#santiago gutierrez solano ╱ 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 ╱ 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 ›› daevi

[whileurmine]

@icarian-carrion

"no, wait," santiago smiled, wide, wide, wide. while his gaze remained soft in a way that only she could conjure. "let me help." he offered out, holding the other pill between his fingers, stepping closer, "open your mouth." and his pill hadn't kicked in, not yet anyway, so when he did let his gaze fall to her lips, when he allowed himself to notice how little distance there was between them, his heart jumped inside his chest.

[whileurmine]

He leaned in to listen, the smile only widening the more she spoke. And despite himself, he couldn't help but nod along, impressed. "You are a genius." Santi chuckled. "Hey, next time I'll call you to solve it. Pay you a consulting fee to force someone into working shape. And then if they find out about your switcharoo, they get mad at you and not me and can't blame never working with us again on what I do or don't." He shook his head, down to his final sip of the great drink. Santiago would have asked for the bottle, if he wasn't getting babysat and trying to impress the babysitter in question, he would have had the bottle. "No, this is the worse. This is real and it fucking sucks, It's people asking for favors out of me or wanting to pretend they are my friends and if I don't let their girlfriend go see a movie set or sound to grumpy or tell them to focus on the numbers then they go to the guy across the street and get their wish granted and my dumbass puts the jobs of two thousand people on the line. I would pay unreal amounts of money to have a guy like Robbie following me around and saying cut, so he can tell me to say the line again but happier when I mess up, and it's like the mistake never happened in the first place." He needed the bottle, or maybe something stronger. "Hey, I'll take that." A small genuine smile on his features. "It's better than; You—" Santiago used the same pause as she did earlier that night, though infinitely more dramatic, a thousand times more pained. "—pulled it together." Another laugh escaping him. God. This was so nice. Did they really have to go back? "You really need to work on your compliment giving skills you know that? I say this as someone who knows you are striving to be perfect in every possible way."

Daevi is surprised to find herself laughing, genuinely and honestly, laughing at his story. “That’s where we’re different.” She leans in, like she’s telling him a brilliant secret. “Smoke shops sell stash jars made to look like bottled water, but all of the fake bottles have American labels. I would’ve bought four or five, cut the labels off, and sealed them to the English bottles. Rinse, repeat. If your star says their skin is too delicate for the detergent the cleaners use, send them to get cleaned again and tell them it was different. If they don’t like the beds in their hotel room, move them to a room on the floor above with the same bed. It’s all psychological. They want to believe they can tell quality. They can’t. But you can make them think they do, and that they won.” Daevi taps a finger against her temple, universal sign language for I’m a genius. The last two she’s actually done. Exceptional service sometimes just means making people think you put in more effort than you really did. “Besides, your job now is fake. Well… this part of it is, anyway. I know I’ve been…” her tongue slides across the sharp edge of her incisor, cutting off whatever she was going to say she was. “But you are… infinitely preferable to this crowd.” A statement that managed to mix superlatives and extremely faint praise.

[whileurmine]

She did. She kept making it sound like she didn't want him, like she wasn't sure, like if he did do anything about this, about her and him, she would bolt. He didn't want her to bolt. He wanted her close, closer. Though if closer wasn't an option, then close would do. "Do you wanna... Take five? Get a little, tiny little break away from me? So you can, I don't know, breathe without looking at my face?" If he was being fully honest, he wanted to go to the bathroom nearby so he could do a line of coke or two so he could force himself back into being present in this conversation. Santiago didn't know important shit would be happening, if he did, he wouldn't have gotten this high. Well, okay, that was a lie. He would have gotten this high. Just maybe on uppers instead. "I wasn't trying to put you on the evaluate your own feelings spot, you know. I was just, I was just trying to think a little bit, for once."

Daevi takes a deep breath, which is hard, because she still kind of wants to scream. "I am not... mad... because I don't know..." this talking slower thing isn't really working for her. She wants to smack him. This isn't even his fault and she still wants to smack him. "I know that I like you. I keep saying that I like you." Daevi doesn't know if she likes him like he says he likes her, but only because she had the air knocked out of her by the way he described it. It's almost too big, like no matter how sure she was, she would never match up, would always be dangerous to him and the expanse of what he's feeling. "And yeah, you should tell me that kind of thing. Because if I knew, I wouldn't go doing something like this until I was sure I..." she rubs her forehead. "I keep making it sound like I don't want you. I don't know why I do that."

[whileurmine]

He groaned against her mouth, desperation spreading like electricity throughout his body. His hands quick to move to her hips. All the playfulness of his previous words gone in an instant, leaving desire in its wake. — It was almost too much, almost more than he could take when she pulled back to look at him like that. His heart hammering against the inside of his chest. "Shouldn't have done it in the first time to begin with." whispered against her lips as she pulled him back. Santi leaned forward, almost falling on top of her. His body weight held by his forearms while his mind buzzed. Everything was blurry and distant and so very good he refused to consider anything that might interrupt it. Be it the driver or the amount of time between the museum and his house. Andy was a smart guy, he would take a few rounds around the block if it seemed like they needed it, he was sure. Desperate hands move up and down her back, sliding underneath her shirt so he can touch something, anything. His kisses veering from her lips down to her jaw and neck. "Been thinking about this for so long, god. Imagined getting to touch you like this. Knowing how you sound."

It’s probably been too long for Daevi to blame the eagerness she meets the kiss with on the pill, but she probably will. That and the way she shifts closer to him, not bothering to buckle her seatbelt in the slow crawl of traffic, the way her legs just seem to land in his lap without her input, and her hands knot in his lipstick stained shirt so she can pull him even closer, ignoring the driver entirely. She pulls away briefly to laugh and rub at the crimson she’s smeared all over his mouth and whisper “Don’t stop me this time, please,” before pulling him in again. Daevi thinks she meant to ask him if the car had a divider, or something like that, but it doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Andy’s seen more scandalous things than her kissing him with the clumsy enthusiasm of a teenager with her first real boyfriend. She thinks she even saw him stifle a laugh.

[whileurmine]

"Can't believe my mom almost chose your job for you. If only ghost hunting involved a career track and college degree." He laughed, shaking his head. "It's a date, then." His smile wide, so very wide, "You see— You see what I did there? Very smooth, huh." Laughing, Santiago used the hand he was still holding, perpetually holding it seemed, to spin her around. An unabashed display of glee and nothing else. "Hot date with a pretty girl and horror movies. Nice." He chuckled. — The leaving was a lot easier than the arriving. No need to check any tickets. No lines to go through. They could just walk out the door and the car was there, waiting for them exactly where it had been before they left. "Andy boy!" The driver held the back door open for the two of them. Santi sat beside her. His arm around her shoulder still because the touch felt too nice to give up. "Back home, Andy boy, please." His attention flickering to her a second later. "You know what I was thinking?" Moving in towards her, his voice a whisper, "It's a secret, c'mere." Santiago waited until she was just a little closer to lean in and kiss her.

"Some sleepless nights, an irrational fear of old theatres, an unshakeable desire to be become a ghost hunter... until I got a little older, anyways. Then it got shakable." His smile is infectious. Daevi wonders if he knows that, if he has any idea how he affects people, affects her in particular. "I'd really like that, actually. I'll order us a pizza or something, we can..." An image pops into her head, unasked for and unwanted and entirely too easy, his duvet dragged into the ridiculous screening room in his house so they can curl up and watch every horror movie she can find in the house. It's a kind of want she isn't used to, especially not with him, a kind of intimacy that doesn't make any sense, but burns a hole through her anyways. "Yeah. Let's do that."

[whileurmine]

"No, your thing is magic. Mine is rigging, yours is magic though." Santi laughed softly, leaning over to plant a kiss to her temple. See, that— That movie. That he remembered the name. "Ah, Velvet Shadows. That one is great. Well, they are all great. But —" He shrugged. He liked it too much. Too honestly and earnestly and sincerely, to the point of embarrassment. "The scene with the first ghost they see, I know the lines by memory. Could recite them right now." This wasn't the kind of thing he would tell just anyone. High or not. It was too real, too open, too— "Did my mom cause baby you to have sleepless nights, Daevi?" His smile suddenly doubled in size. "Because I want you to know, she would have been so very happy to learn that." Santi chuckled. A shake of his head meant to dismiss the apology, "It's fine, really. They are everywhere. Mine and yours. It's in everything we do. If I was going to avoid any thoughts that involved them, I would never think about anything ever again." It wasn't that he wouldn't like that, he would. He tried. It just didn't work. "Oh, wanna watch it now?" Santi tugged on her hand. "I think Andy might have gotten back already. We can go to my place. I got the DCP at home."

Daevi shakes her head, giving his hand a squeeze. “No. I know that magic means a lot of rigging happening just out of view. It’s my job too. Make everyone feel like the night just happened, without them ever realizing how carefully timed everything was.” Ajay is the only person she knows who manages to fool even her, even with everything she knows. She hopes Santiago is right. She hopes he is proud of her. “I’ve seen some of hers, too. Velvet Shadows, I saw that in theatre, it was a Halloween thing where they played vintage horror movies. Dad took me, actually. I wasn’t old enough to go on my own. I probably wasn’t old enough to see it at all.” She laughs quietly, though her heart is sinking, thinking about him as a kid on the set of a movie she would only see with her dad after its director was buried, after he was alone in the world. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to talk about. My parents, and your parents. Parents in general. We should go see one. Halloween is almost here, I’m sure someone is putting on Suspiria or something.”

[whileurmine]

He felt his heart jump inside his chest. He knew he wasn't having a heart attack, no, but he was sure he was damaging it somehow. All the feelings in quick succession forcing it to work so fast, it would be injured by the time he got home. "He sounds wonderful." Santiago liked her dad. He had never met the man. But he didn't need to. He could hear it in the way she talked about him. Exactly what she meant. "You are a good person, Daevi. You are, you are more than that, you are honest, you are principled, you are—" He waved a vague hand. He meant to say real, but he doubted it sounded like much for her. Real was valuable in his world simply because no one else was. Maybe in her world that was the kind of thing everyone could be. "I'm sure he's very proud of you, you know." He drew circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. "Wow." Santiago laughed, he wasn't surprised that she knew the names of the movies of the top of her head. He was surprised he didn't. He should. "I liked it. It was my favorite. I love horror movies too and I was trying something new. The director was my friend, I think." He should remember that too. He didn't. "We stopped talking after. My mom, hm, she," He cleared his throat, gave himself a second before trying again. "I was really bad on set." Santi laughed, low, sad, insincere. "My mom made horror movies, you know? I used to go on set with her when I was little. I couldn't— Everything just kept reminding me of her. I was— I was a nightmare, honestly. I would have been fired if I was anyone else." Then with a soft chuckle, "Am I ruining movie magic for you? I'm sorry."

She frowns, already caught up in the why don’t we do this so you can- and so distracted she answers without thinking. “I don’t know.” Daevi chews on her bottom lip. “I like it. Maybe I like it because I’m good at it. I’m the only one who wanted to do it. Everyone else figured out something for themself, dad didn’t have anyone else to teach. I guess it could have been any business, as long as it was dad’s, and I would have figured it out.” She does like it. But maybe she likes that she’s the one her dad is counting on, more than she likes the work itself. Does it really matter? “I think I like being like him. He’s a good dad. He’s a good guy. Everyone loves him.” It seems so easy from the outside. She thinks she’s almost gotten there. “I saw a couple of them. Bad Day, Good Fight. Love On The Run. The Haunting of Hollow Creek, that one was my favorite. I love horror movies. Wish you’d done more.”

[whileurmine]

Santiago nodded. He knew that. He didn't know how he knew it but he knew it. There were not many sources it could have come from, his conversations had been filled with where are we going to party next for years now. He imagined himself, eight years old, feet dangling off a theater chair, his mom explaining to him deux ex machine, fixing the blonde streak in his hair like she always did— And then he stopped himself before he landed face first on another round of crying, this time one he couldn't explain. "Yeah." Santi confessed, his voice a whisper. He could swear one of the statues turned her head a little to hear him better. "I really do." And because he couldn't let his voice sound too needy, his heart whined for him instead. "I lied, I think, I'm not too busy, I just can't. I'm the boss. It doesn't matter how nice or cool I try to be, it changes stuff for everyone else. No one cares about the movie or the play when I walk in, suddenly it's make the boss happy power hour." Technically, technically, he wasn't the boss. He was something like the boss' boss' boss. Give or take a few layers depending on the person. He was sure that only made it worse. "It's fine." His voice dismissive. "I get it." Santi breathed, then, "Do you like it? Your job? All the management shit. I know you are good at it, but do you like it?"

Daevi nods. “Still an actor. They loved plays. You know…” did she learn this in history? Or classics? She definitely took some classics in university, sitting awkwardly in a lecture hall full of people actually in it for the love of it while she was just taking it so she had a full course load in between management and marketing. “Deus ex machina, when something happens in a movie out of nowhere, to… resolve things or something. That comes from the greeks. Or the romans, maybe. They had people playing gods in these…” she’s too high to explain it right. “Like, harnesses and rigging, I guess? So they could float and fly.” She rests her head on his arm. “I know what you mean. I don’t know how they did it. My sister is a sculptor, and sometimes they feel too real.” It feels too close to creation, especially now, looking right at them. It feels too close to god. “Do you like acting? You said you were too busy. But do you like it?”

[whileurmine]

"Oh, damn. Andy." Santiago laughed, easy and light. "God, how do you always know everything? Are you earning per correction?" He chuckled. Trading which hand he was holding just so he could loop his arm around her shoulder and hold her hand still. "Who the fuck is Thomas then? Security? It's not an actor, actors insist on first and last name. Studio guy?" He snapped his fingers. "Doorman! Doorman at the studio that's Thomas." Phone in hand he stared at the little clock at the corner. The minute changed forward, then moved backwards. Insistent on staying still. The hour read 26pm. He had to blink a few times, telling himself focus before calling the driver. "Andy boy! I know you said you could go whatever, but do you think you can turn around to pick us up early? It's no rush, we just, might be calling it early here. Yeah? Thanks, man, you are my hero. Alright. See you in a bit." His attention flickered to the sculptures. Santiago paused to imagine himself: Clad in armor, surrounded by them, a small sword in hand. — That was the wrong thought, right? A bad translation of his current life. He wasn't an warrior, he was, "What's the greek times version of an actor? An actor still?" But Santiago wasn't an actor either, he was the rich guy paying for the plays to be put on. A sponsor, maybe, a rich prince from a far away land. Bored and drunk and getting grapes served to him by a pretty lady. "I know it's just rock, you know, but it's so pretty, it's like a photo someone took two thousand years ago."

Daevi smiles and reaches into her purse, before whispering "How are you going to check that when you don't even know his name is Andy?" She wants to kiss him here. She wants everyone in the room to disappear so he can sit down on the bench behind them and watch her undo every button on her blouse, so that the next time he's crying it's with her on top of him, drawing out every sound he can make. She unlocks her phone and passes it over to him, gently pulling him away from the painting and into the sculpture gallery. However long it's been, she's still high enough that her eyes are immediately drawn to a golden sculpture of Athena - no, Athena is the one with the helmet and the owls, this is Artemis, or Diana probably, bow in full draw, leg pointed like a ballerina. She's beautiful, but Daevi isn't seeing it the way she should. She's not seeing anything the way she should anymore.

[whileurmine]

"I don't know, like someone who is currently not annoying you as much as he usually does...?" Santi did ask her to slow down, but she must not have heard him. Or maybe, maybe he didn't ask, because she kept going on and on and he didn't understand most of what she was saying. "Are you mad about being confused about whether or not you like me?" See, on one thing they both agreed, neither of them was particularly clear on what the fuck was happening. "I don't wanna sound conceited, but it does sound like you like me." How was he the one convincing her of that? He didn't think she liked him. Right? "i just..." Santiago ran a hand through his hair. "I like you, Daevi. That's all I meant. I like you like if we sleep together once and then never talk about it again it's gonna fuck me up for real. Like, I like you like you touched my hand once and I think about it every time we are together and, I really shouldn't be telling you this because you are gonna come to your senses tomorrow and then you won't want to work with me anymore. And I like you like I would rather work with you and not get to kiss you than kiss you once and not be able to have you around anymore."

Daevi wants to scream. She does not want to have this conversation. She does not want to talk about this. She does not- “How else would I like you?” and then “I told you I like you.” She’s pretty sure she did, at least. Earlier in the night, on the roof. Was that the first time she said it? It had to be. “God, you act like you’re brainless and shallow and don’t care about anything, you get ridiculously high and bring random girls home to film you spiralling on tiktok live, and then we actually talk, and you’re funny and insightful and self aware and smart and I like you, I like you when we talk outside of work, I like you when I’m not trying to wrestle you into a suit or force you to do your job, I don’t understand this… I don’t understand any of it! And I always understand what’s going on!” She really is insane. She has gone fully crazy.

[whileurmine]

His eyes were all red, his breath wavery, he turned only when she guided his face to hers. The moment he did, though, he thought maybe he should turn away. The problem wasn't that this was bad, no, the problem was that it was too good. It was too fucking good. It was so good it could— no, it was going to kill him. She was the kind of drug he knew to give up the moment he got a taste of it. Offering out a hit so relieving if he didn't drop it before he got addicted, he would end up selling all his shit before he reached the end of his line. Her eyes though— It might have been too late already. "Don't be sad, angel... It's okay... I'm just an easy cry-er." Santi ran his hand through both his eyes before any other tears could escape him. "I wanna kiss you too." He whispered, but that, that was the understatement of the century. He wanted to kiss her, yes, had wanted it to for a while. He also wanted to rip her clothes off of her. He wanted to know what she sounded like moaning his name over and over again. He wanted— He wanted a lot. That wasn`t particularly new though, was it? "How long have we been here?" It could have been five minutes, it could have been five hours, he had no idea. "We gotta know if Thomas—" Was that his name? "—is back." Had he even left? Who knew? "You got your phone? I can call him while we go see the statues."

Daevi screws her face up, a scowl that’s just to keep her from following into tears while she reaches over to rub his back. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.” She says firmly, as if he just told her it was too late for her to be going out and not that he was irreparably broken and there was nothing she could do about it. Daevi buries her face in his shoulder, waiting for the crying and the hopelessness and the resignation, waiting for her brain to insist on a fond goodbye, but it doesn’t. Maybe she’s still too high. “I like what there is.” She whispers into his shoulder. “I’ve spent so much fucking time with you, Santiago. And I like what there is.” Daevi lifts her face up and reaches with one hand to guide his towards her, away from Esther and her gleaming gown and her sideways looks and her indifferent king. “Please don’t cry. I don’t want to be the reason you’re crying. I… I’ll make a plan when I’m sober again, and I’ll figure it out, and I’ll take care of you.” She doesn’t know how, doesn’t know what fixed means, she just hears I’d do anything for you and wants it to be true, wants to close her eyes and open them in her stupid one room condo with him sleeping peacefully next to her, wants it all to make the kind of sense that her life did before she met him. “I want to go back to the car so you can kiss me.” As if they haven’t already made themselves a spectacle with their desperate whispering.

[whileurmine]

Santi must have gone through five hundred emotions in the span of five seconds. Taken aback at first, because I lost my mind, and then, head tilted to the side, because I want to. Staring up at her like the speed through which she was talking was making it hard for him to think, "Well, nothing. I mean, do you?" He shouldn't ask. ...right? People didn't ask about that kind of thing. Not until they were three dates in and considering a relationship. But— She was so fucking confusing; Santi didn't know what else to do. He should leave the pool, he should definitely— Running a hand through his face, he sank in one last time. — Cold water meant to wake him up. — and rose back up, slicking his hair back and pulling himself out of the water. Standing in front of her, in nothing but underwear, fully drenched. "Just slow down a little, alright? Because I have just done enough drugs to knock out a horse and you are talking so fucking fast it seems like I'm only listening to every other word, and I mean— ...you like me? Like, you like me like a person kind of like?"

"I wasn't trying to sleep with you, I just wanted to kiss you!" Daevi blurts out. She's pretty sure that one is true, but she's also pretty sure she wouldn't have stopped things if they did go that far. "And I'm not-" Not everyone, though he's made it pretty clear that she's not everyone to him, and that is so much more confusing, because she has no idea what she is to him, or what he is to her, and that is definitely the worst part, because Daevi always knows what everyone is to her. She knows herself better than she knows anyone, she always has, and she doesn't understand why she doesn't know about this. "It's not your fault, okay? I... I've lost my mind, I don't know." She groans. "That's not... I don't mean I've lost my mind because I want to, I mean I've lost my mind because I did it, okay, don't take that the wrong way, I'm- I don't- Will you stop taking like you're fucking radioactive? What would be wrong with me liking you anyways!?"

[whileurmine]

It was so fast, everything, it was so very fast. A frown formed on his features. "No, I'm, I'm sorry, I—" She was pulling away and running off and he was trying to move but it all felt sluggish. Santiago had to squeeze his eyes shut, take a deep breath. He didn't know what was happening anymore. "Daevi, it's, it's fine." But she was already off the water, and he had to swim in her direction, "Look it's fine, it's me. It's me, I get it, I mean, it's not like I don't give that impression, everyone thinks I would go around sleeping with everyone, I get it, It's not, you didn't do anything wrong." There was a lump forming in his throat and he head to swallow it down a few times over. She was gonna leave. She was gonna call an uber and she was gonna leave and he was gonna be all alone in that house and she wasn't going to talk to him again and it was all because he couldn't have a normal one-night stand with a person like a goddamn adult. Santi pinched the bridge of his nose willing himself to think. But he was still in the water, "Don't go please. I'm sorry," whispered out this time around. It was the best he could do. "It's not your fault. I'm a sentimental bastard and I forget people can't tell when they look at me, and I, I'm not the kind of guy you would date because you are, you know, you are like a real functioning person and you didn't know and it's fine, it's, it's me, alright? I'm my fault. Please. You don't have to leave."

He’s there and then he’s gone, and maybe it’s the shock of that more than anything else that has her head reeling. At first, at least. Daevi feels her stomach drop to her knees, and she hears herself say “I’m not- I wasn’t-” more than she consciously says it. Wasn’t she? Wasn’t she drunk, doing something stupid, something she’d never have done sober? Suddenly she’s not sure, but her face is very, very hot, and she’s not embarrassed, she’s ashamed. “I’m so sorry. I… I’m so sorry.” Daevi whispers, scooting back further on the tile and grabbing her dress. “I wasn’t trying to- I like you too, I wasn’t-” Why can’t she say anything else? She pulls her dress on over her head and scrambles to her feet, pulling it down over her wet legs. “I don’t- I didn’t do it because I feel sorry for you, I just, I wanted to, and I wasn’t thinking, I… I, uh… I’ll call an uber. I should call an uber, I’m sorry.” Did she want to before this? Why doesn’t she know? Daevi scoops her purse up off the ground and fishes around in it for her phone.

[whileurmine]

He leaned to the side a little, height difference making it so his cheek was almost on top of her head. Every touch felt both stolen and divine. "You know me, Daevi. You know what I can't do." But Santiago said it like he had been turned down already and that clarification was all she would need to realize it too. Tears suddenly welling up behind his eyes. His lips turned to a pout. There was no easy way to talk about it. No pre made euphemism he could borrow. I can't wear a suit, shake hands, look happy. But Santiago could do it, he did it in exchange for a meal at McDoanlds with her. I can't laugh loudly, make noise for no reason, dance like no one is watching for once. But he could do that too, he had done some of those things that very day. The list of things he could and couldn't do was complex, everchanging. It lacked clear pattern. "I would do anything for you, I just can't— You know me, you know how I am, you know I can't..." Santi trailed off. A few tears escaping him then. A second too long passing by before he wiped them off with the back of his arm. "I can't be fixed, baby. I know you, you're gonna want to, but I can't. It's all— It's just." Watery eyes flickered around the room. Searching for something other than the painted woman in front of him. His attention landed on a faraway window, on the very corner of another room. Bright yellow and blue glue together to form a blooming flower. "It's all shards." He had to clear his throat to make his voice sound his again. And this time when Santi looked back at the painting, his attention wasn't on Esther anymore, but on the floor beneath her. "You'll cut your hands raw and you won't find the stained glass image. There is no fixing, this is all there is. All there ever was." And for a second there he wished he could reach into his jacket and get something strong, something that would stop this stupid non-sensical breakdown. The pill he had had though, that was all there was too. "You can have it though, what is there, it's all yours. You just can't fix it."

It feels like Daevi is observing someone else, someone else confused, someone else scared, someone else who is going to start crying because she’s high and all of her feelings have risen up until they’re right under her skin. “I know you will. You do now.” She whispers. She’s trying to imagine him in the life she’s been working towards, and she can’t. Daevi just doesn’t know if that’s enough to shut up the want that’s been in her all this time. It feels like she’s standing in front of King Solomon, except she’s both women, it feels like she’s forgotten an entire language, it feels like she’s seven and packing a bag full of granola bars and a teddy bear to run away from home. “What can’t you, and what won’t you? And what will you? I don’t know, and I always know. I’m scared that I want things and I can’t have them if I have you and I’m scared that if I have them I’ll realize that I wanted you more. I’ve always had a plan. I don’t know how to make a new one, and I don’t know how to go without one. I know that you make me happy. And crazy. And I don’t want to say goodbye to you, ever.”

[whileurmine]

He was so happy. For one long moment there, he was so happy, it was like the world didn't exist. Lips pressed to hers, his arm too easily moved around her waist to pull her to him, with a small, short huff of a pleased laugh. He was so goddamn happy with the idea of Daevi kissing him, his mind only caught up to the reality of the situation a second later. — Santiago wanted nothing more than to go along, let it happen. Go upstairs with her and forget about every problem he has ever had. But he wasn't drunk enough, he wasn't high enough, he wasn't blacked out at all and he knew, he knew by morning, regret would be the only thing left. — "No, wait, no, no, don't, don't do that." Swimming back and away like he had to use honest physical force to rip himself from her. Santi had to force his eyes shut, blink a few times so he could be fully present and speaking. "Don't do that, don't, that's not. It's not funny, that's not funny." He would have to go back to work and see her again and think about this and how her idea of having fun and doing something crazy that she would never do sober was kissing him. That was her idea of crazy, when that was all he would be able to think about doing from now on and it wasn't— It wasn't funny. "Don't do that because you are high or, or drunk, or, or, or because you feel sorry for me, because I'm a mess, okay? I know I'm me, and I know, I know it looks like it doesn't matter to me, but it matters. It matters, it matters, it does and you are just having fun and I care and I, I don't, I'm really bad at being a grown up and putting shit behind me and I'm gonna act like a fucking about it and you gonna hate me and I don't, I like you, I don't want you to hate me."

Daevi finds herself laughing again, and she can’t tell if it’s his terrible understanding of money or the fact that he’s suggesting they do any of that, or the fact that a tiny little part of her wants to say yes, let’s go, let’s just fucking do it- “Parli italiano?” she asks, still laughing. “Wilder. Fucking wilder.” What was the last really crazy thing she’d ever done? Nothing on that level, nothing like he was describing. And then she does it, one hand still braced against the edge of the pool and one planted against his neck for balance. Daevi kisses him, a little sloppy and clumsy from the drinks she’s had and huffing pot smoke next to him for the last twenty minutes at least.

[whileurmine]

"Esther..." Santi repeated. His throat tightened around the word hurt. He wanted to say she shouldn't worry, she wouldn't hurt him, but she so easily could. Santi knew himself. He sobbed at a scraped knee, he wasn't built for this kind of heartbreak. No matter how many times he stumbled face first into it. — Every sentence of hers pulled his eyebrows higher. His heart raced against his ear. "How do you want something in a wrong way?" Santiago had only ever wanted in one way. Now. Please. I'll do anything, please, if you just give me a little bit, I'll—. His throat moved around nothing. Esther looked back at him like she had searched within herself and found her sympathy lacking. Her side glance implying he was all alone on this one. "Be with me in a way that doesn't make sense, then." And because it was asking for something he didn't think he deserve, it came out whispered. A soft little plea. Almost a whine, really. Santiago let his thumb brush the back of her hand. His heartbeat thundering against his ear. "I'll make you laugh." He offered. "It's good. For the brain. I read that somewhere once. I know, I know there is a lot I won't do, can't do. I know you know. But I can make you laugh. I can make you smile."

Daevi watches the painting while he speaks, as if she’s waiting for the figures to move, to respond, to shoot her a wry glance while the three of them listen to him unwind the situation like a ball of twine. That night seems so far away, lit in yellows and blues like the linseed oil dress in front of her, all of the panic and confusion reduced to the tiniest tug in her stomach, fighting to push through the pleasant fog. “Her name is Esther.” Daevi mumbles against his shoulder, nodding at the label beside the painting, as if that’s anywhere near as important as what he’s said. “I didn’t think that was…” she’s trying to unravel the words herself now, her own ball of string in hopeless knots. “I didn’t think that. You scare me. You feel everything. I think about everything. What if I’m a bad person? What if I want you wrong? What if I don’t like you enough, and I hurt you? I don’t want that. I like you, I want you, but what if it’s not enough?” Daevi can’t tell if she’s making sense. He’s all need, all raw and open, and she’s all calcified plans and rules. “I would have to ask you for all kinds of things to be with you in a way that makes sense. I don’t know how to do that with you.”