#c: anita

[banisheed]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Siobhan’s great-great-grandmother’s shack; Ireland PARTIES: Anita (@gossipsnake), Metzli (@muertarte), Xóchitl (@vanishingreyes), Siobhan (@banisheed) SUMMARY: Anita, Metzli and Xóchitl finally land in Ireland! Siobhan greets them, though she has an odd request to make.

Love existed here, once: between the hand-cut fences, the worn spines of yellowing books, and the pathways carved into the ground by the instrument of feet. Siobhan’s great-great-grandmother built the little teachín herself, insisting that Saol Eile was too loud for her, too busy. For all the time Siobhan had known her, she’d never seen the woman come back to the aos sí; as she often said, if anyone was worth her time, they would visit her in her home. Life bent to her terms, and the people in her life either agreed or stayed very far away. As Siobhan’s mother lamented to her own grandmother, she believed the worst of her daughter’s habits had been learned at the feet of that stubborn hag. As Siobhan had always seen it, the things she could point to within herself that weren’t reflections of someone else, began here: between the fields, under the bookshelves, in the arms of her great-great-grandmother. She loved her, but love hadn’t come back to this shack in years. 

Nature claimed what was once dutifully tended to; thick vines wove through cracked stone and the grass sprouted wild and lush in the old farmland. Wildflowers now adorned the landscape, home to a micro-ecosystem of insects and mice. Despite Siobhan’s best efforts, it was impossible to remove all the dust that had settled in sheets over everything. Every so often a thick silverfish would slither out from the tattered books and a new mouse—or perhaps the same over-eager one—would scurry to a new hiding spot. She’d cleaned up, sweeping away the decades of neglect, but the little shack’s age—and its new inhabitants—were undeniable. If Anita, Metzli and Xóchitl were expecting high-class accommodations, they would be disappointed. Siobhan might’ve argued that it wasn’t that bad—it was clean, just a little ancient and maybe one bad storm away from collapsing—but she wasn’t in the mood to argue for much of anything. 

Spotting her ‘acquaintances’ over the horizon, she propped the wooden door open with a brick and gestured for them to follow the old, winding path down and join her inside. “I invite you all inside, come.” Yes, it was small, Siobhan wanted to say. Once, her great-great-grandmother, a small woman herself, had made the space expansive with her presence; she couldn’t explain how it felt the walls had been pushed out and the roof lifted to the sky and that she hadn’t noticed how tiny it all was. Instead, she offered: “the plumbing still works and there’s electricity; the generator back there runs on gas, I filled it up. The signal here isn’t too bad.” In case they wanted to call for help, she thought. In case they wanted to write a review of the trip: shitty shack, zero stars. She wanted to tell them that this wasn’t what she had planned. When she’d invited them here, it was with the idea that they’d join her in Saol Eile; it was with the idea that she was wanted. In hindsight, it was incredibly idiotic to invite a human and a vampire to a banshee community (they would have liked Anita) but hindsight was worth nothing to her now. 

It would have been easy to tell them to go, take their bags to Dublin and find a way to have a good trip. She wanted to do it; her mouth opened and her tongue formed the words but nothing but her shallow breathing escaped. The list Putrecia had given her was long and despite how ridiculous fae court systems were, she couldn’t represent herself: she needed a lawyer and character witnesses. Siobhan needed them, her acquaintances (Metzli could be called a friend, Siobhan had already allowed that). She wrung her hands. “I know this is not—I know I didn’t explain much—I know…” She swallowed. “I need your help,” Siobhan said, “I didn’t invite you here to help me, I promise. I invited you here to show you my home, but my home is—I need your help.” She paced from one end of the shack to the other. “This is serious. There’s going to be a trial—I’m on trial—in the…” She waved her hands around, creating shapes that meant nothing. “...the community that I grew up in. It’s a little—it’s very—it has its own rules and I’m going to court and I need help. I need your help, I need…” Siobhan stopped pacing, suddenly remembering the bare minimum of hospitality. “H-how was the flight? Did you eat peanuts? They…have those sometimes, right?” 

—

The cab driver had managed to take the three travelers from the airport to the edge of a long path that led down to a distinctly Irish-looking cottage. The trip down the path, however, would have to be made on foot. After hauling her suitcases out of the trunk, Anita spotted Siobhan down near the cottage. There was slightly overgrown greenery all around them, trees that peaked out from behind the roof, and rolling hills in the distance. Despite how distinctly Irish the landscape around them seemed there were parts of it all, and particularly the weather, that reminded her of Maine. 

As she made the journey down the path Anita was surprised by how reserved Siobhan seemed. Even once they made it to the cottage, there was something distinctly out of the ordinary about her disposition. “Plumbing, electricity, and a signal - sounds like all the basic necessities accounted for,” she said with a grin, trying to set a positive tone. “I’d personally be fine without a signal, in all honesty.” She was admittedly very much looking forward to being out here in all of this nature - maybe she’d even do Ireland a favor and give it its first snake in a few centuries. 

After setting her bags down near the front door, Anita looked over at Metzli trying to gauge how they were doing with an unspoken check in. Her attention quickly turned back to Siobahn, however, who was suddenly asking them for help. It was a lot to take in, that she was on trial and that this rag-tag group was who she was seeking help from. “Uh… no, they had those tiny pretzels instead.” Anita responded, still working out how to respond to the rest of the information that Siobhan had relayed. “But, sorry, what’s going on? Is this a criminal trial? Do you need us for, like, moral support or…” she trailed off, partly wondering if any of the outfits she had packed would be court appropriate. 

__ 

It was a good thing Metzli didn’t need to sleep. Not even the medicine Anita had given them any sort of respite from the climbing anxiety of such an experience. For whatever reason, they felt it imperative to keep watch on their friends in the metallic machine flying through the sky. Ensure that if anything were to go wrong, they could move and protect. It was what Metzli felt they were meant to do now, and they didn’t mind that responsibility. That was what love was about. That was why they got on such a strange contraption in the first place to loosen the taut tether that connected Metzli and Siobhan. It was with great relief (and a broken arm rest) that they had landed with very few complications, finally reaching the path that led to their loved one. 

And when they laid eyes on her in the distance, a breathless, “Siobhan…!” tumbling past their lips as the tension finally released. Without another word, Metzli all but bolted into a sprint. Their backpack bounced against their back and their carry-on tossed about on their side, but in a matter of seconds (thanks to their long legs and not their unnatural speed), Metzli arrived in front of Siobhan’s cottage with a wide-eyed but incredibly small smile. They didn’t say much more, too overstimulated by the course of events, but they managed to catch everything Siobhan said. Even the way her voice was drowning in uncertainty and her body behaved similarly to their last visit together. It gave Metzli pause, and they almost missed Anita and Xóchitl arriving next to them and entering the cottage as they grew lost in their mind. They hesitated to step past the threshold for a beat before their concern won out. 

“Siobhan—”

Clang!

Metzli’s head hit a hanging pan, and they blinked with surprise before shaking it away. They hunched further to accommodate for the hanging kitchen supplies, grumbling something about their confusion and how Leila would have prospered in that small environment. “What is this trial? What do we—” Clink! That time, Metzli’s head hit a metal ladle, and they took a deep breath to keep their irritation from boiling over. Focus. A beat, and they calmed, wringing their fingers together as they searched for a chair and watched out for more hanging utensils while they spoke. 

“What do we do here and why do you have everything hanging in here?”

—

The flight had been good, all things considered. Not that there was terribly much to consider, not really, but she had been left with the slightest of knots in her stomach, which was terribly unlike her, but Xóchitl figured the more she focused on the knot, the tighter it would become, and she didn’t want that, and so she chose not to focus. Siobhan had wanted her to come to Ireland for some reason, even though the two of them weren’t friends (right? Except Xóchitl wouldn’t fly to Ireland for just anyone, just someone who she’d hooked up with a few times. Still. It wasn’t productive to focus in on that right now.

Siobhan’s family’s house was pretty. Even though it was way more in the country than Xóchitl had first imagined, but being away from a city could be good. Not that she’d been in any sort of real city in forever, but this was even more country than the country-est parts of Wicked’s Rest. “I could use having no signal, honestly. Or minimal signal.” She’d told Mateo she was going away and had taken time off of work, and it might do her some sort of good to take a no-internet retreat. 

“Are you okay?” She said, arriving half-breathless with Anita to the home, only in time to see Metzli hit themselves with a pan. “Thank you for having us,” she gave a small nod to Siobhan, “yeah, they had pretzels, and they were just okay. The wine was good though.” It took her a beat to process Siobhan’s words, and Anita’s reaction. “You’re on trial?” Xóchitl’s expression fell into one of concern. “I – uh. Do you need me to declare you mentally sound? Or – why – are you okay?” Which seemed like a stupid sort of question, because the answer was obviously no, even if Siobhan faked things. “What – can I do?”

—

The tiny pretzels were superior to peanuts, Siobhan could admit that. It felt like one of those universal facts: worms are beautiful, murder is fun, the tiny pretzels on airplanes are better than the peanuts (which haven’t been served on planes for a while, she remembered). Though, not that she would really know. Her middle seat economy class flight had been so dreadful, all she could remember was Baby’s Day Out in nightmarish flashes. And, anyway, none of this was the point. “It—watch the pans!” But it was too late, the clangs of Metzli’s skull rang out around them, sending more silverfish out of the old bookcase. People walking into them was part of the reason her great-great-grandmother had decided to hang everything up. She was so short, she passed under everything; back when the pans and ladles still had their color, only the tips of her wild red hair reached them. “My great-great…” Siobhan glanced at Xóchitl, who may have suspected she was weird but didn’t understand the scope of her non-humanness. “...grandmother,” she continued, “liked to keep things where she could grab them. That’s why the shelves are all…” Siobhan gestured at the low-hanging shelves. This also wasn’t the point. 

Siobhan had expected protests. She thought Anita would turn around, Xóchitl would huff, Metzli would…probably stay because they were nice but that also, also, wasn’t the point. The point was that these people were here and they were willing to help and Siobhan didn’t know what to do about that. “I…no, not a criminal trial, per se. And no, I don’t need to be declared mentally sound. I don’t think—No, I know that they don’t exactly believe in…psychology.” Logic wouldn’t be winning her case. The list Putrecia gave her was burning a hole in her pocket. “It’s a…” How to describe it? What to call it? “...character trial. To see if I’m worthy enough to reenter the community.” But that didn’t make it sound right; that made it sound worse than it was. They were missing the nuance, she reasoned. And just in case their faces betrayed any disgust, Siobhan turned away from them. 

“I think…Anita, if you’d like to…If you could…” Why was the disapproval of these people—these inferior beings—suddenly so terrifying? It was the banshees in Saol Eile she should have been scared of. The thought of facing another one of Putrecia’s scowls crushed her insides to a paste but the idea that Anita could say no, set the rest of her body ablaze. Forty-two years away from her community had twisted her up into the wrong shape; she needed to go back. When Siobhan finally met the gazes of her fr—acquaintances, it was with a rare blush and even more rare watery eyes. If they asked, it was allergies. “Would you be my lawyer, Anita? Would you represent me? You don’t have to do anything, really. But I just need…” Siobhan’s mouth was suddenly dry. “It has to be you because you’re…” Not human. Not an affront against Death and Fate. “...sexy.” 

She shook her head, looking between Xóchitl and Metzli. “If you two could…act as character witnesses. It’s unlikely you’ll be called to talk.” Most of the trial was decided at random—no, sorry, by Fate. “But if you are…if you’re needed…just in case…” Who else in Saol Eile would have a good word to say about her? Any advantage was worth it. “And Xóchitl, I don’t accept that thank you. Don’t thank me for this; I should be thanking all of you. I should…” And that was it, whatever thin shred of pride held Siobhan’s tears back snapped. She sniffled, wiping at her red cheeks with the back of her hand. “I’m okay. Or, I will be okay, once the trial is over.” She paused, closing her eyes. “If you want to leave, you can; I suppose I’m offering a choice here. I just hope that…” She couldn’t say it.

—

It was nice to see that the other two visitors seemed as unaware of what was happening as Anita did. What was less nice to see was Siobhan on the precipice of some sort of emotional breaking point. Only recently had Anita learned how to help Metzli with emotional moments, and even then her help was really quite minimal. As their host began to explain the strange trial and intricacies of her unique community, Anita felt quite confident of one thing: Xóchitl was the only human around. Even not knowing all of the details about who or what Siobhan was there were parts of this story that Anita could understand. Not that she would be subject to a character trial if she tried to return to her own community, but she knew that she would be met with resistance. 

In all of her interactions with her fellow professor, Anita had never seen Siobhan this … vulnerable. There was a time she would have associated such vulnerability with weakness but not anymore. A sign of immense personal growth, Anita rationalized to herself. In thinking about herself, Anita seemingly missed a small portion of what was happening because the next thing she heard was Siobhan asking her to be her lawyer. Her lips separated as an expression of surprise and slight discomfort washed over her face. But as she stood there, trying to think of ways to get out of this imposition, she felt another set of emotions come over her. It wasn’t pity, but perhaps it was sympathy? 

“I mean, if that’s all the criteria you’re looking for… I guess I am the perfect candidate.” Her words felt lackluster, missing their usual playful spark of sarcasm. Something wasn’t right. Whatever Siobhan was, she wasn’t lamia but she also wasn’t a human. Emotional complexity was never something that Anita fared well with - not when it came to her own emotions and certainly not with the emotions of others. She looked towards Metzli, searching for some guidance. She then turned to Xóchitl, trying to figure out what she made of all of this. If they were willing to help out, then she would be willing, too. It didn’t seem as though they were being asked to do as much as she was, however. Even if Siobhan claimed that representing her wouldn’t require much, if she knew anything about trials from TV shows, being someone's lawyer was a lot of work. 

She swallowed, hard, when the tears finally fell from Siobhan’s beautiful doe-y brown eyes. Anita longed for the days when they were just committing arson together. That was less complicated than this, she knew how to navigate those kinds of circumstances. “Don’t know much about lawyering, but if you need me to be, I’ll be your sexy lawyer, okay? Now, let’s get you a drink, mami.” It was her best attempt at offering up any comfort, even if it was quite a poor attempt. 

_

Metzli’s face contorted into something like a cocktail of anger and disappointment. It had played out just as it always had for Siobhan. What she wanted dangled in front of her, just out of reach. It wasn’t fair, and she couldn’t see that. No, she wouldn’t see that. Time after time, Siobhan was promised a family and love, but only after several conditions. Each time, she was given a sliver, the inkling serving as a flint set to spark a pitiful excuse for a fire. 

A small bit of hope that was enough to keep her hanging on. It always would be. At least until something or someone lit her heart ablaze from a source far more powerful. One that would grant her warmth instead of a meager, dim light that only led her towards dead ends. 

No matter what they said, Siobhan was determined to believe a lie because it was far preferable than accepting the truth. She wanted to change the answer, make the story finish the way she had always been promised, but happy endings were scarce and in too high demand in their world. But if Metzli had any say, they’d pay whatever price to ensure Siobhan got the family she desperately wanted. Even if it meant they’d never see her again. Even if it meant feeding into an illusion, which was just a fancy word for a lie. Because sometimes it mattered more to give your friends what they thought they needed instead of pushing your own wishes onto them. Because hope was a wish, and Siobhan was a star with far too much pressure choking her out. 

“I…” Something of a choke managed to surface to the vampire’s tongue, but they knew there wasn’t much to say. Instead, they walked carefully forward, ignoring the way a pot collided with their forehead. The sound echoed and thrummed along the inside of the metal, only ending when there was no place for the clang to bounce from. Not that Metzli paid it any mind. They were too busy wrapping their arm around Siobhan’s waist and placing their chin on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. “Will help you.” It sounded like a promise. 

—

She still had no idea why Siobhan was on trial, and off in Ireland, of all places. Xóchitl wasn’t stupid, she did know that Siobhan was Irish (it was pretty sexy at the time, not that now was even sort of remotely the time to think about that.)

Xóchitl also wasn’t especially keen on how any of this was turning out, but a vacation was a vacation and so she needed to do something about that blah-blah-blah. She wasn’t very good at taking time off (and even she could manage to admit that), and Ireland was supposed to be beautiful (though very very white, so far, but maybe that was partially to do with the fact that they were straight up in the middle of nowhere). But Anita and Metzli and Siobhan were all here, and that was something special (not that she got sentimental or whatever about things), and Mackenzie probably would’ve loved this. The two of them had made so many plans to travel to so many countries together – Mackenzie would’ve loved the idea of being a travel influencer, and Xóchitl knew she would’ve gone with her anywhere.

She supposed that was something to what friendship was, and maybe that was what things meant with the other three who were here, now. They weren’t Mackenzie, and nobody ever would be, but they were here and she loved them. The thought immediately made her stomach clench tighter than she ever could’ve wished for. Which was not a response Xóchitl was looking for right now, but she’d learned far too many times that she didn’t have control over things like that. 

She was just damn good at faking it.

“Let’s drink, and we’ll figure things out. We’re here for you, Siobhan. We’re not letting anything happen to you.” If she said it like it was impossible, then maybe it would be.

—

The amount of times Siobhan had ever felt loved—that dammed word again—she could count on two fingers. It wasn’t the amount of times that she knew she was cared for: her mother cared for her, she supposed; her grandmother and her great-grandmother; the other banshees did as well, insofar as any banshee would care for another. It wasn’t care in the saccharine sense—not the overly familiar way that the humans used it—it was survival. It was the way one bird would know not to peck another death. The banshees cared for her proved by the fact they hadn’t pecked her to a pulp and offered a second chance at all—yes, she was cared for. But loved? 

Was it love that bloomed with warmth inside her chest? That made her bite the inside of her cheek to stop a smile? That spurred a wet, bubbling laugh from her dry throat? Siobhan had two finger’s worth of experience on love; what did she know? She could recognize happiness well enough and she was happy Anita was here, and that Anita had agreed, and that she suggested a drink—and yes, she wanted one and she was so thankful Anita understood well enough to offer an escape from her pathetic display of emotion. Did Anita know how smart she was? How astute? How, despite her own self-proclaimed lack of care, she could so delicately thread any situation offered to her? Of course she did, she was Anita—there couldn’t have been a compliment in existence that she hadn’t heard before. Was that love that she felt then for her fr–co-worker? 

And if there were no original words to capture Anita, there was less Siobhan could offer to Metzli. She knew they didn’t know how remarkable they were; she had tried to explain it before, but like everything else about her, it was too over-wrought. Metzli was the only person she could call a friend, and the only person she had said she loved—and the only person who made her feel like she understood the word, just a little. Though, she hoped Metzli forgot she said it—and anyway it was over the internet so did it count?—if only so she might be offered the chance to say it again, and say it better. Metzli’s weight around her felt like love, she was so sure of it, but she couldn’t assign any words. Instead, she leaned into them and lightly wrapped one arm around them too, mindful of their discomfort with physical touch—and that felt like care, that felt like love. Was this it? Was she loved? Was she cared for? 

Finally, her gaze settled on Xóchitl, who she expected would’ve run at the first spark of strangeness. Yet, she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t; Xóchitl had been ruining her expectations since they first met. So much of her was so human: all of her grief, her fears, her memories and tastes. But, it was in that humanness that there existed a swirling cosmos of identity that formed her. It was that humanness that Siobhan liked in her and it was that humanness that tightened in her throat. Did fear exist on the other side of love? Was it that she cared for Xóchitl that she worried this place would test her humanity? Was it love for her fr—woman that she slept with one time? It was, at least, gratitude for her presence and compassion. 

She was nothing like a banshee, soft and vulnerable like a creature showing its stomach, but whatever she felt now, it carried into her an inch of hope—just enough to convince her that everything would be okay. Did love exist here? Between them? Maybe just enough, maybe just an inch. 

“Now, would it be inappropriate if I assume you all want Mezcal? Because I did go through the trouble of buying up all the nice imports for us. Metzli, there’s wine from the, uh, wine butcher, for you.” 

Anything for her friends. 

#i want everyone to know trying to make that made my computer chug so hard #i also want everyone to know that i love these goobs so much #im soft #inch of hope #writing #s2 #c: metzli #c: anita #c: xóchitl

[muertarte]

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @wonder-in-wings @magmahearts @amonstrousdream @banisheed @highoctanegem @gossipsnake @muertarte

SUMMARY: Friends and strangers band together to invade a crypt and bring an end to Chuy's reign.

WARNINGS: Emotional Abuse

The evening started a lot earlier for Jade and Parker. Not that she minded, hanging out with him was so much fun (even if he would insist he wasn’t good company). But fun as it was, it was super long, even by her standards. No luck tonight, again. But when the odds of them striking gold were diminishing by the second, it happened: A fledgling, in the flesh. One with a running mouth at that! It didn’t take much prodding from the duo for it to reveal the location of the most sought-after crypt on this side of the map. And with that, Jade hit the group chat, dropping the location for the rest of the team to meet up. The gang by the way? Straight up out of a model catalog. She’d never seen a more attractive group of misfits teaming up to roast a scaly douche. Which meant, they were totally about to get that W. (Everybody knew hot people always won). As soon as the group neared the crypt, Jade plunged Louis into the generous informant, no longer needed for anything. 

Unfortunately, there was not much room for introductions after that, the entrance to the crypt was clearly guarded by Jesus’s bodyguards. They weren’t twelve, though. More like, ten. And no one was wearing robes or sandals (good for them, actually). Anyway, that meant slipping into slayer mode right away, the crossbow in her hands firing expertly to weaken the opposition, Harry at the ready to stab those who came near. It was a fair fight, but by the way things were moving, bodies beheaded, some burnt, others dust, Jade knew the entrance would be theirs in no time. If patience was a virtue, Parker could’ve been considered a saint. He had spent more time than he likely would’ve preferred searching for information on the location of one… Master Jesus’ crypt with Jade but if he had been bored, irritated or starting to lose whatever semblance of hope he was able to feel, he made none of it evident on his scarred face. And, as Fate would have it, patience had won out as he forcibly restrained what was called a ‘fledgling’ in place, twisting one of its arms up and behind him with his other arm around its neck.

Their methodology, with her able to sense and ask the right questions and his proclivity to do the heavy lifting in terms of threats and restraint, worked well and soon enough, they had finally acquired the information they were after: the location of the elder’s crypt. Where the coffin was was another story but as Parker carefully and rather gracefully weaved around the battlefield and his temporary allies in the party’s attempt to pierce through the first line of defense into the crypt (‘she finally got to utilize her idea for a group chat!’ Walker exclaimed in his head, threatening to distract the Warden from the fight the group was embroiled in), uncharacteristically brandishing a stake in one hand while his other still held his broad iron dagger, he knew that between the six of them, that coffin wouldn’t survive another day.

Now they just needed to make sure that Metzli would.

When she had been alive, Leila was never a fighter. There was no warrior’s blood that ran through her veins when it had been blood and not grains of dust as countless as stars in the sky. No bravery. It hadn’t been time that had changed it- if time had had it’s way, Leila Beaulieu would have been a coward until the world ended. It had been people- her people. A little family that carved itself out in a little town in Maine of all places. Those people had created an ember that slowly burned away the fear that would have sent her running in the centuries before. When she’d received the message that Jesus’s crypt had been found, that ember had roared its way into an inferno in her chest. 

The plan, as far as she knew, was fairly straightforward: cut through the fledgling guard, find the coffin, burn it, get out. If the coffin burned, so too would Jesus. But first, the lot of them needed to get past the fledglings. Her fingers itched for the blowtorch that was strapped to her back, too tight to be wrenched away from her easily. It was being reserved for as long as she could- Leila did not want to risk not being able to turn the coffin to ash. And so, she wielded her dagger- Metzli’s dagger. The irony in it all was not lost on her. A stake (repulsive thing) was strapped to her thigh, a ‘just in case’ compromise she had made with the hunters in the rescue party. And there was one more tool in her toolbelt: the dark of night. A fledgling had begun barreling her direction, looking for all the world determined to rip the mare apart. But their hands caught nothing but evening air and shadow. 

The next moment, Leila reappeared out of the shadows, and drove her dagger in the fledgling’s back.

Even though teamwork was something that Anita avoided at nearly all cost, for the sake of Metzli she had allowed her number to be added to some group chat. A group that didn’t fit together on paper but were all coming together for a common cause, a common connection. Upon getting the notification of the location of this fuckers crypt, Anita grabbed one of her shifter go-bags from the closet and headed towards the inevitable action. She hadn’t been the first to arrive and immediately recognized her temporary teammates fighting off a crowd of fledglings. She smirked a bit, adrenaline pumped through her bloodstream with efficiency as she transformed into a mighty Mojave before diving into the battle. 

The vampires hardly even flinched at the sight of the lamia - a lack of respect she didn’t much care for. She was the biggest creature out there, they could at least pretend to react. As if she didn’t already have an excellent reason for killing them, it added fuel to her fire. Letting her tail slink around to the left and cause a distracting rattle, Anita swooped around the side of two young vampires before quickly striking and biting the head clean off one of the vampires. Nothing like decapitation to kill the undead. As she looked around to see the others also being successful in their efforts, Anita saw the merit in working well with others. It was more efficient, certainly. 

Anita kept barreling towards the crypt, swerving around the fledglings as she used her fangs (which were far bigger and sharper than theirs) to rip their heads from their bodies. 

Siobhan loved violence. It said so on her custom long-sleeved shirt, right up both arms. On the front, in large font, was a simple ‘I LOVE METZLI’. However, as she lacked any photos of her friend, she relied on her artistic interpretation of the vampire: a crude drawing that looked more like a hairy potato than a person. On the back, an attempt at a nude drawing of Metzli: an abstract abomination that made Picasso’s work look like Da Vinci’s. Grinning, she took as much pleasure in slicing her short swords through dead flesh as she did watching everyone else partake in such affectionate violence. Wasn’t this love? To slaughter in the name of another? She wished Metzli could see them, she wished they knew the ferocity in which blades flew and teeth ripped. There was a beauty in their massacre—a persistence; an orchestra of brutality that they all understood. 

The assortment of them was odd: two humans, an undead, a whatever-Anita-was and two fae (one much sexier than the other). Yet, Siobhan felt the goal tethered them beyond understanding. Did Metzli know how much they were cared for? Wanted? Another fledgling fell to her blades as she skipped along. Being cared for looked like this, she thought, as death rose around her, swaddled her cold flesh and lit her body up from the inside. No matter what, they’d be setting Metzli free today, she was sure of it. She just hoped it wasn’t the sort of ashy freedom that sometimes befell vampires. She wanted hundreds of years with her friend, and this was the team that would make it happen. 

The drawing of Metzli on her shirt winked with each step closer. 

This was a new sensation for Cass. Most of her experience as a ‘superhero’ was more opportunistic than anything else. She went out at night looking for crime to stop, sure, but not like this. Never with a goal so specific in mind, never with an intended target. Certainly never with the intention to kill. The very thought of it dug a pit into her stomach, though she wasn’t sure if it was a genuine thing or one forced there by her desperate grip on human morality. She reminded herself, the whole trip over, that Chuy was a bad guy. This was Thanos, this was the Joker, this was Kilgrave or Black Mask. This was someone so evil that they deserved the fate that was coming to them. She repeated it as they arrived at the crypt, like a mantra in her head. She tried to hold on to the memory of the relief she’d felt when she got the news that the hunter who hurt Alex was dead and tried not to remember the sticky guilt that came right on its heels. Heroes weren’t supposed to kill people, but didn’t they have to do what needed to be done sometimes? This was for Metzli, and Metzli deserved to be free. She clung to that thought above everything.

The fledglings outside the crypt left her with a different kind of guilt, a more complicated one. She tried not to think of Metzli, who was being controlled by the same man who had created these vampires, the same man who was just as capable of forcing orders into their heads, too. She tried not to remember that the dust floating around her used to form the shapes of people, people who probably had families and friends, people who could have grown and found their freedom the same way Metzli had. There was no room for thoughts like that here; no one else seemed to be having them. Still, Cass hung back a little, sticking close to Leila but not attacking anyone directly. Her glamour was down; it was easier that way. Heroes wore masks to separate themselves from their vigilantism. Dropping her glamour allowed Cass to do the same. With the glowing magma burning beneath her rocky skin, most of the fledglings didn’t try to approach her, anyway. She pretended it wasn’t cowardly to find relief in that. 

She pretended her heart didn’t rise to her throat as the path to the crypt became clearer and clearer, as less and less resistance separated their little group from the door. Soon, nothing at all stood between them and the entry, between them and Metzli. Cass steeled herself. She knew from her last encounter with the vampire that there was no telling what state they’d find them in.

The smell of lavender filled their nose before Leila’s visage became less of a blur. It was a scent accompanied with acrid blood and dust, a tale of war told by smell alone, but also one of love. Friends had gathered to destroy a man that Metzli had been forced to call Master. Worse yet, they were going to be forced to fight the very people who were dead set on saving them. The gesture and dedication angered Master, and he made it clearer as he held Metzli in place with his hand gripping the back of their neck. Not that it really bothered them. No, they were too focused on the scent that had so often brought them relief and comfort. They wanted to will it to do the very same as they sat in place, waiting. 

“They really here for you?” Master asked, grip tightening. 

Metzli simply nodded, inhaling slowly as they felt a trickle of blood cascade down their skin. They caught a few more scents, surprised to find sulfur among the group. It had to be Cass, no doubt. Body tensed at the realization, their soul unable to keep itself from worrying. She wasn’t supposed to join along. Of course Metzli knew she could fight, that she was more than capable of taking care of herself, but the worry remained, and Master caught onto it.

“Ah...the one you call child. Maybe she will be the first I kill.”

A flare of anger breached through the numbness, and Metzli whipped around to crash their arm on top of Master’s, ripping it away from their neck. A crazed mixture of surprise and excitement painted over his features, and just as quickly as their rebellion rose, it dissipated, body going slack with obedience as Master gripped them by the throat. They could hear the rest of the room bristling with bloodlust, Metzli’s friends just around the corner. A fight was coming, and even they weren’t sure who would win.

When the final fledgling turned to dust by virtue of Harry, everyone gathered around the entrance to the chamber, descending to the crypt with a very straightforward plan: Take as many as you can (hopefully, look hot while doing so). What mattered was to leave Jesus isolated. Unable to defend its crypt. They moved as a group, Anita slithering ahead of them. And sure, there was no time to like, stop and dwell on stuff… but how cool was it, to share this side quest with a snake shifter and Lavagirl (Sharkboy-less, but stilll). Jade heard the low murmurs, her skin prickling, stomach fluttering with the unmistakable presence of undead ahead. There was no point concealing their footsteps, not when every vampire within the chamber had already picked up their scents. It was always better to make an entrance, anyway. Which, they did. Storming into the main room, ready to take names. A brief moment of recognition danced around the chamber, a second, as time stood still and every player was in position. Adrenaline kicked into a higher gear. A few of her bolts found their way into vampire bodies, before deciding to take a more hands-on approach with the swarming beasts. Her crossbow discarded in favor of the classic stake and blade combo. With nothing to wait for, Jade clocked in for another shift.    

Fortunately, everyone present seemed able to hold their own, at least in the context of fighting untrained vampires. More fortunately, there were no strangers that Parker could see as they hastily, yet comprehensively formulated a plan. Unfortunately, even as their dynamic movement into the crypt commenced, he still felt his blood churning in his veins every time Siobhan or Cass unintentionally drew too close to him. He wasn’t to be deterred, though, and indeed, he forced himself to push past the unpleasant sensation every time it happened. The group broke through the barrier, barely having time to catch their breaths before launching into another fight. He opted to stick close to Jade as they engaged; it was rather dark (the candles that were placed here and there, he supposed, were more for “aesthetic” as he was sure vampires could see in the dark) and he wasn’t afforded that same luxury. Good thing they had a volcanic oread to help illuminate the space, not that he’d have admitted that aloud.

If everyone had a job in this fight, Leila’s was both painfully simple and painfully difficult. Step one: find the coffin; Step two, make sure it is nothing but cinders. In theory, simple. But theory did not account for the half-feral fledglings that were flinging themselves at the strange little rescue party. Theory did not account for the waves of fear that she had to force herself through- fear for Cass, fear for Metzli, fear for all involved. Theory also did not account for the unbridled rage that made the nightmare want nothing more than to charge up to the elder vampire and rip him apart with her own two hands… not that she had the supernatural strength to do so. 

She kept close to Cass as the group forced their way into the crypt, fighting to get to Metzli. Not going to lose anyone. That silent promise was chanted over and over again in her mind as Leila started her mad-dash hunt for Jesus’s coffin.

There was an unexpected sensation of relief that washed over Anita when she barreled her way into the crypt and saw Metzli. Seeing the way they were being gripped, however, washed that relief away expeditiously. There wasn’t time to dwell, she needed to keep her focus on the mission at hand: mass murder. It’s okay when you’re killing bad guys! “All of you,” she began muttering under her breath as the fight raged on, “are a bunch of useless, spineless, dickless…” her list of insults quickly made the transition to Spanish, which was fitting given the audience, and just like her attacks they didn’t stop once she started. Combat was nothing more than an intricate dance and even in her lamia form, Anita was nothing if not a graceful dancer. With her thermal vision, Anita was able to keep track of where her teammates were and as she tore her fangs into the icy flesh of one of the vampires she used her tail to trip another one who was trying to sneak up behind Siobhan. 

“Anita, I might owe you another kiss.” Siobhan smiled, nodding her thanks at her coworker before stomping the offending vampire’s skull to a pulp, whistling as it dissolved to ash. Inside the crypt proper, Siobhan was shocked at the dedication to decoration—or the lack thereof. If she was a vampire cult leader she’d have her face plastered around. “The candles are a nice touch!” She called out into the writhing bodies of vampires. How many were there? It was hard to tell when they were being rendered into ash like spraying mist out of a fountain. “I forgot the plan,” she called out to the two humans ahead of her, “are we getting naked now or later?” Her knives hadn’t stopped moving; restless in her hands. As the fledglings lunged at her, she weaved and dodged and continued to smile. “Cass, leanbh, can you go a little brighter? I think my beauty is being lost in the darkness.” This she said as she separated another head from a fledgling, the ones she dodged rising up in snarls after her.

She was afraid. It was there in her chest, curled up like a tangible creature constricting her lungs. It had been there ever since Rhett, sleeping some days and flailing others, but never entirely absent. There were people fighting all around her, and Cass was afraid. But afraid wasn’t the only thing she was. She saw Metzli, with that terrible man’s hand locked around their throat, and she was angry, too. And she liked the second sensation better, so she clung to it. She let herself burn a little brighter, a little hotter at Siobhan’s request. A fledgling moved in to attack her, hand locking around her bicep, and Cass let the magma beneath her skin flare until the vampire was screaming, until the smell of burning flesh was replaced by the smell of ash. She felt a little sick with it… and she also kind of didn’t. She hated that a little. Glancing over, she saw a pair of vampires sneaking up on the woman with the stake — Jade, she knew her, she was nice — and ducked over to help, rearing back with a rocky fist to deliver a very solid punch.

Everyone had arrived, anger flurrying their movements and ferocity motivating their weapons. A strange and outlandish array of skills and species mixed together in one room, busting themselves with the onslaught of enemies filling it. The scent of lilac disappeared and ash flew left and right, coating Metzli’s skin uncomfortably, but that hardly mattered as they caught sight of the strangest part of the mayhem. It took a few blinks to register, to see that what Siobhan was wearing was actually real and not an illusion. They supposed it was fitting, given the strange and endearing way she went about life, and had Metzli not been on the brink of having their esophagus crushed, they surely would’ve barked out something akin to laughter. Instead, Master stole their attention and commanded them silently to attack just as he let go. Their feet met the ground and they bolted into action, knife and fangs going after their closest target.

Jade.

Um, rude. Not only did Jade find the blabbermouth fledgling, she also like… gave away some stakes for the gang to use ‘just in case’, (not to mention the excellent vibes she was providing by existing), and this was how Metzli repaid her? She braced herself as the vampire lunged at her, keenly aware she couldn’t inflict damage due to her bind (dammit, Regan). She dodged blows from the feral vampire with a little more finesse than she usually did, which was… strange. Until she understood why: Metzli couldn’t land any hits either. Something warm and inconvenient fluttered in her chest at the realization, but it had to be pushed aside in favor of continuing the awkward tussle with Metzli. Whatever kept them distracted, away from the people they might be able to hurt for realsies. It seemed to work, until they crashed against Parker and Anita. Jade barely managed to keep her balance before she was tackled by another vampire who also demanded her attention (she couldn’t help being so popular, but it was a little annoying).

Blood and dust was sprayed through the air from wounds both superficial and fatal. Parker’s eyes stung from the sweat on his brow mixed with the ash that swirled around the two factions. He could feel it catching on his exposed skin, somehow a worse sensation than when blood started to dry and become sticky on his hands, but he forced that part of his mind into further dormancy. So he moved through the battlefield, ducking, weaving, stepping lightly and striking swiftly and with opportunistic fervor. Parker never was gifted with the ability to take on multiple enemies at once, being much more suited for solo combat, but despite how he was raised, he was remarkably good at spatial recognition and reasoning - in this instance, he wouldn’t have laid a hand on any of these women that fought alongside them for any reason. …That didn’t mean he couldn’t still get irritated with his temporary allegiances, however. “That wasn’t part of the plan at–” Parker had barely not been able to finish the sentence in reply to Siobhan when a body collided with his, solid, unexpected, and eliciting a grunt of surprise from him. Stumbling to one knee, he turned, seeing the movement of the serpent out of his peripheral, and he inhaled deeply, the sting of iron, ash and smoke from the candles entering his nose as he felt himself tensing up in preparation to be attacked by Metzli. They were so close. Just a little longer, he hoped.

It took all of her strength not to go where Metzli was going. She knew Jesus had a grasp on their mind still, she knew that, but despite it all, she wanted to run to them. Find the coffin, find the coffin, find the coffin- Leila forced herself to become nothing but bits of smoke and shadow that danced along the periphery of the battle raging on inside the crypt. A bit of night to flit around from place to place and find that god damned coffin and turn it to nothing but a pile of slowly cooling embers that she could crush underfoot. But trying to find a safe space to land was complicated when fledglings seemed to be rushing about trying to- oh… Of course they would be trying to protect the coffin. With one last look towards Cass, one last glance towards Metzli, the nightmare charged into the thick of the fight, popping in and out of reality. 

If she could be anyone’s worst nightmare, she would be Master Jesus’s and she would be damn proud to make fear the last thing he ever felt.

Anita had fallen into a rhythm and got a bit blissfully swept away in the decapitations that she had briefly stopped paying attention to how the others around her were doing. That was why it took her by surprise when Jade fighting with a very feral Metzli slammed into her. It was painful to see her friend in this state but not as painful as things were about to be for the vampire who had just tried to bite through the thick scales of the lamia while she was distracted. “Idiot,” she muttered before eating him whole. 

Even though she knew they needed to keep Metzli occupied until their little mare could start a fire, Anita didn’t want them to get hurt in the process. She had seen them fight before, however, and they were a better fighter than they were seeming to be. With a forceful thwip of her tail, Anita separated Metzli from Jade and followed through with her tail shoving them against one of the stone walls of the crypt. “Te amo. Lo lamento,” she hissed softly, the only time she felt the need to apologize for any of the fighting she had done. 

All that mattered was buying time for Leila to get to that coffin. 

“Metzli—” Siobhan’s voice caught in her throat, choking on her quivering breath. It was one thing to see her friend captured, another to them twisted into some creature they would never want to be. She hadn't known Metzli very long, but she understood that the last thing the vampire wanted was to hurt their friends—their unbearing heart was tender, kind. In her daze, fledglings slammed into her, fangs snapping and claws tearing into her lovingly made shirt. She hissed, kicking and stabbing; she knew her part was to help thin the numbers. Yet, despite all their work, it didn’t seem like the vampires were relenting. Instead, their desperation grew and with it, their danger. One good scream would end all of it—but that wasn’t part of the plan, and anyway, she didn’t think the ancient crypt walls could handle it. Siobhan crawled out from the tangle of fledglings, stumbling to her feet. Aided by Cass’ brighter light, she watched Metzli slam into the wall and winced. Whatever optimism she had slowly dissolved; this didn’t seem like it was going well. 

It was chaos. All around, the battle raged, and Cass did what she could to help, but she didn’t have the same experience as the other fighters here. She had no training beyond her quiet attempts at vigilantism, and her confidence in that had been so shaken that she wasn’t even sure it counted for anything anymore. And on top of that, her eyes kept darting over to Parker each time she threw a punch. Did this negate the bind she’d made with him? Their agreement had been that he wouldn’t hurt her, but only as long as she wasn’t hurting anyone else. Wasn’t this hurting people? Parker was doing it too, of course, but… she remembered Rhett, his hand around her throat. She didn’t think wardens held themselves to the same standards they held fae to. She pulled her attention away from him now, focusing instead on the vampires. It was okay, she thought. Even if this did nullify their agreement, even if he used it as an excuse to hurt her later, it would be fine as long as Metzli was free. That was worth more. That had to be worth more. She glanced around for Leila, seeing only flashes here and there. Good, she thought. The sooner the mare took care of that coffin, the sooner it would all be over. Cass wanted, so badly, for it to be over.

Everyone moved so quickly and with articulated precision. With no blows to land on Jade, the feral vampire was quickly thrown around and sent to whoever could best keep them occupied. To Metzli’s surprise, it had been Anita to hold them down effortlessly, eyes meeting and sending a shockwave through them as she spoke a declaration only few got to hear. Their eyes softened, fight dissipating from their limbs while she held them there, giving them a chance to truly see the room and hear Siobhan. They didn’t want to fight. Friends didn’t hurt friends, and while everyone there fighting the fledglings were Metzli’s friends, they were certainly no friend of theirs in that moment. They didn’t mind the attacks, and would welcome them with ease, even at the rage it instilled in Master. Even as that anger thundered in Metzli’s head and turned the room red.

“You will obey!” Another boom, “Kill them now!” Master Jesus’s eyes burned into Metzli, his power over them tightening as much as it could. But to his surprise and utter dismay, all Metzli’s body did was strain against itself and the giant snake holding them. There was resistance in their tether with each demand to kill, turning the rest of the fledglings silent as they turned to their master with a mixture of concern and disbelief. Master Jesus swallowed thickly, worried that they may see him as weak again. It turned his stomach and sent acid up his throat, and he was quick to make a move.

No. He simply couldn’t have his power ripped away when he not only deserved it, but just obtained it.

“Come. Now.” Master Jesus commanded, to which Metzli responded to quickly. Their face turned blank, pupils turned into mere pinpoints as they wrapped their legs carefully around Anita’s body. With determination and care guiding them, Metzli twisted and drove their knife into stone to be a grappling point, pulling themself up and away from the hold without laying a single wound on their friend. Master Jesus gritted his teeth, rage burning in his chest at the abject insubordination. There was only one option left, it was time to stop playing the game he had enjoyed up until then. All it would take was a simple end of life, the very one that had been a thorn in his side since he was stupid enough to bite them. 

“You want them so bad?” The elder smiled sadistically, sharp teeth glinting from the candles around the room. What fledglings still stood abandoned their fights, walking calmly to watch and guard their master’s presentation as Metzli avoided anyone who tried to stop them and knelt in front of him, facing the room.  “You can have them.” Master Jesus grinned even further, contorted his face menacingly. “You’ll just have to…” Breaking a leg off of a nearby chair, he made a makeshift stake and hovered the point over Metzli’s chest. “...gather the ashes.” 

Metzli watched the stake with mere indifference, following Master’s hand until he ordered them to look at him. There was little they could hear through the barrier of thoughts and apologies they couldn’t speak, but they understood what he requested next, all emotion flooding into Metzli like a roaring tsunami. Their lungs burned with fervor, panic rising at the silent chime of their hourglass teetering out its final grains of sand. There was no stopping the inevitable, or the tears that blurred their vision. They blinked them away, desperate to see the people they loved dearly and loved them in return, one last time. Master laughed, and it echoed in the canyon of Metzli’s existence, a reminder that voices resonate for a while before fading into the vast silence of eternity. His would silent one day, too. Metzli would just have to be first, and the final echo was incoming fast, the stake cocked for just a moment before plunging back down.

The wild, crowded fight in the dim candle-lit crypt was persevering. Inexperienced fighters dressed as creatures of the night seemed never-ending; every time one would be reduced to ashes, another would return in its place. It was a method of attrition, something Parker was unused to in combat as he shoved yet another fledgling away from his scarred body. And yet, in the chaos of the dust, snarling, the rhythmic warning of a rattlesnake’s tail, Parker could hear the elder’s voice as it rather effortlessly punctuated it. An unnatural wave of calm swept through the crypt as the subordinates suddenly ceased in their attack. His breath heaved, deep but quiet, and he turned sharply to see Master Jesus, Metzli, the impromptu stake that was hovering dangerously near where their heart rested inert in their chest cavity. His breath caught in his throat. Instinctively he moved his hand to one of the small, tightly-packed hand crossbow bolts in the quiver on his utility belt - something, anything. Delay. Stop. But even Parker knew, however reluctantly as his blue-eyed stare, wide with an unusual emotion on his otherwise-stoic face, that there were things he couldn’t control. Things he wasn’t fast enough to react to, to change. So, instead, that reach for a crossbow bolt changed into reaching for one of the bottles that dangled from his belt instead - one had survived the fights. He would gather Metzli’s ashes while the rest of the team tore Master Jesus limb from ‘fucking’ limb. 

Find the coffin, find the coffin, find the coffin. 

Leila could hardly hear anything over the roar of her own thoughts. It was a race against time, and she knew it. The mare moved through the astral faster than she had ever moved before, using the dark to her advantage to slip away and cover as much ground as she could. Find the coffin, find the coffin, under rubble, in dark corners, and candle strewn quarters, she scoured for a hint- any hint- of Master Jesus’ hiding place. She promised the universe whatever it wanted, prayed to whatever was listening to give her the coffin so she could save Metzli. 

And then, she spied it. Across the room, tucked away just out of sight.

It was then that she heard the eerie voice of Master Jesus rise up over the din. The fledglings she had desperately been avoiding as she dipped in and out of the bounds of reality were leaving, headed back towards their master… back towards Metzli. Jesus had the leg of a chair in his hand poised as a makeshift stake. The point of which was dangerously close to Metzli’s chest. Time felt as if it had become so painfully slow around her as Leila melted into shadow one more time, forcing herself to reappear beside the coffin, head reeling. “Jesus!” Leila shouted across the crypt, voice raw. She wanted him to see. He could not dream, and yet she wanted him to know only fear in his last moment. 

She pulled the trigger, the coffin set ablaze. 

Even though no words were spoken, Anita could tell by the look in her roommates eyes that she had gotten through however slightly. But that moment faded quickly and was replaced by the bellowing commands of a man who did not deserve the power he wielded. She really wanted to rip him apart piece by piece and scatter his limbs across the globe but Anita knew that a far more practical plan was in play. When Metzli escaped from her hold and approached Jesus the lamia tried to reach back out. She had been so blinded by fear and anger when he threatened them with the stake, however, that she failed to notice the group of fledglings approaching from the side. They created a barrier that prevented her from getting to Metzli as they tried to claw through her scales and keep her away. 

As she tried to fight away the vampires she watched in horror as the wooden stake got so close to its intended target. There was an overwhelming tightness in her chest that caused her tail to rattle fiercely and for a moment she had stopped fighting back against her attackers. But even in Anita’s moment of weakness, she could at least see that Leila had started the revolution - she set fire to the bastard’s coffin. A stab of pain snapped her back to reality as one of the fledglings managed to claw underneath some of her scales and ripped them from her body. She repaid them by ripping their heads off of their bodies while their master’s scream echoed throughout the crypt. 

The world slowed; the fledglings she’d been occupied with (mostly ash now) faded beyond Siobhan’s perception. There was Metzli, the broken chair leg and the fear that had lodged in her throat. Affection was beyond her—something she was not made to hold nor allowed to—and yet, her body caved in with it. She trembled. She couldn’t count the number of people she’d seen die, or return to death—beyond the thousands, into the ever spinning cycles of life. It was selfish to want someone to stay but the single second she took to imagine the world without her friend was enough to tell her that on this matter, on Metzli’s unlife, she would always be selfish. A plea tumbled over her lips, and then, fire. The man who’d brought them here, united unlikely allies under a single goal, made the world shudder with the idea of Metzli’s loss, was gone. 

Siobhan dropped to her weak knees, watching the fire. Her happiness washed out of her with guilt and shame. What kind of a banshee was she? Who had taken her unfeeling heart and replaced it with the unwanted bloom of love for a friend? She should have been more concerned about the imposter that lived inside of her chest, but all she could do was watch. 

Years ago, when she’d lived on the streets and clung to anyone who’d stayed around long enough to give her something to cling to, Cass confided in another lost teenager the loneliness that came with having no one. She remembered the way the other girl had scoffed at her, remembered not understanding the haunted look in her eye when she’d turned away. It’s better, she’d said, to have no one. At least then, you have nothing to lose. It was a sentiment Cass had hated, because she wanted something to lose. She wanted something to hold, even if only temporarily. It would hurt when it was gone, but it would be so full for a moment, and wasn’t that moment worth it? Wasn’t that moment all she’d ever wanted? 

But now, watching as a makeshift stake moved so cruelly towards Metzli’s heart, she understood it a little better. That moment would never be enough. To have something and lose it hurt. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want it.

Magma burned hot beneath her rocky skin, pushing its way out, out through the cracks in a miniature eruption. It coated the floor of the crypt around her, creating a moat around her trembling form. A few fledglings screamed as it melted the soles of their shoes, burned their feet to the ground, but none of it mattered. There was a vampire, and she loved them. There was a vampire, and they were the first person who’d ever even tried to offer her something like a family. There was a vampire, and there was a stake moving towards their heart at a speed that was somehow both slow motion and too quick to stop.

And then, there was fire.

For the first time since that stake had appeared, Cass tore her eyes away from it, looked instead to Leila and her beautiful flames. The relief was crippling. Jesus’s screams filled the crypt, but Cass could hardly hear them over the rushing of blood in her ears, over the quiet sobs rising up in her chest and escaping through her lips. 

The moment would never be enough, but that was okay. Because for now, at least, the moment would continue.

Flesh tore and blood spilled, but no ashes burst into the air with a final breath. Instead, there were flames. Bright and powerful, raging like the screams bellowing from Master’s lungs. Metzli shuddered as the world spun and slowed, mind betraying them. They were desperate to run to their family, but Master, as occupied as he was with burning, commanded them to remain where they knelt. He wanted them to burn along with him, and he grabbed the scruff of Metzli’s shirt. The flames trailed quickly to the fabric, heat blistering their skin painfully, and yet they remained. Just as he requested. Just as he wanted. 

“If I’m burning, so are y—”

Master was interrupted by a force, something burning just as brightly. “Cass…!” Metzli’s eyes widened, watching as she tore Master away and slammed him powerfully and with no hint of hesitation into several fledglings. She didn’t like to hurt people, Metzli knew this, and thus they were surprised to see her jump in with such ferocity. They felt a hint of guilt for it, full of regret that they had to be saved by someone they were supposed to protect. 

“I’m…” Metzli trailed off as their voice tightened in their throat, trapped behind a ball of grief that was beginning to form. Master was dying, and a strange, sick part of them felt compassion for the man that had ripped their life away. The rest of the clan reacted the same, many trying to stop Cass and Leila from allowing the fire to continue. But it was no use when a person made of magma burned every hand that made an attempt at grabbing Master. “S-stop! Stop!” Words were strained through their teeth. Truthfully, Master dying was a blessing, but the tether that came with the bite twisted Metzli’s mind into a child yearning for their father. It was demented and corrupt, sending shockwaves of pain through the vampire as they slammed their fists into the dirt floor. Whether they were reacting to the death or the desperation to be free, Metzli wasn’t entirely sure, but it was pain all the same. Embers attacking and ashes coating their skin. 

They screamed, joining the chorus of torment each vampire in the crypt was consumed by when the last of the flames flickered away. That’s when it all came for Metzli. With Chuy’s death, came the cost of living as a person, experiencing the liberty of self and what it meant to have no barriers between heart and mind. They screamed, but in no way were they mourning Chuy then. They screamed, curling like a fist protesting death. They screamed, crying out in freedom, the echoes of every emotion swallowing the crypt until Metzli’s throat could no longer produce a sound. 

Jade was the outlier. (Nothing new). She remained perfectly chill as she disposed of the inexperienced vampires guarding their master. The fact that she, with subpar fighting skills, could so easily exterminate those creatures had her thinking it was all rigged. The math wasn’t mathing. A plot twist hid somewhere. The plot twist came in the shape of a chair leg pointed directly into Metzli’s chest. Huh. Jade’s eyebrow quirked in interest. This was totally a two-birds-with-one-stone scenario, wasn’t it? Jesus staked Metzli and the mare burned Jesus in retaliation. It sounded like an even greater finale than the scripted one. (To her). It took one look around the dimly lit chamber to know it was a tough crowd to share that sentiment with.  

Something bitter simmered inside as she took in the faces of concern. Of love. Jade was bound to die a hunter’s death one day (fingers crossed, not before Rihanna released that freaking album). Probably some unoriginal stab wound in one of those annoying ‘vital’ organs. She’d bleed out, alone. Scared, maybe (definitely). Yet Metzli, had an audience to witness them leave their second go at life. (Even the snake had like, a perfectly timed tear, come on!). An audience that ached for them in a way no one would ache for her. A dead beast, a monster with no heart would be mourned harder than she ever would be. And sure dying wasn’t the annoying bit, that was the commitment. That was fair. But boy if jealousy didn’t burn hotter than the flames engulfing Jesus’s coffin. Guilt over said jealousy was a little new, though. Cause like, Metzli was totally not having the time of their unlife right now. So getting pissy about it? Kinda totally out of line. This had to be like one of those, multicolored emotions from Inside Out, for sure.

Leila came through before the stake sank (bummer). And the master burned, pulling Metzli along with him. Agonizing pleas spilled from their lips and Louis tightened in her hand. Jade shuddered. This was duty. This was kindness. This was mercy. She was meant to end that pain. She pushed forward, careful not to step into Lavagirl’s doing. Screw the promise, she'd handle the strain. Metzli’s suffering would be over soon. They’d no longer be tormented by the years used as a killing machine, they’d no longer belong to anyone, no more fight to control bestial urges for the rest of their miserable existence. It ended now. She could do this, and she’d fight the crowd once their friend turned to dust anyway, despite their best efforts. Her conviction was unwavering. But the screams turned into something else, and Jade froze, witnessing something she couldn’t grasp yet: A new beginning. 

She would have stood there forever, trigger pulled, flames swallowing the coffin whole until there was no more coffin to burn, until the embers didn’t even have the strength to burn anymore. She would have stayed if it meant Jesus could never come back, could never hurt Metzli again. Leila swallowed down the sob of relief mingled with rage as she watched the lid of the coffin start to cave inward. No return. Lost to the flames. Good. 

A scream pierced through her- one particular raising up with the lamenting chorus- and the spell of fury that had her fixed on the spot while fire spewed forth from the flamethrower like some demon cradled in her arms utterly shattered. Metzli… A wave of panic crashed over her, dousing the heat of her wrath, replacing it with icy fear and guilt. The flamethrower had not clattered to the ground yet by the time Leila had vanished once more only to reappear closer to Metzli. She scrambled past bodies- fledgling and friend, fallen and filled with life- anything to get to them. The screaming only got louder as the mare approached, falling to her knees before the vampire. And worst of all, worst of all, she did not know how to comfort them. She did not even know if they would want comfort.

Hands that had only ever created had now destroyed someone important- monstrous, terrible, horrific? yes to all of the above. But important nonetheless. The nightmare had no words to give, all of them trapped in her throat with no hope of escape. I’m sorry… the word echoed in her mind. A hand sat open before Metzli, there to be taken or ignored. She only wanted them to know they were not alone. 

Even as the fire began to engulf that wretched man, Anita couldn’t help but wonder if this was truly the end, if this would give Metzli the relief they so deserved. Then she saw him reaching towards them and Anita quickly darted down and through the few fledglings left staring towards Metzli, trying to push away the obvious realization that she was likely too far away to get there in time to help. And she was, but Cass wasn’t. As she finally reached where they were, Anita saw the subtle, gentle gesture Leila made; reaching out her hand as an act of affection. 

Now that they all had a moment to breathe, Anita looked around at all these people that she knew in differing contexts standing together in this crypt. They had all come together, to fight together. She and Metzli may have been outcasts together at some point in time, but it was apparent that they had managed to build something much bigger than that. Once again, Anita felt like she was out of place. The vampires who had been trying to kill them just moments before their so-called Master had fallen to the floor as a pile of worthless ash also seemed to be freed from whatever hold they had been under. There was no longer any need to fight, no need to kill. Anita didn’t have anything to contribute anymore. She wasn’t equipped to deal with the aftermath; she only thrived in the violence. 

Normally this would be where she made some quip, some joke or gentle dig that cut through the emotional tension and made light of what had transpired. And while she had more than a few one-liners locked and loaded, they all felt… wrong. Turning away from Metzli, Anita coiled her tail up underneath her and simply stared down the remaining fledglings to make sure they didn’t decide to turn any residual anger they may be feeling towards them. It was, quite literally, the least she could do in that moment. 

As he was anticipating Metzli’s form to erupt into ashes, instead the elder vampire behind them was spontaneously enveloped in flames, tongued demons licking greedily at the pale skin and dark cloak. Parker’s blue eyes, illuminated with orange fire from the spectacle before him, also saw clawed hands grasping at Metzli’s shirt and, without having a way to explain it, his heart leapt into his throat. Again, he wasn’t quick enough to stop what was attempting to transpire and wordlessly, he mouthed the name “Cass”; she was a volcanic construct, a golem that could withstand any heat that was directed at Metzli. And Cass was there, prying the elder off of his plaything. Screaming rose with the smoke in the air, bouncing off of the walls, but it wasn’t until he heard Metzli yell ‘stop’ that Parker subconsciously dropped the stake he was holding and reached up to cover his working ear - a childish gesture when he had experienced overstimulation. And yet, he didn’t remove his eyes from the display until there was nothing but the kneeling figure of Metzli, the ash from the dead fledglings and the elder swirling around them, around the room. Hundreds of years rendered indistinguishable from the dregs he surrounded himself with. The elder was dead. But Jade’s ambitions weren’t. Parker finally blinked, his eyes stinging but instead of going to Metzli, he approached the slayer as her body was positioned in such a way that she was ready to break the promise to one to fulfill another, one that was older, much more powerful as it had been one she had been forced to take for over two decades. The Warden, seeing Leila there, seeing Cass and Siobhan and Anita there, approached Jade and placed one hand on her shoulder, the other reaching the stake and wrapping powerful fingers around it gently. “You did well.” He said, just loud enough that she could hear as he attempted to make eye contact with her. Quiet, but surprisingly genuine. “Come on.” He gestured towards the exit with his head. The battle was won. The elder lay in ashes, Metzli was freed, no doubt overwhelmed with the influx of emotions returned to them all at once like a tidal wave. Surrounded by their friends and loved ones, the makeshift family that they had formed. It wasn’t a place for Parker or Jade; they were weapons, the tools to assist in getting the job done. And their job was done, at least for that day. And he… was satisfied. Not happy or expectant, but as though he had contributed to something larger than him. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but not entirely unwelcome.

There was something to be said about ends and beginnings, though Siobhan didn’t say any of it. The crypt hadn’t filled with relief, but pain--screaming, searing pain. The victory echoed through her hollow body and she turned her attention on to the frozen fledglings. There was comfort in certainty, and in a life lived with obedience to certainty. Nothing was certain now: freedom was achingly terrifying. Her attention moved along to Parker and Jade; her smile for them lost to the crypt’s dancing darkness. She felt emptied out, as if someone had reached down her throat and pulled her fleshy stuffing out. Inside, there was her own tiny vampire-on-fire: compassion for her friend. Really, her only friend--the only one she allowed herself to have for reasons completely unknown to her. She pushed herself off the ground, dusted off her legs, and walked over to Metzli. 

She had no kind hands to offer, not like Leila, and she stood with a degree of awkwardness slightly aside from them. “It’s done,” she said softly. “It’s over.” But Siobhan knew that wasn’t entirely true; something else had begun, something that had been stirring for a while and could exist properly now. She stuffed her hands into her pockets and remained watching over her friend, considering that some things were entirely worth the agony they caused: freedom, friendship, particularly spicy chips. 

And most of all, Metzli, her friend, who might finally find life the way birds did: songs carried into the air, wings across blue sky. 

For as long as she could remember, Cass had loved stories. As a child on an island where there were two worlds, neither of which wanted her, she’d found some strange comfort in telling them to herself late at night, like self-created bedtime stories. They were simple at first, of course; retellings of other stories she’d seen or heard, but they got more complex as she got older. She told herself stories about princesses in castles, waiting for rescue. She told herself stories about princesses rescuing themselves. She invented worlds where nothing was wrong, and worlds where everything was. She told stories where the sea was made of lava and the sky was full of water.

She told stories where she was loved to make up for the fact that she wasn’t.

But all of those stories, from the beginning, had common themes. There were always heroes, and there were always villains. And the heroes were good, and the villains were bad. Real life wasn’t like that, she’d learned; it was never so straightforward. But today, in this case, it was simple. Chuy was a monster, a tiny man who wanted power to make himself feel better and who would step on anyone and everyone to get it for himself. He had an ego so large it filled the crypt with a suffocating atmosphere. He threw tantrums when he knew he was beaten. He reached for Metzli, for someone who loved her, and he tried to burn them up with him just to be petty, just to claim some form of victory even in his death. And Cass acted on instinct. She surged forward, she pulled him away, she held him in place. She made sure he died alone, and he did. Even among the screams of the people who only cared about him because he’d forced them to, he was alone. The way he should have been, the way he deserved to be.

Chuy died screaming, and Cass liked it. There was something terrifying about that.

It was over quickly, even if it felt like an eternity. The body under her hands turned to ash. The screaming died down. The fledglings stopped fighting. Metzli was screaming. And Cass wanted to pretend that there was something heavy in her chest, wanted to pretend that she felt regret for her part in the ashes on the floor, but instead, she felt something else. She didn’t feel like she had outside her cave, with Rhett’s hand wrapped around her throat. She didn’t feel small or helpless, didn’t feel like she needed saving. A monster was dead, and he’d lived for centuries. He’d terrorized her friend, he’d made them feel like they were nothing, and Cass held him in place until he was ashes even if she hadn’t struck the match. And she felt good. She felt powerful. Like the way she used to feel stopping muggers, multiplied by a thousand. It was a good feeling. She didn’t think it was supposed to be.

She pushed it to the side now, shoved it down as deep as she could. It wasn’t important. Metzli was what mattered here, and Cass approached them slowly. She put her glamour back up, let that rocky skin give way to something that looked more human, let the fire burning behind her eyes die down. The volcano went dormant, its eruption finished. She placed a hand on Metzli’s shoulder with caution, unsure if they wanted to be touched but needing tangible proof that they were okay. “Let’s go home,” she said quietly, squeezing their shoulder. “We can go home now.”

It was easy to forget things when you reached an age with triple digits. Even easier to let yourself go numb and disregard the person you were before a monumental change. When Metzli collapsed, all screams dead inside their chest, they remembered how they forgot. Each enemy quickly became a friend, and in a matter of seconds, the hold Chuy once had in the bending of their mind, dissipated. With that came a tumultuous wave of emotions that had laid dormant for over a century. It was agony, an avalanche of passion that threatened to smother Metzli completely. And they welcomed it, turning it into a cacophony of instruments instead, so that when the swell finally came to its apex, the music would die down into a melody that wouldn’t shred their ears.

Grief and sorrow, like a heavy cloak draping over their shoulders. Joy, a butterfly dancing within their chest. Fear, a shadow looming over the landscape of their thoughts, on the verge of swallowing Metzli whole. Regret, a haunting ghost from the past; a wish that they would finally be able to verbalize. But most importantly, love and heartache. A bittersweet mixture that few had the opportunity to experience. It was a raging fire that danced to no clear tempo, too many hearts enchanting the tune. It burned and it ached, and in spite of this, Metzli stood on unsteady feet with the help of Leila, feeling grounded by Cass’s touch. They pulled Leila into a tight hug, their vision greeted with friends they were told they’d never had. They hardly minded that Parker and Jade were leaving, knowing it was likely for the best. There was too much to focus on. Because, right then, they knew that they finally had their wish.

“I am…free.” Metzli croaked, stumbling forward to reach Anita. Besides Honey, she’d known them the longest. She knew them just as well as Leila, if not better. They became family first. Without much of a voice to use, Metzli propped their chin over Anita’s shoulder, still holding Leila’s hand and looking to Siobhan and Cass with a smile that finally knew what happiness felt like. Never mind the way their stoic features trembled as they struggled to keep the drowning emotions at bay. Everything was okay now that Chuy was dead and the fledglings were scurrying away. Metzli just wanted their family to get the appreciation they deserved. 

“I…” They fell back to the ground, too weak to keep themself up. It looked like the appreciation had to come later, much to Metzli’s dismay. “Home?” They looked to Cass and attempted to reach for Anita’s hand, but it looked more like they swatted at it, and they laughed, genuinely, for the first time—albeit with a bit of exasperation. “Home.” Pain, it seemed, wasn’t so bad. 

The freedom was worth it. 

Hearts truly could heal. 

#wickedswriting #writings #bloody ink #hazy shade of winter #c: jade #c: leila #c: cass #c: siobhan #c: anita #c: parker #emotional abuse tw

[chasseurdeloup]

Pillow Talk || Anita and Kaden

TIMING: Before Metzli had a menty b LOCATION: Mansión Mexicana PARTIES: @gossipsnake and @chasseurdeloup CONTENT WARNINGS: None SUMMARY: Kaden goes to pick up the mattress from Anita.

Charitable really wasn’t a word that was often used to describe Anita. She liked to see herself as fairly charitable, though. After all, she could kill far more humans than she actually did. Instead, she showed relative restraint. Quite charitable. Beyond that, however, she typically had no interest in helping strangers. There had been something about the very depressing way in which this Kaden guy asked for tips on how to make his couch more comfortable to sleep on that sparked the slightest sliver of kindness within herself. While the wheels had not been set in motion yet, she had already planned to give her roommate access to one of the guest rooms to redesign as they saw fit. It seemed only fair, given how long they had been living together and how little of the home was their own space. 

So, it was good timing that this poor sad stranger needed a bed and that Anita seemed to read his obvious cry for help while feeling particularly generous. She had sent him her home address, figuring that if he was a weirdo who wanted to kill her she could just kill him first. It had been a dreary rainy day and Anita wasn’t about to just wait around for this stranger to arrive so she decided to spend the day cleaning and rearranging her terrariums. As she usually did when she was home alone - she did so in her true form, in her lamia form. 

This was probably a stupid idea. Kaden had a lot of those lately. He was already exhausted just from getting in his fucking truck and driving over to the address she gave him. And he hadn’t even looked at that mattress, let alone tried to haul it.

Putain de merde, if he popped a stitch Regan was going to scream. He had a feeling that she would just know somehow the second it happened and he’d hear it all the way from across town. 

Well, guess he’d have to try and be some kind of careful. He grimaced as he swung out of his truck, his hand clutching his side as he stood up. He took a deep breath, steadied himself. He could manage this. He wasn’t even dizzy by the time he made it to the door. This was fine.

He was about to knock on the door, but his hand hovered, hesitating as he felt a shiver down his spine. Putain de merde. A shifter was nearby, and if he had to guess, they were inside the house, considering he only picked up on it standing there on the porch. Kaden considered turning around and going home, he wasn’t sure he was prepared to potentially come face to face with the werewolf who did this to him on the off chance that was who offered him the mattress. No, that was stupid. It would be alright, he’d just get the mattress and leave. He knocked on the door and waited to see who was going to greet him once it opened. 

The knock came at a perfect moment, as Anita had just finished feeding one of the many snakes she had living in her home. Sure, they were small and insignificant, but the reptiles always seemed to be able to sense her familiarity and they were far better companions than the yappy dog her roommate let run around the house. Whoever was at her door was human, the red heat of their body temperature certainly confirmed that. Quickly shifting back to a socially acceptable appearance and throwing on a t-shirt and jeans, she made her way through the sprawling mansion and downstairs. 

As she pulled the door open, Anita took in the tall scruffy man before her who she presumed to be Kaden, here for the mattress. He looked worn and a bit distraught. That tracked, given what little information she knew about the man. “Honestly, you look exactly like the kind of guy who lives in a cabin without a mattress. Kudos for accurate self-advertising.” Leaving the door open behind her, Anita took a few steps into her house inviting him inside without saying the words. 

“It doesn’t come with the bedding. You don’t need the bedding, do you?” Anita genuinely could not have cared less about the bedding, but she felt that she needed to keep talking and she was not about to be a “good host” and offer to procure a beverage for him. 

His senses faded as he waited, all but gone when the door swung open. Kaden was starting to think he was imagining it. “Thanks,” he said flatly as he followed her inside. He winced as he started walking, hoping she didn’t see the pain written all over his face. She was judgemental enough as it was. And it had been about ten seconds. “It’s my cousins’ cabin so they got dibs on the mattresses.” He had a feeling none of it mattered to her. The house was huge, elaborate. She was clearly not the kind of person who would feel at home in the cabin even with a top of the line bed to sleep in. Her loss, as far as he was concerned.

“I figured,” he added, a few steps behind her despite his long legs. Stupid injury slowing him down. “I have a feeling we have different taste in bedding, anyway.” Honestly, he’d be fine sleeping on a bare mattress with no damn bedding of any sort. Which is why he usually went for the cheapest shit he could find at the store. It was also exactly what he planned to do once he had the mattress at home. “So is it upstairs or downstairs?” 

Cousins, plural. It was interesting, given his accent Anita wondered if that was what brought him to town. It wasn’t interesting enough, however, for her to actually ask him about it. She really had no desire to engage in banal small talk. If he was content living in a cabin with multiple cousins and, to date, no bed, then that was his business. 

Giving him a once over, Anita’s mouth turned to a slight frown and she shrugged, “You’re probably right about that.” If he weren't a human man perhaps she would have been more cordial, but he fell into her least favorite category of person. Absent an empty stomach - she really saw no need or use for him. “It’s not up or down, it’s on this level,” she responded, figuring that by downstairs he meant the basement. While she had noticed his soft grunts and obvious pain, Anita had been planning on ignoring it until she realized that it likely meant he would need assistance carrying the mattress. She sighed softly, “I take it neither of your cousins were free to help with mattress pick-up?” 

Kaden tried not to look relieved when she said the mattress was on that level. Stairs only made the pain that much worse. Not that he wasn’t used to working past pain. Hell, that was probably half of hunter training. If not the majority. 

“Good. Lead the way,” he said, gesturing as if he was just trying to take his time following rather than the truth of the matter which was that it hurt to move. “Yeah well someone had to go to work since I’m on leave at the moment,” he said with a shrug. Truth was he didn’t ask because he knew Andy would give him that look. The one that said “are you fucking kidding me you dumbass?” Which would be fair enough. Still, he wanted the damn mattress and he got the feeling Anita wasn’t the type to make room in her schedule for him or go out of her way to wait for him to pick it up in a week or two. 

He glanced around as they walked (well, he limped) and noticed the decorations around the place. Skulls and bones lining shelves and various containers of different bugs. Interesting choice of decor. “Funny, I know someone who has a very similar taste in interior design. She works in the morgue.” 

“Because you’ve injured yourself?” Anita wondered what type of job he did that prevented him from working while injured. It didn’t really narrow things down at all, since it essentially just ruled out office jobs. He seemed like the kind of person who worked with their hands, and not in a typing on a keyboard all day way. “Enough to not be able to work, but not so badly that you cannot transport a mattress.” It wasn’t really a question but she did find it interesting. He was either stubborn or stupid. 

As they walked through the living room and down the hallway towards the spare bedroom, Anita toyed with the idea of just eating him. But then she recalled that her conversation online with him was public and would likely draw unwanted attention. “If you’re talking about the deeply dark and depressing decor and art… that’s my roommates.” She turned her head back as he mentioned the morgue, however, her interest suddenly piqued. Surely there were multiple people who worked at the local morgue, but she wondered if he knew the same very mysterious medical examiner that she did. “Quite an interesting place to work, I’m sure. What does your friend do there?” 

“Very observant.” Kaden tried to keep the sarcasm to a minimum but it was hard to curb it entirely. “I’m animal control,” he added. “Pretty sure moving a mattress is a lot less dangerous than what I encounter daily on the job.” While that was true, that didn’t mean this was going to be easy. In fact, he had a feeling this was probably more than he could handle. Not that it was stopping him.

“Is it? Who’s your roommate?” He asked, brow raised. Maybe she was roommates with Regan? No, that didn’t seem right. Though it was macabre, it was a slightly different sort. Also he couldn’t imagine Regan trying to live with anyone. Not with how elusive she was. “Medical examiner,” he replied. “She helped patch me up, actually.” Why did he share that? Putain. There wasn’t any fucking reason to open the door to any real conversation here. He could tell she wasn’t in the mood.

“I am a scientist. We are known for our keen observational skills.” The response was laced with just slightly more sarcasm than the initial statement he had made. Though upon finishing her sentence, Anita tried to recall if she had mentioned her occupation in their conversations or if he seemed to be the type to google the person he was picking up a mattress from. She didn’t spend much thought on it, as her mind was now preoccupied with what he did for a living. “Animal control?” She didn’t quite know how she felt about that job. Sure, some animals needed to be controlled… but in a town like this one it made her wonder exactly what sort of animals he was in the business of trying to control. “Get too close to a mama bear or something?” 

“Oh, I’m sure you don’t know them. They’re quite aloof usually - runs an art gallery downtown.” Anita normally wasn’t cagey about disclosing who her roommate was but she didn’t see the need in giving him any more information than that. While she hadn’t met the beautifully macabre medical examiner she had been speaking to online in person yet, Anita knew enough to think that she and Kaden were talking about the same one. It was curious though, as Regan didn’t exactly seem like the type to offer to patch up injured animal control workers - or, by her own assertions, have friends. “Think I might know her as well. Unless this town has two medical examiners with … similar taste in interior design.” 

As they neared the end of the hallway, Anita turned to open one of the tall wooden doors. The guest room was modest, compared to the rest of the home, but still well decorated. It lacked any of the more unique art and trinkets from the main house, instead decorated with bright Mexican artwork and warm tones. If it had been used twice in the three years since the home was built that would be a lot. “So, this is it.” 

“Something like that,” Kaden said with a shrug. Ow. Mistake. He’d have to remember to shrug with the other shoulder, keep from tugging at the sutures. “I was trying to contain a large, aggressive dog. I tranqed it but not fast enough.” Close enough to the truth, right? “Dog’s fine, by the way.” Alright, he wasn’t sure of that. He had no idea what happened to the werewolf in question, but he assumed it was alright. Shit. Maybe he should go out and check the area, just to be sure. Not like he could eavesdrop at the 3 daggers to try and figure it out. No one was going to brag about taking down a drugged werewolf. They weren’t likely to commit any details about its appearance to memory, either. They would only care if it was dead. 

“Runs an art gallery?” Kaden raised a brow. There was exactly one of those that he had been to in town. Not that it was a big town, but it would be an interesting coincidence. “Is it the one with the good cheese? I think, uh, what was it, MuertArte?” It felt strange now to be in Metzli’s house without having known it. Now that she said it, though, it made sense. He could see some of the similarities in taste of some of the decor to that of the gallery’s, not that he could describe any of it. More got the same feeling if anything. “I know them. Not well but helped them get an aiva– I mean, a rooster out of the gallery at one of their openings.” Granted that made it clear enough that her roommate was decidedly not Regan. “Sounds like the same one. Dr. Kavanagh. She’s interesting, I’ll say that much.” She was certainly curious. There was no reason for him to want to pry into her secrets and foster any sort of relationship there, not when she pushed him away any time he hit a nerve, but something kept drawing him in. 

And there it was. The mattress in question. The room was bright and inviting. Not his style (which he didn’t have much of, admittedly), but he wouldn’t hate staying there. He smiled as he noticed one of the blankets thrown over a chair in a corner of the room. “My, uh…” Putain, he did it again. He didn’t know if he should just say friend or what. What exactly was Monty to him? He didn’t know and he wasn’t going to figure that out now standing in this guest room to pick up a fucking mattress. This shit was too complicated. “Monty, he has a saddle blanket for his horse that looks just like that.” 

Kaden pulled his arm across his chest and stretched his shoulder before swapping to the other. He rolled his shoulders back, stretched his neck, and tried to prepare himself for what would normally be an incredibly simple task. He decided to start by pushing the mattress off the bed frame. Bending down to reach it hurt like a bitch, but Kaden was determined to just grit his teeth and bear it. It’s not like he had to fight for his life while injured, he just had to carry a fucking mattress. 

Large aggressive dog. It could go either way, Anita figured, as there was plenty of natural and supernatural wildlife around town and she couldn’t quite recall if there had been a full moon recently. “Oh, well thank goodness.” She didn’t want to come across as a total ass, so she quickly added, “That you’re both okay, relatively speaking.” Even if it had just been a wild dog, Anita would always root for the animal over the human trying to control it. 

It wasn’t all that surprising that he could identify the art gallery - there weren’t many in town - but it was interesting that he claimed to know Metzli. Helped them… get rid of a rooster? Anita wasn’t sure what to make of that statement. If she knew her roommate, which she liked to think she did, she couldn’t really imagine that they would have needed assistance dealing with a simple rooster. Did he know more about them? Did he know what they were?  “Oh? Can’t say I can speak to the quality of cheese they offer at their openings, but yes, that’s them. I’m sure they were quite thankful for your assistance with … the rooster.” 

It made him knowing Regan more compelling as well. Anita had her suspicions about the very dedicated medical examiner, but those were things she would figure out for herself whenever they finally met - which she was sure would happen. “She was pretty adamant that she didn’t have time for friends. Guess you’re a lucky exception.” Why was he an exception? That was beyond her. Or maybe he wasn’t a friend, and she just felt bad that he had gotten attacked. Which, again, struck Anita as odd. “No need to go to a doctor with an on-the-job injury when you’ve got a friend who’s medically trained, I suppose.” 

While Anita was, admittedly, far more curious as to who this man was and how involved he was in her community than she was when he first arrived, she still had no desire to let this interaction drag out too long. After they stepped into the guest room she began to take off the decorative pillows and pull down the blankets and sheets that were still on the bed. “Your Monty?” A small smirk spread across her lips. That was a curious way to put it. Her gaze moved towards the hand crafted wool striped blanket that she had ordered from a local artisan back in Mexico. “Is your Monty a vaquero?” She paused, then translated, “Is he a cowboy? Back home a lot of them use these blankets for their saddles. They’re durable.” 

Well, warm was definitely not a word that Kaden would use to describe her, he’d say that much. She wasn’t hostile, though, and pleasant enough, clearly kept decent company, so that was probably the least he could ask for. “It was comte, good shit.” He was about to mention that they thanked him by giving him some extra blocks but decided against it. “I actually asked them if they’d help teach me Spanish the other day. I offered to help them with French. Seemed fair enough.” Something told him that he wasn’t about to see Anita a whole lot if he ended up over here again. Didn’t seem like he was to her taste. 

Kaden was familiar with Regan’s insistence that she didn’t have friends nor wanted them. Something he questioned from the get go. Not that not having friends, that part seemed to hold true, but the not wanting them? Didn’t buy it. “No idea if she’d call me a friend or not. But we keep meeting by circumstances.” Some of those circumstances involved mime mushrooms, unfortunately. He’d prefer getting sutures any day of the week. “Plus, she yelled at me to go to a doctor so not like she could really say no when I turned up at the morgue.

As Kaden started to help take off the bedding, he stopped short and his face flushed bright red. Shit. “My– uh, no. He’s not– That’s not– I didn’t mean– I misspoke, alright.” He had to turn away from her, he culdn’t handle how fucking warm his cheeks had gotten. Fucking hell. “Uh, anyway, he is, yeah. Owns a dairy farm out in Gatlin Fields.” Maybe if he rubbed his cheeks a little with the inside of his arm casually, they’d fucking quit betraying him. “Makes sense. Don’t know if you have the same back home, but he’s from Mexico.” That would explain the overlap in aesthetic, now that he thought about it. Probably should have been obvious from the get go.  

“They’re a fairly quick learner, but I can’t really speak to their ability to teach. I’ve had to help them out with English a lot over the years. Didn’t realize they wanted to learn French.” When Anita first moved to town and welcomed Metzli into her home there weren’t many others who came by with any amount of frequency. Lately, however, her roommate was becoming shockingly social and the number of strangers that became regular guests had drastically increased. Anita wondered if he was going to be added to that list… she hoped not. 

“Didn’t realize animal control and a medical examiner had so many circumstances for interaction. Way she made it sound, she spends the bulk of her time in the morgue.” It was promising, however, that it seemed that Anita may have the opportunity to get close to Regan if the right circumstances kept arising. Or if a very crafty lamia carefully and intentionally created circumstances for interaction. She’d keep that idea in the back of her head. “Well, in fairness, I’m sure she’s not exactly used to bodies showing up at the morgue that can actually ask for help.”

Anita shrugged as she continued to strip the sheets from the bed, tossing them in a somewhat neat pile in the corner of the room. “You don’t have to be embarrassed to like this Monty. If you’re talking, dating, fucking, whatever… I don’t know him and I hardly know you, so I truly don’t care about whatever your dynamic is.” She straightened her top out as she stood up after tossing the last piece of bedding off the mattress. “How’d you meet? Animal control call for a missing cow or something?” Not that she would do so herself since there were far more delicious thighs in town to eat, but she had heard that livestock often went missing in town. Natural and stationary prey for the world of predators that surrounded them. “I’m also from Mexico, so that is what I meant when I said back home.” 

Without waiting to see if he was going to make a pathetic attempt, given his injured state, to help move the mattress, Anita began to push it off the bed frame and stand it up on its side. It wasn’t particularly heavy, and if need-be she knew that she could get it out to his truck by herself even without use of her lamia strength. “Hopefully your cousins will be home to help you get this back out of the truck later.” 

“Well, worst that happens is that it doesn’t work out.” Kaden knew that Metzli was still learning English and that they didn’t seem like the most talkative person. Still, there was something that made him feel like they were the right person to ask. Maybe it was because he figured that they’d be blunt, but that they wouldn’t judge him for making stupid mistakes. At least not in any real, harsh manner. He could be completely wrong and maybe he was an idiot for reaching out but it was worth a shot. “But yeah, they said their partner speaks French and that’s why they were trying to learn it. So, yeah, it’s entirely possible we’ll end up just speaking to each other in our native languages back and forth and not have a fucking clue what the other is saying.” At least there would be good cheese.

“An unusually aggressive vulture attacked the morgue once. And she managed to find a dead fox in the woods that seemed like it had an usual death. She helped me locate it again to examine it.” Not that they ever got to examine the fox or learn what had killed the animal. They were a little preoccupied with the effects of the fucking mushrooms instead. “She said as much. Did the sutures anyway so pretty sure I made out alright in the end.”

Kaden sighed. She had a fucking point. Why did he care if she cared? Right, he didn’t. And he definitely hadn’t blushed, either. “Fine. You caught me. Just dating. I think.” He never knew how to define shit and he sure as shit didn’t want to ask or talk about it. Labeling things or committing to shit always made him want to twist away and make a break for it. There was something too vulnerable to it all, the possibility of getting hurt too close to reality. “Close, funny enough. Someone dropped a horse off at the animal shelter and I knew he had a farm. I called, he came to take the horse, I went there to help, left with a date. Definitely had worse days on the job.” 

Yeah, should have guessed she’d go ahead and start moving the mattress without him. It was clear Anita wanted this done as quickly as possible and the way to achieve that was definitely not by letting him struggle on his own. Kaden went to grab one side of the mattress, figuring they could probably move it fast enough together. It was more awkward than heavy, anyway. “Me too. At least hope it doesn’t rain long enough for them to help bring it inside.” Not that there were storm clouds in the sky but, knowing his luck, well, it was a possibility. 

Off the top of her head, Anita could think of several worse outcomes than it simply not working out. It wasn’t that she didn’t think Metzli couldn't handle this guy on their own if push came to shove, but there was a strange protective instinct that came over her. It wasn’t a feeling she was particularly familiar with, but it almost made her wish that their tutoring sessions did take place at the house, that way she could at least make sure nothing strange happened. “Well, that is certainly an option. We speak the same tongue and I don’t understand what they are saying sometimes.” She offered it up as a joke, unsure if the tension she felt was real or just in her head. 

“I don’t date, so I am certainly not an expert on it. But I think you typically should know whether or not you are dating someone else.” It was moments like these that Anita was glad she didn’t let herself get tangled up in relationships, they always seemed to bring out a weird side in people. “Sounds like you seem to make out impeccably well on the job. Capture a rooster, get a Spanish tutor. Deal with a vulture, get an on-call trauma surgeon. Find a stray horse, get a date.” It was actually quite impressive. He was either blessed with dumb luck, or perhaps he had a natural charm that was simply lost on Anita. 

It was admirable how he came to offer assistance moving the mattress. While it was unnecessary, Anita opted to let him help instead of shooing him away. With her holding the bulk of the weight, she started leading them out of the guest room and back down the hallway toward the front door. “Didn’t even think about it before… but you’re gonna just put this down on the floor of the cabin, aren’t you?” Should she offer the bedframe to him as well? That seemed unnecessary nor did she really think he would accept it. Besides, a mattress on the floor had to be better than a lumpy couch anyway. 

Kaden shrugged. “If nothing else, I know they’ll bring good cheese. So I might not learn a damn thing but I’ll be well fed.” He wasn’t usually one to stick to the silver lining bullshit but in this instance, he was strangely positive. Maybe it was because he knew there would be a dog involved in addition to the good cheese. 

“Me either. Usually,” he replied. “Relationships and labels and all that shit are too fucking complicated. So I don’t know what the hell to call it.” Whether that was because of ignorance or him ignoring the issue of labeling shit or asking any questions about it was up for debate. He was pretty damn fine with how things were at the moment, no need to make it into a big deal or make shit weird. Interesting that she had a point about his luck on the job, considering. Granted, only one of those instances actually involved an animal and not a monster but the outcome was the same he supposed. “Yeah, guess that’s my reward for losing a pound of flesh or whatever. So far it’s a decent trade but we’ll see what I get for the next brush with death.” 

“For now,” he told her as they walked the mattress through the house. “But I’ve got a bed frame coming.” He didn’t feel like explaining that Monty was making it. He’d embarrassed himself enough already. When they were halfway to the door, Kaden’s brows furrowed. The brief interlude of quiet spurred his memory. His hunter senses went off just as he got there. And then nothing. Strange. If she was a shifter, he should still feel it. But there was no one else where.  

…Putain, should he be worried about a dead body in the house? Was there a shifter here that she offed? She could be lying about the macabre decorations being solely Metzli’s. 

“Not knowing what he’d call it is the kind of thing that’s usually solved with a conversation, I think.” Anita wasn’t sure why she was continuing to engage with the relationship conversation. Maybe it was because she did admittedly find it interesting when someone claimed to ‘not be a relationship person’ and then found themselves intertwined in what seemed like some complicated dynamic. That seemed to be something that happened regularly yet something she had personally managed to avoid. “But again, I don’t really care about your dynamic with your vaquero.” 

“Capturing a runaway rooster constitutes a brush with death to you?” Either he was being facetious or this rooster story had more to it than simply being a rooster. She’d have to ask Metzli about that. As they got towards the door, Anita felt a soft shift in his demeanor. Without making it obvious, she scanned the room for something out of place that might cause concern to a human. There didn’t appear to be any - Anita didn’t keep things like that out in the open. Maybe he was just realizing how sad his little cabin was in comparison to her own home. 

Not wanting this interaction to linger on much longer, Anita simply proceeded towards the front door, setting the end of the mattress down for a moment to swing open up the large wooden door. “I can take it the rest of the way to your vehicle, if you want. Don’t want you to bust open those stitches and bleed all over my walkway. Blood is hard to get out of concrete.” Without waiting for his response, she began to proceed down the front steps and towards the truck parked in her driveway. 

“Yeah, yeah. What happened to ‘I don’t date, I’m not an expert, I don’t care,’ huh?” Kaden shot her a look, but it didn’t help him avoid blushing when she, once again, called Monty ‘his vaquero.’ Putain de merde. They had to get this mattress in the damn truck and wrap this shit up soon as they could. He was having enough trouble keeping his foot out of his mouth and he didn’t anticipate it getting any better the longer he stayed there. 

Kaden rolled his eyes. “Not the rooster incident, the one with the wer–” Fuck. Kaden let go of the mattress and his hands flew to his side as he ‘doubled over’ in pain. He was sure it was very convincing. Definitely covered up the slip of tongue. “Like I was saying, the incident with the dog. That did this,” he said, pointing to the injury. And of course, she was still walking ahead with the mattress in hand. Great. Good to know he wasn’t helping even a little. He sighed and dragged after her, no longer attempting the rouse. 

“Go for it,” he replied. And he wasn’t surprised that she was out the door and tossing the mattress into his truck before he said a word. At least the feeling was mutual that this interaction had run its course. And then some. Kaden hobbled over to the truck and helped direct the mattress into the bed of the vehicle, angling it to rest against the side. He got to work hooking the tie-down straps to the truck and tossing them over the mattress to pull across to the other side. 

The slip of the tongue did not go unnoticed by Anita. She had her suspicions about what ‘wer-’ word he was going to say that miraculously got replaced by ‘dog’. It certainly was not the time or the place to address those suspicions, however. An animal control officer throwing around the start of the word werewolf was enough for her to trust her gut instinct on not trusting him. His apparent connections to both her roommate and the weird yet compelling medical examiner were enough for her to not swallow him whole on the spot. “Dogs can be quite aggressive, and I’m sure you come across the most aggressive of them in your line of work.”  

Him releasing his grip on the mattress actually made it easier for Anita to navigate it into the bed of his pickup truck. After she tossed it in the back she wondered if they should have put some sort of tarp down first - it wasn’t exceptionally clean back there. Oh well. Content with her contribution to the efforts she let him take lead on tying the mattress down. 

The plan had been to pass off the mattress and never interact with this strange french man ever again. But he had been just strange enough that Anita decided it was probably better to keep an eye on him than to write him off forever. “Guess I’ll be seeing you around for your language exchange with Metzli.” She paused for a second before deciding to continue, “Be careful out there. Lotta dangerous animals in these woods.” It wasn’t exactly a threat, but it wasn’t not a threat. Depending on the types of ‘animals’ he had a fancy for controlling Anita would gladly be the one to put him in his place. 

#writing #wickedswriting #para #c: anita #gossipsnake #pillow talk

[fearhims3lf]

@gossipsnake replied to your post “What is the least important thing that is very...”:

If everything is equally unimportant/very important, doesn't that make nothing important?

​Yep. You get it, chica.

#dash #c: anita

[if6was9ax]

#anita c #beauty #sexy

[waugh-bao]

I know you don’t really like Mick’s solo output, but what do you think about Keith’s?

I have mixed feelings about it. If I were to rank all of the Stones solo musical ventures, it would definitely be Charlie > Keith > Ronnie > Mick. Which, naturally, was also Keith’s opinion on the matter:

I’ve never been a fan of the Stones covers he did with the Winos, the tempos are always a mess and they drag.

As for the stuff that’s solely his, I think it’s a mixed bag. He’s genuinely very talented as a lyricist and I like the subject matter he tends to focus on, because it’s a lot about complicated and long term/older relationships, which isn’t necessarily a mainstay of mainstream rock. And I also enjoy his voice, he’s not Pavarotti or anything but he knows how to write for his own range and vocal quality.

That said, I feel like the music/band itself tends to be very hit or miss, and I actually tend to prefer the songs where it’s Charley Drayton playing drums instead of Steve, he’s got a lighter touch that suits Keith’s style better. I was at performance the Winos did at the Beacon Theater 2 years ago as part of Love Rocks NYC and for unexplained reasons (what I heard on the grapevine is that Steve and Charley had some kind of falling out related to Charley’s late wife) Charley wasn’t there. The choice of songs for the set kind of sucked and the replacement bass player was no good, but I don’t think that performance is probably representative of what they were like in their heyday in the late ‘80s/mid ‘90s. Still not thrilled with how much money I spent on a ticket for such a mediocre performance. Hozier and Mavis Staples were great, though.

His collaborations with Levon Helm and Tom Waits are both gorgeous and there’s some beautiful covers by him of Mingus and other artists floating around out there. It’s not *really* solo Keith, but for my money his best stuff in that realm will always be the songs he sings solo on the Stones records, particularly “Little T&A” from Tattoo You, “How Can I Stop” from Bridges to Babylon, “Thru and Thru” + “The Worst” from Voodoo Lounge, and “Slipping Away” from Steel Wheels. Also “Alteration Boogie”, even though nobody was ever kind enough to give us an official release.

Ironically, I listen to him most often when I’m exercising, especially running or doing boxing drills with a heavy bag. I will say that I have a special place in my heart for “Hate It When You Leave.” The lyrics are so him, of course, but it used to be a song that was perpetually on my playlist for nighttime runs in London, and I have many fond memories of listening to it while flying through the shittier parts of Shoreditch and Camden Town.

#I give him a pass on using ‘bitch’ as the female referent in so many of his songs #b/c I genuinely don’t think he means anything mysoginistic by it #and I do think if Anita or Patti told him they didn’t like that he wouldn’t do it #also he’s vastly more insulting to men in his songs than women #mick gets called a greedy fame hungry bastard #whereas #even when he’s getting screwed over by a woman he’s weirdly kind of into it #the rolling stones #keith richards #ask response #anonymous #I also love ‘Loosing My Touch’ from Forty Licks #but you can’t stream it #it’s only on YouTube pirated

[kadavernagh]

Turn it in, turn it up || Regan & Anita

TIMING: October LOCATION: The public library PARTIES: Anita and Regan SUMMARY: The library shouldn't have advertised their screaming closet if they didn't want to draw in the banshees (and... snakes?)

“Hello. I am here to scream."

With a few medical texts under her arm, Regan marched into the library with self-important purpose. The ads around town (including some rather distastefully plastered over the goo in Worm Row) said “10 minutes in the screaming closet! Donate books today!” She wasn’t sure what that meant, but any good banshee would have investigated such a claim. Regan had too many books to get rid of, anyway. She wasn’t sure when Siobhan would eventually collect her, but it would be soon, and better someone else put these old, reliable tomes to use. “The Big Book of Causes of Death” was a classic. 

Already, she could hear a shrill, watered down attempt-at-a-scream coming from a closet toward the back of the library. A short line had formed just outside, people bouncing on their feet in anticipation. Regan was bracing herself for an insult. She located the nearest librarian – a 50-something year old woman who she could only describe as “dusty” – and placed her books on the counter with a thunk that managed to be more impressive than that “scream” had been. She noticed a couple of other textbooks next to her own pile, detailed photographs of beetles gracing the covers. 

“Hello. I am here to scream.”

The librarian nodded toward the line, looking almost bored. “You can queue up.”

Regan shuffled miserably into the line, crossing her arms as a mother and her three young children were ushered into the closet. Pathetic whimpering sounded from the other side of the door. Regan turned to the woman ahead of her in line and couldn't keep a look of derision from crossing her face. “You will be my opening act. Do not disappoint me.” Actually… she was off to a good start. Regan eyed the sharp angles of her face and met her intelligent eyes. There was something familiar about her, though she was certain they hadn’t met before. Not in person, at least. “The beetle books… were those yours? Bit large for casual read throughs, for most, unless they were highly engaged with the subject matter.”

---------

Anita didn’t usually pay attention to the random ads she saw plastered about town but as she walked across campus that afternoon, Anita had seen an ad the public library must have put up about some sort of scream closet. Immediately she thought of Regan, the confusing and curious medical examiner. She was just messaging her about meeting in some scream closet … that couldn’t be a coincidence. After all, 10 minutes in the screaming closet did kind of sound like the adult version of seven minutes in heaven. Taking it as a sign, she read the rest of the ad and then turned to go back into the building and grab a small stack of unused books from her office. 

After collecting three books on various types of beetles, Anita headed down to the library. She felt that it was a longshot that they might end up there at the same time, but she had time to kill anyway. Even if the medical examiner didn’t show up she was now fairly interested in finding out what the hell this screaming closet was about. 

“These aren’t exactly…current,” the librarian said after Anita placed her book offerings down on the desk and flipped through the first few pages. 

“Do you want the books or not?” She shot back, which received nothing but a huff in response as the librarian waved Anita off towards some line. Presumably, the line for the screaming closet. Glancing around at the people lined up and those browsing around the library Anita didn’t see anyone that sort of looked like Regan. Though she didn’t really have the best idea of what she looked like. 

Only a few minutes had passed when the person in line behind her started saying something about an opening act. She was nobody’s opening act. She was the headliner. As she turned to the other woman to tell her just that Anita stopped herself when she saw the pale blonde woman before her and there was a flash of recognition. Could it be? “They most certainly were mine,” she responded with a grin. “Perhaps they are… but I’m not most. They might not get a ton of use, but I’m sure anyone who comes in looking for highly specialized beetle books will be thrilled to find them on the shelves. What is it that you brought in?” 

---------

Regan had never heard screaming in a library before, and beyond the screams themselves being piddly, insulting little things, it was strange to get used to. Another one sounded from behind the closet’s door, and she itched with anticipation. Or maybe she was itching with something else. She had deduced that her company was the entomologist, Anita. The one who seemed to enjoy sending flirtatious messages at a rate that rivaled Jade’s, and the one who seemed curious enough to check out what was going on here. Surprisingly, she had been true to her word and actually showed up. Regan kind of thought Anita had to be some kind of an internet robot who was trying to flirt her way to a social security number or bone collection. Even now, it was hard to believe she was real – she had a commanding presence and Regan was pretty sure that even in death, her face would retain all of its etched beauty, as if it defied gravity and slack muscles. It was her mind, though, that Regan locked on to.

“You’re Anita, Dr. Nieves,” Regan said with confidence but needed to check anyway. And help Anita out, if she didn’t put two and two together. They were bumped closer to the closet as a mother and kids stumbled out and a man in a business suit marched stoically inside, taking their place. Regan’s knees bounced with readiness. “Especially generous of you to part with those books, in that case. Someone else may benefit from them. Flesh flies are so often overlooked, but not by you, I bet.” Maybe after the two of them could go track down a nice maggot mass. “I’m here to investigate this screaming closet. I expected better performance from others, but that was my mistake, I think. Poor form.” And ill-suited physiology. “Personally, I plan to provide an exemplar scream so that others may have something to strive for. People grow lazy and uninspired when surrounded by mediocrity, don’t you think?” 

---------

It was impossible for Anita not to smirk at the fact that Regan had recognized her. Any doubt or hesitation she had as to who was standing in front of her had evaporated and was replaced with certainty. She was used to people not being receptive to her advances online but those were usually clear shutdowns. Her conversations with Regan always danced around the flirtation, as if making future plans to investigate maggots together didn’t constitute foreplay. “Astute observation, Dr. Kavanagh.” 

There was a pause of silence, a reprieve from the screaming, as the occupants rotated out. The business man hadn’t seemed all that eager to enter the screaming closet yet a few moments later the muffled echoes of a deep guttural scream could be heard coming from within. “I am quite generous, that is true. And I never overlook matters of the flesh… or the flies who like to feast on it. I love to share my knowledge and love of insects. They make up almost 90% of all animals, after all, everyone could benefit from learning more about them.” Anita was delighted by the fact that Regan came across exactly as she did online - brilliant, a bit formal, and so perfectly strange. 

The way she spoke about screaming was so fascinating. What an odd thing to say, that people had poor screaming form. Odd and compelling. “You seem to be quite versed in the art of screaming. Though I shouldn’t be surprised. You strike me as someone who doesn’t accept anything less than perfection.” The businessman exited the closet, the same stoic expression plastered on his face, and Anita took a few steps forward as the line moved up again. “It is exceptionally frustrating to be surrounded by mediocrity. Care to give me any screaming tips? Something to inspire me, perhaps?” 

---------

Recognition twinkled in Anita’s eyes, and Regan knew beyond a doubt that they were on the same page now. With identifying each other. No other page. No. Somehow, it was Jade’s fault that her thoughts tumbling in that direction. She was here on business. The screaming closet was important. And engaging in any sort of bonding with Anita was not. “I am nothing if not astute. But even if I were not, it is impossible not to notice your –” No. Back up. This was not business. “– Um, dedication.” And really, was there any finer compliment than that? 

“I find you notable.” The words were easy and true, but she realized after they left her mouth that they were, perhaps, a little “friendlier” than she’d intended. This was also Jade’s fault. Regan decided focusing on those tips was best. And she clung to them like a cadaveric spasm around a blade. “Tips from an expert. I’ll agree to that. My expertise isn’t recognized often enough.” Regan didn’t even need to think. She had heard permutations of this so many times from her grandmother. “You need to make yourself empty. How can you expect to let the scream fill you if you’re already full with needless things like hope, and emotion, and desires?” She gave Anita a cool look. “Of course, I can’t expect you to discard all of that so quickly. But try your best to not let your mind wander from what must be done.” She paused, considering. “And keep your back straight.”

Saved by the line tapering to an end. Finally, the only screamer standing between them and the closet finished up (with an unceremonious clearing of the throat that Cliodhna would have said was a sign of neglect for throat lubrication). She waddled out the door and looked furtively around the library, as if embarrassed. Good. She ought to be. That was a terrible example of a scream. It was time to correct the library’s standards. Regan turned to Anita with a raised brow that somehow managed to communicate more unamusement than amusement. “Are you ready? I expect better from you than we’ve heard from these neamh-roghnaithe. You won’t be able to match me, of course, but you are an individual of higher caliber, a cyst among calluses.” 

“You first.” Regan shot Anita a challenging look as they passed the threshold into the dimly-lit closet. Which looked rather ordinary. There were just some shelves and books and boxes. “I will allow you the honor of being my opening act. That’s something no one else can claim. Worthy of your CV, I think.” 

---------

There was a stiffness in the way Regan spoke that matched the way she came across online. Anita quite appreciated the consistency, she appreciated the fact that the other woman did not seem to try to be more or less than exactly who she was. It was impossible not to wonder if there were ever moments when she loosened up, when the formalities faded and some new exciting layer was revealed. Maybe she’d get to find out someday. “Noteable, huh? I like that. I’m glad you’ve taken note of me.”

The line moved forward slowly, and Anita paid attention to the advice that was being bestowed upon her. It was so interesting and technical while simultaneously being rather poetic. “Are those really needless things? I think one could argue that hope, emotion, desire…” she let the last word linger for just a moment as she looked over at Regan, “Don’t they all stir in a person and create the need for a deep and profound scream?” 

It didn’t take long for Anita to be standing in front of the door to the screaming closet, grinning widely as Regan called her a cyst among calluses. Not her area of scientific expertise, but she took it to be quite a compliment coming from the medical examiner. There was something incredibly alluring about how confident Regan was about her upcoming scream, it made her wonder just how much experience she had and the context for the same. “Quite the honor, indeed.” 

There was an obvious challenge in the offer, as if she was sizing up the competition before putting on her own show. And Anita loved a good show. She reached out and put her hand on the doorknob before turning back with a smile, “Hopefully I don’t disappoint.” As she crossed over the threshold into the closet, shutting the door behind her, there was a cool shiver that rushed across her body. There was a somewhat sinister feeling she was getting from the place but she was not going to let that distract her as she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and began to prepare to release a scream.

---------

Nothing about Anita had been disappointing. But, Regan suspected, the scream that was going to come from her mouth would probably be little more than a whimper. Humans all thought they were so loud. It was no surprise. They had an inflated sense of self-importance in many other ways, too (fae? Never). The only one she gave a pass to was Jade, because everyone – incorrectly – always told her she was so loud. Sometimes, when enough people told you something, you started to believe it.

Anita’s attempt spared Regan from thinking too far in that direction. She stood tall, observing, and raised an entirely unimpressed brow. Actually, the effort was far more impressive than the scream, if it could be called that. It was too dark in the closet to fully appreciate Anita’s posture, but from what Regan could see, she did seem to be following Regan’s advice, spine nice and straight, and gave it a good try. It was the kind of thing her grandmother would never reward or even acknowledge, but it counted to Regan, didn’t it?

She did not even pretend to be pleased. “No. Not like that.” There was no point in offering specific criticism right now, when the best way to do so would be to demonstrate how it ought to be done. “I will show you. I will give everyone here the best scream they’ve ever had in their parochial lives. Consider it fabhar maith, good favor, to hear from me in this context.” No one was dying right now. A special treat for the humans. They really did not appreciate banshee vocal cords enough, usually not until they were done being able to appreciate anything ever again. “I’m extremely practiced, you see. Born for this. Screaming is more than my hobby, it is my calling. I will give them all something to strive for. Pay close attention.” Yes, that struck the balance between humble and helpful. 

Regan cleared her throat and opened her mouth, her lungs ready to sound off like bombs. Usually, when the screams came willingly, she and her lungs filled with the same eager energy, the thought of a release. And it had been a while, hadn’t it? She hadn’t been dedicating enough time to what she should be, instead spending it with – not right now. Anita’s eyes were studious over her, watching closely, and Regan was ready to blow her feet off, to become a fond, loud memory, to– except, obviously, Anita was not a banshee. The realization that wasn’t a realization smacked her frontal bone like a hammer. Okay, so maybe fae could get a little carried away in demonstrating their greatness (distinct from inflated self-importance). Anita. Was not. A banshee. Ergo, this really could blow her feet off. It could destroy the building. But her lungs had revved up and Regan had to slam her hands in front of her mouth as she tried to choke down what so itched to rise up. It was like stuffing toothpaste back into the tube. She hacked inside her mouth and stumbled a little, her back hitting one of the tight walls of the closet. 

Just when she thought she’d had it, she choked a little more and coughed up something pathetically close in decibel to what Anita had done. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, processing her shame. What was that mewling? She grimaced, glad for the darkness so Anita could not see how pale she had been stricken. “I could have done better,” Regan said quickly, defensively, her throat a little sore now (and her lungs very angry at being stifled), “I just, um, I needed to spare your feelings.” As if she ever thought about sparing anyone’s feelings. “You tried your best.” Ughk. “It was not perfect, but it would be rude of me to, uh, show you… up. Like screaming on someone else’s Lá Cinniúint– uh, birthday.” After all of her bragging, she wasn’t sure Anita would let this one go so easily. “Besides, there are better places to scream. Not in some dusty box. It would be offensive to my lungs if they were wasted in such a place, don’t you think? Yes. This is ridiculous. I am better than this.” She tipped her nose up and crossed her arms, looking sideways at Anita. “Come on, let’s leave this miserable place of whispering. There are not even any bugs here for you. A terrible library.”

---------

As Anita got into the room, prepared herself for the scream, she wondered if her attempt would be deemed worthy by Regan. In their interactions thus far it was apparent that where others may have found Anita to be rather impressive Regan never felt that way. The lack of admiration only made her want it more, made her want to push herself to earn that response. As she pushed the air and frustration out of her body with a forceful scream, part of her wondered if this was the moment she might earn that respect. It felt like a worthy scream to her, and it certainly rivaled the attempts that had been made by the others that had gone into the closest before her. 

But as Anitia left the closet and excitedly walked over towards Regan, it was clear that she had not done enough to warrant any praise from the other woman. How could she really expect to impress someone who claimed screaming was her calling? So instead she followed directions again, stood aside and watched the self-proclaimed expert go off to do her thing. There was a small part of Anita that wanted to be able to experience whatever was about to happen in her real form, so that she could see the impending scream echoing around her, dancing across all of her more enhanced lamia senses. 

That was too risky to do, unfortunately, so Anita was destined to experience it with dumb human sensations. She seemed primed to go when something strange seemed to happen, like Regan was holding herself back. The room still filled with a sound that she could practically feel despite her dulled human senses. It was louder than what she had mustered, loud enough to cause everyone in the building to look towards the closet where the sound emitted from, but not nearly as world shattering as she had almost expected it to be. Based on her own reaction, it was clearly not as impressive as Regan had hoped it would be either. 

Saving face wasn’t really her default response to most circumstances, but it was apparent that Regan was… disappointed? “That’s very thoughtful,” she responded to the obvious cover of trying to spare Anita’s own feelings. She would have happily let someone else scream louder than her, but decided not to push the situation to figure out why Regan had opted to not to show her up. Had this been someone she had a more secure dynamic with, she may have roasted them for all the shit talking that did not come to pass but ultimately she just wanted Regan to like her. “You still outshined everyone else here, so if that wasn’t even your best… color me impressed.” 

“For all a library is good for, it does seem ill suited to our interests. I bet we could find a place with plenty of space for you to scream, and plenty of bugs.” Anita liked the idea of them maybe having some other adventures together, particularly if it involved screaming and/or bugs. “These library people don’t even deserve to hear an exceptional scream after the pathetic displays they put on. You were right to save your talents. Vamos, there are better places for us to be.” She said as she started making her way towards the exit.  

---------

“Yes, um, thoughtful.” Regan really had a sweat coming on as she realized how many people might have been crushed if she’d given her pipes a good stretch. But she didn’t. She had stopped it, controlled it, even after an initial poor judgement call. A little too much pride really could be poison (a lesson she’d remember for maybe a week). Advertising a place to scream was basically banshee bait, though, wasn’t it? And there might have been something a little more at play if others felt compelled to scream here despite their obvious lack of innate skill. “All of these people believe they can change anything with their miserable little wails, but what? The world does not shake, their lives do not change.” Regan frowned at the people who were waiting outside the door as they walked by. It was hard not to feel a little small, a little stifled, when she could have done so much more and shown them all. But that was not meant for human ears, and she knew better, sense crowding out competitiveness and pride.

The librarian at the front was busy pointing groups over to the ever-expanding screaming closet line. Regan’s face soured. Each and every one of them was destined to be a failure. How cruel that humans never knew when they were slamming up against their own limitations; they kept trying and trying for the impossible. They would never be the best. So what was the point? Regan turned toward Anita as they walked out – another who tried even when she was out of her league. “I don’t think you came here for me,” Regan said, “so perhaps you can explain it.” The bulletin board near the entrance had a piece of paper with a big arrow. Screaming Closet This Way. She raised her hand to claw it off the wall, the hubris that it was, but something stopped her. Let the humans scream, she decided. It was very kind of her.

She looked back to Anita, nodding. “Better places indeed.” And for once, someone seemed to be on the same wavelength as Regan for what those better places were. “Let us go find the most writhing of maggot masses.”

#writing #c anita

[madebysimblr]

Diamond: Can it wait? Kind of busy right now! This show isn't going to put itself on.

Sorella: What do you think is going on?

Anita: [quietly] Maybe she's finally getting fired

Sorella: [snorts] If only.

Principal Lewis: Ah. well Mrs. St. John that's what I need to speak to you about.

Diamond: What?

Principal Lewis: Well... Brindleton High has just received a very generous donation. And the stipulation of that donation was that a new Drama Director be put in place, immediately. Mr. Mortimer was hand picked by the donor, and graciously agreed to come out of retirement!

Diamond: Now hold on a second you can't do that! We're just about to start shows!

Principal Lewis: The donor was clear, that it needed to be right away. Surely you'll welcome the break!

Mr. Mortimer: And if we're very much done here I need to see what I have to work with. Excuse me.

#simblr #ts4 #ts4 legacy #sims 4 #sims 4 legacy #cortes legacy #gen 4 #sorella #gemma #anita #mr. mortimer #he gets a tag mainly b/c he's so pretty but idk how much he'll appear lol #i am SURE you can guess who this anonymous donor is lol

[void-botanist]

Tatya 🤝 Spinder "this song is about Isabel"

Music taglist: @outpost51 @kk7-rbs

#it actually is on both their playlists #it's also on my goth playlist so I hear it there too lol #there was a window where it also applied to Darnell/Isabel but the artist that I keep associating with them is Anita Ward #music #c: Isabel #Spotify

[dcconfessions]

I love anita fite so much (dc bring her back! now!) but her costume is so ugly im sorry

.

#dc confessions #asks #anon #u: comics #c: anita fite #im not looking it up for my mental health <3

[banisheed]

TIMING: Early-August, 2023 LOCATION: Regis Club PARTIES: Anita (@gossipsnake) & Siobhan (@banisheed) SUMMARY: On the hunt for Regis, Siobhan ends up at the same brand-new club as Anita.

Siobhan was at the edge—the edge of what, she wasn’t sure. She did know that she was at the edge of something. An edge of discovery, perhaps, as she’d followed another lead on a Regis to this club with its rotating lights and thumping music. Or, perhaps, the edge of her sanity, with the rotating lights and the nonsensical thumping music. Clubs hadn’t changed much over the years; packed with swirling bodies, the aroma of perfumes, sweat and alcohol. The music had changed and the flashing lights were new, but the atmosphere held a familiar quality to it. It was comforting and Siobhan might have appreciated it if she wasn’t on a mission. “Are you Regis?” She pulled another person aside, whispering into their ear. Not a Regis. “Are you Regis?” Who's Regis? Siobhan groaned, eyeing the crowd of people. She couldn’t possibly ask each person here if they were Regis. 

Fate favored her as the next person she touched had a rather familiar shoulder. “Anita?” Siobhan asked. “What are you doing here?” That was a bad question; if there was anything she knew about her co-worker, it was that she liked going out. “Okay, silly question,” she conceded instantly, crossing her arms. “Better question: did you come here with someone and what will it take to get you away from them?” The problem with her Regis strategy was that some people were off-put by her aggressive asking. If she was with someone, then she would appear less threatening. That was science, or something.

—

For such a small town, there were often new and strange businesses opening up. Anita made an effort to check all of them out, however, often enthralled by how chaotic and strange some of them ended up being. There was a fairly new club that had opened up with the weirdest name: REGIS Club. Maybe the letters were an acronym, for what though? - she had no idea. Inside it was just like any other club which was a bit of a let down. 

Anita was not going to let the mediocracy of the venue ruin her evening, however. She was stationed near the bar, hand cupping her third glass of tequila, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Of all people to see when she turned around she least expected it to be Siobhan. “A bit of a silly question.” She agreed with a smirk, which widened a bit at the second question. The pair had a flirty dynamic but Siobhan always stopped short of things going beyond that. “Trying to get me all to yourself tonight or something? I think we can arrange for that to happen. Look at you, hands empty. Can I get you something to drink?” 

—

Anita was a certain sort of person; Siobhan knew the type. Attractive, confident, ready for a fun time and uninterested in the intricacies of emotion. Could Siobhan say she was any different? As a child, in the dark of her room huddled under her sheets, she read the words of old poets. She fawned over the likes of Captain Wentworth while holding equal envy for him. She was a romantic, as much as she hated to admit it, she knew it as a truth that she could not escape. She wasn’t made for romance, but if it ever found her--through the fog of her emotions and the thorns of her life--she wanted it to stay. She wanted it to be true. Anita, she imagined, wasn’t the sort that cared about love everlasting--she didn’t think she believed in it. Not that it mattered much to the banshee, but when it came to intimate affairs, was it so wrong to realize that giving into Anita was losing the game they were playing? At any rate, she had a Regis to find. 

“A little,” she smirked at Anita. “Oh,” she laughed. “So painfully empty.” She held out her empty palms, fingertips brushing Anita’s arms and wiggled her fingers around. “And yes, all to myself.” She gestured to the rest of the club. “Have you seen the crowd here?” No, seriously, had she? And did she know any Regis’s among them? “I’d much rather have you.” She grinned. “Drinks now?” She could really use one.

—

People like Siobhan intrigued Anita. She was so willing to be immediately flirtatious, joking about having Anita all to herself. While she enjoyed their back and forth, Anita had a knowing feeling that nothing was to come of it - despite how much she wanted something to come of it. She’d had plenty of people in her past tell her that her insatiable need for physical intimacy and brute denial of emotional intimacy was a ‘defense mechanism.’ What was she supposed to be defending against? She hadn’t a clue. 

“Anything for you.” Anita replied with the flash of a smile as she turned towards the bartender and then pointed at her glass and gestured for two more of the same. Was tonight the night she finally won over the elusive archeology professor? “I don’t usually see you out and about at the clubs around town. Must be my lucky night, no?” Just then the bartender returned with two more margaritas on the rocks and Anita picked them both up off the bar, extending one out to Siobhan and letting her hand linger a bit during the exchange. “Let’s toast! To a night we won’t forget.” She was being hopeful with that dedication, wondering if it would come to fruition. “Do you like to dance?” 

—

 “Aye, you can say I’m looking for someone,” Siobhan answered, surveying the crowd for Regis. It would help if she knew what Regis looked like; asking every beautiful woman she met if they had an interest in Death had unintentionally ruined her chances of fun sex. Ironically, Siobhan was willingly squandering her chance at fun sex with Anita. It was, however, far more fun to deny it. Anita was surely used to getting what she wanted; Siobhan wasn’t one to give people what they wanted. She took the drink and noted the way Anita lingered— oh, she was good at this. It was too bad Siobhan was more interested in seeing how far she could push Anita. “To a night we won’t forget.” She smiled, clinking her margarita glass against Anita’s. 

Now it was Anita’s turn to ask a silly question; everyone danced, not everyone did it well, but everyone danced. In the Aos Sí, loud music mixed with wails thumped around like a beating heart. The sean-nós and lilting of banshees didn’t exist anywhere else in Ireland; anywhere else in the world. It was beautiful. Of course Siobhan danced, who wouldn’t? She sang like a bird once too, about forty years ago. “Are you asking me to dance, Anita?” She grinned, taking Anita’s hand and pulling her into the thick of the crowd. She leaned in, pressing her body against Anita’s. Carefully, she whispered in her ear: “sometimes it’s better to just do isn’t it?” 

—

The back and forth between the professors had always been titillating, to say the least. While it wasn’t her personal preference to let the teasing linger for as long as it had, Anita suspected that there was part of Siobhan that got off on the power she held in the dynamic. In any other situation Anita was the one being withholding, she was the one with the power. Admittedly, she had expected the game to only last for a little while and much to her surprise the longer Siobhan kept walls up the more Anita wanted to finally break through. But only for one night. 

It didn’t take long for Anita to finish the drink she had just ordered, the cool condensation of the glass still lingering on her fingers as she set it down on the bar and followed her dance partner further into the club. She followed the lead as their bodies leaned in, hips pressed up against each other. The thought of tonight being that one night was almost more intoxicating than the tequila running through Anita’s body but she also knew better than to get her hopes up. “Most of the time it’s better to just do.” 

As one song ended and shifted into another, all thanks to a likely overpaid and under qualified moonlighting DJ, Anita looked up at Siobhan with a smirk, “You know, I can think of a few other things we can do tonight besides just dancing. Care to turn up the heat?” 

—

Siobhan draped her long arms over Anita’s shoulders, an action she tried her best not to be amused by, smiling nonetheless; she was taller than Anita, enough that putting her arms around her shoulders felt more like she was about to strangle her than the casual flirtation she meant. Her neck was so perfectly situated where Siobhan’s hands could be. Most people she categorized into the methods she would best like to murder them—it wouldn’t ever occur to her that it wasn’t a normal thought to have—and lovely Anita was no different. It was a compliment in the perverse way all of Siobhan’s compliments unfolded; all the other humans, unimportant and insipid, were categorized into ‘stabable’. But Anita? Siobhan drew her hand back, brushing an errant strand of Anita’s hair behind her ear. She lingered, dragging her hand to the pulse of her throat. When Anita spoke, Siobhan felt her voice vibrating against her fingers. 

“I can too,” she mumbled, letting her hand join the other behind Anita’s head. “And what do you have in mind, damhán alla?” Spider; she thought Anita resembled one. In the back of her eyes, sparkling with the pulsing lights, she thought she saw a web being weaved, a trap being set. Or perhaps that was the romantic in her, seeing things when there was nothing. “How do you want to turn up the heat?” Siobhan smirked. “And are you sure you want to, Dr. Nieves? You’ve always seemed a little cold-blooded to me; afraid of fire.” 

—

Anita was an instinctual being. She knew when to weave, when to dodge, when to attack, and when to stand her ground. Her life revolved around giving into her base primal urges - giving into her instincts. When she felt the icy cold of Siobhan’s hands near her neck, then gently pressed against it, those instincts were in competition with one another. Despite the voice in the back of her head warning of possible danger, Anita decided this wasn’t an action to take as a threat. Maybe it was an invitation? Giving her the smallest sliver of insight into the strange and devastatingly beautiful woman in front of her.

The unfamiliar word danced around her head, entranced by the mystery of what it might mean. “What do I have in mind?” Anita parroted the question, feigning as though she didn’t have far too much in her mind. She certainly knew how she wanted to spend the night, yearning to turn up the heat by feeling those shocking cold hands pressed against a lot more than just her neck. But in that moment, Anita decided that she wasn’t going to play the same game they always did. She wasn’t going to just let Siobhan brush her off after all this build up. “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” she hummed, “that’s your first mistake. Don’t you know that the cold-blooded aren’t afraid of fire … we’re drawn to it. Gotta stay warm somehow, no?” 

Anita looked around the club with subtle movements, making sure not to create any additional distance between herself and her dance partner. She was feeling an urge to do something unexpected… maybe even a bit shocking. It was when she spotted a waiter walking past the dance floor with a tray of flaming shots that an idea began to form, as did a smirk across her lips. “Is the same true for you, mi congelada tesoro?” A frozen treasure was certainly what she seemed to be. “Are you drawn to the fire?” 

—

Siobhan laughed, a warm sound like smoke under the pounding music. Her hot breath spilled between them, floating into the air. Anita was surely experienced—that much had been obvious to her from the moment they met—but every so often Siobhan was reminded that despite her own worldliness, Anita was likely better at this. This being… “I’m not much of a fire, Anita.” She pressed her palm to her cheek, thumbing her cheekbones. She forwent her gloves for the evening in their interest of being able to do touch with her frigid hands; she hoped she was making Anita shiver. In the dark, the glamor to obscure her scarred hands didn’t need to be perfect. “I hope whatever you have in mind has enough fire for both of us.” 

Spanish. Siobhan grinned; one nickname traded for another. Only one word was familiar: mi. My. So, Anita was using possessives already? How forward of her. “I’ve been known to like things a little hot…” Her hand trailed down from Anita’s jaw, following the line of her clavicle with her index finger, using a stroke like a feather. She drew her finger down to the shoulder and back, pressing against her sternum. “But I can only hope you don’t disappoint, Anita.” She glanced up at her, grinning in her amused lopsided fashion. “I’ve known some people to promise a fire only to give a spark. I have high hopes for you, mo thine.” My fire; she was getting lazy. 

—

“Then why am I drawn to you like a moth to a flame?” It was a very lame line which Anita acknowledged with a bit of a laugh, but she was just tipsy enough to say it anyway. After all, her usual lines have regularly failed on Siobhan so what was the harm in just … letting go? 

Maybe that’s what they were both doing, letting go without necessarily giving in. As her cold hand trailed down her neck and made its way delicately down to the center of her chest, Anita’s breath caught unexpectedly. Her eyes were fixed on Siobhan’s face as her hands moved and their eyes met when she looked back up at Anita. Suddenly the tequila wasn’t the only reason she was feeling rather intoxicated. Her next thought was born of that second intoxication and a desire to just let go. 

Not wanting to move herself away from the position they were in but needing to get closer to the edge of the dancefloor, Anita placed her hand firmly against the small of Siobahn’s back and tightened up her posture, “Follow my lead, I’ll give you a lot more than a spark.” The words were low, just loud enough to be heard by her dance partner. Moving in the leading position, Anita directed the pair of them through the crowd in a make-shift tango. The timing had to be perfect. As they neared the edge of the floor Anita spun Siobhan out from the position they had been in, their hands being the only remaining point of contact. 

She held onto that remaining contact with a smirk then she looked over her shoulder as the waiter with the flaming shots was rounding the corner of the dance floor they were at. Anita then turned back to look at the brunette with a devious look as she tugged her towards her gently, inviting her to spin back into form. 

—

Submitting herself to the unknown shouldn't have been exhilarating; Siobhan, by all accounts, was the sort of woman that dealt in known absolutes—death, fate and the predictable turns of humanity. It should have terrified her to be thrust into a situation that confused her, instead, she was amused and thrilled and surprised she felt that way at all. What would Anita do? What was Anita thinking? Desperately, she wanted to know. Her eyes followed hers, her steps moved in rhythm with hers and she followed with a rare obedience. 

She spun out, flowing into the humid air of the club, as if the crowd had parted just for them, just for this moment and this spin. Siobhan’s feathery brown hair swirled around her head and at the apex of the spin, flowed into its place seamlessly as though it never left. Grinning, Siobhan's gaze finally converged with Anita's, on the same waiter. At once, she understood. Or, at least, understood her own version of the mayhem to be had. 

Siobhan was pulled into Anita’s arms again. “Cheeky,” she mumbled into her chest. “But what happens if I beat you to it?” She didn't wait for an answer. Siobhan, keeping her gaze locked on Anita's face and sporting a devilish grin of her own, tipped her hand into the air just as the waiter moved past them. The end of her blunt nail brushed the underside of his wooden tray and flaming drinks rose into the sky—phoenixes against neon light—until they crashed into the ground, exploding upon impact and erupting into a thousand flaming shards. A shockwave of cruses and gasps rippled through the club. “Like that?” she asked, blinking in faux-innocence. Pouting, she pushed closer to Anita and turned around to look at the mess the waiter made. Busy with the glass, he didn’t notice the trail of flaming alcohol that escaped across the dance floor towards the set of decorative curtains. Fire licked up the ends, painting a scene of glowing oranges and yellows. “Was that your plan?”

Siobhan confirmed the one thing she’d always suspected: this was a shitty club. The sprinklers, if those knobs on the roof weren’t just some inane decoration choices, didn’t turn on. 

—

The dance was rather exciting, and Anita felt quite pleased that she had managed to get Siobhan to play along despite not knowing what the ultimate plan was. Then, as they stood there after the spin before their bodies pulled back together, Anita recognized the look on her dance partner’s face. It was a yearning not for another, but a yearning for disruption. In another circumstance, Anita might have been annoyed with someone swooping in at the last moment and performing the final part of her plan. Instead, as she watched the other woman knocked the tray to the floor and she felt immense satisfaction. 

Alcohol and fire always made for a delicious combination. Her hands maintained their position on Siobhan as the pair watched the ultimate consequence of the spilled drinks. The flaming liquid spilled out everywhere and the cheap polyester tablecloths and curtains that the club had plastered across every wall and table took to the fire like they had been longing for it their entire life. A woman who was standing too close to the walls didn’t move, but instead watched in horror at the sight that unfolded, unaware that the fire had spread to the tips of her hair for several seconds. 

“That was part of what I had in mind,” feeling empowered by their shared action and excited by the rapidly spreading flames, Anita finally decided to do something that she had been wanting to do for a long time. Something she hoped was a mutual want. “This is the other part,” she said as she leaned up to close the distance between their mouths. An anticipating smirk crossed her lips just seconds before they pressed against Siobhan’s refreshingly cool lips. As they stood there, the kiss seemed to amplify the heat surrounding them as the rest of the club’s patrons were in a frenzy of their own as they flocked to the exit. 

While she could have stood there, surrounded by flames, kissing the other professor for the entire night, Anita pulled away from the embrace when the heat from the growing fire caused one of the club’s windows to crack and shatter. “Well, you certainly can’t say all I gave you was a spark.” 

—

Anita’s lips were soft, painted with tequila and saliva, pressed against hers. Siobhan’s hand tangled in her hair, pressing into the base of her skull. Her body burned, likely because of the heat, but the romantic part of her felt generous enough to attribute some of it to Anita. Carnage had a way of turning her on and desire itself was strange; it rippled from her chest down to her thighs. Pulling back, Anita’s face half-illuminated by searing oranges, she realized with sobering clarity that this was how Anita did it, this was seduction in masterful hands. She wanted to give in; having fun with Anita seemed like the best idea in the world right then. She was certain that regarding matters of romance, they were aligned: there would be none of it. And yet, there was nothing Siobhan hated more than being a loser. “You gave me a whole fire.” She smiled, dropping her hand from Anita’s hair. She smoothed out the mess she’d created as if trying to erase any sign of herself on the other woman (an impossible task; her lipstick was already smudged against her lips). 

Above, more glass cracked and popped, raining down into the club. Siobhan moved with little urgency. She leaned in again and pressed her lips to Anita’s cheek, lingering. “You’ll have a lot of scared women outside, looking for someone to comfort them into the night. How lucky you are.” Siohan pulled back, smiling at her with a cacophony of ill-intentions. Her own brown eyes shimmered with the fire around them. She moved to her left, brushing her as she walked past. Pausing one final time at her side, knuckles grazing, she leaned in again. “Maybe you’ll find someone you can pretend is me.” Another kiss met Anita’s shoulder before she was off, slipping away between glass and fire. 

As she looked back at the sparking sign, she finally realized it was the club that was named Regis. 

—

For a moment, no not even a moment -- just a fleeting second, Anita thought that there might be more fire in store for the two of them. But then Siobhan pulled away and the next kiss was placed on her cheek, not on her lips. While all of their past interactions had been tantalizing and Anita genuinely enjoyed their back and forth, this night solidified something her subconscious had long known but had yet translated into conscious thought: you may have met your match. But not match in the way lovestruck humans defined it. No, this wasn't kindred spirits, this was twin flames in the most warped sense of the term. 

As Siobhan pulled away again, a heavy breath escaped from her lips. While she dealed in and dealt out pleasure it was often meticulously staged and Anita was always the one in control. The feeling - the need - that was coursing through her in that moment, however, was anything but controlled. “I think we both know there isn’t anyone who could hold a candle to you. Even in my mind.” After feeling that final cold kiss pressed to her shoulder, Anita swallowed and the reality of the building starting to crumble around her sunk in. 

In a hurried fashion to not raise unnecessary suspicion Anita made her way to the exit, already looking around for someone who might serve as an adequate distraction. 

#so sorry 2 anita #also to regis club rest in peace #regis in peace #also no one comment on my banner design i experimented too close to the sun #c: anita #writing #s1 #fire and desire

[muertarte]

@gossipsnake replied to your post “wtf??”:

[pm] Did you leave book behind just like you left your little rat behind?

​[pm] He is not rat.

Have to leave. Did you get note?

#dash #c: anita #pm: anita

[chasseurdeloup]

Ever end up getting a frame for that mattress?

Yeah I did. Monty-- The guy I-- My-- Putain, this is fucking stup-- The vaquero I mentioned finished the bed and my cousin helped him get it set up. Thanks again for the mattress. Unless you want me to say you're welcome for taking it off your hands. Up to you.

#answered #gossipsnake #c: anita #i can't believe this is happening again

[chrisgates]

@gossipsnake replied to your post “[pm] Hey! I know it's been a minute since [user...”:

[pm] Back there like the woods, or just that particular area? Maybe a good idea either way. Not sure why I'd take offense to that, but no worries lol. Some insects are, objectively, quite gross.

[pm] That area. I can't stay away from the woods, but I'm adding that area to the Do Not Go list. So far I have the wishing well in Nightfall Grove that just gives me the creeps, a cave in seven peaks that definitely has something big and alive in it and basically all of Mossthorn forest.

Oh, I just know some people can get defensive [...] especially about their careers or uh special interests. Yeah it's true 😔 do you think they would find us gross?

#c; anita n #private

[xamassed]

⟬ @pluviacuratio ⟭

Holds her arms up to Anita like a child would. The invitation to lift is there!

The invitation was accepted, happily and without hesitation. Both arms scooped Bella clear off her feet, the princess carry only barely straining the muscles in her arms. "Up you go! Alright, where to? You'll have to pay for the ride, but you know I accept food and booze."

#pluviacuratio #「 ( anita ; ic ) 」 #「 v. dangerous flips and car crashes ( anita ; modern ) 」 #「 r. the mountain i lean on ( anita ; arabella ) 」 #( bella's cooking counts c: just saaaaying )

[if6was9ax]

#anita c #beauty #sexy