#revelation could not undo them entirely because generations had passed. like a thousand years had passed since the punishment

[ranticore]

You mentioned werewolves work a bit differently after Revelation's march... Could you tell me more? :]

i genuinely can't remember exactly what i meant by that!! but i know the general idea

so the overall gist was that at the termination of Revelation's march across the continent, it would have left many dead incapacitated wyrms in its wake, and ended with a battle against its former master, Onozar. Revelation was the ONLY person in the world still able to use magic as it was before the great punishment of the wyrms - the other wyrms' minds were wiped. so Revelation, being the only wizard left, was able to alter some of the punishments to make them less severe and improve the lives of all the other scapegoats who had been held responsible for a disaster which was, to be honest, entirely Onozar's fault (i was being mysterious about it over the summer but yeah. that guy did it)

one of the punishments which was considered especially heinous was the fact that wolfmen were forced to wear Onozar's face. no, not the twinky faces from the linked art, Onozar's real face. his old man face, old wizened etc. it's not a terrible thing to look old of course but when i say all of them wore the face of the person who fucked them over i mean all of them, even the newborns. after Revelation's march, wolfmen were born with masks of their own face instead, and their masks would reflect them more honestly as well as they aged (i.e babies born with baby faces).

[razieltwelve]

Eyes (RWBY AU Snippet)

Dearest Ruby,

There is nothing more terrible than to look into the mirror every morning and know that you are a monster. You can run as fast as you want, but you can never outrun the face you see in the mirror. You can cut and claw and curse, and still that face will be there. Those eyes will be there.

In my younger days, I wondered why the heroes of legend always had silver eyes. What set them apart? What was it about those eyes that made them so powerful? For much of my youth, I scoured the world for every scrap of information I could find.

I wish I had not.

I might be able to sleep at night if I did not know. I might be able to look myself in the mirror without wanting to scream. I might be able to hold you without wondering if I should slit your throat to spare you the horror of what awaits.

The truth is a truly terrible thing. We can hide in lies. We can seek comfort in fairy tales and legends. But the truth permits no distortion. It offers no mercy. It is a mountain standing firm against the howling of the wind, and all the tears and prayers in the world will not move it.

I found out the truth shortly after you were born. It was on a mission to a village that had been reporting strange things, Grimm that no one had ever seen before. So I went because that is what huntresses do. We strike down the Grimm, so that people can live in safety.

When I arrived at the village. I was already too late. All I found was ash and blood, and a trail of corpses that led me deep into a cave that delved into the very roots of a mountain. 

You cannot even begin to imagine what it was like fighting the Grimm down there. The darkness has a way of closing in on you. You start to see things and hear things, and the Grimm seem to be everywhere. You can feel their eyes on you, and you can feel their teeth and their claws tearing into your flesh.

Time passes differently. You fight Grimm after Grimm after Grimm until they all blend together into one vast, hungry conglomerate of teeth, claws, and bone. I might have gone a little mad down there. No. I’m certain I did. How else can I explain why I continued onward instead of turning back.

Finally, I reached the heart of the mountain. And there, before me, was a Grimm unlike any I had seen. It was enormous, a bloated, twisted ocean of warped flesh and writhing bone. A thousand eyes stared back at me, and a thousand mouths gave voice to sounds that had no place in any sane and decent world.

You see, that Grimm wasn’t howling or roaring or baying. No. It was speaking with the voices of countless people. I heard children crying and calling out for their parents. I heard parents wailing and mourning their slaughtered sons and daughters. I heard soldiers curse, and I heard farmers mutter about the passing of the seasons.

So often the Grimm do not leave bodies behind.

In that instant, I saw why.

Lesser Grimm were throwing the bodies of the villagers they’d killed into that vile, hideous, unspeakable thing. I wanted to run, but my body refused to move. From within the ocean of warped flesh came light, the light of Aura. This Grimm, this monster, it had a soul, and not just one. It had the souls of every person who had been thrown into it, a multitude of tortured, wailing souls.

And in the light of those souls, I saw that this was no natural cavern the Grimm had found. It had been hewn out of the mountain by human hands. There, half-hidden amidst the flesh of the titanic Grimm, were the ruins of a city. Broken spires, toppled arches, and long, crumbling walls protruded from its body, and on the walls of the cavern, illuminated in that terrible light, were pictures.

I wish I had walked away then. I wish I had not looked. But I did, and the truth I saw there will forever be burned into my mind.

The Grimm…

The Grimm were not created by gods. They were not an accident of nature. No. We made them. They are our children. I saw on those walls pictures of what the people of that city had done. 

In days long gone, there was war, a great and terrible war. It was waged with powers that would made the earth tremble and the skies burn. Titans of metal and stone raged across the land, and weapons of unholy design boiled away the oceans and the seas.

To win that terrible war, the people of the city designed a weapon. It would warp the souls of their dead and turn them into nightmares made flesh. I had always wondered why the Grimm look like things torn from our darkest dreams. Now I know.

When these first Grimm proved successful in driving the enemy back, they went further, for the Grimm could only be created from the tortured souls of the dead. And the dead, well, they were easy to create. There, on the walls, was the story of what they did.

There were camps, places where they brought the ones they disliked, the one they had not use for, the ones who were expendable. The horrors they inflicted on those people were beyond forgiveness. There are necessary cruelties life, but what they did was not necessary. And in time, they grew to revel in it.

They triumphed, and their enemies became ash on the wind before the fury of the Grimm. Yet some small part of the souls remained, and the Grimm grew to hate their creators. They chafed at their bonds, and then they broke free. Like a verminous tide, the Grimm swept over the empire of their creators. Cities fell. Entire provinces were swamped in blood.

And the Grimm grew ever more numerous. For in their cruelty, their creators had taught them how to increase their numbers. Every painful death, every wail of agony, every unanswered plea for mercy gave birth to more Grimm. And at the heart of the Grimm were monstrous aberrations, roiling, seething oceans of flesh from which new Grimm were born from the tortured souls of the damned.

Yes. That thing… that ineffable thing was one of them, one of the sources of the Grimm.

In their desperation, the empire turned once again to the scientists and wielders of magic that had created the Grimm. They could not kill the Grimm. They were far beyond killing by that point. So they devised a new plan. They took an innocent soul, and they warped it, twisting it until it was almost a Grimm but still barely human.

That soul became a child, and that child became a warrior, and that warrior had eyes of purest silver.

When they sent the warrior out to fight, his eyes blazed like the moon, and the Grimm ceased their fighting in order to obey. What they could not destroy, they would instead control. But they had made a terrible mistake. For a soul so twisted, so warped, could not stay human forever.

Little by little, day by day, every time the warrior used his power to control the Grimm, he became a little less human and a little more Grimm. One day, one terrible day, the warrior looked upon the empire he served, and he saw only prey. Eyes ablaze with that terrible silver light, he gave voice to the collective desire of the Grimm.

“Kill.”

And the Grimm fell once more upon the empire, but this time, there was method to their madness. The warrior had shared his knowledge with them, and they put it to terrible to use. The empire’s defences were overrun, its people were devoured, and the civilisation it had built was forced underground, its last remaining citizens huddling in subterranean fortresses.

The Grimm did not kill them right away. Instead, they laid siege, and one by one, those fortresses fell, their people starving and suffocating in the long, hopeless dark. But elsewhere, there were survivors. Elsewhere, a child was born, one sired by the warrior before the madness in his soul overtook him.

And that child had silver eyes.

We know there are Grimm so powerful they can crush cities. We know there are Grimm so cunning, they can undo even the finest plans our generals make. We have never understood why they exist until now. There, on those walls, was the explanation. When the warrior succumbed to his madness, he ceased to be human, first in mind… and finally in form.

And so it was with all of his descendants.

Heroes, they were called, and the power of their silver eyes was hailed as a miracle.

Those poor, misguided fools. How many civilisations, how many societies had seen their salvation in those silver-eyed warriors only to realise, too late, the horror within them. No wonder the Grimm always win. No wonder one civilisation after another falls.

Only a silver-eyed warrior can hold back the Grimm, but the more they use their powers, the closer they get to becoming Grimm. And when they do turn, all that knowledge, all the trust they’ve been given, all the secrets they know, belong to the Grimm. The Grimm don’t lose. They can’t lose.

And on the cycle goes, over and over and over again.

I have silver eyes. I can stop Grimm in their tracks with them. And I know every important military secret in the world. I know how we plan to stop the Grimm, and I know how our forces are distributed. And every year, they ask me to use my powers to hold the Grimm back.

I never used to mind, but lately, I’ve found myself hating it. Why do I have to keep saving everyone? Why do I have to carry this burden? Can a civilisation that relies so heavily on one person be worth saving? There are days when the anger and the hate are like poison in my veins. I find myself clenching my jaw so hard it hurts, and there are times when my hands shake from the fury.

I don’t want to keep saving everyone. There is a part of me that just wants to watch the world burn. It would be beautiful, a tide of claws and teeth washing over civilisation. Screams would fill the air, and the night would be heavy with the smell of ash and blood. I can almost taste it.

But there is still enough of me that remains human to understand what is happening. I cannot allow it to happen. I will not. Unlike the others, I know about the cycle. I know why civilisations rise and fall with the arrival of warriors with silver eyes. We aren’t saviours. We’re harbingers of doom. Our eyes can’t see the future, they can only bring back the horrors of the past.

Someday soon, it will become too much for me. I will find myself giving in. When that happens, I’ll go on a mission, and I won’t come back. I can’t save civilisation, but maybe I can buy it a few years.

It’s not fair, but the rest, I leave to you. Do not use the power in your eyes. They aren’t a blessing. They’re a curse. I don’t regret giving birth to you. You are truly the one good thing in my life, but do not continue the cycle. One way or the other, whether civilisation wins or loses, it has to end.

Good luck. 

With Great Love And Affection,

Summer Rose

X     X     X

Addendum

Ruby Rose was admitted to Beacon Academy not long after her fifteenth birthday. She is one of only a handful of blind students to ever pass the entrance exam. Although the exact circumstances of her blindness are uncertain, there have long been rumours that her injures are self-inflicted.

When asked about her eyes, Ruby has always firmly maintained that they were the same colour as her father’s. When told that there are pictures of her having silver eyes as a child, Ruby insists that she never had silver eyes. Of course, the question is largely academic. Ruby’s blindness isn’t caused by damage to her eyes. She no longer has eyes. They have been completely removed.

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

Well, here’s something a bit darker and more Lovecraftian. It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to go in that direction, so I thought I’d give it a go.

You can find me on fanfiction.net, AO3, and Amazon.

Definitely check out my Amazon stuff if you enjoy my sense of humour.

[purple-spring]

Tomorrow - a SH fanfic

Author’s Note: This is my first SH fic and I have absolutely loved writing it. While I know that RPF is controversial for some, this was a piece I wanted to write to speculate on how SH began. This is obviously purely a work of fiction, and no offense is intended. Inspired by the following songs: “FOOLS” (Troye Sivan), “Television Romance” (Pale Waves) and “Can We Work It Out” (Gordi). A huuuuuuge thank you to @jandjsalmon and @theladylabyrinth for all their feedback and encouragement!

Summary: Lili and Cole are friends. Really good friends. So what happens when she wakes up next to him on a couch?

“What would it be like to let him in, to let herself love him? What would it be like to take a chance, to abandon her fears and leap freely into the unknown?”

Fic after the cut. Enjoy! And I love love love feedback, so leave me some love in my asks; hate will be blocked and deleted!

What came first was the warmth. A languid, pleasant warmth that reminded her of… of what? Of Christmas morning, she thought, with a sleepy smile. The gentle anticipation. The feeling of being home.

The second thing was her neck. It hurt. It rested awkwardly not on her own pillow but on the flat, firm surface of a couch that was definitely not her bed. She forced her eyes open and squinted against the bright California sun streaming in through the balcony.

Debby’s balcony. She was at Debby’s place. On Debby’s couch. Fuck. Guess I didn’t make it home last night.

She blinked slowly, attempting to rouse from her groggy haze. She’d overslept. Usually she was up by this time, but a few late nights in a row must have thrown her body off its normal cycle. But despite that, and despite the pain in her neck, she realized that she hadn’t actually slept this well in ages – a deep, dreamless slumber snuggled underneath a giant blanket. Maybe that’s why I feel warmer than usual.

Her neck really was killing her, though. She turned slightly to try and crack it, but was startled by something - someone - shifting behind her. An arm tightening protectively around her waist. A hand half-curled underneath her t-shirt, grazing her bare stomach. A sleepy groan mumbled into her hair. And, most tellingly, the faint scent of a familiar cologne cut by the slight undertone of cigarette smoke.

No.

She suddenly remembered.

Cole.

FUCK.

Her stomach dropped. Cole was spooning her. She had fallen asleep with Cole.

If she could have, she would’ve screamed. But she didn’t want to wake him and face the awkwardness of the situation, so she settled for gritting her teeth and shutting her eyes as tightly as she could, until she saw stars. A thousand thoughts streamed through her mind.

Is Debby awake? SHIT SHIT SHIT. HAS DEBBY ALREADY SEEN US?

I should go. Yup. Definitely need to go.

Okay, Lili. Focus. We can do this. But we need a plan.

Maybe I can sneak into the kitchen, make myself a coffee and pretend that nothing happened once he wakes up.

No. He’s not that gullible. He’ll know.

Okay, how about I pretend to fall out and then we can just laugh about it after? Then it’ll all just be a stupid joke, no harm done! Right? Haha.

Oh, god. Fuck. This is the worst. I’m just gonna go home. Screw it if he wakes up. I am not equipped for this.  

Then, in the midst of all the rambling, a traitorous thought.

Or I could stay.  

Her breath hitched at the audacity of the suggestion. She shut her eyes against it. No. No. We’ve been through this, Lili.

She felt her throat tightening, eyes threatening to brim over with tears. Images flashed through her head of the torture she had subjected herself to these past few months - letting herself fall for him and then battling, resisting, attempting to undo everything she felt for him.

Because this was all just so typical. Here, lying down next to each other, without any certainty of what they actually were… it was classic Cole and Lili. Affection without definition. Entanglement without clarity.

She sighed. A sigh that she felt all the way down to her bones.

How did we get here, Cole?

…

The immediate, short-term answer to the question was fairly simple.

Debby, Cole’s friend, former co-star and temporary roommate, had texted her the night before with an invitation to come over for dinner. “Cole’s still out of town so I’m getting the girls together for dinner. You down?” With nothing but ketchup and a bag of frozen peas sitting in her fridge, and with no other plans than hitting up her beloved Taco Bell again, she quickly replied with a grateful “yes”.

Lili had become fast friends with Debby since Cole introduced them to each other. Debby was lovely, down-to-earth and, in all honesty, not at all what she’d expected. If she’d been a psychologist or an anthropologist, Lili would have loved to have analysed both Debby and Cole as outlier case studies for the Disney child star phenomenon. They were both smart, worldly, kind and well-adjusted – totally opposite to the cliché of the bitter, washed-up, cynical ex-Disney kid (although she just knew that Cole would probably pipe up at this and say that he was bitter, washed-up and cynical. And then she’d have to roll her eyes and give him real-life examples of why he wasn’t any of those things. And in the middle of passionately enumerating ways in which he wasn’t bitter, he’d stare at her and say, “Okay, relax, Dr. Phil. I was kidding.”)

Lili hadn’t realized that being friends with Debby, well before anyone else on the cast had even met her, was somewhat significant, until she mentioned it in passing to Madelaine over lunch.

“Wait,” the redhead said in between sips of her smoothie. “So you’ve met Debby? Debby Ryan?”

“Um, yeah. Haven’t you?” While it was true that Cole and Lili had been cast first and had been acquainted since February, the rest of the Riverdale gang were becoming closer and were starting to mingle within each other’s circles.

“No. I mean, I’ve come across Debby at a few parties, but unless you count smiling at her awkwardly while re-applying mascara in the bathroom, then no, I haven’t actually met her.”

“Oh.”

“And I certainly haven’t had Cole introduce me to her.” Madelaine looked at her pointedly.

Huh. That was odd. But of course she’d met Debby. Cole was living with her while he was in LA. And Lili had assumed…

Well, what? That Cole brought all of his gal pals over to his place and got them to hang out regularly with one of his best friends? That this was just a normal occurrence for anyone within his circle?

Yeah, kind of?

She was startled to realize that this wasn’t true. Madelaine had a point - she was the only one. She’d even met Dylan, too. To the outside eye, that was… something. But he happened to be in town, she reasoned. And Cole and I had plans to hang out anyway, so…

“Lils, you there?”

Lili snapped back to attention and quickly changed the subject to cover up her thoughts. She brought up their plans to go bike-riding in Vancouver. In no time, Madelaine was distracted, chattering excitedly in between using her phone to find the best bike rides in the city. Lili contributed to the conversation whenever she had to, but her mind was somewhere else. The rest of that lunch – and every day since then, really – she couldn’t shake off that mild revelation that what she and Cole had wasn’t quite the same as what everyone else did.

…

How did we get here, Cole? Now, the long answer. This was more complicated.

What did she feel for him, anyway? ‘Like’ and ‘love’ were simplistic, overused terms. Of course she liked him. They were way beyond that. Did she love him? She wasn’t sure. This was why she rejected those terms to begin with – they were too vague, too general. They didn’t describe the way she felt whenever she was with him, or away from him.

If she could distil it to its essence, she’d say that she and Cole fit, in a way that calmed and exhilarated her in equal measure. It was easy being friends with him. That part came naturally to Lili. Like laughing at a really good punchline, or breathing in oxygen after being underwater for too long. They knew each other uncannily. They laughed at the same jokes and finished each other’s sentences. She told him once that he challenged her views on reincarnation because surely they’d met in a past life. Soon it became a running joke between them. He even created an entire fictional universe about their past lives as otters living along the Nile River (“That… is so random, Cole.” “Well you try studying archaeology for four years and not having Egypt in your subconscious. Shut up and let me have my otter dream.”)

But then there was also… him. She’d be lying if she said that she didn’t find him objectively attractive. It was disarming, to say the least, even though it lay underneath the rumpled clothes he insisted on wearing, which she didn’t mind. If anything, while his brother and his friends teased him by observing a strict roll call for his small roster of shirts (“It’s Tuesday, Cole, how come you’re wearing the Friday Orange?”), she found it endearing, and it drew her in and intrigued her. He was like a prince in exile, determined to downplay any part of him that referenced his darkly glittering childhood. But that face – the keen, blue stare, the mischievous mouth, the constellation of freckles – could not have been more at odds with the concealment. It was a face that was going to stand out no matter what.

So it was that Lili found herself veering between appreciating their easy friendship and then looking up and realizing that the goofball who was making her laugh was also the same man who could make her heart stop in its tracks.

And he wasn’t helping, either. Sure, there were times when she she felt like nothing more than a pal. Like when he’d throw fries at her head. Or FaceTime her at 3 in the morning to show her a cat he’d come across during a shoot (“Very nice, Cole. Now fuck off,” she had said while he cackled at her groggy face dotted with pimple cream. “IT’S NOT LIKE I WAS PLANNING ON SEEING ANYONE, my god, go away”).

But then, there were other times that made her wonder. Like that time when she mentioned that she’d damaged the original lens on her camera, and woke up one morning to a package on her table containing a newer, much better one, attached with a note simply scribbled “For future adventures -C.” And all the times – she couldn’t have just imagined them, there were too many – she’d catch him staring just a fraction longer, with a small smile playing on his lips.

Those were the times when she’d let her guard down, let herself imagine. What would it be like to let him in, to let herself love him? What would it be like to take a chance, to abandon her fears and leap freely into the unknown?

It didn’t matter, anyway. Because the more these feelings took root in her heart, the more she felt and fretted at the weight of the year ahead. With Riverdale getting the green light for a full season after a successful pilot, they were going to be filming full-time as co-workers. This was her big break; this was his return to the spotlight. There was a lot at stake for both of them, and there simply was no room for this foolishness. She couldn’t risk it. She was just going to have to shut it down and get over it somehow.

For herself. And for him, too.

…

For dinner, Debby had somehow managed to concoct a delicious compromise between her healthy eating habits and Lili’s more decidedly low-brow tastes (“Fish tacos!” Lili had exclaimed. “Deb, this is like if you and I got married and had taco babies”). The night was fun and light, and Lili found that she was enjoying herself more than she had all week.

That was until they heard the front door open and a large bag dropping onto the floor.

“Hey, I was gonna yell, ‘anyone home’, but I think the answer’s fairly obvious.”

Cole made his way into the dining room and they all burst into surprised elation.

Except Lili. She felt like throwing up. Well, fuck. She’d been studiously avoiding him – his texts, his calls, his social media – and now there was barely half a room between them. Right before he left, she had sworn to herself that she couldn’t do this anymore, this complicated dance of intense closeness and uncertain labels that only she seemed to be aware of. So she decided that she was going to use his absence productively, to take some space away from him. Out of sight, out of mind, she reasoned. And hopefully out of heart. The first few days were pure torture, but after managing to keep herself busy and out of the house, she was doing well.

Not anymore. Now, seeing his face, his shirt rumpled from travel, she was falling apart.

Debby got up and gave him a quick hug before looking for an extra plate. “Cole Mitchell. I thought you weren’t gonna be home until Friday?”

“Yeah, shoot wrapped up early. We got most of what we wanted on the first day, and one of the models who was scheduled for a later day managed to free up some time.” He looked around the room and spotted her. His face registered shock, and her heart ached as she watched him trying to contain it. “Hey, Lili.”

Fuck. He knew. Of course he knew she was avoiding him. She heard it in those two words, the measured casualness of his voice, the way he said her full name – Lili – unlike everyone else who shortened or lengthened it to Lils or Lilipad or Lilibeth. And fuck him because he just knew how to play it, how to say those two words so that she’d pay attention to what he was trying to say. Hey, you. Where’ve you been?

“Hey, Cole.”

The room tensed momentarily as everyone caught on to the odd coldness between the two. This was, after all, Cole and Lili. Cole, who knew exactly how she took her coffee. Lili, who’d freely walk into Cole’s bedroom to drag his blanket off his bed whenever she was cold.

Debby cut through the awkwardness. “Uh, Cole, you wanted dinner, right?”

“Yep.” After another significant look, Cole made his way into the kitchen. Lili wanted to sink into the floor. When he came back with his plate, he sat well away from her and started a conversation with someone else. She wanted to leave, but she knew that that was only going to attract attention after their little moment. So she resolved to stay and grit her teeth through it, figuring she’d make her escape once everyone left.

She really should’ve known. She should’ve predicted that Cole knew her too well, was far too ingenious to just let her go. They had already started putting everything away when he piped up. “I feel like watching a movie tonight, guys,” he said. “Anyone up for a Baz Luhrmann movie marathon? Strictly Ballroom? Romeo and Juliet?” He caught her eye. “Moulin Rouge?”

You little shit. She wanted to throttle him. Not only did he know it was her favourite film, he knew that Debby knew it, too. And there was no way she was going to get the opportunity to beg off the night without seeming rude.

Debby lit up. “Oh my god, yes. We haven’t done that in ages. Lil! Weren’t you saying you hadn’t seen that in months?”

Lili looked wearily at Cole. He looked right back at her, a shit-eating grin on his face. I win. She couldn’t help it. She burst into laughter. He did, too.

“Fine,” she said, settling into the couch. “But we’re skipping Strictly Ballroom and getting straight into some classic old-school DiCaprio.”

Cole settled right next to her. With his forelock falling carelessly across his face, a roguish look in his eyes, of course he had to be the very image of Leo himself. Calm down.

He smiled. Her heart stuttered. “Fine by me.”

…

Lili waited for Cole to snark her about ghosting him. He didn’t. If anything, he seemed determinedly normal, whispering random commentary throughout the movie that made her laugh. She wanted to be annoyed. After all, it had taken considerable effort to ignore him all week. But being with him again - talking to him, trading barbs and banter - was like crawling toward sunlight after languishing in the dark.

After Romeo and Juliet finished, Debby’s friends decided to call it a night. Lili got up and stretched. Cole smiled lazily up at her. “Hey, you,” he said. There was something strange about him.

“Hey, yourself,” Lili replied. “You’re in a funny mood.”

“Yeah? What mood am I in?”

“I don’t know, you’re just being weird.”

Cole smirked in reply and shrugged. “You’re staying for Moulin Rouge, right?”

Lili hesitated. She was starting to feel a little tired. “I… don’t know.”

“Oh, come oooonnn. I’m a little jetlagged and buzzed and could probably do with some company, to be honest.”

“You have Debby.”

“Yeah, but Debby’s boring.”

Debby poked her head in from the kitchen. “I heard that!”

“I meant for you to!” Cole quickly ducked as Debby threw a bag of chips at him, then turned to Lili. “See what I have to put up with? You have to stay. Please.”

“Just stay, Lil!” Debby called out. “I’ll whip up some fresh guac for the chips and bring out some chocolate as well.”

Lili sighed and turned to Cole. “Can you at least promise to drive me home if I get too sleepy?”

“I promise.”

What choice did she have? This was Moulin Rouge and Cole. “Alright, you big baby,” she said, laughing at his puppy dog eyes. “I’ll stay.”

…

Moulin Rouge was Lili’s favourite movie and an absolute assault on the sense, but it didn’t take long for her to feel drowsy. She took advantage of all the snacks Debby had laid out in the living room in an attempt to keep herself awake, but all the sugar was just causing her to crash. She needed to lie down.

“Cole?”

“Mmm?”

“I feel sleepy.”

Cole nodded and shifted down the couch to give her space to stretch out. She settled into her new position, tucking her feet under her so he could have some space.

But he gently resisted that, propping her feet on his lap. She would have protested, insisting that he didn’t have to, but soon he was tracing lazy circles on her ankle with his thumb, and she did not have the energy to fight how good it felt, or overthink whatever the hell it meant.

Soon Debby got up from her spot on the floor and announced that she was going to bed. She turned to Cole. “Can you please turn off the lights? And make sure Lils gets home.” He nodded. She and Lili bid each other a sleepy good night, and she retreated to her bedroom.

Cole and Lili stayed still on the couch as the movie kept playing. Lili had no idea what they were watching anymore - she was fighting her sleep, but more than that, she was fully aware that she and Cole were alone together for the first time in weeks. Which she was usually comfortable with. Tonight, however, something unspoken hung in the air between them.

Suddenly, he got up and walked off in the direction of his room. She was briefly startled, until he came back into the living room holding his dark blue plaid blanket, which he’d dragged off his bed. “Here,” he said, throwing it over to her. “I knew you were approximately thirty seconds from whining about freezing your ass off.”

She laughed as he sat back down on the couch. “Oh yeah? And I do this regularly now, do I?”

“Yep. You’ve also made me watch this musical a thousand times, AND” - he covered her mouth with his hand as she started to interrupt - “you’re going to correct me and say, ‘Cole, don’t be a peasant, it’s a jukebox musical, not a musical, and yes there’s a difference.’”

“There IS a difference. And now you know, so I’ve taught you well, young Padawan.” She pulled the blanket over her body and closed her eyes. “What else do I do?” she asked, yawning.

He looked at her for a moment, his mouth opening and closing, as if to measure what he was about to say next. “You go to Starbucks and always get a size too big, and make me drink the rest of whatever sugary confection you’ve ordered that day. Your favourite VSCO filter is C3, even though it’s obviously trash. Your favourite shirts are all white, despite the fact that you always spill something on yourself - case in point, the salsa on your top tonight.”

“Hey, how did you –”

“Also, you suck at driving my Jeep –”

“I can SO drive your Jeep.”

“–you suck at driving my Jeep, no matter how many times I’ve walked you through it.” He laughed, and his gaze softened. “You buy a new notebook every other week because you write prodigiously. You buy yourself flowers every Friday and never make a big deal out of it. And… you can sleep pretty much anywhere, but once your hand touches your cheek, I know that you’re off and definitely dreaming.”

She looked back at him and smiled, already half-asleep. “Nice work. Since when did you know so much about me, Mr. Sprouse?”

He only smiled in reply, obviously proud of himself. She closed her eyes as his hand settled on hers. I can fall asleep like this forever.

Sleep began to overtake her, but not before she felt a slight puff of air against her leg as Cole suddenly lifted the blanket. He slipped his lithe, sinewy frame behind her, his strong arms wrapping themselves around her waist. She froze. She could feel the length of his body against hers and it was slowly obliterating every reasonable thought in her system.

“Cole?”

“Mmm?”

“Are we doing this?”

He nuzzled his face into her hair, his breath warm against her neck. She felt his mouth turn up into a grin. “Sure. Fuck it. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

Every ounce of logic in her body screamed against it. If she was smart, she’d get up and drive herself home. Or demand that they actually talk about this.

But as his hand found the skin under her shirt and settled on her waist, she decided she was with Cole on this one; fuck it.

We’ll figure it out tomorrow.

…

And now tomorrow was today.

Lili lay still on the couch, wanting to smack herself for being so reckless. For letting Cole get to her so easily. He had a knack for wearing down her defenses, but she’d had enough.

She felt him stir against her. “Morning,” he mumbled, his voice low in her ear. “Did you sleep okay?”

She had to keep a clear head. She had to. “I slept… fine,” she replied, keeping her tone flat and even.

“Good.” Cole stretched his arms above him. She silently berated herself for missing the warmth of his hands on her bare skin. “What do you want to do today?”

I want to stay here with you.

I want to run away from you.

Lili sighed, exasperated. She sat up and faced him. “Seriously? ‘What do I want to do today’? My god. I don’t know, Cole. Maybe figure out what the hell we’re doing here?”

Cole’s eyes flew open in confusion. He sat up to face her. “What?”

“You heard me. Don’t pretend this is normal for us. I just…” She paused and pinched the bridge of her nose to stop herself from tearing up. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Cole looked at her steadily. “Do what, Lili?”

She waved her hand frantically between them. “THIS! You, and me, and this indefinable whatever that we’ve been carrying on for months now.”

“‘Indefinable?’ What’s there to define?!”

“Everything!” Lili’s voice caught at that, and her eyes welled up. “The hanging out. The late night phone calls. The constant texts. The random presents. And on top of that, last night and this morning and the fucking spooning. All of that, Cole!”

His eyes stayed on her, his silence willing her to go on.

“I just… I need to know because I need to get away from it. It’s so fucking complicated, Cole. We can’t keep doing this, not when we’re about to work together, and see each other everyday, and god, I like you too much to screw this up. I have no idea where you are, or how you feel about me – “

“Lili.” Cole grabbed her wrists and pulled her close. “Are you… seriously… that ignorant?”

She went still. His eyes searched her, challenging her to respond. She felt naked under his gaze. She knew that every fibre in her being was about to give in to everything she had fought for so long. But could she really allow herself to? She shut her eyes against his stare, attempting to make a last-ditch effort at resistance.

But the tide had turned, and he was already well ahead of her. Because he had already moved in on her, his lips finding her cheek, grazing her cheekbone lightly and leaving every inch undone in their wake. The damp, fervent heat of his breath made her tremble. Slowly, one of his hands released her wrists and moved up to the collar on her shirt, fisting the thin cotton, pulling her closer to him. His lips worked their way down to her sharp jawline, planting a trail of small kisses that ended at the corner of her mouth. He pulled away and looked at her, and the hunger in his eyes took her breath away.

Then he crashed on her like lightning, his mouth feverish-hot and full of need. One hand slid into her hair, making a snarled mess, the other pulling at her waist, bringing her deeper into their kiss. She tasted smoke, felt thunder churning inside of her. She couldn’t help herself - she lifted her fingers to touch his lips as he brazenly explored hers. Just to check. Just to make sure this was real.

And in brief moments of lucidness, between being kissed into oblivion, she knew. That this would be her undoing. That this was creating a need in her that she never knew existed. That if things did happen later on between her and Cole, and if things went bad, that she would do everything in her power to be kissed like this again.

At last he broke away. As she caught her breath, his thumb lingered on her mouth. She opened her eyes and met his, and she couldn’t help it - she laughed. He made a face at her.

“You’re laughing?”

“No. I mean, yes. Not at this. With this, if that makes sense.” Her mind was still reeling, and she could barely explain herself. Later that night, she would recognize that it was pure joy that had spilled out of her; that it reminded her of running downhill, of riding a rollercoaster, of splashing madly into a sun-dappled ocean.

He took her hands and wrapped his fingers around them. “All this time… you never knew?”

“You never said anything, Cole.”

“Lili, you know that I did. Maybe not with words, but I did. I thought you’d have that figured out. I mean… I don’t just introduce Dylan to anyone, you know. He’s usually locked away in a basement. It takes a lot of effort getting him out.”

Lili laughed. And was relieved to realize that this still happened - that they could still joke and banter like they used to.

“But… this past week made me figure that maybe you weren’t getting that.”

“You noticed I was ignoring you?”

“Noticed? You were killing me, Lili.”

She felt guilty. Tentatively, she leaned forward and kissed him as a way of apology. It caught him by surprise, and he lingered over the kiss longer than she had meant for it to last, tugging at her bottom lip before letting go. Over the next few days, she would lose count of how many kisses they’d trade, but in that moment she took note that this was only their second kiss, and already it felt natural to her. “I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted. And, you know, feel free to apologise again, and soon.” He grinned at her.

“So… can I ask? Why didn’t you just come out and tell me all this before it got tense and weird and complicated?

“Well… one, because I thought you knew. I mean, shit, are you even aware that my nickname around this house is Captain Obvious? It’s actually embarrassing.” Lili smiled at that. “And two, because I really was in no rush to define what we were. I mean, why would I need to name it when it was already so fucking good, you know? I didn’t want to jinx it. I’m sorry, that sounds immature, right?”

“No,” Lili conceded. “But I guess for me it would’ve put some parameters on what I was supposed to feel, what I was supposed to do. Because you came out of nowhere, Cole. Like… a cat. A cat getting hit by a car.”

He burst out laughing. “That is the worst comparison. You suck at this.”

“I’m sorry! But it’s true.” She laughed, and looked down at her hands, still enclosed in his. “So… what now?”

“Now?” He shrugged. “I don’t know, you wanna go out for breakfast?”

“Cole.” She levelled a stare at him. “I’m serious.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know, Lili. What are you really asking here? Are you really asking about now, or tomorrow?”

“Can I ask about both?”

“Sure. Here’s my answer to now. I’m honestly crazy about you.” With that, he pulled her in until she was sitting on his lap, and buried his face into her neck, his mouth forming words on her skin. “Every time I’m with you, I can’t decide whether I feel brave, or reckless, or vulnerable, or exposed. More likely all of them, all at the same time.”

She smiled, and turned her towards him so that their foreheads were touching. “And tomorrow?”

“If you’re asking me what the next few months will look like, I… really don’t know.” She nodded and pulled back, a little deflated. It was a fair and honest answer, but it left her feeling uncertain. He noticed her disappointment, and planted a kiss on her bared shoulder. “But tomorrow? You and I have that. I can promise you that.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

She looked at him, traced his dimple lightly with her finger. Tomorrow. Maybe she could live with that for now. Maybe in the face of everything that was about to happen to them - the avalanche of Riverdale and everything that came with it - that small promise was enough.

She just needed to know one more thing. “Cole? Can you promise me something else?”

“Shoot.”

“Can you promise me…” her voice trailed off, and suddenly she felt shy. “Can you promise me that you’ll kiss me again? Tomorrow?”

He arched an eyebrow in surprise, and smirked at her. “Tell you what,” he said. “How about we bring tomorrow forward“ - he leaned in to plant kisses on her chin, her cheeks, her neck - “and figure it out as we go along?”

But as he was teasing her, she was already lost, obliterated - this time, it was her pulling him in. And as he returned her kiss with equal passion, she knew with absolute certainty that this was only the beginning. That they’d be here again many times over. That the future may be unsure, but at least, for now, what they had was real and raw and breathtaking.

Tomorrow was already beckoning.