hey all!!

warning: if you're sensitive to mentions of or reading about deceit, acting, teeth, general themes of romance, arguing, death, harm, manipulation, swearing/cursing/bad words, dramatized themes of danger, stress, fear, crying, mentions of food, negative self talk, poor and unhealthy coping mechanisms, fire, emotional masking, trauma, god/religion mentions, self blaming, oversharing, grandfather mentions, caps, no caps, then reader discretion is advised.

as I laid myself down to sleep that night, images of her flashed across my eyelids, and questions floated about in my brain like the remnants of light I saw when I closed my eyes. who was she? how did she know how to charm me so well? so intuitively? what was it about me that gave her such intimate access to my wants and desires? but then, as that question toppled off the heap of other such queries, there was a stillness in which I made a revelation.

it wasn’t anything about me in particular that allowed her entry into my mind—it was the woman herself.

I’d had my eyes on her all night, keeping careful watch after I narrowly realized what she was doing. I’d seen her change her colors like a chameleon or an octopus or something entirely otherworldly. her body language would shift to match and compliment whomever she was speaking to—where the sparks of playful rivalry took hold in one conversation, a childlike innocence possessed her in the next. and I had no clue how she could possibly come to have all these different, impossibly perfect qualities possessing her at just the right moment—up until I realized that she was the one possessing them.

this woman was a marvellous actor, far greater than any seen in film.

where film actors worked with a script and set motions and cameras ready to re-record any scene, she worked with real people, with real situations, with moments she had no choice to re-do.

and it was in this moment that her danger fully struck me: this woman, whom I’d all but fallen head over heels for the moment I’d met her, was a shapeshifter.

no, maybe not in the fantastical sense—but it was there.

the gleam in her eye, childlike and bright and new. the glint of chandelier light off her teeth, summoning and bold and terrifying. the shimmer bouncing off her lipgloss, romaticible and flirtatious and seemingly unknowingly breathtaking. she shot to stun.

it was all instinctively woven, all created on the spot from a single introduction alone, all seamlessly stitched together so well that you’d see depth where there was only darkness.

but then again, perhaps she was a siren.

the tantalizing pull when her eyes met yours, like you’d known each other your whole lives and knew no world without the other. the sweet lull of her voice, melting over every syllable like molten metal. the poetry that she spoke, like fire trailing down my limbs as she spoke to me and said my every desire out loud for only us two to hear……. the performance never gave up. she struck to kill, and oh, I think I let her already……

this woman.

this peculiar, dangerously endearing, disarmingly charming woman—this woman, whose eyes were hazelnut whilst also being lizard-green, whose hair was a shifting multitude of different shades of blonde, whose lips were just pillowy enough and whose cheekbones could cut more than glass and whose brows perked just in that right way—oh, dear god, had she enchanted me.

only for me to be told it wasn’t real, only for her to be told to give up the illusion, only for something realer and angrier and bitterer to rear her sharp-defined face for me to see as she laughed at my inability to see through her.

and even then, there was nothing.

only the cold shell of what was born into this world as a human being, but was now something entirely different—simply put: gone.

when I looked into her eyes around the others, they were hollow, hateful, devoid of any and all goodness or emotion or anything even remotely close to that undeniable spark that all life supposedly held.

but when she was out there—out there, doing her job, the one we’d brought her on for…...she shapeshifted, truly, and fully.

her eyes gleamed gold and brown and green and even red under the different lights. her mouth twisted upwards and rested downwards and was open enough for me to see her bite her bottom lip and glance over just to see me cry on the inside. her shoulders were lax and back and shrunk inward depending on just how much she was leading the conversation—though, no matter what, she always had complete control.

and now, as I laid myself down to sleep, I couldn’t get her out of my mind.

how flamboyant and intoxicating she’d been to everyone at the dinner party, how she’d melted in through the cracks to form whoever she needed to be for them, how she’d caught the void in every person’s heart and filled it with illusions of her own making—god, I needed to know how it was so convincing.

and several weeks of using her talents to extract valuable information later, I’d know.

she’d had exactly the same baseline with me every time we met around the others: somewhat withdrawn, burnt-out almost, a faded capture of what she thought a real human being ought to be underneath all the sparkle and jazz-handing of showbiz. she was a performer, through and through, and even this was a performance—although, I got the sense that I was seeing something I wasn’t meant to: she was tired.

and finally, I’d have clarity on that, because I was left alone with her for the first time.

she’d just blown up on everybody, snapping off like she usually did until one of the group said something particularly choice that I didn’t catch. suddenly, the shell before me erupted into roaring flames—the way her voice deepened as she bellowed, the way her tongue slipped over every personally hurtful word she spat out at everyone, the way she rose up and was suddenly more physically imposing than I’d ever thought a person could be….! I was scared for my damn life—I thought for sure she would kill me if I looked at her for too long. and she did it all without breaking a sweat—her hands didn’t shake, and her voice never wavered or clipped, and her eyes were dry and her face was pale. she chewed every single person in the room out, assaulted them at their weak spots and threw the verbal equivalent of boiling hot acid their way—and she did this to everyone except for me. I thought I was lucky to be alive. I was glad for being ignored, and prayed to god that she’d forgotten all about me in the act of getting some apparently well-deserved insults out to settle in the dust of her past with everyone else.

but when she ordered everyone out of the room, I went to go with the rest of them—but she boldly said no, glared them all in the eyes and said that I could stay. when I looked back to my friends for some sort of excuse to go with them, to convey my complete and utter shock at her words, to beg them all through my eyes to get me away from this horrifying display of power so far beyond anything I’d ever seen in a person………….they just stared back. upset, and hurt, and also just as confused as I was.

they left me all alone with that snake—because by then, that’s what I’d been calling her: a snake. not based off any old garden snake or viper, but based off the serpent that convinced Eve to take a bite of the forbidden fruit.

based off temptation and willful deceit.

the moment the door shut and the group meandered away was the moment I felt the room change with her.

it was like the power being cut in the middle of a wild storm, only for the storm to be cut with it; it was silent. still.

and then, she gave a great sigh, and slid back into her chair which was turned away from me for reasons I could only describe as god’s sweet mercy on me.

I, slowly, tiptoed as silent as I could back to where I’d been sitting, but still stood because I was afraid I’d have to make a run for it.

the energy in the room was terribly unsettling.

it was like I’d just watched two strangers end a decades-long relationship in a quiet, deserted waiting room, and half of the pair had walked away and now I was left alone with the other half.

I kept my gaze fixed on her.

it was soon that I noticed just how run-down she looked—just how….different she was.

she was slouched over the desk with her head in one gloved hand, and her fingers were on the brink of carding through her hair. I could feel the stress radiating off her, and for the first time, it was something real, something substantial—I could feel it. it was so, so different to how she’d acted with me when we’d first met. she’d been charming and witty and smooth, and had fit herself into me like a puzzle piece. but now…..there was a noticeable difference. no longer did she seem to exude good and exciting vibes, the kind you’d find within the thrumming thrall of a party, but instead, she was just……….there.

she looked tired, worn out. looked like she hadn’t slept in days and it’d only just caught up to her.

eventually, this nightmare would soon change into a different nightmare—a minute or so after the door shut, she spoke to me, keeping her back turned to me and her face pointedly hidden from view.

“do you know why you’re still here?”

her voice was…..oh, dear god, it was strained, like she was fighting back tears with the small amount of strength she had left. but I was sure I knew not to comfort her—the others had told me just how professional of a deceiver this woman was, and I’d observed it to be true.

I fumbled so hard for an answer that I simply didn’t give one in my panic—but that was alright, because like the perfect actress she was, she seemed prepared to monologue.

“it’s because you’re the only one here who’s acted even remotely like a human fucking being.”

oh?

….oh…..

…………….oh.

oh, god.

“honestly, I—” she began again, cut off by some unheard thing I assumed was a suppressed cry. she took in a deep, faintly shuddering, breath, and continued. “—don’t know why I let them near me. all they do is make me feel like a villain. and I—know that I am one, but…..” and here was when she tried to mask herself with social relatability— “...just because I am one doesn’t mean I have to feel like one, ahah……..”

she fell flat.

she fell flat, and I knew that was wrong, wrong because I’d seen her in action: becoming part of other people in beautiful, polychromatic splendor, matching energies and mirroring body language and altering pronunciations and changing names and smiles and shapes.

but now…..now, she was monochromatic: captured in gray light, a beautiful intellectual—broken but full. full, now, for the first time before my eyes, because everything else I’d seen as hollow and empty. after all—lies were only lies, weren’t they? there was no truth in them, no genuine emotion, no…...anything, really, in my experience.

I felt spurred to comfort her—not because of the daydream she’d probably have rathered to pretend to be, but instead because I saw a glimpse of the human being inside of her.

“y-you’re…...not a villain.”

a sad huff of amusement through her nose as her whole upper half jolted just slightly, “sweetheart, you don’t even know me. everything you’ve seen has been a lie. you know that.”

…..I didn’t know where to go from there.

she was right. she was absolutely right. I had no idea who this frustrated, sad being before me was—but now, I…..I wanted to know. wanted to know her interests, her hobbies, her favorite book, her favorite television show, what joke made her laugh the most, or if she even genuinely laughed at all.

“...........how do you do it?”

my voice was feeble, small, like that of a rabbit cowering behind a great lion.

“how do I do what?” she responded after a short pause, voice clicking even with the smooth ups and downs of her vocal pattern. she really was tired…..if only she’d look at me so I could be sure—

“d-deceive.. like you do. how do—how can you create something so lifelike out of-of thin air? y-you’re lying every minute I see you, and-and yet, I—I-I’m tricked every time. ho-how do you do it?”

it was poorly worded, poorly phrased—but she picked up on what I really meant by it.

I had no clue how she could always know so much.

she laughed, darkly and quietly, with such bitterness that I could taste it like an unripe blackberry in my mouth—and then she turned her face so I could see it, and that was the moment something real began.

her eyes were misty, and her cheeks were flushed, and there was a smile stuck on her face by sheer inevitability.

when she spoke, her words—it’s so difficult to describe, but they evaporated like honey in the dim lamplight.

“there’s a drop of truth in every lie.”

it was simple, yet packed full of meaning, and my mind reeled as I had another revelation.

she wasn’t just playing a part, was she….?

“when I’m with people, I see these voids in them—what they want out of people, what their perfect compliment would be, what they want out of me. I see a void, and I fill it—it’s an instinct that I’ve sharpened to be useful over time.”

oh……

“but of course, no performance is perfect. my execution is only flawless because, to me, it’s a game of survival, and the slightest hair out of place means game over.” her eyes were cast down then, apparently unable to hold my gaze. was she that exhausted? “it drains me. I can’t be around people for very long as I am, but having to act every moment of it just takes more away from me. I’m tired. but I’m a good masker—it’s what growing up in my particular circumstances caused me to have ingrained in me. seared into my flesh and bone and brain….. I must perform perfectly because this to me is the art of survival—yet even so, no performance is perfect. I am more than a good liar. a good liar will feel his performance and give it everything he’s got—but I can do so much more.”

oh.

“with just a brush of my fingertips, I can get a man to weep at my feet. with just the quirk of a brow, I can drive a woman mad. with just the right word, I can draw out a person’s deepest secrets and intrigues. I can control any variable you want me to. I can dominate a conversation, I can be invisible in a crowd, I can make someone resent me. the only thing I’ve grown too much to do is be immune. I can control any situation without saying a word. I can control myself and my body and my responses at the drop of a hat. the only thing I cannot control……...are my emotions.”

oh.

“the moment I leave the conversation, more of me dies and fizzles out into smoke. I...know I could have everything. I could rule the damn world if I wanted to, I’m sure of it. I could have people and friends and enemies and rivals……...but I don’t.”

…….there was a lull there, as she traced the edge of the desk with a finger and cast her forlorn gaze over the carpet.

I’d been so enraptured by the mental pictures she painted for me that I’d completely forgotten I was here with her.

like the stammering idiot I was, I made myself speak up.

“wh-why…..why don’t you? is-is it because you don’t…..uh…..w-want people i-in your life?”

I could’ve cursed at the way her next expression made me feel—a look of anguish flashed across her face, and god, it was more beautiful than any of the lies she’d been before.

“yes, but also no. I…..believe me, I want people—I think that much is obvious, in how entangled my emotions become with my victims, but…...but I—”

a sad smile.

I could feel reminiscence in her eyes.

“I’m not cut out for people.”

...huh?

“wh-what d’you mean?”

she looked up at me, and—and for the first time, I saw a spark of life in her eyes. it made me want to do foolish things, made me want to jump and scream and laugh and cry and—

“I ruin them. I’m the perfect weapon, sweetheart: I’m built to ruin and destroy and conquer. I can override my own body’s signals and ignore my emotions and run for hours on empty. but people….” her brows rose and she looked off to the side, as though impressed and annoyed at the same time. “......people can’t do that. people fall to their emotions and make irrational and poor decisions and struggle to keep it together no matter how rehearsed they are. they drop when they’re tired and their functioning derails. they are not like me. they are soft, and I am sharp and callous. they are warm, and I am cold and mean. they are sensitive and careful with themselves, whereas I fling myself into traumatic situations on the daily even when I am hurt.”

I couldn’t think.

all I could do was process—twenty minutes ago, I’d barely been certain of her status as a human being, and now, she was spilling over in front of me.

and then I realized that she was cracking. breaking. faltering.

no longer was she a carefully maintained shell—now, now she was……..on the verge of tears…..

“there is a shred of truth in every lie that I embody. and my truth is my insatiable desire to be not alone as I have been all my life.”

I stood there in shocked silence for a solid ten seconds.

insatiable……….?

“wh-why...insatiable?”

she looked me dead in the eye and suddenly I understood how the ocean’s tides felt about the moon.

“because I won’t let myself be satiated. nor will I ever let myself be soothed, nor will I ever let myself be comforted.”

my eyebrows pinched above the bridge of my nose.

“why?”

“because that is the most dangerous act of all.”

I was confused. how could it be dangerous to—?

“if my emotions make me want people so desperately to love me when I am simply performing for them…..then I shudder to think what would happen to me if I allowed myself to relax into someone. it’s the same reason no one’s allowed to touch me.”

………….ah. I’d…..I’d noticed that.

no matter how physical my friends were with each other and with me, none of them ever came too close to her, and she actively kept herself at a safe physical distance from most people we encountered. I only steered clear of her because, if I was to be honest, I’d been scared of her up until this point.

even now, she intimidated me—but I was slowly coming to grasp a portion of who she really was.

“but…...but, surely, that- can’t be healthy.” I attempted to argue, feeling a dark weight settle over me. I never liked it when people hurt themselves like that on purpose.

a small, resigned smile found its way onto her face. she hadn’t looked at me for some time now. it was odd to see someone with such a big presence refuse to make eye contact…

“it isn’t.”

my brain paused to compute that.

“then—why do you do it?”

“survival. people get close to me, I hurt them, and they hurt me back, and then they leave. it’s a cycle. I’m simply protecting myself, because I know that the moment I am shown true kindness, I will be floored and malleable in ways you cannot imagine. another reason I wear so many masks—even if I am touched or on the receiving end of kindness, it is still never really me. simply a vision of what they think I ought to be.”

“.......o-oh……..” softer than a whisper.

“I don’t need kindness. I don’t need comforted, and I don’t need people. and so long as I am acting, I am safe from whatever could be.”

now, in this moment, I was feeling stupid. but not stupid as in the unintelligent kind—stupid as in the daring kind.

I’d just made up my mind on a lot of things. I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew there was no stopping my own nurturing instincts, and I knew I was one of those people she’d described earlier that fell constantly to their emotions.

“well, you’re...you’re not acting right now, are you?”

I phrased it simply, casually—like it was any old question without intent hidden under it like the mud under the plank of oak wood outside my grandfather’s home.

she squinted her eyes at me, like she was meant to be wearing glasses but had forsaken them.

“I………..n-no. no, I’m—not.”

she sounded more shocked than I’d been during this entire conversation.

“then come here.” I instructed her gently, taking a few steps towards her as if to show her it would be a joint effort.

when she came to stand in front of me, our frames silhouetted in front of the roaring fireplace to my left and her right, I put out my hands with my palms facing upwards.

“give me your hands.”

again, she was reluctant and slow—almost like she wasn’t sure that this was what she was supposed to be doing—but eventually, her fingers crept through the air and led her hands to hover over mine. she’d had her eyes carefully trained on her own slightly trembling hands throughout this, but now, she sent a nervous glance up toward my face, as if checking to make sure she was doing what I’d asked. in as normal of a way as I could, I met her hands with my own, and I could feel her flinch at the contact just as much as I could see it.

I took a moment to assess everything.

the firelight cast a soft glow against our faces, but it was hers that I was particularly concerned with. the shadows on the other side of her face harshened into something I would have found very threatening had she not been bearing the expression of someone who was terribly confused, terribly afraid, and terribly regretful, all at once.

her gloves were silky and thin against my skin, and her dyed blonde hair was a little ruffled in the front from her hand earlier.

her eyes were misty, still—dark brown in the odd light but reddening at the whites like she was about to cry.

I reckoned I was about to make her.

“what are you doing?” she uttered quietly, fearfully, worriedly—in a smaller voice than I’d thought her capable of. it was almost a whisper.

I didn’t answer at first, only trailed my gaze across her face one more time before giving her trembling hands a gentle but secure squeeze.

“showing you that you’re not a villain.” I responded just as quietly, tone warm.

her eyes widened, and when I brushed my thumbs, featherlight, over the part of her hands that I could reach with them, those same eyes that’d shot murderous glares hours earlier now began to tear up.

only now, she was too distracted to turn it off.

“your hands are in mine right now,” my low voice carried the words, “and they are not sharp or destructive, but soft and trembling.”

I held her eye contact for as long as I could.

“your eyes have met mine just now, and I see no evil in them. only pain and want.”

taking a risk, I took a step even closer, to make us barely a foot apart.

“your space is mingled with mine right now, and I am not hurt, but drawn in.”

I was close enough to see it when she bit the inside of her cheek.

and, finally, it happened—a tear rolled down from her lower lashline and left a wet track down her face.

I smiled at her warmly, fondly, even, and let go of one of her hands so I could gently wipe away the wet from under her eye. it was a smooth transition from that to slowly, carefully letting my palm slide up to cup her cheek.

“my hand is touching your skin, and you are no longer safe from what could be—but I think that’s alright, because being safe from a good thing is actually a bad thing in and of itself…...isn’t it?”

she met my eyes herself this time, without me having to catch her, and I could read every emotion in its rawness. there was certainly an odd mixture: shock, fear, worry, grief, release, restraint, want, desperation—and I was sure there were traumas locked deep inside of quite a few of those.

but if I had to narrow it down, I’d say she looked some mix of terrified of herself and of everything, and desperate both to pull away and to come even closer. I would have let her do either.

her lips quivered as mine moved with speech.

“you can be soft. and yes, your hands have destroyed much—I do not doubt your capabilities. but right now, all they are…..is shaking.”

I could see it coming over her, taking control faster than she could relinquish it. she was falling to her emotions, at long last, and I knew instinctively that it had been a long-awaited and much needed catastrophe.

a teardrop nestled itself into the wrinkles formed on my curved hand, and her eyes fluttered softly closed, and she slowly turned to hide her face in my palm and my fingers. she pressed her free hand up against mine, putting pressure on it like she was afraid that I’d pull away now that she’d begun to succumb.

“don’t do this to me,” she pleaded in a weak voice, “don’t break me like this…”

I shifted my grip on the hand that wasn’t at her face, finding the hem of the glove.

“you’re in pain staying like this.” I reasoned quietly, “and I know you don’t want to stop me.”

“but I need to, I—” she blinked her eyes open. “I’m not suited for people, and if you—th-then—I—….I-I’ll become attached, and-and you’ll never be rid of me……..”

“well, that doesn't sound all that unpleasant,” I responded cleverly, giving a cautious tug at the glove.

whatever the reverse of a flinch was, I saw it on her face as my fingertips brushed her wrist.

“oh, but it is—I-I’ll crawl in through your window at night, and stand over your bed and wait for you to wake up.”

“I see no issue there—I’ll have someone to wake me when I have nightmares.”

another pull at the glove, another slide of the fabric.

“I’ll eat all the food in your kitchen.”

“that’ll only be a good excuse to get me out of the house more often.”

“what if I made a mess of your living room, then?” she asked, cocking a brow and beginning to smile.

“I love cleaning, I find it quite therapeutic.” I responded with a smile, too.

the glove was halfway off.

“then I’ll tell your friends all your secrets.”

“my friends already know all my secrets.”

“we’ll make more together, and I’ll spread them far and wide.”

“that’ll only bond us further, won’t it?”

“yes, which will only make it all the more painful for you to let me go.”

it was almost fully off. I only needed one more tug….

“who says I’m going to?”

a lift in her eyebrows, a steady concentration in her eyes.

ah. of course. if she was so well-trained in deceit herself, then surely, she’d know how to spot it—unfortunately for her, that skill would be wasted on me, for I didn’t intend to lie to her.

my smile was challenging, but it quickly softened as I looked down.

she was hanging onto her glove just by the curl of her fingertips.

with a glance up, I could see that she was staring too, and also biting the inside of her cheek again. so much worry……

I felt her hand tighten a little into my own from their places still against her cheek.

“I cannot allow myself,” she said simply, regretfully, and, maybe, frustratedly.

but I could feel the longing in her as much as I could feel it in me.

“you don’t have to.” I said firmly, looking her in the eye as I pulled the glove the rest of the way off.

I could hear her breath catch in her throat as the glove hit the carpet below us.

wordlessly, I ghosted my fingertips over her now exposed hand.

“…..with just a brush of my fingertips, I can get a man to weep at my feet….”

she shivered.

the tension in my brows softened as I looked back up to her for a moment, watching the fight for control on her face between her survival instincts and the rest of her.

“....with just the quirk of a brow, I can drive a woman mad…..”

but finally, I couldn’t draw it out any longer, wouldn’t force myself to wait for her to stop me, because I knew somehow that she never would.

I took her hand in my own, brushing my skin against hers and feeling the muscles tighten and relax repeatedly as she tried to stop herself from giving in.

“.......with just the right word, I can draw out a person’s deepest secrets and intrigues.”

“c-can I…...stay? w-with you, tonight, I-I mean—i-in your room. I—I don’t……”

she could barely hold her voice.

“.......want to be alone anymore.”

“I’d be relieved to have you…..I don’t either.”