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imaginespazzi · 4 months ago

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Part 2: And Even Now

Masterlist - Part 1 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11

Because I'll never let this go (but I can't find the words to tell you)

(In which a deadline-averse writer actually lives up to a weekly deadline)

Pairing: Paige Bueckers X Azzi Fudd

Themes: Angst, Pining, A little bit of fluff I guess?

Words: 6.9K (back to my usual)

TW: Swearing (I think that's it?)

A/N: Hello my lovelies <3 Happy Monday! Nobody get used to me actually updating on a proper weekly basis because really, let's be honest you're all lowkey shocked I'm actually living up to this too but we'll see how long I can make it last. As you read, let's just all remember my favorite three words: For. The. Plot! Editing and I continue to be sworn enemies so you'll definitely find typos along the way and feel free to point them out so that I can fix them. As always, let me know what you liked, what you disliked and what you'd like to see next. Have a wonderful rest of your week my loves <3

February 2033

Azzi’s heart is beating a million miles per minute as she gets into her car. She’s just invited Paige into her world and even if she knows that it was the right thing to do for her team, the full force of what she’s just done is starting to hit her. The plan had been the exact opposite. In fact the plan had been to avoid Paige at all costs while she was here in Oakland. Azzi had spent nearly a decade building this new world of hers that was devoid of anything Paige and it had taken Ohemaa an hour, explaining why Paige was the last domino they needed to fall to win a championship, to convince Azzi to bulldoze her own walls.

Banging her head against the steering wheel, Azzi lets out a frustrated scream. She’d been the picture of calm and composed while talking to Paige, but internally an earthquake had started rumbling within her the minute she’d finally laid eyes on the blonde. It was unfair that age seemed to have no effect on Paige, unfair that she still made Azzi’s stomach do somersaults, unfair that that stupid smirk made Azzi nostalgic for a feeling she used to call home. It’s funny really. There was a time in Azzi’s life where she didn’t know how she’d survive without seeing Paige every day. But now if the blonde does accept her offer, Azzi thinks, seeing Paige every day, might just be her poison ivy.

The sound of her car doors opening shakes Azzi out of her pity party, as she rushes to compose herself before Stephie sees her. Through the rear view mirror, she watches as her daughter happily climbs into her car seat, a giddy smile on her face. And all the stress and anxiety seems to evaporate.

“What’s got you so happy Stephie bean? What did you and Aunty Leen do?” Azzi asks, so focused on Stephie’s grin, that she misses Colleen, who’s just let herself into the passenger seat, shaking her head.

“Aunty Leen lost me,” Stephie says coyly and Azzi immediately turns to Colleen whose head whips around to look at the little girl in the back seat.

“Stephanie Katarina Fudd are you lying on my good name?” she hisses.

“Stephie,” Azzi chides, catching on quickly “did you run away from Aunty Leen again?”

“She was boring me Mama,” Stephie whines, sticking her tongue out at Colleen, “and if I didn’t run away, then I wouldn’t have met Miss Buecks.”

Oh.

She told me she thinks I’d look good in purple.

Azzi’s breath hitches in her throat. She hadn’t quite registered that Paige’s words from before meant that she must have met Stephie, too busy finding a way to get out of the gym that was starting to feel just a little too hot. It only clicks now as Stephie starts to ramble about how she’d ran into a stranger in the chill room. But it’s not the idea of Stephie and Paige meeting that sends a shiver creeping up Azzi’s spine. No, it’s that enamored smile on Stephie’s face. It’s the way Azzi’s little girl’s eyes light up just saying those two syllables Miss Buecks. Maybe it’s genetic or perhaps just a Fudd family fatal flaw but Azzi can see a fourteen year old version of herself, blooming in Stephie. She’d hidden it well, behind exasperated head shakes and exaggerated eye rolls but falling in love with Paige Bueckers had been just a little to easy back then. Apparently, it still was.

“She was really nice Mama,” Stephie gushes and Azzi’s hand tightens on the steering wheel, “is she gonna come play for your team? I told her she should.”

“So I heard,” Azzi murmurs and she can feel Colleen’s eyes immediately shifting to look at her.

“You talked to Paige?” Azzi’s best friend asks, a skeptical lilt in her voice.

Azzi shrugs, “I ran into her in the gym.”

“And what exactly were you doing in the gym?”

“Looking for Paige,” Azzi says sheepishly as Collen makes an indiscernible noise.

“Did you ask her to join your team Mama?” Stephie chimes in eagerly from the back, unaware of the way that the childlike hope in her voice is putting her mother on edge. Azzi has built an impenetrable fortress around her own heart but she’d never considered that perhaps she should have built a moat around Stephie’s too.

“Yeah baby, I did,” Azzi admits slowly and this time Colleen lets an audible gasp, except it’s drowned out by a series of exhilarated squeals erupting from the backseat.

“MISS BUECKS IS GONNA JOIN MAMA’S TEAM,” Stephie screams, practically bouncing on her seat as she begins to repeat the phrase in a sing-song voice.

“Hold your horses, kid. She hasn’t said yes yet,” Azzi warns.

Stephie smiles secretly, “but she will Mama, I know she will.”

It makes Azzi feel lightheaded, the amount of trust Stephie seems to already have in a stranger. There’s a part of her that wants to crawl into her daughter’s mind and erase the memory of blonde hair and blue eyes because she knows, she knows better than anyone, that once you walk through that door, there is no coming back. And Paige would never willingly hurt Stephie -even after a decade apart Azzi has that much faith in the blonde- but that doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t break her heart any way.

Colleen turns to Azzi, a look of unmistakable concern on her face as she makes a show of putting her hand against the darker-skinned girl’s forehead, “are you feeling okay?”

“Oh fudge off,” Azzi groans, swatting away her best friend’s hand

“Azzi let me get this straight, you’re telling me you asked your e-x-g-i-r-l-f-r-i-e-n-d to join your team?”

“Look at you spelling Col, I’m so proud of you-”

“Don’t start,” Colleen shoots her a look and Azzi sighs, “what happened to going into Ohemaa’s office and making sure that didn’t happen?”

“I did what I had to,” Azzi shrugs, “I put the team first.”

“And what about-”

“Colleen please,” Azzi begs softly, a wave of tiredness washing over her, “it’s done okay. And it might not even matter. She might not even say yes.”

Colleen opens her mouth and then sighs, seeing something in Azzi’s face that convinces her not to push. There isn’t anyone else in the world who knows Azzi better than her best friend, except maybe the woman they’re talking about. Paige would’ve pushed, she always had. Pushed and pushed until Azzi was letting herself free fall off a cliff, only harnessed by Paige’s promise to catch her before she hit the ground. And then one day Azzi had unclipped the harness, and it was their relationship that had come crashing down.

“Mama,” Stephie’s inquisitive voice calls from behind and Azzi hums in response, starting up her car, “you knew Miss Bueckers when she was littler right?”

“I knew her when she was younger,” Azzi corrects gently and knew feels like an understatement. They’d lived in each other’s skin, carving themselves onto parts of each other they hadn’t even known existed until the other had come along.

“Same thing Mama,” Stephie huffs, “was she still so pretty then?”

And as pictures of a younger Paige, beautiful and vibrant like the sun shining on the pavement after a thunderstorm, dance through her mind, Azzi can’t stop the soft smile that flitters across her face.

“She’s always been the prettiest.”

***

Paige isn’t feeling particularly talkative when her phone rings, Talia’s name flashing on the CallerID. Her senses are still drowned in all things Azzi and she’s not quite ready to be rescued from the ocean of memories that have suddenly flooded her entire being. She wants to lose herself in them, let herself be drawn back to what was. Paige has spent the better part of the last decade running away from her past but today, for the first time, all she wants is to let this slideshow of nostalgia keep on playing through her mind.

“Talia if you’re calling just to say I told you so,” Paige sneers into the phone, finally picking it up after the ringing starts to give her a mild headache. She’d texted Thalia almost immediately after speaking to Azzi, a simple i think i could make the Valks work, purposely leaving out what, or more precisely who, had convinced her.

“I would never,” Talia says with a hint of amusement, “if I started telling you I told you so after every time I was right, I fear I’d never have anything else to say to you because I am in fact, always right.”

Paige rolls her eyes, “alright then if you’re done gloating.”

“I didn’t call to gloat,” the manager’s voice is more serious now, “I called to tell you that I talked to the Liberty and they have an offer.”

“The Liberty don’t have cap space,” Paige says slowly, stomach suddenly queasy.

“They don’t have cap space this season,” Talia corrects, “but things are gonna change for them with Sabrina retiring after this season and they can move a couple of other things around to give us what we want next season.”

“What exactly are you saying?”

“I’m saying that the Valkyries don’t have to be anything more than a pit stop. I know I pressured you into this but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been trying to figure something else out for you behind the scenes.”

“And I assume you’ve talked to Ohemaa too then?”

Talia scoffs, “do I look like an amateur agent to you? Of course I have. This works for them too. If all goes to plan, they have the rights to Atlanta’s #3 pick in the draft and if the mocks have gotten it right, they’ll get Angie Davis.”

“The Stanford PG,” Paige breathes out.

“Exactly. She’ll get a year developing under you and then hopefully they won’t need you next year. And you won’t need them. Everybody wins.”

It sounds like the perfect solution. The Valkyrie’s would get what they need out of her and she’d get what she needed out of them. Then they’d part ways and Paige’s past would no longer be a factor in her present once she got to New York. One year and then everything would fall into place the way she’d wanted it to. It should fill her with excitement or relief or maybe even both but instead Paige feels nothing but unease, like she’s sealing herself to a fate of never truly having a home.

She rubs a tired hand across her face, “what if I don’t want to leave after a year?”

“Then we can talk about it in a year. You’re not signing anything other than a one-year contract with the Valkyries right now and letting both them and the Liberty know that you're keeping your options open,” Talia says, her tone perfectly business-like.

“Good,” Paige lets out a small sigh of relief at knowing she isn’t about to get herself legally bound to anything, “that’s good.”

“Why don’t you sound more happy about this Paige?” an irritated timbre slips into Talia’s words, “you were practically begging me to find you a way out of this and now that I have, it seems like you would rather I hadn’t.”

“The Valkyries are a good organization. Good front office, good GM, good coach, good facilities and you know how much I’ve always loved the Bay Area. Every time we’ve come here to play, the atmosphere has always been amazing. This place breathes basketball and I just wanna be a part of that,” and Paige means every word of it, even if there are other reasons at play.

“But you already knew all of that before you went down there Paige so cut the bullshit. Why exactly are you suddenly on board with all of this?” Talia asks, her voice hardening and Paige hates that her manager, who had really been more of a friend for the last couple of years, knows her just a little too well.

“I met someone-”

“Oh fucking hell,” Talia groans, “please tell me you’re not making career decisions with your pussy.”

“Don’t be crude Talia. After all these years, I think you’d know me better than that. I met a little girl,” an uncontrollably smitten grin flickers across Paige’s face as she thinks back to her conversation with Stephie, “and she- she made some good points about why I should be a Golden State Valkyrie. You’d be surprised how smart little kids are these days.”

Thalia’s voice is drenched in skepticism when she speaks again, “you met a little girl? Where?”

“At the Valkyries training facilities,” as soon as she says it Paige wishes she’d lied.

“What was a little girl doing at-,” another loud groan echoes through Paige’s phone and she can practically picture her agent fighting back the urge to facepalm, “please tell me you’re not talking about Azzi Fudd’s daughter.”

“I can’t tell you that,” Paige says, trying to keep her voice light.

“Jesus fucking christ Paige so you are thinking with your pussy then. You’re telling me you wanna join GSV because your ex-girlfriend’s daughter thinks you should? Do you hear how insane that sounds?”

No, Paige thinks, I want to join because my ex-girlfriend thinks I should. Except she’s pretty sure that wouldn’t go over any better with Talia. She knows it sounds insane, knows it’s a little pathetic the power Azzi still has over her, knows that it should have taken more than just Azzi’s little speech to change her adamant no into a resounding yes. But the truth is that the only good reason she’d even had to not want to go to GSV, was rooted in Azzi and once Azzi had removed that barrier, the decision had never seemed clearer.

“You said it yourself Tals. It’s been years. This isn’t about her and me. It’s about basketball and it’s about winning,” Paige says finally, even if the words don’t sit sound right as they waterfall out of her mouth.

“So this has nothing to do with Azzi Fudd?” Talia inquires.

“Nothing other than the fact that she’s the best shooting guard in the country and together we can be the best backcourt in the WNBA. Azzi Fudd,” it’s the first time Paige has said her name in a long time and it ignites a fire on the tip of her tongue “is my past and she’ll never be anything more than a future teammate, not again. Besides,” Paige’s stomach churns as the next words leave her mouth, “like you said. GSV doesn’t have to be anything more than a temporary pit stop.”

***

Putting away her weights, Azzi uses her forearm to wipe away the beads of sweat forming on her forehead. She hides a smile as her eyes fall on Stephie. A look of pure concentration marks her daughter’s face as she puts her full little body into lifting a set of 2kg weights. It’s become their Sunday routine. Azzi comes to the Valkyrie’s fitness center to train and Stephie follows along, pitter pattering behind Azzi and trying to mimic every exercise her mother attempts.

“Mama,” Stephie gushes as she catches Azzi’s eyes in the mirror, “I did twenty today. I think I can do the 3kg ones next time.”

Azzi laughs, walking over and bending down to give the little girl a high-5, “oh yeah? You think you’re ready to move onto the next level.”

“Yeah I am!” Stephie cheers, trying to flex her biceps, “look how big they’re getting.”

“Oh my god baby they’re almost bigger than mine,” Azzi says dramatically, flexing her own arms right next to Stephie’s.

“Just give me a year,” Stephie promises, giggling as she wraps her arms around her mother’s neck, “I’m gonna be the strongest Fudd.”

Azzi lifts her up with ease, pressing a delicate kiss against her daughter’s hair as the little girl settles into her side, hands immediately playing with the “S” necklace around Azzi’s neck.

“When Miss Buecks joins your team, do you think she can come ex-cise with us too?” Stephie asks shyly and Azzi sighs as she grabs for her gym bag.

She should have expected the question really. In the hours that had passed since Stephie had met Paige, the older woman’s name seemed to have risen to the top of the little girl’s vocabulary. Every little thing they’d done since had been accompanied by the mention of Miss Buecks, either a plea to have Paige join them next time or Stephie gushing about how she just knew Miss Buecks would be good at this too.

“You know kid, I’m beginning to think you might like Miss Buecks more than me,” Azzi teases with a lightheartedness she doesn’t feel. But she won’t let her own discomfort bleed into Stephie’s excitement.

“Don’t be silly Mama,” Stephie pulls at Azzi’s cheeks, “you’ll always be my favoritest.”

Don’t worry Az, you’ll always be my most favorite. It’s Paige's voice that echoes through her mind, casual and carefree and so, so honest. And she needs to stop doing this, needs to stop her brain from tying her present to the threads of her past, needs to stop her heart from letting Stephie and Paige be pieces of the same puzzle. It’s a dangerous wish she’d let bloom in secret for years but not all wishes are meant to come true, some are meant to tragically wilter in the darkness until they turn into a wistful what if.

A shrill “MISS BUECKS,” breaks Azzi out of her thoughts as the child in her arms starts to wriggle out of her grasp the minute they step out of the fitness center. As soon as Stephie manages to get on the ground, she’s running before Azzi can get a word out to stop her. And all Azzi can do is watch as Paige turns around at the call of her name, neutral face breaking into a luminescent smile as she catches sight of Stephie running towards her.

“MISS BUECKS,” Stephie squeals again, tiny hands outstretched as she picks up speed.

“STEPHIE,” Paige matches the excitement in the little girl’s voice, swinging her into her arms and spinning her around before finally holding her firm against her hip.

“I missed you,” Stephie confesses, “did you miss me?”

Paige's eyes soften as she nuzzles Stephies nose, “of course I did.”

Azzi feels paralyzed as she watches the scene unfold in front of her. Stephie excitedly chatters about some random topic and Paige seems mesmerized by the most mundane stories. And Azzi’s not sure if she’s floating or sinking, but she knows if she lets them, the tears begging to be released from her eyes could flood everything around her. Her hands fist of their own accord as she takes a step towards Paige and Stephie and it’s like a nightmare and a daydream all at once.

“Mama look,” Stephie notices her first, “Miss Buecks is here.”

Paige looks over Stephie’s head and as cerulean blue eyes pierce into Azzi’s dark brown ones, she wonders if Paige is thinking of it too, of the future they used to talk about while curled up in one of their UConn dorms as their hands traced forever into each other’s palms.

“I can see that Steph,” she musters up a polite smile, “Hi Paige.”

She gets an equally polite smile back in return, “Hi Azzi.”

Her name sounds different on Paige’s lips and Azzi misses the way Paige’s eyes used to twinkle just saying it, the way her lips would curl around that one word like it carried the meaning of life itself.

“Miss Buecks,” Stephie turns Paige’s face away from Azzi, hand resting against her cheek, “did you say yes to joining Mama’s team?”

Paige’s eyes flicker towards Azzi again, before coming back to rest on the hopeful little girl, “I did. I just signed the contract.”

Stephie screams, arms wrapping around Paige’s neck and Azzi expects Paige to at least flinch, but the blonde simply laughs, hugging Azzi’s little girl back with equal fervor.

“I take it you’re happy,” Paige whispers.

“I’m-,” Stephie crawls out from Paige’s neck to look at Azzi, “Mama what’s that big word you use es-est-”

“Ecstatic,” Azzi whispers, trying to pretend that Paige’s announcement hasn’t knocked the wind out of her. Hell has just become official and Azzi had personally invited it.

“I’m es-tatic that you’re joining Mama’s team Miss Buecks. I told Mama that I knew you would. I'm gonna cheer so loud for you,” Stephie says, unaware that her innocent words feel like shards of broken glass piercing at Azzi’s skin.

“That makes me ecstatic Stephie,” Paige says softly but there’s a hint of something else there that Azzi can’t quite place; the realization that she’s no longer as well-versed in the notes of Paige’s voice hits her like a hailstorm.

“Welcome to Golden State,” she manages to stutter out and Paige’s eyes drift to her before warily looking down to her outstretched hands, “I think we’ll make a good team.”

“I’m counting on it,” Paige nods as she reaches out the hand that’s not holding Stephie. And the moment they touch, it’s still electric, like lightning during the first thunderstorm after a drought. They stare at each other and Azzi wonders if Paige is thinking it too, thinking that if only they’d held on like this eight years ago when they should have. Blinking away droplets of what happened to you and me forever, Azzi reluctantly lets go of Paige’s hand, ignoring the way the feeling of it still lingers, like it’s destined to etch itself onto Azzi’s palms.

“Well Stephie bear, I think it’s time for us to go home,” she says slowly.

Stephie crinkles her nose, “we’re not going home Mama. We’re getting ice cream,” she turns to Paige with a serious expression on her face, “we always get ice cream after ex-cise. Mama says it’s good for the soul.”

“She’s right. Ice cream is good for the soul,” Paige smiles, giving Azzi a knowing look.

“OH,” Stephie shrieks, “Miss Buecks you should come with us so we can cel-bate you coming to Mama’s team.”

Azzi’s eyes widen, immediately getting ready to shut that dreadful idea down, “Miss Buecks is busy baby and she probably wants to celebrate with her own family.”

And if the word family makes Paige flinch, Azzi pretends she doesn’t notice.

“You don’t wanna cel-bate with me Miss Buecks?” Stephie asks and Azzi knows that even if Paige had intended to decline Stephie’s offer, once her daughter gives her those big sad eyes, the already people-pleasing blonde won’t say no.

“Nobody else I’d rather celebrate with,” Paige caves and Azzi sighs, switching her bag to her other shoulder. Some things would never change. Some things about Paige, she would always be able to predict.

“Yay,” Stephie cheers, finally slipping down from Paige’s lap, only so she can lace one hand in Paige’s and the other in Azzi’s, “let’s go cel-bate.”

***

It’s the first time they’ve been in a car together in a decade, and still the instinct to reach out and grab Azzi’s hand as she drives, prickles against Paige’s fingertips. She tries to focus on the road ahead, tries to focus on whatever story Stephie is telling from the backseat, tries to focus on anything but the woman in the driver’s seat who used to be her passenger princess.

“You’ve turned into a pretty good driver,” she quips slowly, trying to lighten the tension between them, “I’m only just a little bit scared for my life right now.”

Azzi cracks a small smile, “are you ready to admit I’m a better driver than you?”

“Not a chance.”

“Mama’s the best driver in the world,” Stephie chimes in loyally, “was she a bad driver when she was littler?”

“Younger,” Azzi corrects immediately, “and I was always a good driver, Steph. Don’t listen to Miss Buecks.”

Paige scoffs, “don’t believe her Stephie. She once nearly killed me.”

“I did not. I can’t believe you’re lying to my child.”

“Am I?” Paige cocks her head, “so you didn’t nearly back into me that one time during Christmas?”

“That doesn’t count,” Azzi protests, “I didn’t even know you were coming to surprise me. How was I supposed to know you were going to be right outside the garage door while I was trying to pull out.”

“There are these things on your car called mirrors Azzi, think maybe you should try and use them sometimes.”

“It was dark and I was in a hurry.”

“Where could you possibly have had to go that late on Christmas?”

“I was going to surprise you,” Azzi exclaims, “but you beat me to it so,” her voice fades off as an awkward silence cuts into the easy banter. The memory of that night is clear in Paige’s mind. Christmas 2021 when they’d been teetering on the edge between something and everything. They’d decided they’d meet up the day after Christmas to exchange presents, leaving the day of it just for their families. But the whole day had passed and Paige had been consumed by nothing but missing Azzi. And as soon as night fell, her mind was made up to go see her best friend. She hadn't known just how much Azzi had missed her too. Not until now. It’s funny, Paige thinks, they’d once been the kind of people who didn’t know how to exist when they spent a day apart. Now they were the kind of people who’d fought to spend nearly a decade apart.

“Miss Buecks,” Stephie cuts in again, voice inquisitive, and Paige doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of hearing the little girl call for her; it fills her with a warmth she didn’t even know she had the capacity to feel, “Mama said you’ve always been the prettiest, even when you were littler.”

Paige’s eyes dart to Azzi, a smirk playing on her lips as she watches a pink hue spread across the brunette’s cheeks, “she said that?”

Azzi doesn’t say anything, hands tightening on the steering wheel as she finally maneuvers into a parking lot.

“She did,” Stephie confirms, “and she said you were really good at bask-ball and really smart. And then Aunty Leen said something in her ear and Mama got all shy.”

“Right Stephanie. I think that’s enough talk about what Mama said,” Azzi says as she finishes parking and starts to unbuckle her seatbelt, muttering something about inflated egos under her breath.

“Nah Stephie,” Paige grins as gets out of the car, “I like hearing what your Mama said about me.”

It earns her a glare from Azzi and that only makes her smile harder. Paige is no stranger to praise and compliments but it’s always meant just a little more when it came from Azzi. And she’d never admit it to anyone but every time she’d come across a clip of Azzi praising her over the last couple years, she’d let the clip loop for far longer than she should have.

“You know what Bueckers,” Azzi says, “you’re buying our ice cream.”

“That’s not fair Mama,” Stephie chides, “we’re here to cel-bate Miss Buecks. It’s her treat so you have to pay.”

“Yeah Azzi, it’s my treat so you have to pay,” Paige mimics, high-fiving a beaming Stephie.

Azzi looks between the two of them, an offended expression on her face, “my own daughter,” she gasps, “betraying me. I see how it is.”

“You’re the one who says we have to be fair,” Stephie says, nudging her mother slightly so she can clutch her hand and then turns to look up at Paige, “was Mama really pretty when she was littler?”

“Younger” Azzi corrects again, before focusing on Paige, “and you don’t have to answer that. She’s seen photos of me from before.”

“But I wanna know from Miss Buecks,” Stephie whines.

“Stephie,” Azzi warns, an edge to her voice.

“She was the most beautiful girl in the world,” Paige says softly and two sets of dark brown eyes immediately flash up to her. The California sunshine makes Azzi glow but really that’s nothing new; Azzi has always been the brightest star, at least in Paige’s galaxy, and she can’t help but let the next words slip through her lips, “she still is.”

***

Azzi thinks Paige has never really known the impact of her own words. Whether it was the missiles she fired when angry or the shower of flower petals when she was feeling complimentary. And it seems like time has done nothing to change that because Paige continues to walk towards the ice cream parlor with absolutely no recognition of how Azzi’s heart has just burst into flames.

She still is.

It shouldn’t affect her the way it does, shouldn’t elicit any reaction more than just a cocky smirk but instead those three little words seem to imprint themselves on her cochlear, ringing around her like static as she tries to keep a façade of nonchalance.

The ice cream parlor is bursting with people and it doesn’t take long before both Azzi and Paige are being asked for pictures. Protective instinct kicking in, Azzi reaches to grab for Stephie to keep her from getting lost in the crowd, only to find her already securely tucked into Paige’s side. Azzi watches as Paige interacts with the fans -she’s always been a natural at that- and somehow manages to keep Stephie entertained at the same time, conspiratorially whispering things to her in between interactions and making her giggle. It hurts and heals something inside her at the same time. The thing is, since Stephie was born, Azzi has done this whole thing alone and she’s never regretted it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a part of her that hasn’t always wished for a partner, someone else who would protect her little girl with her. Like Paige is right now. But this is a mirage, a fever dream that isn’t Azzi’s to dream.

So she looks away and hides her tears behind a dazzling smile for a photo with a fan. She’s gotten incredibly good at that.

“What’s your favorite ice cream flavor Miss Buecks?” Stephie asks excitedly when they finally manage to reach the counter.

“Oh um-” Paige scratches at her neck, “I like cookies and cream.”

Azzi guffaws at the lie, “your favorite flavor is cookies and cream?”

“Yes Azzi,” Paige glares, “I love cookies and cream.”

Azzi raises an eyebrow before dropping her voice down to a whisper, “why are you lying?”

Paige sighs, “I don’t want Stephie to think I’m weird.”

“Oh Paige,” Azzi can’t help but smile before turning to Stephie, “Steph what flavor are you getting?”

“Mint chocolate chip,” Stephie says excitedly, eyes fixated on the green ice cream and Paige’s mouth falls open a little bit as Azzi smirks at her.

She turns to the cashier, “we’ll have open mint chocolate chip, one strawberry and one-”

“One more mint chocolate chip please,” Paige cuts in and both Azzi and Stephie look at her.

“I thought you wanted cookies and cream Miss Buecks?” Stephie asks with a confused expression and Azzi barely manages to bite back her laugh.

“I uh-,” Paige begins sheepishly, “I didn’t know they had mint chocolate chip. That’s my most favorite.”

Stephie is contemplatively quiet for a minute before a grin breaks out on her face, “Mama did you know Miss Buecks and I have the same favorite ice-cream flavor?”

“I had absolutely no idea,” Azzi says, winking at Paige as she pays for their ice cream.

They opt to sit outside on one of the picnic benches overlooking the nearby park. Azzi is distinctly aware of how they might look to anyone walking by right now, like a family. Normally, ice cream Sundays are spent with Stephie rambling and Azzi listening but this time Stephie has someone who’s just as much of a chatterbox as she is. Paige hangs on to every word that comes out of the little girl’s mouth, answering questions and giving replies as if this is the most important conversation of her life.

“Mama and I go to Stanford games all the time,” Stephie’s saying as Azzi tries to get out of her own head and zone into the conversation instead, “I’m gonna be a- what’s it called again Mama?”

“A Cardinal,” Azzi supplies helpfully.

“I’m gonna be a Card-nal,” Stephie says and Paige gasps, turning to Azzi.

“Oh my god you’ve raised a traitor,” she moans, shaking her head.

Stephie scrunches her face, looking rather offended by that moniker, “I’m not a tray-tor.”

“Steph sweetheart look at me,” Paige says, her voice the epitome of seriousness as she holds the younger girl by her shoulders, “what are we?”

“Humans?” Stephie asks innocently and Azzi laughs.

“No Stephie we,” Paige uses her finger to point at her and Azzi, “we are Huskies. UConn Huskies. And what do we bleed?”

“Oh I know this one,” Stephie says excitedly, “we bleed blue.”

“So do you wanna be a boring old tree or do you wanna be a big, strong Husky who bleeds blue?”

“I wanna be a Husky,” Stephie cheers and Paige cheers along with her. Azzi rolls her eyes but it doesn't quite match the smile on her face. And then Stephie’s racing off to the swings, leaving Paige and Azzi alone for the first time in a long time.

“Did you just manipulate my child into wanting to go to UConn?” she nudges Paige.

“Of course not. I just made her understand what’s best for her and that’s UConn,” Paige nudges her back, “just like it was for you.”

“Yeah, it was,” Azzi says softly and they both know she means a lot more than just UConn.

“You um- you have a little bit of ice cream,” Paige points nervously to the edge of Azzi’s lip, hands reaching and then hesitating. And Azzi knows that she should at least attempt to wipe it off herself but she stays deathly still as Paige’s thumb finally makes its way to her face. It’s a featherlight touch that the blonde traces across her lips, their eyes transfixed on each other, neither of them breathing. And they’ve had far more intimate moments than this one but something about this, right here, feels apocalyptic.

“I meant what I said before,” Paige whispers, “you’re still the most beautiful girl in the world.”

She gulps before starting to move away and Azzi feels a panic course through her blood as she hurriedly grabs the blonde’s hand. And she’s not supposed to do this; she should tell Paige not to say things like that but instead she’s pulling the blonde closer, hand firmly clasped around her wrist.

“Azzi,” Paige breathes out, like she wants to stop and start something at the same time. They’ve never really known self-control when it comes to each other.

“I meant what I said to Stephie too,” Azzi whispers, “you’ve always been the prettiest.”

***

September 2029

Wings 82 Valkyries 77

Paige almost falls to her knees as the buzzer sounds around the arena. The crowd is on their feet cheering as the Dallas Wings beat the Golden State Valkyries in a hard-fought semi-finals game 5 to advance to the WNBA finals. It takes a brief second and suddenly she has teammates circling all around her as they bask in their well-earned glory.

“One more series to go. Wings in three,” Satou cheers and the whole team echoes after her. They’re not known to be the closest of teams but at this moment, they almost feel like family.

Paige is exhausted as she’s ushered to do a sideline interview and she tries really hard to keep the irritation off her face when she realizes it’s Holly Rowe. The questions are generic and some are downright annoying, but Paige’s media training has always been stellar, and despite the fatigue rolling off her body, her answers are heartfelt and charismatic. The interview can’t be longer than three minutes but it feels like a lifetime before she’s finally walking away. Focused on the ground beneath her and trying not to cave into the exhaustion on her way to the media room, Paige doesn’t notice when she goes barrelling into a firm body.

“Shit I’m so-” the words are stolen from her mouth as Tim Fudd turns around but it’s not him that attracts Paige’s attention. It’s the little girl cradled in his arms, a little girl who looks exactly like the fact that still haunts all of Paige’s memories. Tiny brown eyes stare up at her and Paige is mesmerized by this tiny creature who seems like she could captivate the whole world if she wanted to.

“Congratulations Paige,” Tim says slowly and Paige tears her eyes away from the baby to look at the man who had once been the person who made it a mission to make her laugh whenever she was on the verge of crying, “I’m really proud of you kid.”

Paige’s eyes sting and she doesn’t know if she wants to run away or beg Tim to give her one of his patented bear hugs, “thank you. It really does mean a lot. She-,” her eyes flicker back down to the little tiny bean, “she’s beautiful.”

“Yeah she is,” pride shines in Tim’s voice, “you wanna hold her?”

“Oh no it’s ok-” Paige begins but before she can finish, there’s a baby being placed in her arms and everything around her seems to come to a standstill.

“Her name’s Stephanie,” Tim says softly and Paige laughs because of course, of course Azzi would name her daughter Stephanie.

“Hi Stephanie,” Paige coos, reaching out a finger to tickle the little girl, gasping when Stephanie's small chubby hands grasp it. And then the baby giggles, smiling at Paige as if she’s given her a gift and Paige swears she’s never loved a sound more in her life.

“Can you hold her for a second while I go find Katie?” Tim asks and Paige shakes her head in panic but he’s already off before she can stop him. And then it’s just her and Stephanie, standing outside the media room. There’s people cluttering in and out of the rooms around her, the whole lobby is bustling with sounds but all Paige can focus on is the girl in her arms.

“You’re so cute,” Paige whispers in a baby voice and Stephanie giggles, “yes you are, yes you are. I wanna steal you so bad.”

“I don’t think you can win a WNBA championship from jail,” a familiar voice says from behind her and Paige feels her stomach tying itself in knots as she turns to look at Azzi, “maybe try and kidnap my child after the finals?”

There’s a smile playing on Azzi’s lips but a storm brewing in her eyes and Paige knows that if she rests a heart against the darker-skinned girl, she’ll find it beating to the same hyper rhythm as Paige’s.

“Congratulations Paige,” Azzi says softly as she takes another step towards her, “you guys deserved it.”

“Y’all made it hard as hell-I mean shit-no fuck,” Paige swears and the child in her arms giggles as a litany of curses fall from her mouth.

Azzi bites her lip, raising her eyebrows in mock exasperation, “in front of my kid? Seriously Bueckers?”

Paige winces, ready to apologize until Stephanie begins to babble “B-buecks,” she giggles, clapping her hands, unaware of how the two adults in her vicinity both freeze, “Buecks. Buecks. Buecks.”

“Yeah sweetheart,” tears prickle against Paige’s waterline, “that’s me,” she looks up at Azzi whose own eyes are watery, “she said my name.”

“Yeah,” Azzi’s voice wobbles, “yeah she did. She’s- she’s a quick learner.”

“Just like her Mama,” Paige whispers, staring at Azzi and she wants to freeze them in this moment, like a still-motion picture she can hang up on her walls and keep with her forever.

“Mama,” Stephanie burbles, eyes darting between the two women, “Mama. Buecks. Buecks. Mama.”

“You’re so smart Stephanie,” Paige whispers to the little girl, tickling her stomach. She looks up at Azzi with a smile only to find the brunette frowning at Paige’s hand. Confused Paige follows the line of sight until her own eyes catch onto the diamond that’s shining on her ring finger and she can feel her heart drop, “Az-”

“The media’s waiting for you Paige,” Azzi says, the lightness of a few seconds ago replaced with a hard edge.

“Azzi,” Paige whispers again and she doesn’t know why her tone sounds pleading, doesn’t even know what she’d pleading for but she can feel something slip away from her again.

“You probably want to go celebrate with your wife,” Azzi spits out the last word like it tastes bitter and sour at the same time, and it lands somewhere in between them, creating a wall that puts them on different sides. And Paige should let it go; she should pretend it’s just a normal sentence uttered without any malice, should pretend that she can no longer read the cadences of Azzi’s voice but instead of putting up a shield, she shoots an arrow.

“You don’t get to say it like that,” Paige hisses.

“I didn’t say it like any-”

“Yes you did and you don’t get to do that,” Paige presses, “not when you didn’t want to marry me.”

Azzi flinches. The words, soaked in mistakes of the past, hang like a dagger in between them, ready to sever the thin thread of cordiality that they have tried desperately to maintain.

“You’re right,” Azzi says finally, her voice ice cold as she reaches for Stephanie, “I didn’t want to marry you,” the dagger twists, “so how about you give me my child back and go find the woman who did.”

#pazzi #paige bueckers #azzi fudd #wcbb

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pjo-tvs-version · 2 months ago

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Wrath of the Triple Goddess is arriving on Saturday for me!!!!! I'm soo excited but Amazon has no right to make me wait this long 😭😭😭😭

#ivy speaks #pjo #pjo fandom #pjoverse #pjo series #percabeth #ivy's random posts #ivy's life updates #wrath of the triple goddess #percy x annabeth #percy jackson #grover percy jackson #grover pjo #grover underwood #percy pjo #percy and grover #percy jackson and the olympians #wottg

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batfambrainrotbeloved · 3 months ago

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what do the rouges think of cardinal?

OHHHHH What a lovely question <33

Since i've yet to write in Cardinal in a scene beyond his desk work- these might change.

Cardinal acts well- like a cryptic?? It's a complete coin toss how he will behave, if he will turn the creepy to 100% and speak in tounge's (its a mix of latin and greek) But when he DOES respond its through a heavy voice modulater.

However if you want specifics?? (also some extra lore of some rouges no longer active- both due to. Cardinals interference and BECAUSE I SAID SO)

Joker- They are a menace, never once humors his schemes- he knows the moment Cardinal gets involved his fun is ruined. Therefore he hates their guts. (Cardinal is reported 10x more brutal when faced with the Joker)

Scarecrow- Self proclaimed "Arch enemy" of Cardinal since hes never once sucseeded in drugging them, and he longs to know what would make the little bird sing. (Cardinal is said to have an entire pocket dedicated to backup rebreathers, usually lets the bats take over)

Riddler- LOVES Cardinal so so much- they are like best friends (no no they are not) Cardinal seems to enjoy his puzzles and he's able to pull out ones even the Batman would struggle with. Sometimes an informant for a good game. (Cardinal will admit, out of all the rouges? He doesn't mind Riddler- just with less hostages)

Harley- Thinks they are strange, even more strange than the bats. But more than anything concerning- their behaviors raise a ton of red flags but she doubts she can convince them to therapy, though it is her goal. (Cardinal is... unsure about Harley, she's changed- but memories are hard)

Ivy- Theres a mutual respect- Though out of all the vigilantes Cardinal seems to fear her the most, the last time being hit by her pollen they freaked out enough Harley made her give over the antidote. They definently fight, but she does try and hold back some of her more underhanded stuff. (Cardinals suit got several more layers after that incident)

Mr.Freeze- Reformed villain now, as a result of Cardinal. Aka when he first did his villain monologue to them- they had spoke (for the first time to ANY rouge) and asked to see his blue prints. A few years later his suit was fortified to help him live a somewhat normal life, and his wife had been cured. They got their life back. Leaving Gotham soon after, but he still checks in on ocassion (Cardinal never responds though, but they're happy with the updates- that he was able to help)

Catwoman- Annoying, but interesting for sure. It seems no matter how elaborate her scheme they always seem to pop in and just stare or even wave. The most interesting thing though? They never stop her. Certian locations she robs they will return the item (usually museums) but have never once tried to actually take her in. If anything shes half convinced they throw the bats off her trail, its interesting. (She never steals from anyone who cant afford to replace it, and honestly her stuff goes to a good cause-)

Clayface- Never became a villain- After his accident, Dagget had been shut down long before so Matt Hageb he had no accsess to the cream. With the help of his coworker (and future husband) Teddy Lupus he got the help he needed. Drake Industries came out with an amazing prosthesis program that helped construct a whole new face. Now Mr & Mr Lupus live in upper west side of Gotham where they now raise two daughters going to Gotham Academy.

Blackmask- Hates their fucking guts. People think Cardinal comes down on the Joker hard? They're practically suffocating Black Mask movements- buisness is failing and at this rate he's trying to put out a hit on the fucker. (The hates their guts is mutual)

Two face- Instead of going to the Manori trial- Harvey had an emergency call from a very panicky Bruce who suddenly had CPS knocking at his door about Dick. The delay finding a new attorney meant Manori was found with the acid and held for attempted assault while Harvey was scot free. He owns his own law firm now and has continued to be a close confident to Bruce and "Uncle" to the kids. (Cardinal cried when he first found out about Harvey, that he was okay- he thought it had been too late.)

Penguin- Cardinal is a pain in their ass, not as much as Black mask but still just enough that he doesnt hold back when attacking. The ONLY saving grace from absolute hatred is Cardinal outright refuses to fight any of his birds, and will even go as far as to save some of them when the bats are too careless to notice a penguin slipping off a roof. (Cardinal wishes Penguin would stop dragging actual penguins into his shit- even with guns they're just too cute)

#rouge gallary #CLAYFACE #YOU CANNOT TELL ME HIM AND TEDDY ARENT IN LOVE #Also freeze and harvey #hurt too much to keep #tim drake #the drakes spoiled brat #trash tim au #ty for the ask #sunny asks #dc cardinal

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pedgito · 10 months ago

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MILLER'S GIRL ✎ SERIES MASTERLIST

Chapter One: Teacher’s Pet

Chapter Summary: First day woes and a difficult semester ahead, you find solace in your caring, attentive creative writing professor who shows you just a little more attention than everyone else, or so you think. [5k]

[student/teacher relationship, age gap, no outbreak, power dynamic]

Chapter Warnings: fem!reader, professor!joel miller (his teacher persona is v different from outside of the classroom, so if he seems slightly ooc....close your eyes), dom!joel, sub!reader, reader is a little obsessed with joel (and delusional), mentions of infidelity (not by joel), sarah doesn't exist here, background tess x joel, inappropriate relationships/actions, talks of literature and lots of random writing topics, dream smut, gratuitous descriptions of mr. miller's body and personality.

note: thanks to @planet-marz1 for the last minute beta.

— AO3 | PLAYLIST | PINTEREST

↝ other fics | requests? | ao3 | update blog | fic rec

There’s a deafening silence that surrounds you when you step into the lecture room, not nearly as big as your other main course classes, it’s intimate. Close. If you kicked a foot out from the chair you were sitting in you could touch the professor’s desk.

Part of you wonders if you were the only person taking this class, sitting for a few minutes alone, not another person in sight—until one files in, then another, until there’s about ten of you seated sparsely in the small space. It’s mostly bare aside from the few books shoved away on a nearby shelf, antiquey books that, no doubt, had a thick layer of dust.

The problem with the class was that you weren’t sure if it was ever going to be a real thing—applying you had the expectation of who your teacher would be, what you could expect from the coursework, and just how manageable it would be amongst the rest of your classes. But, there was little known now.

All you did know was that they had to find a replacement quick, which they did, and you were sure that a sign of their lacking punctuality was a great start, tucking your chin over the bag placed on your desk as you waited in silence amongst simmered voices, feeling starchly out of place.

You didn’t know this place—it was new, Austin. You moved clear across the country on a whim, wanting a new start in a place you’ve never seen before. You’d plucked a community college out of the bunch, not worried with the semantics of applying to some big, ivy league school. You wanted something manageable, something attainable. This seemed like the easiest option, unsuspecting and unknown, you could slink by and go about your life peacefully.

That is what you wanted, after all.

Until you meet Mr. Miller.

Joel could’ve pursued music, or carpentry, or about a billion other things he was skilled at—yet somehow, teaching seemed to be the easiest option. It gave him the familial feeling of caring and guiding that he did enjoy, molding young minds and helping them bloom. He worked at a local high school in Austin for years—fifteen good, long years.

But, he too needed a change. His life was slowly crumbling in on himself.

He sees the job opening on the last weekend of summer, still teetering with the option of returning to his teaching job at the high school—it isn’t as manageable as it used to be, finding that in his older age that dealing with the behavior and arguments with ill-managed kids was more of a hassle than it needed to be for the pay he was receiving.

So, fuck it. He applies.

He gets a call the following Monday and he’s officially added to the staff by the end of the week—and of course, he’s never stepped foot on the campus until his first day. So, he’s lost. Joel realizes how unprofessional it looks, scrambling with his bag as he throws it over his shoulder and haphazardly adjusts his tie, hoping that his hair wasn’t too askew and wild, despite the wind flying through his hair in the chilly bite of the autumn weather.

Things couldn’t have been off to a better start.

There’s the slightest trickling of a thought that you should leave, give up that this class might be an ultimate failure but then he’s walking through the door. You knew his name, but that was as far as your reach extended. Mr. Miller. J. Miller, to be specific.

James. Justin. Jonathan. It was all a mystery to you.

You find that his appearance is less than prepared, mostly disheveled and he seems breathless as he offers a subtle nod of awkward acknowledgement as he slings his bag onto the desk. Thankfully, he seems to understand that there was a tinge of urgency with him being late and he quickly reaches into his bag and pulls out a stack of papers.

Class syllabuses. He hands them off silently to the person on the farthest side of the room and hoping they would get the idea, pass them off until they reach the final person. It’s crisp, stark white paper covered in a boring black-inked text. Nothing seemed out of the norm—different methods of writing you would try over the course of the semester and specific assignments that would pop-up throughout. You enjoyed the predictability of it. Though, there is a significant surprise when your professor begins to speak, pulling your attention to the front of the room.

He’s gathered himself rather quickly, assuming he’s had his fair share of time in the field.

He writes his name out in clear, dignified letters on the board.

Mr. Miller, the screech of a solid drag as he underlines his name.

“I know I’m not who you all were suspecting.” He begins, placing the chalk down, hand wrapping around a balled fist as he cracked his knuckles, walking slowly until he can lean against the edge of his desk, soles of his shoes squeaking against the floor.

“And I’ll admit, I’m new to this,” He waves vaguely around the room, “I’m used to public school and the shittiness that comes with that—so I hope that if I can take this seriously, you all can extend that gesture too.”

You notice how comfortable he seems in group settings, relaxing his broad shoulders as he crosses his arm, glancing around the room casually, never lingering for too long.

“I won’t pester you too much today, given I already wasted some of your time,” Someone snickers softly toward the back of the room and Mr. Miller cracks a subtle smirk, seemingly embarrassed but not offering anything to pick at. “But, I’m willing to answer any questions you have while we have the time today.”

Questions flow in easily: what the semester would consist of, more elaboration outside of the syllabus, some of Mr. Miller’s favorite pieces of literature—part of you expects him to inject the usual ‘around the room introduction’ scheme, but he doesn’t. Instead, he leans into the more engaging questions asked, answering as freely and as interested as he can.

He loves Robert Frost, which makes sense. You’re not sure why, but it is predictable.

He is predictable. Sipping on a large mug of what you can only assume is coffee, the smell permeating toward you with where he’s resting against his desk, only a foot or so away. You haven’t managed to catch his gaze yet, which you’re partly thankful for. It allows you to study him, examine his expressions—admire…No.

And while he can continue his talk about favorite authors for days—the class draws to a close sooner than you expect, and you move lazily as most of the class disperses at the first opportunity with it being their final class of the day.

You’re throwing your bag over your shoulder when you hear his voice, addressing the only other person in the room.

You.

“Intimidating?” Your face screws up in confusion, head tilting his way as your eyes connect for the first time. “Oh, uh—sorry, I’ve just been doin’ this a while. I can tell when someone is anxious in class.”

And, while it wasn’t necessarily anxiety—it was more the idea of adjusting. This was new, this place wasn’t familiar and you were just trying to settle in. Mr. Miller seemed like the guy to have deep roots planted into these grounds, familiar with this town like he’s been here his entire life.

He has, but that wasn’t the point.

“No,” You answer indifferently, shrugging your shoulders, “I think your radar might be a little off.”

Joel chuckles softly, tapping his fingers against the leather cover of his bag as he leaned the tops of his thighs against the edge of his desk, “You know—you didn’t partake much in class discussion just now.”

You weren’t sure where he was driving his point, gradually stepping toward his desk, fingers wrapped around the straps of your bag, pulling against the tight material of your shirt as it stretched over your breasts, “And you were about—fifteen minutes late, too.”

Touche. He nods, lips pursed together.

“Just, fair warning—class discussion is a good chunk of your grade, participation and all that. I want you to feel comfortable enough to join in so…however I can help with that.”

Your eyebrows knit together, thoroughly thrown off by his forwardness—or well, so you assumed. He quickly realizes his misstep.

“No—not like…I mean, if there’s anything that you like or are interested in that you want covered over the semester, let me know. I don’t want it to be so focused on stuff that only appeases a few people. Alright?”

You think on his words, chewing at your bottom lip quietly.

He doesn’t know why he feels like he’s standing on the edge, waiting impatiently for your response—but when you do, it feels like he can breathe. Joel didn’t want to fuck this job up and he already felt like he’s stepped off on the wrong foot.

“Alright.” You confirm simply, nodding politely. “Thank you, Mr. Miller.”

He nods in response, the smallest twitch of a smile pulling at his lips.

“Have a good day.” He bids kindly, waving at you haphazardly as you left.

And now the day felt even weirder than when it started.

The first few weeks of class are actually…a delight. You find yourself looking forward to them as the weeks grow on and drag out, slowly making your way through the day and finding that Mr. Miller’s was the only class you could successfully relax in, not so pressure to participate because it was as equally engaging on both ends.

Mr. Miller liked to talk and argue just as animatedly as most students who had a point to prove—and you see why he must’ve been hired on a whim, the ability to charm and wit himself in and out of any scenario he wanted. It was…mesmerizing in a way that intoxicated you and infected your body and mind. He had you locked in every time he opened his mouth, finding your eyes dragging along the planes of his face and his well-kept appearance now that he arrived on time, sharp. Never early, never late.

He was as punctual as they come, slowly littering his classroom with more and more personalization. More literature books, smaller books of poems, packets of some of his favorite script writings and a few non-fiction pieces he thought to be intriguing.

But, the most interesting thing you notice is the small tan line around his ring finger. The advantage of the small classroom allowed for such details to be revealed, alongside knowing when he had taken a certain morning to do a fresh shave of his facial hair or spill a small spattering of coffee against his shirt, dull brown staining the white, crisp button-up he usually dawned alongside the occasional navy blue or black.

So, he was married—you assumed. He just didn’t wear his ring.

The more you indulged in him, the more complex he seemed. The ever mysterious J-something Miller, finding that no matter how hard you looked you couldn’t seem to find any information on him or an inkling of what his first name might be.

He must be a private person—no socials, no good deeds leading to news articles about him, or anything of tangible evidence to allow such information to seep out to the public. He was good at hiding, integrating himself in places he might not belong. He was a natural chameleon, much like yourself.

And you’d like to think you were good at writing considering you were attempting to pursue a career in it, mostly focusing on the aspect of screenwriting and film, not entirely sure what you were after but knowing that was where you wanted to go. You were great at convoluting things and empowering your far too creative imagination—often dangerous. You were never lacking in ideas, but your first assignment is a struggle.

It was something pertaining to non-fiction, a boring topic that Mr. Miller wanted to be intrigued by—he wanted something so mundane to be eye-catching and page-turning. Hanging on the edge of his seat, as he’d said so menacingly.

So, here you were, writing about the monogamous lives of certain breeds of penguins and they’re mates—whatever the fuck that was all about. It’s like he picked obscure topics for this very reason, the difficulty and the need for assistance. He wanted to help and you learned that quickly.

You could’ve been stuck with global warming, so it wasn’t all that bad.

Mr. Miller is leaning against an empty desk as he’s talking to a student a few desks away—yeah, the unlucky one who snagged the global warming topic. His expression is sour, tapping his pencil against the desk rapidly as Mr. Miller talks quietly, nothing that you can make out. He travels around the room gradually, eventually landing on you with a raised eyebrow, seeing that you had some, if not very little outlined.

He looks amused, knowing how you were pulling an absolute fat nothing over this topic. You could sit there and lay out the facts, but that’s not what he wanted. He wanted it to be explained in a way that held you close and dragged you along. It all came down to wording, at the end of the day, and as much as you wanted to prove you were a decent writer, you still had a lot to learn.

“This is so stupid,” You gripe, looking up at him briefly before you continue to stare daggers into the notebook you were scribbling in, “—pardon my language, but what the fuck is this topic?”

Mr. Miller chuckles deeply at that, tongue poking at the inside of his cheek.

“I’ll let that slide but try not to make it a habit,” He comments, acknowledging your foul language and understanding the frustration, “—it’s meant to challenge you. The obscurity of it. It’s not complicated, but you don’t want to just write a research paper.”

“Isn’t that…exactly how non-fiction works?” You ask curiously.

“You’ve read biographies, right? Auto-biograhpies and all that?”

You nod quietly.

“And I’m sure some of that caught your intention, right?” He asks and you respond with another nod, though meeker than before. “Non-fiction work is just as important as story-telling. Do some more research, explain why monogamy is sacred to them, explain their mating patterns, the behaviors—are you following?”

“Yeah—because some penguins mate for life, right?” You ask, feeling ridiculous asking him such an obscure question. “At least, I thought they did.”

“Most do.” Mr. Miller nods, “If you find yourself learning enough about the topic and actually finding some interest it won’t come out so…bland. Just look into it and write something you’d find intriguing to read, don’t stress over it that much. It’s just one assignment.”

It eases your worries slightly, but still, the frustration stuck.

“Okay,” You mumble, “Thank you.”

Mr. Miller offers a soft pat to your forearm as he nods silently in acknowledgment.

You were determined to make that assignment your bitch. Plain and simple.

Class discussion days are much easier. You switch between a certain selection of poems to snippets of scripts that Mr. Miller has pulled apart for the class to dissect and mince the words, learning how to write screenplays in a way that was both descriptive but directive and still managed to somehow keep the flow. Poems always seemed a little silly, but it was nice to debate the meanings and nuances of it all, always finding that you preferred to sit back and hear the thoughts of others until Mr. Miller decides he’s had enough one day—two months into the semester when he finally calls on you directly.

It was something he didn’t do often, but you find yourself going wide-eyed. He was always so polite to you, even when he’d catch you staring or lingering on his form for a moment too long, like he knew what you were thinking.

He was tall and—as was glaringly obvious, broad. His shoulders were immense and large as he extended his hands out and talked animatedly, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, slacks stretching over taut, tight muscle as he planted a foot in a nearby chair or stretched his stance out slightly as he stood—often finding it hard to stay still the longer class drew on.

You pull your attention to him, an innocent gaze glazing over your features.

“Why don’t you read the next poem?” He asks curiously.

“Oh—um,” Your eyes flick toward the poem book held tight in your grip, flitting to find the the place where the class last left off, so distracted you find yourself scrambling, but Mr. Miller is quick to lean over without much show or way of embarrassing you, pointing out the spot where the class last left of, blunt nail scratching against the paper as you follow the trail of his finger, you clear your throat and start:

“How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.”

The point was to interpret the words and form an explanation for why they were used, what they were trying to explain, but you lose any sense of thought when your eyes drag up to meet Mr. Miller and he’s staring right back, allowing you all the attention in the world.

Like no one else in the room existed. It was all a delusion in your own head, something you weren’t privy to then, but you believed whole-heartedly in the moment. He was just allowing you the floor and sharing you the same attention he had with everyone else.

At least, that’s what he tried to do.

Mr. Miller clears his throat to subtly bring you back down to earth when he notices your mind fleeing from your body, asking an easy, “So, what do we think about this one?”

No one answered, staunchly disinterested as they stared at you, waiting for a response as you were the only one who had avoided participating all day.

“Uh, it—it sounds like the love isn’t being returned,” You start slow, dissecting the words in your brain as Mr. Miller nods, “but that person is willing to show up and offer more to make up for it, maybe even to their own…undoing, I guess.”

“There’s really no right or wrong,” He addresses the class as a whole but pointedly acknowledges your observation, “and that’s the best thing—you’re allowed to think as individuals and come up with your own conclusions. Good job.”

The final part is directed at you. It makes you feel warm, gooey—like you were being given a star for good behavior or gentle praise under the guise of friendly language.

You despise how hard it is to stay focused some days with how often Mr. Miller likes to pick on you and point you out—but he sees potential there. Real potential. Not to say that it isn’t within the rest of the class, he just sees…more. And it intrigues him in a way that feels dangerous, but he wants to ensure that you are given the proper support needed, even if that means a little extra attention.

It was harmless, after all.

Your first big assignment comes three months into the semester.

It’s a simple writing assignment but tactful and heavy, given a week to complete it before you were due to turn it in for a final grade. A collection of self-written poems, the outline for a possible script idea for a scene, and a small creative writing assignment that must include some kind of supernatural element. You appreciate the Mr. Miller never allowed things to lay stagnant with his work, always giving you something to think about.

And everyone loved him, that much was blatantly obvious. He was, easily, one of the hottest professors at the college for someone his age—you could only assume he was somewhere in his late 40s. But, there remained the unknown of if he was married, something people debated often, but you examined in the privacy of your own mind.

There was no indication of another—no pictures lingering on his desk as his classroom continued to collect belongings, no screensaver on his phone or laptop (because yes, you were observant) that gave you any idea of what his partner looked like. And he never mentioned anything outside of his own interest in literature. The curiosity with no discovery was only slightly disappointing, because despite that, Mr. Miller showed his attention toward you like you were the only person in the room.

And maybe it was like that for everyone, but it felt special to you. There was always a little extra to give to you that he didn’t offer to everyone else.

You turn in your assignment a few minutes before it is due, well into the late hours of the night.

Mr. Miller, unbeknownst to you, smiles when he sees the notification on his computer as he sits in his office at home, scrolling down the deep troves of porn in the darkened space, quickly clicking away to another browser as he hears the door creak, his wife poking her head through the crack with a smile.

“Hey, it’s late—you comin’ to bed soon?” Tess asks, eyes ringed with a deep exhaustion.

Joel nods, scratching at the side of his face, blinking tiredly.

“Yeah. In a bit,” He excuses, “Just tryin’ to catch up on these assignments and then I’ll be done.”

It’s a lie, but she doesn’t need to know that.

Things had been rough since the affair—finding that Tess had been sleeping with her boss at her law firm for a few months, something she swore meant nothing, despite how long it dragged on in secret. Joel forgave her, mostly. They were managing, attempting the idea of marriage counseling, but he still couldn’t bring himself to put his wedding band back on, despite how proudly she wore hers still.

He had his own reservations on the matter and while he was trying to work things out, he wasn’t sure they could ever resume the same rhythm they had before, thinking that this was something he had for life, slowly crumbling and falling between his fingertips.

This was why he needed a change of pace, something different.

And maybe he was stupid for entertaining the obvious affection you showed toward him—he definitely was, but he does it anyways. It was playful, so meaningless and harmless that he didn’t even think twice about it. He could see you craved the attention and while he couldn’t be bothered to save that energy for Tess anymore, he could try to offer it to you.

Because you—you had so much potential. It was refreshing, seeing so much of his younger self in you, drive and dedication. The willingness to question stuff without fear.

He clicks on the email notification with your assignment, opening in a separate browser as he rises to lock his office door quietly, before returning to his other browser as he sat and unbuckled the thick leather belt around his waistband, a dignified zip that echoes throughout the confines of the office, reverberates and reminds him of his own loneliness.

And he shouldn’t picture your face as he finds himself aching and fucking deseprate into his fist, soft gunts muffled behind clenched teeth. But, he does. And he loves it.

He’s so fucked.

The comments on your assignment come a few days later, curled up in your bed in the small apartment you rented out, scrolling desperately to find out any further information on Mr. Miller but coming up with absolutely nothing. What a fucking ghost he was.

You’re curious, though—so you quickly switch to your emails to check his response and what your grade ended up being after how hard you worked to make sure it turned out perfect. Better than perfect actually. You hoped that with his obvious relationship woes he would appreciate the angst and underlying meanings in your poems, a bunch of bullshit you couldn’t relate to but hoped, on a whim, that he might.

‘Way to press on the idea of heartbreak, well done. Very expressive and real. Thank you for pouring those feelings into your work, though I hope no one has ever broken your heart that bad. Wonderful job.’

And he scores you a 90/100.

Which—whatever. You could accept it. Still, you wondered if those lingering ten points lied with him and his own bitter dealings. You’re fingers are curled around the laptop, ready to close when you get another notification blaring through your speakers.

You lift the laptop to stare at the screen, seeing an email come in from an unknown sender—though, the name grabs your attention immediately. First name, last name, followed by a series of number you can only assume is a birth year—not the school email Mr. Miller had previously sent you a response from.

You perk up, legs crossing over each other as you take a peek at the contents of the glaring email, seeing that it had links to a few books, followed by:

‘I hope you don’t mind my emailing you like this. But, I have a few pieces I think you may enjoy and would help with some of what you’re trying to convey in your writing. You have a beautiful way of expressing feeling and you should harness that. Let me know what you think. :)’

In hindsight, Joel should’ve never sent it. But, there was an urge there he couldn’t fight.

Maybe it was out of spite for his life and his wife betraying him, his urge to try and do some real good for someone, seeing that potential in you no matter how inappropriate it may be to go around school ruling and message you from his private email.

But, now you had a sliver of information. A peek into who Mr. Miller—Joel Miller, was.

It sends you down a spiral, searching and scouring for any information available online.

You find out that he’s 48…or 49, not entirely sure of his actual birthday. Only going off the year designated in his email. And that he’s a published author, but nothing of significance. He used to be a high school teacher and he was…or is, married. It’s all vague and unassuming, but it has your mind stirring. Wondering what was so interesting about him, what part of him had crawled into your mind and refused to get out.

And him messaging you on a private email—complimenting you with unnecessary eagerness, even when it wasn’t needed. You can’t be this delusional. There’s something there, even if neither of you have spoken on it explicitly.

The faint touches and smiles traded, the hard-gazed looks and glances over his shoulder as he does a sweep of the room, always spending just a smidgen of extra time over your desk when you ask for help.

It makes you feel special. And that’s exactly what you need.

You fall asleep that night with a wild idea in your head, wondering just how brave you could be in this situation. It burrows into your mind and seeps into your dreams:

You’re pressed against the edge of a desk in a dark office, the solid wood pressed flat against your cunt as you lean forward and capture the lips of the person in front of you, a shaky breath coming from their mouth.

“Want that pretty mouth ‘round my cock.” He says—your heart skips, nearly stops.

You don’t know why you’re surprised to hear Joel’s voice, but it clears your mind and his hazy face finally comes into view in all of it’s intricate detail, right down to the soft crinkle of skin around his eyes, eyebrows furrowed as he pulls away to look at you, lips puffed from the kissing and seeming so innocent as he spoke in such a depraved manner.

Delicate fingers drag along the shape of your lips, stopping at your cupid’s bow before he’s pressing two fingers inside, grabbing the hand relaxed at your side and pressing it over the front of his slacks, the hard line of his cock pressing against the zipper.

There’s no other word to offer than intimidating, his size morphing any idea that you might’ve had–which, you did. His slacks are well-tailored, form fitting, and if he stretched just the right way in class you could see the head or outline of his cock press against the fabric for a split second….and you observed. A lot.

“Wanna stuff your mouth, huh?” He asks, eyes rolling back as his fingers press down on your tongue, quickly pulling out as he grips your face, spit spreading across your cheek, gasping at the suddenness of his movement. “Think it’ll fit?”

He sounds so condescending, eyeline over you but downcast on your figure from where your perched against his desk, idle hand exploring the soft, plush skin of your thighs as he drags his fingers along the full expanse of your cunt and it sets your whole body on fire, like you’re feeling everything dialed to an impossible level, every nerve in your body coming to life.

You shake your head meekly, gasping when he yanks you forward suddenly.

“Guess we’ll have to train that filthy mouth then, won’t we?” His eyebrow quirks up salaciously, earning a less than subtle grin as he presses his fingers into the wet spot of your underwear, not breaking the barrier but allowing you to feel the pressure.

And just as you feel yourself grabbing onto something tangible, hands gripped in the lapel of his suit jacket, pulling him impossibly closer, you’re startling awake with a gasp.

You could feel your imagination mixing with reality, falling lazily back against your bed as your chest heaved hurried breaths, palms pressed over your chest in an effort to calm down, covered in a thin sheen of sweat. The room was hot, too hot to feel comfortable anymore.

Your lip pulls between your teeth, chewing thoughtfully at a bad idea.

You reach blindly for your laptop laid out near the end of your bed, opening the device with a swiftness, squinting at the blinding screen that burned at this time of night.

Nearly two in the morning—this was pointless.

But, you hit reply on his email anyways and slowly type out a response.

‘Thank you for noticing, Mr. Miller. It’s greatly appreciated and I will definitely look into those sources and give you a full, detailed review. :) I appreciate you thinking of me as someone so esteemed. I would love to talk more about literature, if that feels appropriate.’

The lines were already blurred. He’d blurred them. You were just smudging them a little more.

You never said that starting fresh meant you had to stay on your best behavior. Because really, there was nothing innocent about what game was developing between you both.

It was a game of chess and you felt a million moves ahead, nearing a checkmate—and you would do anything to have Joel Miller in the way you craved. Anything.

#joel miller #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fanfic #tlou fanfic #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #pedrostories #professor!joel miller #miller's girl #my writing

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taegularities · 2 years ago

Text

candles & flames | jjk (m) | masterlist

He wasn’t supposed to be yours. His foolery wasn’t supposed to target you. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

➳ pairing: Jungkook x reader

➳ genre: enemies to lovers, royal!au; angst, fluff, smut

➳ contents & warnings: fuckboy!JK, royal!jk, lies, miscommunication, hints of fake dating but not really, past side character death mentioned, banter, crying, guilt, jealousy, explicit sexual content (such as oral, fingering, making out, (unprotected) sex, cum eating, etc.); and more chapter specific warnings! | 18+

➳ current word count: 125.2k

➳ status: main story completed / sequel(s) ongoing

➳ collaborative playlist 🎶

⁂ CHAPTERS

⤞ c&f: water (24.6k)

“To you, you’re water, and he’s fire — but perhaps there’s a grey area where you meet. Where you collide and become steam, evaporating, hot yet calm.”

⤞ c&f: fire (22.8k)

“The flicker’s colours are soothing. This fire is harmless, warm and tender; there are so much worse flames in your very own world.”

⤞ c&f: steam (34.3k)

“You thought you were water, cool as ice; and that he was fire, hot-headed and irresistible. You wanted to evaporate with him, but right now, you’re both burning.“

⤞ c&f: epilogue (19.1k)

“Neither the glowing star above nor the flickering flames will ever burn as bright as you.”

⁂ BONUS CHAPTERS/SEQUELS

⤞ c&f: air (24.4k)

“Is this what it means to share everything with someone? To indulge in something far greater than love.”

⤞ c&f: downpour (est. wc: 25k) | next!

“I wish I could do my heart a favour and simply… hate you. But I love you now and I’ll love you forever and in the next life and… it seems that right now, this is the problem.”

⁂ TINY BONUS

⤞ c&f asks 💌 ⤞ c&f moodboard, made by ivi 🤍

⤞ FAQ (or questions I found fun lol):

When do you always update? Whenever a part is done. I will try to finish C&F, including the epilogue, by the beginning of May ‘23!

How many chapters will C&F have? Three + the epilogue! For now, that’s all I’ve planned.

What inspired you to write C&F? The urge to write a royal JK, Bridgerton and you guys. <3

Were there condoms in the 1800s? Actually, there were!

✒︎ join the taglist! ♡

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da-rulah · 7 months ago

Text

In Cold Blood - Terzo x f!reader

Summary: Solitude had always appealed. Perhaps that’s why you took on this project… The thought of transforming a dilapidated old Victorian farmhouse into a sanctuary of your own, to live in peace and the romanticisms of a gothic home you fell in love with.

After the structural integrity of the house is replenished, you fill your days with DIY and decorating, bringing to life a house that had been frozen in time and left to rot for decades. You could enjoy the solitude of the land already, a few miles outside of a town plagued by disappearances and a fear of the dark. But you couldn’t escape the news of more missing people, nor the strange occurrences happening around your new home.

Were you imagining things? Or was there indeed a shadow haunting your sanctuary?

Rating: Explicit, 18+ MDNI Word Count: 19.6k (i'm back bitchesssss)

Warnings: Dark fiction, horror fic, mentions of murder, coercion, manipulation, obsession, masturbation (f), voyeurism, manhandling, threat and mild violence, dubious consent (later turns to verbal consent), oral sex (f receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, blood, blood drinking, unprotected sex

Read on AO3 | Masterlist | Leave a tip

WARNING: This is a work of DARK FICTION. It is a horror fic, and contains mentions of violence as well as elements of dubious consent and manipulation. Please do not read if this is going to affect you negatively. You have been warned, and I take no responsibility if you choose to ignore the warnings and triggers attached.

a/n: well hello there. It's been a while, hm? Radio silence and then BOOM, a 20k word fic outta nowhere? Well, this was written for the wonderful @angellayercake's birthday, and she's been so kind as to give her permission for me to share it. I promise, more new content coming soon, and I'll be working on an update for The Mayor's Daughter ASAP! Happy reading, creeps...

“What’s the catch?”

The real estate agent blinked at you in confusion, as if you’d just asked her to recite the square route of pi to the 30th decimal.

“The… the catch?” she asked, “I don’t understand.”

“Well, it’s just so cheap, I have to wonder which closet the skeletons are hiding in…” you joked, knowing full well the skeletons were actually in the backyard under the headstones that sat growing moss and ivy for the last six decades at least.

“Ma’am… I’ve been very upfront about the state of the house. It needs extensive repairs and renovation, it has a graveyard out back, it’s way out in the sticks and the landscaping is overrun… What more could be wrong with it?” She rang out her hands nervously, chewing on her cherry red lips as you scrutinised her body language. You’re sure there was something she wasn’t telling you, but this was a perfect opportunity for you…

Coming off the back of a decent chunk of inheritance left by a relative you’d long-since forgotten, you needed a project. You’d always wanted to renovate a beautifully gothic home from the 19th century, and when you saw the listing for exactly that on the edge of a small town? Ideal. Perfect. Exactly what you wanted. The thought of being a little out in the country, surrounded by land and away from the bustle of the city you grew up in was all too appealing.

“It has a charm to it, don’t you think?” you smiled to yourself, fiddling with the dusty net curtains still hanging in the living room’s huge bay window.

“Uh… sure, yeah,” the agent agreed with reluctance, still so confused as to why you would be at all interested in this ruin that she couldn’t even show you all of due to the structural integrity of the floorboards.

“I’d like to put in an offer,” you told her, turning back to face her with a smile on your face.

“You… really? Oh, my god! Okay, great! Well, I’ll get the paperwork…” she sprung into action, suddenly full of an energy that could only have been triggered by the whiff of her future commission.

It would take some work, sure, but this place had the potential to be the perfect project and future home for you…

It took six months, but the structural integrity of the house had been stabilised by a team of builders you’d hired to take care of the place while you got your affairs in order and ready to move halfway across the country. You weren’t taking much; a lot of the furniture left in the abandoned house was part of the project and with a little restoration would be absolutely beautiful. You were ready for the work, ready to create a home that you could be so proud of and had your stamp on it.

Moving into the house was quicker than you thought it would be, with most of your furniture sold and donated. For now, you had to live out of suitcases until you had a bedroom and closet space that was clean enough to hang your things in.

At the very least, you’d cleaned and stripped the four-poster bed that still lay in the master suite, checking the integrity of the bed itself and noting how… pristine it seemed compared to a lot of the other furniture left behind. But this was made of expensive, dark mahogany wood – it was built to last, and so with a polish, a new mattress and sheets? You had a gorgeous bed to sleep in each night, taking a little bit of pressure off when you’d spent an entire day exhausting yourself over more renovations.

One of your first jobs had been landscaping in the graveyard. You’d felt pulled to the graves, wanting to give whoever was buried on your property a much more respectful resting place, rather than allowing them to be swamped by ivy and moss.

It seemed to be a family plot, probably the last family to have owned the home. Every stone had the same surname, dating back to the first of the deaths in 1904. What struck you as odd, however, was the nature of the stones themselves…

For the time period, you might have expected angels, cherubs, perhaps a cross or two. But whilst these stones were ornate and beautiful, they were not steeped in biblical references at all. Instead, the eldest stone had a decaying gargoyle sat atop it… Another, a ram’s head at the base. One had a stone skeleton laying above where the body would have been buried, carved into a slab of concrete as if it was protruding from the grave itself. You’d never seen graves like this before, symbols and carvings you couldn’t identify but had you on edge the minute you looked at them. But one of those symbols, you certainly recognised.

A pentagram.

Now, as a purveyor of the dark and mysterious, you hadn’t minded the thought of a graveyard in your garden. For goodness sake, you loved the gothic aesthetic, the dark and macabre had always called out to you. But to find these graves had a theme to them, a darker, occult theme… It cast a deeper shadow over the home you’d purchased.

Who were this family? Were they part of an occult? You were itching to understand the history, to uncover more about the lost family that let their home fall to ruin and their graves be overrun by nature.

But it had to wait, the renovations taking over to make your house a far more liveable abode. With the graves at least clear from nature’s extremities, you could come back to them another time to give them a proper clean, to uncover the names in full and potentially use the information to gather more with a trip to the local library or a google search.

For now, you had to get to cleaning room by room so you could begin stripping and re-decorating where it needed it most.

“…The Sheriff’s office have released a statement today to calm locals calling for more action in the string of disappearances throughout town. Last Monday saw the latest in the line of disappearances, 29 year old store clerk, Andrew Walton, taking the total up to 12 missing in the last nine months. Mr Walton was last seen on CCTV heading into the alley of the 7/11 where he worked…”

The radio news bulletin caught your attention as you were working in the master bedroom, stripping the already peeling wallpaper from the panelled walls atop a stepladder. You’d only moved in three weeks ago, and yet, the little radio you always put on to work to kept churning out the same story consistently – the string of disappearances in town that seemed to be getting more and more frequent.

It would seem it was the town with skeletons in the closet, not your precious new home. The estate agent failed to mention that one…

When you first heard about it, you’d made sure the house was secure, with locks on the windows, every entrance bolted and sturdy. Being so far outside of town, you weren’t particularly worried since you rarely ventured from your home, particularly not at night when most of these disappearances seemed to have taken place. But it didn’t hurt to be safe...

Still, the thought that there may be someone out there snatching people for God only knows what purpose was a little unsettling. You could only hope the sheriff would do his job and catch whoever was behind the crimes soon – but it had already been nine months… All you could do was lay low, stay as far away from the potential risks of heading into town alone in the dark.

As the lunchtime bulletin ended, the radio began to play one of the top 40 songs you’d heard at least three times already today. Whilst it was repetitive, you’d learned the words, and found yourself singing along as you scraped at patches of wallpaper residue with your little scraping tool. You lost yourself to easily in the renovation tasks, the monotony allowing for your brain to whisk you away to distant worlds, like shooting your own music videos to the songs as you sang along.

Drifting so far off into your own thoughts is probably the reason you hadn’t realised the radio had actually cut out completely, and it was just you singing and the sound of the metal scraper to fill the silence… The batteries had died.

“Ah, shit…” you mumbled to yourself, stepping off the ladder and reaching for the radio you’d placed on the window sill. Upon closer inspection, you made the definite conclusion that it was in fact the batteries, and sighed in annoyance. Of all the things you didn’t think you’d need for a while at least, you would now have to rummage around in the unemptied moving boxes that were still stockpiled in the dining room, filled with ‘random crap’ from your ‘random crap’ drawers – the drawers every home has… You just hadn’t renovated enough of the kitchen to have a ‘random crap’ drawer yet.

Digging through the boxes, you pulled a tape measure, a pack of four highlighters with two missing, six bank statements dated four years ago and a set of tiny little wrenches from the collection, until finally, you found a pack of unopened batteries at the bottom of the box.

You fumbled with them, rushing to get them out and replace the dead ones in the radio so you could get your music back and get back to work. Just as you pushed the second battery in, the radio roared to life again, startling you with a sudden gasp. Your heart raced in your chest as you chuckled at yourself, laughing at how stupid you’d been to have forgotten to turn it off before you pushed the new batteries in.

But a sudden and much more frightening crash from beneath you had you jumping again within seconds, your grip on the radio faltering as it flew to the ground, the new batteries flying out at the impact and drenching the room in silence again.

Your head flew immediately to the old door to your left, the one that led beneath the house to the basement…

You don’t know how long you stared at it, your heart rate never calming down as your mind raced with scenarios. An animal? Old house falling apart? Ghost? Psycho killer from town? You had no idea what to think.

But you lived alone. No noise should be coming from down in the damn basement.

You stared for so long, you began to question if you’d heard anything at all. Perhaps your mind was playing tricks on you. But with a mental kick up the arse and a quick shake of the head to rid yourself of the fear, you marched over to the door to investigate like every stupid final girl in every horror movie you’d ever seen.

When you pulled on the string light, it buzzed and flickered before settling on a barely-there orange glow. Thankfully, it didn’t matter so much, the small windows in the house’s foundations letting in just enough light to deem the room visible. You could smell the must as you stepped down the wooden stairs, creaking under your feet as if some obnoxious special effects guy was dubbing the scene.

The movers had moved some of the restorable furniture you’d asked them to keep down here, stacking it in a far corner for you to come back to when you’d sorted the main structure and décor of the house. They were caked in a thick layer of dust, fingerprints from the movers clearly visible.

But nothing looked like it had fallen, there wasn’t anything broken or toppled over on the floor at all. The bang you’d heard had no source, that you could see. Even the cellar doors that led to the yard out back were still chained and bolted shut – you couldn’t blame it on a gust of wind, and upon first inspection, there was no sign of an animal somehow making its way inside either.

But to be sure, you walked through the clear space in the centre of the basement and over to the furniture pile of display cabinets, side tables, some chairs and a wardrobe you’d had moved from the master bedroom. It was one of your favourite pieces, that wardrobe. You planned to only clean it up and revarnish it, matching the ornate wood of the bed that had been kept pristine and you now used as your own. Even the mirrors on the door – oval shaped with dark ivy carved into the edges – were in fantastic condition. No scratches, just caked in a layer of dust like the rest.

A closer look proved there were no animals in the basement, no rodents or critters to try and ferry back outside. But what you did notice were the fingerprints on the brass handles of the wardrobe. Perhaps the movers had peaked inside – you hadn’t when you viewed the place. Maybe there were some old clothes still left behind from another decade?

Curiosity got the best of you, and you opened the door with a shriek of its hinges to find… nothing. The wardrobe was empty save for a few wire hangers that jingled with the opening of the door, and another layer of dust, albeit thinner, on the low shelf inside. But the dust was disturbed…

In the centre, there was a rectangle in the dust, as if it had been carefully wiped clean with absolute precision… It was about the size of a shoe box, but the dark grain of the wood stood out around the greyed and dulled wood surrounding it. Something had been in there for years, and had been removed…

Instantly, you blamed the movers. They’d gone nosing around and taken something they thought was valuable? Oh hell no. It got your back up immediately… You’d trusted these people, and they’d stolen from you? They’d be getting a phone call later.

Now pissed, you shut the door to the wardrobe a little harder than perhaps you should, the bang that sounded ricocheting off the stone walls of the basement.

That sounded like what you’d heard from upstairs.

You brushed it off, thinking nothing of it and instead looking up into the oval mirror of the door to check you’d left no damage to it.

But then you saw him. A man, in the dusty reflection standing in the far corner, the darkest spot of the basement. You could only see an outline, a silhouette. But one of his eyes seemed to gleam brighter than the other, the light perhaps hitting it just right. He was glaring at you, watching you intently in the dull reflection…

You shrieked, spinning in your place and slamming your back into the wardrobe behind you. Your chest heaved in panic, heart racing and breaths coming short and fast while your eyes searched the dimly lit corner and found nothing.

There was no man stood in the corner, nothing at all in fact. You were completely alone, your mind playing havoc on you in your heightened state of anxiety and anger. Even now, your heart was still hammering away, your lungs just beginning to regulate your breathing.

You straightened yourself up and wiped at your clothes that collected dust from the wardrobe when you’d slammed into it.

“Dumbass,” you mumbled to yourself, heading back upstairs quickly and slamming the basement door. You tried your best to shake off the anxiety, putting your batteries back into your radio and rushing back to the master bedroom to continue with the wallpaper scraping in the hopes it might put your mind back at ease. But for the rest of the day, you felt an anxiety you couldn’t shift, as if there truly was a man in the corner of every room you entered, glaring at you from the shadows.

It took a few days to get all the paper and residue off the walls in the master bedroom, careful not to mess with the panelling you wanted to sand down and keep as part of the décor. But for now, you could finally get onto stripping the paper in one of the other bedrooms, hoping to strip all of the paper from the upstairs in one go before getting around to sanding and replacing any panelling so you wouldn’t be spreading the dust into rooms you’d already finished and cleaned. There was method in your madness – strip everything down, sand, then clean.

The next biggest room upstairs had no furniture in it and was in the worst state, having been the room with the most extensive damage to the flooring and structural integrity. Builders had to replace the entire floor, and so had removed everything to do so. Apparently a leak in the roof – now fixed, of course – had caused irreparable water damage to the far corner, where they’d also removed the mouldy panelling and cleaned the remaining black mould properly and safely.

But now the rest of the room needed its paper stripped, so that’s where you found yourself. Your little radio blared the same station as always as you scraped away at the paper, making your way along the walls. It came off easier than the master bedroom, the damp of the room helping to already ease the adhesive from the plaster beneath.

As you moved to a section of the wall near the window, placing the stepladder on the floorboard, you heard one rattle beneath it. Having had the entire floor replaced, you’d assumed that every floorboard would be secured down. Perhaps the builders had missed one, but a few nails and you could fix that. So you moved the stepladder out of the way and crouched to inspect the plank that wobbled.

It had the holes in it where the nails should have been, and yet, there were no nails to hold it down… It was as if it had been secured and then pulled up again, except you couldn’t figure out why.

Curiosity got the best of you, and you pushed on one end of it to lift it from the structured beams beneath it. It opened up to a crawl space filled with fresh insulation and piping beneath the room. But when you pulled out your phone to flick on the flashlight, you noticed a rather out of place looking jewellery box had been hidden just to one side of the loose floorboard.

Instinct overruled you and you reached for it, pulling it from under the floorboard and wiping the dust from the top of it. It was a beautiful jewellery box, made of dark wood with an intricate baroque pattern carved into it and filled with some kind of gold resin. It had no lock on it, only a hook to keep its lid closed.

It made no sense to you… Why would this be under the floorboards when the floor was so new? Where had it come from? Should you open it?

And then your brain connected the dots. This box was the same shape, and a similar size to the disturbed dust inside the wardrobe in the basement. This had come from the wardrobe…

Logically, you concocted a story that maybe one of the builders had found it and wanted to hide it, come back for it later but forgot. But if they knew it was of value, surely they wouldn’t have forgotten it? And that patch in the wardrobe seemed too fresh, too pristine… Still, you had no other logical answer. You refused to believe it had magically found its way up from the basement and under the floorboards by itself – or even more horrifyingly, at the hands of someone else.

But you had to open it, right? You had to see what was inside, to see why someone would want to hide such a pretty little box at all. So you flicked the hook open, and slowly opened up the jewellery box…

You’d have to say you were disappointed. There were things in here, but nothing that screamed value at you, more like cheap and random items. There were some cuff links that you thought may have been silver, but were only sterling silver; a costume jewellery bracelet made of plastic pearls; a lipstick, worn down to within an inch of its life in a deep red shade; various little knick-knacks that together made absolutely no sense at all. The only thing that stood out to you as remotely unusual, was a watch.

This watch looked ordinary, something you’d pick up for cheap. It was broken, the glass cracked and the time clearly not moving on from 11:06 on the day it broke. It wasn’t branded, the clock face not diamond-incrusted or made of any real precious materials. But just under where the hands connected in the centre was a tiny little rotating set of numbers for a date, reading as 19/03/24 – just over a week ago. The watch had stopped working just over a week ago.

You couldn’t entertain this idea any longer. You stuffed the watch back into the box, slamming the lid closed and putting it back under the floorboards in the hope it might poof itself out of existence. You had to be imagining things, this wasn’t real. First, hearing noises down in the basement. Then, seeing the reflection of a man in the wardrobe mirror, only for him to disappear when you turned around. Now, finding a box of trinkets in the floorboards with items that were completely out of place for the time period of the old house.

You were being ridiculous, making up things that didn’t exist and had no significance at all. This must have been left by a builder, the battery being the reason it stopped, not the crack in the glass. There was just no way. No one had been by the house since you moved in besides the postman, and even he had quickly stuffed the mail into the mailbox at the end of your drive and run off quickly every time you caught him.

A creak in the floorboards in the hallway snapped you from your racing conspiracies, igniting your fight or flight response much like the noise in the basement the other day. This time you didn’t freeze, you stood up quickly and ran to the doorway to see if you could catch whatever was making the noise.

There he was again.

The same silhouette, a man stood in the hallway, backlit from the large window behind him and the sun streaming in through it. You couldn’t see his face properly, left in shadow but you could see those same eyes, glaring at you, watching to see if you would make a move…

Anger flared inside you, thinking you had an intruder in your home. You weren’t one to back down from a fight or go quietly. If this man was skulking around your house in broad fucking daylight, you were going to confront him.

“HEY! Who the fuck are you?!” you yelled from the doorway, “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

The silhouette said nothing, instead stepping to the right through the door to your master bedroom. Without a second thought you ran towards the open doorway, grabbing the scraper from the floor where you’d set it down earlier as some kind of precautionary weapon.

“I said, get out of my-“ you stopped, frozen in fear. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing, confusion replacing the rage inside you.

Nothing.

There was nobody in here. And you made damn sure to check… No one behind the door, no one in the en-suite, no one under the bed… No one.

You were losing your mind. You had to be. Perhaps you had spent too long alone in this old house, maybe you needed to socialise, head into town and meet some real people instead of chasing shadows. This wasn’t healthy, all this obsessive renovation work. This was your brain telling you you needed a break, right? It had to be that, because you could come up with no sound, logical explanation as to why you were seeing a shadow man roaming around your house other than madness. None of this was really happening, this was simply a descent into insanity caused by too much isolation.

At least, that’s what you told yourself to quiet the pounding heartbeat in your ears as the fear crept its way inside, burrowing deeper with every strange happening you seemed to experience.

A day off was all you’d needed, time out of the house to escape the need to be working, to essentially touch some grass and speak to another actual human being besides the shadow you’d conjured in your head. You’d gone into town, done some shopping, sat in a local coffee shop… You’d met a lovely older woman in there – Amelie, a widow and life-long resident – who’d welcomed you to town, so excited to have a fresh and pretty face to say hello to.

Although, she had warned you to head home before the sun set… That you should never walk alone in the evenings, and should lock your doors and windows at night.

“He likes the younger ones,” she’d told you. “I’m no good, you see… He likes them young.”

That had chilled you to the bone… Perhaps the mad ramblings of a woman hitting senility, but already on edge after the last few days at home, it seemed to strike a nerve. But nothing could have prepared you for the look on her face when she’d asked her where in town you had moved into, and you divulged it was the old farmhouse on the outskirts.

Her cheeks had sagged, smile dropping instantly. She shifted in the chair she’d taken at your table, straightening out the skirt of her dress over her knees and avoiding eye contact. And then she clutched her necklace in her fist – a gold crucifix – as she reached to take yours in her other hand.

“You must protect yourself, yes? That house… Something is there. You must be careful,” she told you, her voice as stern as she could make it to hide the tremble of fear.

“I-I’m okay, really… It just looks old, it’s overgrown and falling apart but I’m working on-“

“No!” she yelled, turning the heads of other patrons in the coffee shop. Her grip on your hand squeezed tighter, her nails digging into your hand painfully. “You should leave, before it’s too late. Such a pretty young thing, you shouldn’t be there…”

You pried her bony, arthritic fingers from around your hand and gently held hers in both of yours.

“I’m okay, Amelie. Please, don’t worry…” you comforted her, but she seemed dissatisfied, her eyes wide as she conceded.

That entire interaction had sat with you for the rest of the day as you’d wandered through the local farmer’s market, picking up fresh vegetables to turn into a casserole for one tonight. It shouldn’t have unnerved you the way it did, such an elderly woman was clearly suffering the effects of an ageing mind and yet, with the experiences of the last few days? Her warning unnerved you.

You headed home long before sunset, and locked the doors and windows like she’d told you to. Did it make you feel any better? Absolutely not… But as you pottered around in the kitchen making the casserole you’d planned, slowly the anxiety started to ease, helped mostly by the music on your little radio.

You ate in peace, scrolling through your phone while you tapped your foot on the tiled floor of the kitchen. You didn’t mind these lonely evenings so much, having grown tired of the bustling city long ago. These days, the quiet of your own company was quite welcome, easily sinking into your own little world.

Even as you stood at the sink, scrubbing at the dishes, you were in your own world, humming along to another overplayed song you’d heard time and time again. You’d find yourself staring out the window in front of you at the sunset, the sky painted pinks and oranges and casting a tranquil glow over the little graveyard out back. Dusk was quickly approaching, the night drawing in as you cleaned.

Just as you placed your plate on the drying rack beside you, you looked out again at the graves, now like silhouettes as the sky turned to a deeper shade of bluey purple. But your heart dropped, every hair on your body standing on end.

The shadow figure. The same shadow figure… Stood out by the graves, looking down at them with its back to you. He seemed to be wearing the same thing as last time you spotted him; slacks, a black coat made of heavy wool that just passed his knees. He was just standing, staring…

You froze in place, watching… You felt paralysed, like you’d spotted a large spider on the wall, staring at it to make sure it didn’t move out of sight because losing it was worse than staring in fear.

It didn’t move, just standing there, staring down.

A rush of anger hit you out of nowhere – this fucker was trespassing on your property, scaring you stupid. You’d locked this prick out when you’d come home, and so he thought it was okay to skulk around your land, trying to frighten you?

Fuck that. No. Enough of this.

You wiped your hands on the dish towel to the side, instinctively reaching for the biggest knife in your knife block on the counter before running to the back door. You unbolted the top and bottom, and ran out into the evening with a surge of adrenaline.

“HEY!” you yelled, like you had when you’d seen him in your hallway, “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”

The figure didn’t move, still staring down as you approached quickly from behind. You stayed back a few feet, clutching the knife in your hand and ready to use it should this fucker try anything…

“Answer me…” your voice shook with fear, no matter how hard you tried to keep it steady and strong. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing on my land?”

A dark chuckle… The shoulders of the figure shook with his laugh, and it only pissed you off more.

“Your land? Interesting…” the figure muttered, his voice thick with a heavy Italian accent and gruff like he hadn’t spoken aloud in decades.

“I-I’ll call the cops…” you threatened, “just leave and no one gets hurt.”

His head cocked up at that, turning to look over his shoulder. For the first time, you got a small glimpse at his face, and the eye that gleamed brighter than it should. He seemed to be smirking, as if this situation was somehow funny to him.

“You would hurt me, cara mio?” he teased, his eyes flitting down to the knife you held extended towards him. “I did not have you pegged for a violent woman.”

It caught you off guard, the way he spoke to you. Was he trying to belittle you? Make you question your own self-defense to weaken you? You wouldn’t let that happen.

“What are you doing here?” you asked him defiantly, ignoring his comments and still wielding the knife.

“Paying my respects,” he grumbled, as if he were annoyed by an intrusive question.

“Th-this is my property, and you need to leave. I’ve seen you in my house, and you need to go before I call the cops,” you repeated yourself, your voice shaking.

“Why did you buy this house?” he asked, frustratingly ignoring your warnings.

“None of your business-“

“It is my business,” he snapped, “This house belonged to my family,” he span on the spot, finally facing you. His expression was intimidating, his eyes – now visibly different colours – were boring into you, just begging you to try something. “These are their graves. This is their house. It does not, and will never, belong to you.”

“Well you might want to tell the bank that, Mr, uh…” his name escaped you, forgetting the surname that you’d uncovered weeks ago on the graves behind him.

“Emeritus,” he smiled sadistically. “Terzo Emeritus, and this house is mine.”

He took a step closer to you, and naturally you stepped back in fear. The grip on the knife readjusted with the second step he took, readying yourself to use it should you need to.

“But a pretty thing like you? I’m willing to share…”

“Don’t make another move…” you jabbed the knife forward a little, raising your voice in an attempt to appear threatening. “I know there’s some creep going around town, snatching people… And now you’re here, in MY house, threatening me?”

“I think I’m the one being threatened, cara mio…”

“SHUT UP!” you yelled. “Leave, now. Or I will call the fucking police.”

His hands, encased in leather gloves, shot up in a defensive pose, his smile widening sickeningly. He stopped approaching, but his morbidly beautiful eyes slowly scanned you from head to toe, taking you in, analysing. For a moment, you were locked in a stalemate, staring each other down. You thought maybe he was sizing you up, waiting for the opportune moment to strike like a predator hunting its prey.

But instead of pouncing like you’d expected, he turned back around and knelt down before the graves.

“Penso che forse lei non è così affezionato a me come io sono di lei, non siete d'accordo? (I think maybe she is not as fond of me as I am of her, don’t you agree?)” he mumbled, as if the dead could hear every word. “Non temere, non lascerò che questa bellezza mi scaccia, i miei fratelli. Questa è casa nostra e imparerà a godere della mia compagnia. (Fear not, I will not let this beauty drive me away, my brothers. This is our house, and she will learn to enjoy my company.)”

“W-what did you say?” you stuttered, still wielding the knife. He looked briefly over his shoulder at you.

“Non vedevo tanta bellezza da più di un secolo, (I haven’t seen such beauty in over a century,)” he spoke to the graves again. “Non dal mio esilio e ritorno. (not since my exile and return.)”

You were growing more and more frustrated as he spoke his mother tongue to thin air, waiting for him to do something – even if that something were to force you to defend yourself. This was just… bizarre.

He stood again, kissing the tips of his gloves and pressing them to each headstone, save for one on the end. Why he missed that one, you weren’t sure, but you couldn’t focus on that right now. He seemed to be saying a goodbye, as if he were actually going to leave upon your request.

“Until next time, bella cosa (pretty thing),” he bowed his head a little and began to walk towards you, giving you a wide berth but keeping his eyes trained on you at all times. You figured he was simply making sure you didn’t try to stab him as he passed, walking himself out of the gates of your land and a little ways down the street before he turned back to you, and blew you a slow, calculated flying kiss.

As he continued to walk away down the lane that stretched towards town, you quickly glanced back at the graves, noting now that the names did indeed all share a common family name.

Primo Emeritus. Secondo Emeritus. Copia Emeritus. Terzo Emeritus.

Your eyes widened. You were sure that was the name he just told you belonged to him? That wasn’t possible… Such an unusual name, and he’d made no mention of being a ‘Terzo Junior’, or ‘Terzo the second’. And it was the only grave he didn’t plant his kiss to…

You span around in the grass beneath your feet, looking out down the lane you’d just seen him walking down and yet, he was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t in the fields that lined the lane into town, and the road stretched with no bends for at least two miles, no obstructions at all. You should be able to still see him walking, running even if he had chosen to. He hadn’t had time to vanish like he had, in mere seconds.

Your head whipped back to the grave – his grave? – before you shook your head of the nonsense that he might well be some kind of spirit who can appear or disappear in the blink of an eye. These ‘occurrences’ were nothing more than fuel for a spooky story around a campfire. None of this was true, you’d just… lost sight of him, or misjudged the view of the road. Something, anything, had to explain this away.

But it didn’t stop you from bolting back through the garden and into the kitchen, slamming the door behind you with the knife still in hand and bolting the door shut, heart thumping in your ears.

You slept with that knife under your mattress that night.

His face haunted you, both day and night. No matter what you did, or how you tried to refocus your mind, to fixate on only your renovations, you couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. In the few days since the incident by the graves, you were questioning your sanity more than ever.

Had that even been real? Was he real? He couldn’t possibly be… The way he disappeared in an instant every time you saw him led you only to the conclusion that you’d lost your mind, officially. You must have concocted this spectre after seeing his name on the grave when you’d cleared the landscaping around them. You told yourself that over and over again.

That became harder to do though, when you’d spot him out by the graves again not even a week after the first time. You’d been installing some small curtains to the window by the kitchen sink for you to hide the site from view when you’d spooked yourself at the mere thought of that night, and yet there he was again.

You stared in shock, frozen and motionless, as he turned his head towards the house, looking it up and down, before his gaze settled on you in the window. He raised his hand, but before he could gesture a wave at you, you shut the new curtains and obscured his view, darting out of the kitchen and hiding in the dining room still full of packed boxes.

Your heart pounded as it always did when your imagination ran away with you and spooked you like this. You shook your head, told yourself to snap the fuck out of it.

But then you saw him every evening.

Always by the graves, always turning to wave at you, no matter from which window you were watching him from. You did your best to hide, to ignore it and tell yourself he wasn’t real. You just had to keep going, to continue your work and maybe find a good psychologist in town one of these days.

This plan of wilful ignorance was barely working, but what else could you do? Giving this apparition any kind of attention would surely only make it worse, whether he was a figment of your imagination or a genuine ghost from the past.

Ignoring him was hard. There was such a large part of you that wanted more information about him, to learn where he’d come from, why he haunted you. He was intriguing, if terrifying. The face that followed your dreams, both day and night, was starting to become all too familiar, all too comfortable. If it weren’t for that ghostly white eye of his, he’d have quite a charming face. His glare wouldn’t seem so dark if it wasn’t pierced by the white glow, and perhaps he wouldn’t be so threatening… Home invasion and grave haunting aside.

Still, you did your best to continue as normal. The renovations continued, and before long you had stripped every room upstairs of the aged and withered wallpaper that desperately needed replacing. Finally, you could start decorating to your own tastes – starting with your bedroom.

After a trip to the nearest hardware store, and a delivery of wooden slats, you got busy creating the wainscoting that was to run along the bottom three feet of the wall in your bedroom. The idea was to panel it, and then paint everything a beautiful deep shade of royal purple. The hardwood floor was going to be stained a dark shade throughout the entire upstairs, but you’d managed to source a stunning Persian rug in a purple that matched the aesthetic you were hoping for. The furniture – the items you’d had moved to the basement – were already perfect for the room, matching the bed that had also been left behind. You’d chosen gold metal accents to replace the handles on the wardrobe and chest of drawers, and sourced lamps and trinkets in the same gold to match.

After no longer than a week, you’d completed the room with a mix and match of modern and Victorian gothic aesthetics. Frankly, it looked like a Pinterest board – but it was so inherently you.

When you’d laid the finishing touches to the room, you stood in the middle of it, proudly looking around with a wide grin on your face at the beautifully finished space. That estate agent couldn’t see the potential of this house, but you had the second you stepped foot inside. And whilst it was only one room, the rest of the house still just the bare skeletal bones of a home, this was a huge victory.

“I like what you’ve done with my bedroom, bella cosa (pretty thing).”

Your body stiffened at the sound of his voice, coming from the doorway behind you. You squeezed your eyes shut, shaking your head and willing for the nightmare to stop. You hadn’t heard him, you were imagining it. You had to be.

Except, you heard footsteps behind you, on the hardwood floors. His shoes clacked with every step, slow and deliberate as if he was taking in his surrounding, inspecting your work. When you braved opening your eyes, that’s exactly what he was doing.

He really was here.

“Grazie for keeping my furniture, cara mio. I was always fond of it, and you’ve given it new life,” he said, ogling the wardrobe as he dragged his gloved fingertips along the edge of the wood.

“And purple, too…” he span on his heels to face you, a warm smile crossing his dark features, “My favourite colour.”

“How did you get in here?” you asked, voice shaking as you watched him look around the room.

“I told you, cara, this was my house. I know every entrance and exit there is,” his mismatched eyes settled on you again, “even the ones you don’t.”

He was lying. There were only three ways in or out of the house, and they were all locked – bolted, latched, even the cellar doors in the basement were chained shut.

“This is not your house,” you argued, spitting the words through grit teeth. “You need to leave. I will call the police.”

His eyes darkened again, a veil of threat overcoming him.

“And I told you, this has always been my house.”

You weighed your options. Your phone was on the kitchen counter downstairs; if you were fast enough, you could run down to it and out the back door before he caught you, calling the police as you ran along the road into town. If you didn’t fuck it up, you could even lock him in, taking the key from the back door and locking it shut behind you, leaving him gift wrapped for the cops.

You just had to be quick.

And you tried, you really did. You bolted out of the bedroom, running down the length of the long hall towards the top of the stairs. You hadn’t heard him behind you, his shoes making no noise behind you and so you imagined he’d been left stunned by your sudden departure, giving you a head start.

So you hadn’t expected a pair of large, strong hands to grip you by the tops of your arms at the top of the stairs, and slam your body into the wall. A sharp pain radiated up through your spine, but you cried out in fear more so than pain when you realised he’d trapped you, palms flat against the wall by your head and arms encasing you.

Instinct had you closing your eyes, squeezing them shut and waiting for the next blow, or for this nightmare to end. You could feel a cool breeze against your cheek as you turned your head away from the man trapping you, as if his breath were ice cold.

“Look at me, cara mio,” he ordered, his voice deep and slow. You whimpered beneath him, trying to plant yourself flat against the wall to get as far away from him as possible. “Per favore, I want to see you.”

You wanted to deny him, but his silence said he’d wait for an eternity until you did. And you didn’t want to find out just how aggressive he could be, if given the chance. So slowly, you opened your eyes, looking at him through your peripheral vision before you turned your head ever so slightly.

His face was so close to yours, hovering above you. His eyes flickered across your features, like he was looking for something, or maybe mapping every feature and committing it to his memory for some nefarious reason.

This close to him, you couldn’t stop yourself from doing the same… You avoided his eyes, noting instead how his skin seemed pale for an Italian man, but soft and smooth without a single imperfection. His jawline was chiselled, like you’d cut your palm if you tried to slap him. He had frown lines in his forehead that came with a life of frustration, yet forked lines from the outer corners of his eyes that came with a life of happiness; neither made him look haggard, yet showed he wasn’t quite as youthful as you.

Despite his pale complexion, his lips remained a soft pink. They were full, parted as you both silently examined each other up close. That breeze you felt was most definitely his breath, which you’d expected to be warmer but given the situation, perhaps it was your fear adding to the chill.

Running out of features to scan, you landed on his eyes; the eyes that haunted you more than any you’d seen. At first glance, the colour mismatch was disconcerting. It would put anybody on edge, perhaps make them wonder if he’d fallen victim to some kind of accident or birth defect but the more you stared, the more you fell into them. You couldn’t place why, but they seemed older than the rest of his features, holding more wisdom than you might have expected.

“Are you real?” you asked him, logic and reason battling against the very real fear that you were imagining him, that he was some kind of spirit that haunted his family home you’d never be rid of. But you’d felt him. His hands had been the ones to throw you against this wall, his body was imposing on yours as he trapped you. He was solid, flesh and blood. But there was an innate and visceral fear that something was wrong.

At your question, his eyes met yours, and his lips quirked into a playful smile.

“I am very real, cara mio,” he assured, taking his hand from beside your head and wrapping his gloved fingers around your wrist. He lifted your palm, gently laying it flat against his chest. “Can you not feel me?”

You could. He was solid, like you’d now discovered and you could feel his heartbeat beneath his shirt. Still, something felt wrong. He had no body heat like a normal living man through a simple cotton shirt should, and the heartbeat you felt was significantly slower than it should be.

“Who are you?” you whimpered, palm to his chest without even an attempt to remove it.

“I told you who I was. Terzo Emeritus.”

“J-junior?” you asked him. His brow creased in confusion, missing what you were asking entirely. “Terzo Junior? The grave, it… it says Terzo.”

Now he understood, sensing your confusion and chuckling lightly at it.

“Just Terzo,” he told you, gentle grip still on your wrist. You could pull your hand away if you tried, and yet, you kept it in place as if his own slow heartbeat was somehow reducing your own to a more comfortable pace.

You were at a loss for words now, brain running far too quickly to settle on something suitable to say to him. But at least now you had grown aware of your palm still settled on his chest, prompting you to rip it from his grip expecting him to put up some kind of resistance, to which you met none.

“What do you want from me?” you asked him, unable to tear your eyes from him in the same manner you’d torn your wrist from him.

“Perhaps only your company,” he shrugged slightly, raising an eyebrow in suggestion. “To exist with you, here.”

“This is my house…”

“Sí, so you keep saying.” A beat of silence passed as you thought of what he was truly asking, what that even meant.

“I want you to stay away from me,” you insisted, finding a shred of strength within you. Terzo took in a deep breath through his nose, letting it go as he studied you.

“I don’t think I can do that, cara mio,” he sighed. His admission had tears forming in your waterline, a new fear that you wouldn’t be able to shake this man’s seemingly growing obsession with you. All you wanted was peace, solitude and an escape but you’d fallen into a web, and the spider was crawling towards you agonisingly slowly.

You took a few deep breaths, each exhale shaky. You just wanted him to go, to leave you alone. Maybe this had been his house once before, but it was yours now, and he couldn’t stay here. He already seemed infatuated with you, if the way he looked at you now was anything to go by. His eyes drank you in like he was a starving man, and you were the ripest of fruits for him to devour.

“Please, I just want to be left alone…” you begged, tilting your head back against the wall and letting the tears fall as you squeezed your eyes shut, suppressing a sob in your chest.

Silence descended, and suddenly the weighted oppression of his presence vanished with a swift breeze. Even with your eyes shut, you could feel he wasn’t entrapping you anymore but when you opened them, you saw he wasn’t anywhere near you at all.

He’d vanished again, faster than a snap of your fingers.

And you were left wondering if any of that, once again, was real or a fantasy of your own making. You were so sure you felt a solid body, a real heartbeat. You weren’t a scientist, nor a paranormal specialist but you would assume if he was the spirit of the man buried in your back yard, you wouldn’t be able to feel him in such a way.

But now he had vanished, the feeling he left with you felt very much like an oppressive presence, a lingering energy. Now he left you with the anxiety of another visit without warning, another appearance to trick you into believing your delusions were true.

You expected to see him again.

Another week passed, a surface layer of anxiety lingering persistently. All you could do was focus your attention on your project, doing your absolute best to continue as normal. Now you had finished the master bedroom, you moved onto the upstairs bathroom, which had needed gutting and refitting.

You’d had a small team of plumbers in to replace the pipes through the house just as you had electricians to rewire the place before you’d moved in, and until now, all you’d had was the bare bones of a shiny new bathroom. You’d installed some counters with a new sink, the gold hardware matching around the bathroom. The marble top was a beautifully tasteful black with gold veins to match the black wood of the cabinets.

Even in here, you stuck to your darker aesthetic. The walls were painted a beautiful matte black, the floor tiled with black and white squares. It took you all week, two of those days on tiling alone. But it was something to focus on, a room that you knew would be frequently used and so needed to be finished now your bedroom was complete.

When it came to adding the finishing touches, it felt like the cherry on top of another beautifully made cake. Your house was quickly turning into a showroom, a place that could be featured in home renovation magazines had you been willing to open it up.

But already, you’d had one too many visitors in your home for your liking…

By the end of the week, you were exhausted – more so than usual. The anxiety of feeling watched, monitored, stalked was taking its toll on you, and you needed some respite. For all you knew, Terzo Emeritus could show up at any moment to frighten, repulse and excite you. It was weighing heavy, and your mind was just as spent as your body was.

As you headed to bed that evening, you allowed yourself some self-care in the bathroom you’d now finished. The point of renovating this house was to enjoy it, right? So why deny yourself that…

You filled the new clawfoot tub with hot water, brimming with bubbles and scents that had you falling into a state of total calm before you’d even sunk into it. Your tiny little radio joined you in the bathroom, tuned to a station that played nothing but classical, and on a bath shelf you’d bought you rested some candles, a book and a full glass of red wine to enjoy as you pampered yourself.

Sinking into the water, you relished in the feeling of being submerged in its warmth. Almost instantly, the tension in your shoulders melted away, eyes closing in bliss as your head slipped back to rest against the tub’s edge. You couldn’t help but let out a hum of satisfaction, the relief and pleasure accumulating in a soft moan.

As you let your body relax, a noise caught your attention; a floorboard, creaking just outside of the bathroom door. Your eyes shot open, your body reacting and freezing in place. However when you let your eyes roam over to the mirror above the bathroom sink, you saw him…

By force of habit, you’d left the bathroom door ajar, a small gap just large enough to be able to see that ghostly eye of his in the dim hallway, and the outline of him peeking through the door. Your heart rate hammered in your chest as it always did when you saw him, but you remained still. For now, he wasn’t making any kind of move, and he didn’t seem to be aware you had seen him.

But he was definitely there, watching you as you bathed. It was violating, invasive, perverse… And yet, you did nothing about it.

Instead, you sank further underneath the bubbles, reaching for your wine glass with your eyes trained on the mirror. You took a sip, relishing in the taste and releasing another satisfied moan as if putting on a damn show for him. What possessed you to do so, you had no idea, but he’d been tormenting your mind for weeks now – why couldn’t you do the same to him?

Reaching for your loofah, you dunked it under the water and sat upright, back exposed to him. You stretched your arm out, running the loofah along your skin in a slow and deliberate manner. You were careful to never expose yourself too much, but to tease with the expanse of pretty, bare skin to conjure enough suggestion in his mind that would leave a man desperate to see more.

When you ran the loofah up the length of your leg just above the water, you heard the floorboards creak again, like he was fidgeting on the other side of the door. You checked in the mirror to see if he was still there, and he most certainly was, but you were having the effect on him you hoped for.

Perhaps you stretched it out a little longer than necessary, running the loofah over your body more than needed but you were making your point. Your wicked little mind was ticking over, aware he could only see what you wanted him to; your shoulders and head above the bubbles from behind. Do you dare to cross the line…?

Perhaps the thrill of being watched was having an effect on you too, because you came to the conclusion that yes, you did dare to cross the line.

You lay back against the tub again, using the loofah now to run across your shoulders and down between the valley of your breasts, which the bubbles were barely covering in your relaxed position. You trailed the loofah further down, reaching over your stomach and between your legs.

Your breath hitched in your throat as you brushed the loofah over your core, now realising that washing yourself so intimately – and being watched while doing so – had aroused you more than you’d first thought. A flash of pleasure had you squeezing your eyes shut again, and you couldn’t stop yourself from grazing over your centre with added pressure, hips rocking in the water.

Before long, you abandoned the loofah all together, and from where he was stood, Terzo could see it float and bob up to the surface which had him drawing only one conclusion; you were definitely not just washing yourself.

You worked slowly, methodically. It had been so long since you’d let go like this, since you’d last touched yourself at all and you wanted to savour it, to enjoy it. You were in no rush, working your fingers in gentle and slow circles over your clit under the water. The moans that you let slip weren’t at all restrained or controlled; for all you knew, you were alone, right? So why would you hold back?

It was impossible not to keep checking the mirror, to make sure he was still there and every time, he was. You couldn’t help but let your imagination run away with you, picturing him entering the room, kneeling down beside the tub and reaching his hand between your legs for you. You pictured him taking you from the bathroom, into the bedroom and having his way with you, dark, handsome and brooding as he always had been.

You imagined his hands beneath his gloves, his bare fingertips tracing patterns into your skin, his full lips trailing kisses down your still wet body. What did he look like under those layers of his? How would he feel under your own fingertips? How would he feel inside you?

But Terzo made no such move. Instead, he watched silently from the shadows, and each time you caught that glimpse of him your hips bucked towards your hand until eventually, you couldn’t hold back anymore and allowed yourself to fall over the precipice.

Your orgasm was powerful, thanks to not only the lack of self love recently, but also, the arousal of becoming an exhibitionist. It rippled through your body like the water around you, and had you crying out wordlessly as you sank further into the water up to your chin. You hadn’t felt so good in a long time, and it worked perfectly to relieve the remainder of that tension in your body.

As you came down from the orgasm, you dared to glance back at the mirror only to find that he’d vanished. Another little disappearing act, only this time, you found yourself free of the anxiety that usually came with that, and instead smug with the knowledge you might have got one over on him for a change. You’d teased him to a point that he couldn’t tear his eyes from you until it was over, and for a moment you felt truly powerful. At least, if he were real… and not a fantasy you’d concocted for yourself. There was still the very real possibility that all of this was just your own madness and loneliness, and you were just now starting to lean into the delusions as a form of self-preservation.

For a little while longer, you stayed put in the tub, enjoying your book, the rest of your wine and the music in the background. Of course, you kept checking on the mirror to see if maybe he’d return for another look, but nothing. It was twisted, the way your stomach drooped in disappointment each time, but you brushed it off. You were sure before long, you would see him again – whether real or fictional.

Once you had finished in the bathroom, draining the tub and rinsing the suds away, you floated back into your bedroom wrapped in a bathrobe and ready to sink into bed with your book. You pottered around, changing into some pyjamas and crawling under the sheets when a glimpse of colour caught the light beside your bed, earning your attention.

Hanging from your bedside lamp was a pendant, and most certainly not one of yours. They were stored in a jewellery box atop the dresser, not hung on display like this… but it was beautiful, and you reached over to lay the charm in your palm and inspect it properly.

It was simple, yet elegant. The charm was shaped like a water drop, except the stone was purple; perhaps amethyst or a rarer sapphire but it caught the light exceptionally. Surrounding it, were smaller stones that resembled diamonds, but your knowledge of precious stones couldn’t confirm whether they were in fact real, or if this were costume jewellery. It didn’t matter though, it was beautiful as it was, sparkling under your bedside lamp.

You had no idea how it got here, but you could hazard a guess. It had been left for you like a gift, delicately placed in a position that would get your attention. There was only one person it could have come from, and as you played with the unusual pendant under the light, you began to realise that maybe he wasn’t the figment of your imagination you were trying to pass him off as…

The next morning, you had a revived energy, a spring in your step from a decent night’s sleep. The time spent on self care seemed to do the job, relieving the stress enough for you to be ready to tackle the downstairs living room next. Truthfully, your new found vigour may have also had something to do with a large part of you giving in to the idea that Terzo was not a fantasy, he’d been very real this whole time.

You still had no idea who he was, or how he was a real person. You were beginning to think that perhaps spirits did walk the earth, just by how he seemed to appear and disappear on a dime. But you remembered the heartbeat, the solid chest under your palm…

There were so many questions. Who was he? A descendant of the family this house once belonged to, and rested in your garden? How does he keep getting in? He mentioned entrances you might not know about, but you’d searched thoroughly, or so you thought. Was he obsessed with you? Stalking you?

Was he dangerous?

His behaviour was most definitely shady – people don’t just come and go in other people’s homes as they please. But you’d never reported him, no matter how much you’d threatened it. To begin with you’d hoped the threat of calling the cops would be enough to deter him, but he always came back. And at every opportunity, he could have done something to hurt you, yet never did. Even last night, you were in a completely vulnerable position. And whilst peeping on you in the bath was absolutely a violation and a crime in itself, all he did was watch. And you let him.

His existence was confusing, but you’d surrendered to the notion that he did in fact exist; and honestly, that in itself was quite freeing. It felt like some kind of weight had lifted, and it made beginning work on the living room easier to stomach.

This room had suffered in the years the house sat in decay. The old windows had made way for black mould to grow around it, and whilst you’d had the windows replaced since, the mould was still present. Your first job was to clean the walls and potentially replace some of the floorboards, if the moisture had taken hold of the wood.

Armed with a bucket of diluted bleach and a sponge, you got to work scrubbing at the walls and the large window sill that you were planning to convert into a cosy nook; a perfect place to sit and watch the world go by, book in hand. Your little radio sat on the mantelpiece of the stunning fireplace you were going to bring back to life, blaring out the same cycle of tunes you were used to now you’d tuned it back from the classical of last night.

You let yourself zone out as you scrubbed at the mould, singing along to the radio now you knew most of the songs blaring from it. It was a wonder you weren’t sick of them yet, but you still hadn’t got around to unpacking your record player that was supposed to have a home in this particular room. First, you had to finish it though, of course.

As one song ended, the radio host announced a lunchtime bulletin. By this time you were only half listening, fixated on the satisfying cleaning job.

“It’s 1pm, you’re listening to 108.3fm – here’s your lunchtime bulletin. Police have made a shocking discovery after the disappearance of 25 year old Amanda Riley just three days ago.”

Your ears perked up at the news, now getting your attention. Another one? This was concerning, terrifying even. And now they’d made a discovery?

“Human remains were discovered just outside of town in a wooded area yesterday, which police have now confirmed are that of Amanda. Family members formally identified the body, and police have given a statement to locals urging caution and vigilance. Sheriff Ansel had this to say…

“‘We believe Ms. Riley’s murder to be connected to the string of disappearances in the area in the last few months. The victim was found with all her personal belongings still on her person, including wallet, cash, ID and mobile phone, however when the family came to formally identify the body, they noted that the only thing taken from her was her unusual pendant…’”

Your blood turned cold. The hand still scrubbing at the wall froze in place, and slowly, you turned to look at the radio as if it was speaking directly to you.

“‘The pendant is recognisable as a purple amethyst in a teardrop shape, surrounded by smaller white diamonds. While the item is valuable, we believe that the killer may have taken such a personal item as a trophy, which could be part of their M.O. Still, we are urging the public to please keep an eye out to see if we can trace this item, either in pawn shops or perhaps being sold online. We ask that you not panic, and please get in touch if you note anything suspicious. Thank you.’”

Your hand dropped the sponge back into the bucket of diluted bleach, drifting up to your chest where that very same pendant was sat against your skin. You’d put it on that morning, barely even thinking about it, just because you liked it.

But he’d given it to you. Left it out in the open for you, like he was proud of it. He’d given you a dead girl’s fucking necklace. And there was only one way he could have got it…

You stood up, running into the kitchen and colliding with the sink before your body displayed it’s disgust by vomiting violently. All those unanswered questions, and yet, one of them had been answered.

Who was he? A murderer.

As you coughed and spluttered your breakfast into the sink, your mind raced. She wasn’t the only missing person, just the first body to have been found. There were others. So many others, for nine months. Thirteen missing people, one of which found dead with this fucking necklace missing.

You felt dizzy, like a wave of vertigo hit you in an instant. You hobbled over to the fridge, clutching at the kitchen counter to keep yourself steady and rooting around for a bottle of water. Your hands shook as you unscrewed the lid, taking a sip to rinse out your mouth as you stumbled back to the sink to spit. You took another sip, this time swallowing and trying your best to focus on the sensation of the cool water trickling down your throat. But your head was too busy.

Trophies. He was taking trophies? Why? This sick bastard must enjoy it, he must relish in his kills, wanting something to remember each one by. What else had he taken…? And then you remembered.

The box under the floorboards.

You slammed the water bottle down on the side, a jet propelling out onto the work surface from the force. Before you knew it your feet were moving of their own accord, up the stairs and down the hall. You were unsteady, tripping into the walls as you walked. You needed to know, but you didn’t want to.

Stumbling into the bare room, you fell to your knees with a hard smack where the floorboard was loose. Shaking hands lifted the plank, reaching underneath to check the box was still there; it was. You pulled it from its hiding place setting it down on the floor while you racked up the courage to open it again.

In one quick motion, you unlocked the latch and flung the lid open like ripping off a band aid. All the items were still there, just the way you’d left them, including the watch that had made you question them in the first place. It looked like it could have been vintage, save for the date wound to March of this year.

You looked at the collection of random items; the watch, the cuff links, the old red lipstick, the cheap bracelet, a skeleton key, a tiny used bottle of perfume, a red comb, an old butterfly hairpin, a daisy pin badge, a rusty swiss army knife, a fountain pen and a vintage zippo lighter.

Twelve items.

With the necklace, that made thirteen. Thirteen items. Thirteen victims. Thirteen trophies.

“I should have hidden them better, eh?”

The sound of his voice had your body stiffening in fear, skin instantly peppered with goosebumps. You hadn’t even begun to think about confronting him or having to see him. You weren’t sure what you were going to do yet, but you’d have hoped to have time to calm yourself down and think rationally about your options.

But you were going to have to do this ad-hoc.

“I don’t often make mistakes, bella cosa, but when I do… They haunt me. I suppose my kindness is coming back to bite me on the culo (ass).”

He sounded surprisingly calm for a man who’d just been found out to be a serial killer. It unnerved you, and no part of you could figure out his next move. You were a sitting duck.

Slowly, and carefully, you stood up, turning around to look at him. Part of you worried if you startled him with sudden movement, he might strike like any predator would its prey.

He was stood in the doorway, leaning up against the wood with his hands buried in the pockets of his slacks, coat pushed back behind them. He looked far too casual, his face hinting at neither anger nor humour – nowhere on the emotional spectrum.

“Kindness?” you asked, ruminating over his use of the word. “There’s no kindness in what you’ve done.” Perhaps it was dangerous to speak so ill of the murderer in front of you, but you couldn’t help yourself.

His neutral expression darkened in a warning glare, his chin tipping up so he was looking down on you, adding to his intimidating aura.

“Not everybody deserves kindness, cara mio. Some deserve far less,” he challenged, pushing himself off the doorframe and taking slow steps into the room, keeping a distance from you still.

“No one deserves that…”

Terzo scoffed, looking off to gaze out of the window and shaking his head as if what you said offended him in some way.

“So now you know,” he shrugged, looking back towards you, his hands still shoved deep in his pockets. You kept an eye on them, mind racing with all kinds of possibilities – he could have a weapon of some sorts hidden from view. You needed to be on your guard. “I suppose you will report me now, sí?”

There was a playful glint in his eyes that you didn’t miss, like he was taunting you, waving a red flag to a bull. If you said you were, would he attack you too? But surely he couldn’t simply take your word for it if you said you wouldn’t either… Truthfully, you weren’t sure what you were going to do. Your only instinct was to run – fast.

You let his question linger in the air, far too much silence going by as he watched you, assuming you’d frozen in fear. He hadn’t expected you to dart towards the door, your only goal to get downstairs and out of the house as quickly as possible. So when you did exactly that, he watched for a split second, anger snapping inside him.

You barely made it out of the room before you felt a sudden force slam you forwards and into the wall of the corridor. A scream erupted from your chest, blood-curdling and gut-wrenching to anyone who would have heard it – but out here? No one would. How he’d moved so fast, you had no idea, but he had both of your wrists behind your back, and his whole body weight held you tightly against the wall.

“You are leaving so soon?” he asked, leaning in to speak directly in your ear as you writhed under him to try and escape, but his grip was too strong even without him putting seemingly any effort into it. “I was just getting used to you living in my house…”

“This is MY house,” you growled, gritting your teeth and avoiding his eyes.

“Then why should you want to leave? Are you scared I might hurt you, cara mio?”

Tears spilled from your waterline, giving away your fear and distress. Of course you were scared he was going to hurt you. He’d already hurt so many…

When he received no answer from you other than a sob in defeat and the stilling of your limbs as you gave up fighting his grip, he manhandled you until you span around, your back now against the wall just like it had been the other day.

“Th-this isn’t real… You’re not real…” you whispered to yourself, squeezing your eyes shut in the hopes you might wake up from your nightmare. You did not.

“I’m quite real, cara. We’ve been over this, no?” he lifted your wrist again like he had the other day, this time settling your hand delicately on his cheek and holding it there with his much bigger palm. “See?”

His gentility confused you, and when you opened your eyes, you saw a strange softness in his face. For a moment, you almost thought his expression was one of admiration. It didn’t matter what it was, but you couldn’t look away. This man – this serial killer – was being so gentle with you, his eyes cast over you like he was utterly obsessed with you.

“Why?” you whispered, more tears spilling over your cheeks. Still, you held his, despite his grip on your hand lessening ever so slightly. You wanted to understand, talk him down maybe just enough to let you go. You wanted to appeal to the softness you saw in him.

“I have no choice,” he said flatly, almost with a hint of shame. But that only crossed the wires in your mind more.

“I… I don’t understand.”

“I choose them carefully… They are not good people, cara. They have ruined others lives, even taken them and I-“ he stopped himself, looking down at the floor in shame. Your brows creased together, trying to piece your thoughts into coherency.

“It’s always a choice,” you started to argue back, softly so as not to raise any more rage within him in such a precarious position such as the one you found yourself in beneath him. But his head snapped back up nonetheless, his hand gripping onto yours and throwing it back down beside you. He kept you caged beneath him still, hands planted firmly on the wall.

“I assure you, bella ragazza (pretty girl), there is no choice. It is me or them.”

Slowly, he raised his head from where he’d stared at the floorboards between your feet. His eyes watched you closely as he tilted his head back a little, and his lips parted until you could clearly see two very white, very sharp fangs protruding from under his top lip.

For a moment you didn’t react at all, calculating what you were seeing. His hands hadn’t moved, so he hadn’t put them in himself. You’d seen him so many times, and up close too, and never saw them before… They had to be real. He had fangs.

“That’s impossible…” you whispered, “there’s no such thing as-“

“Vampires?” he finished your sentence for you, “I’m sorry to shatter your illusion of a perfect world, cara mio, but I can assure you, there certainly is.”

Finally, your survival instincts kicked in, adrenaline pumping through your veins almost in an instant. You shoved your hands against his chest and pushed with all the strength you had, trying to get him away from you, to preserve yourself. All this time you had felt like prey, and it had been instinct all along. You were prey.

Your shove did nothing. He remained unmoving, like stone encasing you against the wall. You thrashed your arms around, trying to escape him but it was completely useless. You were already trapped, and at the mercy of a real vampire.

“I’m sorry, cara mio, but you will not overcome my strength nor my speed. This is useless, I assure you.” His voice had no hint of patronising, instead of genuine sorrow. It felt as if he knew he had to kill you now, but he didn’t want to kill you. You gave up, your fists balling up against his chest as you lay your head back against the wall, out of breath and sobbing as you accepted your fate.

“Please… don’t kill me, Terzo…” you wept, head lolling forward to look into his eyes for what you thought might be the last time.

His brow was creased, his lips parted in horror as he looked back at you. He raised his gloved hand and wiped at the tracks on your cheek. “I don’t wish to kill you, cara mio… You understand, no? I must kill to stay alive, but not you – never you.”

You barely registered what he was saying before you were shooting questions at him again, needing to know more, to understand why he chose those people. Why he kept their trophies…

“Why them? Why did you choose them? They were innocent, just like me. Why did they deserve that?” you sobbed, your chest heaving as he held your cheek, still caging you against the wall.

“The girl they found? What the polizia (police) don’t know is she was behind the wheel of an intentional hit and run a few years ago. The store clerk a few weeks back? You do not want to see what was on his hard drive. All of them, vile humans. There is more evil in this world than you could possibly fathom, tesoro. They even tasted different…” he shrivelled his face in disgust, “but it keeps me alive, and my conscience semi-clear.”

The shock of his revelation did nothing to help your racing heart or foggy mind, processing everything far slower than you would like in this tumultuous situation.

“Suppose that was true, why do you keep their things?” you prodded further – there must be some part of him that enjoys it. Even if only the fact he were proud of removing scum from the earth, if that were true.

“Because I carry their souls with me… No matter how evil, they are people, and I take their life. Each one is a burden, and I must never forget that.”

There was genuine sorrow, genuine regret there. You could see it. But it changed nothing, he was still a murderer, a monster. And you were still trapped underneath him, literally backed up against a wall and inches away from deadly threat.

“But… it’s sick, Terzo! They’re kept like trophies, like you’re proud of what you do to them!” you protested. He hollowed his cheeks in annoyance, becoming more defensive as you accused him.

The hand that wiped your tears lowered to your neck, his fingertips tracing along the chain of the necklace you had yet to take off, until it reached the unusual pendant, where he played with it against your collarbone.

“And yet, you still wear it. You had time to take it off, if you were so disgusted by it. But here it is, looking so pretty around your… beautiful neck,” he sighed, his eyes roaming hungrily over the exposed skin he so clearly wanted to puncture and drink from. The fear in you started to rise again, your pulse that had just started to settle raising. More hot tears fell over your waterline as you took a deep, shaky breath.

“What… what do you want from me?” you pleaded, your voice trembling and squeaky. His eyes flickered up to yours, fingertips still playing with the pendant, grazing the skin so gently it left goosebumps. You would never admit to the thrill his touch seemed to be giving you, knowing what you know of him now.

But Terzo leaned in further, his hips meeting yours and pressing you further against the wall. The hand that had been keeping you caged against the wall all this time dropped to your waist, holding you just enough to send a wave of curious gratification through your abdomen. He was close enough that your noses would touch, should he tip his head down to you. You could feel his icy breath against your face again – a symptom of his state of undead, you now understood.

“I want you to love me, tesoro…�� he confessed in a whisper, watching for your reaction.

“I only fear you,” you defied, unable to admit the curiosity his request sparked.

“Are they not the same?” His eyebrow arched up in question, waiting for your response. But honestly, you had none. You were dumbfounded, wondering what on earth he meant by that. Of course they weren’t the same, nothing about love and fear are the same. The attraction you had felt towards him in recent encounters was fleeting; a right place, right time kind of attraction. It had nothing to do with him, and now knowing what he was, it could never be him again.

Terzo understood your silence to be an internal monologue, a debate in your own mind. He pressed further, illustrating his point.

“Let me ask you, tesoro, does the thought of me make your hairs stand on end?” his fingertips grazed along the length of your collarbone, the grip on your waist squeezing slightly, “Does it make your stomach fill with the flutter of butterfly wings? Does it make your heart beat like the thrum of a hummingbird’s wings?”

You couldn’t deny it, but those were markers of fear as well as love. It didn’t mean they were synonymous. You refused to answer him.

“I can hear it, you know…” his hand flattened against your collarbone, “The pounding in your chest, the rushing of your blood through your veins. I hear them, working so hard when you are near me.”

Terzo leaned into your neck, his nose brushing against your jugular so tenderly as he breathed in deeply, enjoying your scent to the point of near intoxication. Little did you know, it was that scent that drew him out of hiding in the first place. He simply couldn’t stay away from you, and when he saw where the scent was coming from, saw your sheer beauty, he understood why you smelled as tempting as you did.

“Fear smells just like love to me, tesoro. It adds a sweetness to your already saccharine scent. Just like nectar appeals to a honey bee, you appeal to me much the same,” he continued to nuzzle his nose against your skin, his breath fanning over your collarbone. Every so often in his clumsy, inebriated state his lips would gently tickle the skin, sending a rush through you that now you were certain he could smell. “That nectar can be turned into honey, no? I wonder if I could do the same for you…”

You bit your lip, looking up towards the ceiling in an attempt to avoid his eyes that frankly were too hypnotic for their own good.

“They are all markers of fear, Terzo…” you whimpered. You felt his breath as he chuckled against your skin.

“Then tell me why I can smell the sweetest honey already pooling between your legs, cara mio…”

Your head snapped down to look at him, and you met his eyes already waiting for you, a smirk on his lips. You wanted to deny it, to slap him, to push him away from you but what was the point? He was right. There was no denying it. He could smell you.

The shame you felt, letting a monster like him have such an effect on you, was astronomical.

“Please…” you pleaded; for what, you weren’t sure.

“What is it, cara mio? What can I give you?” he asked, straightening up and again cupping your cheek with his gloved hand, still holding your waist, still pressing his hips to yours. His lips were so close, all you could do was stare at them until you snapped yourself out of it, looking him directly in the eyes.

“Everything.”

It took no longer than a heartbeat for Terzo to process your answer, before his lips attached to yours so fast and hard you felt his fangs scrape against your bottom lip. A thrill zapped your core, and your balled up fists against his chest gripped the lapels of his coat to bring him impossibly close. You succumbed so quickly to him, desperate to feel his lips against yours.

While you were sure this feeling was not love, it was certainly not fear either. ‘Infatuation’ felt closer to the truth, borderline obsession just as Terzo had exhibited towards you. But denying it was futile now, and so instead, you leaned into it. The pair of you desperately held onto each other, kissing as if this was the only way you could get oxygen, and you’d been suffocating without each other.

Terzo started to move, trailing his passion down to your jawline, underneath your ear and down to your neck. Your heartrate quickened again, knowing that his mouth near your neck could go only one of two ways. Both options seemed to excite you in equal measures…

“W-will it hurt…?” you asked him, as you felt his fangs graze against your skin lightly, like he was holding himself back.

“Just for a second…” he panted like a dog laying out in the sun. And he wasn’t wrong, the pain would be momentary, his fangs emitting a small amount of venom that acts as an anaesthetic. That wasn’t the problem, and it wasn’t what stopped him in his tracks. “But I can’t…”

You cupped his cheeks, lifting his head to look him in the eye again. “What’s wrong?”

He looked as if he were in pain, his face screwed up in utter agony. He kept shaking his head, like he didn’t want to say it, like he was hiding a secret that would break him just to say aloud.

“If… If I do this, I might not be able to stop,” he whined, “and even if I do, how could I ever let you go after tasting you?”

You searched his eyes, saw the pain and the uncertainty in them. He truly didn’t want to hurt you, and right now he looked more vulnerable than you would think a creature of the night was capable of being.

“When you moved in I couldn’t leave you, I couldn’t stay away… And that was merely your smell, Tesoro. I’m afraid if I taste you, I could never leave you alone again.”

His admission floored you, and as much as the idea of giving yourself over to him willingly seemed to appeal to you, the rational part of your brain was still working enough to understand that that was a line that should not be crossed just yet.

“It’s okay… It’s okay,” you told him sincerely, comforting his distress before bringing his lips back to yours and resuming your heated exchange. Perhaps someday you would allow him that taste, a way of committing deeper than you could possibly comprehend at this stage. But there was a reason for the phrase “blood pact”, and it didn’t originate with the exchange of open wounds between two mortals.

As enthralled as he was in your lips, feeling your pulse beneath them tempting him, Terzo had to push the thought to the back of his mind. He couldn’t lose himself to the temptation so soon. He’d frighten you away if you saw him so feral, and he couldn’t let you disappear like everyone else in his life – not the only woman to ever have smelled so divine to him. Only he knew what that meant, that pull… You were it for him. His obsession was unavoidable, you were his promised love.

It happened instantaneously for his kind, but for you? It would take time for you to see it, to feel what he felt. Human sense of smell was nowhere near as powerful, and so you could never know just by his scent that he was the one for you, the soul on the other end of the red string tied around your wrist.

To rid his mind of the temptation, he focussed on the moment at hand. His intense grip on your waste drifted over your hips and to the backs of your thighs until he was lifting them, using his hips to ground you against the wall so you wouldn’t fall. It was as if you were weightless to him, his inhuman strength making such light work of carrying you further down the hall and into your bedroom – his bedroom – until you both fell onto the bed.

No part of you thought for even a millisecond of stopping him, an intense need for him screaming from within you. You pushed his coat from his shoulders, diverting to his shirt buttons as soon as he began pulling at his sleeves to rid himself of the heavy wool. In no time at all, his chest was bare to you, peppered with dark hair that you’d expect from a man of Italian descent. You pulled him closer to you, reattaching your lips desperately.

His gloves disappeared as you kissed him, and you couldn’t help but flinch at the touch of his cold skin on yours, his hands sliding up under the hem of your shirt to hold you. He paused for a moment, searching your face for any sign his touch wasn’t welcome.

“Just cold…” you assured him, running your fingers through the dark locks of hair that had fallen over his face as he hovered above you.

“I, eh… sí, mi scusi, I am cold to the touch…” he apologised, a wave of insecurity flashing through his expression.

“I don’t mind,” you smiled sweetly, pulling him down with your hand woven into his hair and kissing his insecurity away. He regained his confidence, grip returning to your bare waist under your shirt and tightening with gratitude at your reassurance.

The way he kissed you was like worship, like he valued every second you allowed him to touch you, to be with you – and as he slowly began to undress you, his worship continued. He started with your shirt, pushing it up your abdomen and peppering the skin with more kisses as he exposed it. Over the curve of your breast peaking from above the cup of your bra, you felt the low rumble of a groan against your chest that was suppressed as he buried his face into your flesh. He was so gentle, so calculated in his motions and it was driving you crazy already.

Once your shirt was finally above your head and discarded somewhere to the side, he pulled the straps of your bra down, kissing along your shoulders and down your arms until he reached behind you to unclasp it. Your breasts bounced before him, and he immediately began to leave open mouthed kisses over them, laving his tongue over your nipples as they stood to attention under the chill of his lips. His free hand worked at your other breast, kneading like he was making the finest ricciarelli biscuit dough.

You couldn’t help the soft whines and hums that left your body as he worshipped you, hips rolling under him in a desperate attempt to feel something more. You wanted him so badly, already overcome with desire.

His hand came to rest on your hip, squeezing and he continued to suckle at your breast. His fingers dipped easily into the waistband of your paint-smeared sweats – one of several pairs you alternated when working on the house renovations. Before long, he was dragging them down your thighs, his cold knuckles grazing at the skin and sending a pleasurable shiver down your spine.

Terzo was taking his time without wasting any. He knew what he wanted, what you wanted, but he spent just enough time working your body, lavishing it to build anticipation. But before long, his kisses began to travel south, leaving a path of wet little marks down between the valley of your breasts and your navel until he was tracing the hem of your underwear, daring to run his finger along the sensitive skin.

It took a formidable amount of strength and restraint to keep your hips as still as you did, and even then, you were wriggling under his touch. But when he could tell you were growing restless, he wrapped his arm underneath your thigh and lifted it above his shoulder. Naturally, you spread wider for him, giving him complete access to your covered core where he could see so clearly the stain of arousal.

He was so close to you, the scent of your sweet honey so intoxicating. You could never understand how divine that scent was with your own human senses, but to him? It cemented itself in his memory. He knew that after today, he would never forget it. He didn’t want to rush, but frankly, it was getting impossible to resist a taste.

He lifted the hem of your panties and pierced the material beneath it with his fangs, easily tearing it away from your body before he pressed his nose to your mound, and took in a deep inhale. He growled between your legs, the vibration and exhale teasing your nerves until you were clenching around nothing.

He could wait no longer, his tongue reaching out to lap between your folds in one slow motion. He savoured the taste on his tongue, making sure to collect as much honey as he could for a truly overwhelming taste. You watched as his hips rocked into the bed below him, his hands tightening on your thighs. His tongue felt cold too, but the pressure was so welcome, a wave of euphoria passing through your core.

Expertly, Terzo used his whole mouth to bring you the pleasure he thought you deserved and yet, not once did you worry about the sharp fangs he’d used to strip you. He had the ability to retract them should he need to, and for this particularly delicate activity, he did just that. But his lips and tongue worked together to have you moaning at every lap, hips rolling underneath him.

Your hands found their way to his hair for purchase, tugging at the roots every time he sent a surge of pleasure through your clit. He loved it, moaning with you as if he too was close to an orgasm. Both of you had lost yourselves to the moment, completely enthralled in lust.

Terzo was becoming more and more desperate to have you finish on his tongue. Each pretty little sound he caused only made him want to hear more, and as you grew closer and closer to orgasm, you sweetened with added hormones that drove him wild. He unwrapped a hand from around your thigh and easily slid two fingers inside, not bothering nor needing to tease with how your body already gave itself over to him. He curled his fingers inside you, a shock of pleasure forcing your back to arch from the mattress as he found the perfect position.

His pace increased with every moan he elicited, the tension in your lower abdomen growing until you were on the verge of snapping.

“T-Terzo… Please,” you begged him. He chuckled darkly as he buried his face deeper within you, his nose adding to the equation and making your hips writhe until finally, that tension inside you snapped.

He didn’t stop, holding you down with inhuman strength as you erupted in cries of bliss. Your muscles contracted, thighs trapping his head in place and fingers pulling painfully at his hair.

Terzo slurped at your core, not letting a single drop of arousal go to waste. You tasted different as you came, the rush of hormones adding something so damn addictive that it wasn’t until you physically tried pushing his head away in oversensitivity that he snapped out of his trance, his head jolting up to look at you with his mouth and skin shimmering. He looked completely feral, his eyes wide, and you watched as his fangs returned with a snarl of a hungry animal locking onto its kill.

Your heart jumped in your chest; out of fear or lust you couldn’t be sure. But he heard it, the irregular thump as you lay vulnerable and weak beneath him. It only served to make his erection twitch in his slacks… Fear was a powerful feeling, and mixed with lust it was one of the most erotic combinations.

He crawled his way back up your body, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before diving into a punishing kiss that knocked any remaining wind out of you. You could feel his length pressing into your hip, and while you were certainly already struggling with exertion you wanted nothing more than to know how he’d feel inside you.

So you reached between you both for his belt, fiddling with the buckle as you kissed him. Taking the hint, he kicked his shoes off over the edge of the bed, and when you’d managed to undo his belt and slacks, he helped to kick them with his underwear passed his knees to follow suit. With him bared to you and pressing into your hip once again, you could feel just how endowed he was, and just how ready for you he was.

“You are so beautiful, cara mio…” he mused between kisses, his cold fingertips trailing down your neck and arm, then back up. “And you can’t ever understand how exquisite you taste.”

“To an extent, I can…” you teased with a flirty smile, “I can taste myself on your tongue.”

He stared down at you for a moment, until realisation finally settled and his lips curled into a devilish grin.

“Tu sei una tentatrice, amore mio… (you are a temptress, my love…)” he whispered, lowering himself to your lips once again.

As you both lost yourself in another steamy kiss, you couldn’t help rolling your hips up to meet his. He hummed into your mouth, understanding that you wanted him completely, and reached between the two of you to grip himself. You spread your legs a little wider to make it easier for him, feeling how he prodded at your entrance once he’d lined himself up.

“Are you sure, amore?” he stopped to ask, and you nodded, biting your lip to contain the smile as you cupped his cheeks. With your permission, he slowly pushed forwards, filling you slowly as he glided through your slick. You fought to keep your eyes open, if only to watch the look of bliss that overcame his face – and boy was it worth it.

He looked so ethereal, like his pale skin had been carved by the finest of Greek sculptors in marble burdened with the curse of perfection. The chill of his skin did nothing to quell the burning heat of yours, finding the perfect balance.

“You’re so… warm,” he moaned, burying his face in the crook of your neck while he enjoyed the feeling for a moment. “Sembra fottutamente incredibile. (feels fucking incredible.)”

Given a moment to compose himself, he began to slowly rock his hips back and forth, gritting his teeth from the sensation alone. You would be the first to admit that he, too, felt incredible inside you, reaching places his fingers had only moments ago and sending waves of a dull pleasure through you once again at the embers of your last orgasm were being stoked.

His hand gripped your thigh and lifted it around his waist, obtaining a better angle and something for him to grip onto to stop his mind spiralling into sheer madness. Already, you were so difficult to resist; temptation was calling to him in the form of your steady, yet thundering pulse where his face lay against your neck. But if he lost himself, lost control like he was so terrified to, he was afraid resistance would fail him.

It was like torture. How could he feel so incredible pumping his length inside you while simultaneously experiencing the physical strain of holding his thirst back. You were his, he’d decided that long ago. But to truly make you his, all he would need to do was to give in, to sink his fangs into the skin he was peppering with kisses. He felt like a recovering addict desperately trying to resist as someone waved a hit under his nose. In some ways, that was exactly what he was.

But not yet. It was too soon. He had to resist for now, to let you make up your mind without ancient ritual influences before he allowed himself to truly make you his. He couldn’t bind himself to you, only for you to walk away when it all became too much, or hell forbid, you found someone more human to settle down with.

Instead, he focussed on the pleasure filling his cock as he pistoned in and out of you. He focussed on your pretty moans, and the way you clenched around him. He focussed on kisses to your neck instead of bites, groaning against your skin as he indulged in you. But too easily he lost himself, and soon he couldn’t help but drag his tongue from the bottom of your neck, to right underneath your ear.

You loved how it felt, completely oblivious to just how close you were to becoming a meal to him. To you it was simply another thing to drive you wild, and when you once again wrapped your fingers in his hair, your other arm pushing down on his back to pull him against you, you had no clue you were making it so much harder for him.

He kept suckling, licking, even nipping so gently at your neck – so fucking close to what he truly wanted as his instincts began to take over. He fought them as hard as he could snarling at himself in warning but still, you were oblivious to his internal fight and mistook his anguish for noises of pleasure.

Truly, he hadn’t meant to let it get this far; but when the sharp tip of his fang grazed just a little too close to where your pulse thundered against his tongue, and you writhed under him with a targeted hit to your g-spot, he nicked your skin just enough to draw the tiniest spec of blood… He hadn’t even noticed, your scent already filling his nose that he didn’t sense it intensify just a fraction until it was too late, and he’d laved his tongue over the graze.

It all happened too fast, then.

You were mid-moan when you felt an excruciating pain where his tongue had just been, the noise catching in your throat with a sudden choke. Your fingers naturally tightened in his hair, and your nails dug into the cold flesh of his back as a scream travelled its way through your ribcage and you couldn’t help but let it out. Your back arched and your muscles constricted, but Terzo’s hips never stopped and now that he’d got a taste of you – a real taste – he growled a visceral growl that you felt rumble in the pit of your stomach.

If he thought you’d tasted good between your legs, this was the most intensely delicious thing he’d ever had the pleasure of tasting. Such pure, untainted blood coated his tongue, dribbling down your neck as he ravished it. He’d known this was dangerous, that one bite would bind him to you for eternity after the first whiff of your scent when you moved in. But now that he’d tasted you, he couldn’t for the life of him remember why he’d fought so hard to stave off.

“T-Terzo, you-“ you tried to stop him, remembering how pained he’d looked when he explained why he really couldn’t do this, but it truly was too late. All it took was one drop. He cut you off with a hand clamping over your jaw, his other holding your hip in place with bruising force.

His hips never stopped, every sensation he felt only pushing him to fuck into you harder like a rabid monster. In that moment, that was exactly what he was. In that first split-second, he frightened you. You saw the side of him he’d tried so hard to hide, and coupled with the pain in your neck, your body flooded with adrenaline – which of course, only added to the sublime taste of your blood.

But like he had promised, the venom acted fast. The pain ebbed away into nothing but a sensation of being prodded and sucked at. Still you held onto him tightly, unable to deny that this was possible one of the most intimate feelings you’d ever felt, and the pleasure started to stack up.

Even to a point, where the rush of blood through the two puncture wounds in your neck became a pleasurable experience. You’d have trouble explaining just how, but it felt unbelievable, like a massage that tickled and sent endorphins flooding your mind. Little did you know, that was also the venom coursing through your body. But it didn’t matter, because coupled with Terzo’s cock thrusting against your g-spot it was the most glorious feeling in the entire world.

As you barrelled closer to a second orgasm, Terzo ripped his fangs from your neck and looked down at you beneath him. He had a look in his eye that was so predatory that you knew immediately you belonged to him now, whether you liked it or not. As luck would have it, you did like it; very much. That obsessive look, that ownership turned you on to a point that had you squealing for him beneath his hand.

Quickly, you reached your peak for a second time, holding him so tightly you thought that maybe even you would draw blood with your nails in his back. Just as that second burst of pleasure coursed through you, Terzo reattached himself to your neck, drinking in the newly sweetened blood that a rush of hormones created for him. If you could imagine the most expensive, and decadent wine you had ever tasted, it wouldn’t hold a candle to the taste of your blood to him right now.

Suddenly he lurched back again, this time removing his hands from your body and holding himself up, only to dive in and sink his fangs into the swell of your breast as it bounced with the force of each of his trusts. Again, you were met with pain the flooded your body but mixed with the high of your orgasm, you could only scream in pleasure. He drank from you again, kneading at your other breast as he too hurtled towards an orgasm.

The pain subsided quickly thanks to another dose of his venom, but he continued to drink from you, prolonging your euphoria just long enough for him to finally and violently reach his own high.

He erupted inside you, his head throwing back as he growled and lost his rhythm, pounding sloppily into you with each twitch of his cock. In your post-orgasm haze, you witnessed the look of bliss on his face, seeing for the first time the distinct red that coated his lips and dripped from his fangs down to his chin. He looked manic, but holy shit it was intensely erotic.

With the small amount of strength left in you, you sat up just enough to push your lips to his. You don’t know why you did it, or even that you had until you could taste the metallic twang of iron on your tongue. Terzo collapsed into you, wrapping his arms around you as he rolled to the side, taking you along with him. With the mess he created of your core, he slipped from inside you, now simply intent on holding you close while he processed that you were kissing him, despite being tainted with your blood. But it grounded him, and slowly, his orgasm subsided and his mind cleared of its fog.

Your kiss came to a natural end, the pair of you exhausted, and without a word you lay yourself on his chest, not bothering to wipe away the smears of blood around your own mouth as you caught your breath.

“I’m so sorry…” he whimpered, pulling you tighter against him and obscuring your view of his face so you wouldn’t have to witness the shame that settled there. You didn’t have the energy to speak, instead hoping that the circling of your thumb over the cool skin of his chest was enough comfort for now to show him you didn’t mind, that you’d wanted that as much as he had.

You let some time pass, calming yourselves down in each other’s arms. His grip on you lessened as the minutes passed, and eventually, you were able to look up at his face. To your shock and heartbreak, you noticed his cheeks were wet with something other than blood – Terzo was crying.

“Hey…” you soothed, shuffling further up the bed to hover above him. He covered his face with his hand, hiding himself but you pulled it away, cupping his cheek and swiping at the tear tracks. “No, no no… Stop this, it’s okay.”

“Mi dispiace tantissimo, (I’m so sorry,)” he cried, “I hurt you. I did the one thing I should never have done…”

“Shhh,” you hushed him like a newborn who couldn’t sleep, “I wanted that, remember? I told you you could.”

“You don’t understand, I… I have bound myself to you, and now, when you leave… it will devastate me,” he sobbed, staring straight up at the canopy of the large bed, unable to look you in the eye.

“What makes you think I will leave?” you asked him gently, still gently swiping his fresh tears away whilst fighting your own.

“Amore mio, I have lost everybody I have ever cared about,” he told you, finally looking you in the eye. “I have either outlived them, or watched as they turned their back on me. And now I have selfishly bound myself to you, knowing that I cannot ever let you go.”

His admission broke your heart. You certainly had no intention of going anywhere, the bond you now shared with him feeling strangely cemented and more intimate than any you’d had with another. But in the end, time would come for you just as it had the rest of his family, lying under the earth of your own back garden.

“How does someone… become like you?” you asked tentatively, absentmindedly, playing with the chest hair the covered his pecks.

Terzo’s brow creased in confusion. “Why would you ask such a thing? I couldn’t condemn you to a life like this…” After all he’d been through; the killings, loss, isolation, and even the exile he’d faced decades ago when the townspeople discovered what he was… He couldn’t put you in a position like that. He didn’t want you to become part of the dark legend of the Emeritus house, another spooky story passed from generation to generation to tell around campfires for years to come.

“Just tell me, how?” you pressed. He sighed, laying his head back on the pillow and staring back up at the canopy.

“You would need to drink the blood of my kind,” he stated simply, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “I could not ask that of you. The process is not an easy one, and to become like me is to be condemned to a life of heartache.”

You thought for a moment, acknowledging his concerns but deciding that whilst that had been his experience, it didn’t need to be yours. Not with him beside you – neither of you would need to be lonely ever again.

“I’m so sorry you’ve felt that heartache, but I believe that the two of us together could avoid that.”

He raised his head to look at you again, examining your face for a moment while he contemplated what some kind of future might look like with you.

“Perhaps not yet, I understand. But Terzo, I will prove that I intend on going nowhere. And when you feel like you might be ready to trust that, I’ll be waiting,” you promised him, cupping his jaw and stroking your thumb gently over his cheek. “Until then, I can be your very own personal supply, hm?” you smiled, “You won’t need to take a life, so long as you have me little and often, right?”

“You… would do that? For me?” his eyebrows creased together in question, truly in disbelief you would offer him such a thing.

“Mhm,” you nodded, “I mean as long as every time feels as incredible as that,” you giggled. “And besides, you’ll get a decent meal at least once a month,” you joked, lightening the mood a little with a cheeky smirk.

Terzo rolled his eyes with a laugh that vibrated his chest beneath you. He shook his head at the absurdity of your offer, no matter how technically practical that sort of arrangement would actually be to a man of his kind.

“Oh, amore… sei davvero una tentatrice (you really are a temptress)…” he grinned, leaning up to capture your lips in a sweet, blood-stained kiss.

A/N: Huge thank you to @her-satanic-wiles for beta reading! If you'd like to leave me a tip, you can do so here.

If you'd like to read any of my other works, you can find them here.