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#cemetery boys AU
northlt · 19 days
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completely forgot to post on tumblr but chapter 2 is up :))
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stonedregulus · 1 year
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He was a boy made of fire who'd been turned to frost. He was meant to burn.
— Aiden Thomas, Cemetery Boys
I can’t stop thinking about a Cemetery Boys—Jegulus AU. Regulus as Yadriel, James as Julian. It’s just perfect.
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mimi-croissant · 9 months
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Time to revisit that spiderman AU I have
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mama-orion · 2 years
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Who needs some achingly sweet Cemetery Boys fanfic?
I hope someone does, because I have 13 chapters for them to meander through <3 <3 <3
This slight AU (Julian with brujo powers) spans the moment right after Yadriel & Julian reunite at the hospital, hops and jumps through their lives and the perspectives of their family/friends, and ends in their very last days as old men – with a very happy ending.
In these head-canons, we explore... what if Julian had returned from death with brujo powers? What does it feel like to visit with your deceased mom after being apart for a year? What if Maritza fell for Rocky? What if Yads and Jules chose to tell their friends their secret? How good would it feel to finally get to dance together, alive? What if they snuck the Stingray out again for Jules' birthday? What if they became foster parents to a mixed-magical household? What if Lita taught Julian to bake? And more. :}
Read 'Brujos' on A03
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greenkirbkid456u · 1 year
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Act one
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sfehvn · 5 months
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new religion part 3
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
Rating: M (18+ minors DNI) Word count: 2,407 Characters: soft!ascended!Astarion x fem!au!Tav
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━─━────༺༻────━─━
  In the small cottage on the outskirts of the city, madness ensued. The screeching of young children rang out as they happily played about the intimate home, and you let out a frustrated sigh from your place in the kitchen. “Girls, papa needs to rest. Please just relax, okay? Why don’t you guys play in the garden?” You suggested, trying to keep the exasperation from coating your words. You pour the contents from your mixing bowl into a pan, looking up at the oldest of the four girls before you. She sat at the table, scribbling into a journal. “Lillian, will you help me please?” The words were a plea, despondent for any form of assistance. The younger girl lets out a frustrated huff but stands to lead the children outside into the back garden without a word.
  Since the eldest of you had moved on, things had been increasingly more brutal for all of you. Typically, house duties were split between the two oldest, you and Alan. With him gone, that meant everything fell on your shoulders. He had been reluctant to go, but once you had encouraged him to do something for himself for once, off he went with your blessing. You wondered why you couldn’t offer yourself the same kindness, but it always came full circle that without you, everyone in the home would fall apart.
  Lillian was barely old enough to help around the home, yet she was already slipping away in the middle of the night to meet with a boy whom she swore she was going to wed. No matter the amount of times you lecture her about the repercussions this could have, she dismissed everything. You don’t know what it feels like to be in love. Lillian would exclaim, but you did. Of course you did. You wanted to yell, tell her how foolish she was being. However, you would never. Remembering how quickly you were forced to grow up in order to care for everyone, you wanted her to cling to her own childhood for as long as she possibly could.
  Your father lay still on a cot in the front room, his breaths shallow and rattling with liquid as he slept. It had been an awful day for him. Bloodstained rags lay beside the cot, reminiscent of his coughing fits and pleas to be put out of his misery. It ripped your heart to shreds seeing him so poorly. Once a man so full of life and happiness, tormented and withered to skin and bone. He could no longer hold himself up, and you were aware that it was only a matter of time before your grief-stricken family would be back in that cemetery, burying him next to your long-gone mother.
  You’re broken from your thinking by the sounds of his bloodied coughs ensuing once more. You quickly abandon the half-made meal, rushing to his side. You dampen a fresh washcloth in the bucket of water that rests beside him, swiping gently at his blood-splattered chin. “You’re okay, papa. I’ve got you.” You reassure, his wet coughs echoing throughout the room. 
  His body loosens up after a few moments and you grab another cloth to lay across his forehead. There was no denying the pain visible on his face, and you frowned deeply at the hopelessness you felt. “Just like your mama.” He murmured and the words elicited him to sputter another cough. You shushed him softly and patted his hand, urging him not to strain himself. “She would be-.” He falters as he attempts to catch his breath. “She would be proud.” You smile glumly at his words and move to collect wash rags that are strewn about the floor.
  The trash can overflows with contents of discarded rags, and you groan inwardly, picking up the bin to toss it in the front garden’s can. You allow the last bits of warmth from the sunset to soak in your skin, making your way down the dirt path to the bin. A shadowed figure halts you, standing at the end of the path. You squint to get a better look at the mystery visitor, and confusion washes over you at the sight of Astarion. “Astarion? Why are you here?” Your brow creases as you approach, dumping the contents of the can into the larger one.
  He steps closer, hands folded over a chest you’d found comfort in many times before. “I couldn’t leave things the way we did.” It had only been but a couple of days since you had left his manor in a hurry, and Astarion had spent every second apart locked in his study. His servants had felt the brunt of his anger and anguish in that time, more than half of them residing in the palace's dungeon for simply being in his line of sight.
  Astarion had to restrain himself from stealing you away in the night and locking you in his bed chamber until you agreed to stay with him after your little qualm. He had tried and failed to talk himself out of his need for you; the absolute burning desire that screamed in his bones for you made it no use. He needed you. He’d considered consuming you just to be rid of these feelings that plagued his mind but had come to the conclusion that would only make his wanting worse.
  A soft sigh leaves your lips, and you glance back at your home, fidgeting absently with your fingers. The squeals of excited children buzzing about the back garden is the only sound heard in the silence as you carefully try to put your words together. “I’m sorry I left like that.” A million thoughts are whipping in your head, a million things you want to say to him. This is all you can manage, though. With a brief pause of hesitation, you continue. “Would you like to come in? I have to finish cooking.” Your words trail.
  There was a tinge of embarrassment ringing in your head at the thought of having him in your home. Not that you were embarrassed by your family, per se, but Astarion was used to wealth and luxury; your quaint cottage exuded everything but that. Silence befalls you, and you’re about to revoke your invitation when Astarion hesitantly nods. He knew better, and he silently cursed himself for accepting. Was he really supposed to go in there and pretend he’s the same as any of them? Pretend like they’re cut from the same cloth? No, he couldn’t. Astarion didn’t meet families. He destroyed them. Left them in shambles with nothing but corpses in his wake. Still, he followed you in. There was something about the way you looked at him with those big doe-eyes that made it impossible for him to refuse you.
  You lead him into the house, shutting the door behind him. In the soft light of the home, Astarion can make out the dried blood spattered over your pale yellow dress: hair a mess and cheeks flushed, bags formulating under those eyes he loved so much. You were being pulled in too many directions and, hells, practically worn thin. His eyes shift around the cottage, taking in every detail of where you live—the house smelt of you and the scent of a home-cooked meal. You made your way back into the kitchen, resuming the forgotten meal you had abandoned to care for your father. 
  Astarion’s eyes rake over the house, taking note of your sleeping, bedridden father. He felt pity. For you, of course. He knew the recourse coming; it didn’t take an expert to see the man was on his last leg. He intended to be there for you to fall upon once he was gone. He steps deeper into the front room, eyes falling on a perfectly painted picture above the fireplace. A smiling family looked upon him: seven children and a couple blessed in their youth. He immediately recognizes you among the group, and his eyes drift to who he assumes to be your mother. You looked just like her. The artist had rendered that same captivating smile he’d recognized as yours on her face.
  “When mom got sick, papa worked day in and day out to ensure he’d have something to remember her face. He was terrified he’d forget it.” You mused solemnly as you approached behind him. “I’ll never comprehend how he managed to afford it. He made anything happen for her, though.” You smiled.
  “You’re a spitting image.” Astarion murmured incredulously, looking down at you.
  You nod, rubbing your hands over the apron tied around your waist. “So I’ve heard.” Your mother was a soft spot for you. You had always tried your best to live as she would since her passing.
  Loud chatter filled the cottage as the children filtered back into the house. “It’s too dark out now, sissy.” The youngest mewls. She couldn’t have been older than seven, and she was absolutely covered in mud. As were the other girls, aside from Lillian. 
  You tsk, ushering them away from the front room. “Go clean yourselves up. You’re tracking mud everywhere.” You scold. The girls hurry off to wash up without paying Astarion any mind. Lillian narrows her eyes at the strange man in her home, scrutinizingly.
  “Hey, I know you.” You ignore her as you enter the kitchen to check the cooking food. Astarion tries to place her in his mind to no avail. “You get around.” She mutters, saying nothing more as she walks to the table to assist you with setting it. He’s left silenced for a beat, wracking his brain for whatever she may have seen, and it clicked. He had been sloppy. Dissatisfied with the meals his servants had been bringing him, cooked or fresh, he’d taken to his own devices. For months, he had found the joy of the hunt again. He frequented taverns, bringing home women who shared some semblance of you. Lillian must have seen him—more times than once, given her tone.
  Astarion straightens himself out and assists with the table setting, side-eyeing the young girl every so often slyly. How would he react if she said anything more? He wasn’t sure, but he knew he couldn’t let you discover any of it. Hells, how could he be so stupid? What did he expect? Fear of everything he had built with you gripped him—fear of losing you. “So, Lillian, how old are you? You say you know me; I don’t think I’ve ever seen you about.” He hums. His tone is sickly sweet. 
  “I’m fifteen, and I’m to be married, so don’t get any ideas.” Lillian says pointedly, and Astarion’s jaw all but fell on the floor at the teenager’s response. This family had a solid track record of leaving him dumbfounded.
“Oh, gods, no. I wasn’t-” Astarion started.
 “Lillian!” You exclaimed loudly, shooting her a stare of distaste. “That’s quite enough.” Your voice was stern, demanding. Nurturing. A side of you Astarion had never had the pleasure of seeing. “Just- just go to the room with the little ones. I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.” You chose to ignore the comment of marriage—a battle for another day. You turn to Astarion wide-eyed once she’s left, shaking your head in disbelief at the situation. “I’m so sorry. She’s been,” you pause, “Difficult. To put it nicely.” 
  “Don’t apologize, darling. Not a problem.” He cleared his throat. He had a few choice words for the girl, much harsher than difficult, but instead, he bit them back, knowing none of them would be satisfactory to you. 
-
  Less than a seventh day had gone by when your father had passed, succumbing to his sickness. While you knew it was coming, it didn’t stop your heart from dropping to your toes when you awoke in the early hours to find his cold body, stiff and unmoving. Your cries rang through the house despite your better judgment, drawing the neighbor’s attention. You had this planned; it wasn’t supposed to be like this. You were supposed to be calm, not to scare your younger siblings. In the moment, everything in your brain was mush. It didn’t matter what you were planning, what you had accounted for. At the moment, you were that same scared young girl who had just found her mother’s corpse all those years ago. You clung to his hands as he was carried away by your brother hours later.
  Astarion was surprised to see you at his doorstep and was readying a flirtatious quip when he noted how disheveled you looked. Your eyes were bloodshot, cheeks flushed and puffy. “He’s gone, Astarion.” Your voice cracked, and his heart along with it. He said nothing and instead pulled you to his chest, caressing soft hair as painful sobs erupted from you. He hated to see you in so much agony. His first instinct was to hurt whoever or whatever was causing this and he felt vulnerable that, in this case, violence was not the answer. 
  No, instead, he cradled you into his arms and carried you to the bath chamber. He held you while servants filled the tub with warm water, careful hands worked the hem of your nightgown over your head while you stared at a spot past his shoulder; it was as if you weren’t present. Now nude, he places you into the warm water. He combed through your hair while you cried, cleaned your body while you screamed in anguish, listened to incoherent pleas for your father to be brought back.
  By the time your body had calmed, the sun was already setting. He lifted your exhausted body from the water, urging the servant replenishing warm water away with just a look. Once in the bed chamber, he towels water droplets from your skin wordlessly. There was nothing he could say to fix your heart—this time. He lays you in his bed, tucking you to his chest and all but cocooning around you. For the first time in hours, you are silent. He can hear your once-racing heart slow. “I want to stay here with you. I can’t be there anymore.” Your throat was raw, words tired. His heart leaps at the statement, and he’s tempted to take you right there and then. He pushes the thought away and instead tightens his hold around you. “We’ll talk about it when you’re of sane mind, my treasure.”
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bettyfrommars · 6 months
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Season of the Witch
by @allthingsjoeq & @bettyfrommars
steddie x reader
Blair Witch Project au
Warnings: 18+ONLY, found footage horror, hurt/no comfort, fem!reader who is just a friend, no Vecna, angst, lost in the woods, mentions of witchcraft, paranormal happenings, things that go bump in the night, fear of being stalked, allusions to gore and MCD.  Dead dove do not eat. wc: 13k
If you are familiar with the film The Blair Witch Project, you know some of what to expect. This is a horror fic; it will be scary and unsettling at times, so please take caution if the genre makes you uncomfortable. 
Summary: Three friends find themselves in a small town in Maryland, the home of the Blair Witch, in order for Steve Harrington to film a documentary for his semester project.  In tow are his boyfriend, Eddie Munson, and you, a friend he invited along to be his trusty cameraperson.  Once you are too deep in the woods to find your way back, the myths surrounding the lore of the land begin to take shape, and you realize you might never make it out of there alive.
Much love to @allthingsjoeq for all of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into this, and also for calling it "a Marmite fic". We hope you enjoy this contribution to the October festivities! Much love.
Burkittsville Cemetery, Maryland
“Here we are,” Steve Harrington can’t contain the glimmer of wonder in his eyes, behind wire-rimmed spectacles, as he parks near the overgrown site of the cemetery.  
You look up from fiddling with the camera in the back seat as the tires crunch to a halt, already thinking of where the best spot to get a shot of Steve would be for the documentary he’s working on.  You aren’t as familiar with filming as you should be for being his main cameraperson, but you and Steve had become close friends very quickly, and he practically insisted you be a part of it. 
He was especially fascinated with the town you grew up in called Burkittsville in Maryland.  You knew about Steve’s obsession with the paranormal, and the legends that surrounded certain locations, so you told him about your hometown legend—the Blair Witch. You hadn’t been back since you were a kid, but you watched his face light up when you talked about the lore, and all of the possibilities for filming. 
Although Steve had his camera crew of one sorted, he would and could never travel without his partner in crime and in love, Eddie Munson. The metalhead stands now looking out over the cemetery with his black and white flannel over a Bark at the Moon Ozzy Osbourne concert tee, and his hair tied back in a bandana, being the supportive boyfriend. He clamps a hand on Steve’s shoulder to give it a squeeze. “You got this, big boy. Let’s rock ‘n roll.”
Tall grass yields underfoot as you all make your way around the space, bending down to try and read the crumbling grave markers.  
There is a staggering amount of tiny, decaying gravestones, each dedicated to a child who lost their life to unknown, yet presumably horrifying circumstances.
“Shit,” Steve mutters under his breath.  “There’s a lot of kids here.” You film his profile as he says it, shifting the focus back to get Eddie in the frame, and he shoots his tongue out, putting his forefinger and pinky up to make devil horns. 
Steve does a monologue for the camera.  He’s standing on the hill near one of the taller headstones, and the wind makes his hair unruly.  “Here we are in the town of Burkittsville, formerly Blair. As legend has it, around 1785, a Blair resident named Elly Kedward was accused of practicing witchcraft by several children. The children said that she had dragged them from their homes with the intention of drinking their blood. As you can see, there is an unusually large number of children buried on this hill.”
You film different headstones, making sure to capture the stone angel, and a few of the other statues, to splice into the film while Steve is talking for the final cut.  
Interviews with some of the long-time residents in town are next, and in the car ride down the hill, Eddie holds the camera and turns it on you in the back seat.  You cover your face at first, not wanting to be recorded, but he eases you out of it with some of his playful banter.  “Since we’re interviewing people who grew up here, we should start with you, right? What is your experience with the Blair Witch?”
You’d talked about the stories you’d heard so often with Steve, but being in the spotlight made you nervous, and it took a second to find your words.  “No personal experiences, really, but I’ve heard a lot of lore.  Ghost stories, mostly. Stuff to scare us kids so we’d go to bed early.” You shift in your seat and look out the window, but Eddie is waiting for more.  “I, um, well…”
“Leave her alone, Eddie,” Steve responds absently, flipping the blinker to turn into town. The song Season of the Witch by Donovan is on the radio and Steve’s mumbling the lyrics.
“No, it’s okay,” you flex a quick smile.  “If it helps, I mean, I was 8 years old when we left, I don’t know a lot other than what I’ve researched.”
“Your audience is waiting,” Eddie zooms the focus in way too much so that your eyes take up the whole frame.  
“Okay,” you start. “So I guess there were these two guys who were hunting once, up by the cabin Blair Witch is supposed to haunt, and they just disappeared off the face of the earth. Search parties combed the woods for weeks and couldn’t find a trace of them.”
“Maybe they realized they were in love and ran away together,” Eddie chuckles, pushing the heel of his hand into Steve’s shoulder.  
You smile down at your lap. “Could be.”
“One more thing,” Eddie looks at you over the top of the camera and then puts his eye back down to focus.  “Is there a chance we could all end up victims of the Blair Witch?”
You can’t tell if it’s a serious question, but it gives you chills.  Your eyes flick from the camera to the back of Steve’s head and his messy flop of hair.  
“I personally don’t believe in ghosts or witches,” you smile as you say it, and catch Steve’s quick glance at you in the rearview mirror.  “But don’t tell Steve.”
Eddie snorts and puts the camera in his lap but forgets to turn it off. 
“I’m really looking forward to proving you wrong,” Steve’s muffled voice says to you as Eddie rustles the camera down between his legs.  “There’s some spooky shit going on in those woods, and I’m going to get it on film.”
First night, The Motel 
The map of the forest is spread out across the thin, floral spread of the motel bed. Eddie and you stare down at it, identically flicking your eyes across the inked locations, each mirroring the same dazed look of cluelessness. 
“I think, if we start here and then make our way north we’ll get to here,” Steve then circles the center vigorously before saying, “by midday.” 
On the map it's easy to believe the forest only stretches a few miles and Steve’s plan so far seems simple enough, promising this hike to be quick. With the action plan sorted, a large pizza shared, and your survival packs spilling out with textbook necessities, it gives the three of you the rest of the evening to chill. This downtime allows you to mess about a bit and accidentally fill some of the tape space with personal footage. 
You’ve decided to sprawl out on one of the two double beds, propping yourself up on your elbow to film Steve and Eddie’s tiny little tickle fight that started over Steve being adamant that he wasn’t and would never be ticklish. Eddie knows just the right areas on his ribs to challenge with his deft fingers, making Steve squirm and beg for him to stop, while Eddie chuckles and pounces on top of him, making the cheap bed springs squeak.
“Hey, put the camera away,” Steve spots you, and then attempts to lunge off the bed and grab the camera. But you lift it out of his reach with a mischievous giggle.  
Eddie smiles along with you, his gaze falling with admiration on the way Steve’s cheeks turn a rosy pink at the exhilaration.  He throws a wink your way and pokes his tongue at Steve’s back, grabbing his ankle to keep him from leaving the bed. 
“Stevie, have you seen my lighter?” A few minutes later, you start filming again as Eddie is wandering the room in nothing but a pair of boxers and an unzipped hoodie.
“Are you going to smoke now?” Steve asks, checking the batteries in his flashlight.
“What’s wrong with now?”
“Well, you know,” Steve unsubtly tips his head in your direction, worried that you may not be comfortable.
“Oh, no I don’t mind”, you say, not wanting your inexperience to ruin the mood. It makes Eddie raise an eyebrow, your choice of words being music to his ears. 
“See Steve, if anything she’s probably curious,” he extends both hands to you as if you were a prize at the fair.
Eddie bounces on the balls of his feet and begins to dig through his pack's front pocket before retrieving a baggy of rolled joints. He pats around in his vest and produces a green plastic lighter with a triumphant, “a-ha!”
It’s been a while since you’d smoked weed, and you weren’t even sure you liked it, but Eddie’s contagious energy made you want to be a part of whatever he was doing.  He squints as he inhales, holds it, and then passes the joint to you between pinched fingers before releasing a generous plume of smoke. 
You took what you thought was a tiny drag, but it tickles the back of your throat and sends you into a coughing spasm, making you bat your chest with the palm of your hand after handing the joint back. 
“Can’t handle it sweetheart?” Eddie snickers, but then he wiggles his eyebrows at you and takes another drag for himself, passing you a bottle of water from the bedside table. The cap is off and some of it sloshes onto his hand.
“Oh, wait, I have something better,” Eddie says, jumping off the bed to snatch a fifth of whiskey out of his bag.  “Shots?”
“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” Steve adjusts his glasses and pulls back the comforter on his side of the bed to get cozy.  “Just one. We have a long day tomorrow.”
You shrug and nod, eyes bloodshot and watering, while Eddie puts the bottle to his lips and chugs a shot first before handing it to you.  You swallow a big gulp, and Eddie howls at the way your face screws up like you’d just sucked on a lemon.
“Here’s to the Blair Witch,” Steve holds the bottle up before he takes his drink.  “May she grace us with her presence tomorrow.”
Black Hills Forest, Day one, 9am
“Are we filming?” Eddie chimes in, practically vibrating with excitement.  
“The green light is on,” you mumble to yourself, frowning down at the screen on the camera that shows nothing but black.  
“Hey, Indiana Jones,” you call over to Steve who is checking the direction of the wind with a licked finger as he squints into the sun filtering through the dead leaves.  “What am I doing wrong?”
Steve adjusts the strap of his hiking pack and strolls over to you with a tight clench between his eyebrows.  “Give it here,” he sighs, taking it from you. “I just tested it this morning, I know it’s—”
He finally sees the problem and halts.  He makes somber eye contact with you, takes the cover off the lens and holds it up.
“Oh,” you bite the inside of your cheek, stifling a self-conscious laugh. 
“Steve Angelica Harrington,” Eddie grins, throwing his arm around Steve aggressively, almost knocking him over.  “Our hero.”
You lift the camera up to your eye and get both of them in the frame, leaning back to smile at the pair.  Steve shrugs away from Eddie’s attention as if he doesn’t like it, but then there is a moment when he turns and the two almost kiss.  Eddie gives a few exaggerated, puckered smooches and leans in. 
Steve realizes you’re filming and pushes his boyfriend off for real this time, running a hand through his hair to fix himself.  Restless as ever, Eddie comes around to take the camera from you, asks you where certain buttons are, and then points it in your direction.  You shrug him away playfully and shield your face from the nose down with the crook of your arm as if you are Dracula holding your cape.
Steve pops his knee out and tilts his head. “Would you two dorks stop messing around and take this witch hunt seriously? I want this documentary to be a success.”
“So remind me, King Steve,” Eddie turns the camera on his boyfriend, and he does not look amused.  “We’re trying to find the ghost of some child murdering witch from the 1700’s? Should I be trying to spot a gingerbread house too?”
Off camera, you snort and say, “idiot,” under your breath.  
“Eddie,” Steve keeps his profile to the camera, refusing to make eye contact. “Let’s get some footage first and then I’ll let you mess around with the camera.”  He doesn’t want a bunch of adolescent jibber jabber on film. .  
“What, I’m just trying to be helpful,” Eddie shrugs with puppy dog eyes, lowering the device.
He forgets to turn off video again, and as it angles at the ground. Audio catches a distinct sound, like a soft moan, from somewhere in the woods.
Steve holds his hand up for everyone to halt, freezing in place, and a small twig snaps under his foot.  
You open your mouth to speak, something about how it would be better to get a shot of Steve in the clearing, but you are swiftly shushed.
You motion to take the camera from Eddie, and then you point it at Steve, and he turns to you, right in the camera’s eye. His tone is dire:  “Can you hear that humming?” 
“I can’t—” Eddie blurts, but then Steve puts the palm of his hand tight over Eddie’s mouth, wrapping his fingers over his chin, knowing that it was impossible for him to stay quiet under pressure.
Your heart is racing as you concentrate, ears straining.  There is the dry shuffle of the breeze rustling the branches, but otherwise, the silence is eerie and vast. 
“Cut it out, Steve, it’s not funny,” you bristle, locking one arm protectively over your chest while the other attempts to hold the camera in place. Steve is darting his attention around the woods, trying to locate the origin of the sound.
Eddie steps back, moving his mouth away from Steve’s muzzle. “It’s just the wind, baby, it’s making you paranoid,” he offers, noticing the way Steve’s face is drained of its color. Bending down to retrieve the map that fell when Steve got manhandled, one of Eddie’s legs flew out behind him dramatically.  A part of you wonders if Eddie and the map are a good combination, however you keep your thoughts to yourself. 
You’re almost positive you heard a voice in the woods as well, but you decide to keep that close to your chest.
The lingering tension finally subsides, and Eddie reaches back for Steve’s hand to keep him moving in the same direction; to coax him out of his racing thoughts.  Not wanting to waste battery life, you turn the camera off and stumble behind them, actively fighting off the urge to glance over your shoulder at whatever might be following in your wake. 
The next few hours consist of hiking through unused paths and trampling muddy footprints, waiting for Steve to find his perfect backdrop to open his documentary. With the car far behind you and your full 360 view being nothing but trees, Steve finally breaks from his determined stroll.  
“Can we do this now?” You lightly prod. For the last half hour, Steve has been trying to find the right spot to stand, and you felt like his perfectionism will be the death of you.  
Steve has that look, the professional one, when he means business. However, for Steve to enter his little documentary presenter zone he wants to stand alone, the trees being his only sidekick. 
“You can go over there now,” Steve gives Eddie a playful nudge. 
His boyfriend has been on his heels this entire time, but now the metalhead jogs over to grab the camera off of you to keep himself busy, while Steve concentrates, pushing his glasses up on his nose, finding his performance space before he begins.
“The town of Blair has been cursed since the 1700’s,” he starts.
Eddie and you share an encouraging nod, adding a dash of support for Steve to continue.  
“They all warn of the Blair witch, the one known to lure children to her home and sacrifice their souls and use their blood as an offering.” Steve starts to find his rhythm, naturally taking small steps backwards, like a guide, forcing the camera to follow.
“Elly Kedward was eventually found and blamed for the towns disappearances and without trial was banished into these woods in the depth of winter to freeze and perish a worser fate than her victims.” 
There’s a climatic wind gust that passes through the trees, almost like the ghost of a victim's warning, sent to bring the hairs on your arms to rise. It makes Eddie grin, Steve’s eyes widen with interest, and you try to contain a violent shiver; the theatrics of nature perfecting the shot. 
Steve pauses to take in his surroundings for dramatic effect before continuing.
“Her twisted end didn’t sit right, the town of Blair began to notice odd occurrences, noises and symbols from the forest. Locals believe she left a curse. They say she is still roaming in these woods to this day, seaking her revenge and enticing lost souls into her portal to show the devil her true power.” 
Steve takes a breath, pausing before opening his mouth to speak again, but Eddie’s attention span has other ideas. 
“Oh wait,  Steve can you do that again, I didn’t press record,” Eddie says as cool as he can muster, biting the inside of his cheek. 
Steve shoves his hand roughly through his hair and holds it there, tempted to rip the hair from his scalp. “For fuck sake Munson.” 
Quickly breaking into a wild grin Eddie says a quick, “joking babe,” fully accepting the harsh shove Steve jabs to his shoulder, but then Eddie decides to up the antics.  He falls to the ground dramatically and starts to wiggle like a worm.
“Help, Help, it’s got me, the witch,” faking a struggle, to which Steve tuts, lodging a twig in his direction and adding a casual, “get over yourself, Munson.”  You dive down to take the camera from Eddie’s extended arms as he rolls to his side, and bite back a grin before giving Steve the signal that he’s on again.
Steve advises Eddie to roam around while he delivers the next part of the story. 
“This legend sits on the border of fiction and fact. It’s chilling, yes, but the stories and facts just don’t add up. A truth needs to be found and today, the legend of the witch will either remain its legendary hoax or a fatal truth may be… Wait, cut.”
“What, why?” You frown, enjoying Steve’s witch hunter mode, but clearly his self doubt has arrived.
“Was it a bit much? I felt like I was entering Eddie’s DND campaign.”
“Hey,” Eddie protests, opening his mouth and eyes wide at the camera and prompting you to snort a laugh at his theatrics. 
The day wages on, the forest becoming your only view for miles as Steve drags his feet, unsatisfied at his findings so far. The consistent checking of his watch is a hint alone that it’s time to set up camp soon.  
By nightfall, the strange noises from earlier were all but forgotten, and you sit with a full belly in front of the crackling fire opposite Eddie.  You film him as he tells one of his wild stories, complete with active hand gestures and cartoonish sounds.  Eddie gets a detail wrong in the tale he is retelling, and so Steve corrects him with a bit of a bored look on his face, as if he’s heard the story told wrong a million times.  You focus the zoom in on Steve’s face as he turns to rest his chin on his shoulder and regard his partner.  There was a deep fondness there in his eyes, even though it is masked for the moment with irritability.  
Eddie decides to get in close, his mouth inches from Steve’s. You watch as he murmurs something that makes Steve crack a smile, and then the two share a kiss, noses rubbing, and you feel like you were intruding on a private moment.  You then decided it was time to give the juice in the camera a rest for the night while you all slept.  Much like the camera you follow in its footsteps and shut off, exaggerating a yawn to catch the pair’s attention. 
Your little hint is not lost on Steve, and it prompts him to pass you a flashlight so you can avoid tripping over the tent's zip on your way to bed. 
Nestled undercover in your downy sleeping bag, you drift in and out of sleep, only faintly hearing the footsteps of the boys before they go into their tent. In the middle of the night, you swear you hear voices, like a distant conversation, but you assume it must be the boys. There’s an ominous but faint cackling that follows it, but by then, you’re already too deep to notice. 
And then suddenly, there’s nothing, just stillness and the dark of the woodland air. 
Day Two, No sight of the road. 
The next day brings more of the same.  Hopeful banter in the morning, which then easily leads into some playful teasing throughout the afternoon. The on and off tones of professionalism to mockery becomes apparent. At one point while filming, Steve in one of his monologues, tense and suspenseful, until the scene was hijacked by Eddie flying through the air to tackle him.  
The light mood progressively gets shadowed, though, as the day wears on and there seems to be little to no chance of getting back to the car before dark.  Steve halts to check the map several times, flustered and angry with himself, while Eddie has a smoke break and you film around, even catching sight of a doll made of sticks hanging from a tree.  
“Steve?” You hum his name over your shoulder, wanting him to see what you see.  
He ignores you at first, biting the side of his thumbnail, and spinning on his heel as he stares down at the compass. When he finally lifts his head, he frowns, confused, but then the doll made of sticks comes into focus and his eyes narrow behind the smudged lenses of his glasses.
“What the hell is that?” Eddie is already on his way over.  He decides to smoke the other joint in his pack instead of one of his Camels, and it is doing wonders for his anxiety.  
Eddie reaches up to touch the doll, but Steve stops him. “Wait!” He notices that his voice is a bit harsh, so he starts again in a calmer tone.  “Listen, we don’t know what it is or who put it there.  I think we should respect the woods and leave it be.”
“Respect the woods?” Eddie barks a laugh, continuing to touch the legs of the doll and turn it around to see how it was made and you watched through the camera lens. 
“I bet some kid made it when their family was out here camping,” Eddie mused, exhaling smoke. “It’s creepy, I like it.”
Steve decides to interfere with his high boyfriends fascination, batting his hand away and in the process accidentally knocking the wooden doll to the floor.
 “Hey, Steve you’ve killed him!” Eddie taunts; mouth agape, eyes accusatory.
Steve really didn’t want to do that and you sense the growing paranoia that he’s experiencing from the way he’s frozen, staring at the little figure now laying twisted on the floor. Eddie pouts and goes to retrieve it once again. 
“Eddie, leave it.” Steve can’t hide his increasing stress, his words strained in between his clenched teeth. He grabs onto Eddie’s pack using it to encourage Eddie to walk in the other direction.
Steve prays this is the right way. He sends you a weak smile, and you know him well enough to deduce that he is feeling embarrassed that he doesn’t have you out of the woods yet.  
 As the sunlight dwindles, a bitter sense of reality begins to creep up on you. The branches above lose their subtle shadows and the once benign tree clusters begin to morph into something otherworldly. 
When it is finally time to make camp again, it is all any of you could do not to think about the stories you’d recorded from the townspeople the other day.  In particular the one about the killer who would take kids down into his basement two at a time, and make one wait in the corner while he killed one, and then would kill the one in the corner.  He didn’t like their eyes on him, apparently, that’s why he made them stare at the wall.
The darkness is crowding in, giving tiny nudges to everyone's paranoia that you are not alone in that forest.  There was a presence that tickled in barely audible whispers as the night claimed its position and every howl of the wind was a possible threat.  
Not a lot of filming took place during the down time by the fire. It was as if the courage to speak the stories had vanished and the myths began to seep into their reality. Less words exchanged and a few uncertain glances shared with Steve, but Eddie remained stoic and chilled, maintaining his energy. 
The plan of action is the last conversation you share, Steve taking control and promising that you’ll all be back in town by tomorrow afternoon. 
The sound of the boys getting situated in their tent was comforting, and you giggled when Eddie farted and tried to blame it on a passing wildebeest.  But, things got quiet quickly—too quiet—and soon you could hear the faint hiss of Steve’s snore and you realized that having your own tent was not all it was cracked up to be.
An owl hooted, but along with its natural call there was something else out there making sounds.  Was that the humming Steve had mentioned the day before?  Straining to listen, the noise was followed by an unmistakable cackle that made you grab the flashlight and a pillow and scurry out of  your tent like it was on fire.  
“Um-guys,” you were pulling open the flap to their tent before either of them could answer. “Is there any possibility i could squeeze in your tent tonight, i was a-a bit cold on my own.” 
Eddie sits up, groggily, from where he had his head on Steve’s chest, as if he’d fallen asleep the second he closed his eyes, and scoots away to make room for you in the middle.
Feeling safer nestled between your two friends, you are finally able to let yourself drift off into a dreamless sleep that offers no reprieve from the shadows in your mind.
Later that night, scattered and confused, another bizarre noise caught your attention, jarring you awake. 
A blanket of dark coats the inside of the tent, but after a few fuzzy blinks you easily make out that  Steve is sitting up with the flap of the tent open. He’s crouched over, the faint shake of his hands holding the camera a dead giveaway to his unease.
Sensing that you are awake, he tilts his head to the side to acknowledge you, and then signals for you to listen. 
“Did you hear that?” You whisper, not wanting to wake Eddie who is offering soft snores next to you.  
Steve puts a finger to his lips, and then turns back around with the camera pointed out into the night.
Somehow he manages to convince himself that the noise is from a deer or squirrel. Due to your delirious state, this information settles your tired worry and allows you to snuggle down, eager for the morning light. 
Day Three, Walking in Circles
With no idea how long Steve remained awake last night, there’s a part of you that feels he’s hiding something to protect you. The next morning his raw, uplifting nature dwindled, his inner doubts coming to the surface to pinch the skin between his eyebrows. 
“I’m sorry I dragged you all out here,” Steve announces with a heavy sigh, staring down at the remnants from the fire. Eddie angles the camera up at him while you zip a few things into your knapsack. “We’ll be having lunch back in town in a few hours, but let’s keep adding to the footage as we go.”
Steve shows you on the map where you were all headed, tapping his finger in the spot where you’d parked the car.  “Two hours, tops,” he promises.  
Eddie gets to his feet and adjusts the focus so that Steve goes from blurry to clear to blurry again. “Battery life on this thing is low and I can’t find the portable charger.”
Steve turned on him, jaw muscles tensing, ready to let an angry word slip.
“The charger is right here,” you corrected, lifting it out of the bag it was in to show Steve and calm his nerves. Once Steve steps away to check the compass again, Eddie makes a face at you, tongue darting out from the side of his mouth, letting you know that he knew it was there, he just wanted to give Steve a hard time.  
“I have a question for you, sir,” Eddie rushes up behind Steve and taps his shoulder, making him turn away from the lens, bringing a hand up to block his face. “How do you feel about this Blair Witch hunt so far?”
Steve smooths the sides of his hair back and squares his shoulders, determined to look unbothered.  “I feel good,” he lied. “I feel like I know exactly where we are and we just need to head east for another couple miles.  Everything's going as planned, we’re just a little behind schedule, that’s all.”
You open the canteen around your neck and gulp down a few swigs of water, musing that there wasn’t much left, and you needed to find a fresh stream somewhere soon, just in case.
But, it was only a passing worry, because Steve’s confidence that you’d be back at the car in a few hours gave you an unhealthy helping of blind hope. 
When you finally find the water line, there is a fallen tree across the creek, and it happens to be the only way across.  You have the worst balance, and being suspended over moving water makes you nervous in a way that has your hands trembling.  Eddie carries the camera for you, strapping around his neck as he makes his way across like an acrobat, and then Steve follows behind you, whispering words of encouragement.  
Hours later, it’s high noon when Steve makes you all stop for a rest to take your packs off so that he can check the map again.  You happen to be filming him as a flex of panic flashes across his face.  
“Why does this spot feel so familiar?” He asks it under his breath, but the audio catches it.  
It was the same spot you’d started from earlier in the day; same stump, same bundle of dead branches next to a large boulder. Steve turns on his heel and you can see in his face the way his heart stops when he sees the impressions from the previous night’s tent pegs.
“How is this possible?” He whispers. “We’ve been going straight all day, following the compass.”
“Give me that,” Eddie storms by, yanking the map from Steve to sit down on the big stump to look at it while he has a smoke.  “This shit is Greek to me,” he admits, hollowing out his cheeks to take in all of the nicotine his lungs would allow. “Are you telling me we’ve been going in circles?”
You squat next to Eddie, filming him while he glowers at the lines on the paper, hair tied back in a messy ponytail.  This was the crankiest you’d ever seen him, and you’d known him for at least a year at that point. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that there were only 3 cigarettes left, and his pack a day habit was at risk of being tested without nicotine patches or comfort.  
He realizes you are recording and flinches away, blowing smoke out his nostrils.  “Put that thing away please.  I’m not in the mood.”
Steve split the last half of a squished peanut butter sandwich into 3 parts and passed one to each of you, but Eddie refuses his.  You stare up at Steve, waiting for his word that you should stop, but he shakes his head.  “She’s doing exactly what I told her to do, Eddie. We’re filming a documentary.”
“Oh, we’re filming a documentary about being lost now? Is that what this is? Because we are, we’re fucking lost.”
 Eddie grumbles, exhaling an agitated breath.
“We’re not.” Steve’s voice is gruff as he pushes the food into his cheek with his tongue.  “I know exactly where we are.  The car is right over that way, through the trees, I’m positive.”
“Yeah, well, you said that yesterday morning and last night and four fucking hours ago,” Eddie shot to his feet with a huff, keeping the butt of his smoke clenched between his lips to button up the front of his black and red flannel. 
“Shouldn’t you know where we are?” Eddie’s penetrating gaze falls on you, and for some reason, it makes you nervous.  “I know you said you were just a kid, but you grew up here right? So, you must have some idea?”
You glance nervously over at Steve, as if to ask for support, and then focus the camera back on Eddie as you stammer.  “I–I don’t ever remember coming out here. Once maybe, but—”
“Really Eddie?” Steve turns to his boyfriend. “You expect her to have a Magellan sense of direction in these woods because she lived nearby when she was a child? You get lost in Hawkins and you’ve lived there your whole life.”
Eddie mumbles something as he straps the last part of his pack on and starts walking, without a word, heading in the direction Steve suggested, kicking at the dirt as he goes.  
“I’m sorry about this,” Steve mutters to you as he offers his hand and helps you stand. “I should’ve had you home safe by now.”
“It’s okay, I trust you. I promise I really don’t know these woods that well,” your voice is small.  Your eyes are softly pleading when they find his, as if to beg for absolute reassurances.
But, Steve has nothing verbal to give.  His throat is dry, he hates fighting with Eddie, and his pride was taking quite a catastrophic blow—on film, no less. He squeezes your arm, and continues at a fast trot to catch up with his salty partner, pulling you along with him.  
A few hours later, the sky opened up and it started to rain, and as you ducked to follow the boys into the clearing to reluctantly set up camp, you trip over a pile of rocks and almost drop the camera.
“What the hell is this?” You mused aloud, adjusting the focus, establishing that it was, indeed, just a pile of rocks, but there was something…odd about them.  They’d been stacked up by hand in the shape of a mound. 
Steve and Eddie were up ahead, standing in close proximity, having a conversation in tense whispers while Eddie found the driest patch of ground under the canopy of trees to shake the tent out.  It was only drizzling now, and he was eager to set up some type of shelter in case the downpour started again.
Steve moves the hood of his yellow rain slicker back to check where you were, and then comes over to see what you’d found.  
“There’s a couple of them,” you point out, stepping back so he could view the others, “What was it that one woman in town said about stacks of rocks? Something to do with a signal, or warning maybe.” 
Turning, you see Steve frantically dig through his bag, only letting out a satisfied hum when he retrieves his notebook. Its spiral-bound pages hold all of the key points from interviews of people back in town. You can tell he’s proud of you for having the intuition to know that these stacks might be important.  
“Remember that woman we spoke to at the trailer park?” Steve asks, biting his lip in thought.
“The weird one? Mary?” You wonder aloud. 
Steve snaps his fingers in excitement, flicking to the right page in his notes. 
“Yes! Crazy Mary.  I wasn’t paying much attention to her because I thought she was insane, but I’m sure she mentioned something to do with rock piles?”
“What’s your notes say?” You lean in to see what the camera can catch on the paper.
“Not a lot. I’ve just written ‘Bible Story about rocks’”.
You try your hardest to remember, whispering to yourself and attempting to remember what the eccentric woman had said. 
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” you begin. “But, didn't she say something like, they symbolize a promise, like if you promise not to cross the rocks nothing can harm you and vice versa from the one who put them there. Ancient truce type agreement?”
“I mean it sounds right, but why are there three?”
“I'm not sure?”
Steve waves Eddie over, but he isn’t interested.  He’d gone into full-on “if I don’t keep busy I’m going to lose my shit” mode, dropping to his knees in the mud to hammer in the tent pegs.
Steve sighs, feeling like Eddie probably needs a bit of attention and comfort before his mood swing completely erupts. In his process of turning away from the rocks his booted foot catches a pebble, sending the pile toppling over, but he doesn’t think to give it any attention.
Panicking in his wake, you shield the camera from the rain and re-pile the pebbles back in a formation that you hope they resembled. 
You eat the last of the canned vienna sausages by the fire and no one is in the mood for jokes, but Steve does reassure everyone, especially with an arm around his boyfriend’s stiff shoulders, that you all would be out of the forest by the next afternoon.  You film it, catching the way Eddie pulls away at first but then leans in to rest his head on top of Steve’s and they both stare into the fire with glossy eyes.  
You didn’t even bother setting your tent up that evening, and you snuggle on the outside of the boys this time, curling up next to Steve while he spoons Eddie.  
For the first hour or two, everything is peaceful, and the three of you sink into shallow sleep, only to be jared awake by Steve stumbling out of his sleeping bag, stepping on both of his companions in the process.  
“Holy fuck, did you hear that?” He hisses, moving to unzip the tent.  “I need to get out there, hand me the camera.”
“Steve!” You bark a harsh whisper.
“Goddamn it,” Eddie starts putting his boots on, half asleep, not wanting Steve to go out alone. “It’s just a bunch of fucking deer or something, baby, will you just—”
But then, you all hear it.
As loud and as clear as if there were people standing right outside your tent: a cackle of laughter, heavy steps crunching in the leaves, snapping twigs, echoing from the forest floor.  And then there is the distinct cry of a little kid—maybe two, three different little kids. It all echoed back into the woods as if it’s in your ears and far away all at once. 
With the tent flap half open and one foot out, Steve shoots a look back at the two of you, nostrils flaring as he stills for more noise.  “Did you hear those kids?” He huffs, snatching the camera and ducking down to bolt out of the tent. 
“Baby, there are no kids in these woods!” Eddie lunges after him, catching Steve’s calf to pull him back in.  He stumbles back under cover into a crouch, only to “shush” everyone again, certain that he heard something else.
It’s then that the tent begins to shake and jostle, and the cackling continues, but it’s right on top of you now, circling the enclosure.
“Holy shit, holy fuck,” Eddie wails, pushing Steve out of the tent this time, and reaching back for your hand as he exits.
“Go go go!” You demand, encouraging them both to run as far and fast as they could from the campsite. 
Everyone is stumbling and cursing, running in the dark, with the light of the camera Steve’s holding being the only illumination.  He trips over something with a curse, and Eddie helps him up while you take the camera, not caring where the lens points as you run along with the boys, as fast as your feet can carry you.  
Not a sound follows you, not a single footstep or snicker.  Eventually, you all collapse breathless in a huddle, hunkering down near a tree.
Eddie looks into the camera you hold. “Turn that light off,” he’s panting, pupils pinned. “Shut it all off, stay the fuck down.”
“Keep the audio on,” Steve whispers, to which he gets a shove in the shoulder from Eddie.
“I can’t believe you’re still trying to film your movie, dude,” Eddie hushes curtly.
“Shutup!” You scold them both, turning the camera off.
You all sit frozen in place, holding onto each other in a football huddle for—god knows how long? Two hours maybe.  Daylight finally begins to break, prompting Steve to motion you to get the camera rolling again. 
Day Four, No Way Home
The three of you stay close, too frightened to be even a meter apart as you make your way back in the direction of camp. You’re cold, wet and done; so over this witch hunt and ready to put it behind you. 
After a while of weary steps and nervous glances around, Eddie’s tongue clicks, breaking the silence. “There are some hillbillies in these woods trying to fuck with us, and I don’t want to fuck with that.”
Steve looks up at him.  “But what if it’s something…not human?”
“Well, I don’t want to fuck with that either,” Eddie runs both hands through his hair, intertwining his fingers on top of his head as he walks.
You decide to chime in. “Something definitely does not want us here.”
“No kidding, Sherlock.” Eddie blows a raspberry and turns his back on the two of you.
“Something?” Steve cocks his head at you. “But I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts or witches?”
“I don’t,” you swallow hard, averting your eyes.  “But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“Okay, we’re going,” Steve answers, meeting Eddie’s hard stare over your shoulder with defiance.  “We got what we came for, let’s get our shit and keep heading north.”
“Are you sure north is the direction we need to go in?” You ask, cringing through the beginning stages of a headache.  “Because we were headed north all day yesterday and it didn’t get us anywhere.”
When the campsite finally comes into view again, everyone stops short, each jaw going slack in disbelief.
“uhhh, what the fuck is this?” Eddie mumbles, stomping over to look at the way the tent has been squashed, and how everyone’s things have been thrown around.  Whoever or whatever had been taunting you all a few hours ago had made a mess of all of your things; there was clothing and gear tossed in every direction.
You ran across the campsite, eyes searching. “Where is my pack?” The question caught in your throat, as if you might cry.  
“Your pack is right there,” Eddie points.  “More importantly, Where is my pack?”
Everyone starts collecting what they can find of their personal items while Eddie lifts up his open canteen from the ground.  “They dumped all the fucking water out.”
He realizes that the canteen is also coated in something and he drops it with a curse. “Is that fucking slime? It is, there is some kind of slime all over it,” he raises his hand up to look at the viscous liquid and then rubs it off on his pant leg as best as he could.
“Im not fucking about anymore Steve, okay I believe it all, you happy? This shit, whatever it is, whoever it is, doesn’t want us here.”
Eddie’s right, this is a clear warning, an intentional attack, and for once Steve’s not looking excited at the product of evidence before you all. Steve turns towards you, your kneeling figure scooping up your pack—it had been thrown to the other side of the campsite, but nothing seemed to be missing.
Before he could question it, the whining sound of Eddie pricks his ears. Swiftly turning to face whatever tantrum the curly haired boy is throwing now, Steve is faced with Eddie frantically picking up scattered pieces of clothing. 
“Woah, babe, is that all your clothes?” Steve asks in a rush, moving closer.
“Yep”. Eddie doesn’t even want to converse. 
“Just yours though Eddie? No one else's?”
“This is bullshit!” Eddie throws the canteen down and it bounces further away.
Steve moves to reach out and touch Eddie’s arm, but his hand gets slapped away.  “Leave me alone, dude. I need a second.”
You turn the camera off while everyone collects their things and tries to catch their breath.  You were all officially out of food now, with the exception of some peanuts, and a detour needed to be made to get water from the creek.  Eddie refused to use his after it was slimed, but thankfully Steve had an extra one.
When the camera comes back on, it is a couple hours later, and Steve is holding it this time to film Eddie enjoying his last smoke, while you sit with your head against a tree and your eyes closed.  No one is in the mood for talking, and it is wise to conserve energy with very few resources at your disposal.
“A hamburger and fries sounds nice,” you said to break the silence with your eyes still closed.
“Mmmhmm,” Eddie concurred. “A big can of Spaghetti-O’s would hit the spot right now.”
Steve points the camera at his hiking boots as he steps closer, indulging in the fantasy. “I’ve been craving one of those clam chowder bread bowls like we had on the wharf in San Francisco.” 
“That was some good shit,” Eddie mumbles, sucking his smoke all the way down to the filter. 
The camera turns off again, and when it comes back on, you have it.  Eddie is charging ahead, waving his arms, shouting something about how you all need to follow the creek and you’ll end up somewhere eventually.
“Hey,” Steve is walking in front of you, but he turns around.  “Can you pass me the map? I want to check something.”
“Yeah, hold on,” you say, but then you reach back and realize you can’t feel the well-worn edges, and sudden, prickling dread takes over. Panicked, you reach around to check the other pocket, coming to realize the map is gone. 
“Are you sure you gave it to me Steve?” you lighty question, knowing that right now is no time for jokes. 
Steve gives you an exasperated look, as if you are goofing with him like Eddie might.  “Yes, you have the map, you always have the map.  I gave it to you after a map-check before we made camp yesterday.”
You kneel on the ground and put the camera down to do a proper search, your heart racing.  “Eddie,” you shout, making him stop abruptly in his tracks.  “Do you have the map?”
“Me?” Eddie turns around but stays yelling from a distance.  “Why the hell would I have it? It was fucking useless anyway.”
“Okay, okay,” Steve pats the air with his hands, trying to calm the meltdown he can feel building. His attention returns to you as you stand without a map in your hand and a worried look on your face.  “I know I gave it to you,” Steve reiterates. “It has to be somewhere in your stuff.”
You don't want to say what you are thinking, as you stand, pointing the camera at Steve again, but it comes out anyway.  “What if whoever attacked the tent took it?”
Steve grimaces.  “What would they want with…our map?”
“To make sure we have no chance of finding our way out of here,” you say it under your breath, and through the lens, you watch Steve’s jaw go slack as he takes on that possibility.  
When realization dawns that you were about to lose light and need to make camp again, a thick blanket of anxiety and agitation falls over all of you.  You are dragging your feet, camera angle pointed at the ground while the boys get the tent out.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this again,” Eddie mumbles curtly, brow furrowing, and back teeth grinding as the nicotine withdrawal nips at him.  
You mention that you’ll go and gather some branches to make a fire, but Steve puts his hand out to stop you.  “Let’s not make a fire tonight.  We don’t need to draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves.”
“Good idea,” Eddie grunts. “I’d rather freeze to death in a few hours than spend one more day fumbling around this hellscape.” He is digging through his things in Steve’s pack to see if there happens to be a stray cigarette or joint anywhere.  The frustrated anger rising in him is palpable.
“It’ll be a while before I ever go camping again, that’s for sure,” you muse to the group, and both the boys respond with enthusiastic nods of agreement. 
“I’m gonna burn this tent when we get home,” Eddie bites out.
When you turn to Steve, he is rubbing his forehead and staring down at the ground, pensively, and you ask if you should stop filming for a bit.  
Steve glosses over your question and asks another: “You promise you don’t have the map? Because if you have it, and you were just saying you lost it to be funny, I won’t be mad.”
You lower the camera so that it’s focused on his chest and the army green utility jacket he’s wearing.  “I’ve checked my pack three times,” you offer, earnestly. “I promise, I don’t have it.  I wish I did, Steve.”
In the background, Eddie curses at the top of his lungs and one of the tent pegs he’d been fumbling with goes flying through the air. “I’m so fucking done with this! Holy shit, what the hell are we still doing out here? This is fucking insane.” 
Steve motions for you to keep filming.  He’d tease Eddie about all of this later, he knew he would.  He’d also use it as fodder for the argument of why he should quit smoking altogether.
Steve turns toward his boyfriend with his hands on his hips. “I know you blame me for all of this, and I’m sorry. What do you want me to say? We’re all tired and hungry and miserable.”
Eddie snaps around, eyes dark and his body rigid.  “You bet your fucking ass I blame you! You’re the reason we’re about to get flayed by a bunch of inbred mountain people or die of starvation out here in this shitty-ass excuse for a forest.”
“You begged me to let you come on this trip, Eddie,” Steve is doing his best to keep his voice low, because matching Eddie’s tone when he gets upset never helps the situation. “Like you said, if we follow the creek, we’re bound to end up somewhere. It’s impossible to get lost for too long in America these days.”
Eddie’s nostrils flare.  “I begged you? I practically agreed under false pretenses one night when you had my dick in your mouth, I didn’t beg for shit.  I wanted to spend time with my boyfriend and watch him work, but that was back when I thought you were talented.  Now I realize you’re just a hack who can’t even read a fucking map.”
He regrets it the second it leaves his lips, and you can see it in the way the corners of his mouth turn down. “I didn’t mean that,” Eddie whispers.
You step back from the two, not sure what type of conflict is about to ensue.
You can tell it hurts Steve by the way his eyes water, and he pushes his glasses up to rub his face.  “No, you’re right,” Steve sighs, “It is my fault.  But maybe if you weren’t such a big, needy baby all the fucking time, I might have been able to think clearly on this trip.”
“I’m the needy baby? Seriously?  So what, little miss perfect over there gets let off the hook because she’s your perfect little puppet?”
“Hey, no need to bring her into this.”
“Guys!” You shout, waiting until they both look at you.  “This isn’t helping, okay? I for one am scared shitless about what else might be out here in these woods, and if we don’t stick together, we don’t have a chance.”
There is a minute long silence while everyone tries  to shake the anxiety out of their shoulders. Steve comes over to let you know you can turn the camera off, but then the sound of Eddie’s laughter makes you both turn.  
He’s bent over, hands on his knees, laughing so hard he is sucking in dry air.
You and Steve share an amused look, 
“What’s so funny, baby?” Steve asks, cracking a bit of a smile.
Eddie stands, face red from exertion. “You and that fucking map. I got rid of it yesterday! What do you think about that?” Eddie then convulses into giggles again, walking off into the other direction.
“You did what?” Both you and Steve say in unison.
Surely, you’d both misheard him.
“Yeah,” Eddie continues. “I kicked that fucker into the creek, it was useless!”
“You son of a bitch,” Steve spat, lunging at him. “How could you do that to me? To us?”
You catch Steve’s arm, trying to hold the camera and him all at once. The last thing you need is for these two to get into a physical fight.
Eddie starts to walk further away, but then he stops to turn on his heel and face the two of you, deciding to fight his case a little more. “We just kept going in circles, it wasn’t helping us!”
“You knew I was going crazy looking for it! Why didn’t you say anything?” Steve yells after him. 
In the distance, you see Eddie shrug, before matter of factly stating, “I need to go for a walk.”
“But it will be dark in a half hour,” panic bubbling in your chest. “Eddie…wait!” 
Eddie waves his arm in the air and keeps going.  
“Let him go,” Steve touches your shoulder, “he gets like this sometimes. Let him walk it off, we’ll finish setting up.”
Steve has an overwhelming desire to run after his partner, to say, “hey, stop, I love you,” but none of that ever happened.  He knew when it was best to let Eddie cool off.
He knows Eddie won’t go far, he’ll be back in a few minutes.
When you turn the camera back on, an hour later, Eddie is still not back.
There is a soft, orange glow from the sunset through the trees, but other than that, it’s pitch black out. Locking arms with Steve, he dances the beam of his flashlight around the forest while you film with the camera light on, trying to remain within visual distance from camp.
Steve had already screamed Eddie’s name so many times, his voice was becoming hoarse.
 “If you’re fucking with us, Eddie, I swear to Christ I will never ever forgive you!” He starts to imagine Eddie is crouched down by a tree somewhere, covering his mouth to hold back the hilarity of watching his boyfriend almost shit his pants looking for him.
Steve tries to break free from your linked arms, attempting to charge deeper into the woods.
“Steve, no!” You squeak, desperation present in your tone. You shift the camera to the crook of your arm, so it angles up at his horrified face. You really don't want anything bad to happen to Eddie, but you also can’t let anything bad happen to Steve. 
Steve suddenly turns to face you, eyes wild.  “But what if he’s hurt somewhere, what if he’s…damn it Eddie!...what if…”
He doesn’t have to finish the sentence, you already know what he is thinking. What if the myths of the forest were true? What if there was an entity in the woods that fed on fear and needed a sacrifice every so often? What if there were hillbillies in pig masks carrying chainsaws and they often resorted to cannibalism? You’d watched too many horror movies in your life and so had Steve, and it wasn’t helping either one of you at that moment.
But, to be fair, it wasn’t all just in your head.  There is definitely something or someone else out there with all of you, and maybe it was just biding its time until all of you are broken.   
Eddie’s missing.  An hour later, it’s official.  
He wasn’t hiding or playing a game; he had somehow vanished into thin air. The guilt begins to creep and crawl, festering inside Steve’s chest, the buzzing of night insects heightening his sense of dread. 
You’d manage to coax Steve back to the tent. “We’ll go back and build a fire, so that he can see the light of it if he’s lost.”
“I’m not going to stop looking for him,” Steve mutters, screaming Eddie’s name again as he walks, his voice echoing off the emptiness as the cold air burns his lungs. He was too pumped full of fear and adrenaline to cry, but the tears were building behind his eyes. “It’s freezing out here and he’s only got that flannel on.”
“Listen to me,” you yank Steve around to look at you, being rougher than you ever have with him, but your eyes are kept soft.  “It would be very easy for us to get lost in these woods ourselves.  What if Eddie makes it back to camp and we’re gone?”
You let that sink in, hoping you can reason with him.  You notice that his shoulders relax.
“I bet he went a little too far and he can’t find his way back in the dark,” you continue.
  “He probably found some shelter to wait it out for the night.  He’ll be cold, but it’s not going to freeze, he’ll survive. We can go out and look for him at first light.”
Steve starts nodding to himself as he pans the flashlight beam over the forest again.  “A fire is a good idea, so he knows where we are.”
The active denial grips the both of becoming a makeshift coping mechanism, a way to hold onto hope when there seems to be none left.  You have a bad feeling that you may never see Eddie alive again, but you plan on keeping up pretenses for Steve for as long as you could.
 “We’ll find him, Steve,” you don’t want to lie to him, but you felt like it was something he needed to hear.
Steve struggles to meet your eyes, but you can make out a stray tear that’s making tracks across his stubbled cheek and it breaks your heart for him. 
“I didn’t go after him, didn’t even try to convince him to stay. How fucking stupid could I be?”
“No, Steve, you can’t blame yourself, okay, it was an in the moment thing, it’s going to be okay.”
“What part of this whole thing has EVER been okay?”
He turns his back on you and it sends a stinging pang through your chest.  A part of you can’t help but wonder if he’s wishing it were you that went missing. Maybe he’s wishing he never brought you along at all.
With a heavy heart and a signature rake through his hair, Steve shuts his eyes, takes a shaken breath and turns around, inviting you to step into his arms and you hook an arm around his waist. This embrace is welcomed, as you soak up the heavy warmth wrapped around you, making it hard to let go. Seemingly feeling the same, Steve leans in further, soaking up what he presumes is the last moments of peace, a crumb of tranquility. Feeding on the sliver of hope you’ve provided him.
A stuttered sigh slips from Steve’s dry lips.  His next words are nothing but a whisper, but it’s meaningful, and becomes tattooed amongst the trees.
“I can’t lose him,” his voice cracks.
Then, as if on cue, there’s a cry—a whimper of agony erupts from deep in the nothingness.
Steve snaps a look at you and a fist tightens over your heart.  You hold very still, making sure you heard what you thought you did, both wondering if you’d imagined it.
But then another scream follows, this one more drawn out than the first, and it sounds just like Eddie.
Steve braces himself, senses sharp, trying to find the direction the scream is coming from.  “Holy shit, that was him!”
There’s a scuffle as Steve bumps into you in his haste to move.  You almost drop the camera as he bounces off of you, losing his mind over the sound of Eddie's voice, you then scramble to catch the device before it falls to the ground. There’s only muffled noises for a bit as your arm is blocking the microphone and the lens catches the back of Steve’s legs, bolting into the pitch black forest.
“Whatever you do, don’t stop filming!” He shouts over his shoulder.
And then your heart is pounding, jackhammering in your chest as you take after him. Steve’s running, pumping his arms, and then there’s another scream and he catches himself for a full stop, freezing in place.  
The video takes in the side of his face, tears wetting his cheek under his glasses, his head turning in the direction of the scream.  “It’s this way…Eddie!...it’s coming from over there!” He points in that direction, and then his feet follow to a place where the trees get denser.
You glance over your shoulder in the direction of the campsite, wondering if the two of you will be able to find your way back, but then keeping up with Steve becomes a priority.  Breathlessly, you struggle to keep up the pace, you trip and try to avoid falling over tree stumps that are dotted along the path.
“Steve”, you manage to stutter in between sharp breaths, “How do we know, what if- what if it’s a trick. What if it’s not Eddie?” 
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course it's…”
Another scream. 
Steve’s words die on his tongue, as all he can manage is a wide eyed frantic glare into the trees, before attempting once again to scream his boyfriend’s name in vain, begging to catch a glimpse of his frizzed up hair between the branches. 
You both speed up, using all the remaining energy left inside your weak bodies, ignoring the burning in your lungs and metallic taste coating your tongues. 
The woodland flooring begins to create almost a disheveled looking path, a trail appearing out of nowhere. Horrifying possibilities begin to bleed into Steve’s imagination, the memories of the past few days twisting in his mind as he tries to predict what state his boyfriend could be in. 
Steve stops to get his bearings, gulping in breaths.  His stomach clenches like he might puke, but he swallows down bile, hoping for another scream to pierce the night and guide his way.
You catch a glint of something silver nestled in the leaves of the forest floor, and you shine the light down there to get a look.  You swear it’s Eddie’s wallet chain, the one he had on the last time you saw him, but then Steve starts moving again, on the trail of a sound only he could hear.
Running full boar, dodging through the trees, something smacks Steve in the face, and he swats it away, thinking it’s a branch.  But then he takes a step back and looks up. You almost smash straight into the back of him, not realizing he’d stopped so abruptly.  Your camera light brings attention to what Steve is seeing.
Unsettling deja vu is shared between you both as you realize that a cluster of handcrafted stick dolls, like the one you found the other day, are dangling before you. 
Steve’s hand trembles, reaching out to touch the frayed twine from which they hang. 
"Steve, stop," you hiss, your voice is a harsh whisper, eyes darting over the dolls as they sway in the breeze. You can't shake the feeling that you are being watched; that something sinister is lurking just beyond your peripheral vision.
Ignoring you, Steve begins to count the dolls, pointing with his finger, his movements manic, his words a rapid, breathless murmur.
"One, two, three... they're leading somewhere!”
"Steve!" you call out to him desperately, your voice echoing through the forest, falling on blind ears. He starts to follow the primitive stick dolls, and you know you have no choice but to go with him into the unknown, the dread of what lies ahead producing blooms of sweat on your scalp. 
Finally, you emerge into a small clearing. There stands an old, weathered cabin.
 It appears abandoned and worn, its wooden walls covered in moss and ivy, and its windows cracked and shattered. The cabin looms like a forgotten relic of the past, isolated in the dense forest.
“Steve, I-I don’t think this is a good idea”. The air is heavy, and your teeth are chattering.
“Whatever happens,” Steve clicks his tongue and swallows hard, wetting his dry mouth. “Promise me you won’t stop filming.”
“Steve, are you insane?”
He turns to you with wide, earnest eyes, his voice dead calm under the circumstances, “Promise me?” 
You feel like you’ve officially lost him, whatever you attempt to say to change his mind would be useless. “I-I promise.”
Another blood-curdling yelp of agony pierces through the air.
“Eddie, I’m coming!” Steve huffs, motioning for you with a swing of his arm.
You both scramble cautiously onto the cabin’s creaking porch. You decide to zoom the lens in on Steve’s hand, reaching for the rusted doorknob, trying your hardest to focus. 
Dread seizes you, and you attempt to get through to him. “Steve, please, I think I do remember a way out of these woods, actually. What if we go back to the tent, wait till morning and try again?”
You manage to worm your way in between Steve and the door, blocking him now. Steve remains unyielding, shrugging you out of his way, twisting the door knob, and then pushing in the unlocked door. 
“Steve—” Your voice cracks. You want to find Eddie too but there’s something…wrong with this cabin, and you can’t find the words to tell Steve in a way that would make him give up the search.
But then he’s already through the open door, and you stay on his heels. The light from your camera dances over his flashlight beam into the broken floorboards and chipped paint of the interior of the cabin.  
The screaming has stopped, but now the dead silence invades your senses.  There’s no furniture, and the walls are bare. There is a smell lingering that hints to wood rot and black mold and rodent feces. You scan the camera around to show there’s a wide, empty room, and a hallway to the right.
“I-I can’t lose him,” Steve whispers, and your eyes are wet, heart hurting for what this trip has become. You can't let him go in there alone, no matter how much your instincts are telling you to grab him and run in the other direction. 
With each step you take, the cabin seems to expand into a labyrinth of winding corridors, narrow staircases, and hidden rooms. The walls are lined with faded, peeling wallpaper, and the air grows colder and more oppressive with each passing moment. 
But then Steve darts down the dark hallway and up a stairway and you try to follow, tripping on the first step in your hurry.
“He’s in here, I know it,” Steve gasps, and you can only catch his boots before he is already on the next floor.
Eddie’s cry sounds again, and this time there is no mistake— it’s coming from inside the house. 
Two floors up, there are empty rooms, but still no sign of Eddie.  Steve makes a point to direct your attention to the same type of child handprints you’d seen earlier.  “Did you catch these?” He asks pointing to make sure you got the shot.  
It looks like a dozen tiny children had dipped their hands in black paint and made palm impressions all over the wall over the ripped and stained wallpaper.
And then another scream, muffled this time, breaks the silence of your twin haggard breaths, but it is coming from somewhere deep in the cabin now—somewhere below.  You can almost feel the screams vibrate inside the soles of your feet.
The shout is followed by a heavy bang that shakes the walls. It makes you both jump, locking eyes with mirrored expressions of fear.
Without a word, Steve disappears back down the stairs and into the shadows of the second floor. There are no sounds picked up by audio other than Steve calling for Eddie, and you follow, taking two reluctant steps at a time. The weight of uncertainty makes your feet feel like lead, while the lightheadedness of your hunger makes your skull feel like a balloon, and you have to catch yourself on the wall to find your balance, stars crossing in your vision.  
The only sounds now are the heavy thuds of footfalls on the old stairs, and the drumbeat of your heart in your ears. There appear to be looming shapes all around you as you run after Steve, and the camera catches glimpses of things that are unidentifiable sliding along the walls.  
You hear Steve shout, “down here!” and then he is throwing another door open and it sounds like he’s bolting further down in the house, down into what must be a basement.
You think you catch a glimpse of a figure standing in the corner, but when you stumble back and point the camera light there, you realize it’s nothing.
“Steve?” You can’t get a visual on where he is now, but then you finally catch the open door and the glow from his flashlight beam. 
“I don’t feel good about this, Steve! Don’t go down there!”
But it’s too late.
You reach the top of the stairs.  “Steve, wait!”
“He’s down here somewhere, I know it!” Steve persists.
You take another look at him through the lens; he’s dropping down to the dirt floor and darting to the left, disappearing into the inky blackness.  The sound of Eddie’s voice has not been heard for a while, but Steve continues to call out for him, the tremor in his voice now catching with a sob. 
 Abruptly, you see Steve halt. 
He shouts up over his shoulder to you, “Did you hear that?”
The air is suddenly ice cold; freezing even.  You shrink against the doorframe and pan the camera to capture the front door behind you, noting that it is closed, and then quickly back to Steve.
Something in the basement startles him, and Steve drops his flashlight to the ground, smashing the light's glass in the process, making him curse before rushing back up to you, banking on the illumination from the camera light to help him find his way. 
Sprinting up the rickety steps, Steve is relieved to find that you are still intact, dutifully holding his camera and waiting for him. 
Your presence serves as his motivation to attempt to sprint up the stairs a little faster. However, something stops him in his tracks a few steps up.
Your heart is in your throat as you wait, but Steve pauses to look over his shoulder.  “I feel like there is something else down here.”
Your teeth are chattering, your words come out stuttered. “Hurry, Steve.  Let’s go!”
“Not without Eddie,” he says with a vigorous shake of his head, taking one more searching look into the seemingly empty basement.
The chill you feel is much more than skin deep as you pan the camera around the main room again to find it empty, all but for the shadows that appear to be crowding in. 
You can hear Steve make his way up two more steps, but before you can shine the light back down on him, there’s a loud THUD from somewhere below. The noise manages to sliver into the walls, sending an unnatural quake throughout the entire house.
 “Holy shit, what the fuck was that?” Steve jumps.
 His feet are moving before his brain can fully register what is happening. 
Steve never looks back again. 
He takes the next few steps and trips over himself in his haste, his glasses falling in the process.  He doesn’t even bother to bend over to retrieve them, he hears the glass crunch under his boot but can’t bring himself to care as the high volume of fear unravels him.
Adrenaline ignites his flight mode, and he’s practically crawling up the stairs with his hands now, scampering to get away from whatever or whoever did not want him down in the basement.
You stayed where you were, watching—filming. 
The sound of footsteps pricked your ears from the empty room behind you, prompting you to turn around to pan the camera again, shakily, but you were met with nothing but the decaying cabin walls. 
Your mind chooses not to register that the front door to the cabin is wide open now, the forest having its own personal view into the cabin, the branches silently watching.   
Steve has climbed closer now, stilling halfway up, with his face drained of color, bracing his hand on the wall for balance.  He meets your eyes for some much-needed reassurance. The documentarian in him wants to look back, to see what might be glaring up at him from the bottom of the stairs, but his fear won’t let him.
Four steps, one hand holds the camera, your other one on the doorknob. 
Three steps, you begin to shift to the side, ready. He’s so close, he’s ready to leave, make it out, you can see the relief in his eyes to be free of that hole. 
You’re both quaking like brittle autumn leaves now, it feels like the blood in your veins might turn solid and crack, and the air from your lungs is coming out like smoke.  
You feel the need to pan the camera once more just in case, but Steve is so, so close, you decide to wait. 
Two steps and he is about to reach out for your hand. 
One step. 
You slam and seal the door shut, holding your weight against it, twisting it a certain way so that it locks. 
Steve’s breathless, you can hear it, he’s panting. 
However, he’s not standing beside you. 
The camera catches the ornate, brass doorknob as it twists and turns, capturing the sound of his heavy fist banging against the wood, and it’s vibrating into your palm as you press it there, feeding on your guilt. 
“Hey, open the door,” he tries the knob again, with more force this time. “What the fuck are you doing? I’m fucking locked in here!” He pounds his fist, desperation mounting.
“I’m begging you, open the door.” He tries to ram his shoulder through the frame, and it's a pointless move, but it does make the regret bloom fresh within your chest. 
"Let me out! Get me the fuck out of here! Don’t leave without me, please!” He sobs, his voice turning shrill.
You press your forehead against the door, angling the camera down so that it's filming the floor. The camera angle exposes a flicker of something, just a tiny glimpse of some type of black markings.
Steve stops his banging, he goes silent.
Summoning the last of your courage, you say once more, "Sorry, I'm—I..."
Another forceful kick lands on the wood, he’s had enough, the forceful boot punctuating Steve’s plea. "Open the goddamn door!"
You start to back up then, camera almost forgotten as it records the floor.  Through labored breaths, you are issuing your apologies so softly, but loud enough for the audio to capture.  
There’s another loud thud, and the camera vibrates from the impact.
It’s followed shortly by the sound of a sickening crack from beyond the basement door.  Steve’s cry is cut short by another blunt thud, and you wince away, squeezing your eyes shut.  
You flipped the light from the camera off, thinking you’d shut down the entire device. Out of the darkness, the audio picks up what sounds like a hundred hissing whispers, speaking of unintelligible things, muddled amongst feet shuffling all around you.  
In the background, the next set of ears to listen to the tape will be able to make out the hollow thuds of a body being dragged down the stairs.  
To you, in the present, the sound prompts you to turn away from the closed door, your cheeks wet with tears. Your heart is heavy, lips dry and cracked, but you know that there must be sacrifices.
It’s all in order to maintain the balance. 
You really did the best you could for Steve: you got it all on film, you kept your promise.
“I’m sorry,” you say, one last time, and you mean it.
 There’s a rustling, another thud, and then the camera spins around as if it were thrown.
And then, nothing but static.  
Epilogue 
The bodies of Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, and their companion were never recovered from the forest near Burkittsville.  Most of the things from their campsite were recovered, along with a video camera and film that was handed over to authorities.  Contrary to what was found on the tape, there was no physical evidence of foul play anywhere on the property.  
Some experts speculate that you had something to do with their disappearances, others believe you met the same fate as your two companions.  When authorities went to question your friends and family, they found out that your life was a blank slate before you met Steve on the college campus, and your only living relative was a grandmother who lived in a nursing home not far from Burkittsville.
The police went to question her, but unfortunately, she was in the grips of late-stage Alzheimer's. There were two photos of you in your grandmother’s room: one was from when you were a toddler.  In the other, you were maybe 7 or 8 years old, surrounded by trees in a forest, holding up some sort of stick doll made of twigs. If one were to have a closer look, they would spot an odd, isolated cabin amongst the woodland background.   
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thank you for reading!
reblogs are deeply cherished, and so are your thoughtful words, but please, please try not to share any spoilers in the comments or the Blair Witch will get cha🧡
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180 notes · View notes
mrrwsoup · 20 days
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a bit of an intro post for my ocs, been meaning to do one for awhile
Most of them are all interconnected in some way and involved either directly or indirectly with two different fronts for organized crime (circus which is run by my ocs, and importing company which is run by my bf's) but there's a few that are outliers and belong to different time/setting.
i also have more ocs lol but these are the ones that are most involved with my bf and I's headworld. There's more i could say about each of them but since theres so many i'll keep it short LOL.
Heres my toyhouse for more.
And the intro post i did for my bfs ocs.
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Dirge
graverobber. non-employed misanthrope, prefers the company of the dead.
involved with Mamba
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Micajah
chainsmoking magician and animal handler, with a lot on his hands.
involved with Jackson
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Rueben
trickshooting necrosadist who's charming in front of an audience, and insufferable one-on-one.
involved with Elias
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Kryl
circus ringmistress. takes discipline seriously. likes cards, roses, big fur coats, and weather that allows for them.
involved with Westley
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Jules
acrodancer. flexible in multiple regards. always on the lookout for a good time, especially one he can sink his claws into.
involved with Ruckus
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Nova
trad goth knife thrower's assistant, getting blades thrown at him in the ring while secretly inclined to wield them outside of it.
involved with Zero
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Trinity
dirty crook, and mama's boy. bashing skulls in the alley but still escorting his mom to church on sunday.
involved with Morrigan
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Midas
gunrunner. disfigured from a malfunction in an altered firearm. recreationally lovesick.
involved with Rowdy
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Meyer
up and coming trick rider
involved with Blythe
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Feliks
circus manager. working hard behind the scenes chugging coffee and pulling out feathers over paperwork. just wants peace and order (rarely obtained).
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Jaime
former competitive martial artist, hired as "security" at the circus but acts more as general assistant. patron of dive bars.
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Rama
circus promoter. incessant gambler, not above leaning the odds in his favour by any means.
involved with Saul
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Saul
runs a sideshow oddity cart. once involved with black market sales but is completely law abiding now, for sure. absolutely…
involved with Rama
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Wolf
back-alley doctor. dwelling within his family's dilapidated estate, tirelessly working to procure the bride of his dreams.
involved with Doll
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Seth
swagless aspiring hacker. tfw no gf
involved with Ryker
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Grimm
sullen black dog cemetery groundskeeper
involved with Cadence
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Sinclair
identity document forger for hire, family shame. evading penalization thanks to his lawyer older brother
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Silas
a higher demon, posted to the mortal world and hellbent on sowing seeds of corruption.
alternatively in modern au, struggling black metal artist and occultist, performing rituals to capture an angel and bring himself fortune
involved with Valentine
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Cyril
victorian player, flexing his position as he moves up the ranks of society.
involved with Julian
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Kaan
under the influence of an inherent instinct to put wolves in their place.
involved with Hutch
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plainly-colorful · 11 months
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Au where Danny and Jason are twins. Yeah thwack and Maddie lost Jason:/ But Hey Danny was sick ok?? They didn't have time to look for the other one!!
Jazz nor Danny remember Jason, far too young. They find out when a ghost ask where his sibling is. No not the girl, the boy. One who looks him sort of.
The two then leave their parents behind. Whatever love kept them there was gone. They search and search till they reach a grave. But he wasn't dead! He was now he's not! Where was he?
Thats when Robin demands to know what they are doing. Then Red Robin. Then Red Hood.
Their eyes land and the tall imposing figure. Jazz can't help but laugh.
"Its not funny!"
"I think it is! This is proof you just drew the short stick," her grin was sharper than knives. "Even your twin is taller than you,"
An echos of whats was the chorus to an other wise silent cemetery as Danny lunged at his sister.
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allthingsjoeq · 6 months
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Season Of The Witch
by @bettyfrommars and @allthingsjoeqthings
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Blair Witch Project au
Steddie x reader
Warnings: 18+ONLY, found footage horror, hurt/no comfort, fem!reader who is just a friend, no Vecna, angst, lost in the woods, mentions of witchcraft, paranormal activity, things that go bump in the night, fear of being stalked, allusions to gore and MCD.  
If you are familiar with The Blair Witch Project, you know some of what to expect. This is a horror fic; it will be scary and unsettling at times, so please take caution if the genre makes you uncomfortable. 
Summary: Three friends find themselves in a small town in Maryland, the home of the Blair Witch. Enthusiastic film student, Steve Harrington, sets out to film a documentary for his semester project.  He recruits his boyfriend, Eddie Munson, and you, a friend he invited along to be his trusty cameraperson.  However, you end up a little too deep in the woods to find your way back, twisting the simple spooky road trip to take a wrongful turn. Maybe the three of you should have listened to the myths a little more carefully.
word count: 13k
Little note: @bettyfrommars I have had so much fun writing our marmite fic together and thank you for putting up with me throughout this process, even when I almost made you want to rip your hair out. Been an honour to write with the Queen of Horror.
Burkittsville Cemetery, Maryland
“Here we are.” Steve Harrington can’t contain the glimmer of wonder in his eyes, behind wire-rimmed spectacles, as he parks near the overgrown site of the cemetery.  
You look up from fiddling with the camera in the back seat as the tires crunch to a halt, already thinking of where the best spot to get a shot of Steve would be for the documentary he’s working on.  You aren’t as familiar with filming as you should be for being his main cameraperson, but you and Steve had become close friends very quickly, and he practically insisted you be a part of it. 
He was especially fascinated with the town you grew up in called Burkittsville in Maryland.  You knew about Steve’s obsession with the paranormal, and the legends that surrounded certain locations, so you told him about your hometown legend—the Blair Witch. You hadn’t been back since you were a kid, but you watched his face light up when you talked about the lore, and all of the possibilities for filming. 
Although Steve had his camera crew of one sorted, he would and could never travel without his partner in crime and in love, Eddie Munson. The metalhead stands now looking out over the cemetery with his black and white flannel over a Bark at the Moon Ozzy Osbourne concert tee, and his hair tied back in a bandana, being the supportive boyfriend. He clamps a hand on Steve’s shoulder to give it a squeeze. “You got this, big boy. Let’s rock ‘n roll.”
Tall grass yields underfoot as you all make your way around the space, bending down to try and read the crumbling grave markers.  
There is a staggering amount of tiny, decaying gravestones, each dedicated to a child who lost their life to unknown, yet presumably horrifying circumstances.
“Shit,” Steve mutters under his breath.  “There’s a lot of kids here.” You film his profile as he says it, shifting the focus back to get Eddie in the frame, and he shoots his tongue out, putting his forefinger and pinky up to make devil horns. 
Steve does a monologue for the camera.  He’s standing on the hill near one of the taller headstones, and the wind makes his hair unruly.  “Here we are in the town of Burkittsville, formerly Blair. As legend has it, around 1785, a Blair resident named Elly Kedward was accused of practicing witchcraft by several children. The children said that she had dragged them from their homes with the intention of drinking their blood. As you can see, there is an unusually large number of children buried on this hill.”
You film different headstones, making sure to capture the stone angel, and a few of the other statues, to splice into the film while Steve is talking for the final cut.  
Interviews with some of the long-time residents in town are next, and in the car ride down the hill, Eddie holds the camera and turns it on you in the back seat.  You cover your face at first, not wanting to be recorded, but he eases you out of it with some of his playful banter.  “Since we’re interviewing people who grew up here, we should start with you, right? What is your experience with the Blair Witch?”
You’d talked about the stories you’d heard so often with Steve, but being in the spotlight made you nervous, and it took a second to find your words.  “No personal experiences, really, but I’ve heard a lot of lore.  Ghost stories, mostly. Stuff to scare us kids so we’d go to bed early.” You shift in your seat and look out the window, but Eddie is waiting for more.  “I, um, well…”
“Leave her alone, Eddie,” Steve responds absently, flipping the blinker to turn into town. The song Season of the Witch by Donovan is on the radio and Steve’s mumbling the lyrics.
“No, it’s okay,” you flex a quick smile.  “If it helps, I mean, I was 8 years old when we left, I don’t know a lot other than what I’ve researched.”
“Your audience is waiting,” Eddie zooms the focus in way too much so that your eyes take up the whole frame.  
“Okay,” you start. “So I guess there were these two guys who were hunting once, up by the cabin Blair Witch is supposed to haunt, and they just disappeared off the face of the earth. Search parties combed the woods for weeks and couldn’t find a trace of them.”
“Maybe they realized they were in love and ran away together,” Eddie chuckles, pushing the heel of his hand into Steve’s shoulder.  
You smile down at your lap. “Could be.”
“One more thing,” Eddie looks at you over the top of the camera and then puts his eye back down to focus.  “Is there a chance we could all end up victims of the Blair Witch?”
You can’t tell if it’s a serious question, but it gives you chills.  Your eyes flick from the camera to the back of Steve’s head and his messy flop of hair.  
“I personally don’t believe in ghosts or witches,” you smile as you say it, and catch Steve’s quick glance at you in the rearview mirror.  “But don’t tell Steve.”
Eddie snorts and puts the camera in his lap but forgets to turn it off. 
“I’m really looking forward to proving you wrong,” Steve’s muffled voice says to you as Eddie rustles the camera down between his legs.  “There’s some spooky shit going on in those woods, and I’m going to get it on film.”
First night, The Motel 
The map of the forest is spread out across the thin, floral spread of the motel bed. Eddie and you stare down at it, identically flicking your eyes across the inked locations, each mirroring the same dazed look of cluelessness. 
“I think, if we start here and then make our way north we’ll get to here,” Steve then circles the center vigorously before saying, “by midday.” 
On the map it's easy to believe the forest only stretches a few miles and Steve’s plan so far seems simple enough, promising this hike to be quick. With the action plan sorted, a large pizza shared, and your survival packs spilling out with textbook necessities, it gives the three of you the rest of the evening to chill. This downtime allows you to mess about a bit and accidentally fill some of the tape space with personal footage. 
You’ve decided to sprawl out on one of the two double beds, propping yourself up on your elbow to film Steve and Eddie’s tiny little tickle fight that started over Steve being adamant that he wasn’t and would never be ticklish. Eddie knows just the right areas on his ribs to challenge with his deft fingers, making Steve squirm and beg for him to stop, while Eddie chuckles and pounces on top of him, making the cheap bed springs squeak.
“Hey, put the camera away,” Steve spots you, and then attempts to lunge off the bed and grab the camera. But you lift it out of his reach with a mischievous giggle.  
Eddie smiles along with you, his gaze falling with admiration on the way Steve’s cheeks turn a rosy pink at the exhilaration.  He throws a wink your way and pokes his tongue at Steve’s back, grabbing his ankle to keep him from leaving the bed. 
“Stevie, have you seen my lighter?” A few minutes later, you start filming again as Eddie is wandering the room in nothing but a pair of boxers and an unzipped hoodie.
“Are you going to smoke now?” Steve asks, checking the batteries in his flashlight.
“What’s wrong with now?”
“Well, you know,” Steve unsubtly tips his head in your direction, worried that you may not be comfortable.
“Oh, no I don’t mind”, you say, not wanting your inexperience to ruin the mood. It makes Eddie raise an eyebrow, your choice of words being music to his ears. 
“See Steve, if anything she’s probably curious,” he extends both hands to you as if you were a prize at the fair.
Eddie bounces on the balls of his feet and begins to dig through his pack's front pocket before retrieving a baggy of rolled joints. He pats around in his vest and produces a green plastic lighter with a triumphant, “a-ha!”
It’s been a while since you’d smoked weed, and you weren’t even sure you liked it, but Eddie’s contagious energy made you want to be a part of whatever he was doing.  He squints as he inhales, holds it, and then passes the joint to you between pinched fingers before releasing a generous plume of smoke. 
You took what you thought was a tiny drag, but it tickles the back of your throat and sends you into a coughing spasm, making you bat your chest with the palm of your hand after handing the joint back. 
“Can’t handle it sweetheart?” Eddie snickers, but then he wiggles his eyebrows at you and takes another drag for himself, passing you a bottle of water from the bedside table. The cap is off and some of it sloshes onto his hand.
“Oh, wait, I have something better,” Eddie says, jumping off the bed to snatch a fifth of whiskey out of his bag.  “Shots?”
“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” Steve adjusts his glasses and pulls back the comforter on his side of the bed to get cozy.  “Just one. We have a long day tomorrow.”
You shrug and nod, eyes bloodshot and watering, while Eddie puts the bottle to his lips and chugs a shot first before handing it to you.  You swallow a big gulp, and Eddie howls at the way your face screws up like you’d just sucked on a lemon.
“Here’s to the Blair Witch,” Steve holds the bottle up before he takes his drink.  “May she grace us with her presence tomorrow.”
Black Hills Forest, Day one, 9am
“Are we filming?” Eddie chimes in, practically vibrating with excitement.  
“The green light is on,” you mumble to yourself, frowning down at the screen on the camera that shows nothing but black.  
“Hey, Indiana Jones,” you call over to Steve who is checking the direction of the wind with a licked finger as he squints into the sun filtering through the dead leaves.  “What am I doing wrong?”
Steve adjusts the strap of his hiking pack and strolls over to you with a tight clench between his eyebrows.  “Give it here,” he sighs, taking it from you. “I just tested it this morning, I know it’s—”
He finally sees the problem and halts.  He makes somber eye contact with you, takes the cover off the lens and holds it up.
“Oh,” you bite the inside of your cheek, stifling a self-conscious laugh. 
“Steve Angelica Harrington,” Eddie grins, throwing his arm around Steve aggressively, almost knocking him over.  “Our hero.”
You lift the camera up to your eye and get both of them in the frame, leaning back to smile at the pair.  Steve shrugs away from Eddie’s attention as if he doesn’t like it, but then there is a moment when he turns and the two almost kiss.  Eddie gives a few exaggerated, puckered smooches and leans in. 
Steve realizes you’re filming and pushes his boyfriend off for real this time, running a hand through his hair to fix himself.  Restless as ever, Eddie comes around to take the camera from you, asks you where certain buttons are, and then points it in your direction.  You shrug him away playfully and shield your face from the nose down with the crook of your arm as if you are Dracula holding your cape.
Steve pops his knee out and tilts his head. “Would you two dorks stop messing around and take this witch hunt seriously? I want this documentary to be a success.”
“So remind me, King Steve,” Eddie turns the camera on his boyfriend, and he does not look amused.  “We’re trying to find the ghost of some child murdering witch from the 1700’s? Should I be trying to spot a gingerbread house too?”
Off camera, you snort and say, “idiot,” under your breath.  
“Eddie,” Steve keeps his profile to the camera, refusing to make eye contact. “Let’s get some footage first and then I’ll let you mess around with the camera.”  He doesn’t want a bunch of adolescent jibber jabber on film. .  
“What, I’m just trying to be helpful,” Eddie shrugs with puppy dog eyes, lowering the device.
He forgets to turn off video again, and as it angles at the ground. Audio catches a distinct sound, like a soft moan, from somewhere in the woods.
Steve holds his hand up for everyone to halt, freezing in place, and a small twig snaps under his foot.  
You open your mouth to speak, something about how it would be better to get a shot of Steve in the clearing, but you are swiftly shushed.
You motion to take the camera from Eddie, and then you point it at Steve, and he turns to you, right in the camera’s eye. His tone is dire:  “Can you hear that humming?” 
“I can’t—” Eddie blurts, but then Steve puts the palm of his hand tight over Eddie’s mouth, wrapping his fingers over his chin, knowing that it was impossible for him to stay quiet under pressure.
Your heart is racing as you concentrate, ears straining.  There is the dry shuffle of the breeze rustling the branches, but otherwise, the silence is eerie and vast. 
“Cut it out, Steve, it’s not funny,” you bristle, locking one arm protectively over your chest while the other attempts to hold the camera in place. Steve is darting his attention around the woods, trying to locate the origin of the sound.
Eddie steps back, moving his mouth away from Steve’s muzzle. “It’s just the wind, baby, it’s making you paranoid,” he offers, noticing the way Steve’s face is drained of its color. Bending down to retrieve the map that fell when Steve got manhandled, one of Eddie’s legs flew out behind him dramatically.  A part of you wonders if Eddie and the map are a good combination, however you keep your thoughts to yourself. 
You’re almost positive you heard a voice in the woods as well, but you decide to keep that close to your chest.
The lingering tension finally subsides, and Eddie reaches back for Steve’s hand to keep him moving in the same direction; to coax him out of his racing thoughts.  Not wanting to waste battery life, you turn the camera off and stumble behind them, actively fighting off the urge to glance over your shoulder at whatever might be following in your wake. 
The next few hours consist of hiking through unused paths and trampling muddy footprints, waiting for Steve to find his perfect backdrop to open his documentary. With the car far behind you and your full 360 view being nothing but trees, Steve finally breaks from his determined stroll.  
“Can we do this now?” You lightly prod. For the last half hour, Steve has been trying to find the right spot to stand, and you felt like his perfectionism will be the death of you.  
Steve has that look, the professional one, when he means business. However, for Steve to enter his little documentary presenter zone he wants to stand alone, the trees being his only sidekick. 
“You can go over there now,” Steve gives Eddie a playful nudge. 
His boyfriend has been on his heels this entire time, but now the metalhead jogs over to grab the camera off of you to keep himself busy, while Steve concentrates, pushing his glasses up on his nose, finding his performance space before he begins.
“The town of Blair has been cursed since the 1700’s,” he starts.
Eddie and you share an encouraging nod, adding a dash of support for Steve to continue.  
“They all warn of the Blair witch, the one known to lure children to her home and sacrifice their souls and use their blood as an offering.” Steve starts to find his rhythm, naturally taking small steps backwards, like a guide, forcing the camera to follow.
“Elly Kedward was eventually found and blamed for the towns disappearances and without trial was banished into these woods in the depth of winter to freeze and perish a worser fate than her victims.” 
There’s a climatic wind gust that passes through the trees, almost like the ghost of a victim's warning, sent to bring the hairs on your arms to rise. It makes Eddie grin, Steve’s eyes widen with interest, and you try to contain a violent shiver; the theatrics of nature perfecting the shot. 
Steve pauses to take in his surroundings for dramatic effect before continuing.
“Her twisted end didn’t sit right, the town of Blair began to notice odd occurrences, noises and symbols from the forest. Locals believe she left a curse. They say she is still roaming in these woods to this day, seaking her revenge and enticing lost souls into her portal to show the devil her true power.” 
Steve takes a breath, pausing before opening his mouth to speak again, but Eddie’s attention span has other ideas. 
“Oh wait,  Steve can you do that again, I didn’t press record,” Eddie says as cool as he can muster, biting the inside of his cheek. 
Steve shoves his hand roughly through his hair and holds it there, tempted to rip the hair from his scalp. “For fuck sake Munson.” 
Quickly breaking into a wild grin Eddie says a quick, “joking babe,” fully accepting the harsh shove Steve jabs to his shoulder, but then Eddie decides to up the antics.  He falls to the ground dramatically and starts to wiggle like a worm.
“Help, Help, it’s got me, the witch,” faking a struggle, to which Steve tuts, lodging a twig in his direction and adding a casual, “get over yourself, Munson.”  You dive down to take the camera from Eddie’s extended arms as he rolls to his side, and bite back a grin before giving Steve the signal that he’s on again.
Steve advises Eddie to roam around while he delivers the next part of the story. 
“This legend sits on the border of fiction and fact. It’s chilling, yes, but the stories and facts just don’t add up. A truth needs to be found and today, the legend of the witch will either remain its legendary hoax or a fatal truth may be… Wait, cut.”
“What, why?” You frown, enjoying Steve’s witch hunter mode, but clearly his self doubt has arrived.
“Was it a bit much? I felt like I was entering Eddie’s DND campaign.”
“Hey,” Eddie protests, opening his mouth and eyes wide at the camera and prompting you to snort a laugh at his theatrics. 
The day wages on, the forest becoming your only view for miles as Steve drags his feet, unsatisfied at his findings so far. The consistent checking of his watch is a hint alone that it’s time to set up camp soon.  
By nightfall, the strange noises from earlier were all but forgotten, and you sit with a full belly in front of the crackling fire opposite Eddie.  You film him as he tells one of his wild stories, complete with active hand gestures and cartoonish sounds.  Eddie gets a detail wrong in the tale he is retelling, and so Steve corrects him with a bit of a bored look on his face, as if he’s heard the story told wrong a million times.  You focus the zoom in on Steve’s face as he turns to rest his chin on his shoulder and regard his partner.  There was a deep fondness there in his eyes, even though it is masked for the moment with irritability.  
Eddie decides to get in close, his mouth inches from Steve’s. You watch as he murmurs something that makes Steve crack a smile, and then the two share a kiss, noses rubbing, and you feel like you were intruding on a private moment.  You then decided it was time to give the juice in the camera a rest for the night while you all slept.  Much like the camera you follow in its footsteps and shut off, exaggerating a yawn to catch the pair’s attention. 
Your little hint is not lost on Steve, and it prompts him to pass you a flashlight so you can avoid tripping over the tent's zip on your way to bed. 
Nestled undercover in your downy sleeping bag, you drift in and out of sleep, only faintly hearing the footsteps of the boys before they go into their tent. In the middle of the night, you swear you hear voices, like a distant conversation, but you assume it must be the boys. There’s an ominous but faint cackling that follows it, but by then, you’re already too deep to notice. 
And then suddenly, there’s nothing, just stillness and the dark of the woodland air. 
Day Two, No sight of the road. 
The next day brings more of the same.  Hopeful banter in the morning, which then easily leads into some playful teasing throughout the afternoon. The on and off tones of professionalism to mockery becomes apparent. At one point while filming, Steve in one of his monologues, tense and suspenseful, until the scene was hijacked by Eddie flying through the air to tackle him.  
The light mood progressively gets shadowed, though, as the day wears on and there seems to be little to no chance of getting back to the car before dark.  Steve halts to check the map several times, flustered and angry with himself, while Eddie has a smoke break and you film around, even catching sight of a doll made of sticks hanging from a tree.  
“Steve?” You hum his name over your shoulder, wanting him to see what you see.  
He ignores you at first, biting the side of his thumbnail, and spinning on his heel as he stares down at the compass. When he finally lifts his head, he frowns, confused, but then the doll made of sticks comes into focus and his eyes narrow behind the smudged lenses of his glasses.
“What the hell is that?” Eddie is already on his way over.  He decides to smoke the other joint in his pack instead of one of his Camels, and it is doing wonders for his anxiety.  
Eddie reaches up to touch the doll, but Steve stops him. “Wait!” He notices that his voice is a bit harsh, so he starts again in a calmer tone.  “Listen, we don’t know what it is or who put it there.  I think we should respect the woods and leave it be.”
“Respect the woods?” Eddie barks a laugh, continuing to touch the legs of the doll and turn it around to see how it was made and you watched through the camera lens. 
“I bet some kid made it when their family was out here camping,” Eddie mused, exhaling smoke. “It’s creepy, I like it.”
Steve decides to interfere with his high boyfriends fascination, batting his hand away and in the process accidentally knocking the wooden doll to the floor.
 “Hey, Steve you’ve killed him!” Eddie taunts; mouth agape, eyes accusatory.
Steve really didn’t want to do that and you sense the growing paranoia that he’s experiencing from the way he’s frozen, staring at the little figure now laying twisted on the floor. Eddie pouts and goes to retrieve it once again. 
“Eddie, leave it.” Steve can’t hide his increasing stress, his words strained in between his clenched teeth. He grabs onto Eddie’s pack using it to encourage Eddie to walk in the other direction.
Steve prays this is the right way. He sends you a weak smile, and you know him well enough to deduce that he is feeling embarrassed that he doesn’t have you out of the woods yet.  
 As the sunlight dwindles, a bitter sense of reality begins to creep up on you. The branches above lose their subtle shadows and the once benign tree clusters begin to morph into something otherworldly. 
When it is finally time to make camp again, it is all any of you could do not to think about the stories you’d recorded from the townspeople the other day.  In particular the one about the killer who would take kids down into his basement two at a time, and make one wait in the corner while he killed one, and then would kill the one in the corner.  He didn’t like their eyes on him, apparently, that’s why he made them stare at the wall.
The darkness is crowding in, giving tiny nudges to everyone's paranoia that you are not alone in that forest.  There was a presence that tickled in barely audible whispers as the night claimed its position and every howl of the wind was a possible threat.  
Not a lot of filming took place during the down time by the fire. It was as if the courage to speak the stories had vanished and the myths began to seep into their reality. Less words exchanged and a few uncertain glances shared with Steve, but Eddie remained stoic and chilled, maintaining his energy. 
The plan of action is the last conversation you share, Steve taking control and promising that you’ll all be back in town by tomorrow afternoon. 
The sound of the boys getting situated in their tent was comforting, and you giggled when Eddie farted and tried to blame it on a passing wildebeest.  But, things got quiet quickly—too quiet—and soon you could hear the faint hiss of Steve’s snore and you realized that having your own tent was not all it was cracked up to be.
An owl hooted, but along with its natural call there was something else out there making sounds.  Was that the humming Steve had mentioned the day before?  Straining to listen, the noise was followed by an unmistakable cackle that made you grab the flashlight and a pillow and scurry out of  your tent like it was on fire.  
“Um-guys,” you were pulling open the flap to their tent before either of them could answer. “Is there any possibility i could squeeze in your tent tonight, i was a-a bit cold on my own.” 
Eddie sits up, groggily, from where he had his head on Steve’s chest, as if he’d fallen asleep the second he closed his eyes, and scoots away to make room for you in the middle.
Feeling safer nestled between your two friends, you are finally able to let yourself drift off into a dreamless sleep that offers no reprieve from the shadows in your mind.
Later that night, scattered and confused, another bizarre noise caught your attention, jarring you awake. 
A blanket of dark coats the inside of the tent, but after a few fuzzy blinks you easily make out that  Steve is sitting up with the flap of the tent open. He’s crouched over, the faint shake of his hands holding the camera a dead giveaway to his unease.
Sensing that you are awake, he tilts his head to the side to acknowledge you, and then signals for you to listen. 
“Did you hear that?” You whisper, not wanting to wake Eddie who is offering soft snores next to you.  
Steve puts a finger to his lips, and then turns back around with the camera pointed out into the night.
Somehow he manages to convince himself that the noise is from a deer or squirrel. Due to your delirious state, this information settles your tired worry and allows you to snuggle down, eager for the morning light. 
Day Three, Walking in Circles
With no idea how long Steve remained awake last night, there’s a part of you that feels he’s hiding something to protect you. The next morning his raw, uplifting nature dwindled, his inner doubts coming to the surface to pinch the skin between his eyebrows. 
“I’m sorry I dragged you all out here,” Steve announces with a heavy sigh, staring down at the remnants from the fire. Eddie angles the camera up at him while you zip a few things into your knapsack. “We’ll be having lunch back in town in a few hours, but let’s keep adding to the footage as we go.”
Steve shows you on the map where you were all headed, tapping his finger in the spot where you’d parked the car.  “Two hours, tops,” he promises.  
Eddie gets to his feet and adjusts the focus so that Steve goes from blurry to clear to blurry again. “Battery life on this thing is low and I can’t find the portable charger.”
Steve turned on him, jaw muscles tensing, ready to let an angry word slip.
“The charger is right here,” you corrected, lifting it out of the bag it was in to show Steve and calm his nerves. Once Steve steps away to check the compass again, Eddie makes a face at you, tongue darting out from the side of his mouth, letting you know that he knew it was there, he just wanted to give Steve a hard time.  
“I have a question for you, sir,” Eddie rushes up behind Steve and taps his shoulder, making him turn away from the lens, bringing a hand up to block his face. “How do you feel about this Blair Witch hunt so far?”
Steve smooths the sides of his hair back and squares his shoulders, determined to look unbothered.  “I feel good,” he lied. “I feel like I know exactly where we are and we just need to head east for another couple miles.  Everything's going as planned, we’re just a little behind schedule, that’s all.”
You open the canteen around your neck and gulp down a few swigs of water, musing that there wasn’t much left, and you needed to find a fresh stream somewhere soon, just in case.
But, it was only a passing worry, because Steve’s confidence that you’d be back at the car in a few hours gave you an unhealthy helping of blind hope. 
When you finally find the water line, there is a fallen tree across the creek, and it happens to be the only way across.  You have the worst balance, and being suspended over moving water makes you nervous in a way that has your hands trembling.  Eddie carries the camera for you, strapping around his neck as he makes his way across like an acrobat, and then Steve follows behind you, whispering words of encouragement.  
Hours later, it’s high noon when Steve makes you all stop for a rest to take your packs off so that he can check the map again.  You happen to be filming him as a flex of panic flashes across his face.  
“Why does this spot feel so familiar?” He asks it under his breath, but the audio catches it.  
It was the same spot you’d started from earlier in the day; same stump, same bundle of dead branches next to a large boulder. Steve turns on his heel and you can see in his face the way his heart stops when he sees the impressions from the previous night’s tent pegs.
“How is this possible?” He whispers. “We’ve been going straight all day, following the compass.”
“Give me that,” Eddie storms by, yanking the map from Steve to sit down on the big stump to look at it while he has a smoke.  “This shit is Greek to me,” he admits, hollowing out his cheeks to take in all of the nicotine his lungs would allow. “Are you telling me we’ve been going in circles?”
You squat next to Eddie, filming him while he glowers at the lines on the paper, hair tied back in a messy ponytail.  This was the crankiest you’d ever seen him, and you’d known him for at least a year at that point. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that there were only 3 cigarettes left, and his pack a day habit was at risk of being tested without nicotine patches or comfort.  
He realizes you are recording and flinches away, blowing smoke out his nostrils.  “Put that thing away please.  I’m not in the mood.”
Steve split the last half of a squished peanut butter sandwich into 3 parts and passed one to each of you, but Eddie refuses his.  You stare up at Steve, waiting for his word that you should stop, but he shakes his head.  “She’s doing exactly what I told her to do, Eddie. We’re filming a documentary.”
“Oh, we’re filming a documentary about being lost now? Is that what this is? Because we are, we’re fucking lost.”
 Eddie grumbles, exhaling an agitated breath.
“We’re not.” Steve’s voice is gruff as he pushes the food into his cheek with his tongue.  “I know exactly where we are.  The car is right over that way, through the trees, I’m positive.”
“Yeah, well, you said that yesterday morning and last night and four fucking hours ago,” Eddie shot to his feet with a huff, keeping the butt of his smoke clenched between his lips to button up the front of his black and red flannel. 
“Shouldn’t you know where we are?” Eddie’s penetrating gaze falls on you, and for some reason, it makes you nervous.  “I know you said you were just a kid, but you grew up here right? So, you must have some idea?”
You glance nervously over at Steve, as if to ask for support, and then focus the camera back on Eddie as you stammer.  “I–I don’t ever remember coming out here. Once maybe, but—”
“Really Eddie?” Steve turns to his boyfriend. “You expect her to have a Magellan sense of direction in these woods because she lived nearby when she was a child? You get lost in Hawkins and you’ve lived there your whole life.”
Eddie mumbles something as he straps the last part of his pack on and starts walking, without a word, heading in the direction Steve suggested, kicking at the dirt as he goes.  
“I’m sorry about this,” Steve mutters to you as he offers his hand and helps you stand. “I should’ve had you home safe by now.”
“It’s okay, I trust you. I promise I really don’t know these woods that well,” your voice is small.  Your eyes are softly pleading when they find his, as if to beg for absolute reassurances.
But, Steve has nothing verbal to give.  His throat is dry, he hates fighting with Eddie, and his pride was taking quite a catastrophic blow—on film, no less. He squeezes your arm, and continues at a fast trot to catch up with his salty partner, pulling you along with him.  
A few hours later, the sky opened up and it started to rain, and as you ducked to follow the boys into the clearing to reluctantly set up camp, you trip over a pile of rocks and almost drop the camera.
“What the hell is this?” You mused aloud, adjusting the focus, establishing that it was, indeed, just a pile of rocks, but there was something…odd about them.  They’d been stacked up by hand in the shape of a mound. 
Steve and Eddie were up ahead, standing in close proximity, having a conversation in tense whispers while Eddie found the driest patch of ground under the canopy of trees to shake the tent out.  It was only drizzling now, and he was eager to set up some type of shelter in case the downpour started again.
Steve moves the hood of his yellow rain slicker back to check where you were, and then comes over to see what you’d found.  
“There’s a couple of them,” you point out, stepping back so he could view the others, “What was it that one woman in town said about stacks of rocks? Something to do with a signal, or warning maybe.” 
Turning, you see Steve frantically dig through his bag, only letting out a satisfied hum when he retrieves his notebook. Its spiral-bound pages hold all of the key points from interviews of people back in town. You can tell he’s proud of you for having the intuition to know that these stacks might be important.  
“Remember that woman we spoke to at the trailer park?” Steve asks, biting his lip in thought.
“The weird one? Mary?” You wonder aloud. 
Steve snaps his fingers in excitement, flicking to the right page in his notes. 
“Yes! Crazy Mary.  I wasn’t paying much attention to her because I thought she was insane, but I’m sure she mentioned something to do with rock piles?”
“What’s your notes say?” You lean in to see what the camera can catch on the paper.
“Not a lot. I’ve just written ‘Bible Story about rocks’”.
You try your hardest to remember, whispering to yourself and attempting to remember what the eccentric woman had said. 
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” you begin. “But, didn't she say something like, they symbolize a promise, like if you promise not to cross the rocks nothing can harm you and vice versa from the one who put them there. Ancient truce type agreement?”
“I mean it sounds right, but why are there three?”
“I'm not sure?”
Steve waves Eddie over, but he isn’t interested.  He’d gone into full-on “if I don’t keep busy I’m going to lose my shit” mode, dropping to his knees in the mud to hammer in the tent pegs.
Steve sighs, feeling like Eddie probably needs a bit of attention and comfort before his mood swing completely erupts. In his process of turning away from the rocks his booted foot catches a pebble, sending the pile toppling over, but he doesn’t think to give it any attention.
Panicking in his wake, you shield the camera from the rain and re-pile the pebbles back in a formation that you hope they resembled. 
You eat the last of the canned vienna sausages by the fire and no one is in the mood for jokes, but Steve does reassure everyone, especially with an arm around his boyfriend’s stiff shoulders, that you all would be out of the forest by the next afternoon.  You film it, catching the way Eddie pulls away at first but then leans in to rest his head on top of Steve’s and they both stare into the fire with glossy eyes.  
You didn’t even bother setting your tent up that evening, and you snuggle on the outside of the boys this time, curling up next to Steve while he spoons Eddie.  
For the first hour or two, everything is peaceful, and the three of you sink into shallow sleep, only to be jared awake by Steve stumbling out of his sleeping bag, stepping on both of his companions in the process.  
“Holy fuck, did you hear that?” He hisses, moving to unzip the tent.  “I need to get out there, hand me the camera.”
“Steve!” You bark a harsh whisper.
“Goddamn it,” Eddie starts putting his boots on, half asleep, not wanting Steve to go out alone. “It’s just a bunch of fucking deer or something, baby, will you just—”
But then, you all hear it.
As loud and as clear as if there were people standing right outside your tent: a cackle of laughter, heavy steps crunching in the leaves, snapping twigs, echoing from the forest floor.  And then there is the distinct cry of a little kid—maybe two, three different little kids. It all echoed back into the woods as if it’s in your ears and far away all at once. 
With the tent flap half open and one foot out, Steve shoots a look back at the two of you, nostrils flaring as he stills for more noise.  “Did you hear those kids?” He huffs, snatching the camera and ducking down to bolt out of the tent. 
“Baby, there are no kids in these woods!” Eddie lunges after him, catching Steve’s calf to pull him back in.  He stumbles back under cover into a crouch, only to “shush” everyone again, certain that he heard something else.
It’s then that the tent begins to shake and jostle, and the cackling continues, but it’s right on top of you now, circling the enclosure.
“Holy shit, holy fuck,” Eddie wails, pushing Steve out of the tent this time, and reaching back for your hand as he exits.
“Go go go!” You demand, encouraging them both to run as far and fast as they could from the campsite. 
Everyone is stumbling and cursing, running in the dark, with the light of the camera Steve’s holding being the only illumination.  He trips over something with a curse, and Eddie helps him up while you take the camera, not caring where the lens points as you run along with the boys, as fast as your feet can carry you.  
Not a sound follows you, not a single footstep or snicker.  Eventually, you all collapse breathless in a huddle, hunkering down near a tree.
Eddie looks into the camera you hold. “Turn that light off,” he’s panting, pupils pinned. “Shut it all off, stay the fuck down.”
“Keep the audio on,” Steve whispers, to which he gets a shove in the shoulder from Eddie.
“I can’t believe you’re still trying to film your movie, dude,” Eddie hushes curtly.
“Shutup!” You scold them both, turning the camera off.
You all sit frozen in place, holding onto each other in a football huddle for—god knows how long? Two hours maybe.  Daylight finally begins to break, prompting Steve to motion you to get the camera rolling again. 
Day Four, No Way Home
The three of you stay close, too frightened to be even a meter apart as you make your way back in the direction of camp. You’re cold, wet and done; so over this witch hunt and ready to put it behind you. 
After a while of weary steps and nervous glances around, Eddie’s tongue clicks, breaking the silence. “There are some hillbillies in these woods trying to fuck with us, and I don’t want to fuck with that.”
Steve looks up at him.  “But what if it’s something…not human?”
“Well, I don’t want to fuck with that either,” Eddie runs both hands through his hair, intertwining his fingers on top of his head as he walks.
You decide to chime in. “Something definitely does not want us here.”
“No kidding, Sherlock.” Eddie blows a raspberry and turns his back on the two of you.
“Something?” Steve cocks his head at you. “But I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts or witches?”
“I don’t,” you swallow hard, averting your eyes.  “But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“Okay, we’re going,” Steve answers, meeting Eddie’s hard stare over your shoulder with defiance.  “We got what we came for, let’s get our shit and keep heading north.”
“Are you sure north is the direction we need to go in?” You ask, cringing through the beginning stages of a headache.  “Because we were headed north all day yesterday and it didn’t get us anywhere.”
When the campsite finally comes into view again, everyone stops short, each jaw going slack in disbelief.
“uhhh, what the fuck is this?” Eddie mumbles, stomping over to look at the way the tent has been squashed, and how everyone’s things have been thrown around.  Whoever or whatever had been taunting you all a few hours ago had made a mess of all of your things; there was clothing and gear tossed in every direction.
You ran across the campsite, eyes searching. “Where is my pack?” The question caught in your throat, as if you might cry.  
“Your pack is right there,” Eddie points.  “More importantly, Where is my pack?”
Everyone starts collecting what they can find of their personal items while Eddie lifts up his open canteen from the ground.  “They dumped all the fucking water out.”
He realizes that the canteen is also coated in something and he drops it with a curse. “Is that fucking slime? It is, there is some kind of slime all over it,” he raises his hand up to look at the viscous liquid and then rubs it off on his pant leg as best as he could.
“Im not fucking about anymore Steve, okay I believe it all, you happy? This shit, whatever it is, whoever it is, doesn’t want us here.”
Eddie’s right, this is a clear warning, an intentional attack, and for once Steve’s not looking excited at the product of evidence before you all. Steve turns towards you, your kneeling figure scooping up your pack—it had been thrown to the other side of the campsite, but nothing seemed to be missing.
Before he could question it, the whining sound of Eddie pricks his ears. Swiftly turning to face whatever tantrum the curly haired boy is throwing now, Steve is faced with Eddie frantically picking up scattered pieces of clothing. 
“Woah, babe, is that all your clothes?” Steve asks in a rush, moving closer.
“Yep”. Eddie doesn’t even want to converse. 
“Just yours though Eddie? No one else's?”
“This is bullshit!” Eddie throws the canteen down and it bounces further away.
Steve moves to reach out and touch Eddie’s arm, but his hand gets slapped away.  “Leave me alone, dude. I need a second.”
You turn the camera off while everyone collects their things and tries to catch their breath.  You were all officially out of food now, with the exception of some peanuts, and a detour needed to be made to get water from the creek.  Eddie refused to use his after it was slimed, but thankfully Steve had an extra one.
When the camera comes back on, it is a couple hours later, and Steve is holding it this time to film Eddie enjoying his last smoke, while you sit with your head against a tree and your eyes closed.  No one is in the mood for talking, and it is wise to conserve energy with very few resources at your disposal.
“A hamburger and fries sounds nice,” you said to break the silence with your eyes still closed.
“Mmmhmm,” Eddie concurred. “A big can of Spaghetti-O’s would hit the spot right now.”
Steve points the camera at his hiking boots as he steps closer, indulging in the fantasy. “I’ve been craving one of those clam chowder bread bowls like we had on the wharf in San Francisco.” 
“That was some good shit,” Eddie mumbles, sucking his smoke all the way down to the filter. 
The camera turns off again, and when it comes back on, you have it.  Eddie is charging ahead, waving his arms, shouting something about how you all need to follow the creek and you’ll end up somewhere eventually.
“Hey,” Steve is walking in front of you, but he turns around.  “Can you pass me the map? I want to check something.”
“Yeah, hold on,” you say, but then you reach back and realize you can’t feel the well-worn edges, and sudden, prickling dread takes over. Panicked, you reach around to check the other pocket, coming to realize the map is gone. 
“Are you sure you gave it to me Steve?” you lighty question, knowing that right now is no time for jokes. 
Steve gives you an exasperated look, as if you are goofing with him like Eddie might.  “Yes, you have the map, you always have the map.  I gave it to you after a map-check before we made camp yesterday.”
You kneel on the ground and put the camera down to do a proper search, your heart racing.  “Eddie,” you shout, making him stop abruptly in his tracks.  “Do you have the map?”
“Me?” Eddie turns around but stays yelling from a distance.  “Why the hell would I have it? It was fucking useless anyway.”
“Okay, okay,” Steve pats the air with his hands, trying to calm the meltdown he can feel building. His attention returns to you as you stand without a map in your hand and a worried look on your face.  “I know I gave it to you,” Steve reiterates. “It has to be somewhere in your stuff.”
You don't want to say what you are thinking, as you stand, pointing the camera at Steve again, but it comes out anyway.  “What if whoever attacked the tent took it?”
Steve grimaces.  “What would they want with…our map?”
“To make sure we have no chance of finding our way out of here,” you say it under your breath, and through the lens, you watch Steve’s jaw go slack as he takes on that possibility.  
When realization dawns that you were about to lose light and need to make camp again, a thick blanket of anxiety and agitation falls over all of you.  You are dragging your feet, camera angle pointed at the ground while the boys get the tent out.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this again,” Eddie mumbles curtly, brow furrowing, and back teeth grinding as the nicotine withdrawal nips at him.  
You mention that you’ll go and gather some branches to make a fire, but Steve puts his hand out to stop you.  “Let’s not make a fire tonight.  We don’t need to draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves.”
“Good idea,” Eddie grunts. “I’d rather freeze to death in a few hours than spend one more day fumbling around this hellscape.” He is digging through his things in Steve’s pack to see if there happens to be a stray cigarette or joint anywhere.  The frustrated anger rising in him is palpable.
“It’ll be a while before I ever go camping again, that’s for sure,” you muse to the group, and both the boys respond with enthusiastic nods of agreement. 
“I’m gonna burn this tent when we get home,” Eddie bites out.
When you turn to Steve, he is rubbing his forehead and staring down at the ground, pensively, and you ask if you should stop filming for a bit.  
Steve glosses over your question and asks another: “You promise you don’t have the map? Because if you have it, and you were just saying you lost it to be funny, I won’t be mad.”
You lower the camera so that it’s focused on his chest and the army green utility jacket he’s wearing.  “I’ve checked my pack three times,” you offer, earnestly. “I promise, I don’t have it.  I wish I did, Steve.”
In the background, Eddie curses at the top of his lungs and one of the tent pegs he’d been fumbling with goes flying through the air. “I’m so fucking done with this! Holy shit, what the hell are we still doing out here? This is fucking insane.” 
Steve motions for you to keep filming.  He’d tease Eddie about all of this later, he knew he would.  He’d also use it as fodder for the argument of why he should quit smoking altogether.
Steve turns toward his boyfriend with his hands on his hips. “I know you blame me for all of this, and I’m sorry. What do you want me to say? We’re all tired and hungry and miserable.”
Eddie snaps around, eyes dark and his body rigid.  “You bet your fucking ass I blame you! You’re the reason we’re about to get flayed by a bunch of inbred mountain people or die of starvation out here in this shitty-ass excuse for a forest.”
“You begged me to let you come on this trip, Eddie,” Steve is doing his best to keep his voice low, because matching Eddie’s tone when he gets upset never helps the situation. “Like you said, if we follow the creek, we’re bound to end up somewhere. It’s impossible to get lost for too long in America these days.”
Eddie’s nostrils flare.  “I begged you? I practically agreed under false pretenses one night when you had my dick in your mouth, I didn’t beg for shit.  I wanted to spend time with my boyfriend and watch him work, but that was back when I thought you were talented.  Now I realize you’re just a hack who can’t even read a fucking map.”
He regrets it the second it leaves his lips, and you can see it in the way the corners of his mouth turn down. “I didn’t mean that,” Eddie whispers.
You step back from the two, not sure what type of conflict is about to ensue.
You can tell it hurts Steve by the way his eyes water, and he pushes his glasses up to rub his face.  “No, you’re right,” Steve sighs, “It is my fault.  But maybe if you weren’t such a big, needy baby all the fucking time, I might have been able to think clearly on this trip.”
“I’m the needy baby? Seriously?  So what, little miss perfect over there gets let off the hook because she’s your perfect little puppet?”
“Hey, no need to bring her into this.”
“Guys!” You shout, waiting until they both look at you.  “This isn’t helping, okay? I for one am scared shitless about what else might be out here in these woods, and if we don’t stick together, we don’t have a chance.”
There is a minute long silence while everyone tries  to shake the anxiety out of their shoulders. Steve comes over to let you know you can turn the camera off, but then the sound of Eddie’s laughter makes you both turn.  
He’s bent over, hands on his knees, laughing so hard he is sucking in dry air.
You and Steve share an amused look, 
“What’s so funny, baby?” Steve asks, cracking a bit of a smile.
Eddie stands, face red from exertion. “You and that fucking map. I got rid of it yesterday! What do you think about that?” Eddie then convulses into giggles again, walking off into the other direction.
“You did what?” Both you and Steve say in unison.
Surely, you’d both misheard him.
“Yeah,” Eddie continues. “I kicked that fucker into the creek, it was useless!”
“You son of a bitch,” Steve spat, lunging at him. “How could you do that to me? To us?”
You catch Steve’s arm, trying to hold the camera and him all at once. The last thing you need is for these two to get into a physical fight.
Eddie starts to walk further away, but then he stops to turn on his heel and face the two of you, deciding to fight his case a little more. “We just kept going in circles, it wasn’t helping us!”
“You knew I was going crazy looking for it! Why didn’t you say anything?” Steve yells after him. 
In the distance, you see Eddie shrug, before matter of factly stating, “I need to go for a walk.”
“But it will be dark in a half hour,” panic bubbling in your chest. “Eddie…wait!” 
Eddie waves his arm in the air and keeps going.  
“Let him go,” Steve touches your shoulder, “he gets like this sometimes. Let him walk it off, we’ll finish setting up.”
Steve has an overwhelming desire to run after his partner, to say, “hey, stop, I love you,” but none of that ever happened.  He knew when it was best to let Eddie cool off.
He knows Eddie won’t go far, he’ll be back in a few minutes.
When you turn the camera back on, an hour later, Eddie is still not back.
There is a soft, orange glow from the sunset through the trees, but other than that, it’s pitch black out. Locking arms with Steve, he dances the beam of his flashlight around the forest while you film with the camera light on, trying to remain within visual distance from camp.
Steve had already screamed Eddie’s name so many times, his voice was becoming hoarse.
 “If you’re fucking with us, Eddie, I swear to Christ I will never ever forgive you!” He starts to imagine Eddie is crouched down by a tree somewhere, covering his mouth to hold back the hilarity of watching his boyfriend almost shit his pants looking for him.
Steve tries to break free from your linked arms, attempting to charge deeper into the woods.
“Steve, no!” You squeak, desperation present in your tone. You shift the camera to the crook of your arm, so it angles up at his horrified face. You really don't want anything bad to happen to Eddie, but you also can’t let anything bad happen to Steve. 
Steve suddenly turns to face you, eyes wild.  “But what if he’s hurt somewhere, what if he’s…damn it Eddie!...what if…”
He doesn’t have to finish the sentence, you already know what he is thinking. What if the myths of the forest were true? What if there was an entity in the woods that fed on fear and needed a sacrifice every so often? What if there were hillbillies in pig masks carrying chainsaws and they often resorted to cannibalism? You’d watched too many horror movies in your life and so had Steve, and it wasn’t helping either one of you at that moment.
But, to be fair, it wasn’t all just in your head.  There is definitely something or someone else out there with all of you, and maybe it was just biding its time until all of you are broken.   
Eddie’s missing.  An hour later, it’s official.  
He wasn’t hiding or playing a game; he had somehow vanished into thin air. The guilt begins to creep and crawl, festering inside Steve’s chest, the buzzing of night insects heightening his sense of dread. 
You’d manage to coax Steve back to the tent. “We’ll go back and build a fire, so that he can see the light of it if he’s lost.”
“I’m not going to stop looking for him,” Steve mutters, screaming Eddie’s name again as he walks, his voice echoing off the emptiness as the cold air burns his lungs. He was too pumped full of fear and adrenaline to cry, but the tears were building behind his eyes. “It’s freezing out here and he’s only got that flannel on.”
“Listen to me,” you yank Steve around to look at you, being rougher than you ever have with him, but your eyes are kept soft.  “It would be very easy for us to get lost in these woods ourselves.  What if Eddie makes it back to camp and we’re gone?”
You let that sink in, hoping you can reason with him.  You notice that his shoulders relax.
“I bet he went a little too far and he can’t find his way back in the dark,” you continue.
  “He probably found some shelter to wait it out for the night.  He’ll be cold, but it’s not going to freeze, he’ll survive. We can go out and look for him at first light.”
Steve starts nodding to himself as he pans the flashlight beam over the forest again.  “A fire is a good idea, so he knows where we are.”
The active denial grips the both of becoming a makeshift coping mechanism, a way to hold onto hope when there seems to be none left.  You have a bad feeling that you may never see Eddie alive again, but you plan on keeping up pretenses for Steve for as long as you could.
 “We’ll find him, Steve,” you don’t want to lie to him, but you felt like it was something he needed to hear.
Steve struggles to meet your eyes, but you can make out a stray tear that’s making tracks across his stubbled cheek and it breaks your heart for him. 
“I didn’t go after him, didn’t even try to convince him to stay. How fucking stupid could I be?”
“No, Steve, you can’t blame yourself, okay, it was an in the moment thing, it’s going to be okay.”
“What part of this whole thing has EVER been okay?”
He turns his back on you and it sends a stinging pang through your chest.  A part of you can’t help but wonder if he’s wishing it were you that went missing. Maybe he’s wishing he never brought you along at all.
With a heavy heart and a signature rake through his hair, Steve shuts his eyes, takes a shaken breath and turns around, inviting you to step into his arms and you hook an arm around his waist. This embrace is welcomed, as you soak up the heavy warmth wrapped around you, making it hard to let go. Seemingly feeling the same, Steve leans in further, soaking up what he presumes is the last moments of peace, a crumb of tranquility. Feeding on the sliver of hope you’ve provided him.
A stuttered sigh slips from Steve’s dry lips.  His next words are nothing but a whisper, but it’s meaningful, and becomes tattooed amongst the trees.
“I can’t lose him,” his voice cracks.
Then, as if on cue, there’s a cry—a whimper of agony erupts from deep in the nothingness.
Steve snaps a look at you and a fist tightens over your heart.  You hold very still, making sure you heard what you thought you did, both wondering if you’d imagined it.
But then another scream follows, this one more drawn out than the first, and it sounds just like Eddie.
Steve braces himself, senses sharp, trying to find the direction the scream is coming from.  “Holy shit, that was him!”
There’s a scuffle as Steve bumps into you in his haste to move.  You almost drop the camera as he bounces off of you, losing his mind over the sound of Eddie's voice, you then scramble to catch the device before it falls to the ground. There’s only muffled noises for a bit as your arm is blocking the microphone and the lens catches the back of Steve’s legs, bolting into the pitch black forest.
“Whatever you do, don’t stop filming!” He shouts over his shoulder.
And then your heart is pounding, jackhammering in your chest as you take after him. Steve’s running, pumping his arms, and then there’s another scream and he catches himself for a full stop, freezing in place.  
The video takes in the side of his face, tears wetting his cheek under his glasses, his head turning in the direction of the scream.  “It’s this way…Eddie!...it’s coming from over there!” He points in that direction, and then his feet follow to a place where the trees get denser.
You glance over your shoulder in the direction of the campsite, wondering if the two of you will be able to find your way back, but then keeping up with Steve becomes a priority.  Breathlessly, you struggle to keep up the pace, you trip and try to avoid falling over tree stumps that are dotted along the path.
“Steve”, you manage to stutter in between sharp breaths, “How do we know, what if- what if it’s a trick. What if it’s not Eddie?” 
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course it's…”
Another scream. 
Steve’s words die on his tongue, as all he can manage is a wide eyed frantic glare into the trees, before attempting once again to scream his boyfriend’s name in vain, begging to catch a glimpse of his frizzed up hair between the branches. 
You both speed up, using all the remaining energy left inside your weak bodies, ignoring the burning in your lungs and metallic taste coating your tongues. 
The woodland flooring begins to create almost a disheveled looking path, a trail appearing out of nowhere. Horrifying possibilities begin to bleed into Steve’s imagination, the memories of the past few days twisting in his mind as he tries to predict what state his boyfriend could be in. 
Steve stops to get his bearings, gulping in breaths.  His stomach clenches like he might puke, but he swallows down bile, hoping for another scream to pierce the night and guide his way.
You catch a glint of something silver nestled in the leaves of the forest floor, and you shine the light down there to get a look.  You swear it’s Eddie’s wallet chain, the one he had on the last time you saw him, but then Steve starts moving again, on the trail of a sound only he could hear.
Running full boar, dodging through the trees, something smacks Steve in the face, and he swats it away, thinking it’s a branch.  But then he takes a step back and looks up. You almost smash straight into the back of him, not realizing he’d stopped so abruptly.  Your camera light brings attention to what Steve is seeing.
Unsettling deja vu is shared between you both as you realize that a cluster of handcrafted stick dolls, like the one you found the other day, are dangling before you. 
Steve’s hand trembles, reaching out to touch the frayed twine from which they hang. 
"Steve, stop," you hiss, your voice is a harsh whisper, eyes darting over the dolls as they sway in the breeze. You can't shake the feeling that you are being watched; that something sinister is lurking just beyond your peripheral vision.
Ignoring you, Steve begins to count the dolls, pointing with his finger, his movements manic, his words a rapid, breathless murmur.
"One, two, three... they're leading somewhere!”
"Steve!" you call out to him desperately, your voice echoing through the forest, falling on blind ears. He starts to follow the primitive stick dolls, and you know you have no choice but to go with him into the unknown, the dread of what lies ahead producing blooms of sweat on your scalp. 
Finally, you emerge into a small clearing. There stands an old, weathered cabin.
 It appears abandoned and worn, its wooden walls covered in moss and ivy, and its windows cracked and shattered. The cabin looms like a forgotten relic of the past, isolated in the dense forest.
“Steve, I-I don’t think this is a good idea”. The air is heavy, and your teeth are chattering.
“Whatever happens,” Steve clicks his tongue and swallows hard, wetting his dry mouth. “Promise me you won’t stop filming.”
“Steve, are you insane?”
He turns to you with wide, earnest eyes, his voice dead calm under the circumstances, “Promise me?” 
You feel like you’ve officially lost him, whatever you attempt to say to change his mind would be useless. “I-I promise.”
Another blood-curdling yelp of agony pierces through the air.
“Eddie, I’m coming!” Steve huffs, motioning for you with a swing of his arm.
You both scramble cautiously onto the cabin’s creaking porch. You decide to zoom the lens in on Steve’s hand, reaching for the rusted doorknob, trying your hardest to focus. 
Dread seizes you, and you attempt to get through to him. “Steve, please, I think I do remember a way out of these woods, actually. What if we go back to the tent, wait till morning and try again?”
You manage to worm your way in between Steve and the door, blocking him now. Steve remains unyielding, shrugging you out of his way, twisting the door knob, and then pushing in the unlocked door. 
“Steve—” Your voice cracks. You want to find Eddie too but there’s something…wrong with this cabin, and you can’t find the words to tell Steve in a way that would make him give up the search.
But then he’s already through the open door, and you stay on his heels. The light from your camera dances over his flashlight beam into the broken floorboards and chipped paint of the interior of the cabin.  
The screaming has stopped, but now the dead silence invades your senses.  There’s no furniture, and the walls are bare. There is a smell lingering that hints to wood rot and black mold and rodent feces. You scan the camera around to show there’s a wide, empty room, and a hallway to the right.
“I-I can’t lose him,” Steve whispers, and your eyes are wet, heart hurting for what this trip has become. You can't let him go in there alone, no matter how much your instincts are telling you to grab him and run in the other direction. 
With each step you take, the cabin seems to expand into a labyrinth of winding corridors, narrow staircases, and hidden rooms. The walls are lined with faded, peeling wallpaper, and the air grows colder and more oppressive with each passing moment. 
But then Steve darts down the dark hallway and up a stairway and you try to follow, tripping on the first step in your hurry.
“He’s in here, I know it,” Steve gasps, and you can only catch his boots before he is already on the next floor.
Eddie’s cry sounds again, and this time there is no mistake— it’s coming from inside the house. 
Two floors up, there are empty rooms, but still no sign of Eddie.  Steve makes a point to direct your attention to the same type of child handprints you’d seen earlier.  “Did you catch these?” He asks pointing to make sure you got the shot.  
It looks like a dozen tiny children had dipped their hands in black paint and made palm impressions all over the wall over the ripped and stained wallpaper.
And then another scream, muffled this time, breaks the silence of your twin haggard breaths, but it is coming from somewhere deep in the cabin now—somewhere below.  You can almost feel the screams vibrate inside the soles of your feet.
The shout is followed by a heavy bang that shakes the walls. It makes you both jump, locking eyes with mirrored expressions of fear.
Without a word, Steve disappears back down the stairs and into the shadows of the second floor. There are no sounds picked up by audio other than Steve calling for Eddie, and you follow, taking two reluctant steps at a time. The weight of uncertainty makes your feet feel like lead, while the lightheadedness of your hunger makes your skull feel like a balloon, and you have to catch yourself on the wall to find your balance, stars crossing in your vision.  
The only sounds now are the heavy thuds of footfalls on the old stairs, and the drumbeat of your heart in your ears. There appear to be looming shapes all around you as you run after Steve, and the camera catches glimpses of things that are unidentifiable sliding along the walls.  
You hear Steve shout, “down here!” and then he is throwing another door open and it sounds like he’s bolting further down in the house, down into what must be a basement.
You think you catch a glimpse of a figure standing in the corner, but when you stumble back and point the camera light there, you realize it’s nothing.
“Steve?” You can’t get a visual on where he is now, but then you finally catch the open door and the glow from his flashlight beam. 
“I don’t feel good about this, Steve! Don’t go down there!”
But it’s too late.
You reach the top of the stairs.  “Steve, wait!”
“He’s down here somewhere, I know it!” Steve persists.
You take another look at him through the lens; he’s dropping down to the dirt floor and darting to the left, disappearing into the inky blackness.  The sound of Eddie’s voice has not been heard for a while, but Steve continues to call out for him, the tremor in his voice now catching with a sob. 
 Abruptly, you see Steve halt. 
He shouts up over his shoulder to you, “Did you hear that?”
The air is suddenly ice cold; freezing even.  You shrink against the doorframe and pan the camera to capture the front door behind you, noting that it is closed, and then quickly back to Steve.
Something in the basement startles him, and Steve drops his flashlight to the ground, smashing the light's glass in the process, making him curse before rushing back up to you, banking on the illumination from the camera light to help him find his way. 
Sprinting up the rickety steps, Steve is relieved to find that you are still intact, dutifully holding his camera and waiting for him. 
Your presence serves as his motivation to attempt to sprint up the stairs a little faster. However, something stops him in his tracks a few steps up.
Your heart is in your throat as you wait, but Steve pauses to look over his shoulder.  “I feel like there is something else down here.”
Your teeth are chattering, your words come out stuttered. “Hurry, Steve.  Let’s go!”
“Not without Eddie,” he says with a vigorous shake of his head, taking one more searching look into the seemingly empty basement.
The chill you feel is much more than skin deep as you pan the camera around the main room again to find it empty, all but for the shadows that appear to be crowding in. 
You can hear Steve make his way up two more steps, but before you can shine the light back down on him, there’s a loud THUD from somewhere below. The noise manages to sliver into the walls, sending an unnatural quake throughout the entire house.
 “Holy shit, what the fuck was that?” Steve jumps.
 His feet are moving before his brain can fully register what is happening. 
Steve never looks back again. 
He takes the next few steps and trips over himself in his haste, his glasses falling in the process.  He doesn’t even bother to bend over to retrieve them, he hears the glass crunch under his boot but can’t bring himself to care as the high volume of fear unravels him.
Adrenaline ignites his flight mode, and he’s practically crawling up the stairs with his hands now, scampering to get away from whatever or whoever did not want him down in the basement.
You stayed where you were, watching—filming. 
The sound of footsteps pricked your ears from the empty room behind you, prompting you to turn around to pan the camera again, shakily, but you were met with nothing but the decaying cabin walls. 
Your mind chooses not to register that the front door to the cabin is wide open now, the forest having its own personal view into the cabin, the branches silently watching.   
Steve has climbed closer now, stilling half way up, with his face drained of color, bracing his hand on the wall for balance.  He meets your eyes for some much needed reassurance. The documentarian in him wants to look back, to see what might be glaring up at him from the bottom of the stairs, but his fear won’t let him, reality truly forcing his forcade to crumble. 
Four steps, one hand holds the camera, your other one on the doorknob. 
Three steps, you begin to shift to the side, ready. He’s so close, he’s ready to leave, make it out, you can see the relief in his eyes to be free of that hole. 
You’re both quaking like brittle autumn leaves now, it feels like the blood in your veins might turn solid and crack, and the air from your lungs is coming out like smoke.  
You feel the need to pan the camera once more just in case, but Steve is so, so close, you decide to wait. 
Two steps and he is about to reach out for your hand. 
One step. 
You slam and seal the door shut, holding your weight against it, twisting it a certain way so that it locks. 
Steve’s breathless, you can hear it, he’s panting. 
However, he’s not standing beside you. 
The camera catches the ornate door knob as it twists and turns, capturing the sound of his heavy fist banging against the wood, and it’s vibrating into your palm as you press it there, feeding on your guilt. 
“Hey, open the door,” he tries the knob again, with more force this time. “What the fuck are you doing? I’m fucking locked in here!” He pounds his fist, desperation mounting.
“I’m begging you, open the door.” He tries to ram his shoulder through the frame, and it's a pointless move, but it does make the regret bloom fresh within your chest. 
"Let me out! Get me the fuck out of here! Don’t leave without me, please!” He sobs, his voice turning shrill.
You press your forehead against the door, angling the camera down so that it's filming the floor. The camera angle exposes a flicker of something, just a tiny glimpse of some type of black markings. Tears continuously stream down your cheeks, and you stammer out a feeble, desperate apology that is barely audible.
Steve stops his banging, he goes silent.
Summoning the last of your courage, you say once more, "Sorry, I'm—I..."
Another forceful kick lands on the wood, he’s had enough, the forceful boot punctuating Steve’s plea. "Open the goddamn door!"
You start to back up then, camera almost forgotten as it records the bottom half of the door.  Through labored breaths, you are issuing your apologies so softly, but loud enough for the audio to capture.  
There’s another loud thud, and the camera vibrates from the impact.
It’s followed shortly by the sound of a sickening crack from beyond the basement door.  Steve’s cry is cut short by another blunt thud, and you wince away, squeezing your eyes shut.  
You flipped the light from the camera off, thinking you’d shut down the entire device. Out of the darkness, the audio picks up what sounds like a hundred hissing whispers, speaking of unintelligible things, muddled amongst feet shuffling all around you.  
In the background, the next set of ears to listen to the tape will be able to make out the hollow thuds of a body being dragged down the stairs.  
To you, in the present, the sound prompts you to turn away from the closed door, your cheeks wet with tears. Your heart is heavy, lips dry and cracked, but you know that there must be sacrifices.
It’s all in order to maintain the balance. 
You really did the best you could for Steve: you got it all on film, you kept your promise.
“I’m sorry,” you say, one last time, and you mean it.
 There’s a rustling, another thud, and then the camera spins around as if it were thrown.
And then, nothing but static.  
Epilogue 
The bodies of Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, and their companion were never recovered from the forest near Burkittsville.  Most of the things from their campsite were recovered, along with a video camera and film that was handed over to authorities.  Contrary to what was found on the tape, there was no physical evidence of foul play anywhere on the property.  
Some experts speculate that you had something to do with their disappearances, others believe you met the same fate as your two companions.  When authorities went to question your friends and family, they found out that your life was a blank slate before you met Steve on the college campus, and your only living relative was a grandmother who lived in a nursing home not far from Burkittsville.
The police went to question her, but unfortunately she was in the grips of late-stage Alzheimer's. There were two photos of you in your grandmother’s room: one was from when you were a toddler.  In the other, you were maybe 7 or 8 years old, surrounded by trees in a forest, holding up some sort of stick doll made of twigs. If one was to have a closer look, they would spot an odd, isolated cabin amongst the woodland background.  
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thank you for reading!
reblogs are deeply cherished, and so are your thoughtful words, but please, please try not to share any spoilers in the comments or the Blair Witch will hunt you down 😘
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xxbimbobunnyxx · 4 months
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Darling Don’t Be Afraid
Y2K!Steve Harrington x MallGoth!Reader
Summary: The first time Steve tells you he loves you he’s extremely nervous that it’s too soon, you reassure him that you feel the same. Regardless of time. Wk:682 just a lil blurby.
Warnings: Not many for once. Fluff, nervous love sick Steve, love sick reader, Soulmates “when you know you know” kind of vibe, allusions to sex but not actual smut. 18+MDNI
A/N: This blurb is part of me and @reidsbtch’s Y2K Opposties Attract AU. Here you can find the links to the masterlists for my Y2K Steve and her Y2K Eddie. Divider used is by @firefly-graphics.
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The first time Steve told you he loved you, you had only known each other for a few weeks. Which sounds crazy but you were pretty sure you loved him after that first date he took you on. He took you to see Queen Of The Damned, but he told you to be ready early because he had a surprise for you. He told you that a movie is normally a fine first date in his opinion, but with you he didn’t want to be in a dark theater where he couldn’t see or talk to you. He wanted to get to know you. So he took you to the cemetery, where he surprised you with a nice picnic. It was so thoughtful this beautiful preppy boy clad in his Abercrombie jeans brought you to a cemetery and a vampire movie for a first date.
You felt like your heart was going to burst that entire day and everyday since then. He is the most kind and caring boyfriend. He dotes on you even when you insist he doesn’t need to, he kisses you like his life depends on it, fucks you like an animal. He is all around perfect, how could you not love him? So just two weeks into knowing each other, when Steve told you he loved you, you were over the moon.
You were in his kitchen making dinner together, not unlike most nights since you met. You practically hadn’t left his house since the first night you stayed there, half of your belongings now resided there at this point. You were wearing Steve’s oversized long sleeve polo, and he was in nothing but a grey pair on sweatpants that hung low on his hips. He was stirring the pasta sauce and you were standing next to him, singing Korn into a wooden spatula, and he just thought you were so cute like this. Messy hair, no make up, wearing his shirt that contrasted your tattooed skin and black skull socks. He loved you.
“I love you.” He blurted it out before he could talk himself out of it and when he looked over at you, jaw hanging open, your eyes wide, the spatula now hanging at your side he almost wished he hesitated. He knows it’s soon, he knows you haven’t know each other long, but he also knows he loves you regardless.
“You do?” Your voice came out a quiet squeak.
“Yeah, I do, I know it’s early and I might be crazy for saying it and you totally don’t have to say it back right now you just looked so cute and-“
“STEVE!” You cut him off, cupping his face in your hands so he would look at you. “I love you too.”
“You… do? You don’t think it’s like crazy? You’re not just saying it because you feel bad? Because you really don’t have to say it if you’re not ready I promise it’s-“
“Steve, Baby, do I think it’s crazy? Maybe a little. Does that change the fact that I fucking love you? Not even in the slightest.”
Your thumbs caressed his cheeks while you looked up at him like he hung the moon and Steve felt like his heart was going to explode. He took your face in his own hands and gave you one of those world altering kisses. He dragged you to his bedroom and made love to you like he never has before. You’ve fucked countless times, and even had soft gentle sex a few of them, but this was different. It was slow and sensual and sweet, each touch and kiss filled with more meaning than it had in the past, countless confessions of love and sweet nothings whispered in each other's ears. He took his time with you, kissing every inch of your body, worshiping you, and you did the same for him. Steve loved you, and you loved him. It felt like the beginning of something beautiful.
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northlt · 24 days
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CHAPTER ONE OF THE CEMETERY BOYS JEGULUS AU
IVE NEVER DONE A FULL LENGTH FANFICTION SO BEAR WITH ME
ITS GONNA BE GAY AND ITS GONNA BE NICE I HOPE
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xjustakay · 8 months
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⚞ jegulus microfics masterlist ⚟
{ the full tag } *= nsfw
⚞ random ⚟
inside* — bottom James taking care of you* — daddy James, brat Regulus needy* — james desperate for something in his mouth
⚞ july (2023) prompts ⚟
kitchen — Regulus + drunk!James inspire — the hickeys microfic transform — late night superhero chats crown — prince Reg, stable boy James ignite — pro quidditch boyfriends (ft. Rosekiller) silver — Regulus finds something he shouldn't {pt.1} climb — Jegulus wedding {pt.2} champagne — Sirius finds out at brunch final — Jegulus dads 1; Harry's birthday
⚞ august (2023) prompts ⚟
swear* — James being sooo good constant — emo little love confession reputation — assassin Regulus {pt.1} sweet — Jegulus dads 2; family outing pain — an unexpected morning burn* — wartime Jegulus sneaking around stimulate — cheeky and domestic boyfriends tattoo* — Reg gets a surprise for James impulse — assassin Regulus {pt.2} rain — Jegulus dads 3; playing outside in the rain home — college/uni au boyfriends jealous — jealous & mildly violent bbg James snow cone — Jegulus dads 4; ice cream truck shenanigans hockey — figure skater Regulus/hockey player James {pt.1} attention — needy boyfriend Regulus book* — James distracts Regulus from reading stag — forbidden forest mishaps unexpected — a soft piano moment fresh start — coffee shop au ft. firefighter James {pt.1} birthmark* — Regulus takes care of James after a long day hallway — sweet moments alone vulnerable* — James gives Regulus needed stress relief stomachache* — quick excuses 101 with Regulus skirt — just banter & sweetness gold — firefighter james episode 2: being a menace {pt.2} crow — deep pillow talk with Jegulus shade — fame au; secret moments {pt.1} injury + walk — Jegulus dads 5; cheering Harry up sleep — soft sleepover chats takeout — jealous James ft. slightly meddling Wolfstar
⚞ september (2023) prompts ⚟
school — uni/college au (mentioned sexual content) piercing* — Regulus comes home with a new surprise early* — shower shenanigans with Jegulus colorful — fame au; drunk james facetime calls {pt.2} carry — wedding night sweetness pleasure* — painting the walls and other activities vision — fame au; famous bf’s on premiere night {pt.3} want — figure skater Regulus/hockey player James {pt.2}
⚞ october (2023) prompts ⚟
cemetery — playing arrogant games (cw: murder, blood) lantern — firefighter james vs. his beef with the month of october {pt.3} zombie — scare maze shenanigans (mild sexual content) scream — fame au; ‘you could have been in scream?’ edition {pt.4} eerie — literal haunted house date: 0/10, james would not recommend pumpkin — Jegulus dads 6; family pumpkin carving silliness party — halloween party flirting between a nightmare and a zombie scared — firefighter james & “firefighter” regulus {pt.4}
⚞ december (2023) prompts ⚟
snow — firefighter james & his grumpy boyfriend ft. an annoying fire alarm {pt.5}
⚞ january (2024) prompts ⚟
switch* — inappropriate secret activities at the brunch table withdrawal — fame au; cranky movie star missing his bf {pt.5} converse — Jegulus dads 7; going through Harry’s baby stuff tough — assassin Regulus {pt.3} cry — Jegulus dads 8; getting in trouble at school dinner — Jegulus dads 9; fighting off bad dreams
⚞ february (2024) prompts ⚟
tear — college/uni au; boyfriend distractions in the library
⚞ march (2024) prompts ⚟
pool — regulus’ half-drunk staring to getting flirted with pipeline sugar — Jegulus dads 10; sugar high with a five year old birthday — Jegulus dads 11; birthday morning wake up with waffles
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mimi-croissant · 1 year
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So I did a thing! Behold, Marigold Weaver
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see-arcane · 4 days
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Blood of My Blood: Domestic
For those keeping tabs on the Blood of My Blood AU, this is currently just a fanfiction of that fanfiction. Also a doorstopper. Only @ibrithir-was-here can call whether this massive sucker is canon or not. But it's out of my head now and I can ice my hand.
Summary: A portrait of a special night for the self-appointed patriarch of Castle Dracula. One of strange intimacies, stranger revelations, and secrets hidden in stone and cemetery earth.
Warning: This contains mature material in the way of profanity, attempted assault, violence, and very dubious consent.
Happy reading.
His first attempt was also his last.
After his good friend had sold himself, after the baffling enigma of the pregnancy, after the boy, child of three bloodlines, was upright enough to not be an anchor in the arms of his parents. After all this, he made his attempt.
Months had crawled past the obvious point of action. Almost a year. Had the caravan with their burden of wagons been there, he knew he would have to laugh along with questions as to how he could hold off so long. She had chosen the airiest of her departed Sisters’ attire to glide in, her face was voluptuous in its venom, and she could not even speak aloud! A blessing, they would laugh, more so for being the spoils of war.
A warlord’s right. Yes, yes, it was so.
Had he a mirror and a reflection to find in it, he would have mocked it. Why this hesitation over a collared pet? Let her bite, let her hiss—her Sisters had done that and worse in their centuries—it would come to the same conclusion. Her will was his property as much as her veins, her teeth, her flesh. What was wanted could be had at the first impulse. Now the impulse was here. Enough of one, at least.
Already took her woman in Whitby. Her groom offered himself on a silver plate. May as well.
He frowned to himself. What was that? ‘May as well?’ As though it were a chore to get on with. He shook his head and wasted another quarter of an hour pretending to care about a choice of oil for the job.
Job?
A curse caught under his tongue and he twisted a coil of hair before his eyes. Black as tar. Black as hers. No, he couldn’t blame this dawdling on a waning prime. Such a thing was hardly a hindrance but a few summers ago. Not with his dear friend who had come willingly, fled fearfully, and slunk so docilely back into his arms.
Perhaps that was it. It was hardly the same affair without Jonathan himself in the scene. Was there any way to make him watch? If he was drained enough, he could be flung back from the bed like a child should he scramble to intervene. Or they could dust off one of the dungeons and drag in a mattress. Or, while the spouses were mid-tryst, the woman could be slipped on like a skin at his will, and Jonathan could look up to find his Master’s eyes in her skull, his grin in her lips…
For he would know. If not in that exact instant, then when their Master used the whole of the woman as his personal apparatus. Such games had been played before, once upon a time. Back when his Loves had excited anything from him. The idea held the same potential as the tableau of the three of them as a chain of warming skin, playing as adults do once children were tucked away in their dreaming. A notion that nettled something giddy awake in him.
Finally.
This time he cursed aloud and wished there was something at hand to break.
No, no, it wouldn’t do to herd them all into such games ahead of the rightful order of things. He was Count. He was Master. He was owed his claim. The Bridegroom had that particular flag planted in him years ago. Now for the Bride.
…The baptism was near enough, no? You claimed her that night in October. You collected in November. You told her yourself after your little indulgence that there was nothing you truly wanted of her. All that was wanted was the ownership of her, which you have. She is beaten. Can that not be enough?
On second thought, he no longer wished for a reflection. He wanted a doppelgänger whose throat he could wring like a chicken’s. Such whining! Such foot-dragging laxness! The ghosts of a thousand grumbling wives seemed to reach out as one to sneer at him. They had gone into their grim arrangements with less fuss than he put up now.
And why is that?
In lieu of answering himself, he pocketed a bottle at random and tore out of the room to find her. There was no need to fret over Jonathan or the boy. Both were out in the courtyard, enjoying the late spring night. Doting, Jonathan had brought home chalk for the child to scratch at the flagstones with. New words and prancing little figures. A cloying scene he was happy to leave them to.
To his surprise, the woman had left them to it as well. She was nowhere to be seen in the great moonlit square.
Instead, he found her at one of the furthest ends of the castle. Skulking around the chambers that had ostensibly belonged to her Sisters between daylit drowses. In all her time here, he had yet to see her paw over the littered jewelry and gowns left behind. Once or twice he had borrowed her eyes and seen her glance dully at the English books. Relics of the time when Castle Dracula had turned into a grammar school in preparation for a time of travel that would now never come for their lot. Beside these were glimpses of the trio’s pastimes. Unfinished paintings, a dust-caked violin, a frayed bit of tapestry with its threaded demons left half-made in Hell. Nothing had interested her bar the change of clothes.
Again, he thought of what he would have to grin along with the next time Old Danil and his men were beckoned. Did he tell them he had ordered her into the flimsy falls of silk and sheer? Or would it be better to tell the truth, that she slipped them on herself? The latter might earn some words of congratulation. They did not have to know she wore it for her husband and herself; for where had she to go out smothered in layers for strangers? What difference was there now between a nightgown and the full raiment of human decorum her useless career in etiquette had primed her for? What, beyond the allowance or removal of comfort?
Throw one of the heavier dresses at her, the internal voice tried to chuckle. Dress and shawl and cloak and all. Bury her in it. Ha. Ha.
The humor of the thought was so shallow as to be vapor. Yet he truly would prefer that she go about in the same elaborate cover as her Sisters. Her Sisters, who had chosen the dresses themselves from their fashion plates. Her Sisters, who he had foisted the scantier costumes on in younger centuries, back when they’d interested him. What was this in interest’s place now?
Later. He would answer his own nonsensical queries later. For now, conquest and consummation. He craned his head over his shoulder, eyeing the distant windows over the courtyard—
How long must he play nanny out there?
—before forcing himself to stroll rather than storm up to the room she hid in. She didn’t hide all that well, of course. There was no point when he could follow the thread between them or yank her to him with a tug. Most conveniently, she had chosen an area clotted with bedchambers for her den.
Less conveniently, she had let herself into a room he had forbidden her Sisters from on pain of punishment. Had he ever warned her against it? It did not matter, naturally, for he had not given her permission, but he wondered. He sighed. Pandora will always open what she’s not meant to. Such a pair, his Harkers.
He peeked through her senses and into the room as his stroll turned into a quicker stalk. Relief hit him first upon seeing that the space was unmarred. No more than he had left it, anyway. He had moved out the broken or burnt furnishings, leaving only bed, wardrobe, and portrait behind. The latter was the only one left of that likeness and he preferred to have it around for the occasional glare. Any further intrusion was cut short when her line of sight flicked down.
His mind snapped back into itself with a flinch. That it was a flinch made him want to laugh and strike himself at the same time. As if he had not seen flashes of her bare hide before!
When she is with him. When her skin is an inch from being a costume.
Even so. He had seen it all before. Worlds more with her Sisters. What a child he had become to grow skittish at seeing the woman below, gasp, a bit of décolletage. The gawping shame of the Englishmen had infected him on his single visit. He grinned it away. And why not?
She was out of tonight’s white dress and donning something else. He’d caught a glimpse of rich black. Odd, for he recalled nothing but heaps of white and red in the Sisters’ wardrobe. Blood on snow. He must have gotten them a splash of night to go with it once upon a time and forgotten. Ah, well. She would not have it on long.
He did not waste the gesture of a knock. Jonathan might bristle at the sound, his limited senses allowing him to occasionally be taken by surprise. Not so here. He let himself into the room and settled for clicking it firmly behind him. And, if only for punctuation, bolted the lock.
She did not move from her place behind the folding screen, only paused to slide the garnets of her eyes to him. A withering thing that might have stopped a mortal intruder’s heart. It pleased him to see.
It confused him when the glare caught on the brandished oil and, rather than flare in rage or horror, simply rolled away from the sight of it and him. She resumed her fumbling behind the screen, either shedding or fastening. An unplanned silence unfolded as he kept his back to the door and she kept her back to him. The oil sloshed in its bottle as he turned it.
Well?
The word fell in his head like a jabbing hand against a stuttering understudy on the stage.
“Well,” he bit back, “you take me by surprise. I had thought there would be more theatrics when we came to this.”
I have not come to this. Given even an atom of free will, I shall certainly not come to you.
He thought of and discarded a particularly juvenile rebuttal. It was something he might have reserved for Jonathan, but it felt cold and unctuous in trying to fling it at her. At least to say it out loud. He flicked it at her like a psychic worm instead. Another roll of the garnets.
Aloud, “You have only as much will as my will allows.”
So you love to remind us. Which is why the larger share of surprise is my own. You are so adamant in your role as Master of the Castle that even you cannot avoid bowing and scraping to it.
The oil froze mid-twist in his fingers.
“You have a gift for talking fluent nonsense. No doubt something you took from the Dutchman.” His gaze leapt to the crescent scar that still blazed in echo of the Eucharist. “Prior to the parting blessing, I expect.” Her ruddy lip curled like a warning wolf’s. His own curled back in delight. Better, better. “Do you think it would be him or the fawning doctor who swooned more at the state of you? We know already the lordling and the American would simply have killed you outright, but the supposed men of medicine would have a sermon apiece to wail out before grabbing the saw and stake.” He feigned a pondering stance. “I believe, if we think in volume of wasted breath, it would be the Dutchman who languished more. But his pet student would likely have an actual point to it, being so wrapped up in the effort to cry demon while also struggling not to play with his tool at the same time. His blade as well.”
Are you four-hundred or fourteen?
There was less ire than annoyance in the words. The mental equivalent of shooing a fly. More fabric shifted. She had gone through the formality of lighting a lamp for the room rather than trusting her vision alone. Its glow revealed the shadow puppet of her silhouette in the screen. Yes, she was dressing. But there was no bell of a dress as yet. Not even a chemise.
He withheld a sulk. Half the fun of the act was the prelude and half the fun in that was the peeling away of layers or circumventing them entirely. There was a certain pleasure in opening and shedding the frail shields of an ensemble—he admitted to some strange internal leap that equated it with the old work of skinning and dressing one’s kill in the forest—and almost as much in proving those shields protected nothing. A hand slipped under a hem was child’s play. Working that and other anatomy into place when making a mist of himself was a unique treat.
Had Jonathan told her so yet? If so, he likely needn’t have bothered. Not when such memories might be dropped neatly in her head as she paced and hissed. At last, she could experience it firsthand!
Ha. Ha.
The oil was fidgeted with again.
I cannot imagine this was the ‘charm’ you dragged out for her.
Her?
Ah.
Unbidden, his head craned to face the faded portrait. The figure in it was now all but a ghost on the canvas. A representation not too many brushstrokes removed from how she had been in life. Considering her appearance in the mausoleum, it remained an ironically perfect likeness.
A maiden of snow, alive and dead, with the artist’s dancing ice seeming to radiate from her rather than the backdrop of a leaden sky. Behind her loomed the Mountain where they had learned so many Lessons and taken their parting forms. Strigoi had held no appeal for her, even with its many gifts. Instead she’d chased the hardy vourdalak with its wan corpse-skin and its eternal voracious passions. Chased it and wore more names through the ages than even he had invented to wear the guise of his own descendants.
She who had spread love like a disease until settling on her resting place in 1801. Her precious little nothing-village, all turned. All free from mortal ills. All asleep and dreaming into each other in their graves. Content to be confined. With love.
For them.
Doting fool of a Countess.
How much a fool, really? She burned from the lightning. She once suffered the stake to her heart, the blade through her throat. And then she was up again. Unmarred and unbothered without a drop of blood upon her tongue. Bloodless and unbound to you, she stood whole after you’d shooed Jonathan’s idiot predecessor on his way. She would not have a scar from a spade still on her brow.
 Her painted eyes found his as he mulled this. That impossible glacial blue. His gaze shied from it and trailed down the flax fall of her hair, braided away to show the throat where his kiss ought to have gone. Up again to her lips. The only point of color that blazed on her, turned down in perpetual sorrow. This or disappointment.
All this woolgathering passed in an instant. He shrugged out of it with his own dismissing glance.
“There is a difference between you and her. One is maiden of noble blood, who was once worthy of courtship. The other is a trophy long overdue to be enjoyed.”
Where is she?
In a graveyard in a pauper’s village that dragged her down like a colony of filthy feeble vermin.
“Not here. If you wish to play comparison to my women of old, it should please you to know that none are of your particular measure. None of my bedmates thus far have been at once the downed enemy and the stolen wife. It—,”
In the painting.
As if he had not spoken. It was not even the pitch of one trying to distract from the topic. He followed her stare back to the portrait and its grim setting. The Mountain. An obsidian peak that seemed at once a mouth and an eye over her fair shoulders.
That peak isn’t one in this range.
Ah, fishing. The Dutchman had mentioned the Scholomance, he recalled. Tricky thing. But not by enough.
“Says the Englishwoman.” He clicked his tongue. “You know nothing of the land that holds you. You shall not for very long yet. What good fortune you have, you and your clever mind, to now have so much time in which to learn. I think by the end of the next century you shall know a third of the crags in the Carpathians. Maybe half!”
At the rate you dawdle, it will take twice as long before you get around to the same epiphany I have had to reconcile with since I first climbed out of the box. The same revelation that has been sitting out in the open, free for your voyeurism to trip over at any opportunity, only for you to go on strutting and preening at yourself. As though you still had a reflection to impress.
She had ceased dressing behind the screen. The outline of her did show the fall of a cloak, but still no dress. He found he did not much care. Not for her choice of attire or her tone.
“Do forgive me then. As you are suddenly consort and counsel, please, do enlighten me. What grand epiphany am I overlooking?” Then, in a moment of inspiration, he capped with, “Feel free to lecture between positions.”
Finally, a wave of disgust radiated from her. Hate. Wrath. Check, check, check. But buried under it all was an uninterrupted core of exasperation. Even disbelief. As if she had handed him an apple and he’d declared it was a grape. Indeed, though he couldn’t know it, she was kneading at her brow the way she had in private when a particularly dense group of girls was foisted on her to teach. There was a very clear and grousing sensation from her that spoke of desire for the ability to enjoy liquor again.
A lecture? Fine. You do so love hearing yourself talk.
Before he could grasp her meaning, she shoved the screen aside. Everything in him crashed against a stone wall as he recognized her ensemble.
You never brought them anything in black, piped the inane inner voice.
She wore the proof head to toe. If only because she was wearing one of his own suits. Being almost as long-boned as Jonathan, it needed only a few folds of the cuffs to fit and his stolen cloak masked whatever else begged for tailoring. On the whole it was…it was like…
Ah, see? You do still have a reflection.
His mind scrambled in something near to panic for salvation. He dug up memories of his Loves in nights long gone, when he had let one or another wrap herself in one of his capes in lieu of cover. That had carried some fine thrill once. But the fresher, the brighter thought, was of Jonathan in their private summer.
Back when his dear friend found his few English pieces disappearing one after the other until his courteous host began slipping his own clothes into the wardrobe. How well they’d suited him then. Better still today, when the rules of the house dictated he peel away the set of modern tailoring he kept for the town errands and sheathed himself in his Master’s uniform. White. Red. Black.
Once, in an older age, the red was swapped for blue. The death shades of necrosis, of walking winter. Their velvet was worn with the ease of cold Morena awaiting her yearly demise at the birth of spring.
He clung to all of these connections for a blink before the overwhelming memory tipped them over. A memory made precious only by its rarity in the murky sea of his human recollection rather than sentiment. Chiefly because it was one of the first times he began seriously considering murdering his brother. His little brother, who had snuck into his quarters, shrugged on his best raiment, and laughed as he was caught en route to some infantile play at the daughter of their father’s guest. At her.
This was not that. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, of course it wasn’t, he should be flattered, should be enticed, should be—
“You thieving bitch.”
If I am such, it is only because you set such a fine example in both the action and the role, O Kin of my Kin. On top of all the rest of your aggravations, you have even soured the daydream I once had of proving my former students wrong. My poor girls who swore up and down that to have siblings was a curse. I almost had a brother in spirit, once. It was a nice thing of sentiment and foam. But now here you are, smashing the fantasy and proving the girls right all along. What have you done since entering my life but steal what is rightfully Mine?
Something horrid was curdling in his stomach. A sensation he’d thought was outgrown centuries ago. What was this? What was this? In answer, a scrap of inspiration drifted to him. He nailed up a grin.
“Oh dear,” through teeth clamped so tight the words had to squeeze through, “you do take our boy’s idle talk too seriously. If dark hair and rosy eyes were all it took to make one a relative—,”
Three years. Three years ago, my son made that guess of brother and sister. You did laugh then. Laughed as if you might choke. But you have remembered it too.
“Hardly an effort when I can recall the last four centuries.” More or less.
And the last four years, no doubt. Years in which the nearest you have willingly gotten to me are when we lay down in our boxes or when you want to turn my Jonathan’s head.
 “Our Jonathan.”
So you delude yourself. Just as you thought Lucy was yours. Just as you think to welcome yourself to all that is Mine.
“Have we not gone over this Lesson before? Does it not follow that if one owns a dog, they own the creature’s toys? Its pups?”
She had been resting her hand atop the folding screen. The hand snapped shut and sent fragments flying. A reflex that he himself had needed to train himself out of lest he shatter or crush every bauble under his roof. For her part, she seemed not to notice the runnels of blood escaping the healing palm.
“Such a temper,” he chided. “Shall I kiss it better?”
Immediate bile rippled into him at the words.
Yet the bile did not belong to her.
Shall you?
She flapped her hand at him, streaked with dark coagulation. Her claws had grown out and the knuckles bunched up into a talon. The nails holding up his grin loosened.
Ah, but that is just the hand! Surely this is what you want?
As he watched, her face changed. Muscle and bone shifted like clay until a bestial deformation replaced the sharp beauty. A product of his own form of vampirism. While those he conscripted could not assume an animal’s full form, his efforts in the Scholomance bled down into them, filtered into countenances that overtook in a rage. Here was rigid and stretched flesh, a bristling forest of fangs in a beartrap maw, the huge and hating pits of the eyes. A bat’s face stretched into grotesquerie.
Now let us get on with the craved rendezvous! Come, where is my kiss? This is what you came for! What you have, with so much anticipation, withheld yourself from all these days and weeks and months and years! Delayed gratification must be the sole reason, no other.
Then, in a tone that did not carry her soul’s voice, but another’s he had known all his life, whispering up from his own mind:
Is it not so?
In asking, she had taken a step forward.
The back of his heel struck the locked door as he started back.
Enough.
He had initially thought to order her to the bed. His Loves of the past had needed the Lesson. An example as to how strong the chain their Master held was, as much as the rightful collection of that treasure that rests between a maiden’s legs no matter their surplus or absence of appeal in other regards. Now he had no patience for such puppet strings. His spare hand took her by her cravat and shirtfront—
Mine, these are MINE—
—and stopped just short of taking her by the neck as he had done to soldiers and subordinates in ages past. That much would be injury. And he did recall the laughable conditions his dear friend had laid out. So careful, his Jonathan. In all but his choice of spouses.
He thrust the latter on the postered bed along with himself, pinning her the way the wolves wrestled over each other to get at the throat. Before she could get tooth or claw into him, he brought down an anvil of his will onto hers.
“Take off that face. Now.”
The monstrous face twitched, half-smoothed.
You are squeamish over such a thing? I had not realized you were so delicate!
Her mouth, still jutting with spire teeth, managed to grin.
I wore the whole of that face before Jonathan once. Brandished it like Medusa’s head. The proof under the husk that passes for subsumed humanity. I wanted him. I want him. He was, he is, he shall ever be Mine. But the Vampire is made only of extremes. In that mood, I was at the extreme of self-loathing for what I had reduced his wife to. For the thing I had allowed myself to be. Yes, you were the infection. Yes, the others warned me against taking my own life even as I cozened them to take it in my stead. So quick they were, seeing none of my terror at their quickness, the same mercy wielded for my Lucy. They made their killing oath while Jonathan swore his own.
“He did. He killed to see you whored rather than dead. Such is the loving loyal gallantry of our—,”
We both know I lied when I baited him with tales of old. When I spoke of the men who would kill their womenfolk to save them the indignity of the enemy’s touch. A clumsy hook. One I only half-believed. But I wanted him to have an out, you see. We have known each other to the soul for almost half our lives. Just as he permitted me to know what was not written in the diary. Those gaps.
Her face hardened again, the abominable ridges stretching into a demon’s mask.
It was all but code. Something I could say before the others. And while I do not doubt he feared a grain of truth in that requisite threat—of this pantomime we are limping through now—the reality was always there at the top. No matter how I might have begged, might have entreated, bribed, or gnashed my teeth.
Her fangs clicked together once. Hard.
For all that you took me for my brain, for my senses, for the petty vengeance over your spoiled earth, for the cliché of a hundred other despots who prey upon a woman to attack her men, these were mere filigree. You took me to take him. Is it not so?
“Fix. Your. Face.”
Her face resumed smoothing…slowly. All the while her mind ran like a broken spigot.
Yes, of course it was. It did work out so prettily for you in the end. Not because of the blood on his hands and mine, not even because of our child. It has happened because I was as great a coward as you. You, who ran from my Jonathan when you saw he meant to cleave you in a crowded street. You, who fled back to this roost when the first wrinkle came into your plans after centuries of sitting idle on your laurels. And I? I spoke aloud of suicide before them all. Baiting their worry, their oath.
‘No no, Madam Mina, it is too soon to think such things! And worse, risks rising as the Un-Dead!’
Ha. Ha.
I did not do as Jonathan had, who makes his resolutions in silence. He held out as long as he was able, until the only option was escape or undeath. At that point he trusted himself to be broken on the cliff or torn by the wolves rather than risk eternity with the Sisters, waiting for you to come back and collect. A death that would have ruined him past the point that vampirism, still a mystery then, could have saved him. All for the chance to come back to me. Me, now a thing almost as unworthy as you, who clung to hope of life without the excuse of ignorance.
Obviously I could have ended it before he ever set foot on your mountains again. I could have burned. I could have shattered myself after a long fall. I could have found a dozen ways to destroy myself past your intended use for me. And I didn’t. I was not even a Vampire by more than an ounce, yet there I was. Shying from my own destruction when it could have saved them all—when it could have stopped him from putting himself on your altar.
And because I shied, because I lived to follow the thread you left behind, this is where we are.
He is Mine. Our child is Mine. But because you hold my chain—this reason and no other—you can imagine they are yours. That he is yours. So I showed my Jonathan what was left of his wife. The monster he sold himself to Hell for, a thing not worth the love he gave or being mother to the son they’d made, a thing who would lose hold of her martyr-mood soon, so go, Love, go and take our boy, run from the Pit.
Instead, he kissed me.
And to this night he stays and plays your games, does your work, keeps the dust from gathering on your child-brain. For me. For our son. But any reason would have done it for you, wouldn’t it? Any lure or collar. Anyone you knew had hold of his heart. You’d have turned his grandmother if that was what it took.
Her face was at last reset. Still his dead stomach did not settle.
If it were half a millennium ago, all of us wearing the roles we are in spirit, you really would have held a knife to your own kin if it meant—
A flash.
Little brother, teeth bare in glee, talking of how sad a state it was to have the younger son find his bride first.
‘Do not fret, you have your books and your bloodshed and your future under the Mountain to keep you busy! Ah, you will be missed. Perhaps even by her, tender thing that she is. You have addled her, Brother, with your talk of the Powers under the Earth. A shame to draw along some poor maiden with your occult fairy stories, wasting her canniness on war and drivel. But her interest will pass and I shall take care of her while you go try not to die to your Devil’s Lessons. Best of luck.’
A lie, of course. It had to be a lie. He was eldest, he was the ruler-to-be, Weathermaker, rider of the Dragon, Dracula, of course their father would promise her to him. Union would come into it, the wisdom of the move was undeniable, but more, it was his right. It was his due.
It was her.
Under the titles and the trades and, yes, even the teasing thought that she too wished to brave the Mountain, to grasp its Lessons and bring home its gifts to guard those she loved, whatever the cost.
To the enemy or to her. Prepared for any altar, in marriage or blood. Pliant as the snow, cutting as the ice. The chill of her like the breaking of fever. An impeccable spur to the mind, forever turning me towards joy as she parried wrath with her tongue or talent; occasionally in unison. Even in fear, in our play, recognizing the monster before I ever ceased to be a man, she kept herself a gag in my teeth. Oh, I was no fool, Countess. How many lives were spared because you blocked my way in word and flesh? The idiot chattel will never know.
You did love me once. When our hearts beat with our own blood. When we bowed our heads under the Mountain. When we crawled from it, half-mad, damned in our own directions, cold hands clinging together as revenants of different breeds. Yes, I think you must have loved me. Why else would you think to chase the form of your homeland’s vourdalak? I joked that you did not trust me and my kiss.
We laughed and I was not bitter. You had chosen Love and I had chosen Conquest and so I thought I had you forever. Vourdalaks can only Love or Hate. And you loved. And I loved. And it was well. Until it wasn’t. Until the coin of extremes flipped in you, seeing all that I had become. Love to Hate in a single night. I could not hold you when my chains were not in your soul. I could not break you when your dead flesh shrugged every wound. I could only heal from the mauling you left me with, losing you in the fall of hail and sleet. Gone to throw yourself to mortal maggots. A quest that took you to the rotting village and its endearing diseased cattle, weeping for fear of loss of each other.
The cattle who you chose to turn and dream with in the dirt.
Like you nearly chose…
Thunder snarled outside.
Under him, the woman bared her teeth in a grin he would swear he had seen elsewhere. In a looking glass or on the whelp he called a brother?
Enough!
He dropped himself upon her, willing her mouth to pucker and part for him. Doing so, he thought wildly of sieged buildings, of broken windows, of smashed doors, of barriers sundered, wood, glass, stone, iron, that was all, that was all, he would break in and be gone and—and—
His eyes were closed. Why?
You know why.
Something was wrong. Her lips were there, but also not. It was another’s mouth, heavy and coarse with hair. He opened his eyes.
And saw himself.
Himself, seen and felt through her senses, now crouched and crushing his own face with graceless gnawing.  
Shall I turn you over first? We can oil a stake if you’re so eager to bow for yourself.
So saying, she pressed her knee up between his legs.
He threw himself away from her as if she’d turned to sewage. A ball of coagulation and bile even managed to lurch up his throat. It coughed out of him with a retch, splattering on the faded rug. Thunder was joined by lines of lightning. 
“Disgusting witch!”
I take after my kin.
He spat again. The taste of her was the taste of himself. And, as though she were somehow in his head despite the burning wall he’d laid between them:
We are monsters, both of us, and neither has a preference for themselves. A point you have been trying not to know as you fought to convince yourself that you wanted anything more out of me than a sentient shackle to keep on my husband. This, when you once so happily crowed about my cleverness and fate as a companion-to-be. How much was in earnest versus mere theatre for me to pass on? Do you even know?
“Caveat emptor. Is that your supposed Lesson here?”
I am a teacher by trade and I would claim such a Lesson if it were mine. But it isn’t. I am merely trying to spare us all the collateral of your pride.
She twisted herself on the bed until she sat straight and crisp in her stolen garb, the pose of a queen on an invisible throne.
Order her on the ground. Have her bay like a jackal on hands and knees, lick the bile from the rug, claw off her own damned face—
What do you think would happen after he found out, O Lord of the Castle? You would have kept to the letter of the agreement, I’m sure. I would not have bled, I would wear no injury. If you were feeling especially needy you might have had me mouth mute words of worship. But after? What of him?
“What of him, witch?”
There wasn’t as much vitriol in the words as he wished. It was too fair a question. One he had only turned over briefly that evening as he resolved to get on with this belated task.
Task. That really is the word for it. Was the word.
In his brisk consideration of the aftermath to the afterglow, he had thought of Jonathan’s face. The revelation there. Not merely of despair and impotent fury, but the far end of acceptance. Acknowledgment of what could be done to his woman—their woman—on an impulse. A single Lesson for his friend on what could and would be done if he thought himself unburdened enough to leave them, to cut his leash and run before the period of agreed respite ran out. Twenty years. That was the most there would be. Enough for the boy to reach his prime without taking a life.
Jonathan, their precious fountain, their boy’s nursemaid. The gag in all their mouths to play at penance while shielding the mountain people from their thirst. A lesser soul would have broken a year after the child’s birth. Broken and run, with or without the babe. Without the wife-thing he had damned himself for. But love held him pinned in delicious Purgatory between life and death, not merely chained, but a willing servant. Willing in so many ways.
Yes, Sir, of course, Sir, if Sir pleases. That professional veil that let him hide in the veneer of mere servitude. A series of duties performed for a client.
Still so shy, his Jonathan.
Less than twenty years left of this charade. And then?
The white down of the hair, the marble throat, spectral blue bruised to violet to red to bed and now there is no leaving, no running, never again, I will watch you drink from the weeping cattle whose names and pity you will have learned after twenty years, oh yes, you will gorge yourself, we will all indulge, and you will feed yourself back and back to now, to here, to youth, to my friend, my Jonathan, my Bri—
It was a winter night when she’d left. When they’d warred. Lightning and ice. He had tried to goad as much as wrestle her. Hanging the lives of thousands of bleating human sheep over her head. A slaughter to paint the continent red in her absence. Had she been human, perhaps this would have worked. But the creature in her place was only Love or Hate. It was this very threat and a thousand other proofs of his monstrosity before it that had locked her into the latter.
Hate. Hate.
It had struck him deeper than the ice that speared him like a great thrashing insect. Boulders of hail had fallen that same night, hammering the edges of his castle into crumbling stone and mortar. He had driven his hand through her chest and twisted out her heart. In retaliation, she had slapped him. The print of her hand went black with frostbite. Eating. Cracking. Shards of his face breaking as his castle broke. So much blood it had taken to mend!
But he had not thought of it then. Only of the blinding black-white of the storms, of how even his winds could not hold her as she cut back and away from him. A ghost in the snow. Gone.
Gone, because she was not his. Not in a way that could be trusted, that could not be broken. Love was a chain and that chain needed strength. He wound that chain around every throat he kissed and fed the ichor of his heart. His, his, his.
Even the wretched thing in her stolen suit would someday bend as the Sisters had; centuries, that had taken, but it had happened. At least enough to smile for him. Even to laugh with him. His Loves, been and gone, like infuriating and cherished cats.
And is it an accident you hunted for a fair girl first? She, with her white-gold waves and spring sky stare? No, old devil. You know better. How hastily you threw yourself at two dark ones after! As if you could hide your own weakness from yourself by overbalancing the collection against that first desperate theft. Then came the surprise in Piccadilly. The one that nearly froze you so long the kukri all but gutted you where you stood gaping.
The surprise of his Jonathan. His hair was dark as earth the night before, but the morning had left it white. His eyes were bright and cold and dead in their living sockets. That same cold had scarred the air around him as he lunged out of his pack of Cross-wavers, he and the blade coming to kill him for the Love and Hate that made up all that he was then.
That he was now.
He is here out of love, she thought at him.
He almost jumped. His mind was walled off, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?
There is something like peace under this roof and endless hateful play for you because of him. Because you hold the safety of his family hostage. Because he is himself, and because you are yourself, he is prepared to take a thousand blows to his dignity and well-being. This you know. But you have forgotten the cost that comes with endangering what he loves.
“Hardly. He buried the corpses of that cost, did he not? He is paying his own price ad infinitum.” A fee that had come with the forsaking of the kukri. Such a fine toy. It was still whetted and gleaming in its scabbard for the night it was returned to him, the better to watch him split a few squealing targets open with it. But until then, confiscated. “Or do you mean to imply he shall again come at me with a shovel? Do you truly believe he can do me any harm, by day or night, that I could not immediately shield myself with using your mobile carcass?” At last, an opportunity to leer back at her: “Or little Quincey?” An absurd name on the tongue. The American was a curse even now.
Her face rippled in that hideous shape again. Then settled as she thought a truth she hated to offer almost as much as he hated to hear it:
I do not know. No more than I know whether you are justified or not in thinking you can pounce and turn him before he strikes a blow. The only guarantee is that everyone in this castle, bar Quincey, is damned. For our sins, for our Nature, we are hellbound. The only thing we have left to lose is…
She gestured dully at the room, the castle, the entire imperceptible trappings of a stage. A grimace of almost comical dissatisfaction rested on her.
…this. A penny dreadful satire of the family home. One held together because my son is owed a life that Jonathan and I have forfeited for ourselves. We are all living in a balance that is maintained by the chain on me, by a child’s needs, and by the ability of my husband to cater to all of us by a strength of will you would not find out of a million men. This he does because no one has broken the fragile eggshell of his faith that you can be trusted not to kick a hornet’s nest.
 If that eggshell breaks, everything breaks.
The agreement. Truce. Relative peace. Whatever you wish to call this. Whoever is left to survive after, the only certainty is that those parties will be in a state of constant misery and war. A generally unpleasant prospect to most. Unless you were the sort to consider a permanent state of trying to hold back an opposing will from sundown to sunup, unable to budge lest you be mauled or worse, for the rest of eternity, a positive outcome.
A silent sigh gusted from her.
Understand this: If I thought it would spare him, no matter how he protested, I would play concubine as best I could. Being bereft of the ability to lie or to act on anything but my own wants, it would be a feat. But you could rut and pretend you were enjoying yourself all you liked, supposing it meant he would be left out of that particular chore. Except we both know that wouldn’t happen.
There is no contract with us. No consent. And, let us be honest while we can, you have not cared about me since you scurried back to the castle in that blighted old November. I have nothing to barter with to keep you from abusing my husband’s willingness to be a barrier between you and what he loves. By any means.
“I need no reminder,” he hummed. And, unable to help himself, “His means do so sweetly justify the ends.”
Her teeth bared again.
Pig.
His bared back.
“Bitch.”
Imbecile. Or do you have another name for a man who would throw a brick through his own window to prove he can? Neither of us wants to bed the equivalent of a twin. Neither of us wants to risk the discovering what would happen if Jonathan discovers what you attempted to force on me tonight, and each for the same reason—we do not know what comes after. Who lives? Who dies? Who suffers? I truly cannot guess. Can you?
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Scraped his tongue across his fangs.
In his mind’s eye, he wandered through the most probable outcomes:
Here was Jonathan returning to that uncanny rage upon finding his wife was preyed on. Even unharmed, he sees the contract as broken. Fine. He attacks.
His Master uses mother and child as shields. Perhaps he has her hold Jonathan down while the bawling boy is held at the window, ready to be dropped and splattered. A loss of an experiment, if need be. But no need! The woman holds her husband. The Master pries the man’s mouth open and, already pocked with years’ worth of kisses, the ichor turns him quickly. Then what?
Does he keep them all? Can he keep them all? Even the Sisters settled enough that he did not have to be on guard at all waking hours.
A coin toss between mother and child. At least one must go.
If the child, an immediate spur to the parents. An even worse strain. No.
Mother, then. Slain or preserved? Blood was necessary only for health, not existence. It would be an arduous process, but he wagered he could manage sealing her in her box and encasing it in concrete. No route for her mist through that. Let her rot in there a few decades while he wrangled the rest of the family.
But the boy himself would grow and be untethered. His Papa would strain like a rabid beast at every hour. A nuisance.
Fine. Dead mother, dead child. Put Jonathan in the sealed box. Wait. Talk to him through the concrete, the wood, the silk lining. Think at him. Check and check until he was ready to behave. Starved, insane, he would be broken out as a broken thing. Something to sculpt into proper form, into a companion who knew better, who would be a good boy, good Bridegroom.
Unless he really did find some way to end himself despite the grip on him. A Vampire was all want and Jonathan had wanted to die too many times as a human being to banish the notion, even with the undead form’s predilection for self-preservation. If anyone could, Jonathan would find a way.
And there he would be again. Alone.
Assuming other scenarios didn’t overtake these entirely. He had suffered much from results he was too sure of himself to even entertain. Now the potential outcomes included some which ended with him slain or abandoned. He couldn’t say which rankled more to contemplate.
The bed creaked. He looked up to see she was unlocking the door. She was in no especial hurry as one garnet eye regarded him blandly over her shoulder.
Your storm frightened my son, if you care. Jonathan has brought him inside. I will do us both the courtesy of not mentioning this farce to him.
‘This time,’ hung unmentioned between them.
She did already think herself living in Hell. There was little more to do besides count the hours or gamble. And if she truly thought this was a sword to hang over his head?
Well. That wouldn’t do.
His eye fell on a heap of white left behind the folding screen. The discarded dress. He hooked it with his boot, kicking up and catching it in a gnarled ball to toss at her.
“Do another courtesy and dress in a way that does not insult and sicken to behold. And, if you will humor me, bestow some clarification. The heart of the issue is, to you, the assumption of assault, yes?” Her eyes narrowed, but she gave no answer. He beamed at her. “If that is the case, you have my sincerest apologies for the misunderstanding. When I turn myself to acts of affection, I never dream of gifting them without consent. That much you should know from your husband. He is a selfless soul, so willing to accommodate. I shall be sure to make clear all intentions in our future together and to not make any advances without all parties’ allowance.”
He dropped a wink and sent a nettle her way. A hazy phantasm of the three of them, their spectacle condensed upon a single bed. Two bodies willing to trade themselves over the other. Only one being forfeit, lest horror and violence break him at the sight of his wife’s breaking. Him. It would always be him.
‘No, no, take me!’
‘If you insist.’
A loving wall between them. The living shield keeping their teeth away from each other. Their dear, dear Jonathan, knowing his wife would play out the scene expected of all martyr-maidens, trading their one universal coin for their beloveds’ sake. Knowing he would go mad to see her folded under their Master, the mechanics of the display made worse for it being an attempt to protect him. Their Jonathan would weep, would beg, would claw them apart and straddle their Master like a horse just to spare the woman the touch of him.
In contrast, she would be only too happy to wrench said Master’s head off. But she and her will could be held at bay. This he could do while she clung to her husband’s back, weeping precious red tracks as her Love loved another. For her.
A new storm roiled across the woman’s face. Claws ripped into the pale silk. Before she could linger for another mental barb, he willed a gust to rush from a window and down the corridor to suck the door shut on her.  
Good riddance.
He pondered the oil bottle still in his hand.
…Not an entirely mediocre play.
It wasn’t dissimilar from what he’d try in her position. Her grasp on the psychic angles of vampirism was also advancing at a pace that put her Sisters’ dabbling with the trance state to shame.
Ah-ah. She is not their Sister, is she? Surely we have established that by now.
His smile soured at the thought. What a waste to lose a harem and gain a relative. He wanted to spit again. Still, he could not grouse too much. She was a small price to pay for the prizes to be gained. He was Master of the lot, however much she might rankle at the notion. It was early nights yet and centuries enough would defang her.
In the meantime, there was the present to deal with. A little punishment for biting the hand and for the purloining of that particular costume. A theft that echoed days long gone. Perhaps he could deliver her a dream during the day, featuring all the many places one would have to dig around the castle to find the pieces of his covetous little brother. Just so she knew where he stood with regard to sticky-fingered siblings. But clothes were not the greater concern, much as he would prefer she think so.
Let her think it only a matter of pride and property. While she thought it, he would have to scour his room and be certain there was no breach of the hidden place where his souvenirs from the Scholomance rested. He hardly feared that the woman would decipher the texts within, let alone be able to limp through even their most basic instructions. But she was clever and ‘kin of his kin.’ She was therefore petty enough to set the ancient parchment ablaze in a fit of retribution.
Yes, it would need checking. Yes, she would need a crack of the whip in some way.
But first.
“Did that amuse you?” he asked of the portrait. “I’m sure it would have were you here. Would it serve your mood to know how many times I have failed to fill the hollow you left behind? You see I am never satisfied. Whereas you were content enough to settle for a village of half-dead bootlickers. It is a better thing to be gratified by only the best rather than to lower oneself to preen over scraps, don’t you think?”
The portrait did not say. Only stared on in that melancholy gleam of blue. So hard to think a creature like her had ever bloodied her hands. Out of love, of course. Always out of love. Such stories she had told under the Mountain, away from the eyes of a God who gave His flock mere trinkets to ward off the thousand monstrous and manmade evils of the world, the caring sins she had beggared her soul for already. Loved ones threatened. Loved ones rescued. Loved ones alternately grateful or aghast, but ultimately saved by her knife, her poison, or the lure of her chilled flesh.
Always there had been a chill to her. Even when her heart was alive.
The thought tugged him to the wall above the titanic bed’s headboard. His fingers traced the loose mortar around one stone. He thrice-checked that his senses were blocked from interlopers before moving it out. Three treasures waited inside.
The closest was a skull. Final resting place for a waste of time. Such a churlish solicitor he had first invited to his home! Had he ever introduced him to Jonathan? He had already thrown out the man’s name and redubbed him Yorick after his Loves and the wolves finished with his carrion. Were there less sentiment attached to it, he might have already gifted the lump of ivory to his dear friend, who so loved the Bard. It would make a fine paperweight as he bent over his myriad books and forms.
But the sentiment was there because she was there. She had seen the opportunity with the idiot wandering so close and had tried to herd him into her tearing hands. Love and Hate. She could not love a stranger, but she could hate that he was marked by the stamp of her Count, proof that he was intended for a task. There would have been no teeth in the man, no kiss. Just a disassembling of anatomy long before the wildlife tore him. With how poorly he’d received his host’s hospitality, perhaps all of them would have been better off if Yorick had never been rescued by the thunderbolt or the Wolf.
“You did tell me so, didn’t you?” Again he turned to the portrait. The skull turned over in his hands. “You told me not to go forward. Do not play Alexander, you said. You will conquer nothing and weep just the same. You knew already how it was back here. How I had not begun a true march upon the world, had not drowned it in its own blood.”
How he had stormed and slaughtered for only as long as the emptiness of the scarred castle could be ignored. This he did longer than any of the squealing countryside preferred. But not long enough. It had seemed only a blink. The frustrated lashing of a butcher mutilating the livestock until their fine cuts were mere pulp under his blades and teeth. And no gladder for the mess. He had stolen the first fair girl away before closing himself back in the high stone walls. A girl like sun on snow, who’d made her family laugh and her village swoon. With her collection the great conquest was brought to a halt.
Yorick’s skull gained a new crack where he gripped it. He tossed it on the bed in favor of the second treasure. Still shut in its jewelry box like a fairy tale’s secret.
Opening the ruby-pocked lid revealed a lump of stained linen. It swaddled the heart he had stolen from her chest. The meat had never rotted. Never attracted the vandals of fly and maggot. Simply sat there in the cloth, a dark red mound of muscle and dried blood. He remembered the hole that had closed up before his eyes as she vanished into the sleet. Had a new heart grown in her breast or had her form shed the anatomy forever? He still wondered. There were times when he thought of pricking it with the tip of a dagger. Vourdalaks were immune to a pierced heart. A cleaved head. One of their few advantages compared to the strigoi. It would feel good to halve the heart, he was sure.
But it went uncut. His thumb dragged over its curves as he convinced himself the pressure was felt all the way in that lightning-struck pit she still hibernated in. Bloodless and cold. Dreaming.
The heart was rewrapped and set in its box before the last treasure was perused. It too was still in its proper place. He caught himself close to a chuckle as he removed it.
How strange that his lifetimes before and after undeath had drawn so many little scholars to him, all with a penchant for bloating a journal with their personal scrawling. His Harkers seemed to have glumly hung up the pastime, refusing to pen anything which their Master would, naturally, have the right to peruse. A shame. There were blank volumes enough to fill another library with their prose if they wished. He had so enjoyed the few excerpts gleaned from their little manuscript that he’d tossed them a bejeweled book apiece to fill. Books that had found their way into the child’s eager hands, doomed to be ruined with crayon.
The book in his own hands had been a gift as well. A volume bound in dense old leather, the pages all thick leaves. Something to last through ages. He peered at the inner cover where her name was gouged. The one she had worn before the Lessons under the Mountain and after their vows were broken. She had given that name away to the worthless peasants of her necropolis to chisel in the marble. Not even another pseudonym, but her own maiden name, as though his title was a gangrenous limb to hack off.
“You do grow maudlin,” he sighed to the pages. The book returned to its place, the box after, the skull last. Back went the stone. Grudgingly, he resigned himself against forbidding entrance to the room. His own chambers were understandably forbidden, but this space would appear senseless to prohibit. Especially when it had been breached already and left unbothered with for nigh half a decade. It might be taken as an arbitrary thing—or worse, evidence to the woman that she had landed a blow with her act—but ultimately she might come sniffing around again. He would have to relocate the mementos soon.
But for now, there was more pressing work.
He found said work waiting for him in the library.
Out of all the cavernous rooms in the castle, it remained the nearest their strange brood had to a shared familial space. When it was allowed. He lingered a moment outside their perception as a shadow at the door.
The boy was tucked between his parents, insisting on reading to them from one of the books of fables and fairy tales. His Papa had brought home a version in every language he could find some while back. Mama had once tried to play go-between, fishing innocuous knowledge from their Master’s head to be secondhand tutor of the land’s many tongues. But it was a childish ploy and he had found them out with the ease of one kicking over a stone to watch the beetles scurry.
Jonathan, for his part, had made a more than admirable leap after his ‘brain fever’ left him in the care of strangers. The language barrier was one he had no intention of tripping over again, and so he had juggled his dead master’s business affairs and his first prodding at the Carpathians’ voices years ago. Now he was sharp enough to not only comprehend his paperwork and the talk of the townspeople without struggling on a given word, but to know exactly what he heard when his Master called:
“Draga mea. What has our little devil learned tonight?”
Jonathan showed no bristling of posture, no gooseflesh. Only the barest flicker of composure pulling its laces tight across the wan face. Even the smile refused to falter. The boy’s eyes flew up from the pages and bounced between fathers. He knew the term too, for it was one reserved only for his Papa.
“Father!” he chirped, holding up the book. It showed a painted girl in red walking through a wood with a smiling Wolf. “I have almost all of it! English and Hungarian and—,”
“Diavol.” His voice like a snap of fingers. The boy winced. His mother shot a look like a knife through his head. Jonathan spared a hand each for their shoulders. The boy’s back was to him now and so his eyes could flare in that grim crystalline way. Frozen lakes framed in whorls of snow. “Did I speak to you or your Papa?”
The child hung his head over the book.
“Please forgive me, Father.”
For I have sinned, the voice in him sing-songed. He swallowed an unbidden laugh.
“He has reason to be excited,” Jonathan’s offered. A soft roll of sound that now weighed almost as much as his Master’s in a room. “He has conquered the English, the Hungarian, half of the French and—,”
“The French?”
“Sweetheart,” Jonathan spoke lightly to the top of the boy’s head. “Show him.”
Sheepish but eager, the child brandished his new victory. Genuine surprise tumbled through his Father as he recognized the woodcut illustration. A view that stunned as much as tickled.
“So many of the best ones began in French writing,” the boy declared. “Charles Perrault wrote this one, Bluebeard,” he enunciated carefully, “Barbe bleue, forever and ever ago. It’s so scary! Like Mama’s ghost stories and your histories, Father. See?”
“I see,” he told the boy. And he did. The illustrator had done a fine job depicting the grisly chamber and its bounty of prying wives’ heads. “It is a good story to learn and a better one to take to heart.”
Like Pandora’s Box. 
Another surprise, hearing her tone chime through the mindscape. The surprise withered upon seeing the honed edge of her gaze. A warning that did not quite slip into the mental currents shared in the room:
Who here is Pandora? Who must mind the loose lid over the box of miseries?
Jonathan looked at her with only a mildly concerned curiosity.
Her word was kept. For now.
Fine, fine.
“Exactly so,” he said aloud. “And what is the Lesson in these tales, child? Do tell.”
The boy straightened where he sat, beaming, “Trick question! I know there is more than one. The first is that when you are told not to open a thing, it is for good reason. The second is that the terrible things inside are put there by a villain, who really does want the door or the box to be opened so that they can have something awful happen after. Third is that what’s scary does not last forever. Hope is in the box and heroes slay the villain in the end. And,” he wrinkled his nose at the book, somewhere between humor and annoyance, “it seems like people who made old stories really wanted girls to think they would only have an awful time to look forward to once they marry.”
“It can happen that way, Sweetheart,” from Jonathan, before Master or wife could jump to comment. There was no erasing the somber angles of his look for the boy this time. Even the smile he mustered was a solemn curve. “Not everyone is as fortunate in love as us. Sometimes people find themselves with spouses they do not love or who do not love them. It is…uncommon to enter something so terrible as these storybook marriages. Most spouses are not monsters. But some are callous, some are dull, and some only wed at all because they see it as a chore.”
“A chore?” Another wrinkle of the nose. “Like putting playtime away?” Jonathan nodded, the smile an increment lighter.
“Or doing Father’s papers or minding the horses. Something like that, yes.” The boy sat up scandalized at this. He looked from his Papa to his Mama and Father as if hoping for one of them to tell him this was a joke. The scandal deepened as he saw, for one of the few times in his small life, that Mama and Father’s expressions were an utter match. Both on their faces and in their minds.
Still, he tried, “That can’t be true, can it?”
It is, from her.
“It is,” from him.
Each answer flat as a coin. Again, he had to tamp down bitter laughter.
The boy’s mouth dropped open on a glimpse of pearly needle teeth. A fever dream’s vision of a cherub being told by Cupid himself that all the arrows had been burned and they weren’t to make any more.
“That’s horrible! You mean there are families who just pick a mama and a papa and a father and just—just—,” A thunderhead came and went on the little brow. “Just sit there? Not caring about each other?”
“Child,” his Father hummed as he finally idled from the entryway, “you seem more distraught at this than the dead brides.”
“Because it’s different! Barbe bleue, he’s just a monster in a book! And even if—,” ah, how sickish he turned, “—if there are real villains like him in the world, they are rare! But you speak as if the whole rest of the world is out there,” he waved a frantic hand as if to encompass everything beyond the castle, “making families of each other and not enjoying it. Not loving each other at all.”
“Not the entire world,” Jonathan began. Before he could go on, his Master finished for him:
“But not a small portion either. Love does exist, but it is a precious thing like gold or blood. Many wish to have it for their own, but not everyone may claim it as theirs, let alone find it. Sometimes not even those who have died for it.”
He stood before the three of them on the couch now. His dear Harkers. Fire from the woman, wonder from the boy, a wary stillness from Jonathan. All braced, all listening for the lecture’s Lesson. He knelt until his eye was level with the child’s. The child sat forward, his mind at full attention while the spades of his ears pricked like a pup’s. He really was a good boy.
“Your Papa is right. Not everyone is as fortunate in love as us. There are unhappy homes where mothers and fathers battle with each other and do worse to their children. There are homes where bones are broken, where there are tears every night and day, where there is only toil and hate and, yes, even death. For you are right too. There are villains in the world who slay the ones they should love, out of madness or for sport.”
He watched the boy’s eyes first widen and then well. Bright red beads balanced on the edge of spilling. If they ran, he would go to bed with hunger and then grouse all the more as he waited for their feeding night. So he laid the wide white spider of his own hand upon the child’s other shoulder. Jonathan gripped his side tighter. The woman grasped the boy’s small fingers.
“But this home is safe from that. We would none of us have come together were it not for love. Your Papa, your Mama, myself, we are all creatures of singular will. We do not do what we do not wish to do, and so we would not be here if we did not desire it, if there was no love in these walls. You are the proof. We made you together.”
The boy sniffled. His scarlet tears did not roll, but settled back with a blink.
“Like Pandora? She was made out of lots of pieces from lots of gods.”
“That she was. And like Pandora,” his hand drifted from the boy’s shoulder to drum his fingers on the book, “you have gone and opened something which brought you to tears. But there is Hope yet. You shall not lack for your own Loves when the time comes, diavol. For now, know that you need not weep for others and their clumsy pairing. Your heart will bleed forever once you start. And if that should happen? Why, your poor Papa will never have blood enough to satisfy you again.”
The boy’s expression squirmed for a moment, uncertain.
“…Really?”
Jonathan bowed over him, smiling, “Your Father jests. I will always have enough for you.” In his shift, more of the mottled throat was laid bare while his hair hung in a silver-white curtain. Through it peeked those strange sapphire eyes; melting ice set in soot lashes and a cadaver’s sockets. The mollifying mien of a living corpse.
An image passed behind his eyes of that pale smile daubed with blood.
The oil bottle dug against him in its trouser pocket.
“But not tonight,” he intoned. His palm moved from the book of fairy tales and up to the hand Jonathan still had on his son. The man barely tensed as he was pulled up alongside his Master. “Feeding is not for another dusk and your Papa has work waiting. Your Mama shall hear out the rest of your progress.” He flicked a glance her way. “Perhaps she could introduce you to one of Papa’s own favorites. I believe it was, One Thousand and One Nights.”
This time he could not stave off at least half a chuckle as his Harkers all seemed to jolt as one. Loathing here, curiosity there, and, laughably, a prickle of incensed decorum from Jonathan himself. There was even a flush in his pallid cheek.
“Would that not be best to reserve until he’s older?”
“My friend, he is reading of murder already. What harm could your little adventures do?”
“Sir—,”
“What’s it about? What happens in the Nights?” from the boy. His gaze now bounced eagerly among his herd of parents. There were few things his Papa would deny him and so to hear of something even he would try to hold out of his son’s reach was more tantalizing than any forbidden chamber or pretty dowry box. “Papa, I’m old enough, you can tell me!”
I can tell you, came the woman’s rescue. The parts you are old enough to hear.
“But Father said!” If Father said, the family Did. That was one of the rules. A good Lesson to hold above all others. But Jonathan’s eyes pleaded with both the promise of bribery for mercy and, again, that absurd flame of parental dismay. Very well.
“Father said perhaps,” he corrected. “And I said introduce. You do grow fast, child, but not fast enough. There are secrets meant for men and women that you must wait to learn before you can access all there is to consume. Until then, you can see what you can wheedle from your mother on the matter. But first, give Papa your good-day.”
Another shocked descent for the boy, another raising of hackles for his Mama.
“Papa’s working all night?”
“Ah-ah, not all night. You took him up for half of it, did you not?”
The boy shrank guiltily against his pillow, mumbling, “Maybe…”
A third, from the woman. At most.
Her eyes and scars seemed to blaze as he knew his own to do. Now it truly was an effort not to think of her as kin and shudder for it. The air in the room seemed abruptly charged as her line of sight refused to drop from his.
You could make her. Walk her off to the bookcases, even. See if she cannot accidentally smash her fingers under a leaden tome. Maybe—
Jonathan’s hand gripped his. Cold against colder. Then he was on his knee, cupping the child’s face.
“It is my fault, Sweetheart. I should have kept better track of the time. There is something that needs working out tonight, very important for your Father’s own affairs.” Another smile for the boy. Spring come to thaw. “Now please, can I have your good-day? I should not like to head to bed without it.”
And just like that, the boy was up and folded in his free arm, squeezing back like he could pin the man there to stay and read of Scheherazade and her Sultan until the sun rose. But his Father was watching and so he consoled himself with the embrace and the good-days and their bloodless kisses to each other’s cheek.
“Mama’s turn!”
Jonathan scarcely had time to repeat him, nodding—“Mama’s turn,”—before the woman had snatched him to her. Not a common display, this. At most they knew their Master would suffer only some saccharine peck and a pining stare in his presence. Let the woman rut while he at least had some distance and a turned back. Now she seemed on the edge of eating him. Not that Jonathan appeared to mind.
His eyes were shut far more lightly than his Master’s had been not an hour ago. A gesture of bliss rather than nausea. Because his eyes were closed, he did not see his wife’s eye crack open and shoot a line of mingled hate and joy into her Master’s skull. Over Jonathan’s psyche and masked from the boy’s questing mind, he dragged a mental dagger and spill of salt over hers.
This he punctuated with a very clear, Curvă.
She winced under the twist of the spectral blade in her brain, but did not let her nails become claws in Jonathan’s cheek. Her eye narrowed. Another blade was sent back to him.
There was even a dimpled hint of a smile as she enunciated, oh so lightly, Încornorat.
Jonathan bit back a yelp as he was hauled to the door with barely time enough to call back a, “Good-day, Darling.”
He no longer had his hand in his Master’s, for his Master held him by the wrist. So it remained until three long halls were between them and the library. Then another hall after that. Stairs. Hall. Stairs. Towards the tower.
Where all dragons keep their maidens.
The thought’s attempted humor died before it even drew breath. Kin of his goddamned kin, indeed. He could hear his little brother cackling up at him from Hell. Who did the contemptible sow think she was to dare? To even conceive of vomiting such a label at his feet? She, the one with the wedding band!
Yes, the same plain ring as his. While you, barehanded, claim to own them both. You are Master, you are Groom. And yet…
Jonathan sucked a breath over his teeth.
Their pace halted in the moonlight of a window-loaded wall. A glance at the trapped wrist showed it was connected to a hand going blue as the mortal bones grinded and creaked. The white hand curled open to reveal a hint of the bruise to come. Jonathan kneaded the spot without recoiling from his Master’s side.
The man’s smile had fallen away like a veil. Here was only his face as it was. The sweet-bitter mark of surrender that was the mournful turn of the lips, the frozen dew under the hoods of his lashes. Tired but waiting for the next scene. Wisely keeping the obvious question tucked in his throat: What’s wrong?
Instead his Master heard, “I received correspondence from Vidor today. He says the delay is due to losing one of the horses. They had to comb two villages for a replacement, but he thinks they can make it by mid-July.”
So casual, so ironed out into the cadence of Agent and Client. Anything else, Sir? Anything we might discuss in arid tones before the inevitable, Sir?
There was such talk available, if his Master felt like bothering with it. Stony talk of setting stone. A long-belated repair of the old damage to the castle’s crumbled edges. He knew there were also pamphlets and science journals waiting tidily on the ebon desk with the usual bureaucratic flotsam. Dreary things about the advancements of pipes and electric wires that would be an arduous and superfluous hell to weave into the grand old stonework. Especially when, in fifteen years’ time, there would be no humans left to want them under Castle Dracula’s roof.
Still, it was a good sign, these tries at what the English called ‘homemaking.’ Renovating his cage kept him busy between bleeding and writing. More, it gave an excuse to be allowed out of the tower. The same tower where his life might have gone on even to this night, with only the hungry visits of wife and child to prove they still existed. 
His Master had daydreamed about it more than once. How it would be the dance of that distant summer intensified and expanded when Jonathan Harker found he was locked permanently in. There would not be so much as the meager freedom of the office, where he could scratch and type and imagine he was far away in his snug English firm. No, in his dreams, he’d left Jonathan only the tower and the bedchamber at its top. Only what food his Master brought, what clothes his Master offered, what sundry supple tasks his Master put to him in that narrow box in which the spoils of war lived and bowed. Unable to dare so much as the thought of escape, even with a will that was all his own.
But no, no. Better to leave that sword hanging. A punishment threatened did more work than the punishment itself. Really, for all the savory misery it might wring from him, all the placations that might be offered for release, it would hardly satisfy in the long term. Not unless he wanted a repeat of his missteps with his prior Loves, turned idle and useless but for proving the castle was not his dwelling alone.
All this musing passed within a heartbeat he did not have. In the present, he crossed his arms.
“A lost horse, he says. And how did they lose it?”
A calculating flicker of the blue. Careful, careful.
“A broken leg, Sir. It had to be put down.”
“A broken leg. On what mountains? In what ditch between here and the mason?”
“He didn’t say.” No quaver in the voice. No dropping of his gaze. But there was a hairline crack in what should have been the calm of one delivering dull news. Small, but there. Then, the fatal line: “Why does it matter?”
Ah, my friend. Sometimes I do wonder if you enjoy dangling raw meat before my nose.      
“It matters because you are hiding something.” His hand landed light and immovable on the man’s shoulder.
“I’m not lying, Sir.” Yes, that much his Master could tell. Except.
“We both know there are worlds of difference between speaking the truth and choosing not to lie. Even the boy knows that.” The hand did not tighten, but claws now scraped against the shoulder. “So. What was it that Vidor blamed for his poor lost horse?” Jonathan opened his mouth. What could have been a word was cut off as he was suddenly wrenched around and marched toward the office. “No, let us not exhaust you with recital. Surely you still have the letter. I shall see it myself.”
“Sir—,”
But they were already at the door and the door had already opened on a handy gust. The same breeze tugged the heavy wood shut and, in passing out a different crack in the office’s window, skirted between the man’s legs. Jonathan hardly had time enough to flinch before he was thrust in the tufted chair that stood facing the desk. His Master was already thumbing cheerily through the immaculate filing; here was another reason to neglect his little fantasy of the tower. Mr. Harker really was an artful organizer. Never a paper out of place. Even the ones he wished he might get away with tossing on the fire.
But such liberties were only for his client to enjoy.
Case in point, here was Vidor’s letter, folded back into its envelope, neatly slotted in the Pending drawer. He kept his attention halved evenly between the note and his wincing friend in the chair. My, but the latter’s intuition had honed well with the years.
“He writes to me and says wolves attacked and ruined the stallion’s leg. Wolves cause him to be late.” He refolded the letter until its edges could slit a lying courier’s throat. “Wolves. Along the route I mapped for him.” His eyes leveled at Jonathan’s head like twin pistols. “You would hide this from me?”
“No, Sir. Only—,”
“Only what? You wish to see me deceived? To see these vermin get away with wasting my time as they drink and chase the slatterns along the road? By all means, explain.”
“I thought only that he must have made an error. That what he thought were wolves were merely dogs. There are few small breeds here and some are bred to outweigh their lupine cousins. More to the point, I do not see the why of purposefully delaying your delivery, even for a drink or a dalliance. Vidor and his men know they’ll not wring more money from you in losing time. The trek to and from all the destinations involved takes up days and energy all of them would rather spend at his home or some attractive holiday.” The closing statement: “He is not a liar, Sir, only mistaken.”
‘Please do not kill them.’ If only you had a violin to play as you grovel.
Out loud he sighed and shook his head.
“Do you never grow tired of covering for the ineptitude of others?”
It wasn’t an unfair question. Jonathan and his woman had been the key to dredging up the exact methods by which his Master’s web around England was forming and been instrumental in tearing them away. The Dutchman had led the lordling, the doctor, and the American along in slaying his poor Lucy, his fetching first claim planted upon the land. But the pack of them would have been running in circles without his dear Harkers. Too quick, too canny, and all the while shouldering the brunt of the effort in the hunt. There was some chiding of kismet in that, he knew.
He recalled that nascent night’s exact words.
You dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter.
Words from an unsuspecting old thing who’d had to run for his unlife for the first time in ages as Jonathan Harker slithered out the window of the Piccadilly house, steel thirsty and flashing. Coming to slay him. To pierce his heart and sever his head in the middle of a screaming street. Prepared for a cell or his own death as the chattel shrilled, not knowing there would be only dust where a carcass should fall. Yes, yes. He would have. He could have.
Once.
But Fate ensured he reserved that knife for his friends, who had sinned even worse against his woman. If Jonathan marked his Master as a thief, then the stalwart dogs who had dared to turn on the sole bitch in their midst were worse for daring her destruction. Such was the price of not recognizing a Jackal while busy hunting a Wolf. In fact…
“You say Vidor is mistaken? That he lost his horse not to wolves, but other beasts? If this is so, I would not wager it was a dog that did the work, but a jackal.” He folded his hands and smiled. “You wish him to be spared the punishment of a liar. Why not assure that the reality matches his words? It need not be done with the kukri. In fact, it need not be you at all. Dear Mina, she so regrets depleting you. Perhaps she would appreciate the sport of her own hunt.”
Jonathan did not blink. The fear remained in its careful place, the fatigue alongside it. But there, lurking just under the membrane of the willing prey, was something else. Cold and sharp.
“Even if such were not against our arrangement, Sir, there would be a dilemma.” There was no tremble as he said it.
“Oh dear. What dilemma is that?”
“The waste. Leaving aside the concern of relatives and friends raising an alarm about a group of missing workers, it will be counted as another strike against this place’s stability.”
It was an effort not to clap. Good boy, Jonathan. Follow the trail.
“Stability?” he pressed, doing what he could to drip with pompous ignorance. Jonathan did not crack.
“Yes,” he told his Master. “The stability of this place’s image as the home of a respected Count and not a guaranteed death trap. The people of the Carpathians live in the center of your influence. They understand what it is to risk angering you. But you know firsthand that this place exists inside a shrinking circle. More information flies faster, more straight lines are drawn that whittle the world down into maps that mark every dark corner down to its smallest inch. Which means that if Castle Dracula, to say nothing of its Master or those he controls, gain a reputation for erasing visitors in bloody fashion, people will just stop coming here. 
“Unless those people are in uniform and hail from tiers of governance above the one you choose to wear rather than frighten the human gentry with the reality of you. I know I say nothing you do not know. You have not kept these mountains under your thumb by being careless. That you would suggest the idea of Mina or I casually murdering innocent strangers as either their punishment for tardiness or to simply tug our respective chains to have us do a trick you already know we are capable of suggests only two things to my mind.
“The first, that you have more important issues on your mind than the delivery of a commissioned pile of rocks. The latter is an easier annoyance to deal with than the former, so you have laid it on the chopping block first.”
The white hands remained folded, but their claws grew again. His fangs ached. What blood he had left in his veins was all very busy rushing to a single extremity.
“How very astute, my friend. And the second thing?”
“The second thing,” Jonathan said with a precise note of exhaustion thrown like a comforter over his riskier patter, “is that you don’t know how difficult it is to convince anyone other than novice solicitors or loyal caravans to march up the mountains, even with what you’re paying. Modern men don’t need to be superstitious when they’re already skittish about known threats. Like the wildlife. Or the cliffs so high you cannot see the foot of them.”
“Or murderers?” The word was a purr and a knife. In answer, a whisper:
“Or us. Yes.” With this boulder pushed up the proverbial hill, Jonathan folded his own hands and stared back at his Master. Not to see whether the boulder would roll back down to crush him, but how best to lay in its path and cause the least amount of damage to those behind him. To that end, “I do not seek to belittle what you truly deem important, Sir. But Vidor and his troubles seem too small a thing to earn your genuine ire. If something more is wrong, I should like to help.” His eyes gleamed. His Master wondered if they might draw moths. “What can I do for you, Sir?”
The same pitch. The exact same. One echoed from back and back to—
‘Balaurul meu, you cherish your wrath more than your joy. You rage over having nothing to rage at. You rave only for the sake of baring teeth, tearing after whatever happens to be nearest. It is no good for you. You should devour only what is worth consuming. Tell me what that is, if you can name it.’
The chill of her hand on his. Her eyes deep and killing as the sudden crack of ice over a lake. Drowning him.
‘What is it you want to eat?’
He looked to Jonathan. The look tried to be a glare. A threat. A promise.
Jonathan’s look—
The lake, the freezing, pulling lake, drowning again—
—did not falter. An invitation to anything. To be and endure whatever his Master demanded.
The office had seen plenty of use before. A fine backdrop for the cliché of the mishandled secretary tucked under the desk on hands and knees or, the better to see him, said secretary bent and spread across the ebony. Other rooms had their turns, of course. Many others. Sometimes his own chambers, the ban lifted for such special occasions. But most often it happened in the tower.
Somehow he felt it would not be enough tonight. Even if he took his friend on a tour of the entire castle, every room and turret, even into the obsidian walls of his own coffin, it would not be enough, yet he could not place the why of it. There was the woman’s provocation to consider. Then the abrupt haunting from the ghosts his traitor mind had conjured to harangue him. The undead could not produce their own ghosts, he knew. Not counting those of the imagination.
That much would explain the leering vision of his brother.
Not so for her.
A wife whose unhallowed chamber was all her own while the dead brides in her wake were left to wander elsewhere. Bluebeard would balk. But Bluebeard had never had his Countess.
Perhaps the imagined whisper of her was right.
Perhaps he was only angry for want of something to pounce upon and feed his wrath. Something to overtake, to conquer, to crack a relieving fissure into the ever-denser callus growing over him and his unlife. Such restraint he lived under for the sake of a charade! For all that his subjects mewled over their lot, there was not a single devil in Hell who did not know how he now chafed under his friend’s ‘contract.’
So many ages he had spent withering himself, finding less and less point in the ownership of his genius loci and its shivering cattle, less and less point to the study and toil and terror of his manifestation. A Limbo broken only by his desperate planning for the taking of England, the modern Rome with its gluttonous hands sunk deep into the refined world and its culling colonies. It had been something to wake and drink and think for. A purpose to the infinity he had bought so eagerly only to grow listless with it like a cagey child bored of his gift.
Then had come his Harkers.
Jonathan, his blessed, blighted, bloodstained Jonathan, had come to show his belly and his throat to ransom his loved ones to his enemy’s mercy. A bargain made for the sake of the stolen woman who could not go from him, the raw newborn that she was. A newborn with a newborn; their impossible babe.
Oh, how fast it could have ended then.
How quickly he might have torn the Madonna and Child to ribbons—Better! Have her tear the latter apart in her arms first! Let his friend watch!—and fallen on the sweet screaming fool who had cast aside his blade. His friend might have been baptized against the red pool that had been the bride and brat he damned himself for with the slaying of innocent men. Then dragged down and away into his Master’s tomb to await the beginning of their new eternity together.
But he had done the wise thing instead. He had accepted the terms, had let them into the space once filled by his slain Loves. This he did not regret. Nor would he ever, for the sake of his mind. Oh, O, his mind! Damn them for a hundred little scratches as he bit into their throats, but the Harkers had saved and salved that much. Every night was freshly riddled with the promise of performance and pained fealty, of the warring of wills, of the crushing fist, of the rapid wheeling mental clockwork that he once chased so feebly while he rotted among his harpy Loves.
True, true. Except you have now grown too content in this little circuit you now walk. Walk, not run. Fed, not slaked. You became the nightmare of these mountains for a reason. The women had their helpings from the children’s sweetmeat veins. But you? You were the hungry shadow to watch for in the forest. In the roads. In the secret dark of the mountains. You were a horror who could be avoided when full, but brought death down on the unwary of any age when it came time to feed. Now here you sit. A pampered boyar like the rest, waiting on your helpings of flesh and succor while a Child is somewhere being tutored and a Woman makes a nuisance of herself and the only one carrying the whole thing is a Vassal playing duped and dutiful Atlas.
So much power. So much of him awake and thrumming. So much left caged.
A Wolf turned to a Dog.
Back in the office, time had passed only by another heartbeat. Plus the cracking of an armrest in the talon of his hand.
Jonathan did not react to the flying splinters, but did slowly, carefully, crane his head enough to steal a glimpse of the window. To his Master’s surprise, a twinkle of hope fell across his face. If not hope, enterprise. He faced the glowering shape of his Master behind the desk.
“The moon is full tonight.”
“What of it?” Each word a thorn. But this seemed only to draw Jonathan up another inch.
“How many hours are left until sunrise?”
“My friend, I am stung.” When he grinned it showed his teeth to the gums. “You wish to be rid of me so soon?”
“That is half my thought, Sir.” Jonathan leaned forward, gripping his hands so they couldn’t quake. “The other half being that you might benefit from a hunt.”
Tonight was a parade of surprises. Shock ruled his face while an agonizing ache struck him at the chest and groin.
“A hunt,” he parroted, already scenting the condition of the thing.
“Yes,” Jonathan nodded. “Though I am hardly a winning stag, I have not forgotten what it is to run from the demons of this place. Nor have I forgotten that my escape was built on luck rather than Providence.”
“My Loves were long since spoiled by then. Ravenous, yes, but comfort so often won out over craving. If it were not so, I should have returned to find half the Carpathians drained in their greed. Even here, our own home, they tried so many times to pin you rather than exert the effort of a chase. They could have pounced while you rested on the couch or at the window, but no. The trance came first. Lazy, lazy.” He clicked his tongue against a fang. “That in mind, I fear you would make a poor quarry. You escaped through lax claws and slow jaws, my friend. I would have you within the minute.”
Within this one, perhaps.
Jonathan risked a small shrug and looked again at the risen moon. Past midnight now.
“Perhaps.” A hard swallow. Then: “Or perhaps you are too used to easy meals to bother. I understand, of course, if you worry you cannot outpace me—,”
The chair slammed into the rug as Jonathan slammed into the tufting. A hand like a noose was locked around his throat. He neither gasped nor gagged. Only waited for his Master’s decision. His eyes drowning, freezing.
The oil bottle weighed more than a mountain now.
 ‘What is it you wish to eat?’
“You will have five minutes, stag.”
Out the window, down castle and cliffside, into the fringe of the forest. He willed the film of sparse clouds away to further free up the moon.
No lantern. No compass. There had been no pause to change shoes. Jonathan didn’t even wait to be asked before unlinking his pocket watch and passing it into his Master’s hand. This he did placidly enough. But his eyes gave him away, so wide and lambent in the gloom.
A wariness radiated from him now. The belated fear of one who has only just realized a foolish wager was made. It was not a fear of death—that particular aroma had lasted only so long even in their first faraway summer—but that unmapped dread of consequence which can make fatality seem a reprieve. His Master was happy not to relieve him of it.
“Five minutes, Sir?”
“Four and three quarters now.”
The last word had barely hit the air before Jonathan Harker dashed into the dark. A healthy pace for a trim young man. Remarkable, his Master knew, for one so routinely exsanguinated. It was almost precious to watch how his speed changed once the shadows grew dense under the canopy. As if the poor stag truly thought such a thing could mask his trick. But the hunter’s eyes were far keener than his prey’s and so he could tell at once when the healthy pace broke into the expected gait. From a mere quick jog to a fired arrow.
He had puzzled over the timeline of his friend’s escape from the castle more than once. Even among the plainer signs of that surreal metamorphosis, this aberration deserved attention. Such speed in a body that he himself drained the night before! Athletes of every era would have blanched at the idea of cutting across the Carpathians in their prime, let alone in the solicitor’s state. And that would come only after descending the towering face of castle and cliff without so much as a rope. Yet down and away his friend had flown. A powerful proof of the extraordinary.
One that went on to seem miniscule beside the scene of the men returning his soil.
The matter should have been equal parts tedious and amusing.
It had been the same men who had dug and boxed the earth in the first place, just as content to take his money and goodwill to reverse the process once the movers in England saw to collecting and shipping the crates. The Eucharists’ polluting presence had been ordered removed upon request. Jonathan himself had invented a delightful excuse that had been a joy to read:
‘In addition to a personal tragedy cutting short his intended transferal to London, my client has had the misfortune to discover an English variant of his homeland’s superstitious parties in the form of a band of modern-day zealots. They are apparently of a sort who regard Matthew Hopkins as an idol. While my client has not suffered overmuch from what he believes were failed attempts on his life by these individuals, they have taken pains to track the cargo that was delivered from a rich deposit of Transylvanian soil.
‘Irony seems to haunt my client, for his unwell hunting party seemed to regard this collection of scientific fodder as bewitched graveyard earth and so heaped—and, I may add, shamefully wasted—a loaf’s worth of the holy Eucharist onto the loam. My client requests that the movers sent to reseal and ship the abandoned crates do him the courtesy of removing the Wafers from his samples to the best of their ability. If the Wafers have attracted pests in the meantime or if any granules have scattered in the topsoil, feel free to clear these out as well. He sends his gratitude in advance.’
Words and money enough to reverse the shipment had brought the earth back home. A bitter victory for both sides, admittedly. Here was proof that Count Dracula had officially taken his bootheel off of England’s throat for the moment. But here too was the return of those men who had not only moved the earth to begin with, but had rushed their boyar out of reach. With their speed and aid, the woman was lost. The kukri had drunk. And all of this had come in the wake of their seeing the poor Englishman bleating and pleading in the window.
A sight that had rightly spurred them to laughter.
They had laughed again as they returned with the wagons, knowing what Jonathan was to their boyar now. Jonathan had already begun gleaning the language and so knew what commentary they had to share as he oversaw the arrival of the boxes and their unburdening. His Master had hidden to oversee him in turn. To watch his face and inhale the despair. Alas, there was too much dead in him for their jeering to stir much of anything in the way of insult. Jonathan Harker seemed a soul built for subservience and the polite receival of abuse. Even the caravan’s head, resplendent Old Danil, had frowned at his men the way a father scowls at his boys for kicking at a lame dog.
But that was the issue, wasn’t it? Seeing only a dog. A leashed dog, collared until he choked, crippled and toothless. Go on, laugh. They are safe.
Really, they had wasted much of their breath and time on laughter. Their boyar’s own grin had faded with the ticking of the watch as they lazed and drank and nudged the boxes only as breaks between the taunting chatter Jonathan appeared so deaf to.
Until they spoke of his wife.
The woman had not been present, needing to cradle her infant in the chapel to quiet his fit. But her Master had spoken of her in the correspondence with Old Danil. It was to be expected that she would leak into the men’s talk. Her scars, her silence, her beauty, how she had been ‘taken in bed’ as her husband slept through it all, how perhaps her Master would be good enough to have her share her hospitality with them, ha ha.
Jonathan’s stillness had changed. The late spring warmth had curdled around him as his head turned to those who spoke. They were clustered at the end of their wagon, two thirds of the boxes still stacked behind them. Jonathan had stared. The laughter had dwindled. Bluster had simmered in their tongue.
‘What, dog? Don’t like us talking about your bitch?’
Jonathan had not answered.
Jonathan, his Master knew, was silent as a flurry when there was a task at hand. Swift as a hailstone too. Between one blink and the next, the men had been hurled aside like flour sacks and Jonathan was on the wagon. A blink after this saw the men shouting and scattering as the earth-boxes were hurled off one after the other. The same boxes it had taken up to three men apiece to hoist. More shouts, more scurrying as the next wagon was emptied. Again, again.
Jonathan had turned to Old Danil, unmoved from his chosen post at the courtyard gate. A single iron brow had managed to rise over the whole scene. Jonathan had held up the purse full of pay his Master had given him for services rendered. His back was to one of those who had spoken of touching his wife. The man had his knife was out. The man took a step forward.
The purse of gold had flown back and cracked that man’s teeth. Then Jonathan himself fell on him as the man’s curse turned to a shrill. Other knives and pistols were scrambled for.
At the height of this, thunder had cracked in the clear night sky.
The Master of the castle emerged.
The men had jumped. Old Danil had craned his head. The man under Jonathan changed to a tone that ordered as much as begged through his bloodied mouth.
‘Get it off! Off off get it off me my hands please my hands damn you cowards get it OFF—!’
Jonathan had remained set upon his task. His Master could hear the crunch of it trapped in his fists.
‘Jonathan. Up.’
Jonathan had gotten to his feet, but without releasing the squealing man’s hands. It was a fascinating thing to observe now that he was not the one on the receiving end of…ah, but he still did not have a name for it. The enigma of Jonathan Harker, a man with a monster lurking in the chambers of his heart. A poet might call him a creature of Eros. Damned, empowered, and possessed by the weight of Love. But his Master was no poet and so admitted he had only his own title for the thing.
Jonathan, his Jackal. Obedient in all things—anything—but for the border of his Love.
When his eyes lifted, they had burned cold.
‘You heard,’ he’d grated in the men’s own tongue. ‘You heard.’
 ‘I did.’ Calm. Even. Easy, easy. Good boy.
Oh, the delicious balance of that moment. Did he dare shred the contract just to see if his friend would go mad at the rescinding of his one and only caveat while strangers lined up to have their turns in his wife’s coffin?
He had paused long enough to make dear Jonathan wonder. Just long enough to see his face harden to a full rictus. The unlucky fool in his friend’s hands let out a fresh shriek as something new broke and other bones crackled. Around them, the men had stood paralyzed in uncertainty, weapons half-drawn. Old Danil had checked his watch.
‘Let him go, Jonathan. Wait for me inside.’ He’d had to fling his will out at him. Hard. ‘Now. I shall see to the rest.’ Jonathan had released the man as if invisible fingers were fighting to pry up his own. Which was not too far from the truth. The man had scrambled away on knees and elbows, his head permanently turned to keep an eye on Jonathan—only to freeze again as his boyar clapped a white hand onto his shoulder. The courtyard had sucked in a collective breath. Every grip turned limp as jelly on their scabbards and holsters.
Jonathan had gone in.
His Master had chuckled, walking the broken-handed man to his wagon. To the blood-dewed pouch of gold abandoned on the ground.
‘You are to be envied, my friend. He left you with only a warning.’
‘Envied! Look at my hands!’
‘I see them. And you are lucky to have them still attached. As well as your head. He was being polite, you see.’ The hand on the man had tightened until the print of it bruised. ‘The last men to talk of laying hands on her did not get to live long enough to regret it. I do not know for certain what he did with the bodies, but I think they are buried. Wolves and jackals do so love to save their bones.’ Tighter. More than sweat had run on the man’s face. ‘He is such a loyal creature now. I have made him so. I have made him much more. And, like his Master, he does not take kindly to jokes made of touching what is his. What is ours. But perhaps he merely misunderstood, yes? Perhaps you and your brothers spoke of trying to bed another boyar’s property? Surely this is so. If it were otherwise…’
He had let his teeth show in full.
And the men had risen up in an assuring chorus that sang yes, yes, of course, they spoke of another castle’s woman, not his, never his. And the broken-handed man had scooped up the fallen gold with mangled fingers. And Old Danil, moved at last from his sedate constant enough to imitate curiosity, had approached him as the men fled back onto their wagons.
‘The Englishman. What is he really?’
‘Mine.’
Which was what mattered in the end.
Mostly.
He could possess so much without effort. Take where and what he liked. But that his friend, his Jonathan, was so alien a thing among the mortal flock made both the victory of his surrender and the temporary loss of England all the sweeter. For he had not run merely from the clamoring of the Dutchman and his pups or the waving of the Cross. Whatever Jonathan was in body and soul was as rare as…as…
Remember the sight of her in her loving throes? Before she was vourdalak, before you had ever whispered of the Mountain together, you had watched her at work. A favored serving girl left bloody after a visit from a soldier taking his due. An invitation to a dark room, unrecognized in her stolen serf’s guise. And then! Then! The art of it! The speed, the hush, the fruit of the harvested Adam’s apple! With this you saw her color her lips for the first time. And you had crept from your hiding place, offering to aid her in disposing of the corpse with the same tone as a courting youth offering his lady a rose.
Rare as a white stag, perhaps.
The initial defeat would have burned a thousand times more had it been the work of a lesser creature. The consolation—the whole concept of the contract—would have been cackled at before he gutted the wretched couple with his own hand. But his Harkers were worthy, curse and bless them for it. And Jonathan, his prize, his spoils, his quarry darting through the night for his pleasure, felt more worth the delay of conquest with each passing night.
He checked the watch.
The five minutes were gone.
In a blur, so was he.
It was easy enough work catching up. His poor friend had not thought to disguise his route by darting in new directions or taking pauses to steady his drumming heart. Every breath was a harsh pant. But for all this, he did not make the capture itself simple.
New bursts of speed came whenever he felt his Master’s presence press close. Each was a helpful lunge that would have left an ordinary predator snapping his jaws shut on air. It hardly hurt that his Master was enjoying the run too much to end it with a mere leap. Instead, he lingered over swiping his fingertips at the bare throat. A hand was pawed through the white cloud of hair. The teeth of a great bounding Wolf caught and tore the billowing shirt.
On and on down the slope they went, children at play.
He was at play, at least. Jonathan seemed to have found no fun in the game. Whenever his Master drew parallel there was always a look of anxiety bordering on terror waiting on his face. The eyes, like trailing ghost-light, stayed planted firmly on the terrain before him. Almost as though he were trying to outrun more than his hunter. It was when the latter politely allowed him another little lead that it became clear where the man was heading.
A chide and a chuckle rose up in him as he heard the rushing stream. The one meager haven the forest had to offer. Of course.
He let his friend leap down into the water, smiling at the muffled gasp that followed his splash. A sound that stopped short of becoming a curse. As if the noise would be what gave him away. Feigning a tutting posture, his Master idled to the ledge and let himself sprawl. He was halfway into his mist form and was not disappointed when Jonathan peered up at the effect with a shudder. Hovering between flesh and fog made a roiling giant of him, as though a great shadow cast by a candle were made solid.
Letting his eyes flare and his smile curl past the point where ordinary muscle should have permitted it, he shook the haze of his head down at the frozen figure in the water.
“Ah, now, now, my friend. That’s cheating.”
“Just…” Jonathan started. Stopped. Swallowed. “…endeavoring to give you a challenge, Sir.”
“Ah, of course. Always so considerate.” He let the smile become a maw as his arm unfurled down, down, down, the hand at its end wider than a man’s head. “My dear friend, Jonathan.” He solidified back into himself as Jonathan was snatched up onto land, the illusion of safety snapped neatly in two. “I believe that is you captured, stag.”
“It seems so.” The words were thin. His wide eyes seemed to both see and dismiss him. He actually shook in his Master’s hold. Taking notice, Jonathan forcibly settled himself by grasping his own arms. His head hung until the sodden hair could mask him. “Forgive me, Sir. I had hoped the water would be warmer.”
“Transylvania is sparing with her warmth, my friend. Even in spring.” His own gaze had ducked lower as he examined his catch. No, the stream had done no favors for the fish, but plenty for the fisherman.
He wears white far better than his wife.
Aloud, “But the nights are mild when hunter and quarry are wise enough to avoid such tricks. When the boy has grown out with a few years more, perhaps he should join us. He cannot subsist on you forever. Once our lovely family dinners are at an end, we shall all of us have to seek our fill…”
Jonathan stilled entirely. His hands gripped tight a last time before relaxing. Somewhat.
His head didn’t raise as he asked, “…You are certain you wish to invite him?”
“What reason is there that I shouldn’t?”
“There is none, I suppose. Nothing but my own mistaken assumption.” Jonathan moved to stand. His Master’s hand jerked him back down on his haunches. Still his head stayed bowed behind the pale curtain of hair.
“What assumption was this?”
“It is nothing, Sir. Please, forget I mentioned it.”
“What assumption, Jonathan? I am listening.” He heard silence. Sighing and smiling he whipped a mesmer hook into his friend’s will. “Jonathan. Speak.”
Jonathan’s lips twitched apart with a grimace.
“I had thought…that we might make use of this for something else…something private.” Finally, the head rose. The ice chip eyes had gone dark. “Where neither of us would have to be mindful of others.” He had bitten his lip in the effort not to speak. The skin had broken and painted him there. “My apologies for misunderstanding.” At ‘My’ the blood smeared without Jonathan appearing to notice, still dripping from the stream. His whole mouth was glazed red.
Looking back at the stream in what was either shame or—
No. No, it can’t be.
—disappointment, Jonathan did not see his Master’s eyes turn to lanterns.
“I love them. You know I love them. It’s why we’re here. Why I am here. And every night…” His fists balled into stones in his lap. The wedding band caught a sliver of moonlight. “Every night I must smile for them. For Mina. For Quincey. Sometimes for you. But it isn’t what it was between us in that summer, is it? When I thought I was acting only for my life and not my humanity. When you were seeing how far I could bend until I broke. Two months of pretending wasn’t bad back then. But that is old ground now. It feels ancient already. If you order a smile from me now, you order it. You couch it in pretense occasionally, but that much has been tainted by the comparison we live with every night.
“The playacting of it all. That’s for our son alone. A sweet theatre too cloying for the adults in the room to perform when his back is turned. And even with Mina I must—,” The lump of his throat leapt and choked him. “I have to give her something. Something we can both pretend is worth what we’ve given. So I smile for her too and she smiles back and I must try to bury so much under the bedrock of my mind to keep her from tripping over it in horror. Which leaves you. This.
“You can believe me when I say this or not. That doesn’t matter. I keep no diary to purge myself into and I have no doubt that if you show this memory to her, she will take it as a cruel joke you invented to hurt her with like so many others. Or else she’ll see it and know her husband has finally gone mad.” New wet tracks rolled over his cheeks. Clear as the stream. “You are the last refuge I have for admitting the worst of myself. The tower is no more than a box to rot in. My Mina, my Darling, how much worse would I become in her eyes if I were to be anything less than the Love paying his reparation for being too selfish to let her wishes be honored and have our friends live? And our boy. Our son. He will never know.
“There are only two monsters in your castle. Mina does not believe me when I tell her both of them strain under their performances. I cannot blame her. There is a slim line between the Count I first met and the one I serve now, but it is there. And for one who has spent lifetimes untethered by anything other than his own caprices, I understand this means much. I am grateful. I hate that I am grateful. I hate that I have just run from that great stone stage of a prison we call our home, and thrilled at the distance, knowing I was not merely dashing to a town in which to put on another act. I recognized my thrill and feared it and that fear did not stop it.
“Nothing is left, you see. Hope is out of the box and burned over a candle and there is nothing left that is sane or good to reach for but the safety of my Loves. Always, always that external greater good, never my own, and knowing such is deserved for what I’ve done doesnothing to soften my want of something, anything not nailed down to catering to the entire mess—to the fantasy that I’m anything other than what I am. Even if it is this. Two monsters in the dark with nothing good to intrude upon their abuses.”
Jonathan kneaded his eyes. Bloodshot blue.
“Ha. But I’ve ruined it already, haven’t I? Now that I’ve said I enjoyed it, it will be taken away. Perhaps that is best. This whole thing was foolish start to end.” Jonathan turned to look at his Master. “Perhaps we should…”
Jonathan saw his Master. Seeing him, there might have been an instant in which he realized he had said too much. Discarded some invisible ward without thinking or else let the current of his babble pull him into deep water. For something had happened during the pour of his words. Something which could not be taken back. Something that regarded him with a starving avarice that had been nurtured since the night two students clambered cackling and screaming from the Mountain, lightning and ice welcoming them back to the sight of a sky.
A new thunderhead rolled overhead. Abrupt and sultry as a tropic tide washing across the stars.
“You talk of monsters and their abuses as if you comprehend both. I fear you are acquainted only with one.”
One hand gripped the damp shirtfront.
The other thumbed open a glass bottle, spilling oil.
“Allow me to educate you on the other.”
Jonathan Harker was taught his Lessons.
He learned them on the thin bed made of his Master’s cape, with cadaver skin finally thawing in the tangle and grasp of each other, the only pause for words or breath allowed between the sealing of a nursing mouth on bloody lips. The castle had never housed a thing like this for them. Not under any command, any tugging of trance, any handful or taste stolen with the idleness of a man stroking his pet. Under the storm and worn by its maker, Jonathan seemed either to shed a husk or shut himself into an armor.
Whichever it was, it gave credence to his phrasing. Two monsters. They loved—
Hands, his hands are still cold, always, always her hands were cold, locked into my skin arms back can feel the lines drag there no matter no matter you can drink it away or let them stay a banner-badge-brand to bring home to the chapel do you see do you see little Sister you lose like the brother who came before and knew it when he died and oh oh it is the Mountain again out in the open after the years of work of horror of being Horror and here we are against the rocks and filth and grass again under the rain but oh O so soon so fresh from it all we could not be tender yet not yet and so we loved
—like they fought.
Jonathan turned them over first. The shock and strength of it let him manage it, the same curt motion as hefting an earth-box. He sat bent and digging his fingers into the undead hide as if to shred or cling. For a moment the view was enough to paralyze. Here was the white head thrown back against the marbled night, eyes bright as the lightning, howling a sound that could have been a shout in pleasure or fury or the harsh note of a lunatic that lost itself in the next thunderclap. His lip was bleeding again. The rain carried it over his chin and down a teasing line along his throat.
The moment passed and Jonathan was crushed on his back again. Still holding. Still held. He tried to rise again, that mystery of power straining against the pressure of his better, his Master, his Lord above God, his—
“Balaurul meu. Say it.” Had his voice shaken? No, a trick of the noise. So much thunder, so much drumming rain, so much balmy wind moaning in the trees.
“What?” A thrust. A cry and clutch.
“These are your Lessons. Now say it.” Another jolt, a snap of lightning. “Say it.”
“Balaurul meu,” in a gasp. “Balaurul meu. Balaurul meu.”
Good. Good. More.
“Eu sunt al tău. Now!”
“Eu sunt al tău.”
More.
“Sunt al tău pentru totdeauna.”
Jonathan repeated this and every line after, echoing and reechoing so that the two of them might only have been the ghosts of lovers reverberating in a cave. On and on, every oath that could be thought of, every line left branded in the walls of memory was poured out and engraved on the learning tongue. And his friend would keep to every word. Oh, yes. That was certain.
There would be no running beyond his reach, no raising of will he could not break, no leaving him injured and roaring a name out into the sleet, or begging the same name at the threshold of a cemetery where Hating eyes crawled like insects upon him, no, no, no. Not with him. Not with them. Not with the beginning of a new eternity here in the dark with his monster, his maiden, his victim vassal jackal bridegroom—
“What are you doing?”
—who fed him his draught of blood and drowned him in a lake of freezing eyes—
“Sir.”
—his Scheherazade who was prey and play and predator and anything everything all things with the magic of her talent on the altar of her Sultan’s lethal loneliness—
“Master. …Count.”
—and no, no, how could he waste such a thing, risk it slipping away—
“Stop!”
—over the stream and into a rotting future in a pauper’s graveyard, no no no, never, not him, no— 
“Dracula!”
He came back to himself as if slapped.
Perhaps Jonathan might have dared it if only his hands weren’t so preoccupied. The man still sat where he was slotted, but now with both palms flat against his Master’s chest while the pair sat upright under the rain.
The left side had been split open by a claw and now dribbled its dark fountain down his ribs. Its wound welcomed like a smile as Jonathan strained an inch from having his mouth crushed against the blood as his wife’s had been, two implacable hands clamped at his head and back. Pantomime of an embrace. If he snatched the man’s wrists up, if he took his hair for a handle and forced him down…
There’s still time. What say you, Count?
“Please,” Jonathan huffed through locked teeth. As if it would be barrier enough. “Please, not yet. They still need me as I am. Please.” The Arctic eyes slid up to the hellfire of his. “Please.”
The dead hands ceased their slow press, but did not move. Fingers twined and stroked in the wet snow of his hair.
“Draga mea. You know you only prolong your Purgatory as you are. I and my Loves, your ‘Weird Sisters,’ we were not without our pains at the start. Lifetimes as men count them came and went. It all turns to less than a heartbeat eventually. Even Mina,” a name he was proud to make sound like several other four-letter words, “for all her lovely vitriol, even she will someday match me in passing out of this shadow. Hate grows stale. Tiring. So too does despair. Do you think I laughed with my Loves outside your door because I ordered it? Do you think I let them get away with going behind my back to take what was mine, with mocking me to my face, because I remain forever in one mode?
“We three, we are in the middle of a long Lesson. The boy is a happy surprise, but even without the curiosity of him, it would still be us. Me and my Harkers, so hard-won. You and I in our sea of wonders. Whether or not you wish to hold onto guilt once you are free of humanity, time will still march, and you will still be mine. A moment will find you, despite how you drag your feet and cling to the miseries of an unclean Good Samaritan, where you will break as you broke tonight—and you will laugh and love as I do.” 
It was fascinating to see how responses rose, fell, and faltered at the edge of his friend’s tongue. Negations all, and all of them caught on the tightrope between lie or truth, both saturated with shame. Catharsis and comfort dangled out of reach only because he refused to crawl from the Pit he chose to burn in.
For his Love.
“You say it is inevitable?” Jonathan’s voice was now a croak. Gone raw with baying.
“I know it is.” 
“…Then it shall wait.” Four words made heavy with regret. The sheer weight of the latter, the dread of the hanging sword and the ached-for release of finally being free of waiting, were almost enough to stir another round. But even with the red taste lapped again and again from the torn lip, the well nearly ran dry. The bulk of remaining vitality was already going toward mending his split chest. A sight that made Jonathan sigh with what could have been relief or sorrow. “It must wait.”
“If that is what you will.”
“It is.” So saying, Jonathan paused. Then, so quiet it was almost less than breath, “Thank you for this.” Jonathan tried to stand. The white hands gripped again and threatened to shove him back in place. It was just a single day from the evening the family dined. The hunt could end with the intended meal and so provide the fuel for yet another gauntlet.
Or.
“Thank you, who?”
Jonathan’s tongue curled at the start of a Sir. But a creeping thread of mesmer reached out and prodded the proper response from him almost before he knew he was speaking:
“Balaurul meu, my thanks for the hunt. I look forward to being broken again. Te iubesc.” Jonathan leapt in his own skin as he heard himself. “That isn’t funny.”
“Of course not, my friend. Merely practice ahead of the inevitable. This is funny.” Jonathan had wobbled up to his feet and left himself open to a swat that made him yelp and stagger. The monster was asleep again, it seemed. Just as well. The fair maiden needed returning to the tower and some rest before the dragon broke his fast with the other suckling mouths.
It was as he mused on this and admired the view of his friend stretching and bowing to retrieve their clothes from the trees’ shelter that a stone broke against the back of his skull. Others pelted his shoulders. Wrath came to an immediate boil and just as quickly froze as he regarded the falling pellets. This freeze expanded until gooseflesh spotted him from the neck down. Jonathan’s voice reached him as if from the other side of the world.
“What is it?”
“Ice.” Then, because he needed to hear it said, “Hail.” He had unmoored his mind from controlling the sky and Nature had taken her reins back. Rain swept too high in the gale would freeze with or without orders. Fool. “It is only—,”
Looking up, he forgot what he meant to say. He forgot language. He forgot he knelt naked on his cape in the muck as he had once knelt before Powers older than any name for what Man called God. He forgot time and he forgot space and kept on forgetting until the only memory left was the one standing in front of him.
No, not memory.
Her.
She stood under the canopy of the boughs, her ice cascading by her as it did within the portrait. In lieu of the painted gown, she stood before him half-dressed. The garb she’d worn on the bier hung lightning-burned on her still. She looked as she’d been the night of the tug-of-war with the failed solicitor, Yorick saved from her rending, the thunderbolt thrown blind. He’d run as the Wolf. Slunk back as a Dog. He had dropped words of mockery and anger and hate and want and threat at the edge of her necropolis like a heap of bones, all of them amounting to the same frail skeleton of a plea as he pressed it into her mind.
Come back. Leave these chattel to their dreaming. Do not sully yourself in their earth. Come back. Come back. Te iubesc.
Și te-am iubit, balaurul meu, had come her answer. Her head bowed until the ice chip eyes whetted to points. But you broke that Love when you tried to break me. Your love is too much like war. Your cherished Conquest. You would have had me as a bound Bride. A partner made a prisoner. This I could not allow. No more than I could stay to help you march upon the world and slit its throat simply to exercise the ability to do so.
Lightning and hail had snapped at each other again. Tempest tempers raging.
Why, then? Why the Mountain? Why the peddling of your soul and self for what it offered just to consign yourself to this waste!?
The hail had softened to an almost gentle patter.
Certainty. Proof to myself that those I Love will be safe with my protection. Even if I must endure their Hate in the how of it, my Loves will never suffer while I stand guard. That is all. I need no more. Go back to your castle, Dragon, but know that it is better you kill your little Englishman or turn him away.
She had frowned then as she frowned in the portrait and as she frowned down at him here, now, stripped bare upon the earth.
Do not play Alexander. You will conquer nothing and weep just the same.
She moved toward him in the present. The hail did not touch her as she walked.
A dream! Yes, of course! Only a dream! It must be, she must be, do not fool yourself, old devil. Get up. Wake up. Now. Now!
But he didn’t. He was awake. And if he wasn’t, he would have snapped Morpheus’ neck if he dared to rob him now.
Close. Closer. Yet he remained on his knees, gawking up. Afraid that any motion might erase her like smoke in a breeze. His mouth was the only part of him that dared move. Not that he could hear himself. He didn’t dare speak so loud that he might miss something from her lips. But she came silently until his head was level with her skirts. A single hand reached for him, white and blue and grey with the pallor of her kind, cool as snow against the cheek she once rotted from his jaw.
But he felt her.
He felt her.
His arm snapped around the back of her like a vise while his free hand clapped against the fingers still resting on his face. She was not mist, could not be mist, for her kind were too solid, and this time, this time, she would not be gone, would not leave him, let her cut and freeze and skin him, but she would not go again.
Draga mea. Draga mea. How are you here?
You forget the time, balaurul meu.
Her trapped hand lifted his face from where he crushed it against her stomach. The eyes that met his were no longer ice or ghost-light. Only coins. The Ferryman’s toll.
Tonight is mine as it is yours. As it belongs to all our kin. The graves are open and the dead come forth to walk. And talk.
The scarlet sickle of her frown turned up.
Enjoy your Walpurgisnacht, my Dragon. I have enjoyed mine.
She was gone.
In her place stood Jonathan, caught and confused. Concerned. His mouth opened.
Do not ask me what is wrong, Jonathan Harker. Do not dare.
His mouth shut so fast his teeth clicked. Then, carefully, he offered the folded black bundle of his Master’s clothes. These were snatched away and their courier almost thrown more than released. Around them the hail thinned away. The rain ceased after it. Jonathan kept himself very busy with peeling up the muddied cape and snapping what muck he could from the exterior, doubtlessly wishing it had not been the velvet one that needed cleaning. But when he could help the cloth no more, he turned to his Master, still fighting with his buttons.
“Sir?”
“What?” No answer. His Master turned to bark the word again and stopped. Jonathan had rolled up his sleeve. Here was the tiny map of his son’s feeding. Kisses ringed with white and blue and grey.
“If—If you want it.” Jonathan gestured his gaze and his head at his Master’s face. “You have lost some. Sir.”
The meaning was lost to him for a moment. Then he realized his cheeks were wet with more than rain. In the same instant he took note of Jonathan’s right hand, the one that had been flattened and trapped against the bearded cheek. He’d fussed with the cape because he did so one-handed, trying not to lay the bloodstain on it too. The same was smeared onto the white of his shirt where his Master had set his head.
Even knowing what he would find, a white hand rose up and swiped under his eyes. Bloody tears came away on his fingers.
“Sir? Do you want it?”
‘What is it you want to eat?’
Jonathan was captured for a second time that night. This time the hunter feasted. Not from the wrist, but the bend between neck and shoulder, inhaling the scent of the nape. He was filled with heat and ache and when his teeth slipped back behind the sheath of his lips, the mouth stayed planted where it was. The same went for the cage of his arms, binding their catch for a moment that might have been a minute or an hour.
“…Are you sick?”
“No,” Jonathan breathed with what tried and failed to be a steady tone. The voice of someone trying not to sound as if they were scrambling for comprehension. “No, Sir. I feel well. Not ill, that is.”
“So you say. But I must have caught something from you to act so against myself. Perhaps it was something from your mouth.” A mouth finally scabbing. It left the bluish lips a mottled violet. “Or else the night itself is playing tricks. Too much lightning in my eyes. Do you disagree?”
“I don’t, Sir.”
“Yet you are not ill.”
“I do not believe so. But I could be mistaken.”
“Wrap yourself, then.” He stepped away and plucked the cape from Jonathan’s hold before twisting it into a cord tauter than steel. Rainwater fled it until it was all but dry. “Transylvania’s seasons are so very fickle. It would not do to have you unwell for tomorrow.” Before the requisite agreement could leave him, Jonathan found himself both swaddled and off his feet. His Master pondered the image of the hunter hauling home his quarry, his friend flopped over his shoulder like an indignant piece of game. But that would leave only one hand holding him.
That in mind, Jonathan was bundled up into the snare of both arms while remaining supremely unclear as to why. 
“This isn’t necessary, Sir. I am fine to walk.”
“Sunrise approaches. You are not up for a race back.” He said while dawn could be felt two hours away and his own pace merely ambled. “Rest, my friend.”
“I—,”
Rest.
An order that took his friend’s mind by the scruff and dragged it to bed. Jonathan furrowed his brow against the mesmer, squirming like a child even as his eyes drooped shut. The lakes iced over.
“I just…just wanted to ask what you meant…before…”
“What I meant?”
“Called to me… Didn’t know. Don’t know. What was the word? You never taught me…”
Sinking, sinking. Almost gone. He whispered down at him now, light as far-off thunder.
“What word?”
“Thought it must mean, ‘Come to me…’ So I came.” The lashes fluttered and fought with gravity. Lost again, showing only slivers of frost. “What does Dolingen mean, Sir?” He was asleep before he got an answer. Still, his carrier whispered.
“You misheard, my friend. That is all.”
Up to the tower, stripped and dressed, tucked into bed.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
A far more fruitful occasion for the term than the debacle of battling trances. Such a bleak little comedy. The thought brought him back to the boy and that inciting matter of the snared wolf, his would-be pet. Something near to mirth made him grin. He knew he was to blame for the child’s initial fascination with the creatures. A seed planted in infancy when, as a taunt, he had willingly cradled the babe as his parents stiffened mid-kiss. He had stood teasingly close to the window.
As he did, the wolves had started to sing of their own volition. The boy had perked up at once despite his hunger.
‘Rrooo, rrroooo. Fah-rr. Rrooo!’
In his head, a muddled but excited impression of wolves traipsed back and forth across the shared mindscape. The pack outside had howled again.
‘Rrooo!’ 
His Father had opened his mouth on jaws of changed teeth. No longer a man’s neat rows and the hanging fangs, but the jagged mountain range of the Wolf’s. He’d howled lightly as the child all but glowed with recognition.
‘Roo? Fah-rr roo!’
As his Harkers watched, their Master had entertained the child in a way that would have left any other parents in the mountains squealing prayers. For he had changed first his jaws, then his eyes, then the whole of his head to mirror those fantastical Folk of the picture books where Herr Wolf could knock at his victim’s door with a paw in a glove. The boy had shrilled delight and scrabbled merrily at his fur, even tucking his head into the open muzzle to see if it was really just a trick. But the proof had been offered as his Father lost his arms and legs to be a Wolf in full. One the size of a small bear.
In his defense—as if it were necessary—it had kept the boy from pestering his Mama to hurry so Papa could feed him. Ah, how he’d sulked upon looking in his Papa’s mouth and finding no signs of the Wolf there.
‘No, diavol. I am the only Wolf here. Wolf. Lup.’
‘Wohll. Luhp.’
 ‘Very good. Now take your kiss.’
It had sprinted along from there. Now the boy had graduated from attempting to trance a wolf into permanent residence to trying to coax the entire pack into natural obedience. A friendship to span three generations. He really did have his head too deep in the fairy tales. Perhaps there was a Lesson waiting in that. A small one to assure he did not idolize the softness of things overmuch…
But that could come later.
For now, the night still lingered with, fine, he could admit it, a wisp of the fairy tale. Here rested a beauty, living and dead, the only color resting across the mouth. Gently, he pricked the scab of the bottom lip open again, smearing red. Jonathan slept on.
There was no witness as the man collected a last kiss in ignorance before his dragon skulked down from the tower.
Down and deep and into the dark of the chapel. He did not stop to change and so was pointed out at once by the boy, always so eager to stay awake. His current project, a lopsided schematic in charcoal, was abandoned.
“Father, why are you all wet?”
“I was out hunting. Your Papa nearly got away, diavol.”
The boy gasped while his mother, still sitting with him and his palette, narrowed her eyes.
“You were hunting Papa?”
“I was. He almost got across the river. But he was caught in time, not to worry.”
“But why were you hunting him? Papa isn’t a,” the boy tried to think of hunted things, “a rabbit or deer.”
“No, he is not. Your Papa is many things, but not such meager creatures.” He looked over the child’s head and through his mother’s skull. “We were merely at play, diavol.” This came as an even greater shock to the boy.
“Grownups play? I thought all you did was work. You and Papa were supposed to be working all night.” A statement that carried all children’s dread; the fear that age came with a great dull void where enjoyment used to be.
“Grownups do work a great deal. Sometimes too much. Your Papa and I had such a problem and so we went out to play. You and your mother are free to do far more play than work, of course, so such things are outside your needs.”
The woman smiled and hummed into the shared mindscape:
Our play has turned to work, as it happens. Rather, it is work he wishes to try.
A hand upon the boy’s shoulder.
Show him.
Bolstered, the child gathered up his drawings and stacked them as neatly as he’d seen his Papa’s papers. As he did this, his mother sent a private message to Father:
What did you do?
He thought of showing her. He’d been thinking of it since first stealing her husband out of his clothes. But tonight was dense with secrets even as the Veil had turned to gossamer. Moreover, it was important that a man held some things out of reach of his woman. For everyone’s good. Especially when it left the imagination free to conjure up far more creative possibilities than a collection of curious wives’ heads.
So the answer he tossed back was merely that of a closed door, a key thrown into the abyss, and a fraction of truth.
Nothing that concerns you, ‘Sister.’
The boy rushed him before anything more could be said. He offered his drawings with a small flourish.
“See?”
His Father flipped through the sheets.
“I see a book in the process of being torn apart.”
“No, no! Being made!” He pointed to what was, to him, a clear depiction of himself and his mother piecing books together with nebulous arms. There was also a wolf sitting on a crescent moon and a bat flying in the dotted outline of a star. “I want to try bookbinding with Mama.”
“Child, there is a grove’s worth of blank pages in spare volumes for you to use. Why would you bother?”
“Oh. Just—,” the boy flicked his line of sight briskly from his Father’s face. The cobwebs and stonework were suddenly enthralling. Likewise the state of his own toes. “Just to make something. A fun kind of work. That’s all.”
It was all his Father could do not to sigh. The boy still could not lie to save his unlife, let alone duck a punishment for the attempt at lying in the first place. But before he could form the beginnings of a sentence, the woman came into his head, away from her son’s reach. This time with a uniquely acidic edge.
He wishes to surprise you and Jonathan with a gift. He’s realized he missed an important date and wants to make up for it.
Walpurgisnacht—this night, her night—almost rose to the surface of his mind. He buried and burned it behind a wall of fire. Casually.
What date is this? His day of birth has been and gone.
The woman glared at him with a perfect blend of loathing and disbelief. When he continued not to guess, perhaps partially to watch how much her ire would grow, she handed him the answer as one might hand over a chamber pot.
Yes. But he posed a question to me and I did not give him a lie. St. George’s Day has two meanings for this family. The eve before, anyway.
For a moment the answer was as baffling as the question. But epiphany quickly fell in place. He almost laughed aloud.
The first solicitor he’d beckoned had his useless life saved from the undead on Walpurgisnacht.
Jonathan had been delivered to him almost a year later, just short by a week. This had been on the eve of St. George’s Day with the glimmer of the blue flames lining the mountain road like a wedding procession. The night the boy’s fathers had first met. A magic alignment of dates to a child’s mind. Shame on his Harkers, letting the date go unrecognized by half for so long.
He smiled for the boy and stroked his hair, declaring, “Child, I am merely the bank vault to loot in such a request. You must convince your Papa to bring you materials, not me. Ah-ah!” He hooked the boy’s nightshirt before he could dash for the stairs. “Not now. Your Papa is asleep already. Wait for evening.”
For once the boy did not sulk over the coming of morning. He flitted as excitedly to his coffin as he had aimed for the steps, taking his art supplies and another book to wait for sleep with. The poor silk within would be ruined with charcoal and crayon before the year was out.
Having deposited his treasure inside, the boy whirled around and rushed back to his Father who stood waiting on the tomb steps.
“Can you do it all the way this time?” He feigned interest in the dirt and coagulation still under his nails. “I do not know that you have enough blood in you…”
The goading was small, but enough. He watched the boy shift from flesh to fog mid-step and surge up to his Father’s shoulders. His Father clapped once. It echoed against the chapel walls.
“There you are.” And, because the boy had earned it, he opened his arms. The child-mist became a child again, dropping as a proud little weight into his hands. He let the boy hug tight around his shoulders while the fragile curve of the head nuzzled his neck. “Good-day, diavol. Well done.”
“Good-day, Father.” A moment later he’d leapt down and circled around to his mother who stayed low enough to let him simply crash into her arms. They exchanged a bloodless kiss apiece to the other’s cheek. “Good-day, Mama!”
Good-day, Dearest. Please don’t sleep on your palette.
The boy notably made no promises as he climbed into his box and moved to close the lid. He paused before it could shut, looking out at them from the gap with eyes like expectant rubies.
Neither Father nor Mama could tell when the child had decided there was a ritual to complete before he could allow himself to begin trying for sleep, but it was one of the few points of their coexistence which they agreed upon in their distaste. The effect was doubled on her Master’s side, what with the final thread of any nuptial framing so grimly torn away since that evening’s confrontation.
Still, they smiled and closed the distance between them.
Good-day.
She laid her hand inside his and sent a vision of him thrashing and howling in a bonfire.
“Good-day.”
He skimmed her knuckle with his lips and sent back the sight of her abandoned on a mountaintop, the Dutchman having successfully removed her head and staked her heart, leaving her to the wolves and flies.
Finally, the boy shut his lid.
Yet there was no parting of ways. The woman gripped his hand.
Is he hurt?
“Of course not.” The pinned-up smile curled to a more natural state as he twitched his fingers out of hers. “We were only playing.”
You—
“I,” he hissed, still through a grin, “am tired. Many things more, many clever epithets, yes, but mostly tired. Whatever lecture you think is worth droning at me, it will wait for moonrise. Now go.” He leveled a finger at her coffin. “To bed.” If she had any more venom to spit at him, he made himself deaf to it. The wall of fire around his mind was turned up to a full conflagration as his will forcibly shoved her back to her box. The most she could spare him was another glower before the lid shut. Peace at last.
Of a sort.
He carried that feeling into his crypt and his coffin. Settling into that familiar dark, he would have called the feeling wholly new if not for the certainty that he had experienced it before, so many ages ago. Not a mere settling, not a tallying of little victories. It was peace. Peace as it counted to him. Even with the brief rattling of his foundations in the wake of Walpurgisnacht. Of women endured or women craved. Even with that.
There was peace. There was thrill. There was Hope drowsing in his box.
Look at yourself. Scrape this saccharine filth out of your head at once.
He didn’t. Though he was happy to build over it. Scenes of a future that may not be centuries into the future, but mere decades. Perhaps less. A future of ruling night and bled oceans. A future that bowed its head and bared its throat to him. A future where he laughed and the sound was not alone.
Like music and crystal. Like thunder and ice. Like broken things ecstatic to finally be pieced together in his image.
His future.
Their future.
That was the core of it, he knew. Thinking and enjoying in a plural shape rather than solely his own. Such was the dulcet trap of the domestic life.
In this vein his thoughts turned to the evening’s waiting kisses, the cozening of the boy before his pliant Papa, a trading of barbs with the woman, and, since they both could use it, perhaps an overdue bath for himself and his friend. Exsanguination tended to make a body languid, whether from the loss or indulgence of blood. A sweet-sluggish cleaning away of last night’s evidences would be most welcome. Even if his friend went and did something silly, like washing ahead of time to save the trouble.
No, no, my friend, I insist…
From that thought he leapt to others and others, descending down the trail of implausibility until he found himself somehow on a balcony of the English’s gaudy confection of a palace. He knew with the certainty of a dream that the boy was grown and flashing the winsome lie of his smile at a pack of hunters who’d thought themselves safe behind the Cross and Wafer just before they began to lose pieces. Elsewhere, his Sister was watching her former ‘brother’ of a lordling writhe upon the lance she had pierced him with, the sweet logic of fantasy refusing to let him die quickly as he paid at last for the theft of their Lucy. And with him? With him were his Loves. Both folded into the sides of him, painted red from the lips down with feasting. Ice chip eyes soft against his basilisk gaze. Two heads of snowdrift hair resting over his heart.
Yes, yes.
Peace at last.
She felt the Dragon slip into sleep.
Felt the Scarred Love stir carefully in her box. Testing the psychic waters. Wait, wait, but not too long. Yes, she could wall her thoughts off better than he knew. No, she did not dare risk anything but perfect ignorance either way. Up traveled the line like a wisp on a breeze. Brushing the mind of her living Love.
Darling, from her.
Darling, from him.
Their minds spilled up and down to each other. It was one of many secrets the Dragon did not know. This secret was as simple as it was vital: There were no secrets between them.
They gave the Dragon hollow prizes in the night. Pandora’s Box was empty. Bluebeard’s chamber left unoccupied. Even as the scenes they endured for the other, for their child, for their Love, all conspired to raise a fury that would blister the sun in both their hearts, there was no doubt in them. No accusation. The only tears shed were for the other, as ever.
I should have been closer! Should have at least stayed inside, in earshot! Mina, he could have—he was really going to—
He didn’t. He never will now. Nor will he think the room ever mattered to me. Not when he frets over his master’s chamber being plundered. All was as he left it. As I left it.
It was a thin respite she’d had before the Dragon made his attempt on her. Time was too short for more than confirmation. The work had to come after. While the boy was busy in his books and his mother was busy in her own and his fathers were out and away and lost to anything else. On that note.
You did not have to give so much of yourself to him. To let him do worse than he already has and preen over it. As if he deserved more from us, from you, than what he was content with before tonight. Oh, my husband, my Love, he will expect the same and more from you now! You cannot—
I can because I must. I must because it worked. It will work again. Just give the date and it will happen.
Jonathan.
Wilhelmina. We must not merely hope, but know he is distracted for you to do what’s needed. We must have the guarantee that his eyes will not look through yours and see what you’ve found. What you have already learned. Or was the hailstorm truly an accident?
It was not. Only an experiment. One made at too dear a cost—
Then she did not lie?
She had not.
The key was in her book?
The key that was written in blood from her own hand. It penned the details of translation from the Scholomance’s text. This had not been part of the Lessons, but her own precaution. She had split the key across the borders of the journal’s pages, hiding them in the illuminated ink. Her blood was the dullest part of the lush illustrations and carried a chill when traced. She had not made them easy to parse.
Yet the pieces were found tonight. Once they were arranged into the whole, it allowed the reader, the Scarred Love, the one whose mind had carried in it a grain of Sight long before she was bitten by the Dragon, to make sense of the first scraps of knowledge left waiting in old pages.
True, the Dragon had his hoard to go over, given the chance.
Given the time that one Love would sell himself to buy for the other.
But there had been early prizes waiting in the book behind the stone. One whose theatre had aligned so beautifully with her own small addition to the show. It had taken much, stretching the vision so far. Not in blood, for she craved none when there was no Love to carry it in their veins, but in focus. In keeping her pressure subtle as she pulled ghosts through the Dragon’s mind like a haunted sieve.
Walpurgisnacht had helped, insomuch as the forces that surged behind the night could be said to acknowledge anything like a human calendar. Such things moved more like a tide or a season. All one could do was ride the crest of them when possible. It might have been possible earlier. One, two, three, four years ago.
Except the child would be too young then. Not old enough to be left alone, with his reading and play and the practice of howls at the window while his Mama drifted off to do whatever mothers did. This year he was old enough. This year he could be trusted not to be an innocent witness, there to mention to the Dragon that his Mama had found the strangest things waiting for her inside a wall.
It was this year that she’d come to the Scarred Love by a daylit dream. Explaining what the Dragon had planned for her. What might be planned for him in turn. They had walked the labyrinth of the castle and into the abandoned room that was so Hated and Loved with its mementos still resting where the Dragon left them. The Dragon would move them as soon as he could once he found the Scarred Love there. Perhaps somewhere no prying eye or misty figure could reach. If she was to take advantage, to piece the key, to note and save and use it again, it had to be done within Walpurgisnacht. And the Dragon could not know.
All this was delivered up to her Love in the tower. How to parry the Dragon’s advances? How to hold his body and mind at a distance?
Each Love had given their answer.
Each answer had been Hated.
Each answer had worked.
Now they were a step closer. A foothold in the side of the Mountain. Good, good.
She was already retreating with the coming sun when she felt the brush of that entreating mind again.
They stood beyond the mindscape now. The dreamscape allowed for more Sight. Here the Scarred Love was not scarred, nor of the undead. Only what she remembered of herself. A living woman, scarcely more than a girl, clasping a journal that no longer existed as if it were a rosary.
She, the visitor, stood only as she was. Still corpse-wan, fair hair left in a fall as eyes of frost stared on unblinking. But she was not the ragged thing the Dragon saw. Her friends had come up from the ground for her, finding a dress to change for what was burned, their hands mingling with her own as they rebuilt the mausoleum stone by stone. Their kind was immune to the wild rose and to the garlic blossom, and so they’d planted them in abundance for good measure. The ash sapling grew higher each year. Such they knew, even as they settled easily back into their rest. Into the vourdalaks’ serene torpor and its mingling of souls, their Loved and Loving phantasmagoria.  
You are going? from the Scarred Love. 
I am. I must. from her visitor. The year brings few hours where we are allowed even more than the lot that Supernature grants us. My will and Self can only hold here so long before it snaps home.
Where is your home? How far? The question buried underneath, too important to leave unsaid: Can you help us?
Her visitor showed her the waiting home. The dead village laced with its history of disease and suicide and so much cruel decay born of Nature at her most callous. A village whose people had huddled within their scant borders, refusing to carry their ills out to their neighbors. Who had seen her ride to them and pleaded with her to stay back unless she sought death.
I told them I did. My heart ached with want of Love. With the burden of Hate. I left the Dragon to seek reprieve from both. You know yourself how difficult the strigoi are to end. It is far harder for the vourdalak. Yet I was prepared to try for such a miracle if I could not sate my nature. Satiation came when I found home with them. My friends. My Loves. It is a place not far as we would reckon it. Horse or train, perhaps, but not us.
The Scarred Love swallowed a breath she did not have.
Then..?
Her visitor shook her head.
I cannot help you as you would wish it, Mina Harker. It would mean leaving my Loves. It would mean the Dragon warring with me, which would mean warring with you. Or do you think he would not sacrifice you as insulation against my frost? No, you know he would, contract or no. Just as he would endeavor once more to cage and break me, as he endeavors with your Love. The Dragon is the best student of the Scholomance. I can battle him, I can escape him, I can parry and dance around him. But I will not be what destroys him.
You are a student too! from the Scarred Love. Vivid and livid with the unvarnished core of herself. Her dreamscape bled. You have your numbers! Your storm! We live in his chains, with our child and my own mind at his mercy, with my Jonathan a slave and worse to him! Please! Please… In her coffin, the Scarred Love wept precious scarlet lines down her cheek. Please do not go. Do not leave us with him.
Her visitor ached. Of course she did. She had combed through the entirety of the Harkers’ souls at a glance like Psyche herself filtering Charon’s harvest. There was much to pity in them and more to Love. But.
Would you like to see what he did to me when last we crossed paths, Mina Harker?
She did not wait for an answer. Only showed the Scarred Love how wise she had been in choosing the vourdalak and its endurance as her shape of undeath. She could not scar, could not crumble from an injury. But pain came in its plenty. Especially when a lightning bolt powerful enough to shatter stone and set her ablaze came firing down.
The Scarred Love watched in horror as her visitor keened and roasted and died.
And stood.
And healed.
And scoured the burnt flesh off the new skin, dead though it remained.
That he did by folly. A bolt with intent would have done worse. As for my storm, I mastered only enough to slay the living, who are the far more industrious and plentiful villain. I once shattered half the Dragon’s face off with my cold. Yet it mended with blood and time enough. Meanwhile, the only scars I have seen on himself and his kind amount to three marks.
The Son left a brand with His forsaking of you.
You kept the muting cut upon your throat, made before you had changed.
And then there is the Dragon’s only unhealed wound. A scar left by a spade in your Love’s hand. Why is that, Mina Harker? More, why is it your mind has suffered his petty puppeteer strings, yet rebuffed the transformation’s inebriating influence? You have not dulled in the years since you turned. You have not diminished to the state of the ‘Weird Sisters’ or your lost Lucy. If the Dragon were not so preoccupied with himself and his Conquest, he might know to worry.
A student of the Scholomance is admitted only once, Mina Harker. The Lessons are not easy. Triply so if not given access to them beneath the Mountain. But you have seen it is possible. That you were able to use the key at all marks you as a student. ‘Studying abroad,’ you would call it. You have the freedom to learn and to master all that you can bring yourself to dare. Which means you can master what the Dragon has. The will of the Weathermaker, the Speaker and Wearer of Beasts. It can be done.
Worst of all for the Dragon, he does not remember that what is sacred is not always the property of an Abrahamic hand.
You and your Love possess a holy strength that is innate. It does not hail from any church. The gods who bless and burden you, who have gifted you souls so tightly knit, are as old and steeped in sacrifice as the tutors in the Mountain. Some have even taught there.
Here, the visitor smiled.
It was one of them who made the first vourdalaks. The Passionate Dead who exist in only Love and Hate. Our Loves are made prey and protected forever, those Hated are marked for destruction. Love and Hate are your whetstones, Mina Harker, as they are Jonathan’s. Whatever weapon you wield, it will be sharpened to an edge the Dragon cannot heal from. Do you understand?
The smile broadened into a bitter curl of sharp ivory.
The Scarred Love thought she recognized the look. Her husband had worn it once as he whetted the kukri and listened to yet another announcement of doom in their hunt for the Dragon.
 I am not leaving you with him. I am leaving him with you.
The sun was coming now. Her phantom grip loosened. Almost time.
Almost time. Is there anything more you wish to ask?
The Scarred Love thought. Her answer came fast.
…What side of his face was it?
 Her visitor’s eyes burned white-blue, ice and flame at once. There was no tinkling crystal to her laugh. Only joyful madness.
The left, Mina Harker. Aim true.
Years would pass. Twenty long years of domesticity, of a sort. It was at the cusp of those twenty years,
As a young man boarded coach and ship and train,
As a Dragon found his keep robbed of its living treasures,
As a vow was upheld in a baptism of blood,
As a storm brewed at the will of a new Mistress,
As a thunderbolt fell with the precision of a needle onto a shock-slack face,
As a scar as brilliant and agonizing as the lightning itself erupted in the weathered skin,
As a Dragon realized this scar was the second one due to stay until he was dust,
Countess Dolingen of Gratz dreamed of her husband.
And smiled.
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Corpse AU DPxDC
After the portal accident Danny leaves “half” a body, he hides it from his parents for a while but eventually he can’t hide it in amity anymore due to it setting off ghost tech.
After Jazz finds out he’s phantom they go on a cross country road trip to hide the not decaying body from his parents somewhere that can obscure it’s ecto signature.
Leading them to a random Gotham cemetery phasing it under a grave with enough ambient ectoplasm to cover up Danny’s own.
The grave, one of a boy that died only a year prior, Jason Todd’s.
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