Isaac Week was a character themed prompt week from Dec 19th - Dec 25th 2020, put together by @pathofcomets and me! The prompts were:
Day 1: Firsts/Travel
Day 2: Equations/Lessons
Day 3: Forbidden Fruit/Constellations
Day 4: Au/Free day
Day 5: Sweetness/Languages
Day 6: Family/Hedgehogs
Day 7: Present/Traditions
And this is a masterlist of everyone who participated and their stories!
@rinringo23 - Day One - Two
@hyodles - Pristine
@pathofcomets - How Can I Love The Heartbreak, You're The One I Love - Meanwhile The World Goes On* - Mystical Time, Cutting Me Open - My Honey, My Daisy, My Only - Baby I Get Mystified - A Home Isn't Always The House We Live In - Just Paint The Time*
@xxsycamore - A Star Shall Be Born
@scummy-writes Day One - Two - Four - Six
Thank you for celebrating Isaac with us and makin his birthday a lil more special!
summary: His lover is strange, for she is from the future. It is to be expected. There are many things that Isaac doesn’t fully understand about her. Written for Isaac week, day 5. Prompt: Sweetness/Language. (yes both if you squint real hard) (AO3)
His lover is strange, for she is from the future. It is to be expected. There are many things that Isaac doesn’t fully understand about her: like how she prefers to steal a pair of pants of his, slaving over awkward hand-sewing, until they fit her, tasks supposedly more comfortable. How she bemoans the technology of the future, friendship at the tip of a fingertip. How hard she insists with le Comte to get a camera, and then has Isaac pose for pictures, grey hashing over their faces and clothes. It’s instant in her days, she says – and his head whirrs with what that means, the promise of progress in each of her words, in how she holds herself.
Although she’s the one that said they’re speaking a different language, it is Isaac that feels lost the most when the discrepancies of their lives becomes obvious. She sits down for breakfast next to him, and Isaac wants to say it doesn’t really feel like the day has started until he’s seen her, but he says good morning instead. She smiles at him like she understood him anyway, despite how much he’s lacking. She jogs to meet him at the entrance of the mansion, palms already open and waiting, for his coat and Isaac wants to say he’s never had someone waiting for him when he returned home, but instead he greets her, so polite that she pouts her lips and gets on her tiptoes, hand around his necktie – begging and pleading in anything but words. She moans under him and Isaac wants to say he loves her, but instead he buries his face at the crook of her neck and breathes in her smell – sweet perfume and sweat, and grounds himself to the reality of it, even when it feels so much like he’s dreaming. He opens his eyes and she’s still there, and something inside his heart becomes stronger.
He builds around what she is, what she gives. In just her underwear, blushing from head to toe as he goes around her, Isaac takes her measurements, carefully writing them down on a piece of paper for the next day at the tailors. So that when their next order arrives, there’s something in there that doesn’t resemble the dresses that she’s asked for her social obligations. He stops studying and working until way too late, knowing that she gets cold during the night – to the point that she wakes and comes searching for him, if she cannot find his warmth besides her. With her tousled hair, the blanket like a cloak over her shoulder, bare feet against the wooden floor, she looks darling.
He returns in the midst of spring with dirt under his nails and a pot precariously between his fingers, while trying very hard not to stain his research papers. He places the new plant on the windowsill to his room – not for his own pleasure, but because it joins the ever-growing collection that she has going on. Despite already tending to the garden outside, alongside Sebastian, she has brought pieces of it in here as well, maybe exactly because she knows what little time he has for nature appreciation. This is a present, proof of his appreciation for her. He waters this one himself, and slowly, with patient explanations, all the others too.
He lays in her bed, as she pushes back her hair, tying it away from her face with a ribbon. On her vanity, several glass containers, varying in size and shape, brushes clinking together in a jar, tubes glinting in the sunlight. It’s early enough in the day she asked as her own, and they’ve spent an hour just staring at each other, fingers interlaced, basking in each other’s presence. She’s told him he can get ready too, but it takes him way less than it does her, and if Isaac is to be honest, he quite enjoys the sight of her going on with her morning ritual.
He can name only a few of the products that she uses, but she catches his eyes in the mirror with each one that she picks up, and one by one, her face changes in the mirror. Isaac finds her beautiful, stunning and breath-taking no matter which version he lays his gaze upon, and he knows her preferences vary depending on the day.
No matter what, she always ends the look with her rouge. First tiny, soft streaks upon the apple of her cheeks, smiling lovingly in the mirror so she can spread it evenly with her finger. Then she opens her mouth, tongue darting out to wet her chapped lips a bit before leaning closer to the mirror, so she can apply the broader, harder strokes upon her lips. The colour goes on smoothly, and she puckers her lips, checking for stains, dabbing with her finger at the corner of her mouth. Isaac can only watch, transfixed, the entire process.
She smiles at him, caught in the act.
“You like it?”
He nods. He doesn’t trust his voice not to betray him to exactly what level he likes it, and he’s afraid the embarrassment of speaking will have him stray his eyes away from her. She gracefully gets up, the nightgown slipping off one of her shoulders. She settles next to him, coming close to him. She sprayed her perfume on already, and that’s the first thing that registers to Isaac’s brain, before she places a kiss upon his own bare shoulder.
His head snaps to her, the colour on her lips just a tiny bit faded.
“I like it too,” she whispers, and she moves to continue her marking trail.
One by one, she presses her painted lips to his skin, leaving the colour behind. A kiss mark over the skin where his heart is beating hard. Another one at his navel, and he can now properly notice it without having to strain – though it’s already more pink than red. The last one she grabs his hand, and places it on the skin of his open palm.
She barely has any left on her lips. She grins, covering it with his own hand.
“See why?” she asks, and Isaac nods, releasing his hand from her hold just so that he can move it at the back of her neck, dragging her close, clashing their lips together.
When they part, Isaac’s still dazed for the second that it takes her to hold up her lipstick in between them.
“Want to try?”
She asks like she asks anything of him, not expecting any answer, open, ready to accept whatever decision he comes to. Usually, the marks he leaves on her body are somewhat painful ones: teeth sinking in flesh, bruises around her waist – things that leave him wincing in the morning, when he discovers them beneath the sheets. Like this…
“Yes,” he says, because he can tell that only a verbal admission would have worked as proper acceptance for her this time around.
She shifts, placing one of her knees over his waist, so that she can straddle his hips, and she is polite enough not to comment on the way he stirs under her. He’s blushing already, and she’s nervous enough that her hands tremble when she takes off the cap. Her hand, gently, comes to rest at his chin, guiding his head enough that applying the lipstick is made easier. Her thumb passes over his lower lip, opening his mouth.
And then she’s closer, so close that Isaac can count her eyelashes. She’s actually really focused on her task at hand, and he stops breathing, afraid to ruin it for her. She mimics smacking her lips, asking him to do the same – and then with the brightest smile, she announces that it’s done.
He takes a deep breath, and looks at her.
“Finally.”
His hands come up, dragging at the straps of her nightgown, pulling it down with the movement, material pooling at her waist. She has time to just breath out his name, before his mouth covers one of her breasts, sucking at the skin. Her back arches, and Isaac hums, pleased. But not her pleasure is the purpose of the game, but rather –
Isaac leans back, his eyes scanning the red around her nipple: his aesthetic satisfaction. His tongue darts out, tasting out her rouge.
“Sweet,” he comments, before his lips are over her body again. The container falls from her grasp in-between the sheets.
title: pristine
fandom: ikevamp
genre: soulmate au angst
word count: 773
prompt: isaac week, day four: AU.
“Soulmates are a wonderful thing!” He heard them gush. “Oh, I hope you find yours soon!”
He didn’t have the heart to tell them that he’d never have a soulmate. For there were no mark on his skin which ensured he was claimed by another.
At first, hearing all the stories about how people had met their destined soulmate was wonderful to Isaac. There were so many stories, and even though he hadn’t yet found a mark on his skin, he’d read about others whose mark developed throughout their teenage years, or even, rarely, into adulthood. He still had hope.
He would check his body daily as a ritual, searching, hoping for a sign that he wasn’t alone anymore. Someone to love him for the way he was. If not a romantic soulmate, then a platonic one instead! He’d always longed for a best friend, from watching two children in a playground giving chase to each other, to two adolescents whispering secrets into each other’s ears, to adults going out to bars to meet their beloved friends after work and returning home to hear warm welcomes.
However, after years of waiting, there were no phrases engraved onto his body. The realisation had only hit him in his twenties. That he wasn’t destined to be touched, to be loved, even to be intimately known. Perhaps his body simply wasn’t built for any type of contact from humans.
These thoughts only grew as he became more and more isolated from the world throughout his life, and reached its tipping point after he was turned. After all, who’d want to be near a monster like him? At some point, he’d given up on the entire soulmate idea.
It was two months after he had been reborn, and he was walking past a full-body length mirror in his room as he changed into his ‘work’ clothes. He caught sight of a scar on his arm out of his peripheral vision, and immediately twisted his arm to get a closer look. Failing that, he moved two steps back to the mirror. Lifting his arm to see a sentence engraved into his skin.
If he wasn’t already dead, he figured he probably would’ve died at this point. His heart had seemed to stop as he sucked in a breath. Attempting to figure out what the flipped words meant.
“Don’t worry, I’m not leaving. I’ll stay here as long as you want.” He breathlessly read aloud. The room was starting to spin quite oddly, and before he knew it, he blacked out.
When he came to, he was in bed – Sebastian was peering over him worriedly.
“Sir Isaac, thank goodness–”
“Gods… it was a dream.” Isaac mumbled as he sat up. “Just a dream…”
“A dream?”
Twirling his hair around his fingers absentmindedly as he answered, “Yes, I dreamt something as ridiculous as finding a soulmate mark on my arm…” He lifted his arm up in explanation, and the confused look Sebastian gave him made his stomach churn.
“My apologies, Sir Isaac, but it appears that it wasn’t a dream after all.”
Jumping out of bed despite Sebastian’s protests, he raced to his mirror to check his arm again. Not a dream…? Then surely this was just some strange joke between Comte and his butler? Yes, it had to be that! They must have just drawn the sentence on his body whilst he slept as part of some cruel jest.
He rubbed furiously at his arm and heard Sebastian’s voice amidst his own yelling in his head, probably attempting to calm him down. At some point he registered footsteps walking out of the room – Sebastian would’ve went to get Comte. And yet, he didn’t stop scrubbing for God knows how long. Eventually giving up when he realised it wouldn’t budge.
So it wasn’t ink… But was it even possible for a vampire, someone who was dead, to have a soulmate? The entire idea of soulmate tattoos were scientifically impossible, and he liked to rely on science rather than the supernatural. However, now that he was a vampire, he couldn’t refute the possibility that perhaps… there was someone out there, matched to him.
He didn’t want to admit it, but his entire body felt lighter when he reached that conclusion. Perhaps… Was he allowed to hold onto a smidge of hope?
He met his reflection’s eyes; taking in their bloodshot state, the dark rings underneath. His whole body was shaking – with anxiety or excitement? He couldn’t tell. His hair was messed up from his awful habit of playing with whichever strands he could reach. Overall, he looked a mess.
Perhaps he should shower to rid himself of his exhausted look, then take a walk into town today. …Just in case he happened to meet anyone. Not that he actually believed he’d meet his soulmate or anything. Just because he wanted some fresh air. That’s all.
----
notes: first ikevamp fic lesgo boYS!! special thank u to @scummy-writes & @pathofcomets firstly for making isaac week happen (& ur 10/10 prompts) & also for encouraging me to actually finish this kfjdbgdgkj
uhhhh i’m planning like a part two for this but i rlly wanted to get this out on day 4 so here we are!!
Summary: Being trapped together in the office for the first time
It is a cold, snowy Christmas Eve night as she goes to the university. Hearing the crunch of snow and ice under her feet while she walks, steam transpiring as she exhales. Street lights brighten the dark street as she arrives at her destination, the university. Recalling the moment in the morning when he left in a hurry, leaving his jacket at the mansion. Also wondering if he’s lost track of time working considering he has the tendency to get absorbed in his work. It’s however very unusual for him to lose track of time up until almost midnight
Upon her arrival, She looks for Isaac in the dark, quiet hallways of the university. Scanning every room he’d plausibly be at, soon she finds him in his office, still working. Preoccupied in his work. Not realizing her presence as she walks in his office, closing the door behind her slowly, sneaks up behind him and taps his back. Surprised, he let out a sound of surprise and turned his head to look up quickly.
He sees his lover, with his jacket tied on her waist. “I brought your jacket, since I figured you might freeze to death without it”. Untying the jacket and handing it to him.
“You went all the way from the mansion to bring me this?” He tilts his head and creases his eyebrows. It's true he didn't tell her that he will be going back late, but he did not expect her to actually come. With a sincere smile, she replied “Of course.”
“You really didn’t have to” Breaking his eye contact, his face visibly red.
Seeing the redness in his face, she starts laughing. "W-why are you laughing?" His face turning even redder than before.
"You're just too cute" She answered, squeezing his cheeks. "Don't call me cute" He pouted.
"Ah yes, by the way" She grabs the nearest chair and positions it beside Isaac's and sits at it "It's unusual for you to finish late, what are you up to?"
He looks at his watch "I didn't realize, time goes by quickly doesn't it?", he commented.
"Yes, it can go by quite-" She stopped mid sentence when the lights suddenly goes off. The room suddenly becoming pitch black. "I-Isaac, what just happened?" She asked
Isaac walked calmly to the light switch, and flicked it upwards and downwards a few times. Then, it hit her. Oh, please don't tell me-
Her thoughts interrupted "It seems like there's a blackout". Isaac sighs. She mutters a curse, most likely inaudible to Isaac's ears. After a while, both their eyes starts to adjust to the darkness. Making everything slightly more visible than a few seconds ago.
"Let's go back to the mansion, it's not like I can work if there's a blackout" Isaac starts tidying up and arranging the papers. Opening the drawer, and placing the paper, very careful not to make a mess in the dark.
They both walk, heading towards the door. As soon as she grabs the handle, her eyes widen and she froze in place. Noticing the door not opening, Isaac shifted his gaze at his visibly anxious lover "Is something wrong?"
She turned her head to Isaac, her eyes slightly teary "T-the door, I think it's locked!".
His eyes clearly shows confusion, "It's locked?".
She pulls her hands from the door handle. Allowing Isaac to make an attempt to open the door. She watches from the side as Isaac pulls the handle. Seeing his attempt to open the locked door fail.
"You're right, it's really locked" He says after attempting a few more times to open the door.
The night becomes colder with every passing second, the windows covered with white snow as she started shivering. Curling herself in the cold, hard floor, rubbing her hands together in an attempt to warm her freezing fingers, burying her face on her knees. Isaac notices, and sits down next to her.
Grabbing his jacket, and covering her figure with it. She gazes at him, "Aren't you cold?".
"N-no, I'm not cold, you can keep the jacket." He answered. Despite his answer, she notices, his hand trembling, and his skin turning white and hard from the cold.
Noticing it, she scrunches closer and huddles. Sharing the jacket he initially gives her. He looks at her in confusion, as she gazes at him and gives him a smile. "We can always share, you know"
Reminded of the date today, she quickly checks her watch. It's the 24th of December. She stares at her watch, waiting for the seconds hand to reach 12. The moment it passes, she smiles at her lover "Happy Birthday Isaac"
"I'm sorry you have to spend your birthday locked in a room like this" she gives him a sheepish smile.
"No, I'm happy it turned out this way" he said, "I'm glad I can spend my birthday alone with you, without anyone disturbing us".
Her face turns red, as she turns her head to Isaac. He realizes the stare she's giving, and looks at her back. They gaze into each others eyes. "Kiss me" she whispered to Isaac. She stares at him, seeing him nod as she slowly leans for a kiss. As soon as their lips press against each other, she closes her eyes. Feeling his warm lips press against hers.
She tilts her head to the side, deepening the kiss. Pulling away only to breathe, then pressing her lips on his again.
After the kiss, she leans in his shoulder, his cold hands felt warm on hers. His arms around her, as if protecting her from the cold. As the night moves forward, her eyelids become heavier, her consciousness slowly fading away as she falls asleep.
The next morning
Her eyes slowly open, waking up with a sore back. As she slowly opens her eyes, she sees a familiar figure...
"Le Recteur !?" She blurted as she quickly realized.
Noticing her head leaning on Isaac's shoulder and Isaac's head leaning on her head. She moves slightly, waking Isaac up and sees Isaac's eyes widen, realizing the position they're both in and le Recteur staring with a smile at both of them.
"I see you're both awake now, there was a blackout last night, and it seems like both of you were locked in here" he said
She can see Isaac internally panicking, his cheeks burning. "But I never expected Isaac to be a very romantic person" he laughs out loud. Making Isaac's face turn even redder. Isaac quickly stands up. Grabs his bag and takes her hand, walking outside with his face red as an apple.
"Let's go home"
A/N: That’s all and if you manage to reach this note, I hope you enjoyed the fic! Also thanking @scummy-writes and @pathofcomets for hosting this event!
He used to hate mornings, honestly. The thirst that plagued him as his eyes opened, a reminder that Isaac hadn’t spaced his meals out correctly, running on just a few hours of sleep unless his mind quieted enough to let him doze for a moment or two.
But now, Isaac blinks awake to the sound of rustling sheets as you shift in your sleep, a content sigh leaving him. Gently, he moves closer, planting a lingering kiss against your hair as his fingers trace your shoulder, sliding down to twine together with yours. With a gentle squeeze, he could feel the wedding bands clink together, making his heart flutter.
He had lived a whole lifespan never even fathoming the joy such a simple sound brought him, and now he’s granted- no, blessed, to share this joy with you? Maybe he should be glad you’re still asleep and unable to see the dopey smile etched across his features.
“Mmm…”
With a soft sigh you turned and nuzzled into his chest, still slumbering as you tried to hide away completely into his embrace. Unable to hold back the impulse, he pressed another kiss atop your head, letting go of your hand just to hug you tight.
“Mmph…? Isaac?”
Ah…
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
Slowly you pulled back just enough to rub your eye, a yawn escaping.
“I don’t...Know… What time is it?”
He glanced out the window, seeing the sun peeking up over the trees. “Still early enough to go back to sleep, if you want.”
“Why aren’t you asleep?” Tugging the covers over your shoulder, you snuggled back against him, humming happily when his arms held you firmly. “Did I wake you up?”
“Mm… No, I just woke up.” A quick kiss against your temple made you chuckle. “Couldn’t go back to sleep.”
You peek up at him now, excitement slowly showing in your eyes as you seem to remember what the two of you were set to do today. And just like that you’re awake, shimmying out from under the blankets to be eye-level with him now, drawing another smile out from him.
“What are you doing?” His voice is still raspy, but it doesn’t deter your mood.
“Do you know what today is?” You take his hand in yours when he tries to brush your hair back, hiding your grin behind it.
And he decides to tease you, because you’ve given him such a wonderful opportunity. He hums, pretending to think, enjoying watching your impatience grow.
“It is Tuesday, I believe.” A gentle whap against his shoulder makes him laugh. Isaac takes his hand back from you, cupping your cheek and kissing your pout away. “Of course I remember, silly.”
“We get to see the house today!” The words are a happy whisper against his lips as you return his kiss, and then another, and yet another. He has to pull back for a moment to break the flurry of them, prompting you to give him one ‘last’ peck to his cheek. “Oh, Isaac, living there is going to be wonderful!”
“Mhm, it will.”
“We’ll have more time together in the mornings before you go off to teach, since it’s closer to the school! We can have breakfast together… without feeling so tired all the time.”
“And you won’t have to spend the whole day cleaning, you’ll be able to rest.” It’s a reminder, rather than another excited blurb- one you pretend to ignore as you keep on.
“And it’s going to be ours.”
Oh, your happiness will be the death of him, with how it squeezes his heart so. The two of you are a tangle of limbs again as you hug him tight, giddy with love and joy, and Isaac counts his blessings to have ever gotten the courage to ask for your hand in marriage; to start the first steps of a long life together.
Short and sweet drabble based off of Isaac’s Heart To Heart event route, 574 words
The very idea mortified him. You? Having access to his innermost thoughts? But watching the way you looked down, full of shame as if this was under your control, made that mortification turn towards the idea of this causing a rift, rather than anything else.
Quickly, gently, he cupped your cheek. Made you look back up before planting a kiss, then two, against your forehead.
"I-it's alright. Let's… Let's go to my room, shall we?"
Oh, how could he ever be upset with you when your eyes spoke so blatantly of your love towards him. He blushed, realizing that the pink dusting your cheeks was because you could hear that unspoken adoration so vividly, but he still moved to grab ahold of your hand, still allowed his thoughts to flow unfiltered for you.
After all, if there was anyone who could read his thoughts, he would rather it be the person he’s devoted himself to. You were always so full of understanding, and so patient with his stuttering and verbal mishaps, so then…
A sweet and awkward giggle snapped him into focus, a quick glance your way making him realize that, of course, you heard all of that worrying. But you just matched your pace with his, squeezing his hand tight with a smile.
“I promise I’m not judging you for your thoughts, Isaac. It’s alright if you want to stay apart for tonight-”
“No,” He didn’t mean to interrupt, but another night (or more) away from you, alongside the previous few nights? There wasn’t a way he could handle it. “I-I’ve missed you far too much to just leave you over this.”
With the way you switched to hugging his arm, Isaac was thankful you seemed to have missed him just as much.
--
In bed, the two of you lay in the afterglow, satisfied, exhausted, but still snuggled close.
His fingers trace a path down your shoulder, smiling at the shiver that runs through you, until he's twining your fingers together with his.
I love you.
Your blush returns, and he pulls you close, nuzzling into your hair.
I'm so often struck with how impossible it would be to live without you.
"I-Isaac…"
"Shh, please… Just listen."
A shy nod, your nose brushing against his chest. Can you feel how fast his heart is beating? Well, you knew now, didn't you?
I strive to make you smile every day, you know, just like you make me smile…
And he continues throughout the night. Soft admissions of what he loves about you, favorite memories the two of you made so far. Anything he’s had trouble verbalizing, he takes the time to slowly think it out, let you take the raw and unfiltered words, piece them together to understand how deep his love goes for you.
Isaac thinks of all the things he’s left unsaid due to insecurities, due to his bloody shyness, and holds you close as the night goes on, hoping that you’re drifting asleep with a smile on your face- content.
And perhaps, he’s learned to stop letting his insecurities get in the way of telling you his feelings directly. That you’ll give him all the time needed to get over his stutter so he can speak up like he so desperately wishes.
One more kiss against your hair, soaking in the warmth of your embrace, and Isaac promises that in the morning, he’ll put all that he’s learned tonight into action.
Short and sweet drabble, 602 words, Isaac/Mc/Arthur
They're late. With the soft pattering of rain against the canvas arch shielding him Isaac frowns as he checks his watch, then pulls out his phone with the idle thought of his watch possibly beginning to slow. But no, his phone displays the same time, and Isaac sighs again, the fifth in the past hour.
His fingers gloss over the screen, a few raindrops splattering where his fingers go to touch and Isaac wipes it with his coat sleeve, readying his first 'where are you?' text to her.
The words are typed out, erased, then typed again before he hears bright laughter, the sound of wet steps against the pavement. Isaac looks up and huffs, seeing Arthur walking alongside her with a carefree grin. There's a muttering of something that makes her laugh, their shoulders bumping together, making the umbrella she's holding tip water on Arthur's exposed shoulder, and Isaac grumbles.
"I thought I told him…"
He frowns when Arthur catches his eye, trying to ignore how the writer’s aloof smile and wave make his heart warm. He only waves back once she does, the two hurrying now to bump umbrellas with Isaac.
"I told you it was going to rain today, why didn't you grab your umbrella?"
"And miss the chance to snuggle close to our little dove? Never."
They both laugh as Isaac shakes his head, signaling them to step under the cafe's awning. He keeps the frown as they shake off the rain, making use of the basket by the door to plop their matching umbrellas into.
There’s an awkward moment between the three of them as they try to find a table in the café, Isaac feeling his nerves spark as he sits in-between them, trying to convince himself that no one has actually given him an odd look for sitting in the middle. No one actually cares about the affairs of strangers, do they? But his stutter returns as he tries to order a drink, and he’s immediately looking for a distraction to regain his comfort. A deflection from the feeling of stares etching into his skin. So, he returns to their earlier topic, hoping he doesn’t have to explain why his voice sounds so hesitant.
“I don’t want to hear anything if you start sniffling, you know.” Isaac’s chiding is soft, muttered out alongside an exhale, and it’s obvious Arthur knows that it’s not serious with the way he keeps grinning.
“Aw, come on. You wouldn’t even take care of me?”
“Not when I told you how to prevent that outcome, no.”
There’s a light chuckle before Isaac’s chin is tipped up, Arthur pecking his lips with a smile.
"I'll remember next time, I was just too focused on an assignment."
"Mm. Alright."
Under the table, Arthur’s hand takes ahold of his, twining their fingers together, making Isaac’s heart thump a little faster. There’s a firm squeeze, a meaningful look his way, and Isaac starts to relax his shoulders.
She smiles, catching his attention with the way her hum turns into a giggle. Before he can ask what she finds funny, her lips are planted against his cheek, Isaac's frown melting away.
"We missed you today."
She’s so quick to snuggle into him once he wraps his arm around her waist, her scarf catching against his jacket zipper. For a moment Isaac wants to laugh; both of his lovers making use of his hands and unintentionally making it impossible for him to sip the cider he ordered, but he soaks in their warmth instead, finally feeling his anxiety fizzle away.
"I've missed you two as well."
-------
I’ve been forgetting my links at the end of these drabbles, but thanks for reading qq
summary: “Do not fall in love with anyone here,” Sebastian threatens, wiping a glass and carefully placing it to the side, to be moved to the cupboards a little bit down the hall.Written for Isaac week, day 4. Prompt: AU. Hanahaki AU. (AO3)
“Do not fall in love with anyone here,” Sebastian threatens, wiping a glass and carefully placing it to the side, to be moved to the cupboards a little bit down the hall.
She places her trembling hands in her lap: scared and her heart still throbbing in her chest. This place and this time suddenly don’t really feel like a dream anymore, the fear too real. Love is a concept that doesn’t fit in this image that she’s building of the inhabitants of Saint-Germain’s mansion, so his warning is hollow, empty.
“Why?” she still asks, dumbly.
Sebastian stops – and then slowly, he undoes his necktie and the first two buttons at the top of his shirt. With the downwards pull, she can see the small scar sitting at the base of his throat, nothing but a faint line, whiter than the rest of his skin. His finger is just delicately following the path of where there has once been a cut.
“You know what this is, right?”
She nods. It’s not proper to ask more about it, because what’s there left to be said, when you have given up all memories of a loved one for the chance to keep on living? When the flowers start growing in your chest alongside your love, there are only two choices, really: you’re either having your feelings reciprocated, or have them disappear forever, alongside your memories of the person you fell for. Sebastian chuckles, a dry little thing.
“This does not exist here yet.”
And now the warning sinks in, with its whole finality and strength. If you love, and you are not loved back – here the only choice left is to eventually choke on all those feelings. She can feel her throat constricting in painful memory, the ghost of something she will never be able to recall. She nods again, and Sebastian, pleased that he got to her, resumes his work.
***
Love is pain. Love on its own is pure death – it goes as simple as that. But love kills slowly and beautifully, for it is not entirely unkind.
For vampires, the suffering is doubled. Because while sex is the food, love is the appetite.
And Isaac is stuck in the middle, thirst clawing at him, knowing the pain long before the love arrives.
***
Is there a reason for what humans do? Isaac doesn’t feel like he became a vampire a long time ago, but the separation still comes to him naturally. Even more so ever since she joined this place and turned his world upside down.
Isaac opens his door to her small figure in the frame and no matter how much he scrambles for a reason why she’s here, he can find none. By all laws of logic, she should be afraid and hateful. Instead, she smiles and doesn’t pour all the contents of the tray in his lap, which is more than he’d expected.
And Isaac finds himself smile back. Mistake no. 1.
***
Saint-Germain drinks his coffee, watching the exchange between Isaac and his newest visitor, and he calculates inside his mind several possibilities and probabilities. In time travel, just as in love, there are no real certainties, not even for the best out there. But there are more or less twenty days left for their young visitors – certainly not enough to develop any severe forms of the sickness, even if she is to catch it.
Saint-Germain thinks her better than that. But twenty days are more than enough to have her fall in love with a city instead. Cities don’t break hearts. So he clears his throat, passing his cup over to Sebastian, and creates an excuse.
Mistake no. 2 – Isaac didn’t do anything directly about this one, but he still considers himself guilty for it.
***
“Smiling suits you,” Isaac says, and her cheeks bloom red, like flowers.
He is smiling as well, and the two of them are on the side of the road, looking at each other, suddenly transfixed. When not frowning, when not teased, when at ease – Isaac looks like a man entirely enjoying the spring of his life. Full of playfulness and boyish charm.
It is gone in a moment, but she trusts her eyes more than the slip of her mind.
She doubts she’ll make Isaac admit to such a thing, especially when he still seems to have problems keeping his blush at bay even when they brush shoulders accidentally, on the more crowded streets, but… she thinks this might be a date. Or at least that’s how dates in movies look like, since she cannot remember her own ones.
But they walk and talk. He takes her to his favourite café, and she has the best baguette of her life. The coffee sticks to her throat.
***
She reaches out, too much and too willingly. Trusting too much, fearing too little – it drives Isaac a bit crazy. He doesn’t have the bloom to go by. He never experienced love in his past life, focused on his studies as he’s been, and vampires can judge only by their thirsts. But it feels like way more than anyone has tried to do for him in a while, ever since Napoleon, and suddenly Isaac isn’t sure if he wants to call her a friend.
Or something more.
Mistake no. 3. He spends two hours on the kitchen floor, Sebastian stepping gracefully around him, drinking bottle of rouge after bottle of rouge, his lips turning redder and redder, the clawing feeling at his throat not quite disappearing.
***
“Luv,” Arthur says, and she flutters her eyes open, slowly, to him pushing her hair behind her ear.
She went unfocused there for a bit.
“That expression doesn’t suit you,” he continues, sighing.
She tries to scold her features better and focus on the game of chess in-between the two of them in the library. Leonardo is napping on the floor in the corner, a blanket she brought from upstairs over his shoulders. It’s been harder to control the pain, flaring up at random times – and she’s sure it still shows on her face, no matter how much she wants to actually hide it. It’s nothing much but discomfort, thrumming from deep inside her chest, but only for now.
It’s a bit annoying that Arthur somehow already picked it up. She frowns at him, pushing her piece across the table. From his own expression, she can tell it was a bold but completely stupid move. It’s fine; she hasn’t played chess in a long time and she didn’t expect to win in the first place anyway.
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
“You know him better,” she closes her eyes again, turning her neck a bit – Arthur gets a bit distracted staring at the expanse of skin there. “What should I do?”
Arthur grins, his fangs sharp.
“I think you’ve been doing just fine.” He points a finger towards the clock on the wall, already several minutes past the time for Isaac’s meals.
She gets up, technically allowing him the win, leaving the room. Leonardo opens his eyes to peer up at the writer, and although they say nothing out loud, there’s some knowledge passing between the two of them regardless.
***
“Why did you stay until so late, then?” Sebastian asks, grateful that no matter how badly Isaac might need blood, he’s not just grabbing at his shirt and sinking his fangs in his skin, instead ripping from his hands a glass vial.
She’s away now, so his hunger is already slowly fading, as Isaac is trying to do calculus in his head, and more definitely not think about the time spent together, which just keeps adding up.
In the entrance hallway, she’s coughing, delicately trying to cover it up with her handkerchief. When Saint-Germain shows up, she gathers the two small flower buds that she coughed out in her handkerchief, and hides it in her pocket, smiling up at him instead.
The notion of having him as a dance partner staves off the pain, at least for a while, just a bit.
***
She gives and gives. Mistake no. 4: Isaac accepts. He doesn’t know how to say no, even when it hurts. He doesn’t know how to translate her own suffering, when he’s so happy to just have her near.
Isaac’s used with the thirst, nothing else he hasn’t experienced before. The trouble with love is that it feels fresh each and every time.
So while he thinks he has things under control, she most definitely doesn’t. When one chooses to pluck out the flowers growing in their chest, the memories disappear. The one who picks this path, will keep on making the same mistake, not recognizing the patterns, unable to grow with no roots grounding them in place.
So she falls, fast. When Isaac saves her, an upside down mirror of her first night here – not fear thrumming at her wrists this time around, but just the pleasure of having him near, she stumbles, and swears, and the words come out muffled.
She covers her mouth, looking up at Isaac like a deer caught by its hunter. He wants nothing else but – mistake no. 5. Isaac doesn’t stop: then and there, when the doubt starts coiling inside his stomach.
Instead, he offers himself as her company and gentlemanly ignores her when she asks for five minutes to freshen up. In the corner of the room in which she ducked to hide, Vincent pats her back, as petal after petal falls out from between her lips, until she’s left shivering.
And beautiful. Love is pain. Pain is beauty.
Maybe that’s why Isaac cannot look away, cannot keep away: because her cheeks blush with the prettiest of red each time he gets to close. He realizes he maybe pushed too hard simply because, in the fountain where before was only clear water, once he gets up – she’s surrounded by cherry blossoms.
The petals swim all around her, a child leans over to pick a few in her hands. An older lady tuts disappointingly at the two of them. Isaac reaches out a hand, fearful.
But what is he fearing? Why is he so afraid? If this is true –
No.
Mistake no. 6. Isaac cannot believe the obvious signs, because he doesn’t think he’s worthy of them. Men kill more hearts just by not trusting their own.
***
She shivers in the bathtub, the water getting colder, overflowing with flowers and petals. She’ll have to deal with that later – now she is busy counting up to 10, over and over again, trying to calm the thrumming of her heart, the desperate up and down of her chest: her hand pressed over the scar there.
She wonders: how long into these symptoms she got the removal done? How much did she think she could handle, before it all became too much?
Isaac, pushing at Napoleon’s shoulder, bites at his neck, fangs so painful that it makes the other man hiss. The soldier grabs at Isaac’s hair, enough to make eye contact.
“Slowly,” he urges, and Isaac’s grip on him relaxes, though his gulps still ring too loud in his head.
It brings him no pleasure, but his friend calms: with the warmth of another person, the fresh blood, hunger easier to be sated. The tug turns into pets, and Isaac places a kiss where he pierced the skin, lapping at the blood spilling out.
Napoleon sighs. “You’re wet. Let’s change, shall we?”
***
“This room is getting stifling, Toshiko-san,” Dazai says, coming around to check on Isaac.
They’re vampires, they’re supposed to heal and recover fast. Dazai just wants the bragging rights, that he cares the most out of their friends group. And also, maybe, Dazai wants to check the one rumour he has heard, which proves itself quite true.
Isaac is still asleep. Around him, overflowing from his desk and shelves and windowsill: flowers upon flowers, fully bloomed. Dazai sighs. The smell is almost sickeningly sweet – and she looks quite pale.
“I figured I’d be bothering him more if I were to take them out each and every time…”
Each and every time she bends her body over and coughs out flowers in exchange for his love, is the sentence that she doesn’t finish. She is also quite right. And despite it all, she is still here, right next to him.
What a little fool, their Toshiko-san.
***
They dance together, in front of several pairs of eyes, carefully noting each and every small detail, change in them. Like how Isaac’s pupils get the slightest bit more dilated, his fangs sharper, grazing his lips even with his mouth closed. Like how she can’t quite keep her back straight, how she doesn’t really speak.
Sometimes what remains unsaid means more. It is unbearable to hold each other like this, would have been even more unbearable if they didn’t.
Isaac disappears as fast as he appeared, and she’s left on the spot, hands clawing at her throat. She hunches over, clasps her palms to her mouth as she’s trying her damn hardest to stop breathing, to stop feeling. To calm the wave of emotions threatening to spill over, past her lips and in her lap, like a sky decorated with cherry blossoms.
“I believe it is a bit late for that,” Saint-Germain says.
And then they’re out.
***
In the afternoon glow, filtering through the stained glass, she looks beautiful. And Isaac is filled with need: not for her blood, to be fed – but for her love, as a man. His touch against her cheek is tentative and tender and that of someone begging to be held and pushed away at the same time.
Isaac isn’t sure yet which scenario he’s wishing hardest for.
She meets his eyes, and something in him goes even softer. It melts away everything in her.
“W-what is-? Why are you crying…?”
And despite not being hurt, she keeps crying. The tears are just that, in the beginning, and Isaac’s thumb passes over her skin, catching each and every one. She finds she cannot stop, once the dam has been broken: the happiness is suddenly too much. Here he is: just him and her, and he is touching her, and he is caring for her.
Much more than she thought she deserved, much more than she thought she’d get. Way too little compared to how much she still wants. So the tears keep spilling, never stopping. Then they’re not just tears anymore, a petal falling as well each and every time.
Isaac’s hold gets just a bit gentler, and that’s how she knows something is not quite right, before the petals start falling in her lap. Against her cheek, he clenches and unclenches his hands. Slowly, awkwardly, searching her face all along, he reaches out… and pulls her into an embrace.
She sniffles in the material of his shirt, his arms closing around her. The petals are cascading now more rapidly, down his back, and her hands claw at him.
“It’s going to be all right… Please, don’t cry.”
Of course, he can say that because he’s not the one spilling his feelings from his guts, betrayed by his body to show his feelings. He can say that because he is not dying from loving. She trembles in his arms, knowing she doesn’t deserve the comforting, knowing he doesn’t want her.
“… I’m sorry,” she whispers, and her hold on him tightens, and her tears fall even more furiously, accompanied by her pained wailing.
Isaac holds her, gentle as ever, his palms soothingly rubbing down her back. If he were to count the bones he can feel through the thin material of her dress, the numbers would be higher than in a normal human body.
Love taking roots, love taking over.
If she were to see his expression, she would find it pained, his face buried at the crook of her neck. But even when they untangle, Isaac covers his face with his palm, the downward tug at his lips, making his fangs visible, hidden from her.
Mistake no. 7: Isaac cannot tell the truth. Even worse, Isaac hides the truth, even when he knows hers is so painfully obvious, even when that so obviously pains her.
“Do you intend to return home?”
***
“Don’t go back…” Isaac says, laid on his back, her just a bit further to the left.
And while she’s staring at the open night sky in front of her, he can’t stop looking at her.
She shifts, coming up, suddenly coughing up the now familiar flower petals. They’re falling in-between her fingers, overflowing her hold. Isaac’s heart squeezes in his chest at the sight.
“Does it bother you?” she asks, in-between gasps of breath.
He looks at her, taken aback.
“This,” she shakes her hands in the air, the pink flowers falling all around her. “Knowing it’s you.”
Isaac chokes on his next words, and changes the topic. He can hear her, trying to keep in a new wave of coughing. He has accidentally heard her complain to Sebastian about the chest pain, how her muscles are aching with how much she’s been heaving, how her insides don’t feel quite alright anymore.
Her body, so small and frail, holding the weight of her entire, spilling love.
***
Isaac doesn’t like the way he gets when he’s hungry – it’s been worse these days, what with the desperate need of her as well. Sometimes, something alike a fog washes over him.
When he comes back to himself, he’s in a bed made of blood and flowers: scene of an almost-crime. She’s still breathing, and that’s all that really matters, but his head is foggy and there’s nothing to do but wait and pray, and pray and wait – and hate himself for all of it.
Isaac has only words to rely on in this scenario, for his feelings. And words tend to fail him already, so much and so often. And he tends to fail words as well, so obliviously.
If he can hurt her even like this, why does she love him?
If he can hurt her even like this, how is he supposed to hold on to this last piece of his humanity while actually accepting that he loves her?
Mistake no. 8. Isaac pushes her away.
***
“Sebastian,” she whines, because it’s the fourth time he’s brought up to her rooms only a bowl of the blandest soup.
He pushes at her shoulder, gluing her back to the pillow again – as it should be. She’s paler now, weaker, and in the air all around her room, the sweetest of fragrance, the spring back in his home country. Bouquets of flowers sprang from place to place since his last visit, and… he is fearful she might not make it for the door.
“Sick patients don’t get to complain about the schedule of an overworked butler.”
She pouts, even as she picks up the spoon. It hangs in-between her fingers.
“Sebastian?”
A beat.
“Yes?”
“Just… why?”
He sighs. “I don’t think anyone knows, or remembers for that matter. I just think it’s just the heart thinking it doesn’t want to be alone anymore.”
“So you get a person or you get the flowers? They’re pretty, but they’re cruel.”
Sebastian eyes her cracked lips, the petals of her flowers – living and still image of each other.
“So is love.”
A beat.
“Did anyone tell you that you make a terrible emotional support?”
He grins at her, this time flicking her forehead.
“Might have heard it several times before.”
***
“What do you think you’re doing, Newt?” Arthur asks, shoving his friend’s body against the wall, a bit too harshly, holding onto the collar of his shirt.
Isaac covers his hand in his, pushing. Arthur doesn’t let go, just lets out something that is between a growl and a sigh. Isaac, more or less, does the same.
“She’s bad,” Arthur says.
Isaac remains unfazed. “I know.”
“Worse, after all that blood loss.”
And only that – the guilt, makes Isaac actually realize that bad is not just the dull lull in her chest, but something more definite. Arthur would have never gone out of his way like this if that wasn’t the case. Only when the panic settles in, accompanied by a wave of anxiety so forceful Isaac almost feels like throwing up, does Arthur finally let go.
“You can lose her in two ways,” he says. “Pick the one you can live eternity with.”
***
She can’t really speak anymore – words too harsh on her throat, where buds are slowly crawling their way up. Someone comes by to prepare her a new cup of tea regularly, because it’s supposed to soothe the pain. She’s not sure it’s effective at all, but she also cannot complain much anymore, anyway.
Her coughing fits now can keep going for even half an hour at a time, and she cringes with each intake of air, because her muscles are aching so desperately for some kind of relief. She has nothing to give.
Theo comes and reads poetry to her, though she notices him skipping the love poems. Arthur plays chess with her again, though he’s not chiding her for taking too long this time around. Napoleon sits by her side, as they eat crepes together.
She misses a party, stuck in this waiting game, to see what comes first: her demise or her return. Isaac doesn’t – and in the span of a night, he makes a new friend in an old one and loses him too.
He doesn’t want to lose another person. Ever – if possible, or at least not in that way.
His hand trembles around the handle of the door, trying to gather his courage. The familiar scratching at his throat returns, stronger and stronger the longer he hovers.
He enters without knocking, and she looks up from a book she’s trying to read, startled. She immediately starts coughing at the sight of him; this time around, the petals fall freely all around her. Isaac shakes and trembles in the doorway.
“G-gods!” he says, and in two big steps, he’s closer to her bed. “You’re… this is… bad.”
She manages a weak smile at him.
“I know.”
His voice trembles. “How can you be so c-calm about this?”
She shrugs, though it’s just a tiny movement, barely there, so that she doesn’t trigger another coughing fit. She’s had so long to imagine herself at this point – just because it came faster than she expected, doesn’t mean she didn’t expect it at all.
He keeps his distance. Any closer and she’ll just explode in a bouquet of flowers.
“Y-you’ll soon get back and you can get help and-” Isaac is a blabbering mess and a stuttering fool, only for her.
“I won’t.”
“What?”
“Even if I return, I won’t.” She raises a hand to her chest, pressing it to a scar, that Isaac can notice from where her nightgown has slipped down her shoulder. “It would mean forgetting you.”
She raises her gaze, meets his. She’s begging, one last time. She’s telling him, in words this time. And Isaac stands there, stunned into silence, because if she is to have the same fate either way, what is he protecting her from in the first place?
“I love you,” he says, and for a long moment, there’s only silence stretching between them,
Then, he blushes, fidgeting on the spot, the words obviously out without having thought them. She struggles with her bedsheets, but is still fast enough, despite her weak body, to have gotten up on her own feet by the time Isaac is at her side, arms around her waist, to help her.
She licks her lips – chapped and pale things that they are, and looks up at him, exhausted and obviously pushing herself.
“Say it again. Say it and mean it,” her hands, fisted around the material of his shirt, eyes falling down with the request, too much and too late.
“I l-love you. I don’t…. Please don’t just disappear like that.”
His hold tightens around her body and she sighs.
“I love you too,” and she gets up on her tiptoes, pressing her lips against him, nothing but a chase gesture.
Isaac closes his eyes, pulling her closer, opening his mouth, his tongue coaxing hers to follow suit. Which she does, so willingly and openly, and something in Isaac’s chest tightens, just the love he has for her. And something in her chest opens up, releasing, just the love she has for him.
When they part, all around them, branches of cherry blossoms surround them. It’s like her chest has been cut open, and everything fell over – and she is smiling, beautifully and honestly for the first time in weeks.
“Thank you,” she murmurs, and Isaac buries his face at her neck, exhausted with the honesty, relieved at her health, so in love that it hurts – and maybe he understands her better than he wanted to admit, maybe he understood her all along.
