Re: The Bohemian/The Companion
Phoenix hadn’t been born into chaos but they’d adapted, evolutionary slotting of entropy between neat little rows of suburban Stepford until there was no more hiding it. The zap of cured meats, spicy and peppered across their tongue, it was hardly a blip on the scale of impurity but it was enough to sate the painful roiling of their stomach and the way their fingertips trembled in blurred lines as they propped their own head up on a winch. Their palm was clammy, shivery cold against their temple. Their table mate was inconsequence as she sipped at her steaming teacup between the thin press of her lips, but she was at least a direction for Phoenix’s redirected attention.
“I ran away the day I came out of my mother,” she corrected, the twist of her mouth a little wry and aslant. “I don’t think she could have handled me otherwise. I’ve pretended to be good and never been very good at it.” A salted cracker came down to scoop up a warm mound of brie, followed by a spoonful of blue cheese that exploded in a mouthful of flavor against the roof of their palate. “What dark things does your mind hold, Charlotte Selby?”