Work Text:
The sunset is as ripe as a peach.
The warm rays come to blanket you and your friend as you sit together. The sky is an improvised, yet beautiful blend of pinks, peaches, yellows, and hints of faint orange as the sun slowly makes its descent. The rose-cheeked sun has played with the clouds enough today, and now it is time to rest.
Which didn't come easy to you or your friend.
You, in your eyebags from sleepless nights, writing away whatever passions colored your mind enough to keep it awake. Running on pure spite, and whatever cold drink was enough to revive your husk of a body from exhaustion.
Your eyes were open enough to write without thinking, write without pausing to question yourself, but not enough to keep you from missing small typos and stopping to format correctly.
( Because those were clearly more important than the fact that you were practically begging people to care about the environment. You would spit at them if you didn’t need their money. )
Leap without looking, but knowing the fall beneath you would be enough to kill without a parachute.
You, in your clothes that covered you, hid you away from the rest of the world. A flower bud refusing to open after it's felt the loud, unrelenting thunderstorms. A child hiding under the bed after having been burned by matches, from their own hands, or the hands of their peers.
You hide away from anyone who could get close to you. Anyone who could hurt you, betray you, leave you.
Anyone who could love you.
You could see the same eyebags on your friend. Your friend, who liked to boast about being the brightest sun that humankind would know, outshining anyone else in the room. Whether it was from the way she turned heads, or her laugh.
( That damn laugh. You have to hide your face every time you hear it. )
But you knew her better. You saw her sitting next to you in the dark, knees pulled up to her chest. The way you’d sat more often than not.
Her chest, with the same gaping hole in it that yours does.
Except that unlike you, who tried to fill it up with flowers, she tried to fill her own with technology. You were growing a garden in your chest to keep everyone out with your thorns, she was building a neon-lit entrance begging for someone, anyone to listen to her. You could hear her circuits crying out for any kind of attention, even if it would only leave her with more scars.
She liked to brag about those too. If she couldn’t brag, she would probably fall to her knees and cry.
Scars that you’d tended to many times before. Intimate moments that would be gone as soon as they came, because both of you were too afraid of daring to cross the line between play and pursuit.
You turn your gaze from the sunset back over to her.
She looks absolutely radiant, one leg up and the other laying on the ground, slightly bent. Her strawberry blonde hair flowed along her collarbones and behind her like those racing waterfalls you’d seen many times, so much of her flowing out from her head. A head full of dreams and schemes.
Her round cheeks, a slight rose color from the blush she’d powdered on, her glossy lips from the liquid lipstick she’d shown you on your late night calls. Her eyelashes protected her bubbly blue eyes, full of so much energy you could never begin to fake. Dressed in shades of pink, blue, and black.
( Which she was clearly regretting, from the way she kept fanning herself and pulling her tube top back and forth to get some fresh air. )
You think she fits perfectly with the sunset.
“Sheesh, I-I know my rack is pretty rockin’,” she begins, twirling her hair anxiously. “But we’re kinda in public… people are gonna see you peeping…”
You roll your eyes. “That wasn’t the only thing I was looking at.”
“Ooooh, getting an eyeful of me, are you?” A mischievous grin, one you know all too well. She raises her arms behind her head, sitting on her knees as she stretches herself closer to you. “Well, feast your pathetic virgin eyes on a goddess’ body while you get the chance! No photos could ever capture my absolute beauty!”
A fond chuckle erupts from your throat. “I guess that’s why I have eyes.”
“Goddamn right! Make those eyes of yours useful, slut!”
“You’ve got no right calling me a slut.”
“Excuse you!” She gasps, in fake offense. “Apologize to me, and apologize to the world while you’re at it!”
You kneel in front of her, bowing as you play along. “I am not worthy of your likeness, your majesty.”
She squeaks at the sight of you bowing, caught off-guard by the way you look up at her. There’s something so sweet in your eyes, yet so unfamiliar and frighteningly appealing. “W-Well! Maybe I’ll let it slide, just this once…”
And then she’s back to her usual self. “As long as you keep the compliments coming! Go on!”
“I didn’t think her big brain highness was so weak to compliments.”
“Shut up! You’re definitely worse than me, you fuckin' fairy!” She pouts. And it has no right making your heart spin.
“I guess it takes one to know one, Bubblegum.”
“Yeah, I bet you’d like to chew me up and spit me out, wouldn’t you?” Her teasing grin returns, as she crawls closer to you.
You’ve both done this song and dance countless times, but you’re feeling brave enough to suggest becoming more. More than just two dancers, afraid to end the dance with a kiss. Trying to read each other's faces, spraying lemon to find invisible ink, only to come up short.
The fear in the back of your minds pulling you back from the warmth that both of you craved from someone, neither of you wanting to speak of it.
Because it would mean having to admit that you’ve both been alone.
You take her hand, pressing her knuckles up to your lips.
You’d seen her knuckles outside of her gloves, before. They were covered in careless scars, from nights where you’d watched her work on countless inventions, seated on one of her lab’s counters. You’d seen the sparks of welding metal illuminate her face in the dark, sparks of life erupting through the machine being molded. She was bringing all of them to life, as though they were her children. She worked tirelessly, yet it looked so easy to her.
It wasn’t like you organizing the botanical shelves of your home, where you tried to make sure every succulent and blossoming flowers and herbs would be allowed the proper space to flourish. You wrote essays. She was simply doing busywork at the last minute, annoyed at herself for procrastinating.
And yet, her creations rightfully gave her recognition; colorful fireworks exploding to life before your eyes.
Her cheeks explode with heat the same way, as you peck each of her knuckles.
“More like I’d rather have you to hold, princess.”
Her mouth is practically hanging open. She’s trying desperately to find words, find some kind of response to whatever the hell you just did. What you said. She can feel herself combusting just from the gentle, yet intense want in your eyes.
She musters a huff, turning her face away. “Hmph! What if I wanna be more than held? What if I wanna taste you, huh? What then?”
Affection rushes to your chest, flooding your insides until all you knew was the girl in front of you. In her loudness, her bluntness, her refreshing abrasion. Her rare moments of kindness, reserved for nights where both of you felt as though you would be submerged in sadness, holding each other up with your bruised arms. The way she’d take up your vision with her candied eyes, the rest of the world fading into obscurity.
“I wouldn’t stop you, then.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“I wouldn’t.” You reply, in the smallest voice. “I wouldn't wanna taste anyone else."
She can’t hold herself back. She rushes forward, pressing your lips together. She can feel adrenaline rush through her blood, ecstatic about being wanted. Needed.
Loved.
Once she knows you, she doesn’t want to know anything else. You were heaven in the form of a person. A heaven she’s wanted for as long as she can remember, pearly gates she thought she’d never reach, and yet here you were, pulling her closer.
She cups your face, not wanting you to slip through her fingers.