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Mikha thinks of Stacey as someone who just takes.
She thinks of Stacey taking and taking and taking until there is nothing else to give, until someone’s body is all hollowed out and ready to collapse, until it’s unrecognizable of the person it was before.
She’s not too sure of the when’s and the where’s but if there’s one thing she was sure of, it was the how.
The how goes like this:
Before Stacey takes, she waits.
She waits until you offer yourself out of your own volition, until you carve that beating thing out of your own chest, your bleeding heart on a silver platter.
Waits, as someone brave enough to stand in her light stumbles in her vision, hands trembling as they stutter a speech along the lines of hey Stacey and you don’t know me and wanting to ask you out tumble out into the atmosphere. Waits, as she turns over her latest victim’s confession inside of her mind, dissecting the offer and the implications and whether it would be a good use of her time with the speed of a blink. Waits, and Stacey does what Stacey does best.
The taking.
This is where the taking begins, as per Mikha’s observation.
How Stacey would take their latest victim’s hand, fingers slipping in between the gaps to strengthen her hold, not unlike a plant taking root in fertile, unknowing soil.
(The victim would think of it as romantic, physical touch as a superior love language more than words and actions and gifts. Mikha thinks that this situation was no different from a vampire whose fangs are deep into a neck).
How Stacey would laugh at the latest victim’s jokes, no matter how funny or unfunny, and it rings like true amusement in the air, with the accompanying shove that paints the perfect picture of a good time.
(Mikha shakes her head when the victim takes it as a sign of favor when it was all too obvious a siren’s song towards doomed sailors, and she has seen way too many ships meet their end as Stacey’s laugh tapers off into silence).
How Stacey would trace hearts over the latest victim’s skin, if they are lucky enough to be granted a private audience, in lieu of a proper i love you, because Stacey takes love and affection and adoration and never gives it back.
(She sighs as she, for the millionth time, hears the cries, the pleas, the curses. Mikha is no longer surprised that all Stacey does in the aftermath is turn around, her back to them as she walks away, the victim entirely forgotten all too quickly).
The taking ends when the door is finally slammed close and Mikha can hear Stacey’s sigh of relief like she did not just break yet another heart in their living room floor, can hear the opposite softness on the click of the lock on Stacey’s door, can hear Stacey settle in her bed with no weight on her chest and no blood on her hands.
(Because if you offer yourself up to a god, and the god, selfish as it is their nature, takes everything that you stand for just to leave you with nothing, what is the line between a devotee and a sacrifice?)
That ends the how, according to Mikha.
Well, according to the best of Mikha Lim’s ability to decipher the strange machinations and processes that goes inside the mind of one Stacey Sevilleja. Suffering through childhood, puberty, adolescence, and adult life together tends to do that, to be granted the capability to understand a person’s heart, body, mind, and soul.
She has seen it happen in real-time, in bars and restaurants and classrooms and apartments (with their own not an exception), with a spectrum of people, men and women and girls and boys, that the details almost get jumbled inside of her head. It’s almost poetic, in some sort of morbid, cruel way, to know how a story begins, ends, and everything in between, and she does nothing to stop it.
(Why would she, anyway? Stacey is her own person who can make her own decisions, no matter if those decisions have the same effect as something crashing and burning. It is absolutely none of Mikha’s business to mess around with whatever goes through Stacey’s mind and just the thought of Stacey’s glare has all of her thoughts on the matter, albeit well-meaning, put to rest).
In her braver moments, she asks about them, just to be aware of Stacey’s… conquests, for a lack of a better term.
How are things going with Jen from the bar?
Are you going on a date with Chris, the one we met at that diner?
I think Grace’s cute, what do you think?
Most of the time, Stacey doesn’t even remember their names, too caught up with the reality of her life that names and places and feelings are never at the front of her mind. Mikha would have thought of that as callous, but she does see the work Stacey puts herself under and even remembering her basic needs was a challenge she fails to win on some days.
Sometimes, Stacey just shrugs and says that she couldn’t see beyond whatever it was that they had. A few dates in and nothing has sparked Stacey’s interest to keep it going, with the other party ultimately raising a white flag at the end of the night, signalling defeat.
Not that it matters, Stacey explains one night when they had dinner together, whether she forgets or she loses interest as there’s always someone new that offers something else. Stacey, for all she is worth, is not at all picky.
She takes what is offered, takes all of it and more, and offers nothing in return. Once empty, she moves to the next willing victim. The cycle repeats, and all Mikha can do is see it happen over and over and over again, swallowing all of her questions and concerns.
(Yet a question remains bitter on her tongue, one that Mikha is not too sure she wants to know the answer to.
The why.
Why are people drawn to Stacey even if the hurting is guaranteed, that no matter how much they hope and pray and give up, they will never get her heart?
What is it, that makes Stacey Sevilleja so irresistible?)
One night, when both of them had time on their hands, they graced a house party and when there’s one too many beers in her system, Mikha says something about it, honesty like a badge on her chest, into Stacey’s ear, bodies too close in the heat of the crowd that looking back, she was not too sure where she ended and Stacey began.
Mikha whispers:
You’re a little selfish, you know. Always taking and taking. Greedy.
She remembers Stacey being not even surprised at her outburst, just raises an eyebrow that should not have looked as attractive as it did, with Stacey bathed in red under the lights and looking like the devil incarnate.
(But it was.
Stacey has a beauty that was magnetizing bordering on hypnotic, and she knew exactly how to use it. Hence, the amount of people all too willing to give themselves up at her feet at the risk of just being another notch on a bedpost.
It was a weapon Stacey knew all too well on how to wield and Mikha is apparently not an exception).
She has never felt any sort of attraction towards Stacey, not a time she can particularly remember, but that specific moment was enough to have Mikha’s stomach in knots and a heat forming from God-knows-where when she remembers.
Stacey’s sharp, brown eyes that sparkled with glitter at the lids. The tilt of Stacey’s mouth into a hint of a smirk. That all too knowing stare that tells Mikha she’s trapped with nowhere else to go.
Maybe she is attracted. Just the tiniest bit. Sue her).
To the mere mortals that litter the earth that Stacey walks on, they’d take it as an oh really?, a sign to keep going, to further go down the path of a confession, to spill more words that could entirely lead to offense and far from initial honesty.
But to Mikha, it was a challenge, a dare if one wills it, that Stacey would go to the ends of the earth to prove that Mikha was wrong in her admission.
And she’s wrong, oh she was very wrong.
Because Stacey smiles, all saccharine and honey on her lips, before she ducks down, hot mouth against the shell of Mikha’s ear, an arm snaking around Mikha’s waist and it was Mikha’s heart beating side by side with Stacey’s.
The look on Stacey’s eyes is hungry, and Mikha can’t help but wonder what it’s like to be devoured.
(From somewhere, a murmur.
The taking).
Stacey whispers back:
If you think I’m greedy when I take, you should see me when I give.