casterfairy

[silencedrage]

SHAUNA SHIPMAN ( @ofvalor ) said " i'll only hurt you if you let me . "

They have been entwined in a way that Lottie can't explain ever since that fateful night where Shauna baptized her body in blood. Her body is intimately aware of the other woman in every moment, exhilaration and terror that lace through her blood in equal parts. Even after two decades, that feeling remains the same, and it's both a blessing and a curse as her friends continue their stay at the community. Lottie uses the others as a buffer, to keep the fight or flight instinct from kicking in fully. She drifts between them all, using it as an excuse to never linger in one place for too long, but Shauna is smart, and time hasn't made her senses any duller.

Lottie doesn't try to deny what they both know she's been doing, and her heartrate picks up when Shauna shuts the door behind her. There's a brief flicker, and for a moment, they are 18 again and she's telling Shauna to let it out. She doesn't know when she stood and shortened the distance between them, but they're in a mirror image of that night. The buzzing under her skin is almost deafening at this point, with none of the others to distract from it, and Lottie exhales at Shauna's point blank statement.

It's been the same pact for over two decades, her body martyred and sacrificed to be exactly what the others need, to be what Shauna needs. Lottie understood this bargain once upon a time, and a part of her longs for that certainty again. She knows Shauna won't take it without permission. The power lies with Lottie, as it always has, and she feels the weight of it on her shoulders. Familiar, dangerous, cold.

If she gives in to this, there is no turning back, but her blood sings at how close Shauna is standing to her now. She feels more alive and lucid than she has in years, and there's a phantom ache in her jaw that throbs in time with her racing heart. "You know I would," she says finally, her voice soft despite the roaring in her ears. "We still need you."