Then tricky got me in
Word Count: 1678
All this uproar and everything's still the same.
Faustite watched with all his bitter indifference intact. He took the lights for how they were - lurid, overbearing, overpriced in the way that only the latest trends were. Cherry was the wood of choice for outdoor lattices and trellises that year. Their deep hue contrasted sharply with the airy, pale peaches and summer whites in the dresses worn around the veranda. Many of the women crowded together as bouquets of flowers against the rich, dark stain of the extended deck. In the deep dusk, burning citronella fragrance chased away mosquitoes and proffered more outdoor time in the cooling summer day. All sorts stood or reclined on overpriced patio furniture to match the overpriced outdoor lighting. And from his distance to the affair, they looked to be chatting over idle summer projects that obnoxious wealth could afford to dither over.
But subtleties spoke differently - Faustite spotted his brother easily, and noted his withdrawn posture as he sat alone on an outdoor couch. A drink stood captive in his bone-white knuckles. While alone, others cast their occasional glances toward him, but Faustite stood too far from the event to recognize their intent. He needed to move closer.
And he would -- in time.
His eavesdropping earlier bore out to some success: he learned that his mother chose not to attend social gatherings lately, supporting by the lack of Anna's strong presence out on the veranda. Erol took Elex's absence hard, and he predicted as much on the morn of his birthday, though he dreaded any accuracy in it; to see his brother's miserable state before him brought a deep regret for which he had no cure. At the summer fundraiser for orphan awareness, normally his mother's cornered market, only his brother and father attended. But Faustite saw his father not among the sea of shaved legs and peony dresses, or the few in the pool that swam their laps. Was he inside, then?
Faustite slipped from the low balcony of the opposing house and into the bushes of the thick side yard. Here, a proven wall of arborvitae grew so thick that he could see nothing through their emerald foliage, and Faustite had to cut through the rest of the winding grass path to find the front of the house. Once past the side wall, intricate placements of topiaries and ornamental trees offered enough cover to obscure him from still-lit windows. Provided some of the Negaverse's unsolicited assistance, hopping over the gate at the edge of the long driveway meant very little to him - tripping an alarm was an easily avoided task.
Passing himself off as a guest through the party, however, was not. His attire spoke of deep fall more than the summer whimsy present there, and wearing sunglasses when the sun had since departed only offered more suspicion. He could see so little as it were; the heavy tinting afforded to disguise his eyes had coated the area in a thick black. Pale peaches and lilacs turned to mottled tints of grey when addressed by such glasses, and he scoffed to himself for the hundredth time over his own misfortunes. Do I really have to say it, Elex? You've been stuck on this for weeks now; when will you learn to get used to it?
Over the hedges he went, crowning the wall beyond. He slipped down onto the retaining wall for an herb and flower garden, then into the sloping, manicured grasses at the outskirts of the house. Through the full trees, he spied his brother's sullen form while one of the girls addressed him. One in a pantsuit, as his mother called them, though he could not discern who she was from his vantage point. She must've said her piece quickly, for she moved at once.
And, in the moments following, his brother retired his captive glass to the edge of the couch and dropped his head into his hands.
Now what did she say? 'Sorry for your loss'? 'I'm sure they'll find him soon'? Trawled up from the bottom of a lake, maybe. An emaciated victim in the basement of a known *****. A John Doe on a slab at the edge of a morgue, waiting for a family too hopeful and proud to call through all the dead at the local hospitals. I bet you're thinking of all of these. I bet you've thought of worse. Or is there something worse eating you, dear brother? Would you tell a stranger?
Would this glamour hold our truths apart? A desperate hope within him wanted the glamour to prove inferior to familial bond, but the alternative sounded worse than a missing person report. By now, they were told all the truths that he found in ceaseless internet searches - that the victims were likely unrecoverable past the 48 hour mark, and that time passed weeks ago. Now, as an outsider among the lot of them, he could never be found again. Even if his brother peered through the glamour's thick obscurity, they still stood leagues apart from one another. His induction into the Negaverse compromised their relationship, and his partial youmafication ended the existence of the quiet but thoughtful youth.
Now he knew a festering bitterness paired with the audacity of excitement.
Still, he approached his brother's idle form, where he hung like an overwrought willow. His hands formed the trunks to uphold his sorrows, but Faustite recognized his brother's brooding by the wringing of ankles in his shoes. By now, eyes lit on Faustite for his marked departure from the accepted summer norm, but he knew enough to carry himself with a purposeful confidence and protract his visit just a few moments longer. He needed to know - he needed to speak with his brother but once, to look in his eyes, and receive the answer he sought. His brother who sat at the center of a distance circle, a spectacle and focus of conversation so far removed that he must've felt as foreign as Faustite, needed to look at his pale face.
With the yard crossed, his boots met the veranda hardwoods with a heaviness that betrayed him. More eyes turned, more whispers exchanged among the bouquet of girls. Some of the men stared too, dropping their gendered politic to gawk. Faustite didn't care. He needed to know.
His determined gait cut him through a bottleneck of feminine floral dresses, where one of the crowd recognized him as an intruder. "Hey!" She shouted toward his back, and left her drink in good company to charge after his form. But Faustite paid her no heed - he needed to know.
Erol never stirred. He sat motionless, still so far when Faustite pressed with such purpose. Behind him, the light footfalls of flats confirmed his follow. He hurried his pace. So did she. More eyes turned, more eyes followed him. They looked to his glasses, through his glasses. They saw through the leather gloves on his hands. They parsed his coat for maker and found none. A forgery. A travesty. A latest trend.
Anonymous is the new famous.
More caught on and approached from different angles. A teen who looked uncomfortable in her summer dress dashed across the lawn. One of the boys surfaced from the pool to follow her. Beyond Erol, one of the older attendees turned toward him. Several feet still remained. Faustite pushed harder.
"Hey!" Came a call. "Who are you?" Came another.
Faustite skirted a waiter. He reached the couches now, with their long- bulky forms obscuring more of the veranda. He cut past one couch, then another, then a third. By now, they were shouting. By now, panic spread through the party. An intruder. An unwanted. An ill omen after a child's disappearance. He needed to know. He needed to talk to his brother. They needed to oust him, to brand him with all the social stigma they held inside.
"Erol!" The voice came urgent, crisp - it cut through the tension in the party, and gave Faustite pause enough to cross the remaining distance. His brother did not look up until the second iteration of his name, and only when one of the other partygoers asked if he knew the speaker. His brother looked up then, Faustite witnessing his puffy, tear-streaked face and in those terrible, stormy grey eyes he caught light of a fleeting, naked emotion - hope. But that hope fled him the instant that Erol set sights on black glasses and impassive indifference. Crestfallen, he dropped his gaze without a word.
Faustite's gut clenched with the dismal confirmation. He was wholly stranger to family and friends - to any who knew nothing of Elex as Faustite. And with the dip of his head, Erol broke the spell - the chase resumed and he was running out of options.
So Faustite broke his careful code. He dashed left, leapt over the banister, and fell the half-story to the soft, fresh mulch. He darted toward the fences with an unnatural agility, past the swimmer, past the floral dresses, past the last vestiges of high society -
Someone shouted behind him - wait, they said -
Who are you, they said -
Faustite broke out into a sprint toward the gates. He pushed off from the ground and crowned their height easily, earning his passage into the outside, where the wilderness lay that the privileged spoke against so vehemently. He found himself among the last vestiges of a manicured lawn, carrying with him the knowledge that he could not find recognition in his own kin.
And while keening desperation welled within him, his insidious, cold-borne excitement urged him to learn to glamour. To don Elex's skin once more and see what happens.
Because, it reminded him, man sees in the world what he carries in his heart. But man's heart is pliable, corruptible, manipulable. So what would he see if Faustite added to that burden? The question weighed heavy on his shoulders, much like the long walk to a Negaverse pickup point.
