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fanesavin · 7 years

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Long Way Back, Part II: The Crescent City

Words: 49281 Characters: @faye-andrews Fane, Cat, Beulah & Shady Shane. Synopsis: Situated in Louisiana down on the Mississippi River near the Gulf of Mexico, this quaint little city attracts all sorts of unique characters some more interesting than others. Nicknamed the "Big Easy", New Orleans is known for it's round-the-clock nightlife, vibrant music scene and spicy, singular cuisine reflecting its history as a melting pot of French, African and American cultures. One thing's for sure, however... secrets don't stay hidden for long in this city. Tag Warnings: Sex Mention, USFW, Exhibitionism, Murder Mention, Violence, Threat, Coercion, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Kidnapping Mention, Torture Mention, Child Trafficking Mention, Sex Trade Mention, Drugs Mention, Overdose Mention, Prisoner of War Mention/Implied, Human Experimentation, Body Mutilation Mention & War Mention

There is a house in New Orleans…

The city was just as Faye remembered. Hot, muggy, and full of life. The cobblestone streets of of the French Quarter were silent beneath their feet as they walked past the horse-drawn carriages waiting on the tourists and on weary locals - Faye stopping to give one or two a pat, past the artists selling their rich and vibrant work, and the food vendors selling everything from bits of fried alligator on a stick, to beignets covered in powdered sugar and served on a paper plate fresh to order.

From somewhere nearby, a street musician played a sad song on a trumpet, and laughter and the clink of glassware drifted out of the propped open doors of the bars and restaurants that lined the streets. A flash of cool air ruffled Faye’s hair every now and then. It had started to curl even more in the humidity, and though she was dressed in a tank top and a cotton skirt, her skin gleamed with a fine sheen of sweat. Fane however, looked nonplussed. They turned down a street that was a bit more narrow, one car width across, but still lined with the gleaming neon signs of hometown bars both famous and infamous. And when they came to a stop on the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse, Faye gave his hand a nervous squeeze. “Well, that’s her,” she said, tilting her chin towards a place down and across the other side of Bourbon Street.

The ‘Morgana’s’ logo - a tall, stylized ‘M’ inside a vertical ellipse - shone brightly in a wash of neon purple from above the double front doors. There was no name, only the logo. The facade was old brick, the kind that every studio apartment in the Northeast tried to replicate but never got quite right. An iron balcony skirted the upper floor, French doors leading inside all open to the night air, and they could see people standing out there with their drinks, laughing and talking.

Below, a large man in a black t-shirt stood by the double front doors that were flanked by large potted palms, checking ID’s and stamping hands. Faye smiled. Now that she was here, she couldn’t wait to get inside. “Come on,” Faye said, pulling Fane through the crowd and towards the bar front. Faye felt the familiar wash of her magic, still there from years ago, as they passed through the crowd and slipped past the man in black unnoticed and on into the bar itself. Her magic recognized her, and she would always be allowed entrance.

They had woken up a bit later than usual for both of them that morning. And had actually been in the process of potential, and well past due, morning ‘reconnection,’ when the bedroom door had been flung open and in ran a squealing Eowyn followed by three very large, very happy dogs. The toddler had proceeded to jump on the bed and sequester herself between her mother and Fane, laughing madly as the dogs tried to follow, though only one managed it, heaving his 150 pound body onto the mattress and settling down like it was his personal space.

Faye could only look at Faye across the expanse of sheets, kid, and dog, and burst out laughing. Because there was nothing else for it. Breakfast had passed uneventfully, with Faye showing Fane around the house for the rest of the morning, and then after lunch she’d put Eowyn down for a nap and finally sat down with her Gram to tell her about Faye’s mother. Afterwards, they’d emerged from the kitchen not much worse for wear, and Faye’s Gram, while she looked a bit sad, approached Fane and pulled him into a hug. She didn’t say anything, just hugged him tight, and gave his face a gentle, knowing pat once she pulled away. She’d gone upstairs then, to lie down with Eowyn, and Faye had fallen into Fane’s arms and had a good cry after telling him that her Gram had already known. They’d ended up dozing on the couch in the library for a couple of hours.

Later, Beaulah had insisted on spending the evening with Eowyn while Faye and Fane went out. Faye hadn’t even gotten around to asking yet. But the old woman had practically shoved them out of the house as Wyn tugged her towards the living room and her DVD collection.

And now here they were, standing in the main room of Morgana’s, music from a live band that was playing a mixture of blues and rock thrumming all around them. “God, it’s just like I remember,” Faye said, putting a hand of her hammering heart. “What d’you think?” she asked Fane over the noise.

But before he could answer, a thickly accented voice called out from somewhere near the bar. “Faye Benoit, as I live an’ fuckin’ breathe.”

Faye turned towards the voice, the owner of which was a woman with skin the color of mocha, a head full of thick, wavy dark curls, and eyes the color of sunlit honey. She wore a blue dress that fell to her knees, printed with white flowers, and her middle was wrapped in a corset of the same color bound with red ribbon. She moved like she was floating across the floor, and Faye let go of Fane’s hand briefly to raise her arms and embrace her. “Catarina Dufraine,” Faye laughed as she embraced the woman who had run the bar for her for the last five plus years. “How the hell are you, my friend?” She slipped into French without even thinking about it, and the other woman laughed in return.

“I’m perfect. As is this ol’ place.” She gestured around as the two pulled apart. “What the hell’re you doin’ in town? I woulda thought you were dead, ‘cept those checks keep clearin’.” Her gold eyes slid past Faye to Fane, a slow smile spreading on her face. “Who’s your friend?” she stage-whispered to Faye.

“Takin’ a break from real life for a bit. It’s been too long besides,” Faye said, snorting and rolling her eyes in good humor at the comment about the checks. “And this is my boyfriend, Fane.” Faye reached for his hand and pulled him over. “Fane, this is Cat.”

They both needed a break, after their experience the prior night and Faye’s conversation with her gram this morning the moment they were all but shoved out the door Fane obliged. He’d been to New Orleans, about sixty years ago or thereabouts (dates really didn’t matter all that much) for some business dealings which left little time to enjoy the city to its true potential. So, being back here with a local more than willing to show him around and point out the things a casual passer-by might miss that the locals considered monumental. It was nice, and Fane happily fell into the role of pupil at whatever history or story Faye had to deliver to him.

He was taken by the architecture and design of the city, particularly the old quarter and every time they came across a horse he happily stopped to pet each steed’s neck. Despite it’s own unique values, there were some things universal to tourist traps; that being the street-artists, vendors and general attempts to pander whatever items could for the highest of prices. Still, even Fane couldn’t say no to the sugar-coated beignets when they were offered.

Whilst Faye had dressed simply, Fane opted for smart-casual considering they were supposed to be going out this evening and meeting Faye’s friends. He couldn’t help but want to set a decent impression, so a charcoal back panelled-grey waistcoat and tie with a white shirt tucked into matching charcoal trousers and for once finished with a grey flat cap tipped low at an angle over his eyes casting them a little into shadow despite the neon lights from the signs flaring all around them. The city was alive, and it breathed a measure of life into his veins to hear people simply going about their lives, living them-- happy, sad and anything between or beyond those scopes of emotion. He was excited to finally be going to the infamous Morgana’s and the sight of it didn’t disappoint, looking up at the grand old facade of the building he let out a low whistle of pure admiration “damn that’s one pretty building.”

Fane was hardly phased by the bouncer at the door, and soon enough he was being pulled through into the interior of the building feeling the ripple of magic and wards across his skin as they moved across the building’s threshold. He wasn’t exactly sure where they were going, it had been a while since he’d been to what was essentially a nightclub-- they weren’t normally his style but a bar was something he could work with well enough. The music vibrated through him to the bone, and the style did make a grin come to his features-- he hadn’t been entirely sure what he’d been expecting when he’d come in but trust Faye to have a club with decent taste just like its owner he supposed. Her question made him turn back to her from his wide-eyed assessment a grin splitting his features “it’s-” but his answer was quickly interrupted by another.

One who as soon as Fane set his eyes on her he knew his pulse would have sped in his chest out of pure excitement if he had one, and his gaze widened both in awe and shock at the woman behind the bar. He barely even noticed when Faye dropped his hand to embrace her too great was his excitement, because this woman, well, she was a Naga and that in itself was enough to leave him somewhere between awestruck and curious. He did register the slip of their conversation to French, able to decently keep up more or less with what they were saying but still taking in the bartender’s appearance with an almost gleeful grin on his features.

Still, he sort of managed to rein in his excitement for about 10 seconds as Faye introduced him “enchanté madame,” he greeted stepping forward to take Cat’s hand and dipping enough to press a lingering kiss to it in greeting before he drew back. Looking at Faye then he shook her arm firmly; as though he just had some point to make that she had to absolutely pay attention to him for, he launched into quick rapid French his Parisian tone curling his words in the language fluently “Faye why didn’t you tell me she was a naga! I mean-- do you know how rare nagas are?” he looked back at Cat then a somewhat cross of fascination and awe still in his features whilst he rattled Faye’s arm to further maintain her attention to this very clearly interesting fact. “Faye’s been keeping you a secret, which I think is unfair because we don’t keep gorgeous naga friends secret.” Another shake of her arm was given to emphasise his point “I mean, Faye! She’s a naga, oh my god and this is amazing. I love nagas! When I run into them that is… which have I said, is very rare?” Realising perhaps a little too late his excitement may have gotten the better of him he shut his mouth and his expression grew sheepish as he finally looked back to Cat “sorry-- I’m just, very excited.... It really is lovely to meet you darling.”

Faye thought Fane looked fantastic dressed as he was. A far cry from the ratty jeans and t-shirt that had been the favorite of the last man she’d walked down these streets with. But then again she always liked how he looked, whether it was a suit, pajamas, or casual attire like tonight. Her own wardrobe for the night consisted of a long skirt and a black top, accented with a necklace and bracelet set and strappy sandals. It was nice enough for a casual dinner and for anything else they might get into.

“Ain’t she?” Faye agreed about the old corner warehouse that had been renovated after a fire - set by a former coven member of Faye’s - had destroyed the original Morgana’s, which had been much smaller and much more outdated.

Once inside, Faye instantly felt at home. The crowd was a mixture of young people (21 and over only) and those that were closer to her own age, but all seemed to be having a good time. The music thumped and Faye could already feel the irresistible urge to dance rising up in her. But then she was very much distracted by much more important things.

Faye didn’t see Fane’s good-natured gawking at her friend, but Catarina noticed. She was a watcher, Faye had already said. Noticed everything about everyone. As she slipped out of Faye’s embrace and swayed towards Fane, who was a good eight inches taller than her - Cat standing at 5’ 7” - she was already smiling. “Ooh, I like you already. Nice to see a man with some manners come around from time to time.”

She gave Fane's hand a small squeeze, noting the coolness of his skin and subsequent lack of heat signature and pulse. Releasing him as he turned back to Faye, Catarina watched the two with her golden eyes.

“You didn’t ask. And yes, I do. But keep your voice down,” Faye laughed. “This place is full o’ humans who don’t know nothin’ ‘bout us, hm?” While New Orleans was a pocket of magical and supernatural activity, it was nothing like Soapberry. This was a human city, populated by people who thought witches and vampires were just the stuff of books, movies, and tourism gimmicks. “Like I said, you didn’t ask.” She gave Fane a poke in the ribs for his excitement, though she found it utterly endearing.

Cat, for her part, looked entirely too pleased with herself as Fane kept on complimenting her, calling her gorgeous and nearly quite literally jumping up and down over meeting her. A sly smirk rode up one side of her mouth, and she leaned towards Faye, though she was looking at Fane. “I like him. Wouldn't mind wrappin’ my coils around him, if you catch my meanin’.” She bumped Faye's shoulder with her own. “You still into uh… sharin’?” Her grin grew positively wicked, and the tip of her tongue - which may or may not have been forked - flicked out to wet her lower lip.

Faye shook her head and pointed a finger at her friend. “Not no more. He’s all mine, darlin’. You keep them beautiful slippery hands to yourself, hm?”

Cat shrugged, though she reached up to tip Fane’s chin with a red-lacquered nail. “Pity. You woulda liked it.”

Faye shook her head at Fane, but it was with affection at his antics. “Well, I’m sure she’d love to talk to you all about herself. She’s vain, don’t let her tell you otherwise,” Faye grinned, knowing full well her friend could hear her.

“I am,” Cat agreed without hesitation. “But I mean… look at me? Right?” She spun in a circle, revealing that the back of her calves were tattooed with what looked like a pattern of snakeskin that disappeared up underneath her skirt along the back of her thighs. She smiled genuinely at him as she finished her spin. “Why thank you, darlin’, that’s real nice to hear. Most folks that know what I’m really like get all freaked out. Like I’m gonna swallow ‘em up. Or spit venom in their eye. I don’t spit,” she said quite seriously. “It ain’t ladylike. Sides I couldn’t even if I wanted to now, could I? All these fools see is a pretty bartender, and that’s all they need to see. So… you be good and treat my girl right,” she laid a hand on Faye's arm, “ and I just might show you the real me, hm? Since you're so interested.”

Cat grinned at Fane one more time before turning to Faye and gesturing that they both should follow. “Come on… we’re drinkin’ tonight. To celebrate.” And she proceeded back behind the bar. She set three glasses out, a bottle of top shelf tequila - for Faye - and then turned to Fane. “What's your poison, darlin’?”

The differences in their styles was a rather amusing fact for them both; one that got pointed out more often than not whenever they looked at one another stood together. Still, he thought she looked gorgeous and it was a fact he reminded her of as much as he could throughout the night. Plus it suited the humidity of the place, to wear anything else would be a little ridiculous. If Fane actually had body temperature he would have likely been sweating by as such he didn’t and therefore could wear pretty much whatever he wanted regardless of what the temperature was like.

The music was practically deafening for him, but he did his best to tune it out to background noise bringing his attention to conversation instead. That was one issue with clubs and confined spaces playing loud music; more often than not he had to well and truly focus if he wanted to hear anything at all beyond the beat of the music.

Cat’s words made his grin grow, “manners maketh man I say shame not so many share my views but what can you do?” Fane didn’t mind her squeeze, knowing that she was simply deducing what he was which wasn’t an entirely difficult feat in itself considering the physical indicators.

Faye’s admonishments made him puff out a lungful of air, “well, how can I ask about something I didn’t know about?” he countered arching a brow at her and clearly looking at her you know I’m right look. Her poke to his ribs made him jerk and give her a small nudge back in kind, though he did note that Cat was practically preening under his attention. The three of them made quite a set considering they all well and truly lived up to the definition of attention seekers. Still, Cat’s interest only made him smirk in slightly smug self-satisfaction that he could draw such a reaction from someone within 0.05 seconds of meeting them.

Faye’s reaction to Cat’s question only made him look all the more gleeful, and Fane pointed at Faye a little before stage-whispering “she’s a little bit possessive over me.” And frankly Fane had absolutely no qualms about such a fact which made Cat’s eyes gleam with mirth.

The touch of her nail made his lips curl ever so slightly, no effort even being made to pull away “oh no doubt about it darling, I’m sure you’re coils are-- ensnaring.”

As she spun Fane couldn’t help his eyes drifting to the skin on the back of her legs, absolutely enraptured with studying her and letting his eyes skim back up not particularly bothering to hide the fact that he was indeed admiring her. Faye knew where his loyalties lay but why should it stop either of them recognising beauty in other people “darling you’re beautiful and a sight to behold, truly so. You know-- I think you’d be a wonderful study for drawing sometime.” He scoffed a little as she spoke of people freaking out about Nagas. “Ignorance, people think I’m on the verge of biting them the moment they find out what I am mind you some people quite enjoy me biting them” a slightly sly look was shot in Faye’s direction then before he chuckled heartily at Cat’s words. “I wish I could promise that, but I’ve a tendency for misbehaving so I can’t promise you good, but I can promise I have this lady’s best intentions in mind darling.” Still, the prospect of being able to see her tail did made him grin “oh interested for sure.”

Fane followed along with Faye to lean against the bar where there was some room. “Best whiskey you got hm? And maybe something special? I’d rather make the effects last than burn out, we are here for a good time after all.”

Cat chimed a laugh before turning to fetch a bottle of top-shelf stuff but also something slightly smaller, mixing a dash of the smaller bottle’s contents with the whiskey before serving it up with a flourish. “Try that darlin’, speciality brew that I think you’ll enjoy” to which Fane nodded his thanks whilst Cat poured the tequila out for herself and Faye raising one shot in a toast. “To old friends, and new” with a small tip at Faye then Fane she knocked the line she’d poured for herself back.

“To old friends, and new” Fane echoed tapping his glass with Cat’s, then Faye’s though instead of knocking his drink back took a sip the smooth whiskey running caramel smooth down the back of his throat.

An hour later they were all well and truly drunk. Not to the point of being sloppy, but well past the point of giving two shits about anything other than having a good time. They’d pulled up a table in the corner, away from most of the crowd. The music had changed from a loud thumping bass to something a bit more sedate. An electric guitar played the first few riffs of ‘The Sky is Crying’ as couples danced closed together on the floor, the lights on the stage fading into softer, more muted colors to fit the mood. The tequila and the whiskey and the little bottle of liquid that Cat had brought out special for Fane all sat in the middle of their table. Faye sat close to Fane, close enough that she could slip a leg lazily over his. One arm stretched along the back of their chairs, playing idle patterns across the skin of his neck. The other held a cigarette, which Faye took a long drag of before setting it in the ashtray.

They’d long gotten past the normal introductions of where everyone was from, and what they did for work, how they met etc, etc. Cat was from Louisiana, but not New Orleans. She’d moved down as a teen with her parents. Her dad had been an oil worker, working the rigs out in the Gulf for years before finally retiring after the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. They lived out in Metarie, him and her mom. Now Cat was telling Fane a story about the protestors that used to love to come to Bourbon street, carrying their signs about how God would punish all the sinners, and how Faye’s bar in particular was targeted because of ‘rumors’ - Cat made air quotes, her red nails flashing in the low light - that Faye was a Satan worshipping witch. Or well, it was more a story about how Faye got into it with the cops over the fact that the ‘peaceful protestors’ were blocking the entrance to her business.

“She tells this cop,” Cat snorted with laughter, banging her hand on the table and making the bottle jump. “She tells this cop to go fuck himself, and then… and then… and I told her not to… I told her… they cain’t arrest you for runnin’ that big mouth o’ hers, but then… she poked him. She fuckin’ poked this guy. Right in the chest. Jus’ like this.” Cat reached out and gave Fane a hard poke on the sternum. “Called him a - What was it?”

“A kawin…” Faye said with absolutely no remorse.

“A cunt,” Cat explained. “Only thing kept her outta the back o’ that cop car was me. You still owe me for that.” The Naga pointed at Faye, who had the good sense to look chastised.

“I gave you half my bar, what more do you want?” she laughed, pouring herself another drink.

“Thanks would be nice,” Cat teased, taking a drag from her own cigarette.

“I did say thank you. And that was what? Six? Seven years ago? God it’s been a long time.” Faye shook her head, sipping her drink slowly this time. She was pleasantly buzzed, and a fine sheen of sweat still covered her skin, though it was a bit cooler inside the bar. Fane’s skin was also cool beneath her fingertips, and she had an intense desire to press her face to his neck, both to soak up the coolness and to inhale him because Christ he smelled good.

“It has,” Cat agreed, swirling her liquor in her glass. Her golden eyes moved between the two of them, and she found herself happy for her friend. “Though there ain’t been no shortage of strange shit goin’ on around here. Just like old times.” There was a pause, and then she spoke again, a smirk crawling over her lips. “I heard rumors-”

“No,” Faye said, coughing as she choked on her drink, though laughter followed. “No rumors, no crazy bayou bullshit, Cat. No way…”

“Fine.” She held up her hands. “Fine, I won’t tell you. She don’t like my stories,” Cat told Fane. “But… it’s a good one. So I’ll tell you instead…” She turned bodily towards Fane, leaning over the table.

“Oh, God…” Faye sighed, turning back her drink even as she smiled.

“Have you ever seen a white gator? Now I’m not talkin’ ‘bout the kind they got down at the zoo. No… no, I’m talkin’ ‘bout a gator the size of school bus. An’ he ain’t white ‘cause he was born with no color. He’s white ‘cause he spent his whole life underground. Down in them tunnels that run deep under the city. Under the swamp. And he grew and he grew, feedin’ on all the bad stuff folks toss into the lake, or flush down the drain. Feedin’ on sin.”

“Oh, good Lord, Cat, ain’t none of that true…” Faye huffed, giving Fane a look that said her friend was crazy.

“Ain’t it? That bridge that’s out down your way? The one that crosses down through the Black Bayou?” The Naga huffed, giving Faye a head tilt. “Weren’t no boat did that. Was him. I bet my ass.”

Fane had ended up slouched back in one of the booth seats, cap discarded on the table, one foot kicked up idly on another chair drawn in nearby whilst Faye’s was strewn idly over his thigh. The combined smell of tobacco and booze was heavy on the air from their three lights, the music a little more mellow than some of the more upbeat tracks that had formerly been on. His head tipped back against the cushions of the seating content in the soothing trace of Faye’s warm fingers whilst his own hand sat on her thigh drawing idle patterns whilst the other held a glass loosely.

There were all sorts of stories that had been traded over the past hour, Cat was a talker if ever he’d met one and he was happy to let her do exactly that, if anything Fane preferred to be regaled tales than he did tell them himself. But he’d shared a few of his own; how he’d been one of two people to kill Jack the Ripper probably being the most monumental tale that he’d shared himself, though others were thrown in about some of the explorations he’d been on in curse riddled temples that could put Indiana Jones to shame. He enjoyed hearing about the personal stories though, and whilst Cat told her story he lounged attentive to her every word up until her solid poke to his chest that made him snort forcibly before setting his glass aside knowing that if he didn’t he’d likely end up spilling it.

He patted Faye’s thigh then looking proud regardless of her own chastised expression. “I mean, this is Faye we’re talkin’ ‘bout there ain’t much that’s going to get her to shut up once she gets to talkin’--- even I have to get creative when I want to get a word in edgeways” he paused giving Faye a slightly mischievous side-eye and small scratch of his nails “gags and other things not included in that.” His accent had begun to mimic those around him, still vastly different but his enunciation had him dropping some of the typically crisp endings he usually rounded off. His head fell a little to rest on her arm grinning quite contently to settle back whilst they continued speaking his eyes going to the band on the stage momentarily, reaching his free hand for his cigarette and taking a lazy inhale breathing the smoke out his nose.

“Ooooh, please tell me someone’s bein’ manipulated by some voodoo doll or somethin’ ‘cause if they are I will never let Faye live that down if they are” Fane chimed jokingly a laugh shaking him a little where he slouched his head tilting to shoot a cheeky grin at Faye before returning to Cat. “Gator the size of a school-bus? That feeds on sin?” he echoed narrowing his eyes at Cat like he was trying to tell whether she was pulling his leg or being genuinely serious. He looked at Faye then trying to judge whether she believed this and returning back to Cat snorting out another lungful of smoke in his laughter at the concept. He shook his head a bit “nah, I mean white gator sure but a school-bus? Someone woulda noticed that they wouldn’t be rumours there would be… would be-- sightings not rumours if it was that big.”

Right?

The song that had been playing had faded out as the DJ took back over the music for a while to give the band a break, and all the conversation and sitting down whilst great and thoroughly enjoyable had made him a little restless. He wanted to move, wanted a lot of things but moving was the main thing in his mind shifting a bit to sit more upright he swapped his cigarette for his drink and finished it off feeling warm and pleasantly buzzed. “Mm, Faye baby?” his head lolled in her direction drawling out the words his tone having grown far more lascivious over the course of being plied with alcohol and whatever it was in that bottle Cat had gotten earlier “can we go dance?” He glanced at Cat with a lazy smile “I’ll dance with you too later darlin’ if you want?” He waved a finger at Faye “‘cause nobody leaves? puts? whatever baby in the corner.”

As Cat continued to talk, Faye felt that she should have warned Fane about her friend’s proclivity for storytelling. But he seemed genuinely interested, though he was starting to get a bit fidgety as they continued to sit still. “Watch it now,” she teased back as he drug his nails along her thigh. Though the motion only caused her to shift a bit closer, her skirt rucking a bit higher up her legs.

Faye and Cat both snorted in near unison as he mentioned voodoo dolls. “Half that stuffs tourist bullshit,” Faye told him. “Though I can safely say I’ve never been manipulated like that. Not by a doll, that is.” She eyed Cat across the table, knowing the woman knew things about her that no one else did. And as talkative and prone to sharing as the Naga was, even she knew when there was a line that didn’t need to be crossed. Or one that wasn’t her business to cross. She tipped an eyebrow at Faye as Fane looked back at the band, a silent conversation passing between the two woman.

Fane turned back to the conversation and Cat shrugged. “‘S true. An’ you know well as anybody else that if a thang like that don’t wanna be seen… it ain’t gonna be.”

Faye gave a shrug, not confirming or denying either Fane or Cat’s claims.

She had just finished off the rest of her drink when Fane turned towards her, asking to go dance. “Anythin’ you want darlin’...” she told him, her fingers sliding over his cheek lightly. “I’m gonna take him out there for a bit, else he’ll be bouncin’ around like a five year old,” Faye said to Cat.

The Naga grinned, her golden eyes glittering in the multi-colored lights. “I’ll take you up on that offer, Jack,” she said to Fane. “You two go on for now… I’m gonna find the little girl’s room anyway.”

As she got up and slipped off into the back of the bar, Faye turned to Fane, taking the hand that was on her thigh and sliding it just a little bit higher, teasing him, before she slid out of the booth and pulled him with her. They waded into the crowd of writhing bodies, the thump of the music and the pulse of the lights mixed with the press of darkness making Faye feel like she and Fane were the only two people in the room, despite the other dancers. She turned in his arms, pulling him close and wrapping her arms around his neck as her body swayed to the music, hips moving with unabashed intent, the alcohol in her system increasing the feeling of wanting to lose herself in him and the pulse of the music and just forget about everything else.

“I missed you…” she breathed into his ear, nails dragging slowly around his neck.

“Ain’t got nothin’ to watch unless you give me something to” he countered idly, taking full advantage of her positioning to rub his fingers with slow deliberateness over her warm skin exposed by the act. Liquid confidence and having zero qualms about this sort of thing anyway meant he was hardly deterred from paying her attention physically, plus Cat hardly seemed bothered so there was really no reason not to.

Their combined snort made him roll his eyes and pout a little at Faye, “I know that, hence why I was asking her to give me a reason why it wasn’t so I could hang it over your head and tease you mercilessly about it.” Still, you couldn’t win them all and her next comment though it piqued his interest he let be knowing that if she wanted to say more or had reason to she would have. His attention was prone to sliding here and there, especially in such a busy place as this and so he was oblivious to the silent conversation going on beside him.

With a slightly non-committal sound Fane shrugged, if it was true then seeing would be believing and nothing more than that would be the case. He was someone he tried to base his reasoning on what he experienced and it didn’t mean he would rule it out but neither would he agree until he’d seen actual evidence.

“Bah,” he puffed at her exclamation of him bouncing off the walls giving her a light nudge “you’re just jealous you can’t keep up with my sprightly energy levels.” Even so, he smirked at Cat “I look forward to it.”

For a moment they were left alone and he stretched his attention entirely fixing itself on Faye and her antics that only served to make his expression grow both curious and thoroughly amused. Any action that might have come as consequence paused as she all but shot from the booth dragging him along happily in her wake towards the floor where people danced happily to the music their hands always linked no matter where they weaved. The music when they stopped was far louder, echoed by the speaker’s positioning in such a way he could feel the music vibrating through his body, each note resonating in his ears and he could already feel himself getting caught by the beat even if he likely would be a little hard of hearing for a while later. When she finally stopped he sidled up behind her removing as much space between them as he could wanting to simply feel every part of her pressed up against him.

She turned then, facing him and his fingers grazed the skin of her waist revealed by the rise of her tank-top when she looped her arms around his neck. His body felt both loose from the alcohol and tightly wound from their continued interruptions but despite this he revelled holding her close like this in public swaying rhythmically both in time with her and the music in turn. There was hardly any space between them and every brushing pass of their hips made with a lax deliberateness on either part that made him grin smugly. This, he decided, was simply delightful.

Her breath rushed against his ear setting molten warmth coursing through his veins and causing his fingers to squeeze her waist scratching her skin lightly. He dipped until his cool lips brushed her ear when he spoke “did you? How much darlin’?”

Fane wasn’t one to lose his control of himself very often. That wasn’t to say he didn’t have control now - he did - it was more the fact that he didn’t often imbibe in anything that would leave him in any sort of inebriated state. Whatever it was Cat had pulled from under the bar - Faye would have to inquire later - it had done the job. They were both well and truly gone, but still with enough of their wits about them not to fall all over themselves. There was something to be said though, for a proper buzz. One that came with having a good time and not from being sad or depressed. No, this buzz made Faye feel amazing.

She nosed along his neck as he leaned in, the slide of their hips doing nothing to temper the growing fire in her belly. Nor did his hands at her waist, squeezing enticingly. Her mouth found his neck as he breathed in her own ear, the alcohol making her even more hyper aware of every touch, every movement and brush of skin, than she had been before. Three weeks without him had run her to the top of her tolerance, and there was nothing stopping them now. “Enough that once I finally get you alone I’m gonna fuck you ‘til you don’t remember your own name…”

He had no idea what it was that Cat had given him to mix in with his drink, it was nothing that particularly affected the taste of whatever it was he had been given anyway which had made him in turn a little more curious. Most bartenders tended to mix in dashes of fairy blood but that only ever did so much considering it was usually rather diluted by the alcohol in the drink anyways. Whatever he’d had tonight left him feeling relaxed and more than pleasantly buzzed the edge taken off of everything.

It was hard not to laugh at how badly they both needed one another but they were both individuals with a rather high-geared sex drive and when that wasn’t met… Well, it was understandable to explain their behaviour lately- their frustrations in particular. Her words forced him to bite his lip the mere anticipation of such a thought positively thrilling in itself. “That better be a goddamn promise darlin’, and I’m willing to work for my reward” he drawled shifting to turn her and slot up behind her one hand pressing to her belly whilst the other slid under the material of her tank fingers splaying against her heated flesh and slipping upwards to graze the underside of her breasts.

His face buried itself against the dampness of her neck, unable to resist the call of her skin to his lips as he licked a stripe across the length of the beautiful column a sinful smile playing at his lips as blunt teeth bit down out of the blue on a particularly sensitive spot. Meanwhile the heel of his palm pressed down against her belly fingers resting just above the waistband of her skirt. “Is there something you need love?” the word rolled off his tongue without much thought, the term feeling just right despite the situation. “Go on,” he purred seductively “tell me what you want.”

Faye wasn’t lying when she’d told him earlier that she’d nearly called him up more than once over the last three weeks just so she could hear his voice while she brought herself off. She was a very physical person, and Fane was always more than happy to appease her, not suffering from a lack of drive himself. So the combination of them together and the lack of physical affection over the last little while was bubbling slowly to a head. Especially with the interruptions that kept coming over and over and over.

So the splay of his hand across her stomach, the brush of his fingers beneath her breasts… “I don’t break promises,” she said, covering his hand with hers where it teased at the waist of her skirt. She hummed in pleasure, tilting her head to give him more access to her neck. Her pulse sped up, and Faye wasn’t sure if it was the music or her heartbeat thumping so loudly in her chest. Either way, it was him that drew all her attention, and she pressed back into him, threading their fingers as she drew their hands further down towards the apex of her thighs.

She could barely stand it, despite the crowd and the music, and even without the influence of the alcohol, she would’ve been thinking the same thing. That she couldn’t wait any longer.

“You… I want you…” she breathed, turning her head to press her mouth to his jaw.

He was well aware she wasn’t joking, though neither had he when he’d told her he would have been more than happy to help her in whatever way she needed him to to help ease some of her stress. Whether that was literally coming over, or helping her across a call (the prior far more preferable but not always reasonable). Her hips ground back into his own; their bodies still moving in languid motions to the heavy bass. Despite being pretty much in the middle of the dancefloor between the volume of the music, the darkness and their shared enjoyment of exhibitionism this really was a perfect opportunity. Not one he intended to waste.

His hand shifted a little higher under her tank fingers expertly gripping one breast before his fingers pinched her firm nipples through the fabric of her bra “a part of me just wants to pull this down and tend to these with some proper attention” he muttered in her ear nipping at her earlobe whilst his fingers gave another tweak to the firm peak entirely at his mercy. From the outside it would have looked like he simply had her wrapped up in a tight embrace whilst they danced. The front was a rather vastly different image and a part of him was almost tempted to get them caught. Would they kick the former owner out of her own club? He doubted it. Still, the thrill of getting caught had him grinning ear to ear as she guided his hand down into the waist of her skirt his hand slipping against her flushed skin.

His arm tensed pausing her guided descent to where he had absolutely no doubt she wanted his attention, he was curious about what she was wearing under her get up tonight but his desire to tease her won out more than satisfying that curiosity. His head tipped as she pressed her mouth to his jaw. “You want me to what?” he wasn’t above teasing her, not even when he was on the brink of giving her a measure of the satisfaction she craved “prove it.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Faye had done something like this in her bar. But that had been a long, long time ago. And at that point she had felt more coerced into things than actually wanting to. But now… God she wanted to. Just the thought of getting caught, the thought of someone seeing them, or even better the thought of someone seeing them and wanting to watch… it stirred the warmth in Faye’s belly to a roar.

His hands over her nipples made her groan, and she pushed into him, wishing she had opted out of a bra tonight. She had nearly opted out of undies as well, but instead settled for a small lacey pair of white bikinis. She huffed in frustration as he stopped with his hand even closer to where she wanted it. Faye even pressed into his hand, little sounds of neediness worming their way up out of her throat.

Her fingers tightened around his, and she muttered something obscene under her breath. “I want you to touch me… I need you to touch me… please…” If he wouldn’t do it here, there was a hallway nearby that led to the store room where the alcohol was kept. Faye was about to tug him down there and do as he asked, prove just how much she wanted him. The music reached a crescendo, and the DJ switched to something slower, but with just as much of a beat. Faye pressed against his hand harder, her body moving in a rolling sway against his own. If they hadn’t already known each other’s intentions, the way she danced against him would have been the clincher.

Perhaps tonight would shift wardrobe decisions in the future, he wasn’t sure but a part of him hoped so. His stubble scraped against her neck between the press of kisses and occasional moment where he would suck plum shaped bruises into her skin. Marks to show that she was well and truly claimed.

There was no missing her frustration, it was both audible and something he could feel in the increasing insistence of her body rocking back against his own. Fane had absolutely no intention of letting her drag him anywhere, not yet at least he was going to have his way with her right here that much was already certain in his mind. The music for the time being covered most of the noises working their way up her throat, and Fane was keenly aware he hadn’t even ventured between her legs yet. Now, that would be fun.

He would have preferred a little more detail but as the music shifted and her ass pressed against his cock he grunted softly nosing her salty skin his hand slipping further down until he gripped her firmly over her damp lacey panties letting her grind against his palm as a little offer of relief. But her pleas were enough to make him oblige her wishes, retracting his hand just enough to slide into her panties and over the curls nestled there until his hand found her sans barrier slicking his fingers through the wetness pooled between her thighs not bothering to wait as he pushed two inside her and pumped them to the same rhythm of the music around them. He didn’t even bother to bite back his own groan at the molten heat of her covering his hand as the heel of his palm ground over her clit “baby, didn’t know you could get so wet from a little dancing.” His other hand shifted down to wrap around her holding her up against him as a slight support.

Faye’s hand tightened against his neck as his hand finally slipped further down beneath the edge of her skirt. She was so tightly wound, and the night and his slow teasing touches as they had sat drinking earlier had only wound her up further. So when his fingers slid between her legs, into the slickness there, Faye let out a sound that was half sigh half moan. “Fuck…” came on the end of it, and the sound that purred out of him, vibrating against her neck, made her rock even harder against him.

There was no questioning him, no telling him to stop, no worrying about who would see them or if they would get caught. There was only the droning thump of the music and the rhythmic slide of his fingers between her legs. “Been wet since we left the house,” she panted, leaning her head back to nip at his jaw a bit harder than she normally did. “God, you feel so fuckin’ good…”

Her fingers pressed divots into the flesh of his neck under the anchoring dig of her fingers seeking some sort of purchase or grounding spot when he finally gave her what she wanted. Her arousal leaving next to no resistance for his fingers which slipped home with a certain confidence and familiarity of an individual well versed in the use of his hands in such activities. He made no effort to rush his motions, dragging his fingers almost all the way out before burying them in the warmth of her cunt grinning at the flutter of her muscles clamping down on his digits as though trying to draw him deeper inside of her. “Think you could take another one?” he breathed against her neck softly.

The rock of her ass against him made his eyes close knowing she’d likely be able to feel his hardening cock in the confines of his trousers losing himself simply in the moment holding her close whilst he gradually worked her higher to her own oblivion though all at his own sweet time. “The house?” he questioned sounding impressed though it turned into a grunted laugh as she bit down on his jaw, in retaliation he crooked his fingers on every thrust seeking out that one particular spot that would only help wind her tighter. Her clit was desperate for attention and every now and then between the graze of his palm he dragged his slick fingers up to toy with the bundle of nerves circling them before returning to fingering her with a deliberate singular intention of making her come undone. “No darlin’ you feel amazing, so good baby-- fuck you’re so tight. Bet you can’t wait to take my cock later, I’ll bend you over, stretch you out proper like you deserve hm? Fuck this sweet cunt ‘til you can’t walk straight ‘n’ you’ll feel me here for days.”

Whether people could hear her now over the music or whether they would frankly Fane didn’t give to shits, and he noticed a couple of surprised looks being shot their way by couples and individuals around them drawn mostly by Faye’s obscenities. “Baby, we have an audience” he drawled salaciously in her ear his fingers starting to speed a little enjoying how she was starting to writhe, pant and gasp a little more often from his attentions but also wanting to draw her attention to a couple of pairs of eyes that seemed clearly interested in the sight unfolding on the dancefloor. Fane didn’t really mind either way his focus only really on getting Faye to lose all coherent thought right here in his arms.

He slipped into her like she was made of honey, warm and pliant and nearly unresisting to his searching fingers. Though they knew right where to go, right where to press and touch and bend just enough to make her writhe against him. If the music hadn’t been what it was the act would have looked obscene. And even so it still was enough to eventually draw eyes. “I can take whatever you can give, baby.” She spread her legs a little to give him more room. The hand that was at his neck dropped down to reach between them, giving him a firm rub through his pants. He was hard against her, and she spared no thought for anyone else as she rolled her hips so that her ass rubbed right against him.

“Mmm,” she said as a yes. “Ever since I knew we were gettin’ an evenin’ to ourselves.” Her head fell back on his shoulder as his fingers slicked over her clit, and if he kept this up she wouldn’t last much longer. Even now she could feel herself climbing towards that precipice, his filthy words in her ear pushing her closer and closer. “I can’t wait… Christ, I want you… I want you to bend me over and rip my panties off… hold me down and fuck me ‘til you have to carry me to bed later… and then you can fuck me again, but you’ll have to take my ass because my cunt’ll be so swollen and bruised AH...” She let out a string of whispered expletives as he pressed just right on her clit. She was so wet… her thighs were soaked and slick... it wouldn’t take long now. And then she would show him just how appreciative she was.

A wicked grin split her face as his filthy promises changed to something else. Faye hadn’t been lying when she’d told him before that she wanted someone to watch them. And it seemed now they had their chance. “Let them watch… let them see what you do to me…” His hand moved faster, and she was practically hanging off him now as her legs refused to hold her up any longer. And when she came apart, she turned her head into his neck, crying out as her nails and teeth bit down hard across his own heated skin. She tasted the familiar tang of his blood, but just a drop or two before the skin had healed itself. Her climax rolled through her, and Faye opened her eyes as she eventually came down, boneless and momentarily sated, and meeting the heated gaze of one or two couples that had been standing close enough in the crowd to see what was happening. One looked scandalized, the other looked like they wanted to join.

And perhaps on another night, Faye would be so inclined, if Fane was feeling it as well. But right now, the man at her back was her only concern. She turned in his arms and pressed a fierce kiss to his mouth, sucking his bottom lip between her teeth. “God you’re amazing… now it’s your turn.” She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him with her, still kissing him as she backed towards a door down a small hall nearby. A wave of her hand and it unlocked, and Faye pulled him inside and slammed him back against the door. “I’m gonna suck your cock, baby… would you like that?” she asked, kissing him as she already worked on his belt. “Make you cum so hard they’ll hear you out there…”

He really didn’t care what or how it might look to other people, it was hardly as if they were the only ones in here tonight partaking in something of a slightly more kink-inclined nature. “That’s my girl,” he praised helping her to widen her stance with his foot just enough to allow his index and third finger to press together his middle settling over them. His hand was already coated in her arousal and with her widened stance it allowed him to reintroduce his fingers to her at more of a stretch than before not so deep but sometimes you had to sacrifice. His movements stuttered for a second and a quiet intake of breath could be heard at the hard press and rub of her hand if it hadn’t been apparent before well she certainly knew now.

It took everything in his power to not drag her off somewhere and do exactly that and take her home before seeing what else he might be able to get her to do. After all his blood both served as a potent healing influence and aphrodisiac for her so they were only limited by their combined exhaustion and though age might factor in he was willing to deal with soreness for the pleasure that would no doubt come with it. “Promises, promises… only if you return the favour sometime” he muttered in her ear giving it a quick nip. Though soon enough Faye was arching and bucking wildly in his hold and under the relentless stroke of his fingers but the sharp bite of her teeth and rake of her nails breaking skin caused Fane to throw his head back with a hiss at the same moment as her body seizing up and locking down on his fingers which worked her through her climax.

As the pain receded he let out a breathy laugh pointedly meeting the eyes of the few individuals looking in their direction as his hand slipped from her skirt his other arm holding her up securely by the waist until she could find her feet. He wasn’t the sort to have qualms about other people joining, they’d already had this discussion in the past and if Faye wanted to invite more people to join them then he’d happily accommodate. His mind right now was entirely for Faye kissing her back firmly his body shivering at the tug to his lip. She was dragging him away almost immediately and as she weaved through the crowd he took the time to lick off his sticky fingers. Only when they broke out the other side of the crowd their lips were locked again in another frenzy of kisses and he had no idea where the hell she was guiding him. One moment she was walking him back somewhere and the next Fane felt himself slammed forcibly back against a door.

The buckle of his belt clinked under her desperate hands and Fane leaned heavily against the door his words silenced by the sheer ferocity of her kisses. Helping to pop the button of his jeans and shove those along with his boxer-briefs down to his mid-thigh breathing a sigh of relief against her lips as his erection stood firm against the flat planes of his belly already leaking pre-cum down the shaft that he gripped pumping a little. His free hand went to her hair then yanking her away from his lips and staring at her pupils blown a sheen of crimson glimmering like brimstone in the depths of his eyes “why don’t you quit talkin’, get on your fuckin’ knees and put that pretty mouth of yours to good use.”

Her mouth pressed hard against his, one hand gripping his hair as she kissed him, the other working at his waist. Hot skin soon pressed against her hands, and she drug her fingers up the length of him, sighing into his mouth as she felt how hard he was for her. But before she could wrap her hand around his where it gripped his cock, his fingers were in her hair and she was yanked back. A rush of air left her along with a small sound of surprise, but as she saw the wicked gleam in his eyes, the red sheen that only appeared from time to time, either in anger or arousal, she smiled. Her tongue flicked out and across his lips, as she let out a breathy laugh, her eyes daring him to do his worst as she sank down to the floor.

It was dark in the storeroom, the only light filtering in from a window up high near the ceiling. But Faye didn’t need much light to see him. His cock was rigid and swollen, but she didn’t touch it just yet. Her mouth moved first to his inner thighs, nosing and kissing and sucking bruises that vanished as soon as they appeared back into the smooth skin. Her hand trailed after her mouth, soothing the skin and slicking the moisture from her kisses over it. Finally, only after she’d paid attention to all of him except the part that needed the most attention, did she turn her her mouth and tongue to his cock.

She wrapped a hand around it, and slid her nose up the soft skin covering the shaft until she could flick her tongue over the leaking tip. Looking up at him, she teased him with a few more flicks and tiny sucking kisses before before finally taking him slowly into her mouth. His hand was still in her hair, and she hummed in pleasure, closing her eyes as his familiar taste slid over her tongue and down her throat. There was no time wasted as she started moving, tightening her lips as she pulled back, slicking him with saliva mixed with precum.

Typically, Fane was a rather considerate man when it came to situations like this but alcohol ran his patience down and loosened his tongue considerably spilling thoughts that sometimes but usually didn’t make it past his lips. Right now though? There was absolutely no filter on his mouth or his thoughts, entirely uncensored and free for browsing. His hand wound her hair around his fist as he pushed her down to her knees to the point he towered over her where he stood over her a sinful smile slowly creeping onto his lips.

A low breath blew through his nostrils as she took her sweet time pleasuring his body; kissing, sucking and smoothing the lean lines of his thighs leaving him achingly hard and causing his cock to occasionally twitch. His fingers had curled tighter the longer she left him waiting and he’d been about to yank her to exactly where he wanted her when she did finally go where he wanted her most. The way she eyed him made his confidence swell, very thoroughly enjoying the sight of her down on her knees for him.

He leaned back heavily against the door as her fingers curled around his length, shaft pulsing hard in her firm grasp and his voice was grating as she teased him patience running thin. “Don’t tease me, I told you to put that mouth to us--- aah fuck” his jaw fell slack a throaty groan falling from his lips as she lowered her mouth to wrap around the swollen tip of his cock the warmth of her mouth causing his hips to buck and stomach muscles to clench. The vibrations from her hum shot through him making Fane’s head fall back with a sharp thud against the door, back arching off the wood his hips rocking against the tight vice of her lips ‘til she drew back with a wet pop a trail of saliva and pre-cum linking them still. “Now listen baby, you ain’t gonna stop ‘til you’re drinking me down ‘n’ I’m spilling from those pretty lips cherie, understand?” his free hand lifted, thumb pressing to her swollen lips pulling at the corner of them whilst he stated what he wanted in an authoritative tone, one that he hadn’t used in a very long time that brokered no argument though his hand moved to brush her face affectionately- perhaps an odd contrast of behaviours but also a display demonstrating that despite his words he still had her welfare in mind. “Don’t care if you choke, you ain’t gonna stop are you love?”

There was an utterly indecent thrill in what they were doing. Not only could they get caught - though it was Faye’s place, technically, and Cat had never given two shits what Faye got up to as long as it didn’t disrupt business - but there was the added factor that Fane was stronger than Faye. He could hurt her if he wanted, before Faye could even have the chance to fight back. Obviously he wouldn’t, and Faye knew that, but just the mere thought that the man with has fist wrapped so tightly in her hair could easily break her neck with just a twist of his hand thrilled the darkest parts of Faye’s psyche. The part where pain became pleasure, and danger became arousal.

Trusting Fane with that part of her, and being able to let him see it without fear of revulsion or timidness on his part, was like opening the doors on a part of her that had been stagnant for years. And letting the air in.

She felt the way his grip grew tighter as she teased and teased, the submissive part of Faye always seeing just how far she could push before she was punished. Before she was made to do as she was told. He was right on that edge, cock hard and pulsing, leaking and begging for the warmth of her mouth. And when she took him in, on the heels of his patience ending, Faye grinned even as she swallowed him down. God, he was beautiful.

One hand trailed up the smooth line of his thigh, cupping his balls while the other gripped the base of his cock, holding it steady as she sucked him. Pulling away with a soft, wet sound, she looked up at him, her eyes blown dark, a spark of violet shimmering around the edges. His finger brushed her face, and Faye turned into it just so, so her eyes never left his face. His tone was different, and it set her own arousal stirring again as he spoke. There would be no defying him, she knew. God, she couldn’t have even if she wanted. He looked utterly sinful, his shirt rucked up over the smooth flat planes of his belly, the gleam of wetness smeared over tight muscle from where his cock had tapped against him; the way his hips jutted forwards just so. Faye wanted nothing more than to do as he said, to drink him down and leave him writhing and boneless against the door.

His gentle touch to her face was the counter to his fist tight in her hair, just as his words, telling her not to stop even if she was choking on him, but rounded off with a word that Faye had only ever dreamed of hearing fall from his lips: ‘love.’ She sucked in a breath, and one hand rose to splay over his as she looked at him anew, and nodded. Not having heard him the first time back on the dance floor, with the music and the lights and the heightened state of need she’d been in, this time… this time Faye heard it.

And as she leaned back, teasing him with her lips and tongue as she had moments before, and then swallowing him down and doing as he said - not stopping - Faye had no room for thoughts that it might be the alcohol talking. Because he would never lie to her. Never. Even on her knees, his cock in her mouth and his hand fisted in her hair, urging her to take all of him, Faye knew that for certain.

There hadn’t been much opportunity for them to test out these particular areas yet, they’d discussed it in the past but talking and doing were vastly different things. She knew exactly what he wanted and he knew precisely what she was doing, and normally he would have tried to wait her out but weeks of building frustration led to little patience making itself known right now.

Even in his riled up state, the basest part of his nature that wanted to have her right here presently overtaking most consciousness there was a part of him that still wanted to take care of her; to make sure she felt comfortable and okay with everything. She’d made it more than clear that she enjoyed being made to play the submissive, and he didn’t mind letting her do exactly that still the brushing and searching stroke of his long fingers over the curve of her cheek was that sign that he wouldn’t betray the faith she placed in him. Whether that was here or in the future. Perhaps it was that notion, the trust they both placed in each other here and now combined with the ply of alcohol that caused the small admission casting an insight into his growing thoughts and feelings.

He heard her suck in a breath, feeling the pressure of her hand over his own touching her cheek causing him to gaze down in a mixture of affection and desire but soon enough his head was pressed back against the door when she returned to her work. Her mouth was pure heaven; licking and sucking with skill whilst his fingers remained wound in her soft tresses pulling her head up and down whilst she worked his rock hard shaft. His hips rocked matching her pace, groaning deeply every time the swollen tip hit the back of her throat his gaze fell to watch her devour his length “baby-- you’re so good, look at at you, look at you down on your knees for me, fuck Faye” his hand brushed her face again “god that’s it baby.” There was a major temptation to yank her off and shove her up against a wall, hitch her skirt up around her waist and have his way with her but he settled for her on her knees sucking him off like she was made to do it. He could feel the winding coil tightening in his belly, molten heat pooling warmer and warmer as he started to pump his hips a little faster more demanding in his growing desperation.

Before they left, Faye would have to remember to ask Cat for whatever was left of that little bottle. Not because she didn’t think she and Fane could have a good time without imbibing in alcohol, but because it never hurt to have a way to take the edge off, if there was a need for it. And besides, she wanted to know what the hell it was. Because my God…

She looked up and she could see the line of his neck as his head fell heavily back against the door. His back was arched, hip jutting forwards, taut skin pulling over the bow of his iliac crest. Faye couldn’t help herself as her slid her hand up and over, feeling the hard bone and tight muscle that trembled with each pull of her mouth over his cock. His hips moved with her now, and she could feel the frenzy building in the way he grasped tighter at her hair, in the sounds and the words that poured like sin and honey from his mouth, his crisp accent all but dissolved into something else. Just like he had. Something that was both familiar and strange, but something that she knew she would crave now, from time to time. Like she craved everything else about him.

Faye couldn’t return his words, not with the way he was moving into her touch, the slick slide of his cock hitting the back of her throat as she did her best to do as he said, to not choke, and to keep going until she felt the warm pulse of his release. It wouldn’t be long now. So she took him in, her hand curving over his hip, nails digging in as she encouraged him to his own climax.

‘Come on, love…’ she thought to herself, humming her encouragement around him. ‘I wanna see you when you come undone… I won’t let go… I won’t ever let go… God I love you so fuckin’ much…’

He was lost entirely in a world made up of sense and stimuli, the sight of his hands tangled in her hair encouraging and guiding cast in the filter of light from the window casting her into shadow and light, the wet sound of her sucking him off combined with his own pleas and cries echoing in the room, the taste of her from earlier still on his tongue, the slide of her hand and dig of her blunt nails into taut flesh muscle banding and snapping with every rock of his body. There was no way he’d last much longer, he knew that they both knew that.

Fane was unraveling under her attention, it didn’t take long after the sharp dig of her nails into the supple skin just above the curving crest of his hip. Just enough silent encouragement to get what they both wanted. He was done for, letting his willpower go as his nails dug a little into her scalp, thrusting a few hard pumps before his muscles seized up leaving him shuddering, arching and shaking against the door. His head thrown back in ecstasy, eyes rolled back, a ragged gasping cry filling the room when he emptied into the warmth of her mouth. His mind had spun out of the atmosphere and his body eventually sagged boneless back against the door using it as support.

Taking a few moments to come back from the edge he’d fallen off he opened his eyes, easing his grip on her hair and watching her sit back, lips glistening with his spend utterly debauched and he managed a lazy grin. “Fucking hell Faye-- You’re so bloody beautiful.”

When he came undone Faye could hardly stand it. She wanted to rise to her feet and kiss him senseless, if he hadn’t already been out of his mind, and let him fuck her right there on the crates of Jack Daniels and seltzer water. But she was true to her promise, and when the warmth of his release filled her mouth, she swallowed him down, moving her mouth against him until he sagged against the door. Only then did she pull back, her lips shiny and wet with the mixture of their fluids. She stayed where she was, on her knees, caressing his thighs and rising up to plant soft kisses on the quivering flesh of his stomach, his softening cock brushing her chest.

She looked up at him then, and knew if he was such a sight - flushed with heat and hair in a wild disarray - then she must look well and thoroughly obscene. A smile split her face as he called her beautiful. And she rose to her feet then, leaning up to take his face in her hands. Instead of kissing him fiercely like she had before, this time she kissed him slowly, with the knowledge that he had called her love in the back of her mind. Fane didn’t use words like that lightly, and even as six sheets to the wind as they both were, Faye was certain it wasn’t said without some sort of intent. Whether he’d meant to say it just yet, that could be called into question, just like the night she’d come back from the Otherworld, and was so overwhelmed with so many things that she couldn’t help the word that had slipped from her mouth. She’d meant it, and didn’t regret saying it, though if things had been different she might have held onto it just a bit longer. But it was said and done, and Faye was glad she’d said it. There was no other word that would have been right in that instance.

Just as there wasn’t now.

“So are you, love… so are you…” she said breathlessly. She pressed her nose against his, stroking his face just as he’d done to her earlier. “Did you like it?” she grinned, kissing the corner of his mouth one more time.

He felt blissfully sated and unstrung from weeks of tension, and he matched her grin as she rose up quickly fixing his trousers back around his hips but leaving his shirt untucked. Letting her take a hold of his face he sighed into her mouth at the soft press of her lips and taste of himself there, wrapping an arm around her waist to hold her close whilst the other brushed her hair back tenderly. His mind was still pulling itself back together, and all he wanted to do was admire her in all her debauched and sinful glory. There was no lingering on what he’d said earlier, at least not for the time being-- perhaps later.

His brows lifted at her breathless remark but was by no means alarmed by the word as it left her lips, his hand smoothed down her hair the other rubbing the small of her back. “Like it? Baby,” he drawled deliberately drawing the word out in his husky tone “I loved it.” A hum left him as she kissed the corner of his mouth bumping his nose softly against her own.

Fane held her like that for a little while as he finally began to settle, eventually easing a bit of space between them with a grin. “Cat’s probably wondering jus’ what you’re doing with me. Shall we go find her?”

“I’m glad. I just wanna make you happy. ‘Cause you make me happy, hm?” She stepped back, taking a moment to adjust her skirt and her underwear as he righted himself as well, and when they were both situated, she took his hand again. “She probably knows. Girls got a sense about things.” Faye tapped a finger to her temple.

With one final peck to his mouth, Faye tugged him back out into the main area of the bar. The band was back, and the music was lower now, in the same vein as before. But Faye didn’t linger there just yet, instead making her way back to the bar. Cat was there, pouring shots for a pair of young men in khakis and polo shirts, their entire look and mannerisms just screaming ‘frat boy with daddy’s money’ to Faye. But she paid them no mind as they fist bumped and turned back their shots, Jagermeister from the looks of it. Faye cringed. Nasty stuff, Jager.

“You two have fun?” the Naga said, a sly smile on her face. “I thought you’d never come back.” She poured them each a drink and one for herself, leaning one elbow on the bar. “You still owe me a dance, Jack,” she grinned at Fane, sipping her drink.

Faye slid onto the barstool, still flushed and sated from their activities. She accepted the drink, glancing at Fane with a smirk. “Dancin’ might’ve already worn him out, Cat.” Faye was teasing them both, and if Fane wanted to dance with her friend she’d have no problem with that at all.

“Or she saw you drag me off like the desirous wild woman you are” he countered cheekily letting her pull him back out into the corridor back through to the bar where Cat was busy. A slight curl of distaste came to his lips at the sight of the drink the young guys were drinking, but he paid them little attention. Reaching the bar he leaned his side against it casually, an arm resting on the countertop idly.

As Cat spoke Fane looked at Faye then back at the Naga with an innocent shrug, “I’m getting old what can I say-- plus Faye got... hungry” his smile was positively shit-eating as he stood there, eyes dancing with mirth as he took the drink with a nod of thanks. “But, you’re right I do!” he tipped his glass a little in acknowledgement taking a sip “lemme drink this then I’ll take you for a spin darlin’, I’m between rounds right now” never let it be said he let an opportunity for a double-entendre go amiss.

A little while later after he’d finished his drink, setting the glass down he pressed a kiss to Faye’s cheek deliberately giving her ass a little smack before he waved for Cat to leave the confines of the bar. “C’mon darling, let’s show them a thing or two ‘bout dancing.”

“Or that,” Faye grinned back at him as they wound their way back to the bar.

Cat smiled at him. “Age is only a number, darlin’. Even for someone like you. And Faye’s always hungry for somethin’.” The Naga’s golden eyes slid to her friend. “Ain’t never seen nobody hungry as her. For all manner of things.” Her smile changed to one of silent conversation, though she didn’t try to hide it as she stared at the witch.

Faye tipped an eyebrow at the other woman, as if to say ‘don’t push it.’

Cat simply snorted and turned to her own drink. A bit later, Fane was sweeping her out onto the dance floor, Faye tapping the upbeat tune against the bartop with her fingers and she sipped her whiskey. It was good. Being back here. Remembering who she used to be. Who she still was in a way. Her thoughts drifted back to Nuadia, how they’d used to stand behind the bar just as Cat did now, listening to Faye’s troubles and making trouble of their own.

Her thoughts drifted for a bit, and it wasn’t until she felt the hair raise on the back of her neck that Faye stiffened slightly. She didn’t move, kept watching Fane and Cat dance, kept her glass raised to her lips, until she could pinpoint what direction the eyes she felt on her back were coming from. She closed her own eyes, and felt the magic surrounding Morgana’s, felt the wards shift and sway as she manipulated them to show her who was watching her. There was a crash of breaking glass to her left, and Faye’s head snapped in that direction, eyes opening. She slipped off her stool and pushed through the sway of bodies, letting the magic pull her to where it had hit it’s target.

There was only broken glass, spilled liquor, and empty space.

Whoever had been watching her was gone. Faye didn’t know whether to be glad for it, or afraid. Seeing that the mess would be cleaned up, she went back to her spot on the barstool, reaching for the bottle of whisky and pouring herself more. She drank it back in two swallows, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth to catch the excess.

On the dance floor, Cat grinned up at Fane as they swung back and forth to the music. “Never took Faye to be one to bind herself to someone like you. Not sayin’ you’re a bad fella, you don’t seem like it, just sayin’ that you’re kinda the opposite of what she’s drawn to: hairy, thick-necked, no brained, violent lumps. Last guy she was with owned the strip joint across the street. They hooked up ‘cause they was always fightin’ in the street. Yellin’ at each other. Faye broke a stipper’s nose one time, after she brought her skanky ass in here stealin’ customers.” The Naga grinned, clearly finding the memory humorous. “Buuuut anyway, what’re-” She paused then, eyes going suddenly unfocused as she stopped dancing altogether. After a moment, her head turned towards the bar as she felt the wards shift, so used to the hum of them by now that any disturbance was easily noted. “You feel that?” Cat asked, watching as Faye’s blonde head moved through the crowd and away from the bar. She wasn’t truly alarmed, but she knew what Faye had done.

She was searching for something.

But the magic settled then, going back to normal, though Cat had already started moving back towards the bar as Faye found her seat again. “What the hell was that?” she whispered, leaning close, her eyes shifting quickly to Fane as he came over as well before sliding back to Faye.

“Nothin’. Thought I saw someone I knew ‘s all.” Faye gave her another pointed look that said ‘not now’ and Cat let out a hiss - an actual reptilian-like hiss - of frustration.

“Bullshit,” the Naga said, slipping into rapid French, unaware that Fane could most likely follow most of it. “Who was it? You just moved all my wards, Faye, I-”

“My wards…” Faye said in an equally rapid roll of words, “and it was no one. I would tell you if it was. I swear, alright?”

Cat eyed her for a long moment, before conceding. “Fine. I trust you. Just… don’t freak me out like that, Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”

Fane was more than happy to entertain Cat, his movements languid and relaxed as the pair of them moved in time to the music. “I can be pretty convincing when I want to be,” he chuckled good-naturedly though his lips twisted a little. “Plus, I think I heard somewhere change is good right? S’long as she’s happy I’m not the sort to complain” he pointed out honestly his body rolling rhythmically letting him simply be carried by the beat of the music. Though almost as soon as Cat stopped moving he sensed something off, blinking he stilled and scanned the immediate crowd before he followed her gaze towards the bar. A tingle ran across his skin and down his spine, very much like the magic he recalled feeling when he helped Faye to set up the wards around her house. “Feels like magic,” if it was enough to stir Cat to caution he figured it had to be something similar “the wards?” He asked looking back towards where Faye had been when they left.

As soon as Cat started making her way back he slid his way through the crowd, already able to hear the conversation upon approach whether Cat was trying to be quiet deliberately or not. He situated himself to one side of the pair, a hand reaching out automatically to touch Faye’s waist.

Faye’s dismissive attitude got him wary, but Cat interjected and the switch to French was swift but he made no effort to interrupt merely listening. Until Cat receded but his own eyes narrowed a little fingers tightening in the side of her top gently “are you sure? Better we know in case it is something important” he didn’t want to press but felt the need to check.

Cat for her part looked a little surprised by his switch to French, but Fane ignored her look his attention focussed on Faye patiently but silently willing her to tell them if it was anything. But Faye seemed steadfast in her opinion of it being nothing and he seemed dubious before he gave a short nod. “Fine.”

“I thought I saw someone I knew,” Faye added on with a sigh, looking at them both, not wanting to lie even though it really was fine. She hadn't found anyone and no harm had been done. She laid a hand over Fane's and touched Cat’s arm. The Naga narrowed her eyes but gave a nod similar to the vampire, meeting his own over Faye's shoulder. Why the witch had deemed to flare the wards for the simple sake of seeing someone she knew? Cat was gonna call bullshit.

But the last thing she wanted to do was cause strife. “Lotsa people that still know you ‘round here, Faye. And not all remember you as fondly as me.” She gave them both another pointed look, and the conversation was done as she moved back behind the bar.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” Faye said, squeezing Fane's hand though she didn't look back at him. Instead she picked up her whiskey and downed it before finding herself a cigarette. She inhaled deeply, leaning her head on Fane's arm as she exhaled through her nose. They chatted and drank and smoked and finally the slight feeling of unease started to fade.

The bar grew busier as the night wore on, until finally Cat gestured that Faye should join her behind the counter. “Stop lookin’ so goddamn twitterpated and get your ass back here and mix a drink,” she called between pouring a round of six shots while shaking up a margarita.

Faye, who had been whispering something naughty in Fane's ear, looked over at her friend and snorted. “It's been years since I made anything that wasn't for me.” But still she got up and went to join Cat, pulling her hair up on top of her head in a messy bun. Within five minutes she was pouring shots, shaking mixers, and taking money left and right from thirsty college boys flashing their money clips - full of Daddy's money -like it would impress someone, as well as staring openly at both Faye and Cat’s tits.

“That’ll be twenty bucks,” Faye said to one kid who who had ordered two shots of vodka.

“Twenty bucks? I thought shots were five?” he said, frowning and scoffing.

“They are. Starin’ at my tits is an extra ten.” Faye raised an eyebrow and held out her hand for the money, not joking whatsoever.

The kid huffed and forked over the cash anyway.

“Merci, babydoll.” Faye stuck the cash in the cash register as the kid moved off. She looked over at Fane. “Jump in anytime,” she grinned.

Fane was still dubious, it was hard for him not to be and his line of thinking was along the same route as Cat’s if he’d been able to read her thoughts. Even so, he let it be and drew up a stool near to Faye’s. At Cat’s warning he made a low sound of agreement in his throat, patting his pocket and pulling out a set of smokes tapping the box firmly causing one to slide out (a neat magic trick of his own). He plucked it out and lit it up popping it into his mouth as Cat poured him another drink that he drew over along with his cap that he’d left on the counter from their time over here prior to dancing.

Faye leaned up against his arm and he ended up tucking it around her letting her settle more bodily against him. He alternated between taking a drag on the smoke and drinking the whisky as the night drew on. Though he buzzed with laughter at Cat’s call interrupting Faye’s obscene utterances in his ear that gave him half a mind to drag her out and have his way with her. “Time t’get back in the habit then” he gave her a light nudge grinning at Cat as Faye went back behind the bar.

Some people might have gotten jealous at the blatant staring the young lads around him, but Fane merely looked on amused at the goings on particularly as some tried to get lucky and throw some insanely cheesy pickup lines Faye and Cat’s way in the hopes they’d get lucky. Some of the variety he heard were ‘are you from Tennessee? Because you’re the only ten I see’, another put his phone on its selfie mode holding it up whilst declaring ‘I have to show you the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen’ and ‘you know, I’d love to go inside your wine cabinet and pull myself out a stiff one’ that had him rubbing a hand over his mouth if only to hide the snickers leaving him.

Though eventually he gave up and ended up snorting loudly grabbing one of them and pulling them over “oh you poor soul, does that actually work?”

“Um-- no.”

“No,” Fane echoed “I thought not” with another snort of laughter patting the guy on the face letting him stumble off before turning back to the bar. Looking at Faye hustling another kid he scratched his stubble a little as she turned her attention back to him waggling his brows at her cheekily figuring he could have some fun whilst he was at it and maybe make a few kids jealous in the process “you know if it’s a tenner just for looking I’m kind of curious what a hundred would get me darlin’.” He spoke eyeing her from where he perched head tilted a challenge glinting in his eyes.

Faye just grinned through all cheesy pickup lines, chatting back and forth and taking money and orders, not caring at all about the people that eyed her and her friend. The occasional supernatural passed through, Faye noting them when she took their money and their skin brushed - a few witches, an antronach or two, and one vampire - but Faye could take care of herself, and besides, Fane was there. Nothing bad would happen to her with him watching out for her too.

She watched as he came closer, looking every bit like the cat that just ate the canary, at the risk of being entirely cliche. But when she saw the teasing glint in his eye, Faye couldn’t help but play along. The crowd was loud, as was the music - though it was still the live band and not the DJ - but it was quiet enough here that the conversations of those around could be heard. A few curious heads turned, both at his accent and at the words ‘hundred.’

Faye slid over and leaned towards him over the bar. “Pay up and lets find out handsome.” She held out her hand for the cash, and when he gave it over she made a show of holding the $100 up to the light to check it’s authenticity. “Seems legit… now… what will a Benjamin get you, hm?” She reached out for him, snagging the neck of his shirt and pulling him over the bar to meet her in the middle for a searing kiss. Faye kissed him like she might crawl on top of the bar and have her way with him right then and there. And when she pulled back she drug his lower lip between her teeth, soothing it with a flick of her tongue as she released him. “Does that suit?” she asked, knowing that one or two people standing nearby had seen them. Even now she could hear wallets opening.

“Should I take their money?” she whispered to Fane with a grin. “Though I’d rather not kiss anybody else tonight, if it’s all the same to you.”

He took his time in fetching the money, deliberately holding it up in two fingers but before she could take it from his grasp his fingers jerked back hovering a few inches from her hand. “How about your name first gorgeous? I’d say a gentleman deserves a lady’s name if he’s gonna treat her right ‘n’ proper like she deserves” his eyes glinted and only once he had a name did he pass over the bill.

His body was pliant and bent to her will, not even bothering to resist as she caught him by the front of his waistcoat and drew him in; his eyes dropping to her lips before she was kissing the hell out of him. His head tilted returning the kiss passionately his tongue pressing a little into her mouth as he propped himself up on the bar for support. The tug of her teeth to his lip as she pulled away had him chasing her lips half having leaned up and over the bar in an attempt to chase her retreat. “Decent start I suppose, but the night’s still young” he murmured crooking a finger to get her to come closer, enough for him to whisper in her ear.

“Might as well, though if you don’t want to kiss them you could always dance for their notes? Same difference but maybe later.” He nipped her ear before drawing back, “would another get me some body shots from you cherie? I promise, I’ll behave myself but I won’t deny you look... delicious” his finger dragged an exaggerated cross over his heart as though to emphasis his promise. The inside joke between the supernaturals present evident considering just how delicious she was indeed for him.

They were most definitely making up for the lack of contact over the last three weeks. Even before their turn on the dance floor and in the store room, they’d barely been able to keep their hands off one another. Even if it was simply a touch on the arm, or feet brushing together, or a passing stroke of a hand, they’d needed to touch one another, and reestablish that connection that was such an important part of their relationship.

“I’d rather kiss you, and dance for you,” Faye said. “But you’re damn right it will. Though I believe you’ll behave like I believe my name’s Yankee Doodle.” She said it loud enough for the people standing around to hear. “Two hundred bucks from this fine gentleman,” she drew out the word ‘fine’ in a long drawl, “for skin shots.” Faye took Fane’s money, slipping it into a pocket on her skirt just like she had the last one. He’d never have to pay for a thing at her bar, and she’d give it all back to him later. It was all just for show. And apparently it was a good one.

Hoots and catcalls came from all around as Faye set out the necessary ingredients for this particular piece of debauchery: tequila, salt, limes. Before she hopped up on the bar Coyote Ugly style and stretched out on her back. Room had already been cleared, and Faye gave Fane a smirk. “Do your worst, baby.”

“Babygirl, you’ve got all the time in the world to dance and kiss me” considering how physical the pair of them were, it was no real surprise how for almost the entire night they’d been in contact someway or somehow. Where other people might have enjoyed a little affection the pair of them tended to take it to such levels that one almost always ended up sat in the other’s lap. Letting her pluck the note from his fingers he smirked, but pouted and looked hurt the crowd that had started to gather around the pair of them laughing at Faye’s words “I have no idea what you’re on ‘bout, ‘course I’ll behave.”

Whilst Faye was busy getting the necessary items he cleared some of the glasses and tossed his cap out of the way behind the bar somewhere figuring he’d fetch it later. She didn’t need to give him the notes back, it wasn’t as if he really needed it even if this was all for show frankly he wasn’t even thinking about that just enjoying getting lost in the antics of the evening. Once Faye was situated on the bar he pushed his stool out and helped to roll up her shirt exposing the smooth curve of her belly taking his time to drag his palms over her skin, next he grabbed a lime and slid a little up the bar running the flesh of the fruit over the curve of the top of her breasts before letting her hold the rind in her lips whilst he switched for the salt. Noticing a few phones being pulled and held up in his peripheral vision he saw no point not to make a show of it, of her. Getting deliberately low which earned a few whoops he ghosted his lips along her jaw and neck nipping lightly with his teeth his stubble scraping her skin with the act whilst he tapped out the salt onto the spot he’d put the lime juice.

Satisfied that it was more or less set up he grabbed the tequila and returned to her belly casting a look up at her with a grin before he set a cool palm to her flushed skin, tipping the bottle up and filling up her belly button spilling a little excess over onto her skin. He immediately dipped down keeping a hold of the bottle to lap and drink up the tequila nosing her skin a little as he drank before moving on; ducking down to lick up the salt from either side of her breast with a quick drag of his tongue before he pivoted and bit the lime pulling back whilst he chewed on the fruit. Setting the rind aside Fane brushed Faye’s face shifting to lean over and slot his mouth over Faye’s kissing her firmly the taste of the shot still on his palette whilst the crowd cheered again, he only broke away to lick any excess salt from her skin before he finally did sit back looking incredibly smug, eyes glinting mischievously. “Hm, yep, you’re delicious baby.”

“Do I?” she asked, a gleam in her eye. “And we’ll see,” was all she said to the promise to behave on his part.

Stretched out on her back on the bar, she watched as he rolled up her shirt, squirming a little at the touch of his hands. There were shouts of encouragement and a few whistles here and there as he slipped the lime over her chest, depositing it in her mouth with a grin. She watched him, giving him a look as he finally pulled back from nosing and nipping along her skin. The cool slide of alcohol into her navel made her squirm, and a little spilled over at her barely contained laughter. But he quickly followed it with his mouth and tongue, and Faye’s back arched up off the bar a little, to shouts and call and the flash of phone cameras.

And when he kissed her, the people standing around watching cheered and catcalled and a few even patted Fane on the back. They were pressed close around them, a mass of people on all sides, but they were all just having a good time. Faye couldn’t fault that. This was New Orleans after all. What better place to let loose and let you inhibitions go? Especially when you were here with someone you loved and who was currently licking margarita salt off your breasts in front of sixty people.

“So are you,” she grinned, and plucked a cherry from a serving tray just behind the bar. She dropped it in her belly button and tipped an eyebrow at him. “You gonna get it? Or am I gonna have to ask someone else?”

Hands flew up in the air around them to try and vie for the chance to suck the cherry out of Faye’s belly button. “Better hurry,” she teased him.

She looked absolutely beautiful right there; back arched in a perfect bridge off the bar, writhing just a little under his lips, pushing her chest up with the act and Fane hummed against her skin making sure to savour every single moment of it. The whoops and cheers of the crowd only serving to bolster his sky-high confidence. It had been a while since he’d behaved in this way, let loose and given into the depraved side of his mind which told him to wrap a hand around her throat and have her right here on the countertop but instead he opted for something different.

Licking his lips as he eyed the glint of alcohol and wetness from his work on her stomach the smugness only seemed eternally fixed in place. He loosened off his tie shoving this in his pocket, undoing the top button of his shirt whilst he spoke “careful baby or I might let you take a bite of me, ‘n’ we both know what happens then” he said the last bit lower just enough for her to hear watching as she dropped it into her belly button. The challenge in her eyes was one he couldn’t deny, he could never deny.

Instead of remaining on the floor Fane judged his options knowing time was running out, but ultimately decided for something else. Making sure the bar was clear he pressed a hand to the counter before he hopped up, crawling up the bar until he sat down straddling her hips. Making a show of moving his hands behind his back so they were out of the way he smirked down at her before his body levered forwards and he press a kiss to the left side of where the cherry rested, next he moved North, South and East only pausing on the last one to suck a plum coloured bruise into her skin. Throughout this display his eyes remained fixed on her, enjoying the small leaps in her breath and chest from these little ministrations of his. He took his time before finally coming back making a show of opening his mouth wide, teeth dragging down her skin as they closed over the cherry plucking it from her body before he sat back on his haunches slowly chewing the fruit before swallowing it.

Faye had darker urges as well, things that were rarely given the chance to breathe. Her dalliance with Teddy Aynesworth had been the last time anything had come close. Not that she and Fane hadn’t done things that would make most people blush, but neither had truly pushed the limits and delved into the more perverse side of their sexual tastes. Faye knew Fane could hurt her. She knew it would take no effort on his part whatsoever. But she also trusted him implicitly. So even if he had wrapped his hand around her throat and cut off her air, taking her right where they lay (though even New Orleans had it’s laws and the last thing Faye wanted to do was end up in jail), she would have let him. Because she trusted him.

But as it was, his hands stayed where they were, and Faye watched with hooded eyes as he stripped out of his tie and - Good Lord - hopped onto the bar with her in one smooth motion. “You’re insane,” she cackled, grinning as he straddled her and proceeded to make a crowd-pleasing show out of getting the cherry without using his hands. Faye arched into the slide of his mouth, warm and wet and teasing, as he finally plucked the cherry from her belly button, chewed, and swallowed.

Grinning at him, Faye pushed up, nearly meeting him face to face. A finger reached up and traced the visible skin beneath the open buttons of his shirt. “You stole my cherry,” she said, pouting a little bit. “I think you owe me another kiss for it.” She pulled him in and kissed him fiercely, which caused more cheering and hooting and cat calls among the crowd.

“Alright, alright… jesus christ you two I’m gonna start chargin’ like the titty bars do after that. Come on… get your fine asses off my bar.” Cat was grinning at them, but motioning them to get down. “Come on… crowds thinnin’ out anyway.”

“Not the worst thing I’ve been called” Fane responded with a bright grin flashed in her direction before he focussed himself entirely on fetching the cherry as per requested. He was struggling to keep a straight face and ended up laughing between kisses the sound rich and whiskey-toned enjoying the warmth of her skin under him. Her own cackle only served to spur his laughter more, he could have stayed here all night.

Faye rose from her prone position and he let out a satisfied sound at the drag of her fingers over his skin a heated trail left in its wake. “I’m going to steal more than that from you tonight” his words held promises left unsaid but he hardly had time to even acquiesce before she was pulling him in for another demanding, all-consuming kiss the left him grasping and desperate for more. Had it not been for Cat’s voice he was sure there wasn’t much keeping him from enacting his earlier thoughts.

With a petulant huff he shot a baleful look over at the naga, “you can charge away I’m really rather enjoying myself right here” he made a point of indicating to Faye’s lap which he still straddled nonchalantly. “Pfft,” he blew the sound out “is this ‘cause you weren’t invited to join the fine ass party goin’ on up here? Nothin’ stopping you from joining” Fane pointed out with a jocular smile as he finally slid off the counter landing on his feet as per Cat’s request. Offering his hand to Faye to help her down from the bar in a rather gentlemanly fashion despite what they’d both been doing a few moments prior.

Faye loved Fane's laugh. Especially when it was full and unencumbered and rolled from his lips like fine wine and dark chocolate. “I bet,” Faye laughed in return. Her mirth turned softer, into little breathless huffs of laughter and familiar (to Fane at least) sounds of encouragement as he worked his way towards her cherry.

“Are you threatenin’ my virtue?” she teased, sounding mock scandalized. “I'm a good girl, I'll have you know.” And then she was kissing him again, the rest of the world falling away as she got lost in the taste of whiskey and tequila and the sweet tang of cherries that was lingered on his lips. Cats voice made Faye pout, and she could only look over at her friend as Fane teased her.

The Naga shot him a look back that was both enticing and indicative that she wouldn't have minded joining their party of two. “Some of us have to work… Though I will keep that in mind, darlin’, don't you think I won't.”

Faye let herself be helped down from the bar, rolling her tank top back down and leaning heavily over the bar. “You should come up to soapberry some time. Fane has a hot tub. And you wouldn't have to hide anymore.”

Cat looked over at Faye, smiling at her and Fane before leaning over and cupping Faye's chin in her hand. She pressed a quick kiss to Faye's mouth. “I ain't hidin’ darlin’. I've always been who I am. Just… ain't everybody deservin’ to know the real me. But… thanks for the offer.”

“Me?” he asked eyes widening comically and looking offended though it was all in play, “I have nooooo idea what you’re on about” though as Faye declared herself a good girl he snorted unable to help the laughter bubbling up in him. “Good girl?” another snicker sounded from his lips “right, and I’m the king of fantasyland.”

Fane wasn’t exactly the sort to say no to such opportunities, and if Cat really wanted to then who was he to deny her? Her excuse of work made him tsk and give her a pointed look, “darlin’ there’s no fun in working all the time but if you’re sure.”

Cat merely offered him a tilt of her head in contemplation, “this time. But” she paused stepping over to brush a hand over his chest a playful light to her eyes “maybe if you’re lucky there’ll be a next time.”

“Awh Cat you tease,” he shot back with a slanted smile over Faye’s shoulder as he helped her down touching her waist lightly as she righted herself after their antics also speaking of his estate. “I have a sauna, indoor pool, outdoor pool and a hot tub which are all free for use but out of them I’d say the sauna and hot tub are the best parts,” his eyes trailed Cat’s movements as she leaned over to kiss Faye the sight causing him to raise a brow though no point of issue came from him. “Though people might get excited, Naga’s aren’t all that common over there-- mind you I did run into one the other day but-- point being you’re always welcome to come stay at mine if you do fancy a visit. A friend of Faye’s is a friend of mine.”

His words made Cat look back to him once more with a smile, shifting over so that she could walk her nails up the front of his shirt before they looped into the material and tugged lightly pulling him over the counter to press a languid kiss to his lips. “This one’s a charmer,” she said, eyes roaming over to Faye whilst she held fast to Fane’s shirt “watch him Faye” with another quick kiss she let him go and Fane merely breathed out a laugh raising a hand to rub his lips whilst moving back to Faye’s side.

The night wore on; a little more dancing, some time up on stage with Fane playing the piano and Faye singing eventually it was time to start turning for home. At the door his arms wrapped around Faye’s waist and his lips pressed into her neck he listened to Cat speak.

“It was nice seein’ you darlin’s,” she chimed smoothly pulling out two cards that she pressed along with his cap into Fane’s palm with a squeeze a tingle of magic warming his palm from one nearest his skin that made him look down and back to the Naga “not sure how long the two of yous are in the city for but… If you’re here in a few nights there’s a little thing going down I think you should check out.”

Fane beamed chin resting on the slope of Faye’s shoulder, “only thing I’m checkin’ out is this one and maybe a pretty Naga” which served to make Cat laugh and swat his shoulder playfully with a tsking sound. He pressed his chuckle into the curve of Faye’s neck “and the gator thing… ‘cause I can’t deny that I don’t love a good bit of mystery.”

The evening had been enjoyable for all of them and after a few more farewells he tucked the cards into his pocket and stepped off the pavement starting to amble along in the direction they’d come when they first entered the city. The city was still buzzing with activity, though a little less so than it had been earlier and he sighed contently as he breathed in the atmosphere the air helping to start clearing his head a little but making no effort to part his arms from Faye. After a little while of walking he glanced at her “you ever think of leaving Springs?” he asked thoughtfully no real point to his question beyond simple curiosity “findin’ somewhere… quieter to settle down?”

“King of my fantasy,” Faye smirked, utterly unashamed of the terrible joke.

She hopped down off the bar, feeling just a little bit sticky but not really minding. The kiss caught her off guard, but she smiled into it. There was nothing overtly sexual about it, other than the manner in which it was delivered. Same as the one she delivered to Fane, which had Faye biting her lower lip. She knew where Fane’s loyalties lie, just as he did her, though the prospect of giving into the darker desire to watch him with someone else was a heavy one. And Cat would have no qualms, as she made very apparent.

“Oh, I plan on doin’ more than watch him,” Faye said, earning a snort and a cheeky grin from her friend.

The night wore on and soon enough they were heading home. Faye bid farewell to her friend, and promised to come home more. She looked curiously at Fane as Cat pressed the cards into his hand, but didn’t ask just then. It sounded interesting, whatever it was. As did the rumors Cat had talked more about over the course of the night. Though Faye was more interested in the event than the hunt for a gator. Though if Fane wanted to check it out, she wouldn’t say no. Especially not with his arms around her like they were, his mouth on her neck, and filthy promises in her ear. “N’awlins has got plenty of mystery, that I can guarantee.”

The night was warm, and people still strolled the streets, laughing and drinking and generally having a good ol’ time. They walked back towards the river, the lights of the steamboat casinos lighting up the skyline. His question caught her off guard, but she merely gave a thoughtful look and considered it. “No. I haven’t really had a reason. I mean… we moved there to be safe. So that Eowyn would be safe. Everyone I care about, ‘cept for Gram, is there. But I mean… I suppose maybe… one day… if I had reason to move I would.” Faye didn’t know if he was asking just to be asking, or if he had a particular reason for it. It made her only a little bit leery, because what if he had been thinking of moving away? Surely he wouldn’t? Not now at least.

The thought made Faye frown a bit, and she looked away off towards where they were passing Jackson Square. There was a man leaned against the statue that gave the Square it’s name. A man Faye recognized. She paused, so struck was she to see that face, and nearly let go of Fane’s arm to move towards him. But a horse-drawn trolley passed between them, and when it had moved on, the man was gone.

It all happened in the course of about ten seconds, and Faye immediately started walking again, thinking she was still drunk and seeing things. That being back here was making her paranoid.

“Quiet is nice,” she added, looking back at him. “I like quiet.” Though that niggling feeling stayed the base of her spine. And she couldn’t shake it as they walked on.

He maintained the very little distance between their bodies as they walked having taken her hand loosely in his own both swinging loosely between them. He was happy to take in the atmosphere of the city, vastly different to that of Soapberry at night at heart he always had been a city person; being drawn back to the bustle of life and people from all around the globe hurtling through their daily rituals. Especially at night, more nocturnal than anything even before his turning Fane was drawn to nightlife like a moth to the flame it simply struck and interested his nature more. Plus, who could deny the potential a kaleidoscope of culture and booze would be for a night of fun?

Perhaps it was this that explained his question, his urbanite nature but also a memory from the prior night- him working at his laptop whilst rain trickled down large open windowpanes looking over the Parisian night, Faye with her head in his lap stretched out reading and a bottle of wine open nearby. The glimpse struck him as peaceful, quiet and blissful in its pure simplicity away from the stress that sometimes came about with living in a small community of people. “Mm, yeah I know what you mean but don’t you find that for all it’s supposed nature as a safehaven… There’s not been much safety there at times?” He saw her frown out of the corner of his eye and gave her hand a squeeze, Fane knew Faye well enough to understand her fears associated to this question but he felt inclined to ask her anyway, “I’m not asking for any reason… just curious if the thought had ever crossed your mind that’s all.”

But there was a sudden pause and tenseness about her that struck him as odd, and Fane’s gaze skimmed in the direction she’d just been looking wondering whether it was something he’d said or if there was something else at play now. Or maybe she’d just been looking at the square? But why would a square make her tense as she had? “What’s wrong?” he edged closer when he voiced the question lowly not quite sure what to make of her behaviour as she picked up their conversation despite the pause. He recalled her behaviour earlier in the night and glanced back to the square as they resumed walking feeling a little uneasy as they walked.

Faye liked the nightlife as much as anyone else. She’d grown up here, and had lived most of her adult life in an apartment above the bar, so she was no stranger to the lights and the bustle and the noise. But Faye preferred quiet. She wanted to sleep next to an open window on a cool spring night, hear the crickets and the wind in the trees, feel the warm press of her lover at her back, the fluttery sighs of her daughter as she slept in her crib. She didn’t know of any city she’d been in where she could find that. It didn’t mean such a place didn’t exist, merely that Faye didn’t know of one. The memory that swept back into her mind was of fields of lavender as far as the eye could see. Dogs and chickens chasing after Eowyn as she ran through a spacious yard surrounded by trees that looked ages old. She and Fane lying among the sea of purple, on a blanket under the setting sun.

“I s’pose nowhere’s completely safe,” she agreed, though a bit back-handededly. “At least there we don’t have to worry about Hunters and people that don’t know about us.We don’t have to worry about hiding. Though it comes with it’s own troubles, you’re right.” She squeezed his hand back. “It has. From time to time,” she told him with a small warm smile.

And then just like that the mood shifted. There was no way she was hiding the sudden pause, or the way her breathing was held tight in her chest, or the thrum of her heart as it sped up. She felt him step up behind her, though he didn’t let go of her hand, for which she was grateful. After a few more seconds staring at the space where the man had been, and letting her eyes shift around the areas of the Square she could see, Faye shook her head. “Maybe nothin’.” They started walking again, though this time Faye held Fane’s hand loosely in her own, instead of the firm grasp of her fingers that she’d had earlier. “I thought I saw someone.” Faye let out a heavy sigh. “I thought I saw him earlier too. At Morgana’s.” Faye side-eyed Fane to see what his reaction might be. “Thought it was just my mind playin’ tricks…” She shook her head, but kept walking. She didn’t say much else, the streets getting less well-lit as they headed out of the Quarter and back into the larger part of the city.

Faye had been casting out with her magic as they walked, little clouds of gray swirling from her hands here and there, like she held a cigarette no one could see. Someone was there, about a block behind them. Faye slowed her pace, pulling Fane into the small inlet of an alleyway between two tall buildings. “Kiss me, and make a show of it,” she said, giving him a look that said he needed to please trust her in this.

“I guess it’s just wishful thinking to think that one day we’ll finally manage to find a place where we can simply be without having to be afraid of persecution or some haywire magical shenanigans.” Fane agreed idly a small breath escaping him as they walked.

But soon enough the both of them were occupied with something else, something different ad Fane wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. His step to close the distance to her was deliberate; shielding her back with his own body as his free hand went to lightly touch her waist as a secondary point of support casual enough but also serving to further block her back should anything come up behind them. After all, despite all her power that he fully respected she was still mortal at the end of the day. The admission of having thought she’d seen them earlier at Morgana’s made him huff clearly not particularly pleased by this admission but not blowing it out of proportion despite the fact that there could have been a little more warning. “You should have said something… If this ever happens again promise me you’re gonna tell me right away the moment you even for a second feel like something’s wrong” his words were uttered under his breath solely for her to hear. There was no malicious intent behind them, simply a request to not shut him out on something that might potentially be important. He’d had enough of that to last him a lifetime by now.

Whilst Faye spread her magic; its colouring barely discernable in the darkness of the night and streets Fane merely kept his senses alert. Mindful of anything that struck him as odd or out of place though that was one issue with a city; there were thousands of noises all blurring over one another that made it near impossible to truly detect just one thing. As Faye slowed he came to a stop eyeing her questioningly but understanding her ploy almost immediately, it was his trust that already existed in her that allowed him to immediately follow her wishes without needing to stop and question.

With a tilt of his head he prowled nearer, backing her into the wall whilst one hand grasped her hip tightly seemingly pinning her there the other curling around the nape of her neck. It was a hold she could duck out of if needs be but still convincing enough, “‘m not sure I can wait to get you home after what you did to me earlier” he drawled easily letting his desirous nature slip into roughening his words. He ducked his head drawing her into a fierce kiss that was a clash of teeth and tongues in a passionate collision that to any onlooker would make them appear like any other horny couple fuelled by a night of booze out on the streets at this late house and if he was being honest only a part of it was truly an act.

He heard the passing footsteps, but Faye had asked him to trust her and thus he led her take point on whatever went down next.

“Maybe one day,” Faye said. “Que sera sera, right?” And she meant that, her smile hopeful as she looked up at him.

Though as he stood at her back, whispering low enough for her to hear him, she frowned. Not at him. But at herself and the situation, whatever it might turn out to be. “I didn’t feel like anythin’ was wrong,” she said a bit sheepishly. “I mean, okay yeah, I got creeped out a bit earlier, but nothin’ that was worth spoilin’ the night over.” Faye sighed, knowing he was right. “I’m sorry. I shoulda said somethin’, even though it wasn’t a big deal.” And she would have, if it had been someone other than the man she thought she’d seen. She would never shut him out; she’d promised not to. Promised to always be honest. And she had been. There were just… things… that she wasn’t ready to tell him yet. Things about her past. About who she used to be. And if the person potentially tailing them was who she thought it was, those things might come to light faster than she’d like.

Much, much faster.

So when Fane backed her into the wall, as good as it felt - Christ it felt good - she did her best to keep her eyes towards the dark street outside the alley entrance. Even when he kissed her - God he was fucking distracting and she was nearly undone enough to say fuck whoever was following them - she tried to keep an ear out, and listen to the magical threads she’d left in their wake.

Sure enough, footsteps, heavy and booted from what Faye could tell, walked slowly down the sidewalk. Faye broke the kiss, one hand directing Fane to her neck so she could get a clear view. His hold was one she could slip out of easily, and the moment the man’s face passed into view - a face she hoped never to see again - Faye huffed out a sharp breath, and felt anger and fear rise up in her chest. She cast out a hand, and tendrils of shadow like ribbons of oil shot out like rubber bands and wrapped the figure bodily in their embrace. He cried out, cursing and tried to run, but the shadows had him.

Faye moved away from Fane, the hand controlling her magic swiping sharply to the left. The bound man slammed hard against the brick wall of the alleyway, grunting at the impact, and Faye strode towards him. He looked stricken, and his bald head gleamed dully in the low light as he struggled against her. She walked right up to him and wrapped a hand around his throat. The bindings tightened. The man let out another grunt, glaring down at Faye with wide-set dark eyes over a broad nose and a long jaw.

“You have five seconds to tell me why the fuck you’re following me, Shane, or I’ll squeeze the life out of the useless sack o’ skin you call a body before you even have time to shit on yourself.”

The man called Shane, for his part, grew very still, though even Faye’s hand around his throat, or the murderous look in her bright violet eyes couldn’t deter the smirk that crept over his face. “Thought them rumors was bullshit, Faye. That’s you’s back in town. I said… naw. Not Faye Benoit. She bounced a long time ago. Why… last time I seen her was after we-”

“Shut. Up.” Faye said,slamming the man’s head back against the wall. “I told you to stay away from me. I told you I was out. Done. That if I ever saw you again after Chicago I’d fuckin’ kill you myself.” Faye was livid. She hadn’t been so angry in a long time. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you?” she growled, slamming his head a third time.

Shane winced and gave a pained, angry look at Faye, though it seemed he was smart enough to knock off the bullshit. His nose started to bleed just a little. It dripped down his chin and onto Faye’s arm. She paid it no mind. “Maybe ‘cause that feller there might not wanna help you commit murder.” His eyes shot to Fane who was still standing behind Faye. “Unlike me, ‘course.” He grinned, showing a mouthful of crooked teeth.

“You fuckin’ cunt…” Faye spat, though there was fear and a bit of anguish behind her words this time as the shadows followed her silent commands and squeezed tighter. A capillary in Shane’s left eye burst, and half his eyes bled red as once more Faye let her emotions take hold of her actions.

There wasn’t much they could do now, if this was the situation they were in then… Well, they were just going to have to deal with whatever was coming but a little warning would have been nice either way. Either way he merely sighed, lapsed into silence and continued walking until their staged rendezvous in the alleyway letting her guide him down to her neck and as fast as they were together in the next moment she was slipping from his grasp and Fane heard the rattle of some trashcans as their tail was pinned like a prize up to the wall.

Faye seemed to vibrate with unbridled rage, it was a side to her he’d never seen. He’d seen her fear take control and manifest itself as determination but this was… something else entirely and he found his eyes going to study the man at the wall. Nothing exceptional, but he wasn’t too bad appearance wise but his words set Fane on edge. Still, he hung back trying to figure out what the fuck was going on because Faye hadn’t given him much to go on. They clearly knew each other, but the blaring question he didn’t have the answer to was how or why. But it had to be bad if this was how Faye was reacting.

Shane’s smirk earned a slight grate of his teeth but his potential explanation was interrupted by Faye slamming his head into the wall and his lips twitched a little in frustration. Like she was trying to… hide something or stop him from saying something. But to see her slipping here, to reduce simply to threatening murder just because she felt threatened? He wasn’t sure what to make of that beyond a slanted uncertainty about what parts of Faye he’d truly seen so far.

The explanation came soon enough and Fane’s lips thinned into a bloodless line, his head snapping to Faye as the man’s eye bled red. “Faye,” he snapped tone short the name rolling off his tongue on a harsh chastisement. Movement came to him then brushing past Faye where she trembled and vibrated spitting venom at this merc or whatever he was. Reaching up through the coil of shadows his fingers laced around the man’s thick neck his enhanced strength making little work of ripping him out of the coils and tossing him down to the ground like a ragdoll a shined shoe smoothly finding itself pressed over his jugular with just enough force to make the man claw and gasp struggling to escape. Fane opted to ignore him peering over at Faye “go down there and get your shit together.” He waited giving her a look that brokered no argument and with that said he looked down at Shane who by now realised struggling wouldn’t get him anywhere out of this situation, “now, point one fucker you don’t know me and one thing you should definitely know about me is that I don’t take none too kindly to people around me being followed.” He eased the press of his foot observing passively as the man sucked in and wheezed for the air he’d been denied trying to smirk through this but found the foot near immediately replaced by Fane’s hand.

Crouching down Fane hovered over Shane leveraging him to the ground whilst he spoke, his threatening tone slipping into something else, honey laced temptation and conviction that dripped with absolute charisma but barely spoken more soothing suggestions for Shane to hear. His words were softer now, enticing him to speak the truth “you don’t want this to hurt do you? No… of course you don’t. It doesn’t have to be this way,” Fane could sense every attempt of a barrier each failed blockade trying to get in the way of the compulsion but with his age and experience in the matter it was like swatting an irksome nuisance out the way picking right where he left off. “You want to tell me don’t you hm? Go on Shane, give in to what you want, what you desire tell me the truth about why you’re looking for Faye, about what happened between you. Not too loudly hm? Just between you and me.” Perhaps it was unfair but right now his mind wasn’t on what was just or right or wrong simply on trying to figure out the pieces of this puzzle. Faye’s attempts to conceal whatever this was is what got them here in the first place and if he was going to have to get them out of it without there being even more bloodshed here tonight he was going to have to understand as best he could. “Now, I’m going to lift my hand off now. You’re going to stay right here hm? And tell me everything no moving or I’ll have to hurt you… and neither of us really wants that do we?” Another shake of Shane’s head was earned and with that Fane gradually lifted his hand to allow the other man to spill whatever he had to say.

Fane never liked using compulsion, never would and a part of him felt guilty about manipulating the situation but he needed the truth and this was the quickest way to get it. He kept an ear out listening to what Faye was doing but maintaining a fixed point on the man here.

For the second time in the last month, Faye heard Fane call her name in a voice that she knew she couldn’t argue with. Both out of respect for Fane and because it was the type of tone that broke her out of her haze of anger and fear. Made her think. But thinking about this was the last thing Faye wanted to do. About the possible reasons for this man… this fucking guy… of all people to be back here in New Orleans at the same time as her. And what he had to say wasn’t something that Faye had lied to Fane about. It was simply a part of her that she hadn’t felt like dredging up at this point in their relationship. And she meant dredge. From the very bottom of the deepest, most terrible part of who she had been before coming to Soapberry. Who she had been forced to become. Who she’d had no choice to become.

Faye’s magic fell away as Fane took charge, tossing Shane to the ground and grinding a foot over his neck. A part of her thought that maybe, just maybe, it would turn out okay. And then Fane was looking at her, his gaze burning into her - not quite angry, but perhaps getting there - as he told her to go and get right. It was the first time he’d ever spoken to her like that, and while it wasn’t cruel, it was most definitely a reprimand. And a sharp one at that. Her face showed the slight sting of the words, but she swallowed back her fury and her stubborn pride, wiping at her eyes before she lowered them and took a few steps back before turning and walking off down the alley.

When she was far enough away that she could hide herself in the shadows but still see what was happening, still hear it, Faye paced a few times before collapsing to a squat against the wall, and burying her face in her knees. She curled her hands over her head and tried to breathe. Because Shane would spill everything. And he would make her out like she was nothing but a cold-blooded killer with no remorse, no rules, no honor. And maybe she had been. Maybe Fane needed to hear it from someone besides her. Maybe this was meant to happen.

Que sera sera, right?

Back at the front of the alley, Shane wheezed nodded as Fane spoke to him. His pupils dilated under the vampire’s gaze, and his body went a bit lax. “I heard she was in town. Knew her years ago, ‘fore she left after her coven got killed. We fucked once. It was nice. Knew her later, after that fucker she used to run with looked me up in Chicago. Heard I was a merc. Wanted in. So I let him. Lotsa folks needed killin’ up that way. Lotsa folks down here still need killin’. There’s just a lack of folks willin’ to do it. So like I said, heard Faye was in town. Wanted to see if she was still in the business of huntin’ down folks what deserved killin’. She was the best I knew, back in Chicago, and I know a lot of folks that would kill anybody for the right price. Not Faye though,” Shane grinned, almost like he was proud. “She’d never kill just anyone. She needed a reason. And a good one. That fucker she run with though, he’d take on almost anythin’ long as he could get paid. I think it was mostly his fault she got involved. Was a shame almost. She was a real nice girl when we was younger.” He seemed to drift off for a moment, but then snapped back. “She got real mad at me last time we spoke. Turns out she was gon’ be a mama, can you believe it? Didn’t want no more part o’ that life. Not one bit. And well,” Shane shrugged, “I wasn’t real nice about it. So she told me if she ever saw me again she’d turn my insides outside and make me eat my own asshole.”

Shane looked up at Fane, eyes wide and compliant, almost like a really big, really dim-witted dog. “Did I do good?”

Fane was sure there were bound to be reasons why Faye had kept this from him, no doubt about it, but it didn’t mean he appreciated finding out this way either. Even if the circumstances were outside of her own control, his rising ire at the situation could have been avoided if she’d just trusted him enough to clue him in. At least before they came here of all places.

But no, now Fane after what had likely been the best night he’d had in a while found himself crouched over a mercenary being told about yet another dark chapter of Faye’s past. Perhaps he should have let her tell him herself, but a part of him needed the assurance that it wasn't just the bits and pieces of the story that made it out to not be the worse case scenario. Not that he thought that Faye would do that, but self-preservation was a human condition; integrated into their very being to try and maintain the relationships with people that mattered by downplaying certain events or vice versa overplaying them. He trusted Faye, he did but he would never compel or forcibly get her to tell him these things. That was a line in the sand he would never cross and hadn’t so far.

So as Shane started speaking Fane merely hovered over him, listening and studying his expression and body language for any sign of deception or a lie. But none clued out, and ultimately it seemed that it was indeed the truth he had received. Taking a long look at the merc he huffed out an annoyed breath as he finished and asked whether he did good. Stupid fucking twat. Fane didn’t bother rewarding him with an answer instead gripped the front of his shirt and yanked him up to eye level once more. His pupils dilated before shrinking summoning every ounce of his innate ability and lacing them into his next words. “You’re gonna forget this ever happened, you’re going to forget my face, my name, you’re going to forget Faye Benoit entirely if anyone asks about her you don't know. If you even hear a mention you aren’t interested and you are never going near her home, place of work or anywhere near her ever again.” Rounding off he dropped Shane to the alley rising up to his full height before stepping over him. “Get the fuck out of here and pray I never see you again, I’ll only be merciful once this time.”

He heard rather than saw Shane scramble off his mind turning over the facts of what he’d learned, pulling them apart and putting them back together a piece at a time. He approached Faye where she crouched cautiously stopping in front of her and bending down, reaching a hand out he paused before touching her shoulder steadily despite his present uncertainty. When he spoke his voice was back on a more level platform no measure of compulsion now present. “Faye, we’re going home c’mon.”

Faye couldn’t hear what was happening at the top of the alley. She knew Shane, and she knew he would spill anything Fane asked him to spill. And he’d spin it out of control. Try and make things more than they were. And because of one stupid mistake, one thing that she truly, honestly hadn’t felt needed mentioning, now they were here, and Faye was freaking out in a dirty alley after she’d nearly killed someone.

Why did this always happen to her? This night had been nearly perfect, and then because Faye had never thought in a million years that the past she’d left behind in Chicago would come back to find her here, in New Orleans, she’d seen no reason to mention anything about it.

There was a scramble of shoes on pavement, and Faye just pressed her hands harder over her head, gripping her hair as she listened to another set of steps come closer. Fane’s footfalls, she knew.

She didn’t flinch when he touched her, but neither did she move. “Why? What does goin’ home matter now?” Faye looked up, but couldn’t look him in the eye. Her makeup was smudged, and her eyes were puffy from crying. But the desolation on her face was the most apparent. Like she’d just lost what was most important to her in the world, and she knew she’d never get it back.

“He told you, didn’t he? About Chicago?” Her voice was dull and lifeless, and she stared straight ahead for a long moment before finally pushing to her feet. She wiped her eyes, but still couldn’t meet his. “I was going to tell you. Just… not like this.” Faye started to step past him, figuring she would just walk home alone. Because alone was how she would end up anyway. It was always how she ended up.

“I’m sorry Fane. I thought… I thought I’d have more time.”

“Your family matters now, your gram, your daughter” he shifted from a bend to a crouch his hand tucking into his sleeve and pulling it down so he could dry her face off. It was clear that she was taking this hard and her lack of ability to meet his eye hurt. But Fane had done what he needed to do and at the end of the day that was all said and done now. No going back and changing the past… only dealing with the present and the future.

The change in her was so drastic, and it was so paramount that his concern for her well-being… his concern simply for her took precedence over anything else he was feeling. He knew this was hard for her, it was visible in how she sank into herself but he wasn’t willing to let her regress from the progress she’d made. “Yeah, he told me” he said quietly shifting as she did to stand in front of her. Faye went on to try and explain herself he shook his head, hushing her softly and raised a hand to press a finger to her lips. The act was overly gentle a silent display that she didn’t need to talk to him yet “I know,” he reaffirmed “but life likes to screw us over when we’re least expecting it…”

As she started to step past him Fane reached out catching her arm and pulling her back in front of him. Drawing her back to him he looked at her through dark seemingly fathomless eyes. “Well, I know now… there’s nothing to do ‘bout that but I never took you as one to give up so easy Faye” there was nothing accusing in his words more a statement of fact. Faye had gotten through worse than some bitter truths and her reaction he summarised was likely one of fear and self-preservation from more hurt. His other hand lifted to touch her face soothingly much like the many other occasions throughout the night falling to her arm before sliding down and taking her hands in his own.

“He told me the truth of it as far as I know and from what I heard it sounds like it was Chris that got you involved in it for the most part…” he shifted their hands to tip her chin up. “Hey, look at me” he insisted waiting, hoping for her to look up “I have… thoughts and questions… ones that I won’t lie… I will need some time to think over… But if you think this will scare me off you don't know me very well.” He held her gaze for a long moment trying to convey that he wasn't planning on running. “You still have time… I'm willing to give you more time. You know I’m never going to force you to talk to me but I hope you realise that I’m in this for the long-haul. Good, bad, everything in between” he waved his hand vaguely “I can’t promise I’ll always understand why you’ve done the things you have but I’m willing to give you the time to explain them to me. I’ll always give you time.”

Hoping he made his point clear he gently pulled on her hands to get her to start moving again keeping her hand loosely laced in his own, “think on it, don’t rush to explain now but… I want to hear it from you when you’re ready to tell me.” With that he lapsed into silence as they walked.

The stubborn urge to pull away was strong as he wiped her face, but the need to be touched by him was overwhelmingly stronger. She must look like a mess. She sure felt like one. The sheer happiness from earlier bleeding away in the face of her fear and her anger. And now her shame. How could Fane even touch her, knowing what she had done?

Faye huffed, sniffing back tears. “Bet he couldn't wait to spill about all the things I did back then. Or his version of what I did. Bet he had a grand ol’ time makin’ me out as some sorta villain.” She hadn't heard the conversation between the two men, so she didn't know it was Fane's compulsion that had gotten Shane to speak the truth. And that he hadn't painted her as a heartless killer. A killer, yes, but not the sort Faye thought.

She huffed. “Life loves to fuck me in particular. Especially when I'm happy. So…” Faye shrugged, disheartened. What else could she say?

But he reached for her as she tried to move past, and Faye stopped. She let him pull her back, but still didn't look up, keeping her eyes cast down. They fluttered, and her chin trembled slightly as he reached out to touch her face. God, she wished she could still feel him like before. But as she made herself keep looking at him, she didn't see anger in his eyes, or revulsion. Confusion, questions… even a bit of disappointment maybe. Or maybe Faye was just seeing things that might make her feel better.

“How do you know it was the truth?” she asked. Though what he said next made her jaw tighten. Faye nodded. “Yeah. Initially. Shouldn't have let him, but… I was past the point of caring what happened to me at that time in my life.” Her eyes fell to their joined hands. Until his fingers tipped her chin. Only then did she look at him. And only because he asked.

A sad smile crossed her face, and she squeezed his hands, her eyes falling shut momentarily. “Don't make promises you can't keep, Stefan.” Her use of his full name was something that she rarely did, and then only to convey the seriousness of what she was saying. She wanted to believe him and she did…. but a small part of her still waited on him to eventually leave. To fall into being like everyone else she'd ever loved, even though she knew in her heart that he was nothing like them. That he was different. That he was a good man and felt deeply for her. And she ad no doubt Fane already understood the seriousness of the issue at hand, and Faye would tell him everything. And she would believe him, as best she could, when he said he wasn't running.

“I'm not askin’ you to understand,” she said gently. “I know you can't always. I just… that's not who I am anymore. Not for a long time. I don't think that's ever who I was. Not really. I just… followed. Did what needed doing to make it through the day. Doesn't make it right. And I believe you.” That he was in it for the good, the bad, and the ugly. “But I'm scared,” she admitted, her voice breaking over the word. There were much darker things associated with that time of Faye's life. Things besides what she had done. Her state of mind for one. And Faye would tell him about that too. But not here. Not standing in a dirty alleyway. So when he promised her time, she nodded gratefully, and they lapsed into silence as they started once more for home. Faye was glad for his hand in hers, and it was that, and his words that she knew in her heart to be true, that kept the tiny flame of hope that flickered in her chest from guttering out completely.

Fane had swore the night he’d returned that he’d do his best to give her no reason to cry, and seeing the gleam of wetness in her eyes made his heart ache. “Nothin’ of the sort, I don’t think you’re a villain” Fane continued to take his time wiping away the tears until they gradually began to slow.

There was no way he was just letting her walk away from this, from him, and his grasp was secure and determined in its placing always maintaining that small point of contact between them. A silent sign that despite everything he was still here with and for her just as he’d travelled all this way in the first place. He wanted to try and understand but that meant he had to think about what he was going to ask before he did utter anything.

Her inquiry into how he made Shane tell him the truth made Fane’s lips twist a bit, “I used my compulsion, and that’s an ability that only gets stronger with age and time… I can be pretty… convincing when I choose to be.” The look on his face showed his distaste over the ability, taking away someone’s free will was one of the basest form of torture and power abuse in his mind but sometimes you had to cross certain set lines for the sake of finding out the truth of a matter.

The sad smile and pressure she applied to his hands was an indicator that they were taking a step forward, “you know I don’t make promises that I don’t intend to keep. I am not going anywhere, you hear me?” he reaffirmed staring at her seriously. “And I’m going to keep on telling you that, keep proving that to you ‘til you get it in that” he raised a hand to lightly press her forehead with his index finger “goddamn stubborn skull of yours that I really am all in… That’s not me saying I’m going to excuse it or justify it” because what justification for murder is there really? “But, that being said I can’t judge you for having killed people… Because I’ve done it too” under different circumstances sure, but the point still stood. Fane had never let himself take a person’s life without a reason even if that reason was as base and twisted as revenge but he’d done it regardless and he carried those weights much as she did. Her weights might be more recent in terms of her lifespan, sure, but it no less diminished the heaviness and self-loathing that came with sinking to such levels.

“D’you think I’d still be stood here if that’s who I thought you were?” Fane pointed out once more levelling out her complexities to something more simple, something that she could grasp onto and understand. “D’you think that I look at you and see you as solely a killer?” he posed to her but answered the question himself, “no, I don’t. I see a history of pain, grief and anger that have tempered and strengthened you to steel, I see a woman who has endured hardship after hardship ‘til you were left standing here with me today… I look at you and I see a survivor, one that’s struggled, battled and suffered… You might never have taken up the mantle of serving your country but that doesn’t make you any less of a soldier and what is every soldier but a survivor at the end of the day?” His own emotions and experience gave the weight to his words, to make his point that he saw her not simply as one thing but a culmination of so many other things good and bad all included. “But of course you’re scared, every survivor is scared but sometimes the only way to get over that fear is by turning to confront it and when you’re ready I’m willing to help you do that.” He only blinked when he finished speaking giving her hands another squeeze to absolutely reaffirm what he’d said, it was easy for him to slip back into the role of support to set his hotter emotions aside for the rational and calmness that ruled him.

They were walking eventually, leaving the darkness of the alley behind but the weight of the event hanging over them back. In his silence he pondered over the revelations himself, Faye had admitted to killing a man before they’d left on this trip and he’d managed to understand that. Fane had no doubt that there had to be a reason behind why she’d done what she’d done and it was for that reason he was willing to let her explain when she was ready but first he’d need some time to process everything with a little space.

The walk continued silence until they reached the track road, the beautifully decrepit building coming into view as they walked, letting themselves in quietly so as not to disturb the other occupants who would no doubt be asleep by now. “You should get washed,” Fane suggested softly when they reached their room immediately starting to change out of his clothes needing something more loose than the confines of his clothes for whatever came next. A wash would cool her down and help to clear her head after all they had both had to drink through the night and it would give him some time to try and get his own thoughts straight before she further explained that is if she was going to do so tonight.

To hear him say that he didn’t think her a villain made Faye’s chest tighten. She didn’t think she could bear it if he did. And he wouldn’t lie to her. If he thought she was abhorrent he would have said. Wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t say things just to make her feel better? Just to spare her already shredded feelings? No. No, Fane wouldn’t do that. They’d promised.

Faye sank a little bit as he confessed to using vampire compulsion, her face twisting into something like anger but more like shock. “You compulsed him? Before you even asked me to explain? Jesus, Fane…” Faye’s head dropped heavily, her hair falling across her face. But she didn’t try to pull away. Instead lifting her head and looking off down the alley as her jaw muscles jumped as she tried to decide how she felt about it. In the end, it didn’t matter. At least a compulsion would have gotten him the real truth. Instead of a truth made up by a waste of humanity like Shane. Faye sighed. “No… no, of course you did. I don’t blame you. I might’ve done the same thing in your shoes.” That wasn’t supposed to make Fane feel better, as forcing someone to do anything against their will was - in most cases - abhorrent, and they both shared that thought. It was merely to let him know she wasn’t angry at him. Not really. How could she be?

Especially not as he continued, stubbornly declaring that he wasn’t going anywhere. A genuine smile touched her face as he poked her forehead. But it fell as he admitted to taking lives as well. Though Faye highly doubted their experiences or reasons were the same. Fane had been a soldier. Faye had just been… an eliminator. But all in all, perhaps six people had truly died by her hands. And all deserved death in Faye’s mind: child traffickers, rapists, murderers and kidnappers. But did that truly justify it? Probably not. And her eyes conveyed the sorrow she felt that he’d had to go through such a thing.

She let him continue on, shaking her head when he asked if she thought he’d still be here debating with her in an alleyway if he thought she was nothing but a heartless murderer. That he likened her to someone like him, someone who had fought and struggled and given bravely of themselves… Faye felt her heart swell. Because the people who saw her, who really saw her, were few and far between. And while Faye knew that Fane wasn’t perfect - there were things about him that irked her, things they’d argued about - God she loved him so much.

More and more with each passing day. And that’s what scared her the most. That she’d let that love have free reign, and not held it back other than keeping the words to herself for now. And if she lost him… she didn’t think she would survive another heartbreak. Especially not the heartbreak of losing her other half. Because that’s what it felt like. Like in that cheesy 90s movie, Jerry Maguire: ‘You complete me.’

He offered to stand with her to face those fears, and Faye could only nod. There was nothing she could say to even compare to what he’d just said to her. So she leaned up and bussed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, lingering long enough to brush her nose gently along his, before they started the walk home.

She followed Fane up to their room, standing next to the bed without moving for just a moment. When he told her she should get washed up, Faye nodded, grabbing her pajamas - her usual cotton shorts and t-shirt - and closing herself up in the bathroom. She pulled her clothes off slowly as the tub filled, letting the glamours she’d kept up for most of the night fall away. Scars and bruises appeared in a shimmer of magic, and Faye stared at herself in the mirror for a long moment, trying to see past the outside and find the woman that Fane saw. When she couldn’t, she turned away and stepped into the tub, letting the hot water rise over her and wash the day away.

If only it could take the past with it as well.

His expression grew a little defensive as she questioned his actions drawing a little straighter and merely giving her a slight look somewhere between disbelief and simmering ire that she was choosing to judge him over that after what he’d just learned. He half expected her to pull away, but she didn’t and it left him looking at her steadily. “I did what I felt was right. Nothin’ more to it than that. He’ll have forgotten you too, your name, your face and mine so...” he wouldn’t be a problem again, was essentially what Fane left unsaid. You’re bloody welcome.

The point he had to make was that he didn’t absolve her of her sins, didn’t hold her accountable to them but also was willing to go through them and view her efforts now measuring them up against what he knew of her history. Fane had no sort of intention to go anywhere, as long as he had the truth of it now then there was nothing more she could try to push against him to try and make him behave like everyone else in her life. All the people who’d left ultimately because of one reason or another and he was digging his heels firmly in the ground to stop her from succeeding. Because as he was realising more and more on this trip he didn’t want to leave, because as he was gradually coming to realise his feelings ran so much deeper than simply caring. That was terrifying. Because the thing about love and feeling on top of the world was that there was so far to fall from there and the damage often felt irreversible.

Whilst Faye went to the bathroom Fane sought out his pack of cigarettes and lighter, stepping out onto the balcony and lighting up the soft orange filter a beacon in the darkness of the evening. Normally he would have offered to help her wash up, but they both needed some space right now. His shoulders drew back as he inhaled filling his lungs with the comforting pressure of smoke and breathing it out watching it dance and fade in the evening breeze. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there mulling over everything, but eventually he pressed his fingers into his temple rubbing small circles there feeling a pressure that felt somewhat akin to a headache growing there. Eventually Fane pushed off the bar he’d been leaning on, leaving the bedroom to go to the kitchen and rummaging around for a couple of glasses and jug that he filled up with water.

Bringing them back he set them down on the bedside table figuring Faye would probably do best with some rehydration after the drinking they’d both taken part in tonight. He returned to the balcony leaning there until he heard the familiar click of the lock and the rustle of fabric when Faye reemerged. There were no words of greeting or welcome simply silence; a silence that perhaps said more than words could, it spoke that he was here and he was listening and that if she was going to tell him things that now likely would be the best time to do that. Fane would more often than not give her the first word he much preferred settling back to listen before he jumped in.

It was only Faye's fear that had caused her to question Fane's actions. And her hatred of Shane. She knew he had done what he thought was right, and who could blame him considering the information that he'd just been given: that his girlfriend had once been a mercenary. Of a sort. It wasn't exactly something to be taken with a grain of salt. More like the whole damn shaker. So as he continued, letting her in on the fact that he’d basically wiped Faye from existence when it came to Shane. So Faye's features tightened as she reigned in her own misdirected ire. She looked away, nodding once in acknowledgment of what he'd said. Later she would apologize for how she acted. For snapping at him. But right now she was just grateful he didn't pull away, that he didn't let her pull away despite her stubbornness.

She spent longer than she should have in the bath, partly avoiding the coming conversation, but partly lost in thoughts of what that year and a half had been like. She remembered the shitty apartment that her husband had weaseled his way into after Faye refused to use her magic to get them someplace nicer. She remembered sitting in the bath much like this, except the acrid scent of a half-smoked joint filled the damp air, and not the smell of lavender. She remembered the blare of the tv from the other room, the loud laughter and complete disregard for how she was feeling that had drifted through the closed bathroom door. She remembered wishing she could just sink under the water and never come up.

She didn't feel like that now. It had been a long, long time since Faye had had any sort of depressive episodes. And she didn't plan to start. Was she scared? Yes. Did she think Fane would think less of her after she told her story? No. Not really. Did she want to tell it regardless? No. But she needed to. She had to. She owed it to Fane. He deserved to know everything.

When she came out of the bathroom her hair was still damp. It fell in dark waves down her back, wetting the back of her tshirt as she eyed the water for a moment before taking a sip. She then followed the smell of cigarette smoke to the balcony, helping herself to one and lighting it with a flick of her hand before folding herself into one of the deck chairs. Her knees pulled up under her chin, and she stared out into the night for a long time before finally speaking.

“I never killed anyone until the man I told you about. The man that tried to cut my throat. After that…” Faye shook her head and ashed her cigarette. “After that I sort of… shut down. For a long time.” She paused, waiting to see if he had any specific questions before continuing.

They had promised one another honesty, the absence of that tonight had led to a situation that could have perhaps been better handled had it not been so. It could have gone far worse than a mere confrontation in an alley and for that he was thankful but there was nothing more to be said and done about that now. What was done, was done. They would simply have to deal with the ramifications now.

Fane silently recalled the rush of power that came with killing, he’d done it enough across several wartimes to know the heady almost addicting feeling of bloodlust. He’d never given in to it in the sense of feeding, and in a way it would have almost been excusable if he could claim it was merely his starvation that drove him to take another’s life. Unfortunately, he couldn’t claim starvation to be his reason. Revenge however? Yes, that had been an entirely valid reason where the occasion arose. Though by giving in to such emotion it still equated to a conscious decision, a decision he’d made to deliberately remove another individual from existence. But it had been near enough seventy years since he’d made any decision like that.

He wasn’t sure where he was going to start with his question, plenty rattled around in his head but he sensed her presence; the faint scent of lavender clinging to her skin, the beat of her heart and the warmth that seemed to radiate from her every moment he was with her. His head shifted marginally in the direction of the creak from the old furniture as she settled herself onto it but not properly turning to look at her yet. He needed his focus and not looking at her provided him some measure of clarity.

Fane remained looking out over the gardens as she spoke, not making any move to acknowledge what she said merely listening to her. The silence seemed to stretch out into an eternity as he took a drag from the burning stick causing it to glow brightly before fading. “How long ago was that first one? How long ago was your last?” he asked around breathing out the smoke his head tilting back to peer up at the moon, it was as good a place to start as any.

Faye was glad when he finally asked his question. And she thought about it briefly before answering. “Five years? Maybe six now? I've been in Soapberry for just over three, spent a year or two in Chicago before that. And then just drifted before that. It all runs together. But… the last one?” Faye thought again. “Maybe a year after the first? Eighteen months? There were only five.” She paused, chewing her lip as she debated on telling him about the three in Soapberry.

Finally, she did. “I killed three sirens when Wyn was a newborn. They killed my friend, Iann's wife. They nearly took me too, but she was human, and couldn't fight them off. They ripped her right outta my hands and drowned her.” Faye's voice was strained with the memory, and she wiped at her eyes. “I ripped them out of the water and crushed them with my magic.” Even now she could feel the warm spray of seawater and blood, and see Iann carrying the tiny lifeless body of his sweet wife. She could also see the fourth siren. “My husband took the fourth and locked her away in our shed. Chained her and kept her there. I don't think he ever hurt her, but he wouldn't let her go. Once I convinced him to, I wiped her memory of her time there, changing it so she'd think we had helped her. I couldn't risk my daughter’s life if her pod found out.” The words were flat and dull, and Faye stared straight ahead as she said them.

“I think we started to slowly fall apart after that. When I wouldn't do what he wanted. Or maybe it was years before. In Chicago. There were others Shane found for me to kill. But some didn't deserve it. They were innocent. Or just ignorant. I always made sure. I always used my magic to see into their minds to make sure they deserved punishment. The five that ended up dead did deserve it. One trafficked supernatural children. One was a serial rapist. One sold young boys and girls into the sex trade, and that was after kidnapping them and addicting them to drugs first. One was an ex-Hunter who ran an underground fight club. Pitted humans and other hunters against people like us. The last one… he ran a torture ring. Capturing supernaturals, drugging them with Purge, and letting people pay to hurt them. However they wanted.” She ashed her cigarette again, her body stiff and tense. “Do you want their names? And how I killed them? Because I can tell you every single detail. I'll never forget. I don't deserve to forget.”

When she answered he tipped his chin down onto his chest, leaning on the bar still to look down at the gardens below as he mulled the information over. “So all in all a year or thereabouts?” he clarified the muscles in his shoulders shifting as he adjusted his positioning ever so slightly. But then she went on to speak of Iann, and he’d failed to mention that particular fact in their last conversation. Hanging his arm a little over the rail he closed his eyes as he added this to the growing list of things “I knew about his wife, knew you were there that is-- didn’t know about your role in all that though.”

If there was one thing he particularly didn’t agree with it was taking people captive, and that particular fact was perhaps the one that took precedence despite the genuine severity of the others. “And you didn’t try to stop him from doing it? What was the point of that? Why would you let him take someone captive without having any purpose to doing it in the first place?” Fane asked his tone a little sharper regarding this matter in comparison to their discussion of killing. His views were rather skewed on these particular things, strongly biased against taking people captive with no ultimate reason behind doing so in the first place. There was no part of him able to comprehend what the point of taking someone captive simply for the sake of it would be, unless you were trying to keep them safe from something or trying to learn something. But what would Chris or even Faye for that matter have to gain from a siren? There had to be some sort of reason behind it, but it seemed as though there was none. Or perhaps it was revenge, but Fane had no idea if that was the case. Either way his own personal experiences with the topic of captivity coloured his views and explained why this in particular pushed him in a more negative direction than generally taking the lives of bad people or those who hurt the ones you loved. Faye eventually let the siren go, with an altered memory at that but at what cost?

Faye went on to elaborate about each of the people she’d killed and Fane made a slightly disgusted sound at the things they were involved in, the fact that she made sure they were truly guilty of the things they were accused of made it a little easier to comprehend. The passing mention of the Purge caused him to shift again raising a hand to rub his ear a little uncomfortably but nothing too overt the act would be viewed as out of place. “Sometimes I fucking hate humanity, I mean who the fuck is depraved enough to… And to kids?” Fane uttered distaste colouring his words whilst he stubbed his cigarette out on the metal railing shaking his head with a small tsking sound that showed his disapproval. “Fucking twisted… Frankly a part of me says good riddance and I hope they burn in the deepest layer of hell for doing shit like that” Faye offered to tell him how and he ran his tongue along his teeth as he debated eventually coming to a decision. “Might as well whilst we’re talking about it and tell me why you even went along with this in the first place. Dark place or not why’d you go along with all of this?”

“Thereabouts,” she answered flatly, doing her best to just tell the story and answer his questions and not let emotion cloud her thoughts. Though underneath she was trembling with fear. And with regret. She shook her head as he spoke of Iann. “He wouldn’t have told you. Not his part of the story.” And she left it at that.

“I was a bit preoccupied with the death of my friend and my week old daughter to notice,” she said with a bit more bite. “And I didn’t let him do anything. I didn’t know. Not until almost a week later. I remember him… dragging her by the hair. I remember her screaming and cursing at him. I thought… I thought he was gonna kill her. And in the moment, after what I’d just seen, after what I’d lost, and after what I’d just done, part of me wanted him to kill her. I never thought that he would-” Faye closed her eyes, a minute shake of her head the only indicator that the memory was affecting her outwardly. “I found her in the shed, dehydrated and terrified. And his plants they… they wouldn’t let me near her. He got angry when I confronted him about it. Said I needed to mind my own business and that he’d do with her what he wanted. I told him he should’ve never brought her there. And eventually I convinced him. With her memory modified, both for our safety and to erase the… trauma of it from her mind.”

Faye took a long drag of the cigarette, the cherry burning bright in the darkness of the balcony. She blew smoke out through her nose. “I’ve hated humanity for a long time, I’ve not seen near as much of it as you have. Makes you a better person than me I s’pose.” There was nothing in her voice but flat fact. Fane had seen war after war after war, and if he still held any sort of faith in the human race, or the supernatural, he was by far a much better person than Faye. She could only nod in agreement at his remark about hoping they burned in Hell. “If there is a such thing as a merciful God, any God… they’ll get what they deserve for eternity.”

Her legs shifted a bit tighter under her chin, and Faye wrapped her arms around them before propping her chin up. “Dimitri Franco, child trafficker: I cut his throat. Police came and got the kids. Took ‘em back to their families. Robert Johnson, rapist: I cut off his cock and shoved it down his throat; he choked to death on it just before he bled to death. Paul Bernadino, sold teens into the sex trade and got them addicted to heroine; I pumped enough of it into him that he died pretty quick. An anonymous tip to the police got all those kids out safe.”

Faye took a deep, shaky breath. It had been a long time since she’d been forced to revisit that time of her life. And it made her feel like absolute shit. But she was almost done, so she pressed forward. “Danielle Scapario, fight club owner. I drugged her and tossed her in hers own ring after releasing all the supernatural he was keepin’ locked up. They ripped her apart. And the last one… was Alexander Chamberlain. Ex-Hunter turned entrepaneaur.” Faye scoffed in disgust, her thoughts clear on just what kind of man this Alexander was. “Purge was his favorite. It’s where I got the bit that I have. And the antidote. He called himself The Red Baron. Nice, right?” It was so very not nice. “He almost caught me, almost dosed me. There’s a little scar on my back where the needle cut through my shirt.” She made a vague gesture with her hand. “Him… he died with my hand wrapped around his throat. Screaming for his mother. The mind’s a powerful thing. Take control of it and you can find out a lot of things about people. Their secrets, their fears. He was afraid that one day someone would do to him what he let others do to supernaturals. So I made that fear a reality.” Faye ashed her cigarette again. “His heart couldn’t handle it.”

As for why she’d gone along with it… “I don’t know. I was… there was nothing left for me to care about. Not really. I couldn’t save myself. I couldn’t save my coven. So I thought maybe… maybe I can stop these people from hurting anyone else ever again. Maybe I was lookin’ for absolution. Maybe it was better than bein’ alone. Or…” Faye huffed through her nose, watching the ash disappear from the end of her smoke. “ Maybe I was just hopin’ one of them would kill me and save me the trouble.”

It was the first time she’d ever admitted that out loud to anyone, that she’d wanted to die at her lowest point. Her husband hadn’t had a clue, never caring enough to ask about how she felt, only wanting her to do what he wanted. And when she didn’t, when Faye refused to kill someone, or let them go, he would sometimes go after them himself. He wanted the violence. He craved it.

Faye had just wanted it to all end.

In the most permanent way possible.

“How can you not know there’s someone being held captive in your shed? I mean,” he waved his hand a little his fingers curling into a fist as it dropped back down to the railing his body growing more tense with every second that passed “that’s right outside your house. That’s like...” he blew air out through his nose glaring at some invisible point out in the gardens with such intensity it might very well implode. It wasn’t very often that Fane projected on situations, but there was a part of him, a very broken and mangled part that he’d tried to suppress for seventy odd years that sympathised with this individual left in solitary confinement. Whether they killed a person or not, whether Faye wanted revenge or not there were few greater atrocities in his mind than being held against your will. He blinked hard as she said she didn’t know, his jaw tightening “so you didn’t notice him vanishing for however long? Didn’t wonder?” He was being unfair but the nerve had been tapped and he was getting worked up over the matter, but there was one question that came to mind and it seemed as though the agitation pooled into a deathly calm aura. Finally turning to peer at her, his eyes dark and piercing his tone steely “did he hurt her or didn’t you take enough time to notice that either? Just enough to remove the trauma of the event hm?”

His lips twisted a bit arms coming to fold over his chest in a closed stance, definitive and clearly not happy though his mind was drifting somewhere else. Somewhere he tried very hard never to let himself pass to. “Maybe, maybe not” his voice still held a particular chill to it Fane believed in people but humanity as a whole? They could go rot in the abyss for all he cared.

He leaned back as she started her list, listening and peering inside to their room the only sign that he was paying attention to what she was saying being the odd noise low in his throat or movement of his head to acknowledge her. No words left his lips, he didn’t need them. For the most part he really wasn’t thinking about what she had to say, he’d already heard enough to feel that ultimately these deaths were justifiable. Morbid though it might be. There was a sound reason behind them, and if he was being honest he’d forgiven her for such transgressions a long time prior to this moment here and now, that was no choice, it was falling in love but his mind kept coming back to this one solitary act, his own history making it hard to surpass and acknowledge like most of these other acts and deeds.

But what she had to say next made him finally blink, breaking the stare that for a majority of her time speaking had been fixed on a solitary spot inside the bedroom. His head shifted, gaze moving to her and eyes narrowing a little at the admission some of the chill receding and being replaced by the concern that tended to spark in him when she seemed low or sad. His arms tightened around himself momentarily debating what to say to that admission, what was there you could really say? “It never happens that way, no matter how much you hope or pray for it life’s a bitch that way” there was an odd look in his expression stuck somewhere between melancholy and present as though he spoke from similar depths of emotion without having explained the source of such understanding and comprehension. Most survivors of the events through which he’d endured were supposedly hungry for life, wishing to live every moment to the max and for a time it was true but with time there gradually proved to be a resurgence of such trauma after having suppressed it for so long.

Fane had been suppressing for seventy-two years, and apparently that emotion was starting to bubble up here and now. Finally, his gaze returned to her giving a short nod “but… sounds like they got what they deserved in the end either way…” That was no acknowledgement to it being the right thing to do, but that he understood more or less and accepted that perhaps it wasn’t so bad after all. It was in her past and she wasn’t going back to that way of life, so he’d work his way through it like he did with most other things.

“I told you,” she snapped back, finally showing more than just the numb facade she’d held onto since coming home, “I had my child and my friend to think about. I didn’t live where I do now. Our other house was further up the coast. There was a beachshed, shack, whatever… a good walk from the house. He took her there. I never saw her until I went looking for something.” She glared at him for a long moment before turning away again. “I stopped wondering where my husband went a long time ago. He disappeared for days at a time without a word. It’s not like I was going to leave my baby in the house alone to go look for him either. So no. I didn’t wonder.”

Something niggled at the base of her spine though. Something that didn’t sit quite right. The entire conversation and it’s way of coming to be was fucked, but something else felt off about things. But she didn’t have time to continue to think about it too deeply. Fane was asking more questions, his tone and the look in his eyes sending Faye looking away once more. She dropped her spent cigarette in the ashtray that sat on the little table by her chair. “No. He didn’t. That I did notice. And I took away her pain because she didn’t deserve to be locked up like that. I’m not-” A monster, she started to say, but realized how fucking stupid that would be to utter. How the words would be a lie if she ever told one. Faye was a monster. And had been reminded of it too often to think anything else.

She hummed a little to his ‘maybe, maybe not.’ Her way of answering without really answering. It would do no good at this point to debate who was the better person. Faye knew she couldn’t be. And what did it really matter in the end anyway? What had happened, happened. It was done. And nothing could change it. They would either get past it… or they wouldn’t.

His next reply though, turned Faye’s head without her doing. She looked up at him, and could see enough of his profile from the bedroom light to see the haunted look on his face. A low breath left her. He knew. Of course he knew. In four hundred years, how could he not long for death at least once? In some part of his life. The urge to go to him, to hold him close and tell him she was glad he was still here was strong, but Faye stayed put. She turned back to the darkness of the garden below, the dim glimmer of the greenhouse could be seen in the distance. Had what they’d seen there been real? Had what the Wisp given them just been a projection of what they longed for? If it had been true, or possibly true, then this too would pass. This strife between them. This digging up of some of the darkest oldest skeletons in Faye’s very large, very cluttered closet.

“Sounds like it. Yeah.” She was quiet for a long moment. “For what it’s worth,” she said finally. “I’m glad we’re both still here.” The words were quiet. Soft. Low and mixed with the sound of the wind rushing through the oak branches all around them.

“Did you wanna ask me anythin’ else?”

Faye clarified once more, but it only shifted his thoughts on the matter a little. He was stuck, and until he had a chance to detach and separate himself from the situation he would continue to be stuck on this particular topic. “Then what the fuck was the point of it? Who does that to another person?” Fane’s words had grown more rhetorical now, not expecting an answer from her on the matter. Why had the same thing happened to him? Why had he been targeted? His rank? Purely for his abilities? His species and nature? Was he picked because he was special or just because he wasn’t good enough? Clearly he wasn’t good enough in the long term considering he recalled fragmented conversations about disposing of him shortly prior to their liberation. He was lucky to be here, Fane was well aware of that.

He merely pressed his lips together as the air left her lungs with his words his chin dipping low with the admission. That wasn’t the only thing that had made him consider ending it all but it was certainly the most prominent and strongest crux. Returning to Soapberry had been his lowest point and he’d come close, but it was only at the efforts of his progeny that he’d rebuilt himself-- into the very person who roamed those streets now. The person who fed from the attention other people gave because it made him feel validated, made him feel like… well, like he was worth something after all that had been taken and humiliated out of him. His confidence simply tape holding the shards of him together in a complex 3-D jigsaw threatening collapse at any moment. He heard her words and made a low sound, somewhere between agreement and acknowledgement “yeah… so am I.”

“If that’s everything you think I need to know… Then no… I don’t want to ask anything.” He paused whilst he stood there debating what to say and unsure what to think feeling torn both ways. “I need to think ‘bout some stuff but… I’ll be back in a bit, don’t wait up if you want to sleep” there was no given time frame to how long he needed to think or when he’d be back but Fane knew he needed to clear his head. Pushing off the railing he let out a breath rubbing his hands over his face the pressure from earlier having returned in his temples as he stepped towards the doors pausing long enough to touch her shoulder a brief passing touch but enough to communicate a small reassurance. He would be back.

With that Fane departed heading to one spot in particular, sitting down on a wrought iron bench perched overlooking the pond in which the colour-changing fish swam in lazy patterns. Raising his hands to rub through his hair leaving it stuck up wildly he set his elbows heavily on his knees his eyes closed both in an attempt to calm himself and also to try and help clear the pound in his temples. The night had been so long, started off so well and now… He wasn’t sure what to think or do or say. Too occupied in the throb of his head Fane missed the sound of approaching footsteps entirely.

“There was no point other than he could!” Faye said, rounding on him from where she sat. “Other than it gave him an excuse to be cruel, to frighten someone, to feel better about himself because for whatever fucked up reason it made him feel like he was…” She cut herself off, breathing hard before she turned away again. “He wasn’t always like that,” she said quietly. “Not when we first met. He was always a bit of an asshole, but… he wasn’t always... bad. He was… troubled though. And I couldn’t see past my fear of bein’ alone to do anythin’ about it. Nothin’ that mattered at least. It wasn’t right. And I’m just as much to blame for not tryin’ harder to fix it.”

Faye didn’t know the thoughts raging through Fane’s head. If she had she would have tried to understand better than she did. She would have definitely understood why he was so fixated on the captivity of the siren, and not on the ones Faye had killed, or the five people before that. It would kill her when she found out, to think of him like that. To think of him being tortured and torn apart and experimented on just for being what he was. No one deserved that. Especially not the sweet, brave man she loved. But she was so overwrought, she was lucky to even form coherent thoughts, let alone think about the deeper part of anyone else's. That didn’t mean she didn’t notice the way his head tipped with the admission that he’d wanted to end his life at one point, or the look on his face after he said he didn’t have any more questions. Part of her wanted to scream, part of her wanted to cry, part of her wanted to beg him not to hate her.

Not to leave.

But she didn’t say a thing, just sat there and stared at her hands. She’d told her story. The ball was in Fane’s court now. She had to trust him to send it back to her once he was finished. Either that… or he’d tuck it away and go home. So she nodded, knowing that he needed time. She did too. Perhaps she would go to bed. Lord knew she was exhausted. But she didn’t know if she could stomach going to bed alone, knowing she might wake up that way. Or fearing she would.

“Alright,” was all she said as he touched her shoulder. Her hand raised briefly to touch his arm, feather light, her own acknowledgment of things unsaid. And he was gone. It was a long time later when that niggling thought finally snapped to the forefront of Faye’s mind again. The unease of why he’d been so worried about the captive siren. Faye tried to think, to puzzle it out. He’d killed before, at his own admission. He knew she’d killed. He’d even said they deserved it, in part. He didn’t go on and on about the terrible things those people had done, though his thoughts and his disgust were clear as day. He’d let the events pass as Faye had spoke of them, acknowledged and tucked away in his bank of information about her. And that hadn’t upset him near as much as-

Oh.

Oh fuck.

The realization hit Faye like an out of control freight train, her brain going into overdrive as it started putting together the bits and pieces she’d learned about him, and the evidence she’d seen on his body over the last several months. It hit her so hard that she felt it over her entire being. She nearly doubled over, putting a hand over her mouth to stifle the noise of her anguish. He hadn’t been able to move past it because… because at some point in the recent past… the same thing had happened to him.

Jesus…

Faye couldn’t stop the tears anymore. She buried her face in her knees and sobbed. For the things that had happened to Fane. For the things she’d done. For the way she’d hurt him without even knowing. Because no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she loved someone, she would always, always hurt them in the end.

He would be a fool to stay with her now.

******

Down in the garden pond, the fish blinked and changed color lazily, unconcerned with the troubles going on around them.

beulah had sensed the strife going on upstairs, the wards trembled with it, but she had kept out of the way. It wasn’t her place to interfere in her granddaughter’s love life. Making sure Eowyn was still asleep snug in her little cot, when she sensed the vampire venture outside, she made her way slowly downstairs and into the pantry. He wouldn’t drink her moonshine last time, but maybe now he would want a sip or two. Not for the telling of truth, but because sometimes you just needed a damn stiff drink. And if she knew one thing about Marie, it was that the girl could drive nearly anyone to it with her stubbornness.

“Mind some company?” she called out as she approached, her dressing gown pulled snugly around her and her hair in a long wispy braid down her back instead of the bun from before. She didn’t wait for an answer before setting down at the opposite end of the bench, the extra glass between them if he wanted it. She sipped from her own, watching the fish swim and eat the bugs that fell on top of the water. “Marie loved these fish when she was little. I’d always catch her out here layin’ on her belly, reachin’ down in the water tryin’ to catch one. Now she knew she wasn’ s’posed to. I done told her that a thousand times, but she just kept on and kept on.” She took another sip of her drink. “One day… she finally caught one. Wrapped her little hand around it and pulled it right up outta the water. I was watchin’ to see what she’d do. For about three seconds she was the happiest child in the world… but then that little fish started gaspin’ for air. Fins flailin’, little body thrashin’ around in Marie’s hands.” beulah shook her head. “She was horrified, scared to death, and she put that fish back so fast that she nearly fell in herself. He was alright, but well… never fully recovered.” She pointed to a fish that was a pale white color, and didn’t flash like the others. “Lost his color.”

There was a beat of silence. “Marie’s got a big heart. She loved these fish so much that she wanted to get as close as she could. To show them how much she loved them. And when she did, when she finally had what she wanted most, she accidentally hurt it. By tryin’ to love it. Without meanin’ to. And without knowin’ better,” beulah added quickly. “But the pain was real. On both sides. And you can’t excuse that, can you? You can never say pain don’t matter. You can forgive it, even move past it, sure… I mean he still swims like he used to, still eats bugs, was eating food Marie threw to him a few days later, but… there’s always that reminder.”

The old woman didn’t know if her story made any kind of sense, or if Fane thought she was just senile. Either way, she sipped her drink and lapsed into silence.

Fane was adrift, his mind drawn back to the stinking scent of death and horror that hung on the air, the distant ring of screams that almost became a comforting reminder that he was still alive. One more day. Just one. Maybe they’d get out today. Or maybe they wouldn’t. Either way it meant one more day of being incoherently strapped to a plinth with his body ripped open and turned inside out, the scrape of every scalpel masterfully wielded and nothing but his own disassociation from it all to stop the pain setting every nerve in his body on fire as they were broken and forced to mend again and again and again. His body ached. The guilt he felt strife, why did he survive? What had he done to deserve to survive over so many others who… The thought alone made him feel ill.

Fane vaguely recalled fragmented images of a slightly built man with scarcely a hair out of place, tunic pressed and those dead gimlet eyes that still to this day made him shudder.

He almost jumped out of his skin as Beulah called out, too caught up in his memories to even notice her approach raking a hand through his hair he pressed his eyes closed for a long moment trying to pull himself together. “Can’t say I’ll be good company,” he admitted plainly not having the effort for pretenses right now whilst he sat, shoulders hunched; hands having dropped to hang between his knees in the arched forwards position. He stared at the pond rather than lifting his eyes to the old woman as she took her seat (likely regardless of whether he said yes or no).

His jaw wound tight as Beulah spoke of Faye and the fishes, watching them closely as they swam in almost hypnotic motions; oblivious to the strife that was going on in the world around them. He listened to her tale his head tilting to look over at the white fish where it swam a sad smile on his features as he looked at it. Eventually he reached for the drink she’d brought out, feeling the need to take the edge off his thoughts though instead of sipping it he took a large gulp. The liquid ran down his throat and warmed him immediately tingling through his senses but as the enchantment on the drink began to work; washing away any pretenses and facades to which Fane wore daily it left him to pull his knee up hugging it to his chest and pressing his face down against it in an attempt to make himself as small as possible. As though doing so would help him fade to oblivion, it didn’t work but the blocks he put on things he felt a long time ago were dissolving and it was enough to make him tremor in an almost negligible way. The guilt came crashing down after another swallow of the drink as Beulah continued to speak.

“She does it with people too” Fane mumbled after a little while of silence his voice suddenly thick with unbidden emotion and an accent thickly European that was unwilling to clear or shift. “You can’t excuse it but-- but if you love someone enough you can learn to accept it. You can find ways to try and accept it, doesn’t make it right but it’s what you do for people you love… You learn to forgive them with time.” Another small tremor ran through his body as he drew in a breath, his eyes closing only to snap open as images flashed through the darkness of his mind. “She didn’t know she was upsettin’ me… I couldn’t… I was unfair, always so unfair and undeserving of the things I have and… she’s angry. I couldn’t talk to her like that-- it’d only make it so much worse, I always make it so much worse ‘cause that’s what I do… I fuck up all the time and I don’t deserve the things I have… There are so many better people than me who, who should be here instead of me.” He laughed bitterly the truth flowing now that he’d started to speak; a floodgate opening that could hardly be stopped now til it ran its course, “I can’t even be a parent right. Can’t even tell my own kid how much they hurt me because I’m… I’m terrified ‘bout losing them again.” He could feel the sting of wetness threatening to spill, which eventually it did “I won’t…. I won’t survive losing them again and I know that’s unfair to say because I have Faye and so many other people but my daughter, my child. It makes me feel worthless and useless at something I finally thought… I finally thought I’d done right.” He shook his head rubbing at his eyes “I can’t lose Faye like that but… I’m terrified of opening that box because she’ll finally see that all this is… It’s not true. I’m not true… I’m just another number who doesn’t deserve to be here” whilst he spoke his hand raised to scratch at the inside of his left arm, over an area of silvery raised skin barely four centimeters in length.

On the balcony, Faye cried until she was wrung out. Until she thought there couldn’t possibly be any tears left. She was a terrible person. She always messed things up. Always destroyed her relationships eventually. Something must be wrong with her. She was flawed and used up. That’s why everyone always left. Because in the end they realized that Faye wasn’t worth it. Wasn’t worth their love. Or their time. She was damaged goods, and what good was she to anyone? Especially someone like Fane? Who had done so many good things over the course of his life? Who had been brave and selfless? Who still to this day would give more of himself to a stranger than most people would give to people they knew.

And someone had hurt him. Terribly and without remorse. And it was the little details that helped Faye start to string things together. The scars that Faye couldn’t quite wrap her mind around, one that was the result of some sort of trauma, the other done with surgical precision; the way he sometimes flinched when she touched him on that shoulder without warning; his fury at her over what she’d been a bystander to in the captivity of the siren.

Faye wasn’t stupid. Ignorant maybe. But not stupid.

Someone had held him against his will. And someone had hurt him.

And she’d just revealed that she was just like them.

How could he ever love someone like her?

God, she was so foolish.

A broken sob wormed it’s way out of Faye’s mouth, and she covered it with her hand before getting up and going inside. She climbed into bed, breath huffing with spent tears, and reached for the hoodie that Fane had left there this morning. The fabric was soft and warm as she pulled it to her, burying her nose in the familiar smell of him, trying to memorize it for when it was no longer hers to covet. After a long time, she fell into a fitful sleep.

*******

Down below, Beulah waved Fane off gently when he said he wouldn’t be good company. “‘S alright.” She didn’t require good company, or any company at all really. Being alone was something she’d grown used to. She was simply content to sit and wait. To listen if needed. And perhaps offer a word or two of advice. If needed.

When he took a sip of the drink, Beaulah took another one of her own. Though she watched with a slightly tipped brown as he drank it far faster than she would normally recommend. But who was she to tell him no? She didn’t miss the way he curled in on himself, a protective move that she noted before turning back to the fish.

“She does,” Beaulah agreed with a small nod. As Fane continued, she reached into the pocket of her house robe and pulled out a packet of Clove cigarettes. She lit one with a flick of her hand, just as Faye always did, and took a long drag. Her mouth tipped up at the corner as she blew out smoke, listening as Fane talked about forgiving the people you love. “If you love her, then you’ll find a way, this is true. We always do, don’t we? But…” she pointed at him with the two fingers clasping the cigarette. “That don’t mean you need to pretend whatever she told you didn’t hurt you. Obviously it did, or you wouldn’t be sittin’ out here with an old woman, ‘stead of upstairs with her, hm?”

She took another slow drag, blowing it out through her nose. “How were you unfair? Other than maybe she didn’t know the real reason why you was so mad at her? Marie is a lotta things: she’s goddamn pigheaded and stubborn, and reckless, and half the damn time she jumps and then looks where the hell she’s goin’. But she ain’t stupid.” A small chuckle rolled out into the night air. “Not talkin’ to her when she’s angry is prob’ly best, oui. Though I sense the same for you maybe, hm? It’s the Lion in you, the star sign you share. Though it’s a good thing your moons are opposite...” The smiled faded though as he went on. The old witch sighed. “We all fuck up, darlin’. Some days it seems like all we do. And maybe you’ve done more than your share, considerin’. And Lord knows there’s people better’n all of us who should still be here,” she agreed, giving him a pointed look, though not an unkind one. “But they ain’t. We’re here. You’re here. Don’t sully the memory of folks passed on by not grabbin’ life by the balls and livin’ it for all it’s worth. The past is the past, and we can’t ever forget it because it made us who we are… but son… you can’t move forwards if you keep goin’ backwards.”

His words about his child broke her heart, and her own eyes shone with wetness. Beulah turned towards him, reaching out and stroking a soft, soothing hand down his back. “I know what it’s like to feel like you’ve failed. To not want to hurt the one thing you love more than your own life. But sometimes… sometimes hurtin’ them is what needs to happen. Sparin’ their feelin’s at the expense of your own… sometimes it works. God knows we’ve all done it. But sometimes it festers. Turns sour. If this child of yours loves you, which I’m sure they do, then you need to be honest with them. Drop all the… Smilin’ Sam bullshit. Be angry. Be upset. Be furious. Be weary to your bones if you feel you need to. Because if you never say anythin’... if you never tell them how you feel… never let them in to see this,” She gestured at his current state. “Then how can you expect them to know anythin’ different than what they see? How can you expect them to change? To know they hurt you? And that... “ She pointed at him with her cigarette again. “That would be your fault.”

She saw the slid of wetness down his face, and her heart broke for him. “And why haven’t you done it right? What’s made you feel that way? Because they seem to have a mind of their own? Because they made bad choices? Didn’t listen? Because they were selfish and hurtful and didn’t think about how their actions would affect others? Would affect you? Because maybe they still don’t?” Beaulah shook her head, patting his back soothingly. “That’s the summary of every parent who ever raised a child to adulthood, darlin’. Don’t make it any less hurtful or frightenin’. But… talk to them. Be honest with your love, and with your own fears. They’ll understand. Or they won’t. But at least you’ll know you tried. It’s on them after that. Not you.”

She tipped his chin as he went on to talk about Faye. “You think Marie doesn’t already see you? That she don’t already know, or suspect, what’s underneath?” She shook her head, and small smile forming. “I ain’t never seen her look at nobody the way she looks at you, ‘cept that sweet baby in there. There’s love there, the kind that only ever comes once, if you’re brave enough to let her in.”

Beaulah looked down at his arm then, frowning. She reached out, not touching, but letting her magic tingle over the scar he was scratching. A thin line of black numbers shimmered into existence over the mangled skin. She recognized it for what it was, having known people in the past with the same markings. A small curse slipped out with her long sigh.

She let the spell fade away, not wanting to frighten him with seeing the numbers that someone had tried and failed to burn into his skin. Her other hand still rubbed up and down his back. “You ain’t a number. You’re someone who survived things most people would have let break them. Things that no living creature should ever have to endure. You’re here. You were stronger than them. You’re alive. They’re not. You carried on when you could have given up. That has to mean somethin’.”

Fane was unaware of the spell that the drink contained, though the strength of it was helpful in taking the edge off of everything he was feeling. Little did he realise that consequently anything he said would be free from falsities as well as the general appearances he tended to put on stripped back to his core being. Fane didn’t bother to take out or light up another of his own cigarettes, the taste of the one he’d had earlier whilst talking to Faye still lingering in his mouth. Fane remained where he was, still hunched over slightly. “I know, but it’s also ‘cause stayin’ there would’ve made it worse.”

Pressing his tongue against his canine he looked down at the water, “I took my feelings out on her when she didn’t even know what she did to make me act that way, which isn’t fair of me” he made a quiet sound of agreement “she isn’t… She’s smart course she is but it doesn’t make it easier to talk about these things.” A faint smile edged his lips as she made her observation about him and their signs a hand raising to rub his temple lightly “yeah, I’m not sure what would happen if we were the same for both a lot of butting heads.” What she said was exactly what he’d done his best to do but it didn’t mean that the traumas simply went away. “I try not to, but it’s easier said than done not to look back at times.”

Talking to Beulah was nice, if only for the fact that she could understand somewhat about how he felt… After everything he’d heard about Faye’s mother there was hardly anyone else who could probably understand more than her. “Faye said the same thing the other night,” he sighed knowing they were both were right but it didn’t mean it made it any easier to actually do it. He’d do it eventually but finding the right time? Considering how long it had been was harder to figure out. “I’m just not good at confronting stuff especially if it’s about how I feel, never have been. I’ve always preferred keeping peace than disrupting it.” It was a weak spot of his, avoiding matters that upset him than dealing with them head on- the present one being a prime example of that avoidance.

“It’s not that she doesn’t already see, but-- it’s one thing to suspect to know the real truth? It’s not that I’m trying to protect her Faye’s strong, stronger than most people I know but she’s been hurt so much that I don’t want to give her more pain to endure and carry” Fane admitted after a moment but grew quiet as Beulah spoke of how Faye looked at him. He smiled slightly rather pleased if he was honest hearing someone verbalise it, “doesn’t make it any less terrifying… But I’m trying to be open to these things, can’t help that I’m cautious by nature.”

He felt the trickle of magic washing over his skin and blinked hard as the dark ink grew more visible from where he’d tried to burn them away his mouth pressing into his shoulder when she cursed knowing she recognised what it was. The rub of her hand over the curve of his back soothed him, and a breath shuddered from him. “But, it did break me, there’s no greater meaning to it… But it’s why… why I am the way I am.” He wasn’t sure whether it made any sort of sense, but it was the truth.

Raising a hand he rubbed it through his hair with a shake of his head, “sorry, this probably wasn’t how you wanted to spend your night” he murmured feeling bad that this was how her evening had gone. Even so, Fane drew in a breath and sighed “guess I should talk to Faye sooner rather than later... “ he knew her well enough to know that there was a point of spending too long away when she might start making assumptions about his intentions after everything that had happened tonight and Fane wanted to try and explain himself if she was willing to let him.

Beulah chuckled. “Probably. No… walkin’ away was a good idea. There’s fire in one of you and gasoline in the other. A bad mix when things get heated.” She ashed her cigarette. “No… it weren’t fair. But neither was you havin’ to find out about who she used to be like you did.” The witch gave him a look that said she knew about what had happened in the city. She had her ways. Though she wouldn’t go into any detail. It didn’t matter. “Though in the same vein things like that ain’t easy to speak about, you’re right. Some things take time. And she ain’t always the most secure person when it comes to relationships. Sees some fault in herself that keeps ‘em leavin’. That last man of hers…” Beulah made a disgusted noise. “I told her he was bad news. Told her I’d seen it. And I did. But she wouldn’t have none of it. Though I guess I got another grandbaby out of that whole mess, so I’ll just count my blessin’s there.”

She laughed once more. “Two Leos under the same moon would be the equivalent of a car on fire rollin’ down a hill out o’ control. Disaster.” She pointed at him, an amused look on her face. “You can literally count your lucky stars for that one, hm? But as for the past… it’s much easier said than done,” she agreed.

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with wantin’ peace. You were a soldier, right? You should know more about wantin’ peace than most. Though sometimes to get there you gotta go through the trenches, hm?” She wasn’t trying to make light of anything he’d experienced or gone through, she would never do that, she just found that in terms of war - relatively speaking - or peace, life in itself could be very similar.

“Did you suspect things about her? Before you knew them? And then once you did you realized that you were glad you knew? That you were glad to be able to help her carry that weight?” She gave his shoulder a small squeeze. “Don’t treat her with kid gloves. You say you know she’s strong, so let her be. Let her carry your burdens just like you do hers.”

The smile that crossed his face, though it was small, made the old woman feel a bit better. “Oh, I’d be terrified if I were you,” she laughed. “My late husband, God rest his soul, told me on our weddin’ night that he’d never been so terrified of anything in his life as he was of me. Or well… as he was of me when he realized that I had my heart set on him. So caution is good. Caution is very, very good. For many reasons. Not just because it’s Marie. Love’s a tricky business it is. Best to keep your cards close to the vest ‘til you’re ready. Prob’ly why she ain’t said nothin’ ‘bout it yet.” She nodded and laughed to herself again, the drink they’d been sipping over the course of the last half hour making her relaxed as well.

She looked at him then, the faded violet of her eyes seeming to become darker than it had been a few minutes before. “But did it truly? Or just in that moment? And in those years that followed? Because the truly broken can’t be fixed. They’re lost causes. What happened to you made you this person that guards and shields himself from anythin’ that might ever hurt him. And you have every right to be that person. Every reason on God’s earth. But even a once broken thing, once pieced back together, can still resemble what it once was. You’re still that man who longed for life. For adventure. For knowledge. So much so that you gave up everythin’ for it. Did it break you, truly and irreversibly? Or did it change you? Do you still long for life? Knowledge? Adventure? Love? Or are you ready to set down your sword and armor and fade away?”

She waved off his apology. “I’m almost 80, darlin’. I wouldn’t be out here if I didn’t wanna be.” She sipped her drink and turned back to her fish. “You go on and talk to her. She’ll probably have worked herself into a fit anyway, knowin’ her, and be sleepin’ it off.” Beulah looked up as he moved to leave. “Just be honest. You won’t be sorry.” And she turned back to the pond, leaving Fane on his own.

Faye had warned him about Beulah’s own opinions about Chris, though hearing it inself from her had him feeling a little better but she also made a decent point about Faye. One he’d also come to realise himself during the course of both their friendship and relationship; Faye’s insecurity over not being worthwhile, over the reasons behind why she was left being her own fault. It was something he was working to convince her otherwise but it was easier said than done.

“I’ve been a soldier many times,” he admitted with a small nod of agreement but once more she made an incredibly valid point of comparison one that he really didn’t have much to say or add. “I had my thoughts yeah, partly why most of what she said didn’t really come as all that much of a shock to me” Fane said sitting back finally seeming to start to unfurl from his closed position throughout the course of their conversation but again, the old woman cut to the heart of the matter once more. After this he was going to try and do exactly that, even if he had spent so long trying to bury these memories but Beulah was right… Faye had trusted him tonight even if she hadn’t initially been planning on doing so. She’d been honest with him and the only thing he could do was try and be honest in turn.

Hearing Beulah speak of her husband caught his attention, he’d never heard much about the man and found himself being left curious. “When did you get married? What about you? Were you afraid?” he’d never felt the inclination towards such commitments himself but it didn’t make him any less interest in other people’s decisions to commit themselves so entirely to another person. Scratching his ear his smile widened to a bit more cheerful “well, guess I’ve got that down then.”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to meet her gaze because whilst he hadn’t felt that way in a fair while it didn’t mean he hadn’t felt that way before but as he’d come to realise. The people in his life, the people he depended on had helped ease those feelings and replace them with a desire to stay-- a desire to come back despite the pain that returning brought and Fane merely tilting his head back. Beulah made everything seem so simple, but perhaps at the end of the day it was really that simple and all it took was something to point it out. To shine a light on the evidence that whilst a part of him still hurt over those experiences they no longer made him feel weighted or chained down. “I think I’m still trying to figure out what it made me but I do know that it’s been a long while since I have felt that way.”

She waved him off again much as he tended to do to other people when he felt they didn’t need to apologise to him though before he rose and went to leave he shifted a little unsure whether he could say what he wanted to next. But he eventually, went ahead and spoke “I’ve always wondered what it was like to have a grandparent-- I never knew mine I mean-- maybe this is kind of backwards considering the ages here but… Um, thank you… For listening no one back home actually knows about any of this...” Offering a more genuine smile he pressed his hands on his thighs drawing himself up and turning back towards the house. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

--------------

Returning to the bedroom Fane lingered in the doorframe looking over at Faye where she lay curled up in the bed that seemed to dwarf her tucked up frame and he felt his heart ache. The room was dark but Fane could see her clearly in the moonlight filtering through the window observing the slow rise and fall of her chest whilst she slept but knowing what he had to do he finally left the frame moving over to climb onto the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight where he knelt beside her. “Faye?” he asked the softness of his voice breaking the silence of the room whilst he reached out lightly touching her arm and shook her gently in the hopes of rousing her “Faye… Wake up. S’me.”

Beulah could have gone on all night about how Faye’s ex had been a dick. But she didn’t. He was gone. Fane was here. And all the better for it. On both accounts.

“Soldier never stops bein’ a soldier. Not really. Or so I’ve heard. It’s an honorable thing though, takin’ up that mantle for your home. For the ones you love. And I respect that greatly.” She gave a small smile. “I won’t ask why you suspected that of Marie, ‘less you’re just more intuitive than I thought.” She was glad that at least some things hadn’t come as such a shock to him. One emotional dilemma was enough for most people on most nights. So dealing with how he felt about what Faye had done to the siren, which in turn drug up ghosts that he’d tried to push away for decades, was enough. But she hoped something good could come of it.

“Oh, I was a young thing. Seventeen, if I remember right. 1954.” Beulah smiled fondly as she remembered those days. “And oh yeah… I was terrified. He was older than me. Twenty. But the sweetest, most handsome boy I’d ever laid eyes on. I fell in love with him nearly the moment I saw him. And we had nearly thirty years together. He was human, see. Cancer took him when Marie was ‘bout… four? Maybe five? So she don’t really remember him much. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, sayin’ goodbye to him.” She patted Fane’s leg. “But I wouldn’t have given up those thirty years for nothin’. Even knowin’ what I do now.” Another pat followed as he smiled and seemed to perk up a bit.

“That’s fair. Thing like that… they take time. Ain’t nothin’ important never did. It’ll come. Just have faith.” Feeling that the conversation was coming to a close for now, Beaulah didn’t say much else. But she did look over, tilting her head curiously at him. A slow grin spread across her face. “Well, consider me your surrogate gramma then. And you’re welcome, darlin’. Thank you for lettin’ me listen. I won’t tell nobody. Old witch’s honor.” She reached out with one wrinkled hand and gave his cheek a soft pat. “See you tomorrow.”

----------------------

Faye hadn’t been asleep long, and what sleep she did manage was restless and fitful. It was only the familiar smell of Fane that lingered on the hoodie that let her get any rest at all. She didn’t move as the bed dipped, nor when a cool hand reached out for her the first time.

It was only the second time he called her name that she sucked in a sudden breath, her eyes sliding open as she tried to orient herself in the dark. “Fane? Is… is everythin’ okay? Is Wyn okay?” In her sleep-muddled state, she was slightly confused at first, but after she blinked a few times she remembered the previous events of the night. Her eyes slid back closed for a long moment, and she didn’t make a move to close the distance between them, simply staying where she was. “Are you alright?” she asked, caring more about that than anything, even herself, at the moment.

If it wasn’t for his supernatural abilities alerting him to the signs that she was sleeping he might’ve thought that she was ignoring him, he couldn’t blame her if she was after how he’d acted earlier. Not the most sympathetic ear that he would typically lend but Faye had unknowingly hit a nerve that in turn had made him act in ways that he wasn’t proud of. So, he knelt there beside her until she roused and gave her a little time to get her senses.

“Yeah, s’me,” he murmured again not wanting to startle her “everything’s fine…” Kind of. But he could tell she was still out of it and so he waited for her to wake a little before he answered her posed question. “Yeah… yeah,” Fane assured her gently, using his touch to her arm to pull indicating that he wanted her to turn over so he could look at her “I…” he blew out a little air to give him some time to get his thoughts together into a more coherent order but lowered his eyes to look at her “I’m sorry for how I acted earlier, it was wrong of me and… I shouldn’t have done or said the things I did.” He waited a moment before continuing not quite sure how to broach the topic, “you um... You wouldn’t know but you… inadvertently hit a topic that I’m not… comfortable with and I just want you to know that I’m not mad at you for it ‘cause you had no idea ‘n’ I’m not mad ‘bout your history… okay?“ It was a starting point but he needed her to know that he didn’t hold this against her first of all.

He drew his hands back, clasping them in front of him to try and stop the tremors broaching this topic raised as well as giving him a focal point to think and talk to. “This isn’t something I’ve talked to anyone besides my progeny about-- not even Dani knows, I don’t want them to know.” If that didn’t explain the severity of the matter then he wasn’t sure what would, Fane grew silent waiting for her before he would continue.

His voice sounded different. Maybe it was her sleep-cushioned brain, or maybe it was the quietness with which he spoke. Or maybe it was something else. Either way, the gentle pull of his hand had her turning over to look at him, pushing up on one elbow and moving just a bit closer. But she didn’t reach out to touch him just yet, not knowing what he was going to say. Or if anything had changed between them now. She barely breathed, yet her heart hammered in her chest. She felt like a live wire, on edge and trembling slightly even as she sat so quietly. And goddamn him for being able to detect it even as she tried to hide it.

Her face turned slowly to a frown as he started to speak, apologizing to her about earlier. “Fane… you don’t have to apologize to me.” And she mean it. There was more she wanted to say, but she waited, as he seemed to be building up to something else. And as he went on Faye felt her chest tighten as she remembered the pieces she’d put together. She hoped she was wrong, and that wasn’t the case, but something in her gut told her that she had hit very close to home. The tiny sense of relief that she felt that he wasn’t made at her about what her past held paled in comparison to the fear she felt tightening in her bones for what she could only imagine had happened to him. “Alright,” she said. “And… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. ‘Specially before we came here. I should have.”

As he moved on, revealing that not even his own daughter knew what he was about to tell her, Faye sat up. Her heart hammered in her chest, but she moved slowly, so that she was soon sitting in front of him, legs crossed. His hands trembled, and she reached out to cover them with one of hers. She wanted him to talk if he felt he needed to, to explain, but the last thing she wanted was for him to relive old traumas needlessly. But it seemed as if he was determined. And she wasn’t going anywhere. The look she gave him said that she would take whatever he was about to tell her to her grave. He was going to trust her with it, so she would hold it for him, help him carry it. No matter how terrible it was.

He didn’t have to do this alone.

“Someone hurt you. Didn’t they? A long time ago?” she asked gently, squeezing his hand and hoping that it might make it easier for him to say what needed saying if he knew that she’d already put the pieces together. At least partially.

Fane didn’t particularly want to talk about the troubles that he carried, they were a thing of the past but Faye deserved to know but to talk about these things he needed her attention, which meant he needed to be assured she was indeed listening to him. He sat quietly as she shifted, the covers she’d already stolen only wrapping more around her body as she turned and her features were cast into the pearly luminescence of the moonlight. His own features were half-shadowed from the angle at which he sat side-on to the window, he could hear her heart slamming away but he chose not to focus on that. He didn’t need to hear her heart to tell she was nervous about what he had to say.

“Yeah, well I say the same thing to you and you don’t listen t’me so... “ he shook his head making the point that he needed to do this-- he needed to apologise to ease some of his own guilt about how he had behaved earlier “I’m sorry I lost my cool, I promised I’d listen and… I should have done that better rather than letting my own feelings interfere with it… Because that hurt you, and hurting you is the last thing I ever want to do” getting that out was a start to what he had to say but he needed her to understand this first. He didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to upset her but he’d managed to in a roundabout way do both tonight which made him feel horrendous. Her own apology was met with a small dip in his head, the bob an acknowledgement to her words “s’alright… Like you said, you didn’t know this was going to happen and that’s not the sort of tale you bring out on a whim… So, I understand. At the end of the day, it’s your history not your present and I’m not going to let that define the person I know you are now. Fane more often than not did try to focus on the here and now, it didn’t mean he couldn’t be biased against people’s histories but he tried incredibly hard not to be.

The downwards tilt to his head and chin that came with the admission that Dani didn’t know this particular fact about him combined with the thinned frown that curled his lips casting his features into sombre relief proved that this wasn’t easy for him to approach. She shifted to sit opposite him and his eyes lifted, looking at her under his lashes a little unsure quite how or where to start but Faye seemed to sense the disquiet he felt regarding this topic. He looked down as the warmth of her hands enclosed over his own and he smiled gratefully for the effort on her part but her words caused his shoulders to tense fractionally before they sank with a slight sound of resignation from him. “Yeah… Hurt… I guess that’s one way to put it...” he stared at their hands for a little while.

“This is… hard to explain without giving you the history first. World War Two and Hitler’s rise to power essentially came about due to the combination of the American Stock exchange collapsing in 1929 triggering the economic depression, America called in all of its foreign loans-- which essentially destroyed the German economy.” Fane spoke in slow and measured tones, knowing that she was probably still tired and worn out but he needed to tell her this and the background was perhaps as important as the actual story itself.

“Unemployment rose and the leader prior to Hitler forcibly passed his measures to further cut wages causing many workers to look favourably on communism. Now, communism to many businessmen is a scary money-losing prospect, so with a government on the verge of collapse, your people on the verge of revolt what do you do when a leader of a seemingly organised and smartly dressed party turns up with a manifesto of what the country could be?” Fane paused, the answer rather blatantly clear “obviously they fund this leader. Hitler also had the resentment of his people regarding the Treaty of Versailles which held Germany culpable for their aggression in World War One making them pay reparation costs for that damage… Add on more scapegoats and propaganda to place blame for the state of their economy on? That’s the long-story short of how he eventually rose to power.”

History, now this was something Fane could talk about for days and his enthusiasm and interest in the topic and reasonings behind these events was evident in how he grew to be passionate in his choice of words and the inflection placed on them. It was that very same enthusiasm that made it easier for him to tell her these things because right now they were simply on the background facts. “You asked me once about my service… I told you I was involved in the North African Campaign... Which is true, I was-- it’s how Ryan became my progeny but… the story I’ve always told everyone is that after that campaign ended I came back here… I never give a date and people assume that war effort must have finished in ‘45-- the end of the war.” Fane’s eyes drifted back to their hands for a moment “thing is, if you research it that campaign ended in ‘43 and… there’s no record of my return to the states until ‘45. Truth of it is… I didn’t come back here after that Ryan did but I didn’t, I travelled from Tunisia to Italy to help continue the invasion there.”

Fane grew quiet, looking up at her hesitantly it wasn’t that he’d lied about this but he didn’t correct people’s assumptions regarding the matter. “Ask questions if anything doesn’t make sense, I don’t mind explaining.” For the most part this was simply the background dressing, to help try and get her to understand the political and cultural climate which even allowed the war to come about as a thing in the first place.

Faye dipped her head, a small smile tugging the edges of her mouth as he called her out. It was true, and she didn’t bother to deny it. Looking back up, she let him finish, and then nodded that she accepted - of course she accepted - his apology. “It’s okay. We can’t help what makes us upset. I know you’d never mean to hurt me.” There weren’t many things Faye could say she was certain of in her life, but the fact that Fane would never hurt her on purpose was one of them. He wasn’t cruel or spiteful, she knew. Glad that he wasn’t angry with her for not telling him about her past before they came back to the city, Faye relaxed, but only just. “I don’t want us to live in the past either, Fane. Mine. Yours. So whatever you need to tell me, it’s past. It matters, but it’s not who you are.” Her thumb brushed over his hand, silent support for him to continue.

Faye frowned too as he tensed, hoping she hadn’t made things worse in trying to help. But he seemed alright, as alright as he could be, so she just kept holding his hand, kept listening, her attention focused solely on him. Nothing else mattered right now. Only him. Only what he had to tell her. He began, and Faye followed fairly well, knowing as much of world history as the next person, but not the fine details. Some of it slipped past, and any other time Faye might have asked who and what and how, but she got the idea. Hitler was made out to be a Savior of the German people, and he eventually got the top job. She nodded that she was following, her frown easing slightly as he seemed to at least not have trouble with the retelling of this part of the story.

He continued on, and Faye jotted down the mention of Ryan, Fane’s progeny, in her memory bank. He paused, looking at her and prompting her to ask about anything she might not understand. There was really only one thing that tugged at her thoughts.

“Tunisia,” she said, nodding that she remembered him telling her about it. “It ended in what? ‘43? And then D-Day was… summer of ‘44? How long were you in Italy?” she asked, her frown deepening. Because here was where Faye’s trepidation grew.

Because somewhere in the span of time between 1943 and 1945, something terrible had happened to Fane. Something unthinkable. Something that even now raised the hairs on her arms as the ghost of it hung in the air around them. In the tremor of his hands beneath hers. In the tension of his shoulders, one scarred and set just the other side of right. In the hesitant look in his dark eyes as they reflected the moonlight streaming through the curtains.

Somewhere in those long months lay a terrible secret. A secret kept for nearly three fourths of a century.

Her assurance managed to gain a faint smile from him along with a minor nod that he knew that, but he couldn’t help but feel shaded by the experiences he’d lived through. Four centuries was a long time in which to experience both the wonders and horrors that the world had to offer from its vast array.

“Yeah, Tunisia.” The general background of everything was something he could talk about with relative ease, but they were nearing the harder parts; signified by the way he struggled to look up at her and how he fixated his attention on playing with her fingers. Faye was well aware that he had a tendency to fidget by now and this grew even more apparent when he didn’t like a topic he was on about: always brushing his fingers through his hair, rubbing or pulling at his ears or wringing his hands. With his hands occupied that ended up becoming a fidget of playing with her hands rather than his own, exploring the rough callouses on the pads of her fingers work worn but tender despite the battles they’d pulled her through.

“June sixth was D-Day and I was in Italy from July ‘43 to May ‘44...” She was right, the summer of ‘44 was where it happened. Perhaps the most life-altering experience of his life. His shoulders seemed to set; as though bracing for impact of an imminent collision which it felt like he was hurtling into on a nose-diving plane at a thousand miles per hour with no way out. “Your um-- gram, she did a spell” Fane took her hands with his right hesitantly pulling his left arm out and turning it palm side up for her to see. He pulled her hands up then to the flat-ish scarring three-centimeters in width and about four in length “I don’t know if you can do it-- see what was here?” His brows were pinched tightly whilst he waited to see if she could, if the spell worked a string of six numbers would appear in a hashed ink tattoo: 132256. He couldn’t meet her eyes as the numbers appeared his body wound up tight like a spinning top at the impending revelation hurtling up on them.

Faye listened. She listened, and she watched as he slowly grew more agitated, hands fiddling more and more with her own. She let him, doing her best to comfort him in the retelling. But the closer the timeline got to the inevitable, the closer he got to telling her about what had happened to him, the worse it became. Part of her wanted to tell him that he didn’t need to do this. That he didn’t need to reveal something so deeply personal and traumatic just because he had popped off at her. Faye didn’t care about that. She was already over it.

But another part of her knew that stopping him now might be worse. That if he didn’t tell her, if he didn’t open those gates and let out whatever it was that was affecting him so much, that it could be sucked back in deeper this time, and it might never again see the light of day. And then it would continue to fester and rot.

He tensed, and when he took her hands she squeezed his own tightly, letting him know that she was here. That she wasn’t going anywhere no matter what he had to say. He lifted them then, and Faye’s eyes drifted down to his left forearm. She’d seen the the little burn scar before,knowing full well what they looked like, but thought it something that had happened to him when he was human. It was innocuous enough at a glance. Nothing terribly large or gruesome. But as her fingers were drawn over the ridges, and as he elaborated that there had been something there at one time, Faye felt herself go icy cold. Her hand curled around his forearm, holding it firmly as she closed her eyes, swallowing thickly. Her thumb brushed his skin, trying to soothe a hurt nearly a century old.

Please, God… she prayed. Please… not him…

But even now He didn’t answer.

Faye opened her eyes and her hand slid away from the scar, the tingle of her magic revealing the inked on numbers beneath.

Jesus…

She sucked in a sob, biting down on it as she cancelled the spell, covering the mark with her hand again.

The mark of a concentration camp prisoner.

Now Faye understood his anger with her. His hesitancy. The fear and anxiety that wound him tighter and tighter as he spoke.

And God she felt a fool.

But she didn’t release him, didn’t let go, didn’t pull back. She wouldn’t. Not from this. Not from anything. She continued to brush her thumb across his arm. If she could, she would pull the mark from his skin and he would never have to look at it again. He was tight as a spring beneath her hand, and the tension radiating from him was palpable. She turned to look at him, but he wasn’t looking at her.

If he couldn’t, then she wouldn’t make him. They would go at whatever pace he decided to set. This was his story, and Faye would stay until it was finished. She would always stay. The fingers of her other hand raised to touch his cheek, so lightly it might have been a breath of air, and she pulled him gently in, pressing her forehead to his temple. It was hard… so fucking hard… to hold back the words she’d been longing to say for weeks now. To not let ‘I love you’ slip from her mouth into the trembling skin of his neck. Because she wanted him to know. She wanted him to know so badly.

But now wasn’t about her. And telling him now, as deeply as he had sunk into the trauma of his past, it might be taken as simply a method to try and make him feel better. And Faye wouldn’t risk that. So in the end she locked the words away for a bit longer, knowing they wouldn’t stay that way forever.

“I see you, Andrei Alois,” she said quietly. “I see you, Stefan Savin.” Her hand gently turned his face so that their foreheads were pressed together, her nose brushing his. “I see you. And only you.” Not his scars. Not his past, his history, or the numbers he’d tried to erase from his body.

And though I love you remained only a thought, it bled through the card of her fingers in his hair, the protective curl of her hand over his arm. It was in the tears that slipped down her face for the terrible things that had happened to him. And in the words that said one thing but meant so much more.

“I always have…”

This was a particular tale that had already been left to fester for over seventy years because whenever his progeny tried to bring it up he shut it down immediately. Perhaps it was denial. A part of him unwilling to acknowledge the things through which he’d been put through for the sake of science, to admit that he was a victim and the atrocities he’d experienced. So Fane brought her hands to the scar, self-mutilation by his own doing to try and remove the evidence of what once existed there. His body felt numb, the old feelings and emotions leaving him feeling detached whilst talking about it. The brush of her thumb, with such genuine and pure intent was almost enough to set him off right there and then, he had to forcibly swallow down the sob that wanted to leave him.

He felt ridiculous. He felt pathetic. He felt guilty. Humiliated, debased and so many other negative emotions that all culminated in a boiling pot of shame.

That shame is what made him look down, because he didn’t want to see her reaction be it pity or something else of the sort because what else could he expect to see in a situation like this? After this sort of admission. He felt the wash of her magic moving over his skin, familiar and welcome despite how uncomfortable he felt in his own skin in that very moment. His eyes studied the bedding knowing what she’d see but feeling the pressure of her fingers curling into his arm and a shuddering breath left him.

Fane wasn’t sure what he expected, he knew she wouldn’t let go but whether she’d say something he didn’t know. So he sat stock still, barely moving under the brush of her thumb but his body despite its tension was pliant to her touch. The insistence of her fingers drawing him in until their heads touched, his tipping into the press of her forehead marginally and feeling just a little of the burden slip away a warmth settling in his chest that made it feel just a little easier to breath. Her words only served to make that feeling sink deeper, the cold press of this weight lifting with every passing brush of their skin but it did little to stop the thick feeling in his throat and the slip of wetness that tracked silently down his face.

Tipping his head he pressed his lips to her own, the kiss conveying what he didn’t speak aloud but felt better to show her through his actions. I know, just as I see you and perhaps most importantly of all I love you so much. He drew away, her presence giving him the strength to voice these demons that lay dormant and present every day and night. “I got taken, I-- can’t say how or why, all I know was that I was on a routine mission and then the next all I have are moments.” Every now and then when he spoke there were long pauses like he was trying to muster up the courage to speak. “I was strapped down on the train, dosed with… some concoction of herbs and chemicals I guess all I know is that I couldn’t feel my body” his features twisted a little raising to rub at his hair “there’s no way to put into words how it felt to not be able to do anything whilst they… They took everything from me-- hair, clothes every part of my identity… and replaced it with...” he gestured vaguely to where her hand remained curled over the scar.

His shoulders hunched his words dying again for a time as his head dropped, chin pressing into his chest. “I wasn’t put to work… I guess they knew enough that there was too much risk… They had other reasons for taking me.” The deliberate inflection on the word made his point clear and he drew away from her touch his arms coming to wrap around his body in a protective act “Mengele took me,” whether the name meant anything to her was of little consequence “six months, I was kept there with other supernaturals for six months and so many… so many died from what he did.” Fane’s tone was bitter and dripping with hatred, a rare tone to ever hear him adopt but the loathing was so very clear in his absent glare at something and nothing all at once. “The things he did to us… Injected us, cut us open-- he carved my insides out, bled me dry, split my nerves ‘til I couldn’t feel a thing just to study how they healed… Just because he could, for science.” His eyes shone as he sat there, hugging himself more tightly though he raised a hand to press into the scar on his neck which ran the length of his spine. “All whilst I lay there and the only thing I could do? All I could do was scream for it all to end but it never did” there was a look in his eyes, similar to earlier when she’d made such a similar statement “over and over and over his own labrat… his own jigsaw ‘til he decided to Purge me.”

Despite the warmth of the room Fane felt stone cold and his voice grew more absent, detaching from the situation. “It didn’t stop, he watched me suffer and made his notes before he gave me the cure no matter how much I prayed for it to stop, for it to end and then… when I thought” his voice broke then and his eyes narrowed. “When I thought it couldn’t get any worse...” Fane’s agitation was growing by the moment and he curled his fingers into the material of his t-shirt “he took my finger, and when that healed he took...“ in his agitation he ended up pulling his shirt off in one violent yank knowing she could see the misalignment of his shoulders from where she sat “he took to butchering my arm.” He was shaking by the time he was done, mouth quivering, fingers pressing into the muscle tissue around his ribs having resumed hugging himself and staring at the bed the wet slide of tears returning heavily ‘til they dripped off his chin.

Many times over the past months Faye had wished she still possessed the ability to feel Fane’s emotional state through her magic. Right now she wished for it more than ever. Because she knew that even with what she could see on the outside, with the way he was slowly growing more tense and yet more withdrawn, shutting down in an attempt to be able to say what needed saying, that the inside was much, much worse. It always was. Having your will beaten away, your choices taken, having the most basic things that made you human - supernatural or not - stripped from you… there was nothing as humiliating or debasing. And for someone like Fane, whose very existence was based on his independence, his ability to choose how he lived his life, on his pride, and his reliance on himself in all things, there was no worse thing that could happen to him.

He would probably have sooner let them kill him.

And as much as Faye was glad he had survived, that he was in her life, she would almost agree. That death would have been better. If it would have saved him the pain. The humiliation. The trauma and the lifetime after lifetime of demons left scrambling for a foothold whenever life took a turn for the worse.

But Faye didn’t pity him. She would never, ever pity him. Pity was for the weak. And Fane was not weak. Faye would have told him that. Just like she would have told him he wasn’t being ridiculous, that he wasn’t pathetic, that there was no reason for him to feel guilty. They had hurt him. He had done nothing. Humiliation Faye could understand. She’d felt it too, day after day, hospital after hospital, pitying look after pitying look. Not that what she’d experienced was anything close to Fane’s past, but the empathy was their, in it’s basest form.

She felt him turn a bit towards her, glad that he wasn’t withdrawing completely. Faye felt the trickle of wetness over her fingers, and gently wiped it away just as he had hers earlier that night. God, she never wanted to see him cry. All she ever wanted was to see him smile, to hear him laugh, to see his eyes light up with joy.

The kiss was unexpected, but she pressed into it, sucking in a breath through her nose as something flared in her chest. Something that was just a little bit different about the way his mouth pressed to hers. She couldn’t place it, but she drank it down, letting it loosen the tight coil of tension at the base of her spine. He pulled away then, and she stroked his face one more time before her hands dropped back to his own, giving him space to speak.

The first thing she felt was pain. A bright spot in her chest that felt like a branding iron slowly being pressed harder and harder against her skin. When a pause would come, the searing pain would ease, only to be replaced again, pressing harder than ever as the story continued. But her hand never left his arm. Never left the mark that had changed his life forever. As if blocking it from his view might help ease… something. Anything.

Faye sat quietly, shifting a bit closer so that she could both hold his arm and rub a soothing hand over whatever part of him was closest. Letting him know there was no rush, and giving what small encouragement she could. Her movements froze as he dropped a name that was both familiar and foreign to Faye. It took her a moment, and her eyes went unfocused as she searched for where she’d heard it before. And when it finally slid to the forefront of her mind, she sucked in a breath, muffling a tiny pained sound from behind the hand she’d raised to her mouth.

“The Angel of Death…” she remembered him being called, not realizing she’d said it out loud.

Nonononono… not that…

A selfish part of Faye didn’t want to hear anymore, but she knew she had to. She knew it was vital that she let him finish, that she listened to every single horrible, nauseating detail of what had happened to him. The thought that someone could commit such crimes against another human. And that it had been Fane who lay on that madman’s table for… Christ in Heaven… six months. It might as well have been six lifetimes.

Faye thought she might be sick.

The tone of his voice would have been reflected in Faye’s own had she not sat quietly. She didn’t bother to wipe at the tears as they streamed down her cheeks, dripping from her jaw and falling warm and wet between them. She didn’t bother to hide the tremble of her hands, or the sobs that broke through her tightly pressed lips as the horrifying details emerged one after the other. The raising of his hand to his neck made Faye’s eye fall shut. So that was why. She’d seen the evidence months ago, and been curious. Never could she have imagined this.

She felt a wellspring of hatred like she’d never felt before spread inside her, overwhelming even the lifelong, teeming disgust she’d held for her mother. And if Joseph Mengele hadn’t already been dead, Faye would have gone to the ends of the earth to make sure he suffered in every way possible, every way that Fane had, and more, before she finally let him die. In this, revenge would have been sweet.

Already feeling like she couldn’t breathe properly, Faye was deliberately controlling each breath that came and went. Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out. In. Out. Because she might hyperventilate if she didn’t keep it tightly reined. Even now, all she wanted to do was pull him in, hold him and tell him that she would never let anything or anyone hurt him ever again. But she was too afraid that she might push him off that edge into true remembrance. Into a living nightmare that would be as real as the two of him sitting her now. So she only kept the press of her legs against his, and didn’t reach of him as his arms wrapped around his torso. He looked so lost.

But then… when she didn’t think it could get any worse, then came the crescendo.

Purge.

Faye had always suspected that it had its origins somewhere around the turn of the century. In the great wars. From what little records she could find, there was nothing dating pre-1930s. But for someone like Joseph Mengele to have such a thing in his hands….

Her thought remained unfinished as Fane’s agitation rippled higher, and his voice cracked and broke and then his shirt was off. Faye could see the scars in stark relief in the moonlight. The shoulder she’d rubbed the tightness out of so many times, the marred skin she’d touched and kissed and that she loved just as she did the parts of him that were flawless and whole. And now she knew.

Fane had been Purged, and the sick, sadistic bastard had… he’d taken Fane’s arm. Faye felt bile rise up in her throat, but she swallowed it back. The scars were the result of a botched attempt at healing. Faye could barely even process such a thing, even with everything she’d seen and done herself. She couldn’t take it anymore, her will to let him withdraw a bit if he needed to was gone. The way he curled into himself, looking lost and alone and frightened… she couldn’t watch him suffer and do nothing.

But she didn’t want to make it worse. “I’m here… I’m here, baby… I’ve got you...” she said, her own voice breaking past the raw tightness in her throat and the thickness of her own tears. She shifted slowly, reaching out a shaking, slightly hesitant hand to try and pull him in. He was so tightly drawn, like a bowstring waiting on release, that she didn’t know what would happen if she touched him. But she had to try. She wouldn’t leave him floundering. She couldn’t.

The utterance of that moniker. That name had him stilling entirely. He’d stopped breathing a while ago in his explanation but this name if he’d heard it would have set stopped him entirely. The name rattled him to his very core and every fibre of his body set as still as stone save for his fingers which curled into tight fists that bled any remaining colour from his knuckles. He barely registered her reaction, the face looming in his mind dwarfing all other higher cognitive functions. Fane’s eyes unfocused the room starting to slip away, the comfort of the mattress under him being replaced by the memory of cold, unforgiving metal. There was a small shake of his head which started minute at first but as past and present began to collide Fane hardly had any way to separate the two not even Faye was a strong enough anchor for him to latch onto.

To keep him grounded.

To keep him sane.

His tee was grasped in his hands as he made his final statement, but the tension with which it was grasped cut through the silence after he spoke until it sheared straight down the middle his fists breaking apart forcibly. Her voice might’ve normally been able to snap him out of these thoughts but the sheer weight of opening this door was like being attached at the ankle to a weight and dropped into the ocean. He was being dragged further and further down, his chest starting to move as his base instincts kicked into overdrive pumping air too fast and too hard. Sitting here felt like someone had taken scalpel and begun to scrupulously lay him bare for ancient horrors to attack once more.

Her attempt to pull him in was the breaking point, the point of no return and there was no controlling the almost violent reaction that came as a result. Wrenching away from her, eyes barely taking in his surroundings. No doubt he looked like a startled animal, and what did a frightened animal do when confronted with the possibility of threat or harm?

Bolt.

In an instant Fane’s body was up and moving, heading straight for the open french doors which led onto the balcony. His hands touched the rail serving to aid in vaulting up, over and down landing awkwardly but scrambling up and taking off once more head pounding and the sounds around him fading out to a white noise. The gardens were a blur, the greenhouse as he cut a sharp turn right. Fane’s bare feet pelted the ground as solid grass and dirt grew gradually wetter and sludgier running blindly into the swamps. The panic and paranoia gripped him in an iron fast clasp until the mud grew thick and jagged rocks cut into his feet ripping the soles open as fast as they healed.

He fell eventually, somewhere between the mud and pain in his feet, collapsing down to his knees as the sobs choked their way up his throat his palms pressed hard into the ground as he struggled to control his anxiety at its peak.

One moment Faye was reaching hesitantly out to Fane, trying to offer what comfort she could in the face of everything, and the next he was… just gone. There was enough time between the moment her fingers brushed his bare skin, and the moment there was nothing but empty air in front of her for her to see the sheer panic on his face. The fear. That look of something wild that had been caged and beaten and starved… it saw an opening and it took it.

And so did Fane.

Faye was left reeling, blinking and spinning around on the bed in time to see the curtains start to settle and the door moving backwards on it’s hinges. Jesus… he was running into the woods. Which led to the swamp. He’d get lost before he could slow down enough to even realize where he was. And then add that to his fragile state of mind…

Faye was up and moving then too. Out onto the balcony, taking a short second to look in the direction of where the back gate still swung in Fane’s wake. Throwing a leg over the rail, she grabbed a hold of the wrought iron railing and climbed down the twisting iron of the back columns, just like she’d done as a child. Jumping down, she took off at a run, following Fane’s trail, what she could see of it in the dark, through the garden, and out into the woods. She tossed out bluebell flames, and they rushed ahead of her, lighting the way once the canopy of cypress and pine and oak started to block out the moonlight.

Her legs were speckled with mud and pine-needles, and her feet were scraped and bleeding from the briars and the low brush. But Faye didn’t stop.

Goddamn he was fast… and her magic did little to help find him. But he still left a trail. Though every so often Faye had to stop, sometimes even backtracking, and finding a different way. Through pools of black water and sticky mud that threatened to suck her down if she wasn’t quick about it. All around, the sounds of the swamp clicked and burred and slithered, and Faye could feel eyes watching from the trees and from the water’s edge when she crossed close by.

But let them try. She was in no mood to be bothered by swamp magic, her focus only on finding Fane. Before something else did.

It seemed like hours before her efforts paid off, but could only have been a half hour, maybe a little more, and it was his sobs she heard before anything else. Great heaving cries of agony and despair. And it broke Faye’s heart into pieces. This was her fault. In part. But as she pushed out of the juniper and the scrub and the kudzu vine, and saw the defeated arch of his back where he knelt on the muddy embankment, all she could think about was him. About getting him home.

“Fane…” she called out quietly, stepping towards him, her footsteps silent in the wet earth. “You don’t have to run anymore. You don’t have to hide.” Sinking to her knees beside him once she could see his profile, Faye let the soft gray of her magic flow around him like fog, not holding, not even touching really, but letting him feel it and hoping that something in him would recognize it. Recognize her. She could hold him here if she had to, but Faye knew that if she bound him or held him against his will now… that he would never forgive her. Not for that. Not after what she’d just learned. She would never do that besides.

So she stayed knelt in the mud, breathing hard even as she tried to control it and the rushing beat of her heart, her knees barely touching his own, and waited. Ready to chase him again if he ran. Ready to hold him if he was done running.

Ready to do whatever was needed to bring him home.

His mind was afog with too many things, sensory and mental input overloading until his brain simple short-circuited from the sheer number of things it was attempting to process. There was a reason why he never opened this door. A reason he’d left it firmly sealed and shoved down in the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind. That reason being he was afraid of what he would do, what he’d consider if he ever opted to unlock that again. The panic was a wild and real thing, something that shook him in so many more ways than he would ever be able to explain.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d knelt there, his fingers curling, clawing into the mud he’d finally come to fall down in. By the time Faye found him he’d sunk onto his haunches, his head bowed low and his hands against his knees. Had it not been for the mud clinging to seemingly every aspect of his figure half-bare from the waist up it might’ve looked like he was praying for something. In the time he’d spent kneeling there, he’d slipped his daylight charm from its placing on his finger grasping it in a tightly clenched fist that tremored occasionally muscles in his rotator cuff especially wound like he was some point between keeping it close and simply launching it into the undergrowth and being done with it because the mindset he’d slipped into was a dark and treacherous path. One he struggled to venture successfully.

It was the shadow of her magic, that some might consider ominous or threatening that eventually began to help him find a footing on the path back. The magic to Fane was as much a comforting blanket as his own hoodie tended to serve for Faye; much like it had earlier in the night when she’d bundled herself against it in the fear of it being her last ever memory of him after everything that had occurred tonight. That didn’t mean it was quick, the process was slow; a gradual transition from panic, fear, pain, grief to a state somewhere approaching something more stable. His chest began to steady and his eyes flickered around as though only just taking in his environment for the first time despite how long he’d been knelt here.

His eyes were puffy and red from the force of his tears and emotions, gradually spent on his directionless sprint when he finally did look up to her and immediately a guilt wracked up full force as the potential harm he might’ve put her in by running. He was swinging in so many different directions he could barely figure out which way he wanted to head, and it was when she settled that he stared for a long hard moment at her as though trying to decipher what she wanted. But Faye wanted nothing more than his own happiness, and that was a fact he knew in perhaps one of the most honest and trusted parts of his mind.

She was here. Now. She’d chosen him.

And that dawning realisation is what shocked him down from his spiral, causing his entire body to sag. If there had been more tears they likely would have run their course now, but he was tired and spent of all his energy and then some. He stared down at his fists looking almost abashed “‘m sorry-- ‘m so sorry-- I--” there was no explaining it and Fane struggled to form any sort of explanation for what had happened.

It took awhile, and her magic had rolled around them like a thick mist, nearly blocking out the reeds and the rushes and the black water of the swamp in it’s attempt to calm him. The whole time Faye sat quietly, not rushing, not pushing, just being there until he was ready.

He was filthy, but so was she. Both covered in a layer of brackish water and thick mud that smelled like rotting vegetation and things best left to the imagination. But none of that mattered. What mattered was the moment he finally seemed to settle. His breathing became less erratic, and the tension of his shoulders and back eased ever so slightly. It was still there, the pain and the panic and the fear, but she was making headway. Bit by bit.

When he finally looked at her, it almost broke her. There were so many things behind the wet shivering of his dark eyes. But what took Faye’s breath and broke the remainder of her heart was that he honestly looked surprised to see her. Like he hadn’t expected her to come for him. To chose him over her own feelings. Or over anything else.

He came back to her in a defeated, exhausted sagging of his frame, and Faye tipped forwards as he did, catching him and pulling his head to her shoulder. Her lips pressed to his temple. “Don’t ever be sorry, love… ever. Not for this.” Her hands slid down his arms, over his still clenched fists, and she gently curled her fingers beneath the tips of his, trying to coax him into taking her hand. Finally he relented, but Faye made a small surprised sound as something fell into her palm. She pulled just enough to look down between them.

His ring - the ring that contained his daylight charm - lay in her hand.

He’d taken it off.

Part of her wanted to rage at him for such a thing. But she knew what it felt like to want the horror to end. And caught up as he was in his panic as his blind fear, Faye couldn’t blame him for just wanting to make it stop.

And she thanked whatever God was listening that it was the moon that shone down on them and not the sun. Else she’d be weeping over ashes.

But she didn’t say a word, just clasped the ring in her hand, feeling the bite of the metal against her skin, before unfolding his hand and sliding it back in place.

She threaded their fingers once the ring was secure. Her other hand curved gently around his head, pulling him in as she pressed a kiss to his temple. “I’m not ready to lose you yet.”

This, here, collapsed against her shoulder with them both soaked and muddied was not how Fane had seen this evening ending. Though there was hardly any way to predict this outcome as well. There was no fight left in him, not will to try and deny her because what point was there? There wasn’t and so Fane scrunched up his eyes and pressed himself against her, opting not to speak because what could he say? He barely registered the press of metal in his palm and so as she coaxed his fingers open so that she could take them the ring passed from him to her in a matter of seconds.

She could have raged at him, could have sworn and screamed and shouted but Fane was worn out that the only reaction she would have likely got was him sat mutely thought it barely remaining in any state of genuine consciousness without wanting to slip away to sleep. Which was all he wanted to do right now. Sleep. Forget this evening or try to.

He barely even took note of what time of day or night it was, the fact hardly mattered in his panic ridden state because all he had wanted was for it to stop. To let him be and let him go. But Faye, she had chosen him and that mere fact alone was enough to get him to wrap his arms around her. She wasn’t willing to let him go and the relief he felt over that was something he couldn’t articulate. Like always he bent to her will, so at the insistence of her fingers the ring was soon set back in place on his finger where it belonged and soon enough their fingers were laced together once more.

Fane could feel the curl of her fingers against his head the pressure only serving to push his head further into the damp but familiar crook of her shoulder whilst her lips brushed his temple. “I’m tired Faye… I just want to sleep...”

Faye couldn’t have screamed at him now if she wanted to. There was no fight left in her other than to make sure he was safe, to make sure he was alright and unharmed. He’d been through enough tonight, and he knew better than anyone what taking off the ring meant. That’s why he’d done it. Later, perhaps, they’d have a talk about it. About what could have happened if it had been daytime and not the dead of night. If it was needed. But otherwise Faye wouldn’t bring it up. She didn’t think Fane wanted to die. Not anymore. And one rash decision while in the clutches of a living nightmare was not something to dwell on too deeply.

So as he folded against her, weary and spent and wanting nothing more than to sleep, Faye nodded. Words weren’t really needed, but she spoke anyway. “Let’s get you home then.” Using every ounce of strength she had left in her bones, Faye helped him to his feet and pulled his good arm around her shoulders. He was so much taller than her, and she stumbled a little as he sagged against her, but with the help of her magic she got him upright.

And walked right into the gaping jaws of an enormous white alligator the size of a school bus.

Faye balked sharply, pushing Fane behind her as best she could as the creature let out a subsonic rumble that reverberated through Faye’s chest, shaking the wet ground and the dark water that had silenced it’s approach.. “Don’t move,” she said to Fane, gripping him tightly. Any other night she might have told him to use his vampire speed and get them out of there, but he could barely stand, much less get the both of them out of there in time to avoid being crunched between teeth the size of fence posts. But the creature didn’t move, merely let out it’s rumble as it watched them with a pale, blue eye the size of a dinner plate.The longer Faye looked at it, the more she realized that it wasn’t actually white. But the palest shade of green she had ever seen. More like a white that hinted at color. Like a plastic lawn-chair left to bake in the sun for too long, or in this case a creature that hadn’t seen the light of days for ages. It’s blinked it’s double-lidded eye at them, and it’s jaws slowly closed as a low hiss sounded from somewhere deep inside it’s huge body and it’s head sagged to the ground.

Faye settled slightly too, but certainly didn’t relax. It didn’t seem intent on hurting them. Faye had seen gator hunting tactics. Hiding below the water, waiting on prey to get close enough. This one had had ample opportunity to snap her and Fane up as they had been occupied on the muddy shore. But it hadn’t. Faye frowned. What was it doing here? Was this the animal that Cat had spoken about? The one that had caused the bridge collapse? Christ… then that meant…

As if on cue, out in the water on the other side of the cattails and the reeds, small lights appeared. Torches and lanterns on the prows of small fishing boats and swamp rafts, some powered by motors, some steered with poles. The alligator let out another rumble, and only then did Faye notice that along it’s back it was riddled with missing scales and old scars. There were even the remnants of arrows, spears, gaffs, and all manner of tools that had been used to try and capture or kill it over the last… Christ… century maybe.

And it was hurt now. Dark red blood oozed from a gash in it’s side. Nothing fatal, but it was wounded enough that it had sought refuge in the tall grass. And now the Headhunters were closing in.

Well not if Faye had any say. “We have to help it…” she told Fane. Nothing else would be hunted down and captured without consent. She couldn’t change what had happened to Fane, but maybe she could help this creature. So pulling Fane’s arm back around her shoulder, she took a step forwards and pressed her hand, as slow as she’d ever done anything in her life, to the creature’s massively muscled jaw. “We’re gonna help you,” she told it, tightening her grip on Fane as well. Without anymore talking, Faye cast out her magic, feeling it suck the energy from her as a thick white mist swallowed them up; the vampire, the witch, and the white alligator. The magic was so strong, and the fog so untraversable, that the hunters in the boats were forced to turn back when even their own magic couldn’t help them.

Only when they were far enough away did Faye release the spell. The magic fog faded, and Faye sagged under Fane’s weight. But she would make it. She would get him home. The alligator seemed to study them again for a long moment, blinking twice, before pushing it’s hulking form into the water and disappearing as silently as it had come.

But even the presence of a creature as rare and beautiful as the one which she’d just saved from annihilation didn’t take precedence over the man in her arms. Faye steadied Fane once more and without a word turned them on the journey home.

His legs felt spent under him and it was a struggle to get up; fighting against the suction of mud and his own mental fatigue both of which were trying to pull him down. Fane felt her shift, heard her words and knew he couldn’t stay here. She ducked under his arm and he felt the coil of her magic wrap around his body; grey tendrils that together with his own effort got him up and stabilised. His body felt like lead, but soon enough they’d started to move that is until they were stood face to gaping face with a giant set of jagged teeth with a direct view into the cavern of its throat. Even his weary brain registered the shock and he swallowed thickly coming very quickly to realise the danger they were potentially in.

Faye pushed him back, behind her and a part of him wanted to protest but no sound left him as the gargantuan creature rumbled the ground shaking like a low-rating earthquake on the Richter scale had just trembled through the area the sonic vibrations resonating through his body and sent water shifted nearby. Faye didn’t need to tell him to not move, he had absolutely no intention of moving. His eyes never left the creature and for a very tense few moments the three were at a stand-still. He could vaguely detect the pastal honeydew shade of its skin, the lower portion of its belly submerged in the swamp nearby but by no means making it look by any smaller than it truly was. He might’ve been fascinated if he wasn’t so aware of Faye’s presence here. He could heal but Faye? She was still essentially human at the end of the day. But soon enough the jaw hinged shut as it seemed to deem them not a threat.

Only then did some of the tension leak out of his body, leaving him to study the ridges and scarring on the ancient creature’s body the story Cat told them of this very animal coming to mind. Despite the differences, he felt an odd sense of connection to the animal with its worn body likely just as tired of running as he felt. Or perhaps he was just imagining it. Either way it was the drift of engines that drew his attention, and Fane’s head finally turned from the animal towards the sound his eyes picking out the flashlights and beams cutting through the darkness of the boats all navigating the waterways.

They both had the same idea upon seeing the gash in its side, and he grimaced but managed a nod. This creature didn’t choose its fate, what did it do to deserve being hunted down? As Faye stepped forwards he did too stiffly but let her get to work pulling and manipulating the darkness of her magic to form a fog which engulfed them all until they were shrouded from outside eyes. He felt her own body beginning to sag under the drain of her magic and he tried to support himself a little more his own arm moving around her waist to support her in turn.

As the sound of the hunters faded into the distance, Fane could only look at the animal which blinked its double-lidded eyes at them. Made another low rumble deep in its belly before it too was slipping silently back into the waterways. To go… who knew where and soon enough they were alone once more. Fane studied the water that settled soon enough a mixture of satisfaction and sadness filling him as he wondered whether the creature felt the same sort of pain he did at times.

Soon enough though his focus was on Faye, on getting back and though it was a struggle between them they eventually reached the house which came into view and the relief was palpable in them both. Barely a word passed between them, both too exhausted to speak when they got inside and stripped off their sodden clothes proceeding to get washed and changed into fresh pyjamas until the pair of them collapsed into bed. Fane automatically curled his body into Faye’s, hugging her tight and burying his face against her as his body and mind finally began to settle. He sought her warmth like a heat-seeking missile that left him hugging her tight.

The encounter with the alligator had shaken Faye, but not nearly as much as what happened with Fane. The creature faded from her mind as they made their way home in a slow haze, numb to anything but their arms wrapped tightly around one another. Faye’s feet hurt, and she felt like she would fall over with every step she took, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered right now but Fane.

She helped him undress and get into the shower, and for once he didn't protest. He was eerily quiet, and just stood under the spray as she rinsed the mud from his skin and her own. Later, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled the covers up as he buried himself in her chest. Her hands soothed up and down his back, soft lines of comfort even as she tried not to touch his scars too heavily. She wasn't avoiding them, never that, she simply didn't want to raise his anxiety again now that he was setting down. Her nose buried itself in his hair, and she breathed him in, watching the curtains sway in the breeze, a thousand things running through her head as she started to hum quietly.

It was only in the quiet period of washing each other that Fane realised Faye’s absence of shoes in chasing him down, and when they were settled after a while of tight hugging during which he sank down into the brushing caress of her hands almost dozing that he remembered. He shuffled up a little, nudging a little space between them whilst he brought his thumb up to his mouth and bit down, pressuring a few droplets to bead up he gave her a look that she he wanted her to take the offering. A few drops wouldn’t hurt her, but it would ease the aches on her body by tomorrow at least.

Only once (at his stubborn insistence) she had taken the offering did Fane properly settle down in his original position. Normally he was the one who liked to hold her but tonight he needed the comfort of her arms, her voice and simply her presence. It took a little while, but eventually Fane drifted off into a state of sleep too exhausted to keep fighting the fatigue from the emotional toll the entire evening had taken on him mentally and physically, anchored by his secure hold on Faye.

Normally, Faye would have protested a good bit more over him giving her his blood. She was fine without it. Or so she said. But whatever he needed right now she would give. And if accepting the offering would help him rest, Faye would do it. So she acquiesced, and sucked the red droplets from the pad of his thumb. The aches and pains slowly eased, as did the pain in her feet, and as he finally settled back against her - taking care of her even when it was him that needed it most; and she loved him for it even as she sighed at his stubbornness - Faye wrapped him in her arms.

She sang until he drifted off, slowly going still as stone in her embrace. The only indicator he was alive were the occasional small movements as he slept, and the warm, soft pliancy of his skin beneath her hands. It might have been disconcerting to some, but Faye was accustomed to it by now. She had grown accustomed to many things where Fane was concerned. And there wasn't one thing - from his often times terribly silly sense of humor, to his massive collection of dog videos, to the way he gave more of himself than he ever hoped to get in return - that Faye was willing to let go.

Because she'd been telling the truth when she said she wasn't ready to lose him yet. She didn't think she would ever be ready. Not now. Not a hundred years from now.

Not ever.

FIN.

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