you better burn, witch

She blinked wide-eyed at Dani in the glittering dawn, her tear-soaked lips trembling, not understanding. “N-name?” Shosh repeated, and then followed the urgency of Dani’s eyeline to Clem’s body, clutched in Shosh’s arms. “C-Clem—her name’s Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy.”

Shosh had no idea what sort of strange magic Dani was performing, and she didn’t try to follow it; she kept her gaze fixed on Clem’s mouth, her split lip, the thin stream of air that went in and out, in and out—and Shosh never once allowed her bloodstained hands to break contact with Clem, cradling beneath her ravaged body tenderly.

She nodded when Dani said they needed to move, but then tensed in terror when she was asked to let Dani carry Clem. The only thing that Shosh knew with absolute clarity in this moment was that she could not—no, she would not let go of the woman in her arms.

“No!” Shosh snapped with a snarl, pulling Clem closer to her chest—harsh, perhaps, given Dani was only trying to help her, here. But the piano player was in shock, and the only thought that penetrated the delirium was how fiercely, how desperately she needed to keep hold of the other.

But somehow, mercifully, Dani seemed to understand, without Shosh having to stumble through half-conscious apologies. Together, they stood and gently lifted Clem, holding underneath her arms so that the two musicians carried the Hufflepuff’s weight between them. 

And then Dani began ripping into the very fabric of reality, and Shoshana readied herself to move with her into the void.

Dani hissed softly, the rush of power and knowledge that came with knowing a name. It wasn't quite the same amount of energy it might have been if Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy had offered to her herself, but it was more than enough. Dani closed her eyes for a second, fleeing a flutter of magic around her, around the name, spoken with a knife of love stabbed into the vowels and consonants. Even the way Shosh had said the name - like a desperate offering. It was tooth aching.

Dani was always happy with her abilities to hide rather than fight, to provide passage, and to duck into pockets of space only she could navigate.

She was, after all, a self-professed coward. Her Maman said there was no shame in it, in staying alive and safe, in keeping your loved ones alive and safe. Fighting back was good, but as Maman said, it was better to leave a thievery gone wrong than follow a sinking ship to the gallows or, worse, the depths.

But she could admire someone who fought back, as the tears and scraps on Celmentine Mei-Ling Priddy's body professed to them both. The panicked, terrified way that Shosh guarded the body told a story of love and desperation that Dani found a new respect for in her bandmate.

But love, desperation, and fear had no place when someone's life was on the line. Shosh surely couldn't handle her weight nor the speed at which Dani needed them to move, her head aching with pressure to keep the magical corridor open.

"Ya better hold tight to her then, an' don't fucking' scream either; I'm takin' ya both myself."

Dani crouched and pushed Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy's body into Shosh's lap, hurriedly arranging them like a babe carrying a kitten, and with a soft grunt, she lifted them both. Her frame didn't quake, nor did it bend, but she trembled with the combined strength of not dropping two bodies and keeping a bloody portal open. Shosh was sputtering and moving, but Dani growled, low and short in her throat.

"Hold still goddamn ya!"

Dani tossed her head back and ran straight through the corridor, thighs burning with the excess, blood dripping down her neck like beads of pink sweat. It was a short ten steps, but the moment each foot left the ground, it closed behind her with enough magical force to not just splinch Dani but send her flying through space and land in all manner of realms and places in the world. Two bodies hefted in her thin arms while her fingernails turned claws to keep a grip on Shosh's clothes and stop her from falling, which would inevitably kill all three in a gruesome manner that Dani would not think about.

Then she cleared the corridor, feet scraping to slow her momentum, and nearly rammed all three into the Clinic Door like a bad children's cartoon.

"DELILAH!" Dani hollered, voices pitched high, and a bit of blood dripped into her eye, "OLLIE! HELP!" Windows up the street slammed open; Dani's voice usually meant Aurors and people were made to run at her bellows. But instead of Val's little bird or the comforting face of Ollie, she came face to face with the She-Bitch herself, "Major Grey," Dani instantly recoiled, her least favorite person in the Den, a denizen part-time, a Healer always, an Auror with enough badges and kills and arrests and ambition to lead the Department. Not quite enemy number 1, but Dani harbored the same fear of Aurors for all of them, non-discriminatory.

"Healer Grey," came the correction with an exhausted huff. With a wave of the Auror-Healer's hand, weight was lifted from Dani's arms as Shosh was plucked like a squalling babe midair and pulled into the Clinic.

Dani began to babble, fear bubbling in her chest as Grey's med-coat flapped open and an Auror badge gleamed in the fluorescent lighting, "It's real serious-- I had to rush them here; it looks worse than those riots two summers ago--"

Grey's pale eyes snapped to Dani, who clammed shut. "Sit down and get some water—Delilah!" Val's bird poked from a room. "Use that silly little persuasion power you've got to calm the uninjured one down and get the other into the bed. I know you can manage levitation charms. She isn't bleeding out. We have a few moments before I begin. Now Royce, explain to me everything."

Dani whimpered under the eyes of an Auror, mouth snapping shut. Grey narrowed her eyes, "Don't you fuckin' dare Roy—" Dani sunk back into the wall and nearly wailed as Grey reached to grab her half-corporeal form. The Auror glared at the newly emptied space, except for a set of eyes glaring at her from a freshly made crack in the brick.

Grey stood there a minute examining the clinic room. Dani was sticky with blood and corraled quite literally into the wall. Shosh was a mess in Delilah's arms, cooing and snapping with her honeyed tongue in equal measure. Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy lay on an operation table, breathing a miserable hymn of blood in her lungs for an instrument. With the most pathetic sigh, Beatrice Grey pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and wished desperately for her own bed.

"This is the last time I decide to run Ollie's little pet project so he can take a blasted vacation. This is a mummer's farce, this entire settlement. Stay in your wall, Dani; you're of no help. Delilah, for fucks sake, shut her up and get in here. I need your hands. They're steady. So help me, Morgana. If this is cause you got into a spat with Aurors and dragged these two into it, I'm taking you in Danika Adeline Royce, see that I fuckin' won't."

Grey strode into the operation room, magic swirling around her right hand as she raised her wand, eyebrows knitting together at the collection of wounds. "Now, what in the fuck mauled you?"

But Dani knew, she could taste it on her blood and mixed with her magic - cat, big fucking magic cat, big magical fuckin' werecat. The scent soaked into Dani's jacket, shoes, pants, and boots, the curse already mixed with their blood. No stopping time, no magic could fix this. Permenant.

"I sure hope she ain't allergic to herself."

The absence of presence was not something Clementine was familiar with. To her, Presence meant that everything had always needed to be loud and apparent; it had always been the thing that bound her, kept her together — wrapped firm and tight and constant — that it stopped her from crumbling. Without it, it was suddenly clear she didn't know what to do.

It was the ensuing silence that had caused the realisation to dawn on her. She had expected something — anything — in the air after her reactive spellcasting, but there was nothing. No pounding of her heart, no ringing in her ears. Silence peppered with a fizz of arcane energy in the air.

Instead it was a warmth at her neck that set in; so pleasant and soft that it made her feel light. But it was different to the cool evening air she'd become used to in this southern climate, and it felt wrong.

Her senses sank back into her body, eyes fixed on the rigid, frozen body of the animal before her as her brain wracked to identify what sort of creature it might be.

The sudden need for air pressed at her lungs as she released the breath she'd been holding. It fell from her, damp and abrupt, and she tried to pull another breath inward before it near choked her, wetness catching.

Then began the moment her body started to tremble, the rapid pounding in her chest jerking a hand to the sensation at her neck, where the touch burned so hot and sharp and wet that it fused still in shock. The rest of her felt like it was about to be dragged down - swallowed whole into the earth with nothing to stop the fall. Clem pressed her wand hand against the bark of a nearby tree, nails digging deep into skin and wood as she braced herself and clung to something solid. Another gasp for air dragged clarity closer, eyes darting ahead of her in the evening twilight in the hopes someone - anyone - might be nearby.

But she was alone.

Deserted in the wilds of nowhere, isolated with herself and this… big fucking animal ahead of her, unsure if it was dead or temporarily paralysed. Whatever it was, was vast in size and resembled some kind of dark feline, and the more she tried to focus, the more her vision hazed.

A pressing voice in the back of her head told her she needed to leave. It screamed at her, piercing through the full-bodied fog, and barreled her flight response to the forefront of her mind.

It just so happened that the usual pressure of apparition was no longer familiar either. Pain burned white hot at the edge of her mind, threatening to overwhelm her and pull focus. But Clem insisted, determination set on the first place she could think of.

Clarity of a familiar world threw itself back into her vision — deep in the early morning corners Liverpool — and a brief relief seeped into her when she spotted the familiar manhole entrance.

But she struggled to stand, all balance off-kilter.

Why couldn’t she stand?

Her back hit a wall and knees buckled, body sliding to the floor. The pressure at her back poured a fresh and searing pain over her.

Right, Clem thought, Back is bad. Grabbed me from behind.

“Shit,” Clem hissed.

In a desperate effort to try and inspect the other damage, she battled to prise the remaining hand at her jaw and saw deep red; sticky, damp and warm.

Bad.

A reactive breath dragged wetness to her throat once more and she coughed, blood spluttering from her mouth and between the shreds of flesh that were left at her cheek. She pushed her hand back to her neck as firmly as could, but the pressure slipped amongst the wetness of everything.

Fuck.

The honest realisation of injury came at the cost of a thread of consciousness. Blind pain had began to seep away with each frantic pound of her heart, a weightlessness coming to her in waves.

But she really needed to move. The street was quiet and abandoned, no sign of aid around her. The metal cover on the ground ahead was her target for help, beckoning her to it.

Clem tried to stand again but stumbled.

With vision blurred at the edges, she tried a further bodily check to determine why she couldn’t hold her weight. A glance to her leg held deep red tears gashed across her jeans and into her thigh that hadn’t been there before… right?

Right.

Splinched.

So it was bad. Catastrophically fucking bad.

Things continued to slip.

Her vision shadowed as each breath demanded more focus.

No.

No.

She needed to get to the Den.

The entrance was there — right there — within reach if she could just move.

That defiance she always held inside her threw her forward, faltering steps landing on the entrance and the familiar sensation of being transported downward.

The landing threw her to the ground, impacting the concrete with a thud.

A fresh searing pain pulled a cry from Clem’s throat, wet and strained. Tears tracked her cheeks.

Fuck.

Everything hurt. Everything hurt and ached with the weight of pain. She had done what she needed, but now it was overwhelming.

The relief of safety made her nerves burn at her. It made not difference how she moved, it all hurt; so she pushed herself to sitting, slumped against the nearest wall. She couldn’t hear anything but ringing in her ears, and squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to offset the pain but it still seared through her.

She couldn’t hear the sound approach from behind her — footsteps on the hard ground — but saw the body pass her eyeline as she opened them, letting out a forced, pained and wet laugh.

Of course. One last final, patronising punishment.

"Surprise," she let out weakly, defeated and losing grip.

As Shosh had spent more time here over the past months and learned more about the culture of the people who dwelled here, she’d learned that air of raucousness was a small part of the Den’s appeal; the endless labyrinth of caverns always echoing with laughter and life, always teeming with some organic, ever-shifting, palpable energy that was alive and beckoning just around every corner.

But there were fleeting moments, few and far between, when everything stilled. Like now, in the brief window of time between after-hours reveling and the breaking of dawn, when the damp cave air was hushed and heavy and waiting—like a bead of morning dew waiting to drop.

It was into this tenuous stillness, the precarious ether between night and morn, that Shoshana walked; the towering heels of her boots thumped a beat against the stone that pulsed into the cavern around her and reverberated back, like an echo of the thunderous bass music she’d been moving her body to at Plasma since the sun had gone down, hours ago. She was the sort of satiated tired that belied a night of fun well had, and Shosh would have gone home to tumble into bed until noon, had she not realized she’d left the keys to her flat at the studio.

But even the trek from Plasma to White Witch didn’t dim Shosh’s good mood; in fact, she found herself humming into the treasured quiet, her voice soaring over the stillness with ethereal ease—

She rounded a bend, and the melody choked out in her throat. Because there in the shadows was a familiar figure—one that Shosh had last seen slouched in another alleyway. Familiar broad, proud shoulders shrouded in a familiar dark leather jacket.

And just like then, Shosh knew Clem’s brooding in the shadows was a meticulously crafted aesthetic, meant to intimidate and poised to strike. And though Shosh knew she had precious little left within her for Clem to take, she took a moment to allow the roiling in her stomach to settle, to hold her head up high and stride without wavering toward the other.

Shosh had almost closed the distance between them and still had not thought of a single cool, cutting thing to say when yet another sickeningly familiar sensation overtook her senses. She didn’t need to have a vampire’s senses to be hit headlong like a wayward bludger by the metallic stench of blood in the air.

A lot of fucking blood.

Immediately, Shosh’s mind emptied of every emotion besides gut-wrenching dread and she shattered the stillness of the air as she screamed, “Clem—!” She dove to the ground before Clem, snagging her stockings and the flesh of her knees beneath on loose stone. She shook her head, eyes wide with horror as she took in every leaking gash, the ashen pallor of the other’s skin…

Clem slumped woozily to one side and it was instinct for Shosh to reach out and steady her before she fell to the ground. Her fingers, which were adorned with delicate black lace gloves, were trembling as warm blood soaked through the flimsy fabric, coating the creases of her hands but holding firm despite the way Clem’s hiss of pain made her flinch with distress. Shosh searched the Hufflepuff’s gaze as Clem struggled to maintain focus, the fight she was so accustomed to seeing there looking damn near defeat. “Clem, hey—look at me, okay? Stay with me…what happened?”

But this time Clem demanded her eyes open, desperate to see her; to see Shosh. Because Shosh was here. Sho. Sho. Wide-eyed and worried in front of her, but in front of her nonetheless… right? Her brows creased in thought, uncertain at the sight in front of her as ambient light dizzied across her view.

By Merlin, had Clem fucked up.

She realised that now. She had been so angry. She was so tired. Was she always this tired? Where did she ever find the energy to be so angry in the first place? She really should've told her.

Clem pressed a damp, stained hand to Shosh’s cheek and gave a weak smile, a sense of warmth underneath her hand despite every inch of her body weak with an increasing weightlessness. Real. She was so thankful that Shosh had found her; that she could see those eyes — those that had a corner of them just for her, but always uncertain whether or not Shosh knew about it. It was okay if she didn’t; she could rest there for now. It was that clarity and comfort that allowed her relax, the reassurance of safety letting her calm finally as darkness pressed into the edges of her sight.

She was so tired, but maybe now it was okay to rest. "'m sorry," she pressed out as broadly and wholly as she could, giving a weak smile in the hopes it was reassuring. With eyes focused shakily on Shosh, everything around her pressed black.