apparition.
rian
“fancy seeing you here,” is what she manages in the end, a quiet greeting. he stands resolutely still, shoulders held rigid. his features are arranged into the cold poker face she knows so well. his lips twitch slightly, twisting at the edge. “it’s been awhile.” she adds. she fiddles her fingers against the edge of the script, dogears a page absentmindedly. “have you been alright?”
people shouldn’t like to drown. it goes against human nature. that weighty feeling of the tide, a water-tomb coffin. slipping entirely into something and losing yourself. finding a new world. disjointed thoughts and a struggle to breathe. people shouldn’t like to drown, to give up themselves to an unknowing abyss. darkness, mysterious creatures. there’s a surety about solid ground, after all. a firmness underneath one’s feet. the knowing of what’s to come. but daein’s always sort of liked it. dropping weightless, and sinking,
sinking,
sinking,
to the bottom.
losing himself in someone else. letting them consume, and consuming in turn. he thinks it’s romantic. he thinks it might be how he finally becomes hole. finally finds meaner, or purpose. daein’s always felt deeply. often, more deeply than others. something seen as a defect, he thinks. it twists as he grows. something more obsessive, but just as fervent to dive deep. to submerge himself in someone else. to call it his home.
but people shouldn’t like to drown, because people have lungs instead of gills. and there’s that stretch of water before the surface.it’s easy to lose yourself entirely, under that water. to drift listless away. washed up onto the shore. a bloated thing, left to rot. and that’s what their relationship was, in the end. daein plummeted down and down. too far. washing up sometime later. the carcass of what they once were eventually picked clean and then abandoned. a graveyard of a thing.
returning now feels wrong. a graves ite of what they once were. funny, considering what they’re filming. he’d had half a mind to protest it more than he had, but it was seemingly perfect to their manager, this opportunity. rian is popular, the episode is sort enough that he won’t be kept away from group schedules for very long. it’s strange, fits into daein’s moody and eclectic acting choices. a perfect fit. only it isn’t.
rian’s already proven to him now that they’re far from perfect. an apparition faded with time. he’s not sure what to call them both now. are they strangers? he’d given too much of himself away, at the beginning. back when he called it love. she’d taken pieces of him with her. maybe she still has them. maybe they’re gone. meaningless.
daein’s always had this problem. giving to much, expecting someone to meet him in intensity. but it’s not often the case. it’d be easier if he were someone else. but he isn’t. he keeps his face still. something rigid. professional is what they’d call it. “do you care?” daein wonders back, and here’s where the mask falls. gives way to a smile. a smile tinged with something a little more malevolent. snide, maybe. secrets tucked underneath a tongue. “things seem really great for you though. congratulations.” he adds on, mostly without feeling.
