Of course, she’d thought about it — if there were any way to return to her former glory. Doctors assured her the damage was irreversible, suggesting new hobbies to fill the void of the craft she’d dedicated her life to, as if anything else would compare. She’d gotten word through one of her students’ moms, the plastic surgery type who probably contained enough silicone to be considered an android. There was a doctor who didn’t fear risk but craved reward, and Peach hopes they could see eye to eye on the matter.
The blonde had been cautious not to alert anyone to their meeting or the location he’d sent her.
Perfect. That’s all she wanted to be. The way she used to. Was that so much to ask? A want that was unachievable any other way. There was only one answer to the ache in her chest, which made the muscles in her throat tighten and stomach drop to her heels. There was no other option, not for Peach.
The room was dingy, as if it had yet to be decorated, yet deteriorating at the same time. Time — it broke everyone down eventually. There was no running from that, only putting on another layer of spackle and paint to pretend the inevitable hadn’t taken its toll. The doctor resembled his environment, but she wondered which took after which. Both seemed to lack the liveliness her signature pastel-pink wardrobe emitted.
“Do you think you can fix it?” The hand around her neck, the bitters in her cup, her own tendons tightening and holding their dancer back. “They tried before, after I’d been dancing on it for an entire season.” That had been the nail in the coffin. A final performance before Peach accepted the irreparable damage. “But it’s never been the same.”
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And therefore known for their raw lens on romantics. Ugliness can be beautiful, beautiful can be ugly, and it all gets wrapped up in some sick-lovely bowed erotic. And although her ideologies bloomed far past what it was born upun, culturally she remains all the pieces that founded her. Just as he, with that Germanic tug in voice giving him away, is culturally a sharp contrast to her. Her tone is play, soft and fragile. She smiles into the punctuation.
❛ I am afraid, most days, Leon. ❜
Of what? Who's to know today. Not her, who seems that for every self-aware foot forward there's at least three steps back. But 'afraid' isn't the right term for this moment. ⸺ And by extension ... she is not afraid of him, despite the eerie tickle she gets on the back of the neck if she watches him too closely. He seems shadowless, all dressed in black. Even when he bent for observersative and smalled himself by half, the light does not go through him but instead around him. His face moves around the scar on his brow. ⸺ So, he's right in what he assumes but it is less relevant to her current thinking.
❛ This is all ... sad. What happened to the water? ❜
Her soul's keening.
Bodies deserve proper farewells. They should be buried under fruitful dirt, planted with new seeds, so life can and will begin again. This opposites that. And does not fold into her delicate-mind easily. Death has never been simple nor disconnected from attachment. Made especially hard to intake when congestion weighs her cheekbones a little heavier than normal. It turns out the cooler air isn't remedy enough. Maybe she is getting sick afterall. The wind picks up the flimsy fabric of her skirt. The sun hanging lower and lower in the sky makes the temperature start to drop. She stops in a sun spot before looking back at him, noticing now how far she's walked ahead of him.
frankie had been braiding her hair when she caught him looking.
not staring in the way the men in the facility used to stare, with hungry little eyes and clipboards full of questions they already thought they knew the answers to, but looking all the same. quietly. INTENTLY. as though they had become a language he could almost read if he stayed patient enough. the thought should have irritated her more than it did. some nights, it did. other nights, especially ones like this, with the fire burning low and the alaskan dark pressed against the windows, they found themself wondering whether they minded being seen by him at all.
that was the DANGEROUS part, she thought.
their fingers kept moving through the long red strands, crossing one section over the next until the braid began to form over their shoulder. it still felt strange, having hair this long. strange, too, how much she liked this house. alaska was cruel in its own way, all ice and teeth and endless white, but there was a KINDNESS in its isolation. the ocean existed here, yes, black and ancient beneath the winter, but it didn't call to her with the same fury. it didn't claw at the inside of her skull every hour of every day. here, the water sounded farther away. here, they could almost pretend they weren't being hunted by every life she had ever survived.
maybe that was why she liked it. maybe that was why they liked HIM. the realization made her fingers pause.
across the room, leon was no longer pretending to read. his book sat useless in his lap, open to a page she doubted he could name, and his gaze lifted to meet hers the instant she looked over. for a moment, neither of them moved. firelight caught in his glasses, turning his eyes unreadable behind the reflection, and frankie felt that old instinct rise in them — half amusement, half warning. sometimes she wondered if he was trying to study her. sometimes they wondered if he had already learned too much.
then he stood.
her brow lifted a fraction. the braid slipped from her fingers, unfinished, hanging loose against their collarbone as he crossed the room. there was no medical reason for him to come closer, no thermometer, no bandage, and no quiet check of her pulse. for once, leon grey seemed to be moving without a reason he could explain away. that alone made them tilt their head, curious despite themself, watching him with the bright, wary attention of a creature who had survived too many CAGES to trust an open hand.
when he stopped beside the couch, she leaned her head back to look up at him.
“doctor,” they murmured, almost teasing, though the word came out thinner than they meant it to.
the brush of his knuckles along her cheek took the rest of the thought from her.
for all their centuries, for every mouth they'd lured beneath the water and every man who had mistaken WANTING them for knowing them, frankie hadn't expected tenderness from him. not like this. not from the man who talked with clinical precision and spoke to her as if she were a person before she was a miracle, a threat, a myth, and a problem to solve. his touch was careful enough to make them ache with suspicion; careful enough to make them want to lean into it anyway.
so, she did.
the kiss came after, hesitant only in the way of a man trying not to take more than he was given. frankie’s eyes fell shut the second his mouth met hers. a terrible, quiet part of them understood, even then, that this was the exact point where the story turned AGAINST them. there would be consequences. there always were. men like leon didn't kiss monsters in isolated houses at the edge of winter and go unpunished by the world for it. sirens did not crawl onto land, hide in a doctor’s home, and get to keep the warmth they found there.
still, she kissed him back. maybe that was their fatal flaw. maybe after centuries of surviving, she still wanted one beautiful thing BADLY enough to ignore the shape of the ending.
when leon pulled away, the loss of him felt immediate. his hand left their face, and his gaze dropped to the floorboards as if shame had found him faster than breath. frankie watched him for one long second, lips parted, unfinished braid slipping down her shoulder. for a moment, they saw the line he'd crossed settling over him, saw him trying to fold himself back into the man who knew better.
no.
she sat up onto her knees before he could retreat too far, the couch cushion dipping beneath her weight. their fingers caught in the front of his shirt, not rough enough to frighten, but firm enough to tell him they weren't letting him DISAPPEAR inside his guilt.
“don’t do that,” she said quietly.
then they tugged him down.
this time, she kissed him.
there was nothing accidental about it. no borrowed courage, no fragile permission hiding beneath restraint. frankie kissed him as if they'd decided, for one disastrous second, to be honest with themself. one hand stayed twisted in his shirt while the other rose to his jaw, holding him there, keeping him close enough that he could feel the answer she hadn't yet figured out how to say aloud. yes. i wanted that. yes, i want you. yes, this is probably going to ruin us.
the thought should've been enough to make them stop.
consciousness returned in fragments; cold first, then the ache behind her eyes, then the unfamiliar weight of a body that hadn’t fully remembered how to move yet. frankie surfaced slowly, breath catching sharp in their throat as they jolted awake against unfamiliar sheets. not stone. not seawater. not the rusted metal cot from the facility. a BEDROOM. dark walls washed blue by early morning light leaking through half-open blinds. somewhere nearby, plumbing rattled softly through old pipes. her pulse kicked violently anyway. for one horrible second, they thought they were still there — strapped down beneath fluorescent lights while gloved hands touched their throat like they were an ARTIFACT instead of a living thing. the memory came back in fractured flashes; a crowded bar, amber liquor, someone smiling too pleasantly before the taste turned bitter on her tongue. then nothing except restraints cutting into their wrists and voices speaking through glass about vocal frequency and cellular anomalies. like she was livestock. like they were finally CAUGHT.
she sat up too fast. the room lurched sideways. their stomach twisted hard enough to make them hiss beneath their breath, fingers gripping the blankets as instinct screamed at them to RUN. it had kept her alive for centuries, that instinct. long before cities existed. long before they learned how to wear HUMANITY convincingly enough to pass through it unnoticed. every attachment she’d ever allowed herself had eventually rotted beneath the weight of what she was. lovers obsessed beyond reason. friends driven half-mad by prolonged exposure to their song. bodies in OCEANS. bodies in BEDS. bodies at the bottoms of CLIFFS after begging her for another note. immortality had stopped feeling grand somewhere around the third century. after that, loneliness simply became architecture; permanent and unavoidable.
movement shifted somewhere beyond the doorway.
frankie’s head snapped toward it instantly, every muscle going taut despite the lingering weakness in their veins. the air itself seemed to tighten around her in response, ancient INSTINCT brushing at the edges of her throat before she swallowed it back down hard. no singing. not yet. a man stepped into view carrying a mug in one hand like he was trying not to startle a wounded animal. human. tall. dark hair. no lab coat. no gloves. but they knew better than to trust appearances; they’d spent CENTURIES weaponizing their own. fear crawled cold beneath her skin anyway as she pulled farther back against the headboard, staring at him like she might bolt through the wall if he moved too quickly. their voice came rough from disuse when they finally forced it out. “WHERE am i?” a beat; sharper this time despite the exhaustion dragging at every limb. “what’s going on?”
for a moment, she hated how human she sounded. confused. frightened. SMALL. it felt humiliating after surviving empires and shipwrecks and gods themselves. demeter had cursed them LONG before this man’s bloodline even existed; they had drowned armies in storms and watched kingdoms collapse into dust. and still, waking up drugged and restrained had terrified her in a way she couldn’t fully explain. maybe because, for the first time in centuries, they’d come terrifyingly close to becoming someone else’s POSSESION. her gaze flickered quickly around the room again, searching exits automatically before settling back on him. “if this is another facility,” they said quietly, something dangerous slipping beneath the words now, “you should know i won’t survive it POLITELY.”
