To burn slowly with smoke but no flame.

🌫️

"I can't do this anymore, Bindo," Taylor murmurs. Bindo crawls around on her mattress and she exhales. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be easy, harmless...detached."

The painted tortoise looks up at her, his little black eyes glittering with what she imagines is concern. She sighs and slumps against her pillows, raking her fingers through her bangs and pushing them up, making her look as frazzled and dishevelled as she feels.

"He...I see him everywhere. Every song is about him, everything reminds me of him." She hugs her knees to her chest and rests her chin on them. "Hun said they were monsters. I didn't know what they were really like. I didn't try to find out." She grabs a fistful of her hair and takes a deep breath. "If his family is anything like him, I know that they're thinking of the greater good. I can't...can't..."

She sniffs and harshly wipes beneath her eyes, cussing when she sees a black streak of makeup on her pointer finger. Bindo waddles over to her foot and crawls on top of it, tugging at the hem of her leggings, and she scoops him up with a dying laugh.

So...what's the problem? she imagines him asking.

She sniffles as a few tears leave tracks on her tanned cheeks. "They're innocent. They don't deserve what's coming and...I didn't—" She chokes, as if the words are getting lodged in her throat. "I didn't plan to feel like this."

Bindo croaks and she smiles a little, kissing the top of his head. As she sets him back in his tank, she makes her decision.

----------

Taylor strums her guitar absentmindedly, her thoughts a million miles away. Raphael should be here soon and when he shows up, she has to tell him everything.

Sure enough, the footfalls of the red-masked turtle approach and he appears with a casual smirk on his face. She turns around and just the sight of him makes her knees wobble and her stomach twist.

"Hola Raph," she greets.

"Hey, what's up?" he asks, strolling closer to her.

"Listen, there's a lot. I know more about Mutacorp," she admits as she swings Vic onto her back. "They're...they're planning something with the city, with the mutagen. I don't know what, but you need to stop it. If you don't, I don't think anyone will, and I can't. Not alone."

He holds his hands up, reaching over to brush her hair from her eyes. "Woah, hey...calm down. Take a few deep breaths," he says, fingertips lingering on her cheekbone for a second longer than usual.

She shakes her head, forcing her mind to stay on track. She has to tell him about what's going on and she can't do that when he's touching her as if she's made of glass, being so gentle in a gesture that's so strange coming from his rough fingertips. She can't focus when he's looking at her with enough smouldering heat to melt the ice surrounding her, igniting a fire inside her.

"I...I'm supposed to do stuff that I don't want to do," she says, tugging at a lock of dark hair as her pupils dart everywhere but his face. Her sentences are scattered with frantic mutterings of Spanish. "The scientists, all they want is money and fame. They don't care about who they hurt or what they do to get it, and I don't want them to hurt you. I don't want them to hurt your family, and—"

"Tay..." he whispers, his stark green eyes searching every inch of her. She feels like a book that's been taken from the shelves, pulled open and read through so that every little secret surfaces, becomes known.

She takes a deep breath, eyes burning, lips quivering. "R-Raph?"

His hands brush her hair back and rest against her jaw. Before she can say another word, he's pressed himself against her and his lips have found hers, making her eyes fall shut and every doubt burn to ash. Her eyes close and she lets out a soft groan as she feels his hand drift down to her hip and she can't keep herself from touching him. Hands find his chest, resting with her palms spread against his heartbeat, tuned to the rise and fall his breathing.

This is a first. She's felt him, tasted him, and yet she's still caught off guard by the warmth of this embrace. He is kissing her and this time, it's because he chose to, even when her mask was cracking, shattering, falling apart. She embraces him and she embraces the heat, a heat that doesn't consume and destroy but gives, creates, flourishes. This, she holds on to.

He breaks away, panting for breath, his cheeks dusted with a pink tinge that just makes him all the more adorable. He coughs and rubs the back of his neck, stepping away from her.

"I...I don't know why I did that, I just...sorry, I..." He stops, sucking in a long breath as his eyes close. His muscles tense as he makes a fist against his leg, lips pursing.

She brings herself into the space he left behind and rests her hand against his wrist. She feels him hitch, blood thrumming faster as he gulps hard. Taylor's hand remains, sliding down and taking control as their pulses meet and match, drum beats, a bass line in the symphony of them.

She turns his head towards her as a sad smile lifts her painted lips. "It's okay," she says.

He watches her for another second as his breaths go back to normal. He can feel the heat too, feel it in her hand holding his and her shoulder pressed against him. It's intimate yet innocent and he loves seeing her like this. He wants to be with her in every sense of the word, to be with her when she's brimming with confidence, when she's quiet and withdrawn, when she's existing next to him and everything feels perfect in this stupid, stupid world he's living in.

"Tay," he whispers. She's already gazing at him. "I'll see you again soon. I promise."

He turns away and her grip tightens against his hand. "Just...think about what I said. You have to stop them," she says. "I can't. Not on my own. Not...without you."

He brings her knuckles to his lips, kissing them before he dashes away. The illusion shatters and Taylor is left watching him go as the noises of the city return to her in tandem. She replays the moment that her world shifted over and over again. She longs for him to return, to pull her into his strong arms and kiss her again, to save her from this mess she's in.

That was the moment that she realized what a selfish person she had been before now. She went after Raphael with a game in mind, her libido turned up to eleven and any regard for consequences absent. She thought she was toying with him, stringing him along, and all along he was unknowingly playing her into his hands too.

At that moment, her empty kisses disappeared. Lust became love. Ignorance became intimacy. Hesitance became willingness. He is no longer her game and she is terrified.

She climbs off the roof and drops into the alleyway. She lingers in the dark, then swings her guitar off her back and digs a pick from her pocket. She grips the fretboard, fluttering her hand over the strings before starting to pluck out a tune. Just a little song. A song will clear her head. One, two, three, four...

"I sneak out in the middle of the night, yeah.
Tight dress with the top cut low.
I'm addicted to the feeling of letting go-oh-woah.
Let it go.

"I walk in and the room just lights up.
But I don't want anyone to know,
That he's the only one that gets to take me home.
Oh, oh...
Take me home.
But every time he tells me that he wants more,
I close the door."

She starts to sway, tapping her boot to the beat, her voice still soft but the volume growing as her fingers dance across the strings. The guitar sings with her and their duet winds into the cool night air. Part of her hopes that, wherever Raphael is, he can hear her.

"I'm not afraid of all the attention.
I'm not afraid of running wild.
How come I'm so afraid of fallin' in love?
I'm not afraid of scary movies.
I like the way we kiss in the dark.
But I'm so afraid of fa-fa-fallin' in love."

She starts towards home, heart starting to pound again as her tune gives a soundtrack to the memories of Raphael twirling through her head. Her eyes flicker to her dragon tattoo and she almost chokes on the words as hate flares in her chest, then fades into throbbing regret. Raphael rules her waking thoughts.

"Maybe I'm just trying to test him.
Wanna see how hard he's gonna work.
Wanna see if he can really tell how much I'm worth.
What I'm worth."

She kicks a discarded can and it bounces off the brick wall with a clank, scattering a few rats back to their holes. She increases the volume and kicks up the drama, facial expressions and emotion getting more and more involved with every note.

"Or maybe all my friends have told me,
'Don't get closer,
He'll just break my heart.'
But either way I'm teasing him and it's just so hard."

"So hard," she repeats with a small huff as a tingle rolls up her spine.

"'Cause when I want to tell him how I feel.
I fear it's not real.
"I'm not afraid of all the attention.
I'm not afraid of running wild.
How come I'm so afraid of fallin' in love?
I'm not afraid of scary movies.
I like the way we kiss in the dark.
But I'm so afraid of fa-fa-fallin' in love."

She looks up towards the rooftops as she decrescendos a freestyle bit, her heart squeezing as she feels her eyes starting to burn and itch. Is this real? She thought it was an act. It was supposed to be a game.

Just a game; a silly, meaningless game.

"What about all the things we say," she breathes, "talking on that roof so late? I can't let him get away from..." A deep breath, a shuddering exhale. "Me..."

She stops strumming as tears trickle down her face and she sinks to her knees in a helpless heap. She stares down at the guitar in her lap, running her fingers over the ageing red paint as the tears drip, drip, drip. Her colour—the colour of her passion, her anger and her pursuit—doesn't look so angry anymore.

Never has red looked so much like love.