𝐄𝐃𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐀 𝐇𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐑      so while it was sometimes a necessary evil, Ferris didn’t always know what it was to activate that primal protective mode in Edythe. Today was going so well, it was her birthday after all and while she rarely celebrated the occasion it was an event that Ferris wanted to share with Edythe. And it had been going so well. Now, after an off meeting with fans, Edythe was ready to kill and it had Ferris frowning in annoyance. Reaching out, she tugged Edythe around to look at her.  <<  What the fuck happened? >>   She was too upset to speak. While Ferris hardly ever knew her fan personally, they were people she was protective of. Fans were more than just readers of her work, they were people who understood her. People who liked the real her, the version of Ferris she always felt she was hiding and more often than not–  they were like her. People with curious interests and people outcasted from friends or family because they were different. They thought differently. They were passionate about the macabre and mysterious. Ferris liked her fans but Edythe? She looked ( and said as much ) ready to tear one of them into pieces.

Edythe cared. Ferris knew that much and she got it. Sometimes Ferris got anxious and paranoid around the vampire and wanted nothing more than to come between her and the person or persons upsetting her but there was a vast power displacement between the two of them. Edythe could read her mind, Edythe could easily end anyone and everyone here in this festival. She wouldn’t, well, Ferris believed she wouldn’t but it was a lot more dangerous for Edythe to be protective than it was for Ferris. And she felt guilty, momentarily, for maybe being so hard on Edythe. Maybe there was something Edythe knew she didn’t. Something she felt or heard in another’s mind but that bothered Ferris, too. Someone’s mind should be their safe space. Their little sanctuary where their thoughts are safe and everyone had thoughts sometimes. Sometimes Ferris thought about hurting or murdering someone. Sometimes she thought about other things but that didn’t make her dangerous. Thoughts don’t make someone dangerous and that was something Ferris felt Edythe forgot sometimes. “Planning?” Ferris repeated with an expression she wasn’t sure expressed her thoughts of frustration and disbelief, “Edie,” she sighed and rubbed at her eye, “People plan shit, okay? I’ve like thought about murder to an extremely–  extremely detailed extent, yknow? People plan terrible things sometimes but like that doesn’t always make them dangerous.”   << Sometimes a thought is just a thought, a plan is just a plan.  Yknow? >>   She could tell Edythe was just worried about her and Ferris scanned the festival once more before sighing lightly and looking at her shoes. Maybe this was a bad idea. She knew Edythe wasn’t a sociable type and at times like this, Ferris could see why. “Let’s go back to your place, ok?” She looked back up a Edythe with a soft smile and a lazy shrug,  << See what Alice’s up to. >>

        She can feel herself sinking. A little more, a little more. Her head’s hung low and her gaze stays fixed on the ground during the duration of Ferris’ dialog. She was a dog being admonished, it was a newspaper swatting her nose, and as a result her tail was tucking itself between her legs. Mouth slightly parts, tongue snakes past to wet lips as a breath is drawn. She wants to protest. The words are lined up on the tip of her tongue, ready to take flight, but her jaw snaps itself shut before they’re able to. 

        She’s sorry. She’s nine thousand times sorry. If she could flip a switch and turn it off, she would. Her telepathy? Please, Lord, you have to trust her when she says she wishes with the remainder of her soul that she could tune out the perpetual radio static inside the walls of her mind palace. “I know,” she finally says. “I’m sorry.” The static is something she can’t help, but she could absolutely be better about tuning in and reading too deep. 

𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐁𝐀𝐋 𝐎𝐑 𝐕𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐔𝐄𝐒,      she picked up on other cues. Such as the way Edythe stepped closer to her when one fan in particular started towards them; or the way her hand fell demandingly to the small of Ferris’ back as the taller woman began leading her away–  almost too quickly for Ferris to keep up. “Slow down,” she demanded, nearly tripping over her own feet as she tried to keep in tandem with Edythe’s longer stride, “I’m short dammit, I have short fuckin legs!” Suddenly, they veered away from the corn maze and in a different direction. There’s a possessiveness to the hold Edythe has on her or perhaps it was a fierce protectiveness, Ferris isn’t entirely sure, but something happened between then and now.

She had always known Edythe to be brooding and melancholy but this? This seemed– darker. A rage settling in the bird like bones that were never as fragile as she sometimes may appear. Ferris looked up at her friend and then scanned the crowd before digging her heels in and stopping them both abruptly. Ferris pushed at her hair and huffed a puff of air indignantly. “Why? What’s wrong with the corn maze?” she asked looking at Edythe with intense eyes. 

Trusting anyone wasn’t something Ferris had ever been good at, but she liked to think she had come a long way since meeting the Cullens. She respected the fact there would always be things she would not be on the inside of knowing and things they would always keep things from her for the safety of everyone, but this shouldn’t be one of those times. This time Edythe would have to look her in the eye and tell her what had been so bad and terrifying that she was all but dragging her towards the exit. “I don’t— I don’t think I ask for much,” she started as her emotions began spiraling into a vat of concern, worry, panic, and paranoia. She had seen something. She had to have. Edythe had been looking at her fans when she started getting weird and that worried her. She was around fans all the time without any kind of protection and if Edythe started making her question the intent on the only people who she felt knew her for her–  Ferris was afraid she’d give up the only thing she ever loved: writing.    <<  Tell me why you’re freaking out.  >>

        She stops, heels digging into the ground to bring herself to an abrupt halt. ‘I don’t think I ask for much.’ It was a stake through the heart, it was nail being driven through a coffin, it was what had rubber-banded her back to reality for a split second. Jaw clenches and unclenches while eyes remain wide open and fixed on the treeline ahead. Hand falls free from Ferris’ waist and balls into a fist, knuckles cracking from the pressure of fingers squeezing a palm. “I should go back and twist that man’s head off like a bottlecap.” There’s a bite to her tone, enough to bring forth the English accent she’s trained herself to hide in casual conversation. “I want to. But I won’t.” She’s thinking about it, turning over the idea back and forth in her head, mapping out how she’d do it. She’ll be thinking about it all night. 

        A handful of moments pass and brows twitch before furrowing, hesitating to turn and force her gaze onto Ferris. A pained expression crosses marble features and lips part to speak but no sound travels. The words are there, lined up on the tip of her tongue ready to take flight. However, they’re diminished whenever her mouth shuts, turning them into ash that leaves a lingering chalkiness in the back of her throat. She’s sorry. She’s sorry about her eyes, and the way they’ve darkened. She’s sorry about her voice, and the way it had acquired a sharp edge that cut and sliced. She’s sorry about her speed, and the way she forgets how much quicker she really is. She’s sorry about her strength, and the way everything else weighs next to nothing for her. She’s sorry about her haunting hunger, and the way her cravings never fully go away. 

        She’s sorry for how much she cares about you. It’s a little too much. 

𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐒 𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐘𝐄𝐓 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐃 𝐉𝐎𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐘.      “Yeesh,” she looked at Edythe and joked, “I don’t know. Balloons? Seems like you’re, like, asking a lot.” Her lips puckered slightly at the corner of her mouth as she hid a smile and looked back at her feet. She was never one for crowds but this time of year? Ferris lived for it. The smells of fried apples and apple orchards; pumpkin patches and corn mazes. Haunted houses and horror movies playing nonstop on cable. Autumn was Ferris’ time to thrive but even here in their small New England town, Ferris was drawing attention. It was always weird meeting fans or just people who recognized her. She waved slightly at a group of teens whispering and gesturing in her direction and some phone were pulled out for “sneaky” snapshots but Ferris went on her way.

“I think it’s like–  twice the size it was last year,” Ferris was telling Edythe as they headed towards the tall rows of corn. She reached for a map and read through some of the riddles. “Oh so you get a riddle and have to pick one of the answers and which answer you pick is the direction you go,” she looked at Edythe, “You’re gonna get us through this in like three minutes.” She smiled and shook her head, “You’re like–  a fuckin genius or something.”

Ferris turned when she heard her name and saw some fans nervously but excitedly coming up to her. They asked for her autograph and Ferris gave Edythe a nervous smile but nodded as some of her comics were presented to her. She signed them quickly and smiled awkwardly at her fans as they gushed to her about everything they loved about her work. “Thanks, man, uh, really. Glad you like them.” After a few quick selfies, her few fans scattered and Ferris gave Edythe an apologetic smile, “Sorry um, small town, yknow…it happens some times, I guess…. So, corn maze?”

        She steps aside as soon as the personal space they shared gets invaded. It’s out of courtesy, it’s out of respect. She’ll even push a faint smile to the surface while she observes from a distance. But her seemingly harmless observations come with a price, one that’s she’s so used to paying when wheels stop at the toll booth and idle amounts of change are chucked out the window. Though every once in a while, her internal radio tower will pick up on a frequency that’ll flip some switches on her soundboard and an alarm will go off. And that ‘every once in a while’ was happening now. Right now. Right this second. 

        Edythe reappears next to Ferris’ side in less than half a second, if you blinked you had surely missed it. A low but sinister growl stirs before clawing its way up from her chest to reside in the back of her throat as her hand goes to rest on the small of Ferris’ back while darkening eyes narrow on the last man to approach her friend. She wished she hadn’t heard what she heard but she did and it struck something deeper than a nerve from within. It riled up the animal in the cage, it poked and prodded sticks at it’s ribs and other weak points. 

        Eyes flutter, closing at the token of affection being bestowed upon her marble skin, refraining from squeezing shut too tight as she struggles with the ever ongoing internal war of woman versus beast that rages inside of her. They’d been close before, they’ve brushed atoms before, but none of those moments can compare to this one right now. She’d gotten use to holding her breath, she’d trained herself to time it just right before Nell’s scent could completely overwhelm her senses. But this was breaking her, this kiss was a sledgehammer being swung continuously at those levees she’d work so hard to build with skin and bones she'd dismantled by hand from the very skeletons she kept stored in the closets from the darkest rooms of her mind-palace. 

        This kiss was a second death in itself, and a painfully slow one at that, eating away at the very little sanity she had left. And she’d be a willing slave to Nell as her reaper, deliberately get on her knees and submit. 

        The tension from her muscles gradually releases and she’s craning her neck a little more, a little more to grant the other woman access to whatever and wherever she wished to go next. A bold move, perhaps born from wishful thinking that Nell would fully cross that threshold after only toeing around it. If she had a heartbeat, it would be skipping. If she had breath, it’d be hitching. If she had flowers in the gardens of her ribcage instead of weeds, they’d be blooming. But there’s a light there, just there, a single ray shining through dust clouds and cobwebs and it ignites a spark that sprouts a single rosebud from century old dirt and dead leaves. 

        It’s hope. 

        “Don’t stop.”