FOR: adrien beaumont ! ( @tintedswindows ). DETAILS: slaughterhouse rave. around. around 11:34pm.
there's always been something wrong with juniper. something deep inside them; something intrinsic, inherent - innate. she doesn't know when it began; just that they've always felt it. neurons misfired. chemical wires crossed. a singular match lit in an already burning room with no windows and no door out; just smoke collecting, caliginous and billowing against a ceiling on the verge of collapse until oxygen itself learns how to burn. until it snuffs itself out, leaves nothing but carbon dioxide and the vague realization that she's suffocating in it. a slow death, twenty four years and counting. maybe that's why she's confused - why they confuse the simple act of wanting for a pain that feels as if it's hollowing them out. carving into her chest, unmindful of the ribs that live there, of the lungs that stutter out smoke and carbon dioxide and words she wants to say but knows she can't - a taste in her mouth that's warm and sour, like beer left to sit out in the sun. yet she still craves it, the taste, the lukewarm burn down her throat. they feel flayed - the deep well of her heart left exposed for anyone to stare down into and know, just know, that her echoes have gone unanswered. no matter how long she's spent screaming down it - waiting for another, better version of herself to scream back and tell her what to say, what to do - how to be a fucking person. the column of wrapped sheet metal is cold against skin gone clammy, the kind of cold that leaves juniper shivering in a room filled with overheating bodies and the buzzing of neon floodlights overhead that she can hear, now, just beneath the crackling bass. speakers amped into overdrive, blowing themselves out until everything's white noise. a useless distraction from the brightly lit screen she doesn't look away from, not until her eyes sting and her throat feels as if it's closing in on itself. an anaphylactic reaction to the very thought of being - something. something she's never been taught. something greater than she knows how to be.
they feel the shift in slaughterhouse's energy before they see it; the slight parting of rippled crowd, the evasive yet perverted curiosity of eyes that've never learned to stray away from the ugly. her gaze, red - rimmed with a high that isn't enough, flickers towards the center of it all; a moth drawn to flame until its wings are engulfed in them - and adrien is a beacon burning bright. features contorted into sharp, angular lines of brimmed frustration, neons passing overhead until each shadowed contour of his profile twists itself into a new knife to drive the point home with, and juniper can't hear the words he mutters low against his breath - but she can feel them, the unfurling intent, the crosshairs dotting along darla's skin. his mark to maim. something splinters inside june, hairline fractures in a dam that threatens not waterflow, but molten lava. their spine unravels from its own want to fold into itself, the chill that had pressed itself against their frame thawed out by a rage almost comforting in its childhood familiarity - and they're alert, now, awake and laser - focused on the scene unfolding away from her. on shocked, doe - like eyes that dig out the worry from where it's buried beneath her flesh like a gravesite violated. on a hound whose heels spark hellfire, a seventh sin left in his wake as he dissipates back into the crowd and seemingly disappears. juniper's well - like heart echoes out it's only demand of her, it's only response, a single - worded divine prophecy from a god she doesn't believe in: defend. a command that comes too late, that doesn't direct her towards the bleeding martyr laid out against dancefloor but towards the hellhound who seeps damnation, fleeing from his own destruction. from the immaculate corpse he's left behind, a statue left only as a reminder of his capabilities.
juniper doesn't see cerberus as she trails behind him - red lights refracting off his leathered back like a warning signal as they both step into decayed hallway - just a damned dog. a good for nothing canine. "hey -" a voice gone rugged, low and unassuming beneath the magma crawling its way to the surface of her skin. "- fuckin', hey! adrien!" her hand latch onto his forearm, the soft scratch of leather as her nails grip into it - as she tugs him back to face her; an ugly snarl carved into their countenance like it's always belonged there. "what'd the fuck you say to darla, huh? what'd she ever fuckin' do to you? fuckin' - leaving her there looking fuckin' - stupid, like you held a gun to her head and told her she's fuckin' nothing -" the rave fades away, leaving only them and the untapped fury trying to pry itself out of her. "- d'you fuckin', get off on it or what? making everyone around you fuckin' miserable 'cos you're nothing but a fuckin' crybaby bitch? is that it? did you not get your milk yet? your fuckin' diaper changed? burped? fuckin' - held? 'cos god fuckin' knows your parents probably never fuckin' did -" there's no spark in her eyes, just a pooling, unending blackness that bleeds into his gaze as she holds tight onto it. an unwavering force that demands attention, that demands to be fucking heard, "- you're a fuckin' cunt, y'know that?" her fingers nudge themselves beneath the warm metal sheathed against a body otherwise bare, skin gone hot with infuriation, until a dime bag is pinched between index and middle - pried out from where its been laid against her. two little pills, yellow smiley faces etched into them, look up at them before she's crumbling the plastic in her palm and throwing them against adrien's chest. they catch against the metal chains adorning him before fluttering onto the sticky ground beneath them in a slow, sad descent. feather light. "happy fuckin' birthday, adrien. spent a good thirty fuckin' minutes hanging around nate's decrepit ass trying to snatch those for you 'cos i thought it'd be fuckin' nice - 'cos i wanted us to have some fuckin' fun. go ahead, pick them up. maybe your asshole will fuckin' - loosen up juuust enough so you can pull out whatever fuckin' stick you've got lodged up there and i don't gotta fuckin' worry about you going for darla's jugular next. you a big boy, adrien? can you handle that? or do you still need to throw a fuckin' fit?"