♥ sothereyougo wrote Long Snake Moan 3/3 for Gray Glube
Title: Long Snake Moan 3/3
Author: sothereyougo
Summary: “The only light was in a pool on the floor, like it was poured over him, moonlight milky and pearlescent in a low-grade throbbing ebb and flow…”
Spoilers/Warning/Triggers: Through Season Three of AHS. AU with the setting approximately around some of the events of “The Axeman Cometh” but diverging in story from it and from some earlier facts, most importantly that Madison has not died and been resurrected, but is just plain alive. I have also fictionally adjusted the timeline of Season One as occurring in the relatively-recent past and not concurrent to Season Three, which will make sense when you read the story. Rated NC-17 for mature themes, language, and explicit sexual situations in a lot of flavors. Trigger warning for some noncon bordering on dubcon because of taking place in AHS-world where magical realism is a foundation. (Real world equivalent would be noncom for sure.) Power-related kink and mild violence, drug use.
Author Notes: Title is from "Long Snake Moan" by Polly Jean Harvey from To Bring You My Love, 1995. YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq3FlgXGTd0
Title song lyrics at the end. (Special note: All voodoo references are fictional and based on limited research and not first-hand knowledge. No offense towards the culture or religion is intended, and if any is committed, please accept my apology in advance as it comes of ignorance and not intent to appropriate or sensationalize through perpetuation of pop culture stereotypes.)
( Long Snake Moan 1/3 )
( Long Snake Moan 2/3 )
Zoe’s plan had been going pretty smoothly. During the day Kyle stayed in their room, and Madison never tried to recreate the threesome from that night in the greenhouse, but she was evasive when asked where she’d gone the next evening and where she had been going almost every night since. Zoe suspected it had something to do with Melly, but she guessed it wasn’t particularly any of her business, and she wasn’t really one to pry into that sort of thing.
She didn’t know why exactly, but she found herself putting a little more distance between herself and Kyle emotionally. He’d stopped trying to do more because she’d shut him down every time, but he still kissed her hard every morning when she went to fetch him from the greenhouse for their “lessons”, which were progressing slowly but surely. When he got frustrated he broke things, which was a lesson she learned quickly enough so that she made sure there was nothing within easy reach that he could shatter against the wall. Instead, she’d stop talking at him and just rub circles into his back quietly until he settled down again.
Personal grooming was a hurdle they were still working on, a puzzle Zoe was having trouble sorting. Kyle didn’t like having his hair combed or combing it himself, which wasn’t a problem really because she loved the way it curled into perfect waves when left to air dry that she couldn’t have gotten her own hair to emulate with every known product in the universe and an army of hairdressers wielding them. It was a bit of a problem that he absolutely refused to set foot in the shower in their bathroom. When she insisted that he had to bathe himself, he led her to the bathtub in the one down the hall, which was sort of okay because there was nobody using the bedroom next to it, except for the increased risk of his being seen that traipsing down the hallway created.
So, she sneaked him in there late at night when everybody else was asleep right before returning him to the greenhouse, standing guard in the hallway while he washed up and then tossing and turning the better part of the long, dark hours when she couldn’t get to sleep herself because she couldn’t get away from the image of his tragic black eyes staring, his gaze searing its way right through the wall of rationalizations chasing themselves around her head while he meekly submitted to the chains and sat down on the blankets on the floor to watch as she left him behind. Zoe knew she couldn’t fool herself much longer that he needed to be chained up there for his own protection, which meant she was going to have to accept the answer to the obvious question of why she kept on doing it then, have to face that she was doing it now to protect herself.
Today Zoe was tired, exasperated even, because they seemed to have taken a few steps backwards in his progress. Kyle was agitated and wouldn’t or couldn’t focus, and he wouldn’t let her touch him, just kept peering at her face with his brow furrowed. He was sitting in the middle of the floor now with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them tightly, ankles crossed, and one foot was tapping at the floor like it was the pressure release valve that was keeping him from exploding into a rage of confusion over whatever it was that was vexing him so. She tried once more to soothe him, but he jerked away from her and muttered the first words he’d said all morning.
“Not pet monkey.”
“Okay, Kyle. We don’t have to work today. We can take a break.”
Then, there were a couple of light taps on the bedroom door before it opened, and Nan’s head peeped through.
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Queenie and I are trying to watch Beautiful Creatures, and she's pissed at me because I keep backing it up because I can’t concentrate from how loud he’s yelling.”
Zoe’s head jerked over following Nan’s pointed finger to Kyle twitching silently on the floor.
“That’s Kyle. He’s a friend of mine. Do you mean he’s thinking too loud? What is he thinking?”
She felt her face grow hot because the last question had slipped out before she’d had a chance to filter it, but she couldn’t help how badly she wanted to be able to communicate with Kyle, could she?
“I know who he is, but he doesn’t think in words most of the time, just sounds. Usually, it’s not very loud, but today he’s freaking out.”
Zoe couldn’t help looking over at Kyle again, and he looked as dumbfounded, ironic term that one, as she imagined she did, eyes wide and troubled.
“I’m sorry, Nan. I don’t know what to do because he’s been upset today, but, like you said, he’s only just starting to put his words back together after I, we, um, coming back.”
Nan didn’t seem to be listening to Zoe any more. She was focused on Kyle, head tilted and eyes bright and opaque as a bird.
“It’s not just that. He’s been blocking me also. You do that too, Zoe. You have things you don’t want anybody to know, and you block them.”
Zoe preferred that they talk about Kyle.
“How do you know he’s blocking you?”
Nan rolled her eyes.
“How else? He just told me.”
“What?”
The answer came out strained and more than a little sarcastic, like this was all so simple that Zoe must be a moron not to be getting it.
“He told me so with his thoughts.”
“What did he say then?”
The other girl eyed her with pursed lips and a smirk, now all cat with a belly full of canary.
“He really likes you, loves you even.”
Now, she was afraid to even glance over in Kyle’s direction, but she had to know.
“Did he say that?”
“No, but I can feel it. He said he can show you. Actually, it was ‘Show Zoe’, but that’s what he meant.”
Now Zoe really was confused.
“I guess since I told Kyle I’m a witch he thinks I can do any kind of magic, but I can’t. I don’t have what you have.”
“How do you know? Have you ever even tried?”
“No, but-“
“Then, you don’t know. Come over here to him.”
Nan grabbed Zoe’s hand and walked her over to where Kyle was sitting on the floor. Poor thing must be used to floors by now, like it was a punishment not to sit on the furniture because he hadn’t sufficiently proved to her that he was house-trained. That thought hurt dead center in her chest, like a bruise that reminded you it was there all the time only when you knocked it against something.
“Now what?”
Nan took a few steps back.
“Sit down there across from him and hold his hands.”
Zoe sat down carefully but looked over at the other girl doubtfully.
“He doesn’t want me touching him today.”
Nan giggled.
“Oh yes he does.”
Kyle was looking off to the side, not making eye contact with her, but he raised his hands, palms extended to her, so she placed her own in them, and he held on.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“You’re not trying.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re afraid.”
“But I want to help him, so I’m trying.”
“Zoe, I already told you. You are closed. You can’t see because you’re too busy pushing him away.”
“I have to, or I’ll hurt him worse.”
“If you want to help him, you have to open yourself and let him in. That’s the only way it will work.”
Kyle was listening to everything Nan said, and it was clear he knew that what she was saying applied equally to him. And maybe he was braver than she was because he made himself look at her, dead in the eyes, and said the first words he’d said all day.
“Open, Zoe. Please.”
Zoe forced herself to take a slow deep breath and hated how shuddery it sounded, so she took another. All the feelings she’d pressed deep down in the darkest places inside her began to shift and move, and she was terrified letting it all out would break her into a thousand pieces, so she honed in on Kyle instead. Water was pooling in his eyes, and when he blinked tiny little droplets stuck to his eyelashes. Zoe flashed back to that night in the greenhouse, the white light that was rainbow-tinted at the same time like soap bubbles or opals, and it happened again. The tear droplets turned iridescent, and then a full-sized teardrop hung just for a second at the inner corner of his eye like a dewdrop on a blade of grass or a leaf transfigured by a ray of sunlight, but then everything changed.
She went somewhere else altogether, but she could still sense herself on the floor of her bedroom at Miss Robichaux’s, could stilll feel Kyle’s hands holding her own, gripping them tight. It didn’t make any sense, but she closed her eyes to see better. There was something familiar about the room. It was a bathroom, a kind of ugly one, and the shower was running. Somebody was in the shower. And then she knew: it was Kyle’s bathroom at Kyle’s house that he’d shared with his mother, and then she was there, Alicia, and she was walking toward the shower. She opened the curtain, and Kyle was inside, wet and naked and terrified.
Back at Miss Robichaux’s, Kyle whimpered, but Zoe couldn’t look away. She watched it happen, knew it was far from the first time. It was awful, and it was all her fault.
“No, no, no….”
Kyle began sobbing, broken and incoherent, like a little kid. Zoe opened her eyes. She felt so much it was choking her, but her voice was a halting monotone grating harshly in her ears.
“That’s why you did it. She hurt you. You had to make it stop. And I just left you there with her…”
Kyle yanked his hands free and launched himself at her, face buried against her chest, still crying. How could he bear to touch her at all after what she’d done? She put her arms around him and held him close, and then they were rocking back and forth slowly.
“It’s okay, Zoe.”
“No, it’s not. I’m so, so sorry, Kyle. So sorry.”
Those last words came out a whisper almost as soft as Nan closing the bedroom door behind her.
************
“Evening, Baron. I should have known you’d come in. It is your night.”
The man in the black suit and top hat had pulled up a chair at Melly’s table with no invitation, not that he needed one He propped his stick against an empty chair and took a careless slurp of his drink, a strong aroma of rum filling the air, before he replied.
“And so it is, but I always know where to find you, my friend. We are in the same business, or rather you make more business for me wherever you go. Lurene’s is quiet for a Saturday.”
“It’s early yet.”
“That may be. Early for some, later for others.”
He shrugged and took another belt from his glass. Melly couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark shades, and he idly wondered if the others in the room could see the flashes of bone-white through the Baron’s skin the way he could. He decided he didn’t care enough to ask.
“Good point. So, am I to believe you followed me here? You flatter me.”
“You flatter yourself. You are always an amusing companion though, so all is well. I expect I am here for the same reason you are, or should I say ‘reasons.’”
“Ah, yes. Resurrection is a particular hobby of yours, isn’t it? And resurrectionists as well.”
“Pretty things they are, if you like them skinny. You fuck them both, or just the mean one?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re happy with the mean one because she reminds you of you. The other has more power, ya know. A lot more. Your girl barely helped bring back the boy.”
“Maybe so, but, as you say, she is mean, and she is all mine.”
“She has other talents perhaps.”
Melly just shook his head as the Baron indulged himself in generous chuckling punctuated with another gulp of his rum drink.
“Anyway, we’ll win in the end. We always have.”
………………………….
The water was nice, warm and wet. Well, water was always wet, of course, but being inside Zoe was better. She finally let him see her back. Not her body back like where his hands were sliding up and down. He let her see his secret thing of why he had to kill Alicia, and Zoe was letting him see back. When they first came in here he kissed her and pulled her against him, finally really naked to him, and then he saw her on the bed with the one she killed by mistake. She was liking it at first, but then the blood started dripping down that boy’s face. It made her so sad she swallowed it down to the bottom of her insides, how doing it with her killed him, but she didn’t mean to. She didn’t know it would happen.
“Are you okay, Kyle? Are you sure you feel all right?”
Kyle bucked up inside her, his cock enveloped by her. The water was splashing out on the floor, but Zoe didn’t seem to mind about that.
“Feel everything. Feel everything good.”
She was getting close, and he was so happy, but then it happened again. Zoe was showing him something else. Maybe she didn’t even know she was doing it. The floor was white and shiny, hospital floor. Yes, there were drapes around a bed, and Zoe was going in. It was Archie. Before she opened the drapes, her face said she was praying, but now it was sad.
“You feel so good, Kyle.”
“Zoe is good.”
It was confusing being one place and seeing another, but he couldn’t stop now, not when he had what he had wanted for so long. Zoe was here, and she was riding him hard and fast, but so was the Zoe she was showing him, except it was Archie she was riding, and he was asleep, and now her face was mean.
“You wanted it to be me. Me alive.”
“I did, Kyle. I wanted it so bad.”
Archie’s eyes were bleeding, and his whole body was shaking. They were the same. They were the same!
“Archie and my mother were the same, and Zoe and Kyle are the same.”
Wow, that was the longest sentence he’d made in ages, the ages when he was regular-alive instead of special-alive.
“You don’t hate me?”
“Love you. I love Zoe.”
“I love you too, Kyle.”
Then, Archie went away, and Zoe was coming, and he knew it for sure because she was making it wet all over him, not like excited-wet, like exploding-out-wet. It was hotter than the bath water, so he knew it was her for sure. And he made her do it. She did it for him. Zoe killed Archie because he lived, and Kyle killed Alicia because she hurt him. Zoe loved him dripping red in blood, and Kyle loved Zoe because she let him in all the way. And then he was coming too, and it wasn’t red, but now he knew Zoe wouldn’t care if it was.
………………………….
“I wouldn’t be so sure. You feel that, that just now. That’s real power. That’s what that is.”
“Yeah, I felt it, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not worried.”
“So you say, but when they get together like that, they make the balance. They make vengeance too sometimes maybe instead of justice, but Damballah and Ayida-Weddo see in them the unity of the cosmos: life and death and life again. As it is and ever shall be. That Damballah, he has a soft place for the broken ones too, and that boy is broken.”
“His brains are jello.”
“That is a lie, and that isn’t like you. He loves her, and he loves fucking her, and that feeds the forces in her. You won’t get her with tricks and pretty words.”
The Baron finished his drink and ordered another with a wave of his hand.
“Everything you say may be true, but it won’t matter. He may give her more strength, but he’s also her greatest weakness.”
Melly glanced at his watch. He was supposed to meet Madison back at his place fifteen minutes ago.
“Rude boy, to be disregarding me, but I forgive you because little meanie is wondering where you at. Best not to keep the skinny, mean ones waiting. They only get meaner.”
Melly smiled and stood up.
“Thanks for your indulgence, but come back and talk to me soon. We’ll see what you think after I pay the boy a little visit.”
The Baron lit a cigar and grinned around the first few puffs.
“Sounds like you’re planning to help my business, and my door is always open for business. You go on to your pleasure.”
“Good night, Baron.”
“Good night, young Melly.”
************
Zoe had been enjoying the first peaceful night’s sleep she’d had since she couldn’t remember when, but something woke her. It was Kyle, and this time he wasn’t snuggled in soft and warm beside her. He was thrashing and moaning in his sleep. She’d always heard you shouldn’t wake a sleepwalker, but that didn’t apply to somebody having a nightmare, did it? She was torn, but then she decided to risk it because he sounded so pitiful, terrified even. She put her hand on his shoulder and shook it gently.
“Kyle, wake up. It’s okay. It’s a bad dream.”
His eyes flew open, but Zoe didn’t think he could see her at first, and she guessed it wasn’t too surprising considering the vision-sharing they’d done earlier. Now, after a bad dream, he was that much more likely to be confused. Still, it was hard seeing him cower back from her with his eyes darting around like a caged animal.
“Kyle, it’s me. It’s Zoe. You’re awake now. You’re here with me, and you’re safe. We’re safe. Everything’s all right.”
Finally, he seemed to recognize her, but he still looked afraid.
“It’s Zoe?”
“Yes, baby. It’s me.”
Kyle moved closer and stared at her face like it was going to melt into a puddle of goo. He touched her cheek with his index finger and waited. When nothing happened, he threw his arms around her and held her so tight she could barely breathe.
“Stay Zoe!”
“It’s okay, Kyle. I’m right here.”
“No, no. Stay Zoe!”
He wasn’t making any sense.
“I’m not going anywhere. I won’t leave you. I promise, Kyle.”
She could tell he was still messed up from the dream. Maybe it was all that stuff they’d put out there earlier, the stuff about his mother. That would give anybody nightmares.
************
He’d kept Madison waiting a little longer than he let the Baron think tonight, but now he was headed her way, and she’d better be ready. Hot damn, Kyle got him hot. It wasn’t that he was especially into guys. He was more of an omnivore like Madison probably, but what he’d said to the boy in his dream was true. He was very pretty, especially that mouth of his.
Melly had gone to the abandoned warehouse near Miss Robichaux’s to do his dream-walking because he needed to be alone, and he liked it to be somewhere dark and nearby the sleeper he wanted to visit, although that last part wasn’t really necessary. In the dream Kyle was back out in the greenhouse where he’d spent so much time pining for Zoe, pining maybe, but a lot of it was good-old-fashioned lusting.
When Kyle looked up, Zoe was standing over him. She didn’t say anything, just sat down next to him on the blanket and started kissing him. She smiled and ran her hands up and down his body, and he liked it. Melly could tell how much he liked it. Then, she got right down to it, opening his pants and taking his cock out. He was already half-hard, and so was Kyle.
It was a beauty, and he was sure Madison would take all the credit for that. Zoe took Kyle’s cock in her hand with an ease and confidence that should have tipped him off that something was up, but Melly guessed he didn’t blame him for that. Better and less brain-fucked guys than Kyle went stupid when somebody they wanted to have do it got ahold of their business like that. After a couple of strokes, Zoe smiled honey-sweet at him and then ran the tip of her tongue around the head of his dick like she was enjoying the best ice cream cone ever.
Kyle grunted and jerked his hips at her. She next proceeded to suck him into her mouth and go to work. Then, she stopped for a second to make sure she was doing it the way he liked it.
“Nobody knows you like me, knows your body like I do.”
Kyle jumped like he’d been shot and tried to get away from her, but he couldn’t move a muscle because it wasn’t Zoe any more stroking his stuff and beaming beatifically at him. Now, it was Alicia.
Melly had to stop and laugh at the memory. If Kyle had had a knife, he would have probably sawed off his own cock to get it away from Mommy not-so-Dearly Departed.
But, oops, everything was okay after all because Kyle blinked a couple of times, and it was Zoe again. She started up the suction, and it had to feel awesome. Dream-Zoe was blowing him like a champ. Porn-star-level skills were being employed, and old Kyle was fucking her in the mouth and just about to come his balls off when, once again, things changed just a little bit.
Zoe turned arbitrary and cruel and just stopped and slid him out of her mouth. She delicately wiped the back of her hand over her lips and climbed up him a little further and sat down right across chest, pinning him to the floor, only this time it wasn’t Zoe, but it wasn’t Alicia, that freak, either. It was yours truly, Melly, in person.
Kyle wanted to go ape-shit; Melly could see that, but he needed him to pay attention, so he put his finger across his own lips and shushed Kyle with the result that it also kept him from making a sound or so much as turning his head to look away, paralyzed him to utter helplessness in fact.
He ran the tip of the same finger languidly around the circle of the boy’s slack mouth.
“Hi there, Kyle. You really are a pretty hung thing, aren’t you? You don’t know me, but we have people in common. I knew your mother, obviously, fascinating woman, and I know Zoe. As you can see, I’m a monster too, but I’m a much bigger one than any one of you. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Michael, Michael Langdon, but people call me Melly, if they think they want to be my friend.
Last night when you had this dream, it stopped with mommy drooling all over you, and that was pretty awful, wasn’t it? I think this is maybe worse though, letting you think Zoe was going down on you and then stealing her away. That’s what I do, Kyle. It’s my own particular specialty, thinking of worse things and then doing them.
When we meet again, and we will meet again, if you decide to be my friend, Zoe will always be Zoe when you’re together. If you decide not to, well, I know what face scares you the most, don’t I? And that’s the face you’ll see every time she touches you. I’ll give you a couple of nights off to fuck her and think it over, but one day, one day soon, you will have to choose.”
And no matter what the Baron had to say about it, Michael knew how this was going to end. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready to drag the whole planet down to hell, but he wasn’t about to let some little witchy-poo and her pet zombie get to thinking they could stop him when he did decide it was time for the lights to go out. Nobody was going to do that, not Zoe, not Kyle, not anybody. For now though, he was having way too much fun to piss out the candle. This was New Orleans, chile. Personally, he’d always preferred rolling to candy-flipping, and there was still plenty of time to laissez les bons temps rouler.
"Long Snake Moan"
Dunk you under
Deep salt water
Bring me, lover,
All your power
I'll be no hell
Out of your spell
Over, under
Die of pleasure
In my dreamin'
You'll be drownin'
Hell's low, God above
All drunk on my love
You oughta hear my long snake moan
You oughta see me from my throne
Dunk you under
Deep salt water
In my dreamin'
You'll be drownin'
Raise me up, Lord
Call me "Lazarus"
Hey Lord, help me
Make ready my veil
You oughta hear my long snake moan
You oughta see me from my throne
Is my voodoo workin'?…
PROMPT GIVEN TO AUTHOR:
1. Please List Preferred Characters and/or Pairings: Violet/Tate, Zoe/Kyle, Zoe/Madison, Zoe/Dark Forces, Zoe gen, Axe Man gen
2. Squicks or characters/pairings you do not want in your gift: I don’t like fluff, I don’t like things to turn out okay.
3. Possible Scenarios/Themes/Lines to incorporate:
For Violate I want all the good-hot-bad-feels, I want a Violet who in essence becomes two distinct people with two distinct sets of needs/wants, one to be with her family and one to be with Tate, reconcile the how and why in a believable way, no Violet has a secret twin named after another flower thing going on.
For Coven I’m a little less finicky, I like Zoe, I like Kyle, I like Madison, I like Zoe as the next supreme and Kyle as her pet/slave, I like Zoe and Madison having to pay the devil his due for Kyle’s return to life, I like awful, bloody, angsty, smutty things, I’m down with femslash, I’m down with the more = more fun, if you want to do Zoe learns to like being able to kill boys with her vagina then that’s super cool do, Zoe as a dark witch into black magic, Madison as something other than a super bitch, A Kyle who turns on instead of is sweet on Zoe, switch things around make Zoe the one brought back by a group of young warlocks/wizards write them as crude boys, write dark!fic, I like smut and I like fucked up.
4. Youtube link a SONG to describe the overall theme you would like:
The Ghost Who Walks-Karen Elson Murder House
Death is the Road to Awe-Clint Mansell Coven
Burn My Shadow-Unkle Coven
5. Preferred Rating: M
6. Strictly Canon, AU, Doesn’t Matter?: Canon Violate, AU within reason for Coven pairings
Author: sothereyougo
Summary: “The only light was in a pool on the floor, like it was poured over him, moonlight milky and pearlescent in a low-grade throbbing ebb and flow…”
Spoilers/Warning/Triggers: Through Season Three of AHS. AU with the setting approximately around some of the events of “The Axeman Cometh” but diverging in story from it and from some earlier facts, most importantly that Madison has not died and been resurrected, but is just plain alive. I have also fictionally adjusted the timeline of Season One as occurring in the relatively-recent past and not concurrent to Season Three, which will make sense when you read the story. Rated NC-17 for mature themes, language, and explicit sexual situations in a lot of flavors. Trigger warning for some noncon bordering on dubcon because of taking place in AHS-world where magical realism is a foundation. (Real world equivalent would be noncom for sure.) Power-related kink and mild violence, drug use.
Author Notes: Title is from "Long Snake Moan" by Polly Jean Harvey from To Bring You My Love, 1995. YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq3FlgXGTd0
Title song lyrics at the end. (Special note: All voodoo references are fictional and based on limited research and not first-hand knowledge. No offense towards the culture or religion is intended, and if any is committed, please accept my apology in advance as it comes of ignorance and not intent to appropriate or sensationalize through perpetuation of pop culture stereotypes.)
( Long Snake Moan 1/3 )
( Long Snake Moan 2/3 )
Zoe’s plan had been going pretty smoothly. During the day Kyle stayed in their room, and Madison never tried to recreate the threesome from that night in the greenhouse, but she was evasive when asked where she’d gone the next evening and where she had been going almost every night since. Zoe suspected it had something to do with Melly, but she guessed it wasn’t particularly any of her business, and she wasn’t really one to pry into that sort of thing.
She didn’t know why exactly, but she found herself putting a little more distance between herself and Kyle emotionally. He’d stopped trying to do more because she’d shut him down every time, but he still kissed her hard every morning when she went to fetch him from the greenhouse for their “lessons”, which were progressing slowly but surely. When he got frustrated he broke things, which was a lesson she learned quickly enough so that she made sure there was nothing within easy reach that he could shatter against the wall. Instead, she’d stop talking at him and just rub circles into his back quietly until he settled down again.
Personal grooming was a hurdle they were still working on, a puzzle Zoe was having trouble sorting. Kyle didn’t like having his hair combed or combing it himself, which wasn’t a problem really because she loved the way it curled into perfect waves when left to air dry that she couldn’t have gotten her own hair to emulate with every known product in the universe and an army of hairdressers wielding them. It was a bit of a problem that he absolutely refused to set foot in the shower in their bathroom. When she insisted that he had to bathe himself, he led her to the bathtub in the one down the hall, which was sort of okay because there was nobody using the bedroom next to it, except for the increased risk of his being seen that traipsing down the hallway created.
So, she sneaked him in there late at night when everybody else was asleep right before returning him to the greenhouse, standing guard in the hallway while he washed up and then tossing and turning the better part of the long, dark hours when she couldn’t get to sleep herself because she couldn’t get away from the image of his tragic black eyes staring, his gaze searing its way right through the wall of rationalizations chasing themselves around her head while he meekly submitted to the chains and sat down on the blankets on the floor to watch as she left him behind. Zoe knew she couldn’t fool herself much longer that he needed to be chained up there for his own protection, which meant she was going to have to accept the answer to the obvious question of why she kept on doing it then, have to face that she was doing it now to protect herself.
Today Zoe was tired, exasperated even, because they seemed to have taken a few steps backwards in his progress. Kyle was agitated and wouldn’t or couldn’t focus, and he wouldn’t let her touch him, just kept peering at her face with his brow furrowed. He was sitting in the middle of the floor now with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them tightly, ankles crossed, and one foot was tapping at the floor like it was the pressure release valve that was keeping him from exploding into a rage of confusion over whatever it was that was vexing him so. She tried once more to soothe him, but he jerked away from her and muttered the first words he’d said all morning.
“Not pet monkey.”
“Okay, Kyle. We don’t have to work today. We can take a break.”
Then, there were a couple of light taps on the bedroom door before it opened, and Nan’s head peeped through.
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Queenie and I are trying to watch Beautiful Creatures, and she's pissed at me because I keep backing it up because I can’t concentrate from how loud he’s yelling.”
Zoe’s head jerked over following Nan’s pointed finger to Kyle twitching silently on the floor.
“That’s Kyle. He’s a friend of mine. Do you mean he’s thinking too loud? What is he thinking?”
She felt her face grow hot because the last question had slipped out before she’d had a chance to filter it, but she couldn’t help how badly she wanted to be able to communicate with Kyle, could she?
“I know who he is, but he doesn’t think in words most of the time, just sounds. Usually, it’s not very loud, but today he’s freaking out.”
Zoe couldn’t help looking over at Kyle again, and he looked as dumbfounded, ironic term that one, as she imagined she did, eyes wide and troubled.
“I’m sorry, Nan. I don’t know what to do because he’s been upset today, but, like you said, he’s only just starting to put his words back together after I, we, um, coming back.”
Nan didn’t seem to be listening to Zoe any more. She was focused on Kyle, head tilted and eyes bright and opaque as a bird.
“It’s not just that. He’s been blocking me also. You do that too, Zoe. You have things you don’t want anybody to know, and you block them.”
Zoe preferred that they talk about Kyle.
“How do you know he’s blocking you?”
Nan rolled her eyes.
“How else? He just told me.”
“What?”
The answer came out strained and more than a little sarcastic, like this was all so simple that Zoe must be a moron not to be getting it.
“He told me so with his thoughts.”
“What did he say then?”
The other girl eyed her with pursed lips and a smirk, now all cat with a belly full of canary.
“He really likes you, loves you even.”
Now, she was afraid to even glance over in Kyle’s direction, but she had to know.
“Did he say that?”
“No, but I can feel it. He said he can show you. Actually, it was ‘Show Zoe’, but that’s what he meant.”
Now Zoe really was confused.
“I guess since I told Kyle I’m a witch he thinks I can do any kind of magic, but I can’t. I don’t have what you have.”
“How do you know? Have you ever even tried?”
“No, but-“
“Then, you don’t know. Come over here to him.”
Nan grabbed Zoe’s hand and walked her over to where Kyle was sitting on the floor. Poor thing must be used to floors by now, like it was a punishment not to sit on the furniture because he hadn’t sufficiently proved to her that he was house-trained. That thought hurt dead center in her chest, like a bruise that reminded you it was there all the time only when you knocked it against something.
“Now what?”
Nan took a few steps back.
“Sit down there across from him and hold his hands.”
Zoe sat down carefully but looked over at the other girl doubtfully.
“He doesn’t want me touching him today.”
Nan giggled.
“Oh yes he does.”
Kyle was looking off to the side, not making eye contact with her, but he raised his hands, palms extended to her, so she placed her own in them, and he held on.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“You’re not trying.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re afraid.”
“But I want to help him, so I’m trying.”
“Zoe, I already told you. You are closed. You can’t see because you’re too busy pushing him away.”
“I have to, or I’ll hurt him worse.”
“If you want to help him, you have to open yourself and let him in. That’s the only way it will work.”
Kyle was listening to everything Nan said, and it was clear he knew that what she was saying applied equally to him. And maybe he was braver than she was because he made himself look at her, dead in the eyes, and said the first words he’d said all day.
“Open, Zoe. Please.”
Zoe forced herself to take a slow deep breath and hated how shuddery it sounded, so she took another. All the feelings she’d pressed deep down in the darkest places inside her began to shift and move, and she was terrified letting it all out would break her into a thousand pieces, so she honed in on Kyle instead. Water was pooling in his eyes, and when he blinked tiny little droplets stuck to his eyelashes. Zoe flashed back to that night in the greenhouse, the white light that was rainbow-tinted at the same time like soap bubbles or opals, and it happened again. The tear droplets turned iridescent, and then a full-sized teardrop hung just for a second at the inner corner of his eye like a dewdrop on a blade of grass or a leaf transfigured by a ray of sunlight, but then everything changed.
She went somewhere else altogether, but she could still sense herself on the floor of her bedroom at Miss Robichaux’s, could stilll feel Kyle’s hands holding her own, gripping them tight. It didn’t make any sense, but she closed her eyes to see better. There was something familiar about the room. It was a bathroom, a kind of ugly one, and the shower was running. Somebody was in the shower. And then she knew: it was Kyle’s bathroom at Kyle’s house that he’d shared with his mother, and then she was there, Alicia, and she was walking toward the shower. She opened the curtain, and Kyle was inside, wet and naked and terrified.
Back at Miss Robichaux’s, Kyle whimpered, but Zoe couldn’t look away. She watched it happen, knew it was far from the first time. It was awful, and it was all her fault.
“No, no, no….”
Kyle began sobbing, broken and incoherent, like a little kid. Zoe opened her eyes. She felt so much it was choking her, but her voice was a halting monotone grating harshly in her ears.
“That’s why you did it. She hurt you. You had to make it stop. And I just left you there with her…”
Kyle yanked his hands free and launched himself at her, face buried against her chest, still crying. How could he bear to touch her at all after what she’d done? She put her arms around him and held him close, and then they were rocking back and forth slowly.
“It’s okay, Zoe.”
“No, it’s not. I’m so, so sorry, Kyle. So sorry.”
Those last words came out a whisper almost as soft as Nan closing the bedroom door behind her.
************
“Evening, Baron. I should have known you’d come in. It is your night.”
The man in the black suit and top hat had pulled up a chair at Melly’s table with no invitation, not that he needed one He propped his stick against an empty chair and took a careless slurp of his drink, a strong aroma of rum filling the air, before he replied.
“And so it is, but I always know where to find you, my friend. We are in the same business, or rather you make more business for me wherever you go. Lurene’s is quiet for a Saturday.”
“It’s early yet.”
“That may be. Early for some, later for others.”
He shrugged and took another belt from his glass. Melly couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark shades, and he idly wondered if the others in the room could see the flashes of bone-white through the Baron’s skin the way he could. He decided he didn’t care enough to ask.
“Good point. So, am I to believe you followed me here? You flatter me.”
“You flatter yourself. You are always an amusing companion though, so all is well. I expect I am here for the same reason you are, or should I say ‘reasons.’”
“Ah, yes. Resurrection is a particular hobby of yours, isn’t it? And resurrectionists as well.”
“Pretty things they are, if you like them skinny. You fuck them both, or just the mean one?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re happy with the mean one because she reminds you of you. The other has more power, ya know. A lot more. Your girl barely helped bring back the boy.”
“Maybe so, but, as you say, she is mean, and she is all mine.”
“She has other talents perhaps.”
Melly just shook his head as the Baron indulged himself in generous chuckling punctuated with another gulp of his rum drink.
“Anyway, we’ll win in the end. We always have.”
………………………….
The water was nice, warm and wet. Well, water was always wet, of course, but being inside Zoe was better. She finally let him see her back. Not her body back like where his hands were sliding up and down. He let her see his secret thing of why he had to kill Alicia, and Zoe was letting him see back. When they first came in here he kissed her and pulled her against him, finally really naked to him, and then he saw her on the bed with the one she killed by mistake. She was liking it at first, but then the blood started dripping down that boy’s face. It made her so sad she swallowed it down to the bottom of her insides, how doing it with her killed him, but she didn’t mean to. She didn’t know it would happen.
“Are you okay, Kyle? Are you sure you feel all right?”
Kyle bucked up inside her, his cock enveloped by her. The water was splashing out on the floor, but Zoe didn’t seem to mind about that.
“Feel everything. Feel everything good.”
She was getting close, and he was so happy, but then it happened again. Zoe was showing him something else. Maybe she didn’t even know she was doing it. The floor was white and shiny, hospital floor. Yes, there were drapes around a bed, and Zoe was going in. It was Archie. Before she opened the drapes, her face said she was praying, but now it was sad.
“You feel so good, Kyle.”
“Zoe is good.”
It was confusing being one place and seeing another, but he couldn’t stop now, not when he had what he had wanted for so long. Zoe was here, and she was riding him hard and fast, but so was the Zoe she was showing him, except it was Archie she was riding, and he was asleep, and now her face was mean.
“You wanted it to be me. Me alive.”
“I did, Kyle. I wanted it so bad.”
Archie’s eyes were bleeding, and his whole body was shaking. They were the same. They were the same!
“Archie and my mother were the same, and Zoe and Kyle are the same.”
Wow, that was the longest sentence he’d made in ages, the ages when he was regular-alive instead of special-alive.
“You don’t hate me?”
“Love you. I love Zoe.”
“I love you too, Kyle.”
Then, Archie went away, and Zoe was coming, and he knew it for sure because she was making it wet all over him, not like excited-wet, like exploding-out-wet. It was hotter than the bath water, so he knew it was her for sure. And he made her do it. She did it for him. Zoe killed Archie because he lived, and Kyle killed Alicia because she hurt him. Zoe loved him dripping red in blood, and Kyle loved Zoe because she let him in all the way. And then he was coming too, and it wasn’t red, but now he knew Zoe wouldn’t care if it was.
………………………….
“I wouldn’t be so sure. You feel that, that just now. That’s real power. That’s what that is.”
“Yeah, I felt it, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not worried.”
“So you say, but when they get together like that, they make the balance. They make vengeance too sometimes maybe instead of justice, but Damballah and Ayida-Weddo see in them the unity of the cosmos: life and death and life again. As it is and ever shall be. That Damballah, he has a soft place for the broken ones too, and that boy is broken.”
“His brains are jello.”
“That is a lie, and that isn’t like you. He loves her, and he loves fucking her, and that feeds the forces in her. You won’t get her with tricks and pretty words.”
The Baron finished his drink and ordered another with a wave of his hand.
“Everything you say may be true, but it won’t matter. He may give her more strength, but he’s also her greatest weakness.”
Melly glanced at his watch. He was supposed to meet Madison back at his place fifteen minutes ago.
“Rude boy, to be disregarding me, but I forgive you because little meanie is wondering where you at. Best not to keep the skinny, mean ones waiting. They only get meaner.”
Melly smiled and stood up.
“Thanks for your indulgence, but come back and talk to me soon. We’ll see what you think after I pay the boy a little visit.”
The Baron lit a cigar and grinned around the first few puffs.
“Sounds like you’re planning to help my business, and my door is always open for business. You go on to your pleasure.”
“Good night, Baron.”
“Good night, young Melly.”
************
Zoe had been enjoying the first peaceful night’s sleep she’d had since she couldn’t remember when, but something woke her. It was Kyle, and this time he wasn’t snuggled in soft and warm beside her. He was thrashing and moaning in his sleep. She’d always heard you shouldn’t wake a sleepwalker, but that didn’t apply to somebody having a nightmare, did it? She was torn, but then she decided to risk it because he sounded so pitiful, terrified even. She put her hand on his shoulder and shook it gently.
“Kyle, wake up. It’s okay. It’s a bad dream.”
His eyes flew open, but Zoe didn’t think he could see her at first, and she guessed it wasn’t too surprising considering the vision-sharing they’d done earlier. Now, after a bad dream, he was that much more likely to be confused. Still, it was hard seeing him cower back from her with his eyes darting around like a caged animal.
“Kyle, it’s me. It’s Zoe. You’re awake now. You’re here with me, and you’re safe. We’re safe. Everything’s all right.”
Finally, he seemed to recognize her, but he still looked afraid.
“It’s Zoe?”
“Yes, baby. It’s me.”
Kyle moved closer and stared at her face like it was going to melt into a puddle of goo. He touched her cheek with his index finger and waited. When nothing happened, he threw his arms around her and held her so tight she could barely breathe.
“Stay Zoe!”
“It’s okay, Kyle. I’m right here.”
“No, no. Stay Zoe!”
He wasn’t making any sense.
“I’m not going anywhere. I won’t leave you. I promise, Kyle.”
She could tell he was still messed up from the dream. Maybe it was all that stuff they’d put out there earlier, the stuff about his mother. That would give anybody nightmares.
************
He’d kept Madison waiting a little longer than he let the Baron think tonight, but now he was headed her way, and she’d better be ready. Hot damn, Kyle got him hot. It wasn’t that he was especially into guys. He was more of an omnivore like Madison probably, but what he’d said to the boy in his dream was true. He was very pretty, especially that mouth of his.
Melly had gone to the abandoned warehouse near Miss Robichaux’s to do his dream-walking because he needed to be alone, and he liked it to be somewhere dark and nearby the sleeper he wanted to visit, although that last part wasn’t really necessary. In the dream Kyle was back out in the greenhouse where he’d spent so much time pining for Zoe, pining maybe, but a lot of it was good-old-fashioned lusting.
When Kyle looked up, Zoe was standing over him. She didn’t say anything, just sat down next to him on the blanket and started kissing him. She smiled and ran her hands up and down his body, and he liked it. Melly could tell how much he liked it. Then, she got right down to it, opening his pants and taking his cock out. He was already half-hard, and so was Kyle.
It was a beauty, and he was sure Madison would take all the credit for that. Zoe took Kyle’s cock in her hand with an ease and confidence that should have tipped him off that something was up, but Melly guessed he didn’t blame him for that. Better and less brain-fucked guys than Kyle went stupid when somebody they wanted to have do it got ahold of their business like that. After a couple of strokes, Zoe smiled honey-sweet at him and then ran the tip of her tongue around the head of his dick like she was enjoying the best ice cream cone ever.
Kyle grunted and jerked his hips at her. She next proceeded to suck him into her mouth and go to work. Then, she stopped for a second to make sure she was doing it the way he liked it.
“Nobody knows you like me, knows your body like I do.”
Kyle jumped like he’d been shot and tried to get away from her, but he couldn’t move a muscle because it wasn’t Zoe any more stroking his stuff and beaming beatifically at him. Now, it was Alicia.
Melly had to stop and laugh at the memory. If Kyle had had a knife, he would have probably sawed off his own cock to get it away from Mommy not-so-Dearly Departed.
But, oops, everything was okay after all because Kyle blinked a couple of times, and it was Zoe again. She started up the suction, and it had to feel awesome. Dream-Zoe was blowing him like a champ. Porn-star-level skills were being employed, and old Kyle was fucking her in the mouth and just about to come his balls off when, once again, things changed just a little bit.
Zoe turned arbitrary and cruel and just stopped and slid him out of her mouth. She delicately wiped the back of her hand over her lips and climbed up him a little further and sat down right across chest, pinning him to the floor, only this time it wasn’t Zoe, but it wasn’t Alicia, that freak, either. It was yours truly, Melly, in person.
Kyle wanted to go ape-shit; Melly could see that, but he needed him to pay attention, so he put his finger across his own lips and shushed Kyle with the result that it also kept him from making a sound or so much as turning his head to look away, paralyzed him to utter helplessness in fact.
He ran the tip of the same finger languidly around the circle of the boy’s slack mouth.
“Hi there, Kyle. You really are a pretty hung thing, aren’t you? You don’t know me, but we have people in common. I knew your mother, obviously, fascinating woman, and I know Zoe. As you can see, I’m a monster too, but I’m a much bigger one than any one of you. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Michael, Michael Langdon, but people call me Melly, if they think they want to be my friend.
Last night when you had this dream, it stopped with mommy drooling all over you, and that was pretty awful, wasn’t it? I think this is maybe worse though, letting you think Zoe was going down on you and then stealing her away. That’s what I do, Kyle. It’s my own particular specialty, thinking of worse things and then doing them.
When we meet again, and we will meet again, if you decide to be my friend, Zoe will always be Zoe when you’re together. If you decide not to, well, I know what face scares you the most, don’t I? And that’s the face you’ll see every time she touches you. I’ll give you a couple of nights off to fuck her and think it over, but one day, one day soon, you will have to choose.”
And no matter what the Baron had to say about it, Michael knew how this was going to end. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready to drag the whole planet down to hell, but he wasn’t about to let some little witchy-poo and her pet zombie get to thinking they could stop him when he did decide it was time for the lights to go out. Nobody was going to do that, not Zoe, not Kyle, not anybody. For now though, he was having way too much fun to piss out the candle. This was New Orleans, chile. Personally, he’d always preferred rolling to candy-flipping, and there was still plenty of time to laissez les bons temps rouler.
"Long Snake Moan"
Dunk you under
Deep salt water
Bring me, lover,
All your power
I'll be no hell
Out of your spell
Over, under
Die of pleasure
In my dreamin'
You'll be drownin'
Hell's low, God above
All drunk on my love
You oughta hear my long snake moan
You oughta see me from my throne
Dunk you under
Deep salt water
In my dreamin'
You'll be drownin'
Raise me up, Lord
Call me "Lazarus"
Hey Lord, help me
Make ready my veil
You oughta hear my long snake moan
You oughta see me from my throne
Is my voodoo workin'?…
PROMPT GIVEN TO AUTHOR:
1. Please List Preferred Characters and/or Pairings: Violet/Tate, Zoe/Kyle, Zoe/Madison, Zoe/Dark Forces, Zoe gen, Axe Man gen
2. Squicks or characters/pairings you do not want in your gift: I don’t like fluff, I don’t like things to turn out okay.
3. Possible Scenarios/Themes/Lines to incorporate:
For Violate I want all the good-hot-bad-feels, I want a Violet who in essence becomes two distinct people with two distinct sets of needs/wants, one to be with her family and one to be with Tate, reconcile the how and why in a believable way, no Violet has a secret twin named after another flower thing going on.
For Coven I’m a little less finicky, I like Zoe, I like Kyle, I like Madison, I like Zoe as the next supreme and Kyle as her pet/slave, I like Zoe and Madison having to pay the devil his due for Kyle’s return to life, I like awful, bloody, angsty, smutty things, I’m down with femslash, I’m down with the more = more fun, if you want to do Zoe learns to like being able to kill boys with her vagina then that’s super cool do, Zoe as a dark witch into black magic, Madison as something other than a super bitch, A Kyle who turns on instead of is sweet on Zoe, switch things around make Zoe the one brought back by a group of young warlocks/wizards write them as crude boys, write dark!fic, I like smut and I like fucked up.
4. Youtube link a SONG to describe the overall theme you would like:
The Ghost Who Walks-Karen Elson Murder House
Death is the Road to Awe-Clint Mansell Coven
Burn My Shadow-Unkle Coven
5. Preferred Rating: M
6. Strictly Canon, AU, Doesn’t Matter?: Canon Violate, AU within reason for Coven pairings