An Interview with the Vampire — Chapter/Episode Sixteen: this is what it sounds like, when doves cry
a/n: here comes the chapter of doom and despair, everybody 0_0 also this comes out when the vampire lestat season finale comes out so wahoo! more depression! /j
relationship: vampire! volt x vampire! eddie x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! eddie x vampire! amir
series masterlist! || french translations (I do not speak fluent french, so any corrections would be appreciated!)
cws: mentions of brothels & prostitution, crude/sexual humor, murder, gore, violence, physical torture, blood, age gap relationship, homophobia, toxic/unhealthy relationship, unreliable narrators, reader suffers from depressive episodes and suicidal ideation, self harm, domestic violence, pregnancy, loss of pregnancy/miscarriage, fasting/starvation, slut-shaming, main character death, hallucinations, misogyny, implied rape/sexual assault, spoilers for s2ep7 of amc’s iwtv! Some very disturbing/abusive/toxic behaviors will be discussed and possibly romanticized. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED‼️‼️‼️
summary: come one, come all, to the show of a lifetime! witness marvels & spectacles unseen by the human eye until now! see four notorious vampires go on trial for the murder of their maker! make sure justice prevails by joining us in the audience for our first ever matinee show at the theatre des vampires! — 23.0k words! [read on ao3]
“Canary!”
It was a desperate, muffled cry of your name from Eddie’s lips as he was pushed away from you.
Like sick, disgusting parrots, the coven members repeated his frenzied pronunciation of your name back to him. A mockery of his voice, drowning out the world’s noise as his only view of the world was through the dirty potato sack. Through that dirty, distorted lens, he couldn’t see anything.
Most importantly — he couldn’t see you.
“Canary, Canary, Canary–”
“–Eddie!”
You. Amidst the harlequins — the fakes — your voice rang out. You were calling to him with more fear in your voice than he had in his.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Eddie did the only thing he could in that very moment — keep himself calm while the world around him went to shit, “we’re gonna be okay. Hold on to my voice, sweetheart. I’ll find you, I’ll rip these fuckers to pieces if I have to–”
“–Session twenty-one. Eddison Watts, his vampire bride Canary Watts, the child vampire Harper, and her companion Lucinda are…” Dolly trails off, eyes digesting the playbill in front of her, “Anyone want to start?”
Trial! The Treacherous and Unnatural Crimes of the Vampiers Eddie, Canary, & Harper (and their fledgling, Lucinda) is the title in big, ugly red lettering at the top of the pamphlet. The lower-half is taken up by a large crimson gavel, and the Comedy and Tragedy masks decorate either side of the title, with powdered wigs atop their unique expressions.
Amir looks away in shame, placing a hand upon his shoulder before he uncomfortably rubs the skin close to his neck. Eddie, however, faces Dolly dead-on. He, for all intents and purposes, seems ready to confront this part of his life, as tragic as it may be.
“We were abducted and overwhelmed,” Eddie starts, “Greatly outnumbered, too.”
The cold floor against his body, after being harshly thrown down the stairs, is what Eddie remembers next. A thousand kicks to his body from members of the Parisian coven meant nothing to him when he heard his girls crying out in pain.
“Amir sold you out–”
“–Don’t.” It’s a crystal clear warning from Eddie — one that Dolly does abide by this time, letting Eddie take the reins during this session instead of her trying to ask questions.
Fine. We can play by these rules.
“Sorry,” She bluntly apologizes before she adjusts her glasses and leans back on the couch, placing her arm upon the back of the cushions, “Go ahead.”
“I tried to claw and bite anything that moved outside of the sack. It wasn’t for me, I… I wanted to know that Harper and Canary were alive.”
Harper’s screams came first. When Eddie ripped his way out of that damned sack, he was given a front-row seat to Harper being lifted into some sort of box. She fought, bit, and shrieked, but she couldn’t overwhelm the likes of Curt, Rod, and Artt. Meanwhile, Drysdale sat Lucinda down and spoke soft, hypnotizing words to the girl that she was powerless to resist.
Only when Eddie heard rats scurrying around did he realize what was going to happen to Harper.
“Harper–!”
“–Mama!” She managed to force her head out of the box once they had placed her inside of it, curling her fingers around the outside of the box to help herself resist Curt’s hands as he grabbed her hair and forced her further inside, “Daddy! Stop, please! Make them stop!”
Eddie had to be restrained by Daisuke so he couldn’t get to his daughter.
The sound of ten fingers snapping at once accompanied the closing of that box, and Eddie heard Harper’s screams of terror when the rats found her.
“Help me!”
He couldn’t. They kept him awake and aware, so he could bear witness to what happened next.
“I couldn’t go to her. I couldn’t comfort her. I couldn’t help her,” Eddie, at that moment, sounds more upset with himself than anyone else in that story, “and then I saw what they did to Canary.”
A frenzy of feminine laughter drew Eddie’s attention away from Harper as Connie, Memoria, and Bathsheba stood over a pair of shoes that Eddie recognized.
“It’s a shame Miranda couldn’t be here,” Bathsheba wickedly grinned as she wiped the blood from her claws onto her dress, “she’s the one who spotted that scar.”
“Oh, we should pull her hair out next!” Connie suggested, clapping her hands together in excitement as the sound of fabric shredding filled the room. “After we remove her nails one-by-one, of course–”
“–I would’ve rather helped with the girl,” Memoria looked away in disinterest as she sighed, “I suppose I’ll have to take my anger out on the little birdie we caught instead.”
“C’mon, little birdie,” Bathsheba crouched down, grabbing a handful of your hair before she tugged on it, “Sing for us, won’t you? Tell the whole world what a pretty little whore you are–”
“–fuck you,” You literally spat in her face, and Bathsheba screamed in disgust as you lowly chuckled, “‘m gonna enjoy rippin’ your head from your shoulders.”
“That little bitch–”
Memoria stopped Bathsheba with an extended hand.
“–We tried to do this the nice, easy way,” Memoria didn’t even sound sad when she spoke, “but… due to your poor behavior, we’ll have to do this the hard way instead. Connie, grab the rope.”
You shrieked when Bathsheba put a hand around your throat as Memoria came to your side, doing exactly as Connie said. Blood splurted everywhere when she ripped your fingernails from fingers, one-by-one, letting them hit the ground before she stomped them to smithereens with her heels.
As if that wasn’t enough, Eddie heard you whimper when your thumbs were bent the wrong way. Then, suddenly, both of your tormentors stood to the side when Connie approached with a bundle of rope in her arms.
“Tie her legs apart.” Memoria commanded before she pushed Bathsheba out of the way.
“What the fuck–”
“–I think her husband deserves the best seat in the house for this little show.” Memoria explained before Bathsheba snickered and moved towards the rat box, leaning her head over it so she could hear Harper wail in pain as the rats feasted upon her flesh.
When Connie managed to separate your legs, she tied one of your ankles to a post that supported that rat box, and the other to the ending railing of the stairwell. Then, she and Memoria backed away from you, finally giving Eddie his first view of you since you were at the restaurant.
Your clothes were torn every which way, barely leaving you covered. The only modest garments you had on were your bra and underwear, left untouched underneath the shredded fabric that could barely be called yarn that hung over it. Blood poured from your hands as Eddie’s eyes traced the countless bruises and lashes up your arms. There was a plentiful amount of bruises on your legs and abdomen, too. The gigantic purple marks on your sides concerned him the most, since you had most — if not all — of your ribs cracked by your attackers.
Your face, however, went through the worst of it, by far. That scar on the left side of your face was torn open, perfectly traced by Bathsheba’s claws so she could reopen the wound exactly where it once was. A wound that he indirectly caused you.
Your nose is off-kilter — most certainly broken — and a small stream of blood trickled from the corner of your mouth. Orange eyes that had carried thousands of emotions in them were now distant and unfocused — you had buried your heart deep within your mind, as a means of protecting yourself.
“Canary,” Eddie fought off Daisuke for a moment, and he was only able to reach a hand out to you before he was tackled to the ground, “Sweetheart, please look at me.”
You couldn’t, though. Not after being so thoroughly humiliated.
“I love you.” Eddie whispered, watching small red rivers leak from your eyes. “I don’t care what you look like. I will always love you. You don’t have to say it back to me, but I want you to know that you’re loved.”
“Aww, how sweet,” Bathsheba faux-cooed at Eddie before she turned back towards Harper, “I wonder if you’ll still love her after you see what we’ve got planned for her.”
The room went cold and silent before bitter laughter emanated from you.
“‘Course you’d think that,” You tauntingly whispered, “Every love you’ve ever known is skin-deep.”
“You!” Bathsheba snarled at you, sprinting to your side before she grabbed a bunch of your hair in her clawed, well-manicured hand. “I will kill you.”
“You people are fuckin’ ugly.” You lightly snorted, looking at her with a shit-eating grin on your face. “Not in the face or body, but that’s not where it counts. Your personalities, your words, your conversations, your relationships — they’re all ugly. Every part of you is ugly.”
In a moment of anger, Bathsheba slammed your head against the nearest wall, knocking you out cold and leaving a trail of blood on the surface.
“Canary!” Eddie cried out your name, trying to wake you, but it didn’t work.
Later, he’d realize that it was probably for the best that you were unconscious. You wouldn’t have to remember what came next.
“I watched for hours as they… she…” Eddie glances down at his folded hands. “I’m sorry, I can’t–”
“–Don’t be. I’m sure my readers are smart enough to put two and two together,” Dolly then holds up the playbill to Eddie, “The trial. Focus on the trial.”
“Ladies and gentleman! Madames et messieurs! Offal and offalesses! And, to all those who flourish outside of the divide, welcome!” Drysdale’s booming voice carried over the full audience, who thrummed with quiet excitement as they hung upon his every word. The spotlight was solely on him, the red front curtain shuttered so he was the focal point of the production. “For one-hundred and fifty years, we here at Theatre Des Vampires have shown you… you.”
The audience laughed as he carried on.
“Your obscene predilations, your savage desires. But, today, we’re shunting human affairs aside. So, if you want to kill your lover or fuck your mother, it’ll have to wait,” Drysdale waited for the laughter to finish before his monologue spilled forth, “Because today… we’re turning our lurid spotlight on ourselves! I stand before you in broad daylight at this first ever matinee at the Theatre Des Vampires to perform for your salacious gratification… us!”
With extended arms out to the crowd, Drysdale heard a thousand enthusiastic yeses from the audience before he put a judicial wig on.
“Are you ready, you filthy animals?” He placed a hand over his heart before the other hand went, palm-up, into the air. “If you are, then the jury may be seated!”
The riled-up crowd cheered and applauded as the curtain unveiled a bench of officials in the back of the stage — the majority of the coven, minus Miranda, who was running the orchestral arrangement for the show, Daisuke, and Chairemi — who were dressed in long, dark robes and that same white court wig that Drysdale had on.
The main attraction, however, was the four bodies on stage right that had sacks thrown over their weak forms. Slowly, from stage right to stage left, they were dramatically revealed to the audience.
First, there was Lucinda, in a daze caused by Drysdale. Second was Harper, who rapidly blinked to adjust to the harsh overhead lighting. Next was your slumped-over form, still not yet conscious from the abuse it had suffered, and last, but certainly not least, was Eddie.
The crowd booed at your appearances, but Harper was mostly concerned with Lucinda’s lack of reaction to… anything, really, while Eddie kept his eyes on you.
“Canary, angel…” Eddie brought his hand to your chest, slowly rubbing your sternum to try to wake you, “Please say somethin’. I need to–”
“–Avocat!” Lady Memoria brought her gavel down to calm the crowd as she spoke in a terrible accent that Eddie couldn’t even place. “Read the crimes for which this iniquitous quartet stands accused.”
“Sweet girl, I don’t want you to be awake for whatever the fuck this is,” Eddie gently shook your form, watching your downwards-titled head not even move after he touched you, “But I need to know you’re okay. Gimme somethin’.”
Eddie put his hand in yours, slowly squeezing it.
You didn’t respond in like.
You didn’t respond at all.
“I don’t remember what he said next. I knew Canary wasn’t dead, and yet…” Eddie’s eyes are full of tears as he looks through Dolly, rather than at her. “She was lifeless. No pulse or heartbeat to rely on, either. All I had was her shallow breathing, and even that was hardly there.”
“The sacks came off,” Dolly tries to redirect the conversation back to the trial, “and you’re characters in a play.”
“Props in a play. A play that was fully designed and rehearsed,” Eddie explains, “and every actor onstage had scripted lines, except for us.”
Amir curls his fingers around a copy of said script, a war of turbulent emotions on his face before he tosses it Dolly’s way.
Drysdale was standing on a podium, a few feet away from the four of you as he addressed the audience.
“If the prosecution’s evidence convicts you–”
“–we didn’t know any laws!” Harper screamed at Drysdale before she pleaded with the audience. “We didn’t know it was illegal to kill him! This is bullshit, ‘n you–”
She froze, body suddenly seizing when the collective power of the coven of vampires behind her disoriented her mind, which prevented her from speaking further. Her jaw was pressed shut, lips quaking until she managed to get her last words out.
“–they were… tryin’ to kill us!” She gasped for air before she collapsed into her chair, and that exclamation from your daughter, alongside the gavel that slammed behind you, was the only thing that seemed to make you stir.
“Dear, dear, dear!” Drysdale tutted at the girl while Eddie was completely preoccupied with you, placing a hand over your stomach to steady you as you lifted your head up and gained your bearings. “We’ve no need to hear from you! We have your words here.”
Drysdale then walked to the middle of the stage, where he gestured to an open shelf that had all of her diaries displayed to the audience.
“Here they are, in all of their chilling premeditation.”
“Canary,” Eddie spoke gently to you, so as to not scare you, “‘m right here. Look at me, mon ange.”
You didn’t say anything back to him. Hell, you barely moved. Your fingers twitched as you ran the non-broken ones down the length of the chair before they made their way to your face.
“‘M beggin’ you to say somethin’, sweetheart. Let me know that you’re here,” Eddie ignored the audience that egged Drysdale on, so he’d read some of Harper’s words to them, “Canary? Canary, please, I just wanna–”
“–Ed–die?” His name, in two syllables, as if you were pronouncing it for the first time. Good. That was a start. You weren’t looking at him, but you were starting to come to. Fuck, he hopes that you don’t remember anything that happened below this stage. “Honey–”
Blood fell from your lips as you spoke, and it terrified Eddie.
“–Don’t speak.” Eddie quickly hushed you, wiping that blood from your chin so you didn’t look so ghastly. Fuck, you looked like death with the large amount of wounds that were on your body. He can’t make it go away, but maybe he can figure out where you’re hurting the most. “Where’s it hurt, angel?”
His other hand went to your stomach subconsciously — protecting your child tended to be one of the first things on his mind — but he quickly abandoned that pursuit, placing your hand on top of his so you could lead him to the most painful injury on your body. He couldn’t heal you like Amir could, but maybe a bit of special attention from your husband would help lift your spirits and bring you back to him, at a minimum.
“Everywhere,” Eddie’s heart squeezed when you said that, and he felt tears poke his eyes when he heard you softly whimper in pain, face twisting in discomfort because of your injuries, “but Eddie… between my thighs, it–”
“–November 23rd, 1940,” Drysdale read an entry from Harper’s diary, pulling Eddie’s attention from you briefly, “‘I shall be your angel of death, Volt! You go on planning,’ quote, ‘our future together,’ end quote. ‘Well, I’ve already planned yours. Not much time left, Volt. Tick-tock, tick-tock.’”
“Shame! Shame!” The crowd furiously booed as Drysdale sighed in pretend remorse before he handed the diary to one of the fanatic fans of the theatre troupe in the front row.
“I know she was one of your favorites, but give it a read.”
While the woman grabbed the diary from Drysdale’s hand, Eddie focused on you once more, to prevent himself from lashing out at the actor.
“I know,” Eddie found it hard to speak about what he saw — how they desecrated the temple that is your body, “I saw everythin’.”
Your bottom lip wobbled.
“‘M sorry–”
No. Fuck no. Eddie will not let you apologize to him for being abused.
“–No. Don’t you dare apologize to me for somethin’ that ain't your fault, sweetheart. You didn't deserve this. You didn't deserve any of this. Look at me, Canary,” Eddie made sure to emphasize how you weren’t to blame as he carefully used his hands — with the gentlest touch that you’ve felt since you were at that restaurant with your family last night — to comfort you, “I want you to look me in the eyes so I know you're listenin’ to me when I say this. What happened to you wasn't your fault. What's gonna happen to us isn't your fault. You did everythin’ right. You were perfect.”
You paused, allowing Eddie’s words to rattle around your skull as the production continued on.
“Why don’t you pass it around?” Drysdale cupped the fan’s cheek before he threw his cape to the side, dramatically walking back to his podium. “Harper had us all fooled.”
“They crippled you?” Dolly tenderly asks.
“Our ankle tendons were slashed to the bone.” Eddie looks off in the distance, perhaps being pulled into the narrative, rather than retelling it. “They gave us wounds that wouldn’t heal before the end of the play. Our chairs were nailed to the floor, so we couldn’t use them in defense.”
After what felt like an eternity, your eyes began to focus, and you fully came back into your body before you tilted your head at Eddie, trying to gaze at his expression. He knew what you’d see — all of that trepidation, dread, and fright — and he couldn’t hide it from you. This wasn’t a fate that he could protect you from. Whatever happened… happened, and that fucking terrified Eddie.
“It’s okay, Eddie.” In your first truly lucid moments since you had awakened, you chose to comfort him. God, what the fuck did he do to deserve you when he fucked you over at every possible avenue? “Please don't cry, mon amour. ‘M here. ‘M okay.”
You weren’t, though. You were so badly bruised and beaten, and he was powerless to prevent it. He held your unmoving body for a few minutes as the coven cackled and pointed at the two of you.
“I thought they killed you,” Eddie didn’t think that you’d awaken, yet here you were, persevering through more horrors, “I thought you were dead–”
“–only flesh wounds, darlin’. It'll heal with time.”
Your words and giggles would’ve convinced him that everything was going to be alright, if you didn’t throw up a liter of blood right afterwards.
“Breathe, mon ange. Don't speak unless you have to,” Eddie had to get you through this, even as his own confusion grew when one of the vampires snuck off stage to place a comically large armchair on the opposite part of the stage to him, signalling the presence of someone other actor besides the Parisian vampires, “‘m here. I won't go anywhere. If you wanna hide in my arms–”
“–hide? Why would I hide?” You were absolutely stunned. “Eddie, what's goin’ on? Where are we?”
You didn’t know. God, how could you not know? Did you not hear the audience members right in front of you who were mocking your weak movements and shallow breaths?
“We’re on a stage, in the middle of the day,” Eddie slowly explained as your gaze went to the crowd, eyes widening when you saw them, but then you instantly shrank into yourself when you realized that you were the spectacle being mocked on stage, “You don't have to look at them, Canary.”
Make a fool of him. Make him the butt of all jokes — Eddie doesn’t really fucking care. But you? No. No one was allowed to say anything repulsive about you. He couldn’t stop the audience if he tried, but he could protect you by keeping your eyes on him. You could hold onto him throughout the performance, so you wouldn’t give those fuckers out there the satisfaction of seeing your horrified reactions.
“...I don't?”
“No, sweetheart. You can look at me,” Eddie dropped his voice to a whisper before he pressed his lips to the shell of your ear, “'I’d much rather look at your pretty face than those assholes in the crowd.”
“Me too.” You quietly agreed, going silent before your brows suddenly furrowed. “We're on stage. Eddie, are we… is this a fuckin’ play about us?”
“While I was talking to Canary, the fight went out of Harper. My girls were so defeated, and that made me feel nauseous… but I soon realized that something else was bothering me,” Eddie says, beginning to carefully weave a familiar face into the story, “I started to feel someone else in the theater. We were on trial for murder, and all I could think was… he’s coming.”
“...the first and only witness! Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” Drysdale made a grand gesture with his left hand towards that empty part of the stage, where that ruby-red-cushioned armchair sat, “The victim, Monsieur Volt de Lioncourt!”
And, of course, the crowd went fucking nuts at the appearance of the man in question.
“He was back, in the flesh.” Dolly notes.
“It had all the hallmarks of a hallucination.” Eddie softly admits. “Volt, at last, come to kill us… but no, he was real.”
“So,” Dolly fixes her glasses, “your new boyfriend sold you out to your old boyfriend–”
“–yeah, alright,” Amir sighs, running his fingers against the palm of his hand, “I sold him out.”
“And then he put you on a show trial in front of a live human audience.” Dolly chuckles as she admires the playbill once more. “Let me guess — the star witness’s testimony was scrupulously impartial?”
~
Eddie could tell that Volt was a natural on stage from the moment the lighting hit his form. He soaked in the applause and cheers from the audience, who were all on their feet the moment he appeared on stage. He rolls his shoulders back, standing tall in a black-stripped suit that had decorative red roses on his black tie as the pop of color in his outfit.
Volt tilts his chin upwards, slowly assessing the crowd as his eyes bounced all around the room. The sea of people didn’t stop hooting and hollering, and they drowned out most of Eddie’s thoughts, but he still caught the resentment and wrath that reeked from your form.
“Don’t,” Eddie throws his arm out, to stop your from leaping at Volt, “I know you want to fuckin’ rip his throat out — so do I — but I don’t want those vampires to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” Your head swivels towards your daughter, who grabs your hand and squeezes it.
“Those vampires can scramble our brains ‘n disorient us. Make it hard for us to move,” Harper then points to the blood dripping out of one of her nostrils, “Gave me this, too.”
“Bordel de merde, ‘m sorry, ma petite.” You brush that blood away with your thumb before you lean over her to look at Lucinda, “what’s goin’ on with her?”
“I don’t know.” Harper’s terrified as she speaks, and you grab Eddie’s hand with your free one, so you have a hold of your entire family.
“We’re gonna get through this,” You murmur as the crowd finally quiets down, “together.”
Eddie knows this — he’s just worried that this journey ends with four tombstones, rather than you all riding off into the sunset.
“I prefer the old place.” Volt works his magic on the crowd, immediately winning them over with a small joke as he briefly smiles before that infamous neutral expression returns to his face. “But… it’s a grubby little century, isn’t it?”
“I have a very special book for you to swear upon, Monsieur de Lioncourt,” Drysdale holds up a small, black-leather-bounded book to the audience before he presents it to Volt in his open palm, “Written by the vampire Harper, in which your last words are recorded in your own blood.”
The flicker of film nearly draws Eddie to the screen behind him, but he knows what’s displayed on that screen in red lettering. He was there when Volt said it to him.
“Put me in my coffin, Eddie, Eddie.”
“I swear,” Volt put his hand upon Harper’s diary, “in my own blood.”
“Monsieur de Lioncourt,” Drysdale returns the diary to his podium before he gazes at Volt, “you’ve returned to Paris because…?”
“I have a box at Roland-Garros for the Men’s doubles. I’m going to drain the Australians if they win,” Volt eases the tension in the room with that comment, the mortals happily laughing as the actors on stage look on in confusion, as if they didn’t expect Volt to say those words, “And a croque madame at Brasserie Lipp… alongside justice for the attempted murder of my being.”
Volt silently turns on his heels, and the only sound echoing through the theater is his feet stepping on the stage. He sits upon that gold-lined armchair, posing as he places his arms on those stupidly large armrests.
“It’s their turn to hurt.”
Your turn to hurt. After everything that you and Harper had been through, Volt had the audacity to sit on that stage and say that it was your turn to hurt. Like he wasn’t the one who trapped you and your daughter in that New Orleans townhouse. Like he didn’t harm you, mentally and physically, over a period of twenty years. Like he didn’t mock and belittle the three of you for years over minor missteps.
God help Volt if Eddie lives to see another tomorrow after hearing Volt say that the three of you deserve to hurt. Your entire undead lives — for all three of you — have been nothing but pain and suffering.
“Take us back to the beginning, if you will,” Drysdale begins to build his argument against the four of you, “of this story of butchery–”
“–it’s a story of love.” Volt overrides Drysdale, waving the other actor off with his hand. “Not butchery.”
“Well…” Drysdale stumbles, clearly not anticipating that line, “it’s a story of love wronged.”
He looks off into the distance, where a soft piano begins to play a haunting melody as the projector whirls to life again, displaying a moving picture of sorts on the screen behind the actors and hostages on stage.
“Love… has always been difficult for me. My first paramour, Washford de Lefant, a violinist…” Volt sighs before Drysdale adds on.
“He belonged to this very theater troupe.”
“Briefly, yes,” Harper looks back at the violin that’s displayed on the screen, alongside a doll-like version of Volt with his heart physically on display for the audience to see, as Volt speaks, “A fragile mind, prone to corruption. A heartbreakingly beautiful boy of immense talent.”
“Washy went insane,” Drysdale informs the audience, who softly gasps, “He died by his own hand.”
“No…” Volt’s eyes harden as he looks at a certain someone in the crowd. “With a little help from others.”
Eddie follows Volt’s gaze, spotting Amir in one of the boxes on the first floor of the theater.
Amir’s here.
Eddie’s heart threatened to stop until he saw Chairemi standing next to Amir, blocking his exit. Amir appears to be as much of a captive as the four of you onstage are. He is forced to watch from a painfully close view of the stage, and he was most likely threatened with death, Eddie hopes; otherwise, he would’ve done something.
Amir’s head is tilted downwards, to avoid Eddie’s gaze, as Volt continues on.
“An unfathomable sadness seeped into me with Washy’s death. I buried myself in the dirt — Port Neuilly, on the outskirts of Paris — and I laid there for a hundred years.” As he speaks, the screen changes to show animations of the story that Volt’s telling. “Napoleon marched his drinks cabinet across Europe while I mourned. The only sounds I heard were the weed roots growing around me. My own sustenance was the ancient blood inside of me.”
“You awoke in 1918, but even a century underground could not obliterate the pain of Washford’s death.” Drysdale narrates, encouraging Volt to spill his story to the audience.
“I did what many have done when too many ghosts haunt the old world.” Volt shrugs, looking directly at Drysdale.
“You left for the new one. Bobbed the Atlantic, in search of America’s star-spangled shores.” Drysdale mockingly salutes before he winks, laughter echoing around the room from the gesture.
“I disembarked for New Orleans, the humidified daughter of Paris.” Volt stands, wandering about the stage as Drysdale leans over the podium.
“And, who did you meet there, Monsieur de Lioncourt?”
Volt turns, looking at you, then Eddie before he pours his attention back into the audience. Sorrow radiates from every small head turn or twitch of his fingers before he finally answers Drysdale.
“Eddie Watts,” He softly breathes out, “and Canary.”
The music immediately cuts out as Drysdale softly chuckles.
“Canary Watts — soon to be Canary Watts de Lioncourt — is who you’re referring to.” He snaps his fingers, and Eddie wants to scream when the audience shrieks with laughter at the caricature of you that’s appeared on screen. He won’t let you look back — his hand moves to the back of your neck to prevent you from doing so. “The upper-echelon lady who fell from grace due to her inability to keep her legs shut. Don’t worry, dearests, this fault of hers would benefit the lady greatly when she stumbled into a brothel and seduced one of its owners with her womanly ways.”
“Womanly ways?” You murmur. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“I’d gamble that Eddie was as much of a victim as you were, Monsieur–”
Volt quietly cuts Drysdale off.
“–he pursued her first.”
“Ah,” Drysdale waves his fellow actor off, “it’s natural to still want to defend him, after all of these years.”
“No, that’s what happened. That’s what I saw–”
“–Moving along!” Drysdale shouts over Volt, to prevent the latter from being heard. “Eddie Watts fell into her trap, and she convinced him to abandon his profitable pursuits with the brothel, so she could chase a fever dream in the form of a failing bar, which she vainly named after herself.”
“That isn’t right–”
“–A disagreement?” Drysdale catches what you say under your breath this time, and he claps his hands together to summon Daisuke, dressed in a police officer’s uniform, to haul you to your feet. You, shivering and shaking and terrified out of your mind, are forced to stand in the space between Drysdale and Volt as Daisuke holds your hands roughly behind your back, preventing you from doing anything. “You don’t have the right to disagree with me. You are on trial for murder, but, looking at the state of you now… well, you look like you could hardly lift a book.”
What would you do anyways? They broke nearly every bone in your body — you couldn’t fight back, even if you wanted to.
“Look at her.” Drysdale strolls over to you, after departing from his podium stand with a flourish of his cape. “A ditzy, dumb little birdie on the outside with good manners, but if you look deeper..”
Drysdale snatches your neck, squeezing your throat for all its worth as you simply whimper in pain. Eddie hisses as a result, and Drysdale simply shrugs, completely unthreatened by him on this occasion.
“See? Her spindly roots are deep in Eddie’s soul,” He frowns before he forcefully shoves a thumb in your mouth, “but let me talk to you, cherub, so I can get this through your thick skull. Many would say that your beauty is unmatched, and I would be tempted to agree, but upon closer inspection, I’ve found that something ugly festers beneath the glistening surface that is your refined exterior.”
“Under the warm persona that us vampires got to know during her time in Paris, there’s a manipulative, witchy woman who worked her magic and fooled us all,” Drysdale now addresses the audience, moving you closer to them so those in the front row can throw their drinks and snacks at you, “She will tell you sweet little lies so she can bed you in order to get what she wants… in fact, she tried to bed me before this very performance!”
The audience howls with laughter as Eddie holds onto that wooden chair for dear fucking life, so that he doesn’t do something rash. Drysdale wouldn’t kill you in front of all of those people, right?
Out of the corner of his eyes, Eddie sees Volt’s fists curl in anger as his gaze stays pointed towards you. He’s agitated, but the source of his anger is Drysdale, not you.
“Look at her clothes! Look at how she tries to lure you all in with suggestive glamour!” Drysdale continues to belittle you, starting with the dress you’re wearing. It was completely torn on one shoulder, showing your bra off to people who you’d never want to see that garment, and the hem of your dress was shredded and shortened to the point that your underwear was barely peeking out. “The mother of all whores… but we’ll get back to that mother part later, ladies and gentlemen. For now, believe my testimony as you stare upon her with your own eyes. You are dealing with a despicable, foul, loathsome woman who deserves to hurt as much as she hurt her Maker.”
With a roll of his eyes, Drysdale gestures for Daisuke to throw you back into your seat.
As he carried you away, you weakly reached your hand out to your Maker, and to Eddie’s absolute surprise, Volt extended his hand to you in response. He wanted to snatch you away, to pull you out of their evil grasps, but the worst parts of him won again, and Volt let Daisuke slam you back onto that wooden chair.
“Mama, it ain’t true what he said, ‘n y’know it.” Harper tries to comfort you, but you’re beyond inconsolable as you bring your knees up to your head before you sob into your arms.
“Canary,” Fuck it, Eddie’s going to try to be there for you anyways, “sweetheart–”
“–I should’ve killed myself years ago!” Your muffled wails are still caught by the mortals in front of the stage, who boo at your poor behavior.
“See? A manipulator at heart,” Having proven his point, Drysdale returns to his podium, “Shall we continue?”
“...We shall.” Volt’s voice can be barely heard by Eddie, and he’s less than ten feet away from Volt. Eddie doesn’t know how the audience even heard what he said… if they even did.
It doesn’t really matter to him right now. He’s pissed. Pissed at the coven, at Volt for just standing there and watching you get verbally assaulted on stage, and especially at Amir for leaving the four of you to be ambushed by the coven on what should’ve been a happy night for your family.
But he can’t act. Not unless he’s sure that he can do something towards one of the fuckers who wronged you. His cut ankles would prove to be a disadvantage, but he’d fight through that pain to get to you. To prevent you from being mocked further.
“Let the court record show that the victim pointed to the accused–”
“–I did not point,” Volt sternly corrects Drysdale again, “I merely glanced their way. Be precise in your declaration, Avocat.”
Drysdale’s gaze hardens as he looks at Chairemi, and a shake of her head discourages him from doing something more rash as Volt takes his seat once more.
“I first saw Canary and Eddie after he got into a brawl with a man who tried to take his beloved wife into a private lounge.”
…He was looking at us, even back then?
“The accused were very troubled people, as you’ve seen with the case of Mrs. Watts.” Drysdale gestures to your curled-up form before he moves on to Eddie. “Mr. Watts is much the same. …Funny how like calls to like. He failed to shoulder the family business before he became a brothel-keeper; then, a failed business owner.”
“Eddie was alienated from a portion of his own desires, the ones that couldn’t be solved with the company of a woman of the night,” Volt harshly reacts to his own words, like it pains him to say such terrible things about you, but none of that guilt stops him from talking, “American puritanism was mangling his very soul. As for his wife… the company of one man simply wasn’t enough for her selfish heart.”
“He was disreputable, cold, and violent.” Drysdale hisses as Eddie scoffs and rolls his eyes.
To others? …Maybe that’s how he appears to be, but he’s not sure that the coven can paint him with that brush when Eddie’s gently playing with your hair, trying to bring you out of the defensive, heavy blanket that you’ve pulled around yourself.
“Canary first accosted me in the very pleasure house that she worked in, and then everywhere I went, as if by happy accident, there was Canary — and, eventually Eddie, too — offering to be my chaperone, her eyes sliding down me. I…” Volt put a hand on his chest, to garner more sympathy from the crowd, “a vampire, was being hunted. With every breath, every heartbeat, every sidelong glance… as if she — no, as if they were both saying, ‘Come to me.’”
“She hunted you?!” Eddie explodes, completely irate with Volt’s falsehoods. “You hunted us. You propositioned us! He kept comin’ around after us! We were nothin’ but pawns in his game!”
The crowd boos heavily, drowning Eddie’s voice out, but he’s not done. Especially when Volt casts his eyes upon Eddie.
“Come to me, huh?” Eddie growls, which causes Volt to crown. “Fuck you–”
Suddenly, an ear-shattering ringing sound penetrates his eardrums as the crowd’s voices distort into one angry mob that’s shouting for his demise. The world shakes, tilting upon an off-kilter axis, and Eddie finds himself choking on his words in order to make this all stop.
“Stop it! Stop fuckin’ with my parents!” Harper yells before she’s pulled under the same strange trance that Eddie is, and it only seems to stop when Eddie remembers a buried memory from his past.
“You have nothing to fear, darling,” Volt’s strange words were so tempting to a mortal Eddie, who was none the wiser about the man in front of him, “Come to me.”
“Come… to… me…?” Eddie whispers strangled words before a gavel hits the bench, ending the onslaught of ringing in his ears while the world flattens out and goes back to normal. “Those were your words.”
“Huh…” Volt pauses to consider Eddie’s words before he refutes them. “How do you know that it was not your own voice, Eddie? A voice that was speaking your own unspeakable desires, screaming them into the darkness in the hopes that I would come to you and your darling wife!”
Eddie pants as he tries to recover from the coven’s strangulation of his mind, gently collapsing against the back of the chair before he turns to speak to you.
Fuck him. He isn’t worth my breath.
…But she is. She’s worth every single one of ‘em.
“He will never lay a hand on you if ‘m still alive to do somethin’ about it. I won’t let him speak to you like that,” Eddie doesn’t know how to unbreak your heart when the ache in your chest is wholly based upon a mountain of lies, “You aren’t any of those things. I don’t care what the world says about you. I know who you are, Canary. I know that you are sweeter than candy, kinder than any mortal I’ve ever crossed paths with, ‘n a better woman than most would be after thirty years of pure bullshit.”
Eddie doesn’t care that the coven, Volt, and audience are dead silent, waiting for someone to speak next. There’s only one thing — one person — that matters to him right now, and you’re currently in desperate need of loving words from your husband. From the man who loves you above all else, who is one of the few people on this stage who can testify to who you truly are.
“You are not a whore, sweetheart. You didn’t do any of the shit that they’re tryin’ to accuse you of. It was all Volt, ‘n if it wasn’t, it was bullshit that they made up to make you look bad. You are an angel, Canary. I couldn’t have asked for a better wife or companion for the last thirty years,” Eddie feels his chest tighten when your slowly slide your legs down towards the ground, keeping your head low so he still can’t see the tears that he knows stain your face, “You aren’t dirty or ditzy or dumb or some fuckin’ seductress who tempted me into this. I was the one who wanted you. I dragged you into my life — my messes — ‘n that’s how you ended up here. Everythin’ that’s happened to you is because of me, ‘n it’s shitty of them to pretend like it’s the other way around.”
“You…” You desperately grab at your chest, fingers on your right hand scratching at the empty spot on your left hand, where your wedding ring should be, “you still love me? Scratched ‘n bruised ‘n bleedin’ ‘n broken ‘n unveiled for the world to see. My tits are out, Eddie–!”
“–I don’t give a shit about any of that. None of that changes who you are. None of that matters to me. As long as you’re still Canary in here,” Eddie places his hand over yours, moving your hands so they hover over the skin that covers your heart, “I will love you ‘til I die. Fuck, mon ange, I will love you even when ‘m dead. I will watch over you ‘n make sure that everythin’ in your life is runnin’ smoothly so you don’t have to worry about a thing anymore.”
“‘M still Canary,” You lightly tap your heart with a few of your fingers, “in here.”
“Then I love you. I love you more than I can ever tell you,” Eddie dips his head so he can quickly press his lips to your cheek, “You don’t have to say it back. Knowin’ that you’re breathin’ is enough of a confession of love for me.”
“Are we gonna die here?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” He murmurs, “but I’ll be here with you the entire time. If we die, we die together.”
“I like that.” You agree before you slowly lift your head up, giving Eddie access to your face so he can wipe your tears away as your gaze slowly fixates on Volt, who seems ready to continue his little performance.
“And after the heartbreak that was Washy, to feel such hunger again…” Volt trails off, allowing the music to come center stage as Drysdale resumes his prodding of the only witness on the stand.
“The accused — Eddison Watts — then called to you from within a church, where he was confessing his sins to a priest.”
Bullshit. He cornered me after I stumbled around the city, trying to find him.
“I destroyed that priest,” Finally, Volt says something that actually happened, for the first time today, “and another right in front of him.”
“Yes.” Drysdale confirms this. “You put your fist through his skull, showing him what enormous power you possess.”
“After that display of strength, I offered Eddie myself. What I am. My companionship,” Volt drums his fingers against the arm of his chair, “An immortal life, for him and his bride, and I offered it to him… in that church, on that altar.”
“And, with the two dead priests in his purview,” Drysdale clues in the audience once more, “the accused raised up his hands, and took your face in them with a kiss of acceptance.”
Volt’s hand went to Eddie’s face, his thumb pulling at Eddie’s bottom lip.
“Be my companion, Eddie. Be all of the beautiful things you were meant to be, and be them without apology, for all eternity.”
Eddie should’ve said no. He should’ve gone back home to you and forgotten that this nightmare even happened.
He didn’t, though. Once Volt pulled his hand away from Eddie’s mouth, Eddie slammed his lips against Volt’s. Their lips met, again and again, before Volt led Eddie to the altar of the church.
He offered Eddie one last kiss before his fangs sank into Eddie’s neck.
“You will be beautiful, mon chéri,” He murmured as he drained Eddie of his blood, “and you will be mine.”
The kiss of acceptance… that was true, at least.
“Then,” Drysdale works in the next piece of his prosecution, “you had to deal with the wife, and her unending jealousy of handing the accused the gift when she was the obvious choice, according to her own bravado–”
“–terror. It was terror that guided her actions.” Volt quietly points out. “I made her fear me. …It was the worst mistake I’ve ever made.”
Strangely, Eddie’s prone to believe Volt in this moment, especially when his dour expression finds your grimacing one.
“She was the obvious choice. The better choice, if I may be so honest with you, Avocat. Innate curiosity and warm hospitality wrapped into one woman,” Volt continues on his tirade, “I drove her away from me. I made her into a disfigured mold of myself due to my own selfishness–!”
“–but she asked to be turned, no? She asked for the Dark Gift to be bestowed upon her.” Drysdale shrugs before he grins at the audience. “Monsiuer de Lioncourt was simply giving the girl what she asked for!”
“Mother, bride, wife, girl, whore…” Volt darkly chuckles after he mutters under his breath. “The accused has a name. Use it.”
Your posture stiffens, as you didn’t expect Volt, of all goddamn people, to come to your defense.
“Canary Watts de Lioncourt,” Drysdale bitterly says your name before he plasters a fake smile onto his face, “was turned a month after her husband was. This mortal man, now a monster, had single-handedly slaughtered all of the mortals that were there to celebrate–”
“–Her twenty-first birthday,” The audience gasps when they realize how young you are due to Volt revealing of this information to them, and Eddie wonders if they’re starting to put the pieces together about what really happened between you and Eddie all of those years ago, “Almost too young to turn, but I did it anyway — on Eddie’s insistence on the matter, of course. She was a ripe apple for the picking, yet… she was rotten inside. Not because of who she was, or the circumstances of her rebirth, but…”
“Canary will not want this.” Volt exhaled gently, using his fingers to pull the red curtain aside so he could peer outside of his New Orleans townhouse. “She will not want us–”
“–you have to convince her otherwise. I can’t live like this,” Eddie flexed his fingers, staring at his elongated fingernails, “Not without her.”
“Canary will hate you. She will hate me for forcing it upon her, since you won’t be able to give it to her–”
“–do what you have to.”
Eddie’s hardness shocked Volt to his core in that very moment.
“I can come off as harsh and unstable at times,” Volt paused, “it would be better coming from you, mon trésor. She loves you, she wants what you want–”
“–It has to be you.” Eddie whispered.
“Why? Because you cannot see yourself as the villain in her story?” Volt taunted, immediately aggravating Eddie.
“Don’t fuckin’ make this about me, Volt–!”
“–Mon chat!” Your voice echoed down the stairwell before you appeared downstairs with a warm smile and a dress suitable for the current climate. “The church is expectin’ us in an hour. We should get goin’.”
“Right. I apologize for being unprepared, ma chérie. I become forgetful in the midst of such…” Volt had no problem glaring at Eddie as he spoke. “Passionate discussions.”
Volt calmly strolled over to you, pressing a kiss to your cheek before he pushed you towards Eddie with a forceful hand. You were confused, looking between the two men for some understanding of why the immortals in the house had more of a temper than the single mortal in their company, before you wrapped your arms around Eddie’s neck.
“Be careful, mon ange.” He pecked your lips before he brushed some hair out of your face, guilt beginning to take root in his stomach. He quickly pushed that feeling aside, though. “Don’t let him talk you into anythin’ you don’t want.”
“I… won’t?” Your eyebrows furrowed before you snatched one last kiss from Eddie, bouncing over to Volt’s side soon after. “See ya in a few hours, honey!”
Naively, you believed you were safe in that moment, unaware of the two venus flytraps that you, the innocent butterfly, had placed yourself between.
Eddie shakes off that memory as Volt takes a deep breath in, then out before he stands and holds his arms out to the audience in some grandiose gesture.
“Nearly a decade after she became one of us, she found out that on that very night, she was with child. A child that would forever be stuck in her womb because of my actions.”
“I went through the diary from around the time I was turned. I had these weird cravings, ‘n my clothes didn’t fit – you remember that incident with the wedding dress, right?” You paused, waiting for Eddie to nod, before you continued on, “Then there was the nausea ‘n sickness from my birthday party, ‘n I was so sore when I woke up in the mornings.”
You bit your lip before you pulled away from Eddie’s chest, the stream of tears down your face now turning into a current as you looked directly into his eyes.
“They didn’t stop when I was turned into a vampire. They just… transformed, like me. Only cravin’ human blood, throwin’ up anythin’ else, feelin’ tired some days, ‘n drainin’ men twice my size and still bein’ hungry sometimes, while other times, I can barely drink a drop of blood.” You choked on your sobs, forcing them deep inside of you so you could ask him something. “Does any of that sound familiar to you?”
“...Is it supposed to?”
“Merde, how do I tell you this?” You started to wring your hands, glancing from side-to-side as Eddie wiped some of your tears away from your face. “You’re gonna hate me as much as I hate myself right now.”
“I won’t hate you, sweetheart. Just tell me what’s wrong.” He was begging you to let him hold onto this burden — a mysterious weight that was tugging on your heart and mind.
“Eddie, I…” You guided Eddie’s hand to your stomach before you composure fully broke, the dam behind your eyes bursting as the Red Sea fell down your cheeks, “I killed our baby!”
Your hands immediately fly up to your face, expecting rotten tomatoes or popcorn or drinks or something to be tossed your way, but there’s nothing. The audience is horrifically quiet, trying to absorb the information they’ve just been told.
That wasn’t his fuckin’ story to tell. What gives him the right to tell the world about our baby?
“Murderer! She knew she was with child!”
You choke on a sob when you hear someone call you that, and Eddie’s quick to wrap his arms around you and bring you close while someone on stage deals with that little interruption from the second-floor balcony.
“Did you say something?” Volt’s now appeared in the soldiers’ seating area on the second floor, closing in on the man who dared to call you such a thing. “I can read your mind, too, and your thoughts are loud and abrasive. The confusion of a woman who was not given a proper education on her anatomy and the thought of men embracing men… it disgusts you?”
“Well,” That soldier who’s against the second-floor balcony flaps his lips once more, “I’m pretty sure both of those things disgust a whole lot of people.”
“Oh?” Volt cocks his head to the left as he dives further into this man’s mind. “You fought at Bastogne. You vomited into your foxhole often, but what you didn’t do, Corporal Jonny Chaffin, is fire your M1 Garand rifle a single time. Germans overran your line, and, three days later, you ran off into the Belgian forest, during which time your friend, who you share a matching tattoo with, had his arm shot off.”
“You tried to desert, but you couldn’t read your map,” Volt continues to hound this soldier, who shrinks further and further into his chair with every verbal lashing that he receives, “and, eventually, you stumbled back to your line, and claimed you’d been lost in the fog! There are fourteen men who served their countries honorably in attendance with us this afternoon. They may, like yourself, be disgusted by the best course of action that a mother took to protect an unborn child that she never got to meet, alongside a transcendent love that goes beyond the sex of each of its participants.”
“But I wonder…” Volt towers over the corporal, having no issue invading his personal space, “where lies their disgust now?”
There’s no answer, as one would expect, and Volt doesn’t hesitate to reappear on the stage, earning a small round of applause from the people on the first floor before he gestures to Drysdale with a sweeping motion with his right arm.
“Continue where we left off.”
“Umm…” Drysdale coughs into the sleeve of his arm as Volt walks around with disinterest in his gaze.
“Eddie didn’t take to vampirism.” Volt reminds his fellow actor, who immediately puts on his bravado once he’s reminded of the role he’s supposed to be playing.
“It’s… Eddie — No, the accused — didn’t take to vampirism,” Drysdale places his hands on the podium, “Crippled by qualms, he drank only from animals.”
“I didn’t wanna eat people,” Eddie says, flinching when the audience guffaws at that choice, “not after what I did to Canary.”
“I know,” Tears quiver in your gaze as you place a gentle hand on Eddie’s face, “I know. You did everythin’ right–”
“–Harper, Harper, où sommes-nous?” Lucinda, in the chair nearest to Drysdale on the stage, appears to finally be breaking out of whatever trance that the latter put her into as she calls out for her companion. “Tu es proche, mais je me sens tellement seule.”
Drysdale took off from his podium, so he could put the girl under his spell once more, a guiding hand tracing the features of her face as Harper hisses at the audience.
“He didn’t wanna eat people! Do you get it?!” She has no problem screaming at the hundreds of mortals out in the crowd. “That’s all of you!”
“Eddie was fixated on the loss of his humanity, his estranged wife, and the internecine politics of his food.” Volt takes center-stage as he keeps the audience distracted from whatever Drysdale is doing to Lucinda. “The estrangement didn’t benefit him, but Canary flourished without a proper vampiric mentor. She gained control over the Mind and Cloud Gifts within ten years of her turning — an incredible feat for such a young vampire. She was the perfect fledgling. One who had risen above the station that was forcefully assigned to her with her sex. …Canary’s the only person I’ve met in nearly two-hundred years who could win in a battle of wits with me.”
“Why would he say all of that?” You softly say as the audience is stunned into silence once more. “After years of referring to me as a mistake… why change his tune now?”
Words become garbled and mixed and stuck in Eddie’s throat. He can’t find the gumption to say that Volt’s often thought of you in that way. He just never said it to your face.
“She’s brilliant.” Volt suddenly said as he scanned the newspaper that was hiding his face from Eddie, who sat on the opposite side of the parlor room couch.
“I know,” Eddie agreed, not knowing who Volt was talking about, so he assumed it was the newest member of your family, “Harper’s done well for herself–”
“–not the girl. The woman. Your wife.” Volt made sure that you were the center of this conversation as he spoke. “She is everything I could’ve asked for in a fledgling.”
“Canary’s still upset with you–”
“–as she has every right to be.” Volt argued in your favor. “I’ve wronged her in many ways.”
“Why not apologize?” Eddie’s eyebrows slanted downward in confusion. “Why not tell her that’s she’s brilliant instead of callin’ her a fuckin’ mistake to her face?”
“Pride,” Volt casually flipped to the next page in the newspaper, “It always comes back to that pesky little thing, doesn’t it?”
“She was conniving… an excellent fledgling if she had stuck to our Great Laws,” Drysdale lets go of Lucinda when she stops muttering in French and returns to gazing at the audience with a tilted head and a slightly loosened jaw, “The other accused not only rejected vampirism, but also rejected you in order to gain back favor with a fickle wife who had ignored you for nearly seven years.”
“Eddie was deceptively agile and persuasive with words,” Volt just straight up lies — anyone who’s ever met Eddie would say that his language was like a hammer slammed against a slab of stone. Harsh, blunt, and prone to plenty of mistakes, “A trenchant form of verbal amusement. There was a night when he told me I’d be alone forever.”
“No one will be able to connect us to the murder. It will be all speculation, and it will fall away in a court of law–”
“–you are not helping, Volt,” Eddie grumbled before he grabbed his jacket, ready to follow you out into the raging fires that lit up New Orleans on the night that you found Harper in that burning home, “and how could you let her walk out the door like that?”
“Because I know what Canary will see,” Volt’s eyes were distant and far-away for a moment before he snapped back to the present, “and it will end her foolish ties to the mortals.”
“You’re not just gonna end her ties to the mortals, or whatever the fuck you call it,” Eddie hissed before he ran after you, “you’re gonna end her life, too. If she dies, I’ll go with her, and then you’ll be alone forever. Is that what you want?”
“A word of context for our jury,” Drysdale moves to the center of the stage as Volt relaxes in the makeshift throne on stage, not daring to look at Eddie’s burning gaze or your icy glare — both of which are directed to the back of his head, “The single worst thing that a vampire can feel is loneliness.”
Eddie dryly chuckles — there are many things that are far worse than loneliness–
“–I should’ve been there for you–”
“–It’s done.” You tried to sound assertive, but your shaking voice betrayed you. “Our baby is dead.”
“You can’t–”
“–they’re not movin’!” You cried out. “There’s no heartbeat ‘n no kicks. Nothin’.”
“Canary–”
“–I will spend eternity bein’ reminded of a baby I don’t get to hold.” You let Eddie press gentle kisses from your temple to your lips. “Forever is a long fuckin’ time, Eddie–”
–Many, many things that he’d never wish upon another person, not even the assholes that are sitting here, laughing at the four of you.
“Human loneliness, magnified by millennia, by the never-ending road that we walk.” Drysdale holds his hand out to the audience on the second floor as Volt stands before he descends from the stage, looking into the audience for someone to torment, if Eddie had to take a guess.
“Do they not know this?”
“How could they?” Drysdale hums, placing his hands upon his hips as Volt stops in front of a man in one of the middle rows.
“Here. Take my hand,” Volt extends his hand to the male audience member, who carefully places his hand into the vampire’s before he sobs uncontrollably, “This is loneliness. Vampire loneliness. You want to curl up and die, don’t you? …I know, I know. There was a night when one of Eddie’s infrequent kills upturned the city–”
“Your suit…” Most pointed to the collar of Eddie’s dress shirt, then to the vest, and then finally the suit jacket, “is that blood?”
“Why is your heart beatin’ so fast?” Eddie countered with a question of his own, which briefly threw the other man off before he continued on with his earlier talking point.
“Everything that’s been done is legal under the City of New Orleans charter. I’m merely one person on that council–” Most backpedaled to his desk as Eddie calmly strides towards him.
“–you’re thinkin’ about your wife, and your two daughters, and how lucky they are, to be tucked away in your vacation home, where I can’t find them.”
The sound of gunfire set the room alight as Most emptied the clip on his revolver right into Eddie’s chest. Eddie didn’t even blink as he brushed the bullets off of his clothes, and he confidently turned towards the bar cart to pour himself a shot of whiskey.
“I’ll let you reload, if you want.” Eddie chuckled before he brought the glass to his lips.
Most panicked, frantically trying to reload his gun as his breaths grew heavy and distressed.
This arrogant bastard-
“You have a lot of fuckin’ nerve, to be callin’ me arrogant.” Eddie slammed his drink down before using his supernatural speed to get a cheap shot — a scratch against the cheek using his nails — on Most. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am arrogant.”
A bit of blood splattered on the table, but it was nothing compared to the wave that gushed forth from the empty cavity in David Most’s chest, where his heart once was.
Eddie held a still-beating heart that was desperate to continue its work, unaware of the imminent death to come.
“What… what are you?” Most asked in horror as life left his body.
“I’m a vampire.” Eddie hissed before his claws raked through both flesh and fabric.
“–and he threatened me,” Volt continues on with his theatrics, “with this loneliness.”
“Shame on you!” The man, with strong tears falling down his face, has the gull to yell at Eddie, and the rest of the crowd parrots his sentiment as Volt continues his storytelling.
“He abandoned me in our townhouse, in the pursuit of that angel of death who wanted to make sure that anyone who knew what Eddie had done was dead,” Volt looks directly into the mortal’s eyes, “I didn’t know if he — or her, or both of them — were ever going to come back. I was engulfed with this loneliness.”
“‘I closed my eyes ‘n waited for the fire to take me,’” Drysdale mocked Harper as he read from another of her diaries, earning a loud hiss from you, “‘I just prayed it wouldn’t hurt too bad. That’s when the woman-angel came to save me.’ …But Eddie and Canary came back, didn’t they?”
“They did,” Volt confirms, releasing his hand from the mortal’s grasp before he has the nerve to look at Harper, “with her.”
“Good luck on how that fucker didn’t ask.” Harper spits warranted venom Volt’s way. “‘Gave me no say, made me more of a vampire than anyone up here. I was fourteen years old! Minutes from death! I didn’t ask for–”
Harper’s eyes roll back into her head as you grab her shoulders, trying to pull her from the stupor that the council of vampires behind her induced as Volt ignores the claims laid at his feet while he strolls back towards the stage.
“A child, recalling a transformation weeks after the event. She was force-fed a specific sequence of lies by Eddie to soothe her relentless questioning.”
You give Eddie a small sideways-glance before your attention goes back to Harper.
“C’mon, ma petite fleur, snap out of it,” You beg of your daughter as she rapidly blinks, grabbing onto the back of her chair for support, “stay here. Stay with me.”
“‘M here, Mama. I promise,” She weakly forces the words out, “Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself.”
“‘M you’re fuckin’ mother,” You softly laugh, “it’s my job to fret over you ‘n nag at you over ‘n over again.”
“I told Eddie,” Volt does a small spin before he runs his hand down the back of his on-stage seat, now back in his rightful, terrible place on the stage, “Fourteen forever. She’d be a weakling, permanently stunted by her age.”
The protector clicks once more, showing the following words in red lettering — meant to imitate Volt’s blood, of course.
The Dark Gift must never be given to the maimed or to children or to those who cannot, even with the Dark Powers, survive on their own.
“Guilt had stunted reason. Harper was on the ledge of death,” Volt pauses before he glances Harper’s way, immediately looking towards the audience when he can’t take the sight of her anger, which was shown through a quivered lip and a heated gaze, “but there was a light in Eddie’s eyes. A light I’d not seen for years… but I resisted because I knew the wisdom of the Great Laws.”
Volt’s tumultuous gaze then settles on Eddie, who feels anxiety race up his spine.
“Because I knew pain and anxiety would be her birthright.” Volt quietly says, as the words were meant for only him and Eddie to hear.
But Eddie can’t stand to hear them. Not because they were some butchered version of the truth… no, that wasn’t it at all.
“That wasn’t what happened!” Eddie feels his lips move, pronouncing the words that he feels encouraged to say due to the two sets of eyes that are incinerating the back of his head.
The truth is… he can’t face with what he did — what he truly did — on the night Harper was turned.
~
“Volt stood on that stage, took all of the familiar pieces of Eddie’s life,” Amir tells his interpretation of what happened on that very day, “defiled them, and then bent them into a Volt-shaped effigy.”
“But some… some of it now,” Eddie deeply sighs, garnering Dolly’s full attention, “I remember being out of my body at the time. I was in Paris, but I kept going back to New Orleans. To these different points of my life. Volt took me there.”
“The night Harper was turned…” Dolly starts, leaving room for Eddie to tell the story that Volt repeated to that very theater fifty-five years ago.
“Volt de Lioncourt!”
A siren’s voice calling his name. Volt wouldn’t normally be alarmed by you saying his name, but in this very circumstance, he was.
You called him sweet French pet names when you were in love, Volt when you were impartial to him, and Mr. or Monsieur Lioncourt if you were really pissed at him.
His full name was a new one, but that didn’t throw him off. The way you said it had him reaching for the doorknob to the spare bedroom that you had once occupied when you were first turned, where he was pacing the floor and pretending to not be as worried about you and Eddie going out into the fiery mess that was outside as he was. You, for a lack of more nuanced language, sounded terrified. You said his name like it was your last and only resort.
When he opened the door, shock was painted over all of his features when you threw yourself into his arms. These days, you didn’t give affection to him willingly. He had to offer to you first before you reciprocated–
–you were shaking. Not because of the cold, as you still had your cloak on. Your terror was the sole contributor to the current shaky state of your body.
“You cannot let Eddie do this,” You cried into Volt’s chest, bringing your fist to his chest before you gently laid a hand over his heart, “it is immoral ‘n terrible in all sorts of ways.”
“Ma chérie,” Volt quickly sprung into action, dragging you inside of the room before he slammed the door shut behind the two of you, “I don’t quite understand what’s causing this–”
“–she’s just a little girl!” You exclaimed as Volt placed his hands on your waist, lifting you into the air before he carried you over to a circular table in the corner of the room, where he set you down after he moved everything off of the surface with a sweeping motion of one of his arms. “She cannot become one of us! It’s fuckin’ unfair what he wants to do to me… to us!”
“Canary, ma belle, ma beauté, ma déesse,” Volt worked to comfort you with tender words, failing to hear how the door to the bedroom creaked open behind him, “I want to help you. I want to bring you comfort amidst your dismay, but I cannot do so if I–”
You interrupted Volt with a small scoff before you pointed at the door, and he couldn’t believe what he saw in the entryway. His nose caught a whiff of the human girl’s blood, which stuck to her red-hair and pale face — anywhere that her body wasn’t horrifically burnt. Her clothes were little more than ashen, sooty scraps, but what truly shocked him was the pure cruelty that Eddie displayed towards the girl.
He dragged the girl into the room by one of her arms, as if she were a doll or toy to be tossed aside at the next convenient moment. Had Eddie brought her up the stairs that way, ignoring how she moaned in pain when her head hit each and every step on the way up from the first floor?
“Fuck you!” You grabbed the closest object to you — a ballpoint pen that Volt had grown quite fond of, yet you had ran off with it when you used it and realized that you really liked it. You had never noticed that Volt bought another set of those pens, sprinkling them throughout the house, in the hopes that you’d grab a few more. — and hurled it at Eddie’s head.
He managed to dodge that pen, which wedged its way into the wall space between the large canopy bed and the door, before he lowered his body so he could pick the girl up in his arms and carry her to that very bed.
Your anger. The girl. Eddie’s careless treatment of her.
“She’s just a little girl! She cannot become one of us! It’s fuckin’ unfair what he wants to do to me… to us!
Your words, echoing in Volt’s mind as Eddie brushed a bit of the mortal girl’s hair out of the way of her neck so he could feel for a pulse.
Volt, for once, was at a loss for words when he realized what Eddie wanted to do with the girl, and he was immediately on the same page as you.
“No–!”
“–she’s cold,” Eddie mumbled to himself before he looked back at Volt for help, “What do we do?”
“Nothing,” Volt sternly said, grabbing your hand as a show of unity between you and him as you both equally opposed Eddie in this moment, “we do nothing–”
“–she’s dyin’ ‘cause of me!” Eddie yelled. “They lit her buildin’ on fire ‘cause of me!”
“A lot of people are dying because of you, Eddie… yet you brought back a young human girl for the woman who has wanted a child with every fiber of her being since she met you,” Volt sensed no change in Eddie’s resolve, so he immediately changed courses, “They lit those fires with their own free will! You nor Canary know this girl!”
“Make her like us.” Eddie staggered towards you and Volt, trying to reach out to you for support, but Volt wouldn’t let him.
Volt intercepted, placing himself between you and Eddie, as he put a hand on Eddie’s chest.
“C’est impossible, elle est trop jeune!”
“I — we,” Who is this we that Eddie keeps bringing into the conversation? He certainly can’t be referring to you right now, “can’t have her die!”
“The Gift cannot be given to children!” Volt snapped at Eddie, who paused in confusion before he asked Volt something in a quiet, meek voice.
“What do you mean–?”
“–The Great Laws forbid it!” Volt put his foot down by bringing up the laws that he thought he would be able to leave behind in Europe.
…It was wishful thinking on Volt’s part, he supposed.
“Great Laws?!” Of course, Eddie didn’t understand. How could he? Volt had never brought those laws up to him. “She’s gonna die right in front of us! You know you can do this!”
“And she’ll be what? A lap dog?” Volt scoffed before he noticed the hardened scowl on your face. No, this girl wasn’t a dog. She was to be–
“–no, not a dog.” Eddie shook his head, eyes blown wide as he tried to pull you into this after you had remained silent throughout the course of this argument. “The girl’s for her, like everythin’ I’ve ever done–”
“–a daughter? Her daughter?” Volt couldn’t help but laugh. “You are hedging your bets on that girl. You think that Canary will love you when you give her a daughter that is not of her own flesh and blood. One that will force the two of you further apart–”
“–I’ll stay.” Eddie threw one last gut-punch out there, and it was the one that broke Volt as Eddie cupped Volt’s face with both of his soot-covered hands. “If you make her into one of us, I’ll stay, and I’ll never leave you again. Canary won’t leave you if ’m here. This will make both of us happy.”
Eddie pushed Volt away before the latter could even answer the former.
“Fuck you,” Eddie threw his suit jacket on the ground in frustration before he went back to Harper’s side, watching her through his yellow eyes as she struggled to breath or even move with the grave injuries to her being, “I’ll do it myself.”
“She will be at war with herself. She is of an age where her emotions will soar and plummet, like mountains and valleys, every day of her life!” Volt screamed his warnings at Eddie, who messily dug his fangs into the flesh of his arm before he held out his arm to the girl, watching as his blood fell into her mouth from the wound on his body.
“I don’t care!”
That hissed comment from Eddie sent Volt over that the point of no return, where his rage boiled over and made him say such horrific things in the hopes of ending the arguments in their tracks.
“Well, you must care, Eddison!” Volt ran an angry hand through his white locks before he continued to verbally wail on Eddie. “Her mind and her spirit will age, but the world will treat her as she is now! She will be miserable, but Canary will love her anyway, and you will love the girl by proxy because your wife does!”
“I heard her voice, Volt…” Eddie uttered as Volt continued to fly off the handle — which was deserved this time, he might add.
“Canary’s love for her daughter, and the girl’s natural affection for her mother, will grow beyond your wife’s love for you as a father and a husband!” Volt shouted at the top of his lungs. “This web that you’ve tightly spun around both of them will cause Canary and the girl to spiral beyond your reach! Their bond will become an uncontrollable flame that will continue to grow and scorch everything in its path until one — or both — of them die!”
Volt deeply exhaled, trying to catch his breath as he watched Eddie fail to turn the girl as he encouraged her to drink from him. Volt couldn’t help but slap his forehead at Eddie’s stupidity.
“You’re supposed to drain her first, Eddie!”
“She asked if we were angels!” Eddie pulled his wrist away from Harper’s mouth so he could look back at Volt one last time. “Us… me!”
Ah. That was what this was partly about. Eddie wanted to be like you, not realizing that this is the opposite of what you would do in this scenario, if you were him. Volt knew this, but Eddie was too blind to his own nature — the want to fix everything that’s wrong with one simple solution — to notice.
Suddenly, he jumped off of the girl to approach you, and Volt, without any fight left in him, let Eddie try to plead his case to you.
“Mon ange, look at her,” Eddie got down his knees, taking your hands in his as you stared blankly at the dying girl on the bed, “she’ll be our little girl. The daughter we never got to have.”
“I don’t want her–”
“–You need her, though.” Your resolve was easier to break than Volt’s, and you started bawling before Eddie grabbed your hips and brought you to the floor with him. “It’s okay, Canary. I’ve got you. It’ll be over soon.”
You loudly sniffled as you buried your head into Eddie’s shoulder, and he ran his hand up and down your back to help soothe you through the emotional distress that he caused. But if Volt had made such an egregious error, Eddie would’ve stepped in the way and prevented him from coming to you to make amends.
A hypocrite. One of the worst Volt’s ever met.
“Volt,” Eddie pressed a kiss to the side of your face before he swayed you back and forth, “please. I’ll do anythin’, I’ll be anythin’. Please–”
“–You will regret this for the rest of your life.” Volt offered you an apologetic look — even when you didn’t dare look at him because of how badly Eddie had broken you — after he warned Eddie of the consequences of this action.
…Volt was going to do this, then. He was going to turn this poor girl and make her into a puppet, a doll, a lapdog, a daughter, and a pawn for the three of you to use against each other in the coming years.
“What Volt said… that was how it happened.” Eddie softly says, eyes focusing on one of the empty chairs in his living room. “When Harper was made, he did tell me what she would be. I… played down my role in it.”
“No shit,” Dolly murmurs, “but Canary’s diaries didn’t have any mention of Harper’s–”
“–I removed them,” Amir admits, much to Dolly’s surprise, “upon Eddie’s insistence. The water-downed version of her turning is more palatable than the version Eddie’s told you now.”
“You should go with Volt’s version for the book,” Eddie’s gaze hones in on Dolly once more, moving away from that chair, like he had seen something — or someone — that was no longer there, “I’m sorry. Seventy-five years have given me–”
“–Unwelcome clarity?” Dolly sighs before she grumbles under her breath. “Welcome to the club.”
~
“I made her for Canary, upon Eddie pressing me on the matter. She is my blood.” Volt’s no longer addressing the audience as he has his back turned to them, facing the council of vampires behind the four of you, “I broke the second law. When you sentence them for their crimes, you sentence me too.”
“But you…” Drysdale quickly hops off of his podium so he can turn Volt back towards the audience with two firm hands on the vampire’s shoulders, “you were manipulated into it.”
“It’s all lies, right?” Harper quietly asks — one final chance for Eddie to come clean about this topic — and your quivering lip nearly tempts him into doing so.
“It’s all lies.” He mumbles back before you scoot away from him, wrapping your arms fully around your daughter.
“It is,” You softly tell her, even as she glares at Eddie, “what happened that night is exactly as he told you.”
I don’t agree with you lyin’ to her. Not then, and certainly not now, but I won’t tell her about the night she was made when we’re all about to die. Eddie, I… fuck, I don’t even wanna remember that night. I wish I could implant that false memory into my head ‘n make it into the truth.
Canary–
–It’s done, Eddie. Focus on the present. We can make up for past mistakes later… if we’re ever given the chance to.
“–Harper was an unforeseen joy. A formidable fledgling, much like her mother,” Volt tells the audience about the girl you’ve adored with all of your being, from the first time you laid eyes on her, “A consummate killer, a congenial companion. We were a happy quartet. Canary and Eddie coddled her while I gave her a predator’s upbringing, but…”
“But Harper’s defect,” You and Eddie both scowl at the language that Drysdale uses to describe your child — your perfect little girl, “caught up with her.”
“‘Could’ve told me I had a defect.” Harper mutters as Volt continues to explain the aftermath of her creation through his eyes.
“Harper’s mood swings worsened. She harmed herself in the sun for attention — a trait that she had inherited from the other female vampire in our midst — and then followed that up with a killing spree,” You wince as Volt recalls the mess of bodies that Harper created as a young adult who was trying to get her bearings in the world, “Corpses were clogging the Bayou, and the girl had a certain penchant for human souvenirs.”
“She put the anonymity that the three of you had built for years at risk,” Drysdale dramatically rolls his eyes for the audience, “and then she had the gull to run away and make you clean up her messes.”
“The vampiress tot was in the wind for seven years,” Wave after wave of gasps echoes through the theater as Volt gives a… less-than-accurate description of what happened then, “Canary was inconsolable, as the her and the girl were deeply intertwined in mind and soul, and she fell apart in the girl’s absence. Eddie, he… he blamed himself, and he folded inwards, alongside his wife. …Dear audience, if your companions no longer wish to share their bodies with you, if every word coming out of their mouths is vitriol or disinterest for seven years… you don’t want to do something rash. You still hope that they’ll emerge from their melancholy, that they’ll love you… like you love them.”
Love? What love? The kind of love that’s like a kick in the face as he spits horrific, belittling words in your direction? Eddie can’t believe that Volt’s trying to pretend to be noble, charitable, and loving when he was the complete opposite.
“What do you do?” Volt questions the audience as the projector loudly clicks once more, displaying a rather flattering image of a vampiress that Eddie wishes that he could burn again and again and again for what she did to you, “Do you find affection elsewhere?”
“Yes!” The crowd gleefully agrees with Volt, which Eddie thinks is a load of horseshit. He didn’t even try to offer an olive branch to you and Eddie. Volt just ran off to her when he realized that he couldn’t get what he wanted from either of you without apologizing and sacrificing his poor, poor ego in the process.
“Antoinette Brown, ladies and gentleman,” Drysdale introduces the girl on the screen, “later, the vampire Antoinette. She satisfied Volt for seven long years… and then Harper returned.”
“Before her travel bag had hit the floor, Harper assessed the fragility of our union,” Volt smiles as Harper sticks her nose up at him in distaste, “She’s an artful predator… I can say that now.”
For the first time tonight, Volt pivots away from the mortals to speak directly to Harper.
“I see the best of my vampiric self in her,” He says, which causes her to bitterly laugh, “She looked at me, and then she turned to Canary and said, ‘Abandon Volt. Come with me to Europe.’ She, of course, knew that convincing Canary to leave would also convince Eddie to do the same.”
The crowd loudly boos as Harper huffs in annoyance. He’s portraying her like a villain in his history, rather than a young woman that he pushed to extreme measures time after time.
“And, with just a few words, my companions belonged to her again.” Volt speaks of this like he was in competition with Harper when you four were in New Orleans.
“You and Eddie fought over this?” Drysdale asks, and Eddie winces as he’s subject to yet another memory from his past.
“–you think fightin’ each other’s gonna solve anythin’?” You scoffed as you watched Eddie roll up his sleeves. “Usin’ violence to solve things… that ain’t you, Eddie.”
“Go,” Eddie, for the first time, spoke to you with anger in his voice, “I won’t tell you again, sweetheart.”
“It was verbal, at first…” Volt shudders as he speaks, “nothing more. Canary put forth her best effort in trying to separate us, but we were too far gone. I was too far gone, I–”
When the mysterious glass object hit your face, it bursted into pieces. You screamed in pain as the shards dug into your skin, creating scars that would take decades, if not centuries, to heal from your face.
The arguing stopped when Eddie and Volt realized what had happened. They both reached out to you, but you stepped away, unsure of both of them. Then, their angry gazes settled on each other once more before fangs and nails dug into flesh, making you flee upstairs so you wouldn’t be caught in the cross-fire.
“–a glass vase — for flowers that I intended to fill for her, as a way to lift her spirits — ended up striking her in the face,” Volt lifts up a hand, so he can examine it with a scrutinizing gaze, “it came from my hand.”
The sound of glass shattering against a hard, impenetrable surface.
That was the only sound Eddie wanted to hear in the room, and the fragile object in Volt’s hand hit that very mark as it dropped to the ground in miniscule pieces.
Then Eddie heard you shriek, and he knew he hadn’t had the same luck in hitting the wall or mantleplace that was behind Volt.
That fact became especially obvious when Volt roughly shoved you out of the way, to prevent you from gaining any further injuries, before he lunged at Eddie.
“I provoked Eddie’s anger, and he responded accordingly.” Volt has no problem lying… but why protect Eddie now? Wouldn’t it be better to air out the dirty laundry in front of this large crowd, to make Eddie look more guilty? “We slammed each other around our townhouse. Seven years of compromise and denial… it all gave way.”
“Stop!” Volt yelled as Eddie slammed his back into a nearby wall. “I’m trying to restrain myself!”
An unrecognizable emotion — remorse — settles on Volt’s face as Eddie remembers something that he’s been trying — and failing — to bury for decades.
“Stay down, mon chéri, I don’t want to fight like this!”
“You start it, Volt, you finish it–”
“–it will end in your death!” It was supposed to sound like a threat from Volt, but he sounded so weak as his face was forced to meet the lid of his coffin repeatedly before he was tossed over it, hitting the wardrobe behind him with a loud thudding sound.
“My death?!” Eddie weakly laughed as he laid against his own coffin, ignoring how he had completely trashed yours in order to get to Volt. “Look at your fuckin’ face! Look at what you did to my girls–”
Volt had a river of blood leaking from the top of his head as he pulled his body upwards, despite how badly it wanted to stay pinned to the ground.
“–Please stop! Don’t do it!” Harper’s more innocent, more hopeful voice was muffled through the closed door as she pleaded with Eddie and Volt. “Please! If not for me, than for her–”
“–stay back, Harper!” Eddie called to her through the door. “It’s all good. We’re all good. Go find your mother for me, okay?”
“There’s no love quite like an iron fist and a vase to the skull,” Volt didn’t bother fixing the parts of his hair that were stuck to his face because of all the blood that was leaking from his skull, “So you’re going to leave with her?”
“Daddy Eddie–”
“–it’s okay.” Eddie worked to comfort Harper, completely ignoring Volt in the process. “It’s okay. We’re done. It’s over. Go to Canary and tell her that I love her, okay?”
“You’re going to leave me.”
It was no longer a question; rather, it was an emotionless statement issued from Volt’s lips. He didn’t want to fight anymore — the anger had already left his body. He wanted to be done with this. There wasn’t anything Eddie could say in order to reignite that passionate, raging fire in his heart–
“–’m gonna take this hand here,” Eddie set one of his elbows onto the coffin before he presented a hand with curled fingers — to imitate him choking someone out — to Volt, “‘n wrap it around that scrawny neck of yours, just like you did to our daughter. I ain’t gonna stop ‘til your eyes pop.”
With a vicious smile, Eddie threw himself onto Volt’s coffin so he could get closer to the person he was taunting.
“Then, ‘m gonna find a big ol’ butcher knife so I cut your face the same way you cut my wife’s face open before I chop your head off. ‘N then, ‘m gonna walk that head,” Eddie used two of his fingers to illustrate himself walking to Volt, who was growing angrier and angrier by the second, “all the way to Audubon Park, where I will feed it to the fuckin’ lions so you can’t bother us ever again. I will laugh the whole goddamn time, too, so you know who’s makin’ you suffer.”
Volt quickly found the strength to stand once more, his expression settling into something more vile as sadness sat in the middle of this chest. This was the Eddie Volt knew best, the one that only came out behind closed doors. He kept himself controlled around you, but Volt was far too aware of the beast that lurked inside of the man. How could he not be? Eddie worked to provoke Volt, to make him upset and insecure and vulnerable so he would lash out at Eddie.
Then, it was all too easy to run back to you and tell you how horrible Volt was. Volt didn’t blame you for believing your husband — you knew him before you knew Volt, and Eddie had all of your trust while Volt was fiending for crumbs of it — but must this cruelty be exercised only towards Volt?
When you stomped your feet and pouted like a petulant child, Eddie fell to his knees and begged for your forgiveness. Screaming on your end was never met with a raised voice — it was always tender words and soft expressions of love for you. He treated you like a child, unable to manage your own emotions as a man much older than you talked you through them, like you didn’t understand what heartbreak or anguish or grief was. Volt would’ve wagered that you knew those emotions as well as he did, but it wasn’t his place to speak on your pain.
In a second, Volt declared that this cycle would end tonight. Volt would release you of the slow-acting poison that was Eddie, or Eddie would do as he said and release the three of you of the ‘curse’ that was Volt’s love.
Either way, it would be settled. No longer would you all be trapped under one roof — someone would get what they wanted, after all of this was said and done.
Harper’s screams of terror echoed in Volt’s ears when he suddenly rushed up to Eddie and tackled him through the door to their shared bedroom with you, sending bits of wood and metal flying everywhere.
“I’m burdened with my Maker’s temper.” Volt finishes as Drysdale stutters in opposition.
“No, no, no. You were teased until you toppled.”
“Volt tried to kill Eddie!” Harper exclaims before Drysdale leans down and speaks to the girl in a passive-aggressive tone of voice.
“Oh, did he?” Drysdale tuts at the girl before he turns back to the audience in the theater. “You flew the accused high up into the air, then you let him fall. Two kilometers… approximately.”
The mortals are flabbergasted, finding it hard to understand how Eddie could’ve survived that encounter.
“I have waited, Eddie… I have patiently waited, in vain, for you to love me as I have loved you. Just say it. Say ‘Volt, I am never going to love you.’ …It would help me a great deal, to hear that from your lips. Your quivering, hateful lips.”
“Let go of me.”
“...Anything for you.”
“Yes, I know, I know, I know. It’s a lethal distance for mortals, but for a vampire? It’s a hard fall, nothing more,” Drysdale brushes off the concerns of the crowd, “besides, he had a bit of assistance in getting to the ground safely from his wife. He hardly fell more than a kilometer before she caught him.”
“Eddie?”
Your voice was gentle in his ears, replacing the rushing wind that had filled his eardrums as he fell from the sky.
“Are we dead?” He asked.
“Not yet.” You giggled. “But don’t look down.”
“Look down?” Eddie was confused. “Why can’t I look down?”
“We’re not on the ground, my love.” You said, like it’s an everyday occurrence.
“Did you know you could–”
“–non. Not until I saw Volt carry you into the sky, ‘n I realized I could follow him.” You placed a hand on Eddie’s cheek, which made him hiss in pain. “‘M gonna take care of you. Just like you’ve taken care of me.”
“Volt has within his veins a most ancient blood. A godlike strength. Remember,” Drysdale points to the theater’s captive audience, who hangs off of every word he says, like he’s a real prosecutor in a real courtroom, “he put his fist through a priest’s skull. Did you do that to the accused?”
Volt doesn’t respond with more than an almost imperceivable shake of his head as he wears a shell-shocked expression on his face. Eddie couldn’t help but wonder if Volt was going through the same flashbacks that he was. Was he haunted by every mistake that he had ever made, too?
“You don’t ever think of her, Volt!” Eddie screamed at Volt, from the opposite side of the room. “Everythin’ has to be about you! Would it fuckin’ kill you to come to her defense for once?”
…Maybe Volt was. Maybe ten years apart had shaken Volt to his core, shattering the fragile glass cage of pride and false bravado that he had placed around his heart. Maybe he was forced to confront the not-quite-monster, yet not-quite-mortal that stared back at him in the mirror every single day.
“No, you did not.” Drysdale feels comfortable speaking for Volt, if only to keep the show moving. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you to set aside your mortal biases and remember that we are monsters. And, to us monsters, what’s a bite between paramours?”
He turns towards the council of vampires and bites down on his bottom teeth, softly snarling as other members of the coven do the same back to him. Meanwhile, Eddie glances out into the audience to find Amir’s eyes.
When he finds them, he’s surprised to find that Amir doesn’t look away this time.
“You knew Eddie would be fine, didn’t you?” Drysdale encourages Volt to speak with a question that had a predictable answer attached to it, but Volt still had that thousand-mile-stare in his eyes as he drums his fingers against the arm of his chair, to a silent medley that only he is privy to.
“Volt?”
Drysdale’s direct address to Volt is the only thing that manages to pull the man from his stupor.
“A wolf congratulated for not killing his pups,” He softly murmurs, “fantastic.”
“Yes!” Drysdale nervously laughs at Volt’s words. “You knew he would be fine and thus, he was fine.”
The projector emits another loud sound, trying to force the show to go forward, but Volt won’t allow this to happen.
“No!”
You, Eddie, and Harper all flinch at the sound of his raised voice.
“He wasn’t fine.” Volt says, after a long period of uncomfortable silence. “It wasn’t a… misunderstanding or some accident. I let go of him. I watched him clutch the air as he fell. I saw him swinging wildly as he fell through the clouds.”
Drysdale gestures for the projection to be taken off of the screen by swiping at his throat with his hand as Volt appears to be deviating from whatever pre-charted course the coven had plotted out for him again.
“I did it to hurt him, and it did hurt him. I did many, many things to hurt Eddie and Canary,” Volt’s voice wavers as he speaks, “It should be no surprise that after the hurricane of me, they were broken little things who could only love each other. I know this — I saw this — because I am the one who broke them!”
His dramatic spike in volume keeps the audience hushed as, afterwards, Volt speaks in smaller, more mellow words.
“I couldn’t persuade them to return my affections. I couldn’t force them to love me… so I broke a husband and a wife. What is worse than that? Crushing what you cannot own? I hurt the ones… the only ones…”
Volt nearly breaks down as he turns in his seat to look at you and Eddie, but Harper won’t let him advance in your hearts any further than he already has.
“He’s doin’ it again. Hurtin’ the two of you again.” She mumbles, clearly upset by how lenient Eddie appears to be towards Volt… but his heart has barely moved an inch forward.
It’s yours that Eddie’s concerned with. You are crying now, too, as Volt wipes a tear from his eyes. His heart is now beating in time with yours, and it hurts Eddie to be on the outside of whatever strong affection is being garnered in this moment between the two of you.
…Was this how you felt in New Orleans? Did you feel so empty when Eddie grew closer to Volt, even when he wronged you in the worst of ways? Like an outsider in your own fucking marriage?
Eddie mentally adds that to the top of the list of overdue apologies that he owes you.
“I… thought of this often, when I was in the coffin, that you left me, and I…” Volt chuckles to help avoid discussing the blood that freefalls from his eyes. “I’ve thought of this in the years since. I will always be sorry for what I did to the two of you. Especially to you, Canary. That brand of cruelty was horrifically misdirected towards you when I should’ve settled matters with him in private.”
You don’t respond to Volt, but you hold onto his gaze with your own as long as you can.
“If it’s true,” Harper lightly smacks your arm to pull you away from Volt, and she hurriedly puts your hands on Eddie’s forearms, so you’re occupied with thoughts of your husband instead of the man that hurt you so egregiously, “it’s too fuckin’ late.”
“I was not worthy of the forgiveness you would give me.” Volt fires that line directly at you, but Eddie has no problem turning your head towards him, having you softly kiss his lips so you don’t have a chance to be moved by Volt.
Volt crossed an ocean because he wanted you dead, yet here he was… apologizing with all of his heart and soul. Eddie knows better. This cycle of abuse, then sincerity and affection, then more abuse is just a part of who Volt is.
Too little, too late. Eddie can’t be thinking about Volt’s fucking apology and how it stirred whatever shriveled-up affection that you had for him in your heart when he’s currently preoccupied with the fact that you four will, most likely, not be getting off of this stage alive–
–You aren’t the only one who is moved, though. Harper, too, finds the strength to laugh at Volt before she slowly rises off of her feet, shuffling towards the center of stage as blood leaks from the deep cuts on her ankles.
“That was good, Volt. Real pretty,” She stops when she’s in the middle of the spotlight, aggressively pointing at her Maker all the while, “You dropped Eddie, like an egg from an airplane. He’s fine, ‘n so is Canary. You apologize, ‘n all is forgiven, right? We poisoned him–”
“–a confession!” Drysdale merrily announces before Harper screams at him in response.
“He’s not dead! He’s standin’ right here in front of us!”
Your eyes peer into Eddie’s soul in a way that makes him violently uncomfortable, like he knows what you’re about to say before it comes from your mind or mouth.
Did you know that he wasn’t dead before today?
I didn’t think…
Eddison, my love, for once I am askin’ for the short answer. Did you know that he wasn’t dead–?
–I had a feeling–
–You told me he was dead.
Your eyes narrow as Eddie sweats from a mixture of the hot stage lights and your scrutiny.
I wanted to bring you comfort–
–Y’know what? I don’t give a shit. That’s not what I’m concerned with at the moment.
Canary, please–
–and I can hear all those memories stirrin’ in your mind, too. I only got fractions of ‘em, but I got some questions for you. A lot of ‘em. Be ready.
I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to answer them for you–
–then figure out how we’re — all four of us, mind you — are gonna live to see another night, or stop lyin’ to us ‘n tell us the truth that we’re owed.
You pull your hands from Eddie’s body, crossing your arms over your chest as you focus on your little girl.
“–Do I get to cry ‘n say ‘m sorry too?” Harper then points at the part of her chest that’s showing from the V-neck of the yellow dress she’s wearing.
“Disorder! Disorder!”
Eddie, in the moment, finally realizes who’s behind him as Lady Memoria slams the gavel in her hand down again and again before her sharp gaze focuses in on Harper, alongside the coven members who are on stage with her.
Bathsheba, Curt — not Rod, who must be doing the projections — Artt, Connie, and Chance sit in a half-circle behind Eddie’s family, on a large wooden bench with a desk that juts out in front of them. They all have gavels in their hands, but the real power comes from their minds, when they work together in unison to stop your daughter from speaking.
Harper’s body immediately stiffens before her hands begin to shake. She can’t get another word out, but her lips slowly move as she tries to speak.
Merde, Eddie can’t sit by and watch. Not when you’ve realized that Lucinda is once again back to her normal self, and you’re slowly explaining your current circumstances to the girl in a low tone while everyone’s distracted with Harper at the front.
“Is this workin’ for you, Volt?” Eddie has no problem speaking his mind to Volt. He’s had plenty of fucking practing, with that ghost of him that’s been hiding in Eddie’s shadow for nearly a decade.
“You gonna…” Harper manages to get the words out anyways, despite the coven’s tremendous power over her body, “accept my apology too?”
“Harper, stop,” It pains Eddie to see her in so much pain, so he calls out to her before he addresses Volt, “is this your big revenge?!”
Volt simply shudders at Eddie’s loud exclamation as Lucinda pushes herself off of her chair, not listening to a word that’s coming out of your mouth as she tries to reach her companion; unfortunately, she’s unaware of the injuries to her ankles, so she comes crashing to the floor after one misguided step.
“Harper!”
That doesn’t stop Lucinda from calling out to Harper, though.
“Whoa, whoopsie-daisy!” Drysdale has no issue getting the crowd to help him mock Lucinda before he gestures for Daisuke to fix this little… inconvenience. “Bailiff, could you clear it up, please?”
Daisuke grabs Lucinda by her shoulders and roughly places her back into her chair as Lady Memoria slams her gavel onto that desk once more, snapping Harper out of the trance that the coven had purposefully placed her in.
“I don’t know why I bother. You didn’t come here for me,” Harper quietly says after a few heaving breaths, her anger coming back to her in full-force as she snaps at Volt and Eddie. “This is just one more round in the stormy romance of you two!”
Her gaze then locks onto Eddie, rage written all over her face.
“It’s never been about me or her,” Harper’s seething as she slowly stumbles back to her seat, “We were just roof shingles that flew off of your house.”
Eddie has no defense to present to Harper. What defense could he present that she couldn’t just shoot holes through with one example after another of the times that he’s abandoned you and Harper for Volt or Amir?
“I should’ve thrown them both into the incinerator when you were barely conscious,” Harper grumbles into your eardrum, but she’s still loud enough for Eddie to hear her, “Don’t let either of ‘em fool you, Canary. They’re both liars at the end of the day. Liars that would throw you to the wolves in order to grab onto the next highest rung. Don’t let Volt in. Don’t let Eddie in, even though I — no, you — want to.”
“Harper,” Lucinda’s eyes are glossy as she looks out into the crowd, finally understanding the gravity of the situation that the four of you are in, “are we on trial?”
“No. This ain’t a trial.” Harper answers Lucinda’s question without skipping a beat. “It’s a stonin’.”
~
“A stoning. She took the air out of the place with that one. She managed to hold the funhouse mirror that the crowd was laughing at back towards them, showing them what they were doing to us.” Dolly notes the unabashed pride in Eddie’s voice as he talks about Harper. “It got a lot less fun for them after that.”
“But they had their Technicolor film,” Amir notes as Dolly pokes at the food in front of her, not feeling hungry despite having moved to the dining room, “and Rod’s wizardry with it. The crowd had Volt back in the chair, fully recovered from his apology, back on mission. He was delivering his lines, picking up on cues, hypnotizing the mortals back around with the potboiler in New Orleans. The father, duped by his ungrateful and diabolical children. The father, ridiculed and humiliated in his final minutes. The mistress, extinguished in the courtyard oven.”
“The mortals didn’t even blink,” Eddie says in disbelief, “They followed the projections like it was law, until Drysdale and Volt had complete control over their minds and the story of our lives.”
“And here are those diabolical words!” Drysdale raised Harper’s journal — the one that contained Volt’s ‘last’ words in his blood — into the air, eliciting a round of loud cheers from the audience.
“Prinahas who were looking up through the tank water, waiting for the chum to be dumped.” Amir wistfully says as Eddie wrings his hands on the table.
“They had uncovered our crimes in Paris–”
“–and sent a signal flare to America, waking the victim from his state of repose.” Amir finishes for Eddie.
“Harper already confessed to his murder. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t help her or Canary,” Eddie swirls a finger around in the glass of blood in front of him, “Volt would have his vengeance.”
The unmistakable cheering of the crowd when Volt had wrapped up his testimony with a nice little bow on top. Your hand on Eddie’s shoulder as he glared at Volt, trying to talk your husband out of doing something stupid without using words. You were cross with him earlier, but that had quickly faded away as soon as you realized the position you were in.
You didn’t want to be mad at Eddie in your final moments. He didn’t want that, either.
“This… is hard. Canary and I didn’t speak about the trial after we left Paris. I…” Eddie curls his fingers around his glass, thinking to himself before his expression tightens and he throws the glass of blood at the wall.
He narrowly misses Amir before he hits a painting on the wall behind Amir, and blood smears all over the priceless art before shattered glass tumbles to the floor.
Strangely, unlike Dolly, Amir doesn’t even flinch at Eddie’s anger as he turns his head towards her.
“The sentencing.”
“For the Heretical Desecration of the first, third, fourth, and fifth of the Great Laws,” Drysdale smirked as he spoke to the mortals, “what say you for the vampire Harper–?”
“–Ah, Avocat,” Lady Memoria wildly smacked the damn gavel against the wooden bench a thousand times — or what felt like a thousand times, as Eddie felt the sound reverberate around his skull over and over again, “Are you not the horse a mile ahead of the cart?”
“Madame Justice?” Drysdale turned to her before Curt said his line next.
“The vampire Lucinda — what is her crime?”
“Oh, she’s just a bastard fledgling,” Drysdale dismissed the girl, who swiveled her head towards him as he continued to speak ill of her, “made without the knowledge or consent of the coven master. Which is… now me.”
He was wickedly grinning — a move pointed towards Amir, Eddie was sure of it — as another coven member — Artt — entered the conversation.
“Yet she is oblivious to the crimes committed by her maker.”
“It is only fair,” Connie’s voice is heard next, “that she be offered the same choice as any vampire.”
“This is true and fair.” Bathsheba slowly agreed as Chance delivered the next line.
“In accordance with vampiric law, may she not join the coven and become one with us?”
“Hmm,” Drysdale pretended to ponder their words, as if this wasn’t scripted weeks or months beforehand, “She must join or die.”
“Die! Die! Die!" The crowd wanted her head in a basket, to be presented to them immediately after, and she hadn’t even done anything.
You, Eddie, and Harper didn’t stand a fucking chance, did you?
“Oh, points for enthusiasm,” Merde, Drysdale loved the way the crowd was eating out of his hand since he kept praising their vicious taste, “but it is true and fair. Lucinda Lavish, rise!”
Daisuke seized the girl’s arms and dragged her to the middle of the stage as Drysdale continued his monologue.
“The choice is yours. Will you renounce the accused you sit with and join our coven?”
The rest of the world appeared to fade away to Lucinda as her soft orange eyes met Harper’s yellowish-red ones. The crowd in the theater didn’t matter to her. The eager looks of the coven didn’t matter to her. Volt looking on in disinterest while you took Eddie’s hand and waited with bated breath for her answer — none of that fucking mattered to her.
There was Harper, alongside the inevitable fact that she would die on this stage. Thus, Lucinda’s choice was easy.
“I am the vampire Lucinda Lavish, and my immortal companion is Harper.” Lucinda didn’t even address the crowd as she spoke — Harper was her only concern at the moment as she stared at your daughter, letting the rest of the world melt away. “My coven is Harper.”
Harper was chosen by another, with no strings attached or blood-soaked fingers against her cheek as they loved her because she was forced onto them.
…As fate would have it, it’d be the last time.
“My vampire heart quiver-eth.” Drysdale chuckled as Volt deeply sighed.
“The martyr skips her way to hell.”
“Indeed,” Drysdale hummed in agreement before he looked to the audience, “For the Heretical Desecration of the first of the Great Laws, what say you for the vampire Lucinda Lavish? Guilty or not guilty?”
An unsurprising answer rang out from the crowd.
“Guilty!”
Lucinda had no problem flipping them all off, causing the mortals to laugh as Drysdale deepened the pitch of his voice to show how serious he was about the next words that came from his mouth.
“And, with there being only one sentence applicable — that being death — what is your sentence?”
“Death!”
Of course they’d kill a poor woman that they barely knew, just like that.
“The vampire Harper,” Drysdale said her name with more disdain than he said her companion’s name after Daisuke dragged Lucinda back towards her seat, “rise.”
The cycle repeated again, with Harper being taken by the arm and forced towards center stage as Drysdale read off her supposed crimes.
“For the Heretical Desecration of the first, third, and fourth Great Laws, and the murder of the vampire Antoinette Brown, and the attempted murder of her Maker, the vampire Monsieur Volt de Lioncourt, what say you for the vampire Harper? Guilty or–”
Drysdale didn’t even have the time to say the other option before the crowd loudly declared that she was guilty.
“And the sentence?”
“Death!”
Harper took her sentence on the chin as she tilted her head towards Drysdale.
“May I ask the court for a final request?”
“No–” Drysdale tried to answer before Volt hissed at him.
“–Let her have it.”
Harper then pointed to someone in the audience.
“The man in the balcony wearing that high hat. Would you kindly remove it?”
“Sir, would you kindly grant the girl her final request?” Drysdale asked through gritted teeth as that man performed the act that was requested of him.
“Thank you,” Her eyes danced wildly as she scanned the audience, looking directly at the woman who was previously hidden by the man’s high hat, “I now know all your faces. If there is an afterlife, ‘m gonna come back ‘n fuckin’ kill all of you. And if there isn’t an afterlife… ‘m still gonna find a way.”
“Bailiff!” Drysdale called out for Daisuke as a smile tugged on Volt’s lips before he pushed it away and chose to show a neutral expression to the audience.
The audience muttered to themselves about Harper’s threat as she was slammed down onto her chair once more.
“Now,” Drysdale spoke with fake sincerity as he raised his arm into the air, “for the vampire Canary Watts de Lioncourt–”
Eddie bared his fangs at Daisuke as the man placed his hands on your shoulders. If these were to be your last few moments together, then Eddie was going to make sure that you were treated with the goddamn dignity and respect that you deserved.
“Ah, the lovebirds wished to be sentenced together, then?” Drysdale chuckled to himself before he snapped his fingers. “Fuck it — Bailiff!”
Daisuke’s hands immediately switched to Eddie’s shoulder as Eddie was roughly pulled from his seat before he was able to help you stand, after giving Daisuke a nasty glare that told him to fuck off in a number of languages.
“I got you, sweetheart. Just take it slow, okay?” Eddie whispered into your ear, offering his arm to you as a crutch.
You gladly took it, and the two of you marched towards the heavy spotlight that awaited you in the middle of the stage. The audience did little more than leer at you as you clung to Eddie’s side.
“For the Heretical Desecration of the Great Laws one, two, and four, and the murder of the vampire Antoinette Brown, and the attempted murder of their Maker, Monsieur Volt de Lioncourt.” You both looked at Volt as Drysdale’s booming words echoed around the stage, but Volt placed his hand upon his chin and looked away from you, so as to not show whatever emotion was tackling his face to you or Eddie. Typical. “What say you for the vampires Canary Watts de Lioncourt and Eddie Watts? Guilty–”
Suddenly, the world freezed. Like someone in the audience pressed pause on the production that was playing out in front of them.
Your face knitted together with confusion as you looked into the crowd to see scouring faces that had the word guilty being formed on their lips, but time had not allowed them to say it yet.
The vampires on stage were frozen, too, including your dearest daughter and her companion.
A breath of relief escaped you and Eddie at the same time. The world was silent — the world just belonged to the two of you — until you heard the destructive melody of Volt’s foot repeatedly hammering against the floor.
“Volt stopped time, right?” Dolly slowly repeats Eddie’s words back to him, “Why?”
“He told us why, but I… don’t know if I believe him,” Eddie nervously bounces his leg against the dining room table, “Why do you care?”
“I just find it interesting, that’s all,” Dolly serves Eddie a lukewarm response back before she scrawls something onto the yellow scratch pad in front of her, “Just takin’ some notes… for later.”
“If I could give you forever, mes chéries, I would,” Volt softly laughed, white curls bouncing in the air, “but, alas, I cannot. All I can offer you two is the solitude you deserve in order to say your goodbyes to one another.”
“Volt–”
“–I’ll be waiting in the wings,” Volt quickly stood, to avoid confronting you as you called out to him, “Call me when your affairs are settled.”
He stormed off of the stage quite suddenly, only leaving a single bloody tear in his wake that he hurriedly brushed off of his face as he walked off.
“...So this is it, huh?” Your eyes stayed focused on the small curtain that Volt had disappeared behind. “The end? No more bullshit, no more walkin’ away unscathed… we’re done. This is where we die.”
“Yeah, it is.” Eddie felt his lip wobble as tears flooded his vision. “Mon ange, I–”
“–you’re hurt,” You stopped Eddie right in his tracks as your thumb traces a shallow wound near the top of his forehead, “how long have you been hurt? I didn’t notice that you were in pain–”
“–’m fine,” Eddie resisted the urge to say that he’d live for obvious reasons, “Merde, Canary, you can barely stand. ‘M more worried about you–”
“–you’ve spent the last thirty years frettin’ over me,” You fought back before you reached down and tore a bit of what remained of your dress off before you bawled the fabric up in your hand, “let me take care of you for once.”
Without another word of protest from Eddie, he held onto your hips to prevent you from tipping over as you gently cleaned the cut on his face, making sure not to press too hard so you didn’t inflict any pain onto his person. You also took the time to clean any excess blood from his face, smiling when you looked him over with the finely-picked comb that was your gaze.
“There. Now I can stare at your handsome face for the last time.” You lightly smacked his hand with the bloody fabric before you tossed it off of the stage.
“You didn’t think I was handsome beforehand?”
You scoffed at Eddie’s prodding.
“Don’t be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Eddie!” You scolded your husband, but you truly had no bite in your voice as your arms settled around Eddie’s neck. “We get one last moment together, ‘n you’re gonna be an ass during it?”
“You called me handsome,” Eddie chuckled to himself, “so you brought this onto yourself, sweetheart–”
You cut off Eddie with a passionate kiss that he quickly reciprocates, fingers digging into soft cotton and gentle flesh alike as he savours the taste of you — sweet like sugar, warm and comforting like a home-cooked meal, with a final bitter edge that he’s grown to adore — for what would be the last time.
When you pulled away from Eddie, he expected to see you in tears; instead, he was a little surprised to see you looking at him with nothing but affection and love in your eyes.
“I would’ve loved to grow old with you.”
You really know how to sink your hand into his chest and curl your fingers right around his still-beating heart, don’t you?
“I would’ve loved that, too,” Eddie softly said back, “I would’ve loved to spend dull mornings ‘n quiet nights with you. I would’ve loved to argue with you over meaningless shit ‘n then spend all night makin’ it up to you. I would’ve loved to have a family of our own, with as many children as you would’ve wanted. I would’ve loved doin’ everythin’ that I never got to do, as long as I got to do it all with you.”
“You really know how to make a woman feel special, Eddie.” You shyly laughed as Eddie peppered the side of your face with small kisses. “But ‘m glad that I went through everythin’ with you. ‘M glad that I knew you ‘n loved you for longer than I didn’t. ‘M happy that we met, too. I’d go through this hell again if I knew that you’d be on the other side of it.”
“I wasn’t always good to you–”
“–that doesn’t matter to me right now, my love.” You immediately shut Eddie down. “I want you near. As near as you can be to me. I want you to know how much I love you, how much every bone in my body craves your touch ‘n affection, ‘n how badly I wanted to have a big family with you, with about six kids–”
“–Six?!” Eddie was very concerned with that answer. “Pretty girl, I don’t think we could handle–”
“–I think we can handle a lot more than you give us credit for.” You chuckled as Eddie placed his lips on your forehead.
“Six kids it is, then.” He hummed before his hands drifted down to your stomach. “God, I would’ve fuckin’ loved to raise her with you.”
“She would’ve been very, very lucky to have us as parents,” You smiled as you placed your hands on top of his, “Mon cœur, I… can I ask you to promise me somethin’?”
“Of course, Canary. Whatever you want.”
“I don’t know what comes after this, after our… deaths,” You let your soon-to-be tragic fates stumble from your mouth, “but in the next afterlife, or in the next life, or wherever the fuck we go when we die, I want you to find me. I know it might be a long journey, ‘n it might take a million years for you to find me again, but I… I want you to do it. Even if you’re feelin’ helpless ‘n alone, ‘n you can’t find me despite exhausting all of your available options. I’ll find a way to get somethin’ to you, to help you find your way — and me — again. Can you do that for me, Eddie?”
“I promise, sweetheart. I promise I’ll knock every fuckin’ door down, if there’s even a chance that you’re behind one of ‘em,” Eddie sealed your promise with another kiss to the lips — this one was more gentle, like a sweet exchange between old lovers, “I promise you that I won’t stop lookin’.”
“What if we don’t end up in the same place?” You carefully questioned him. “What then?”
“Mon ange,” Eddie pressed his forehead to yours, to tell you something that he’d been thinking about for years as he threw around the idea of an afterlife in his head, “I’ll crawl my way out of hell, so you don’t have to fall from heaven.”
“Azizam, if you’re getting misty-eyed, we do have tissues–”
“–shut up,” Dolly hisses at Amir before she wipes her eyes with her hands, carefully lifting her glasses off of her face in the process, “keep talkin’, Eddie.”
“‘M okay with dyin’,” You slid your arm through the space between Eddie’s arm and the side of his body, so you could slowly slide your hand down his forearm before you intertwined your fingers with his, “as long as you’re by my side. ‘M not scared of what’s on the other side since I know that you’re gonna be there with me. ‘N even if you ain’t–”
“–you know that I’ll come find you, wherever you are,” Eddie squeezed your hand, and the two of you stared into each other’s souls for a while before he called out to the other non-frozen person in the theater, “Volt!”
Your Maker said nothing as he calmly strolled onto the stage and posed himself in his seat, like he never left, before he snapped his fingers.
The theater came alive once more, like a fucked-up merry-go-round, and Drysdale finally gave the clambering audience their other choice.
“–or not guilty?”
It didn’t matter. The verdict they reached was the same as before.
“Guilty!”
You and Eddie didn’t even flinch when the crowd roared at you. You had him, he had you. You were together, in your final moments. What else did you need, really?
“And the sentence?” Drysdale asked with a self-satisfied smirk because he already knew the answer.
“De… De… De…”
The beginning of the word was on the tip of everyone’s tongue, but the rest of it wouldn’t come out. The mortals tried their damndest, though, repeating that syllable over and over again as the Drysdale looked at the coven, and they looked at him in mirrored confusion.
Then, in the audience, Eddie spotted Amir, hand tightly clutching the railing of the box he was trapped in as his orange eyes quivered with unknown amounts of powers. Eddie couldn’t hear what Amir said, but he read Amir’s lips and figured out the rest from there.
Banishment.
Then, as if Amir had planted that word in the minds of all of the mortal audience, they, too, began to demand that fate for you and for Eddie.
“Banishment! Banishment! Banishment!”
“He saved you.” Dolly murmurs as Amir glances in the other direction.
“It took all of my strength.”
“You saved Eddie and Canary, but not her.” Dolly thinks to herself for a moment. “Canary couldn’t have possibly taken that well.”
“...What?” The serenity on your face was wiped off the moment you realized that the crowd was calling for your banishment instead of your death. “Does this mean that Harper dies ‘n we… No, no! Give that mercy to her, not us! We don’t deserve to live if she dies in our place!”
“I could not prevent it,” Amir shakes his head, black hair falling into his face as he looks at Eddie with pure guilt drawn on his ethereal features, “I could not prevent it.”
“Banishment is not an applicable punishment!” Drysdale screamed at the audience, causing them to immediately shut up.
He then glanced at Amir, who had fallen back into his seat, completely drained of his power, and a particularly cruel smile settled on Drysdale’s face.
“Oh, but you mortals are bastards, aren’t you?” He laughed under his breath. “That’s arguably a sentence worse than death. …Alright, have it your way. Send them to Belgium!”
With a flick of his hand, Daisuke seized Eddie, dragging him towards the wings of the stage with the assistant of Chance to prevent Eddie from fighting back or reaching for you or Harper.
Eddie’s words were caught in his throat as he thrashed in their hold, unable to speak or do much more as he watched Bathsheba dig her claws into the flesh of your shoulder as Lady Memoria buried her fingers into your hair and tugged you in the same direction as Eddie.
You weren’t as wordless as your husband was, though.
“No! No, Harper!” You were able to grab onto your daughter’s hand, and she meekly cried as she tried to pull you closer to her.
“Mama! Stay with me, please don’t go!”
“Harper–!” You tried to hold on, but you weren’t able to keep overpowering the two vampires that surrounded you as they took you away from your little girl. “–Ma petite, ma belle, my everythin’–”
“–Canary! Eddie!” Harper screamed for you and Eddie — her parents — as Lucinda placed a hand on her back, to try to comfort her. “Mama! Daddy!”
Eddie was taken off stage first, but you lingered when Volt snatched your arm away from Bathsheba and spoke to you in a low tone. Eddie didn’t know what Volt said to you, but it was enough to drive you to tears as you disappeared from the harsh lighting of the stage.
“...I’m gonna guess that they didn’t drive you and Canary to the Belgian border.” Dolly quietly says, trying to not break the somberness of the moment as Eddie drums his fingers against his cheek.
“No. I fought back, but there wasn’t much fight left in me.” Eddie lets that wall of carefully constructed distance from this time in his life go as small, beady, bloody tears run down his face. “Canary didn’t fight back. She knew what I believed wasn’t true… that Harper was going to die on that stage without us.”
Aghast. Hopeless. Defeated.
You heard your husband scream and snarl his teeth, but you didn’t respond — not even to his weak, desperate calls of your names.
You let members of the coven drag you down the stairs, toss you in that crypt, demean you with their harsh words, and then bury you beneath a million small pebbles in an uncomfortable coffin.
You were going to die, and you didn’t give a shit; if anything, you wanted it to be over faster. So you could see your little girl once more.
“They took us to their crypt, shoved us in coffins, filled those coffins with rocks so we couldn’t move, and then sealed us next to the other vampires who had broken those Great Laws.” Eddie doesn’t bother wiping his bloody tears as more follow in the tracks of the previous ones. “Banished to a two-by-seven foot box, so we’d starve to death and join those who came before us.”
“And while that was going on, she’s upstairs on stage?” Dolly lightly questions.
“Ask him. I wasn’t there. I…” Eddie quietly stands before he tilts his head downwards, to avoid looking Dolly and Amir in the eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ll call someone to clean up my mess.”
Eddie steps out of the room without another word out of his mouth, and Dolly allows Eddie to make his escape before she turns her focus to Amir.
“Alright. You were there,” She folds her arms on the table before she leans towards him, “what did you see?”
“And, now, for your viewing pleasure…” Drysdale took his wig off, handing it to Curt as the remaining vampires on stage — Curt, Artt, Drysdale, and Volt — alongside Miranda, who had joined them on stage after she finished the last musical number, formed a half-circle behind Harper and Lucinda, who kneeled center-stage, hand-in-hand, in front of the audience. “A spectacle and a marvel that you will only see once in your pathetic lives.”
Curt tossed the wig off stage before he hooked Drysdale up to a rope that hung from the ceiling, so it’d look like the rope was holding him as he flew upwards.
“The girls were at the lip of the stage, arms around each other, defiant and scared.” Amir solemnly describes the scene that played out before him. “Whispering their last words to each other.”
No one, not even the audience members in the front row, heard what those girls said to each other. Forever lost to time, forever lost to each other.
“Does anyone have the time?”
“One thirty-nine!” The audience answered Drysdale, who slyfully chuckled.
“Oh, dear, way past our bedtime.” He then grew stoic, all of a sudden. “What you’re about to see… is fake. Remember that when you leave here today. You are all disgusting, repugnant, and appalling… and I despise you for it!”
Drysdale flew off into the upper-right part of the stage, leaving Harper and Lucinda to their doom.
“I couldn’t hear what Lucinda and Harper were saying to each other. My mind was with Eddie, and what horrific things must be happening to him downstairs.” Amir explains. “Drysdale flew off-stage to pull the black-out curtain, hiding the perfectly-mounted observatory lens for the perfectly-timed sun in the sky above the theater…”
The audience cheered, hollered, and clapped wildly as they waited for the conclusion of the play, which only came after Harper sneered at them.
“Yeah, you follow the bouncin’ ball–!”
Then, the stage lights turned off, and the only thing illuminating the stage was the harsh sunlight that was shot through the observatory lens. It fell right onto the two girls, and they shined in it for a millisecond before their skin began to turn to ash.
Lucinda shrieked in horrific pain while–
“–Harper smiled,” Amir recalls, “and she started singing to her executioners."
Harper held Lucinda as she collapsed upon the stage floor. She would be the first to go, her skin being unable to last longer than a few seconds in the sunlight before she was nothing more than ash and dust.
“I don’t like windows when they’re closed,” It was off-key and horrific, but Harper still sang for the terrified, still, silent crowd one last time, “I want to fly where the wild wind blows.”
She could barely be heard over Lucinda’s endless wailing as more and more of the fledgling turned into nothing more than specks in Harper’s arms.
“Harper turned her back to the audience,” Amir wistfully says, “and Lucinda succumbed first.”
The screaming stopped, all of a sudden, and Harper looked down, fear making a brief stop on her face before it flew back into the hearts of the audience members, as there was nothing left of her companion but the clothes she was in. A red shirt and a fashionable blue top. The only remnants of the vampire Lucinda Lavish.
Harper had been ignoring her own condition as she sought to guide Lucinda through death. The majority of her skin had been burnt off, leaving grey dust and weak bones in its place as her dress hung to less and less of her body as time moved forward at a painstakingly slow rate.
Only when Harper had been assured that Lucinda was gone did she allow herself to scream in pain.
“I don’t like windows… when they’re,” No longer singing the words, she forcefully said them with the last of her strength as the skin and hair peeled off of her forever-young face, “closed!”
She turned towards Volt with pleading eyes as the rest of her body burned away in the sunlight.
“And you could tell from the look on Volt’s face — how he shivered and stared with his mouth agape — that the last thing she saw on Earth,” Amir pauses to collect himself, “was him.”
The mortals cheered when the girl stopped screaming, finally becoming one with death, alongside her beloved immortal companion. They hurriedly exited the theater, whispering their favorite parts of the show to one another, and only when most of them were gone did Drysdale re-enter the stage.
He had no problem plucking Harper’s yellow dress — the last mortal possession of hers, a dress that Lucinda had created and tailored specifically for her — out of the dust that was the remaining remnants of her and Lucinda. He shook that ash out of the yellow material, scoffing when it fell onto his nice black shoes, before he threw the dress over his shoulder and strolled off of the stage once more.
Okay, so I was originally going to comment about this on ao3, BUUUT considering how it kinda overlaps with other fics and is a little long (per usual with me)... I felt it'd be more appropriate here!
Snippet taken from "make a wish!": "You sound so clinical and dry when you're talking about your own birthday. Lighten up a bit, won't you?"
I have to, with urgency, state that every time I read your work and see these little internal monologue moments, I eat it UP. Call me Remy cause I feel like a little rat actively scoping them out and savoring them like a fine dish.
The narrative always feels so personal, and it's nice to get a look into that mindset. Like, ywinyo and wwnep are perfect examples of it. It's extremely intriguing to see how the character thinks and faces their internal conflict. For example, our character in ywinyo being very impulsive, combative, harsh, and doubtful with themselves throughout it. It'll sometimes feel like reading a diary entry, much like in iwtv! It's interesting, very you centric at this point, and immersive. Your writing style's just so fun, detailed, and recognizable to me because of it. :)
I do wanna know: what inspired you to implement that sort of thing into your writing?
- That one "EddieAndVoltsLiveWire" commenter <3
oh my gosh HIIIIIIIII you're one of my fav commentors, btw :] 💞
"Call me Remy cause I feel like a little rat actively scoping them out and savoring them like a fine dish." LMAOOOO that's so good I wanna use that in the future 🤭
blushing at your paragraph complimenting my writing style ehehehe
ywinyo mention RAHHHHH omg my beloved first-born child!! Anyways, I love writing in the personal thoughts and motivations of my self-insert characters. I feel like it's a good way to give them some personality without it feeling like the self-insert is an oc. It's like the perfect middle ground of the scale of 'blank y/n with no characterization to original character in the universe', if that makes sense? ywinyo is like the best I've ever done with this, and iwtv tips a little to the oc side since the reader has a canon nickname that she goes by BUT she's still a reader-insert, at the end of the day 😌 i'm excited to get back into the more personal thoughts with a new fic series that feels more like ywinyo but with less stabby action LMAOOO
What inspired me to implement this sort of thing into my writing? ...I'm not exactly sure LOL. I mean, I started off writing fics at fourteen with the basic y/n l/n with the cheesy dialogue and poor characterization LKJAFLAFJ (not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm clowning on fourteen year old me for funsies hehe). I think this is something that just developed in my writing as I kept putting out more and more fics. I eventually found that style as I grew up and became a more experienced writer, I think.
I'm also more naturally introspective than I used to be, too. I get in my own head about a lot of things, and most people that I've crossed paths with will tell you, in great detail, that I think too damn much FALKJFLKJFKLD. Sometimes, when I write fics, some version of those thoughts can, uh... escape the confines of my mind and find their way onto my laptop screen 🫣once again, iwtv is an example of this since there's a LOT of metacommentary about my fics with canary and her writing. for ywinyo, I think this is something I've mentioned in another ask, but that fic actually has helped me deal with some pretty gnarly intrusive thoughts that I've had over the years. It really helps to put them on a document, if only to kinda giggle about how absurd they are when I get them out of my head and into the world.
I hope this answers your question! :D thank you for leaving such wonderful comments on my fics!!! I love reading them, as a fellow yapper 😌❤️
a/n: guess who has two thumbs and was born on the 13th of july... THIS GUYYYYY 🥳🥳🥳 also the grammar on this is probably BAD but you can't say anything bc it's my birthday and you can't make me cry 'cause that would be mean AFLDSKJFDLKJ
relationship: eddie x volt x gender-neutral! reader (established relationship, pre-realization but post-route.)
cws: reader is kind of a party-pooper who doesn't like birthdays because of the anxiety of performing like a clapping seal for other's amusement (in lesser words - they're me and I am them LOL), alcohol, reader has BAD anxiety throughout ALL of this, and, like, a whiff of implied sexual content. other than that, it's fluffy as fuck! :]
summary: you're not big on birthdays. but, lucky for you, eddie & volt have a more intimate celebration planned for you that makes you realize that you had nothing to worry about when it came to celebrating your birthday with them. — 2.7k words. [read on ao3!]
Birthdays aren't… really your thing.
Sure, you like a nice slice of birthday cake in your favorite flavor that’s topped with your favorite icing. You do enjoy the gifts that your friends and family send you since you aren't able to make it back to your hometown for yet another year… but you don't understand the big deal with birthdays.
Cool, you're one year old after surviving another trip around the sun. One more year to add to the tally as you march closer to your grave.
Yikes, that was morbid… even for me.
Growing up, you never had a big birthday party where you had to do a whole song and dance with your classmates — most of which you hardly knew. You went to some parties in your youth, but you weren't really all that impressed by them. The cake was sugary sweet, the pizza was delicious, and the rollerskating was fun, but they didn't interest you in any way.
That nonchalant attitude towards birthdays carried into your teen years, where you shied away from the big sweet sixteen celebrations that your friends had. You were more than content to have a few friends spend the night at your parents’ house, where you played Just Dance on the Wii and chatted about insignificant problems until the sun rose back into the sky.
Then, of course, time and distance drove you and your closest friends apart as you moved into adulthood, and birthdays became more of a solo celebration. Not that you minded, though — a few texts from your friends and parents to tell you that they loved you, missed you, and couldn't wait to see you again was all the company you really needed. Besides that, a nice bottle of wine and a series to binge-watch would suffice as excellent birthday plans for you.
You don't knock anyone that enjoys extravagant parties or large celebrations with friends and family out at a local bar — it's just not really your vibe.
With all of that in mind, it makes sense that you stare at the invitation that’s written on a small cocktail napkin — telling you to come to the Breaker Box at seven pm sharp tonight — in horror.
Live Wire,
Please do us the pleasure of joining us for a one-of-a-kind celebration for your birthday. Arrive no later than seven, and wear your finest attire.
We look forward to seeing you tonight!
Love,
E & V
Well, Eddie co-signed it, so it can't be that bad, right?
…Right?
Damn, I can't wear my comfortable, toothpaste-stained pajamas tonight.
Putting that thought aside, you dress yourself in something fashionable yet cozy — a good middle-of-the-road option between what you desire to lounge in and what Volt (because let's be honest, Eddie doesn't really notice or give a shit about what you're wearing unless it is really eye-catching or out-of-character for you) wants you to put on tonight. You end up picking something breathable yet fitting for the current climate as you watch the hours and minutes tick down.
Nerves climb all over your skin before they nestle into the fabric of your bones, making you worry about how tonight's gonna go. What if they invite the whole goddamn house? What if there's embarrassing baby pictures of you plastered around the space, courtesy of Lady Memoria and Holly? What if you have to awkwardly sit there while people sing Happy Birthday to you, while you wonder if your birthday wish can be for the ground to open up and swallow you whole so you don't have to deal with this anymore?
Pacing only wears down the carpet on your bedroom floor, alongside the time you have left before you face your doom — because at this point, you've convinced yourself that this celebration that Eddie and Volt are hosting will be the opposite of what you want.
It's six fifty-five. I better get moving.
After fixing your hair for the umpteenth time — a nervous habit you scored from your mother — you take careful, cautious steps towards that closet door as you pull your magical furniture fuck glasses from your pocket.
It's rare for you to go so long without putting them on and talking to the objects around your house — you really gotta find a better way to phrase that before you accidentally say it to someone who doesn't know about your current circumstances and then proceeds to think that you're losing your fucking mind — but you don't wanna deal with a hundred plus people telling you happy birthday and making a big deal out of a day that you wish would just pass you by quietly.
Nervously tapping your foot against the ground while apologizing to Florence, you aim your Dateviators at the breaker box in your house once you open up that closet door. A million spiraling thoughts enter your mind at once — Fuck, what if it's a surprise party? You're terrible at acting surprised. Plus, there could be a ton of presents, and then you have to remember to smile and say thank you as you open them because people expect a performance from you on your birthday. What if you're not acting grateful enough? What then? — as the world around you fades into a million different colors before you find yourself standing in front of a set of double doors and an illuminated sign shining down on your nervous face.
God, you are really overthinking this. Maybe it'll be fine… maybe.
There's only one way to find out how tonight's gonna go, right? So, you might as well jump into the murky depths face-first and see where you end up.
With a hammering heart and trepidation in your every movement, you peeked your head inside of the bar, glancing around to see if anyone's going to jump out at you.
Not one soul around… thank God.
The Breaker Box is awfully quiet, which would be a concern for you on any other night but tonight. The silence that wraps around the empty seating area is super comforting, allowing you to sigh in relief and relax your shoulders as you think about–
“–Are you gonna come in or what?”
Nevermind.
Your heart rate spikes upwards immediately as your head swivels around, looking for whoever said those words to you until you spot Eddie leaning over the bar. He's wearing a shit-eating smile because he knows he scared the crap out of you, and a smart-ass comment nearly flies out of your mouth before you hear his words rattle around your skull.
“Are you gonna come in or what?”
Right. You're freaking out, and you haven't even entered the bar yet. Great way to start your birthday celebrations.
“You scared me.” You say, closing the door with more apprehension that you usually display when you enter the space.
“Couldn't tell,” Eddie lightly jokes before he notices your ashen face, eyebrows knitting together in worry as a response, “Are you okay?”
“Peachy-keen.” You grimace as you walk at a snail's pace to the bar counter. “It's just gonna be the three of us here tonight, right?”
“Do you want more people here?”
“No. Fuck no,” Your answer causes Eddie's shoulders to shake with easy laughter that comes from his lips, helping to slow the erratic drumming of your heart, “I prefer a smaller gathering — if I have to have one at all — for any type of celebration involving me.”
You sound so clinical and dry when you're talking about your own birthday. Lighten up a bit, won't you?
“You look like you need a drink.”
“I feel like I need one,” You groan as you sit across from Eddie, sliding onto one of the red-cushioned barstools with relative ease, “Several, actually, but let's start with one.”
“Rough day?” Eddie asks, and like always when it comes to him, the tiniest bit of prodding opens the floodgate that most refer to as your mouth.
“No, not really, I just… I don’t know. I’m not a huge celebration person, y’know?” You fiddle with your fingers underneath the bar counter, not quite meeting Eddie’s patient gaze. “I don’t want my birthday to become this big… thing.”
“A big thing?” Eddie echoes, causing you to drag a hand across your face.
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything–”
“–you’re taunting me on my birthday?!” You whine in pretend annoyance when you see a smirk forming on Eddie’s face again. “You’re an ass.”
“Spark… you’re feisty tonight.”
“You love it.” You shoot back, igniting a heavy blush on Eddie’s face.
“Shut up–”
“–aww,” You coo at Eddie, wriggling your fingers in his direction, “you’re cute when you get all blushy because of me.”
“Take your damn drink and leave me alone.” Eddie huffs as he slides a glass your way, but you’re well-aware of the fond smile that he tries to hide by turning his head to the left, allowing a bit of his black hair to fall in front of his face.
“Why would I? Your life would be so boring without me.” Your goading quickly ceases when you realize what was in the glass in front of you. “...Wine? I thought you would’ve served me something else.”
“You said you liked wine.”
“I did?” You hastily scour through your memories, not remembering when this conversation occurred, but you trust that it did. Besides, you’re a little flustered at him remembering such a small, insignificant thing that you probably mentioned off-handedly on one occasion or another. “Huh… thanks, Eddie.”
You do like the mixed drinks that Eddie and Volt serve you — they’re handcrafted with love, even if such phrasing would make Volt chuckle while Eddie internally cringes — but there’s something special about a nice, big glass of wine after a stressful day.
A stressful day that was only that way because of your overthinking tendencies. Go figure.
The wine travels smoothly down your throat, and a rich, dark chocolate taste coats your tongue as you set the glass back down on the counter.
You lick your lips, as to avoid any drips from falling onto your chin, and you hum in approval before Eddie hovers his hand over yours, not yet initiating any touch between the two of you.
“So? You like it?”
“It’s really good. I’m always a fan of dessert wines.” You lean over the wooden surface to peck Eddie’s cheek, which extends the red-hot blush he’s wearing down his neck. “Thank you, love.”
“Hmph.” He says nothing, but he drums his fingers against the back of your hand to show that he’s thinking of you.
You quite like how handsome he looks when he’s hot in the face, and you open your mouth to tease him, but you can’t quite get the words out when you find yourself in a bone-crushing embrace.
“Live wire!”
And there’s Volt. Fashionably late, but always welcome.
You bring your arms to your chest to protect your vital organs, but once your body realizes that you’re not under attack, you slowly wrap your arms around Volt so you can reciprocate the hug.
“Hi, Volt.” You murmur into his chest, face smushed against muscle in a way that you’re not going to complain about.
“Good evening, my darling,” One of his hands plays with the ends of your hair as he runs his other hand up and down your back, sending subtle shivers down your spine, “how has your day been so far?”
“Peaceful. Quiet. Caught up on some reading.” You lightly shrug, bringing your wine glass to your lips as Volt catches Eddie’s gaze once he pulls away from your body while leaving his hand on your back.
There’s a silent exchange between them, and you know they’re doing that thing again. You can’t quite describe what the thing is, but they’re able to understand each other’s thoughts and emotions with a single glance or look. Sometimes, the three of you have some fun with this, but you have a pretty good feeling that Eddie’s telling Volt about your implied dislike of birthday celebrations. Especially when Volt’s charming smile turns into a small frown.
“My sweet spark,” Volt gracefully slid into the seat next to you, hands reaching for your own, “I hope you know that we’d never put you into a situation that would make you uncomfortable.”
“I know, it’s just…” You struggle to place the words for a moment. There’s no particular reason for why you feel this way — why not just say that, then? “Everyone expects you to have some sob story or justifiable reason for why you don’t want to have some surprise birthday party or big plans on your special day, but I just… don’t. I like staying home and spending time with those I love on that day. I eat junk food, drink enough alcohol to get a little tipsy, and then relax for a day. That’s how I like to spend my birthday.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Eddie then moves away from you and Volt for a moment, leaving the two of you to chat by yourselves.
“You didn’t have to shut down the bar for me, Volt, I could’ve come around later–”
“–you’re worth the hassle, little wire.” Volt grins when you place your hands in his, gently bringing your hands to his lips before he lowers his voice. “And, between the two of us, Eddie would only allow himself to rest so he could help prepare for your special day.”
“You and your ulterior motives,” You lightly chide Volt as he presses a variety of soft kisses to all of your fingers, “you get alone time with me, and you get Eddie to sit down and relax for a night.”
“You’ve caught me red-handed,” Volt leans forward, taunting you with how close his lips are to yours, “now, what are you going to do about it?”
“Oh,” You chuckle in a dangerously low tone, “I have a few ideas.”
You press your lips to his, overwhelming Volt with a passionate, all-encompassing kiss that’s only interrupted by Eddie clearing his throat.
“Are you two lovebirds done?”
“Sorry, Eddie,” You bite back a wide smile, “are you feeling left out?”
“...No.” Eddie says — in the most unconvincing way possible — with that same blush on his face before you notice the small, circular cake that’s in his hand.
“You get that from Stefan?”
“He knows your tastes as well as we do,” Volt confirms your guess as Eddie lights the singular candle on the cake, gently setting it in front of you after you slide your wine glass out of the way, “Is it to your liking?”
“It’s perfect.” You’re tempted to swipe your finger across the top and taste the delicious, handmade frosting that Stefan poured his heart and soul into, but you resist the urge to. “Thank you for this. You really didn’t have to go through all of this effort–”
“–you’d do the same for us, or for any other object in the house.” Eddie points out, which causes your mouth to dry out.
He’s right, and you know it.
You say nothing, allowing Volt to brush some hair out of your face as you prepare to blow out the candle.
“Wait,” You lightly squeeze Volt’s hands, “I have one humble request–”
“–name it, live wire, and it’s yours–”
“–for the love of God, do not sing to me.” You deadpan, which causes Eddie to laugh under his breath.
“Thank God.”
“Eddison,” Volt turns to his companion, “it’s our live wire’s special day. They should be pampered and adored, even if they don’t want that affection–”
“–they literally just asked us not to sing, Volt–”
Your loud chuckles end their quarreling, as two sets of fond eyes find your prize-winning grin.
I know what I want to wish for.
“Some things never change, do they?” You whisper to yourself before you quickly exhale, extinguishing the flame in front of you in one go.
I wish that the three of us could spend every day — or some part of every day — like this. Close to each other, talking and laughing and bantering and teasing.
“What’d you wish for, spark?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” You tease Eddie, causing his eyes to fly wide open as Volt merrily laughs. “It wasn’t anything special, really. C’mon, let’s dig into this cake. I’m dying to taste Stefan’s handiwork.”
a/n: this is a (VERY) belated birthday gift for @silentmusiic 💕thank you for supporting me & for being amazing as you always are!!! love you and your work so so much!
relationship: drummer! eddie x frontman! volt x solo! rockstar! gender-neutral! reader (soulmates au, rock band au, & you're married to the boys!)
cws: AU — Soulmate (soulmates' first words to you appear on your arm when you're sixteen) & Rock Band, lots of sexual & crude humor, reader is a professional menace with an attitude, sexual tension, implied sexual content but reader's genitalia is left unmentioned, the horrors of being a modern day celebrity
summary: You're an international rock star who, during your biggest stadium tour, realizes that they're tired of hiding their relationship with two members of High Voltage, a popular indie rock band. So, you decide take a few measured steps that'll allow you to safely expose your relationship to the general public while keeping your career in-tact. ...Unfortunately, you are also a hot mess who can't help but make your manager, Monique, work for her money, so you take a drastic step one night that reveals your hand a little sooner than what was agreed upon. Luckily, for you, Eddie & Volt like you (and your chaos) more than they probably should. - 11.0k words! [read on ao3!]
You feel like you were fucking born for this.
The crowd's energy is magnetic, all-encompassing, and powerful. They scream your lyrics back to you — so much so that you can barely hear yourself over them, despite the audio track playing in your in-ear — and they're clamoring for a scrap of your attention, so they can have a five-second video of you smiling or winking at them to upload to TikTok.
You oblige them, of fucking course — you're a performer. It's in your blood to be an attention whore who enjoys seeing their own face coming across their screen every time they open up a social media app. No offense to your contemporaries who enjoy a bit of peace and quiet after they play to a sold-out stadium, but that's not really your vibe. You adore your fans, and you're almost as feral as they are. Your comments on their TikTok edits of you crawling on the stage floor are enough evidence of that.
'Oh you got the GOOD angle of my ass'
'Can't believe y'all didn't add the clip of me winking at that cute girl in the front row :[ rude'
'I can show y'all what this tongue does but that'd get me banned on this app KLJAFLKSFJD'
That last comment nearly gave Monique — your poor manager who's been tolerating your behavior for far longer than she should — a heart attack when she read it, but she lived… after she chewed your ass out for nearly two hours straight.
"You have a certain image that you have to maintain when you're not on stage–"
You scoffed at her words.
"–I'm a rock star. Debauchery and depravity are my things!"
"Yes, I get that." Monique pinched the bridge of her nose as her fingers tightly gripped the silver clipboard that was in her hands. "But it only works in moderation."
"Why do you care so much, Monique?"
"I enjoy being employed, and," She heavily sighed, "despite how much of a headache you are, I like working with you."
"Aww, Monique–"
"–shut up and delete that comment." She sternly said before you gave her a two-finger salute.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Don't call me that." She deadpanned as you chuckled.
"Yes, baby–"
"–also refrain from calling me 'baby', or 'babe', or 'honey muffin–'"
"–You're no fun!"
She loves you. Deep down, under her neutral expressions and exaggerated huffs, your manager is somewhat fond of you. Even though she thinks you're a fucking idiot most of the time.
You can practically feel Monique's eyes on the back of your head as you sing into the mic, shooting deadly laser beams into your skull from backstage as you pull your black, ripped-at-the-sleeves leather jacket from your form. It wasn't really doing much to cover what Monique is worrying her head over, since no one can tell which of the song lyrics on your arms belongs to your soulmates.
Yes, soulmates. Two of 'em, one on each arm. Aren't you just a lucky duck?
On your sixteenth birthday, your soulmate's first words to you will appear on your forearm in cursive black ink, and then they stay on your arm, like a tattoo or a permanent branding that you can't ever get rid off, and blah, blah, blah.
Who gives a shit? When you were sixteen, you had much pressing matters to attend to then some soulmate bullshit that would happen when it happened. People made this a bigger thing than it needed to be, in your 'humble' teenage opinion. Still, you entertained your parents and rolled up your sleeves when the hour and minute of the sixteenth anniversary of your birth arrived.
You could still see your mother's horror and your's dad amusement when two lines of ink — one on each arm — were slowly etched into your skin. You cackled like a witch, because of course this would happen to you. You, the person who did not give a rat's ass about this soulmate business, had two soulmates. Go figure.
Unfortunately, this would also create a unique problem for you because of your occupation.
When you were fifteen, a cover of you singing a Fall Out Boy song went viral on the internet, despite your horrible winged eyeliner and bad mic quality. People were hungry for more of your voice, and, after you posted a few more covers to YouTube that got millions of views, you attracted the interest of a few record labels. They were all ran by money-hungry older men that were eager to exploit you in the worst of ways to make a quick buck, minus one — the one that your parents let you sign on to because they liked the owners, Rainey and Keyes, so much.
You grew to love the pair as much as your family did, despite any creative differences that you clashed over. They had your best interests in mind, and made sure that you were totally comfortable with any album concepts or lyrics that were presented to you. Keyes had her masterful fingers dipped into the melodies behind the lyrics that you wrote, making sure that everything meshed together in an ear-catching way. Meanwhile, you and Rainey would discuss your image for hours, so that every photo shoot and music video was a piece of art that you loved, even when the album era was deep in your past.
You don't know what drew two famous jazz performers to your detached rock star persona, but you are so fucking thankful that your parents were wise enough to pick them and your well-being over money — a choice that a lot of people would not make, if their kids were in the same scenario as you were.
When you first told Rainey and Keyes of the words on both of your arms, they reassured you that it wasn't a big deal, but they got it through your head that you'd have to take certain precautions to protect yourself since you'd be in the public eye. If you were a normal, everyday person, you could just leave those words uncovered on your arm. Sure, you might want to cover one set of words so you didn't draw any leering eyes or unwanted comments about having two soulmates to yourself, but you could pretty much live your life as anyone else did.
Since you'd be a public persona, however, acting like a normal person wasn't an option. Skin patches and long-sleeves would be your best friends, since stalkers and frenzied fans would lose their shit if they saw the words on your arms. They'd scream those words at you, trying to see if you were the one who matched the words that they had on their arms. You remembered seeing, when you were too young to understand what the news reporters were telling you through the screen, that a young female pop star was murdered by a male 'fan' who was so upset that he wasn't the one who was destined to be with her.
Famous actors, pop stars, Broadway actors, news reporters, and legions of influencers around the world took preventative measures to make sure that they didn't meet a similar fate. Since you were freshly sixteen, Keyes and Rainey both pushed for you to wear longer, loose-fitting clothing for a number of reason, but the most pressing was to hide the words that were scrawled onto your arms.
You agreed, of course, and everything went smoothly for the rollout of your debut album, which caused you to gain a small cult following that liked how different your sound was to the bubblegum pop that was trending at the time. You wore long graphic t-shirts with a stripped undershirt, earning you the nickname of Emo Royalty from your fans who adored how your harsh styling contradicted the polite, graceful mannerisms that you displayed as a sixteen-year-old who was fucking terrified of the media circuit and the larger-than-life celebrity personalities that you interacted with on a daily basis.
Eventually, as you began to prepare your sophomore album after a small tour for your debut album in your home country, you got a dangerous idea as you stared at your uncovered arms. What if you embraced the words that caused so many people so much panic and distress? You wouldn't just reveal the sentences that were written there, however — that'd be dumb and irresponsible.
So you had a much different — much better — idea that you pitched to Keyes and Rainey when you happened to see that one of your old high school friends opened up a tattoo shop in your hometown.
"What if I tattooed a bunch of my lyrics on my arms in the same font as the words from my soulmates? That way, no one could tell which ones were real, and which ones were fake? I already put my soulmates' words onto my debut album, so it can't hurt, right?"
You expected to get shot down; however, they both happily approved your idea once they were sure that you wanted to do this. Monique about had a cow, since she was freshly graduated from college and was assigned to you right after being hired in by Keyes, after she heard what you were planning.
"That's going to be a PR nightmare."
"That's why I have you, isn't it?"
"…You're going to be the reason I have a stroke before the age of thirty."
After Monique finally accepted your plan and the eventual consequences it'd bring with it, you brought a list of your favorite song lyrics to Dirk, who was all too happy to accept a nice lump sum of money in exchange for his John Hancock on an NDA and a few different tattoos on each of your arms. It was good to catch up with an old friend for a few hours, to hear how he dated, broke up with, then dated again, then married and divorced the girl that he was on and off with in high school, Harper, before they started seeing each other a few weeks ago. You wished them the best, but you prayed that this would not be the situation with you and your future soulmates.
You didn't intend for this to be a publicity stunt — you were twenty goddamn years old, you'd like to wear a tank top outside of your apartment without the fear of being photographed with your soulmates' words out for the world to see — but that's the way the media took it when you began your rollout for your next album by posting photos of your freshly tattooed forearms to your official Instagram account. Everyone lost their fucking minds over what you had done, and it caused so much internet discourse that the first single off of your sophomore album sat at number one on the music charts for twelve weeks. Your name could not stay out of people's mouths, and the radio play that you earned because of it was insane.
Cool. You'd be a one-hit wonder who'd go on the late-night TV circuit for a week before you sold out medium-sized venues for the rest of career. You wouldn't be a superstar, but you'd be comfortable for the rest of your life. That was a sweet deal, in your book.
And then you found your personal style — the glitz and glamour of 80s rock was calling your name, so you practically forced Barry to paint over your eyelids with glittery, dramatic eyeshadow after he put far too much hair spray into your hair for every late-night performance — which made you go viral yet again. Apparently, you struck gold with the two different demographic of people: those who were both nostalgic for the style and sound of their youth, and those who were too young to experience the eighties, much like yourself, but wanted to see its revival in someone young and fresh, like you. Add in your spiky personality and inability to keep your mouth shut when it came to… anything, really, and you quickly became a radio darling.
It was weird to go from practically incognito, where barely anyone knew your name and you could go out in public as much as you'd like, to a superstar overnight. Suddenly, you couldn't be left alone, and you constantly had a microphone or camera being shoved into your face. You didn't exactly have a problem telling people to go fuck themselves if they got a little too close, or if they were harassing your loved ones, which made you even more adored by the people who appreciated your no-nonsense attitude.
Well, some thought that you were bitchy, but who really gives a shit about what some person with too much free time on their hands says about you on the internet?
Eventually, after the general public kept selling out your shows because they wanted more and more of you, you earned yourself a headlining spot in a large outdoor concert festival, and that was your first encounter with other headlining act that night — High Voltage, the up-and-coming indie rock band that had been stopped from their slow ascent to the top of the charts by your sudden success.
Truly, it wasn't your fault that the top three songs in the country were all yours — the people like what they like! It was hard not to be charmed by someone like you, a small-town kid who managed to capitalize on their five seconds of fame and make a real career out of a bit of virality. You didn't have the connections, if the rumors were true, of course, that a certain guitarist in the band did. You were authentic and raw in a way that spoke to the general public. Nothing more, nothing less.
The stage, your fans… you have a job to do. Stop zoning out.
You absorb the cheers from those in the audience at your little muscle show, but your eyes can't help but drift down your left arm, to the words that first appeared on your skin almost a decade and a half ago.
You were backstage, doing some quick circular arm exercises to help burn off your nerves. This was the biggest crowd you'd ever performed for by far — you went from considering an audience of three-thousand to be large, to then suddenly being thrust onto a stage where thirty thousand people paid to see you perform. Well, maybe not just you, since a nice collection of artists performed before you, but when the emcee said that you'd be performing next, after they cleared the stage, a good portion of that audience screamed your name.
You weren't a diva, despite how some people insisted that you were because of your 'attitude', so you moved aside as the roadies worked to deconstruct the stage and move the band's instruments off with haste.
Then, only after the instruments came off, did you get your first look at the gentlemen that composed the band that had been referred to as your rivals. You didn't perceive them as such, since you enjoyed the artistry that came with the creation of all music, and you were listening to their album on the down-low since there were some serious earworms that you couldn't get out of your head after you listened to the full album.
You saw the bubbly guitarist approach you first with a friendly wave, his black curls bouncing along with his steps as he approached you with two of his fingers on his extended hand curled into the famous rock-and-roll pose.
"Hey, I dig your music!" He suddenly hugged you, which gave you great pause until you decided to lightly tap his back a few times, in order to get his hands off of your person. "Name's Bodhi Windbreaker."
Your attitude immediately flipped upside-down when you realized who he was.
"Oh my gosh, I love your guitar riffs!" You didn't give fake praise — you were genuine in your compliments of his abilities. "They're so iconic!"
"Jesus, doll, don't give the guy a bigger ego than he already has," The next member of the band, who you recognized through the various news articles that you saw of him and his high-profile girlfriend, Tina, ruminating about their engagement status, "Tony, at your service."
He stuck his hand out to you, in a manner that reminded you of a man greeting his date's father for the very first time, and you gladly shook it, thankful that was all the touch he tried to initiate with you.
While Bodhi talked your ear off about your music and how much he enjoyed your two albums, you noticed that another man slipped by you, Tony, and Bodhi, but he didn't do more than grumble under his breath in light annoyance before he disappeared around a corner. Tony told you not to worry about him — "Eddie's a professional grump, doll. He doesn't like the spotlight very much. Don't worry about it! He'll warm up to you after a while." — but you did find yourself a little intrigued by how different he was to his bandmates. Especially in comparison to the last man who strolled up to you before he placed an arm around each of his fellow bandmates, only slightly tilting his head towards you in acknowledgement as he focused on his bandmates.
And, dear God, what a man he was. He wore a black V-neck shirt with cutoff sleeves that did justice to his well-defined biceps and forearms, alongside a pair of black, tight leather pants. His white hair fell elegantly down his shoulder, perfectly framing his handsome face, which was only amplified by the stage make-up that he adorned. Your beady little eyes went down to the lighting bolt necklace that hung above his chest, in the naked space that the V-neckline created, and how the four diamonds at each sharp corner shone even in the dim backstage lights.
His gaze then went to you before a playful, cat-like smile crept upon his features. He was enjoying the way you ogled him — of course he fucking did. You knew who this guy was, and, more importantly, you knew his reputation. A playboy, a fuckboy, a heartbreaker — all synonyms in your book. You couldn't let yourself get caught by his silver tongue, and yet, your foolish heart jumped in excitement when he finally addressed you as he glanced at his two companions.
"Ah, is this the firecracker that I've heard so much about?" He stepped forward to take your hand, bringing it to his lips as you stared at him in a mix of wonder and astonishment. "Volt, at your service, darling."
You thought that you might die on the spot. You had read those ten words he first said to you a thousand times over on your skin, and you even put them into one of your singles on your debut album. The frontman of High Voltage, a man who was barely on your radar except when you had to clarify that you and the band had no ill will, despite how you snubbed them on the charts, was one of your soulmates.
Holy-fucking-shit.
You didn't say anything. How could you? You had allowed yourself to forget about this pesky soulmate business since your musical career was thriving, and you had no reason to worry about who your soulmates were. You were on top of the world, baby! But, of course, your dynasty had to end sometime. Here comes a missile that will ruin your entire existence, not to mention your poor career. Just your fucking luck.
You let him place your hand back at your side — he might be a gentleman, despite what the tabloids say about him — and he gently pushed his bandmates away from you, ignoring their protests as he gave you the space to organize your thoughts before you spoke to him.
Even after you managed to get yourself in order, you weren't sure what to say to him, but he certainly didn't seem to mind filling in the empty space that you left.
"Starstruck, darling?" Volt warmly laughed. "It's alright, I understand that I'm quite the force to be–"
"–you're different than I thought you'd be." You quietly said, which caused his eyebrows to jump up in surprise.
"You are… you," He didn't hesitate to rip the skin patch off of his left forearm, which caused you to wince since you imagined that he took some arm hair off with the motion, "you and I were destined to meet, it seems."
You knew that you'd see the words you just spoke to him on his arm, but it still threw you for a fucking loop. This couldn't be real life. This couldn't be happening to you while you were five minutes from playing in front of the biggest crowd of your career.
"Find Monique and have her give you my number," You weren't stupid — you weren't about to let your career or your romantic life die in favor of the other since you'd choose both, if you could — so you directed his attention to the green-haired woman who was talking with the monitor engineer about your in-ear audio mixing, "We can talk about this later, Volt. I just… I have to do this performance first."
"Of course, dear," Volt reached out and squeezed your hand — a sign of good faith on his part, "Good luck out there. They're going to love you, if they're as easily enraptured by your beauty as I am."
You should've told Barry that you didn't need any blush, since you carried a heavy flush from his flirtation through your thirty-minute set.
The lyrics easily flow from your lips — you're performing on autopilot for the packed crowd in the stadium, fulling indulging your nostalgic mood as your eyes go to your right arm next.
You and Volt had been sneaking around for a few weeks. It was easy to pawn a narrative of friends off to the media and to Monique, who seemed glad that you were playing nice with someone else instead of refusing to meet them because they didn't support the same causes or positions that you did.
Little did she know that 'nice' meant having your naked legs wrapped around Volt's waist as he rutted into you, eager to get you both off before someone came into the empty closet that you two were hooking up in.
…Anyways, you were enjoying whatever had settled between you and Volt. It wasn't an official relationship yet, as the two of you had busy schedules due to your rising careers and couldn't meet except when you happened to be at the same festivals or private parties, but there was the foundation of something solid when you had the chance to just talk about your feelings.
"I think that we're destined to be something great," Volt grabbed your hand one night, suddenly drawing your attention to him as you buttoned your pants, "but there's someone else I need you to meet first."
"Who?" You cocked your head at him before he showed his right arm to you, and your eyes opened all of the way when you saw more written words on his right arm.
How did you never notice that before? Were you too deep in your lust to see–?
"I hid this from you, dearest. Don't beat yourself up about it." Volt seemed to read your mind, helping you fix your hair as you adjusted your outfit so it looks like you didn't just hook-up with some guy in an empty dressing room in the back of some venue.
"I'd love to meet this someone who loves you," You then pointed out your other soulmate's words on your arm, which caused Volt to carefully trace every letter with his pointer finger, "since I believe that they're meant to love me, too."
Little did you know that tonight would be that very night that you were introduced to your other soulmate — the mysterious, aloof drummer of High Voltage himself.
Most embarrassingly, you met him in a back alley of some club that Monique dragged you because there were some big-wigs that she wanted you to meet. You weren't really paying attention to what they were saying, or who they were, but they seemed interested in whatever you could offer them, and that made Monique happy, so you accepted their terms so you could move your night along and have a drink or two before you snuck outside to have a quick smoke break.
You did notice that Bodhi and Tony were in the club, but when you approached them, they were quick to tell you that Volt wasn't in attendance tonight. That disappointed you, since you did want to see him, but you were beginning to worry that his bandmates were picking up on what was going down between you and Volt. If they did know, they didn't say anything to your face about it as they wished you well before you disappeared into the cold night air.
You weren't the traditional smoker with a cigarette and a lighter — nope, you preferred to suck on a vape that filled your mouth with whatever flavor cartridge that you liked the most at the moment. Monique always chided you about this poor habit, but you didn't do it all of the time. You just smoked when you needed a little bit of stress relief from the constant spotlight that was hanging over your head.
You always tried to be careful with your vape, but only so a picture of you smoking didn't get back to your parents. You were past giving a shit about what some old white guy thought about you inhaling some cancerous, bubblegum flavored air in order to cope with the expectations that they liked to put on you, but you wanted your family to have a good image of you in your mind, even if you weren't the most perfect child at times.
Silence and your own company were your only expectations for the moment; however, only one of those would be met tonight as someone else saddled up to your side with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
You knew it was Eddie, yet you weren't exactly sure what to say to him. From your perspective, it seemed like he was avoiding you. Every time you met with the band he was a part of, all of his bandmates would come up to see you except him. He managed to escape the room or space you were in before you could get more than a glance at him, and on the rare occasion that he did linger, he'd just stare at you from the corner of the room, peering at your through judgemental silver eyes that cleaved through your anatomy with ease. You didn't know what he was looking for, but you're suddenly worried that he found it since he was now standing right next you.
What could he find out about you that he couldn't ask Volt, Bodhi, or Tony about? Did he want to observe you, like you were a fish swimming around an open tank, to see how'd you act in a controlled environment? What was his angle? What was he trying to do, smoking so close to you that you nearly choked on his fumes instead of the ones that you were trying to ingest from your own vape?
Eddie was still staring at you through those hauntingly beautiful eyes of his. This time, however, he seemed less analytic and judgemental. There was a twinge of intrigue in his eyes, like he didn't expect you to be vaping at midnight outside of some random-ass club.
You, however, couldn't keep your mouth shut for much longer. You wanted to get to know the man on many occasions, and he never gave you the time of day, but now here he was, staring at you like you were the only thing in the universe.
Yeah, you were going to give him some shit in exchange for his strange behavior towards you.
"Eddie, baby," Your voice was warm with an affection that you didn't expect to have for a stranger like him, "if you keep undressing me with your eyes, we're going to have to take this back inside so we can settle this matter like adults."
All he did was laugh before he took another puff of his cigarette, placing a hand in the pocket of the black leather jeans that he was sporting. He seemed to have the most muted style of the group, as his top was a simple dark grey button down that had only one button cracked at the top of his chest.
"What? I've seen the way you look at me." You shrugged before you inhaled more of those bubblegum-flavored fumes from the black, glittery vape in your hands. "Are you eye-fucking me, or do you actually hate my guts?"
"If I hated your guts, baby," You could tell that Eddie meant to say it mockingly, but there was a twinge of something… lighter in the way he said the pet name. Almost as if his lips and heart worked in unison to betray his mind, in order to reveal a bit of his true feelings towards you, "I wouldn't be out here with you."
Now you were the one cackling as you pulled up your right sleeve, pointing to that very phrase on your arm.
"Hiya, soulmate," You grinned at him before you pocketed your vape, "you must be the one Volt wanted me to meet."
"I am… you're just as charming as he'd said you'd be."
You actually couldn't tell if he was joking or serious, but you decided to not press the matter further.
"It's all natural. Comes with the territory of being an entertainer," You hummed lightly as your gaze went up to a streetlight that hung above the two of you, "You're rough around the edges."
"Comes with the territory." Eddie parroted your earlier sentiment, which brought a smug smile to your lips.
"Oh, I like you already." Tongue-in-cheek, you raised your eyebrows at him as he deeply sighed.
"You're worse than Volt." He paused. "I didn't think that was possible."
"Anything is possible if you put your mind to it," You slipped past Eddie, placing your hand on the door handle that would grant you access back into the club, "Are you a good dancer?"
"I have two left feet." He plainly said.
"Well, that's too damn bad," You opened the door before you gestured for him to go inside before you did, "trial by fire, Eddison. Let's see what you've got."
He wasn't as bad of a dancer as he claimed to be, nor was he as harsh as he first presented himself to you. Suddenly, you found yourself caught in a fun game of cat-and-mouse with the front man and the drummer of High Voltage, and you certainly didn't expect things to end up as they are now.
You thought you'd have to put any sort of grand romantic plans on the back burner until your lives slowed down a little bit; however, with a little bit of caution and a lot of hush money distributed by Monique to the Daily Mail, you were able to keep your relationship with Eddie and Volt on the down low.
It became harder to keep your relationship hidden when you were presented with two rings to wear as a sign of your lovers' affection for you, but the simple solution to that was to just wear designer rings on all of your fingers, so no one would know how special the rings on your left and right ring fingers — left for Volt and right for Eddie, of course — were.
As the years go on, you're starting to grow tired of sneaking around with your husbands like you're teenagers trying to not get caught by their parents. You'd like to kiss Volt on the cheek at a restaurant without getting investigated by some famous morning news anchor, you'd like to go out shopping with Eddie without fans breathing down your backs about why the two of you were together, and, fuck it, you'd just like to go out with your boys and be known as their spouse for once, rather than an on-again, off-again situationship that the media thinks that you have with them.
Well, not them. It's you and Volt that have the world by storm — much to Eddie's relief. You had Volt as your first ever feature on your third album, and the dating rumors sparked from there. You two liked to go out together, since you enjoyed each other's company, and people took the arms that you had around each other as a sign that you were together.
(You were, but that's besides the point.)
Neither of you confirmed or denied anything — you both stuck to your media training and claimed that you were close. Not close friends… just close. That, of course, sent your fans off to the races to speculate about your relationship status.
It, of course, didn't help when you wrote some lyrics for one of their newest albums — you were hanging out with Eddie in the studio one day and you got inspired, so you wrote a few stanzas as their producer was playing some audio recordings in the background. Funnily enough, you somehow ended up writing the hook for the biggest song of the summer that year — which got people all riled up about the two of you once more.
You and Volt took it on the chin, though — professional in public, but laughing your asses off in private. You can't count the amount of times that you, Eddie, and Volt have been curled up in bed together, chuckling at the ludicrous headlines that reporters wrote about the two of you.
"That angle of me is so unflattering!" You whine as you clicked the power button on the tablet.
"I don't think you have a bad angle, dearest," Volt sympathetically petted your hair, "You are gorgeous from any and all point of views."
"I don't think the angle is what you have to worry about, baby," Eddie murmured into your ear with a smile on his face, "they keep calling you a sly little fox who's trying to worm their way between you and his ex-girlfriend."
"He doesn't even have an ex-girlfriend! That was a publicity stunt put on by your label." You loudly complained as Eddie took three of his fingers and tilted your head towards his.
"If it helps, I think you're a pretty hot sly little fox–"
"–Fuck you," You grumbled, causing both of the men in bed with you to laugh, "but that does help. Thank you, Eddie… and thank you, Volt, for your nice words."
Wouldn't it be nice to be like your fans that are in the front row right now, holding onto their partner as they scream the lyrics to your encore song? God, how freeing would it be to just be with Eddie and Volt? Fuck the media, and fuck anyone who has any nasty shit to say about your relationship. They're your partners, and they make you happy. That's all that matters.
Your concert comes to an end while you're trying to decide to break the news to Monique — who will die on the spot when you tell this to her — that you want to go public with your relationship. It doesn't take you long to find her once you de-mic yourself and give your in-ear back to the audio technician backstage, but you're surprised to see a dour expression on her face as she angrily taps her foot against the floor.
…Can she read my thoughts? If so, I've been fucked for a long time.
"We have a situation." She hisses under her breath as she drags you from the wings of the stage into your dressing room, where Barry excitedly waves at you before he approaches you with a variety of skincare and make-up removing products. "We need privacy–"
"–Barry knows." You dryly state, which causes Monique to sharply glare at you. "He's had to cover up one too many hickeys."
"I promise nothing will leave this room. Heck, I probably won't even remember what you've said after I leave the room," Barry chuckles to himself as he plays with the ends of your hair, "let's get you all sorted out, dear."
"Thank you, Barry." You then turn your attention to Monique as she presents you with a large tablet. "What's the life-or-death situation that I know you already have a handle on?"
"How do you know that?" She shoot back as you take the device from her hands.
"Rainey and Keyes hired you for a reason. You're good at your job, Monique." You pay her a light compliment before you scroll upwards on the open page with your finger, immediately groaning in your chair when you spot the photos on your screen. "Jesus Christ, these are stalker photos. How the fuck did someone get that angle? Did they take these from their apartment window?"
"I don't know, but it doesn't look good." Monique watches your face turn sour as you skim through the photos of you and Eddie walking together, hand-in-hand after you tried out a local, family-owned restaurant yesterday since you and him were finally in the same city after being apart for a few months due to your differing touring schedules. Volt was off shooting a film a few states over, since the producers created a special role in the movie just for him, so he wasn't able to join the two of you. "I know all three of you are together, but the media's going to make this into a big cheating scandal and it is going to wreck your career."
"I fucking hate that you're right," You grab your phone from the vanity in front of you before you snap a picture of the most flattering image of you and Eddie, "whose is it, and what's their price?"
"Daily Mail, like always, and it's ten grand, like always," Her eyebrows then furrow in confusion when she sees your thumbs fly across the screen, "I'm sorry, are you sending those photos to someone? If they get out because of you, we're both out of a job–"
"–I'm sending it to Eddie and Volt, Monique, calm your jets." You hit the send button before you wait for a response from the group chat that you set up for the three of you once you all got seriously involved with each other. "They deserve to know about this too."
"I hate this for you." Monique looks away from you, tightly holding her tablet to her chest as she speaks. "I hate that you have to sneak around like this so you can still have a thriving career. I know you're unhappy."
"I'm not unhappy, I'm just… fucking tired of this." You speak your earnest thoughts to your manager as Barry works to remove your make-up once he gets your hair out of the way. "I'm over the age of thirty. I have multiple number one hits under my belt, I think I can take a hit like this and still be fine afterwards. I lived through Nipplegate, Monique–"
"–Nipplegate?" Barry inquires, which causes your manager to hiss at your stylist.
"Don't ask–"
"–see-through shirt plus massive downpour equals about fifty different fancams of my nipples for your viewing pleasure all over Tiktok," You lean back in your chair so you can look Barry in the eyes, "Actually, my nipples were trending on Twitter for a week–"
"–can we get back to the crisis at hand?" Monique cries out as she fishes out a ballpoint pen on her blouse that she taps against her head repeatedly. "I think that as long as we're careful about this, we can get the three of you into the public eye without much controversy. We'll need a joint statement from both record companies, some photo evidence of the three of you together, and a nice written statement from you, Eddie, and Volt explaining the nature of your relationship. That should be enough to get majority of the general public to your side. The conservative part of the internet will have a fit, but they're not buying your albums or selling out your shows, so I see no need to pander to them."
You pause to consider her words before a silly grin appears on your face.
"Have I ever told you how much I fucking love you, Monique?"
Your words make her flush a nice pink color as she slides her pen back into the pocket of her blouse.
"No, but I'd appreciate hearing it from you more often."
"What's the game plan?" You shoot another question Monique's way, and she answers it with nothing less than the excellency that you know her for.
"First, you have to talk to your husbands about this plan, which I assume that you're about to do. When you've got their approval, you can go to Keyes and Rainey while they go to whoever they need to talk to in their record label so we can get them working on that joint statement." Monique explains. "Then, we find some pictures for the three of you to post on your private accounts — your wedding pictures would be perfect for this — alongside that letter that I mentioned."
"You've had this planned out for a while," You smile when you see her begin to sweat a little, "haven't you?"
"I have grown to care for you, and it upsets me when you're upset." Monique starts with a warm sentiment before she snaps back to her analytical self. "You can't make the music that fans love, or be the artist that they want you to be, if you're worried about something that shouldn't even be an issue in the first place."
The room falls into silence after that, which allows you to glance down at your phone to see the messages that are waiting for you there.
V ⚡: Quite the flattering image of the two of you.
E 🥁: What the fuck. Those are stalker photos.
That's what I said!
V ⚡: You both still look delightful.
Thanks, V. Got something to talk to you both about. You two free?
V ⚡: For you? I have all the time in the world 🥰
E 🥁: He said he was about to go to bed, baby.
V ⚡: I said no such thing.
E 🥁: I can send a screenshot of our messages as proof.
V ⚡: You will do no such thing.
Even over text, they're still snipping at each other. Those are your husbands, alright.
BOYS! 👏👏 Important matter to discuss.
E 🥁: You do realize that we can't hear you clap over text, right?
idgaf. it got your attention, didn't it?
E 🥁: I hate that you're correct.
You hate that I'm correct because I'm always correct.
E 🥁: How do you get through doors with that massive head of yours?
You chuckle at that one.
I manage. Now, are we ready to listen?
E 🥁: You're spicy tonight.
I'm sorry, did you, Mr. No-Nonsense-At-All, just call me spicy?
E 🥁: Shut up.
You typed those words and then you hit send! No one to blame but yourself, Eddison. Volt, I think you're rubbing off on Eddie too much.
V ⚡: I'm prone to agree, darling.
E 🥁: I hate you both.
You mouth your next line with a cocky grin before you hit send.
That's not what you said last night.
E 🥁: I'm begging you to shut up.
V ⚡: I'd love to know what our darling Eddie said to you, dearest.
E 🥁: You said you had something that you wanted to talk to us about.
You're deflecting, but I'm choosing to ignore that for now because I do want to talk about something serious with you guys.
E 🥁: You? Serious? This can't be good.
V ⚡: Eddie, you seem like the spicy one tonight. What's on your mind, dearest? Spare no detail for us.
You take a deep breath, trying to calm your unsteady mind. How exactly do you tell your rockstar husbands that you want to tank all of your careers at once by going public?
I wanna go public with our relationship.
Just like that, apparently.
I'm tired of hiding. I'm tired of sneaking around at midnight with the men I love. I'm tired of pretending like majority of the songs that I've written in the past few years aren't about the two of you.
There's no response for a long time, but you see a text bubble pop up with Volt's name on top of it before it quickly goes away. This process repeats a few time, so he's obviously typing, then deleting, then re-typing something. Volt's always thoughtful with his words, but you've never known him to be someone who deliberates on them for a while. He usually has some lightning-quick, warm response that makes you feel better. This… does not make you feel good, in all honest.
When your phone dings with another message, you're scared to check it.
What if they don't feel the same way that I do?
E 🥁: Are you sure you wanna do this?
Yes.
E 🥁: This isn't a sudden thing.
Relief floods your system at that text. At least one of your boys was able to detect that this had been bothering you for a while.
No, it isn't. I'm finally ready to do something about it, though.
E 🥁: You got a plan?
Monique does.
E 🥁: Monique? You're talking about Monique, the woman who scolded us two weeks ago for holdings hands in public. That Monique?
Do you know another Monique?
E 🥁: You're deflecting with sarcasm.
It's my specialty. This is fucking nerve-wracking.
E 🥁: You were nervous to tell us?
Yeah, Eddie, I was. It's not exactly easy to tell your husbands that you want to implode their careers on a random Friday night.
E 🥁: Baby, you're not saying anything that I haven't already thought about.
Thank-fucking-God.
That's a relief. Volt, honey, I am begging you to say something before my anxiety gives me a heart attack.
E 🥁: You're not going to have a heart attack.
That is easy for you to say, Eddie. You are not experiencing the panic that I feel at the moment.
V ⚡: As long as you're sure about this, little dove, then we'll follow your plan.
You trust me that much?
V ⚡: I trust you more than I trust myself.
I've never been so sure yet so scared of something before.
E 🥁: We'll face this together.
Promise?
E 🥁: I promise, baby.
V ⚡: 💙💙💙
"So?" Monique pipes up, looking at you with expectant and exciting eyes. "Are we going to do this?"
"We are." You say, and for the first time in a long time, you smile without any strings or weights attached to the gesture.
~
"You understand the gravity of the situation?"
"Yes." You nod as Keyes deliberates in her head for a moment, reaching to her right to grab Rainey's hand for support. "I understand that my career could end after I do this."
"And you'd still do it anyways?"
"I… I would." You answer Keyes before a small smile spreads across her face, and Rainey wears an equally proud grin as she curls her fingers around Keyes' wrist. "I want to love as loudly as any other person does."
"You're all grown up." Rainey can't help but let a few tears spring to the corner of her eyes as Keyes squeezes her hand.
"Darling, they'll be fine." Keyes reassures her lover before she glances at you once more. "If the crowd loves you a fraction as much as we do, then you'll be just fine."
"Thank you." You feel your own lip quiver, since you can't imagine where you'd be without Rainey or Keyes. "For everything."
"The world hasn't had enough of our little superstar yet," Rainey puts a smile on her face for you, through her tears, "Knock 'em dead, sugar!"
~
"But I like that one!"
"You're dragging your feet like a toddler," Eddie acts annoyed, but there's an amused smile on his face that shows his true emotions to you, "about a wedding picture."
"It feels like an appropriate response since you want to use the one that was taken after you smeared cake on my face." You accuse, which causes Eddie to let out a choked laugh as he shows the photo you want to Volt by holding your wedding scrapbook up to the phone screen that's got a slightly-pixelated live camera feed of Volt on it.
"You didn't ask me why I like that picture."
"The prosecution doesn't find it to be relevant to the current argument."
"The defense doesn't really give a shit," Eddie stops your courtroom argument with that one, "I like that picture because you're smiling."
"I'm smiling in all of the other pictures–"
"–but it's not a real one. Someone wanted you to smile there," His finger taps the photo you chose before he moves your attention to the photo of his choice with a sweeping motion of his hand, "Here, you're smiling because you're happy to be with us."
"Aww, Eddie," You nudge his shoulder before you peck his cheek, "I forgot how much of a fucking sap you were."
"You love ruining the moment."
"It's my superpower."
"Darlings, can we get back to the task at hand?" Volt's voice draws you and Eddie back to the scrapbook, and, goddammit, Eddie's right. You look so blissful with your eyes closed and a cheesy grin on your face as you attempted to wipe some of that white frosting and chocolate cake off with two of your fingers. Eddie was gentle, only putting a little on your face so no frosting got on your expensive outfit, but you were so distracted that you didn't even notice until the act was already done. "Eddie does have good taste, dear. You look wonderful in that picture."
"That's nice of you to say, Volt." You blow your absent-from-home husband a kiss as the other one loudly scoffs before he shuts the scrapbook with a little too much force. "I'm sorry, are you feeling neglected?"
"You let Volt compliment you, but when I try to give you the same damn compliment, you give me shit about it."
"You sound offended," You lean closer to Eddie before you boop his nose with your finger, which causes Volt to loudly chuckle at your antics, "get over it."
"Oh, I'll get over it, alright," Eddie suddenly snatches your wrist before he pulls you on top of him, eliciting a gasp from you, "when my sweetheart gets their attitude straightened out."
A kiss to the pulse point on your neck, alongside Eddie sucking on your skin, has you folding immediately, your teasing remarks being thrown out of the window as your mind clouds with thoughts of the man in front of you.
"Eddie–" You frantically wave your right hand in the direction of the camera, as your left hand busies itself in the matter of pulling the collar of Eddie's shirt down so you can return his little gift on your neck to him, "–Volt!"
You hear glass loudly clink from the phone — Volt's probably pour himself some wine from a glass bottle — before he sighs in contentment.
"Dearests, do not stop on my accord. I quite enjoy watching the two of you ruin each other."
~
"We might make a poet out of you yet, Mr. Watts." You set Eddie's written letter to your mutual fans onto the counter — Monique said to write one letter from you, Eddie, and Volt to show that you were a united front, but you and Volt got to writing and you both were over two pages with your own thoughts and feelings on the matter. You wanted to sound like humans, not machines who spat out a PR-polished response, so three individualized letters would have to do — as his eyes scanned your words.
"I like what you wrote." He quietly says as he traces your written letters with one of his fingers. "You're good at expressing yourself."
Thanks. It's kind of my job.
That teasing comment, however, doesn't leave your thoughts. You know Eddie's being genuine in this moment — no teasing, no banter, no bullshit — and it really warms your heart.
"I said what was on my mind." You shrug before Eddie hands your letter back to you.
"No sarcastic quip?" Eddie raises an eyebrow with a bit of concern painted onto his features. "What have you done with my spouse?"
"I take my writing seriously. It's personal to me." You murmur before Eddie takes your hand in his.
"Are you sure that you're ready for this?" Eddie seems to notice the anxiety that's buzzing around your person. "We can call this off if you're not–"
"–I'm okay, I just…" You sink back further into the leather couch, ignoring the roaring fans that are clamoring for the collaboration stage that you're about to perform in a half-an-hour, which'll be the last time any of you have any privacy about your relationship since everyone's posts are supposed to drop at midnight — three hours from now, which is equal parts exciting and nerve-wracking, "I want this to be over with. Not just what's going to happen tonight, but also all of the interviews and magazine articles and drama."
"You sound like me."
"And you make that sound like a problem." You blatantly point out, which causes Eddie to lightly chuckle.
"It is, baby, because one of me is enough," His pointer finger goes to your chin, tilting your head towards him, "and I like you the way you are."
"Careful, Eddie," You warn as you hear Volt, due to the obscene amount of necklaces that he must be sporting with his outfit, before you see him, "You're stroking my ego, and that's a dangerous thing to do."
"Is it?" Eddie's lips brush yours, his stubble brushing against your cheek as he speaks. "Confidence looks good on you."
"You make me feel confident," You say before you steal a kiss from him, "Especially when you look at me like that."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Eddie says, smirking because he knows exactly what you're talking about.
"You're looking at me the same way you did when we first met," You lower your voice, so the various assistants scattered around you and Eddie can't hear what you're saying, "like you want to rip my clothes off and fuck me right here, right now."
Eddie's eyes shine with dark, lustful amusement as a tempting hand lands on your knees.
"What if I did want to fuck you like that?"
"Eddison Watts!" You shriek, lightly smacking him on the arm and moving away from him just in time for Volt to sit in the space that's just opened up between you and Eddie.
"What seems to be the matter, dearests?" Volt places an arm around each of you as you swipe the blinged-out sunglasses from the top of his head.
"Someone can't take the shit that they deal out–"
"–What I said was not an invitation!" You huff, pulling out your phone so you can take a quick selfie with Volt's glasses on before you place them back onto his head. "Volt, honey–"
"–I'm afraid I have to side with Eddie, darling. You do have a track record of…" Volt trails off, lightly pecking Eddie's cheek as a way to encourage him to finish Volt's sentence.
"Starting shit you can't finish."
"Oh, I can finish alright." You grumble under your breath as Volt leans over and places a gentle kiss on your temple. "I'm surprise that you were able to make it tonight, Mr. Movie-Star. I hear you're in high demand these days."
"I am, but I wouldn't pass up on seeing my favorite people in the world." Volt's words drip with gooey, warm affection for you and Eddie as you tuck your head into the crook of his shoulder.
"I wouldn't either. This is the last night that we have as just the three of us." You say, and neither Volt nor Eddie respond for a while, letting that sentiment sit in the air of the room for a while.
After this, you don't get to coyly pretend like your songs are about some background figure in your life. There's no more quiet nights spent pretending like the rest of the world doesn't exist as you savor the reserved space that was just for the three of you. You're now practically inviting the entire world to become a spectator into your relationship — well, more so the bond between you and Eddie, since you and Volt have been headline fodder for years, and the fans of High Voltage who ship Eddie and Volt were more on the nose then they even realized.
Yet again, there's going to be something so freeing about holding your partners' hands in public. Facing the paparazzi together and being able to hide behind Volt or Eddie when you're not in the mood to talk, rather than being pushed to the limit by invasive questions and grabby hands. Monique would be happier, at least, since she'd have to work less overtime when it came to scrubbing the internet of your 'disrespectful' attitude.
"I'm assuming that the three of you have something for me?"
Speak of your guardian angel, and she shall appear.
The main reason you still have a thriving career as a musician casually strolls into the room, green pumps clicking against the tiled flooring as she adjust a brown barrette that pulls her light green hair further out of her eyes. Her eyes are filled with confusion when she's suddenly presented with three written letters instead of the one that she asked for.
"It'd look better if you three were a united front–"
"–We had a lot to say." You cut Monique off as she quickly skims the three letters that she's gathered in her hands. "One letter — one voice — wouldn't have cut it."
"This is good, but I wouldn't expect anything less from you," Monique's praise causes you to lightly flush before she turns to your husbands, "Poetic and charming, which is fitting for Volt, and Eddie's is short and sweet. I… actually prefer this."
"Monique? Deviating from a plan?" You gasp as she glares at you. "Pinch me, I think I'm dreaming."
You should've expected her to lightly smack your leg with the clipboard that she was holding after she stored the letters on it, but you still softly howled in pain at the action before you rubbed your ankle with a frown on your face.
"I have to perform tonight."
"Then it's a good thing that you're not doing any choreography." Monique says without a hint of emotion in her voice. "You'll live."
"You're cruel."
"I don't get paid to be nice to you," She pauses when your frown deepens, "and I also don't get paid to be mean to you. Point taken."
"You get paid to keep me out of trouble–"
"–and that's not stopped you once, has it?" Monique mutters under her breath. "You make the messes, and I clean them up."
"You thrive on my chaos." You grin, which causes Volt to lightly chuckle as Eddie hums with a small smile on his face.
Those two are very sure that they don't want to get in Monique's way because the lecture turns to them, and it doesn't stop until she's expended all of her energy, or another emergency of yours pulls her away from them. That, however, doesn't stop Eddie or Volt from enjoying the view when she tears into you.
"I thrive when I get paid." She harshly corrects. "Remember that."
"Money, money, money. The language of the world, I get it." You sigh before you relax further into the couch, wondering if your skin can fuse with the material and get you away from Monique faster. "What do you even do with all that money, anyways? You live in a small studio apartment and you won't even come and get iced coffee with me once a while."
"It's an unnecessary expenditure. I have a functioning coffee maker at home." Monique's phone suddenly rings, and she quickly answers it, facing away from the two of you. "Hello? …What is it now? What do you mean you found old photos from their childhood? They can't be published tomorrow– put me on the phone with the journalist who wants to run the story. Now."
She storms off, letting you breath easily until you realize that the 'they' she mentioned is you.
Well, I think Monique is still going to have a job after the news drops, because apparently I've been a walking PR-crisis since birth.
"I keep forgetting to ask," Eddie leans over Volt to speak to you, "where the hell did you find her?"
"She was assigned to me after my debut album dropped," You can't help but smile as you crack another joke, "but I think her parents left her on the steps of the record label, and she's been learning how to micromanage people since she could walk."
"Monique cares for you, in her own unique way." Volt tries to speak to Monique's strange way of showing care for you, but you brush him off.
"She's something, alright." Your smile quickly extends into a grind. "She's like an older sister to me. We fight, we poke, we prod, and we argue, but then we reconcile our differences after everything is said and done."
"Never say that to her face." Eddie deadpans, and you laugh at his words.
"I know, she'd give me hell for it." You purse your lips before you stand, extending your hands to your lovers once you're on your feet. "What do you say, boys? One last performance before everything goes to shit?"
The matching grins from Eddie and Volt tell you everything that you need to know.
~
Electrifying. Tense. Ephemeral.
The stage was yours — well, not really just yours since you were here to perform a special collaboration with the boys of High Voltage — with how loudly people are screaming your name.
Bodhi's bumped your shoulder a couple of times, coming over to your mic stand so you two can riff off of each other with your electric guitars for a little bit before you refocus on the performance at hand.
You've performed this song with them before — a song about taking risks and diving headfirst into the unknown, even if it's unsafe, because you know that someone you love awaits you on the other side — but this is the first time that you've really felt the lyrics. You feel like the indecisive protagonist who's trying to figure out if they can live with the regret of not chasing what their heart wants.
But you aren't really that indecisive. Mentally, you're already past the bridge, where the person in the song has decided to say fuck it and take that leap of faith anyways, which is exactly what's about to happen tonight. You've already decided that you're putting your phone on Do Not Disturb as soon as you get off of this stage, so you can at least try to get some sleep tonight, if your worries don't cause you to toss and turn while the moonlight shining into your bedroom fades into morning rays of sunshine.
The performance isn't over yet. You feel alive. You feel reckless — invincible yet vulnerable at the same time. Tonight could be the last show you ever play, if the general public doesn't accept your relationship.
Why not give them something to remember you by?
You already know what you're going to do the moment the last chord rings out over the crowd, and you give a polite bow to the crowd before you set your guitar aside and walk up to Volt while he's distracted, who's waving at the crowd and completely unaware of your meddlesome self approaching him from behind.
You don't tap his shoulder or give him any prior warning — your arms go right around his neck, and his hands land right on your hips before you smash your lips against his.
At a later time and date, you'd learn that your little stunt caused the crowd to break the record for the highest decibel sound recorded for the venue you were playing at.
But in the moment, the frantic screams didn't matter. The outside world didn't matter. You had Volt — and felt Eddie's eyes on your form from the back of the stage — and that was what mattered to you.
Who cares what the world thinks? You'll survive this scandal as easily as you survived the one before it, and the one that'll come right after it. You're a celebrity — scandals and drama are how you keep your name circulating. You got popular because of a scandal with those damn tattoos on your arms. You'll be fine. This'll all work out in the end.
When you break away from Volt, he wears a victorious smile on his face before he presses a quick, featherlight kiss to your cheek as a way to show that he appreciated your little show of affection. You can't leave Eddie out of this, even though he flashes you a look once you glance his direction that tells you that he'd like you to, so you blow an exaggerated kiss towards the drummer before you wink at the audience and saunter off of the stage.
You see Monique face-palming before she spots you, but you can see the small smile that threatens to break through her face at your actions. She's proud of you — of who you've blossomed into, and how you're willing to put yourself on the line to get whatever you want — even though she'd never say it to your smug little face.
"That's going to be trending everywhere!" She shouts, so you can hear her over the screams of the audience that wants to see more of your amorous display.
"I'll be trending at midnight anyways," You chuckle before you grin at her, "might as well get ahead of the curve."
"You're happier than you were." Monique suddenly points out as you walk side-by-side with her, and you can't help but agree.
"I am," You confirm as you feel yourself stepping towards a new era of your life, figuratively and literally, "living authentically seems to do that to you."
One Night in Tokyo (Makes a Hard Man Humble) ~ s. gojo
a/n: if you get the song reference in the title we're officially besties. ALSO new fandom alert YAYYYYY but I'm still writing de fics dw!!! I just might write some stuff for other fandoms from time to time, depending on what's rotting my brain the most at the moment SKSKSKSKSK also ty to @storm-farer for encouraging me to write this <333 you're the best for both putting me onto jjk & encouraging my horny thoughts 😌
relationship: satoru gojo x gender-neutral! reader (romantic)
cws: this is SMUT — consider yourself warned. sexual tension, gojo being an annoying menace that the reader high-key loves, gojo kinda likes being degraded and yelled at by reader, oral sex (m! receiving), hand jobs, little bit of dom! reader-insert and subby! brat! gojo ehehehe
summary: Satoru Gojo has been a pain in your ass since you were teenagers, trying to ask you out over and over again despite your refusal. Thirteen years later, you're set up with him on a blind date, and you discover that he's a lot more interesting — and annoying — than you previously thought, leading you to admit your feelings for him. — 8.0k words! [read on ao3!]
You should've known that this was gonna end poorly when your best friend was giggling over the phone as she set up your blind date for the night.
"You're gonna love him! He's smart, handsome, funny, handsome, cool… did I mention he was handsome?"
"Yes," You sighed into your phone's speaker, "Multiple times. If anything, it sounds like you want to date him–"
"–I'm taken." Your best friend laughed once more. "But I might not be, if you pass up on this one."
"…Can you at least tell me what he looks like?"
"Nope!" She merrily said. "You'll know who your date is when you see him."
You were confused, at first, until you realized that you did recognize the white-haired idiot that's gleefully waving at you from the other side of the street.
Goddamnit. Does he have to look so smug about this?
Satoru Gojo, also known as the guy you've been turning down since you two were teenagers, is, to your absolute horror, your date for the night.
And — even worse, you might add — he looks absolutely irresistible in his current attire, making you regret every time you've shot him down in the past. Blacked-out oval-shaped glasses hide the merriment in his eyes at the dismay that is painted all over your face, including your widened eyes and slacked jaw. Your gaze is immediately pulled to his neck and upper chest, where Gojo has carelessly left the top button of blue blazer undone for your viewing pleasure.
…You do enjoy the view. Too much, if you're being honest with yourself.
To finish off his outfit, he wears black slacks on his lower half, and, to top it all off, he has a cocky yet charismatic grin that you'd like to pummel off of his face.
"You could look excited to see me." Gojo leans against a nearby lamppost, his posture bordering on arrogance as you walk over to him. Damn him for making you walk to him, instead of the other way around — Wait, he never gestured you over. You walked across the street of your own free will. Fuck.
"You're late." You deadpan as his smile widens.
"It's seven-oh-one–"
"–we agreed to meet at seven pm sharp," You are over the moon as you correct him, "Is this how you treat all of your dates?"
"Only the ones I've been dying to take out," God, you almost let yourself forget how dramatic he was, "don't act like you don't enjoy this. I seem to remember you stuttering over your words as you tried to reject me. It's cute, y'know, how much you pretend not to care–"
"–You cornered me in the hallway after school!" You defend your past self with a strong flush on your face. "You made me nervous."
"I made you nervous?" Gojo — insufferably — feels the need to repeat your words back to you, like you didn't realize the implication of them when they came out of your own mouth.
"Shut the fuck up."
"If I'm remembering correctly, that translates to 'You're right, Gojo, but I don't want to admit it to your face–'"
"–Where are you taking me?" You pivot, to save your own behind (and reputation). "I'm not easily impressed by men who throw money at me and then think it'll earn my affection."
"Do you think I spent the last thirteen years twiddling my thumbs as I waited for you to say yes?" Gojo still sounds confident as he speaks, but the mask slips a little, and you can almost sense some… disappointment in his voice. "I'd wager that I know what you like better than you do."
"You're that sure of yourself?" You can't help but crack a small smile in his direction. "Fine. I look forward to you impressing me."
He chuckles, and your heart skips several beats as he takes your hand and drags you down the street with him.
"Hey, you're gonna tell me where we're going, right?" You pause, immediately frowning when he doesn't answer you. "Satoru Gojo, if you drag me down some shady alleyway in the middle of the city, and I end up dying because of your stupidity, I promise you that I'll come back to life so I can kill you myself."
~
He didn't end up dragging you down some shady alleyway in the middle of the city, thankfully.
You were, however, confused by the choice of an arcade down the street from your meet-up spot as your first destination — Oh, yeah, Gojo had let it slip that you were going to multiple difference places with him tonight, as if one outing with him wasn't enough to wet your taste buds — on this so-called dream date of yours.
(You haven't told him that the reason you're on this date is because you haven't been able to score one of your own. You'd, however, never live that down from the man who has legions of people throwing themselves at him on a daily basis, so you keep that piece of information to yourself.)
"See one you like?"
You're very tempted to tell Gojo that you're far too old for cheap stuffed animals in claw machines that basically initiate the young and impression into the art of gambling, but that'd be a disgrace to the multiple stuffed animals that are currently perched upon your bed, awaiting your return in a few hours, so you don't shoot your mouth off in that regard.
"Uh…" You don't have your nose as eagerly pressed to the glass on the side of the machine as he does, but you do lean in to take a closer look at your choices.
Snakes, lions, and bears — oh my! — but they're not really sticking out to you at the moment. They're cute, sure, with their plastic eyes that are a choking hazard for their target audience, and the same outstretched smile that they all wear, which is really fucking creepy, when you take the time to think about–
"–There!" Your finger finds a small, brown rabbit in the back of the machine to point at. "That one."
"Why?"
"Why not?" You scoff. "I like rabbits. So what?"
It's more than that, though. One glance at that stuffed animal reminded you of a much older plush rabbit that is currently sitting in a large storage container in your parent's attic.
"Hi, Bunbun!" You quietly greeted the stuffed animal that was hidden in your bag as you walked home, since you would be mercilessly teased if any of your peers saw you lugging around your beloved friend. "I missed you."
…Maybe friend was a bit of a stretch. He was a piece of home away from home, a comfort to help you through scary nightmares and lonely days at school, when your best friend was absent and you had no one else to talk to you. At least he was always there for–
"–What's this?"
You wanted to dive into oncoming traffic when you saw the Satoru Gojo in front of you — because he already had a reputation by the time you were teenagers — dangling your cuddle buddy and close companion in the air by one of its long ears.
"Give it back!" You weakly whined, jumping up and down to try to grab your friend from this monster, who dared to rip the two of you apart. "Please. I don't need anyone seeing him. They'll think it's–"
"–Cute," Gojo continued to torment you, holding Bunbun just out of your reach since you hadn't hit another growth spurt since you were ten, and it was really putting you behind your peers in terms of height, "Now, who does this adorable little bunny belong to?"
You had already decided that you were going to kick his shins in for embarrassing you like this, but then you figured that might as well go for a throat-punch while you're at it — if you got the right opening — so you kept your mouth shut as you analyzed his form for any weak points.
"I'll give him back if you answer–"
Your name stumbled out of your mouth before you could catch it, and Gojo flung your stuffed animal towards you with a carelessness that made you swear that you were going to be mortal enemies from this day forward. You caught Bunbun, and you carefully cradled him in your arms as you fixed the basketball jersey that he had on so it was no longer exposing his furless stomach.
"You really care for that thing, don't you?"
"He's helped me through a lot of tough times," You frowned as you felt him stare at you through those circular sunglasses he had on, "I don't appreciate–"
"–Let me make it up to you," Gojo walked backwards to match your pace as you continued your trek home, shooting small fingers guns at you as he spoke, "With a date."
…He can't be fucking serious. All of that bullshit was a lead-in to him asking you out?!? He could've murdered your reputationif someone from your school had seen that thing, and now he wanted to kiss and make up?
"No," You shot him down, chest puffing up with pride when you saw him deflate a little bit, "I will not go on a date with you; in fact, I'll take it one step further. I will never go on a date with you, Satoru Gojo."
You'd end up regretting that last phrase as Gojo chuckled and shook his head before he gave you a small wave, departing from your side with one last comment fired in your direction.
"That sounds like a challenge," He grinned as he spoke, "and it's one that I will end up winning!"
You're praying that he does not bring that promise of his up tonight; however, you're willing to let your guard down and throw him a bone. It's not like he remembers that day as well as you do — as goes the age-old proverb about the axe forgetting and the tree remembering.
"I had a stuffed rabbit when I was younger. I used to lug him around everywhere I went," You softly explain your reasoning for choosing that brown rabbit out of all of the plushes in the claw machine, "He was kinda like a friend to me. I'd tell him all of my secrets when no one else would listen, and I'd hold him at night so he could scare off the monsters under my bed."
"Lucky guy."
"Are you seriously jealous of a stuffed animal?" You ask, knowing it's a stupid question based on the small pout that's sitting on Gojo's face. "He's just a friend. He doesn't even have a mouth, and he lives with my parents."
"And he's met your parents before I have," Gojo jokingly bemoans, "what does he have that I don't, huh?"
"Humility." You slyly answer as you watch him hold up an arcade token between two of his fingers.
"Are you doing this, or am–"
"–I got this." You snatch the coin out of his hands, quickly moving to the front of the machine as you ignore how a few small children stare at you and Gojo while you bicker with each other. "And don't try anything while I don't have my eyes on you."
"You think I'd do something like that?" He slaps a dramatic hand over his chest, as the other rests, palm-open, over his forehead. "Ouch. You've wounded me."
"You'll live." You dryly reassure him before you slide the coin into the machine, rolling your shoulders back as you take the joystick into your hand.
The claw at the top of the machine jerkily matches the direction of the joystick that you're moving around, and you do a few practice swings, getting used to how the claw moves, before you guide it towards the prize you've got your eye on.
During this process, you notice that Gojo's saddled up to your side, resting against the machine with one arm on top of it. His eyes never leave that claw, even as his free hand moves to the collar of his shirt.
You quickly lose focus on the game in front of you, as your gaze is now drawn to those long, slender fingers that you would not mind exploring your anatomy—
Focus!
—you can't, though. He's subtly got you hypnotized as he traces the V-shaped opening of his dress shirt that proudly reveals part of his chest to the outside world. Once he's done there, his fingers move to the top fastened button of his shirt before the pad of one of his digits outlines the circular shape of the object once, twice, thrice.
You're staring. Hard. Especially when he undoes said button, showing off more of his toned body to you.
Snapping back to the game in front of you, you let out a shaky breath as you try to keep your mind off of… whatever that was. Besides, he was too busy watching you play–
"–Was I distracting you?"
Nevermind.
"You did that on purpose!" You accuse, raising your voice to match the intensity of such an accusation.
"It's warm in here," Gojo pretends to fan himself with that very hand that was causing you so much trouble mere moments ago, "I was trying to make myself comfortable. If I did distract you… well, that'd just be the icing on top of–"
"–you can't stand not being the center of attention, can you?" You groan before you remove your hand from the joystick. "Go on. You can put in the effort and win this for me."
"Ah, ah, ah," He wags a finger in front of your face, and you're tempted to bite it for sexy and unsexy reason — Both? Both will work. — before he gently takes the back of your hand and guides it towards the joystick once more, wrapping his fingers around your wrist as he guides you and the claw towards the stuffed rabbit once more, "We'll win this together."
"Are you always this hands-on with your instruction?" You joke, as a way to ignore the hammering of your heart against its bony cage.
"You wanna find out?"
"No!" You force out an answer that makes Gojo softly laugh at you. "Don't laugh at me!"
"You're embarrassed." He points out.
"You're embarrassing me." You fire back as your thumb hovers over the big red button on top of the joystick, but you wait to commit until Gojo helps you make your final adjustments so you're perfectly centered over the rabbit.
"You like it."
You secretly do; however, it will be a cold day in hell before you ever admit that to his face.
"No, I don't." Your answer lacks the fire that you usually have no problem shooting in his direction — perhaps he's finally broken through those walls that you put up a long time ago.
"Suit yourself." Gojo hums before he sets his thumb on top of yours, waiting for you to make the final call on securing your potential prize.
No point in hesitating, right?
You press that button, and it feels like the claw causes time to go in slow-motion as it opens up before it dives towards that plush rabbit. Once the claw meets its prey, its spine-like, metal tendrils wrap around the rabbit before it lifts the plush into the air.
Now here comes the difficult part — making it to the other side of the machine.
Slowly, yet surely, that claw moves along its pre–programmed track, moving closer to the large hole on the left side of the machine as the stuffed animal that you had your eye on slowly slips out of its reach.
Yeah, I knew it wouldn't–
Your eyebrows fly up in surprise when the rabbit somehow manages to hang on before it's deposited into the prize chute. Your hand greedily goes through the swinging door at the bottom of the machine, and you grin like a fool when you fish out the stuffed rabbit from the machine.
I… I did it. No, we did it. Together.
You hold the rabbit to your chest with a certain tenderness — what can you say, you've got a soft spot for real and stuffed animals — that elicits a real — not cocky, not teasing — smile from Gojo.
"Thank you." You mumble, heat rising to your cheeks as you realize that his hand is still on top of yours. You don't want him to move, and you certainly don't want to be the one to pull away from him. Not this time, at least.
"Good pick." Gojo reaches out, lightly ruffling the top of the rabbit's head as he keeps his other hand on yours. "What should we name him?"
You know him well enough to know that he's already got something in mind for this little critter.
"I'd like to hear your suggestion first." You say, wishing in your head that you could remove the rabbit from your chest so Gojo could be touching you like that.
"Hmm…" He pretends to think for a moment before he moves one of his hands in a sweeping motion, like he's presenting something to a crowd, "I like Bunbun, Version 2.0!"
…And he just had to ruin the moment, didn't he?
"You're an ass–" You grumble under your breath.
To think that you were considering letting him touch you in such a romantic manner… what were you thinking?
"–et. An asset." He finishes your sentence for you. "Why, thank you!"
"I despise you."
"Isn't that code for, 'I think about you all the time, Gojo, and no one else makes me as happy as you do?'"
"Is that what I sound like to you?" You're flabbergasted before you smack him across the chest with the rabbit in your arms. "You know what? Don't answer that. Just take me out to dinner so you can put me out of my misery already."
"Not yet," Gojo leans in, breath kissing your lips before he suddenly pulls away from you, "we need to stop somewhere else first."
Despite how much you think you hate him at the current moment, you're still disappointed when he removes his hand from your body before he strolls away from the machine.
"C'mon, we need to hurry if we're gonna make it there before they close."
As soon as his back is turned to you, you chuck that stuffed rabbit at the back of his head, cackling like a witch when you hit your target perfectly.
~
"Apologize to our rabbit."
"First of all, he's not our rabbit. He's my rabbit. Secondly, you're holding him hostage," You glare at Gojo as you sit across from him in a small, quaint cafe that you must've walked past a thousand times and never thought about going into until he led you here today, "Third, and most importantly of all, the rabbit is not real. It's a stuffed animal."
"You still hurt his feelings," He then takes the rabbit's arms and uses them to hide its face before he imitates what he thinks the rabbit would sound like by putting on a high-pitched voice that makes you cringe the moment that first word comes out of his mouth, "My parent is so mean to me! They threw me at my dad, and then they made him pick me up when they were the one who threw me in the first place!"
"I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings, Mister-Rabbit-Sir," You apologize to the damn rabbit anyways, especially after Gojo mock-cries to simulate the animal's distress from your treatment of it, "Would a bite of my pastry help cheer you up?"
"It certainly would." Gojo snatches the baked good from your plate, and you loudly scoff when you watch him nearly devour the entire thing in one single bite.
"I said a bite, not half of the damn thing–"
"–I'm giving you a chance to try multiple items off of the menu," Gojo confidently says, "You should be thanking me."
"Thanking you?" You can't believe the shit that's coming out of his mouth. "You ate my blueberry scone!"
"And it was delicious." He pats his stomach as he finishes off the last of your treat from the bakery that's nearly ready to close. The poor closing shift baker who's stuck watching the two of you is subtly shooting dirty glances at you and Gojo for staying in the restaurant so close to closing time. "Should we try the cherry turnovers next?"
"We?" You roll your eyes. "Are we French?"
"Oui." Gojo states with one of those damn cocky smiles on his face.
Forget thinking about punching him. Your first is curled up underneath the table, ready to strike–
"–they also have those seven-layer bars that you said you wanted to try." He casually points out, like the statement has no emotional weight behind it.
For some reason, after interacting with you once, Gojo thought that you and him were best friends.
You weren't. Not even close. You found him to be annoying, irresponsible, a jack-of-all-assholery–
–but, despite every stupid comment and arm thrown around your shoulder that you'd quickly brush off because you didn't want him to touch you, you were looking forward to seeing Gojo walk beside you every morning on your way to school. You also enjoyed watching him, with a tiny smile on your face, sniff you out like a hound dog during your school's lunch break.
(You would've never admitted that to his smug-ass face, though.)
Today was the latter rather than the former — it was a beautiful day. Flowers were blooming, birds were chirping, and the weather was pleasant enough for you to sit outside without a jacket on.
You should've known that something was awry when you sat down at an empty table and immediately got pitying looks from your peers as you slowly unpacked your brown paper bag lunch, completely unaware of the person who was beelining towards you.
"Yo," Your body was on edge the moment you felt his hand settle on your shoulder blade, "You look lonely. Mind if I–"
"–No," You fired off your usual response, "Find someone else to bother."
"No. Who else will give me such riveting responses like, 'No', 'Leave me alone', and 'You're bothering me, Gojo,''" He leaned in close, so he could whisper in your ear, "You know you can admit that you want me, right?"
You happily smacked him across the face with your rye bread sandwich.
"I'm not interested in dating anyone," You sighed as Gojo rubbed his cheek, mocking being hurt from your bread-y assault, "let alone you."
"Am I not your type?" He continued on, despite your lack of interest as you took a bite of your food.
"I'm not telling you my type, Gojo." You groaned before your eyes shot over to his hand, the one that was still holding your shoulder. "Get off of me."
"Ah, you can't tell me your type because I am your type–"
"–I don't have a type!" You loudly exclaimed, drawing all sorts of eyes to you and Gojo. "Not physically, at least."
You hoped that your answer would satisfy him so he'd buzz off and leave you alone for the moment; instead, the answer served to intrigue him more as he plopped down in the seat next to you.
"Keep going–"
"–No." You firmly said.
"If you do, I'll leave you alone." Gojo wagged his eyebrows at you as he placed his head in one of his hands, tilting his head so you couldn't help but look into his circular eyeglasses as you spoke.
"You're impossible." You tossed your sandwich on the table, giving up on the act of eating so you could get him out of your hair. "Fine. I like the quiet yet confident type. Someone who carries themselves well and is confident in their abilities. Funny, but down-to-Earth, too. The type that'd prefer a casual first date over something more formal."
"And, if this person were to take you out on a casual first date, where would you want to go?" Gojo egged you on, and you were too young and stupid to realize where this was going, so you indulged him some more.
"A bakery with fresh-made goods would be nice. Getting to know someone else over a warm pastry would be, like, the ideal first date for me," You thought to yourself for a moment, temporarily caught up in this daydream, "I've always wanted to try seven-layer bars, but I can't get them to turn out right when I attempt to make them. Perhaps if I tasted one for myself, when it was made by a real baker, I'd be able to replicate the recipe…"
"Isn't there a bakery that you pass by on your way home?"
"Yeah," You hummed at his words, "why?"
"Well, I could always take you there after school, and we could try them together," Gojo smirked as he spoke, like he already secured a date with you, "My treat."
You couldn't help but laugh.
"Smooth," Your heart pit-a-pattered as you answered, your body betraying the rejection that left your mouth, "but it's still a no."
"You remembered." You don't ask if he does, because he's already proven that to you. It's a statement. A fact that he did remember something so trivial, and then applied it to… show off? Impress you? Some other reason? Why, why, why? Where is he going with this? "I said that when we were kids–"
"–I have a good memory," Gojo taps his temple with his pointer finger as your eyes drift down to his lips — Don't think about kissing him, even though you'd really like to — and you know you're caught when he snaps his fingers in front of your face, drawing your attention back to his glasses as he cockily smiles, "We really should order something else, since you look like you're going to eat me alive–"
No. Nope. Nononono. You have to pivot. Right fucking now.
"–You have something on your face." You rush the words out before you lean over the wooden table, swiping your thumb against his bottom lip before you sit back in your chair.
Your eyes widen when you see a small trace of blueberry filling on the pad of your thumb. It'd be so easy to wipe your thumb on the napkin in your lap and remove the substance from your finger, but that doesn't seem like an appealing option to you when Gojo seems to be staring right at you, curious on what your next move might be.
So you do the unpredictable. You pop your thumb into your mouth and clean it with your tongue at an excruciatingly slow pace, looking into Gojo's darkened out glasses all the while. You only stop your little show when you see a nice little blush settle on his cheeks, mouth slightly agape as he leans back in his chair with an arm draped over the back of his seat.
"There. Isn't that better?" You tease, enjoying the upper hand you have over him, for once.
His head tilts upwards, showing more of his toned neck to you that you'd love to cover in hickeys before pure, unadulterated laughter spills from his lips.
"Is that how we're playing this?"
"I'm not playing–" You immediately choke on your words when Gojo puts some mysterious substance on your face with two of his fingers, "What are you doing?"
"Paying you back." He then caresses your cheek with his thumb, slowly scrubbing the blueberry filling from your cheek with gentle movements that work to disarm you.
"This is cruel." You whine, hand grabbing his wrist once he tries to pull away from you.
"You want me to stay," Gojo would be jumping for joy if he could, with the cheesy smile that's plastered across his very handsome, yet very punchable face, "You want me to touch you. I'll touch you all over, if that's what you want–"
"–shut it." You hiss before you quickly stand, slamming a large bill on the table as you glance at the poor worker who's now working unpaid overtime. "I'm sorry about this. We'll be out of your hair in a minute."
"Y'know," Gojo tilts his glasses down for a second, allowing you to glance at his pretty blue eyes for an unfortunately short amount of time before he covers them once more, "you're pretty bad at pretending not to like me."
"I know," You mumble as you grab your bag and jacket, waiting for him to do the same, "but I'm more worried about you not liking me."
"What was that?"
"Nothing!" Hurriedly, you rush out of the bakery, not waiting for Gojo to lead you to your next destination. "C'mon, let's get going already! And don't forget our rabbit, either!"
He doesn't correct your use of our — you don't, either.
~
"When you said you were going to take me out to dinner," You move the floppy piece of pizza around in your hand before you bring it closer to your mouth, "I had something more fancy in mind than take-out pizza on the floor of my apartment in mind."
"You said you wanted something casual," Gojo says in-between bites, "Nice place, by the way."
Thanks, I decorated it myself.
The sass sits at the tip of your tongue, but you manage to swallow the remark before it can leave your mouth.
"Thank you." You politely say before you savor the sauce on your tongue, using the food as a buffer to keep your reckless mouth from spilling out your deepest desires to the man who's threatening to knock knees with you on the floor of your apartment.
How many times have you thought about this exact scenario? How many times has your fingers itched to call Gojo, after he took your phone and entered his phone number, alongside a picture of him grinning from ear-to-ear as his contact image, into the device before you wised-up and put a lock on the home screen? How many times have you waged an internal war between what you want and what you fear before you let the latter win, assuming that Gojo saw your dynamic as nothing but a shtick to point and laugh at?
It wasn't a joke to you, though. At first, you were genuine when you turned him down — why would you go out on a date with someone you weren't interested in? Seems like a waste of everyone's time, in your humble opinion — but then you caught feelings. Lots of them, and you felt like you were drowning every time he sat down next to you and cracked a few simple jokes before the inevitable question would fall from his lips.
"Will you go out with me? I promise it'll be a good time."
More often than not, you wanted to say yes. You wanted to end the limbo, the push-and-pull, the will-they, won't-they that had settled between you and him… but you couldn't.
Because, somehow, you had convinced yourself that Gojo's interest wasn't genuine. That you were nothing more than a conquest, a box to be checked off, a thing to be won over rather a person who deserved to be courted and shown a good time by someone who liked them for who they are.
…But maybe your assumption was wrong. Today certainly proved that — who would remember such silly, trivial details from your life unless they were deeply, genuinely into you? — but you think that you've known that for months.
"New blood, eh? Hopefully you last longer than the last guy–"
"–hey, be nice!" Your female co-worker slapped her male counterpart across the chest before they moved aside, allowing you to walk into your small, cramped cubicle. "New grad?"
"Yeah," You decided against mentioning the egregious struggle that was navigating the job market in order to get a half-decent-paying, non-soul-sucking job with hours that don't encroach on your personal life, "Something like that."
"Cool, cool," She smiled before she placed a hand on your shoulder, directing your attention to the figure that was currently occupying the swivel office chair in your new office, "it was nice of your boyfriend to stop by and drop off your lunch. He spoke very highly of you–"
"–boyfriend?!" You loudly exclaimed, dramatically slapping your forehead when the office chair slowly turned in your direction, like a bad movie villain revealing themselves to the protagonist, to show off a smirking Gojo to you and your new co-workers. "Shit. Uh… can you excuse us? I have to talk to my boyfriend in private."
You didn't mean to sound angry towards your co-workers, but the rage must've dripped into your voice anyways as they quickly scooted out of the way, leaving you and Gojo alone.
"Hi, honey–"
"–What are you doing here?!" You hastily set your bag onto one side of the L-shaped desk before you turned to face, then scold him. "How did you find out where I work?"
Gojo lazily held up his phone.
"I have my sources," And then the fucker had the audacity to laugh when you tried to snatch the phone from his grasp, so you could see who else you need to yell at today, "Aww, are you embarrassed?"
"No!" Your face flushed in embarrassment that you couldn't hide. "…Okay, maybe a little. Did you seriously introduce yourself to everyone as my boyfriend?"
"I needed an excuse to get inside of the building, and what better one than that?"
"You sound proud."
"…I would be proud, if I was your boyfriend." Gojo quietly muttered, and you didn't immediately have some snarky response to shoot back because you weren't expecting that from him, of all people. "You seeing anyone?"
"No," You paused, feeling something… uncertain settle in your chest, "you?"
"No."
"Have you ever?" You dared to ask a question that had lingered in the back of your mind for a long time.
"Why? You interested?"
"I…" You folded your arms over your chest, unsure if he was joking or serious. You just jumped to it being the former, instead of considering the latter as an option. "I don't want you getting in trouble with security. You should go."
"You're worried about me." Gojo smiled. "I knew that under your brooding exterior, you cared–"
"–I always cared, Gojo," You quietly said, lips twisting off to your side, "I like to push your buttons a little."
"I like getting my buttons pushed."
"Ew, now you're making it weird," You chuckled before you shooed him out of your chair, "it was nice of you to come and see me on my first day, though. I'll… have to look at my schedule sometime."
"Schedule?" He tilted his head, glasses shifting off to the side for a moment before he confidently readjusted them. "You're seriously taking me up on my offer?"
"Maybe," You shrugged as you sat down, "I keep forgetting to block you. You should send a text my way so I remember to do so… but not before I get a chance to grab some food with you sometime."
"What kind of food?"
"I don't know," You avoided directly answering Gojo's question, but you did throw him a few ideas, "maybe some sushi, or pizza, or–"
You looked up to see his reaction, but he was already gone.
Huh. Strange.
You then found the brown paper bag that Gojo left on your desk for lunch, and you burst out laughing when you opened it up and saw that nothing was in it. He bought a bunch of paper sacks just to have an excuse to talk to you.
What a dork. A cute dork, but a dork nonetheless.
He never sent that text.
You were so consumed by the all-encompassing process of moving into a new apartment that you had quickly forgotten that you wanted him to text you first. That dead silence lingered between the two of you for a couple of months, until you found yourself looking at his contact image a few of nights ago for much longer than you should've.
I missed him, and I was disappointed that he didn't reach out like he said he would.
That very image has changed many times over the years — not by you, since you couldn't find the strength to change the photo when Gojo took it upon himself to change it every time he got a hold of your phone and figured out your password, a password that you changed every time he cracked it — and you know that it's now a selfie of you and him, with you mid-eye roll as he held the phone above both of your heads, grinning with his arm wrapped around your shoulders.
It was your home screen for a few months, too, before your best friend saw that picture and teased you mercilessly about it. After a few drinks, she got you to confess that you do like Gojo, and you didn't think she'd do anything with that information until tonight.
Maybe it's a good thing that she's making you confront your feelings — all of them… the good, the bad, and the ugly — but does this process have to be so daunting and mentally painful?
"You're staring." Gojo pushes his glasses down his nose a little, blue eyes shining directly into your soul. "What's up?"
"The sky." You dryly say.
"You're deflecting."
"No shit," You groan before you toss the crust of the pizza down onto a paper plate, wiping your hands on a nearby napkin, "Why does this have to be so difficult?"
"What's difficult?" He lightly prods, and on any normal day, when you're on top of your game, you'd shoot off some sarcastic comment that would cause him to laugh.
Today's not a normal day, and you are really in your feelings, so you honestly answer his question.
"This. You, I…" You immediately backtrack when you realize how terrible that sounds, "Not you. I mean, it is you, but it's more… how I feel about you. I can't stop thinking about you, and how annoying it is that I really like you. I can't just go on a date with anyone who isn't you. The truth is… I don't want to date anyone who isn't you."
There's silence, for a moment, as your confession lingers in the open air before Gojo answers.
"…I knew it."
"You suck." Tears crowd your vision as you take in a shaky breath. "I knew this was a dumb idea, even before I knew it was you–"
"–Woah, hold on," His hand goes to your wrist, "where are you going?"
"Away from here," You murmur, "Away from you–"
"–I asked to be set up with you."
Immediate record scratch.
"What?"
"I wanted to go out with you."
Gojo, really, seriously, wanted to out with you. He wasn't joking with you, after all of this time.
"…Shit." You collapse against the front of your cheap couch that you bought off of a friend of a friend. "I didn't expect you to say that."
"Yeah, I don't know what I would've done if you ran away from me while I was in your apartment." He gently teases, knocking your shoulder with his shoulder before he holds your hand in his own.
"Not my best plan." You admit, shaking your head as merry laughter falls from your lips. "We're both so stupid."
"You? Definitely. Me?" Gojo shrugs. "Eh… not so much."
"Are you serious?" Your mouth hangs ajar as you shift your body closer to his, and you'll feign the excuse of wanting to look at him if he asks why you did so. "I seem to recall you bringing an empty paper bag to my place of work so you could come and talk to me."
"You liked seeing me there, waiting for you," He accuses, "and you liked staring at my broad, handsome chest."
"I do not!" You loudly yelp, face flushing furiously before he continues to lovingly harass you.
"I know you were staring at me earlier, in the arcade," Gojo grins when your eyes bounce around the walls, not daring to meet his gaze, "if you liked what you saw–"
"–I did," Fuck it, if he's going to be a tease, then you're going to be a worse one, "but I'd like it more if you undid another button or two."
You draw blood with how hard you bite down on your bottom lip, trying to contain a scream of excitement and surprise when he obliges your request. Fingers dance down the open collar of his blue dress shirt, muscles peeking out for your eyes to greedily absorb as he undoes two more buttons, just like you asked.
Only one poor button remains, in a vein effort to cover up Gojo's toned body, and you happily lean in to pop that button loose before you smash your lips against his.
Your hand leaves his, only to meet your other hand behind his neck so your fingers can intertwine and rest on his back. You straddle him carefully, allowing your date to choose where he places his hands on your body, and you do not hesitate to force Gojo's lips apart so you can explore his mouth with your tongue.
Surprise briefly overtakes the want in your bones because of how he just lets you take control, but you've thought about this way too much to not capture the moment while it's being presented to you. He's kissing you back, with hands greedily clawing at your waist, so what more could you possibly want from this and from him?
Your tongue traces lazy circles inside of his mouth before you grow bored with such a task, pulling away from him to catch your breath before you wipe the connecting line of spit from his lips to yours with your thumb. You then bring the liquid to your lips, eagerly devouring it before foreign, almost strange words leave your lips.
"On the couch," You softly command as Gojo stares at you through bright blue, blown pupils, "Now."
He surges forward, capturing your mouth in a hungry kiss as your hands eagerly trace every muscle on his chest before you strip him off his shirt.
"No."
What a brat.
"I wasn't asking." With a little more force in your voice, you tilt Gojo's jaw up so he has to look you in the eyes as you speak. "Get on the couch, and don't make me ask you again."
You have a strong feeling that he likes it when you're a little mean to him, if the erection rubbing against your leg has anything to say about it, so you're not surprised when he scrambles to his feet before he takes his place on the couch.
"Spread your legs."
"Why?"
God, he is really testing my patience.
Fine. You tried asking — even though it was more of a demand, rather an ask — nicely. You'll just have to do it yourself, then.
With hands placed on both of his knees, you force Gojo's legs open before you position yourself between them, quickly fixing your hair so it's out of your face for what comes next.
You raise your eyebrows in mock surprise when you see him fumble with the button on his dress pants, trying to undo them before you noticed what he was doing.
"What are you doing?" Tongue-in-cheek, you savor the small flush that settles on his face at your query.
"I thought you were…"
"You thought I was what, huh?" You rest your elbows on his thighs, tilting your head up as you look at Gojo with a shit-eating smile on your face. "Is there something that you'd like me to do?"
"You're being mean," He lowly groans, sending shivers down your spine, "but I like you that way."
Well, that explains why he stayed around for so long, after years upon years of rejection.
"I can be meaner, if you want," You offer as your arms move up his legs, slowly inching towards the hem of Gojo's pants, "or I can be nice, for a change. It's your choice."
"I don't think you have a nice bone in your body," The confidence in his voice and posture slowly wavers as your fingers sneak under his pants and underwear so you can pull his dick out, "You just can't help but be mean to me, can you?"
"You have a very punchable face," You joke as your hand moves up and down his shaft, slowly working him towards an orgasm as you think of a grand finale in your head, "and you said that you like it when I'm mean to you. Maybe I should continue that right here, right now, and edge you until you're begging me for release."
Your efforts are immediately rewarded when he softly whimpers at the combination of your words and your touch, and you feel a rush of confidence go through you when you realize how much of an impact you have on him.
"Nothing to say now, eh?" You quicken the pace of your hand as you stroke him off, which also increases the volume and frequency of Gojo's whines tenfold. "I bet you thought about me when you were getting yourself off. Isn't that right, honey?"
You don't expect an answer besides the occasional writhing motion of his body, and the frantic, wanton sounds from his mouth that you just adore, but that's all you need, really.
Biting back laughter as you pull your hand away from his dick, you stare at Gojo when he tilts your chin up with two fingers, forcing you to maintain eye contact with him.
"You stopped," You're sure that he means to sound authoritative in this moment, like he's in control, but the desperation can't help but seep into his voice as he speaks, "I don't want you to stop–"
"–I wasn't stopping completely," You lick your lips as your thumb wipes away a little precum from his tip, causing him to whimper once more, "I was just… changing strategies."
You don't give him any time to think before you take Gojo's entire length into your mouth. Your tongue moves around his shaft, wet sounds echoing around the room as you work to pleasure him.
Your head bobs up and down to its own rhythm as he grabs onto your hair to steady himself. You can tell, even through a blissful haze that causes your thighs to clench in anticipation, that he's tempted to buck his hip forward and fuck your throat, but he doesn't. Maybe he's trying to behave for once, hoping for some reward for being on his best behavior tonight.
…Ah, who are you kidding? The moment you make him come, he'll shoot his mouth off, and you'll have to put him back in his place. Again.
Speaking of coming, your mouth is filled with Gojo's cum faster than you expect, and you hear him loudly pant in the background as you clean up his shaft with your tongue, greedily swallowing his seed before your mouth releases his dick with a satisfying popping sound.
"Pretty good for my first time, eh?" You breathlessly mutter, swiping your tongue across your lips, in case you missed any of his release, before you compel your shaky legs to help you stand. "You're welcome."
"Not bad," With those blacked-out glasses askew on his nose, it's hard to take his prodding seriously when he looks like an utter wreck, "for a beginner."
He's provoking you on purpose–!
And, like usual, it works.
"You're an ass," You sit yourself on Gojo's lap, ignoring how he groans when your ass rubs against his dick, "Now, are you gonna be a good boy and return the favor without me asking you to, or am I going to have to make you behave?"
Gojo gives you a tired grin before he roughly kisses you, which signals that you're in for a long, long night with him.
And, really, is there anywhere else you'd rather be than with your favorite annoyance in the whole wide world?
a/n: After a year of silence, I have emerged with a new obsession that I just simply had to write about. Sue me for wanting to be in the middle of the Eddie-Volt sandwich. I giggle every time I see them, they're just so my type AHHHHH- (also ty @sanccharine for being just as insufferable about the breaker box boys as I am <333)
pairing(s): Eddie x Reader x Volt (romantic)
tw: implied sexual situations, reader has a toxic ex that demeans and belittles them, injuries sustained by electric shock
summary: After months of not contacting your ex, a moment of weakness causes you to consider going back to them. With the electrifying support of Volt and Eddie, you're able to close that chapter in your life for good. - 6.3k words! [ao3 link!]
“Cocktail or mocktail?”
“Mocktail, please.” You happily respond as Beverly grabs a strainer, shakers and mixing glass from the bar in front of her.
“So you're going to the Breaker Box tonight?”
Warmth floods to your cheeks - were your evening habits really that predictable? - but you try not to show it.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, you only order cocktails if you plan on going to bed straight afterwards. Mocktails, on the other hand, are something you order if you have plans later…” She trails off with a light blush on her face. “I'm not trying to pry! I just heard that you like to visit the Breaker Box at night, so I put two and two together.”
You're in awe at the way Beverly masterfully pours your mocktail into a glass - bartending truly is an art, and she has refined her craft (minus the occasional broken glass).
She slides the glass over to you with an expectant look as you take a sip.
“Wow, Bev, this is really good!” You shower her with praise, which causes her to blush harder. “Don't worry - even though I'm a regular at the Breaker Box, you're still my favorite bartender.”
With a wink, you take another sip of your glass as Beverly does her best not to drop her bartender equipment.
“Re-Really?” She shyly asks as you nod. “That means so much to me!”
As you finish the rest of your drink, Beverly cleans the bar and prepares to close for the night.
“I'll see you soon, Bev!” You wave to her before exiting the bar.
She happily waves back as you open the door, which pulls you from the interior of Bev's bar to the middle of your kitchen.
You quickly take your dateviators off as the sun sinks further into the horizon.
Although Beverly was right - you were going to the Breaker Box tonight - you just didn't feel like drinking tonight.
A familiar ding! from your phone causes a pit in your stomach to form as you check your messages.
???: Why do you keep blocking the numbers I text you with?
Just talk to me. That's all I want. One simple conversation with you so we can fully end our relationship.
You scoff at the thought of ‘fully ending your relationship’, since that has yet to be the result of one of these conversations. You talk, they somehow get all sappy and romantic on you, you take them back until you remember how toxic they were, and you block them until they manage to break down your walls, chip by chip.
You ended things with them, permanently, six months ago, and it was the longest you had ever been without them since you met. You had felt yourself start to slip back into that toxic cycle when the dateviators arrived at your door.
Since then, you haven't had the need to check your phone for their messages, and if you happen to see them, you'd just block each number that came through.
Something about tonight, however, causes you to falter. Maybe it's the fatigue from the day, or the lack of sleep due to Nightmare's sudden appearance last night, but you're considering sending something back to your ex.
Damn, maybe I should've had Beverly make me a cocktail.
For now, you're able to gracefully slide your phone into your pocket. The urge to text them passes as quickly as you came, and you find yourself drained as the end of the day approaches.
I really need a spark to help me get through the rest of today.
With as much motivation as you can muster, you walk from the kitchen to the upstairs portion of your house, where the literal breaker box awaits you.
You gently place the dateviators over your eyes, and you swing open the breaker box door in order to get to the interior of the Breaker Box.
A gentle buzz surrounds the room, from the crowd and the lighting alike, as you step away from the door.
“Hello, love,” Dorian says from behind you, “Volt's wandering around and Eddie's somewhere behind the bar. They've been looking for you since they opened - Eddie especially. Just don't tell them that I said anything, yeah?”
“Of course, Dorian, and thank you.” You look back and offer him a friendly wave before walking further into the Breaker Box.
The crowd is a bit thicker than usual, due to the open mic night that's drawn in talent from all over your house, but you're thankful for the extra time to sit with your thoughts.
You encouraged Eddie and Volt to be open with you, but would they be just as kind as you were to them? Especially with such a vulnerable topic that made you feel so weak and queasy inside?
Part of you hopes that you'll run into Volt first - his flurry of affection and sweet nothings will melt your worries away and jolt your senses back to normal. He'll sweeten you up before he notices that anything is wrong with your demeanor… hopefully.
The other part of you wants to find Eddie at the bar, so he can make you a nice drink that can nurse your worries away. You'll throw playful jabs and small teases at each other until a smile lights up your face again. There's something comforting about the apparent coldness in his eyes - a calm wave amongst the wild sea - that pulls you in every time.
You're pulled out of your thoughts by another annoying ding! on your phone, and you feel the people next to you glare as you check your phone.
???: Please, baby, I'll do anything for another chance.
Can I see you tomorrow?
You can't help but roll your eyes before stuffing your phone back into your pocket, but not before you turn your ringer to vibrate instead.
With a sour expression, you turn away from the crowd and march towards the bar. As much as you'd like to drown in Volt's presence, you really needed that fucking drink right now.
A few bartenders catch your eye, but they quickly gesture towards the end of the bar, where Eddie sits.
A distinct coldness appears to radiate from him, where no one will approach or bother him, but it softens once Eddie notices you.
His posture shifts from lackadaisical to attentive and focused as you take a seat next to him.
“Drink?” He offers while not looking your way.
You hum in response, which causes him to get up from his seat and walk around to the bar area.
“Long day?”
You turn away from the crowd and stage to look at Eddie.
“Yeah. You?”
“Always.”
You place a hand on the counter before resting your head on it.
“What are you making me?”
“Whatever you'd like, live wire.”
Volt's nickname for you still feels foreign from Eddie's mouth, but you certainly don't mind him using it.
“Surprise me.”
To anyone else, your conversation would sound just like any other patron-bartender conversation, but there was enough subtlety between the two of you to suggest more.
It's in the way Eddie rolls up his sleeves excruciatingly slow, so you have all the time to ogle over his forearms and hands. When he notices where your eyes are focused, a small smirk forms on his face as he softly laughs, but he chooses to say nothing.
Or maybe it's in the way that you respond, by taking off your jacket to reveal a t-shirt that lands somewhere between tight enough to reveal what's underneath and loose enough to leave something to the imagination.
Eddie definitely notices the change in your attire, given the small blush on his cheeks, but he focuses on making your drink as you feel your phone vibrate against your pocket.
Can't you just take my silence as a no, for once?
Annoyingly, you're pulled out of the intimate moment, but you do your best to refocus on what's in front of you. You set your phone on the bar table, in an attempt to forget about your ex, as a drink is slid over to you.
The vibrant colors of the cocktail lure you in for a taste, and you're pleasantly surprised by how much you like this drink. Although you weren't one for cocktails, this one just so happens to incorporate your favorite flavors into a drink that you won't forget.
Despite not opening up about your alcohol preferences, Eddie still managed to figure out what you liked.
Or maybe he asked around the house?
“So?”
Despite not trying to look for approval, Eddie leans in and looks at you expectantly - he really wants you to like what he's made.
He definitely asked someone about my preferences.
“It's wonderful, Eddie. Thank you.” You offer him a warm yet tired smile, which causes a soft blush to appear on his face.
“You're welcome.”
He begins to clean up the bartending station as the guests settle in at various booths and tables in preparation for the show tonight. You still don't see Volt among the crowd, but somehow you can still feel his energy radiating off of every surface in the room.
As Eddie settles in on the bar seat next to you, you notice that he doesn't have a drink in his hand.
“Nothing for you?”
“I'd rather drink after the show, in case anything needs to be fixed up.” Ever-the-workaholic, Eddie refuses to indulge himself until everything is taken care of. “Are you going to stay after and help?”
“Of course.”
You'd like to say more, but you're interrupted by the intentional blinking of the lights, which signals that it's almost showtime.
This is the first time that you lay eyes on Volt, who is working on charming a customer into having just one more drink for the night, but you're too distracted by Eddie to say anything.
You notice that his arm is resting on the bar table, right behind you, but he hesitates on making contact with your skin.
You smile at the gesture - he's cute without trying to be - and you lean closer to Eddie until you're resting your head on his shoulder. Then, and only then, does his arm wrap around you to pull you even closer to him.
You decide to take it one step further, by nuzzling your head in your shoulder, which causes him to grumble.
“Comfortable?” Eddie grumbles in pretend annoyance.
He's enjoying this way more than he says he is.
You simply sigh contentedly as he gives your shoulder a light squeeze.
“Good.” He murmurs softly, only for you to hear.
You do your best to hide your laughter as Volt takes the stage. His magnetic presence draws every eye from every corner of the room as he introduces the first singer for the night.
Before he leaves the stage, his eyes find yours, and he offers you a flirtatious wink. Your face heats up from the gestures, and Volt smiles at the result.
The night flies by in a blur of music and people, and you're only aware of the passage of time when Eddie occasionally squeezes your shoulder, to see if you're still awake.
This would be far from the first time that you've fallen asleep in the bar - sometimes you and Eddie worked for a long time after the bar closed, and the combination of physical and mental exhaustion caused you to fall asleep before he could offer you a drink at the bar. Or you're listening to Eddie and Volt chat about the bar, while curled up against Volt's chest, and the mix of their voices and the soft thrum of electricity is enough to lull you to sleep.
Tonight, however, sleepiness seemed to avoid you. You were tired, sure, but your eyes seemed to be screwed open. Your phone was far enough away from you, for now, but it felt like a ticking time bomb was laying next to you as you awaited your doom.
Eddie notices - of fucking course he notices, he always does - and one-too-many glances to your phone causes him to say something between the second-to-last and last act of the night.
“Is there someone you'd rather be seeing?”
You know he's teasing, but you can't help but internally gag at the thought of your ex-lover being as close to you as Eddie is right now. You don't even want them in the same house as you, or even the same neighborhood or city.
Normally, you'd shoot back with something like, “Nobody but you, loverboy,” and you'd delight as his face discovered a new shade of pink to display on his handsome features.
But tonight didn't feel like a normal night.
Instead, you let out a deflated sigh before looking up at Eddie.
“It's quite the opposite, actually. I'd do anything to not see this person again.”
And there it slips out.
There it goes, flowing out of your mouth like a river of shit headed downstream. Luckily, you manage to save any remaining grace you have by shutting the fuck up, but the bomb's already went off.
The concern etched on Eddie's features makes your heart pound, but you still feel horrifically bad inside.
Despite being in more… compromising positions with Eddie and Volt, this is the most vulnerable you've ever felt with one of them.
And it fucking blows.
You can tell he's trying to speak, trying to say something that'll make you feel better, but the words don't come out. This isn't as simple as cutting your hand on a broken bar glass or accidentally shocking yourself with a fuse - Eddie can't gently scold you while wrapping your wound with spare bandages he keeps on hand. You wish he would pull your hand to his face, just as he would in one of those moments, to place a small kiss on the injury so “you'll feel better soon so you can get back to work”.
You steal the words from his mouth as you try to regain control of the situation and your emotions.
“Eddie, can you please make me another drink?”
You hate how needy, desperate, and distant you sound, but you need a quick pick-me-up, and if he's not going to offer it in words or affection, then you'll drown your sorrows in booze instead.
He says nothing, opting to press a very gentle kiss on your scalp before letting go of you.
“One more, then you're cut off. Can't have you trying to hurt yourself before we do any real work.”
You softly chuckle to yourself as you refocus on the stage. The final act is just wrapping up, and soon Volt will retake the stage to thank the crowd for coming tonight.
You find yourself awaiting his arrival as Eddie slides you another cocktail. In return, you hand him your empty glass. He dutifully begins to clean the glass as you watch him work.
You can't believe that you're letting some person from your past ruin what's in front of you.
You find yourself wanting to apologize, but the words won't reach your lips. Besides, what would you apologize for? Being a total fucking buzzkill?
Eventually, as Volt returns to the stage, Eddie retakes his seat next to you. His arm wraps around you again - this time, he holds you just a little bit tighter as you curl up next to him.
After Volt's ending remarks, people begin to file out of the Breaker Box. They mutter praises for the bar amid their scathing reviews of each performer. You always enjoyed the extra chatter that came with the bar, and part of you always missed that when you were closing up the bar. That, however, was made up in the fact that you had Eddie and Volt's undivided attention after the bar closed.
Just as you're about to see Volt, a wave of sleepiness finally washes over you, which causes you to rest your head on Eddie's chest.
“Live wire-” He gently warns you against further action, but you choose to ignore him as you press yourself against him.
“Stop squirming. You're making me uncomfortable.” You mutter as you hear someone walk towards you.
“You're uncomfortable? What about me?”
“You'll get over it.” You mumble into his chest, and you can hear him softly laugh as he adjusts his posture to make you more comfortable.
“Fine.” He begrudgingly says before moving his arm from your shoulder to your waist in order to better support you.
You feel yourself slip into the comforting embrace of sleep, but you force your eyes open when you hear Volt's voice.
“Live wire!”
You want to get up and greet him, but you are oh-so-comfortable where you are; however, you do weakly offer him one of your hands, which Volt gladly takes.
“Tired already, my spark?” Volt says before pressing a warm kiss to the back of your hand. “I should've caught you sooner, then.”
“I was looking for you, but I couldn't find you in the crowd, so I went and sat with Eddie.” You try to hide the disappointment in your voice, but it doesn't work on Volt.
“I'm sorry to disappoint, live wire. I'll happily make it up to you later, if you'll allow me to.”
“Please do.” You sleepily say as Eddie's other hand rubs up and down your back.
“They've been out of it all night, Volt. I got them to open up, but-”
“-But?”
“-it seemed like a sore spot, so I didn't want to pry.”
“Eddie, I'm sure you could've asked them something.”
“I didn't want to push them away after all they've done for us. What if I said the wrong thing and messed it all up? What then-”
You lift your head up when your phone starts to erratically buzz on the bar table.
“Oh, for fuck's sake.” You swear under your breath before laying your head back down. “Just leave me alone. I don't want to see you anymore.”
Eddie and Volt don't speak for a moment, and you're sure that they're sharing a questioning glance about what just happened.
“Are you talking about another object? If so, you'll find that Eddie and I can be very convincing-”
“Volt.” Eddie warns his other half, who chooses to ignore him.
“No, it's another human.” You softly say with a twinge of pain in your voice. “A human I should've let go of a long, long time ago.”
There's a beat of silence, between your confession and whatever reaction awaits you from Eddie and Volt.
“A human lover, I assume?” Volt asks with bated breath.
“Ex-lover, but yeah.” You feel a bit guilty after admitting all of this, but a weight feels lifted off of your chest.
It's enough to tempt you back into sleepiness, where you feel your eyes slowly shut as the world around you dims slowly into nothingness.
You can still hear Eddie and Volt, but they sound out-of-reach and far away, despite your closeness.
“My sweet, poor little wire… I suppose it wouldn't hurt to shock some sense into this human, right?”
“Volt.”
“Worry not, my sweet Eddie. It's nothing like you're thinking.” You can hear the smile in his words, but they still have some bite and agitation to them.
“Good night.” You murmur to no one in particular as sleep finally overcomes your body.
~
Your bed happily cradles your body as you awake from your slumber. You aren't hungover from the night before, but you still can't remember exactly what happened.
You were with Eddie for most of the night, and you remember seeing Volt after the bar closed, but that was about it.
I'm sure I'd remember if it was anything important.
As tempting as it is to roll over and go back to sleep, you have a few promises to fulfill with a few special objects in your house.
Your dateviators await you on your nightstand, along with your phone and a napkin that displays the Breaker Box logo on it.
You reach for the napkin first, and you're happy to see a small message on the napkin, written in Volt’s handwriting.
Sleep well, live wire.
~ E & V
You open the drawer on your nightstand and place the napkin with the small pile of other napkins that you've managed to collect from your nights out.
You go to grab your phone, to see if Sam or that strange Tinfoil Hat character has texted you, but you're stopped by the ring of a doorbell.
Your doorbell is ringing.
You fly out of bed before assembling a quick outfit of something that is moderately presentable. You're mindful enough to store the dateviators in a safe place, in case your company is someone who's looking for their whereabouts.
You grab your phone as the doorbell continues to ring.
“I'm coming. Hold on!” You yell before leaving your bedroom and descending down the stairs.
Your hand grabs the doorknob, but it refuses to open despite you unlocking it a few seconds ago.
“Dorian…” You mumble under your breath, and the door opens before you start lecturing your door.
Your mouth hangs wide open as soon as you see who's on the other side with a bundle of roses in their hand.
“Hey.” Your ex gives you a warm smile before handing you the flowers. “I got these this morning. They made me think of you.”
“Oh… um, thank you.” You awkwardly take the flowers from them as you try to figure out what they're doing here. “Would you like to come in?”
“I would, since you're the one who invited me over.”
You move out of the way as your eyebrows furrowed in confusion - you certainly would remember texting them, right?
Your ex heads further into the house as you shut your front door and pull out your phone to check your messages.
Surely enough, there's a plentiful stream of messages between the two of you, which only serves to confuse you further. The messages you sent don't even sound like you - they alternate between being too sappy or too passive-aggressive for your texting style.
It's almost like two different people wrote them…
You shake your head as you follow your ex into the kitchen, where they have already grabbed a vase and filled it with water.
“I still remember where everything is, as strange as it sounds. I don't remember the water in your sink being that hot - is there something wrong with your water heater?”
They place the vase on your kitchen table, and you carefully position the flowers in the vase.
“Last I checked, it was working fine.” You shrug before gesturing for them to take a seat. “Tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, please.” Your ex answers, and you happily oblige them as your mind tries to wrap itself around the predicament you're in.
It's blatantly awkward between the two of you, and you're not quite sure what to tell them about the situation you find yourself in.
“Listen, I wanted to talk about us-” They start as you place a coffee cup next to them before you take a seat on the opposite side of the kitchen table.
“-I do too.” You interrupt them before taking a deep breath. “I know I reached out to you last night and told you to come here, but I needed to tell you this in person.”
Awaiting your answer, your ex leans forward.
“We're done,” Your voice is shaky, but you manage to say the thing you've been wanting to say for years, “for good.”
Bewildered, they look at you before letting out a dry laugh.
“You're not serious, are you? You're just playing hard to get, right?”
“No,” You shake your head, “I'm serious.”
You want to shrink into nothingness when you sense their anger starting to emerge, but you have to stand your ground soon if you want to truly be done with this person. The part of you that would grovel and beg for their attention and grace has died, and a newfound sense of bravery emanates from you.
“You play with my feelings all night, getting all hot and cold with me, just to pull this shit?” They stand up suddenly, but you refuse to let them see any fear from you. “What is fucking wrong with you?”
You'd like to shoot that question back to them, but you don't feel like launching yourself into an argument that would make Dirk and Harper's fights look like child's play.
You, instead, turn your head away and begin to fiddle with your fingers from under the table.
“Is there someone else?”
Heat rises to your face, and your ex bitterly scoffs before slamming their hands on the table.
“I fucking knew it. You've been sleeping around, like a whore-”
“-I'm not a whore.” You respond with an equal amount of malice as you slowly rise from your seat. “And who would care if I was? We aren't together anymore.”
As the argument continues to heat up, you and your ex fail to notice the way the lights above you flicker and respond to your words.
“You're still mine-”
“-since fucking when? The last time you told me I was yours, you cheated on me three days later with my best friend!”
“That was a one-time mistake!” They scream before throwing their hands up in the air. “Are you incapable of forgiving and forgetting?”
“You broke my heart!” Your voice cracks as hot tears threaten to fall from your face.
You're so close to cracking and allowing them to comfort you, and they know it. They just have to push your buttons a little more, and then you're theirs again.
“Fine. Go off and enjoy your other lovers. I can't wait for them to see how boring you are. When they dump you, you'll come crawling back to me, just like the pathetic little thing that you are.”
A small tear runs down your face, and your throat is strangled by all of the words you want to unleash onto them. You feel - no, you are - a blubbering mess, and you will do anything for this argument to be over with.
A victorious smile appears on their face, but they're interrupted by the power cutting out across your house.
You thank your lucky stars as a convenient interruption will allow you to escape for a few moments.
“Sorry, there must be something wrong with the breaker box. I'll quickly go reset the power-”
“-let me. You were always terrible with handiwork around the house.”
Your ex brushes past you, and you take a moment to compose yourself before following them up the stairs.
“Where's the breaker box?” They ask as you reach the upstairs portion of your house.
“Second door on your right.” You say before grabbing your phone and turning on a flashlight for them to see with.
Although it was light outside, this part of your house didn't have many windows, so it was poorly illuminated without any ceiling lights.
Your ex quickly opens the door and proceeds to open up the breaker box as you provide them with enough light to work with.
“You're directing power to the wrong things. This switch should go the other way-”
As they reach out to touch a switch on the box, a forgotten conversation echoes in the back of your mind.
“My sweet, poor little wire… I suppose it wouldn't hurt to shock some sense into this human, right?”
“Volt.”
“Worry not, my sweet Eddie. It's nothing like you're thinking.”
“Wait, be careful, you might get-”
You try to reach out to them, but it's far too late. A loud crackle emerges from the breaker box once they touch it, and they recoil in pain.
“-shocked.”
“FUCK!” They screech as you cover your mouth with your hand. “What is wrong with your breaker box?”
“I don't know.” Choosing to play dumb, you shrug your shoulders. “Maybe you should try another switch?”
“Yeah, genius, I was planning on doing that.”
Resting their injured hand on their side, they take their other hand and attempt to touch another switch.
Your ex gets a similar result to their first attempt- a loud crackling sound followed by their howls of pain as they clutch both of their hands to their chest.
You can't help the laughter that escapes from you - this feels like sweet, sweet karmic justice after all of the times they've ripped your heart out of your chest and stomped on it.
“Oh, you think this is so funny, huh?” They grumble before hesitating to grab another switch. “Why don't you try touching a switch, jackass?”
“Sure!” You gleefully move past your ex as you shine your phone flashlight directly on the breaker box.
Instead of reaching for a switch, you place your hand on the side of the box.
A bit of electricity courses through your veins - not enough to mess with the beating of your heart, but enough to let you know that Eddie and Volt are there with you.
“Alright, show’s over, boys.” You mumble under your breath. “Help me out?”
Another jolt of power goes through your arm, which you take as a yes. Your hand goes to touch the first switch on the left, but the power turns on before you even have a chance to shock yourself.
“Thank you.” You quietly say before your ex pushes you aside.
“There's no fucking way that worked!”
You collide with one of the walls in the closet, and you grumble in pain. The hallway light flickers dangerously as your ex continues to investigate the breaker box.
“I mean, you didn't even touch anything!”
They attempt to close the breaker box door, but you see sparks fly as their skin makes contact with the breaker box again.
They let out a loud, frustrated scream as you allow yourself to smile and laugh.
“You set this up to make me look like a fucking idiot, huh?” Your ex learns from their first three attempts as they look at the circuitry without touching it.
“I think you did that yourself, to be honest.” You mutter under your breath, and a small buzzing sound comes from the breaker box.
Almost like a nod of agreement.
“Whatever. I'm done with this shit. Where's your band aids?” They grumble to you.
“Downstairs bathroom, under the sink.” You say as they step out of the closet. “Just be careful, that door likes to get… stuck sometimes.” You give them a gentle warning about Dorian as they angrily march down the stairs.
Once they are fully out of earshot, you turn off your phone flashlight before looking at the breaker box.
“I hope you know that you would have actually killed them if you went any further,” You begin to scold Eddie and Volt, but you're powerless to fight the shit-eating grin on your face. “but that was funny and, honestly, well-deserved.”
A happy buzzing noise comes from your breaker box. They're pleased that you're pleased with their efforts.
“I'll see you later, alright?” You quietly say before closing the breaker box for the day.
You swear you can hear a bit of buzzing, as if Eddie and Volt are chatting amongst each other, as you head down the stairs to say goodbye to a guest that has long overstayed their welcome in your house, thoughts, and heart.
Your ex seems more than happy to leave as they await your presence at the front door.
“Can't believe that the stupid band aid container closed on my hand.” They grumble as they look at their bandaged hands.
“I think it's time you go. For good.” You cross your arms and lean against the end of the stairway railing as they scoff.
“Yeah, I don't want to be in this shithole any longer than I have to.”
“Stop calling me and texting me from different numbers.” This harshness is cold and unfamiliar from you, but it seems to work as they pause before nodding and agreeing. “Get out of my house.”
“Don't have to tell me twice.”
Your ex opens the door with ease as you stand and watch them leave.
“Don't let the door kick your ass on the way out.” You cheerfully say as they head through the doorway.
“What is that supposed to mean-” They're barely out of your house before the door slams shut in their face.
You can't help but let out a hearty laugh, one that rings all the way through your house. A weight that has been on your shoulders for years has finally been lifted, and you've never felt freer in your life.
I think it's time to properly start my day.
~
By the time night falls on your house, you're dressed in something a little more formal as you aim your dateviators at the breaker box.
You open the door to the panel of switches, and once again, you're pulled into the bar.
Dorian offers you a quick nod as you enter the bar.
“I didn't think you were coming tonight, considering today's events.”
“Oh?” You turn to face him. “You mean when you slammed the front door in the face of my ex?”
“Just doing my job - keeping the bad ones out and the good ones in.” He cracks a rare smile that you happily reciprocate.
You don't have any more time to question Dorian as Volt approaches you with an alluring smile.
“Live wire, you look fantastic tonight!” He outstretches his hand, and you gladly place your hand in his.
He bends down and kisses your hand - an unusual approach, since he usually brings your hand to his lips.
“Volt-” You try to talk to him, but he's simply not having it.
“-my spark, I simply must assure you that today's antics were entirely my fault, and Eddie had not contributed at all-”
“Volt-” You attempt to use a tone similar to Eddie's, but he continues on.
“-though, if you do have some sort of punishment in mind, I'm sure Eddie wouldn't mind taking part of the blame from my shoulders so we can experience the punishment together-”
You place your free hand on his chest, and he finally pauses long enough for you to get a word in.
“Volt, I'm not mad. I know you're trying to protect Eddie, but I'm not upset at either of you.” A gentle sigh leaves your lips. “I'm just relieved that it's finally over.”
Volt seems a bit relieved with your admission, and he pulls you closer to his chest.
“I'm glad to hear that, my light.” He softly says. “It's a slow night, so I'll be able to give you my undivided attention.”
“I like the sound of that.” You tease him back before pulling him in for a kiss.
Electricity flows through every part of your body when you kiss Volt, and this time is no exception. You wonder how your heart can continue beating at the same rhythm when he's putting this much of himself into you.
You only part for air, and when you get enough air in your lungs, Volt recaptures your lips for another hungry kiss.
He pulls you to the side, away from prying eyes as your lips continue to meet with his again and again and again.
You're only interrupted by a quiet scoff, which causes you to pull away from Volt and look right into Eddie's eyes.
He would look pissed, to any onlooker, but there's a bit of intrigue and want in his gaze.
“Volt, don't you think you should start the show before you attract any more attention to yourself?”
Volt simply laughs before pressing one final kiss to your lips.
“Of course, Eddie,” He pauses to look at you, “but we're not finished here, live wire.”
Volt pulls himself away from you before planting a kiss on Eddie's cheek.
“I'll see you two after the show.”
With a seductive wink, he heads towards the stage as you bite your lip and turn towards Eddie.
You're full of renewed energy from being attached to Volt, so you'd love to do nothing more than pounce on Eddie and smother him in kisses and affection.
“Don't look at me like that, live wire.” His face heats up and he looks away for a moment.
You don't want to fluster him too badly, so you choose to wrap your arms around him and press a kiss to his temple.
“...You're irresistible.” Eddie says after a brief period of heated silence.
“But you love it.” You whisper as your face gets closer to his.
You can taste the whiskey sour on his breath as he breathes out for a moment, in an attempt to slow his beating heart.
You let him make the next move, and it doesn't take long for him to close the distance and gently kiss you.
The taste of whiskey coats your mouth as his hands tightly grip your waist. He parts from you much sooner than you'd like, but he still manages to make you breathless.
“You're feeling alright?” He asks as you try to form a coherent sentence.
“Never been better.” A genuine smile appears on your lips, and his smile matches yours, just for a moment.
“Good. I'll need you to help me with a few extra repairs, since we weren't able to work last night.”
You whine softly at the thought of working after the day you've had, but you're quickly shut up by Eddie when he gently squeezes your hips.
“I promise that Volt and I will make it worth your while.”
With that, Eddie leaves you in a flustered state as you watch Volt briefly entertain the crowd.
Who needs to think about ex-flames when you have those two to light up your life?
Can't believe it's been ONE YEAR since I posted this fic ;-; what an absolute ROLLERCOASTER it's been. I'm so so thankful to all of the lovely people I've met along the way (especially @silentmusiic and @zaarza !!! Thank you both for being such lovely friends to me, and I'm so glad we first bonded over these electricity powered men 🥹)
So so much has changed in my life since this first went up - I graduated college, I got offered a job at the place I was interning at (fun fact: that was where I wrote most of my earliest e&v fics, including this one LMAO), and i've fallen back in love with writing fics and being heavily involved in fandom spaces. ❤️ ty to all of the people who love date everything and the boys - special s/o to the Breaker Box server and all of the lovely individuals there that encourage me to keep writing 🫶
And, of course, I HAVE to say thank you to the 1.7k THOUSAND people who liked this fic (which is INSANE, thank you so so much 🥺), the hundreds of reblogs with lovely comments that I reread when I need some inspiration, and the comments here and over on ao3 which make me laugh again and again with how funny y'all are. Of course, that's only for this fic - I've received so so much love on my Eddie & Volt works, and I am SO blessed to have so many people interested in my work. So sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, thank YOU for reading, liking, commenting, reblogging, and putting in anon asks about my stuff 🥰❤️ cheers to another year of me not getting over these two fictional men LMAOOOO
An Interview with the Vampire — Chapter/Episode Fifteen: I'm an Aging Wolf, Who Lost the Taste for Blood
a/n: no joke, orbiter by noah kahan got me back into writing this series because I couldn't help but think of Eddie and Canary as I listened to the song ;-; also this chapter precedes the chapter so, uh... everyone's about to have a really bad time! :D
relationship: vampire! volt x vampire! eddie x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! eddie x vampire! amir; vampire! river x vampire! fem! reader
series masterlist! || french translations (I do not speak fluent french, so any corrections would be appreciated!)
cws: smoking/cigarettes, crude/sexual humor, murder, gore, violence, blood, age gap relationship, toxic/unhealthy relationships, unreliable narrators, mentions of rape and sexual assault, reader suffers from depressive episodes and suicidal ideation, self harm, pregnancy, loss of pregnancy/miscarriage, assumed main character death, hallucinations, implied sexual situations but there’s no actual smut, spoilers for s2ep6 of amc’s iwtv! Some very disturbing/abusive/toxic behaviors will be discussed and possibly romanticized. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED‼️‼️‼️
summary: Dolly’s on the precipice of something great, especially when River clues her into the secret held within your diary and ‘your’ letters. Meanwhile, she’s forced to deal with Eddie and Amir’s bickering until Amir tells Eddie something about San Francisco that completely throws him off. Love is difficult. Love between vampires is even worse. You’re in the wind again, Eddie’s thrown himself completely into Amir’s world, and Harper’s looking to invite her beloved into the world of the vampires. As split as your little family may appear to be, you all end up finding your way back to one another, and all is right in the Watts household after Eddie makes amends with you and Harper. It’s all peaceful and loving, until… — 28.0k words! [read on ao3!]
Dinner’s boring.
A light piano medley — something by Chopin, Dolly’s sure of it — plays in the background of some fancy, top-floor restaurant with large, open windows for walls that overlook the city of Berlin during the evening hours. The skyline itself is painted against orangish-pink hue that can only be seen during the rare times where sunlight travels through a thicker layer of the Earth’s atmosphere–
–I’m getting off-track. Focus on what’s in front of you.
Right. She’s been pushing around a piece of a sushi roll on her plate for the past five minutes, not daring to take another bite as she silently observes Real Assad, eating his sushi with no additional commentary from his lips.
Dolly assumed that she would be alone on this dinner — a silent thank-you from Eddie, for whatever the hell yesterday was with him and River in that hotel room — yet she was sent with a lapdog because Amir insisted on it. Fantastic.
And to think I was going to get some light reading in…
However… she’s not opposed to this arrangement, as she does have a few questions for the assistant in front of her, since she’s not dealing with Amir breathing down her neck when she tries to question his assistant.
There’s one thing I still don’t get… why did Amir mess with the letters? Why go through all of that painstaking effort to learn someone else’s prose? What’s with the isolation? What’s he hiding?
“How’d I get the tapes?” Dolly starts with an easy question for Real Assad. “There was no postage on the package with the tapes, Assad.”
He doesn’t answer; instead, the ever-dutiful butler maneuvers a cut roll piece into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks.
Fine. Be that way.
“The bylaws of my co-op say that only the mailman can have the key that opens up all of the mailboxes,” She explains, slightly stretching her back while she speaks since the chair seated in the hightop bar area isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, “So, did you guys get to my mailman? I usually give him a little something for Christmas, but I mean… y’know, if he’s in on it, then, I’m thinkin’ to myself, ‘Do I really still have that obligation?’”
Again, Assad says nothing, but he does wipe his face and hands with a nearby napkin before he finally acknowledges Dolly.
“I’m going to the bathroom.”
But not in the way that she’d prefer.
“I’m gonna make a run for it, Assad,” Dolly taunts the assistant as he stands and heads towards the bathroom, “They’re gonna turn you into broth bags ‘cause you couldn’t hold it.”
That doesn’t stop him at all, nor do her words quicken his pace.
Damn it. Maybe I am a bit out of practice…
Dolly sighs before she moves yet another piece of the sushi roll around her plate in a figure-eight motion before someone pulls out the chair to her left — a chair that had been previously empty, since her guardian for the night sat on her right.
“Bonjour, mon amie,” With every word flowing smoothly, like running water into an empty basin, Dolly hates that she knows the fucking voice that can’t help but trickle into her eardrums, “Ça fait un bail–”
“–they sent a chaperone,” Dolly hurriedly says, making sure to look away from River as she speaks, “I’m sorry. Go away.”
“Assad?” River smiles at the confusion that’s immediately tacked onto Dolly’s face at the mention of the assistant’s name. “He loves the hand soap that they use here. I wouldn’t worry too much about Assad. …Did you bring a journal with you? I can see something in the outline of your coat pocket–”
“–not another word,” Dolly hisses before she carefully sets one of your oldest journals — from your time in New Orleans — onto the black marble counter, “I meant to have some private reading time, but I… it doesn’t matter. The prose in this diary is nearly identical to the last letter she sent Eddie.”
Amir nearly caught me sneaking one of these journals out of the library this morning… I hope he doesn’t think that anything’s off.
“Show me.” River leans over, eyes watching Dolly’s every movement as Dolly grabs that very letter and sets it next to your open journal.
“If it’s a forgery,” Dolly quietly says as River places a long, light blue nail on the letter in front of her, scanning the page for something in particular, “it’s a damn good one.”
Suddenly, River taps a line at the bottom of the page once, then twice, to draw Dolly’s attention to it.
“Look at this line here.”
All my love is forever and always yours.
“Yeah, I read that one when I first saw it–”
“–third word, first letter. The lowercase ‘L’… it’s just a sharp downwards line.” River chuckles when Dolly throws her hands in the air in defeat. “Canary hated how close the lowercase L looked next to the uppercase I, so she’d always write the L in cursive, even when those two letters weren’t next to each other.”
“And you know this because…?” Dolly trails off, asking the question that appears at the front of her mind as she scours your diary for that letter in particular.
That’s such a specific thing, how could she–
“–I asked her myself. I did care for her as an artist and as a person, Dolly.” River’s a little wounded by that question as Dolly finds the letter she’s looking for in your writing.
My love, my light, my darling, my Eddie–
“–Shit.” Dolly traces the loop in the first L that she sees with her finger. “Is there any possible way that she changed how she wrote that letter over the–”
Dolly stops talking when River slides a small envelope in her direction, with some address scrawled on it in your handwriting. Sure enough, that letter L is cursive, and the date stamped over the stamp that features a bird on it — because everything comes back to those fucking stamps of yours — is from the year twenty twenty-four.
…Okay, maybe these letters are forgeries. But why say that now?
“Did. You said did, as in past tense.” Dolly points out River’s brief slip-up, under the cool, collected mask that she wears. “Something bad happened between the two of you. You don’t speak anymore.”
“You’re a good journalist.” River softly praises as she looks off into the distance.
“I’m a great journalist,” Dolly corrects, “Now answer the question.”
“When I said I wounded her with the truth about the Talamasca and my involvement with them… I severely understated her reaction. Canary imploded. Locked herself in her room for a week and carved small lines up and down her arms and legs. She still carries those scars to this day,” River’s eyes glisten with tears as she drums her fingers against your written words, “I don’t know what I expected, really. Everyone that she’s ever loved has lied to her, and I was no different than the men she had loved before. To her, I was just another liar — a cheat — who wormed their way into her heart.”
“How long ago did this all happen?”
“Twenty-five years ago.” River answers, and the pieces fall right into place for Dolly.
“Which was when she sent the first letter to Eddie,” Dolly sets your letter back into the journal before she shuts it, “you help orchestrate that?”
“I was desperate. I’d have done anything to earn her favor back–”
“–even connect her with a man that you clearly despise?” Dolly chuckles when River shakes her head in disapproval. “You don’t have to lie to me, River. Your body certainly doesn’t. You don’t like him, since your shoulders stiffen up every time he talks about Canary. You think he doesn’t deserve a second chance–”
“–what if that’s true?” River whispers. “What then?”
“Then I’d say that it’s not your call to make,” Dolly simply shrugs, “or mine, or Amir’s. You let them come back together and fuck it all up again… or, maybe, they figure out how to make their relationship work for good this time. Either way, you have to let Canary and Eddie make their own mistakes and decisions. They’re adults.”
“She can’t handle him hurting her like that again,” River skates around what they discussed yesterday, “Canary’s healed from that time in her life, but I’m worried that she’ll snap if he–”
“–you are treating her like a petulant child who’s unable to manage her own life and make her own decisions. Just like Eddie did.” Dolly watches River’s posture deflate a bit. “Canary is a grown woman. She wants Eddie to be with her… but you came in her place, right? Since she wanted to come to Berlin, but you forbade her from doing so–”
“–for her safety,” River argues, “and her well-being. She gets sick easily, due to her condition–”
“–Jesus Christ, you people and your old-fashioned euphemisms.” Dolly rolls her eyes. “Canary is pregnant. Permanently. And that’s hard on the body. She wants someone who understands what she’s going through.”
“No one can–”
“–But Eddie tried to, didn’t he? He tried to make her comfortable, tried to accommodate her, tried to make her feel normal when she was spiraling… Maybe she doesn’t want a husband or a girlfriend or a wife or a partner who claims that they love her to boss her around anymore, tellin’ her what to do and makin’ her feel useless in her own body. Maybe Canary just wants the father of her unborn child to be with her and take care of her when she needs a little extra help.”
“Age has made you wise.” River notes, which causes Dolly to snort under her breath.
“That’s what they keep tellin’ me, but I certainly don’t feel that smart.”
Finally, Dolly decides to take a bite of the food in front of her as River places her order with the bartender that casually strolls their way. Not another word is exchanged between them until River receives a piece of cooked mackerel that looks particularly unappealing to Dolly, alongside a nice, thick red liquid in a wine glass.
Well, if River’s going to show up unannounced and stay for dinner, I might as well ask her a few things…
“How big is the Talamasca? Who funds you guys?” It’s like Dolly’s talking to Real Assad 2.0 as River places a piece of fish in-between her teeth, not paying Dolly any mind with this line of questioning. “Do you work with nation states? Why are you eating food, you don’t need mortal–”
“–you’ll blow our cover.”
“Me?!” Dolly’s a little astounded. “You’re drinking blood. In public.”
“At least I’m trying.”
God, she’s so uppity and annoying at times.
“Don’t bullshit me. You have pictures of me from nineteen seventy-five, being carried out of that godforsaken apartment–”
“–pictures of them.” River waves Dolly’s concerns away. “You were a fly on the windshield.”
“Thanks,” Dolly pauses for a second, as a pit begins to form at the bottom of her stomach, “Can you protect me?”
“From being killed?” River looks straight at Dolly and smiles. “No. We’re particularly poor at keeping our assets alive–”
“–I’m not an asset,” Dolly wrings her hands above her plate, “I wanna get out of this city alive.”
“You want a book, Dolly.”
“Okay, I want both.” Dolly’s lips turn downwards as River chuckles to herself.
“You fear Amir. You should fear the other one.” River warns. “Yet again, neither of them hold a candle to Canary. What could possibly be more terrifying than witnessing the events that would cause a pacifistic, mild-mannered female vampire to snap and kill her own kind?”
“Do all vampires speak in riddles and wordy sentences that are nothing burgers at the end of the day?” Dolly shakes her head. “For fuck’s sake, you can’t even say his name–”
“–he hasn’t earned that respect from me–”
“–maybe it ain’t about respect,” Dolly argues over River, drowning out the latter’s words with her own, “and it ain’t about us anymore. You sound tired and resentful, River. Fifty years of being Canary’s caretaker did that to you, huh?”
River’s blue eyes widen in shock. She didn’t expect Dolly to say something that only seemed so obvious a few moments ago, but was so carefully hidden behind large vocabulary words and a bit of vampiric showmanship.
“I… I didn’t know what I was signing up for, seventy years ago. I didn’t know about the harsh mood swings or the inability to drink non-mortal blood or the pain she’d be in every day,” River whispers, barely audible over the chattering buzz of the restaurant’s patrons, “It’s not her fault. It was never her fault. But I… struggle, watching Canary struggle.”
“You need a break. Fifty years of non-stop care for your partner? You’re beyond burnt-out. You need someone to take your place, for them to care for her in your place so you can just love her–” When Dolly says it so plainly, the truth is so easy to see. “That’s why you came to Berlin, isn’t it? You didn’t come to remind Eddie of San Francisco or to act as a placeholder for Canary. You want him to take care of her for you, right? After he passes whatever test you have in mind for him, that somehow involves my interview–”
“–That isn’t the entire truth–”
“–No, but it’s how you feel. Put the objective truth aside,” Dolly chuckles to herself, “that’s rich, comin’ from me, of all people.”
“You wanna talk about feelings?” River says as she sneaks an arm around Dolly’s chair, trying to distract her from the topic at hand.
Nope. Not gonna happen.
“Going back to what we were discussin’–” Dolly brushes River’s hand off of her chair, but River’s hand runs down Dolly’s arm before it returns to her side, bringing a blush to Dolly’s face.
“–your book,” River suddenly pivots, “We can help you find a publisher.”
“I have a publisher.” Dolly clarifies.
“Your publisher will get a phone call before you turn it in. They will pay you handsomely for your manuscript and bury it.” River ominously explains. “You won’t even see a gallery proof. It’s all going to come out soon enough, and there’s a number of us in the order who think, ‘Better it happens with Dolly Molloy in paperback than the bumbling governments of the world.’”
“There’s somethin’ behind this,” Dolly guesses, “What’s the ask?”
“My superiors have a list — a few hundred questions they’d like you to weave into your interview, and honey, I…” River trails off, “I’m professionally charged to press you to include them.”
“And apart from your charge?”
“I think it would be disastrous.” River muses. “I think you’ve been masterful. I think, if I could swap bodies with you, I’d be running the order by now.”
Dolly looks back and notices Assad standing behind her and River, simply observing the two of them in complete silence.
So he’s familiar with River… interesting.
“How’s the soap, Agent Assad?” Dolly snarkily asks.
“We should be returning by now.” He sternly says as River leans back to talk to the assistant.
“Mrs. Molloy would like to stay alive, Assad.”
“Then, perhaps, she should’ve thrown the tapes away when she found them in her mailbox.” Assad wears a straight-laced expression as Dolly sets her credit card upon the counter for the bartender to collect.
“Oh, that’s very kind of you–”
“–don’t make this a bigger thing than it is,” Dolly softly groans as she grabs her jacket and slips out of her chair, “thank you for… whatever this was.”
~
“I’m leaving you. I wish to tell you that now.” Chance stood still as Drysdale stalked the stage, soakin’ up all of the attention while I worked to buff the stage.
I finally got my fuckin’ wish. After so much pushin ‘n pullin’, I got off that stage ‘n got back into the dressin’ room. The abuse started again, but I didn’t really give a shit. No more Baby Lulu for the mortals to mock, night after night. It’s just me. Just Harper.
“I thought as much,” Drysdale responded, and a quick glance behind me told me that Chairemi was doin’ the thing she always does durin’ rehearsals — mouthin’ along to every word dramatically, like she wasn’t the one who wrote the fuckin’ thing, “and I thought as well that you’d make a flowery announcement. Tell me what a monster I am, what a vulgar fiend.”
A few rows in front of Chairemi is Amir, takin’ notes on the play and the actors’ performances on a copy of the script that he has on a wooden clipboard. I looked down the moment I sensed his eyes lookin’ my way — I don’t wanna poke the bear any more than I have to. He gave me what I asked for, ‘n I think I should be grateful ‘n behave, for once.
“I make no judgement of you,” Chance spoke over a gentle piano accompaniment that Miranda had been working on over the past few days, “I am not interested in you. I am interested in my own vampire nature now.”
Drysdale sat center stage, looking into the empty theater with pretend remorse in his eyes.
“What do you think a vampire is?”
“I don’t pretend to know.” Chance answered before he flipped the question back to the other actor on stage. “What is it?”
“A flaccid, full-length play, based on nothing other than the superficial observations of the vampire Chairemi,” Amir explains as Dolly flips through yet another script of Chairemi’s, with Amir’s notes in the margins in red ink, “her meditations on vampiric existence and enduring.”
“Strange,” Eddie comments before he looks over at Amir, and, interestingly enough, the pair sit in two armchairs in the penthouse’s living room that feel like they’re a mile apart from each other, despite barely being out of arm’s reach from each other, “I remember you racing back from rehearsals to tell me how ambitious the conceit was.”
“Well, I was following your advice, wasn’t I?” Amir shoots back at Eddie before he turns towards Dolly once more. “I didn’t want to bring the work’s anxieties into our home–”
“–or, you’re recalling the events with bias,” Eddie hisses with a metric ton of resentment in his voice, “because of the schemes surrounding it.”
Dolly says nothing as her eyes flicker from Eddie to Amir, then back to Eddie. She’s just gonna let them verbally duke it out for a while, to see where the conversation goes.
“Lead with a velvet glove instead of an iron gauntlet was your advice, Eddie.”
“Indulge the buffoon were my words.” Eddie makes sure to only look Dolly’s way, even when Amir glances his way with worry and downwards-slanted eyebrows. “Feed Drysdale his own ego back to him, and smother mutiny with praise.”
“What does it mean to die,” Drysdale tilted his head ever-so-slightly as he sat on the ground, “when you can live until the end of the world? And what is the end of the world… except a phrase?”
A mere distraction. Drysdale knew what he was doing, performing on stage while Artt, Curt, and Rod went through one of Harper’s diaries that Drysdale snatched from Eddie’s apartment on the upper floor. The girl had no clue that her prized possessions were gone, as she was too distracted doing this task or that chore to check in on her dear old papa.
Not that she’d want to, anyways. He drove the only person Harper’s ever cared about away from him, and if Lady Memoria and Chance were as good of scouts as they said they were, Canary hasn’t been back to that apartment since she stormed out of there a few months ago. Harper had been aimlessly searching the streets of Paris for her mother, but she was nowhere to be found. If the coven couldn’t find Canary, she was as good as dead to them.
…That was fine. Their interest didn’t really lie in the older American vampiress, if Harper’s account of a certain New Orleans night was anything to go by; otherwise, they’d have to shove Canary into a narrative that wouldn’t quite fit what truly happened. The coven would do it, if they had to, but that would make them do more work than they’d wish to.
“I have lived now in two centuries, seen the illusions of one utterly shattered by the other, been eternally young and eternally ancient,” This monologue came easily to Drysdale, as he spotted Harper scraping a piece of gum off of a second-floor seat with a toothbrush, “living moment-to-moment in a way that made me picture a silver clock ticking in a void.”
She dropped the piece of gum into a bucket before she walked past the three aforementioned vampires, and Curt and Rod helped Artt hide the diary behind a sheet music folder as she headed downstairs to work on the first-floor seating area.
…Drysdale got distracted. He forgot his–
“–Line?”
“A painted face.” Chairemi gently helped him out, and he grabbed the bowler’s hat from in front of him and tipped it towards her in silent gratitude.
“Ah, yes, a painted face…”
“Let’s stop there. Take the passage again, Drysdale.” Amir waved around his pen before he gestured for Drysdale to come closer. “And a foot forward downstage.”
Amir then turned back towards Chairemi.
“It’s quite lovely, Chairemi.” She smiled in quiet acknowledgement before the director turned back to his lead actor. “Even more, what you’re doing with it, Drysdale.”
“Thank you, Maître.” Drysdale noticed Harper sneaking behind him upstage, quiet as a mouse so as to not disturb rehearsal. A small nod from Artt encouraged Drysdale to continue his monologue, as a way to distract the girl and the coven leader as Rod hurried away with Harper’s journal in his hand. “What does it mean to die, when you can live until the end of the world?”
“I thought I was being clever,” Amir admits to Dolly, “nailing him to the stage.”
“And what is the end of the world,” Drysdale locked eyes with Amir, “except a phrase? I have lived now in two centuries…”
He then ran his fingers down the brim of the bowler’s hat as he spoke. His body was there in the theater, but his mind and thoughts were elsewhere in Paris.
“My eyes were on him until curfew every night,” Amir continues on, “but the play had no roles for women, and petulant members of the coven were free to roam the night.”
“I walked by the theater a fortnight ago.” A man not unfamiliar to vampires sat across from Connie and Lady Memoria as he spoke. “I saw that it was dark.”
“Yes.” Connie nodded. “The theater is updating its repertoire.”
“Isn’t that exciting?”
“For those with roles in the updated repertoire, obstreperously exciting.” Lady Memoria dryly said before she let her companion excitedly explain why they were here.
“It’s why we sit across from you this evening, Pierre Roget.”
“Monsiuer Lioncourt, the gentleman whose wealth has made our sacred art possible for the last one-hundred and fifty years,” Memoria looked Roget up and down with disdain on her face, “Maître wishes to invite him to attend the premiere.”
“Ah, a… lovely mission,” Roget stumbled over his words, clearly intimidated by the pair sitting on the other side of his desk, “Of course, the difficulty is… communications with your esteemed patron only occur one way.”
After Roget spoke, Drysdale’s voice rang through both of the women’s heads.
Ask him when was the last time they were in communication.
“May we ask,” Connie placed her folded hands upon the desk as she swung her legs back-and-forth in the seat she sat in, “when was the last time you spoke with him?”
“Ah, it’s… hard to say. Communications are irregular.”
Has there been a lapse in communication?
“There hasn’t been a lapse in communication, has there?” Lady Memoria worked to pin Roget down with her words, as commanded by Drysdale.
“On that point,” Roget said, “I haven’t been authorized to divulge.”
Get on with it! The day, the hour, the minute you last spoke with Volt de Lioncourt.
“The day, the hour, the minute you last spoke with,” Connie grinned as she watched the man’s eyes glaze over, now completely under her control with her words, “Volt de Lioncourt.”
“Telegram,” The words were forced, uneasy, but still there, “New Orleans, Louisiana, early February, nineteen forty-one.”
Merci, Monsieur Roget.
“In retrospect,” Amir divulges a bit more information to Dolly, who dutifully takes notes with pen and paper all the while, “the buffoon was in the audience. Scribbling in the margins, oblivious to the conspiracy uniting around him.”
“Like the light by which God,” Drysdale was now standing, speaking the powerful words to the audience, like he wasn’t just communicating with Lady Memoria and Connie mere moments beforehand while he was performing his monologue, “made the world before He made light. Ticking, ticking, ticking. The precision of a clock, in a room as vast as the universe.”
The room went silent for a moment after Drysdale finished, and Amir applauded to fill the empty space as Curt, Rod, and Artt shouted their praises for their lead actor from the balcony. It was a perfect performance, in all aspects–
“–Really?” Dolly’s eyebrows furrow at Amir. “You were an ancient vampire. You could read any mind you want.”
“I was in love.”
What a shit answer.
Dolly shifts her focus to Eddie.
“You buy that?”
“I buy that he’d been in power a long time,” Eddie shrugs nonchalantly, “You can get lazy.”
He’s… colder, this time around. Due to our discussions about San Francisco, I guess?
…Jesus, he is going to lose his fucking shit when I tell him about the letters. I think I’m right to finish this interview before I let that bomb drop, so I can hopefully walk away with a book and my life.
“It was love.” Amir says with a pained expression on his face.
“Okay.” Eddie plainly responds, with no emotion seeping into his voice in the slightest. It’s… unnerving to see him act in such a manner that was foreign to Dolly both in the present and through your writing. “And love. He was loving in those days, sure. …Love.”
Eddie’s eyes go down to the floor, fingers tightening around the arm of the chair. Dolly’s willing to bet that he’s thinking about someone he loves right now, and that it certainly isn’t the man sitting next to him.
“Assad,” Amir finally addresses the assistant who’s been lingering in the background, quietly mixing a drink together on a larger beverage cart that he wheeled in a few moments ago, “Did you and Mrs. Molloy talk to anyone during dinner?”
Uh-oh.
“Just the chef when ordering, sir.” Assad looks up to answer Amir before he looks back down at the shaker glass in front of him.
“Were you with Mrs. Molloy the entire dinner?”
“She used the restroom for approximately five minutes–”
“–had a piece of halibut that still wanted to swim.” Dolly jokes before Amir begins to scold his assistant.
“You were not to leave Mrs. Molloy alone–”
“–he didn’t. Stood outside of the bathroom door, like a creep.” Dolly confirms before Eddie deeply sighs.
“Why do you ask? For love?”
The room goes deadly silent, minus the sound of a liquid being poured into a martini glass. With nothing better to do, Dolly reaches for Harper’s diary, and she hums when she wants to read something aloud to Eddie and Amir, since she recognized a shared phrase between you and your daughter from your last few peaceful moments in Paris.
“‘Diaries are friends of last resort. I have found one not made of paper and glue. The only thing I have to say to the coven is this: Fuck these vampires.’” Dolly chuckles lightly, gently setting Harper’s journal down on the table before she picks up one of yours and begins to read from it next, “‘Paris has nothing for me. Paris has taken everything from me. I must go elsewhere, if only to escape from those who wish to trap me in an endless loop of misery and torment. Forgive my lack of filter, but I must express my true emotions at this moment. …Fuck these vampires.’”
Dolly closes both diaries simultaneously before she sets them side-by-side on the coffee table in front of her.
“Like mother, like daughter, even in their last entries…” She cocks an eyebrow upwards. “Unless you’re sitting on more of those ripped-out pages?”
“You have everything that we have.” Amir softly says as Assad approaches Dolly with a freshly-made martini. “Unless you’re sitting on something behind your encrypted laptop.”
…Shit.
“Lucinda was Harper’s immortal beloved,” Eddie interrupts the tension that’s settled between Dolly and Amir by moving forward with the interview, “who was not yet immortal.”
“Note to self,” Dolly leans forward to speak to the audio recording as she reaches for the martini glass, “everything related to Harper from this point forward is without written corroboration. Canary’s diaries end after her fight with Eddie, and we have nothing left to go on but–”
“–our memories of Harper.” Eddie interrupts Dolly, who puts her glass up into the air in a toast.
“However porous they may come,” She then takes a small sip of her drink before she sets it back down on the living room’s coffee table, “little more vermouth next time, Assad.”
“I can make another.” The assistant offers, but Dolly turns him down, in favor of stirring the pot.
“No, it’s good,” She can’t help but reference Amir pretending to be Assad and how much she enjoyed his bartending skills during his time as Eddie’s assistant, “it’s just that his were better.”
~
It was a quiet night when I descended upon Lucinda’s dress shop. I hid in the alleyways, thinkin’ I’d be alone when I saw her since it was so late.
Even in the darkness of the night, at an hour that no one should be workin’... there she was, ironin’ away at a light blue dress that reminded me of that horrific outfit that I had left in my past… thankfully.
When I heard three people drunkenly singin’ as they walked down the street, I stepped further into the alleyway, so I couldn’t be seen by them. I also didn’t get to see Lucinda through her window anymore, which disappointed me.
I could hear every word that those two men and that one woman sang — how their breaths caught in the cool air, how their feet stopped when they reached one of the two windows in front of her store…
They stopped. In front of her store. With a bucket in both of the men’s hands.
“Good evening, Madame Lavish!” The woman spoke in broken, hurried French as the men took their red paint and put that symbol back onto her window, which I only saw when I dared to peak my head out into the street before I looked in the direction of her shop.
“Go on,” Lucinda hissed, “Do your very clever drawings.”
“Stop washing them off, we’ll stop coming,” One of the men warned, “Get it?”
The next thing I knew, I saw a hot iron fly through her window — Good for fuckin’ her, standin’ up to those assholes — and I thought that was gonna be that.
It wasn’t. With an open window, those drunkards took the opportunity to climb into her shop and chase after her, even as she tried to run away.
She screamed, and it hurt my heart to hear such distress from Lucinda as the men shoved her around and took her to the back of the shop, where I couldn’t see her anymore.
No. I won’t let them do what Bruce…
There was a man outside of the shop on the other side of the street, but he quickly disappeared when the woman yelled at him in slurred French about Lucinda. I won’t repeat what she said, but trust me, it was nasty.
I shouldn’t kill him — just the three fuckers who are after Lucinda — but I can’t trust him to keep his mouth shut.
Once that witness was gone for good, I slid inside of the shop when the woman had her back turned. Lucinda had been working on a variety of dresses for a boarding school for girls, so she had a line of grey uniforms hangin’ from a coat rack that she had dragged to the front of the store.
The drunk French woman was carelessly throwin’ them onto the floor, so when she had her hands full of that material, I surprised her with my fangs in her neck.
She didn’t have any other shit to say about Lucinda when I drained all of the blood from her body.
“Let’s see what she gave the German!” One of the men taunted Lucinda as I heard her struggle against the bed, and I rushed towards the closed-off back room before I kicked the door open.
The door flew off of its hinges, and I must’ve hit someone with it, ‘cause I heard a man scream real loud when the door smacked against the wall. His pulse was gone the moment his body hit the floor, so that only left me one more to take care of.
I hastily pulled that last man from Lucinda before I took him to the front of the store. She didn’t need to see what I was gonna do to him. He fought back more than the woman did, kickin’ and hittin’ and fightin’ to the best of his abilities, but he couldn’t do shit to me.
Well, he certainly wasn’t gonna do anything after I put those fabric scissors into his neck.
I should’ve just left him there and fled the scene, but the blood pouring out of his body was so temptin’, so I couldn’t help but drink some more after I pulled the scissors from his flesh.
I could hear someone walkin’ towards me, but I was so deep in my bloodlust that I didn’t know who it was ‘til I heard a small gasp in the direction of that back room.
Lucinda.
They had pulled her blouse from her body, ruffled up her hair, and smeared her make-up. She was a mess.
I thought she was beautiful, even then.
I slowly stood up from the body as Lucinda said a small prayer in French, thinkin’ I was a demon or some shit like that. Sure, the bloody ring around my mouth and my stained fingers didn’t help my case, but I wanted to show her that I wasn’t something to be feared.
Lucinda isn’t going to fear me. I’ll make sure of it. She’s the only one who really understands me, since Canary…
“You gonna run?” I softly asked as I watched her shiver and shake. “Don’t. Don’t run, ‘cause… a lot of noise just happened in the middle of Paris.”
I was pleadin’ with her, but I didn’t care. I needed her to stay. I needed her.
“I gotta clean up,” I explained, “I can do it fast. I can do it right, but… if I don’t clean up, you could be in some trouble.”
Lucinda looked down at the growing pile of blood at my feet — which matched the blood that soaked my black dress — before she slowly slid down to the floor, placing her hands on the surface to help calm herself down.
“That’s good.” I encouraged her in the same way my mama did when I got overwhelmed or frustrated when I was a younger vampire. I think she’d be proud of me for usin’ somethin’ she taught me on someone else. I don’t know where she is right now, but… I hope she’s well. I hope she’s at peace. “Sit down.”
I crouched down so I could look Lucinda in the eyes as I spoke.
“I’m gonna clean up,” I waited for her to nod before I continued on, “and then we can talk.”
“You’re a…” She struggled to get the words out, so I finished the sentence for her.
“Vampire.” I proudly said. I wasn’t scared of what I was. Not anymore. “You got some cheap fabric I can use and not give back to you?”
With a trembling hand, she pointed to her left, towards a large roll of fabric with the ugliest design I’ve ever seen in my life on it.
Takin’ that fabric in my hands, it’s now time to use the one of the other skills that Mama Canary taught me during my fledgling years — how to clean up real good.
~
Radio silence. Nothing. Not a peep from you in… what has it been? Days? Weeks? Months?
You said you’d come and visit Eddie as friends or family or just companions without the romantic connotation, but… you were gone. Again.
This time, however, Eddie couldn’t feel your presence in Paris. Wherever you had gone, it was a place where Eddie couldn’t find you.
Did you run so he wouldn’t be tempted to track you down and pull you back into his orbit? Did you remove yourself from the city to deny yourself of the temptation? Why would you do this after you promised him that this time wouldn’t be like last time? Are you two forever doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, until one of you drives the other to the point of no return?
Eddie’s not sure what that point is for him, but he’s got to be getting close to it.
He’s replanted the flowers that were long dead on the windowsill planters of his apartment in a variety of colors that he knows you’d adore. He’s set aside and reorganized your belongings a hundred times at this point, in case you decide to come back for the scarce things you left behind in Paris as an excuse to come and see him.
He doesn’t — can’t, more like it — sleep in the coffin made for two anymore. It doesn’t feel right to sleep next to nothing every night. How could he, when he’s constantly plagued by memories of you every time he gets close to that coffin?
Every time Eddie closes his eyes, he sees the tears that streamed down your face as you collapsed onto the floor — that bleeding heart of yours that spills onto the ground, displaying your anguish and heartache for all to see. You weren’t scared or angry with him. You were upset and exhausted.
Most likely, you needed to leave Paris for your own sanity. To protect your heart and mind from any more damage and bullshit that could be flung your way from Eddie’s stupidity.
Yet again, did you have to go? Did you have to leave him alone in a foreign country with a daughter who won’t even look his way?
Eddie loves you. He waits by the door every night until the sun comes up, in case you decide to return home to him. You can call him every name in the book — and you have — but you can’t call him disloyal. He’d wait for eternity if that meant that you’d come back to him after all of that time.
…He can’t keep doing this to himself. Wallowing in the pit of despair that your absence opened up in his heart won’t do anyone any good.
So, tonight, Eddie finds himself putting on a pair of shoes before he exits the apartment, leaving the door slightly cracked open so you could still get in, if you were to make your way back to his apartment.
Who is he kidding? You’re gone for good. He’s fucked up so badly that you won’t ever want to see him again.
The theater — the home of the Parisian coven — is where Eddie stumbles into tonight, and he has his mind set upon finding Amir as soon as he walks into the audience section of the theater.
“Have you seen Amir?” Eddie asks Bathsheba, who seems more interested in a chipped nail than the man in front of her, as he tightly clutches a covered painting that he bought for Amir.
“In his office.” She answers, flexing her fingers and rolling her eyes the moment Eddie wanders towards the back of the theater.
He brushes past Memoria as he heads down a flight of stairs, thinking nothing of the way she scoffs at him before he waits for Chairemi to exit Amir’s office before he enters.
She, too, gives him a sour look before Eddie closes the door behind him.
“I got the Wols that you liked.” Eddie pulls the fabric that’s wrapped around the painting off of it before he sets the piece upon the empty easel that Amir has in his curtained-off office. There’s two walls that jut out from the main theater wall to close off the coven leader’s domain to his underlings, but the walls are made up of mostly windows, so Amir’s draped large, black curtains from the ceiling to ensure that he has the privacy that he needs. “There’s different brushes, hands, stains, rubbin’, scratchin’–”
“–like he got sick on the canvas.” Amir dryly says, rolling up the sleeves of his dark grey dress shirt while he looks at the painting in disinterest. “Why the gift?”
Why? What’s the true reason behind the gift and Eddie’s visit?
In all honesty, he’s distracting himself from you by completely throwing himself into Amir’s world. Dates, fancy gestures, grandiose gifts… but none of those fill in the bottomless void that you’ve left in his heart.
“You have an eye for beauty, but why… this?” Amir vaguely gestures to the painting, completely unaware of how he’s launched Eddie back into a pleasant memory of you and him with such a simple phrase.
Eddie really didn’t mean to sneak up on you. You were too distracted with your daughter and Volt, watching them dance to record after record just because they wanted to. Right now, a smooth jazz melody flowed from the obscenely large record player in the middle of the parlor room, and you gently hummed along to the rhythm as you slowly swayed from side-to-side.
Harper was so young — barely fifteen, then — and she was happy to be the center of everyone’s world. That’s all she really wanted, back then, when she was new to the vampiric world and to the three vampires that had become her family in New Orleans.
You gasped when you felt Eddie’s arm wrap around your middle, soft laughter escaping your mouth before he handed you a large, brown paper sack.
“This is heavy,” You narrowed your eyes as you looked back at him, “Harper asked for one dress.”
“I know,” Eddie softly hummed, laying his head in the crook of your neck as he watched you pull out the dress that Eddie bought for you, “but I saw somethin’ that made me think of you.”
“Eddison–” You sternly said his name before you set the bag down so you could fully admire the fabric in your hands, “–you didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to, sweetheart,” He saw you smile as you held the dress to your chest, “You wanna try it on for me?”
“Yeah.” You then turned your head so you could peck his cheek. “Thank you, mon cœur.”
Eddie’s fingers went to the back of your current dress, untying the strings of the bodice so you could easily slip out of it once you disappeared behind one of the parlor room walls.
He only had to wait for a few moments before you remerged with that dress on, and he couldn’t help but smile when he saw you grinning from ear-to-ear. You did a little twirl, eyes fixated on the skirt of the dress as you watched it move alongside you.
The dress wasn’t anything extravagant, like what Harper wanted with the bold red dress that she picked out — this was a simple, plain black dress that fell to the floor, hiding your legs from everyone as the fabric hugged every single one of your curves perfectly.
“You’re droolin’, Eddie.” You lightly teased your husband before you practically bounced over to him, brimming with excitement all the while. “You like it?”
“You look beautiful.” He breathlessly said as his hands landed on your hips before they gently traced up your body, landing on your shoulders as he freely gawked at you.
“The dress looks beautiful on me, doesn’t it?” You asked, which made Eddie shake his head.
“No, mon ange. You’re beautiful in that dress.” He clarified, which caused your face to heavily flush.
“Eddie,” You bit down on your lips, shyly turning your head away from him, “you shouldn’t say those things to me.”
“Why not? ‘Seems like you need to hear ‘em.” Eddie pecked your cheek before he gave you the space to formulate your next response.
“My love, you really do have an eye for beautiful things…” You mumbled under your breath, slightly pivoting the conversation away from you before Eddie took two of his fingers and guided your head towards his, so you could look him in the eyes as he gently spoke to you.
“I know I do,” Eddie couldn’t help but wear a small smirk on his face, “I have you, pretty girl, ‘n you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Eddie!” You whined, trying to pull away from Eddie before he caught your hand and brought you close to him once more. “You’re embarrassin’ me.”
“I say it ‘cause I love you.” He whispered before he leaned in, trying to kiss you as you squirmed and tried to push him away. “Canary–”
“–you can’t sweeten me up, honey, I know what you–” You screeched when your pushing-and-pulling ended with you and Eddie collapsing onto the couch that was positioned behind him, “–want from me.”
The two of you stayed frozen for a while. You were on his lap, limbs tangled with his, and he couldn’t help but stare up at you. How did he get so lucky to have you in his life?
He was blessed — that would be the only thing that’d grant him the luck to have such a divine goddess as his wife — even though you could be mean and occasionally deny him the affection that he craves from you.
“A kiss would be nice.” Eddie gruffly said as he watched your chest rise and fall with heavy breaths.
You looked up, pretending to think about kissing him, which caused him to scoff.
“Okay,” You shrugged as a mischievous smile spread across your face, “but you asked for this.”
You started by slowly kissing Eddie on his lips before you launched an assault on his face, pressing kiss after kiss to his cheeks, neck, and forehead in rapid succession as your hands wandered up and down his chest.
You probably thought that you were taunting or teasing Eddie, not realizing that you were giving him exactly what he wanted. Your full attention, your devotion, your love… all of it was given to him, and he was going to savour every bit of it.
Eventually, your kisses were interrupted by short bursts of giggles in-between them, and one last kiss was placed upon his cheek before you couldn’t contain your laughter anymore.
You were happy, smiling, and laughing… which was everything he ever wanted for you.
“I love you so fuckin’ much, sweetheart.” He murmured, still in a daze since he was covered in the soft pink lipstick that you wore today.
“I love you too, Eddie.” You tapped your pointer finger against his nose before you pecked his lips one last time. “I don’t ever wanna be apart from you.”
That made his heart soar.
“I won’t leave you, sweetheart,” Eddie took your hand and gently kissed the back of it, “I promise.”
He should’ve made you promise him the same thing.
“If you don’t like it, we can sell it for five times the price in a year,” Eddie says, with the words flowing out of his mouth despite his consciousness not being fully there with Amir at the moment, “Thirty if he keeps drinkin’ ‘n dies.”
“And then what?” Amir asks.
“We reinvest.”
“More Wols?” Amir seems to be in disbelief as Eddie lays out a plan he’s spent far too much time thinking about, in an effort to distract himself from the temptation of scouring the Earth for any traces of you.
“In Wols, in real estate, in dividend stocks with compound interest…”
“The first vampire capitalist,” Amir chuckles, “What next? The first vampire pilot?”
“Why not?” Eddie shrugs before he gets a glimpse of Amir’s broad chest through the two buttons that he’s left undone on his dress shirt. Ah, now there’s a good distraction for a few hours. “Take off your clothes.”
“Ah…” Amir vaguely gestures to the papers on the desk behind him, “I am going through Chairemi’s new pages, and I–”
“–clothes off, face down in the coffin.” Eddie lowers his voice as he issues that sharp command. “You can read ‘em to me while I fuck you.”
Eddie manages to surprise himself with that tone of voice, which is so strange and foreign to him when he’s so used to–
“–sweetheart, I love you.” Eddie’s hands moved under your dress and up your thighs as you shifted your weight on his lap.
“I love you more, Eddie.” You said, with the intention to provoke him as you pressed your lips to the column of his neck.
You knew it made him mad when you said that — not because of the sentiment of your words, but because it simply wasn’t true. There was no fucking way you could love him more than he loves you. He’d cut his own heart out of his chest and serve it to you on a platter if you asked that of him.
“Canary,” His voice softened as he spoke so quietly and gently to you, “you know that’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” You pulled away from Eddie to lower the straps of your dress, revealing a bit of your cleavage to a man who you knew would immediately stop functioning when he saw a sliver of your bare skin. “You’re my husband, mon amour. Isn’t it my job to give everythin’ to you — to love you more than you’ll ever love me — as your wife?”
“No,” He pinched some skin on your thigh between two of his fingers, causing you to softly whimper, “it’s my job to take care of you ‘n remind you that you are loved more than you will ever know.”
You giggled when Eddie suddenly moved his hands to your hips and flipped you towards the bed, so you were pinned underneath him.
“But that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You want me to show you how much I love you tonight, over and over again, ‘til ‘m the only one you can think of,” With his hands underneath your dress, his fingers curled into the fabric of your underwear before he pulled it down your thighs, making sure to scrap his fingernails against your skin in a way that’d make you sweetly moan for him, “tell me what you want, mon ange. I’ll give it to you. You just gotta tell me, Canary, ‘n it’s yours.”
Fuck, Eddie needs you so badly. He needs to feel the warmth of your body enveloping him as you fall asleep, safely curled-up next to him. He needs to be pinned by your weight to a bed, a coffin, a balcony railing, or another close-by, large object so he can dig his hands into your ample flesh and feel you. What he wouldn’t give to feel your fingers raking down his chest, your lips meeting a pulse point on his body that would make his heart race, or your hips colliding against his as you rode him until you came.
This is a bad idea. Satiating his want for you through another will only end badly — maybe not now, but in twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy years, it’ll all come crashing down.
Yet, it’s the only option Eddie feels like he has. The other is to go mad with the eternal yearning for you that he can’t quite satisfy due to how badly he fucks up your relationship with him every time he’s given a clean slate and a chance to make things right.
Time after time, he picks the wrong option. What’s gonna force him to pick the right one? Will he ever?
It doesn’t matter. Not, tonight anyways.
Eddie quickly pulls his shirt off, and Amir does the same before he meets Eddie in the center of his office. Tonight, this will do. It must, otherwise… Eddie’s not sure how he’s going to make it another day, let alone another week or month or year without your constant presence in his life.
~
This is terrifyin’.
Sneakin’ into River’s place wasn’t the part that scared me, after Lucinda ‘n I quickly stopped by Eddie’s place to pick up a few of my older journals from my time in New Orleans. I couldn’t find some of ‘em — Eddie must’ve put them away, figurin’ that I didn’t want to come back ‘n get ‘em.
He was right, but now I had a reason to. Lucinda was my reason. I couldn’t easily explain to her what I was, but those journals… they’d tell her everythin’ she needed to know about bein’ a vampire.
It’s scary, though, to allow someone else so much access into your mind ‘n thoughts. I didn’t even let my mother read ‘em, after Eddie ‘n Volt read them on their own accord after I ran off the first time.
What if Lucinda hates me after this? What if I’ve messed everythin’ up? What if ‘m not the person she wants or needs? What then?
I know you can’t hear me, since you’re probably blockin’ me out the same way you blocked him out, but… I need you. Now more than ever. Come as a friend or a confidante, if not as my mother.
I’ve been pretendin’ to read the same chapter in this dumb book for the past fifteen minutes. I ought to say somethin’ to Lucinda.
“It probably reads shallow right now, but not…” I pulled my nose from the book, lookin’ at Lucinda from across the large, king-sized bed as she smirked at me, “not insightful? Human death in all its variety.”
Real clever, Harper. Way to fuck this up–
“–What’s blood taste like?” Lucinda asked, eyes softenin’ when she noticed that I was nervous about her reaction.
…She wants to know what blood tastes like? Why?
Maybe she’s strange, like me. A good sort of strange — the kind that you rarely find in the world.
“You’ve bit your lip before.” I tilted my head at her as she shook her head ‘n sighed.
“No, um… what’s it like to drink blood?” Lucinda was curious… about somethin’ to do with me. “Is it like drinking life itself?”
Well, I have to do my best to answer her question now, don’t I? I want her to like me more than anyone else in the world. I just… can’t explain why. It’s like ‘m finally talkin’ to someone who understands me — even the worst parts of me — ‘n now that I’ve shown her those nasty, ugly parts… she wants to know more. It’s addictin’, in all honesty.
“Warm, thick, it’s…” I trailed off, tryin’ to find the right words to explain the unique euphoria that came with drinkin’ blood. “It’s not the answer to life’s mysteries. It’s food. I need it.”
“And what about me?” Lucinda looked at my teeth for a second before her eyes met mine once more. “Right now?”
Somehow, she knew that I was thinkin’ about the blood that flowed through her veins. Lucinda just gets me, like no one else has.
“I can’t lie,” I shrugged, “I watch it slide along your veins.”
Immediately, Lucinda rolled up the sleeve of her red blouse before she shifted towards me, offerin’ her arm to me.
“Here,” She quietly said, placin’ her other hand on my thigh, which caused my entire body to heat up, “Take a sip.”
I’d love to, but I… don’t. I can’t.
“No.”
“Pourquoi non?” She gently smiled at me, encouragin’ me to drain her.
I have to stay firm in my resolve.
“No.”
“Pourquoi–”
“–mon bebe has a hard time stoppin’ when she gets a taste of mortal blood.”
Lucinda jumped at that new voice that entered the room, but I couldn’t help but grin. I knew she’d come back when I needed her most.
“Mama–!”
“–Is this the dressmaker you were supposed to run out of town?” Canary was stern at first, before that all melted away ‘n revealed that soft heart that I knew so well, which was well-paired with a sweet smile. “I listened in on the coven’s thoughts on my way over here.”
“Uh, yes, I’m the forbidden friend,” Lucinda shut my journal before she played with the back of her tied-up hair, “Harper, did you call your mother with your thoughts?”
“I did,” I was proud of how quickly she caught on to the tricks ‘n skills that a vampire has, “‘n ‘m guessin’ that she flew over here.”
“You said you needed me.” Mama Canary fixed her hair so it wasn’t as obviously that the wind wreaked havoc through it. “What kind of mother would I be if I left my daughter alone when she needed me most?”
“I’m sorry,” Lucinda briefly interrupted us, “did you say fly? Like a bird?”
“Ah, yes,” Canary lightly snorted, “The irony of my name isn’t lost on me.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. We should do introductions!” I excitedly clapped my hands together before I beckoned my mother closer to the bed. “Lucinda, this is Canary. Mama–”
“–she’s readin’ one of your diaries in my bed.” Canary quickly pointed out as Lucinda sat back down on Canary’s bed.
“I won’t tattle–”
“–it’s not you ‘m worried about, honey,” Canary sweetly reassured Lucinda before she turned back towards me, “Harper, if this gets out, the coven’s gonna break her arms ‘n throw her out the nearest window.”
“That won’t happen. I won’t let them hurt her,” I reached over and squeezed Lucinda’s hand before I moved away from the bed, grabbin’ two chairs for me ‘n my mother. “Let’s sit down ‘n talk.”
“A woman can’t ask for a couple months of peace away from her family without them tearin’ things down or fuckin’ things up, eh?” She paused before she immediately backtracked. “Neither of those are about you, baby, it’s just that Eddie ‘n I… well, mostly Eddie ‘n not me–”
“–she sold me that lavender dress I wore out a while back,” I pivoted the conversation back towards introducin’ Lucinda to my mother as I guided Canary towards a chair, ‘n luckily, she sat down with no resistance on her end, “She even tailored one for you ‘n the baby. She’s… she’s funny, she’s blunt, ‘n it’s a long story, but I killed in front of her.”
Canary simply laughed, tiltin’ her head upwards as a genuine smile creeped onto her face, which replaced the worry that had settled in her bones when she brought up the coven ‘n Eddie.
“Of course you did,” Her eyes shined as she spoke, “You’re my girl, through ‘n through.”
…She’s right. I’m her daughter. There doesn’t need to be any other disappointin’ parent figure in the picture — everythin’ I needed ‘n wanted from Eddie ‘n Volt was in her, all along.
“‘N she sat in the corner ‘n watched while I bundled up bodies,” I explained as Lucinda patted the space on the bed next to her, ‘n I sat right next to her since it’d seem rude to ignore her, “Didn’t cry, didn’t get flustered, ‘n since then we’ve been talkin’.”
Canary then looked from me to Lucinda with a knowin’ look on her face.
“Is it romantic?” She teased, leanin’ forward to press both of us.
Oh?
…Oh.
“No.” Lucinda answered first, before I answered next, with a heavy red colorin’ on my face.
“No.”
And that was that–
“–Not yet.”
…Excuse me?
I looked back at Lucinda, ‘n she simply smiled at me, causin’ me to bite my lip ‘n gaze at the ground in sudden interest at the grey carpeting that covered this part of the apartment.
Whatever I’m feeling… it’s mutual. It must be, otherwise… why would she answer like that?
“Ah, to be young and in love with a woman for the first time,” Canary mused about her own life for a moment, “it’s safe ‘n it’s precious. There’s nothin’ to rush into yet.”
“I…” Fuck, of course Lucinda picks now of all times to grab my hand ‘n squeeze it in reassurance, after she told me that she liked me back… in less words than that, “I want to talk about the reason I asked for you to come here.”
Canary folded one of her legs over the other.
“Shoot.”
“You ‘n Eddie were Volt’s, ‘n now you have River ‘n Eddie has Amir,” There was no easy way to say this, so I might as well just say it bluntly, “I’ve been a fourth all my life. Not sayin’ that to fight or argue, just sayin’ that it’s true. You tried to include me, Mama, ‘n I’ll always be grateful to you for that, but Eddie swept you up in his mess, ‘n I felt like I was just another thing to be thrown around ‘n fought over.”
I took a deep breath in, then out before I spoke.
“I feel like I deserve to pick one thing for myself, ‘n it’s her.” I glanced at Lucinda, darin’ to break my serious composure and grin at her. “A weird dressmaker that I met by happenstance.”
“A companion,” Canary pieced it together without me havin’ to say it, “You want a companion, right?”
“I, um…” I couldn’t say it for myself.
But Lucinda could.
“She does,” She looked at me for confirmation before she squeezed my hand again, to let me know that she was there for me, “yes?”
I tried to look at my mother for help, but she simply shook her head.
“This isn’t somethin’ I can decide for you,” She gently told me, “You have to tell me if you want it for yourself.”
I do. I really do.
That’s all I needed to hear, Harper, but why not do it yourself?
“Last time I tried to make a companion, it was those young boys back in…” Canary nodded, so I didn’t have to say much more about them, “They all died, Mama. I’m too small.”
“Me?” Canary pointed to herself. “You want me to…?”
“It’s a large ask, I know–”
“–Harper, I’d love nothin’ more, but I don’t know if I can.” Her hand ghosted her stomach, which caused my eyes to widen in realization, “I haven’t made one before for a lot of reasons, but she’s the main one.”
“You’re expecting.” Lucinda looks at Canary before she bites her tongue ‘n quickly looks away. “You were expecting. I… Merde, I am so sorry–”
“–don’t apologize. I’m in a unique situation with my daughter,” Mama Canary grinned as she planted her hand on her stomach, carefully rubbing her thumb up and down the front of her dress, “That dress you tailored for me… I haven’t had clothes that fit me that well since I was a mortal.”
“I’d be happy to loosen up the material on your existing dresses, or we can go through the dresses in my shop and I can tailor them to your size.” Lucinda offered, which made tears spring to the corners of her eyes.
“I’d like that.” Mama Canary murmured, softly wiping the fluid from her eyes before I put the conversation back on track.
“I wouldn’t ask you to turn her. Not… not Volt’s blood,” I wouldn’t ask Canary to offer her blood to Lucinda, anyways. I’d make Eddie do it, if that’s what I wanted — which it most definitely is not, “I wouldn’t want that for anyone. It’s not good enough for her.”
“What’s this ask of yours, then?” Canary fixed the skirt of her dress as I prepared for her to reject me the moment I asked her this.
“‘M askin’ you to betray me for a moment, ‘n I need you to get a hold of Eddie for me.”
“...Okay,” She furrowed her eyebrows, “why me?”
“‘Cause he listens to you,” I said, “‘n I bet that he’ll do anythin’ to get back in your favor. Even if it meant goin’ up to his companion ‘n askin’ him to turn Lucinda for me.”
~
Amir’s pissed.
Eddie can tell by the silent, agitated air that the ancient vampire carries around him, but he certainly doesn’t let anyone know about the anger that’s festering inside of his body.
Eddie knows what he’s asking of Amir. He wouldn’t ask it of him if it came from Harper, but she’s brilliant, like you. She knew that he couldn’t refuse a request from her, as long as it was issued from your lips.
“...Eddie?”
Eddie has never turned around so quickly in his life.
After months of nothing from you… there you were. Perched upon the balcony of his second-floor apartment, hair flowing in the direction of the wind as your legs swang back-and-forth.
“Hi, honey.” You quietly said. “‘M sorry for leavin’ you alone for so long.”
Eddie didn’t say anything. He should’ve — the love of his life was right there, and he had an opportunity to win back your love and affection — but the words just didn’t come to him.
He didn’t think that he deserved your love. Not after he replayed your argument in his head every night for months on end before he fell asleep to the sound of you sobbing your heart out.
“I shouldn’t do this. It’s mean ‘n manipulative, ‘n I don’t want to use what’s between us to get what I want,” You pushed yourself off of the balcony with two of your hands, carefully looking around the apartment before you set foot in the space, “I like what you’ve done with the place, Eddison.”
Nothing. No words from Eddie, as he gawked at you in disbelief. Were you really here, or was he starting to hallucinate you in the same way that he hallucinated Volt?
“I thought about you, as River ‘n I made our way through England. I saw all of these little trinkets that I thought you’d enjoy, ‘n I couldn’t help but pick up one for you,” You dug into the pocket of your dress before you dug out a silver watch to present to Eddie, “The man I bought this from claims to be the great-grandson of the man who designed Big Ben. He even made sure that it had the correct time on it, tunin’ it to that big clock when I bought it. I know it’s not much, but… it’s somethin’ for you to remember me by.”
Your fingers brushed against his as you handed him the watch, and he knew that this wasn’t a dream or a fucked-up fantasy or a hallucination of his mind when he felt that touch of yours, even though it was brief and inconsequential to you.
It meant everything to him, though. The gift and your presence. Proof that you thought of him, after all of that time and distance between the two of you.
“Canary, sweetheart,” Eddie started, carelessly tossing the watch on the bed so he could pull you into his arms, “You have no fuckin’ idea how happy I am to see you.”
“Oh!” You exclaimed, hands hovering over his back before you finally decided to embrace him in return. “’m happy to see you too, Eddie. I missed you… a lot, actually.”
“You’re glowin’,” Eddie pulled back from you so he could look at you fully, “you’ve been eatin’ well.”
“Thank you, mon amour.” You whispered. “That’s sweet of you to say, but I don’t think I look any different.”
Eddie’s hands went to your forearms before he pressed a kiss to your forehead, which caused you to gasp in surprise.
“Shit, Canary, ‘m sorry,” He instantly backed off, letting go of you once he remembered how you didn’t want your relationship to be romantic anymore, “That wasn’t–”
“–It’s okay, Eddie.” You reassured him as you extended your hand in his direction. “I would’ve been worried if you didn’t try to kiss me. …I don’t mind you showin’ me that sort of affection, as long as there’s no expectation of it leadin’ to more, if you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” He interlaced his fingers with your before he gazed into those orange eyes that he loved, the ones that held so much affection in them despite the severing of your bond due to his previous actions, “you said you need somethin’ from me, right?”
“I do, but I hate to ask this of you. I don’t want you to think ‘m tryin’ to convince you of–”
“–anythin’ you need, mon ange. It’s yours. I don’t care if you think it’s too much, or if you think I wouldn’t do it for you,” Eddie tilted his head to the right, black hair sweeping across his eyes, “I would. ‘M gonna take care of you for the rest of my life, even if you don’t want me to.”
“It’s about Harper,” You frowned for a moment, trying to find the words before you spoke, “and a mortal girl.”
“You need me to clean somethin’–”
“–No, Eddie. Harper wants to make this woman her companion,” You gently explained, “and she wants Amir to do it.”
Amir hadn’t said a word to Eddie since Eddie asked this favor of him, and that silence would continue until the pair had walked into the dressmaker’s shop and closed the door behind them.
“She swore an oath, trampled on our laws, and I am to reward her for it?” Amir begins to lay into Eddie as Harper stands in the background, softly talking to Lucinda behind a curtain that replaced the door that Harper had apparently kicked in when she rescued Lucinda from those mortals that broke into her shop. “To every vampire, a dressmaker? What do I tell the coven, then?”
“They’ll bitch at the moon, mock you in their coffins, but she never fit in,” Eddie argues back, “They won’t miss her.”
You’re here, somewhere — Eddie can feel your warm presence in the space, but he can’t see you with his eyes. You must be hiding, in fear of what the coven leader would do to you for the disobedience that you’ve shown him over the past few months.
“You think you’re happy with me now?” Eddie tries to talk Amir down, even as the latter’s jaw sets in frustration as he looks at Harper’s small frame. “Can you imagine me without the burden of her?”
Harper’s eyes fixate on Eddie for a moment as she places her hands behind her back.
“Paris is yours, Maître,” She reassures Amir, “I ask for this respectively.”
“Respect comes without a shield,” Amir hisses as he angrily walks towards Harper, “You’re a manipulator, Harper de Lioncourt!”
She freezes at that name, as does Eddie.
“No,” Eddie shakes his head, “you don’t get to call her that.”
Volt was never her father. It was always Eddie. Sure, they may share some personality traits, but that’s all that ties Volt and Harper together.
“Fine,” Amir then suddenly turns around, talking to a tall white door that leads into a small dressing room in the corner of the shop, “Close your minds, all three of you. I’ll know it if you haven’t.”
“There’s no one in there, Maître–”
“–when I come out of this room, Mrs. Watts de Lioncourt needs to disappear. Send her back to whatever hole she crawled out of, and make sure that she does not reemerge until the turn of the century,” Amir warns before he throws the curtain in front of him open in a dramatic fashion, “I say this out of the kindness of my heart — the coven doesn’t take kindly to deserters.”
He then closes the curtain with a bit too much force before Harper and Eddie let out a collective sigh in response.
“You can come out now, Mama.” Harper says before she takes a seat near the windowsill, allowing you to escape from that dressing room that you were hiding in.
“Watts de Lioncourt,” You roll your eyes as you peek your head out of the door, slipping into the main part of the dress shop once you made sure the coast was clear, “what a fuckin’ joke. That motherfucker hasn’t done anythin’ but cause us pain, ‘n now I have to wear his name ‘cause I was foolish enough to love him an eternity ago.”
“That doesn’t have to be your name, Canary–”
“–don’t take another step towards me,” Your face darkens as you place your hand out towards Eddie, stopping him from coming any closer, “‘Can you imagine me without the burden of her?’ Are you serious, Eddison? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Ah, yeah, that… does sound really bad, when Eddie takes the time to think about it.
“Harper wouldn’t need us if she had a companion–”
“–she’ll still need us. We’re her parents,” You bite your lip as you look at Eddie with a mix of disdain and hurt in your eyes, “You made her for me — for us — yet you’d throw her away like she was some old, raggedy doll that you don’t wanna play with anymore. You’re unbelievably self-centered ‘n vain, just like him.”
Ouch.
“I am nothin’ like him, Canary.” Eddie crosses his arms over his chest as he wears a wounded expression. “You ‘n Harper act more like him than I do.”
“Excuse me?” You blink rapidly as you quickly approach him, venom dripping from your words. “You’d really compare your daughter ‘n your wife to the likes of him–”
“–you started this–”
“–really? So you just had to take things one step further, since I wounded your pride?” You dryly laugh before you shake your head. “How naive I was, to think that a few months spent with Amir would knock some common sense into that thick skull of yours.”
Eddie can’t believe what he’s hearing from you. With your piercing gaze and a grimace on your face, you look so much like Volt in that moment that Eddie lets something terrible slip from his lips.
“You’re not actin’ right. You’re not actin’ like my Canary.”
And, of course, you react accordingly to that comment.
“Right, ‘cause there’s a certain way I have to act for you. A certain way I have to do my hair, ‘n fix my clothes, ‘n do my make-up so it appeals to you. Everythin’ in my life has to be for you, ‘cause you cannot imagine a world where I do not revolve around you.” You lowly hiss at him. “I am just an accessory to you, one that you can put on and take off as you please. I don’t like that. I don’t want to be that anymore–”
“–Somethin’ happened to you in London,” Eddie works to find the roots of this anger, praying that it’s pent-up and misdirected towards him since you’ve never behaved like this before, “there’s a coven out there. Did they say somethin’ to you?”
The anger melts off of your face instantly, replaced with a melancholy that makes his heart hurt for you.
“...How’d you know?” You quietly ask, playing with your fingers as your gaze stays pointed at the ground.
“When you’re pissed at me, you yell or stomp your feet or break down ‘cause you can’t handle the pain that you’re feelin’ inside of you,” He explains, “you don’t act like this. Someone’s done somethin’ to you to make you feel lost ‘n scared ‘n alone, ‘n you’re takin’ it out on me ‘cause I said some stupid shit that I shouldn’t have even thought of. Talk to me, Canary. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“You don’t care.”
“I do. I care too much, when it comes to you,” He chuckles for a moment, “Gimme your hand.”
Reluctantly, you place your hand in his.
“Was it about her?” Eddie’s eyes drift down to your stomach as you place your other hand on the table behind you, tilting your head downwards so you can hide your face from him.
“The London coven called me an abomination,” You whisper, voice breaking with every word, “they wanted to burn me at the stake like I was a witch. They called me — us — a monster, ‘n River had to hide us so I wouldn’t be killed. I can’t ever have a normal life ‘cause of my baby. I don’t get that privilege. Everyone gets to run off ‘n live their lives, but not me. I have to hide ‘n sneak around ‘n live in the shadows of the shadows so I can stay alive. Do you have any idea how tirin’ that is?”
“Is that why you were gone for so long?” Eddie asks before your head bobs up and down.
“It was only supposed to be a two-week trip, but the London coven had us pinned down, ‘n it wasn’t safe for me to leave.” You softly sniffle. “I risked everythin’ to come here ‘n be with Harper. I can’t stand the thought of her bein’ alone when she needs her mother.”
“You should’ve called.”
“You wouldn’t have come.” You shoot back at Eddie, who scoffs before he brings your hand to his lips and kisses each of your fingers individually.
“I would’ve. I’d do anythin’ for you.”
“What if Amir said no?” You challenge. “What then?”
“I…”
“A hesitation,” You snatch your hand back from Eddie, nervously rubbing your hands together as your shoulders sag further, “You’d ask for permission first, then either go along with what he said, or defy his word, dependin’ on what the answer was.”
“His opinion is important to me–”
“–and ‘m not.” You wrap your arms around your middle as you speak.
“I didn’t say that.” Eddie calmly refutes your claim before you look up at him, tears forming in the corners of your eyes.
“You didn’t have to.” You suck in a bit of air — to let that sentiment ruminate in the space for a minute — before you continue on. “God, ‘m tired of tryin’ to be a better person than I am. ‘M gonna say this plainly, ‘n ‘m only gonna say this once. I want to be the center of your universe, Eddie. I want to be the person that you seek out first, ‘n everyone else becomes an afterthought ‘til ‘m taken care of. I want to be your everythin’, ‘n I only ask this of you ‘cause I do all of those things for you, Eddie. I put you first. I seek you out first before anyone else. You are my everythin’. I just want that sort of attention ‘n care given back to me, for once.”
“...I can’t do that.” Eddie admits in total defeat.
“I know,” You nod to yourself, “‘n that’s why we won’t work right now. We can’t. Maybe in fifty or a hundred years, when we’ve both changed ‘n figured out what we want from life, we can try again, but we can’t keep doin’ this to ourselves. I can’t keep doin’ this to myself.”
You step away from Eddie, even though it seems to physically wound you to do so.
“I hope you find what you’re lookin’ for in Amir, Eddie. I really do,” You force a small smile onto your face, despite the bloody tears that fall down your cheeks, “‘n ‘m sorry that you had to waste thirty years of your life on me. On somethin’ that was never gonna work in the first place.”
“It wasn’t a waste,” Eddie immediately follows up your words with some of his own, “you weren’t a waste of my time. You’re everythin’ to me.”
“But ‘m not enough for you,” You correct him, “‘n that’s why our marriage will never work, if we continue down this path together.”
You maneuver around Eddie, hurriedly walking towards the door until Harper grabs your arm and forces you to stay with her iron grip.
“...So that’s it?” Confused, she looks from you to Eddie, then back at you. “Thirty years, down the drain, just like that?”
“We’re not healthy–”
“–who is?” Harper cuts you off. “Who’s not fucked up after everythin’ we’ve been through?”
“Eddie doesn’t love me the way I love him,” You choke back a sob as you speak, “he can’t.”
“So what? You run off into the night alone? That won’t end well for you, Mama.”
“I have River–”
“–You do,” Harper momentarily agrees with you, “But she’s not him. She won’t die for you, if push came to shove, like Eddie would. She won’t sacrifice everythin’ so you could be slightly more comfortable for the rest of your life like he would.”
“You don’t know her like that.” You argue back before Harper laughs to herself.
“Funny. Eddie said the same thing to me about Amir.”
“I–” You catch yourself, not allowing any more emotionally-fueled words to escape you without a little thought behind them. “...You’re right.”
“Of course ‘m right,” Harper arrogantly says before she steers you back towards Eddie, “Listen, ‘m not gonna be around forever, ‘cause Lucinda ‘n I have big plans for the future. As much as I hate to say it, I think you need him, Canary. You need somebody like him to take care of you.”
“‘M not a child–”
“–I never said you were.” Harper interrupts you, yet again. “God, you two are insufferable. Can you just fuck ‘n make up already? I’ll give you the room if you need it–”
“–Harper–” Eddie begins to scold his daughter, but you’re leagues ahead of him in doing so.
“–That’s not how this works. That’s not how we work. Sex doesn’t solve anythin’, it just complicates matters further,” You pinch the bridge of your nose with two of your fingers as you wipe tears from your eyes, “Harper, no one wants me. I don’t fit in with the coven, with vampires from another country, or with my family. ‘M a mistake. Volt would tell you the same, if he was here now–”
No. Eddie won’t let you crumble under the unfair expectations of vampiric society, or fool yourself into thinking that you are nothing. A mistake? You are the furthest thing from that — if anything, Eddie thinks that you’re the closest thing to perfection, if such a thing truly exists.
“–you’re not a mistake. We,” Eddie gestures to the two of you with his hands, “weren’t a mistake. The time we spent together wasn’t a mistake. Do you think that I was punishin’ myself by stayin’ with you?”
Bitter silence hangs in the air as you quietly process his words, but he won’t let you drown in silent anguish anymore.
“Everythin’ in our lives has been so fucked up, ‘n a lot of shit that I’ve done has felt wrong, but lovin’ you never did.” Eddie takes a step towards you, and he feels extremely relieved when you don’t back away from him in return, “Fuck, Canary, I’d go through all of that shit back in New Orleans again if it met that I had the chance of fallin’ for you again, even if you didn’t feel the same way towards me.”
“You love me that much?” You work to bridge the gap between you and Eddie next, slowly shuffling your feet forward so it doesn’t feel like there’s an ocean of soured feelings between you and him. “You’d go through all that sufferin’ again… for me?”
“Of course I would.” Eddie answers. “The only thing — things — I’d change is my own stupidity and arrogance. I have fucked you over so many goddamn times, sweetheart, and you’d be in the right to never forgive me, but I would give us one last chance if you would–”
Your arms suffocate him before he has a chance to finish, and he can’t help but shed a few tears as his head finds a home in the crook of your neck.
Home. That’s what you are. That’s what you’ve always been to Eddie. Without you, he’s felt lost and led astray. You are what he needs… but he’s got to stop fucking up the best thing in his life.
“‘M willin’ to try again,” You murmur into the safety and comfort of his body, “but if you lie to me or fuck me over again, Eddison, I swear to God–”
“–no, angel, that’s done. ‘M an open book to you. I promise you that much.” His shaky hands go to your face before he delivers an overwhelming, beautifully powerful kiss to your lips. “I love you. I need you. I want you, ‘n I will do whatever it takes to be the man who deserves to be your husband.”
“I love you too, honey, but you got a lot of shit to work on.” Your sweet laughter echoes around the dress shop as you kiss Eddie on the lips in return. “Why don’t we go out for a hunt later, when things around here have quieted down a bit? ‘Gives us a chance to talk in private.”
“Hey, ‘m an adult!” Harper stomps her left foot on the ground before she pouts, causing you to coo at her in a manner that makes her more irate. “Stop that, Canary, you’re embarrassin’ me!”
“Ah, you want to look like a proper young woman in front of your girlfriend.” You can’t help but tease your daughter, which makes her smack your arm in response as Eddie chuckles to himself.
“Girlfriend?” One of his hands goes to your waist as he subtly shifts you closer to him. “That’s what you meant by companion… right, mon ange?”
“Uh-huh,” You giggle as you place your back against Eddie’s chest, grinning up at him as his arm snakes around your waist, “she’s real pretty too.”
“No, we’re not doin’ this!” She races over to Eddie’s side and steals the box of cigarettes that he keeps in his right coat pocket.
“Hey–”
“–you’re nervous, baby, I get it.” You work to soothe your daughter as she grabs a lighter that Lucinda’s stashed near the tri-fold mirror in her shop, lighting the cigarette effortlessly before she tosses the lighter and cigarettes your way.
“‘M not.” She groans as you catch the cigarettes and lighter, fingers fishing one out of the box before you place them on the table behind you and Eddie.
You let Eddie take the lighter from your hand, creating a carefully-stoked flame that he cups with his empty hand so you can light your cigarette as well.
Politely, you offer Eddie one as you take a puff of yours, letting a ring of smoky air escape your lips after you turn away from him and Harper, but he refuses; instead, he takes the lit cigarette from your hands, allowing you to snuggle closer to him as he holds the cigarette — and the smoke it emanates — away from you.
“He’s going to say yes.” Your motherly instincts go into overdrive when you sense your daughter’s anxieties without her having to voice them. “You don’t have to worry.”
“You’ve grown stronger since we’ve been apart,” Harper quietly says before she brings her cigarette to her lips once more, “I like this version of you, Canary.”
“I–”
“–Harper,” Lucinda’s merry voice carries into the room, despite the wall that separates her from the three of you, “he thinks there’s something left of my era!”
“They seem to be havin’ fun,” You giggle to yourself before your lips find their rightful home on Eddie’s neck, “Don’t worry about Amir, Harper. I think he’s gonna say yes.”
Eddie thinks the same, too, as he listens to the faint mumbling from the room next to his family, who are reunited and together under the same roof, breathing the same air and enjoying each other’s presence once more.
~
Amir solemnly watched Lucinda when he entered the room, not daring to say a word as the girl carved into an apple with a spare spoon that she just happened to have laying around.
Humans ingest their food in strange ways, but this has to be the strangest. It’s an unorthodox method, at the least, as Lucinda scoops the flesh of the apple out like she was eating a bowl of ice cream.
Amir kept his thoughts to himself, though, only stopping a few feet from the mortal woman as he looked at his nails in disinterest.
“You’d like to be one of us?”
He expected begging or pleading from Lucinda, but that wasn’t what he got as an answer.
“No. I want to be with her,” Lucinda clarified, “And you… you can go fuck yourself.”
A spitfire, much like Harper and her mother. Amir could see the appeal of such a woman to the likes of the young American vampiress.
“They always think they’re different,” He walked around the girl’s living area in the back of her shop, tracing the red and blue floral patterns that decorated the light pink wallpaper in the room, “Stronger — superior — until the loneliness comes.”
“Monsieur, I’ve been alone for a long time.” Lucinda looked him directly in the eye as she licked the bits of apple off of her spoon before she dug back into the fruit.
…A strange mortal, indeed.
“You’ll be a monster.” He plucked a book off of a nearby bookshelf, skimming through its contents with ease as Lucinda thought carefully about her next answer.
“If you make me a monster,” She said, slowly and deliberately, “you’ll only be turning me into what I already am.”
He didn’t expect that answer from her. Interesting, fascinating, disturbing… how did poor Harper stumble upon such a creature in the first place?
“Will you eat humans like you eat your apple?” Amir shed his brown overcoat, throwing it over a nearby chair as he looked Lucinda in the eyes. “One a night. No pity for the child, the mother, the sick, the poor?”
“I’m a human and I like my food.” She shrugged. “When I’m a vampire, will I like my food?”
“How will you choose who to kill?” Amir asked the important question to Lucinda, who handled it with grace.
“I’ll kill on the edges, the weak first,” She explained her strategy as Amir walked around the small table that separated her from him, “And, occasionally, I’ll indulge my appetites.”
“And what will you do when the last remnants of your era are gone?” He leaned back against the very wood table, trusting in its strength to hold him upright as he tried to intimidate Lucinda. “The cars, the hairstyles, the beliefs…? How will you go on?”
“Young man,” Lucinda smiled warmly at him, stopping her strange assault on the apple in her hands by stabbing the poor fruit with that very spoon before she set it aside for later, “There’s been a war.”
Then, Lucinda suddenly raised her voice so everyone in the other room — but mostly Harper, though — could hear her.
“Harper, he thinks there is something left of my era!”
She then laughed, as if this was funny to her. Like some grand scheme or big joke that she got to be in on. How could she take the gifting of such a curse so lightly?
Amir held his hand out, palm-up, and he snapped two of his fingers together, making that apple that Lucinda previously set aside suddenly appear in his hand. He then set the apple behind him, as a simple show of his power, before he opened his mouth once more.
“How will you survive for eternity?”
“The man who lived across the street,” Lucinda held her head high, not breaking Amir’s strong gaze for one single moment, “The Gestapo came for him. We heard a gunshot when the car turned the corner. The woman two doors down, too… she starved to death in her bedroom. She used to wear chic clothes, but she got thinner and thinner until one day, I looked through her front door and there she was. A skeleton in chic clothes. Sometimes, I would see it in their eyes, when they were about to give up. I survived, though. I followed my instincts. I found the love I needed… even when it was a dangerous kind of love.”
She paused, gently smiling as she stared at the curtain in front of her.
“I’ve found that love again. In Harper.”
Amir stood, calmly turning around before he sat on the blue couch that Lucinda had perched herself upon. She leaned lackadaisically against the arm of the sofa as Amir stiffly sat next to her, crossing one leg over the other as he thought of what to say next.
“And what will you do, in a few decades, when she throws herself into the fire?” Amir rubbed his thumb and pointer finger together. “Because she will.”
Lucinda whipped her head in Amir’s direction, seemingly insulted by the insinuation that Harper would end her own life after she had gained a companion of her own choosing.
“Or maybe she won’t,” Lucinda quietly argued, “You don’t know. Maybe I’m what she needs to survive.”
The pair both moved their gaze towards the blue curtain that hid the exit to the room, not exchanging another word for a long, long time.
~
“He said no.” Eddie tells Dolly, with a little extra emphasis and anger behind his statement.
“I said I would not do it.” Amir clarifies his stance to the reporter.
“Maître in the bedroom, Maître when it’s hot or convenient." Dolly jokes about their dynamic, and, to her surprise, Eddie agrees with her.
“That’s how I took it–”
“–I had reasoning.” Amir intercepts Eddie once more, not looking at Eddie when he glances towards Amir.
“What was it?” Dolly might as well get all of the story, if she’s gambling her life on this.
Was my escape from San Francisco a fluke? Can I manage to do the same here?
“He had never made one.” Eddie explains, which immediately confounds Dolly.
“What?”
“I have never made a vampire.” Amir shrugs, like it isn’t a big deal.
It is, though, since these vampires put so much emphasis on companionship and the harrowing emptiness that came alongside vampire loneliness. Did Amir never crave companionship enough to create fledglings of his own?
“You are a five-hundred year old vampire.” Dolly leans back on the sleek back couch, allowing her body to lounge a bit, to counteract the stress that’s compounding in her mind with every growing moment that she spends in this damned penthouse. “You led the Parisian coven for two centuries.”
“And he hadn’t told me.” Eddie speaks bitterly and without remorse.
Right now, there’s no love lost between these two.
“I did once,” Amir counters, “He didn’t hear it.”
“He didn’t.” Eddie verbally parries Amir’s comment once more.
“The idea repulsed — repulses,” Amir makes a quick correction that makes Eddie scoff, “me.”
“Well, at least we can agree that it was a disingenuous act.”
“I went in there open-minded–”
And there those two go again, arguing like it’s their job.
“–you walked into Lucinda’s shop with your mind made up!” Eddie can’t stand to look at Amir in all of his self-righteous glory.
“It was an outrageous request!” Amir seems to snap at Eddie, ending this argument with a raised voice. “This is Eddie’s opinion on the matter–”
“–what about Harper’s opinion?” Eddie looks to Dolly, who picks up Harper’s journal despite knowing what her opinion on the matter would be.
It’s very clearly written at the end of the journal, right at the bottom of the page.
“Hmm, let’s see, let’s see,” Still, Dolly makes a show of flipping to that last page to read those words that Harper wrote over seventy-five years ago, “‘Fuck these vampires.’”
Eddie nor Amir say anything about the matter further, thus putting this discussion to rest before they continue on with what happened under Amir’s nose in Paris.
“What I’ve learned, I’ve learned from draining men, reading their thoughts.” Drysdale continued to rehearse his lines as Harper closely watched him as she scrubbed the stage wall that was in front of the audience. It was grody and disgusting, even by these vampires’ standards. “Not from books. I never went to school long enough as a mortal.”
“You do not know your vampire nature.” Chance spoke his line perfectly, as if the two were having a genuine conversation about the topic at hand rather than lines that were scripted, memorized, and then read off in front of an audience. “When our maker Guido gets here, he’ll tell you the same!”
“And what if Guido never shows?” Drysdale kept facing away from the audience until the coven leader in the room felt the need to speak up about the matter.
“Drysdale, why is your back to the audience?” Amir made a circular motion with his pen to gesture to the man to face forward.
“I’ve got an impulse–”
“–It doesn’t work,” Amir shut him down without hesitation, subtly shifting in his second-row seat, “turn around.”
“But,” Drysdale slowly turned to face Amir, “if we stage it in the round–”
“–and where shall we put the audience?” Amir pointed out, much to Drysdale’s chagrin. “Behind the fucking projection screen?”
A curse. A moment of weakness, a lack of composure from the man who was known for being calm and collected in the face of adversity.
“Ooh,” Drysdale couldn’t help but taunt the man, “what’s up your arse tonight? Is your companion stuck up there, chewing on your inner bits like a hamster?”
Harper softly laughed, shaking her head as she then worked to buff the front of the stage.
“Harper,” Amir stood, then walked to the space between the front-row seats and the stage to confront her first, before he closed in on Drysdale, “can you, respectfully, find another object to buff?”
Harper said nothing as she dropped her sponge into the dirty water in the bucket that she had been lugging around all night.
“Always a yes, Maître.” She said before she disappeared from his sight.
One nuisance dealt with — now onto the next.
“Projections are our aesthetic–”
“–or a crutch.” Drusdale whispered as Rod handed him a loose copy of the script for the lead actor to look over as Amir gave Drysdale a few notes of his own.
“I am the director, directing. A play is a map for production.”
“Uh, no,” Drysdale glanced up from the script before he placed a clawed hand on top of the papers, “A play is the script, and there are no mentions in this script of projections.”
Amir then turned to Chairemi, who nervously looked around until Drysdale shifted the blame onto her.
“That’s your cue, Chairemi.”
“I… It’s a work in progress.” A mediocre answer stumbled out of her mouth as Drysdale’s eyes widened in pretend shock.
“Oh!” He had no qualms with mocking the scriptwriter, especially in this context. “Oh, I see, alright.”
Amir turned his back to Drysdale, gesturing for Curt to fix the lightning back onto Drysdale so rehearsal could get back on track.
“Pick it up,” Amir made demands now, with no room for argument unless you wanted to be punished afterwards for daring to speak against Maître’s word since his word was law, “where we left off–”
“–well, if it is a work in progress,” Drysdale wasn’t talking back to the coven leader — no, this query was directed towards the brilliant mind behind this work, “can I ask when the fuck is Guido arriving on stage, please?”
“He can’t. He doesn’t.” Chairemi defended her choice with vague answer after vague answer. “He mustn’t.”
“Where we left off, Drysdale.” Amir placed his hand on the back of the theater seat that he was once positioned in, ignoring the prying eyes from the coven members behind him that were watching this entire encounter with a fierce eagerness and defiance.
“Guido is hope,” Chairemi wouldn’t let her works go undefended, though, as she came up with a story-driven reason for her decision to not include the fictitious maker in the play, “There can be no hope.”
“You want to write poetry — write poems,” Drysdale curled up the papers in his hands into a cylindrical shape before he pointed downstage from his current positioning, “This is a stage. We perform plays on a stage–!”
“–Is this your version of honoring the playwright–?” She shot back, which caused a smirk to appear on Drysdale’s face.
“–Not prose, poems, or fucking maps!” The anger that Drysdale felt festering underneath his skin came to a boiling point, and he could not let himself remain relaxed any longer. “And plays require events, Chairemi! There are no events in your shitty little play, and Chance and I are dangling up here!”
“That can be remedied!” Amir wasn’t one to lose a shouting match, however, as his voice loudly rang out in the house of the theater. “Daisuke–!”
“–we do horror shows so we can eat people!” Drysdale threw that script into the air, not caring where the various pages landed as he flew up into the air before he pointed at Chairemi. “You’re fangless!”
Once Drysdale had flown over the majority of the sitting company and landed near the exit of the theater, where the coven leader couldn’t see his true expressions or feelings, Drysdale spoke to the playwright in his mind.
I love your work, Chairemi. Apologies.
Chairemi didn’t mind, simply shrugging as she went back to the script in her hands, but not without saying something back to Drysdale.
Well played, Maître. You’re good at acting on the spot.
“You summoned me?” Daisuke, with a large broom in his hand that he was fixing up for another scene in the production, appeared on stage as Amir angrily huffed before he sat back down.
“There’s a script on stage. It’s yours for the moment.”
“You’d put him on stage?” Chairemi looked at Amir like he grew another eye in the middle of his forehead. “I think you’d have better luck with the broom he’s carrying as a lead–”
“–this is temporary,” He reinforced, to himself and to the coven, “he’ll be back.”
“The Berlin Blockade ended in May. The Geneva Convention was agreed in August. What’s in your hands, Dolly,” Eddie works to provide some context to the photo copies of the newspapers that Dolly’s holding onto at the moment, “are some of the front pages from that year. If you look in the filler — in the back pages — strange crimes were reported.”
“They’re in French.” Dolly complains before Amir deeply sighs.
“A telescopic lens, stolen from the Observatory at Meudon. A film company shooting the crime thriller Porte D’Orient was delayed when its inventory of color film stock was snatched.”
“A bunch of drunks, hanging off of the side of the Eiffel Tower. They’re all facing south by southwest, all muttering in unison, and they were gone by the time police arrived by elevator.” Eddie weaves the story together as Amir simply shakes his head with a… remorseful look on his face.
“All these crimes were left unsolved, and they were unrelated to each other until I realized what the coven was up to in their free time.”
~
“A thousand humans arrive in Paris, each carryin’ a suitcase.” Eddie turns to his companion, Amir, as they descend down a winding stone staircase that cuts through a majestic park in the middle of Paris that’s only visited by a few people at this hour of the night. “What’s one more vampire?”
“Why are we still talking about this?” Amir shakes his head. “This should be behind us.”
“‘M not satisfied with your answer.” Eddie confesses.
“We’re not satisfied, you mean,” Amir slides his hands into the pockets of his coat, “I know this opinion is shared by another.”
Eddie’s stunned into silence for a moment. How much of your reconciliation did he know about? Did he know that the two of you spent most of your nights together since you came back to Paris? Did Amir know that you had such a strong command over Eddie’s heart, even after so much time, distance, and pain was put between the two of you? Did he know the sweet words you said to each other after he left Lucinda’s dress shop?
“‘M sorry for the shit I said back there,” You took Eddie’s arm as he guided you throw the twisted, turning alleyways of Paris, ignoring the strange looks you get from men and women alike because you two were not dressed like the type of people to slink through the dirty, dusty shadows of Paris, “You were right. I was takin’ my anger ‘n resentment out on you when you were only a small part of it.”
“I shouldn’t have said that you acted like Volt, or that you weren’t actin’ like yourself–”
“–you were right, though.” You tried to place the blame solely upon your shoulders as the two of you passed under a flickering streetlight that darkened your face before it illuminated a gentle smile that appeared on your features when the light suddenly shined down onto you, as if you fixed the streetlight with your mere presence.
“That doesn’t mean that it was okay to say. I could’ve said it better, in a way that wasn’t hurtful to you.” Eddie placed a hand on your hip, carefully moving you to the other side of the sidewalk so you aren’t walking near the street. “I don’t wanna hurt you. Seein’ you in pain — especially because of me — is like torture. I wanna be better for you.”
“You should want that for yourself, too.” You murmured. “I don’t want you to stuff yourself into a mold ‘cause you think it’ll please me. Then we’d just be switchin’ parts, ‘n that’s the last thing I’d want for us.”
“I don’t want that for us, either.” Eddie moved his head close to yours, to claim a bit of the skin on your cheek as his own with a brief kiss. “We should probably get back to Harper soon. I know she asked for space after Amir decided not to turn Lucinda, but I think she’ll need you to help her through this.”
“Us, Eddie,” Your fingers squeezed his arm before your thumb rubbed a bit of revealed skin on his arms due to the sleeves he had rolled up a few moments prior to you leaving Lucinda’s dress shop with him, “we’re both her parents. She might not acknowledge you as a father, but she still values your presence in her life. It’d mean the world to her if you were there for her right now, but don’t expect her to thank you.”
“I wouldn’t–”
“–Hey,” A low, growly voice stopped you both in your tracks, “You tourists are in the wrong part of the city.”
You simply chuckled, calmly turning on your heel before you face the mortal man who dared to interrupt your nice evening.
“Ah,” You clicked your tongue in disapproval, “I suppose I could indulge and eat a little extra tonight. How about you, Eddie?”
Eddie turned his head back, giving the stocky stranger a once-over before his attention went back to you. That guy wouldn’t stand a chance against you, despite his strong build and tall stature. With your vampiric strength, you’d bring the guy to his knees with a clawed hand to his ankles.
“‘M alright, sweetheart. You have your fun,” Eddie plucked your hand off of his arm, only to briefly bring it to his lips so he could kiss the back of your hand and wink at you, “but don’t play with your food, Canary.”
“But Eddie,” You whined in playful frustration as the streetlights near the three of you flickered wildly before they dimmed, casting you all in complete darkness, “that’s half the fun!”
Eddie laughed, pressing a few rogue kisses to your cheek before he unleashed you onto the unexpecting mortal.
“What the fuck–”
He only had a second to react to your fangs before you tackled him into the ground, burying your fangs into his neck as he thrashed around wildly underneath you. Eventually, he stopped moving, and you pulled away from him with a river of blood flowing down your lips, right onto your dress.
“I love you, Eddie,” You look up at Eddie with sweet eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips, “I love every piece ‘n part of you — even the parts of you that wound me greatly. I love how I hunger for you, ‘n how everythin’ you do drives me wild. I love you, Eddie. I wanna try this — us — again. Will you have me as your lover?”
“The bloodlust is gettin’ to you–”
“–don’t tell me that.” You pushed away his concern with your words as you held out a blood-soaked hand to him. “I’ll tell you the same thing in a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, years, decades, centuries… you name it, honey. My love is yours. It’s always been yours. Why won’t you take it from me?”
You were wounded until Eddie came to your side and intertwined his fingers with yours, blood be damned. Any blood you spilt was also spilt by him, in one form or another.
“I just don’t want you to do anythin’ you’ll regret tomorrow. You’re not my prisoner. You’re my companion, my light in this shitty world, my everthin’, my Canary.” Eddie dropped to his knees so he could meet your eyes before he placed his other hand on your cheek, to help wipe away the blood smudges that were on your cheek. “You’re not gonna be my first choice, mon ange. You’ll be my only choice. I will stand by you, as long as you want me there.”
“I do, I always do,” You breathlessly say before you smash your lips against his, “even if I tell you that I don’t, I do. Even if I curse you or hate you with all of my heart, I still want you near me. Our souls are tied together, ‘n we’re meant to collide, crash ‘n burn, ‘n then rebuild everythin’ we’ve destroyed together. I don’t care how many times we do this, Eddie. We’re gonna get it right one of these times.”
“If I do somethin’ stupid, or if I lie to you–”
“–you won’t wanna see the woman I’ll become, ‘cause it won’t be pretty,” You vaguely warned him, “but I’ll eventually come back around to favorin’ you. ‘M glad Harper talked me out of doin’ somethin’ stupid ‘n leavin’ you. She gave me her blessin’ to be with you, despite the shit you pulled with her in New Orleans, ‘n she wants us to be happy together.”
“I wasn’t happy when you were gone.” Eddie leaned closer, so he could press his nose to yours. “I haven’t been that fuckin’ miserable in years.”
“I know. I… London was pretty, but it would’ve been prettier by your side,” You giggled as you moved your head back and forth, so you could brush your nose against Eddie’s repeatedly, “We should see the world sometime. Just the two of us.”
“I’d like that,” Eddie agreed, “I’d really like that–”
“–Good. We’ve settled our future,” Suddenly, your fingers dug into his shirt as you tugged his face even closer to yours, so you could have command of his body for your own pleasure, “but right now, ‘m a lot more interested in seein’ where this night leads us.”
Amir might know about that… but yet again, he might not. Still, Eddie doesn’t take his warning from that night lightly.
“When I come out of this room, Mrs. Watts de Lioncourt needs to disappear. Send her back to whatever hole she crawled out of, and make sure that she does not reemerge until the turn of the century.”
So you’ve been hidden away, in a place that Eddie’s put into the deepest crevices of his mind, so that not even Amir, the strongest and oldest of the Parisian vampires, can find you.
“Those we make ourselves will always despise us for it.” Amir’s stiff warning pulls Eddie from that warm memory of you and him in the streets of Paris, and he’s forced back into the greenery that surrounds him and Amir.
“Curt ‘n Rot are inseparable. Bathsheba, Connie, ‘n Lady Memoria are tight, when they’re not at each other’s throats–”
“–And he made you, Canary, and Harper.” That statement from Amir shuts Eddie’s argument down completely, stopping to observe Eddie as he continues to walk forward with a pre-determined path in mind. “Canary asked you to turn the girl. You’re going to do it, right?”
“Yes.” Eddie’s short with his answer, not feeling the need to explain any more.
What other explanation is needed? You asked him to turn Lucinda when Harper begged you to turn the girl yourself. You were worried about accidentally killing the girl, as if the blood that flowed through your veins was tainted by the unborn child in your womb.
“Volt’s blood was good enough for us.” Eddie spoke softly to you, gently moving a disobedient strand of hair out of your eyes so he could look into them. “It makes no difference, whether it’s you or it’s mine–”
“–what if I mess it up somehow?” You expressed your worries to your husband as you laid together, face-to-face, in that large coffin in Eddie’s apartment. “I theoretically know how to turn someone, but ‘m worried that I won’t do it right. …Even if I do, Eddie, what if my blood doesn’t take? What if ‘m weak, ‘cause of our child, ‘n I accidentally kill the girl? Harper would never forgive me!”
“You’re stronger than you think you are, Canary, but I get where you’re comin’ from,” Eddie’s hand went to your stomach, pressing his thumb into the fabric that lies over your flesh, “‘n she’s not your weakness, either. She makes us better people. I don’t wanna imagine where we'd be, or what kinda monsters we’d turn into without our daughters.”
You hummed in agreement, sleeping bleeding into your gaze as your eyelids began to droop.
“So you’ll turn Lucinda?”
“I will,” He kissed you on the lips as he waited for you to drift off to sleep before he even thought about making himself comfortable enough to do so, “I promise that I will.”
“When?” Amir pries further.
“Tonight.”
“It’s forbidden,” Amir catches up to Eddie when it’s clear that the latter isn’t stopping until the former gets in his way, forcing Eddie to pause so he doesn’t run his lover over, “Harper didn’t want his blood in her–”
“–She doesn’t have an alternative.” Eddie looks down at Amir’s clean black shoes that shine in the moonlight, not daring to meet Amir’s cautious, leering gaze.
“It could fail. The woman could turn into one of those drooling revenants that you and your family saw back in–”
Well, Amir’s not shutting up, so Eddie’s got to find a way to shut the man up himself. With steady fingers, Eddie grabs the collar of Amir’s coat before he places a kiss on Amir’s lips to silence the man from any further arguments.
Amir’s passionate in his returning kiss, bringing his hands to Eddie’s face and keeping him close until Eddie decides to pull away, in order to bring some needed oxygen to his lungs.
“You shouldn’t do it,” Amir’s softened up now, “You shouldn’t tell me. My mind, I… I can’t keep it closed anymore.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
“I want you to come,” Eddie throws an invite towards Amir, choosing to unpack what Amir said at a later date and time that never comes around, “‘n I want you to witness.”
“...Why?”
“‘Cause…” Eddie bites his lip, thinking about how excited you were about turning someone the right way, with supportive hands and friendly faces around them as they were given the Dark Gift, “it could be beautiful. We can bring one into our world in a good way.”
“Are you asking me or making me?” Amir solemnly asks, waiting for an answer from Eddie that only comes after a few seconds of silence, and in the form of him removing Amir’s hands from his body. “I’m sorry–”
“–it’s okay.” Eddie side-steps Amir, leaving him alone with only the bushes and trees in the park as companions as Eddie walks away from the park. “Just make sure we’re not bothered, yeah?”
~
“I can’t believe that my last glass of wine is a Chardonnay.” Lucinda swung her draped legs back and forth while she was sat upon an elongated table in her shop that was transformed into a makeshift bed with her favorite pillows and blankets placed upon the surface, to make the mortal girl more comfortable as she was ushered into death with her beloved by her side. “I should have prepared more.”
Her nails clinked against the wide-rimmed wine glass that she held in her hands as her nervous gaze snapped to the windows, which were covered with perfectly-cut fabric from Lucinda’s collection. She would have no need for such things if all went to plan, and even if it didn’t, she wouldn’t be around to use it anyways.
“Oh, I like this song!” Lucinda wore a warm smile as she was drawn to the record player in the corner of the room, helping calm herself as Harper slowly paced back and forth a few feet in front of Lucinda. “‘My Heart is an Island Bird.’ …I’ve never been to an island. Well, I was once, on a lake, surrounded by carp. I don’t like carp, I don’t like Chardonnay… this feels right for my life.”
Harper gently took the glass from Lucinda, placing a hand upon the woman’s naked thigh that was revealed by the short, light grey robe that had dark grey flowers splattered all over the fabric.
“‘m gonna go crazy if we don’t start.” Harper chuckled, setting the glass aside as Eddie came to Lucinda’s other side.
As you had firmly established beforehand, Harper was in charge here, and she was the one making the calls since Lucinda was to be her companion.
“Yeah, me too.” Lucinda laid down on the table before Harper brushed her hair away from her neck so Eddie had easier access to her veins.
“Now then, if you get scared, you just look at that light,” Harper pointed at the blinding, bright lamp light that was above her, “and listen to my voice. I won’t let anythin’ go wrong.”
“Don’t worry about the blood,” Lucinda whispers, fingers itching to touch Harper, but she managed to restrain herself for the moment, “It’s the blood that made you.”
Eddie wasn’t entirely sure how to do this himself, but memories flashed in his own eyes of your turning, along with Harper’s. Snarling fangs, draining of the blood, offering your blood to another, pained screams of agony and reluctant acceptance at the same time…
That last one wouldn’t happen tonight, though.
He closed his eyes, letting an odd sense of calmness come over him as he let his fangs slowly extend from his mouth. With a bit of encouragement from Harper, Lucinda indulged her own curiosity by running a thumb down one of Eddie’s fangs.
Lucinda seemed to have the same interest that you did, when it came to his fangs. He remembered how a younger, human version of you sat upon his lap as you forced his mouth open, gazing upon those sharpened teeth of his with wonder and pure acceptance.
Eddie, in that moment, understood why Harper wanted Lucinda to be her companion. Somehow, the same strong feelings that stirred in Eddie’s chest when he gazed upon you had now occupied Harper’s mind and body as she pet Lucinda’s hair as a way to comfort her through this whole process.
He would’ve been devastated if someone refused to turn you — in the dream scenario where you weren’t forced to be a vampire all of those years ago — yet you still wanted to be one. Eddie would’ve turned to someone like himself in that moment — a distant father figure, in the loosest definition of that word, who would still fulfill his request because he loved the woman who asked this of him.
For the first time in years, Eddie felt like a father to Harper. He spent so much time pushing her away because they didn’t see eye-to-eye on most topics, but that was all just a waste. He loved her, just as he loved you. This — transforming Lucinda — would be a devotional act that would prove this to Harper.
He didn’t hesitate any longer. His little girl asked him for a companion, and, goddamnit, he was going to give that to her. He was going to give her the world, if she asked it of him.
“Lucinda… welcomed my fangs,” Eddie’s in disbelief at his own recollection of her turning, “Like a lamb smiling up at the wolf, accepting their fate. She wanted something that I hated about myself, and she took it with grace.”
Lucinda was… different. He didn’t know the girl for long, but she was strange, like the vampires in the Parisian coven. She fit in with your happy little family, though. She adored Harper in a way that only an outside force — not you, not Eddie — could. She saw behind the walls that his daughter had put up, and she loved Harper anyways.
“She watched the lamp while I fed on her.” Eddie feels motivated to talk, sans any interjections or questions from Dolly. “Harper guided her softly through the whole thing.”
“The room is turning…” Lucinda trailed off, eyes becoming less focused as Eddie’s fangs drained her of his blood.
“That’s good. That’s right.” Harper encouraged, keeping her hand running through Lucinda’s hair. “You’re turnin’ cold. That’s good, too. Just hold on to my voice.”
Eddie was too busy feeding, trying to make sure that everything went right to notice that Harper could no longer resist the temptation of Lucinda’s blood when the mortal’s neck was so perfectly presented to her.
Harper softly snarled, her own fangs jutting out of her mouth, but she couldn’t force herself to take a bite out of Lucinda’s neck.
“I want you to.” Lucinda softly said, her hand reaching for Harper’s red blouse. “I want you to take what you need.”
Harper still hesitated, eyes carefully watching Eddie before she decided to indulge in her hunger. Only then, when two pairs of fangs were in her neck, did Lucinda softly gasp in pain.
“Where was Canary?” Dolly asks, and of course she does, because you were there.
“She was there to pull me or Harper off of the girl if we got carried away. A silent, calm, motherly force in the room,” Eddie smiles at the thought of you being able to light up a room by simply entering it, “Harper drained Lucinda when she was asked to. She drank with reverence, I drank with… obligation.”
A hand combed through Eddie’s hair before you leaned over and brushed some of Harper’s hair out of the way of her mouth. You were there as a guardian angel of sorts, to simply observe and only interfere if things went terribly awry.
Eddie shuddered when your hands went to his shoulders, fingers digging into muscle that’s carried so many burdens, so much stress, and a lot of agony and pain over his lifetime. You slid down to the ground, where Eddie had placed his knees so he could have better access to Lucinda’s neck, and you wrapped your arms around Eddie’s middle before you placed your head against his back.
“Mon cœur, ‘m here. You’re doin’ such a good job. You’re helpin’ our family heal,” You murmured as you nuzzled your head into his back, “I love you. I love you more when you act like this. Selfless ‘n kind. The man who’d give anythin’ for his family. That’s who you are, Eddie. That’s what you need to focus on. Keep us in your heart, ‘n you won’t go astray.”
“Disjointed fragments of Lucinda’s life filled my head,” Eddie whispers, transfixing on how present your voice is in his head — how close you sound to him — despite being so far away, “as if her blood carried those memories with it.”
A man that Lucinda bedded. A kiss pressed to flushed skin, while Lucinda held the bedsheet to her naked chest.
A warm, sunny afternoon, with joy spread amongst Lucinda’s family. Sweet nectar from a rare fruit coated her tongue. The air blew through her hair as she glided through it on a wooden swing.
Death. A dark room with black dresses and a corpse in a box. Too young to understand why death had come for that important girl in Lucinda’s life.
More. Two coffins, this time — Mother and Father — and Lucinda in the middle. Opened up, facing outwards, a flash from a camera. One last family photo before they were buried.
Being carried through a street by two terrifyingly strong men. The screaming of a riled-up mob in her face. Men and women alike, who taunted Lucinda before she was brought to her knees.
Drumming. Loud drumming, as the men tore at her hair, stripping her of her last shreds of dignity as she cried for a merciful God that never came down to save her. Rough hands removed part of Lucinda’s shirt, revealing her pale bra to the world, alongside a buzzcut that she didn’t ask for, before another camera went off. The terror and fear she felt would forever be captured on film, to be sent in and displayed on the front page of the newspaper.
“I pulled away,” Eddie looks away in shame from Dolly before a tiny smile creeped onto his face, “I couldn’t stand what I saw, but Canary… she took my place and saw somethin’ different. Somethin’ better.”
“...Can I ask what she saw?” Dolly then leans forward to address her computer. “Keep in mind, for the record, that this recollection of Canary’s experience is from Eddie, which makes it…”
“Eddie?”
Eddie’s head snaps to the left side of his chair, where you — not really you, but the fictitious, beautifully haunting version of you that’s lingered in his head since the day you left him — rest your chin on the arm of Eddie’s chair as you gaze up at him with nothing but love in your eyes for your husband.
“Don’t look at me like that,” You merrily giggle before you bite your lip, waiting for Eddie to place a hand down on the armrest so you can put yours on top of his, “I always get so nervous when you’re looking my way, even though it’s been so many years. You make me feel so many things, honey, and I love them all.”
You’re not here. Your hand goes right through his, as if he needed another reminder that you weren’t here, and yet… he wants to believe that this is you. That the orange-eyed beauty that’s looking at him like he built the entire world for her in a day because she asked for it is really here with him in Berlin.
You’re not, though. Somewhere in Canada, you’re probably curled up with a book in your arms, watching the rain fall through an open window as you pull a blanket tighter around your shoulders. Since you were turned, you ran colder than most other vampires, so you always had a blanket or coat on to help yourself feel a bit warmer. You think only of the characters on the page in front of you — how they’ve grown and changed throughout the story, how they interact with each other and the world around them, how they’d act in other scenarios — but maybe, just maybe, your mind wanders and you think of Eddie.
You’d smile lightly, shaking your head before you turned to the next page. Eddie promised that he’d come for you, so you’d enjoy the quiet, comfortable life that Eddie always wanted for the two of you as you waited for your husband to rejoin you.
He will. He will tear apart this entire fucking world if that means that he’d find you on the other side of that wreckage.
“Once you finish your interview with Dolly, we can discuss you coming back with me to Canada.”
River made her conditions clear. He’d get through this interview — through the great trauma that would tie you and Eddie together yet tear you both apart inside — and then see you on the other side of it.
You were close. Closer than you had been in fifty years. Eddie should push this phantom version of you away since the real version of you is right there, yet… he can’t muster the courage to do that to you.
He can’t even hurt this ghost of you. The thought of seeing you in dismay as you faded away from him… he can’t. He wouldn’t.
So, for one last time, he lets himself pretend like you’re here.
“I saw Harper in an impossible afternoon light that she could never survive in.” You smile from ear-to-ear, excitedly recounting this memory to Eddie as if it were the very first time. He’d listen like it was the very first time, too. He’d listen to all of your stories, again and again, just to hear the sound of your voice. So he could be comforted by your words, even if they were meaningless and had nothing to do with whatever Eddie was dealing with at the moment. “Harper, as Lucinda perceived her. Resplendent… rendered even more beautiful by her beholder. I knew then, with all certainty, that she would be a better companion to Harper than we ever were.”
Eddie still didn’t understand what you meant by that last part. You were, from Harper’s account and his memories, the best companion to Harper throughout the years. You had done everything right, had shielded her from all of the pain that you could… yet you still felt like you failed her. Like you hadn’t done enough.
Like correcting one small misstep would’ve prevented what happened next.
“Eddie? Eddison Watts?” Dolly snaps her fingers, and Eddie’s gaze is drawn away for a brief moment as the reporter looks at him with a perplexed expression on his face. “Any day now.”
Right. He still didn’t answer her question, he was too busy listening to…
Another glance your way, but you’re not there anymore. Gone like the wind. Gone, like you were never in his penthouse in the first place. Like Eddie didn’t wake up to the sound of your laughter echoing through this space every day, and how on the days he didn’t sleep well, he’d chase after the sound, expecting to see you when he knew such a thing was an impossibility.
Like he didn’t see you every night before bed, where you’d quietly whisper sweet nothings to him, and he’d tell you them back in his head, so as to not wake up Amir, who would be upset that Eddie was indulging his imagination. Like he didn’t trick himself into thinking that you were underneath him instead of Amir on the nights that the two got into a bad argument and decided to work their issues out in a more… creative manner.
He was softer during those times. Seeing you react to his every motion once more was so much more satisfying than whatever else was happening in the world at that present moment.
…Dolly’s question. Shit. Eddie got a little carried away in yet another daydream.
“She saw Harper in an impossible afternoon light that she could never survive in.” Eddie conveys your words and emotions to Dolly as best as he can. “Harper, as Lucinda perceived her. Resplendent… rendered even more beautiful by her beholder. She knew then, with all certainty, that she would be a better companion to Harper than we ever were.”
Dolly hums before she lets a rare, real smile appear on her face.
“I take back everythin’ I just said,” She then glances at Eddie briefly before she wipes the merriment off of her face, returning to the neutral, stoic expression that she usually carried, “I think Eddie remembered that perfectly.”
Eddie huffs in amusement. He hasn’t got a lot of things right with you, but he’d never tell your side of the story wrong. Your words were delicate, fragile little things, and Eddie would rather die than butcher them.
“I tore my wrist open,” Eddie moves smoothly along with the story, “and I fed her my blood.”
The girls had left shortly after Lucinda was able to walk without assistance from Harper. They were off to explore the world in their own unique way, as companions.
Eddie hadn’t really moved from his spot on the floor — why would he, when you were still so close to him? You held him so gently as you laid your claim to his neck, placing your red-stained lips against his flesh over and over again.
“You’re still bleedin’.” You said, mouth temporarily removing itself from his body so that he could hear you. “Your wrist–”
“–I’ll get it, sweetheart,” Eddie caught your hand before it could travel down to his wrist, which was bleeding right onto the floor, “You don’t need to do anythin’ but stay here beside me.”
“Where else would I go? Who else would I want to be with, at this moment, besides my husband?” You smiled that tender smile of yours into his skin. “I wonder if this is how my parents felt when they sent my siblings off to college. Proud of their children and their future pursuits, but mournful of what once was once. Missin’ the way they used to cling to their mother’s coattails, or how they begged their father to tell them one last story before they went to bed–”
“–Our baby girl’s gonna be just fine out there,” Eddie detected your anxiety through your soft-spoken words, and he wished to remove that worry from your mind, even for the tiniest moment, “She’s smart ‘n kind, like her mother. She’ll live–”
“–that’s what ‘m worried about, Eddie. I don’t want her to just live anymore. I want her to thrive.” You explained as you continued to work down his neck, placing your lips against any unmarked skin until you achieved your goal, which was to apparently paint the entirety of Eddie’s neck in the same color that covered his wrist. “I want her to smell the roses ‘n see everythin’ beautiful in the world. I want her to fall in love — not the kind of love that’s quick ‘n easy, though. The kind that’s like a fire. Small at first, but when you pay attention to it ‘n feed it, it grows ‘til it’s out of control.”
“The kind we had?” Eddie’s breath hitched when your agile fingers easily unbuttoned his light grey dress shirt. “Mon ange, I–”
“–yeah, like the kind we have,” Your correction didn’t go unnoticed by Eddie, who could only watch in utter fascination as your mouth moved from the side of his neck to the front of his chest, leaving smeared traces of your lips against his skin all the while, “Harper doesn’t know it yet, ‘n if she’s anythin’ like us, she won’t know it for a while, but I see it in her eyes. She loves that woman the way you love me — wholeheartedly, and without apology. She’ll fight for Lucinda ‘til her last breath, ‘n I just know that Lucinda would do the same for our Harper.”
“Canary, pretty girl, what are you markin’ me up for?” He laughed easily — that sort of laughter wasn’t common for a while. It was always forced until you came back into the picture. You made everything lighter on his shoulders, and the world was painted in illustrious, magnificent colors with you as the focal point. You, you, you were the center of the galaxy. The center of everything, the sole object that the universe revolved around. Everything already came back to you, anyways. “‘M yours, angel. Everyone knows that. I don’t wanna live in a world where I don’t belong to you.”
“I want your heart, my love.” You peeled away a bit more of his shirt so you could trace the shape of his heart over his skin. “I want your devotion, your time, your attention. I want it all.”
“It’s yours,” Eddie whispered as you kissed the space on his body where his heart would beat, sending shudders down his spine, “Everythin’ I own ‘n everythin’ that I am is yours. Take it. Take me.”
Your eyes snapped up to meet his before you chuckled to yourself.
“Funny… I was about to ask you to do the same thing,” You took Eddie’s hand before you stood, inviting him to stand with you, “We’re alone now. It’s just us. We can do everythin’ we’ve wanted to do to each other for a long, long time.”
“What are you suggestin’?” Eddie wore a small smirk as he got off of his knees and joined you. “What do you want from me?”
“I could tell you,” You winked at Eddie before you pulled him into the back room of Lucinda’s shop, “but I think you’d enjoy figurin’ it out for yourself, no?”
“What happened next?” Dolly pries. “What did you and Canary get up to that night?”
“I… Nothing, really,” Eddie prays that Dolly pays no mind to the flush on his face that’s appeared from the thought of that night, and how you two laughed and teased each other as you fucked, “I took her to her hiding spot, and then I walked myself home. Amir came and checked on me a few hours later.”
Dolly’s scrutinizing gaze makes Eddie sweat bullets, but, luckily, she doesn’t say anything about his little white lie. God forbid that he wants to keep a small sliver of the life he shared with you private.
“If we could go anywhere in the world,” You collapsed against the bed as you spoke, reaching out to cup Eddie’s cheek as he turned towards you, “where would you take us?”
“Wherever you wanted to go, sweetheart.” He easily answered, which caused you to tut at him.
“No. I chose Paris. You get to pick where we’re goin’ this time.”
“This time?” Eddie noticed your phrasing — you were always so careful with your words, so you clearly meant what you said. “You wanna take me with you?”
“Of course I do! Traveling’s more fun when you’ve got good company.” You held the bedsheets to your naked body as you kissed Eddie. “There are just so many places I wanna go, ‘n I can’t decide for myself, so it’d be better if you picked someplace first. That’d be the best startin’ point, in my humble opinion.”
“We can go anywhere, ‘n we can take as much time as we need to. We’ve got plenty of it, mon chou.” He placed his hand around your wrist before he pressed his lips to your thumb.
“Mon chou?” You said before you softly snorted. “‘Haven’t heard that one in a while, mon chéri.”
“Now you’re teasin’ me while ‘m tryin’ to be serious.” Eddie prodded at you a little bit, which caused you to scoff.
“You called me a cabbage, Eddison!”
“Not any cabbage. My cabbage.” Eddie enjoyed this sort of light-hearted banter with you, especially when you pouted at him, like you were doing right now.
“Like that’s any better! You could call me pretty girl, sweetheart, ‘n angel, like you usually do, but you went with cabbage.”
“Je suis désolé, mon canard–”
“–Tu es méchant avec moi,” You then rolled over so you would face away from Eddie, “Bonne nuit, connard.”
“You still have a mouth on you–”
“–one that was very nice to you about thirty minutes ago.” You grumbled. “‘Least you could do is be nice with yours.”
“My mouth was nice to you, sweet girl,” Eddie smirked proudly when his fingers curled around your shoulder as he pulled you closer to him, “when you had your legs over my shoulders–”
“–Va te faire foutre, ‘m tryin’ to sleep here–!”
“I ever tell you how pretty you look when you’re pissed at me?” Eddie chuckled when you retaliated by throwing your pillow at his head, and he knew you didn’t think this one through when he took your pillow hostage and held it behind his back. “Sweet girl, you don’t scare me. Nothin’ you do ever could.”
Eddie then leaned over your frame to kiss the pout away from your face. One kiss didn’t do it, and neither did two, but you were melting in his hands by the time he counted to twenty… or was it thirty? He lost track of things so easily when your love and affection was put into the mix.
When you smiled at him, the world was right again. Everything was good when you were happy and by his side.
…No. That memory is staying with Eddie, until he can see you in-person and make new ones just like it, if you’re still open to that sort of relationship with him. Dolly only needs to know about what happened next, with him and Amir in his apartment in Paris.
Blood fell down Eddie’s wrist, and a pool of it grew bigger and bigger by the moment on the floor as he let the wound freely bleed. The injury was healed earlier, when you and him were fooling around, but the temptation was too great and he had reopened the wound once he was in the comfort of his own apartment.
Her blood stained his clothes, his neck, and his face — you had cleaned some of it up earlier, but Eddie wanted to leave some of it on his lips. As a sobering reminder of what he had done tonight — what he had sacrificed — for his family.
Plain, ordinary footsteps came down the hallway to Eddie’s apartment — not your gentle, featherlight footsteps or Harper’s heavy ones — but Eddie doesn’t even acknowledge the person that comes through his door with a packed suitcase and an indifferent expression on his face.
“Did she take?” Amir slowly asked.
“Yeah, she did. They’re both…” Eddie was at a loss for words. Harper was gone, which created yet another deep chasm of suffering in his heart. One that he failed to anticipate as an effect of his actions tonight. “on their way. I told ‘em to get out of town, but I think they made plans to do so beforehand. They’re gone, ‘n I know that, ‘cause I can feel her.”
It was hard to describe what it felt like to have an extension of yourself roaming around in the great big world. To bring words to a conversation would trivialize the invisible ties that let him feel exactly what she feels in the moment.
…Is that how Volt felt? Did Volt feel an expansive nothingness creep over him when you were in the depths of despair? Did he shed tears when twin waterfalls fell down your eyes after you were wronged yet again? Could he, somehow, feel the child you carried inside of you as well as the turbulent emotions that swirled around in your mind because of it?
Lucinda was out there in the world, and Eddie knew her every movement like it was his own. Every breath taken in was exhaled through his own lips. In-sync, but the girl could only feel a fraction of what her Maker felt.
Maker. Fledgling. Words of unimportance to Eddie mere hours ago now felt like a noose tightening around his neck.
“Lucinda. A stranger. My fledgling.” Eddie shook his head as Amir set his luggage down before he crouched in front of Eddie.
“What happened here?” Amir took Eddie’s wrist into his hands.
“Opened my wrist back up,” Eddie felt no need to lie in this very moment, “Gagged myself, tried to throw the blood back up. I felt like… like I was losing Harper. I cared, even though she didn’t. I finished the job. She took my hand, and we said something about being even. She didn’t care.”
“And of the woman?” Amir slid a finger up the wound, closing it instantaneously. “What of her role?”
“She skipped town, too. ‘Said London was callin’ her name.” Eddie lied about you and your whereabouts. “I wasn’t going to clip her wings.”
“Give it time. She is a difficult one, but one worth having,” Eddie’s gaze finally found the abandoned suitcase as Amir spoke to him, “You’ll find your way back to each other.”
You two already have found your way back to each other, but Amir doesn’t need to know that. Not right now, at least.
“What’s in the suitcase?”
“Some clothes, a few books… a cutting from a magnolia tree I’ve been growing.” Anir explained before his expression turned grim. “I could have fought. They might’ve killed me, then hunted the four of you down before they caught you and burned you. I don’t know if it will satisfy. There might be hostilities or the first bloodless vampire coup.”
…Could’ve fought. Bloodless vampire coup. The coven. Amir and the coven, they…
“You broke with the coven?” Eddie dared to ask after a moment of silence.
“They gave me a choice,” Amir put his hand into Eddie’s hand, “I chose.”
“That’s what you said to me, right?” Eddie, in the present, is more volatile with his questioning of Amir. “Standing in my blood, stroking my hair.”
“You know it is.” Amir has his body completely shifted away from Eddie — he’s deflecting, hiding, trying to run from something that is inevitably coming his way, like a train barreling down the tracks at an unthinkable speed.
“That’s my memory of it, but you were there, too,” Eddie then looked to Dolly for back up, “Maybe there’s something I missed? …Or, maybe there’s something in my mind that you put there later–”
“–Stop it!” Amir is harsh, demanding, more like the Maître that you and Harper perceived him as in the writing you both produced before he immediately softens and curls back up into this harmless little shell that he’s wrapped himself in. “Stop it. This is too important of a moment in our story for these games.”
“Our story?” Eddie grins with a little spark of madness in his eyes. “This isn’t some fucking play of yours. This was — is — my life. Their lives. I don’t want to get this right for me anymore… it’s about my girls. Getting them right, as they wanted to be perceived.”
“A game, you say?” Dolly let Eddie’s sentiment hang in the air, as she didn’t feel like there was a reason for her to comment on his words. “Is there a game being played?”
Dolly’s hardening gaze, along with the seething glare coming from Eddie, finally motivate Amir to speak up.
“You’ve remembered what you did to yourself in San Francisco, and you’re angry that I erased it.” Amir meets Eddie’s eyes, correctly guessing the emotion that lay behind them.
“I am.”
“You’ve no right to be.” Amir has the audacity to say such a thing, then let it hang in the air for a moment before he says more. “You asked me to do it.”
A pin could drop in the room, with the deadly silence that’s enveloped the vampires and the mortal woman.
“...What?”
“He’s full of shit.” Dolly rolls her eyes before Amir lashes out at her.
“I’ve failed Eddie once in my life. It wasn’t in San Francisco.”
“I’d never ask you to do that!” Eddie has no problem snapping at Amir, once Amir had done the same to Dolly. “Why would I want to forget anything that has to do with my wife–”
“–the pages I tore out of Harper’s diaries,” Amir has no problem shoving his pointer finger in the direction of Eddie, “we did most of those together.”
Well, there’s Dolly’s answer to that question.
“Not all of them–”
“–and the ones I did on my own,” Amir towers over the room when he stands, trying to enforce some form of subtle control over a situation that is slowly spiraling towards something that he clearly does not want to discuss at the moment, “were to protect me from you, Mrs. Molloy. Why did I owe you my shame? Why did I owe you my one act of cowardice and the series of abhorrent consequences that followed?”
Amir looks like a wounded, defenseless animal as he takes a moment to collect himself.
“I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to make up for it.” He takes a shaky breath in to help calm himself further. “I’ll never make up for it, but he forgave me for it.”
Dolly crossed her arms over her chest.
“I didn’t forgive you.”
“Drugs did far more damage to your mind than five nights in San Francisco–”
“–it was six.” A subtle, yet probably unnecessary correction, but Dolly still feels the need to make it.
“My point made.” Amir hones in on Dolly. “You’ve as sharp a mind as any human that walks. You want an apology? I’m sorry. Eddie thought it was the right thing to do, too.”
Eddie spares Amir a skeptical glance at best when the latter takes a seat once more.
“You were going to drain me, pal.” Dolly scoffs before Amir apologizes again.
“Belated apology number two, then.”
Dolly looks to Eddie, who has a mix of sadness and understanding splashed upon his face before he angles himself towards Amir.
“I asked you to erase it?”
“Yes,” Amir answers, “after you came out of a shower in our home in Sausalito. Three days after we had abandoned her.”
Dolly shakes her head in disapproval as Eddie stifles his next comment, obviously trying to decide how to take this new revelation.
“Continuing on the record, Mrs. Molloy,” Amir has no problem pushing the interview forward, even if Eddie is hesitating, “I was a coward.”
“We’ve been buryin’ our meals outside of Saint Denis,” Harper explained her strategy for staying undercover to the table of three other vampires, with one empty chair remaining for a guest that was anticipated by all tonight, “Flowers are startin’ to pop out of the ground. Lavender, sweet iris, peony.”
With her hair tied back into a messy ponytail, and a simple yellow dress that Lucinda tailored to her small stature, Harper looked more like herself than she had in years.
“Flowers growing from the dead,” Lucinda added, happily staring at the girl that she had spent all of her undead life with, “Cold things becoming warm.”
“I saw a dead girl in your mind,” Eddie asked from across the table, his gaze settling on that empty seat to his left between him and Harper, “while you were dyin’.”
“Oui,” Lucinda confirmed what Eddie saw, “Aimee, my sister.”
“Is she,” Eddie tilted his head towards his daughter, “the replacement?”
Harper simply rolled her eyes.
“I saw the same thing that night,” She then reached for her drink, “We already had it out.”
“Aimee, we used to call her the family idiot.” Lucinda gave a bit more information on her dearly departed sister. “She would eat pinecones. I didn’t tell Harper about Aimee because I didn’t want her thinking she was… what was your word?”
“A replacement,” Harper’s fingers then tapped Eddie’s hand before she wore a tiny smile on her face, “So thank you for fallin’ right back into Daddy Eddie shoes, and thank you, Amir, for never treatin’ me like a child. Take some lessons, Eddie.”
Amir had been mostly quiet throughout this encounter, letting the three of them talk as he simply listened to the string quartet playing in the back of the busy restaurant, but he decided to throw a question of his own to Harper once Eddie had scoffed at her words.
“Are you thinking of coming back to Paris?”
“To trash piles and men who smell like cheese?” Lucinda looked perplexed as to why Amir would ask that question in the first place. “Non, merci. No. We’re going to wander.”
“Wander?” Eddie couldn’t help but chuckle a bit as he pointed at Harper. “This one? She, of the straight line to the next X on the map?”
“This is the X, Eddie.” Harper reached under the table to grab Lucinda’s hand.
“Alright, well…” Eddie put his glass into the air, “to finding the X.”
The whole table raised their glass to participate in the toast before another figure scrambled into the restaurant.
“Merde, ‘m late, I know ‘m late.”
With a satchel resting upon your hip, and determination in your gaze, you charged towards the table in the back, where Amir spots you first and keeps his glass raised to you.
“To finding what we thought was previously lost.” He nudged Eddie’s elbow, so he too noticed your appearance in the room. “I told you to give it time.”
“Mama!” Harper cried out your name before she wrapped her arms around your middle once you arrived at your destination. “You didn’t have to come. I don’t want you to come, if it’s not safe for you–”
“–and miss seein’ my baby girl after so much time apart?” You ruffled the girl’s hair, causing her to moan like the action caused her physical pain. “You’ll have to tell me all about your travels.”
“And what of yours, huh?” Harper raised an eyebrow at you as you pecked Eddie’s temple. “What has the greatest American novelist of the twentieth century been up to in her free time?”
“Ah, Harper, my work still remains unpublished– thank you, my love,” You interrupted your story so you could thank Eddie when he popped out of his seat to pull your chair out for you, “but we’re gettin’ closer to that very date. I just gotta find a fittin’ cover first. I’ve narrowed it down to a few of River’s designs, but ‘m still undecided on the one, y’know?”
“You’ll have to send me a copy.”
“You don’t seem like you’ll have an address for me to send it to, if I heard you correctly,” You lightly teased your daughter before you took a sip out of your drink, “Go wander for a while. You can read my book when you get bored of explorin’ ‘n need somethin’ to occupy your time with.”
Harper simply nodded before she smiled knowingly when you leaned towards Eddie.
“Hi, angel.” Eddie had his lips to your ear before he kissed your temple in return. “It’s been a long time.”
“Has it?” You coyly bit your lip before you noticed Amir’s eyes on the two of you. “I… I know it has, but ‘m hopin’ we can make up for the time that we lost.”
You were both liars — even though Amir was now a permanent resident in Eddie’s apartment, Eddie still found the time to see you regularly. This, however, didn’t feel like a bad thing to lie about. You two were lying to protect each other, rather than a failing marriage or a prideful ego.
“How do you like my coffin?” Harper shifted the attention of the table back to Amir and her, so you and Eddie can have some time to talk privately… or, as privately as you can in this environment.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Eddie placed a supportive hand on your back. “Amir told you what would happen if–”
“–how many times have we freely roamed the streets of Paris and nothing has happened, hmm?” You kissed Eddie’s lips before you set your forehead on his. “Besides, ‘m just here to wish my girl well ‘n show you somethin’ that I’ve been workin’ on in secret. Once I’ve done both of those things, I’ll disappear again. No one will know that I was even here.”
Your hand sneaked back into your bag before you set a small collection of typed pages in his free hand.
“Somethin’ new?” Eddie raised an eyebrow your way after he pulled away from you, leaving you with a lingering kiss on your nose before he quickly skimmed and digested the pages that were in his hands. “This… a red-headed girl with an untameable spirit… it’s about her, isn’t it?”
Eddie’s gaze went to Harper, who was in an animated discussion with Amir, as you softly chuckled.
“She’s one of my greatest muses–”
“–she’ll kill you when she reads this.” Eddie deadpanned before you snatched the first draft of your latest work back, stuffing it back into your satchel as you placed a hand over his.
“So?” You shrugged. “‘M a big girl, Eddie, I think I can handle my daughter’s…”
Your voice faded into the background as Eddie felt someone trying to peer into his mind; however, they were unable to due to the blockades set up by their creation.
He then met Lucinda’s perplexed gaze, and it all made sense to him.
“You alright?” He decided to act first, not yet saying anything as to not accuse the girl in case she didn’t mean to–
“–I cannot read your mind.”
Or she did mean to. That’s… something.
“The architects of our… uh,” Eddie stopped when you pinched the back of his hand with two of your fingers, stopping him from reciting a speech that Volt gave him a long time ago, “I made you, ‘n that’s just the way it is.”
“Yes, but I feel you, Eddie.” Lucinda says, causing Eddie to sigh in relief.
At least the feeling’s mutual.
“I feel you too, Lucinda.”
Lucinda’s lips quirked upwards into a small smile before she looked at her companion.
“I told Harper I can feel that you love her, and that we should see him once more.”
“‘M glad you did,” Eddie then looked at you, a gentle smile upon his face, “‘m glad we did this.”
“I can feel you too,” Lucinda gazed at Amir next, “through him. Yes, he loves you–”
“–Okay,” Eddie felt his face flush, “Well, let’s get the hell out of my soul–”
“–But I think what amazes me the most is what he feels for you, Canary,” Lucinda chuckled, lightly shaking her head, “With every breath, he thinks of you. Every bird, every tree, every flower, every beautiful thing reminds him of his darling wife. Though, I do think his lust is the most powerful of those emotions–”
“–stop,” Eddie dragged a hand along his face before you laughed and pressed a kiss to his overheated face, “please.”
“You’re precious when you pretend like you don’t care,” You cooed at him, “Y’know I love you more than anythin’ else in the world, right?”
“But she doesn’t have to say it.” Eddie groaned before he let you passionately kiss his lips, earning a few hoots and hollers from the girls across the table from you and Eddie.
“I’m taking a stretch,” Amir briefly interrupted the merriment to stand and press a kiss to Eddie’s other cheek, “Order me another, love.”
“You’re gonna give him a big head,” Eddie glared at Lucinda before he watched Amir pull a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it as he walked out the front entrance, “I wonder if he’ll get through the door with that big head of his?”
Everyone exploded with laughter as Amir shrugged off Eddie’s teasing, but your sweet laughter meant the most to him. It always did.
“Why don’t you want him to know how much you love him?” Lucinda questioned him. “You certainly don’t have a problem expressing it to Canary–”
“–that’s a little personal. He knows, he just… that’s not how we show it to each other. Canary ‘n I, we… we say plenty of things to each other,” Eddie then hid his face behind yours, to hide the wildfire that sparked and was traveling rather quickly across his cheeks, “‘I love you’ just happens to be the most common.”
During all of this chatter — all of this teasing — no one presently at that table noticed Drysdale approaching the restaurant with four large potato sacks slung over his shoulders. Amir saw, of course, but he was powerless to do anything but watch it all go down.
“The coven forced Amir’s hand, and gave him an impossible choice,” Eddie explains to Dolly, “So, he chose.”
The world froze as the giggles and merriment from Eddie’s table died down. Only in that lull did Eddie realize that something was wrong. That everything was wrong.
Before words could escape his mouth — before anything could be said to prevent what happened next — four vampires from the coven surrounded the table and threw those potato sacks over you, Harper, Lucinda, and Eddie, overwhelming the four of you so you couldn’t fight back before you all were unwillingly brought back to the theater.
~
Blinding lights.
The inability to see, yet your four other senses are completely overwhelmed. Thunderous applause and laughter echoes inside of your school. The taste of sweat clings to the air you breathe. You smell blood – the metallic taste would normally make you start to salivate, but not when it's your own. It's dripping out of your nose, dribbling from the corner of your mouth, escaping out of every wound that was inflicted on your poor body.
…What do you feel? Fuck, is everything an answer?
You feel the grain of the wood against your fingers as you slide your hands down the chair that you're sat upon. It's well-crafted, sturdy enough to hold your slumped body as you try to gain some sense of your surroundings.
Pain. You feel pain blooming over every part of your body. It rips across the left side of your face, where you briefly remember one of the female members of the coven guffawing as she tore her claws through the flesh on your cheek, reopening a scar that had almost faded with time. It hurts to breathe, too — someone must've cracked a few ribs while they were kicking the shit out of you.
Boots. Lots of boots. Why do you remember so many pairs of boots being aimed at your chest, stomach, and legs?
Your ankles burn. Someone must've cut them so you wouldn't be able to go far. But why? Where are you, exactly?
To your horror, the majority of your pain isn't coming from your skull or broken fingers or nose. It's the subtle, terrifying, horrible ache between your thighs that makes you want to sob your eyes out.
“Canary?”
Eddie. Your love. His voice is so close, but yet… there's something so murky and distant about it. Like he's right next to you, but also a million miles away at the same time.
Strange.
“Ed-die?” A stuttering of his name comes from your lips. “Honey–”
“–don't talk,” He shushes you, with relief weaved through his every word as he watches your hands grip onto your stomach in pain, “where's it hurt, angel?”
He takes one hand off of your stomach and places it on top of one of his, allowing you to guide his hand to where it hurts most.
“Everywhere.” You exhale, grimacing when pain races through every organ and bone in your body. “But, Eddie… between my thighs, it–”
You set his hand on your thigh, and his fingers dig into the skin there before he draws small circles and heart into your body.
“–I know,” He immediately gets choked up as he speaks, “I saw everythin’.”
“‘M sorry–”
“–don't you dare apologize to me for somethin’ that ain't your fault, sweetheart. You didn't deserve this. You didn't deserve any of this,” Eddie places two fingers under your chin before he guides your eyes up to his, “look at me, Canary. I want you to look me in the eyes so I know you're listenin’ to me when I say this. What happened to you wasn't your fault. What's gonna happen to us isn't your fault. You did everythin’ right. You were perfect.”
The world begins to unblur, the bright lights that once overwhelmed your vision now solely sit overhead, and you finally see your husband — your Eddie — before you.
And he looks fucking horrified at your appearance. Gentle tears stream down his face, and you're quick to reach out and wipe them away with your thumbs.
“It's okay, Eddie,” You force a smile onto your face, despite how badly it hurts you to do so, “Please don't cry, mon amour. ‘M here. ‘M okay.”
“I thought they killed you. I thought you were dead–”
“–only flesh wounds, darlin’. It'll heal with time.” You softly giggle until a coughing fit overtakes you, forcing blood up from your throat before it spills onto your clothes and the floor.
“Breathe, mon ange. Don't speak unless you have to,” Eddie cleans the blood from your lips before he rubs your back, “‘m here. I won't go anywhere. If you wanna hide in my arms–”
“–hide? Why would I hide?” You cock your head to the left. “Eddie, what's goin’ on? Where are we?”
He shudders, allowing himself to take a shallow breath in before he answers you.
“...On a stage. In the middle of the day.” He watches as your eyes move to the right, where you see a packed audience laugh, joke, point at you, loudly mock your gagging, or depict vulgar, sexual things with their hands. …At you. They're laughing at you, your pain, your misery– “You don't have to look at them, Canary.”
“...I don't?”
“No, sweetheart. You can look at me,” Eddie then leans closer to you, to whisper in your ear, “I'd much rather look at your pretty face than those assholes in the crowd.”
“Me too.” You murmur back, only giving one last look into the crowd when you see a flash of blue hair.
River?
No, she's not here. She wouldn't be watching whatever this just happened. She'd interfere… right?
“We're on stage,” The gears begin to slowly turn in your head as you face Eddie once more, “are we… is this a fuckin’ play about us?”
In your peripheral vision, you see Drysdale dressed like a judge with a gavel in his hand, spouting off utter nonsense that your brain interprets as static buzz as he absorbs all of the adoration from the crowd while he paces the stage.
Eyes… I can feel people lookin’ at me from behind. That must be the rest of that good-for-fucking-nothin’ coven.
Eventually, he returns to his podium right in front of you and Eddie — wait, no, it's not just you and Eddie. You can feel two other vampires to your right, and, worst of all, you know who they are. Your daughter and her companion — before he gestures to the side opposite of the five of you.
You don't make out the majority of what Drysdale says, but you do pick up a singular name.
A name that makes you see red as soon as you spot the white-haired devil associated with it.
a/n: iwtv au stays haunting me bc i'm nearly in tears writing one of the last chapters for this fic ;-; anyways in less depressing news I got a full time job WAHOOOOO so now I have a steady stream of income and more consistent hours! this means less times for fics BUT I'm excited to have a consistent schedule which will allow me to block out time for writing instead of stress writing to cope with working in retail 😭
ANYWAYS thank you @blackbirdofasgard and @bringbackmaes14 for the tags~ 💕🥰🫶
TWs: vamp au, female reader-insert has a canon nickname, blood and gore, mild(?) spoilers, unedited so be nice with my grammar and spelling LOL, this comes from the upcoming chapter of An Interview with the Vampire!
“I love you, Eddie,” You look up at Eddie with sweet eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips, “I love every piece ‘n part of you — even the parts of you that wound me greatly. I love how I hunger for you, ‘n how everythin’ you do drives me wild. I love you, Eddie. I wanna try this — us — again. Will you have me as your lover?”
“The bloodlust is gettin’ to you–”
“–don’t tell me that.” You pushed away his concern with your words as you held out a blood-soaked hand to him. “I’ll tell you the same thing in a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, years, decades, centuries… you name it, honey. My love is yours. It’s always been yours. Why won’t you take it from me?”
An Interview with the Vampire — Chapter/Episode Fourteen: damn, if these walls could talk
a/n: working on getting this up so I can watch the new tvl episode tomorrow AHHHHH i'm so excited to see it 🥹also happy premiere day!!! that's totally why I dropped this chapter so late ehehehehe AND, on a more serious note, this chapter does have a character that attempts suicide during the events on this chapter. please take care of yourself and only read this chapter if you mentally feel well enough to do so! 💕
relationship: vampire! volt x vampire! eddie x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! eddie x vampire! amir; vampire! river x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! river x vampire! fem! reader x mortal! dolly; vampire! amir x mortal! dolly (if you squint ur eyes)
series masterlist! || french translations (I do not speak fluent french, so any corrections would be appreciated!)
cws: drugs, smoking/cigarettes, crude/sexual humor, murder, gore, violence, blood, age gap relationship, toxic/unhealthy relationships, unreliable narrators, reader suffers from depressive episodes and suicidal ideation, character attempts suicide, domestic violence, pregnancy, loss of pregnancy/miscarriage, assumed main character death, hallucinations, implied sexual situations but there’s no actual smut, spoilers for s2ep5 of amc’s iwtv!
summary: Muddled memories. Haunted fragments of the past. You, you, you. Everything always comes back to you, doesn’t it? Dolly’s left scrambling in the wake of broken dreams and faint sketches of the past, so she has to turn to the ever-unreliable Eddie and the (mostly) unpredictable River for answers about what really happened in San Francisco, all the way back in 1975, when she first stumbled upon you and River in that bar. (…Be wary, mortal. You’ll get the answers you seek, but they may not be the answers you expect.) — 21.9k words! [read on ao3!]
“We had it figured out, didn’t we?” Eddie smiles at Amir, who hums in agreement. “What we needed from each other. Our proper roles. A less dictatorial approach to the coven is embraced by mon chéri. The kind of balance we needed.”
“Ah, July 1949, the reading room.” Amir dreamily smiles as Dolly folds her hands and listens to the conversation happening in front of her.
“We broke into the same library every night that month,” Eddie weaves this beautiful story that she doesn’t really care for, “hypnotized security, flipped the lights, laid our backs on the long tables, and stared up at the ceiling.”
“Hot.” Dolly dryly remarks as she reaches for her pen.
“Iron pillars holding up terracotta domes, a light trick that made the ceiling appear higher than it was.” Amir dreamily remarks before Eddie turns his attention to Dolly.
“And why not pass a month that way?” His smile, however, slowly begins to fade. “An effortless, eternal life ahead of us… just the two of us.”
He’s thinking of you and Harper. How those dates with Amir didn’t fix the hole in his heart that the two of you left with Harper’s dismissal of him, and the severed bond you now shared with Eddie that was no longer romantic, according to your own words.
…He has regrets, but who wouldn’t?
“It’s funny,” Eddie muses, “trying to remember what occupied someone’s time when they were ignorant to the plotting around them.”
God, I really don’t want to talk about this right now. Not when I spent last night analyzing that audio file from 1975–
“–Grab that.” Dolly leans in towards the computer, not noticing how Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed.
“We didn’t know that Drysdale…” He trails off, scanning Dolly for some emotion or thought that he’s unable to find with a quick assessment, “I’m sorry, what are you grabbing?”
“Hmm?” Dolly can’t help but play a little dumb as her pen works as a transmitter that places her exact thoughts upon the paper that’s in front of her, “Oh, it’s just a note to my assistant. It’s nothing.”
“What did you want to grab, Dolly?” Eddie says, with a low tone of voice that makes the hair on Dolly’s neck stand at attention.
I won’t let him fuck with my hand again. We’re done with that.
Amir looks on with nothing more than vague interest, discarding the tablet in front of him in favor of listening to Dolly and Eddie.
Shit, I’m caught. I might as well tell him…
Dolly sighs, rolling her shoulders back as she plays back the part that she wanted to dissect later, on her own time.
“Eternal life ahead of us…. Just the two of us. It’s funny, trying to remember what occupied someone’s time when they were ignorant to the plotting around them.”
“Grab that.”
Dolly watches the confusion form on Eddie’s face, so she tries to explain herself.
“It’s a thing with syntax. Indefinite and impersonal pronouns. ‘Someone’, ‘they were’, ‘around them’. It becomes a third, separate person in the conversation. We stop talking about ‘I’ or ‘me’.”
“...And?” Eddie still doesn’t see why Dolly’s launching this sudden pronoun lesson upon him.
“You’re circling something,” She sees no reason to do anything but shoot straight with Eddie at this point, “You’re getting close to something you want distance from. Language as a chicken exit on a roller coaster–”
“–Or,” Oh, here comes Mr. Orange-Eyes-In-Shining-Armor to save the interview, “it’s been a day since Eddie slept, and a vampire of his age is worn out from fighting the narcoleptic pull of the sun.”
A day? Did their argument go for that long?
“Or that.” Dolly takes a sip from her water as Real Assad brings a group of young men in brightly colored jumpsuits into the dining room area.
What the fuck is this?
“Ah,” Amir turns his attention away from Dolly, “You must be the Hanks.”
“They are, sir.” Assad bows his head as Amir stands and approaches the group.
“So you’re the guy?” The shortest one, named Hank — Wait. Hanks, as in plural. …They’re all named Hank. Not confusing at all. — asks.
“You’re gonna chase us down in your Jimmy Choo sneakers?” The blonde Hank adds on. “Sick.”
“Shall we take our business to the living room?” Amir gestures for the group to exit from the same entrance that they came from, and Dolly nearly jumps out of the skin when the Hanks scream at and high-five each other before they exit the space.
Well, all of the Hanks except the one in the red jumpsuit.
“Who are they?” He gestures to Dolly and Eddie before Amir places a hand on Hank’s shoulder and steers him out of the room.
“They are not your concern.” Amir then looks to Eddie before he takes his leave. “If you’ll excuse us?”
Eddie nods as the pair exit the space, followed by Real Assad right behind them.
“I’m sorry,” Dolly blinks, a little flabbergasted, “What was that?”
“Amir rarely eats.” Eddie calmly responds, like this shit is normal. “So, when he does eat, he prefers to hunt for it.”
“And in large quantities.” Dolly mutters under her breath before she raises the volume of her voice. “Do those gentlemen know they’re lunch?”
“Are you recording?” Eddie shoots back before Dolly shakes her head.
“No.”
“The Hanks know that if they make it, on foot, to the Brandenburg Gate before dawn, they’ll be paid enough money to do…” Eddie trails off for a moment. “Well, most anything they want.”
That, of course, naturally leads Dolly to another question.
“Has anyone ever cashed in?”
She already knows the answer, but there would be some satisfaction in hearing Eddie say it.
“Often, Amir carefully chooses someone based on the harm they do the world with their… profession.”
Right, but those guys didn’t seem like the type to smuggle drugs or sell illegal weapons.
“And, when he can’t find an arms dealer dumb enough to answer his ad?” Dolly looks to the doorway, then to Eddie.
“Someone half in love with an easeful death.”
Ah, adrenaline junkies. Explains the jumpsuits.
“He’s ditching us.” Dolly notes, pivoting the subject slightly.
“He’ll be back in two or three hours, depending on how fast they can run,” Eddie shrugs, “He’s not violent when he hunts.”
Orange eyes. An open window that allows San Francisco air into the damp, unclean apartment.
“Uh-huh.” Dolly then starts to record her own voice on her laptop. “Follow up with the vampire Amir about diet and exercise. And, once again, we have Eddie, alone with himself. So, everything is in its right place before the theater burns down.”
“In middle school, you stole your dad’s Playboy magazines. Sold them at recess.”
“I’m sorry!”
That was… that second voice, it wasn’t Amir. That was Eddie.
“Little dirty, little deceitful, but it’s enterprising. Is that what makes you fascinating?”
“The coffin!”
Eddie’s voice again, on the second line. Why? Why him? Where are you? Where’s River in all of this?
“Dolly?”
“In high school, you told a boy you’d only do him if he had a paper bag over his head. He agreed, and you did it–”
“Dolly.” Eddie’s voice makes her eyes flicker to him before she flips through the notebook in front of her, landing on the page where she’s taken notes from her own memory of what happened in San Francisco in 1975, as well as the recording she listened to last night.
A dim, drab, poorly-decorated room. Hands all over my body. Eddie comes in, we talk, he argues with Canary, his fangs in my neck, then…? What then?
“How long is your boyfriend’s lunch again?” Dolly feels her hand go to the pocket of her grey cardigan before her fingers trace over the hotel key.
River knows where Canary is, and she was there for that fucking interview. I can kill two birds with one stone.
“Two hours. Three, at the most.” Eddie answers, and Dolly is quick to close all of the files on her computer relating to Paris before she taps the notebook in front of her with her pen.
“Let’s change it up.” Dolly suggests. “I was goin’ over my notes last night. Somethin’ he said on his initial flight to the bookshelves caught my ear. ‘This time, I won’t save your life.’”
Dolly removes her glasses from her face as Eddie sighs, a pained expression painted onto his face.
“Amir saved you from me in 1975, after Canary left…” He struggles to place that final word, but he manages to get it out, “me. She left me.”
“Yeah, you bit me, I blacked out. He ripped you off of me, dumped me in a drug den.” Dolly recalls as much of the story as she remembers. “Five hundred years, hundreds of thousands of kills. How often has Amir spared a life?”
Dolly knows she has Eddie pinned when his gaze bounces all around the room, searching for answers in the modern paintings that hang on the dining room walls before he finally gives in and answers her question.
“Amir could see I was partial to you. Amir preserves my happiness, even when I don’t or can’t,” Eddie quietly says, “He had a hunch you might prove fruitful in later times.”
That sounds like corporate slop, vampire edition.
“Okay, sure, let’s go with that,” Dolly can’t exactly argue since she doesn’t remember much about that interview, “Our first interview… to be honest, Eddie, it’s a fog. I mean, it’s the seventies. It’s all a blur. I woke up in a parking lot in Milwaukee once, don’t know how I got there–”
“–What’s the question, Dolly?” Eddie cuts her off, and she closes her eyes before taking a breath in, then out.
“Canary and I had drinks, she paid. We, alongside River, cabbed to your place on Divisadero, she paid again.”
“That’s what she told me when I got there.” Eddie plainly states. “Where are you going with this?”
“I have some… outstandin’ questions about 1975,” Dolly finally decides to come clean, “Like… Why did Canary talk to me in the first place? Why did you come in like hell on wheels after we…?”
“After you what?” Eddie wears a shit-eating smile as Dolly rolls her eyes.
“Don’t make me say it, asshole.”
“You were the one who asked about San Francisco, and if I were you, I think that’s the part I’d want to remember–”
“–Fuck, Eddie, those Hanks will be dead in three hours. You’ve made me an accessory to murder, and you’ve had like, what, twenty sessions and almost three weeks of my time?” Dolly then fishes out her trump card — that godforsaken hotel key card, given to her by River — from her pocket before she waves it in front of Eddie’s face. “I want two hours for me. I’d like to know, for me, what happened between all of us, okay?”
She slams the key card down on the table before she slides it towards Eddie.
“Plus, if you tag along, you can ask River whatever questions you want about Canary,” Dolly tries her best to sweeten the deal, since she would like to walk into the lion’s den with someone else by her side, “And I’ll back you up, Eddie. We started this interview as a last resort to help you find your wife, and, goddamnit, I think you do deserve to see her again, if only to apologize for your shitty behavior towards her.”
“I…” Eddie’s fingers carefully trace the edges of the card before he nods. “I’ll call for a driver. Pack your things and be ready in ten.”
~
The car ride to River’s hotel is painted in meditative silence. Dolly and Eddie sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the backseat, with Dolly holding a satchel that contains her laptops and various paper notes from her sessions with Eddie and Amir, and neither of them can see the driver due to the tinted window that divides the front seat from the backseat.
Dolly can’t even see outside of her passenger window, since that’s blacked out, too.
It makes sense, though. A business deal might run late, and this will keep Eddie from disintegrating in the sunlight.
Eddie’s been focused on that key card for the whole trip, tracing the logo of the hotel over and over again with his fingertip, as if it’ll make the car go any faster.
Big city traffic, I get it–
“–Can I ask you something?” Eddie quietly mumbles, lacking any of the natural confidence or charisma that he has in his Berlin penthouse.
“Shoot.” Dolly looks over, and she immediately sees how relaxed he is, when compared to how high-strung he was around Amir.
Interesting…
“What do you remember about Canary?”
“Me?” Dolly’s perplexed by Eddie’s question. “Why?”
“Last night, Amir said…” Eddie shakes his head in subtle frustration. “He remembers her worst actions, and he thinks that’s who she is, but I don’t… I can’t… Canary wasn’t mean or vengeful or spiteful. She was hurt.”
He pauses for a moment.
“Volt, Harper, and I would lash out when we were hurt, and it wouldn’t mean anything, but when she does it… she’s a monster.” Eddie’s eyes shine with tears as he makes eye contact with Dolly. “Canary’s not a monster. She’s kind, smart, beautiful, and the best thing that’s ever happened to me. She gave hope, happiness, daughters…”
Eddie bitterly chuckles before he places the hotel key card in-between two of his fingers, presenting it to Dolly so she can hold onto it.
“I just want to know that someone else thinks the world of her, since Harper isn’t here anymore. That someone else cares for her well-being, and thinks she deserves nothing but the best from the world.”
“That’s… sweet, Eddie.” Dolly glances over to see Eddie raising his eyebrows at her. “No bullshit. I mean it. I see why she fell in love with you, and stayed with you for fifty-five years. She loved this part of you. The part that just loved her, as she was.”
“I’ve always loved her–”
“–I saw her last night,” Dolly confesses, and a weight feels like it’s been lifted off of her chest when she says that, “I didn’t see see her, but it was just as you described, with Volt in Paris. She was there, but not really there, y’know? It’s probably the Parkinson’s, but–”
“–I’ve seen her so many goddamn times. In my bed, in the corner of the room, in the hallway, where her laughter bounces off of the walls,” Eddie chuckles to himself, “Canary doesn’t taunt me. Not like Volt did… does. He does.”
“You’ve seen them both?” She quietly asks before Eddie nods. “I’m guessin’ you like seein’ the Mrs. more than the Mr.?”
“She’s kind to me. Kinder than I am to myself,” He hurriedly says, “She shows me the good in the world, the good in–”
“–yourself,” Dolly finishes his statement, “I remember that much about her. Beautiful, smart like a whip, sassier than I could ever dream of being–”
“–last night, when you saw her…” Eddie fidgets with the ring on his left hand, one that must be associated with you, “what’d she say to you?”
“Don’t be afraid. Just start the tape.”
Dolly, immediately, paused the recording after you started it.
“Are you here, or am I…?”
“Hallucinating?” You tilted your head at her before you shrugged. “I don’t know, are you?”
Dolly rolled her eyes as you wore a cheeky smile.
“You look like you haven’t aged a day.”
“You look like you’ve aged for the both of us.” You laughed when Dolly tried to smack your arm, but her hand went through your skin and hit the couch with an unsatisfactory thud.
Well, that answers her question. You’re not here, but why are you… here? In her mind?
“Is this some weird vampire-mind-projectin’ bullshit?”
“No, this is all you.” Your eyes then went to her computer screen. “You should listen to that recording, then talk to River and Eddie. They’ll clear up the fog around our first interview.”
“Our only interview.” Dolly corrected you. “You’re a ghost. Gone like the wind. Why haven’t you communicated through your mind to Eddie? You two come from the same Maker, so you should be able to–”
“–Dolly, I blocked him out a long time ago.” You frowned as you spoke. “I don’t think I’d know how to find his voice amongst the crowd anymore. Even if I did… what would I say to him?”
“Are you sure this isn’t you? Are you sure you’re not in my head?”
“Maybe you’re the first person who’s got the right version of me in their head.” You hummed. “I’m not saying this for my health. You get the answers you seek, and you get one step closer to finding me.”
“You? How does going over our interview in 1975 help me with–?”
Dolly couldn’t get the question out before you disappeared. Go figure that the most useful vampire to her interview would be an apparition of her mind.
“She pushed me to see River, with that spunk that you adore.” Dolly calmly says, leaving out a bit of information from her conversation with you… or not you, since you were simply a figment of her imagination. “Are my answers to your satisfaction?”
“They are,” Eddie pauses, “but I don’t get why you–”
“–a Hamilton reference. You know, the Broadway musical that went…” She shakes her head when he blankly stares at her. “Nevermind. I forgot that you’re uncultured. …Speaking of questions, do you mind if I ask you one? Off the record, of course.”
“A hardball?”
“Would you expect anything less from me?” Dolly fires back, causing Eddie to snort lightly. “It’s somethin’ that’s been buggin’ me for a while. In Paris, and even back in New Orleans, she was workin’ on this novel that was based on her romantic experiences with you and Volt, but that book, as far as I know, never got published. What happened to it?”
“I wish I had a concrete answer for you, but I don’t. There could be copies still floating around in Paris, but I think most of them burned in the fire,” He smiles when Dolly’s gaze goes down to her feet, “Yes, that fire. She never spoke directly to me about what happened that night, but between drunken confessions and what she mumbled in her sleep, I was able to piece together what happened.”
“...You’ll tell me about what she did when we get there, right?”
“I will,” Eddie agrees, but with a single condition issued from her lips, “but you have to promise me that it won’t change your perception of Canary. She was in so much pain, with so much grief in her heart, and she acted accordingly.”
“I can’t promise you anything ‘til we get there–”
“–Dolly, I’m not asking you as a reporter or a journalist,” Eddie admits, “I’m asking you this as a friend.”
Friend is… a word that describes a relationship dynamic. Not my word for our relationship dynamic, because I’d call him more of a pain in my ass–
“Sure.” She shrugs noncommittally before the car comes to a stop. “We’re here. You ready for this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever…” He trails off when Dolly’s door suddenly opens, revealing a bubbly, black-haired woman that Eddie and Dolly both assumed was dead, “Merde.”
“Penelope?” Dolly says in disbelief, and the woman in question, now with icy-blue irises instead of her brown ones, excitedly nods before she sticks her hand out towards Dolly.
“In the flesh!” She taps the oversized red glasses that hang from her yellow blouse instead of her face. “Never knew that vampirism was the cure to nearsightedness! I do miss eating like a mortal, though… but Ms. River said that I will grow to enjoy blood as much as I enjoyed human food!”
That’s… optimistic.
“So you’re one of them now?” Wary of holding a fledgling’s hand, after hearing of how you and Eddie struggled to control your thirst for blood for the first few years of your existence, Dolly brushes past Penelope, ignoring the hand that’s outstretched towards her. “No offense, I just… prefer my neck without holes in it.”
“I’m not like other fledglings. The older a vampire is, the stronger their fledglings are. I’m more in control of my hunger than other vampires my age,” She grins as she fixes a few stray strands of her black, curly hair, carefully placing them behind her ears, “I can walk in the sun, too.”
“A nepofledgling, then.” Dolly chuckles at her own joke as she waits for Eddie to join her side.
“How…” Eddie stares at her in amazement as he exits the car. “I thought Amir–”
“–Oh, yeah, Amir,” Penelope frowns, “He drained me and left me for dead in a dumpster. River found me shortly after, and she turned me into a vampire. Isn’t that cool?”
“It’s… somethin’, alright,” Dolly stares at the towering building in front of her, “Did River send you to us as our escort through the Overlook Hotel?”
“This isn’t anything like a Stephen King novel, I assure you,” Penelope says before she turns on her heels and races into the building, “C’mon, she’s been waiting for you two!”
“I have a… weird feeling about this,” Dolly drops her voice to a near-whisper as she walks side-by-side with Eddie, “not bad, just… off. Something’s off.”
“Is it bad that I agree?” His lips twist off to one side. “We crossed paths in San Francisco a few times, and I… she’s always been off to me, like she’s hiding something from everyone, but–”
“–sayin’ anythin’ would be like firing a cannon through a glass castle.” Dolly jokes. “I thought the same, but I was young, dumb, and sexually repressed, so I didn’t really give a shit.”
“Do you three end up…?”
“No, but we got close to it,” Dolly chuckles as she enters the hotel via the door that Penelope holds open for her, “To be honest, I really thought we did, but I think I’d remember somethin’ like that more… vividly.”
“Did you want to?”
“I’m not answerin’ that question, Eddie.” Dolly huffs as Penelope races past her and Eddie to hit the up arrow near the elevators. “That’s personal.”
“We’ve spent, what, like twenty sessions going into my personal life?” Eddie flips Dolly’s earlier point back onto her, and she realizes how annoying it is to be outwitted by him. “Give me five minutes, for me.”
“Fuck you for usin’ my words against me,” She crosses her arms as she watches the elevator doors on her left open, “but, remember, you asked for this.”
“I like what you’ve, uh…” Dolly, with the naivety of a twenty-five year old, set her bag onto the table before she removed the strap from her shoulder, “done with the place. Gettin’ some bail bondsman, post-divorce vibes.”
“My husband owns a few of these places.” You approached Dolly first, placing a hand on her shoulder as River closed the door to the apartment, to keep the three of you away from prying eyes.
“Oh, yeah? How many?” Dolly asked before you tilted her chin towards you, leaning in to brush your lips against hers.
“Many.” You grinned before you pressed a chastise kiss to her lips. “You like asking questions, don’t you?”
Stunned, Dolly didn’t respond for a few moments until she dared to kiss you back. You laughed merrily, a sound that Dolly wanted to choke on until the end of time before you grabbed her hips and swung her around so you could pin her back to River’s chest.
“Are you and your husband, um…” Dolly pulled away, looking from you to River in rapid succession, “Are you two real estate moguls?”
“Oh, we’re a lot of things.” You answered before you pressed open-mouthed kisses down her neck as River worked to remove Dolly’s black leather jacket from her body. “You’re okay, baby. We’ve got you.”
“Shy?” River whispered in her ear, tossing the jacket on the counter before her fingers ran down the buttons of Dolly’s grey blazer. “Tell us what you want.”
“I…” Dolly’s completely flabbergasted, unused to this type of attention, especially from two very attractive women, and she wasn’t quite sure how to answer or what to do with herself. Where should she put her hands? Is it okay to touch one or both of you? Why’d you both jump her bones the moment the door closed behind River? “I don’t–”
“Ah, I see.” River left Dolly with a parting kiss to the cheek before she took the mortal’s hand and guided her to the only bedroom in the apartment. “You need something to help you loosen up.”
Dolly couldn’t help but observe her surroundings as River leaned on the dresser behind her, fingers subtly reaching for something that was behind her back as Dolly stared at a certain object in amazement.
A coffin. Right there, next to the queen-sized bed. But why? Why would you need a coffin when there’s a perfectly good bed in the middle of the room?
“Does that scare you, honey?” Your honeysuckle voice floated into the room before you appeared in the doorway.
Dolly doesn’t want to fuck this up. This might be a little unnerving, sure, but what’s wrong with a couple of hot women having some weird interests? Everyone’s got their quirks, right?
“So, you climb in it, close the lid, and bang?” She looked to River, who couldn’t help but let an easy smile float onto her face.
“Sometimes.”
Dolly then bent down to inspect the coffin further. It’s lined with green interior fabric that’s many shades darker than the wallpaper surrounding this very bedroom. It had a handle on the inside, which she thought was funny, but she didn’t think much of it at the time.
“Okay.” Dolly pulled herself from her crouching position. “I mean, I’m into counter-cultures. So… am I the first girl that you’ve brought back here?”
“The fifth.” River honestly answered before she presented a small, handheld suitcase to Dolly with the lid closed.
“Backgammon?” Dolly inquired, which caused you to laugh. “That’s wholesome.”
“Old-timey fun from the Sasanian Empire.” River then opened the suitcase to reveal a number of contraptions and needles lining the suitcase, but Dolly was way more concerned with the white, powdery substance that was contained in a circular, see-through container in the middle of everything.
“Cheeseburgers or chicken chow mein,” You joked, “take your pick.”
“Drugs?”
“It was the seventies, Eddie,” Dolly rolls her eyes, “everyone was high on somethin’. Don’t be a prude.”
“I’m not being a prude,” Eddie chuckles as the elevator slowly goes up to the top floor, “When I first saw you, I didn't expect you to be the type to–”
“–take a Pixy Stick up the nose? Go on a girls-only skiing trip?” Dolly bluntly says. “Everyone had a drug of choice. For some, it was sex. Others, alcohol. My drug, uh… was a bit more literal. Anyone who had any fun, back in my day, did a little cocaine in their free time.”
“...I didn’t do any cocaine.”
“Huh.” Dolly grins before Eddie scoffs.
“Dolly, you–”
“–should be getting back to the story, since you wanted to know about this so badly.” She cackles when she can practically see fumes coming out of Eddie’s ears. “Where was I?”
Dolly snorted, coughing for a brief moment after she did one of the five lines that she had set up on the kitchen table. River sat next to her, playing with Dolly’s dyed hair as you stared out of a window with a burning, yet untouched cigarette in your hand.
“All your slickness at the bar,” Dolly noted, seeing how your shoulders were ever-so-slightly slumped, and your figure lacked the confidence that you had once so boldly displayed to her, “all that’s gone.”
“What do I seem like now?” You said, still turned away from Dolly as you stare at the streets of San Francisco through one of the two windows in the living room area.
“A veteran of many wars,” Dolly sniffled before she set the rolled piece of paper in her hand aside, “it’s yours, if you want it–”
“–cocaine’s a fun person’s drug,” You mused, “I’m not fun.”
“Alright, suit yourself.” Dolly then proceeded to do another line before she looked back up at you. “Y’know… I prefer you like this. All dark and real. Maybe I could… cheer you up?”
Dolly then suddenly stood, on wobbly feet, before she stripped herself of her blazer.
“And then you walked in.” Dolly finishes as she exits the elevator, behind Penelope yet in front of Eddie.
“And then I walked in.” He repeats.
“Fuckin’ cuck.” She grumbles under her breath, but Eddie — damn these vampires and their stupidly good hearing — still manages to hear her speak.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She waves him off. “It’s nothing. Penelope, what room number are we looking for?”
“One-Three-One-Five,” Penelope raises an arm, to point at a door on the right side of the hallway, in the distance, “right at the end.”
“More walking.” Dolly groans. “Goody.”
“Old bones?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Dolly lashes out at Eddie, who puts his hands up in defense. “I don’t need pity from the vampire who hasn’t felt back pain in a hundred years.”
“I do remember what it was like to be human, Dolly.” He mutters. “Not all of us are heartless monsters.”
Now Dolly feels bad. Really bad.
“Eddie, I didn’t mean–”
“–it’s fine. No harm done.” He remains quiet until everyone reaches the entrance to River’s hotel room, and he gestures for Dolly and Penelope to enter before he does, “Ladies first.”
“What a gentleman.” Dolly sarcastically whispers before she presses the key card to the door handle, and a small buzz lets her know that she’s been granted entry to the space.
Well, here goes everything.
To her surprise, the door swings open before she can place a hand on the silver door handle.
“Ah, I see Penelope escorted you to me. Good job, honey.” River purrs, sending electric shivers down Dolly’s back as Penelope slips past her, so she can stand behind River. “Please come in. I asked for a suite so we have some privacy and a place to chat. Feel free to set your things on the dining room table, Dolly. My space is your space.”
“Long time, no see,” Dolly says before she remembers that Eddie has no idea about her little meet-up with River two days ago, and that he should continue to remain clueless about that meeting, “Sorry, time has gotten away from me. Mind’s a bit of a mess from the interview.”
“That’s alright, Dolly.” River reassures her before she turns to Eddie. “And I’m glad to see you too, Eddie. Though I wish it were under… different circumstances.”
“You know why I’m here.”
“All in good time,” She nods, “I promise. I’ll tell you about everything she’s been up to since that night in San Franscisco… speaking of which–”
“–you knew I’d come to talk to you about that,” Dolly guesses, “and you knew I’d bring along Eddie since I need answers from both of you.”
Maybe not Eddie, but… I don’t know. He’s been somewhat useful in helping me interpret Harper and Canary’s diaries.
“You got me,” River then sticks her head out into the hallway, looking left, then right, “No loverboy?”
“He’s out hunting.” Dolly offers a short explanation which seems to satisfy River, for the moment.
“Good, good. Shall we?” River escorts Dolly and Eddie inside of the space before she firmly shuts the door behind them. “Take all of the space you need for your laptop and notes, honey. We’ll begin when you’re ready.”
“Actually,” Dolly pauses to admire the spacious hotel room — it’s indeed a swanky suite that’s outfitted with a kitchenette, a living space, and a bedroom for River and one for her new fledgling, “This is staying off the record. I’m satisfying some… personal curiosity, if you will. Eddie and I were doin’ some reminiscing about the parts that I do remember–”
“–the fun parts?” River swiftly moves towards the dining room table, sitting furthest from the door before she gestures for Dolly and Eddie to sit across from her.
“Yeah,” Dolly blushes, “Somethin’ like that.”
“May I add some context?”
“What context could possibly–”
“–Canary and I were recently reunited in San Francisco… a few months before we met you, actually.”
Dolly scrunches her eyebrows before she looks at Eddie, who nods to validate River’s words.
“You didn’t leave Paris with them?” Dolly questions.
“The circumstances didn’t allow it,” River vaguely maneuvers around the fire at the theater, which Dolly mentally notes for later, “I spent twenty-five years trying to track her down, but then I got a lead from…”
She shakes her head, waiting for Dolly and Eddie to settle into their seats before she continues on.
“I’m sure Dolly has already figured this out,” River shoots the mortal in the room a wink before she focuses on Eddie, “but I work as an… informant for an organization. A powerful organization that deals with the affairs of vampires. I worked the occasional odd job for them before I was assigned my most recent — and important — job.”
“Canary,” Dolly flips to a new page of her notebook so she can record this new information, “your job was to keep watch over Canary.”
“Study her,” River corrects, “As far as my knowledge goes, Eddie, your wife is the only vampire in the world who was turned when she was pregnant. Your arrival in Europe, back in the fifties, caused a lot of uproar, and word quickly spread of the American vampiress who had a child in her stomach. Some called for a public execution of such a monstrosity–”
“–what?!”
“Stay with me,” River holds her hand out to Eddie, trying to offer him an olive branch that he most certainly does not want after being told that his wife was going to be killed for something that wasn’t her fault, “I, however, offered a different solution to this problem. Killing her wouldn’t do anyone any good. Finding out what differences her body had to a normal vampire–”
“–she is a normal vampire.” Eddie argues, glaring at River’s outstretched hand. “You’re talking about her like she’s a lab rat for you to poke and prod at.”
“What was she to you, then? A doll for you to drag around and play with until the next important man gave you a scrap of his attention?” River fires back, immediately shutting Eddie up. “Anyways, I came to Paris on behalf of my organization, under the guise of being a flourishing vampiric artist, and my original intent was to use my… connection with Amir to get to Canary. I’d then spend a few months with her, trying to see what made her so special, but I… overestimated my immunity to the charms of another.”
“I’d spent the majority of my vampiric life alone, minus the occasional dalliance and my time spent in the Roman coven,” River explains, “I never realized how… isolating such an existence was. Plus, the vampires who had been spying on Canary, Harper, and Eddie vastly undersold Canary’s magnetic personality to me. The spark was instant, the attraction undeniable, and my mission was quickly compromised. The objective truth I promised to those above me would be tainted with my own biases.”
“You fell in love,” Dolly comments, “How sweet.”
“After a few months, I was supposed to report back with my findings; instead, I sent a letter that contained a plea with my superiors to spare her life. It was… messy, garbled with falsified information and emotional turmoil,” River wears a rare smile on her face, “but it worked, under a very specific set of conditions. The most important was that I was to care for Canary for the rest of her immortal existence. She was my responsibility now, and when she disappeared after the fire at the theater, I had quite the predicament on my hands.”
“...Does Canary know this?” Eddie dares to ask.
“At first? No,” River quickly answers, “but the truth eventually slipped out. It wounded her, as it would wound anyone, but we worked through it.”
That… is really vague, when compared to her previous explanations. That can’t be the whole truth.
“May I offer anyone a drink?” Penelope sets a large container, filled to the brim with a red liquid that Dolly assumes is human blood, onto the table. “It’s pig’s blood, Mrs. Molloy, I swear by it–”
“–teach your spawn that it’s rude to read other people’s minds.” Dolly hisses before River dismisses Penelope with a flick of her fingers, and the mortal-assistant-turned-vampire slips into one of the two bedrooms, leaving Dolly alone with River and Eddie. “Get to the point, River. We don’t have all night.”
“I was desperate to find Canary, and even more desperate for my organization to not find out about her disappearance, but they did, and they even offered me assistance in finding her,” River returns to her original point with ease, “With their help, I was able to locate her with ease.”
“And then happily ever after?”
“Not quite, Dolly,” River wistfully says, “She wasn’t as happy to see me as I was to see her.”
It poured.
River remembered how her umbrella struggled against the heavy rainfall that nearly tore through the fabric due to its intensity. Yet, she was still out for a walk. Still out looking for something.
…Someone.
She didn’t know this city. Hell, she barely knew this country, yet here she was, aimlessly stumbling around and hoping that the information given to her wasn’t a complete joke–
There. In the distance.
While other people ran for cover in buildings or under awnings, trying to hide from the rain before they got soaked, one person didn’t. They sat on the steps to a half-constructed apartment building, letting their clothes and hair become damp as their gaze remained focused on the road in front of them.
It was still nightfall, luckily, but daytime would be fatal for the vampire across the street, the one that River’s spent a quarter of a century looking for.
She quickly crossed the street, ignoring how a car or two honked at her because they nearly ran her over, before she took steady, easy steps towards you.
“You’ll catch a cold.” River said once she was close enough for you to hear her.
She still lingered a bit farther from you than she’d like to be, but she was unsure of your reaction to her after… what had occurred in Paris with you, Eddie, Harper, and Lucinda.
Especially since she was there.
“You should go,” You muttered, rainfall smearing your makeup, “I might do something rash if you stick around me.”
“I heard about Paris–”
“–I don’t want you here,” You plainly said, eyes briefly meeting River’s blue ones before you looked away in disinterest, “You were there when Harper… you were powerful enough to stop them. …Why didn’t you stop them?”
“I could not prevent it.” River then took another step forward, so she could hold the umbrella in her hands above you and her. “I would’ve been shunned, or killed–”
“–My daughter and her companion are gone,” Tears streamed down your cheeks, “and I have nothing left of her but her words and the dress that she… she…”
“You’re right. I’m making this about me when this should be about you,” River chose to sit next to you, once you scooted over enough for her to take a seat at your side, “There’s nothing I can say to take away the pain that lingers in your heart. You deserved more time with Harper, and she deserved to experience the world as it is now.”
“I think… that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” You sniffled, placing your head on River’s shoulders as she moved some of the wet hair from your face. “It’s like the rest of the world has moved on, but I can’t. She was everything to me, and I wish I could tell her that I love her — that she was so loved by her father and I — one last time.”
“She knew that. I think the last thing she felt was the love the three of you had for her.” River paused. “If that offers you any comfort.”
“I don’t think Volt–”
“–Don’t make any harsh assumptions.” River cut you off. “At a later time and date, we can discuss what went awry that day.”
“I know what happened, River, but it doesn’t change the ending. Harper’s gone, my marriage is in shambles, and I… I’m lost. I’m lost and alone and I don’t know if I want to be here anymore.”
“I know, lapinou,” River placed an arm around your body, and you collapsed into her hold as sob after sob tore through your body, “I’ll table that discussion for another time. For now, I think we should focus on you. What can I do for you, Canary? How can I help?”
“Stay with me.” You mumbled into her chest. “Don’t run off with someone else, ‘cause you think it’ll heal the hole in your heart.”
“I will.” River reassured you. “I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.”
“So you two ended up patching things up, water under the bridge,” Dolly concludes, “When did you two start seeing other women?”
“It started out as nightly hunts, but then we started finding women at bars and, well…” River chuckles. “You know how it is.”
“No, I don’t.” Dolly deadpans. “I don’t kill people for fun.”
“It wasn’t for fun. It was a necessity–”
“–so what you did to me was a necessity–?”
“–that was Eddie, not me or Canary–”
“–are you two going to do this the entire night?” Eddie interrupts Dolly’s argument with River, and Dolly scoffs as she folds her arms over her chest.
“How the tables turn, Eddie.”
“This is not like–” Eddie starts a defense, but he decides to let it go, “This isn’t about me or River. What do you remember about the night that you spent with River, Canary, and I?”
“Well, I remember you walkin’ in,” Dolly then looks to River with a grin forming on her face, “and how that ruined the fuckin’ vibe.”
“What are you doing?”
Dolly, in her drug-fueled haze, thought you or River were the one to ask her that question as her grey blazer dropped to the floor.
“Fulfullin’ my side of the social contract.” She cheekily said, not expecting a male voice to respond to her.
“Do you normally interview your subjects with your shirt off?”
“Shit!” She scrambled to gather her top from the floor as you elegantly walked from one of the windows to the foyer of the apartment to greet your husband, Dolly guessed, based on the way that you pecked his cheek the moment his hands met your waist.
“Hi, my love,” Your voice was calm and even as you spoke, lacking any of the affection that you had been showing Dolly and River all night, “How was the art show?”
“Amir told me you were out with a reporter,” Eddie dodged your question as he spoke, “I thought she would’ve been–”
“–not her, Eddie. She’s different,” You looked back at Dolly, offering her a sweet smile before Eddie pressed a kiss to your lips, which seemed to catch you off-guard, “Eddison, you’re early.”
“–I missed you, sweetheart.”
“You could’ve waited.” You murmured, placing a hand from his chest as Eddie swiped the cigarette from your other hand. “Hey–!”
“–I’ll come back when you’re done with,” He glanced at River, then Dolly, “whatever this is.”
He broke away from you, placing one last kiss on your cheek before he walked towards the door.
“Or,” Your voice dropped to a near-inaudible volume, “you could stay.”
Eddie immediately turned around.
“You want me to stay?”
“Only if you want to stay,” You countered, “if you want to be here with me. I understand if you and Amir have somewhere else you’d rather–”
“–I’ll stay, mon ange,” Eddie’s hand reached for yours, and you giggled when he pressed a long kiss to the palm of your hand, “if you want me here.”
“I do, Eddie. I really do.”
You then guided Dolly back to her seat at the table, where she happily enjoyed some affection from River via head scratches or small pecks that led from her cheek to her neck, before you were pulled into Eddie’s lap after he sat at the other end of the table to the two women that you had been spending the night with.
Dolly noted the shift in energy in the room, from something new, exciting, and sexy to a subtle, domestic, warm air that surrounded everyone in the room. Her gaze went to your thighs — because goddamn — where Eddie’s hand traced small circles over the fabric of your dress. He took advantage of your positioning, kissing the side of your exposed neck so you’d laugh and shyly hide your head in the crook of his neck.
The two of you, for a lack of better words from Dolly’s end, looked perfect together.
Before long, Dolly found herself reaching for her tape recording, and she quickly set it up to record before she spoke to the device.
“Eddie and Canary Watts, from New Orleans. The two of you specialize in low-end real estate?”
“Eddie likes to predict what overlooked products will flourish in time: low-end property, little-known art.” You romantically described as you ran a hand up and down one of Eddie’s forearms, happily taking a puff from the cigarette that he passes to you. “Worth is often miscalculated because of–”
“–hue?” Dolly asked, and you shook your head.
“Minor factors.” Eddie spoke next. “You can squeeze profit out of that margin.”
“So did the three of you gravitate–” Dolly watched River shake her head, seemingly uninterested in being interviewed, so Dolly quickly course-corrected, “two of you gravitate to San Fran as a hub for homophiles?”
You chuckled a bit before you answered.
“Paris, in the 1940s, with its permissive laissez-aller sexual atmosphere, was the more…” You looked at River knowingly, “formative liberation for me.”
Dolly took a swig of her beer, shaking her head in disbelief.
“Take this seriously.” She looked you up, then down. “The 1940s? You barely look old enough to drink.”
“I am.” You pouted, which made Eddie turn your face towards him with two of his fingers before he softened his gaze.
“You look good, angel.” His gaze then moved down your body. “Really good–”
“–stop.” You whined, carefully pushing away his head before he chuckled. “It’s embarrassing when you do that in front of other people.”
“You love it,” Eddie said, with nothing but love in his eyes for you, “You love me.”
“...I do, don’t I?” You whispered back as Dolly pressed one of the buttons on her tape recorder, which opened the hatch where the tape was supposed to be recording this conversation.
“Shit,” Dolly smacked her forehead before she stood, not noticing how you, Eddie, and River exchanged looks, “I forgot the tape.”
Dolly raced over to her satchel, digging through her things as you called out to her.
“We’re vampires, y’know?”
“Okay,” Dolly grinned when she finally fished a clean tape from her bag, “I mean, I’m really interested to know why you believe that.”
You laughed that warm laugh of yours, a sound that made Dolly’s heart pound, before you appeared right in front of her, as if you ran from the table to the kitchen area in less than a second when that is literally impossible for any human to do. She jumped, gasping for air as she backed into the stove behind her when you opened your mouth to her.
Are those… abnormally large teeth hanging out of your mouth?
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
To Dolly’s absolute horror, like this could get any fucking worse, River and Eddie appeared to have those same fangs in their mouths.
Uh-oh. This is bad. Like really, really bad. Like, Dolly might be really dead in about thirty seconds bad.
“Are those fangs?” She gulped for air as you placed your hands behind your back, smiling at her like nothing at all was wrong.
Like this was everyday, normal behavior for you.
“Hi, honey.” Your sweet voice now sent shivers down Dolly’s spine.
“Fuck…” Dolly couldn’t believe what she was seeing, “are you the Zodiac killer?”
“Oh no, Dolly,” You turned on your heeling, calmly walking back into your husband’s arms as you climbed into his lap, “I’m something way more interesting than that. We all are.”
With shaky fingers, Dolly undid the cellophane over the new tape before she threw it into the machine, now wanting nothing to do with River as Dolly flinched every time the vampire tried to touch her.
Dolly tapped one of the few remaining lines on the table with her finger before she put the white substance in her mouth. Then, as a chaser, she grabbed a cigarette from the open box on the table, lighting it with relative ease despite the fear crippling her every movement.
She took a puff from the cigarette, releasing the fumes into the air as you leaned in towards her.
“Don’t be afraid,” You tapped your fingers against the table, to a rhythm that no one knew except you, “just start the tape.”
Dolly was not a dumbass — she understood that this is kind of a hostage situation, so she did exactly as you said.
“Okay. It’s on now.” She had a few questions prepped for you, but this new development had completely thrown her off her game. “Uh… First question. You and your husband weren’t always vampires, were you?”
“No.” Eddie placed a loving hand on your side, pulling you closer to him. “I was a thirty-seven-year-old man when I became a vampire. Canary was–”
“–twenty-seven,” You sternly glared at Eddie, rendering him temporarily speechless, “when I was turned.”
“She lied.” Dolly murmurs, looking at her notebook like it holds all of the answers. It doesn’t. “Why would she lie?”
“To make herself sound older–”
“–to make me look better,” Eddie has no problem talking over River, “She didn’t give a shit if people thought she looked young. That woman does not have a vain bone in her body, River.”
“I… know,” River struggles to answer before eventually accepting that he’s right, “I just put myself into her shoes and thought about what I would do if I was her.”
“If everyone thought like Canary,” Eddie wistfully smiles, “the world would be a lot better of a place.”
“And how did it come about?” Dolly asked the next question that popped into her mind. She was flying by the seat of her pants, but it seemed to be working… for now.
“There’s a… simple answer to that,” You bit your lip, “I don’t believe I want to give simple answers. I wanna tell the real story. Our story.”
You grabbed Eddie’s hand for support, and he gave it to you. Dolly had a good feeling that he’d give you the world if you asked for it.
“You smoke shaky cigarette after shaky cigarette,” River notes, watching how Dolly’s left hand subtly quakes, like a tree in a hefty breeze, “You shook more then than you do now.”
“What I remember most, other than that the three of you were aliens, five feet from me,” Dolly shoots back, really wishing that she had one of those cigarettes at this very moment, “was how eager Eddie and Canary were to spill. No coaxing on my part, no journalism per se.”
“You were terrified of us, Dolly.” Eddie places a hand behind the back of his chair as Dolly narrows her eyes.
“You two were lonely, Eddie. Lonely and trapped in a marriage that wasn’t working, despite how hard you both tried to make it work.”
“It was gratifying for them to tell you what they were,” River jumps in, if only to prevent Eddie’s heated gaze from frying Dolly into a literal crisp, “after mingling with humans for so long.”
“They weren’t thrill-seekin’. They were flounderin’.” Dolly asserts. “Tape after tape of emotional upchuck. Bouncin’ off of each other’s thoughts, finishin’ each other’s sentences, but anyone with a pair of eyes could tell that somethin’ was off between the two of you.”
“I was scared she was going to hurt herself, after what happened to Harper, so maybe I held on a little too tight,” Eddie admits, “but I needed her. More than I needed anyone — or anything — else in the world. If she died, I don’t know what I’d do with myself. …How could I go on living when my heart stopped beating?”
“...That’s why you asked me if she was alive, the night I arrived in Berlin.” River recalls.
“I needed to know if that was the reason she stopped writing to me.” Eddie stuffs his hands under the table, but a quick peek tells Dolly that he only did so to hide how badly they shook. “I don’t need Canary to love me anymore — that ship has sailed, and I don’t deserve that kind of affection from her anymore. I want to see her for myself. I want to see if she’s happy and well, if she still smiles and laughs after everything she’s been through.”
“Canary’s… better. Better than she was in Paris and San Francisco. I don’t think she’ll be happy until she sees you again,” River confesses, which causes Eddie’s ears to perk up, “she talks about you every day. The dates you used to go on together, the things you’d tell her before she went to sleep, the gifts you gave her when she wasn’t feeling well. If that isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.”
“Right,” Dolly feels bad for interrupting, but she kinda wants to get things back on track, “that’s good and all, but–”
“–what’s the next thing you remember, honey?” River quickly asks her.
“A lot of talkin’,” Dolly clicks her tongue, “but most of what I remember is Canary slanderin’ Volt.”
“He had a dark pull, a numbing effect on the senses,” You pointed at Dolly, now pacing the room as you spoke to the reporter, “He was a handsome Satan.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dolly nodded in agreement, “I know the type.”
River was mostly silent through the exchange, simply watching the three of you interact for… kicks? For laughs? Dolly had a really hard time getting a read on this woman.
“When you stripped away his superficial charms,” You spoke animatedly, using your hands to gesture wildly around you, “beneath his flimsy gentleman’s veneer… Volt was trivial, vapid, vulgar, maniacal, blind, sterile, and contemptible!”
“Big time asshole.” Dolly stood up, stretching her legs from sitting too long as Eddie reached his hand out towards you.
“Pretty girl, please sit down, I don’t want you on your feet if you’re not feelin’ well–”
“–At times, he would appear frail and stupid to me. A man made of dried twigs with a thin, carping voice.” You continued your tirade, ignoring Eddie as you raced over to shut the two windows that could potentially let future sunlight into the space, “And for all that Volt boasted about his love of music, he played without an iota of feeling. Nothing! No one home, like an automaton, plunking away at the notes with all the emotional acuity of a monster!”
“Yeah, but you and your husband were suggestible,” Dolly countered, “I mean, he lured you in, you know? He’s a faker, but you figured that out. By then, however, you’d paid a biblical price for your first European love.”
You stopped in your tracks, your gaze hardening as you focused in on her.
“I’m sorry,” She immediately backtracked, “I didn’t mean to–”
“–that was astute.” You glowed as you gave Dolly praise, and she relished in that shit.
“See? You were nimble-minded, even back then.” River points out.
“I was a moron.” Dolly bemoans before Eddie shakes his head, a faint smile on his face.
“Not to Canary. She thought you were brilliant.”
“Will you, uh…” Dolly shyly looked away from you. “Do the fang thing again?”
A smile forced its way onto your lips before you obliged her requests, happily displaying your fangs for an audience of one who grinned like the sight of your sharpened pearly whites was the best thing in the world.
Dolly laughed merrily, as did you.
“I love that!” She then turned to the tape recorder. “Just for reference, that was Canary Watts just now, makin’ her fangs… come out.”
The tape recorder clicked, causing Dolly to groan in annoyance.
“Shit. The tape ran out. It’s just a small, thirty-minute thing.”
“If I had been an actual journalist and, you know, not fried off of coke and ludes,” Dolly has no problem dunking on her past self, “I would have realized what a dangerous, unstable group of individuals I was with. Because, the next thing that happened was Canary detonating because of you, River.”
Sunlight was now trying to make its way into that very apartment, but your earlier actions had prevented you and Eddie from frying up in the sunlight. The man in question had yawned nearly a thousand times at this point, and he was eager to drag you into bed so the two of you could rest.
River, on the other hand, seemed to be unaffected by the lack of sleep. She snuck off earlier, when you were introducing Harper to Dolly, and she returned with a small letter in her hands that neither Eddie nor you saw, but Dolly clocked in right away.
“I sat on that bench in Jackson Square,” You solemnly said, “watched Harper disappear into the night.”
“I’m kinda with her.” Dolly was now laid out on the couch in the living room, occasionally watching the tape recorder to make sure that the device captured all of your words. “Get off that bench, sister.”
“I pictured her on the platform,” You continued on, disregarding Dolly’s interruption, “boarding her train, carrying her off into her future. A future I would be absent from.”
“Or,” Dolly mumbled as she brought the cigarette to her lips, “you just pick yourself up.”
“Stay behind with Volt and Eddie. I knew within seconds it was the only choice, the wrong choice, but I chose it anyway–”
“–and then what?”
“Then… what?” You responded to Dolly, finally, leaning against the wall as you fought tears that threatened to fall from your eyes. “I had nothing. Nothing but the bench I was sitting on. So, I stayed there for longer than I should’ve before I took the long way home. All I had to do was stop a few times, and I wouldn’t make it home before the sun came up. Let it bleach my bones, purify the putrid soul–”
“–What, you were just going to end it?” Dolly stared at you in disbelief. “I mean, what about life? Like, joyrides and night swimmin’ and marriage and cancer, and all of that ‘til the death rattle. We gotta carry this shit, and you had a ticket out. You’re tellin’ me that you were just gonna throw it away? I–”
“–Don’t.” You turned cold, rather suddenly. “You’ve overstepped.”
“Listen, obviously you didn’t do it,” Dolly stood, approaching you despite the warning you issued from your lips, “but you were given the gift, and I’ve been hearin’ you bitch the night away about it. Since you use the past tense about Harper, I figure she’s…”
“She’s what?”
“Well,” Dolly was starting to feel a little threatened, “I can see where this is going, and I–”
“–And what?” You hissed, but you couldn’t approach Dolly anymore since River had intervened, placing herself between the two of you.
“You aren’t mad at her. She wants to be turned. That’s where this conversation is headed.”
“She wants…” You pointed at River, then yourself. “This?”
“I’d give it to her,” River shrugged, “wouldn’t you?”
You didn’t directly answer River, but you did slowly nod after an uncomfortable moment of silence.
“Besides, if you want someone to be mad at,” River placed that letter against your chest before she smiled at Eddie when he frowned at her, immediately recognizing the parchment that was in your hands, “I think that anger would be best directed at the man who hid that letter from you for nearly thirty years.”
“...Eddie?” You looked at him, anger wiped off of your face, to be replaced with a heartache that seemed natural on your features. “What is this?”
“I can explain–” Before he could reach you, you tore the letter open, easily digesting its contents as your eyes slowly scanned the page that you held in your hands, “–merde.”
The room went eerily silent as you read, mouthing along to the words before you placed a hand over your mouth in shock.
“Where’d you get this from?” You asked. “And don’t you dare lie to me–”
“–Roget and Associates.”
You paused, letting Eddie’s answer permeate in the air for a moment.
“When?”
“In 1945.”
Your face went through a variety of emotions within a few milliseconds. Grief. Anger. Misery. Sadness. Rage. Hatred. Heartbreak.
And then you started laughing. Not the sweet, bubbly laughter that lit up the room — no, this was dry and callous and cold.
“Thirty years ago… Did he write you one, too?”
“Canary, please–”
You held a finger out towards him, stopping Eddie from coming any closer with that single motion.
“–Not another goddamn step until you answer me, Eddie. Did Volt write you a letter like this one?”
“...Yes.”
“Do you know what’s in this letter?” You held the parchment between two of your fingers. “Is that why you hid it from me?”
“I didn’t want to pry,” Eddie’s harsh gaze then went to River, “Where did you find that?”
“You’re not as secretive as you think you are, Eddie.” River noncommittally answered before she placed a hand over Dolly’s chest, pulling her away from you and Eddie. “Don’t get mixed up in this. It won’t be pretty.”
“What do you–” Dolly started, before you interrupted her.
“–for the longest time, I convinced myself that it was just Volt. That every coincidence or misremembered occurrence was just my brain trying to cope with everything that I lived through. …Everything we lived through. But it wasn’t just him, was it?” You accused. “And Volt didn’t change you. You’ve always been a liar and a cheat and an assshole, and I was too young and naive to see it. Is that why you chose me in the first place? Because it’d be so easy to trick a girl who’s never been respected or loved for who she is into loving you with sweet words and honeysuckle, falsified promises–”
“–I didn’t trick you. I fell in love with you, Canary–”
“–No, you didn’t.” You argued right back to Eddie, not giving him time to build a defense. “You fell in love with an ideal. A woman who never truly existed, one that I had to mold myself into in order to get some scraps of affection and praise from the first man in a position of power who respected and saw me for who I was.”
“I didn’t want you to change. I like you for who you are.” Eddie stepped forward, defying your earlier order. “I loved you in New Orleans, I loved you in Paris, and I love you now, in San Francisco.”
“Love me? You don’t even like me, Eddie!” You screamed at him. “You don’t even know my real name! You just know Canary, the girl who stumbled into your care, begging for work. The girl who fell in love with you because you were kind and respectful and different. You were different… you were supposed to be different, but deep down, you’re just like every other man that I’ve met. The only difference between you and them is that they don’t pretend like they’re not monsters. They know what they are, and they’ve accepted it.”
“You never told me your real name–”
“–that’s not the fucking point!” You threw your hands into the air, fingers tightly gripping that letter that Volt had written for you. “You didn’t ask. You never asked. You assumed that I wanted to erase my identity and become a new woman under your care. Fuck, Eddie, I was barely a woman when we met! The older I get, the more I realize how young I was when we first met. You took advantage of that–”
“–I didn’t mean to–”
“–intent doesn’t change shit, Eddie. You manipulated and took advantage of a young woman who trusted you. I know I came onto you, but you can’t blame this — us — on me. You should’ve said no. It would’ve saved us both a lot of heartbreak.” You spat out.
“So you regret the past fifty years?” Eddie questioned, and your silence was deafening. “You regret meeting and falling in love with me–”
“–I regret trusting you. I regret believing you when you told me things that were too good to be true. I regret…” You finally let blood-red tears fall down your cheeks. “I regret the choices that we made that got our daughter, our Harper–”
“–What happened in Paris wasn’t our fault–”
“–is that what you tell yourself so you can fall asleep at night?” You asked Eddie. “Our bullshit got in the way of her life, ‘til the very end. Everything we did led up to that moment in time. Don’t you think about what you could’ve done differently? Don’t you hear her sweet voice in your head, trying to tell you that everything’s okay when it isn’t? Don’t you see her shadow in every room and her bright red hair in every crowd? Don’t you hear her words in the mouths of the youth that wander these streets, completely unaware of how fragile their mortal lives are?”
“Every night, I hear her scream your name before I wake up.” Eddie muttered, eyes glassy with tears that match yours. “I think about her–”
“–that’s new.” You scoffed. “You didn’t give a shit about her when she was alive.”
“She brushed me off, time after time–”
“–And you took that as a sign to give up, rather than reach your hand further out?” Frustrated, you rushed over to the table before you slammed the letter down on it. “You don’t get it, do you? Let me spell it out for you plainly, since you can’t see it for yourself. Harper wanted you to choose her. She wanted you to choose us over another–”
“–I did–”
“–Yeah, you did. When no one else was around,” You pointed out, “You chose Volt, over us, time and time again. You chose Amir over us, again and again. Same shit, different guy, Eddie! You can’t help but have your cake and eat it, too.”
“It wasn’t just about Harper.” Eddie said. “You wanted me to pick you over someone else, when I didn’t want to pick sides.”
“You’re goddamn right I did!” You appeared to be at your wits’ end with your husband. “I'd choose you over anyone else. God, Eddie, I'd choose you over humankind, if push came to shove. My world revolves around you, but I hardly feel like a passing thought in your mind at times.”
“You're all I think about.” He didn't hesitate in refuting your last point. “I don't like lying to you, but I do what I have to, in order to protect us.”
“Protect us?” You repeated with a dry chuckle. “What the fuck does lying to me about the day we got married — not the day we were supposed to get married, the day we really did after Volt supposedly injured me — have to do with protecting us?”
“...Is that what's in that letter?”
“I don't know, Eddie,” You played stupid, folding your arms over your chest, “why don't you tell me if that's the truth, or if it's the shit you force-fed me after I was concussed. …Oh, and feel free to tell me about the night Harper was turned, or the nights leading up to when I was turned, since you left out a few details when you told Dolly about what happened.”
Eddie went slack-jawed before he raised his eyebrows at you.
“So you're going to believe Volt over me?”
“A classic out of the manipulator playbook, Eddie,” Dolly says, enjoying how he physically cringes at his past actions, “nice one.”
“Volt was a bastard, a self-absorbed egomaniac, a narcissist with a vendetta against anyone who he perceived as a threat,” You listed Volt's faults so plainly, for everyone to see, “but he wasn’t a liar. He didn’t lie to me, unless you forced his hand.”
“You eviscerated Volt for three hours–”
“–you want me to go into you next? Do you really wanna talk about how much of a spineless coward you are when you’re around another man who gives you a crumb of attention?”
“You sound like him when you get angry, and it’s an ugly look on you, Canary.” Eddie harshly said, which caused you to smile victoriously.
“Finally, a bit of honesty from you! Took, what, fifty years to finally get you to say something that feels real?” You backed off of Eddie, letting him read the letter that set you off in the first place. “I am not a perfect being, Eddie. I have faults — plenty of ‘em — and you’re right to point them out. I’ll take your honesty, even if it hurts. That’s what I want from you.”
“I won’t hurt you.” Eddie shook his head. “I won’t break your heart, or belittle you–”
“–because you think you’re better than me! That’s your problem, Eddie. You act like you’re better than me or Volt or Amir when you’re not. You are just as shitty and fucked up as the rest of us!” You took a deep breath in, then out to balance yourself. “I’m sick of your shit, Eddie. I’m tired of arguing in circles with you. I’m tired of being lied to and manipulated for my own well-being, according to your logic.”
“Canary–”
“–I tried — I really tried — to make things work with you. I took a long look at myself and tried to fix what was wrong with me so we could be happily married.” You placed a hand on your forehead, tapping your foot on the ground to relieve some of the stress from your body. “I was a good wife to you. I took care of you when you weren’t feeling well, I stayed with you through thick and thin, and I loved you with every bit of my heart. I was a good mother to our children, and I tried my damndest to give Harper a good life, even when the universe seemed to be out for her blood. I sacrificed everything for you, and it still wasn’t enough for you. What more of myself could I give to you, besides my heart served on a platter for you to destroy? Why wasn’t I enough for you?”
“You were enough. You are enough. You will always be enough for me.” Eddie wrapped his fingers around your wrist after he walked towards you, trying to bridge the great divide that formed between you and him during this argument.
“Why can’t you mean what you say, my love?” Anger dissolved from your body, replaced with a strong misery that swept over your face, causing your strong posture to deflate once more. “Why can’t your actions match your words?”
“This isn’t about me, is it?” Eddie surmised. “I know you’re still angry about Harper–”
“–don’t bring my daughter into this.” You snapped at him before your gaze fixated on your wrist. “Let go of me. Now.”
“Canary, we can talk about this–”
“–I’m done talking. I wanna leave,” You looked at Eddie with desperation in your eyes, “You have a chance to do the right thing, Eddie. Don’t make this any more painful than it has to be.”
“I…” Eddie trailed off, fighting an inner battle with himself that is quickly won by the side of him that you don’t like. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“You had a death grip on her wrist, and she pulled away from you. You wouldn’t let her go,” Dolly winces as she recalls the memory, “I still hear that poppin’ sound in my nightmares. That must’ve been painful, even for an immortal vampire.”
“A broken wrist heals in a few days for a vampire,” River explains, “her heart, however? That pain took decades to recover from.”
Your shriek of pain was what finally snapped Eddie out of his daze, and he immediately let go of you when you sobbed from a mixture of physical hurt, heartache, and fury.
“Canary, angel–” He reached out to you, to help you with your injury, but his eyes widened with realization when you scampered away from him in fear.
“–No. Don’t get any closer,” You choked out the words, “You’ve done enough.”
There was no more theatrics from you, no more harsh words issued from your lips. You were done with this conversation, once you said your piece. Dolly could easily see that you had burned off the decades of resentment building within you, and what was left was a broken woman who just realized that staying with the man she loves is a death sentence. He won’t mean to, but if things don’t change, it’ll happen someday, when you least expect it.
You ran into the bedroom, shutting the door behind you before you loudly weeped against the door. The next thing anyone heard from that room was the ripping of papers from the spine of a multitude of books, journals, or diaries — Dolly wasn’t sure, since she wasn’t in the room — that you owned. You did this for a while, with your feet shuffling against the ground since you couldn’t stay put to save your life, before you emerged from the bedroom with bloodshot eyes and a journal in the grasp of your good hand.
Without another word from your mouth, you chucked that diary at Eddie’s head, but you missed by a country mile and hit the wall on the other side of the room.
“Fuck you,” You whispered, “for stealing my life from me.”
You then opened up the palm of your injured hand, revealing a set of house keys.
“These will be under the house mat when you get home tomorrow. I’m taking Harper’s journals with me, and I’ll…” You sniffled before you wiped a stray tear from your cheek. “My journals are yours. Do whatever the fuck you want with them. Burn them, keep them, read them, publish them — I don’t give a shit. You can exploit my pain however you wish, but I will protect my daughter until my dying breath. Until I can see her again.”
With all of that said and done, you tried to leave.
“Eddie, walk with me here.” Dolly taps her pen against her notebook, as she wrote the Sparknotes of her recollection of that night on a piece of paper so she could keep track of those thoughts while she spoke. “You broke Canary’s wrist on her dominant hand, yet you claim that she was the one to attack you and give you those scars on your chest, right? So, did she attack you with her non-dominant hand and get stupidly lucky, since she couldn’t hit you with a book that she threw from that hand, or–”
“–I remember her face, and it felt like her hand was the one clawing into my chest, but I…” Eddie runs a nervous hand through his hair, “I don’t think it was her.”
“That’s right, Eddie.” River nods in agreement. “It was me.”
“You have to let her go, Eddie.” River placed a hand on Eddie’s chest, preventing him from moving closer to you.
“She’ll be gone–”
“–She has to go, and you know it.” She argued back.
“No, she doesn’t.”
“Don’t make me use force.” River bared her fangs, gripping Eddie’s shirt tightly until he hissed back at her. “Fine. Then you leave me no choice.”
“Canary screamed when my nails went through your flesh, and she fled the apartment shortly after.” River finishes. “There was a sewer system attached to the basement of the building, and she hid there until nightfall. Eddie and Amir were still distracted with you, Dolly, so I grabbed Canary as soon as I could and we left the city, right after she grabbed Harper’s belongings.”
“Where’d you go?” Dolly’s inquisitive nature gets the best of her as she steers the conversation away from San Francisco once again.
“Everywhere. Nowhere. We got lost for a while, wandered through civilization, tried to find meaning in a world of endless suffering and agony,” River’s face suddenly heats up as she speaks, “Sorry. Canary’s rubbed off on me over the years. Perks of being so close to someone you care for. …I see some of her mannerisms in you as well, Eddie. The head nods, the facial expressions you can’t hold back… it all comes back to her, doesn’t it?”
“But you ended up in Canada.” Eddie draws attention to your current location, avoiding discussing you for a moment. Dolly can practically smell the guilt on him, so it doesn’t surprise her that he’s not jumping at the bit for information on you right now.
“We did, by her suggestion. A cottage in the middle of nowhere. Two bedrooms, one bath, an office for me and for her.” River describes her current abode in choppy yet descriptive clauses. “A garden in the back that’s dedicated to her little family and to the ones she’s lost. A bench where she sits and lets time pass her by. It’s a part of the quiet, peaceful life that Canary never got to have when she was with you.”
“It’s the least she deserves, after everything I put her through.”
Eddie’s admission does surprise Dolly — well, mostly the use of I instead of blaming someone else — but she can’t help but feel a little bad for him. It’s clear to her that he’s changed since that fateful night. Less selfish, less prideful, more reserved and thoughtful than what she remembered him as.
Don’t get her wrong, he’s still got a long way to go, with a lot of sins to atone for, but it’s a start. A start that you’d surely recognize and embrace when the two of you finally came face-to-face.
“However, before I left, I did offer Eddie one last thing,” River abruptly pivots back to Dolly, casually patting the girl’s hand like she doesn’t remember what comes next, “you, honey.”
“You’re injured,” River traced the bloodied lines that she just left on Eddie’s chest before she spun him towards Dolly, “You need food. Just don’t… kill the girl, alright? I like her.”
“Spoiler alert: He did try to kill me–”
“–I was upset–”
“–Why’d you take it out on me?!” Dolly sneers at Eddie. “I mean, I would’ve understood it if Canary attacked me. I basically told a suicidal woman who was reaching out for help to cheer the fuck up because life couldn’t be that bad if you lived forever.”
“It was an overreaction on my end.” Eddie confesses.
“I’m not sure if killing me was a totally warranted response to my idiocy.” Dolly drums her fingers against the table before she chuckles. “I mean, I deserved to have my ass kicked for the sheer number of times I said, ‘And then what?’”
“All the drugs in your blood, it all went back into me–” Eddie speaks, overlapping Dolly when she continues to poke fun at her past self.
“–Cornertstone of prize-winnin’ journalism right there–”
“–it’s probably why I can’t remember what happened after Amir–”
“–and then what?” Dolly mocks herself in a high-pitched voice before she opens the lid of her computer. “I, um…”
I have to tell him about the recordings eventually.
She quickly types in her computer password so she can open up the home screen, loudly clearing her throat as she searches for the audio files of their interview on her computer.
“A hesitation–”
“–shut up.” Dolly shoots River down before she quickly finds what she is looking for. Bingo. “I have a surprise for you, Eddie. A curveball which will seem like less of a surprise, and more like an ambush.”
Dolly then turns her computer to Eddie, who stares at the screen in confusion for a few moments before it clicks in his head.
“Is that our original interview?”
“A few hours of it, yes. I thought I only had a recording of one tape, but…” She shakes her head, “Nevermind. Turns out, I had a copy of it saved in the cloud.”
“You’re a liar, Dolly–”
“–so are you, Eddie. Whether you acknowledge it or not. You wanna point fingers back and forth at each other, or do you want to get back to business?” Dolly waits for an objection from Eddie that never comes before she continues to talk. “Do you remember the last nine minutes, with Betty Hutton drownin’ out the indecipherable moaning and yelling?”
“Yes.” Eddie sharply answers.
“My researcher, uh…” Dolly quickly comes up with a lie that seems suitable for this occasion. “assistant is a bit of an audiophile, and she cleaned it up a bit. Press pause at the betrayal of it all, and listen.”
Dolly presses play, and the sounds of teeth mangling flesh can be heard from her computer. A lamp is knocked to the ground, making a hellacious crashing sound in the background as a younger version of Dolly moans in pain, over and over again. There’s a couple more harsh thuds, which Dolly assumes is her getting slammed into this or that piece of furniture by Eddie as he drank from her, before a door can be heard opening in the background.
“Eddie?”
A new voice entered the apartment, and Dolly experienced a new kind of pain as she was ripped from Eddie’s jaws before she was slammed into a nearby wall, creating a small crater where her body hit the surface.
“That wet thud?” Dolly points out. “That’s Amir saving me.”
Eddie was thrown to the other side of the room, and he stumbled into the kitchen before Amir glared at him from the other side of the room.
Between the festering anger from your earlier argument with him, and the drugs and alcohol flowing through Eddie’s system from Dolly’s blood, he wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe he was looking for a fight with Amir. Maybe he brought it upon himself.
“What?” Eddie hissed, becoming more upset when the other vampire doesn’t respond. “What?!”
“It’s morning!” Amir opened the curtain of one of the windows ever-so-slightly, showing Eddie the strong daylight sun that filtered through the apartment with ease.
“I lost time. Things got a little heated–”
“–with a mortal girl. Things got heated with a mortal girl!” Amir angrily pointed at an unconscious Dolly who was slumped against the wall. “Where’s–”
“–gone. Long gone. And she’s not coming back.” Eddie’s lip trembled as he spoke of you. “I don’t think she ever will.”
“Huh,” Amir had no reaction, choosing instead to drill into Eddie, “While you were here, I was picking lint off of the sofa at home!”
“I asked you to join me–”
“–the night’s gone. The room’s soiled,” Amir vaguely gestured to the ripped pages of your diary that are scattered around the living room, alongside the table that Eddie flipped as he drained Dolly, “and, once again, I’m here with mop and mindlessness to clean it up.”
“So the room got dirty, so what?” Eddie didn’t see what Amir saw. “I’ll clean it up.”
“No! I clean it up!” Amir yelled. “You make the mess, and I clean it up! Mark it in the calendar, align it with Ursa Major. Eddie’s tri-annual fuck off and find me with apologies to follow.”
Eddie laughed, wiping some of the blood off of his chin.
“I’m sorry–”
“–Seek comfort in the arms of a woman who doesn’t want you, in lowlifes and unfortunates and broken children, that’s fine.”
“Fine?” Eddie scoffed. “The fine that doesn’t sound like–”
“–but revealing our nature to a reporter your wife — ex-wife, as it seems” Amir made a correction that stung Eddie’s soul, “met in a bar ten hours ago? What if it was published?”
“The girls were having some fun, and I joined them–”
“–You don’t have enough to fear from Paris, after what your wife did?” Amir hissed.
“I was in the middle of ending things, when you showed up!” Eddie threw his hands into the air as Amir continued to argue with him.
“You’d have been passed out on the floor next to her, Eddie! Out on your feet from the drugs you stuffed her with–!”
“–Oh, this is boring!” Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’re boring! You are so boring!”
“And here come the drugs.” Amir scoffed as Eddie got into his face.
“Colorless, flavorless–”
“–up the fangs, down this road–” Amir sounded bored as he went back-and-forth with Eddie.
“–dull, unimportant–” Eddie jabbed his finger into Amir’s chest.
“–into the heart and off with fingers, feet and wallowing brain–”
“–dull nights, dull weeks, dull months, dull as fuck!” Eddie waved his hand around Amir’s face in a circular, exaggerated motion. “Suffocation by the world’s softest, beige-est pillow! The ten hours I spent with that girl were more exciting — more fascinating — than decades with you!”
Eddie panted, walking away for a moment before he looked back and saw Amir’s jaw set in anger. A subtle expression, but one he knew well.
“Oh, there it is! The half-blank, half-apocalyptic look. But what does it mean tonight, huh?” Eddie taunted. “Does he want to lick my boots, or chop my hands off? Is it the gremlin or the good nurse tonight, huh?”
“Okay,” Amir relented, but only for a moment as he reached for one of the tapes that Eddie knocked over earlier, “Okay, perhaps, but am I as boring as the blather committed onto the ferric tapes of your fascinating girl?”
Amir sat down on a couch that had gaudy designs on the cushioning, even for the seventies as he mocked Eddie.
“‘Oh, it’s so, so hard to be me.’”
“Did you say that you were picking lint off the sofa earlier?!” Eddie backtracked while Amir continued to storm forward in his verbal assault.
“‘It’s so hard to kill humans. I can feel their feelings as I drain them!’”
“You sat on your hands, and put your ear to the wind–”
“‘–Everyone I know wrongs me, and nothing is ever my fault!’”
“Okay, okay,” Eddie then glanced at Dolly, who was still knocked out and not with them, before his gaze returned to Amir, “let’s wake the girl up, and let’s try you.”
Eddie had done this dance with Volt a thousand times over in New Orleans. He knew how to go low and hit where it hurts most.
“‘I’m the vampire Amir,’” Eddie ridiculed Amir with a terrible impression of him, “‘and my daddy vampire groomed me into a little bitch!’”
Not to be outdone, Amir launched himself into an impression of a southern accent that was scarcely found in Eddie’s voice after being removed from New Orleans for so many years.
“‘My momma and daddy never loved me, so I groomed a young woman into becoming my bride–’”
“‘–Vampires who murdered my daddy made me–’” The mockery continued to fall from Eddie’s lips, so Amir shot back with another bullet aimed at Eddie’s chest.
“‘–but I couldn’t make her love me, so I baby-trapped her with a little girl and pretended like that fixed things when it didn’t–’”
“–pretend I didn’t have a dick for two-hundred and forty years–”
“–mon ange was my daughter was my sister was my throw pillow when he wouldn’t look at me kindly,” And there was the killshot from Amir, “Volt, Volt, Volt, Volt, Volt, Volt, Volt!”
“I talked shit about him the whole time! So what?!” Eddie argued before Amir fully snapped at him.
“The name!” His scream shut Eddie up. “The name! It went unuttered in our home for twenty-five years, said over and over again until it was pounding in my brain like a hammer.”
“Our problems,” Eddie weakly said, “Aren’t about him–”
“–You threw Canary’s name around just for cover, but it always circled back to him.” Amir threw out his observations of Eddie’s behavior.
“I love her–”
“–but she doesn’t love you more than she loves Harper, and that’s why she left you.” Amir’s words caused Eddie to recoil. “She doesn’t love you like he did, nor like I have.”
“I know,” Eddie softly murmured before he exploded, “I know! I know… thank you for saying it.”
Eddie’s vision swam as he backed into the kitchen, mumbling to himself all the while.
“It’s all creeping back. Paris, and the… what, what, what? But there’s… all of it coming back,” Amir stared blankly at Eddie as he rambled on and on and on, “Paris… Paris, the girls… they–”
He paused, looking up to the ceiling as the drugs made him hear two young, sweet, feminine voices.
“Can you hear that? Can you hear her?” Eddie asked no one in particular. “My girls, my daughters… they’re calling me.”
Eddie then suddenly rushed out of the apartment.
“I think that’s you running out of the room,” Dolly says, as she hears two doors open, then close in the recording that’s playing, “Hear that? A second door slammed, further off. What’s that second door slam?”
“I don’t remember,” Eddie quietly says, “I don’t remember any of this.”
“First door opens,” Dolly plays the audio clip again, so she and Eddie can hear the sequence of events once more, “slam. Footsteps. Second door slams, metal door. Amir calls your name–”
“–Eddie–!”
“–He runs after you. Metal door opens to screams,” Dolly pauses so Eddie and River can hear the horrific screams of pain in question, “A few more seconds, tape runs out. Where is Amir following you, Eddie? It’s morning. You went out of the room.”
Eddie opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
Dolly plays the recording back again.
“Door opens.” She times her words perfectly with the audio being played. “Slams. Steps. Metal door–”
“–Eddie!”
She stops pressing Eddie before she pauses the recording. She knows that he’s the one screaming. She knows what Eddie did to himself. It’s what anyone would do after losing someone they loved with all of their heart while their mind is fucked up on drugs.
“...I walked into the sun.” Eddie murmurs.
“You remember that?” Dolly approaches the conversation softly, noticing how Eddie’s put his guard down and is now being a lot more vulnerable.
“I’m remembering it now.”
“Let me ask you a really loaded question, Eddie,” Dolly leaned closer to him, a tiny smile on her face, “And then what?”
Skin burnt to the color of pitch. Char coming off of Eddie’s body. Pain calling endless to Eddie, like a siren, like a noise in his body, as he writhed around in that bedroom, in that dull, lifeless apartment.
“Pieces of my life, gone.” Eddie places his hands flat against the table. “I knew who I was without those pieces–”
“–Wait,” Dolly tells him, “sidestep the big picture. Get the story straight first.”
Amir walked into the bedroom, with an air of uneasy calmness about him, before he stared down at Eddie’s half burnt-off face.
“The pain.” Eddie moaned while Amir continued to — literally and metaphorically — look down upon him.
“Must be exquisite.”
“What happened?” With the drugs out of his systems via trial by fire, Eddie was having trouble remembering what happened after you…
“You drained a drug fiend. You said the worst things you’ve ever said to me–”
“–No, no–” Eddie didn’t want to believe Amir, but in his heart, he knew that Amir was telling the truth.
“–And then you ran outside. Now, you’re a convalescent.”
“So… so…”
“What is it?” Amir almost appeared to be taunting Eddie as the latter reached out his hand, as an olive branch to the former.
“I’m sorry–”
“–A meaningless word. Utterly meaningless.” Amir walked to the foot of the bed, so Eddie could peer out of the doorway as Amir spoke. “The floor slants slightly north. The girl’s blood flowed that way. We should fix that before we sell.”
Even though one of Eddie’s eyes were burnt shut, he could see that Dolly was tied to a chair in the middle of the living room with a gag in her mouth. How long was Eddie out for?
“...She’s alive?”
“The girl? The fascinating girl?” Amir spat out as the chair that Dolly was tied to was levitated in the background by Amir’s powers, bringing Dolly into the air as her whines were muffled by the rag in her mouth. “She’s fine.”
Up, up, up she went, nearly hitting the ceiling before Eddie said something.
“Don’t–”
“–she’s just fine.” Amir reassured him before the chair slammed onto the ground, knocking Dolly onto the floor with a hellacious thud.
“Don’t.”
“Oh, she’s fine.” Amir repeated, and the earlier impact must’ve knocked the gag out of Dolly’s mouth as she now loudly screamed when Amir lifted her into the air once again. “You’re fine!”
Again, she was brought to the ground with a harsh amount of force, causing her to softly whimper as Amir continued to dominate the metaphorical stage.
“This is fine! We’re all fine!”
Dolly went up into the air, then back down yet again.
“You two kept me in that apartment for how long?” Dolly asks.
“You were there–”
“–I don’t remember.” Dolly confesses, which causes a silent River to quirk an eyebrow up in interest. “That’s why I’m asking. I can remember a few things, like…”
When Dolly was brought to the ground yet again, she looked into the eyes of a cellophane-wrapped body.
“There was someone else there,” Dolly says, “A cellophane corpse on the floor.”
“A neighbor saw you while he was taking out the trash.” Amir explained to Eddie. “I had to chase him down.”
Amir then walked to the foot of the bed.
“The floor slants slightly north. The girl’s blood flowed that way. We should fix that before we sell.”
“There’s a TV in the corner, near the corpse.” Dolly recalls. “Some kind of sock or shoe commercial, or a news report. There’s sheets of plastic tarp, some duct tape, and bleach. Surely, I’m next.”
“Amir!” Eddie weakly called out for his partner as Amir strolled into the apartment’s living room.
“I can see him walking out of the bedroom.” Eddie builds off of Dolly’s memory. “I can hear you, but I can’t see you. The doorframe is blocking you.”
Amir looked at Dolly, as a predator looked at his prey, before he quickly disregarded her, more interested in something that was under the TV.
“Amir puts the table back and finds the recorder under the TV. Brings it to the table, and… huh.” Dolly clicks her tongue as she can practically see him in front of her, doing exactly as she says. “Ejects the tape, flips it over, and… presses play?”
Your voice played from the machine, which caused a deep scowl to form on Amir’s face.
“I hear Canary’s voice on the recorder, and all I could think of… was that he was going to…” Eddie can’t force the words out, but Dolly doesn’t need mind-reading powers to know what he’s thinking at the moment.
“A fresh young girl, that was his favorite food,” Your soft voice explained via the tape, “but the triumphant kill for a sadist like Volt was always a young man. You’re not a man, but with your intellect… you would’ve appealed to him in particular, Dolly.”
Amir stood still, having no reaction to the words that came from the recording.
“You see, they represented the greatest loss to Volt, because they stood on the threshold of the maximum possibility of life.”
Dolly, now gaining some consciousness and control over her body, began to slide away from Amir as he seemed distracted by the recording. She could always buy new equipment, but her life–“Rest.” Amir suddenly said, and Dolly knew the phrase was directed at her, but she wasn’t really going to listen to him, was she?
“Of course,” Your voice continued to echo around the walls of the apartment, “Volt didn’t understand this himself. Volt understood nothing.”
“Curious.” Amir remarked before he paused the recording.
“Amir stands over you,” Eddie says, transfixed by the memory that Dolly’s brought back from the depths of his mind, “He’s commandeered your body.”
“Rise.” Amir commanded, and Dolly’s body rose to her feet without her putting in any effort to move her limbs.
…She couldn’t feel them. He had complete control over her body. He could do anything he wanted to with a broken, bloodied girl who had two pin-sized holes on the right side of her neck.
“Amir,” He formally introduced himself to her, “From the bar. I came to fetch Canary before River waved me off.”
“I can’t… move.” Horrified, Dolly tried to flex her pinky finger, but even that movement wasn’t allowed under whatever spell Amir had cast over her form.
What kind of vampire is this fucking guy?
“Move your body?” Amir’s gaze then dropped to the floor before it floated over to the corpse by the TV, which made Dolly start to shake.
“I don’t want–”
“–to die?” Amir anticipated, orange eyes snapping back to her. “On that item, I think I know something you don’t.”
In the background, Dolly could hear Eddie moaning in pain, but she wasn’t really concerned with the fucker who took a chunk out of her neck when there’s another fucker in front of her face who seems more unstable than Eddie.
“I’m told you’ve lived a fascinating life.” Amir said, breaking the silence.
“I never said that.” Dolly argued, causing Amir to shake his head.
“No, Eddie did. Canary appears to think the same, if her words are anything to go by–”
“–leave her alone, Amir!” Eddie yelled from the other room, but it was unclear if he was talking about you or Dolly.
Dolly wasn’t stupid. She knew it was about you.
Amir slammed a chair down in front of her before he turned off the TV, circling the chair with slow, deliberate movements while his eyes stayed trained on Dolly.
“You held Eddie’s attention. He confessed his innermost secrets to you, by proxy.” He gestured to the tape that he had just played.
“I just wanted drugs.” Dolly admitted, trying to say whatever will get her out of this situation alive, even though the probability of such a thing happening appeared to be slim-to-none. “We didn’t even have sex–”
“–River and Canary have brought one-hundred and twenty-eight girls here–”
“–they said five–”
“–and you’re the first they didn’t consummate and drain. You even kept Eddie’s eyes on you for a while. That makes you special.” Amir explained.
“Please, Amir, I’m just a shitty little kid from a little southern town called–”
“–that warrants investigation.” Amir cut her off.
“I could be on my knees in a second.” Dolly said, and that seemed to spark some vague interest in his eyes as he sent her to her knees with a tiny, downwards head tilt.
“Bartering with desire. Is that what makes you fascinating?” Amir crossed his legs as he flexed the fingers on his right hand, subtly warning Dolly that he could do whatever he wanted to her, and she was powerless to stop it.
“River and Canary didn’t even want me in the end, and Eddie only had eyes for that woman!” Dolly yelled as Amir stood up and walked towards the abandoned bag that she had left on the kitchen counter. “I mean, look at my neck! I’m fuckin’ bleedin’ down to my ankles!”
He fished out the tapes that Dolly had used for interviews prior to this one from her satchel.
“Vera–” He read the label on one of them as Dolly offered a meek explanation.
“–she’s a single mother. Works in a titty bar on Market Street.”
“Kevin.” Amir set her tape aside, moving to the next one.
“Some Vietnam vet who lives in The Castro with his Vietnamese refugee boyfriend with no legs.”
Amir then proceeded to open up the casing to the tapes one-by-one, rapidly unspooling the filament before he discarded it onto the floor.
“Do you think, in all of these spools, you’ve arrived at some ineffable truth?”
“No,” Dolly earnestly answered, “it’s all bullshit.”
“An instinct to self-efface.” Amir furrowed his eyebrows before he returned to his seat at the table. “Is that what makes you fascinating?”
“Okay, yes,” Dolly agreed, but only because she thought that was her best selling point, “I’m good at gettin’ angles, gettin’ people to open up. …I can’t feel my body. It’s freaking me out.”
“Please leave the girl out of this, Amir. It’s what Canary would’ve–”
Eddie was cut off by the bedroom door slamming shut, forcefully closed by Amir’s strange powers.
“You’re going to teach me how to be fascinating.” Amir told her, digging through the depths of her mind before he forced Dolly into a sitting position, like a wall sit without a wall to support her body against, “In middle school, you stole your dad’s Playboy magazines. You sold them at recess. A little dirty, a little deceitful, but it’s enterprising. Is that what makes you fascinating?”
From Dolly’s perspective, the open window appeared to paint Amir in a heavenly glow, but this man was anything but heaven-sent.
“How are you…?” Dolly could feel him knocking things loose in her mind, yet she had no idea how he was doing so.
“In high school, you told a guy you’d only do him if he had a paper bag over his head,” Amir continued his rampage through Dolly’s memories, “He agreed, and you did it, even as he cried. A splinter of coldness in you? Is that what makes you fascinating?”
“My legs are starting to cramp.” Dolly whined, uncomfortable in the seated position she’s in, without a seat to comfort her body.
“Even her transgressions are ordinary, Eddie!” Amir called out to the man in the bedroom. “The pinhole’s closing back up–”
“–Okay, it’s you who’s fascinating!” Dolly suddenly shouted. This must be what he wants, right? To be the fascinating one in the relationship? That’s why he keeps asking her the same question over and over again. “You can read minds, right?”
“Eddie thinks I’m boring.” Amir hissed, leaning closer to Dolly.
“Dude, I have a Charlie Horse, left leg–”
“–Do you find me boring?”
There isn’t a right or wrong answer there. There’s just the one that will keep Dolly alive, and the one that’ll get her killed in an instant.
“No.” Dolly firmly said before she began to sob from the extreme pain coursing through her lower body.
At this point, she might ask him to end it, rather than continue this torture.
“Do you want to hear my story?” Amir asked her.
“Yes, yes!” Dolly nodded at him. “Yes.”
“My first memory. I’m being run down by slavers in Delhi. My second…” He trailed off as Dolly shook like a leaf in the winds of a hurricane. “An eager black hole. I’ll keep digging.”
“But I’m not–”
“–I’m not hopeful there’s much more to you, Dolly, other than a hole.” He degraded Dolly before he stood once more, casually throwing the wrapped corpse over his shoulder like it weighed nothing before he left the apartment.
The last thing he heard before he left was Dolly’s shrieks.
“I was in Zheleznogorsk to interview an operative for the KGB. Halfway through, I tried to go to the bathroom. He’d locked me in, and then I figured out that I was the one being interviewed.” Dolly suddenly says, derailing the conversation as Eddie offers her a sideways glance.
“Your point?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there isn’t a point,” Her gaze hardens before she angrily spits out her next words, “other than fuck your boyfriend.”
“Rage is an imprecise emotion.” River points out before Dolly loudly scoffs. “If Eddie was in perfect health, he would’ve reached out and–”
“–Spiro Agnew.” Dolly scrunches her eyebrows, suddenly pulled back into a memory before her companions called out her name. “On the TV.”
“Dolly? …Dolly!”
“Washington insiders are claiming this Saturday evening that Vice President Spiro T. Agnew may be close to resigning, in light of ongoing investigations.” Dolly had multiple bruises and lacerations covering her body as she listened to Amir mutter about something in the background. “Federal prosecutors will soon present evidence to a Baltimore Grand Jury over…”
“Yes, I’m with him now.” Amir said, and to Dolly, it seemed like he was talking to someone else… in his mind? “I won’t say where.”
“Saturday,” Dolly confidently says, “It was Saturday, but we met on Tuesday. So, I was the house pet for what? One, two, three, four days? Your boyfriend, Eddie… was in a trance of sorts.”
Dolly squeezes the stress toy in her hand that River had offered to her once she stopped zoning out, and she appeared to be nearly strangling the poor Siamese cat with her iron-clad grip.
“I don’t know–”
“–think.” Now, Eddie’s the one pushing her. Talk about the tables turning. “We don’t have much time left. Amir will be home soon. Try.”
“You fucking try,” She hisses, “You were there.”
“Go back to the chair, the TV,” He coaches Dolly, who attempts to close her eyes and put herself back into that memory, “what was on the TV–”
“–this stress reliever thingy is bullshit.” She slams the cat down onto the table before she gives it an apologetic pet, feeling a little bad for being so violent towards an inanimate object.
“You’re in the chair,” Eddie tries again, softer in his approach this time, “the TV is on…”
“Amir, can you come?” Eddie beckoned Amir forth with his words as Dolly’s eyes stayed glued to the TV, her butt firmly placed upon that chair. “I can’t get up. It hurts. Everything fucking hurts. Put me in the coffin.”
“Coffin,” Dolly finally strikes gold in her memories, “Yeah, it’s you. You keep saying coffin. My… nose is bleeding?”
“Where are you?!”
Finally, Amir was pulled from his trance with that plea, looking at Dolly with annoyance and irritation in his gaze.
“The pain is back.” Eddie continued on. “It’s like I’m still burning. Amir, put me in the coffin, please!”
Amir sighed, walking towards the bedroom while Dolly watched him.
“Yes.” He answered Eddie’s cries for help with a single word while Dolly crouched down, trying to sneak out of her chair.
“Thank you.” Eddie said, and Dolly ran for the hills before Amir stopped her with a single word.
“Rest.”
Her head hit the wall with a bang, and blood streaked down her nose as she slumped against a wall that was at least a few feet away from the damn TV and chair set-up that Amir had going on.
Once that was buttoned up and taken care of, Amir carefully set Eddie in the coffin before Amir sliced his wrist open, offering a blistered and bruised Eddie a sip of his blood.
Eddie took what was offered, and Amir, in return, saw this as an opportunity to speak.
“I listened to the tapes. All of them, twice. Volt, Volt, Canary, Volt, Volt, Canary, the occasional Harper, but it always circled back to him–”
“–And all we said about him was trash.” Eddie said in-between drinks from Amir’s wrist.
“Yes, you said that, but why?” Amir wondered aloud. “It’s not exactly how you’ve talked about him to me. Did I catch you in a fantasy, where the girl somehow fumbles her way to publication? Where Volt strolls past a bookstore — a book with her words in them displayed in the shop window — where he buys himself a copy, reads the nasty embellishments uttered by Canary and supported by your mere presence in the room where the interview took place, and comes chasing after the two of you again, reuniting the three of you until death truly do you part?”
Amir snatched his wrist away from Eddie’s mouth.
“If you want the insanity back, if you wanted escape from this prison of empathy I’ve locked you away in,” Amir’s hand lingered over the burns that went down Eddie’s face and chest, before his hand went to the claw marks that were, by a miracle of God, untouched by the horrific burns, “all you had to do was ask, Eddie.”
Eddie’s stuttered breaths are the only sound in the room as Amir pulled away from him fully, staying crouched by Eddie’s coffin-side as he spoke.
“A final act of service I’d like to perform before I…” Amir looked pitifully at Eddie. “I leave you to yourself. I know where he is. I found his voice among the many. I told him I was with you.”
Amir closed his eyes, assumedly trying to find Volt’s voice again as Eddie shook his head in disbelief.
“No, he isn’t there–”
“–I told him you were thinking of him again,” Amir said to the voice inside of his head that Eddie was not privy to, “He’s waiting for you.”
“No, don’t say anything to Volt,” Eddie pleaded with his lover, “I don’t want anything from him–”
“–this is your chance, Eddie. I am your Maker’s voice.” Amir paused, listening to what the other person — Volt — had to say. “Eddie… mon chéri, you wanted to say something to me? …Why are you ill? What’s happened to you? I…”
Amir hesitated on the next thing that Volt — if that truly is the one that Amir was communicating with — said. No words came from the man as his jaw trembled with fear, anger, misery–
A burnt hand came to cup Amir’s face, rubbing slow, comforting circles into his chin.
“He was my Maker. It’s nothing more.” Eddie reassured Amir, who didn’t seem fully convinced.
“You left me for death. Will I be on suicide watch for the next one-thousand years? Have I atoned for my part of…” Amir stopped, suddenly choked up. “Paris? Have I crawled an inch forward, or am I a reminder of the worst of it?”
Eddie didn’t answer, so Amir pulled away from his gentle touch.
“I’ll finish cleaning up. Rest.” Amir coldly said before he closed Eddie’s coffin, swiftly leaving the room not long afterwards.
“Rest,” Dolly notes, “He said that to me, too.”
“Rest,” Amir’s voice was a lot more comforting as he softly shushed the girl in front of her while his hands were on her face, “Hush. Rest now.”
“A bunch of words, which seems typically for him,” Dolly cracks a small joke before she becomes stoic once more, “but it started with rest.”
Amir dipped a washcloth into a bowl of water, releasing the blood — Dolly’s blood — that had accumulated onto the fabric into the clear liquid. It easily dispersed around the dish as Amir pulled the washcloth from the bowl, ringing it out with his hands.
“‘Rest,’” Eddie repeats, “And then?”
Dolly sat across from Amir, in an actual chair this time as he worked to wipe the blood from her face, despite the tiny whimpers that such gentle strokes to her skin brought forth from her lips.
“Shh, rest.” He said once more, before he launched into a conversation of sorts. “I’ve been calling to you for some time. From every bad fix, from the unnamed malaise you feel Sunday afternoons. And now here I am, and you can rest.”
Dolly would’ve been disturbed, if this interaction was not the least disturbing thing she’s witnessed in this hellhole of a week.
“I don’t wanna rest.” She murmured as his hand worked to clean the wound on her neck next.
“I am the quiet you’ve been longing for.” He was fixated, fascinated by Dolly as his gaze stayed on her. “After all the garishness of life, the jostling, the clawing–”
“–I kinda like my life–?”
“–the dull thrum of desperation in you,” Amir ignored her, “Will I get the fixes I need? Will I be somebody? Will I get the fixes I need to be somebody?”
Amir’s hand went to her face, and her body tremored with anticipatory fear as he slowly massaged the muscles on one side of her neck.
“But, Dolly, you already know who you’ll be. An ugly duplex back in Modesto. A job in an office, with drab carpets and flickering lights.” Amir spoke of a future that Dolly was unsure that’d she ever see. “A man in the mold of your mother, cleaning the house on valium. A genteel drinking problem, like your father. You count down your husband’s thrusts. Your children, shying away from you. All the confidence and hope of your youth is replaced by a seething, boiling regret…. Until, one day, you’re at a traffic light.”
Amir looked Dolly dead in the eyes, expression softening as he looked upon her with a strange, unknown fondness in his gaze.
“The light turns green, horns honking. You don’t move. Horns honking,” He repeated himself, for extra emphasis, “You don’t move.”
Dolly didn’t want this future that Amir was selling, but a deep pit began to form in her stomach at the very thought of him being right.
“I have a thing happening in the city,” She whispered, voice threatening to break with every word, “A bright, young reporter with a point of view–”
“–Shush.” Amir hushed her once more. “A comfortable chair, in a room that slants to the north. An easeful death. Rest.”
Dolly began to cry, realizing what he meant by that.
“It’s okay,” He dropped the washcloth into the bowl of water, so he could take both of his hands and place them on either side of Dolly’s face, “It’s okay. It’ll feel like a bath. Rest. Like honey on your tongue. It is the comfort we all long for at the end.”
“Rest.” Dolly said, like she believed it.
“Rest.” Amir repeated it back to her. “Come.”
Dolly placed her hands on his forearms, nearly embracing him as she put her head on his left shoulder.
“Come, I’ll hold you now,” Amir adjusted his hands so he could hold her properly, “You can rest.”
He took one of his hands off of her neck, softly snarling as his teeth stuck out of his mouth before he bit her neck.
This wasn’t harsh or hurtful, like Eddie’s teeth in her skin was. This was… deliberate. Punctual. Necessary. Horrifically erotic and sensual. Like honey on her tongue.
“Stop, Amir.” A softer, feminine voice interrupted the pleasurable haze that Dolly was bordering on entering.
So close, but yet so far.
“I’m cleaning up the mess, River.” Amir pulled his fangs from Dolly’s body, but she didn’t want him to go.
Horrificially, she realized that she never wanted him to go.
“You left.” Dolly scrunches her eyebrows at River, who shrugs in response.
“I did,” River then grabs the cat-shaped stress toy on the table before she smiles fondly at it, “but someone I care for requested that I come back and make sure that you were safe.”
“Canary,” Dolly then glances over to Eddie, “Everythin’ really does come back to her, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t need cleaning.” River swiftly stepped into the room, asserting herself into this situation as Amir huffed in annoyance.
“After the mess you and Canary left for me here, after what Eddie put me through, I deserve this.”
“I know,” River murmured as she placed a hand on Dolly’s back, reassuring the girl that River was here for her, “but I need this one to live. As a testament to the enduring companionship that you’ve built with Eddie.”
“Canary wanted her to live, so you came to bargain on her behalf.” Amir guessed.
“The girl gets to live, no matter who wants her to live.” Suddenly, River snapped her fingers, and Dolly jumped ever-so-slightly, still in Amir’s hold, as she heard the coffin lid smack against the wall.
“Is this a request you’d like me to honor, Maître?” Amir loudly asked the other vampire, and there was a moment of strong silence before Eddie’s voice emanated from the other room.
“Let her go, Amir.”
Amir flinched, like Eddie’s words physically hurt him, before he stood, setting Dolly up in her chair before he moved aside. He watched from the corner of the room as River sat in his place, whispering comforting words to Dolly that he couldn’t hear for himself.
“I…” Dolly spots a bookshelf in the nearby living area, so she quickly moves out of her dining room seat, much to the alarm of Eddie. “Excuse me.”
“Dolly?”
She doesn’t care for his concern at the moment — she’s a woman on a mission, goddamnit.
Her fingers easily glide against the numerous titles sat upon the shelf that’s eye-level to her, but one in particular catches her eyes. It’s one of Dolly’s own publications, and she frantically flips through the pages until she reaches her destination on—
“Page four-eighty-four.” Her finger drops down the page until she finds the line that she’s looking for. “‘Listen, as though I’m the voice of God or an angel talking to you, telling you this room doesn’t matter, that this night doesn’t matter. You’re not inconsequential, or a junkie. You’re a bright, young reporter with a point of view. There are stories that need to be told. If things ever get bad again, these are the words you’ll hear in your mind, like a tape playing over and over, like a song stuck in your brain. These words will hold you up and carry you. They are your lifeline.’”
Dolly closes her novel, setting it upon the kitchen table before she claims her seat among the vampires once more.
“That’s from a free-baser I befriended for a few days at the drug den.” Dolly scoffs. “He told me to get my shit together, and then he Richard Pryor’d right in front of me. Everyone scrambled, but I stuck around, watched him burn. What always confused me was that… You know, he said those words to me, but he was already burnt up. I figured I’d conflated the two events, but I didn’t. Because most of those words came from you, Eddie.”
Amir sat aside as River, with all of her might, brought Eddie into the room with a supportive arm wrapped around his waist. She set him in the chair in front of Dolly before she worked to clean the wound that Amir left on her neck.
“You are better than you think of yourself, Dolly,” River warmly spoke, “Listen, as though I’m the voice of God or an angel talking to you, telling you this room doesn’t matter, that this night doesn’t matter–”
“–you’re not inconsequential, or a junkie.” Each word sounded painful out of Eddie’s mouth, but he spoke to Dolly anyways, “You said it yourself — you’re a bright, young reporter with a point of view. There are stories that need to be told. If things ever get bad again, these are the words you’ll hear in your mind, like a tape playing over and over, like a song stuck in your brain. These words will hold you up and carry you. They are your lifeline.”
Stunned, Eddie doesn’t respond as Dolly is plunged further into a meditative, reflective state.
“I destroyed my marriages. I fucked up my daughters, but I stayed a journalist. Taught at a few colleges, too, but my proudest work lies in the stories I told. I…” Dolly lightly chuckles. “I was never so lost that I couldn’t hold down a job.”
“I don’t know where those words came from, Dolly,” Eddie confesses, “Maybe it was something Canary said to me, or maybe it was her influence on me. I… I’m glad they helped.”
“Amir and I…” River speaks softly, as to guide their attention back to her, “We gave Dolly more drugs. Then, we distorted everything that had happened in her mind, and fed her a truncated version that would never be able to make it to publication.”
Dolly, in a drug-fueled daze, sat across from Amir and River as Eddie looked out of a nearby window.
“He bit you.” Amir said, which Dolly then repeated.
“He bit me.”
“You blacked out.”
“I blacked out.” She said his words, like they were her own, once again.
“You woke up in a drug den.”
“I woke up in a drug den.”
“Good,” River softly praised, “Again, Amir.”
He nodded before repeating the cycle once more.
“He bit you.”
“He bit me–”
“–Amir fogged my brain, redacted himself, which accounts for why I didn’t remember,” Dolly agrees with River’s perspective before she points at Eddie, “so what accounts for why he doesn’t remember?”
“I was disfigured.” Eddie justifies his loss of memory with that excuse. “I was in pain.”
“But, you remember right up until you bit me,” Dolly shoots holes right through his argument, “and I remember right up until you bit me, and then both our memories cut out. Same precise edit on two brains? I don’t think–”
“–You should be going,” River quickly checks the watch on her wrist after she interrupts Dolly, “It’s been two hours. We don’t need the two of you getting into any more trouble, do we?”
“But Canary–”
“–is fine,” She tells Eddie, abruptly standing so she can quickly usher the pair out of her hotel room, “as I’ve told you. She lives a peaceful, quiet life where she writes novels and short stories in her free time. I take care of her costs of living, too, so the royalties from her novels fund the orphanages she founded. One in New Orleans, one in Paris.”
“Orphanages?” Eddie repeats, voice softening with every syllable.
“I’m surprised she never wrote to you about them. Canary often describes them as her life’s greatest work, when most would argue that her writing would qualify as that. The motherly instinct never left her after Paris, so she decided to put some good into the world once she had enough money to give children like Harper a place to call home,” River sighs, “We visit both orphanages once a year. She’s often seen spending time with the infants or the teenagers, which shouldn’t surprise either of you.”
“...Why wouldn’t she mention that in her letters?” Eddie mutters to himself. “Canary told me how proud she was of her novels, but she would’ve spent pages talking about something like that.”
“Food for thought.” River shrugs. “You really should get going–”
“–I want to see her. Visit her in her home.” Eddie puts his foot down, cutting River off assuredly. “Canary’s not a doll to me, River. She’s not just a wife or a mother, either. She is everything to me. I haven’t loved anyone the way I loved her.”
“What if she doesn’t reciprocate?” River asks. “Will you force her to love you? Will you force her to stay, or bludgeon your way into her heart once more?”
“I don’t need Canary to love me. I don’t want her to love me unless that’s what she wants. After everything we’ve been through, after everything I’ve done… I owe her an apology. A really fucking overdue apology.”
“God, you two are made for each other.” River grumbles under her breath. “Listen clearly when I say this. I have my reservations about the two of you — a lot of them — but I’m not inhumane. Once you finish your interview with Dolly, we can discuss you coming back with me to Canada, but only after you give my young reporter–”
“–Not yours,” Dolly repeats with a small blush on her cheeks, “and I’m certainly not young–”
“–everything she needs for her novel. Speaking of Dolly,” River wears a polite smile as she speaks to Eddie, “I’d like to privately discuss something with her if you’ll give us the room.”
“Of course, yeah,” Eddie agrees, slowly walking towards the door with his hands in his pockets before he turns back towards River, “If you get the chance to talk with Canary over the phone, tell her I…”
He shakes his head.
“No, this isn’t about me. Tell her to stay put. I’ll come to her when the time’s right.”
When the door shuts, River can’t help but chuckle a bit.
“He’s still the same man I knew back then, but… different, somehow. Reserved, more cautious, more understanding of everything that Canary went through.”
“Stole the words right from my mouth.” Dolly agrees, packing up her things as she converses with River. “What’s this about? What game are you playin’?”
“No games, just the truth,” River places her hands into the air, as if that’ll make her any more honest, “Someone from the Talamasca found those stamps and gave them to Penelope, then they fed her a story to give to you and Eddie.”
“...I’m sorry, what?”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” River’s tongue pokes the side of her cheek as she thinks to herself for a moment. “Someone tampered with Canary’s letters before they were given to Eddie.”
“I know that,” Dolly states the obvious, “Amir, playing dress-up as one of Eddie’s assistants, confessed that to him.”
“And?” River looks at Dolly like she’s missing something obvious. “Dolly, honey, it’s right in front of your face.”
“About Amir messin’ with the letters? I…” Dolly then pauses, realizing what she just said.
He just took the stamps out of the letters… right? There couldn’t have been anything else that he… Shit.
“Do not throw out the accusation right away. Find proof.” River tries to offer a bit of advice to the reporter. “I’d tell you to put some strain on their relationship, but you did that all on your own.”
“Thanks. When you told me about Canary’s letters…” Dolly smacks her forehead with her hand, “Fuck. I should’ve taken you literally.”
“I told you to–”
“–I thought you were bullshittin’ me!” Dolly exclaims. “Until I realized that you weren’t. I don’t exactly trust vampires after what happened in San Francisco. Sue me.”
“I don’t blame you, but we’re not all bad.” River concedes. “How much more of the interview–”
“–I’ve skimmed Harper’s last journal, alongside what little writing Canary has left from that era. There shouldn’t be much more, besides what happened to Harper,” Dolly shrugs, “you lookin’ for a time and date to make your second grand entrance into Eddie’s penthouse?”
“Something like that, yeah,” River places a hand on her back, gently shoving her out of the hotel room, “but I have a feeling I’ll know when you’re done.”
River firmly shuts the door once Dolly’s fully out of the doorway, and she exchanges a quizzical look with Eddie before the pair make their way back to Eddie’s penthouse.
~
The ride home is deadly silent. Dolly’s hand lingers over those letters of yours that she stole from Eddie’s library a few days ago, as they were safely kept in this satchel since it mostly stayed in her room, and her fingers drum against the bag as she’s plunged deep into thought.
I… I don’t know what to think anymore. Of Eddie, of River, of Canary, and especially of Amir. What a fuckin’ mess I’ve involved myself in.
I think these letters need to go back to their rightful owner. They’re personal and unhelpful to me. Eddie’s the one who needs to see her words again… if these even are her words.
Dolly’s barely with Eddie in the present moment, despite being back in that very library that she stole from, and she slowly unpacks her things before she decides to repay the kindness that he’s shown her today.
“I… It was wrong of me to do,” Dolly begins, sliding the letters to Eddie’s side of the table, “but I was lookin’ for hints on where Canary might’ve gone, and when I saw those letters that were hidden in the library, I decided to take ‘em when you were talkin' with River and see where they led me.”
Eddie’s hand gently traces the frayed edges of the paper before he looks at Dolly.
“Did they help?”
No anger, no hatred, no making my hand shake… wow. Maybe he has changed, even in the span of a few days.
“Not really. A bit too… intimate for my tastes,” Dolly admits, “I’m tryin’ to study the evolution of her prose over time… for my novel, of course. Would you mind if I took a look at one of her journals and the last letter that she sent you in my free time?”
Please say yes. Please say yes. Please–
“–Yeah, take whatever you need,” Eddie accepts before he laughs under his breath, “and thank you for asking this time.”
Footsteps suddenly approach, and Eddie is quick to shove those letters of yours under Dolly’s notepad before Amir enters the room. In his hand, Amir holds bloodied scraps of those colorful jumpsuits that she saw those men in earlier, and she can guess how they met their gruesome end without any direct mention of the chase.
“How was your lunch?” Eddie politely asks.
“Entertaining. They tried to stick together, but in the end, like all humans, they sold each other out to try to ensure their own survival,” Amir then smiles at Eddie, “How’s Paris?”
“We paused Paris,” Eddie answers for Dolly, “Reminisced about San Francisco.”
A bit of surprise lands on Amir’s face before it quickly floats away, indifference left in its place.
“And?”
“It started with Dolly,” Eddie gestures to the woman in question, “She asked why you saved her in 1975.”
Amir lightly hums before he answers.
“I could see you were partial to her,” Still, Amir directs his attention to Eddie as he talks, “I preserve your happiness, even when you don’t or can’t. I had–”
“–a hunch.” Eddie grimly says, and that’s when Dolly realizes that this is the exact same answer Eddie gave her — word-for-word minus the pronoun and perspective changes, of course — earlier when she asked him about why Amir saved her.
“Amir could see I was partial to you. Amir preserves my happiness, even when I don’t or can’t,” Eddie had quietly said, “He had a hunch you might prove fruitful in later times.
“That Dolly might prove fruitful in later times.” Amir finishes, and he looks from Dolly to Eddie before he calmly strolls out of the room, not noticing how Dolly and Eddie glare at him as he moves about the space.
i'm giving y'all a two-for-one since I missed wip wednesday last week and I'm trying to alternate between chapter release weeks and wip update weeks... but for good reason! I've had a few interviews so hopefully I'll have some good news about a full-time job soon :]
anyways, first up is Find the Word, and I was tagged by @bringbackmaes14! My words are breath, moment, desperate, and dark! Current WIP is IWTV Chapter 14, and it's sitting over 21k so I think I'll be able to find them in there :)
cut for spoilers and cws (implied murder, vampires, fem! self-insert is referred to as Canary for lore reasons from chap. 1, unreliable narrators with even more unreliable flashbacks that are presented in italics, volt bashing but I swear to GOD it makes sense in this universe walk with me, unedited kat writing so please be kind with my weird grammar and repetitiveness w/ word choices bc it will be fixed in editing!)
Breath
“I’m sorry,” Dolly blinks, a little flabbergasted, “What was that?”
“Amir rarely eats.” Eddie calmly responds, like this shit is normal. “So, when he does eat, he prefers to hunt for it.”
“And in large quantities.” Dolly mutters under her breath before she raises the volume of her voice. “Do those gentlemen know they’re lunch?”
“Are you recording?” Eddie shoots back before Dolly shakes her head.
“No.”
“The Hanks know that if they make it, on foot, to the Brandenburg Gate before dawn, they’ll be paid enough money to do…” Eddie trails off for a moment. “Well, most anything they want.”
That, of course, naturally leads Dolly to another question.
“Has anyone ever cashed in?”
Moment
“What do you remember about Canary?”
“Me?” Dolly’s perplexed by Eddie’s question. “Why?”
“Last night, Amir said…” Eddie shakes his head in subtle frustration. “He remembers her worst actions, and he thinks that’s who she is, but I don’t… I can’t… Canary wasn’t mean or vengeful or spiteful. She was hurt.”
He pauses for a moment.
“Volt, Harper, and I would lash out when we were hurt, and it wouldn’t mean anything, but when she does it… she’s a monster.” Eddie’s eyes shine with tears as he makes eye contact with Dolly. “Canary’s not a monster. She’s kind, smart, beautiful, and the best thing that’s ever happened to me. She gave hope, happiness, daughters…”
Eddie bitterly chuckles before he places the hotel key card in-between two of his fingers, presenting it to Dolly so she can hold onto it.
“I just want to know that someone else thinks the world of her, since Harper isn’t here anymore. That someone else cares for her well-being, and thinks she deserves nothing but the best from the world."
Desperate
“Get to the point, River. We don’t have all night.”
“I was desperate to find Canary, and even more desperate for my organization to not find out about her disappearance... but they did, and they even offered me assistance in finding her,” River returns to her original point with ease, “With their help, I was able to locate her with ease.”
“And then happily ever after?”
“Not quite, Dolly,” River wistfully says, “She wasn’t as happy to see me as I was to see her.”
Dark
“Right,” Dolly feels bad for interrupting, but she kinda wants to get things back on track, “that’s good and all, but–”
“–what’s the next thing you remember, honey?” River quickly asks her.
“A lot of talking,” Dolly clicks her tongue, “but most of what I remember is Canary shit-talkin’ Volt.”
“He had a dark pull, a numbing effect on the senses,” You pointed at Dolly, now pacing the room as you spoke to the reporter, “He was a handsome Satan.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dolly nodded in agreement, “I know the type.”
River was mostly silent through the exchange, simply watching the three of you interact for… kicks? For laughs? Dolly had a really hard time getting a read on this woman.
“When you stripped away his superficial charms,” You spoke animatedly, using your hands to gesture wildly around you, “beneath his flimsy gentleman’s veneer… Volt was trivial, vapid, vulgar, maniacal, blind, and sterile and contemptible!”
and now, we have a seven-ish sentence sunday, where I was tagged by dot again and @blackbirdofasgard <3
“See? You were nimble-minded, even back then.” River points out.
“I was a moron.” Dolly bemoans before Eddie shakes his head, a faint smile on his face.
“Not to Canary. She thought you were brilliant.”
“Will you, uh…” Dolly shyly looked away from you. “Do the fang thing again?”
A smile forced its way onto your lips before you obliged her requests, happily displaying your fangs for an audience of one who grinned like the sight of your sharpened pearly whites was the best thing in the world.
Dolly laughed merrily, as did you.
“I love that!” She then turned to the tape recorder. “Just for reference, that was Canary Watts just now, makin’ her fangs… come out.”
MY SHAYLASSSSS dolly & canary you deserved more time together 🥹 and thank you for the tags my friends! ugh I can't believe I'm five chapters away from being done with iwtv I HAVE SO MANY MIXED EMOTIONS ABOUT THAT :///
An Interview with the Vampire — Chapter/Episode Thirteen: innocence died screaming (honey, ask me, I would know)
a/n: the new trailers for the vampire lestat have me STOKED so I was feeling especially inspired and I sat down and wrote another chapter in, like, a week LOL. also this is the beginning of the a streak of chapters that are best described as mostly angst and misery. consider yourself warned.
relationship: vampire! volt x vampire! eddie x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! eddie x vampire! amir; vampire! amir x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! river x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! harper x mortal! lucinda lavish
series masterlist! || french translations (I do not speak fluent french, so any corrections would be appreciated!)
cws: brothels, prostitution, smoking/cigarettes, crude/sexual humor, murder, gore, violence, periods, blood, religious themes, age gap relationship, toxic/unhealthy relationship, unreliable narrators, mentions of rape and sexual assault, domestic violence, pregnancy, loss of pregnancy/miscarriage, fasting/starvation, slut-shaming, assumed main character death, hallucinations, generalized descriptions of the horrors of war, implied sexual situations but there’s no actual smut, spoilers for s2ep4 of amc’s iwtv!
summary: Falling in love is easier said than done. You, Eddie, and Harper walk different paths on that topic, but you always end up coming to the same destination together, as a family. A fractured family, but a family nonetheless… until Amir reveals something to Harper, in a heated moment, that causes her to finally pull the blindfold from your eyes and tell you what’s really been going on with Eddie… and some of the things he’s been hiding from you. Eddie and Dolly don’t really agree on much in the present day, but they both seem to be haunted by their memories. Eddie, in Dolly’s point of view, is on the figurative end, while Dolly’s –“Don’t be afraid. Just start the tape.” – experiencing more literal fragmentations of her 1975 interview with the vampires Canary and Eddie Watts. She grows tired of her broken memories, so she hunts for a solution to her predicament within her computer files. — 24.7k words! [read on ao3!]
“So,” Dolly grabs the script that contains the full play that Harper performed, night after night, for over a year, “how did Harper like being infantilized in your plays?”
“Coven life requires a… letting go of the self.” Like usual, Amir gives some weird answer that makes him look like a saint while Eddie’s half-hearted response would meander around the truth. Man, these fucking vampires are getting predictable. “She carried her water uphill like a seasoned player–”
“–she had her… issues with it.” And there’s the more balanced, truthful response from Eddie as he stands in the middle of the living room, admiring the playbill for the performance while Dolly continues to read from the script.
“Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!” Harper waves her arms around like a madwoman as she pretends to fly about the stage, perfectly displaying the mannerism of a bird in her gaudy, frilly, baby-blue dress.
Suddenly, she stops when Connie, dressed as a maid, walks into the room. There’s a small chase sequence that earns a few laughs from the audience before a high-strung Lady Memoria, who pretends to smoke a cigarette, makes her entrance from stage right.
“Hello, Baby Lu.” Memoria speaks with a certain amount of disdain for the child in question before she flicks her hand in Connie’s direction. “We’ve come to steal your nounou away downstairs to stir our cocktails and serve our canapés, and keep your daddy’s disgusting hands off your dear mama!”
Once she takes a seat on a well-placed chair, Connie rushes up to her before Harper begins to spin in circles with her arms extended once more.
“I’m a birdie! Cheep! Cheep!”
“Madame, your daughter is bewitched by the window,” Connie pretends to speak in a low tone, as if the frantic girl behind her can’t hear what she’s saying, “She thinks she is a real bird.”
“Nounou, I need two mint juleps and four bahinis.” Memoria brushes her off before she closes a pretend door behind her, hiding herself from the crowd before Connie has a chance to respond.
“Yes, Madame,” Connie’s head then snaps towards the window on stage left that Harper pretends to nearly fall out of, “Lulu! Get away from there!”
“I’m a birdie!” Harper hops down before the chase between the pair ensues once more. “Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!”
“Don’t make me use this!” Connie warns as she grabs a hammer and a nail from behind the chair.
“Gonna flap-flap my wings and fly far, far away!” Harper is insistently disobedient as Connie issues one last warning.
“You know I will!”
“Gonna fly far away!” Harper says before she screams in pain when Connie mimics slamming a nail into her foot with the hammer, and the projector shows blood stains flying across the stage as Chairemi steps out and sprays the front row of the audience with fake blood. “Ah! My claw!”
“This is not a claw!” Connie brings the hammer down once more. “It is a foot!”
Harper pretends to sob in her hands before Memoria calls out to Connie once more.
“Nounou! Where are my canapés?”
“Yes, Madame!” Connie hurries off-stage as Harper dramatically peels her hands off of her face, earning a few laughs from the crowd.
“Little birdie Lu’s caught in a trap,” She laments to the crowd, “But she’s flapping her wings, and getting free!”
She waves her arms wildly in the air before she frees her foot from its pretend prison, and the room goes wild when Harper has her gaze set on the window before she dives out of it.
“Birdie loves the breeze!” She screams as the projector shows her falling, falling, falling before she ‘hits’ the ground with a hard thud, produced by one of the drummers in the orchestral pit.
“Lulu?” Connie peaks into the room before a horrified expression appears on her face. It doesn’t last for long, as Memoria comes through the door with a comically large martini glass in her hand.
“Where are the canapés?”
The crowd applauds, whistles, and hoots as Harper falls to the ground, playing dead with extraordinary ability.
“The play was a hit.” Dolly remarks in surprise.
“An unmitigated hit.” Amir corrects.
“They added shows, added seats, sold souvenirs.” Eddie tosses the playbill onto the table, right in front of Dolly before he walks behind Amir’s seat and squeezes his shoulder in support.
“Parisians, who’d long disdained us, started drifting back in again,” Amir looks up to the ceiling, caught up in his own reminiscing, “We even added back a Wednesday French performance.”
“Hmm,” Dolly then looks at the playbill in front of her, “how did the coven take it?”
“Mostly with good grace–”
“–they were bitter.” Eddie interrupts, causing Dolly to lightly snort.
“I hate this song like I hate my mortal father.” Drysdale rolls his eyes, stretching his extended legs ever-so-slightly forward as he listens to Harper sing the beloved tune attached to her play.
“I don’t like windows when they’re closed~”
“I dream that my mortal mother sings it,” Artt fixes up a small prop in front of him, ignoring the way someone’s head bobs up and down underneath Drysdale’s outfit, “while she beats me with a crucifix.”
“Fuck off, three minutes!” Drysdale storms off, leaving Bathsheba to shakily rise from her knees before she carefully wipes something white off from her lips.
“It says here, in the margins, ‘Find Baby Lulu’s inner childlike wonder again,’” Dolly notes as she reads Amir’s handwriting from the script, “And, ‘Harper, if you do absolutely nothing else, at least enunciate.’”
“Those are my notes, but…” Amir trails off. “By the five-hundredth performance, Harper had grown bored with her role. …At least, that’s what Eddie would call it.”
“What would you call it, then?” Dolly dares to ask.
“It wasn’t ennui. It was sabotage.”
~
I hate this fuckin’ stage. I hate this fuckin’ dress. I hate the way my hair is braided straight down the middle, into two equal braids that make me look ten. This is a goddamn humiliation ritual.
Yet, every night, here I am, performin’ the same script.
“I’m going to flap-flap my wings,” I spoke in plain English, the way Amir liked it since my accent was… too much for the Parisian audience, as he would put it. Fine. He wants me to speak plainly? I’ll speak plain and easy and without a thought behind my words. No emotion, no reasonin’, no pain, “and fly far, far away!”
“You have been warned!” Connie seemed to take pleasure in pretendin’ to nail my foot to the stage, as if she wished she could actually do so instead of letting the projector do all of the hard work while Chairemi sprayed the audience with a little bit of blood.
“Cheep. Cheep. Cheep.” I flew slowly, without any motivation behind my movement as Connie rushed off-stage when Memoria called for her. “Little birdie Lulu’s caught in a trap, but she’s flapping her wings and getting free.”
Dreadin’ every step I took, I walked towards that damn window and stepped through it after I addressed the audience, who spoke my final line for me.
“Little birdie loves the breeze!”
At least they’re enjoyin’ themselves while I suffer durin’ the performance.
I don’t even like singin’ anymore. I mean, I didn’t love it beforehand, but I hate bein’ babied by the audience ‘n the coven every night. I am a strong, mighty vampire who could kill them all if I wanted to–!
One night, I just mumbled through the song ‘n my lines, lettin’ the audience do all the hard work for me since they know every word by heart. Hell, half the fuckin’ audience is dressed like me. They willingly dress like a child while I feel like I have to put on this costume every night so I have a place in the coven. Ain’t that somethin’?
I gave a half-hearted bow to thunderous applause, even though I could feel the stares from everyone off-stage, as well as Amir from the second-floor balcony. Eddie was there, too, and I hated the way I could feel the pity radiatin’ from his body. I don’t need any pity. ‘Specially not from him.
…At least one little birdie — Canary — got free, even if ‘m the one who has to suffer for it. I barely see her anymore, and when I do, it’s the happiest I’ve seen her since I was a child. Hell, you’d think I joined the coven for her, and not the other way around.
Or, maybe, Canary joined the coven for herself. She chose somethin’ that isn’t for me or for Eddie for fuckin’ once. She’s finally decided to live her own life. Good for her.
…I still miss my mama, though. I miss the way her fingers would comb through my hair as she sang me some French lullaby before she apologized for someone treatin’ me like a child, even though it wasn't her fault. It wasn't ever her fault.
Sometimes, it feels like Canary is the only one who sees me for who I am: a grown woman stuck in a child’s body.
I don’t know where she’s off to most nights, but by the smile on her face and the faint marks on her neck that returns with her every night at curfew, I can take a guess that she’s not out writin’ her novel for hours on end. Whoever’s got her attention is very, very lucky.
You might think it’s Eddie, but Canary seems to be avoidin’ him, too. When he comes to visit the coven, and he’s not too busy lickin’ the dirt off of Amir’s boot, he’s always askin’ me ‘bout where she is, or who she visits, or when he can see her next. He never asks me ‘bout me. What a fuckin’ self-centered asshole.
The funny thing is… they do talk. At least once a week, under Amir’s watchful eye. They go out into the Parisian streets on the one night a week that we perform in French, and they return a little before sunrise. Apparently, Canary ain’t tellin’ Eddie much. Yet again, those two always communicated better with their bodies than their words… yuck.
Anyways, it doesn’t surprise me when Amir singles me out after the performance and has me stand center-stage while he belittles my performance in front of the entire coven. Chairemi’s cleanin’ out the seats, which are covered in cigarettes and wrappers and mushed-up food that looks utterly disgusting, while Eddie sits far in the back of the house, arm wrapped around his beloved wife that happened to slip into the theater a little earlier than normal.
Canary looked shocked when Eddie came up to her, and he practically dragged her into a seat before speakin’ to her in a low tone. Before long, surprise was replaced by sweet smiles, and all was well in the Watts household once more.
…Besides anythin’ to do with me. Since the moment I was turned, my life hasn’t been about me. What a joke.
“Lackluster. Bromidic. Unacceptable.” Amir continues to rattle on an endless list of unflattering adjectives in my direction while I hang my head low, acceptin’ my fate.
“Yes, Maître.”
“So, explain to the company why the five-hundredth performance of My Baby Loves Windows felt more like a slog than a celebration?”
The performance felt like a slog ‘cause the fuckin’ script is a slog.
“Maître, I think that… I–”
“–Wave your words to shore, please.” Amir cuts me off before I have a chance to gather my words, which makes me huff in response.
Fine. He wants to hear my real thoughts? He can have ‘em.
“‘M a fierce vampire trapped in the body of a little girl.” I feel Canary’s eyes land on me as I tell Amir what’s been on my mind every night for months. “‘M reminded of it every night, of my existence, buttonin’ up this dress and singin’ and smilin’, while the mortals point ‘n laugh. I relive every condescendin’ look or fuckin’ comment I have ever had to suffer.”
I don’t wanna do this anymore. I’d rather hide in the back ‘n paint props or dispose of bodies or whatever the fuck they need me to do. I can’t do this. It’ll break me.
“I… I have lost my passion for on-stage work. I think I prefer backstage work.”
“Huh,” Amir clicks his tongue in disapproval before he turns to the coven’s playwright, “Chairemi?”
“Yes, Maître?” She answers, standin’ at attention while he narrows his eyes at me.
“What are you holding in your hand?”
“Popcorn bag,” Chairemi holds up the object in her left hand, then her right, “and a prophylactic.”
“And why, as the author of My Baby Loves Windows, would you humble yourself thus?” Amir’s lips quirk up when she immediately answers.
“It is a privilege to work in this theater. I do what I am asked, and I do it gratefully.”
Privilege my ass. The rest of the coven seems to disapprove of her response as well, blowin’ kisses to Chairemi after Drysdale and Bathsheba do it, as a way to mimic Chairemi’s ass-kissin’.
“And your nomadic passion, Harper,” God, the way Amir says my name is irritatin’, “owes your playwright an apology.”
“Sorry, Chairemi.” I, of course, apologize because what the fuck else am I goin’ to do?
“Oh, you’re grand.” Chairemi waves me off before she throws the items in her hand into a large trash bin.
“To help you rediscover your passion for Lulu, you’ll no longer remove your costume.” Canary’s eyes drill into the back of Amir’s skull as he punishes me. “You’ll sleep in it, rehearse in it, feed in it, hunt in it. You’ll live with Lulu off-stage, until she returns to you onstage.”
I locked eyes with Canary, who placed a hand over her heart before she tried to stand. Eddie pulled her back down as he raised his eyebrows at me. Me, of all people! Not the man who’s torturin’ me for kicks.
Me. Just me, always me.
Don’t.
I repeat that word in my head, over and over again, so Canary knows not to say anything. I don’t want her gettin’ in the middle of this. She doesn’t need to fight my battles. She doesn’t need to fight any battles. The war she wages within herself every day is enough for her to bear.
“And, yet, the audience sang along in full voice.” Drysdale murmurs, head bowed slightly as Bathsheba rubs his shoulders.
“The red hands of clapping cattle are not the measure of the Theatre Des Vampires.” Amir calmly refutes Drysdale's claim, and Drysdale pushes Bathsheba off of him before he stalks towards Amir with an air of unabashed confidence and control about him. The kind that made me respect him. “If they were, then your mugging and pandering would have us standing room only to the decade.”
“Nicely volleyed, Maître, but why single out our sister,” Drysdale stands next to me when he stops movin’ towards Amir, “when nomadic passion has infected the entire company?”
“Has it?”
“Maître might not have noticed,” Lady Memoria addresses him next, foldin’ her arms over her chest as Drysdale looks over at her in approval, “as he has been nomadically attending the Theatre Des Vampires.”
“And the infection spread, what, almost a year and a half ago?” Drysdale asks before Memoria answers his question, and I can hear the smoke comin’ out of Bathsheba’s ears as I feel the anger radiatin’ off of her like wave after wave of heat on a hot New Orleans day.
“When a certain vampire was granted dispensation from coven membership–”
“–It’s Eddie.” Finally, Eddie decides to pipe up as he places a hand over Canary’s body, to protect her from what may come next. “I have a name.”
“Eddie takes all of the proper precautions.” Amir says before Daisuke furrows his eyebrows, clearly displeased by what’s goin’ on.
“He reveals himself in the cafés, the salons and gallerias–”
“–I keep my business tight,” Eddie argues back, “thank you.”
“Maybe his human friends ask why he can only meet at dark?” Artt theorizes before Connie jumps in afterwards.
“He reads books during Blood Sabbath!”
“I’ll loan it to you when ‘m done,” He then glances at Canary, pressing a kiss to her cheek before he smiles into her skin, “as long as it’s okay with the author.”
“It’s still a work in progress, my love–”
“–oh… Then, maybe, they both should be punished!” Connie screeches, and I can’t help but snap ‘cause of how far we’ve derailed the conversation.
“This is not about Canary or Eddie!”
“Discipline Harper for bumping into the scenery, but let Eddie and Canary run wild?” Drysdale then looks to Canary, who softly whines before she hides in Eddie’s arms. “We know what you’ve been doing, sister.”
She shudders before she looks up at Eddie, who mutters some quiet, shallow words of reassurance to her, while Memoria feels the need to pipe up once more.
“It’s a show of shallow power–”
“–what do you think you’re doing?!?” Bathsheba hisses before she storms off to confront Memoria, and I know this won’t end without a fight. These vampires might actually be worse than Volt with their theatrics, which is an accomplishment in itself.
“And you do this for what?” Drysdale continues on, ignoring the fight that’s about to break out behind him. “Is it thirst? Is it love? What is he exactly? Are you companions?”
“Yes,” is what Amir answers–
“No.”
–which directly contradicts what comes out of Eddie’s mouth.
Eddie is a lot of fuckin’ things. A liar, a thief, a tormentor… but you can’t say that he’s not loyal. He is stupidly loyal to Canary, and he’d never call anyone else his companion. To him, it’s always been her. I’d wager that it’ll always be her. There is no Eddie Watts without Canary Watts. She is the Northern Star, the sun he cannot hope to touch or observe directly, the person he cannot live without. If she met the fire, he would join her soon afterwards.
After a moment of awkward silence and tense looks exchanged between Amir and Eddie, Drysdale smirks like he’s won all of the money in the world until Bathsheba speaks again.
“Put your tits back in your bloomers, slut!”
She leaps at Memoria, tearing at fabric and skin as she takes them both to the ground. They snarl and scream like freshly released hellions until Curt and Rod move to separate them.
…Of all the vampires to run into, of all the covens in the world, why’d I have to associate myself with them?
~
Eddie knows what conversation awaits him when Amir grabs his shirt, trying to hide himself from Eddie after their amorous encounter mere moments ago.
“If it’s not companionship, what is it?”
Eddie had two companions in America. One is dead, and the other is slipping through his fingers as the years go by. He knows he’s holding onto you too tight, but… were you really so desperate to escape him?
“It’s whatever you want to call it.” Eddie noncommittally says as Amir lights a cigarette.
“An affair? A romance?”
“That works for me,” Eddie’s eyes fixate on a candle at the edge of the bed, and he lights it with his mental power before he extinguishes the flame in the same way, “‘Companion’ works, too. It’s not the word I would use.”
He says that, but he doesn’t mean that Amir is his companion. It’s you. It’s always been you. You are the one Eddie has tied his destiny to, for better or for worse. He thought you were of the same opinion, so what changed? Was it you? Was it him?
Sure, you and Eddie speak once a week, with Amir’s hawk eyes watching you the entire time, but it isn’t like it used to be. It isn’t how Eddie wants it to be.
Your dates are short and sweet — a small stroll around a few boulevards before you return to the coven for the night. You spend most of the night talking Eddie’s ear off about your novel, gossip within the coven, how Harper is doing, or about your adventures with River.
He’s heard a lot about this River. Eddie has tried to ask Amir about her, but he remains tight-lipped about the whereabouts and personality of this mysterious woman. Whoever she is, she’s consumed your attention fully, and Eddie can’t help but be a little envious. He’d do anything for you within a moment’s notice, and he thought that this would earn him some sort of preferential treatment with you.
Yet again, Eddie remembers how you always got shoved to the side whenever Eddie fell back into Volt’s clutches. So maybe these are his just desserts. Maybe.
“So, it’s not whatever I want to call it, then?” Amir seems frustrated as he moves his legs off of the bed, reaching for his pants so he can begin to dress his lower half.
“What was the name of the place where Canary ‘n I first met?” Eddie suddenly asks, drawing confusion onto Amir’s face with the question.
“L’Oiseau Chanteur.”
“Azalea Hall,” Eddie corrects his lover, “L’Oiseau Chanteur was the name of the bar we owned together.”
“Well, you don’t talk about that time in your life very much.”
“No, I don’t. So it’s okay if you don’t remember those details,” Eddie reassures Amir, “‘cause that’s how this settled, and that’s great. This is great. What we got is great.”
Eddie swears he only took his eyes off of the candle for a second, but when his eyes return to the flame, a ghostly image of Volt is leaning in with a cigarette, trying to light it with the small fire. Spitefully, Eddie extinguishes the flame with his breath, but not before Volt manages to light his cigarette.
“It’s just not a companionship, then.” Amir defeatedly mumbles as he buttons his dress shirt over his toned, muscular chest.
“Oh, God, how do you manage it?” Volt sighs as he releases a cloud of noxious fumes — courtesy of the cigarette in his hands — into the air.
Eddie ignores Volt, choosing to deal with the real vampire in front of him. Eddie thought this was fun and occasional. Amir, apparently, had a different idea.
“We see each other when we want to,” Eddie says, “And when we want to be alone, we’re alone. And that’s good, it’s easy.”
“You are not alone. You pine after the woman who has stolen your heart, as well as mine,” Amir’s confession earns a guffaw from Volt, “This arrangement isn’t easy for me. You don’t understand the danger I risk every night for you, especially when it comes to those weekly meetings with your wife, and how that danger compounds with every slight.”
“What slights?” Eddie shrugs nonchalantly as Amir takes a seat next to him on the bed, deadly serious as he addresses Eddie.
“You rarely join us for a hunt. You read novels during performances–”
“–Canary asked me to be her second set of eyes when it comes to her writin’.” And Eddie is desperate to please you, desperate to bridge the sudden gap that separates you from him, so he agrees and reads them during the plays. So what? “I’ve seen those plays a hundred times!”
“I keep your secret.” Amir lays the nail in the metaphorical coffin with that one, causing Eddie to look down towards his folded hands as Volt decides to pipe up at the most inopportune of times.
“What? What’s the secret?” When Eddie doesn’t answer, Volt takes the liberty of answering for him. “Oh, I’m the secret. Eddie, darling, do you notice how hot the room gets when you two talk about the secret?”
Eddie looks back, lighting the candle once more, as a way to distract him from Volt’s words. And, once again, Eddie’s mind goes back to you and how you’re blissfully unaware of how Amir knows of what Eddie did that night.
He’ll ask for forgiveness later… maybe when he’s dead? Who knows.
“Progress.” Amir comments before Eddie hums in agreement.
“It only seems to work when I think of shit that pisses me off.”
Volt. The ache in his heart that he feels for you. Volt. The weight of a thousand lies resting upon his shoulder. Volt. The absolute mess he’s made between him and Harper, and how much he’s failed her as a father.
…Did he forget to mention Volt?
“I try and find the vulnerability within the object.” Amir suggests while Eddie tries to find a happy medium between their two worlds.
“So, you want me to come around more?”
“Yes, that would help,” Amir lets himself smile for the briefest of moments, “I’ll find a way to make Canary stay. She can be with you on the nights that you dedicate your full attention to the performances and the coven.”
Amir doesn’t have to tell Eddie twice.
“Okay, then, I’ll come around more.”
A rogue, awkward silence plagues the room before Amir softly exhales.
“I have to get back. Curfew.”
While they aren’t companions, Eddie still has strong feelings for him.
“I love you.” Eddie murmurs before Amir leans in, placing a guiding hand on Eddie’s jaw before Amir kisses him.
“I love you.” Amir whispers that loving sentiment back before Volt cackles in the background.
He swiftly exits while Volt continues to let laughter fall from his lips.
“You promised you wouldn’t talk!” Eddie hisses to Volt, who grins like he’s won it all.
“I love you.” Volt mocks Amir before Eddie haphazardly blows out the candle, slamming his head down on the pillow in defeat right afterwards.
~
Dolly narrows her eyes at one of the two vampires in the room.
“Are you schizophrenic, Eddie?”
She’s not joking, not mocking, not trying to be mean. She’s kind of concerned about Eddie’s mental health right now. Well, concerned is putting it lightly.
“...No?”
Very strong answer from the vampire in question. …Not.
“Did you consider yourself schizophrenic at the time?” Dolly follows up as Eddie looks at her, a bit puzzled.
“I’m not sure the term applies to a vampire.” Eddie says before — who would’ve fucking guessed it — Amir jumps in with a well-timed answer.
“Perhaps, when the book is published, enterprising psychotherapists will write papers. Until then, you only have Dolly Molloy.”
A pair of orange eyes. A bright sun. A black dress shirt.
Amir sits in front of a scared, younger Dolly.
“He was my biographer, my therapist, my murderer.” Dolly jokes, as a way to distract herself from that flashback, which earns a small chuckle from Eddie.
“Short of a diagnosis, would you like to know what it feels — felt — like?”
Dolly’s fingers fly across the keyboard at that Freudian slip before she answers him.
“Yeah, sure, why not?”
“I could feel the movement of air with his movements, his breath on the back of my neck,” Eddie continues to speak, but Dolly focuses on how… removed Amir seems as he stares off into the distance, like Volt’s appearances in Eddie’s mind have caused him pain, too, “If I were to reach out and touch his hand, I wouldn’t say it was his hand… but it was not not his hand.”
Amir’s gaze snaps back to Eddie, a small frown on his face, before Dolly decides to address him.
“And you weren’t feelin’ Volt in the room?”
“No.” He calmly answers, as if he wasn’t staring off into space a moment prior, “And I was not aware he was as present as it seems he was. But, looking back on it now, I can understand it.”
“Ah,” Dolly clicks her tongue before she brings up an old, buried hatchet, “The vampire bond, huh?”
“I was severing one,” Eddie explains, “and knitting another.”
While the audio recording software documents this entire conversation on this computer, Dolly pulls up that news article pertaining to the fire that took down the coven’s theater once more. Why not ask Eddie and Amir about this, too?
“So,” Better now than never, eh? “Were you two the only ones who survived the fire at the theater?”
A silence. A deadly silence as smiles fall and eyes dissect Dolly’s anatomy, down to her skin and bones.
Uh-oh.
“You weren’t provided any information about the fire in our archives.” Amir coldly says before Dolly’s launched into another flashback.
Cold floor against her cheek. Dress shoes clicking against the floor before they walk in front of her. A TV reporter speaks indistinctly… from an old TV, perhaps?
“That’s enterprising.” Amir’s voice is right in a younger Dolly’s ear, speaking in disjointed phrases that aren’t where they should be. “Is that what makes you fascinating?”
Again, suddenly, she’s face-to-face with Amir. A shining bright light from open curtains casts the vampire in front of her in a heavenly glow as he speaks in a low tone.
“In high school, you told a boy you’d only do him if he had a paper–”
Dolly blinks rapidly, trying to wipe the memory that continually forces its way into her brain.
What the fuck? Why do these memories keep coming up? Why are they so…?
“Uh, sorry.” She curtly says as Eddie looks at her with a bit of concern.
“The fire?”
“Yeah, umm…” Dolly’s gotta pull something out of her ass, rather quickly, “One of my researchers found it in the Beinecke Library in New Haven. She thinks we’re working on a book about the post-war reconstruction of Paris.”
To be safe, she closes the newspaper article that’s pulled up on her laptop screen. The last thing she needs, while her mind is running amuck with mismatched memories, is for Eddie and Amir to find out where she got that information from.
…And Dolly may fear what that means for you if they find out. What the fuck does any of this have to do with you? What the hell has Dolly gotten herself into, in the name of trying to help Eddie find his wife and maybe, just maybe, get one last bestseller out before she dies?
Dolly needs to pivot. Now. And what better subject to pivot to then the girl that makes them both uncomfortable — Harper?
“Harper,” She’s quick to grab one of Harper’s final journals, thumbing through the pages as she speaks, “In direct violation of the third Great Law, still journalin’. Shall we?”
~
Fuck these vampires.
Well, maybe not all of the vampires. I like most of the coven, when they’re not fuckin’ or makin’ eyes at each other. Drysdale defended me when it mattered, ‘n that counts in my book.
This punishment of Amir’s is what fuckin’ sucks. I have to dispose of the bodies in this abomination of a dress, which somehow remains free of stains despite the dirt and filth that surrounds me. I remember which box is the rat box, and which box is the body box as I pull the lever down, allowing the rats to scurry about as I open the door to one of the empty burial vaults.
Since I live with the coven now, it ain’t safe for me to keep my current journals out in the open. My earlier works are safe ‘n sound with Eddie, where no pryin’ eyes can get to them. Maybe I’ll come ‘n get them some day, so I know my words will be safe from the likes of men like Volt, Amir, ‘n Eddie. No one will see them but me.
I hid a pen in my dress, ‘n I quickly dug it out so I could write somethin’ about my current conditions, but someone’s voice caused me to jump ‘n slam my journal shut.
“What are you writing, Baby Lu?” It’s Drysdale, thankfully, but I still hide my work behind my back in case he’s thinkin’ about doin’ somethin’ with it.
Yet again, I’ve never seen him in this shitty basement that’s below the backrooms. Sewers ‘n rats don’t seem to fit this man’s looks.
“Why are you lurkin’?” Annoyed, I roll my eyes as his feet fall down the stairs, ‘n then he joins me in this literal hellhole.
“Honoring the blood,” He then looks to the body box, “Pepa Matekja moved me. I wanted to hear his heartbeat one last time.”
“Well,” I gesture to the body box with my book, acceptin’ that I’m already caught, “here it comes.”
The rats go into a feedin’ frenzy, eliminatin’ the last of this man as they scurry about in their metal container. I feel a sort of kinship with ‘em. I know how it feels to be trapped ‘n forced to do things against your will. It’s not fun. Not at all.
“No vampire must commit to writing the history of vampires.” Drysdale cautiously reminded me as he looked to the book in my hand, ‘n I thought that was ridiculous.
This shit isn’t the history of the vampires. It’s my personal thoughts about whatever bullshit is pollutin’ my life at the moment, ‘n I seem to find a lot of it… or maybe it finds me? Doesn’t matter anymore. It is what it is.
“Law three. It’s not the history. It’s just… random thoughts.” I slowly explained. “It’s a habit.”
One I got from my mother, ‘n that secret will be buried with me. As far as they know, she’s just a fantasy writer. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less. I intend to keep it that way.
“Read me some.”
…What? Drysdale wants to hear… my thoughts? My borin, uninterestin’ thoughts?
Fine. It can’t hurt at this point. Drysdale will report me to Amir whether I agree or not, so I might as well do it. Can't hurt nothin’ at this point, right?
I crack open my journal, flippin’ to one of my most recent entries before I read from the page.
“‘Memoria ‘n Connie hate me. I hear their petty insults in the middle of our scenes.’”
“Do you know what we call Lady Memoria behind her back?” Drysdale places his hands upon the rat box, lookin’ down at me after he adjusts his pajama robe, “The Marie Celeste, because her talent disappeared without trace years ago. And Connie is so far up Memoria’s arse that she doesn’t need a coffin to sleep in anymore.”
Drysdale then folds his arms over his chest before he grins at me.
“I do hope there’s something juicy in there.”
Juicy? Was that not juicy enough?
Well, there’s no harm in him readin’ my words — there’s nothin’ about our past lives in here, since I finished up writin’ about that stuff before I was inducted into the coven — so I tossed my journal to him with a small warning.
“There’s a few things about you in there,” I couldn’t help but smile, “Go on, then.”
“Maître has a grave attachment to the laws. Now, you may feel protected by his equally tender attachment to your Eddie, alongside his careful, loving meddling in the life of your Canary,” He catches the book with ease before he sets it upon the rat box, “But tender… can turn to tinder.”
I know this. I don’t need Eddie’s help, or any favoritism from Amir because he’s with Eddie. I came to the coven of my own free will. I’m the one who was used and abused for months, and I agreed to those vampires laws. This has nothin’ to do with Eddie.
“I took an oath. I don’t need it.” I confidently said as Drysdale walks towards one of the burial plots on the wall behind me.
“Francis Naughton was transformed without the permission of the vampire Amir, in absentminded violation of law one,” His sharp fingers nails tap a vault above his head, “and here lies his daddy vamp.”
Yeah, I don’t wanna end up like that.
While lockin’ eyes with Drysdale, I open up the top of the rat box before I throw my journal in there, causin’ him to tut at me.
“Don’t be melodramatic. I have bent law four with at least half of the working girls at La Chabanais, but I am rigorous.” Drysdale steps towards me, opening up the rat box again before he fishes out my journal from the mouths of those rats. “Had I been Memoria or Connie, lurking in the shadows…”
He then presents me with the book as I stare at him.
“And thank you for the kind words you wrote about me.”
“How do you know what I wrote?” I snatched the book from him before I looked him in the eyes.
“I read it, just right now, in front of you.”
There’s no fuckin’ way. Yet, I’m tempted to believe Drysdale when he gasps in mock surprise. This vampire is somethin’, alright.
~
“Non, merci.”
Since the stage wasn’t workin’ out for me still, Amir had me workin’ the streets with this awkward, double-sided sign hangin’ off my shoulders as I tried to hand fliers to drunk French folks who wanted nothin’ to do with me.
I wasn’t surprised when yet another pair of mortals, a man and a woman, refused me before they burst into giggles.
Yeah, ‘m still in this fuckin’ dress, with these braids in my hair and these tight shoes that barely fit my feet.
I continued to walk down the dark alleyway, brushin’ off their rejection with a chin held high before another man approached me, hollerin’ at me with his voice that he purposefully deepened.
“Hey, Baby Lu!”
No. Absolutely not.
Still, I hand him a flyer when he sings my song back at me — why can’t Amir get one of these fanatics to sing ‘n dance ‘n act on stage instead of me, huh? Why can’t that happen? — and that causes him to move along as I slowly walk forward before I stop movin’.
Y’know what? Fuck this. Fuck him.
…That mortal's blood tasted pretty fuckin’ good, since I was starvin’ off the scraps that the coven fed off of, night after night. It’s been a while since we went on a proper hunt, so that asshole was a real treat to me.
I made sure to wipe the blood from my mouth after I dragged the body into a spare alleyway, ‘n then I continued on my way. I handed out flyers to two women sittin’ outside of a café, a busy man who brushes by me on his bike, ‘n a man who doesn’t bother to give me a second glance as he’s too busy readin’ his book…
Wait. I’ve been down this street before. I saw the streetlights flicker on the night that I got those pretty dresses for me ‘n my mama. The night before I involved myself in this coven bullshit.
Her. I remember her. The dressmaker — or tailor? Or is she both? — with the pretty red hair, almost like mine, ‘n the fierce attitude towards me. What was her name again?
…Oh. I didn’t get it the first time. Fuck.
I pull out one of the least crinkled flyers from my hands before I slowly approach the dressmaker who’s tryin’ to wipe an ugly symbol from the Germany army off of one of her storefront windows.
I don’t know what to say to her, even though ‘m standin’ right behind her. She has her hair tied up in a neat ponytail, lookin’ way more composed than I am. She wears a long-sleeved, grey blouse with a black skirt that’s pooled around her legs, hidin’ her flesh from me.
I wouldn’t think about bitin’ her. She wasn’t kind to me, but I liked her. There was somethin’ real — really real — about the way she talked to me. Like she wasn’t pretendin’ to like me.
“You sold me two dresses.” I open with that line, which draws her attention to me. Success! “In your shop window. Mine was lavender silk, if that helps? …It was very chic.”
“You overpaid.” The tailor plainly says, holdin’ a drippin’ sponge in her hands. “With crumpled-up bills and some earrings with… blood on them? Almost like they were ripped from the lobes.”
Oops. I forgot about those. My bad.
“‘Don’t remember you complainin’.” I place my hands on my hips, since the signs for the Theatre Des Vampires, plastered with my fuckin’ face, are only on my front ‘n back, leavin’ my sides wide open.
“You have a body that's about to bloom and the mind of a sophisticate.” The red-haired dressmaker noted. “You didn’t smile.”
Yeah, ‘m aware of the state of my mind ‘n body. Painfully so.
“Funny, ‘cause you made no impression on me at all.” I lied.
The woman then grinned at me, causin’ my heart to race like it never had before, as she dropped her sponge into the bucket of water next to her folded legs.
“I liked you,” She said, like it didn’t make my face flush, “Have you moved on from your pickpocketing ways? You’re clowning now?”
I certainly feel like a clown in this outfit.
“‘M an actress now.” I try to stand proudly, but how can I be proud when this outfit makes me look like a baby?
“Ah! Okay, Theatre Des Vampires?” She vaguely gestured to the name on my sign, ‘n I nodded. “I have seen this show. A divertissement."
Huh. She’s still got that spark after all of this time?
It’s rude to dig into her mind, but I can’t help myself. I have to know her name.
…Lucinda, huh? I wonder if that name on the front door — Lavish — is her last name.
Lucinda Lavish. It rolls off my tongue quite nicely, right?
“‘Still dressin’ your windows for your German tourists?” I pointed to that symbol, painted in red, as she shrugged her shoulders ‘n smiled at me.
“I bet your French is still ugly, like your doll outfit.”
God, she’s pretty.
“You’re right,” I conceded before I added one last thing to our conversation, “I just wouldn’t say it ‘cause it’s rude ‘n obvious.”
I threw that flyer that I especially picked out for her in her bucket of water before I waltzed off, ‘n I felt her eyes watch me ‘til I rounded the corner ‘n disappeared from her sight.
“Merci!”
Lucinda thanked me. I’d think about that for a long time.
~
It’s noisy in this restaurant. Far too noisy for Eddie’s tastes, but he doesn’t really seem to mind all of the buzz in this fancy establishment when you’re seated this close to him. God, how long has it been since Eddie’s been able to hold you without Amir breathing down his neck?
The man in question sits in the middle of the long table, somewhat happily positioned between Curt and Artt, who chat over his shoulders like he’s not even there. At one end of the table, Drysdale sits with Lady Memoria, ignoring a pouting Bathsheba who whines and hisses when Connie tries to offer her a comforting hand on her shoulder. Rod sits across from Curt, happily debating Daisuke and Chance about something to do with the stage and the lightning. Near your somewhat happy family, who are sitting at the opposite end of the table to Drysdale and Memoria, Chairemi and Miranda write their scripts and scores furiously, as if the chaos of the coven isn’t happening around them.
It’s business as usual for the coven, but not for the three of you. Eddie thinks it’s been at least a year since the three of you were together in one spot and talking to each other, and he didn’t realize how much he missed seeing you and Harper together, occupying the same space, until he watches you animatedly talk to your daughter.
“So this couple, the Perriers, they got this salon thing they call the R-26.” You speak with a passion that Eddie adores as Harper leans in, completely enthralled by your words. “They’re artist types, some showin’ work, some just to be there. Painters, poets…”
“Photographers?” Harper glances at Eddie before you turn around and place a comforting hand on Eddie’s chest.
He thinks he might melt into a puddle of affectionate goop from the gesture. How long has he yearned for these casual touches? Sure, you placed your hand on his arm when he took you on your weekly nightly walks, and you politely kissed his cheek or forehead as a hello or goodbye, but this was different. This is natural affection towards a man you adore, who adores you right back.
“Yeah, there were some. I wanted to show some of Eddie’s work, so he could get some love back.” The pout on your face practically forces Eddie to kiss your cheek repeatedly, until you giggle and that pout transforms into that sweet, beautiful smile of yours.
Eddie catches Amir’s eyes from across the table, and he grins in approval before Eddie hears a whisper from across the table.
“I don’t know what he sees in him. He’s not that attractive.”
Drysdale. The man who has been, according to Harper, either making eyes at you or glaring at you when you’re looking away from him. You never looked back — either because you hadn’t noticed yet, or, more likely, you really aren’t interested in pursuing men anymore — but Eddie still scowls a bit when Memoria chimes in next.
“And that waterfall of pretension that comes from his wife, bursting forth from her mouthal cavity.”
Eddie doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms fully around you before he buries his head into the crook of your shoulder. You don’t stop talking about your novel for a moment, as Harper is fully engaged with you; however, you do acknowledge Eddie by placing a gentle hand on top of his head. Your fingers tangle into his hair, like they’re supposed to, and he hums in contentment as he tries to distract you — and himself — from whatever’s going on at the opposite end of that table.
Unfortunately, you’re the only one who’s successfully distracted as Eddie catches the next part of Drysdale and Memoria’s conversation.
“Read my mind and grab my nethers.”
“Already doing it.”
God, these vampires are fucking weird. Eddie, for a long time, thought the three of you were… unique, to put it lightly, with your own challenges, traumas, and difficulties. Then, he met these vampires, who quickly changed his mind.
…Funny how Amir is the normal one, out of all of them.
“Chairemi was late with the bed bellows.” Curt suddenly speaks across the table, but you and Harper pay him no mind as Chairemi snaps her head up, attention successfully pulled from her work.
“Head’s in a hat,” She smacks the papers in front of her with her pen in a constant, steady rhythm that draws Miranda’s eyes towards her, “I’m working on a new play. ‘Won’t happen again, Maître.”
“It happened four times!” Curt points out, quite loudly, before Chairemi grovels for Amir’s approval.
“It won’t happen again, Maître. I swear on it.”
“Bathsheba?” Amir calls her name as she’s transfixed on the sight of Memoria and Drysdale snuggled up together.
“Catanoic since Drysdale has taken up with Memoria again.” Artt casually answers Amir before he stares at Rod from across the table, noticing that he’s a little less talkative than usual, “what’s wrong with Rod?”
“He’s hung over from last night!” Connie butts in, excited to include herself in one conversation at this table. “Rod split from the pack and over-served himself in the Latin Quarter. He ran down the street screaming, ‘I am a vampire! I am a vampire!’”
“The wheels seem to be coming off this week, Maître.” Artt observes, and Eddie retains his opinion about these vampires — Merde, they might be stranger than strange, in his book — as he hones back in on your conversation with Harper.
“It’s not just Paris givin’ birth to more genius.” You explain. “She’s givin’ birth to…”
“To modernity itself?” Harper sounds rather optimistic — a new look that Eddie isn’t used to, alongside that baby blue dress that is certainly a… fashion statement, to say the least — as she picks up where you left off.
“Yes!” You run your fingers through Eddie’s hair in a repeated, comforting motion that would lull him to sleep if he didn’t feel the need to be on-guard with these vampires that surround the three of you. “Sculptors ‘n authors, ‘n photographers, ‘n saxophone players. Interminglin’, innovatin’. Collapsin’ two art forms into one–”
Eddie wants to listen to you ramble until the end of time itself, for his selfish need to hear your pretty voice in his ears, but he picks up on a certain someone mimicking your accent and voice from across the table.
“–Comin’ up with new ones. Meanwhile,” Drysdale’s impression of you draws the attention of the other coven members, who grin wickedly or stare in amazement at the man as he continues to repeat your every word, right in time with you, “everyone’s fawnin’ over Picasso, but out there on the Left Bank, in shabby hotel rooms ‘n cold water walk-ups, a new generation’s… rippin’ apart the old modes. Burstin’ into new ones.”
You notice, catching Drysdale’s eye from across the room. That beautiful, graceful, kind smile that Eddie wants to paint on your features forever is wiped off of your face. The confidence you wore with elegance and beauty is now reduced to rubble and ash as your shoulders slump. Your hand wraps around your waist as a means to comfort yourself, and Eddie’s quick to place his hand over yours. He’s with you, all of the way.
“‘Suppose I can come off haughty.” You force out a bit of fake laughter, alongside a tiny smile that doesn’t feel at home on your face.
Eddie hates this. He doesn’t want you to pretend to be something you’re not. He loves his Canary, the one that babbles about books for hours on end without asking his opinion once. The girl who climbs into his lap and smothers his face in kisses just because she wants to.
“Everyone’s fawnin’ over Picasso, but not me, not Ms. Canary Watts,” Drysdale does a perfect impression of your voice, down to the cadence, accent, and pitch, “I’m out on the streets, in the barricades with the avant-garde.”
“Funny.” You murmur, looking away in shame as anger starts to boil inside of Eddie’s chest.
The coven can fuck with him all they like. They can toss whatever bullshit they want his way, but he will not allow you to become a victim to their abuse. Not when he’s around to protect you.
“See, now that I’ve wriggled inside of your voice, pulled it on like a costume,” Drysdale seems to take pleasure in making you shrink further and further into yourself with every word that comes out of your mouth, “you don’t sound all that Chicago to me.”
“Outside Chicago,” Harper adds, her voice dimming Eddie’s internal rage for the briefest of moments, “We roamed all around.”
Amir sternly looks at Eddie, and Eddie knows he’s thinking about the secret — their secret — that he has to keep safe, in order to keep the three of you safe.
God, how did the three of you end up in such a predicament?
“It’s the emphasis on that second syllable,” Drysdale purrs, “borrowed from the French.”
“So it’s mimicry you’re good at.” You can hold your own when someone comes after you, and Eddie squeezes your hand in support of you. He’s got you. He won’t dive in and be the defensive husband unless he needs to be. “Like a parrot?”
Eddie chuckles under his breath at that one. Never change, sweetheart.
The rest of the table is dead silent as you and Drysdale go back and forth with each other.
“Like a gent with upright downstairs–”
“–Or, Drysdale, are you like an organ monkey–?”
“–Cajun drawl. I want to test a theory. Say… New Orleans?”
“Don’t fuck with me.” You hiss, yet the pain in your eyes is extremely evident to Eddie.
He sees tears begin to form at the corners of your eyes, and that’s when he decides that enough is enough. Disrespect pointed towards him? That’s all fine and dandy.
You, however? You’re off-limits. Your gentle, loving heart has been through enough heartbreak and struggle. He won’t let someone else take away the inner peace that you’ve managed to create over the past couple of years. Even if that peace exists without him.
Drysdale snarls at you, and you flinch, despite your distance from him. Eddie takes advantage of the distraction, and he uses his inhumane speed to race over to Drysdale before he grabs Drysdale’s tongue between two of his fingers and pulls it out of his mouth in the most painful way imaginable. Not enough to separate the organ from its home, but enough to get the message across.
Eddie places his free hand on Drysdale’s throat, to compromise his wind pipes, as the man under siege feebly claws at Eddie’s dress pants.
“Anythin’ else you wanna say about my wife while I’ve got your attention?” Eddie growls. “I couldn’t hear you from the other side of the table, but you’ve got my attention now.”
“Enough.” Amir warns in a low, deep voice. Normally, Eddie would be rational enough to listen to him.
Ration flew out the fucking window when Drysdale decided to make fun of Eddie’s sweetheart, the wife he loves to death and whatever lies beyond the grave, his Canary. He’s done a lot of shitty things, some directed towards you, but he won’t let this blatant disrespect slide.
“Spit it out.” Eddie taunts. “I got all night.”
“Enough!” Amir yells at the top of his lungs before he slams his hand down on the table, forcing every vampire’s head down except yours, his, Eddie’s, and Drysdale’s.
He also freezes time for all of the mortals that happen to co-exist in the same space as your unholy party, so they’re not privy to this conversation.
“Come on! What is it?!” Eddie scoffs when Drysdale still refuses to answer him. “That’s what I fuckin’ thought.”
“I said enough.” Amir sneers before Eddie lets go of Drysdale’s tongue and throat, but not without one last mocking comment.
“Aren’t you a good boy?”
Drysdale digs his claws into the table, eager to stand up and start a brawl in the middle of the restaurant until Amir gives him a deadly look.
“If you two want to act like fledglings, do it in the darkness.” Amir commands before he waves his hand over the table, releasing the humans and vampires alike from his control.
The chatter from the mortals surrounding the vampire company lightens up the room as Eddie calmly walks back towards you. You’re shivering, terrified out of your mind from what you’ve just seen, so Eddie peels his jacket off before he places it upon your shoulders.
“Mon ange,” His hands rub your shoulders, slowly working to release the pressure and tension that’s built up in your body from the last few minutes, “you wanna–?”
“–please, my love.” You sniffle as Eddie helps you out of your chair with a gentlemanly hand, and his heart bursts with affection and desire for you when you tackle him into a hug. “I wanna go home with you. Please don’t make me go back with the coven.”
“You can stay with me, sweetheart,” His hands go to your back as he gently sways you in his arms, and Eddie can’t help but smirk when he sees Drysdale sticking out his tongue, still recoiling from Eddie’s assault upon him. “Stay as long as you’d like. My home is your home. Our home.”
Eddie quickly escorts you out of the establishment, a guiding hand on the small of your back as you both ignore the looks you earn from the coven. You wave at Harper, and you open your mouth to speak to her, but she shakes her head at you, dismissing you without having to exchange pleasantries.
Eddie, come back!
No. He’s taking care of you right now, and that comes first.
You breathe easier the moment you escape that hellish place, as if your soul was returned to your body the moment you took in a breath of clean, fresh nighttime air.
“I love you, Eddie,” You murmur after you two stand together, coated in an awkward silence that feels atypical for your usual dynamic, “and ‘m sorry if I haven’t been showin’ up for you in the ways I should’ve–”
“–no, sweetheart, it’s my fault. I should’ve made more of an effort to see you–”
“–’m not tryin’ to hide from you.”
That admission releases a lot of weight off of Eddie’s shoulders. At least you’re not mad at him and trying to hide in another’s arms in order to make yourself feel better.
“Eddison,” You turn to your husband, eyes softening when he fixes your hair to be exactly like it was before a small breeze messed with it, “what the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?”
“I don’t know.” He admits. “The coven scares me.”
“They scare me too.”
Your agreement comes as a surprise to Eddie, and he’s tempted to push for more information, but he doesn’t want to push you away in the process.
“Harper’s a grown woman, she can handle herself, but…” You sigh deeply. “This is different. We’re havin’ to put on three different masks in order to get through the day, ‘n ‘m tired of it. I can tell that she’s gettin’ tired of it too.”
“So you wanna leave?” Eddie asks.
“Maybe,” A beat of silence, then you question him, “do you?”
No is the immediate answer that comes to mind. Despite remaining casual, despite denying being companions, despite everything… Eddie can’t let go of Amir. It’s real, and it’s different to what he had with Volt. Eddie has a chance to do this right, for once, and he doesn’t want to squander it.
“Maybe.” He repeats your answer back to you, causing you to lightly chuckle.
“‘Should’ve expected that,” You yawn before you cover your mouth, hiding the fangs that suddenly expose themselves, “I barely ate, ‘n my body’s tellin’ me that we’ve only got a little time before–”
“–I’ll get you somethin’ to eat, Canary.” Eddie’s hand drifts down to your stomach. “How are you feelin’? ‘Haven’t had much of a chance to talk one-on-one since you…”
Joined the coven?
“Better than usual,” Your lips curl up into a smile, “I don’t know if it’s the woman or the novel or both, but my aches ‘n pains are less common, ‘n my hunger isn’t as extreme as it usually is.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the same, but I don’t feel like ‘m dyin’, y’know?” You clarify. “I don’t have those spells where I forget where ‘m goin’ or what ‘m doin’.”
“‘M happy for you, pretty girl. You deserve that much, after all the shit you’ve been through.” Eddie presses a kiss to your forehead before he notices a small frown on your lips. “...Did I miss somethin’?”
“You didn’t kiss me,” You pause before you elaborate further, “on the lips.”
“Makin’ demands, are we?” Eddie gently teases you before he takes your comment seriously. He will not be passing up the chance to kiss you on the lips, since such an opportunity seems to rarely present itself these days. “Is that what you want? ‘Cause you know I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Please, Eddie?” Your bottom lip juts out in an adorable manner that ties Eddie’s stomach in knots — you’ve placed a curse on him to make him yours with just a look or a touch, he swears by it — before he kisses you on the lips, as requested.
Your giggles are completely swallowed by him as his hands find their usual spot on their hips, and he bites back a groan when the simple action of him burying his fingers into the fabric of your skirt, slowly circling the skin of your hips, causes you to softly moan.
“You are maddenin’, y’know that?” He chuckles after he steals another kiss from you — call Eddie greedy, he doesn’t give a fuck at this point. “I love you, Canary. I love you so goddamn much that it hurts sometimes. When we get home, to our home, ‘m gonna show you how much I love you, over ‘n over again ‘til you fall asleep, okay?”
“Yeah, I’d like that.” Breathlessly, you allow Eddie to lead you towards the apartment you once shared together. “Are you gonna take more pictures of me?”
“...Obviously, sweetheart. You’re gonna look good when you’re covered in my marks.”
~
“Early work, huh?” Dolly sorts through another shoebox that’s full of Eddie’s black-and-white photos from Paris. “I can’t read anythin’ I wrote before Micheal Jackson’s hair caught on fire… but some of these aren’t bad, Eddie.”
Eddie, in response, shakes his head.
“They document, nothing more.”
“I mean, this one, with the fountain and the couple,” Dolly shows Eddie and Amir the photograph that she’s been staring at for a while, “and the water’s glowin’. I think I’ve seen it somewhere, like in a book or somethin’, right?”
Eddie places his hands on his knees before he stands, calmly walking towards the reporter.
“There’s a good reason you picked that one,” He sighs as he takes a closer look at the photo, “It’s not mine.”
Eddie then takes the photo from Dolly’s hands before he begins to sort through the rest of the photos, plucking out the ones that Dolly assumes, based on his poor handling of them, do not belong to him.
Amir glances at Dolly, side-eyeing her as she keeps her gaze focused on Eddie.
Orange eyes. Bright sun. Cramping legs. The bravado of a young, scared journalist.
…Dolly’s setting a reminder on her phone to up the dosage of her Parkinson’s medication when she gets home. She cannot be dealing with this for the rest of her life.
“Some of these are from the mid-thirties,” Eddie muses as he sorts through the photos he hand-picked, “we were still in New Orleans at the time.”
Dress shoes clicking on the apartment floor. Some news reporter talking about San Francisco, when Dolly was young and dumb and admired those people on the TV station. Plastic wrapped around… Jesus Christ, is that a fucking body?
What is happening to Dolly’s mind? Fragmentation or reunification of old memories? Both, maybe?
“What is this?” Eddie turns to Amir, handing him one of the photos as a bit of frustration begins to appear on Eddie’s face.
“Azizam, that one belongs to Eric Stein–”
“–why is it in there? Why are all these in there?”
A break in the sturdy foundation between Eddie and Amir. Growing resentment, perhaps?
“Don’t ask me.” Amir shoots back before Eddie folds his arms over his chest, sternly staring at his partner — his companion — for the last seventy-five or so years.
And how’s that turning out for you right now, huh?
“We’ve been staring at these for half of a century–”
“–I didn’t put those there, Eddie,” Amir tries to calm Eddie down with a soothing voice that feels more fitting for a toddler than a grown-ass vampire, “Canary did purchase some photographs during her time in Paris, and she might have sorted those in with your own compositions when we were in such a hurry to leave the country after she–”
“–don’t you dare bring Canary into this.” Eddie hisses, tossing the remaining photographs onto the table haphazardly before he collapses into his seat.
Noticeably, he’s facing away from Amir this time, solely locked into Dolly as she tries her best to concentrate on the task at hand.
“Assad might’ve confused them.” Amir offers a simple explanation that Dolly doesn’t listen to as her mind snaps back into yet another flashback.
“In high school, you told a guy you’d only do him if he had a paper bag over his head. He agreed, and you did–”
That body from earlier? It falls to the ground, right beside Dolly. She can look into its cold, dead, meaningless eyes as she waits for–
“–This is embarrassing. I don’t want you thinking that I was trying to pass them off as mine.” Eddie explains, and Dolly can only weakly nod along as she tries to pull herself together.
What the fuck? How far did they dig into my mind? What dam did they break loose in there?
“Yeah.” She feebly answers, pinching the bridge of her nose to help relieve the headache that’s starting to grow in-between her nostrils.
No shit. You see a dead body in a memory of your past, and it stresses you out… obviously.
“I was an amateur photographer. Make sure your readers know that.”
What did he just say?
“Sure, umm…” She’ll note down Eddie’s… whatever the fuck he just mentioned later, when she’s had the time to review this recording. “Can I get some aspirin? ‘Got a migraine that’s startin’ to build.”
Jesus Christ, Dolly, get your shit together! You don’t have those recordings anymore. All you have is your memories, and those are shit.
~
I saw Lucinda in the audience tonight. She was wearin’ a red blouse ‘n a skirt that matched her top — well, obviously they do, ‘cause she’s a dressmaker, dumbass. She’s gotta have some good fashion sense so she can sell her clothes to somebody, after all.
She didn’t look real impressed with my performance. I mean, I gave it some effort, but it certainly wasn’t my best work. I hope she stays later, so I can talk with her.
My wish came true when I was outside the theater, signin’ those programs that Chairemi hands out at the front of the house every night when I saw Lucinda from across the street. I hurriedly moved through everyone else in the line before I rushed over to her, eager to see and hear from her yet again.
“I know,” I lamented to her as she smoked her cigarette, “my French is terrible.”
Tonight’s performance was in French, and it was… uh, not good, to say the least. I’ve been tryin’ to learn the language, but ‘m not able to speak it as well as Eddie ‘n Canary can.
“It’s better than the plays.” Lucinda commented, which made me smile after a long while of not smilin’. “When you went out the window and you cracked your neck… yeah, that was good.”
“Then the song came back on.” I groaned, ‘n she simply nodded in agreement.
“Oh, oui. They should kill whoever wrote it.”
Her smile didn’t show any teeth, but it was still pretty to me.
I think everything about Lucinda is pretty.
Before I could speak to her again, Bathsheba called out to me after she opened the door to the theater.
“Harper! You’re needed in the wet room!”
One fuckin’ hour. Is that too much to ask for?
“I’ll be there in a minute!” I hollered back before Lucinda dropped her cigarette onto the ground before she extinguished it with her red heel.
“Merci, Lulu.” She said her goodbyes to me, which made me sad. “For whatever that was.”
She turned ‘n walked away from me, but I couldn’t let her go that easily.
“Hey!” I yelled, ‘n I felt myself grow a little sick when her eyes locked with mine. “You want a ride home?”
I’ve seen the coven use those bikes a thousand times over, ‘n Artt’s let me drive his once or twice. I can handle drivin’ Lucinda home all on my own.
~
Eddie moves Harper’s journals aside in a haphazard manner before he hangs a few new pictures of Paris, of mortals that he’s drained, of you in the space above her bed.
“You really think they’re good enough for a gallery?” Eddie appears to be talking to himself until he turns to face Volt, who’s dressed in a maroon-colored suit that perfectly contrasts his white curls.
He’s not real, I shouldn’t be asking him about anything… but I still am. Nothing’s changed, has it?
“Eddie, perhaps you’re overthinking–?”
“–I can only take ‘em at night,” Eddie moves through the apartment, which looks more like the external display of the manic delusions of a spiraling artist than a home for three. He’s hung various clothes lines this or that way in the room, and each photo is hung with a clothes pin on any and all available space on the line, “when I can’t control the light ‘m gettin’. Am I supposed to stand by a street lamp ‘n wait for the world to pass under it? …’M a vampire.”
Eddie ducks under one of the lines, with Volt following right behind him.
“You’re a vampire,” Volt points out, “a hunter!”
“‘M out there, prowlin’ for the moment,” Eddie rubs his forehead as Volt passes him, taking a seat near your old writing desk, “Do you know how many shots I’ve taken, only to find that the light was insufficient when I put it in the bath?”
“Tell me, mon chéri.” Despite all his fucking faults — and there were a lot of them — Volt always took the time to listen to Eddie complain about this customer at the bar, or that businessman that pissed Eddie off because he talked down to you.
“A whole goddamn lot. Look at this,” Eddie pulls one of the photos down from the clothes line before he hands it to Volt, ignoring the way Volt immediately takes a bite out of the photo before he crumples it up and sticks the entire thing into his mouth, “Most of these photographers spend two or three days with their muses before they take a photo with ‘em. I can’t do that. I’ll end up eatin’ ‘em.”
“Like this gentleman,” Volt says, pointing at various photos on your desk as he finishes chewing the photo in his mouth, “And this one. Oh, and her.”
Eddie doesn’t acknowledge Volt’s antics; instead, he grabs another photo from Harper’s bed before he hangs it in the empty spot in front of him.
“Here. Tell me one thing wrong about this photo.” Eddie turns to Volt, who’s suddenly appeared behind him.
“Well, for one thing, I’m not in it.”
That… does sound like something that Volt would say.
Eddie sighs before he deadpans at his deceased lover.
“Please?” He’s desperate for some sort of critique, and Volt’s yellow eyes threaten to pull Eddie under his control — Merde, the man isn’t even alive and Eddie’s still captivated by him — once the men gaze at each other once more.
“Hmm,” Volt places his hands behind his back as he observes the photo of a beautiful building near the vampiric theatre, with the moon hung in the top-left of the composition, “Your lens is not entirely clean. And you see here, in the corner? It’s blurred. On this very night, you only had eight frames of film on you. A haunting set of clouds moved in minutes after your last shot. If it lacks singularity, there is nothing wrong per se with the frame, but…”
Volt breathes in as Eddie notices all of the various faults that Volt had pointed out.
“Perhaps, going forward, when the moon is your favored source of light… a little patience?”
That was… nicer than Eddie expected. Well, that’s the nicest thing that this version of Volt has ever said to him.
“What light through yonder window breaks?” A clean, crisp voice enters the apartment before Volt starts cackling behind Eddie. “It is there, no? Northwest, and Eddie is the sun?”
“Romeo!” Volt claps his hands together as Eddie goes to the open window doors that lead to the balcony that you had once decorated with flowers. They’re all wilted and dead, without your tender care to nurture them back to health. “Barely Balthasar.”
“The moon, perhaps?” Eddie shuts the doors behind him as Amir speaks to him from the street below Eddie. “I was wondering if you wanted to take one of our walks.”
Eddie watches as Amir holds out a bundle of your favorite flowers — an olive branch to bridge the growing distance between them.
Eddie knows he probably shouldn’t accept, but he does anyway.
~
The motorcycle didn’t work out too well, but Lucinda didn’t mind walkin’ home with me; in fact, she even invited me into her shop! How amazin’ is that?
Before I knew it, she had me standin’ in front of three mirrors with a pretty yellow, floral dress hung over my frame that she carefully pinned together so it fit me perfectly.
“So,” Lucinda grabbed a pin from the pin cushion in my left hand before she reached towards the skirt of my dress, “you spend the day and night in the dress? Is this some acting process?”
“It’s a punishment.” I don’t lie to Lucinda. I don’t feel the need to. I think I can be honest with her, since she’s been honest with me.
“Because you don’t like flapping your arms in their stupid play?” Lucinda laughed that sweet laugh of hers before she shook her head.
I hummed in agreement before she locked eyes with me via the mirror.
“Are you their hostage?”
Not quite, but it certainly feels like it, somedays.
“...More like they’re my family?” I said as I offered her another pin as she worked on my dress.
“T.B. killed my family. All of them, dead,” Lucinda said as she placed pin after pin on one side of the skirt, “Oh, my town was sad for me, ‘Oh, poor orphan!’ But, I mean, not too sad because we had money, and they didn’t know my family.”
“We gonna talk about that?” My head nodded towards that ugly symbol that was still painted on the front of her shop. I saw enough of that… thing when we briefly crossed through Germany.
“A lieutenant from Dusseldorf,” She stopped pinnin’ me to look at the sharp, red lines on the front window of her store, “He was nineteen. He said, ‘I want to know what love is like before I die.’”
I knew someone like that — Dirkie — a long time ago. It didn’t end too well.
“Sounds like a line.” I forced a smile onto my face, to mask my pain as I pushed that memory to the back of my mind, ‘n Lucinda laughed at what I said before she got off of her knees ‘n worked to adjust the dress on my shoulders.
Her hands, with the softest of caresses, set my body on fire. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel like ‘m dyin’, bein’ so close to her.
“I thought so too, but then he shook so much when I took my shirt off,” Lucinda confessed before she plucked another pin from the cushion in my hand, “He gave me food and cigarettes, but it was the comfort for me. He was alive. I know it sounds like a joke, but when there’s death all around–”
“–I saw the war, too.” I butted in as she pinched the fabric on my shoulders with two of her fingers before she pinned it together.
“Huh,” She gave me a strange look, shakin’ her head once more before she picked up her story again, “And the lovemaking… You know, it was so boyish. Up and down, and up and down. He even had his eyes closed. I said, ‘You’re making love to me, and you think it’s wrong to look at me?’”
Her smile fell as she smoothed out a wrinkle in the sleeve of the dress.
“I wasn’t inviting Hitler to stay in France,” She quietly said, “I was inviting a frightened boy to cradle my tits.”
Satisfied with her work, Lucinda walked over to her desk before she dramatically opened a bottle of wine.
“And now I’m a traitor. A slut.” She murmurs before she pours herself, then me, a glass of wine.
Finally, someone besides my mother treats me like an adult. Only took, what, fifteen years and a trip ‘round the world to find someone like that? …Go fuckin’ figure.
~
Eddie has a list of places that he expects Amir to take him. The Louvre Museum that he walks through, with Amir at his side, is not one of them.
God, you’d love to see the towering paintings and beautiful, handcrafted sculptures that Eddie passes by, but you’re not here with him. You can’t be, for your own wellbeing.
With panting breaths, you pulled your chest away from Eddie’s, not daring to touch your intertwined legs or hands.
“Honey,” You pressed a kiss to his forehead before your hands ran up his bare forearms, then down his naked chest, “I can’t stay in the coven anymore. It’s not good for me.”
“Why, sweetheart?”
“I can’t really explain it. I just… don’t fit in there. I don’t fit in anywhere.” You softly admitted, which caused Eddie to scoff under his breath. You belonged with him. You always had a place in his heart, his home, his bed. Everything that was his was also yours. “I only feel like myself when ‘m with you ‘n River. That’s it.”
“You plannin’ on ditchin’ the coven?” He murmured. “Amir won’t take that lightly.”
“‘M a big girl, Eddie. I can handle him.” Your open-mouthed kisses, placed right upon his neck, sent shivers down his spine. Of course you could handle yourself, but Amir was a completely different story. As far as Eddie was concerned, no one can — or should — try to defy him. It’ll only end badly for you if you’re reckless about this.
“You have to find somewhere to hide, a place where they won’t find you–”
“–I’ll stay with River. I… may have jumped the gun a little ‘n asked her if I could stay with her a while ago,” Your face flushed as you revealed this to Eddie, “She agreed ‘n said she’d be happy to have me.”
“What about us?” Eddie asked as his hands gripped the flesh on your thighs.
“I’ll come ‘n visit you, whenever I think it’s safe to,” Your eyes softened as you noticed the small frown that appeared on his face, “Mon amour, I can’t tell you where ‘m goin’.”
“You don’t trust me.” He flatly said.
“I do, it’s just…” You shook your head. “I have to be smart about this. I can’t be exposin’ myself so I can see you every night. That won’t end well.”
“So that’s it, huh?” Eddie’s stomach twisted into knots at the thought of only seeing you once a month, or perhaps less often, due to your circumstances. “You’re leavin’ me again?”
“Don’t be like that.” Your eyebrows furrowed as you reached for the nightgown that Eddie laid out for you, every night, in case you came back to him. “You sound like him when you try to convince me to stay.”
You compared him to Volt? …Ouch. Add insult to injury.
“I miss you, Canary. I’ve missed you since you joined the coven, ‘n I finally get to have you like I wanted you, after a year of barely gettin’ to hold you, ‘n now you’re gonna take off after we fucked,” Eddie sighed as he placed his hands behind him, “I feel like ‘m bein’ used.”
“No, no, Eddie, that’s not it,” You placed a hand on his cheek before your orange eyes met his yellow ones, “I didn’t mean to come off that way. I was plannin’ on leavin’ before tonight happened, I just–”
“–was goin’ to leave without sayin’ goodbye to your husband?” Eddie raised an eyebrow at you as you finished getting dressed.
“You’re bein’ unfair. This isn’t about you,” You huffed, “or us. ‘M tryin’ to protect you ‘n Harper by disappearin’. That way, neither of you will be questioned about where I am or what ‘m doin’.”
“You think I’d tell the coven where you’re hidin’?” He breathlessly questioned you as you stood up, softly whining when his dick left your hole. “Merde, sweetheart, do you think I’d tell Amir?”
“I didn’t say that–”
“–you didn’t have to,” Eddie snatched his shirt from the lampshade on the nightstand near your shared bed as you turned towards the windows that faced the streets of Paris, “You thought it.”
“Get out of my head, Eddie.” You warned in a low voice before he softly chuckled.
“I don’t have to. I’ve shared a bed with you for how many years, Canary? I know what you’re thinkin’.” He folded his arms over his chest. “You don’t trust me after Volt–”
“–Can you fuckin’ blame me?” You hissed at him, causing him to recoil ever-so-slightly. “How many times did you tattle to Volt right after Harper or I whispered in your ear about somethin’ that he didn’t need to know about?”
“That was back in New Orleans,” Eddie argued back, “this is different. Amir is different. ‘M different–”
“–are you, though?” Your question was like a knife through Eddie’s heart. “I know you’re lyin’ to me about somethin’. Not somethin’ small, either. It’s big, ‘n it weighs you down every time you look at me.”
“I haven’t lied–”
“–what happened on that night that you ‘n Amir got into that big fight?” You cut Eddie off, and he was sweating bullets as you glared at him. “‘Cause I asked him about what happened, ‘n he refused to tell me about it. Said it was ‘private business that shouldn’t grace a lady’s ear’. ‘Can’t believe that he thinks that I buy that bullshit.”
“It’s not somethin’ you need to worry about.” Eddie grabbed his pants and underwear as you scoffed.
“I worry anyways, Eddison. You know this.” You pinched the bridge of your nose before you threw your hands into the air in defeat. “I didn’t come here to argue with you. I don’t want to argue with you. I’ll make the arrangements I need to so I can see you ‘n Harper as often as possible. Just… please keep this between the three of us, alright?”
You left before Eddie had the chance to say anything else.
Eddie held your secret close to his chest, not relenting when Amir or the rest of the coven pestered him about your location, or how your things suddenly disappeared from the coffin you had in the coven’s back room the night after you took off.
He wants to prove his loyalty and love for you — what better way to do so then through action and not petty lip service that he’s failed to deliver on before?
A security guard walks up to the pair of vampires, angrily shouting in French before Amir waves his hand at the man. The mortal in question freezes with an arm extended outwards, trying to shine a light on the two men before him, and Amir gladly plucks the flashlight from the man’s grip before he places his grey hat in the mortal’s empty hand.
“Merci.” Amir says to the man, knowing he can’t hear the words, before he illuminates their way.
Eddie feels the need to wave his hand in front of the man’s face, as proof that he is indeed frozen in time, before the light in Amir’s hand darts from painting to painting.
“This is my favorite walk in Paris.” He wanders ahead, not bothering to check if Eddie is behind him. “Boulevards of framed time and space. The oiled dead — still living, still fighting. When you’re the oldest suit in town, it is a comfort to be among your contemporaries.”
Amir turns around, suddenly, shining the light on his own handsome features as he backpedals towards another room while making sure that Eddie’s right behind him.
“Feels familiar.” Eddie comments, trying to show that he’s paying attention while nothing but his own free will forces his feet forward, one step at a time.
“Ah, weary of battles and glorious hunts,” Amir shrugs before he points the light ahead of him, “There is a street of fruit and flowers two doors down.”
Another security guard rushes up to him, but a single ‘Rest’ issued from Amir’s lips causes him to be in a similar predicament to his co-worker, who is right down the hall. Amir then takes the flashlight from the mortal’s hand before he hands it to Eddie, who can’t help but frown a bit.
What is Amir trying to do here, after not showing up at his door for weeks after his little stunt at the restaurant?
“It’s not the art. ‘M talkin’ about this… apology,” Eddie shrugs, “Flex your power one night, ‘n then follow it with grand grovelin’ the next. That’s vintage Volt.”
Eddie suddenly shines his light to the left of the security guard, revealing a ghastly image of Volt to him. Of course he’s here. He’s always there, lingering in the back of Eddie’s mind. It’d be romantic if he wasn’t… himself, or dead… or both.
“I don’t enjoy using my powers like that, Eddie.” Amir brushes past the guard and Volt, but Eddie hesitates, not yet following him.
“Seems like you did.”
“That was for coven discipline, for the situation,” Amir sternly explains, “A situation that is still unfolding, if you insist on keeping the location of your darling Canary a secret.”
Eddie doesn’t say anything. Is it because he doesn’t know where you’re at, so it can’t stumble out of his mouth, or because he’s loyal to you, and he’d never betray you like that?
…He hates that he doesn’t have an immediate answer to that question.
“And, if I may address your behavior that night, you were wound rather tightly after Drysdale’s prodding.” Amir confidently walks forward as Eddie falls in line with him, ignoring how Volt lingers by his side.
“He disrespected my wife.” Eddie flatly says. “I’ve handled men like Drysdale plenty of times before. I don’t need you flyin’ in like vampire papa to protect us.”
“I did it poorly, but I did it for our protection.” Amir gestures for Eddie to climb the stairs before him after he begins to fly to the second floor.
“And, I don’t like seein’ Harper on that stage, bein’ treated like she’s a puppet.” Eddie airs out his grievances as he focuses on Amir’s form as it effortlessly rises through the air, ignoring all human understanding of physics.
“I treated her as a member of my coven.” Amir reminds him as he meets Eddie — and Volt, because who could forget that Volt’s there? — on the top of the stairs.
“I don’t like you paradin’ her around in that baby doll dress, either.” Eddie’s eyebrows knit together as he speaks. “And, if I may address your behavior, everythin’ you’ve done makes you look weak.”
“‘M not Volt, Eddie.” Amir looks wounded, like a child who’s just been scolded for the very first time in their life, as Eddie and Volt speak in perfect harmony and cadence to one another.
“Okay,” Then, Eddie says the next part by himself, “Who are you?”
The corner of Amir’s lip twitches before he turns and flicks his fingers at the large, towering door in front of him. It opens without any physical exertion from him, bathing Amir in a soft, warm light since the room before him, strangely enough, is lit, unlike the rest of the museum.
Inside, Eddie sees a room crowded with paintings on nearly every part of the wall, but Amir stops before one painting in particular. The name of the work, inscribed into the gold frame that surrounds the piece, is The Adoration of the Shepherds with a Donor.
Eddie stands between Volt and Amir, and the three stare at the piece in silence until someone feels the need to express themselves.
“The Adoration of the Shepherds with a Donor. Palma Vecchio. A contemporary of my maker,” Amir explains to Eddie, “also a fine painter, albeit one of lesser skill. In fact, the donor in the title was my maker, the canvas painted in my maker’s studio, and, in this case, the donation was…”
Amir steps towards the painting before he turns to face Eddie with a distant look on his face.
“What is the modern word for it?” Amir pauses before he shakes his head in strong disagreement. “In kind.”
Amir then raises his arm, directing everyone’s attention to the boy on the right side of the painting.
“This is Amadeo. He’s twenty years here. He was rescued from a brothel when he was fifteen, named…” He takes a shaky breath in, then out — an uncharacteristic move for the always confident coven leader that Eddie’s grown quite close to, “named Arun then, I think. I cannot be sure. The abuse in the brothel was such that he cannot be sure that’s what his… parents named him. Arun, the boy that was sent by his parents to work on a merchant boat in Delhi when, in actuality, they had sold him… into slavery to the ship’s captain.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Amir isn’t referring to some boy in a painting. This story, which Eddie is sure is an autobiography at this point, is painful and real.
“It’s all fragments. Being shackled on the boat. The brothel. My maker’s purchase. His renaming of me.” Amir whispers fractured pieces of his life into the air. “His reluctance to share the Dark Gift, knowing what it would do to his beloved Amadeo. I served him with all of my heart. Basked in his mercy, his worshipful mercy. Still… Amadeo had a skill, and if a friend wandered into town, I was, occasionally, donated.”
His fingers ghost the painting as he traces the outline of the boy in the painting in front of him.
“Meatier in the forearms, but then this was… seven years before I was stricken with illness, before I was turned and imbued with my powers.”
“And Amir?” Eddie gently asks.
“The name the coven in Rome gave me,” Amir’s gaze stays trained on the floor, “after they set fire to the studio. Set fire to my maker, then sent me to Paris, to reign over the coven abandoned by Keith. Keith, who begat Volt. Volt, who begat Eddie. On and on and on and on and on–”
“–Ha!” Volt, vibrating with an unusual amount of frustration and fear, yells at Amir who, obviously, cannot hear him.
But Eddie can, and he flinches at the noise before he regains his composure.
“Who am I, Eddie?” Amir’s eyes stare into Eddie’s soul as the former approaches the latter. “Am I my history that I have endured? Am I the job I do not want? I do not know anymore. No one has painted me in over four-hundred years–”
Amir’s head snaps to the side as he listens to someone — one of his dutiful coven members, Eddie assumes — speak to him telepathically. His brows furrow before he angrily curses under his breath.
“If you’ll excuse me.”
Amir’s out of the room before Eddie can question him, leaving Eddie alone with nothing but that painting, his interpretation of Volt, and his stormy, darkening thoughts.
~
“I look good.” I moved the dress a bit as I looked into the mirrors in Lucinda’s shop, admirin’ that yellow dress with the red ‘n blue flowers. “I look French.”
“No, it’s not right at the front, because your chest, it’s…” She trailed off as she pulled at the material in front of my tits.
“I don’t have much.” I frowned as I was forced to remember my forever arrested development because of Volt.
Fuck Volt. Seriously.
“Yes, you don’t have more than you did two years ago.” Lucinda pulled the tape measure from her shoulders, ‘n she wrapped it around my middle as I stuck my arms in the air. “Same shape, same height–”
“–The war.” A dumb explanation, really, but one that would have to suffice. “Shriveled some people, stunted others.”
“Harper,” My name out of her mouth sounded real good, “you have eyes like my windows.”
Uh-oh. This ain’t good. I gotta find some sort of half-truth, some excuse to keep what I am a secret. Not ‘cause I want to deceive her, but I don’t wanna scare her off.
“‘Been through some shit, like anybody else.” Shit feels like I’m simplifyin’ it, but it’s the truth. “Mom died. Dad ran off. Aunt didn’t want me. A fire. Adopted. One of ‘em was bad trouble, another couldn’t make a good decision, even if his life depended on it. Ran away. One dark thing after another.”
I hate the pity in Lucinda’s pretty eyes, but I know it’s warranted. I’ve been through a lot.
“Maybe I seek it out,” I said, “Maybe I chase after it.”
“Why?” She asked before she sat in a loveseat next to the set of mirrors.
“I don’t know.” I mumbled back. “But it’s somethin’ to think about, ‘cause even in-between the dark things… there’s somethin’ broken in me. A collision in me, like I wanna go bang.”
“Well, go bang,” Lucinda suggested before I looked at her with confusion in my eyes, “Go flag it out, or go cold. I mean, that’s fine, then you’ll be fine again. And then bang, and then okay, and then bang, and then… you just get used to it, like weather.”
I really, really like her; however, my attempts to keep the vampiric parts of me in check would soon go out the window when I saw a small trail of blood runnin’ down her leg. I couldn’t help it — my fangs began to poke out of my mouth, but I tried to keep myself in check by closin’ my mouth ‘n coverin’ my face with one of my hands.
“You got blood on your, uh…” My finger pointed at her leg, and her eyes went to that spot before she angrily cursed in French.
“Merde, I bled through!” She quickly stood up before she ran to the back. “Ah, don’t move too much — the pins, remember? God, I’m leaving a trail. I am Gretel!”
Thank God I didn’t bite Lucinda. I don’t wanna bite her, she’s a–
Harper!
Fuck. I met Amir’s eyes through the window, ‘n the anger in them, it reminded me of… nevermind.
I flew out of her dress shop, leavin’ the dress behind since I hadn't paid for it yet, ‘n I wasn’t surprised when Amir dragged me into the street by my arm as soon as I left the shop, despite my whines of pain.
“The show is a hit. The show is our cover.” He began to lecture me, but I’ve had enough of him. Enough of men like him.
“Tell me what it is again.” I rolled my eyes as passersbys glared at an older man who was belittlin’ the girl in his care.
“We humble ourselves–”
“–Tell me again how Chairemi licks the stage clean after every show, ‘n I’ll tell you a job I’d rather do.” I don’t care how angry or disrespectful I sound to Amir — ‘m tellin’ him how I feel, once and for all.
“You’re the only one with a child’s physique.” He argued.
“Audience doesn’t give a shit,” I said as he took me to a more private alleyway, where no eyes could see us interact, “Curt could play the part. They just wanna watch the bouncin’ ball–”
“–fifteen minutes a night to pretend.” He hissed at me, so I hissed right back at him.
“It’s a degradin’ fifteen minutes. I’d like to walk off-stage in the middle of it, but I don’t. I’d like to pounce on the audience members, but I don’t.”
“You left the sacrifice on the green room floor,” Here Amir goes again, exposin’ all my faults. “We honor the blood when we dispose of it.”
“You dispose of it so you won’t get caught. C’mon, now. I missed a chore, ‘n I made a friend,” His mouth opened to object, but I wouldn’t let him get a word in, “And before you tell me to make friends with the coven, I can’t, because they’ve turned inward too long ago and you know it, which is why you ran to Eddie ‘n Canary!”
I shouldn’t have been surprised when Amir grabbed my braids before he put his hand around my throat, pinnin’ me to the wall so I couldn’t speak or say anythin’, but I was. Maybe I thought that the abuse was just verbal. Maybe I’d like to hope that he would be less of a cruel master than Volt or Eddie, but I was wrong. ‘M always wrong. All of these men are the goddamn same, when push comes to shove.
“I’ve let you whine and have your say,” Amir spits out, “Most in my position would treat you no better than you treated your maker.”
…How does he know about Volt, about what Eddie and I–
Goddamnit. I knew I should’ve threw that fucker into the fire, like I did with Antoinette. Canary would’ve screamed ‘n cried, but she would’ve gotten over it. Her lady friend in Paris would have helped her get over him. That motherfucker has fucked us over once again.
“Let us agree that going forward, you will do more than the bare minimum on and off stage,” His hand on my throat tightened, so I could barely breathe, “And the friend you made? You will not see her again. Yes?”
Amir let go of me, ‘n I slid down the wall as he looked down on me.
“There’s rot on the green room floor. See to it.”
Oh, I’ll see to it, alright. Right after I take care of the fuckin’ snitch in my home.
I… I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Eddie.
~
Amir watches Harper storm off, presumably towards Eddie’s apartment and not the theater, but that’s the last thing on his mind as he senses someone else’s presence nearby.
His hand extends once more, and he catches Drysdale’s neck with his fingers before he slams the man into the wall.
“Too old to play Hamlet, too young to play Polonius,” Amir sneers, “Know your role, thesp, or join your maker in oblivion.”
He drops the vampire onto the ground, and Drysdale groans in pain before Amir angrily walks off. It isn’t just Drysdale or Harper he has to worry about. There is a serious discipline problem within the coven that he needs to address… rather quickly, he might add.
~
A small fire spreads across photo after photo as Eddie’s gaze moves down the clothes line. He doesn’t care for Volt’s pitiful looks as the man in question sits at your writing desk, as another sore reminder that the two of you haven’t talked since the night you left his apartment in a hurry after your little… fight?
It didn’t feel like a fight, though. Eddie fought with Volt, threw shit around that godforsaken house, and exchanged words that he doesn’t ever want to repeat again. He refused to do that with you, so he usually backed down when you got angry with him.
This, however, always seemed to infuriate you more. Eddie’s now realizing, as he stares at a photo of your face, that you probably take his silence or redirection during those moments as callous or cold or uncaring when it’s actually the opposite.
He cares so goddamn much, and that’s probably what’s gotten him into this situation. If Eddie was just honest with you about how he was the one to hurt you that night after Harper left — because it truly wasn’t Volt, for once — or how he hurt Harper when the two of them killed Volt, or how Amir knows that he killed Volt.
“You can’t think of it as a waste of time, Eddie.” Volt’s commentary pulls Eddie from his thoughts as he moves to the next clothes line, where he burns every photo except the ones of you and Harper. “What’s two years? I pretended to be an actor for two years. And your dalliance with that manipulative gremlin? Well… what is vampire life but poor decisions, stacked next to better ones?”
Volt brings the cigarette in-between his index and pointer fingers to his lips before the door to Eddie’s apartment slams open.
“Eddie!”
“Speaking of poor decisions…” Volt trails off, shaking his head as Harper stomps into the room with pure malice in her gaze.
“Eddie!” Harper throws her arm out to the side as she locks eyes with Eddie. “Amir knows all about Volt. How long’s he known? Does Canary know?”
“The whole time,” Eddie admits, feeling a bit of relief that at least one of his secrets is out in the open, “‘n your mother doesn’t need to know about this–”
“–What?!?”
“Read our minds on our first night at the theater.”
“But you colored it in for him, painted a pretty picture?” Harper balls her extended hand into a fist, squeezing her fingers together to relieve some of the anger coursing through her body. “Who did the poisonin’, who did the throat cuttin’–”
“–you can trust Amir.”
Harper looks astounded by Eddie’s words.
“What about that ‘You ‘n me’ bullshit that you tried to sell to Canary when we were ridin’ into Paris? You throw that out the window when you told Amir about what we did?” She wears a wicked grin when Eddie’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “Do you think I was stupid enough to fall asleep when you were tryin’ to say somethin’ to her? You did some good sweet-talkin’ to my mama, but I know better when it comes to you–”
“–You were unhappy in New Orleans, unhappy in the vampire homeland, unhappy when we first came to Paris.” Eddie points out as Harper folds her arms and wanders around the space, looking at a few of the photos that have been spared from Eddie’s fiery gaze. “‘N here comes the coven, ‘n then you’re beamin’ like the whole world went technicolor.”
“Don’t make this about me when we’re talkin’ about you,” She grumbles, “What the fuck’s gone on without me here? Where’s my mother? I know she left with you that night, ‘n she hasn’t been back to see me since.”
“I didn’t want to wreck that for you and this whole time–” Eddie starts, but Harper’s pissed and past the point of listening to him talk without adding in some objections of her own.
“–chasin’ it! Chasin’! You gotta be chasin’ it–!”
“–he hasn’t betrayed our trust or told our secret.” Still, Eddie tries to make her see the world through his eyes.
“Except, he just threatened me with it!”
Her scream ends their back-and-forth, and the room is plunged into an uncomfortable, sticky, permeating silence that traps Eddie and Harper in that space.
And then Eddie opens his mouth.
“Doesn’t sound like him.”
“Doesn’t sound like him?!?” Harper pulls back, reeling from what Eddie’s just said. “Oh, I forgot! Love makes you stupid! ‘Makes you fickle ‘n weak ‘n blind. Let me guess, he’s your companion finally? Does he fill in the gapin’ hole in your heart that Volt left?”
Eddie doesn’t answer as Harper continues to let him have it. Maybe he stays silent because he thinks he deserves it.
“Well, good for fuckin’ you!” She grabs one end of the clothes line before she throws it onto the ground, carelessly stomping on the pictures as she speaks to Eddie. “You are unbelievable! You’re a liar, a traitor, a son of a fuckin’ bitch that should’ve met the fire a long time ago. Tell me where my mother is so I can tell her what a piece of fuckin’ work you are, ‘n then I can watch her beat your ass for pickin’ some Parisian motherfucker over your own daughter!”
Harper pants, tired from her outburst, as she waits for Eddie to respond, but the knowledge she seeks doesn’t come from him. It can’t, and Eddie can practically see the gears turning in her head as she dryly laughs.
“You don’t know,” She comes to that conclusion all on her own, “I thought you were the one who snuck her away, but you’re just as clueless as the rest of us… Fuck.”
“Harper–”
“–if you think there’s a chance that she picks you over me, then you got a fuckin’ storm headed your way, Eddison.” Harper growls before she turns on her heel, exiting the apartment with destruction left in her wake.
“Ah,” Volt sighs as Eddie’s jaw sets, “the wilderness that is our daughter.”
~
“A little to the left, lapinou.” River’s soft instructions cause you to move, carefully adjusting your body on the pedestal as she peers at you over her canvas stand, which feels quite imposing when compared to the beauty behind it.
“Must you continue to torture me?” You jest, fixing your hair before she tuts at you.
“Not yet. I haven’t finished your hair,” A soft blush coats her cheeks as her brush collects some paint, perfectly matched to the color of your hair, on the palette in her left hand, “I spent far too much time perfecting your face. There’s a lot of beauty there, and I felt compelled to capture it in exquisite detail.”
You giggle, placing a hand over your face as your gaze moves elsewhere. You’ve spent plenty of time in River’s private studio, since you’ve been hiding from the coven for… days? Weeks? Months? You’ve lost track of time, but, to be fair, you haven’t been trying to count when you’ve been thriving.
After spending months doing grunt work for Chairemi and Amir, reshaping old plays into something new (and, perhaps, a work that’s a little more tame, according to your tastes), you were desperate to work on your own projects. You were itching to work on your novel, the lovechild of hours upon hours of hard work, where you put your horrific lived experiences into words that were, hopefully, entertaining to a wider audience. That’s why you joined the coven, in part — the other part was to ensure that your daughter remained in good graces with the coven and its… eccentric leader.
Unfortunately, what you failed to take into account was that the coven would drag you into this hunt or that performance or any other number of things that left you with less time for your writing than you had before you became a part of a coven. Not to mention that you missed seeing your family, since Amir had insisted that you, at least, tried to make friends with the coven.
You didn’t. They weren’t really interested in anything beyond your appearance, and when you tried to dig deeper, you found that the majority of their personalities were skin-deep. Chairemi was a notable exception, but she was so far up Amir’s ass that you didn’t want to engage with her more than you had to. Plus, her shoving her work upon your shoulders so she could write a nightly humiliation ritual for your daughter rubbed you the wrong way.
Ah, yes, you had almost allowed yourself to forget about that fucking play. Seeing one performance of that was enough for you. Your ranting and raving about what you saw was reserved for a party of one — River, who Amir allowed you to see once or twice a week when you first joined the coven — and she gave you an excellent suggestion.
“Don’t.”
“What do you mean, don’t?” You shook your head at her. “What if Amir–”
“–a sheep in wolf’s clothing. I know from experience,” She shrugged, “Don’t watch the play if you don’t want to. Don’t spend time with the coven if you don’t like them.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is easy,” Her hand hovered above yours, “You only have one life to live, Canary. It’s a life longer than what most mortals get, but that doesn’t mean you should spend it living for men who would throw you away at a moment’s notice.”
You thought she was talking about Amir. Tonight’s events, however, would prove that assumption wrong.
“You didn’t have to redecorate for me.” Your eyes scan the room you’re in, noticing the small changes that River’s made to her space since you started living here permanently. There was the desk with your typewriter on it as a prominent piece in the room, alongside a queen-sized bed that shared plenty of good memories for you and for River. Then, there was the vase of flowers that she changed out every week because she knew you liked them, plus she picked out an assortment of dresses for you to wear, if only for the selfish purpose of using you in them as a model for her paintings. “‘M the one botherin’ you by stayin’–”
“–I’ve been looking for an excuse to redecorate, and what better excuse than a pretty woman?” Her flirting is so easy and natural, like she’s not trying to butter you up or apologize through hollow compliments that don’t actually solve any of your issues.
“I hope ‘m not causin’ any trouble for you.” You murmur, wearing a frown as River sets her palette and brush onto her stool before she strolls towards you.
“That should be the last thing on your mind, honey.” Her hand, covered in various shades of pink and purple to match the flowers you hold in your hand, reaches out to cup your face. “Something else is, though.”
“Am I that obvious?” You joke. “‘M worried about what the publishers will say about my work. I know it’s somethin’ that every author deals with, but my book isn’t just a collection of typed words on some paper. They’re a part of me — they reflect my experiences, the shit I’ve lived through, ‘n the people I’ve met that have influenced me, both good ‘n bad. ‘M scared that they’ll hate it, and, as a result, they’ll hate me.”
“No one will hate you, Canary. I read your work, and I loved it,” River’s thumb drags across your cheek, painting your skin with a soft pink hue, “Eddie loved it, too.”
“Eddie says whatever he thinks will please me.” You grumble as your mind goes back to the last night that you spent in his bed.
You didn’t want to argue with him, but something about his tone or words provoked a deep flame within your soul. How dare he accuse you of abandoning and using him when he spent most of his nights with Amir? You tried your damndest to see Eddie more often, but you were brushed off in favor of another. Again.
You played these games before, and it didn’t end well the first time, so you took your chess piece off the board. Fine. Eddie wants to find another to replace the hole in his heart that Volt once occupied? Then you’ll find someone who will help heal your heart and make you believe that someone can love you purely, without expecting you to be someone else or making you into a goddess when you feel like you’ve earned your spot right next to the devil for every sin you’ve committed as a vampire.
Petty? Sure, but you’re getting tired of always being the better person in situations like this. You’ll probably snap back into old habits because that’s who you are, even though you wish to kill off your caring heart when it comes to people who have wronged you. You can’t, though. Not towards Eddie, at least.
God, you’re such a glutton for punishment.
“A dog, but a loyal one,” River smiles when her comment brings a smile to your lips, “You’ve been carrying a heavy weight on your shoulders since you left his side.”
“I don’t know what it is about him, but ‘m drawn to him. It’s like our destinies are intertwined, no matter what we do or say. There’s no vampiric bond to explain what we have, ‘cause it started long before we met Volt,” You try to explain the mess that exists between you and your husband, “I can’t give Eddie up. I can’t hate him, even though I’d like to, at times. He makes the stupidest decisions that he thinks will keep us safe, ‘n he can’t tell me the truth to save his life, ‘n he’s a stubborn ass at the worst of times, but he’s real ‘n he’s safe ‘n he’s mine.”
“You two have been through a lot, haven’t you?” River pauses, allowing you to answer with a small nod. “I can tell that he loves you more than anything or anyone else in the world. He’d move heaven and Earth to get to you, and I don’t doubt that he’d go after anyone who wronged you.”
“I love Eddie so much,” Bloody tears burn your eyes as River pecks the top of your head with her lips, “I should apologize to him. I didn’t mean to ignore him for so long, ‘n I think it’s about time that I–”
“–Canary Watts!”
“Harper?” Your head snaps towards the entrance of River’s studio, where Harper stands with a mix of agitation and intrigue on her face. “You found me.”
“You didn’t make it easy,” She pouts before her eyes flit to River, “you must be her.”
“Ah,” River wears a gracious smile as she approaches Harper with an extended hand, “You must be the Harper I’ve heard such good things about–”
“–not interested.” Harper brushes right past River, who hums and shrugs her shoulders while she watches Harper pull you into a strong hug. “I need to talk to my mother. Alone.”
“The space is yours.” River closes the door behind her, leaving you and Harper alone.
“Don’t you ever leave me alone again, ya hear me?” Her voice threatens to break as you wrap your arms around your daughter, melting into the warm affection that seems to be reserved for you and only you. “A lot of bullshit has gone down since you — we — left Eddie by himself in that apartment.”
“What do you mean?” You frown before your hands find the ends of her braids, and you suddenly realize that she’s still in that dress that you know Harper hates. “Amir’s still makin’ you wear this ugly thing?”
“You heard him. I have to keep wearin’ it ‘til I find my passion for Lulu on-stage,” She rolls her eyes, “but this ain’t about him. Well, it ain’t all about Amir.”
“Amir and Eddie?” Your eyebrows raise when she nods. “Go on.”
“I was…” A red blush coats Harper’s cheeks before she shakes her head. “Out, not doin’ my chores, ‘n Amir came to scold me ‘n bring me back to the coven. We got into it for a bit, ‘n he put his hand around my throat–”
“–I beg your fuckin’ pardon?” Immediately, you see red. “Where is he?”
“Not important,” Harper keeps you on-track, pinning you down with her hands on your shoulders as you digits work to undo the braids that trap her red locks into the same hair style, night after night, “he told me that he knew what we did to Volt. Amir must’ve read our minds the moment we entered the theater. That’s not even the worse part, Mama. Eddie filled in the details for him.”
“...You’re jokin’.” No words can accurately describe the intense heartbreak that you feel at the moment. “Baby, please tell me it ain’t true. Tell me he didn’t–”
“–well, he did, ‘n I know you’re not surprised.” Harper spits out. “I talked to him about it, ‘n it ended in a fight. It always does, with me ‘n him.”
“What’d he say to you?”
“Eddie said that Amir would never do that to me, that it doesn’t sound like him.” Harper snorts when you angrily huff at her words. “Utter horseshit, I know. I don’t get why we aren’t enough for him. We won’t ever be enough for him.”
“I know,” You swallow the lump that’s appeared in your throat, “I’ve known that for a long time.”
“There’s somethin’ else you should know, too,” Harper’s voice drops to a near whisper as she looks at you with tears in her eyes, “about the night Volt died. I didn’t… He didn’t… I blamed myself for a long time, but it wasn’t my fault. I thought I deserved to be hurt for failin’ you.”
“Harper,” Your lips flatten into a straight line, “what are you tryin’ to tell me?”
“Eddie’s hurt me, Mama.” Harper burst into tears. “Not just my heart ‘n my emotions. My body, too — he put a hand ‘round my fuckin’ neck ‘n he told me not to burn Volt.”
~
Eddie expects some sort of big bang. A collision of catastrophic proportions. A slamming door, an argument to end every argument that you’ve had before this one. This is it — the reckoning has come for him, once and for all.
Except it’s not that. Eddie’s nervous pacing is interrupted by the front door to his apartment opening, then softly closing. As if you didn’t want him to hear you coming in. You don’t enter the bedroom right away, either — a hesitation that you wouldn’t have displayed months, years, or a lifetime ago. You’re waiting for a movement on his part, for him to finally meet you halfway after years of subtly forcing you, through his words or actions, to meet him on his side of the world.
Old habits die hard, though. You’re still the one to meet him in his domain, after all of these years and after all of this bullshit.
Suddenly, you appear in front of the door. You lack the vigor and resentment that your daughter had when she stomped through this very place and tore down his photos — photos that he hasn’t put back up, since he’s been so worked up about this very moment.
You say nothing as Eddie stops moving, taking a deep breath in, then out before he meets your unsteady gaze.
Tears. Bloody, messy tears have left streaks of red on your face. Your hair is messy from the wind, your clothes disheveled from when you anxiously pulled on the sleeves of your dress — a bad habit that Eddie knew you had, and he was so used to comforting your mind with a hand on top of one of your own when you would get so worked up about one thing or another.
He can’t comfort you, though. Not when he knows that he’s the reason behind your distress.
“Canary–”
“‘–If you were the last vampire on Earth, it would be enough,’” Your voice breaks with every word out of your mouth, “that was a lie, wasn’t it, my love? You told me such sweet things when I had given up on the world, ‘n I believed you. I don’t know if that makes me a fool, or you, a genius.”
“I didn’t lie–”
“–Me ‘n you,” You point to yourself, then Eddie, “you ‘n me. That’s what you said when we came to Paris. That’s never gonna be real, is it? You have, once again, picked another over me.”
Eddie wishes you were mad. He wishes you were stomping your feet, cursing at him, making him feel the anger coursing through your veins. That very emotion would make the words you just said hit differently. You’d be upset, like a wife finding out that her husband broke their vows, and a screaming match would ensue.
That anger, however, seems to be gone. Perhaps it evaporated as your mind aged, but your body didn’t. You couldn’t possibly get upset at every bit of trauma that you had gone through, purely because there was too much for you to be upset with. It never seemed to end when you all were stuck in that house with Volt. Eddie wears scars from him, too.
The scars you’re showing now, to Eddie’s horror, aren’t from your maker. It’s a classic case of death by a thousand tiny little cuts as your heart bleeds out in front of him because of him.
“You have, once again, picked another over me.”
You don’t sound sad. You’ve just accepted that this is your fate. You will always be the one left behind, the one forced to shoulder his burdens, the one who has to accept the consequences of his actions while he gets to go live his life however he wants.
You know this, too. That’s why your body shudders as you slap a hand over your mouth, trying to contain the hopelessness that’s invaded your body. It’s useless, though. You wear your heart on your shoulder, and all of your emotions come to the surface eventually. It’s one of the things that Eddie loves about you, but only when those emotions are positive.
Eddie flinches when you let out an agonizing wail before your hand grips the doorframe, holding your stomach like you’ve been fatally wounded. The sound shatters his heart and eardrums in one go while your body fails you, slowly sliding to the floor before you collapse into a pile of clothes and limbs. Your head leans against the doorframe as your hands wrap around your stomach, desperate to soothe yourself and your unborn child.
“Despite what you might think,” Volt murmurs, standing next to Eddie as you sob uncontrollably in front of them, “I didn’t — don’t — like seeing her like this. She thinks she was born broken, but that simply isn’t the truth. I broke her. …We broke her.”
Eddie looks over to Volt, expecting to see some hint of self-satisfaction on the man’s face, but there is none; however, a single bloody tear runs down his face as Volt refuses to look away from you.
“I loved Canary. I thought I knew what was best, but I pushed her away from me. I became my Maker, the man I despised with all of my heart,” Volt wipes the tear with his sleeve before he continues on, “Eddie, you and I could live a thousand lifetimes and still not be worthy of her love. She is the North Star, the sun, the moon, the stars. The guiding light, the moral compass we didn’t deserve. If you lose her, you’ll lose everything because she is everything.”
“Do you think that I don’t know that?!” Eddie snaps, temporarily forgetting that you were in the room before you bitterly laugh at his outburst.
“Even now, his ghost taunts us. I’ve always known when he was plaguin’ you, Eddie.” You sniffle softly before more tears run down your face. “What’s he sayin’ to you now?”
“I–” Eddie pauses, looking to Volt, of all people, for guidance.
“–this isn’t between the three of us anymore. This has spiraled beyond my reach, past what even I can help you with.” Volt walks towards you before he places a hand on your head, trying to comfort you even though he has no physical form. “Sois fort, petit agneau. Le pire est encore devant toi.”
Volt disappears, leaving Eddie to clean up his own mess.
“He’s usually tauntin’ me about somethin’ I did or said,” Eddie admits, not able to look at your shivering form as guilt wraps around his body since he knows he caused you to be like this, “it’s not pleasant.”
“He’s like that with me, too.” You hiccup before you wipe some spare tears away with the palm of your hand. “Some things never change.”
Dead silence.
“I love you, sweetheart–”
“–don’t. Please don’t act like everything’s fine when it’s not.” You murmur. “You didn’t believe our daughter when she told you that your lover choked her out. You told Amir that you ‘n your daughter killed Volt. You let him torture Harper, night after night, on that stage, where he makes her prance around like a bird, in a dress made for a doll–”
“–I told Amir I didn’t like what he was doing to her,” Eddie interjects, “...tonight. I told him tonight–”
“–and that’s not the worst part,” Your bottom lip quivers as you speak, “I have spent the last seven years lovin’ a man that put his hands on my baby girl. …Fuck you for hidin’ that from me. Fuck you for takin’ advantage of me, ‘n don’t you dare say you didn’t, ‘cause you did, ‘n you know you did.”
“Mon ange–”
“–and after all of that shit,” You blow a piece of unruly hair out of your eyes, which are red from hours of crying, “I still love you, ‘n that tears me apart. I love a man who wrapped his hand around my daughter’s throat. I love someone who would pick a two-year fling over his own family, a family that he made–”
“–you needed Harper,” Eddie slowly walks towards you, feeling brave enough to face you, “‘n I needed you.”
“When did I ask you to turn some poor little girl into a doll for me to dress up ‘n play with?!?” You spit at him, causing Eddie to stop in his tracks before you burst into tears once more. “I didn’t ask you for her. I didn’t want her. I just wanted someone who loved me as I was–”
“–She does–”
“–Prissy did, too, but you killed her.” You point out. “You took everythin’ ‘n everyone I loved away from me, ‘n you stuck a broken girl in my arms ‘n expected it to fix me. …It didn’t. It just pushed away the pain ‘n resentment I felt towards you ‘n Volt, but it eventually resurfaced. It always does.”
Eddie never thought about it like that. He didn’t stop to consider what you would think when he brought Harper to Volt before he begged the man to turn her.
You’re right, like always. She didn’t fix anything. She didn’t fix your marriage, your heart, your relationship with Volt… she was just a shitty bandage over your bleeding heart.
“But I loved her with all of my heart,” You get choked up as you talk about Harper, “‘n I still do. I never thought about bein’ a mother ‘til I fell in love with you. I had so many siblings, so kids never interested me ‘til I thought about havin’ some of our own… I would’ve been such a good mother, Eddie, if things had been different–”
“–you are a good mother,” Eddie argues, leaning against the opposite part of the doorway so you know he’s close, but not close enough to convince you to do anything that you don’t want to, “Harper loves you. She’d go to war for you. Hell, she figured out where you were, after weeks of silence from you, ‘cause she’s pissed at me.”
“Yeah,” You chuckle a bit, “I guess you’re right.”
“I haven’t been the husband you need or deserve, mon ange.” Eddie lets his back slide against the wall until he’s on the floor too, and he offers you a pained smile before he holds his hands out to you, palms-up. “You deserve someone who’s gonna protect your heart ‘n take care of you like I never could. You deserve someone who is as selfless ‘n as kind as you are. You deserve someone who makes you feel like the saint of a woman that you are, every goddamn day of your life.”
“But I don’t want someone who’s perfect or better for me,” You sigh, taking heaving breaths as you try to fight the bloody river that flows from your eyes, “All I ever wanted was you. I didn’t want you ‘cause you were like a man from one of my favorite romance novels — God knows that you’re not. You smoke like a chimney, you drink a little too much for my likin’, ‘n you can be a bit mean-spirited at times.”
“Merde, pretty girl, tell me how you really feel.” Eddie jokes, causing you to softly snort.
“‘M goin’ somewhere with this, be patient,” Your playful lecturing brings a genuine smile to his lips, “Eddie, those things don’t really matter to me, ‘n even if they did, you somehow managed to make them good things. You never blow any smoke in my face, you can’t stop kissin’ me ‘n tellin’ me how much you love me when you’re drunk, ‘n you always make sure that you’re bein’ respectful when you talk to me, even when you’re upset.”
You place your shaky hands into his.
“Eddie, I fell in love with you ‘cause you’re a good man. Sometimes, you make rash decisions ‘n you act with your heart instead of your mind, but you’ve never been malicious on purpose. You lie ‘n cheat ‘n kill to protect your daughters ‘n your wife. You infuriate me with your terrible decision-makin’, but I love you anyway. There are things you’ve done that I will never forgive you for, but that doesn’t push me away from you, even though it should.”
“You don’t have to love me,” Eddie intertwines his fingers with yours, “I don’t want you to force yourself to love me ‘cause we have history.”
“I don’t have to force myself. It’s natural. I love you with every breath I take.” You giggle as you stare at his hands, “Merde, we are fucked up, aren’t we?”
“We’d be boring if we were normal,” He shoots back before you grin at him, “I owe you an apology–”
“–Eddie, honey, save the apology. …I’ve spent a lot of time thinkin’ about what would finally push me away from you. I… I have to draw the line somewhere,” You squeeze Eddie’s hands, “but I won’t stop caring about you. I won’t stop bein’ someone you can count on, I just… can’t be with you anymore. Not after all of this.”
“If that’s what you want,” His heart sinks to the floor, but he’s past the point of earning your grace. Eddie’s fucked up big time — losing you, as painful as it is, is his penance, “I love you, Canary. I’ll always love you, even from afar.”
“No fightin’, no tryin’ to convince me to stay…” You click your tongue, smiling as you shake your head. “I was wrong about you. You have changed.”
“You have, too. You’re gentler, quieter…” happier is the word Eddie wants to add on, but he chooses not to. “More confident. I like what she’s brought out in you.”
“Thank you, my love.” You bite your tongue, realizing your error. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have called you that after I–”
“–no, it’s okay, sweetheart,” Eddie reassures you, “Call me whatever you’d like.”
“...You’re okay with me leavin’?” Your eyes go to the skirt of your dress. “If you want me to stay–”
“–you’re my wife, not my prisoner,” He brings your hands to his lips — an instinctual habit that brings him pause until you nod at him, telling Eddie that it’s okay for him to kiss each of your fingers individually, “just come around ‘n visit every once in a while, okay? I’ve missed seein’ you.”
“Even if we’re not…?”
“Nothin’ will stop me from caring about you.” Eddie murmurs before he helps you to your feet. “That dress looks nice on you.”
“Oh, this? River wanted to paint me, so she bought me a few dresses I could wear while she…” Your face flushes as you trail off. “Thank you. I… I think I should go.”
“Do you want me to walk you out?”
“No, ‘m fine.” You let go of Eddie’s hands, only to wrap your arms around him before you whisper in his ear. “Give me a few years, Eddie. I need some time to think about how I want us to move forward.”
“Take all the time in the world,” Eddie tells a half-lie before he kisses your cheek, “Good night, Canary. Stay safe. If you need anythin’–”
“–I know where to find you.” You wink at him before you backpedal towards the door. “G’night, Eddie.”
The door firmly shuts behind you, and only when Eddie is sure that you’re out of earshot, he breaks down.
“Fuck!” Eddie can’t help it — the vase in the foyer is all too-tempting, and it hits the wall with a satisfying crashing sound that helps relieve the frustration inside of him.
He shouldn’t have let you go. You didn’t need to go. He could’ve fixed this if he said the right thing, or did something else instead of letting you waltz your way right out of his life.
Maybe you would’ve stayed, then. Or, you would’ve left in a rush, considerably more upset than you were to begin with.
Eddie did the right thing… but why does he feel terrible about it?
“That went better than expected–”
“–shut up.” Eddie growls at Volt, who steps around the shards of the broken glass vase.
“Canary needed to leave–”
“–you’re the one who wanted her to stay–”
“–only so you’d stay.” Volt shrugs. “I did what I had to.”
“Fuck you.” Eddie spits out, causing Volt to gasp dramatically as he clutches his chest.
“You’re in a foul mood.”
“You put me in a foul mood.”
“Wow, were you always this cranky, or is this a new development from your time in Paris with Amir?” Volt taunts as Eddie brushes past him to rehang the clothes line that Harper messed up earlier.
“Stop.” Eddie says with a finality that does make Volt shut his mouth… for about five seconds.
“You should go on a hunt. It’ll help clear your mind.” Volt suggests.
“Tomorrow. Not tonight, I…” Eddie pauses. “Got some thinkin’ to do.”
“Can I come along?”
Eddie freezes when he locks eyes with the only picture of Amir within his collection of photos, hanging right above the coffin that you and Eddie once shared.
“Sure.”
~
“What are we hunting for, mon chéri?” Volt asks with an unexpected amount of excitement, as Eddie has never been one to happily accept an invitation for a hunt.
“What are we hungry for, Volt?” Eddie flips the question back onto the spectre that haunts his mind as he holds onto the base of the umbrella tightly.
Rain smacks the pavement beneath his feet with force, but the death grip Eddie has on the umbrella will prevent him from getting soaked.
I can’t do this… can I?
He knows why he led Volt to this park. This is about ending whatever the fuck is happening in his mind while he fixes the only relationship that he has some amount of control over… but his mind still wanders back to you. It always does.
You loved rainy days. While others might be upset that their outdoor plans were ruined, you took it as an opportunity to indulge in indoor hobbies that you often didn’t have time for — reading, writing, and a bit of sewing, if you were feeling adventurous. You weren’t very good at that last one, but Eddie always thought you were cute when you pouted after the stitches didn’t turn out right.
Eddie’s favorite part of those storm nights, however, was when he’d find you curled up by a window, fast asleep and peacefully dreaming. Eddie never dared to disturb you since you looked so perfect as you were, but he always drew the curtain shut, so you weren’t burned by the sunlight, before he threw a large, warm blanket over your body. You always smiled when he did so, and you would even laugh in your sleep when he just had to kiss your cheek because you looked too irresistible.
…It’s been less than a day, and he’s going mad with desire and longing for you. How the fuck is he supposed to last a few years like this?
“The pick of the city.” Volt’s answer redirects Eddie’s attention to him. “Perhaps a couple — an illicit couple, out for a cheat? We could drain them in heat. Let their children answer a knock at the door. A pale-faced policeman, a ride to the morgue.”
“Yeah, all that.” Eddie’s still in another world as he gestures for Volt to sit on a nearby park bench. “Have a seat.”
“Hunt later?” Volt’s eyes shine with hope, which makes Eddie feel a little bad for lying to him.
“Yeah, hunt later.”
They’re not hunting later.
Eddie holds the umbrella over both of their heads as they take a seat on that very bench.
“You summoned him?” Volt whispers as Eddie’s eyes go to the man approaching the two of them in the distance.
Not just any man, though. One that they both know. Intimately.
“I did.” Eddie quickly answers.
“You’re going to break it off with him, aren’t you?” Volt confidently smiles as Eddie nods in pretend agreement. “Well, it had to happen. Doomed, always doomed. I’m happy you tried with someone else–”
“–no, you’re not.” Eddie cuts him off before Volt shrugs.
“That’s what you wanted me to say.” He argues.
“And you say what I want you to say now?”
“Do I?” Volt leans closer, and Eddie can almost taste the aftershave oil that Volt used to wear religiously.
He’s not here.
“Say apple.”
“Apple.” Volt responds, unsurprisingly.
“In French.” Eddie challenges.
“...La pomme.” Volt’s eyes go down to Eddie’s lips before he meets his lover’s gaze once more. “There isn’t going to be a hunt, is there?”
“No.” Eddie quietly answers.
“...Why this suit?” Volt gestures to the tan suit that he wore on the night you and Eddie first met him, in a bar that is little more than ash and distant, forgotten memories.
“It’s my favorite on you.”
“Really?” Volt’s eyebrows fly up in surprise. “I didn’t know that.”
Eddie, suddenly, pulls down the umbrella. His clothes and face are quickly dampened by the rainfall, but that’s not his main concern at the moment. He can’t tear his eyes away from Volt, who seemingly melts away in the rain, slowly fading into the park’s background.
“Well, it’s quite nice, I suppose. Herringbone wool, notched collar.” Volt adjusts his clothes, like he has no idea what is happening. “You might not know this, but I had the tailor inscribe your initials, alongside Canary’s, on the back side of the ticket pocket.”
Volt places a hand over that very pocket, the one that lies over his heart.
“Right here,” He murmurs before he fades into nothingness, “so your names would always cradle…”
And he’s gone. Not temporarily gone. Permanently gone. Perhaps Eddie’s finally let go of Volt, being encouraged to do so after you let go of him.
It doesn’t matter, as Eddie has no time to recover before Amir takes Volt’s place on the park bench.
“You summoned me.”
“I felt your panic.” Eddie folds his arms over his chest as Amir looks off to the side.
“The center isn’t holding. Mutiny is brewing. Everyone is doing what they want, when they want.”
“Everyone but you.” Eddie says, thinking of how you and Harper are off doing what you want, when you want, at this very moment.
“I’m not sure I can keep obedience any longer.” Amir admits. “Drysdale wants–”
“–your job.” Eddie interrupts.
“Others will follow him. You should… think of leaving.”
“No.” Eddie immediately turns him down. If you’re staying in Paris, then so is he. He won’t go where you can’t find him. “‘M stayin’ in Paris, with you, ‘n everyone’s gonna be happy.”
“Eddie–”
“–’m not an artist, ‘n I don’t know too much about the theater,” Eddie’s honesty causes Amir to place a hand over his, “but I used to be real good at runnin’ things. …’m a little wet.”
That last statement is a test for Amir. Eddie’s life is rapidly spiraling out of control — he has no agency or choice or control over your life or Harper’s, but he does have control over what he does with Amir, and that has to be his grounding force… for now.
As Eddie expects, Amir grabs the umbrella from him before he opens it up, hiding them both from the rainfall.
“Drysdale wants to be coven leader.” Eddie explains. “Give him the job. Watch him fail–”
“–Never–”
“–Listen to me.”
“I can’t. I will not.” Amir shuts Eddie down.
“Fine. Then, throw him a bone, at least. Let him feel like he’s your… heir apparent, or whatever the fuck you call it,” Eddie says, “He’ll overplay his hand, ‘n everyone will see him for what he is. When they know they don’t have an alternative, they’ll beg for you back. That’s when you can decide if you want it back, or if you want somethin’ else.”
Eddie offers Amir a cigarette, but to his surprise, Amir lights it before he hands it back to Eddie.
“I want you,” Amir warmly confesses, “I want you more than anything in the world.”
God, does it feel good to have someone say that to him. The people who once wanted Eddie are either dead or missing. He needs to be needed by someone, anyone — and Amir will do just fine.
“You sure about that?”
“Yes, Maître.” Amir weakly answers Eddie’s call, and the two spend the rest of the night on that very park bench, talking the night away.
~
Drysdale, Memoria, and Chance watch as Eddie holds the door to his apartment building open for some mysterious being that is invisible to their eyes.
“Third floor balcony.” Chance glares at the exact apartment that Eddie, presumably, just exited.
“Keep a watch.” Drysdale announces to his companions before he charges ahead.
“Eyes, ears, and minds.” Memoria seems to agree as she and Chance take off to the left and right respectively, leaving Drysdale to charge ahead. He checks to make sure no mortals are around before he flies up to the third-floor balcony, where the door that leads inside of the apartment has been left open, for one reason or another.
Pulling a curtain back with a clawed hand, Drysdale enters the space with some sense of caution, still a little afraid of being caught after his little… debacle in the restaurant.
He won’t be embarrassed like that any more.
Drysdale stalks through the apartment, smiling with brief amusement as he eyes the burnt crisps of photos that once existed, alongside those that remain untouched on the clothes lines that they hang upon.
Odd. He never thought that Eddie’s space would look like this. Messy didn’t seem to be his… thing. The man seemed well-kept to Drysdale, but perhaps that was because of your influence.
Ah, yes, you. The reason he’s here. In this godforsaken apartment, there should be something about–
There. Near the smaller of the two beds in the room. A pile of diaries. Yours, perhaps? You were a writer — a well-known fact in the coven — but you must’ve indulged in a bit of casual writing on the side. Who else would dear, darling Harper pick up the habit from?
He picks up the journal, and to his absolute surprise, it’s not your handwriting that greets him — it’s Harper’s.
And, boy, does he find out some interesting stuff about your time in New Orleans. Especially in a small little journal that has a few certain French words written in Volt’s blood…
After Drysdale grows bored of his investigations, he calls out to his companions.
“Chance?”
“Sitting on a bench,” Chance murmurs, watching Eddie and Amir cordially interact, “having a smoke.”
“Lady Memoria?”
“Nothing but a man walking a dog. A drunk asleep in his auto.”
“Good, very good.” Drysdale gathers Harper’s journals in his clutches — the rest of the coven must be aware of what Harper’s written, and they simply won’t believe what he has to say if he has no proof. “Meet back at the theater, and stagger your arrivals.”
Drysdale exits from where he came from, only stopping to pet the photographed face of his beloved coven leader.
“Yes, Maître.” Memoria and Chance answer at the same time before Drysdale disappears into the night sky.
~
“You made me look foolish!”
“You just assume it was me.”
“Well, it wasn’t me!”
“You sure about that?”
“Excuse me?”
“I take it back–”
“–take it way fuckin’ back!”
Eddie and Amir’s arguing is like music to Dolly’s ears as she listens to them from another room. She’s been doing a bit of research on this Keith guy that Amir brought up during his little museum date with Eddie, but she’s had no luck besides a very flattering painting that is, presumably, not an accurate depiction of the man.
“I apologize.”
“Do you think I need to be coddled and lied to?”
“I said no such thing, Eddie.”
“But you’re doing it anyway. You can’t even say Canary’s name without grimacing or frowning because you think it’ll affect me–”
“–she’s a sore spot for you.”
“A sore spot? After everythin’ you know about her, after spendin’ twenty-ish years with her, that’s how you describe my wife?!”
“I did not mean to offend–”
“–well, you have.”
…Jesus Christ.
Dolly attempts to type a few notes on her computer, but she’s cut off by a sudden memory that pops up when Amir yells something at Eddie.
“Even as he cried, a splinter of coldness in you.”
Suddenly, that youthful version of Dolly is eye-level with Amir again.
“Is that what makes you fascinating?”
A TV reporter talking about… the weather? A body in a bag, freshly deceased and ready-to-go. Teeth. Pain. Anger. Agony. Amir holding a tape in his hands.
Yeah, no, fuck this.
Dolly scours her computer files, quickly working through folder after folder of recorded and printed interviews that she’s done until she stumbles upon a file named San Francisco, 1975.
“Don’t be afraid. Just start the tape.”
“You weren’t always a vampire, were you?”
That’s her voice, saying the second line that continues to ring through her head. Not Eddie. Not River. Not Amir.
But none of them said that first line…
“Don’t be afraid. Just start the tape.”
Dolly scrolls through the folder. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.
Fuck.
“Amir, I want you to be honest with me. Did you hide those stamps from me?”
“No, absolutely not–”
“–did you hide her letters from me?”
“The ones in your library? …They’re missing?”
“Yes, they’re missing! I told you to keep track of them. Canary’s words are the only thing I have left of her–”
“–Dolly must’ve taken them.”
“You do realize that accusing her of stealing them makes you look guilty of stealing them, right?”
Dolly ignores Eddie and Amir, choosing to search her first and last name within the files she has gathered on her computer, alongside what River gave her.
Then, she strikes gold. She finds photos of herself, being carried out of a mysterious apartment building in the seventies. There’s a black and white photo of her entering said building, pinned-between you and River while Dolly wears a blissful, naive smile on her face. Oh, if only Dolly knew.
Holy shit. Is that…
At the bottom of the search page, there’s two audio files. She’s now got two recordings of the very last tape that she recorded with you and Eddie, back in nineteen seventy-five. Thanks to Amir’s meddling, she thought they were gone forever, but apparently, someone out there is looking out for her.
Dolly remembers to plug in her earbuds, not wanting to be disturbed by the continued argument that’s going on in Eddie and Amir’s bedroom.
The world, for a moment, falls silent. Then, Dolly feels a hand on top of hers, gently guiding her fingers as she directs the mouse on her computer screen to the play button.
She freezes as she remembers that very touch. The gentleness of those caresses, as if the woman who gave them was worried about breaking the mortal.
Dolly looks over to find that she’s not alone on the couch; however, what she’s seeing must be a figment of her imagination… or her illness. Or both, perhaps.
Because you are nowhere near Berlin, Germany, yet here you are, looking as beautiful as you did when Dolly first met you. Your hair is styled the same way, and your body looks as tempting as ever — Get a hold of yourself! Pinning over Eddie’s wife is what got you into this mess in the first place — but your smile is what really does her in.
“Don’t be afraid,” You murmur, eyes going to the screen in front of Dolly as you help her frozen hand press the play button on her screen, “Just start the tape.”
congrats on graduating!!! I'm sure it's was a lot of hard work.
also fun fact, genuinely I got so absorbed into your fics earlier this year that I was reading them pretty much all day every day so I genuinely had to give up your fics for lent. testament to your amazing writing abilities I guess? 😅
congrats on graduating once again!
ahhhh thank you!!!! it was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (mostly the last one... a lot of the last one, actually ;-; fuck comp. sci. classes)
between this and the one ao3 comment that called me jesus, I'm gonna develop a god complex, you guysssss 🥹 /j but in all seriousness this is such an HONOR like you gave up some writing from little ol' me for lent???? oh my god that's so flattering 😭💕
again, thank you so much! I'm so happy to be done with that stage of my life, and I'm looking forward to all of the opportunities that will be open to me post-grad 😌 just gotta find a job first... 0_0
tagged by @bringbackmaes14 & @blackbirdofasgard so thank you both!!! <33
excerpt from the new chapter of iwtv, it's mostly done(?), I just have another fic for a different fandom that I've been dragging my ass about that I want to finish first before I start editing. (that one is three parts & 35k-ish words & i am still not done with it 0_0 oh god)
tw: vampires, violence, very overprotective eddie towards fem! reader but GOD is it hot 🤭
“So it’s mimicry you’re good at.” You can hold your own when someone comes after you, and Eddie squeezes your hand in support of you. He’s got you. He won’t dive in and be the defensive husband unless he needs to be. “Like a parrot?”
Eddie chuckles under his breath at that one. Never change, sweetheart.
The rest of the table is dead silent as you and Drysdale go back and forth with each other.
“Like a gent with upright downstairs–”
“–Or, Drysdale, are you like an organ monkey–?”
“–Cajun drawl. I want to test a theory. Say… New Orleans?”
“Don’t fuck with me.” You hiss, yet the pain in your eyes is extremely evident to Eddie.
He sees tears begin to form at the corners of your eyes, and that’s when he decides that enough is enough. Disrespect pointed towards him? That’s all fine and dandy.
You, however? You’re off-limits. Your gentle, loving heart has been through enough heartbreak and struggle. He won’t let someone else take away the inner peace that you’ve managed to create over the past couple of years. Even if that peace exists without him.
Drysdale snarls at you, and you flinch, despite your distance from him. Eddie takes advantage of the distraction, and he uses his inhumane speed to race over to Drysdale before he grabs Drysdale’s tongue between two of his fingers and pulls it out of his mouth in the most painful way imaginable. Not enough to separate the organ from its home, but enough to get the message across.
Eddie places his free hand on Drysdale’s throat, to compromise his wind pipes, as the man under siege feebly claws at Eddie’s dress pants.
“Anythin’ else you wanna say about my wife while I’ve got your attention?” Eddie growls. “I couldn’t hear you from the other side of the table, but you’ve got my attention now.”
An Interview with the Vampire — Chapter/Episode Twelve: feed us your girls [part two]
a/n: part two for y'all!
read part one here!
relationship: vampire! volt x vampire! eddie x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! eddie x vampire! amir; vampire! amir x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! river x vampire! fem! reader
series masterlist! || french translations (I do not speak fluent french, so any corrections would be appreciated!)
Eddie should probably head back to the apartment.
You didn’t say anything about him getting home safe, but your heart beats outside of your chest, and he’ll cause you so much unnecessary worry if he doesn’t come home to you.
But that’s not on Eddie’s mind right now. Not as he walks through a familiar park, where you received a small business card many, many moons ago. That chance encounter led your trio down a completely different path, and Eddie’s convinced that it won’t end well for any of you.
What will Amir do with the information he’s obtained from Eddie? Or, rather, how will he weaponize it to hurt you and Harper? He’s fucking tried to protect the two of you, but it seems, to his absolute horror, that the thing he needs to protect you two from is himself.
God, how is Eddie going to break this to you? He’s already lied about so much — your whole fucking marriage is a lie because he was too much of a goddamn coward to tell you the truth — and he’s tired of not being able to tell everything to the woman he loves. Eddie yearns for the nights where the two of you would just talk over a glass or two of bourbon, before any of this bullshit started. Lying to you feels like he’s lying to himself, as attached at the hip as the two of you are, and he’s putting off the inevitable. You’re frustratingly brilliant, so you’ll piece together what really happened eventually–
In the distance, Eddie sees Volt. It’s not really Volt — it wasn’t Volt in the bar, by the riverside, in the apartment, in the caravan, in the middle of the fucking war — but, merde, can his mind make a near-perfect hallucination of him.
A terrible, no-good idea takes root in Eddie’s mind. It isn’t what he wants — in the back of his mind, he wants to bury his face in your chest and hold you until the storm in his mind stills — but he doesn’t see a better option at the moment. Temporary relief is what Eddie’s looking for, and this spectre is a perfect outlet for his anger and resentment.
Eddie drags Volt into a forest area, and the pair exchange messy kiss after messy kiss until Volt forcefully pulls himself away from Eddie.
“Even now,” Volt breathlessly whispers, almost as a taunt to the man that holds his face with so much malice yet tenderness, “I’m still the only one you trust.”
Eddie doesn’t see it as a taunt. It’s mostly the truth — he trusts you and Volt — but it always does come back to him and Volt, after everything is said and done.
“Kill me again,” Volt begs before he quickly grows angry, “Go on, kill me again! Show me the only way you know how to love.”
Violent. It’s always been violent, chaotic, and messy between Eddie and Volt. Is that a pattern Eddie really wants to continue?
What happens when your words sound too much like Volt’s, and it sparks a similar fury to what Eddie feels at this moment? Will he react with the exact same force without realizing what he’s done?
…He already has, hasn’t he? Eddie’s already scared you into hurting yourself, even if it was an accident, because you poked a festering wound that Volt opened up.
Does Volt provoke that violent nature, or has it always existed with Eddie?
It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s already repeatedly smashed Volt’s head against a nearby tree trunk, leaving him bloody and gory on the forest floor.
Eddie blinks.
It wasn’t Volt. It was never Volt. Just some poor soldier who was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Eddie stumbles home with bloody hands and clothes that he doesn’t try to hide or wash. No one who’s out of their room this late at night, in this part of Paris, will question him. He shuts himself in his dark room, trying to sort out his thoughts by himself.
Volt wasn’t there. Some man doesn’t get to go home to his family, whatever that family may look like, because of Eddie.
What of your family, then? Should the three of you consider skipping town? Is it too late to make such a decision, when Paris has her roots so deeply ingrained in you and Harper?
“Eddie, honey, mon cœur!” Your voice cuts through the agony striking Eddie’s heart as you gently knock on the locked door to his darkroom. “I met someone tonight. She’s special. Really special.”
“I know, Canary. You left me with Amir.” He flatly says, messing with the camera that he, somehow, didn’t lose.
“Is somethin’ wrong, my love?” You check in on him, voice sweeter than candy as every word out of your mouth drips with affection for Eddie. “Can I get you anythin’?”
“‘M fine, sweetheart. Just go to bed.” In turn, Eddie speaks more sternly to you. “I’ll be there in an hour or two.”
“Oh.” You say, after a moment of silence, and he cringes as he can picture the way you deflate after being turned away by your husband. “Have a good night, Eddie. ‘M sorry for botherin’ you.”
“Wait,” Eddie calls out to you before you have the chance to turn away, but he doesn’t apologize, like he knows he should, “did Amir walk you home?”
“No,” You softly say, “when I came back to the bar, you ‘n Amir were gone. ‘Figured he’d walk you home.”
“He didn’t.” Eddie corrects you.
“I got that,” You shoot back, “Listen, it ain’t my place to speak on this, but if there’s somethin’ goin’ on with the two of you, you need to leave me out of it. Be angry all you want, but don’t take it out on me. I had enough of that shit in New Orleans.”
“Canary–”
“–Good night, Eddison.” You sharply cut him off, and Eddie hears your footsteps fade in the distance before you suddenly stop to speak to someone else.
“Careful with him, Harper. He’s in a bad mood.” You grumble, which causes Harper to dryly chuckle.
“He’s always in a piss-poor mood… companion troubles?”
“Yeah, ‘n he’s takin’ out on me.”
“Same as usual,” Harper comments, and Eddie frowns in response, “Nice painting. Where’d you get that from?”
“Someone.”
“Someone?” She questions you further, but you don’t respond. “...Tell me it’s not another man.”
“Her name is River.” You excitedly giggle right afterwards. “She’s beautiful.”
“She treats you good?”
“Are you my mother?” You tease before Harper scoffs. “Yes. She offered to help me publish my novel.”
“Good for you, Mama.”
“What about you? How’s the coven treatin’ you?” You turn the interrogation back onto Harper. “Amir said you were takin’ the abuse in stride…”
“Drysdale says ‘m almost there, ‘n the coven should accept me as one of their own, soon.” She stops speaking for a moment. “Mama, ‘m fine. This is how the coven operates.”
“I don’t have to like it, though. I’ll support you through this, ‘n I want you to know that if you decide that enough is enough–”
“–I appreciate it, but ‘m good. I like the coven ‘n its members, ‘n they like ‘n accept me as I am.” Harper explains. “I want you there for the ceremony.”
“Just me?”
A knife is torn through Eddie’s being at Harper’s next words.
“Yeah, just you… I think.”
“I’ll be there. I’ll probably be there anyways, since Chairemi ‘n Amir have me workin’ like a dog, but I’ll show up for you. I always will, honey.”
“I know,” Harper says, “Thank you. I’ll talk to Eddie–”
“–you don’t have to–”
“–too damn bad.” Harper shoos you away before her fist pounds against the door. “You can open the door or not. I don’t fuckin’ care, but I need you to know that Canary loves you a lot, ‘n pushin’ her away isn’t goin’ to solve your problems. All it does is create more problems between you ‘n her, ‘n you don’t need any more bullshit in that department. Trust me.”
Eddie grabs a nearby cloth to clean his hands with as Harper continues on, without a response from his end.
“Or you can ignore me ‘n let your own feelings fester. That’s fine.” She deeply sighs. “We need to talk about Bruce since Drysdale asked me about him. I said he was a loner who had fickle moods, ‘n he switched between ‘em real fast.”
That man in the park had Volt’s eyes. Eddie swears by it.
“Just take a night off,” With shaky, somewhat clean hands, he begins to develop the film within his camera, “Too much detail will get confusin’–”
“–No, we should do this. We should be real careful, like you said,” Harper uses Eddie’s earlier sentiment against him, “Eddie?”
No answer.
“Fine. Play with your human pictures. Ignore this.” Harper angrily spits out. “Ignore us, ‘n see how far that gets you.”
~
Tonight was… different.
You didn’t know what to expect when you were invited out by Amir. Well, you did expect Eddie to take pictures of you while you weren’t looking, but you didn’t expect to run into another female vampire.
There was Lady Memoria, Chairemi, Connie, and Miranda from the coven, but they were… a bit much. The majority of the theater company was too much for you, as they constantly interrogated you about your life in America. You couldn’t tell them the truth because of Volt, so you had to lie about everything that you grew up with. Lies, lies, lies. You’ve said so much bullshit that you’re starting to wonder what’s true, and what’s not.
“Does this look okay?” You ask as you hang River’s piece in your writing corner, right above your desk and typewriter.
“Perfect.” Harper says as she pushes her bed upwards, revealing her coffin.
“You’re not lookin’.” You scrunch your nose as you adjust the artwork so it looks just right.
“‘Cause I don’t care,” Harper shrugs before she notices your small pout, “It was a gift to you from a girl you like. It has nothin’ to do with me.”
“It’s in your home, too.” You argue before she shakes her head.
“Not for long.” She mumbles under her breath as you admire the artistry once more.
Beautiful, like her.
River is a breath of fresh air. Honest, kind, and pretty… she reminds you of someone that you lost. Someone who wouldn’t want you to mourn her for the rest of your immortal life.
You know to be cautious of her immediate warmth, as well of her knowledge of intimate parts of your life, but you can’t help but hope that River will be the one to be fully transparent with you. It wasn’t Volt, it wasn’t Eddie — as much as that hurts to say — and it certainly won’t be Amir.
You’ll come to her place when Harper’s been fully accepted into the coven, and you actually have some free time that isn’t given to you because your husband has a thing for the coven leader, and the coven leader has… something for you.
Sure, you could be drawn into Amir’s allure, but he reminds you far too much of someone else. Someone who drew you right into his trap when you were too young, naive, and dumb to know any better. You won’t let that happen again.
“Nice of you to join us.” Harper speaks through gritted teeth as Eddie enters the bedroom area of the apartment.
“We’ll be in bed in a few minutes,” You stifle a yawn as you turn your transfixed gaze away from River’s artwork, “It’s almost–”
Your words escape you when Eddie wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you close. A quick kiss to your forehead jolts you into action, and you quickly reciprocate his embrace as Eddie squeezes your hips.
“Sorry, angel. You’re right.” He admits before you grin at him.
“‘M your wife. ‘M always right.” You snort with laughter as you feel the tension begin to unwind from his body. “What happened between you ‘n Amir, honey? I haven’t seen you this worked up since–”
“–I don’t wanna involve you, sweetheart.” Eddie kisses your cheek before he looks you in the eyes. “Whatever’s goin’ on between me ‘n Amir should stay between me ‘n him. I shouldn’t bring it home to you.”
What if it does pertain to me? What then?
“Are you sure it doesn’t involve me?” You air out your suspicion to Eddie, who pecks your lips in response.
“I’d tell you if it did.”
I want to trust you, Eddie, but… I don’t know. There’s something up with you, and I’ll figure out what it is before we end up like we did in New Orleans. I can’t do that again.
“You open to talkin’ ‘bout Bruce?” Harper waits for Eddie to nod before she continues on. “Okay. ‘M gonna say that the three of us rode around with him for a while.”
“We were on the open road, roamin’ America.” You say as you pull away from Eddie, unbuttoning his dress shirt so you can help him get ready for bed. If he won’t talk about what’s wrong so you can address it together, you’ll just have to silently take care of him until he confesses or falls asleep after tossing and turning all night, like usual. “We killed at truck stops ‘n motels–”
“–‘til he set himself on fire, one day. Scared the shit out of us.” Harper opens her coffin lid as you peel Eddie’s shirt off of his shoulders, and a soft squeak escapes you when Eddie picks you up with his hands.
“He did it with a lighter,” Eddie adds on before he sets you into your shared, larger coffin that you had already opened beforehand, “Held it up to a rag hangin’ out of his gas tank.”
“We thought we’d be on that road for a long time.” Harper pulls a fiercely red blanket over herself as Eddie checks the locks on the windows and doors, ensuring that you’re safe from the sun for yet another night. “His last words were… ‘Had enough of your gloomy faces.’”
“Good.” You agree before another yawn tears its way out of your throat, and you desperately reach for your husband when he closes in on your coffin, causing him to lightly chuckle.
“We spent all night together, ‘n you still miss me?” Eddie teases before a warm flush settles onto his face. “‘Missed you too, sweetheart. Now, c’mere.”
You scoot over so Eddie can climb in beside you, and you curl up into his side as he throws a blanket and his arm over you in one clean maneuver. He fixes your hair so he can see your face after you settle your head on the pillowcase.
“Y’know, Volt could have said, ‘Put your coffin on a boat. Go to Paris. There’s a beautiful coven there, ‘n I know that ‘cause I fuckin’ founded it.’” Harper takes a deep breath in, then out before she speaks again. “But he said the vampires out there are vicious.”
“Harper,” Eddie starts, looking deeply into your eyes, “Canary, I should tell you–”
“–And then I met the motherfucker,” Harper’s not done with her tirade, but you make a mental note to ask Eddie about what he was going to say at a later time and date, “and, yeah, Volt was right. …It was better when he broke my bones, crammed me under the floorboards.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she’s talking about Bruce. Not fantasy Bruce, but the Bruce she met.
The same motherfucker you and your husband buried for his crimes.
“I fought him, kicked him, clawed him, bit him. That was fine.” Harper goes quiet for a moment, as your eyes begin to water. Who could do such horrible things to your little girl? “It was when he had me pinned, and he’d tell me he loved me. Before, during, and after. …Before, during, after. That fucked me up.”
You hold a hand over your mouth, to stifle your sympathetic cries, as Eddie rubs slow, comforting circles into your back.
I’ve got you, mon ange.
“One day, he said, ‘Had enough of your gloomy face,’” She explains, “Drove off on a motorbike. ‘Thought I might as well go home, get Canary, ‘n head to Europe.”
“Harper–”
“–I eavesdropped on the coven before I left. Sounds like they’re gonna let me join at the end of the week,” Harper deeply sighs, “It’d be nice if you came, Eddie.”
A pin could drop and shatter the horrific silence that’s encapsulated the three of you. You sincerely hope one does.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He pecks the crown of your head before he carefully wipes the tears from your face.
With a sniffle, you pull the coffin lid down, trapping you and Eddie in a cage of dreadful darkness.
~
“We were circling each other.” Amir clarifies as Dolly leans back in her chair, preparing herself for another session down Falsified Lover’s Lane.
“I was putting him in a difficult position.” Eddie adds on before Amir locks eyes with her.
“I was supposed to be luring him in, but the opposite was happening. I started spending less time at the theater, and more nights strolling the boulevards with Eddie and Canary.” He says her name again, but it manages to invoke a small frown onto the elder vampire’s face. Why? Why her?
“The conversation was easy…”
Eddie’s still talking in the background, but Dolly finds herself more concerned with the chat window that’s suddenly been pulled up on her computer. There’s a conversation with a mysterious person called R, and the typing bubble appears next to their name before they send a message.
Continuing our conversation from the restaurant, honey. Under your last name. Peruse at your leisure.
Ah. R as in River. That’s fucking fantastic.
While Eddie jabbers on about something, River opens up her file system and navigates to a personal folder attached to her last name, and once she opens it, she scrolls to the bottom of the folder to find an unusual icon, with three triangles and an eye in the middle of them, named Bibliothéca Talamasca.
Fuck it. She’s already deep in the spider’s web — why not venture a little further into this mysterious organization that has had her computer bugged from the start?
She double-clicks on the icon, and twenty different folders open on her computer, all at once. Dolly tries to back out of them, by hitting the escape button a few times, but nothing seems to work.
“Something wrong, Dolly?”
Shit.
“Huh?” Dolly’s caught-off guard, but she isn’t able to recover as quickly as she did. “Oh, no, it’s… the computer. Somethin’ you were sayin’ made me think of…”
“Think what?” Amir presses, interested in why she wasn’t paying attention.
Fuck these vampires.
“Oh, it’s…” Dolly lightly taps her head, feigning forgetfulness. “It just flew out of my head there. It’s gone. So, you and Eddie were–”
“–Excuse the interruption,” Real Assad steps into the library, and Dolly’s never been so happy to see that man, “The lawyer for the buyer is ready for the teleconference.”
“The lawyer?” Eddie’s eyebrows furrow as Amir moves his eyes from Dolly to him, causing her to sigh in pure relief.
“It’s about the property in Munich.”
“Ah,” Eddie nods before he drums his fingers against the edge of the table, “Would you mind, Dolly?”
“I’ll use the restroom.” She lies as she glares at the files on her computer.
Eddie and Amir quickly excuse themselves from the space, following behind Assad as he exits the room, and Dolly’s quick to sort through the folders in front of her. They’re named rather accordingly: TdV Theatre Archives, TdV Media, Plays_Scripts, PCKnownMembers, PC KnownVictims, Plays_Scripts, and each has, at a minimum, twenty sub-folders.
What catches Dolly’s attention first, however, is a folder within the TdV Media folder labeled Media Coverage, Great Fire of 1950. Inside, there’s a few scanned files of newspapers that capture a fire that broke out in the building that housed the Theatre des Vampires in that very year.
Interesting. Neither of them brought up a fire.
The messaging window opens up again when River sends her another message, in all caps this time.
HERE TO HELP!!!
Dolly clicks the red button in the top-left corner with a small smile on her face. She’s a goddamn award-winning journalist, she can do a bit of investigative work by herself.
~
The performance goes mostly as planned, minus a small hiccup from Connie that earned her an off-stage scolding from Drysdale, and you are content to furiously type out a modernized version of whatever play sits in front of you in the backroom until Lady Memoria and Chance grab both of your arms and drag you towards the stage.
“Oh, ‘m not interested in actin’–”
“–you’re not interested in your own acting. We are.” Memoria says, and it’s clear by her death grip that you’re not getting out of this one.
Fuck me.
You worry endlessly about what your role in the play might be until Lady Memoria drops you off next to Harper, who excitedly grabs onto your arm once the pair of actors let go of you.
“Oh, you get to help me with the best part!” She half-squeals, until she’s shushed by Connie. “Sorry, sorry.”
You do fret about what her favorite part would be, and you’re right to do so as the coven’s human sacrifice, bound and gagged, is brought to you and your daughter. Once the final act begins, Connie whispers the human’s line to him before he’s shoved out onto the stage.
He performs the part perfectly, as did the woman on your first night in this theater, and Harper runs out to grab his right side as you calmly stroll to hold him from your left.
You scan the crowd, who utterly terrifies you, until you lock eyes with Eddie. The nausea swirling in your stomach subsides when he smiles at you, and you shoot him a quick wink before you’re shooed off-stage by Drysdale.
You watch the ending of the play unfold, and it’s the same performance, word-for-word, except that Drysdale seems to be looking exclusively at Amir, who stares back with a sharp intensity in his gaze. You don’t think much of it, as it’s not your place to do so, and you’re happy when that poor soul is finally put out of his misery when the coven tears into his flesh.
The melancholy performance given on stage doesn’t match the demeanor of the coven members off-stage, where they lift a blindfolded Harper up into the air while her wrists are tied to the arms of a chair.
You stand with Eddie and Amir, observing the glee of the bodies in the room as they chant your daughter’s nickname with acceptance and excitement — “Puce! Puce! Puce!” — and you can’t help but smile. Perhaps your worries were for nothing. Harper’s happy here, and the coven adores her in return.
“Your first night over the footlights.” Amir breaks through the crowd as they set Harper back onto the ground. “How did it feel?”
“Like home.” She grins, despite her lack of vision.
“Come,” Amir takes her hand in his before he leads her to an empty vanity, “I have something for you.”
He instructs her to sit when she reaches a chair near her new living area, and her blindfold is removed to reveal a small music box in front of her, decorated with tiny characters that you can’t make out from here.
“What is it, Maître?” Harper asks as Amir hands her a magnifying glass.
“It’s a flea circus,” He explains, “May it remind you of your humble beginnings. Would you have us?”
“Yes, Maître.”
You can see Harper’s bottom lip quiver with excitement as Amir retrieves the magnifying glass from her before he leads her back to her seat in the middle of the coven members.
“The Five Laws.” Memoria approaches with a large, old book before Amir speaks once more.
“Let the youngest,” He gestures to Drysdale, “read in the youngest.”
Drysdale takes the book from her arms before Amir walks towards the two of you.
“The ceremony is for members only. Shall we have a walk?”
You take Eddie’s arm, expecting to leave with him and Amir until Chairemi calls out to you.
“Not you, Biche.” She calmly says. “You can stay.”
“‘M not in the coven–”
“–have you not laundered our clothes, fixed our props, and reimagined our plays?” Drysdale asks. “You have proven yourself to us… unless you wish to rewrite our plays for the rest of your life?”
“No, thank you.” Your quick refusal of that offer causes a few of the coven members to giggle before Curt and Rod drag another chair into the middle of the circle of bodies. You’d like to walk forward, but you feel the need to direct your gaze towards Amir and Eddie. “Is it truly okay if I…?”
“If you would like to join us, you may. The coven would be more than happy to have you.” Amir takes your hand and places a kiss on the back of it before you slowly nod, and he leads you to your chair before he hurriedly escorts Eddie out of the room.
You’re not given the chance to say anything to him, but you’re sure that he’d be happy with this decision as long as you were happy with it.
Are you, though?
Back-to-back with Harper, you place your hand in hers as Drysdale reads from the large tome in his arms.
“The Five Laws. Law one: Each coven must have its leader, and only he might order the working of the Dark Trick upon a mortal. Will you abide?”
“I will.” Harper squeezes your hand, reminding you to answer.
“I will.”
“Law two: The Dark Gift must never be given to the maimed or to children. Will you abide?”
This time, you and Harper speak in unison.
“I will.”
“Law three: No vampire must ever commit to writing the history of the vampires. Will you abide?” Drysdale circles you and Harper, but his eyes never leave the page.
“I will.” Again, you and Harper share one mind, one heart, one voice.
“Law four: No vampire shall ever reveal his or her true nature to a mortal and let the mortal live. Will you abide?”
Harper’s hand shakes, and you squeeze her flesh in reassurance.
“I will.”
“Finally, Law five: No vampire may ever destroy another vampire,” Instantly, your gaze goes to that fucking painting of Volt, “except the coven master, who has the power of life and death over all his flock. Will you abide?”
You and Harper both hesitate on the law you’ve already broken.
“...I will.”
“It is the coven leader’s obligation to finally seek the destruction," Drysdale lays a hand over Harper’s heart, as Bathsheba does the same to you, and the rest of the coven places their hands all over the two of them so they’re completely intertwined with each other and you and Harper, “of all those who have broken these five laws. Do you abide by our laws?”
“I will.” You answer, alongside your daughter, before Drysdale grins.
“A flea and a doe no more.”
Drysdale reveals his fangs to you before he carves the flesh on his wrist open with his jagged teeth. He offers Harper a drink from his wrist before he offers you the same, and the rest of the coven follows shortly after. They don’t taste sweet, like the mortals do… it’s almost like you’re tasting water again. Refreshing, but there’s nothing to it.
Connie excitedly takes Harper by the shoulders and leads her over to her new coffin as Drysdale helps you up with an open hand and a wink, and when you join the rest of the coven by her coffin, she opens the lid to reveal… a soft, frilly white-and-blue dress that looks more fitting for a doll than a human.
Yet, when Harper puts the dress to her chest with a confused look on her face, you can tell that it’s her size.
I have a bad feeling about this.
“You didn’t think we were going to leave you in the wet room, did you?” Drysdale inquires. “You’re a star, Harper.”
“A new play for you and the leading ladies,” Chairemi then hands a clipboard that holds a freshly-written script to Harper, who immediately scans the papers over, “Haven’t had the time to develop a new play in years, but then your mother came along, and she’s been doing my grunt work for me while I worked on something new. …Thanks for that, by the way.”
In your head, you tell Chairemi to go fuck herself for off-loading her work onto your shoulders.
“Water under the bridge.” is what comes out of your mouth, since you don’t want to fuck this up for your daughter.
“My Baby Loves Windows?” She reads the title before Connie waves at her.
“I play your governess.”
“And I play your mother.” Memoria adds on as the smile evaporates from Harper’s face.
“...And I play the little girl?”
Your heart falls to the floor.
Shit, honey, I didn’t know that they’d… Oh, baby…
“You’ll be their little birdie for the next fifty years.” Drysdale confirms her role, despite the horror on her face, and the rest of the coven rushes in to congratulate her as you lock eyes with her.
Words fail you. You don’t know what to say to Harper to make everything better. Maybe, you say nothing at all because there isn’t a single fucking word that’ll wipe the pain off of her face.
However, you do nod at her, and she nods back at you. You have her back through whatever bullshit the coven’s about to put her through, and you know she’ll do the same for you.
~
Drysdale stalks about the stage, watching the human sacrifice nervously babble his lines, until Drysdale’s gaze catches on Eddie.
Look who’s graced us with his presence.
His thought is intended for an audience of one — Amir, the coven leader, the artistic director behind the Theatre Des Vampires.
What an honor.
Amir sits upon his wooden throne, on the balcony that juts out from the second floor. He doesn’t hesitate to respond to the man on stage.
He’s here in support of his girls. Finish the performance.
“Why don’t you tell us who you are?” Drysdale asks the human, briefly looking away from Amir to give a star-studded performance.
Did you read Le Monde today?
I have not.
A mutilated body was found in a park three nights ago. Crushed skull, puncture wounds on the neck, chest, and shoulder blades. Was that you?
Of course not.
Because everyone else was in coffin by curfew.
“Suppose we were to let you go?” Drysdale waves off Harper and the other female vampire, the one that the coven has grown fond of for her dazzling beauty and magnetic presence.
And our flea isn’t the type to wander in those parks by herself. The doe may, but she seems repulsed by that level of violent behavior, if her reaction to our plays is anything to go by–
–Speak plainly.
You’ve had your time to recruit. It’s not happening.
Drysdale circles the human as his gaze remains dialed in on Amir.
And what of the older American vampiress? She will not acquiesce to your abuse–
–she doesn’t have to. The coven has accepted her as she is. Besides, Chairemi offloading her work onto the poor thing is enough of a punishment, don’t you agree? She hardly has any time to spend with her dear family, and then there’s her own projects, which have been pushed to the side in favor of us. That’s the type of commitment we’re looking for.
But Eddie–
–He will be the ruin of us. Do what must be done.
Are you making demands?
Drysdale places his hand over the human’s chest, right where his heart lies.
The coven would like to know what you intend to do with him, beyond comping him a fifth row center aisle ticket?
And do you speak for the coven?
Drysdale grins as all eyes — all vampire eyes, the ones of importance — go to Amir. Bathsheba, Daisuke, and Artt stare at him from stage right, and Chairemi, Connie, Memoria, and Chance look up at their coven leader from stage left. In the pit, Miranda spares a glance away from her sheet music to watch Amir with steady eyes. Amir doesn’t look to the back of the house, but he knows Curt and Rod are looking his way as well.
All of that fades away, however, when Eddie’s eyes meet Amir’s. Amir, however, can’t meet his gaze for long before his eyes flick back to the stage and to Drysdale.
…After the ceremony. After the girls have committed themselves to us. Then, I’ll do what must be done. Does that satisfy?
You did in my maker for far less–
–Does that satisfy?
Drysdale’s fangs extend before he snarls at Amir.
It does, Maître. …All respects.
~
“What’s your plan, Eddie?”
Amir’s question rattles around Eddie’s head as they walk — Eddie in front, Amir behind him — through the Parisian sewers, towards the apartment that once housed three, but would now only belong to one.
Well, maybe one. It’s unclear how you will fit into all of this. Eddie hadn’t even been given a chance to talk you out of joining the coven, and even if he did, would it have changed your mind in the slightest?
Eddie is the one who can keep you safe. He’s kept you safe for the past twenty or so years. Why would you up and leave him for people you’ve known for less than a year? Are you that put-off by his previous behaviors?
Or, to Eddie’s absolute horror, maybe you’ve put the pieces together by yourself. You’ve figured out all of the lies he’s told, and this is your way of severing your ties with your husband.
It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re out of his reach, firmly placed within the coven’s clutches, and he has to figure out something for himself.
“Leave.”
A terrible plan, really, but what is he supposed to do? Stay and watch you drift further away from him?
Call Eddie selfish when it comes to you, because it’s true.
“Where will you go?” Amir asks.
“London doesn’t seem too bad,” Eddie half-heartedly answers, “If that place is too large, maybe Dublin?”
He doesn’t care, really. He just can’t be here.
“You left a body in the park.”
Eddie feels his shoulders tense up, but he continues to walk along the cold, wet floor, as if nothing is wrong.
“More reason I should leave.”
“You exposed us,” Amir clarifies, “Should I allow the London coven such exposure?”
Eddie has a sinking feeling about all of this as he spares a glance back at Amir, who stares at him with orange, emotionless eyes.
“You revealed yourself to the law firm of Roget and Abert–”
“–they do business with vampires.” Eddie cuts Amir off before he hears something begin to burn from behind him. Nothing can be set on fire in this damp, humid place. The source of heat has to be coming from Amir’s hand. “‘I will not harm you.’ Those were your first words to me.”
“‘My maker was a vampire named Bruce. Who’s Volt de Lioncourt?’ Your first words to the coven.” Amir fires back as sweat drips down Eddie’s neck.
Finally, he dares to look around once he reaches an open part of the sewer, and, as expected, Eddie sees a blooming flame trying to escape Amir’s palm.
“Where are we goin’?”
“We’re going to get lost, and end up back by the river. Like all our walks.” Amir says before he gestures to the left. Eddie, feeling more trapped than cattle being led to the slaughter, forces himself forward, one step at a time.
“Take my head off. I saw what fire does,” Eddie quietly confesses, thinking of Antoinette and her godawful screams as she burned to death, “I don’t wanna go out that way.”
“Any other requests?”
“Look after Harper ‘n Canary.”
“Harper doesn’t need looking after. She won’t be here very long.”
Amir’s words cause Eddie to stop in his tracks.
“What?”
“You made her at fourteen,” Amir hisses as he closes in on Eddie, “A most turbulent chemistry. Her mind, as fierce as it is now, will not endure. It will break apart in time.”
“You don’t know her.” Eddie shakily says as Amir runs a tender hand through Eddie’s hair.
“I don’t have to. I’ve seen it all before. I’ve seen too much, Eddie.” Amir pauses, for an elongated moment. “Canary will be fine, with the help of a female companion who matches her intellect, artistic ability, and ambition. Enduring through the hardest of times seems to be her best trait. She is powerful — more powerful than you or I could imagine.”
Amir extends his fingers, strengthening the raging flames in his hand.
“Why is it, Eddie, that those with the most power are often the weakest?”
“Don’t give up on Harper,” Eddie whispers, closing his eyes and bracing for the worst, “‘n tell Canary she’s beautiful. Tell her that every mornin’.”
Eddie hears the flames grow stronger, stronger, stronger–
–And then they die off, completely.
When Eddie turns to face Amir, the latter wears shame on his features before he flicks two of his fingers into the air, revealing a bit of Parisian night sky through a manhole that Amir opened with his mind.
Eddie exits the sewers first, completely befuddled by this turn of events, before Amir joins his side.
“You walked me home.”
“Did I?” Amir places his hands behind his back, a confident, cool air surrounding him. “‘Hadn’t noticed.”
“That’s my building,” Eddie points to the structure that contains his apartment, “over there–”
“–Did he break you, Eddie?” Amir interrupts him with a question that Eddie doesn’t even know the answer to himself. “Are you broken?”
“No,” Eddie honestly admits, “but I carry him. Canary does, too. I can feel it deep in her mind, ‘n I don’t know if I can… if I… the pain, the…”
“You will.” Amir reassures Eddie with a grimace. “I did.”
“You… ‘n him?”
“A century or so ago. Yesterday. What is time to a vampire?” Amir wonders, stepping forward so he can place a hand on Eddie’s cheek.
Time stills as Amir leans forward and presses his lips to Eddie’s, who responds in like and kisses him back. It’s natural, it’s fluid, it’s relieving.
Eddie breaks away first, walking towards his apartment with a newfound sense of purpose. He opens the door before he turns back to Amir.
“You wanna come upstairs?”
“Are you inviting me in?” Amir seems to be in disbelief as he stares back at Eddie.
“Depends,” Eddie can’t help but smirk to himself, “Are you gonna kill me?”
Amir doesn’t answer, choosing to swallow the spit that’s rising in his throat before he accepts Eddie’s invitation in. The two disappear behind a set of wooden doors, not to be seen until tomorrow at sundown.
An Interview with the Vampire — Chapter/Episode Twelve: feed us your girls [part one]
a/n: hi hi!!! I have been gone for a while, and for good reason! I graduated college last Saturday! :] I had to lock into school for a while, so I wasn't really working on de fics. I actually took a month off of writing this fic, so I'm currently praying that this chapter makes sense with everything else I've already written. also we get the vampire lestat in a month yay!!!!
relationship: vampire! volt x vampire! eddie x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! eddie x vampire! amir; vampire! amir x vampire! fem! reader; vampire! river x vampire! fem! reader
series masterlist! || french translations (I do not speak fluent french, so any corrections would be appreciated!)
cws: smoking/cigarettes, crude/sexual humor, murder, gore, violence, blood, religious guilt, religious themes, age gap relationship, toxic/unhealthy relationship, mockery of the Christian faith, unreliable narrators, mentions of rape and sexual assault, domestic violence, pregnancy, loss of pregnancy/miscarriage, fasting/starvation, assumed main character death, hallucinations, generalized descriptions of the horrors of war, spoilers for s2ep3 of amc’s iwtv! Some very disturbing/abusive/toxic behaviors will be discussed and possibly romanticized. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED‼️‼️‼️
summary: Dolly's got a lot on her plate, between a visitor she has when she escapes Eddie's penthouse suite, the information said visitor dumps on her for kicks, and Eddie and Amir's usual bullshit. In Paris, you, Eddie, and Harper are pulled in completely different directions. Harper wants to join the coven, you want to get out of the work that the coven's shoved onto you (and the appearance of an attractive female vampire may just offer you that out), and Eddie wants... well, what does he want? To keep you safe? To hold onto everything that he holds dear despite the lies that are barely keeping his family together? And what of his growing, dangerous attraction to Amir? ...Only time will tell. — 26.8k words overall! [read on ao3!]
“In middle school, you stole your dad’s Playboy magazines. You sold them at recess.”
“This time, I won’t save your life.”
“Azizam… She shouldn’t be here.”
Dolly finds herself crossing out a few notes on a scratch piece of paper, shaking her head at her lack of results.
These fuckin’ vampires…
It was real cute of Eddie and Amir to go swimming in the depths of her minds, in memories that should’ve never resurfaced. Where would they go next? A divorce that was pinned on her not carrying their second child to term? Perhaps it’d be the second divorce then, the one that made her daughters hate her guts. What’s too far for these fuckers?
And to think I escaped that penthouse for a chance to read these letters… I’m losing daylight. I have to push Eddie and Amir aside. Even though I’d love a chance to deck them.
Your letters. This big clue that was supposed to lead Eddie and Dolly to you ended up being all smoke and mirrors.
Go figure.
Yet, she’s still compelled to look through the hidden letters that Eddie kept stashed away. So maybe they’re a bit more… sensual than your previous works, but she’s not discovering anything out of the ordinary.
I’m missing something, and it’s driving me fucking crazy.
What is it, though? Your pen strokes are calm and collected, as they are when you’re in the calmer parts of your life. There’s no sense of hurry to these letters — you’re writing them because you love Eddie — but something’s still… off.
“A penny for your thoughts, honey?”
Fuck my life.
“River,” Dolly attempts to put her foot on the seat next to her, but River’s faster than she is, occupying the seat without a care in the world for Dolly’s scornful look, “you should be dead.”
“Four-hundred-and-eighty-years-old,” River hums as she watches the waiters flit about the busy restaurant, “didn’t you learn that vampires as old as Amir can–”
“–what the hell do you want?” Dolly harshly interrupts River, who gently picks up one of the letters with her fingers.
“You’re right, Dolly,” She murmurs, “There is something you’re missing about these letters.”
“Care to fill me in?”
“No,” God, if Dolly could deck this incredibly beautiful vampire, she would, “I cannot say.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Dolly snorts as her eyes scan the page. “I agree with you. I can’t put my finger on what, but I know it has something to do with her and Eddie and the reason they haven’t talked. Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time getting through all of the porn.”
Dolly’s not gonna be able to look you in the eye after this, if she ever gets the chance to meet you in-person, because she knows way too much about your intimate life as it currently stands.
I was a brief part of that intimate life, but I’d rather keep my nose out of this poor woman’s business. It’s bad enough that Eddie’s scoured through your words however many times — my eyes don’t need to look at these words more than once.
“Think little of their contents, darling.” River attempts to place an arm over Dolly’s shoulder, but the latter brushes her off so she can return to her afternoon coffee alongside her brooding session.
“You are not helpin’–”
“–I see they’ve separated you from your laptop,” River’s eyes go down to the archaic forms of journalism — paper and pen — that Dolly is using, in the midst of the digital revolution, “You were off your game a touch yesterday. Perhaps, they believe you’ve been humbled. Clever on their own, but now there’s two of them. Of course, there were always two of them. You just came to that late.”
Jesus Christ.
“You fuckin’ with my head, too?”
“Keep your voice down and look away from me in disinterest.” River softly instructs as she places her hands on the table. “I am an insider for a watchful shop, the name of which has not yet come up in your conversations with them. I will not enter your mind if I do not have to. It is your place of rest, not my playground.”
“They have a stake in the story I’m writing,” Dolly picks up her mug, “You have me bugged, or you want me to think you do.”
“We were tracking nine-hundred of them last month. We’re tracking sixteen-hundred now,” River drops that piece of information on Dolly, all of a sudden, “The Great Conversion. It’s real. It’s happening.”
“Well, then, you have a more immediate problem than a book being researched,” Dolly surmises, “Your organization got a name?”
“Mrs. Molloy, you are not the first to attempt this. I could give you the names of four others who have, and they’re all dead or undead,” River warns, “Files have been placed, with proper encryption, on your comically vulnerable laptop. Most are primary sources that your infamous friends–”
“–anyone here a fan of intelligence officers?” Dolly speaks loudly, drawing the attention of all the people who are trying to enjoy their lunch at a fancy restaurant, “We got a live one–!”
“–Do stop by my room sometime, won’t you?” River’s fingers brush over the part of Dolly’s jacket that holds the key card, “Bring Eddison if you wish, but leave his guard dog at home.”
“Not a fan?” Dolly jokes.
“Are you?” River shoots back. “He seems to have you rattled.”
“They both do,” Dolly softly admits, “and you aren’t helpin’. Where’s Canary? Why all of this fuss to keep her location a secret? Does your organization deal in espionage as well as witness protection services?”
“Good day, Dolly,” River lightly pats her shoulder before she escapes into the afternoon sun, “I’ll see you soon.”
~
“How was your walkabout, Mrs. Molloy?” Amir asks as he hovers around the hanging bookshelves in Eddie’s library.
“Michelin fish in the desert. I burned my entire per diem.” Dolly plainly answers before she turns to Assad, who prepares a pitcher of water for her at the singular desk in the room, “How many people in the world know what you know, Assad? How many Assads, Assad?”
“I suspect just enough to help them stay hidden.” Assad presents the journals of interest to Dolly as she stares down at the note that reminds her to check her laptop for bugs.
“No, that’s how billionaire vampires do it. How does your average Jo-Mo vampire keep people like you in line?” Dolly boots up her laptop before she begins to search through her file system. “Unspoken threats?”
“The threat is always there,” Assad agrees as Dolly scrolls through her Downloads folder, “He could kill us both now, but he doesn’t. They are peaceful beings.”
“They drain and disappear us–”
“–They have a biological imperative that is in conflict with human mortality.” Assad feels the need to defend his… employers? What the fuck is he to Eddie and Amir, anyways? “But what is that mortality, other than rules agreed upon–”
“–Thank you, Assad,” Amir dismisses his assistant before he floats down from the shelves that are suspended from the ceiling, holding a small book in his possession as Dolly hides her notes from today under a pad of scrap paper, “a romantic answer to your question. The average vampire has minimal contact with humanity. When exposed, they feed or run or kill themselves.”
Dolly finds nothing on her laptop, so she quickly pivots and opens the voice recording software in order to start a new session.
“And I’d say we’re multi-millionaires. Not quite a billion,” Amir feels the need to make the distinction as Dolly makes a show of pressing the record button, “It was wrong of Eddie to enter your memories yesterday. You were invited here as a guest.”
“Cell phones–” Dolly starts before she’s interrupted.
“–How do you hide from the cloud?” Finally, Dolly’s able to get the last word in as Amir stares at her computer.
“We should probably wait for him.”
Dolly shrugs.
“Probably.”
Amir’s lips quirk up in a smile that quickly fades from his face.
“He’ll awaken when the sun sleeps,” He pauses for a moment before he answers Dolly’s earlier query, “Your cell phones make you slaves to your fetishes, and data retrieval is primarily about profits, so I suspect no one at Amazon is trying to sell us blenders.”
“You kill,” Dolly dryly points out, “Nightly.”
“And, sometimes, you’ve watched that kill on the local news. You’ve never been easier to distract.” Amir offers a half-decent counterargument that Dolly can’t fully deny. “You’re at the height of wilful ignorance. We exploit it. This is — was — Volt’s prophetic vision.”
Dolly clicks her tongue.
“Volt de Lioncourt?”
“Yes,” Amir responds, “We were shadows, crouching behind stones, prior to his transformation.”
Dolly senses that there’s a deeper story here, so she does what any journalist of her stature and tenure would do — she digs.
“I’m listening,” She shrugs, “That’s my job, right?”
“It was fifteen-fifty-six when the Roman coven sent me to lead the shambolic Paris coven. A face from the subcontinent, French my fourth and poorest language,” Amir admits as he weaves this tale, “I had never led anything in my life. We called ourselves the Children of Darkness. We lived in squalor, hunted in shame, all in strict obedience to medieval laws put in place to protect us from humanity.”
A coven hidden underground. A single vampire, shackled in the middle of a burning fire. An offering to a God that thought of these disciplines as hellions.
A worn, tired man sits upon a wooden, creaky throne of false prophecies and fool’s gold, staring into the fire. Awaiting rescue. Awaiting a new dawn that felt far, far away.
“And though I managed to maintain discipline and humility for two-hundred-and-thirty-nine years as Satan’s fool, by the time Robespierre was beheaded, I was, by any measure, failing.”
“For violations of the first and fifth of the Great Laws,” A male discipline scornfully speaks to his fellow vampire, the one sentenced to death by fire, “death.”
“Our ways were finished,” Amir explains, “We were embers on a waning pyre. Volt was the wind to scatter.”
A barely-lifted hand causes flames to erupt all over the vampire’s body, and he shrieks before he’s burnt to ash.
The man on the throne, the one tired of existence as it was. Judge, jury, and executioner of the Great Laws.
Amir.
“I really gotta meet with this guy.” Dolly hums, absentmindedly doodling on some scrap paper as the voice recording on the computer does the hard work for her.
“I felt his presence before I saw him.” Amir confesses. “He was sired by one of my deserters. This was something… new. Something I hadn’t felt before.”
Amir stumbles into a theater, rubbing elbows with mortals. Mortals. The very beings that his people feasted upon in order to maintain their strength.
It is easy, far too easy, to play pretend as a regal, noble man for one night. To dress in fancy clothes and tied-up hair, instead of the ritualistic rags that the coven had insisted upon him.
Fawning women pay Amir no mind as he settles into one of the theater boxes.
“The fourth of our Great Laws was writ: ‘No vampire shall ever reveal his true nature to a mortal and let that mortal live.’” Amir wears a fond smile as he speaks. “And here he was, prancing and preening in front of five-hundred mortals a night, like some patronized, tarted-up dervish.”
This must be a cruel joke.
The man wears a stupid mask, cracking stupid jokes, shimmying his shoulders in the stupidest of ways as he captures the eyes and hearts of many.
Amir is among that many… not that he’d ever admit it.
“But when Eddie mentioned Volt’s turnin’...” Dolly hums, slightly more intrigued than she was before. “It kinda sounded like a horror show.”
“That may be,” Amir speculates as he rests his arm on the table, “but he made a remarkable recovery shortly thereafter. How else could you explain his hand feeding the audience? How words came out like canaries, summer fruit in the dead of winter. They were all in love with him. He had that effect on everyone. He…”
“Was a natural?” She guesses.
“Entirely unnatural.” Amir corrects Dolly. “Using the Dark Gift for what? His vanity? It was heresy. I had to bring him under my control by any means.”
You’re the bastard child of your Maker, one that I am all-too familiar with.
Volt’s confidence is quickly broken, the act falling from his shoulders as he scans the audience for whoever is drilling those words into his head.
I know you can hear me, my child.
Who calls me child?
Amir can tell that arrogance reeks from this one.
He’s died, hasn’t he?
Perhaps it isn’t the best idea to say such things when Volt is trying to perform, but Amir must get his point across in one way or another.
I can take care of you. I can teach you what he didn’t. Come to me.
Volt continues his performance, not missing a beat as his eyes finally connect with Amir’s.
Come to me.
Volt smiles, in a rather annoyingly handsome way, before he addresses the crowd with a dramatic, overstated bow that makes them guffaw at his absurdity.
Amir tilts his head in curiosity.
This one won’t be easy.
“I followed him for weeks. His rejections only inflamed me,” Amir’s orange eyes shine with a peculiar annoyance that Dolly’s never seen before, “and, the longer I allowed him to exist outside the coven, the more… unsettled my children became. They watched in secret, fascinated by his disregard for the laws I told them could never be broken.”
Amir watches from the shadows, his eyes staying pointed at two of his followers who are hidden behind a small concrete wall. These two, however, pay no attention to the coven leader who approaches them behind. Their gazes are entirely pointed on Volt and the man he greets when he exits his carriage in a fanciful manner.
“He took a mortal lover,” Amir hisses, “More heresy.”
“Home.”
A single command issues from Amir’s lips, and the vampires in front of him are quick to apologize before they scramble back into the darkness from whence they came. Amir stays focused on the pair of men — one older than the other — as they walk arm-in-arm down an abandoned street.
“I can scarcely remember my lines with you fiddling away in the pit.” Volt softly confesses, eyes full of adoration as he looks upon the mortal he’s with.
“The notes blur when your feet hit the board.” The mortal man whispers back, and Amir’s quick to follow them as he eavesdrops on their conversation. “We will be caught.”
“I sure hope so.” Volt smiles, his lavish red cape dragging across the ground as the other man brings a bottle of liquor to his lips. “Can you hear that?”
“Over the noise of your breathless ravings?” He teases, leaning closer to Volt. “How could I hear anything? …What is it?”
“Someone, out there, is watching me, Washford.”
“Everyone’s watching you, Volt, you’re an actor–”
“–He thinks I don’t know he’s there.” Volt specifies, and Amir finds himself repositioning, sliding against a shadowy wall since he aims to remain unseen.
“Is this more poetry?” Washford smiles, stopping in the middle of the road. “Come closer to my ear again… I only understand you when you’re close.”
Volt leans in to kiss him, but he decides to whisper words of warning that Amir is not privy to as he finally approaches the pair in the middle of the empty, dark road.
“Do you keep this boy as a reminder?” Amir asks.
“Volt,” Washford looks Amir up and down, “do you know him?”
“The loneliness you feel, he will not reach it.” He tries to be gentle and persuasive. “Be with your own.”
“And give up my patterned waistcoat? My jabot collar?” Volt vaguely gestures to the outfit that Amir’s wearing. “Live as a grub?”
“What is this, Volt–”
“–it’s nothing,” He reassures his lover before continuing to look down upon Amir, “He’s nothing. Good night, strange one.”
Volt does a mocking bow to Amir before he grabs Washford’s arm and attempts to lead him away.
“I’d tolerated his presence too long already,” Amir justifies his actions with simple words, “I had to act, or he’d destroy what little I had left.”
“Volt!” Amir calls out his name, disappearing when the pair turns backwards and reappearing in the other direction. “Here.”
Amir moves his fingers down, sending Volt to his knees before he pushes his hand towards Volt. Such an action causes Volt to fall against the ground, back-first, before he;s forced away from Washford and Amir.
“Volt?”
The innocence of mortality, wrapped up in a man that was easily knocked back by a wave of Amir’s hand.
“Washy!”
The distress in Volt’s voice is apparent as Amir snaps his fingers, freezing the world around the trio. Everything is at a standstill — the leaves no longer sway in the breeze, the galloping horses no longer round the corner, and the aimless chatter from around the corner no longer echoes down this street.
Pure, raw, ancient vampire power, by the likes of which a fledging version of Volt had never seen.
“You haven’t told him what you are, have you?” Amir guesses as Volt props himself up on his elbows.
“What power is this?” He’s quickly on his feet as he tries to understand the unimaginable. “I don’t have this power!”
“But you will.” Amir reassures Volt. “Your Maker is powerful. You waste your potential with the life you pursue.”
Volt notices that, like the rest of the world, Washford is frozen in place, looking similar to a dead body as he lays against the ground.
“Release him!” Volt demands, vampire teeth jutting out of his mouth as he repeats his words with more force and intention. “Release him!”
“There’s the blood-drinker!” Amir taunts Volt, fully expecting the charging, white-haired pulls that races towards him.
It’s almost fun to send him flying against a nearby wall, shattering the confidence of such an arrogant man with the power that Amir has.
Amir, then, calmly walks towards Washford as Volt lifts his head off of the ground.
“What is this? Who are you?” He questions as Amir hovers over Washford’s still body.
“I am Amir. I am your coven leader.” Amir picks up Washford with one arm as Volt cries out in dismay. “Bring your waistcoat to the grubs, won’t you?”
The screams of a forsaken fledging vampire echo throughout the night.
Amir pays such distress no mind, tying the mortal up at the altar of fire as the coven stares on in curiosity. He’s ducked back underground, to his nearly-disobedient followers who are eager to have a piece of such a mortal.
The coven leader doesn’t have to wait long — the door to their hidden alcove is kicked open by Volt, who carries a large cross upon his shoulders as he walks down a set of destroyed, crumbly stone stairs towards the coven and the mortal lover he’s so fascinated with.
“I am glad you came.” Amir extends an olive branch as Volt glances at the sad, lonesome group of vampires that are collected in such a small space. “He’s unharmed.”
“He’s bled,” Volt approaches an unconscious Washford, who wears small bite marks and wounds from vampires who were a little too impatient, “He does not wake.”
One of Amir’s vampires crawls towards Volt, in an attempt to make the unruly vampire submit, but Volt quickly holds the cross out to the coven member, who whimpers at the sight of the Holy Son upon that cross.
Volt laughs, clearly entertained by such a reaction.
“Is it fun, living in filth and stench such as this?” He asks the coven.
“We serve God,” A female vampire pipes up, “through Satan, through Amir, as we are meant to.”
“Oh,” Volt hums, “A muddy trinity.”
“You will bring down the wrath of God on us with your sins!” A male vampire, this time, chooses to make his voice known as he scolds Volt.
Volt quickly approaches that vampire, with the cross burdened on his shoulders as some sort of divine shield.
“And what are these crimes?”
The coven members are all-too-happy to point out Volt’s perceived crimes.
“You lay with a mortal!”
“You reveal our very nature to them with no consequences!”
“You walk in the temples of divinity!”
“Does he mean the sad man with the nails in his hands?” Volt points at the depiction of Jesus Christ before he haphazardly tosses the cross on the ground, causing it and the statue upon it to shatter into hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces. “It’s a fallen tree. Whittled by the simple for the simple.”
Volt picks up one of the hands that have broken off.
“The same tree made a table leg… made your flute there.” He points at the flutist near Amir before he throws the hand into the fire. “Crawl out of this prison he’s made for you.”
“You let it happen?” Dolly catches on, rather quickly, before Amir nods. “You led him there, so he could destroy it.”
“His words had been my thoughts for half a century.” He clarifies. “If it had come from me, the coven wouldn’t have believed it.”
“God, Satan, Amir?” Volt takes a unique pleasure in destroying the man on his throne of lies. “Does it feel true, hmm? The Gods are us. You are the Gods.”
Volt bends down, snapping the chains tying Washford down with his bare hands before he carries the mortal in his arms. He escapes the same way he came, alongside many vampiric brethren who were emboldened to do the same.
“My children left. They roamed the streets of Paris, wreaking havoc with mortals.” Amir reminisces rather fondly about this time, after losing his power over the coven. “Some could not reconcile the life I had made for them with the life Volt had told them was possible. They went mad and ended themselves. The only thing that kept me from the fire were the old rituals.”
Blood streaks down Amir’s arm as he mutters an old chant in a forgotten tongue. He drinks his own blood for a few moments, only stopping to light a torch behind him as he turns to face Volt.
He looks rather… different, now. White hair no longer proudly displayed along his shoulders — he wears it tied back with a neat, black bow — and his choice in clothing is rather muted and dull, unlike his usual stage outfits.
“Did something happen?” Volt asks nonchalantly.
“I could speak until the end of the world, and I could never tell you what you have destroyed here.” Amir sounds unlike himself, too — unsure of his posture, unsure of the unruly words that tumble out of his mouth.
“There’s no one but us.” Volt points out. “Satan is not listening.”
He slowly strolls towards Amir, who lets the younger vampire approach him with an unsettled look in his eyes.
“How do you make fire from air?” Volt questions the power that Amir has taken for granted. “How do you move objects with your mind?”
“He asks, dancing in the ashes.” Amir muses as Volt grabs his hand, bringing the ancient vampire’s fingers up to his lips for a gentle kiss before Volt bites Amir’s wrist.
Amir sighs — In relief? In dismay? In ecstasy? — as Volt slowly drinks from him.
“You turned your Washford into one of us?” Amir lets his hand fall to Volt’s upper chest once the latter has had his fill. “Did the boy take to the gift?”
Volt’s eyes are distant, filled with a fragileness that Amir can’t comfort away, even with the lightest of caresses from his thumb to Volt’s face.
“Too fragile.” Amir states. “I could have warned you.”
“He’ll rise out of it.” Volt sounds sure of himself, but Amir has seen vampires like Washford walk down this road before.
It never ends well for the cynical ones.
“He will not.” Amir places his hand slightly lower, almost gripping the side of Volt’s neck as he bares his fangs, eager for a taste of the vampire that’s plagued his mind.
When Amir’s teeth connect with the other side of Volt’s neck, Volt groans softly as his fingers pinch the fabric that hovers over Amir’s waist.
“I have an idea,” Volt whispers, “The crowd in a theater enters with their companions as they are seduced into a collective. They laugh together, weep together…”
“What is that to a vampire?” Amir asks.
“An opportunity.” Volt places his hands on both sides of Amir’s face. “Hamlet dies by a poisoned blade, but the actor lies before them, still breathing. In this temple, belief is protection. Announce you are a vampire, drink the blood in plain sight, direct your coven rituals — not in the sewer, but from the balcony rail.”
“I have no coven.” Amir mumbles. “You took that from me.”
“Au contraire, Maître.” Volt strokes Amir’s cheek before he walks away from the man. “They will come back to you.”
Genius is the only way to describe Volt’s idea. To hide in plain sight, as a theater company of vampires with an on-the-nose moniker. And, as Volt said, the vampires came back to the coven in droves to support a new way of life.
“Look how still they are,” Amir admires the crowd, one night after such reformations were made to the coven and its structure, “They really believe it’s a play. You’ve led a reformation, Volt.”
He turns to his companion, Volt, who happily occupies the balcony seat right next to him.
“Non,” Volt refuses to take all of the credit, “we did it together.”
“You make a better death.” Amir says as the actor on stage does his best to be a menacing figure of the end of one’s life.
“The scythe does all the work–”
“–a hundred nights in,” Amir furrows his brows as Volt places a hand on his lower back, “and you’ve grown bored.”
“Only with acting…” Volt’s fingers then trail up Amir’s neck before they land on his shoulder, “Shall we?”
“Here? Now?”
“It’s a roomy box.” Volt doesn’t seem to notice Washford’s burning gaze from the orchestra pit, but Amir sees it right away.
“He’s watching us–”
“–he should be watching his sheet music.”
Volt places a chaste kiss upon Amir’s neck.
“Volt…” Amir trails off, unable to gather the right words. “Je t’aime.”
“Je t'aime aussi.” Volt mumbles back before he leans in for a powerful kiss that sends both men tumbling to the floor, desperate to get each other’s clothes off as quickly as possible.
Dolly stares at Amir. He stares right back at her.
It’s silent in the room — a terse silence, but a silence nonetheless.
“That’s it?” Dolly’s in a little bit of disbelief. “You’re just gonna end it there?”
“They went at it on the floor,” Eddie explains as he calmly walks into the library, “Amir taught Volt how to read minds. And, a week later, Volt was gone.”
He places a gentle, reassuring hand upon Amir’s shoulder before he takes an empty seat at the library table.
“The question was ‘How do vampires hide from Google?’” Dolly’s a bit agitated as she speaks. “Not ‘How did Volt break his heart?’”
“But, because you were a good listener, you got answers to both.” Amir’s a little too self-satisfied for her liking. “When I went to open the theater the next night, I was met by the lawyer, Pierre Roget the First. He was waiting for me with a trunk full of cash and instructions to cover the theater’s cost in perpetuity.”
“Volt abandoned Washford, Amir, the coven,” Eddie lists off these grievanced parties, like they mean something to Dolly, “Volt is, was, and always will be, for Volt.”
“Never say I love you to a raging narcissist.” Dolly snarks a little — she can’t help herself, flashbacks of past traumas be damned – before Amir picks up his story.
“And I locked away those words for another hundred-and-fifty years,” Amir’s eyes flicker downwards before they’re cast upon Eddie’s form, “and then he and his bride arrived… and they shattered that lock. This is what… frightened me most about you and her–”
“–Canary,” Dolly’s getting real fed up with the two of them treating you like you’re some sort of boogeyman, hiding in the shadows and feasting upon their fear, “her name is Canary.”
~
“You, my dearest. You are everything. How could a man live with your divine presence in his life?”
You weave a tale of the imaginary kind on your typewriter, fingers splayed across the keys as you stare at the written drafts beside you. They’ve been improved upon, time and time again, but nothing has felt quite as real as seeing your writing on a typed page in front of you.
It almost gives you the confidence to believe that your dreams of being an author can be more than the fantasies of a naive, young girl.
The confession spawns from your fingers naturally, with minor tweaks to make the characters sound more human, more nuanced than their original iterations.
“Do you think there is a state, a country, a continent, a realm that you could hide from me in? The temptation would only grow with distance, not diminish. You are the object of my affection, the hauntingly beautiful spectre that possesses me at night. How could I not want you?”
You’re quickly drawn into these characters and their world — perhaps as an escape from yours?
But you like your life. Although, you could do less with the coven nonsense. Amir and his kindred are… interesting, to say the least. They’re constantly pulling you aside to show you this or that part of the theater company, or to try to get a piece of what’s between your legs — Connie’s a nice woman, when she’s not trying to jump your bones — however, when you finally have some time to yourself, Amir or Chairemi throw an old play at you from their repertoire and kindly ask you to update it for them.
You came to study under a published playwright, not do unpaid labor. Yet, you do the work anyways, if only to keep Harper in the good graces of the coven leader and the coven as a whole. Somewhere, in the midst of your work, is a finished draft of a play that was older than your grandmama, if she was still kicking after all of these years.
“I… am unsure of what to say. You say so much, yet show so little. How am I to take you at your word?”
“Say nothing. Let me show you how I feel.”
“That is easy for you to say when you can just–”
“–He’s in Copenhagen, workin’ at a car factory,” Eddie, practicing his alibi for the coven, pulls you completely out of the moment, and your fingers cease their movement as your thoughts scatter in every direction but towards the piece of paper in front of you, “He hates his maker, takes the boat back to America. He gets me on an L train in Chicago.”
Right. If it’s not the wild assortment of coven members shoving you this or that way, it’s Amir and Chairemi throwing script after script of violent wordplay in front of your face. If it’s not them, then it’s your lovely companions trying to dig themselves out of a hole that they shoved you into face-first.
“I said outside of Chicago,” Harper’s stolen your vanity on your side of the room, so she can apply a bit of make-up before tonight’s performance, “He said he didn’t like big cities.”
“He gets me outside of Chicago,” Eddie murmurs as he aims the lens of his camera at some birds that linger outside of an open window, “A diner on the way to Gary.”
“Then, before you find me in Springfield–”
“–sellin’ chestnuts outside the train station–” Eddie cuts her off, reciting a story that they’ve gone over a hundred times by now.
“–by the train station.” Harper’s little corrections cause you to hum lightly — a careful warning to your companions to not turn these little disagreements into a full-blown argument — before you attempt to type on the keys once more.
“–have whatever you want. Men like you can have whatever you want, with no consequences–”
“Canary?” Eddie’s hand lands on your back — When did he get so close? Wasn’t he just at the window, a few steps away from your writing desk? — before he leans down to kiss the crown of your head. “You listenin’?”
“”Heard the story a thousand times over, my love,” You try to hide your growing frustration under a soft, sweet tone as you turn to face your husband, “‘m probably sayin’ it in my sleep.”
“I know, sweetheart,” His hand slides up to your shoulder, and you have to suppress a soft moan when his fingers begin to circle tense muscles that haven’t relaxed in months, “but I don’t want somethin’ to happen to you ‘cause we’re not on the same page about this stuff.”
“Perhaps this ruse is a bit too elaborate…” You mutter under your breath, trying to return to your work for the final time with minimal interruptions.
Maybe I can–
“The ruse only works if you participate, Mama.” Harper warns as you sigh before you pinch the bridge of your nose to work off a little stress.
One night of peace. One night to get more than a few sentences squeezed onto a page, where I can write my final draft at more than a snail’s pace. Ten pages, front-and-back, in almost half of a year is pathetic.
“Fine,” You give up on making any progress on your own work, quickly sorting through the wrinkled draft of your novel to find the play that Amir asked you to rewrite, “In another life, I was a young widow who was married off before she knew what marriage was. My first husband and I only spent seven years together before he died.”
“And?” Harper pulls her attention away from the mirror, looking directly at you as you repeat this falsified backstory for yourself that she crafted for you.
“I fell into hard times ‘n had little goin’ for me. Some poor old man took pity on me ‘n let me work as a cleaner in a small hostel that he owned, in exchange for a roof over my head, three meals a day, ‘n whatever change he could spare in the midst of the world’s hardest times,” You pause, and Eddie squeezes your shoulder in reassurance before you continue on, “I only worked there for a few weeks before Eddie ‘n Bruce came in. I thought they were odd, but they were nice ‘n tipped well, so I didn’t think much of their relationship with one another.”
“I saw her, one night, hidin’ in the shadows as she took the bedding off of a spare room. Bruce ‘n I weren’t on… speakin’ terms, so I wanted to find company elsewhere. I didn’t expect it to be Canary,” You feel Eddie’s breath on the side of your neck as he tilts your head towards him, making sure that you clearly hear the words that come next, “I thought she was beautiful in the moonlight. I knew I had to make you my wife when you smiled at me for the first time.”
Not her. Not Canary. You. Eddie’s not talking about this bullshit story — this is about the time you first met.
“You were everythin’ to me, ‘n I hardly knew you,” He whispers, “‘Couldn’t get you out of my mind. I begged Bruce to let me turn you, even though we were fightin’, and he agreed. If only to make me stay.”
“I was scared when you first showed me what you were. I thought you were gonna hurt me, but then you told me that you wanted to make me your bride.” Your nose brushes against his, and the temptation to kiss Eddie is strong. “You promised to keep me safe, ‘n you said I’d never have to work a day in my life. It was a dream life, compared to the marriage I was trapped in before.”
“You agreed, ‘n I would’ve turned you if I was strong enough. Bruce snuck in ‘n saved the day.” Eddie takes the plunge first, pressing his lips to yours as his free hand settles on your stomach. “We didn’t know ‘til later that you were expectin’–”
“–his baby, not yours. You were turned, ‘n you couldn’t…” You bite down on your bottom lip, feeling tears poke at the corner of your eyes. It hurts to lie about your daughter, that her father isn’t the man that you adore with all of your heart even though he is. “Our baby. She’s our baby, Eddie, I don’t wanna have another man’s baby–”
“–Mon ange, I know she’s mine,” Eddie speaks softly and slowly as his hand plays with a few strands of your hair, “but even if she wasn’t, any child of yours is one of mine, okay? That wouldn’t make me love you less. Nothin’ would make me love you less.”
“You ‘n I?” You sniffle before Eddie pecks your lips once more.
“Me ‘n you.” He takes your hands in his before he smothers them in messy kisses, bringing a gentle smile and sweet laughter to your lips as you kick your feet in excitement.
My love, my darling, my Eddie, I–
“Bruce kills himself in Cincinnati." Harper keeps the conversation on track as she picks through a few shades of lipstick.
Eddie wears a confused expression that makes you snicker before you wrap your arms around him, allowing your husband to drag you to your feet as he looks at Harper.
“What the hell do we know about Cincinnati?”
“What do they know about Cincinnati?” Harper counters.
“What’s he look like?” Eddie asks as if he doesn’t know. As if you both don’t know.
As if you both didn’t enjoy snapping that motherfucker’s neck in half after he–
“––they won’t ask that.” She seems rather confident while Eddie is unsure of himself as he cradles you in his arms.
“They will.” He presses further as Harper sets her lipstick of choice aside, reaching for a pencil to outline her eyelids with.
“It’s only been a few months, it’s enough.” She opens her mouth ajar, as you do when you use the eyeliner pencil, “‘m workin’ backstage tonight. I don’t wanna be late.”
“You’re the one who said he was our maker.”
“Eddie, drop it.” You glare at Eddie, who quickly surrenders to your will as he squeezes the flesh on your hips.
“I can use him like he used me. Y’know he kept me under the floorboards for a week?” Harper’s hand shakes as she tries to apply her lipstick, “I don’t know what it is that you need from me, Eddie. I remember what I remember, ‘n it’s enough to keep us safe.”
“I pry ‘cause ‘m worried about where this is headed,” Eddie speaks with more tact this time as he addresses Harper, “You might be havin’ a good time now, but there’s danger if they find out we lied.”
Danger? What danger? The only time you felt a bit of danger was from Eddie, after he spoke with Amir on the night that you, Eddie, and Harper went out with the coven on a hunt for the first night.
You’re past snooping in people’s minds — you don’t like it when others read your mind, so you’re trying to treat others the way you wanna be treated — but, for once, you’re tempted to do so. He’s hiding some sort of threat, veiled or unveiled, from you. You can’t help but wonder: is his secrecy meant to protect you and your daughter, or does he want to keep you ignorant?
I told myself I wouldn’t have a husband who lied to me, yet here he is, lying to me again.
Old habits die hard, so you’re willing to let Eddie string you along one last time before he reveals his hand to you. And he will, because God help him if he keeps a secret like this from you for years or decades or centuries.
“Maybe not Cincinnati,” Harper screws the lid back onto the lipstick before she glances in your direction, “How about Shreveport?”
An olive branch. A way for you to craft a different story from the one she’s been drilling in your head for months on end.
“Caddo Lake,” Eddie pulls the camera from his neck, setting it on your desk so he can embrace you fully, “My father took me there to fish. There’s a drawbridge there. He burned on the bridge.”
“Shreveport, Caddo Lake, burned himself on the bridge.” Harper repeats the story to herself before you all stare at the door once someone knocks at it four times. “You expectin’ someone?”
“No,” Eddie shakes his head as you break out of his hold, and he tries and fails to grab you as you race towards the front door, “Canary–”
“Amir.” You’re pleasantly surprised to see the coven leader welcoming himself into your humble abode.
“The door was ajar.” Amir says as the hair on the back of your neck rises.
Did he hear what we were talking about?
“If you open the doors and windows, you get a little breeze.” Eddie brushes past you so he can walk Amir to your bedroom.
You follow close behind the pair, right after they squeeze past you.
“Cavalier, but I’m sure you’re being careful.” Amir has this cautious, careful energy that you can’t quite read as he glances back at you. “Biche, I do believe you have something for me, no?”
Deer. You’re not quite sure what about your appearance gives off a doe-like vibe — Eddie says it’s your eyes, but that’s coming from the man who gets lost in them on a regular basis, so perhaps he isn’t the best source of practical knowledge when it comes to your appearance – but you don’t despise the nickname.
“Right here!” Harper, in your stead, presents him with your reworked play before she does a small curtsy. “Maître, welcome to our lair.”
“Shouldn’t you be in the lobby?” Amir questions.
“I got three minutes–”
“–Did I give you consent to look me in the eyes, puce?” Amir’s query causes Harper’s gaze to meet the floor immediately, and a frown settles on your lips as your spunky, confident daughter is so willing to let this man run all over her because he has a claim to power.
Who are you kidding? You have no room to talk, after all of the shit you dragged her through because you love Eddie and, at one time, you did love Volt.
Did he love me, though?
“No, Maître.” Harper quietly answers before you jump in to apologize on her behalf.
“It’s my fault, I was keepin’ her–”
“–have I been late once, Maître?”
There’s your daughter, your Harper.
“Have you been early once? …That would be the question I’d be asking myself.” Amir still takes her down a peg before she bows her head further, heels clicking furiously as she sprints towards the door.
“How’s she doin’, Maître?” You ask about your daughter when she’s out of earshot.
“Amir, azizam. For you and for him,” A subtle redirection before he actually addresses your question, “She’s taking the abuse in stride.”
“I’ve never seen her happier.” Eddie admits as Amir strolls around the apartment, looking between the photographs on the walls and your interpretation of a centuries-old play.
“The coven has grand designs for her.” He stops to admire the picture of you on your nightstand, the one of you facing towards a bright moon. “You’re drawn to portraiture as your wife is drawn to the fantastical side of writing.”
“It hides the cracks in the walls.” Eddie shrugs, following Amir’s movements with his eyes.
“These photos…” His fingers circle the moon in the picture, not daring to touch you, “Show me where you take them.”
You can sense a certain… tension between the two men, so you offer to excuse yourself to the night.
“I’ll present my work to Chairemi so she can make the necessary corrections–”
“–join us, won’t you?” Amir’s invitation is hard to turn down, especially when Eddie’s begging you with his eyes to go. “What is a photographer without his greatest muse?”
~
“Unconscious death is the fate of all mortals.”
I hide in the wings, maneuvering my small body into a bit of empty space before I watch Drysdale perform that bone-chillin’ monologue that he ends every performance with.
“Up, up, up.”
Tonight, his victim of choice is some older mortal man that Drysdale stalks around, ‘n I’d take a seat for the rest of the show if one of the coven members — Chairemi, I think? — didn’t shove me back towards the dressing room.
“Know your place, puce,” She whispers as a warning, not a punishment, “your time on the stage will come soon.”
Right. I haven’t earned my place in the coven yet. Yet, yet, yet. I’ve been takin’ care of their laundry, tidin’ up their spaces, ‘n takin’ their verbal ‘n physical blows on the chin for weeks. I hope they accept me as one of their own soon.
I tire of the company I have to return to every night. The shame and guilt that oozes out of their every action, towards the world and each other, bores me. I know it’s deeply ingrained in my mother, from the day she was turned, but she should no longer feel bound by the fear that gnaws at the back of her mind. We’re free of him, our shared tormentor. I wish to help her rise out of this state, but I do not believe I can do so alone.
My motivations for wantin’ to be a part of the coven are not entirely selfish — settin’ my mama up with someone who isn’t a gold-speckled piece of shit is a noble cause, right? Though, I’m unsure if any of these vampires are Canary’s type. They’re all a little… much.
“We are conscious death,” Drysdale’s voice echoes through a grainy speaker in the back of the dressing room, remindin’ me to get back to work before I get somethin’ besides a wooden chair thrown at me tonight, “and that would make you a groom. Do you know what it means to be loved by death?”
I know I’m supposed to be foldin’ laundry ‘n puttin’ it by everyone’s coffins, but I stop when I see a newspaper in the frame of a mirror.
Stage And Screen — Othelllo at The York Theatre Royal. May 13th, 1921.
My fingers reach out to touch the paper, but I stop when I hear the next part of the performance.
“No pain.” Drysdale whispers before his partner for the night echoes the sentiment back to him.
“No pain.”
I squeal like a little girl — a fitting reaction for a child-like body, but not for a woman of my mental age — as I softly speak to myself.
“This is my favorite part!” My hand goes to my heart as I say the words alongside Drysdale. “No pain.”
Artt is the only one still in the dressing room, so I turn to him so I can voice my thoughts aloud.
“How does he get them to beg for it?”
“Eyes down, Puce, eyes down.” Artt’s much nicer than the other coven members, and I take that scrap of kindness as a sign to obey as I tilt my head downwards.
It’s this big, suspenseful silence as I wait to hear the microphone pick up the gasps of surprise from the audience when they see Drysdale drain his victim… and the moment is totally ruined when I hear someone sneeze from backstage.
The star of the show himself storms towards his vanity once the show is done, with the perpetrator who ruined the show — Connie — on his heels.
“Did you fucking sneeze at the end?” Drysdale’s really mad as he hangs up his scythe, and I busy myself with a pile of misplaced clothing so I can eavesdrop without being told to shut my mouth or run off and make myself useful somewhere else.
“I tried to stifle it!” Connie argues, but he’s not having any of it.
“It’s the moment of quietus–”
“–it’s hay season!” She throws her hands into the air as Drysdale removes his cape from his shoulders.
“We’re not on a farm, Connie!”
“It still sounded terrifying, Mr. Drysdale,” I feel the need to make my opinion known as Chairemi beckons me forth to clean up the dead human that’s fallen right into the dressing room, “I got chills.”
“Of course you did,” He shrugs confidently, “because I’m a…”
“Fucking professional!” The company speaks the last part with him as I help Chairemi wrap this mortal in some spare cloth that we have laying around.
“Puce!” Chairemi lifts up one end of the blanket before I lift up the other.
“Comin’, ma’am.”
I help her take the body down into this basement-like place, where I always help her dispose of the bodies. When I first started workin’ backstage, she told me this was called the wet room.
She pointed out the cage in the corner of the room, where we kept the sacrifice until the end of the show, but she never talked about the crypts that sat along the back wall of the basement.
They must not be that important…
We haul the dead man towards the body box, which is a big metal box that helps us clean up our kills so the mortals don’t find out about us. Truly, a body in a box does nothin’, but what’s real interestin’ is that there’s a small metal shaft connectin’ this box to another box that’s in the middle of the room — the rat box, as Chairemi calls it.
I throw the mortal into the body box, closin’ the lid right afterwards. Switchin’ a lever causes the rats to scamper from their newly-opened rat box into the body box, and they feast upon the flesh of the mortal as I turn the lever back down, sealin’ off the rats and preventin’ them from escapin’.
Tomorrow, that’s the rat box, and the other box is the body box. Get that in your head, Harper!
“Rat box,” I point to the one in front of me before I gesture to the other, “Body box.”
“Good, puce,” She places her hands on her hips, “‘m glad you’re here.”
“You just want off of rat duty,” I glance at Chairemi, and she simply nods in agreement at my statement, “this is… new to me. We had an incinerator at home.”
“How’d that work?”
“Throw ‘em in. Watch ‘em burn.” I say as the rats suddenly go quiet.
I guess they’ve had their fill, huh?
“Hmm,” Chairemi wears an expression that I can’t quite read, “Feels a bit German to me. …Hey, have I ever shown you this door? It leads to the catacombs and the sewers, and I–”
I’m still thinkin’ about those crypts or vaults or whatever you’d call them that sit against the back wall. There’s gotta be fifty of ‘em, in five lines of ten, ‘n only some have writin’ on ‘em.
“What are these?” I dare to ask, after all of these weeks.
“Burial vaults. Coven members past. Mostly heretics and law breakers.” Chairemi explains.
“What are the laws?”
And have I broken any without even knowin’ it? …Fuck Volt for not tellin’ us any of this shit.
“Not until the ceremony, puce.” Chairemi throws a wink my way, leavin’ me to stare at the burial vaults ‘til I feel like comin’ up ‘n joinin’ the rest of the coven.
~
There’s nothing but the sound of gentle rainfall and three sets of feet walking in time together as you, Eddie, and Amir stroll down the streets of Paris. It’s quiet here, with the occasional car that crosses your path and splashes either Eddie or Amir with water — neither would dare to let you walk on the outside for that very reason — and Eddie finds himself enjoying the peacefulness that’s wrapped around this tender city.
“We like to walk a new part of the city every night,” You explain as Eddie fiddles with the lens on his camera, doing anything in his power to avoid the daunting, powerful, alluring gaze of the man next to you, “I enjoy gettin’ lost, but Eddie… not so much.”
Your hand remains situated on his forearm — a gentle reminder that his sweet Canary is beside him, always — before you giggle to yourself.
“Somehow, we always end up back by the river,” You nudge Eddie’s shoulder, immediately pulling him away from the camera so he can look you in the eyes, “mon amour, even though he’ll never admit it, likes takin’ pictures of me here. ‘Says I look prettiest when ‘m cast in the moonlight that reflects from the movin’ river.”
“Eddie has a good eye,” Amir finally manages to catch Eddie’s eye, and when he does, he smiles gently, causing Eddie’s face to heat up, “The waters of the Seine are contained and beautiful. A vein, winding through the heart of Paris.”
Amir takes your free hand so you can lift up the skirt of your dress as you walk down the stone stairway that leads to the scenic riverwalk that Eddie has taken far too many pictures of.
Well, the riverwalk is more of a background. You’re the main focus of his compositions, and that doesn’t change as he lingers towards the middle of the stairway, snapping a few quick photos of you as you beam at Amir.
If only I could make you see yourself through my eyes, mon ange. Then you’d understand how beautiful ‘n special you are to me.
“There’s much talk of your camera in the coven.” Amir looks up, offering a hand to Eddie that he does not take as you still fail to notice that you’re being photographed. “They say you’re mad in love with humanity, thieving their private moments with light and shadow. They pester Harper and Canary about it.”
“Humanity?” Eddie chuckles to himself. “You know it’s her. It’s always been her. …If they’re curious about what ‘m doin’, then they should ask me themselves.”
“How could they when you’re so rarely present?” Amir presses a kiss to the back of your hand, presenting Eddie with the perfect picture before you turn towards Eddie.
“Eddie!” You softly whine, nose crinkling in adorable frustration as he makes his way towards you and Amir. “You said you were gonna ask the next time you–”
“–you look good, sweetheart,” Eddie’s teeth chew on his bottom lip as he admires you, “can you blame me?”
“Absolutely!” You remark before you throw your arms around him, sweet laughter sending shivers down his spine, “My hair got messed up by the wind ‘n the rain, ‘n my make-up isn’t–”
“–Mrs. Watts, your husband has good taste in clothing and his opinions of you,” Amir slides his hands into his pocket, wearing an easy smile as he notices Eddie’s reddening face at the subtle flirtation, “He means well when he photographs you.”
“Thank you, Amir,” You bow your head before you turn your head to the side, intrigued by something in the distance, “excuse me for a moment, won’t you?”
Before Eddie or Amir can stop you, you’re off towards whatever caught your attention, leaving the two men by themselves once more.
“I… about me stoppin’ by, I–” Eddie feels himself stuttering over his words like a fool, as he did when he first met you and Volt, “I saw enough theater at home for several lifetimes. No offense.”
“None taken,” Amir begins to slowly walk towards you, and Eddie quickly follows suit, “Nothing worse than being dragged around unwillingly by a companion. This was… Bruce?”
Shit. I didn’t think he’d come up tonight.
“Yeah, Bruce.” Eddie gives a half-hearted answer, lifting his camera in front of his face once more to grab a few pictures of you facing away from him as you slowly approach the edge of the river.
“The opera-loving motorcyclist.” Amir seems amused while Eddie’s sweating bullets.
“Uh-huh.”
“You should talk with Curt and Rod about cameras,” Amir suggests, “They’re well-taught. Perhaps the three of you could–”
“–’m not doin’ the coven.” Eddie turns to look Amir straight in the eyes. “Neither is she, to save you the sales pitch–”
“–the coven’s already chosen your darling Canary,” Amir tilts his head in curiosity as you carefully sit at the edge of the riverwalk, watching boats float towards a nearby bridge, “I’m afraid that’s out of my control.”
“The coven has Harper.” Eddie’s making himself very clear on this — he won’t have you torn from his side, not if he can help it, “She’s happy, we’re happy. We’re not joiners.”
You weren’t a joiner, but you spent four or five nights a week at the coven, perfecting your craft. Eddie missed you terribly on those days, even though he had a chance to see you in the morning and in the evening.
Call him selfish, but a few hours of your time during the night wasn’t enough for him.
“Yes, you’ve made that clear enough.” Amir backs off, for the moment.
“So, if that’s why you’re here–”
“–it’s not the whole reason I’m here.” Again, Amir’s gaze is pointed at you.
“No?” Eddie asks, and he’s immediately annoyed when an unwelcome voice joins the conversation before he comes into Eddie’s view.
“No,” Volt shakes his head in an exaggerated motion, white curls bouncing this or that way, “It’s definitely not the whole reason he’s here.”
He’s not here. He can’t be here. He’s dead.
“I like you, and I like her.” Amir calmly says before this phantom of Volt scoffs in disbelief.
“I like you,” Eddie ignores Volt, “isn’t that obvious?”
Amir chuckles, his eyes flickering from you to Eddie, and then back to you.
“We really must work on blocking your thoughts.”
“Excuse me?” Eddie’s set on edge once more as Amir stops a few feet away from you, just out of earshot.
“I sense him now, in your mind,” He murmurs, leaning closer to Eddie, “but that is not the only thing I sense.”
“Maybe ‘m guardin’ my thoughts just fine,” Eddie’s playing defense, all of a sudden, “maybe, I let you into my head on purpose.”
“Oh, that’s nice, mon chéri,” Volt mockingly says, “lovely.”
“Regret, and sorrow, and guilt,” Amir reads Eddie like a book, “you say such lovely things to your bride, yet you feel such terrible things inside of you whenever you look in her direction.”
“She’s doin’ charity work by bein’ with me–”
“–you constantly think about the night she was turned,” Amir cuts him off, “you wonder what it would be like if things had happened differently, no? If life had other plans for your wife and the child inside of her?”
Amir carefully presents his hand, palm-up, to Eddie before Volt roars with laughter in the background.
“A cheap parlor trick, my darling Eddie, nothing to worry your head about–”
“–may I show you another life?” Amir presents Eddie with an offer that’s hard to refuse, especially as the latter looks at you and notices the way you hold your stomach as you watch a family with small children float past the two of you in a small boat. “Not magic, nor a trick of the mind. An alternate path forward.”
Eddie doesn’t think about the consequences of this action, how this could easily derail everything Harper’s built into her bulletproof plan. He tears his eyes away from you as his hand slides into Amir’s, and the rest of the world fades into nothingness.
“Leave her alone, Eddie. If not for the mercy of your own heart, then for me.”
“I can’t–”
“–Can’t or won’t? You can deny Volt. Tell him she slipped away from your reach.”
A split-second decision on the night of your twenty-first birthday. It’d be so easy to give into the hunger that churns inside of him, to the erratic impulses that a fledgling like Eddie has yet to control.
Yet, he hesitates, looking towards you. You’re shaking, scared shitless of the man who promised to keep you safe for the rest of your life.
Eddie hears soft creaking from the roof above him — he doesn’t have to kill Betty as she won’t make it out alive between the fire and Volt, so there’s no chance she’ll be able to spill his secret into the world — so he decides to back off.
One decision. A branching tree limb that takes you both down a different road.
“Eddie,” Tears spill from your eyes as your hands go to your stomach, protecting something that you’re not yet aware of, “please.”
He nods, slowly walking towards the door — towards you — and he’s surprised when you rush forward and embrace him. Mere moments before, you were telling him that you didn’t want to be his wife, and now you’re holding Eddie like the world would collapse if he left your side.
“Thank you,” You murmur as his hand goes to the back of your head, “thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“She’s not safe with you,” Betty hisses as you continue to cling to Eddie, “you can’t protect her from Volt or yourself. You’ll lose control, you’ll kill her–”
“–I won’t. She’s special to me,” He lets his fingers curl around a strand of your hair, “I’ll do anything for Canary. She’s gonna be fine. I’ll make sure that she’s fine.”
“You can’t make her love you–”
“–I don’t need Canary to love me,” Eddie kisses your forehead as his hands smooth out some wrinkles on the shoulders of your dress, “I want her to be here with me. I want her to be happy.”
“I wanna go home,” Your muffled cries are still heard by your lover, who hums in agreement, “Betty–”
That creaking roof finally gives way, and Eddie moves you both out of the room before burning piles of wood and ash can fall on top of you.
“Oh, Betty,” You push Eddie away, wiping the streams of water from your eyes as you stare into the fiery mess that was once Eddie’s office, “She’s–”
“–yeah.” Eddie confirms something that you already know, but it still hurts to see you struggling with so much sudden pain and grief. “Sweetheart, we need to go. I don’t wanna be around when Volt figures out what I’ve done.”
“He told you to kill Betty?” You whisper. “Fuckin’ asshole. He’s downstairs, ‘n there’s no other way out. How are we gonna–”
“–there’s somethin’ I never told you about.” Eddie takes your hand, pulling you along like you’re a marionette on a string. “Hell, I didn’t even know about it ‘til I saw Tony disappear into some door in the back of the building.”
“Another way out?”
“I think,” Eddie’s praying that he’s right as he leads you into Tony’s room, and he opens the door at the back of the room to reveal a small, dark stairwell that leads down to the first floor, “go on, mon ange. I’ll be right behind you.”
You walk a few steps forward, carefully lifting the skirt of your dress as you step through the doorframe before you look back at Eddie.
“You promise you won’t run off? You’re not gonna try to play hero and–”
“–no. We’re gettin’ the fuck out of here.” Eddie places a hand on the small of your back to gently push you closer to the top step. “I won’t leave you unless I have to.”
“Okay.” You still look unsure of yourself, but you descend down the stairs anyways, with Eddie hot on your tail. “We… we can’t go back home, can we?”
It breaks Eddie’s heart that you already know that the bar and the apartment that you’ve shared for months now is no longer a safe haven for you. You couldn’t go and grab your things, the material possessions that would bring you comfort in such a distressing time in your life. All you have is Eddie, and he’s no longer sure of your love for him as you avoid holding his hand while you open the door at the bottom of the steps.
The moon still hangs proudly in the sky, revealing a small staff-only parking lot that only houses a few cars tonight, owned by people who will no longer need them. Eddie takes your hand, remembering to apologize for touching you with your permission later, when you’re both safe and sound and away from the monster haunting Azalea Hall at the moment, before he leads you to Tony’s car.
“Eddie, you don’t have…” You trail off when Eddie opens the car door and grabs the keys that just sit on the driver’s seat, “Did you know that he just–”
“Tony’s predictable, Canary.” He murmurs, rushing over to your side of the car so he can help you into your seat, “It’s gonna be a long drive. You up for that?”
“Where are we goin’?” You tilt your head innocently as your hand cups Eddie’s face, thumb softly stroking his cheek. “My love, I’ve had enough surprises for one night. An honest answer would mean a lot to me right now.”
My love. You certainly know how to scramble his thoughts at the most inopportune of times, don’t you?
“My father gave me a place of my own for my eighteenth birthday, about an hour or two out of town,” Eddie glances up at the moon, praying that he has enough time to get you both there before the sun threatens to burn him up, “I hated livin’ there, not feelin’ like I earned it. I’ve thought about takin’ you there, but I… Fuck, sweetheart, I wanted us to build somethin’ of our own, y’know? Somethin’ that was ours, that’d always be ours–”
“–we can build that life for ourselves when we’re not running for our lives, hmm?” You hum before you press a kiss to his forehead. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do, with you bein’ a vampire ‘n me bein’ a human–”
“–we’ll figure it out, Canary–”
“–you’re gonna be honest with me, right?” You murmur as Eddie climbs into his seat. “No more bullshit, no more lies, no more games. Whatever Volt’s told you, I wanna know. The only way this is gonna work is if we’re honest with each other. Can you do that for me?”
“Yeah,” He sticks the key in the ignition, exhaling in relief when the engine roars to life, “whatever you wanna know, pretty girl. ‘M an open book to you.”
“But you’ve been lyin’ ‘n keepin’ things from me.” Eddie sees the frown on your face, out of the corner of his eye as he pulls out of Azalea Hall’s parking lot, with the intention of never returning to this place even if it’s still left standing after tonight’s events. “You said you didn’t drain humans.”
“‘Didn’t wanna freak you out. Didn’t want you thinkin’ you were my next meal, sweetheart,” His hand drifts down to your left thigh, where you carefully place your hand on top of his once he makes contact with your skin, “No more humans, I swear.”
“Can you live off of animal blood?” Your nose crinkles with disgust at the thought. “If you’re gonna suffer, then I’d rather have you drink the human blood… just not around me, though.”
“I’ll figure out somethin’, Canary. Somethin’ that can work for both of us,” He watches as your free hand settles on your stomach, suddenly remembering that you hadn’t been feeling well before all of this shit went down, “How are you feelin’? You said you were sick earlier, that you were only keepin’ down water–”
“–’m fine.” You abrasively answer, choosing to look at the fading city lights instead of your lover. “It was nothin’. Probably some sort of seasonal illness or affliction.”
“Your heart beats faster when you’re lyin’ to me,” Eddie gives away your tell, causing your eyes to widen as your fingernails scratch the back of his hand, “Has this been goin’ on for a while?”
“I don’t… think so?” You softly answer, after a brief moment of contemplative silence. “I’ve been under so much stress with the wedding, ‘n I thought that everythin’ I’ve been feelin’ has to do with that.”
“Everythin’?” Eddie repeats. “Tell me what’s been goin’ on. What I’ve missed ‘cause I was dealin’ with Volt’s shit.”
“My wedding dress doesn’t fit me right, even though it’s in my size, ‘m tired ‘n sore all of the time, ‘n I can’t enjoy my favorite food ‘cause they make me sick at the thought of ‘em,” You list a few of your symptoms to Eddie, “That last thing only really ever happens in the mornin’, though. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today–”
“–why do you keep holdin’ your stomach like that?” He questions the habit that you’ve suddenly picked up in the last few weeks.
“I… Merde, I really don’t know.” Your eyes shine with tears as you glance at Eddie. “You think ‘m dyin’?”
“No, Canary, I…” He trails off to listen to your heartbeat once more.
And then it suddenly makes sense to him.
Not because of your heartbeat — that one is strong and thriving, as far as Eddie can tell.
It’s the additional, softer heartbeat that’s carefully tucked behind yours that helps him pull it all together, alongside the things you’ve told him.
God, how does he tell you, though?
“Mon ange,” Eddie tries a gentle approach as your hand rubs your stomach, the maternal instinct going into overdrive without you even knowing that you’re expecting, “you know I can hear your heartbeat, yeah?”
“You’ve done it before,” Your brows furrow, “what is this–”
“–I hear someone else’s heart beatin’.”
There’s silence as you consider his words before you tilt your head in confusion.
“Is someone followin’ us?” You ask sweetly, in that voice that makes Eddie want to throw his arms around you and hold you until all of the bad things in the world go away.
You’re so lovely, so kind, so wonderful… your son or daughter will be blessed with the best mother that’ll dote on them endlessly.
“Canary, my sweet girl,” Eddie brings your hand to his lips, dialing in on that fainter heartbeat that’s nearly drowned out by yours, “it’s comin’ from inside of you.”
“Me?” You murmur, and he pecks the back of your hand as you realize the cause of your aches and sickness. “I’m… with our… we’re gonna be…”
“It’s a lot to take in,” He settles for holding your hand as the buildings in the city of New Orleans slowly fade into the background, “but one thing’s for fuckin’ sure. You’re gonna be a really good mother to our baby.”
“Thank you,” You sniffle, completely overcome with emotion, “a baby… Oh, Eddie, I wouldn’t want to be any other way with any other man. ‘M so glad I have you.”
He couldn’t imagine any other woman carrying his child. How could he, when you’re the only one who’s made him want to have a family?
“I love you. I know I fucked up tonight, ‘n I’ve got a lot of shit to make up for, but I’ve got you,” Eddie says before he corrects himself, “both of you. We’re gonna be a strange family, but we’ll make it work. We always do.”
The rest of the drive is in pure silence that’s only interrupted by the occasional soft snore from you. You’ve been sleeping for a while, head resting on Eddie’s shoulder as he makes sure to avoid any holes or bumps in the road. You need all of the rest you can get, with a little one on the way.
Eddie can’t be bothered to wake you when you arrive at your destination — a small, two-story cottage in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana — so he carries you inside as the sun threatens to peek over the horizon.
“Tomorrow, we’ll get you all settled in.” He softly promises as he takes you into the bedroom, shutting all of the curtains and pinning them shut after he tucks you into bed. “My mother kept some spare dresses upstairs. We’ll find somethin’ pretty for you to wear while you’re growin’ our baby.”
He pulls some hair out of your face before the narcoleptic pull of the sun suddenly makes him sleepy.
“I love you more than you’ll ever know.”
Eddie collapses before the sun fully rises, and when he wakes again, the moon is awake alongside him.
It’s been months since you’ve made your escape into the countryside. Months that were easily counted due to your growing stomach, and, once you gave birth, time would then be counted through your child’s major milestones.
You’re not there yet, even though you’d like to be. Eddie can tell that your patience is starting to wane as the days go on and your child is not any closer to meeting their parents.
“Eddie,” Your frown — a terrible sight for him to wake up to, so he grabs your hand and kisses your palm repeatedly until you softly smile, “‘m so uncomfortable.”
“I know, sweetheart,” With sleep thick in his voice, Eddie glances up at his very pretty yet very overdue wife, “The baby’ll be here soon enough. Worryin’ yourself sick won’t help anythin’.”
“But I–”
“–Canary,” He sits up, pressing a kiss to your cheek as he places a careful hand on your stomach, “you need all of the rest you can get. You’re gonna regret wastin’ this time when you have a screamin’ infant in your arms.”
“I have so much to do,” You express your worries to your husband as he grins at the small kicks that he feels against the palm of his hand, “the nursery needs the finishin’ touches.”
“Pretty girl, did you rearrange everythin’ without me?” Eddie murmurs as he kisses up the skin of your arm, admiring the white dress that you’re wearing tonight.
“Just the clothes ‘n the smaller stuff,” You admit before you giggle to yourself, a warm smile resting upon your beautiful face, “I have a handsome husband that does the heavy liftin’ for me.”
“Attagirl.” He praises. “That dress looks good on you.”
“It barely fits–”
“–sweetheart, would it kill you to take the fuckin’ compliment for once?” Edie’s half-joking, half-serious as he kisses your cheek repeatedly, sneakily pulling some bedsheets over your legs as a way to tempt you into crawling into bed with him. “You’re beautiful, ‘n I don’t like hearin’ you talk like that. Not when you’re the mother of my child, my wife, my sunlight–”
“–You don’t… mind me lookin’ like this?” You look genuinely shocked, like you expected repulsion instead of fervent admiration. “You still want me?”
“I never stopped wanting you.” He answers before he seizes your lips with his own. “Canary, ‘m sorry that there have been people in your life who have made you think that you’re anythin’ less than perfect. You’re an angel of a woman, y’know that?”
“Perfect,” You softly repeat the word before you kiss him back, snuggling as close as your protruding stomach will allow you to, “you think I’m…?”
“Yes,” Eddie’s hands still on your waist, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips, “fuck yes. You are perfect. I’ll tell you that every mornin’ ‘n night, when you’re sleepin’ right next to me, ‘n every time I fuck you ‘til you get it through that head of yours.”
“Don’t say things like that…” Your face flushes as you wear a downright gorgeous smile that illuminates the darkness of your shared bedroom. “You’e temptin’ me.”
“Am I?” He chuckles. “Hadn’t noticed.”
“Eddie,” You whine, placing your arms around his neck, “honey, I hope you’re gonna put that tongue of yours to good use elsewhere, ‘cause I can’t take anymore of your teasing. Not when ‘m like this.”
“Whatever Mama wants, Mama gets.” Eddie takes your hands before he pulls you on top of him, eliciting a delightful scream from you that fades into warm laughter. “Merde, I hope she has your laugh.”
“She?” You question. “How do you know we’re havin’ a girl?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. Maybe it’s the way your heart beats in-time with hers.”
“Is it weird, hearin’ your wife ‘n your baby’s hearts? I think I’d be quite maddenin’–”
“–it’s comfortin’.” Eddie answers as his hands slowly slip under the skirt of your dress. “Knowin’ you two are safe ‘n happy.”
“Of course ‘m happy,” You grin before you lean down and steal a kiss – and Eddie’s heart, while you’re at it – from him, “I have you. We have you, ‘n that’s all we need.”
Deep down, Eddie worries about the child growing inside of you, if they’ll accept or reject him for what he is. Not a monster, not a thing that goes bump in the night, and certainly not a human father that can chase his child around in the morning sunlight while you make breakfast for your little family.
He’ll miss those tender milestones and the small moments that mean nothing to an infant but everything to a sentimental mother, but he’d rather have a few hours every night with his family than have no family at all. You and Eddie would figure your circumstances out together, as you always did.
On a full moon, when the pale moonlight shone brightest into a spare bedroom that you prepared for this very purpose, a screaming infant entered this plane of existence, born from the love and affection that you shared with your husband before he was turned into a vampire.
You were exhausted, as anyone would be after giving birth, but you smiled so brightly at the little girl that you held in your arms. She was your mirror image, down to the color of her eyes and the shape of her nose. She even looked at Eddie with the same warm affection that you held for him.
He was well and truly spoiled by you. You gave him a gift – a part of you that you can never get back, a part of him that he never knew that he needed until he held his daughter in his arms. Eddie swore, on that very night, that the two of you wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore. Everything his wife and daughter would ask for would be theirs, no questions asked.
A warm smile, followed by joyous laughter, was ever present on your face when you held your daughter in your arms. You were a natural, holding her on your hip with one arm as you flitted this or that way in your countryside home. Eddie could hardly keep up with the two of you — a humorous contradiction to the supposedly endless energy and lack of tiredness that he’s supposed to have as an immortal being.
Part of him, however, doesn’t mind staying behind, if only so he can watch you and your daughter go on with your lives. You two look so happy together, entertaining each other with tiny gasps and tender touches that are only understood by mother and daughter.
He can’t be a spectator forever — usually, the little girl in your arms clamors for her father’s attention once she spots him over your shoulder. Grabby hands are hard for any man to resist, especially when they come from a girl who looks far too much like the woman Eddie loves with all of his heart.
For now, she’d just let out a small yelp at the sight of Eddie, followed by a gummy smile that’d make you coo at your daughter as Eddie’s heart turned to mush at the domesticity displayed in his home. Soon, her screams of utter nonsense would turn into loving cries of ‘Mama!’ and ‘Daddy!’ that he couldn’t possibly hope to resist.
Those days are far from now, as your daughter isn’t even walking on her own two feet, but they’ll come around eventually, as all things do. Eddie pushes aside the thoughts of never experiencing this again with you, as your little girl would be your only child with him, before he lifts his daughter out of your arm and presses a few quick kisses to her chubby cheeks.
She babbles in pure excitement, kicking her feet in the air at the affection being thrown her way.
“She’s like her mama,” You murmur, eyes softening at the sight of your two loves, “always happy to see Daddy come home in one piece.”
“Pretty like her mama, too.” Eddie smiles when she wraps her whole hand around one of his fingers — God, he’d do anything for the two of you, “Did you two get into any trouble while I was out?”
“Nothin’ worth talkin’ about.” You wink at your daughter before you place a hand on her back. “Ain’t that right?”
She shakes her head enthusiastically, causing you both to chuckle.
“Trouble like your mama ‘n your daddy,” You wistfully say before you finally peck Eddie on the cheek, “you get enough to eat?”
“I manage,” He answers non-commitally before your eyebrows furrow, “sweetheart, I had plenty of blood. Enough for me to make it through the night.”
“I worry, my love,” You place a hand on his forearm, “that’s the only reason I ask.”
“I do enough worryin’ for the both of us,” Eddie lightly jokes before he kisses your lips, “‘m fine, Canary. I can take care of my own needs.”
“I wish it wasn’t like this, though,” You frown at your own words, “not that I don’t love you like this, I just–”
“–had somethin’ different in mind?” Eddie finishes your sentence, waiting for you to nod before he continues on. “You’re not the only one who thinks like that, mon ange.”
“I hate thinkin’ like that. I like how comfortable ‘n quiet our lives are, I…” You trail off, nervously playing with the strands of your hair, “I wish you could see the way your daughter smiles when she plays in the sun. I wish we could go out as a family during the day ‘n have a normal life, instead of bein’ stuck in here ‘cause we don’t know if he’s still around.”
“You still think about–”
“–what if he comes back for me, for you, for her, for us?” Anxious thought after anxious thought spills from your lips. “We still don’t understand what we were messin’ with when it came to him, Eddie. He’s stronger than either of us know, ‘n I don’t want our daughter in the middle of that.”
“Canary,” Eddie places a gentle hand on your face, wiping away the stray tears that threaten to fall down your cheek, “nothing’s gonna happen to you or to her, okay? Not while ‘m still kickin’. ‘N even if ‘m dead, I’ll fight like hell to make sure that the two of you won’t suffer the same fate.”
“Thank you.” You throw your arms around Eddie and your daughter, capturing them both in a hug that serves to, first and foremost, comfort you as you offer them some affection back. “I’d do anythin’ for her or for you–”
“–I wouldn’t ask you to.” He cuts you off as his arm wraps around your waist, supporting his little girl with the other, “I don’t want you to make yourself into a martyr.”
“You can’t do that either.” You whisper. “You can’t leave us ‘cause you think we’ll be better off without you. We aren’t. She needs her father, and I need my husband. ‘Don’t care that you’re not a human. I’d rather have this version of you than not have you at all.”
“Sounds like we have a deal.” He presses a kiss to the crown of your head. “No martyrdom for Mr. or Mrs. Watts.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” You sniffle, putting on a brave face for your daughter, who smiles at you with no understanding of the conversation that just took place, “C’mon, baby, let’s get you cleaned up ‘n ready for bed. Once you’re snuggled into your crib, your daddy ‘n I will read you that bedtime story you like–”
“–’m not doin’ the voices–”
“–that’s bullshit ‘n you know it,” You roll your eyes as your daughter giggles merrily when you snatch her from Eddie’s arms, “she looks at you with her big, pretty eyes ‘n you’re a goner.”
“She has your eyes, your smile, your laugh… how can I refuse her when she looks ‘n acts like you?” Eddie softens — he always does — when you take his hand and lead him towards the bath tub.
“You ‘n I can get whatever we want if we work together.” You scheme with an infant who has no idea of the death grip that she has on both of your hearts, but she nods along with your every word like she does understand you. “‘Cause your daddy loves us a lot.”
Truer words have never been spoken.
As much as he wants these days to last forever, time refuses to stand still. The seasons change, and your daughter grows up as the years pass him by. Soft cries for anyone transform into sweet pleas for her mother and father, and you nor Eddie can refuse her. That little girl is your everything, and he can’t possibly imagine a world without her.
He needs her sweet, unconditional love on nights like tonight, where he’s constantly reminded of the fact that time will come for his wife and his daughter as well. For now, the two of you are far from death’s clutches, but that swinging scythe of doom always lingers in the back of his mind.
Eddie slips out of his childhood home, leaning against the doorway as he watches you and your daughter stare at the plains that he explored in his youth. His little girl is situated upon your hip, as she’s too big to be held in your arms anymore, and Eddie can tell through your slightly slanted eyebrows that you’re struggling to hold her.
“Mama,” Your daughter’s sweet voice — eerily reminiscent of your own in its ability to pull at his heart strings — carries through the silent, dark night, “Why didn’t we see Grandma before Grandpa passed?”
“Your daddy doesn’t get along with his family.” You softly murmur back, as if the funeral crowd inside could hear you through the walls. “He’s bein’ the bigger person by showin’ up today.”
“Grandma talked to me ‘n Daddy a lot last night, but not you,” Observant and kind — two traits that your daughter inherited from you, not him, “Why is that?”
“It’s grown folks’ business,” You respond with the warm elegance that Eddie knows you for, but the truth is pulled from your lips when your daughter pouts at you, “She doesn’t approve of me. A long time ago, your grandma set up somethin’ between your father ‘n another woman, ‘n when it didn’t work out, she swore that she wouldn’t accept anyone as a daughter-in-law except that woman.”
Eddie scowls at the way the smile on your face falls when you mention this other woman. How could you envy a nameless woman when you are the sole object of Eddie’s wants and desires? You are everything Eddie could’ve asked for and so, so much more.
“Why?”
“You’re somethin’ tonight,” You tease your daughter by pulling on one of her feet, causing her to whine ever-so-slightly, “you must be sleepy, sweetheart. We can go home when–”
“–I’m here,” Eddie makes himself known by stepping forward as he speaks, “We can leave if she’s ready to go.”
“Eddie,” A soft sigh leaves your lips when he takes your daughter from your arms, and his earlier suspicions are confirmed when you slowly stretch your arms, trying to regain some feeling in them, “If your mother still needs you here, or if you’re not done with–”
“–If you’re not welcome here, then I don’t want to be here anymore,” Eddie brushes a piece of unruly hair out of his little girl’s face as she lays her head on his chest, “what kind of message am I sendin’ to her if I let my mother disrespect the woman I love?”
“My love,” You place a hand on Eddie’s face, thumb stroking the stubble on his face, “I don’t want you makin’ any rash decisions on my behalf.”
“Rash? Canary, sweetheart, you bring out the best in me,” Eddie quietly argues back, “I settled everythin’ a few hours ago.”
“I like where we’re stayin’, Eddie, ‘n she,” You pause to place a hand on your daughter’s back, rubbing comforting circles that quickly send the girl into a peaceful slumber, “she likes our little home. This place is too big, too–”
“–I told my mother I wasn’t interested in the property.”
“Really?” You’re rendered confused for a moment before you recover. “‘M… glad. I think it’s for the best that she keeps her distance from us.”
Your lips quirk downwards as your eyes meet Eddie’s.
“Did she say anything about your…?” You trail off, noticing how Eddie has his sunglasses tucked into his suit pocket. When the three of you had arrived, he used those small spectacles to hide the yellow tell-tale eyes that would alert the mourners of his… condition.
“No, but she didn’t like the color of my suit jacket,” Eddie jokes, which causes you to crack a small smile, “‘til I told her that her granddaughter was the one to pick it out for me.”
Eddie looks at his daughter, to get her opinion on the matter, but she’s fast asleep, knowing that both of her parents would do anything to keep her safe.
“There’s somethin’ on your mind.” You pivot after a moment of brief silence.
“You can’t know that–”
“–I’ve been married to you for half a decade, Eddie,” You deadpan after you cut him off, “I know your tells.”
“I don’t have tells–”
“–that’s what they all think.” You quip, amused with yourself. “Spit it out. Now.”
“I…” Eddie shakes his head, “I don’t want you to worry.”
“I don’t worry until you tell me not to worry.”
“Mon ange, I…” Eddie can’t find the words to tell you of the paralyzing fear that dominates his heart. How can he describe his harrowing fear of time and death without guilt tripping you into something you don’t want? “I don’t wanna lose you.”
“Honey, I’m here.” Your free hand goes to one of his forearms. “I won’t leave you.”
“I know you won’t,” His voice wavers, threatening to break with every word that leaves him, “but somethin’ you can’t control is gonna take you from me.”
“Ah,” You click your tongue, humming under your breath, “I figured you ‘n I would have this conversation. I thought it’d be later, rather than sooner, but…”
You roll your shoulders back, removing your hands from Eddie’s body to subtly fix the skirt of the black dress that covers the soft curves of your body before you talk once more.
“When our daughter’s older — much older,” You correct yourself before you continue on, “I wouldn’t be opposed to you turnin’ me.”
“Canary, I won’t force you–”
“–you aren’t. ‘M choosin’ to do this. I want to be with you, Eddie,” You calmly say, “Why won’t you accept the love you deserve?”
“‘M gonna use that against you in the future, sweetheart,” He smiles, more so when you press your lips to his, “You have plenty of time to change your mind–”
“–I won’t,” Confidence radiates from you as you speak, “‘m far too stubborn ‘n reckless for that.”
Eddie asks you that same question — if you’re sure that you want to become a vampire — month after month and year after year, but your answer never changes. He warns you of all of the horrible shit that Volt conveniently forgot to mention — the bloodlust, the literal death that your body must overcome as you’re transformed from human to this — and none of it dissuades you. You have your heart set on this and on him. You will choose Eddie over and over again, and he’d always pick you over anyone else in the world.
Even when you’re laid out in front of him, wearing one of those white nightgowns that Eddie always adored, he’s still hesitating. Years have past — there’s small lines around your eyes, and you’ve shaken most of your youthfulness in favor of a subtle maturity that wraps around your shoulders like a warm, comforting blanket. You’re still his Canary, through and through, but you’ve grown, and the life you’ve lived has changed you.
“One last chance, sweetheart,” Eddie murmurs from the edge of the bed, grabbing your hand and bringing it to his lips so he can place a quick kiss to the skin of your palm, “you can back out of this.”
“I don’t wanna.” Stubborn in a way that only Eddie finds to be delightful, you refuse the out that he offers this. “I want to experience everything life has to offer with you.”
“Forever’s a long fuckin’ time.”
“We made it eighteen years,” You can’t help but grin as your words spill forth, “what’s another one-hundred and eighty?”
“Mama,” Your daughter steps forward, gently tucking some of your hair behind your ear, “he’s askin’ because he cares.”
Merde, that little girl, who isn’t very little anymore, looks exactly like you. Same eyes, same hair color, same smile, same no-good attitude that had Eddie wondering if she learned that from you over the years, or if it was a trait that you inherited from some woman in your family that you then passed down to your daughter.
Once upon a time, she was running around the bedroom like crazy, or pulling at Eddie’s bottom lip so she could see his fangs, or begging him to tell her all of the stories about his nighttime adventures when she saw him next. Those days are long, long gone, however, and the young woman in front of him displayed a level of calmness and grace unheard of for someone her age when she put two-and-two together about her father.
Sure, Eddie hadn’t hid anything from your daughter — you and Eddie had agreed that she could ask whatever questions she wanted to, and you’d both answer accordingly — but you were more freaked out than she was. Yet again, this was normal for her. She didn’t know a life where her first heartbreak came from argumentative, unloving parents. Acceptance, warmth, and love — pure, sweet love — flowed through your home with every word and action that her parents shared with each other and her.
“I know, baby, ‘n I love him for it,” Breathless, you let her fix your hair so your neck is fully exposed to Eddie, “you don’t have to be here for this.”
“We’re a family, Mama. I want to be here for you,” Once your little girl has finished her quick, precise movements, she grabs one of your hands before she intertwines her fingers with yours, “if you want him to stop, squeeze my hand, okay?”
“Okay,” You nod in agreement before you focus on Eddie, “‘m okay, my love.”
“I know,” He whispers before he allows his fangs to elongate and stick out of his mouth, “I love you, Canary. As a human, as a vampire, as a person, ‘n as my wife.”
“Love you too.” You say it back before Eddie sweetly kisses you, leading a trail of kisses from the corner of your mouth down the column of your neck before he lets his fangs sink into your flesh.
The sweet taste of your blood coats his tongue, and he greedily takes and takes from you until he hears your breath hitch. Pulling away from you, Eddie wipes a bit of blood from his lips before he pulls up the sleeve of his dress shirt. With his teeth, he creates a small indent on his wrist that leaks droplets of blood from the cut before he offers it to you.
Eddie watches as your fingers weakly curl around his arm before you bring his wrist to your mouth, and you drink from him with as much ease as he drank from you. He doesn’t harshly pull his wrist away from you; instead, he waits for you to release his wrist before he rolls his sleeve down once more.
“Honey?” You weakly call out for Eddie, and he can’t help but crash his lips into yours after he pulls you into his arms.
“Canary, angel,” His hand goes to your face, and he tilts your head up so your newly-orange eyes can meet his, “how are you feelin’?”
“Tired,” You sleepily blink, and a tiny yawn from you shows the fangs that are starting to form in your mouth, “‘n hungry.”
“That’s normal,” Eddie reassures you, “we’ll get you somethin’ to eat, sweetheart.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah, of course,” He kisses you once more, “as much as you want, Canary–”
“–what did you see, azizam?”
“What?” Rudely pulled from his trance, Eddie’s barely able to tell where he is or who he’s with until he’s able to focus fully on Amir, and not on Volt, who barely lingers in the background.
He’s here, in Paris, with you and Amir — not in New Orleans, living a fantasy that was never the predestined path for you or Eddie.
Because I fucked it all up.
“Fine. Keep your secrets, Eddison.” Unbothered, Amir changes the subject. “The coven is envious of your independence. It’s a problem when you’re on the outside, looking in.”
“Your problem,” Eddie shrugs, pulling his camera in front of his face as an ample distraction from whatever Amir just showed him as well as the ghost of Volt that’s still in the background, “not mine. You want me ‘n Canary? We’re here, in the streets, cafés, and the bars. This whole goddamn city feels like it’s born again. No one’s tellin’ me what to do or when to do it. ‘M… ‘m tryin’ to find myself.”
Without him, Eddie thinks as his gaze lingers on a flickering shadow of Volt that disappears when Eddie returns his gaze to Amir.
“Then what room is there left for me,” Amir steps closer, eyes going down to Eddie’s lips, “if you have not found yourself?”
“Oh, there’s room.” Eddie snaps one final picture of you before he brushes past Amir to call to his sweetheart. “Canary, mon ange, you ready to leave?”
You hum, letting your gaze leave the boats that pass by the riverside before you turn to Eddie.
“Yes, my love,” A sweet smile stretches across your features as you hold your hand out to Eddie, “There’s a bar nearby that I’d like to go to.”
Eddie hears Amir sigh, and a quick glance backwards shows Amir smiling before he shakes his head, clearly a little starstruck by the pair of vampires in front of him.
~
I should keep my head down and play the puce. Is it fuckin’ humiliatin’? Yes. Is it the only way I’ll be accepted into the coven?
…Unfortunately, yes.
However, tonight, after the body was taken care of, ‘n everyone else had cleared out of the back room, I couldn’t help but stroll up to Drysdale as he was touchin’ up his make-up. The question on my mind rolled out of my mouth before I could take it back.
“How do you do it?” I kept my eyes fixated on the floor, like always. “How do you get them to accept death?”
It always comes back to the mortals that we drain for life, doesn’t it? The mortals that my mother ‘n father feel so connected to, despite bein’ nothin’ like them.
The movement of Drysdale’s eyeshadow brush stops as he looks at me through the mirror’s reflection.
“They’ll never hear you in the front row with your head down.”
Slowly, my eyes dared to meet his, and he shot me a tiny wink before he continued to fix up his appearance. I don’t understand why the vampires do this. Their appearances are picture-perfect! They don’t have child-like features to hide with heavy make-up and an unhealthy dose of confidence.
Still, I cracked a smile when Drysdale spoke to me. ‘M startin’ to make headway with the coven, slowly but surely.
“First thing I do when I creak open the lid is have a chat with my scene partner for the night,” Drysdale explains, “Muck about in their heads, find their shame. In short, an actor prepares.”
Starin’ at that mirror of his, I was reminded of the newspaper article I saw hidin’ behind that very frame. In particular, the name of the actor featured in the play that the article references.
“Who’s Francis Naughton?”
Drysdale hesitates before he answers.
“The best Iago to walk the York Royal.”
My mouth dropped ever-so-slightly.
“That was you?”
“And what was your shabby life in Chicago like before the vampire Bruce bit down on your wee neck?” Drysdale pivots as he suddenly stands, digging in the rack of clothing that sits next to his vanity.
“I was in Springfield…” The rehearsed script comes to me easily, after weeks and weeks of practice. “Selling little trinkets at the train station.”
“You were an orphan?”
I frowned. I hadn’t considered myself an orphan since the fire had claimed the last of my blood relation. I had no need for blood relatives when I had my mother, the only family I needed in this endlessly hellhole that is life after death.
“You could say that.”
“And an orphan again. We have that in common.” Drysdale wistfully says as he points at me, then himself.
“I thought Maître made you?” I asked.
“And why would you say that?” He countered.
“Lady Memoria told me you were the youngest,” I told him as he threw a black cloak over his shoulders, “but you’re also the strongest. ‘Figured you got the best blood.”
“No,” Drysdale clicks his tongue in disapproval, “My maker lies in the walls downstairs. Maître put him there.”
“Sorry.” I forced out a blunt apology. The last thing I needed was to throw away the good will that I’ve earned with someone in the coven.
“Oh, don’t be,” He refuses my apology before he adjusts his cloak, making sure that it sits perfectly on his shoulders, “he deserved his death… and his blood was exquisite. I’m a good mimic, and I can fly.”
“And, you kill with panache.”
…Maybe I’m layin’ it on too thick here, but if I’ve learned anything from Canary, it’s that a little flattery in a sweet voice can go a long way.
“Hmm,” Drysdale smiles at my compliment before he interrogates me further, “And your dearly departed maker, what gifts did he bequeath to the moppet vampiress?”
…That fuckin’ asshole didn’t give me shit, besides trauma and pain and misery.
“He taught me how to lie well.” I said.
It wasn’t the vampiric talents that Volt taught me of; rather, I learned the most despicable parts of human nature from that piece of work.
“You’ll make a fine actor, then.” Drysdale moves past me, one foot on the stairs and a hand on the railing, before he turns to face me once more. “It’s Eddie who’s from Chicago, yes?”
“Canary is,” I corrected him, “Eddie’s from Gary, Indiana. It’s right outside of the city.”
Drysdale simply hums in response, his lips curling up into a wicked smile.
“Stick with it, Puce. You’re almost there.”
~
“‘M evil, evil as any vampire who has ever lived,” Eyes locked with Amir, you continue to argue your point as your fingers curl around the glass that holds — much to your disappointment — sparkling cider, “I’ve killed over ‘n over, ‘n I will do it again.”
“Why doesn’t that make you as evil as any vampire?” Amir manages to match wits with you in a way that Eddie dreams of doing. He hasn’t met another man who could hold such a conversation with you since… “Aren’t there gradations to evil? Is evil a great, perilous gulf one falls into with the first sin?”
The bar around you is surrounded with a lively ambiance from the chatty groups of humans that are scattered around your trio. They don’t seem to take notice of your depressing philosophical conversation, and, if they do, they choose to listen to the piano player in the corner of the room instead of you and Amir.
“I mean, kinda?” Your eyes go upwards, and your tongue briefly juts out of your mouth as you think of a response. “It’s not as logical as you’re sayin’, but it’s dark ‘n it’s empty, ‘n I can’t see the bottom of it.”
“But if evil is without gradation, and it does exist,” Amir leans back, seeming to allow the cigarette between his fingers to burn to a nub without taking a single puff from it, “in this state of evil, then, only one sin is needed. That’s your argument.”
“Perhaps,” You give a non-committal answer, which causes Amir’s eyebrows to scrunch in frustration while Eddie softly chuckles at your prodding behavior, “The original sin is a concept that I’m familiar with.”
“Your argument is based upon the assumption that God exists.”
“I don’t know that God exists,” You lean in, wearing a confident smile as you go toe-to-toe with Amir, ”’n from what I saw in that fuckin’ war? …He doesn’t. Not the version that I grew up with, at least.”
“Then, surely, there are degrees and variations to goodness?” Amir, finally, takes a puff from his cigarette before it burns out entirely. “The goodness of the child, which is innocence. The goodness of the nun, who lives a life of self-deprivation and service. The goodness of the saints, the goodness of the midwives… and how is this evil achieved? How does one fall from grace?”
“You think you know all of the answers, don’t you?” You joke before you place a hand on Eddie’s forearm, causing him to jolt to attention. “Mon amour?”
“Don’t mind me, sweetheart.” Eddie presses a kiss to your cheek before he places his hand over yours. “You two can have your fun.”
“Morality and its relationship to religion is hardly a topic I’d refer to as fun,” Your eyes narrow as you look to Amir once more, “this conversation is in reference to myself, by the way.”
“Noble, to hold yourself to a higher standard than others,” Amir notes, “and I don’t mean to offend–”
“–you haven’t.” You softly say. “Though, I suppose we’ve argued this to death, haven’t we?”
“Maybe,” His subtle refusal to concede makes you crack a grin that Eddie adores seeing on your face, “still, I feel the need to apologize for my blunder, even if you don’t consider it a blunder.”
Amir reaches into his coat pocket to grab a floral handkerchief that he then hands to you.
“I was gifted this, a long time ago, by someone who I think will interest you.” Amir explains as your fingers trace the intricate designs on the fabric. “She spends a lot of time traveling abroad, but her art gallery is here, in Paris.”
“She?” If you weren’t intrigued before, you’re certainly intrigued now.
“Yes, she,” Amir confirms, and you’re out of your seat before he can speak again, “three doors down, on your right.”
“Ah,” You hold the handkerchief to your chest before a small flush covers your cheeks, “Thank you, Maître.”
“Have fun, pretty girl,” Eddie wishes you well as you bend down and press a kiss to his lips, “‘n come home before the sun rises, okay?”
“Ever the dutiful husband, Eddison.” You murmur against his lips. “I will. …‘Surprised that’s the only warnin’ you’re givin’ me.”
“You’re a big girl, Canary. You can handle yourself.” Eddie whispers, causing you to shudder. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” You then move towards Amir, but you only press two polite kisses to either sides of his cheeks, and he repeats this gesture towards you, “‘n thank you for this. I… think it’s time for me to try again.”
Eddie knows who you’re thinking of when you stare at the floral patterns in your hands, but he senses appreciation and tenderness in place of the normal regret and anger that you feel whenever you think of the woman who you associate with all kinds of flowers.
“Canary is an ever-shifting tide,” Amir says after you exit the bar, with a bit more pep in your step then what you had when you entered the establishment earlier, “I don’t understand how you understand her.”
“I don’t. It’s a part of her charm.” Eddie snorts lightly. “Canary is a force of nature, whether she knows it or not.”
“Unpredictable, but controlled and calculated when it comes to you or Harper,” Amir brings his cigarette to his mouth once more, “interesting indeed.”
“I–” There’s some sort of argument on Eddie’s lips, but it dies when he recognizes the voice singing and playing the piano at the same time.
Fuck. It wasn’t him, but now it sounds like him–
It’s melodic, tranquil, and terrifying, accompanied by white hair and a distinct air that sends chills down Eddie’s spine.
“You little whore~”
Volt wouldn’t say that, but that sure fucking sounds like Volt — at least to Eddie, it does.
“You only want him ‘cause you’re feeling blue.”
Eddie shouldn’t turn his head towards the stage… yet he does.
“Come to me.”
Volt’s just as alluring as the day Eddie met him, even though this version of Volt isn’t real, for fuck’s sake.
“He’ll never run his fingers through your hair the way I do,” Volt temporarily pauses his singing to glance at Eddie with a small smile on his face, “That’s quite good, isn’t it, mon chéri?”
Eddie doesn’t respond; instead, he looks to Amir, who studies the former’s face with an innate curiosity that makes Eddie sweat a bit.
“You’ll fumble each other–”
Eddie?
“Impotent lovers…”
Volt adlibs in the background as Eddie puts out his cigarette on the ash tray sitting upon the table.
“What?” Eddie comes off harsher than expected, which makes the older vampire smile a bit.
“There he is again.” Amir senses Volt in Eddie’s mind, just as Volt tries to call out to him with his singing once more — an endless cacophony of ‘Come to me’s that sound more like torture than beautiful poetry.
“I’m sorry.”
“And we were having such a lovely few hours, no?” Amir drums his fingers against the table — not nervously, not cockily, but something else entirely.
“I was with,” God, Harper’s lies are hard to force out on the spot. Eddie doesn’t know how you and your daughter do it, night after night, “Bruce for twenty years.”
“Bruce?” Amir speaks Eddie’s “maker’s” name with an incredible amount of toxic vile as his expression flattens from teasing to stoic. “How long are we going to play games, Eddie?”
Eddie bites his tongue. He bites it hard — he swears to God, or Jesus, or whatever fucking divine entity will drag his ass to hell, right where he thinks he belongs, that he tries to keep this information to himself — but the truth comes flowing out anyways.
“Volt–”
“–Before you say it,” Volt’s apparition appears in your seat, all of a sudden, leaning in to tell Eddie something of dire importance, “let me tell you a little something about eighteenth-century Amir.”
“Volt.” Eddie repeats himself, causing Volt to dramatically deflate into his chair.
“Oh, dear. Here we go.”
“Finally.” Amir sounds exasperated as he stares at Eddie through half-hooded eyelids.
“I’m tired of holdin’ on to it,” Eddie quietly admits, “Volt and Canary were my companions in America.”
“And where is he now?” Amir presses.
“Hmm, still a bookbinder’s wife?” Deeply unamused, Volt’s ghastly lookalike still tries to help Eddie, despite his betrayal. “He knows.”
“You know where he is.” Eddie shakily says before Amir lightly scoffs.
“I want you to say it.”
There’s a million things Eddie could say to make the situation sound better than it was.
“I killed him, ‘n he fuckin’ had it comin’.”
That? …That is not one of them.
“Well, that’s debatable.” Even from the grave, Volt can disagree with everything Eddie says. Goody.
“I’ve known for months,” Amir reveals, “I’ve just waited for you to say it.”
“And that means what? You gotta kill me now?” Eddie shifts uncomfortably in his seat, unable to sit still under the heated, heavy spotlight that is Amir’s gaze before he considers the other people who will be impacted by what he’s just revealed. “What does that mean for my girls?”
“Did Canary help him? Did Harper?” Amir asks two simple questions that Volt immediately answers, but only for Eddie’s ears.
“The child of fire is a born killer, but the small bird is incapable of killing the flies it needs to eat in order to survive–”
“–No.”
If this boat is capsizing, Eddie won’t let you and Harper sink with him.
“You broke one of the Great Laws.” Amir calmly says.
“I don’t know any Great Laws. Volt never told me — us — shit!” Eddie raises his voice before Volt softens his.
“I told you I loved you–”
“–shut up.” Eddie hisses back, ignoring the strange looks he gets from the patrons that are sitting around him.
“Calm down.” Amir tries to stop something that’s already been set in motion, but he can’t.
No one can.
“And you said nothing back,” There’s an immeasurable amount of heartbreak in Volt’s voice as he speaks, “did you, Eddie?”
Grief. Pain. Heartbreak. Regret. Agony. Longing. Love. Lust. Horror. Trauma. Abuse. The cyclic nature of it all. The beating drum of time. The curse of immortality.
It all pours out of Eddie in one single phrase, directed towards the man he both hates and adores —
“Bordel de merde!”
— And he’s out the door before Amir can confront him.
~
“You are not French.”
“Is it the accent, the clothes, or the hair?” You joke back to the mysterious feminine voice as you continue to stare at the entrancing art piece in front of you.
It’s… for a lack of better words, abstract. Splotches of color poured onto a white canvas for the hell of it. You never expected to see something like this when you walked into this intimate little art gallery a few minutes ago.
Perhaps you’re drawn to the chaos of it all. Maybe there’s something calming in all of that — maybe it’s the way you know that the overlap of the red and blue streaks of paint will always create purple, or how you can make out a woman’s face, a pair of bunny ears, and a hand from the same set of brush strokes.
“Your mannerism, mademoiselle.” Heels click, signaling her approach, and you feel a wave of calmness crash over you once she stands at your side. “Americans carry themselves with a certain… openness that the French have not been able to afford for a long time.”
“You don’t sound French, either,” You accuse, immediately noticing how, for a lack of better words, rough her pronunciation of the word ‘mademoiselle’ was, “and it’s madame.”
“Married?” This mysterious woman’s eyes look you up and down as yours stay glued to the art piece in front of you. “You seem quite young.”
“‘M older than most would assume.” You say, trying to temper the anger that threatens to rise through your voice.
You’re not a child, and you weren’t turned as a child. Why, then, do some people insist on treating you like a child?
…You’ll never judge Harper for reacting harshly to this type of treatment. It fucking sucks.
“I think we have that in common.”
Her allure is too strong, so you dare to look over at the woman who’s standing beside you. Your fingers twist around the floral handkerchief in your hands as you admire the way her blue hair falls effortlessly down her shoulders. It nearly blends into the dress that is an identical shade of blue to her hair, the fabric falling all the way down to her feet.
She is beautiful. She’s the beauty you see in an advertisement or an old photograph or a ladies’ magazine or–
“–you’re staring, honey.” Her voice is smooth and soft, yet strong and sure. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yes, uh…” You answer instantaneously, handing her the piece of decorated cloth that Amir gave you, “I was out with my husband and a… business partner, and the gentleman said to look for a woman who–”
“–Miss Canary, I am well aware of the nature of the developing relationship between Eddie and Amir,” The woman must notice the horror scrawled on your face as she quickly works to undo that with her next statement, “I am the… friend Amir told you about.”
“Does this friend have a name?” You bite your lip, playing a little coy as your eyes shine with enthusiasm.
“I see why your husband is so enthralled with you. You are a very enchanting person, Miss Canary.” She compliments you, causing your face to flush before she finally reveals her name to you. “My name is River.”
“River,” You slowly repeat her name, “It’s a pretty name for a pretty girl.”
“I do believe that I’m in the presence of a pretty girl as well,” River flirts right back with you, causing you to smile warmly as you contain a bit of shy laughter, “I see why Amir sent you to me.”
“‘M startin’ to get that, too,” You finally notice the harsh blueness of her eyes, once you’re done swooning, “‘n ‘m guessin’ that you’re a…?”
“Amir and I go back a long time.” River explains. “He ran the Parisian coven, while I had… other pursuits to attend to.”
“Like art?” You point to the piece in front of you. “It might seem like nothin’ to most people, but I see your vision, findin’ meanin’ in the nothingness that surrounds us.”
“Feel free to take it with you.”
“Excuse me?” You blink rapidly before you refuse River’s offer. “I couldn’t ask you to part with somethin’ like this ‘cause ‘m a little partial to it. You run an art gallery, Ms. River–”
“–and this piece has been sitting on this very wall for months. I think it needs a new home, with a woman who will cherish it for the rest of her life,” River walks forward and plucks the artwork off of the wall before she hands it to you, “this might be a selfish ask, but I do hope you’ll think of me whenever you find yourself transfixed by it.”
“I will.” You promise as you hold the canvas to your chest. “Thank you. It means a lot, that you’d trust me with somethin’ that you poured your heart ‘n soul into.”
“The person most suited to appreciate one’s art is another artist… or so I’m told,” River briefly stumbles over her words before she recovers, “I know of your own pursuits, Canary. I have connections — many connections — and I can help you publish your work.”
“Ms. River, that’s… too kind of you,” You narrow your eyes, suddenly feeling a little suspicious of her, “How do you know all of this, anyways?”
“My connections,” She gives a vague answer, “You don’t have to take me up on that offer, but I hope you’ll consider it if you plan on seeing me again. My handiness isn’t limited to my artwork, lapinou.”
“Ah!” Your face is hotter than a furnace as you immediately understand what she means. “I suppose I’ll have to see that in action, won’t I?”
“I suppose you will. I hear that a writer’s creativity is unmatched in all settings,” River laughs when you softly whine at her teasing, “You can find the address to my private studio on the back of the canvas. I think these matters are best discussed in a one-on-one setting.”
“I agree,” You say, but you can’t help but ask one last thing, “did you expect to meet me tonight?”
“Yesterday, today, tomorrow… they’re all the same, aren’t they?” River stares at her stained fingertips before she wipes them on the handkerchief in her hands. “I think we would’ve crossed paths naturally, but I wanted to speed up the process.”
“And this isn’t a–”
“–a trick, a game, a ruse, a test, a trap?” River tuts after the last option. “No. Not every vampire wishes to manipulate and gain power over his fellow blood-drinkers. Some of us still hold onto the parts that make us mortal. Our art, our stories, our loves…”
“I like you, Ms. River,” You confess, “and I sincerely hope you’re not fucking me over.”
“I hope so too, Ms. Canary,” River offers you a polite wave as you exit her gallery, “Good night, lapinou.”
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