#willowhaunted

✧ — THE LOST BOYS PROMPT📼

❝That sounds horrific actually,❞ she murmurs with a CRINKLE of her freckled nose. SUNLIT whiskey gaze studying the figure in front of her before flicking to the BOARDWALK to their right, SEARCHING the distance before returning to her.

before jeremy even has a chance to cut her off, despite his good intention, she lifts her glass to painted lips and throws back the last dregs of her whiskey. it BURNS the whole way down, and despite her best effort, quinn's nose scrunches up and she sticks her tongue out at him. manicured nails reach for her water and she sneaks a quick sip.

❝ what, don't trust a girl t'get herself home, cowboy? ❞ the younger werewolf bats her lashes up at him, elbow resting on the smooth edge of the counter as she sets her chin on her palm. they've done this song and dance before, and there's nothing more that she loves than to tease jeremy relentlessly. 

Cherry couldn't help but focus on the loud sound of beating hearts around her, so she had opted to distance herself from them, hoping she would be able to overcome this sudden hunger. But then came the lady asking her if she was okay. Cherry didn't dare to face her, having trouble keeping her regular face from shifting. She could feel the teeth in her mouth shift, feel her eyes burning, feel her hands even burning. Her claws wanted to take shape, her eyes wanted to change color, but she wasn't going to lose control now. All she needed to do was feed, but on an animal, not a human, of course.

"Please... just leave me be... I am okay," she sounded, but she wasn't fine. She was doing horribly. "You smell so wonderful, though..."

@willowhaunted | from this

deft fingers tuck the last few tubes of pigment back into the polished wooden box of her kit, her face tucked away and hidden beneath the curtain of her own thick curls. quinn couldn't, or maybe wouldn't, meet his gaze. there was something in the ranch hand's voice that was DESPERATE, pleading, that scared some part of her. she'd long known that jeremy was a man of little to no sentimentality. it was one of the things she liked about him.

where other men jumped through hoops just to speak to her and lavished her with endless affections and meaningless words and objects, jeremy's presence alone was enough to reassure her of his feelings. it was enough for her.

so to have him all but beg for even a simple acknowledgement from her? something was wrong.

with a small sigh, she finally stills, her eyes lifting to find the cowboy's beside her.

emails i can't send / @willowhaunted

august sixth.

to most people, derek machado just a name - he's a footnote in niklaus mikaelson's checkered history, if nothing else. to klaus, derek would've been an unintended variable.

to maia and ethan machado, he's their estranged uncle.

to their mother, sheriff cora machado, he's an estranged younger brother.

(to tripp cooke, he must have been a murderer. ditto for tripp's wife, kriss.)

to me, he's my sire, and a deeply, deeply haunted man. because i don't know what i would have done if a mikaelson and a salvatore sauntered up, up and into the place i made my home and then proceeded to rip it all to pieces for the sake of what basically amounts to a science experiment.

and don't get me wrong, i love a good experiment, and if things hadn't gone the way they'd gone, i wouldn't be here right now.

but when we met, in the cemetery of maple hollows, he'd been in so much pain. the kind of pain you wouldn't want to wish on anyone. not even on your worst enemy.

it was like i was watching something i had no business watching. it was private. it was personal. or at least, it was supposed to be.

and i know this is going to sound silly, coming from someone who literally wants to know all the things and wants to see all the things to glean knowledge from said things, but some things truly aren't meant for certain eyes.

even before i got turned, i felt like he was giving me a sneak preview of the one part of vampirism that i will never be comfortable with: the part where i lose the people i love. to the hands of time. to violence. to... whatever or whomever takes them out of the world.

much like my sire, i'm going to look like this forever. but unlike my sire, i didn't get turned during the worst day of my life.

that part came afterwards.

@willowhaunted | from this

the witch lifts her gaze from where her cards were splayed across cass' bar top, a small but amused smile lighting up her face. she lifts her hands in mock surrender, nose scrunching up as she laughs.

❝ what, don't have any faith or interest in what they might be tryina tell YOU? ❞

violet turns in her seat, reaching for the still-cold bottle cass was kind enough to get her before proper opening hours. she'd been spending enough time here that she figured she might as well pick up some hours as a backup bartender.

@willowhaunted | from this

❝ once upon a time it was, sure, ❞ wyatt hums softly.

arms fold over his chest and he leans against the hastily painted wooden frame of the chapel they were standing in. his eyes scan across the interior, over pews, votives, and a simple wooden altar. the vestments were tinged with green and embroidered with gold thread. ordinary time; a time of work, a time of a time for learning, and a time for kindling hope after deep loss. how APPRPOS a metaphor for the only church in angel plains, oklahoma.

❝ after that…. after LUCY and his boys had their fun and the chapel was burnt to a cinder, town decided not to rebuild it for awhile. sometime in the last uh.. two-ISH years, years ago my daddy an' some of the other townsfolk came together and rebuilt his old barn into the NEW chapel we're in. ❞

wyatt turns his gaze towards her, something scarred and something soft in them.

@willowhaunted | from this

❝ hey, HEY! don't touch anythin'-- we don't know what's cursed and what ain't, sugar.  ❞

wyatt pauses mid step, turning to glance back at willow behind him. her hand was still outstretched, ready to poke one of the dangling, rusted farm tools of the garage they'd found themselves in. it wasn't OFTEN that the hunter outsourced help, but she was a conduit-- - and her natural affinity for sensing spirits was the best thing he had available to him on such short notice.

the hunter gives a quiet motion to follow, tilting his head towards a nearby door.