the scarlet heartbeat; lucas & sierra [frankel]

[kousei ♚]

but no one knows you better

Envy.

You feel it lacing up your bones, gripping your throat through the window as you watch the younger children walking home, their parents hands safely wrapped around theirs. You reach out, gently placing your fingers along the glass pane and listening to their laughter. Truth be told, you're used to this hurt; it's a primitive feeling pulsating out from the center of your chest to the edges of your fingertips. It's primitive, the white urge to be close to someone because you know that you belong to a social species by nature. It hurts you to be isolated even though you've done all you can to stop that from being the case.

You were cosine at times like this, starting at a high point before everything came crashing down to maximum displacement every time you caught a glance of the school opposite you and saw parents taking their children home. This is a familiar feeling to you, the first few years since you came to this place you would stare outside the window and hold back floods of salted tears because you didn't want to look weak when no one was watching.

Now you don't have to hold back blue floods and red tears; your mother and father have been reduced to shadows on the walls, slinking into corners and relegated to the permanent position of resting in the back of your mind.

Still, they were more once, you remember that they were warmth against your soft skin.

You were those children, once. You were those boys with their father's ruffling their hair and making them laugh, you were children with scrapes on their knees and telling their mothers about how brave they were even though they probably sobbed from the shock of watching their blood spill. You had a safety net, an escape route from the nightmares and you still held onto the dreams they planted into your heard and the values they instilled into your mind. Compassion, intelligence, cunning -- you still don't forget.

Despite the fact that you've reduced them to shadows on the walls, the remains of your sunlight. You're almost a grown man, seventeen years old and verging the coming of age and manhood but you still crave company and attention even though you would never admit it to anyone but yourself. Well, that's half true because you can count the people you would dare admit it to on the ridges on one finger but you haven't, and you wonder if that's due to a lack of bravery or a lack of courage.

You stand and turn your back to the shadows biting in the back of your mind. You are no longer a children but a boy on the verge of manhood and the sight of the more fortunate doesn't have to turn you into strip you of your high points. You could let your mood rise to the top and stay there; you could be tangent if you wanted to.

Your steps across the creaking floorboards have purpose but no direction. You just walk as quick as you can, you just want to get away from the envy that threatens to erupt from your chest and ruin the calmness you'd planted there to bloom. So you find yourself past your possessions and out of the doorway and you just walk and walk.

You stop when the red flare in Sierra's hair catches the corner of your eyesight.

Sunlight spills from the windows and coats her form hunched over a desk and it looks just right. You tell yourself to move on because the pang of frustration that overcomes you when cuts through the foundations to your concentration with idle chit chat is not new to you. However, while you can likely guess what she's looking at, you let curiosity overcome you -as any good scientist should- and find yourself drawn towards her like a moth to a flame.

You ignore the awkward feeling that used to overtake you by the floorboards creaking with every slow and awkward footstep because eleven years here hasn't taught you nothing. When you find yourself behind her your hands falls lightly on her shoulder. "Hey Sierra," you say softly, losing yourself when you let your hand just stop and sit there for a few seconds longer than it should before it finds itself on the edge of her desk. "What're you working on? Anything good?"

The papers you catch in the corner of your eye answers that question for her.

Table: Briar

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

S I E R R A

I am being crushed.

For eleven years, these four walls have grown smaller and I have grown bigger. A juvenile spirit has escaped and now a young woman with responsibilities has replaced her. It is all stacked on my back and I don’t feel it getting any lighter. Help is everywhere in these four falls, tucked away in rooms along the corridor but effort comes with knocking on their door. An effort that should bring relief but instead I get the opposite. All I can do is wait, wait for the respite to come knocking on my own door.

Six years old and all I had to do was cry, and mother would come running with her aid. Everything was so simple then, defenceless and yet everything was so easy. I really do not understand how it can be that way. All the tools to survive are within these four walls and still, they sit protected in a glass cabinet. Not even a speck of dust invades their crevasses. It is clear they have never been handled, a history of smudged fingerprints should coat them but they look well-greased. Tools I can so easily reach, the key is around my neck and I daren’t twist the lock. I have the tools to get the tools but I predict when the time comes, I will just end up breaking the lock open.

Answers, answers, answers.

It is obvious what has caused all this. Stacked with my tear stained tissues are scrunched up theories on what route to take next. Living in a conspiracy, there are so many players in this game and not a single one of us as the manual to play it That is what my life has resolved around now, in times between comforting the new ones that come through the doors and going to school, I sit on this chair and allow my brain to work its magic. There is just one thing, after all these years, I am still stuck in the same place.

The ones that know, we have combined our ideas and slowly, the pieces have come together. Little snippets of information, leading one path to another and connecting loose ends. Tales of one family, somehow concluding with another, a pattern that links all the events together. Parents stolen from their children, even some siblings have been caught in the crossfire. So many different methods of each demise and still, they all have their similarities.

Every little event is building up a web; we just need to find the spider that is constructing it.

There is never silence, it is a comfort really, and at least I know I am not alone. Mindless wandering, apparent by the thuds up the stairs and the cry of the old floorboards, desperate for repair. One day I am going to tear up that worn grassy carpet and tend to the begging of the ancient house. At least those living within it are maintained, welcoming hands in a time of need; their constant kindness in these eleven years is growing suspicious. I hear of the painful lives of the children in the other orphanages but everything is so diverse here, it is almost unrealistic.

A great canvas sits on my desk, almost completely covering the surface. I have drawn up the web in pencil, so many smudged grey marks are scattered across it, where mistakes once laid. Although I am certain that the whole lot is totally wrong. It is not complete, I wonder if it will ever be completed…ever.

My mind wanders to the broken project that holds the canvas to the table, a clock that no longer ticks and has decided to step two hours into the future. If only I could wind a clock and everything would go back to that day. Instead of piecing puzzles together about their death, I could just stop it before it even happened.

"Hey Sierra,” Gentle hands on my shoulders accompany the greeting of a familiar voice and a warm sensation runs throughout my body, during the time that they rest there. "What're you working on? Anything good?" Lucas’ question, I have heard it so many times.

He has always been a part of it, we arrived the same year and we have grown together. So many days spent together, living in the same house and unlike so many of the other veterans of this orphanage, I do not see him as a brother. Just a friend with so many common interests, he is the knock of help that I have been yearning for all day.

”Oh it is just a timeline of all the de…events.” I rarely ever refer to them as deaths, they are so much more than that. ”I am certain that I am missing a few but yeah, it really doesn’t matter.” I turn my body towards him while still sitting on the chair; I need just a little break from all of this. ”Well anyway, do you need anything?” His presence is a blessing but there must be a reason for him being here.

[kousei ♚]

but no one knows you better

You ran out of tears when you met Bellamy and Sierra.

The final stage of grief, acceptance and sometimes you wonder if you skipped over to the stage too soon. Sometimes it felt wrong that you could simply run out of tears and bury the sound of your mother and father calling from their graves getting lost in the eyes of some boy, a friend even. You know nothing could happen there but he still complimented time perfectly; he accelerated your healing, binding up the weeping wounds those bullet holes left despite the fact you know that he could never do it for the people who's skin the bullet actually touched.

You're left with scars now, ugly and twisted scars but they're painless now and that's all that matters.

Whenever you find Sierra hunched over her desk in her kingdom of papers and clues, a part of you becomes afraid. A part of you becomes afraid that she'll uncover something, that she'll come running into your room with the name and address of the people who killed your parents and maybe hers too. You're afraid that might mean her dragging you to the peacekeepers in an attempt to find justice and failing that, you're even more afraid that she may convince you and Bellamy to go confronting the killers yourself. You're afraid of what that might bring, what will be in their eyes when they realize they missed a target and what their reasoning might be for putting a bullet through your father's mind and another one into your mother's heart.

A part of you is afraid that she'll re-open eleven year old scares you previously thought were sealed shut and watch you bleed. That maybe if she digs deep enough you may realize that you're not this empty bucket of bolts that only knows Cartesian and numbers, that the two of you may discover that you didn't run out of tears to cry when you met Bellamy and that big boys can cry after all. Big boys don't cry. You repeated that to yourself in the night.

But when you look into her eyes, you feel the same thing you felt all those years ago when you looked into Bellamy's eyes, wanting to say the same things you could never bring yourself to say because he was your friend. You could never say them anyway, it's not like that between you and her or him and you and it never could be. Still, you don't have the heart to tell her to move on as you did and tell her to simply burn the paper trails.

"Oh it is just a timeline of all the de…events." She answers a question you already know the answer to, it was a silly question anyway. You only not in response, unsure of what to say when you're caught in these kinds of situations. ”I am certain that I am missing a few but yeah, it really doesn’t matter.”

No, it doesn't and that is something the two of you can agree on.

"I guess." And you leave it at that, unsure of what else to truly say next. But she turns around, while sitting on her chair and she just stops and looks and you don't know what to say before she does.

"Well anyway, do you need anything?" She asks.

You always hated being put on the spot and the situations that could arise. You've always been a thinker and in a split second you've always been able to reason the possibilities of anything you say possibly being able to break down everything you've spent eleven years trying your absolute hardest to build and maintain. Sometimes, you would wish you were sunlight. Simply being able to slip through the cracks within the walls and running across someone's fingers, wrapping around them and never seeing them again.

But not now, never now.

"I was just around and I just felt like I needed to see you, I mean, I wanted to see you." You say, smiling and rubbing the back of your neck with your fingers because despite the sense of calm your friends bring to your heart, even you can feel the nerves when you're faced with actual people as opposed to objects and numbers. "Do you want to do something else? You look like you could use someone to take your mind off stuff." You follow your question with an explanation and almost kick yourself but you find yourself still smiling softly anyway. "Yeah, I just wanted to see you."

You were looking for a route away from envy and you think you may have found it sitting on this chair.

Table: Briar

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

S I E R R A

Six years of memories, captured in just one picture.

Both of their eyes watching, every minute that I am awake and asleep. Smiles rinsed in pride as they look to their creation that is cradled in mother’s arms. Just weeks old and it looks like my existence was a blessing to them. I was in their company for six years; did they ever smile at me like that again? These are memories washed away by the horrors of reality. It is hard to salvage the good days when their departure is the only thing that circulates in my mind.

Can I even remember the sound of their voice?

All this digging, hours spent at my desk when I should be sheltered in my blankets, will it answer all of my questions? Wasted hours and an addiction that is crumbling my insides, the final destination is so far ahead. I had to replace the mirror at my desk with the photograph, one glance up and the scary reminder of my efforts was the thing that greeted me. I don’t know how long it can go on for, through my adulthood…to my old age? There is doing my parents proud and there is wasting away the years of my life. The limit is somewhere and it feels like I am already creeping up to it.

Hoards of papers, substitutes of pillows, there have been many mornings where I have woken up in a pile of them. I don’t even know if the others do the same. Bellamy and Lucas, truly the only ones who I can share a common ground with. One similarity is shared amongst the children under this roof but there is some different, something more compelling about the two boys close to my age. We have shared days and hours, nights searching for answers that have led nowhere. Emotions have entwined the three of us together, be it frustration or joy.

Their company is the only thing keeping the lamp on my desk lit.

It isn’t just me who has endured the great loss; I need to fight on for them. Answers may remain hidden for me but there will be a sense of accomplishment if I can just unlock one door, for Lucas or Bellamy. One thing can lead to another, one door always opens another.

Warmth trailed in with Lucas as he arrived, my eyes don’t leave his as he speaks. A peculiar sensation marches across my stomach, maybe the cravings are sparking up. It has been over an hour since my lance inhale of the deadly toxin. That must be the reason for the burning on my cheeks, or maybe the fireplace down the hall way is scorching. Excuses float in the air; I just need to catch the most valid one.

"I was just around and I just felt like I needed to see you, I mean, I wanted to see you." It is hard to reel in the smile that enslaves my face as he signs off the sentence. The warmth on my cheeks spread, I take a glance down at the floorboards, something to mask the embarrassment that is beginning to project in the room. His smile mirrors mine as I glance back up, this is unlike him. "Do you want to do something else? You look like you could use someone to take your mind off stuff."

I turn my head to the piles of work; the thought of abandoning them replaces the emotions that I was enjoying with displeasure. I have so many hours to work on them surely I can’t… "Yeah, I just wanted to see you."

Those last words compel me to my feet, not even a suggestion on what to do and I am stood close to Lucas, our faces within inches of each other. ”What were you thinking?” I pass the baton back to him; any idea is crushed with this burning sensation that begins to rise up my body. ”Be good to take a break from all of this, just for a couple of hours.”

All I can do is surrender to him, my fate is in his hands and all I can do is follow.

[kousei ♚]

but no one knows you better

You see pain behind those beautiful eyes.

Perhaps that's the downfall of being so observant, possessing the ability to read between the faintest lines and notice the most obscure pattern. Years of looking at your tear stained eyes behind a mirror led you to learn. You learned that perhaps there is more to the function of eyes than just fleeting sight, that a person's eyes can show you more than just the genetics that carried them -- they can show you the remnants of a fleeting galaxy. Emotions clustered like stars, thoughts orbiting the sun; a supernova could easily show anger and a black hole could easily show despair.

You know you looked like that in the past, and you find yourself wondering if you still do. Perhaps the light of your sun did not bathe over every single black hole that would presume to swallow you and plunge you into despair -- moving on couldn't be so easy it was done with time after all.

You see it behind the glare of Sierra's fiery hair and behind the steel gaze of Bellamy's eyes. Were you ever much better?

You wanted to believe you were more than just deep space in their absence, that you could be more than a void without your fathers hands in your hair and you mother's lips against your forehead. Perhaps that's why Sierra's paper trails terrify you, they reminded you of what you lost and they reminded you of who you were and what were growing to be. Yet you would never have the heart to try and pull her from it completely, only distract her from it temporarily. Maybe one day, once you had gotten past all the scrapes on your skin, you could all fill deep space with something other than emotional clusters, supernovas and black holes.

It's easier to just dispel the thoughts and undertones and think about what you see on the surface, not behind Sierra's eyes. So you focus on the way her skin burns a shade of red and her gaze darts down as if trying to hide it from you as you speak. You regret it, the way she buries her gaze behind her hair because you like her smile. You only saw it for a split second but you already miss her smile.

You end your sentence awkwardly but don't flinch when she leaps up like a jack-in-the-box toy your father bought you for your fourth birthday. You surprisingly don't flinch when her eyes meet yours, nose almost touching yours and she speaks. ”What were you thinking?” She asks and her breath lingers, a mix of roses, mints and nicotine. ”Be good to take a break from all of this, just for a couple of hours.”

You always hated the way your friends could make you feel like an idiot, you never dared to doubt your intelligence before you met Bellamy and Sierra. Moments like this make you because you acted on irrational impulse the moment you caught sight of her red hair in the corner of your eye. You didn't think this through, not what you would've done if she declined and certainly not what she would've done if she said yes.

You're not used to people saying yes.

"I... you're..."

you smile.

"Your skin looks like your hair when you blush." You say, nose inches from hers.

Thank fuck you're a quick thinker and you know when to take advantage of it. "I have a few ideas," you smile with your reply. Perhaps now's the time to thank those years of careful saving, finding coins on the ground and being given the sporadic pieces of cash for anything. "Fresh air, that's always good."

Outdoors. People like the outdoors, even you when you grow weary of formulas and Diophantine equations. It sounds like a good idea in your head so you decide to make it a reality, just like that.

"C'mon, let's go."

You take her hand in yours and it feels like sunshine in your fingertips.

Table: Briar

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

S I E R R A

It’s a heavy world.

Nobody has the shoulders to hold it up, temporary supports and the bodies of the weak, it is how the predator uses the pray. The rich manipulating the poor, one always falls but there is always another to replace it. No matter what I do, there is always the crushing feeling on my back. I have nobody to be my support. I am just one of the many thousands of weak bodies, waiting to be replaced by the next.

My nineteenth birthday will be soon, my time in this solitude will be over. More weight to carry, it will start to collapse then. Who can I rely on when it is the time for me to take it all alone? Lucas and Bellamy, friends now but will they follow me on the next journey? It is the future that worries me. If only I could slow down time – even better, go back in time. I know my enemy, a force that can never be controlled, not by some hollow lazy mind like me anyway.

Drowning in my own work, these trails of paper, I don’t even know where they are leading me. Right now they are my support of the world, a temporary measure that can so easily be knocked over. I haven’t reached the dead end but it is coming and I haven’t even prepared myself for it. I am stuck in an abyss with no escalations. One piece of information leads me to the next but then it just takes the same route back to square one. So much help surrounds me but the weight of the world is crushing us, there will be a time when it needs to stop. I will have to watch the embers engulf this hoard of paper and let it vanish into the past like my parents.

Lucas could be my support in this world.

Everyone needs a friend and here I have one in front of me, so clearly eager to be in my company. So many hours spent in this room, I could have nurtured our friendship. It really surprises me that he and Bellamy even give me the light of day. The daily good morning and good nights, something I salvage every day.

My feet spring from the chair, as if relieved to finally be standing after being inactive for so long. The burning on my cheeks is hard to tackle, his company is engulfing me. Manipulating my emotions and hypnotising my body, I relish in the pleasures but it frightens me. Will these feelings be a distraction to the priority cause?

"I... you're..." His hesitation fixates my eyes onto is, we are inches apart, I can feel his breathe on my skin. It marches across the surface of my cheeks, a warm sensation but it sends chills down my arms.

"Your skin looks like your hair when you blush." The smile grows on my cheeks; he isn’t tackling the fire inside of me but adding to the inferno. I am not experienced enough in this; I remain silent and resist looking to the door. A yearning to escape but the addiction to this brewing emotion is keeping me firmly stood in front of him.

I wait for his ideas, clearly he stepped through this door on a whim so casual with no plans organised. Did he just want to be with me or does he actually want to do something? "Fresh air, that's always good."

Even these emotions are not burying the cravings that have been calling out to me, the shameful addiction that I am sure not even my parents took part in. There is no fresh air in District Three so it is courtesy to mix the smog filled oxygen with the toxins on tobacco as they enter my lungs.

Lucas takes my hand and I surrender to him guiding me out of this sanctuary that I call home. Our locked hands add intensity to the emotions, I don’t want to ever let go.

”Let’s go to the rooftop of the old factory nearby – you can see most of the District from there. “ My suggestion is meaningless. As long as I am with him, anywhere is a blessing to me.

[kousei ♚]

but no one knows you better

"Let’s go to the rooftop of the old factory nearby – you can see most of the District from there."

You never went out much; you and your parents.

It's no longer difficult to swallow the lump in your throat that forms and the tears that well in your eyes when you feel the phantom touch of your mothers fingers in your hair, and your once chubby cheeks gripped between thumbs and index fingers. It's not difficult to bite back the envy that swells red in your chest when you spot children trudging home from school, their hands taken in their mother and father's hands with smiles on their faces. It's not difficult to be outside anymore, you have no parents telling you it's dangerous and no risk of tears at the sight of happiness out of your reach.

You focus on the red flare in Sierra's hair, the sparks from the touch of her hand in yours and the smile rimmed by the way her cheeks flush red. You know the place she's talking about so you guide her there, never letting the smile drop from your face. You count the seconds between your fragile steps, wondering if the ground would shake and your body would fly up with bed sheets and a sweaty pillow. This has to be a dream.

Right?

One second you were just there. Sierra was there and Bellamy wasn't -- you simply existed with the beauty of your organs and your functioning brain. You never dared think of Sierra that way, she was lost in this space of hers. So blind to the bright moon and stars that surrounded her and choosing to focus on the darkness of black holes and the destruction of supernovas and comets. You saw Sierra and you saw yourself and you just coexisted; wandering within the same orbit but never meeting at that periapsis because that common ground was never there.

And then it was.

It's never felt more right.

You've lost count of seconds and footsteps when you make it to the top of that abandoned factory but you don't lose her. Her fingers are still entwined with yours and her hand still sits warm in yours. You peer into the distance, spotting black rustic clouds slowly float into the atmosphere. You never minded, the way smoke from factories would slowly erode the district from the inside out. It reminded you of cigarette smoke and nicotine.

"You know, I never liked coming her back in the day," You say softly, not meeting her gaze and keeping your vision focused on the smoke in the distant factory. "You could see everything but it was silent, void and unsightly," You explain, letting you eyes follow a smoke cloud rise into the distant skies. "But now I don't think I mind it, I kinda like it even."

You wonder why.

(But it's obvious, stupid)

You turn, letting your eyes fall onto her, your soft smile still intact.

"I think everything's just better when you're with people you care about."

A pure pulse, a heavy heartbeat, a nervous smile -- this reminds you of Bellamy.

(But much, much better)

Table: Briar

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

S I E R R A

Broken places, the only place of sanctuary in this collapsing world.

Rustic features and dust as thick as the walls, all with their own story to tell. Three has always been an unhealthy District; I have no pride in the surroundings I live amongst, just the people within it. Could I go back to my home? Hinges no longer supporting doors, windows smashed by vandals and anything of value swiped away years ago. Every bit of my history, salvaged by another; as long as it has gone to a good cause. I carried all that was precious to me to my new home and now I have found more gifts.

One has his fingers locked with my own.

I surrender to his grip; I am floating in the air as he navigates to our destination. Lost into the sight of him, he is the one that dominates my thoughts. All that surrounds us is a blank memory, he could be taking me anywhere but I would still follow. There is no remedy for the burning in my cheeks; the symptoms will last until he is out of my head. Even away from my company, the thought of the male I have spent most of my life with sends my emotions into a frenzy.

Nobody has brought me anywhere like this before, I don’t think anyone has made me feel the same too. Locked up feelings, fear keeps them hidden within but my body is leaking them; slowly trickling emotions, revealed by every rosy blush on my cheeks and smile on my lips. There is warmth pulsating from our touch, prancing up my arm and triggering the pounding in my chest.

"You know, I never liked coming here back in the day," His words are soft and I look at him, his gaze is not on my own, a slight disappointment that I beg for. Just one connection of his eyes with my own, something to spiral the frenzy that is swirling in my stomach; an untested remedy that I am begging for. "You could see everything but it was silent, void and unsightly," My gaze drops from him to the view, a far expanse of life, distorted by the thick smoke of the working factories. A toxin, ready to swipe away every living thing with its little finger; a force likely similar to the one that erased our parents from the world.

Finally, his gaze falls onto my own. I am left in silence, fighting hard to pull together words, without making a fool of myself. I can predict the hesitation before my mouth is even open.

"I think everything's just better when you're with people you care about."

His words keep the smile permanent onto my face, little hints on whether the emotions inside of me are within him too. Such a hard investigation, to figure out what someone else is feeling. Maybe I should return home and pull out the pieces of paper, detective work that has gotten me nowhere in all these years.

”You…you care about me?” The words drop from my lips, too fast for me to rope them back in. The question feels wrong and it a process to try and amend them. ”I mean, yes I feel the same.”

Hesitation is my enemy today but I have to fight it, through the thick smog of the emotions that are slowly causing me to malfunction.

”About the view, I never really liked it before too…”

[kousei ♚]

I wanna dance I wanna dance, dance, dance with you- you So, take a chance

You were cosine during your first kiss.

You were a boy then, fifteen, and still fresh-faced and in a lot of ways loss was still a raw wound on your skin, not the twisted scar it remains as today. One hand tangled with your unkempt hair and another pulled you towards him by your hip and you were windswept by his touch but anchored to reality all at once. You never knew what to do with your hands, so you let them hang limp and idle at your sides; you were half terrified he would pull away and half hoping he would. Despite this, you were still at a high -- you were still at your point of maximum and you could never see yourself falling.

And yet you did. You opened your eyes and saw a boy that wasn't Bellamy, only a carbon copy that looked like him. You didn't see the galaxies and fireworks in his eyes the way you saw Bellamy's, you just saw green eyes and a strong jawline -- close but not quite. So, as your smiled and told him "that was great" your heart still sunk to the bottom of your rib cage and you couldn't understand why. He was a year older than you, he was strong, dark and handsome and you couldn't saw a flaw in the way he held you.

So you told yourself you'd keep seeing him and your feelings went through that cyclic motion, you were always cosine. Always at a high point when you first looked into his eyes, when you first kissed him and he touched you. Then you always fell and your minimum point would rush upwards to meet you when you pulled away and you saw who he was and realized who he wasn't. You told yourself you would keep seeing him -- (I don't have a chance with Bellamy anyway) and no amount of thick tears would change that fact. You told yourself you'd keep seeing him.

Until you weren't.

Fast forwards two years and here you stand, someone else's hand in yours and a thousand butterflies fluttering in your chest. Your gaze meets with her and you forget the smoke that surrounds you. Instead, you're left with the orange flare in her hair and the shadow smile on her lips. Her cheeks burn red and the beat of a thousand wings beat from within your glass chest. "You…you care about me?" She asks, tumbling over her words and you're shocked for a moment.

"Of course I do." Is the first response you muster, wondering how she could think otherwise. You didn't have a single bone of apathy in your body, your father taught you that you were a genius but your mother held you close and made sure your foundations were built on empathy. Perhaps that's what made it easy to get hurt, once someone saw past the numbers and the induction they found it easy to borrow into your heart and steal it away. Yet somehow, you didn't care until you hurt.

"I mean, yes I feel the same."

About what?

You fight the urge to make a smug comment in return -yeah, I know you do- and you just stand and watch the hesitation in her words. It's a flicker in the dark but your attention is drawn to it like a moth towards a bright flame. ”About the view, I never really liked it before too…” Her voice trails off and you're not convinced the view is all she cares about.

You want to tell yourself no, because by the calculated risk assessment you'll be cosine all over again by the end of this. That no matter how close to sunshine she is, no matter what spark runs through your fingertips when your hands touch hers, that the fact that she's not him will always keep you from coming tangent. That once you go up, you're doomed to come back down, not rise to infinity and stay there. You'll never escape the cyclic motion of pain because was your heart ever yours to give?

"Yeah..." Your voice trails off and you don't dare finish your sentence ("maybe we should go") because you don't want to be cosine and you don't want to be sine. You're tired of rising only to crash when you realize you would never be with him.

You want to rise to infinity because you realize you could be with her.

So you turn your body so you're toes are pointing towards her and you remember the way he had one hand tangled with your hair and another placed firmly on your hip. "I care." Barely louder than a whisper, that sentence inks in the air between the two of you and on your tongue.

You mirror his movement, you touch sunshine when her hair tangled between your fingers and your palm rests on the back of her skull. Your free hand graces her hip and your eyes lock for a moment -- I want my heart back.

You press your lips against hers and pray you can be tangent.

Table: Briar

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

S I E R R A

I am venturing into unmarked territory.

Dormant emotions, each one having its wick lit as I stand on this rooftop. There is no manual written up for this. No memo left behind by mother, not even father’s photographs have an instruction on where to go next. Just the memories of them together, the only clues for me to trace as I am stuck on the first stage of this puzzle.

Every morning they would greet with a kiss, I noticed their eyes meet and their hands touch. So young and immune to romance, I was a typical infant who pulled a face when their lips touched. ”Yuk!” I never got the chance, not even the talk from my parents. A lesson that should have been taught by them, instead found by myself. Textbook knowledge on something that I should have experienced by now. Never a close opportunity, maybe it’s my wandered focus, too busy to distract myself in such a way. The piles of papers in my room, a barricade to the world outside.

But here I am, above the world with my hand safely locked to the boy who is holding the torch.

A dream of seeing the papers turned to ash but I always wake up in a panic, years wasted by just one inferno, a nightmare in itself. I have escaped. Just for a moment, Lucas has dragged me away from the one thing that has locked me away from life. A break, a time to rest my mind and be with…him. I glance back to that life, the door is still open but a part of me wants to shut it. Surely there is more to see? More to do…

Torn apart between two lives, finally a chance to break free but the responsibilities are calling my name. Worry is draining me, when I should be indulging in the moment. Something needs to be triggered to sweep it all away. Just a minute to be in limbo, nothing on my mind but one thing…even a second.

Words are minimal between us, our hands still touch and our gazes still connected. Even under the limited light, his features are so bright. There is no tackling the burning in my cheeks, it has been revealed and I am sure Lucas has picked up on it. Does he know how I am feeling right now? Can he feel the heart that is pounding against my chest?

”I care.” I barely catch his whisper as I am swept away. His hand on my hip, the trigger to purify the worry that has been infecting me but it is his lips on mine that wash away everything. I close my eyes, surrendering to the moment as my hands rest on his shoulders. It feels longer than the minute of limbo that I have been yearning for. A short term defence to tackle every darkness in life but I feel the long term effect creeping up my neck. All my emotions are entwined and I never want to let go.

This isn’t text book at all but real life.

I am the one who pulls away, it is so hard to do, and I can feel the magnet compelling me to him as my hands drop from his body. Now is the moment where I have to conjure up something to say but no words can compare to what just happened. ”Well…” A stumped mind, the kiss is on repeat in my head, my brain refusing to give assistance. ”From that, I can tell you care.”

I take both of his hands delicately, the one moment without his touch feels cold but as soon as my palms are reunited with his, the warmth begins to blossom. A boy who has always been there, I never thought we would be the one.

[kousei ♚]

I wanna dance I wanna dance, dance, dance with you- you So, take a chance

You can't put your finger on the day you lost your heart, when it was decided it was no longer yours to give. You never saw it as a curse, only part of the cycle of life. When you laid in bed with the blinds open and light spilled across you, you imagined it was him keeping you warm and when you tucked yourself in you imagined your bed wasn't empty. You don't remember when you lost sovereignty over the muscles and organs shielded by your ribcage, when their names passing your lips caused lapses in focus and ruination of your work -- "that's supposed to be a negative", "you forgot the plus c", "what's wrong with you?"

But here you stand, lips locked with another and your heart races at a velocity faster than you ever could've imagined. She's not like the first time, despite the smog clouding the sun you feel her sunlight brush against your cheeks, a red solar flare; perhaps she isn't the worst person to give pieces of myself to. The pull of gravity keeps your hands upon her hip and desperation keeps your eyes closed -- I want to be tangent.

You want your heart back.

She breaks off and you don't know whether she hates it, or it's desperation or for the simple function of air -- who cares anymore? Your eyes flutter open and you're hungering for her taste again and every inch of air that grows between you is a sin worth repenting for. It's strange, you never saw yourself sweeping another girl off her feet; you could only ever see yourself being swept because broken boys who spent their lives buried in books and looking at stars weren't heroes. Boys like you weren't men in shining armor, you didn't slay dragons and have girls clinging to your biceps -- boys like you were just Lucas and you only survived and clung to your function to breathe.

You break away and your mind is a pink haze, her hands fell from you and for a moment you can see a reality shattering. Any moment now, you'd wake up in your bed back at the orphanage and Sierra would be back to burying herself in paper trails of the past. You would still blush when you saw Sierra and your heart would flutter when you saw Bellamy because this cannot be real. Your heart was never yours to give.

But you want it back.

A set of frantic heartbeats pass and you blink, fully expecting to see the cracks in this reality. That you'll fall from the edge of the building and wake up screaming wrapped in sheets. "From that, I can tell you care.” She sounds more nervous than you, how the fuck is that even possible?

(How

How?

How???)

You're just Lucas, not a knight in shining armor and certainly not the kind to sweep women off their feet with a simple hand on their hip and a smile upon your lips. Your pulse threads with your throat and the organ feels the urge to detach itself from your chest completely. It's not yours to give after all and it certainly doesn't belong within your sovereignty.

But there are no cracks and when you look down there isn't a dark hole in your chest. She takes your hands in hers and you just let her. You just let it. "Sierra..." Your voice trails and you don't know what to say.

Anything to get your heart back, just so it's yours to give.

"Let's stay up here for a while, okay?" Your words are hardly louder than a whisper and you tell yourself it's just right that you stay up here. In a land without sun and smog, just the two of you in a dreamless and a reality that feels all too good to be anything other than fantasy.

You gently pull her closer, for every inch of air between you warrants repentance.

"Kiss me again."

Table: Briar