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nuagederose · 9 days

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Dark Roots of Earth | Chapter Twelve: Kisses Don’t Lie

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Though Valentina had gone back home in a haste, Chuck and Eric lingered back in the apartment for a bit longer than usual just in time for Christine to whip up a round of breakfast for the three of them. Eric had offered to help her, but the only thing he could make up for her was the toast to go amongst all the three of them.

She could scarcely eat up her scrambled eggs, however, given she kept on thinking about Alex and meeting him over at his place for the day. But at the same time, she knew that she had to eat something lest she be hungry all day long. She thought about the dream she had had the night before, and she wondered if she could run it by him when she saw him later on. Chuck meanwhile sipped on his coffee and showed her a little smile from behind his mug.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Christine asked him as she munched on her piece of wheat toast with apricot jam on the top.

“I’ll raise you two pennies for two of your thoughts,” he retorted, to which Eric snickered.

“What’s the catch?” she asked him.

“The catch is you and I do something together sometime this summer,” Chuck said.

“I dunno, man, she’s been chillin’ with ol’ Mr. Skolnick lately,” Eric retorted in a singsong voice.

“Well, yeah, I know that,” Chuck scoffed. “But I kinda want the same thing that you and her have, though.”

“Hang out and be buddies and stuff?” Christine asked him.

“Exactly, yeah!”

“Okay, um… what would you like to do together?”

“I wanna take you to dinner and a show,” Chuck declared.

“Dinner?” Eric demanded, taken aback.

“You and I went to dinner every night we were in Monterey,” she pointed out as she took another bite of toast.

“Yeah, but we were in California, though,” he insisted. “It’s different back here in the Big Apple.”

Chuck and Christine glanced at one another.

“Eric, this is the city that never sleeps,” she pointed out. “People here don’t give a shit about what you and I do together, or what me and him do together.” She sipped on the rest of her coffee and wiped her mouth with a napkin.

“Anyways, I gotta meet Alex today,” she informed them as she picked up her plate and took it to the sink. Chuck offered to do the same for himself and for Eric as well, the latter of whom had a rather wounded look upon his face. Christine watched him out of the corner of her eye as she rinsed off their plates under the faucet, and she wondered as to what was going through his mind right then. It reminded her of a time when another boy had his eye on her and Chris was standing off to the side with a similar look upon his face. She dared not dwell on such a memory as that time had long gone behind her, and Eric was totally different by comparison, but it still flashed through her mind like a flicker of light at the start of a thunderstorm.

The two of them still gave her a hug as well, and by the time she was alone again in the apartment, Christine ventured back to her bedroom and changed her clothes. She knew that it was going to be a rather warm day that day, and thus, she wore that low-cut white top and matching choker that Alex had given her right before she left for California. Quickly, she ran a hairbrush through her hair and fixed it up into the taut ponytail at the back of her head: the very tips of her hair brushed against the small of her back, and she knew that it was time for a trim lest the split ends make their return.

She gave her neck a quick swipe of the perfume that smelled of cherry blossoms, and then she hoisted her purse over her shoulder. As she made her way out to the hallway and locked the door, she thought about Eric’s behavior back there.

Maybe that trip out to Monterey had done something to him, and something that he hadn’t the courage to talk about, either. She flashed back on the kiss that he had given her, and she wondered if there could be something there should the whole thing with Alex not work out at all.

But she loved Alex. She was in love with him, and she knew that in her heart, she could love him more and love him better than Captain Howdy ever could.

Captain Howdy did not love him at all, as far as she knew. But she wondered if there could be room in her heart for two guys as she strode out to the sunshine and the bus stop. The warm sun washed over her and remained with the warmth over her as she rode on down to his neighborhood, the street lined with all of the trees, which had long bloomed with the fresh green leaves of spring and summer and gave the entire neighborhood a cool blanket against the hot days upon New York City.

Through a gap in the canopy, the sun shone down on the crown of Alex’s head, and Christine could see his plume of gray from right down the street as a result. He peeked over his sunglasses at her: it made her think that he was watching her like a movie star.

“Peek-a-boo,” she told him as she came within earshot. Her eyes wandered down to his long toned legs, accentuated by his black shorts and fitted shirt.

“There’s that girl,” he sang out as if he was up on Broadway. His warm, rounded voice echoed over the sidewalk and she knew that he had been teaching himself how to carry his tune better. “There’s that girl, there’s that girl…” Christine strode up to him and kissed him on the neck and then on his cherry lips, the latter of which she held onto as if her life depended on it.

Alex held back a bit and ran his fingers through his soft black hair: the gray streak shone under the sun as if it really was made of silver.

“Where did that come from?” he asked her with that lopsided smile on his handsome face.

“I just… wanted to feel you for a bit longer,” she confessed with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

“You know, it’s the damnedest thing: I was feeling the same way just last night. I really wanted to hang up and go over to your place.”

“You wouldn’t’ve liked it,” she said. “We had loud music going, all kinds of coolers flowing, someone called the cops, it was this whole big scene.” He treated her to that soft chuckle of his.

“Wanna go down to Coney Island?” he offered her with another run of his fingers through his hair.

“Oh, baby, you know it.” She lovingly patted the side of his face and kissed him again, that time with a slight raise onto her toes to reach him. She then held onto his hand, and the two of them walked together to his car parked right near the corner. When he let go of her hand, he took his keys out of his front pocket and let his sunglasses slide down the bride of his nose.

“You look really sexy, by the way,” she told him as her eyes wandered from his chest all the way down to his feet. “Showing off your skin and your curves like this.”

“If I have curves, what do you have?” he joked as he unlocked the car.

“More of curves?” she replied with a bit of reluctance, and he burst out laughing at that.

They both climbed into the car in unison and, once he fired it up, she was met with the soft crooning of Karen Carpenter on his radio.

“Man, you never hear the Carpenters anymore,” he remarked as he switched up the volume dial. Christine rolled down the window and let the warm summer air sweep over her.

She thought about the last summer Chris was alive, and one day while on the way to his house, she had the window down and her hand out the window to feel the breeze through her fingers. She did just that, much to Alex’s pleasure. In one small corner of her mind, she refused to believe that Chris was gone, that it was all some terrible joke and he had faked his death and was currently living under the boardwalk down at Coney Island, or out in the woods in the middle of Central Park. But she had left him behind in the past along with the memory of Ann and the memory of the time before Alex, and now she looked on at the big Ferris wheel once he turned the corner.

It was a warm summer day and yet there weren’t many people there; luckily for them, Alex took the spot due across the street from the parking lot.

Once he had locked the door and tucked his keys into his front pocket once again, she snuck up behind him and reached into his back pocket. She flexed her fingers inside of his pocket, which in turn made him flinch a bit.

“Hey, watch it,” he teased her. She did it again, and that time, he flinched forward and clutched at himself.

“God, you’re frisky today,” he joked.

“It’s what happens when you call me late at night and I wake up thinking about you,” she replied in a single breath. “I’m wanting to touch you.”

He peeked over his sunglasses at her again, that time with a playful little smirk on his face.

“I was also wanting to hear your voice, too,” she added, and he raised his eyebrows at that.

“You know, truth be known, I feel that way sometimes, too,” he confessed as they were met with the unmistakable smell of French fries, followed by popcorn.

“We need to have some fun,” she whispered right into his ear.

“We’re about to go into Coney Island!” he insisted. “Of course we’re going to have some fun.”

“No, no, I mean…” She lightly kissed the side of his neck, which in turn made him gasp and shiver. She held back to find him raising his eyebrows at her. “Let’s have some fun.”

“Oh, I see,” he breathed, and he showed her a playful little smile at that. “Well, first things first, let us play with the little island we have here.”

It reminded her of the time that he took her there before the rainstorm fell down over them, except this time, the sun shone down on them in the form of another shower. She held his hand, even when he had his free hand upon one of those old brown cream soda bottles with a straw out the spout. His black hair seemed to flow against the warm sea breeze, and she had her chest out in the open. There was a little stuffed sock monkey, bright green, the same color as the bushels of cotton candy off to the side, over by the balloon wall that caught her eye.

She grinned to herself when she convinced him of it. She knew that he was more than willing to spend money on her, money on her rather than Captain Howdy: he was spending enough on her, what with the wedding and everything.

Alex held the dart next to his head and chucked it to the first balloon right smack in the middle of the board. It popped so loud that it caught her off guard.

“That’s how we do it!” he declared with a chuckle. The second dart hit the one slightly to his left, and the third took the one slightly on his right.

“We’ll take the green monkey,” Christine declared to the kid behind the counter; he handed it over to Alex, who scritched the crown of its head as if it was real.

“For you, my love,” he told her as he handed her the monkey, to which she took and cradled in her arms as if it was made of gold.

“Shall we go down to the beach?” he suggested as he took a sip from his soda bottle.

“Please,” she quipped, and she held the monkey in one arm so she could hold hands with him again.

They walked side by side down towards the boardwalk and the panoramic view of the beach and the ocean. The aged wood of the walkway felt warm underneath their feet, and it radiated against their interlocked hands.

Like the sun was blessing the forbidden love between the two of them.

They passed by the bathrooms, and he held back a bit from her.

“Okay, but… um… before you and I get busy down here, I have to use the little boys’ room,” he told her, and he swiped her lips with a hearty kiss, the hardest one yet complete with a wave of sea spray cast over their heads.

“I’ll be right here,” she promised him with a wink, and she held onto his soda bottle with one hand. Christine watched Alex go in through the blue door on the left side, and she lingered back with the monkey in her arms. She pressed it up against her chest like she would a textbook, and she leaned against the brick wall due across from the doors.

She spotted something out of the corner of her eye, and she turned her head and looked up the boards to the spot on the wall, way out of earshot from her. She recognized that feathery blonde hair, now made golden by the summer sun, and she recognized her father anywhere.

Her eyes wandered to the water fountain right across from them, and she knew that short straight black hair anywhere as well.

Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of them, and she blindly ducked into the men’s room so she was close to Alex. The men’s room was small and bright, and smelled of fresh lemons as if they had just cleaned in there. Indeed, the smooth powder blue tiles under her feet shone under the fluorescent lights as if they were brand new. She caught the sound of something hitting the porcelain in one of the stalls, followed by a low thud.

“Whoa, ow!”

Christine rounded the corner and stood before the one door that had been closed.

“You okay in there?” she asked him through the door.

“I fell off the toilet.” He grunted out a bit as he picked himself up off the floor. “Not the first time that’s happened, though. And at least it’s clean in here, too.”

“Yeah, it actually smells really clean in here,” she remarked as she kept her folded arms up to her chest.

“Besides, this is the men’s room—you know you’re not supposed to be in here,” he told her; she could see his feet under the bottom of the door.

“I don’t care,” she confessed to him.

“I should’ve known,” he teased her with a chuckle. Christine held back against the wall with the monkey pressed right up against her chest. Even though she was in the men’s room, she didn’t mind standing there waiting for him, and she knew she was comfortable with him. The sound of his voice and his presence in the stall before her made her momentarily forget why she came in there in the first place.

“I saw Nelly and my dad down the boardwalk,” she told him right as he shifted his feet on the clean tile floor.

“And that’s why you’re in here?” he asked her, dumbfounded.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“That’s kind of an odd pairing to think about,” he confessed with a slight strain to his voice. “You sure it was them?”

“I know my dad from anywhere and I’m ninety-nine percent sure that was Nelly he was talking to.”

“Not sure why you’d run in here with that in mind, though,” he confessed.

“I also saw your fiancée out there, too.”

There was a brief pause behind the stall door. “Shit. Ah, shit.” He fetched up a sigh. “What was going on?”

“I don’t know. My dad and Nelly were talking to each other, and she had her back turned to them so she probably had nothing to do with it. It’s still disconcerting to see, though.”

“Yeah, I’ll say. So much for Nelly being a friend to us, too. At least I lie for you, Christine.” He then stood up and she heard him pull up his shorts. He then flushed and opened the door at the same time, and he greeted her with a nervous look on his face and his sunglasses perched upon his head.

“Looks like we’re going to have our work cut out for us, my dear,” he confessed to her.

“No doubt about that.”

“Let me wash my hands and then I’ll take a look out there…”

Christine held off to the side of the faucets as he scrubbed his hands with the soft soap right next to him.

“I love how you aren’t offended by my odor, either,” he confessed to her with a glimpse up to the mirror.

“I actually don’t even notice it,” she told him with a shrug of her shoulders. “It’s just a part of life, anyway.”

“Exactly!” he replied as he switched off the water. He took a few paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and dried off his long and lanky hands.

“Oh, good, you still held onto my soda!” he declared as she handed it to him and his free, dry hand. He took another sip from the straw and then shook his head about.

“Okay, now, let’s see what’s going on out there,” he said as he opened the door with the paper towel. They were greeted by the ocean breeze and the warmth of the sun, but Christine thought of lingering back away from there lest one of them look in their direction. Alex peered off to the right, and then to the left. He held still and she knew they were still there.

“Oh, god, that is my fiancée,” he muttered as he put his sunglasses back on. “And it looks like that is Nelly, too.”

“What do you think we should do?” Christine asked him. Alex didn’t say anything as he tossed the paper towels into the trash can by the door, and then he took her by the hand and led her away from there. She daren’t glance back, and she knew that they would be safe in the furthest stretch of beach from there.

#dark roots of earth #dark roots of earth fanfic #as the seasons grey #as the seasons grey fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #chapter 12 #testament #testament band #alex skolnick #chuck billy #eric peterson #oc tag #traditional art #drawings #fanfic with art #artists on tumblr #badgalnirvhannahart

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feverinfeveroutfic · 18 days

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The Confectioner’s Tale | Chapter 2

as sweet as blood and chocolate 🩸

(speaking of, new chapter of that coming)

There was a rumor spread about me some time ago. I had no idea as to when it had manifested or when it came into fruition, but somehow I had gotten word that the kids down the street were saying that I made cupcakes out of human flesh and blood. At first, my colleagues and I had laughed it off, and I believed it to be because we served cupcakes at Halloween with a cherry red glaze over the top so as to resemble to blood: we also had cakes with decorations in the shape of human fingers and eyeballs. I figured that it was simply Halloween fun from the neighborhood children: I was a kid in northern Nevada, and Halloween was a huge deal in Carson City, and so, I knew it all too well.

Then the health department showed up.

The memory of being questioned by the health inspector and having my pantry looked at down to every last molecule of flour and sugar had been etched in my memory from thence forth. I was still wary of keeping red food coloring in the pantry near the decoration tools because I knew that it could be mistaken as blood.

I had considered myself as a kitchen witch of sorts, what with my long dark bushy hair down to my waist and my brown eyes in contrast with my pale olive-toned skin. I had been to Cyprus and Israel, the latter of which a few times to say in the least. I was all too familiar with Canada and Britain. I was an artist on top of being elbow-deep in pastry and bread doughs.

But I knew in my heart of hearts that one of these days, I was going to have to find my out of Los Angeles and mosey on up to Reno again.

What you see as somewhat above you, you watch with eyes that burn like cigarettes no matter what the context.

I had the bricks of cream cheese out on the counter next to me and the mixer, as well as the sour cream, half a stick of butter, six eggs, and the jar of vanilla extract. I had already crafted out the graham cracker crust and had put it in the fridge for chilling for about twenty minutes.

Chill for twenty, bake for twenty-five, as my boss had advised me on the first time around.

I couldn’t stop thinking about those two boys as I began work on that lush New York cheesecake: it was going to take longer than the Bailey’s cake given it had to sit in the fridge and chill for a whole day once I had finished it, which meant Alex wasn’t going to get his slice until the morning hours at the very least. I hoped that he would understand, and I hoped that he would still be there come the morning as well.

Boiling water in the roasting pan where the springform pan would be set within, and I hoped that the cake would set.

I had only made all of three New York style cheesecakes before then, the first of which was at home, and thus, I was a bit nervous to start with.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I found rather interesting that I had gotten a Jewish boy as well as another guy from New York, and there I was crafting out a state dessert complete with a small grouping of fresh raspberries on top.

Once time was up, I opened the oven door and checked on the cake, nestled inside of the shiny springform pan and the steaming water bath.

An ever so slight wobble in the middle was all I needed.

My heart skipped a beat when I knew it was just right, and I took the smooth pale yellow disk right out of the heat with my red silicone oven mitts. I perched the cake on the wire rack next to me for a moment; I then took off the springform, albeit with some care so as to make sure the cake was fully set in place. The latch clicked off and the filling stayed put as it should. I let out a low whistle and tucked it into the top shelf of the pale purple refrigerator, and then I got right to work on that Bailey’s cake for Pete.

There sat a brand new rich black bottle of the liqueur in the back of the pantry, and as I took it out of hiding, I had a flashback to when Ben was in the picture.

They were never that much of heavy drug users, but they did enjoy some drinks and some recklessness every now and again. But Ben had the most nefarious of habits with his smoking. He made it look so cool and yet so repulsive at that same time as he leaned against the brick wall with a cigarette rested on his bow-shaped lips and his long shaggy, bushy hair dangled down over his face. I had only known him via writing and what I had seen from afar, but the thought of the smoke caressing and cutting into his skin, a subtle poison sharper than any knife, only made me nauseous. I may have had my inkling for him, but I had my doubts about kissing him should the opportunity ever make its way to my mind

Maybe it was just my own naïveté in thinking that I could fix him. I often fantasized about getting together with him and we could find a way to get away from those damned things. To clear away the smoke so he could smile and breathe without choking on his own oxygen.

I had my fantasies, about talking to him face to face, about going on a date with him.

They were fantasies until I acted upon them.

I returned to reality as I made the chocolate ganache for the Bailey’s cake.

Unsweetened chocolate with heavy cream and a tablespoon of that smooth liqueur over a bain-marie.

I wondered what those boys were doing across the street as I glimpsed over at the time on the two tiers in the oven. Only five doors separated them, and I knew that the smell of the Bailey’s cake would attract attention amongst themselves once the time came for me. Five doors and five minutes.

I let the ganache set for a second on the stove so it would stay warm for the time being, and I began the buttercream frosting. Oh, what a glorious bitch that was buttercream frosting.

I switched on the mixer to low speed and took another glimpse up to the shelf with the boxes of cake decorations. A part of me wanted to whip out the fake blood again, just to see how they would react across the street. I may have been a baker, but I was a baker who gave a blessing to the kitchens I worked in.

I had my witchcraft, and they both had the shadows on their eyes and the hair as black as night. A rumor or not, it made sense in the strangest way as the cream manifested itself right before my eyes. I switched off the mixer, and within seconds, the timer went off. I put the mitts back on and took the cake pans out of the oven: the rich dark chocolate batter had risen toward the edges of the fine silver pans in a slight dome shape, and I knew they were done with a mere pat of my fingertip.

I let them cool for a few minutes before I took each of them out of the pans and spread the ganache over the bottom tier. It seemed a bit of a rush as the tiers had to cool all the way, but I figured that it was cool enough in that kitchen that they would temper down enough to work with. Or perhaps not as they steamed once released from the pans.

All the while, I flashed a glimpse over at the refrigerator door, and I thought about that cheesecake. It had to chill before I could do anything to it, and so far, it had only been about an hour.

I was going to have to spill to Alex once I walked on out of there with the Bailey’s cake for Pete.

I cleaned up the kitchen a bit so as to let the tiers cool some more, and I once again had another flashback to Ben. When the rumor that we were using human flesh and blood in our baked goods, and I was supposedly the one responsible for it, I thought about Ben talking about being a twenty-year-old kid and living on Bainbridge Island, far removed from the rest of the world. Chris had said the last thing any kid would ever want to do was knock on Ben’s door for any reason whatsoever, not even if his house was on fire, because Ben would greet them with a double-barrel twelve-gage. I always wondered how much truth there was to that, and if any kid had ever gone to the hospital with a slug of lead embedded in the back of their head.

I was in love with a potential murderer as far as I knew, and I shuddered at the thought.

As I wiped down the counter over the display case with a cloth, I looked on at myself in the reflection of the shiny silvery metal. As silver as the tiny plume in Alex’s hair.

Oh, flesh and blood. The thing that bounded us and the thing that could have done us in more so than the nickname of the “tombstone mile”.

A shadow emerged from behind the glass front door, and I took a glimpse up for a look outside there. A tall, burly man with long wavy hair the color of the Bailey’s cake, smooth skin kissed by the sun, and long lanky arms strode across the street; when he extended his hand out to the door handle, I caught a glimpse of the silver cross on his middle finger.

“Hey!” he greeted me once he stepped inside; he took off his mirrored sunglasses and showed me brilliant blue eyes in sharp contrast of his dark skin.

“Hey!” I returned the favor, albeit with a bit of reluctance as he was just a stranger to me.

“I’m with Alex, who came in here earlier,” he told me as the door closed behind him. He lightly smelled of cologne, beer, and incense, and it helped that he donned a turquoise bracelet on his left wrist. “I’m Chuck.”

“Chuck! I’m Hannah. What can I do for you?”

“I just came to see how you’re doing,” he replied. “He told me about you and the cheesecake you’re making just for him.”

“Aw!” I brought a hand to my chest at that, and I could feel my heart skipping a few beats. This was a first for me, especially after everything that Ben and I had gone through before. I could feel my face growing warm as a result of that.

“And let me guess, you want a slice yourself,” I quipped, to which he shrugged.

“Maybe. I guess I could also check out what else you got given this is a bakery and a rather infamous one at that, as well.”

“The cake has to cool for eight hours,” I told him, “and we’re not that infamous, either.” I flashed him a wink, and he returned the favor with a sly grin. His luminous eyes swept down to my chest and the pendant around my neck for a moment. He squinted at it, and then, like the sun outside of there, his face lit up.

“Oh, that says ‘Soundgarden’! Love those cats.”

“Favorite band in the whole world,” I said with one hand on my hip as if to indicate my pride. “I wrote a string of letters to their bass player Ben.”

“Oh, that’s so cool! Anything come of that?”

And I sighed through my nose. He raised his eyebrows at that.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I used to like him,” I confessed with a shrug. “I never did get even so much as a ‘boo’ out of him.”

Chuck leaned over the top of the display case and folded his arms over the edge.

“You deserve better,” he assured me in a low voice. “You deserve so much better than to be left in the dark like that.”

I showed him a smile.

“Thank you, that’s really sweet of you,” I said.

“I mean it, though!” Chuck insisted. “You deserve to feel something in the midst of everything.” He ran his fingers through his dark waves, to which he craned his neck for a look into the kitchen behind me.

“By the way, what else is baking in here? It smells wonderful.”

“A chocolate cake laced with powdered espresso and Bailey’s,” I replied. “A favorite at St. Paddy’s Day and a special one for a guy who came in before Alex.”

Chuck paused for a second.

“Was it a tall guy? Taller than me? Long jet-black hair and big bright green eyes? Looks like he could either drain you of your blood or kill a man with his bare hands?”

“Yes, actually,” I stammered.

“He and his band are staying right next door to us,” he replied. “We’re on separate tours, but we’re in the same hotel.”

“Oh, my god, really?”

“Yeah! Small world, right?”

“As small as the petits-fours we’ll be making coming up here soon enough,” I quipped. Chuck took a glimpse down to the case before him right then: the glass always got too warm if someone leaned up against it like that, but he seemed to be double-taking on something under the glass.

“What’s this right here?” he asked me with a gesture to the box on the shelf right before me.

“Malassadas,” I replied. “They’re basically Portuguese donuts, covered in cinnamon and sugar. Pretty big over in Hawai’i as well as the Azores, and also me as I’m Portuguese.”

“I’m Mexican and Native American,” he added. “We’re curators of the damned.”

“And I’ll be damned, too,” I cracked, which in turn brought a big chuckle out of him.

“I’ll take one of those, and how long do you think that Bailey’s cake is going to be?”

“I took the tiers out of the oven about ten minutes ago and they have to cook before I could frost and assemble them,” I explained. “So, about… twenty minutes or so.” I paused. “Why?”

“Let me walk you over there once it’s done,” he suggested. “You know. Woman walking across the street in L.A. with a chocolate cake in her arms.”

I squinted my eyes at that. This totally was nothing like Ben, or like Soundgarden for that matter.

“Let me get that malassada for you,” I said to him in a low voice.

#fanfic #fanfiction #testament #testament fanfic #testament band #chuck billy #oc tag #chapter 2 #type o negative #soundgarden #ben shepherd #peter steele #also on ao3 #writing #text #the confectioner’s tale fanfic #the confectioner’s tale

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