take me, i'm yours [lenku]

1: The Sun Through the Grey Clouds

 It was any other day when she walked in the room.

It was gloomy and as Len would so eloquently put it, "shit-tacular," but that was nothing new; the whole goddamned town always seemed to have a cloud over it even if the sun was shining for the rest of the surrounding area. Per usual, the town was shielded from the sun by dark clouds swollen with rain, and the wind was bitter against the swirling tree leaves. Len couldn't be bothered to look up at the sound of the classroom door swishing through the quiet air. His eyes remained focus, yet somehow unfocused, on the pencil he twirled between his fingers, so uninterested that it nearly hurt. It was just another goddamned cookie-cutter day. Wake up, go to class, go to...work, do homework, study, eat (probably), sleep. And repeat for another couple years until he's finished his degree, jaded and probably unhappy. If he was lucky, maybe he'd get shit-faced and enjoy himself for a while, then pass out cold on someone's couch or, even more hopeful, his own bed. 

He balanced the pencil between his fingers. It was still early (he had work even earlier; usually he'd show up at the last minute), so he and a handful of other students were present. The ones that were there sat in the front, to the left of him. They had either taken their place there when they walked in after him or migrated after he took his usual seat in the back. He rolled his eyes when that girl, wearing a pink ribbon in her hair and only taking that class for an elective, nervously darted her eyes between him and the other empty seats and quickly gathered her short pile of books from her desk and moved promptly to the other side of the classroom when he took the seat behind her. He wondered what it was this time: the unintentional glare in his eyes when he looked at her for a moment, the ominous way his ebony overcoat fluttered behind him, the numerous helix piercings glinting and poking out from underneath his unruly mane of golden hair like sharpened knives, or the rumors. Probably the latter. But, who the hell cares? At least he can get some peace and quiet and do his work alone. There are, apparently, some perks to being shunned at school.

He gazed out at the eternal grey abyss that was the sky and counted the seconds ticking by in his head. After class—around 3:30, which was a little earlier than usual but it's not like he had anything else to do anyway— he had another meeting. Same as usual: back alley behind a decaying, deserted bar with some junkie who needed another fix like their life depended on it. Cocaine, he thought it was. That or ecstasy. He noticed that the two were easily the most popular among buyers; maybe because it was more mainstream, or maybe because they were the classic party drugs, or hell, maybe they were just fun. Ironically enough, Len knew better than to slam that junk into his veins or ingest that delightful poison any other way. He'd seen his share of scraggly once respectable people do things they never would've before for a high. It seemed that part of his job was watching the people he dealt with rapidly erode under addiction and withdrawal. He could've kept a tally if he wanted to, or make a fortune on betting how long someone would last; it was rarely a matter of if, as it was when they'd lose themselves over the fleeting high of their choice of saccharine toxin. He wasn't in position to judge; he didn't give a rat's ass about what they took in their free time, as long as he got paid. And sure, maybe some people would look down at him with their hearts dangling from their sleeves and ask him "how can you sleep at night?" or "how will you live your life knowing you helped people get hooked and ruin their own?" And the answer was always easy: with an abundance of blankets, and debt-free.

The click of a door echoed throughout the still air. And there she was.

She walked in the room. First he saw her face, then he saw her smile. Sweet, shy, modest; the kind of smile you'd get from the pretty and genuine girl volunteering at the shelter. Her lips were pink and chapped, but they stretched across her face apologetically and displayed pearly teeth beneath a row of neat braces with a pastel pink and blue alternating pattern. Perhaps they were even embarrassed upon the sudden surge of attention and stares she had received upon entering. Len was sure that his stare was piercing, so he discreetly averted his gaze with a strange self-consciousness that has been foreign to him for a long, long time. Everyone's stare lingered, however, while Len tried to glance at her through his peripheral (and when that wasn't good enough, he resorted to quick, "discreet," and almost shy glances). Perhaps they were focusing on her hair, the color of ocean waves like her round and searching eyes, gathered into two low pigtails resting in front of her shoulders, the ends curling up just beneath her ribs. Unconventional, but...lovely, somehow.