ππππ πππ ππππ ππππ of vodka had dribbled out hours ago there had been an intention to run down to the corner store to procure some more, but fallon found she couldn't twist the door handle. the drunkenness that had since weaned hadn't been the problem, but all the voices and lingerings hampered her ill-suited efforts. it was a gamble whether her remaining vices would serve her well or make matters worse, and it seemed the latter turned up snake eyes. the aftermath was familiar; frantic pacing and obsessive checking of every small nook, hair pulling and nail biting, shins knocking against the battered coffee table and loosing tabletop oddities about, clamminess and the bone-deep need to peel off the layers to cool her breaths. only later would she feel sober enough to combat paranoia enough to crack open the fire escape window, sucking in the autumn draft with mouthfuls of tobacco smoke in little but a camisole and underwear with a lone sock. and for a brief moment, she had even been able to curl up against the plaster to feel the breeze play with her flyaway hairs while she perused through a book that had been gracefully nearby, forgetting her second cigarette until it ashed on the floor and she used her only sock to smear it away.
it was hard to process what she had been told wasn't technically her fault. even the police couldn't piece together a motive as to why fallon would have pushed seokmin into the lake only to then nearly drown herself trying to retrieve him, and so they had let her free ( though begrudgingly ). but comprehending what had happened that fucking horrific night had nothing to do with her own flippant disregard for her limitations in near-drowning and subsequent hypothermia, and everything to do with him. dare she say a friend, and a relative of her own found family. how could she attend his funeral when she couldn't move past why it happened at all? if she hadn't been so fucking difficult to decipher even to her own methods, would she have been on that dock in the first place? seokmin would have paced away with his beloved companion, and she wouldn't have -
at some point, the haunted figure on the floor had ceased reading and tumbled back down into the dark recess waters of her mind, only emerging when knocks sounded at her door. perking cautiously, suspecting another foul trick of the mind, she decided it best to scope it out if for nothing other than playing the part of the strange soothsayer of the building on the lookout for ghosts. she tossed the book aside and padded over to the peephole, breath catching when the tiny fish-eyed image of dustin washed over. there had now been a couple exchanges between them that affirmed his existence wasn't just a figment, but she was still mulling that over before the new trauma invented itself. it was evident once she pried open the door with the way she regarded him for a moment and then satiated her morbid curiosities. a huff of a laugh breathed out at his ice-breaker, fallon none too shy to open the threshold while in her current state of undress lest of all in front of him. drawn unbeknownst, she too leaned to the side of the frame he accompanied. a nod was all she gave at his bid, then, another laugh low and gravelly at his words. "believe me, i'd love for our kiss to be the only thing that's makin' me insane." a double entendre she hoped he'd catch. maybe just the part that involved them, and not the half that meant she'd have to explain what happened after she dashed off like some stupid high-schooler at a spring fling. yet, still he asked.
turning away as the smile fell, the cactus cat ambled away with the open invitation permitted by the nod for dustin to help himself inside. she ran her hands over her face and up into her hair, finally thinking that she should appear a little more presentable - something more like a rockstar after a wild night and less like the wreck she had been and causing in her own home. a wipe over the cheeks meant her makeup was messy and not tear-logged. with a swallow she faced him again, eyes slitting a touch for sincerity as she said, "can we not talk about that night? i'm not... ready for that." brows pulled together at his bargain. what would make him think that? fallon wasn't the easiest to read but she'd like to think he knew well enough by now that she wasn't about to kick him to the curb. not after they had just found each other again, and whatever that meant. "you don't have to go, dusty. of course i've missed you. why would i tell you to leave?"
but leave it to him to be the reprieve she needed in a baited breath. their tension would always be there, a perpetually strained muscle, taut and yet purposeful in holding them together. it didn't have to be painful. and the laugh that escaped at the swish of his coat, brandishing the lighter like a miniature handgun, was the allowance he could bade them in the innumerable moments of their relationship when matters were too tense. fallon closed their distance to brush a hand across his thigh, plucking the lighter from his pocket. the proximity was nice. inviting. human. without her footwear, their height actually had some contrast. she gazed up toward his countenance, studying him as swiftly as decorum conscripted and then some. dustin was older but it seemed only now that he had lost some of his youth. the cut of his jaw was stricter, skin still soft but bearing more after the tragedy of their time apart. it was then that she knew she was lost to her whims truly. despite the answers she needed to questions she was too scared to ask, despite her loose morals with runaway reins, she knew she was going to kiss him. the rest almost didn't matter for how well and thoroughly she knew she was going to kiss him. the clatter of metal rang out as her hands circled the back of dusty's neck, fingertips feeling the stubbly hair at the nape, knowing she wouldn't be rejected. not ever. she leaned into his front so that the line of their bodies became one and breathed in his scent through her teeth just before she made contact to his lips, eyes slipping blissfully shut.
annaxmalina
ellievsbear
2087
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
jacobvanloon
pixelskylines
