Oct 31, 2024
Trick or Treat
@badlydrawnrose
here y0u g0! happy hall0ween, R0se!
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Trick or Treat
@badlydrawnrose
here y0u g0! happy hall0ween, R0se!
happy hall0ween everyb0dy!
i decided i'd g0 as jane d0e fr0m ride the cycl0ne this year 0u0
it t00k a while t0 put 0n my c0stume but it's 0n n0w
i'm s0 happy 0u0
“For as long as I can remember, people have hated me...”
“...They looked at my face and my body, and they ran away in horror...”
“...In my loneliness I decided that if I couldn't inspire love, which was my deepest hope...”
“...I would instead cause fear.”
Costumed Craving...
part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15, part 16
Not long after Marianne’s wound had healed, leaving the same red mark on her that marred Bog’s pale skin, the fledgling incubus sluggishly raised himself to gaze down into her eyes. She adored how his new nocturnally favoring biology made the exquisite blue of his eyes even brighter; they almost glowed in the dim light. Mesmerized and divinely sated, she nearly missed his rumbling whisper:
“Hi.”
Smiling, she pressed a simple, but no less loving kiss to his bloodstained lips.
“Hey.”
He touched his forehead to hers, nuzzling her affectionately and a low, purring sound passed between them for a few seconds...
…until Bog reared back in surprise, realizing that the noise was apparently coming from deep within his own chest!
Marianne giggled and stroked his cheek.
“Yeah, you can do that now too.”
Bog blinked and slowly nodded his understanding. Still, the interruption had perhaps not killed the mood, per say, but it had surrendered to the march of the clock and grown more focused.
Holding in a mewl as Bog pulled out and sat by her hip, facing away from her, Marianne sat up, stretched and reached for him-, but stopped short.
Maybe it was the slight change in the air’s texture, or the faintest hint of tension she noticed in the chords of muscle in his neck, but all at once she was frozen and like a broken faucet, worry began to drip into her stomach all over again as she waited for him to speak.
.
.
.
“I guess I was a bit overeager.” Bog said at last.
“S’alright, pretty sure I was on board the whole time, and leading.” Marianne quipped, shifting somewhat for a better view of his bowed profile. “How’s your craving?”
“Gone; completely.”
Relieved, but not knowing what else to say, she just absentmindedly rubbed his arm for a moment. Eventually, Bog’s fingers came up to cover her own, ceasing her movements.
“This can’t happen again, Marianne, not fer a while.”
The leak in Marianne’s gut turned into a veritable flood of dread, and she would’ve recoiled had Bog not held her hand fast and met her stricken expression right away with hard sincerity.
“I love ye, Marianne.” He stated in a gruff voice that was free of doubt. “Dorn’t ye dare ever think otherwise. I know what it meant to bite ye, an’ I know exactly why I did it; I was in control of all my…Lilin faculties, but I haven’t lost my human reason. Yes, I dorn’t wanna feed off anyone, but more than anythin’, I do know I wanna be with ye…I’m jus’……no’ ready yet.”
Marianne’s lips pursed to keep her sorrow reined.
“I need time to myself, to get used to this; to learn everything I can,” Bog explained gently, “but I have to like it without yer influence. I should embrace it all fer itself…an’ no’ because yer some kinda predestined prize that comes with it. It’s only fair. Do ye see what I mean?”
She certainly did, and in more painful ways than one. The trust between them had been damaged; thankfully, not destroyed, but it needed healing. And the very least she could do for him at this point was respect his wishes. Even if it was excruciating to do so.
How ironic; she’d kept the truth from him, and now he was keeping himself from her.
“Okay…” she croaked, “…I…I understand.”
“Do ye?”
“Yes. I don’t like it, but I understand it.”
Bog brushed some of her hair behind her ear.
“…I’m no’ tryin’ to punish ye, Marianne.”
“I know that. I say I’d deserve it if you were anyway, but…we both know I’m dramatic like that.”
He pecked her temple, and she felt her tears clambering for release, but she managed to keep herself together. She needed to be strong, for both their sakes.
Eventually, they stood up together and redressed in silence until she excused herself to go into the locker room to retrieve his dried pants. Holding the warm Levi’s in her hands, she paused and allowed herself to be ridiculously sentimental by pressing her cheeks against the rough material, inhaling his scent deep into her lungs for fear of forgetting its bewitching aroma.
Come on, Tough Girl. You know it won’t be forever. Besides, you’ve got your own life and responsibilities. You’ll be busy replacing your ring floor, for starters. Looks like you let a pack of wolverines loose in there.
Steeling herself, she returned to the main part of the gym where Bog was waiting for her.
“Hey, quick question.” He said as he put on his jeans.
“Yes?”
“Did Dawn make Sunny like you made me?”
“Yeah, she did.”
“I see. Would ye mind…textin’ me Sunny’s number then? If he’s up fer it, I’d like to have him around fer advice, since he’s experienced the transformation firsthand.”
“Oh, s-sure; that’s a good idea. I’ll let him know.”
“Thanks.”
“…I love you, Bog.”
He folded her into his arms and kissed her fiercely.
Wanting to stretch her final minutes with Bog to their maximum, she almost offered him a ride home, only to remember that that would be quite impossible, since she’d flown to the gym tonight. Having wings was a great way to save on gas, a helpful fact she never thought she’d find herself cursing one day.
All too soon, they were standing together in the open front doorway, unbothered by the chill of the final dark hour as it died for the morning. The city was incrementally stirring to life around them, a stark contrast to the supernatural couple’s aching but necessary gloom.
They did not speak.
They did not share a glance.
Just three words before he stole into the empty streets...
“Goodbye, Tough Girl.”
The sun rose on her weary and crestfallen eyes, still watching well after her soulmate had vanished into the fading shadows.
Costumed Craving...
part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13
Marianne had to take a moment to collect herself before she could coherently answer Bog. The thing about soulmates was that they weren’t just random individuals that fate threw together with a ‘best-of-luck’ shrug. They were specially matched to be both a balance and compliment to each other. Each was exactly what the other one needed and wanted, in whichever order they were to discover.
Take Dawn and Sunny’s relationship, for example. Believe it or not, those two had been best friends since childhood, with the latter blissfully unaware of the former’s biggest secret, not that it wasn’t difficult to hide as kids, but when puberty reared its ugly head, things got complicated.
Sunny fell in love while Dawn went cute boy-crazy. Marianne couldn’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for him, watching her sister take on the more, eh…traditional M.O. of a succubus; dating a seemingly endless string of tall, white guys; his exact opposite. He thought all he did was blend in, little knowing how he left all those jerks in the dust when it came to who Dawn really valued the most as a person.
She’d never once fed off Sunny. Dawn always claimed it would be disrespectful to their friendship. And through all her romantic flings and entanglements, she still made time to hang out with Sunny alone.
Then came the night of their senior prom.
It had been unusually cold and rainy that spring, and her date had come down with the flu at the last minute. Dawn had been wrecked, afraid she was going to miss out on the most special night of her high-school life, until Sunny volunteered to escort her himself, despite his responsibility as the event’s DJ. It was tricky, but they managed to make it work, with Sunny and his friend, Pare, taking turns manning the sound system so everyone could share plenty of dances.
When the prom was over, it was pouring outside, so heavily, that by the time Sunny and Dawn reached his mom’s beat-up Volvo, they were soaked through to the bone. Not realizing that Dawn wasn’t bothered by the chill as much as she was the wet, Sunny, like the gentleman he was (and is to this day), immediately switched on the heater, took off his tux jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, hugging her close in an attempt to get her warm before they drove home. Well, call it cliché as hell, but one thing led to another, and in the middle of their kissing, it happened.
Marianne would never forget how Dawn had later described it on the phone: All of the sudden, I just knew it. I could smell it and see it and taste it all at the same time! It was so weird and kinda scary, but so amazing! Like feeding times a thousand, a million! Everything was Sunny! My fangs finally grew out and the next thing I knew, I was drinking the blood straight from his heart!
Afterwards, placing Sunny’s passed out body in the backseat and driving frantically to her house so she and her father could explain everything to him when he came to was…awkward, to say the least. Dawn had been terrified that she was going to lose her dearest friend since kindergarten forever, but nature doesn’t make mistakes, and eventually, Sunny just smiled, saying he’d always believed there was something magical about her.
They’d been virtually inseparable ever since, marrying in college once Sunny had a year or two to get accustomed to his transformation, and moving into their own house in the same neighborhood as Dawn’s father; Lilin liked to stay near their families.
Dawn, like her mother, was a free-spirit. She was an almost obnoxiously peppy, optimistic, morning person, who’d try anything and everything at any given time, just for the fun of it. And while Sunny was similar, he had a stronger down-to-earth streak that helped Dawn relax and keep things in perspective, while she brought out his confidence and courage. He made her wiser, she made him stand out more; and together; they were deeply and truly happy.
Marianne had tried to deny how envious she was of them. Every Lilin longed to find their soulmate, and she’d been so afraid that she wouldn’t, even going so far as to lie to herself and think she didn’t want hers, thanks to the Roland disaster.
But she had.
Though she’d had a light handful of intimate partners in her lifetime, Marianne did not share her sister’s pre-bonding affinity for casual sex with all her prey. She normally preferred to take the ‘thief in the night’ approach, less personal that way. She was like her mother too, just in wit and sass, rather than flight of fancy; even if she could be somewhat inquisitive and impatient. Her mother’s passion had become her own, and that combined with her father’s rarely seen, but serious anger underneath his typically easy-going and friendly attitude, made Marianne a veritable hurricane when her small number of buttons were pushed.
Marianne was wild and tough, and she needed someone who could match her fire. Otherwise, her strength would crush them to bits, figuratively and very literally.
Bog was a hard-ass. He didn’t bullshit her; if he disagreed with her on something, he told her so, and they debated the subject thoroughly, fervently, and respectfully. They were also both fiercely competitive. Their dates were chock full of races, trivia, contests, point tallies, etc. He’d even come to the gym a few times to work out and spar with her. And the best part? No pun intended, but he never pulled any punches. Despite her obviously needing to physically dial it back to avoid suspicion and/or injuring him, she could still tell that he gave it his all. He didn’t take it easy on her because she was a woman; he treated her as an equal, right from the start. That’s how they were balanced.
Furthermore, she’d never known the true calming power of the color blue until she’d seen it in his eyes. As much as he could stir her up, he could settle her down just as easily, with his kindness and empathy. He soothed and consoled her, praised and encouraged her; reminded her of all the beauty and good in the world.
And for her part, she enticed him, beckoned him; drew him out of the lonely shadows that had whispered to him of his ugliness, his strangeness, his unworthiness to be loved. They gave each other hope, and that’s how they were complimented.
All that being said, if Bog thought her temper was familiar and comforting, then he should’ve taken a peek inside Marianne’s head when he’d growled at her.
Had she not been so stubbornly in denial, she could’ve saved herself a lot of torment. It was incredibly difficult for a Lilin to court a human, especially when the human in question was the Lilin’s soulmate. So much restraint, so much frustration! Like having an unbearable craving for a banana split, but only being allowed to eat the nuts and sprinkles! It was never enough!
But that was coming to an end. Bog’s transformation was almost complete; she could feel it in every pore of her skin. There was only one last thing he would need to do…
And if he accepted their bond on top of that task, then she wouldn’t have to hold back anymore. Hurricane would meet tornado, and it would be glorious! His show of dominance excited her; made the succubus rise in wanting to challenge him, but she had to stay in control! Just a bit longer. This was definitely not the time to be turned on.
What was important now, was getting him to want this.
“You’ll be able to see, smell, and hear better than any animal on this earth,” she explained, “you’ll have the strength of a hundred men, and be immune to almost any disease you can name.”
Something passed over Bog’s scowling face at that. Relief? Or awe, perhaps? Was he thinking about his father? Whatever it was, it vanished in a blink, and was replaced with concern.
“What about my mom?” He demanded. “I’m all she has, Marianne. I can’t leave her!”
“You won’t, Bog.” Marianne assured him. “You can live your life the way you always have. You’ll continue to age at the same rate you do now. You don’t have to give up anything. Not your friends, your family, your job, not even your favorite foods!”
“What? How can-?”
“It won’t give you nutrition or sustenance anymore, but you can keep on eating out of habit or just to enjoy the taste. My uncle Paul’s never stopped loving his bacon burgers, and I ate Poptarts as a kid; I still like ‘em.”
As her boyfriend considered this, Marianne put the cherry on top:
“You’ll even be able to walk on air.”
Bog’s gaze snapped to meet hers, first in confusion as to her meaning, but soon his jaw went slack for several beats as understanding dawned on his features and he struggled to speak again.
“Walk on-? Ye…y-y-ye mean we can…f-fly?”
He said ‘we’!!!
“Yes, Bog.” Marianne grinned gently. “We have wings!”
Costumed Craving...
part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12
The longest stretch of silence yet shrouded the darkened boxing gym.
Bog’s hands had left his face to lifelessly hang off his drawn-up knees. His head had fallen back against the corner pole, eyes closed, and jaw set in a grim expression; he was stone still.
As Marianne watched him, she found herself noticing that Bog rather resembled her father this way, back when she was an unruly child standing before him in the living room while he sat in his easy chair and took a long moment to calm his temper before deciding on a fitting punishment for whatever trouble she’d caused. It was as comforting as it was devastating, and she sagged as if she were eight-years-old again, awaiting her verdict.
Perhaps that was why each empty, ticking second was more unbearable than the last, and she had to say something before her thundering heartbeat crumbled her aching body to the floor.
“Do you……hate me now?” She asked in a broken whisper.
Immediately, Bog looked at her with a confused frown, as if he didn’t understand the question, and Marianne’s legs almost gave out when his gaze softened.
“No.” Bog said, gently. “No, Marianne, o’ course I dorn’t hate ye! Hell, under almost any other circumstances, hearing ye say I’m yer soulmate would be…just about the best news ever.”
He gave her a faint smile which Marianne automatically returned tenfold through her tears.
“However, I’m sure ye can understand that I’m…more than a bit overwhelmed, an’ that I’m no’ particularly happy with ye, at the moment.” Bog added, his sternness returning. “I mean, this happened against my will! It’s no’ like ye asked me if I even wanted to be a-! …An i-incubus.”
Marianne twisted her fingers in shame.
“But…then again…” he sulked, “…I guess it’s no’ really fair o’ me to take issue with a...nature or culture or whatever that’s no’ my own, is it?”
“You have the right to feel however you want to feel, Bog.”
“Well, that’s great, ‘cause I’m certainly feelin’ a lot right now.” Bog snorted. “Do ye realize I could’ve killed someone tonight?!”
The question gave Marianne pause, and a chill crept along her spine.
“Y-you mean you…you fed?”
“I think so; on Cindy.”
“Who’s Cindy?!” Marianne demanded, losing her sorrow and guilt in anger at the assaulting mental images of Bog being close enough to some mysterious woman’s lips to draw in her energy.
Bog seemed puzzled by her sudden change in tone, but was thankfully quick to realize the cause. She had, after all, told him all about that cheating scum of an ex-boyfriend of hers, so he hastened to explain:
“Cindy is a four-month-old baby; my friend, Brutus’s daughter. I was rocking her.”
As if in slow motion, he saw Marianne’s furious glare melt into deep embarrassment at her assumptions. She looked so uncomfortable and forlorn, he had to fight the urge to take her in his arms.
“…Oh.”
“I wouldn’t do that to ye, Marianne.” Bog murmured, knowing how difficult it was for her to give her trust to anybody since Roland. It was a problem he struggled with himself, with good reason it seemed.
“No, no.” Marianne whispered, waving him off and trying not to joyfully dwell on the hint that he still considered them to be in a relationship. “I’m just being stupid. That’s my fault, too. I should’ve told you sooner. What…happened; to Cindy?”
“She fell asleep.”
The succubus breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good. That’s normal!”
Her boyfriend still eyed her doubtfully.
“I swear to you, Bog, you didn’t hurt the baby.”
“No,” Bog agreed, but his mouth thinned into a dismal line, “but I could have, couldn’t?”
Marianne’s stomach turned, and the unbearable pain of her foolish cowardice flooded her system anew. What kind of an idiot was she? To let an unprepared, fledgling incubus loose on the public almost two months after the first bite? It was a miracle nothing more serious had occurred.
“Without…knowing what you were doing…..yes.” She conceded with force. “Yes, you could have, Bog.”
She expected so much to happen after her admittance: for him to curse her, to attack her, to bash his own brains in with one of her dumbbells, to break down the door and vanish into the night, never to be seen again.
Anything but what actually followed…
Bog steadily rose to his feet, and Marianne felt a feminine thrill rush through her when she heard the feral, inhuman growl in his throat.
“If this Lilin stuff is in fact, irreversible, then ye better start sellin’ it fast, Tough Girl.”
Costumed Craving...
part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11
Bog both looked and felt as if he was going to vomit.
After Marianne’s screamed confession, he’d torn off his shirt as if it was on fire to see the evidence of her claim for himself. The small, angry, red and purple mark on his pale chest, just to the right of his left nipple, he’d written it off as a hickey. But how could a hickey last two months? He’d treated it like all the others, but it was the only one that had refused to fade!
This was too much, and Bog would’ve clambered through the ropes to try his luck with the metal door again, if he wasn’t so petrified he couldn’t move an inch.
But he could still talk.
“Th-then, ye…ye lied to me!” He almost squeaked. “Ye are a vampire!”
Marianne rolled her eyes with an irritated grunt.
“No, I’m not, Bog!”
“Ye jus’ said ye bit me!”
“Yes, but not because I’m a vampire!”
“Y-ye told me ye dorn’t drink blo-!”
“We don’t.” Marianne emphasized before biting her lip and staring at the floor in obvious guilt. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“…Unless we find our…God, I hate this term,” Marianne groaned, running a hand through her pixie-cut hair, “…our……s-s-soulmate.”
!!!
“…What? What did ye say?”
Marianne couldn’t meet Bog’s eyes if her life depended on it. Her gaze stayed low, but her face pinched in her battle to keep from crying like a child. Turning away to one of the corners, she wrapped her arms around her middle to quell the irrational fear that she might literally fall apart otherwise.
“Lilin do have fangs, Bog,” she began slowly, “like a traditional vampire, but they only appear for two reasons: for defense…or for when we meet our soulmate.”
When Bog stayed silent, Marianne forced herself to continue.
“For every Lilin, there’s…one person out there, that they’re meant to be with, for life. They can be either human or Lilin themselves. Some think that through all the seduction and prowling, we’re just…searching for them. Others say they’re our spiritual salvation, but what’s a definite fact is that when we’re blood bound to them, our craving finally stops.”
“…Stops?”
Hearing his voice gave Marianne the courage to face him again.
“When I first saw you at the Halloween party, I instantly knew I wanted to spend the night with you. I loved your costume, and I thought you were crazy hot; I still do.”
Bog cleared his throat and awkwardly glanced to the side.
“I mean it, Bog.” Marianne insisted, knowing full well his lack of confidence when it came to his physical appearance. “You have no idea how sexy you really are.”
“Th-thank ye, but…can we please stay on topic?” Bog asked, blushing like a peach and discreetly shifting his legs to hide himself.
Pursing her lips to keep from smiling, she nodded and went on, growing more and more somber with every word.
“Right, sorry. Well...while we were together, I…I honestly don’t know how else to explain it, Bog. I just……I couldn’t control myself. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before; not even in the three years I’d dated Roland. My body knew you were my soulmate before my mind did; it was instinctual. You made my fangs appear, and…the next thing I knew…”
She trailed off, not needing to state the obvious, so she skipped ahead.
“I was horrified at what I did. After Roland, I…I let myself believe that my soulmate just didn’t exist; that it was all a mistake. I tried to stay away from you, but…clearly, that was impossible. There you were, practically everywhere I went. And the pull to you was just too strong. No matter how much I denied it to myself and to Dawn…being with you made everything better. I’d never enjoyed talking to someone as much as did you. All the things we had in common; you even understood what it was like to lose a parent, and to get your heart broken by someone you thought you loved!”
As she spoke, Bog’s expression changed; morphing from fright and discomfort to a look of shameless awe. She didn’t know that he’d felt the exact same way!
“Lord help me, Bog, I just couldn’t resist you. I didn’t need to feed anymore, but I did anyway whenever we were…intimate. I was too scared to face you afterwards, so I always put you to sleep, and left before you woke up. All the while, lying to myself about what a goddamn coward I was, because those first couple of times after Halloween, I somehow ended up biting you again. I suppose I was trying to subconsciously counteract my stubbornness by making sure the transformation was working.”
Momentarily spent, Marianne studied Bog carefully. He was still as a statue and watching her without even blinking. His eyes were hollow and his mouth sullen, as if he’d aged thirty years over the course of this unbelievable exchange. He said nothing, not even when he appeared to lose the will to stand, and trudged himself over to one of the opposite ring corners so he could sit down and lean his back against the pole. His hands came up to cover his face, and she could hear his deep, shuddered breathing.
This time, his silence was absolutely unbearable, and her quiet, long held tears began to quietly fall freely, from the terror and anguish that her Roland-induced doubts were about to come true; that he was going to reject her and prove once and for all, that she could not have a soulmate.
The soulmate she wanted and loved more than anything on this earth.
She was so caught up in her despair, she nearly missed it when at last, Bog did speak again:
“There’s…no way to stop this, is there?”
And just like that, Marianne’s heart was crushed into a million jagged shards of glass, cutting her to bleeding ribbons from the inside out. It was a miracle she was able to keep her tone even.
“No, Bog. Not without dying.”