in this story,

i like to call myself wound but i will answer to knife.

[lieability]

Visit Original Link

¹ information. ² characterization sideblog. ³ pinterest.

[lieability]

spn mari making a comeback

[m0tel]

a couple twisted dirt road miles off the 281, dean's slunk low in the driver's seat, encased in a neutral-geared casket, the only bequest of his last will and testament. he killed the headlights on the way in, once gravel turned to grass, turned to sticks, to now, underbrush, shrouded by trees on un-staked land. if there's anyone left to fuck over in all this, he hopes it's some government lackey on an expropriation survey, not an unlucky turkey hunter in this last stretch of the season, that finds what's left behind of this going away party.

his last chance at spirit-hood was revoked a half dozen deaths ago -- he's pretty sure, but there's no direct line to heaven left to check -- and his last tether to the earth's urned up in the glove compartment, out of sight, and eternally, entirely well in mind. that's almost all six foot something of sam, squashed down to fit into forty metal cubic inches. for all he knows, it's mostly ashes from the bed sheet. dean hasn't seen shit straight in months.

his other biggest failures line the rest of the bench: a series of brown and orange bottles, a single load in his 1911, a censored copy of the letter he sent claire on bunker upkeep, in case there's a mix up with the snail mail. it's unnecessary here -- if she's as cold and smart as she's supposed to be, she wouldn't be in the position to identify his body -- but it almost feels like talking to someone. he didn't want to chance someone real talking back.

all that noble preparation wasted, while wasted, just to blind himself with the too-bright blue light of his phone screen. mari's voice, familiar and not, smothered by the sparse connection of a single bar, is unavoidable. the sound's too big in his pyre on wheels, a tug too many paces backward for what he wants to handle. scratch: needed to have handled, if the dash clock reads right. he's well behind schedule. she's only ever supposed to see him from his good side.

"mari." finally, hollowly. it might come out a question. fuck if he knows what to say. he didn't mean to pick up in the first place, but he's at the mercy of the screen's crack, thick and splintering over the end call button. if there is something divine still kicking around, it's only sitting up there to mock him. " .. this isn't really a good time."

[lieability]

he sounds older, but not wiser — more tired, but not dead.

still, there’s something set in his voice. rough and hard like the back end of a gravel driveway, crackling against the wheels of his tires. (as if he’s peeling out of one hell of a hunt. as if he’s half-concrete with only a stain of blood.) or maybe it’s just the white noise of the receiver, blanketing his tone like snow. creating imaginary sounds. magic-tricking her vision. becoming something that isn’t there.

in their days, with her dean — the dean with half a smile and three-fourths of a mile behind his breath, — he’d packed his bags with the practice of a soldier and the breeze of a sailor. he’d shipped up and shaped out to be somewhere between two states of self: beautifully careless— gorily divine. he was an open wound of open roads with less opportunity than he’d said, and because mari’s neither blind or dumb, not impulsive nor stupid, she’d taken dean winchester’s secrets and kept them in the back of her mouth. (which is to say: only to be pulled out when he’d kissed her.)

now, there’s no use. everything’s in the air.

yet— she runs silent. like the hum of his impala, the soft rumble of an engine, her thoughts race and her mind scatters and everything chokes up between her back molars. bleeds between her gums. it takes thirty, forty, maybe sixty seconds for her to stop bleeding and start breathing and find some better way to speak to him than she’d done before.

“is it ever?” mari exhales out, and runs a hand through the tangled strands of her hair. her cheek catches between her teeth, weathering down in an anxious habit, before she tries again. “i need you.” her words turn small or delicate, half-broken in the back of her neck, sitting somewhere beside her vertebrae like something she can’t crack out. regardless, she pushes. “or— i miss you.” her bottom lip shivers. she swallows it down. “i don’t know. c — can we talk?”

[killerdame]

MARI DAI. INTERACTION CALL.

WHAT SHE SEES FIRST IS THE WING OF A BUTTERFLY.

that's how her mind makes sense of the sharp cut of a shoulder blade in the dark: that trancelike back and forth of curved bone, not unlike the patterns of flight, pale skin eating up the slant of moonlight.

she understands it only for what it is only for the sound. the smell. dove has done so much for so long to no longer resemble a prey animal, but the instincts are still there — the ability to sense danger even before her eyes have adjusted enough to identify it.

the blood spreading across the floor is dark, almost black in the dim light. like this it better resembles her own displaced blood, the way it pools in a bruise at her cheek, the joint of a hip. the whole of the office staining the way she already is.

in the way that the bodies are arranged, she'd thought @lieability was a man knelt over mathis, braced at the knees for brutal work. it's only as she steps back — shoulders rolling, recoiling, the second-skin of her dress falling off her shoulder, shuddering the way the layer under it is — and the face whips to her that she understands. it isn't another man. this is violence compacted into a smaller form.

[lieability]

she is wing-boned and clandestine, precise in every move made. she has a surgeon's touch, a killer's rhythm, the exactness of a pulse against her fingers. the blade is only an extension: a latticework of wound, the dying light of a plea, an abrupt halt to inhale— interrupted before ever reaching his lungs. through tears, the glint of her knife almost illuminates. (as if gracious, as if relieving, as if sympathetic to the circumstances at hand.) but this is no mercy killing. the hour has thinned, stretched out through the practice of vengeance. the reclamation of fate. leaving nothing but blood and warning in its wake.

the stench of death doesn't bother her, anymore. who knows if it ever has. sometime, somewhere, when she was still small and fixed in place, mari learned the scent of blood— never quite learned to let it go. even after, when the red washes from her palms and scrubs out of all the divots, everything will remain. (iron-tinged and bitter inside her nose. clung to the insides of her stomach. intermingled with whatever tears she can shed.) see, violence is a language she speaks in fluidity. a second tongue that slithers out from inside her chest. and a witness, no matter how innocent, comes with a cost— what it is, is to be determined.

her head tilts. "he a friend of yours?" her gaze sinks its teeth into the other's skin, but her words are only gentle. a soft caress, in the midst of massacre. "answer carefully." cautionary, yet strict. "i'd h — hate to leave two messes, rather than one."

[schmonyschmawk]

"yo, do you think scorpions can like, kill you? i've got this idea for a shot for the show an' i'm gonna get the boys to put scorpions on my face an' see if they bite."

@lieability one liner.

[lieability]

"depends on what kind of scorpion." her gaze flickers over to the other, peering through a half-tilted stare. ash flutters down from a flick of her fingers, then props a cigarette between her lips for a draw inward. "a — all scorpions are venomous. not all of them are deadly."

[388s]

Starter call　⌖　@lieability

Dae-ho does not see Mari so much as he sees surrogate for possibility:　every action forging his life-path forward is awash in emerald light,　illuminating every opportunity to see himself a better person.　So Mari is the fragile little thing to be doted upon　(and god,　does he not realize how much of a douchebag this makes him come across as?),　boldly inserting himself in enlightened brother position,　obfuscating his self-serving whims with a twinkle of warmth and amity.　Or perhaps,　with an oscillation of the pendulum,　Mari is wild girl entirely warranting the help he wishes to thrust upon her,　someone who would continue spiraling out of control so long as he was not there to intervene　(overestimating his own importance,　forever and always).　Mari is a person,　too.

❛❛　I’ll start stocking my fridge with grapefruit juice if it means you’ll stay over for a decent meal.　Can’t live off that premade shit forever　⸻　it’s full of sodium.　❜❜　Insincere,　in a sense;　fixation on what is unarguably far more minor than subject matter he dances around.　It feels better this way,　granted his inexperience,　somewhere he cannot be the all-competent and kindly helper.　(He does not stop to think,　even for a second,　of little foreign notion directing faith her way.　Dae-ho is tethered consistently to the ideation that there is no faith to be had in her apparent judgment,　that on her own,　she is a liability.)　Disembodied voice of over-eager man,　so-called friend,　projects from open concept kitchen to living room,　social work coffee table book laid flat in front of the couch.　❛❛　TV’s all yours,　put on whatever you want.　Had it on baseball last,　I think?　You rooting for anyone this season?　❜❜

[lieability]

she was chaotic in theory and principled in practice, some wildfire flamed thing catching accusations on the weekends. running marathon sprints to burnt buildings, spitting hellfire from her teeth. knocking shots back in the interim. history would call her redemption ill suited. a skin that doesn't fit her, wasp-swarmed on the inside. new days, better days, days that don't hurt and sting and ache— are for girls that don't know how to gut someone like a fish. that haven't held knives like children (all careful intuition and protective instinct), that haven't found spare bullets in their backseat. mari's gotten a life she doesn't deserve. fought for a life that shouldn't exist. after elijah, after running, after mark and her mother and murder with its flesh still on, she shouldn't be here.

still, she remains. mark let her sleep on the couch for two, three, five months until she found something approximating a life. a reason to live. she does better. remembers how she's done worse. swallows her sins in the morning, wakes in cold-sweats from them at night. she's lucky @manenuf doesn't know the truth. that he'd even allow her into his home.

"thanks." mumbles mari, sat on the corner of his couch. her fingers dance across the social work book for a brief moment, almost tempted to flip a page, before she shelters herself further into his cushions. a glance towards the tv, the topic of baseball making her brows furrow. "um." she clicks the remote, a sports newscaster chattering away on the screen pushing her brows together a centimeter more. "i don't really watch s — sports." or anything at all, if he'd been paying attention, she thinks to add, but reminds herself that friendship requires manners, and her bluntness is in poor taste. a blink, and then she clicks the channel to national geographic. "i like animals."

[lieability]

@m0tel.

they've always been on borrowed time. years ago, it'd been stolen kisses, shared minutes, motel rooms with late checkout. trying to figure out the finite; trying to avoid the inevitable. in some way, she thinks they both knew that. running stop signs and red lights, fighting against the sway of the wind just to find one another in the middle. wanting what-could be, knowing what-wasn't. those days, he was all crooked grin and leather jacket and a spare wink before he'd let her go— but these days, he's nowhere. nothing. a spare piece of history in her phone, haunting her silhouette in the rearview mirror.

such is life. dean winchester was never the type of man to stay, mari dai was never the girl who'd ask him not to go. or, at least, she wasn't— but times change, so does she, and three a.m feels like a secret both of them can keep. or, maybe, a time that doesn't need to be a secret at all.

the phone sits against the hollow of her cheek, a spare hand cradling a drink that's more than halfway gone. her eyes are shut, drunken and tired and spattered with images that could feel like yesterday, if she tries. the click of the receiver halts the ringing, and mari's mouth opens before she can think.

"dean." her eyes flutter open, something shaking awake inside of her chest. a pause, an inhale, a trembling breath. "i—" mari swallows, sets her drink down, and sits up straight. "hi."

[cuntlike]

university's been the kind of place where ishtar gets to hide. from backstage, she can watch the stories people tell when they focus on the wrong audience. it's a bad habit, but she can't shake it: she goes from class to class, most she hasn't even enrolled in, just to see what will happen; she exists in a realm where her name has no rhymes and therefore means nothing. when people speak of her, there is no mythology that follows. she's ruining it, of course, day by day: the way she talks, the questions she asks, the clothes she wears, the people she fucks, the ones she fucks with. stories are bound to form around her; chains at her ankles. soon she'll be as much a prisoner of her own image as she was in highschool.

for now, lollipop on her tongue, cherry sweet, she watches a new play unfold: it starts with a comment-- they're walking, he says something. it's the wrong thing. the shrieking sound of sneakers rubbing against linoleum. then the bodies, moving, on that same slab; his, first. a question in the orientation of his shoulders, soon followed by the raising of eyebrows. for the girl, everything is told through the crossed arms, the blank stare. he speaks too much, her not enough.

she points it out to mari.

it's easy to be friends with mari: all it takes is a good reading of her script. the obsessive checking of a google page, the low line of her shoulders when she reads in the library. the stench of alcohol. the charms she leaves behind that ishtar puts in her pocket and never gives back. all you have to do is fill in the cracks: don't look at the search bar. don't look at the book. pass her a note with the quiz's answers. leave the crime scene everytime someone tries to dig up mari dai's ghosts.

"i reckon he's 'bout to do exactly that." she drawls, lolly in her right hand now, holding it like mari's holding her cigarette. a copy of her posture, just to see how it works; how much is told through muscles and the adjusment of bones. "hmmm, i'll bet he cheated. told her he was fixin' to study… just let it out he was lyin'." eyes linger in the air above the couple, like she's thinking, before they lower again, cutting & decisive, "he fucked her friend. no doubt 'bout that."

[lieability]

leave the crime scene, abandon the bodies; burn the chapel, the church, the home and the house. kill your god. make love to your demons. create something holy and break it. these are the mari dai commandments. the ruling in which judge / jury / executioner no longer exist. (it's simple, if you know them— complex, if you don't.) leave the crime scene, abandon the bodies, ignore google searches and empty bottles and pill prescriptions that never match her name. bury the ghosts. swallow the secrets. avert your eyes when her body becomes as haunted as she is.

ishtar's never been given a manual, but she seems to understand the regulations. the cogs in the machine that allow mari to operate the way she does. (get high, pretend to die, submit your almost-late essay, start again.) most people handle mari like a minefield. stepping carefully, stepping hesitantly, unsure of which way is salvation and which way is slaughter.

she has a reputation. unstable, unsightly, slurred breath and slightly off the rails— a manic pixie dream girl that's more of a nightmare in person. ishtar's got her track record, too. she doesn't mind. to mari, ishtar's just cowboy and color and one slick trick hidden up her sleeve; sour and sweet and a back alley gamble on a winning streak— she's undefinable. unexplainable. and sometimes, mari doesn't know if she'd rather be with ishtar or be her, herself.

or maybe that's just the alcohol talking. "some friend she is." the murmur comes out from around the cigarette, inhale-exhaling to a tilt of her head. mari leans an inch further back onto her backpack, using it half-as a pillow and half-as a backrest, and closes her eyes. for a second, she imagines it: one quick fuck in the library, a backseat affair of secrecy. strangers fucking strangers who briefly become lovers, all for a fast fix. her mouth twists at the corner, and her eyes open again. a glance towards ishtar. "i wouldn't do that t — to you." a blank blink. "just so you know."

[algorithymn]

@lieability ⟳ prompt ... the brazen entrance fails to produce the effect that she believes mari intended to make.     in fact,  the little display goes unrewarded  -  her gaze failing to lift from the charts being revised .     “Ah, Miss Dai, how good of you to come.”     and of course her dry words of welcome lack the warmth necessary to make them sincere.     “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

[lieability]

an amalgamation of mess, a sum of jagged parts, mari steps through the doors half-hungover, ten minutes late, and fatefully met with unwatching eyes. thank god. she adjusts her posture, formats herself slightly more presentable. adjusts the fabric of her top, and steps to a seat that hasn't been offered to her. "looking for a job." her drawl comes off near lazy, chair tilted back slightly before resting again onto the ground. "thought you c — could help."

[lieability]

"oh, a pity party. these are fun." — @cuntlike, as ishtar isil.

university's been the kind of place mari shows up to and forgets herself in. she loses charms, keys, the back end of a bracelet. misplaces her heart, her mind, the answer to last week's quiz. people only know what they can google about her. her friends only know what they see of her. drunken at her first class, slumped through her last, still reading her father's obituary in the library. she's odd, in the way that she's ill, and in the way that everyone but her can see it.

but ishtar's different. ishtar doesn't look at her as if she's got death wedged between her teeth, like she's got blood stained on her hands— she doesn't glance over mari's shoulder (at least, not noticeably) when she decides to google her mother's release date for the sixth time that morning. it's nice. it's kind. it's friendship, or fondness, or something far below and somewhere in between. or, rather, that's what mari's decided to call it.

an unlit cigarette pulls out from behind her ear, lighter flicking to life as tobacco wedges between lips. an imprint of cherry chapstick lingers on the filter, and smoke billows out from an exhale. "you th — think she's doing the pity party, or him?" there's a glance over to where ishtar's staring. a couple, clearly mid-argument, stand in the distance— one half of the equation distressed, the other half of the equation angry, and both parts increasing in volume. a soft huff of a chuckle, and the cigarette slow-drags from mari's lips once more. "my bet's on him. guys like t — to pull that shit. boo-hoo, woe is me, blah-blah ... blah."

[cuntryjunkie]

@lieability liked for a meme starter.

he shrugs, “reasonably, schmeasonably. you should go over there and give him shit.”

[lieability]

chris lee isn't a wild card, he's a joker's hand. he's crash and bang and half your savings in change, scrounged up to skate down half-the-way down the highway, collecting party hats and rubberbands and silly string on the outside of his smile as if he's got somewhere to be, no one to go with and— (hey, screw it, why don't you come along?) ... well, at least, that's how mari's perceived it. whatever. truth is, he could've picked mari up on the side of the street, for all anyone else knows. she's rumpled and crumpled and second-hand stolen from the vinyl-press of her life, reeking of cigarettes and tequila and the lime-salt combo off the back of her hand. she's nobody's girl, a no-name to a band, and somewhere in the distance, she's sure someone's forgotten her face already. but enough of the pity parties, here's where the bass comes in.

mari never needs an invitation to give anyone a piece of her mind, and chris likes to tempt fate. so, while she's both butterfly and bullet — with wings sprouting from her mouth as she grins — the pull-push-cock of a gun isn't quite in motion. not yet. "you think?" a glance to her side, peering up at chris. a consideration, and then she pivots the focus to him, instead. "i think y — you just like when i start shit." a perk of her brow, and her arms cross: sass and tease and all her weight in temptation, paired along with her hip jutting to the side. "how about this— we fake a fight. i get to start shit, you g — get some kind of scandal. it's basically a win-win." for her, she means. a win-win for her.

[lieability]

"i thought i told you to wait outside."   —   @m0tel, as dean winchester.

dean likes to play hero.   a knight in leather armor, prince charming on impala wheels, he's all sweat and muscle and skin like a bad batch of men's weekly—   hot off the press.   when the heat turns up, the guns go ablazing. when a damsel's in distress, he's the first on the scene. he guts the ghouls, gets the girl, and this equation would work neatly    ...   if the girl in question wanted to be saved.  

see, mari's a swiss army knife and any sharp edge calls her name. she's a lesson in duality, an instrument against fate    ...    and when the first shot's fired, she'd rather be the bullet than stay behind the gun.   so, dean says wait outside, and mari's halfway 'round the back. dean says stay put, and she's busy breaking in. dean plays savior, mari plays survivor, and both parties meet in the middle—   weapon to weapon, gun to knife.

so, mari says   "you did,"   and a blade twirls back into its holster. her black-brown eyes bat in the night. she glances to her left, gaze drifting over her shoulder, before sliding back to dean. her weight leans, like a bad house on worse waters, and settles against a wall.   "but last i checked, i don't take orders fr — from you."   a flash of a grin, perhaps misplaced for the scenario at hand.   "at least—   not like this."

[lieability]

@graveflwers.

mari knows most people don’t like their job, but she’s found ways to make it interesting.

it starts small.   everything’s shrunken to the world around her, miniature in comparison to life, and standing in the midst lies hints for only one pair of eyes to see.   (the earbuds are the finishing touch. looped into his jacket, pulled into his pocket, decorated in the tiniest of detail. she spends too long on it, truthfully, but time passes and clocks tick and when mari clocks in, she’s happy to waste company time.   it’s a win win:   she gets her kicks, the job gets its product.)   charlie takes approximately a week to notice. she watches the stutter in his movement, the pause when he adjusts a car.   something clicking into place in his mind.   two seconds, then he moves on.

but then she places another one. a replica of him, this time with another outfit, and the headphones remain. from across the room, she watches him pause   —   and up plucks the miniature.   bingo.  a raise of her eyebrow, and a brush of her shoulder against his as they stand side by side. one watching a miniature train pass by, another peering at a version of himself. mari blinks down at the passing train.   “you wear a lot of the s — same clothing.”   a glance to him, then over him.   “repetition’s a sign of autism, you know.”

[lieability]

"i feel like you're the only person in my life who doesn't have an agenda."   —   @graveflwers, as lis semple.

blood is blood is blood,   until lineage means nothing.   underneath skin, beneath open vein, lis and mari could be mistaken as family.   twins in their mirrored interest.   heart-to-hearts bleeding red;   friendship as a festering wound—   together, they pair like knives to a slaughter. wolves in sheep's clothes.  yet, tonight, they appear unmasked. unpeeled and ridden with rotten fruit of conversation.   mari sips at her drink, lis splays on the couch;   inevitably, one of them shares more than they should.   such is the nature of their dynamic:   trust for trust, truth for truth, honesty presented as mundane.   mari's learned to appreciate that more than she used to.

"that's because i don't."   mari drawls between an inhale, smoke spilling out between her teeth and waving it away before it reaches lis' face.   (force of habit. having charlie around has made her soft, she thinks. later, when he finds out she's smoked in the house, she's sure he'll kick up a fuss, too. whatever.)   a lounge backward, and a leg kicks upward onto the coffee table.  "i like my friends w — without ulterior motives, thanks."   she's monotone, but genuine. staring off at the ashtray for a second, before diverting her attention back to lis.   "you think charlie has an agenda?"   a raise of her brow, and an avoidance of naomi's name. both of them know her opinions on her aren't exactly   ...   positive.   "or does he not count?"

[lieability]

"you're not me. stop trying to be."   —   @graveflwers, as naomi mctague.

naomi has a familiar face.  (a poster of a d-list movie, the centerfold of some no-name magazine, the back cover of a sears catalogue—)   naomi has the kind of face little girls ache for.   green eyes, blonde hair, features that dance and play with the light as if its something to control.   she's tall. she's beautiful.   she's empty.  a glass not-quite-full. a blank page of a journal. the beginnings of a story never finished, handwritten in script that feels too much like a font.   naomi is familiar, in the same way that she's palatable, in the same way that she's easy   ...   because whoever she is, wherever she goes, she becomes what you believe of her.

god, in the moonlight of her chapel. killer, in the depth of the blood. model-like, barbie-blonde, undeniably beautiful   —   rather, undoubtedly fake,    because faith or frenzy aside,   naomi is nothing beneath the surface.

mari pushes a bubble-blown piece of gum between her teeth. smacks it between her lips, and thinks of lis' recent words.   (she   —    is nothing.   you   —   are everything.)   a catlike stretch sprawls her limbs out to her seat, elbow slinging across the back as she blows another half-hearted bubble into the air.    pop.  "naomi,"   mari drawls, kicking her left ankle over her right. a tap at the side of the chair, and her head tilts.   "here's a piece of advice."   a grin eats at the corner of her lip.   "next time you want to compare apples to oranges, you might w — wanna consider if your—"   a wave of her hand, flippant.   "man of choice, or whatever—   prefers citrus."   a final pop of her gum, intentionally irritating.   "if you were wondering:   he does."

[lieability]

she doesn't know when it changed.   before, when things were still fresh and new and angry with the spit-spite-sulk cycle, mari knew what it meant to be with him.   a mask of indifference, a sheath of insult. the barrages of give-take-steal that positioned them both as versions of self.  

it was hate and fuck and rage,  pin and push and pull.   people who weren't quite people, humans who were capable of inhumane. a couple that exchanged kisses like cruelty.  (barbed wire, teeth, dog-faced grins.)   before, when things were still loose and fast and playing by no rules at all, mari knew that charlie was temporary. he'd flare and fade just like everything else,   dead-man-walking into a grave of his own volition.   their relationship was outlined in corpsehood. their bodies were half-living. their love wasn't love at all.  

now, she's not sure what she knows.   there are moments,   small, permissible seconds,  where he passes a hand over her hair  / clutches the sleeve of her jacket, and says nothing.   truth is, he doesn't need to say anything.   it's a silent exchange. a secretive admission. some quiet trust, followed by understanding. followed by sight.   (i see you, you see me, we'll always come home by morning.)  

she doesn't know what to call it. she's spent weeks, months, maybe even years, contemplating the existence of this tenderness. this kindness. the acceptance of her,   whole and full and flush against her chest,   yet weightless.  

freedom, mari thinks, might feel something like this.

she has that thought often.   on board game night, on aquarium tuesdays, in arguments that end with compromise that neither would call compromise at all—   mari looks at charlie, charlie looks back, and for once in her small-short-past-its-expiration-date-life,   someone doesn't look away.   blank-faced, monotone, strange and silly and sometimes stupid, he keeps staring.   as if she isn't something awful. as if she isn't someone monstrous. as if wild, bitter, contradictory and chaotic aren't adjectives that deter him. as if he loves her anyway.

maybe he does. maybe he doesn't. those aren't the kind of words they exchange, regardless of what their actions say.   like a burned cd on his side of the bed, printed images of moray eels inside an envelope. like tiny, nigh missable moments that collect to the back of both of their minds.   (are you hungry? are you thirsty? are you okay? are you okay? are you okay?)   like his hand intertwined to hers. her fingers combing through his hair. like softness, like sweetness, like consideration,   despite everything that tells them to do otherwise.

she doesn't know when it changed.   but here, now, with her head against his chest and his book on the same page and them in the dim lighting of a bedroom that's theirs,   she supposes it doesn't really matter.  mari's lashes flutter, blinking down at the words that haven't moved in a solid five minutes. her fingertips drift over his wrist, trailing along to his hand, and then drop away to rest upon his stomach.   "i can hear your heartbeat."   she states, blunt. there's little romance to it, just a statement of fact. a tilt of her head up, gaze drifting over his jawline and up to his eyes.    light and dark, simple and complex, all at the same time. she blinks, then rests her head against his chest once more.   "it's loud."

"you are so weird sometimes."   —   @graveflwers, as charlie álvarez.

his voice is low, as it always is. not harsh, not biting, not even irritated. this is the change she means:   the shift in what they do / don't / will allow.   a twitch of her lip, fond, and she settles into his side an inch further.   "you're the one wh — who's been staring at a page for five minutes."   she retorts, but there's no heat to it. just a response, as transparent as it is plain, all while her fingers skim the bottom of his shirt. mindless. second nature.  

"you're not even reading, charlie."   a tug at a thread, watching as it unspools from the fabric. there's a soft exhale while she pulls the book lightly from his hands. bookmarks it, then extends herself over to place it onto the nightstand.  a glance toward him as she settles back into bed.   "wanna look at your eels, or are you going to bed?"

[notmorbid]

smallville: season 4 [2/2].

dialogue prompts from season four of the wb's smallville.

if you found out something, something someone didn't want you to know about them, would you tell them?

ever thought about getting out more?

this is not a game. this is your life.

i was too afraid of what people might think. how they would react.

i thought i told you to wait outside.

you're incapable of giving a straight answer, you know that?

you are so weird sometimes.

i don't even know who i can trust anymore.

i am serious, and freaked out, and mad, and just about everything else you can imagine.

you know i don't give up on someone that easily.

i'm not letting you go alone.

i feel like you're the only person in my life who doesn't have an agenda.

everybody seems to know more about me than i do.

we are definitely not in kansas anymore.

this isn't worth dying over.

there's a part of you i don't recognize anymore.

i don't even know which lie you're apologizing for.

this isn't just some dream you can blink away.

you're not _____. stop trying to be.

just because you have the same blood running through your veins doesn't make you family.

if you want to play games, there's a deck of cards in the parlor.

you always look for the best in people, even when they walk all over you.

as far as awkward moments go, this is definitely memorable.

for the life of me, i can't remember how i got here.

a year from now, this is all going to feel like a lifetime ago.

'normal' was never really your style.

that was my attempt at humor. sometimes i crash and burn. sorry.

how can anyone get to know me if i'm never myself?

oh, a pity party. these are fun.

it kind of changes your perspective, when you have someone who depends on you for everything.

you promised me you wouldn't hurt _____.

to be honest, i'm glad you're here with me.

things change, no matter how much we don't want them to.

it's not a sacrifice. it's a choice.

that's a pretty big footnote to leave out.

hand-eye coordination isn't one of your strong suits. let me help you with that.

you actually look handsome, for a change.

i don't believe in luck: it's our wits and our fortitudes that keep us safe.

i'm having what you could call a rough day.

your safety is more important than any of this.

you mean a lot more to me than you know.

who are you trying to protect?