a taste for it | shauna shipman
summary: just shauna rethinking her life choices, and letting her true self take control. she did not start out a bad person. or did she?
warnings: blood. description of violence. description of killing animals. shauna being a god damn cannibal i guess. no pairings, just shauna. changed the canon a little bit, who cares !. just, blood, be warned.
a/n: i just wanted to write something about this unhinged woman whom i love very much being even more unhinged. sue me. also, my first attempt of writing something in english! not my first language so i’m sorry if there’s a few mistakes. lol. gif by @jackietaylorsghost
It wasn't something hidden in the mountains, just waiting for them to fall. It wasn't an evil spirit that took hold of them one by one. A monster lurking through the trees ready to attack. It wasn't the wilderness. It never was.
And to Shauna, that was way more terrifying than anything supernatural that could explain what had happened in that forest. What could have induced them to do the most unimaginable things. Things totally against her nature.
Since she got back, 25 years ago, a metallic taste of blood lingered in her mouth like a phantom memory. Everything that was said, done, lost, seems to be stuck in her throat, like a knife going through her larynx. The choice of staying in the same city, living with the same people, and finishing school at the same high school, was a way of pretending that the world had taken a short break, just waiting for them to come back. Also, marrying Jeff was a way of keeping Jackie close in one way or another. An almost cruel, almost ironic way, that's for sure. She kept repeating to herself that she did not start out a bad person, but Shauna no longer knew how to exist without being cruel. It was her nature now.
Or was she always like that?
Fucking her best friend’s boyfriend, lying to herself about her feelings, her needs. Getting way too comfortable with the weight of a knife on her hands when they gave her the “butcher” role in the group…
It got out of control after a while. And oh, how she misses it.
It started with squirrels, small animals. When Callie was at school, Jeff at work, she would spend too much time in their backyard waiting for them to appear. She would grab it by their tail and break their little necks, opening up their bellies with the kitchen knife. And oh, how she liked the feeling of their warm blood running through her fingers.
She would spend a few minutes just watching it drip from her hand, the glimmery look of it, how it looked under her nails, her knuckles. One of these days, without even realizing, her hand went slowly to her mouth. But before it could touch her lips, a loud noise coming from the garage announced Jeff was home, taking her from this sick trance. She cleaned herself as fast as she could, and decided that was just not right. Not healthy. And it was the last thing she ever killed.
It was a mistake. All of it. Getting with him in the first place, trying to live a life that was never meant for her to live. Stupid. But she never thought it would end like it did.
The overwhelming feeling of danger she felt the moment of the confrontation, the subconscious reaction of trying to survive. All the things going back and forth in her head. The muscle memory of the grip of the knife in her hand was too much. When she realized what she had done, it was too late. All she could do was stare at him with cold eyes, pulling out the knife from his chest painfully slowly, just feeling the weight of his internal organs sliding against the metal. It fitted so perfectly there, like it was made for it. His eyes frozen in that specific expression people get when they know it’s over just stared at her, while he fell hard in the ground, the blood already pooling around him.
Shauna was numb, feeling her ears ringing, her heart pumping, her pupils pitch black. She was back in the woods. Her brain was completely foggy with memories, smells, textures and feelings of guilt and pleasure she knew too well. She looked at the knife with wide eyes, the warm liquid running down her hand and forearm. And without even flinching, she licked it clean before it could reach the sleeve of her blouse. And there it was. The metallic taste of the blood snapping her out of the half-conscious state.
She gasped, taking in the air and closing her eyes and just settling her mind to what just happened. And then she accepted. She was fucked up. A monster, even. But even monsters have their urges, and at that moment, she needed that. Like a drunk needed a bottle. So she kneeled in front of Adam’s body, touching his blood soaked chest and diving her mouth into the open wound. Tasting it, drinking it. She took it as a sacrament, a feeling of fulfillment running through her body when the warmth of it touched her throat, the taste of it lingering in her tongue as a song, a gospel.
It clicked something inside of her, and there was no return from what she had become. From what she had always been.
