killer kids } syth.gaige

s y t h .

close the window, love
keep the light out

At the bottom of a bottle, there is no salvation. (Nothing can save you.) I learned that a long time ago when I tried to drown heartbreak in booze- most everyone has, and yet we drink anyway, as if it's a filler fit for the hole in our hearts, as if it will pull the knife out of our backs. There is no numbing the pain, there is only bathing in the agony of it all; there is no salvation. (Nothing can save you.)

I couldn't drown my sorrows in alcohol, but I could wrap the night around myself like a blanket and try to use it as a parachute. I am unsure if that is what I'm doing here, at a drunken teenage party at the mansion of a girl far richer and more royal than I. All I know is that I'm surrounded my drunken idiots in masks. I've had not a single drink- the manic ecstasy of the nightfall is enough to sate me, but others are not so easily satisfied, and the proof is in their veins, riddled with alcohol.

Juliet Beaumont is a fool, I think, for opening her door to not saints, but sinners, like me. She is a generous fool, but a fool nevertheless. Fools greater than her stumble through the corridors of marble and velvet and ebony wood and lounge on the couch, sipping on who knows what. The house is erupting with giggles drowned in amber and cheering, mostly aimed at the games of strip poker and spin the bottle breaking out in every damn room.

By the time midnight has washed over us in a dark wave, I am certain I am the only sober person in existence within these lavish walls. A sea of red plastic cups riddle the floors in harmony with bottles of whiskey and wine and vodka and rum and who knows what else, sucked utterly empty as voids and dry as bones.

Gaze zeroed in on the liquid fire in my cup, stature slumped and lax with the beginnings of drowsiness- this is the image I have been painted in the amber-ridden night. But my cup is full, minus a few sips, and my mind remains clear of a bitter haze. I have found that being sober at a raging party is like being omniscient- it's like you have a new pair of eyes that see things others do not.

Like the hollowness dead in their eyes.

(It matches mine.)

I am leaning against the doorway when I see him. He bursts from the hallway and onto the balcony, gripping the bars with his hands and lurching forward to spill the contents of his stomach onto the ground far, far below us.

Fucking ew.

Face still obscured by a black masquerade mask, adorned with faux raven feathers and sequence, I abandon my perch against the wall and saunter towards the boy. When I look at him, I see unspoken stories- how he ended up here, and why. No one comes to a party to drown themselves in a glass unless they are plagued by problems. And out of my own selfish wonder, I take pity on the boy, and entangled my hand in his.

"Hey," I say. But my voice is anything but soft- my voice scrapes against the air harsher than I would have liked. "Kid, you're way too drunk to be out in the open like this." Gently tugging him away from the balcony, I soften my voice and continue on with, "Come with me, before you fall over and kill yourself."

shut the curtains tight
we'll get found out

- ♥ -

lyrics: "lost here" by fauntella.
table inspired by rook.

s y t h .

or we'll get lost here
let's just take our time

He is so fucking drunk. I can see it in his eyes, how their whites are tinged scarlet by the floods in his veins. I can see it in the way he moves- maybe he is a natural-born klutz, but no one with just a clumsy step nearly loses their balance while standing. He rocks, back and forth, back and forth, like a sailboat upon a shifting sea.

"I'm not even that drunk," he protests, but his voice begs to differ. His words all seem to mash together and he nearly swallows his tongue when he speaks. I stifle a giggle, pushing it down with a smile that presses into my cheeks. "Honest'y, I'm-" but his words are cut short for a ridiculous grin. Maybe he would look damn adorable, if he wasn't such a cunt when he's locked in a haze and drowning himself in bottles.

(Honestly, you're drunk as hell, I want to say to complete his broken statement.)

He scratches behind his ears, as if he is trying to contemplate something- but I bet he can't conjure up one single coherent thought with the mist that must be shrouding his head. Alcohol consumes. Alcohol chokes.

"I'm just like, a lightweight?" he tries to justify himself. "I don't know."

I arch an eyebrow at him and let my gaze scrape him up and down. The scrutiny says, what the actual fuck, kid. But I am not so quick to be anywhere on the border of cruel to a drunk boy. He is soft- maybe it's just the alcohol lulling him into a strange calm, or maybe it's just his heart- and his touch is soft, too. It feels how I always imagined a cloud to feel, if I could run my hands through the sky.

When I speak, I throw swear words into the air, but my tone is not as harsh. It is soft, like the clouds, like his hands. Like him. "No, you're fucking drunk, that's what," I tell him. And without another word, I brush my hair over my shoulder and lead him down a corridor. This hallway and the rooms it leads to are tucked away from the chaos raging throughout the Beaumont mansion. The quiet speaks to me. It tells me that it is secluded here, that it is safe here.

We reach the end of the hallway, and my free hand turns the knob on one of the doors. It swings open against the push of my flattened palm, revealing a guest bedroom consumed by darkness.

My open hand slides along the wall in the darkness until I find the light switch and flip it upwards, chasing away the darkness with a soft golden light. They reveal soft, dove gray carpeting and a circular white rug and mahogany furniture and a queen size bed. The bed is neatly made, with a black comforter with dark red accents. The room is decorated simply, with a few plants and pictures scattered here and there.

I lead the drunk boy to the bed and take a seat on its side, tugging his hand to follow.

"Can you manage not to die in the pillows?" I ask. My voice is hushed, but when it brushes the air, it is in a monotone to convey sarcasm.

My eyes trace from his eyes down to his shoulders, and his arms, and his elbows, and finally, his hands. That is when I realize that mine are still interlaced with his. But I do not pull them away.

lose the whole year
let's just close our eyes

- ♥ -

lyrics: "lost here" by fauntella.
table inspired by rook.

s y t h .

face our worst fears
or we could get lost here

Words trickle from his lips like rivers. They rush out into the air, free of strictures or boundaries. (That's what alcohol does. It burns all the walls down.) "Depends," he replies, with a voice that sways and wavers the way the ocean does in low tide, "if I drown, will you drown with me?"

(Maybe, if I could not hold my breath for long enough.)

He takes our hands, still laced together a one, and raises them into the air. I let my arm follow his- I am too busy peering into his eyes and trailing my gaze along the curve of his smile. He is an innocent creature, pure to the core- or perhaps it is the alcohol that purifies him if he is as adulterated as I.

His eyes are like an abyss. When my gaze meets his, they pull me right in and suddenly I am falling falling falling. But when I hit the ground, my bones do not break. I do not fall with grace, and yet I land softly- or maybe that is just the gentleness of the surface.

Setting our hands back on the mattress, he says, "Let's - hic - uhh," and squints. "Let's play Never Have I Ever."

I let a laugh roll out into the air from my lungs. I would have stifled it in the presence of any other, but there is something comforting about the boy's presence, a warmth I do not often find in the hearts I have met. My own included. I would have swallowed it like it was a thorn and kept the steel in my eyes. But instead I am letting it all wash away. Perhaps it is the sun in the darkness of his eyes, bleeding right into mine.

Our hands are still entwined- casting my gaze upon them makes my heart twist and turn. His warmth reminds me of Ara's, and yet it is so profoundly different. Her warmth was not like the sun- like his. Her warmth was not summer, all comfort and softness. It was fire, passionate, wild, reckless- dark. I recoil from the memory; I recoil from his grip. A smile drags my lips up my cheek- but it does not touch my eyes- as I pull my hand away, casually, and run my fingers through the silver pouring down my shoulders.

Everything suddenly feels colder.

"If you've done whatever the other says, you have to . . ." I begin, but then I lose the rest of the words.

I would say take a shot, but the boy does need to be pushed further under the surface of the sea he has poured into his own veins.

"You have to do something, just one thing, that the other tells you to." I keep my eyes lowered to the ground as I speak. Sudden fear has taken hold of me that I will fall too far into comfort and I will forget the scars for a moment and I-

it all recedes when my eyes flicker back up to his, and I am consumed once more by wonder. (But the fear still remains, buried just a little deeper down. Undead. Never resting.) He is so strange, so difficult to decipher. But the mystery only draws me in.

(I never thought anyone so drunk could be so interesting.)

"Guess I should know the name of who I'm spilling all my secrets to. Mine's Syth."

I wonder what he hides behind his eyes, and I fear, deeply, fiercely, that he will shrink away from what I hide behind mine.

or we could get lost here
have i told you that i get lonely too?

- ♥ -

lyrics: "lost here" by fauntella.
table inspired by rook.