morning breath ; c & i

morning breath ; c & i Mar 22, 2024 12:13:40 GMT -5

Post by [nyte] on Mar 22, 2024 12:13:40 GMT -5

I wake with red threads in my mouth, in knots around the dryness of my tongue. My nose is buried in my sweater, forehead tilted into another's. The hem of Ruby's shirt is tangled in my grasp, staving off the impending anxiety of a hangover. I'd expected to feel worse but, honestly, it's nice waking up next to somebody.

He's still asleep, and it'd definitely be weird to keep watching him. It takes a surprising amount of willpower to turn my gaze away, toward the window at the far side of the room where dawn peeks through sheer curtains. I smile into the silence. The absurdity of it all takes a moment to sink in, along with the patchwork of memories slightly muddled by alcohol. I'd kept my wits about me for the most part - as pretty as my current company is I don't trust him one bit.

The unfamiliar room is in utter disarray, with cords that trail aimlessly through the carpet. Sheet music and fast food wrappers are piled in the corners, bleeding the ink of half-finished ideas. This whole place feels like an afterthought. Cobwebs cling to old equipment and there's a layer of dust settled over the bedside table where my camera resides.

Ruby and his band may own this place, but it's all dead space.

Careful not to disturb him, I disentangle myself from the sheets. My head spins when I sit up, but it's no worse than a mild ache. I would have thought I'd suffer more for being so reckless.

Maybe that comes later.

When this moment ends and it's people fade into fond mistakes. After today, I'll never see them again. I'll waste my nights wondering what would have been different had I been born lucky.

I'd like to think we could have been friends.

scrash!

Something shatters in the other room.

Laughter follows, a heaving sound that is not at all what a laugh should sound like. It's too much like roughness of my father's voice the nights he stayed up crying. I know it's none of my business but that has never mattered to me.

The rest of the apartment is in a similar state, too hollow to be haunted. I pick a path through clutter, stopping where the hall opens up into a living room and kitchen.

"Oh. You're still here."

A pile of shattered ceramic sits at Ivory's feet, her hands still curled around the shape of the mug. It's strange to see her looking soft, her pale hair pulled up and away from her face. Last night's makeup lingers in the dark shadows beneath her eyes, but for the most part has given way to pinkish irritation.

She's trying to look at me, but her gaze keeps darting toward the floor. She swallows a lump in her throat. "Should I have sneaked out earlier?" I ask. The question is only partly genuine, I shuffle a few steps forward and kneel in front of the mess. She makes no effort to move away, nor does she seem to plan on helping. Instead Ivory watches me clean with open curiosity.

"No." She says, reaching out to smooth a strand of my hair sticking up from sleep, "You're making yourself useful."

"Live to be." I say.

We lapse into silence, her expression passive until - "What was your name again?"

The force with which I roll my eyes would make my mother proud, "Cedric."

c e d r i c spence-fray.

i v o r y auclair.

I commit him to memory through hazel and heavy lashes. Stowing his name in my pocket and tasting it for good measure, "Cedric." The bittersweet of rotten cavities. He stands and I move back, out of the way of the trash can.

I understand what Ruby sees in him. He cradles the mess I'd made in upturned palms, as though carrying a baby bird and not something mundane. It was just another dirty dish, in fact, it's more enticing now that it's in bits and pieces. With uneven ends that would rip instead of slice.

"Am I stepping on toes here?" He accents the question by dumping what isn't a mug anymore into the bin. His smile is polite, a thin line barely betraying bone.

"In regards to...?" I lean back against the counter, he does the same across from me. He's still in last night's clothes, the yarn of his sweater faded on the sleeves. There are patches sewn into his elbows and along the hem. It's hardly a sweater anymore but he held onto it for some reason.

"You and Ruby." No beating around the bush, he's so delightfully strange. Nothing more dangerous than a man who is both observant and honest.

"We're friends." I lie to him regardless. My thumb finds the raised skin on my wrist, yet to regain feeling in spite of having healed. "I meant it. I don't mind that you stayed."

His eyes widen, begging me to decipher the emotion within them. I don't really care to, if I'm honest. "So pretending to forget my name was-"

So then he scrawled it across his sleeve, right above the beating heart. He's hurt. His shoulders slump as he fiddles with a dark ring on his forefinger. Worse, even, is the twinge of sympathy I feel building at the pathetic display.

Blame it on the exhaustion of staying up all night. Blame it on the drunken stupor that has yet to fully give way to a hangover.

"I wasn't pretending." I cross my arms to my chest and grimace, the come down starts now. I've grown used to them since that first night in the bathroom, with the velveteen boy. "You don't matter to me, so I didn't commit it to memory."

Then, Cedric starts laughing which is awful. His whole body gives way to it, collapsing in on itself as he presses his fingers to his mouth to stifle the sound.

"I'm not joking." I assure him, hoping to make it stop. "What's wrong with you?"

"I thought I wouldn't be able to fix it." When my confusion doesn't ease, he continues, "I don't matter to you yet. That's all. You don't dislike me."

"No." I say, "But I don't like you either."

Which I know is not a lie but it doesn't feel like the truth. I'm not in the habit of curiosity, but there's so much about him that makes no sense.

"I'm going to take that as a challenge, you know." He takes a small step toward me.

My head spins, I wonder if I should finish off the beer I'd stashed in the fridge last night. Through the stale air, I catch cut grass and Ruby's cologne. I turn my face away from the scent - he should be bored of Cedric by now.

But just in case he isn't-

"Maybe you should."

Her scrutiny is unsettling, all unblinking intensity as she looks up at me. There's nothing to soften the challenge, like a bitten grin or bubbled laugh. I don't think she really means it. There's a fine line between love and loathing and no telling where I'll fall.

I grind my teeth through the silence she's drawn. The way her gaze lovingly follows the lines of tension betray her amusement. She knows the stalemate won't last long, it's uncomfortable and I grow tired of gazing at my own reflection in her eyes. I swing away, taking a step back.

When she chuckles under her breath I remember that I'm haunted by my father's anger. I have never been good at losing.

"Let's go get coffee." I say, reaching for her wrist but careful to keep my fingers over the thin fabric of her sleeve. Calculation feigning impulse. As if I haven't been sitting on the suggestion since I saw that shattered mug.

She could break my grasp but she doesn't. I wonder what excuses she'll give her reflection at the end of the day about the boy who wasn't even worth his name.

"You don't know where to get coffee." She points out.

"You do."

She doesn't argue, doesn't say another word until we've made out way out of the apartment building. The architecture is easy enough to navigate, no dimly lit hallways with staircases leading nowhere. I didn't know that the Capitol had places that were so mundane.

Sunlight aches, Ivory shuffles behind me to spare herself the brunt. I am worth keeping around as long as I'm making myself useful, so I let her press her forehead into my shoulder blade. She stifles a groan in the fabric. "Hangover?" I ask and feel her nod.

"Take a left here. It's a couple blocks to a place worth the trouble." I've never held anyone like this before, her skin still hasn't warmed in my grasp. I feel like it should have by now.

"Sounds pretentious." I make conversation to keep my thoughts from creeping in. Like how I've only known the Capitol during summer when its industrial bones are bleached by sunshine. That she's grown up in my slaughterhouse but has never been a pig like me.

"I tend to be." She's started keeping pace with me, perhaps resigned to her fate. "No point settling for something mediocre."

"You were making drip coffee."

"I was making whiskey."

I laugh, because I should have figured that. "Well then, this isn't half as charming as I'd hoped it would be."

"You think you're charming?"

"Yes. No? I'm not sure." My feelings are still a bit syrupy, slipping through my grasp whenever I try get a hold on them. "Seems Ruby was at least a little charmed, right?" I wink, hoping for at least a begrudging smile.

"You're a shiny, new toy and he's got an eye for glitter. Glad it got you the attention you wanted but your lost lamb act won't work twice." Which is most certainly not what I get.

"You don't know me," I say, soft and insistent. Her voice carries the serrated edge of someone looking for a fight. I've struck a nerve but I don't think she knows I've struck it. That the blade is pointed inward. Her grip is like a vice, so I squeeze back. It's better to lean into the crash. "It wasn't like that. I'm not like that."

"I don't care what you're like, Cedric."

She injects enough venom into my name that it stings. I wince.

"Ivory." Though she tries to dig her heels in, I tug at the place we still connect. Aimless, but enduring. I'm indignant because I have something to prove, she's indignant for the sake of it. "I-"

c e d r i c spence-fray.

i v o r y auclair.

The heavens break. Brilliant blue skies start weeping. All my careful work comes undone as the tension melts from Cedric's shoulders. His mouth hangs open as he looks up, a startled yell sticking in his throat.

"It's raining!" He says, like it isn't fucking obvious. Then he turns toward me, the wonder stays but now streaked with concern, "You're getting soaked." He says, like it isn't fucking obvious. His expression is darling, all twisted up like that. I start cataloguing all the ways I think I could earn it again.

Something settles in the bottom of my lungs like tar, corroding capillaries. I squeeze his wrist. His free hand settles on my waist. "Come on!" I expect to be shepherded under a nearby awning, but instead he pulls me into the middle of the road.

He knows how to dance, but not very well. It's a clumsy waltz, my limbs hanging heavy in his hold. For the first time since I met him, I find myself wondering about Cedric. Who taught him that sun-showers were made of music?

He finds a beat and I fall into him. My feet rarely touch the ground, he likes that I'm easy to hold. Lots of boys do.

If I'm smiling, it's not by choice. The moon, in all her glory, is only ever a reflection. He's made this moment for his benefit, not mine. All I've got to do is make sure I don't ruin it.

I certainly could. The tar begs it.

The rain stops and he sets me down gently, hands on my shoulders to keep me steady when I stumble back. My clothes stick to my body, so thoroughly waterlogged I weigh the pros and cons of abandoning them entirely.

(to see how he'd react: pro)

(to wonder why i care: con)

Fuck, he was right. "See?" Fuck, he knows it. "Even clear skies are unpredictable." He's got a smug expression to match the clumsy metaphor and I've got a mouth full of teeth.

Before he steps away, I fist the collar of his sweater. Beads of water play between my fingers where I pull. Cedric goes willingly, ever the curious fawn. One day that'll be the death of him. Maybe, even, today.

When I kiss him, he doesn't kiss back.

He puffs a startled breath against my lips, I have never known these sorts of things to feel so gentle. It's nice, even if it's barely a kiss. "Ivory?" He pulls back far enough I can see his confusion and laughs to make his anxiety more palatable. "What are you doing?"

"Shit. Don't tell me that was your first-"

"No!" He claps a hand over my mouth the tips of his ears reddening, "No. Of course not. But why would you-?"

I shrug and patiently wait for him to remove his hand, "Why not?"

Which is not an answer, but it is the only answer he will be getting. In truth, it's because I know things would have been different had it been Ruby he dragged out of the apartment. Something must have happened in the cacophony of rusted metal last night, when they slipped away and left me to my rotten thoughts. I hope, selfishly, that I have just ruined the taste of Cedric before he even had the chance to know it. I think he wants to.

And it was mine first.

He hesitates for a moment, eyes jumping from my jaw to my raised brows a few times. Trying to find an answer regardless. I hope I offer nothing but it's hard to tell. "We should get going." He eventually relents.

We don't speak the rest of the way to the cafe, he doesn't offer his hand when we start walking.

So instead I rub my fingers together, working at the chill as a thorn settles deeper in my chest. Equal parts satisfaction and unease but they all feel bad.

None of it ends up mattering, Cedric is gone by the afternoon.

But my disdain is a little sweeter by the time we stop wondering where he slipped away to. Leaving only expensive coffee and yet another secret.