Buttermilk + Chocolate Gelato! Om nom nom...
Title: Sweet and Sour
Prompt: Buttermilk 14: Invisible Ink; Chocolate Gelato 19: Semper Fidelis
Rating: G
Word Count: 860
Summary: Damon and Syeira play with lemon juice.
“So… how exactly does this work?” She looked at the piece of paper curiously. Totally blank on both sides save a couple of marks that made it seem as if water had been spilled upon it. “All I see is paper. Nothing on it…”
He grinned at her, delicately taking the paper from her hands and holding it up to the lamp that he’d set upon the table. “Of course you can’t see the writing on it. It’s invisible ink… well… it’s homemade invisible ink.” He pointed to a nearby container of the substance he called “invisible ink,” the origin of which had been eluding her for minutes on end, until he went on. “It’s just lemon juice. You just take a little paintbrush and dip it into the ink… then write out your message, like I just did here.”
She leaned forward curiously, pushing a lock of hair out of her eyes and then supporting her upper body with her elbows. “So then why are you holding the paper up to the lamp? Couldn’t it catch fire if you do that?”
“Not if you don’t hold it too close… if you hold it close enough, but not too close that it’ll catch fire, then…” He stopped talking, trailed off in a way which was by no means awkward, then nodded his head toward the piece of paper. It looked almost completely normal, save for the parts of it that were turning dark yellow, almost brown, as if a ghost were writing the letters, as if the paper itself were bleeding. But how intricately it was bleeding! How interesting that the wounds were letters, letters coming together to turn into one single word!
“Hello,” he read with a smile on his face, setting the piece of paper back on the table, looking at it with an expression of admiration, no longer swelling with pride at his work, no longer awestricken by the wonders of science. But he did idly comment, “Sometimes people write secret message to each other using this ink… the whole invisible ink system, I mean. Sometime they’re important, crucial messages, sometimes they’re just messages that people don’t want others to see…”
He took another sheet of paper from the stack in front of them (work papers from his father’s job, papers that were no longer needed), dipped his little brush into the container of lemon juice, and made slow, gentle strokes on the blank side of the paper, strokes akin to those of the Chinese calligraphy she’s seen before. “There,” he said when he was done, sitting back, putting the brush down, and watching as the ink dried.
Too quickly for her to see what he’d actually written.
She frowned at the power of the ink, the way it blended in with the paper so well, the way it just dissolved into nothing. It gave her no hint as to what was written. She’d have to shed light on it, decipher it for herself. Did he want her to read it in his presence? Or did he want her to read it while he was in a different room? What did he want her to do?
“I’ll… be back in a moment or two. I’m actually getting kind of thirsty… Do you want something? Like water, or juice, or… right.” He got up quickly, exiting the room in the same manner and presumably making his way to the kitchen. In an instant, he was gone.
Here was her opportunity, right in front of her, slipping between her fingers like sand, and she made a desperate grab for the paper, not caring that it hadn’t completely dried yet. The lamp was right there, burning brightly, taunting her, daring her to hold the paper up to it. And she succumbed, bent to its will, thrust the paper up so that it was entirely consumed by light, made sure that it wouldn’t catch fire. And she watched the paper bleed before her very eyes, tell her all the secrets it was holding.
I…
I? What could “I” possibly have to do with anything?
Love…
I love… He loved someone. His father? His mother? Who?
You…
I love you.
But there was more? Apparently so, the paper was still spelling out its wounds.
Forever.
She swallowed, staring at the page. He’d be coming back any minute now, wouldn’t he? She’d have to hide the paper… She looked around, trying to find a place to put it, trying to hide it under books, under the lamp, anywhere, anywhere before he returned and noticed that the invisible message wasn’t so invisible anymore.
Hurriedly, she pressed her lips to the message-funny how something so sour could produce something so sweet-and hid it under a textbook that was hiding under the table. Just in time, apparently, for here he was again, walking into the room with two bottles of water and a confused expression. “Something bad happen?”
She froze for a moment, blinking a couple of times; her expression softened, and she shook her head, taking the other bottle from him and beginning to sip from it lightly.
She’d love him forever, too.