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honeysidesarchived · 3 years

Text

× pretty please // santphie

words: 4.9k

rating: explicit! for explicit content. it's baby's birthday she can have a good old fashioned railing as a treat.

warnings: santino terrorizing his sister (and not in the canon-typical way, sorry gi). public ~fornication~, lots of pretending like we don't want to fuck each other's brains out, sort of brat taming from both of them; they're both switches what do u want from me. liberal use of italian interjections that i know and then some google translate because what, you think i know how to say that filthy shit in italian? not i

notes: nothing to say for myself ! just wanted to give euphie a good time since ! you know, her canon is full of suffering and misery, and this is the day of her birth. happy birthday effie sorry for all i do to you

Santino should be having fun. Everyone is celebrating him, after all—him, his new fiance—and he should be having fun, and the only thing that he can think about is when he’s going to be able to leave the damn party.

At first, it’s only little things. He likes when people are envious of him, likes to show Euphemia off, especially in front of members of the Camorra—beckoned at Gianna’s behest to attend the engagement party, of which there will be a near-identical one occurring in a few weeks back in New York—but for some reason, tonight is different.

Perhaps it’s because Euphemia is uncharacteristically sociable. She is normally so unapproachable as to make him feel even more special when she accepts his touches or seeks out his hand. But tonight—and maybe, he could reason, this is in part Gianna’s fault—she very much comfortable being the star that she is, accepting kisses to her cheek and hands on her and compliments, swimming around her in an intoxicating cloud.

She is golden, his girl—loose, flaxen waves and the drape of a silken slip of a dress, fabric precariously arranged to cover the most important parts while still baring all of that skin. She may as well not be wearing hardly anything at all—but he thinks she knows that, given that he’d bought that dress for her and she’d said, so this is what you want to see me in, Santi?

Euphemia can wear anything he picks for her and make it look effortless, he knows; this sits differently on her. Or perhaps it is the engagement ring. Or, even again, perhaps it is that she’s here, in Rome, letting Gianna parade her and that engagement ring around. Santino loves nothing more than to watch people fawn over what he’s accomplished, after all, and that’s part of what’s making the entire evening such torture, really; wanting, more than anything, to dig his fingers into her thighs and make her say his name, drag her to the nearest abandoned hallway (of which, he thinks, there must be many) and fuck her absolutely stupid. She is so sweet, when he does.

Yes. He likes to have the thing that nobody else can have. But he likes to have it because nobody else can, and watching hands brush all of that exposed skin, overly familiar, while Euphemia feigns saccharine laughter over her wine glass like a tried and true socialite, reminds Santino that she has spent many years playing this game of pretend.

“You are sulking,” Gianna says.

It jars him out of his thoughts, bringing him back to the present—the situation at hand remaining, as ever, tedious. He wants Euphemia to stop letting them fawn over her because the only attention she wants is his.

Santino shoots her a look, hand tucked into the pocket of his slacks. He’s not sulking, but he supposes that he might as well make sure he isn’t giving that impression, anyway. “Whatever would I be sulking about, my dear sister?”

“You like your Euphemia tempestuous.” She pauses, her mouth quirked in a wry smile. “Don’t you think, Santino, that you prefer her that way? When she is cold and unyielding, your little ice queen? It makes that you have tamed her all the better. Now, because of that fat rock you put on her hand, she is playing nice, and everyone is touching your thing.” She stops again, and then she laughs. “And you are sulking. At your own engagement party, no less.”

“Thank you, Gianna, for your commentary,” he replies tersely. “Your acute observation of my distress is, as always, categorically scathing. What would I do without you to dangle my fiance in front of the hungry pack like a scrap of meat?”

“Oh, dio ce ne scampi e liberi! She is going to be a D’Antonio, little brother.” Gianna eyes him. “If you’re going to have a pretty wife, at least use her properly.”

I would like to, he thinks tartly, use her, which is why this entire event has become so tedious.

Euphemia glances over at him. Their eyes meet. She wipes a stray drop of wine from the rim of her glass and slips her thumb past glossed lips, a gesture which he thinks might be innocent if she didn’t flutter her lashes and drag her thumb from her mouth in a way that he can only describe as lascivious. Suddenly, he feels quite warm. And envious, of the party guests within her immediate vicinity.

“This has been fun,” he announces abruptly, intent on finding some reason or another to pull Euphemia away from the moths fluttering to her flame and instead seek out an abandoned hallway or empty room. “Thank you, again, Gianna. Euphemia and I will—”

“You don’t think you are leaving so soon!” Her voice is chiding, but sharp. Gianna snags the crook of his elbow with her hand, firm, and the lightest press has him falling into step with her, despite his every intention otherwise. “I have someone I want you to meet. Alfonso Bianchi, you remember him? He was...”

Her voice trails off. The evening suddenly seems to stretch out much longer ahead of him; endless, almost, and Euphemia doesn’t make it any easier on him. If he thought that she had been torturing him before, it’s certainly worse now—any chance to drag his attention to her, to the playful dip of her sternum exposed by her dress is taken. He’s sure that he only takes his eyes off of her a maximum of three times over the next two hours.

They circle. Somewhere, they swap company—he departs Gianna and her guests and tries to wind his way casually through the party, so as to appear the most unsuspicious, only to find that when he’s stopped by a couple of his father’s old family friends, Euphemia is being beckoned into a group by his sister, the brush of fabric against the back of her thighs as tantalizing as ever, and all the more out of his reach.

He endures, somehow. He endures the torturous beckoning of her mouth, the absent adjusting of the fabric of her dress against her skin, the pretty flush spreading through her cheeks from the wine she’s been nursing all evening, the way she worries her lower lip with pearly teeth. He endures until he can’t quite, anymore, until he finds himself cross the room and planting a hand on the small of her back.

“Cara mia,” he announces, nosing the slope of her jaw, “your glass is almost empty. We should get you another.” His fingers curl absently into the fabric of the dress, admiring the way it crumples in his hand, lifting the hem just-so. “From the kitchen. I’m tired of red, aren’t you?”

She watches him with an amused glimmer in her eyes, setting her glass down on the table. “Thirsty, Santino?” she idles. Wicked woman.

“You just don’t want to share Euphie with us,” Gianna protests. The other women in their little conversation make amused noises of agreement; their husbands stay, blissfully, out of the weighing of opinions. “But you can’t keep her holed away forever, little brother. You get to see her every day, after all.”

“Solo por un minuto, sorella,” Santino replies, flashing her a quick smile. She is pushing his buttons. “And then you can have her back as long as you like.”

“Well, if it’s only a minute, then,” Euphie says, laughing like she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing. “Don’t worry, Gi, I will make sure he doesn’t keep me so long.”

Gi. Santino should be chagrined that they’ve bonded so quickly, but he’s not; mostly, he’s irritated that he promised a minute, and that Euphie has promised to hold him to it. Predominantly in his mind is delight at nudging her along ahead of him, away from the chatter and music of the party, into the blissful muted quiet of the kitchen that the staff have long since abandoned.

“So, how many of these women have you fucked?”

It’s a question that shouldn’t surprise Santino—his Euphie has always been a straight shooter, straight to the bone with no worry for the tendons and tissue between—but as he trails after his fiance into the kitchen, he is. Or rather, he’s surprised that’s what she says, first, implying that all evening she has been stewing in some kind of torture just like he has. It feels less alone.

Hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks, he walks around the counter, watching her curiously as she rinses out a glass.

“Are you jealous?” he prompts, playful and trying not to sound too pleased with himself—nor too distracted by the fabric barely covering her ass—as he slinks into the kitchen behind her. The murmur of conversation drifts in, far enough away that the words are slipping through in tendrils only—warm, and inviting, but nothing quite as tenacious as the draw of his wife-to-be.

The blonde hmms. The sound itself nearly verges on a laugh—nearly, but not quite—and she sets her glass on the counter and pours herself more wine. As soon as Santino closes any space between them, she turns, hands balanced lightly on the marble countertop and soon accompanied by his own to efficiently box her in.

It is always like this, with them. Euphie wants to be chased. She is a fox down to the very marrow of her bones, silken and flighty and coveted and restless.

She says again, “How many?”

And needle-sharp teeth, too. Mustn’t forget the teeth.

“A few,” he admits, glancing over his shoulder before turning his attention back to the blonde in front of him. She looks unperturbed by this revelation, and he lifts one hand, cupping her chin and tilting it upward. “But I didn’t make the guest list, Euphie.”

“Yes,” she agrees, “no one has ever known you to exert your will where it is not wanted, Santi.”

He groans. “Per carità, you mean to torture me, as you have done all evening.”

“Well, I do like when you beg,” Euphemia acquiesces lightly.

“You know why she invited them,” he says. He likes that the attention is back on him, now, in whatever capacity this is. “She is showing off that they cannot hope to take anything from her, now. No little brother to seduce, whatever will they do?”

He drops his hand from her chin and instead lets his fingers trail the elegant slope of her neck. So much skin, he thinks affectionately. She is a long call from the girl tightly-wound and strapped into dark fabrics up to the cradle of her throat, no longer with the elegant lines of her face hardened and no longer that intrinsic flight instinct up in her throat. It’s a wonder that he ever got her out of her clothes to begin with; and now, he knows, that desire to flee is still there, a girl ready to disappear at a moment’s notice, but she is tamed. For him.

For now.

“So,” Santino continues playfully, leaning in and brushing his nose against hers, “are you jealous?”

Preferably, she would say yes. Preferably, she would say, of course I was jealous, Santi, don’t you see the way they look at you, the same way that I look at you? And he would tell her that nobody could ever look at him the way that she does, and if they tried, it wouldn’t matter, and she would be so swept up in the romance of it all she’d beg him to fuck her right there.

Instead, the corners of her mouth quirk upward; she smooths her hand along his tie, winding it absently around her hand and tugging playfully. She is close enough to kiss, if he wants; close enough he could glide his tongue along the seam of her lips, tilt her head back and press his mouth to her pulse point, to the sensitive spot just below her ear that always makes her squirm and sigh. He could, but he knows that Euphie wants the game, and the laughter drifting from the party outside is doing no favors in keeping him from getting distracted.

“Maybe,” she admits, her tone as nonchalant as his own honesty from before. “But you have been missing me all night, haven’t you?”

Santino rumbles his discontent. She makes him hungry. “Of course, my love.”

“And every night you come home to me,” Euphemia murmurs, pitching her voice lower, “and you say, oh, Euphie, please let me fuck you, I’ve been so good. Isn’t that right?”

He has always known she has a filthy mouth. Gianna would say it’s a sign of her breeding, with all of the affection in the world, knowing full-well that poverty has encompassed most of Euphemia’s life. Not that it shows, now, in the kitchen, where he would gladly ignore the party outside in favor of sliding to his knees for her.

Euphemia’s hand tightens around the fabric of his tie, and she tugs again—more of a yank, this time—bringing him back to the current. In the low, dimmed lighting of the sleeping kitchen, she looks particularly golden, his girl.

“Isn’t it?” she prompts, silkily. “Santi?”

God, he wants her so fucking bad. The dress is one thing, the dodging of him all night another, the minutes passing in preferred solitude with their clothes still on yet another entirely.

“Yes,” he says a little breathlessly. He leans into her as she beckons him with that tug, no space between their bodies, nudging her legs apart to slide his thigh between them. “I do, just for you.”

There’s a sweet little sound that comes out of her, like a consideration. “I can be good too, Santi,” Euphie purrs. Still soft, kept just between them in the magical, quiet area of the kitchen, fending off the din of the party outside. “Sit you down in a chair and ride your thigh until I come undone from just that and your voice.”

The air bubbles with electricity, snapping and popping between them, and it feels like it’s harder to breathe—just a little, now, with the images that Euphemia is planting in his brain; Euphie, flushed and moaning, gripping his shoulder as she drives herself to her finish, begging his name over and over again like a prayer. He wants to be out of his clothes. Immediately.

“Shouldn’t you give me whatever I want, if I’m good?”

“Yes, Euphie,” Santino manages out hoarsely. “Anything you want.”

She looks pleased. “Would you fuck me right here, if I asked you?” She murmurs silkily, lips brushing his. “Right in your sister’s kitchen, if I begged? If I said, please, Santi, I need you inside me so badly?”

Santino only manages to stifle his groan halfway, the second half of it slipping out of him not only because of her words, but because of the way they come out in a sighed moan. She presses against him, down against his thigh, and it takes every ounce of his self-control not to wad her dress up around her thighs—the fabric would rip easily, he considers, split right with the slightest amount of pressure.

“The fucking mouth on you,” he rumbles against her ear. “You know I would, belladonna, fuck you right here, if you asked me to.”

She sighs prettily, squirming against him for just a moment; just enough to give him a tiny bit of friction, almost by accident, if he didn’t know her better. “Yes,” Euphie murmurs, “I do know. You would love the opportunity to have your way with me where anyone could see.”

She lets his tie slip out from her grip, smoothing it flat; but though she’s loosened her playful chokehold on him, he opts to bury his face into her neck, mouthing a hot, open-mouthed kiss against her pulse point. Her hand grips the crook of his elbow and her breath hitches, and he thinks, now I’ve caught you, my little fox, now you’re all mine.

Euphemia says, “But I won’t ask, and you’ll go back to playing nice out there with all of your sister’s guests.”

It’s the game, of course; Euphie likes when he chases her, likes when he has to work for it because it means that he really wants her. He hums against her skin and slides his hand along her hip, thumbing the elegant slope of it through her dress.

“Is that what you want me to do?” Santino asks lightly, though his voice sounds only barely controlled, even to him, words burning against the warmth of her skin. “Go out and play nice for you, tesora?”

Laughter slips out of her, and she reaches up, threading her fingers in his hair and guiding his mouth to hers just as she says, “I never want you to play nice, Santi.”

He kisses her hard, enjoying the way her lips part beneath his obediently and she moans into his mouth—so sharp, his Euphie, until she isn’t, until she’s blooming and squirming and sighing just for him; her fingers twist in his hair and pull him closer, despite her claims that she won’t ask him to stay, that he’ll go out and mind himself with the guests there to celebrate them.

Silkily, he glides a hand up beneath the hem of her dress, dragging the pad of his thumb along the inside of her thigh before drifting up and up and up; only to discover, with delight, that a specific amount of fabric is conveniently missing.

“What’s this?” he purrs, gliding his fingers against her, watching the way her lashes flutter and her teeth dig into her lip. “I think maybe you have been waiting for me all night, Euphemia—certainly feels like it.”

An impatient, wicked little sound comes out of her. She’s already leaning into his touch, even when he gets only just close enough to giving her what she wants—the idea of departing this particular area for somewhere more private is rapidly dwindling out of his mind.

“Maybe,” Euphie ventures playfully.

“More’s the pity. I like ripping them off.”

“And yet,” she breathes, sweeter than before, “you were jealous this whole time.”

He makes a low sound against her mouth. There’s a part of him that wants to give her just what she wants, to say please the way she likes, to feel thebut Santino can tell she’s hungry for him, too—she’s kissing him, without prompting, insistent and impatient and gliding her hands down to his belt even though she’s telling him to beg.

Santino says, speaking low against her mouth, “You are being a brat, Euphemia Volpe, and I’m going to fuck it out of you.”

With ease, he hooks his arms around the backs of her thighs and lifts her. The blonde’s arms instinctively loop around his neck; she makes a delighted protest, something that’s barely audible over the sound of her wine glass toppling into the sink as he slides her further up onto the counter.

He’s debating the logistics of turning on the light or indulging himself immediately when Euphie hooks a slender leg around his waist, tugging him closer even as she says, laughing, “You’re not going to—”

“I will,” he promises, decision made for him as he fists handfuls of finespun silk fabric and pushes them up around her hips. It’s all of Santino’s self-control not to groan, just dropping his head to press a kiss to the inside of her thigh.

Euphemia leans back, hands against the marble, her eyes dark with want. “Here?”

“Here,” Santino confirms lowly. He one-handedly undoes his belt as his mouth ventures further up, letting his fiance hook her leg over his shoulder as he makes his way—slow enough that he feels her shift impatiently encounter, but not so slowly that he’s torturing himself. Not anymore than he needs to be, anyway.

It wouldn’t matter, because when he does reach his goal, the result is the same; Santino moans into her softness, shoulders dropping in something like relief when Euphemia makes a honey-sweet sound and tugs on his hair. There’s a tight, white-hot pleasure twisting and coiling in his gut already,

“So good, cara mia,” he sighs. “Euphemia Sancia, I ought to worship you well. Isn’t that what you said?”

He does. He’s wanted to, all night—from the second she put this scrap of a dress on, sustaining and continuing even as she tormented him, he’s wanted to get on his knees and get his mouth on her. He grips her hips to keep them in place as he flattens his tongue, cutting a sticky swathe against her and drinking in the way she immediately whines and attempts to lift her hips to meet the heat of his mouth.

“The—door,” she manages out, her breath hitching. “You didn’t lock it—”

He hums—purrs against her, pleased with himself but more than that pleased to finally have her. He lets his mouth venture, despite her wordless protest with her fingers in his hair, tugging tugging tugging with impatience even when her words are locked with her desire to stay in control. She’s always liked having him beg, even early in the days—as much as she says she’s above greed, he thinks it’s her cardinal sin.

“Ahimè,” Santino agrees into her skin. “It would be a shame for someone to see me, don’t you think?”

She tugs again, and this time he obliges, lifting his head to kiss the open expanse of skin on her sternum and then higher still. Her hands go to remove his belt in its entirety, dropping to the floor in a clatter, and then make quick work of the button of his slacks, her mouth finding his in the near-dark—only the light cutting through from the hallway and the oven’s overhead to help them make their way.

Santino would need no light to know her, to find her. He thinks he may have always known her in some way.

“We should,” Euphemia breathes, “lock the door.”

“No time.” Santino grins against her mouth, brushing the fabric of her dress out of the way. “You put a hard time limit on me, remember? Only one—”

His hands are moving of their own accord, with no regard for the fact that he wants to finish his train of thought. Instead, they yank her down the counter by her hips, pulling her down against him so that he can feel the slick, wet heat of her just there, just within reach, making the words die in his mouth and his breath leave him in a most laborious fashion—nothing, he thinks, can rob him of his faculties quicker than this.

Euphemia shivers, squirming, and—almost as though she’d forgotten her own demands until this very moment—half-moans, “You didn’t beg—”

He doesn’t care so much, anymore, about keeping his pride in tact. “Per favore, Euphie,” Santino says against her mouth, not yet pushing into her—but he can feel the way her hips arch up against him, desperate for it, even just from that tiny acquiescence. He’s too intoxicated by her to think about making her beg, too incensed by her playful little torture all evening, so he groans, “Let me fuck you, tesora. You're so wet for me—I’ll make you feel so good—”

That’s all it takes. She’s just about as pulled tight as he is, and the second the words leave his mouth she says yes yes yes and knots her fingers in his hair just as he rocks into her in one long, smooth stroke.

She is perfect. She always is—tight and hot and velvet. That single movement sends a violent shock of want racing down his spin, tingling in every nerve ending as she half breathes, half keens out something that sounds just like his name, pulling to bring him closer, deeper still.

“Fuck.” He bites the curse out, burying his face into the crook of her shoulder. He moans, “Fuck, sei così fottutamente stretto—”

“My mouth you complain about,” she whines, insistent. “Move, my love, just—just—”

Just, just, she says—how filthy her mouth is, until she has to say expressly what she wants in the moment. That’s alright; he knows her well enough to know what she wants, and when she drags his face to hers to kiss him, she says it: “Please.”

A low, wrecked noise comes out of him; he picks up a pace that's as punishing as it is delicious, swallowing Euphie’s delirious noises with his kiss. She is everything; the smell of her, the heat of her, electricity crackling off of her skin as he fucks her in the barely-lit kitchen. He considers briefly that Gianna will be furious—my kitchen, Santino, you had to do it in my fucking kitchen?—and more than that, he doesn’t want anyone else to see; she is his, private and precious, the way she arches up against him and digs her nails into his hair and moans his name.

“Should have gotten the light,” Santino pants, groaning. “I love—love seeing you when you take my cock.”

“You’re the one w-who—who t-told Gianna—” Now she’s petulant, the full brat Santino has claimed her to be, and he is doing precisely as he promised—fucking it out of her. Euphemia’s lashes flutter. “F-Fuck—Santi, Santi, I’m—”

“Close, I know.” He slides his arm around her waist and tugs her closer, lips and teeth finding her neck. She will go back to the party with a mark, he’s determined of this. “You’re so—mm—sweet now. Is this all you needed, cara mia? My cock in you, to get you to behave?”

Euphemia moans, desperate for him, nodding—he can feel the brush of her nose against his when she does. “Yes,” she says, her voice hitching as his hand drifts between them, thumb brushing over her and making her shudder. “Yes, all I wanted—Santi, please—”

“My good fucking girl.” The words come out of him wrecked as he snaps into her. “Mio bene belladonna—”

She says his name in a breathless cry, squirming and tensing until he feels her tighten around him and come unraveled; tighttighttight, and he feels it hit him—all I wanted, she says, so sweet and good for him—hard. Santino does his best to stifle the sound of it in her neck, grinding out a vicious sound from somewhere low in his throat as he holds her flush against him.

He stays there for a minute while he catches his breath and tries to listen over the sound of the blood rushing through his head for anything—any indication that someone has been waiting outside—buried in her and gliding his hands up and down her sides in an effort to ground himself to reality again.

“Next time, I will not be so patient,” Santino says against her skin, teeth dragging. Euphemia laughs breathlessly, and he feels her tighten around him at the idea of it. Naughty, he thinks absently, brushing the hair away from her face so that he can kiss her.

“Do not threaten me with a good time, Santino D’Antonio,” she murmurs against his mouth. Her voice is dreamy, silken. “I’ll try my hardest to keep misbehaving if you do.”

He laughs, kissing her a second and then third time, moaning when she shifts and arches up against him—already coaxing, already hungry for another. As much as he would like to continue their kitchen activities (directly unrelated to getting more wine), he knows better. Gianna will be furious for fucking in her kitchen, but she’ll be doubly furious for departing the party entirely.

“You do sound pretty,” Euphemia says thoughtfully as they disentangle, “when you beg.”

“Everyone keeps trying to warn you from me, but I think maybe they should be concerned about my well-being.”

“Why?” She cocks her head innocently. “Have they never seen Santino D’Antonio beg? You deprive them? How nicely you say I love seeing you when you—”

Santino thinks that he might drag her into the nearby bathroom just as he hears, from the living room, his sister calling for Euphemia. Of course, she wants her out there; Santino is certainly old news to Gianna by this point. Why show off your little brother when you can show off his shiny new fiance? Perhaps, he thinks, Gianna means to express her love in the way she knows best—proximity—but he knows that it doesn’t translate to Euphemia the same.

“That’s me.” Euphemia’s voice is playful despite the interruption, having helped him carefully clean themselves up and righted her dress. “I guess I will have to go out and play nice.”

“Should we see who can play the nicest?” Santino asks lightly, fetching two new wine glasses and the bottle from before.

“I am very nice. Particularly now.”

“Hm.” He lets the leisurely smile crawl across his expression and hands her a full wine glass. “You’re welcome, then. I told you I’d fuck the brat out of you.”

They return to the party at a casual pace, as though to imply nothing untoward had been happening at all. Of course, Gianna knows—he can see it on her face, on the way her eyes fix on the bite mark blooming against Euphie’s skin, the way they narrow and shoot him a venomous glance.

It’s not until Euphemia excuses herself from the conversation for a moment that his sister snatches his elbow.

“Really, Santino?” she hisses.

“You were so worried about my mood before,” he idles. “I would hate to ruin the party you so lovingly threw for us. So, I fixed it.”

“You fucked in my kitchen.”

“Well.” He smiles, taking a sip of his wine. “Aren’t you glad that I’m not sulking, anymore?”

#spilled ink #santino d'antonio/oc #x: senza tentazione senza onore #c: euphemia volpe #c: santino d'antonio #john wick oc #if only they knew what was comin' for 'em #am i right fellas #just kidding they can live in blissful ignorance #i feel like i haven't written a ton of smut in a long time so this feels quite rusty HOWEVER #it's fineeeeee #euphie bday boogaloo

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honeysidesarchived · 3 years

Text

WHERE THERE IS NO TEMPTATION, THERE IS NO GLORY.

⊱ a santino d'antonio / oc short-fic

interlude ii ( read on ao3 ) ( masterlist )

words: 2.4k

warnings: none really! just an impending, pervasive sense of doom.

rating: m/t

notes: so happy to have finally gotten this little interlude edited and pieced together! just more soft moments because they deserve it considering what's going to be coming up. thank you everyone who has been reading/interacting with this little love project of mine; it took a minute to get myself dug out of the trenches and posting bite-sized chapters because this is a short-fic is definitely doing something to me (lmao) but we're here!

as always you can find translations on ao3, where it's easier to store them in a place that doesn't get in the way.

There is very little time between when Santino cooks her dinner and when he moves her into his apartment. It happens without much acknowledgment from her; she finds herself swallowed up in moments of casual intimacy that break her down to nothing except a girl in love.

Santino wakes her up by kissing her neck and pulling her against his chest; she makes him dinner barefoot in the kitchen, all of the recipes that her mother taught her, and he drags his hand along her hip to reach over her into the cupboard; he stands still and obedient while Euphemia slides his tie into place, and when he zips her dress for her, he peppers her shoulder with kisses. He tolerates taking a walk through the park, even in the chilliness of late Fall or Winter, because Euphie can’t stand to not get some fresh air once a day. When one of her friends asks why he lets her bully him into the cold weather, he wraps his arms around Euphie with a sly smile and says, “How could I not, when I am the one who gets to warm her up after?”

He is an exceptionally tactile man. There is always a reason for him to touch her, trace each line of her, put his lips against her skin. Santi isn’t a man who loves; he covets. And Euphemia shouldn’t like it as much as she does, but she does. Her therapist says that it isn’t uncommon for a girl who grows up without touching to crave it, desperately, like an addiction.

So, she finds herself living in his loft to feed that addiction—which becomes their loft—and teaching him words in French, and feeding him olives while sauce simmers (and does not boil), and kissing the red-wine taste from his lips. It’s all very romantic and greatly overshadows the moments where Santino comes home raging mad, or when his bad mood takes over their conversation and stirs a fight between them. They’re both hot-headed—her more so than he—and he knows all of the ways to diffuse her while she knows none about him.

But it doesn’t matter, in the end; because Santino always kisses her, and always says, Mi dispiace, cara mi, ti amo, ti amo, ti amo, lip-locking between each break in words until her lungs ache.

Euphie has never wanted to be loved sensibly, anyway.

Making money stops becoming an issue. Santino might have been fine letting her wrap up her loose ends, so to speak, encourages her, even—“You should never leave business undone, my Euphie,”—but he’d never tolerate her continuing to skim out of the pockets of his associates. Not out of respect for them, of course, but because Santino is more than happy to provide.

“I have to do something,” Euphie insists, often. But Santino clicks his tongue and shakes his head, inspiring indignation in her. “That money goes to my mother, Santi.”

“Princesa, what are you worrying for?” He replies every time. In this instance, he is reading over some documents, his voice casual, simple, effective at bringing her to heel. “If your mama needs money, she’ll get it. Tutto quello che vuoi è tuo.”

Euphemia used to think that he was doing it to be generous, but as time goes on, she knows that isn’t the case. If Santino didn’t think he was benefitting from sending her mother money every month, he wouldn’t do it: but he does. Euphemia stops playing at arm candy for other powerful men; he endears himself to her by taking care of her mother; he endears himself to her mother; he’s afforded a sense of control. There is no facet of it where he isn’t getting something out of it. And she thinks, too, that maybe Santino likes it like this, where she is completely reliant on him for everything.

She doesn’t mind so much.

She would, if Santino didn’t drench her in his longing, if he didn’t make her feel, every day, that he is desperate to treasure her. She has always heard about this kind of love—and it is love—and never thought she would have it for herself.

But she does now, and she doesn’t want to let it go.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Tea or coffee, mama?”

Santino is busying himself in the kitchen. They’ve been together for a little over a year now, and they’re on a tour of Italy—not for fun, necessarily, but for integration. They have just spent the last week with Santino’s father and sister, and now they will spend the next two days in the Tuscan countryside with her mother.

Two days for her mother, instead of the week that they gave Santino’s father and sister, in part because his father deserves more time and in part because Euphemia doesn’t think she can tolerate her mother in much more than two-day increments.

“Coffee, please,” her mother says, very charmed by Santino.

“Tea,” Euphemia interjects. She looks at her mother—her face is tired, and older than she really is. Euphie knows that this is a side effect of heavy, abusive drinking and years spent in emotional terror, not the passage of time. Still, she finds it hard to drum up anything except distant pity in her heart. “You don’t need the caffeine.”

“Oh, you always ruin my fun.”

Santino re-enters the room with a small cup—it’s an espresso cup, but he’s poured it with regular coffee.

“A compromise,” Santi explains, handing the cup to her mother, smiling handsomely. “To make both of my girls happy.”

Her mother preens, glows under the affection. “You are so sweet, Santi. A perfect son-in-law.”

He has always called her and her mother his girls. His own mother had passed since before Euphemia; and while he knows that Euphie’s relationship with her mother is strained at best, he does what he can to ease it. Because it makes her happy, he says, and if she’s happy, he’s happy.

“Not yet a son-in-law,” Euphie corrects, and Santino flashes her a quick, amused little smile.

“You see how cruel she is to me, madonna? I have asked her to marry me, you know.”

“Santi,” Euphemia sighs, but it has had its desired effect; her mother looks scandalized, mortified at her daughter’s resistance to marrying a man as good and handsome and charming as Santino.

“Effie, tell me that you haven’t been bullying Santino like this?”

“Mama, there is no reason—he is just teasing. Ascoltami, you don’t need to look so horrified.”

“I do not know where I went wrong with you, Euphemia Sancia.” Her mother clicks her tongue, muttering something under her breath and taking a drink of the coffee Santi made her, and Euphemia can’t bring herself to say that not everything she has done wrong in her life is a slight against her mother’s parenting skills.

Santino smiles and leans across to Euphie, bringing her hand up to kiss it.

“Don’t worry,” he says to her mother, his voice blooming with practiced warmth. “I will ask her as many times as it takes for her to say yes.”

Euphemia feels her heart stutter painfully in her chest. She knows that he means it; he’s suggested it to her three times, now. It seems to be the only thing he doesn’t mind asking more than once.

“She’s always been fussy, my Euphemia,” her mother says, breaking the magic of Santino’s eyes on her. “Never happy with what she has, just like her father. Except for you, Santi—you are the only thing she holds onto.”

Exasperation and disgust flood over her. Both the mention of the man considered to be her father and any similarities they might share has her mood souring. “Mama—”

But Santino is sweeping in, like he always does when he can tell Euphie is getting tired of her mother, coming to a stand and asking her, “We should get started on dinner, cara mia, don’t you think?”

Just like that, he’s taken control of the conversation again. He sees her flailing and steadies her. Euphemia is certain that he doesn’t love her mother—that he doesn’t even like her—but that he can spend his time tolerating her with charm and grace despite knowing what her mother allowed to go on under their roof is indicative of the man that Santino is.

“Yes,” she replies, standing as well. “You look tired, mama. Take a rest while Santi and I make dinner.”

She wanders into the kitchen with Santino trailing after her. As soon as they’re alone, he winds his arms around her waist and kisses the juncture between her shoulder and neck.

“Is it true?” he asks coyly. “That you don’t hold on to anything except for me?”

She doesn’t want to tell him very much, because he knows already, and because to say it out loud will give it legs. A year together, and she still doesn’t want her feelings for him to have legs. Santino splays his fingers against her sternum and kisses her jaw.

“You know that it is,” she says at last, her voice a little unsteady. She can feel Santi smiling against her skin.

“Euphie,” he purrs, “marry me.”

Yes, she wants to say, as her eyes flutter shut. Yes, I’ll marry you, Santi. Anything that you ask. I’ll do anything for you, if you would just keep saying my name like that.

She wants to say it but the words won't come out. There is nothing quite like the feeling of Santino peeling back each individual layer of her defenses, piece by piece; so close, she knows, he is so close, but not quite. Not yet. She is most comfortable keeping him at arm’s length as much as possible—to kiss and to fuck and to let someone hold you at night is one thing. To let someone in past the barbed-wire of defenses is yet another, impossibly reckless. To be seen feeling anything deranges you, as the poets like to say.

“Sancia, hm?” he continues instead, when she can’t bring herself to answer, as the words stick in her throat. It’s one of those things where Santino seems to exercise a surprising amount of patience, this whole ordeal of to marry or not to marry; later, Euphemia will come to understand that it is because Santino believes their life together to be inevitable, that she will always say yes to him, one way or another.

For now, she turns in his arms, cocking a brow at him. He continues, “It means sacred.”

Euphemia nods sagely and props herself up on the counter. “Buon ascolto, my love. I suppose that means you should work very hard to worship me well.”

Santino laughs. He leans in, trapping her against the counter—though it isn’t much of a trap if she’s a willing participant—and noses the slope of her jaw.

“Yes,” he murmurs, “I suppose that it does.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━

On the last leg of their tour of families, Santino insists that they spend a few days in Rome by themselves.

The days are used mostly for doing a lot of nothing; neither of them are particularly interested in sight-seeing, but rather interested in seeing each other, a thing which they don’t seem to tire of particularly quickly. Instead, they shop, or lay in bed together until the afternoon, or go out to eat when street lights kick on and the city takes on a life of its own.

“You are much happier, Euphie,” Santino says one evening, smoothing out his napkin on the table absently, “when you are not around your mother.”

It’s not a question, per se, though she knows that he expects an answer. But she is still young and a little petulant, and she likes to push his buttons and make him say exactly what it is he means, so she takes a sip of her wine and replies, “Yes.”

He arches a brow at her. He looks particularly handsome like this, she thinks—not around his family, just eating dinner in a streetside restaurant in Rome, illuminated in warm candlelight and the glow of the streetlights outside.

“Are you going to tell me why?” he asks, amusedly.

“If you ask.” Euphemia sets her wine glass down on the table, and when Santino reaches for her hand, she lets him take it, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. “But it is so boring, Santi, to talk about my mother. Why don’t you ask me about something else?”

The brunette’s mouth is curving in a little smile. “Like…?”

“Like…” Euphie gestures with her free hand, like she has to really think about it. “Euphie, how did I get so lucky to have a woman like you? That is a good place to start. Or, what will you do with me once you get me back to the hotel? Or, Euphie, will I ever be so fortunate as to call you my wife?”

Santino laughs, leaning into their conversation, bringing her fingers up to kiss them. He has long lashes; soft, and dark, and they brush the tops of his cheekbones when his eyes close. Santino glances from her fingers up to her, that boyish grin on his face.

“I already know the answers to the first and last question,” he says casually, like it’s no big deal, but he’s grinning wickedly at her when he says it. She scoffs.

“Dimme poi,” Euphie insists. “I am dying to know, Santi.”

His expression is very sage, very wise, and he nods his head. “Il destino,” he says, winding their fingers together, “e tra un anno.”

There is something very heart-stopping about the way Santino articulates il destino, as though it is fact, as though there is something undeniable about their coming together.

“How do you know?” she asks. “In a year?”

“Because if you do not want to marry me by then,” Santino replies matter-of-factly, “then I am certainly not suited for marriage at all.”

She rolls her eyes, taking a drink of her wine and savoring the way his eyes trail over her, admiring, drinking her in.

“Well?” he prompts. She looks at him expectantly, and he reiterates, his gaze set on her, “What will you do with me once you get me back to the hotel, belladonna?”

Euphemia feels her heart stutter painfully in her chest when he looks at her like that; like she is the only person in the entire universe, like she has become the sun that snags him in her planetary pull, like he will never, ever grow tired of looking at her. It sweeps the breath out of her.

“Anything, mio amato,” she murmurs. “Anything you want, if you promise to never stop looking at me like that.”

#john wick fic #santino d'antonio/original female character #santino d'antonio #c: euphemia volpe #f: where there is no temptation there is no glory #spilled ink #john wick oc #i'm fine we're fine this is all fine nobody panic #gonna #q #this so that i can pretend i don't see it djhfbjdf #x: senza tentazioni senza onore

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honeysidesarchived · 3 years

Text

WHERE THERE IS NO TEMPTATION, THERE IS NO GLORY.

⊱ a santino d'antonio / oc short-fic

pt. v: and birth is the death of us ( read on ao3 ) ( masterlist )

words: 4.4k

warnings: mentions of murder/patricide, lots and lots and lots of sads, major character death. but u knew that.

rating: m/t

notes: well,

thank you @shallow-gravy for proofing this bad boy for me, thank you @starcrier for being my og cheerleader/proofreader/lore expert/euphie stan, thank you everyone who has read this far or read at all or thought about reading. this has been a lovely little passion project/thing to post for my dopamine only, but without your love and such it probably wouldn't have gotten posted at all.

Blessed be they whose lives do not taste of evil.

But if some god shakes your house,

Ruin arrives.

Ruin does not leave.

Euphemia hates the lake house. It used to be her favorite thing; once the weather in the city turned and started getting hot and muggy, they’d head upstate until they got to the lake. She’d spend almost all of her day in a swimsuit, sunbathing on the dock or goading Santino into the water with her. Some of her fondest memories are here: Santi, carrying her piggy-back from water to the house; the way he’d lean in to steal a piece of fruit from her, humming and licking the pads of her fingers with a sly glimmer in his eye; the way they’d sit around the fire at night, her legs hooked over his lap, and how he would still smell like woodsmoke the next day.

Now, the house is empty, and cold, and there’s five men that she barely knows the names of lingering around the edges of the property outside.

It’s pointless, she thinks, absently. It’s not me that Wick wants. It’s not me that harmed him.

It should be unforgivable, what Santino’s done. It is unforgivable; he’s left her in a position to feel alone, to raise their child alone. It should be, and all she can think to do is cry.

She spends most of the evening wandering aimlessly, trying not to think about what it is that Santino’s doing. If Wick has come for him, there is a chance—a very small chance—that Santino could survive. A small, minuscule chance, riding purely on the idea that Santino would be capable of ever saying he’s sorry to a man like John Wick.

Euphemia knows he would not. Why would he? He did what he thought was necessary. Whatever that was.

Briefly, the idea that Gianna might have sent John Wick back to them crosses her mind. But she knows that can’t be what it is; he is Baba Yaga. He would never leave a job undone. If John Wick gets called in for a debt he owes, he finishes the job, or he dies. The only thing that could stand, then, is that Santino has done something. That Santino has done something to John Wick that is not calling him to fulfill a debt.

There are pictures of them, littered throughout the house. Hung on the walls, on hallway tables, in the bedroom and the living room. The kitchen is fully stocked despite the fact that the house is technically out of season, for them—a luxury, she thinks, that her husband must have been willing to indulge in case she decides she wants to come up, for whatever reason. Because he knows she likes to cook.

Santino calls her a few hours after she’s arrived, when she’s tucked herself into one of his old shirts and curled up in the bed on the second floor. The shirt still smells a little like his cologne, and the sheets have the faded smell of her favorite fabric softener, but nothing feels good. Nothing feels comfortable, or happy.

“Euphie,” Santi says, his voice feeling very far, “are you all settled in?”

He sounds breathless, and a little stressed. It makes her stomach plummet.

“Yes,” she whispers. “But I want to come home, Santi. I want—”

“Do not argue with me,” he says firmly. There it is; it’s a different edge to his voice, a strange fervor lingering beneath the timbre of his words. “Are you listening to me? I will get everything fixed here, and then you can come home.”

She wants to tell him he is wrong. She wants to tell him that he is stupid—that John Wick is, well-known, a man of perpetual neutrality; that he does nothing that is not done unto him. That John Wick wants nothing of her, for her, from her. That John Wick perhaps does not even factor her into his equation.

She says none of these things.

“Would you at least tell me what’s wrong?” she asks instead, her voice catching some wind. There is a sick part of her that wants him to say it to her. “Let me know, so I can—”

Do nothing. She knows there is nothing she could do; nothing in her power. He has crippled her, sending her away.

“—so I can know.”

“Euphie, Euphie,” Santino says, in that way he always does. “I don’t want you to have to worry about it, cara mia. Hey.”

It feels, almost, like he’s there. But there are no hands to take her face, no kisses to wash away her stress. Only the cold, faint white noise of the phone call when silence stretches between them. Euphemia swallows thickly, closes her eyes and wills the image of him, laying there next to her in bed, away.

“Are you listening to me?”

Euphie swallows. “Yes, Santi.”

“I love you, Euphemia D’Antonio.”

She feels the sting and burn of the tears at the edges of her eyes, and reaches up to push at them with the sleeve of Santino’s old shirt. It’s sitting there, locked just in her jaw, in the cavity of her chest; all of the things she wanted to tell him. That she thinks she loved him from the minute she laid eyes on him. That she wasn’t as soft with him as she would like to be, so maybe if he would like to stay a little longer, she could be.

That she thinks she knew all along he was going to ruin her, ruin her, ruin her.

“Mio amato.” She whispers into the phone the affectionate term she so rarely uses with him, her voice hoarse, thick with unshed tears. “Please, you’re scaring me.”

“Don’t cry, cara mia. Say it back.”

There is a spiteful, vicious part of her that doesn’t want to. Suddenly, the wedding ring on her finger and his shirt on her shoulders feel heavy, like they’re pulling her down, down, down, and she wishes that it would so that she could fold up and disappear.

If she says it, she will be accepting something terrible.

Santino’s voice comes through the call, urgent. “You know I hate to ask twice.”

She does.

“I love you, Santi,” she manages out, and it’s pushed and pulled out of her; this is high-tide in their love, now, the waves full-throttle and raking her beach clean. “I love you, I love you—Santi, mi amato, I love you—”

“Good girl.” His voice sounds tight. It sounds fraught, in a way that it never is, with her.

He pauses a moment; the words sit there, in her mouth. I love you, I love you, I love you. She has never been good about saying it. She has never thought, really, that she would need to. She has always known what he is, but has never acted better for it.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, when I’m on my way to pick you up. Si?”

For a second, it almost feels normal. It almost feels like she really is just away, at the lake house, getting some time alone after a stressful few days. And then tomorrow, she’ll eat her breakfast out on the porch facing the lake while it’s still a little chilly outside, and Santi will come and pick her up; he’ll tease her about wearing his shirt, and lean over and kiss her, and say, don’t you feel a little ridiculous, Euphemia, worrying about me? Don’t you, now?

“Okay,” she says, on autopilot. “Okay, Santi, if you promise to—”

“I promise, more, I promise. I love you. Euphie?” Another pause. It’s almost too heavy to bear. “Get some sleep, yes? And tell baby Viola I said goodnight.”

Gutted. Emptied. Hollowed out.

“We don’t know the baby is a girl,” she protests weakly.

“I can tell.”

She laughs, the sound bleak and ringing empty when it comes out of her. Euphemia closes her eyes tight and breathes in deep. “Okay, yes. I will tell baby Viola goodnight from her daddy.”

“Goodnight, my darling.”

The call clicks off before she can answer. As though she would have anything to say; a moment longer, maybe, I love you, perhaps you could just say it again, once more, one more time for me.

Euphie tucks herself under the blankets with the phone pulled against her chest and rolls his words over and over again in her head.

I promise. I love you. Tell baby Viola I say goodnight. I’ll call you tomorrow, when I’m on my way to pick you up. Goodnight my darling.

I love you

I love you.

Goodnight, my darling.

She wishes his goodnight did not feel so much like goodbye.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

When she wakes up in the morning, it’s to the sound of a knock at the front door.

That’s how she knows, really, that it’s something bad; it’s just a knock. Once, twice. Knock knock. There are no voices, there are no sounds of gunfire, nobody is calling for her. For a second, upon waking—in that special realm where sleep still clings to the edges of her vision, willing her back under the covers—she might trick herself that it’s Santino knocking at the door, waiting patiently for her to let him in.

But Santino would let himself in. He would walk upstairs, and kick off his shoes, and snake under the covers with her; bury his cold hands beneath her shirt, his face into the base of her neck. Piccola volpe, he would say, against the back of her neck, you’re wearing my shirt. Did you miss me so much?

Hurriedly, she looks at her phone, thinking—once again, foolishly—that Santino must have called her and she’s slept through it. But her phone is empty of notifications. The screen glows a luminous mockery at her: a photo of them, in Italy. That last night. Il destino, Santino had said.

Euphemia pulls herself out of bed, despite the overwhelming desire to pull the covers over her head. For a tiny moment in time, there is only the sound of her footfalls against the wooden flooring of the master bedroom and her own heartbeat. Peaceful. Tranquil. As the lakehouse is meant to be.

But then she hears the door open—it always creaks—and the sound of murmured voice a floor below. She puts her hand on the doorknob to the hallway, and stops.

If she opens it, it will be real. If she opens it, whatever is on the other side will be precisely what it is. Right now, in this moment, it can be anything. Santino. Baba Yaga. Her mother. Schrödinger's Cat, as the case may be. As long as she stays right here, and the door stays closed, she is perfectly unaware of the state of things—

That’s not true, something inside of her says. We know.

Euphie turns the doorknob and heads downstairs. Methodically, she moves; step after step, one foot in front of the other. Ten seconds, and then another ten seconds, and another, forcing her body’s natural processes to function as normal instead of come to a grinding halt the way they want to. As she descends the stairs—into the eternal darkness, into fire and into ice—she is painfully aware of every physical sensation: the chilly wooden flooring beneath her feet, the brush of Santino’s shirt against the back of her thighs where it stretches past her shorts, the blood bounding through her body, begging for relief. Begging to see her husband when she reaches the bottom.

Please, she thinks, turning the corner to the landing. Please, please, please be my Santi.

It’s Winston.

He stands there, talking in hushed tones to Charon, and when she reaches the bottom of the stairs, he turns and looks at her.

There is something very grim on the man’s face. Euphie’s legs carry her off the final step and to where the two men are waiting for her, patient; as though they would have let her take all the time in the world to make her descent into Hell, with them. And it feels like a dream—some kind of feverish nightmare, goosebumps prickling along her skin in the early morning chill and her heart fluttering in unsteady, uneven bouts.

“Winston?” She swallows thickly, setting her phone on the counter. “Where’s Santino?”

Euphemia sees the way that Winston grimaces, like he’s bracing himself, and she knows the answer. She thinks she probably knew the answer when Santino called her last night. She thinks she probably knew the answer when she saw John Wick sitting in the museum.

It doesn’t make it any easier, and as if working to make herself suffer more—to keep up this impossible dream—her mind pushes the words out of her mouth, against her better judgment: “He’s supposed to be picking me up.”

Winston watches her with a quiet, careful gaze. She feels her throat tighten.

“He wanted me out of town,” she explains, her voice wobbling, “while he was finishing up some business. He thought—it would be better. For—for—”

For the baby, she wants to say, and the words will not come out of her. Silence lapses, tense and strung tight, binding her over and over, pulling pulling pulling. She thinks, I always knew. She thinks, I always knew, Santi, that you were going to—

The older man says, very gingerly, “I am sorry, my darling.”

Euphemia feels the nausea wrench iron-hot in her stomach. I always knew, Santi, that you were going to ruin me.

“I tried to tell him not to play this game with Wick.”

Somewhere, from deep inside of her, there is a rabbit. That rabbit she used to be. Tap-tap, that little rabbit heart says, tap-tap-tap-tap. We’re alive, but at what cost? That rabbit is snared in the steel jaws of a trap named agony, and it is screaming.

Alive. But at what cost.

My Santi, she thinks, my beautiful boy, sick to death with your own magic.

Winston doesn’t have to say it aloud for her to know what he means, and that confirmation sweeps through her, violent and unforgiving. She feels very suddenly as though she’s far away from herself, as though she’s not the Euphemia that Winston is reaching for, taking into his arms as though she were his own grandchild, as though she’s not the Euphemia that swallows a deep, stuttering lungful and then lets out a vicious, wrecked noise that emanates a bone-deep grief.

Against her hair, Winston murmurs, “I would have called ahead, Euphemia, but it didn’t feel right—”

She thinks maybe she is screaming, or moaning, or crying—it’s a guttural tear in her sternum that echoes hollowly in the cavity of her chest. Winston holds her very tight and says things like I wanted to be sure I could tell you in person and my girl, take a breath, won’t you, and she wants to die.

Euphemia closes her eyes.

She thinks about Santi, tasting like red wine when he kisses her; she thinks about the way that he would pick her up before they even made it through the door, growling playfully into her neck and kissing her and saying, look what I’ve caught, a gorgeous little fox, and all mine.

Santi, kissing her stomach and whispering to the baby in Italian, humming against her skin. Putting the stupid apron over his Versace suit to cook the sauce. Grabbing her around the waist, still wet from the shower, and telling her that he won’t be able to finish his shower alone and won’t she stop this cruelty and join him, already?

Santi, taking her hands when she feels like she’s breaking apart because she has to talk to the therapist about the feeling of the rope burn on her knuckles and the look on her father’s face as he struggles for breath, and he says, Euphie, Euphie, Euphie, don’t you know? I love you, all of you, all of this about you.

She is guided to the couch. She sits down on autopilot, and Winston takes her hands in his. That agony is still etching its way into her marrow—and it will be there forever, she thinks; she will think of this always, this moment in time precisely—and he does the kindness of letting her suffer through it, pulling the blanket off of the back of the couch and gathering her up in it. It feels, a little, like her chest might be collapsing over and over again; the way that a star burns out and dies in the great, blistering explosion.

“Take a breath,” Winston says, his hands on her shoulders. “In and out. Good girl.”

Lungs fill, and empty. Oxygen offers her a moment of visceral clarity.

“I have to kill him,” Euphemia manages out, biting the words between shallow, hazy breaths. Her fingers are clutching at Winston’s arms through his coat, desperate to anchor, but if it bothers him, he doesn’t say. “I have to—I have to kill John Wick, Winston, I—my Santi, he took my Santino away from me—”

“No.” Winston barks out the word so abruptly that it almost feels like a slap, firm and quick. “I don’t want to hear you saying that.”

She blinks, rapidly, the focus in her eyes fading. “You—what?”

“Look at me, Euphemia,” he says, and she blinks again, forcing the exhaustion from her vision to bring him back in to her eyesight. “John Wick did not take your Santino from you. Do you hear me? You banish the thought from your brain.”

The words are ludicrous, coming out of his mouth. She stares at him, and she wonders, for a second, that he’s here to tell her that John Wick is coming for her now—her, and Santino’s baby. To effectively wipe out the last of the D’Antonios.

Would he?

“What. Do. You. Mean, Winston?”

She punctures the words like a balloon; lets the feel of them swell in her mouth, bites down until they pop. The sadness is metastasizing inside of her, squirming and writhing before it latches into the slats between her ribs, sinking its fangs down until the sting becomes familiar, comforting. Anger, not sadness; that is fine. Preferred, even.

Euphemia feels more than she hears the way her voice rises in volume when she demands, “Tell me how it isn’t John Wick’s fault my Santino is dead?”

There is a tightness in Winston’s expression. He is trying to figure her; she knows the look. He is trying to figure her, conjure up some image of her that he is comfortable with, the way that Santino always does.

(Did.)

But he doesn’t know her well enough. Her background is a mystery to him, as far as backgrounds go; fake names and fake leads, all little threads woven into a sweater for a girl who can disappear at any moment. She has never wanted to have to try very hard, to disappear.

“You and I both know,” Winston murmurs, his voice pitching low, “that John Wick would have left him be.”

“Baba Yaga,” Euphemia grinds out, “would have left him be.”

“You didn’t hear him, Euphemia,” he tells her sharply. “You didn’t hear Santino, in the Continental. He was gloating over a victory he didn’t have. He was—”

“He is,” she snarls, “dead, Winston!”

“And you have the High Table to thank for that,” Winston snaps.

The words are effective enough to stop her rage in its tracks. Just for a minute. Long enough that the little rabbit inside of her stops screaming, long enough that wounded thing that wants to go on a warpath halts.

He is right, something inside of her says. He is right. Santino always wanted more. He always wanted what he thought he was owed. And we always knew it. We said it. Sick to death.

“I’ll tell you, it wasn’t John Wick who killed your man,” Winston reiterates, his voice ironclad, “it was the High Table, and what they did to him. What he was willing to do for them.”

So many times in the last few days, she has felt hollowed out. This time is different; she feels full. Bursting at the seams with some inexplicable, primordial rage that has just been sitting inside of her, all this time, waiting for someone to ignite it. She knows Winston is right, and still, she wonders: how will John Wick look, at the edge of death? Will there be anything, behind those shark-gray eyes, will she see a glimmer of the thing—the person—that the woman he loved had cultivated inside of him?

It is a comfort, to think maybe she would not. That maybe he would be a monster in death, too.

“Euphemia,” Winston says, “are you listening to me?”

She takes in a long breath. “I am so very tired, Winston,” she murmurs, “of listening to men.”

“I know.” He gives her hands a squeeze. There is empathy in his voice, she thinks, but it’s hard to identify for sure. “But you know that I’m right. Don’t you?”

She remembers how furious Santi was the night that his father named Gianna his successor. That seat at the High Table is mine, he had said. I deserve it, and I will take it back. Think of what I could do, Euphie, for the Camorra. For us.

She had never, ever cared about it. Euphemia had always told him that if he didn’t have it, what did it matter? They had each other. He had her. Wasn’t she enough? Didn’t she make him happy?

Winston says her name, very quietly. Her lashes flutter and she lifts her gaze from the cushion of the couch to where the older man is looking at her.

“Did you finalize the marriage?” he asks. “You, and Santino, with the paperwork?”

Her fingers curl and uncurl absently; the crescent-shaped marks her nails leave on her palms are a dull sting, but she wants them to be louder. To hurt more. To bite and sting until she can be sure she’s real. Winston smooths her hands flat, watching her patiently, not once rushing her answer.

He has always been kind to her. Before she was married to Santino, after, and now. In the wake of her husband’s death.

“Yes,” she manages out, at last. “We did. Three nights ago.”

“Good,” Winston murmurs, sounding relieved. “That’s good. And—it may have been mentioned...”

Euphemia blinks, hard and slow, trying her hardest to remember to do the things that keep her alive; blink and breathe, push blood through her veins, stay conscious. “I am pregnant, yes.”

He nods again. He’s silent for a moment. “You, Euphemia D’Antonio,” he begins, taking in a little breath, “have a seat at the High Table. The Camorra is yours.”

The words wash over her, but they land flat. These things don’t matter. They’re unimportant to her. She has never had any designs on some mythical seat, or ideas that she should be leading the Camorra instead of someone else. She has never cared anything about it; Santi has always been the one who wanted these things, and she was more than happy to support him.

And now, here it was. Sitting in her lap.

“We can get revenge for your Santino, my darling.” Winston’s voice is soft, gentle; it pushes and pulls, filtering through a sieve of light and color that she can’t quite cut out. “I can help you. You, and your baby. All you have to do is take that thought—that John Wick is to blame—and bury it somewhere deep inside of you, and hope that one day you die and that’s the end of it.”

I miss you, Santi, Euphie thinks, desperately, the tears stinging again at her eyes now that the target of her fury is no longer a man, but an entity; one that she’s a part of. One that seems so nebulous that she isn’t sure she will ever pin it down. This was always what you wanted, not me. How am I supposed to do this without you?

He’s right. If Santino hadn’t been hungry, starved for that seat at the High Table—if he hadn’t been seduced by the idea of the things that he believed were owed to them—he would be alive now.

She always knew that he would do something to put John Wick at war with him. She always knew it, and John was just a tangible, easy person to hate for what Santino had done to himself.

My Santi. Desperate and hurt and needing, sick to death with your own magic.

“Euphemia,” he murmurs, leaning down a little. “Do you want my help?”

“Yes.” Her voice feels like a stranger’s coming out of her body. “Please, Winston, help me get revenge for my Santi.”

He nods, and straightens up, turning to tell Charon to get the car started outside. Once the door closes, he shifts to face her again, a small, sad smile quirking the edges of his mouth upward.

She’s not quite sure, now, if she’s real—if what she’s done will mean anything, if she has an impact on the world around her. Winston’s hands on hers don’t ground her, the way that Santino’s did; she still feels very far away from herself, her soul and mind somewhere that isn’t this nightmare of a life she has now.

Winston says something, coming to a stand, and Euphie follows instinctively as she slides her sandals onto her feet and trails after him out to the car, her phone clutched loosely in her hand. When she gets back to the city, it will feel real, she thinks as she climbs into the car when Winston opens the door for her. When she gets back to the loft, where the reminders of her one greatest love will be everywhere, in his clothes and his papers and his cologne and the apartment that they decorated for the both of them, to be equal parts Euphie and Santi both, it will feel real.

But for now, she is somewhere else, very far away from this nightmare world that has become her life; her mind and soul are somewhere that she kisses her one greatest love, drenched in the gilt-gold burnish of his mortality, and she tastes the red wine on his lips and he says, Euphie, my gorgeous girl, perfetto e tutto mio.

Yes, she thinks, agony fresh and hot and wet in her chest. Sono tuo, Santi, always. Always.

“Well, my darling,” Winston murmurs from his seat next to her in the back of the car, “let’s get you home, shall we?”

She glances out the window, seeing the figures of Santino’s--her men, slipping into the house to lock up behind her. “Yes,” she says quietly, “home.”

Euphemia doesn’t know what that means, anymore, what it means to have one. But she also doesn’t think that it matters anymore.

She doesn’t need a home to get revenge.

#spilled ink #f: where there is no temptation there is no glory #santino d'antonio/oc #santino d'antonio x original female character #c: euphemia volpe #c: santino d'antonio #honorable mentions to grandpa winston & charon u da real mvps #john wick oc #i wanted to write like a big long thank you thing and wax poetic but instead i think perhaps i will lay on the floor

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florbelles · 3 years

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EUPHEMIA SANCIA VOLPE. JOHN WICK.

Blessed be they whose lives do not taste of evil / But if some god shakes your house, / Ruin arrives.

Ruin does not leave.

— for @honeysides xx

#c: euphemia volpe #HAPPY BIRTHDAY QUEEN #john wick #other ocs #*

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honeysidesarchived · 3 years

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don’t know if we’re allowed to request but if we are ❛ if you called just to get off on my voice, i’m hanging up. ❜ for euphie/santi 👁

ugh kat the way you are feeding me. the way you spoil me. ily.

❛ if you called just to get off on my voice, i’m hanging up. ❜ + santphie, warnings include nsfw/nsft/explicit content, including but not limited to euphemia being both a brat AND a brat tamer. wretched wretched things. set pre nt/ng so everything is fine : ' ) combining this with a prompt from @luxurybeskar for the spotify wrapped prompts, which ended up being closer by nine inch nails. lmao. thank you both sm!!

"do you miss me, euphie?"

it's the same song and dance every time that santino is out of town for longer than a few days. even, sometimes, when it's only a few days. euphemia tries not to think very hard about how much it sends her heart fluttering when she sees his name call up on her phone screen, when she knows that he's been thinking of her and is calling her, now, unprompted. every person she's been with before him has been the exact opposite, and perhaps that is part of santino's charm: he's not afraid to be seen wanting. prefers it, even.

"don't be stupid," euphie murmurs, balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder as she settles herself into the bed. santino's bed. it smells like him, the gentle click of the air conditioner whirring on, and it feels more like home than her own flat does. "it's only been two days.

he'd said she was welcome to stay whenever she liked, but she tried not to, very often. it was just different when he wasn't around. without santino to take up all of her attention, suddenly, she is forced to recognize how integral to her day-to-day he's become, like she's some pathetic, love-sick schoolgirl with nothing better to do than entertain the whims of her infatuation.

she hears santino exhale into the phone, the thud of what she assumes is him hitting his own pillows in the hotel room echoing dully in the background. "you are cruel to me, little fox."

"barely," she replies. carefully, she sifts under the blankets stretching out and enjoying the cold sheets, sighing. "and besides..."

"you are going to say i like it, hm?"

"well, don't you?"

"a little," he admits. she can hear the smile curling in his voice. "and you do miss me."

"a little," she returns, absently sinking further against the pillows. she's fashioned one of his lounge shirts as her pajamas for the evening--yet another thing that smells like him--and there's some comfort in knowing that he's no grounds to tease her for it. "how is rome?"

"oh." santino sighs, clicking his tongue. "i don't want to talk about business."

"then what do you want to talk about? it is so late." euphemia thinks she knows--there is a hungry little lick nestling in the timbre of his voice, one she is familiar with--but she insists on playing dumb anyway, because the sound of him laughing lowly into the phone makes her skin prickle with anticipation.

he says, "what are you wearing?"

"santino."

"i miss you, euphie," he rumbles into the phone, his voice pitching lower now, different than the way he'd said it before. "everything about you. touching you, the way you sound, the way you taste--"

"if you called just to get off on my voice," she cuts in over him, keeping herself cool and even despite the way his tone makes her want to melt, "i'm hanging up."

"i did not call just to get off," he defends indignantly, and she can hear him shifting on the bed. "i also called to get you off, bella."

"per carità!" euphemia shifts, sitting up in bed. "you will be back tomorrow."

"and it is suffering," santino agrees, "every second, without you in my bed."

she presses her mouth into a thin line. she wants to make him wait. she wants him to hungry for her, always. but there is a part of her itching for it, for him, and even now she finds it almost impossible to tell him no--to tell him to mind himself, that it'll be all the sweeter when he's back in town.

"actually, i am in your bed," she says after a minute, nonchalantly. she tugs at the hem of his lounge shirt she's wearing, kicking the blankets down to the foot of the bed absently.

santino makes an intrigued sound. "in the loft?"

"yes," euphemia murmurs.

"i thought you didn't like it there."

"yes, but--" she pauses again, working the words around in her mouth. "it smells like you."

santino's breath slows a little, like he's pacing himself. "is that so?"

euphie skims her fingers up the inside of her thigh and then back down. "and i put on one of your shirts--"

he makes a low noise. "and?"

"what do you mean, 'and'?" she replies sweetly. "i put on one of your shirts and nothing else."

there is a different kind of noise, now, something that she thinks he might be trying to strangle before it comes out too loud, and she wishes he'd stop withholding it from her. she loves the way he sounds when he's losing those delicate threads of control, when he stops being perfectly composed.

"do you touch yourself and think of me?" santino purrs, his voice close but not close enough through the phone. euphie squirms, refusing to answer even as her fingers glide higher up beneath the lounge shirt, and he says: "touch yourself and think of me."

a command, this time. not a question.

euphemia feels the quick, hot drag of want blooming in the pit of her stomach, molten as she does as he bids--but only because she does miss him, only because he is still a nine hour flight away, and even though he will be back tomorrow, maybe if she closes her eyes and listens to his voice it will be just like he is--

her breath hitches, and she whimpers, gliding her fingers against the neediest part of herself. santino makes a broken sound.

"bet you look so good right now," santino growls. "you always look so fucking good when you--f-fuck, when you're--"

yes; if she closes her eyes, listening to the way his voice hitches and breaks into a moan on the phone just there in her ear, euphie can think he's there--that he would be dipping his fingers into her softness, beckoning them against her until she's moaning his name (and he loves that, the sound immediately followed by his broken, "oh, euphie, euphie, so fucking pretty when you say my name like that,") it's almost like he's there. his hands, his mouth; she can feel his lips on hers and the way his breath hitches the second he finally sinks home, if she tries enough, can think of the way he says her name very specifically in that moment, like she is so fucking holy he just can't stand it.

he's close, too. he's close, and he says, "i want my mouth on you, tesora," and he says, "come on, come on, i want to hear my girl," and he says, "fuck, when i get home i'm going to ruin you," and she drags her thumb against herself and almost, almost sees stars.

almost.

but she stops herself just before the plunging edge, and she manages out, her voice breathless, "don't, santi."

"what?" he's breathless, too. a laborious noise grinds out on the other end of the line. "euphie--"

"don't. come," she elaborates, sharper this time. santino groans, a heady mixture of despairing and agonized; he says something, but she's a little too intoxicated knowing that he's abiding by her, that he's despairing because he wants to finish so fucking bad and he can't.

"tesora." he is trying his best to sound composed, saccharine. "my beautiful euphie, you would deprive me of--"

"yes," euphemia tells him, "yes, i would deprive you. you want to fuck me, don't you?"

the line is silent for a moment. santino exhales sharply. "si, you know that i do."

"you want to come home," she continues, "and you want to fuck me on the kitchen island, or maybe our bed--"

"yes, euphie, you know--"

"and hear me say, oh, santi, santi, please, you feel so good inside of me--"

"yes," santino grinds out, bridging on a moan. "yes, f-fucking--brat."

"then," she murmurs silkily, all but come off her own high and onto another one, "don't. come."

something infuriated comes out of his mouth, bitten out between his teeth. a swear, probably; but he's shifting on the bed, trying to get comfortable, and she can almost hear the grimace, taking the place of that insidious little smirk he gets on his face when he feels particularly in charge.

good, she thinks. it's what he deserves.

"okay, okay," santino acquiesces, hoarse. "whatever you say, my euphie. if that's what you want--to deny me this."

she finds herself smiling, despite the twingeing little wrench in her own stomach from the denial. she has been with plenty of men; dangerous men, rich men, handsome men. santino is, of course, different than all of them, but one thing that doesn't change is how good it feels when they tell her, whatever you say.

"goodnight, santi," euphemia purrs. "i'll see you tomorrow. and so you know, i will be able to tell if you've broken the rules."

#spilled ink #santino d'antonio/oc #c: euphemia volpe #c: santino d'antonio #john wick oc #x: senza tentazione senza onore #y'all really do be out here blessing me with these prompts #trying to take advantage of this manic period of productivity while i can by refusing to work on my longfic projects #and instead slam out a bunch of prompts before my inbox gets nuked in the new year : ' )#THANK YOU ILY BOTH #this should go without saying but i did not proof this #lemon

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honeysidesarchived · 3 years

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⊱ NO TEMPTATION/NO GLORY MASTERLIST.

summary: euphemia volpe has never wanted for very much; a safe place to sleep, a soft place to land. to love someone, and be loved back. she has all of those things now, but it’s most unfortunate for her that she has fallen in love with a man who will never be satisfied with what he’s got.

rating: mature/teen

warnings: language, some depictions of a relationship that is not entirely healthy, extensive use of my very basic knowledge of italian (padded with google translate, thank you google!), and an unfortunate amount of endearments and pet names. this does not deviate from john wick chapter 2’s canon ending, so please bear in mind this will contain major character death. as a short fic (vs a longfic) this will also be much shorter than my usual works!

i: contact is crisis • ii: they whose lives do not taste of evil • interlude i • iii: tra i due litigante terzo gode • interlude ii • iv: we begin in the dark • v: and birth is the death of us • epilogue: fortis fortuna adiuvat

#john wick #santino d'antonio/original female character #santino d'antonion/oc #spilled ink #f: where there is no temptation there is no glory #c: euphemia volpe #c: santino d'antonio #x: senza tentazioni senza onore

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honeysidesarchived · 3 years

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WHERE THERE IS NO TEMPTATION, THERE IS NO GLORY.

⊱ a santino d'antonio / oc short-fic

euphemia volpe has never wanted for very much; a safe place to sleep, a soft place to land. to love someone, and be loved back. she has all of those things now, but it's most unfortunate for her that she has fallen in love with a man who will never be satisfied with what he's got.

pt. i: contact is crisis

words: 3.3k

warnings: language, some depictions of a relationship that is not entirely healthy, extensive use of my very basic knowledge of italian (padded with google translate, thank you google!), and an unfortunate amount of endearments and pet names. this does not deviate from john wick chapter 2's canon ending, so please bear in mind this will contain major character death.

rating: m for mature language ??? probably closer to t, but will change later on.

notes: as some of you may know, this has been (unfortunately) sitting on my drive since i first watched john wick chapter two almost a year ago--maybe over a year! i can't remember. all i remember was seeing santino and going "SOMEONE has got to kiss that man". so you know, here i am. this short-fic (only a few, short parts) will take place over the span of the events of john wick chapter 2. yes i built some tiny amount of lore for the camorra. yes i had the opportunity to write a fix-it fic and did not. no i am not taking criticism at this time !

special uber big thank you to my beta and my wifey @starcrier who read this a year ago and when i casually said, "hey, so what if i posted this" told me to do it. also @faithchel, who through the occasional sly prompt slid in from ask games (i see you) has been a true angel while i sort through this, and equally as encouraging!

and of course thank you to you all, who read this. i know this is not the usual content you followed me for but i appreciate you all the same. <3

“I cannot believe that I will marry a man so stupid.”

Euphemia is practically frothing at the mouth, she’s so mad; she storms into the chic New York loft, tossing her purse onto the nearby counter, her heels clipping against the polished floor decisively. It’s late; the silk slip of a dress draped across her body brushes the floor in a sweeping train, and she balances herself on the counter with one hand while she steps out of the stilettos with the assistance of the other.

“Euphie, luce della mia vita,” Santino says, striding in after her and completely at ease. He is, infuriatingly, as he always is; perfectly composed, his dark curls in place and his suit immaculate. Euphemia eyes him through the mirror of her vanity as he sidles up behind her. “We’re not married yet, princesa, so you have nothing to worry about.”

“Luce della mia vita,” Euphemia drawls mockingly. She drips the words in honey on the way out of her mouth, sliding a dainty, glittering bracelet from her wrist and dropping it on the counter. “You sound like a fucking idiot, Santi.”

His gaze darkens, but his voice is still silky when he says, “Watch your tone, cara mia.”

“What for?” Euphemia thinks she wouldn’t be able to watch her tone even if she wanted to; not anymore, not with this hanging over her head. She turns to stare at her fiancé, pressing her index finger to his chest. “You’re going to get killed by Baba Yaga anyway. No point in behaving myself, is there? Idiota.”

“Euphemia.”

“You leave John Wick alone, Santino,” she bites out. “You don’t ask for a thing from him. Of him. About him. I don’t want John Wick near my life.”

Santino grabs her wrist, the hand with the engagement ring sitting on it—snatches it out of the air like a cobra striking, grips it with hands that usually are much kinder.

“Everything that you have now is a gift from me,” he warns her, voice pitched low. “You like your nice engagement ring? Your nice dresses? This nice loft we live in?”

His fingers grip, nearly bruising; these are the only times that he doesn’t handle her with care, that his elegant fingers don’t splay against her skin reverently—when she’s pissed him off.

“I’ve given it all to you, all of these things, this life that you like having and don’t want John Wick near, so I would suggest watching your tone for that.”

There is a brief moment where Euphemia thinks she might finally, right now, resort to the violence of slapping Santino in the face. The threat is not lost on her; it’s Santino’s favorite thing to do when he’s angry. And for her to commit an act of violence against her fiancé would be unthinkable almost every other time, in any other situation. Euphie would not have considered it in the least, but there are times—on occasion—where she thinks for a second that she doesn’t recognize him; that he’s become some amalgam of all of the men who have grabbed her too hard or told her she owes them. Men who have used her meanly.

And Santino has divulged his plan to push John Wick for a favor.

So, yes: she thinks she might, but then her hand is moving of her own volition, sliding the engagement ring off of her finger and stuffing it into his jacket pocket, the more pacifist choice than what her mind is screaming for her to do.

“You have never had nothing, Santi,” she says, biting out the words, “so allow me to enlighten you; I have had nothing before you, and I will be just fine having nothing again.”

His eyes narrow, gemlike slits that sit heavy on her. She yanks her wrist of his grip and says, “And it is a good thing we are not married, si? A divorce would have been so messy.”

“Euphie,” Santino says in a sigh that lacks venom, as though he weren’t just threatening to take everything from her, as though she were the hysterical one, “don’t fuss.”

Don’t fuss, he says, because Santino has only ever had women before that bend themselves over backwards until they break for him; don’t fuss, he says, because he likes and maybe loves her, she thinks, but he doesn’t like or love when she talks back. Santino has always had someone to wait on him, to serve him, and Euphemia has never seen his parents together but she would that his only vision of marriage is that of a subservient, dutiful, loving wife.

“Oh, but my darling,” she coos, very undutiful and decidedly not subservient, “I wouldn’t want you to have to worry about all of the nice things you give me. You can enjoy them all yourself, for the brief time before Baba Yaga kills you for asking him to do a job he does not want to do, when he has announced his retirement.”

It’s a terrible way to feed the monster inside of her. That monster is a pusher, a puller, the kind that picked and chipped away at Santino until he lost that shred of his manicured control and gave her something, anything she could work with. It was impossible to love a man who was so buttoned up there was nowhere for her to put her love.

His expression tightens in the way that she recognizes as his controlled fury; bottling it, merchandising it, saving it for later. Santino is not incapable of killing his sister himself, but for some reason—a reason that Euphemia is sure is only known to him—he won’t. Some stupid shit about blood and family, probably.

“Take the ring back.” Santino’s voice is smooth, belying the danger lurking just beneath. He fishes the engagement ring out of the pocket of his suit jacket, where she’d dropped it, and picks up her hand again; this time, his fingers don’t grip with bruising force, but cradle. Euphemia thinks she might have pushed him, then, right to the line, because his eerie calm is unsettling as his fingers meticulously slide the engagement ring back into place.

He says, “There, you see? This is where your engagement ring belongs and will stay. Here, on your hand. Just like this is where you belong and will stay—here, with me.” His hand comes up to her face; she turns away, and he catches her chin and forces her to look back at him.

“You know I will get you anything you want,” Santino murmurs, “but you have to ask.”

Nicely, is the implied word. A good fiancé, a good wife, wouldn’t storm out of the car after he mentions John Wick in passing, ripping through the loft, calling him names. She knows all of this and she thinks, then maybe I’m not a good anything.

But she can tell when she’s pushed Santino’s buttons just enough—enough to make a point, and not enough to incur his wrath. Not entirely.

“Please, Santi,” she says, her voice still hard but softer than it was before, and already Santi is shaking his head so she plunges on recklessly, “do not cash in John Wick’s debt to you. Ascoltami, I know you—I know you will do something to put yourself and John Wick on opposite sides of the playing field.”

Santino’s gaze is sharp and clear. He drops his hand from her face, shrugging, and says, “So what? I will be playing chess, and John Wick will be playing checkers. You worry too much, Euphie.”

“What you mean to say is that I think before I act.”

He shrugs, and threads his fingers through her hair, reaching up with the other to brush loose strands of it from her eyes. He rumbles pleasantly, “Don’t you trust me?”

Euphemia grits her teeth. Her hands come up to grip his wrists, watching him with a prickle of dread in her chest. “Don’t you trust me, Santi?”

Santi’s gaze darkens. Like that, he drops his hands from her, tucking them into the pockets of his slacks as he turns and wanders further into the bedroom, taking all of his warmth with him and leaving Euphie to marinate in the cold glow of the vanity’s lights.

“You can say no,” she says after him, frustrated. “You don’t have to keep an air of mystery about it.”

“What do I do then, tesora?” Santino demands, turning to look at her from the foot of the bed where stands. “Kill her myself? You know I can’t. You know that you cannot ask me to do that.” A pause, and then, with an added air of entitlement: “And Wick owes me.”

There are complicated feelings wrapped up in the whole of it, she knows; Santino, who wants what his sister was given, but cannot bring himself to end her. Euphemia, who only wants Santino, who doesn’t care if he has a seat at the High Table or if he’s a sister-killer or not, who only wants him to look at her longingly like he did when they first met, just for forever instead of a brief moment in time.

And both of them, intrinsically linked, because Santino isn’t wrong when he says that he’s given her everything she has now and Euphemia isn’t wrong when she says she would be okay with nothing again.

She doesn’t ask it of him; he is right, that she can’t, that she wouldn’t. Gianna has only ever been kind to her, at least face to face, and if Santi’s sister had any reservations about Euphemia, then Euphie would find herself in a completely different situation. Not engaged to the only other heir to the D’Antonio empire, that was for certain.

Instead, then, she says, “I cannot ask you to do it, you’re right. I cannot ask you to do it, and I cannot keep you, and I cannot throw you away, Santino. I was less tired when I had nothing.”

She turns away and walks herself into the bathroom, fingers trembling as she undoes the delicate zipper of the gold dress, letting it pool at the floor in a whisper of fabric. The engagement ring sits heavy on her hand. It’s beautiful—and just what she wants, and also the thing that she fears the most, because she doesn’t know what it means to Santino and only what it means to her.

“Euphie.”

His voice comes from the doorway of the bathroom. She turns on the hot water in the tub, a beautiful porcelain clawfoot that she picked herself. It was one of the first things that Santino gifted to her, the first essence of her in the loft that is now almost entirely half-and-half the two of their tastes.

Euphemia doesn’t say anything, because she doesn’t know what to say, so she ties up her hair and shimmies out of the last of her clothes. She can feel his eyes on her, waiting for her to flower into submission and turn around and beg, oh, please Santino, forgive me, but he should know better because she has never and will never do that for him.

“Cara mia.”

“Do not.” Euphemia’s voice wobbles. She slides into the bathtub before it’s full, the water stinging her skin where it touches. “I can’t stand to hear your voice saying sweet things to me when you are willingly walking yourself into your grave.”

“You are being a little dramatic.” He makes his way over to her, kneeling down beside the porcelain tub, ghosting his fingers over her forehead and then the bridge of her nose, fluttering in a way that treasures her and causes her grief all at once. “Just one job, Euphie. That’s all I’m going to ask of him. And then it’s done, and you won’t have to be worried about the Boogeyman.” The pads of his fingers dip into the hot water and then skim along the slope of her collarbone, raising goosebumps on her skin. “And John Wick, whose lifelong peace you are very concerned about, can go back to his dog and his car.”

Euphemia thinks, it’s never just that, with you, because she knows Santino—she knows he’s hungry, has always been hungry, a boy magicked into a man’s skin all hurt and needing and starved, unable to inhibit himself properly. No self-preservation telling him when to stop, never telling him when enough is enough. Not really.

I see you, though, she thought, her gaze flickering over Santino’s face to trace the handsome lines of his expression. She would have never agreed to marry a man before she saw him without his face off; without knowing the monster underneath.

But while she knows this, and she sees Santino D’Antonio for what he really is, she is an idiot and a fool and loves a man sick with the magic of his own perceived destiny, a destiny he believes he is owed, so she says softly, “Promise me, Santi.”

“On my life,” Santino replies with that boyish charm she knows so well. He speaks as though he is not going to leave her in the morning to visit Baba Yaga, as though she doesn’t fear he won’t ever come back. “Now give me a kiss, princesa.”

“I mean it, Santino—”

“I do, too.” He cocks his head to the side. “I won’t ask twice.”

Euphemia acquiesces; not because she fears what he’ll do if he does feel he has to ask twice—because he does hate that—but because as much as she says she would be happy to have nothing again, she is content to bask in the something that she has now, while she has it.

She kisses the corner of his mouth. He slides his damp fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck and says, “Do you love me?”

“Of course.” Her voice feels rough with an emotion she doesn’t want any of. “Of course, Santi, that’s why I—”

“All I need is a yes or no, my little fox, not an essay.”

Her eyes narrow. She turns her face from him; he shifts his position at the end she’s leaned against, dragging his hands along her shoulders to ease the tension in her muscles. Her body reacts instinctively to him. She is a long cry from the girl scamming rich men out of their wallets and time, but there are some things she is still weak to; touch, the acknowledgment that she has a body, that she is real, to be reassured that she is alive.

Santino is so very good at that. He leans over the end of the tub and kisses her cheek, fingers working into the knots of her shoulders.

I am so afraid, she thinks, her eyelashes fluttering shut. I am so afraid that I will never see old age on you.

“Tesora.” His voice is a lull. Pulling her back in, pushing her back under, reminding her that to relinquish herself to someone is a luxury she does not want to go without anymore. To let someone else take control, to not have to worry about making decisions all the time; this is something that she always wants.

“Yes,” Euphie says, “of course I love you, Santi.”

She can feel his smile against her cheek.

“Good girl.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Tell me your favorite words.”

It’s both early and late; the clock’s cool blue numbers are keeping her awake; Santi’s hand slides along the curve of her hip admiringly above the silk of her nightdress, and his nose brushes the bump at the base of her neck. Euphemia shifts. When she does, the edge of her engagement ring catches on the silky pillowcase, but she doesn’t care—it will always do that, because Santi won’t pick another and Euphie won’t ask him to.

Goosebumps prickle along her skin with the air conditioning, cranked as high as she likes, whispers across it when her shoulder slides out from underneath the comforter. She rolls over to look at him. It’s unsurprising that he’s still awake, and he doesn’t look surprised to see she’s awake, either.

“My favorite words?” she prompts. Santino brings his hand to her face, his thumb dragging absently along her lower lip.

“Si,” he replies. “You are always reading. You can speak a few languages. You must have favorite words, no?”

His request does bring a smile to her face, tired as it is. They may have spent the rest of their waking evening wandering around each other like wounded dogs, wary and licking their wounds, but they are here now, together, in their bed.

Euphie says, “It is late, Santi.”

“And I cannot sleep.” He brushes his nose along her jawline. “But perhaps the soothing voice of my one greatest love will lull me.”

She laughs. Her hand finds his, their fingers interlacing, woven together. He pulls back from her and kisses the engagement ring, but he is waiting. He means it.

“Tendresse,” Euphemia says, the word rolling soft out of her mouth from misuse. Santino quirks a brow expectantly and kisses the pulse point of her wrist. “Tenderness.”

He nods sagely. Against the soft skin of the inside of her wrist, he murmurs, “You are a most tender creature, Euphemia D’Antonio.”

Her fingers slide out of his, running along the slope of his cheekbones and then the bridge of his nose. “That is Euphemia Volpe. If you’ll recall, we’re yet to be married.”

Santino leans in, captures her fingertips playfully with his teeth, and then kisses her palm with a warm, rich chuckle that sends pleasant heat spiraling down her spine. “You will never forget that I was fool enough to say that to you, will you?” he asks. “Tell me another.”

His eyes are just as warm as his voice, and twice as earnest. In these moments, Santino is the most charming; boyish and quick-witted, unburdened by the elements of the world, by his own desires. He thinks of nothing except them. Euphemia feels like she’s in her own little world with him, in their bedroom at three in the morning, while the air conditioner whirrs and ticks and he asks her something so unimportant, like what her favorite words are.

And then, Santino leans in and kisses her cheek, the corner of her mouth, and the underside of her jaw to prompt her.

“Amore,” she murmurs, feeling like the breath has been sucked out of her lungs by his longing. His tenderness.

“Oh,” Santino says, against her temple, “I know that one.”

When his stubble tickles her neck, she squirms, shifting away from him so hat she can take a breath; but he chases her, leans in and captures her in his arms so that he can nose the hair by her ear and kiss there.

“Euphie, my gorgeous girl,” he says in the way that wrenches her heart; drenched and drowned in adoration. “Perfetto e tutto mio.”

Santino wraps his arms around her and pulls her to his chest, his fingers tracing constellations on her back where the night dress slips away from her shoulder blades. Sweet Santi, covetous Santi; she is his greatest art piece, his favorite collector’s item, and in these moments she has never felt more treasured. There is something equal parts safe and selfish in wanting someone to treasure you.

“Say it for me, Euphie. You know I love when you do.”

She buries her face into his neck. Her eyes burn. He will go to Baba Yaga tomorrow, and she will have to pretend not to know, or it will wreck her. Euphie considers ways to keep him in bed in the morning; delay him, make him forget about John Wick and this glory that he is chasing forever.

“Sono tuo,” she murmurs. Tears sting at the corners of her eyes If he feels them against his skin, Santino makes no indication than to card his fingers through her hair. “Always, Santi.”

Always, always, always yours.

#john wick fic #santino d'antonio x oc #santino d'antonio / oc #spilled ink #c: euphemia volpe #c: santino d'antonio #i have nothing to say for myself except thanks and ily all <3 #scheduled post #x: senza tentazioni senza onore

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honeysidesarchived · 3 years

Text

WHERE THERE IS NO TEMPTATION, THERE IS NO GLORY.

⊱ a santino d'antonio / oc short-fic

pt. iv: we begin in the dark ( read on ao3 ) ( masterlist )

words: 4.9k

warnings: brief and fleeting allusions to patricide, liberal use of a very basic understanding of italian.

rating: m/t

notes: not me coming here after months of not touching the editing of this thing (ಥ﹏ಥ) i suppose i have been putting it off just because i know where it's going....we ALL know where it's going......anyway i love u guys. losing myself in editing this has been really, really nice.

i think i mentioned this early on, but i am taking some liberties with world-building around the camorra. so if you see me doing that....no u didn't.

as always you can find translations on ao3, where it’s easier to store them in a place that doesn’t get in the way. sorry tumblr!

Santino is in an exceptionally good mood the next morning. Euphemia, however, struggles to find comfort in anything.

It’s worse because Gianna calls. The second she sees her sister-in-law’s name show up on the caller ID of her phone, she thinks she’s going to puke—but Santino raises his eyebrows expectantly at her.

“Aren’t you going to pick it up?” Santino asks, flipping through some paperwork that he’s been reading, bent over the kitchen’s island counter. It’s as though he’s not just cashed in a favor with Baba Yaga to kill his own sister. For one split, brief second, Euphie can feel normal.

But she knows that’s not the case.

Hitting the green accept call button on her phone, Euphie lifts it to her ear. Her mouth feels dry. “Ciao.”

“Buongiorno, Euphemia. I hear there’s good news to celebrate!”

Her stomach wrenches. Santino, polished and perfectly postured as Michelangelo’s David, scribbles something on his notepad. She can feel the insistent beat of her heart—tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, let me out—against her ribs, until it’s not a tapping anymore. It’s hammering. Pummeling the skeletal bars of its cage, demanding to be set free.

“Pardon?” Euphemia asks, even though she knows exactly what Gianna is talking about, even though the sly little smile on Santino’s face tells her everything she needs to know.

“The baby, Euphie! My future niece or nephew? Santino called and told me last night.”

“Oh,” she says. “Yes. Mi dispiace, it still doesn’t feel real. It’s still—early.”

A lot of things don’t feel real anymore. The longer Euphie stays awake, the longer she feels disconnected from her reality. Santino spent all night meticulously piecing her back together, but this morning it feels like the glue’s dissolved and she’s falling apart again. If she moves too fast, takes in too deep of breath, she will go crumbling apart again.

“We will have to have a baby shower, si? I will even come to New York. Are you doing the wedding before or after?”

Her lashes flutter. She grips the edge of the counter as her stomach lurches and twists. “Before,” she whispers.

“Che?”

“Before,” Euphie says again, louder this time, ignoring the way her voice cracks. “We want to get married before.”

“Good, good. I know our papa would have been most happy with that. Euphie…”

She can’t take it. It’s too much, Gianna’s kindness—they’ve never been close, not even close to close, but Gianna is not an unreasonable woman. On the contrary; she’s exceptionally reasonable (more so than even Santi), and in the week that she and Euphemia spent around each other, it felt good. It felt good to be around a family, any family, that wasn’t brimming with dysfunction. Not the kind you could see on the surface level, anyway.

“Santino has told me you don’t have a very good relationship with your mother—”

Please, Euphie thinks, feeling faint. Please don’t.

“—but I think you will be a lovely mama, Euphie. If you can bring my brother to heel, you will have no problem with a baby.”

Sick. She is going to be sick. She doesn’t care that Santino has contracted a killer to dispose of his sister—she shouldn’t care, anyway—but of course it is the purest irony that Gianna expends all of her kindness the second that the contract has been signed, sealed, and delivered.

She is hollowed out, gutted like a Halloween pumpkin, all of her insides scooped out and dumped somewhere and now she is nothing, empty and cavernous and waiting to be filled so she can feel whole again.

“Thank you,” she says, “sorella. I am sorry—” I’m sorry, I’m sorry. “—to rush off of the phone, but I feel a bit unwell.”

“Of course, I will not keep you. We will plan the baby shower, yes? In time. In bocca al lupo, Euphie.”

“Yes.” Euphie swallows. In bocca al lupo, Gianna says, and what she means is, you are one of us, now. Frantically, Euphemia searches her mind for the proper response. “Crepi il lupo.”

She ends the call and sets the phone on the counter. Santino says her name—something like concern in his voice—but she doesn’t want to look at him. Her legs carry her from the kitchen to the bedroom, to the bathroom, closing the door behind her and locking it. Euphemia slides against the door until she’s sitting, bringing her knees up to her chest and burying her face into them.

“Stellina,” Santino says, “open the door.” He does not rattle the doorknob. It would be beneath him, to try, when she ought to just do what he wants.

Euphemia closes her eyes tightly. Tap-tap, tap-tap, her heart mocks her. She is alive. She is alive, and she is carrying another life inside of her, and by this time next week Gianna will be dead.

Tap-tap.

Dead.

Tap-tap.

Dead.

A death is one thing. Everyone has it, their little deaths, sitting in the hollow of their jaw—hot and swollen and waiting to burst. A death is one thing. But to carry your death, and another’s, and another’s—to know that you carry the life of one inside of you, that you have the ability to stop someone else’s death from bursting viscera in their mouths—is entirely another.

“Euphemia.”

“Why did you tell her?” Her voice comes out sounding like a stranger’s, breaking and hitching, grinding laboriously in her chest. “Why would you tell her?”

His voice comes through the door, muffled: “Euphie, Euphie—”

“Don’t,” she bites out viciously, “condescend to me, Santino.”

A pause. He is considering, she thinks—considering her nature, her tone, all of the careful pieces he has fitted back together in the wake of her fresh agony. He is considering, and she is thinking about how her life has become this: a series of flashes, memories, fleeting and slipping through her fingers like sand.

No, she thinks, Gianna is sand. John Wick is ruin.

After his careful consideration of his next words, Santino says, “She deserved some happiness. Before.”

Ruin arrives. Ruin does not leave.

Inevitable.

“Our life will be so good, Euphie.” His voice is softer now, and feels closer, like maybe he’s knelt down. She can hear the shuff of his hand against the heavy wood of the door. “It will be so good, you know?”

“I know,” Euphie whispers, and she doesn’t think he hears.

“Ours, and the baby’s.”

“I know, Santi—”

“I just want to make sure,” he says.

She knows what that means.

I want to make sure you don’t have a weak stomach, is what he means to say. I want to make sure you aren’t going to squirm out of this. It’s the first time that Euphemia feels like he needs her, rather than he just wants her; the realization that maybe he thinks he couldn’t endure this alone sitting heavy over her.

“Because I know you, my Euphie, I know what you—”

“Stop,” she whispers. “Don’t, Santi.”

“I just want to make sure,” Santi says again, even though he knows; if ever there had been an idea that she would leave him—and there wasn’t, not really, not in the way that has legs—it’s gone. They’re bound together now, irrevocably. Where would she go? Would she even want to? Santino knows everything about her.

He knows about her work, and how she has lifted from the pockets of some of the most awful under the Table. He knows about her nightmares. He knows about her father, and the little death of his she held in her hand, and the way she crushed it, like dust.

He knows, and no one else does, and no one else will ever love her the way that Santino loves her—in spite, in spite, in spite.

Tap-tap. A cloud of death, following her, and new life inside of her.

She turns, reaching up in the dark of their bedroom to unlock the door. She uses the cool metal to pull herself to her feet and opens the door. Santino is standing, like maybe he knew she was going to acquiesce to him. He probably did. She is predictable, that way.

“My Euphie,” he says again, reaching up and skimming the backs of his fingers against her cheekbone. “Are you really so cross with me for telling her? I only wanted her to have something.”

“I know,” she replies. The words ring hollow. Tap-tap. A mockery of her, bringing life when death is so close at hand. “I am sorry, Santi.”

She doesn’t know why the words I’m sorry come out of her mouth, why it is that she feels compelled to apologize for his wrongdoing—and it is wrong. He should not have told her. He should not have said anything to anyone about the baby, with John Wick at their doorstep.

But if some God shakes your house, Ruin arrives. Ruin does not leave.

Two years ago, if someone had told her that she would be married to and pregnant with the child of Santonio D’Antonio, she would have laughed.

Two years ago, they’re dating, so—maybe marriage is in the cards, but Euphemia doesn’t have a great picture of what a functional and practical marriage is, and that’s the cornerstone for her. Functional. Practical. An even and proportionate business transaction between two consenting adults. But childbearing? That is not something that Euphemia ever pictured for herself.

Two years ago, Santino does sometimes bring it up, in the early days. He’ll carry her into the loft, tipsy on expensive champagne, and set her down on the kitchen island countertop with no regard for the pricey dress he’s put her in and kiss her anywhere he can reach—her mouth, her cheeks, her jaw, her neck. It doesn’t matter until she’s laughing and swatting him away. He’ll say, with all of his soft reverence, “You will be a beautiful mother, Euphie,” and that he says you will be instead of you would be is not lost on her.

She doesn’t have the heart, then, to tell him that she doesn’t think she’s cut out for motherhood. She doesn’t have the heart now, either.

Too early she discovered that all things, love included, are a zero-sum game for Santino in which the amount that he wins is directly and perfectly proportioned to what his opponent loses, or it isn’t a win at all. That is why he says things in absolutes; you will be a mother, you are perfect and all mine, Wick owes me and I will have what I am owed.

He kisses her forehead and leads her to the bed. In moments like these, all of Santi’s quick, cold cruelty is tucked away, the condescension packaged for later, and instead he just is; he’s a man that she loves, that loves her, and as he pulls her under the covers of the bed and cradles her against his chest, she might almost be able to fool herself that they’re a regular couple. Just two people, in love—laying in the bed first thing in the morning, intertwined.

“We are closer than lovers now, Euphie,” he whispers into her skin as the deep-dark of sleep begins to crawl over her; she has only just woken, and yet it permeates over her, threatens to drag her down. “You know that saying? The same sin binds us.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━

The day passes in a blur and into the next. She hears nothing of it—of John Wick, of Gianna—and she prefers it that way. It feels even more wretched and awful, to prioritize herself in such way; to say, the less I know, the better, because she knows that if Santino makes even a passing comment about it, she will need to know. A horrifying, dreadful curiosity that she cannot abide.

“We should have a party,” Santino announces, one evening. Euphemia stretches, shoving her arm beneath the pillow as she watches him undress—buttons of his shirt first, then his watch, deposited on the vanity beside her jewelry box, then his belt, hung over the back of the chair; he moves methodically, deep in thought. There is a gentle furrow of his brows.

Euphie says, “We just had a party.”

“Yes.” He smiles, turning once he has sufficiently undressed enough to climb into bed beside her. “For our engagement.” Santino pushes the blankets back, settling himself that he can press a kiss just above her belly button, through the silk fabric of her camisole. “But now we are married.”

She shifts onto her back at the behest of his hands on her hips, combing her fingers through satiny curls. “You overindulge.”

“Si, si,” he murmurs against her tummy, “gluttony is my greatest vice. When it comes to you, anyway.”

Settled between her legs, Santino pushes the fabric of her camisole up, skimming his fingers across the slope of her abdomen and tracing the shape of her hip bones where her sleep shorts have ridden low. He takes his time, burying his face against warm skin and trailing kisses wherever he can reach.

He glances up at her through his lashes. “Would you deny me, my Euphie?”

Her breath catches in her throat. No, she thinks, not when you look at me like that.

“I don’t want to worry about planning it,” is what she says.

He flashes her a wicked grin. “I will take care of everything. Worry not, sweet Euphemia.”

“Mhm.” She gives him a hard look. “‘Worry not.’ Please.”

“Luce della mia vita,” Santino murmurs, returning to his lavishing of attention against her skin. “When are you going to tell your mama, hm? Now that you have ceased your cruelty towards me?”

Euphemia lets out a long sigh. The last thing she needs to think about right now—while she is managing her stress—is her mother. She doesn’t know if her mother will be happy that they are married or not; she has always said she wants it, but also cannot stand that she’s found a life outside of their tiny home in Tuscany. Maybe she will be furious, even, that they got married and denied her the attention of being the mother of the bride.

He sidles back up, nosing past loose hair collecting in the dip of her shoulder, his hands gliding up the back of her thigh.

“Another time, then,” he ventures lowly into the crook of her neck.

“Was it so obvious?”

“Nothing about you goes without my seeing it.” He pauses, kisses the hollow of her jaw, and she feels the flutter of his lashes against her skin. “Now tell me you love me.”

She tilts her head so that their noses can brush, their eyes meeting in the dim, warm lighting of the bedroom. His fingers dig playfully into her skin, dragging her leg up around his hip to bring her impossibly closer.

“You know that I do,” she whispers, “Santi.”

“Yes.” He grins. “And I like to hear you say it anyway. So, I will ask again—would you deny me, my Euphie?”

She could never.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Santino has a particular talent for throwing parties on short notice.

He thinks it might be one of his finer skills—polished and refined perfectly for years of use—but he is sure that Euphemia would argue that if asked, she would think first of his ability to yank her between the realms of infuriated and infatuated as easily as breathing.

He hadn’t intended for their marriage to happen so quickly, of course. But the important thing, he keeps telling himself, is not necessarily sticking strictly to one plan, but being able to change on the fly. This quick little celebration, speeding along the public timeline so they could announce, formally, their marriage, would happen in perfect time with his ascension to the High Table.

Married. A father. In his seat.

“What are you thinking about?”

It’s Euphie’s sweet voice that beckons him out of his thoughts—thoughts of John Wick, and whether he’s dead now or has been dead for quite a while, if his sister was easy to kill or if it even matters because everyone is easy to kill for John Wick—and he turns to look at her.

She is beautiful, as always, in the white dress with silver stars scattered across it, the plunging neckline and gauzy fabric suiting her. Always so beautiful, he thinks, reaching out and tucking a flaxen strand of hair behind her ear, my gorgeous little fox.

“You, of course,” he replies. Even now, even after years together, she blushes when he says things like this. It’s one of his favorite things about her; she always feels shiny-new, like she will never grow tired of him. Like she will never stop blushing when he catches her off guard with his sweetness. “Vieni qui.”

Euphemia does as he asks, closing what little distance is between them with a few steps before her arms are sliding around his neck.

“What are you really thinking about?” she asks, smoothing her hand along the lapel of his jacket. Santino can’t help but think she looks absolutely perfect like this; a little sly, her eyes glimmering with a sweet amusement that had been missing in the last week. It’s his fault that it’s been gone, but in the long run, she’ll be grateful for this time, this hardship.

Santino buries his face into the crook of her neck and growls playfully, “I am always thinking of you, my Euphemia, belladonna.” He kisses her neck, her shoulder, the spot just below her ear. “That you are the loveliest, most cunning little fox I have ever had the pleasure of trapping.”

“Oh?” She seems pleased. There is still a look to her eyes—on-edge, incensed, the energy vibrating just beneath her skin—but it’s softened now. “We are already married, Santi, you don’t need to sweet-talk me so much anymore.”

“On the contrary,” Santino replies, hands running along the dropped back of her dress, “I will sweet-talk you as much as I can, now that you are my wife, and the mother of my child.”

The blonde laughs delightedly, squirming under the attention of his hands before pulling away from him. “Stop staring off into space, then,” Euphemia says, “and dance with me, Santi.”

He thinks about the look on John Wick’s face that day in the museum, when he’d asked how John would kill him—how Wick had said, with my hands. A chance that had sat there, and Wick had not taken. For a man like John Wick, Santino knows, there are no “chances”; every moment is an opportunity, blending into the next and the next, until that’s all his life was. A single, blurred, stream of opportunity.

It will work in his favor.

Santino plants one hand on her waist and takes hers in the other, kissing her wrist and then her palm before interlacing their fingers together. Yes, it really is like nothing has happened; thousands of miles away, his sister will be dying, or dead already; here in a gorgeous ballroom, under glimmering lights, Santino takes his freshly minted bride onto the dancefloor and kisses her.

“I have a new favorite word,” Euphemia says, drenched in the golden light of longing and the chandelier, reflected in the green of her eyes. Santi hums inquisitively, giving her a gentle turn before drawing her back close to him again.

He kisses her, slow. “Tell me.”

Her breath catches as if it’s the first time, and it might as well be—each time with her is electric.

“Mine,” she breathes out, fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck. “That is my new favorite word. Mine.”

Santino thinks about the promise that he made her, to not go to war with John Wick, and about how relieved she’ll be when John Wick’s death becomes news.

Anything. The thought permeates, dreamy and hazy, through his mind; ever-present, clinging to him like a cloud. I would do anything to keep you and our baby, forever.

“Funny,” he says, “that is my favorite word, too.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━

“I like the name Viola.”

Euphemia is three-fourths of the way through her book, sitting cross-legged at the table in the breakfast cafe that she and Santino frequent, when he says this. She glances up from her reading, dog-earing the page and then settling her chin in her palm to look at him.

He gives her a boyish grin from across their little table, setting his napkin down. “For the baby,” he continues when she looks at him expectantly. “If it’s a girl.”

“Mm.” Euphemia closes her book and tucks it beneath her leg, stirring her tea absently. “And if it’s a boy?”

“Luca,” Santino says without hesitation. “I’d want to name him Luca.”

“Well,” Euphie replies, playfully, “it’s nice to want things, isn’t it?”

“Mrs. D’Antonio, are you threatening to usurp naming rights?”

She laughs, and when Santino reaches across the table to take her hand, she lets him. It’s been a few days since he talked her off the ledge of leaving, since she signed the certificate, since John Wick was sent off to kill Gianna. For those few days, she almost feels normal again; like they really are just any other married couple expecting their first baby.

“I like Luca too,” she murmurs, when Santino kisses her fingers and rests his cheek against them. “And Viola.”

“Good.”

He relinquishes her hand—and it is a relinquishment, because if he had it his way he would be touching her forever—and finishes his coffee before coming to a stand. He drops some bills on the table to pay their tab and then snakes his arm around her waist, walking her out of the cafe.

“I think I will cook dinner tonight,” he announces, and the way his hand squeezes her hip and he turns his head to kiss her temple feels so terribly domestic that her heart aches with the sweetness of it. “What do you think?”

They step up to the curb, a soft drizzle of Fall rain coming down on them, but Euphie doesn’t care; she takes Santino’s face in her hands and kisses him sweet and soft and lets it linger. This, she thinks, damp and tasting the rain in her husband’s kiss. This, always, forever.

“I think it is the least you can do for me,” she replies playfully, pulling away from him when the car pulls up to the curb. He laughs, opening the door for her to slide in—but he doesn’t follow after right away, instead watching someone down the sidewalk approaching.

Euphemia scoots back close to the door having moved in further to make room for him. “Santi?”

“Just a minute, cara mia,” he says, flashing her an extraordinary smile. “Warm up in the car.”

He closes the door without waiting for her to answer and takes a few steps away from the car. Through the rain streaking the window, she can’t see exactly what’s going on; but if the lithe, sleek shape of Ares is any indication, things aren’t going well. She is almost never a bearer of good news when she shows up unannounced.

Something is wrong. Euphemia can feel it inside of her, a chill that goes bone-deep, into the marrow of her skeleton.

After a few minutes of silence, Santino walks back to the car. He opens the door, and before Euphemia can say anything, he leans down and kisses her. It’s a normal kiss, the kind he would give if he were running to the museum for something, unhurried and patient.

As soon as the kiss breaks, she says, “Santi...” but he’s already straightening up.

“It’s only business, cara mia,” he assures her. “I will meet you at home.”

“What business? Santi, please—”

He closes the door to the car and steps away from her, taking off at a casual pace with Ares falling into step beside him. The car pulls out and away from the curb, taking her in the opposite direction of him, carrying her away and away until she is back at the loft, by herself.

It’s cold, she thinks, without Santino. Even though he’ll be back—he said that he would—it still feels cold. She draws a bath that’s a little less hot than what she normally likes and sinks into it, waiting as the silence ticks by. It strikes her that time is passing excruciatingly because he won’t tell her what’s going on; when Satino is gone for anything else, it doesn’t matter. She’s happy to be alone, then.

But this? This is different.

An hour passes, maybe a little more, before she drags herself out of the bathtub feeling like her limbs have become lead. Wrapped in her towel, Euphemia steps out into the living room again and checks her phone—but there is nothing. No text, no call, not from Santino or Gianni or anyone.

The door to the loft clicks open. For a second, her heart drops—but when she goes to foyer, she feels relief flood her. Santino hangs his coat on the stand and glances up at her. He’s closing the space between them, shrugging out of his suit jacket.

“Isn’t it a little early for a bath?” he asks playfully, indicating the bathrobe and her flushed, damp skin.

“I was cold,” she replies. “Santi, what’s going on? Where have you been? I was worried—”

“Shh, tesora, don’t fuss,” he murmurs, pulling her to him by the tie of her robe. It should be romantic, but the movement only sets her on edge. “Everything’s fine. Come here, I want my wife.”

This close, she’s sure she can feel a strange vibration under his skin, bloody and unkempt. It buzzes just beneath the surface of him, under the rain-damp curls and dark jade eyes and she wants to ask him what it is—what’s happened that has him worked up—but then he’s leaning in and kissing her. Hard, and impatient, his teeth dragging along her lower lip punishingly as he walks her back, far enough that she hits the kitchen island.

“Tell me,” she demands between breaths, her fingers knotted in his hair, half to anchor herself and half to make sure he can’t run away from her, “what it is that has you upset—”

“I’m not upset,” he replies evenly, but his breathing is shallow, his eyes darting over her face like he won’t get another chance to look at her.

“I am not stupid, Santi.” Euphemia can see that her insistence on the matter is beginning to irritate him. “Tell me.”

Santino pulls away; she doesn’t have the heart to keep her grip on him, so he paces to one end of the kitchen, passing a hand over his face. He does look agitated, now, like the cracks are finally starting to show, like he’s peeling his mask off piece by piece. Santino has only taken his face off in front of her a few times over the course of their relationship, but enough that she felt confident in agreeing to marry him, like she knew who he really was under all of the polish and glimmer.

Her husband is staring absently at a spot on the counter, like he doesn’t want to say the words that come next. Maybe he’s thinking of a way that he could get out of it—talk a circle around her, the way that he likes to—but for a brief moment in time he looks too tired to do that. It’s worse, she thinks, to see him tired, than if he were just to be bothered by something inane.

She waits with her arms crossed over her chest before she tries again, “If it’s business, I don’t mind listening—”

“You have to go,” he says abruptly. It’s as though her gentle insistence seals the deal for him. “Upstate, to the lake house. You have to go, Euphie, and I don’t want you to.”

Her heart clenches and twists in her chest. Suddenly, she does mind; she doesn’t want to know that anything is wrong, if it will mean that Santino won’t tell her she has to leave.

“Why?” she asks, sounding petulant, like a spoiled child. “Santi, what is going on?”

“It’s just—” Don’t, she thinks, don’t you say it. “—business. There are some things that I need to tie up, and it’s safer if you are not in town while I’m doing it.” He pauses. “For you and the baby.”

Euphemia feels her lower lip wobble. She hates it. She never cried this easily before being pregnant. Blinking rapidly to stay the tears, she steadies herself on the counter.

“Tesora, don’t cry,” Santi sighs, crossing the kitchen, and somehow that he says it makes it harder to stop crying. “It’s just a day, maybe two. That is all. I don’t want you to go, but you are—you are my greatest treasure, and I just want you to be safe.”

“I can stay,” Euphemia whispers. “I can stay, Santi, I’ll--I’ll stay here, and I won’t go anywhere unless you say--”

“No.” He takes her face, smoothing the tears away. She reaches up, gripping his wrists, desperate to keep his hands on her now. Anything for touch, for affirmation. “I cannot risk it. Not you, not the baby. Okay? So you will go upstate for a little while, and then I will come and get you and we’ll go back to life as usual.”

She nods, numbly. Her stomach churns, and she thinks, it’s John Wick. Santino did something to him, and now John Wick is coming back to get what he is owed.

“Tell me you understand, Euphie.” There is something firm, hard about his voice now, and it fills her with dread.

“Yes, Santi,” she replies. “I understand.”

And I wish I did not.

#spilled ink #santino d'antonio x original female character #santino d'antonio/oc #f: where there is no temptation there is no glory #c: santino d'antonio #c: euphemia volpe #i am once again begging god to give euphie a break #(i say)#(to me)#john wick oc #i am trying not to think about What's Happening

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honeysidesarchived · 3 years

Text

EUPHEMIA VOLPE D'ANTONIO, BORN DEC 1ST ✣ JOHN WICK

“And I trust our fair lady won’t be too tempted to strangle you, Wick, with her bare hands, now that you’re within reach.”

“Tempted, certainly,” she says, her voice blooming with a strange, eerie kind of warmth. “But there is an old saying, in our family. Senza tentazioni, senza onore.”

#happy birthday golden girl hope ur doing alright #(i the author say)#(knowing full well she is not)#c: euphemia volpe #john wick oc #euphie bday boogaloo #fuck i can't believe i forgot lmao #maybe i will in fact get the epilogue up today for her sake

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honeysidesarchived · 3 years

Text

WHERE THERE IS NO TEMPTATION, THERE IS NO GLORY.

⊱ a santino d'antonio / oc short-fic

pt. ii: they whose lives do not taste of evil ( read on ao3 ) ( masterlist )

words: 2.7k

warnings: none that are chapter specific.

rating: m/t

notes: thank you to everyone who has loved on me and supported me after posting the first part of this! it really makes me so warm and fuzzy inside and i cannot express in words how grateful i am. ♡

as always, thank you to my love @starcrier for being my most wonderful beta. ♡♡

Morning light filters through the curtains in the bedroom. The air conditioning had clicked off moons ago, having decided that the room was at its sufficient temperature; now just a few rays of the sun are warming the carpet on her side, cutting across the cream-colored knit blanket at the foot of the bed. Through the windows, she can hear the bustle of New York—churning, grinding, a beast of its own as it laboriously beneath their own feet.

Sometimes, Euphemia thinks that she hates New York—that she misses the countryside in Italy, that she misses bare feet on grass and warm, dark earth and the sticky-wet of pulling fruit straight from the vine. Sometimes, Euphemia thinks that New York is a beast waiting for her, to swallow her up, teeth ripping through pavement and concrete and brick to bite bite bite until it reaches her.

But not today. Today, Euphemia is not thinking about the Beast. She is thinking only about the fact that Santino’s spot beside her is empty, and then she’s reminded that today he will be wandering out into the world under the Table to ask a man who doesn’t want anything to do with Santino to grant him a favor. To grant Santino what he is owed, as he would prefer it framed.

Euphemia sits up in bed. She’s not sure when it is that she finally fell asleep, but if the drag of exhaustion in her mind is any indication, it wasn’t very long ago. She can’t recall if she dreamt, or if she rested even at all—if she had to guess, she’d think she spent the entire night tossing and turning, restless, with the burning itch of John Wick’s threatening presence looming in her future.

She can hear Santino out in the kitchen; the smell of coffee drifts in through the open door. The blonde slips out of bed to wander out, her footfalls quiet on the plush carpet, and she sees him—dressed, polished up, as though he got a perfect eight hours of sleep. An old song hums through the speakers of the sound system on the entertainment stand.

So much for keeping him distracted, Euphemia thinks ruefully.

“Good morning,” Santino greets, pouring a cup of coffee and setting it on the island counter to scoot it in her direction. “You were sleeping so soundly that I didn’t want to wake you.”

“You could have,” Euphie replies, taking the cup in her hands and using it to warm her fingers rather than drinking the coffee. “It wouldn’t have mattered. I don’t feel like I have slept at all.”

“Yes,” he agrees somberly, “you were restless.” His hand reaches up, the pad of his thumb tracing the slope of her jaw. “My little worrier.”

She crinkles her nose at him, finally relenting and taking a sip of her coffee. He’s made it just the way that he knows she likes—strong, rich, cream and no sugar. Santino winds his arms around her and laces his fingers against the small of her back, leaning so that he can get a long, good look at her.

“Well, go on,” he prompts her, eyes glittering playfully. “I know you want to say something to keep me home.”

Euphie’s chest tightens. It’s a little cruel of him; he wants to hear her ask, even though they both know there’s nothing she could say to change his mind. He likes to have her ask just so he can tell her no, and usually, she won’t bite. Not for his ego.

But this is different.

She sets the coffee aside, her hands instead finding his chest, holding on to the lapel of his jacket. She says, “I don’t want you to go, Santi. Please don’t go. We can stay in bed all day, or—what if we went back to Italy? Just for a little while? My mother would like to see you, I know.” Swallowing, Euphie feels her lashes flutter, the desire to let her voice wobble with emotion almost overwhelming. I won’t, she thinks, I won’t cry. “We can do anything you want, but—not this.”

“Sweet Euphie,” Santi sighs, taking her face in his hands. “Così dolce, just for me, aren’t you?” He leans in and kisses her temple; for a split second, she thinks that he might acquiesce, that he might set it aside, even for one day—indulge her, the way that he likes to do. Santino has always wanted her to be selfish with him. When they’d started dating, it took her months to get used to the way he’d buy her anything, cook her anything, give and get her anything, and for a girl who’d had so very little for so long, it had almost been nauseating. She would eat her fill, and Santino would say, more, cara mia? Would you like more? As if he had known that allowing her to indulge herself in the fruits of his world under the Table would curse her to stay, forever.

And here she was. Stuck. Blissfully, dreadfully, wretchedly, sickeningly and wonderfully stuck.

“But no,” he continues, pulling back and tilting her chin up with his fingers. “Business needs to be taken care of before I can relax.”

Euphemia releases a breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding. It’s not an unexpected response, but she won’t kick herself for trying—not considering the circumstances, considering what he is leaving to do. In anything else, she might have been too proud to say please.

Her fiancé plants a kiss on both of her cheeks. “Drink your coffee,” he commands, his voice light as he grabs his phone and tucks it into his pocket, heading for the door. “What time is the engagement party?”

“Seven,” Euphie replies tiredly. She does as he bids like it’s second nature to her now, taking a drink of the coffee. “Be back by five, Santi.”

His hand is on the handle to the door outside. She thinks she might be sick. He says, “Wear the red dress I like.”

“Maybe. If you behave.”

Santino flashes her a grin from the doorway. She wonders if anyone else is comfortable ordering him around, or if she’s just so accustomed to living with an apex predator that she’s become numb to his dangers.

“Yes, cara mia,” he purrs. “Anything you say.”

Except that isn’t true, she thinks, watching him open the door and greet Ares, who has been waiting—lurking, in the hall to the elevator, like the shadows cut across the floor from the chandelier lights. There is a tiny moment where their eyes meet over Santino’s shoulder, and Euphemia hopes that she might see pity; she’s miserable, after all, knowing that Santino is walking into a slaughterhouse.

As ever, Ares is unreadable. There is only the tiny, almost imperceptible quirk of the corner of her mouth, and then door is closed and Euphemia is alone. And there is a tiny, vicious part of her that says, we ought to get used to being alone. We never should have forgotten it in the first place.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Santino is late, and when he shows up, he doesn’t say whether things went well or not.

They must have gone well enough, because he’s alive and in one piece and in a fine enough mood. But that is the problem—his mood is fine. He arrives at his own engagement party in a fine mood, and Euphemia can’t decide what’s more irritating: that he’s late, that he won’t tell her how it went, or that he can’t fake being delighted for a few hours.

“Ah, there’s your man,” Winston says, a smile lifting his expression. The older man had been keeping her company as the hour ticked by and she had to say hello and hi and thank you to every guest attending at Santino’s behest—yet another frustrating detail, Euphemia mentally notes, that he’d bothered all of these folks to show up and didn’t have the decency to arrive on time himself. She’s very certain that Winston did not intend to stay as long as he has, and for that, she feels poorly.

But she’s too irritated to express it properly. “Is that one mine?” Euphie asks lightly, turning her gaze away from Santino striding into the room and getting stopped by guests on his way to her. She twists her untouched champagne flute in her fingers, fixing her gaze back on Winston. “No man of mine would come late to his own party. Not if he wanted to walk out in one piece.”

Winston laughs at her words and gives her hand a pat. “You are a woman after my own heart, Euphemia Volpe.”

“I’ll be accepting applications for the position of my husband shortly, I think.”

She feels Santino’s hand on her waist just before he leans into kiss her cheek; the movement is so quick that she doesn’t have the time to properly avoid his affection, and he almost certainly does that on purpose.

“I am so glad you could come, Winston!” Santino announces, reaching and shaking the older man’s hand. “And that you got to spend some time with my own personal star.” He turns to her now, finally, reaching up to take her face in his hands. “Mi dispiace, Euphie, I did try to hurry.”

She tilts her head a little, lifting her chin out of his grasp. “Don’t apologize to me,” Euphemia replies. “Winston is the one you kept waiting.”

Santino grins. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes—or rather, it doesn’t look like the kind of grin that you make when you’re happy. Nothing about him screams happy, future wedded-bliss. Everything looks strained, like someone’s pissed him off and he’s just had to do something about it.

He looks at Winston, dropping his hands. “I’m sorry, truly.”

The man waves his hand, as though it isn’t a big deal—but it is, Euphie knows, at the very least to her; Winston has always treated her kindly, regardless of whose arm she was on-and he puts a hand on Santino’s shoulder. “I only came to say congratulations and see this fine lady, and then I was going to be off. So—congratulations...” His gaze turns to Euphemia. “Miss Volpe.” He kisses both of her cheeks. “Here I have seen you. And I will be on my way.”

Euphie says, “Thank you for coming, Winston. You did not need to wait around for this idiot.”

“I never say no to time with a beautiful lady,” he admonishes, making to leave. “Santino just happens to be here.”

“I will walk you out,” Santino declares. He’s only just arrived, and he smells a little bit like smoke, and he’s carrying with him a strange, frantic energy; but before Euphemia can think to say anything, he’s kissing her—hard, and a little desperate, and she can feel an eerie tremble in his hands before he pulls away and takes her drink out of her hand and swallows the entire thing in one go.

And then he’s off. Walking away with Winston, who looks calm and unbothered by the erratic display (though Winston always looks that way, so it’s no good gauge for Euphemia to tell when something is off). But something is off. As they’re walking, Santino is talking to Winston with a frenetic urgency that translates only in ways she can recognize. To the outside eye, her fiancé is composed, and perhaps a little stressed, his strides collected and tight and his lopsided grin to sharp to be pleasant.

His kiss tastes of ash. She can feel it in her mouth, still, gunpowder and smoke lingering in the palette, but she will not bring herself to think about where it came from.

By the time Santino returns from “walking Winston out”—which probably means talking to Winston about something he doesn’t want Euphie to hear—she has decided to bring it up. She doesn’t know how, yet, but she’s going to do it.

He slides his arms around her as she visits with some of their friends, burying his face into the crook of her neck, like he just can’t stand not to be touching for a second longer. The conversation carries on blithely without her; Euphie reaches up and cradles the side of Santino’s face with her hand, fingers brushing the dark, honeyed curls at his temple. She’s decided to be sweet about it.

“You seem stressed,” she murmurs.

“Not stressed,” Santino replies, speaking the words into her neck. He sways a little, turning her in his arms and pulling her against him so that he can sway her with him. The movements are leisurely in comparison to the energy that he’s carrying; pushing and pulling with the lull of the delicate music playing overhead. It should be a dream, this engagement party. It’s all golden light and warmth billowing from an ornate fireplace, the people that she cares the most about celebrating her and Santino’s love.

Euphemia says, “You smell like smoke.”

It’s not a question, and Santino knows it. He holds one of her hands in his and presses their foreheads together.

“You are so beautiful, Euphie,” he sighs dreamily. He kisses her again—less urgent this time—and she knows what it means: it’s better if she doesn’t ask. She’s going to be a D’Antonio, which means that problems get taken care of for her, and she doesn’t have to worry about following up.

Still, while the warmth of his kiss is distracting and lovely, and the feel of his hands pressing into the base of her spine where the plunging back of the red silk dress he likes the best on her makes her skin break out in delighted goosebumps, she cannot help but think, I should know. I have a right to know what’s going on.

“Santi,” she begins, lower her voice even more, “if something has happened—”

“Nothing has happened,” Santino insists, turning her slowly before drawing her back against him. “Mia piccola volpe, stop fussing. I promised you, didn’t I?”

Her lips press into a thin line. “Yes,” she replies after a minute, “you did.” But if something has happened, she wants to say, and can’t bring herself to because Santino is kissing her again, pleased with her concise and obedient answer; he kisses her again and again, between breaths, funneling all of his frenzied energy into her instead. He gives it to her to hold, but won’t tell her where it’s come from or why it’s there. Just shoves it into her for safekeeping.

People cat-call and holler and whoop and laugh, and he grins against her mouth, lifting her up against him playfully—just far enough off the ground that she loops her arms around his neck to steady herself, unable to focus on how frustrating it is to be worried, and not know why.

“Ti amo,” Santino rumbles against her collarbone, kissing there reverently. “What do you think about leaving, hm? Sneak out of our own engagement party early, so I can take you home and enjoy you properly?”

It sounds too good, to go home. It sounds too good, because just that morning, she was begging him not to leave.

“I don’t know,” she ventures, smoothing her hand absently over the lapel of his suit jacket once he’s set her back down. “I don’t know, Santi, I...”

Her voice trails off. Ares is by the door. Once, the woman had been a comfort to her; now, she’s a reminder of this traitorous thing Santino has done, this thing that sits between them but only he can see and touch and feel, and Euphie just has to suffer the consequences of it one way or another.

“Come on, cara mia,” he coaxes, drawing her eyes back to him, twisting a strand of her hair around his finger. “We can do whatever you want.”

There must be something he isn’t telling me, she thinks. Something that’s blown his pupils wide until the black at them is eating away at the gorgeous jade green of his irises. Something dreadful, that he knows she’ll hate. That she’ll fuss about.

The question sits there, just on the tip of her tongue. What about Wick? she wants to ask. But she already knows that he won’t tell her, and she is learning quickly not to ask.

Ignorance is bliss, anyway.

#santino d'antonio x oc #john wick fic #spilled ink #santino d'antonio/oc #f: where there is no temptation there is no glory #c: euphemia volpe #santino d'antonio #i still feel exceptionally shy about this but dkjhfdkf #thank u thank u thank u everyone who has given me love!!!!#x: senza tentazioni senza onore

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