#human!b

@silverjetsystm

Things were rarely so simple. Tactile, yes. Easy, also yes. Simple? No. It felt like a trap. Like the easy eo-soul/funk/nu-disco music was a siren, and the butcher block a good place to sever one's neck.

@kylo-wrecked

A cheshire grin chewed at Brunnhilde's face. She perched beside Ben and tugged his cotton cowl lower, obscuring his eyes so that she could kiss him blind.

"I cannot turn off the sun," she pressed her mouth to the corner of his jaw, "or make you less hungover." She kissed the other side, "but I can bring you toast," and then Ben's cheek, "and coffee," his nose, "and aspirin."

@kylo-wrecked

His name is illuminated in her palm. "Just Ben". He is still Just Ben.

[b] Checking up on me? [b] I'm fine.

She's smiling. Just a little. Just for being checked up on.

@kylo-wrecked

It had been akin to swimming, the run they had made. Swimming would have gotten them equally drenched.

Brunnhilde felt as if she might not be dry for days. But she laughed, and the sound echoed around the void. Around a pavilion near the banks of Symphony Lake - the only true shelter they had been able to find before drowning.

"You call this rain?" Her throat almost had to yell to be heard over the drumming water. Her dress clung to her navel. To her collarbone. To her thighs. She slicked her hair back with her hands in an attempt to seem composed.

"I don't think we're going to that restaurant." Brunnhilde sucked water from her own mouth, then looked to Ben. Then to his mouth. He, too, looked as if he had been thoroughly baptized. "I like it too."

@kylo-wrecked

Her earliest memory is of the sky. The sky and his voice. The sky, his voice, and his hands beneath her arms as he threw her toward the sun and said "look up".

He was not an affectionate man. Adoration and praise were not common in his vernacular. They had been placed in a yoke and set beneath a military-grade canopy - one he was not allowed to pilot.

You can't fly with one eye. Brunnhilde had rarely noticed the patch - he saw everything so well. It had been given in service, she'd been told. The price had been worth paying, he had said. It had placed him in a seat that had a view greater than any his former career had allowed. With it, he had the power to make her fly.

@kylo-wrecked

[text] i'm sorry.

there are only so many ways to type it, and none of them make 3 am any less of a torment. erase the text. type it again. erase it. that's right - dont send it. he's probably got you blocked anyway. you've only just unblocked him - just in case. just in case he had sent something, or if he wanted to. the phone was silent. they had not been silent in parting. not silent, not gentle, not kind. fucked. fuck.

[text] i lov-

shit no. backspace. don't do that. jesus christ, dont do that. what are you, a crazy person? [hello, you haven't heard from me in - gods know how long - and the first thing you get is that?] followed by a frantic [sorry, wrong number]; which is never cool, and never looks unintentional. fuck. be cool and intentional, b.

[text] what wine do your parents like? and flowers? i want to send an apology gift. p.s) i think our mothers gossip about us.

absolutely not. erase. erase. erase. stop flailing around like a lunatic. and dont think about how you both flailed around in this exact spot. thinking about the sex while wondering if you should send his parents wine and flowers - yes, brilliant. you're a fantastic sociopath. imagine them getting that bouquet too. you could write [sorry about your dinner party] on the card. or just [sorry about your son]. dont scream into your pillow, you dramatic bitch.

[text] i'm sorry.

@kylo-wrecked

@kylo-wrecked

Her attention slid to a stop, swallowed, and stared at Ben. The words patriarchially genocidal ricocheted off what was left of her brain. Her heart played Cecil Taylor.

"Yeah. That's probably fair."

It probably wasn't. But, then again, The General wasn't exactly Google-able. "You could ask him yourself. Just say his name three times while looking at a mirror."