So I spend every evening alone
Just a ghost by the light of my phone
With your name in my throat
I swallow
I swallow
Vampire Weeknight by Jenny Owen Youngs
The moon shimmers like a beacon, high above the towering spirals of the land. In the early evening, the town skitters and sways in tune to the slow ebbing of day to night. Their cluster of companions break off in slow solace, quiet in the aftermath of the day’s battles.
They’d avenged their friend, found a lead to a mystery, and obtained a large sum of money in its wake. Ashton waves the bulk of their group off, silent and broody in that charming way of theirs, as they move to take a seat at the tavern’s bar. Behind them, Fresh Cut Grass follows, offering the remaining group members a cheerful smile and the squeak of their wheel. Dorian, Fearne, and Orym follow quietly, taking up a small table just behind Ashton to settle down for a quick meal and a drink. They all offer Imogen and Laudna worried glances and the spellcasters wave weakly.
“We’re gonna go ahead up to bed.” Imogen offers lightly, her drawl thickened by the weight of the day. “We’ll see y’all tomorrow.”
Laudna offers a bright spindly smile as she looms over Imogen’s retreating shoulder, “Have a drink for me will you!”
As Imogen clings to her arm she waves cheerfully over their shoulders, dark fingertips bobbing in the dim light of the tavern.
“Today wasn’t so terrible,” the willowy woman coos, walking close to her partner. “No one died!” Her cheer dies, however, with the reminder of Bertrand and the sight of Imogen covered in blood and filth, unconscious on the disgusting floor. “Mostly.” She frowns as the fear from earlier flickers back to life, coiling in her gut and rolling .
“Everyone’s okay.” The smaller spellcaster mumbles, dragging Laudna further along the hallway and into their shared room.
The door to their tavern room clicks closed numbly. Imogen feels her form sag as she slides down the door, her body filled with aches she can't place past the pained drumming behind her eyes.
Across the room, Laudna watches cautiously. Her bubbling rage has subsided, but she can't stop her heart from its hammering speed.
"Darling? Let's get you to bed, shall we?" She offers a smile she's sure isn't half as reassuring as she wants it to be, but the lack of an answer is what has her moving towards her prone partner. "Imogen?"
Lilac hair cascades over the light bruising at her cheek, and the scattered scars across freckled skin.
Laudna watches Imogen breathe, sluggish and sleepy. The sight relaxes her, she feels the tension in her shoulders ease, and she traces a dark finger across her pastel friend's relaxed brow.
"How do you manage to keep scaring the daylights out of me?" The image of Imogen's body, unconscious and covered in blood and slime replays behind her eyes. She feels, again, the seething anger and fear burble up between her ribs, filling her chest with a white-hot burn that brings tears to her eyes. She blinks them away.
"Imogen darling, you can't sleep here." Her thumb strokes a cut across a sun-kissed cheek as she nudges her partner awake. "Come now."
Drowsy and weak, Imogen blinks up at her, wide lilac eyes open and honest. Laudna wants to pull her into her arms, wrap around her and protect her from the world that would harm her.
"Laudna?" She reaches out, tugs the taller woman into her arms, and wraps around her instead.
"You keep sneaking into my thoughts." The pale woman whispers into the warm crook of Imogen's neck. "Let's get you into bed, shall we?"
They're both weak, and neither is very strong, but with their combined efforts they stand and wobble towards the nearest bed. Imogen lets her body drop, dead weight that drags Laudna down with her with a winded oof .
"Stay…" The smaller woman whispers into Laudna's shoulder as she clings closer.
How can I say no?
"You can't," Imogen mumbles in reply, snuggling closer.
"Always in my head."
"It's nice here, safe. Warm. "
"You'd be the first to think so." She traces dark fingertips across Imogen's exposed hip, sliding down to lay fully in her partner’s arms.
Imogen is fast asleep in seconds, sunkissed fingers gripped loosely in dark fabric as the smaller woman breathes deeply. For Laudna, sleep seems heavy and distant, a memory she can’t quite grasp in the wake of what would surely have been a tragedy. It weighs on her like heavy vines, they wrap her in doubt and fear. Losing Imogen would be more than a tragedy, it would feel like the world ending again.
For Laundna, her chest is an open cavity, vacant and cold, the only warmth comes from Imogen’s place there. She ignites a heat the spindly woman can’t remember ever feeling so firmly.
“No more near deaths,” She whispers, reaching to stroke Imogen’s sleeping face with her knuckles. “I can’t take it.”
In reply, Imogen hums, as if she wasn’t a thousand leagues beyond the conscious realm, but the reply is enough for Laudna. She can feel Imogen at the edge of her mind, listening and protective. It’s a comfort she’s not used to, but it loosens the vines threaded through her ribs and around her lungs. Imogen is here , she is alive and safe . She didn’t lose her sun-kissed flower. She’s here, in her arms. Alive .
The smell of sweat and lavender, of Imogen , soothes her, and she sinks in. She presses a desperate kiss to the crown of Imogen’s head and settles her nerves with the smaller woman’s warmth and smell. The sounds of the tavern below dim, and darkness creeps a little closer as sleep settles into her bones. Laudna winds herself around Imogen, presses a knee between her thighs, her arms around warm ribs, and thread in lilac hair.
The moon is high, the night ever-present, as the spires shift into their nightly shifts. Her eyes grow heavy, in the dim stillness, sinking between Imogen’s throat and clavicle. She presses another cool kiss there and hears the smaller woman murmur something that sounds heartbreakingly like her name in her deep sleep.