#* allyson.

alana’s smaller than michael, than corey, than cameron. frail, almost. the doctor who’d operated on her knee had told her she had bird bones—she remembers that, at least, through the haze of morphine and whatever else that’d been pumped into her system after her blood-soaked clothing had been cut off of her. what he hadn’t told her was that her mother lay dead just a floor above, so maimed she’d needed a close-casket funeral like vicky, like cameron, like oscar, like corey, like doug, like her father—everyone.

too many funerals. the last one she’d been to had been to lay the boogeyman to rest for good, and she’d thought there’d be finality in it—which there was. but it’d been fleeting. too often she forgets he’s not out there, too often she looks over her shoulder, and too often she wonders if alana will somehow be next in his endless pursuit to destroy her, even hundreds of miles away.

she’s asked alana about dr. lecter, because of course she has, and she knows that despite his incarceration, he remains a boogeyman in his own right.

“if i were to do that—i don’t even know what flowers you like. if you even like them so—do you even like them?” allyson asks with a sheepish little smile, momentarily drops her gaze when alana stares back up at her with such an intensity in her blue eyes that it almost makes allyson feel shy, which she’s never been a day in her life. she lifts her gaze back up to alana, cups her face with long, elegant fingers.

her thumb traces over alana’s cheekbone fondly.

“i don’t think anyone’s ever said anything like that to me before,” she murmurs. corey had offered to burn it all to the ground for her, and she’d wanted to for a long time. the thought doesn’t sound as appealing when she’s with alana.

her therapist tells her she has a tendency to foster codependency, but this feels warm, good, unlike the intense oil fire—the amor fou—that her and corey had been.