“oww, c’mon Akel..”
She finds her late confidence and it’s residing in him – efforts to make the boy smile, make him laugh; if only to her, his friendship’s all worth it. She blends her common breaths with ‘hm’s and ‘mn’s around him, vocal, visible in her content, – the type of attachment a child would instil, like tiny hands round a favourite old blanket. There is never anything malicious here, no subtle lies or double meanings—-he’s the first friend she’s kept since her mind went all backwards; the first bank of light in all the madness of their lives; a constant, perpetual warmth nestled tight in the depths of her coiling sin. And all, after five days of knowing him.
Lorre’s crouched with her hands on his knees while he’s perched on the edge of his bed. Directly before him, in his own room, she rocks on the balls of her feet until her conclusion is gradually arrived at in something habitual, and barely considered. Twin pearly whites peek out from under her top lip as a half-bashful grin spreads out about her cheeks, all redrosy and daisying with babyhair.
“What iiiif,” Is how she starts, but how she ends is entirely silent; those rocking feet still themselves as her knees lay rest on the floor. Brings her closer. And not much is siding with the child other than the knowledge that a sweet kiss always calms her, makes her all happy, —-and this is the diagnosis she’s prescribing to Akel as well. The bud of her lips touch softly to his; the tilt of her chin and the brush of her nose ‘gainst his cheek in a close but mostly feathery affair. Much lighter than Shen’s, but it’s just like she’s used to. Just like how Shen always did does and will do.
HE BUSIES HIMSELF WITH ART OF PARANOIA; an old habit settled in the rummage of his hands over things that did not belong to him. As was the case with miscreants like the Jacey kids, nothing was ever sacred. But the boy’s search only bears the fruition of disappointment. A growing, creeping, sliding thought works sideways into his head; they’ve already been around this boy for too long. He’s wanted to leave from the start - but now that the notion is a decided action, there is no turning back. He intends to tell Lorre this; he intends to destroy what they have constructed in the onetwothreeeorso days that they have made their bed and their keep with this oh-so-uncommon of companions.
But a pause.
A pause in his searching, not for finding, but for the sudden realization that the sound of soft voices have faded. He is always intune with his sister; in her presence there is a part of her brother that is never calm; a guarded secret that must be kept, this is how Shen sees her. Something only for him, something to beat the world back for. This is his sister and this is how Shen has treated her since she was first swaddled in her blankets. Unease blossoms in the tautness of his shoulders.
He turns on the step of a heel, meets head-on what knocks the trapped air from his lungs and turns everything, for an instance, into dust.
what the fuck. what. the. fuck. whathtefuckwhathefuckwhatthefuck.?????
Ah, and there it is: dread that had not existed within him suddenly there. Dread that catches him by the throat and forces his eyes open; blues so violently locked on the scene he’s sure he’s gone mad. He’s thought about this, once, during the time they’ve been there: how much Akel resembles Lorre. If not identically, then by the crown that darkens their head. But her lips on his. He stares and he stares, not for very long, but long to him, unbelieving, until he slams back to himself in a moment that unhinges the sound and sight and taste and smell. And then he is alive, statue no more.
An electric snap so angry with the pain he’s sure by the end of this he’d have broken some bones in his own body. It’s not a large room but it feels like crossing a desert. He’s not there fast enough. He’s not ripping them apart fast enough. His hands aren’t clawing at Akel’s shirt hard enough and he’s not being violent enough. There is no reasoning with him now, though he knows his sister and knows that some part of her remains trapped in babyish peppers of kisses that all children give to those that they care for. Knows this and still does not care. Holds Akel by the front of his shirt, shoves Lorre aside, proceeds to end this boy and obliterate the memory of Lorre kissing someone who is not Shen Jacey. A rage so violent he’s shaking with his fists.
the kiss is absolute. it’s churning, a thing of beginnings, a press of oddities. confusion dwindles, eyebrows furrowed. soft, soft, such a small press of pink mouths. it’s disgust that comes first, knowing where her lips have been, what they’ve done. unsure of what she has and if, in such an innocent act, he could obtain it, too. the thought makes him itch for a toothbrush, to scrub and rub and rinse until his lips were untouched again, and the frost of touch was left from him. but the other response left him stilled. a quake of confusion. intimacy. never had he felt lips on his own, so purposeful and calm and meaningful. held with care, he can only stay still, hesitant and distasteful and somehow, welcoming.
but he knows, too, that such mindless purity can be twisted, ugly things in the eyes of murderous children — which, he had to remind themselves, is what they were. deviants of insanity, eyes flickering in every quiet second, suspicious of him, suspicious of his home, words like chains and gazes like fire. the boy was of rash decisions and a cruel tongue, and akeldama himself had withheld revulsion for such peasantry. there was no doubt in the craving of his own interest and need, a possessive instinct to use and conduct. to lead and subject and destroy. and prepubescents were of simple manipulation, their eyes like stars and wonder, their thoughts so easy to deconstruct.
and he knows, he KNOWS, that the sound of the teenage boy, in this moment, in this kiss, meant his own foreseeable death. it’s almost humorous, but he has no time to chuckle in the second of stillness, in the swearing that forms beneath harsh conditions. he’ll take this as a test, for himself and for the siblings. to ring water between his fingers, to taste them in their heat, to feel that strength on his own body. he trembles as he’s pulled, the girl pushed away, and there’s nothing. no fear, no ingratitude, no bliss nor empathy that lets him truly feel this moment. he wished to mirror this anger before him, a FLAME in the small room, but it’s not possible. there is no reason for wrath, and so he remains passive to himself, a quiet observation.
arms move, however, as a separate being. he, within himself, is a king of calculations. but from his body he is a mask of acting and fake pretenses, eyes that WIDEN in screaming terror. he acts as a boy who’s been hit before ( which he has, but not quite to his displeasure ) — a boy who’s sat in closets hiding from monsters. hands fling in front of his face, huddling in on himself, attempting to curl into a ball as hands grip at his shirt ( this was a rather EXPENSIVE fabric, shen, and you’ll reimburse akel at some point or time ). he lets himself sob, frightened, words that fall from his lips in a tremendous outburst, tiny broken clips.
“i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’msorryi’msorry, shen, i’m so sorry, please —” it comes out TORN, so well perfected, hitched and blatantly scared. he says this next part for the girl, for their facade of friendship. “it was my fault, don’t hurt lorre, i’m s-sorry, i swear —”
andulkaphoto
romaincrisis
gracieabrams
2087
areudirty
