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Her visage reflects in the vinyl.
He watches her slow movements as she flips the side, and puts it onto the turntable; it almost feels like a sacred ceremony. With such fragility and subtlety do her fingers stroke the record that it makes him want to cross himself, and face the Heavens, dear God.
Ever since these hands stumbled upon his neck, and his lips wandered onto hers, he's kept on trembling. His mind has shifted to the possibilty of another occurence resembling this one. The dark shade of ochre marking his Cupid's bow, and temple, and mouth corners, tiniest moons on his nape created by her nails, the abnormal tightness in his lungs. He thinks all-things-Video Games.
He aches to be touched by her again, a thought that replays in his psyche over and over. He's been damned.
Lysander makes a step forward. He's met with her back, clothed in his own burgundy sweater, swinging on her body, leaving one of the shoulders bare. He combs through her lengthy, cocoa, satin-like hair, and flips it to the side of her swan neck, leaving the other one bare. His hands brush her curves until they finally land on the hips. It seems just both pervy and prude enough for his taste. They tighten below the waistline, so tangled he finally feels warm. His mouth finds its way into the naked crook of her neck.
It's hypnotic to observe the way her sight follows the needle gradually dropping down onto the platter. As the cartridge eventually meets the record, and the first tunes of Diet Mountain Dew intro resound, she closes her eyelids, and breathes out, as if to actually feel every note, to live it, to capture it with her internal camera, engrave the image into her memory.
His lips leave a sultry peck on her skin, and he could swear he hears her heartbeat go faster. Her hands find his and cover them, to give them warmth they desperately crave, and need. Penelope's scent lingers somewhere in the air, swirling into his nostrils, the high of it fuddles his brain. She huddles within him, lets herself be flooded with his embrace. He's even closer now, so close she believes it's posssible to memorise by heart every little structure on his body. Penelope takes one of his hands, and guides it to her heart; to allow Lysander to truly feel it.
She doesn't say it; she never does. But it's alright. He knows.
He can be vocal enough for the both of them.
"I l—," he starts murmuring into the figment of the skin behind her ear, but Penelope turns around, her eyes tingle his heart. So he stops. "Sorry."
She just giggles for a second, and cups his face. Her chuckle is cut short, as in an instant her expression relaxes, and morphs into blue, her eyes fixed on his face.
"You're too good for me," whispers Penelope as her thumb reaches his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. Her touch is gentle, intimate, it resembles a feather, tickling his face. It's more of a kiss than anything she has ever planted on his lips, no matter how long, how passionate. She glares at the hair strands that gets in the way of Lysander's own sight; she brushes them away from his forehead, and soon after their gazes combine, Penelope drops hers to his chest. "You need to have your hair cut, you know."
Her almost fox-like, almondish eyes are fixated on the dark, matte buttons of Lysander's shirt. He knows she's not going to undo them; if she was, he would know. She just fiddles with them, strokes the structures; she does that a lot. Then, she moves onto the gold family heirloom necklace, opens it, and stares at the picture of his parents. She brushes the face of his father multiple times, as if to both polish and obliterate it at the same time. Thinks about her own. Reflects, how she would tell him every single day. Ponders, how he could still just take off, and leave.
"Penelope," he puts his hand on her chin, and lifts her face; he's met with a flushed expression, a maroon wave covering her cheeks, her nose. She's standing in a pourdown of his love, with no umbrella, no hood, no roof. He's patient, willing to leave an open door for her, give her a spare change of clothes, a towel, a warm bed. If only she just placed her foot inside; but Penelope stands soaked by the threshold, afraid to disrupt his tranquility, his quiet, velvety life. "There's nobody better for me than you."
"There should be."
She reaches a pocket in her trousers, and pulls out a packet of cigarettes. He sighs at that. As she lights one up, Lysander touches her knees.
As he's about to speak again, Penelope releases the smoke into his mouth. When he accepts it, she gazes upon his eyes, with the most genuine ghost of a beam. She gimmicks in the evening light. Lysander would like to believe this is her unspoken way of telling him, as she's done that many times by now. She takes another puff. Sometimes, she still is uncounsciously attempting at being seductive, desirable; not a teenager putting an act of being a full-grown woman, dressing up as a someone she's not.
They sit on his bed, and say nothing, just hold hands. Penelope concentrates on remembering every detail of his visage; the ingrown hairs, the dark circles, the lemony yellow in his orbits, finally, she spots a lonely eyelash on his right cheek, and reaches for it with her index finger. He blushes under her touch, his skin feels boiling. She studies the lenghty lash for a second, and wishes he would retrieve a true treasure, someone of value that he deserves.
Lysander is constantly in the back of her mind. How devoted, compassionate, how good he is. How in her world of storms he's a light drizzle, a rainbow, a sun. How solid he is. How all her life she has kept searching for thrills, something that fill the hole inside her. And there he was. A warm, fluffy blanket, tucking her in. His touch reminds her of safety, stability. Only sometimes do her dark thoughts take over, how He used to be there, too. Until He wasn't, until He chose not to. But Penelope trusts Lysander more than anyone. His love is the only thing that belongs to her.
National Anthem fades into Dark Paradise unusually quickly. It's his favourite from the album, her smile widens a little when she remembers, as she lets out the smoke again.
"Do you want to talk about him?" Lysander asks after a minute of consideration.
"Not really." He nods. Penelope takes one of his hands, and starts to fiddle with his fingers. "Can you read to me?"
She pulls out one of her firm grins, and that makes him melt, like he's physically uncapable of declining. She could ask him to steal a Louvre masterpiece, and he would not ask a single question. Should it mean making her happy, there's nothing impossible.
"Any specifics?"
"I'm dying to hear your first poem ever," she speaks with her full chest.
"You live off my awkwardness," Lysander nudges her. "Would that really make you—"
"That would make me really happy," Penelope finishes for him. You make me really happy, she means.
He flushes with embarrassment, but that doesn't stop him from getting up, turning up the lights, and strolling the bedroom in search of his very first notebook. When she's facing his back, Penelope mouths along with del Rey. She eventually puts out the cigarette on the crystal ashtray Castiel always uses. No one compares to you, i'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side. Eventually, he's back with his decomposing book.
His core memory of his childhood Lysander could easily recall is his entering the infinitive, beautiful world of literature. The first books in his little hands from that library in the town, all tatty, starting to crumble while turning the pages, the scent of the old ink. That was certainly something else. And then, after many books, many lines, many pages all at once, it hit him, as if the lightning had struck him, all abrubtly, with no warning. Something made him pull out a piece of paper and a pen, and he was forever lost in that universe. Lysander opens the notebook, and really tries not to burst out laughing reading the poem out loud.
of hurries and sunsets
some people are really always in a hurry.
they would never notice the sunset
and sunrise, their image is so blurry,
they don't ever see that they're blessed.
i'm not strong nor fast, often i'm blue,
but i'd try to be better, for you, for you.
It was truly his The First Poem Ever, and it was obviously a very bad one, but when he recites it, she believes it's actually one of Petrarch's sonnets.
"It's beautiful," Penelope says, wholeheartedly.
"What?" He genuinely inquires, with a truest shock in his gaze. "It lacked substance, felt out of place, and the rhymes are off. I was eleven, and I thought I could win a Pulitzer for it."
"I'm serious," she adds, shaking her head. "I really admire it."
"You're joking."
"No." She laughs. "I also really love the story you wrote about that stray cat-human hybrid looking for a place where no one could hurt him. But everybody who took him in would freak out when he changed into a human, and hit him, and leave him on the porch." The story ends with the character freezing to death under a lantern. "But that ending was pretty brutal for a twelve year old if you think about it."
With all the internal dazzle she’s pouring out of herself to him, Penelope again feels like a little girl.
As he watches her tell his own story with such excitement and compassion, Lysander feels in awe with how to him she fills every room she happens to be in. How he's hopeless. He wishes more people would portray Penelope the way he does, would see her the way he does, in all her spark, her light, and dark, in every shade of blue, and yellow, and pink; not just in black. He wonders whether he is able to lick her wounds for her.
I finally found you. (Oh, sing it to me.)
It starts out slowly, it always does. Penelope dabs her lips onto his, but then leans in closer, and closer, until she can finally feel him in all of her bones. She wants to carry Lysander around her all the time, to tattoo his hands all over her body so that she can never be secluded, left by herself, for all the moments she has ever needed company more than anything. She craves for his heart to pump the blood in her every vein. Penelope knows she's selfish about him, but she wants to be; she wants him to know.
When Lysander can't breathe anymore, she pulls away. It's not enough for her. She takes his hand again, and squeezes it with all of her power. If only she could say it. Instead, she gapes at his reflection. When Penelope does that, he goes speechless, his whole world does.
His love can't repair everything.
But it can try.
"I think I—," Penelope opens up her mouth at last, but her attention gets distracted by the fact that Radio ends, and the whole player goes silent afterwards; so she gets up, kind of awkwardly, flushing. "I'll change the record."
So the cycle continues.