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choke-me-joey · 1 year

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Eddie Munson x fem metalhead cheerleader

Summary: Based on this - how Eddie met his not so typical cheerleader girlfriend and a little exploration of their relationship.

Content warning: 18+ content minors DNI, smoking, underage drinking, drug use, swearing, flirting, violence, smut.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

The clock struck 7pm and you were stood in front of your full length mirror, inspecting yourself in it. You'd managed to get to the mall the day before and treat yourself (and Eddie) to some new lingerie.

A red lacy bra and thong, complete with garter belt and stockings, something you hadn't really worn before, but for Eddie you wanted to dress to impress. You turn to the side and with your back to the mirror, checking yourself from all angles. When you were satisfied you looked good, you threw on an oversized Slayer tshirt and some sweatpants, wanting to be comfy as you and Eddie wanted to eat and watch a movie when he came over.

Eddie was rarely ever on time, except when it came to you. At 7.30 on the dot, you heard his van pull up in your driveway. Your stomach flipped with excitement as you straightened out your comforter and have your room a quick visual check before bolting down the stairs to answer the door.

"Hey, angel. I come bearing all the shit I need to protect you tonight." Eddie grins as you open the door, and you felt your knees almost buckle. He was so stupidly handsome, with a little backpack slung over his shoulder and carrying a bag which you could only guess contained snacks and beer. "God, you look so fucking pretty."

"I'm in sweats, Eds," you giggle, pulling him into your house and slamming your lips to his. He drops the bag of snacks to bring both hands to either side of your face, kissing you back just as fiercely.

"Beautiful no matter what," he mumbles against your lips.

"Hmm, you're sweet." You kiss his lips softly. "And very, very cute."

"It's all part of the Munson charm, baby." Eddie chuckles, letting you lead him into your kitchen by the hand so he can put the beers in the fridge and snacks on the counter. He lets out a low whistle at your home. "Remind me never to bring you back to my place."

It wasn't much, really it wasn't, but you knew that to someone who lived in a trailer, it was more impressive.

"Hey, if you're seeing my room, I have to see yours, it's only fair." You lean over the kitchen island and watch him.

"Oh, I'm seeing your room, am I?" He grins over his shoulder at you as he puts the beers into the fridge. You roll your eyes, laughing.

"No, Eddie, I'm gonna fuck you on my parents' couch and make you sleep in the bathtub."

"Babe, I sleep in my van more than you know, a bathtub would be fucking luxury."

A few hours later, you and Eddie were snuggled up on your bed watching Evil Dead. Eddie had his back up against your headboard, sitting up, and you were cuddled into him, your arm slung around his slim waist, fingers gently rubbing over a small patch of skin between the hem of his shirt and his boxers and jeans.

As nice as this was, you were really fucking horny, so deciding to be bold, you move your hand around to the front of his jeans, unbuttoning them and slowly lowering the zipper. Eddie sucks in a small breath as your hand dips into his boxers, taking a hold of his semi-hard cock.

He lets out a soft groan as you stroke him, coaxing him to full hardness. You tilt your chin up to him and he leans down to kiss you, his tongue brushing against yours as you continue to stroke him slowly.

Eddie moves, taking your hand out of his pants and pins both of your wrists above your head, moving his body on top of yours, his cock straining against his jeans and grinding up against your own covered crotch.

"Eddie," you whimper as he trails kisses along your jaw and neck. "Wanted to suck you off."

"I know princess, but trust me, I wouldn't last, not with that pretty little mouth around me. Next time, okay? Wanna take care of you tonight. Can you sit up f'me?"

You nod, sitting up and allowing Eddie to take your shirt off. He groans loudly at the sight of your red bra. "Fuck, baby, you trying to kill me?"

"Mm-mm, at least not until you see the rest," you smile, biting your lip as he practically tears off your sweatpants to reveal the panties, garter belt and stockings. You swear his brain flat lines for a moment as he stares at you, mouth open. "Eddie?"

"Jesus H Christ, sweetheart...you're...you're so...fuck-" he can't even get his words out, no doubt all the blood rushing to his cock leaving none for his brain to function. He swallows hard. "So fucking sexy...you did this for me?"

You nod. "Wanted to look good for you, Eds."

"Angel, Y/N, you never have to worry about that, you're the most beautiful girl in the world, and I'm not just saying that because my dick is rock hard for you right now, I mean it." Eddie speaks softly, his eyes focused on yours and you know he means it. You pull him down into another kiss, not as desperate this time, but deep and slow, full of...love? You'd never been in love before, was this how it felt?

Eddie breaks the kiss to sit back on his heels and peel his shirt off. Your eyes travel over his body; he's gorgeous. Not particularly built, but lean and toned with a faint shadow of his abs visible and a delicious V line leading into his boxers and jeans, dusted with a smattering of dark hair below his belly button. You drink in his pale skin littered with freckles and tattoos, your mouth wanting to explore every inch of him.

"Eddie, you're...so pretty."

He laughs in disbelief. "Pretty? That's a new one."

"You are. Sexy as hell too." You giggle, tracing a finger down his chest and stomach to his open jeans, feeling his muscles tensing and flexing under your touch. "These need to come off too, please."

"As you wish, princess." Eddie whips off his jeans, leaving him in blue plaid boxers, his thick cock imprint visible against the thin material. You can't help but stare. "See something you like?"

You reach out and grab his cock, making him exhale sharply. "I see something I want."

"Patience, baby, let me love on you a little first. Wanna see what you're hiding under these cute little panties. What was it you said earlier? You've seen mine so I see yours, it's only fair." He smirks, gently prying your legs apart. His eyes go straight to your lace covered pussy and the obvious wet patch on the red material. "Fuck, baby, you're practically dripping."

Eddie cups your pussy through your panties, grinning like a damn wolf as you buck against his hand and whine. He pulls the underwear to the side, running a finger over your slit, gathering your wetness. He brushes over your clit before retracting his hand, sucking his finger into his mouth, moaning at the taste. "So fucking sweet. Gonna eat this pussy until you cum on my face, okay princess? Then you can have my cock."

You moan at his words. Eddie lies down, face to face with your pussy. "Such a pretty pussy, baby. Prettiest I've ever seen." He then licks at your hole, and you squeal and grab the bedsheets in your fists. Eddie smirks to himself, licking his way to your clit, which he starts to flick at with his tongue whilst gently pushing a finger inside you. You shiver; his finger is thick, filling you in a way you'd been aching for but never had felt before. Once he's satisfied that you're able to take one finger, he pushes another in, angling them to find that spongy spot inside you.

"Eddie!" You gasp, and he internally high fives himself. There it is. He strokes at your gspot, his tongue working over your clit, alternating between licking and sucking. Your hand flies to his hair, grabbing a fistful of curls and pulling. He can't help the groan that escapes him and he has to grind his cock into your mattress to relieve some of the aching. "Eddie, oh my god, don't stop, don't stop, gonna cum- oh, Eddie!!"

You cum with another moan of his name, pussy fluttering around his fingers. He sees you through it, keeping up the same pace with his fingers and tongue until you're pushing him away. He takes that as his opportunity to pin you down to the bed, fingers fucking into you harder and tongue not leaving your clit.

"Eddie, stop, stop, too sensitive! Feels weird-"

Another internal high five. He didn't have much experience, but he had enough to know that when a girl says it feels weird, he's on the right path to blowing their fucking minds.

"Oh god, Eddie, please, I-I-fuck!" You scream, Eddie moaning just as loud as you as another orgasm hits you, more intense this time and you feel a small stream of liquid leave you, soaking Eddie's face. This high is different, you feel it fucking everywhere and it knocks the wind out of you, leaving your body shaking.

"You still with me, baby?" Eddie asks as he sits up, your juices covering his mouth and chin. "You good?"

"What the...what the fuck was that?!" You gasp, body still twitching with the aftershocks. Eddie laughs.

"That, princess, was you squirting. Fucking soaked me, naughty girl. First time?" Oh, he's so fucking pleased with himself right now, not even trying to hide the smirk.

"I didn't even know I could, I've never...not even by myself...oh my god!" You yank him down to kiss you, not even caring about your own taste on his lips.

"You are so fucking hot when you cum," Eddie mumbles, and you feel him unclipping your stockings. "Now, as much as I love this outfit on you, princess, it's getting in the way, so-" he rolls down the stockings, then the garter belt and finally your panties, throwing them somewhere in your room. To help, you unclasp your bra and follow suit.

Eddie growls, mouth going straight to your tits, flicking his tongue over your pierced nipples. "Been wanting to get my mouth on these ever since the other night. So fucking sexy."

You sigh happily as he plays with your nipples for a moment, but then you get impatient.

"Eddie, want you to fuck me." You whine, wrapping your legs around his waist and pulling him closer to you.

"Okay, okay, baby, let me go get a rubber okay?" He rolls off the bed, quickly rummaging through his backpack. He produces a small foil packet which he places between his teeth before climbing back up onto the bed and inbetween your legs, shucking off his boxers. His cock hangs heavy between his legs, and you don't miss the fact that he's had to buy the larger size condoms for this. You're not surprised though, it's bigger than any cock you've ever seen. He quickly tears open the packet and rolls the condom down onto his cock, giving himself a few tugs before lining himself up with your entrance, the head just barely pushing in. You hiss at the stretch. "Wait, you're not a virgin, are you?

"Eddie!" You groan. "No, I'm not, I can handle it, okay?"

"Alright, just checking, I don't wanna hurt you." Eddie pecks your lips sweetly. "Ready?"

"If you don't do it, I'll do it myself," you say, desperately writhing on the bed. Eddie chuckles at your desperation, capturing your hands in his, both of you looking into the other's eyes as he pushes himself further into you. Your eyes flutter in pleasure.

"Keep those pretty eyes on me, baby." Eddie whispers, a hitch to his voice as he feels your pussy stretching around him. You do as you're told, not allowing your eyes to drift from his. He slowly fills you, your breath trembling. When he bottoms out, you both moan softly.

He leans down and kisses you, slowly, deeply, passionately, not even moving inside of you. Just allowing you to feel each other properly for the first time. It's so different to how you thought it would be. It's tender, sweet, romantic even. It's like nothing you've ever experienced before. You feel a pull in your gut which makes you hold on tighter to Eddie. You don't even notice a tear has rolled down your cheek until he wipes it away, a look of concern on his face. "Hey...you okay?"

You nod. "Yeah, I just...Eddie, I-"

"Me too." Eddie knows exactly what you're trying to say. You smile, hastily wiping your own eyes. "Want me to move?"

"Please?"

And he does, god he does. Slowly at first, dragging his cock in and out, grinding against your sensitive clit as he moves. His mouth never leaves yours, swallowing your moans, muffling his own and whispering praises to you, how you were so beautiful, so perfect, felt so good, like heaven around him.

You never liked the idea of lovemaking, thinking of it as cliché and disgusting. But this, with Eddie, was far from it. It was perfect.

Eddie moves a little faster, making sure every push of his hips was angled perfectly for you. Your pussy tightens around him, that familiar coil in your stomach winding up again. Your nails start to dig into his shoulder blades and he reaches down between you, rubbing his fingers over your clit in quick circles.

"Need you to cum for me again, princess, okay? Wanna feel you cum on my cock."

"Yeah, yeah, Eddie, please, so fucking good," you whimper, your back arching as your orgasm hits you again. Eddie groans at the feeling of your walls clamping down on him.

"Shit, baby, you feel so fucking good," he grits out, taking fingers off your clit and putting your legs over his shoulders, leaning further over you. "This okay?"

"God, yes, Eddie, want you to fuck me, wanna feel you cum inside me." You whine and he practically growls in response.

You yelp as Eddie fucks into you hard and fast, his cock ramming into your cervix causing a feeling of pain dulled by pleasure the bloom throughout your body. He was so fucking deep you felt like he was in your throat, hitting spots inside you you didn't even know existed. He presses forward, folding you in half like a fucking deckchair, driving his cock deeper and harder into you. He leans down and kisses you, sloppy and messy and delicious.

Now this was fucking.

"Gonna cum in this perfect pussy," Eddie grunts, sweat rolling down his temples, his chest and face flushed a beautiful shade of pink. "Fuck, Y/N, baby, gonna cum so fucking hard."

"Please, Eddie!" You moan, your pussy clenching around him at his words which only made him moan out louder. "Want you to cum inside me-"

"Shit, yeah, gonna- Fuck!" Eddie slams his cock inside you once more, his face scrunching up in bliss as he fills the condom. You mewl appreciatively at the twitches of his cock inside you, running your fingers gently over his back as he comes down from his high, slowly thrusting in and out until the feeling becomes too much. Your legs drop from his shoulders, wrapping around his own legs and he drops his body onto yours, his head burying into the crook of your neck.

You smile as you feel him place little pecks on your skin, still inside you not wanting to break the connection yet, as you gently play with his hair. A few minutes comfortable silence passes and Eddie props himself up on his elbows, smiling down at you.

"Hey, beautiful." he says softly, brushing some hair away from your face. You smile back.

"Hey yourself, handsome."

"So, that was...pretty fucking great."

"Same here, Eddie you're...amazing." You gush. He scoffs.

"Please, sweetheart, that was all you." He says stifling a yawn. He rolls off you, pulling off the condom and throwing it into your trash can. You yawn as well, snuggling back into him. "Whaddya say, pretty girl, wanna take a power nap and go for round 2?"

"Round 2, 3, maybe even 4 before the night's over, Munson, I still need to blow you." You smirk, teasingly biting his nipple.

"Well, what kind of guy would I be to deny a lady's needs?" Eddie laughs, kissing the top of your head as you watch the credits for Evil Dead rolling up the screen of your small TV, your eyes slowly growing heavier in the arms of your...Eddie.

Maybe that was a conversation for tomorrow morning.

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2aceofspades · 8 months

Note

*slides into dms with fanfic*

It is two in the morning as of writing this but I am only capable of writing around this time (just as a warning; mistakes maybe inbound [':<)

Hope you like it!

-----

"AAAAAAAAAAHH!!!"

Screams were a normal occurence in the apocalypse, but never had Mikey heard a cry so raw and gutteral. What was more concerning was the source of that scream, one that shook him to his very core because of how familiar yet foreign the voice was.

Even as a little brother, he was still a brother.

Bounding off the walls with restless energy, Mikey dashed into the infirmary. There were snippets of conversation that he could barely register his panic, but he threw the doors open. The wind knocked silence into the room, his hair and cape fluttering in the air as Mikey called out for his brother.

There, Cassandra and Leo were sitting in front of each other, bearing different levels of stunned silence at Mikey's entrace. It didn't matter though.

Cassandra pulled away, and Leo held onto the bandage... where his arm was.

"Mikey..."

"I- I h-heard screaming."

Mikey approached Leo, seeing his older brother so unsure of himself and in such rough shape only made his heart shatter more. He did his best to piece himself back together. Mikey wasn't the oldest, but he still had to be a brother.

A brother of four... Now in the apocalypse, where they all had bigger things to worry about than themselves. Age roles don't matter now.

"The effects must have worn off by now..." Mikey mentioned matter-of-factly, more to distract himself than Leo. He reached his hand out to rest a hand on his head. "Hold still for a second."

Leo looked away, hiding... He was always hiding. Spitefully, he let himself simmer for not being at the nexus of Leo's cry for help--where his brother was always putting on a face for everyone and reserving such agony for those who were closest to him. Though nowadays, even around his family, Leo seldom ever let the facade drop.

But no point in dwelling now--there were other matters to tend to.

"It might feel a little funny..." Mikey let a smattering of Doctor Feelings come out; just enough to convince Leo to calm down, "Just relax, okay?"

Mystic magic coursed through his veins, ninpo ebbing at his form and warping out of his hands to Leo's form. The latter struggled, winced, hurt. Hell, his powers were beginning to take a toll on his body. Healing that used to come easy to him caused him to struggle, his vision going blurry and focus becoming difficult to maintain.

Even worse were the flood of emotions he felt coursing through his body, the give and take of ninpo with Leo--letting Mikey feel the snippets of regret and injustice his brother felt.

A wince.

"I know..."

A hiss.

"I know..."

A quiet plead.

"I'm almost done."

Leo was moving--his energy began to wane and his concentration began to falter.

"Leo, please..."

His connection to his power felt like gathering water with his bare hands. He couldn't balance Leo completely anymore. Or rather, Leo wasn't trying to sit upright anymore.

"Just..."

Just as the last remnants of mystic magic left him, he felt it. The agony, the pain, the burden. All of it for a split second came rushing through Mikey's body.

"Hold..."

His vision and bearings returned to him, and then he felt a weight on his shoulder. A desperate hand clung to his cape, a familiar dampness slowly staining the fabric.

"O-on..."

He was paralysed; unable to comfort him, but unable to leave. Mikey was just a brother, and his brother needed him.

Bro-

H-hooOow?!??

This is like...scary accurate oh my STARS 😭😭

I am...beyond words like...this is beautiful I feel so honored and undeserving like haawwuhhgh-

Thank you so much seriously I can't thank you enough I am in awe of your talents 🙌✨!!! I love it I love it I love it!!! GAH!

#ace answers #this is so surreal oh stars #i am eternally grateful waaah!#thank you again so so much ohmigosh you're amazing!!! 🙌🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🙌#:)

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bbangsoonie · 2 years

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days in memory

member: jaehyun (hyunjae) genre: angst word count: 3,385 synopsis: jaehyun reminisces the past as he longs for you and his youth

The bear keychain bounced against your backpack as you ran ahead. The wind blew strands of hair into your face but your smile remained unfazed.

“Come on, slowpoke!” you teasingly yelled.

Jaehyun watched you from the window. His apartment was only a floor up from the ground, meaning he could converse with you from the comfort of his bed.

“What are you up so early for?” he grumbled, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

“It’s the first day of senior year, Hyunjae,” you grinned.

Hyunjae was the nickname you gave him since the start of your friendship. There were too many Jaehyuns at your school and you wanted to specially differentiate him from the others.

“Yeah but you’re like 20 minutes early.”

“I wanna be the first to choose a seat!”

“Good for you. I don’t care where I sit, so I’m gonna sleep in a little more.”

“You’re really not gonna come with me, Hyunjae?” your expression was a mix of pouting and huffing.

“We’re literally in the same homeroom for the 6th year in a row. You’ll survive 20 minutes without me,” he rolled his eyes as he climbed back under the covers.

“Don’t complain about your seat later!”

Jaehyun gasped as he jolted awake. Glancing at the clock, he sighed.

7:12 AM.

Every year on this day, his body woke him up at this time with the same dream. Or was it a nightmare?

With a grunt, he got up to start his day.

He began by turning on all the lights to rid the place of any darkness. It was a habit he picked up over the years. He couldn’t explain why it brought him comfort. It just did.

Trudging over to the bathroom, he relied on muscle memory to go through his morning routine. He blanked out until he was done freshening up.

Staring at the empty fridge in front of him, another sigh escaped his lips. He had forgotten to go grocery shopping last week.

He threw on a hat and slipped into a pair of worn out sneakers to head out to the nearby mart. It was a small family-run shop located in front of a bus stop.

As he was looking at the cases of water bottles placed outside, he heard footsteps rush by him. The noise made him turn around, catching sight of two teenagers running towards the departing bus. They were a second too late, causing them to groan in frustration.

“Kim Sunwoo, this is all your fault!” the girl accused.

“Me? Oh yeah because I’m the one who spent 15 minutes putting on makeup,” the boy retorted.

“15 minutes is really short for makeup!”

“Whatever. Now we’re gonna be late for school.”

Jaehyun eyed the uniforms they were wearing. Hanlim Arts High School. His alma mater.

He almost chuckled at what seemed to be a familiar scene. You used to always blame him for being late. Even if he was ready and waiting outside by the time you ran out the door with your bow in your hand.

When the bus inevitably passed you two by, he would help you put the bow on as you waited for the next bus to arrive. Bickering all the while.

The old lady’s voice snapped him back to reality. He quickly picked out some things before paying and leaving.

Just like the passing sunset Memories of being immature and innocent They make me stop in place And draw out the days in my memory

By the time Jaehyun left for school, it was raining. It was a complete change of weather that caught everyone off guard. Wondering if you made it to school dry, he grabbed an extra umbrella for you to use on the way back home.

The sky angrily greeted him with a thunderclap. It nearly made him jump in surprise.

“Better hurry up to meet Y/n before she starts crying,” he mumbled to himself as he made a run for the bus stop.

You were terrified of thunderstorms. The loud noises made your heart race and your body tremble. Only Jaehyun took to comforting you without making a snide comment about your fear at the age of 17.

He anxiously waited for the bus that was delayed by the sudden downpour. He barely managed to squeeze inside before the doors closed tightly behind him.

Unluckily for him, he arrived at the school gate 10 minutes late. The dean shook his head as he handed him a detention slip, to which Jaehyun whined at.

“Come on, Mr. Choi, how could I have prepared for the storm that wasn’t even predicted by the weather app?”

“Hurry up and go to class. You’re already late and you’re getting wet.”

With an exaggerated sigh, Jaehyun begrudgingly complied.

When he finally made it to the classroom, the teacher was in the middle of introductions. Sheepishly apologizing, he scanned the room for an empty seat and made a beeline for it.

It was straight in the middle. Literally in the middle of the front and back rows as well as the left and right rows. Your voice nagging at him to not complain echoed in his head. He could already picture you snickering at him.

Except you weren’t.

He looked around but couldn’t find you. Puzzled, he wondered if you tricked him into thinking you were in the same class as him.

“Y/n?” the teacher called out.

When you didn’t reply, she looked up from the roster and eyed the empty seat in the front.

“Absent,” she said as she checked off your name on the sheet.

“Excuse me?” Jaehyun found himself raising his hand before he even realized it. “There’s no way Y/n is absent. We live in the same apartment complex and she left for school before I did.”

“Well, she’s not in her seat so that makes her absent.”

While the teacher continued to take attendance, Jaehyun pulled out his phone and hid it under the desk to text you.

After asking about your whereabouts, he asked if you were okay amidst the thundering. When you didn’t respond to his messages, he began to worry.

He snuck out at the end of first period to go to the bathroom to call you. It rang until it reached voicemail. Now he was really worried.

You were a nerd who was excited to pick your seat in class. Not the type to skip school on the first day.

After 3 missed calls, he hesitated to call your mom. What if he was just overreacting? What if you had finally decided to rebel a little for the first time in your life and he would be the one to ruin it?

His fingers fidgeted in contemplation, hovering over the phone screen.

“Whatever. She’s tattles on me all the time,” he decided as he looked for your mom’s number.

“Jaehyun?” Jacob waved his hand in front of his friend’s face. He looked over to Younghoon, who shook Jaehyun out of his memory.

“You okay?” Younghoon asked carefully.

“Y-Yeah, sorry,” Jaehyun apologized as he poured himself another drink.

His friends stared at him with concern in their eyes. Sensing this, he looked up and forced a laugh.

“Really. I’m fine,” he lied.

He wasn’t fine. Everyone knew that. And he knew that as well. If anything, he was trying to convince himself more than others.

“We can talk about… what happened, you know,” Younghoon assured.

“Today marks 3 years, right?” Jacob sadly recalled.

Jaehyun’s jaw clenched at the mention of the incident. His attention turned to the raindrops hitting the window outside. The forecast had warned him of a storm.

When it began to thunder, his heart ached in memory of you. Unable to bear it any longer, he excused himself from the table.

He stepped outside in hopes of clearing his head. The canopy roof did little to protect him from the rain. It did, however, hide the tears that escaped from his eyes.

With the sound of the raindrops as my companion I used to fall asleep during those endlessly happy times I’m thinking about those days with tears

4 days had passed since your disappearance and the entire town was thrown into a panic. After you were reported missing, the community came together to look for you.

Jaehyun was summoned to the police station for a witness statement. He wanted to do everything he could to help but his last encounter with you haunted him.

“You’re really not gonna come with me, Hyunjae?” your voice lingered in his mind.

“You’ll survive 20 minutes without me,” his own voice mocked him.

If only he had gone to school with you that day. If only hadn’t chosen a mere 20 minutes of sleep over his best friend. If only he wasn’t late and had noticed you were gone earlier. If only he had immediately called for help.

Such regrets consumed him as the cops around him were busy picking up calls and having emergency meetings. One got away from the chaos long enough to finally take his statement.

“I have here the first communication we had with you on the day of Y/n’s disappearance,” the cop said as he flipped through pages. “You were the last person to see her.”

“I told another officer exactly what happened that day,” Jaehyun’s head hung with guilt.

“Yes, we just need a little more insight into Y/n’s personality and life to fully rule out a couple of scenarios. And maybe retracing your steps could help you remember an important detail.”

“She would never just take off without a word. She’s always been mature and responsible. She’s the one who drags me to school and even left early for the first day because she was so excited for our last year of high school.”

“And you don’t know of any changes or new issues she had?”

“There’s absolutely no possibility of her hiding anything from me. She’s the type of person who just has to share whatever’s going on in her life. She also hates being alone so she wouldn’t wander off by herself. If she wanted to go somewhere, she’d beg me to go with her and if she was planning to go somewhere, she’d brag about it to me.”

He felt hopeless as he watched the older man in front of him write everything down. How would this information be of any use?

“Is there anything that would help identify any traces of her?” the officer asked.

“She has a scar above her collarbone from a surgery. A-And she jokes about how she sheds more than a dog because she always leaves a trail of hair behind. Could a police dog maybe find her through that?”

“I don’t know about that, kid,” he sighed. “We have some stuff we found on the path you two normally take to school. Could you come with me to see if you recognize anything to be her belongings?”

Jaehyun nodded before following him to the evidence room. He felt a chill run down his spine the moment he entered.

He put on gloves and began looking through the items. A broken lipstick. A notebook. A hair pin. A reusable water bottle.

Then he saw it. The bear keychain he gifted you on your first Christmas together.

With a shaky hand, he reached into his pocket to pull out his own matching keychain. He compared it to the dirtied one on the table.

A wave of dread dropped his body to the ground. Before he could hear the cop yell out for help, he lost consciousness.

Jaehyun still had the bear with him every second of every day. It symbolized a lot of things. Seeing it gave him hope. Holding it made him feel like you were still with him. Talking to it eased a tiny bit of the pain in his heart.

He was doing all of it back at the table in front of Jacob and Younghoon. Drunk, of course. His sober self would never let his friends see this vulnerable side of him.

“You’re playing a very cruel joke on me, right?” he chuckled, petting the bear’s head. “Well, the joke’s been running for quite a long time now. It’s not funny anymore. In fact, it never was. But if you come back, I’ll forgive you for it.”

Jacob quietly emptied Jaehyun’s glass into his own. Any more alcohol in his system would certainly cause a scene.

“Or are you mad at me? Did you decide you no longer wanted to be friends?” Jaehyun pouted.

It took every ounce of will in Younghoon to hold back his tears. Jaehyun was the only one who never moved on from that day. He still believed that you were alive.

“If not that, what else could it be?” Jaehyun frowned as he tried to come up with an answer.

“Jaehyun-”

“See that? It’s always Jaehyun, Jaehyun, Jaehyun. No one calls me Hyunjae anymore. How irresponsible of you. You came up with the nickname so you gotta keep it going.”

Younghoon had to step out after that. He didn’t have the confidence to choke back his cries anymore.

He and Jacob also lost you back then. He was closer to you than Jacob was, but the 4 of you were close nonetheless.

Your disappearance took a toll on everybody. Everyone mourned and felt a hole in their lives. But Jaehyun had it the hardest.

He blamed himself and spent a whole year relentlessly searching for you. He was burnt out and devastated by the end of the second consecutive year of grasping for straws. Entering the third year, his coping mechanism switched to convincing himself that you weren’t gone.

The image of the bear keychain swinging off your backpack flashed in front of his eyes every time your name was brought up. And each time, his hand reached inside to squeeze his own bear keychain.

“Not very “best friends forever” of you to leave me hanging like this, Y/n!” Jaehyun’s voice raised, drawing attention from neighboring tables.

Jacob took this as his cue to take him home.

“You think she went to Australia without me? She wanted to go for like years. Maybe she just dropped everything to study abroad there? Or maybe she went to Canada! She loved hearing you talk about Toronto.”

“Let’s get you home, Jaehyun.”

“Call me Hyunjae.”

“Okay, let’s go home, Hyunjae.”

Covered by the traces left by time Will I be able to find the days of my youth? The stars in the night sky that shined on me Are they still in the same place?

A funeral was never held for you. Like Jaehyun, your family refused to believe the worst. They left your room untouched, entering it only to keep the dust from piling over your stuff.

As months went by, the “missing” posters faded in color and nature started taking them down one by one. Your case went cold and your whereabouts remained an unsolved mystery.

Despite all that, Jaehyun persistently went around neighboring areas to put new posters up. Almost all local businesses knew him and had a poster hanging in their store.

Like that, he grew older but your smiling face in the picture didn’t. Your social media accounts stayed the same, offering minimal solace.

He looked through your old posts, reminiscing. His favorite was your most recent one—or rather, your last.

It was a photo dump on Instagram, highlighting your last summer together. The two of you hung out nearly every day. That year, you went to Everland, the beach, and Gyeongju.

Now, he could only bitterly smile at the memories.

The first New Year without you broke a lifelong tradition. Your family and Jaehyun’s family usually spent the holiday together but that year, it was different for obvious reasons. He expected that.

What he didn’t expect, however, was an email from you.

His heart dropped at the sight of your name in his inbox. He had to pinch himself to make sure it wasn’t a dream.

“Hi Hyunjae! Wow this is weird and embarrassing. I really hope my future self doesn’t regret this. I scheduled this email to automatically send at midnight. Why? Because I’m a scaredy-cat who can’t bring myself to confess. Everyone around us keeps telling me how painfully obvious it is that we both like each other. Yet I still can’t find the courage to say the words just yet. So this is a time bomb I’ll have to dismantle before the new year comes. If our friends are wrong and you actually don’t have feelings for me, then uh this is awkward. And New Year’s breakfast will be really awkward. If you feel the same way, wear a purple shirt in the morning. If not, wear black. Wear any other color and I’ll kill you for you confusing me.”

He laughed and cried at the same time. He didn’t think that was possible.

Once the initial shock wore off, he completely broke down. The sobbing shook his entire body and his heart physically hurt.

He wore purple on the first of every month since then.

Jaehyun woke up with a throbbing headache. He groaned, kicking himself for the consequences of his own actions.

He dragged himself to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of cold water. He gulped it down in seconds and let out another groan before plopping his torso onto the counter.

After staying like that for a bit, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and started scrolling through pictures. A soft smile rested on his lips as he picked out that week’s highlights to compile into an email.

With 5 photos attached, he began to type out a letter.

“It’s officially been 3 years, Y/n. 3 years without you feels like 30 years. The first year was full of desperation. The second year was when despair started to kick in and I became a little delusional. Even now, by sending you these emails, I convince myself that you’re out there somewhere reading them. Or that they’ll be here for you to catch up on missed times when you come back. All you need to do is come back. Everything is exactly how it was since you disappeared. Your parents keep your room clean and I have all these photos and updates for you to know that not a day went by without me thinking of you. Best friends forever means forever. Forever means I will wait for you until you’re by my side again. I believe that just as much as I’m searching for you, you’re also trying hard to come home. So please don’t give up. I won’t either. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, though sooner is better. I miss you and I love you so so much. I won’t be at peace until I’m able to say it to you in person.”

After hitting “send,” he stared at the suit hanging up. He had left it out in preparation for his internship the next day.

The image of you in your school uniform haunted him each time he saw himself in formal wear. He was aging in the mirror but you remained a student in his memory.

He didn’t get to see you graduate. He didn’t get to see you go to college. He didn’t get to see you get a job.

Time stood still without you. He looked at your pictures every day to make sure your face never became fuzzy.

He was riddled with guilt but made the decision to live to find you and to build a life for you to come back to. He went about his daily routine but at the end of the day, you were the last thought on his mind.

Today was no different.

He pulled himself together to get ready for class. He never missed or was late to school ever since that day.

“I’ll see you later, Y/n,” he smiled at the framed photo of you two before grabbing his things and leaving.

My dreams of my first love are far away now But my heart is still the same The flowing tears are asking me Can’t I go back to those times?

tag list: @wooyoung-a @cloudskyu @bb-fic-rec @junjungsunwoo @karsohn @changmin-wrlds @jwnghyuns

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amjustagirl · 2 years

Text

chapter 2: it’s snowing in summer

chapters: 2 / 15 pairing: miya osamu x f! reader genre: romance, angst, fluff, inarizaki shenanigans wc: 4.2k summary: miya osamu does not dare set fire to his heart. it burns anyway.

(prev / next)

No one wants to be woken up in the dead of the night, let alone by a phone call from the fire department, of all places. You bolt upright when you’re asked to confirm that yes, you are indeed the legal owner of a shop along Fuchimimachi street, and your suspicions are confirmed when the tired sounding fire official on the phone informs you that the shop you own has been the scene of a fire.

“Was anyone hurt?” you ask, all signs of sleepiness gone.

The fire official sighs before telling you your tenant was hurt in the blaze.

Miya Osamu.

You recall his name from the lease documentation he’d signed, your property agent who’d handled the entire rental process gushing that he’s such a good-looking, well-mannered young man. Your curiosity wasn’t piqued at that point, not when you were just relieved to get the shop off your hands. You’d never even checked out the store after he took over, leaving it in the good hands of said agent - but he’s never given you trouble. Always paid the rent on time, no complaints from the neighbours, he fit into the old neighbourhood just fine.

No longer drowsy, you clamber out of bed. Mechanically, you brush your teeth, even though you’ve just brushed it no more than three hours ago. Shrug on your light coat meant for cool summer nights, call out you’re off even though all you’re leaving behind is an empty apartment meant for three, not one. As you make your way to the shop by foot - it’s not terribly near, but the buses have stopped running a while ago, and there’s no way you’re able to fall back asleep anyhow, you text your property agent. There’s work to be done, insurance to be sorted out, but before all that you want to see what’s become of your shop.

There’s still lingering smoke in the air as you approach the familiar street. Firefighters and police officers putting the last touches to the cordon around the area. You run an appraising eye over the building. The structure seems intact, the front of the store relatively unscathed, but as you walk into the alley behind, you can see the kitchen is but a burnt out husk of itself.

Oto-san would be rolling in the grave.

You shake yourself. Ghosts should stay in the shadows, you have no interest in the dead. Buildings can be rebuilt, but a lost life is irreversible. So you ask the firefighters for Miya-san’s whereabouts, learn to your dismay that he was injured running back into the flames to save a child.

“He must be very brave”, you comment.

The young firefighter you’re talking to smiles grimly. “He’s crazy! Lucky for him he should be alright I hear, considering he went straight back into a burning building. But then again, he went in to get his nephew out, so that makes some sense. We’ve all seen people do impossible things for family.”

“Of course”, you murmur.

You do the socially expected minimum of arranging for flowers to be sent to him before heading in for work. Your agent assures you that there’s nothing further for you to worry about, the insurance company would sort most of it out. But it doesn’t feel enough. Flowers in such a situation seem impersonal, expected almost. So after your shift, you purchase an expensive fruit basket, ripe peaches and violently purple grapes, bearing it as an offering. The nurse waves you in.

Your first thought is - he is very good-looking indeed.

Dark, sleepy eyes in a boyish face, coupled with a strong jaw and broad shoulders - you can see why your property agent raved about his looks. His wife is a very lucky woman, you think, glancing at the woman by his side, her head resting on his arm, breathing softly, fast asleep.

Your second thought - you should just leave the fruit with the nurse, convey your well wishes to them instead of disturbing her. She’s obviously completely worn out, worried sick about her injured husband. But then he’s nodding at you, so you swallow any bubbling awkwardness you might feel, bowing deeply.

“Miya-san”, you murmur, trying your best to keep your voice as quiet as possible, but still you jolt his wife awake.

“Yes?!” she cries, hopping off the bed, blinking around her furiously before finally resting her gaze on you.

You apologise, explaining that you’re the Onigiri Miya’s landlord. Immediately, she bristles.

It’s only a natural reaction, greedy landlords are as inevitable as death and taxes, but before you launch into an explanation that you’re really just concerned about her husband, not the shop which is honestly covered by insurance anyway, both yours and Osamu’s, the man in question lays a hand on her shoulder.

“Kaiyo, relax.” He says. “Look, she brought fruit. Have a peach, stop bein’ so ready to pick a fight.”

Again, you bow. “I really was just worried about your husband”, you start trying to explain, but she interrupts you immediately.

“My husband?” she says questioningly. “Tsumu? He isn’t - oh.” She looks at Osamu, who gives her a confused look, before realisation slaps them both in the face. Then she turns to you, blinking furiously yet again, hands up as if to clear up the misunderstanding.

“Wait. You mean - ‘Samu isn’t -“

“What she means to say is that she isn’t married to me. She’s married to my twin brother instead though so she actually is Miya-san too.”

You never knew it was possible for eyes to twinkle at you with such humour. For a moment, you wonder if it’s a trick of the light, but to your horror, as your cheeks begin to heat up, you realise that you not only find him good-looking but also exceedingly charming. You turn away deliberately, bowing low to Miya Kaiyo once again, trying to apologise but she waves it away, smiling widely as she thanks you for coming instead.

“It’s just been a really long day for all of us. I’m usually not this unfriendly”, she explains, as you nod sympathetically.

“I can’t imagine how horrible it must be for you”, you murmur. “I’m really sorry that your family is goin’ through such a hard time.”

Osamu shrugs, even as Kaiyo hisses at him not to move his injured shoulder. “It is what it is”, he says. “Everyone’s fine, so it’s gonna be okay.”

“Well”, you say. “If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know. I’d be happy to help, and I’m sure I’ll be in touch with you to work out the insurance details, luckily I did some checks and everything should be covered, pending the findings of the fire department’s investigations, of course.”

“Of course”, Osamu replies.

You leave your number behind, bow politely once again to take your leave.

A fortnight later, your phone lights up with a text from an unfamiliar number.

“Are you free to walk through what’s left of the shop with me? I’d like to talk you through how I propose to rebuild, but I’d need your buy-in.”

You tell him he’s free to do whatever he wants with the shop for his needs, as long as it meets all the necessary building requirements and insurance doesn’t quibble about the payout, but he insists on actually meeting you. For professionalism, he says.

Finally, you agree. It is your property after all, even if you’ve avoided the street it sits on for years.

You could probably walk down the street blindfolded and still know to stop exactly in front of the shop. You would probably even guess the number of steps that it’ll take you to reach the front step, reach your arm high enough to just graze the lantern hanging outside. If you stop and listen closely, perhaps you could hear the voices of ghosts in the summer breeze, the hubbub of hungry guests clamouring for seats.

Not today, though.

Today, you’re greeted just as you catch a glimpse of the noren strung up in front of Onigiri Miya - a dark navy blue instead of the red you foolishly expected to see, the bamboo pole securing it in place already rebuilt, the clearest statement that Onigiri Miya will rise from the ashes. One look at Miya Osamu’s resolute expression tells you that its owner is determined to make that happen.

“Good morning”, you reply.

He’s tacticum, your tenant, a man of few words - or a man who doesn’t seem to fill the silence with useless, meaningless small talk, choosing instead to hand you a cup of coffee, the twin to the cup in his hand with a simple I hope you like it, and accepting your thanks with a nod and not much else. The heat from the coffee warms your cold hands, and though your nose wrinkles at the initial hit of bitterness, you find his gesture sweet.

“What are you thinking of doing to this place?” you ask as he ushers you in.

Well, he’s definitely not a man of few words when it comes to the shop of his dreams. He talks and talks and talks about how he’d like to rebuild the shop from the ground up, have Onigiri Miya rise from the ashes like some mystical phoenix, fitting for something that’ll be reborn from the flame. He walks you through the front door, explaining every single tiny little detail that he wants to see, from a new front door that’ll allow sunlight to stream in from beneath the noren, allowing golden light to paint across the wooden seats, the new lush counter that he dreams of installing in handsome dark wood, inviting enough to allow his regulars to sit and spill whatever burdens they’ve been carrying all day to him.

You follow, a half step behind him as he takes you through the kitchen - or what’s left of it. He explains how he’d like to lay out the rice cookers, the stoves, gesturing animatedly as he shows you the desired height and breadth of the counters, the grills, the prep stations. He gushes about ventilation systems, the store room that he plans on keeping cool so he can best preserve the precious rice he buys all the way from the Hyogo countryside - my senior grows them himself on his farm, he tells you, and by the gods - you realise you’ve spent at least two hours listening to him just ramble on and on and on about his store.

You should be dying of boredom by now, listening to one person just talk about a singular subject topic - how he’s going to transform a burnt down store, especially when you’re starting to melt in the humid, summer heat, but there’s something enchanting almost, listening to someone talk about how he’s going to turn his dream into reality with absolute certainty. You let yourself slip slightly when you make an off the cuff comment about the use of steel countertops when handling raw seafood, and he gives you an odd side-glance though he nods, acknowledging the practicality of the point you’ve brought up.

Without it knowing you’ve bought into his dream.

“So”, he says, when he’s finally done elaborating on his grand plans. “What d’you think?”

“It sounds good”, you reply, because it really, truly does.

You can imagine the space just by his words alone, a welcoming space for people to visit and be nourished by good, hearty food. A little shop, unchanging through ever-changing seasons. A warm, cosy haven for oft-cold city folk to thaw out, a place for gatherings of friends and family, a place for lonely souls to find solace in food.

His mouth curves up into a smile, unguarded and wide. “It does, doesn’t it”, he says. Then, his smile dimming, his words faltering. “Of course, I mean - if there’s anything you disagree with, or if you’d like to restrict, please let me know.”

Right. You’re his landlord after all.

“Not at all”, you reply. You’ve washed your hands of the space, and from the way Miya Osamu’s talked your ear off for more than two hours, it’s better off in the hands of a better man. “Do what you want. It’ll be interesting to see what you do with the space.”

He eyes you carefully, almost as if he’s trying to suss out if there’s a catch in what you’ve just said.

“You are the one running the shop”, you joke lightly. “Why d’you look so surprised?”

“Because you own the shop”, he replies, confused. “Don’t you want more of a say in how it’s rebuilt?”

“It’s your business. You seem to have a good idea about how to use the shop so I’m not going to stop you. Use it how you see fit.”

His shoulder sag, the tension he’s been carrying around finally dissipates. “Great”, he says, ushering you out, back onto the streets. “The insurance payout should cover most of the work needed, but I’ll be getting a bank loan for the remaining amount so I might have to bother you with some paperwork.” He shoots you a roguish little grin that for some reason, makes your frozen heart flutter in time with the noren dancing in the wind.

“S’okay”, you manage. He tips his head at you.

“Sorry ‘bout that. Hopefully the renovations will get done soon - it’s gonna be real rough not having any revenue from this store while footin’ the bill for the builders, but it’ll be worth it.” He pats the wooden doorframe fondly. “I know it.”

You’ve already spent the past two hours being irrevocably convinced of the inevitability of his dream, but the conviction in his voice makes you see Onigiri Miya, growing into its full potential. You can almost touch the shape and form of his dream.

“If it helps”, your voice breaks off, you scruff your foot into the dust. “I don’t intend on charging you rent ‘til you’re open. It - it doesn’t seem fair.”

This time his mouth falls open as you catch him off-guard again.

“I can put it in writing if you want”, you offer, turning away so you don’t have to look at him. “Anyway - I’ve gotta go, I’ve got to get into work, it’s getting late - ”

“Yer jokin’ right?” His Kansai accent thickens in his confusion. “I wasn’t askin’ ya for a favour - ”

You shake your head. “I’m not doing you a favour.”

“I won’t take charity”, he says firmly. “No thanks.”

“Listen”, you say softly. “It’s just - it’s just what I think is fair. You didn’t ask for your shop to be burnt down. And it looks like this shop will find a new lease of life according to your plans. It’s what it deserves - to be a warm, happy place where people can gather and be fed good food.” Your eyes trace the wooden beams, sturdy despite the weight it’s always borne, the streaks of dappled sunshine stretching across familiar floors.

(slowly, slowly, the ghosts recede. momentarily, at least.)

“Do right by this place”, you say, with finality, giving him no space to argue. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

You leave him gaping after you, even as you politely bow to take your leave.

Yet another fortnight later, your phone lights up with a now-familiar number.

A stack of paperwork awaits you, red-hot and fresh from the bank. Miya Osamu’s eagerness to get the formalities out of way is evident, even over text as he offers to meet you at your earlier convenience, anywhere in the city - or the countryside, or wherever really, just name a time and place - but you’re aware that for a business owner like him, any time spent away from his business is money left on the table, so you offer to meet him at one of his other stores at an off-peak time right after one of your work shifts.

So you find yourself standing beneath the dark blue noren of Onigiri Miya. Shyness keeps you frozen to the threshold, because despite it being three in the afternoon and far too late for lunch, the shop is still bustling, full of happy patrons munching away at rice and nori and the myriad of fillings that Miya Osamu has curated. You waver, gathering your resolve to dash right in, sign whatever paper he shoves your way and dash right back out -

“Irasshaimase!”

The universal greeting to welcome a guest to a shop startles you from your reverie. The server ushers you in before you can ask to see Miya-san, though he’s unmissable from his place behind the counter, carefully shaping onigiris in his bare hands whilst joking along with his customers.

Then he looks up at you, a crown of late afternoon sunshine perfectly placed on his dark hair.

(your frozen heart stirs from its long hibernation)

“Hi”, he says, a grin lighting up his face. “Have you eaten? Want me to fix somethin’ real quick for you?”

“It’s fine”, you demur coolly, ever polite. “We can just sign the paperwork and I can go. I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

“It’s fine”, he says, his words a playful mirror of yours. “Tis what I’m doin’ anyway - a couple more onigiri won’t take up too much of your time. ‘Sides, I wanna make sure you’re one hundred percent convinced that I’m the right person to trust your shop to.”

You find yourself ushered into a seat by the counter in a quiet corner where you’re thankfully alone. He asks you what you want and you defer to his better judgement.

“I’ll try to make sure I don’t disappoint”, he says lightly, cracking his knuckles as he starts to mold rice with weathered palms, slightly dampened with warm water so the grains don’t stick, placing the shaped rice ball on the charcoal grill to sear it, seasoning it lightly with salt. Then another, this time with a seasoning of negitoro - minced tuna and spring onions, seasoned with a touch of soy sauce, and finally a far less traditional concoction of spam, a fried egg and cheese. Even though you’re slightly dubious about the third combination, you thank him politely when he serves you, pausing when it seems he has no intention of leaving to deal with his other customers.

“Aren’t you busy?” you ask.

“Are ya tryin’ to chase me away?” he counters with a cheeky question of his own. “I’m interested in what my landlady thinks about my food. Tis’ important that she’s convinced I’m not selling crap on her property.”

You bite into the first onigiri. It’s a basic grilled onigiri with salt, but he’s managed to grill it just right, perfect scorch marks on the rice, and you can tell immediately that the rice is fresh because it tastes almost sweet.

“You’ve done justice to your rice supplier”, you tell him honestly.

“I’ll be sure to send Kita-san your regards”, he responds. “C’mon, try the next one.”

The second onigiri is delicious - the maguro isn’t fishy in the least, the slight sharpness from the spring onions a counterbalance against the fatty, pink tuna, the soy sauce adding just the right amount of salt to enhance the flavours of the sea.

“You’ve seasoned it really well”, you say, contemplating the onigiri carefully. “The maguro must’ve been aged for at least three days, and it’s surprising - it’s akami but even though it’s not the highest grade - which makes sense, since you’re using it for negitoro, everything’ll be minced anyway - I can still taste how fresh and sweet the fish is. It’s really good.”

He blinks. Without him prompting, you turn your attention to the last onigiri, the strangest of the lot.

“Spam”, you mumble through a mouthful thoughtfully. “Oh!” you exclaim, tapping your chin. “Okinawa!”

Osamu chuckles at that, leaning on his elbow to watch you closely. “Yes, Okinawa”, he answers. “An old customer of mine said she had a hankering for food that tastes like home so I made it, and it’s been one of our bestsellers ever since. Just curious to see whether you’d like it.”

The consummate chef, taking heed of his customers’ needs and wants. You respect that.

“It’s untraditional, certainly. But it’s greasy and hot and salty - the definition of comfort food.”

“I’m glad you like it”, he grins. “Now, shall we?” He inclines his head towards the back of the store, where his office is, presumably. Following him, you stifle your groan at the sight of a tower of official looking papers on his desk, dutifully sitting down to scan and sign your way through the loan documents.

As you suspected, he’s sinking a lot of money into the renovations. From the detailed proposal he’s prepared for submission to the bank, he’s clearly chosen not to cut corners in any aspect, investing in top of the line kitchen equipment, pouring money into hiring a whole team of craftsmen and skilled labour to build the shop of his dreams. The food business is cut-throat, horribly competitive in a crowded city like Osaka, but it seems that Miya Osamu’s managed to carve out a small niche for himself with his onigiris that remind his customers (and you, if you’re being honest) of family, of home (not that you know much about that, but you certainly can imagine it just from his food). It might be difficult for him to break even within a year, but you highly doubt he’s the least bit deterred.

“All the best then”, you tell him after you’ve spent far too long wading through paperwork. “I hope it works out for you. Again, if there’s anything you need, please let me know. I’d be happy to help.”

“Actually, on that - ” he pauses, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “You returned the cheque I posted for rent this month.”

“I did” you confirm.

“I didn’t think you were actually serious. Are you - are you seriously not charging me any rent?” he says, words trailing off into a question, looking completely befuddled.

You frown. “I thought I was pretty clear I wasn’t.”

“It’s just - ” and he folds his arms, biceps straining against the sleeve of his shirt (not that you’re looking), eyebrows drawing together. “Don’t you - it’s your property. I should be payin’ you for usin’ it.”

“You can’t sell anything out of it if the building is currently a wreck.”

He blinks again. It seems to be a habit of his. “Yes - but.” He pauses again, obviously deeply uncomfortable. “Don’t you need the money? I mean - I said before, I ain’t takin’ charity, and it’s your shop that burnt down too. You should be charging me for rentin’ it from you, not lettin’ me have it for free. ”

“Look”, you say, beginning to become a little impatient. “I’ll start charging you for rent when all the works are complete - ”

“You should be charging me now”, he insists, staring you down. “I don’t know why you’re doin’ this, but I already said I don’t want your pity.”

“I don’t pity you, Miya Osamu”, you exclaim, exasperated. “You’re hardly a charity case. I get it. I do.”

“Then why - ”

“I don’t ask for much out of life. I can live without the rent you pay me. I admire people like you - people who demand so much out of life, refusing to stop dreaming even when the very store you work out of is in ruins around you - so just let me help you.”

You meet his stare boldly, daring him to argue. He doesn’t, turning pink - the store must not be well-ventilated - his mouth opening and closing as if he were one of the fishes he guts daily on his chopping board.

“That’s - I don’t know what to say.”

You wonder if you should tell him to close his mouth, lest he catch a fly. Instead, you drive your point home.

“Will you make sure the shop will become a place that’s welcoming and warm?”

“Um… yes, I suppose - ”

“Will you make sure you’ll offer anyone who walks into its doors comfort in good food?”

You can see his humility warring with his chef’s pride, but ultimately he nods. “Yes”, he replies. “That’s always been my dream, and that’s what I intend to use your shop for.”

“That’s all I ask of you”, you say simply. “Hold up your end of the bargain, and I’ll consider us square.”

He seems frozen, eyes wide but finally he seems to shake off the shell shock, to stick out his hand, thanking you though you brush him off.

“You’re crazy”, he says bluntly as you take his hand to seal the deal. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

You shrug as you gather your things. “I just think it’s the right thing to do.”

He remains quiet as he sees you out, but calls your name just as you’re about to leave. “Come back and let me feed you again, some time - any time, really. And come as often as you want - I’ll be happy to make any onigiris you want, as much as you can stomach.”

You meet his gaze, and his sincerity and earnestness strikes you, warming you up as if you were standing before a lit hearth.

(your heart starts to awaken, a faint pulse echoing against its cage of ice)

“I’ll be back when my rice cooker breaks”, you try to deflect, suddenly a little awkward.

“Come by sooner than that”, he insists, laughing. “Rice cookers are indestructible - if you wait for them to break, I’d have retired by then.”

You can’t help but chuckle along with him.

“We shall see”, you reply, but he just waves you off with a simple - “I’ll see you soon.”

a/n: because i so badly wanted y’all to meet the reader, here’s chapter 2, a whole week early! let me know what y’all think - now i’m starting to worry that maybe i’ve bored you guys HAHA.

#haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #miya osamu #osamu x you #osamu x reader #haikyuu angst #haikyuu romance #osamu x y/n #miya osamu x you #miya osamu x reader #miya atsumu #inarizaki #storm chaser universe

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eddies-sweethearts · 1 year

Text

nightshade [1]

"you two really deserve each other, you know that?" the words seethe out between thin lips. "the freak and the witch".

eddie x y/n

follows the events of s4. multichapter.

tw: parental death, bullying, show level violence/horror/paranormal, smoking and drug use. dont smoke cigarettes kids, its gross.

y/n uses she/her pronouns but is otherwise description free except for clothing aesthetics. minors dni.

“You want something, freak?”

Jason Carver stood; a smug, tight-lipped look screwed onto his face like he was the almighty savior of Hawkins, Indiana. Your tolerance for him, already at a baseline low, was long gone after being forced to listen to his insane, egotistical ramblings at the pep rally that morning. And now, here he was, puffing up his tiny chest at Eddie. You always hoped one day someone would put him in his place. Jason was nothing more than a future high school has been, though you were the only one who apparently realized that fact. Sure, Eddie gave him the occasional jeers and taunts, but it wasn't enough. You wanted to see him crumble.

“Hey Jason!” you shout before the words fully formulated in your mind. The usual deafening chatter of the cafeteria lulls. Heads snapping to look at you, Jason's included as he whips his head around, spotting you in the back of the open room. Your feet atop the cracked off-white table, worn Doc Martens leaving a scuff mark where they were perched, leather clad arms folded in front of your chest as you fix the jock with a cold stare. You could feel the pairs of eyes boring into you, tongues held behind sharp teeth as they waited to see what you were going to do next. This was a far departure from the way you normally keep to yourself, moving about the day as if you didn't notice a thing going on around you. You gave off an air of being completely unbothered, untouched by the world you inhabited. If only they all knew how hard you work to seem so detached. This sudden outburst was granting you far more attention than either Eddie or Jason's usual antics had gotten. A heat erupts throughout your body but whether it was from the annoyance you couldn't hold back any longer or the attention you consistently avoided, you weren't sure.

Letting out a big, loud snap of your gum, you grin. “Why don't you shut the fuck up, dickwad?”

A scandalized gasp echoes through the room. Jason's eyes narrow at you in that way he thought was intimidating. All it did was make you angrier, resolving you even more to wipe the floor with his pompous face.

“What'd you say to me?” he asks hotly.

You kick off from the table, chair toppling backwards as you stood. Heads follow you as you walk forward. Eddie practically turns his entire body from where he was still standing on top of the table, following as you move towards Jason. You let your hips sway naturally, casually, as if you were just walking over to ask him about science class.

“I said,” your gum snaps, punctuating each word as you repeat, “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

Standing directly in front of him the cloud of overused cologne he was doused in engulfs you. He smells like the mall department store's makeup counter. You watch as the apple of his throat wavers slightly, and that almost puts a real smile on your face.

“You two really deserve each other, you know that?” The words seethe out between thin lips. “The freak,” his eyes fell to Eddie momentarily before darting back to yours, “And the witch.”

You let the old taunt roll off you. It's been thrown at you in spits and through whispers so often that it's meaning barely registers anymore. Eddie, never one to miss a chance to poke a growling bear, sticks his tongue out in response, hands on his head to make horns like the devil himself.

“Prick,” Jason spits, turning all his ire back on Eddie as if you aren't the one invading his personal space.

You grab Jason by the jaw, chipped black nails digging slightly into his cheeks as you draw him closer, speaking in a near whisper. “Don't act like you don't think about me late at night, Jason. Munson might wish I'd give him a chance,” your gaze slides towards Eddie as you control Jason's head, making him look, too, at the way Eddie was watching you with manic glee. “But you?” you twist Jason back, forcing his eyes to meet yours. “You wish I would destroy you." The apple of his throat bobs, and behind his eyes something like fear and recognition flickers. "Didn't you know?," you whisper, "witches can read minds.”

Releasing him roughly, you push Jason just enough to make him stumble over his chair. He lands in the seat with a hard thud and a dumbstruck look on his face that he tries to fix before anyone notices. The other jocks don't move beyond staring at you and then back at Jason as he rubs at the indents your nails made. You hiss at them, smirking at the way one of the younger ones jumps. They really are terrified of you.

Adrenaline courses through you like fire. You definitely need a cigarette to calm you down before the next period starts. You leave Jason and his cronies, heading for the cafeteria entrance. You look at Eddie's table as you walk by, biting your cheek to hide a smirk at the way he was beginning to terrorize some girl, screaming about killing kids or whatever he was going on about. You hadn't really been paying attention to what he was doing before Jason interrupted and annoyed you. Maybe some people thought Eddie was obnoxious and awful, but you liked that he never seemed to shy away from being exactly who he was, even in the face of scorn.

You could hear Jason's voice getting louder as he starts to taunt you already twisting the narrative so it doesn't seem like he was three seconds away from wetting his pants. You turn your middle finger up to the whole room as you exit for the girl's bathroom.

××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

The bathroom is dark and dank, graffiti etched across the walls and into the back of stall doors. More than a few epitaphs were about you, but you stopped reading them a long time ago. You stride across the room, kicking over the janitor's bucket that was permanently being used to catch a leak dripping from the ceiling. One foot up on the bucket you stretch up to crack open the filthy window, throwing your chewed up gum outside. You put the bucket back in its place before wedging yourself in the corner, one foot up on the sink. Digging into your boot you pull out the lighter and cigarette you keep hidden in there. Lighting up, you take a calming drag in, letting your head fall back against the cracked tile wall and closing your eyes. You stayed like that for awhile, dark lipstick staining the cigarette each time you bring it back up to your lips, the water drip-drip-dripping into the bucket the only sound rippling through your perfect solitude.

The door slams open, forcing you to wave away the cloud of smoke from your last exhale frantically as you hide the cigarette behind your back. Chrissy Cunningham stands at the entrance, arms clutching tight around her chest, watery eyes staring at you. Or rather through you, like you weren't even there at all. You nod at her, hoping for some kind of camaraderie, just two girls hiding away from all the high school bullshit in a grimy bathroom. You wonder how her parents would feel seeing their perfect daughter surrounded by filth. Her eyes are hollow, haunted as her chin tucks into her chest and she pulls the stall door shut without so much as an acknowledgment that you exist. You take the cigarette out from behind your back, pulling another slow drag.

It stung. Hawkins was the loneliest place in the world. Everyone so paranoid, so afraid of anything that they saw as different. A deck of cards, that's all it had taken to ostracize you. You'd been playing with them the way your mother taught you to, but it frightened the adults because it wasn't what people here did. The rumors engulfed you. You lost friends. Mothers crossed the street with their children if they saw you walking towards them, conversations went silent as you walked by, only bothering to murmur when people thought you were out of ear shot. You'd leaned into it though. If this town was going to treat you like a pariah you might as well give them something to wonder about. So you wear your clothes darker than most would like, and listen to music that was too loud and too angry. You hiss and you cackle and you glare at everyone, even when your heart is breaking because their eyes never fully meet yours.

You debate fishing a second cigarette out of your boot as you flick the ash from your current one into the watery bucket. When the door swings open a second time, you don't even bother trying to hide your smoking, letting a cloud linger in front of you. Being yelled at by a teacher would at least be a good distraction from the tightness in your chest.

But it's just Max Mayfield. She looks back towards the door like maybe she ought to leave, but then she winces, putting her hand up to the side of her head.

“I don't bite, promise,” you say to her, edging out the harshness you've grown accustomed to speaking with just a little, so she knows you mean it.

“Sorry,” she says, pulling out of whatever pained her, “Didn't expect anyone to be in here.”

“I won't tell if you don't,” you wave your cigarette at her, the slightest grin settling on your lips. Relaxing, Max throws her backpack up on the sink to dig through it. A bottle of Tylenol appears and she dry swallows two pills. You watch as she clutches the sink in front of her, staring at herself in the mirror. You wonder what she sees there, if she feels the same kind of twisted hate that overwhelms you whenever you look at yourself for too long.

You take the last drag of your cigarette, stubbing the rest out on the bottom of your boot. Kicking the bucket back over, you perform your balance act once again and flick the butt out of the cracked window. You start to make your move to leave when the sound of Chrissy retching catches both yours and Max's attention.

“Hey, you alright?” Max speaks up first, looking at the stall with concern.

“Y-yes I'm…I'm fine.” The shake in Chrissy's voice, punctuated by the sound of her spitting, isn’t very convincing.

Tentatively, Max steps towards the stall. “Okay, um, are you sure?”

“Please just go away.”

Max looks to you, awash with concern and uncertainty. You don't know her very well, except that her step-brother had died in the mall fire last summer. You always thought Billy was a bit of a show-off and an asshole, but Max seems like an alright kid. It's okay, you mouthed to her, nodding your head towards the door. She waits until you lean back against the wall before finally giving you a nod of acknowledgment and leaves the bathroom.

“Are you deaf? I said go away!”

The outburst startles you. You hadn't made any noise, and even if you had you doubt Chrissy would've heard you over the sound of the toilet flushing. You start to think maybe you should have left, that whatever Chrissy is doing really isn't any of your business but something holds you rooted to that spot.

“Mom?”

Your brows knit together, unsure if you heard her right. Leaving your bag on the floor, you take a quiet step forward. With every step closer the light above the stall Chrissy is in flickers. Before you can even approach the door, she's screaming.

“Chrissy!” you yell for her as her screaming becomes erratic.

“Go away! Go away!” she shouts over and over again, but it doesn’t really seem like she's yelling at you. You're honestly not sure she even knows you're there at all.

“You're really freaking me out now, just come out of there. Please!” The light flickers violently, matching the way Chrissy's panicked cries echo through the room. Too scared to reach for the door, all you can do is plead for her to stop.

And then it does. You can hear her panicked breathing as the stall opens and she steps out tentatively. “Did…did you see that?”

You didn't even realize how fast your heart had been pounding in your chest. Your shoulders, rigid with tension, dip ever so slightly as you clutch the nearest sink for support. You try to steady your own erratic breathing. “Are you fucking high? Are you having a bad trip or something?”

“Forget it,” she says sharply, wiping at her eyes. You didn't mean to anger her, but you have no other explanation for what happened. “Why are you still here anyway? I told you to go away.”

A bitter laugh escapes you. “Fuck me for being concerned, I guess,” you grab your bag roughly from the stained floor. “Contrary to popular belief, I'm not actually heartless. Not that you would remember that.”

“I'm sorry.” For a moment, she sounded like the girl you used to have sleepovers with.

“Whatever,” you shrug, reaching for the door handle just as the bell rings.

“Y/N!” Chrissy's hand catches your upper arm, forcing you to look at her. “Can we talk? After school?”

You should be angry at her or scared or something but all you feel is sad when you look into her eyes. You don't know what she's going through but it must be horrible if the way she was screaming is any indication. “Yeah, okay,” you agree, reluctantly. “Meet me by the old picnic table in the woods.”

“Thanks,” she exhales with relief, letting go of you. You follow her out into the hallway, jostled by the crowd moving to their next class. You watch until she's fully disappeared from your sight, unable to shake the last lingering sense of fear that’s storming through your chest.

××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Sitting on top of the old picnic table, your right leg anxiously moves up and down, foot drumming on the bench as you fiddle with an unlit cigarette between your fingers. The thought of talking to Chrissy had been gnawing at you through the rest of the school day. Maybe it was a prank, payback for what you did to Jason during lunch, but the sounds of Chrissy screaming in the bathroom echoes through your mind. Something was horribly wrong and you really don't know how you fit into it. You slide the cigarette back into its holding spot in your boot, picking instead at a piece of wood sticking up from the table until it pinches you.

“Shit,” you mutter, sucking at your finger. The sound of leaves rustling catches your attention and you stare into the tree line until Chrissy emerges, breathing hard as if she'd been chased there.

“You okay?” Standing and stepping down from the table, you look at her worriedly. She nods through her labored breathing, fingers running across the dainty chain that adorns her neck. “Chrissy…what is going on with you?”

“I-I don't know. I don't know,” she shakes her head, hands coming up to cover her face. You'd never seen her so distressed.

“Hey,” you say, gently, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder but thinking better of it. “It's alright.”

“I'm losing my mind, Y/N. Something awful is just…” she looks behind her suddenly, her voice trailing, “…hanging over me.” Nothing appears in the woods except a squirrel hurrying up a tree.

“No one is going to see us out here, if that's what you're worried about,” you say, begrudgingly.

“It's not that. Sorry, I just…I don't know how to explain anything.”

“It's fine.” She isn’t making a bit of sense, and she isn't your friend, but you find yourself wanting to put her at ease, somehow.

Silence passes between the two of you, stiff and chilling. You walk back to the picnic table, reclaiming your seat on top of it and pulling the cigarette back out. You light it up, feeling your nerves calm from the first pull. You don't like the energy surrounding you, the way it feels heavy and claustrophobic, even under the open sky of the woods. You were starting to think something really was hanging over Chrissy, and now, it hung over you too.

“Do you still have those tarot cards?” Chrissy asks suddenly, hands fidgeting in front of her.

You can't help the wide eyed look of surprise you give her, knowing full well what happened the last time you'd brought the deck out with her.

“Could you maybe, I don't know, could you do a reading for me? I think maybe it'll help me explain what I'm seeing. What I think I'm seeing.” A gnawing thought in the back of your mind wants you to tell her to fuck off, that she wasn't going to bait you into another excuse for this town to hate you, but she looks at you with such earnest desperation rounding her eyes that you can't help but feel she was being sincere. She is asking for your help even though you are the last person she’d probably ever turn to if she needed it.

You want to probe her more to understand what she was even talking about, but another rustling of dead leaves catches the air around you, making her jump.

“Whoa! Sorry,” Eddie chuckles when Chrissy bounces off his chest. “Didn't mean to scare you.” He softens after taking in her fully terrified face. “You okay?”

She nods, but then looks back at you. “Y/N?”

“Come by tonight. After the game.”

Chrissy smiles at that, exhaling a breath she had been holding. “Thanks,” she says, sincerely, giving Eddie a smile too before leaving you both alone.

“So that was…weird,” Eddie drawls, watching as Chrissy goes before approaching the table. He shrugs out of his vest and jacket, laying them down on the bench next to your feet. “Didn't know you two were close again.”

“We're not,” you answer slowly, pulling your cigarette from your lips to offer to him. Callused fingers slide against yours as he takes it happily, mouth fitting over the stains from your lipstick. “And what do you mean 'again'?”

“Didn't you two used to be best buds?” His words blow around the cigarette in smoke. You reach out snatching the cigarette back from his lips and putting it between your own, inhaling deep and slow. “You did that whole cheer thing at the talent show,” he looks up from rummaging through his black lunch box to mime pumping pom-poms in the air. You can't help but laugh.

“How do you remember that?”

“Honestly,” he grins at you, nose scrunching up, “I have no idea why I remember it, but I do. It was pretty cool. Can't really imagine you in a cheerleading skirt nowadays.”

“Oh yeah?” you smirk, nudging the skin of his knee that pokes out from his ripped jeans with your boot. “What can you imagine me in then?” You swear his cheeks blush where you can see them through the curtain of hair that hides most of his face while he's still bent over the lunchbox. You inhale on the cigarette again, letting out a snort as you exhale, “Wasn't as cool as you though, was it? Shredding on that old beat up guitar, screaming lyrics absolutely no one could understand.”

“Oh so you remember too?” Eddie raises his brows, smile brimming as he brings the joint he was rolling to his lips. He licks the paper, tongue darting out in a way you can't help but think about as obscene. You lean back on one hand, shrugging as you look away from him, not letting a smile fully form on your lips as you flick cigarette ash away from you both. “You must’ve had a crush on me,” he teases, nose scrunching as his head bends towards you.

“A girl never tells her secrets,” you quip, looking up at the sky, or at least the patches of grey you can see through the tree tops, avoiding his eyes. Your cigarette dangles loosely between the fingers of your right hand. You listen to the way Eddie flicks open his own lighter, foot fidgeting into the leaves next to you. You think you feel him staring at you, but you don't dare take your eyes off of the heavens above you. “Do you think I'm scary?” you ask out of the blue.

“Terrifying,” you can hear the grin in his voice, but when you finally look back towards him, Eddie’s eyes are on you, considering you with sincerity. “Maybe to Jason and those idiots, but,” Eddie pauses, laughing to himself and easing the moment before continuing, “I've seen you crying over that girly book so I know better than to buy into your act.”

“You were sworn to secrecy about that Munson!” You stick your cigarette out at him like a threat.

After your mother’s death, you used to wander around when you weren't ready to go back to your empty house. It was how you found the picnic table, and it quickly became your preferred spot to waste time at. Sometimes you did homework, but more often you just sat and enjoyed the peace. You didn't think anyone else knew about it, convinced yourself it was a secret all of your own, the one place you could go without anyone’s eyes boring holes through you. It was a surprise when Eddie turned up one afternoon. You'd hadn't even noticed him standing there, you were so engrossed in the book you were reading.

“That for O'Donnell's class?”

“Fuck!” you'd yelled, closing the book quickly and wiping at your eyes.

“Whoa, are you crying?” Eddie's mouth had dropped open, the corners of a snarky grin widening to reach his eyes. “Is this proof that Y/N L/N has a heart?”

“Shut up, Munson!” you yelled, embarrassment heating up your cheeks, “Shut up or I'll tell everyone you have tickets to see Kenny Rogers in Indianapolis!”

His eyes had widened, mouth dropping from his enamored smile to a shocked circle. “How the hell do you know about that?!”

“My dad says your uncle is super excited, he won't stop singing the songs during their breaks.”

Standing before you now, Eddie throws his hands up in innocence, joint held between his ringed fingers while he smiles at you incredulously. “I haven't told a soul, sweetheart.”

“Sense and Sensibility is very emotional,” you mumble, sticking the cigarette back between your lips as Eddie lets his hands down, his smile not fading one bit. When he leans in towards you, you could smell the mix of mint and tobacco on his breath. He takes the cigarette from you.

You go to grab it back but Eddie catches your wrist. Grinning down at you, you can feel the pad of his thumb swipe against your pulse before he lets your hand go. For just a beat your heart stammers and the whisper of a desire to lean forward and kiss him strums through you. You shake it off. You know how everyone sees you, even if Eddie doesn't act like it. Until you can escape this town it’s better to keep everyone at arms length, or further.

“For what it's worth, you're not scary either,” you say. You mean for it be teasing, but you say it with all the sincerity you feel. Eddie looks at you with those stupid brown eyes, contemplating you as if you were something wholly new and different from what he'd been looking at before. He takes a few steps back, sticking the newly rolled joint behind his ear, his frizzy hair hiding it. When you push away from the picnic table he holds your half smoked cigarette back at you. Instead of taking it you close the space between you with a large step, coming in so close you can see the faintest hint of stubble along the edge of his jaw. You reach up, and Eddie stares at you unblinking. Your fingers brush against the hair at his temple as you pluck the joint from his ear. A surprised "oh," comes from him, but he doesn't make any motion to stop you. You mock curtsy, "Pleasure doing business." He bows, playing along.

"Hey, um," Eddie calls to your back. "If you're not doing anything tonight while you're waiting for Cunningham, Hellfire is short one member."

Your right foot steps backward to pivot, grounding you as you sway with the offer Eddie's just shouted out. "I'm not really good at games. I can't even get through a round of Monopoly."

"It's not really like that," Eddie quiets, fingers twisting around locks of hair, covering his mouth as you stare at each other. He's so different from the fearless boy standing up on the cafeteria table, mocking the world while simultaneously daring it to taunt him back.

"Maybe," you say having to push the words passed the hard lump in your throat that was begging you to stay quiet, to keep your head down and stay safely hidden away. His smile in response was wide and effusive. You turned, before he could see the smile of your own break through, hard late winter grass crunching under your steps as Eddie shouts the time and place to your retreating back.

#eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fic #y/n fic #reader insert #eddie munson

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alicesbread · 11 months

Text

Lil Bea x Ich fanfic I just wrote at 3 am becouse yeah (TW: Self harm, vomiting and self image issues).

I could feel their eyes on me. Everyone was staring, but not in the way I wanted. They were horrified. Shocked. Speechless. I didn't understand why, and for the longest time, I didn't understand what was going on. Maxim yelled at me, and I froze for some seconds, before I ran upstairs as quick as I could.

I felt horrible. I felt a weird pain in my chest, and cried as I felt the need to throw up. I closed the door of my room behind me, letting the tears roll down my cheeks, as I threw the wig on the bed. The dress. The stupid dress. This was supposed to be a wonderful, memorable night, but now, it was ruined. I felt like a fool as I went into the bathroom, and knelt down in front of the toilet, nauseous as I cried. I don't know how much time I spent throwing up and crying. It felt like the longest, and most horrible time.

I scratched my arms as I cried, until i peeled off some of my skin, and I started bleeding. There were many bleeding spots, and it hurt like hell, just like my burning throat. But I didn't care about that all. I was a fool. A total idiot. After I totally emptied my stomach and had nothing left to vomit, I just sat in the corner, hugging myself and crying until I had no tears left, shaking in pain and fear.

I felt my heart stop for a brief second as someone knocked at the door. I was scared. Genually scared. I was supposed to be the main character of the party, and I was supposed to be downstairs, greeting people and celebrating. I looked horrible. Devastated. My heart raced, and I remained silent as my anxiety grew bigger and bigger. I just wanted to dissapear completely. Then, the person outside my room finally spoke up.

–Darling? Are you alright? It's me, Bee, can I come in?

Her voice, normally firm and kind of masculine, sounded very soft, and I could hear her concern. Oh, Beatrice. What would she think of me now? I looked pathetic. I remained silent, still shaking. After some seconds, she opened the door. At first she looked around, not seeming to find me in my room. I sighed.

–I'm here...

I said, almost in a whisper. She quickly heard me, and walked into the bathroom. I still remember the concern on her face as she saw me there, on the floor, looking like a total mess. She covered her mouth with her hands, as she quickly knelt down in front of me.

–Oh, dear...

Her eyes were sweet, and full of concern. I felt my heart break a little when she looked at me like that. She quickly hugged me, with one of her big, bear hugs. I didn't complain at all.

–I'm so sorry, dear... You couldn't have known...

She explained to me that Rebecca had worn that same dress to the costume ball the year before her death, and I suddenly understood everything. I felt even worse. Rebecca. Always Rebecca.

–Oh my God... I'm such an idiot, I should have known...

She quickly shook her head, still hugging me.

–No, of course not... You didn't know, it's not your fault...

She stayed there for a while, as I enjoyed her gentleness and warmth. She finally pulled away and looked at me again, even more worried. She caressed my cheek.

–Dear, have you been throwing up? You look so pale...

That's how she was. Beatrice did not have filters, and she didn't hide her thoughts. For once, I thanked that quality in her. I nodded slowly. She sighed, concerned.

–Oh, you poor thing... You must have been feeling very bad, sorry for not coming before, there was so many people...

I shook my head.

–It's okay, don't worry about It...

She looked down, thinking for a second, before sighing again.

–Alright... Come on, we need to clean you up, you're a mess, darling. Brush your teeth, I'll get the bath ready and pick another dress you can wear. You'll eat something downstairs, alright?

I nodded slowly.

–Thank you, Bee...

She cupped my face with her hands, and kissed my forhead.

–No need. Now, come on, let's get you cleaned up.

I did as she said and brushed my teeth. I didn't realize how much I had vomited, for now that I was finally a bit more calm, I noticed the emptyness in my stomach. She picked a pretty dress from my wardrobe, and filled the bathtub with warm water. We stood silent for a while, as she carefully helped me to remove my dress. I suddenly felt very ashamed for having her see my body. I didn't like It.

I think she saw that, somehow. She was very perceptive.

–Oh, come on, don't be like that. You don't need to be ashamed, you're pretty just like this, dear.

I don't know why, but Beatrice's compliments were better than any other person's. Becouse she was always honest (maybe a little too much), so whenever she said a good thing, I knew she meant it. I knew it was true in her eyes. I tried my best to smile, before stepping into the bathtub, and letting out a small sigh as the warm water touched my skin.

I closed my eyes, trying to just forget everything. Now, it was just me and her, her and me. And she was not an enemy. She was by my side. She was my friend. That thought helped me calm down a little. She helped me wash myself, and I found myself comforted by the gentle touch of her fingers on my skin. It felt very nice. She suddenly noticed the wounds on my arms, and her eyes widened in concern.

–Oh... Oh my god, dear, did you...? Oh my... These look horrible...

And there it was, my poor Bee being extremely honest once again. But... Somehow in the good sense. She looked at me, with those brown, deep eyes of hers. They were more tender and careful than Maxim's, and in other situation, they would have been happier, as well.

–Did you... Do this to yourself...?

I felt a hint of guilt in my chest. I didn't realize how much I had been scratching myself, and now that I looked at it, it was a pretty big thing. It hurt. I nodded slowly.

–I'm sorry...

My voice was very weak and quiet, but I couldn't help it. I felt like a small kid that's been caught doing something bad. For a second, I was scared that she would be mad at me. But my thoughts vanished when I felt her hand gently on my arm.

–Please... Don't be sorry. It's... It's not your fault. Just... Don't keep doing things like this, okay? Don't hurt yourself anymore.

I nodded slowly, and she sighed. She went to take a small emergency kit that she always carried with her, and started treating my wounds. It hurt, and I flinched a couple of times. But her touch was very gentle and careful, and she finally finished and put some bandaids on my wounds, after cleaning them.

–Thank you.

I smiled slightly, and I whispered. She smiled a little bit as well. Then our smiles faded. We stayed like that for some time, just enjoying the silence and the calm, between eachother. I don't know how it happened. Or when, or why. But just a few seconds after, I found my lips on hers. We were kissing.

It wasn't weird for friends to kiss, of course. We had kissed eachother before, but this time was different. We weren't greeting eachother, or saying goodbye to eachother. That kiss made no sense at all. We had no reason to kiss. I don't know why I did it. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I simply craved affection from someone. But there I was. Her lips felt soft and warm against mine, and I felt my heart flutter and I realize how good her kisses actually felt.

There was no resistence. No protest. No surprise. She just kissed back, without any visible hesitation or doubt. I wrapped my arms around the back of her neck, bringing her closer to me as I kissed her. It felt like I was kissing her somehow... Hungrily. Like I was craving it. Like I needed it. I stopped questioning the why. The how. There was no reason, but I enjoyed it. I loved It. That's everything I needed to know to keep kissing her.

After we pulled away, there were many questions in my mind. Like why my cheeks felt so hot. Why I had liked it so much. Why my heart was racing like never before inside my chest. Why I felt like I was in heaven. And why I could feel butterflies in my stomach.

I looked up at her, nervously. How would she react? Was she as confused as I was? Was she mad? Was she disgusted? Not a word came out of her. But the slight scarlet color of her cheeks and her sweet smile said everything for her. We stood there for a while, and then we laughed.

(for the 2 people in the Bea x Ich community: you're welcome 💋💋/j i know this is shit i'm just eepy)(also my first language isn't English don't judge me)

#daphne du maurier #rebecca #ich #maxim de winter #rebecca das musical #Beatrice Lacy #Beatrice x Ich #Beatrice x Narrator #comfort #fluff #angst with a happy ending #also Beatrice is the love of my life #fr like we are literally married and in love

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itzy0megaverse · 2 years

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A!Yeji marking her S/O O!reader

Requested : ✔️

Reader : Gn

Tw : marking, blood, pain (but only after the line)

Worn-out sweatpants, battered trainers and an oversized hoodie. Snazzy dress, displayed skin and a perfect face of makeup. You and your girlfriend look like complete opposites in this moment but, instead of feeling insecure, you both love it. Yeji loved getting to bring you behind the scenes of all Itzy's music shows and at first you felt the need to dress up all fancy but after the first few times of doing this you realised something. Yeji didn't want you here so she could show you off or for you to show yourself off. Yeji wanted you here to be her comfort when she gets too nervous. So you stopped caring what you looked like. If you wanted Yeji to be comfortable you had to start with you being comfortable. It still gave you both a good laugh whenever your alpha looked like a goddess and you snuggled up with her looked like a loved teddy bear.

"The previous group is having some technical issues so your stage is getting delayed. Sorry." A very polite staff member yells in through the crack of the waiting room door. Everyone sighs a little but knows its no one's fault so goes back to whatever they were before. You're sat slouched on a sofa with Yeji sat sideways next to you, her front pressed to your side and her long, beautiful, bare legs draped over your lap protectively. "Looks like we'll be here for a bit longer then!!" You joke and her smile back is contagious. You talk about almost anything while everyone waits for their que but there's something you can't quite get over.

Yeji's hand behind your head.

Obviously, due to the position you're in, Yeji has to have one of her arms wrapped up behind you. Which in itself isn't an issue but, instead of hugging you, she's making a habit of caressing, smoothing and even lightly pinching the skin at the nape of your neck. It's not particularly a bad thing. You can tell by the smile on her face that it's done out of love. It also doesn't hurt... But god damn it does tickle... You also notice how Yeji will occasionally glance at her hand on your neck instead of your face which you're talking. Which, again, isn't a bad thing... But confusing.

"Dude. You've gotta help me find an omega like Yn...." Ryujin's voice pops you and Yeji out of your little bubble and back into reality. Yeji is just as shocked as you and asks the fellow alpha for clarification. "Ok! Look. You take care of Yn so well and we all know that and I'm not trying to steal her from you but.... The fact she knows all the things you love.... The fact she knows exactly what you need.... The fact she knows when you need her and when you need space..." You begin blushing hard at the proud smirk displaying over Yeji's face. "Yn's just so attentive to you and that's exactly what I want in an omega too.... So you gotta tell me where you found her!!" Ryujin's mini rant ended with a pout and a demand.

Yeji agreed and sat back where she was before, even more relaxed. You, on the other hand, are not relaxed at all. You'd just been giving an onslaught of compliments that you weren't sure how to handle and it made on obvious display out of your face. Bright red in colour, eyes wide in shock, mouth slightly agape. You briefly glance over and Yeji's proud smirk IMMEDIATELY puts you into hibernation mode. Your face buries into your hands and your whole body just tenses up trying to crawl in on itself. You feel Yeji lean in and wrap you up in a sideways hug completely missing the jealous but loving looks of the other members wanting relationships like that.

You welcome the embrace but start getting uncomfortable once you notice the hand at the back of your neck again. Yeji's hand grazing over it isn't that bad but when she pinches the skin there lightly, it's the most tickling thing ever. Shivers work their way all down your body and you physically shake Yeji off of you. She can tell by your smile you're not hurt or offended but she knows you're genuine when you tell her how bad it tickles.

Sitting up properly again and pulling you back into a hug (this time wrapping both her arms round your waist, Yeji apologises. "Sorry-" "Ok! We need the Itzy girls on stage now!" Another staff member calling beyond the door breaks your comfort and everyone begins to leave. However, Yeji whispers a few more things before she leaves. "I just like the thought of my mark there... Somewhere hidden away... Not obvious... But we know it's there... Something just for us..." She whispers these last few things while lovingly starting and stroking at the nape of your neck. Then it's all over. She's up and out the dressing room. Abandoning you there while you're in complete disbelief.

~~~~

You'd been really quiet since Itzy left the dressing room, really quiet when they came back, really quiet the whole time since. It's not because you were offended... It's just a big step that you weren't expecting yet... To be honest you're not sure when you were expecting it but your idea certainly wasn't randomly in a dressing room..... Yeji had actually been really sweet. She didn't know what was wrong obviously but she could tell you needed time to think. So she gave you it. Keeping and eye on you and making sure you were ok but not pushing for more conversation or contact than that. As the performance over-ran, the managers and members all agreed to book hotel rooms for the night instead of driving back to the dorms and they let you stay with Yeji.

So now here you were... Sat on the edge of a hotel bed... Waiting for Yeji to get out the shower....

"Let's do it." You shyly blurt out as she leaves the ensuite bathroom. Yeji, who's still wrapped in just a towel, shrivels her eyebrows up confused but follows your lead when you pat the bed next to you. Silently, she sits down with you and you turn to face her while making sure she stays facing forward. You gently brush all of her hair behind her closest ear, over her shoulder and back over the other shoulder so it's all out of your way. That's the moment when Yeji thinks she knows where you're going with this......but she thinks she's just wishful thinking... That's until she feels your teeth gently nip at the nape of her neck. No where near enough pressure to tear the skin but just enough to know you're there.

"This is where you wanted it, right?" You husk out and your breath sends shivers all down your alpha's back. Yeji nods yes but shifts round to look at you once more before you make this decision. With one hand cupping your cheek and your eyes locked together, she very gently asks "Are you sure?" and you'd been thinking about this for at least an hour now. Thinking about having a mark on you, thinking about someone loving you that much, thinking about keeping Yeji to yourself... Just generally thinking about Yeji. You were sure. So you nod your head as you stare directly into her hopeful eyes. You watch as those eyes silently shift from hopeful to excited to loving and give in when she places a kiss to your lips. Both of you happily smiling into it.

You both pull away and get back to the position you were in before. Your left hand held your girlfriend's head next to your shoulder for her support, your right hand hugged at her back for comfort and your lips trailed up her shoulder blades to the agreed space.

-----------trigger-warning-from-here---------

You felt Yeji tense up in your hold as your teeth dipped into the excess skin, pulling it back slightly as your hands held her close and your thumbs drew patterns of reassurance. A massive sigh from Yeji and a gasp of air from you as you lean back and appreciate your work for what will be the first of many times. Grinning like a crazy person, you lean back in and begin cleaning up the wound a little more and kissing it a few more times for good measure.

You flop back into the space you were before and cling onto Yeji like a koala, legs and arms both wrapped around her body from the side squeezing her. Yeji laughs along with your giddiness but wriggles her arms free so she can hug you back. Her strong arms spin you round so you're straddling her lap and she holds onto your lower back while she leans up to kiss you. You're kissing each other happily as Yeji flops you both backwards onto the bed.

Now both lying on the bed, Yeji rolls onto her side and rolls you off of her in the process. She tells you to "Lie on your stomach" as she re-positions herself and you follow. You see her forearms lie either side of your head before you feel half of her weight pushing into your back as she lays ontop of you. Strangely, it's not as uncomfortable as it first seems, quite the opposite. Yeji motions for you to grab her hands and you do. You start feeling her grind into you slightly as she kisses along your clothed shoulder, a nice distraction from what's about to happen.

When her teeth sink in its painfully blissful. It hurts of course but it's so special and loving that a whole surge of different emotions take over your body for a second. Finally, just before Yeji's hands turn purple from you squeezing them too hard, she leans up and looks you over. Not just the mark but you. Loving the fact that you're officially hers. All of this... Every part of you... Is hers now...

Yeji gets onto her side next to you with slight tears in her eyes as she pats down and holds any part of your body she can reach. Her brain still trying to process that this is real.

#omegaverse #itzy #itzy yeji #yeji #itzy imagines #itzy omegaverse #yeji x reader #itzy scenarios

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mothinked · 1 year

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continued from here with @torntruth

Not only did Ellie have a weathered and wearied appearance but she felt older, too. Like she’d aged five years in the span of just a few months. Her demeanor was reserved albeit not closed off; her body language remaining open despite the almost palpable tension between them. The woman who left that night wasn’t the same one that now sat in front of Dina, forearms resting on her thighs and green eyes never wavering from the other woman. That day she was sporting a flight jacket over a dark grey henley and loose-fitting jeans. No signature chucks, just a pair of worn leather boots coupled with a belt to complete the ensemble. Her hair had been kept short and was tied back. Even her bearing was different—no fidgeting or other anxious ticks presented and her words were more... measured. She chose them with care. “It’s over. I showed her the mercy she never showed Joel. And that was—”

Here, her eyebrows furrowed slightly. She had to draw in a deep, calming breath before continuing, “—that was a choice I can live with. For the first time I can see clearly, see life for what it is, and now all I can do is move forward. So, I am.”

Her gaze lowered to stare down at her boots “Joel...” It wasn’t a struggle to speak his name anymore, not like it used to be. If anything, she was afraid he would be forgotten. He remained alive in memories and those were all she had left of him. That guitar sitting in her room at the farm was her choosing to move on. The final goodbye, a swan song that couldn’t be played as intended due in part to her fingers.

“... Joel did what he did because he loved me. I think he couldn’t stand to lose another daughter. I guess I accepted that too late.” And as a parent, Ellie understood him now better than she ever had. “I can’t let anger and grief be the only things I ever feel for the rest of my life.” For a long time, she was silent. Pensive. Finally, Ellie looked back up at Dina. There was a sense of poignancy with how she spoke. “And I’m sorry. For leaving, for not being the partner you needed and deserved. I was too caught up in how I was feeling to see that you were struggling just as much. And... I’m sorry for making it about me. I lost myself and I ended up losing everything else in the process.” There were many mistakes she had to live with but she wanted to try.

To do better, to be better. If Dina told her to fuck off or to give her space then she’d respect that. It was up to Ellie to put in the effort to make this right, to salvage what she could of the life she had foolishly walked away from. But was it too late?

#torntruth

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bobapplesimblr · 2 years

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Get to Know Me

(useless info edition!)

I was tagged by @prossims !! Thanks!!

1. What do you have under your bed?

Boxes of winter clothes! Which rn I’ll have to switch out and put the summer clothes in instead.

2. Favorite candy? (be very specific if possible)

Candy candy I like these heart shaped lollipops that I got from the Tiger store (they sell a lot of stuff including house stuff, art supplies, craft supplies, decorations, etc.) that are raspberry flavored. If I can include chocolate then it’s all about the Reeses peanut butter cups yall.

3. Describe your favorite shirt:

I have a few! My favorite shirts/sweaters are:

A dark blue long tshirt that says “L'océan Pacifique” that I got YEAARSSSS ago from Lidl(its similar to Aldi). I like it cause it’s just long enough to be worn as a kind of very short dress, and it helps with my fear of my shirts lifting/ridding up without me noticing, since this one is so long i dont have that problem, and the material is also super soft!

A black tshirt with a funky yellow moon design on it. Again the fabric is really nice and it’s just really comfy for me.

My college hoodie, it’s black and SOOOOO SOFT on the inside. It has a really funky cartoon on the front, it kinda looks like a fish? and its yellow. The hoodies were supposed to be purple cause our class colors were yellow and purple but the purple hoodies would be too expensive so we just went with black. It’s so comfy and it has my nickname on the back. Funnily enough it also says 2021-2022 on the back because thats the year it was printed, and it was also the last year I spent at that school!

this super comfy and adorable sweater that is fuzzy on the inside, its blue and has a cute ice and fire bears design on the front and its just so cute. Sadly it’s from a very controversial and terrible brand/seller, but I bought it long before I knew about the problems.

This very long sweater that has a bunch of Disney villains on the front. It’s grey and long and although the fabric is kinda rough on the inside I still love it and think it’s so cool. I got it years ago and in my first year of college I wore it to my animation class and my teacher look at me, chuckled, and said “The shirts animation students wear..” in an amused way, like it made him happy, and I was very happy about that. That teacher was awesome.

5. Are you completely sober rn?

Yes but I have been very drunk before! And it was super fun! A lot of sangria and exactly 1 shot. That shot made my snot turn blue which I didn’t know could happen!!! The shot was also blue btw. But honestly I just love sangria so much. And wine. It’s so good

6. What's the one thing that annoys you more than anything?

Being treated like I’m stupid and people that make anything into a joke. I have a very dear friend of mine that makes jokes about everything and anything and almost never takes anything 100% seriously and sometimes it really pisses me off, but I understand they don’t mean any harm, that’s just how they are, but it still gets on my nerves sometimes when I think back to interactions I’ve had with them. But again, they are a very dear friend of mine and I hold no resentment towards them in particular.

7. Have you ever gotten you tongue stuck to a cold pole during winter?

Nope, poles are gross! And I’m pretty sure that getting your tongue stuck on a frozen pole is an american thing.

8. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?

;-; I want to be with my baby (bf). I want to hold him and cuddle with him and have comfy movie sessions. We’re a long distance couple.

9. What was the single last word you spoke?

Probably ‘Okay’ ? I was asking my mom if she needed me to defrost anything for dinner and she said no, so I probably says ‘okay’ after that and walked away.

Time to tag people!! >:D I tag @rebouks @simmersofia @salilaoceania @doodle-possum @simmer-rhi and @bastardtrait ! Feel free to ignore this if you don’t want to do this or have done it before :D

#tag game #technically non sims #rambles #text post #get to know me

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silkenblankets · 1 year

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Bow For Me

Day #2 - Hazel

cw;; skinned deer

To my dismay, the gas station was not functional. It was as clear as day as I got closer to the building. Worn sign, peeling paint— looked like something out of the 1950s. While I was distracted with my study of the building, crunching began to form at my feet. Looking down upon the mysterious noise— I realized we were stepping on dry wall, glass, and dead vegetation.

The moment when I realized the disgusting mess in front of me and the moment I scooped up Lula could not have been closer together. There was so much, it was littered everywhere. The building had certainly required some TLC, and my hope for the possible help this building could contain diminished. With a soft gasp, her legs went right around my hips and walking right back into the woods looked terribly appealing.

Sure, looking for another building was an option— but what if I couldn’t find a safe source of food in time for the next building to approach us? What if there was a working telephone in there? Even better, what if there was a cat in there? Oh my gosh— we could have a guard cat.

My mind was decided, boosting Lula up with both of my arms my shoes scuffed through the litter and brush.

If there were any creatures in the building, they were definitely aware I was arriving. The crunching against the concrete completely removed my element of surprise. That was alright, scare the raccoons away prematurely and give the huge beasts a warning. I was fully prepared to fight a bear if I had to, throw the kid to the side and run in screaming. Downside was the possibility of scaring away our future guard cat, but I suppose the guard cat would have to be found later.

When I peered inside… the building was surprisingly clean. Frozen in time as a gas station, there was a main room with a few dozen aisles of items. Some aisles had been tipped over, and judging by the empty shelves I was not getting my hopes up about finding an old bag of chips.

The building smelt musty, yet the expected dust sprinkled on every surface was nowhere to be seen. After I made that realization— I suddenly registered that the floor was well kept, and the counters looked washed. Comparing the outdoors to the main room— something was off.

I deserved a medal of bravery because I didn’t make a rational choice. I should’ve ran— at the very least I should’ve found a weapon. But I didn’t, I kept on walking.

I never found the phone that I was expecting to find, however I remained adamant it had to exist. If I could find it everything would be okay, and my future self would be relieved that I found the courage to keep walking.

Or perhaps my future self would regret it, because when I turned the corner- I was not met with a friendly sight. A deer with glazed eyes and opened chops became nose-to-nose with me. Other then the head, the body had been completely stripped of any fur and skin— clean, untouched muscles were put out on display. I could only describe it as fresh.

I screamed bloody murder, my throat stinging with pain. I didn’t even register the pain as my stomach exploded with panic— and the image of the skinned body with droplets of blood dripping to the floor like snowflakes was seared into my mind.

My body only told me one thing… and that was to run. I’ve certainly been doing a lot of running these past few days— but the adrenaline coursing through my body was somehow even worse this time.

I knew what Bernard would do to me if he caught me, he was familiar. He would make me stand with my hands against the wall, bracing for the sting of the whip. But Bernard didn’t skin deer himself— he didn’t tie hooves to the ceiling and prepare his own meals.

My heart was beating in my throat when I realized I could have stumbled into a true monster’s territory— something that made me wish I was back home with Bernard. He wasn’t too bad, was he? I had to get back to him, I had to beg for his forgiveness.

And I was almost at the door when suddenly my body was thrusted to the side. A piercing pain shot through my skull

and my world went black.

#whump #whump writing #whumpblr #whump scenario #whump drabble #bow for me

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silentmeteorite93 · 7 months

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The Leaping Gazelles 19/34

Black cloud

The self-proclaimed intellectual sex man has no right to call himself that after several years of running, not only did he take all kinds of homoerotic or saber-rattling moves at face value. Even his own performance is not related to kind and decisive or sensible and intelligent, he was angry and made a good job of minimizing contact with the opposite sex in the rest of his life, completely giving his energy to hobbies in addition to his studies and career. It was thought that this would be of longer-term benefit to him as well as to other women who were poor people watchers.

Now this female doctor who had appeared out of nowhere had ignited his confidence, the nebulous sense of calling and familiarity that made even the most metaphysically hating of men think of lame calls called past lives. The two met each other on the internet, the least favored method in the circle, and there were no more fellow travelers in the two cities separated by a 3 hour train ride, the man decided to set off in search of the woman when he heard she was about to leave the country to attend the Education Forum PhD Summit. Neither of them had ever seen such passionate and courageous behavior, not even the man himself. Of course, the two of them did not regret his impulse, and even regarded that inexplicable impulse as one of the few divine accolades for his great capacity for action.

The two men met in a hotel they would later frequent, and with a textbook start they established what would become a very healthy and unhealthy relationship. The short-haired woman who had just asked for directions in the lobby with her authentic British accent had no idea that the man inside had just walked through the door of the room and was already wailing inwardly . After completing the agreed process as planned, the man sent the woman away. Thinking about the long green dress and smooth grinding just now. He found a pizzeria near the hotel. Gathering enough courage to send out an enquiry, the pizza that had been hanging in the air was stuffed into his mouth until he saw a message on his mobile phone that the woman had agreed.

The woman he met in the most annoying way a man can meet was the sincerest he had ever known, and the man found more matches and surprises when he communicated with her later, and couldn't even think of how to give the right footnote to his impulsiveness at the time, except for luck. Luckily for both of them, the process and the result were perfect, the inevitability and unrepeatability of the ending was the hardest thing to achieve in a work of art, and the man was sure that even the woman agreed with that one hundred per cent.

The glass-fronted hotel that stood at the end of the campus still pops up in man’s imagination today. The sweltering summer heat, the air conditioning in the room, the clothes the two had worn that day were all fresh in his mind. Even their first soft hum and the touch of bare feet on the carpet and the smell of the couch, the sunshine the next day and the pineapple looming on the bedside table.

She'd always been a woman of few words, not that she was clumsy when she became a teacher later in life, but she preferred the ritualistic form of writing a diary for a man to access. Wanting to offer her permanent loyalty she also began by pleading out her weaknesses when she had sworn to be owned and had them all broken by herself personally later in life. The bottom line of repeated pleas to be broken through was once too much for even the man to bear, he could sense the woman's obsession and somewhat extreme faith. Until now the man was secretly grateful for how passive and gentlemanly, he had been at that time, almost all the progress was slowly pushed by the woman's trust and curiosity, which allowed the man to not completely categories himself as a demon deep down.

#poem #writers #books & libraries #writing

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tonyspencer551 · 2 years

Text

The Pre-Wake

Prologue

Extract from the diary of The Most Reverend Robert Sullivan, Bishop of the Diocese of Sandburg:

“When I first found religion I hoped my life could be fulfilled. When I met the woman who was to become my wife I knew that a sacrifice by me was necessary.

She did not quite see God as I did, but she too sacrificed enough in those early days to overcome any doubts she may have held. Time came when I was called upon to do my duty and my wife threw herself into meeting her calling and life was good.

A child came and the child went and I was free to answer higher callings but this time my wife decided to follow a separate calling of her very own.

Far too soon the only child from our marriage was taken from us in his prime and my wife and I came together once more, united momentarily in grief, knowing that the only bond between us was now broken, a bond that perhaps only the greatest of sacrifices could mend.

Heaven help us.”

***

1 ARRIVAL

It was dusk by the time the limousine that had collected us from the local airport dropped us off by the front steps of my son John and his wife’s isolated mansion. Actually, the mansion had been the base of our daughter-in-law’s family since they built it deep in the wilderness 150 years ago.

To think Pauline and I were worried about gold diggers when our workaholic self-made son sold off all his businesses for billions six years ago! He was 39, the successful business he built bored him and he told us his aim was, “to search for a bride and have a family”. Then we discovered that the one woman who stole his heart was not only a lovely, adorable person both inside and out, but she was rolling in so much “old money” that she could regard our son's billions as “chump change”.

I asked Adrienne once what her family invested in and, with that tinkly crystal chandelier chuckle that would invigorate a dead man, Adrienne Eldrake-Sullivan said, “every business that has ever been, Robert, then we reinvest the dividends in everything that is to come. Our investments are so deep and so spread, that if every major industry or top 100 global business collapsed without a trace overnight, we would hardly suffer a scratch.”

The limo driver carries our overnight bags to the door. At the steps, Pauline stumbles but I hold onto her arm to prevent her falling. She buries her face in my chest, her grief still too much for her to bear. It is a terrible thing to see a mother’s only child taken from her while she still lives but especially hard when it is far too far past her own prime to have another.

If the limo driver didn’t know the family he might have regarded us as an odd couple. I am a big man, six foot four tall and built completely in proportion, Pauline is five foot two and still cute as a button, even though we are both only a year or two shy of our mid-sixties. The driver wouldn’t know that she had been a church minister for five years and for four years before that served our Lord Jesus Christ as a parish curate, while I had been a bishop now for almost a decade. Pauline hadn't worn a dog collar today, but with mine worn on top of a purple shirt and my large contemporary design pectoral cross in solid silver, I look every single inch the Lord Bishop I am.

Even before the driver could yank the antique bell to signify our arrival, a tiny but attentive young housemaid opens the door and ushers us into the cavernous entrance hall. The driver dropped our bags in the hall, saluted us and left, pulling the front door shut behind him, leaving us in the dim, guttering candlelight, while the infiltrating wind swept to every corner of the hall until sighing, finally starved of momentum by the closing door.

The quick staccato click-clack of stiletto heels heralds John’s widow Adrienne’s arrival across the highly polished tiled floor. It was six months since we last visited and I had always quietly appreciated her beauty, conveying both undeniable class and devastating animal sensuality. This time she literally takes my breath away with the glow of her utter other-worldly beauty. Stunning and surprising was the least of her look, especially at such a time of great loss.

***

2 TWO MORE

“Pauline, honey, look,” I coo to my wife, as I gently prise her away from the desperate comfort she has sought by burrowing into my chest.

Pauline turns her tear-stained face away from its temporary haven and is struck dumb for what seems like hours, as Adrienne's welcoming smile grows wider until she can hold back her infectious giggles no longer.

Breaking the spell of silence, Pauline asks in a breaking voice, “How far along, Addy dear?”

“Five months,” our gorgeous daughter-in-law smiles back, “but I’ve really only been showing for a couple of weeks or so.”

Pauline broke away from me and embraces our daughter-in-law. Now they are both weeping, yet each wreathed in smiles, with Pauline full of questions that come in such a torrent that Adrienne allows most of them to wash over her unanswered.

“There’s more,” Adrienne adds when Pauline finally runs out of steam, “in the main hall there are 24 members of my family, then you, my dear Bishop and Polly and little old me, make 27 and,” she ‘frames’ the extremities of her ‘lump’ with an elegant thumb and long slim forefinger of each hand, “this brings our family up to 29.”

“Twins?!” Pauline and I exclaim at the same time.

She nods, “Yes,” with the broadest of smiles, rubbing her stomach.

“Did John know you were expecting twins?” Pauline asks.

“Yes, Polly, Mother, he knew and had known for about two months.”

Pauline’s spread hand tentatively joins Adrienne's rub, her face a picture of wonderment. Adrienne grabs her hand and forces her to rub her tummy harder. While Adrienne’s eyes glow with an inner light, Pauline’s tears continue to flow at both the despairing pain of her loss and the joyful promise of new lives in the shape of grandchildren to come.

Adrienne glances at the watchful maid and almost imperceptibly tosses her head. The diminutive maid instantly sets off out of the hall as if on a pre-arranged errand.

“Come, both of you, into the library,” Adrienne insists gently, “neither of you are emotionally ready to be greeted by my grossly over the top family yet. We will refresh you with hot tea and some sandwiches after your long journey here. You need to keep your strength up before the Pre Wake reaches its most emotional point,” she glances at the delicate gold watch on her wrist, it had to be solid gold, as thinly plated gold overlaying a silver core simply wouldn’t do for her at all, “in about five hours.”

The library is just across the entrance hall, to the left of the grand staircase. Adrienne, an inch and a quarter short of six foot without her heels, leads the way, pulling my wife, a full eight inches shorter, to the library doorway.

Adrienne looks a vision, as if she was going to a high class restaurant or chic charity ball, in her black stiletto high heels, her ankle-length black silk evening dress slit up the side all the way to the top of her impossibly long and impressively shaped thighs. The dress is sleeveless and the vee-neck back plunges almost down to the base of her spine, the front neckline leaving little to even the dullest imagination. Even with her baby bump showing, she looks ready to party … and I really cannot get my head around this ‘pre wake’ thing of theirs at all.

OK, I do get a part of it. I can trace my Irish roots on both sides of my family since we came to this country during and after The Irish Famine. I get the idea of post-funeral wakes, really I do, and can accept that the heavy drinking makes you forget the maudlin, eventually, and by the time the corks start popping, the funeral is over, the spirit has departed, the husk consigned to the deep, dark earth, the first sods have been tossed onto the pine or oak planking and the burial can be completed. There is a sense of finality, of leaving the dead world behind us and facing the rest of our lives ahead to continue living. Never forgetting, of course, but remembering too the hope that the departed have a better future ahead of them, while normal everyday life for those left behind is to be enjoyed not endured.

And Adrienne was dressed apparently to party the night away, even though her loving husband, our only son, is probably lying in state in an open coffin somewhere in this magnificent mansion, awaiting the finality of his burial tomorrow. I have officiated at hundreds of burials, including both my parents and Pauline’s mother, but this would be the most emotional interment of all of them for both of us.

When she rang me the day before yesterday with the sad and unpleasant news of John’s sudden passing, Adrienne explained that her family had a long history of celebrating a much loved deceased family member with a Wake held before the funeral, what they called a Pre Wake, during the last evening three days after the death and on the eve of the final ceremony, signalling the change in state from life to “whatever you believe comes after life”, she said.

Adrienne has long protested that she is an agnostic and often pulls my leg about me being the alter boy who intended going all the way to the top within my church. Yesterday I had asked if I could officiate at the interment tomorrow, but she said no, her family had that service covered, but if I wanted to help take some small part at the time she was sure that I would not be denied.

I notice that all the mirrors in the entrance hall are covered over with black cloth, rather like they do in Jewish families when there is a death in the household. So perhaps their family traditions are not that far removed from what other religions would consider the norm.

Inside the well appointed library, full of rare and ancient tomes, here were a couple of serving plates of sandwiches on a side table, covered from drying out and curling by antique glass domes, plus a pair of bone china cups and saucers by the side. The door reopens behind us and the same short maid we saw earlier silently brings in a tea tray containing a teapot, pot of sugar cubes and jug of fresh milk. She leaves the tray on one end of the side table next to the cups and disappears just as quietly as she arrived.

“Are you not joining us for tea?” I ask Adrienne, noticing there are only two cups.

“No, during the Pre Wake we fast completely,” she smiles mischievously at me, “you could even say … religiously.”

***

3 TOGETHER SEPARATELY

Adrienne never could resist a small dig at me, I suppose. She may well have bantered similarly with John during their near six years of courtship and blissful matrimony. “Your room has been prepared. We are so pleased you could both come on the night before the ... ceremony, and attend our traditional pre wake.”

Adrienne is treating us, John's parents, as a normal couple. She wasn't to know that when Pauline and I met up in the departure lounge of the previous to last airport, Pauline had announced to me that she was both resigning her ministry and filing for divorce from our marriage on grounds of my abandonment of her.

Since I had been appointed Bishop of Sandburg nine years ago, we had indeed lived apart, me in my bishop’s palace in downtown Sandburg, and Pauline in her curacy in our small home town of Tanglewood, for a period before the appointment to her own ministry in Otterborne City.

I had actually been mortified by her announcement of the ending of our long marriage and found I couldn't find a single word to comment in return. How could she spring this announcement on me between hearing of our son’s death and while we were en route to his funeral?

Thus, the final leg of our journey here had been a quiet one, each side of our broken partnership enveloped in a whirlwind of thoughts and considerations, with sadness piled upon sorrow.

“You fast as part of your tradition?” I ask, referring to Adrienne’s fast imposed during this Pre Wake period.

“Yes, tradition is everything in my family,” she nods, “by following a known and practiced procedure or a ritual exactly to the letter, makes dealing with what had happened and later how we adjust to carry on … somehow easier to face.”

I nod in reply. I understood ritual. Why we do things a certain way, why religious services are carried out now as they have evolved over a thousand years and beyond, such as why an ambitious bishop moves on hoping a lowly curate would change her mind and follow him in her own good time. Ritual is all part of coping with what curve balls life throws at us.

“So, please tell me more about the tradition?” I ask, genuinely interested.

“Yes, of course, Robert. My guests did not have as far as you to come and are already here in their glad rags and getting themselves into party mood, and they do this because they love John, not just because he married into the family, but because they got to know the marvellous person he is so very well. They are intoxicated by the occasion, as I said before, we do not eat or drink during the Pre Wake. John's the best of men and he touched all our lives. Everyone in my family agrees that losing him to the insidious cancer that was eating him up from within was not the end that we would wish for the man I love more than I do my own self. But I owe you an explanation, because I know our Pre Wake tradition appears strange to those who have not experienced anything like it before.”

“So, have you had to go through many Pre Wakes?” Pauline asks, pouring milk into both tea cups. Almost out of habit my wife is taking care of my tea, even though she has already determined that we are completely broken as a married couple and she is taking steps to render our separation irrevocably permanent.

“No, very rarely. As you know, my parents are still very much alive, as are all my aunts and uncles, but those that have attended Pre Wakes have always insisted that outsiders make our tradition to party away the night before interment … well, awkward.”

“So you considered not telling us about it,” I say bluntly, “and holding this ritual among yourselves?”

“No, never, absolutely never! The thought never entered our heads or hearts,” Adrienne insists, “you have every right to be here and, in fact, we needed you both—”

“But you could have just invited us to the funeral tomorrow?” Pauline says, her voice falling away to a whisper, “you could have ... spared us this additional ... ritual.”

Adrienne embraces Pauline again, “Polly, Bishop, you are both of you a second Mother and Father to me. And how would John have felt if you had been deflected from taking full part in his last ceremony of passage in his mortal existence? He is a part of my family too and he wouldn't have wanted to feel left out of it at say, my uncle’s Pre Wake for example, because he loves my Uncle Toby almost as much as I do.”

“Loved,” I say.

“What?”

“You said John loves your Uncle, only it should be ‘loved’.”

“Yes, of course,” she forces back a tiny tear, then put one hand on her heart and the other on her new bump, “but in here, and here, John is very much alive and as long as he is loved, he will always remain alive to me.”

She slumps back into one of the library’s easy chairs, and Pauline follows her, taking her hand and holding it in her lap as she perches on the arm of her chair.

“Come, Addy, tells us what this tradition is and we will see if we can join in this ... party.” Pauline speaks cheerfully, but glares at me, and I take the hint.

“Yes, Adrienne, please tell all. I do want to understand it. And, if we understand the thoughts and motives behind the ritual, it would be better to be a part of it than skulking away from your ceremony here in the library.”

"Right." Adrienne sat up. “First of all the body must remain in the house where he died, or brought back to his loving home as soon as possible if it had been removed, say to a morgue or hospital. Only in extremis would the lying in state take place anywhere else but here at home. There are to be no harsh lights shining during the three days before the eve of the funeral. As you see, we have turned the electric power off from most of the house except the kitchens, and that is only for the safety of the staff who are presently preparing the post mid-night feast. As I said before, we have fasted today from dawn and that will end at the middle of the night. As for the lighting, that is why it is candles only for the whole of the three days and nights. The … body ... is first stripped, washed and anointed with aromatic oils, then redressed in the clothes he or she liked best, much in the same way as mankind has done for millennia. It is all about our respect for them as they were when they were ... mortal.”

“And through our love for them,” suggests Pauline. She has that faraway look in her eyes and I could imagine her mind full of images of John growing up as a child and young man and being cute at every stage of his development. Oh, yes, John was always the cutest and the handsomest boy around, in whatever company he found himself.

“Of course, love, lots of love. Nobody loved John like I do …” Adrienne glances up at me, “…did.” She holds up a hand as Pauline opens her mouth to say something, continuing, “While a mother loves her children unreservedly, and I am starting to understand that motherly love growing more and more with every passing day, the love between John and I was at such a physical and emotional level that it transcended every other feeling I have ever experienced or even imagined experiencing in my wildest dreams. Think back to the first five years of your own marriage, when you made your baby John so soon into your own relationship.”

Pauline and I quickly exchange glances, but I am unable to read her response, while I hope that she cannot read mine.

With no further comment from us, Adrienne continues, “The undertaker makes the … box ... and John is carefully, reverently, placed within it. He is then put in a quiet place, with the lid open if possible … and sometimes that isn’t possible, of course, but it is in John's case. He is so beautiful, my dear John, even in death.” She pauses, continuing, looking at Pauline, “Polly, sweetheart, you have to see him, see him as he is, and you will see him just as he was.”

Pauline sniffs, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “It was all so sudden, only a week ago he told us that he had cancer, and that it was virulent, a terrible terminal illness, and just a few days later he was … gone.”

“He had known for months, Polly, and had spent time finding out about the treatments, the likely outcomes, the pain and lingering at the end, before he even admitted that he had a serious problem, not just to you, but he held back for a month or two in the early days to me too, the one person he should never keep secrets from.”

“Is that why? …” I point at her bump. She colors crimson prettily, nodding slightly, enough for us to know Pauline has assumed correctly.

“The original prognosis gave John an incentive in bringing forward most of our life plan, so this essential part of our bucket list just got bumped up the priority list.”

“So what you are saying is that John had virtually used up his life expectancy before getting around to telling us, his mother and father?” I ask as neutrally as I could force myself to make it sound. Now was not the time for rows or recriminations. They could come later if there was any residue of resentment.

“You could say that,” Adrienne admits, continuing, “so we now gather our little clan together. All of us in my side of our family know him well and love him for who he is, a person special to us all. And, rather like his Irish cousins who celebrate with a Wake after having said goodbye at the graveside, we have a party while he is still here with us and we can celebrate his existence rather than mourn his passing. It is a subtle difference but for many generations we in my family have found this to be the best way for us to handle such a rite of passage of a particularly well loved one. Well, my close family will see John in the middle of the night and I hope you will want to as well.”

“Yes, Addy, I-I would like to see him one more time ... one last time.” Pauline sounds hesitant, but resolved, “Is he in the ballroom?”

“No, he’s in an ante chamber beside the ballroom, somewhere quiet so he can be at rest, yet near at hand for all to pay their respects as privately as they may wish. I’ll come with you if you want. Then perhaps you could go to your room to freshen up. Maybe even join us in the ballroom when you feel able.”

I picked up earlier that Adrienne had assumed we would be sharing a bedroom tonight. I suppose up until three hours ago I had also assumed the very same thing. Sure, we had not formerly lived permanently under the same roof since I moved to the Bishop’s Palace at Sandburg, but we had got together for annual holidays, the public holidays, birthdays and anniversaries as well as regular Fridays and Saturdays at every other weekend. It may only be 45 to 50 nights a year, but for those nights I was expected to perform as a husband should and I made sure that I always rose to the occasion.

This last year, now that I came to think of it, Pauline had cried off on her birthday, for some reason I had now long forgotten, and John had cancelled two invitations in the last four months for reasons of ill health that were now proved to be the case in the worst possible way.

“I think we should freshen up first,” I suggest. “To come to the party in our travel clothes and then disappear to get into the glad rags that you insisted we bring with us, sends the wrong message about us and our feelings towards our son to everyone here.”

I move from where I stood by the side table to where Adrienne sat and take her free hand in mine. “Six years ago, when our John introduced you to us as the woman he wanted to marry, I was certain then, and even more certain now, that it was a bond made in heaven. In a way, he moved away from our family a little and threw himself headlong into yours. Here, with you, who I am proud to regard as my dearest daughter, he committed himself wholeheartedly. Here he lived enwrapped in love, a love that I believe will be eternal, through into the glorious afterlife in Paradise to come. Through our grandchildren…” I rested my left hand gently on her bump, touching as close as possible to those lives that were to come, “we will be coming closer to you and your family. We are passing the baton of our futures into your hands, Adrienne, so your traditions must therefore take precedence over ours.”

Adrienne squeezes my hand in response. She has a strong grip and makes me wince. I recalled the night that John was born and Pauline held my hand so tightly during her throes of labor, that I had to dictate my sermon that Sunday onto cassette tape and laboriously type it up using one-finger of only one hand.

The same little housemaid is waiting outside the library door and we are led up the grand staircase to a large airy bedroom that I recognise we had shared a couple of times before. We showered separately, each of us full of our thoughts and anxieties.

***

4 BRAVE FACES

I pace the guest room while waiting my turn in the bathroom, with two subjects occupying my mind. Our son was gone, I had had just three days to get used to that fact. How did I feel? Quite neutral, actually, as we had never really bonded through his childhood, as he won scholarships and was away at private schools much of the time. When he was home he always had his nose into the earliest computers and games consoles, writing new programs and designing platforms that eventually launched his successful business career. No, while I loved and admired him, we avoided ever being physically close, not like the multilayered bonds he had with first his mother and then the love of his life, the beautiful Adrienne.

Pauline’s declaration a few short hours ago, that she was instructing her lawyer to produce the forms that would lead us to being divorced after 46 years of marriage, was a shock that I simply hadn’t expected, and I felt more grief over the loss of our relationship than I had any real reason to. We had lived apart for a long time, and those little resentments, like her unwillingness to follow me to Sandburg, which had noticeably damaged my diocesan life, had fuelled my dislike of her stubborn refusal to support my career over the years; the divorce would almost certainly affect any slim chance of an archbishopric in the time remaining to me, and I discovered that the regret pained me more than the guilt associated with my ambition in clerical orders.

I look at the king size bed looming large in the room, regarding it as mere furniture and no longer an instrument through which tonight the reality of our marriage could have been reaffirmed and sustained until our next future meeting.

No, after tonight our exchanges will be through our respective lawyers, our conversations no longer candid, our worlds apart, with no more birthdays or anniversaries to celebrate together, until Adrienne’s twins forged new ones for us to attend, not together but as separate individuals. There would never again be a togetherness between us, once this final ritual, the farewell to the son bearing my name, was consigned to the consuming earth from which all life springs.

Pauline shimmers in the candlelight on the landing above the staircase, encased as she was in a bottle-green evening dress covered in sequins that seem to come alive as she moves. In the candlelight, her appearance is so much more romantic than the stark light that the garish incandescent lamps of modern life usually imposes upon us. John had received all his beauty, in quite masculine form, from Pauline's genes, he fortunately suffered little noticeable likeness at all by way of mine.

Pauline, even in the first third of her seventh decade, has a timeless quality about her looks. She had kept her firm, trim shape, while I was softened by too many banquets, too much time preparing speeches and sitting through too many interminable meetings and synods. I determine that, now I am soon to be single again and no longer had to play the role of a father, that I would embark on a regimen that would restore my body to health and vigour. I owe that much to John, God rest his beautiful soul, that I become a loving and doting grandfather to his offspring. I have no doubt that they would be beautiful, so loving them, while tempered by my natural reserve, it would never be a role taken on with any reluctance on my part.

I hold out the crook of my arm by way of invitation to the woman who was once my lady, who once held my heart in thrall until she decided to throw me away with so little apparent regret. My arm is offered alongside a wan smile, all I am able to raise with so much weight depressing my heart and soul.

Pauline returns mine with her smile, which plays on her lips, where I look for an answer to my question. I don't trust myself to consider if her smile has reached those sad eyes. I know mine are sad, not so much that things between us had changed, I have accepted that, but that the changes to my life were so sprung on me that I am still struggling to cope with the enormity of it all. So far I feel unable to sift through the bustle of the last few hours and balance the pain of separation from both wife and son with the joy of unseen new life to come. Pauline tucks one of her slim, elegant arms, with barely a hint of bat wing about them, into mine, and we step gracefully down that glorious staircase to the first floor.

I had traveled here as a bishop and had intended to be a bishop at the funeral, but tonight I am dressed in a formal black dinner jacket, with a bright purple cummerbund and a slim white dog collar instead of a bow tie above an extravagantly frilly shirt, to appear formal but in party mode, even if the party mood eludes us in our grief. We appeared to be an elegant couple, beauty and the beast maybe, but we are each doing our level best to keep up appearances in the circumstances of the additional ordeal laid before us.

We both know our way to the ballroom in this huge, rambling house, but even if we hadn’t, the sound of music would have led us to it straight away. A pair of smart liveried servants open the double doors for us and together we sweep into the room, one that would comfortably accommodate a couple of hundred dancers, but is littered with only about a dozen pairs dancing like planets in the huge expanse of space, with just a few tables and chairs for resting between dances at one end close to where the band were playing.

The dancers turn towards us as one and the band stops playing, almost as if a switch had been turned off. The dancers descend upon us with greetings and words of condolence that wash over us like a tidal wave.

Of course we’re acquainted with them all, if in various degrees of familiarity, but we were all part of the larger Eldrake family. Adrienne, stays to one side regarding the scene, allowing all her family to have their part in the greetings, but all the guests move away as Adrienne’s parents take centre stage and embrace us one by one and take us off arm in arm to a small doorway at the side of the ballroom, followed by our daughter-in-law some half a dozen paces behind us. As Adrienne closes the door behind us, I hear the band restart where they left off and, presumably, the energetic dancing continues behind the door and without us.

***

5 OPEN COFFIN

I never really knew Adrienne’s age. When John first introduced his then new girlfriend to us six years ago, I would have guessed she was a sweet-faced freshman half his age, but in private he told me she was an established businesswoman running a group of companies which dwarfed his own, even without including the family’s investment portfolio that looked like the financials of a medium sized first world country, so I guessed from that information that she was in her early thirties then, and now would be at the perfect age to be a mother for the first time.

If it was difficult to gauge the daughter’s age, her parents proved absolutely impossible. I could only guess that they were a decade younger than us, Pauline and I. Adrienne’s father, Gareth Eldrake, was probably half an inch shorter than his daughter, stockily built, with broad powerful shoulders, but with the narrow waist of one who exercised regularly and was extremely careful about what he ate. He had a full head of dark black hair, highlighted by a hint of distinguished-looking greying at the temples. But his face in repose was almost devoid of those usual signs of the ageing process, wrinkles. Only when he spoke animatedly, and laughed or smiled, lifting one or other eyebrow independently as he was wont to do in lively conversation, it was clear that there was no plastic surgery or injections of Botox involved here, he was simply an attractive man who took care of himself and his skin. I imagined that he probably moisturized, slept long and well and didn't allow the pressures of business to wear him down. Adrienne’s explanation of the spread of their investments clearly took away the stresses that might otherwise affect lesser resourced men. Of course, sharing a life with Sylvia, the raven-haired beauty who was always by his side, the incentive to keep up his strength, vitality and vigour was obvious.

If Adrienne was blessed with the looks of a girl, her mother was the glamorous epitome of the smoldering MILF of legend. She was six foot tall, I know because dancing with her in four-inch heels our eyes were in perfect alignment, and we had often enjoyed dancing together at family holidays in this very ballroom over the past six years. I was in no doubt that she must dye those raven tresses, the depth of colour, the absence of any grey and the way her hair shone as if her maids had brushed it a thousand times a day, framed her beautiful face perfectly. Her eyes were as dark as coal, her skin white and translucent as pure silk and, when we touched cheek to cheek in greeting, dancing or farewell, her skin felt as soft as a newborn baby. When she looked at you, looking down to most people, but level with me, she poured all her concentration on you, as if you were the only person in the world that mattered to her in that instance. My Lord, she was an inspiration.

Yes, Sylvia smouldered with an intense sexuality that could excite even a jaded and sexually frustrated old bishop who, even in that heightened sexual tension, knew that you could enjoy her attention, revel in her oozing desirability, but she only shared with you a hint of possible nirvana, she was unavailable to all but her one man. Her husband Gareth would observe all men reduced to quivering jelly, except for the one part that would never pass between an ordinary man and an extraordinary woman. Her fidelity was assured, and was apparent the instant she moved her eyes to the one object she openly desired, her husband. Immediately after appearing to seduce you to succumb to her eternal devotion, she would seek Gareth out, drape her arm around his powerful shoulders and almost dry hump him, leaving her latest quivering suitor bewitched but bereft.

Sylvia led me arm in arm, tucked in so close to me that we appeared as if born together joined at the hip, into the room and up to the open coffin containing John Sullivan, my son. Gareth holds Pauline in similar possessive vein. Their love and empathy towards us in our moment of confrontation with the facts of life and death was touching and I am sure we were both grateful. With Sylvia on my right and Gareth on Pauline’s left, we were guided to a pre-determined spot by the coffin side, so that Pauline and I stood side by side. I sought her hand and she grips mine tightly. Behind us, Adrienne squeezes our outside shoulders and molds her body against our backs in a mutuality of empathetic touching, resting her right cheek on my left shoulder, Pauline’s being too low for comfort.

We turn to look down at our dear departed boy. Beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe him. He always had been, yet now even in death, he looks more beautiful than ever. Asleep, not dead, that is how he looks. It is with a jolt that I suddenly feel at one with the Ancient Egyptians, they loved their kings so much that seeing them perfect in their death masks, why would they not pour the effort of an entire kingdom into preserving that instance of utter beauty forever?

Pauline sniffs, l see a tear escape and run down her nose, hovering for an instance before making a bid for freedom to the floor below. At the same time, though, she smiles. She turns to look at me with those soft and moist green eyes and it was like turning the pages back to the day she brought John into the world, her face emerging from pain and fatigue to that of an invigorated angel. And she said exactly the same words she uttered forty-five years ago when John was first placed on her engorged breasts, “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?”

“Yes, my dear,” I choke, “he is, he always was.”

“And in our hearts,” Adrienne breathes, her lips inches from our ears, “he always will be.”

***

6 PARTY

We danced in pairs, rows, circles, we chatted in small groups about our memories of John, like all of those rites of passage that parents remember, however imperfectly, as Pauline reminded me on a couple of occasions. We menfolk congregated and offered up our most risqué jokes. In mixed company we lightly flirted outrageously, after all every one of the Eldrakes was physically attractive beyond belief. But, throughout that evening none of us ate or drank. I was soon thirsty and found I was hanging on until midnight and the promised refreshments. But it was already gone midnight and, when I checked the dining hall nearby, although the tables were laid up with glassware and cutlery, it was still empty of food and drink.

I seek out Adrienne, and see her enjoying herself dancing a jitterbug with one of her younger and enviously energetic cousins. I wait until the tune ends and grab her for the next dance, fortunately a waltz, where we can converse.

“I thought the Pre Wake fast ended at midnight.” I quietly say to her.

“Oh, I am sorry, Robert,” she always called me ‘Bishop’ when I dressed as such, but when I was in mufti, as now, I was ‘Robert’ or sometimes ‘Father’. “That might have been a slip of the tongue on my part, Robert, but I actually meant the middle of the night, the exact middle of the night. The clock times register only a vague human recording of time, as the seasons change, the length of day and night change on a day-by-day basis.”

“I see, so how have you determined when the meal is to be served?”

“Well, dusk was at fourteen minutes past eight o’clock this evening, Dawn will come at two minutes before six, so I calculate, and have already agreed with the chef, to serve the banquet at six minutes after one in the morning, which is exactly four hours and fifty-two minutes from dusk and exactly the same amount of time away from the coming dawn. Using another version of the word, ‘mid-hyphen-night’.” She smiles, “if you cannot hold on for another hour, I am sure I could arrange something to be delivered from the kitchen to the library, provided you can be discrete about it.”

“No, my dear Adrienne, I am sure I can manage, now that I know how long it will be.”

I look for Pauline. I owed her our last dance as a married couple, made even more symbolic as we were about to bury the light of our lives, our lovely son.

I could not find her shimmering green dress on the dance floor nor sat at the few tables around the periphery. I head for the ante chamber and close the door quietly behind us. Pauline kneels in prayer on the cold, hard floor by the head of the coffin, her eyes closed and her lips moving in silent invocation, her melting mascara leaving etched lines down both cheeks.

A cold thought runs through me about my own feelings. Was I so heartless that I am incapable of the same level of grief? Was she in some way compensating in this quiet demonstration of her broken heart for my lack of empathy for her loss? Was my silent and apparent indifference to the emotion of our dissolving relationship a symptom that led us to this point and, in His turn, God was punishing me for my parental indifference by taking my wife away from me too, in the cruelest of ways: to live her life fully engaged in the world about us, yet no longer be mine to hold from this day forward as we had once promised in front of God 46 years before?

I kneel down beside her, rubbing shoulders as lightly as I can to advise her of my presence. I too, clasp both my hands together, close my eyes and silently recite a number of short prayers in my head, that I feel are appropriate to the occasion. As I near the end of this devotion, I feel Pauline place her hands on mine. I complete the text of the litany I had started and open my eyes. I turn and look at the lovely woman who was still, for the time being at least, my wife.

“You do care?” she asks, softly, the smallest tremulous smile on her lips.

“Yes, of course I care,” I say, “I loved him at least as much as you.”

Despite myself, I did. I had always loved John Sullivan. I couldn’t help it, but my natural reserve had always prevented me from physically expressing my love for the lovely child who filled my daily prayers and thoughts and grew into a beautiful grown man in front of my eyes during two-thirds of my entire life.

Still on our knees, we embrace and kiss. There was a hungry desperation in her kiss, in that room that had become a chapel of rest for the boy we once raised together to adulthood in the best ways that we could. I was instantly reminded of our fumbling courting days when she so desperately wanted my physical love. We did everything short of violating her virginity, both our virginities in fact, during our long courtship, which was the norm in those days.

It was as if our sexual cycle has come full circle, inception, birth and death, with no physical way of doing those reproductive rounds once again. I always held myself in check during our court and betrothal until completing in full our promised passion on our wedding night. Yes, I was old fashioned enough to wed as a virgin on our wedding night and I had never slept with anyone else before or since. No temptation, and as I am as much a sinner as any mortal man, ever overcame my resolve in respect of my fidelity. I never sought pleasure outside of the marriage bed that I once shared with my one and only wife.

Now that she had announced her intention of bringing our marriage to a final conclusion, any husband could be forgiven for wondering, was it because she had already replaced me with a lover?

We look at each other in the flickering candle light and we both manage to exchange smiles.

“You look like a raccoon in the rain,” I chuckle, “we need to clean you up.”

“And it’s rubbed off on your nose and cheeks, so you look like a coal miner interrupted in the midst of his shift-end ablutions!” she laughs through her tears.

I pull a handkerchief from my pocket, lick it and start on her clean up. She lifts her chin to allow more candlelight to shine on her face, and I gently rub away the smudged tear stains, licking new clean patches of cloth as necessary.

“You’ll do,” I announce when complete, holding her chin and rotating her face up and down and side to side by way of full and final inspection.

Pauline took the soiled hankie from me, unfolded and refolded it to reveal a clean spot, and licks it languidly, looking me in the eye with mischievous intent.

“If I find afterwards, that you have left a conspicuous black spot, I will hunt you down and wreak revenge,” I warn her.

“Oh, darling,” she flutters, “I am shocked that you would even imagine I could do such a thing to my dear husband.”

“Well, the recent lack of permanency of such a state in our relationship may have shaken my confidence in your care of my wellbeing and dignity.”

“My darling, I meant no assault upon your dignity. I have no wish for us to feel any less love for each other. It’s only that we have grown apart for so long that living separate lives has become our way of life and the pain of pretence that our relationship is unchanged is preventing me from living a normal existence.”

“Like taking a new lover, perhaps?” I inquire.

“No! Not at all!” she insists with some fierce vehemence, her rubbing of my soiled cheek feeling like she was trying to polish out a large and stubborn watermark on a sideboard she was hoping to restore to its former glory. “Although, I wouldn’t rule out anything at all that may happen by chance in my future. I merely want to confirm my marital status when it is clear that we’re on distinctly separate paths. That is not to suggest that I might still want to visit you from time to time, or that we could be together when we visit the grandchildren when they arrive. We might not still be married but could still be friends, even friends with benefits.” She shifted her attention to the apparently even more stubborn stain on the opposite cheek. I knew I was going to have rosy cheeks in the stark light of morning.

“I for one have no experience of physical or emotional love outside the confines of marriage,” I state clearly.

She is silent on the subject, her tongue poking between her lips in concentration.

“I suppose we will have to see,” I continue, “but faith shaken isn’t easy to restore.”

“I truly had no thought that my decision would hurt your feelings so, Robert,” she says tetchily, pausing to lick the hankie again and begin the systematic scouring of my long nose, “I had long been of the opinion that you were indifferent to my feelings and was only hoping to clarify for us both the status in which we find ourselves. The severing of the bond of our son between us, and living our separate lives in different cities, brought the thought of divorce to mind. However, the possibility of a new bond through our grandchildren, may mean a rethinking of my position. There, you are done and you are my handsome prince once again.”

“Thank you.” I didn't feel ready to comment on the possibility of Pauline’s change of heart on the subject of our marriage at this point. There was still so much for my generally ordered mind to work on and the continuity or otherwise of our relationship was for the back burner all the while we still had to focus on burying our only son.

We hear the music stop in the ballroom behind us, followed by Adrienne, clear as a bell, call out to all that the hour was upon us. My wristwatch confirmed that it was nearly five minutes past one o’clock, therefore two minutes away from the exact middle of the night. It was high time for us presumably to head towards the dining room. I can certainly do with a drink as my throat is so dry.

We help each other up off our creaking knees and I watch her as she smooths down her dress, automatically checking herself that within her plunging neckline she was still decently tucked in and finally brushing a hand through her shoulder-length hair, still blonde in colour but streaked with grey, forming a natural soft frame around her still lovely face.

I wonder, not for the first time in the last half a day, how would I feel accepting the fact that I would never see that familiar face again? It was impossible to contemplate any resolution in my state of mind. I challenge anyone to reach a comfortable conclusion at such a crossroads of elevated emotions.

Unexpectedly, the door to the ante chamber opens and in strides Adrienne, followed by her parents. Gareth closes the door behind them.

“The time has come,” Adrienne announces, almost icily.

“Yes, indeed,” I concur, “we’ll be along to the dining room shortly. Just give us a moment to compose ourselves, make us fit for present company.”

“I am sorry, Robert, Polly, but the Pre Wake is over,” Adrienne says, with a steel in her voice that hadn’t been present before. Her eyes move from me to the coffin.

I turn to look where her eyes pointed and, slowly, surely, as if he was being effortlessly pulled on strings rather than pushing up from below, I saw my son, John Sullivan, deceased, sit bolt upright, his eyes still closed.

“Ah, right on time,” I hear Adrienne say from behind me, “now we have moved from the Pre onto the Wake.”

All I can hear, as my legs buckle beneath me, is Pauline’s ear-piercing scream.

***

7 THE WAKE

I must’ve struck my head when I fell in a faint, as my ears are still ringing and my eyes couldn’t quite focus on my wrist watch when I first awoke. I was lying on a chaise longue. I was still in the flickering candle-lit ante chamber where the coffin was, so the padded sofa must have been carried in after I fainted. I could see a cloudy vision of the coffin from where I lay, and noted that my son wasn't sitting up inside it any longer.

I felt sure that I hadn’t imagined it, at least I was almost sure. As a priest and bishop, dealing with death was a large part of the life that I had led all my working career. Naturally, I had heard undertakers tell of such stories of dead men sitting up on rare occasions, saying something about trapped gases in stomach and lungs overcoming the stiffness of rigor mortis. As soon as the gas finds a path to vent, the body loses that buoyancy and collapses back into the coffin with a sigh real enough to give the witnessing bereaved false hope that the newly departed had returned alive. I had never experienced it myself, but the undertakers or gravediggers retelling the tale were often in continuous day and night contact with any number of bodies in their charge, so I had little reason to completely discount the tale, other than regard it as a story worth retelling as a means to earn the gravediggers and pall bearers a free drink in the pub afterwards.

As my head cleared, I felt I could risk sitting up myself. Without the aid of decomposing gases, I have to push myself up with my arms and, turning as I swing my legs around to the floor, I am able to see another chaise longue opposite me, with Pauline already sitting upright, pale and absolutely terrified.

“Pauline,” I croak, my throat dry as dust, “are you all right?”

“N-no, Robert, I really don’t think I am.” She tosses her head, indicating something behind me.

I turn agonizingly slowly, not trusting that I could maintain my equilibrium if I turned any quicker.

Standing behind me, and tight up against the wall, was the risen body of our son John, restrained on either side of him by his father- and mother-in-law Gareth and Sylvia. They appeared to be using all their strength to hold him back. The first thing that crosses my mind is that my dead son was alive. Then he opens his mouth in a snarl, revealing elongated canines that are covered in spittle that gleams in the flickering candlelight. An inhuman growl emanates from between those snarling lips that once kissed his mother’s and latterly his beautiful lover’s welcoming lips. Gareth and Sylvia renew their efforts to restrain him and, parting their own lips, reveal equally impressive canines that would not have looked out of place on a pair of sabre-toothed tigers.

John’s eyes though, are not trained on me but focussed on his mother Pauline, sitting on the seat now behind my head.

“That is even more surprising, Robert,” Adrienne softly comments, from somewhere on my right. I can see her dimly, hiding in the shadows well away from the flickering fingertips of candlelight, “I thought that once you regained your senses that John would turn the object of his hunger towards you, being the least loving of the two people closest to his blood line.”

“So why do you hide in the shadows, Adrienne, could you be a target too?”

“As newly turned, John will naturally have a hierarchy of favourites upon which to slake his thirst, a choice which he consciously cannot make because his brilliant mind is now in limbo, only his beastly nature will command his actions until the flow of fresh blood satiates his desiccated organs. Only then will his brain reconnect and become aware of memories and be able to make rational choices in his actions. We are all targets when the hunger strikes us, Robert. Do you question how humane the bacon in your breakfast was raised or slaughtered before you satisfy your hunger?”

“No, I suppose not, but why does he not strike out at your parents? He, or should I say ‘it’, the Beast, is clearly unmuzzled.”

“Oh, John is definitely not an ‘it’, he is every bit the man he was but soon he will be so much more. He has the potential to live almost indefinitely, with no corruption of his body or mind by cancer or ageing, all he has to do is feed as regularly as he needs to on human blood.”

“So he is a blood-sucking vampire, like the rest of your family?”

“Very perceptive, Robert, yes he will become one of us but first there has to be a sacrifice. As you well know, nothing ever comes free, especially immortality and it comes at the highest price imaginable for a human.”

“So what happened to him and what happens now?” I asked.

“His illness brought this about. Although I told you earlier that we started our family because of John’s cancer, I lied. He actually kept the fact of his imminent mortality hidden from me as much as he had from you until just a few days ago. Six months before he had persuaded me that the time was right to start our family, arguing that he would be nearly seventy by the time our eldest reached the age when they would venture out into the world. And, as I was over a hundred and fifty years old myself, I felt I was ready for my first child. In fact, I was as eager as he was to knuckle down and make the first of our babies together.”

“So you criticize his reticence about his sickness, yet you kept secret from him what exactly you were, are a vampire?”

“That secret, yes. This one has to be kept from humans. At the moment we are not suspected, after all, who looks for clues about us if we are regarded as not existing? So I am only telling you both that we are vampires because one of you will be leaving this room in the pine box, while the other has to live, to be a loving grandparent to the twins.

"Ah, the twins, and what transformation do they have to go through?"

"None that you would notice. A vampire embryo can be fertilised by a human sperm, then the transformation to vampire naturally occurs in the woman as the vampire genes are dominant. Upon birth they crave milk just as a human child would and are happy to have human as well as vampire milk; mommy's milk is naturally best, but nursemaids have been used in our distant past. They twins will actively seek blood around puberty but within a loving family we will guide them through that phase of their lives."

"But one grandparent only from the male line it seems?"

"Yes, a necessary sacrifice, but the twins will still have three of the four grandparents. I still think it will be you in the box, Robert, and Pauline helping us out in the nursery for many years to come, but there seems to be a glitch in the system as far as who you call the Beast is concerned.”

“So, I suppose you were angry when John told you his secret about his terminal cancer?” I ask, “And was he upset when you suggested to him your ‘cure’? Did he readily agree to become this Beast or did you insist?”

“My, how insightful, Robert, I am impressed.” Adrienne smiles, and hesitates before continuing candidly, “it is difficult being deeply in love with a human, never being able to fully release my emotions, never to completely give myself to my lover as he could give himself utterly to me. When he lied about his illness and the enormity of what his death and loss would do to my happiness, I almost lost it. To preserve his life, I had to rein in my passion and anger, to take almost all his blood but leave enough residue to mix with my DNA I injected, necessary to begin to turn him from mortal to immortal. By the time he told me, the cancer had spread to his vital organs and he knew he wouldn’t see his children born. I was going to offer him the only way out, but he wanted to make gentle love to me after seeing the photos of our little babies—”

“You can be photographed?” I ask, “I saw the mirrors covered over and thought—”

“Misinformation, Robert, the history of vampires goes back to prehistory when a genetic abnormality showed up in the DNA. We shouldn't have survived that abnormality, but we did. It is all about the blood, the rest is misinformation. We can be seen in mirrors, we do show up on cameras and cctv. The mirrors are covered in the house because our ritual directs us to do this during the Pre Wake. We eat garlic all the time, wooden stakes in the heart are painful but ineffective, holy water is nothing at all, but silver is a problem, and crucifixes, that’s why I only embrace my father-in-law Robert, never the Bishop.”

I laughed, pulling the frills on my shirt to reveal my Bishop’s pectoral cross against my chest. “When you confirmed your non contact when I was wearing my cross, I took the precaution of concealing it.”

“Robert, please listen to me. We are not so inhuman as you think we are, we rarely kill for food and never for fun, but to survive we must have supplies of fresh blood from time to time, and the time between feeds varies from vampire to vampire.”

“H-how long is that time between feeds?” Pauline swallows and asks.

“It can be months or years, it depends on the activities of the vampire, Mom and Dad can get away with a small annual top-up, but Vincent, who is a successful Formula One racing driver, has to feed before and after a major race, which takes some organizing and finely tuned logistics for supplies. We often have a lot of requests as volunteers for Vincent, though, as they get a chance to see the world they would otherwise never see.”

“Yes, I have always noticed all the servants here have high collars, but the tiny girl in the library, is one I have not seen before. She is so short that I could see down her neck and she has quite a number of fresh puncture wounds.”

“Thank you, I will send Carrie back home to the village for a much-needed rest. She is particularly tasty, I understand, although I have so far resisted the temptation. Mom says she simply tastes so much nicer than anyone else she knows. We have a lot of guests here, and Carrie is so eager to please. I will be having words with certain members of my family, as I will not have my people abused.”

“Ha! Such sensibilities for one who has turned her husband—”

“Enough! I have no need to explain anything to you. I honestly expected you to be drained of blood and flat on your back in that box, fully twenty minutes ago, Robert, but he shuns you now as much as you have shunned him his whole life. Why do you not love your son John?”

“Love him? Of course I love him. I would gladly give up my jugular this instance if it would ensure he lived, even if it is this strange half-life that you have promised him. I have always loved him. Always.”

“But he says you can never even bear to touch him, even from his earliest memories.”

“And do you know why?”

“No, not really. Tell me.”

“Because, in spite of my faith, in the face of everything I believe in about my soul, my commitment to God, my diocese and my family, I cannot get too close to John, because of my overwhelming desire and love for him.”

“I don’t understand, Robert.” Adrienne comes forward, more into the light from the shadows.

“Yes, honey,” Pauline chips in, “you never cared for your son all the time he was at home. Even giving him a simple bedtime hug was too much for you. It was as if you had a heart of stone where he was concerned.”

“I loved him too much to touch him,” I shout out, “Look, I-I’m gay! I am attracted to men not women and have been ever since puberty. It was an impossible situation for me. Oh, I can appreciate your beauty, Pauline, your grace, the way you move, and I have developed a deep affection for you, call it love if you will, but John has always been my only true love and that love could never be consummated in the way that male lovers ... for want of a better word, mate. I am gay, while John was clearly not gay, and he loves Adrienne more than his own life. You talk about sacrifice, but I have sacrificed my happiness to maintain a lie … a lie that persuades parishioners that I am a normal heterosexual priest who can be trusted with wives, mothers, girlfriends, boys, girls, physically and mentally vulnerable men and women. And, yes, I can indeed be trusted to care for them, I am one hundred percent safe, but I can never kiss them, never reveal how much I like them, less my true nature be revealed and I lose their trust forever. You and I have so much more in common than you think, Adrienne, our true lives hidden behind a masquerade of deceit.”

Adrienne nods, a feint smile playing on her lips as so many things start to fall into place for her.

“Gay?” Pauline asks, still trying to think this through, married all those years, us making love thousands of times, “what the hell do you mean, ‘gay’?”

“I mean, dear wife, that although I have never indulged my natural inclinations as a gay man, for the sake of my family, our reputation and my further service unto God and my fellow brethren, I have denied all those urges and been a faithful husband and ... the best sort of father to our son John that I could possibly be. Can you honestly say the same ... wife?”

Pauline’s pale face reddens deeply, her mouth opens and closes wordlessly.

I turn to Adrienne. “So, tell me. What is the Pre Wake and why did Pauline and I have to be here to take part in it?”

“You have to be here and relaxed so that John can see you relaxed in mind and body and your blood warm and fresh, and to successfully transform from his present state to vampire he would have to completely consume every last drop of your blood, Robert. Therefore, the fasting is not necessary for you, in fact it is important that your blood is refreshed and recently refuelled, while all the alternative sources of blood around the place are starved by the fast and therefore less appealing to the Beast. It further focuses the subject on the preferred candidate.”

“I see, so I was the fatted calf. What exactly happens at the Wake part of your tradition?”

Adrienne walks into the light, looking at John all the time. I twist my head and see that John is still fixated on his mother. If he broke free now … well, I could imagine his mother would provide his first feed of blood. The word ‘sacrifice’ now took on more significance, for us both.

Adrienne didn’t need to explain it, I knew that John wouldn't drain my blood, and if his own mother Pauline wasn't in the room to be drained of blood, then he would indeed sacrifice his lover, the mother of his unborn children, in his driven mindless need to survive, his parents and wife were the closest related blood containers. His parents-in-law were not considered food for him, merely surplus packaging that was preventing access to the morsel or morsels his urges sought.

“And if the Beast fails to feed by dawn?” I ask.

“Yes, Dawn is most important, Robert. Failure to feed by dawn, two minutes to five o’clock, will leave the Beast as an empty shell, completely devoid of life and incapable of revival,” Adrienne wept, “he would be buried in his coffin, the paperwork prepared, filed and never questioned.”

“Never?”

“Never in over 150 years. This county is ours to do what we want, within reason. Hiding bodies is a reasonable favour owed by the authorities.” Adrienne sits next to me, her back to the struggling trio, testing their strengths and weaknesses and finding that they were at an impasse, and the Beast stares unwaveringly at the terrified Pauline, its favoured prey.

Both the women in John’s life knew, I was sure of it. Did this need to be played out or would we all put our cards on the table?

***

8 SACRIFICE

“If John fed on one of our human servants, or a rat or even a milk cow on the estate farm,” Adrienne continued, “his essence as John, the man I love, could not be fully restored. He needs blood that is a close DNA match to his own human blood, his father, mother, a full or even a half-sibling. It is not possible to take his blood or your blood and store it, and the three days is necessary so that the blood I drew from him has been completely absorbed and changed by my own body. However, I am not completely off the menu. I am there because I have been his lover of six years. We even made love on our first date, Robert, you, I now know, fully understand how utterly hot a man he is.”

“And I perfectly understand how hot you are, my dear,” I smile, “even though you are not at all my type.”

“Yes,” she snorts as she giggled, “but as frequent lovers for years we have regularly exchanged bodily fluids, and we vampires feed on more than simply blood. John has been sustaining me so well that I haven't touched a drop of blood from the time we met until three days ago. If he drained me now, he would achieve almost full restoration of his existence, but at the cost of his eternal love and lost forever would be the children he desired so much to spawn. He would indeed not be the John we all know and love but would be driven by grief to be a monster that cannot die, yet cannot live with himself. However much it will kill my heart, I would rather he was a husk in the coffin and I exist and endure the knowledge of what I had to sacrifice in order to save our children.”

Pauline’s eyes grew larger as Adrienne expanded her explaination, and the full horror of her fate became clear to her.

“How long does John have?” I ask as I pull my phone from my pocket and flick through the unread messages until I find the one I want.

Adrienne consultes her watch, “Three hours and fifty-three minutes. The draining of the victim only takes a matter of moments. Why? What does the time matter? It seems obvious to me that the choice is clear and you would have to be grandfather to John's children.”

“I see.” I say, as I read the note from the diocesan office, summarizing aloud, “‘Reverend Darren Greensward, Minister of Tanglewood, was flown into your local airport by my office, and checked into Room 208 in the Skyline Motel at 8.30 earlier this evening.’” I turn to Adrienne, “He thinks he is attending an interview for a permanent position at your church here first thing in the morning. He caught the last possible flight in. I was going to confront him in the morning and beat out of him the release of his hold on my wife. Apparently, Pauline advised him by phone of the death of his son three days ago, but I am reliably informed he told Betty Jones, one of his current lovers, that the death meant nothing to him.”

“No!” cries Pauline, “You can’t have found out all this after our conversation early this afternoon, you can’t!”

“No, Pauline, my dear, but I have known Greensward was your lover before you found him cheating and you began going out with me, the good Christian former alter boy who would never cheat and was destined to go places within the clergy,” I say, my mind calmer than I ever expected at this showdown, “I accepted you as my wife because you were the perfect cover for my shortcomings as a … man. You were beautiful, charming, a caring mother and wife, and I heaped as much affection on you as I could, except that you couldn't give up the cheater, could you? When Greensward made you pregnant, you passed John off as my child, but a public person can never hide secrets from a curious and determined congregation still loyal to a previous minister who they once took to their hearts. Quite a few of the kind-hearted and a couple of the more malicious parishioners told me the truth, and, when DNA tests came into common use I confirmed my fears.”

“You knew all along?” Pauline sobs.

“I shared you with Greensward all these years and sacrificed the sin of pride gladly. I hated it and I am sure it was common knowledge among your flock, and I could not deny the titters at my expense between the pews, but I did love you as far as I was able, Pauline, on an emotional level. I was bitterly disappointed when you didn't follow me to the Bishop’s Palace, and Greensward was appointed in my place as your Minister. I hoped that when you left his curacy that I still had a chance and patiently waited. When I heard John had died, I released all my gathered evidence about Greensward to your Bishop, I wasn’t going to stand for that creep moving in with you. If he hasn't already.”

“No, he hasn't. I do love you Robert, I grew to love you during our time together. I know Darren has always had this hold over me but, living openly with a lover? I would never do that to you, to knowingly embarrass us all among the parishioners we grew up with. But, now Darren wants to retire, leave his parish and move in with me in my vicarage. I couldn’t do that to my congregation and still be able to preach the values of marriage from the pulpit, so I resigned my position too. After the divorce I have no idea how or where I will live.”

“He is not retiring, Pauline,” I inform her sadly, “Greensward was forced to resign or be sacked. He has had a string of affairs, ruining the lives of a number of couples’ lives in our old parish. His own Bishop is a fool and covered up Greensward’s moral failings for far too long. With the evidence I sent him when I heard John died, it has finally forced his Bishop to hang him out to dry. This afternoon, after you sprung the divorce on me, I offered to take Greensward off their hands and provide him a living, calling in a favour from the Bishop of this diocese.”

“We can be at the Skyline in half-an-hour, and still have time to get back if he’s not there,” Adrienne says, as she strides briskly to the door, barking an order to the servant standing there, sending him off running to the dining hall. Within a couple of minutes, four burly cousins come in and bundle John, who bellows like a beast being dragged from the square meal he desired so badly, through the door.

��We’ve got this covered, Addy dear,” grunts Gareth, “you stay here and patch things up.” Gareth and Sylvia follow John and the party, but not before kissing their daughter in farewell and squeezing the shoulders of both Pauline and I, wordlessly offering us hope that together we’d get past this mess of transition.

In the silence, amid the candles guttering in the disturbed air of that ante chamber, Pauline asks in her small voice,“What happens now, Robert?”

“Either we’re both going to be parents to our lovely son again, and doting grandparents to those two vampire babies, the first of many I suspect, Sweetheart,” I say, “or it will come down to you being the one making the sacrifice for once.”

THE END

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