Summary: Larissa begins to lose her gift to a rare and incurable disease. Terrified of burdening her wife she hides the truth until the silence becomes unbearable.
Larissa has started to recognize the signals weeks ago. At first she simply brushed them away, not fully wanting to admit what was happening to her. She tried to convince herself it was impossible, that it couldn’t happen to her.Until one day, she stood before the mirror in their bedroom, staring at her reflection in horror. Her body wasn’t responding. Her ability, her gift, her curse, her power, was silent. She tried to control her shapeshifting, to call the familiar pull beneath her skin, but nothing obeyed.
She had turned into a mere spectator of her own flesh.It was a rare disease, the one she carried now. It had many names, whispered in magical circles, but Larissa didn’t have the courage to say any of them aloud. Speaking it would make it real, and she wasn’t ready for that. This was also why she told nothing to her wife.
She knew it would break Y/N. A gentle soul, Larissa’s true love, her anchor. The last thing she wanted was to burden her with something incurable.
What Larissa kept forgetting was that Y/N was a witch. A skilled, perceptive one. Secrets in their house never stayed hidden for long. It was only a matter of time before she discovered the truth.
As the weeks passed, Larissa realized shapeshifting had become dangerous. If she attempted a change, her body could lock in that form forever. The thought terrified her. So she stopped using her ability entirely.
That evening, when Larissa stepped into the living room, Y/N was already home, waiting. Her wife’s smile faltered the moment she saw her face.
“Riss?”
Y/N’s voice was soft but edged with fear. She had sensed something wrong for weeks.
Larissa winced at the sound of her name, at the concern wrapped in it. Y/N approached slowly, reaching out as if touching her too quickly might shatter her. Their hands met, warm and trembling.
“Riss… what’s wrong?”
Larissa opened her mouth, prepared to lie, to invent some excuse. But no words formed.
“Please,” Y/N whispered. Her eyes searched Larissa’s, pleading. “Talk to me. Whatever it is, we can face it… together.”
A solitary tear slid down Larissa’s cheek. Every cell of her body felt heavy, disobedient. For someone who had always commanded her form, who had lived in mastery of change, it was like being buried alive.
“My power…” she forced the words out, shaking. “It doesn’t work. I can’t shift anymore.”
Y/N’s eyes widened in shock. She had never imagined such a thing. Shapeshifters were resilient, almost untouchable, their power woven into their very marrow. To lose it…
Y/N pulled Larissa into her arms before she could collapse under her own admission. “Oh, my love…”
For a long time they just stood there, Y/N holding her, Larissa unable to stop shaking. Finally, Larissa whispered into her shoulder, “It’s a disease. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to make it real.”
Y/N leaned back, cupping her wife’s face. “And you thought keeping it from me would make it easier? Riss, you’re not alone. You don’t ever have to carry this alone.”
Larissa broke then, silent sobs shaking her body.
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The following days carried a different rhythm. Y/N researched tirelessly, her shelves of spellbooks and grimoires spread across the kitchen table. She brewed teas for Larissa’s pain, traced sigils across her skin at night to soothe the restless energy that built where shifting used to reside. None of it reversed the sickness, but Larissa saw the hope in her wife’s eyes, and it steadied her.
“Maybe there’s no cure,” Larissa admitted one evening as Y/N crushed herbs with careful hands. “Maybe this is simply… the end of it.”
Y/N’s movements slowed. “The end of your power doesn’t mean the end of you.”
Larissa smiled faintly, weary. “But it feels like I’m unraveling. Without shifting, I don’t know who I am.”
“You’re my wife,” Y/N said firmly. “You’re Larissa Weems. That’s who you are. Not just a shapeshifter. Not just power. You are the woman I fell in love with. And nothing will take that from us.”
Larissa closed her eyes, letting the words settle in her chest like a soft flame.
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Weeks turned into months. The disease didn’t kill her, but it hollowed out the part of her that once felt limitless. The first time Larissa reached for her power again, out of habit, nothing came. Instead of despair, she felt only the brush of Y/N’s hand, grounding her.
One quiet afternoon, they sat in the garden together. The autumn wind moved lazily through the leaves, and Y/N leaned against Larissa’s shoulder.
“You know,” Y/N murmured, “when I was a child, I thought magic was everything. I thought it was what made me… me. But then, one day, I realized it wasn’t the spells or the rituals. It was how I loved, how I chose, how I lived. The magic was just an echo.”
Larissa tilted her head, watching her wife’s profile, bathed in the gold of the setting sun. “And you think the same applies to me?”
“I know it does,” Y/N said. “Even if you never shift again, you’re still the most extraordinary woman I know.”
For the first time in months, Larissa’s laugh broke free, quiet and genuine. “Extraordinary? Without my power?”
Y/N smiled and kissed her temple. “Especially without it.”
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Life adjusted. The fear never fully left, but neither did love. Larissa learned to live without the constant hum of change beneath her skin. Sometimes she missed it with a sharp ache, but then Y/N would reach for her hand, or brush her lips against hers, and the emptiness felt less unbearable.
One evening, as winter settled around their home, Larissa sat before the mirror again. She expected dread, but this time, her reflection didn’t horrify her. She saw herself, aging, imperfect, still whole. Still loved.
Y/N entered quietly, draping a blanket over her shoulders. “What are you thinking about?”
Larissa met her gaze in the mirror. “That maybe… losing my power isn’t the end. Maybe it’s just… another form of change. And change has always been a part of me.”
Y/N’s eyes softened. “Then let’s face this change together.”
Larissa turned from the mirror and into her wife’s arms. For the first time since it began, she didn’t feel like a spectator. She felt alive.
And though her power had gone silent, her heart beat strong, louder than any magic, steadier than any shape she had ever worn.
A/N: Watched Suspiria and Whiplash back to back a few days ago, and this is what bloomed in my brain afterwards! Larissa is strict, authoritative, bordering on cruel. Reader is eager to please, pushing her own boundaries for a crumble of praise from the woman she has an unhealthy obsession with. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do! <3
Morning rehearsal begins before the sun has properly decided to rise. The academy sits in a kind of blue half-light when you arrive, all long corridors and sleeping radiators, the windows filmed faintly with winter condensation. Somewhere upstairs, a piano stumbles through scales. Someone laughing too loudly in another studio gets shushed almost immediately.
Studio A smells of rosin, sweat, and old wood polished so many times it has developed a shine like still water. The mirrors along the far wall catch every movement with exhausting honesty. Girls are already stretching at the barre when you enter, their warm-up knits hanging from narrow shoulders, pointe shoes discarded in pale satin heaps beside dance bags.
No one speaks much before Larissa arrives.
You are three minutes late.
Not late enough for another instructor to notice, perhaps, but Larissa notices everything. You have learned this the way dancers learn most things, through repetition and humiliation.
The studio door opens behind you just as you tie your hair back, and the room stills with almost embarrassing immediacy. Conversations taper off. Spines straighten. Someone hurriedly removes their phone from the barre and tucks it away.
Larissa steps inside carrying the cold with her.
Snowmelt glimmers faintly at the hem of her black wool coat. One leather-gloved hand rests atop the silver head of her cane, though she hardly seems to need it. She moves with the same sharp composure she brings to everything else, as though even pain has been instructed to behave properly in her presence.
She surveys the room once. A practiced sweep. Inventory rather than greeting.
Then her eyes settle on you, moving from your face to your half tied bun.
“You were late.”
The words are not loud. They do not need to be. Larissa speaks the way surgeons cut. Neatly, without wasted force.
Heat climbs immediately into your face. “I’m sorry, Miss Weems.”
“You apologize as though it alters time.”
Around you, no one looks directly at either of you. The dancers at this academy have perfected the art of witnessing someone else’s destruction discreetly.
Larissa removes her gloves finger by finger and lays them atop the piano. “Don’t be late again.”
“Yes, Miss Weems.”
The pianist receives Larissa’s coat with the solemnity of someone accepting ceremonial robes, and then rehearsal begins.
“Barre.”
The room obeys at once.
That is the frightening thing about Larissa. Not that she is cruel—though she can be—but that obedience forms naturally around her, instinctive as breath. She does not command the room so much as arrange it around herself. Even silence seems curated in her presence.
The music starts softly. Slow warm-up exercises first. Pliés and tendus repeated until the body loosens from sleep. You settle your hand against the barre and try to ignore the lingering embarrassment beneath your skin, though embarrassment under Larissa’s gaze has a tendency to become physical. Your shoulders tighten. Your breathing shortens. Every movement begins to feel observed.
Perhaps because it is.
Larissa walks between the dancers while the pianist plays, correcting posture with economical precision. A lifted chin here. A pressed shoulder there. Her criticism is rarely theatrical. She doesn’t shout unless absolutely necessary. The disappointment in her voice is usually punishment enough.
“You look lazy,” she tells one dancer flatly. “I assume this is accidental.”
The girl flushes crimson and straightens immediately.
Larissa moves on.
You feel her approaching before you see her reflection in the mirror. Your body always notices first. Some humiliating instinct. Your spine lengthens unconsciously, your stomach tightens beneath your leotard.
“Shoulders.”
The word lands directly behind you.
You correct instantly.
“No,” Larissa says, and there is the faintest trace of irritation in it. “You’re stiffening, not opening.”
Her hand settles between your shoulder blades before you can try again. Warm even through the fabric. Firm enough to feel instructional rather than comforting, though your body has long since stopped understanding the distinction.
“Here.”
Pressure against your spine forces you upright. Not rigid. Supported.
Larissa’s hand remains there a moment longer than strictly necessary, and the awareness of it spreads through you like fever. She smells faintly of sandalwood and something colder beneath it, something clean and expensive that belongs in opera houses and nowhere near a studio full of sweating dancers.
“You collapse inward whenever you lose confidence,” she says quietly enough that only you can hear. “The audience will notice.”
You swallow. “I’m trying not to.”
“I know. Try harder.”
The words settle strangely inside you. Not praise. Not kindness. Worse, perhaps. Recognition.
Larissa steps away, and cold rushes back into the space she occupied. You hate the immediate feeling of loss almost as much as you hate the relief.
The exercise continues.
Outside, snow drifts softly against the windows. Inside, the room warms with effort. By the end of barre, strands of hair have escaped slick ballet buns and the mirrors are beginning to cloud faintly at the edges where bodies have brushed too close.
Larissa watches all of it.
“Swan Lake is in eight weeks,” she says during center work, clipboard balanced lightly against one arm. “At present, most of you dance as though this information has failed to concern you.”
No one speaks.
“You are technically proficient,” she continues, pacing slowly across the studio floor. “Unfortunately, technical proficiency without emotional discipline is how mediocre dancers convince themselves they deserve principal roles.”
Her gaze drifts across the room.
Lingers on you.
Moves away again.
The relief is immediate and shameful.
“Auditions for Odette will be next Friday,” Larissa says. “I suggest you begin behaving accordingly.”
The atmosphere changes at once. Competition arrives quietly but thoroughly, sliding itself beneath the skin of the room. Girls stop smiling at one another quite so easily. Corrections begin to sound personal. Every stumble becomes visible.
You can feel it happening inside yourself too, ugly and desperate. The role has rooted itself somewhere deep in your chest ever since the production was announced. Odette. White silk and tragedy. Fragility sharpened into precision.
You want it badly enough to embarrass yourself.
Perhaps you already are.
The rehearsal becomes brutal after that.
Larissa works the same turn sequence for nearly forty minutes, stopping the music every time someone falters. Again and again and again until fatigue begins unraveling technique altogether. Ankles shake. Breathing roughens. One dancer nearly slips during a landing and catches herself hard enough to bruise.
Larissa watches impassively.
“You are tired,” she says. “How devastating.”
The girl lowers her eyes.
“Again.”
No one argues.
You dance until your calves burn violently beneath your skin. Again until your toes feel blistered raw inside the pointe shoes. Again until the studio begins narrowing strangely at the edges from exhaustion.
Larissa’s attention settles on you more and more frequently as rehearsal drags on. You have never decided whether this is fortunate.
“You anticipate the turn before you trust it,” she tells you after stopping the music mid-combination. “Why?”
“I thought—”
“There is your first mistake.”
A few dancers laugh behind you.
Heat flashes across your face, but Larissa is already moving closer, her expression sharpening rather than softening at your embarrassment.
“You think too much while dancing,” she says. “I can practically see the calculations happening behind your eyes. Ballet is not mathematics.”
You nod quickly.
Larissa sighs through her nose, dissatisfied. “Again.”
You reset position.
The pianist begins once more.
This time you force yourself not to think about Larissa watching. Not about the mirrors. Not about the audience that will eventually fill velvet seats and decide, in a matter of minutes, whether you are extraordinary or forgettable.
You turn.
Land cleanly.
Continue.
The sequence finishes without error.
Silence.
Larissa studies you for one long moment. Her face gives almost nothing away, but you have become disturbingly skilled at reading the tiny shifts in her expression. The slight easing around her mouth. The near-invisible softening in her eyes when something pleases her despite herself.
“Better,” she says at last.
The single word settles into your bloodstream like alcohol.
Praise from Larissa is dangerous. Too rare not to become holy.
You spend the next twenty minutes chasing the sound of it again.
—
During the break, Isabelle collapses dramatically beside you against the mirrored wall, her tights already laddering slightly at one knee.
“I think she enjoys this,” she mutters, gulping water. “Not ballet. Human suffering specifically.”
You smile faintly, unwinding the ribbons from your ankles. “You say that every rehearsal.”
“And every rehearsal I’m right.”
Across the room, Larissa stands near the piano speaking quietly with the accompanist. Winter light spills pale across her profile from the windows behind her, turning the edges of her hair almost silver. Even exhaustion seems elegant on her.
Your gaze catches there too long.
Isabelle notices immediately. Of course she does.
“Oh, you’re doomed.”
You look away at once. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I really don’t.”
“She humiliates you publicly ten times a day and you look at her like she hung the moon over the theater district.”
You feel your stomach drop hard enough to hurt.
“Keep your voice down.”
Isabelle snorts softly. “Please. She probably noticed your crush before you did.”
“No, she didn’t.”
As if summoned by the conversation itself, Larissa looks up.
Her eyes meet yours across the room with terrifying immediacy. Not accidental. Never accidental.
You look away first.
Cowardly.
Necessary.
“Break is over,” Larissa says.
The room moves instantly.
—
Partnering rehearsal begins badly and deteriorates from there.
The White Swan pas de deux requires a kind of trust that exhaustion makes difficult. Girls miss cues. Hands slip. Timing fractures apart under pressure. Larissa’s patience thins visibly as the afternoon drags on, though her anger remains frighteningly controlled.
“You dance like frightened prey animals,” she says after one particularly clumsy sequence. “Odette is not fragile because she lacks strength. She is fragile because the world insists upon breaking her.”
No one responds.
Larissa gestures toward center floor. “You. Demonstrate.”
Of course she means you.
You step forward while the others retreat slightly toward the mirrors. Your partner takes position behind you, one hand hovering carefully near your waist.
Larissa circles once around the pair of you, gaze sweeping critically over every line of your posture.
“Chin,” she says.
You lift it.
“Higher.”
Her fingers settle briefly beneath your jaw, tilting your face upward with careful pressure. The touch is entirely practical. Professional. Yet your pulse reacts with humiliating speed anyway, stumbling unevenly beneath your ribs.
Larissa’s thumb lingers for the briefest moment before she steps away.
“There,” she says. “Odette does not beg to be loved. She expects it.”
You spend the next several seconds trying to remember how breathing works.
The music begins.
You dance.
Or attempt to.
Larissa watches with such unwavering intensity that your awareness of her becomes almost physical. You can feel her attention moving over every imperfect angle before she even speaks.
Halfway through the turn sequence, your balance falters.
“Stop.”
The music cuts abruptly.
Silence folds over the studio.
Larissa approaches slowly, her cane tapping once against the floorboards.
“You’re afraid of the turn.
“I’m not.”
“You are,” she says calmly. “You anticipate failure before your body has even moved.”
Shame burns beneath your skin.
Larissa steps closer. Too close.
Her hands settle against your waist to correct your alignment, firm enough that you can feel the exact span of her fingers through the thin fabric of your leotard. Your body goes painfully still beneath the contact.
“Feel where your center actually is,” she murmurs. “You keep abandoning it.”
The warmth of her palms lingers long after she steps away.
“Again.”
This time the turn lands perfectly.
Larissa’s expression shifts almost imperceptibly. Not satisfaction exactly, but something adjacent to it.
Then she says, “Now do it consistently,” and the moment disappears.
—
By the end of rehearsal, your right foot is bleeding.
You noticed it nearly an hour ago when pain sharpened suddenly beneath your toes, warm wetness gathering inside the pointe shoe. You continued dancing anyway. Most dancers would. Ballet has a way of teaching people that the body is negotiable.
The studio empties slowly around you once Larissa dismisses the class. Girls limp toward the locker rooms carrying dance bags and exhaustion alike, complaining softly about bruised arches and strained calves.
You sit on the bench and begin massaging your thighs.
“You’re staying again?” Isabelle asks.
“I need to practice.”
“You need a priest. And medical intervention.”
You smile faintly. “I was off during the turns.”
“You were exhausted.”
Larissa noticed.
The thought arrives instantly, shamefully warm.
Isabelle studies you for a moment, concern dimming the usual amusement in her face. “She’s harder on you than everyone else.”
“That’s because she thinks I need improvement.”
“No,” Isabelle says quietly. “I think it’s because she sees more in you.”
Before you can answer, the locker room door opens.
Silence follows immediately.
Larissa steps inside. “Everyone out.”
No one argues.
Within moments, only the two of you remain.
Larissa waits until the door closes behind the last dancer before looking at you fully.
“You stayed after rehearsal yesterday.”
“Yes, Miss Weems.”
“And the night before.”
You nod.
“Why?”
The truthful answer catches painfully behind your ribs.
Because your attention feels like oxygen.
Because when you look at me, I stop feeling ordinary.
Instead you say, “I need to improve.”
Larissa watches you in silence for several long seconds. The fluorescent lights flatten the room harshly, but they do strange things to her eyes, turning them pale enough to look almost silver.
“You confuse suffering with discipline,” she says eventually.
“I don’t.”
“You do.” Her voice remains calm. “You romanticize your exhaustion. You wear it like proof of devotion.”
The accuracy of it leaves you briefly speechless.
Larissa has always possessed a terrifying ability to reach directly into the softest parts of people and press there without hesitation.
“You think destroying yourself for ballet makes you exceptional,” she continues. “It does not. It makes you interchangeable.”
The words hurt because they are true. Worse because some part of you still wants to impress her by surviving them.
Larissa sighs softly then, almost tired. “Studio.”
You obey at once.
Of course you do.
The mirrors look different at night. Less honest, perhaps. The darkness outside the windows turns them strange, reflections layered over shadow until bodies appear ghostlike at the edges.
Rain taps softly against the glass while you tighten your ribbons.
Larissa stands near the piano watching.
“You favor your left foot when tired,” she says.
You glance up too quickly. “I’m fine.”
“That was not an invitation to lie.”
Heat creeps into your face.
Larissa gestures once toward center floor. “Show me the turns.”
Your muscles ache violently now that rehearsal has ended. Fatigue settling properly into the joints and tendons. Still, you rise.
The music begins softly from the stereo.
You dance.
One turn.
Then another.
Halfway through the third, pain slices sharply through your foot and your balance wavers.
“Stop.”
You freeze immediately.
Larissa crosses the room without hurry, though something sharper has entered her expression now.
“You’re injured.”
“No.”
Her gaze drops toward the faint stain spreading through the satin of your pointe shoe.
Then back to your face.
“You are a very poor liar.”
Before you can answer, Larissa crouches before you.
The movement startles you enough that your breath catches outright.
Her hands close carefully around your ankle, professional and efficient in a way that only worsens things. She unties the ribbons slowly, fingertips brushing occasionally against your skin with absent precision.
You stare helplessly at the pale crown of her hair beneath the dim lights.
Larissa removes the shoe, the blood-speckled padding earning a quiet exhale through her nose.
“There it is.”
Humiliation floods you immediately. You feel absurdly close to apologizing.
“You continued dancing on this,” Larissa says.
“I could still dance.”
“That was not the question.”
Her hand remains lightly wrapped around your ankle, warm and steady.
Rain gathers harder against the windows.
“You are reckless,” she says quietly. “And you mistake recklessness for ambition.”
The words settle heavily between you.
Then her thumb brushes once against the inside of your ankle, thoughtless perhaps, and your entire body reacts like struck wire.
Larissa notices. Of course she notices.
Her eyes lift slowly to yours.
A pause opens between you, sharp enough to split skin.
Then she releases you and stands.
“Again,” she says.
You stare at her. “I can barely stand.”
“Yes.”
No sympathy. No softness. Only that terrible unwavering expectation.
“You want Odette,” Larissa continues. “You want greatness. Yet the moment pain becomes inconvenient, you expect permission to stop.”
“I didn’t ask to stop.”
“No,” she says softly. “You asked to be admired for continuing. You wanted me to see, to notice that you endured the pain. And you thought that I would allow you to stop.”
The words land cleanly because they are true.
Outside, rain streaks silver down the darkened windows. The studio has gone almost black beyond the overhead lights, the mirrors no longer reflecting properly. Only fragments now. A shoulder. A hand. Larissa’s pale face suspended faintly in glass.
Your foot throbs violently inside the ruined shoe.
Every muscle in your body aches.
Still, when Larissa repeats, “Again,” you straighten instinctively beneath the command, and hate the part of yourself that feels proud for obeying.
A/N: Here it is - the last chapter. I am, admittedly, very sad that we've reached the end of this fic, as my Mondays have been made infinitely brighter by sharing them with you. THANK YOU, so deeply, for all of the support - the likes/kudos, comments, and feedback that have reached me over the past thirteen weeks have been a great source of joy. I hope to post a one shot soon that I've been working on. Happy Monday and take care of yourselves xxx
Tucked against Larissa’s chest, with her arm draped over your waist and the covers tangled around the both of you, is how you woke on Christmas morning. You felt safe. Protected. The air was cold but her body was radiating a comforting warmth, keeping you cocooned in your own little shared world.
For just a fraction of a second, the comfort gave you pause — was this some sort of dream? Had last night actually happened? You couldn’t believe you were just allowed to nuzzle into Larissa like this, without reservations or restraint, but then her hand flexed against your lower back as she stirred, fingertips brushing against the exposed strip of skin just above your waistband, and all of the tension melted away as you let her touch soothe your worries.
Before you even opened your eyes you pressed your nose deeper against Larissa’s chest, inhaling the intoxicating scent that clung to her. The top of her cleavage was soft against the tip of your nose, and it smelled faintly of jasmine, vanilla, laundry detergent, and a natural musk you’d eventually come to recognize as the scent of her sweat.
“Your nose is cold.” Larissa’s chest vibrated against your face with every word, and you burrowed deeper against her skin as she spoke, a sheepish smile spreading across your face.
“I’m sorry,” you said with a giggle, pressing an apologetic kiss to her sternum as you peeked up at her. It was impossible not to have your breath taken away by the way Larissa was looking down at you, her expression soft and sleepy, her eyes half-lidded, her lips cracked, her hair falling across her cheek. You reached up, brushing the offending strand of hair back and tucking it behind her ear. Larissa’s tongue darted out to wet her lips, her cheeks flushing as your fingers trailed along her jaw before reaching her chin, tilting it down so that you could kiss her — you could hardly believe that you could just do that now.
“How’d you sleep?” you mumbled as you pulled back from the kiss, sucking your own bottom lip into your mouth just to savor the taste of her.
Larissa hummed thoughtfully, propping her head up on her hand and regarding you, her other hand rubbing up and down your waist. “Very well, thank you.” Her voice dropped nearly a full register lower than usual, and it sent a shiver down your spine. “How did you sleep?”
“Good.” You burrowed again into her chest, as if trying to create a nest there, missing the way her lips twitched in amusement. “Really good.”
Larissa hugged you tightly against her, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. She shifted onto her back, pulling you with her, and a soft groan left her lips.
“You okay?” you asked, peeking up at her with a furrowed brow.
“Of course,” she assuaged you softly, chuckling when the crease between your brows only deepened. “The bruise, darling... My hip is a bit sore.”
“Oh, fuck, I’m sorry, am I putting pressure on it?” You tried to pull back but Larissa locked her arms around you, shaking her head with a laugh.
“It’s alright.”
“Can I see it?”
Larissa huffed, clearly not used to being fussed over, but her grip on you loosened all the same. You pulled yourself free from her grasp, pulling down the covers and hooking your finger beneath the waistband of her pajama pants — before pausing and looking inquiringly up at her. She smiled, though her cheeks turned a bit pink, and pulled the trousers and her underwear down for you, just past her hip on one side to reveal bruised skin.
“Ouch,” you whispered, tracing a feather-light fingertip along the edge of it. The bruise was still massive, the center a rich purple, though the edges had already turned a muddy shade of yellow. It was quite the brilliant contrast to the alabaster tone of her skin. “It looks very tender…”
“It is,” Larissa chuckled, watching the path of your fingertips along the outline of the bruise.
“It’s healing fast, isn’t it?” you murmured, fascinated by how quickly it was already changing color.
“The perks of being a shapeshifter…”
You glanced up at her to see her watching you with a smirk on her face. “Really?”
“Our bodies regenerate a bit quicker than most.”
“Oh…” Being a normie, you weren’t too familiar with different types of outcasts — despite your proximity to Nevermore in recent years, you still spent a majority of your time with other normies, and your knowledge was mostly limited to the more common or obvious types of outcasts; vampires, werewolves, sirens. Before Larissa had mentioned being a shapeshifter, it hadn’t even really dawned on you that they existed, though it seemed obvious enough now. “I’m ashamed to admit I don’t really know anything about shapeshifters.”
Larissa carded her hands through your hair, smiling softly down at you. “Even many outcasts don’t know much about shapeshifters, darling, it’s alright. You can ask me anything you like, you know.”
Scratching gently but insistently against your scalp, Larissa’s fingers were slowly but surely turning your brain to mush, sending a warm, tingly feeling straight down your spine. You let out a thoughtful hum. “I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to start,” you admitted softly, and Larissa’s smile widened.
“We have all the time in the world…”
Her words made your insides melt and you rested your cheek against the soft skin of her plush thigh, careful not to put pressure on the edge of the bruise. You sighed, your breath fluttering across her skin, and watched goosebumps rise in its wake. Fingers tightened in your hair and Larissa’s thigh flexed beneath your cheek. Glancing up at her, you could see how dark her gaze had become, pupils slightly dilated as she watched you, and you pressed your lips gently to the crease of her hip, maintaining eye contact.
“How very cheeky of you,” she husked, her voice deep and gravelly, the look on her face equal parts flustered and wanting.
Her expression was quickly stirring up a hard-to-ignore heat in your own abdomen, and you smiled against her skin before giving it a gentle nip that earned you a raised eyebrow. “Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.”
“Come here,” Larissa said, tugging you up by the hair until your lips met in a heated kiss that took your breath away — you straddled her, your arms wrapping around her shoulders as you held her close, your tongue brushing into her mouth and eliciting a delicious moan from her chest.
Outside in the hall, the quick pitter-patter of footsteps and slamming doors could be heard, and you couldn’t help but grin into the kiss. It was Christmas morning, after all, and your niece was nothing if not eager to see what gifts Santa had to offer her this year. “Let’s see if she knocks first,” you mumbled against Larissa’s lips, receiving a hum in return as the footsteps stopped, another door slammed, and then the footsteps resumed, coming closer.
There was indeed a knock on your bedroom door moments later, and you adjusted yourself on Larissa’s lap and pulled the blankets up to hide her half-exposed thigh. “Come in,” you called out — seconds later, the door flew open and Alice barrelled across the room and jumped onto the edge of the bed, landing on all fours and beginning to bounce eagerly on the mattress.
“Santa was here!” she exclaimed, reaching out to grab your hand and trying to tug you off the bed.
You laughed, resisting. “I know, sweetheart, we’ll be right there, okay?” Alice’s eyes widened, her head bobbing up and down. “You go first.”
And off she went, as quickly as she’d come, leaving you and Larissa alone again, though with the bedroom door wide open. You groaned softly. “Guess it’s time to get up.”
Larissa pressed her lips to your temple. “I suppose it is… wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”
“I doubt she’ll wait for us to start unwrapping her presents,” you mused with a chuckle, sliding off Larissa’s lap and digging around in your dresser for something to throw on, settling on a cozy sweater and jeans.
Larissa, meanwhile, began to head to the bathroom with an armful of clothes and her toiletries bag. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“Yeah, I’ll be in the kitchen?”
Larissa nodded, offering you a soft smile before closing the bathroom door behind her.
Meanwhile, you changed quickly and padded down the hall into the kitchen, rummaging around for mugs for hot chocolate as the rest of your family slowly and tiredly emerged from their respective bedrooms. A glance at the clock on the oven told you that it was 7:48 am — of course Alice would have you all up before 8 on Christmas morning. She was the only one in the house with any sort of energy, already in a chatty mood and almost literally bouncing off the walls in the adjacent living room as she waited for the adults to get settled. Your mother and your sister joined you in the kitchen, the former putting on a pot of coffee before heading into the living room and the latter carrying your tired nephew in her arms, greeting you with a stifled yawn.
“Is Larissa coming or is she still sleeping?” Deanna asked curiously, an almost knowing glint in her eyes that brought a flush to your cheeks.
“No, she’s coming,” you said softly, focusing on measuring out hot chocolate powder.
You could tell Deanna wanted to say more (she always did) but, at that moment, long arms encircled your waist and Larissa’s chin came to rest on top of your head.
“You were fast,” you teased, trying not to let the warm length of Larissa’s body pressed against your back distract you from the task at hand.
“I decided to leave my hair down.” Larissa’s voice vibrated against your head, an oddly soothing feeling that had you leaning back against her for more.
“You look nice with your hair down,” you commented quietly, and Larissa hummed in response, her arms squeezing you a bit tighter before letting go — you made a soft noise of protest which drew a chuckle from Larissa’s throat.
Glancing over your shoulder, you felt your jaw drop — Larissa looked incredible, the only one in the house who’d put any effort into their appearance that early in the morning. She had indeed left her hair down, silvery locks cascading over her shoulders, though she’d done her makeup (albeit a bit lighter than usual, forgoing eyeliner). Her lips were painted their usual ruby red, a gorgeous contrast to the forest green dress she wore — velvet, with a high collar and a lace trim.
“What?” Larissa asked, her cheeks turning pink and her lips twitching at the outer corners.
You shook your head, acutely aware of the heat rising in your face. “Nothing. You look incredible.” You scratched awkwardly at the back of your neck, flustered.
“You’re a bit underdressed,” your sister teased, and you frowned, flipping her off.
“So are you,” you retorted.
Larissa suppressed a smile, clasping her hands awkwardly in front of her as her gaze darted between you and your sister as if watching a riveting tennis match.
Footsteps sounded from the living room, coming closer and closer, and Alice padded into the room, hovering in the doorway and rocking on the balls of her feet. “Mommyyy,” she whined, causing Deanna to let out a tired sigh and follow her daughter into the living room and leave you and Larissa alone in the kitchen.
Larissa took a step towards you, slowly infiltrating your personal space until you had to crane your neck back slightly to meet her gaze. A blush spread down your neck as her hands came to rest on the counter on either side of you, caging you in.
“Hi,” you whispered, your eyes darting between Larissa’s own.
She smiled softly. “Hi.” Then, in a much quieter voice, as if unused to giving such compliments: “You look beautiful.”
You could feel your heart hammer against your chest as if threatening to break free, your stomach strangely light and floaty. “Thanks,” you murmured hoarsely, hesitating for a moment before leaning up to press a kiss to the corner of Larissa’s lips — feeling them curl into a smile.
Larissa stepped back and offered you her hand. “Shall we?”
Feeling almost dizzy with desire and affection, you took her hand in your own, offering her a mug of hot chocolate with your other hand and then picking up your own mug. Hand in hand, you headed into the living room.
Your sister and her husband had outdone themselves — gifts for the kids spilled out from beneath the Christmas tree, neatly wrapped in colorful paper, adorned with ribbons and bows. Your mother pulled you in for a hug as you entered the room, nearly making you spill your hot chocolate, before turning her attention to Larissa and gushing over her beauty until she was red-faced and speechless.
Alice was finally allowed to start unwrapping presents, and she tore into the paper of each one with a feverish glee that you hadn’t experienced on Christmas since your own youth. Ben was much more calm and cautious with his gifts, the contrast between the siblings almost comical, but with all of the adult’s attention on the children, you and Larissa could exchange your own gifts in relative peace.
“You first,” you said, gently pushing a small box into Larissa’s lap. She was careful tearing into the paper, lifting it at the corners and trying not to rip it — it was an endearing sight, and you fought hard not to tease her about it. In the box were several bags of your own blend of peppermint hot chocolate that you sold at the Weathervane, lovingly hand-labelled ‘to my favorite customer.’ “As promised,” you said, watching a smile bloom on Larissa’s face.
“You’ll make it for me, I presume?” Larissa purred, batting her lashes in a way that made your knees feel like jell-o.
“Every morning,” you replied hoarsely, making Larissa laugh softly.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she teased. “It’d be quite the drive to Nevermore and back before the Weathervane opens.”
“I don’t care,” you said quickly — then blushed profusely. Larissa’s own cheeks matched yours, and her hands tightened around the box on her lap. You cleared your throat. “Anyway, there’s something else.”
Larissa took the second gift from you, tilting her head curiously. She picked carefully at the taped edge of the paper, lifting it gently, then lifting the tissue paper from the gift — a silk scarf you’d picked up from a boutique in Burlington, sage green and cream with little golden threads woven throughout, and an intricately detailed pattern of leaves and little white flowers.
Deep blue eyes lifted to meet yours, her gaze wide and impossibly soft. She looked down at the scarf again, running her hand over it. “Thank you,” she whispered, her nostrils flaring slightly.
“Do you like it?” you whispered back anxiously, and Larissa’s hand immediately darted out to cover your own, fingers squeezing yours.
“I love it,” she reassured you softly. “It’s very beautiful.”
You squeezed her hand back, blushing. “Not half as beautiful as you.” Larissa scoffed, rolling her eyes — eyes that were slightly watery.
“You flatter me too much. Here,” she reached behind herself on the sofa, procuring an envelope with your name on the front in the most beautiful, sloping calligraphy. “Merry Christmas.”
You took it gingerly, raising an eyebrow at Larissa, who looked suddenly anxious and very stiff, though you could tell she was trying to conceal it. Opening the envelope, you pulled out a piece of thick paper — personal stationary, with ‘Principal Larissa Weems’ and the Nevermore crest in the corner — and a smaller, rectangular piece of paper fluttered into your lap, also adorned with the Nevermore crest.
Your brow furrowed as you picked up that paper first — then your heart skipped a beat as you saw it was a check, with a few too many zeros on it. “What…?” you whispered through the lump in your throat.
She brushed her fingers against the letter and you unfolded it, scanning it quickly. In her own elegant, slanted, looping writing, a proposal for a complete remodel of the Weathervane’s old kitchen.
“Larissa…” Your voice was hoarse, failing you. Your gaze darted between the paper in your hands and Larissa’s anxious expression. “I can’t accept this,” you whispered.
“It’s an investment,” she whispered back, her hands coming to rest on your thighs, trembling slightly. “In your future. And in the Weathervane. You’re always talking about how much work it still needs…”
“I…” Your eyes darted between her own, searching, as your pulse fluttered in your throat. “Are you sure?”
Larissa nodded once, blinking slowly.
“Larissa?”
“Yes?”
“Can I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
Dropping the check, your hands flew to Larissa’s cheeks, cupping them and holding her head in place as you leaned up and pressed your lips firmly to hers. Her lips parted for you, allowing you to slip your tongue between them, not caring about your family or her lipstick or anything except feeling as much of your girlfriend as possible.
Larissa’s hands squeezed your thighs, her thumbs rubbing soothing, grounding circles against the fabric of your trousers. Your cheeks began to grow damp, though it took you a moment to realize that it was because you’d begun to cry, and you quickly pulled away to apologize for getting Larissa’s face wet — only to be confronted with the absolute mess you’d made of her lipstick, red smudged up to the tip of her nose and at the sides of her mouth, making her look vaguely like the Joker.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” you said with a wet laugh, tugging the sleeve of your sweater over your hand and reaching up to wipe the lipstick off Larissa’s nose — but she swatted your hand away instead, cupping your cheek and going in for another, deeper kiss that knocked the breath right out of your lungs.
You laughed into the kiss, feeling lightheaded with joy when Larissa echoed your laugh, her breath warm against your mouth. “I don’t deserve you,” you whispered against her lips, disbelief still coursing through your veins along with a healthy dose of adrenaline.
“You do,” she whispered back, smiling, pulling back just enough to rest her forehead against yours. “You deserve the world.”
“Lucky I have you then, I guess…”
“Auntie Rissy,” Alice exclaimed with a tug on Larissa’s skirt, making the both of you look down at her. “Look!” She held up a new doll she’d gotten, an expectant look on her face as she waited for Larissa’s approval of the gift, one she’d previously told Larissa she was hoping to receive.
“You got her,” Larissa said warmly, brushing a hand through Alice’s hair and grinning as Alice nodded excitedly up at her. You glanced up to see Deanna watching you with a knowing smirk, holding back a thousand and one comments that would probably come out later, in private — after all, if Larissa’s lipstick was smudged across half her face, you could only imagine how your own face looked.
“Don’t,” you warned Deanna, and Larissa tilted her head, giving you a quizzical look — you shook your head, a blush rising in your cheeks. “Forget it.”
“You have a little…” Larissa lifted her thumb to the corner of your mouth to wipe off some lipstick and you laughed.
“Just a little?”
“Alright, a lot… perhaps we should go wash our faces?”
“Perhaps?” you teased with a grin. “Perhaps… later…” you murmured, pressing your lips to hers again — pleased when she responded immediately and with urgency. “Merry Christmas, Larissa,” you mumbled into the kiss.
I'm FUCKING CRAVING an enemies-to-lovers story with Jane Murdstone, where Reader is Edward's fiancée and Jane isn't happy about it, so she makes Reader's life miserable. Reader can't stand her anymore, and one day they get into a fight. It starts verbally, but then it escalates into a physical fight, which leads to… HATE SEX😛 (like very hateful sex, but obviously with consent.)
A Study in Correction (NSFW)
Jane Murdstone x fem!reader
A/N: You have NO idea how giddy this request made me!! Hate sex is one of my favourite tropes, and I rarely ever write it (a shame, truly). I really hope you’ll enjoy this, because I sure hope enjoyed writing it! <3
You’ve endured Jane Murdstone’s scrutiny for weeks now, each day a fresh litany of her corrections chipping away at your resolve. But today, in the heavy hush of the Murdstone household, it feels personal—as if she’s decided your very existence is an affront to her brother’s orderly world.
It begins innocently enough, or so you believe. Edward is in his study, his voice drifts occasionally through the doorway—soft murmurs to himself, the scratch of pen against paper.
Leaving you alone with her.
You are arranging the drawing room for tea when she appears beside you. Not suddenly, Jane Murdstone never startles, but with the quiet inevitability of a shadow sliding across the floor.
At six foot three, she hardly needs to assert herself. Her height alone narrows the space around her. The black of her dress absorbs the light, her dark hair is wound tightly at the nape of her neck, not a strand permitted rebellion.
“The roses,” she says, voice low and precise as she eyes the vase you’ve just filled. You inhale slowly. “They’re arranged too loosely. Edward dislikes that. Recut the stems at a sharper angle. Forty-five degrees, no more.”
You bite back the urge to point out that Edward has never once commented on the flowers. “As you say, Miss Murdstone.”
She doesn’t smile. Instead, she plucks a bloom from the vase herself, holding it up to the light like evidence in a trial. Her long fingers dwarf the stem, snapping it cleanly with a sound like breaking bone.
“Watch,” she instructs, demonstrating the cut with surgical calm. “Precision matters. Sloppiness betrays weakness of character.”
The barb lands, but you nod, resetting the vase under her unblinking stare. Edward calls from the study then and you both straighten, the momentary truce holding until he shuffles in, oblivious to the frost between you.
He drinks his cup without remark on the flowers, praises the blend—your choice, pointedly, and retreats again. Jane waits until his footsteps fade before resuming.
“Your posture at the table,” she murmurs, circling you as you clear the cups. Her shadow falls long across the rug; you feel it like a weight on your shoulders. “You lean forward when you listen. It suggests eagerness to please. Unbecoming in a wife.”
“I lean forward because I’m attending to conversation,” you reply, stacking saucers with more force than necessary. “Unlike some, who merely judge it.”
Her eyes narrow, but her tone stays even, almost gentle—the worst kind of reprimand. “Judgment preserves order. You would do well to cultivate it. Edward needs a partner, not a simpering girl chasing approval.”
The room tilts with suppressed fury. You set the tray down, turning to face her fully. She’s close now, too close, her height forcing you to crane your neck. Up close, her features are sharper than ever. High cheekbones, pale skin stretched taut over bone.
“Perhaps Edward needs a wife who trusts his judgment,” you say quietly, “not a sister who polices her every move.”
A muscle ticks in her jaw. “You mistake vigilance for interference. This house, his life, demands standards you have yet to grasp.”
The afternoon drags on like this, her orbiting you through domestic tasks, each reprimand a velvet-wrapped blade. In the parlor, she adjusts your embroidery hoop. At the pianoforte, where Edward briefly joins to hear you play, she critiques your tempo afterward. Even as you mend a tear in Edward’s coat under her supervision, she looms by the window, arms folded, dissecting your needlework stitch by stitch.
“You hesitate,” she observes, voice dropping as Edward dozes in his chair nearby. “Confidence, girl. Or do you fear the thread will snap?”
The word girl ignites you—reductive, infantilizing, as if your engagement evaporates your womanhood. Your needle pricks your finger, a bead of blood wells on your skin. You suck it away, glaring up at her silhouette against the light.
“Fear is your domain, Miss Murdstone,” you whisper, low enough not to wake him. “You haunt every room like a governess without a pupil.”
She steps closer, skirts brushing your knee, her shadow swallowing you whole. “And you play the fiancée without conviction. Shall I wake Edward to ask his thoughts on your… performance?”
Your heart hammers. Edward stirs, mutters, settles again. The air thickens, electric with what’s unsaid.
By evening, as twilight bleeds through the curtains, you’re alone in the drawing room—Edward called away to a neighbor, leaving you to tidy under Jane’s watchful eye. She’s relentless now, her reprimands shedding civility like a snake’s skin.
“Your hands,” she says, seizing your wrist mid-dust as you polish the mantel. Her grip is iron, thumb pressing against your pulse. “They tremble. Compose yourself.”
You wrench free, spinning to face her. “Compose myself? While you dissect me like a specimen?”
Her lips thin. “Discipline is mercy. You’ll thank me when it spares you humiliation.”
“I’ll thank you to leave me be,” you snap, voice rising despite yourself. “This is to be my house. My life with him. Not your prison of rules.”
She straightens to her full height, a tower of black bombazine and suppressed rage. “Your house? You are a guest here. Tolerated. And barely.”
The dam breaks. You shove the polishing cloth at her chest, it bounces harmlessly off. “Tolerated? Like your endless corrections? Your control? Edward sees right through you, a spinster clinging to his sleeve!”
Her face drains of color, then flushes dark. In two strides, she’s upon you, hand snapping to your chin, forcing your gaze up. “You know nothing of control. Or clinging.”
You slap her hand away, the crack echoing. Her eyes widen—shock, then something feral.
“You will apologize,” she hisses, crowding you back toward the wall.
“No.”
Her palm slams the panel beside your head, caging you. “You will apologise before you make a mistake you cannot mend.”
You brace for a slap, for her to shove you against the wall and storm from the room in righteous outrage. Instead, she grips your wrists again, and yanks you forward with a sharp, startled sound, your bodies colliding with enough force to knock the breath from your chest.
Your gasp is swallowed by the solid line of her, by the unforgiving stays beneath her dress, by the sheer height of her, enclosing you in shadow and black wool. You feel caged, caught—and, horribly, treacherously, something inside you thrills at it.
“Is this what you wanted?” she bites out, face inches from yours. Her breath is hot against your cheek. “To provoke me? To see what I would do if you pushed hard enough?”
You mean to answer with contempt, with some cutting retort that will slice clean through the tension. Instead, what comes out is little more than a whisper. “You were already waiting for an excuse.”
Her eyes flare, and that is when you see it—what you were not supposed to notice. The dilation of her pupils. The way her gaze flicks to your mouth, a quick, punished movement, as if she hopes you will not see the betrayal of it.
Your wrists ache beneath her fingers, but the bite of her grip sends heat crawling up your arms, pooling low in your belly. You should be repulsed. You should be doing anything but leaning forward, just slightly, as if drawn.
“You are outrageous,” she says, but her voice has dropped, roughened, the edges fraying. “You should be begging for my forgiveness.”
“I will never beg you for anything,” you whisper.
Her gaze lingers on your throat, and when she speaks, the words come slower, like each one costs her.
“You do not want me to let go.”
It is not a question. It is a diagnosis.
You hate how true it is.
Your laugh is breathless, shaky. “You think very highly of your own influence, Miss Murdstone.”
“Jane,” she corrects fiercely, as if the sound itself could anchor her to sanity.
“Jane,” you echo, because you are foolish, because the name feels like a sin in your mouth. Her fingers spasm around your wrists.
In one swift motion, she pins you back against the wall, caging you there with her body. The impact knocks a framed print askew. The glass rattles, a brittle protest. You gasp, more from shock than pain, and she presses closer, using every inch of her height to tower, to loom, to dominate.
“Look at you,” she murmurs, voice low and almost horrified. “You cannot decide whether to strike me or—”
She does not finish the sentence. She does not need to.
Your hands, freed for an instant, find the front of her bodice, fingers clawing at the rigid line of buttons. You don’t know whether you mean to push her away or drag her nearer, the result is the same. The fabric creaks. Her breath catches.
“Or what?” you demand. “Go on. Say it. You correct everything else I do—why stop your tongue now?”
Her hand moves to close around your throat—not squeezing, not yet, but firm, possessive, her thumb resting against the frantic thud of your pulse. Your head tips back against the wall, baring more of your neck to her. She stares as if transfixed.
“You do not know what you ask,” she says softly, and there is something almost broken in it. “You do not understand what it would mean, if I… indulged you.”
Your voice shakes, but it doesn’t falter. “Then show me.”
The last thread of her restraint snaps.
Her mouth crashes into yours with none of the delicacy expected of a woman of her station. There is nothing gentle in it, it is all teeth and anger and pent-up hunger, years of denial exploding at once. Your back scrapes the wall, you cling to her shoulders, to the hard line of muscle beneath all that severity, to anything that will keep you from collapsing.
You taste tea and steel and something undeniably her, something sharp and addictive. She kisses like she argues—unyielding, punishing, determined to win. You fight her for control out of instinct, answering her roughness with your own, biting her lower lip hard enough to make her hiss.
Her hand tightens on your throat in reflex, a warning squeeze that sends heat shooting straight through you. You flinch, but you don’t pull away. If anything, you arch into her.
She feels it. Of course she does.
“Oh,” she breathes against your mouth, half-mad with revelation. “You like this.”
Humiliation scorches your cheeks. “You are vile.”
“And you are lying,” she snarls, and kisses you again, deeper, forcing your lips apart, swallowing whatever protest you might have made.
Her free hand fists in your skirts, dragging them brutally upward, bunching the fabric around your hips. The sudden rush of cool air through your open drawers makes you gasp into her mouth. She curses under her breath, a raw, unladylike sound you have never heard from her before.
“Tell me to stop,” she says, the words barely more than a growl. Her forehead presses to yours, both of you panting. “Say it now, and I swear I will.”
You stare up at her, at the war raging behind her eyes—discipline and desire tearing each other to pieces. You realize, with a jolt, that this is the only mercy she will offer you. This single, trembling chance to retreat.
You should take it.
“Do it,” you whisper instead. “If you’re so certain I don’t understand, then teach me.”
Whatever fragile restraint remained in her shatters completely.
Her eyes burn into yours, wild and triumphant, as if your surrender has unlocked some forbidden part of her she’s kept chained for years. “You have no idea,” she rasps, “the ruin you invite.”
With a savage yank, she tears your skirts higher, the fabric of your drawers ripping at the seams under her strength. Her long fingers dig into the soft flesh of your thighs, spreading them apart with ruthless efficiency, pinning one leg against the wall. You’re exposed, vulnerable, the cool air shocking against your dampening core—and she sees it, her gaze dropping to where you’re already slick with unwanted need.
“Filthy,” she mutters, voice thick with disgust and hunger. Her thumb drags roughly over your folds, parting them, circling your clit with deliberate cruelty—too hard, too fast, just enough to make your hips jerk involuntarily. “All this from hating me? Look at you. Dripping like a whore.”
You snarl, grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking her head back, exposing the long column of her throat. “And you’re no better,” you hiss, grinding against her hand despite yourself, chasing the friction. “Touching your brother’s fiancée like this. You’re depraved.”
Her laugh is low, broken. A sound that vibrates through her chest into yours. She retaliates by thrusting two fingers inside you without warning, deep and unyielding, curling them against that spot that makes your vision white out. You cry out, biting your lip bloody to stifle it, but she pumps harder, her palm slapping wetly against your clit with each brutal drive.
“Say it again,” she demands, free hand clamping back over your throat. “Call me depraved. I dare you.”
You do, choking it out between gasps: “Depraved—monster—” Your walls clench around her fingers, betraying you, and she groans, her own arousal evident in the flush creeping down her neck, the way her thighs press together beneath her skirts.
She withdraws her fingers abruptly, leaving you empty and aching, and shoves them into your mouth instead. “Clean them,” she orders, eyes locked on yours as you suck, tasting yourself on her skin—salty, musky, humiliatingly intimate. Her breath hitches, pupils blown wide. “Now kneel.”
The command ignites fresh fury. You shove at her chest instead, hard enough to make her stagger, but she’s too tall, too strong. She grabs your waist and lifts you, pinning you down onto the nearby settee like you weigh nothing. The springs creak under the force. You bounce once, skirts a tangled mess around your waist, legs splayed obscenely.
She looms over you, unbuttoning her bodice with one hand while the other holds you by the hip. Buttons ping across the floor, forgotten. Her chemise gapes open, revealing the swell of her breasts, nipples hard peaks straining against the thin fabric. She’s breathing as raggedly as you are, raven hair falling loose from its pins, framing her sharp features in disarray.
“Spread your legs wider,” she says, shedding her skirts with frantic tugs until they pool at her feet. No undergarments. Her cunt is bare, glistening, a dark thatch of hair framing lips swollen with need. She straddles your thigh, grinding down hard, leaving a slick trail on the fabric of your drawers. The heat of her, the sheer size of her bearing down—it’s overwhelming, possessive.
You buck up against her, nails raking down her arms, drawing red lines. “Make me,” you spit, but your hand betrays you, reaching for her breasts, squeezing roughly until she moans a raw, guttural sound that makes your clit throb.
She slaps your hand away, then grabs your wrist and forces it between her legs. “Feel what you’ve done to me, then. Feel how much I loathe you.” Her clit is fat and pulsing under your fingers. You circle it viciously, pinching just to hear her gasp, her hips stuttering. She’s soaked, dripping onto your skin, and the power of it surges through you as she fucks herself on your fingers, riding them with punishing rhythm.
She eventually pushes your hand away with a groan, but she’s not done with you. She leans forward, her weight crushing the air from your lungs, and grinds her soaked folds directly against your cunt—labia sliding wetly over yours, clits bumping with each filthy roll of her hips. It’s messy, graceless, the obscene squelch of it filling the room alongside your mingled curses and moans.
“Tell me you hate me,” she pants, one hand fisting your hair to yank your head back, the other bracing beside your shoulder as she ruts harder, faster. Her breasts drag against yours through the thin barriers of fabric. “Say it while you come.”
“I hate you,” you sob, the words fracturing as pleasure coils tight in your belly. Your legs wrap around her waist, heels digging into her back, urging her on. “I hate—God—Jane—”
Her own name breaks her. She kisses you again, all teeth and tongue, swallowing your cries as she grinds her clit against yours in short, brutal thrusts. Your orgasm hits first—shattering, humiliating, your walls spasming around nothing as you soak her thighs. She follows seconds later, shuddering atop you with a choked growl, her release dripping hot down your skin.
For a long moment, you’re both still—sweaty, ruined, chests heaving. Her forehead drops to your shoulder, black hair tickling your neck. The rage hasn’t vanished. It simmers, waiting.
“You will regret this,” she whispers finally, voice hoarse.
You turn your head, lips brushing her ear. “So will you.”
A/N: happy Monday :p long overdue I think ♡ just a warning, I do think next week's chapter (13) will end up being the last in this fic - as devastating as that is to say. We'll see how writing goes this week 🫧 hope you are all well!!
Deep breaths.
Stopping just outside of your bedroom, you paused for a moment to steel your nerves — and to see if you could hear anything from inside (you couldn’t). You gripped the door handle — why were your hands sweating so much? With a slight ringing in your ears and a suffocating tightness in your chest, you pushed the door open and slipped inside the bedroom, closing the door gently behind you.
Something in your chest loosened the moment you saw Larissa sitting on the edge of your bed, donning cream-colored silk pajamas that hung off her collarbone and clung to her chest, leaving visible the weight of her breasts and the faint outline of her nipples. She was pulling pins carefully from her hair, one by one, methodically tugging each individual curl loose and placing the pins gently beside her into a small, ornate tin. One by one, her curls spilled onto her shoulders, down her back, looking silken in the dim light of the lamp on your bedside table and shining almost yellow in its warm glow, like spun gold.
Larissa looked up as you clicked the door shut and, if you hadn’t been so distracted by how otherworldly she looked sitting in the mundanity of your childhood bedroom, you might have noticed the slight hitch of her breath, or the subtle bob of her throat.
You leaned with your back against the door for a moment, drinking her in, trying to find both the right words to say, and the voice to say them in. “Do you want help?” was all that ended up coming out, in a choked sort of way that made you wish the ground beneath your feet would swallow you whole.
Larissa inclined her head. “Please,” she said quietly, and you took the invitation to sit beside her at the edge of the bed.
Angling your body towards her, you reached up with a trembling hand and pulled at a pin on the left side of her head, loosening the curl that it clung to. “You know, I’m in awe of your hair… It must be so much work, to pin it all up like this every day.”
A ghost of a smile passed across Larissa’s lips. “I find it meditative.”
“You would.” You chuckled as you reached across her lap, dropping the pin into the little tin — it clattered as it joined its companions. As you pulled your arm back it brushed against Larissa’s chest and you felt her suck in a sharp breath. You reached up again, this time taking one of her loose curls between your fingers. It was impossibly soft, and you rubbed the pad of your thumb down the strands of hair, watching them catch the light. When you glanced up Larissa was watching you carefully, her own face cast half in shadow.
You twisted the curl once around your finger then tucked it gently behind her ear, trailing your fingertips down the side of her neck and along the curve of her jaw. As your fingers reached her chin, Larissa’s eyes fluttered shut and her lips parted, and you could feel a subtle shudder against your side.
“Breathe,” you whispered, your own voice pathetically breathy, and Larissa let out a shaky exhale. Gripping her chin between your forefinger and thumb, you tilted it towards you with a gentle downward tug — Larissa let you maneuver her with ease, her eyes still closed and her hands gripping the edge of the bed on either side of her, her pinky brushing against your thigh. You leaned up, your gaze fixed on her lips — devoid of lipstick, a pale pink. Her tongue darted out, leaving behind a thin sheen of saliva. The action made you shudder in anticipation, and your own eyes threatened to fall shut as you felt her shallow breaths fan across your face. “May I kiss you?” you whispered hoarsely, and Larissa’s answer came in the form of her closing the distance between the two of you.
The slight edge of desperation that had marked your first kiss was absent this time. This time, when your lips met Larissa’s, it was slow and unhurried, a gentle press as your hand slid from her chin to her cheek, cupping it as you angled your head a bit more to the side. Larissa began to slowly relax, the tension dropping from her neck and shoulders as she melted into the kiss, her grip on the bed loosening, her hands finding the tops of your thighs, your free hand gripping her hip as the hand on her cheek slid further back, fingers curling behind her ear.
You pulled back just a fraction of an inch to take a breath, then kissed her again, parting your lips this time, waiting for her to do the same before teasing your tongue against her bottom lip. Her fingers twitched against your thighs and her tongue teased you back, licking at your lip just as your own tongue retreated, making a soft noise escape the back of your throat. Larissa’s breath quickened and heat began to pool low in your belly.
Without thinking you pushed yourself up onto your knees and swung one leg over Larissa’s lap — bringing your knee right down on the open tin filled with pins. You hissed, wincing as it dug sharply into your skin and tipped over, spilling the pins across the sheets and onto the floor.
“Shit,” you hissed, pulling back from the kiss. “I’m sorry.” You started to collect the pins from the bed and drop them back into their tin, your cheeks burning. Larissa let out a chuckle, catching your wrist with her hand to still your movements and guide your arm to rest on her shoulder. You met her gaze, your brow furrowing — the look in her eyes, her lowered lids and blown pupils, stole the breath right out of your lungs.
“Leave them,” she said, pushing the tin roughly to the side and placing her hands on your hips, keeping you in place against her.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you again all day,” you admitted hoarsely, stroking your thumb absently across her cheekbone.
Larissa’s fingers flexed against your hips, her lips brushed against yours, teasing and feather-light, her breath warm. “What about our agreement?” she echoed her words from the kitchen earlier, though her voice was softer, laced with something that sounded a lot like hope — it made you feel like you were simultaneously being cracked wide open and stitched back together again.
“Fuck our agreement. Be my girlfriend for real. Please.” The words spilled out of your mouth unbidden but the second you spoke them, you knew they were what you had wanted to say all along.
There was an almost desperate edge to the way that Larissa crashed her lips against yours, her fingers tightening against your hips. “I thought you’d never ask,” she mumbled into the kiss, her voice deep and laced with amusement as it vibrated into your mouth. Heat shot straight to your core, every nerve-ending in your body seemingly alight as you pressed your hips forward against Larissa’s stomach, not quite grinding but seeking full-body contact in any way you could get it. Your arms wound tighter around her neck, as if you were trying to fuse your body to hers — as if you were trying to burrow under her skin and build a home there.
“Is that a yes?” you mumbled between heated kisses, caring very little for how desperate you sounded.
Larissa let out a surprised giggle into your mouth, her lips twitching. “Yes. Yes, darling, yes.” It pleased you that she sounded just as pathetic as you did and you smiled back — the way your teeth clashed with hers only served to make you grin harder.
“Stop smiling so much,” she husked, and you could hear the smile in her voice. “It’s making it difficult to kiss you…”
A giddy laugh bubbled out of your chest, her words making it difficult not to smile even harder. You mumbled an apology into her mouth, only to be met with another laugh when the kiss turned slightly sloppy.
You pushed Larissa gently back against the mattress, guiding her down and covering her body with your own as you made out. The soft noises that began to escape her throat were downright addictive, radiating straight down your spine towards your core and making your toes curl. She was obviously very vocal, her breath coming in heavy and loud against your mouth as her hands splayed across your lower back and hips, holding you in place against her — it made your head spin.
Searching for the bottom of her shirt, you pushed it up just enough to slip beneath it, feeling the soft skin of her stomach beneath your bare hands. You ran them up her sides and she arched into your touch, pushing her rib cage against your palms.
“How are you even real?” you mumbled into Larissa’s mouth as the tips of your thumbs brushed against the bottom of her breasts, making you both shudder in unison. You’d never felt anything quite as soft as the underside of Larissa’s breasts and you dared to run your fingertips along them, eliciting a gasp from the older woman.
“Darling, don’t tease…” she murmured breathlessly. She pulled back from the kiss ever so slightly, opening her eyes, and you met her gaze to find her pupils completely blown, her face flushed a delightful shade of pink.
Her hands flexed against your tailbone, dangerously close to your ass, and you couldn’t help but buck your hips against her, your own cheeks turning red as you huffed out a laugh. “If I’m not allowed to tease then you aren’t either.”
Larissa gave you a shy smile, blinking coyly as she ducked her head in apology. “Sorry,” she said, sliding her hands a bit higher on your back. “Perhaps we should slow down a bit…?”
The implied question made a bolt of desire lance straight through you. Looking down at Larissa, with her darkened gaze and kiss-swollen lips and messy curls, it took every ounce of restraint in your body not to ravish her on the spot. Every bit of your own desire and arousal were mirrored back at you in the woman beneath you, the woman who was impossibly soft and pleasantly warm and unbelievably gorgeous.
With an unsteady sigh, you shook your head, though you were unable to keep the sheer want out of your expression. “Maybe…” You huffed, frustrated. “I want you so bad, I just don’t know if I want to do that… here…” you whispered hoarsely. Your thumbs traced idle patterns at the top of her ribs, just beneath her breasts, the action simultaneously grounding and torturous.
Larissa’s understanding smile was nothing short of your undoing. She gave you a peck on the lips and shifted you both onto your sides, facing each other. “As long as I can still kiss you,” she murmured, her lips once again seeking yours. Smiling, you closed the distance, kissing her again, and again, and again.
“I’d be very upset if you didn’t,” you murmured before brushing your tongue into her mouth with a slow, teasing stroke that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Kissing Larissa was intoxicating — you found yourself craving the feeling of her lips upon yours the second you parted, like some sort of addict. Like no amount of contact would ever be enough to satiate your need for her proximity. Your fingers tangled in her hair and your legs intertwined with her own, and you let yourself be entirely engulfed by her.
Somewhere between serving Larissa hot chocolate every week at the Weathervane and pretending to date her for the sake of your family, you’d fallen for her so deeply that imagining a scenario where you drove her back to Nevermore after Christmas and pretended as though nothing had happened between you felt a lot like ripping your own heart out of your chest. You could hardly fathom the thought.
“I wish we’d been doing this all week,” you confessed softly between kisses, and Larissa smiled as she pulled back to look at you, her fingers curling into the back of your shirt.
“I wish we had been, too.”
You felt your heart skip a beat, your stomach fluttering pleasantly. “Really?”
Larissa nodded, her nose brushing lightly against yours.
“I wasn’t sure… I felt…” You took a breath, your gaze drifting briefly over Larissa’s shoulder as you struggled for words. “I think I was too busy worrying if I was massively overstepping to notice if you liked me or not,” you said finally, your cheeks burning. “You do like me, right?”
Larissa let out a chuckle and you felt her hand cup your cheek, gently guiding you to meet her gaze. Mirth sparkled in her eyes as they danced between your own. “I thought that was clear when I agreed to be your girlfriend.”
“Well…” When she put it like that… “I mean, yeah, okay, but before that?”
“I liked you before that, too,” she confessed, her voice low and certain.
“How long before?” you dared ask, holding your breath.
Larissa hesitated visibly, her long fingers tightening twitching against your cheek, her gaze flitting away from yours for a moment before she seemingly forced it back to your own. “I think I realized at your parent’s Christmas party that I wanted this to mean more than I thought it did. Though,” she swallowed thickly, “if I’m being honest, I don’t think I’d have come here at all if I didn’t already like you a little bit.”
Her confession made you feel dizzy and you closed your eyes, dropping your forehead against hers. “Oh.” You couldn’t help but let out a relieved laugh. “I feel silly for worrying so much.”
“If it helps at all, so do I,” Larissa retorted with a smile, her lips pressing briefly against yours once again. “I’ve been dreading the moment we go back to Jericho and nothing has changed between us.”
“And here I was thinking you couldn’t wait to get away from my family and this tiny bed,” you teased, making Larissa laugh again — a sound that you were quickly becoming addicted to.
“I meant it when I said I’ve been thoroughly enjoying myself. Your family is lovely, and I would miss them terribly.”
“Ohhh, you’d miss them, would you? Do I even factor in at all?”
“Oh hush, darling, you know exactly what I mean. After I kissed you in the car I was afraid I’d never be able to show my face at the Weathervane again.”
“As if that would deter me… I’d probably have started leaving little hearts on your to go cups.”
Larissa’s cheeks turned pink. “Flattery will get you very far,” she said, her voice dangerously low.
You grinned. “Oh, will it? And if I tell you that you’re genuinely the most radiant woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on, and that I thought you were so far out of my league that I couldn’t even entertain the thought of liking you?”
You’d never seen another person turn so red so quickly before and it almost made you laugh. Larissa’s eyes widened and her grip tightened against your cheek, her palm turning almost clammy — you reached up to take her hand in your own and hold it between your chests.
“You can’t be serious,” she murmured breathlessly, her eyes sparkling in the lamplight. She huffed. “I’m not out of anyone’s league.”
“Okay, most people would definitely disagree with that,” you argued. “Have you seen yourself?”
“Darling, please–”
You cut Larissa off with a deep kiss, pressing your torso against her own and slotting your leg between hers, cradling her jaw gently in your hand and feeling the muscles there flex as she parted her lips to slip her tongue into your mouth. “So beautiful,” you hummed, reveling in the soft little moan Larissa let out as your tongue flicked against hers.
You could have kissed her forever, until you were both breathless and dizzy, until you were so deliriously tired that you could hardly keep your eyes open. As the hour grew later and later, the sky outside an inky black and dotted with stars, snow fell just outside your bedroom window and frosted over the windowpane. The house was silent, as though there was a bubble around your bed, keeping everything else out except the warmth of Larissa’s body and the sound of her heavy breaths and whispered words.
Larissa pulled back and rested her head against your shoulder, stifling a yawn — you nuzzled your nose against the top of her hair, her scent sending a ripple of tranquility through you. “Let’s get some sleep? We’ll have to be up early for presents anyway…”
“I almost forgot about Christmas…” she mused with a chuckle, lifting her head to meet your gaze with a sleepy smile as you reached down to fumble with the blankets, tugging them out from beneath the both of you and making sure to tuck them carefully around her.
The room was bathed in shadow when you flicked off the lamp on the bedside table. For a moment, it was too dark to see anything — then, as your eyes adjusted, you could make out the faint outline of Larissa’s face in front of you, her hair a silvery halo backlit by the moon outside.
And, above you, those glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling.
“Goodnight, Larissa,” you whispered, nuzzling as close to her as humanly possible, allowing your hand to rest on the curve of her waist.
“Goodnight,” she whispered back, her breath ghosting across your face. “Sleep well, my love.”
Warmth bloomed in your chest, unfurling like a flower. My love.
A/N: I just finished this chapter this morning as last week was so busy and then the weekend was spent in London at the Sleaford Mods concert. When I tell you I am still in awe and shock at having been blessed to see Gwendoline's performance with my own two eyes from the front row... I am never ever getting over this, I fear. She was fucking incredible.
The house was bustling with action: Deanna was comforting a crying Ben, your mother was cursing over something from the other room, Dan was helping your father set up a tripod in the living room. The dog started barking the moment Larissa stepped across the threshold into the front hallway, making her jump back nervously.
You closed the door behind yourself and your mother, who had clearly been busy in the kitchen before you’d arrived, began to fuss over you, smoothing some flyaway hairs down even as you tried to duck away. “There you are! I was beginning to think we’d have to take the photo without you.” She took off her apron and tossed it onto a table by the door. “Larissa, dear, would you come with me a moment?”
Larissa glanced quizzically over her shoulder but you simply shrugged, your brow furrowing slightly. Turning again, she followed your mother down the hall into your parent’s bedroom, carefully side-stepping the dog with a wary glance.
Your mother closed the door behind Larissa, and the moment suddenly felt too familiar — like when Larissa had been in her first year at Nevermore and Morticia had invited her home for the summer, and Grandmama had shown Larissa how to conduct a proper séance while Morticia went out with her friends. She felt thirteen again.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for being too sentimental,” Joan started, pulling Larissa back into the present as she opened the top drawer of her dresser. Larissa made a soft noise of protest. “My daughter hasn’t brought anyone home in years — well, to be honest, she’s hardly been home at all in years. You’re good for her.”
Larissa listened in silence — she didn’t trust herself to speak, not when she could feel the ghost of your lips against her own, not when she wasn’t sure what the kiss meant for the two of you.
“Anyway,” Joan turned around, a necklace dangling from her index finger — a thin, gold chain with a small, teardrop-shaped sapphire pendant. Larissa’s heart stuttered. “I thought of this the moment I first saw you. It’s just about the same color as your eyes.”
Larissa looked away instinctively. “Thank you,” she said, her voice tight, carefully restrained.
“It was a gift from Henry when we first started dating. Between the two of us,” Joan lowered her voice conspiratorially, “He’s a sweet man but absolutely clueless. I haven’t worn it since, blue isn’t my color.” Larissa forced a smile, though she could hardly hear a word your mother was saying over the rush of her pulse in her ears. “I’d like you to have it.”
There they were, the words she’d known were coming the moment she laid eyes on the necklace. Larissa silently willed Joan to take them back, but it seemed to be her unlucky day, as the woman pressed on.
“It would suit you so well.” Joan unclipped the clasp and walked around Larissa, and she felt her throat tighten.
“I couldn’t possibly–”
“Please,” Joan insisted, placing the necklace around Larissa’s neck and doing the clasp from behind. In spite of herself, Larissa bent her knees and leaned back awkwardly, just so she wouldn’t have to feel Joan sway on her tip-toes behind her. “I see the way you two look at each other, it’s that same foolish look Henry always gives me. I haven’t seen her this happy in a long time. Take it.”
Larissa swallowed thickly — the necklace was light and dainty, and yet it felt like a truckload of cement resting upon her sternum. Joan stood in front of Larissa then, smiling in satisfaction as she placed her hands on Larissa’s shoulders and turned her gently towards the window. The light caught the sapphire, sparkling a deep, rich blue in the afternoon sun. “It suits you.”
“Thank you,” Larissa said, almost robotically, her heart and her mind racing as she tried to force a smile.
“Thank you. Welcome to the family. Now–” Joan turned Larissa again, this time towards the bedroom door. “Let’s go take that photo, before we lose the natural light.”
Larissa allowed herself to be led back into the hallway and to the living room, her legs moving on autopilot. Something inside her felt fractured, and she had to trust that her years of putting on a confident persona as an educator and principal of Nevermore would pay off and carry her through the next few hours.
The rest of your family was already gathered in the living room, Deanna was combing Alice’s tangled hair, and you stood from the sofa the moment Larissa entered the room. Your gaze was immediately drawn to the necklace resting against Larissa’s sternum, and her hand flew up subconsciously to finger the pendant. “You okay?” you mouthed, your brow furrowed. Larissa inclined her head once, stepping to the side and leaning against the wall with her hands clasped in front of her as you and the rest of your family gathered in front of the Christmas tree and your father adjusted the camera.
“Oh, no, sweetheart, come here,” Joan said, waving Larissa over — her eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“That’s alright,” she said quickly, the polite smile on her face masking the stab of anxiety that came with being in a family photo she didn’t think she had any right to be in.
She was helpless against your mother, though, who turned to you and insisted you pull Larissa into the frame. “I’m sorry,” you whispered as you took Larissa’s hand.
Larissa smoothed a hand over her hair, picked at an invisible piece of lint on the front of her dress, straightened the necklace — when she glanced down and caught your gaze, you were suppressing a smile.
“You look great,” you murmured, your voice slightly husky, and Larissa willed her legs not to buckle. Your arm wound around her waist, pulling her tightly into your side, your fingers splaying across her hip as your dad clicked the shutter and quickly hurried into position beside your mom. When you released her from your grip after the photos were taken, Larissa wasn’t even sure if she had smiled for them.
She felt torn. She knew she should be happy, over the moon. You’d obviously reciprocated the kiss, enthusiastically so — the moan you’d let out when she’d tugged your hair seemed to ring in her ears even now, hours later. And you were smiling at her, even flirting with her — that was almost more than she’d ever dared hope for.
And yet, Larissa couldn’t help the guilt that kept creeping in throughout the evening, and it seemed that everything that happened only intensified the feeling. The weight of the necklace on her chest. Your mother asking her to set the table for dinner. The way your sister trusted her with questions about school choices for Alice and Ben. When Alice called her “Auntie Rissy”, with the sharp lisp on the s’s, and tugged at her sleeve to show her, very proudly, how one of her bottom teeth was loose now, too.
Or when you’d all settled in the living room after dinner and Ben waddled over to her, of all people, and insisted on sitting on her lap.
Larissa wound her arms around your nephew as he rested against her, his eyelids growing heavy, and gently stroked his soft curls. She glanced down at him to see his chubby cheek smushed against her chest, and she couldn’t help but press a feather-light kiss to the crown of his head, her heart fit to bursting.
Watching you laugh with your sister, she realized she would miss this. Your family. You. In spite of being thrown in the deep end at every turn, she’d never felt so accepted or cared for outside of Nevermore before. Never just been part of a family without expectation or pretense. She truly felt like part of your family, and it was clear that they felt the same.
Except she wasn’t, not really, and that was where the guilt and anxiety found their point of attack. She wasn’t your real girlfriend, this wasn’t some fairytale or cheesy Hallmark Christmas rom-com, this was her real life. And her real life was never this easy. The “relationship” was based on a lie for your family’s sake, and she was, first and foremost, your friend — you’d drive her back to Nevermore after the holidays and things would go back to the way they were and then, in a few months’ time, you’d break the “news” to your family that it hadn’t worked out, that the two of you had broken up. Just like you’d planned from the beginning, Larissa reminded herself. She imagined your sister comforting you, and Alice asking where Auntie Rissy was when you visited for Easter, and your mother regretting giving Larissa that necklace, and how awkward it would be for your family to have to see her in that Christmas photo for years to come.
Larissa knew she was only hurting her own feelings at this point, but she couldn’t bear the alternative — the sting of inevitable disappointment if she allowed herself to hope that the kiss actually meant something to you.
“Oh, look at the time! We’d better get you two to bed, otherwise Santa will have to skip this house.” Deanna’s voice was loud, and it broke Larissa from the strange, somber trance she found herself in.
Alice immediately sprung up from the sofa and ran towards the hall in a near-panic, and all of the adults in the room laughed. Ben stirred at the sudden noise, and Larissa was reminded that she was cradling him against her chest, and that she ought to let go and let Deanna carry him to bed. She carefully handed him to your sister, smiling weakly.
~~~
There was a reluctance in the way that Larissa handed Ben over to Deanna that gnawed at your heart. She had been distant all evening — present, of course, laughing at jokes, talking with your family as if she’d known them for years, but there were moments when she wasn’t being spoken with where she would be staring off into space with a faraway look in her eyes, where you nudged her or asked her a question and she seemed almost startled.
Not that you could blame her, exactly, when your thoughts were focused on one thing and one thing only — the kiss. The feeling of Larissa’s tongue brushing against yours, of her hands tangling in your hair, tugging gently. The way she’d moaned, playing over and over again in your mind like a broken record, making it hard to concentrate on anything else at all.
Larissa had kissed you, and now she could hardly look at you — and you had no idea what to do with that.
Now that her lap was free, you dared to scoot a bit closer to her on the sofa, placing a tentative hand on her thigh. You could feel the muscles tense beneath your fingers and you nearly pulled away, but then they relaxed again. Glancing up, you could see the lights from the tree reflected in Larissa’s eyes, casting shadows across her hair, and you found your gaze drawn to plush, red lips, remembering how they’d felt pressed to yours. You licked yours subconsciously — and then you remembered your family’s presence and quickly looked away, refocusing on the story your sister’s husband was telling.
Larissa’s hand came to rest on your own, her pinky slotting perfectly next to yours, twitching — then she gave your hand a subtle squeeze. You looked up to see the ghost of a smile on her face, and you smiled back and rested your head against her shoulder, the warmth radiating off of her making you feel cozy and a bit sleepy as snow fell outside. It felt right, to be leaning against her like this, as if everything in your life until this point had been leading you to this exact moment. As if you’d never wanted to be anywhere else, with anyone else.
It was starting to get late, and your sister asked for help setting the kids’ presents under the tree. You and Larissa headed to the kitchen to get some milk and cookies for Santa — and carrots for the reindeer, just as Larissa had suggested.
“Did my mother give that to you?” you asked, nodding to the sapphire pendant resting against Larissa’s chest. She turned a little pink, her hand flying to the pendant to straighten it subconsciously as she nodded. “It suits you… it’s the same color as your eyes.”
“That’s what your mother said as well,” Larissa replied, her voice tight as she poured some milk into a glass. You watched her for a moment, your brows drawn together in confusion.
“What’s wrong?”
Larissa frowned, opening her mouth as though she was about to argue — then she closed it again, putting the carton of milk back in the fridge.
“I feel guilty,” she said, so quietly that you almost didn’t catch it. Her back was turned to you, her shoulders a hard, tense line.
Her confession made your heart sink. “Guilty? Why?”
“She should have given this to you. Or your sister.”
“No,” you said quickly, reaching out for Larissa’s shoulder — tugging gently, trying to urge her to face you. “Of course she gave it to you. You deserve it. You’re basically family at this point.”
Larissa’s eyes darted between your own, searching. “Am I?”
“Of course you are.”
“What about our agreement?” she pushed.
You paused. She had a point. You hadn’t talked about the kiss yet — about what it could mean, if it even meant anything at all.
“I mean…” You lowered your voice slightly, afraid someone would hear. “Even if we’re not actually together, you still deserve to have the necklace. My mom still likes you.”
Larissa frowned. “It’s not the same thing, and you know it.”
Footsteps sounded in the hall, too close for your own comfort, and Larissa shrugged her shoulder out of your grip as your sister came into the kitchen.
“Excuse me,” Larissa said under her breath, pushing quickly past your sister, who leaned back against the counter with her arms folded across her chest and her head cocked to the side.
“What?” You couldn’t keep the irritation out of your voice at being interrupted yet again, every cell in your body aching with the urge to run after Larissa.
Deanna raised an eyebrow. “What were you guys talking about?”
“Nothing. None of your business,” you muttered.
“Nothing? Or none of my business?”
You rolled your eyes. “Both. Goodnight, Dee.”
Brushing past your sister, you made a beeline for the hall — but her voice stopped you dead in your tracks.
“What did you mean when you said you’re not actually together?”
You swallowed thickly, refusing to turn around and meet your sister’s gaze as your heart hammered in your chest. “Just drop it, please,” you murmured weakly, already knowing that your sister was far too nosy not to press you for information.
“Who is Larissa, really?”
A heavy sort of silence settled over the kitchen. You turned, leaning against the counter for support. The knot forming in your stomach tightened. Who was Larissa to you, actually? How could you possibly explain to your sister that you’d spent the past few days pretending to have a girlfriend just for your parents’ sake? That every time you held her hand, even if it was just for show, it made your heart race? That somewhere in between asking Larissa to pretend to like you and kissing her in the car only a few hours prior, you’d fallen head over heels in love with the most incredible woman you’d ever known? You could lie again, of course you could, but you suddenly felt so tired.
“A friend,” you said finally.
“A ‘friend’? So you lied to us?”
A wave of anger rose within you and you opened your mouth to argue, but no words came out. You couldn’t really argue — you had lied to your family, after all.
“Please don’t tell mom and dad…” you whispered.
“So do you… like like her?” Deanna asked, and you finally met her gaze. You could feel your hands begin to tremble and balled them into fists.
“Yeah.”
“Then why don’t you ask her out for real?”
You huffed. “Why do you think? I don’t want to ruin our friendship… What if she says no?”
Deanna laughed, pinning you with an incredulous look that made you blush. “Why would she say no? I’ve never seen anyone look at you like she does before, it’s honestly really cute.”
Your throat suddenly felt impossibly dry, your stomach clenching. “H-how does she look at me?” you croaked out.
“Fuck, you’re useless,” Deanna rolled her eyes, pushing off the counter and turning to set the plates of cookies and carrots and the glass of milk on a tray. “Why don’t you go ask her yourself?”
Before you could answer she picked up the tray and carried it towards the living room, leaving you alone in the kitchen with only your racing thoughts and a shimmer of hope. There was a fluttering feeling taking root in your stomach and bubbling up through your ribcage, and your feet began to carry you down the hall and towards your bedroom — towards Larissa.
A/N: This may be my favorite chapter so far... hehe. Also. This is a "warning" that there may only be 2-3 more chapters left in this story, depending on how writing the rest goes and how I end up splitting up the remaining storyline. As much as I don't want it to be over ever 😭 Anyway, enjoy and have the loveliest Monday you could possibly have ❣️
“Fancy seeing you here! Merry Christmas Eve.”
Larissa had to repress the urge to roll her eyes at the cheeriness in your ex’s voice.
“Hi, Taylor,” you said stiffly, though you rose from your seat to hug her. She held on just a little too long for Larissa’s liking, her hand a little too low on your back, and Larissa felt a vein in her forehead pulse with the onset of a headache.
“Larissa, is that right?” Taylor asked as she let go of you, turning her head towards the shapeshifter. Larissa nodded curtly, her face set in what she hoped was a polite smile, and murmured a “hello.”
“I was gushing to my mom after the party about how cute you two are together — my mom says hi, by the way, she’s sorry she couldn’t make it.” Larissa couldn’t tell how sincere Taylor was being, and it rubbed her the wrong way — though it did please her in a sick, selfish sort of way that you didn’t seem nearly as happy to see your ex today as you had at the party.
“You’ll have to come over at some point, she would love to see you again,” she continued. Larissa looked down at the menu in front of her, running her finger along the laminated edge. Your ex had turned slightly, now speaking exclusively to you, and Larissa’s jaw clenched involuntarily. “When are you going back to Virginia?”
“Vermont,” Larissa interjected. Taylor glanced at her, feigning surprise, while you fidgeted nervously with your own menu.
“Vermont… I could’ve sworn you moved to Virginia. Well, anyway, don’t tell me you’re heading home right after Christmas?”
“We probably are, actually,” you said apologetically — the “we” caught Larissa slightly off-guard, and she fought a smile as she pretended to read through the appetizers section on the menu. “I might be able to pop by before we drive back, though.”
Like hell you would, Larissa thought. Especially not alone.
She was taken aback by her own thoughts — when had she gotten so possessive? You weren’t even hers, but something about your ex set her on edge. She didn’t deserve you, not with the way she’d treated you, and Larissa couldn’t bear to see you being so kind and forgiving. She wondered if you missed her, if you were still in love with her — if Taylor asked, would you give her a second chance?
“Honestly? I haven’t thought about her in years.” “I’d rather be with someone who cares about me and isn’t going to dump me on a whim, you know?”
How much of that had been true?
“I was hoping you’d be around longer, to be honest.” Taylor’s words made Larissa feel nauseous, and she toyed with the edge of her menu to keep her hands busy. “Seeing you at the Christmas party brought back so many memories — but I guess you won’t have time to catch up…?”
Larissa stiffened, bending the corner of the menu forcefully between her forefinger and thumb, leaving a permanent crease. When she looked up, she found your gaze flitting to the crease, and she quickly looked back down and read through the appetizer section for a third time, her cheeks pink and her jaw set. Get a grip, she chastised herself, fighting the unbearable urge to tear the menu apart entirely.
“Probably not.”
“Too bad…”
“Yeah, I’m not sure when we’ll be back, actually,” you said, your tone guarded. The subtle emphasis of the word ‘we’ll’ made Larissa’s heart stutter in her chest. “I’ve got the Weathervane, you know, that keeps me pretty busy, and Larissa has a school to run.”
“You really can’t get away from that café for a weekend?” Taylor said, ignoring your comment about Larissa entirely.
“Not really.”
Larissa knew that you were lying — your employees could handle the place for a day or two, you’d trained them well enough. Still, Taylor’s dismissive tone made Larissa bristle, and she excused herself to use the restroom, praying that Taylor would be gone by the time she got back.
She had no such luck — she stepped back out into the restaurant to see Taylor sitting across from you, in her seat, and her pulse skyrocketed. Her heels clicked aggressively against the checkered floor as she strode back over to the table, looming over your ex-girlfriend.
“Oh, sorry…” Taylor stood and excused herself quickly, telling you that her number hadn’t changed, and that you should call her. Her, “Bye, Larissa, was nice seeing you again,” was directed over her shoulder as almost an afterthought as she walked away, heading to her own booth near the front of the diner.
“I’m sorry about that,” you said quietly after a moment’s silence. “I didn’t think we’d run into her.”
“Why are you apologizing for her behavior?” Larissa cocked her head to the side, watching your brows furrow. You shrugged, slumping back in your seat and picking up your menu, though she could tell you weren’t really reading it.
“She’s not usually like that… or maybe she is — was — who knows…”
The waitress interrupted just then to take your order, though Larissa found her appetite had significantly diminished during the conversation with your ex. She ordered water and a salad and, for once, you didn’t tease her or encourage her to go for a more indulgent option — she wished you would, and her stomach twisted further.
“Would you like to see her before we leave?” Larissa asked when the waitress left, her voice flat and her face a mask of cool indifference as she leaned back in the booth.
You shrugged again, but your silence was unsettling. Larissa felt her palms begin to sweat.
“I don’t think so,” you murmured, your gaze finally meeting Larissa’s. The two of you stared at each other for a few moments, each trying to decipher the look in the other’s eyes — the waitress cleared her throat as she set two cups of ice water on the table and tossed some straws beside them. The paper wrapping on the outside of the straws was already soggy from the condensation dripping off the red, plastic cups.
“You shouldn’t have to say no on my account,” Larissa forced out, even as everything in her screamed the opposite. She forced a smile, her gaze flickering down to the straws as she picked one up, plucked it from its wrapping.
“I’m not,” you replied, picking at the paper from your own straw. “I’d, uh… honestly rather just spend the time with my family. And with you. If that’s okay.”
Larissa’s heart did a cartwheel in her chest. “I wouldn’t say no to that,” she said carefully, watching as a smile broke out over your own face, as if the clouds over your head had suddenly parted. She couldn’t help but smile back, noting how her smile brought a flush to your cheeks that made her knees feel weak, and made her feel very glad that she was already sitting down. Neither of you fully registered when the waitress brought your food to the table.
“I’m still sorry about dragging you into all of this but I can’t lie, this is the best Christmas I’ve had in years,” you admitted, a soft smile gracing your lips that made something in Larissa’s chest loosen.
She found herself distracted by the way you ran your fingers along absently over the condensation on the outside of your cup — the way they brushed along the plastic, the way the beads of water clung to your skin. She shook her head as if to dislodge a train of thought, her gaze going, instead, to the window.
“Don’t be sorry… I’m not,” she murmured, remembering all of the years she’d spent holed up in her quarters at Nevermore for the holidays, hardly even leaving to go to the staff lounge, passing the time with stacks of paperwork, a little too much red wine, and re-reading her favorite novels. The last few years she hadn’t even bothered with a tree or decorations.
“Thank you for being my fake girlfriend,” you said, and the words sounded a bit far away, your teasing tone gently tugging Larissa back into the present moment. She glanced at you and the smirk on your face made her heart constrict.
“Yes… well… thank you for inviting me,” she said faintly.
The rest of lunch felt so much like a date that Larissa almost found herself a bit disoriented — in fact, it was nicer than most of the dates Larissa had been on in her adult life. You even insisted on paying and Larissa, still stuck somewhere halfway between the present moment and Christmases past, was too distracted to protest. She walked half a step behind you as you headed for the door and, when you passed by the table where Taylor sat with some friends, Larissa’s hand came to rest on your lower back of its own accord. She could feel Taylor’s eyes on her, and she opened the door and guided you gently through it, suddenly caring very little for the appropriateness of her fingers brushing against your waist.
On the way home you gave Larissa a guided tour of your hometown — your past. You drove past the school you’d gone to, the playground where you’d had your first kiss at age 11 with some boy named Matthew, the animal shelter where you’d gotten your childhood dog, the movie theater that you frequented in high school, the river — currently frozen solid — that you and your sister used to play by in the summer.
Every detail fascinated Larissa — every story you told, every street corner or shop that you pointed out. Little fragments of your life, snippets of the person you used to be, the person she recognized sitting beside her, talking animatedly about the summer where you’d flown off your bike and broken your arm a week before school started, and how you’d gotten everyone to sign your cast. Larissa remembered her own hometown, dozens of fragmented memories. She wished she could show you where she came from and who she’d once been — her thoughts were going down a dangerous path and, for once, she couldn’t be bothered to stop them.
There was a moment when you pulled into the driveway and cut the engine where neither of you made a move to leave the car, savoring the brief silence without the hum of the engine or the crunch of gravel beneath the tires, without the light tinkling of the radio or the gentle buzz of traffic. Larissa took her gloves into her hands, smoothing her fingers over the light creases in the worn leather. Exhaling slowly, she could see her breath in the rapidly cooling car, though the absence of the car’s heater did nothing to cool the lingering warmth creeping through her veins like ivy.
Larissa looked over to see you watching her and the air shifted almost instantly, charged with something heavy, something undefinable. Something like a magnetic pull dragged her towards you over the center console — just a fraction — each of her senses sharp, tingling. You leaned in as well, just slightly, and then, before Larissa could second guess herself, she closed the distance between you, one hand tenderly cupping your cheek as her lips pressed against yours.
The entire world stilled around Larissa when your lips met, frozen in time — and then it began to melt away, everything outside of the softness of your lips and the warmth of your cheek and the scent of your perfume fading into the background.
Larissa’s tongue teased your lips, gently coaxing them open, sliding against your own velvety tongue. A shiver ran down her spine as you titled your head to get a better angle, your cold nose brushing against her skin — she felt the ghost of a smile on your lips and a strange, strangled noise sounded at the back of her throat. A tug at the collar of Larissa’s coat told her that you were groping blindly at it, and she slid her hand from your cheek back into your hair, nails brushing against your scalp — she felt you shiver, and it was her turn to smile into the kiss.
Her tongue flicked against yours, the start to a passionate tango, her breath coming in harder pants and her fingers tangling lightly into your hair, eliciting the most delicious, head-spinning moan from deep within your chest.
A frantic tapping at the driver’s side door made the two of you jump apart so fast that it disoriented you both. You looked at Larissa, dazed, her lipstick smeared around your mouth — the sight damn near undid her entirely.
The tapping continued, and Alice’s voice sounded, slightly muffled through the closed door as she called your name.
“You’ve got…” Larissa’s voice trembled (though she could hardly hear it over the sound of her own heart, pounding wildly in her throat) and she used her thumb to wipe away the lipstick on your chin.
“Th-thanks… you too…” You brushed the corner of your sleeve against the tip of Larissa’s nose — she shuddered.
Alice’s tapping continued and Larissa could see the reluctance with which you tore yourself away from her to open the car door for your niece — the cold air rushing in and settling immediately in Larissa’s bones.
“What is it, sweetheart?” you asked your niece urgently as she crawled into your lap.
“Missed you!” She giggled, throwing her arms around your neck. “Grandma said it’s picture time.”
Larissa’s brow furrowed and you chuckled. “The annual family Christmas photo,” you explained. Your voice was hoarse and your cheeks were flushed, and you had this strange look in your eyes that Larissa couldn’t quite decipher. She swallowed thickly, nodding and reaching for the car visor out of habit to flip it down and check her lipstick.
“Then we’d better get inside, hadn’t we?” she said with a cheeriness forced for your niece’s sake, not quite trusting her own voice.
Out of the corner of her eye, Larissa saw you nod as you watched her, though she refused to meet your gaze. “Alice, sweetheart, can you go inside and give us a minute?”
A sudden flutter of nerves rose in Larissa’s stomach and she snapped the car visor up as Alice skipped back up to the house. She sat perfectly still, waiting for you to say something, anything, but you didn’t. You both sat there, staring ahead of you at the closed garage door, the air in the car thick and heavy and strangely warm.
“So,” you started, right as Larissa said, “Should we–”
You chuckled and she let out a breathless laugh in return, glancing at you out of the corner of her eye. “Go ahead,” she said, her lips twitching as she suppressed a smile, even as her heart threatened to pound out of her chest.
“That was, um…” you started again, pausing as you struggled for words. You sucked your lower lip between your teeth, almost as if savoring the taste of her, and Larissa felt almost lightheaded at the gesture. “What was that for?”
Larissa felt her cheeks burn and she opened her mouth to respond, but the front door to the house flung open and your mother stood in the doorway calling out to you, and you let out a groan, dropping your head against the steering wheel with a dull thud.
“Coming, mom,” you called out through the open door, your voice laced with irritation — though your eyes were bright and happy when you glanced over at Larissa. “Later?” you whispered, and Larissa felt her heart skip a beat as she nodded. Later.
A/N: I believe most of you know why I haven’t updated this series in a year, despite it being the most popular on my blog. The harassment some people sent my way about this fic genuinely stopped me from feeling any sense of joy at the thought of writing more chapters. I reread it a few weeks ago—nostalgia—and it made me want to write another chapter, so I did. I suggest rereading the previous part(s) before diving into this new chapter. I hope you’ll enjoy it and that it was worth the wait, I would love if you’d let me know your thoughts on this.
Something was wrong before either of you admitted it.
You noticed it in the way Larissa folded her dress with excessive care, smoothing invisible creases from the fabric as though she could iron out whatever had unsettled her evening. She did not reach for wine. She did not glance at you the way she usually did when you crossed the room. Her eyes avoided yours—not suspiciously, but deliberately.
You told yourself you were imagining it.
When you slipped into bed, you left space for her, as you always did. She usually closed that space without hesitation. Tonight, she lay down carefully on her back, staring at the ceiling as if she were studying architectural flaws in the plaster.
You waited.
You watched the faint rise and fall of her chest.
You moved closer first, pressing a soft kiss beneath her jaw. It had always been an easy place, one gentle touch and she would respond. A quiet inhale, a tightening of her grip at your waist, some low instruction whispered into your hair.
Tonight, she inhaled.
And did nothing.
You brushed your fingers over her ribs, tentative at first, then more certain.
Her hand came down over yours—not forcefully, but firmly enough to stop you.
“I don’t think I can tonight,” she said.
The words were quiet. Almost polite.
You pulled back slightly, searching her face. “Can’t?”
“I’m tired.”
You almost laughed at that. Larissa Weems had worked twelve-hour days and still pulled you into her lap with command in her voice and hunger in her eyes. She had never been too tired.
“Did I do something?” you asked.
Her gaze snapped to yours too quickly. “No. Of course not.”
The quickness unsettled you more than the refusal.
She turned away from you after that, offering you her back, the curve of her shoulder exposed but unreachable.
You lay there staring at the ceiling long after her breathing evened out. The distance between your bodies felt wider than the mattress allowed.
It did not fix itself the next night.
Or the night after.
You tried again on the fourth evening—not seductively, not dramatically. You simply rested your hand on her thigh while you lay beside her, your thumb tracing the familiar line just above her knee.
She stiffened.
It was subtle, but you felt it like an electric current.
“Not tonight,” she murmured again.
You swallowed. “You said that three nights ago.”
She closed her eyes.
“Are you not attracted to me anymore?” The question left you before you could stop it, and you hated how small it sounded.
Her eyes opened instantly. “Don’t.”
“Then what am I supposed to think?” Your voice sharpened without permission. “Because I am not stupid, Larissa.”
She pushed herself upright in bed, running a hand through her hair in a rare display of agitation. “It isn’t you.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
Silence stretched between you, heavy and unfinished.
She reached for you then, not with desire, but with something gentler—almost careful. She pulled you against her chest and held you there like something fragile.
You let her.
But you did not relax.
The shift eventually bled into daylight.
She still made your coffee the way you liked it. Still brushed your hair away from your face when you leaned over her desk. Still welcomed you with an embrace when you came home from your classes.
But the heat was gone.
The possessiveness softened into something distant.
You found yourself watching her instead of leaning into her.
One evening, you stood in the doorway of her office and said, very evenly, “Did something happen with her?”
She did not look up immediately. When she did, her composure was flawless.
“No.”
The lie was smooth.
Too smooth.
You nodded as though you believed her.
You did not.
Morticia did not wait long to return once more.
Larissa found her seated in her office two days later, dressed in black velvet as though grief itself had taken physical form.
“You didn’t answer my message,” Morticia said pleasantly.
“I have nothing further to discuss with you.”
Morticia smiled, slow and deliberate. “You kissed me, Larissa.”
The words lingered in the air like smoke.
“It was a mistake.”
“Was it?” Morticia rose gracefully from her seat. “Because you seemed quite willing.”
Larissa’s jaw tightened.
“I will not be manipulated.”
Morticia stepped closer, voice lowering. “Does she know?”
“Do not.”
“Does she know,” Morticia repeated gently, “that you couldn’t resist me?”
The silence was answer enough.
Morticia’s smile deepened.
“You haven’t told her.”
“That is none of your concern.”
“Oh, but it is,” Morticia said lightly. “Because if you don’t… I might.”
Larissa’s voice dropped.
“You wouldn’t.”
Morticia’s eyes gleamed.
“You underestimate me.”
That night, you had reached your limit.
You were not soft about it.
You were not patient.
You walked into her quarters and stood in front of her where she sat reading, and you took the book from her hands.
“Look at me.”
She did, her eyes already exhausted.
“What did you do?” you asked.
The directness startled her.
“I need you to be more specific.”
“No,” you said sharply. “You don’t get to do that. Something happened at dinner. You have not touched me in a week. You look at me like you’re afraid of something. So I will ask you again—what did you do?”
The silence that followed was no longer delicate.
It was heavy.
She rose from the couch slowly, as though preparing for impact.
“Morticia kissed me.”
Your breath stilled.
“And?” you asked.
She held your gaze.
“I did not stop her quickly enough.”
“Did you kiss her back?”
A beat.
“Yes.”
It felt as though something inside you cracked cleanly down the middle—not shattered, not explosive, just split.
You stepped back from her.
“You refused to touch me,” you said, your voice unnervingly calm.
She nodded once, barely perceptible. “I felt guilty.”
You laughed then—a sharp, brittle sound that did not belong to you. “How noble.”
“Do not mock this,” she said quietly. “I have hated myself for days.”
“You’ve hated yourself for days, and you said nothing.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?” Your voice rose now, anger finally surfacing. “After she did it again? After she told me herself? After you decided I was strong enough to handle it?”
“She threatened to tell you,” Larissa snapped.
The admission hung there.
Your anger cooled instantly into something far worse.
“She threatened you,” you repeated slowly. “And you still did not tell me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what? The truth?” Your voice no longer shook. It flattened. “Or from losing control?”
She flinched at that.
“I chose you,” you said quietly. “I chose you when you told me you loved me. I chose you when you told me about your secret. And you chose to lie.”
“I did not choose her.”
“You kissed her.”
“One second,” she whispered.
“One second is enough.”
Silence again—but this time it was not heavy. It was empty.
You felt the anger drain from your body, leaving something colder behind.
“I can forgive weakness,” you said after a moment. “I cannot forgive being shut out.”
Her composure cracked then. Truly cracked.
“I was afraid you would leave.”
You met her eyes without heat.
“You do not get to decide that for me.”
The words landed with more force than shouting ever could have.
She took a step toward you.
You stepped back.
The distance between you was deliberate now.
“I need space,” you said.
Her face went still. “Will you leave?”
“No.”
But you did not reach for her.
That night, you lay again in the same bed with gap between your bodies. When she shifted slightly closer in her sleep, you did not move toward her.
You did not move at all.
The days after the confession were quiet.
Not explosive.
Not dramatic.
You did not scream.
You did not cry.
You simply withdrew.
You answered her questions politely. You allowed her to hold your hand in public, but you did not intertwine your fingers. At night, you turned away first.
She felt it.
Every inch of it.
Larissa Weems had always thrived in tension—in power dynamics, in control, in heat.
She did not know what to do with cold.
She stopped initiating entirely. She did not kiss you unless you leaned in first. She did not give instructions. She did not guide your hands.
She watched you instead.
Like she was waiting for a verdict.
Morticia sent a message.
I suppose honesty won, after all. Such a shame.
Larissa blocked her without ceremony.
And then she came home and found you standing by the window, arms wrapped around yourself.
“I will not see her again alone,” she said before you could speak. “I have already made that clear.”
You nodded.
“I should have told you immediately.”
“Yes,” you said calmly.
“I will not lie to you again.”
You looked at her then.
Truly looked at her.
“I don’t want promises,” you said. “I want partnership.”
Her throat tightened.
“I am here,” she said.
“For now,” you replied quietly.
That hurt her more than anger ever could have.
The letter arrived—ironically—on a Wednesday morning.
It was slipped beneath the door of Larissa’s quarters, cream-coloured envelope, thick paper, your name nowhere on it. Only hers.
Principal Larissa Weems Written in careful, slanted ink.
You weren’t looking for it. You hadn’t been snooping. You had only risen earlier than usual, unable to sleep beside the measured distance Larissa still kept between your bodies. When you stepped out of the bedroom, barefoot and heavy-eyed, the envelope was there, waiting.
You knew the handwriting immediately.
Elegant. Old-fashioned.
You stood there for a long moment before picking it up.
You told yourself you would only place it on her desk.
You did not tell yourself you would open it.
And yet.
The seal gave way beneath your thumb with quiet resistance.
Inside, a single sheet folded in half.
Larissa,
One last evening. The Velvet Vesper. Tonight, eight o’clock. I believe we both deserve a proper conclusion, don’t you?
I do hate unfinished business.
M.
You read it twice.
There was no threat written explicitly.
That made it worse.
You folded the letter carefully and slid it back inside the envelope.
You did not put it on the table, you kept it.
That evening, Larissa noticed something different.
You had been distant since her confession. Not cruel. Just… cooler. You no longer reached for her hand first. You no longer leaned into her side when you sat together. You no longer kissed her absentmindedly while she read.
She had accepted it.
She told herself she deserved it.
But that night, when you stood in the bedroom doorway and said, “I’m going out,” something inside her tightened.
“Out?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
She watched you button your coat, adjust your hair in the mirror. You did not look at her.
“With friends?” she asked carefully.
“No.”
The answer was quiet. Neutral.
She stepped closer without thinking. “May I ask where?”
You finally turned toward her, the expression in your eyes unreadable.
“Do you trust me?”
The question struck harder than accusation ever could have.
“Yes,” she said immediately.
You held her gaze for a second longer, then nodded.
“I’ll be back later.”
You left before she could ask anything else.
Larissa stood there long after the door closed.
She did not know whether she felt jealousy—or fear.
The Velvet Vesper looked the same.
Dim lighting. Velvet seating. Soft jazz humming through the space like something expensive and restrained.
You had dressed carefully. Not provocatively. Not defensively. Simply composed.
Morticia was already there.
Of course she was.
She sat in the corner booth, dressed in silk that caught the low light like oil on water. Her dark hair cascaded over one shoulder, and when her eyes found yours, she smiled.
Not surprised.
Amused.
“You look younger than I expected,” she said as you approached.
You slid into the seat opposite her.
“And you look exactly as I imagined.”
Her smile deepened.
“So she told you about the letter.”
“No,” you replied evenly. “She didn’t see it.”
Something flickered in Morticia’s eyes.
Interest.
“How industrious of you.”
She leaned back slightly, studying you as though assessing a chess opponent.
“I must admit,” she said, “I thought Larissa would come.”
“She won’t.”
Morticia’s lips curved.
“Is that what she told you?”
“It’s what I’m telling you.”
A pause.
Then Morticia reached for her wine, taking a slow sip.
“She has always had a weakness for unfinished things.”
“Then consider this finished,” you replied.
Morticia tilted her head.
“You are very young.”
There it was.
You did not flinch.
“I’m aware.”
“We were the same age when we met,” Morticia continued softly. “We understood each other in ways that come only with time. History. Experience.”
You let the silence stretch before answering.
“And yet she chose me.”
Morticia’s gaze sharpened slightly.
“For now.”
The words were soft. Almost gentle—but meant to wound.
You felt the sting, but did not show it.
“Larissa and I share a bond forged over decades. You share… what? A few months of infatuation?”
Your jaw tightened.
“She loves me.”
Morticia’s expression shifted at that.
Briefly, almost imperceptibly.
“Love,” she repeated. “Larissa has loved before.”
“Yes,” you said quietly. “She has.”
The calmness in your voice unsettled her more than anger would have.
“You kissed her,” you said.
Morticia’s eyes gleamed.
“She kissed me back.”
“And you threatened to tell me.”
Morticia did not deny it.
“You were hoping to fracture something,” you continued. “You were hoping I would leave.”
Morticia leaned forward slightly.
“And will you?”
You met her gaze.
“No.”
The word landed with finality.
Something changed then.
Her amusement faded, replaced by something colder.
“You cannot possibly understand her the way I do.”
“I don’t need to understand her past to stand in her present.”
Morticia’s fingers tightened subtly around her glass.
“She will always have a part of herself that belongs to me.”
You stood slowly.
“No,” you said quietly. “She won’t.”
Morticia’s eyes narrowed.
“She gave in.”
“And she regretted it.”
You leaned closer, not threatening, but certain.
“You think you can pull her back with nostalgia. With tension. With memory.”
Morticia did not look away.
“You’re wrong.”
“And why is that?” she asked softly.
“Because she told me the truth.”
That hit.
You saw it.
The smallest flicker.
“She chose honesty over you,” you continued. “And you hate that.”
Silence—heavy now, not playful.
“You will leave her alone,” you said.
Morticia’s lips curved again, but it lacked warmth.
“And if I don’t?”
You held her gaze.
“Then you’ll prove that you never loved her. Only the control you had over her.”
That landed.
Morticia stood slowly.
Graceful as ever.
“You have more steel than I expected.”
You did not respond.
She stepped closer as she passed, voice low.
“Be careful. Larissa does not forgive betrayal easily.”
You did not turn.
“She doesn’t have to,” you said. “Because I won’t betray her.”
Morticia paused.
Then she left.
When you returned to Larissa’s quarters, it was nearly midnight.
She was awake, sitting at the kitchen table.
When you stepped inside, she stood immediately.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
You removed your coat slowly.
“Yes.”
She studied you carefully.
“Where were you?”
You pulled the envelope from your pocket and placing it on the table.
Her eyes fell to the handwriting.
Her face drained of colour.
“I intercepted it,” you said calmly. “She asked you to meet her. One last time.”
Larissa looked up at you.
“I went instead.”
Silence.
“You should not have,” she said softly.
“I know.”
A beat.
“Did she hurt you?”
You shook your head. “She tried.”
Larissa’s hands clenched at her sides.
“And?”
“I told her to leave us alone.”
Something in Larissa’s expression broke then.
“You should not have had to do that,” she whispered.
“Neither should you.”
The distance between you still existed.
But it felt… different now.
Not cold.
Not hollow.
Earned.
She stepped closer, cautiously.
“Why?” she asked.
You looked at her for a long moment.
“Because I am not competing with her,” you said. “And I am not running.”
Her breath caught.
“You are angry with me.”
“Yes.”
“And yet—”
“And yet,” you interrupted softly, “I’m still here.”
Larissa reached for your hand slowly, as though you might pull away.
You didn’t, not this time.
And when she pressed her forehead against yours, it wasn’t possessive.
It was grateful.
You slid your hands up her arms and around her shoulders, feeling the tension still coiled beneath her skin. She responded slowly, as if afraid that moving too quickly might fracture the moment.
When your lips met, it was nothing like before.
There was no urgency.
No claiming.
No command.
Just warmth.
Just the quiet recognition of two people who had nearly lost something precious.
Larissa’s hand settled at your waist, but she did not pull. She waited. When you pressed closer of your own accord, she exhaled softly against your mouth.
“Is this alright?” she murmured, the question brushing your lips.
You nodded, then answered properly. “Yes.”
That seemed to undo her more than anything else.
Her fingers trembled slightly as they moved beneath the hem of your shirt, exploring. As if reacquainting herself with something she had been afraid to touch.
You felt the difference immediately.
Before, she had led you.
Tonight, she followed.
You guided her back toward the bedroom slowly, your hands never leaving her. There was no rush. No dramatic stumble. Just measured steps and shared breath.
When she helped you out of your clothes, she paused between each piece, searching your face. Checking. Asking without speaking.
And you let her.
You sighed—whether of relief of pleasure, you weren’t sure—your legs falling open for her.
“I need you…” you whispered.
“I’m right here,” she replied, placing a soft kiss beneath your collarbone.
You shuddered, moving her hand between your thighs and letting her feel the dampness there.
Larissa closed her eyes, pressing her fingers between your folds, sliding through the slick skin.
She drew slow circles against your clit, smiling at the whine that left your lips. She shushed you quietly, cupping your cheek with her other hand.
“Please,” you begged, lips brushing against her thumb.
Larissa hummed softly, moving her fingers away from your clit. Her platinum hair fell in drapes as she kissed you, stroking your fevered skin. You whimpered into her mouth, your hips bucking against her hand on their own accord.
You thought you might faint when her fingers slipped further between your thighs, two of them finally pressing knuckle deep into you.
She relished in the blush that crept up your chest when her fingers began thrusting in and out of you, wet squelch filling the dim lit bedroom.
Larissa knew how to undo you—where to press, where to squeeze. So when her lips attached themselves to the thin skin of your neck, and her fingers pressed onto the spongy spot inside you, you couldn’t help but let out a string of moans.
You were close. Larissa knew, your walls pulsing dangerously around her fingers.
“Will you come for me, sweetling?” She breathed into your ear, her palm rubbing onto your clit with each thrust.
“Y-yes—“ you managed, “God—fuck!” You cried, hands finding purchase in Larissa’s white locks as your orgasm ripped through you.
You were shaking by the time she released you, her forehead pressed against yours.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I know,” you replied, kissing the corner of her lips.
Outside, somewhere in Jericho, Morticia Addams lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly into the night.
And for the first time in years—
She understood that Larissa Weems was no longer hers to haunt.
Christmas Eve began for you when the early morning light filtered in through your blinds, even brighter than usual due to the way it reflected off the snow outside.
You’d never slept so well before. Your limbs felt soft and heavy, draped over Larissa’s waist — you were spooning her, you realized, her taller body tucked against your front, your face buried against the crook of her neck. Her silvery waves tickled your nose and you breathed in deeply — they smelt of her perfume and the laundry detergent your mom used on your sheets and something else that you’d come to find out was Larissa’s natural scent, that hint of sweetness that emanated off her bare skin.
Her body was so soft, so warm against your own, fitting against you like a perfect puzzle piece in spite of the size difference. It didn’t feel awkward like when you’d accidentally cuddled your friend in your sleep at summer camp — it felt right, like she was meant to lie there, like an extension of your own body. You could lie there forever, you thought. God, you were so fucked, weren’t you?
Larissa stirred in your arms, then turned slightly, her eyes meeting yours. In this light, her eyelashes were like spun gold, framing bleary and unfocused eyes — a lighter blue than usual as they reflected the sun. For a moment, you thought she might pull away, or question why you were so close. Instead, her lips spread into a sleepy smile and she adjusted herself slightly against you, her own arm covering yours, her eyes fluttering shut again.
You buried your face against her shoulder, not wanting to fully wake up just yet. Your lips brushed against her pajama top, and you resisted the overwhelming urge to press a kiss to her shoulder blade. The rhythmic rise and fall of Larissa’s chest mesmerized you, you could feel every breath.
Eventually, she broke the silence, her voice so deep with sleep that it sent a shudder through your body. “Good morning, darling.” Then, mistaking your shudder for a shiver, “Are you cold?”
“Mhm,” you lied, using the excuse to your advantage and snuggling as close as possible — Larissa chuckled, pulling at the blankets so that they covered you more completely. It was pure and utter bliss, of a caliber that you’d had yet to experience up until that point in your life, and you were determined to soak it in for as long as possible, until your joints were begging you to stretch and your stomach was starting to growl.
Reluctantly, you looked up at Larissa. “I’m going to go make coffee, would you like to join me?”
Larissa opened her eyes and met your gaze, smiling softly. “I think I’d like to shower first, if that’s alright.”
“Yeah, of course.” You gave her a gentle squeeze before reluctantly disentangling yourself from her, shivering immediately at the sudden loss of warmth. Larissa turned onto her side as you shrugged a sweater over your pajamas and pulled on some woolen socks — you could feel her gaze tracing your form from behind, and what would normally make you feel self-conscious now sent a thrill straight through you. “Take your time,” you said before stepping out into the hallway, offering Larissa a rather shy smile to match her own. There was a spring in your step as you closed the door to your room behind yourself and made your way to the kitchen to get started on coffee.
~~~
Back in your room, Larissa stretched languorously on the bed. She’s slept so well that all of the aches and pains in her body from the previous day hardly mattered, going nearly unnoticed. All she knew was that she felt very warm, and that your scent lingered on the sheets, and that that made her want to bury her face in them — which she did, breathing in deeply and taking a moment to nuzzle her face against your pillow.
She had no idea what had come over you to be so cuddly that morning, but wouldn’t — couldn’t — refuse you. She’d take any scrap of affection from you that she could get — even if it meant getting her heart broken by the time you both arrived back in Jericho.
But Larissa didn’t want to think about that today, not when the morning had started so perfectly, and she got out of bed and headed to the bathroom to get ready for the day.
The shower was hot, the spray doing wonders for the tension she always carried in her shoulders. When it hit the side of her thigh, though, she hissed, looking down to see a massive bruise in a range of blues and purples fanning out from her hip and down her upper thigh.
When she was finished, she wrapped herself in a towel, careful not to rub the bruise too firmly as she dried herself, then stepped out of the shower. Glancing at the closed toilet seat, she realized that, in her daze, she’d forgotten to bring her clothes with her into the bathroom. She peeked out into your room — it was empty, the door to the hallway firmly shut, and she couldn’t hear any noise from beyond.
Crossing the room, she dropped the wet towel on the floor and pulled on a pair of underwear — deep burgundy cotton briefs, as she’d given up on lacy lingerie a long time ago. It didn’t serve her to wear sexy yet uncomfortable and itchy panties, with some fantasy in mind that someone would come along and undress her and appreciate the view. That had never happened in her 49 years on this Earth, why should it happen now, at her platonic friend’s parent’s house.
She held her bra between her fingers, also burgundy and also very plain, full coverage. She rubbed the cotton between her fingers. When had she given up on those silly, youthful fantasies, she wondered — when had she become so sensible, stopped hoping that something outrageous would happen to her?
Larissa was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t register the sound of footsteps in the hall until the door to your room opened with a creak — she dropped her bra in surprise.
~~~
“Fuck! I’m so sorry,” you squeaked out, your hand still on the door handle. You turned away as quickly as you could to give Larissa privacy, but not before you’d seen more of her than you’d ever dreamed. “I should have knocked,” you chastised yourself aloud, your face turning redder by the second as the image of Larissa’s breasts, her bare, pale skin covered in goosebumps and those rosy nipples hardened by the chill in the air, was seared behind your eyes. You could hear rustling behind you, the snap of a bra strap. “Are you dressed? Can I turn around?”
“Yes.” Larissa’s voice was hoarse, and you turned to find her wrapped in a towel, but with burgundy bra straps peeking out of the top. She looked just as embarrassed as you did, her cheeks pink and the top of her chest near her exposed clavicles red and splotchy. Her hair was darker when it was wet, and the tight waves stuck to her cheeks and dripped onto her shoulders. You swallowed thickly.
“I heard the shower turn off a while ago, I wanted to ask if you wanted some coffee? Or hot chocolate… or something…”
Larissa’s grip on the front of the towel tightened, her knuckles pale. She nodded, her gaze flickering around the room, looking everywhere except at you. “C-coffee would be nice…”
“Yeah… Okay…” You couldn’t help the way your own gaze travelled down her body, though it stopped at her upper thigh, where the towel ended. You cocked your head to the side to get a closer look. “Is that…?”
Larissa tried to cover it but, in shifting the towel to the side, the bruise became even more visible — a massive, inky stain down Larissa’s side. You were kicking the door closed behind yourself and moving towards her before you could stop yourself, sitting down at the edge of the bed beside her. Your brows knit together and you reached out gingerly, stopping yourself just before touching her. “Can I take a look?”
There was a long pause in which you were convinced Larissa was going to say no, tell you to leave, perhaps even get angry — you wondered, guilty, if maybe you’d gone too far, if you’d finally managed to overstep. Then, finally, she nodded, and you lifted the towel, careful not to touch the bruise as you did so. It extended all the way from her hip down to about mid-thigh, and it looked painfully swollen. With a careful glance up at Larissa, who was watching your face closely, you brushed your fingers along her thigh — Larissa sucked in a breath, her brows scrunching together.
“Let me get you an ice pack.”
“I don’t need–”
“Yes, you do,” you said sternly in anticipation of an argument, raising an eyebrow. “It’ll help with the swelling.” Determined to help and ignoring Larissa’s protests, you rushed to the kitchen, coming back with an ice pack wrapped in a dish towel to find that Larissa hadn’t moved a muscle.
You asked Larissa to lie on the bed for you, which she did with some reluctance, grumbling under her breath — you sat down beside her and held the ice pack gently to the bruise.
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing…” She winced as the ice pack touched her skin. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not, it’s swollen. You’re very stubborn, you know.” You adjusted yourself behind her, placing a comforting hand on her back. The bruise was large and so you moved the ice pack down slightly, being sure to ice every part of the swelling skin.
“I’m not stubborn,” Larissa insisted, her voice rising defensively.
You chuckled. “You’re kind of proving my point.”
Larissa’s cheeks reddened, but she didn’t argue further.
You were aware of the intimacy of the moment — you couldn’t even convince yourself anymore that this is how you would care for any of your friends, because you knew you wouldn’t. Sure, you’d get them an ice pack if they needed one. But you wouldn’t be pressing it to the bruise for them, and you certainly wouldn’t be practically spooning them from behind.
You shifted your position behind Larissa a bit and used your free hand to tug her towel up enough to dab away some drops of water on Larissa’s clavicle. She shivered against you — it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. You were suddenly acutely aware of how closely you were pressed together, of how little Larissa was wearing, of the heat pooling low in your belly.
“Do you want to go out to lunch today?” It was the first thing that came to mind to fill the silence, to distract yourself from the less-than-pure thoughts creeping in, thoughts that you weren’t quite confident enough to act upon. “Just the two of us, I mean, not with my family. I haven’t really had the chance to show you around town yet.” You worried your lip between your teeth.
Larissa craned her neck back to look at you, smiling — you realized that, though you loved the way her lipstick suited her, her bare lips, pale and slightly cracked, were more intoxicating to you than you’d ever realized.
“I’d love to.”
~~~
You took Larissa to your favorite diner in town. It was just before the usual lunch rush hour, so you were able to snag what had once been your favorite booth — all the way in the back corner, with a window overlooking the town’s modest little park. The park was blanketed in snow, the small pond at the center frozen over, and ducks waddled across its surface, caring not for the ice beneath their feet. Your hand brushed Larissa’s lower back as you subtly guided her into the booth against the wall, the seat you usually took because the view was slightly better from that side.
It felt too easy to be like this with Larissa, on a date. Well, it wasn’t a date — you weren’t together, not really. But it felt so different today than it had sitting across from each other in the Weathervane just a week prior. You took a napkin and some cutlery from the little cup on the table and slid it over to Larissa, and her fingers brushed yours as she accepted it.
“Are you having fun? Like, actually?” you asked suddenly.
Larissa looked taken aback for a moment — then her gaze turned cautious. It frustrated you that you couldn’t decipher it. “Do you mean today?”
“Yes? Or just, like… every day? I keep feeling horrible about how I dragged you into this. You should be enjoying yourself over the holidays, not having to pretend to be someone’s girlfriend, you know?”
Larissa’s expression shifted to something soft and gentle and she smiled, taking your hand on the table and intertwining your fingers — though her eyes were still guarded. “I am enjoying myself. Your family is very kind, and I’m very grateful that you invited me. As a friend or as a girlfriend.”
“If you say so…” You blushed, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. “I guess I just wish–”
Larissa’s gaze darted away from you for a moment, and then stayed fixed on a point above your shoulder. Her smile faltered slightly, and she quickly looked back at you.
“What?”
Then you heard your own name in a familiar voice, and you felt your shoulders tense.
A/N: *cough cough* let’s act like I have not been MIA for the last few months, shall we? This popped up in my head late at night a few weeks ago and made me want to get back into writing, so I did! I hope you’ll enjoy it <3
The club has been open for hours, but it doesn’t feel like the night has started yet. Not really. Not with the way everyone keeps glancing toward the back entrance, as if willing the door to open and deliver the reason the place is overbooked, overlit, overpolished.
They keep saying her name. Not the real one, most of them don’t seem to remember she has one, but the one printed in looping silver script on the sandwich board outside the front door, on the flyers stapled to telephone poles around the block, on the hastily relettered marquee.
Nightshade.
You straighten another line of lipstick tubes on the crowded vanity, aware that your hands are already too precise to be casual. The dressing room smells of powder and hairspray and the faint, sharp tang of nerves. You’ve been here long enough that the usual chaos backstage has a rhythm, a predictable tide. Costumes half-zipped, jokes thrown across the room, someone swearing about a missing stocking.
Tonight, though, there’s a softness underneath the noise. A waiting.
You hear when she arrives before you see her, the hum dipping and rising, voices shifting into something almost reverent. Footsteps move down the corridor, the stage manager’s tone pitched just a little higher than usual, as if he’s trying too hard not to sound impressed.
The door opens.
She is taller than any of the pictures let on, tall enough that the doorway seems too small for a moment, the frame cutting a clean line across her shoulders as if the room has to make space for her. The overhead light catches in her hair—platinum turned to white fire—and somewhere beneath the sleek coat and the high collar you can see the suggestion of sequins, a shimmer every time she takes a breath.
“Good evening,” she says, and the room exhales.
Her voice is lower than you expected, smooth but not soft, each word placed with the same care you’d use to set a rhinestone. She looks around once, taking in the dressing tables, the racks of costumes, the cluster of half-dressed performers trying not to stare. Her gaze slides past you at first, and your shoulders loosen without permission. You’re not ready to be seen yet.
The stage manager clears his throat. “Nightshade, this is—”
You don’t hear what he calls you, not really. You’re focused on the way she shrugs out of her coat, the easy roll of her shoulders, the way the fabric slips down her arms and reveals the first glimpse of the gown beneath. It’s not the one she’ll wear on stage—not yet—but it’s still too much. Midnight blue, cut close at the waist, the line of it making a quiet promise of everything it doesn’t show.
Her eyes find you then. Blue, yes, but sharper than any photograph, thoughtful rather than cold. She considers you for a beat that stretches longer than it should.
“So,” she says, “this is my assistant for the evening?”
You manage to nod. “Yes. I—if you need anything, I’ll…” You trail off, annoyed with yourself, because that’s not a sentence and you know it.
One corner of her mouth lifts, just enough to say she noticed but isn’t going to be unkind about it. “Anything,” she repeats, taste-testing the word. “That’s generous.”
The stage manager gives you a look that’s meant to be encouraging and only succeeds in making you more aware of your own posture. You straighten instinctively.
“You can hang that up,” she says, slipping the coat from her shoulders completely now and offering it without looking.
You take it carefully, the wool still warm where it touched her. You hang it on the stand by the door because it’s something to do that doesn’t involve staring at the long, clean line of her neck or the way the blue silk moulds to her back when she leans forward.
She turns toward the mirror, lowering herself into the chair with a grace that feels rehearsed and yet somehow entirely natural.
“Do you prefer Nightshade?” you ask, after a moment. Your voice comes out quieter than you intend, swallowed by the soft buzz of the bulbs.
She meets your gaze in the mirror. “You may call me Larissa.”
It sounds like a concession, like something she doesn’t offer often. You tuck it away, unsure what to do with it yet.
Her makeup case is already open on the vanity, a compact little universe of colour and shadow. You move to her side, hands hovering for a second above the array of brushes. You know this part, you do this for the regular dancers, the girls who come in late and leave earlier than they should. But somehow, under this gaze, with this name in your mouth, the simple act of reaching for a mascara wand feels like stepping onto a tightrope.
“What do you usually go for?” you ask.
She tilts her head, considering her reflection. “Classic. Glamour with restraint. I leave spectacle to the costume.” Her lips curve slightly. “And to the way I take it off.”
The comment could be crass in someone else’s mouth. From her, it’s almost academic, a statement of method. Still, you feel heat rise to your face and are grateful she’s watching herself instead of you.
You work slowly, because that is the only way you know how to be steady. Foundation smoothed along the high planes of her cheekbones, the faintest deepening of contour beneath. You blend until there are no edges, only the illusion of shadow where you want it to be.
“Your hands don’t shake,” she observes.
“I do this a lot,” you say.
“Do you?”
You’re close enough now that you can see the tiny flecks of darker blue in her irises, the way her lashes are naturally long even before your brush touches them. You focus on the work: the sweep of liner, the precise angle of a wing that elongates her gaze into something feline, predatory.
When you move to do her lips, she watches you more directly.
“Red, I assume?” you ask.
“Anything else would be dishonest.”
You choose the shade without thinking, the one you’ve seen in print ads and still photos, that perfect knife’s edge between scarlet and wine. You steady her chin with your fingers, thumb resting very lightly at the hinge of her jaw. The contact is minimal, professional. It feels like standing too close to a candle anyway.
She parts her lips just enough to let you trace the bow, the careful curves. She holds utterly still.
“You’re very focused,” she murmurs, when you’re almost done.
“So are you,” you reply, before you can stop yourself.
That earns you a quiet, low laugh. “Touché.”
You finish, step back, and for a moment the two of you simply look at the image in the mirror. Larissa Weems, Nightshade, all polished poise and crimson mouth, every line of her composed. It feels strangely intimate to know you had a hand in this final version, that the woman they’ll see on stage will be wearing your precision.
“Hair?” you offer.
She inclines her head. “Please.”
Her hair is heavier than it looks when you unpin it, the pale strands sliding over your knuckles like water. You comb through gently, careful not to tug, dividing and smoothing, coaxing it into soft, controlled waves. She closes her eyes once, briefly, and you have to force yourself not to let your fingers linger too long at the nape of her neck, where the skin is warm and bare.
“You’re trying very hard not to look,” she says eventually, eyes still closed.
You freeze. “Look at what?”
Her lashes lift, and there is amusement there now, unhurried and certain. “Me.”
You swallow. “I’m looking right at you.”
“Mmm.” Her gaze dips, travels slowly from your eyes to your mouth and back again. “That’s one way to put it.”
Heat crawls up your throat, but you hold her stare because you refuse to flinch in front of her. “I’m working.”
“I know.” She smiles, small and knowing. “You’re doing it very well.”
It shouldn’t sound like a caress, but it does.
The stage manager’s voice filters through the thin door, announcing the first act call. The usual lineup will warm them up before Nightshade takes the stage, but everyone knows who they’re here for. The noise from the club drifts in—low jazz, the swell of conversation, glasses clinking, the occasional rough laugh. Beneath it all is something else, a hum of anticipation you can feel even back here.
“Costume, then,” Larissa says, rising. The gown she wore in crashes and blues is replaced by something far more deliberate when you unzip the garment bag: a corseted bodice heavy with black sequins, the light catching on each tiny facet. A split skirt overlay, sheer and dark, falling over stockings attached to suspender clips that gleam faintly in the lamplight.
You help her into it piece by piece. The lacing at the back of the corset is intricate, a pattern of pulled silk running down her spine. You stand close behind her, threading the ribbon through the eyelets, tugging gently to bring the boning snug against her curves.
“Tell me if it’s too tight,” you murmur.
“I’ll tell you if it’s not tight enough,” she counters.
You feel the laugh more than hear it, the faint shake of her shoulders under your hands. You pull a little firmer, the muscles in your forearms flexing with the effort. Her waist narrows as the fabric draws in, the shape of her body becoming even more defined. It’s an almost obscene privilege to be the one doing this, watching the transformation from backstage reality to onstage myth.
You’re aware the whole time of where your fingers are. Grazing the smooth, bared skin at the base of her spine, brushing the sides of her ribs, briefly steadying at her hip when she shifts her weight. Each contact is fleeting, excusable, and yet you can feel the imprint of them lingering in your own body.
“You’re holding your breath,” she observes quietly.
You exhale, surprised. “Am I?”
“Yes.” She looks at you over her shoulder, eyes half-lidded. “It’s unnecessary. I’m not going to break.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” you say, mostly under your breath.
Her smile turns slow. “Aren’t you.”
You finish with the laces, tying them off neatly at the base, the bow resting just above the swell of her backside. You step back, letting your gaze travel up, because you’re allowed to check your own work. That’s all this is. You tell yourself that twice, maybe three times.
The stockings come next, though she does most of that herself, sitting on the edge of the vanity chair with one leg extended. The line of her calf, the curve of her thigh as she rolls the sheer fabric up, the snap of the suspender clip fastening against the stocking top—it’s all measured, efficient, nothing like the slow, performance-ready tease you know she’ll give the audience. And still your throat dries watching it.
“You’ll be in the wings?” she asks, as she slips her feet into heels that seem almost architectural.
“If you want me there.”
“I do.” She stands, testing the balance, one hand resting on your shoulder momentarily. The weight of her is brief but undeniable, grounding and dizzying at once. “I like knowing where my constants are.”
You echo the phrase silently—my constants—as if it might mean more than it should.
When she leaves the dressing room, the backstage corridor feels smaller behind her, the space she occupied still humming with her presence. You follow a minute later, after you’ve remembered how to move, slipping along the familiar path to the side of the stage.
The club is dim beyond the curtain, the main room lit in pools: warm amber on the bar, soft gold across the tables, the stage a brighter, expectant glow. The audience is restless in the way of people who think they’re sophisticated but are still susceptible to wonder. Laughing too loudly, clapping too early, craning their necks whenever there’s a flicker of motion near the stage.
From your vantage point in the wings, you can see everything and be seen by no one. You hold onto that anonymity like a talisman as the house lights dip further and the band slides into a languid, sultry number.
Her introduction is almost unnecessary—they already know—but the emcee gives it anyway, voice booming. “Gentlemen, ladies, and all creatures of the night… be sure your hearts are in working order. Please welcome to the stage… Nightshade.”
The applause hits you before the light does, a wave of sound that seems to push the curtain inward for a second. And then she steps through.
Larissa doesn’t burst onto the stage, she arrives. There is a difference. She takes her time, each step a statement, the line from her throat to her toes an unbroken command of attention. The sequins on her corset catch the spotlight, sending a scatter of reflections into the dark like a private constellation.
She doesn’t move much at first, just stands and lets them look. She knows precisely how long they can stand it before the need for motion becomes palpable. When she finally lifts one gloved hand, the small shift feels monumental.
The act is classic burlesque, but she inhabits it with a sort of quiet intelligence. The gloves come off first, of course. She toys with the edge of one as the band leans into a bluesy run, tracing the seam with a fingertip that suggests more than it reveals. When she finally peels it away from her wrist, inch by inch, the fabric clinging before yielding, the crowd’s noise tightens, condensing into whistles, low appreciative murmurs, the occasional shouted endearment.
She uses them, those sounds. Plays them like another instrument.
When she turns in profile, you see the curve of her waist against the cinched corset, the flare of her hip under the sheer overskirt. She drags the glove slowly up her own arm before flicking it out into the darkness, a single long strip of satin that disappears into eager hands.
Her gaze sweeps the room, collecting faces one by one, and then, deliberately, she lets it drift to the wings. To you.
Even from here, you can feel the weight of it. She doesn’t smile immediately, there’s a beat where she just look at you, as if taking inventory, as if reassuring herself that yes, you are where she left you. Then the faintest curve of lips, a small, private acknowledgement no one else would notice over the roar of attention.
Your breath catches on that moment and doesn’t quite right itself.
She moves more now, the choreography a seamless blend of slow hip rolls, graceful turns, teasing dips. The overskirt loosens under her fingers, unfastened with an absent-minded precision that belies the deliberate nature of each reveal. She drops it like a curtain, the sheer fabric pooling at her feet, leaving her in high-cut panties and stockings that gleam faintly under the lights.
The crowd surges again, applause and cheers crashing against the stage like a storm. You think about the way you saw those same stockings rolled up in the quiet yellow light of the dressing room, the way her shoulder felt under your hand when you steadied her. It feels… illicit somehow, to be remembering the backstage softness while she gives them this sharpened, elevated version of herself.
Her hands travel down her own sides, over the boning of the corset, pausing suggestively at the busk. The choreography asks for the idea of unhooking it, the slow, almost-but-not-quite reveal. She obliges, letting her fingers linger on the catches without actually undoing them. She’s not here to strip, she’s here to tease, and you have never understood that word so clearly until now.
When the act hits its peak—the band swelling, her body arched in a pose that offers the illusion of vulnerability without surrender—the room seems to hold its breath. She lets the silence stretch, suspended on the edge of something that will not come, because this is her story, and she decides how far it goes.
Then she releases it, the tension, the pose, the air itself, letting it all dissolve into a sly bow, a slow sweep of her arm that sends another cascade of applause rolling over her.
You don’t realize your hands are clenched until they ache.
She exits cleanly, stepping through the curtain with the same unhurried grace, the persona peeling away in infinitesimally small layers as she crosses the threshold back into the realm of backstage hum. There’s a flush high on her cheekbones now that makeup didn’t put there, a fine sheen of sweat at her temple.
You’re there, already moving, the glass of water in your hand an excuse more than a necessity. She takes it, fingers brushing yours, and this time the touch lingers, her thumb grazing the side of your index finger as if by accident.
“You watched,” she says, as though there was any chance you wouldn’t have.
“You told me to.”
“I did.” She studies you over the rim of the glass as she finally drinks, her throat working with each swallow. When she lowers it, there’s a hint of a smirk. “You were very intent.”
You think of all the ways you could deny that, dismiss it, laugh it off. None of them feel honest, and dishonesty would sound ugly in this room, with her eyes on you like that.
“You’re… difficult not to watch,” you admit, forcing the words out slowly, measured.
Her gaze warms, just a fraction. “Is that so?”
“You know it is.”
“Yes,” she agrees softly. “I do.”
She sets the glass down, close enough that you smell the faint tang of citrus from the water, layered over the jasmine of her perfume and the salt of her skin.
“You were trying so desperately not to stare earlier,” she continues, drawing out the words, “and yet onstage, you looked at me like you’d forgotten anyone else existed.”
Your mouth goes dry. “I was concentrating. On the performance.”
“Mmm.” She steps closer, until you have to tilt your chin up just slightly to keep her in focus. “On the performance.” Her hand lifts, fingers ghosting over the front of your blouse, not quite touching, tracing the line of a button. “And which part held your attention the most, I wonder?”
You don’t answer. She doesn’t seem to expect you to.
“Don’t worry,” she says instead, voice dipping into something that feels like a secret. “I like it.”
“Like what?”
“Being watched. Properly.” Her smile turns thoughtful. “There’s a difference between being seen as an object and being witnessed as a person performing an object. You understand that, I think.”
You do, though you’re not entirely sure how she’s pulled that admission out of you without you having said a word.
She reaches up, then, and very gently tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. The contact is light enough to dismiss and careful enough that you know she doesn’t intend for you to. Her fingers linger a heartbeat longer than they need to, her knuckles brushing the curve where your jaw meets your neck.
“You’re flushed,” she notes quietly.
“So are you,” you answer, because you refuse to be the only one laid bare here.
Her lips part, surprised amusement flickering across her face. “You’re bolder than you pretend.”
“Not bold,” you say. “Just… present.”
“Present,” she repeats thoughtfully. “I could use more of that.”
There’s a commotion further down the corridor—another act hurrying to change, someone complaining about a missing prop—and the spell thins a little, though it doesn’t break. Larissa glances past you, then back, recalibrating.
“You’ll be here tomorrow as well?” she asks.
You hadn’t thought that far ahead. She’s only booked for two nights at your club, on her way through to the next city, the next stage, the next set of hands lacing her into some other costume. Your schedule flashes through your head—yes, you’re on the roster, but that could change, it often does—yet the word that comes out is simple.
“Yes.”
“Good.” She reaches for a silk robe hanging nearby, sliding it over her shoulders, the deep plum fabric obscuring some of the sparkle without dulling her presence. “I like consistency on tour. Familiar faces. Hands that already know how tight my corset should be, how I prefer my liner drawn.”
She ties the robe loosely, fingers deft. Then, almost as an afterthought, she looks back at you, expression unreadable.
“If I ever decide to take on a constant assistant,” she says, voice still level, almost casual, “someone to travel with me rather than a new face at each club… I’ll think of you.”
The words land with more weight than their tone suggests. You feel them slot into place somewhere low in your chest, like a promise and a temptation and a challenge all folded together.
You search her face for any hint of a joke, some sign she’s teasing you past your limit, but there’s only that same composed amusement, that same thoughtful curiosity.
“You barely know me,” you manage, because it’s the only protest you can find that doesn’t sound like begging.
Her gaze drifts over your features, lingering just briefly at your mouth before returning to your eyes. “I know enough for now,” she says. “The rest… can be learned.”
She moves past you then, the hem of her robe whispering against your leg as she goes. As she reaches the door, she pauses, looking back over her shoulder.
“Oh,” she adds, as if the thought has only just occurred to her, “and next time, don’t fight it so hard.”
“Fight what?”
“The urge to look.” Her smile is small and devastating. “After all, I’ll be looking for you.”
The door swings shut behind her with a soft click, leaving you alone with the warm impression of her touch on your skin and the echo of that almost-offhand promise. Out in the club, the band starts up again and the audience’s chatter swells, hungry for whatever comes next.
You stand still in the dressing room, surrounded by powder and perfume and the faint glint of sequins on the floor, and realize that for the first time since you started working here, the rest of the night feels like an intermission.
A/N: thank you so much to everyone who has been reading this fic, whether here or on ao3, and has been leaving such kind comments and messages, and likes of course. I've not been doing particularly well and the love I've gotten for this fic is incredibly motivating, heartwarming, and humbling, and has kept me afloat 🫂 much love to you x
Larissa could hardly believe what she had gotten herself into.
She hadn’t gone ice skating since she was a child, and even back then she’d never been particularly good at it. It was as though all of the grace she normally carried herself with left her body the moment she stepped onto the ice, and she was unsteady as a fawn taking its first steps.
Much to her chagrin, your family seemed to go ice skating often — Deanna was already doing laps around the rink, while Dan was helping Ben with one of those skating aids that Larissa had always refused to use, for fear of looking silly. You walked slightly ahead of her, with Alice by your side, both of you taking sure steps towards the ice even on the blades of your skates, while Larissa already felt as though her ankles were moments away from failing her entirely as she wobbled behind you.
You stepped onto the ice, turning to take Alice’s hand and help her with that first step. The little girl let go of your hand once both blades were on the ice, but you left your hand out, your gaze meeting Larissa’s. “Need help?” you offered, smiling — rationally, Larissa knew it wasn’t your intention but, in that moment, your smile felt almost patronizing. You had to have caught on to the fact that she couldn’t skate, with her unsteady gait, her insecurity radiating off her in waves. That little smile as you held out your hand made a deep-rooted, stubborn part of Larissa flare up, and made her want to refuse your help entirely.
“No, thank you.” Larissa’s voice was as strained as the smile she plastered upon her face as she stepped onto the ice with one foot, gripping the wall so hard her knuckles turned white. She felt her foot slide a bit farther than she’d have liked and she cursed under her breath. Out of her peripheral vision she could see you drop your hand back down to your side, and she didn’t have to look at your face to guess the derision with which you most certainly watched her.
“Do you need one of those push-y things?” Alice piped up as Larissa placed her other foot onto the ice and clung to the wall — she looked down to see the little girl looking up at her with wide, imploring eyes and a toothless, dimpled smile.
“No, sweetheart, I’m quite alright,” Larissa said, her heart beating altogether too fast against her chest. Alice wasn’t going to let up, though, holding out her own tiny hand.
“It’s easy! You gotta let go of the wall.”
Easy. Larissa loosened her grip on the wall and reached out a hand towards Alice’s, only to feel her foot slide away from her. She’d always hated the feeling that the ground beneath her feet wasn’t steady and firm and, even as a child, she’d been acutely aware of just how far she’d fall with her height. She felt warmth flood her cheeks as her arm flailed through the air, desperately gripping onto the wall again.
Larissa heard your laugh, and she couldn’t bear to look at you. Alice did, though, turning to you with urgency in her voice. “Daddy always holds mommy’s hand when she’s scared.”
“I am not scared,” Larissa interjected, unable to keep the hint of irritation out of her voice at being stripped bare by a child. When she dared a glance at you, the amused grin on your face made her feel nauseous.
“Come on, let’s get you off that wall,” you said, a ghost of a chuckle in your voice. Larissa had never felt so embarrassed in her life. She considered refusing, pushing you away and getting off the ice. But with the way your family was doing laps around her with practiced ease, she thought that quitting would be even more humiliating. No, she could do this. She would do this. She would take your help to get off the wall and then she would be fine — if Alice could do it, so could she.
She allowed you to wrap your arm around her waist. Your body was warm tucked snugly against her side like that, your hand searing against her hip, even through multiple layers of clothing. Larissa slowly let go of the wall — as she wobbled a bit, you tightened your grip. Alice cheered, and decided that she was bored of the spectacle now that Larissa was clinging to you and not the wall — she skated ahead, and now it was just the two of you.
“You’ll have to move your feet, you know,” you joked, and Larissa tensed, her lips pressing into a hard line. “Larissa? Look at me.” She refused. “You’re really afraid of falling, aren’t you?” you asked, your voice suddenly much gentler.
Larissa’s face was growing so hot she felt her head may explode. She didn’t answer your question — she didn’t have to. Your entire demeanor softened in an instant, your fingers spreading out against her hip, your other hand coming to rest on her arm.
“Hold onto the wall with your other hand,” you murmured. Larissa hesitated — then placed a hand on the wall. “Perfect, and watch my feet. You’re gonna kind of…” You pushed one foot back, then the other, propelling yourself forward and dragging Larissa along with you — she let out a strangled yelp that immediately made her feel embarrassed. “It’s okay, we’ll go slow. But it helps if you move the same foot as me. Can you push with the right one?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Larissa pushed her right foot back, and you mirrored her. Then you murmured left and she pushed her left foot back, with you following suit. The two of you continued that way for several meters, your hand firm on Larissa’s hip, Larissa’s hand skimming the wall. The first few steps felt treacherous, slippery — but each subsequent movement felt a bit firmer, more grounded, more fluid. Larissa even dared to remove her hand from the wall, blindly groping for your collar when she wobbled again.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, blushing — you took her hand and, without missing a beat, said, “keep moving.”
And keep moving she did, one push after the other, relaxing enough to feel your grip on her loosen. After the first lap around the rink, she felt so at ease that she offered you her hand — yours left her waist, and you held hands for the next lap instead, still skating slowly but much more confidently than before.
“Thank you,” Larissa murmured, glancing down at you with an almost sheepish smile on her face, feeling silly for having been so afraid. You returned her smile, your face open and warm.
“You’re a natural. You just have to get used to the feeling.”
Larissa couldn’t help but glance down at your intertwined hands. Your skin was soft and warm against her own, much as it had been in the car on the way to the skating rink, when you’d nearly fallen asleep on her shoulder. The memory filled Larissa’s belly with a comforting warmth — she’d hardly dared move for fear of you moving away, it was far too nice having you close like that, the now-familiar scent of your shampoo filling her nostrils every time your hair brushed against her cheek, making goosebumps erupt on her arms.
And now you were holding her hand again, smiling up at her and whispering encouraging words, sincerely, as if you didn’t think her silly or stupid at all for being afraid of ice skating. As if you didn’t look down on her for not being good at everything, as she looked down on herself. She swallowed thickly as emotion welled up inside of her.
“Oh no!” Alice’s voice sounded from behind moments before she passed by your left side and bumped into you with a giggle. The jolt pushed you forward and Larissa, who had been momentarily distracted by her own thoughts, felt her skates slip forward, her body not quite following suit.
Your hand clutched her own tightly and your other hand shot out to catch her wrist, but it was too late — Larissa fell onto the side of her hip with a shocked yelp. For a moment, everything was still — then pain began to radiate up to her waist and down her thigh.
“Larissa, are you okay?” “Auntie Rissy!”
She’d been wrong earlier. This was it, the most embarrassing moment of her life.
Whatever walls you’d managed to tear down in the past two laps of skating shot back up, and then some. The cold ice burned her hip where she sat, frozen in shock, hardly aware of the way you crouched beside her, the way even small Alice loomed over her like a shadow. Your arms stretched towards her and, on instinct, she swatted them away, feeling suddenly very small and crowded, her stomach clenching and her head spinning.
“Rissy!” In her periphery Larissa saw Alice’s hands reach out and then your own grab them.
“Not now, Alice, go find your mom, please. Auntie Larissa needs space.”
Alice’s shadow retreated but yours remained, your hand stretching towards Larissa once again. “Larissa, do you want help getting up?”
“No,” Larissa snapped, irritation flaring within her. “I don’t need help.”
A look of hurt flashed across your face, but it was too late to take her words back. Larissa pushed herself onto her knees, wincing at the sharp pain in her hip, and used the wall at the side of the rink to pull herself up, and to pull herself towards the nearest exit. She could hear your skates brush against the ice behind her, but refused to look back. She couldn’t face you like this — she felt ashamed. Ashamed of not being able to skate, ashamed of falling, ashamed of snapping at you when you were only trying to help. She stepped off the ice and wobbled towards the bleachers, sitting down with a wince of pain and unlacing her skates with trembling fingers.
The light thump, thump, thump of your footsteps approached her, though she didn’t dare to look up. Then you sat beside her, close but not touching her, and wordlessly began to remove your own skates as well.
Larissa huffed. “You don’t have to stop on my account.”
“I’m not. I’m over it anyway,” you said with forced lightness. You didn’t say anything else and, for that, Larissa was grateful.
It didn’t take long for the rest of your family to join you — Alice clomped towards Larissa and stopped right beside her, offering a hug which Larissa gratefully accepted. She was thankful that Deanna and Dan seemed unaware of what had transpired, or were, at the very least, ignoring it.
The drive back home was a bit tense, and dinner a bit subdued — at least for you and Larissa. The rest of your family carried on as though nothing had happened. For them, nothing had. But that look that had crossed your face when Larissa had snapped at you, it was haunting her. She loathed herself for being the cause of it.
She excused herself early after dinner, not much in the mood to play Uno with the rest of your family, and got herself ready for bed, slipping under the covers with a book. To her surprise, there was a knock on the door after just a few minutes, and your head poked through the crack.
“Can I come in?” you asked softly.
“Yes… of course…” Larissa placed her bookmark back in her book and set it on the nightstand, smoothing her hands over a crease in the blanket and then folding them in her lap. You closed the door behind yourself and hovered there across the room, staring at Larissa — she felt herself blush, her stomach flipping uneasily.
“If you’d like to be alone I can arrange to sleep on the sofa, or I can sleep in–”
“I don’t want to be alone,” Larissa reassured you hoarsely, the words sounding foreign even to her own ears.
“Oh. Okay. Good.”
“Has everyone gone to bed already?”
“No… I just didn’t really feel like playing anymore. I’m pretty sure my sister cheats anyway.”
Larissa couldn’t help the huff of a laugh that escaped her lips, and something in her chest tightened when you smiled. “My roommate at Nevermore used to cheat at cards. Ruins the fun for everyone, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty lame…” you agreed. You hesitated again, then awkwardly gestured towards the bathroom. “I’ll just…”
Larissa waved you away with a forced smile, taking her book off the nightstand as you closed the bathroom door behind yourself. She opened her book and looked down at it, but she couldn’t read. The words all blurred together in front of her eyes, her mind elsewhere — on her Nevermore days, on the tension between the two of you, on the pain in her hip when she leaned too far to one side.
The bathroom door opened again and Larissa jumped — she hadn’t heard the tap turn off. She closed her book again, but you quickly interjected.
“You can keep reading, I don’t mind.”
Larissa kept the book on her lap but didn’t open it, opting instead to watch you cross the room, and stop just short of the left side of the bed. You reached for your pillow, which was still on the bed from where your mother had walked in on the two of you that morning, giving it a slight tug and murmuring an apology — Larissa was leaning against one corner of it, and she quickly moved.
You groaned as you bent down to place the pillow on the floor, your hand coming to your lower back to rub at a sore spot, and Larissa felt another pang of guilt.
“You don’t have to sleep on the floor,” she said softly.
“It’s fine, I’m just sore from skating today.” Larissa could hear the lie in your tone, the moment’s hesitation between your words, and she huffed softly.
“It is not fine. Come here.” She shifted a fraction to her right, making room for you as she’d done that morning.
You protested again but there was no real strength behind your words, and you eyed the bed with a sort of longing that only strengthened Larissa’s resolve as she arched a brow and gestured to the bed. Hesitantly, you picked up your pillow again and placed it next to Larissa’s, climbing into bed but sitting right at the edge, as far from Larissa as physically possible — something that made her chest ache.
This was a terrible idea. Larissa swallowed thickly.
“I don’t bite, you know,” she said, faking an air of nonchalance as she flipped open her book so that she could stare at the words instead, so that she wouldn’t have to watch you avoid her like the plague.
To her surprise, you laughed, and she felt your body shift just a bit closer. Still not touching, but at least you weren’t about to fall out of your bed. “I didn’t think you would. I just don’t want to crowd you.”
Your words were chosen with care, and they reminded Larissa of how crowded she’d felt after she’d fallen onto the ice, how she’d pushed you away. She frowned, turning to face you.
“I’m sorry about this afternoon. I know that you only wanted to help, and I should have accepted that.” Her voice was soft, she felt like someone different entirely. You leaned closer to her, placed a hand on her arm, and she had to fight the goosebumps that broke out all over her body.
“You don’t have to apologize, it’s okay. I didn’t realize you needed space. I should have told Alice to leave you be about skating in the first place.”
“It’s alright, it was my decision…” Larissa said, her insides feeling very warm. “It went well for a lap or two, didn’t it?”
You grinned. “It did. For what it’s worth, I had a lot of fun.”
Larissa chuckled. “I had some fun,” she admitted softly, with a quirk of her lips.
“That’s better than nothing.” Your light teasing made Larissa feel more at ease by the minute, and she covered your hand on her arm with her own. She was beginning to like holding your hand far too much.
You didn’t seem to mind, though, wiggling your fingers almost playfully beneath hers and resting your head on her shoulder again. When you spoke, your voice vibrated through Larissa’s shoulder into her chest. “Is your hip okay?”
“Fine… I’m sure it’ll bruise a little, but I’ll live.”
“Are you sure?” You sounded worried, and Larissa squeezed your hand in reassurance, though your concern did make her head feel a little fuzzy.
“That I’ll live?” Larissa smirked. “Positive.”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny.” You rolled your eyes, giggling — which shook Larissa’s whole body and made her laugh in turn.
It felt even more like a sleepover this evening than it had the past few nights, or at least how Larissa had always pictured sleepovers should be. Despite being in bed early, the two of you stayed up late, talking and giggling like teenagers until you were fighting to keep your eyes open.
The last thing Larissa was aware of when she finally drifted off to sleep was the feeling of your hair against her cheek and your hand wrapped loosely around her own. It made her feel warm and safe, and she’d never slept so deeply.
The local mall was the busiest it had ever been, everyone from the surrounding towns doing their last minute Christmas shopping. An area near the entrance had been converted into a winter wonderland, complete with fake snow, oversized candy canes, and a massive Christmas tree. An old man in a Santa Claus costume welcomed children from a long queue that wrapped around nearly a quarter of the mall, accompanied by a small group of ‘elves’ tasked to take photos of him with the children and to do crowd control.
Each child you passed as you walked to the end of the queue was louder and more hyper than the last and you grimaced and turned to Larissa with an apology on the tip of your tongue, only to find her smiling pleasantly at Alice as the little girl skipped beside her, divulging in great, trivial detail what she had already told you at breakfast about her Christmas wishlist.
Of course Larissa was good with children — you couldn’t fathom why she wouldn’t be, running a school, after all. Kids of all ages went to Nevermore, though you usually only saw the older students in Jericho. Apparently she was a natural even with the little ones, so much so that she hardly seemed to notice the din that the kids at the mall made, which was already starting to give you a headache.
“Could you guys watch the kids for us?” Deanna asked, trying to put Ben down. He clung to her neck, his little face already scrunching up and turning red. She sighed, glancing at you pleadingly, though before you could react, Larissa was already reaching out her arms.
“May I?”
“Yeah — please.”
Larissa took Ben into her arms — he resisted at first, grabbing onto Deanna’s hair and letting out a wail, but she managed to pry herself from his strong, toddler grasp. Larissa clutched him to her chest and began to coo at him.
“Thank you, we’ll try to be back before you guys reach Santa.” Deanna grasped her husband’s elbow, lowering her voice. “Last minute presents.”
The two of them disappeared in a throng of people, leaving you and Larissa with Alice and Ben. The former hardly noticed her parent’s absence, rocking on her heels and craning her neck to see Santa in a sort of feverish anticipation, while the latter was sniffling into Larissa’s neck, his little hands balled into fists against the front of her dress.
To say you were impressed was an understatement — Ben was generally a pretty quiet child but once he started crying, it was nearly impossible to get him to stop. And he could be loud. But Larissa held him tightly, one arm under his bottom and the other hand at the back of his head, gently stroking dark curls as she whispered to him and rocked him back and forth. Bright blue eyes locked onto yours overtop his head, and you felt your palms turn clammy in an instant. Painted lips curled into an easy smile, and you felt your knees turn to something closely resembling jell-o. There was something dizzying about Larissa holding your nephew as if he was her own, something that made your heart skip a beat.
You smiled back (at least, you hoped you did — you felt a bit faint all of a sudden) and were very grateful for the distraction when Alice tugged at your coat and asked you how long the queue would take.
“I don’t know, all these kids have to tell Santa what they want for Christmas, too.”
Her eyes widened in sudden horror. “Is he going to have time to give us all presents?” she asked anxiously. You crouched beside her, holding her by the shoulders in what you hoped was a comforting manner.
“Of course he is. He’s been bringing kids all over the world their presents, for hundreds of years.”
“That’s why it’s so important we leave out carrots for the reindeer,” Larissa supplied, and your head snapped up to see her peering down at you and Alice. “To give them the energy to fly quickly enough.”
Alice soaked in Larissa’s words, nodding gravely. She craned her neck again to look down the queue, and you stared up at Larissa, who winked at you. You swallowed thickly, rising slowly to your feet, your knees popping on your way up and making Larissa laugh.
“I thought you were younger than I am, your knees are already giving out?” she teased.
“You have no idea,” you replied weakly.
The queue took ages and even when you reached the front, Deanna and Dan were nowhere in sight. Alice held onto your hand tightly, her grip strong and her expression grave, as though she was gearing up for the most important moment of her life. Ben was looking very sleepy in Larissa’s arms, his head resting against her chest and his eyelids heavy as Larissa shifted him subtly in her arms.
“You can put him down if he’s getting too heavy, you know,” you murmured. “He’s got legs, he’s old enough to stand for a minute.”
Larissa looked mildly offended. “No, he’s alright,” she insisted with a shake of her head, pressing a soft kiss to his curls. “I don’t mind.”
You rolled your eyes and let out a playful huff. “Suit yourself, just don’t complain when your arms are sore tomorrow. You shouldn’t let my sister’s kids wrap you around their little fingers like that, they’re spoiled rotten enough as is.”
Larissa rolled her eyes right back, a witty retort no doubt forming on the tip of her tongue, though you’d never hear it — the elf standing at the front of the queue cleared his throat and approached Alice in that moment.
“Are you ready to meet Santa?”
She nodded shyly, a look of trepidation crossing her face. You knelt down beside her, her hand squeezing yours in a death grip.
“You’ll be okay,” you whispered encouragingly, trying to push her towards the old man sat waiting for her.
“Would you like your mommies to come with you?” the elf interjected.
“Oh, we’re not–” The words died on your tongue as Alice nodded absently, eyes still fixed nervously on Santa, and suddenly the elf was jerking his head at you and Larissa, as if to say ‘the queue is long, get on with it.’
You glanced almost helplessly at over your shoulder, your eyes wide, but Larissa seemed to be taking everything in stride, following you and Alice over to Santa.
Another elf helped your niece onto Santa’s lap and, after she stuttered out her wishlist, Larissa placed Ben on Santa’s other knee. The two of you stood aside, shoulder to shoulder, as yet another elf took a photo of your niece and nephew on Santa’s lap. You were starting to sweat beneath your coat, and Larissa’s body heat so close to you wasn’t helping the matter. Alice wriggled herself free from Santa’s lap the moment the photo was done and ran up to Larissa, tugging at her coat. You collected Ben and followed Larissa and Alice to a more quiet corner to regroup.
Would you like your mommies to come with you? And you hadn’t said anything, Alice hadn’t said anything. Even Larissa hadn’t said anything. The elf could have assumed that you were friends, or cousins, or anything really. But he assumed you were a couple. You supposed that was a good thing — if this stranger thought you two were a couple, surely your family was buying into the lie as well. A lie that was, slowly but surely, making you feel sick to your stomach.
“Are you alright?” You jumped as Larissa’s hand came to rest on your lower back — your grip on Ben had tightened and he was starting to get fussy, and you hadn’t even realized, as deep in thought as you were. You met Larissa’s gaze, and you wished you hadn’t. There was a deep crease between her brows, her eyes were wide and imploring, swimming with concern, her lips turned into a frown. Her thumb ran across your lower back, back and forth and back and forth, as heat prickled at the back of your neck. Your stomach turned, you suddenly felt very ill.
“It’s a bit hot in here,” you remarked faintly.
“It’s terribly stuffy,” Larissa agreed, though there was something in her gaze that you couldn’t quite place as she eyed you carefully, her eyes narrowing slightly. She cocked her head to one side. “I’ll take Ben and wait with Alice for Deanna, you go outside for a moment.”
You let her take your nephew in your arms, nodding as you turned robotically and headed for the nearest exit, her gaze burning a hole into the back of your head as you went. It was absolutely freezing outside, the wind was blowing snowflakes across the parking lot, but it did wonders for your nausea. Wiping your clammy palms on the sides of your coat, you sat down on a bench and waited for your family to come out and meet you.
Your family, and Larissa.
It was terribly selfish of you, you realized in that moment, to have Larissa keep up the charade for you like this. Instead of having a fun, relaxing Christmas, she was being subjected to all sorts of embarrassing family antics, Christmas parties with people she didn’t know, childcare for children who weren’t her responsibility. All because you had been too chicken to correct your mother when she thought you had gotten a girlfriend.
Larissa seemed to be enjoying herself alright, but you had your doubts. At the Christmas party after you’d kissed her. When you were forced to lie in bed together the following morning. Listening to your mom go on and on about your ex. Those moments in which Larissa seemed distant — the same moments in which you felt like you wanted her near.
And what made the guilt even worse? You were having the time of your life. You liked having Larissa around. You liked the way that she fit into your family, and into your life. You liked watching her dote on Alice, and on Ben, you liked watching her talk to your sister, or to your parents. You liked seeing her in your childhood home, at the kitchen table, drinking out of what had been your favorite mug a decade ago, as if she belonged there. You liked lying awake at night staring up at those old, faded glow-in-the-dark stars, listening to her breathe, knowing she was staring up at the same stars.
It made you sick to your stomach to think she didn’t like all of that quite as much as you did.
“There you are, you okay?” Your sister’s voice broke you out of your reverie — you hadn’t heard her approach, her children and Larissa in tow.
“Yeah, fine, it was just too stuffy.”
“Dan’s just loading the bags into the car, he’ll pull it around.”
As you stood, Larissa came around to your side and placed a firm, steadying hand on your elbow. You smiled gratefully, almost in spite of yourself.
“Dan wanted to take the kids ice skating,” Deanna started. “Do you guys want to come or should we drop you at home first?”
Your questioning gaze met Larissa’s, searching. She smiled, giving you a slight nod, though her brow furrowed slightly. “I don’t mind, are you sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah…” You felt yourself blush at Larissa’s concern. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
When Dan pulled the car around to the mall’s entrance, you and Larissa climbed into the back while Deanna secured the kids in their car seats. Larissa was cramped in the back seat, her long legs bent at an awkward angle, her knee pressed against your thigh. Your fingers twitched in your lap, you wanted so much to reach out and touch her, to get closer to her… Screw it. You rested your hand on her leg, hesitantly, then watched as she covered it with her own. She smiled at you — a small smile, warm and comforting, her face at ease. You smiled back, that dizzy feeling from earlier returning, and rested your head against her shoulder, solid and grounding — you weren’t quite sure what had gotten into you, but you hoped she would attribute your physical neediness to not feeling well.
The back seat of your sister’s SUV was like a bubble of your own making. You could hardly focus on the conversation she was having with her husband, on the chatter of your niece and, to a lesser extent, your nephew, on the music playing on the radio. Instead, you felt a sleepy, dreamy sort of weightlessness with your head against Larissa’s shoulder, with her warm palm cupping your hand, the soft wool of her coat beneath your fingertips. You could feel every breath she took, the sweet, flowery scent of her perfume lulling you into a daze — every so often, when the car hit a pothole or turned a corner, your head bounced, bringing you even closer to Larissa, your hair grazing her cheek. And she sat there, looking out the window, her thumb brushing rhythmic strokes across your knuckles. It nearly made you fall asleep, and you were more than reluctant to leave the car when you arrived at the ice skating rink.
Inside, it took you twice as long as usual to lace up your skates — you were too busy watching Larissa help Alice with hers, knelt in front of the little girl, her nimble fingers doing up the laces carefully, pulling them tight, knotting them securely, checking the fit around each of Alice’s feet. She took your niece’s hands, helped her up, watched her like a hawk as she took a few steps to make sure they weren’t too loose.
In that time, you’d only managed to lace up one of your skates halfway.
“I guessed your shoe size, I hope they fit okay,” Deanna said, offering Larissa a pair of ice skates — Larissa looked up at her from where she was still crouched down, her eyes wide.
“Oh no, I’ll just be watching.” She insisted firmly, a polite smile settling on her face. Alice scurried up to her as fast as she was able in her skates.
“You don’t wanna skate?” She looked like a wounded puppy, and Larissa glanced at you nervously. Alice followed her gaze, turning her puppy dog eyes on you. “Make Auntie Rissy skate with me.”
That nauseating, guilty feeling simmered low in your belly again when Alice called Larissa “Auntie Rissy”, but you ignored it this time, suppressing a smile at Larissa’s helpless expression — she was usually so confident and in control, and it was a bit comforting to see that even Larissa Weems wasn’t perfect all the time.
“If Auntie Larissa doesn’t want to skate, then we can’t make her,” you said gently. Alice frowned, turning to Larissa with a big pout that made you giggle. You smirked and added, “I don’t know how you can say no to her, though.”
“I can’t,” Larissa said with a resigned frown, settling on the bench and taking off her heeled boots. Alice squealed in delight, her entire demeanor changing in a heartbeat. You couldn’t help but laugh at your niece and, when you caught Larissa’s gaze again, she sighed softly — then her gaze fell to your skates and she let out a huffed laugh. “Don’t tell me you can’t tie your own skates either?”
A crimson flush spread across your cheeks — you’d been distracted, and, as it stood, had managed to tie a wonky knot into one of them and were still playing absently with the laces of the second. “I can tie my own skates just fine,” you grumbled. Larissa chuckled softly, a smile returning to her face — the twitch of her lips made you feel warm.
“Wake up, sleepyheads, breakfast is almost ready!”
Your mother’s voice ripped you unceremoniously from a deep sleep — though it was the subsequent knocking on the door that made you shoot into a sitting position.
“Can I come in? Are you decent?” your mother called out, and your heart began to race.
Scrambling to gather your blankets and pillow into your arms, you cursed under your breath. “Just a second!” You pushed yourself to your feet and stumbled over to the bed, where a groggy Larissa propped herself up on her elbow. “Scooch over,” you whispered, pushing your pillow next to hers and tossing the duvet over her own.
Larissa complied, arranging her hair over her shoulders, pulling the blankets over her chest to hide the way her nipples poked visibly at the fabric — your gaze didn’t have time to linger as you slid beneath the blankets beside her, trying to appear comfortable.
“Come in,” you called out to your mother, who immediately opened the door and poked her head in.
“Don’t tell me you sleep in just as late as my daughter,” Joan chastised playfully, and Larissa smiled sheepishly. You did wonder over the fact that Larissa had still been asleep, as you knew she was usually an early riser, but your mother didn’t give you the time to dwell on that fact. “You look so sweet together!”
“Mom, please…” You felt your cheeks redden, and a glance at Larissa showed you the heat rising in her own face.
“Don’t be embarrassed, you’re both such pretty girls.”
“Mom–”
“As I was saying, breakfast’ll be ready in ten. Everybody else is already up, even the little ones.”
You rolled your eyes, earning you a pointed look from your mother, before she left your room, shutting the door behind herself.
“Ugh, sorry about her. Like I said before, she can be overbearing as hell.” You gave Larissa an apologetic smile, relaxing now that your mother was no longer hovering. The bed was small, yes, but it was warm and cozy, especially with your combined body heat beneath the covers, and you didn’t even realize how close Larissa was, or that your hand automatically found her waist beneath the covers as you turned to face her.
“It’s alright, darling, she means well.” The way the word ‘darling’ dripped from Larissa’s lips was downright sinful, and it made your cheeks redden.
In the brief silence that followed, you allowed yourself to look — really look — at your friend-turned-fake-girlfriend. Larissa Weems was easily one of the most beautiful women you’d ever met, that much you’d known since the first time you laid eyes on her. But before this trip, you’d only ever seen her in what, to you, was full-glam: make-up done, lips painted, hair coiffed. You’d never seen her like this before: bare-faced, her eyelashes nearly translucent without a trace of her usual mascara; lips a pale pink, slightly cracked from the dry winter weather; hair loose and tangled, falling in gentle waves down her back. There was a smattering of pale freckles dusting her face, which were usually covered by her makeup — the same freckles dotted her shoulders, which were visible due to the way her silken pajama top was pulled back at an odd angle over her shoulder.
Your gaze traced her collarbone to the hollow of her throat, watching, very briefly, the way her chest rose and fell with each breath, before snapping back up to her eyes. Larissa seemed to be taking you in as well, her gaze pensive as her head rested in her hand. You didn’t even realize that your thumb was moving in a back and forth motion across her hip.
She was absolutely breathtaking. And she looked tired. Not the sleepy kind of tired, the way pretty much anyone looks right after waking. No, she looked exhausted tired — the kind of tired you get when you haven’t slept a wink all night. You felt your lips pull into a slight frown.
“Don’t take this the wrong way…” You worried how your words would be taken, wanting to say just the right thing, not wanting to offend Larissa. “You look like you didn’t get much sleep.”
Larissa was quick to wave away your concern with a scoff. “I had some trouble falling asleep, it’s really alright.”
“You sure? I could get you a different pillow if it’s bugging you, or–”
“Darling, don’t worry. It was just one evening. The pillow is perfectly fine.” There was something about the look in Larissa’s eyes as she tried to reassure you that made you press on, your grip on her hip tightening of its own accord.
“You’d tell me if there was something I could do to make you more comfortable, right?”
“Yes, I would tell you,” Larissa insisted, and now there was just a bit of amusement dancing in her eyes, her lips twisting into a smirk, and it distracted you entirely. Your eyes fell to her lips and your stomach twisted slightly, pleasantly. She was so lovely when she smiled, and her hip was so soft and warm, filling out your palm perfectly, and you could feel her breath against your cheek, and–
“Breakfast is ready!”
You yanked your hand off Larissa’s hip as if it had suddenly been burned, embarrassment coloring your features. “We should get dressed,” you mumbled, rolling out of bed and snatching a jumper off the chair by the door. Your heart was like a hummingbird beating against your ribcage, and you kept your back to Larissa as you pulled the jumper over your sleep shirt and looked around for some jeans. By the time you turned around again, Larissa was standing at the foot of the bed, fully clothed and with her hair and make-up done — the sight was so unexpected that it made you jump.
In the several moments it took for your brain to catch up with the change, you stared at Larissa as if struck dumb — she took in a sharp breath and began to fiddle with the gold cuff of her wristwatch.
“Can you… did you…?” Words failed you, and you wished you could disappear entirely.
“Shapeshift? Yes,” Larissa said dryly.
“Right. I didn’t realize you could… you know…” You swept your hand through the air, gesturing down the length of Larissa’s form, both of you blushing.
“I usually only do this when I’m in a rush.” She nodded towards the door. “We shouldn’t keep them waiting any longer.”
“Who? Oh, oh, right.” Mentally kicking yourself, you turned to open the door. “After you.”
~~~
“You’re up awfully late,” Deanna remarked the second the two of you entered the kitchen, and you rolled your eyes at the smug look on her face.
The rest of your family had evidently already started eating, the table decked out with plates full of eggs, bacon and sausage, toast stacked high, jars of marmalade and Nutella, waffles. Alice grinned her little toothless smile as she saw you, Nutella already smeared across her cheek, and patted the seat next to her.
“I saved you a seat,” she squealed, her s’s sounding like th. You rounded the table and sat beside her, giving her a hug from the side, as Larissa made her way to the seat across from you — Luna ran up to her legs and started jumping at her calves, barking, and Larissa tensed, twisting away from the little dog.
“Luna, come here,” your dad said, though the dog didn’t listen. “Luna, stop that.”
After some coaxing, Luna abandoned Larissa in favor of the bacon your dad was bribing her with, and Larissa managed to get to her seat unscathed, though looking rather out of sorts.
“You know,” your mother started, and you could tell from her tone that she was about to say something embarrassing and uncalled for. “This reminds me so much of the days back when you were seeing Taylor. It was impossible to get the two of you out of your room back then, too.”
Yep. You were right. Though Joan didn’t stop there.
“You were so serious about each other, I really thought you were going to get married after you graduated school.”
Larissa dropped the piece of toast she was in the process of grabbing. You met her gaze across the table and she gave you a queer sort of look which you couldn’t interpret — it was gone in a flash, leaving an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach.
“Mom, stop talking about Taylor, literally no one here wants to talk about her.” Deanna came to your rescue and you shot her a grateful look. She was one of the only people you’d been able to confide in when Taylor had broken up with you — most of your high school friends had thought you were making a big deal of it, and you hadn’t been at college long enough to make many close friends.
Your mother had the decency to offer you a soft apology, and your father swiftly changed topics by asking Dan if he was available to help with the truck again in the afternoon, but the “damage” had been done — Larissa focused intently on buttering her toast, not meeting your gaze across the table.
While everyone else resumed chatting as if nothing had happened, you watched her intently, the way long, elegant fingers wrapped around her knife and dragged it in slow, deliberate strokes across the toast; the way her lips, painted their usual deep red, pursed, mascara-coated lashes fluttering, jaw tensing slightly. She was agitated and withdrawn, a side to her you had never seen before but were becoming familiar with, whenever the atmosphere turned awkward, or too intimate. She was miles away from you — and you hated it.
Alice talked animatedly about meeting Santa at the mall later and about her Christmas wishlist, and you nodded absently as you stretched out your right leg beneath the table, as far as it would go, until your sock-clad toes made contact with Larissa’s shin — she jumped, her knuckles turning white so as to not drop the knife in her hand, and her gaze snapped up to meet yours.
You offered her an apologetic smile — a sort of olive branch — running your foot gently down the length of her shin, and saw her shoulders draw back, her cheeks flood with color. She smiled softly — she was yours again, kind and soft and amused.
Not yours yours… but something like that. Close enough, anyway. The Larissa you knew and loved.
Loved? Did you love Larissa? Of course you did. You loved all your friends, and Larissa had certainly become a good friend over the years. You knew that you cared for her tremendously, that you worried for her comfort and her well-being. You knew that you enjoyed her company, that she made you smile, that her opinions (and approval) mattered a great deal to you. That it pleased you to have her close, to look at her, to hold her hand. That didn’t mean you were in love with her. Did it?
~~~
After clearing the table from breakfast, you found Larissa in your bedroom, leant against the wall by the window and watching snow fall outside.
“Mind if I join you?” you asked softly — Larissa glanced briefly over her shoulder and nodded, before turning to look out the window again. You crossed the room and stood by the other side of the window. The snow looked picturesque, coming down from the sky in a flurry and blanketing your yard in layer after layer of white. “I’m glad that it’s snowing. Winter isn’t winter to me without snow.”
“It’s very beautiful,” Larissa murmured.
So are you.
It almost shocked you, how immediate the thought was, how natural it felt to think of Larissa — statuesque and striking — with her sparkling eyes and soft lips and pale hair, as beautiful. The most beautiful creature you’d ever seen. Her pupils tracking one snowflake on its journey past your window, then flicking up to watch the next, and the next, as her fingers again toyed subtly with the strap of her wristwatch. You averted your gaze and your warm breath fogged the frosted windowpane.
“Taylor and I were serious. Or at least, I was serious about her.” The words burned your throat, and you weren’t quite sure you should be telling Larissa this at all. After all, what did it matter? Still, you pressed on. “We started dating in school and I really thought she was it for me, you know? We were gonna go to different colleges but we promised each other we’d drive to see each other every weekend, and that we’d move in together and get married when we graduated. But it only took a semester before she started to come up with excuses why she couldn’t visit me, or why I couldn’t visit her, and then two days before exams started I got a text saying that she couldn’t handle having a girlfriend and going to college at the same time.”
You shrugged your shoulders, trying to appear nonchalant — Larissa gave you a sideways glance, her brow furrowed. “I’m sorry to hear that…”
“It’s fine — I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Honestly? I haven’t thought about her in years. Water under the bridge, or however that saying goes. Like, yeah, it hurt at the time, but it just wasn’t meant to be, and that’s okay. I’d rather be with someone who cares about me and isn’t going to dump me on a whim, you know?”
“So would I.”
Something about the way she spoke, wistful yet tinged with bitterness, told you that Larissa was speaking from personal experience, that she was reliving her own heartbreak. It seemed crazy to you, that a woman like Larissa would have her heart broken — after all, who would be stupid enough to break up with someone as beautiful, as intelligent, as caring as her? You decided to tell her as much, and she snorted and rolled her eyes.
“You have a very high opinion of me, darling,” (there it was again, that word that made your cheeks warm), “I can assure you, even I have not been shielded from heartbreak.” Larissa smiled as she spoke, though she clasped her hands in front of herself and twisted her fingers this way and that. “Perhaps I’d have fared better, had I had a girlfriend like you.”
Your blush rose all the way to the tips of your ears, and you felt your next words catch in your throat. “What sort of girlfriend did you have, then?”
Larissa was silent for so long that your stomach began to turn, afraid you’d crossed a boundary — you kept your gaze trained on the window, not daring to look at her.
“The sort that didn’t care much about monogamy, or about my feelings,” she said finally, her voice deliberately measured.
“Damn.” Your voice cracked and you cleared your throat. “You… deserve someone that treats you like a queen, you know…”
It was Larissa’s turn to blush, and the two of you risked a glance at each other at the same time — you felt as shy as a teenage girl, and you couldn’t quite figure out why.
“Thank you.”
A beat.
“Deanna is taking Alice and Ben to see Santa this afternoon. Alice asked me to come.” You paused. “Would you like to come with us?”
Larissa didn’t really know why she was so nervous. Social events weren’t exactly foreign to her, not by a long shot — though perhaps this was the first one in a long time where she was asked to be herself, not Principal Weems.
Or perhaps it was because every neighbor and family friend walking through the front door was commenting on how lovely it was to meet her, how beautiful she was, how well you two complimented one another, how happy they were for the two of you, how happy they were that you’d finally found someone, “and a looker at that” — it was almost too much for Larissa to bear.
She watched you, champagne flute in hand, as you took it all in stride, smiling graciously, rolling your eyes at embarrassing remarks, introducing her to these people you’d known your whole life. Like a moth to a flame she was drawn to your warmth, magnetized by the comfort you brought her with a single encouraging look, a steady arm around her waist.
It surprised her just how little she minded the physical contact that she usually avoided from others — from you, it felt grounding. As though your arm was a shield against the outside world, armor protecting her from judgement, keeping her safe. Something about your casual touches felt right, and it scared Larissa to think that they were all for show, an afterthought on your part, when to her, they meant more than she’d like to admit.
“Taylor!”
Larissa whipped her head around at your exclamation, too busy staring at you to notice a young woman about your age making her way through a throng of people directly towards you. Your arm left Larissa’s waist to pull the woman into a hug, and Larissa suddenly felt cold and abandoned, even with you at arm’s length.
“I didn’t know you were in town. It’s so good to see you!” You let go of the woman and turned, your arm snaking around Larissa’s waist once more — but the moment had already been soured. “Larissa, this is Taylor. Taylor, Larissa. My girlfriend.”
Your ex. Larissa grimaced, sizing her up as the woman held out her hand. A blonde as well, a few inches taller than you (though shorter than Larissa), with grey-blue eyes and a crooked smile. She looked as though she had hardly aged from the photo at your high school prom.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, not unkindly, her hand extended to shake Larissa’s.
“Likewise…” It felt anything but nice. “Will you excuse me, I’m going to get another drink. I’m parched.”
You nodded, giving Larissa’s hip a squeeze before letting go, and Larissa headed for the kitchen to discard her empty champagne flute in favor of a full one.
She stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching you talk to your ex, unaware of the disdain written upon her own face until your sister came up behind her and offered her a plate of random hors d'oeuvres. She shook her head.
“Didn’t think I’d see her here again,” Deanna remarked, and Larissa felt her interest pique, quirking an eyebrow as she broke her gaze and looked down at the younger woman.
“Oh?”
“I’m assuming my sister didn’t tell you about her?”
“Only that they were together in high school and grew apart in college…”
Deanna snorted. “Yeah, if by grew apart you mean Taylor completely shattered her heart by breaking up with her during exam season.” She rolled her eyes. “I never thought I’d hear the end of that… never seen her so upset either, she almost moved back home.”
Larissa felt her heart lurch — she risked a glance back at you, and felt sick to her stomach. She watched your eyes light up while Taylor talked, watched your lips spread into a wide grin. Your laugh rang out through the living room and Larissa felt as though she was developing tunnel vision, the sound of your voice echoing in her ears, everything around her blurring away, leaving only you.
God, what was wrong with her? You weren’t hers, so why did she feel so jealous and possessive at the thought of you talking to your ex? Surely it was because she cared for you deeply as a friend, and the thought of you hurting hurt her as well — that was a part of friendship, wasn’t it?
As the party continued, Larissa found her way back to your side, and you’d thankfully moved on to talking to a friend of your mother’s. A small crowd amassed around the two of you when the topic turned to the story of you getting together, and Deanna watched Larissa’s hand find yours with a smirk.
“I’m dying to know what made you fall in love with my sister.”
There was a chorus of “yes”’s and “awe”’s, and Larissa’s gaze flitted nervously to yours, her fingers tightening around your own as she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.
“Her hot chocolate.”
Your family and friends laughed, some agreed — you grinned at Larissa, your cheeks pink. You wrapped your arm around her waist.
“Didn’t realize I could impress you so easily,” you teased.
“What about you?” Taylor asked — a muscle in Larissa’s jaw twitched at the sound of her voice, high and grating.
“What made me fall for Larissa?” Larissa felt a nervous anticipation in the pit of her stomach as Taylor nodded. Your hand on her hip was warm and soft, and it was making it rather hard to concentrate. “Have you seen her?”
Some people laughed, a neighbor wolf-whistled — Larissa’s ears burned and your arm tightened around her waist.
“No seriously, though, she’s just as intelligent and witty as she is gorgeous. I don’t even think she knows this but she really inspired me after I reopened the Weathervane — she made me feel like I could do it, you know? She’s confident and encouraging, she’s great at running Nevermore — just ask literally anyone.”
Larissa could hardly believe her ears — she swallowed thickly, her eyes darting between your own, searching for any hint of deception, any sign you were praising her for the sake of the “audience”. She found none, only sincerity and warmth, and she nodded dumbly. Any reactions to your words faded into the background as she stared at you, feeling like she was seeing you clearly for the first time.
“Larissa?” you whispered. “You okay?”
Before she could find the words to answer you or to properly compose herself, she heard your sister’s husband, Dan, shout, “Hey! Mistletoe alerrrt!” and point above her head. She froze, looking up — indeed, the two of you were standing directly beneath a mistletoe.
You seemed to sense her disorientation, as you took a step back to give her space. “I don’t want to ruin your lipstick,” you said diplomatically, but the guests were not having it.
“Oh come on,” Taylor said. “Do you really think she cares about her lipstick? Kiss her!”
You hesitated, your gaze locking onto Larissa’s. She felt like a deer caught in headlights, her pulse thudding in her ears as she watched you take a step closer — your breath suddenly mingling with hers, your face closer than it had ever been.
Then your lips — warm and soft — made contact with the very corner of her mouth, and you leaned back again. Larissa held back a full-body shiver at the contact.
“Oh,” you breathed out, your gaze fixed on Larissa’s lips, and you lifted your thumb to rub away a smudge of lipstick below her lip. “Sorry.”
Taylor whistled and Deanna squealed out an “awww”, but Larissa felt stricken. The skin at the corner of her mouth was tingling, her breath coming in short, dizzying pants. She forced a smile.
“Pardon me, I’ll be right back…” She squeezed your hip, trying to appear normal as she extricated herself from your grip and headed to the bathroom.
The door clicked shut behind her and she flicked on the light, bathing the small room in a warm glow. She leaned against the sink, gripping the sides of the porcelain with trembling fingers as she met her own gaze in the mirror.
Larissa hardly recognized herself. A deep flush covered her face, her pupils were wide and dazed. She could feel her heart in her throat, its beat wild and unrestrained, and she let out a shaky breath.
The last time she’d felt this undone had been… God, it had been years, if Larissa was honest with herself. Back at Nevermore, during her own school days, before she’d asked Morticia to the Rave’N — the high before the fall, the moment of hope before the crushing blow.
It was then that Larissa realized, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, how deep her feelings for you ran.
She liked you.
Really liked you.
She liked the way you looked at her, the way you treated her, the way your presence made her feel safe. She liked that she could talk to you, and that you were kind and funny and charismatic, and how your hand felt in her own.
She liked the way your lips felt on her skin, the warmth of your breath tickling her lips.
She liked your friendship, valued your presence in her life, but what she really wanted was to kiss you, to hold you in her arms, to make you laugh and smile and to call you hers.
“Have you seen her?”
The words echoed in Larissa’s mind.
Intelligent. Witty. Gorgeous. Confident.
Larissa didn’t feel any of those things.
Did you mean it? She wondered — she hardly dared to hope.
There were only two things she knew to be true in that moment: one, that she liked you more than she’d liked anyone else in a long, long time. And two, that she felt more welcome here, with your family, than she’d ever had anywhere outside of Nevermore.
Larissa’s knuckles turned white as she braced herself against the sink. Then, a knock on the door, your voice floating through the crack, soft and melodic and tinged with concern.
“You okay in there?”
“Yes, of course.” A lie, Larissa’s voice hoarse. How could she possibly be okay, knowing how she felt about you, knowing you couldn’t possibly feel the same. She ran the tap for a few seconds, to keep up appearances. She schooled her face into a mask of indifference, plastered on an agreeable smile. Then she opened the door, and her heart skipped a beat at the worry in your eyes.
“Sorry about all that,” you murmured under your breath, so no one else would hear.
Larissa could only wave away your apology, unable to meet your gaze directly. “It’s what we agreed to, isn’t it?”
You woke the next morning to the sound of banging cabinets, harsh morning sunlight creeping between the blinds and falling directly across your face. Your back ached and your shoulders were so stiff you could hardly move your arms, wincing as you tried to sit up. Okay, so maybe it had been a few years — or decades — since you’d last crashed on the floor.
“Sorry about the noise,” you grumbled to Larissa, wanting to apologize for how loud your family was being — only to glance at your bed and notice that it was perfectly made and you were all alone in your room. Damn, had you really slept through Larissa getting up? You groaned as you stood, steadying yourself on your dresser, and padded out into the hall, yawning and rubbing the sleep out of your eyes as you followed all the noise towards the kitchen.
A high-pitched squeal barely registered in your ears before a small body barreled into you, nearly taking you out at the knees. Your niece grinned up at you, both of her front teeth missing, her little arms pinning your legs in place. You couldn’t help but to match her grin, reaching down and lifting her into your arms, surprised at how much taller and heavier she was than the last time you’d seen her.
“Hi,” Alice squealed, planting a wet kiss on your cheek.
“My goodness you’ve gotten big! What is your mommy feeding you, huh?!”
Alice giggled and you carried her to the kitchen, where your sister was going through the cabinets looking for mugs, chattering away at the speed of light — a slightly perplexed Larissa standing beside her. You suppressed a smile at the sight of her, dressed (as usual), to the nines and looking terribly overwhelmed by the short brunette beside her cursing over the fact that your mother had apparently rearranged the kitchen again.
Larissa caught your gaze, her eyes widening as she mouthed “help” — when your sister caught the action, she turned to scold you.
“It’s about time you got up, your poor girlfriend has been sitting here bored out of her mind all morning–”
“I’m not bored,” Larissa interjected weakly — indeed, there was an abandoned copy of Wuthering Heights lying on the kitchen table. You imagined Larissa had gotten up early to have some peace and quiet, only to be intercepted by your chatty baby sister and her mini-me.
“–and you couldn’t even be bothered to tell me you had a girlfriend at all until last week, I don’t know if I should be upset or–”
Ignoring Deanna, you crossed the kitchen to Larissa.
“Sorry about her,” you murmured, low enough for only Larissa to hear. “How did you sleep?”
She smiled softly, her gaze flitting between you and your sister. “I slept alright, thank you.”
“Would you like a hot chocolate?” you offered, and Alice yelped out an enthusiastic “YES!” before Larissa could even process your question.
“Your recipe?” she murmured, and you grinned, nodding. “Then yes. Please.”
“You don’t need to be so polite here,” Deanna chimed in, laughing, and you rolled your eyes.
“Some people were raised with manners, Dee. Can you take Alice?”
“Look what I can do,” the girl interrupted, demanding your attention by tugging at your cheek with a small hand until you were looking at her. She whistled through the gap at the front of her teeth, a significant amount of spit flying into your face.
You grimaced and Larissa suppressed a laugh — it made your cheeks grow warm. “That’s great, sweet girl. I need to put you down, okay, I need to make you and Auntie Larissa your hot chocolate.” In setting Alice down, you missed the flush on Larissa’s cheeks as you gave her the title “auntie”.
“Did Dan come, too?” you asked your sister as you rummaged around the cabinets.
“Course, he’s in the garage helping dad with the truck. You don’t really think he’d miss the Christmas party, do you?”
“Christmas party?” Larissa echoed, and you rolled your eyes.
“Yeah, mom and dad throw a party for their friends and the neighbors every year. Half the town usually ends up coming.”
“You’ll love it, Larissa,” Deanna chimed in. Somehow, you doubted that statement.
You finished making the hot chocolate, pouring some into a small mug for Alice, and the rest into a huge mug for Larissa, covering it generously in whipped cream — in spite of Larissa’s weak protests. “Let’s get out of here,” you murmured as you handed it to her and led her out of the kitchen by the elbow — breathing an instant sigh of relief when it was just the two of you in the hallway.
“Sorry about Dee… I bet she’s been chatting your ear off all morning.”
“I don’t mind…”
“You should mind, she’s a nuisance.” You snorted, tapping one of the photos on the wall: a family photo, your parents sat on the sofa with you wedged between them, a pained smile on your face as your younger sister (sat on your mother’s lap) pulled a face at the camera.
“You look very serious,” Larissa noted quietly, taking a sip of her hot chocolate.
“Someone had to be…” You glanced over, distracted by the thick layer of whipped cream lining her upper lip. “Larissa, you’ve…” You giggled, pointing to your own upper lip. “You’ve got some whipped cream…”
Larissa’s cheeks turned a bit pink, and she raised her mug to cover her mouth as her tongue darted out to lick the cream off her lip. “Better?” she asked sheepishly, and without thinking you reached out with your thumb, stopping just shy of her lips, suddenly doused with shame.
“God, sorry, I didn’t mean to–” You felt your own cheeks burn. “You’ve still got a little right there– yeah, you got it…”
What has gotten into you? With no one around but the two of you, you felt embarrassed at your behavior — what if you’d crossed some invisible boundary? You were grateful when Larissa swiftly and gracefully changed the subject.
“You look beautiful here — was this at a school dance?” She was pointing towards a photo from your senior prom of you and your then-girlfriend in front of your high school’s gym — you smiled at the memory.
“Yeah, senior prom. I loved that dress.” It was a deep, royal blue, with sequins along the bodice and a skirt that swept along the floor — you’d never felt more beautiful than that night.
“It was very beautiful. The color suits you.”
“Thanks… Blue is my favorite color.”
Larissa hummed thoughtfully, her eyes — blue as the ocean — flitting between you and the photo. “The girl… was she a friend?”
“My girlfriend…” You chuckled, smiling to yourself. “Taylor. We dated, like, just over two years or something.”
“Was it serious?” There was a hint of something that you’d never heard before in Larissa’s voice, an underlying tension. You considered her question carefully.
“I guess a little? It fizzled out when I moved away for college though. We were just going in different directions, you know?” You shrugged. “God, I haven’t seen her in years, I wonder if she’s still around…”
Larissa took another careful sip of her hot chocolate, her gaze contemplative — miles away. Outside, you heard the slam of the door to your mom’s SUV, breaking the quiet calm of your moment with Larissa.
“I’d better go get dressed.” You tugged self-deprecatingly at your pajamas. “Before my mom freaks out about how ‘lazy’ I am.” As you heard the front door open you scurried towards your bedroom, leaving Larissa standing in the hallway by the family photos.
~~~
Larissa had managed to spend most of the early afternoon tucked into a corner with her book, while your mother armed you and your sister with task after task to get the house ready for the Christmas party. Once the caterers began to arrive, however, even Larissa was roped into the preparations, charged with watching your niece and nephew and keeping them out of trouble.
“Are you a lesbian, too?” Alice asked, whistling and spitting a bit on the ‘s’, as her brother, Ben, played with matchbox cars on the floor of Deanna’s room.
Larissa blushed, clearing her throat nervously. “Yes, sweetheart.”
“I’m going to marry Sammy when we grow up.”
“Sammy is your friend?” Alice nodded, dark curls bouncing wildly, and Larissa smiled. “Is Sammy a girl?”
“Yes.” The little girl paused. “Are you going to marry my auntie and be my auntie for real?”
Auntie. When had she gone from Principal Weems to auntie Larissa?
“I-” Larissa paused, unsure how to answer that question. Of course she wasn’t going to marry you, but your family didn’t need to — shouldn’t — know that. She replied carefully: “I don’t know yet.”
“Why don’t you know? Does one of you snore?”
Larissa laughed, taken aback. “No. Why do you ask that?”
“Because when daddy snores, mommy says she’s going to divorce him.”
“Wh–”
“Larissa!”
Larissa breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of your voice, your footsteps approaching rapidly. The door flung open and you popped your head into the room.
“Deanna’s gonna come watch the kids, you’re released from duty,” you said with an easy grin, and Larissa stood from where she was perched carefully on the edge of Deanna’s old bed. “We have, like, an hour to get ready.”
~~~
Thankfully, Larissa had taken some nice dresses with her, just in case — she settled for a modest, sage green dress with long sleeves, a high collar, and a lace trim, painting her lips a dark red and pinning an elaborate golden clip covered in freshwater pearls to the side of her updo, the pearls lending an iridescent shimmer to her light hair.
“Does this look alright?” she asked you, staring critically at herself in the mirror, turning this way and that and smoothing her hands over the curves of her hips, as if willing them away. She was too busy eyeing her figure to see the way your eyes widened to saucers as your gaze traveled shamelessly over her form.
“‘Alright’?” You gaped at her. “Larissa, you’re easily the most beautiful woman who’s ever stepped foot in this house. If anything, everyone else should be asking themselves that.”
Larissa felt her cheeks redden, and she quickly shapeshifted her blush away before you could catch how deeply your words affected her. “Nonsense,” she muttered, placing a hand on her stomach as it flipped — not unpleasantly. “Don’t flatter me.”
“Larissa,” you said incredulously, stepping up behind her and placing a hand on her hip, meeting her gaze in the mirror. “I’m dead serious, you are–”
“Girls! Company’s here!” Joan’s voice rang out through the house, and you stepped back quickly, nodding to the door to your room.
“We should go.”
Larissa sucked in her stomach, taking a last look in the mirror — then she felt your hand, small and warm and impossibly soft, wrap around her own and tug her towards the hallway. Her fingers tightened around yours of their own accord, and you glanced back at her. Something about the way you looked at her, your eyes warm and encouraging, made Larissa’s heart leap into her throat.
