Nightmare (Hierofania fic: Douglas/Crocket)

i. Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again. – Richard Siken

She couldn’t believe that she had dreamt about him.

If it had involved a well-deserved punch to his kisser or wiping that hateful smile off his face, Crocket would have welcomed it.  Instead, he had rained kisses on her face and traced a path down her neck with his tongue.  He had covered her in gentle caresses and filled her ears with the sweet whispers of her name.

All the laws of logic demanded that Murphy should have at least been the culprit.  Crocket decided that it was simply the result of respecting her captain too much and eating something bad last night.

Regardless, she didn’t have any idea how she could possibly face Douglas that evening.

“Did you sleep well last night?” he asked over dinner.  “I could hear you making noise all the way from where I was.  Did you have a nightmare?”

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Crocket didn’t dare to lift her eyes from the bowl of wild berries in her lap.  “S-Something like that.”

“You know how to get rid of nightmares, don’t you?”

“By punching you in the face?”

“No.  You didn’t tell me you dreamt about me.”  Even without looking at him, Crocket could hear the annoying smirk in his voice.

She stole an upward glance to shoot her steeliest glare at him.  “Before you get the wrong idea, it’s not the kind of boogieman nightmare where you’re running away scared or having to hide under the covers.”

“Oh, really?  What kind of dream was it then?”

“It was…it was…i-it’s none of your business!”  She stabbed one of her berries with a twig that doubled as her fork and jammed the sweet fruit into her mouth.  “It’s only because I’m stuck seeing you every single day.”

“And whose fault do you think it is that this cage is here?”  Chuckling, Douglas gestured to the surrounding bars with a sweep of his hand.

He didn’t need to remind her.  She had bruised her fists against the metal and dented her boots until she realized the futility of it all.  She had also grown sick of Douglas’s poorly concealed sneers and patronizing remarks.

In Crocket’s mind, she had no doubt Stockholm syndrome was one of the many reasons that she dreamt about him.  She didn’t know much about the condition, but she was sure that it played a part.  She couldn’t possibly have feelings for such an irritating guy, who couldn’t hold a candle to Murphy.

Shaking her head, she muttered, “No way, no how.”

“Crocket, are you even paying attention to what I’m saying?  I hope you haven’t completely snapped.  It’s starting to sound like you’re talking to yourself.”

“What?  You were saying something?”  As soon as Crocket’s head bounced up, she realized her mistake.

Douglas had moved from his side of the cage to crouch in front of her.  The intensity of his eyes rooted her to her place, and when he spoke, she couldn’t keep her gaze from following the movement of his mouth, his lips drawing back against white teeth.

“I said…”  He reached out to cup her chin in his hand, and she tried not to remember how those fingers had glided down her skin.  “You know how to get rid of nightmares, don’t you?”

Douglas leaned closer until his lips very nearly brushed against her ear.  Crocket tried not to shiver but forgot how to breathe.

“Accept my offer.”

Hearing those words, the heat simmering in Crocket’s belly turned to ice and snapped her out of whatever spell that he had cast upon her.  Jerking her gaze back up, she met his eye and snarled out one word.

“Never.”

Douglas’s fingers uncurled from her chin.  “A pity.”  The back of his hand grazed against the side of her quivering neck before falling away.  “Not to worry.”  He rose to his feet.  “You still have one day left.”

Turning on his heel, he headed for the door of the cell, leaving her alone in her tiny frame of a prison.

ii. When one of us dies
let the one who lives
travel underground – Joseph Stanton

She could still remember the first time that she tried to leave.  Like any brave knight, Crocket had charged headfirst with her sword swinging.

In stories of old, the hero always defeated the dragon guarding the castle’s gates, but unfortunately, her life wasn’t a fairytale.  Before she could even reach her destination, Douglas had caught hold of her offending wrist, suspending the path of her wooden blade.
With all her might, she fought to free herself from the dragon’s clutches, but his strength belied his slender build.

She resorted to the use of her left hand, but by then, it was too late.  He had apprehended it just as he had with her right and then shoved her forward until her back slammed against the bars.  She would have swung her legs at him, but he had scarcely left any space between their bodies.

Pinned against the wall of the cage, she could do little more than scream at him, “Why are you doing this?!”

“Why, you ask?”  His laughter fell as warm breaths against her cheek.  “Is your memory that poor?  You abandoned me here first.”

At his words, a cold wave washed over her.  “But I…I came back for you.  I thought – I heard Deedra laughing, so I was sure it couldn’t be that bad.  But when the stranger told me what happened, I came back to help you.”

“Not soon enough.”  Douglas’s grip practically seared her wrists.  “It would have been better if you had continued on your way.  If you weren’t trying to fix your mistakes, that never would have happened to me.”

Beneath the weight of his narrowed gaze, Crocket could feel the strength draining out of her.  Her lips were like rusted cogs, scarcely capable of churning out two words.  “I’m…I’m sorry.”

He eased his grasp, which would leave behind red marks that would unfailingly bring the finality of his words to mind.  “You sound like you really mean that.  You probably do.  But I didn’t raise this subject to earn an apology.  Unlike you, I’m not trying to make myself feel better.”

“What do you mean?”

“You came back for yourself.  You had made a mistake and hoped to assuage your guilt by correcting it.  Do you deny that your motivation was selfish – at least in some small part?”

She couldn’t think of a response when she didn’t really know the answer herself.  It wasn’t exactly confirmation, but he likely interpreted her silence that way.

“You will stay here and think about what it is you’ve done.  Contemplate the truth.”  He began to unwind his fingers from her tender wrists.  “Tell me when you’ve decided how you would like me to punish you.”

iii. ‘The blade is so sharp -
It cuts things together
- not apart.’  – David Whyte

Time had changed Douglas into something cold and hard like steel.  Crocket could see it in his face and hear it in his voice when he paid her a visit later that evening.

“Have you come to a decision yet?”  A smile was on his lips, but he wore it like a mask.  His eyes offered no warmth and his tone was so utterly devoid of amusement that it was nearly as if she were a toy quickly losing interest for him.

When she replied, Crocket tried to keep the hope out of her voice.  “Have you come up with any other options for me?”

The right corner of Douglas’s mouth quirked upwards in semblance of his old self.  “Live or die.  Choose.”

“Well, you know I rather live, but if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then my answer hasn’t changed.  You might as well kill me now.”

“You still have one more night.  Sleep on it, Crocket.  You make light of death only because it hasn’t happened to you.  If it does…well, I think you’ll find that it is indeed your worst nightmare.”

That night, Crocket didn’t dream about her captor.  She had only one more evening, and she would see to it that every possible second went towards figuring out an escape.

Throughout her imprisonment, she had come up with several ideas that either failed outright or never saw the light of day.  This time, she felt like she had a real winner, but she would have only one shot.

She put her plan into action when Douglas brought her meal at his usual time the following evening.

Crocket began by making casual conversation in the only way that she knew how.  “So, when you are going to kill me?”

Douglas’s reply was matter-of-fact.  “We can discuss that after dinner.  I’m not so cruel as to deprive you of your meal.  Finish it and then tell me your decision.”

“I don’t need any more time to think!”  She pounded her fist against the floor in a show of rage that wasn’t entirely a pretense.  “If it’s going to be this way, then I might as well do it on my own terms!”

“Calm yourself, Crocket.”  In just a few quick steps, he was at her side, taking hold of her wrist.  “All your tantrum will achieve is pain and humiliation for yourself.  See?”  He raised her balled hand, which had clenched her twig of a fork hard enough to draw blood.  “You’ve already hurt yourself.”

He slid a thumb across her palm to relax her grip before bending his head and pressing a small kiss to her injured fingertips.  Douglas’s actions were unexpectedly gentle, like a soft rain, but Crocket couldn’t allow him to divert her attention now.  She had done all this to distract him from her true goal.

Hefting up the bowl in her free hand, she smashed it against the back of his skull.

At the impact, Douglas thumped against the floor amidst the clattering of a dozen porcelain pieces, which glistened white in the moonlight that streamed through the windows on the right.  Dark red pooled around his head, and Crocket’s stomach lurched at the sight.

She had never killed anyone before.  She couldn’t help but wonder whether she just had.

She soon dismissed that thought as nonsense.  He couldn’t have died so easily, and she couldn’t afford to waste any more time thinking about it.  She still had to find the princess and complete her mission.

With her mind fixed on her goal, Crocket shot to her feet and stepped over Douglas’s prone body.

Almost as soon as she had, a frigid hand clamped onto her ankle from behind and jerked her backwards.  Uttering a cry of surprise, Crocket swung straight against the floor, her forehead striking the stonework with a terrible cracking noise.

Agony overwhelmed her senses but only for a second.  In an instant, bony fingers grasped her shoulder and flipped her onto her back.

The piercing hue of Douglas’s eyes made every hair on Crocket’s body stand at full attention.  She didn’t think that she could untangle anything from her jumble of thoughts, but all the same, she struggled to push out her voice.  Yet, she could only draw in a gasping breath, wreathed in pain.

On the other hand, Douglas spoke with frightening ease.  “I realize now that I was being too kind in allowing you to decide.  It isn’t really a punishment if I let you choose, you see?  So, I will.”  His fingers brushed her cheek with the same daintiness that one would use when wiping away a tear.  “You say you want to die?”

He took hold of her other shoulder with a smile that chilled her to the core.  

“I’ll do just the opposite,” he said.  “I’ll let you live.  To tell you the truth, that’s actually what I preferred.”

As Douglas bit down on his lower lip, Crocket tried to muster a protest, but by the time that she gathered her strength, he had thrust his mouth against hers.  She could feel her jaw drop open, leaving her vulnerable and unguarded to his advances.  Most of all, she could taste the unpleasant copper of his blood from where he had bit his own mouth.

Crocket flung her face to the side, but she couldn’t shake him.  Regardless of how she flailed her body, he simply clung to her with the tenacity of a shark until he finally chose to withdraw.

While she gasped for precious air, Douglas lowered his face, his nose barely touching the side of her neck, and he whispered against her hammering pulse, “Now, I’ll take your life.”

With the tips of his red hair tickling her skin, he deeply inhaled her scent before sinking his fanged teeth straight into her flesh.

iv. Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. – Richard Siken

Crocket didn’t resent Douglas for changing her.   After all, it was her fault that he became a vampire.

After the stranger had informed her about Douglas’s whereabouts, Crocket had resolved to free him.  Since she was rotten at logic puzzles, she decided to check out one of the adjacent room, where she inadvertently woke a slumbering vampire.

With a lot of swift-footed maneuvering, she managed to avoid her death, but she was unable to prevent her enemy from reaching Douglas.

Despite his entrapment, he put up an excellent fight, which was precisely how the vampire’s blood subsequently splattered across his lips.  He had then died with it in his system.  Crocket would have faced her demise shortly afterwards, but in just the nick of time, Douglas returned as one of the undead.

Together, they had vanquished the vampire, and once it was over, Douglas cut their celebration short by forcing her into the cage.

“You know me, Crocket,” he had said with an almost catlike smile.  “I can’t have anyone making me look bad.”

If Deedra, his master, or anyone else learned about his transition, they would stake him or, worse still, deliver an ungraceful beheading.  Out of the goodness of his heart, Douglas had offered Crocket the choice of either becoming a vampire like him or dying with his secret.  At the time, she had been vehemently against the former, but she could no longer understand her reasons for refusing.

As she breezed through the woods, she relished the power of her legs, swifter than any human feet, and savored the cool feel of the wind upon her heightened senses.  The darkness brought everything into striking clarity like never before, and nothing could escape her eye.

In one final surge, she leapt upon her prey, bringing them crashing to the ground.  She could hear the pulse of his heartbeat, which thundered in an addictive song that called to her as surely as the blood rushing through his veins.  She bent her head to bite into his succulent flesh until her gaze caught on the victim’s face.

She recognized him.  He was the town blacksmith, the man who had always bested her in battle.  This time, he was no match for her, and yet, his familiarity hurt her beyond words.  It made her draw back from him, recoiling as though he were the rising sun.  She took flight before he could chance an upwards glance and recognize his old sparring partner.

Like one chased, she went deeper into the woods, breathless and without a clear destination in mind.  She ran until the smooth drawl of a well-known voice brought her to a halt.

“Why did you stop yourself?”  Standing between the frost-covered trees, Douglas had one hand braced upon his hip.  “Your appetite must be ravenous by now.  This is the first time you’ve been out since…well, what must feel like ages to you.”

“I know him,” she rasped, scraping the words out from her bone-dry throat.

“‘Knew’ would be the more appropriate term.  You knew him when you were human, not as you are now.  That is the most basic grammatical lesson, Crocket.  No matter.  If you’re unwilling to feed on him, we can simply find someone you’re less acquainted with.”

“How can you talk like that?  How many have you killed?”

“I don’t count the number of meals I’ve had over the course of my life.  Do you?”  He stepped towards her.  “You shouldn’t see this as murder.  This is a matter of survival.  You seemed to understand that concept up until a few seconds ago.”

The memory of her recent actions made her eyes sink to the floor.  “I…I wasn’t thinking.”

“Of course you weren’t.  And there’s no need.  This is your true nature now.  You can keep resisting it if you like, but sooner or later, you’ll lose whatever control you pride yourself on having.  Is that what you want?  To become a ripper?”

With her hands clenching into fists, Crocket dragged her gaze back up to his face.  “No.”

In less than a second, she had launched her body at him.  When she was still human, Douglas’s strength was superior to hers, but with her full weight on him, she had the upper hand as a vampire.

Straddling his waist, Crocket repeated, “No!  No, I definitely won’t become that way!  You will just have to be my first and last meal.”

She reached for his throat, but as her touch fell on him, an unfitting smile stole across Douglas’s lips.  “So, you’ll be the vampire who hunts vampires.”  He let out a short laugh.  “Yes, that does sound like you, Crocket.  Unoriginal and uninspiring.”

Her fingers closed further around his neck.  “Shut up!”

“Do you really think you’ll be satisfied with just one meal?  And before you think about feasting on other vampires, think again.  Most, if not all, have already lost touch with their humanity, and I can guarantee that none of them is as familiar as I am with you.  They won’t let you pin them down like this.”

His words were a nuisance.  She could end it by tearing out his throat, but once more, the blacksmith’s frightened face rose to the forefront of her mind.

Her silence only prompted Douglas to continue.  “You need me, Crocket.”  With her hand still on his throat, he began to lift his upper body, sitting up to meet her gaze.  “Yes, you need me…”  He glided the back of his hand down along the curve of her neck.  “…just as much as I need you.”

Rearing his head back, he sunk his fangs deep into her.  The flash of pain made Crocket gasp out at once.  “Ah!”

Retracting from her, Douglas murmured against her shivering skin, “It’s not as potent as human blood, but if it’ll keep you from chasing me to the ends of the earth, it’ll have to do.  For now.”  His eyes flicked up at her.  “Well, go on, Crocket.”  He ran his tongue across his lips, clearing away the wayward traces of her blood.  “Drink from me.”

She didn’t need another invitation.

Bending her head, Crocket clamped her teeth onto his neck.  If he grunted or made some sound of dissatisfaction, she didn’t notice over the sheer bliss that flooded her mouth and sent her head reeling.  It refreshed her parched throat and revitalized her withered limbs like an intoxicating elixir.

She didn’t realize just how much she had craved this satisfaction, and she doubted whether she could possibly have enough.

She drank deeply and as greedily as she dared.  When she finally had to withdraw for air, she chased the sweet splattering of blood that she had made, running her tongue up the taut column of his throat and over his firm jawline.  Detecting ruby stains on his lovely white teeth, she proceeded to capture his soft lips next.

She could taste herself in Douglas’s mouth, and it mingled beautifully with the lingering flavor of his delicious blood.  She plunged further in wholehearted exploration, dancing with his equally curious tongue in search of that elusive delight.

Joined to him as she was, the provocative sensations stirred a distant memory.

Dimly, Crocket recalled the dream that she had ages ago.  At the time, Douglas had said to her, “You know how to get rid of nightmares, don’t you?”

Crocket knew the answer to that question now.  To conquer a fear, one simply had to become their own pretty, little nightmare.