darkbluemoonspirit

[darkbluemoonspirit]

The Devil waits where Wildflowers grow

Pairing:Female! Reader x Remmick 

Genre: Southern Gothic, Angst, Supernatural Thriller, Romance Word Count: 15.7k+ Summary: In a sweltering Mississippi town, a woman's nights are divided between a juke joint's soulful music and the intoxicating presence of a mysterious man named Remmick. As her heart wrestles with fear and desire, shadows lengthen, revealing truths darker than the forgotten woods. In the heart of the Deep South, whispers of love dance with danger, leaving a trail of secrets that curl like smoke in the night.

Content Warnings: Emotional and physical abuse, manipulation, supernatural themes, implied violence, betrayal, character death, transformation lore, body horror elements, graphic depictions of blood, intense psychological and emotional distress, brief sexual content, references to alcoholism and domestic conflict. Let me know if I missed any! A/N: My first story on here! Also I’m not from the 1930’s so don’t beat me up for not knowing too much about life in that time.I couldn’t stop thinking about this gorgeous man since I watched the movie. Wanted to jump through the screen to get to him anywayssss likes, reblogs and asks always appreciated. 

The heat clings to my skin like a second husband, just as unwanted as the first. Even with the sun long gone, the air hangs thick enough to drown in, pressing against my lungs as I ease the screen door open. The hinges whine—traitors announcing my escape attempt—and before I can slip out, his voice lashes at my back, mean as a belt strap. "I ain't done talkin' to you, girl." His fingers dig into my arm, yanking me back inside. The dim yellow light from our single lamp casts his face in a shadow, but I don’t need to see his expression. I've memorized every twist his mouth makes when he's like this—cruel at the corners, loose in the middle.

"You been done," I whisper, the words scraping my throat like gravel. My tears stay locked behind my eyes, prisoners I refuse to release. "Said all you needed to say half a bottle ago." Frank's breath hits my face, sour with corn liquor and hate. His pupils are wide, unfocused—black holes pulling at the edges of his irises. The hand not gripping my arm rises slow and wavering, a promise of pain that has become as routine as sunrise. But tonight, the whiskey’s got him too good. His arm drops mid-swing, its weight too much. For the first time in three years of marriage, I don't flinch. He notices. Even drunk, he notices. "The hell's gotten into you?" His words slur together, a muddy river of accusation. "Think you better'n me now? That it?" "Just tired, Frank." My voice stays steady as still water. "That's all." The truth is, I stopped being afraid a month ago. Fear requires hope—the desperate belief that things might change if you're just careful enough, quiet enough, good enough. I buried my hope the last time he put my head through the wall, right next to where the plaster still shows the shape of my skull. I look around our little house—a wedding gift from his daddy that's become my prison. Two rooms of misery, decorated in things Frank broke and I tried to fix. The table with three good legs and one made from an old fence post. The chair with stuffing coming out like dirty snow. The wallpaper peels in long strips, curling away from the walls like they're trying to escape too.

My reflection catches in the cracked mirror above the wash basin—a woman I barely recognize anymore. My eyes have gone flat, my cheekbones sharp beneath skin that used to glow. Twenty-five years old and fading like a dress left too long in the sun. Frank stumbles backward, catching himself on the edge of our bed. The springs screech under his weight. "Where you think you're goin' anyhow?" "Just for some air." I keep my voice gentle, like you'd talk to a spooked horse. "Be back before you know it." His eyes narrow, suspicion fighting through the drunken haze. "You meetin' somebody?" I shake my head, moving slowly around the room, gathering my shawl, and checking my hair. Every movement measured, nothing to trigger him. "Just need to breathe, Frank. That's all." "You breathe right here," he mutters, but his words are losing their fight, drowning in whiskey and fatigue. "Right here where I can see you." I don't answer. Instead, I watch him struggle against sleep, his body betraying him in small surrenders—head nodding, shoulders slumping, breath deepening. Five minutes pass, then ten. His chin drops to his chest. I slip my dancing shoes from their hiding place beneath a loose floorboard under our bed. Frank hates them—says they make me look loose, wanton. What he means is they make me look like someone who might leave him.

He's not wrong.

The shoes feel like rebellion in my hands. I've polished them in secret, mended the scuffs, kept them alive like hope. Can't put them on yet—the sound would wake him—but soon. Soon they'll carry me where I need to go. Frank snores suddenly, a thunderclap of noise that makes me freeze. But he doesn't stir, just slumps further onto the bed, one arm dangling toward the floor. I move toward the door again; shoes clutched to my chest like something precious. The night outside calls to me with cricket songs and possibilities. Through the dirty window, I can see the path that leads toward the woods, toward Smoke and Stack's place where the music will already be starting. Where for a few hours, I can remember what it feels like to be something other than Frank's wife, Frank's disappointment, Frank's punching bag. The screen door sighs as I ease it open. The night air touches my face like a blessing. Behind me, Frank sleeps the sleep of the wicked and the drunk. Ahead of me, there's music waiting. And tonight, just tonight, that music is stronger than my fear.

The juke joint grows from the Mississippi dirt like something half-remembered, half-dreamed. Even from the edge of the trees, I can feel its heartbeat—the thump of feet on wooden boards, the wail of Sammie's guitar cutting through the night air, voices rising and falling in waves of joy so thick you could swim in them. My shoes dangle from my fingers, still clean. No point in dirtying them on the path. What matters is what happens inside, where the real world stops at the door and something else begins. Light spills from the cracks between weathered boards, turning the surrounding pine trees into sentinels guarding this secret. I slip my shoes on, leaning on the passenger side of one of the few vehicles in-front of the juke-joint, already swaying to the rhythm bleeding through the walls. Smoke and Stack bought this place with money from God knows where coming back from Chicago. Made it sturdy enough to hold our dreams, hidden enough to keep them safe. White folks pretend not to know it exists, and we pretend to believe them. That mutual fiction buys us this—one place where we don't have to fold ourselves small. I push open the door and step into liquid heat. Bodies press and sway, dark skin gleaming with sweat under the glow of kerosene lamps hung from rough-hewn rafters. The floor bears witness to many nights of stomping feet, marked with scuffs that tell stories words never could. The air tastes like freedom—sharp with moonshine, sweet with perfume, salty with honest work washed away in honest pleasure. At the far end, Sammie hunches over his guitar, eyes closed, fingers dancing across strings worn smooth from years of playing. He doesn't need to see what he's doing; the music lives in his hands. Each note tears something loose inside anyone who hears it—something we keep chained up during daylight hours.

Annie throws her head back in laughter, her full hips wrapped in a dress the color of plums. She grabs Pearline's slender wrist, pulling her into the heart of the dancing crowd. Pearline resists for only a second before surrendering, her graceful movements a perfect counterpoint to Annie's rare wild abandon. "Come on now," Annie shouts over the music. "Your husband ain't here to see you, and the Lord ain't lookin' tonight!" Pearline's lips curve into that secret smile she saves for these moments when she can set aside the proper church woman and become something truer. In the corner, Delta Slim nurses a bottle like it contains memories instead of liquor. His eyes, bloodshot but sharp, track everything without seeming to. His fingers tap against the bottleneck, keeping time with Sammie's playing. An old soul who's seen too much to be fooled by anything. "Slim!" Cornbread's deep voice booms as he passes, carrying drinks that overflow slightly with each step. "You gonna play tonight or just drink the profits?" "Might do both if you keep askin'," Slim drawls, but there's no heat in it. Just the familiar rhythm of old friends. I step fully into the room and something shifts. Not everyone notices—most keep dancing, talking, drinking—but enough heads turn my way that I feel it. A ripple through the crowd, making space. Recognition.

Smoke spots me from behind the rough-plank bar. His nod is almost imperceptible, but I catch it—permission, welcome, understanding. His forearms glisten with sweat as he pours another drink, muscles tensed like he's always ready for trouble. Because he is. Stack appears beside him, leaning in to say something in his twin's ear. Unlike Smoke, whose energy coils tight, Stack moves with a gambler's grace, all smooth edges, and calculated risks. His eyes find me in the crowd, lingering a beat too long, concern flashing before he masks it with a lazy smile. My feet carry me to the center of the floor without conscious thought. The wooden boards warm beneath my soles, greeting me like an old friend. I close my eyes, letting Sammie's guitar and voice pull me under, drowning in sound. My body remembers what my mind tries to forget—how to move without fear, how to speak without words. My hips sway, shoulders rolling in time with the stomps. Each stomp of my feet sends the day's hurt into the ground. Each twist of my wrist unravels another knot of rage. My dress—faded cotton sewn and resewn until it's more memory than fabric—clings to me as I spin, catching sweat and starlight.

"She needs this," Smoke mutters to Stack, thinking I can't hear over the music. He takes a long pull from his bottle, eyes never leaving me. "Let her be." But Stack keeps watching, the way he watched when we were kids, and I climbed too high in the cypress trees. Like he's waiting to catch me if I fall. I don't plan to fall. Not tonight. Tonight, I'm rising, lifting, breaking free from gravity itself. Mary appears beside me, her red dress a flame against the darkness. She moves with the confidence of youth and beauty, all long limbs and laughter. "Girl, you gonna burn a hole in the floor!" she shouts, spinning close enough that her breath warms my ear. I don't answer. Can't answer. Words belong to the day world, the world of men like Frank who use them as weapons. Here, my body speaks a better truth. The music climbs higher, faster. Sammie's fingers blur across the strings, coaxing sounds that shouldn't be possible from wood and wire. The crowd claps in rhythm, feet stomping, voices joining in wordless chorus. The walls of the juke joint seem to expand with our joy, swelling to contain what can't be contained. My head tilts back, eyes finding the rough ceiling without seeing it. My spirit has already soared through those boards, up past the pines, into a night sky scattered with stars that know my real name. Sweat tracks down my spine, between my breasts, and along my temples. My heartbeat syncs with the drums until I can't tell which is which. At this moment, Frank doesn't exist. The bruises hidden beneath my clothes don't exist. All that exists is movement, music, and the miraculous feeling of being fully, completely alive in a body that, for these few precious hours, belongs only.

The music fades behind me, each step into the woods stealing another note until all that's left is memory. My body still hums with the ghost of rhythm, but the air around me has changed—gone still in a way that doesn't feel right. Mississippi nights are never quiet, not really. There are always cicadas arguing with crickets, frogs calling from hidden places, leaves whispering to each other. But tonight, the woods swallow sound like they're holding their breath. Waiting for something. My fingers tighten around my shawl, pulling it closer though the heat hasn't broken. It's not cold I'm feeling. It's something else. Moonlight cuts through the canopy in silver blades, slicing the path into sections of light and dark. I step carefully, avoiding roots that curl up from the earth like arthritic fingers. The juke-joint has disappeared behind me; its warmth and noise sealed away by the wall of pines. Ahead lies home—Frank snoring in a drunken stupor, walls pressing in, air thick with resentment. Between here and there is only this stretch of woods, this moment of in-between. My dancing shoes pinch now, reminding me they weren't made for walking. But I don't take them off. They're the last piece of the night I'm clinging to, proof that for a few hours, I was someone else. Someone free.

A twig snaps.

I freeze every muscle tense as piano wire. That sound came from behind me, off to the left where the trees grow thicker. Not an animal—too deliberate, too singular. My heart drums against my ribs, no longer keeping Sammie's rhythm but a faster, frightened beat of its own. "Who's there?" My voice sounds thin in the unnatural quiet. For a moment, nothing. Then movement—not a crashing through underbrush, but a careful parting, like the darkness itself is opening up. He steps onto the path, and everything in me goes still. White man. Tall. Nothing unusual about that. But everything else about him rings false. His clothes seem to match the dust of the woods—dusty white shirt, suspenders that catch the moonlight like they're made of something finer than ordinary cloth. Dust clings to his shoes but sweat darkens his collar despite the heat. His skin is pale in a way that seems to glow faintly, untouched by the sun. But it's his eyes that stop my breath. They don't blink enough. And they're fixed on me with a hunger that has nothing to do with what men usually want.

"You move like you don't belong to this world," he says, voice smooth as molasses but cold like stones at the bottom of a well. There's a drawl to his words. He sounds like nowhere and everywhere. "I've watched you dance. On nights like this. It's… spellwork, what you do." My spine straightens of its own accord. I should run. Every instinct screams it. But something else—pride, maybe, or foolishness—keeps me rooted. "I ain't got nothin' for you," I say, keeping my voice steady. My hand tightens on my shawl, though it's poor protection against whatever this man is. "And white men seekin’ me out here alone usually bring trouble." His lips curve upward, but the smile doesn't touch those unblinking eyes. They remain fixed, assessing, and patient in a way that makes my skin prickle. "You think I came to bring you trouble?" The question hangs between us, delicate as spiderweb. I don't trust it. Don't trust him. "I think you should go," I say, taking half a step backward. He matches with a step forward but maintains the distance between us—precise, controlled.

"I'm called Remmick."

"I didn't ask." My voice sharpens with fear disguised as attitude.

"No," he says, nodding thoughtfully. "But something in you will remember."

The certainty in his voice raises the hair on my arms. I study him more carefully—the unnatural stillness with which he holds himself. Something is wrong with this man, something beyond the obvious danger of a man approaching a woman alone in the woods at night. The trees around him seem to bend away slightly, as if reluctant to touch him. Even the persistent mosquitoes that plague these woods avoid the air around him. The night itself recoils from his presence, creating a bubble of emptiness with him at the center. I take another step back, putting more distance between us. My heel catches on a root, but I recover without falling. His eyes track the movement with unsettling precision.

"You can go on now," I say, my voice harder now. "Ain't nobody invited you."

Something changes in his expression at that—a flicker of satisfaction, like I've confirmed something he suspected. His head tilts slightly, almost pleased. "That's true," he murmurs, the words barely disturbing the air. "Not yet."

The way he says it—like a promise, like a threat—makes my breath catch. The moonlight catches his profile as he turns slightly. For a moment, just a moment, I think I see something move beneath that worn shirt—not muscle or bone, but something else, something that shifts like shadow-given substance. Then it's gone, and he's just a man again. A strange, terrifying man standing too still in the woods who wants nothing to do with him. I don't say goodbye. Don't acknowledge him further. Just back away, keeping my eyes on him until I can turn safely until the path curves and trees separate us. Even then, I feel his gaze on my back like a physical weight, pressing against my spine, leaving an imprint that won't wash off.

I don't run—running attracts predators—but I walk faster, my dancing shoes striking the dirt in a rhythm that sounds like warning, warning, warning with each step. The trees seem to whisper now, breaking their unnatural silence to murmur secrets to each other. Behind me, the woods remain still. I don't hear him following. Somehow, that's worse. As if he doesn't need to follow to find me again. As I near the edge of the tree line, the familiar sounds of night gradually return—cicadas start up their sawing, and an owl calls from somewhere deep in the darkness. The world exhales, releasing the breath it had been holding. But something has changed. The night that once offered escape now feels like another kind of trap. And somewhere in the darkness behind me waits a man named Remmick, with eyes that don't blink enough and a voice that speaks of "not yet" like it's already written.

Two day passed but The rooster still don’t holler like he used to. He creaks out a noise ‘round mid-morning now, long after the sun’s already sitting heavy on the tin roof. Maybe the heat got to him. Maybe he’s just tired of callin’ out a world that don’t change. I know the feel. But night comes again, faster than mornin’ these days. Probably cause’ I’m expectin’ more from the night. Frank’s out cold on the mattress, one leg hanging off like it gave up trying. His breath comes in grunts, open-mouthed and ugly. A fly dances lazy across his upper lip, lands, takes off again. I step over his boots; past the broken chair he swore he’d fix last fall. Ain’t nothin’ changed but the dust. Kitchen smells like rusted iron and whatever crawled up into the walls to die. I fill the kettle slow, careful with the water pump handle so it don’t squeal. Ain’t trying to wake a bear before it’s time. My fingers press against the wallpaper, where it peeled back like bark. The spot stays warm. Heat trapped from yesterday. I don’t talk to myself. Don’t say a word. But my thoughts speak his name without asking.

Remmick.

It don’t belong in this house. It don’t belong in my mouth, either. But there it is, curling behind my teeth. I never told a soul about him. Not ‘cause I was scared. Not yet. Just didn’t know how to explain a man who don’t blink enough. Who moves like the ground ain’t quite got a grip on him. Who steps out of the woods like he heard you call, even when you didn’t. A man who hangs ‘round a place with no intention of going in.

I tug the hem of my dress higher to look at the bruise. Purple, with a ring of green creeping in around the edges. I press two fingers to it, just to feel it. A reminder. Frank don’t always hit where people can see. But he don’t always miss, either. I wrap it in cloth, tug the fabric of my dress just right, and move on. I don’t plan to dance tonight. But I’ll sit. Maybe smile. Maybe drink something that don’t taste like survival. Maybe Stack’ll run his mouth and pull a laugh out of me without trying. And maybe, when it’s time to go, I’ll take the long way home. Not because I’m expectin’ anything. But because I want to. The juke joint buzzes before I even see it. The trees carry the sound first—the thump of feet, the thrum of piano spilling through the wood like sap. By the time I reach the clearing, it’s already breathing, already alive. Cornbread’s at the door, arms folded. When I pass, he gives me that look like he sees more than I want him to. “You look lighter tonight,” he says. I give a half-smile. “Probably just ain’t carryin’ any expectations.” He lets out a low laugh, the kind that rolls up from his gut and sits heavy in the room. “Or maybe ‘cause you left somethin’ behind last night.” That makes me pause, just for a beat. But I don’t show it. Just raise my brow like he’s talkin’ nonsense and keep walkin’.

He don’t mean nothin’ by it. But it sticks to me anyway.

Delta Slim’s at the keys, tapping them like they owe him money. The notes bounce off the walls, dusty and full of teeth. No Sammie tonight—Stack said he’s somewhere wrasslin’ a busted guitar into obedience. Pearline’s off in the corner, close to Sammie’s usual seat. She’s leaned in real low to a man I seen from time to time here, voice like honey drippin’ too slow to trust. Her laugh breaks in soft bursts, careful not to wake whatever she’s tryin’ to keep asleep. Stack’s behind the bar, sleeves rolled up, but he ain’t workin.’ Not really. He’s leanin’ on the wood, jaw flexing as he smirks at some girl with freckles down her arms like spilled salt. I find a seat near the back, close enough to the fan to catch a breath of cool, far enough to keep my bruise out of the light.

Inside, the joint don’t just sing—it exhales. Walls groan with sweat and joy, floorboards shimmy under stompin’ feet. The air’s thick with heat, perfume, and fried something that’s long since stopped smellin’ like food. There’s a rhythm to the place—one that don’t care what your name is, just how you move. Smoke’s behind the bar too, back bent over a bottle, jaw set tight like always. But when he sees me, his mouth softens. Not a smile—he don’t give those away easy. Just a nod. Like he sees me, really sees me. “Frank dead yet?” he mutters without looking up. “Not that lucky,” I say, voice dry as dust. He pours without askin.’ Corn punch. Still too sweet. But it sits right on the tongue after a long day of silence.

“You limpin’?” he asks, low, like maybe it’s just for me.

I shake my head. “Just don’t feel like shakin’.” He grunts understanding. “You don’t gotta explain, Y/N. Just glad you showed.” A warmth rolls behind my ribs. I don’t show it. But I feel it.

I don’t dance, but I play. Cards smack against the wood table like drumbeats—sharp, mean, familiar. The men at the table glance up, but none complain when I sit. I win too often for them to pretend they ain’t interested. Stack leans over my shoulder after the second hand. I smell rum and tobacco before he speaks. “You cheat,” he says, eyes twinkling. “You slow,” I fire back, slapping a queen on the pile. He whistles. “You always talk this much when you feelin’ good?” “Don’t flatter yourself.” “Oh, I ain’t. Just sayin,’ looks Like you been kissed by somethin’ holy—or dangerous.” “I’ll let you decide which.” He laughs, pulls up a chair without askin’. His knee brushes mine. He don’t apologize. I don’t move.

I leave before Slim plays his last note. The night wraps itself around me the moment I step out, damp and sweet, the kind of air that clings to your skin like memory. One more laugh from inside rings out sharp before the door shuts and the trees hush it. My feet take the path without me thinking. I don’t look for shadows. Don’t linger. Just want the stillness. The cool hush after heat. The part of night that feels like confession. But halfway down the clearing, I see him again. Not leaning. Not hiding. Just there. Standing like the woods parted just to place him in my way. White shirt. Sleeves rolled. Suspenders loose against dusty pants. Hat in hand like he means to be respectful, like he was taught his mama’s manners. I stop. “You followin’ me?” I ask, but it don’t come out sharp.

His mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. “Didn’t know a man needed a permit to take a walk under the stars.” “You keep walkin’ where I already am.”

He looks down the path, then back at me. “Maybe that means you and I got the same sense of direction.” “Or maybe you been steppin’ where you know I’ll be.” He doesn’t deny it. Just shrugs, eyes steady. I don’t move closer. Don’t move back either.

“You always turn up like this?” I ask. “Like a page I forgot to read?” He chuckles. “No. Just figured you were the kind of story worth rereadin’.” The silence after that ain’t heavy. Just… close. The kind that makes your ears ring with what you ain’t said. “You always this smooth?” I say, voice low. “I been known to stumble,” he replies. “Just not when it counts.” I shift. Let my eyes roam past him, toward the tree line. “Small talk doesn’t suit you.” “I don’t do small.” His eyes meet mine again. “Especially not with you.” It’s too much. It should be too much. But my hands don’t tremble. My breath don’t catch.

Not yet.

“You always walk the same road as a woman leavin’ the juke joint alone?” “I didn’t follow you,” he repeats. “I just happen to be where you are.” He steps forward, slow. I don’t retreat. “You expect me to believe that?” I ask. “No,” he says softly. “But I think you want to.” That lands between us like something too honest. He runs a hand through his hair before putting his hat on. A simple gesture. A human one. Like he’s just another man with nowhere to be and too much time to spend not being there. He watches me, real still—like a man waitin’ to see if I’ll spook or bite. “Figured I might’ve come off wrong last time,” he says finally, voice soft, but it don’t bend easy. “Didn’t mean to.” “You did,” I say, but my arms stay loose at my sides. A flick of something passes over his face. Not shame, not pride—just a small, ghosted look, like he’s used to bein’ misunderstood. “Well,” he says, thumb brushing the brim of his hat, “thought maybe I’d try again. Slower this time.” That pulls at somethin’ behind my ribs, makes the air stretch thinner between us. “You act like this some kinda game.” He shakes his head once. “Not a game. Just…timing. Some things got to take the long way ‘round.” I narrow my eyes at him, trying to make out where he’s hidin’ the trick in all this.

“The way you talk is like running in circles.” He laughs—low and rough at the edges, like it ain’t used to bein’ let out. “I won’t waste time running in circles around a darlin’ like you.” I cross my arms, squinting at the space between his words. “That supposed to charm me?” He shrugs, one shoulder easy like he don’t expect much. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says. “Just thought I’d give you something truer than a lie.” His voice ain’t sweet—it’s too honest for that. But it moves like water that knows where it’s goin’. I shift my weight, let the breeze slide between us.

“You ain’t said why you’re here. Not really.” He watches me a long moment, like he’s weighing how much I’ll let in. “Maybe I’m drawn to your energy,” he says finally. I scoff. “My energy? I don’t move too much to emit energy.” That gets him smilin’. Slow. Not too sure of itself, but not shy either. “You don’t have to move,” he says, “to be seen.” The words hit like a drop of cold water between the shoulder blades—sharp, sudden, and too real. I take a step forward just to ground myself, heel pressing into the dirt like I mean it. “You a preacher?” I ask, voice sharper than before. He chuckles, deep and close-lipped. “Ain’t nothin’ holy about me.” “Then don’t talk to me like you got a sermon stitched in your throat.” He bows his head just a hair, hands still at his sides. “Fair enough.”

A pause stretches long enough for the night sounds to creep back in—cicadas winding up, wind sifting through the trees. “I’m Remmick,” he says, like it matters more now. “I know.” “And you?” “You don’t need my name.” His mouth quirks like he wants to press, but he don’t. “You sure about that?” “Yes.” The silence that follows feels cleaner. Like everything’s been set on the table and neither one of us reaching for it. He nods, slow. “Alright. Just thought I’d say hello this time without makin’ the trees nervous.” I don’t smile. Don’t give him more than I want to. But I don’t turn away either. And when he steps back—slow, like he respects the space between us—I let him. This time, I watch him go. Down the path, ‘til the woods decide they’ve had enough of him.

I don’t look back once my hand’s on the porch rail. The key trembles once in the lock before it catches. Inside, it’s the same. Frank dead to the world, laid out like sin forgiven. I pass him without a glance, like I’m the ghost and not him. At the washbasin, I scrub my face until the cold water stings. Peel off the dress slow, like unwrapping something tender. The bruises bloom up my side, but I don’t touch ‘em. I slide into a cotton nightgown soft enough not to fight me. Climb into bed without expecting sleep. Just lie there, staring at the ceiling like maybe tonight it might speak.

But it don’t.

It just creaks. Settles.

And leaves me with that name again. Remmick.

I whisper it once, barely enough sound to stir the dark. Three days pass. The sun’s just fallen, but the air still clings like breath held too long. I’m on the back stoop with my foot sunk in a basin of cool water, ankle puffed up mean from Frank’s latest mood. Shawl drawn close, dress hem hiked above the bruising. The house behind me creaks like it’s thinking about falling apart. Crickets chirp with something to prove. A whip-poor-will calls once, then hushes like it said too much. And then—

“Evenin’.”

My hand jerks, sloshing water up my calf. I don’t scream, but I don’t hide the startle either. He’s by the fence post. Just leanin’. Arms folded over the top like he been there long enough to take root. Hat low, sleeves rolled, collar open at the throat. Shirt clings faint in the heat, pants dusted up from honest walking—or the kind that don’t leave footprints. I say nothing. He tips his head like he’s waiting for permission that won’t come. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” “You always arrive like breath behind a neck.” “I try not to,” he says, quiet. “Don’t always manage it.” That smile he wears—it don’t shine. It settles. Soft. A little sorry. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me again,” he says.

“I don’t.”

He nods like he expected that too. I don’t blink. Don’t drop my gaze. “Why you keep comin’ here, Remmick?”

His name tastes different now. Sharper. He blinks once, slow and deliberate. “Didn’t think you remembered it.” “I remember what sticks wrong.” He watches me a beat longer than comfort allows. Then—calm, measured—he says, “Just figured you might not mind the company.” “That ain’t company,” I snap. “That’s trespassin’.” My voice cuts colder than I meant it to, but it don’t feel like a lie. “You know where I live. You know when I’m out here. That ain’t coincidence. That’s intent.” He don’t flinch. “I asked.”

That stops me. “Asked who?”

He lifts his hand, palm out like he ain’t holdin’ anything worth hiding. “Lady outside the feed store. Said you were the one with the porch full of peeled paint and a garden that used to be tended. Said you got a husband who drinks too early and hits too late.” My mouth goes dry.

“You spyin’ on me?” “No,” he says. “I don’t need to spy to see what’s plain.” “And what’s plain to you, exactly?” My tone is flint now. Sparked. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.” He leans in, just enough. “You think that bruise on your ankle don’t show ‘cause your dress covers it? You think folks ain’t noticed how you don’t laugh no more unless you hidin’ it behind a stiff smile?” Silence folds in between us. Thick. Unwelcoming. He doesn’t press. Just keeps looking, like he’s listening for something I ain’t said yet.

“I don’t need savin’,” I murmur. “I didn’t come to save you,” he says, and his voice is different now low, but not slick. Heavy, like a weight he’s carried too far. “I just came to see if you’d talk back. That’s all.” I pull my foot from the water, slow. Wrap it in a rag. Keep my gaze steady. “You show up again unasked,” I say, “I’ll have Frank walk you home.” He chuckles. Real soft. Like he don’t think I’d do it, but he don’t plan to test me either. “I’d deserve it,” he says. Then he tips his hat after putting it back on and steps back into the night. Doesn’t rush. Doesn’t look back. But even after he’s gone, I can feel the place he left behind—like a fingerprint on glass. ——— Inside, Frank’s already mutterin’ in his sleep. The sound of a man who ain’t never done enough to earn rest, but claims it like birthright. I move around him like I ain’t there. Later, in bed, the ceiling don’t offer peace. Just shadows that shift like breath. I lay quiet, hands folded over my stomach, heart beatin’ steady where it shouldn’t. I don’t say his name. But I think it. And it stays.

Mornings don’t change much. Not in this house. Frank’s boots hit the floor before I even open my eyes. He don’t speak—just shuffles around, clearing his throat like it’s my fault it ain’t clear yet. He spits into the sink, loud and wet, then starts lookin’ for somethin’ to curse. Today it’s the biscuits. Yesterday, it was the fact I bought the wrong tobacco. Tomorrow? Could be the way I breathe. I don’t talk back. Just pack his lunch quiet, hands moving like they’ve learned how to vanish. When the door finally slams shut behind him, the silence feels less like peace and more like a pause in the storm. The floor don’t sigh. I do.

He’ll be back by sundown. Drunk by nine. Dead asleep by ten.

And I’ll be somewhere else—at least for a little while. The juke joint’s sweating by the time I get there. Delta Slim’s on keys again, playing like his fingers been dipped in honey and sorrow. Voices ride the walls, thick and rising, the kind that ain’t tryin’ to be pretty—just loud enough to out-sing the pain. Pearline’s got Sammie backed in a corner again, her laugh syrupy and slow. She always did know how to linger in a man’s space like perfume. Cornbread’s hollering near the door, trading jokes for coin. And Annie’s on a stool, head tilted like she’s heard too much and not enough. I don’t dance tonight. Still too tender. So, I post up at the end of the bar with something sharp in my glass. Smoke sees me, gives that chin lift he reserves for bad days and bruised ribs. Stack sidles up before the ice even melts. “Quiet day today,” he asks, cracking a peanut with his teeth. I don’t look at him. Just stir my drink slow. “Talkin’ ain’t always safe.” His brows go up. He glances around like he’s checking for shadows, then leans in a bit. “Frank still being Frank?” I lift one shoulder. Stack don’t push. Just keeps on with his drink, knuckles tapping the bar like a slow metronome.

Then, quiet: “You got somethin’ heavy to let go of.” That stops me. Just a second. But he catches it. “Huh?” He shrugs, doesn’t look at me this time. “You ever seen a rabbit freeze in tall grass? That’s the look. Ears up. Heart runnin’. But it ain’t moved yet.” I run a fingertip down the side of my glass, watching the sweat bead up. “There’s been a man.” Now Stack looks. “He don’t say much. Just… shows up. Walks the same road I’m on, like we both happened there. Then he started talkin’. Knew things he shouldn’t. Last time, he was near my house. Didn’t come in. Just… lingered.” “White?” I nod.

Stack’s whole posture changes—draws tight at the shoulders, jaw working. “You want me to handle it?” I shake my head. “No.” “Y/N—” “No,” I say again, firmer. “I don’t want more fire when the house is already half burnt. He ain’t done nothin.’ Not really.” Yet. He lets it settle. Don’t agree. But he don’t argue either. Behind us, Annie’s refilling her glass. She don’t speak, but her eyes cut over to Mary. Mary catches it. Lips press together. She looks at me the way you look at something you’ve seen before but can’t stop from happening again. And then, like it’s all normal, Mary chirps out, “You hear Pearline bet Sammie he couldn’t outdrink Cornbread?” Annie scoffs. “She just tryin’ to sit on his lap before midnight.” Stack grins but don’t fully let go of his watchful look. The mood shifts easy, like it rehearsed for this. Like they all know how to laugh loud enough to cover a crack in the wall.

But I ain’t laughing.

I nurse my drink, fingers cold and wet around the glass. My eyes flick toward the door, then away. Remmick. That name’s been clingin’ to my mind like smoke in closed curtains. Thick. Quiet. Still there long after the fire’s gone out. I think about how he looked at me—not like a man looks at a woman, but like he’s listening to something inside her. I think about the way his voice wrapped around the air, soft but steady, like it belonged even when it didn’t. I think about how I told Stack I didn’t want to see him again.

And I wonder why I lied.

Frank’s truck wheezes up the road like it’s draggin’ its bones. Brakes cry once. Gravel shifts like it don’t want to hold him. Inside, the pot’s still warm on the stove. Not hot. He hates hot. Says it means I was tryin’ too hard, or not tryin’ enough. With Frank, it don’t matter which—he’ll find the fault either way. The screen door creaks and slams. That sound still startles me, even now. Boots hit wood, heavy and careless. His scent rolls in before he speaks—sweat, sun, grease, and the liquor I know he popped open three miles back. I don’t turn. Just keep spoonin’ grits into the bowl, hand steady. “You hear they cut my hours?” he says. His voice’s wound tight, all string and no tune. “No,” I say. He drops his lunch pail hard on the table. The tin rattles. A sound I hate.

“They kept Carter,” he mutters. “You know why?” I stay quiet. He answers himself anyway. “’Cause Carter got a wife who stays in her place. Don’t get folks talkin’. Don’t strut around like she’s single.” The grit spoon taps the bowl once. Then again. I let it. “You callin’ me loud?” “I’m sayin’ you don’t make it easy. Every damn week, somebody got somethin’ to say. ‘Saw her smilin’. Heard her laughin’. Like you forgot what house you live in.” I press my palm flat to the counter, slow. “Maybe if you kept your hands to yourself, folks’d have less to talk about.” It slips out too fast. But I don’t take it back. The room goes still.

Chair legs scrape. He rises like a storm cloud built slow. “You forget who you’re speakin’ to?” I feel him move before he does. Feel the air shift. “I remember,” I say. My voice don’t rise. Just settles. He comes close—closer than he needs to be. His breath touches the back of my neck before his hand does. The shove ain’t hard. But it’s meant to echo.

“You think I won’t?” I breathe once, deep. “I think you already have.” He stands there, hand still half-raised like he’s weighing what it’d cost him. Like maybe the thrill’s dulled over time. His breath’s ragged. But he backs off. Steps away. Chair squeals across the floor as he drops into it, muttering something I don’t catch. I move quiet to the sink, rinse the spoon. My back still to him. Eyes locked on the faucet. Somewhere behind me, the bowl clinks against the table. He eats in silence. And all I can think about the man who ain’t never set foot in my house but got me leavin’ the porch light on for him. —— Two weeks slip past like smoke through floorboards. Maybe more. I stopped countin’. Time don’t move the same without him in it. The nights stretch longer, duller. No shape to ‘em. Just quiet. At first, that quiet feels like mercy. Like I snuffed out something that could’ve swallowed me whole. I sleep harder. Wake lighter. For a little while. But mercy don’t last. Not when it’s pretending to be peace. Because soon, the quiet stops feeling like rest. And starts feeling like a missing tooth You keep tonguing the space, even when it hurts. At the juke joint, I start to dance again. Not wild, not free—just enough to remember how my body used to move when it wasn’t afraid of being seen. Slim plays slower that night, coaxing soft fire from the keys. The kind of song that settles deep, don’t need to shout to be felt. Pearline leans in, breath warm on my cheek. “You got your hips back,” she says, low and slick. “Don’t call it a comeback,” I grin, though it don’t sit right in my mouth.

Mary laughs when I sit back down, breath hitchin’ from the floor. “Somebody’s been puttin’ sugar in your coffee.” “Maybe I just stirred it myself,” I say. But even as I say it, my eyes go to the door. To the dark. Stack catches the look. He always does. Doesn’t press. Just watches me longer than usual, mouth tight like he wants to say somethin’ and knows he won’t.

Frank’s been… duller. Still drinks. Still stinks. Still mean in that slow, creepin’ way that feels more like rot than fire. But the heat’s gone out of it. Like he’s noticed I ain’t afraid no more and don’t know how to fight a ghost. He don’t yell as loud now. Doesn’t hit as hard. But it ain’t softness. It’s confusion. He don’t like not bein’ feared.

And maybe worse—I don’t like that he don’t try. Some nights, I sit on the back step long after the world’s gone to bed. Shawl loose around my shoulders, feet bare against the grain. The well water in the basin’s gone warm by then. Even the wind feels tired. Crickets rasp. A cicada drones. I listen like I used to—for the shift in the dark. The weight of a gaze. The way the air used to still when he was near. But there’s nothin’. Just me. Just the quiet. I catch myself one night—talkin’ out loud to the trees. “You was real brave when I didn’t want you here,” I say, voice rough from disuse. “Now I’m sittin’ like a fool hopin’ the dark says somethin’ back.”

It don’t.

The leaves stay still. No footfall. No voice. Not even a breeze. Just me. And that ache I can’t name. But he’s there. Further back than before. At the edge of the trees, where the moonlight don’t reach. Where the shadows thicken like syrup.

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Just waits. Because Remmick ain’t the kind to come knockin’. He waits ‘til the door opens itself. And I don’t know it yet, but mine already has.

The road to town don’t carry much breath after sundown. Shutters drawn, porch lights dimmed, the kind of quiet that feels agreed upon. Most folks long gone to sleep or drunk enough to mistake the stars for halos. The storefronts sit heavy with silence, save for McFadden’s—one crooked bulb humming above the porch, casting shadows that don’t move unless they got to. A dog barks once, far off. Then nothing. I keep my pace even, bag pressed close to my side, shawl wrapped too tight for the heat. Sweat pools along my spine, but I don’t loosen it. A woman wrapped in fabric is less of a story than one without. Frank went to bed with a dry tongue and a bitter mouth. Said he’d wake mean if the bottle stayed empty. Called it my duty—said the word slow, like it should weigh more than me.

So I go.

Buying quiet the only way I know how. The bell above McFadden’s door rings tired when I slip inside. The air smells like dust and vinegar and old rubber soles. The clerk doesn’t look up. Just mutters a greeting and scribbles into a pad like the world don’t exist past his pencil tip. I move quick to the back, fingers brushing the necks of bottles lined up like soldiers who already lost. I grab the one that looks the least like mercy and pay without fuss. His change is greasy. I don’t count it. The bottle’s cold against my hip through the bag, sweat bleeding through cheap paper. I step out onto the porch and down the wooden steps, gravel crunching soft beneath my heels. The lamps flicker every few feet, moths stumbling in circles like they’ve forgotten what drew them here in the first place. The dark folds in tight once I leave the storefront behind. I don’t rush. Not ‘cause I feel safe. Just learned it looks worse when you do. Then—

“You keep odd hours.” His voice don’t cut—it folds. Like it belonged to the dark and just decided to speak. I stop. Not startled. Not calm either. He’s leaned just inside the alley by the post office, one boot pressed to brick, arms loose at his sides. Shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, suspenders hanging slack. His collar’s open, skin pale in the low light, like he don’t sweat the same as the rest of us. He looks like he fits here. That’s what makes it strange. Ain’t no reason a man like that should belong. But he does. Like he was built from the dirt and just stood up one day. I keep one foot planted on the sidewalk.

“You don’t give up, do you,” I say. He shifts just enough for the light to catch his mouth. Not a smile. Not quite. “You make it hard.” “You looked like you didn’t wanna be spoken to in that store,” he says, voice low and even. “So I waited out here.” The streetlamp hums above us. My grip on the bottle shifts, tighter now. “You could’ve kept walkin’.” “I was hopin’ you might,” he says.

Not hopin’ I’d stop. Not hopin’ I’d talk. Hopin’ I might.

There’s a difference. And I feel it. I glance down at the bottle. The glass slick with sweat. “Frank drinks this when he’s feelin’ good. That’s the only reason I’m out this late.” He doesn’t move. Doesn’t press. “Is that what you want?” he asks after a beat. “Frank in a good mood?” I don’t answer. I just start walking. But his voice follows, smooth as shadow. “I was married once.” I pause. Not outta interest. More like the way a dog pauses before crossing a fence line—aware. “She was kind,” he says. “Too kind. Tried to fix things that weren’t broke. Just wrong.” He says it like it’s already been said a thousand times. Like the taste of it’s worn out. I look back. He hasn’t taken a single step closer. Just stands there, hands tucked in his pockets, jaw set loose like he’s tired of carryin’ that story. “How do you always end up in my path?” I ask. Not curious. Just tired of not sayin’ it. He lifts a shoulder, lazy. “Some people chase fate. Some just stand where it’s bound to pass.”

I snort, soft. “Sounds like somethin’ you read in a cheap novel.”

“Maybe,” he says, eyes flicking toward mine, “but some lies got a little truth buried in ‘em.” The quiet after settles deep. Not awkward. Not empty. Just close. “You shouldn’t be waitin’ on me,” I say, voice rougher now. “Ain’t nothin’ here worth the trouble.” He studies me. Not like a man tryin’ to see a woman. More like he’s lookin’ through fog, tryin’ to remember a place he used to live in. “I’ve had worse things,” he murmurs. “Worse things that never made me feel half as alive.” For a breath, the light catches his eyes. Not wrong. Not glowing. Just sharp. Like flint about to spark. Then he tips his head. “Goodnight, Y/N.” Soft. Like a promise. And just like always, he disappears without hurry. Without sound. Back into the dark like it opened for him. And maybe, just maybe, I hate how much I already expect it to do the same tomorrow.

The next day dawns heavy, the sun a reluctant guest peeking through gray clouds. I find myself trapped in that same tired rhythm, the kind of day that stretches before me like an old road—the kind you know too well to feel any excitement for. Frank’s got work today, though I can’t say I’m sure what he’ll be cursing by sundown.

As I move around the kitchen, pouring coffee and buttering bread, the silence feels thicker than usual. It clings to me, wraps around my thoughts like a vine, and I can’t shake the feeling that something's shifted. Maybe it’s just the weight of waiting for Remmick to show again, or maybe it’s that quiet ache gnawing at my insides—the kind that reminds you what hope felt like even if you’re scared to name it.

Frank shuffles in with those heavy boots of his, barely brushing past me as he grabs a mug without looking my way. He doesn’t say a word about the food or even acknowledge me standing there. Just pours himself another cup with a grimace. “How long’ve you been up?” he mutters, not really asking.

“Early enough,” I reply, holding back the urge to ask if he slept well.

He slams his mug down on the table hard enough for a ripple of coffee to splash over the edge. “What’s wrong with the damn biscuits?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just shoves one aside before storming out, leaving behind his bitterness hanging in the air like smoke.

I breathe deeply through my nose and keep packing his lunch—tuna salad this time; at least that’s something he won’t moan about too much. Still, every sound feels exaggerated, each scrape against porcelain echoing louder than it ought to.

Outside, I stand at the porch railing for a moment longer than necessary, feeling the sunlight warm my skin but unable to let its brightness seep into my heart. Birds are flitting from one tree branch to another—free from this heavy house—or so it seems.

I want to run after them. Escape to where everything isn’t tainted by liquor and regrets. But instead, I stay rooted in place until Frank’s truck roars down the road like some angry beast.

Once he's gone, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and pull on my shoes. A decent day to grab some much-needed groceries.

The heat wraps around me as I stroll through town—a gentle reminder that summer still holds sway despite all else changing. I walk through town, grabbing groceries on the way as I enjoy the weather. I run by grace’s store to grab some buttered pickles frank likes. The bell jingled above me as I entered the store, and grace comes from the back carrying an empty glass jar. She paused when she looked at me before smiling. “Hey gurl, haven’t seen ya in here for a while. Frank noticed he ate up all them buttered pickles? That damn animal.” I chuckled at her words as she set the glass jar down on the front counter. Grace moves behind the counter with that same easy rhythm she always has—like her bones already know where everything sits. The store smells like dust and sun-warmed glass, sweet tobacco, and something faintly metallic. Familiar.

“He Still workin’ over at the field?” she asks, pulling a new jar from beneath the counter. “Heard the boss cut hours again. Seems like everyone’s gettin’ squeezed ‘cept the ones doin’ the squeezin’.” “Yeah,” I mutter, glancing toward the shelf lined with dusty cans and glass jars. “He’s been stewin’ about it all week. Like it’s my fault time’s movin’ forward.” Grace snorts, capping the pickle jar and sliding it across the counter. “Girl, if Frank had his way, we’d all be wearin’ aprons and smilin’ through broken teeth.” I pick up the jar, running my fingers absently along the cold glass. “Some days it’s easier to pretend I’m deaf than fight him.” Grace leans forward, voice dropping low like she don’t want the pickles to hear. “You need somewhere to run, you come knock on my back door. Don’t matter what time.” That almost cracks me. Not enough to cry, but enough to blink slow and hold the jar tighter. “I appreciate it,” I say. She doesn’t press, just gives me a knowing nod and starts wrapping the jar in brown paper. “Also grabbed you a couple of those lemon drops you like,” she says with a wink. “Tell Frank the sugar’s for his sour ass.” That gets a real laugh outta me. Just a little one, but it lives in my chest longer than it should. Outside, the air’s heavy again. Thunder maybe, or just the kind of heat that makes everything feel like it’s about to break open. I tuck the paper bag under my arm and make my way down the street slow, dragging my fingers along the iron railings where ivy used to grow. Everything’s changing. And I don’t know if I’m running from it, or toward it. But I walk a little slower past the edge of town. Past the grove of trees that hum low when the wind slips through them. And I wonder—not for the first time—if he’ll be waiting there. And if he ain’t, why I keep hoping he will.

——

I don't light a lamp when I slip out the back door.

The house creaks behind me, drunk with silence and sour breath. Frank's dead asleep like always, belly full of cheap whiskey and whatever anger he couldn't throw at me before sleep took him.

The air outside ain't much cooler, but it's cleaner. Clear. Smells like pine and soil and something just beginning to bloom.

I walk slow. Like I'm just stretching my legs.

Like I'm not wearing the dress with the small blue flowers I ain't touched in over a year.

Like I'm not heading down the narrow path through the tall grass, the one that don't lead nowhere useful unless you're hoping to see someone who don't belong anywhere at all.

The night hums soft. Cicadas. Distant frogs. The kind of stillness that makes you feel like you've stepped into a dream—or out of one.

I settle on the old stump by the split rail, hands folded, back straight, pretending I ain't waiting.

He doesn't keep me waiting long.

"Always sittin’ this straight when relaxin'?"

His voice folds in gentle behind me. Amused. Unbothered.

I don't turn right away. Just glance sideways like I hadn't noticed him there.

"Wasn't expectin' company," I say.

He steps into view, lazy as twilight, hands in his pockets, shirt sleeves rolled and collar loose. Looks like the evening shaped itself just to dress him in it.

"No," he says. "But you brought that perfume out again. Figured that was the invitation."

I shift on the stump, eyes narrowed. "You pay a lotta attention for someone who don't plan on talkin'."

"Only to the things that matter."

He stays a little ways off, respectful of the space I haven't offered but he knows he owns just the same.

"You just out here wanderin' again?" I ask, trying not to sound like I care.

"Nah," he says, grinning a little. "I came out to see if that tree finally bloomed. The one you like to lean on when you think no one's watchin'."

I feel heat crawl up my neck. I smooth my skirt like that'll hide it.

"You always this nosy?"

He shrugs. "Just got good aim."

I shake my head, but I don't tell him to leave. Don't even ask why he's here.

'Cause I know.

And he knows I know.

He moves slow toward me and sits—not close enough to touch, but close enough I can feel it if I lean a little.

We sit in it a while. That hush. That weightless kind of silence that feels full instead of empty.

Then, out of nowhere, he says, "You laugh different at the juke joint than you do anywhere else."

I blink. "What?"

He doesn't look at me. Just watches the dark ahead, like he's reading the night for meaning.

"It's looser," he says. "Like your ribs don't hurt when you do it."

I don't answer. Can't. I ignored the question rising in my head about how he knows what’s goes on in the juke joint when I’ve never seen him in there or heard his name on peoples' lips there.

But somehow, he's right, and I hate that he knows that. Hate more that I like that he noticed.

"You got a way of sayin' too much without sayin' a damn thing," I mutter.

He huffs a laugh. "I'll take that as a compliment."

We go quiet again. But it ain't tense. It's like we're settlin' into something neither one of us has had in too long.

Eventually, I say, "Frank don' like it when I'm gon’ too long."

"You wan’ me to walk you back?" he asks, like it's the easiest offer in the world.

"No," I say, but it comes out too soft. "Not yet."

He nods once. Doesn't press. Just leans back on one elbow, eyes half-lidded like the night's pullin' him under same as me or so I thought.

"You got stories?" I ask.

He raises a brow. "You askin' me to talk?"

"Don't make a big thing outta it."

He grins slow. "Alright then."

And he does. Tells me some nonsense about stealing peaches off a preacher's tree when he was too young to know better, how he and his cousin swore the preacher had the Devil chained under his porch to guard it. His voice wraps around the words easy, like molasses and wind. Whether it was true or not, I don’t seem to care at the moment.

I don't laugh out loud, but my smile finds its way out anyway.

When he glances at me, I see it in his eyes—that same look from the last time. Not hunger. Not charm.

Something gentler. Something like… understanding.

And for the first time, I let it happen.

Let myself enjoy him.

Not as a ghost. Not as a threat.

Just as a man sitting in the dark with me.

——

I've been lookin' forward to the night often these days, not because of him, of course… The night breathes warm against my skin. I'm on the porch, knees drawn up, pickin' absently at blades of grass growin' between the cracked boards like they're trespassin' and don't know it. I pluck them one by one, not really thinkin', not really waitin'—but not exactly doin' anything else either. I'm wearing the baby blue dress, The one with the lace at the collar, mended too many times to count but still hangin' right. I don't light the porch lamp. The dark feels easier to sit in. And then I hear him. Not footsteps. Not a branch snapping. Just… the way quiet shifts when something enters it. He steps from the tree line, slow like he don't want to spook the night. This time, he's carryin' something. A small bundle of wildflowers—purple ironweed, white clover, queen anne's lace—loosely knotted with a bit of twine. He stops at the porch steps and looks at me. Then, without a word, he sets the flowers down between us and lowers himself to sit at the edge of the stoop. Close. Not too close.

"I didn't bring 'em for a reason," he says after a while. "Just passed 'em and thought of you." My fingers drift toward the flowers, not quite touchin' them, but close enough to feel the velvet edge of a petal against my skin. The warmth of his nearness makes my breath catch somewhere between my throat and chest. "They're weeds," I murmur, though the word comes out gentle, almost like a caress. "They're what grows without bein' asked," he replies, and the corner of his mouth lifts in that way that makes my stomach drop like I'm fallin'. That quiet comes back. But it's a different kind now. Softer. Like the world's hushin' itself to hear what we might say next. I look at him then. Really look. Not at his mouth or his clothes ,that easy lean of his shoulders or those pouty eyebrows —but his hands. They're calloused, dirt beneath the nails. Not soft like the rest of him sometimes pretends to be. My fingers twitch with the sudden, foolish urge to trace those rough lines, to learn their map.

"You work?" I ask, the question slippin' out before I can catch it, betrayin' a curiosity I wasn't ready to admit. "I do what needs doin'." The words rumble low in his chest. "That's not an answer." I tilt my head, and the night air kisses the exposed curve of my neck. He turns his head, slow. "That's 'cause you ain't ready for the truth." The words wash over me like Mississippi heat—dangerous, thrillin'. My lips part, but no sound comes out. I go back to pickin' the grass, my fingertips brushin' wildflower stems now instead of weeds. Each touch feels deliberate in a way that makes my pulse flutter at my wrist, at my throat. He doesn't push. Doesn't move. Just sits with me 'til the moon's hangin' heavy over the trees, his presence beside me more intoxicatin' than any whiskey from Smoke's bar. The space between us hums with possibilities—with all the things we ain't sayin'. When he leaves, I don't stop him but my body leans forward like it's got its own will, wantin' to follow the trail of his shadow into the dark. But I take the flowers inside. Put 'em in the jelly jar Frank left on the windowsill.

——

The wildflowers sit in that jelly jar like they belong there—like they’ve always belonged. Their colors are faded but stubborn, standing tall in the quiet corner of the kitchen, drinking in the slant of light that filters through the window. I find myself glancing at them too often, like they might tell me something I don’t already know. I tell myself not to read into it, not to hope. But hope’s a quiet thing, and it’s been whispering to me since I first set foot in this place. By dusk, I’m already outside, wrapped in the blanket I keep tucked in the closet, knees drawn up tight. The dusty brown dress I wear is softer with wear, almost like a second skin. I clutch the two tin cups—corn liquor, waiting in the dark, like a held breath. It’s a ritual I don’t question anymore. He comes out the trees just after the steam from the day’s heat begins to fade, silent as always. No rustle of leaves, no announcement. Just that subtle shift in the hush, like the woods are holding their breath. I see him leaning on the porch post, eyes flickering to the cup beside me, like it’s calling him home. “Always know when to show up,” I say, voice low but steady, trying to sound like I don’t care if he’s late or not. Like I’m used to waiting. He tosses back, smooth as dusk, “Always pour for two?” I can’t help the smile that sneaks up—soft and slow. “Only for good company.” He steps closer, slower tonight, like he’s weighing each movement. Sits beside me, leaving just enough space between us for the night air to stretch its arms. I hold out the second cup, the one I poured just for him.

He wraps his fingers around it but doesn’t lift it. Doesn’t bring it to his lips. “Don’t drink?” I ask, voice gentle but curious, like I might catch a lie if I ask too loud. His thumb taps the rim, slow and deliberate. “Used to,” he says, voice quiet but firm. “Too much, maybe. Doesn’t sit right with me these days.” I nod, like that makes sense. Maybe it does. Maybe I don’t want to look too close at the parts that don’t fit. The parts that hurt, that choke down the hope I’m trying to keep buried. Instead, I take a sip, letting the liquor burn a warm trail down my throat. It’s a small comfort, a fleeting warmth. I watch the dark swallow the road that disappears into nothingness, and I say, “Used to think I’d leave this place. Run off somewhere—Memphis, maybe. Open a little store. Serve pies and good coffee. Wear shoes that click when I walk.”

He hums, low and distant, like a train far away. “What stopped you?” My gaze drops to my hand, to the dull gold band that’s thin and worn. I trace the edge with my thumb, feeling the cold metal. “This,” I say. “And maybe I didn’t think I deserved more.” He doesn’t say sorry. Doesn’t say I do. Just looks at me like he’s already seen the ending, like he’s read the last page and ain’t gonna spoil it.

“I worked an orchard once,” he says softly, voice almost lost in the night. “Peaches big as your fist. Skin like velvet. The kind of place that smells like August even in February.” “Sounds made up,” I murmur, feeling the weight of the quiet between us. He leans in closer, eyes steady. “So do dreams. Don’t mean they ain’t real.” A laugh escapes me—sharp and surprised, like I’ve been caught off guard. I slap at his arm before I can think better of it. “You talk like a man who’s read too many books.” “I talk like a man who listens,” he says, quiet but sure. That hush falls again, but it’s different this time—full, like the moment just before a kiss that never quite happens. I feel it—the space between us thickening, heavy with unspoken words and things I can’t say out loud.

— Days passed, he shows up again, bringing blackberries wrapped in a white cloth, stained deep purple-blue. The scent hits me before I see them—sweet, wild, tempting. “Bribery?” I ask, raising an eyebrow, trying to hide the way my heart quickens. “A peace offering,” he replies, with that quiet smile. “In case the last story bored you.” I reach in without asking, pop a berry into my mouth. Juicy and sharp, bursting with sweetness that makes me forget everything else—forgot the weight of my ring, forgot the man inside my house, forgot the world outside this moment. He watches me, a softness behind his eyes I don’t trust but can’t look away from. I hand him the other cup again. He takes it, polite as always, but doesn’t sip. We settle into stories—nothing big, just small things. The town’s latest gossip, a cow wandering into the churchyard last Sunday, the way summer makes the woods smell like wild mint if you walk far enough in. I tell him things I didn’t know I remembered—about my mama’s hands, about the time I got stung trying to kiss a bumblebee, about the blue ribbon pie I made for the fair when I was fifteen, thinking winning meant freedom. He listens like it matters, like these stories are something he’s been waiting to hear. And for the first time in a long while, I laugh with my whole mouth, not caring who hears or what they think. The sound spills out, unfiltered and free, filling the night with something real. I forget the ring on my finger. Forget the man inside the house. Forget everything but this—the night, the berries, and him. The man who doesn’t drink but still knows how to make me feel full.

——

The jelly jar’s gone cloudy from dust and sunlight, but the wildflowers still stand like they’re stubborn enough to outlast the world. A few petals have fallen on the sill, curled and dry, and I haven’t moved them. Let ’em stay. They feel like proof—proof that life’s still fighting, even when everything else is fading. A week’s passed. Seven nights of quiet—hushed conversations I kept to myself, shoulders pressed close under a sky that don’t judge, don’t say a word. Seven nights where my bruises softened in bloom and bloom again, where Frank came home drunk and left early, angry—always angry. Not once did I go to the juke joint—not because I wasn’t welcome, but because I didn’t want to miss a single echo from the woods, a single step that might carry me out.

Remmick never knocks. Never calls out. He just appears—like something old and patient, shaped out of shadow and moonlight, settling beside me without question. Sometimes he brings nothing, and I wonder if he’s even real. Other nights, it’s blackberries, or a story, or just silence, and I let it fill the space between us. And I do. God, I do. I tell him things I never even told Frank. About how I used to pretend the porch was a stage, singin’ blues into a wooden spoon. How my mama braided my hair so tight it made my scalp sting, said pain was the price of lookin’ kept. How I almost ran—bags packed, bus ticket clenched tight—then sat on the curb ‘til dawn, too scared to move, then crawled back inside like a coward. He never judges. Never interrupts. Just watches me, like I’m music he’s heard a thousand times, trying to memorize the lyrics. Tonight, I don’t wait on the porch.

I’m already walkin’. The night’s thick and heavy, like the land’s holdin’ its breath. I slip through the back gate, shawl loose around my shoulders, dress flutterin’ just above my knees. The clearing’s ahead—the path I’ve grown used to walking. He’s already there. Leaning against a tree, like he belongs to it. His white shirt glows faint under the moon, suspenders hanging loose, like he forgot to do up the buttons. There’s a crease between his brows that smooths when he sees me—like he’s been waitin’ for me to come, even if he don’t say it. “You’re early,” he says, low. “I couldn’t sit still,” I whisper back, voice soft but steady. His eyes trace me—like he’s drawing a map he’s known a thousand times but still finds new roads. I step toward him slow, the grass cool beneath my feet, and when I’m close enough to feel the pull of him, I stop. “I been thinkin’,” I say, real quiet. “Dangerous thing,” he murmurs, lips twitching just enough to make my heart kick.

“I ain’t been to the joint all week,” I continue, voice thick as summer air. “Ain’t danced. Ain’t played. Ain’t needed to.” He waits—patient, silent. Like always. “I’d rather be here,” I whisper, and something inside me cracks open. “With you.” The silence that follows ain’t cold. It’s heavy—warm, even. Like a breath held tight in the chest before a storm breaks loose, like the whole earth hums with what’s coming. “I know,” he says. Just that. Two words that make me feel seen and bare and weightless all at once. I don’t think. I just move. Step into him, hands pressed to the buttons of his shirt. My eyes stay fixed on his mouth, not lookin’ anywhere else. And when he doesn’t pull back—when he leans just enough to meet me—I kiss him. It starts soft. Lips barely grazin’, testing, waiting for something to happen. But then he exhales—like he’s been holdin’ somethin’ in for a century—and the second kiss isn’t soft anymore. It’s heat. It’s need. My fingers clutch his shirt like I’m drownin’, and he’s oxygen. His hands find my waist, firm but gentle, like he’s afraid of breakin’ me even as he pulls me closer. I swear the whole forest leans in to watch, silent and still.

He don’t push. Don’t take more than I give. But what I give? It’s everything.

He don’t say nothin’ when I pull back. Just watches me, tongue slow across his bottom lip, like he’s already tasted me in a dream. “C’mere,” he says low, voice rough as gravel soaked in honey. “You smell sweet as sin.” I step into him again without thinkin’, heart rattlin’ around like it’s tryin’ to climb outta my chest. His palm presses to the back of my neck, warm and heavy, pulling me into a kiss that don’t feel like a kiss. It’s a deal, made in shadows, older than us all—something that’s been waitin’ to happen. The second our mouths meet, he moans deep in his chest—like he’s relieved, like he’s been holdin’ back for years. Then he spins me—fast—hands already under my dress. “Ain’t no point bein’ shy now, baby. Not after all them nights sittin’ close, like you wasn’t drippin’ for me.” My knees almost buckle. He bends me over a log, and I don’t resist. I can’t. My hands grip the bark tight, dress shoved up, panties dragged down with a yank that’s impatient and sure. I hear him spit into his palm. Hear the slick sound of him strokin’ himself once, twice. Then he sinks into me—slow, too slow—like he’s memorizing every inch, every breath I take. My mouth opens, no words, just a gasp that’s all I can manage. “Goddamn,” he mutters behind me. “Look at you takin’ me. Tight like you was built for it.” He starts movin’, deep and filthy, grindin’ into me with purpose. I arch back into it, already lost in the feel of him. And then I see it. His face—just behind my shoulder. His jaw clenched tight. His pupils blown wide—no, glowing. A flicker of red embers in each eye, like fire trapped inside. I blink, and it’s gone. I tell myself it’s the moonlight, the heat, how mushy my brain is from what he’s doin’, like he owns me. He don’t give me a second to think. “Feel that?” he growls. “Feel how your pussy’s huggin’ my cock like she knows me?” I whimper—pathetic, high-pitched—but I can’t stop it. “Remmick—fuck—” He yanks my hair, just enough, til I tilt my head back. “You was waitin’ for this,” he says, voice low and rough. “I seen it. Seen the way you look at me like I’m the last bad thing you’ll ever let hurt you.” Leaning into my neck, lips brushing skin, breath cold now—too cold. “But I ain’t gone hurt you, darlin.’ I’m gone ruin you.” He bites—just a little, not sharp—enough to make me gasp, my whole body tensing on him. He laughs—soft, wicked. “Oh yeah,” he says, rutting harder. “You gone come for me like this. Face in the moss, legs shakin’. All these pretty little sounds spillin’ out your mouth like you need it.” I can barely keep up. Dizziness hits hard, slick runnin’ down my thighs, his cock hittin’ that spot over and over. “Say you’re mine,” he growls, hips slammin’ in so deep I cry out. “I’m yours—fuck—I’m yours, Remmick—” His voice drops—dark, velvet, dirtied—like he’s talkin’ from a place even he don’t fully understand. “Good girl,” he mutters. “Ain’t nobody gone fuck you like me. Ain’t nobody got the hunger I do.” And I feel his hand—big and rough—wrap around my throat from behind, just enough to remind me he’s still in control. Then he starts pumpin’ into me—fast, mean, nasty. My back arches. My moans break into sobs. “You gone give it to me?” he pants, barely human anymore. “Come all over this cock?” I want to answer. I try. But I can’t—my body’s already gone, trembling on the edge of something wild and white and all-consuming. And the second I come—everything breaks loose. He buries himself deep and roars—low and wrong, not a man’s sound at all. I feel him twitch, feel the flood of heat spill inside me, and his face presses into my neck, mouth open like he’s fightin’ the urge to bite down.

But he doesn’t. He just stays there. Still. Breathin’ like he ain’t breathed in years. ——

The morning creeps in slow, afraid to wake me, like it knows I’ve crossed a line I can’t come back from. I roll over, the sheet sticky against my skin, last night’s heat still clingin’. For a second—just a second—I forget where I am. Forget the weight of the house, the stale scent of bourbon and sweat baked into the walls. All I feel is the ghost of him—Remmick—still there in the ache between my thighs, in the buzz that lingers low in my belly. Remembered the way remmick carried me back to my porch and kissed me goodnight before walking away becoming one with the night. My fingers drift without thought, pressing just above my hip where a dull throb pulses. I wince, then pull the blanket back. And there it is. A dark, new bruise—shaped like a handprint—only it ain’t right. Too long. The fingers are too slim, curved strange, like something trying too hard to be human. My breath catches. I press again—harder this time—hoping pain might wash the shape away, or that pressure might flatten whatever’s twisted inside me.

But it doesn’t.

So I pull the blanket up, wrap it tight around me, and lie still, staring at the ceiling—waiting for some sign, some answer, some permission to feel what I shouldn’t. Because the truth is—I should be scared. I should be askin’ questions. Should be second-guessin’ everything last night meant.

But I’m not.

Instead, I replay how he looked at me—how his hands, too warm, too sure, moved like they’d known my body in another life. How he said my name like it was already his. I press my legs together under the sheet, close my eyes, and breathe deep. A girl gets used to silence. Gets used to fear. But nobody warns you how dangerous it is to be wanted that way. Touched like you’re somethin’ rare. Somethin’ sacred. Somethin’ wanted.

And I—I liked it. More than that—I craved it now. Even with the bruises. Even with the shadows twisting in my gut. Even with the memory of those eyes—burnin’ too bright in the dark. Don’t know if it’s love. But it sure as hell felt like it.

——

I move slow through the kitchen that morning, feet bare against cool linoleum. The coffee’s already gone bitter in the pot. Frank’s still in bed, his snores rasping through the cracked door like dull saw blades. I lean against the sink, sip from a chipped mug, and glance out the window. The jelly jar’s still there. Wildflowers wiltin’ now, but proud in their dying. I touch the bruise again through my dress. And I smile. Just a little. Because maybe something ain’t quite right. But for the first time in a long while—I’m happy, or well I thought…

——

The nights kept rollin’ like they belonged to us. Me and Remmick, sittin’ under stars that blinked like they was tryin’ to stay quiet. Sometimes we talked a lot. Sometimes we didn’t too much. But even the silence with him had weight, like it was filled with words we weren’t ready to say yet.

I’d tell him stories from before Frank, when my laughter hadn’t yet learned to flinch. He’d listen with that look he had—chin dipped low, eyes tilted up, mouth soft like he was drinkin’ me in, slow. He never interrupted. Never tried to solve anything. Just sat with it all. That kind of listenin’ can make a woman feel holy.

And I guess I got used to that rhythm. I got too used to it.

Because on the twelfth night, maybe the thirteenth—don’t really matter—he said something that pulled the thread straight from the hem. We were sittin’ close again. My shawl slippin’ off one shoulder, the moonlight makin’ silver out of the bruises on my thigh. He had that look on him again, like he wanted to ask somethin’ he’d already decided to regret. “You know Sammie?” he asked, real casual. Like it was just another name. I blinked. The name hit strange. “Sammie who?” He shrugged like he didn’t know the last name. “That boy. Plays that guitar like it talks back. You said he played with Pearline sometimes.” I sat up straighter.

I never said that.

I’d never mentioned Sammie at all. I swallowed. My smile faded before I could think to save it. “I don’t remember bringin’ up Sammie.” The pause that followed was heavy. And not in the good way. Remmick shifted beside me, slow. His jaw ticked once. “You sure?” I nodded, eyes never leaving him. “I’d remember talkin’ ‘bout Sammie.” He looked out at the trees, the edge of his mouth tight. “Huh.” And just like that, the air changed. It got thinner. Like breath didn’t want to come easy no more. I pulled the shawl closer. Suddenly real aware of the fact that I didn’t know where he slept. Didn’t know if he ever blinked when I wasn’t lookin’. “You alright?” he asked, too quick. “You askin’ me that, or yourself?” He turned to me then—real sharp. Real focused. “Why you gettin’ quiet?”

I didn’t answer. Not right away.

“Just surprised, is all,” I finally said, trying to smooth it over like I hadn’t just tripped on somethin’ sharp in his words. “Didn’t think you knew anybody round here.” “I don’t,” he said, fast. “You’re the only one I talk to.” “Then how you know Sammie plays guitar? I’ve never seen you at the juke joint nor heard word about you from anyone there.” His stare was too still now. Too fixed. Like a dog watchin’ a rabbit it ain’t sure it’s allowed to chase. “Maybe I heard it through the wind,” he said, not responding to the other part. But there was no smile behind it. Just the shadow of a man used to bein’ questioned. A man who didn’t like the feel of it. I stood, brushing grass off my legs. “I should head in.” He stood too, slower. Taller than I remembered. Or maybe the night just made him bigger.

“You mad at me?” he asked, quiet now. “No,” I said. “Just thinkin’. That alright with you?” He nodded. But it didn’t look like agreement. It looked like calculation. I didn’t turn my back on him till I hit the porch. And even then, I felt his eyes stick to my spine like syrup. Inside, I sat by the window, hands still wrapped around the cup I didn’t finish. The wildflowers were dry now. Curlin’ in on themselves. And I thought to myself—real quiet, so it wouldn’t wake the rest of me: How the hell did he know Sammie and what business he wan’ with him?

——— The days slipped back into that gray stretch of sameness after I started avoidin’ him. I filled my hours with chores, with silence, with tryin’ to forget the way Remmick used to sit so still beside me you’d think the night made room for him. But the nights weren’t mine anymore. I stopped goin’ to the porch. Stopped lingerin’ in the dark. The quiet didn’t soothe me—it stalked me. I felt it behind me on the walk home. At the edge of the trees. In the walls. I knew he was there.

Watchin’. Waitin’.

But I didn’t let him in again. Not even with my thoughts. That night, the juke joint buzzed with life. Hot bodies pressed close, laughter thick with drink, music ridin’ high on the air. I hadn’t been back in weeks, but I needed noise. Needed people. Needed not to feel alone. I sipped liquor like it might drown the nerves rattlin’ under my ribs. Played cards with a few men, some women. Slammed down a queen and grinned as I scooped the pot. That’s when Annie approached me.

“Y/N,” she whispered, voice tight. I looked up. “Frank’s here.” The name hit like a slap. I blinked. “What?” “He’s outside. Ask’n for you.” Annie’s face was pale, serious. Not the usual mischief in her eyes—just worry. I rose slow. “He’s never come here before.” Annie just nodded. We moved together, my heart poundin’. Smoke, Stack, and Cornbread were already standin’ at the open door, muscles tense, words clipped and low. When Frank saw me, he smiled. That wide, too-big smile I’d never seen on him. Not even on our wedding day. “Hey baby,” he drawled, too casual. “Wonderin’ when you’d come out here and let me in. These folks actin’ like I done somethin’ wrong.”

My stomach dropped. He never called me baby.

“Frank, why’re you here?” My voice was calm, but confusion lined every word. He laughed—soft, amused. “Can’t a man come see his wife? Thought maybe I’d finally check out what keeps you out so late.” Something was off. Everything was off. “You hate loud music,” I said, heart poundin’. “You said this place was full of nothin’ but whores and heathens.” He looked… wrong. Eyes too glassy. Skin too pale under the porch light. “Can’t we all change?” he said, teeth flashin’. “Now can I come in and enjoy my night like you folks?”

I looked at Smoke. He gave me that look—the one that said “you don’t gotta say yes.” But I opened my mouth anyway. Paused. Frank’s smile dropped just a little. “Y/N,” he said, his voice darker now. Familiar in its danger. “Can I come in or not?” My hand flew up before Stack could step forward. I swallowed hard.

“Come in, Frank.”

The words fell like stones. And just like that, the door to hell opened. The moment he crossed that threshold, the temperature dropped. I swear it did.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t drink. Just sat at the bar, stiff and still, like a wolf wearin’ man’s skin. Annie leaned into Smoke’s shoulder. “Somethin’ ain’t right,” she muttered. Mary nodded, arms folded. “He looks hollow.” Thirty minutes passed. Then Frank stood. Didn’t say a word. Just turned and walked into the crowd like a man on a mission. Headin’ straight for the stage.

Straight for Sammie.

Smoke pushed off the wall, followin’ fast. But before anyone could act, Frank lunged—grabbed a man near the front and tackled him to the floor. Screamin’ erupted as Frank sank his teeth into the man’s neck. Bit down. Tore. Blood sprayed across the floorboards, across people’s shoes. The scream that left my throat didn’t sound like mine. Smoke pulled his pistol and fired. The sound cracked through the joint like lightning. The man jerked, then stilled. Frank’s body fell limp over him, gore soakin’ his shirt. Then suddenly Frank stood back up like he wasn’t just shot in the head, the man he bitten standing up besides him the same eerie smile on both their blood stained mouths.

I stood frozen in place.

People screamed, chairs overturned, glass shattered. Stack wrestled another body that started lurchin’ with glowing -white eyes. Mary grabbed Pearline, draggin’ her through the back exit. Annie grabbed me. “Y/N—we gotta GO!” We burst through the back, runnin’. I took the lead, feet slammin’ down the path I used to walk like a lullaby. Not now. Not anymore. Now it felt like runnin’ through a grave. Behind me, I heard chaos—growls, screams, more gunshots. I looked back once. Bodies jumpin’ on each other, teeth sinkin’ into flesh. All Their eyes— White. Glowing like candle flames in a dead house. Annie was right behind me.

Then she wasn’t.

I turned. They were all gone. Sammie. Pearline. Mary. Annie. Gone.

I kept runnin’. The clearing opened up like a mouth, and I stumbled into it, chest heaving. And that’s when I saw him. Same silhouette. Same calm. But he wasn’t the man I knew. Remmick stood just beyond the tree line, Same shirt. Same pants. But now soaked through with blood. But his face— That smile wasn’t his smile. Those eyes weren’t human. Red. Glowing like coals. Just like I thought I saw that night I gave him everything. I froze. My legs locked. My throat closed up. Remmick tilted his head, playful. Mocking.

“Oh darlin’,” he cooed, stepping forward, arms out like a man offerin’ salvation. “Where you think you runnin’ off to? You’re gonna miss the party.” I stumbled back, tears burnin’ in my eyes. “What are you?” He stepped forward, arms open like he meant to cradle me, like he hadn’t just let blood dry on his chest. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said, like it was me betrayin’ him. “You knew. Somewhere in that smart little head of yours, you knew. The eyes, the voice, the way I don’t come out durin’ daytime—”

“You lied,” I whispered. “Only when I needed too,” he said. I shook my head. “I thought you loved me.” Remmick stopped, cocking his head. Everything soft in him was gone. Only sharp edges now. “You thought it was love?” he asked, teeth glintin’ between blood. “You thought I wanted you?” I flinched.

“All I needed was a way in. You—” he stepped closer, “—were just a door. But you kept it shut. Had to break you open. Took longer than I liked.” “I trusted you,” I said, voice crumblin’. “And you broke so pretty,” he said. “I almost didn’t wanna finish the job. But then you ran. Made it… inconvenient.” He hissed softly, a grin curling up like a scar.

“I didn’t want you, Y/N. I wanted Sammie. That boy’s voice carries somethin’ old in it. Ancient. And that joint?” He gestured back toward the chaos. “It’s sacred ground.” “You used me,” I whispered, tears burnin’ now. “I let you in. I trusted you.”

“You believed me,” he corrected. “And that’s all I ever needed.” My breath caught somewhere between my ribs and spine, all my blood screamin’ for me to run. But I couldn’t move—just stared at Remmick, my chest heavy with grief, with betrayal, with rage. He tilted his head again, eyes burning like iron pulled from a forge. “I didn’t want you,” he said again, voice soft as a lullaby. “I wanted the key. And girl, you were it.”

My throat worked around a sob. My legs, finally rememberin’ they was mine, shifted. I turned to bolt— And stopped.

There they stood.

A wall of them.

Faces I knew too well. Cornbread. Mary. Stack. Even Annie—lips pulled in a wide, wrong smile. Their skin was pale, waxy. Their eyes—oh God, their eyes—glowin’ white like candles lit from the inside. They didn’t speak at first. Just smiled. Stared.

And then—slow and soft—they started to hum. That same song Sammie used to play on slow nights. The one that never had words, just a melody made of aching and memory. But now it had words. And they all sang ‘em. “Sleep, little darlin’, the dark’s gone sweet, The blood runs warm, the circle’s complete, its freedom you seek…”

I backed away, breath shiverin’ in and out of my lungs. The chorus kept swellin’. Their voices overlappin’, mouths stretchin’ too wide, white eyes never blinkin’. Like they weren’t people anymore. Just shells. Just echoes.

I turned back to Remmick— And he was right in front of me. So close I could see the dried blood on his collar, the gleam of teeth too long to belong in any man’s mouth. He lifted his hand—calm, steady. Like he was invitin’ me to dance. “Come on, Y/N,” he whispered, smile almost tender now. “Ain’t you tired of runnin’?” I didn’t know if I was breathin’. Didn’t know if I wanted to be. Everything hurt. Everything I’d carried—love, hope, grief, rage—it all sat in my mouth like copper.

I looked at his hand again. And maybe, for just a moment, I thought about takin’ it. But maybe I didn’t. Maybe I turned and ran straight into the woods. Maybe I screamed. Maybe I smiled. Maybe I never left that clearin’. Maybe I did. Maybe the darkness that took over me, was just my eyes closed wishing to wake from this nightmare.

[darkbluemoonspirit]

Mercy Made Flesh

one-shot

Remmick x fem!reader

summary: In the heat-choked hush of the Mississippi Delta, you answer a knock you swore would never come. Remmick—unaging, unholy, unforgettable—returns to collect what was promised. What follows is not romance, but ritual. A slow, sensual surrender to a hunger older than the Trinity itself.

wc: 13.1k

a/n: Listen. I didn’t mean to simp for Vampire Jack O’Connell—but here we are. I make no apologies for letting Remmick bite first and ask questions never. Thank you to my bestie Nat (@kayharrisons) for beta reading and hyping me up, without her this fic wouldn't exist, everyone say thank you Nat!

warnings: vampirism, southern gothic erotica, blood drinking as intimacy, canon-typical violence, explicit sexual content, oral sex (f!receiving), first time, bloodplay, biting, marking, monsterfucking (soft edition), religious imagery, devotion as obsession, gothic horror vibes, worship kink, consent affirmed, begging, dirty talk, gentle ruin, haunting eroticism, power imbalance, slow seduction, soul-binding, immortal x mortal, he wants to keep her forever, she lets him, fem!reader, second person pov, 1930s mississippi delta, house that breathes, you will be fed upon emotionally & literally

tags: @xhoneymoonx134

likes, comments, and reblogs appreciated! please enjoy

Mississippi Delta, 1938

The heat hadn’t broken in days.

Not even after sunset, when the sky turned the color of old bruises and the crickets started singing like they were being paid to. It was the kind of heat that soaked into the floorboards, that crept beneath your thin cotton slip and clung to your back like sweat-slicked hands. The air was syrupy, heavy with magnolia and something murkier—soil, maybe. River water. Something that made you itch beneath your skin.

Your cottage sat just outside the edge of town, past the schoolhouse where you spent your days sorting through ledgers and lesson plans that no one but you ever really seemed to care about. It was modest—two rooms and a porch, set back behind a crumbling white-picket fence and swallowed by trees that whispered in the dark. A little sanctuary tucked into the Delta, surrounded by cornfields, creeks, and ghosts.

The kind of place a person could disappear if they wanted to. The kind of place someone could find you…if they were patient enough.

You stood in front of the sink, rinsing out a chipped enamel cup, your hands moving automatically. The oil lamp on the kitchen table flickered with each breath of wind slipping through the cracks in the warped window frame. A cicada screamed in the distance, then another, and then the whole world was humming in chorus.

And beneath it—beneath the cicadas, and the wind, and the nightbirds—you felt something shift.

A quiet. Too quiet.

You turned your head. Listened harder.

Nothing.

Not even the frogs.

Your hand paused in the dishwater. Fingers trembling just a little. It wasn’t like you to be spooked by the dark. You’d grown up in it. Learned to make friends with shadows. Learned not to flinch when things moved just out of sight.

But this?

This was different.

It was as if the night was holding its breath.

And then—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Not loud. Not frantic. But final.

Your body went stiff. The cup slipped beneath the water and bumped the side of the basin with a hollow clink.

No one ever came this far out after sundown. No one but—

You shook your head, almost hard enough to rattle something loose.

No.

He was gone. That part of your life was buried.

You made sure of it.

Still, your bare feet moved toward the door like they weren’t yours. Soft against the creaky wood. Slow. You reached for the small revolver you kept in the drawer beside the door frame, thumbed the hammer back.

Another knock. This time, softer. Almost...polite.

Your hand rested on the knob.

The porch light had been dead for weeks, so you couldn’t see who was waiting on the other side. But the air—something in the air—told you.

It was him.

You didn’t answer. Not right away.

You stood there with your palm flat against the rough wood, your forehead nearly touching it too—eyes shut, breath shallow. The air on the other side didn’t stir like it should’ve. No footfalls creaking the porch. No shuffle of boots on sun-bleached planks. Just stillness. Waiting.

And underneath your ribs, something began to ache. Something you hadn’t let yourself feel in years.

You didn’t know his name, not back then. You only knew his eyes—gold in the shadows. Red when caught in the light. Like a firelight in the dark. Like a blood red moon through stained-glass windows.

And his voice. Low. Dragging vowels like syrup. A Southern accent that didn’t come from any map you’d ever seen—older than towns, older than state lines. A voice that had told you, seven years ago, with impossible calm:

"You’ll know when it’s time."

You knew. Your hands trembled against your sides. But you didn’t back away. Some part of you knew how useless running would be.

The knob beneath your hand felt cold. Too cold for Mississippi in August.

You turned it.

The door opened slow, hinges whining like they were trying to warn you. You stepped back instinctively—just one step—and then he was there.

Remmick.

Still tall, still lean in that devastating way—like his body was carved from something hard and mean, but shaped to tempt. He wore a crisp white shirt rolled to the elbows, suspenders hanging loose from his hips, and trousers that looked far too clean for a man who walked through the dirt. His hair was messy in that intentional way, brown and swept back like he’d been running hands through it all night. Stubble lined his sharp jaw, catching the lamplight just so.

But it was his face that rooted you to the floor. That hollowed out your breath.

Still young. Still wrong.

Not a wrinkle, not a scar. Not a mark of time. He hadn’t aged a day.

And his eyes—oh, God, his eyes.

They caught the lamp behind you and lit up red, bright and glinting, like the embers of a dying fire. Not human. Not even pretending.

"Hello, dove."

His voice curled into your bones like cigarette smoke. You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

You hated how your body reacted.

Hated that you could still feel it—like something old and molten stirring between your thighs, a flicker of the same heat you’d felt that night in the alley, back when you were too desperate to care what kind of creature answered your prayer.

He looked you over once. Not with hunger. With certainty. Like he already knew how this would end. Like he already owned you.

"You remember, don’t you?" he asked.

"I came to collect."

And your voice—when it finally came—was little more than a whisper.

"You can’t be real."

That smile. That slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. Wolfish. Slow.

"You promised."

You wanted to shut the door. Slam it. Deadbolt it. But your hand didn’t move.

Remmick didn’t step forward, not yet. He stood just outside the threshold, framed by night and cypress trees and the distant flicker of heat lightning beyond the fields. The air around him pulsed with something old—older than the land, older than you, older than anything you could name.

He tilted his head the way animals do, watching you, letting the silence thicken like molasses between you.

"Still living out here all on your own," he murmured, gaze drifting over your shoulders, into the small, tidy kitchen behind you. "Hung your laundry on the line this morning. Blue dress, lace hem. Favorite one, ain’t it?"

Your stomach clenched. That dress hadn’t seen a neighbor’s eye all week.

"You've been watching me," you said, your voice low, unsure if it was accusation or realization.

"I’ve been waiting," he said. "Not the same thing."

You swallowed hard. Your breath caught in your throat like a thorn. The wind shifted, and you caught the faintest trace of something—dried tobacco, smoke, rain-soaked dirt, and beneath it, the iron-sweet tinge of blood.

Not fresh. Not violent. Just…present. Like it lived in him.

"I paid my debt," you whispered.

"No, you survived it," he said, stepping up onto the first board of the porch. The wood didn’t creak beneath his weight. "And that’s only half the bargain."

He still hadn’t crossed the threshold.

The stories came back to you, the ones whispered by old women with trembling hands and ash crosses pressed to their doorways—vampires couldn’t enter unless invited. But you hadn’t invited him, not this time.

"You don’t have permission," you said.

He smiled, eyes flashing red again.

"You gave it, seven years ago."

Your breath hitched.

"I was a girl," you said.

"You were desperate," he corrected. "And honest. Desperation makes people honest in ways they can’t be twice. You knew what you were offering me, even if you didn’t understand it. Your promise had teeth."

The wind pushed against your back, as if urging you forward.

Remmick stepped closer, just enough for the shadows to kiss the line of his throat, the hollow of his collarbone. His voice dropped, intimate now—dragging across your skin like a fingertip behind the ear.

"You asked for a miracle. I gave it to you. And now I’m here for what’s mine."

Your heart thudded violently in your chest.

"I didn’t think you’d come."

"That’s the thing about monsters, dove." He leaned down, lips almost grazing the curve of your jaw. "We always do."

And then—

He stepped back.

The wind stopped.

The night fell quiet again, like the world had paused just to watch what you’d do next.

"I’ll wait out here till you’re ready," he said, turning toward the swing on your porch and settling into it like he had all the time in the world. "But don’t make me knock twice. Wouldn’t be polite."

The swing groaned beneath him as it rocked gently, back and forth.

You stood there frozen in the doorway, one bare foot still inside the house, the other brushing the edge of the porch.

You’d made a promise.

And he was here to keep it.

The door stayed open. Just enough for the night to reach inside.

You didn’t move.

Your body stood still but your mind wandered—back to that night in the alley, to the smell of blood and piss and riverwater, your knees soaked in your brother’s lifeblood as you screamed for help that never came. Except it did. It came in the shape of a man who didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, didn’t make promises the way mortals did.

It came in the shape of him.

You thought time would wash it away. That the years would smooth the edges of his voice in your memory, dull the sharpness of his presence. But now, with him just outside your door, it all returned like a fever dream—hot, all-consuming, too real to outrun.

You turned away from the threshold, slowly, carefully, as if the floor might cave in under you. Your hands trembled as you reached for the oil lamp on the table, adjusting the flame lower until it flickered like a dying heartbeat.

The silence behind you dragged, deep and waiting. He didn’t speak again. Didn’t call for you.

He didn’t have to.

You moved through the house in slow circles. Touching things. Straightening them. Folding a dishcloth. Setting a book back on the shelf, even though you’d already read it twice. You tried to pretend you weren’t thinking about the man on your porch. But the heat of him pressed against the back of your mind like a hand.

You could feel him out there. Not just physically—but in you, somehow. Like the air had shifted around his shape, and the longer he lingered, the more your body remembered what it had felt like to stand in front of something not quite human and still want.

You passed the mirror in the hallway and paused.

Your reflection looked undone. Not in the way your hair had fallen from its pin, or the flush across your cheeks, but deeper—like something inside you had been cracked open. You touched your own throat, right where you imagined his mouth might go.

No bite.

Not yet.

But you swore you could feel phantom teeth.

You went back to the door, holding your breath, and looked at him through the screen.

He hadn’t moved. He sat on the swing, one leg stretched out, the other bent lazily beneath him, arms slung across the backrest like he’d always belonged there. A cigarette burned between two fingers, the tip flaring orange as he dragged from it. The scent of it hit you—rich, earthy, and somehow foreign, like something imported from a place no longer on the map.

He didn’t look at you right away.

Then, slowly, he did.

Red eyes caught yours.

He smiled, small and slow, like he was reading a page of you he’d already memorized.

"Thought you’d shut the door by now," he said.

"I should have," you answered.

"But you didn’t."

His voice curled into the quiet.

You stepped out onto the porch, barefoot, the boards warm beneath your soles. He didn’t move to greet you. He didn’t rise. He just watched you walk toward him like he’d been watching in dreams you never remembered having.

The swing groaned as you sat down beside him, a careful space between you.

His shoulder brushed yours.

You stared straight ahead, out into the night. A mist was beginning to rise off the distant fields. The moon hung low and orange like a wound in the sky.

Somewhere in the bayou, a whippoorwill called, long and mournful.

"How long have you been watching me?" you asked.

"Since before you knew to look."

"Why now?"

He turned toward you. His voice was velvet-wrapped iron.

"Because now…you’re ripe for the pickin’.”

You didn’t remember falling asleep.

One moment you were on the porch beside him, listening to the slow groan of the swing and the way the crickets held their breath when he exhaled, the next you were waking in your bed, the sheets tangled around your legs like they were trying to hold you down.

The house was too quiet.

No birdsong. No creak of the windmill out back. No rustle of the sycamores that scraped against your bedroom window on stormy nights.

Just stillness.

And scent.

It clung to the cotton of your nightdress. Tobacco smoke, sweat, rain. Him.

You sat up slowly, pressing your hand to your chest. Your heart thudded like it was trying to remember who it belonged to. The lamp beside your bed had burned down to a stub. A trickle of wax curled like a vein down the side of the glass.

Your mouth tasted like smoke and guilt. Your thighs ached in that low, humming way—though you couldn’t say why. Nothing had happened. Not really.

But something had changed.

You felt it under your skin, in the place where blood meets breath.

The floor was cool under your feet as you moved. You didn’t dress. Just pulled a robe over your slip and stepped into the hallway. The house felt heavier than usual, thick with the ghost of his presence. Every corner held a whisper. Every shadow a shape.

You opened the front door.

The porch was empty.

The swing still rocked gently, as if someone had only just stood up from it.

A folded piece of paper lay on the top step, weighted down by a smooth river stone.

You picked it up with trembling hands.

Come.

That was all it said. One word. But it rang through your bones like gospel. Like a vow.

You looked out across the field. A narrow dirt road stretched beyond the tree line, overgrown but clear. You’d never dared follow it. That road didn’t belong to you.

It belonged to him.

And now…so did you.

You didn’t bring anything with you.

Not a suitcase. Not a shawl. Not a Bible tucked under your arm for comfort.

Just yourself.

And the road.

The hem of your slip was already damp by the time you reached the edge of the field. Dew clung to your ankles like cold fingers, and the earth was soft beneath your feet—fresh from last night’s storm, the kind that never really breaks the heat, only deepens it. The moon had gone down, but the sky was beginning to bruise with that blue-black ink that comes before sunrise. Everything smelled like wet grass, magnolia, and the faint rot of old wood.

The path curved, narrowing as it passed through trees that leaned in too close. Their branches kissed above you like they were whispering secrets into each other’s leaves. Spanish moss hung like veils from the oaks, dripping silver in the fading dark. It made the world feel smaller. Quieter. As if you were walking into something sacred—or something doomed.

A crow cawed once in the distance. Sharp. Hollow. You didn’t flinch.

There was no sound of wheels. No car waiting. Just the road and the fog and the promise you'd made.

And then you saw it.

The house.

Tucked deep in the grove, half-swallowed by vines and time, it rose like a memory from the earth. A decaying plantation, left to rot in the wet belly of the Delta. Its bones were still beautiful—white columns streaked with black mildew, a grand porch that sagged like a mouth missing teeth, shuttered windows with iron latches rusted shut. Ivy grew up the sides like it was trying to strangle the place. Or maybe protect it.

You stood there at the edge of the clearing, breath caught in your throat.

He’d brought you here.

Or maybe he’d always been here. Waiting. Dreaming of the moment you’d return to him without even knowing it.

A shape moved behind one of the upstairs curtains. Quick. Barely there.

You didn’t run.

Your bare foot found the first step.

It groaned like it recognized you.

The door was already open.

Not wide—just enough for you to know it had been waiting.

And you stepped inside.

The air inside was colder.

Not the kind of cold that came from breeze or shade—but from stillness, from the absence of sun and time. A hush so thick it felt like you were walking underwater. Like the house had held its breath for decades and only now began to exhale.

Dust spiraled in the faint light seeping through fractured windows, casting soft halos through the dark. The wooden floor beneath your feet was warped and groaning, but clean. Not in any natural sense—there was no broom that had touched these boards. No polish or soap.

But it had been kept.

The air didn’t smell like rot or mildew. It smelled like cedar. Like old leather. And deeper beneath that, like him.

He hadn’t lit any lamps.

Just the fireplace, burning low, glowing embers pulsing orange-red at the back of a cavernous hearth. The flame danced shadows across the faded wallpaper, peeling in long strips like dead skin. A high-backed chair faced the fire, velvet blackened from age, its silhouette looming like something alive.

You swallowed, lips dry, and stepped further in.

Your voice didn’t carry. It didn’t even try.

Remmick was nowhere in sight.

But he was here.

You could feel him in the walls, in the way the house seemed to lean closer with every step you took.

You passed through the parlor, past a dusty grand piano with one ivory key cracked down the middle. Past oil portraits too old to make out, their eyes blurred with time. Past a single vase of dried wildflowers, colorless now, but carefully arranged.

You paused in the doorway to the drawing room, your hand resting lightly on the frame.

A whisper of air moved behind you.

Then—

A hand.

Not grabbing. Not harsh. Just the light press of fingers against the small of your back, palm flat and warm through the thin cotton of your slip.

You froze.

He was behind you.

So close you could feel his breath at your neck. Not warm, not cold—just present. Like wind through a crack in the door. Like the memory of a touch before it lands.

His voice was low, close to your ear.

"You came."

You didn’t answer.

"You always would have."

You wanted to say no. Wanted to deny it. But you stood there trembling under his hand, your heartbeat so loud you were sure he could hear it.

Maybe that was why he smiled.

He stepped around you slowly, letting his fingers graze the side of your waist as he moved. His eyes glinted red in the firelight, catching on you like a flame drawn to dry kindling.

He looked at you like he was already undressing you.

Not your clothes—your will.

And it was already unraveling.

You’d suspected he wasn’t born of this soil.

Not just because of the way he moved—like he didn’t quite belong to gravity—but because of the way he spoke. Like time hadn’t worn the edges off his words the way it had with everyone else. His voice curled around vowels like smoke curling through keyholes. Rich and low, but laced with something older. Something foreign. Something that made the hair at the nape of your neck rise when he spoke too softly, too close.

He didn’t speak like a man from the Delta.

He spoke like something older than it.

Older than the country. Maybe older than God.

Remmick stopped in front of you, lit only by firelight.

His eyes had dulled from red to something deeper—like old garnet held to a candle. His shirt was open at the collar now, suspenders hanging slack, the buttons on his sleeves rolled to his elbows. His forearms were dusted with faint scars that looked like they had stories. His skin was pale in the glow, but not lifeless. He looked like marble warmed by touch.

He studied you for a long time.

You weren’t sure if it was your face he was reading, or something beneath it. Something you couldn’t hide.

"You look just like your mother," he said finally.

Your breath caught.

"You knew her?"

A soft smirk curled at the corner of his mouth.

"I’ve known a lot of people, dove. I just never forget the ones with your blood."

You didn’t ask what he meant. Not yet.

There was something heavy in his tone—something laced with memory that stretched back far further than it should. You had guessed, years ago, in the sleepless weeks after that alleyway miracle, that he was not new to this world. That his youth was a trick of the skin. A lie worn like a mask.

You’d read every folklore book you could get your hands on. Every whisper of vampire lore scratched into the margins of ledgers, stuffed between church hymnals, scribbled on the backs of newspapers.

Some said they aged. Slowly. Elegantly.

Others said they didn’t age at all. That they existed outside time. Beyond it.

You didn’t know how old Remmick was.

But something in your bones told you the truth.

Five hundred. Six hundred, maybe more.

A man who remembered empires. A man who had watched cities rise and burn. Who had danced in plague-slick ballrooms and kissed queens before they were beheaded. A man who had lived so long that names no longer mattered. Only debts. And blood.

And you’d given him both.

He stepped closer now, slow and deliberate.

"Yer heart’s gallopin’ like it thinks I’m here to take it."

You flinched. Not because he was wrong. But because he was right.

"You said you didn’t want my blood," you whispered.

"I don’t." He tilted his head. "Not yet."

"Then what do you want?"

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

"You."

He said it like it was a simple thing. Like the rain wanting the river. Like the grave wanting the body.

You swallowed hard.

"Why me?"

His gaze dragged down your frame, unhurried, like a man admiring a painting he’d stolen once and hidden from the world.

"Because you belong to me. You gave yourself freely. No bargain’s ever tasted so sweet."

Your throat tightened.

"I didn’t know what I was agreeing to."

"You did," he said, softly now, stepping close enough that his chest nearly brushed yours. "You knew. Your soul knew. Even if your head didn’t catch up."

You opened your mouth to protest, to say something, anything that would push back this slow suffocation of certainty—

But his hand came up to your jaw. Fingers feather-light. Not forcing. Just holding. Just there.

"And you’ve been thinkin’ about me ever since," he said.

Not a question. A statement.

You didn’t answer.

He leaned in, his breath ghosting over your cheek, his voice a rasp against your ear.

"You dream of me, don’t you?"

Your hands trembled at your sides.

"I don’t—"

"You wake wet. Ache in your belly. You don’t know why. But I do."

You let your eyes fall shut, shame burning behind them like fire.

"Fuckin’ knew it," he murmured, almost reverent. "You smell like want, dove. You always have.”

His hand didn’t move. It just stayed there at your jaw, thumb ghosting slow along the hollow beneath your cheekbone. A touch so gentle it made your knees ache. Because it wasn’t the roughness that undid you—it was the restraint.

He could’ve taken.

He didn’t.

Not yet.

His gaze held yours, slow and unblinking, red still smoldering in the center of his irises like the dying core of a flame that refused to go out.

"Say it," he murmured.

Your lips parted, but nothing came.

"I can smell it," he said, voice low, rich as molasses. "Your shame. Your want. You’ve been livin’ like a nun with a beast inside her, and no one knows but me."

You hated how your breath stuttered. Hated more that your thighs pressed together when he said it.

"Why do you talk like that," you whispered, barely able to get the words out, "like you already know what I’m feeling?"

His fingers slid down, grazing the side of your neck, stopping just before the pulse thudding there.

"Because I do."

"That’s not fair."

He smiled, slow and crooked, nothing kind in it.

"No, dove. It ain’t."

You hated him.

You hated how beautiful he was in this light, sleeves rolled, veins prominent in his arms, shirt hanging open just enough to show the faint line of a scar that trailed beneath his collarbone. A body shaped by time, not by vanity. Not perfect. Just true. Like someone carved him for a purpose and let the flaws stay because they made him real.

He looked like sin and the sermon that came after.

Remmick moved closer. You didn’t retreat.

His hand flattened over your sternum now, right above your heartbeat, the warmth of him pressing through the cotton of your slip like it meant to seep in. He leaned down, mouth near yours, not kissing, just breathing.

"You gave yourself to me once," he said. "I’m only here to collect the rest."

"You saved my brother."

"I saved you. You just didn’t know it yet."

A shiver rippled down your spine.

His hand moved lower, skimming the curve of your ribs, hovering just at the soft flare of your waist. You could feel the heat rolling off him like smoke from a coalbed. His body didn’t radiate warmth the way a man’s should—but something older. Wilder. Like the earth’s own breath in summer. Like the hush of a storm right before it split the sky.

"And if I tell you no?" you asked, barely more than a breath.

His eyes flicked to yours, unreadable.

"I’ll wait."

You weren’t expecting that.

He smiled again, this time softer, almost cruel in its patience.

"I’ve waited centuries for sweeter things than you. But that don’t mean I won’t keep my hands on you ‘til you change your mind."

"You think I will?"

"You already have."

Your chest rose sharply, breath stung with heat.

"You think this is love?"

He laughed, low and dangerous, the sound curling around your ribs.

"No," he said. "This is hunger. Love comes later."

Then his mouth brushed your jaw—not a kiss, just the graze of lips against skin—and every nerve in your body arched to meet it.

Your knees buckled, barely.

He caught your waist in one hand, steadying you with maddening ease.

"I’m gonna ruin you," he whispered against your throat, his nose dragging lightly along your skin. "But I’ll be so gentle the first time you’ll beg me to do it again."

And God help you—

You wanted him to.

The house didn’t sleep.

Not the way houses were meant to.

It breathed.

The walls exhaled heat and memory, the floors creaked even when no one stepped, and somewhere in the rafters above your room, something paced slowly back and forth, back and forth, like a beast too restless to settle. The kind of place built with its own pulse.

You’d spent the rest of the night—if you could call it that—in a room that wasn’t yours, wearing nothing but a cotton shift and your silence. You hadn’t asked for anything. He hadn’t offered.

The room was spare but not cruel. A basin with a water pitcher. A four-poster bed draped in a netting veil to keep out the bugs—or the ghosts. The mattress was soft. The sheets smelled faintly of cedar, firewood, and something else you didn’t recognize.

Him.

You didn’t undress. You lay on top of the blanket, fingers threaded together over your belly, the thrum of your heartbeat like a second mouth behind your ribs.

Your door had no lock. Just a handle that squeaked if turned. And you hated how many times your eyes flicked toward it. Waiting. Wanting.

But he never came.

And somehow, that was worse.

Morning broke soft and gray through the slatted shutters. The sun didn’t quite reach the corners of the room, and the light that filtered in was the color of dust and river fog.

When you finally stepped out barefoot into the hall, the house was already awake.

There was a scent in the air—coffee. Burned sugar. The faintest curl of cinnamon. Something sizzling in a skillet somewhere.

You followed it.

The kitchen was enormous, all brick hearth and cast iron and a long scarred table in the center with mismatched chairs pushed in unevenly. A window hung open, letting in a breath of swamp air that rustled the lace curtain and kissed your ankles.

Remmick stood at the stove with his back to you, sleeves still rolled to the elbow, suspenders crossed low over his back. His shirt was half-unbuttoned and clung to his sides with the cling of heat and skin. He moved like he didn’t hear you enter.

You knew he had.

He reached for the pan with a towel over his palm and flipped something in the cast iron with a deft flick of the wrist.

"Hope you like sweet," he said, voice thick with morning. "Ain’t got much else."

You didn’t speak. Just stood there in the doorway like a ghost he’d conjured and forgotten about.

He turned.

God help you.

Even like this, barefoot, collar open, hair mussed from sleep or maybe just time—he looked unreal. Like a sin someone had tried to scrub out of scripture but couldn’t quite forget.

"Sleep alright?" he asked.

You gave a small nod.

He looked at you a moment longer. Then—

"Sit down, dove."

You moved toward the table.

His voice followed you, lazy but pointed.

"That’s the wrong chair."

You paused.

He nodded to one at the head of the table—old, high-backed, carved with curling vines and symbols you didn’t recognize.

"That one’s yours now."

You hesitated, then lowered yourself into it slowly. The wood groaned under your weight. The air in the kitchen felt thicker now, tighter.

He brought the plate to you himself.

Two slices of skillet cornbread, golden and glistening with syrup. A few wild strawberries sliced and sugared. A smear of butter melting slow at the center like a pulse.

He set the plate in front of you with a quiet care that felt almost obscene.

"You ain’t gotta eat," he said, leaning against the table beside your chair. "But I like watchin’ you do it."

You picked up the fork.

His eyes stayed on your mouth.

The cornbread was still warm.

Steam curled from it like breath from parted lips. The syrup pooled thick at the edges, dripping off the edge of your fork in slow, amber ribbons. It stuck to your fingers when you touched it. Sweet. Sticky. Sensual.

You brought the first bite to your mouth, slow.

Remmick didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His eyes tracked the motion like a starving man watching someone else’s feast.

The bite landed soft on your tongue—golden crisp on the outside, warm and tender in the middle, butter melting into every pore. It was perfect. Unreasonably so. And somehow you hated that even more. Because nothing about this should’ve tasted good. Not with him watching you like that. Not with your body still humming from the memory of his voice against your skin.

But you swallowed.

And he smiled.

"Good girl," he murmured.

You froze. The fork paused just above the plate.

"You don’t get to say things like that," you whispered.

"Why not?"

Your fingers tightened around the handle.

"Because it sounds like you earned it."

He chuckled, low and easy. A slow roll of thunder in his chest.

"Think I did. Think I earned every fuckin’ word after draggin’ you out that night and lettin’ you walk away without layin’ a hand on you."

You looked up sharply, heat crawling up your neck.

"You shouldn’t have touched me."

"I didn’t," he said. "But I wanted to. Still do."

Your breath caught.

His knuckles brushed the edge of your plate, slow, casual, like he had all the time in the world to make you squirm.

"And I know you want me to," he added, voice low enough that it coiled under your ribs and settled somewhere molten in your belly.

You pushed the plate away.

He didn’t flinch. Just reached forward and dragged it back in front of you like you hadn’t moved it at all.

"You eat," he said, gentler now. "You need it. House takes more from you than it gives."

You glanced around the kitchen, suddenly uneasy.

"You talk about it like it’s alive."

He gave a slow nod.

"It is. In a way."

"How?"

He looked down at your plate, then back at you.

"You’ll see."

You pushed another bite past your lips, slower this time, aware of the weight of his gaze with every chew, every swallow. You didn’t know why you obeyed. Maybe it was easier than defying him. Maybe it was because some part of you wanted him to keep watching.

When the plate was clean, he reached out and caught your wrist before you could stand.

Not hard. Not even firm. Just…inevitable.

"You full?" he asked, his voice all smoke and sin.

You nodded.

His eyes darkened.

"Then I’ll have my taste next."

Your breath lodged sharp in your throat.

He said it like it meant nothing. Like asking for your pulse was no more intimate than asking for your hand. But there was a glint in his eye—red barely flickering now, but still there—and it told you everything.

He was done pretending.

You didn’t move. Not right away.

His fingers were still wrapped around your wrist, light but unyielding, the pad of his thumb grazing the fragile skin where your pulse drummed loud and frantic. Like it wanted to leap out of your veins and spill into his mouth.

You swallowed hard.

"You said you didn’t want blood."

"I don’t."

"Then what do you want?"

"You."

You watched him now, trying to make sense of what you wanted.

And what terrified you was this—

You didn’t want to run.

You wanted to know how it would feel.

To give something he couldn’t take without permission.

To see if your body could handle the worship of a mouth like his.

Remmick’s other hand came up slow, brushing hair from your cheek, his knuckles rough and reverent.

"You said I smelled like want," you whispered.

"You do."

"What do you smell like?"

He leaned in, mouth near your throat again, his nose dragging along your skin, slow, as if he were drawing in the scent of your soul.

"Rot. Hunger. Regret," he said. "Old things that don’t die right."

You shivered.

"And still I want you," you breathed.

He pulled back just enough to look you in the eyes.

"That’s the worst part, ain’t it?"

You didn’t answer.

Because he was right.

His hand slid down to your elbow, then lower, tracing the curve of your waist through the thin fabric. His touch was warm now, or maybe your body had just given up trying to tell the difference between threat and thrill.

He guided you up from the chair.

Didn’t yank. Didn’t drag.

Just stood and took your hand like a dance was beginning.

"Come with me," he said.

"Where?"

"Somewhere I can kneel."

Your heart stuttered.

He led you through the house, down the long hallway past doorways that watched like eyes. The floor groaned underfoot, the air thickening around your shoulders as he brought you deeper into the home’s belly. You passed portraits whose paint had faded to shadows, velvet drapes drawn tight, mirrors that refused to hold your reflection quite right.

The door at the end of the hall was already open.

Inside, the room was dark.

Just one candle lit, flickering low in a glass jar, its light catching the edges of something silver beside the bed. An old bowl. A cloth. A pair of gloves, yellowed from time.

A ritual.

Not violent.

Intimate.

Remmick turned toward you, his face bare in the soft light. He looked younger. More human. And somehow more dangerous for it.

"Sit," he said.

You sat.

He knelt.

And then his hands found your knees.

His hands rested on your knees like they belonged there. Not demanding. Not prying. Just there. Anchored. Reverent.

The candlelight licked up his jaw, catching in the hollows of his cheeks, the deep shadow beneath his throat. He didn’t look like a man. He looked like a story told by firelight—half-worshipped, half-feared. A sinner in the shape of a saint. Or maybe the other way around.

His thumbs made a slow pass over the inside of your thighs, just above the knee. Barely pressure. Barely touch. The kind of contact that made your breath feel too loud in your chest.

"Yer too quiet," he murmured.

"I don’t know what to say," you whispered back.

His gaze lifted, locking with yours, and in that moment the whole room seemed to still.

"Ya ain’t gotta say a damn thing," he said. "You just need to stay right there and let me show ya what I mean when I say I don’t want yer blood."

Your lips parted, but no sound came.

He leaned in, slow as honey in the heat, until his mouth hovered just above your knee. Then lower. His breath ghosted over your skin, warm and maddening.

You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until he pressed a single kiss just above the bone.

Your lungs stuttered.

His lips trailed higher.

Another kiss.

Then another.

Each one higher than the last, until your legs opened on instinct, until you felt the hem of your slip being eased upward by hands that moved with worshipful patience. Like he wasn’t just undressing you—he was peeling back a veil. Unwrapping something sacred.

"You ever had someone kneel for ya?" he asked, voice rough now. Thicker.

You shook your head.

He smiled like he already knew the answer.

"Good. Let me be the first."

He kissed the inside of your thigh like it meant something. Like you meant something. Like your skin wasn’t just skin, but a prayer he intended to answer with his mouth.

The air was too hot. Your thoughts slid loose from the edges of your mind. All you could do was breathe and feel.

He looked up at you once more, red eyes burning low, and said—

"You gave yerself to me. Let me taste what I already own."

And then he bowed his head, mouth meeting the softest part of you, and the rest of the world disappeared.

His mouth touched you like he’d been dreaming of it for years. Like he’d earned it.

No rush. No hunger. Just that first velvet press of his lips against the tender center of you, reverent and slow, like a kiss to a wound or a confession. He moaned, low and guttural, into your skin—and the sound of it vibrated up through your spine.

He parted you with his thumbs, just enough to taste you deeper. His tongue slipped between folds already slick and aching, and he groaned again, this time with something like gratitude.

"Sweet as I fuckin’ knew you’d be," he rasped, voice hot against your core.

Your hands gripped the edge of the chair. Wood bit into your palms. Your head tipped back, eyes fluttering shut as your thighs trembled around his shoulders.

He didn’t stop.

He licked you with patience, with purpose, like he was reading scripture written between your legs—each flick of his tongue slow and deliberate, every pass perfectly placed, building pressure inside you with maddening precision.

And all the while, he watched you.

When your head dropped forward, you found him staring up at you. Red eyes glowing low, heavy-lidded, mouth glistening, jaw tense with restraint. He looked ruined by the taste of you.

"Look at me," he said. "Wanna see you fall apart on my tongue."

Your breath hitched, hips rocking forward on instinct, chasing his mouth. He growled low and deep in his chest, gripping your thighs tighter.

"That’s it, dove," he murmured. "Don’t run from it. Give it to me."

He flattened his tongue and dragged it slow, then circled the swollen peak of your clit with the tip, teasing you to the edge and pulling back just before it broke.

You whined. Desperate.

He smirked against your cunt.

"You want it?" he asked, voice thick. "Say it."

Your lips barely formed the word—"Please."

He hummed in approval.

Then he devoured you.

No more teasing. No more pacing. Just his mouth fully locked on you, tongue relentless now, lips sealing around your clit while two fingers slid into you with that obscene, perfect pressure that made your body jolt.

You cried out, gasping, your thighs tightening around his head as the world tipped sideways.

"That’s it," he groaned, curling his fingers just right. "Cum f’r me, girl. Let me taste what’s mine."

And when it hit—

It hit like a fever. Like lightning. Like your soul cracked in half and bled straight into his mouth.

You broke with a cry, hips bucking, your fingers tangled in his hair as wave after wave crashed through you.

He didn’t stop. Not until your thighs twitched and your breath came in ragged little sobs, not until your body went limp in his hands.

Then, finally—finally—he pulled back.

His lips were wet. His eyes were feral. And he looked at you like a man who’d just fed.

"You’re fuckin’ divine," he whispered. "And I ain’t even started ruinin’ you yet."

The room pulsed with quiet. The candle flickered low, flame swaying as if it too had held its breath through your unraveling.

Your body felt boneless. Glazed in sweat. Your pulse echoed everywhere—in your wrists, your throat, between your legs where he’d buried his mouth like a man sent to worship. You weren’t sure how long it had been since you’d spoken. Since you’d breathed without shaking.

Remmick still knelt.

His hands were on your thighs, thumbs drawing idle circles into your skin like he couldn’t bear to stop touching you. His head was bowed slightly, but his eyes were on you—watchful, reverent, hungry in a way that had nothing to do with the softness between your legs and everything to do with something older. Something darker.

He looked drunk on you.

You opened your mouth to speak, but your voice caught on the edge of a sigh.

He beat you to it.

"Reckon you know what’s comin’ next," he murmured.

You didn’t answer.

He rose from his knees in one slow, unhurried motion. There was a heaviness to him now, a tension rolling just beneath his skin, like a dam about to split. He reached up with one hand and wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of it—then licked the taste from his thumb like it was honey off the comb.

You watched, breath held tight in your chest.

He stepped closer. You stayed seated, knees still parted, your slip pushed up indecently high, but you didn’t fix it. Didn’t move at all. The heat between your legs hadn’t faded. If anything, it curled deeper now, thicker, laced with something close to fear but not quite.

He stopped in front of you.

Tilted his head slightly.

"How’s yer heart?"

You blinked.

"It’s…fast," you whispered.

He smiled slow. Not mocking. Not soft either.

"Good. I want it fast."

Your throat tightened.

"Why?"

He leaned in, hands bracing on either side of your chair, body boxing you in without touching.

"‘Cause I want yer blood screamin’ for me when I take it."

Your breath caught somewhere between your ribs.

He didn’t touch you yet—didn’t need to. The weight of his body, caging you in without a single finger laid, made your skin flush from your chest to your knees. Every inch of you throbbed with awareness. Of him. Of your own pulse. Of the air cooling the places he’d worshiped with his mouth not moments before.

You swallowed.

"You said you’d wait," you whispered.

He nodded once, slowly, his eyes never leaving yours.

"I did. And I have. But yer body’s already beggin’ for me. Ain’t it?"

You hated that he was right. That he could feel it somehow. Not just see the tremble in your thighs or the way your lips parted when he leaned closer—but that he could feel it in the air, like scent, like vibration.

You lifted your chin, barely.

"I’m not scared."

He chuckled low, and it rumbled through your bones.

"Good. But I don’t need ya scared, dove. I need ya open."

He raised one hand then, slow as scripture, and brushed his knuckles along the column of your throat. Just a whisper of contact, a ghost’s touch. Your head tilted for him without thinking, baring your neck.

"Right here," he murmured. "Right where it beats loudest. That’s where I wanna taste ya."

You shivered.

He bent down, mouth near your pulse. His breath was warm, slow, drawn in like he was savoring you already.

"I ain’t gonna hurt ya," he said. "Not unless you want it."

Your fingers twisted in your lap.

"Will it—" you started, but the question got tangled.

He smiled against your skin.

"Will it feel good?"

You said nothing.

"You already know."

You did.

Because everything with him did. Every word. Every look. Every touch. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t holy. But it was real. It lived under your skin like rot and root and ruin.

You nodded once.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

And then his lips pressed to your throat. Not with hunger. With reverence. Like a blessing.

"That’s my girl," he breathed.

And then he bit.

It wasn’t pain.

It was pressure, first.

A deep, aching pull that bloomed just beneath the skin, right where his mouth latched onto you. His lips sealed tight around your throat, and then—sharpness. Two points sinking in like teeth through silk. Like sin through flesh.

You gasped.

Not from fear. Not even from the sting. But from the rush.

Heat burst behind your eyes, white and sudden and dizzying. Your hands flew to his shoulders, clinging, grounding, anchoring you to something real while your mind drifted into something else—something otherworldly.

The pull came next.

A steady rhythm, slow and patient, like he was sipping you instead of drinking. Like he had all the time in the world. You could feel it, the way your blood left you in waves, not violent, not greedy—just…intimate. Like giving. Like surrender.

He groaned low against your neck, the sound vibrating through your bones.

"Fuck, you taste like sunlight," he rasped against your skin, voice thick with hunger and awe. "Like everythin’ warm I thought I’d forgotten."

Your head tipped further, offering him more.

You didn’t know when your legs opened wider, or when your hips rocked forward just to feel more of him. But his body shifted instinctively, meeting yours with a growl, his hand gripping your thigh now, possessive and unrelenting.

Your pulse faltered. Not from weakness, but from pleasure. From the unbearable knowing that he was inside you now, in the most ancient way. That your body had opened to him, and your blood had welcomed him.

Your moan was breathless.

"Remmick—"

He shushed you, mouth never leaving your throat.

"Don’t speak, dove. Just feel."

And you did.

You felt every lick. Every pull. Every sacred claim. You felt his tongue soothe where his fangs pierced, his hand slide higher along your thigh, his knee pushing between your legs until your breath stuttered out of you in something like a sob.

It was too much. It was not enough.

And when he finally pulled back, slow and reluctant, your blood on his lips like a mark, like a vow, he stared at you like you were holy.

Like he hadn’t fed on you.

Like he’d prayed.

The room was quiet, but your body wasn’t.

You felt every beat of your heart echo in the hollow where his mouth had been. A slow, reverent throb that pulsed through your neck, your chest, your thighs. It was like something had been lit beneath your skin, and now it smoldered there—glowing, aching, changed.

Remmick’s breath was uneven. His lips were stained red, parted just slightly, his jaw slack with something like awe. The burn of your blood still shimmered in his eyes, brighter now. Alive.

He looked undone.

And yet his hands were steady as he reached up, cupped your jaw in both palms, and tilted your face toward him. His thumb swept across your cheekbone like you might vanish if he didn’t touch you just right.

"You alright?" he asked, voice quieter now, roughened at the edges like a match just struck.

You nodded, though your limbs still trembled.

"I feel…" you swallowed, the word too small for what bloomed in your chest, "…warm."

He laughed, soft and almost bitter, and leaned his forehead against yours.

"You should. You’re inside me now. Every drop of you."

The words rooted somewhere deep. You didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. You could still feel the heat of his mouth, the bite, the pleasure that followed. It wasn’t just lust. It wasn’t just surrender. It was something older. Something binding.

"Does it hurt?" you asked, your fingers brushing the side of his neck, the line of his collarbone slick with sweat.

He looked at you like you’d asked the wrong question.

"Hurt?" he echoed. "Dove, it’s ecstasy."

You stared at him.

"You mean for you?"

He shook his head once.

"For us."

Then he pulled back just enough to look at you—really look. His gaze swept your features like he was committing them to memory. As if this moment, this very breath, was something sacred. His fingers moved to your throat again, this time to the place just above the bite, and he pressed lightly.

"You’ll bruise here," he said. "Won’t fade for a while."

"Will it heal?"

"Eventually."

"Do you want it to?"

His mouth curved, slow and wicked.

"No," he said. "I want the world to see what’s mine."

And before you could reply—before the heat in your belly could cool or your mind could gather itself—he kissed you.

Not soft.

Not careful.

His mouth claimed you like he’d already been inside you a thousand times and wanted to do it a thousand more. He kissed you like a man starving. Like a creature who’d gone too long without flesh, and now that he had it, he wasn’t letting go.

You tasted your own blood on his tongue.

And it tasted like forever.

The house knew.

It breathed deeper now. Its wood swelled, its walls sighed, its floorboards creaked in time with your heartbeat—as though it had taken you in too, accepted your offering, and now it wanted to keep you just like he did. Not as a guest. Not as a lover.

As a belonging.

Remmick hadn’t let you go.

Not when the kiss ended. Not when your blood slowed in his mouth. Not when your knees gave and your body folded forward into him. His arms had caught you like he knew the shape of your collapse. Like he’d been waiting for it. Like he’d never let you fall anywhere but into him.

He carried you now, one arm beneath your legs, the other braced around your back, his chest solid against yours.

"Don’t reckon you’re walkin’ after all that," he muttered, gaze fixed ahead, voice gone syrup-slow and thick with something possessive.

You didn’t argue. You couldn’t.

Your head rested against the place where his heart should’ve beat. But it was quiet there. Not lifeless—just other.

He carried you past rooms you hadn’t seen. A library, long abandoned, lined with crooked books and a grandfather clock that had no hands. A parlor soaked in velvet and silence. A door nailed shut from the outside, something heavy breathing behind it.

You didn’t ask.

He didn’t explain.

The room he took you to was nothing like the others.

It wasn’t grand.

It was personal.

The windows here were narrow and high, soft light slanting through the dusty glass in thin gold ribbons. The bed was simple but large, the sheets dark, the frame iron-wrought and worn smooth by time. A single cross hung above the headboard—but it had been turned upside down.

He set you down like you were breakable. Sat you on the edge of the bed, knelt once more to remove the slip still clinging to your body, inch by inch, as if undressing you were a sacrament.

"Y’ever wonder why I picked you?" he asked, voice low as the hush between thunderclaps.

Your breath stilled.

"I thought it was the blood."

He shook his head, his hands pausing at your hips.

"Nah, dove. Blood’s blood. Yours sings, sure. But it ain’t why I chose."

He looked up then, red eyes gleaming in the half-light.

"You remind me of the last thing I ever loved before I died."

The words landed like a stone in still water.

They rippled outward. Slow. Wide. Deep.

You stared at him, breath shallow, your skin bare under his hands, your throat still warm from where he’d fed. The room held its silence like breath behind gritted teeth. Outside, somewhere beyond the high windows, something moved through the trees—branches bending, wind pushing low and humid across the land—but in here, it was only the two of you.

Only his voice.

Only your blood between his teeth.

"What…what was she like?" you asked.

His thumbs drew circles at your hips, but his eyes drifted, not unfocused—just distant. Remembering.

"She had a mouth like yours. Sharp. Didn’t know when to shut it. Always speakin’ when she should’ve stayed quiet." A smile ghosted across his lips. "God, I loved that. I loved that she ain’t feared me even when she should’ve."

He exhaled through his nose, slow.

"But she didn’t get to finish bein’ mine."

Your brows pulled.

"What happened to her?"

He looked back at you then, and the heat in his gaze returned—not hunger, not even desire, but something deeper. Possessive. Terrifying in its tenderness.

"They tore her from me. Burned her in a chapel. Said she was a witch on account’a what I’d given her."

Your heart dropped into your stomach.

"Remmick—"

"She didn’t scream," he said, voice rough. "Didn’t cry. Just looked at me like she knew I’d find her again. And I have."

You froze.

His hands slid higher, up your ribs, his palms reverent.

"I don’t believe in fate. Not really. But you—" he leaned in, lips brushing your jaw, voice low like a spell, "you make me wanna believe in things I ain’t allowed to have."

You whispered against the curl of his mouth.

"And what do you think I am?"

He kissed the hinge of your jaw.

"My penance," he said. "And my reward."

You shivered.

"You said you saved me."

He nodded.

"I did."

"Why?"

He pulled back just enough to meet your eyes, and his voice dropped to a near whisper.

"‘Cause I ain’t lettin’ another thing I love burn."

You didn’t realize you were crying until he touched your face.

Not with hunger, not with heat, but with the kind of softness that had no business living in a man like him. His thumb caught a tear on your cheek like he’d been waiting for it, like it meant something sacred.

"You ain’t her," he murmured. "But you feel like the same song in a different key."

His voice cracked a little at the edges, not enough to ruin the shape of it, just enough to prove that something in him still bled.

You reached up, fingers trembling, and cupped the side of his neck. The skin there was warmer now. Still inhuman, still not quite alive, but it held your heat like it didn’t want to give it back. You felt the ridges of old scars beneath your palm. The echo of stories not told.

"I don’t know what I’m becoming," you said.

He leaned into your hand, eyes half-lidded.

"You’re becomin’ mine."

Then he kissed you again—not like before. Not full of fire. But slow, like he had all the time in the world to learn the shape of your mouth. His lips moved over yours with a kind of tenderness that made your bones ache. A kind of reverence that said this is where I end and begin again.

When he pulled back, your breath followed him.

The room shifted.

You felt it. Like the house had exhaled too.

"Lie down," he said, voice softer than it had ever been. "Let me hold what I almost lost."

You obeyed.

You lay back against the sheets that smelled like him, like dust and dark and something unnameable. The iron bed creaked softly beneath you, and the candlelight trembled with the movement. He undressed with quiet purpose, shirt sliding from his shoulders, buttons undone by slow fingers, trousers falling away to bare the sharp planes of his body.

And when he climbed over you, it wasn’t to take.

It was to be taken.

Remmick hovered above you, breath warm at your lips, hands braced on either side of your head. He looked down at you like he was staring through time. Like you were something he'd pulled from the fire and decided to keep even if it burned him too.

You’re mine, he whispered, but didn’t say it aloud.

He didn’t have to.

His body said it.

His mouth said it.

And when he finally eased inside you, slow and steady, filling you inch by trembling inch—your soul said it too.

His body hovered just above yours, every inch of him trembling with a control you didn’t quite understand—until you looked into his eyes.

That red glow was dimmer now. No less powerful, but softened by something raw. Something reverent.

Not hunger.

Not lust.

Not even possession.

Devotion.

The kind that didn’t speak. The kind that buried itself in the bones and never left.

His hand slid down the side of your face, tracing the curve of your cheek, then the line of your jaw, calloused fingers lingering in the hollow of your throat where your heartbeat thudded wild and uneven.

"Still fast," he murmured, half to himself.

"You’re heavy," you whispered, not in protest, but in awe. Every breath you took was filled with him.

He smirked, the corner of his mouth twitching in that crooked, wicked way of his.

"Ain’t even layin’ on you yet."

You didn’t laugh. Couldn’t. Your body was stretched too tight, strung out with anticipation and need. Every inch of you burned.

He leaned down then, not to kiss you, but to breathe you in. His nose skimmed your cheek, the edge of your ear, the curve of your throat already marked by his bite. His hands traced your ribs, the sides of your waist, slow and steady, like he was trying to learn you by touch alone.

"You’re shakin'," he whispered, voice low, thick with something close to worship.

"So are you."

A pause.

Then softer—truthfully,

"Yeah."

He kissed the inside of your wrist, then the space between your breasts, then lower still—his lips reverent as they moved over your belly, your hipbone, the softest parts of you.

"You ever had someone take their time with you?" he asked, mouth against your skin.

You didn’t speak.

"Didn’t think so," he muttered. "Shame."

His hand slid between your thighs, spreading you again—not rushed, not greedy, just gentle. Like he knew he’d already had the taste of you and now he wanted the feel.

"Tell me if it’s too much," he said.

"It already is."

He looked up at you then, his face half-shadowed, half-lit, and something flickered in his eyes.

"Good."

His cock brushed against your entrance, hot and heavy, and you nearly arched off the bed at the first contact. Not even inside. Just there. Teasing. Pressed to the slick mess he'd made of you earlier with his mouth.

He groaned deep.

"Fuck, you feel like sin."

You reached for him, pulled him down by the back of his neck until your mouths were inches apart.

"Then sin with me."

He didn’t hesitate.

He began to press in—slow. Devastatingly slow. The head of his cock stretching you open with a care that felt like madness. His hands gripped your hips as if holding himself back took more strength than killing ever had.

He moved in inch by inch, his breath hitched, jaw tight, sweat beginning to bead at his temple.

"Shit—ya takin’ me so good, dove. Just like that."

You moaned. Your fingers dug into his back. You were full of him and not even halfway there.

"Remmick—"

"I gotcha," he whispered. "Ain’t gonna let you break."

But he was already breaking you. Gently. Thoroughly. Beautifully.

He filled you like he’d been made for the task.

No sharp thrusts. No hurried rhythm. Just the unbearable slowness of it. The stretch. The burn. The drag of his cock as he sank deeper, deeper, deeper into you until there was nothing left untouched. Until your body stopped bracing and started opening.

You clung to him—hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt that still clung to his back, damp with sweat. He hadn’t even undressed all the way. There was something obscene about it, something holy, too—the way he kept his shirt on like this wasn’t about bareness, it was about belonging.

"That’s it," he rasped against your throat. "There she is."

Your moan was caught between breath and prayer.

He buried himself to the hilt.

And still—he didn’t move.

His hips pressed flush to yours, his breath shaky against your skin as he held himself there, nestled so deep inside you it felt like you’d never known emptiness before now. Like everything that came before this moment had just been the ache of waiting to be filled.

"You feel that?" he whispered, voice thick, almost reverent. "Where I am inside ya?"

You nodded. Couldn’t find your voice.

His lips brushed the shell of your ear.

"Ain’t no leavin’ now. I’ll always be in ya. Even when I ain’t."

You whimpered.

Not from pain. From how true it felt.

He moved then—barely. Just a slow roll of his hips, a gentle retreat and return. It was enough to make your breath hitch, your body arch, your legs wrap tighter around him without thinking.

"That’s right, dove. Let me in. Let me have it."

You didn’t even know what it was anymore.

Your body?

Your blood?

Your soul?

You’d already given them all.

And still, he took more.

But not cruelly.

Like a man kissing the mouth of a well after years of thirst. Like a thief who knew how to make you feel grateful for the stealing.

He found a rhythm that made the air vanish from your lungs.

Slow. Deep. Measured. His hips grinding just right, dragging his cock against every place inside you that had never known such touch. Every stroke sang with heat. Every breath he took turned your name into something more than a sound.

"Fuck, I could stay in you forever," he groaned. "Like this. Warm. Tight. Mine."

You dug your nails into his shoulders, legs trembling.

"Please," you whispered, though you didn’t know what you were asking for.

He did.

"Beg me," he said, dragging his mouth down your neck, over the bite he’d left. "Beg me to make you come with my cock in you."

"Remmick—"

"Say it."

You were already gone. Already shaking. Already his.

"Make me come," you breathed. "Please—God, please—"

His smile was sinful.

And then he fucked you.

His rhythm shifted—no longer slow, no longer sacred.

It was worship in the way fire worships a forest. The kind that devours. The kind that remakes.

Remmick braced a hand behind your thigh, hitching your leg higher as he thrust harder, deeper, dragging guttural sounds from his chest that you felt before you heard. The bed groaned beneath you, iron frame clanging soft against the wall in time with his hips. But it was your body that made the noise that filled the room—the gasps, the breaking sighs, the high whimper of his name torn raw from your throat.

He kissed your jaw, your collarbone, your shoulder, not like he was trying to be sweet but like he needed to taste every inch he claimed.

"You feel me in your belly yet?" he growled, words hot against your skin.

You nodded frantically, tears pricking the corners of your eyes from the sheer force of sensation.

"Say it," he panted, each thrust brutal and beautiful.

"Yes—yes, I feel you, Remmick, I—"

"You gonna come f’r me like a good girl?"

"Yes."

"Say my fuckin’ name when you do."

His hand slid between your bodies, finding your clit like he’d owned it in another life, and the moment his fingers circled that aching bundle of nerves, your vision went white.

Your body seized around him.

The sound you made was raw, wrecked, something no one but him should ever hear.

He kept fucking you through it, hissing curses through his teeth, chasing his own high with the rhythm of a man who’d waited centuries for the perfect fit.

And then he broke.

With your name groaned low and reverent in your ear, he came deep inside you, hips stuttering, breath ragged, body shuddering with the force of it. You felt every throb of his cock inside you, every spill of heat, every ounce of him taking root.

For a long, suspended moment, he didn’t move.

Only the sound of your breaths tangled together.

Your sweat mixing.

Your bodies still joined.

"That’s it," he whispered hoarsely, pressing his forehead to yours. "That’s how I know you’re mine."

The house exhaled around you.

The candle sputtered in its jar, flame dancing low and crooked, like even it had been made breathless by what it had witnessed. Somewhere in the walls, the wood groaned—settling. Sighing. Accepting.

You didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Your body was a temple razed and rebuilt in a single night, still pulsing with the memory of his mouth, his weight, the stretch of him inside you like a secret only your bones would remember. Every nerve hummed low and soft beneath your skin, like your blood hadn’t figured out how to move without his rhythm guiding it.

Remmick stayed inside you.

His body was heavy atop yours, but not crushing. His head tucked into the curve of your neck, the same place he’d bitten, the same place he’d worshipped like it held some holy truth. His breath came slow and ragged, the rise and fall of his chest matching yours as if your lungs had struck the same pace without meaning to.

"Don’t move yet," he muttered, voice wrecked and hoarse. "Wanna stay here just a minute longer."

You let your hand drift through his hair, damp with sweat, curls sticking to his forehead. You carded through them lazily, mind blank, heart full.

He pressed a kiss to your throat. Then another, just above your collarbone.

"You still with me?" he asked, quieter now.

You nodded.

"Good," he murmured. "Didn’t mean to fuck the soul outta ya. Just…couldn’t help it."

You let out the softest laugh, and he smiled into your skin.

His hand slid down your side, tracing the curve of your waist, your hip, the spot where your thigh met his. His fingers moved slowly, not with lust, but with a kind of quiet awe.

"Y’know what you feel like?" he whispered.

"What?"

"Home."

The word struck something inside you. Something tender. Something deep.

He lifted his head then, just enough to look down at you. His eyes had faded from red to something darker, something richer—garnet in low light. The kind of color only seen in blood and wine and promises too old to be remembered by name.

"You still think this is just hunger?" he asked.

You blinked at him, dazed.

"It was never just hunger," he said. "Not with you."

The silence between you was warm now.

Not empty. Not tense. Just quiet, the kind that comes after thunder, when the storm’s rolled through and the trees are still deciding whether to stand or kneel.

You felt it in your limbs—heavy, humming, holy. The afterglow of something you didn’t have language for.

Remmick hadn’t moved far.

He still blanketed your body like a second skin, one arm braced beneath your shoulders, the other tracing idle shapes across your hip as if he were still mapping the terrain of you. His cock, softening but still nestled inside, pulsed faintly with the last of what he’d given you.

And he had given you something. Not just release. Not just blood. Something older. Something that whispered now in the place between your ribs.

You turned your head to look at him.

His gaze was already on you.

"What happens now?" you asked, barely above a whisper.

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he ran the back of his fingers along your cheekbone, down the side of your neck, pausing over the place where his mark had already begun to bruise.

"You askin’ what happens tonight," he murmured, "or what happens after?"

You blinked slowly. "Both."

He let out a breath through his nose, the sound tired but not cold.

"Tonight, I’ll hold you. Long as you’ll let me. Won’t leave this bed unless you beg me to. Might even make ya cry again, if you keep lookin’ at me like that."

You flushed, and he smiled.

"As for after…"

He looked past you then, toward the ceiling, like the truth was written in the beams.

"Ain’t never planned that far. Not with anyone. Just fed. Fucked. Moved on."

"But not with me."

His eyes snapped back to yours. Serious now.

"No, dove. Not with you."

You swallowed the knot rising in your throat.

"Why?"

His jaw flexed, tongue darting briefly across his lower lip before he answered.

"‘Cause I been alone too long. Lived too long. Thought I was too far gone to want anythin’ that didn’t bleed beneath me."

He leaned closer, forehead resting against yours, his next words no louder than a ghost’s sigh.

"But you—you made me want somethin’ tender. Somethin’ breakable."

"That doesn’t make sense."

"Don’t gotta. Nothin’ about you ever has. And yet here you are."

You let your eyes drift shut, just for a moment, and whispered into the stillness between your mouths.

"So I stay?"

He didn’t hesitate.

"You stay."

The candle had burned low.

Its glow flickered long shadows across the walls—your bodies painted in gold and blood-tinged bronze, limbs tangled in sheets that still clung with sweat and want. The house had quieted again, the way an animal settles when it knows its master is content. Outside, the wind threaded through the trees in soft moans, like the Delta herself was eavesdropping.

Neither of you spoke for a while. You didn’t need to.

Your fingers traced lazy patterns across Remmick’s chest—over his scars, the slope of muscle, the faint rise and fall beneath your palm. You still half-expected no heartbeat, but it was there, slow and stubborn, like he’d stolen it back just for you.

He watched you. One arm draped across your waist, his thumb stroking your bare back like you might fade if he stopped.

"You still ain’t askin’ the question you really wanna ask," he said, voice rough from silence and sleep.

You paused.

"What question is that?"

He tipped his head toward you, resting his chin on his knuckles.

"You wanna know if I turned you."

Your heart gave a traitorous flutter.

"And did you?"

He shook his head.

"Nah. Not yet."

"Why not?"

His fingers stilled. Then resumed.

"’Cause you ain’t asked me to."

You looked up at him sharply.

"Would you?"

A long beat passed. Then he nodded once.

"If it was you askin’. If it was real."

Your breath caught.

"And if I don’t?"

His gaze didn’t waver.

"Then I’ll stay with you. ‘Til you’re old. ‘Til your hands shake and your bones ache and your eyes stop lookin’ at me like I’m the only thing that ever made you feel alive."

Your throat tightened.

"That sounds awful."

He smiled, slow and aching.

"It sounds human."

You looked at him for a long time. At the man who had killed, who had bled you, who had tasted every part of you—body and soul—and still asked nothing unless you gave it.

"Would it hurt?"

His hand slid up, fingers curling beneath your jaw, tilting your face to his.

"It’d hurt," he said. "But not more than bein’ without you would."

The quiet stretched long and low.

His words hung in the space between your mouths like smoke—something sweet and terrible, something tasted before it was fully breathed in.

Your chest rose and fell against his slowly, and for a long time, you said nothing. You just listened. To the house settling around you. To the wind curling past the windows. To the steady thrum of blood still echoing faintly in your ears.

And beneath it all—

You heard memory.

It came soft at first. A shape, not a sound. The slick thud of your knees hitting the alley pavement. The scream you didn’t recognize as your own. Your brother’s blood, warm and fast, pumping between your fingers like water from a broken pipe. His mouth slack. His eyes wide.

You remembered screaming to the sky. Not to God.

Just up.

Because you knew He’d stopped listening.

And then—

He came.

Out of nothing. Out of dark.

You remembered the slow scrape of his boots on the gravel. The silhouette of him under the weak yellow glow of a flickering streetlamp. You remembered the quiet way he spoke.

"You want him to live?"

You didn’t answer with words. You just nodded, crying so hard you couldn’t breathe. And he’d knelt—right there in the blood—and laid his hand flat against your brother’s chest.

You never saw what he did. Only saw your brother’s eyes flutter. Only heard his breath return, sudden and wet.

And then he looked at you.

Not your brother.

Remmick.

He looked at you like he’d already taken something.

And he had.

Now, years later, lying in the hush of his house, your body still joined to his, you could still feel that moment thrumming beneath your skin. The moment when everything shifted. When your life became borrowed.

You looked up at him now, breathing steady, lips parted like a prayer just barely forming.

"I’ve already given you everything."

He shook his head.

"Not this."

He pressed two fingers to your chest, right over your heart.

"This is still yours."

"And you want it?"

He didn’t smile. Didn’t look away.

"I want it to keep beatin’. Forever. With mine."

You stared at him.

You thought about that alley. About your brother’s eyes opening again.

About how no one else came.

And you made your choice.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

"Don’t say it unless you mean it, dove."

"I do."

His voice was barely more than a breath.

"You sure?"

You reached up, touched his face, fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw.

"I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life."

His eyes shimmered—deep red now, alive with something wild and tender.

"Then I’ll make you eternal," he whispered. "And I’ll never let the world take you from me."

He didn’t rush.

Not now. Not with this.

Remmick looked at you like you were something rare—something holy—like he couldn’t believe you’d said it, even as your voice still echoed between the walls.

Then he moved.

Not with hunger. Not with heat.

With purpose.

He sat up, kneeling beside you on the bed, and pulled the sheet slowly down your body. His eyes drank you in again, but this time there was no heat in them. Just reverence. As if you were the altar, and he the sinner who’d finally been granted absolution.

"You sure you want this?" he asked one last time, voice soft, like the hush of water in a cathedral.

You nodded, throat tight.

"I want forever."

His jaw clenched. A tremble passed through him like he’d heard those words in another life and lost them before they were ever his.

He leaned down.

His hand cupped the back of your head, the other settled flat on your chest, palm over your heart.

"Close your eyes, dove."

You did.

And then—

You felt him.

His breath. His lips. The soft, cool press of his mouth against your neck. But he didn’t bite.

Not yet.

He kissed the mark he’d already left. Then higher. Then lower. Slow. Measured. Your body melted beneath him, your hands curling into the sheets.

And then—

A whisper against your skin.

"I’ll be gentle. But you’ll remember this forever."

And he sank his fangs in.

It wasn’t like the first time.

It wasn’t lust.

It wasn’t climax.

It was rebirth.

Pain bloomed sharp and bright—but only for a heartbeat. Then the warmth flooded in. Then the cold. Then the ache. Your pulse stuttered once, then surged. It was like drowning and being pulled to the surface at once. Like everything you’d ever been burned away and something older moved in to take its place.

He held you as it happened.

Cradled you like something delicate.

His mouth sealed over the wound, drinking slow, but not to feed. To anchor you. To tether you to him.

You felt yourself go limp. The world turned strange. Light and dark bled into each other. Your breath faded. Your heartbeat fluttered like wings against glass.

And then—

It stopped.

Silence.

Stillness.

And in the space where your heart had once beat…

You heard his.

Then—

Your eyes opened.

The world looked different.

Sharper.

Brighter.

Every shadow deeper. Every color richer. The candlelight burned gold-red and alive. The scent of the night air was so thick it choked you—smoke, soil, blood, him.

Remmick hovered above you, lips stained crimson, breathing hard like he’d just returned from war.

And when he looked at you—

You saw yourself reflected in his eyes.

He smiled.

"Welcome home, darlin’."

[darkbluemoonspirit]

There is nothing new under the sun.

[darkbluemoonspirit]

have Mel in her twenties! very roughly inspired by a rococo painting I saw a while back

[darkbluemoonspirit]

I-80 highway through Wyoming. nicknamed The Sisters, for the three sets of hills that create an optical illusion of the road rising into the sky

[darkbluemoonspirit]

i actually want him so bad omg it’s not even a joke anymore.

[darkbluemoonspirit]

I didn’t know cheetahs meow I’ve always thought they roar my whole life has been a lie

[darkbluemoonspirit]

beanie baby dragon is crossing your dash

[darkbluemoonspirit]

[darkbluemoonspirit]

The void is happy

[darkbluemoonspirit]

"How do you write such realistic dialogue-" I TALK TO MYSELF. I TALK TO MYSELF AND I PRETEND I AM THE ONE SAYING THE LINE. LIKE SANITY IS SLOWLY SLIPPING FROM BETWEEN MY FINGERS WITH EVERY MEASLY WORD THEY TYPE OUT. THAT IS HOW.

[darkbluemoonspirit]

Moments in time, preserved through sentiments Twitter | Ko-Fi | Patreon

[darkbluemoonspirit]

That hands post going around just made me realize that there's this incredible thing Iñaki does with his hands as Luffy where he is never content to just touch things. He can never just grab something and let go. He strokes things. He gently runs his fingers across them, like he wants to touch as much of them as possible. And nowhere is this more apparent than with Zoro. Like

Iñaki, why. why would Luffy need to run his fingers along the entire length of Zoro's calf.

why is Luffy stroking Zoro's titty in this incredibly emotional moment

Just. The whole thing.

The only thing I can come up with is that touch is just a Luffy Love Language, with the softest, gentlest touches being reserved for those who are truly special to him.

And no one is more special to him than Zoro.

[darkbluemoonspirit]

[darkbluemoonspirit]

An interesting demonstration of how the human brain works.

But also something of a lesson regarding perception, and the unreliability of subjective perspective versus objective reality.

You can be extremely certain about how you perceive the world, your "lived experience," that which you "feel it in my heart." But that doesn't mean it's actually true. And it doesn't mean we have to endorse it, or ignore or outright deny objective reality.

That's a "you" thing, not a "we" thing.

[darkbluemoonspirit]

Some of my favorite words and phrases to describe a character in pain

coiling (up in a ball, in on themselves, against something, etc)

panting (there’s a slew of adjectives you can put after this, my favorites are shakily, weakly, etc)

keeling over (synonyms are words like collapsing, which is equally as good but overused in media)

trembling/shivering (additional adjectives could be violently, uncontrollably, etc)

sobbing (weeping is a synonym but i’ve never liked that word. also love using sob by itself, as a noun, like “he let out a quiet sob”)

whimpering (love hitting the wips with this word when a character is weak, especially when the pain is subsiding. also love using it for nightmares/attacks and things like that)

clinging (to someone or something, maybe even to themselves or their own clothes)

writhing/thrashing (maybe someone’s holding them down, or maybe they’re in bed alone)

crying (not actual tears. cry as in a shrill, sudden shout)

dazed (usually after the pain has subsided, or when adrenaline is still flowing)

wincing (probably overused but i love this word. synonym could be grimacing)

doubling-over (kinda close to keeling over but they don’t actually hit the ground, just kinda fold in on themselves)

heaving (i like to use it for describing the way someone’s breathing, ex. “heaving breaths” but can also be used for the nasty stuff like dry heaving or vomiting)

gasping/sucking/drawing in a breath (or any other words and phrases that mean a sharp intake of breath, that shite is gold)

murmuring/muttering/whispering (or other quiet forms of speaking after enduring intense pain)

hiccuping/spluttering/sniffling (words that generally imply crying without saying crying. the word crying is used so much it kinda loses its appeal, that’s why i like to mix other words like these in)

stuttering (or other general terms that show an impaired ability to speak — when someone’s in intense pain, it gets hard to talk)

staggering/stumbling (there is a difference between pain that makes you not want to stand, and pain that makes it impossible to stand. explore that!)

recoiling/shrinking away (from either the threat or someone trying to help)

pleading/begging (again, to the threat, someone trying to help, or just begging the pain to stop)

Feel free to add your favorites or most used in the comments/reblogs!