unlike the other thousands of girls in this damned district, I had yet to desperately fling myself into his embrace. I snickered at the thought, and though he was truly a golden specimen of chiseled looks, I found our relationship easier as simply friends.

He smiled when we entered the club, outstretching his arms with a satisfied nod. He made a comment on how tonight was packed, full of many interesting faces, and I found myself pressing closer to his form to dodge the many flailing arms around me. "This is fun to you guys?" I asked, eyes nearly on the verge of tears due to the flashing lights around us. He chuckled, leading us farther in, and I followed him blindly. He pointed out various people -- some girl with fiery locks that he called Lia, a blonde girl that I think was called a Petal, a girl with dark hair and a sour expression that he called Amira, and I even had to watch as he noticed his sister in the crowd, standing with some Devereaux and Shore. I couldn't read his expression regarding it, but eventually we were on our way to the bar, before-... Well, I wasn't sure what the Hell happened, but suddenly a girl with hair like midnight was passionately locking lips with a girl who looked like she was nearly about to shit herself.

"Pyrite?" Kellan said, and I couldn't decipher whether he was surprised or intrigued. "Hey, Maisie," he went on as he turned in my direction, and I thought he was about to introduce me. "You go on, okay? I'll be a minute," he finished, and though I opened my lips to argue against being left behind, he turned his back to me, and the girl with piercing blue eyes shot me a narrow glare. I awkwardly scratched at my arm, backing away and nearly bumping into a server.

"Shit! Sorry! So sorry!" I said, reaching out to offer him some balance, but he caught his footing and shrugged me off. A few people around me laughed, and I brought a hand up to my face as I worked through the crowd, eventually finding solace leaning on a wall. I sighed, a boy beside me. He chuckled, introducing himself as Nathaniel, and I guess that my bewildered features must have been entertaining for him. He asked what I was doing once he got my name, and the thought of admitting that I had been ditched by Kellan fucking Fray wasn't too appealing. "I'm looking for my sister," I partially lied, and he asked for a basic description of her looks. I had laughed, before biting my lip and swallowing, not having an answer. "Like-... Like me," I said, an awkward pause finding a way between my words. He had quirked a brow, and I eventually confessed that this was my first time anywhere like this, to which the conversation thankfully shifted to him finishing up the tour that Kellan had cut off.

He pointed out various groups, and I nodded along to the movement of his finger. Once he got to the group of prissy girls and a few boys, however, I noticed him pausing. A girl with silky blonde hair and eyes that could cut stone approached us, striking up a conversation with Nate, as he had urged me to call him, and completely ignoring my presence. (Fuck -- just like the same shit with Kellan.) After uncomfortably listening in on the chat as I tried to disappear into the wall behind me, I felt Nate's elbow jab my side. I laughed, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "Yeah, Nate loves crazy shit," I said, trying to go with the flow, before pursing my lips at how graceless I was. I tried to recover, outstretching a hand to the blonde girl.

"I'm Maisie. Uh-... Nice to meet ya, Bryce." My hand remained suspended in the air between us, and I said a prayer that the night would end soon, and that I would get the chance to fucking throttle Kellan after this shit.

[dars]

B R Y C E
breathe you in again
just to feel you

Maisie.

I seemed to recall hearing that name once before. My eyes narrowed with focus, my mind searching for any time the name "Maisie" might have come up. I guessed Petal would probably know her, as Petal seemed to know everyone. But no conversation surfaced in my brain.

Colby was always going on about the company she kept, and Maisie certainly looked the type with dark hair and, frankly, too much eyeliner. But still, nothing came to mind.

Maybe I had only over-heard a conversation at school or at the tra-

No.

I was twelve, or maybe eleven. My parents were drinking white wine with their dinner while Colby told them about her first day at the Middle-School Training Academy when Mom gasped and shook her hand to silence Colby. "Alec, have I told you the news I got from the Moreno family?"

"No, why?"

"The girl they adopted... Eden... No, Edith? Something of the sort. They found her mother dead yesterday morning."

Little me cringed, and sipped my soup. Death was still an uncomfortable subject for me at that age. I had not yet realized it was a part of life, potentially a part my very own life that would happen a lot sooner than I would hope if my name were reaped and I were unprepared. I was the prey then, grazing and beautiful and strong but with no way to show it. (I am certainly happy things have changed.)

"That's terrible!" said Father.

"Apparently they asked the Morenos if they had any interest in a second daughter she had... Maisie, I believe. They said no, poor soul."

I hoped this girl was not the same girl. I hoped her life had not been such an unfortunate event.

I looked up at Nathaniel, whom I was certain had noticed me glaring at the girl. "You're smart," I retorted. "She decided I should talk to you." Not that I wouldn't mind, I almost added, but something about Maisie stopped me. The way she kept her arms folded over her chest and her gaze on the ground, how she spoke with such a mousy tone. Yes, this was the girl my parents had been talking about all those years ago.

Suddenly, talking to Nathaniel seemed almost depressing. Did he know? Was I even sure I did? I decided to press on a bit further and see. "She seems to think you were watching me dance." And if Petal was right, at least it meant he wasn't in some kind of relationship with Maisie. Or perhaps he was, but he was not satisfied, which made me feel a bit better.

I didn't know why, but the idea of making things any harder on a girl who may or may not have had one of he worst childhoods I could think of was not interesting to me. For someone who was supposed to have no heart, I felt it beating all the way into my throat when I looked back at her.

"Have we met before?"

[✨ zozo.]

.: NATHANIEL  GRAIVES :.

"She seems to think you were watching me dance."

Well shit. Petalite Shore isn't half as dateless as she acts.

"She's not wrong." I swallow down my thoughts the second they threaten to leave my lips as I'm sure they'd send this girl scurrying back to her clique and I would be left with regret in my throat and an empty glass. I'm getting used to people leaving and whiskey tastes more like water these days but old habits die hard and I plan to leave this earth on top of the world, not buried 6 feet under with a bottle clutched in my hand.

"Glad to see we're all acquainted." My lips find the glass, again, and there's only so much liquid left in this tumbler for me to pass the seconds with. Eyes dart between Bryce and Maisie and the blur of bodies around us and for the first time in my life I am yearning for the comforts of silence rather than the social scene. 

There is tension on my tongue salvaged from the space between the two girls beside me, hands outstretched and nerves on high. Vibrations escape through the floor and into my body, tempos rattling my bones and singing my veins until I am forced to set another empty glass down and step in between them, grabbing both of their hands and grinning. "Well then let's go dance. C'mon ladies."

The heart of the night and the pulse of whiskey-filled youth collide with the crowds and I let the music take us with the current.