Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq]

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Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Aug 27, 2013 22:45:21 GMT -5

Post by L△LIA on Aug 27, 2013 22:45:21 GMT -5

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Surely, I've been dreaming. A crowd of technicolor faces, elaborately stitched together from satin and silk with fake — but lovely — jewels glinting off their skin... I'm dizzy from their lying smiles. Even as they drift away, thinning into the night as I exit out the back door and into the alleyway, I feel as though I've looked into their sun too long and now my vision blazes with the echo of a party that was never meant for me.

The last strains of music still haunt the air from the other side of the building (although Thea's brilliant hi-jacking of the sound system has ended) and my bones ache from our dancing. Despite the pain, I'd do it all again. Frantic, free, and burning with the feeling that tonight, I'm alive. And dangerous. And stealing so much more than stares and invitations. I'm stealing —

A teacup.

Fingers looped through the delicate china handle, I raise it into the air to toast the kinds of victories I might not be able to name, but that I can definitely feel. Punch sloshes over the side, tasting more like a fist to the face than the sweet but safe counterpart I had initially expected. Even such small details as these have turned out better tonight than I had thought they would, the hours passing in a flurry of constant amusement and secrets, both made and found. The only thing the evening has been missing seems to now be standing right here, as though this were simply a regular day and this alleyway belonged not to the Libertines, but to us, like every other shadowed back street in this city.

"You're just a little bit late," I chide, clucking my tongue at him as I approach, the sound bouncing off the bricks. "I mean, you know I enjoy a good alleyway as much as the next girl — and this one is tops as far as atmospheric lighting is concerned and all — but you kind of missed... everything." Casually sticking my pinkie finger out while taking a sip from my stolen tea cup, my grin curls in smug satisfaction at having personally missed out on absolutely nothing. After all, the only thing that had been absent from my glittering dream is now right in front of me. "Sucks to be you, Bast."

even when I dream
a l l d a y
don’t wanna sleep
t o n i g h t
you got me feeling right

Last Edit: Aug 29, 2013 22:11:46 GMT -5 by L△LIA

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“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.” - steinbeck

Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Aug 28, 2013 6:15:18 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Aug 28, 2013 6:15:18 GMT -5

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It does not matter tonight, what mask I wear, for to them I am already no one.

So I line my eyes with blue glitter and black wings, paint my lips and hang a cross in my ear to ward off evil. It’s laughable to hear it dangling there, failing to ward me off properly. I feel stunningly fine. In my pocket rests an invitation to the Libertine’s house for an event that is sure to be the talk of the year, if not the decade. They have always been a rather odd bunch after all, anything they decide to do is sure to be lavish and wonderful all at once. I should know after all, first hand. Tags decided with a firm nod that we were going, and even I find it difficult to disappoint her. So with a indulgent sigh, I made my way to their house of usual solemnity to come across something completely different.

When I arrived, the house was pulsating with music, the streets overflowing with masked crusaders always one step closer to death with each one they took. The spirits on the streets tonight were angry, making a racket that no one could hear, shaking fists. Others looked happy, glad to dance every now and then in their ghostly afterlife. I left them to it tonight, black fingernails clutching a brown paper bag filled with things for playing with. If Tags saw it, she'd roll her eyes and sigh, "More paperbags Bast?" What she didn't know could not hurt her, so I never told her what was inside each one. Inside these paper bags was more trouble than she could ever take, her little heart would beat out of control if she knew that one of these paper bags had just killed Old Lady Jada last week.

I weaved through the crowd tonight, bodies moving out of my way as easily if I had split the air. Without knowing it, they avoided me, my touch, my smile. I am not happy thing, a death bringer wherever I go. Yet there was many a deal to make tonight in the darkness of corners, many a pill to slip into a drink. Even the punch tonight, my fingers have danced over. I figure if the Libertines wanted fun, I would grace them with it, just this once. In the darkness, I exchanged pills for coins and took signatures on pearly white contracts. If anything, this night was wonderful for business.

As it dwindles, I wait for her to emerge, having given her the night off. I watch as couples exit, each time face blank as curiosity tickles my fancy. I wonder if tonight she will find a boy to take home. It makes my fingers tighten. Yet finally, she exits, breathless and disheveled, make-up mixed and muddied on her lovely features. I detach myself from shadow, sickeningly excited to see her in the worst way.

I have many things to do tonight, people to meet, places to go, bodies to burn. Yet, I can spare some time for my ghostly friend.

An easy grin attacks my features, and I casually take her by the wrist, "Don't drink the punch, Tags darling. It won't be nice to you tonight." I tuck the remains of the paper bag into my back pocket and pull her closer to me, flirting back too easily. "Did I? Could of sworn that I've been here this whole time. Did you get up to much trouble with your girls?"

This is gospel for the
f a l l e n o n e s
Locked away in
p e r m a n e n t
slumber

Last Edit: Aug 28, 2013 6:18:29 GMT -5 by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

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Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Aug 29, 2013 22:10:15 GMT -5

Post by L△LIA on Aug 29, 2013 22:10:15 GMT -5

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Strangers are seductive. Within the unknown, anything is possible and so when looking into the eyes of someone I've never met before, I always seem to be discovering that the uncertain future hidden in their face — or mask, as the case may be — rattles my nerves... and thrills me. There's so much I find myself wanting to know. Where did they come from? Better yet, where are they going? Can I follow? Hey! Hey, Stranger ~~Danger~~! Let me follow your secrets for a while. I want my heartbeat to be an echo of your shadow today. I'll go one, two, three, as though we're dancing ~~again~~ —

"You're too late!" Bastille pulls me toward him and I step into the motion, the corner of my lips twisting to the rhythm of our banter as I lean in to share a conspiratorial whisper. "If it's going to be mean to me, then you'll just have to back me up for a round of fisticuffs to defend my honor. It was too hard to say no to something so sweet." Eyes stealing a glance at the half-empty teacup of gaudy red liquid dangling haphazardly from the fingers of my free hand, it's all I can do not to drink the rest of it down here and now, but even Bast's most teasing warnings hide little hints of truth. I can't help but to stay my hand for him. Whether it's evidence of trust, loyalty, or idiotic blind faith — I don't know. In the end, it's just that there has always been something easy about following his voice. "On the bright side, maybe you haven't missed all the fun tonight after all."

Laughter swirls through my lungs, heavy and rich as it reaches up to touch the air between us, but the deepest thrum of it stays within me. A selfish secret. My stomach flips with the warmth of the sound's echo, a hidden waltz that daydreams of living this night all over again. A lifetime of déjà vu sounds incredibly appealing right now — basement dares and covert dancing, the god-howl of Thea's guitar, the way Caly's grin makes me feel twice as tall and ten times as diabolical, and the wicked intoxication of the dense, wild summertime air cocooning us now.

"Silver candlesticks, gold pocket watches, a parrot that looked more like a sunset than a bird. And trouble — oh god, Bast! — didn't you hear us? Thea almost brought the stars to their knees!" Each word comes a little faster and my pulse starts to double its cadence as my imagination relives hours in a slew of frantic seconds. Mimicking his hold on me, I grab his wrist so we're tethered to each other as though that might be enough to bring him into the past with me. "Caly and I went crazy. Remember that earthquake on the news all those months ago, over in One? I don't know what that felt like, but this was more. The ground shook! I didn't think I would ever —" By this point, I'm stomping my feet in a reenactment and swinging my hair around until the madness of curls must be reaching out to tickle his nose and cheeks. With a whirl, I duck under his arm for an impromptu spin and by the time I've turned back to face him, I'm gasping for oxygen. "— ever be able to breath again."

These gorgeous ideas of people I've danced with tonight — from masked myths to the incoherent parade of oddities slipping through the peripheries of my vision — were a series of addictive mysteries. They left me shivering with curiosity, until I was begging to keep them. However, clinging to the wrist of a familiar friend as I desperately gather the humid ocean breeze into my lungs, I feel a warmer burn that has nothing to do with what might have found its way into the punch I've been drinking. I may be reliving the past with every word that rushes from my mouth, but I'm no longer holding onto fleeting moments of pretty fiction. In my hand is someone that will still remember my name come dawn, someone who knows exactly what I hide beneath my mask. My heartbeat doesn't seek to echo his shadow, because it's already slipped a little closer.

dancing in the dark in
t h e p a l e m o o n l i g h t
got my hair up real big beauty queen style
high heels off
i ' m f e e l i n g a l i v e

Last Edit: Aug 29, 2013 22:13:35 GMT -5 by L△LIA

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Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Sept 3, 2013 7:51:19 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Sept 3, 2013 7:51:19 GMT -5

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I can't take my eyes off her as she recalls the night. Her entire being lights up, glow worms sing under her skin and she comes so very much alive. My hand tightens without my consent, the dead desperately clinging to the living.

I am sorry I missed seeing her wild, dancing in the middle of a crowd. To me, she's always been something different in the way she sticks out like a sore thumb. The pins and needles that set her apart from the others stab into my skin, I am incredibly aware of her closeness. I am incredibly aware of the way our bodies work together. She takes my other wrist, and our movements turn into a dance. We've always been excellent at stepping around the disastrous topics in our friendship. Once or twice she almost killed us by stepping on the wrong stone, but I managed to dodge it at the last second. Our friendship is one built on lies and other mistrusts. I only feel a slight guilt, the rest of what I feel covers it up anyway.

So I smile, and play along with her, long fingers twisting with her's, pressing against her wrist in a soft, commanding way. We move like this along the stonework and it makes me feel a tired sorrow. There can be no such thing as this lovely feeling for a guy like me. My path is one of grim deals and darkness. I cannot feel anything for this nymph, not when I have a job to do. There is the real sadness of a life like mine. I sacrifice a lot to do what I do, one of those things being my social life. Yet here I am, letting myself yearn and feel this pain. I am a glutton for punishment. Maybe I'm hoping that if I give myself enough grief, it'll be enough to send me off to my ancestors.

So I grin soft, and twirl her through the darkness. "Tonight," I comment, "As I was slipping through the crowd, I saw one or two ghosts." With an expertise that comes with years of practice, I hook a pinky through the tea cup's handle, the warmth of her skin shocking the coldness of mine own. "None however, quite as ghostly as you." With a smirk, I rescue the tea cup from her grasp. "I almost wanted to offer you a ride in my ferry until I saw those gorgeous curls," I say so as I spin her out into the night, keeping us tethered with one wrist. With a gentle tug, I pull her back in so that my arms wrap around her. Slowly, as if this is in practice, I pull her arms over her head to turn her to face me once again.

With a careful scrutiny reserved only for her, I memorize her tonight, taking in those disheveled locks and the pure ecstasy resting on her lips. Quietly, I reach forward and rescue one curl from the grasp of her lipstick and twist it up back with the others. "I thought the earth might have been shaking tonight, I am glad to know that it was everything serious." I am small and bitter about the Libertine household, how my feet hesitated over the door frame. I was worried it would feel like some sense of home. It was childish, and nothing of the sort happened. I feel the same cold, closed and grinning like a cheshire cat Bastille.

Her proximity makes my bones jitter and my forehead drops forward to lean against her's. I transfer my sobriety and thought process to her through our skin and wonder if she will receive it. I wonder if it will hit a wall of flesh, impenetrable as one five hundred years thick and made of barbed metal. My fingers link around her's, in a securing way, I am tethering her to the land, to me.

Oh when death
d o e s w a l k y o u h o m e
They will take your bones
A n d r e s t t h e m
peacefully

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Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Sept 13, 2013 21:30:23 GMT -5

Post by L△LIA on Sept 13, 2013 21:30:23 GMT -5

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Between the bricks in this alleyway is the secret to life. The mortar's power to hold things together is mightier than the wall it helps to create and if someday this building tumbles, the dust will still remember what it was like to be bound to something, held tight, and made greater than itself. Here, there is more than his hand on my skin and mine on his. There is the sense of binding, that even when we let go, we won't forget what it was like to hold each other up.

For now though, I'm too busy making memories to be concerned about how I'll keep them. "Tonight," he says and I find myself loving the now of that word, "as I was slipping through the crowd, I saw one or two ghosts." Leaning in, my mouth suspended in a perpetual gasp of curiosity, I'm running wild even as I'm standing still. My thoughts chasing flickers of white through the surrounding shadows, his world taunts me. Despite how possessively I hold onto his wrist, my fingers tightening as though that might be enough to catch an impossible wraith, I can't keep any of it. The fleeting images won't stay with me any more than he will at the end of the evening, all of them disappearing in an endless flutter of spirit's business. "None however, quite as ghostly as you." Teacup slipping free as I'm hypnotized by distraction, he is the savior of what little I could actually possess, if only I would realize I had it to begin with.

"I almost wanted to offer you a ride in my ferry until I saw those gorgeous curls," and I would have gone. To the end of the earth, to the dust of our binding, I would follow him like a fool to the aftermath if only he'd let me. I want a stake in those bitter secrets so badly that someday I'll ruin myself over it and he knows that. I know it too, but the difference is that one of us cares and the daydreamer in me wants to believe that person isn't me. These thoughts all whirl away as he spins me into the oceanic dark, silently throwing me off course even as I'm anchored to him. As he tugs me back, the fearless urge to follow those ghosts is left behind in favor of the one I'm with. His arms are the sea and they rock me, surrounding me in tidal waves and drifting perspective. As his hold swallows me up, I know that I've heard how this water should feel cold, but I've been swimming in it for so long that by now he feels warm to me.

When he turns me back to face him, every brick in the walls sheltering us follows. The world becomes a little rounder, flexing and swelling as he pulls a wayward lock of hair from the trap of my lips. It's as though these buildings know I need the extra breathing room, bending out so my stuttering lungs have more air, but not going so far away that I feel out of place. "I thought the earth might have been shaking tonight, I am glad to know that it was everything serious." My nose crinkling up with amusement at the idea of Thea's gas mask or my dramatic tango being considered as serious, my attention wanders off even as his forehead drops against mine, my thoughts parting in several directions at once.

The earth must still be dancing along with the music, because I feel its echoes through him — little shivers in the air and humming in his bones. "So serious that it's still shaking," I quip, as I nudge at his forehead with my own. "You must have had quite the time dancing with those other ghosts to still be haunted by the rhythm." My words slip out a little more freely than they should, aiming to distract him with a teasing jab as I angle mischievously for one last sip of forbidden punch from the teacup in his hand. "I think I might have seen some of those ghosts too — I met an old one that must have been something like a blackbird in the past." Old like you, Bast, like a piece of ancient history. "Only he didn't sound like he was very good at flying. I think he got too close to the sun once and that's why he fell for my tricks so easily tonight." The hand not holding onto him makes a wild grab for the last drop of the punch I was warned against, thirsty for just one more sip of dreamy intoxication.

"Did you see a ghost like that? Ornery thing wouldn't tell me his real name and I'm just a little —" One finger hooks its way over the edge of the teacup and declares a game of tug-o-war for it. "— curious." Tonight is built from dances and dares, each moment something concrete and worthwhile. In one hand I hold Bastille's wrist and in the other a relic of something that also cannot be so easily undone, not now that time has stacked one brick along side another. As my dizzy focus bends a little further, I pull, knowing something greater than myself is within my grasp, even if my thoughts are slipping away too quickly to say quite what. Sooner or later, at least my dust will remember.

it rattles my lungs
but my mind is
t a n g l e d
between your little flaws
y o u r f l a w s

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Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Sept 24, 2013 7:15:35 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Sept 24, 2013 7:15:35 GMT -5

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The only reason I am here tonight is because of her perseverance. I have long been held helpless to the way her fingers will wrap around my wrist, enclosing me, taming me. She is the only one who could ever dare to take me like that and still expect to live. I used to hate that, the white marks that were left behind from another's press against my skin, how I suddenly felt caged. Yet from her, it's more like being tethered, like a rush of water is filling up the empty caverns of my heart and I can breath again. Between the space of breaths I am filled up with a sudden kind of sorrow that makes my mouth twist into a grimmer line than normal, the painted arrows beneath my eyes straitening with the loss of my soft smirk. She steals it whether she wills it or not. For a man who has always worked best as an invisible force, I wish she could see the pain that lies like friction between us.

I am amazed that she has not. Even the swirling skirts, transparent and full, swish themselves into a frenzy as my ghostly court follows our movements. So accustomed are the to their own invisibility that they have lost all sense of decorum and a few of them hoot and holler, breaking the stillness of our night. They have been telling me to make my move for weeks now, and out of annoyance I have ferried some across, taking the loudest to the depths of Hades, shoving them all down deep where no one can hear their nonsensical madness. As if a girl as lovely and cunning as my Tags could ever fall for a boy like me. Still, every night as I lay in silence, the memory of her face, surprised and excited all at once haunts me. How lovely she was that first night I rolled into her open window. She'll never know what it meant to me, how that open hole in the side of her house had been my salvation from barking dogs and yelling men. I'd never admit how truly frightened I'd been.

To me, Tags was my very own Artemis, and yet here we only danced. Carefully, we tiptoe around each other, never reaching for anything more than this. I could not bare it if I made my move and she did not want it. I could not bare the weight of living if she cast me off. It would all become too heavy if I knew that there was not at least one person who truly seemed to care for me. So I do not give in to my own wishes, happy just to have her call for me between the alleyways. Some days I wait in my gilded little boat, ponderously poling along, wondering when she will call for me.

I give up the grapple over the tea cup, there isn't much I can do now. The punch concoction has already taken hold of her. Her pupils are much bigger than they should be, and she is already leaving me behind again. This time, whether she wills it or no. Impatiently, I wave a hand at the clattering ghosts, taking their voice with one wave of my hand. I am the Ferry Man, they will do as I say or pay for it dearly. It is a burden but a burden I carry willingly. Without me this plain will become disorderly, broken, full. There has to be someone to care for it, it has to be me. Sorrow my float my bones, anger may take hold, but I will do my job. Love is for those that have space in their hearts for it, for the brave ones. I do not love, nor do I hate, I am a coward.

I relinquish the tea cup, letting the liquid spill as she tugs it away, hoping it will all fall out with the unraveling of her night. I have taken the string between thumb and pointer finger, and she is about to get twisted and turned around with my pulling. All the better to speak her truth with, my dear. I hum softly in response to her question, a small flash of painful curiosity digs into my skin. "I saw nothing but ghosts tonight Love, no birds flew into my sight." Softly, I lead her towards the canal edge, to where my boat rocks in wait for me, for our errands to begin.

Our errands, I say, but I mean mine. I will bring her home, but then I will go on alone, as I must. She is not to see my true form, the cruelty which lays calm beneath my bones. I only want her to know the Bastille that holds paper bags, the Bastille that seems nonthreatening and mysterious. If she knew the truth of me, I wonder what she would think. Yet I will not give it to her, not yet. My boat and bags are the masks I wear, the guise I foil myself in so that she will never know what I truly am. I am afraid she would leave me if she knew. I am afraid that I would want her to. Ever the gentleman, I slip into the boat ahead of her, and take her slender waist in both hands, lifting her down to the boat. Carefully, I point at a ghost in the crowd that still stands on stone, and she clicks her heels in glee. Before I take her across she will pay me dearly, in information about the District and where she buried her family's treasures many years ago.

"I will always be haunted by the rhythm of their steps," I say soft, picking up the pole once she has settled. Half of me wants to pick up my oars instead and row us out to the middle of the sea where I will become undone. Yet it cannot be done, and I feel like some sort of taxi driver as I begin the trek to her home, carefully taking us along through the canals. Soon enough the alley behind us is left behind, nothing but the lantern at the front of the boat to break the darkness. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, her curls fracturing the night around her, wild and free of themselves. "Did you want to fly away with this bird?" I don't know why I ask, but we've never talked about things like boys and relationships, as if they have never existed. I know that one day she will fall in love, her affections will fall on some young man and she will forget all about the boy who haunts the canals. "Or," I say, muscles tensing with the effort of movement, "Did he already take your heart instead?"

I'll come back to haunt you,
M e m o r i e s
will taunt you,
And I will try
t o l o v e y o u

Last Edit: Sept 24, 2013 7:22:46 GMT -5 by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

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Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Sept 25, 2013 0:08:33 GMT -5

Post by L△LIA on Sept 25, 2013 0:08:33 GMT -5

[bg=FDF4EE][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=style,width: 400px; background-image: url(http://i40.tinypic.com/315okg8.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; padding-left:40px; padding-right:40px; padding-top:40px; border-left:1px solid #000000; border-right:1px solid #000000; border-top:1px solid #000000; -moz-border-radius-topright: 25px; border-radius-topright: 25px; -moz-border-radius-topleft: 25px; border-radius-topleft: 25px;opacity: 1;]

As the teacup tilts toward my greedy mouth, its contents are lost in a fit of irony to somewhere beyond me and I'm uncertain if I'll ever find any of this again. Surely, there must be a way to regain what I've lost, but as of this moment, I cannot begin to fathom how. After all, I can't even fully identify what has slipped away. Something sweet. Something intoxicating. Something dangerous. Something that begs at my curiosity until I can hardly stand it any longer.

I've always been addicted to mystery and so I know, even before my lips press against the china — staking a claim on the last drop that clings to the rim — that this small hint of evidence I've found will be enough for me to follow. Where there's a will, there's a way. This is what my mother has always told me and I took the saying to heart more than most children, allowing her words to raise me up to be a stubborn girl made of steel and cloud smoke. Mine is a body that is convinced it is indestructible, yet my head is filled with thoughts so intangible that they slip free through the cracks of my fingers when I try to hold them too tightly. However, the last little droplet of something sweet that spreads electric across my tongue won't escape me so easily. I have memorized it now and the way it flutters within my veins like technicolor radio static, gorgeous and awful all at once.

When Bast waves his hand at his invisible friends and follow-ghosts, I can't help giggling and throwing a glance over my shoulder in an attempt to sneak a peek. As always, there's nothing there, although the shadows look fuller tonight than usual and I feel so close to seeing his secret world that I raise my own hand up as though I can. My fingers trill against the air in a teasing mimicry of his own gesture, as if to say — so long suckers, the Ferry Man has no time for you tonight. The sound of a low, contemplative hum reverberating within his throat turns me back around, reminding me that now is also not the time for me to be distracted by the memories of those who have left. "I saw nothing but ghosts tonight Love, no birds flew into my sight."

I almost tell him that just because you don't see something doesn't mean it's not there, except then I remember who I'm talking to. There's no doubt within me that he believes in the existence of birds with as much certainty as he believes in ghosts, it's only my realization that stutters across a gap in time and comes to me a delayed moment later than it should. It's strange, the way I can feel the path of my own sense of knowing as it cartwheels though my body, newly educated in acrobatics and obsessed with the art of tumbling. A smile flashes across my face at the sensation and as Bast reaches out for me, his touch feels like sticking a landing and I'm suddenly quite certain I've missed my calling for a career in gymnastics. I could have been like last year's Victor — double-jointed limbs and something too real to be called magic.

He leads us out of the alleyway and through the streets toward the canal, a thousand houses passing us by with their windows winking in the starlight. I wink back from behind a flailing curtain of curls, skipping along without a care for our destination. The journey has always been my favorite part and in these undefinable, secret hours that belong to nothing except the two of us — a time too far past midnight to be called nighttime, but too early to belong to the approaching morning — I am content. Faint chirps of excitement sneak out my throat from time to time when I catch a fleeting glimpse of something intriguing slipping around a corner or scaling a wall on the next block, making me sound a little like a... Cricket. Now I remember. That might have been the name of my alter-ego, if only I had known Bast and the Libertine's spiked punch earlier in life. "Look! I found your boat, Bast! No, no. I mean, gondo—" I exclaim in a slightly higher pitch than what's usual, vocal chords still ensnared in the idea of being part-insect until his hands are on my waist and lifting me off the ground... like a bird. "— oh!"

His ensuing murmur is so hushed, I almost don't catch it. "I will always be haunted by the rhythm of their steps." Although wings make no sound, I think I know exactly what he means, yet I'm uncertain if that's the reason why a pang of disappointment finds me when my toes touch down upon the deck of the boat or not. Is it the sky that feels farther now or is it — Glancing at Bast, I plop down in my usual spot. I don't think he was very happy when I scratched my name into the wooden bench a few months back, as if to ensure that the seat might be permanently reserved for me, but the declaration is still there: TAGS WAS HERE. "Did you want to fly away with this bird?" Setting my empty teacup down beside me, I pull my feet up to sit cross-legged as he expertly guides us away from the bank and toward new territory. "Or did he already take your heart instead?"

The wind picks up my hair and throws it into the night, until it's tangled in the stars. I laugh. "What would a bird do with my heart? Build a nest out of it?" For a few minutes my smile gets lost in the idea of a bird building a home from what I keep within my chest, wondering if such a thing could be possible. "If I were made out of gold or diamonds, I think he might have flown away with me —" Yet, even as my vision is bent to the will of whatever drug found its way into my drink tonight, I still remember that I'm made of steel and cloud smoke. I won't change who I am so easily. "— but I'm not." Inspecting my palms, just to be certain, my skin seems to spark and melt beneath the gently wavering moonlight as if to ensure that I also remember that where there's a will, there's a way. "I just wanted to know where he was going."

With a shrug, I absently pick up my teacup and spin it between my fingers for a moment before reaching over the side of the boat with it to scoop at the water. It jumps slightly against the waves as we glide along, biting into the current. When I lift it back up, the water pooled within startles me with its familiarity and suddenly I'm giggling again from belated recognition. "It was me! I saw a painting at the Libertine's that looked like me. I was riding in your boat, just like this —" Looking up at Bast, I point at myself and my china cup containing an entire sea of souls, as if he might not understand otherwise. "— and you were in it too, but the artist got you all wrong. Instead, you were a gnarly skeleton."

Jumping up, the gondola sways against the sudden motion as I cross over to him to peer at his face in the dark, attempting to mimic the sinister expression from the painting before shaking my head in dismissal. "It really didn't look anything like you though... not even after the punch. That can't be what you look like under your skin either, all bent up like that." I snort at the idea of him managing to hide that type of image away, pinching his cheek as if he's an innocent child (although I know quite well that he's not), and sit down once more. When my eyes fall back to the cup of ghost-water still cradled within my hands, my delayed sense of realization catches up to me a third time too late and I gasp. "It's full again!"

i'm feeling electric tonight
cruising down the coast going about
n i n e t y - n i n e
got my bad baby by my heavenly side
oh if i go i'll die happy tonight

Last Edit: Sept 27, 2013 5:45:17 GMT -5 by L△LIA

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Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Oct 27, 2013 21:48:28 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Oct 27, 2013 21:48:28 GMT -5

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b a s t i l l e s t y x - l i b e r t i n e.

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The souls that swim in my river like fish have always been present for me, spurring my boat along, reaching out of the waves like beggars in the streets. They used to disgust me, but now they are friends, people I delivered to their home in the underworld. They are the ones who did badly and drowned in the river instead of getting to the other side. They grab at my gondola, rocking it and tossing us around. I can hear their screaming on the wind wherever I go, moaning and an echoing of sorrow. Their hands caress the side of my boat as if it is a lost lover and it is to them at least. She and I are the only ones that can drag them out of their ghostly swim and take them past Cerberus, the man who guards the gates of hell. I will not save these suffering souls, I do not take passengers without payment and they already gave me all their secrets and gold on their first journey. They are doomed to swim forever.

However, it is slightly problematic that one Taggerty Eames can look into the cup and see the ghosts that for so very long have only ever belonged to me. I glance into the swirling cup she shoves under my nose and see a bit of skin tattered with the markings of a wip, some poor sod who was killed for some petty crime, no doubt. One bony finger reaches out of the swirling cup to tap me weakly on the arm, and then falls to the bottom of the gondola to seep into the wood and rejoin the others. The cup seems to empty of it's own free will, but Tags' hands shake like an old lady's and the contents haven't only spilled it with ghostly intent. I wonder how much punch she's actually had. If she's seeing my ghosts, its probably been far too much for her little frame.

I was meaning to bring her home, but I can't like this, I have to sober her up first. I cannot leave her to see the ghosts that circle her daily, knowing that she has my attention, fawning over her in worship in hopes that I will pick them next for their dutiful watch. Even now the ones I brought with play with her curls and the tendrils of her costume, picking them up and tossing them into a wind that isn't there. I dare not leave her alone with nightmarish visions that could consume her. If I give her the ghosts and leave her to herself, nothing else to occupy her, she could become slightly addicted. Soon enough she'd be the one ordering the paper bags that she so detests. I shudder at the thought of Tags becoming like one of my clientele, unable to do anything but wait for their next hit.

I hear a gasp from behind me as she discovers that the contents have filled themselves up again. I glance back sharply at the ghost that has it's hand stuck through the bottom of the cup, wiggling it's finger's at Tags. "If you want to play instead of move on, you can stay here, spirit," I snarl at it. So help me, I will turn this boat around. The spirit giggles and sits on it's hands, a chagrined look on it's ghostly features. With a twist, I slap it with my pole, pushing it out of the boat and into the river, where it swirls down with a scream. That one will stay there for eternity, until I forgive it's silliness. When you are the one that takes all of Panem's soul to the underworld, you cannot afford to give second chances, and the ghosts have to know that. They have to know that I can be cruel or they will not respect me. That ghost will wail about me for years now as it tries to crawl it's way out of the murky depths.

"Are you quite certain he didn't look like me, love? I'm not sure if you've been looking right." I glance down at my arms, that seem so well formed with muscles, but I can see the tatters of robe, the deathly glow to my bones. I can feel the weight of a cloak on my shoulders. It's heavy with use and dirt, heavy with time. I can feel the weight of my ancestors before me who held the body of my bones inside them as well. I am a skeleton formed ages ago, even my rib bones curl with age. Yet for all rights and purposes I am young and it is odd in more ways than one to feel this old and be so young. I have seen more than words can say in the mortal cage that is my body, but I have never seen the skin on my cheeks. All I see when I look in the mirror is the certainty of myself, and it is horrifying.

My bones grip the pole tighter and I take us around a corner. All thoughts of home and the drop off in the ocean are long gone, the spirits fled out of fright. We go now to my haven, my resting place. I take her to the depths of my melancholy despair. She will follow me into the dark or I will drag her along. "Tags," I say, voice soft as we pull up to the front of my dive, people still lined in front even though it's past two in the morning, "Would you like to sleepover?"

Music screams out from the front door, and inside I know that they will still be going strong, to keep the tiny corners of silence loud. I know that young men and women will be off their heads about now, using whatever fix they needed from my paper bags, stashed in a back room. This place is my territory, where spirits and man go to make deals with me, where one can purchase a ticket for my ferry. There is a tantalizing smell of sweetness and sweat mixed in with the night air, and I can almost taste the criminality of it all. It invites us in from the door that stays open, a small woman guarding it. She won't be able to resist.

I got my knuckles bruised by
a l a d y i n b l a c k
And I held my tongue
a n s h e t o l d m e,
"Son, fear is the heart of love."
S o I n e v e r w e n t b a c k

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Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Oct 28, 2013 15:59:33 GMT -5

Post by L△LIA on Oct 28, 2013 15:59:33 GMT -5

[bg=2B6357][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=style,width: 400px; background-image: url(http://i40.tinypic.com/315okg8.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; padding-left:40px; padding-right:40px; padding-top:40px; border-left:1px solid #000000; border-right:1px solid #000000; border-top:1px solid #000000; -moz-border-radius-topright: 25px; border-radius-topright: 25px; -moz-border-radius-topleft: 25px; border-radius-topleft: 25px;opacity: 1;]

Sometimes I forget that Bast is the same person who broke into my bedroom that night, covered in blood, bruises, and all the evidence of adventure I needed to reach out for him and refuse to let go. Another girl would have screamed to the point of forcing his hand to silence her lungs or maybe she'd have seen enough of a hint of the pretty face — I'm sorry, Bast, but you're pretty like a girl; as a girl, I don't think it's fair either — masked by gore that she'd have offered him a clean towel and a nervously confused laugh. No one else, however, would have plopped down beside him with a bottle of whiskey, a demand to help set his broken nose, and a thinly veiled attempt at blackmailing him for the story about what had happened... if tell me everything or I'll scream bloody murder with a greedy glint in my eyes and a devil's smile counts as thinly veiled, that is.

By all rights, we never should have crossed paths, the aspiring schoolyard rebel and the infamous Ferry Man. I see the shift in his shoulders when he's speaking with someone else — somehow growing slightly taller, broader, and more intimidating within the span of a single second — and sometimes I'm a little jealous that he doesn't talk to me like that often, all bravado and deadly edges. Only when I cross a line and petulantly refuse to step back. It's the kind of thing I can't help wondering if he does on purpose, consciously setting me apart from how most other people are just a crowd of business associates, potential clients, and ghosts in need of taming. He'll pull himself in when we're together or if Caly and Thea are around and suddenly it's like Bastille and the Ferry Man aren't quite the same person and, just maybe, they're not. "Tags —" It's certainly not the Ferry Man who says my name so softly, although we've commandeered his boat this evening. "— would you like to sleepover?"

I scream like a little girl who woke up Ratmas morning to find a real live unicorn by the tree, wearing a giant bow and a gift tag with my name on it.

Tomorrow I might think back to my reaction and spend twenty minutes banging my head into a wall, muttering why, why, oh my god, Tags, why, but for now I am unconcerned by anything other than Bast's invitation to crash at his club. "Abso-freaking-lutely!" I'm on my feet, doing an excited little hop from foot to foot and clapping giddily as my hair bounces like gravity does not apply to it. He usually seems to hate it when I try to come here, shooing me away as though mood lighting and booze-soaked glitter might — fingers crossed! — corrupt me... you know, more. A round of sarcasm wheels out my mouth as I reach out to ruffle his hair excessively, some corner of my mind distracted by how the strands coil around and bend between my fingers, a strange sensation of metal and water against my hands in this melting moonlight. I remember the way my own skin was transformed this way earlier, distractedly wondering if the punch has given me a bizarre kind of Midas touch that will turn everything I come in contact with into molten gold.

"Are we gonna stay up all night braiding each other's hair and painting our toenails? Can we argue over who all the cutest boys in school are until you confess your crush on the captain of the basketball team? I know how you feel about a nice pair of legs, you can't fool me. Or —" I hardly pause between my barage of questions and wild accusations, absently petting his hair with both hands, just smoothing the disheveled locks back and forth. "— maybe the chess prodigy with the pocket protector and pleated pants is more your type and you're just too embarrassed to tell me. Bast —" Giving him the best attempt at a serious expression that I can muster when my foolish smile is cracking my face apart with barely concealed dimples, I forget about the tantalizing promise of the club and lose myself in teasing him. "— you know you can tell me anything. I trust you so much I'd let you give me my first tattoo or dye my hair, so you really shouldn't be afraid to confide about an itty bitty crush."

Against my transformative fingers and the starlight, his hair is all decomposing shadows and pale, liquid wildfire. "Actually, you should probably let me dye your hair. Guuuurl —" I trace the edge of his hairline with my fingertip and turn on my Taggerty-knows-best voice. "— you'd look so good as a blonde, you wouldn't even have to choose which boy to chase at school, they'd all be after you. Too bad for them that they'd have to fight me for dibs." It's too much and I can't take it anymore, laughter sputtering out of me until I trip forward and land face-first in his soon to be blonde bombshell fabulous hair. I smack my hand against his shoulder a couple of times, trying to get a handle on myself, but I just can't and wind up sprawled out instead, half-clinging to his arm in a failed attempt to steady myself and half-fallen across the floor of the gondola. "Oh my god," I can't breathe, let alone remember Bast's implications that he's someone I should be afraid of, "I've fallen and I can't get up! Help, help! How will I ever give you a makeover and challenge you to a pillow fight at this rate?!"

want to feel the danger
running through our veins
oh we don’t have to wait forever
we can glow like a
w i l d f i r e

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Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Oct 31, 2013 17:30:39 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Oct 31, 2013 17:30:39 GMT -5

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b a s t i l l e s t y x - l i b e r t i n e.

[atrb=style, word-spacing: 1px; text-align: justify; background: #000000; opacity: 0.7; padding: 35px; border-radius: 10px 10px 10px 10px;]

For all that Tags willingly gives me, sometimes I swear I could strangle her. I am absolutely serious, I would wrap my hand around her throat and watch the colour leave her cheeks. I know I could do all this easily, nothing in my face to show how much pain it might cause me. I have no idea if it would cause me pain, I have never killed someone that I know well before. I have also usually only killed through the use of overdoses and knives, some times ropes. Not much with bare hands. If I were ever to kill Taggerty Eames I wouldn't. My hands wouldn't clench hard enough, my knife too blunt, my pills made of sugar, my rope far too loose. Instead, I strangle her with my eyes, even as I regret giving her such an innocent phrase to be made fun of.

I forget sometimes that she's just like everyone else. Just like them, she expects me to be nothing but a predator, nothing but a boy with paper bags who sees ghosts. She expects more than that from me, I know. It's been a couple years since I crawled in her window with my face looking as if someone had rearranged it. Every time she looks at me now, when it's been a couple days or even a few hours, I see her eyes searching for bumps and bruises. Sometimes she's disappointed, sometimes she isn't. When I am in pain, she loves it, the stories. She loves the stories I think far more than the boy underneath.

I must remind myself to use more delicate wording around her. I let myself show the seventeen year old boy that carries this body and let myself slip away for a few small seconds. I always let him out with her around, I guess I think I'm safe, I can rest, let the boy inside do the driving for a while. Yet, maybe that's a terrible idea, maybe there was no boy to begin with and I am simply showing weakness. I sigh, it is grandiose and it comes from the very bottom of my lungs. I know I should forgive her, I am the one who got her like this. Yet I can't, because the seventeen year old boy inside me who is absolutely enamored with her might chuckle and punch her in the arm, but I am Bastille, I am Cheron and I do not play around.

I stand stock still, listening intently to her ramblings, or at least pretending to. The gondola creaks underneath my feet and I catch a phrase here and there, something about talking about boys, something about how she'd be the first in line, something about dying my hair blonde. I put it all up to her drunken ramblings and still, I can't let her go inside like this, a giggling school girl. They'd eat her alive in there. I begin to regret my invitation. I have to get across to her how dangerous it is in there. Many people have walked in the front door, very much alive and gone out the back door very much not. This isn't a place for her games of being bad, of lighting matches and trying for a grazed knee.

I grab her by the wrist, feeling taller again, pushing her words out of the air with my own menacing ones. "Listen sweetheart," I growl, "You talk like that in there, they'll eat you alive. You want to stay out here and talk like a twelve year old or go inside?" Once again I am the Ferry Man, I don't know who Bastille Styx is. Gone is my charm, here is my gruffness, soon my business side will climb into this skin suit and my eyes will glitter without meaning, my frame will call fear to it without understanding. I am bitter, I don't give her time to answer. I pull us both out of the gondola then, and toss the rope to the girl who guards the door. It is three steps from the canal to the front door and suddenly we are inside.

My hand still grips Tags by the arm, and our world is suddenly filled with the blaring intensity of what we just left. I am still annoyed and I cannot help it. I don't even know if it's at her or at myself. I am not to forget about what I am. She was right to remind me. The lights in the club are low, but the ones on the stage are not. Men and women dance on the stage, some in different levels of dress, but all to the cheers of the dancing crowd. There is shouting, laughter, and the faint smell of vomit mixed with cigarette smoke. People clap me on the back as I go by, some don't dare too. Others announce the prettiness of the girl with me.

We head to the bar first, and I get a wad of cash from sales as well as a whisky for me and a water for Tags. They've never seen me bring a girl in before. Of course I'll sometimes go into the back room with one, or a guy every now and then. I've never brought one to the club before. I don't say a word to anyone, I'm seething somewhere below my feet. I don't know why I'm so angry. I hate how loud it is in here. I hate the closeness of it all, I should have chosen the ocean.

This dream isn't
f e e l i n g s w e e t
We're reeling through the
m i d n i g h t s t r e e t s
And I've never felt more alone
It feels so scary
g e t t i n g o l d

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Last Edit: Oct 31, 2013 17:31:45 GMT -5 by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

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Even When I Dream All Day // Bast + Tags [Masq] Nov 1, 2013 22:04:19 GMT -5

Post by L△LIA on Nov 1, 2013 22:04:19 GMT -5

[bg=000000][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=style,width: 400px; background-image: url(http://i40.tinypic.com/315okg8.jpg); background-repeat: no-repeat; padding-left:40px; padding-right:40px; padding-bottom:40px; border-left:1px solid #000000; border-right:1px solid #000000; border-bottom:1px solid #000000; -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 25px; border-radius-bottomright: 25px; -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 25px; border-radius-bottomleft: 25px;opacity: 1;]

When I'm dreaming, sometimes I'm convinced I can feel it and when I wake up to discover none of it was real, I wonder how that was. If that dream was just my imagination, then why did I feel it so deeply — my heart pounding, my skin screaming with life, my nerves alight with shockwaves? This must be the same. For a small stretch of time, I've stop worrying about reality — my hands ruffling Bast's hair, laughter rolling easy in my lungs, and a shiver in my spine when I touch him that reminds me that I'm the one with the secret crush, not the boy shepherding me through the wicked lure of night. Then his voice wakes me, just the same as my father's might on any other morning. It booms through me in a sudden burst of panic and that warm, blissful moment of dreaming falls away until I remember where I am and who I'm with.

"Listen, sweetheart." The term of endearment sounds ironic in his harsh tone of voice as he grabs me by the wrist and physically pulls me out of my ridiculous collapse into rambling. "You talk like that in there, they'll eat you alive. You want to stay out here and talk like a twelve year old or go inside?" An idiot-whisper within me begs to say: But I'm not in there, I'm out here, and even if I weren't, no one would eat me alive, not when I'm with you. I'd like to see them try. Except, uncertainty creeps in, so I can't say anything, because I don't know for sure. We're in his territory now. This is different than the nights he climbs in my bedroom window, trading me stories for stitches, or the paper bags he lets me shuttle around for him so I can feel like I'm living life a little closer to the edge. Maybe he wouldn't suckerpunch a drunken creep in my defense or stand by me if I started running my mouth off. Here, he's the Ferry Man and I'm just tag-along-Tags, who might get offered up to the dogs on a golden plate made by her own Midas touch of drug-addled distraction.

I'm not wounded, just sobered. My shimmering blood tries to rebel as I'm hauled out of the boat and through the front door, all a-rush with a whirl of shifting sight and sound, but I clench my teeth until my jaw throbs and I pretend I'm in a staring contest with myself. Passing by a line of people, I don't even blink at them. Right now I'm a freaking world champion at this and I dare them to challenge me. They could try all they wanted to, but my eyeballs will shrivel up to dust and be scattered to the wind before I relent now. A couple of them reach out to pat Bast on the back and my mouth twists slightly sour as that little voice pipes up again: Oh, I see how it is. They get to be chummy with you, but I —

One of the men shoots a sly look back and forth between my annoyed caretaker and I before telling me I'm pretty and I grin back, trying to catch a glimpse of Bast's reaction, but losing focus in the shadows that dim everything except for the stage. Down here, it's like we've fallen into a pit of writhing bodies and, for all the smoke filling the air, at least a few of them must be burning at the stake. It's the perfect image of scandal, the skin of sinners mixed with the shouts of those who watch and still beg for more. Everything I dream about is down here, dirty and covered in vomit, but completely captivating just the same. I've never really been able to explain why the underworld is fascinating, at least not in a way that other people seem to understand, but right now I just want to grab Bast, pull his ear down to my mouth and hiss — anything could happen right now — but he's still dragging me around like I'm on a kid leash, so this probably isn't the right time.

He's not giddy for the thrill like I am, too angry or too bored by it to bother with really looking at what's going on around us. This is nothing to him and maybe it never has been, just another normal night for the Ferry Man and I. Could. Just. Scream. God, Bast, un-grow up for just five seconds and look at what you're missing! Everything around us is amazing. Yet, none of this is impressive to him and he lets me go, trading my wrist for a wad of cash and some whiskey. It's so loud and blinding — my vision is all electric sparks and slow motion fades as something like the first yell of a riot swoops through my muscles, sending ripples through me — and I could run free or dance with the damned here, but I sink onto a bar stool instead, still fighting the lingering effects of the spiked punch.

When Bast sets the water down in front of me, I can't help the slight narrowing of my eyes, petulant that my drink is the exact opposite of his own. I know the last thing I need right now is a second wave of addled senses, but there's something so unfair about finally being invited here, only to be banned from participating in all things fun. Picking up the glass, I skulk for a few more seconds before knocking it back in one shot and dramatically smacking the tumbler down on the bar as if I'd just taken a swig of fire water instead. The bartender looks up at me with a hint of a smirk in the crook of his lip and I meet his gaze with complete seriousness as I tap twice at the space next to my empty drink, signaling him for a refill. Hit me again. He just tilts his head all girl, are you serious, but I'm a staring contest champion and I don't crack. I am sooo serious, sir. "On the rocks, please."

If I were sitting next to anyone else, he'd probably just walk away, but the Ferry Man's guest gets her water and I'm sure Bast isn't getting any less annoyed with me right now, but I don't care. Before he can chastise me again, I take a long, appreciative sip of my drink — savoring it as if it were two hundred gazillion year old scotch and not utterly harmless — and turn toward him with my own expression of criticism. "Don't drag me around by my wrist. I'm a girl," I may be a stupid one, but that still counts, "not a rag doll." Then I shoot him a look to say the type of thing he warned me against in the boat earlier: Listen, I know the zombie makeup is super realistic, so I get why you're confused, but come on now, Ferry Boy. "You're not the only one who knows how to get mad. Although I guess I could always go hang out with that friend of yours who told me I was pretty, I liked him." I know I should be biting my tongue, but I'm not afraid of the consequences. No matter what he says to try and scare me, I can't help feeling safe next to him. Besides, he must have done a shoddy job of waking me up earlier, because a shockwave of warmth shoots through me as I glare and I know I must still be dreaming.

you’ve heard about the pit
been told to be afraid of everything that lives within
but it’s much worse where you are so will you go for it
i have a feeling you
m i g h t

Last Edit: Nov 1, 2013 22:16:42 GMT -5 by L△LIA

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