Every Vow You Break, Every Smile You Fake

[Cicada]

((Beryl Mahelona……………..))

The echo of a slow, staccato bass and the voice of Sting followed Beryl’s slow drift to the center of the dance floor’s edges.

She was not quite sure where she was, or why she was where she was. She was indifferent, as the wind could tuck itself into any sort of home in any sort of place. It seemed to her that she’d be just as happy without a reason as with, in these pop-music glossed-and-gossamer and transient moments where she seemed to spare a moment of thoughtless thought for how much she did not seem to think. Empty, she drifted like balloon. The train of her dress fluttered behind her like the bounce of a string, a tassel untethered to something she could call home.

She wouldn’t say she didn’t care, but sometimes the truth was difficult to know with how it seemed to softly bubble out of cracks in her brain and studded little holes in her skin called pores.

She did have a reason for being here: Nick Ogilvie. Legally named, maybe spiritually named, though his spirit at times was as quiet and unreadable as his handsomest of stoic facades. He’d picked her up and she’d worn a dress. He’d cuddled her a bit when the cold had gotten too cozy under the thinness of the shimmery, speckle-dented midnight ink fabric of the bodice cropped against her chest. It had seemed to be some simulacrum of a Jungian archetype of a prom.

Her reason had vanished, eventually. The words between them at some point before that.

She liked to imagine she had more to say to him, and imagine she could, but say she did not. She found a certain serenity to keeping her silence to herself, watching faces she recognized drift by. Two crowns had been claimed, she’d clapped and waved. Many faces had sought her out with the limbs and mouths that had been attached to those faces, and she’d ignored summons as blatantly as she’d been duly unconscious.

Many other moments passed. Her hearing, whipped and cowed by close-by speakers, slowly parted, as the song whose ambiance she drowned in cut from one to the next with some unknown amount of DJ finesse.

I wonda’ who motherfuckin’ representin’ in here tonight.

Hold on- hold on.

Placid waves in the crowd turned to violent ripples of excitement. Beryl, too, knew this song. Her lips stayed shut as other girls around her screamed, but she did raise a nude arm to the sky as they did. A ritual saluting some unknown, higher power that smiled upon their youthful ecstasy.

Care for me, care for me,
You said you care for me,
There for me, there for me,
Said you’d be there for me,
Cry for me, cry for me,
You said you’d die for me,
Give to me, give to me,
Why won’t you live for me?

And the bass and the rapper took to their cadence. A cadence quite familiar, but not one Beryl cared to repeat aloud even as her thoughts molded completely around word after word she recognized but the physical impact of, not necessarily the emotional. Bodies around her took to motions in rhythmic thrusts that emphasized varying fronts and rears, and Beryl’s own body tokenly spun on one crooked leg, with which leg she parted human seas and arms borne against the enemy of a roof that was not yet raised.

More unfamiliarly familiar faces blurred away, smiles and gorgeous trill screams bleeding into a background of turbulence.

She recognized one face.

Beryl chose a flanking attack. Her slender digits, pin pulled off the grenade, bounced off Sierra’s shoulder. With her friend in so many words attention held, Beryl smiled a wordless introduction. It was loud, but the static was louder. Beryl remembered the days she’d used to hear Sierra’s heartbeat up close. She could still recall the sound, though it seemed more distant the more she paid attention.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

((Sierra Cook continued from I Don't Care, Do You?))

Sierra supposed she should be happy that prom would soon reach its end. With the coronation of Prom Royalty all wrapped up she imagined Prom would only go on for a little while more before the school staff tells them all to fuck off back home. Another school dance done, another bunch of shithead teens satisfied. She didn't even feel the least bit of satisfaction over the fact she had called who the winners would be.

Ivy and Connor.

So predictable.

She at least did the polite thing and clap for them. After all, Connor was more enthused about Prom than she was. Guy was probably ecstatic that he won Prom King. She didn't envy the conversation he would no doubt have with Madison about this. Bitch cheerleader power dynamics would dictate that she would throw a fit that Ivy won instead of her. Queen Bitch Ivy was probably feeling real smug about winning a meaningless title and getting to dance with the star Quarterback, though. Sierra doubted for a second that she was the least bit broken up about her current boyfriend didn't win the title of Prom King. One, because she was a slut, and two, Bret is about as ugly as his twin brother Wyatt so she'll be spared of having to have her Prom Royalty photo taken with the offspring of Humpty Dumpty and those little bear things from that one old Star Wars movie.

Not that it matters, of course.

It wasn't like she still suddenly gained a new found enthusiasm for Prom or anything. Still, she found herself once more wandering through a sea of dancing individuals and self-consciously didn't want to stand out too much among them. She raised her arms and started to dance to the rhythm of the beat, but her movements were a bit still and unenergetic in contrast to the party goers surrounding her. Partly in combination of her present state of bored resignation and her tight formfitting formal attire that constrained her movements

As if the universe finally threw its up in response to Sierra's continued failures enjoy herself, she felt someone tap against her shoulder. Sierra's arms dropped to her side as she whirled around to see who it was that had gotten her attention. She was glad to see it was a familiar face at the very least.

"Beryl, hey!" She greeted, smiling pleasantly as if her general foul mood had evaporated in mere seconds of her best friend's arrival. "What's up?"

[Cicada]

Beryl would feel, that the energy of Sierra's spirit phase transitioned, more liquid in how it seemed to splash and bubble. Buoyancy in her face, Beryl traced, down through the familiarity of her physique. It had been a while since Beryl had experienced it intimately, some amount of time she'd forgotten. Maybe she'd forgotten the details. Sierra was a pretty picture painted onto canvas, long smudgy in Beryl's mind after years of neglect, now slowly coming back into focus. Beryl swore she could remember the coil of the inky dragon splashed onto the narrow right above Sierra's hips. It had been deeply midnight black, breathing slowly to Sierra's heartbeat. The color bled like broken pen corpses through Beryl's vision, and Sierra swam through a sea of humanity, palette swipes of the sickly party luminescence.

Beryl stooped down towards the friendly human shape, closing the distance in their heights until her eyes almost leveled with Sierra's own.

"It's been a while," she smiled. Louder, given the music. Louder than herself, but her tone continued to evaporate like oily smoke.

"..." She thought, deeply, her eyes floundered shallowly on the curl of Sierra's lip.

"Let's do this together... for a bit. Please?" Beryl begged in her usually cryptic code, offering a hand, and little else from the aura of her gait.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

Sierra found herself staring eye-to-eye with Beryl as her much taller friend stooped down a bit to be on a much more even eye level. Quizzically she cocked her head to the side for a brief moment before setting it right again. Just Beryl being Beryl, she supposed. Sierra smiled at her friend. She always did find Beryl's eccentric behavior to be endearing to say the least. She supposed that was why Beryl had such an eclectic circle of friends, it was that sleepy girl charm. Of course, Beryl wasn't bad looking either, so that probably helped. She especially looked good tonight in that dress of her's.

Beryl spoke, raising her voice to be heard over the music.

"It has been a while since we last talk, hasn't it?" Sierra said, giving Beryl a tender if somewhat apologetic smile. It wasn't like she was avoiding Beryl but life does get in the way of personal thing every now and then.

Beryl offered a hand, requesting they do this together. Kinda cryptic. Did she want to dance? They were on the dance floor after all so that was probably it. Slowly Sierra took the offered hand.

"After you, Sleepy Head." She said, giving her former girlfriend a nod to go ahead and take the lead.

[Cicada]

"Too long," Beryl said in assent, loud as she consciously didn't dare. Beryl couldn't actually remember when they'd last spoken. It was a function of the arbitrary growing and pruning of the garden of vines she called a brain, that yesterday was the same day as many other days before it. Maybe there had once been a time where the passage of time had been clearer to her, but she couldn't know for sure. As always, as it was to be.

Beryl's slender fingers hooked, with a certainly slow click of knuckle after knuckle until the tips of her fingers rested on Sierra's palm and the meat of her fingers skewered between Sierra's own digits.

Sierra's hands were smaller than Nick's, but Beryl assumed that was to be expected.

"The night's too young for that, Nevada." Beryl winked with the lazier of her drifting eyes, as she continued to slowly wash Sierra's modestly dressed skin with her attentions. Beryl pulled them into a proper coupling. Space enough between them for someone to pretend otherwise. The song was fast, kicks and snaps and punches to the gut of nostalgic sentiment for better moments Beryl couldn't really remember anymore. The song had that sort of tone, she supposed. It led her to a gentle roll, a sine wave in the vertical. She didn't quite echo anybody around her, but she felt herself to bleed into the background all the same, if she thought about it harder than she needed to.

Sierra helped with that last part.

"How did you come to be, Sierra?" Onto this dance, onto Beryl's odd miasma of a life, onto existence in general. Beryl continued to hold their hands together with her insistent grip, whatever else their bodies might have done or said in that no-words way.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

As Beryl interlocked their fingers together, Sierra smiled and allowed Beryl to pull her into a dance. Sierra had almost forgotten just how delicate Beryl's hands were, the gentleness of her touch and the smoothness of her skin. Sierra found herself brought closer to Beryl as they danced. Sierra allowed her partner to control the rhythm of their dance, dutifully following Beryl's lead. It wasn't quite like the dancing that was happening around them but frankly Sierra didn't mind nor cared if they looked out of place among the other dancers.

"Same way as most people, I would assume." She said, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the music. "Might have been destiny though. To be born at this exact time, at that exact moment, my ancestors being alive, meeting, until eventually I showed up. If you believe in that sort of thing, ya know?"

Ever so slightly Sierra pulled Beryl in closer a they continued to dance, whether she meant to consciously or not. But such things were irrelevant as she was only concerned with having fun with her best friend in this moment.

"So what brought up this line of questioning, Sleepy Head?" Sierra asked, smiling sweetly at her taller companion. It was always a mystery trying to decipher the thought process behind Beryl's words sometimes. Sierra liked to think she had gotten good at figuring her friend out but at times she wasn't sure. Reading Beryl was like trying to read a chess playing super computer that deliberately made the wrong moves to mock everything you know about chess sometimes.

[Cicada]

Beryl had always enjoyed how Sierra could follow the energy of her own, of Beryl's rhythm. Sometimes it was that there was no difference- only, there had to be some difference. Had they not once been a couple and strictly in the past tense? What about the present verb tense? What happened, here and now? Here, now, where innumerable other blurbs of blackbody radiation around them explosively whooped and cheered to a breakdown of deejay scratching and plump, bassy drums.



The two of them moved the perfect amount of too slow, and Beryl fell close enough that she could nest one naked shoulder against Sierra's clothed one.

"That sounds familiar," Beryl softly mused, her words were soft, whispering tumbleweeds bouncing through maybe one pair of ears in this entire world. 'Eventually I showed up'. All too true. Maybe Beryl had spoken those words once before, but she couldn't quite remember the artifact of repetition. It teased the fringe of her awareness, the idea that it was her own idea, but that was an alien conception of herself. The past was as unfamiliar, the face in photos of herself was a stranger's one.

Beryl pouted, curled her lip until her cupid's bow was notched.

"Have I ever asked a question with an ulterior motive, Nevada?"

Beryl couldn't remember the answer.

"Whatever we did together was as much your fault as mine... and we both enjoyed it." She giggled serenely, suddenly pasting them together by the cheek, holding Sierra intimately- the kind of intimate that dangerously hurt like all things seemed to nowadays- and teasing a hand on her hip as the music's intensity continued to swell in the scant seconds Beryl had happily forgotten she existed as a human being with responsibility. Moments worth of cherished serendipity.

"You remember?" The question invited many answers, none of which Beryl really had.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

The flow and rhythm of the dance scene around them became increasingly chaotic as the crowd roared in jubilation in response to the breakdown the deejay was doing at his sound table, but Sierra paid it no mind as she kept her attention to her former girlfriend. Beryl fell in close, her bare arm resting upon her shoulder. The close proximity sent a jolt through her body; a feeling so familiar and yet so distant, like a long lost good memory suddenly flooding back when you least expect it. It was the sort of feeling that Sierra had been familiar with all those years ago when the two of them had been dating.

"Have I ever asked a question with an ulterior motive, Nevada? Whatever we did together was as much your fault as mine... and we both enjoyed it."

Beryl held Sierra closer, more intimately, as the hand that Beryl placed upon her hip sent that ever familiar jolt through her body once more. The serene giggle her companion let out calling forth more intimate memories.

What was going on?

What was happening right now?

Those were the questions running through Sierra's mind — her breathe hitching in her throat at the intimately closeness and her body seemingly unresponding to any commands given to it as Beryl leaned past her cheek her so that her lips were but an inch or two away from her ear. As Beryl whispered into her ear, Sierra's body moved once more — as if on auto-pilot. Her arms snaked around Beryl's waist, her hands gently resting onto the small of her back. A tinge of guilt went through Sierra as she knew that Beryl and Nick were together, but... this intimate feeling called forth her innate muscle memory to take action and respond in the one way she could.

"...Yes." Sierra managed to say, her voice a little rough from the air caught i her throat being released. "Yes, I remember."

[Cicada]

Odd how the past tense couldn’t be darling and stay there in the past.

Beryl didn’t even know if she was doing it on purpose. Sierra’s gravity was a force of nature. The suppleness of her hip, natch. Beryl couldn’t have put to the test the hypothesis of their magnetism- it was a postulate, a universal constant. It was beyond reckoning, it was the last chapter of Revelation, it was her fault, it was her problem.

She took it on, with merely an inclination of accepting the consequences. No particulars.

This position, the winding of their arms like ouroboros, that stirred a familiar sentiment.

“You remember…” She searched, clarified detail with anthropic principle.

“That one day in the woods? … The bear.”

Her hand on Sierra’s hip had a friend called her other hand.

“You did such a good job.”

Both hands advanced further, down, around, every cardinal direction.

“Made my heart… y’know...

Flutter.” It could have been a sentence with the sweetest-font of exclamation point, if one squinted their ears hard enough. Squinted their skin, too, when Beryl’s heart was a butterfly against the thin skin of her breast.

She couldn’t claim, in that moment, that she’d definitely become the bad guy in a relationship falling apart. She didn’t know, or didn’t want to know. In her head those two states of 'not' were one and the same. Just like herself and Sierra. No difference in being. Beryl didn’t know who began where.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

Sierra had remember that day quite well. Who wouldn't remember when they came face-to-face with a black bear? Encountering a wild animal in the woods was always a possibility, especially the dangerous ones like a cougar. While black bears weren't as aggressive as grizzly bears that didn't mean they weren't dangerous by any means. The two of them had encountered it on one of their trips through the woods back when they had been dating and it was quite scary. Even if she hadn't shown it back then she was terrified. Fortunately, she remembered all the things needed to stay safe in that encounter and managed to calmly guide themselves out of it.

"Yeah, I remember. It was pretty wild."

Sierra felt this situation was a little... odd. She and Beryl had always been close, but right now Beryl was being rather intimate. Part of Sierra didn't mind, she actually liked the certain feeling this brought about inside her. The close proximity, the reminiscing, and Beryl's hands on her hips moving about brought so many familiar feelings. It felt nice but something seemed off. Clearly Beryl was trying to be intimate with her, but Sierra was aware that she had a relationship with Nick and Tristan. So what was up?

Sierra had dated all three of them in the past and she found it rather amusing that they got together. But if Beryl is still with them and she is being like this then does that mean...

No...

It couldn't be.

She certainly wouldn't mind but maybe... she should test the waters a little. Just to be sure.

Slowly and hesitantly Sierra maneuvered her hands downward to and old familiar position. Sierra's mouth felt dry and her heart's pace quickened a little. Maybe she was reading a little too much into this. And if she was, then there was certainly an awkward talk with Nick and Tristan later.

"It was certainly a crazy walk through the woods. I don't think either of us expected to run into a bear." Sierra smiled, nostalgically. "I'm just glad everything turned out alright. I don't know what I would do if something happened..."

[Cicada]

Beryl didn't know. If it could be.

It felt like it was, but her whimsies and inklings could readily betray her.

The breakdown of the previous rap song faded, a verse spent on gentle fade away, invested into adolescent sweat.

Something else took it's place, first note carefully pivoted on a turn of musical phrase- eight, bar, one. New acoustic qualities warbled pleasantly as the crowd slowed. Feelings softer, warmer, and Beryl presupposed someone had draped herself and her friend- friend, a term maybe just right and maybe not nearly enough- in a blanket. But it hadn't happened literally, but the metaphor seemed real enough.

Treachery had never felt so indoors on a rainy day cozy. But! Beryl still couldn't assume that she was doing anything particularly wrong.

Was that where Sierra's hands were supposed to go?

Beryl swore they went somewhere else, but the detail of the memory mattered less than the fact that it existed, so completely. Complete, in all of it's un-definition.

At least, she knew for sure that her hands went on top. Beryl's fingers glided with the languid wash of tide, slowly settling with irresistible weight. Well, something like that... her fingers barely closed on top of Sierra's, but there was an insistence to the surface tension. Barely there, there all the more potently. Beryl barely moved, but her breath etched poetic epics onto Sierra's neck. Stunning definition, when they were this close. Stories were woven into the individual strands of blue alone in a sea of black. Beryl remembered so few of them, but they were hauntingly beautiful.

"So many things could have happened, I guess...

That's the beauty of what did happen. Right...?" Phantom-like, the weight of her kiss chastely adored Sierra's cheek. The mass of Beryl's hair, curtain-like, just hid that innocent little gesture from sight.

"I never thanked you for that, did I? Properly."

[TheLordOfAwesome]

Sierra blink, her mouth slightly agape at what just happened.

With the feeling of Beryl's soft lips against her cheek and her question about whether or not she had properly "thanked" Sierra had all but confirmed Sierra's suspicions: Beryl, Nick, and Tristan were trying to organize a foursome and Beryl was sent out to get Sierra's involvement in the activity. It made perfect sense to Sierra. After all, the three of them were together in a polyamorous relationship and she had dated all three of them at one point or another. So who better to recruit for a foursome than what was probably the one other person they all had as a common denominator.

It was certainly a bold movement on their part having her best friend try to rope her into this and she would be lying if she said the prospect wasn't intriguing.

But she can't let it be that easy. No, she'd have to lead Beryl on first, play dumb a bit or seem on the fence about the idea. Test the waters, as it were.

After all, Beryl technically hadn't asked it, so it would be for the best to have some self-restraint and not jump the gun.

"I don't think you ever did," Sierra said, taking the intuitive to gently and carefully guide Beryl's hips into a rhythmic swaying to the beat of the new song. "It is never too late though. If you had something in mind, let me know. We have all night, ya know."

[Cicada]

"We do," Beryl admitted.

Admit, yes. That she could do, in the abstract where the crushing weight of the emotions attached to her confession could not drag her down, de... re, reorbit her after she'd almost, for the first time in a long time, escaped. She could admit she was the one who'd let Nick and Tristan and Beryl, the idea of such, fall apart. Her fault, not her problem. She was making a callous and obvious play for moving on. The cheap rebound alley-oop. Yes. She could allow herself to, for one moment, clarify that particular vague intention into reality.

And let it continue, because why not? That, anyways, was the best reasoning she could guess at when she drifted on the sheer latent energy under Sierra's skin and lusted for it again and after too long.

Beryl gently allowed herself to be guided, slightly slumping against Sierra now, like a doll for her amusement. A reminder that Beryl had a body, that it had weight. Presence.

Maybe. Maybe all Beryl ever was and ever had been already orbited beyond the heliosphere. Trapped only in the distance.

"You know me, Sierra."

Everyone else around them also seemed to sway like fronds to the ticklish breeze. They were, for once, no different than all the rest of humanity. Beryl, for a brief moment-like moment, seemed to belong.

"I always have a lot of things in mind!" She emphasized the exclamation point with the wash of a giggle's worth of breath, beach-warm current down Sierra's bare neck and to one side. Still humanity. The moment still lasting, every second she let it draw out. Let it be so. Sierra liked this game too, Beryl remembered as much.

"I bet... you can guess."

[TheLordOfAwesome]

That I can, Sleepy Head. Sierra thought as she smiled at Beryl.

Sierra felt that she had her companion's intentions pretty much pegged down by this point as Beryl's words and actions betrayed whatever surprise she might have to spring on Sierra. Good thing she had settled on not outright saying what she knew Beryl had in mind. After all, where was the fun in that? This was game that was quietly being played among themselves. Sierra would enjoy this as long as she could if she were to have it this way. The closeness of Beryl's body, the feel of her warm breath against her neck, and musical quality of her giggle. It was just so pleasant.

"I have a few theories." Sierra said, bringing her lips close to the soft flesh of Beryl's neck but stopping just short. Her breathing calm and steady, washing over Beryl's neck as she held her dance partner close.

How long had been since they were liked this together? Not so long ago but it felt like such a distant memory. Even after their relationship had ended Sierra always cherished Beryl as a close friend and confidant. But right now so many old familiar feelings were coming back that she wondered if they could be something more once again.

She would like that she thought.

Of course, being in a four person relationship with Beryl, Nick, and Tristan would be a wholly new experience. All of the relationship Sierra had been in had all be monogamous, even the drunken one night stands she occasionally have at parties only involved her and one other person. Sierra was a proud and confident person but this would be a whole new experience if things were to somehow go from a simple foursome to a full on polyamory.

"I could explain some of those theories, Sleepy Head. I might even be correct. But at the same time, would I want to be correct? It might ruin the surprise."

[Cicada]

There was some perhaps cardinal sin that Beryl was fundamentally sculpting the wet, formless clay of her aura from in that time and space where she chased an old flame merely to make those uncomfortably painful itches of guilt and regret abate.

Beryl dismissed the thought- this was not the time for her to meditate on her own conscience. With her resolve and clarity she could disguise herself yet. Wear a mask so pleasantly heavy even she would not recognize her own reflection in any higher dimension.

She could enjoy the game better pretending she hadn't rigged it.



Beryl's breath percolated into a fine mist in her throat, when she felt the familiarly abstract weight of Sierra's lips- the shape that launched a thousand ships, mostly in the form of Archive Of Our Own. Beryl would have willed it that fluctuations of virtual particles would have imparted the momentum onto them that Sierra's kiss was transformed from the potential to the kinetic.

How long had it been? How much of 'too fucking long' had passed since those innocent days drowning in nature and each other?

"I feel you would want to be correct, Sierra... it ends well for you when you are." Beryl's 'touch' became a 'grope', as definitions shifted in real time much as Beryl's fingers aggressively did so until she swore she could have molded Sierra's soft bits like play-doh. "You know I like theories, Sierra... Please, do. Indulge me."