lucian.

outside, the crickets were singing in the swallow of the moon, asking for a mate before they were eaten by some mournful predator. inside of the building, it was much darker, the waning light slitted by the blinds over the window.

"shh, sleep..." was what he crooned to her, fingertips barely gracing over her eyelids, watching the skin underneath twitch slightly. "you're asleep, don't wake up, i have things to tell you."

her breathing remained even, silk brown hair floating across her shoulders, spilling over ink and bone. smiling, he found his voice in the pockets of his heart, the pounding of the blood in his ears.

"...i love you."

<center>http://img4.modelmayhem.com/060606/1...7f4c9f40_m.jpg</center>

with his dog shoving a cold, wet nose in the side of his washboard ribs, lucian registered the needle in the inside crook of his elbow, pausing to sigh as he watched the influx of blood rush into the plunger. he thought of his mother, with her thinning hair and glassy eyes right before she died, the blistering around her foul lips and the words that came from them. there was stephanie, that beautiful black-haired succubus who sucked his life from his heart, ripping it up into puzzle pieces to be fit back incorrectly, curdling emotion and refueling distraught. what he didn't think of was constance, because he couldn't see through the fuzz between his skull, the dull din of light in a pair of dead hazel eyes.

"stop it, ash, cut it..." he whispered through the droves of hair falling over his eyes, the dog snorting in response and slinking away with tail flagged at half-mast. the ex-artist rolled his eyes ceilingward as he injected himself, tossing the rig aside on the floor amongst piles of papers, chickenscratch handwriting scrawled all over in deviant rhetoric, loveletters to himself of all the negative qualities he couldn't fix within himself.

he swallowed deep and rocked on his ass for a few beats, falling backwards into a void of darkness and warmth, his hands brushing over bare skin that no longer felt his own; it was someone else's, and he was simply the meat robot that walked within it, bound of flesh and bone, snapping tendon and cavity-teeth.

but how he was smiling, oh, how he was smiling...

drugs and alcohol made a perfect tonic to keep her in a deep sleep, but it took years for her to get to it.

"hey there, baby," he crooned out in whispers, the pad of his finger running down the bridge of her nose. "remember that guy i told yah i met..? i was screaming how i didn't know why you were with me -- why because all i do is drink, drugs, and get the shit kicked out of me. i told him that you liked me, that it was baffling."

constance's soul didn't even ruffle, caught deep in dreamland, the parting of her lips beautifully curved with a soft breath going out, coming in, over and over again with a clockwork's timing of perfection.

"and then," he twisted his head down on the pillow, a pale slice of moonlight cutting through to his hazel eyes. "and then, he went stark raving mad about it, saying how all of you women are the same, how they all want to take us home and stitch up all of the cracks, fill the holes in our hearts to shackle us to them, to own us... make us what you all want us to be."

the bones underneath his skin ached with a feverish splendor, nausea choking the haunt of his stomach as the muscles in his torso clenched uncontrollably, his body screaming at him for another wave of poison. "i don't know what i'm going to do, constance," he was suddenly eleven years old and pleading, eyebrows mashed in a painful furrow in the middle of his eyes. "what am i going to do, baby?" he pushed himself away from the pillow and brushed a piece of her hair away, leaning down to press his lips to the side of her cheek, and both closed eyelids. he wanted to say something else, but panic raked at his insides, bile rising in the base of his throat with beads of sweat breaking out onto his forehead.

the bedsheets parted for him as he swung both feet to the floor, naked as the baby jesus on the day he was born. he fumbled for his clothes and steadied on focusing his vision, wavering as he went through the hallway and out the front door.

it was time to search for his salvation.

<center>http://img2.modelmayhem.com/050427/1...fc01ff39_m.jpg

days ago, i had a band
days ago, i had a girl
...no, girls.
now i have my drugs
now i have my alcohol
now i have my apathy.

but today i have constance
she is not a band
or drugs, or alcohol
or even a cure.

she is a girl
but at least i can love her
(i think)
without destroying myself
(i hope)
oh how i hope.</center>

<center>http://zoldanking.com/blog/images/20...redsmoking.jpg

old man, look at my life
i'm a lot like you were.</center>

at work he was different, all smiles and winks and flirtation, dragging his fingers through his hair so it wouldn't slice across his eyes.

"hey there," he would say to hip-switching scenesters and eurotrash as they walked into the teahouse's basement to sit and be served, or just get a drink to go, giggling to each other under masked hands over their mouths.

he was the tender of a massive wall of boxes, each bearing a different number and different tea. green, black, herbal, chai, variety to mix and swallow to your stomach, toxin-purgers, nausea settlers, lucian playing apothecary to the rich who could afford to waste their money on such exotic extravagance.

"you need to try this one, it's our iced black tea of the day -- it's called creme brulee, the best you'll ever have." he spoke from fluttering lips, metal flashing underneath the waning lights and the coppertop tables.

"okay," the girls would always say, whispering that he was cute as they swished away, sometimes dropping numbers on square white sugar packets (pink if they were concerned for their health).

and at the end of the night, he would count them and try to match the face, using a sweet-smelling hand to swipe them from the counter and into the trashcan, where it would be tied and thrown in the back with the rats and piss-foul homeless.

as much as he hated to realize it, the boy was growing up.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ October 02, 2006 06:47 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

he was wild with sets of fingers and dogfur in his face, ash yelping more than moshe because he was by far the wimpier of the two, lucian scowling artist's eyes down at him. "shush, man, it's not so bad.. really."

he sat back on the floor with his back against the couch, smiling broadly to the two mutts dressed in doggie devil costume, ash hanging his nose and giving the blackhaired boy the sad eyes.

"you guys look great! just don't tell constance it was me that did it.." he warned with a waggle of a finger.

moshe snorted.

"luuuuuuuuucian, baby!" it was sin's catcall into the cell phone's reciever. "i'm soooo fuckin' drunk. guess what? i turned twenty-seven today. maaan." her speech was slurred and her lips stained with vodka. "i'm in some park, kinda lost, hangin' with some ducks. i just wanted to say i love you. really, i do. lots. oh shit, i spilled my drink," she groaned, fumbling the phone into her lap while she tried to recover from the party foul. "oh, right. i love you. i think i might sleep here tonight or somethin'...'kay bye!" click.

"oh god, it's her birthday!" he wailed to the dogs, their ears cocked towards the pitch of his lamenting voice. "i'm the worst fuckin' boyfriend in the world!"

"c'mon kids, we're going on a search." leashes aside, he threw his black twill dickies jacket over his shoulders, still struggling with an arm as he noosed moshe and ash out the door, their tails helicopter propellors of furflying excitement.

<center>- - - - - - -</center>

in the early morning the park was draped in eerie silence, birds churring beneath a blanket of fall chill, blades of grass shuddering awake. the large-sized coffee lucian clutched was nearly finished, his eyes bleeding anxiety while his feet ate up the ground, kicking dirt along the path as he headed for the duck pond. the ducks. he couldn't help but think of norma jean and her halfway lunatic leer, fingers at constance's neck as she screamed muderously "NO! these are MY DUCKS!"

"c'mon, pick it up, boys," he glanced to the mutts flanking him, cutting his walk to a pounding heart jog, exhausted eyes sweeping underneath benches and bushes, finding nothing but the urine-soaked drape of blankets over lumpy greasehaired hobos. he passed the honk of the mallards as he took the curve around the pond, feet slipping as mottlemutt ash took the sly opportunity to chase the ducks straight into the water, yelping in sharpteethed gnashes as he broke the elastic film of scum.

"noooo noooooo!" lucian wailed loudly at his dog, waving a furious windmill arm. "you fuckin' asshole i can't deliver a wet dog on constance's birthday!" he winced and bent at the crook of his knees, pushing a nervous hand through stocks of faded black hair, natural blonde looking sooty at the roots. "alright fine then fuck you." he waved an arm at the chaos in the pond, big wings flapping up and forward to smack the dumb dog in the face, ash whimpering while he pawed his way through the water.

"moshe..?" he turned his head and called, fear stinking in the back of his throat. he swallowed hard around the tennis ball down there and set his creaking bones into motion, whipping around a cluster of trees dropping yellows and oranges to make a leafed patchwork on the ground. "oh christ, oh fuckin' christ, i've lost it, i've lost her fuckin' dog, that's it, i'm done, i'm.." he thought of the absence of her long limbs, the way she strummed her fingers over her stomach as she layed in the grass, staring at the sky -- oh god and those eyes, large and cutting but never through him, just fierce defensiveness and beauty in vein and bone, even in the cancerous cells that fought to stay alive.

and there she was sprawled sideways on a bench, green paint peeling over, wearing his hoodie. next to her was moshe, his chin on the end of the bench, woeful eyes watching her sleep.

somehow it didn't feel odd to be coming onto such a scene, empty vodka bottles with unattractive bursts of hangover breath coming from constance's half-open mouth... but he was suddenly guilty that it was her, his girl, his star in the sky, she shouldn't be waking up to the dull pain of bench rivets in your back and hips, the ache on bones from sleeping on something hard.

"hey, baby," he twitched a sad smile as he crouched down next to her, his hand moving up to slip brown hair from the front of her face and nose. "hey you, wake up, happy birthday.. let's go get some breakfast, hm?"

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ October 14, 2006 03:33 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

it was around noon that he woke up, peeling his arms up into the air and yawning fiercely, brought awake as soon as the words of a letter struck through to his cognitive mind.

"oh," he spoke to himself as he dropped in front of the television, bare back stretching with tattoos of color and black, ash jumping next to him to dig a cold wet nose underneath his leg.

when he was done reading he sat there in the tick of the kit kat klock's tail (something he had rummaged from an antique store downtown), cursing the silence for such a specific time to drop off to nap. lucian smiled sadly down at the letter, fingers at the edges before folding it into a simple square of a perfect size to hide into one of his many boxes.

"c'mon ash, let's go give constance a surprise at school." he pushed from the couch and patted his side, the mongrel flipping paw and tail in loyalty to his friend.

as the ex-artist shoved out of the door, he realized he'd been off the shit for more than a month now.. conciously, he shoved away the gnawing edge of doubt telling him to run to the gutterpaths, to find a stoop to sprawl onto in the depths of the city's hold.

there were some things always to be fought.

"please stay here and be good," she murmured to anxious mutts who pulled at their leashes from where they had been knotted on a telephone pole.

"lucian!" it was lady sorrow's catcall to the broken boy. today lady sorrow wore a suit of skin and razorblade bones. wild waves of emerald silk waved behind her as she shouldered in through the door of the tea house. constance was hysterical and people stared. layers of clothes did little to hide the ebbing body beneath fabric. as much as constance didn't want to admit it, she was a walking corpse. the only thing she had more of than heartache were tears.

a manager was waving open palms like white flags. "hey! hey! calm down!" but constance was a hurricane blowing into shore; a fury of arms and a flowing green scarf that hid away too short hair.

"where is he?" she choked on her words and swallowed down her anger.

"on break."

she ate her words, trapped them behind her teeth and gagged on them as she tried to force them back down her throat. "please find him, i need him." and she dropped to her knees in prayer, in the middle of the tea house. college kids stared, his co-workers wide eyed and staring. but none of them offered sympathy for an unwilling martyr.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ November 23, 2006 02:45 PM: Message edited by: vodka slurs ]</font>

the employees suddenly erupted in a banter among themselves as they shook dried soy milk from the steamer, rattled their fingers around paper cups, scooping tea into looseleaf bags.

"call him on his cell phone!"

"he doesn't have one."

"where does he go on his breaks?"

"he goes -- hold on, hold on a second. hi, what can i get you?"

"half masala chai half spicy chai, two percent milk but don't steam it." tight lips and an even tighter hat on the debutant's head, watching the pierced employees sourly as they carried out her order. "and a raspberry scone, too."

"he goes where again?" shift, whirr, a popping hiss.

"no! she said no steam!"

"oh fuck, sorry.."

"he goes up to the roof, yah know, to uhhh.." the mohawked boy dipped his head down some, the rim of black just barely gracing over the top of the steam machine. he pinched his thumb and forefingers together, batting them at his lips.

"ohhhh! no shit?"

"yaaah. here you go ma'am, half masala half spicy, two percent no steam -- oh, and here's your scone, that'll be four twenty-seven.."

"you think he's got anymore?" the other employee chimed in, her face a goofy wash of laughter, ignoring the tapping of feet from a line of customers behind the rich woman.

"shhh! thank you and have a nice day, next!" mohawk shooed the girl off to the side, slipping his head sideways for a moment to talk while his ears caught the next person's order. "go tell his girlfriend, over there! constance."

"you sure? it's busy!"

"yeah i'm sure, take her up there!" a swivel of hair and he gripped both fingers to the counter, smiling brashly in the face of a woman bundled with her two children. "two hot chocolates and a chamomile mint? got it."

the girl wound herself from the back of the long teabar, ducking around people and screaming children in all the joy of the holidays to make it over to constance, still breathless at the thought that one of her managers slipped away to go smoke pot during his breaks. "hi uh, apparently he goes on the roof for his breaks. i dunno why, seems a little cold this time of year, huh?" she paused, plucking at the front of her teaquisite shirt, white print on black with a steaming teapot bellowing out the words, then started off and curved her hand. "c'mon! i'll show you."

she led the way by shouldering into an old elevator, pressing buttons that didn't light up anymore to bring them two stories up to the top, a short half staircase leading to an ajar door, the breeze funneling fast through the cracks from the outside coldair pressure.

lucian jumped when he heard the creak of the door, his hand swinging down to the side from his mouth, eyes narrowing down on his employee. "sarah! the fuck're you doin'? isn't it busy -- constance!" he smiled broadly as sarah wiggled off back downstairs, his feet kicking looseroofed gravel as he made it over to her. "what's up, babydoll?" he crooned, the lids of his eyes slitting down fierce when he saw the look on her face, the momentary panic in her eyes. "what's wrong?"

the pause was short and he took a last hit from the joint, rolling the cherry until it was out, calloused fingers tucking the roach in a front pocket. "c'mon, let's go somewhere where it's warm.."

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ November 23, 2006 05:58 PM: Message edited by: vodka slurs ]</font>

she thought that was how cattle must feel when they were led to the slaughterer. sick with blind anticipation for the mysterious horizon. but lucian was her personal savoir, her perverse messiah; no slaughterer. she followed sarah like she was moses, leading her to her redemption. silent prayer, eyes to the sky. constance feared god would only mock her now, "hey big shot, coming back to me when you're dying, eh?" she imagined the benevolent lord saying. a deep frown creased her face, eyes wide in sorrow. she shifted passed sarah and staggered toward the dark haired boy.

"lucian," she cried out, folding herself into him. "i tried not to think about it, baby. i tried really hard not to think about. i've been tried thinkin' positive." fingers curled into his back, desperate to touch him. her face buried into the crook of his neck, lips brushing skin with her hollow words. "i'm dying, lucian. i don't know if i can do this. i don't know if i'm strong enough to survive it." all her fears finally came spilling out in a flood of tears. pain killers finally kicked in, speech slurring.

"i need you so bad, and i feel like i am burdening you. and i'm sorry, but please, i don't have anything but you. you're the only thing that keeps me goin'." she felt that she was surely the definition of pathetic. her knees felt weak, long limbs shaking and a fear of being swallowed by the building below bubbling up. "please just don't give up on me, please. i love you so much. just...just don't give up on me." her grip tightened subtly. "just please. i'll do anything, i swear." in the process of her struggle to take hold of him, her scarf had fallen to the ground.

she looked down at it, stopping to rub a hand over the short hair. "i'm sorry for coming here, baby. i shouldn't...have, i was just. i was really upset." logic had finally caught up with panic and with the help of serenity pinned down the unruly emotion. "i just don't have anyone else, lucian. you're all i got." she forced an apologetic smile and stared at her feet. "i didn't mean to ruin your break. i hope i didn't get you in trouble." she felt remorse clawing beneath the service of skin. sometimes even the strongest people got tired; even the brave broke down.

"what if she dies?"

lucian dug a fork into the yolk of a fried egg, breaking the embryonic skin, runny yellow slick as snot while it pooled around greasy white.

"you know, shit." the ex-artist listened to the sounds of the diner, inhabitants of dorothy's consisting mostly of grizzled truckers and old ladies wearing broaches and stiff-shouldered dress shirts, mulling peacefully over their midday soups and sandwiches, a beautiful portrait of americana gone placid. he set down his fork and picked up a piece of toast, slathered with butter and soggy, sopping the triangle edge into the eggs. not sure if the words were for himself or for guillermo, the cook busy behind the counter with all of this food and shoddy employees, partially lending an ear to the blackhaired boy's (quick, he's becoming a man now) woes whether he realized it or not.

"but hey, these are good eggs," he mumbled around a mouthful of them in his mouth, spearing a sausage to shove it in the corner of his cheek, molars grinding the breakfast into suitable blending flavors. "thanks, man."

he would eat it all, there was no use in bringing home food to a girl that was never hungry anymore, wasting away until her skin clung to the thin bones that made up a birdwinged frame, one that would fly through the span of time if it could be at all possible.

and above the sizzle of bacon and flip of spatula against a spitting grill, someone was laughing, lucian cracking a small smile across his face.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ December 04, 2006 04:09 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

<center>http://img4.modelmayhem.com/061027/1...a1c13457_m.jpg

mouthful of cavities
your soul's a bowl of jokes
and everyday you remind me
how i'm desperately in need

oh please give me a little more
and i'll push away those baby blues
'cause one of these days this will die
so will me and so will you</center>

his skin was sallow against the pulse of the lamp, bulb flickering against the heat of the storm that pushed it's way through electrical wire, this one last waning chance.

"dear constance," he wrote.

he only spelled everything right when he was sober.

.."i'm not writing you this because i'm sad. i'm not writing you this because i'm desperate, either. i want to let you know that i love you. i love the way that the sun shines on your cheekbones when you wake up, how your lips curl into something that i can never understand when you finally realize that i'm still here net to you. i want you to know this. i want you to..."

as the wind howled his heart did most of the same, pulling deep against a straining heart, fingers tightening around a pen spilling most of it's ink black and worthless.

"...know that you're the one for me. and i know that i'll probably never be enough to tell you this in person, that i'm sorry that in my time alive all i'll have is this to tell you how. this paper, this pen."

lines creased the edges of his eyes as he stared straight into an abyss that didn't belong to him in the first place, these unblinking eyes with green and brown swirling deep in cognitive meditation. the fold a paper and a tuck underneath her sleeping pillow, his beautiful brownhaired girl glowing brighter than the day every passing second.

"i'll see you after work," he hushed low into her forehead as he dipped to kiss it, the tips of his hair brushing skin before he slid from the side of the bed.

three days of sequential close-opens had him brimming deep in sleep for his first day off in a week, muscles straining as his eyes peeled open from the yelp of dog sounding clear into his dreams, floating through the open bedroom door. literally pulling himself out from the cover of blanket and sheet, bare feet hit the floor and brought himself forward, naked except for a pair of black sweatpants bearing the steam-curled letters of teaquisite's logo.

"hey c, baby?"

he wrapped inked arms around his torso, sprawls of black and color muddying together in a confused artist's rendition of memories and stories, blending together for something that required a translation he wasn't about to even begin to decipher. lou padded to the bathroom, gummy eyes blinking with the aftermath of slumber as he frowned to constance, brain piecing together the last shout he had heard. "moshe bit you?"

he went forward to where she was sitting on the toilet, sallow-eyed and holding her bloody hand, a set of his fingers prying down to take ahold of it, thumb gracing across the bandage. "aw, baby," he murmured soft and reached with his free hand, raking fingernails through shocks of quickly sprouting brown hair, nearly favoring the way he could admire the true curve of cheekbone and neck without being constantly shaded by a curtain of long strands. "after i go buy you some breakfast i'm gonna go skate with the dogs, like cesar fuckin' dog whisperer, how's that sound?"

just one side of his lips quirked up into a grin, leaning down to press a kiss to her lips. "good mornin', by the way.."

"but it's the afternoon." she murmured back, that familiar glint skimming across beautiful blues.

and he went laughing.