#calla lily foster | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yandere-society · 4 years

Text

pjm | “carnal lechery”

pairing: yandere! vampire! jimin x novice nun! virgin! fem. reader

rating: M

genre: yandere au, supernatural (vampire) au, smut, angst

word count: 10.5K

Headline: Halloween Night Massacre; Police Baffled By Murdering Spree

warnings: yandere themes, dub con, angst, graphic sexual content, unprotected sex, penetrative sex, oral (m.rec & f.rec), bonding, blindfolding, biting, loss of virginity, virginal blood worship, overstimulation, use of feathers and chains, mentions of blood, graphic descriptions of slaughtering, mentions of religious cults, mentions of christianity, mentions of sacrifices, gore.

synopsis: Attempts to precede his arrival made you ornery as he slipped like thin air from your fingers, even when you’d have him so close. You had almost ultimately fixated in your mind that you’d never know your secret admirer. Meanwhile— mysterious murders, disappearances and uproars about the return of the most fabled coven of vampires: ❛The Rouge❜ leads you to expect your imminent death. However, you do not expect the turn of events and the appearance of the one you’d been seeking for.

admin: @unfurlingtwinklingstar

It was one of those macabre mornings when you’d find an oh-so-familiar garland at your doorstep.

The very same kind of flowers that you’d prefer for decorating your little reading nook with, would lay wrapped in a delicate paper foil. The dew on its petals would appear golden as it would kiss the ray of dawn streaming through the porch of your fern-scented cottage.

A feverish shiver would run through your spine at the sight of a caramel-colored envelope right underneath the lavender foil in anticipation of what this letter would say about you.

It would be hard to persist the laden need to find the giver first when the lovely pink petals would almost frown at your resistance.

You cherished calla lilies. There wasn’t a day when they’d not sit on your vase with their trimmed stems soaked in lukewarm water, smiling as they bloom.

Every Friday, this was to be expected. Yet, you weren’t fully comfortable with the handwritten cursive that’d make your fingers slack at its message.

The meander cursive masked the obscene descriptions of your curves, the filth in the mind of the writer was impeccably reflected in the flow of the dark ink.

The first time you had gotten such a letter, you had a recurred session reading it with obscure scrutiny, only to find the title ‘Third youngest of the Rouge’ in the sender name column.

The letters had chanted your name like a prayer, it’d beckon for you to have a taste of the kind of pleasure that you were trying to celibate yourself from, the kind that’d be a sin to indulge in.

It made your body thrice warmer, your body blazed into a pretty rouge like the robes you wore during service hours in the church.

Eroticism and romance were taboo subjects to conventuals and canonesses at the convent of Volterra. Being a novice in service to the almighty, you were taught to be a holy carmelite, a slender benedictine, devoted especially to scholarship and liturgical worship.

But the intimate descriptions highlighted the black traces of sin in the depths of your soul as if the devil awaited his chance to stand erect and applaud in sheer satisfaction at the sight of your crumbling control.

Sucking in shaky breaths, you grab hold of the stirrer and kindle the crackling flames dancing in your fireplace.

Without a second thought, you toss the expensive pieces of poetry into the topaz flames and watch as the fire comes to life and blazes the parchment to ashes.

You were considered too much of a vestal to submit to this admirer of yours.

The choirs at the convent church were different compared to other choirs that didn’t sing hymns. Their voices were almost like the angels’, high notes soaring over the clouds, graceful notes dancing on the staves, they sang for the almighty only.

This was halloween at the monestery. Whilst the town wore spooky robes and went around sharing treats in exchange of spared tricks, you sang along with your fellow sisters, honouring the almighty and paying tribute to saint Marcus.

You sang along, keeping a low voice and swaying to the gentlest harmony in devotion. The stanzas are clutched to your heart and you cherish this moment when you feel the string between you and your god. You cannot fathom how satiated you feel. Your mind strays to your past, when you were under foster care.

You were a doting, little child despite how the other girls prayed for a future where they can possess expensive goods and glittery jewelry. You only kept away from their notions of want and sinful desires for pleasure even as you became an adult.

You chose to bake cookies, share blankets, study the Bible, smile and croon at the praises the church would give you, rather than read obscene novels and join the young woman of your age in subjects that were atrocious in the eyes of the holy.

Sister Siena walked you to your dwelling at the convent’s residence while she chattered about her moss garden and herbs that could treat flu. You listened quietly, letting out little nonchalant hums. Gardening wasn’t a subject of your interest and you were much more fatigued to feign enthusiasm.

“The halloween rituals might probably need an addition of prune juice, don’t you think?” she asks while you unlock the latch and walk into your home.

You let out a small smile and usher her in whilst nodding to everything in your surroundings. A little envelope peeks out from the gap between the floor and the hallway door, making your chest tighten at the realisation.

A letter from your mystery admirer was unforeseen and definitely unwelcome, especially in the presence of a fellow nun in your dwelling.

The attention of sister Siena is brought back at the sight of a cream-coloured envelope with a rather unfamiliar stamp on its surface.

Her olive eyes narrow to two slits and makes perspiration bead out and down your clavicle in fear. In the blink of an eye, the envelope’s seal is torn and the letter is perused by the chestnut haired female at once.

Her response however, gives you a cursory shock. Her lips turn into a smile and she stares up at you, eyes in awe as if she had witnessed the grand work of Caravaggio.

“You have an admirer”, she infers and you scour her face for signs of offense only, to find nil. She seems rather, glad.

“I— I usually burn them there” you point to your fireplace and her shoulders buckle in a brief fit of giggles, as if you had shared an anecdote.

“Who would pray to have a vestal nun? It is like counting the stars.” she mumbles into her mug of tea, eyes flickering from your face to the letter, absent-mindedly.

You shrug and get seated opposite to her, straining your eyes on the flickering flames that warms your numb, cold toes. You sigh in bliss at the tranquil frame of your nook and almost the next minute, your eyes flutter shut and you sink into the lulled sounds of the crackling fire.

Unbeknownst to you, the young nun seated at your opposite has her nerves ossified at the glimpse of the sender’s title. Comprehension of ‘third youngest of the rouge’ sends her mind into frenzy. Dismay sinks into her heart and makes it thud and toll like church bells at the realisation of the plight that you have been pulled into and she shudders.

Without so as to even a noise, the letter is slid into her crimson tunic and the envelope is thrown into the fire.

The coolness of the midnight is deceptive; the sun has barely risen and this altitude is always cooler. Siena’s destination is low down and deep into the interior, well away from the onshore winds. When she reaches, the heat of that region makes her compare the temperature to her kitchen’s, on a baking day— like a friendly warmth instead of the inferno it always is.

Her footsteps are ushered as the heels of her moccasins rap against the laid out cream carpet in dull thuds, her breathing is in a frenzy too for, hundreds of thoughts swarm in her head at once.

Siena is cold to the bone despite striding across the blazing heat of the deep, dim chambers of the three elderly canonesses, at the convent. The canonesses— head nuns are rather reserved and hostile about their roles in the society.

Before the 17th century, such chambers were often considered clandestine— precisely, before the battle of Tuscany. The battle held a significant place in history, for how saint Marcus and his veterans fought and impeded entire Tuscany off of sanguinarians— a term used to describe vampires.

The rise and fall of the most fabled coven of vampires was inscribed in the olden scriptures and was forgotten to tell tales about wizards and curses as of the present. Siena had studied about them at school.

The mere image of the counts brings shivers down the woman’s spine and she shudders as she holds onto the letter and walks, toward the canonesses’ chambers.

It is dark when she arrives; gnarled trees hung low over the baronial church, creaking ominously in the howling winds. The heavy oak doors broke open, echoing around the empty church.

The moonlight shone through the heavily cracked stained-glass windows, casting an eerie glow onto the dusty alter. Thick cobwebs hung on every surface and her footsteps sounded deafening on the cold stone floor.

Two elder ladies sit perched on their carpeted thrones with their veils over their heads and backs turned toward Siena. They hold hands in a circle and mutter chants to themselves.

Siena’s eyes capture the silent movements of their fingers and the incessant nods of their heads. She gently walks— almost stalks, until one of the elder canonesses perk at her arrival and seek her to sit with them.

The chamber walls radiate off its warmth and the conversation is lulled as Siena breathes out her concerns with utter respect, her expression remains composed despite her rapid breathing.

The canonesses nod with eyes widened at the size of fire lanterns, their fingers tremble slightly in comprehension of the magnitude of issue that the young nun had brought to them.

In the next hour, right on the death of halloween, nuns and monks are summoned from the monastery and a ceremony is held right in their place to seek peace once again.

The seven Rouge sanguinarians, the fabled coven of vampires have returned to Volterra.

The four canonesses sit in a circle and one of them draws a circled figure at their center. The symbol seems ominous to Siena, it seems almost like a satanic pentagram. A silver crucifix is fixed right at the junction of the chalked lines and the series of chants begin.

For almost a quarter of a hour, Siena sits— rooted and in the careful look-out for queer changes in the surroundings. The next minute, one of the canonesses jerk as if she had felt a foreign presence and collapses on the canoness next to her.

The chamber queerly begins getting chilled as the chants get more louder in unison. Whooshing noises of the wind soon fills the chamber and an eerie figure settles through the open window, making Siena freeze, petrified.

At the end of the hallway stands a slender yet, robust, almost surreal, young-looking man sheathed in a heavy, scarlet cloak. His eyes are shut, as if he is in deep thought, and once they open, they make Siena jump out of her seat in fear.

Skin almost translucent, a bloodless hue, reminiscent of cave dwelling creatures that never saw the light of day, as pale as the living dead, as pale as a corpse. His bleached skin was as white as a sheet of paper next to the sleeve of the black woolen sweater, his orbs seemed bloodshot, yet, they held a life of their own like the burning rouge of a ruby.

“Third youngest of the Rouge”, Siena hears a canoness announce, the latter’s voice seems both startled and in disbelief.

“Ann. Fancy seeing you there, you seem older than in our last meeting, don’t you agree?”, the young count seethes and takes steps toward the eldest of all the canonesses.

Siena stares at the duo, perplexed. The two seem to know each other like old acquaintances yet, their eyes hold an unexpressed rage that she does not fathom.

“I am afraid greetings will have to wait, Park. You and your brothers must be well aware of the treaty you have broken.” Ann almost hisses, stepping in front of the rest as if she is unafraid to emphasize her point.

The ethereal man quirks an eyebrow at Ann’s actions in disapproval yet, curls one side of his mouth in a smirk, eyes reflecting a certain devilish glint.

“Ah. You accursed humans never seem to learn, do you? Fifty years ago, we made a pact. For our coven to never be disturbed by you humans, in exchange for us to move our grounds”, he accentuates the words and sets his eyes on Siena, making the latter freeze.

“Twenty years ago, there was a lovely young woman with round orbs and curves more enrapturing than the meanders of Tuscany’s hills”,

At the mention, something turns in the face of Ann as it hardens like wilted musk. Park further continues walking and retracing his steps, eyes glued shut and jaws clenched in raw rage.

“She was bonded to one of the youngest counts and the war—” he pauses in his steps with his sculpted back turned toward the canonesses, as he stares blankly ahead, grieved.

“The war, it killed her. She lost her life, she died in vain. She was destroyed by her own race. The pact was shattered broken at that moment, that moment when the light left her bewitching eyes.” he croaks a bit, shoulders slacking as if the memory was his venom.

“She was innocent yet, she was killed. By your people.”

There’s a shadow casted in the slender man’s eyes and it was quite clear. The rage for revenge that was cloaked in it.

Even whilst his back was turned, his head seemed calculative of the canonesses’ immediate response. Ofcourse, humans never seemed to learn.

Ann’s eyes reflect death and almost the next second, she strides forward with the silver crucifix in her hand and tosses it at the empty black space where Park stood, moments before.

The next second, a heavy, red, mushy liquid is splattered onto Siena’s face as she screams and crawls toward the exit, horrified for her life.

The canonesses’ throats had been cut and they lay like butchered animals in a waste of blood. One corpse had slipped from the low throne to the right of the door and lay staring up at her, the mouth open, the head almost cleft from the body. She saw again the severed vessels, sticking like corrugated pipes through the clotted blood. The second was propped, ungainly as a rag doll, against the far wall. Her head had drooped forward and over her chest a great mat of blood had spread like a bib.

Tuscany’s most esteemed dignitaries of the church society lay like ghoulish mannequins, the esophagus and arteries sticking out like so much corrugated and rubber tubing. The smell that vapoured from their bodies could only come from slaughtered animals.

Thick, warm blood crawled into Siena’s throat and clawed at her air sacs like muck. Spewing with every glance at the mass slaughter, she struggled to wipe away the splutters of blood stuck to her skin and crawled on her limbs not any different from a five-sensed mutt, heaving and croaking for mercy.

Her pleadings for mercy fell upon deaf ears. When the bone of her ankle was seized to pull her toward the ghoulish young count, Siena thought the night would take away the last of her breath.

Her jaws were clasped in the count’s fingers and her eyes were a hair away from the orbs of death. The young count was sheathed by the moonlight in a silvery halo.

Without the traces of blood on his mouth, skin resembling the late winter and rage on his sculpted visage as red as his name, anyone could mistake the monster to be an angel.

His temper was on a hair-trigger and his eyes were lethal.

“You will run to the town’s mayor. If you want your soul to be spared, you will run there and shout to those mucks that the Rouge have returned”, the count spewed venom with each word.

“You will throw this parchment on their faces and demand that they comply to every syllable that’s scribed in the sheet!” he speaks, spelling out thunder claps and boulders at the poor nun.

“If not, Tuscany will have every breathing and crawling creature slaughtered like its canonesses”. He warns and whooshes away like smoke— ungraspable by bare hands.

Even in the wintry morning when town folks discussed the daily’s headlines with an uneasy settlement in their guts, you pursued boiling tea and folding your blankets neatly, unmindful of their great fear.

The afternoon too was eerily quiet and folks everywhere preferred to speak in a whisper and contain themselves in their abode. It seemed rather dubious and as heedless as you were, you never perceived that your innocence would lead to your downfall.

The sun sank lower in the sky, draining away the golden hue of the warm and gave path to a velvety dark night. The same moment when the crickets came out to chirp, dusky colours subdued in the fading light as shrieks and collective roars were heard at the heart of the town.

You, along with some of your fellow nuns peaked at the commotion and threaded through the crowd that swarmed in front of the Mayor’s office. On the board was a derogatory notice. Although, the crumples and rusty stains gave away the fact that the notice wasn’t pinned by the authorities. Its calligraphy looked eerily familiar to you.

“Tunic as red as our coven’s name, skin shining like beacon, tresses sheeny and burnished, eyes like the forest floor and gentle flowers with mirth, feminine curves softer and untouched like a laden bush of peony,”

The fear is a weight on the Mayor’s ribs and there exists a dull ache in his eyes, an unwillingness for his mouth to lift past neutral, to charge against but, words are lost in the hollow of his throat. Fear stills his lips as he pursues it to read out the rest.

“—The young vestal nun with a name that echoes across valleys of Tuscany, the one who dwells in the only fern-coated cottage near the gates of the lush forest.

Bring her to the place where human ritual pyres blaze, those who dare do otherwise, prepare to meet death as painful as a swine’s.

Against you rise, prepare to pay a deathly price.” he ends and mutters hurriedly in the commissioner’s ear and you notice the skeleton of his wrinkled fingers tremble at the slightest.

There’s a hushed eruption of conversations that bubbles ever so slowly amongst the townfolk at the astonishing notice and you freeze, petrified when eyes stray toward you, almost accusingly. You realise, with horror, they’ve recognised the vestal nun in the description.

You breathe heavily and your gut begins to twist into an uneasy coil when the commissioner’s fingers point directly at you.

Your desire to evaporate heedily rushes into your mind and something akin to being a criminal overwhelms you. When you step away to sprint far, you are seized by heavy men as they haul you off the earth by your limbs.

The thousand pair of ears at the town’s center fall deaf to your scattered pleadings— screams. Heartlessly, they drag you to the threads of your last few breaths and you helplessly submit, falling prey to your fatigue from the endless stream of tears that races down your rosy cheeks.

Your wails are unheard as the elder women of your town shield you from the public view, sit you in a warm creek and wash you in the clear stream, no different from a creature to be sacrificed for their religious rituals.

You croak out the last of your pleadings before the sun sets, and the women only watch you with nothing more than pity in their eyes.

Their hands are hurried as they strip you and dress you in the most rouge of all cloaks in the town, steam your hair dry, stain your lips with sliced beet, trace the lines where your lashes lie with charcoal.

Other than the sizzling charcoal that dries your tresses and your dull sobs, the creek is silent even as the herd of women stand together.

When you are sat and tied to the sacrifice stone, you shriek with more violence than gales. The ties that bound your limbs to the stone would not come loose at the desolate way you cried.

You sobbed and sobbed and sobbed until your throat closed on itself and you felt the heaviness on your eyelids. Fatigue beckoned you and you obeyed, submitting to it unconsciously.

The stillness of the air seemed to suck even the sound of the chain’s clanks when you moved your limbs into the nothingness of the cave. Even the trees seemed not to rustle as if they were tense with nerves for what was to come.

You jostled awake when the trees rustled and a strong wind blew from nowhere, chains rattling at your limbs’ sudden motion.

Trees stood naked as they had before, but their twigs curled in a distorted way, as if the tree itself screamed in pain.

The sky was a mass of grey cloud, again so ordinary for autumn, but instead of letting small shafts of light through they emitted an ethereal glow.

The wind was just as bitter as before, coming straight from the north, but the scent was something else, metallic almost, with a tinge of acrid burning.

The fire that kept you warm flicker, casting an ominous glow throughout the tunnel, causing shivers to ripple across your body. You drag your legs across the surface of the sacrifice stone, gathering yourself into a ball.

Wind streams through the tunnel, waking the bats in the cave, twirling them in the air, only to drop them off into the void. All signs of life vanish from the tunnels that were once so full of warmth and the fire becomes extinguished.

You peer as you stare at the mangled stone beneath you.

A heinous laugh echoes throughout the tunnel, rebounding off the crumpled walls, and you crawl closer to the wall in sorrow. Like the cave, your soul is too abandoned and then all fades to black.

You shut your eyes and sit, quivering in fright as footsteps echoed menacingly. There was a hoarse breathing heard dully and you began to hear your own whimpers.

At an unexpected chime of the hour, through the empty night, a gentle voice calls out your name.

Your arms tighten around your body and the curtain of your hair falls around your face, shielding your view of the silhouette growing in front of you.

“Tuscany’s most loveliest lily”, the voice shallows into a soothing whisper and a woody fragrance tickles your nostrils. Your mind ticks at the familiar syllables uttered out and something blossoms in you besides fear, your features contour into slight puzzlement.

“I climb so high, lost in the sensation, I succumb to the scent of the stream that runs in your veins”, you listen more closely.

“I cry out in pleasure, my body on fire, I cling to your scent, hunger feeding my desire”, by then, you are sure of the stanza. It was what licked your insides, it was what beckoned you to sin. The lines were your admirer’s.

Then, it pauses.

The voice is gone, so is the scent. You push your tresses off your eyes and cautiously look in the dead of the night that seemed alive a few moments prior.

Something creeks and rustles at the faintest— right behind your neck, causing its hair to stand. There’s something behind you. Or rather, someone.

Your eyes shut at the feeling of a cold breath tickling the locks of your hair. When a thick strand is pulled and a deep inhale is heard, you whip to find only emptiness.

There’s a few moments of listening to only your anxious breath and thuds of your breathing heart before a fine piece of silk is wrapped around your eyes.

You let out a startled scream at the sudden hindrance of your sight and the feeling of a glacial pair of brawny arms sheathing around your waist. A set of black dots disperse in your vision and your mind is lulled by a hushed, smooth voice into your ear.

“Found you, my little fawn”.

You regain consciousness in a dimly lit room, on a lush, oak-coloured duvet. With the movement of one leg the tell-tale clink of wine bottles rouses you and one blink of the eye tells you that your head is just as bad. You squint, dry mouth sticky with thick saliva and your legs are immediately pulled to your chest at the queer recognition of the place.

You feel as though you have lived a very long time in this colossal manor.

The Manor grew out of the manicured lawn like an infant castle. It’s nascent stone walls were a pale grey and were barren of the moss or ivy that clung to the walls of the older homes in the village. Its large oak door was double wide and was sheltered under a wide porch supported by stone pillars. The entry way was grandiose, sweeping into a wide circle in front of the dwelling with an ornate fountain in the center.

As seconds advance, your mind harks back to unfamiliar images in the same space— a young woman in an elegant frock chortling as she gets chased by a burly yet, slender man who looked youthful as well.

His laboriously chiseled face, cheekbones that had near pierced his flesh had led to sunken eyes, puddles of avarice set about them.

Dark hair covering his head, long and fragrant with rose thorns.His chin, one such extremity which sought to put his cheekbones to shame, it succeeded in its purchase to pierce its own flesh. A small scab could be seen about it’s exit, to which his hand tended to itch.

A thick, velvety cape traces his sturdy steps— chasing after the woman and you gasp when her face comes into your sight.

It is you.

Only, more alluring in the gown that hugs your— her curves. Her laugh is unceasing and sultry mostly, seductive.

Your eyes dilate when you see her unhitch the ties holding her robe to her curves and like a vixen, she steps out of it, lying back on the duvet, beckoning for the ethereal man to her.

He seemed ravenous, his irises iridescent as they turn from raven to crimson at the sight of the slick between her legs.

She seemed brazen, like a cur in heat, in need of flesh when she crawled upon the alluring man, rolling her hips into the air provocatively, she caused the balls of the man to get filled, none similar to your dainty facet.

She takes his girth into her lips, making the count seethe in pleasure, her tongue wrapping around its head, she makes him bellow like a buzzard when she takes him deep into her throat and teases his balls.

He looks feasted, satiated beyond syllables when she licks every inch of his hard wood and takes him to a state of druken stupor.

Your breathing comes out in strained huffs as you watch him take her— you as he presses his lips against her skin and utters words that make her keen and bawl in pleasure.

You watch as their naked flesh twist gracefully into one and something else begins to unravel in your memories.

Where there should be blank space is blank memories, like a soft beige wall bereft of photographs. It brushes through the subconscious, recalling memories that bring out the deepest spark of nostalgia of the soul.

You recall every single one of it, your eyes shut intuitively and you sink into a rather familiar abyss of lost memories. In it, you hold hands with the same man who appeared moments prior. Only now, you know his name.

The one who loved you past all the years that went like streams to the sea, in all your lives as a mortal.

“Soft. Your hands. Soft and warm - on my face, on my chest, in my dreams, in the umbrella of dawn, under the first streams of morning light. Your hands in the pitch black of night, muscles and tendons dancing between each other in a lover’s dance. Fingertips like matches grazing my skin with flame, our scars being the measure of our love. I bare my scars, because I remember the time when your flame danced on me forever, before your hands turned to ice.”

All of your admirer’s words make sense to you. The lost passion, the lost memories, the lost life of yours as the light left your eyes when humans attacked the manor you had peacefully lived in.

There was a deep cut in the skin of your neck from the shattered pieces of glass and a heavy cry escapes the throat of the man at the dreadful sight— you, on the Jimin’s thighs, in his arms as he cried for you to not leave him.

You had smiled and reached your hand to his cheeks, engulfed his lips in one last passionate kiss before your eyes shut on its own, soul departing your frail body.

You see him, your past lover begging for you to return, you see his brothers lifting you into your grave.

Shudders rack your body and your cheeks are wet when you open your eyes to the present, to find the shadowy, familiar presence sitting right across you, his arms prop his chin upright and his eyes drink you in.

Jimin steps from the shadows, stealing your breath and the heat from your skin. Suddenly your defences are just paper, paper that is being soaked by the rapidly falling briny drops.

Before you can draw in the air your body needs, you have melted into his form. You feel his firm torso and the heart that beats within. His hands fold around your back, drawing you in closer.

You feel your body shake, crying for the missed time the two of you will never make again, crying to release the woe of long years in separation.

He caresses your cheeks and wipes the tears with a calloused finger, even this roughness brings more relief than your heart can hold. He is eating you with his eyes, running his hand through your hair, as if he cannot quite fathom you are not part of an almost forgotten dream.

When he kisses you, it is sweet, gentle, and it tastes of your tears. You want to speak but all you can do is croak,

“Jimin”.

His mouth paints a soft smile and he kissed you once before folding you in his arms again.

“My beautiful peony, my little fawn, my love, my heart, my entire world. It was never your fault”, he mutters and you keen closer to him, pulling his mouth to yours once again. You close your eyes shut at the feeling of his tongue twisting with yours and your knees lose strength, sending you spiralling into his arms.

“Oh, how I missed having you close to me, seeing yet, not being able to ravish is a curse” he whispers and you feel the heat pooling in your core when he noses at your jugular and inhales your scent.

“The scent of your blood remains heavenly through the ages” he sings, arms digging further into the curve of your waist.

“And this musky arousal—”

You gasp when you feel the tips of his nimble fingers brush the crotch of your undergarment, relishing in the heat of your wetness.

“This time, I’ll have you breathing for eternity, little fawn. I’ll turn you into what I am”. He declares with a stern voice, consuming the breaths that escape your lungs.

When you stare into his crimson irises, you pray for his touch, beg for what he promises. “Claim me, my lord. I’ll spend an eternity in your arms. Touch me, make me yours”.

Surely, it would be yes. The count was a notorious rake and libertine. He was called a thorough and absolute rouge, true to his name. How could he possibly turn down the chance to debauch the most delicious little fawn tempting him to revel in her taste?

With one kiss, Jimin swooped you off the floor and completely into his arms, transporting back to the cave you were sacrificed in.

He had planned for the entire town to hear your wails of pleasure. When you felt and heard the rattling of chains around your limbs, you shrieked, startled.

“No need to be afraid, my lovely fawn. I only wish to show these mongrels who you belong to”. Jimin expounds, making your core clench in need.

“Touch me, my lord” you scrounged like a fox, coaxing the ravished count with the tantalizing motions of your hips.

“Disrobe for me, little fawn. Take that sheer robe off, I want your naked flesh”, Jimin snarls and his mouth waters when your dainty fingers scramble to untie your gown. You sputter, your cheeks flush a vivid red at his grimy words.

Fear. Nerves. And illicit, forbidden, wrong physical desire. You felt it all at once.

Jimin bent to you and pressed his lips to your neck. The oddest jolt of fire leapt from there. It rushed through your veins like flames licking at the sky.

His hair tickled the bones of your cheek as he stroked and hollowed his mouth along your throat and reached the rim of your ear. He brushed back your hair. Surprisingly, his breath was cool. Almost icy. You had heard women speak of men blowing their breath by their ears—something that hadn’t sounded at all enticing—but the maids had described warm breath. Jimin’s breath was cold.

Still, the brush of it did feel surprisingly … good.

He nibbled your ear, making shivers tumble down your spine. He stroked the exposed skin at your collarbones. Goodness, how could it feel so hot—like a candle’s flame flickering close to your skin?

He tugged your cowering hands away to expose the swell of your breasts. His body tightened with arousal at the sight of your full, generous curves, erection bucking against his stomach.

Pushing you on the boulder, he ravaged your mouth, letting his hands venture down to the cleft of your arse. You bucked at the foreign feeling, gasping at the feeling of his tongue suckling the soft flesh of your lips into his mouth. His tongue curls around yours and he suckles it too, making you melt into a puddle in his full hold.

His mouth traces your throat and when it ghosts over the curve of your breasts, you shudder and your skin breaks into goosebumps.

He suckled. God, you were delicious. And you were moving beneath him. You arched to press your breast to his mouth.

Your scent reached his nose. And, he was lost. Lost in want. He rolled over you, coaxed your legs apart with his, and settled between, caressing your sweet cunny all the while. You gasped at the feeling of his thumb rolling your pearl and whimpered when his middle finger found your entrance, dipping to revel in your slick insides.

Oh goodness, he had flicked that most sensitive place—the little bump that lay between your nether lips, and you almost rolled her eyes back into your head at the pleasure.

Your hips arched up. He stroked you a little harder, as if he had known the rocking of your hips was a wordless signal that meant: I am begging you for more.

Then he slid his finger inside you. Between your nether lips, parting them gently. Goodness, he was inside you. You were doing the most intimate thing possible. With the man who remained an enigmatic admirer in your mind until the touch of his fingers tainted your soul, with the man who held your heart for eternity.

“Open your eyes.”

The first things you saw were thick, velvet-soft black lashes and gorgeous crimson eyes. Eyes that glittered at you in the firelight. “I want your eyes on me” he ordered huskily.

Then his finger slid deep inside, and you gasped at the sudden sensation—an intense quiver that rushed through you. You heard a shocking wet, sucking sound as his finger thrust in and out. It was the sound of your arousal.

“Let your moans out, little fawn. I wish to hear your sweet voice” he coaxed.

Biting your lower lip, you whimpered. You didn’t want to speak. The pleasure his wizardry brought was fervent, it felt foreign yet, acutely compelling and delicious. It made you drool, you needed him, flesh, bone, heart, soul.

His hand moved and he stopped stroking the little nub that vibrated with such intense feeling. You gasped in frustration.

He wrapped his hand around the shaft of his erection—you could feel the brush of his fingers against your stomach as he took hold of himself. Then, with his hand tight around it, he stroked the head of his erection against your nether lips. They had stuck together, resisting him, but he gently eased them apart.

Your arms were splayed on the mangled boulder beneath you and your eyes appeared to have gotten a taste of heaven, hands clenched in tight fists, toes curled and digging into Jimin’s hips at his ease into you.

Deeper he went, and his manhood stroked a place inside you that made explosions of light in front of your eyes. Then a twinge of pain rushed through you and you gasped in shock.

His fingers traced the curve of your cheek. “Shh, my fawn” he whispered. “Easy. It will hurt when I go past your little maidenhead. But after that it will be very, very good.”

“Jimin—”

He thrust. You squealed. You clenched. You tightened. You wanted to back away. But you couldn’t vanish into the boulder. Nor could you push him off. There was a searing pain that burned the walls of your insides yet, the delicious stretch of his girth brushed the softest tissue that made your mouth open wide, soundlessly and expose your luscious throat for his mouth to marr.

Jimin’s lips suckled every inch the clammy flesh of your shoulders and breasts— until lilac bruises respired in its wake. The perked peaks of your breasts were soft and toothsome in his mouth. And the tiny heels of your palms digging into his chest felt euphoric, he wished for it to caress his veiny member instead.

His nose nudged into your sternum, imbibed the scent of rushing blood to your breasts. His eyes shut as he sniffed deeply, his fangs grew in length and a gravelly groan rumbled from his chest at the redolent aroma of your blood.

“You feel warm and soft, my delicious little fawn. I could forever inhale this toothsome stream running through your veins”.

Without stalling, Jimin enveloped the teat of your breast into his mouth and laved, before piercing his honed fangs into the soft flesh, guzzling at the divine, rouge liquid that leaked onto his pearly teeth and sharp tongue, making you hiss at the feeling.

The feeling was gut-wrenching at the onset, it made you scream into Jimin’s shoulders.

He pressed against you, seating himself all the way inside, and he didn’t move. He stayed motionless, and he rained kisses on your forehead, cheeks, lips. It was hard to feel pain with such glorious kisses stealing your breath. And little by little, the stinging sensation ebbed.

A few moments of incessant suckling and your strained huffs at the strokes of his tongue on your tormented peak unfolded a queer pleasure, obscure to be produced by human males.

Soon, each suckle and lave from Jimin’s mouth pulled you to the white, hazed edge of pleasure and you cried out in ecstasy. Your cheeks were riddled hot, body spasmodic, in graceful waves as you began to roll your hips.

You whispered, “More”, Then you saw his sculpted visage.

He looked starved, ravenous. He looked raw, ravaged, tormented. His eyes were wild. His mouth was a slash, bracketed by harsh lines. He looked as though his control could snap in a heartbeat.

“My lord?” you called for him.

“You are tight, sweet, and perfect, my fawn. So no, I am no longer all right.”

You let your arms slip from his neck, but your legs were still wrapped around him, and his groin, hot and hard, was pressed tight into you. Then came the gratifying wave of pleasure as Jimin rolled his hips into yours, his girth slipping in and out of you, wholly, fulfillingly.

Gods, he was huge. The thick, hot, pulsing hard muscle of his legs throbbed against your thigh. His big manhood twitched inside you— feeling as thick as your arm. He groaned, kissing you fiercely as he moved his hips and nudged his swollen head further inside, almost into your cervix. You cried out, feeling it pulsing into your drooling slit.

With a moan into his lips, you strained your thighs and allowed him to pound in and out of you, the thick, slick shaft of his cock sliding wetly out from between your lips as you groaned throatily.

“Have a screaming orgasm, little fawn.”

He circled his hips as he said it, stroking his long shaft within you. He planted one sweet, sensual kiss after another on your lips, and kept your gaze locked with his.

You watched a smile touch Jimin’s full, handsome mouth. Then groans deepened the lines framing his lips. His eyes glowed as if they were on fire, and his deep, throaty moans … You drink all of them.

You were weak with pleasure, yet driven to rock with him. You clung to him, arching your hips, panting. Your nipples had hardened, and each thrust brushed them against his chest. Lips tingling from kisses, breasts throbbing from swift brushes, your quim pulsed … and fire raged in you, hotter than fire and you screamed as you came, body spasmodic.

He held you as his lips slurped at the slop of blood from the punctured marks on the peaks of your breasts.

It is when he pulls out of your body, he turns. This time, his eyes travel below your navel and licks at your core. There’s a thin stream of his release that flows from within you and there is a whit of warmth that seeps along with it, making his stomach clench with carnal hunger.

Carnal lechery for your blood and the musk of your release, it blows like a breeze over him.

Your fragrance consisted of a scent that represented freshly cut timber, like the damp forest after a rainy day; you smelt heavenly, like fresh-scented pine and honey, he wanted to indulge in the depths of the hint of cinnamon-like musk it produced.

It is the blood that reflected your lost virginity, your lost innocence. You are no more vestal, he has made you sin.

In the depths of night, your eyes were dew, scattering the nascent rays, ever illuminating the dark in his soul and he lusted vigorously for the taste of you, to let him be consumed by everything you offer to give him.

And so, he chains your limbs again, and blinds your vision for the nonce, for your senses to get heightened, for your slick to stream like nectar from ambrosia.

You gasp quietly at the impairment of your vision.

His fingers pluck a pair of pampas grass fluttering in the wind and when you feel it caress the tiny puncture holes at your sensitive nipples, you whimper, your slick caressing Jimin’s chest.

His lips find purchase at your inner thighs, fangs shallowly sinking into the soft flesh. The feeling makes your toes curl and you croak his name out in pure bliss.

“How delicious, your scent is divine, my fawn” he growls and pulls your core to his nose with vigour while you attempt to slither away, shyly.

“Trying to escape my grasp is useless, little fawn” he warns, making you cry out at the feeling of his arctic breaths blowing over your sensitive core.

“I’ll catch you faster than the wind could sheath around you” he gutturally breathes and spreads you beneath him, holding your soft thighs in his metal hold.

He moved lower, his breath teasing over your thigh. And then, you felt it, and the moan of pure ecstasy tore from your lips.

Jimin’s hot, wet tongue delved between your lips, dragging slowly and wetly up every bit of you until it flicked across your aching clit. You moaned in pleasure, crying out as his powerful hands pushed your legs wide apart and his wicked tongue pushed deep between them.

With a moan, your eyes flew open to see his face hovering above your delicate and exposed core. His eyes glinted wickedly at you, and you watched, panting in pleasure as he slowly licked his lips clean.

“Like nectar,” he growled. “Lie back, little fawn. Lie back and let me taste you.”

He moved back in, and suddenly, you moaned loudly. The feeling was like nothing else you had ever felt — this perfect, electric feeling of his icy tongue teased over your lips and clit. His wide, strong tongue dragged up and down your pussy, making your whole body arch and tremble for him. You balled your fists and cried out into the flickering firelight of the cave.

He slid his tongue deep inside, spreading your lips with his fingers, dragging your sticky wetness up from your opening to slide electrically across your aching clit. You arched my back and cried out as his tongue made contact there. It curled at your bud, bringing whimpering mewling sounds to your lips before sliding down through your folds again. You stiffened, and then moaned as you felt that hot, wet tongue slide wickedly against the opening of your arse, making you gasp as it slid over the sensitive ring there.

You couldn’t believe the sensations flooding your body at the touch of this rough, powerful, demanding, gorgeous man — from the rouge who was gentle to a creature with hound-like lust for your dripping arousal and blood.

His tongue pushed against your opening, pushing in to curl sensually inside of you. His thumb moved to your clit, his growl rumbling through me as he teased your little bud and tongue-fucked your slippery core, making you clench and arch your back off the stone under you.

You screamed as the orgasm exploded through you, hips bucking against Jimin’s perfect mouth. Your core clenched at the invading tongue, spasming around its thick wetness while the orgasm ripped through me. The famished count hungrily growled and pushed his tongue deep inside, tasting all of your virginal blood as the aftershocks exploded through you.

Slowly, he pulled away, his lips trailing over the little seam of your inner thigh as your whole world spun under you.

The feathery leaves of the pampas grass caressed the seams following his mouth and you felt his arms lifting you onto his lap, straddling him. He gently entered you again, mouth tracing the prominent vein at your jugular, tongue teasing it.

You shook and rippled around his thick wood, chains rattling loudly as you bite at every inch of his skin that your mouth could reach.

“I am going to turn you, my sweet fawn. Tonight is perfect, the moon is hidden and the branches sing for us. Let it all out, scream my name” they are incessant breaths against your jugular and you clench around him, hearing him cry out his devotion for you.

“I am ready, my lord. Turn me, I— I belong to you!” you cry out as the tip of his girth brushes your most sensitive spot.

Then the whooshing wind caresses your bare bodies, you feel the chains loosen and fall to the ground while Jimin embraces your shaking body entirely, increasing the pace of his inhuman thrusts.

His mouth takes yours and swallows your pleasured pants, yours tongue mulls his own when he feels your fingers thread through his soft locks and dig into his scalp. His hold on your hips are deathly and when he feels you clench and pant harder, he bites into the inside of his cheeks, closing his eyes as his blood trickles from his mouth, into yours.

Your throat closes at the repulsive, metallic taste and you gag, making Jimin tighten his hold on you. He twists your tongues together and urges you on, making you swallow down the thick drops of his blood.

When you feel his member caressing that sensitive spot of your insides once again, you gulp faster and Jimin smiles blissfully into your mouth as his tongue traces the sharp lines of your protruding canines, they course rapidly into pointy knives and he relishes in the sharpness of your fangs, tongue drinking your breaths in.

There’s an ethereal glow of light sheathing around the two of you. For a nonce, the bright, golden-silvery stratum panelling over you in particular makes the deep, dark abyss of the night seem like day. The round curves of your orbs sparkle an aurish dust and makes you look more beguiling than any other supernatural power to ever exist.

Jimin feels the illuminance and shuts his eyes in ecstasy for the warm streams of your blood chills into familiar ice, the same temperature as his. Your thrusts are gentled and you cry out in a new found lust for Jimin’s blood.

He can feel the urgency in your gulps as you grow more hungry for blood, his blood. He shudders when you sink onto him again, tilting his head to pierce your fangs into his throat.

He groans at the pleasurable feeling of your mouth gulping his blood hungrily and he forces you to pause, for his eyes to drink in the birth of your vampiric form.

The moment you open your eyes and stare into his, his breath catches.

Your orbs are a beautiful, fierce topaz-crimson and there is a bleached tone added to the luscious sheen of your skin, when you lick the drops of his blood from your lips, exposing the knives of your fangs, he feels the carnal lechery for you boil in his heart and stir at his manhood.

You are fully turned, looking like the goddess of death herself, veiled in an ethereal halo in the deep, dark, inked night.

His eyes drink your appearance ravenously and he concludes. Carnal lechery for you, that’s what possessed him all those years ago, that’s what drives him to sink his fangs into your flesh and drink your sweet blood over and over.

You are turned and you are eternally bonded to him, there’ll be no mongrel mortal in this universe to take you away from him.

Autumn days wane toward the inevitable colder weather ahead, each nightfall coming sooner that the one before.

Seven days were gone ever since you were welcomed and brought to the Rouge’s dwelling, the rocky fort miles away from your grim, little mossy town.

Topaz leaves dangled from the shadowy skeletons of trees, each one like as ominous sword of Damocles. The river was almost ice, showing reflections of the heavy, ashy sky so thick. The chill breeze rattling at the closed windows of the fort seemed to cry autumn, the roads were moist with stealthy dew as the season deepens their graceful boughs will be the prettiest of charcoal sketches, drawing themselves tall, reflecting the light of a wintry sun.

You are huddled in the silky red sheets of Jimin’s large duvety mattress, the lines of your naked legs traced by the sheets. You lie fatigued after a thorough session of lovemaking with your mate while he wordlessly caresses your hair, eyeing your curves, breathing the essence of your hair as he licks the remains of your dried blood from your breasts.

The sudden slam of the door came like a punctuation. There were panicked calls all around in the veranda and one of the maids peek their head through the door to the master chamber, her chest rising and falling in urgency.

“Forgive me for barging in, master and mistress”, she breathlessly bows, making you both rise, startled. You scatter to cover your body with the sheets while Jimin groans and ties his night robes to shield his body.

“Master, we seem to have an intruder. The other masters summoned you to the court immediately”, she keeps her eyes low and Jimin barks at her.

“How would we have an intruder? This fort is well protected!” he grunts and turns to you, placing a soft kiss on your lips as you eye the maid scurrying away, bowed.

“I’ll be right back, my love. You might as well get dressed".

You smile and pull on your silky night robes to your body, mindlessly staring at the creaking trees in the wind while Jimin marches to the veranda, his booming commands slowly ebbing away.

For a few ticks of chime, you hear nothing but the rustling leaves, sparrows chirping at a distance and the echoes of voices downstairs. When the door to the chamber you lie in opens on the spur of the serene moment, you fall back and onto your elbows, on the cottony patchwork of the carpeted floor.

A loud gasp knocks your lungs at the sight of the familiar fern-eyed, thick woman looming over you, offering her hand.

Siena. She is puffing out harsh breaths and her legs tremble, hasten. She seems too afraid as her eyes cavort to the door in trepidation and you realise, she is the intruder.

“Y/N! Y/N. You should listen to me, you should run away, the one you are with is a monster!” she hastily whispers, gripping at your arm.

You yawp at her gnawing grip and attempt to pull your arm to yourself and grit your teeth. At the sight of your crimson eyes, Siena’s hold gets loosened.

“H—he turned you, didn’t he?” she utters in shock, something in her eyes clutches at her back again and she pleads you again. You sigh and move to the chamber’s doors, pulling the latch to lock and you turn to face her.

“I am sorry sister Siena, but I must ask you to leave. History does not tell the truth. The Rouge were innocent, it was the people who broke the treaty”.

You eye her pitifully. She had come all the way for vain.

“Jimin is by nature of laws, my soulmate. I cannot live apart from him, I am no longer one of the mortals”. You proclaim, clasping your fingers together.

“Now, please leave—”

“I am afraid you do not know everything” mumbles Siena quietly, her olive eyes swimming in a stream of exigency, her limbs still tremble.

“Who has Park claimed to have murdered you in the past, Y/N?”

The will to not let her affect your resolution faintly faltered at the sight of her tenacity, she shakes similar to a leaf jostled by storm gales yet, her eyes remain adamant.

“Tell me, please”, she begs to the extremity of crumbling, her orbs trembling just as much as her limbs do.

You release the air from your lungs and mutter softly— “Humans. The ancestors of our town. I saw it, the evocation of my past self, I was killed by the town folks”.

Siena shook her head, her face contouring into a brew of disdain as well as pity, you were almost uncertain if it was aimed towards you.

The whooshing gales and Siena’s voice seem the same when she mutters out what earth had not devised itself ready to hear.

“No, my dear. It was not the town folks who had killed you, it was the very man you share this bed with, the most conniving, astute count amongst his brothers— Park Jimin of the Rouge!”

And in that light the carpet of leaves became crooked, and all aurish colours vanished, the wind tumbling around the empty space. Your heart pounded wildly in your chest and your face morphed into one of disdain, you were abhorred yet, shattered to the ground like the dry twigs stepped on by passing carts.

You knew nuns took an oath to preserve and authentic despite the unembellished life they lead because you were one too. Siena was not lying, every single word of hers proves to be true only by the contours of concern etched on her face.

“H-how? I—” you flounder like a fish taken out of the pond.

Siena sighs dismally. “When I went to the elder canonesses on halloween night, the eldest of them apprised a hidden tale of a young town girl and her lover— Hyun woo whose throats were silt by the third youngest of the Rouge”,

“Only sister Ann knew the story behind it”. You listened carefully, feeling prostrated mercilessly.

“Park Jimin had found his consort and by the scent of her blood, he knew she was destined to be bonded to him by nature’s law. But, she was irrevocably in love with another mortal to whom she had been having love affairs with, even as she was taken against her will to the Rouge fort”,

“An infuriated Park had butchered the young woman’s lover in front of her whilst the woman pleaded and cried for the man’s life. As days passed, Jimin’s consort became coldly vacant in grief",

You were turned into stone at her words.

“She had ultimately repudiated to consummate their bond. The same night when Jimin had killed her to erase the memories of her lover, the town folks declared a war to avenge Hyun woo and rescue the young woman. Park Jimin had promulgated to his brothers that the woman was killed by humans, he must have recast your past self’s memories, Y/N! He is not the gentle lover you loyally surmise him to be!”

One time when you were blind in a tree, waiting motionless for wind to wander by, you dozed off and fell ten feet to the ground, landing on your back. It was as if the impact had knocked every wisp of air from your lungs, and you lay there struggling to inhale, to exhale, to do anything.

That was how you felt at the moment, your ribs felt crushed into a mere refuse, fear and disgust of your past killer’s touch burned everywhere, the faded puncture marks on the peaks of your breasts, thighs, neck, shoulders felt as if touched by the flicks of flame, you felt abhorred.

Even the loud rap of knocks and thuds on the door to the chambers were heard, you were frozen into ice. Eyes teary, vision blurred, you fell to the ground, crestfallen.

Siena shakes you harder in panic at the sight of the door’s latch rattling violently, the sundry of voices with Jimin’s voice rack unpleasant shudders through her spine as she attempts to resuscitate you to the present.

A single squawk like a squall causes the doors to shatter as if hurled to the ground by a tempest. Park Jimin stands sited at the other side. There is not a sliver of a plinth to hold his rage in place, he looks irked to the brim of extremes.

“Seize her!” he barks and by the tick of a second, Siena is hefted into the air by a couple guards, their grasps cause her to bawl in pain.

“Y/N! My dear, what did she do to you?“ Jimin’s voice is mellowy as he gathers you into his arms, perusing your form thoroughly.

Like the mountain river under sunlight, like snow melting under the beaming sunlight, like the gentle song of the topaz leaves swaying in the autumn breeze, his voice was pleasant as beautiful as his perfectly sculpted face.

You shake away weakly from his grasp and his face withers, twinging a deep cut into your heart.

“You cold-blooded murderer, let her free”. You mutter, abhorred and stare at him, as empty as the ocean at night.

Jimin peruses Siena and you wordlessly, taken aback by your sudden disgust. When you see his head lift and lips curl to one side, you see the once loving mate of yours turn into the callous, blood-thirsty hound of a creature that slaughtered so many lives for its own illiberal gain.

“I see my little fawn has discovered the truth”, he heinously chuckles, making you swallow down in utter disgust.

“It was worth the effort, was it not?” he perches himself on his lush seater loftily, a wicked grin stretches his lips at Siena’s struggles.

“Now that I have the maiden of my dreams to myself”, he wickedly whispers, his sharp eyes travel down your body as he slips his lower lip into his mouth.

“I can debauch her to my heart’s content” his eyes are demanding as they meet yours, his slender fingers tipping against the mahogany handle of his seater.

“What causes you to think I would submit to you?” you spew the words like venom as the haughty count feigns hurt, crumbling to the ground.

In a blink of an eye, Jimin whooshes at an inhuman pace across the chamber to you, gripping your jaws tight from the behind as he has his own clenched. Your wrists are pressed together at your back and he presses his chest to your back.

You attempt to wriggle away at the bulge pressing into the cleft of your arse and you screech at his hold.

“What can be done by a little fawn like you, against me? There is a reason why I did not wait even for an hour to turn you that night”. He lilts mockingly, lips brushing the lobe of your ear.

“Oh, little fawn. I had become the master of your body, soul and mind duly after turning you. Every single thought that runs in this little head, I can hear it”. He declares, arms slithering around your body in a vice-like grip.

“After decades of longing, I finally had you. Would I not have prepared for the same mistake to never occur again?” he presses his nose to your jugular, breathing your scent. It makes him roll his eyes in pleasure as the heavenly scent tickles his lungs.

Your fighting limbs fall limp as his fangs pierces the skin of your jugular, taking little gulps of your sweet blood.

Siena screams as she realises the actions performed on you by the count. She seethes and cusses, fighting against the guards’ hold on her.

“Forget everything that makes me bad in your eyes, little fawn”, Jimin whispers pleasantly, making you fall into a lull of sleep with a soft hum.

“Only I am your love, only I am your lord, no other mongrel of a mortal owns you, forget it all, my one and only little fawn”, he sings soothingly, lifting you in his arms more delicate than a priceless treasure, cooing in adoration at the sight of your angelic face in peace and parted lips, memories flitting you away from him washed away profoundly.

In the course of a mo, Siena’s head is snapped and the poor nun’s body is embedded into the fertile earth heedlessly.

A famished count with an endless carnal lechery presses a soft kiss to your lips and envelopes you in a lover’s embrace, waiting for your eyes to open and say his name sweetly, oblivious to events that have unfolded a very few chimes ago.

Carnal lechery, it was what possessed him to possess you.

#bts yandere #bts yandere smut #yandere bts smut #bts yandere au #yandere jimin x reader #yandere jimin smuts #jimin smuts #bts smut #bts jimin x reader #jimin x you #jimin x reader

639 notes · View notes

selena-snape · 3 years

Text

Sexta Generación:

¤ Lilith Moira Riddle y Julian Cameron Gray

¤ Bloom Larissa Peters y Sky Aurelius Peters

¤ Hazel Opal Peters y Magnus Roman Watson

¤ Theodore August Peters y Meredith Mavis Monroe

¤ Aaron Christopher Weasley y Verena Michelle Dyer

¤ Joshua Stephen Weasley y Esther Amalia Holt

¤ Charles Samuel Weasley y Ruby Stephanie Saffron

¤ Iris Aurelia Weasley y Marshall Everett Conrad

¤ Theophania Calliope Richardson y Corinne Roxanne Everleigh

¤ Arabella Beatrix Richardson y Henry Oliver Brooks

¤ Kai Dominick Richardson y Flynn Milo Wolf

¤ Willow Cosima Levin y Nicoletta Pomona Wilford

¤ Fern Violet Levin y Marie Honoria Ollivander

¤ Euphemia Alessandra Levin y John Florean Palmer

¤ Dorothea Giovanna Levin y Elladora Eloise Gibson

¤ Salazar Lucius Levin y Holly Avalon Barnes

¤ Eleanor Hope Levin y Savannah Genevieve Shaw

¤ Gracie Isadora Novak y Marvin Declan Sullivan

¤ Alec Aurelian Novak y Claire Piper Johan

¤ Mason Ezekiel Novak y Clementine Octavia Albion

¤ Lotor Comet Snape y Giovanni Benjamin Lestrange

¤ "Moon Demon" Darius Angelo Snape y "Dark Angel " Arianne Alysson Snape

¤ "Killer Shadow" Lazarus Ignatius Snape y "Ice Demon" Urania Calliope Snape

¤ Morterius Viktor Snape y Hisirdoux Artemas Casperan

¤ Regris Niven Snape y Acxa Valda Snape

¤ Kevin Ethan Snape y Gwendolyn Stephanie Tennyson

¤ Regulus Orion Snape y Abel Austin Khemse

¤ Cygnus Arcturus Snape y Frederic Alistair Weasley

¤ Elle Rigel Snape y Matsuda Touta

¤ Beyond Aurelian Snape y Mikami Teru

¤ Alexander Valens Snape y Magnus Sebastian King

¤ Lysander Nikolaus Snape y Vladimir Micah Masters

¤ Gwendolyn Hiroko Snape y Tanaka Misaki

¤ Ezra Yamato Snape y Luveva Rosemay Sutherlamd

¤ Ryan Yoshio Snape y Avery Daxon Sinclair

¤ Keith Akira Snape y James Oliver Griffin

¤ Yuudai Riley Snape y Danielle Edna Young

¤ Yuriko Harley Snape y Debra Kathleen McIntosh

¤ Clarice Suki Snape y Alphard Delphinus Black

¤ Mako Ethan Snape y Giovanna Naomi Hamilton

¤ Morgana Kendra Voorhees y Karin Delilah Summers

¤ Carrie Margaret Voorhees y "Sue" Susan Danica Snell

¤ Jessica Lorna Kimble y Steven Malcom Freeman

¤ Audrey Andromeda Malfoy y Andre Perseus Bourgeois

¤ Gabriel Bastian Malfoy y Emilie Calliope Graham de Vanily

¤ Roynard Hydra Malfoy y Violet Rowena Deekers

¤ Raymond Lynx Malfoy y Cedric Atticus Diggory

¤ Draco Lucius Malfoy y Astoria Coraline Greengrass

¤ Merle Ariel Malfoy y "Jesus" Paul Finnegan Rovia

¤ Hope Leah Malfoy y

¤ Carl Thomas Malfoy y

¤ Levi Armand Malcoy y

¤ Daryl Hunter Malfoy y Rick Jonah Grimes

¤ Vitale Astaroth Sparda y Luka Nicholas Sparda

¤ Neron Asura Sparda y Kyrie Serena Kiernan

¤ Merak Emory Sparda y Portia Manon Hendrix

¤ Armand Vincent Sparda y

¤ Nicholas William Sparda y

¤ Septimus Canyon Sparda y

¤ Loretta Margot Grace y Calvin Raphael Foxglove

¤ Julius Grant Grace y Ivy Roxanne Baxley

¤ Benjamin Vidar Grace y Edgar Zachary Maddox

¤ Ophelia Nozomi Jensen y Cordelia Avery Bkwie

¤ Eileen Victoria Jensen y Silvius Dael Sinclair

¤ Thomas Lysander Jensen y Othello Natalie Reeve

¤ Nova Genesis Jackson y Allison Leah Reid

¤ Losa Iris Brooks y Briar Anais Tedford

¤ Nina Rosie Brooks y Asa August Harding

¤ Connor Cyrus Brooks y Sandra Sabine Simmons

¤ Esme Aurora Donovan y Maxine Riley Crosby

¤ Arabella Cassidy Donovan y Robert Dashiell. Davenport

¤ Arianne Odette Donovan y Terrence Gideon Graves

¤ Kendra Alessandra Donovan y Alexis Scarlett Bishop

¤ Cassandra Abigail Donovan y James Anthony West

¤ Pansy Genevieve Parkinson y Theodore Phineas Nott

¤ Avalon Forrest Parkinson

¤ Damien Emory Parkinson

¤ Ursa Alexa Corvinus Y Narcissa Hazel Ripley

¤ Nora Alyssa Corvinus y Lydia Skylar Abernathy

¤ Annabelle Danica Corvinus y Rowan Vladimir Norwood

¤ Luna Pandora Lovewood y Rolf Elijah Matthew Scamander

¤ Ronan Artemis Marcelly y Adam Timothy Reed

¤ Giovanni Octavius Marcelly y Robin Mikhaila Mckinley

¤ Ivan Alistair Marcelly y James Christopher Peters

¤ Mika Valentina Donnelly y Arthur Ethan Bowers

¤ Damien September Delaney y Melione Rowena Robinson

¤ Kira Dominika Delaney y Marlon Oliver Williams

¤ Kanna Amelia Delaney y Gael Ethan Byron

¤ Nicholas Hadrien Delaney y Madison Edith Emerson

¤ Armand Demetrius Corwin y Persephone Aspen Cormac

¤ Tatiana Aubrey Corwin y Marcella Carolinne Cervenka

¤ Pandora Evageline Corwin y Cecilia Honoria Van Frietag

¤ Natasha Piper Dresden y Donna Mary Berkshire

¤ Emily Alisha Ansel y Nana Eliza Martin

¤ Isabelle Veronica Ansel y Carmen Emilia Reyes

¤ Kenneth Paul Dollins y Ella Isabella Evans

¤ Joseph Herman Dollins y Juliet Corina Rogers

¤ Hailey Amelia Flint y Lucia Naomi Barnes

¤ Ashley Jasmine Flint y Maxwell Benjamin Norton

¤ Piper Savannah Flint y Louis Howart Daxton

¤ Chase Akira Braken y Felix Lucius Quinn

¤ Florian Narcissus Braken y Colin Leonard Frone

¤ Callum Daniel Fox y Marjorie Katie Vance

¤ Dante Ezra Fox y Leila Juniper Thomson

¤ Nathan Soren Fox y Matthias Isaac Parker

¤ Magnus Gideon Fox y Desmond Ethan McReynolds

¤ Lucian Harrison Fox y Apollo Anthony Greene

¤ Jude Eli Hudson y Theodore Declan Vesper

¤ Olive Genesis Ivanovich y David Cameron Canyon

¤ Tate Roman Ivanovich y Molly Aurora Wiley

¤ Ivory Leah Ivanovich y Diane Barbara Jennings

¤ Devon Julian Kane y Ophelia Pauline Colins

¤ Claudine Barbara Kane y Matthew Benjamin Rothchild

¤ Castiel Dominc Kane y Charlie Isaac Lauder

¤ Natasha Bella Kane y Mackenzie Riley Hills

¤ Caroline Samantha Kane y Sarah Emma Fuller

¤ Harper Eva Kane y Daniel Michael Baker

¤ Henry Jasper Kane y Duncan Joshua Evas

¤ Nathan Pietro Kane y Elijah Maxwell Crimson

¤ June Opal Kane y Felix Octavius Rhodes

¤ Jane Ophelia Kane y Angelo Dominic Lowell

¤ Aldora Corinne Prince Amora Lyra Stout

¤ Odolette Lila Prince y Thalia Cora Fulton

¤ Amon Rowan Prince y Elira Bianca Thorton

¤ Amelia Robin Prince y Nicolo Dorian Guthrie

¤ Alastor Robert Prince y Dinah Pandora Pearson

¤ Gavin Marshall Prince y Megara Eloise Lang

¤ Sean Colin Prince y Rebecca Odette Douglas

¤ Renee Tara Prince y Miles Edgar Lambert

¤ Eric Lance Snapey y Millicent Corinne Curtis

¤ Marlon Levi Snape y Lily Alyssa Yancer

¤ Luther Garth Snape y Judith Naomi Tailyour

¤ Hannah Ebony Snape y Lincoln Nathan Penfold

¤ Marie Clarice Snape y Leslie Regan Eastwood

¤ Jade Tiffany Snape y Leah Eliana Rees

¤ Grant Devin Snape y Geraldine Annalie Harfield

¤ Dean Leighton Snape y Fiona Charity Wheeler

¤ Mason Riley Oakley y Cartie April Willis

¤ Morgan Harley Oakley y Ian Paul Wenman

¤ Robert Damian Lake y Marion Corinne Turner

¤ Roy Ethan Morrinson y Griffin Rhett Essex

¤ Joy Ebony Morrinson y Kilian Lee Rowell

¤ Holden Ethan Snape y Eleanor Nadia Heron

¤ Corey Silas Snape y Jane Lydia Orchard

¤ Astrid Juliette Snape y Rhonda Hope Pataki

¤ Tate Julian Snape y James Ronan Poole

¤ Soren Jaspn Snape y Carmen Marianna Rojas

¤ Edgar Samuel Snape y Ingrid Ianthe Lauder

¤ Castiel Gabriel Dream y Cecilia Ember Bonavich

¤ Callum Paul Dream y Avalon Ginevra Carmichael

¤ Cedric Ernest Dream y Bathilda Sibyll Irvine

¤ Garett Elia Dream y Padma Orla Astor

¤ Austin Jordan Dream y Magenta Pomona Hearst

¤ Daryl Silvanus Dream y Nuru Sura Van Doren

¤ Calliope Scarlett Dream y Gemma Pomona Windsor

¤ Cordelia Maribelle Carter y Ivar Rainn Kline

¤ Howart Steven Carter y Sylvia Peyton Bechtel

¤ Lysander Casimir Carter y Enid Jivanta Galumba

¤ Pierre Milford Afton y Kylie Olivia McKeehan

¤ Rupert Stanley Afton y Andrea Jocelyn Varner

¤ Warren Philip Jefferson y Michelle Sabine Castle

¤ Ellie Audrey Jefferson y Shireen Monroe Marks

¤ Giselle Corina Leighton y Mia Velvet Bushnell

¤ Odette Marina Leighton y Nicoletta Verona Goldstein

¤ Larissa Dirina Leighton y Winry Carmina Montgomery

¤ Magnus Cassidy Edevane y Harry Leroy Baker

¤ Stella Andromeda Orville y Harold Russell Mcquiston

¤ Lucille Arabella Orville y Jace Colton Rutledge

¤ Lee Amos Evans y Zoey Makayla Camfield

¤ Cadmus Orion Evans y Trudy Nayala Lovell

¤ Florean Newton Evans y Xenia Sybil Herron

¤ Ivory Ooal Evans y Edmund Wilfred Frankham

¤ Luisa Veronica O'Kelly y Connor Evan Carson.

¤ Finn Andrew Harley y Portia Marilyn Curtis

¤ Abel Nolan Harley y Bonnie Thea Proudley

¤ Louis Xander Harley y Petunia Jamie Deakins

¤ Claire Norah Harley y Lance Chandler Western

¤ Camille Loena Harley y Myrtle Denise Golby

¤ Cora Adelaide Harley y Selma Kelsey Hicks

¤ Juliette Theodora Harley y Daisy China Kempster

¤ Cyrus Maximua Harley y Meredith Shannon Crocker

¤ Horatio Gideon Harley y Heidi Antoinette Deacon

¤ Dorothea Euphemia Harley y Terence Xavier Croucher

¤ Violetta Leopoldine Murphy y Franklin Leonidas Burton

¤ Nova Orion Murphy y Faustina Spencer Odam

¤ Comet Sky Murphy y Yvonne Wilhemina Hibberd

¤ Phoenix Bianca Murphy y Rosalie Simone Stratton

¤ Celestine Xiomara Glenwood y Rylan Waylon Mills

¤ Isla Cosima Glenwood y Neil Rowan Lee

¤ Jacqueline Glenna McCoy y Jarome Staley Orline

¤ Ann Marie McCoy y Ridley Everett Anderson

¤ Apoline Elian McCoy y Simom Edward Thompson

¤ Aubrey Lynn Orson y Braxton Hunter Young

¤ Amelia Faith Orson y Ryland Linden Allen

¤ Lucy Ella Volkov Jacob Jhon Wright

¤ Freya Leah Volkov y Rome Canyon Adams

¤ Martin Lane Volkov y Brianna Mirella Collins

¤ Monet Valentina Volkov y Callahan Anselm Morris

¤ Robinia Venus Carrington y Aragon Glorianne Watson

¤ Damon Micah Carrington y Selie Nia Rise

¤ Calla Seraphina Balckwood y Ariel Calyx Reid

¤ Adriana Norah Blackwood y Windsor Athen Foster

¤ Trevor Narcissus Blackwood y Larry Eugene Fraser

¤ Heather Kalina Moore y Lucilius Nicholas McIntosh

¤ Bernadette Alexa Moore y Ares Gabriel McLean

¤ Althea Ruby Lexington y Trinity Elizabeth Bland

¤ Camellia Iris Lexington y Damian Anthony Boswell

¤ Taylor Sidney Lexington y Fabian Dominic Bartlett

¤ Elena Vittoria Lexington y Athena Aubree Birch

¤ Oris Edward Goodwin y Ryleigh Nadia Chapman

¤ Archer Emrys Goodwin y Paisley Autumm Pannell

¤ Raphaela Esperalda Goodwin y Ryder Quentin Hamilton

¤ Ike Neron Goodwin y Bailey Stephanie Adams

¤ Lilianna Persephone Blackwood y Jared Fabian Crawford

¤ Albert Christopher Blackwood y Gemma Alyna Gibson

¤ Alfred Stella Blackwood y Nicholas Julian Munro

¤ Rose Mary Blackwood y Sebastian robert Walker

¤ Bernard Alden Blackwood y Katherine Calliope McGregor

¤ Benjen Isaiah Blackwood y Seraphina Harper Docherty

¤ Lewis Beckett Blackwood y Samirah Luna Ross

¤ Vlaire Harley Blackwood y Aurora Isabelle Gordon

15 notes · View notes

erudite-rebel · 4 years

Text

Either a closed starter or drabble for @hopeandharmonizing (I understand if it’s too much of a thread!)

Happy Birthday, Briar.

---

The tattoos on Barty's body were a story of who he is and was, and where he grew from. People he'd loved dearly as well as other pieces of his personality, his life, dotted all over him. Over his chest was his emblem, the stylized relic of knowledge, in his trademark green. His left arm, from elbow to wrist, was a runic tattoo given to him by Ozpin to help with his work delving into the old, magical ruins of humanity. Above, snippets of who he was, quotes, things he loved. On his back, shoulder blade to shoulder blade, was a sprawling Vitruvian hummingbird, the drawing careful and precise.

On his right arm was a lush sleeve of different flowers slowly spilling onto the shoulder blade. Each one was something carefully selected and considered about the person who had inspired them, the friendship that it had fostered between them. Notable among them was a sunflower, a white rose, a red calla lily, and a red spider lily. In one spot, an orange plumeria. A trail of ivy marks another person, purple gladiolas another.

Some people touch so strongly Barty has far more pointed tattoos. A crow flies over the front of his left shoulder, and ivy choked cogs make up the back.

Meeting new people always put Barty in mind of where to place something new. The older he got, the more cognizant he became that the friendships he made, if they were lasting or if they were love, would require a rather greater touch. If he managed to do so at forty, there was something special there. Something important.

He'd done the entire thing in one sitting, to give it the shortest possible amount of time between work and the reveal. Considering how busy they were, sometimes it was perfectly normal not to go all the way down to Mantle to visit and to stay in the Academy. Bart tried to take advantage of that, and used more than a little aura focusing it to heal.

The day of March 5th found him on the ground ahead of Qrow, when only one of them could clear themselves out of huntsman duty. Qrow would be by later, the moment he was free.

Morning found Barty in the apartment, having let himself in with his key, making breakfast. Waffles, fruit, sugary berry syrup. A few gifts were wrapped on the table and not what he'd like to get Briar – he had an old book full of old folk songs with accompanying music at home he knew she'd love but was sadly too far out of reach – but things he'd hoped she'd like all the same. A filigree pendant shaped like a heart, hollow to fill with guitar pics and marked with a little bramble around the edges he'd commissioned in Mantle, and a silly little coffee cup which read 'Save A Guitar, Lick A Guitarist.'

When the food was done he headed down to her bedroom and knocked quietly. He'd already ditched the button down and his undershirt to show off the work he had done, though he wasn't sure she'd notice right away. Once he was sure she wouldn't throw something at him he headed into the bedroom to give her a kiss good morning.

Where one keen of eye, they'd see the fresh black lines his right arm, the bramble with its small pink wild roses that had found a place among the other flowers. More easily spotted was the wolf on his left ribcage, a water colour design with gold, silver, black and grey.

“Happy Birthday, Miss Rieka. Your breakfast awaits.”

#the doctor is in; ic #she is the work of shooting stars; hopeandharmonizing #memoirs; drabbles and writing

3 notes · View notes

cantankerouscatfish · 4 years

Text

today involved:

- sitting on the weedcloth out back with Foster on my lap bc he wanted The Good Scritches. he is kinda heavy! and very floofy! and I got called a “good human” for the efforts. if dogs could purr, I think he would’ve been lmao

- a monarch! flying around!! we have a bunch of larvae in the bug house but it’s always nice to see a butterfly!!!

- L: hi Dan! Dan: hi Lllarry. Louis. La-- L: ...Lucy. it’s Lucy. me, passing by: it’s Lulu! Dan: *keeps listing names, none of which are correct*

- L: *beckons!* me: ?? L: *beckons!!!* me: *walks over?* L: no, I was looking for Annette. KIDDING. come look at this flower.

- hanging a shade sail over the shade table of succulents, something we should’ve done in uhhh early June probably. I kept forgetting! stuff fried! :(

- planting 300 lily bulbs and 50 calla... bulbs? callas are weird like caladiums. they’re all for cuts. manager wants to devote more space to lilies this year, and the callas are an experiment. the first indoor batch hasn’t started coming up yet. soon...

#L called me Kelkel once so I take every possible chance to call him Lulu #he has the kind of name that seems like it should be short for smth but it's NOT

3 notes · View notes

ladyseaheart1668 · 5 years

Text

Endless Summer Book 4 : Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 43)

Description: There is no rest for the good.

Um...yeah. Hope nobody hates me at the end of this chapter. At least it came out faster than the last one, right? :-P

Tagging: @endlesshero1122 @mysteli @whatmcsaid @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @feartheendlesssummer @tigerbryn11

Chapter 43: First Blood

Tahira

The day my life changed, I was late for work. I missed my train and did my makeup on the bench while I waited for the next one. This Thursday morning, I'm late again. And I'm pretty sure that under the circumstances, Grayson will let it slide. In fact, I know he will since he explicitly told me to take the day off. But frankly, I think I'd rather be at work than alone in his apartment, especially when he has to be at work.

I didn't get much sleep Tuesday night after the fire. Unable to safely be treated for any potential smoke or chemical inhalation at the hospital while we were still in disguise, especially with Michelle still on her honeymoon, Dax insisted on dragging us into the lab at Prescott Industries and running tests. Marci had cleared me of any damage long before I even arrived, but Dax wanted to be safe rather than sorry, and Grayson agreed with him, so I relented. Eva took care of checking on the kids, and claimed dog-sitting privileges for herself.

Then came yesterday. That was the real headache, and the real reason I barely slept last night, which is the reason I'm running so late this morning, and nearly took Grayson's advice to spend the day in bed. But here I am, on a bench at the train station, gazing into a compact mirror in my left hand while carefully brushing my eyelids with dark purple eyeshadow.

I hear the soft sound of unhurried footsteps on the platform and feel my heart start to beat faster. It's after ten in the morning, on an open-air train platform, on a weekday, and the next train is due in fifteen minutes. All of these facts should put my mind at ease about who might be coming toward me, but I guess I'm still on edge. I try to ignore it, but then the footsteps stop a little too close to me. I let my gaze slide away from the compact to find Caleb standing over me, arms folded, glowering. I scowl back.

“Can I help you with something?”

“If what happened to those kids is what your help is worth, I don't want anything to do with it.”

I feel myself slumping. I sigh, unable to look him in the eye. “...How did you find out about that?”

“Never you fucking mind how I found out about it. Doesn't even matter that I know about it. The point is that those kids are in foster care. Separated. And you let it happen.”

“I didn't let anything happen, Caleb!” I snap. “I wasn't even there! All I know is that the story somehow came out at the hospital, and one of the staff called social services. ...Once the priest recovers, he'll be able to appeal to get them back. Meanwhile, Dylan and RJ are still together, as are Ysabel and her brothers.”

“That's exactly what they didn't want, and you know it! And how long will it take before they're all back together where they belong?! Most likely scenario, they won't all be back together until Dylan turns eighteen!”

“What do you expect me to do?!” I snarl, getting sharply to my feet.

“Be fucking hero, maybe?” he growls back.

“By what, kidnapping five kids? Because that's sure to keep me in a place where I can do my job effectively!” I lower my voice as I step close to him, drawing myself to my full height. I'm already at least half a head taller than he is, and he knows what I'm physically capable of. I see him shrink slightly, but he doesn't quite back down. “For your information, my people are in pretty hot water with the DA for not turning you over to rot in a Prescott-designed cell for the rest of your life. You want me to risk the situation deteriorating further?”

“You don't need the DA.”

“Actually, I do. Not all of us are content to be anarchists and vigilantes. And if people like us and the police are too busy fighting each other, civilians are going to suffer.” I blow out a frustrated breath through gritted teeth, taking a step back. “...Why do you care so much about these kids anyway?”

His scowl deepens. “Why don't you care more?”

“I care more than I am letting on to you. And I'm probably letting on more than you're willing to see. Caring is what I do. Nobody's surprised when I care. But you've got a reputation that doesn't run toward caring. What about these kids has you so invested?”

He scowls, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You know fuck-all about my life, Tahira. ...We all start out as kids, don't we? Naked, bloody, screaming babies shitting ourselves because we don't know better. We all start off so damn innocent, just looking for someone to protect us and love us. But we don't all get lucky like that, do we.”

I don't really have a reply to that. He's right. What he's saying is correct. And while it doesn't exactly give me a complete answer, it feels like a lead in the right direction. Like Caleb taking a single brick out of his wall and giving me a narrow but significant look at what's underneath. Overhead, the announcement comes over the PA that the next train will be arriving shortly. Caleb turns his side toward me as I glance down the track at the approaching lights.

“...You're lucky, Tahira. You got a mom who loves you. Raised you. Stuck around. Didn't run off. Didn't get taken from you.”

“You're right. I am lucky.” The train glides into the station, sending back a rush of air that lifts my hair off my shoulders. The noise as it screeches to a halt would have swallowed anything else I said, so I wait until it has settled before I send another glance at Caleb. “...My birth parents died when I was a baby. I'm actually adopted.”

As the train doors hiss open, Caleb remains silent. I gather my things and climb on board, not waiting for a reply.

* * *

As expected, Grayson chides me for coming into work today. About halfway through the day, I realize I probably should have listened to him. Can't focus on anything, and it isn't hard to get his permission to leave work early so that I can visit Father Le in the hospital. I stop to buy flowers on the way, a bouquet of calla lilies and pink carnations in a pale blue vase. I get to the hospital and step into a room that looks like it's being converted to a florist shop. Father Le is propped up in bed, his rosary beads in hand, his lips moving languidly as he prays under his breath.

“Father Le?”

He pauses, turning his head to smile at me. “Tahira. Come in. Are those flowers for me?”

“Yeah.” I manage to find a space for them on the windowsill and set them down carefully. “Seems like I'm not the only one who had that idea, though.”

“My parishoners have been very generous. Come sit down.”

I do as he says, taking a chair beside his bed. “I hope I'm not interrupting your prayers.”

“There will be plenty of time to pray when visiting hours are over. ...I understand I have you to thank for saving my life.”

I smile a little. “Yeah, well, don't go spreading that around in here unless I come in costume.”

“Of course. You know your secret is safe with me.”

“...Do you remember anything about the attack?”

“What little I can remember, I have relayed to the police.”

“Right. I shouldn't press you. ...How are you feeling?”

He sighs, closing his eyes. “The doctors tell me I should make a full recovery.”

“You don't sound very happy about that.”

“I'm happy that I'll have my health back. ...But I have been informed that the children were placed in foster care.”

I can't help wincing. “...Yeah. But surely once your recovered you can get them back? Like, I know it wouldn't be easy, but you could apply to be their legal guardian, couldn't you? Now that they're in foster care, I'd think that would be your next move, wouldn't it?” When he hesitates, I can't resist reaching out to grasp his hand. “I mean, you'll try, won't you? For their sake?”

The priest sighs. His free hand comes over to pat mine. “Of course I will try, Tahira. ...But I fear I am unlikely to succeed. ...It has occurred to me that I may have been acting outside the law when I took those kids in. I don't know for sure what charges they could bring against me, but I didn't actually have legal custody over them. And since they already ran away from their first foster homes...”

I swallow against a rising lump in my throat. “...What if I put in a good word for you with the DA? ...Not that I'm exactly in her good books at the moment...”

Concern flashes across his face. Somehow, I know it's concern for me and not himself, and that somehow makes it worse. “Why is that?”

I close my eyes to clear the film of tears that's gathered over them, but only end up letting a couple salty drops leak out. “...I decided to put my trust in someone she thinks needs to be locked up.”

“...Do you agree with her that this person needs to be locked up?”

“I...I don't know. I've been giving him the benefit of the doubt, and so far he's come through, but...what if she's right? What if he's playing me, and he goes back to how he was before?”

“Life is never without hope, Tahira.”

I can't help snorting just a little. “I don't know how helpful that is, Father.”

“My apologies. Try this then: you cannot know the future. You cannot know if a person will change, but every person has the ability to change. Your forgiveness of any past wrongs he did is a gift you give, not because he deserves it, but because you want to give it out of the goodness of your heart. Your trust, on the other hand, is not a gift. It is a privilege that you have every right to make him earn. If his past crimes have earned him a prison sentence, he deserves to serve that sentence. But something has stopped you from handing him over to the police.”

“Yeah. Something has.”

“...Can you name what that something is?”

“Honestly...I have a feeling I can.”

“...Do you feel that you can tell me?”

I am quiet for a long moment. “...No, Father. I don't think I can. Because it's not anything that I think I could make you understand without revealing way more than I should about people whose secrets I have no right to reveal.”

“I don't need to understand entirely. But perhaps telling me what you can will bring you some clarity.”

“...I think he has a part to play in a bigger picture. He's...a part of what I'm a part of. I have to think beyond just laws and authorities. What happened to me that night...the thing that made me what I am...it's got a reach beyond anything I could have fathomed that night. I've learned so much about it since then, and...I need this person, Father. I need him on my side, within my reach. Because he's a part of this.”

“It sounds to me like you've made up your mind.”

“...Maybe I have.” I sigh, standing up. “I should leave you to rest. I have...things I need to take care of.”

“Of course. Thank you for visiting me. I hope I will see you again.”

“Hey, you can count on it. Promise.”

I offer the priest my brightest smile, but I leave the hospital feeling melancholy and exhausted. I feel heavy and too full and hollowed out and empty all at the same time. I just want to go back to Grayson's apartment and have him there with me. I want us to curl up in bed together and shut out the rest of the world. Maybe I should call him and ask him to come home. I'm sure he would. We could spend the evening together, just the two of us, order something to eat, watch a romantic movie, slip naked into the hot tub...

My phone buzzes in the hip pocket of my jeans. I tug it free and see Grayson's name on the screen. I answer, feeling myself smile as I put the phone to my ear.

“Hey, handsome. I was just thinking about you.”

“...Tahira...” Immediately, my heart sinks. Something's wrong. I can hear it in the way he says my name.

“...What is it? What's the matter?”

“Well...Dax has apparently been monitoring police radio frequencies or something...” He sighs. “I didn't know he was doing that. Did you?”

“Well...no. Not specifically. I'm not sure he should be.”

“Neither am I. But, that isn't the point. The point is that he picked up some chatter, and...it seems Dylan and his family have gone missing.”

My heart drops into my belly with a sickening splash. “Missing? Wh-what kind of missing? When were they last seen?”

“Dylan apparently went to pick up the others and walk them home from school, but they never made it back to their foster homes. Later, the police got a tip from a concerned citizen that he had seen five kids get into a black van. He wasn't sure there was anything to actually worry about since the kids got in without hesitating, but...he described the driver as a white male with shaggy brown hair smoking a cigarette.”

It's all I can do not to sink to my knees on the pavement right there. “...Caleb,” I whisper. “Oh god, Caleb, what have you done...?”

Jake

A few weeks ago, Alodia and I hired a photographer to do a little photoshoot for us at the beach house. Something sappy and romantic to commemorate the impending birth of our first child. It was a pretty fun day, even though obviously Alodia proved far more photogenic than me. I mean, I could hardly object to spending most of the time watching my wife posing and being her gorgeous self.

Honestly, in the chaos and emotional rollercoaster that followed in the weeks after, with the wedding and then the disappointment and worry that followed her last OB appointment, I had kinda forgotten about the photos altogether. Until Friday morning, the day I'm supposed to leave to pick up Sean and Michelle from the island.

The other half of the bed is cool when I wake up, but I can smell something mouth-watering downstairs. I inhale deeply through my nose. Yup. Definitely bacon. And coffee. Clearly, Mike or Diego must be up too, since Alodia hasn't touched a cup of coffee since she got pregnant, and I don't think Varyyn has ever liked the stuff. There's something else in the air, too. Something sweet.

I get up and throw on a shirt and a pair of pants, running a hand through my hair before making my way downstairs. In the kitchen, I find the coffee pot three-quarters full and still warm. There's also pitcher of orange juice and a couple of chafing dishes on the counter beside a stack of three plates. I lift the lids on the chafing dishes to find plenty of bacon and pancakes. I sniff at the pancakes, and get a noseful of apple and cinnamon. And that's when I notice the rusty-brown cinnamon and sugar blend in a small bowl beside the dish.

I hear voices from the den. I can't quite make out works, but it's definitely Alodia and Diego. I pour myself a cup of coffee and wander into the den. Diego is lounging on the chaise portion of the sectional with the TV remote in hand. Alodia lies with her head in his lap, a plate of pancakes and bacon balanced on her swollen belly. She's using an upside down laundry basket on the floor beside her hip as a makeshift table for a glass of orange juice and a jar of peanut butter with a knife sticking out of it.

On the screen is an image of her on the balcony overlooking the beach. Her shoulders are bare, her modesty preserved by a white sheet wrapped around her body. One hand holds the sheet closed at her chest while the other cradles her baby bump and she gazes at the sky with a peaceful, contented expression.

“I like that one,” Diego remarks. Alodia wrinkles her nose a little.

“Hmmm...it's not bad, but that one little strand of hair is kinda driving me crazy. It looks like it's going into my mouth and I keep wanting to just brush it off.” She reaches lazily towards the screen, flicking her index finger as if she can will the offending hair off her photographed face.

“I think you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,” I declare. I make my way to the sofa and set my coffee down on her laundry basket table before sitting down and drawing her feet onto my lap. She smiles at me.

“In the picture, or right now?”

“Yes.”

“Good answer. You are rewarded with bacon.” She takes a piece off her plate and holds it toward me. I lean over to take a bite, and look back at the screen as I chew.

“Are these the finished product?”

“Not quite. They're the initial edits of the ones Nora thought were the best. Found them in my email this morning. She wants us to go through and pick our favorites.”

“Of course, if your wife has her way, there won't be any,” Diego complains. “She's found something to object to in every single picture she's in.”

“Not every one!”

“Oh, right, I forgot. You like the one where you're in silhouette and we can't see your pretty face.”

“Just go to the next one.”

I sip my coffee as we go through about a dozen more pictures, and it's made clear that Alodia's going to be pickier about these pictures than I am. There are some she does like. Most of the ones of us together meet her approval, as do a series of very sexy shots with her nude and posed so that nothing actually shows. Though, unfortunately, my favorite in that series doesn't seem to impress her.

“I've got a simper,” she declares flatly.

“A what?”

Diego rolls his eyes. “She means because her lips are parted. Just because your lips are parted doesn't mean it's a simper, Allie. That's not a simper.”

“It is the simperiest simper that ever was a simper!” she insists, grabbing the jar of peanut butter and dunking a chunk of bacon into the brown goo. “It looks like I'm trying to make you believe that I'm moaning all sexily. Look, I'm even trying to give bedroom eyes.”

“Yeah, I'm not seeing the problem here,” I quip.

“You see, Allie? It's a sexy expression that does just what you want it to.”

“I don't like it.”

“Yeah, well, you're drunk on peanut butter. Maybe look at it again when you're sober.”

She sticks her tongue out at him, and looks down at me. “Did you get some breakfast?”

“Just the coffee so far. But since you mention it, I am getting hungry.”

“You should eat. We made plenty so you and Mike could get a good meal in you before you fly today.”

I feel a frown crease my forehead. “...You're still okay with me going? I know it's still a few weeks 'til showtime, but...”

“But nothing. You'll be easy to contact, and you're flying to the Caribbean, not Asia.”

“I'll be back tomorrow,” I promise.

“Yes, you will. And we'll be at the airport to pick you up. Now come here and kiss me.”

* * *

After breakfast, Mike, Alodia, Diego, and I pile into the car and Diego drives us to the airport. I'm glad Alodia comes along, even though the trip takes longer than it would otherwise thanks to our unborn child elbowing her in the bladder every twenty minutes. That combined with California traffic means that it takes about an hour and a half to actually reach the airport. But it isn't as if we're flying commercial after all.

The plane is fueled and waiting for us. It's just up to me and Mike to carry out the final checks and get her in the air. Mike gets our things on board—just a small bag each for a couple days away—and I give my wife a lingering goodbye kiss outside the plane.

“I expect this looks very romantic,” she chuckles. “A handsome pilot kissing his pregnant wife outside the plane before he takes off, against a California background.”

“Minus the plane, I'm pretty sure there were some similar pictures from our photoshoot,” I reply. I try to grin, but it isn't coming out quite right. “...I don't like leaving you. Not just because you're pregnant, either. I just...don't like leaving you.”

“I know.” She doesn't need to say anything more than that. She knows why. “I love you, Jake. To the stars and back.”

“No land, no sea, no one can keep us apart. I love you, Alodia.” I drop slowly to one knee in front of her, cradling her belly in my hands, and plant a slow kiss in the center of the swell, just above her navel. “I love you, River. Don't get too eager to come out, okay? Your daddy wants to be here to meet you.”

I gently rest my cheek against her belly and feel a few soft pats from tiny limbs. Alodia winces.

“I think she's a daddy's girl already. Feels like she's trying to get out so you can hold her.”

“No, River, I said not yet!” I scold mildly. “Not until Sunday at least. Give me time to get home and some sleep.”

“I hope she'll wait a little longer than that.”

“Hey, Grandpa!” I get to my feet, turning to see Mike waving at me from the plane. “The sooner we fly, the sooner we can get back, and it's a long way to Santo Domingo!”

I sigh. “Unfortunately, he's right.” I give my wife one last long kiss. “I love you, Princess.”

“I love you, Top Gun. Go on. I think I need to hit the bathroom again anyway.”

We finally manage to untangle from each other's arms and go our separate ways. I join Mike in the cockpit and set about doing my final checks. It's a few minutes before I happen to glance over and notice something grim and distracted in his expression that sends a brief shiver of unease down the back of my neck.

“Hey...you okay?”

“I...got a text from Rebecca.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You getting texts from my sister now? How long has this been going on? Do I have to lecture her about cradle-robbing?”

Mike rolls his eyes. “She's had my number since we sent Lundgren to prison so we could keep tabs on your dysfunctional ass. And how many years are there between you and Alodia again?”

“Ouch. Okay, what's she got to say?”

“Check your phone. She sent it to you, too.”

I'm about to ask what, but realize it would be faster just to pull out my phone and check myself. Sure enough, there's a text from Rebecca to both me and Mike.

Rebecca: Got word this morning, thought you guys should know. Rex Lundgren was stabbed in a prison fight this morning. He's dead.

For a long moment, I can't think of what to say. My first instinct is relief. Even elation. But I can't hold onto that. It's not that I feel any remorse that he's gone. But I haven't forgotten how the same information played out with Rourke.

“...You think it's real?” I ask softly. I know he knows I don't mean whether it's official or if Rebecca believes it. He shrugs.

“I want it to be real.”

“...Lundgren was only in with Rourke on the island out of necessity. He was planning to turn on him in the end...do you really think they'd be working together now?”

“I don't know. I don't know if Rourke could pull the same trick he pulled with Lundgren that he pulled with himself to fake his death. Or...the trick we think he pulled. I can't imagine Lundgren going along with that.”

“Maybe not. Besides, it's not like a prison fight isn't a likely way for him to go, right? He was such a goddamn bully, I'm sure soon as he got in, he started clawing his way to the top of the inmate heap.”

Mike looks over at me. “...You don't have to come. There's enough time to get another pilot to cover for you.”

“...I ain't keen on sending a stranger to the island.”

“I would still be there. I'd keep whoever it was away from the village.”

I do consider the offer, silently weighing the pros and cons. A big part of me thinks I really should stay here. Stay here with Alodia. But I know it would be so much safer not to let strangers on the island. Besides, Alodia has Varyyn and Diego with her, and Rebecca not too far off. I trust them to have her back. I don't really like the idea of Mike making the journey with no one but a stranger watching his. I sigh and reluctantly shake my head.

“I think we're making ourselves jittery. Come on. Let's not leave Sean and Michelle stranded. They got a flight to Tokyo to catch.”

Tahira

My team spends Friday searching for the children, trying to turn up any leads we can, but we're not having much luck. I've tried to reach Caleb using the number he's been calling me from, but it goes straight to a generic voicemail, and the police haven't been able to track its signal either.

“People who don't want to be found have ways of staying hidden,” Eva muses when I express frustration at our lack of progress. “Caleb's been evading the law since way before I even started stealing. And we all know this isn't the first time those kids have run away from foster care.”

She's right, of course, but it doesn't help. They're treating the situation as a kidnapping on account of Caleb's involvement, which doesn't bode well for him. The kids would be considered runaways otherwise, especially given their history. The most comfort I can give myself is to tell myself that they wouldn't have gone far with Eva still looking after their dog. But that even that doesn't help a whole lot, because I don't actually know if it's true.

I can't make sense of how cut up I am about the whole wretched situation. I want to shut myself in my apartment and keep the world at bay, and I haven't wanted to do that since Mom told me I came through the Prism Gate as a baby. Those kids are orphans because of a battle I was part of, but I can live with that. I didn't start that battle, and I did what I could to stop it. But this...what's happening right now...it feels like failure. And failure cuts like a knife.

Jake

It's a little after 7pm local time when we land in Santo Domingo, seven hours later. We'll spend the night in a hotel and then set off for the island tomorrow morning. I call Alodia as soon as we land to check in and reassure myself that everything's all right. I also tell her the news about Lundgren. She takes it...carefully, is probably the most accurate way to describe it. Mostly wants to know how I'm feeling about it. I confess my concerns, and she admits to sharing them. We end up spending about an hour just going on about nothing in particular, just listening to each other speak, reassuring ourselves that we're all right. During that time, Mike and I are able to get to the hotel, check in, order food, and have it arrive. At that point, Alodia admits that she should be getting ready to go to a dance class. Recitals are coming up in May and the costumes are starting to come in. We exchange 'I love you's and reluctant good-byes, and then we hang up. I eat my dinner, watch a little TV, then decide to hit the hotel's gym in an attempt to burn off some nervous energy. I exhaust myself on the treadmill, spend too long in the shower, and finally crawl into bed.

Sleep doesn't come easy. When I do sleep, I have a distressing dream that my sister is dying of some rare disease and she's only got a day left to live, and it happens to be the same day that I'm meeting the half-sister I never knew I had who's the result of an affair my dad had that he never told anyone about, and it all sucks because I'm devastated that Rebecca's never gonna meet her niece, and I'm not sure I like this new half-sister because she's kinda snobby. I wake up sweating, and it takes me a few minutes to convince myself that Rebecca isn't actually dying. And that I shouldn't actually call her right now because it's about 8am here and three hours earlier in California, and if she's not on duty, she's probably asleep. That's when I realize that Mike's bed is empty and I can hear retching from the bathroom, where there's a sliver of light under the door.

“...Mike?” Concerned, I push back the covers and flip on the light, wincing at the sudden brightness. I make my way to the bathroom and tap on the door with my knuckle. “You okay in there, buddy?”

“You want an honest answer?” he croaks back. I open the door and find Mike slumped over the toilet, sweat shining on his ashen skin and soaking through his undershirt. Another spasm goes through him and he chokes something up into the bowl.

“Jesus!” I grab a washcloth from the rack and run it under the tap, wring it out, and press it to the back of his neck.

“Thanks,” he mumbles. “That's...nice.”

“Just months ago, I was up with Alodia doing this every morning.” I frown. “But what's going on with you? Did you go get drunk after I fell asleep? Pretty sure you're not pregnant.”

“You're lucky I'm not up for punching you right now,” he scoffs, wincing. “I'm not sure what this is. Something I ate, or some kind of stomach virus. Didn't drink anything last night. Just woke up and I had to hurl.”

I gently ease him upright and put a hand to his forehead. It's clammy with sweat, but it doesn't feel warm. “Don't think you have a fever. Maybe that fish last night was off.”

“Maybe.” He wipes at his forehead. “...Think I'm empty now. ...What time is it?”

“Getting on a quarter after 8.”

He groans. “So no time to sleep it off before we hit the water. Never mind.” He starts to struggle to his feet and I move to brace him.

“You sure you should be getting on a boat if your stomach's off?”

“I'll be fine. If I puke again, I puke again. But I'm sure I'll feel better after I've had a shower.”

“Well...we'll see. I'm gonna go get us packed. You holler if you need me.”

He snorts. “Yeah, like I'm gonna call you to help me shower.”

“I'm serious, Mike. You know I saw worse than your skinny naked ass in the Navy. And if you pass out in the shower and crack your head on the tap, I ain't gonna worry about your dignity. I'll call an ambulance and leave everything on display for the paramedics.”

Mike gestures ruefully at the skeletal bionic legs and feet that descend from his flesh-and-blood thighs. Cutting edge prosthetics that attach permanently and use some kind of advanced robotics to communicate with the nerves that still exist in his thighs. Alodia has speculated that the Endless' right hand was of a similar design.

“Great as these are in general, they don't lend themselves well to showering without a seat most of the time. I won't be in any great danger of slipping.”

“You better not.” I leave him to it, returning to the room to gather our belongings. I don't hear any alarming thumps, but ten minutes later, I realize I can hear him retching again. I knock on the door again.

“Cover up, kid! I'm coming in!” I don't wait for an answer before I push the door open. The shower is still running, but Mike has a towel wrapped loosely around his waist, preserving his modesty.

“Wanted some water to rinse my mouth with. ...It didn't sit well.”

I shake my head. “Well, that settles it. You're gonna stay here and sleep this off while I pick up Sean and Michelle.”

“You can't go out there alone.”

“It's fine. It's just about a three-hour sail there, and then I'll have Sean and Michelle on the way back. I'll have plenty of food, water, gas, and life vests, and if anything goes really wrong, I can call the coast guard. You won't be any use puking your guts up under the Caribbean sun when you can't even keep water down. You know that.”

He sighs. “I guess dehydration in the middle of the ocean wouldn't be very helpful.”

“Damn straight. Stay in here with the air conditioning on and get some rest.”

“Yes, Grandpa.”

“I trust you're gonna know when to panic?”

He rolls his eyes as he gets to his feet, but he does offer a weak smile. “Yes, Grandpa. Now if you're gonna go without me, go. I'm gonna go back to sleep.”

Alodia

Diego drives me to the dance studio on Saturday morning. I'm capable of driving myself, but try telling that to a houseful of loving, overprotective men who saw me dissolve into stardust five years ago not to coddle me when in my last month of pregnancy. I don't begrudge them a little fussing, and letting them chauffer me around inconveniences them more than me most of the time. At least this morning, Diego isn't just dragging himself out of the house to be my driver.

“I've got a few meetings with students on campus,” he explains as we get into the car. “Midterms are coming up, so naturally everyone's starting to get nervous.”

“Midterms for you, recitals for me...remember when we used to experience these things from the other side?”

“I definitely don't miss midterms from the other side.”

“...I kinda miss recitals,” I admit.

He smiles at me as he pulls on his seatbelt. “I have a break around noon. Wanna get lunch?”

“As long as it's somewhere nostalgic. What was that place we used to go when we cut class in high school?”

“Waterfall Cafe. I haven't been there since the last time we went together. I don't even know if it's still open.” A quick check on my phone assures us that it is. “Then that's where we'll eat. I'll pick you up around 12:30?”

“It's a bestie date.”

* * *

I remember costume-fitting days being something close to magical when I was a student. The first time we pulled the costumes on, they were a work-in-progress, straight out of their bags. We endured several minutes of teachers and assistants pinching and safety-pinning fabric, noting where it needed to be let out or taken in. The elastic shoulder straps came attached only at the front of the costume, and they too were pulled snug and secured at the back with safety pins. As soon as we were allowed, we scooted away to do our barre exercises in our glittering tutus. We may have been full of safety pins, without headpieces or stage makeup, but we were getting our first glimpses of how we would appear on stage just a month or two down the line. And in the final weeks before the recital, the costumes would come back complete. As a child, I had no concept of the amount of work that teachers and volunteer parents had put into altering the costumes to make them fit just right, and putting needle and thread to countless elastic shoulder straps. They might as well have been completed by Santa Claus and his elves picking up some extra work in the off-season. All I knew was that after the second fitting, the costume was mine forever.

Of course, now that I'm a teacher myself...

“Hold still a second, Ji-hu,” I say for what feels like the fiftieth time as I try to get a safety pin into the side of his black-and-yellow striped tunic. “Can you hold your arms out to the side for me? Atta boy.”

“Bzzzzzz! I'm a bee!” Ji-hu yells, although his announcement is pretty much lost in the din of a dozen other similar announcements from his classmates who are already decked out in black and yellow stripes. At last, I get him pinned and give him permission to go running out onto the dance floor with his friends. I wipe at my sweaty forehead and rise to my feet, wincing a little.

“Are you all right?” I turn to smile at Olivia, the woman in charge of costumes for the entire studio.

“I'm fine. Knees are just protesting a little. All this extra weight is getting to be hard on the joints.”

“If you need to rest, you can go ahead. You've kinda got the perfect excuse, you know.”

I shake my head. “I'll rest while Vikki's getting them warmed up.” But I can't resist putting my hands to my lower back and stretching backwards slightly. “So, who thought it was a good idea to move the five-year-olds to the early slot on Saturdays, and who thought it was a good idea to give them the Honeybees dance? Not the same person, I hope.”

“Hey, you had your chance to veto the Honeybee idea at the meeting five months ago. Just be grateful you don't have Ivan's class set. His five-year-olds are rainbows, and for some reason, he thought it would be a good idea to let them dance with flags.”

“Oh, god! You can barely trust the advanced classes with props!” I laugh ruefully and sigh, steeling myself for the next one. “Megan, sweetheart? Come here and let me pin your straps!”

Jake

There appears to have been some sort of confusion at the docks regarding the yacht I'm supposed to be sailing to La Huerta. It gets cleared up in the end, and I am finally supplied with the Rourke International vessel I was supposed to have in the first place, but I lose an hour and a half in the confusion. I radio Seraxa to let Sean and Michelle know I've been delayed, and set off from Santo Domingo in a foul mood. I don't arrive at the island until after two in the afternoon, but the journey itself is unremarkable, and the sail calms me down. Sean and Michelle are all ready and waiting for me when I hit the dock, their suitcases already packed and piled up on the platform.

“Ahoy, lovebirds!” I call. “We're running a little behind, so if you guys wanna drag your stuff aboard while I give 'er a little more gas, that would be really helpful.”

Michelle frowns a little. “Is Mike not with you?”

“Oh, geez, did I forget to mention? Mike stayed back at the hotel. He was puking his guts up this morning, didn't think a boat was gonna be the best place for him.”

“You were probably right,” Michelle assures me. “Do you know what the cause is? Did he eat something off?”

“Not exactly sure. He didn't have a fever, at least not as of this morning. But he couldn't even keep water down.”

She frowns. “Well, that'll be concerning if it's still going on tomorrow, but it sounds like it could be as simple as a stomach virus. I'll give him a once over when we get back to Santo Domingo if you guys have time. When's your flight back to California?”

“Nine tonight. Though, worst case scenario, we miss it and call Aleister or Estela for a chartered flight.”

“But let's try not to make that necessary,” Sean remarks, gathering up a couple bags. “I'll take these down below.”

Tahira

I give myself permission to wallow a little on Saturday. I keep my phone on so I can be reached if there's trouble, and I at least shower and get dressed. But I otherwise stay curled up on the sofa in my apartment with hot drinks and finger foods, trying to read or watch TV.

Unfortunately, I can't really concentrate on my book and there isn't much that appeals to me on TV. There appears to be a marathon of superhero movies on my favorite channel, and that's obviously out right now. I try to watch stand-up comedy, but that doesn't get much more than a half-hearted chuckle out of me. I actually spend the longest amount of time on a documentary about the American Civil War, but I have to turn it off when it finally registers that the endless quotes from soldiers' letters are just making me feel worse.

Maybe staying in isn't actually the best idea. Although it takes some effort, I manage to stuff my supersuit into a messenger bag, put on my coat and gloves, and drag myself out of the apartment. I don't know where I'm actually planning to go. Maybe Grayson's apartment? The Grand? Maybe I'll just go for an aimless walk.

I'm about a block from my apartment when my phone starts to vibrate in my pocket. It takes a surprising amount of willpower to make myself answer it. Particularly when I pull it out and see that it isn't a number I recognize. Before I became Dragonness, my policy was usually to let unfamiliar numbers go to voicemail, figuring that if it were important, they'd leave a message. But since we officially formed an alliance with the police, Dax has all our calls routed through some kind of service center that scrambles our numbers or something so they can't be traced back to our civilian phones, and in the process, that sometimes scrambles the caller's number too. I summon my energy, and thumb the green button.

“...Hello?”

“...Tahira?” The voice makes my heart wedge in my throat. I know this voice.

“...Caleb?!”

“Hey...”

“Don't 'hey' me! Where the hell are you?! Where have you been?! What have you done?! Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?!”

“Uh...are you alone right now? Because I can hear traffic.”

“It so happens that I am out taking a walk, not that it's any of your business. Answer my questions!”

“I will, I will. But not over the phone. ...I need you to meet me where we were both held captive. Come alone. And come as you, not Dragonness.”

I am quiet for a moment as I find a quiet corner to slip into. “Why should I come alone?” I whisper. “Why shouldn't I bring anyone with me?”

“Because I'm asking you not to,” he answers softly. Softly enough that I can hear a note of quiet desperation in him. “Please.”

“...Just tell me this, Caleb: are the children with you?”

“Yeah. They're here. They're safe. Tahira...I'm counting on you to be a hero right now.”

This feels like a bad idea. A very bad idea. But I already know what I'm going to do. “...Hang tight. I'm on my way.”

Diego

“I'll see you Monday, Danielle. Good luck with your other midterms.”

“Thank you, Mr. Soto. See you Monday!”

Danielle gathers up her things and heads out, leaving me alone in the lecture hall where I am holding my classes this semester. Sitting in a rolling desk chair at the computer, I lean back, stretching my arms over my head and giving a good yawn. That was my last meeting of the morning, and it went quicker than I expected. Now it's about time I get ready to meet Allie for lunch. As it stands, I'm probably going to be early to meet her, so I take my time getting myself packed up.

“Diego Soto?”

I look up to see an unfamiliar young man standing in the doorway. He looks about the right age to be a student—and he's dressed like one, too—but I can't say that I've seen him anywhere around campus.

“That's me. Can I help you?”

“I'm Gabe. Gabe Madigan. I'm just visiting this weekend, but I'm gonna be transferring here next semester. They told me you'll be teaching your course again next semester?”

“That's right. I'm here the rest of the school year. You interested in taking it?”

He grins. “Well, yeah. I wanna be a screenwriter, and I'd be pretty insane not to take the opportunity to learn from a best-selling author on storytelling in film.”

“I'm always happy to have another film enthusiast in the class, no matter who they are.”

“Actually, I...” He gestures a little sheepishly at the backpack secured on his shoulders, “I have my copy of your book with me. Could you possibly sign it for me?”

“I'm sure I can spare the time for that.”

I head over to the desk to take out a pen while he takes his bag off to search for the book.

“You know, I was still in high school when all that stuff in the Caribbean went down. You know, the whole thing with Rourke International...”

I pause for a moment before pulling out a chair sitting down. I hold my hand out for the book. “I certainly haven't forgotten.”

Gabe hands me the book. “Is that a sensitive subject? Sorry. I just remember how close my family followed the story. My older brother was a Hartfeld student at the time. He'd entered the Rourke contest. He was pretty pissed off he didn't win. But once the story broke that you guys had gone missing, he actually felt pretty lucky.”

I can't help shifting awkwardly in my seat as I flip the book open to the front cover. “I won't lie. It was a...harrowing experience.”

I put my pen to the inside cover page and scrawl a quick note: “To Gabe: I look forward to seeing you in class next semester. Keep writing! – Diego Ortiz Soto.”

I see Gabe gazing at the array of personal items I have decorated my desk with: the two action figures Vaanu gave me on the island, a group picture of the Catalysts and friends this past New Years' Eve, one of me and Varyyn at our Vegas wedding, and the picture of me and Allie on the first day of third grade—one of the pictures that first heralded her return. Gabe points to that one, his finger hovering over Allie's eight-year-old face.

“Who's that?”

“Believe it or not, that's Alodia Chandler. The student who went missing on that trip and didn't come back for five years. And that kid she's with is me.”

“She's the one you dedicated your book to. So you knew her before the trip?”

“She's been my best friend since we were in diapers.”

“...That must have been hard, losing her like that.”

“It was. It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through. ...For five years, almost everything I did, I did in her name. For the longest time, the only way I could let myself be happy was by reminding myself that she would want me to be happy. So for a long time, any ounce of happiness I could feel was a dedication to her memory...” I trail off, suddenly embarassed at having gotten so personal with a stranger. I close the book and hand it back to him. “But she's home now. And actually, I'm supposed to meet her for lunch soon, so I should get going.” I pull open the desk drawer to retrieve my wallet and keys.

“Alodia Chandler and her Catalysts...”

Every hair on my body suddenly stands on end. My heart starts to thump with alarm and my stomach goes cold.

“...Gabe, where did you hear tha--”

Before I can finish, I am pulled back hard against his body. His forearm presses against my adam's apple, and a damp cloth obscures my mouth and nose. I struggle, but he caught me by surprise, and I'm being held at a distinct disadvantage.

` “You know the problem with you lot—the Catalysts, I mean—is that you're all so...insecure. There's no challenge in exploiting your weaknesses, because you all wear them on your sleeves.”

I reach for my desk drawer. My keys are sitting just there. If I can get them, maybe I can jab them into something soft and sensitive on his body. But he sees where I'm reaching and drags me off the chair with a sharp tug. I feel the ground tilting beneath me as the room starts to swim before my eyes.

“Don't get me wrong, you've all shown marked improvement since she came into your lives. But you were still entirely too responsive to flattery. It makes you vulnerable, being so desperate for praise.”

My vision is starting to narrow, filling with static at the edges. The voice in my ear is becoming distant, overpowered by the rush of my blood against my eardrums.

“Don't worry,” he sings as I start to fade. “You will see her again. As long as she behaves...”

Alodia

My twelve-year-old class is not as out of control about costume-fitting as the four-year-olds, but no one is immune to the excitement of that first look at performance-wear. And as Graceful Willows, their shimmery green costumes are decorated with soft frond fringes that awaken their playful sides. Wrangling them and getting costumes pinned still takes time, and I start to realize about 12:15 that I might not be ready when Diego gets here. About 12:30, as I'm helping the students out of their costumes and carefully putting them back in their bags, I check my phone. No messages from Diego yet, but he's probably on his way. I tap out a text: Hey, things are running just a little overtime here, but I should be out soon.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm still clearing things up and I check my phone again. No new messages, but I don't think anything of it, I just send another text. Just come inside if I'm not waiting for you when you get here. Just getting costumes sorted.

Ten minutes later, we finally finish up. Diego hasn't come in, so I put on my jacket and head outside to the parking lot to look for him. At this hour, between classes, the parking lot is nearly empty. It doesn't take me long to see that Diego isn't here. But Divya Gupta is, sitting cross-legged on a bench, hunched over a book that sits open on her lap.

“Hey, Divya, can I wait with you?”

Divya looks up and smiles. “Sure. My mom's coming to get me, but she's running late. Says traffic is really bad.”

A sense of relief floods through me. If traffic is bad, that's most likely the reason Diego's late. He's also scrupulous about not texting and driving.

“I'm guessing my friend is stuck in the same traffic,” I remark ruefully.

“Is your friend picking you up?”

“Yeah. We're going to go to lunch together.”

“What about your husband?”

“He's away until this evening.”

Divya turns her face toward me, propping her cheek up in her hand. “How long until you have the baby?”

“Oh, not more than a few more weeks.”

“Is it gonna hurt?”

“It will probably hurt some,” I answer honestly. “But there are a lot of ways to ease the pain. One of the advantages to living nowadays.”

“...It's a girl, right? Your baby?”

“That's right. We're going to name her River Skye.”

“That's a pretty name. My grandma says she can't understand why anyone wants to know if the baby is a boy or a girl before it's born. She says it spoils the surprise.”

I chuckle. “My husband's father says it's like opening your Christmas presents before Christmas.”

Divya laughs, then turns her eyes back to the parking lot. “Oh, I think your friend might be here.”

I look up to see a figure crossing the parking lot—and immediately I feel my veins turn to ice. The figure coming toward me is not Diego. She is not a friend. But I know her. I haven't seen her in years. She looks different now, her long dark braid replaced with a stylishly layered cut, and a combination of skintight jeans and a leather jacket taking the place of her high-tech military uniform. But I know her. Familiarity is a deep, bubbling dread in my gut. She smiles.

“Hey, Alodia,” Fiddler purrs.

“...Jeanine.” I'm surprised that my voice doesn't quiver. I speak to her with measured calm. “I wasn't expecting you. I thought Diego was picking me up.”

“He's going to meet us,” she says simply. “We should get going. Don't want to keep him waiting.”

“Not until Divya's mom gets here. I can't leave her waiting by herself.”

“It's okay, Miss Alodia. I'll be all right.”

“No, Divya,” I reply firmly. “I'm your teacher, and until your mom gets here, I'm responsible for you.”

“Oh, it's no skin off my nose,” Fiddler assures her cheerfully, though I'm pretty sure that's bullshit.

We lapse into a tense silence as I draw in a slow, calming breath. I don't know what Fiddler wants. But she's here and Diego isn't, and that's enough to let me know that something is very wrong in this situation. I search for Varyyn's presence in my mind. If I can find a memory close to the surface of his mind, I can slip into it and speak to him directly, the way I did so many years ago at the Vaanti tribunal.

I can feel right away that he is distressed. Even panicked. The most prominent memories are extremely recent and disjointed, but what I can pick up on puts together an increasingly alarming picture:

A phone call. Diego is...sick? Injured? A frantic rush to the hospital. But Diego isn't there. No one can tell him where his love is.

I find a place to plant my psychic projection, in the lobby of the hospital that Varyyn left in tears only moments ago. But in this moment, he is arguing with the receptionist, his fear and distress rising with every word.

“Varyyn!”

He turns to face me. The receptionist, as well as the rest of the hospital lobby's faceless population, continue with what they were doing, going through their motions like recycled animation.

“Alodia! I cannot find Diego! They told me he collapsed at the school, that he was taken to a hospital...”

“I'm pretty sure whoever told you that was lying. Fiddler is alive, and she's here with me.” I hold out my hand to him. “Keep your mind linked with mine, and don't forget anything that is said, do you understand?”

Varyyn, reading between the lines, nods and grasps my hand, his panic quickly replaced with grim determination. With our minds linked, I return to my own consciousness.

“Bye, Miss Alodia!” Divya calls as she trots over to her mother's car.

“Good-bye, Divya,” I manage to call back. “I'll see you next class.” The car pulls away from the curb, and I am left alone with Fiddler.

“So. Are you going to come quietly?”

“Where is Diego?” I hiss.

“Safe. For now. Whether he stays that way depends entirely on you.” She grasps my upper arm, and gives me a subtle but firm tug. “Come with me.”

I go where she's leading me. I'm walking straight into danger, but I don't have any choice. She has Diego. I can't leave him, and in my current condition, I can't fight her. I have to place my trust in Varyyn.

“If you harm a single hair on his head, you're a dead woman, Jeanine. That's a promise.”

“Listen, sweetie. I would love to cut your throat right here. Take out Wolf's skinny blonde hussy and his grubby little brat in one go. But someone's got a lot of stake your crotchfruit, and I've got a good take coming to me if I bring you and it in whole and healthy. But if I can't kill you right now, you'd better believe I'll take a lot of pleasure in breaking you by hurting your little gay puppy in front of you. Now, I don't have to do that if you don't give me trouble. But ask yourself this: how loosely do you think I'll define 'trouble' if it gives me an excuse to watch you suffer?”

I don't have to fake the way my breath quickens at her implications, even if the submission in the way I lower my eyes is a complete lie.

“...I won't make trouble.”

“Good girl.”

She's led me around the back of the building, to a driveway that is rarely used, except by savvy local drivers who know it can be used to illegally avoid a long traffic light about a block away. There is an ambulance parked dead center of the driveway, blocking potential traffic from both ends.

“Now, from here on out, I can't allow you to have any contact with your blue freak friend. Don't worry. This won't hurt your precious cargo. But it is gonna hurt like hell.”

Before I can respond, the palm of her free hand slaps against the back of my neck. Searing pain floods my senses, and then I drop into darkness.

Caleb

Okay, so I may have gotten in a little over my head when I helped the kids run away from their foster homes. I'm not exactly equipped to take care of them, and I don't really know where to send them. The clocktower isn't safe anymore. I doubt this place is going to be safe for long, either. Plus, I'm not exactly thrilled about hiding out in the same place Silas Prescott held me captive. But at least for now, the kids are out of the cold. The first night, I went digging through a few charity basements and came up with enough blankets to keep them comfortable, and I got enough money to feed them for a little while, but it won't last indefinitely. I just gotta hope Tahira will have some kind of plan. I just gotta trust her.

The silence is awkward as the six of us sit on the floor, stuffing our faces with McDermott's. Ysabel and the younger boys got kiddie meals, with the prize inside being action figures from some popular cartoon. I kinda gotta wonder how long it'll be before they start making action figures of Dragonness and her team.

“I miss Zelda!” RJ announces.

“She's safe. Minuet's taking care of her.”

“Yeah, I know, but I still miss her.”

“I don't like it here,” Alex whimpers. “It's cold and scary.”

“Hey, look. It's not gonna be for long. Our friend Tahira is coming. Remember her? She'll know how to help.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, she's really smart and she's Grayson Prescott's girlfriend. Grayson Prescott basically owns this city.”

“It's his dad who owns the city, not Grayson,” Dylan mutters.

“His dad's in jail,” Ysa points out.

“Well, he's not actually in jail,” I correct her. “He's under house arrest.”

“What's that mean?”

“It's like being in jail, except he just has to stay in his house.”

She wrinkles her nose with obvious distaste. “That doesn't really sound like a punishment.”

“Maybe not, but it still means that Grayson's in charge now, so he can help us.”

RJ frowns. “If Grayson's the one who's gonna help us, why did you call his girlfriend?”

“...Eat your fucking chicken nuggets.”

“Don't swear at my brother!” Dylan snaps. I sigh, rubbing my hands over my face. Where the flying fuck is Tahira? Finally, my burner phone buzzes in my pocket, and when I pull it out, I see Tahira's number flashing across the screen. I answer.

“Tahira? Where are you?”

“Caleb...hall...the...hall we escaped from...Hurry...”

Okay...that doesn't sound good at all. Alarm bells are going off in my head like there's a fucking air raid. I quit the call.

“You kids wait here. I'll be right back.”

I take off for the corridor at a run. I'm not sure what I was expecting to find there, but I was right about it not being good. The hall is pretty dimly lit, but I can still make out the figure that is unmistakeably Tahira slumped on the floor against the wall, and the smell of blood is sickeningly strong.

“Shit, shit, shit!” I rush to drop to my knees at her side. “Tahira, where are you hurt? Lemme see...”

Her eyes flutter and she nods weakly downward. Her hands are pressed to the lower right side of her abdomen, where I can see blood pooling between her fingers.

“Think...I'm gonna need you...to be the hero...this time...”

Jake

I mostly leave Sean and Michelle alone. They're still on their honeymoon, and I didn't come here to be the third wheel. I grab myself a beer from the minifridge belowdecks and head back to the bridge to keep an eye on our progress. It's about an hour into our sail that my phone starts to ring. The sound makes my pulse spike, and when I see that it's Varyyn calling, that only makes me more anxious. My first thought is naturally of my pregnant wife, and the possibilty that she's gone into labor while I'm miles away in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. I snatch up my phone.

“Varyyn? What is it? Is it Alodia? Is she in labor?”

“...No...” Varyyn's voice is quivering. “I'm afraid it's worse than that, Jake. ...She and Diego have been abducted. By Fiddler.”

All the blood rushes out of my head. I actually feel myself fall to my knees as my vision tunnels.

“...No...no, God, please. Please, no...”

“Alodia linked her mind with mine just before she was taken, but then...Fiddler did something, and now I cannot reach her.”

I taste bile at the back of my throat. I can't breathe. This can't be happening. “Wh-what does that mean?!” I choke out. “Is she dead?! Did Fiddler kill her?!”

“No. I don't think so. I can almost feel her presence still, but...it's as if there has been a wall put up between our minds. I cannot speak to her, I cannot see where she is.”

“Fuck...Okay.” I shake my head hard, trying to clear it. I can't help Alodia by panicking. “Okay, Varyyn, listen. I need you to call my sister. She'll know where to start. I'm gonna make sure Mike and I got a plane on the tarmac soon as I get back to Santo Domingo 'cause no way am I waiting around for a commercial flight.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I will call Rebecca.”

I don't wait for him to say goodbye before I hang up the phone and climb unsteadily to my feet. Jesus, where the hell did my sealegs go? I still feel dizzy and breathless, and my stomach is threatening to rebel, but I force all that to the back of my mind. How I feel doesn't matter right now. Alodia is all that matters.

“Sean!” I call as I stumble toward the staircase that leads to the lower deck. “Michelle! We got a problem--”

I feel myself stumble and I stagger against the side just as my phone starts to ring again. Mike this time. I answer.

“Mike, we have a problem...” My tongue is starting to feel heavy. It shouldn't be feeling heavy. I've only had one beer.

“Jake!” Mike's voice comes through the speaker as a harsh whisper. “G.Q.! Bingo! Find another port!”

“Mike, Jeanine's alive. She has my wife.”

“Just promise me! Don't come back to Santo Domingo, Jake! Promise—ungh!”

“Mike?!” Only the distant sounds of something shuffling answer me. “Mike, buddy, say something!”

There's another moment of silence. Then another voice comes through the speaker. “Hello, Wolf.”

My blood goes cold in my veins. “...Lundgren...?”

“Surprised? You should know I'm not gonna die while you and Mouse are alive. How ya feeling, anyway? Dizzy? Hazy?”

I grasp the side of the boat, struggling to pull myself up, but my legs seems to be made of rubber. My vision is blurring, the horizon doubling before my eyes.

“Wha...what's...?” I feel the phone slip from my grasp as I slump back to the deck, trying to gather my scattered thoughts. Michelle...Sean...where are they...? Alodia's in trouble...Diego...Mike...I have to...

There's a figure approaching. An unfamiliar figure in an Arachnid uniform. The last thing I am aware of is a man's tenor voice: “We're just about done here, Commander. The wolf's going under. Sit tight. You'll have your prize soon.”

11 notes · View notes

theunmappedstar · 4 years

Note

Ro teaches calla cuss words, sophie is exasperated, keefe is on the middle ground of finding it halarious and wanting to scold ro for teaches his daughter those words

imagine if calla learned it in the ogre language, too... and sophie was the only one who got it...

sophie, keefe, and calla go out to lunch with edaline and grady after seeing bo and ro a few weeks prior and then calla lets out the f-bomb in ogre and sophie FREEZES like “WHERE did you learn that–... WAIT-”

bored? send me an ask!

#but yeah let's be real keefe probably would understand it too #you can't tell me he hasn't picked up ogre curses from ro #edaline ruewen #grady ruewen #sophie foster #keefe sencen #kotlc #sokeefe #anonymous #asks #ask me anything #theunmappedstar asks #calla lily ruewen #calla lily foster

37 notes · View notes

wistfulcynic · 5 years

Text

Honeysuckle

Summary: Emma finds herself in a precarious position while trying to return some library books and shy librarian Killian comes to her rescue. He’s sweet and kind and Henry’s bookworm hero but there’s also something about him that she doesn’t know.

(Something good)

a/n: All the thanks to @shireness-says for letting me borrow the adorable cinnamon roll that is Librarian!Killian, and also for inspiring this fic with her actual life. Librarian!Killian is a bit Deckhand Hook, a bit Lt Jones, which is a version of Killian I’ve never written before. It’s been fun, and not coincidentally this is the only thing I’ve ever written with a G rating.

(Thanks also to @katie-dub whose beautiful fic Her Happy Beginning inspired me to try a new style of narration.)

@whimsicallyenchantedrose @captainsjedi @kmomof4 @thejollyroger-writer @darkcolinodonorgasm @winterbaby89 @ultraluckycatnd @hollyethecurious @teamhook

Rated: G

On AO3

Honeysuckle:

Life, as some wise person once said, is just one damned thing after another. It’s full of frustration and elation and misery and comedy and so, so much embarrassment. And sometimes, on those most rare and exquisite of occasions, all of these factors coalesce into one grand, transcendent experience that makes the person living it wish simultaneously to die of humiliation and live in that moment forever.

Dear Reader, such was the experience of one Emma Swan, medical assistant and single mother, on the third day of the sixth month of the twenty-eighth year of her life.

The day began as an unremarkable one. Emma dragged herself from bed at the unholy hour of six-thirty am, banged on her son’s bedroom door on her way to the kitchen, and spent the next ten minutes mainlining coffee and forcing herself into full consciousness. When Henry appeared she poured him a bowl of cereal, kissed his forehead, and headed for the shower. So far so ordinary.

Things didn’t start to go wrong until Emma, showered and dressed and with her still-damp hair pulled into a practical ponytail, took the opportunity of Henry’s regular morning dawdling session to reread the latest letter from her secret pen pal.

(Secret only because Emma was perhaps overly conscious that having a ‘pen pal’ in this day and at her age might be seen by some as rather ridiculous. Not even Henry knew, although she’d had the pen pal far longer than she’d had the son. Since she was ten years old, in fact, and her fourth grade teacher had arranged a writing exchange with a class in England. For reasons Emma could never fully articulate she had bonded instantly and strongly to the boy across the sea known to her only as ‘K’ —again for ‘reasons’, these best known to themselves, they addressed each other by their initials only— and throughout her life of foster families and failed relationships he remained the only person who had never left her. Virtually anonymous though it may be, it was by far the longest and most stable relationship of Emma’s life and nothing but Henry had ever been more precious to her. But she kept it secret because it was ridiculous. Yep. That’s what she told herself.)

But back to the letter.

On my way to work yesterday I came across what I think must be some of the first lilacs of the season and I thought of you, it read. I always think of you when I see flowers and I can never decide which one suits you best, which probably makes sense since I have never seen your face. Are you sweet and springlike as lilacs are, or are you more of a full summer flower like a rose? Maybe you are a slim and elegant calla lily, or perhaps a tall and slightly terrifying sunflower? (Don’t laugh, E, sunflowers are scary! Have you ever seen one? They remind me of Triffids (that’s a book reference, love, and before you ask yes there’s a movie as well. Read the book first) and the way they move to follow the sun is creepy.)

(I know you’re laughing at me. Stop it.)

It is true I regret to say that Emma had laughed the first time she read the letter, also the second time and possibly the third. But this being the sixth or seventh (tenth) reading the words elicited a smile that came less from mirth and more from a sort of sighing wistfulness as she imagined her never-seen dearest friend sniffing lilacs and thinking of her.

She wished she knew what he looked like.

She had tried many times to paint his face in her mind, one that fit the beauty of his words, but found she very literally could not imagine it. Emma’s experience with men was one that is sadly not uncommon among beautiful women whose positions in society are tenuous. As a single mother with only a high school diploma Emma had encountered more than her share of creeps and assholes, men who mistook her vulnerability for weakness and attempted to take advantage of her.

It was a mistake they did not make twice, but the sad result was that Emma had soured on men and relationships and all but given up hope that she would ever find someone who loved her. And as for a man so sweet and kind that he stopped to admire lilacs and wondered what kind of flower she might be, well, he was an impossibility in her experience, simply too good to be true.

She knew of course that K was real. Someone had been writing to her for nearly twenty years. She had no desire to meet him, though (she did) for fear of the crushing disappointment if he didn’t live up to the image she had of him in her mind. No, he was much better left to her imagination and the pages of his beautifully written letters. She couldn’t bear to lose those letters.

She was just indulging in speculation over what sort of flower he might be when Henry’s voice and the thud of the books he dropped on the table in front of her brought her back to reality.

“Mom, these books are due back today,” he said.

“What? Why didn’t you take them back yesterday?”

“I forgot them at home. I didn’t even remember they were due until Killian reminded me. But we can return them now, can’t we?”

Emma tried to remember that he wasn’t trying to exasperate her, he was just absent-minded. “Henry, we are already late. Can’t you take them after school today?”

“No, I have D&D after school.”

“I’m sure you can miss it one time—”

“No, Mom, we’re in the middle of a campaign and I have to be there.”

Emma threw up her hands. “Okay, fine, but you’ll have to take the bus to school.”

“Mo-om!”

“No, I do not have time to take you to school, then go to the library, then work. I’ll drive you to the bus stop then swing by the library and put your books in the drop. Hurry up now, are you ready?”

“Yeah, just let me grab my backpack.”

He ran to get it and Emma absently slipped the letter into its envelope and the envelope into one of Henry’s library books before gathering the books in her arms and slinging her tote bag over her shoulder and herding her son out the door and into her car.

(I wonder if you can spot where this is going yet?)

Ten minutes later Emma pulled into the library parking lot with as close to a squeal of tires as her creaky Bug could manage and grabbed Henry’s books from her passenger seat. Hurrying to the book drop she tipped them in…

And remembered. Far too late.

“My letter!” she cried, and without thinking of anything beyond recovering the treasured words, Emma dove headfirst into the book drop, trying to catch the book that held her letter before it fell. She was a slender woman and the book drop more sizeable than most, but it was decidedly not designed to accommodate the ingress of any size of human, and so all she accomplished was to wedge her shoulders tightly into the narrow space with one arm stretched out in front of her inside the chute and the other sticking out of the drop’s opening at an odd angle. With the toe of one foot she could just touch the ground while the other one dangled helplessly in the air. She kicked with her leg to try to yank herself free but succeeded only in sending her practical flat shoe flying off her foot and landing with a splash in what she felt certain was a mud puddle, just as the sound of Henry’s books landing in the bin at the bottom of the chute reached her ears.

Perfect, she thought. Just perfect.

This, as I’m sure you have deduced my lovely Reader, has been the embarrassment and yes also the comedy portion of our tale. The former feeds the latter until it is fat as we all know from our own lives, and in the years to come Emma would learn to laugh when telling and retelling the story of her predicament. Though it must be said that, as is often the case with embarrassing things, she saw absolutely no humour in it at the time.

The frustration came into play moments later as Emma made further attempts to extricate herself from the drop, only to find that the position of her shoulders and her hands and her legs left her entirely unable to get enough purchase on any solid surface to provide sufficient counterbalancing force to un-wedge her. She was well and truly stuck, profoundly uncomfortable, and by that time almost certainly late for work.

It was then that the misery kicked in.

“Fuck,” she shouted, and the word reverberated down the metal chute, echoing back to her in a way she considered almost insultingly on the nose. She closed her eyes and let her head fall against the side of the chute and wondered just what the hell she was going to do now.

(It will not, I feel certain, have escaped your notice that we have not yet had elation. Fear not, gentle Reader, for it is to come, and far sooner than Emma expects.)

Fortunately both for Emma and our story a rescuer soon arrived, not on a white charger as in a fairy tale but aboard a practical secondhand Volvo in a rather nice shade of blue.

Now Killian Jones may well have wished, deep in his heart, in that remote corner where he kept his love of adventure stories and even fancied himself a bit of a rogue, for something sportier, something a touch more dashing. But Killian Jones was a librarian, and the financial realities of our world dictate that librarians do not drive sports cars. So Killian had sighed for what was never to be and bought the Volvo —and adamantly rejected the silver one, he was not a vampire, sparkly or otherwise— and it had to be said that he’d never regretted it.

All he regretted that morning was the broken shoelace that had made him too late to walk to work and smell the lilacs.

As he pulled into the parking lot he was surprised to see a yellow Volkswagen Beetle parked haphazardly in the closest spot to the door that wasn’t reserved for the differently abled. It looked very much like the car that he’d frequently seen young Henry running to, the one that would naturally be driven by his mother…

Impulsively Killian pulled into the space next to the yellow car instead of continuing to the employee lot. His heart had begun to pound and his mouth was dry.

It’s probably not her, he told himself firmly. There have to be other yellow Bugs in the neighbourhood.

(There definitely weren’t.)

But if it was her he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stutter a few incoherent words before excusing himself awkwardly and fleeing to a private corner where he might catch his breath, which was what happened every time he tried to talk to Henry’s mother.

Now Killian Jones, as, dearest Reader, you well know, was a handsome man, and one not so caught up in books and fantasy that he was unaware of this fact or of the effect it had on women. He could be smooth enough with the female species when he put his mind to it but something about Henry’s mother —he didn’t even know her name— tied his tongue and stopped his throat and robbed him of every shred of eloquence he may otherwise possess.

This didn’t stop him from trying, though. The humiliation was worth it to see her smile.

He got out of the car as quickly as possible, cursing as he caught the strap of his satchel in the door, then hurried to the library’s main entrance, looking around in a way that he hoped didn’t make it too obvious that he was looking around. Where would she be? he wondered. If she was here that is, if it was her. Come to think of it, why would she be here? Why would anyone? Who went to the library an hour before it opened to, what, stand around in front of the door and wait?

His attention was finally drawn, after a moment or two, to the after-hours book drop when the person stuck inside it began banging and shouting loudly enough for even the most distracted bookworm to notice.

Wait… the person stuck inside the book drop?

Killian turned to look, mouth gaping open in astonishment, too taken aback to even feel ashamed that he very definitely recognised that arse.

So that’s where she was. This simultaneously answered several questions and posed a good few more.

He hurried over, knowing that he ought to do something, but very uncertain as to what that something ought to be.

“Um, hello?” he ventured. “Excuse me?”

Her voice was muffled but the annoyance came through loud and clear. “Oh thank fuck, I thought you’d gone,” she said.

“Um. What?”

“I heard your car door slam so I started banging to get your attention, but then no one came and I thought you’d left, or gone in another direction or something.”

“Ah. Er, no. I’m, uh, I’m here. What, um, what can I do for you?” He winced even as he spoke the words.

(She robbed him of all eloquence, you recall, even when all he could see was her backside. Perhaps especially then.)

She paused just long enough to make her opinion of his question clear. “Get me out of here!” she shouted.

“Aye, of course, lass, but, er, um—” Killian assessed the situation from three different angles just to be sure that there was no other option, that it wasn’t simply his physical attraction to her getting the better of him “—I’ll have to, uh, there’s no other way except to, er, touch you—”

“Yes, yes, I know that’s fine, just get me out!”

“Aye, all right, um, can you push on the inside of the chute at all?”

“Yes, but I can’t get enough purchase on the ground to counterbalance, so I can’t force my shoulders out.”

“Ah, yes, I see. All right, well you push and I’ll just, um—” Cautiously he wrapped his arm around her waist and braced his hand against the wall of the library. “I’ll brace you. Are you ready?”

“So ready.”

“Okay, on three. One… two… three!”

Killian planted his feet firmly on the ground and he could feel her muscles tense and flex as she pushed on the wall of the chute, and with her body braced against his she was able to un-wedge her shoulders from the narrow space and then with a final heave she freed herself from the drop, the force of it sending her stumbling backwards against Killian, whose other arm automatically wrapped itself around her and held on tight.

She smelled like honeysuckle, was all he could think.

Too soon she was straightening up and he forced his arms to let her go, and she turned around with a smile that nearly ended him.

“Thanks,” she said. “I thought I’d be in there at least until the library opened.”

Emma was trying to be cool but the truth was that even from inside the chute she’d recognised the voice and accent of Henry’s favourite librarian, his hero really, the man who had recommended all his favourite books and who always had time to discuss them with him. Henry talked about him almost nonstop.

“Ah, it’s Killian, isn’t it?” she said. “We’ve talked a few times before, I’m Henry’s mother.”

Killian swallowed hard and forced himself not to panic. “Aye, I remember. Er— sorry, I don’t know your name.”

He’s so cute, thought Emma. She’d always thought so, if she was honest, not just his face but the adorable way he couldn’t quite manage to talk to her. It was sweet, and frankly a blessed change from the way men usually acted around her.

“It’s Emma Swan,” she said, and held out her hand. Killian took it gingerly, like he was afraid it might bite him.

The jolt of sensation that went through both of them at the contact seemed to confirm his fears.

They both pulled their hands away, laughing nervously, and thorough the haze of his confusion something prickled in Killian’s mind. E. Swan, he thought, just like…

“You must be wondering how I managed to get stuck like that,” said Emma, interrupting his thoughts, attempting to brazen through her own jumpy nerves by talking.

“Well, yes, I confess it did cross my mind.” A complete sentence in her presence, that was a first, he thought.

“Yeah, it must be a pretty weird thing to encounter first thing in the morning.”

“I assure you, lass, we’ve seen weirder in this library.” Two complete sentences, what had come over him?

“That’s nice of you to say. Okay, here’s the thing. I kinda… left something really important in one of the books I returned, and… look I’m so grateful to you for rescuing me but would you mind maybe going to see if you could find it?” She kept her face calm but he could sense her anxiety in the way she twisted her hands together. “It’s, well, it’s personal and I don’t want to lose it, or you know have strangers reading it—”

He waved his hand to cut her off. “Say no more, it would be my pleasure to retrieve it for you. Um, what is it?”

Her smile shone relieved and brilliant, and Killian’s powers of speech abandoned him yet again.

“It’s a letter. In an envelope. I mean, just like a normal envelope. But… open.”

He nodded, groping desperately for his words. “Letter. Envelope. Got it. I’ll, um, go now. Uh, stay here.”

“Where else would I go?” she asked his retreating back.

Killian hurriedly unlocked the main doors and raced down the stairs to the bin at the bottom of the book drop’s chute. He realised he’d forgotten to ask Emma —he felt a small thrill using her name— which book she’d left her letter in, but fortunately he remembered which books Henry had checked out during his last visit. They’d had a long conversation about each, after all. He ruffled through the first one but no letter fell out, the same result for the second. The third, however, produced its treasure, an ordinary, unremarkable white letter envelope.

One that looked strikingly familiar.

Killian stared at the letter in his hand, addressed to one E. Swan, in a firm, flowing, elegant script.

A script he recognised.

Because it was his own.

Bloody hell.

(Be honest, now, kind Reader, you aren’t going to tell me you didn’t see this coming?)

Killian wanted to hyperventilate. (Is it possible to want to hyperventilate?) His favourite patron’s mother, the woman he’d admired (and yes, done a bit of pining for) from afar was also, somehow, the pen pal he’d had since he was ten years old. His dearest friend.

It was too ridiculous. It was impossible.

(It was actually just a very strange coincidence, and who among us hasn’t experienced one of those? But Killian was feeling rather dramatic in that moment, so we’ll give him a pass.)

(Now Reader, you are likely wondering how it is possible that two people who communicate via letter, a medium of communication that requires the knowledge of one’s recipient’s address as a matter of course, could possibly be unaware that they lived in the same neighbourhood of the same small town, mere blocks from one another as it turns out? The simple explanation is this: Both some years ago had arranged P.O. Boxes for their letters to each other, finding it easier (and if we are honest, more securely anonymous) to simply ask the post office to forward their letters as they moved around rather than keep updating each other directly. Killian’s P.O. Box was in Syracuse, NY, where he had gone to library school and his first port of call in the USA while Emma’s was in Tallahassee, FL, where she had stayed for two years after Henry was born.

Could they have saved themselves a fair bit of time and no small amount of loneliness had they just used their real addresses? Or, you know, their actual names?

Yes. Yes they could. But then we wouldn’t have a story.)

As Killian reeled from his astounding discovery, Emma was sitting on the hood of her Bug, wincing as her shift supervisor (and friend) laughed, so long and so hard Emma feared she’d give herself an aneurysm.

After a while she began to hope for an aneurysm.

“Oh my God,” Ruby gasped, once she was finally able to speak through her mirth. “That is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Years, probably.”

“Not helpful, Rubes. I only called to tell you that I’ll be in as soon as possible, I can probably get going in about five, ten minutes or so. I’m really sorry.”

Ruby’s appreciation for a good joke did not affect her empathy for a friend in need. “Look, Ems, we’re not busy today, three patients have already cancelled their appointments. I can cover what’s left. Let’s just call this a sick day for you and if you want you can make up the shift this weekend. Go home and rest. You’ve had a narrow escape after all.”

Emma groaned. “I hate you.”

“You love me, and don’t forget I’m covering your shift today so you really shouldn’t be stuck up.”

“I mean, that’s just terrible.”

Ruby laughed. “Call me later. I’ll be waiting so don’t think you can wriggle out of it.”

“You are the worst and I’m hanging up now. Goodbye. And thanks.”

“Any time, doll.”

Emma hung up the phone just as Killian came through the doors holding, she was relived to see, her letter.

And with a very peculiar expression on his face.

She felt her heart flutter. He looked… intense. It was a good look on him.

She remembered how his arms had felt around her and the flutter became a gallop.

He handed her the letter.

“You’re honeysuckle,” he blurted.

“I— what?” Emma blinked in surprise.

“Honeysuckle. Not lilacs or roses, or sunflowers, thank goodness.”

How could he… no! she thought wildly. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t have. He seemed so nice.

“Did you read my letter?” she cried, somehow feeling more betrayed than angry.

“No! That is, I sort of did, but—” He ran a hand through his hair, looking distressed. “Oh, I’m doing this all wrong.”

“Just what exactly are you doing?” she snapped.

He took a deep breath, and looked her in the eye. “Let me introduce myself,” he said. “We really haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Killian Jones. Killian with a K.”

Emma gasped as the import of his name plus the fact that he knew what was in her letter hit home. K. Jones.

“You— you’re K?”

“Aye. I mean yes, I am. And you’re E. Who smells of honeysuckle. I’ve always wondered.”

“You wondered what I smelled like?”

“I’ve wondered a lot of things about you, love.” He smiled, not the awkward, shy smile he normally gave her, but a bright and brilliant one full of joy and just a hint of mischief. It made her feel feather-light and ridiculously happy. This man she could definitely picture sniffing lilacs and thinking of her. He was real, and right in front of her, and her imagination had utterly failed to do him justice.

“Listen,” he said, more confident than she’d ever seen him but with nervousness just creeping in at the edges, rubbing at a spot behind his ear and looking just over her left shoulder, “Would you, um, like to have a drink with me? You probably have to get to work now, but maybe later—”

“I have the day off.” The words were out before she could stop them.

Hope lit in his eyes. “You do?”

“As of five minutes ago,” she confirmed. “My boss said I’d clearly been through enough already today and told me to take a sick day. But, I mean, don’t you have to work—”

“I’ll take a sick day too,” he said hurriedly, pulling out his phone. “Just give me a minute.”

The phone rang only twice before Belle picked up. She was nothing if not efficient.

“Hi, Belle, it’s, er, Killian.” Of course she knows that you numpty she saw your name come up on the screen, he thought.

(Killian is a terrible, terrible liar.)

He cleared his throat and continued. “I’m, um, so sorry but I’m not well today.”

“Not well,” repeated Belle.

“Er, no, I think I’ll have to stay home.”

“You sound fine, Killian.” She sounded strict, when she was usually so kind. He forced himself not to panic, and attempted a little cough. “No, I assure you,” he said, “I’m very ill.”

“Very ill, you say.”

“Er, aye.” Why is she repeating everything?

“Too ill to come to work.”

“Um, yes.”

“Too ill to come to work and not in fact currently standing in the patrons’ car park with Henry’s mother?”

He gaped. “How do you—”

She laughed, a familiar, warm sound, and Killian felt the knot of tension in his chest begin to melt. “I heard you come in through the main door and I came to see what was going on,” she said.

Killian felt a stab of guilt. “Belle, I can explain—”

“You don’t have to. At least, not yet. I’ll be demanding a full explanation tomorrow, when I feel certain you’ll be well enough to come to work.”

“Of course. Thank you, Belle, you’re a treasure.”

“Just be sure you actually talk to her this time.”

“Aye, I think I can manage that.” It was easier now that he knew he’d actually been talking to her for the best part of twenty years.

He ended the call and turned to smile at Emma who smiled back at him, and now, my darling Reader, we come at long last to the elation. The sheer, shining joy of experiencing something you’ve wondered about for years and finding it surpasses even your most elevated expectations.

They went for coffee. They walked to the coffee shop, past the lilacs which were just beginning to fade, and they sniffed them together.

Their conversation flowed with surprising ease, or perhaps not so surprising. In a way of course they had only just met but in another way they had known each other for years, and they were pleased to discover that there was no awkwardness between them other than that which results naturally between two people who are wildly attracted to each other and only just beginning to explore it.

They explored it eventually. And thoroughly.

And when the following year they stood in a country garden with Belle and Ruby and a Henry who was almost dancing with excitement and exchanged rings and promises of love and fidelity, the trellis above their heads was heavy and fragrant with honeysuckle in full bloom. And not a sunflower in sight.

(Ah, I love a happy ending, I hear you sighing, beloved Reader. I do as well but I fear this is not one. It is of course a happy beginning.)

#cs ff #cs ff au #cs fic #deckhand hook #lieutenant jones #captain swan #fluff #omg so fluffy #tooth-rotting fluff #captain cobra #librarian killian #honeysuckle #profdanglaisstuff #one shot #rated g

101 notes · View notes