#pertlips

she couldn’t tell you how long she had been here, living in the eighties, in this world she had once deemed a  dystopian nightmare.  hours feel like days, days feel like months and months feel like years   —-  but she’s grown to love it. this is her home now,  the eighties stuck in a loop,  working as a detective inspector alongside gene hunt and the gang.  this is her norm nowadays, her life away from here such a distant memory.  she barely remembers two-thousand-and-eight, it doesn’t feel as though it was ever real.  the only thing that feels right is this place and everything that it’s brought to her.  the friendships she’s made, the stories she has to tell, the love she’d had and lost  . . .   it feels like centuries ago since zelda had left, despite how it had only been a few decades.  she hadn’t forgotten her though, she couldn’t. somehow, this world, this simulation, it kept her memory alive.  

DEATHLESS     /      @pertlips     /      accepting!!

  Few joined the congregation in the way that Zelda did.  Many joined them by choice,  and many joined them by force,  but accident?  That was rare.  Those who were not actively in the Project or patrolling the Henbane River may not be aware that it had been mixed with a highly potent version of the bliss.  Yet,  the green hue that the water had should have been an indication that something was not quite right.  In the early hours when there is a fog that hangs low above the water,  it had that same neon green hue,  and there is nothing natural that could be explained for that.  It could have been a flesh eating bacteria, Zelda!  It could have meant that the water was heavily polluted with toxins or manufacturing waste! 

  Hannah could not picture that moment,  that choice.  To step out into the water as naked as they day she had been born only to become lured into the embrace of the Project.  She could not picture stumbling through the woods,  high on the bliss.  The brambles catching the soft parts of her feet,  the bark brushing shoulders and hips,  each keeping a small piece of her with them.  The sun rushing to kiss places of her body that it had not seen before,  that not anyone who else might have been in the woods had seen before either.  Did Zelda even remember walking through the bliss fields and into the arms of Faith?  Did she regret it?  You gave up so much to be here with us,  and with her.  

“  that  so?  ”  she  watches  peach  in  her  robe, turning  up  a  bottle  of  corona  to  take  a  large  gulp  of  it  as  she  lies  stretched  across  the  bed.  comfiest  mattress  she’s  ever  been  on!  except  for  a  couple  forty  year  olds  with  their  memory  foam  mattresses,  which  had  made  it  particularly  hard  for  her  to  leave  in  the  morning. “  does  look  nice.  ”  she  can’t  say  much  other  than  that  on  it.  finishing  her  drink,  she  sets  the  bottle  down  onto  peach’s  side  drawer  top  and  shifts  to  the  end  of  her  bed,  closer  to  peach.  

her  eyes  roam  peach’s  curves  where  the  robe’s  tie  cinches  her  waist,  and  slowly  she  gets  to  her  feet,  slipping  in  front  of  peach  with  a  slight  smile  to  one  corner  of  her  mouth.  “  can  i  have  a  feel?  ”  her  eyes  drop  to  the  silk  tie  and  she  reaches  out  for  it,  sliding  them  between  forefinger  and  thumb,  her  gentle  tugs  loosening  the  gown.  she’s  reminded  of  similar  ties  on  a  similar  dressing  gown.  she  remembers  using  them  on  their  owner’s  wrists  after  the  two  had  spent  their  evening  drinking  together.  her  smile  tugs  wider  at  her  lips,  dimpling  her  cheeks.  “  oh  yeah!  it  is  soft.  i  bet  that  feels  great.  ”  

this  time,  when  she  lifts  her  gaze  to  look  at  peach,  there’s  a  gleam  to  her  eyes.  a  certain  impishness  to  the  way  she  grins  so  perfectly,  so  smoothly.  she’s  always  been  great  at  that.  at  smiling.  it’s  charming.  and  the  look  she  gives.  it  says:  i  could  undo  this  with  a  simple  tug  of  the  tie.  it  says:  are  you  naked  under  this?  instead,  she  drops  peach’s  robe  ties  and  moves  away,  running  her  hands  through  her  hair.   “  …  but  you’re  also  taking  forever  to  get  ready,  ”  she  says,  dropping  back  down  onto  the  bed  with  a  small  pout,  a  small  huff. “  and  i  wanna  go  out  already.  ”

                  she touches you -- comes close to touching you -- and your eyes dip to the way her fingers brush against the tie. you’re not quite naked, but close, and the way the robe dips between your breasts is deep enough without the barest tug to part it. there’s a half empty glass of rosé on the side that you’ve been swilling whilst you applied highlighter.  you don’t think about how close she gets, because it doesn’t bother you -- when have you ever been bothered by your body? hashtag body positivity. 

                            “right?”       you take that moment for the wine, because if you stare over at the empty beer bottle on the side table, and wherever the goddamn cap went, you’re going to scowl, and you’re going to put it in its correct place. (the trash. recycling -- what beer does not do, is fester near your bed.) so you take a sip, and the glass clinks against its coaster as you place it back down.

        “oh, please. some of us like to look good before we go out.”      you know you look good. you’ve spent the last forty five minutes sculpting your cut crease eyeshadow -- you’re peach saIinger. you look good. but it’s dark, and your phone is blowing up with your group chats and annika’s already started a fucking live-feed from the first bar.

so you pad barefoot over to your closet, the robe dropping down your shoulders and draping over the back of the chair. you say it’s because you’re comfortable, if anyone asks -- you do this to your girl friends all the time. beck’s used to seeing a stretch of leg, or the dimple just above your ass, and you figure it doesn’t make any kind of difference. (you weren’t quite naked -- your underwear is black and tight, but you never got round to a bra -- it doesn’t go with your dress.)

        the dress is slipped over your head and tugged hem-downward over your ass.

BULLY MARKO. ALWAYS ACCEPTING. →  @pertlips

no,  when  she  says  angels,   it’s  rachel  that  means  it.     zelda’s  already  accentuated  herself  as  different  to  faith.    faith  isn’t  merely  recruiting  zelda  into  eden’s  gate,   a  mindless  act.    faith  is  always  an  act,   just  proclaiming  her  position  in  the  new  world  and  while  rachel’s  floundering  for  air --     sometimes  she  gets  it  because  it’s  rachel  with  the  heart  of  gold.    it’s  rachel  that  uses  angel  as  a  term  of  endearment.    it’s  also  faith  that’s  truly  standing  in  front  of  zelda,   traveling  over  from  her  air  tight  bunker  in  dirty,  unlaced  boots  that  seem  to  fit  her  persona  well. 

nobody  but  another  seed  sibling  would  exchange  the  favor   ( jacob  even  excluded ).    the  bliss  dulls  the  mind  far  too  much,  even  faith’s  priestesses,  who  aren’t  as  drugged,  would  never  do  such  a  thing.    now  they’re  just  followers,   all  of  them,   with  only  the  gun  they’re  given  and  clothes  on  their  back.    doing  a  duty,  grateful  only  to  their  duty  and  their  sense  of  purpose.    not  to  their  being. 

maybe  you  should  run  zelda,   this  moment  only  proof  that  faith  is  making  a  truce  with  the  kind,  loving  rachel  to  make  sure  zelda  isn’t  drugged  out  of  her  mind.

faith’s  hand  reaches  up,  fingers  delicately  wrapping  around  zelda’s  chin.     even  faith’s  dominance  is  soft  in  nature,   directing  zelda’s  head  to  look  at  faith.    the  ever  present  smile  still  on  faith’s  features,   but  maybe  there’s  something  a  little  more  knowing  in  faith’s  green  eyes.    a  realization. 

            “  do  you  want  to  put  it  on  me?  ”