Chapter Text
Most days, he tries not to notice it. Most days he doesn't notice it.
But sometimes he wonders, if there's a word for it.
Sadie called it his dead eye, but that's not quite right. Sometimes, it feels just a little too alive.
It isn't damaged, but it isn't quite right either.
Dead eyed, dead eye, deadeye.
(Is there a word for the exact polar opposite of blind? He's asking for a friend.)
He doesn't notice, until he does.
He doesn't see, until he does.
He sees the sun through a window, and then he doesn't- he sees a viciously dissected bridge of light distorted on a rainbow of glass, and dust on the air like a million million stars.
(And then he doesn't.)
He sees a leaf on the sidewalk, and then he doesn't- he sees veins and wax and the veining marbled cracks of individual pebbles on concrete.
(And then he doesn't.)
He sees the empty air, and then he doesn't- floating shapes dance along his vision. Like butterflies, glistening with eternal moonlight. They linger in his ship, they linger in his house, they linger in the corners of his eye and when they pass over his face they blind him.
Steven says that they're called fly-by-nights. He says that they don't exist on the human visual spectrum.
A Diamond's face frowns, concerned, and asks how Lars knows about them. Lars blinks, confused, and says he doesn't.
(He doesn't, until he does.)
He sees Sadie on the countless numbered little moments they never quite got back together, and then he doesn't- he sees the dull gloss of keratin and the painted roughness of hair dye and the ephemeral ghost of stripes dancing along human skin.
Lars sees Sadie, and then he doesn't.
Sadie sees him, and then she doesn't.
It's okay. It's okay.
(It's not.)
He sees Dante and Martha Barriga, and then he doesn't- he sees the weave of his mother's dress, the wool of his father's jacket. The faded smudge of glasses, the chip of paint against metal frames, the subtle shift of crease and elasticity over joint and hand and smile and brow- the march of time that slowly but surely maps a little more on their faces every day.
He sees.
(He doesn't. He doesn't, he can't.)
Lars looks at the mirror, and then he doesn't.
He sees the prism of glass- the silver of aluminum, the scatter of green. He sees the lion's-mane hair texture that doesn't belong to any of his parents, that doesn't belong to the baby pictures on the wall.
He sees the ghost of stripes that snake his body, lingering as they never did in life with the impossible opalescence of ichor and Diamond's fire. He sees the dull keloid shine of a fault line on his skull, warping his skin with all the subtlety of a twisted knot of rotted wood- a wreckage no human eye will ever see.
He sees Lars Barriga, until he doesn't.