sweet tooth

[briannaking]

livxramone​:

she could argue that she had been taken with the character and the inspiration of the moment, that the sensation of a touch on her face clouded her judgment. had her eyes always been so brown, endless pools that threatened to drown her if she strayed from the safety of the shore? no matter the answer, or how believable the justification, she would know it to be a lie. she’d been taken with brianna and brianna alone, her words spun through theodore’s just as his emotions were drawn from hers. if acting was taking on a character’s wants, in the show of life olivia wanted her. now.

there’s time to stop, her mind unhelpfully reminded her. time to call scene, to excuse herself from the remove and retreat, never to be heard from again. yet as brianna’s warm breath ghosted across her lips, words invoking a challenge in that irritatingly nonchalant way that could only belong to her, there was nothing that could have stopped her. and when she leaned forward to close the distance, lips brushing softly — once, twice — before claiming brianna’s, the sigh was her own.  

her hand came to rest gently on brianna’s thigh, a tether to keep her grounded in the face of her own personal abyss, to which she so desperately wanted to lose herself. the siren who commanded her every free thought, the driving force in the unraveling of her carefully constructed facade, a beacon guiding her to crash upon the rocks.

up close, brianna’s warmth was unbearable. it radiated from her lips, seeping into the blonde’s veins and engulfing her until all that existed was brianna, brianna, brianna. transfixed, olivia pushed further, hesitance slipping away as her eyes fell shut. shannon’s fragility became a distant memory, vanishing more with each passing second. a spark ignited, olivia’s free hand found its way to the back of brianna’s neck, drawing her closer.

though she coaxed it into existence, though she could see the simmering want catching light behind green swells, it still came as a surprise when it did come. olivia’s eyes trained low and steady on brianna’s parted lips, her heartbeat so quick bri would swear it changed the density of the air around them, it should’ve been a natural progression. but nothing about them was natural. brianna never believed in soulmates, love at first sight - she still doesn’t, but rather she believes now that accidents can hide within them the most important thing that may ever happen to a person, and she could be drawn to that thing like the tide to the shore. re-emerging again and again on those sandy plains, even if the wind beckons her elsewhere. 

olivia’s lips brush hers, and she might not ever admit it in future recollections, but bri stops breathing. that flutter-by passing, so soft an undulating; they brush again, hesitant, but not through fear it isn’t right. through fear it will be the catalyst for ruin. that, once the distance is closed, every second it is torn back open again might feel wasted. 

she kisses her, and it takes every ounce of will contained with brianna’s thorny heart not to groan aloud in sweet euphoria. a small buffer passes in which she’s frozen, but then a tiny click shifts into place and she’s responding, she’s kissing her back, deeply, fingers cupping her swooping jaw tautening. 

a small hand covers bri’s denim-strapped thigh and she sighs, almost wincing. is there a time in her life, before this, in which she has been kissed and her body answered as though to a prayer? she had loved before, once. but it was lumbering and slow, trudging and painful. she did not know that wanting existed in this way before now, that even the slightest touch could make a pulpy mess of her innards and cause her knees to liquify. thank god she was seated.

bri forgot the jumping off point had been printed words on a page - that anything in the world existed outside the two of them. olivia’s free hand came to paw gently at the nape of bri’s neck and coax her closer, and the encouragement lit up every dark corner inside her. she met this burning fire with her own twin flame, soughing gently into her mouth; “liv...” as she manipulated her longer frame to pull the blonde onto her lap, rings clacking as they passed over the fastenings on her jeans to hold her gentle but firm by the thighs. her neck craned upward, throat exposed, following the trajectory of olivia’s lips with her own, unwilling to sacrifice them for even a second. what it all meant was lost on her; all she knew was this, the feeling.

[briannaking]

livxramone​:

were she more calculated, olivia might claim credit for drawing them together, close enough for brianna’s breath to ghost across her cheek like a passing caress. of all the scenes to land on, it’s this which brings a fortuitous closure to the tumultuous storm that has raged in her chest since her fingers brushed the piece of paper in the mailbox. since there was a chance.

or, were she more faithful, she would have read ahead in the script and chosen a different scene. called to mind the ever-present five o'clock shadow, the sunglasses that invariably appeared at every premiere. who, in the face of all his dismissals and thinly veiled criticism, had never once betrayed her trust. not in a promiscuous sense, that is. acting or not, the tension cast across the room has grown insurmountable. whatever happens from this point onwards, be it brianna remaining true to the screenplay and all directions that lay within it, or balking and concluding the reading altogether, a decision will be made. and with the next line, the fragile balance chooses a direction in which to tip. not so well as i remember the lips…

the conflict melts away the instant her lips part to respond, ❝ whose lips? ❜ the last traces of shannon fade away to a dull, negligible presence at the back of her mind. is it still for the sake of the art when she disregards it? casts it aside in favor of living in this moment with the specter before her. shannon is the vessel, depositing her safely upon brianna’s shores and receding with the tide. green eyes flick downwards, darkening as they land on full, tremulous lips. ❝ were they mine? ❜ 

brianna had never acted before, at least not in the literal sense of the word. but she recognised now that, most days, she adopted a skewed iteration of the thing. she was, by nature, an actress; a liar, a manipulator, a heartbreaker. to be these things, you must abandon the notion of a true self. it was here, in these fleeting seconds suspended in time, bri understood that she had neglected this curled, shivering, honest version of herself for long enough she’d forgotten it existed at all. but that girl unfurled her limbs and slotted back into her old body, and she ached for release. dazzling and shimmering; she wanted to kiss this norse goddess of a woman so terribly it hurt. 

theodore’s words easily became her own - it was true, that she’d dreamt of such things. olivia’s green jewels and california sheen and golden hair whizzing behind her eyes as she caught restless bouts of sleep between shifts, each time grazing by brianna just quick enough that nothing was to transpire.

but she had her now - caught in a venus fly trap, expectant and quivering. the smallest whisper of a smile tugged at the corner of her full mouth, and she lifted spindle-like fingers stacked with layers of vintage rings to cup olivia’s jaw. a jolt echoed down her spine, but she did not stop, rather her eyes fell to the place she so desired as the pad of her thumb tugged gently at her bottom lip. a shuddered breath escaped her, as she muttered in a far-off way; “they may have been yours.”

the script was abandoned, emblazoned into her mind many lines ago, and the pages tumbled to wooden floorboards as she arced inwards to take olivia’s face in both hands; a spray of mint and merlot climbing up her cheeks they were so close. her stomach tangled, and her eyes fluttered to a close, urging olivia so close their lips might barely brush. her theodore mask slipped as brianna whispered into olivia’s mouth; “i dare you.”

[briannaking]

livxramone​:

she’s closer now, though she can’t recall moving. it’s as though brianna has her own gravitational pull, amplified by the words she reads and the inflections she places on them. this magnetism is not new to olivia, she’s felt it in some regard from the moment she opened the door to the disheveled beauty. it’s why she didn’t cast her back out into the night the second she started on about a chase, chest heaving from exertion. or even now, accepting a glass of wine with a disproportionate amount of protest. 

❝ yet you remember the tree tops, ❜ she teases, the ghost of a smile flitting across her lips. she’s a combination of two selves, the words belonging to shannon whilst the actions are entirely her own. olivia walks the line deftly, relinquishing her death grip on control long enough to wonder what brianna’s next move will be. by this point, she knows where they are, can envision the words meticulously scrawled across the page. beneath the ancient oak tree, isolated in their own cocoon, shannon prods and theodore responds. arguably one of the most important scenes in the film, and yet olivia knows that no matter what transpires on set, it will never be able to match the gravity of what they’ve created here.

once brianna understood what was to transpire, what they were beckoning to life through pulling words off a page and breathing heart into them, she had to wonder if olivia’s choice had been intentional. while occasionally bold and silver-tongued, bri didn’t think of her the type to orchestrate such an encounter. she thought it more likely, rather, that she’d fallen into it and now found herself lost in it. as brianna did. 

she barely had time to think it over, regardless... it was apparent by the lighted, yet trembling, stance in which olivia’s face was held that she was in equal parts fearful and expectant for her partner’s next move. as was shannon. they interloped fingers and welded souls. and here bri was with theodore - understanding what was to pass, that it was he who should take the leap. seeing that shannon was cognizant of the implication. and yet, she didn’t flinch. their courage together bolstered with the lack of rejection.

it was a long, quivering pause in which brianna merely held olivia’s eyes with her own, attempting and failing to quell the hummingbird nature of her heartbeat. it wasn’t that she was nervous. it’s that she was, in part, terrified. things transpired between them so rapidly and yet, the depth of their kinship was undeniable. it was huge. it was a pull like she’d never felt before. to act upon it was to solidify something they could not yet name - and what a dangerous game history had proven that to be.

bri, breath caught in her throat, minutely narrowed the distance between them even further. so close now she could hear olivia’s shallow breaths - see the delicate twitch in her eyelids. brianna’s gaze slipped slow to olivia’s mouth. heart-shaped, bitten pink, lightly parted. she swallowed. “not so well as i remember the lips...”