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foundmars · 2 months ago

Text

MY HEART AAAAA

Charm Brought It Back Pt. 4

Reader x Witches!Sun, Moon, & Eclipse

Commission Info

Once more, I return with @jackofallrabbits and I's Hocus Pocus AU, and I'm so excited to introduce @deliasmilkshake's cover art as well! Thank you so much to Delia for their beautiful work! <3 Now we return to the boys hunting down their darling bride while the reader discovers more of what unfolded in the past.

Content Warning: Suggestive themes, heavy kissing, heavy touching, injury, blood, violence, (temporary) animal death, and (temporary) character death.

———

In the far distance, a thick column of gray smoke chimneys up into the night sky, blotting out the light of stars. You look back again. The road has curved and how bends around homes and the beginning of small-town business. Windows are decorated with stickers of pumpkins and cauldrons with glowing green soups, and scarecrows line the corners. The pavement becomes a sidewalk underneath your feet. In an awkward gait, balancing upon the stint of his one leg and his only good foot, Michael stays close beside you.

A tear drips from your chin onto the bloody, dirty fur of the rabbit in your arms. Vanessa’s body is warm to the touch. You clutch her to your chest.

“It’s okay,” Michael murmurs. He lifts a putrid, rotten hand as if to pat your shoulder, but stops and lowers it again. “She’s not dead.”

“Michael,” you half sob, half snap. “She’s not breathing.”

“She will breathe again.” He holds your gaze. Twin pinpricks of white flame burn in his black, sunken eyes. “It’s part of the curse. She can’t die.”

You stare at him, disbelief squeezing your throat. You gently slot your fingers through the soft white coat of the woman who no longer has her own form. The brothers did this. The witches’ curse clench Michael tightly in a dark fist of unholy power. His body has dissolved into a walking corpse.

Will the same happen to Vanessa? Will she now return as a rotting rabbit corpse? Your gut twists at such a thought.

Why can’t the witches take it back? Why can’t they stop and make it right? Is this the reason they were hanged by Michael’s ancestor—because they casted harm upon everyone?

You can’t bear to think of this anymore. The rabbit is small in your arms and you want to clean away the blood drying on her pale fur.

A few cars honks at another. The night is well past the witching hour. The faint pounding echo of music from a party pricks your ears. Hunching over Vanessa, you wonder if she’s ever been outside of the brothers’ home for all the years she was cursed.

Her long ears fall flat against her skull. You gently pet her and whisper an apology. It’s your fault.

You rest your hand over her and weep again, almost stumbling down the sidewalk before Michael pulls you closer to a brick wall of a building. A soft movement pushes back against your fingers. You stop and look down at the rabbit.

Her little torso expands in the slightest, then deflates. Then again. Her body moves with life.

“Vanessa?” You touch her in the slightest. Have you gone mad or is she breathing?

“Augh.” You hear her voice slip out from the rabbit’s mouth. “How did you escape? Is Michael with you?”

In dumb silence, you watch Vanessa lift her head and blink her green eyes up at you.

“Where are the witches?” she asks, terribly serious.

The gears of your mind spin. You’ve read accounts of sickly and comatose people being buried alive through the 17th and 19th centuries. Premature burials. Sometimes, out of fear of the person not truly being passed, bells would be fastened to their fingers with a string so if there were any movement. The ringing struggle would alert any grave attendant or family members nearby that the deceased was, in fact, alive. A few days would be spared to ensure death is final before they would be buried.

But you held her motionless body in your hands. Her body is caked in blood.

“You were dead,” you say, breathless with horror.

“Now I’m not.” Her pink nose twitches. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Are you alright?” Michael’s brow creases in the slightest while looking over her. “That couldn’t have been… pleasant.”

“Dying never is.” She pauses. Her ears prick before falling back against her skull. She presses a paw to your collarbone and pushes herself up in your arms to be face to face with you. A whisker brushes your chin. “Are you crying?”

“No, well, yes, but I was so scared you were gone!” You wipe a hand across your cheek, smearing salty tracks of tears as you try to stop another sniffle. “How did you survive?”

“I didn’t. I died, and the curse brought me back.” Her ears give an annoyed twitch. “Aren’t you listening?”

“I’m sorry.” You bite your bottom lip. You pet her head once. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

She falls silent. The weight of her green eyes falls over you, and for several breaths, she simply stares before the quiet of the street is broken by her small voice.

“When the brothers cursed me, the villagers knew they had done something to cause my disappearance but no one mourned me. I only had Afton…”

Michael shuffles a little closer. You ignore the stench of rotting flesh and hold Vanessa’s gaze. A weariness lays upon her head, a kind of exhaustion that a hundred years of sleep couldn’t cure. More than that, she seems sad and alone.

You hold her tighter.

“I tried to get his attention.” Her eyes slide to Michael for a heartbeat then away again. “He said he could do nothing for me but give me a clean, painless death. I allowed him. He snapped my neck in his hands.”

You gasp sharply. How could he do that so quickly, without hesitation? A sickness swirls in your stomach.

“That’s horrible,” you utter. “He didn’t try to help you break the curse?”

Her paw falls down from your collarbone and she sinks deeper into your arms. She avoids your gaze.

“When I came back to life, I begged for his help. He told me to never return to him again—there is no hope for me and he would not tolerate the presence of dark magic. I would leave or else he would sic his hound on me.” She stops a moment, the silence thick. “He thought his hound’s teeth would kill me for certain. It did not.”

The unmistakable air of shame clings to her small body. Michael’s fists clench as his eyes widen. You catch the grind of his molars through the threads of flesh stretched over his cheeks and share the same fury over such an injustice.

She was his right hand.

“Vanessa…” You touch her little head. “I’m so sorry.”

“He should not have abandoned you,” Michael seethes through his teeth. “Why would he toss you aside so heartlessly?”

Vanessa doesn’t look at Michael, the descendant of the man who betrayed her in her hour of need.

“Afton was right.” Her eyes turn upon you like shards of emerald, glinting in shattered pieces. “The curse can’t be undone.”

“No,” you whisper. “There must be a way.”

Your thoughts spill slowly like molasses. The brothers knew she would come back to life—even if throwing her off the roof is cruel and horrifying. Did they care? Did they think they could have you then if they removed every last obstacle between you?

Are they capable of being better?

Michael turns towards the street, his brow furrowed and his teeth set in a furious grimace. His darkly rotten flesh catches on a yellow streetlight, slashing over the angler cavity where his nose once was. The silence twists into you as you gaze at both of your companions.

They need your help. But how do you undo curses in a night when you just discovered witches and their magic?

“We have to keep moving.” Michael straightens like a soldier, his words faraway while his fists continue to hang at his sides. “Come on. Follow me.”

Further along the pavement, you spy a couple of people walking. You stiffen in place, glancing at Michael in alarm but he nods back at the people. He continues walking forward, undaunted. You follow him closely, peering back at the strangers to find them dressed as aliens and cowboys and devils.

Costumes.

“We can blend in for a while, hide out,” Michael says.

“But…” You look down at yourself, your sweat almost falling off of you due to the tears and holes littering it, and the rabbit in your arms looks no better than a murder victim. Not to mention that Michael is the living dead.

“The witches only have one broomstick left and they’ll have to pick us out like needles in a haystack.” He tugs on your elbow and you follow. Vanessa nestles against your chest, strangely silent after coming back to life. Is that usual for when she resurrects? Is she in pain or does she need to rest after such an ordeal?

Deeper in town, the streets become bustling with people wearing pirate eye patches and waving hooks around, and bad, neon printed 80s costumes. They flow towards a high school, the gym doors held open where you find flashing orange and white lights with a sharp backdrop of music pounding through the air. The threat of a headache scrapes against your temples.

“We just need to hide until dawn. Then they will die.” Michael glances back at you while he drags you further inside, past the doors and into the crowded, stuffy floor of the gymnasium.

Your shoulders sink. Scratching softly at Vanessa’s back, gently scraping away flakes of drying blood, your mind becomes lost in the thunderous overlap of voices and music. Michael keeps weaving through the crowd in a relentless march.

Death sounds too cruel of a fate for anyone. You gently pet Vanessa while she scans the room with a slight alarm. Has she ever seen a modern celebration of Halloween? She may know it better as All Hallows’ Eve. The brothers will be no better in facing such a commotion of shifted cultures and costumes and technology.

The brothers were hanged, and Vanessa remained trapped in a rabbit form.

If the brothers die, Michael and Vanessa will remain trapped in their curses. Your heart is heavy and your feet are slow to keep up with Michael. There must be another way.

The ceremony.

You bump into a person dressed as a firefighter and Michael glances back impatient before he drives you deeper into the gym. He finds a dark space behind the punch bowl table and tucks you both into its shadow. The flare of bright, orange lights dances across your feet before darting away.

A twist in your chest tightens around your lungs and you become breathless. You don’t know what to do. The ceremony could mean giving up your very life to spare the witches of their untimely demise at the bells tied around their wrists. Maybe you can convince them still to give up the dark hold they have over your friends.

You could marry them. You blush softly at the thought, but your insides are knotted and caught in tangled. Can all three of them share you? Would they love you or use you simply to save themselves? Will they hurt your friends again?

Vanessa’s death and revival leaves you raw and thin-skinned, and the night spins you endlessly on uneven footsteps. You hardly notice the spill of fog beginning to sweep over the dance floor. The people in colorful costumes and makeup hoot and holler as the music changes to a slow, haunting speed.

“No.” Michael curses right beside you. “How did they get here so fast?”

Shooting a look at him then following his glance towards the entrance, your entire being grows hot and cold in a snap.

The brothers stand in the entranceway. Their cloaks and capes fall over them, hiding their unusual attire for the era but little masks the strangeness of their disk-like faces and the array of sun rays and a glittering dark hood upon another. They survey the room with a bewilderment that is both fascinating and disgusted. Eclipse stands between Sun and Moon, his head high while his eyes scan the many people, hunting for you.

The breath in your throat hitches. You could tell them that it’s alright, it’s only a festive celebration. It’s become a holiday to dress up and eat sweets and sugars, and have spooky fun and get scared sometimes. Would they understand that? Would it be less frightening and otherworldly to them if you did?

“Michael,” Vanessa hisses. Her little paws press sharply against your arms as if she means to bound away.

“Stay low,” he instructs firmly. “Stay close beside me.”

“Wait, Michael, please,” you utter but he’s already grasping your arm and striding onwards. The music swallows your voice. The pressure of tears builds until you blink and register how wet your eyelashes have become.

There shouldn’t be any more death tonight.

As you’re pulled along like a lost soul, you look back to the entrance way. For the briefest moment, Eclipse skims over the party. You suck in a sharp breath.

He snaps his head, as if called, and locks eyes with you. You startle but can’t look away. The molten hues of his gaze holds you in place like chains. His smile expands to show off a mouthful of sharp teeth as he mouths two words.

Found you.

You duck your head, your heart in your throat, and scurry after Michael. Vanessa wriggles out of your grasp. Jumping to the floor, she hops between people’s feet and stays perfectly close to Michael despite the fog filling up the space and causing you to cough. It tastes fake and syrupy. Did they curse a fog machine? Or is this something more supernatural?

The music begins to murmur and strike strange chords. You twist your head, briefly searching the floor in your confusion for the cause of the thick, velvet smoke. Michael almost knocks into a couple dressed as a bottle of honey and a bee. Vanessa says something, lost to the crowd. The song begins to rise and envelop the room in a haunting echo. Your head begins to swim.

Someone takes your hand. Warm digits wrap claws around the bones of your knuckles and hold tightly. You gasp. In one motion, the dancer slips you out of Michael’s grasp and spins you back into the crowd.

For a heartbeat, Michael whirls around, his eyes, pinpricks of ghostly white, flash to you. Vanessa cries your name. Smoke and party goers cut you off from your friends as you’re effortlessly lifted over the floor.

Lost in a dizzy haze of pale wisps and swinging footsteps, you twist in the hands of your abductor and find an all too familiar crown of yellow sun rays and a beaming, wicked smirk.

“Sun?” You try to wriggle out of his hold but he’s locked onto your hips.

“Hello again, sunshine.” Sun spins you effortlessly, his cape pillowing behind him and summoning more thick fog to cloak you between dancers, stuck fast in the song as if they were sinking in mud, unable to notice the witch slipping his palms higher to hold off your waist. He pulls you flush against his chest. “I adore meeting you like this, but perhaps we might spare the rest of the night for such events? Perhaps after the ceremony.”

Your heart flutters within you like a bird. The heat of his touch sends goosebumps prickling down your flesh as you rest your hands on his shoulders. You look up into his pale eyes with desperation dripping from your every edge.

“Wait, Sun, I can’t leave Michael and Vanessa.” You try to twist back to search for your lost companions but the fog and party lights cutting over the thickness blind you equally.

He bares his pale bone teeth. Effortlessly, he twirls you over the dance floor as your poor feet attempt to keep up. The witch balances the delicate art of keeping you just on the verge of collapse without leaving you embarrassed and fallen. His arm wraps around your waist and lifts your hands above your hand to spin you like a top before reclaiming you once more.

“Of course, you can! Let’s take you far away from all these dreary people,” Sun whispers into your ear. His lips brush the shell of it. Your breath catches. “I will keep you warm. I will keep you safe. I will dance with you forevermore.”

Your lips are locked, caught between pleas to spare your friends of their curses and a temptation far greater. The promise of never being alone. The hope of kindness throughout your days and love throughout your nights. You never realized how cold you were before the brothers traced your body with their hands—how warm another person is when they hold you with care.

“Please,” you whisper. You cling to his shoulders. “I can’t leave them.”

“You will have your husbands,” Sun lifts his head, haughty but steadfast, “You will have me.”

He lowers himself to you and you are caught under his mouth as it travels slowly down your cheekbone. A heat surges through your core. He dots your nose with a peck before his eyes, sultry and softly glimmering, lower to your lips.

“There’s no need to fear now that I have you.”

Carefully, you hold still, waiting for the snap of teeth or the tenderness of his lips Sun slowly, agonizingly closes the gap between himself to you, and his mouth brushes your own—

Hands hook your hips from behind and lift you into the air, twirling you out of Sun’s stunned grasp and then furious gaze. You squeak in alarm. The world spins with music and lights and smoke.

“Brother,” Sun snarls in the way one lion might at another for stealing its meal.

“Share, brother,” Moon speaks as calm as a lake-surface at midnight. “You’ve squandered enough time with your foolish antics.”

Your hands immediately fly to the arms supporting you above the crowd. For one brief moment, you see above the thick concoction of smoke and party-goers and find Michael on the edge of the dance floor, frantically scanning the gymnasium.

You try to lift your hand to signal for him, but Moon sets you back to your feet before you have a chance to regain his attention.

“Come with me, my little mouse.” Moon shadows your back. “It will soon only be us. Alone.”

His hand slips over your waistline. Driven by pure instinct, your fingers curl around his claws while the sleek, sharp tips slide through a hole in your sweater.

“Moon?” You turn your head back, confirming the dancer holding you hostage now. He glides you forward through the crowd. His scarlet eyes are sharp with focus, but they soften the moment they meet your gaze. Weaving through costumed individuals, Moon takes you into a dark alcove along a wall, where the smoke swirls in lazily wisps and the other dancers remain at bay.

“I have wanted for you far longer than tonight.” He gently turns you back to face him and he clasps your hands between his. His black cloak falls against his back like a shield. An unmistakable understanding washes over you: you are safe. Even if you are separated from your friends.

“Moon, I…” Your tongue fails to locate the words stuck behind your molars.

He gently opens your arms and takes you against him. With one hand wrapping around your waist, his other slips up the nape of your neck. He gently cards through the hair at the bottom of your skull in a lulling, gentle motion.

Your eyelids flutter. In your weakness, you rest your head on his shoulder. Moon hums a low, harmonic sound in his chest—a lullaby for a lover. It rumbles sweetly against your heart.

He steps softly, swaying in a sort of moonlight waltz that would be better suited for a homey kitchen than a busy dance party. Regardless, Moon pays no mind to any other bodies in the room.

“Come with us,” he whispers against your hair. “Leave the witch hunter and rabbit.”

Your fingers curl against the soft fabric of his white, billowy shirt. The urge grows stronger still. It could be a fairytale. A Grimm storybook of a lonely historian and three witches.

But you screw your eyes close, and breathe.

“No.” Your footsteps follow his lead so much better, slowly twirling together. “Moon, Michael and Vanessa have suffered enough.”

Moon’s teeth flash like fangs in the dark.

“You don’t know what they have done, what they will do,” he growls so dark and low.

A shiver overtakes you, but you gently lift your head. Moon clutches the back of your neck in the manner of a man fearful of losing something and never getting it back, despite your closeness to his body.

“I don’t know what you and your brothers have done,” you speak softly, truthfully. “I don’t know what you will do.”

A gentleness overtakes Moon. His hand slips up your cheek to cup your face.

“We would never harm you,” he whispers. “I will never hurt you.”

You lift your hand to cup his own. The coolness of his palm cradles you sweetly, a longing tipping his claw as he carefully keeps them from your flesh.

“Brother.” A new voice sounds gently beside you. “Allow me.”

Beside you both stands Eclipse. He holds out a hand. Moon gently nods, but scarlet gaze eyes linger on you with longing as he slowly takes your hand and sets it in Eclipse’s. Moon slips into the supernatural smoke and the movement of bodies enchanted by music. A backwards glance, then he’s gone.

You face your new dance partner. His gaze is golden and gleaming in the dark alcove you’re pressed against. He gently holds your hand up in a proper position of a dance—at least you think so. You’ve never danced with someone before. He touches your waist and on instinct, you place your palm on his shoulder. His black cape swishes gently around him. His crown of red rays circle the air like a king above his queen, and you find yourself blushing under such a thought.

“There were festivals in the village when we were alive,” he says in a low, sweet voice, “We could never attend. Sun longed to dance with others to proper music and Moon could have been compelled out of the shadows for just a night, but the people wouldn’t have us.”

You listen carefully as he swings you gently across the small space. Smoke spills at your feet but Eclipse sweeps it away with the sway of his cape, and endlessly, you revolve together.

“No one would have us. No one would give us a moment to speak for fear of curses.” Eclipse’s eyes lower, and a grim smile touches his lips. “They weren’t entirely unfounded. Afton was right to fear us, but he turned the village against my brothers and I. He accused us of stealing their children.”

A sharp, hidden anger, like a blade sheathed, flashes behind Eclipse’s eyes. Your heart grows heavy while you try to not step on his feet, but he always seems to move his black shoes out of the way before you can.

“Did anyone know?” you ask softly.

There is so much lost to history. Tablets and clay figures and marble sculptures cracked and buried. Letters. The truth.

As true witches, they were framed, used as a scapegoat.

Eclipse softly presses his palm to the small of your back. You step closer. He looks down at you, his golden eyes wide and tittering between dreams and despair.

“No.” He gently steps back to lift your arm above your head and allows you to twirl slowly. An enchanting moment of twisting. Then, you return to him, clasping his hand tightly.

“I’m sorry.” Your fingers curl over the soft fabric of his cape. “So many have been killed because of false accusations or ulterior motives… but I don’t have to tell you that.”

He chuckles sardonically. “No.”

He looks you gently over. He waltzes and you follow him in a small curve of soft steps.

“I was bone scrying one night.” Eclipse sweeps back a strand of your hair from your face, his touch velvet and light. “The villagers’ hatred was growing and I was afraid for my brothers. I needed… hope.”

You close your eyes briefly as he turns his hand, and using the back of his finger, strokes your cheek.

“Then I saw you.”

Your eyes fly open. Brow crinkling, you think of ancient fortune tellers and seers, those who claimed to see what was to come and to promise those who sought their advice that all would be well.

But that is history. This is magic.

Eclipse holds your gaze unflinching.

“You couldn’t have,” you whisper, despite yourself. “I am no one.”

His hands tighten upon you. He stops dancing. Your heart flits within you until he clutches you close in an embrace that melts your bones and loosens your muscles.

“You are everything to us. You are our bride. You are the one who lit the starry candle to save my brothers and I. You are the one whom I love so dearly, and have waited centuries for.”

He bows and presses his forehead to yours. You breathe in a soft gentle musk and spice, and it’s as if you were home. Not your empty, cold house, but home.

“I would wait a hundred more to behold you. I would crawl out of my grave to find you. Little comet, you have been the one light in my dark death, and I will vow myself to you as your husband for as long as you will have me.”

A thickness cakes your throat. Emotion, heavy and dripping, spills into your chest. You clutch his hands.

“Will you say ‘I do’ my bride?”

Everything within you sings to answer him. Your silence paints your lips with faltering and fear. The sting of sorrow in the corner of your eyes begins to wet them.

His claws curl tighter around you. His expression burns low and hot, desperate and fierce.

“Are you not lonely?” he asks in a husky tone. “Do you not understand all that my brothers and I can give you? You will know only love and certainty. You will be warm and safe. You will have all our powers at your fingertips.”

“Eclipse.” You lift your head. A bubbling sorrow overtakes you, and your cheek drips with a tear. “I can’t. Not until Michael and Vanessa are free of their curses.”

The damning of his silence is lethal. Eclipse doesn’t move as smoke wisps by and your heart skips a beat in your rib cage. His eyes are wide and unreadable. They bore into you. You almost squirm but hold fast against his crushing attention.

“Can’t you take away their suffering? Can’t you undo the damage done?” you ask softly, your voice threatening to break. “Please. I will perform the ceremony with you and your brothers before sunrise. All I ask is this.”

A battle unfolds within the witch. His claws twitch and his lips long to curl into a snarl, but he breathes softly instead.

He moves once and presses one soft kiss to your mouth. You close your eyes.

“Very well.” He straightens. He mumbles something low under his breath, overlapping and thick with magic, and you still as he gathers you closer.

You almost can’t comprehend that you’ve agreed to marry the witches.

In the midst of a swell of energy so hot and dark, you wonder if a summer night could be conjured on an October early morning hour, Eclipse lowers his lips to your ear and whispers, “I put a spell on you.”

Your heart thunders. Your fingers twist into the white flowy fabric of his shirt, and the witch takes you into his arms. The fog swirls, beginning to rise and circle you both as if you stand in the heart of a cyclone. Faster and faster still, until you’re forced to close your eyes and hide your head against Eclipse’s chest.

His fingers stroke your spine softly. The air changes, the music ceases, and you breathe in crisp, forest air. You don’t dare open your eyes.

Eclipse hums.

“And now you’re mine.”

#absolutely yes #omg i love #guys i needed this #god that ending was #chefs kiss #mwah #cant wait to see the next chapter :D #aaaaa wedding timeeee #i hope you know im craving a hocus pocus watch everytime i read these lol #dca #others writing

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