This is total nonsense and not the best prose, but it was fun!

Wasteland/Albtraum Harry Potter AU! Set many, many, many years after the whole main HP story line because I wanted new professors.


---



I wish that we were magic
So we wouldn’t be so young and tragic
- Dead Man’s Bones


Augusta wears a key around her neck, tiny and rusted and not at all like her other jewelry she favors - the expensive gems that decorate her ears and fingers. The Vries have as much money as they have family history; theirs is a pure-blooded lineage that can be traced back to the 1600s, so most of the other Slytherins like to think the key is linked to that past, a relic from some archaic time.

Arletta stretches herself across the brunette’s neatly made bed, using two of the plush pillows to prop herself up. “Auggie, really, what is the deal with that ugly necklace? What’s it open? A chest of Merlin’s?”

“Don’t call me that.” As the eldest of the Vries, Augusta has worked hard to live up to the expectations set by her father and her family - she is a serious girl, beguiling when necessary, but she doesn’t smile often, and she certainly doesn’t have the time for nicknames. She turns another page of her Potions textbook and tries to ignore her roommate.

“So serious,” Arletta complains with a huff and a roll of her eyes. Although not as famous or long-reaching as the Vries, Arlette’s family history is one of impressive fortune, so she’s never understood Augusta’s need to turn her nose up at her.

“Just because you’re snogging my brother and cohabitating with me this year, doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“Obviously,” Arletta frowns, scooting off the brunette’s bed. Not for the first time, Arletta wishes she had been paired with another of her housemates; the dungeons are cold enough without Augusta’s added presence.

“What time is it?” Augusta asks after a few minutes, scribbling the last of her notes onto her parchment and closing her textbook.

“Almost lockdown.”

“I’ll be back before then.”

“But -” Arletta watches as the 7th year grabs a cloak from the back of the door and a small purple bag that she loops around her wrist before ducking out of the room, as chilly as an October wind.







“Professor?” It’s a formality, really, this title of his that she says so quietly, slipping through the wet earth beneath the whomping willow. Augusta has her wand out in front of her, the tip glowing bright, and her necklace clutched in the other hand.

Some years back, it had been considered a threat to the student body to have a werewolf on the staff, and attitudes haven’t changed much at Hogwarts or even other wizarding academies. But Radomir hadn’t always been cursed; he’s only been suffering lycanthropy for the last two years. Augusta was the first to discover his secret, and somehow that had ended them both here.

At the end of the earthen tunnel, there’s the foundation of what once had been a haunted, ramshackle cottage, with only the basement remaining. The Committee for Historical Preservation had kept the shrieking shack as a monument of sorts, but it had been closed to the public for years. Hogwarts, however, has a history of leaving pathways open for curious students, or at least those clever enough to research the old Dark Arts and First and Second Wizarding Wars. A few hours in the library and some time practicing her hedge enchantments, and Augusta knew just how to handle her professor’s secret.

The Vries are always opportunistic.

She unlocks the cage door he’d built himself with her key; her eyes flick to all the teeth trapped in his tired smile then down to the fresh line of cuts across his abdomen. More than his clothes are shredded, but a quick flourish from her wand has his skin stitch itself together before their eyes. He grunts his gratitude.

Augusta hands him his effects, all his personal items kept safe in a purple bottomless bag the size of a coin purse. “You’ve missed a week of your Ancient Studies course. We’re covering Egyptian spells. It’s difficult because of the prononciation. The Headmaster seems to think you’re suffering from a congenital blood disease.”

“How do you know that?” Radomir asks, pulling a shirt over his broad frame, working the buttons nimbly. With his frame, he looks as though he should be teaching the Dark Arts or how to care for dangerous creatures, like dragons or the giant squid in the Great Lake, but he’s more scholar than brute.

Augusta shrugs. “I have my ways.” There’s a hint of her beguiling nature there, a serpentine kind of slyness to the cut of her eyes.

Radomir flashes a half grin at her. “I’m not surprised.” He touches the dark fall of her hair when he passes, his fingers hesitating at the curve of her jaw. She’s severely beautiful, wrapped up in the uniform of her house, the green and silver stripes of her tie and skirt complimenting the sharp angles of her face, the small expanse of her waist that he can bridge between his giant hands, the slope of her nose that he’s found himself memorizing.

Augusta smiles, the turn of her lips feeling foreign.



--



There’s a dead woman in the North Tower. Some of the students leaving their Divination class catch the occasional glimpse of her - a pale, shivering shroud of silver - but they leave her to her sadness, thinking that Ravenclaw’s ghost prefers solitude.

Lene mentions her, the Silver Lady, during Care of Magical Creatures, hauling a bucket of cream-sweetened apples and fresh wheat from the stables. The students have been split into small groups and assigned some sort of fantastical beast to groom; she may be the first student alive to ever be disappointed in handling a unicorn, but she can’t help enviably eyeing Roman and Kim who have been assigned to a thestral. Lene can’t actually see the winged horse that Roman is feeding a bloodied rabbit to, but she knows it’s there.

Palmer sees Lene’s interest and rolls his eyes. “You can’t be serious. You can only see those things if you’ve really seen death. Up close and personal. Plus, Professor Waters must be insane to have students around them. They’re illegal to breed by the Ministry, ridiculously dangerous, predatory animals with a level four classification …” he pauses, and a familiar glint, like light on onyx, brightens his eyes. “How much do you think one would go for? There’s always a market for the rare and the dangerous.”

Sunniva smacks his arm, a quick, sharp gesture. “If you paid attention to the lecture, you’d know that Hogwarts’ thestrals are properly fed and well trained. They would only attack if seriously threatened.” She’s perched carefully on the top railing of fencing in the yarded area, and Palmer shuffles to her side with a frown, rubbing his shoulder.

“I think she’s lonely,” Eda says quietly, running a brush down the side of the unicorn’s coat, drawing all of their attention back to the original topic at hand. “The Silver Lady.”

The unicorn is brighter and purer than snow, its hooves gold, it’s attitude one of easy, entitled serenity. It seems content to be momentarily bridled, content to be push its velvet nose into Lene’s hand when she offers it one of her apples. “Why?”

Eda shrugs, the gesture soft and somehow delicate beneath the fabric of her prim school blouse. “People don’t usually choose solitude. Not permanently. They just become accustomed to it, and then they forget how to be social again. It’s probably the same with ghosts.”

Palmer raises an eyebrow. “You shock me with your ability to be insightful.”

“That’s because you’re sidetracked by her breasts. You forget she has a brain,” Lene says, feeding the unicorn another apple.

Eda blushes and ducks her eyes, but there’s a coy smile on her lips anyway. Sunniva smirks knowingly, elbowing Palmer’s side when he frowns like a petulant child.




Chason Waters became a professor at Hogwarts only six years ago, but he builds an easy rapport with his students as a dark-eyed, sly grinning, attentive teacher. His calloused hands handle everything from flobberworms to fire crabs with the same easy, practiced skill. When he huffs his hair out of his eyes and demonstrates the proper handling of a bowtruckle for Tuesday’s class, the stick-like figure winding its sharp fingers around his right knuckles like vines, a good portion of the female students sigh dreamily.

“They’re slipperier than slug spawn,” Chason reminds the class, using his left hand as a safety net beneath his right.

“So’s half the class,” Roman quips, earning a snicker from Palmer beside him. They’re in the third row and they knock elbows, jabbing each other like first-years instead of seniors.

Chason sends the boys a disapproving glance. “And very sensitive creatures. They can be prone to biting when their feelings are hurt, so be delicate.”

“Not really my speciality, Professor,” Lene says with a noticeably wrinkled brow. She had accidentally cracked three of her five fairy eggs within the first ten minutes of last week’s class, much to Eda’s dismay.

“Tell me about it,” Roman murmurs, absentmindedly rubbing his bruised side from where Lene had slammed into him during Quidditch practice.

“Mind your fingers then, Lene.” Chason unceremoniously lets the bowtruckle slip from his hand onto Lene’s desk where the tree-dweller promptly loops its curved fingers around her wrist and crawls up her arm, chittering in a friendly manner.



-



Roman shoves an entire fried sausage into his mouth during breakfast in the Great Hall, following it up with two slices of bacon before guzzling a glass of orange juice. Lene’s expression is horrified.

“You know,” she says, spreading butter daintily on a biscuit, “you don’t have to eat like a lion to establish yourself as a Gryffindor.”

“I still don’t understand your sorting, honestly,” Palmer chimes in, swinging a leg over the bench seat, his silver and green tie looking shockingly out of place amidst all the gold and red around him. “You should have been with me and Sun.”

“Yeah,” Lene scoffs, looking at Palmer as though he’s insane, “you and Sun and the Vries.”

“I like the Vries,” Roman says with a casual shrug.

Lene aims her expression of incredulity at Roman. “And I like the cruciatus curse.”

“Seriously. They’re cool, and associating with them boosts my own popularity thanks to proximity alone. That’s an elite crowd.”

“See? Wrong sorting.” Palmer reaches over Lene for a cup of hot coffee, narrowly avoiding a sharp jab to his side.

“Well, I still think you have a moral compass somewhere inside of that dead heart of yours,” she mumbles, taking a bite of her biscuit. “Maybe you’re just waiting to prove yourself.”

Palmer doesn’t catch it, but Roman winks at Lene before attacking another fried sausage.




-



“You know father expects Baldric to propose by the end of the school year,” Harrow tells his sister. He stares at her porridge as though it’s gruel and opts for a slice of cured ham, cutting into it with a knife sharp enough to gleam. They’re three tables over from the Gryffindors.

It should have been difficult to look elite amongst a house primarily full of arrogant, if not ambitious, students, but the Vries manage it well with a section of the Slytherin table to themselves and their inner circle. Their isolation is a coveted thing. Arletta sits beside Harrow, her red hair a burning halo around her face, and pretends to ignore the siblings’ conversation.

Augusta tucks a piece of her dark hair behind her ear, her amber eyes turning to shoot a sideways glance of annoyance at Harrow. “Does he expect the same of you and Arletta here?” She adds a few raspberries and a pour of vanilla-flavored cream into her porridge.

As if on cue, Arletta perks up. “I’d be happy to be your sister, Auggie.”

Neither Harrow or Augusta favor Arletta with a response.

“There’s been some gossip,” Harrow says after a moment, leaning more comfortably against the edge of the table. Arletta winds her arm around his, her fingers stroking the inside of his wrist playfully with her nails.

Augusta raises an eyebrow. “I wonder from who.” She stares at Arletta like the girl’s a leech.

“What are you up to? And why do I think it has something to do with that Ancient Studies professor?”

Harrow is one year younger than Augusta, but he has the look of a predatory shark. His grin could rival Roman’s. Augusta takes a bite of her porridge, the raspberry tart on her tongue, and smiles around her spoon with a shrug.

So, I started this a month ago, and I never went back to finish it. It turns out that Roman and Emere are too similar to be interesting. No conflict. Nadda. Nothing.

Here's the bits I managed:


I want to give in
to my dark self destruction.
I will find you there.
- Anonymous

They’re trying to destroy
something inside that
doesn’t belong.
- Anonymous


At three in the morning, all he can hear is the hum of traffic outside their window and the sharp way she cuts then inhales, strikes then drags, drinks then sniffs. Emere’s eyes are red-rimmed and unfocused, like they’ve spent too much time knocking against her skull. There’s a shake to her fingertips. Her blood must be thin, coursing through her veins with all the ferocity and speed of a runaway train.

He isn’t much better, truth be told, but Roman has always been a king of composure. His hands do not shake. There’s sweat stains under his arms and a wild, James Dean glare in his eyes, but he’s otherwise collected. He leans forward, plucking the cigarette from her hand, taking a drag as she absently swipes her fingers through his loose hair before settling back onto the couch. She pushes her bare feet into his lap, one leg bouncing, the muscles in her thigh twitching beneath her skin.

“What time is it?” She’s smoked so many cigarettes, her voice has that match-strike sound, all grit and stone.

“A little past three.”

Her leg keeps bouncing. He pets her calf, stroking down to her ankle and back up.

“Are you tired?”

Roman stares at her, judging her seriousness, and grins when she smirks. “I won’t sleep for days. You?”

“I have a meeting at eight.”

He glances back at his watch. “Five hours.”

“Just enough time,” she murmurs, swallowing a mouthful of gin and vermouth before she rearranges herself and slinks into his lap, a dusky arm thrown over his shoulders, her mouth catching at his bottom lip, the scratch of his beard as harsh as gravel.





Their Mondays are like their Wednesdays are like their Fridays. Rinse and repeat. A copy of a copy.

She never smells like cigarette smoke or scotch or chemicals. He never looks tired or out done or misused.

Sometimes she sleeps against his shoulder in the back of a taxi, her dark hair tangled and tousled against his broad jaw. He keeps a hand on her thigh, his fingers brushing old scars beneath the hem of her dress.





She takes shots of vodka standing half-naked in the loft’s open kitchen, a hip cocked to the side, wearing one of his work-out tanks and nothing else. It’s five in the afternoon, but she shouldn’t be home - she has a list of appointments longer than the Hudson that have her booked for the next week solid - and she definitely shouldn’t be three sheets to the wind. It’s early, even by Emere’s standards, but she already has that feral cat look about her, the angry, ready-for-a-fight attitude she adopts steadily, hour by hour, as the day progresses into night. It’s usually worse after half a bottle of Ketel One. Roman considers himself lucky, even if the hair on the back of his neck stands up in warning.

He loosens his tie, sidestepping a knocked over vase on his way into the kitchen, and pours himself a shot. While he’s at it, he pours her another one, and leaves the cap off the bottle. He’s a whole head taller than her and he makes good use of the height, looking at the cabinets in front of him rather than down at her. Trying to catch her gaze would be like willingly looking into Medusa’s stare.

“Bad day, dear?” he asks.

Emere takes the shot as an answer and slams the glass down on the counter. “Fuck you.”

Roman lifts his own glass to his lips and tips it back smoothly, the burn settling down his throat and into his chest with the glow of an afterthought. He pours another round. She reaches for hers, and he swats away her hand.

“Hold on, let me catch up, and we’ll see what happens.”

He tips his shot back again, surprised by the sound of her laughter.

OUR FEARS CANNOT PROTECT US.
- Reyna Biddy


Dead man walking.

The expression means something different here – more literal than figurative. The pack murmur beneath their breath as he walks amongst them, as they step out of his path as though he were a pariah, which Roman suspects he is. An outsider. Unwelcome. Foreign with his lifeless heart, chalky skin, and mystic blood.

He’s unsuited for domestic life, although Moray Mountain is a harsh environment; it’s sun-bleached, dust-covered, rock-laden, but the pack has embraced the terrain and used it for coverage. Like animals whose motley hide and assorted feathers allow them to hide in plain sight, the pack has found a way to manipulate the landscape: well-worn trails seemingly disappear into boulder curves, thorny brush cover rusted vehicles, and the mountain itself has been carved into cabins and labyrinthine rooms. The pack is hard to find, intentionally so, and the homebase tucked into the middle of the mountain path is a fortress – stoic, unwelcoming, as stark as the bedrock of its foundation. It’s a home intended for one family, one audience. Roman is not welcome.

It is not so much his look that marks Roman as an intruder (the Moray pack is itself a hierarchy of variety: long-limbed colts run next to coal-skinned boys with bear hearts, women with skin made leathery by age hand freshly washed linens to men with crane-like heights), the hard manner in which he strikes his consonants, or even his careless powerful way of being. It is his foreignness: utterly alien, immediately noticeable. He has no scent for the wind to carry, no pulse for their ears to judge, no warmth. Worse yet, he does not lower his eyes. He does not beseech. He stands next to Lene with easy entitlement, tainting her grass-scent with the smell of graves.

Dead man.

Dead man walking.







“They don’t understand,” Lene tells him on their first night, self-conscious over the cold, distant welcome her family and friends have given Roman, assuming his silence is a sign of his discontent. Later, he will find some measure of kinship in the Moray’s children, but for now she’s the only one who stands close, who sometimes places her hand in the crook of his elbow, who finds the unnatural coldness of his skin a welcome difference against her own burning heat.

Roman wipes grit from his jaw, his hands covered in mountain dirt from where he’d climbed the ascending rocky path earlier. “Why would they?”

“Give them time. You have plenty of that.” She tries for a smile, lightly jabbing his side with her elbow.

He shakes his head. “They don’t need time, liebchen. They do not understand because they do not want to. That never changes.”

“Wait and see. Once they realize you aren’t going to try eating everything with a pulse–”

“Some things aren’t supposed to be mixed.”

Lene is silent for a moment, considering the implications of what he’s said, before she looks away from him. “We aren’t like that here. We aren’t one of the compounds, and this isn’t Albtraum. Anders isn’t Harrow.”

“A world of negations, yes? … And yet,” Roman murmurs, letting his unfinished sentiment linger while he turns his eyes up to the stark, fearless moon. He hasn’t seen one so bright in years. It isn’t comforting.

Lene follows his gaze. She feels cold although the night is mild.

“You broke their rules. Bringing me here.”

“I’ve been breaking their rules for years,” she says, trying to laugh. “Hell, who I am is technically an affront to our entire lifestyle. I’m an anomaly.”

“In a nest–”

“Pack,” she corrects.

“Those who refused to follow the laws were driven out in order to maintain stability. You have to deal with dissenters swiftly. Often violently. You have seen this, I think.”

It’s Lene’s turn to shake her head. “Anders is my brother. He won’t exile me. Besides, this is different. He knows you’re part of the resistance.”

“The resistance,” Roman sneers, shaping the word as an insult. “What do I resist? No, I am trying to survive.”

“Story of your life, old man. Survival covers all manner of sins.”

Roman watches Lene’s profile, her full lips pulled down in an expression of disapproval, her blonde hair catching at her jaw and sticking to the sides of her neck. She’s cherubic – disarmingly, misleadingly so.

He takes her hand, her skin hot against his, and she startles at the gesture. She can’t remember him ever having done it before.

“I don’t know what sin is,” he tells her, and she knows he’s telling the truth.







What the Moray cannot bring themselves to see is all the aspects of Roman that Lene has found herself surprised to value. (She hesitates to say love, as though mentioning this single word would shatter the unspoken commitment that has grown so steadily between them over the years, but in the back of her mind she knows where her heart is.)

She thinks of him after the fall, in the immediate wake of so much chaos and confusion, when Albtraum had been plunged into fire, screams, panic. He had been calm, eerily so, only his eyes had taken on a hawkish, predatory alertness. When he’d found her, two backpacks slung over his shoulder as though they were about to do nothing more than hike through an easy spring trail, she’d laughed at his impossible composure.

The emergency system within the compound had taken over by then, and his face had flickered between red and shadow. There was only one casualty as they hurried towards the location of the loading docks, Roman having already secured an old SUV for their trip through the desert, and it was a young guard whose face Lene couldn’t identify. He’d opened his mouth to say something to Roman – an order, perhaps, to go back the way they’d come, or a question about their whereabouts – but Roman had already approached him, and for a moment it looked as though the two men would hug before Roman’s hands snapped the guard’s neck. His body had crumbled, falling to the floor, as weightless as a feather. Roman had looked back once. Red and shadow. Eyes alert.

He hadn’t been different in the desert. Lene drove, her foot pressing the pedal to the floormat, Roman covering the windows with old blankets, prepping for dawn’s approach. She’d found his confidence infectious, all her senses heightened, ready, and although her eyes kept straying to the rearview mirror – expecting to see a line of guards in trucks and similar SUVs, packed with guns and fully aware of the treachery played on them – all she could see was smoke from the burning building. All she could hear were screams. Even miles later, she’d thought she’d never escape those cries.

They ran out of gas with a day’s journey remaining to the rendezvous point. It was nighttime when it happened, the SUV gasping and choking its way towards death. Roman had cut the ignition then watched the sky, judging the distance, and in the near pitch-black, Lene could see the fine blue of his veins, the extreme whiteness of his skin. She wondered how he’d ever been able to pose as human.

They traveled by foot until the sun halted them. Lene had watched as Roman buried himself within the sand, his muscles straining and rolling beneath his skin, his hands shoveling away mound after mound, seeking the cool darkness of the deeper layers. She’d spent the day scouting, working away at the last of their provisions, calculating their distance with their crudely drawn map and her own memory.

When he emerged from the desert – a pale specter, coated in sand as a second-skin – he’d looked all the more inhuman. To Lene, he’d seemed strong. An ancient force, birthed from the belly of the earth itself.

That otherworldliness had only continued to grow. In the absence of humans, Roman’s differences shined all the brighter.

It’s that noticeable, marked distinction in him that speaks to her own alienation and plight. He’d told her once that he was not the only of his kind, that man’s desire to attack, destroy, and control preternatural life had forced his ancient line into hiding and deep sleep – a hibernation of self-preservation – but she’s yet to meet any other. Just as she’s yet to meet another quite like herself. Her pack thinks Roman is not the most deserving of her loyalty, of her affections – she knows this too, as she knows that her brother disagrees with her choice, whole-heartedly and without much attempt to reconcile the tension this has caused between them as siblings and as leaders within the community. Knight disagrees as well, partially to keep the peace between him and Anders, but because he wants more for Lene. Hers is a history of pain, a pain specific to that of the outsider, and she knows he thinks there’s no hope for healing those old wounds if she continues down the path she’s on. Where she sees a merging, they see disruption.

They all think it. He is a threat instead of a weapon. A liability.

Which now makes her one too.







Lene tells him as much as he drinks from her thigh, her fingers in his hair, his teeth sharp enough that she barely feels their presence – just the quiver of his mouth. It makes her back arch, her skin tingle, turn to gooseflesh. This is after. After her argument with Anders, after Knight’s silent disapproval, after the pack’s resentment towards her and her decision to bring Roman here, jeopardizing them, has turned from a simmer into a boil. This is after Lene defeated the first contender for her position within the pack, after she had to meet the gaze of her family and see them, suddenly, as strangers.

Roman opens one eye and glances up at her, one of his big hands stroking the skin behind her knee, the other at her hip. She’s sitting on her bed, wearing one of his shirts and only one of his shirts, skin smelling of salt and pine, and he’s kneeling between her legs, as naked as the day he was ripped from his mother’s body, Lene’s blood hot in his mouth, coppery with old secrets and bitter with unshared history. The sun still lingers, fresh as a wound, on the horizon, and he can feel its warmth from where his cheek presses against her thigh. Leisurely, savoring the rush of her blood, he pricks his tongue and licks the small puncture wounds, healing them before sitting back on his heels. There’s a glaze over his hazel eyes, her blood still circulating through him, making him punch-drunk, making him keen. If she reached down between their bodies, Lene knows she’d find him hard.

“Which do you think I am? A threat?” he asks finally, like he’s just now remembered the conversation, mouth still red, fingers more curious in the way they roam her leg and side. He’s distracted, reaching up under his shirt that she’s wearing to cup one of her breasts, a thumb idly tracing across her nipple.

“Are you asking me if I’m naïve enough to assume your life has been all fangs and fucking, old man?” She tugs on a chunk of his hair pointedly, making him dip forward until his mouth is back near her thigh.

He laughs. “That would sum up six centuries of living most concisely.”

When Roman slides his palms beneath her, she leans back, stretching her arms above her head. Looking up at the carved ceiling, she sucks in a breath of air as his mouth crawls further up her leg, his less dangerous, more human teeth dragging over her skin. She turns her face into a pillow. This is the room of her adolescence, the mattress firm with its quilts smelling of old cotton, so she should feel more comfortable than she does. Instead, there’s a tangle of knots in her stomach.

Lene pushes a foot into his chest, halting his progression up her body.

Roman quirks an eyebrow.

“I’ve never seen you …” she hesitates, searching for the words that gnaw at the back of her throat. All this time, but she’s sometimes uncertain how to talk to him.

“Tear a throat? Pull out a heart? Kill a child? Rape a woman? Break someone’s jaw and eat the tongue?” His voice is light, but there’s a fog in his eyes again. He sits back once more, catching her foot this time when she tries swiping at his head, cupping it between his white palms.

She props herself up on her elbows, studying his face. “You’ve done all that.”

It isn’t a question, but Roman only shrugs.

She frowns, and Roman rolls his eyes, digging his thumbs uncomfortably into the arch of her foot. She pulls free, annoyed.

“Not for survival,” she clarifies. “That’s what you won’t say, right? You’ve done terrible things because it’s your nature, because you can, because in the hierarchy of life, your kind is always on top and fuck everything else? It’s survival of the fittest.”

At times like this, Roman thinks Lene only entered his life to serve as the conscience he so desperately needs. He hears her in his head often, judgmental in a way that doesn’t sound judgmental, but philosophical, prosaic, even sometimes sarcastic, like the start of a mockery or a debate. He thinks he’ll always hear her, that he’s taken something from her that she didn’t know she was giving. An unfair truth, but a truth all the same.

“What’s your point, liebchen?” He grabs his jeans, the ones he’d worn all through the desert, the ones that still smell of campfire and salt, and slides them on with an ease and casualness that’s infuriating. He’s still hard. He has to tuck himself into his jeans, and the look he gives her is pointed. He’d much rather be fucking than talking.

So would she, but Lene can’t untangle herself from the mix of emotions she’s feeling and the surrealness of being here, at her home, with a corpse as a companion. Instead of grabbing him by the loopholes of his jeans and pulling him onto the bed, she sits up, folds her arms over her chest in a defiant gesture that does nothing but make her feel childish. Why is she angry? Nervous? Sad? What is it she’s fearing? She’s not sure how to answer his question.

Her emotions resonate inside of him, more muted and dim, but still there – flickering like sparks inside of his veins. A result of the circle their blood makes, the connection thrumming, turning him into a receptacle. He blinks, trying to make sense of this most human of responses, and then Roman surprises her when he takes two steps forward, his hands on either side of her face, his mouth on hers, his tongue licking her teeth. She can taste her own blood. She drops her arms. Presses her hands to his bare chest.

“What is it?” he asks again, softer this time, his voice a whisper that lands against her lips. His forehead touches hers, his eyes challenging.

She takes a breath for reassurance. “… Would you be able to do those terrible things again? If you needed to? If it comes to that?”

It’s an easy answer.







The meeting is called a month later.

Anders sits at the start of the circle, his blonde hair pulled back at the nape of his neck, his elbows on his knees and his hands between them. It’s a position of calm, but Roman knows that every complaint his pack lodges, every dispute, settles like stone on top of his young shoulders and threatens to break him. His desire to lead them is a burden, and the effort it takes to lead them well is crushing him, slowly but acutely. Lene sits by his left, Knight at his right, and Roman stands a step behind Lene – not in the circle, but not far from it.

Only Lene’s mouth looks worried. She’s caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Her eyes are angry, and Roman thinks that’s good. Anger can be useful.

“He doesn’t belong.” Alec, middle-aged and greying at the temples, speaks for a third of the congregation that’s gathered to discuss, for yet another time, Roman’s presence.

“He hasn’t hurt any of us or brought trouble,” Anders responds, shielding the weariness in his voice. “He is a member of the resistance. I do not want to make a habit of rejecting members of this pack purely on …” He pauses, uncertain.

“Species,” Knight offers.

“Oddities,” Lene suggests, speaking for herself as well as Roman.

“He hasn’t proven himself,” A fox by the name of Jalyn says, her eyes like arrows that shoot past Lene’s shoulder and into Roman’s chest.

“But I have.” Lene’s voice is sure, confident, assertive without an edge of meanness. “And I speak for him.”

“You shouldn’t speak for any of us,” Jalyn threatens, turning her harsh gaze on Lene. “You shouldn’t belong either. We all think it.”

“You do not have the authority to speak for all of us present here, so guard your tongue,” Anders says.

When he intercedes as the leader, Jalyn has the grace to look cowed. “My apologies, Alpha.” Her subservience is a mask she brings to her face when convenient, but Anders gives a small nod of acknowledgement regardless.

“We do not doubt that Lene has done well for this pack or that she is capable of earning her position here,” Alec begins, placing a hand on Jalyn’s shoulder. “We’ve all seen how she can defend herself, how she works for our benefit, but Jalyn is right. One’s strength does not merit another’s placement. We all earn our right to be here. This outsider should earn his.”

Roman folds his arms over his chest, shifting his weight to his heels. He follows the conversation, although he’s already certain of where it will end. He’s lived too many similar moments.

“He should fight,” a faceless voice from the back of the group speaks up. The crowd murmurs their agreement.

“No.” Anders says, immediate, his hands still loose between his knees.

“Wait,” Lene says, placing a hand gently on Anders’ arm. “I will fight as his proxy. We can solve this in one shot.”

“No,” Roman says, speaking for the first time, his voice reverberating with his natural harsh cadence.

There’s a collective snarl from half of the pack, as though Roman’s interruption has struck them as distasteful. Someone near his left spits on his boot. He ignores it and does not uncross his arms or move from his place behind Lene. “I will fight.”

“It isn’t your fight,” Lene murmurs, turning her head to look up at him, a scowl slicing the lower half of her face. “It’s me they’re really upset with.”

The smile Roman gives her is indulging. “You know better than that.” He looks to Anders, nodding. “I accept.”

For the first time since the meeting began, Anders curls his hands into fists.

Roman and Adira - 1920s AU but technically set during his time as a WWI soldier. Not quite as porn-centric as I had originally wanted, but I'm very happy with establishing the foundation of their relationship and capturing the certain mood that I wanted.

Reference pictures:

Roman: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ee/91/25/ee9125861376471e1b24940e6a20952f--man-magazine-dream-man.jpg
Adira: http://contributormagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/images/MAGNUS%20LANDSCAPES/hannar2.jpg


I blame Google for any potential translation problems. Google and the fact that I haven't studied/spoken/read French since high school.


---



She isn't beautiful. Her nose is too large for her otherwise delicate features and crowds her cheeks; her eyes are close together; her lips are thin, pale slivers of chapped skin; her jaw angles down into a point, completing the severe cut of her diamond-shaped face. She is knobby knees knocking together and skeletal wrists, hips that are sharpened bone, collarbones like glass, dishwater blonde hair limp with grease. A scarecrow on city streets.
She's the type of woman Roman can quite literally throw over his shoulder without having to worry about being weighed down.
She's the type of woman that, in another war, would find herself behind barbed wire.
In this one, she kneels on her knees until the cobblestone has bruised them and takes soldiers in her mouth for bottles of wine and day-old bread. In this one, she washes between her legs with rainwater and vinegar and feels grateful that the brothels opened their doors to the impoverished women of Paris. She doesn't know how to feel pity - for herself or for others - but she knows how to survive, how to adapt, how to sequester.
Roman finds her in the worn-down, red-tinged Quartier Pigalle district, somewhere between the Moulin Rouge and the Sacré-Coeur – a grim place where only the drunks and the hungry belong. He smokes a hand-rolled cigarette, leaning against a damp alley with one foot cocked back against the brick, because he wants to be lost in a ruined world - because dark, sad streets have thick shadows that coat his conscious. He's still preoccupied with the image of a German boy's head splitting open on account of his rifle's bullet, a boy as perfect as boys could be, hardly fair to even call him a man, with blue eyes like ocean swells and a strong, clean jaw that had fallen open in the last second of his life as if shock was all he'd felt, the way one was shocked by a sudden burst of cold wind and nothing more. Roman remembers how red his blood had looked on the rich, dark soil of no-man's land. He’d laid there between the territorial trenches since dawn, and he'd waited for the kill, his hawk eyes trained to hunt. Just as he waited for the cover of darkness to crawl back to the parapet, moving slowly by inches, the smell of death and dirt against his cheek and an emptiness in his gut that hurt more than remorse ever could have.
His reward was civilian clothes, the scratch of stubble at his jaw, and three days of leave in a city burnt and billowing ash, damp with grime and malady. So when the blonde stumbles out of the brothel's dimly lit doorway, he takes one look at her and understands: she's exactly what he deserves.





The prostitute wears a straight shift of faded white with black hosiery on her matchstick legs and her hair hangs in her face. There's more than a few rips in the legwear, and Roman traces the length of one thin tear from the outside of her thigh to the side of her knee with his eyes. She's wrapped an old shawl around her shoulders, either to protect from the damp in the air or to hide a stretch of yellowing bruises on her upper arms. When Roman offers her a cigarette, she peers up at him with the eyes of a wolf.
"Que veux tu pour ça?" She asks in a voice like gravel scratching beneath the heel of a boot.
Roman taps his left ear and shrugs, gesturing his lack of understanding.
The blonde rolls her eyes but slips into English that, though heavily accented, is fluid. "This is for free?"
"A gift from abroad, darling."
"No such thing, I think," she says but takes the cigarette anyway, rolling up on her toes to accept the light he offers next. "From a soldier."
"Maybe you aren't being appreciative." He pitches his finished cigarette to the ground but does not move from the wall. Listening to her speak is like listening to a cat's purr.
"Pardon?"
"Not being appreciative. You're not ..." he twirls his fingers in the air, circling in his mind for the word. "Not grateful for us being here."
The woman's eyes are leather brown but in the street lights they look amber. Again, Roman thinks of a wolf when she stares at him, fearless and angry, tilting her chin up to exhale a plume of smoke near his face. "Oh, so you are a funny soldier, yes? A regular Charlie Chaplin. Funny to come to France and fight with boys and fuck their girls and burn their city and die in mud and shit."
"Your English is sehr gut, Fräulein. Sehr gut."
She recoils as if struck. When she flicks her unfinished cigarette to the ground, she flicks it directly at his boot. "A kraut?"
"Americanized, liebchen. My grandfather was the original kraut. I work for the red, white, and blue now. Or the blue, white, and red. Das ist mir Wurst."
She pulls her shawl closer to her, clutching the ends over her breasts in a poor imitation of a modest woman. She still looks uncertain, but Roman glances back to the brothel entrance pointedly. "I'll pay. And not with molded bread," he tells her.
At this, the woman laughs. "With what then? Money? With these rations? I would prefer the bread, chéri."
Roman's smile widens and becomes a grin. It isn't cheerful, but she takes his hand anyway and leads him to the door.





The prostitute’s room is at the top of a rickety set of stairs that ascend immediately from the brothel’s dark foyer, off to the left and identical in its weariness to the other women’s doors. The room is small and lacks warmth, creating an atmosphere Roman has become familiar with while in France. The ceiling is water-stained and the wallpaper peels away from the walls in long strips like yellow skin. There’s a lumpy mattress covered in colorful quilts in the corner, a solitary lamp glowing dimly atop a stack of wooden crates, and a chest pushed against the main wall that harbors what little possessions and clothing the woman still has. There’s a basin of water, a chipped pitcher, and a small assortment of food and jars on a cutting board on top of the chest. She’s propped a wrought-iron stool next to it. Roman wonders how often she’s sat there, eating rotten fruit as she peers out of the adjacent window, bracing herself for another night.
He has a small tin of canned corn beef and a package of biscuits in his coat pocket, leftovers from his rations in the trenches. He's learned to keep necessities on him. The woman has a half empty bottle of wine and a wedge of cheese wrapped in linen. Between the two of them, it is a feast.
Roman knows the kind of hunger war brings though, so he props open the can with a knife he keeps holstered in his boot and offers it to the woman first. She takes it without hesitation, watching him with her large eyes as she breaks a piece of bread and uses it to scoop out a chunk of greyish-pink meat. She eats quickly. Roman is reminded of feral dogs who swallow without tasting and bare their teeth at any hand that threatens to take their scavenged meal. After a few bites, she offers the can back to him, but he waves her away and sits on the edge of the bed. He lights a cigarette and pulls a flask from his jacket. She seems amused by this, by his seemingly depthless pockets and the possible delights they could store.
“Do you have a name?” He asks around the filter of his cigarette.
“Adira. Et toi?” She pours a glass of wine after wiping crumbs from her mouth, rewrapping the remaining bread and storing it with the canned beef next to the cheese on the top of the chest.
“Roman.”
“Like the conquerors, yes?”
“Some people would say they were diplomats, but yes.”
“And you? Which are you? A diplomat or a conqueror?”
“If soldiers conquer, then that’s what I am.” He shrugs and flicks ash onto the floor.
“Good, you won’t cry then like some of the others. I hate a man who cries.”
She’s so serious in her conviction that Roman laughs, the sound loud in the small confinement of her room. He grins at her, watching as she removes her shawl and takes a drink of wine. “No, mademoiselle, I won’t cry.”
When Adira drapes the shawl over the back of the stool, the faded cotton the color of old teeth, Roman can see the thinness of her arms and he’s reminded of his father’s ivory piano keys – how light they were beneath his fingers, how easy to push. He takes his coat off slowly, laying it over the edge of the bed closest to him, then rests his elbows on his knees, his fingers interlacing between them. There’s no music in the way she moves, no attempt at seduction as she crosses the room to sit beside him, placing the wine on the nearby stacked crates beforehand.
He turns his face to look at her, and she touches his jaw lightly with the tips of her dirty fingers. “Are you here to forget?” She asks him mildly.
“No,” he says and turns his mouth into her palm.





He doesn’t remove his shirt or his pants or his boots. Adira rolls down her stockings because she cannot afford to rip them more than they already are while the shift she wears is barely worth protecting, but she’s surprised when Roman slips the straps down her arms then pulls away the dress as though he’s unwrapping a present. She isn’t used to being so exposed, but she doesn’t make any attempt to cover herself.
Roman knows little of fear and even less of cowardice, a characteristic Adira realizes by the way he runs his hands over the bruises on her body, how his eyes take in the cuts and scars littering her skin with nothing more than a precursory glance. He kisses her as man unafraid of disease, openmouthed despite the sour taste of her tongue and the way her lips scratch his. He holds her face in his large hands, and she can’t remember the last time anyone kissed her without pity or desperation.
Instead, he seems to want to swallow her whole, a carrion-crow come to pick at her bones.





Adira smooths a hand back through his hair, the strands long on top and an ashy shade of chestnut. She catches the back of his clean neck near the collar of his shirt when he continues to kiss her. He smells like the grave, like dirt and water and rust, the kind of war smell that no amount of washing can get rid of, but he’s warm and solid and ready for her and she arches up to him.
She’s a pale line beneath him, her fully naked body a stark contrast against his civilian clothes. She doesn’t complain. She cups him against his thigh, hard, and breathes a mouthful of French that lands against his shoulder as a murmur. His stubble of beard scratches her throat when he leans down to pull his mouth across her jugular, the vein there thick but weak, a fever-hot path for his tongue to follow. He cups her breasts between his hands. They’re shaped like tears, full in his palms, and her nipples tighten when he scrapes them with his teeth.
There’s a feral look to the way she tosses her head back against the old pillows, the blankets beneath them accenting the sudden color that has brightened her cheeks. Her mouth is rubbed raw from where he’d kissed her. When her eyes flutter as she undoes his trousers and pushes them down, lower against his hips, Roman thinks the look is practiced. He doesn’t mind. He’ll fuck her because he can, because she’s been bought, because the body she loans him is as damaged as his own and he thinks there’s a form of justice, of decency, in calling a spade a spade.
Adira guides him inside of her, and then he holds her open at the thighs, his fingers spreading wide over her skin and pushing her down into the mattress as she bears his weight and his full, hard thrusts. Her breasts shake from the rhythm, and she digs her hands into the blankets rather than his shoulders or his back.
When she turns her cappuccino eyes up at him, he moves one hand to her neck. She is pale limestone; if he squeezed, she would crumble. The smile that curves her mouth is amused, full of recognition, and she arches her spine into a wider half-circle, drops her head back to offer up more of her throat.
Part of him thinks it would be a kindness to end her life now, but she isn’t the enemy, and her bed is not the trench. He keeps a grip on her neck anyway, one hand still pinning her thigh, but he kisses her for a second time.
She won’t tell him, but Adira will think it is similar to dying.





After, they share a cigarette. She coughs into her pillow, a wet, hacking noise that seems to rattle inside of her chest even after she’s caught her breath.
“That will only get worse when winter hits, liebchen,” Roman says, their fingers brushing as she passes the smoke.
Adira makes a hum of acknowledgement and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. He can’t be certain for sure, but he thinks she’s expecting to see blood.
“You should see a doctor.”
She laughs at him, leaning over the bed to grab her dress from the floor. “Oui. I’ll do that.”
“I know a nurse – ”
“You’re a good man,” she says, interrupting him with the coldness in her voice and the sudden glare of her eyes as she moves away from his body warmth, “but I do not need your charity.”
He arches an eyebrow at her, his arm curled above his head in a leisurely pose, and takes a drag on his cigarette before responding. “Why do women always do that? Confuse kindness for goodness and pride for strength?”
Adira doesn’t say anything. She slips her toes into the foot of one stocking, smoothing it up the thin curve of her leg then does the same with the other. “Come,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ears once she’s strapped her feet into a pair of worn lace-up boots and stood. “You aren’t the only lonely soldier in Paris.”
Roman swings his long legs over the bed and stands, taking his wrinkled jacket from the bed corner. His clothes smell like sweat and sex and the room’s dampness. He’ll turn his nose into his collar in the morning and smell sickness instead.





When Roman returns to American soil, two years after the war has ended, she will be dead.

He’ll taste her in the back of his throat as a memory, a vulture picking at a ghost.

Ugh. I hate it when your mind doesn't want to cooperate with your desire to write. Like, c'mon, brain! Get with the picture!

This was supposed to be a warm up, which it was, but it's nowhere near how I wanted to write the scene.

However, Haven is a hottie. Her outfit: http://celebmafia.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/farah-holt-free-people-collection-2015_1.jpg


-----


David notices her because of her breakfast: a flaking, butter-soaked apple turnover topped with two dollops of fluffy cream. She cuts big pieces with a fork and savors the balance of cream and tart chunks of apple in each bite, wiping flakes of pastry from the corner of her mouth with her fingertips. She’s been his waitress at the Cala D’Or Yacht Club before, but her tits are too small and her mouth too thin – he glanced past her until she would turn away and then, at most, he would admire the shape of her ass or the long stretch of her legs before returning to his scotch and cigar. But now, claiming his place at the bar three stools down from where she’s eating, David’s caught by the glimmer of her diamond earrings and her chipped red polish and the way her lipstick smears against the corner of her cup of black coffee.

It’s too early, even for a Saturday, to order a scotch, but he does it anyway.

Haven glances at him, and he motions to her rapidly disappearing breakfast. “My wife used to do that. Eat dessert for breakfast.”

“Sounds like a good woman then,” Haven says with a smile.

“Maybe.” He shrugs a shoulder noncommittedly and watches her lick a bit of cream from her finger.

“What does she eat now?”

In truth, David doesn’t know. He hasn’t shared a breakfast with Rowena in more than six months. “She’s become something of a health nut,” he lies. “It’s all egg whites and avocado toast these days.”

Haven shakes her head as if she’s disappointed by this news then stands up, leaning forward to put her empty plate and mug closer to the edge of the bar. “My shift starts in ten minutes, if you’ll be needing a table.”

He won’t be, but he nods anyway. When she walks off, presumably to don the customary black blazers all the waitresses wear with their navy colored skirts, he watches her the entire time.





“So how’d you end up here?” he asks her three drinks later. The club has started to fill up with the usual crowd – silver-haired would-be sailors and rich patrons with nothing better to do with their weekend – but Haven has circled back to his table repeatedly, fetching him refills of his scotch without being told to, suggesting he order the Oysters Rockefeller because they’re on special, and making no comment about his lack of company.

Haven shifts a stack of menus to her hip. “I’m part-timing while my brother figures out how we can get rich quick.”

David surprises himself by laughing, and she flashes him a bright smile, one that is all teeth. “But really,” she says, picking up his unused menu and adding it to her stack, “I like the view here, and I need something to do while I figure out my life. I was back home for a while, taking care of my dad. Lost a little time doing that.”

“Family,” David says, and he means it good-naturedly, like they’re comrades, but Haven thinks he sounds disgruntled.

“More of a burden then a blessing sometimes, right?”

His grin is all the confirmation she needs.

She writes her number on his credit card receipt and isn’t surprised when he calls her the next day.





“Where are you off to?” Luke asks, an eyebrow raised, his expression difficult to read.

“Got a date,” Haven says with a smirk, adding another chunk of silver and gold bangles to her left wrist. She has a matching set on her other wrist, a half-open cuff on her upper left arm, and ten distressed bracelets cupping the flesh of her right. Every time she moves, she sounds musical.

Her dress is a slip of a thing, white embellished cotton that flutters down her body gracefully, cutting across her thighs like a whisper. Luke watches as she slips on high heels that cage her feet, the black fabric knotting behind her ankles. It’s the kind of outfit women wear when they expect to be undressed quickly, but he doesn’t tell her to stay home or to be careful. He doesn't tell her anything.





She is unlike every other woman David has ever met. He keeps an apartment in the city, a high-rise expensive piece of property that he’s brought women to before, but she doesn’t seem to even take in the luxury of the place. When he asks if she wants a glass of wine, she opens the bottle herself, and she sits on his leather couch with her legs curled under her, wine glass in one hand, and a flip of a smirk on her mouth.

He makes a dinner they do not eat.

He doesn’t call it a date, and he never promises her anything. When he kisses her, she acts as though she’s been waiting for it all night – her mouth opening to him easily, hungrily, tasting of merlot and strawberry lip balm. She doesn’t mention his wedding ring or the wife he alluded to at the yacht club. She opens to him without hesitation, and he pushes her dress up her hips with the hurry of a desperate man.

He’s a selfish fuck – something Haven was already expecting – but she moans encouragement into his ear and hooks her legs around his waist anyway. She arches her back when she’s expected to, kisses at his stubbled jaw, fakes an orgasm as he slices between her thighs and curses into her shoulder.

Afterwards, she’s surprised when he strokes her calf. There’s a tenderness to the way his fingers skim her skin. He pushes away her hair from her face and kisses her again, full-mouthed, like he’s trying to claim something he’s already caught.

She finishes her wine before leaving and takes the money he gives her for a taxi ride she doesn’t use.





“Fun time?” Luke asks when she comes home. He’s in the kitchen, eating a late-night snack of cereal, and he can smell the sex on her and see how her mouth is stained from the merlot.

She shrugs a shoulder, pushing a hand back through her hair. “Not really.”

“So no second date then?”

“Why? Would you be jealous if there was?”

He makes a noise that doesn’t quite answer her question, and she pulls herself up onto the counter across from him, her jewelry shivering against her wrists and arms. He puts his bowl down and then he’s there, knocking her knees open to stand between her legs, his hands warm on her hips. He leans in, nose close to her collarbone, and she sweeps her fingers through his hair, dragging them down the back of his neck.

She shivers when he drags his teeth across her pulse.

Trying to get into the mindset of a new character - thanks to my Muffin for letting me join in on her madness.

Ladies and gents, may I present: Ms. Haven Elders!

(this is just unconnected scenes interrupted by lines of poetry by Reyna Biddy.)



----


“maybe I’m ashamed
to love someone just like me.
someone unafraid to bruise.
someone who knows how it feels to constantly lose the battle.
someone unafraid to be left empty.”



Her first experience with betrayal starts with her lungs burning. Her legs and arms pumping, blurring, the line of her body slick with sweat as she runs on her doe legs. In another life, she could have been a track star, a homecoming queen, a valedictorian, a silver screen starlet with a thousand different faces. In this life, she sprints away from the shouts of police and the glow of their flashlights, hurdling over a tangle of brush and a downed oak, the adrenaline coursing through her veins as raw as her daddy's moonshine. She's thirteen years old and as full of piss and vinegar as she is with fear.

She runs until she feels faint, and then she runs some more.

By the time she makes it home, her head is pounding, and her chest feels too small to contain her wildly beating her. Her shirt is soaked with sweat, her legs and arms scratched red from where branches and vines snapped her skin. Hands on her knees, pitched forward and gasping for air, she doesn't hear Sam Elders open the screen door of their cinder block house and step out into the night.

"Where's your brother?" Her daddy asks. He has the look of a parent who knows exactly what his children have been up to, but it lacks shock or regret.

"What?" She chokes out while her mind suddenly sends a warning as loud as a siren through her brain: Luke.

It's the first time she's thought of him since she started running.

She spins on her heel, still reeling, and is honestly surprised that he isn't behind her, just as out of breath and red-faced. She waits a full minute, somehow hoping to hear the woods crack at his approach. There's nothing but the wind and what might be distant, far off shouts.

"You leave him?"

When she stares back at her father, sloe-eyes wide, her daddy clicks his tongue. The sound is full of disappointment.

"I didn't - I thought .... what?"

"You're turning into your mama more and more, girl. Just running blindly ahead, not a look back."

Now Haven really thinks she might be sick. She pushes a hand back through her hair feeling the sweat gather on her palm. "He was right behind me."

Sam Elders spits near his daughter's foot. "We'll pick him up from the station in the morning." The screen door squeaks in protest when he opens it again and knocks against the frame once he's disappeared back into the house.

Haven stays outside, heart hamming in her chest, and waits for the sick feeling in her gut to pass.





“I wasn’t the kind of person you could love every day.”




Theirs is a town the rest of the world has forgotten: houses little more than shacks and row homes as slanted as roof barns, cracks battling with the weeds for space on the sidewalks, one solitary high school caging in boys who grew up hunting, fishing, and fixing trucks and girls who favored boots, crop tops, and smoking Pall Malls over Marlboros. Most of the kids turn into their parents, adults that are satisfied with hot dog eating contests every July 4th and frequenting a bar every Saturday night that seconds as a tow-truck company. Theirs is a town full of blue-collared workers – some of them good, some of them mean, and some of them Elders. For a place not known for its extravagance by any stretch of the imagination, the Elders are a different kind of folk altogether.

The live in a cinder block on the outskirts of an already dilapidated area with tick-infested woods as their backyard and crabgrass as their front lawn. They aren’t exactly social, but they aren’t private either. Most of the men have shared beers and burgers with Sam Elders for years, just as most of them have watched him lose money the same way he lost his wife. Rick Thorton is the closest thing Sam has to a best friend, but Rick can’t seem to figure out which parts of Sam’s life are fiction and which parts are fact, and that’s after twenty years of knowing each other. Janet Winters feels the same way, and she’s known Sam’s kids for half her life, having babysat for them when they were still toddlers and didn’t know beans.

It’s Janet that gets an odd feeling once the kids are three-fourths of the way to twenty. They’ve been taken care of themselves for years, but she still brings over tuna noodle casserole and tater tot delight once a month or so, figuring Sam never was much in the kitchen. Janet considers herself a good Christian woman despite smoking two packs a day and indulging in a box of wine per week, so she thinks it’s her duty to spread a little generosity - all of the Elders are in-and-out of trouble as regularly as the sun rises.

Balancing aluminum-wrapped Tupperware on one hip, Janet knocks too loudly on the paint-split door. She’s surprised when Haven answers rather than Sam and more surprised to see the girl in a tank top that brushes the tops of her thighs but little else. Haven yawns, scratching the back of her neck behind her knotted hair, and pushes the screen door open with a half-awake but cheerful hello.

“You’re gonna catch your death in that getup, child. Heavens.” Janet says as she comes in, letting Haven take the Tupperware from her. “May I?” She shakes a pack of cigarettes she dug from her purse once her hands were free.

“Sure, Mrs. Winters.” Haven passes her an ashtray half-full of butts before putting the Tupperware on the counter and perching on the edge of an old recliner.

Their living room isn’t much, just like the house isn’t much. The windows have blinds that are half-cocked, like they’ve been stuck trying to wink, and the light that filters in is low and hazy. The carpet is stained, dirty, and Janet isn’t sure how Haven feels clean with so much skin showing.

“Where’s you dad?”

“Working on Mr. Tucker’s truck. He should be back in a few hours.”

“And your brother?”

Haven grins, an expression that splits her mouth and makes her look wide awake. “In bed.”

Janet rolls her eyes knowingly, puffing on her cigarette. “Is that where you came from too?”

“Yeah, but he steals all the covers. I’ve been trying to steal them back for half an hour.”

Janet makes a noise like a hum then coughs on the smoke in her mouth. “Aren’t you a little old to be sleeping together?”

For a moment, Haven’s expression turns cold. She plucks Janet’s cigarette from her left hand, surprising the old woman, and inhales smoothly. When she exhales, the smoke filters down over her bottom lip like fog. “Yeah, I’m all grown up now.”

She smiles before Janet can say anything and hands back the cigarette, sliding from her perched position to open the door. “Thanks for the casserole, Mrs. Winters. I’ll tell dad you came by.”

Janet smiles back, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She murmurs something about enjoying the rest of the day and leaves without a second glance. As she heads towards the Ford she’s parked in the Elders’ driveway, she thinks about Haven’s expression, and the uncharacteristic coldness in the girl’s blue eyes. Janet’s known Haven her entire life, and she’s never seen that look before.

Not from her, at least.




“It’s just some nights I crave you when I know I shouldn’t.”




She’s seventeen, and Jaime Holster is throwing one of his notorious backyard parties on a Saturday night. Most of the adults in town know about Holster’s parties, including the local cops, but they’ve brokered an unspoken truce with the youth – a don’t ask, don’t tell policy that would make Clinton proud.

Haven wears shorts that are too short to be anything other than denim underwear and a crop top that shows how long and lean her stomach has become. Her blonde hair is thrown up into a messy bun, and there’s barely a lick of makeup on her face except for some eyeliner and strawberry flavored lip balm. She has an effortless attractiveness that other girls envy and try to emulate to little success. When Holster blares rock from a stereo system haphazardly balanced on the top railing of his deck, it’s Haven that starts dancing first.

She has a cold bottle of beer in one hand and the other in the air, her fingers tapping the beat along with her hips. When she tosses her head back and forth, her knot of hair shaking from the effort, two other girls that she could have called friends join in. Holster, never missing an opportunity, is the first guy to start dancing. He has the same confidence Haven possesses, and they grin at each other knowingly. By the time Manson starts playing, most of the party has become a pit of thrashing bodies.

Haven is sweating, throwing herself against the hive of arms and chests around her, laughing in a way that’s almost ugly, full-throated and close to a horse’s bray, her beer spilling and running down her arm, leaving her sticky and amber-smelling. She pulls her head back, avoiding an aggressive looking elbow, and leans into the escape Holster offers when he throws an arm around her waist and lifts her feet off the ground. He pivots, turning her in a half-circle, and she wraps her long legs around his hips, the majority of her weight supported by the gyrating bodies behind her and Holster’s hands under her ass.

She still has some of her beer, and she takes a drink even though it’s turned lukewarm, looping her free arm around Holster’s neck. He says something against her neck, something hot and half-drowned by music. She can feel that he’s hard and that he’s rutting against her, the fabric of his jeans chafing her thighs.

From across the yard, she can see Luke watching them. Watching her.

Haven winks and drags her nails down the back of Holster’s head.

This thing upon me, howls like a beast
You flower, you feast
- “Woman”



His weight beneath her anchors Augusta in the moment, binding her sails and building her moorings. She feels almost child-like - a woman grown, tall as a willow, her body devoid of grace and molded into severe lines (the resulting aftermath of a life of trials and tribulations, of crossing into adulthood fully) - but she is made minuscule by Radomir's mountainous size. She is used to having control, to maintaining order, to fulfilling responsibilities; she's grateful for the freedom and comfort his body provides. It's refreshing, even if it doesn't change the fundamentals of their dynamic.  As if to further establish this point, Augusta's arms cage his head, her wrists locking behind his neck, mimicking the way her legs circle his waist. She has circled her way around him, as much as possible. If she leans down more, she'll find a shelf for her head in the shape of his shoulders and chest. If she arches too much, her oak-colored hair brushes the top of the Cadillac. 

They are a knot, insidiously twisted, and difficult to untangle. 

Radomir's heavy hands grip her hips. When she rocks down, grinding against the hard length of him, he holds her like she's the anchor instead of the ship. It makes her laugh, slick and needy, against his lips. 

Forehead pressing against hers, and in-between uttering a Slavic curse and a groan, Radomir asks her what's so funny. 

"Sometimes I think you forget what you're capable of," she tells him, trailing her palm from the nape of his neck to his jawline, feeling the scratch of the day's stubble against her skin.
 
Radomir grins, leaning back against the leather seats, spreading his arms out over their curves. "No. I never forget."

She quirks an eyebrow at him, her mouth a thin scar of a smirk, then nods briefly. "You're right." Her hand scalds him as she runs her fingers down his neck, deliberately traveling the length of his jugular, circling away from his heart as she traverses over his broad chest, burning lower and lower until she palms the outline of his hardness completely. He grunts, guttural, and looks at her from between half-lidded eyes. 

"Show me then," she says, licking the corner of his mouth. "Show me what you can do." 





Augusta could talk the devil into setting himself on fire. 

She could get into anyone’s brain – into their teeth as well as their ears. She could vibrate in the knot of nerves below the breastbone and seem to eat the damp and delicate tissue behind the eyes.

Radomir knows this. He has accepted it, has let himself be convinced by all her words and plans and promises, has even been enamored by it, but when he's deep inside of her, his hands buried in her hair, her body wet and yielding to him in all the ways he has often yielded for her, he wants to be the one who is silver-tongued and solid. He wants to lead as she follows. He wants to pave a path to a future where their footing is on equal ground, where he does more than guard her life, open her doors, and fuck her in secret. 

But then she catches his neck with one of her hands - hands that make him think of doves in their elegance and long-fingered poise - or her sweat leaves salt on his lips as he mouths the curve of her jaw and the desire to satisfy her, to be hers, battles with his urge to claim. 

Augusta is silk, spread beneath him, a leg curved over his hip, the other pinned down at the thigh and held open by his right hand. Her body is pressed against and into the Cadillac's back seats. The windows are fogged over. They're both sweating. She has a rope of pearls around her neck that glisten, sticking to her collarbone, the ends of her hair clinging to them. But she is still removed, still distant - he's only pushed up her skirt, only undone his trousers - and he's bracing his bulk above her, forced into the back of a car that suddenly feels like a coffin. His left hand had gripped the front seat for leverage and balance, but now he uses it to pluck at the matching pearl buttons of her blouse. Quick. Nimble. Too precise for a man whose history has covered his hands in blood. 

"Hold on," he murmurs, like his words are sticking to his tongue, then scowls when she groans with impatience. 

Augusta pushes her hands back through her hair, looking down at the progress he's making, inches of her skin slowly coming into sight as her blouse spreads open. "Radomir." There's a note of annoyance in the way she says his name - it's subtle, but he's been trained to notice it. 

"Augusta." He mimics, leaning down to kiss the tops of her breasts, his teeth dragging over the expensive lace of her bra. He guides the shirt off of her slowly, rolling it away from her shoulders, and feels her acquiesce when she arches up to help him. It slips from her arms, a snake shedding expensive skin. 

He curves a hand back, against her spine, and works the clasp of her bra next. When he moves to the line of buttons on the side of her hiked skirt, she huffs again. A simmer of anger from her mouth, disguised as a sigh. 

"Radomir," this time her tone is clearer - more obviously sharp, "we don't have time for this." 

"Why not?" he asks, the only part of him moving now his fingers at her hip. He's still inside of her, thrust to the hilt, but he is a creature of self-possession. 

She slaps him, her hand a viper. Three quick successions. His eyes flinch, but the crack of sound is louder than the pain. 

"No time," Radomir muses, feeling the sting of her nails. He lowers his eyes to her exposed chest, to the slender inward curves of her waist, his hand rubbing the buttons of her skirt now, feeling their worth. 

He seems reflective - humbled - so Augusta is surprised when he looks her squarely in the eyes. 

"Do you have time to undress for your brother?" The impudence is more in his eyes and the smirk his mouth makes than in his voice. That he keeps even and low. 

Although she considers it, Augusta decides to answer him earnestly rather than make him apologize. "No.” She uses her slapping hand to run her thumb over his full bottom lip, her nail scratching at the corner where his smirk is the most evident. “… and I don't fuck him in the backseat of cars either."

"Where then?" He undoes a button.

"Where I bury my skeletons."

Another button loosens, and now he can unwrap her fully, smoothing away the fabric to feel the way her thighs shiver and how her bones battle with her waist. He hums his understanding and dips his head to kiss her neck.

Slowly, ignoring the time she cherishes, he starts to move. He thrusts deeply, one hand at her hip, one arm curling around her lower back to pull her up and closer to where their bodies are joined. Augusta drags her nails across his shoulder, hooking her leg further behind him.





They fuck into dusk. Until Augusta’s skin is slick with sweat and flushed from her toes to the crown of her dark head. Until Radomir’s breathing hitches and his blood stutters in his veins.

She has crawled on top of him in the low-light, the muscles in her thighs straining, her fingers trembling. She mirrors how they began – arms around his neck, legs caging his waist – and his hands cup her ass. She rocks above him, chasing her rising crescendo.

When she comes, she bites his shoulder, stifling the cry torn from her mouth. Radomir, never the nosiest of fucks, groans with pride.

Augusta nuzzles into the side of his neck, contended.

“What does Hatchet sound like?” The question settles along his throat and constricts like a noose.

Radomir wonders how long she’s been waiting to ask. He runs his hands over her back, counting the notches in her spine. Augusta laughs, breathy, at his silence. She nips his earlobe. “Did you think I didn’t know? What you do when you aren’t with me.”

“I am always with you,” he says, “even when I am not.”

“How romantic.” She knocks her knuckles against his heart.

Even though she’s patronizing him, he kisses her – long and deep - satiating himself.

Augusta presses her fingers to his mouth. “Are we done here?”

He nods. When she slides from him, the sudden loss of her is a void.






Radomir leans against the side of the Cadillac in the darkness as Augusta dresses. He smokes a cigarette, watching the horizon. There’s a clutter of brush along the seaside. Come fall, most of it will probably be dead, but now the branches bear leaves and makes it hard to see the crashing waves. A narrow dirt road, scattered with sand, curves back towards the city. Traffic will be light he thinks, and pitches his cigarette to the ground.

In the night, Augusta can hardly make out anything. She adjusts the fall of her necklace and pins her hair carefully using the rearview mirror. Her blouse sticks to her skin and her skirt is wrinkled, but her strict spine and sharp gaze are enough to make her look composed. She touches her swollen mouth and smiles before knocking on the window.

Radomir grips the steering wheel once he slides into the driver’s seat.

“I could kill him,” he says.

Augusta lights her own cigarette, following the train of his thought easily. She speaks around the smoke in her mouth. “It isn’t him I want you to kill.”

They look at each other, and Radomir says nothing (except with his eyes, and Augusta can read them easily, can see the way pain and obligation twist him up like a tourniquet, can see, too, how quickly his love for her outweighs his devotion to any other). He starts the engine, one hand falling to the gear shift, the other balancing on the wheel. Augusta places her hand on top of his, tracing the lines of his veins above his knuckles.

More AU Madness! I don't know why my mind went to 1920s bootlegging ... but it did. Oh well!

This piece is a bit of a trickster. It looks like it's going to be a full piece because of how it starts, but oh no, nope, no way. I fizzle out at the end. But hey! Writing! That's a thing.


------




They don’t talk about the war.

Decades from now, people will reflect on this stoicism and say it’s unnatural. They will discuss the effects of trauma in sympathetic tones and try to imagine the cold-blooded horror of the trenches, of men choking on yellow gas, of soldiers clutching their breasts while the old world tumbles. They will speak of war from a distance with all the nuances poetic imagery grants. The Great War, they will say, is a World War. The Great War that bred the Greatest Generation.

In truth, their silence is a shield. Their shattered lives only pave the way to more pain.





Unloading crates of alcohol isn’t much different from unloading medical supplies, food rations, or weapons. It’s the same push and pull of muscles, the same overseeing of inventory, the same hurried, methodical ways. If it wasn’t for the back-alley exchanges, shipments arriving in covered trucks armed by men with metal guns as black as night, Palmer wouldn’t know the difference.

He steps lightly over the wet cobblestone, slicking his hand back through his hair before lighting a cigarette. There’s a dozen men around him; their shirts are sweat-stained, the sleeves rolled up to their elbows, their hands full of boxes and callouses. They speak in grunts, ferreting the crates into the back of The Emerald with all the efficiency illegal activities like theirs require.

Sunniva stands close to the car at the front of the line of trucks. She seems out of place against all the masculinity. “How many boxes does that make?”

Harrow is a knife sliver, leaning gracefully against the side of his Cadillac, the car a mix of intimidating steel and luxury glass. He glances at Sunniva the way men glance at wasps and turns to Palmer to respond. “This should cover you for the month. We have another shipment coming in from Chicago in two weeks.”

“Chicago? What do they have that we don’t have right here?” Palmer grins as he pulls an envelope from the inside of his pin-striped jacket. He hands it over with the smooth flourish of a man accustomed to dealing cards.

“Ask my sister. It was her idea to expand business and all.” Harrow lets his driver take the envelope. They’re already ducking inside of his car, but he hesitates at the last moment, sticking his head partially out the passenger window. Sunniva steps away, shifting to let Palmer slide past. “How’s the new girl working out?”

“Fine. She can light cigarettes and deliver drinks. About all we need.”

Harrow’s nod is curt. He thumps his fist on the hood, and his driver takes the signal. The engine rattles powerfully as they drive off.

“You didn’t tell him?” Sunniva asks once they’re out of sight and the last of the loading men are shuffling to their trucks.

“What’s to tell?”

Palmer recognizes the look she gives him – one mixed with disapproval and surprise. He’s seen it plenty of times before, but they don’t talk about that either.






Chason has dark hair, dark eyes, and, as far as the majority of The Emerald’s clientele believes, skin that’s a touch too dark to be white. They think he’s one of those wops, another filthy immigrant suckling at America’s great teat, or a spy sent in by Masseria to compete with the Vries’ booming business. It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. To them, he’ll always be the bartender who can’t speak their language, his mouth too slick with olive oil and his mother’s tomato sauce to get any words out properly. To them, he’s fit for shining shoes and sweeping stoops.

He could tell them that he doesn’t speak a lick of Italian, wouldn’t understand a single word if he heard it, and that his mother would burn water before making any type of sauce. He could tell them that he was born in Atlantic City, that he knows the boardwalk and the beach as well as he knows his bones. He could tell them that their affluence doesn’t protect them as much as they think it does, that their blood is the same as his. But he doesn’t. He cleans his bar, he gets their illicit drinks, and he lets them think what they want.

When the Vries deliver a new shipment, he oversees where the crates are stored, choosing certain unlabeled bottles for the back of the bar. He’s lining up glasses when the pianist arrives for the night, cracking his fingers dramatically before sitting at the stage and beginning his warm up. There’s a few working girls around, smoking cigarettes and sipping champagne, resting their heels before the night begins. They all have freshly sheered hair, their bobs softly curled and framing their heart-shaped faces. They look like dolls – replicas and waxen – and their clucking chatter mingles with the piano melodies.

The one whose name he can never remember has a bridge of freckles across her nose and a shock of red hair. She’s Irish, still fresh off the boat after six months of American living, but the women at The Emerald bond over shared bruises, broken hearts, and booze all the same. He’s about to offer her a light for the cigarette she’s been holding, but they go silent, their words cut off abruptly. Chason follows the path of their scrutiny, pocketing his lighter.

Coming in from the faded street, the new girl is a fresh field of snow, her arms so white that they seem to shine. She’s wearing another slip of silk, the silver fabric iridescent and cut on the bias so that it bunches and gathers near her hip, the folds somehow sinuous and showing stretches of leg as she moves. A rope of ivory beads shivers around her neck. With her hair slicked into a neat chignon at the nape of her neck, not a strand out of place, she looks more like a guest than an employee.

The smile she wears is cautious, and none of the other girls return it.






“Are you seeing him again tonight?”

The question is sudden, jarring, and for a moment Ita thinks the bar itself must have spoken to her. “I’m sorry?” she asks, her voice as silvery as her dress, and more quiet than the voices Chason is used to hearing.

He pours her two fingers of whiskey and slides the tumbler across the bar. She palms it awkwardly and fixes him with a curious look.

“Would you prefer champagne?”

“That’s what the other girls drink?”

“You don’t seem like the other girls.”

Ita is surprised he doesn’t tack a sweetheart onto the end of his sentence like Palmer and the other men would, their drawling accents syrupy thick with drink and suggestion. The corner of her mouth flips for a moment, trying to picture the way his voice might lilt at the syllables, and then she blushes. “You don’t really know me well enough to say that, do you?”

Chason’s face is indecipherable. It makes her blush more. She ducks her eyes and takes a sip of the whiskey, her lipstick smearing the rim of the glass.

“… It’s not bad,” she says at last then takes another sip.

Chason laughs, a barking, biting sound. It’s harsher than it needs to be. She smiles anyway, softly.

When he turns to leave, she says, “I’m not with him.”

Chason pauses, wiping a nonexistent spill from the bar top before meeting her blue gaze evenly. “That isn’t what I asked.”

Ita doesn’t say anything, so the silence fills the space between them.







The Emerald is in full swing when Harrow arrives.

Chason isn’t surprised to see him.

And although Ita’s smile remains cautious, she finds herself pulled to his table and his entourage. When he fingers the rope of beads around her neck, she bears it.

More bakery AU! Featuring gossip, coffee, awkward run-ins, and some sex.

This gets smutty, but honestly not as smutty as I thought it would get.


-----



The coffee shop holds open mic events the third Friday and Saturday of every month. They've grown in popularity since they started a year ago, but it's still a hit-or-miss on how well the performances will be. That's the nature of improv, Sunniva assumes, standing with her arms crossed in the archway between the pick-up point on the counter and the hall designated for Employees Only. She's stiff even outside of her work clothes, her purple summer dress doing little to soften her. She hasn't smiled in half an hour. She's watching the guests drink their table wines and order their coffees split with sweet vodkas or syrupy Bailey's, and she frowns, knowing from experience how dangerous easy booze and lackluster poetry readings can be to one's will power. 

"I don't get it either," Eda tells her, stopping on her way to clear a recently emptied booth. "We should really ask why every staff member has to be here for these events. You shouldn't have to come back after working all day." She's misread Sun's expression, but Sun doesn't correct her.

"Augusta likes a full house. It's easy promotion. Besides, they're here too." Sun inclines her head to one of the far tables and Eda's eyes follow. 

Augusta is sitting with her husband, her brother, Roman, and Radomir. She's holding hands with her husband on top of the table, blatantly declaring her devotion, her fingers much smoother and younger than the ones clutching hers. Sunniva thinks her body is leaning towards Rad though, that Augusta is resting the tips of her heels on the bottom rung of Rad's adjacent stool. 

"Sort of an odd social circle, isn't it?" Eda asks, shifting her weight to one hip along with her obvious envy.

It's an accurate assessment though – odd indeed and unbalanced. The Reinhardts’ clothing alone could pay the entire staff's salary for a month, and although Harrow is just as well-dressed, his antisocial tendencies are showing. He keeps glancing towards Ita's lean figure behind the counter; Sunniva has lost count on how many times he's gone to get a refill of what might be water. Roman is texting, somehow able to manage the shop and take a whole hour of break time without actually overseeing anything, and Radomir’s bulk causes him to look out of place anywhere that isn't a war zone. It doesn't help that they're also the most serious of the clientele - the mood noticeable chillier. All the other tables are full of laughter, chatter, cheers for the performers on the half-circle stage. 

Eda and Sun watch as Radomir shifts and digs his phone from the back pocket of his working class distressed jeans. He looks down at the caller ID, answers with an apologetic glance to the table, and rises, stepping towards the bathroom. One hand holds his phone, the other covers his left ear to drown out the cacophony of noise caused by a singer’s croaking rendition of Ring of Fire. He looks a bit like the secret service, shouldering past a crowd of fresh-faced twenty-somethings. 

"Do you think he's talking to anyone?" Sunniva asks, amused. 

"What do you mean?"

"I don’t think anyone is on the other line. Watch, I guarantee Augusta follows him within the next five minutes."

"Can we just look at how he walks? Parts the crowd like Moses. I heard he used to work for the government. One of those special ops, hush-hush types of situation." Eda says, her envy shifting to judgment.

"Roman said he was a personal trainer?" 

Ita shakes her head from behind the counter, having caught the last bit of the conversation, and places two steaming cappuccinos down under the Pick-Up sign dangling from the ceiling. "Here, these are for you two. And I don't think that's true. People just assume. He told me he graduated from Harvard. Studied linguistics. He can speak a number of languages, actually." 

"Really?" Sunniva picks up one of the cappuccinos with a hint of a smile. "How did he end up working for the Vries? I don't think bakeries need translators." 

"He doesn't. Not technically. He works for Mr. Reinhardt."

Sunniva makes a hum of interest. She isn't surprised Ita knows any of this - Ita seems to know everything, but she's mostly a sealed vault, and she's never been the center of the gossip in the shop. Unlike Eda with her frank expressions and beguiling mouth. 

"That is one rich man," Eda says, turning her attention to Augusta's husband and his expensive suit. Even from a distance, the three of them can see the glare of Augusta's wedding ring. "How do you get that rich?" 

"Bonds?"

Sunniva shrugs. "Sell your soul, more like it."

"Maybe you should start taking bets," Eda teases, heading to the booth still in need of cleaning. She's got her coffee in one hand but she motions subtly with the other towards Augusta. She's standing and smoothing her hands across her skirt. She whispers something to her husband before following Radomir's path. 

"Told you," Sunniva says to Ita, the blonde merely shaking her head in response. 





"I want to fuck you," Radomir speaks into the shell of Augusta's ear, his need outlined more clearly by his roaming hands than his voice. There's a slight hitch to his words - some accent long-ago muffled - that warps his consonants whenever he gets like this, but Augusta doesn't think anyone else would notice. She doesn't think anyone else has the same effect on him as she does - at least not in two years - or that he talks much without first being prompted. 

"No, you don't," she corrects him, pushing a hand against the center of his broad chest. 

She's perched on the edge of the wide sink, her slim-cut skirt pushed up against her thighs, her silk shirt missing its top two buttons so the lace of her bra and the swell of her breasts are showing. There's scratch marks there, against her cleavage, from where Radomir's beard has rubbed her skin raw. 

"Augusta." Rad says her name the way a petulant child might, and she tsks at him, feigning disappointment. 

His giant hands trace the length of her calves, roaming upwards, circling the curve of her knees, until he treads her thighs with his fingers. Standing between her legs, he looms above her, her hands tiny, pale butterflies that flutter over his chest and shoulders. He could crush them, could pin both her wrists above her head with only one hand, but he doesn't. Rad leans down instead, pushing his forehead against hers, and she lets him kiss her the way he likes to - soft and too tender, like he would swallow her if he could, if it meant he could keep her safe inside of him. 

Augusta runs her sharp, pointed nails down the back of his neck and bites his bottom lip hard enough to taste blood. He jolts a bit, groans, and when she snakes a hand between their bodies, she finds him painfully hard. She cups him with her palm. He's hot and straining against his jeans. His groan is wet against her mouth. Needy. 

"Hands only. And make it quick," she tells him in her best boss-voice. The noise he makes in response is a tortuous sob. 

But he's eager - eager and willing and thrilled by her. He slides one of his hands between her legs, tearing aside the flimsy strip of lace he finds there to push three fingers into her. She's wet enough, but it still hurts, a kind of burn-ache that fills her as much as his fingers do. Her legs are confined by the contours of her skirt, so his knuckles dig into her thighs. Her gasp is more of a grunt, an exhale of hot air. She keeps her nails like claws in his neck, anchoring him as she arches up from the sink, his head buried against her chest, teeth scraping down over her bra and biting at the hard point of her nipple. He's mouthing all types of obscenities against her skin as his fingers piston in and out of her. He's only ever loquacious during times like these. 

A stoic thing, undone by her. 




Fifteen minutes after Augusta has returned to her table, looking a little warm but otherwise composed, Ita takes out the garbage. 

The alley smells damp and dark with an herbal sweetness that drafts towards her. Ita shoulders the trash, headed to the dumpster, and gives a yelp of surprise when one of the shadows speaks. 
"Do you want me to get that?" 

She recognizes the outline of his jaw and the way he carries his shoulder before she places his voice. "... You startled me." It comes out quiet and tongue-tied. Ita clears her throat. "Most people don't lurk in alleys, you know." It's meant to be joking, but it comes off as a scold, which makes a blush creep awkwardly across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. 

"Sorry." Chason flicks the last of his joint to the ground, smears it in the gravel with his work boot. She's not sure if he's apologizing for smoking or for startling her. "I like things back-alley. Used to them."

Ita doesn't know what to say to that, so she doesn't say anything. She's distinctively aware of the trash bag in her hand and how it's started to leak. 

"Guess a girl like you wouldn't know anything about that though, huh?" Chason shoves a hand through his dark hair, his eyes bright beneath his lashes, and grabs the trash before Ita can protest. He throws it up and into the dumpster easily. 

With her hands empty, Ita can't decide what to do with them. She settles them on her hips and again is aware that this was the wrong choice. She looks like a mom about to begin lecturing. 
He stares at her, waiting, but she doesn’t know what for. It seems to be her perpetual state of being whenever he’s around: confusion. The silence sinks over them. She feels crushed. Chason looks amused.

He quirks an eyebrow. “Well.”

When she still doesn’t respond or even move, he laughs, a bit of a biting, scoffing noise that’s meaner than it should be. “Okay. Nice talking to you then, tiny dancer.”

She turns to her side when he passes, avoiding the brush of their bodies.
When she gathers herself enough to go back inside and continue with the last orders for the night, her hands are shaking.





The girls forget to lock the back door, the one that leads to the alley. Whoever closes for the night inevitably remembers before leaving (thanks to the security alarm), but throughout the duration of the shop’s business hours, the door is unlocked – there’s too many smoke breaks and trips to the dumpster. Sunniva, more fastidious as a manager than Roman, rarely thinks to complain about it, but she makes a mental note to mention the need for added security at the next staff meeting when Palmer pulls her into a supply closet by her wrist.

She hates the way her heart skips and the quick moment of panic that causes her pulse to startle before she realizes its him.

He smells like the bar and cigarette smoke and leather. She hits him square in the chest, which causes him to laugh, then pulls her hand free. “Palmer. Jesus. What the fuck? What are you – twelve? I’m trying to help Ita close up here.”

“Shut up,” he murmurs, pressing his taller body against hers and circling an arm around her waist. She’s as stiff as a board, unrelenting, and the sigh she exhales is pure annoyance.

“You’re coming off more than a little rapey.”

“I thought you hard-to-get types liked an element of surprise.”

“Let’s not start that again. Do you ever actually work at that job of yours? Don’t you need to be pouring some shots right now?”

“Got off early.” He keeps his voice low, the same grey murmur, but when he looks down at her, his mouth splits into a grin that makes him boyish. He looks younger than his age, and Sunniva knows that’s supposed to be part of his charm. “Speaking of getting off …”

When he thumbs the hem of her dress, she smacks him across the side of his head. Palmer rolls his eyes, catching her hand mid-air when she tries to hit him again, forcing her backwards until her spine collides with the cold metal of a shelf. Supplies tumble and there’s the sound of breaking glass. Sunniva thinks she hears sugar scratch beneath Palmer’s shoes.

“I’ll scream,” she threatens.

“Bullshit.”

She opens her mouth, and Palmer clamps his palm over it immediately, turning his face into her neck and bracing his body against hers. He hisses when she bites, but he pushes the heel of his palm further against her teeth. It doesn’t really hurt, and she isn’t really fighting, and he knows if he were to skim his hand down across the insides of her velvet thighs that they’d come back wet.

She’s a good faker though, and he appreciates the game.

She makes a noise against his hand, her eyes throwing daggers at him, and he trails his mouth up to her ear. Palmer thinks she shivers. “If you insist on screaming, at least let it be on my terms, Sunshine.”

He kisses the hot curve of her neck, scraping his teeth down to her collarbone, mouthing the thin strap of her dress at her shoulder. She isn’t exactly responding, but she isn’t trying to leave either, so he plays his odds and lets go of her mouth, his hand falling to clutch her hip.

“I hate you,” she finally says, voice twisted into a tangle of emotion that another man would think more about.

“That’s fine.”

“… Five minutes.”

Palmer keeps one hand on her side but reaches back to click the lock on the closet. “Good, I like a challenge.”

There’s a surprising amount of grace to the way he slinks to his knees in front of her, fisting her dress up to her hips. Sunniva wishes her stomach didn’t twist with lust at the sight; as repercussion, she sweeps her fingers back through his dark hair and pulls – hard. Palmer doesn’t seem to mind though. He’s too busy wrapping a hand around the backs of her thighs and nudging her back. She complies, stretching her arms out on the shelves and leaning back, settling her weight into the metal frames. It’s surprising how easy it is for her to straddle his face like this – he keeps his hands on her thighs, her ass, supporting her as much as the shelves, her knees draped over his shoulders. His own knees must be killing him, and the angle cannot be the easiest, but she doesn’t want this to be easy. She wants him to suffer a little.

“Four minutes,” she says, fingers still tight in his air, and feels his laughter against her slick skin.

There’s a minute to spare when Sunniva all but tumbles out of the closet. She’s smoothing her dress across her legs, fixing a strap from where it fell down her arm, and shoving her hands back through her hair. She isn’t as disheveled as she thinks she is, but her eyes scan for Ita nonetheless.

Palmer steps out after her, rubbing his jaw, smirking.

She takes one look at his face and rolls her eyes. “Oh, fuck off.”

“My dick’s hard as a rock, but you’re the one who’s angry? That makes sense.”

She doesn’t bother answering, already heading to the front.

Palmer opens the back door and takes a step out, pausing in the threshold. “Sunshine?”

Sunniva doesn’t stop or look back. “What?”

“You should really keep this door locked.”

This is a warm-up, I guess, so it's not very pretty, but oh well. I wanted to write about vampires and Roman was kind enough to offer himself.

This is most likely AU.


--


There’s blood on his jeans.

Sunniva notices this, as well as his clean hands, and the way his bones smell of absence. His palm comes back sandy when he runs a hand through his disheveled hair, the strands cutting across his bearded jawline. He’s a whole head taller than Palmer and imposing in the way of all men who are well-sharpened blades.

“You’re outside of the Vries’ jurisdiction,” she says, “but money is money if it’s all the same to you. We don’t allow any trouble here.”

“I doubt that. With a face like yours.” His grin widens his entire face and Sunniva finds herself smiling. He glances across the marble entrance, taking in the thick columns and the smell of wet stone. “I’m not here on business. Only passing through.”

She nods and gestures for him to pass.

Most men push money into her hands and choose a girl. They circle like scavenger birds attracted to easy meat. Roman is different. He finds a seat at the bar and lets the women come to him. He talks easily, one of his big hands occasionally lifting a tumbler of scotch to his mouth or reaching out to stroke a tanned arm. After half an hour, Sunniva sits beside him, her silver dress shivering across her thighs. She flicks her fingers at the bartender and the woman hands her a glass of fig wine.

“We have others, if you don’t like – ”

“Do you miss it?”

She blinks, surprised. “Sorry?”

Roman reaches down between their bodies and strokes a palm across the back of her prosthetic leg, the metal as cold as his skin. She can almost feel the sensation. Her shoulders tighten and her mouth becomes a hard line.

“It’s beautiful work. Fine craftsmanship. But you still feel it, don’t you? Your lost limb.”

She swallows and cuts her eyes at him, shifting her legs so her good one folds on top of the other. He retracts his hand but not as quick as she would have liked him to. With a forced smile, she tucks her fingers under her chin, her elbow resting on the bar, and cants her head at him. “You must be well acquainted with loss. But overstep again, and I’ll ask you to leave. I am not one of my girls.”

Roman raises his eyebrows. The expression makes him look smug. Sunniva imagines he wears the look often.

“What are you?” She is usually too professional for such bluntness, but he’s already crossed a line. There’s a hint of coyness in her tone, as though she’s asking a question she already knows the answer to.

“Hungry,” he says with another grin. “I’m hungry.”

“We have a fantastic cook. Although most of our clientele don’t come for the food, I admit.”

He tsks at her, disappointed.

She pauses before signaling to the bartender. “Could you send for Odina, please?”

Odina smells like the mountains when she arrives a minute later. She has a spread of freckles across her face and shoulders, her hair the copper of worn pennies. Sunniva runs a hand down her arm invitingly when she comes to stand beside them. Her smile is shy and directly disproportionate to the frankness of her gaze. The lavender of her dress doesn’t suit the color of her skin or the pink flare of her bee-stung lips. Roman likes her immediately.

Sunniva brushes a few strands of Odina’s hair behind her ear, speaking low and close although she keeps her eyes on Roman. “Our guest here has special tastes. Oblige him.”







When Roman catches her jaw in his hand, she does not shy away. She has a bear’s heart, and it hammers bravely inside of her chest. He grips one of her long arms with his other hand and sees a flicker of realization in her eyes.

“Cold hands.”

“Mmm,” he concedes and pushes into her space, walking her backwards until she’s bracketed by her bedroom wall and his body. He has to lean down to press his face into her neck, and he breathes in the smell of her, the hot, youthful blood right below her fragile skin beckoning to him.

“I haven’t seen one of you in a while. Not as a customer.”

Roman pauses, his mouth humming across the slope of her shoulder. When he speaks, Odina can feel the press of his fangs against her flesh. “You’re too young to have seen one of me, mädchen.”

She laughs a little, digging her fingers into his hair and arching up into the length of him. “Don’t be silly. You’re not common, that’s for sure, mister, but we cater to all types here at the Isle.”

He growls, pinning her more forcibly against the wall, and craning her neck to the side. For all his physical threatening, he doesn’t hear her heart skip even a single beat.

“The last one said I tasted like apricots. Do you remember what those taste like? Smooth but sweet and tart.”

She bites her bottom lip and strains against his hands – not to get away, but to press closer. Roman wants to call her a minx, but now all he can think of is velvet skin and golden fruits. He presses his nose into her shoulder again, trailing his mouth up, letting the ache settle in his groin and thrum through his veins.

Hunger like drowning. Burning. Suffocating. All the sensations he has never experienced firsthand and probably never will.

He sinks his teeth into her without warning. He gets hard at the way she cries, a quick, sharp gasp from her slavish mouth. The blood spills across his tongue, thick as syrup but so much sweeter. He’s vaguely aware of letting his hands drop to his waist, of fisting the fabric of her dress at her side until he’s crushing her against him, and she just keeps arching and yielding and relenting herself to him. Roman knows she’s wet and he’d like to fuck her until she comes against him, her hair a blaze across her soft cheeks, blood smeared across her collarbone, but he lets himself get lost in the thunder of her heartbeat for a few more moments.

He’s too old to be careless. He rears his head back with a growl well before her pulse begins to flutter, circling an arm across her hips while lifting the back of her thigh until she’s looped her legs around his sharp waist.

Roman keeps his fangs out. He drags them across her collarbone, over her chest, leaving a trail of red to stain the lavender edge of her dress.

When she tells him she wants it, he bites again, against the swell of her breast.

She’ll stroke the fading imprint of his teeth for days to come.