when worlds collide // kousei [blitz]

Wheels turning, gears grinding - let my borrowed time begin to tick.

I need static flood.

(tick-tick)

To stop these wheels turning, to halt these grinding gears, to watch the concept of motion itself freeze and remain stationary - for once in my life I want to be stagnant. To be stagnant means to look at Aedan in the eye, to listen to Annika's words of wisdom one more time, for the weight of the world cease to grow altogether.

Tap, tap, tap goes my fingers against the window, anything to drown out the slowing tick-tick of borrowed time and for me to ignore the sight of the train going through its motion; if I close my eyes I can practically forget that anything's moving. When I close my eyes I am stagnant.

"How do you feel?"

Like control's slipping faster than borrowed time itself.

The Fray girl's attractive, she reminds me of liquor and songs and drunken kisses in the dark - in her own way (with her dark har and eyes and four letter bloodline blessed with glory) she reminds me of Styx even though I've long since blurred that night into what it simply was- an escape from my increasing lack of control. Diorite I think her name is.

Confidence burned into the palm of my hand, it keeps my mask of magnificence in place, shielding the cracks that can't be mended with nerves masquerading underneath a smile. "Thirsty, hungry, the usual," I feel like Atlas, just a liar waiting to be found. "But other than that, I'm fine."

I promise I'm fine- give or take the lack of stagnation.

I am limited. Four career lives running on borrowed time and but there is only so many times we can hear the rhythmic tick-tock before we have to give ourselves to pieces in order to hear the next rhythm.

From this day to my last day, I am finite.

"Really?"

I pause follow up question but almost crumple at the pressure of her gaze. Her head tilts to the side and it's obvious that she's studying me for a drop of evidence that there's a drop of humanity to my name.

The tapping stops dead in it's tracks and the ticking of borrowed time replaces it. "You're not scared, nervous at all?"

I've never had someone who may as well be a stranger look at me and ask me questions better left unanswered as if they expect something from me.

But the idea is the same; I've been polarized for eighteen years.

"I am. Quite a bit, but...I have to be here." I weakly smile back, wondering just how durable my untested mask of magnificence truly is.

"So do I in a way, else I wouldn't have done this."

But she just won't leave a line in the sand.

"You're...really okay...?"

I stop, I pause, and I sigh-

"I'm not allowed to not be okay, I asked for this after all,"

(but I'm not okay, and I'll never be okay while I remain finite, while borrowed time stays in motion)

"For someone who's only learned my name a couple of hours ago, you're awfully concerned about my well-bring." I add with a playful grin because that's just what I do. "Is it something to do with my good looks?" And that's just all I know.

(And somewhere, in the distance out there, I want nothing more than to finally sink in this internal bed of tears)

Let time tick backwards to one week prior and I would've condemned her statements as nothing but blasphemy. "We're not perfect, and we can't be eternal in this way." She said but I wouldn't dare ever mutter agreement to the logic behind her statement.

(we could if we truly tried)

Mother and Father's words a bullet in my chest, a bell ringing on loop and repeat and cutting through the passing winds- (perfection is only achievable to those he subconsciously wish to be flawed) but I never quite had the bravery to show my maze of flaws to anything but a mirror, to let my tracks and scars be bare.

And I definitely would never dare show them to her.

"You're rather modest, aren't you Atlas Lumiere? You have very good reason to be, though; but I'm just a girl who cares so much."

The sound of my very name leaves a permanent imprint in the air- synonymous with doomed and damned.

"How rare, I've always liked a girl that cares,"

(because I never did, I never could)

I let my charm in the form of a smile linger on my lips for a second too long, allowing knowledge to fall in nothing but knots and segments. "I've got sisters, loved ones and parents to lose, how could I possibly be fine?"

(never perfect, never magnificent, never 'just fine')

"Because I just am."

Because I'm just a lost liar waiting to be found.

"But enough about me, you have just as much to lose as I do but you want to be here, so why?" I learn forwards. "Just thought I'd ask, as a guy who cares so much."

(as someone tired of being underneath this spotlight of subjective perfection)

"You carry stone in your being, then. I wonder if it's from the heart, or from the spirit?"

If only it could be both, everything would be so much easier if I had a stone chamber running ichor through my veins instead of a heart far too soft for someone meant to carry the expectations that came with shattered dynasty.

She lets out a laugh and so do I, burying the nerves under reassurance.

(because she's beautiful but her name alone has screamed nothing but bloodshed for the past three years and counting)

It's just all I know; a heart and soul of stone would make everything so much easier. A heart that didn't threaten to melt underneath this spotlight, a soul that didn't threaten to shatter underneath the pressure of being a dream - perhaps then the world would be lighter than a raven's feather lost in the indistinguishable wind.

"...I can't let them starve and stop beating, so I sacrificed my own; I also needed to save myself from sinking into the sea. Perhaps I could even make my parents proud of my efforts as a career."

Or perhaps everything would just shatter allover again underneath the waning pressure of riptides on the horizon and the threads of fate lacing up my ankles from my boots.

(I almost say 'me to')

To stop myself sinking, to never witness my house of magnificent cards crumble around me piece by piece and forgo the idea that I may have something else to offer that isn't a weapon sewn to my bleeding palms and a family name touched by insanity. "So what you're trying to prove to the world that you're noble?"

I let another playful grin play across my lip and let my chin stroke my jaw, letting constellations play across my vision as if hoisted onto an astral plane.

"I never would've thought a career could ever see themselves as noble."