#rosetta@home

[patheticperipatetic]

Rosetta@home why do you lie to me?!

[mongo-the-liensis]

Rosetta: So. Let's talk about your dead mother

Carl: I beg your fucking pardon

[seashorepics]

Day 23: Rosetta Cottage, Cowes: A Historical Gem of the Isle of Wight

Introduction Nestled in the heart of Cowes, a vibrant and historically rich town on the northern coast of the Isle of Wight, Rosetta Cottage stands as a charming reminder of the area’s deep maritime heritage and Victorian past. Known for its picturesque beauty and historical significance, this quaint coastal cottage offers a unique window into the architectural and cultural history of Cowes. As…

[eighties-goth-suicide-note]

i think im going on a ciggarette date with a metalhead from my town?? excited :3

[freenightfall]

ALL CROSSROADS BOUND TOGETHER

summary: twenty some years ago, you met a mysterious drifter who offered you something you couldn't resist and in return you offered him the only thing you had—your soul. just when you start to believe that he has forgotten you, remmick returns to collect what was owed.

pairing: remmick / f!reader

contents: f!reader, reader in their early 30s, no use of y/n, dark themes, vampirism, feeding/blood drinking, blood, fire, marking/biting, obsession, stalking behavior, yearning, corruption, feelings of hopelessness, religious undertones, selling of ones soul, violence (implied and explicit), abduction, death/murder. sexual content (MINORS DNI): oral (f receiving), p in v sexual intercourse, blood kink. cw: mentions of csa (not described in detail but still yucky—DEAD DOVE DON'T OPEN).

a/n: the title of the fic comes from the lyrics of "In Moonlight" from the Sinners soundtrack and the song included in the fic is "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (the song itself didn't come out during the time period, but it sounds like it could so that was enough for me to justify using it lol)

word count: 14.5 k

You were just a child, no older than ten, when you made that deal with him. 

He came to you in the night, when the nocturnal critters emerged from their dens and amorously praised the stars for their guidance and protection from the dangers that prowled in the daylight.

He looked like any other man you’ve seen in town. Tall and handsome, wearing clean, crisp clothes that seemed far too nice to be sullied by the rotten tree trunk he sat on, strumming on the banjo that was strapped to his shoulders. A musician who found solace in the darkness, like the cicadas and frogs that sang all around you in a calming serenade.

Remmick, that was his name, the one he gave you freely.

You gave him yours, unaware of the power it permitted him over you.

He smiled as he repeated it back, like a response to a Sunday hymn or reciting a song he only had ever hoped to croon. He said it as if it was the most immaculate thing he’d ever heard. 

You remember how his words were laced with a sickly sweetness that tugged on your heartstrings as he spoke with you. His voice was entwined with an accent, or maybe two you think, fusing together to create a dialect unique to a man that could only be him, something no one else would be able to recreate. It rolls off his tongue with ease, as if he had a century to perfect it. 

He offers you something you can’t refuse, something that you had silently prayed for but never dared speak out loud, not if you wanted to come out of this horrendous ordeal unscathed. 

And his eyes—the unforgettable, unnatural glow of them, as hot as embers—looked at you with a tenderness that you hadn’t seen in years, because he knew just by glancing at you that tenderness is what you needed on this night. Not harm, not violence, but tenderness. 

He spoke of a promise to release you of this suffering and all you had to do was offer him something in return, something of equal value. It was simple enough, so you offered the only thing you had to give. 

He accepted your conditions with a grin that stretched from ear to ear and assured you that if you truly agreed with all of your heart that he’d come back the following night.

And he kept that promise.

It was a night where the moon was bold, illuminating that hot, humid Delta night with an eerie glow only reserved for when the veil between this world and the next was thin enough for the wretched and malevolent things that haunted humanity to roam freely without fear of the sun’s divine might.

But the moon’s peaceful luminance was tainted by the blood-red stain of flames that painted the night sky a sickening crimson hue.

Your uncle’s house—the one that you were forced to call your home after losing your parents in that terrible accident some months ago—was now set ablaze by the flick of a single match, and the hand that held it was of the same wickedness that your grandmother always warned you about. 

She told her stories by the warmth of the fireplace, her voice withered by time and the disease that ultimately took her life after spending much of it smoking from the same old pipe that her own grandfather had passed down to her.

You remember the tales she spun, woven with the same kind of fear mongering that spewed from the preacher’s mouth every Sunday, warning the congregation of the evils that corrupted this world, turning the innocent away from God’s graces and His salvation with the invitation of temptation.

Because that’s all what her stories were: warnings laced with images of demons and vengeful spirits and of beasts that stalked the swamps looking for their next meal to keep you on the right path in life in an attempt to save your soul from the eternal damnation that would await you should you not live righteously.

But the lore of ghosts and monsters and witches did not frighten you. Even as a child you knew that this was just a way for the adults around you to scare all the children into listening and obeying them, even when they were wrong. Even when they did wrong but did not have the decency to recognize their own hypocrisies.

No, you did not fear her stories, not at all… not when the only monsters you knew that existed dressed in the same cloth and patterns as you, spoke with the same dialect that fell from your mouth… closed the door of your bedroom late at night when your aunt turned a blind eye and acted as if she didn’t know what your uncle was doing to you. 

The flames that tried desperately to escape from the wooden entombments of the house reflected in your irises. The heat that poured from the broken windows and cracks of the old wood, mixed with the ashen, black smoke that billowed out from the same crevices burned your eyes, tears welting up at the corners of your lashes as if begging you to look away from the devastation that unfolded before you. 

But you could not look away, couldn’t tear your eyes off of it even if you wanted to. Your feet anchored you to the damp earth, keeping you in place as you swayed gently with the cool breeze that swept through, moving with the spanish moss that hung on the trees. 

It was as if the fire had casted a spell on you, entrancing you to keep your gaze upon the smoke and embers that only grew more and more ferociously, climbing higher and higher and higher until it appeared that the flames tickled the star-studded night sky.

You couldn’t help but think that it looked as if they were trying to reach heaven, trying with all of their might to escape the evil that resided in that house.  

Above the roar of the fire, something else permeated through the air. 

A scream—so miserable and bloodcurdling that it pierced your sensitive ears. 

It sounded as if the person at the other end of such a disturbing wail was screaming out to you as a cry for penitence and not just a frantic call for aid all while the fire continued to consume all that it touched. 

But you knew better. 

Your uncle did not cry or scream to ask for your forgiveness. 

He was a man who did not know what the word forgiveness meant, wouldn’t know how to repent if his life depended on it—as it did now—because to men like him, his actions were not seen as sins. He was a man and everything belonged to him by his mere God given existence. There was not one thing that he could desire that he could not obtain purely by the fact that he was born as God intended. And if the almighty created all of his children in his image and some of those children had tendencies to do bad things, then surely they were not bad things at all… at least that was the way your uncle saw things. 

It was how he justified the horrendous things he did; justifications that made it easier for him to sleep at night.  

That’s why your heart felt empty as you sat in the crowded pews of the church house every Sunday morning since moving into that Godforsaken house. That’s why the preacher’s words felt meaningless, falling upon your deaf ears as you purposely turned your back on the God you were raised upon… because why would you give your devotions to a God if He would make vile men like your uncle? Why would you fall to your knees and pray to a deity that created a man who purposely harmed a child, one of His most precious gifts? 

Why did this God not hear your own cries when your uncle preyed upon you? 

Why did this God allow your aunt to let her husband hurt you in such a way, turning away with her head bowed in understanding of what he was doing to you when she should’ve been there to protect you from him?

No, He did not deserve your praise or your prayers, not when he abandoned you when you needed Him the most. When you were the most vulnerable. When you were still innocent.

It’s still night when the screaming finally subsided, fading into the darkness without much of an afterthought and leaving you in the beautiful smolder of the dancing flames and crumbling wood. 

Amidst the thick smoke, something heavy imbued the air—a shift, one that you had never felt before but was undeniably palpable—and a scent, sweeping through the yard on a gentle breeze, carrying the smell of dead earth—wet, damp soil and wood after the rain—mixed with tobacco and copper.

Then, you saw him, a dark figure emerging though the wreckage.

From where you stood across the yard, you couldn’t make out the details of his face, shrouded in the shadows of the doorway that were created by the flames that raged on behind him, casting his intimidating form in a ghastly silhouette. 

The figure looked up suddenly and his eyes glowed a dangerous, chilling shade of red that made your heart skip a beat. His gaze was hypnotizing, watching you diligently, the same way that a predator surveys its prey as it stalks, waiting to strike.

You blink slowly, feeling as if time has slowed, and when they open the man is standing before you, looming just mere inches from where you were planted in the yard, so much larger than your own smaller form. 

He was still casted in that same daunting configuration, his broad shoulders outlined by the malevolent glow that endured endlessly behind him and the only distinguishable feature you could make out was the crimson glimmer of his rapacious stare. 

Remmick doesn’t say a word, content in the silence that pervades around him while he continues to stare down at you. 

He half expects you to tremble in his presence. You may be a child but you were not stupid, you were born in a place where danger lurked where you least expected it if you weren’t careful enough. But your heartbeat didn’t quicken, nor did it falter when he took another step closer. It remained even-paced and calm even when he inched closer and closer until he towered above you like a giant. 

And just as he expected fear, he also expected that perhaps you would look upon him with defiance, to prove something to this stranger, but he doesn’t see it. Not an ounce of it in your large, doe-like eyes. 

Instead what he sees is indifference: a small mortal creature that neither cared or not of what he was or what he was capable of doing. It was evident in the way you just stared at the fire while it destroyed the only roof you had over your head. You did not cry in distraught as you lost everything you had left in the fire nor did you jump up and down with joy as the cage that kept you bound to your abuser burned to the ground. 

The wind picks up and instinctively he sniffs at the air, noticing another scent lingering there, one that doesn’t belong to him or the fire. His nostrils flare at the all too familiar metallic fragrance, his gaze drifting down your nightgown-clad frame to rest at the disheveled hem of it. 

He breathes in slow, deep, when his eyes fall upon the red that muddies the cotton. The breeze tussles the bottom of your nightgown briefly, revealing the same crimson ichor that stains the flesh underneath. 

His expression hardens and the corner of his lips twitch in a scowl as he tries to contain the disgust that eats away in his chest at the sight of the blood that coats your skin, still fresh. You shuffle at the unsettling look on his face, your small hands reaching down to smooth the edges of your nightgown while trying to ignore his dark, unwavering leer.  

It quickly reminds him why he is here and the red glimmer of his stare slowly dims into its natural color at the sight of your uneasiness, but it doesn’t make him any less intimidating, any less frightening.

“My end of the deal is done, little dove,” he says then, voice softer than you expected yet still harboring that same level of menace that radiates off of him like heat. “I will come for you when it is time to hold up yours.”

“When?” You ask simply.

He tilts his head, mouth downturning into a pondering curl before he straights back up, his eyes never leaving your tiny, unmoving form. “When the time is right.”

“But,” the sound of your interjection causes the man to raise his brow in question, “how will you find me?”

There’s no emotion in your voice that Remmick can decipher, no indication that you don’t understand his words or the meaning behind them. You knew exactly what was asked of you and you accepted his bargain and with it every gruesome and horrendous act that he committed to fulfil his end of it without question. 

He smiles, not smirking like you think he would, but genuinely smiles as if you asked the golden question, the one he’s been waiting for with keen ears. 

Slowly he reaches out and patiently bides the time it takes for you to give him your hand. 

His touch is soft as his fingers wrap around your wrist—not forcibly, not with the intention to harm you, but with gentle consideration he turns your hand over. His fingers slip from your wrist, his calloused thumb running down the expanse of your palm. 

A quiet, surprised gasp leaves your mouth, eyes widening at the sight of his nail growing longer, sharper as it scrapes against the skin, causing a dull but angry looking line to blossom beneath his nail and for the first time you feel yourself panic.

He presses the sharp tip of his nail against the soft pad of your finger, causing you to wince at the pain. But even as the crimson ichor oozes from the small wound, you don’t pull away. You don’t turn and run like you know you should. 

He swipes his thumb along the cut he’s made delicately, acting as though reverently handling the most holy of relics that lays in his hands, and coates it in the red warmth before bringing it to his lips and slipping his thumb into his mouth and sucks. 

He inhales deeply, relishing the sweet metallic flavor that dances on his tongue, but then his brows furrowed briefly as another flavor overpowers the sweetness—vaguely sour, putrid almost as if spoiled. 

He grins, knowing all too well of the taste and it forms a delightful pit in his stomach. 

“There,” he says and releases the grip he has on your hand, “now I know. Wherever you go, wherever you end up, I’ll find you.”

It’s all he says and then he’s gone. 

That was some twenty years ago and you haven’t seen him since.

It was quiet at first, no inklings that he was ever around, and that false sense of abandonment made you believe that perhaps it was all some kind of deranged hallucination your mind created as a way to cope with the trauma you endured… but then just a few weeks ago, you started to notice how the air suddenly hangs heavy, shifting with the weight of his presence—always at night, always where the darkness can hide him from you—and always lurking somewhere in the shadows. 

Sometimes you think you catch glimpses of him amongst the treeline and those glowering red eyes of his, watching you from the dark sanctuary of the woods that surround your new home—that of your new home across state lines and miles away from the where you once lived with your parents and that of your uncle’s house, but it’s gone before you can even realize that it might be him. 

The wind carries his smell from time to time, but still he’s nowhere to be found; even when you search and scour every last piece of land that surrounds you until your feet bleed from exhaustion, there’s not a single trace of Remmick anywhere.

It’s in your head, you sometimes think as you stand alone in the darkness. It’s been so long since that fateful night, surely he would’ve come to collect what was owed by now. 

Perhaps he forgot about you, or perhaps he found someone more worthy of fulfilling their end of the bargain, you thought woefully. 

Now in your thirties, you believed yourself past your prime, past any youthful appeal you once held, and reluctantly you doubt that you would ever see him again. 

It was foolish to think that you were the only one he’d ever strike a bargain with. You certainly weren’t the first, not with how fluently he was able to coax the secrets out of your heart with nothing more than a kind look on his handsome face, begging you to speak your sorrows to him, your wishes, and you knew that you couldn’t have been the last. 

Creatures like him don’t tread through the world waiting for one insignificant, lonesome soul to be ripened.

They hide where the sunlight can’t find them—lurking, hunting— never satisfied with the offering some wretched, wayward nobody had presented to them on a silver platter. Ravenous beings such as he were always hungry, always wanting more, and would stop at nothing to chase their immeasurable appetite.

And though you knew better than to hold onto that fleeting sentiment, your mind was only consumed with the thought of him and the covenant you made—ever persistent, ever resolute— and the idea of him not wanting you in return devastated you. 

It hurt more than how your uncle would use you, hurt more than how your aunt did nothing to stop it, hurt more than the passing of your parents and that of your grandmother… but the worst part was you didn’t know why he didn’t seek you out when he promised that he would.

Why didn’t he come back?

Why didn’t he return to you to finish the deal that was made?

Like a disease it ate away at you, purposefully taking its time to rot you from the inside until once again you felt empty, hollow, like that sad little girl at the mercy of your uncle; sinking its claws deeper and deeper as it gradually became a part of you, ensuring that you could never escape from it. 

Still, as you swore that he was there, watching, waiting, he never made himself known to you. He never showed himself, never gave you a glimmer of hope that he hadn’t forgotten about you. 

Besides, your soul was poisoned, blighted by the years of resentment that found its home in your worn out heart.

Even now you can still feel the heat of your uncle’s foul breath on your skin, smell the rancid stench of it invading your nostrils when you speak to other men like him, knowing who they truly are without being told so.

It followed you, clinging to you like a ghost.

Why would he want a soul that was mired, infected with the incapability of letting go of the memories that tortured you?

And you tried forgetting, tried letting go, by everything that was still good in this world you tried, but no matter how much light you let it, you always found an excuse to cast it out. 

And so, you buried that hurt away deep in the caverns of your downtrodden heart and did the only thing you could.

You waited. 

Tonight was like any other and when the sun finally descends past the horizon, you spend your time basking in the solitude you’ve grown to live with.  

The house was quiet, even more so now that you lived in it alone. 

Your mother’s cousin passed away some summers ago, leaving you to tend to the aging house that had cared for you these last couple of years. 

It was easy living with only yourself in that house once she was gone. Everyone in your life had the tendency to either leave or betray you—your parents, your grandmother, your aunt and uncle, even Remmick—so you found yourself embracing the loneliness, the solitude of it all, and you were content in living in the little, two bedroom house on the edge of the Mississippi. 

There were no painful reminders here, no devils prowling in the shadows waiting until your back was turned to strike. Just mundane memories that didn’t fill you with complete disdain and scorn.

The window in the living room was wide open, allowing the fresh, night breeze to sweep in and breathe life into the house. 

Sitting in the rocking chair that once belonged to her, you allowed yourself to sing the ballad that she had taught you.

“Strange things are happening every day, I hear the music up above my head. Though the sight of my heart has left me again, I hear music up above—” 

Outside, the harsh chirp of crickets slowly fades into silence, as does the croaking of toads and cicadas and all the sounds of the night around you until only your voice endures through the uncanny stillness.

“Secrets are written in the sky. Looks like I've lost the love I've never found. Though the sound of hope has left me again, I hear music up above—”

The wind picks up faintly, causing goosebumps to prickle at your skin, but it’s not from the chill of the draft that makes your body react. 

Your rocking stops and so does the song that fell from your lips.

There’s something different, something that was not quite right.

It’s the same shift in the air that signals that his presence is near—not here, but somewhere close by, so close you can almost feel him there in the room with you. 

And then, out in the distance, you hear it—a voice.

His voice.

He calls out to you like a whisper in your dreams, faint and dulcet as he recites the same lyrics that have since died on your tongue.

“Standing in my broken heart, all night long. Darkness held me like a friend when love wore off—”

Somehow your feet have pulled you from the chair, your body reacting solely on it's own accord, leading you out the house as if in some kind of surreal trance and drawing you out into the black Delta night. 

The soft strumming of a banjo hangs in the air, enticing you to venture further and further into the darkness, into the unknown, and far away from the comfort you've built in that little house. 

The earth is soft under your feet, sighing and kissing your skin affectionately with every step that you take. 

Closer to him, closer to the voice that lured you towards him like a siren’s song. 

Your gaze remained on the unpathed road before you, through the fields and grassland and into the swampy woods that separated you from your destiny, the one you sealed to him with a vow as a child. 

It was almost pathetic how you followed his voice without a second thought, as if this was meant to happen… because to you, it was. 

You had waited faithfully and now all of your patience was to be rewarded. 

 “—Looking for the lamb that's hidden in the cross. The finder's lost…”

Through the swampland you tread, turning and wading through it until the ground that once welcomed your journey now spites you; the twigs that litter the ground stab at the soles of your feet, at your ankles, and the prickly branches of the trees snag at the material of your nightgown as if trying to stop you—warning you. 

You could feel the wrenching of your grandmother’s withered hands grabbing at you, silently begging you to reconsider before it was too late—an attempt to save your soul from the covenant you were about to seal with this blasphemous creature. 

Her voice reverberates in your mind, soft and mild yet undeterred to break you of the spell that he had casted on you; for you to understand what was to come should you continue on and that your time on this earth would come to an end should you not turn back now, unable to join her and your parents in the afterlife.

But you didn’t heed that warning. 

You embraced whatever fate you had resigned yourself to long ago and no attempt at saving your soul would prevail.

You found your own voice effortlessly calling back to him, singing gently as your voice carried itself on the wind, hoping that he’d hear you.

And in the echoes of your mind, you hear your grandmother weep.

“I know I loved you too much, I'll go alone to get through—”

That slow, simple yet tantalizing strumming of the banjo leads you through the wood, deep and dark and twisting without the glow of the moon to guide you. 

Still you pursue it, even when logic and reason told you to stop and reconsider what might undeniably be the death of you, but there was no turning back. Not now that you were so close to what you had longed for.   

“I hear Rosetta singing in the night,” you both sing in unison, your voices melding together and becoming one singular, exquisite proclamation into the night. “Echos of light that shines like stars after they're gone. And tonight she's my guide as I go on alone, with the music up above.”

Time has evaded you, unsure of how long you’ve walked along this barren road, but eventually you reach the end. 

Through the thicket and trees of the forest lies a house—worn and old and decaying from years of abandonment, and yet it still stands tall and proud across the clearing, a remnant of another time that has refused to be forgotten. 

This is a place where the cypress trees and oaks have lived far longer than any human has, a place where they’ve planted their roots and refused to leave. Spanish moss hangs from the branches, spinning silvery green-gray threads of garland that sways with the wind, dancing to a melody only known to them, one they lived in harmony with. 

Though distance separates you both, you can see his shape lingering in the darkness, standing in the doorframe with his banjo in hand and strapped across his broad shoulders.

Remmick. 

As you approach you can’t help but think that he still looks the same as you remember, untouched by time. 

With his sleeves rolled up to his elbow you can see the veins that pulsate beneath his unblemished skin and the lean muscle underneath, a testament of the strength that he undoubtedly has. His dark hair frames the top of his head, catching the shadows that play off the contours of his handsome, angular face. 

He watches as you proceed towards him, those glowing red eyes never leaving the sight of you, drawing you closer and closer like a moth to the flame until you stand before him at the bottom of the few steps that lead up into the old house. 

You’d think that he’d be hardened from all the time that has passed since you've last seen each other, weary of you and unsure that you’re the same girl that he made that unholy promise to all those years ago. 

You trace every curve of his face, mapping the lines that kiss at the corner of his eyes and the relaxed slant of his lips, searching for any inclination that his perception of you is not what it once was. 

But the longer you look, the more you don’t see any uncertainty of your intentions reflecting back at you in those inhuman eyes of his, only adoration, only reverence. 

It makes your heart flutter pitifully inside of your ribcage.

“You found me,” you say finally, breaking the silence between the two of you. 

He smirks, recognizing the steadiness in your voice as you speak. 

Still unafraid, he thinks, still that same unfaltering spirit that he remembers from when he first encountered you just before that blood-stained night that lived in his memories like a keepsake. 

“I told you that I would. Did you doubt me?”

You shake your head, not so much as a response to his question, but more of trying to shake away the disillusion of your own equivocation. 

“I thought…” you start, feeling that familiar, unwanted hollowness in your chest return, “I thought that maybe you’d—”

“Forgotten you?” He answers with a seriousness that makes your heart stop beating for a second, “Forsaken you and the vow we made?” He tilts his head and smiles. Not smirks like he did before, but smiles, genuine and true. “I’m a man of my word, little dove, a man who keeps the promises he makes.”

Little dove, he called you that on the night when he slaughtered your uncle some twenty years ago. Such a fond endearment, one that he spoke as if he reserved it only for you.

“It's been so long, why wouldn’t I think that?”

“You were a child when we made our bargain, I needed you to be prepared when I came to collect what you owed. I needed you to be willing to give it to me without a doubt in your heart. Not taken from you. Not stolen. I wanted you to welcome it, to welcome me. Not fear me.”

“I don’t fear you, I never did.”

He chuckles. “I know you didn’t, not back then at least, but time changes people. Memories change how people perceive things. Maybe as you grew older you would come to resent me and the things I did to your uncle. I wasn't kind. I didn’t spare him one moment to repent for what he did to you… and who knows, maybe you found it in your heart to forgive him.”

“I can’t forgive him," you counter sharply, "don’t think I’ll ever be able to. And I don’t resent you either, not for giving me a second chance to live without knowing if the next time he’d visit me would be my last. Why would I resent you for that?”

He hums in response, your words somewhat convincing him that he was right in believing that you were ready for this, but he still has to ask, even when he already knows the answer. “And you’re still sure? You still want to uphold it?”

“Yes,” the word escapes your lips before you can even register it. 

Remmick nods solemnly, staring at you with those soul-piercing eyes. 

He’s spent the last twenty years waiting for this, letting time and severance come between the two of you and fermenting those memories, those emotions of that night until just the right moment that allowed this reunion to become all the sweeter for him; and for you too.

“That song of yours,” he purrs, inhaling deeply and allowing himself to reminisce about the lyrics, the sentiment behind it, of how it resonates with him just as much as it did with you, “it's beautiful.”

“It was the only thing that gave me comfort for a long time,” you say. “It was something that I could hold onto without fear that someone would try and take it away from me.”

“A beckoning,” he interjects slyly. The points of his fangs peek out from beneath the curl of his lip when he smirks, glistening in the moonlight—the canines and the rest of the teeth behind them are large and elongated and serrated, like a mouth full of knives. “An enticement.”

You nod, “In a way, yes, but not how it might seem. I just needed to know that you were out there somewhere and that you heard me, that you still remembered me. But you never answered—”

“It was never the right time,” he replies, “but I did hear you. Every time you sang out into the night, I heard it.” 

Remmick treads down a step, then two, until only one separates the two of you. He places a hand on your chest, right where the source of your music lies, the same beating mechanism where you kept your memories of him. Your intensity. Your longing.

His hand is cold, just as you remember, but it exudes more warmth than you felt in what feels like a lifetime. 

“Heard the saccharine crooning of your blood, even when you didn’t sing, especially when you didn’t sing… your heart reaching out in an attempt to call me back to you. Aching. Pleading for me to return—but you knew I was there, didn’t you dove?”

“I did, that’s why it hurt so much. Knowing that you were there, close enough to sense you but just far enough away where I couldn’t find you.”

He’s quiet then, eyes wandering over every little detail of you, every line that’s etched in your pretty face, every minute change. 

You’ve grown since he last had a proper glance at you, now taller and with a fuller figure that has filled out every curve of your body that he can see through the silhouette of your nightgown, clinging to the sweat that coates your skin like raindrops from the humid Delta night; not exactly the same thin, sickly looking girl he found decades ago with blood on her thighs and tears in her eyes—cursing silently to herself about all the wrongdoings that had happened to her, ones that should never befall a child as young as you were—but despite the changes, he can see the same spirit sweltering in your heart, untouched by circumstance and time. 

Remmick never let you drift too far from his sight, choosing to keep at a distance in order to preserve the decorum of the arrangement the two of you made, but over the years he noticed how your restraint began to wade and contort into something more zealous. 

He saw the way you searched for him relentlessly when you thought he was there, watching you or not. He felt the way your heart called out to him, felt it when you were in the arms of some long-forgotten lover that you still only ever thought of him, wishing that he would just come back to you, even when time and time again he never did. 

This, what he had, wasn’t an easy life, but it sure as hell was easier than the life you’ve lived thus far. And he just had to be sure, not needing to make a mistake that you would surely regret, a mistake that would make you resent him. 

“I wasn’t completely truthful when I told you that I had fulfilled my end of the bargain.” He says, his glowering eyes never leaving yours. Just as terrifying, just as soft. 

“What do you mean?”

He pulls his hand from your chest and straightens, nodding towards the inside of the house. 

“There’s one last loose end that needs to be taken care of before you can fulfill our deal.”

There’s something sinister that laces his voice and it sends a shiver down your spine. 

He turns and enters the house, leaving you alone once again as you watch the darkness swallow him. 

Without hesitation, you follow. 

Remmick’s already at the top of the stairs when you enter, walking down the short corridor that leads into one of the seemingly empty rooms. He moves seamlessly through the hall and without a sound. Like a ghost that is bound to this place, an apparition that haunts each brick and plank that holds the walls up, holding the nails and cement in place that prevents the house from collapsing in on itself.

Your feet carry you up the steps and the floorboards creak under your weight as you ascend the rotten wood, quietly threatening you with each step that it might be your last.

Still, you venture further into the dying house. 

The wallpaper peels off the walls in captivating spirals downwards, trying to escape the atrocities that this house has seen, of what it’s about to see.  

The air is stale around you, unmoving and void of any life that has not thrived within these walls in decades. Untouched by loving hands or caring souls that should be felt in any house. Instead it was just left to rot from the cancer that dwells in its underbelly until even time has forsaken it.

Pale moonlight seeps through the torn and tattered lace curtains, the glittering of dust hanging in the air as if frozen in time. 

Small paintings decorate the walls, depicting the vast and fertile swamps and wetlands of the only land you’ve ever known, of the dirt roads that lead to the small shacks that people here called home. But their colors had faded from neglect, drenched in the sunlight that filters through the window on the hottest of Southern days. 

Other than the moonlight, there is nothing to guide your way, so you carefully make your way down the hall. 

One of the doors on the right side of the hallway is slightly ajar and you can see the flickering of lamplight from beneath the wooden door, a sign pointing you in the direction of where you needed to go. 

Cautiously, you push it open.

Remmick stands in the center of the room, facing you fully, his face devoid of any emotion yet nothing about him is unnerving, least not to you.

Surely if he wanted to kill you he would’ve done it long ago, back when you were some weak little thing that was unable to protect itself. It was easy for him to kill your uncle, it would no doubt be easy to kill you too, you think.

Remmick seemed like the kind of man that could take life without reservation, not caring for who or what it was that he destroyed as long as he had a reason. If that reason was right or not, you didn’t know. But he didn’t kill you, didn’t touch you without your sanction, nor did he drain you of the one thing that kept you alive, and that was enough to reassure you, even when it was stupid to do so. 

He’s watching you with such intensity simply because he could, because he wanted to—wanted you to know that this was it, the exact point of time that you’ve been anticipating since you were that lost, shattered little girl he met all those summers ago.

This was your salvation. 

Something makes a sound in the room and your eyes linger on him a second longer before they drift to the source of such a pitiful whimper, to the figure that kneels with their head bowed and eyes screwed shut, trembling on the floor just past him at his feet. 

His crimson gaze follows yours, neck craning to glance down at the pathetic excuse of a woman that shakes terribly behind him like a rattled dog. 

The sound of your unwavering footsteps makes the figure look up frantically and your whole body stills, goosebumps princkling at you skin when you come face-to-face with one of the demons that has plagued your nightmares since that fateful night—one that instills a knot of dread to form in your stomach, twisting and churning your insides violently.

It is your aunt who kneels on the ground before you, her graying hair thin and wiry and not at all the same hue of brown that you remember from your youth. It frames her gaunt face, the skin around her eyes sunken in from all the years she spent in fear as guilt festered in her bowels.

Once you thought her beautiful with a face that was round and jovial, her enchanting eyes that caught the splendor of the sunlight in the summer, and a smile that promised nothing but love and warmth, but soon enough you saw that facade wane when the truth came to light. A truth of the horrors that her husband harbored in that godforsaken house of theirs, a truth that she was too cowardly to face. 

Now as she kneeled before you, whimpering and weeping with crystalline tears that smeared down her wrinkled, hollowed cheeks, all you saw was the reflection of her soul staring back at you—Weak. Craven. Spineless.  

Any fear you felt just moments before slowly ebbs into something darker, something more ominous and insidious as it maliciously seeps into your bones. There’s an unspoken itch that tickles at the back of your mind like a vindictive spirit whispering awful, terrible things in your ear.    

Your aunt doesn’t seem to recognize you, her brows furrowed in confusion and squinting in the dim lighting of the room to get a better look at you.

But how could she remember you? 

It has been over two decades since she last saw you, and now you stand before her a grown woman, so vastly different from any recollection she has of the small girl that once lived under her roof. 

To her, you look like any other stranger she’d meet on the street in town. 

But there’s something so familiar about you, something she can’t place. 

It’s unsettling how she can’t put a name to the face that stares down at her with an abhorrence that makes all the color drain from her face and the gnawing ache in the pit of her ribcage intensifies. It invokes memories laced with secrets that she has long since tried to forget, locking them away deep in the recesses of her mind.

Secrets that were buried with her husband—whatever was left of him—hoping that with his untimely passing that they would never resurface. 

The floorboards creak quietly and suddenly Remmick is standing behind you, slightly at your side, his breath fans across the nape of your neck and dragging heat along your jawline. He’s so close that you can feel the measured cadence of his chest heaving against your body with every breath he takes. 

His nostrils flare, filling with that compelling fragrance invading his mind—infiltrating, penetrating. 

You reeked of sin ready to be committed, of retribution yet to be reaped.

It clings to your skin like the finest of perfumes with the same veracity and allure as the blood that coursed through your veins. Just as potent, just as loud, and just as electrifying.

His eyes flutter shut, sensing it pulsate in the heavy thrumming of your nerves as his fingers caress up and down your arm lightly, tracing the path of it under your warm skin. 

With his breath in your ear, Remmick speaks, brushing his nose into your temple with almost tender affection. 

“That night when we met, you asked to be rid of the monsters that caused you harm. You only spoke of your uncle then, but I could hear your heart whispering another name, one last monster to be free of.”

It hits her then, hard and fast as if struck by a train running at a hundred miles an hour. 

Her eyes, now glossy and bloodshot, widened in horror as her mouth falls agape. 

Tears once again trickle down your aunt’s pale face, realizing what all of this was—of who you were and what you were going to do to her, her mind running amuck with the horrible possibilities.

This was no mere act of random violence bestowed on a stranger who was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

No…time and patience had crafted this diabolical reunion, carefully and delicately with heinous consideration and all of it orchestrated by Remmick’s sadistic need to corrupt all that was good in this world and make it his. 

And he succeeded, seizing all of the anguish and rage and bitterness that dwelled in the abyss of your heart and manipulated it—manipulated you—with his deceitful promise of freedom, laced with honeyed words and kind smiles. 

But you were too blind to see it, influenced by the wickedness of his black tongue.  

She almost feels sorry for you for being easily tricked by this devilish cretin… almost, if it wasn’t for the fright that ran rampant within her.

Something small presses into your palm and you glance down to see Remmick slipping a box of matches into your hand, followed by the heavy metal handle of the oil lamp.

You glance at him briefly, but he doesn't say a word. 

He doesn’t need to, the depth of his profound, burning eyes tells you all that you need to know; of all that needs to be done and what you had to do to obtain it, and you feel the grip on the items in your grasp tightened. 

Remmick steps back, watching in reprehensible awe as you move fluidly towards the women, his red eyes glowing with nefarious intensity. 

His mouth waters, the thick, vulgar sludge running down the side of his mouth and down his chin but he makes no attempt to wipe it away.  

Your aunt scuffles back, knees tripping over the tattered hem of her dress with her hands up in front of her in a pleading gesture though no words leave her dry and cracked lips, unable to utter even a single word as absolute panic overwhelms her. 

It’s too late to beg anyway, too late to ask for your forgiveness. 

Twenty some years too late, you think ruefully.

Perhaps if she had ever reached out to you in an attempt to rectify what she had done and what she had failed to do, you could find it in your heart to absolve her of her passive sins. She was a woman oppressed by the hand that brought food to her table, indebted through marriage to a man who gave her a roof over her head and the clothes on her back. 

But she could have protected you from the detestable hands of her husband, and yet she didn’t. She allowed that evilness to thrive, allowed it to defile you.

She could only stare in absolute terror as you brought the lamp up to your lips, blowing out the flame and casting the room into shadows, replacing the reddish-orange glow of the lamplight with an eerie hue of blue and silver that drapes over the room.

She finally speaks, calling out your name. The sound of her heartbreaking voice implores you to reconsider, to let her live because she was your aunt, because you were family and she didn’t know any better. She was scared, just as you were, afraid of what her husband would do to her if she were to have interjected. 

She begs you to not be seduced by this devil and all of his false promises, but her pleas are futile. 

You ignore her excuses, just as she ignored all of your cries for help that left your throat raw and dry as your tiny body was desecrated by the fiend that kept you prisoner in that house.

Remmick’s heavy breathing behind you saturates the room as you doused her in the slick oil and light the match with a single flick against the striker strip. 

It does little to light the room and the flickering of the small flame creates shadows that dance across your face. 

Your aunt can't help but think that you look nothing like the little girl she once knew. 

You shared the same name, shared the same pretty features, but beyond the color of your eyes and hair, beyond the birthmarks she remembers, the woman who stands before her is unrecognizable. 

Once you were sweet, and kind, but all of that warmth that she knew you possessed was gone. 

And she was part of the reason why.

The realization of it makes her weep. 

Not because she knew this was the end of her, but because of all of the hurt she inflicted upon you had led you into finding refuge in the darkness, led you into his arms. 

Her eyes find yours and through despair that enrapts her, she musters enough strength not to look away, not daring cast her gaze to the match between your fingers even when you toss it onto her lap. 

Her resolve only lasts so long before her screams penetrate through the room.

The fire that started at her skirts ascended upwards quickly, violently and without hesitation, keen on destroying the last boogeyman that had ever haunted you. 

Her hands frantically try to swat the flames as if it will save her from this terrible fate, one that she had brought upon herself.

The sight of her brings you back to that night, back to when you witnessed your uncle’s demise, taking all of his sin and evil with him.

And just like that night, you simply watch as the flames take her, devouring her whole until there is nothing more of it to take.  

Eventually her flailing stops, as does the screams, and her body falls to the ground with a loud thud. 

The flames continue to grow, reaching out past her lifeless body and sprawling across the floorboards. They climb up the walls, feeding off of the dried out wood and engulfing anything that would satisfy its appetite—one that always burned, one that could never be sated.

Remmick’s hands are on you again, tighter this time and rougher, breaking you from the trance that the flames have placed you under with their deadly hex. 

He lulls your head back to rest on his shoulder, exposing your neck to him and breathes in the delicious aroma that emanates out of every one of your pores—of all the corruption and depravity and wickedness that floods through your veins like the most lethal of poisons, a product of the seed he had planted inside of you. 

This was his plan all along afterall, to fill your head with nothing but thoughts of him— his image burning in your mind until it was all consuming and replenishing the void in your chest with the lachrymose notion that one day the two of you would be reunited. 

That was why he waited so long before he made himself known to you again—through fleeting gazes that made you question your sanity, through the lingering of his scent that wafted in the cool, Mississippi breeze that drove you to the verge of madness—ensuring that you wouldn't forget him so that the yearning that festered inside of you didn’t diminish. That it only grew and grew and grew until it became an obsession you couldn’t break free of.

He’d be lying to himself if he said he didn’t find it amusing, your infatuation with him, because he too had his own sick fascination with you. 

In the beginning, Remmick’s bargain was just that: a bargain. 

You had something that he wanted, something he craved, and he was willing to linger unseen until he was able to collect what was owed. 

But the more he visited, the more he watched from the obscurity of the treeline that surrounded your home and saw how you pined for the same need for connection that had plagued him for centuries, the deeper his twisted affections grew for you.

Just like you, the time he spent abiding his time was maddening. 

For a creature of his nature, years passed by like hours, making all of the time he spent drifting through the world feel less excruciating, less unbearable. But even the most sensible of minds can lose themselves to the overwhelming spiral of despair that arises as they watch their loved ones perish to the cruel consequences of time, surrendering to the inevitable, over and over again. And Remmick was not far from falling headfirst into that spiral, so he needed to act fast should he lose that fight.

For far too long Remmick has roamed this earth in search of a companion, to find someone who would stay at his side and ease the ache that has cemented itself in his lonely soul. There have been whom Remmick saw promise in, others who’ve sought the same as he, but it never lasted. Some left willingly, others found the other half of their soul in men that weren’t Remmick, and others simply perished. 

Even now Remmick didn’t know if what he felt was genuine or if he was merely projectioning what his soul wanted onto you, but it didn’t matter to him… you were his now, completely and utterly his.

The thrum of your pulse beats against his thumb as he holds your jaw in his palm pulls him out of his wandering thoughts and he sighs with admiration at the surge of your vitality that it courses through your body. 

To him it was more than merely drinking from you, it was about forging a bond that would last in this lifetime and the next, sharing the most vulnerable and intimate parts of you with him, and he you. 

What he craved wasn’t power over you, or control, he didn’t even want your blood as sweet as it tasted, as tempting as it was.

No, what he wanted was your warmth, your depravity, your affection and devotion… he desired the music that your heart curated and sang only for him. 

It reminded him of a time before his turning, back when life was uncomplicated. Back when all he wanted was companionship.

And he found that in you, his fallen angel. His dark muse.   

“This is it, little dove,” he pants, breath scorching and burning hot, unlike the rest of him. 

You feel the scrape of his fangs brush along your pulsepoint dangerously and your breath hitches in your throat. 

“I need to hear you say it, that you want this,” he says, almost begging, almost as if not to you at all and only to silence the doubt that holds him back. He needs to hear the words fall from your lips, to prove that he’s deserving of this—deserving of you.

That’s what Remmick tells himself, trying to convince himself that he’s holding onto a shred of humanity that he still had left dwindling inside of him by offering you a choice in the matter—sure it was choice molded and influenced by his deceitful hand, but it was a choice nonetheless—and making you say it outloud made it tangible. Made it real. 

“Say it.”

“I want this,” you whisper, voice unwavering in your decision. Absolute. You look up at him, “I want you.” 

Remmick swears he sees starlight glimmering in your eyes, full of veneration and fondness and love and it’s exactly what he needed, that push forward.

Your eyelids flutter shut when he leans in, lips brushing ardently in a kiss reserved for the most reverent of lovers despite the blasphemy of it all, despite the sacrilege of it.  

And then he bites, sinking his fangs deep into the tender flesh of your throat and tasting the rush of your blood filling his mouth.

You wince, gasping at the painful pressure of where his teeth were embedded into you, his lips sealing around the wound as he drinks, swallowing hungrily at the metallic nectar. 

It makes him dizzy with exhilaration, his mind fogging over from the euphoria that courses through him. 

There’s an agonizing sting at first, but it’s not nearly as violent as you think it would be. 

You’d imagine Remmick ripping off ribbons of flesh from your throat and tearing your arteries to shreds like some brutish creature devouring its prey. 

He’s not greedily draining you with the intent to kill—he’s tasting every drop of blood that spills into his mouth, savoring the sanguine taste of you on his tongue and memorizing it. 

You aren’t a one-off meal that he’ll tear into and quickly discard. You are now his one prized conquest, marked by his bite. 

Remmick is surprisingly gentle in the way he cradles your cheek in one of his large hands while the other is wrapped around your waist, preventing you from stumbling over from the heavy weight of his body pressed securely against yours.  

A shiver runs through you, feeling the chill of death creeping up your arms like mist, up your chest and neck despite the heat of the fire that rages all around.

You know that you should be frightened knowing that death is right at your doorstep, waiting for you to take that final step through the threshold, but you aren't scared, not when it feels like this—a merciful pull into the darkness, slowly draining you until your body grows weaker and weaker the more he takes. .

Like death itself was comforting you, consoling you, encouraging you not to be afraid and tread into that darkness without fear of the unknown. Apologizing for all the pain you endured, but assuring that there would be no more suffering once you let it in. 

Let him in.

And you do, bearing every part of your soul to Remmick as he drinks. 

Tears form at the corners of your eyes, finally finding the peace you so desperately sought in this grim, dreadful world, washing over you like a Baptismal fountain.

Through the warm ichor, Remmick can see the life that you lived thus far. 

He sees your parents, both grinning ear-to-ear as they walk you up the steps of the church you all attended every Sunday and the hearty meals your mother had prepared after. He sees you standing at the edge of freshly dug up dirt, watching as the gravediggers lower their caskets into the ground. He sees the fireplace where you sat while your grandmother told you stories of her homeland and the origins of the traditions of your people and then the disgraceful excuse of a gravesite where they buried her, nothing more than a plank of wood with her name scratched into the grainy surface; the only thing your family could afford. He sees the last time you smiled before being ushered into your uncle’s house, ignorant to what you would experience at his hands. He sees himself in the threshold of the burning house behind him.

But he isn’t the only one who sees the lingering reflections of a time that have since passed.

Through the darkness that trickles into your vision, there are flashes of a life that don’t belong to you flickering behind your eyelids—a foreign land with vast green countrysides surrounded by treacherous waters, a small village with townsfolk that fill the air with laughter and music so touching you can feel it reverberate in your chest. A place where gods and spirits inhabited each stone, in every tree and in the lakes and rivers that flowed through the land, living side by side with the people who thrived there, undisturbed by marauders from across the sea who would eventually come.  

The rush of images dissipate shortly after drifting into your mind as the world around you is fading, and the sharp, thunderous drawl of Remmick’s bite dulls. 

He can feel it too, how your body slacks in his embrace with every second that passes. How the vigor of your blood’s song steadily begins to dim. 

His tongue runs along the wound of his making on your neck, leaving a thick line of saliva on the skin there and quickly replacing it with an amorous press of his lips.

You groan at the fatigue that infiltrates your mind, your body instinctively pushing away the urge to sever the thread that binds you to this existence. 

Your fingers find purchase on his thick arms, unconsciously trying to shove him off of you, but you have no strength to do so. 

“Don’t fight it,” he whispers into your hair, so soft, so reverent, like a prayer. “Think of it as falling asleep and when you wake, you’ll be anew.” He coos against your temple and places a kiss to your cold forehead, “I’ve got you. Let go.”

And you do, with one final exhale you let go.

Silence greets you. And blackness. The world around you is gone, having ebbed away into absolute nothingness. 

Growing up hearing the sermons from the preacher upon the pulpit, you’d thought death would be different, more dramatic. Blinding white light that leads to the pearly gates. Or of fire and brimstone that foretold the eternity torture that awaited you after a life of vice. Perhaps even of the muddled gray of a purgatory you’d never leave, condemning you to wander in uncertainty forever, but it wasn’t like that at all. 

Just blackness envelopes you and you feel weightless, like floating on the waters of the Mississippi River just before the sun rises above the horizon.

Time is meaningless in a place like this and you’re unsure of how long you’ve lingered here in death, straying mindlessly in that cold, dark void. Like the passing of seconds into centuries, like surviving through a never-ending winter before a long awaited spring emerges, blossoming into something wondrous and exhilarating.   

Finally, your eyes begin to open and the world around you is bold, vibrant with perfect clarity.  

There are colors and hues that are new to you now and with amazement you watch as the inferno dances around you in splendid destruction. 

You can see every flickering flame that burns deep into the walls and scorches the wood beneath it, like the brushstrokes of a painting of meticulous detail—so rich, so sharp, alive as if every shadow and streak of color had a soul within itself. 

Still in Remmick’s embrace, now cradled ardently in his arms as he carries you out of the burning wreckage of the house you can feel every stitch of his skin on yours, amplified. The once cold hands that held you now radiate a warmth that you never noticed before. 

The night birds and insects that chant their nocturnal melodies sing with sublime coherence. Even the sound of the leaves that sway gently in the night’s breeze sound as loud as the strumming of a blues guitar.

Your hand reaches up to caress his jawline, sharpe with the stubble that frames his chin. Despite the prickle beneath your fingers, the expanse of his skin feels velvety under your touch, taut and smooth like marble, sending electricity through your fingertips.

Remmick leans into the tender stroke of your knuckles along this cheek, trembling slightly as your nails rake down the column of his throat, feeling the hum of his blood dancing below with delight. 

Once outside, Remmick lays you down on the lawn with the crisp air nipping at your skin. The softness of the grass against your back makes you sigh, like laying on sheets of silk.

His mouth is on you suddenly, hot and slick and hungry. 

Your legs part, welcoming Remmick between them without hesitation and he moans when your hands cup his face, slanting your lips perfectly to deepen the kiss. 

You cling to him, causing Remmick to hiss at the sting of your nails clawing into the nape of his neck, creating crescent-shaped into his skin through the fabric of his collar. 

It spurs him on, how unaware you are of your new-found strength, and it stirs something dangerous in his gut. 

His tongue traces your bottom lip, desperately asking you to part for him—an invitation—and when you do, he licks into your mouth like a man starved. 

You can taste the remnants of the irony tang of your blood on this tongue and it eases a whine from your lips. 

Once it would have repulsed you but now it remedies a craving you’ve never experienced before, but only a little; only in the slightest of ways, in a way that teases you, in a way that demands more. 

Your head spins at the feeling of his hands on your body—fondling the swell of your breasts though the thin material of your nightgown and making your nipples pucker beneath his touch.

It has heat and wetness pooling between your legs and you chase the urge by lifting your hips upwards to grind against the hardening of his cock beneath the rough cotton of his trousers.

His tongue pushes deeper into your mouth, matching your eagerness, and he rocks back into you forcefully, enough to render another sound out of you which he does easily.

You should be ashamed at how pliable you are under his touch, at the pathetic and lewd moans that leave your mouth when his lips linger across your face, kissing and nipping at the skin of your jaw, down the expanse of your neck. 

He places searing, wet kisses on each collarbone and between the valley of your breasts as he slides lower and lower down your body. 

You arch into every kiss he lavishes on your clothed skin, desperately needing to feel all of him on you, to feel the heat that exudes off of his body bleed into you. You're so lost in his touch that you don’t even notice that one of his hands snakes under the hem of your nightgown, pushing it up and revealing the temptation of your flesh while the other tugs your underwear down your ankles until he maneuvers it off of you, throwing it aside carelessly.

You writhe against the damp grass, skin burning up. Like a fever you can’t break, kindled by the scorching trail of his tongue down your stomach, the weighted press of his body against yours, feeling the heat spread through your bloodstream and into every part of you from your head to your toes—igniting every cell with heightened pleasure.

Your mind spins haphazardly into a spiraling descent of hedonistic madness. Even the intensity that exudes from the dilapidated house that cries out for merciful release feels cool in comparison to his touch. 

The flames and smoke fades into a smeared mess of orange, red, and black until you don’t recognize it at all. It just becomes a part of the night, like the stars and moon above.    

You feel drunk off of him, mind blurring into enraptured grandeur. 

Remmick leans forward, nuzzling the side of your thigh with his nose as he catches your intoxicating scent and it racks a shudder up his spine when he breathes it in gluttonously. 

His name falls from your lips, full of want and desire, but he hushes your plea quietly.

It almost makes him laugh from the irony of it all—of how easily you traded one monster for another. 

He wonders if the thought ever crossed your mind or if the hatred you harbored in your heart for your uncle and aunt have blinded you of the fact.

It doesn’t matter now, not when he has you right here he wants you and Remmick isn’t going to let you slip through his fingers by revealing the epiphany he had. 

He’s going to indulge in all of the horrors you have hidden inside of you. Coddle it. Exploit it. Foster it.

“It’s alright dove,” he whispers, kissing your inner thigh before draping one over his lean shoulder, then the other, “it’ll all be alright, just gonna make you feel good, real good.” 

Another kiss, closer to the glistening of your cunt.

He shifts his gaze to yours, finding the natural hue of them now glowing a rich tinge of orange, the same shade as the flames that swelter behind the both of you as the house continues to burn in an endless inferno. 

It makes his heart falter at the sight of you, perfectly grotesque. 

Pushing up on your elbows, your mouth parts to object but whatever questionable demur you plan to say dies before it can even form and a drawn out moan replaces it as the sensation of Remmick flicking his tongue over your cunt suddenly overwhelms you. 

It renders you boneless, falling back amongst the grass while hot embers erupt across the sensitive flesh. Using the roughness of his tongue, he sluggishly drags it along the seam of your folds, tasting the wet ambrosia that lays between the sanctuary of your thighs, the only altar he’d ever kneel before. 

One of your hands finds refuge in his hair, fingers threading through the short, curled locks while the other grasps at his forearm for dear life, knuckles turning stark-white from strain as that wicked tongue teases you—slowly sliding over your dripping, heated slit and stroking over your clit in deliberately tedious licks. 

His large hands grip at your thighs firmly, holding you in place to ease the mindless gyrations of your hips towards his sinful mouth as he devours you—the wild, hungry way that he works his tongue against you, over you, inside of you.  

Remmick hums in content, feeling the thin strings of your resolve snapping one by one with every trawl of his devilish tongue against your flesh, unraveling a little more with each needy whine or ragged sigh you breathe out into the night. 

You shudder when he moves his mouth up to find that little bundle of nerves at the apex of your sex and captures it between his lips, flicking over it in slow, teasing manipulations, and you jerk, your body already nearly spasming and you dig your heels into the muscles of his back in a hopeless attempt to keep him rooted against you. 

He moves his mouth lower once more, hands moving around to cup the ample swell of your ass and pressing you even closer as he delves his tongue into the hot, wet depths of your pussy.

And fuck if the strangled cry that tore from your throat wasn’t the most retched, profane sound he’s ever heard, especially when it was accompanied by a violent tug at his hair that pushes his face deeper into your quivering cunt, sending his tongue plunging even further inside of you.

The swollen ache turns into burning and you feel your inner walls tighten, knowing the sensation of your impending orgasm creeping up your spine.

Remmick senses it too, feeling the same coil tightening in his abdomen, but he doesn’t relent in his attention. His moans meld with yours, matching it pitch for pitch and accompanying every sound you make with one of his own like a sordid melody. 

He wishes he could stay like this, tucked deliciously between your legs and drinking from your immaculate cunt until the sun rises beyond the horizon and for the rest of his infernal lifetime, especially as you grind herself against his face shamelessly and keening his name desperately despite the firm grip he had on your thighs, but he can’t ignore the almost painful throb of his hardening cock rubbing against his pants. 

The reverberation of his groans and whimpers make your thighs tremble against the sides of his head, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. His body rocks in sync with the roll of your hips, flowing in the same rhythmic cadence as you both become one through the tormenting ministrations of his mouth.

Never had a man or woman touched you like this, uncaring of how obscene he looks with his head buried between your legs. His hands, calloused and strong, message the delicate flesh of your thighs and ass in soothing motions. He places enough pressure to induce bruising to flourish beneath the supple skin and the pleasure that blossoms under his touch is inebriating. Addictive.

The grip you have on his arm trails up to thread your fingers through his, your nails digging deep into his palm to rouse another elongated moan from him.  

You smirk, satisfied at the sound you pull out of him, but the smugness is wiped clean off your face as the tightening pressure that had been building in your spine and lower belly intensifies, your mouth parting in a sequence of short, breathy sighs when it hits you.

It’s blinding and red-hot, a kaleidoscope of euphoria bursting from inside of you in a flash of liquid fire, and with a broken cry of Remmick’s name on your lips you cum into his eagerly awaiting mouth. 

He slurps at your sweet slickness as it floods his senses, flaring his nostrils to fully bask in the scent of you, and a low, guttural growl rips from deep within his chest. 

He licks and laps at your cunt, fervently catching every drop you offer him to not miss a single drop, not wanting to let any of it go to waste. Not on your thighs, not on the grass below, not even on his chin. No, he had to devour you thoroughly until there was nothing left for you to give. 

And god is his tongue relentless, repeating the same motions over your sensitive bud that has you squirming under his touch, trying hysterically to push him away but he keeps fighting against you, his tongue stroking incessantly and arduously into the sanctity of your cunt.  

You sit up suddenly, causing a glimmer of worry to flicker cross Remmick’s face when he looks up at you, but it quickly subsides when he sees the wanton glint in your glowing orange eyes.

A smirk spreads on his handsome face when you grab at him, pulling him toward you until your mouth clashes with his, lips slanting against mouth. His face is wet, and warm, and tangy sweet. And now as you kiss him, open-mouthed to allow your tongue to dance with his, all you can taste is herself. 

In a swift movement, Remmick pulls you into his lap, mouth never parting from yours as he squeezes and caresses the sweat-glistened skin of your thighs. He guides them to rock your sex against his, still fully clothed, but the friction of his cock through his pants surrenders a moan that seeps from your mouth into his, feeling his pent up desire grind against you. 

Your hands fall to the open collar of his shirt, fingers diligently tracing over the expanse of the exposed skin that lays beneath the fabric, beneath the golden chain that hangs from his neck.

Caressing the taut muscles at the juncture of his throat and chest, you palm the heated flesh and claim it with the drag of your nails down his pecs and then up again, leaving angry red scratches on his pale skin. 

He groans at the pain that arises from your marking—your nails now sharper than ever, sharp like the edge of a blade as they pierce the skin deep enough to cause damage. 

When you pull away, your eyes are drawn to the crimson flow of blood that oozes from the wounds you inflicted and he smiles.

He doesn’t have to say it because the enticement of the crimson ichor instinctively calls to you, whispering and screaming in equal measure to sate the new ache that gnaws and twists in the pit of your stomach. A hunger. One that you didn't know existed as your heightened senses emphasizes the thirst that leaves your throat dry. 

What was once an intrusive thought now becomes a craving, a need to quench the growing impulse to drink. It draws you in like a magnetic force, one that you can’t escape from, one that continues to invade your thoughts until it makes your head throb with excruciating agony. 

You can’t resist the lure, can’t fight the urge that beckons you with welcoming arms like the sweetest of songs. You lean forward, tongue flat against Remmick’s chest and lick the sticky substance up from the droplet at the bottom of his sternum up to the source of the wound at his collarbone. 

Remmick laughs when your body trembles when you taste him, the rich, warm liquid coating your tongue like the most divine of holy wines, but his tone is anything but degrading or mocking—its breathy and sincere, a quintessential jovial sound that teeters on hysteria. 

He laughs because now you are utterly and completely like him, a creature of his making. Corrupted. Perverted. Damned. 

Gently, he cradles the back of your neck and allows you to indulge in the taste of him, his blood, his soul, and watches through hooded eyes with triumph as you drink selfishly from him. 

It’s thick and sweet, igniting a fire that burns as it runs liquid hot down your throat. It's unlike anything you’ve ever sampled in your sad little life. Nothing tastes as delicious as this does, nothing could even compare to it. It engulfs all of your senses simultaneously, quickly soaking into every nerve-ending of your being.   

You groan when the sacred liquor of his body is eventually tapped out, but Remmick hushes you with another vulnerable laugh and places a lingering kiss to the crown of your head, his nose nesting tenderly into your hair. 

When you look up he kisses you again briefly, not as rough as before but you can taste the desire that imbues his lips. 

“There’ll be more of that later, dove,” he whispers, eyes tracing every detail of your disheveled expression, “but for now I need to fuck you good, need to feel that sweet pussy of yours around my cock as I make you scream my name so everyone knows who you belong to now.”

His vulgar words, mixed with the euphoria of his blood coursing through you, make you dizzy, drunk from pure delirium. 

You are his, forever and all eternity. 

The notion of being some unholy bride to this monstrous brute should have scared the living hell out of you, but after experiencing the thrill of his blood dancing in your belly and the absolute bliss of his mouth on your cunt, you couldn’t think of any other place you’d rather be. 

Heaven and hell be damned, you’d make whatever time you had with Remmick at his side your own paradise on earth. 

In a swift, seamless motion Remmick undoes the buttons of his trousers, hissing under his breath when his cock springs free from its confines.

You moan when he pushes his cock against your slick folds, gliding effortlessly due to the wetness between your thighs, and you lift your hips slightly, just enough for the tip to prod against your entrance. 

His hands fall to your hips, yours finding purchase on his broad shoulders to support your trembling body, already alight from the pleasure that ripples up your spine. 

Slowly, Remmick lowers you onto him and you sigh, feeling every pulsation of his thick, needy cock as you sink down inch by inch to take all of him. 

The measured push of him into the most sacred part of you is agonizing, maddening until he bottoms out fully, splitting you with a sadistically pleasurable burn. 

Your mouth falls agape at the sensation of him filling you completely, and he can’t refrain from grinning at the sight of your utterly blissed out expression. 

One of his hands loosens the grip he has on your hip, fingers creeping up from under the hem of your nightgown and fanning out to feel your velvety skin beneath his fingertips, pressing gently into the dip of your spine to press you closer to his body. 

His bright, glowing eyes find yours and Remmick pauses to take in your new appearance wholly. 

Any lines that once decorated your face have disappeared, leaving behind smooth, soft skin in its wake; like a moth breaking from its cocoon to reveal the splendors after a long awaited metamorphosis. 

Your blood-stained fangs peek through from your upper lip when you moan, elongated and razor-sharp. If you wanted you could rip out his throat, he thinks, and make a meal of him right then and there, feeding off his throat like a parched man would suck the nectar from a ripened, summer peach. 

His cock twitches at the image of you, mouth and chin saturated with the slick of his dark, red blood as it coagulates on your pretty face, your throat, and clothes—grotesquely painting you in his cruor and gore.

Your breath catches in your throat, nails digging painfully into his shoulders when he thrusts forcefully up into you, the violation quick and powerful. 

“Oh fuck, Remmick—” you moan, falling forward to press your forehead into the crook of his neck and place sloppy, lingering kisses to his damp skin. Your hot breath fans over his jugular, smelling the saccharine aroma of his pulse thrumming in his veins. 

He groans when your fangs scrape against his throat, teasing the skin dangerously and chases the fleeting sensation of implicit peril with another rough thrust.    

The grass beneath you is damp, causing your knees to slip from under your weight and spreading you unbearably wide so that when you meet his thrusts the tip of his cock prods against the spongy patch of muscle along your upper walls that musters a whine from you.

He feels it too, how you squeeze around him, and wraps his arms around your back to press you impossibly close to him, desperate to feel it again. Your tender nipples brush against his chest and the friction of it is almost too much to handle, but you don’t pull away, don’t push him off of you, and instead you rock your hips to match his pace. 

Quickly you both find your rhythm—harsh, almost cruel thrusts followed by the slow, merciful grinding of his hips meeting the sickly tender cadence of yours. 

The night air was filled with the sounds of your mingled, interwoven moans, muffled slightly as they spill into each other’s mouths, greedily swallowing every groan, whimper and sigh that you both make in shared pleasure.

Your thighs shake uncontrollably, your walls clenching around him in anticipation of your approaching climax, the coil tightening and tightening with every thrust of his powerful hips.

Remmick realizes just how close you were when you continue to pant and whine like a rabid dog in heat and your voice musically invades his ears. He eases his head back to gaze up at you and locks eyes with yours. You stare at him with heavy-lidded eyes, your pupils blown wide and your lips swollen from biting them as you move on top of him like the blasphemous goddess you are. 

One of his hands runs down between the apex of your thighs, pressing his thumb against your clit and rubs a slow, maddening circle over it, causing your hips stutter and your breath catch in the back of your throat.

He presses firmly at the bundle of nerves and reality slips away, begging you to give in. And you do, grabbing at the back of his neck while the other holds onto him hopelessly while your inner walls spasm around his thick cock and voice a desperate, strangled moan.

Remmick's eyes are drawn to the look of absolute elation that adorns your face, a look of awe, of pure amazement. It was like he just couldn’t tear his eyes from you, afraid that he’d miss something, anything, if he were to look away for even a moment. There was nothing in this ungodly world like watching your body respond to him, nothing like knowing that he was the one to pull these responses from you. 

And watching you reach that peak climax, watching you plunge headlong into the throes of this intense orgasm, prompts his own body to respond. His hips thrusts erratically even as one of his hands grasps at your shoulder, curling around it to hold your hips square against his as he pumps his hips violently, his cock twitching as he finally lets go, cumming hard inside of your hot, wet cunt that still grips him mercilessly. 

Remmick grunts as his pelvis jarrs against yours, pressing insistently against your clit with every thrust he gave. Your eyes screw shut and your whole body tenses just before you clench around him once more, throwing you into another intense orgasm. 

His glowing red eyes widen as he stares at you amorously, his mouth hanging open in utter rhapsody. A slow, sure grin stretches clear across his face as he watches your features convey a look of complete and perfect euphoria. 

You collapse on top of him when the initial high is over, your body laying limp against his as you continue to tremble and shake, burying your face into his neck and lazily nuzzle your nose against him, struggling to regain your breath.

He turns his head, pressing a kiss to your forehead and brings his hand up to gently brush your damp hair out of your sweat-soaked face, the other soothingly caresses up and down the length of your back. 

A sigh leaves your lips, your torrid breath fanning against the contour of his throat with every hot inhale and exhale you take, whispering his name. 

The night air is quiet as you and Remmick sit in each other’s embrace and the dull murmur of the crickets and cicadas slowly becoming louder as you ease back into the world, accompanied every so often by the sound of the house falling apart. 

The fire still rages, but it has pacified immensely since it first started. Planks of wood fall to the ground with a muffled thump and most of the fire has died out, now replaced with the smoldering of the thick, grayish smoke that billows into the night sky, muddying the color of it. 

It’s still beautiful, you think with your cheek resting against Remmick’s shoulder, bright eyes watching the smoke as it dances up towards the stars. 

Now after all that you’ve endured you finally allow yourself to breathe, knowing that everything that has ever haunted you is gone, that every monster has been vanquished. 

For once you can live without worry about what may come, you think with a silent chuckle. 

It wouldn’t have mattered if Remmick ended your life instead of turning you because even then he would’ve kept his promise. And that was all that mattered to you—that he kept his word, just as he said he would. And that alone brings you peace.   

It’s a while before he finally moves, shifting in little, anxious movements, and it’s enough for you to glance up at him, eyes scanning his face to find what troubles him. 

His eyes—still that ghoulish, dazzling shade of vermillion—are compelled to the horizon. 

“We need to get movin’,” he says, but you can hear the slight unease in his voice.

Turning your head, you look out to where his gaze remains and although you don’t see it, your blood tingles with astute awareness, knowing that something dangerous awaits should you linger here any longer. 

Though the night sky is still cloaked in shadows, you can see how out in the distance it leisurely changes from that dark, navy blueish-black into lighter hues of magenta and gold with your enhanced vision—bright and shimmering as the sun awakens from its overdue slumber.

Daybreak approaches. 

Seeing how Remmick reacts, you should be worried but you aren’t.

The worst of it all was behind you now and whatever the future had to offer was there for the taking.

Because with Remmick at your side, you were unstoppable. 

tagging: @eddiesvixen

[gweelczz]

“Home to Her”

Bo Chow x Rosetta (Rose)

Genre: Slight angst if you squint, fluff

Warnings: mentions of religion and prayer

Summary: Rosetta gives Bo the silent treatment, he puts her in her place the only way he knows how. With love

The sun hung low over Clarksdale, brushing the dusty fields with gold as Bo Chow trudged up the front steps of their little wooden house, grocery sacks heavy in his hands. His sleeves were rolled up, dark with sweat and flour from a long day at the store. He kicked the door shut behind him and set the bags down with a low grunt.

“Rosie?” he called, his voice roughened from the day’s work but warm, just like always.

No answer.

He frowned, wiping his hands on his apron before untangling it from his waist. His boots thunked heavy on the floorboards as he made his way into the kitchen. There she was — Rosetta — sittin’ at the little round table, arms crossed, her beautiful face set like stone.

Bo paused. Took her in.

Her deep ebony skin caught the evening light just right, like the richest soil after rain. That great big afro of hers crowned her head like a halo, and those gold eyes, usually sparklin’ like God’s own stars, wouldn’t even lift to meet his. She was silent, lips pressed so tight they turned pale at the corners.

Bo narrowed his eyes.

“Rosetta Mae Chow,” he drawled slow, dropping his voice low and stern, the way that always got her attention. “Ain’t no wife o’ mine gonna sit there stewin’ like that. Not ‘fore even tellin’ me what’s wrong.”

Still she said nothin’, just squeezed her arms tighter around herself like she was holdin’ somethin’ in too big to carry.

He moved — one long stride, two — then he was standin’ over her, broad arms crossed now, jaw tight.

“You fixin’ to give me the silent treatment in my own house, Rosie? After I done worked sunup to sundown to bring you home what you needed?”

Her chin wobbled. Not much — just a little. But Bo caught it. He always caught every little thing about her.

“Now,” he said, voice softenin’, “you look at me, Rose. Right now.”

Slowly, like the weight of it hurt her, Rosetta lifted her head. Those gold eyes, glassy with unshed tears, finally met his.

Bo felt like he’d been shot through the heart.

He dropped to his knees right there, on the hardwood floor. Cupped her hands in his big calloused ones.

“Talk to me, baby,” he said low, thumb strokin’ the back of her hand. “Tell me what’s hurtin’ that pretty soul o’ yours.”

For a second, she tried to hold it in, tried to be strong — but it broke. A tear slipped down her cheek, catchin’ on the mole under her left eye.

“I don’t…” she choked out, her voice small, tremblin’. “I don’t deserve you, Bo.”

He blinked. “What kinda foolishness you talkin’?”

“I’m serious,” she said, the words tumblin’ out now like water outta a busted pipe. “You coulda had anybody… some fine, proper woman who don’t got a big mouth, who don’t sit around talkin’ to spirits and burnin’ herbs like some old witch… You deserve better than me.”

Bo stared at her, stunned. His Rosetta — the strongest woman he’d ever known — really believed that nonsense?

He gathered her hands tighter in his, holdin’ on like she was the only thing tetherin’ him to earth.

“Listen to me,” he said, voice droppin’ so low it rumbled in his chest. “Ain’t another soul on this earth — white, black, yellow, or otherwise — who could do what you do for me.”

Rosetta sniffled, lookin’ down, but Bo gently tapped her chin up.

“You hear me, baby. Ain’t nobody pray over me every mornin’ and night. Ain’t nobody stand at the crossroads at three a.m. beggin’ the Lord and all the good spirits to keep me safe.”

He pressed his forehead against hers, lettin’ her feel the heat of him, the truth of his words.

“You made me that mojo bag I keep on me day and night. I done made it through knife fights, sickness, angry drunk men in that store, and I ain’t never once been touched ’cause you put your love and your faith into that thing.”

Her tears were flowin’ now, but Bo just wiped them away with his thumb, patient and gentle.

“You think some ‘proper woman’ would do that?” he asked, voice a little rough. “You think some ‘fine’ lady from up Jackson way would even know how to love me the way you do?”

He leaned back just enough to look her in the eyes.

“I ain’t just loved by you, Rosetta. I’m protected by you. Watched over by you. Blessed by you.”

He kissed the palm of her hand, right over the lifeline, like he could kiss away all her hurt.

“I’m here. Still breathin’. Still buildin’ our life together ’cause God and your ancestors and you made sure o’ it.”

Her chest hitched with a sob, and Bo pulled her into his arms, holdin’ her tight against him.

“You the best thing that ever happened to me, Rosie,” he whispered against her hair. “I don’t want nobody else. Ain’t even a thought in my head.”

She clutched him back like she was scared he’d slip away, but Bo just held her stronger, rockin’ her slow in the middle of the kitchen.

“I love you,” she breathed, voice breakin’.

Bo smiled against her temple. “I know, baby. And I love you. Always have. Always will. From the first time I seen you dancin’ barefoot in that cotton field, laughin’ like you ain’t got a care in the world.”

He pulled back, thumbin’ away the last of her tears.

“You mine, Rosetta. God made you for me, and He don’t make mistakes.”

She gave a watery laugh, small and sweet, and Bo took her face in both hands, kissin’ her deep and long, like he had all the time in the world to show her just how much he meant every word.

When they finally pulled apart, Rosetta leaned her forehead against his, breathin’ him in.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Bo chuckled low, the sound like warm thunder.

“You don’t gotta thank me for tellin’ the truth, baby. Come on now. Let’s get supper goin’. I ain’t lettin’ my wife cry no more tonight.”

She laughed again, stronger this time, and Bo helped her to her feet like she was the most precious thing he’d ever touched.

And maybe she was

Bo helped Rosetta into the kitchen like she might break if he wasn’t careful, though they both knew she was tougher than most men he’d ever met. He moved easy, puttin’ the groceries away while she bustled about, lightin’ the little oil lamp over the stove, hummin’ under her breath now — some old tune her mama must’ve taught her.

The smell of fresh cornbread and stewed greens filled the house before long. Bo set the table while Rosetta stirred the pot, her gold eyes flickerin’ back to him now and then, full of a tenderness so thick it near choked him.

After supper — plates cleared and bellies full — Bo washed up while Rosetta wiped down the counter, their movements easy, natural, like a river flowin’ back into its bed after a storm.

The Mississippi night settled in outside, all crickets and warm, heavy air.

Bo sat at the edge of their bed, pullin’ off his boots, when he felt her come up behind him — all soft and sure, the way she always was. He looked up just as she set a hand on his shoulder.

“You ready, Bo?” she asked, her voice low and thick with somethin’ sacred.

He nodded. Didn’t matter how tired he was — he always wanted her prayers.

Rosetta moved in front of him, her beautiful hands pressin’ to either side of his face. Her thumbs brushed along his cheekbones, and Bo closed his eyes, leanin’ into her touch.

She started prayin’, her voice like a balm:

“Lord, I thank You for this man. For his heart, his strength, his spirit. I ask You and all my ancestors, the ones who walked before us, to keep him safe — to guide his feet, steady his hands, sharpen his mind.”

Bo breathed deep, lettin’ her words sink into him.

“Cover him with Your protection. Cloak him in Your love. Let no evil touch him, no hate prosper against him. May the road rise to meet him, and may he always find his way home to me.”

A long silence filled the room after she finished, thick with holy power.

Bo opened his eyes to find her starin’ at him, all soft and shining.

Without a word, Rosetta helped him shrug off his shirt, kissin’ his shoulders as she went. He climbed into bed, and she followed, pullin’ him into her arms like he was hers to shield.

Bo curled against her chest, breathin’ in her scent — warm earth and sage and the sweetness of baked apples from supper. She combed her fingers through his hair, murmurin’ soft nonsense words only meant for his ears.

He couldn’t help himself. He started kissin’ her face — her forehead, her cheeks, the tip of her nose, the soft patch of skin by her jawline — over and over, like he was tryin’ to memorize every inch of her.

Rosetta laughed quietly, holdin’ him tighter.

“Ain’t never gon’ stop lovin’ you,” Bo mumbled against her skin, kissin’ the mole under her eye like it was a sacred mark.

“I know, baby,” she whispered back, rockin’ him slow. “I know.”

Outside, the Delta night hummed on — but inside their little house, wrapped up in Rosetta’s arms, Bo Chow drifted off to sleep with a heart fuller than any man had a right to carry.

[firadessa]

Rosetta's early house will have a special place in my heart

Tinker Bell (early version) - Visual Development

[nahimjustfeelingit-writes]

I Put A Spell On You.

(Part Two)

Smoke and Rosetta got some makin’ up to do

It was a reflex for him to reach for his revolver. The sound of a withering floorboard caused Smokes to jump up from his sleep and grab it from the side table swiftly.

Click.

He was ready to aim and shoot down. Smokes’ unwavering gaze in that dimly-lit room cased out every dark corner and his ears listened for any signs of an intruder. He had good form and a lethal mental. He’d heard the sound again and instantly he aimed for the floor, finger on the trigger ready to pull.

A low meow followed by a pretty tabby-cat relaxed his tense muscles. Smokes lowered his weapon with ease before silently putting the revolver back on the night stand. His brandy-colored eyes tracked the movements of the cat between his legs, trying to get a feel of who this stranger was. Eventually, the sound of music on the jukebox and Rosetta’s soft snoring helped to steady his breathing and lower his pulse. Smokes reached to flick off the lamp light and carefully settled back into the rickety mattress. He took one look at Rosetta’s sleeping face before staring up at the ceiling.

Imagine rainfall, accompanied by the sound of a warm guitar slowly picking away at the layer of your sorrows, haunting, yet beautiful. A sense of serenity entered his mind, extinguishing the flames that burn his soul. For a moment, Smokes could feel, and think nothing. So brief, yet so long, he felt at ease. The melody carrying him across distant shores, feeling weightless in its entranced groove. He flew with the progression of the song, eyes closed, allowing his emotions to guide his path. Up and down his chest rose. Beyond the murky sky, the white glow of the moon shown through the window.

A dainty hand touched his chest. Smokes reached up to grasp it, rubbing it with his thumb. His bare dick against his thigh began to grow. Smokes brought her hand to his plump lips and kissed her there gently. The bed creaked beneath them. Smokes glanced down within the darkness, his eyes connecting with the sleepy, doe eyes of his Rosey. Her naked silhouette entranced him. The dip of her hip and the way her breasts hung from her chest aroused him to no end.

It was the way her long, deep wavy hair fell over the pillow. The pearls around her neck made her look ritzy and those red-tinged kissers made him salivate to taste her again. She was breathtaking. And Smokes didn’t lie when he meant she’s the most beautiful in N’awlins. Rosetta sat up and Smokes looked up into her heavenly face. Her fingertips danced across the ridges of muscle on his torso, her eyes never leaving his.

“Can’t sleep, daddy?” She says, voice soft and warm.

“That cat of yours woke me up out my sleep, gal…”

“Not you afraid of cats now…”

Rosetta giggled. Smokes chuckled slightly.

“I ain’t afraid of no fuckin’ cat…I’m just…been out there in some shit, baby. This the first time I had decent sleep.”

Rosetta looked towards Smokes’ revolver. Smoke followed her eyesight.

“I want one. My own gun.” Rosetta said.

“Oh?” Smokes sat up, “is that so?”

“Mhm. You can show me how to point that thang since you back home. Remember, you said you would…”

“I did.”

Rosetta sat up and Smokes situated her between his legs with her back against his chest. Grabbing the revolver, Smokes pointed it in a safe direction. A safe direction means that the gun is pointed in such a way that an accidental fire would not cause any harm. Rosetta watched with great interest. Smokes accessed the cylinder, emptying the bullets before clicking it back in place.

“Aight, Rosey…wrap your dominant hand ‘round the handle…use this hand for support.”

Arms outstretched, Smokes helped Rosetta point the revolver straight ahead at a wall covered with peeling paper.

“Straighten ya elbows, doll…no need to cock it, but steady ya breath…finger on the trigger…”

“It feels…heavy.”

“Hm. Imagine it with bullets.”

Smokes grazed Rosetta’s neck with his fluffy lips. The lingering smell of amber and sweat against his broad nose.

“That’s how you do it. I’ll take ya’ out to shoot soon…”

The urge to stuff his fat dick in her again created a tickling sensation just beneath his navel. Smokes felt at ease being with his woman again. He’d never leave her side again. Even if Stacks got in the way.

Smokes gave Rosey a wet sloppy kiss to her neck. She tilted her head and his thick tongue grazed over the rapid pulse in her neck and directly over that spot that got her wet every time. His thicker fingers were groping her breasts. Rosey released a breathy moan before looking back at Smokes, one hand on the back of his neck, forcing his lips against hers.

Their tongues moved in tandem, the squeaky springs of her not so sturdy bed surrounding them. Rosetta spun around and straddled his lap. Smokes kicked the sheets away from him, adjusting his large body to accommodate Rosetta. The wobbly, metal headboard banged against the wall when she flopped down into his lap.

One hand around her neck, Smokes tugged lightly, bringing Rosetta’s lips to his again. His other hand reached between her meaty thighs to feel the heat and dampness of her folds. Smokes growled against her lips. His dick was cast iron hard and read to fit inside her tight snatch again.

“Tilt ‘dem hips…atta, girl,” Smokes tapped her pussy with his big dick, “Time to fuck on this dick again, baby…”

“Yes, Papa…”

Rosetta wiggled her hips down onto Smokes thick pipe and her mouth dropped open in surprise. Smokes popped her on the ass hard, his way of telling her to get all the way down. Fully stuffed, Rosetta grabbed onto Smokes shoulders and with a whirl of her hips and a bounce she rode him on that rickety bed like it was her last time.

The fullness stretching her out made her shout Papa, Papa, Papa over and over. Smokes was too damn big for that bed but he made it work. He dug his heels into the lumpy mattress and with both hands he kept her cheeks spread while pumping up into her as she dropped down. Wet, skin slapping noises mixed with the way the bed jumped and creaked beneath them.

The steel of the revolver pressed against Rosetta’s knee each time she bounced. It was rough like she needed it. Deep dicking in her bedroom beneath the moonlight. Smokes slammed up in her so good Rosetta spread her thighs more to feel it stretch her. She craved the soreness, the way it tugged on her clit, the slight sting of his heavy balls slapping her ass.

Pop pop pop

Smack smack smack

Clap clap clap

“Damn, Rosey, gettin’ real whacky on that dick, fuck.”

Smokes grabbed her hips and helped her bounce on his length like a good little fuck doll. Her wavy hair shielded her eyes and those pretty titties swayed in his face.

“You hittin’ my spot, Big Daddy…you hittin’ it so good…make your pussy cum…make your bitch pussy cum…”

“Rosey–”

“Dig deeper, Papa–”

“Grip this dick and wet it up with that sweet nectar!”

Rosetta choked his dick with her walls and her cum trickled down his dick and over his balls. Hand in her hair, Smokes slammed his lips against hers while thrusting deeper.

He needed her more.

Smokes put Rosetta on her back and her legs in the air. He dived back in that pussy with his toes planted against the mattress. Rosetta clawed his back up and they both watched it go in and out. Smokes savored her nipples with his lips and tongue, ignoring the hollow dents in the wall from the headboard.

He grabbed a foot and stuck her red–painted toes in his mouth. Rosetta was super soaker wet on that dick, creating a large stain beneath her ass.

“I just wanna eat you up and fuck you…”

Smokes stared down at that hairy pussy with her leg thrown over his shoulder. He released a breath that came out like the hiss of a locomotive. That shit looked beautiful. If he could paint a picture of the way his dick all big and long spread her open he would. The sweat and humidity in that room made it hard to breath. All he wanted to do was be in his woman. They’ll crack a window eventually.

Well, I’ve got a meat grinder, it belongs to me

It's got good movements, I use it constantly

I’ve got a meat grinder, it belongs to me

It's got good movements, I use it constantly

You don't like good grindin', you ain't gotta bit of sense

It's been going on ever since the world commenced

If you don't like good grindin', ain't gotta bit of sense

‘Cause it's been going on, ever since the world commenced…

“That’s it, Big Daddy, cum all in your fat pussy…”

“Oh, yeah?”

Smokes folded Rosetta in half and pounded the fuck outta her. She furrowed her brows, chewed on that lip hard, and spread her pussy lips with those red nails like she wasn’t open enough already.

“Smokes! Yes! Don’t stop fucking me! Don’t stop fuckin’ your creamy pussy! Milk it, Daddy! Fill me up! Papa! That good hard dick!”

“Ahhhhhhhh–”

“Smoke…oooh…yes…yes…right there, daddy…don’t stop…ooooo shiiiit, daddy…fuuck….get it, da–DDY…”

Smokes gave Rosetta a heated glare and just like that he was filling her to the brim with his thick semen, painting her walls heavily. Dick slipping out, he painted her clit with more. Smokes rubbed his tip between her folds, eliciting a creamy noise. Their tired breaths mingled. Smokes slipped from the bed and stumbled on his way to the bathroom.

He ran a bath and took a piss. Rosetta perched her gorgeous frame against the doorway, body glistening from sweat and cum. She was a sight to behold. Smokes is a lucky man. A bar of Palmolive sat untouched on the edge of the claw foot tub. While Smokes shook the access urine from his dick, Rosetta opened a jar filled with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile herbs, sprinkling it into the tub.

It was big enough to fit the both of them. Smokes slipped in first and then Rosetta settled in front of him. They used a soap sponge to clean each other off thoroughly. This was serenity. Encased in her sweet embrace.

“I love you, Rosey.” He whispered.

“And I love you…”

——

The smell of bacon and butter wafted Rosetta’s nose that early morning. She sat up, messy hair in her face while she stretched her tired arms above her head. Smokes being gone told her that he was cooking up some breakfast. Rosetta threw her sheets back from her body and snatched a satin robe from a coat hanger next to her bed. Feet sliding into a pair of house shoes, she looked down and noticed deep scratches in the wood paneling.

She would need to cover that up with a rug or get someone to buffer that out. She didn’t want her mama to have a fit.

Rosetta made her way into the kitchen, the tea kettle whistling as she approached. Smokes moved about the small room with a blunt between his lips and his dick out and swangin. Rosetta admired his tight ass before her eyes swept over his muscular back. She could see that he was making bacon, buttered toast, eggs, and grits. Smokes sat the cast iron on the stove and looked back when he’d heard footsteps.

“Mornin’ sunshine…”

He pecked her lips.

“Smells real good in here,” Rosetta stole a slice of bacon, “I’m hungry from all that sex.”

“Gotta feed you then, huh?” Smokes winked at Rosetta.

Rosetta stole the blunt from his lips and took a hit.

She coughed slightly, Smokes chuckling.

“Careful wit’ that there, Rosey…”

She took another hit and blew smoke towards him to taunt him before sticking her tongue out. Smoke tapped her on the booty.

“Sit that pretty tail down. I’m a plate this food up.”

Rosetta settled in a dining chair. She noticed the news paper and fresh milk on the table. He must of gone to grab it. Rosetta grabbed the paper and opened it to read. She crossed one shapely leg over the other blunt between her fingers as she held the paper up.

“A train hijacking?” Rosetta announced with surprise.

Smokes glanced over at Rosetta while her brown eyes were glued to the paper. He packed her plate and walked over, placing it in front of her. Back at the stove, Smokes poured her a cup of tea.

“Jesus, killed everyone on board…”

“Gimme’ some neck…”

Rosetta tilted her lips towards Smokes and he stuck his tongue in her mouth. The grip she had on the paper slipped. Smokes snatched it from her grasp and placed it on the table with a loud slap.

“Eat, girl.”

Rosetta grabbed her fork but her eyes remained on Smokes. He could feel her staring while he situated himself across from her.

“Level with me, Smokes…you know ‘bout this?”

“Don’t know from nothing, gal. Eat.”

“I’ll eat when you talk to me.”

“Ain’t nothin to share, baby. Everything is copacetic…”

“Did Stacks do this?” Rosetta questioned.

Smokes’ fork clashed with the table. He gave Rosetta a pointed look of warning. Letting her know to drop it.

“Wasn’t Stacks. Wasn’t me. Wasn’t nobody to get all worked up over. I’m good. We’re good.”

“Smokes…I don’t want you gettin’ yourself in trouble. It’s enough that Phonzo wants you dead—”

“Phonzo punk ass already dead. Might as well call it what it is.”

Rosetta bit her tongue. She knew arguing wouldn’t get her the answers she needed. She didn’t want Smokes to return and get himself into deep shit. She knew he was more than capable of handling himself, but Rosetta needed him alive, especially if she planned to marry him and have his butterball babies.

They ate in silence, the food tasty. Smokes sensed that she wanted more, so he filled her plate up again and Rosetta thanked him with a small smile and a kiss. Smokes watched her eat while smoking his weed and when she finished he cleaned. Rosetta drank her tea with those smooth and thick ol’ gams teasing Smoke’s eyes.

As he scrubbed, Rosetta spread her legs in that chair and spread her lower lips with her fingers. Sweet pink graced his eyes. Smokes watched her stroke her clit. He was high and horny again. Dick stood out like a flag pole.

“You want daddy to eat that pussy…”

“Mhm,” Rosetta licked her plump lips.

Smokes dried his hands and marched over to Rosetta. He picked her up and walked her to the couch.

“Wait, not here—”

“This Miss. Doris’ good furniture,” Smokes laughed, not caring at all about the sofa, “Good thing it’s covered in plastic…”

Her legs parted like the Red Sea. Hips aching and inner thighs burning. Smokes wasted no time slurping on her pussy with a wet tongue and thick lips. Rosetta palmed the back of his head and mushed his face in it. He had a habit of being loud while eating pussy. She could feel herself creaming on his chin when he latched onto her clit to suck.

“Yes, oh, fuck, mmmm….”

Rosetta frowned her pretty face. She had a face that belonged in movies. A rare beauty. Smokes never took his eyes off of her, not even when she came in his mouth. He stuck his tongue so far up her pussy to catch it all. Her robe had spilled open, revealing that hot body to him again. Smokes reached up and rolled her nipples between his fingers while continuing to feast on her overflowing pussy.

Smokes popped his lips off her clit to stare down at his work, “you betta cum again,” He sucked again before stopping, “Cum in my mouth before I stuff you again,” He slurped her up again and Rosetta moaned out, “You know who this pussy belong to. Not Phonzo, not no other nigga…”

Rosetta had to pick her lip up to stop herself from drooling. Her eyes crossed as another orgasm rocked her body. She closed her thighs around Smokes head, unable to take the licks he was giving her.

“Got me ready to fuck again,” Smokes took it upon himself to bend Rosetta over the couch, “Bend that back…atta girl…daddy’s good girl,” Smokes spread her ass cheeks wide and grunted, “Shit, Rosey…”

He hunched his body and with the power of his hips he sank into that good twat. Rosetta rode his tip before he could even fit in. He popped her on the ass with his wide palm before thrusting up and deep. Already she was creaming on his dick. Smokes had her by the arms as he pounded.

Rosetta had that IT like no other. Pretty ass voice, pretty ass doll, perfect pussy, perfect face. Smokes watched her head loll back and forth from the momentous pounding he was giving her. That back arched and that ass jiggling. Her knees almost slipped from the sofa so Smokes had to fix her and put his hand in the middle of her back to keep her stationary.

“I’m a fuck a baby in you.”

Rosetta moaned and clenched his dick.

“Like that? Like when I tell you how I’m a get you pregnant? Like that, sweet baby? Make me a Daddy?”

“YES!”

“All wet on Big Daddy’s dick.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Rosetta yelped when his hand wrapped around her neck from the front, bucking those strong hips and slapping those big nuts against her clit.

Smokes growled deep and with two staggering strokes he came inside of her again. He abruptly turned Rosetta’s head and plunged his tongue into her mouth.

Crack!

Smokes slipped out of Rosey fast and stood tall. Rosetta turned onto her backside quickly, staring up at Smokes with wide eyes.

“Fuck was dat?”

Smokes moved with a brisk pace towards the window within the kitchen, he peered down past the small glass panel at his car.

“What is it, Elijah?”

Rosetta stood behind him with a worried look etched into her beautiful face. Smokes took deep breaths before exiting the kitchen, Rosetta on his heels. He entered her room and grabbed up his pants, uncaring that his underwear sat on the floor.

“Elijah!”

“Stay here…”

Smokes grabbed up his revolve and loaded it up.

Click.

He stormed out of Rosetta’s apartment and down the small staircase leading into the boutique. As he drew closer, his eyes became wild with anger. He unlocked the door and stormed out into the smelting heat with his gun raised. There, a brick lay at his feet. Smokes bent down to pick it up, his cognac eyes following a trail of broken glass until he came upon the shattered window of his Cadillac.

Some people gathered outside to see what all the fuss was about. Smokes peered at them, eyes accusatory and rageful. He knew it had to be someone from Phonzo’s crew. A cheap shot, but still…Smokes was furious. Chest puffed out, he tossed the brick and entered the shop. Locking it up tightly, Smokes turned to find Rosetta staring up at him with a fearful glance.

“They busted out your window…”

“Ain’t nothin’ I can get that patched up…”

Smokes grabbed Rosetta by the elbow, turning her back towards the stairs.

“Daddy gotta go handle some thangs…I want you to stay put and out the way—”

“I’m coming with you, Elijah—”

“No—”

“YES! Yes the fuck I am!”

Rosetta snatched her arm from his hold and stood firm as she glared down at him on the steps.

“I’m tagging along whether ya like it or not.”

Smokes clenched his jaw. Their eyes danced between each other before Rosetta turned her back at him, climbing up.

——

“Scotch…”

Smokes accepted his glass, adjusting Rosetta in his lap. He sat across from his twin, Stacks, the gold in his mouth gleaming. They were sitting in a bar, the sound of distant chatter and glass in the background. The smoke from the cigars they were smoking billowed out like a thick fog. Rosetta wore a chocolate–brown Blondell dress with pantyhose and embroidered T–Straps on her feet in gold. A cloche hat that had covered most of her hair and much of her face was a last minute accessory since she didn’t have time to fix her hair after sweating it all out fucking.

Smokes’ 8-panel hat sat over his own messy hair and he wore his button down shirt untidy with his white beater on display. Stacks looked dapper in his double-breasted mahogany suit with shiny silver buttons and matching cufflinks. Copper silk tie, and black and brown woven Oxford shoes complete the look. His fedora sat on the table next to him.

The Big Cheese took a sip of his own scotch.

“How was your night with that snow bunny?”

Stacks chuckled, “As good as yours was I’m sure, brother. Lay it on me…Phonzo askin’ to go war? Does he not know who he fuckin’ wit?”

“You know dat nigga stupid, Stacks,” He checks his dominoes, “I got word that he’ll want to meet up tonight. I’m not much for talkin’…”

“Hm,” Smokes puffed on his cigar before speaking, “You thinkin’ the corn field?”

“Dig a ditch or two,” Smokes threw out.

“I’ll get Monty on it.”

Rosetta listened to the twins discuss killing and burying Phonzo and whoever else in a corn field. She shivered within Smokes’ lap.

“How ya been, Rosey? Still singing?”

“Of course,” Rosetta smirked at Stacks, “Still gettin’ into trouble I see.”

“You mean your man here,” Stacks pointed towards Smokes, “He’s the trouble.”

“How so?”

“Go on and tell her how you was in Texas.”

Rosetta quirked an arched brow. Smokes shook his head.

“Takin’ his word over mine ain’t the way to go, baby.”

“Uh-huh.” Rosetta wasn’t fully convinced.

She grabbed Smokes’ glass and took a sip. Rosetta watched the twins play another round of dominoes and catch up before Stacks made his leave. He had to make sure things were in order before tonight. A jazz ballad played and Rosetta swayed her hips in Smokes’ lap. She could feel him poking and the thought of sliding up and down on that pole sent chills down her spine.

“Careful there, Tiger,” Rosetta lifted his chin with her finger, “I still gotta cook you dinner.”

“A meal before I bump off? My kinda lady…”

Josephine Baker–I Love My Baby started playing, her voice projecting in a way that emphasized a higher frequency, leading to a brighter, more nasal tone. Rosetta caressed Smokes’ handsome face while staring deeply into his eyes. She sang along to the words, husky breathy tone drawing him in.

Sometimes we quarrel and maybe we fight

But then we make up the following night

When we're together we're great company

I love my baby, my baby loves me

The spell she had on Smokes brought him to his knees before her. He stared at her with those bedroom eyes and a half smirk while she sang to him in his lap. That smoking hot chassis was enough to make him fuck her right there. Smoke tapped his foot and rocked his head while she serenaded him. Others in the bar watched with wonder while balancing liquor and ciggs.

When the song faded out, Rosetta gave Smokes a slow kiss. A wolf whistle echoed and Smokes removed his hat to shield them from view so he could tongue his woman down.

“If it’s a girl, I wanna name her Ella, after my mama…”

“That’s a beautiful name, Elijah.” Rosetta smiled against his lips.

“If it’s a boy,” Smokes took a sip of his scotch, “Emmett.”

Rosetta swatted his bicep with her dainty hand.

“What was that fa’?!” Smokes protested with a dimpled grin.

“I was thinkin’ the same thing!”

“That’s why you my woman…”

Smokes kissed on Rosetta’s neck causing her to giggle. They were both pleasantly faded.

“Is that Smokes?”

“Ida Mae…”

The curvy dame settled in front of them, dolled up and doused in perfume. The smell of Bergamot, Orange Blossom and Lemon burning Rosetta’s nose. Her back stiffened as she surveyed the woman with her sultry eyes and chandelier earrings. Her dark red lips quirked up into a flirty smile.

“When did you high tail back into Nola?”

“A day ago. Why’s you askin’?”

Ida Mae locked eyes with Rosetta for a second.

“Just missed ya’ that’s all. Stacks back too?”

“Ya’ know it.” Smokes replied, caressing Rosetta’s waist, “This is my woman, Rosetta. Rosey, this here is Ida Mae…”

“Pleasantries,” Ida Mae tilted her head in greeting.

Rosetta’s lips remained sealed.

“She owns that whore house in Storyville.”

“Is that so?”

Rosetta cut her eyes at Smokes.

“Yes, a good business if ya’ ask me. Selling pussy is on the up and up, especially these days. Got too much shit to stress about.”

Was he dipping in pussy she didn’t know about? Why the fuck would Ida do some disrespectful shit and flirt with her man in front of her? Smokes had some explaining to do.

“Well, just wanted to say hello. Good seeing ya’ Smokes…tell Stacks I said don’t be a stranger…”

“Will do, Ida.”

She walked away with a tantalizing sway of her hips.

“You wanna tell me what that was?” Rosetta cut to the quick.

“I ain’t fuck nobody else if that’s what ya’ asking.”

“You fuck Ida? Don’t lie to me Smokes…”

“Rosey, cut it out. Ida and Stacks used to fuck ‘round. Probably still do.”

“Yeah, okay, I’m no sappy bird I can tell. Prolly made a stop to that whore house before coming to me. Been writing Ida to keep that pussy ready—”

“Rosey, shut up.” Smokes said through gritted teeth.

“Shut up?” Rosetta kissed her teeth before pushing off of Smokes’ lap, “Go after her!”

Smokes narrowed his eyes at her.

“I ain’t lying to you, Rosetta.”

Rosetta stomped away towards the exit. Smokes followed after her, catching her before she could open the door. He walked with her in his grasp outside, the afternoon heat unbearable. Already he was sweating profusely. Smokes turned her around to face him. Rosetta pointed her gaze over his shoulder, refusing to look at him.

She could be so damn stubborn sometimes.

“I love you. Only you. You need to understand that and quick,” Smokes spoke angrily so close to Rosetta’s face his breath laced with liquor and a hint of chocolate and black pepper from his cigar wafted her nose.

Rosetta pouted. Smokes gripped her chin tight to make her look him in the eye. He needed her to know he was serious.

“Stop it, hear me?”

“Okay…”

She looked from his eyes to his lips.

“So damn hard–headed…”

He kissed her lips before popping her on the ass.

“I’m a drop you off at the shop, okay? I gotta get this window fixed.”

Smokes made sure Rosetta was settled in her seat before he got in. The drive was less than ten minutes. Smokes made sure she was situated, blowing her a kiss through the glass door of the shop before driving off.

Rosetta’s doe eyes followed Smokes’ retreating car.

She wanted to believe he was loyal to her and only her. He’d always been. Maybe it was her mother’s words making her feel insecure. Her mother hated Elijah. Rosetta planned to cook up a steak dinner for Smokes. Ready to get to it, she climbed the stairs and before she opened her door, she noticed a kitchen knife sticking out of the keyhole.

Rosetta gasped, hand covering her mouth. Fear consumed her as she stood there, staring between the crack of the door and into a pitch black abyss. It was eerily silent. Rosetta took a chance and pushed open the door. The light from the stairwell flooded the room. So far, as she peeked inside, she couldn’t see anyone.

Rosetta stepped over the threshold and grabbed the handle of the knife, tugging it to release. She held the knife out in front of her, hand shaking with nerves. Her glossy eyes bounced left and right. She fully stepped inside, frantically moving her hand along the wall until she felt the string of the lamp light. A pinch of relief flooded her veins when the room brightened.

That was all stripped from her just as fast when a gloved hand slipped over her mouth and the weight of a gun pressed into her hip.

——

Hope ya’ll enjoy part two 😏😌

@hearteyes-for-killmonger @imagining-greatness @chaneajoyyy @uzumaki-rebellion @lisayourworries @ratedbadgal @bombshellbre95 @cancerianprincess @dameshaemonique @6lack-1otus @thickemadame @thickeeparker @stinkalinkkkk @ehniki @electrixt @prettyisasprettydoes1306 @melodichaeuxx-lacritquexx @bxolux @sweet2krazee @seyven89 @ispywithmylileye @geemamii @nubianbabee @adoreesun @blackpinup22 @nayaxwrites @cocoa-puffs @dersha89 @honeytoffee @thickianaaaa @modelmemoirs @queenfaithmarie @angelicniah @soulfulbeauty19 @aijha @novaniskye @callmemckenzieee @blowmymbackout @lahuttor @momobaby227 @blackerthings @kenbieee @princessxotwod @palmstreesallday @kokokonako @coolfancyone @soulsparker @richgirlaesthetics

[a-todd-illustration]

The Pixie Hollow fairies as humans and what kind of careers I think they might have.

Tink would be a blacksmith or metal worker. She has her favorite apron that has a few tears and burns on it.

Fawn would be a conservation advocate who volunteers at a wildlife rescue.

Rosetta would own a flower shop. She has a massive garden at home and seems to be able to grow anything.

Iridessa is a light tech for a performance hall. She has a natural knack for perfect placement and effects.

Silvermist works for the water treatment plant. She mainly works in the office and knows everything about everything that has to do with keeping the city water clean.

Feel free to tell me what you think they would do! There's a lot of possibilities of careers they would fit into.

[artycomicfangirl]

Series name: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

Episode Debut Date: N/A (Concept Art, Exact Date Unknown)

Episode No: N/A

(Possible) Episode Name: ‘Waiting For A Star To Ball ’

Notes: At some point, there had been talk of the Show being up to be possibly revived. The goal date was assumed to be somewhere within the mid-late 90s. Or at best, the latest being somewhere within the early 2000s. 'Princess Rosetta', was supposed to have been a one-time character appearing in a single episode. According to drafts, the base premise of this canned episode, begins with Mario and friends taking a stroll within The Mushroom Kingdom. Luigi gets momentarily knocked out by an object falling from the sky. At the same time, King Koopa arrives to Kidnap Princess Toadstool, as he has wanted to take her to his new Space Galactic Resort. Mario blames King Koopa for hurting his brother with a pipe piece, But Koopa, to Mario's Surprise, genuinely admits that the pipe was not his doing. Mario and Gang would go all day trying to chase after the Princess, but had to rest for the night. At night, A small star-shaped creature descends from the night sky, looking for the pipe piece. A Half-awake Mario sees this creature, and assumes it was a dream at first. After Luigi wakes up and also sees the creature, the Creature reveals it is called a 'Luma', and that it only came for the fallen pipe piece. The Luma then explains that the pipe piece had fallen off from their 'Princesse's' Home, high up in the clouds. When the Luma finds out about the gang's current predicament, said Luma even offers to take the gang to it's Princess, saying that she could definitely help them.

[j0ysyndr0m3]

LIFE OF SIN, stack x oc! reader

rosetta ‘rose' thornton finally returns home to the delta after touring for nights as a singer and is surprised to see her former lover, elias 'stack' moore has returned after 7 years in chicago. as the bitterness subsides and past feelings still linger for each other, unbeknownst to them, an even greater evil follows them back home.

warnings — violence, religious trauma, strong language, smut, talks of infidelity, depictions of southern accents, time period drama, mary slander, talks of racism, use of the n word. these are incredibly flawed characters being written. if you don’t like it, don’t read,

all i need in this life of sin, is me and my girlfriend...

elias ‘stack’ moore

down to ride ‘till the very end, just me and my boyfriend...

rosetta ‘rose’ thornton

divider by @uzmacchiato

( if you would like to be tagged, please comment here )

wattpad vers.

prologue

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

[aintnoloveintheheatofthesun]

Some of you are fucking boring.

It had to be said. Pearline is 100% a sinner but the nuance is going right over some of your heads! She is a flapper! Aka, a woman with some privilege in early 20th century America who defies societal expectations of modesty, fashion and femininity. She is meant to surprise you. She is meant to leave you clutching your pearls.

Tell me why I am minding my own business and I come across this pick-me ass, holier than thou shit on Threads.

The problem I have with this comment is the lack of irony. On this blog I will call Pearline many things. Lying ass heffa, OG city girl, dishonourable, messy, wicked, adulterous and much, much more. Bear in mind I say this with love. She is absolutely wrong and I adore her.

In a story with literal demonic creatures, a Black woman dancing freely is devilish?

Fuck your dull, prescriptive, puritanical world view.

This movie is not meant to represent angels vs devils, good vs evil. For any viewer to watch this shit and create their own binary of Madonna vs Whore is deeply disappointing. I am begging you to read bell hooks anything, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde anything. Black women have never been protected by imitating white, middle class, evangelical gender norms. I can promise you, if Pearline went straight home from Clarksdale station to her NPC ass husband, minded her own business she would still be at the mercy of the clan in Mississipi and the constitution of a country where she can barely vote. Her shaking some tail is an expression of joy! And freedom! Things she might rarely experience in this social and political context! Fuck.

This woman howls, tap dances, grinds and moans on stage. She crawls across the floor boards like a lion watching a herd of gazelles. She is wild. She is uninhibited.

Do you know who else had their style of dance described as possessed? Devilish? Animalistic? Primitive? Josephine Baker.

One of the most talented, celebrated Black women of the early 20th Century. She understood how she was viewed by society and she lived unapologetically. I read a very interesting book by Alicja Sowinska that explored how white critics discussed Josephine Baker. They found her exotic, strange and utterly captivating. They couldn't understand how a Black woman in 1920/30 could be so sexually deviant and bold. How unladylike!

Josephine Baker was not a devil nor a whore. She was an artist with a political consciousness that served her career very well. Their ignorance and obsession with her body was not lost on her, she took their stereotypes of wild women and savage Africans and inverted them. She made them her own; and in doing so, became a trail blazer.

No one is expecting you to praise her infidelity. I am asking you to engage with social context! Do you really think she chose her husband? Do you truly believe she has access to all the rights and opportunities available to white men at the time? Do you really think she wants her only taste of freedom to be in sweaty juke joint she had to walk to?

Pearline is a three-dimensional Black female character, clearly inspired by the likes of Josphine Baker and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Black women that challenged America's notions of sexuality, artistry and genius.

This woman is nurturing her artistic abilities, living life on her own terms and saying 'fuck you' to polite society.

She is a married woman who openly flirts with a younger man she has just met. She swings her hips in broad daylight, and looks back to make sure he's watching. She gets ate off the bone in the back room of an illegal juke joint. She wears her wedding ring as she gets head from a preacher's son.

In conclusion, I love her.

[nocturnewidow]

hi :) if you find this interesting, would you write about what the moon boys would do for fun with their partner?? like hobbies and stuff!

thank you <3

hii anon !! omg yes I love this idea ^_^

Steven Grant !!⊹₊⋆

Steven is all about the soft, intellectual hobbies ,, think quiet Sundays spent in a cozy museum corner, your hands barely brushing as you admire ancient artifacts. He brings you tea (with too much honey, always), and excitedly tells you facts about the Rosetta Stone or ancient Egyptian love poetry.

At home, he’s big on reading aloud to you. Sometimes he tries to teach you hieroglyphs, but ends up getting distracted watching your reactions instead. He journals a lot little notes about your days together, pressed flowers, movie stubs and he lets you read them if you ask nicely.

Also: puzzle nights. Candlelight, jazz records, and 1,000 pieces of a Van Gogh scene between you two, finished at 2AM with sleepy grins. :33

Marc Spector ❀˖°

Marc’s idea of fun is movement ,, hiking, boxing, road trips with the windows down and your feet on the dash. He’s not a big talker, but there’s something healing in how he always makes space for you next to him in whatever adventure he’s chasing.

He teaches you self-defense and gets way too serious about it, but then kisses your bruised knuckles like he didn’t just block your jab with his forearm. He’s also a surprisingly good cook! uses it as therapy. You end up slow dancing in the kitchen more than actually eating.

Sometimes, he just wants to lie on the roof and listen to music with you, hands clasped on his chest, eyes closed. No words. Just peace.

Jake Lockley !⋆.°

Jake doesn’t share hobbies so much as he pulls you into his world ,, driving around the city at midnight with no destination, sharing greasy diner food in silence while he watches you across the table like you hung the moon.

He’s into fixing things, engines, watches, broken radios. He’ll let you sit on the workbench while he tinkers, always smirking when you steal his screwdriver just to get his attention.

He’s got a stash of old vinyl and will play DJ just to see you dance around his apartment. Sometimes he lets you drive the cab (just in empty lots… probably). Also: he’s secretly amazing at card tricks, but refuses to tell you how he does them.

[scftpcws]

Star Crossed| Armando Aretas | Teaser

✩Description: Requested by @nelo0wesker : “Enemies to lovers Armando X reader. Readers in the mafia while Armando in the cartel”

✩ Pairing : Armando Aretas x Fem!reader

✩ Genre : Dark Mafia Romance

✩ Warnings: 17+ (smut in later chapters, Violence, Drug usage, Gang Violence, Sexual/Dark themes, Child endangerment, source accurate violence, bad language, death, my awful spelling and grammar, my terrible Spanish translations (i’m a little rusty), made up characters

✩ Fandom: Bad Boys

✩ Taglist : @nelo0wesker @twinklestarslight @mzbeautii96 @geneziesm @mcotton0928 @omg-mymelaninisbeautiful @sunrisesfromthewest

✩ A/n: i didn’t know how i could put this in one post so its going to be a multi part fic! i really hope yall enjoy this . i should be updating weekly (hopefully..) pls lmk if you wanna be added to the taglist or if you would like a rundown of the characters xx

anywayss…

Teaser under the cut !! * *‧.₊˚*੭*ˊᵕˋ੭.*

enjoy!! :)

Star Crossed| Armando Aretas

“But Dad, why?” she huffed, throwing her arms in the air in frustration.

“Because i said no.”

“But thats not a good enough answer.”

“Y/n, seriously, leave it alone.” he responded, shooting her a glance.

“But I have been training my whole life for this! How am i supposed to take over one day if you can’t trust me to do this?!” she was seething with rage, her nails digging into her palms. She had been told she could ‘go out in the field’ once she had completed her training and was now being denied that right. To say it pissed her off was a serious understatement.

“Mom would want me to do this!”

“Your mother is dead! She cannot want anything! You’re not going and that is final!”

She took a step back, tears welling in her eyes. Ever since her mother had died on a mission, her father had become cold and distant. It was almost as if he never cared for her.

“Thats not fair , and you know it,” she spoke through gritted teeth, her hands balled up in fists at her sides. “If you really don’t want me there despite me being your best agent, fine. But when it all goes to shit, don’t ask me to help.”

She left her fathers office, the thud of her boots following her. Her father sighed, holding his face in his hands. Y/n was just like her mother, dedicated, hardworking, and undeniably stubborn. She couldn’t understand why her father wouldn’t allow her to assist the team on this mission. She thought he was coddling her, holding her back from her full potential. But in reality, he was protecting her.

She stomped all the way to her room, throwing herself on the plush mattress. Her bedroom door clicked open, the sound of kitten heels on the hardwood floors piquing her attention.

“Little one, what did i tell you about shoes on the bed?” the sweet and comforting voice of her childhood nanny, Rosetta, made her huff out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. “Sorry Miss Rosetta.” she apologised, unlacing her boots and placing them by her bed. “Good, now what’s with that face? Pretty girls like you shouldn’t frown like that.” Rosetta smiled softly, sitting next to her. Her hair was bouncy and smelled like shea butter and coconut oil. Her makeup was light and refreshing, making her look younger than she really was, though Y/n would never point that out because she knew how sensitive Rosetta was about her looks. she dressed unlike the house staff you would expect to find in a home like Y/n’s, more like a rich aunt rather than a nanny.

“Dad is being difficult again.” Y/n grumbled, crossing her arms, her lip slightly jutted out. Rosetta smiled softly at her, the wrinkles by her eyes becoming more prominent. “Now Miss Y/n, you know he is just looking out for you. He doesn’t want you to get hurt, or worse.” she reasoned, petting y/n’s hair. Rosetta was painfully aware of what had happened to Y/n’s mother, and knew it was a sensitive subject, so she made sure to tread lightly.

Y/n stood from her place on the bed, pacing around her lavish room. “But i am not a baby anymore and he knows that! I am one of the most skilled people on the team but he still treats me like a child. It’s not fair!” she argued, her frustration becoming more and more apparent in the way she spoke.

Rosetta smiled, “Well i can’t blame him when you act like this. If i didn’t know any better, i’d say you were having a temper tantrum,” she joked, her tone light, a gentle grin on her face. Y/n rolled her eyes in response, walking back to her bed. Rosetta held her arms open for her, as she used to when Y/n was younger. She laid her head in Rosetta’s lap, allowing the older woman to rake her fingers through her hair, the tension melting from her body.

“Look, Munchkin, your Baba cares about you. He wants you to be safe, and so do i. He has already lost so much, he cannot lose you too.”, Rosetta affirmed, looking down at the sweet girl in her lap. She looked almost the same as she did when she was a child, still soft and precious, but fiercer and somehow more headstrong.

Y/n often despised the way that no matter what Rosetta said, she made sense, she always made sense. “Now dinner will be ready soon, will you be coming down?” She asked, looking down at the girl curled up in her lap.

“I will, but i’m not talking to him.”

The dinner was quiet as ever, just Y/n and her father sat at the table on opposite ends, the same way it had been since her mother died. Rosetta stood off to the side, refilling their glasses whenever they emptied.

“Silent treatment? Real mature Y/n, real mature.” he father stated, taking a sip from the glass of water Rosetta had poured for him. Y/n stood her ground. She wasn’t trying to be childish or petty, she was trying not to to say something she would regret later on, for she did not have a good grasp on the sharp tongue she inherited from her father. Though, it did make arguments with him all the more interesting. “The target is called Benit-”

“Im not going remember? why would you tell me?” she interrupted harshly, her jaw clenched and eyes glaring daggers at her father. “You exhaust me, daughter, you really do.” Her dad sighed, taking a forkful of food and putting it into his mouth. “I’m just trying to fill the silence that you insist upon, because you are too spoiled to take no for an answer, but i guess that is not good enough for you, because nothing ever is.” he grumbled, knowing perfectly well that she would hear every word.

“I insist on the silence, because at least when it’s silent my very existence isn’t being insulted.” she quipped back, cutting up her food and shoving some in her mouth in a hurried attempt to shut herself up. Her father may be head of one of the most powerful mafia families in the world, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t her dad.

“Well maybe if you just did as you were told for once, without questioning my every decision i wouldn’t have to call you out on your petulance!”

“Oh I’m petulant? Says the man who won’t let anyone do anything because he’s too afraid!”

“You are just like your mother, always flying off the handle, not thinking before acting!”

“Mom never listened to your stupid demands and orders!”

“Look where that got her!, the silence was so deafening you could hear a pin drop. “Honey I-”

“How could you say something like that? She did nothing but love you and this is how you talk about her? You berate her for the only mistake she ever made, which was protecting me! She was perfect, never cursed, was polite and knew how to handle herself without getting herself into trouble. You tell me i am just like her?! Well i wish i was like her, maybe then you wouldn’t view me so negatively . Or maybe you would, because that’s exactly how you view her.” Her fists slammed against the table as she rose from her chair.

“Miss Y/n-”

“Miraculously my appetite has gone, thank you for the food though Rosetta.” and with that, she left to her room.

“I dont even want to hear it, Rose” her father huffed, his brows furrowed and his hands clenched together.

“You are both in the wrong. That’s all.” She smiled, placing her hand on Claude’s shoulder, her thumb grazing the fabric of his well tailored suit.

“I know.”

“Hey Boss?” a tall man, of a muscular build walked up to the table, papers in hand. “Yes Lorenzo?” Claude responded, rubbing his temple with his fingers. “I got everything i could on our target from our guy inside, but his tracker just went dead.” Lorenzo admitted, his head low, making sure not to make eye contact with his boss.

“What do you mean his tracker went dead?” Claude breathed, his fist slamming on the table top, causing Rosetta to jump while she cleaned up. “I mean his tracker was on and then it wasn’t.” Lorenzo asserted, huffing out a breath.

“You think this is funny, Enzo?” Claude stood up, grabbing the collar of Lorenzo’s shirt in his fist and and pulling his face closer toward his own.

“No boss.” Claude stared right into Lorenzo’s eyes, his teeth clenched in fury.

“Fix it.”

“Well, we think he may have been discovered, and you know, blown his cover.” Enzo responded calmly, knowing if he reacted the way he wanted to he’d be out of a job, and possibly a life. “Damn you Aretas.” he sighed, his knees suddenly becoming weak.

“Boss!”

“Claude!”, Rosetta ran to his side, holding him up as Lorenzo helped her situate him in the chair. “Kill him, i dont care what you have to do to make it happen. i want him dead.”

“Miguel. Ven aqí (come here)” a gruff voice demanded silence from a small group of men playing a round of Cheat, at a table in the middle of a worn down garage.

“Yeah Jay?” Miguel answered, a sweet smile gracing his lips, his two gold canines on full display.

“Did you do what i asked you to?” he was strangely calm, his left eyebrow slightly raised in mock amusement.

“Yeah of course i did.” Miguel answered, his hands moving straight to his pockets. He was lying.

“What did i ask you to do, hmm?” Jay’s hand made its way to Miguels face, squishing the skin in his hand, as the panic started and sweat began to settle on his forehead. ‘oh shit, what did he ask me to do,’ he thought, trying hard to remember the simple task he was asked to complete.

“I asked you to count the money.”

“Oh yeaaah count the money,” his response was delayed and drawn out, a clear indication that he had not in fact counted the money like Jay had asked him to.

“You see, Compa (friend), i asked you to do one thing,huh? Una cosa (one thing) , and you couldn’t even do that,” Miguel looked his ‘friend’ up and down, he was clearly upset, he fucked up.. bad.

before he could utter an apology for his incompetence he felt the cool end of a gun against his temple. “One thing buddy, thats all i asked. Look man, I knew you were stupid, but i didn’t know all that food you ate inhibited your brain functions!” Jay’s words were like venom. He was never nice to anyone but this was too far, even for him.

“Look man, i got distracted, I’m sorry, i’ll count the racks up before Boss gets back, i swear just don’t shoot.” he begged, tears beginning to well in his eyes.

“I should shoot ya’ in ya’ head, maybe it’ll rearrange your brain, make you useful, hmm?” he spat, digging the barrel of the gun further into his skull. “Or maybe i should shoot ya’ dick off, maybe then you’ll spend less time thinking about las putas (the whores) we see on the street and more time thinking about the simple fucking things i ask your dumbass to do!”

“Please man, you know i have a wife and kids, man. I am begging you.”

“Damn, i forgot about that pretty little thing you call your wife. fuck, you think if if i shoot you i could play step daddy for you, hmm? Keep your side of the bed warm. Snuggle up with ya’ Mrs, give her some good- ”

*Bang*

The sound of a gunshot resounded through the garage. Miguel checked himself over for bullet holes as Jay’s body hit the ground with a heavy thud, his gun falling from his grasp.

“Louis.” Armando said, watching the blood pour from Jay’s lifeless body and pool around him. “Yeah boss?,” a young boy, no older than 19 stood abruptly from his seat at the card table, almost knocking his chair over.

“Clean that up will you? I hate rats.”

“Yes boss.”

“And Miguel? Go count the money before i bury you with him.”

“Yes, boss.”

Hope you enjoyed the teaser!! the first part will be out soon xx

[revivemyreverie]

"One day, I'll find my savior, and they'll save me from this world of witches."

Twisted from: Prince Florian (Snow White)

Aldrich Edelweiss

ベーガス・キャスティヤ

CV: Murase Ayumu (村瀬 歩)

Technical info.

Gender: Male

Birthday: 04/27

Age: 19

Height: 5'7

Hair Color: Cinnamon Brown

Eye Color: Black

Hand Pref.: Right

Homeland: Edelweiss Empire

College Info.

Class: 2A Set 5

Club: Track and Field

Favorite Subject: Biology

Other.

Hobby: Hunting

Likes: Camellia Flowers

Dislikes: "Witches"

Favorite Food: Chocolate

Hated Food: Apples

Specialty: Navigation

UM: One Song

Can mimic the voice of another for exactly 3 minutes and 25 seconds.

A So-Called “Hunt”

An old poster that was once strewn across every wall in a certain kingdom. Now, it’s like it has been forgotten.

Royal Decree

Due to unforeseen circumstances and the tragic passing of Lady Rosetta, the Ceremony of Eternal Vows has officially been canceled. Additionally, a candlelight vigil hosted by Prince Valentine Edelweiss will be held in his fiancée’s honor tonight.  A new curfew will be instated on XX/XX/XXXX. All citizens will be required to return to their homes by 7 pm, sharp. Similarly, all magicians must now be open to being investigated by the Witch Hunting Corps. Wands and other means of magic not officially registered under the kingdom’s database will be confiscated and destroyed. Anyone with information regarding possible leads to Lady Rosetta’s death is to report their findings to Crown Prince Aldrich Edelweiss. Failure to follow any of these orders may result in the following: -Confiscation of all magical items -A fine up to 150,000 Madol -Arrest & Jail time -Exile -Execution We understand this may be very stressful and difficult to adapt to. However, to ensure the safety of this kingdom, it is of utmost importance that all citizens remain calm and orderly. The witch is to be caught soon, and justice soon served.

May the Flowers Bloom in Eternity

Edelweiss Royal Crown

[whencyclopedia]

Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is an incomplete grey and pink granodiorite stela dating from 196 BCE which presents a priestly decree concerning King Ptolemy V of Egypt. The text is in three different versions: Hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek, a fact which immeasurably helped to finally decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Rosetta Stone is today on display in the British Museum, London.

Recovery

The Rosetta Stone was discovered at Port Saint Julien, el-Rashid (Rosetta) on the Nile Delta in Egypt in 1799 CE by Pierre François Xavier Bouchard. Bouchard was an officer of engineers in Napoleon's army, and he extracted the stone from an old wall which was being demolished as part of the construction work on Fort Julien. Bouchard's commanding officer, one General Menou, realising its importance, had the stone sent to Alexandria. Casts and copies were made, but the stone was later seized by the British general Tomkins Turner and so the artefact eventually found a permanent home in the British Museum in London.

Several noted international scholars endeavoured to use the Rosetta stone to decipher hieroglyphics, but it was the Englishman Thomas Young who first identified some of the hieroglyphs which related to Ptolemy V Epiphanes (205-180 BCE) and the direction in which the symbols should be read. However, it was in the early 1820s CE that the Egyptian language text was fully deciphered by the French scholar Jean-François Champollion who discovered that the hieroglyphics were, in fact, a mixture of alphabetic, determinative and syllabic elements. Consequently, the full significance of Egyptian hieroglyphs, lost for 1600 years, was finally re-discovered.

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