Mom said it's my turn with the au

Your labor in May lasted almost a full 24 hours—and Larissa didn't leave your side once.

You begged her to get herself food, or at least some coffee, from the cafeteria, but she refused. Instead, she had your family pick up food on their way to the hospital, and only left you to use the bathroom. Larissa doted on you the entire time—whatever you needed, she made sure you got it.

Ice chips? She fed them to you with a spoon.

Another pillow, even though you already had four? She got you two more, just in case you ended up wanting another.

She massaged your lower back, she held your hand, she took walks with you around the labor and delivery floor. Larissa comforted you, she encouraged you, she wept the second your daughter let out a shrill cry and was placed on your chest.

Through the summer, Larissa was more than helpful. She had no problem alternating feeding times at night, or cleaning, or cooking dinner. She went to every doctors appointment with you, she made sure you were getting enough rest, and when your parents came to stay with you for July, she even took you out on a date for the first time in months.

You could never resent her—never. When school started mid-August, it wasn't bad. You had a routine by now. You'd wake up with her alarm, she'd get ready in the bathroom, you'd wake your daughter up to feed her, and you'd make breakfast for yourself and Larissa. She'd say goodbye with a kiss, grab her things, and head out the door.

The first couple weeks of school, you'd bring your daughter to Nevermore with you and the three of you would have lunch in Larissa's office—the students especially loved this as you were technically on sabbatical for the fall semester and had a substitute teacher that they didn't particularly care for.

In Larissa's office, on the second Wednesday of the school year, you greet her with a kiss. She takes your daughter from your arms with a bright smile and kisses her on the cheek as she sits back down. Before you unpack the lunch that you picked up, you pause. On Larissa's desk is a framed picture of the three of you—which isn't the part confuses you. It's the frame itself that confuses you.

It's bright and colorful and is clearly a store-bought frame covered in air-dry clay. There are bunnies and cats and flowers, and you pick it up carefully to examine it. "Where did you get this?"

"One of the new students," she says. "Her name is Enid. She came into my office with a question and saw the, and I quote, 'plain and boring frame' and she insisted on decorating it."

However, the spontaneous lunch trips to Larissa's office slowly begins to dwindle. Her days are filled with meetings and your days are filled with running errands, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and taking care of a baby.

As the weeks go on, Larissa works later and later. You cover her plate of dinner in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge and she's usually home by nine when you're finishing up feeding your daughter before putting her to bed. By time Larissa joins you on the couch with her face clean and her plate of dinner, you're dozing off on her shoulder.

You don't want to tell her how exhausted you are. You don't want to tell her that when she works until eight or nine at night you feel impossibly lonely, and that all you want after fourteen hours of taking care of a fussy baby is her. You don't want to tell her that you're doing the 2am feedings alone, that you're struggling to keep everything together—laundry's piling up, you haven't showered in days because your daughter cries every time you put her down, and now she's beginning a sleep regression. Larissa is stressed enough as it is dealing with running a boarding school, a monster that's being written off as a bear, and Wednesday Addams. The last thing you want her to feel is like she's not doing not enough.

"I just don't understand what else I can do," she huffs.

You're curled into Larissa's side as she lays on her back in bed, your fingers curled into the satin slip she wears and her hand running over your arm. "I know, honey," you mumble, and you try so hard to make your tone sound supportive through your exhaustion—and the smell of her body wash and shampoo only serves to make you sleepier.

"It's not even her being headstrong anymore," Larissa says. "It's complete insubordination. And she has straight A's, so it's not like she's a bad student. She pays attention in class, all of her teachers praise the work she turns in, she's just…I don't know…" When you don't respond, she looks down at you. Your eyes are closed, face pressed close to her neck as your breathing evens out. She smiles softly and chuckles before kissing your hairline. "I love you."

You get maybe a total of four hours of sleep. Larissa doesn't wake once and by the time you finally get your daughter to fall asleep, Larissa's alarm is going off. You want to cry, you want to throw a tantrum, but you don't. Instead, you leave your daughter to sleep while you make breakfast.

Larissa enters the kitchen not long after seven, heels hanging by her middle and pointer fingers. She wraps her arms around your waist and places kisses over your neck. You're quiet as you scramble a bowl of eggs and she notices immediately. Her hand comes to your face gently and turns it to give you a proper kiss.

"Are you alright?" she asks, and you nod.

"Yeah." You go back to scrambling the eggs, and you're relieved that she accepts your answer and turns on the coffee pot.

By ten, you've had almost two cups of coffee, and at noon you're drinking from a to-go cup on your way to your daughter's doctors appointment—something Larissa would've been able to accompany you with if it wasn't for a meeting.

The doctors appointment doesn't take very long. Your daughter is perfectly healthy and her developmental milestones are about a month ahead, which is definitely something she got from Larissa. Your ride home is nothing but the sound of plastic toys being hit together and your daughter cooing and gurgling at the entertainment.

At home, you've convinced yourself that the caffeine is working, and you're able to clean the house—somewhat. The living room is still littered with baby toys and clutter that you intended to put upstairs days ago, but when you put your daughter down for her nap, you bring the clutter upstairs with you before you do the laundry. You're relieved just by the sight of the washing machine on, knowing that there's at least one thing out of the way for a couple hours. Back downstairs, you tackle the kitchen—sort of. The caffeine from the past couple of hours has worn off, but you force yourself to clean anyway, even though you know the kitchen will just end up messy again.

At four, your daughter wakes up from her nap, shrieking for you to let her out of her crib prison. By now, you've completely forgotten about the laundry that now sits in the washing machine, waiting to be put in the dryer. Your mind is scrambled and when you open the fridge to start dinner, you realize that you completely forgot to stop at the store to get ingredients for tonight.

We cannot have pasta for the third night in a row.

But at this point, you don't really have a choice. So, after setting your daughter down on her play mat and giving her some toys to distract her, you start preparing whatever you can find—garlic, onions, there's enough ingredients to start on homemade garlic bread, you find spaghetti noodles, half a jar of pasta sauce, you should be good.

A pot of salted water sits on the stove, waiting for you to turn on the burner. You stand at the counter, focused on the parsley that you're chopping, when your daughter starts crying. You know the cry that means 'feeds me before I raise all hell', and you sigh as you set down the knife and rinse your hands off. Several steps away in the living room, you pick up your daughter as she cries and your hand cups her back as you try to calm her down enough to feed her.

Her tiny hand grips your shirt tightly as you stay standing, eyes focused on the TV as you feed her. You know you shouldn't sit down on the couch. You know that if you sit down for even a moment, your eyes will close and you won't see dinner. But after burping your daughter and setting her back down on the bright and colorful mat, you can't help it.

Just for a moment.

Just for a couple minutes.

The second Larissa saw you this morning in the kitchen, she knew what was happening. For the rest of the day, she felt nothing but guilty as she thought about you home, by yourself with the baby while you juggle everything. For the first time in weeks, she's home before the sun completely sets. When she unlocks the door, she smells garlic and onion, but it's quiet—far too quiet for it being almost 6pm.

Quietly, Larissa closes the door and locks it. She can hear the TV, but she doesn't hear either of you—no playing or sauteing veggies, when she looks up the staircase where the bathroom is, she hears no splashing or giggling like there would be if you were giving your daughter a bath. After taking her coat off and setting her purse down, she slowly walks through the foyer and into the kitchen. There, she finds a cutting board with minced garlic, diced onions, and half-finished chopped parsley. The water on the stove is still, and her brows furrow before hearing the rattle of one of your daughter's toys in the living room.

When Larissa turns her head, she smiles at the sight of her daughter on the play mat—kicking her feet, waving her toys around, smiling and gurgling. "And what do you think you're doing all by yourself?" she asks, picking her up and kissing her on the cheek. "Did you have a good day? Where's your m—oh." She stops when she sees you laying on couch. Your face is half on the pillow, half on the couch, your hand is curled under your chin, and you look completely and utterly exhausted. She sighs and sets the baby back down before taking a throw blanket from the chair and laying it over you gently.

With your daughter back in her arms, she talks very quietly as she leaves the living room. "Your mummy is very tired, hm? Let's clean up the kitchen and get you a bath."

With the play mat now in the kitchen, Larissa keeps a close eye on your daughter as she cleans up the kitchen. With the dish washer running and the kitchen now clean, she takes your daughter upstairs for her bath, but when she sees the washing machine still occupied with clothes she makes a pit stop.

"Looks like we have some laundry to dry," she tells your daughter, voice light as she opens the door to the washer.

Larissa, as expected, leaves bath time with damp clothes. It's nearing eight as she feeds your daughter a warmed bottle in her room. She sighs as she sits in the armchair, eyes staring off as she thinks about you falling asleep on the couch. She saw it this morning—the exhaustion in your face as you made her breakfast, the hesitation when you told her you were okay. She wishes she spoke to you before it came to this.

When your daughter is in her crib, Larissa leaves quietly, turning off the lights and leaving the door open a crack. She doesn't go back downstairs and instead goes into your shared bedroom to wash her face and change her clothes.

When your eyes open, you're immediately met with panic. You barely register the blanket on you as it falls to the floor, and the only thing you focus on is the absence of your daughter. When you're in the kitchen, you see that it's spotless—the trash and recycling have been taken out, hand washed dishes are put away and the dish washer is running, and dinner prep has been tossed. You hurry upstairs and the only thing that brings you relief is seeing your daughter fast asleep in her crib.

The lights in your bedroom are on and when you open the door, Larissa is emerging from the bathroom in her pajamas and running her fingers through her hair. "Oh, good, you're awake," she says.

"How long have I been asleep?"

She shrugs as she pulls back the duvet and sheets on the bed. "Well, I got home around six, so at least a few hours."

"Did you feed her?"

"Fed and bathed," Larissa says.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" you ask, looking up at her as you go over to the bed.

Larissa's hands run over your arms. "Because you clearly needed the sleep," she says softly, and she pulls you into a tight embrace. "I'm so sorry that I haven't been there to help you."

Something in you finally breaks when you hear those words and you can't hold back your tears.

"Why didn't you tell me you were struggling so much?" she asks.

"I'm sorry!" you sob, trying to wipe your tears, but they don't stop. "I didn't—want—to make you fee—feel like you aren't doing enough! You've been so stressed with everything that's been happening at Nevermore and I didn't want to worry you—but I'm so tired!" Your shoulders shake as Larissa pulls you back into her arms, guiding you into bed with her. You sit between her legs as she holds you close, listening to everything you say. "I haven't showered in three days, and I hate cooking, and my nipples are cracking, and I just did my laundry for the first time in two weeks!"

You pick your head up from her neck and take a deep breath, wiping your eyes on your sleeve. "I know you're tired from working late, but I've been doing all of the late night feeds, Larissa." Your words are meek and watery. "I've only been sleeping for a few hours each night—I don't even remember the last time I went into REM!"

Larissa's thumbs wipe the tears that slowly trickle down your cheeks. "I am so sorry, sweet pea," she mutters.

"You're never here," you say, voice quiet as she holds you again. "I know you're running a school and I know I'm not doing much, but I miss you."

She presses a kiss to your head and her hands run over your back as your breath steadies. "Don't do that," she mumbles. "Don't downplay yourself. You're doing so much—too much. You're doing everything for us and I haven't even acknowledged it. I am so sorry if I have made you feel unappreciated." Larissa pulls away. Her hands hold your face gently as she sighs. "Thank you—for everything you've done for us. I love you so, so much."

You kiss her softly. "I love you too."

You kiss her again.

And again.

And again.

Your hands travel up Larissa's front and into her hair as she kisses you back, both of you breathing hard. "Five months," you breathe, and kiss her hard. "We haven't had sex in five months."

Larissa's hands grab at you, pulling you close before guiding you onto your back. "I know," she murmurs. "It's been fucking killing me."

"I want you to fuck me." Your hands slip under her night shirt, feeling the smooth expanse of her skin. "Please, Larissa." Her hand slips beneath the waistband of your sweatpants, rubbing over the gusset of your underwear, but you gasp into her kisses when she removes it and you feel the hard press of her shape shifted bulge. "Wait! Wait, use the strap. I'm ovulating."

Larissa's head falls into the crook of your neck as you both laugh. She kisses you quickly before getting out of bed to retrieve the strap, stumbling as she tries to walk and remove her pajamas at the same time. By the time she gets back to bed with the strap in place, you're completely undressed with your arms reaching out for her.

"I love you," she mutters, and kisses you softly.

Your arms wrap around her neck and you swear you could finish right there from the feeling of her skin on yours. "Fuck, I love you too."

Larissa's fingers run through your folds and dip inside of you before going up to circle your clit. "Look at you," she says. "So wet for me already."

Your hips buck with every brush of the strap, begging for any bit of relief she'd grant you.

"Do you want me to fuck you?" she mumbles, eyes dark in the lamp light. When you nod, she grins, and the kiss she gives you is so soft that you'd consider it teasing. "What do you say?"

You huff. "Please, fuck me, Larissa. Please, please, please!"

She lets out a satisfied hum. "Good girl."

Your lips press together in a heated kiss as she slowly sinks the strap inside you. Your nails dig into Larissa's shoulders as her arms pull you close, and your hips begin matching her thrusts as the two of you become more and more frantic. Her name comes out of you, strained on a pathetic moan as your legs tighten around her, starting to tremble.

Larissa kisses you hard and one of her hands rests at the top your head, fingers gripping onto your hair as she cages you in. "You're taking me so well. Are you gonna cum for me?"

Your head falls back and her lips place rough kisses over your neck and jaw. You swallow hard and it becomes harder and harder to get the words out. "Yes—fuck—oh my god, Larissa!"

She knows there's no point in waiting to give you permission; by the time you get the last syllable out, you're already writhing beneath her. Larissa smiles as she looks down at you, hand holding your face steady as she mumbles praises and continues her steady and firm thrusts. "Good girl," she says, bringing her lips across your cheek and over your jaw. "That's it—breathe—you did so well for me."

You sit in bed with a half-eaten box of pizza as it reaches eleven. Larissa's arm holds you close with your head on her shoulder as the two of you watch a movie, and her fingers run over your scalp and through your hair. "I put in a request for some time off," she murmurs with a kiss to your head.

You lift your head, looking up at her. "What?"

"The second I saw you this morning—how exhausted you looked—I knew," she says. "I got to school and immediately emailed the head of the board…And I've also decided that when I have extra work to do, I'll bring it home instead of staying late. I love you both so much and I hate that I haven't been able to be here for you."

Your feel tears prick your eyes and you sniffle. "Thank you."

The sound of your daughter crying on the baby monitor makes you sigh, and as you move to get out of bed, Larissa's arm holds you back and she gets out of bed. "Ah—don't even think about getting out of bed," she says with a pointed look before kissing you on the forehead. "I will bring her to you, alright? You'll feed her while I put the pizza in the fridge, and then when you're done feeding her, I'll put her to bed."

She pulls on her robe and ties it as she comes back over to the bedside, looking down at you with a soft smile and warm eyes. "Then, after that, I'll come back here and we'll cuddle and we'll watch this silly film, and I'll hold you until you fall asleep. And when she inevitably wakes up at four in the morning, you'll stay in bed, and I'll make her a bottle. Sound good?"

You nod lightly as you look up at her, and words melt on your mouth. "Yeah," you mutter. "I love you."

[ Written to the song "Habits" by Mr.Kitty (lyrics in italics) ]

Visions flashing...

Nevermore Academy sits against a black sky, rain stabbing through the dark like needles, their cold steel glistening for the briefest of moments against the lamp lights and occasional lightning. A figure can be glimpsed passing along the open corridors of the school's castle-like breezeways, rhythmically blocked by the large stone pillars as they pass along in silence, like a ghost.

          At night, I travel.

Larissa Weems moves at a brisk pace, neither hurrying nor casually strolling. She doesn't sleep this night, her thoughts wracked with the heavy mud of years she tried to keep buried in the past, now suffocating her within the walls of her office space. An attempt to escape her own self, she fled to the vastness of the campus in search of a... quieter space of mind to occupy.

          My nerves unravel.

Morticia Addams had stepped through her office doors earlier that morning, along with her precious family, at the enrollment of their oldest daughter. She anticipated the encounter, rolling every possibility of events through her brain in the days leading. The moment she'd seen the admission application, she knew her life —everything she had built within it— and her past —everything she had killed and buried long ago— were both liable to come crashing together. There was no way on this earthly plane that it couldn't. Yet, try as she might, she would fight to hold her composure, and the composure of both the worlds she had kept strongly apart, hoping foolishly that she could keep the tide from the shore. Inevitability was her weakest point.

          It hurts to hide myself from you.

Still, something tugged at her. She had half expected herself to remain as cold and embittered as she had been in their last meeting so many years ago. Or, at the very least, she expected only professionalism as a means to keep any emotion at arm’s-length away. As much as she tried to uphold either mask, something slipped between the two that she had not accounted for at all. A small, almost infinitesimal warmth. Like the beginnings of a flame from a candle being lit – the wick, not yet long enough to expose anything larger than a flicker, just warm enough for the wax to soften, but not melt. The feeling was uncharacteristic and she fought hard to ignore it. But the moment she dared to dabble in it, to reach out and touch the flame, breathe enough to stoke the fire, she knew there was no turning back.

"Did your mother tell you we were roommates back in the day?"

A stupid question. A tell. A weakness. A soft spot. A memory... She was supposed to feign ignorance. To pretend time had covered that life up. Made it a thing of the past. Made her forget from lack of importance. And yet, she managed to dredge an entirety of life back into existence by merely asking.

          With care, I held it.

Morticia, perhaps out of courtesy or genuine interest, recalled the memories as though they occurred only yesterday. Larissa was wary of the meaning of each word, doing her best to close the book she had foolishly opened on her own for the entire room by stifling interest and bearing her own version of the events as woeful at best.

          Inside I felt it.

She knew Morticia could tell, though. Why bother to prod, bring up the past like an old friend, only to dismiss it and recant them as grim and unbearable? No, she knew better than that. Larissa was reaching for an answer. A reaction. A single, thread-slim tether to what they had shared in the past. She was checking. I can't be the only one who remembers… The inside of their skulls both sang in independent unison. ...Everything.

          My favourite pain comes back to me.

Her attempted dismissal of the memories, like a student too stubborn to be scolded, appeared glass on the surface, like old banter between less-than-ideal friends long gone. But inside, Larissa was a storm. The placid ocean of eyes she wore to the world had begun to churn and rage. A stirring that she herself, no doubt, had caused. And for that, her sigh of exhaustion meant more than an administrative tire. She was kicking herself for opening that door. For singlehandedly pulling the keystone from the cathedral she had built around herself to avoid such feelings. Such… events. She could feel the weight of it all around her. The world of baggage she had been carrying, no longer weightless under her years of strength and resistance, but crushing and faltering on her shoulders. The cracks she meticulously plastered and glazed to perfection were feathering back into existence.

          Don't... break... me...

A flicker of memories. A young raven-haired woman's disarming smile. A flash of white-blonde hair in the sun. Pale fingers wrapped around an unsteady, unsure hand.

          Don't... let... go...

A waning moon illuminating a garden of dark flowers. Soft whispers in the nighttime. Shadows curling on the walls against candlelight.

          Don't try to leave.

Footsteps down a corridor at dusk. Clenched fists. A muffled sob. An echo in an empty chamber atop a stone tower. The large glass window white with the reflection of the pale moon.

          Let your habits control you.

Silence.

Morticia, eyes glazed with distant interest in the rows of deadly flora around her, moved impossibly slow, hand outstretched. Hovering. Touching merely the air around each plant as she glided from one end of the conservatory to its center. The high walls and glass ceiling all but muffling the storm outside. Rain streaked the panes like fingers, desperate to catch a landing, but failing and falling to their death silently outside. A flash of lightning illuminated her silhouette.

          These blades I'm hiding.

The meeting not much more than hours earlier with the Nevermore Academy's headmistress had left her feeling… something. Distraught? Perplexed? Nostalgic? ...Longing? Morticia was a woman of many levels of feeling. Nothing was as simple or as flat as a single emotion. Happiness was not merely such; it was a sense of weight-lifting, a touch of admiration, sprinkled with a kind of calm for the soul, and perhaps a dash of selfish indulgence. Sadness, as well, a mix of complicated and sometimes contrasting feelings that melted into one dark impression. Like a bruise. These feelings, however, were far too many layers deep. As deep as the years that had buried them. And, like a wine, aged and deepened them only further.

          Keep safe the tidings.

Her initial reactions when crossing the gates into Nevermore had included wistful and sentimental memories of her shared years at the school, intertwined with the note-so-easily-hidden joy for her daughter to be a part of its history. The pride and admiration she held for the school swelling in her chest at the sight of its stone cathedral frame and towers. There was almost an uncharacteristic excitement to walk the halls once more. Like someone grown revisiting their purest childhood dreams, peaking at every corner to see how much it had changed and delighted by how much it hadn't. She had known from the signature and the admission letter who she would be in the presence of as they entered these hallowed grounds. Ghosts, not only of the campus, but of her past here, rising silently and watchfully from their graves to take sight of her. This one in particular, however, she had no canvas of feeling when meeting. Or rather, no canvas large enough to convey such feeling. Every cell of her being remembering the past

          Of bridges crossed that soon collapsed.

The very sight of Larissa Weems, a ghost of her former studentship, in the flesh before her. Her platinum hair was gracefully swept as it ever was. Her icy blue eyes, as they looked up from her desk, tearing through Morticia as they always had. Sharp. Almost painful. Enough to quickly remind you that you were alive. Alive enough to hurt. The familiar ache her gaze caused came rushing back. Sprinting through the years without a single touch of footfall to disturb them, only preserve them. Her breath had caught in her throat, only briefly, before the headmistress rose and spoke to them. Not allowing herself to be caught up in the frill and flower of old times, Morticia kept her composure as sure and as silent as she always had. But just below the black velvet and pale skin, electricity was crackling and pulsing, dormant for a spark to set it into visceral chaos.

          No fear of falling.

Pleasantries exchanged, formalities put forth, and then... a casualty she was not necessarily expecting from Larissa. A death in her character. An unpolished stone amongst the order. An old secret rearing its soft head quietly.

"Did your mother tell you we were roommates back in the day?"

There it was. A hair of a memory, plucked from the dark, heavy fabric of time and effortlessly placed into the present of that office.

Morticia anticipated no such offerings with the way their relationship was left those many years ago. This, in fact, was the last thing she expected Larissa to unearth. Perhaps, she surmised, she too was feeling the effects of their revisiting. Perhaps the air, the day itself, the circumstances, the very campus and rooms themselves, parted the lines of history —past and present— and created this linear space where the two conjoined. Like parting waves, the shore beneath showing, unblurred by refracting light and liquid. A moment in time holding its breath for the briefest of moments, as if it hadn't battered either individual in the ways that shaped them to this day. Time stood still.

And then, just as quickly as the odd, unique moment presented itself —uncharacteristic to all the involved universes— it was quickly swept back into place as if not to disturb the flow of time any longer than it had been allowed.

Morticia, genuinely happy to recall such memories. Larissa, genuinely distraught that she would let herself be fooled for an instant that Morticia, too, would recall them with such happiness.

          Endlessly calling.

In its aftermath, Morticia felt the wide arms of nostalgia wrapping around her, calling her to explore it. So she did. She returned to the Academy later that same day to reminisce, her doting husband absolutely thrilled by her desire to touch the stones of her past and reclaim its euphoria. She would allow herself until nightfall to endure such memories, recapturing everything she had missed in all those years. She had not, however, known the reach of things for which she would be recapturing.

Hours around the campus, eventually finding her way under the protective covers of the corridors when rain came to dance among the students and walls. It couldn't have been more perfect, she thought. Nothing pushes the joyful ache of nostalgia quite like rain. A storm, nonetheless. She closed her eyes and smiled, resting herself against a cold stone pillar. It was perfect in every way. A flash of lightning lit up behind her closed eyes, and then opened, wide with youthful excitement. Quickly, she turned and hurried along the stone walk, her heels clicking steadily as she made her way to the very place she knew she would not only feel the memories, but grasp them tangibly and smell their sweet, deadly longings. The conservatory.

          You make me feel like I'm alone.

As she crept into the enormous greenhouse within the conservatory’s space, her body sighed at the atmosphere. Everything was exactly as it had always been. Her favourite place as a student was here: Among the dangerous, poisonous, and carnivorous dark plants that lined the tables and walls. Fascination preserving them after all these years. She could smell the memories. Taste them just under her skin. The soil, the sharp vines, the cold steel of the tools. The ancient chalk and board. The resisting old oak desks that refused to let time take their toll on them. The rain outside had picked up, lightly drumming the glass and dulling the unimportant sounds of the world beyond. Exactly how she remembered this place. A secret solitude. A chamber for everything and all things, like a capsule, unsullied by time itself. True magic.

As she breathed in the scent of everything within the room and everything beyond the physicality of the room, she was flooded with scenes and memories and visions of her life within these enchanting walls. The years she had spent here. Like all the ancient and unwavering things of this room, her memories —just as preserved in here— came rolling through every one of her senses.

          Don't break me.

A finger lightly grazing the black petals of a midnight flower. A laugh. The soft scribbling of graphite on parchment. Hands clasped beneath the tables.

          Don't let go.

The creaking of the heavy wooden door hinges. A lock clicking into place. Dark hair spilling like ink. A flash of blue in the moonlight. A stifled sigh between parted lips.

          Don't try to leave.

An empty seat. The clang of metal and swish of sliced air. A drop of sweat hitting the floor like an anvil. Hands clenched, the knuckles cracking. The copper taste of blood.

          Let your habits control you.

Silence.

The door knob twisted and rushed to swing open.

There, lighted by a flashing from beyond the cold walls and crooked glass, at the crux of their existences both prior and concurrent to this moment, Larissa saw her as she pushed the door open. It was as though the storm outside had punched through the sealed threshold, a vacuum created. Sucking all of its force and impact into her with a ferocity she was nowhere near expecting. Her face frozen, as if laced by an icy wind. Her chest caught all of its air, as though her lungs refused to receive or give oxygen to the immediate ache in her ribs. Her fingers clenched tighter to the old, steel handle of the door. Every muscle in her body tensed, as if to be holding every thread of universe and fiber of time to resist it from pushing further into whatever this was before her. Perhaps, if she ceased to move, so would the grains of time cease to fall. And this moment cease to exist. Before it had the chance to wildly unravel into something she was wholly unprepared to be a part of.

The dark woman before her illuminated briefly, irregularly by the lightning outside, before the shadows of the large room folded gently over her once again. Like catching the glimpse of something just beyond the reach of one's eye, Larissa wasn't even sure she had seen what her brain was trying to register.

Morticia, unbothered and unwavering to any and all things in this life, as though she anticipated every moment seconds before they actually unfolded, remained still, her back to the door. Her eyes were low, still admiring the black foliage before her like an architect to their masterpieces. Her head rose just slightly, her shoulders still, even as her hand returned to its delicate hovering among the plants. Her wrist twisting, fingers following lightly, as though conjuring magic from the small space of air around them.

"I wondered if I might find you here," she spoke like silk slipping through palms, her words like satin against the storm just beyond them. As though she were not the one out of place here. And she turned, shifting her weight, to fully face the woman standing in the doorway. A soft curve formed at the edge of her lips.

Their eyes locked: Morticia's, gently, like a guiding hand; Larissa's, intense, like desperate fingers. Both of them holding the moment against the flow of time once more. The worlds they had created outside of one another ceased to exist, however briefly. And for once, the universe bent to their wills, allowing it, just this once.

There were no words to be spoken. The cosmos had granted them this space amongst the vastness of possibilities. A bubble within itself where everything precious had stood untouched, unchanged, unimaginably cloaked in the sameness of their youth. The rain seemed to lose all sound. Another flash of lightning, somehow unfollowed by the rumble of thunder. The air so quiet, you could hear the atoms crackle.

The most subtle of movements occurred in each of them, hardly perceptible. Morticia's head tilted slightly, lowering only millimeters, eyes still trained on the figure before her as her lips parted enough for air to attempt an escape. Larissa, in a return gesture of sorts, raised her chin only a fraction, something steeling in her eyes as they lowered, her jaw flexing.

It was a call and a response. A dare and a follow. A step and a parry. A dangerous invitation and a reverent acceptance. Their dance, as perfect in its finicalities as it had been all these years. Time stayed stopped, straining ever so slightly as it held. The room, the light, and the universe, in turn, bent to better hold its tension. It only wavered once. A blink. And then snapped.

Larissa broke the confines of time, shattering it completely, as she closed the distance between them like a glass being pressed too firmly in a grip until it burst. The splinters of every year between them slicing into her skin with each of her steps. The universe pleading to resist. Yet she felt no pain.

She lost no time where too much had already gone missing. Too much taken from her. From them both. She left no room for choices this time. No room for time to step in and take what was hers, even if only for this moment.

Decisively, she moved. And Morticia's presence, complicit.

          Don't break me.

Their lips crashed together, equal halves of the universe finally snapping back together after restraint. Parted waves violently merging. Gravity crumpling under its own weight. Walls slamming in around them.

          Don't let go.

Long fingers grasped and tangled into blackness. Pale hands pressing and pulling like a ragged tide. Passionate would barely be strong enough a descriptor. Volatile, hardly the locution. Desperate, an entirely wrong idiom. Years and lifetimes of longing cloaked in estrangement, dissipating in the snuffing of a candle.

          Don't try to leave.

Not even the thin veil of reality could keep them apart. At least, not physically. A vision of intertwinement kept them tethered, like a miles long ribbon wrapped about their beings. No manner of geography or rearrangements of the earth could shift them apart. Not in this life. And likely not in any other. Death was merely an audience member, and Life, a lucky participant.

          Let your habits control you.

A/N: no one-- and i mean no one-- EVER! has read anything that i have written before. with the exception of teachers of academics, my space-intrusive cat, and the unfortunate ones of my mother in my middle-school years stumbling upon a hand-written kim/shego fanfic in the mess of my room while cleaning (yowch) -- no eyes have ever seen my work.

to say that i am nervous is a gross understatement.

so please… be gentle with me, friends. critique as necessary (i truly value your input if you like it or not!). but be merciful (i beg of you!).

i first wrote this way back when season 1 first aired. i've kept it locked away until now (and with the supportive feedback of those in the tumble morissa community). if you enjoy any small (or great) part of this, then please let me know. i have plenty more to share if it tickles anyone. i am by no means excellent at writing. just hitting the keys when the inspiration strikes me.

thank you for all the kindness on my art-work! and now, here is some of my word-work: