She is feeling languid; yes, that's the word, languid. She looks at herself in the mirror, offering her reflection a small, pink smile which says that she is pleased with herself. She is half-dressed, in a pink and black lace bustier and a pair of old, much-loved but rather thin by now jeans, bunny slippers on her feet and a rack full of shirts in her closet. Fiona piles her hair on top of her head, looking at her reflection from first one angle, then the other, her smile remaining.
     Rhodri has been and gone; a quiet dinner, cuddling in front of the television while companionably ignoring a television show in favour of equally quiet conversation. Simple, domestic bliss. An evening without the baby, without work - and now she is on her own. Though for how long?
     Selecting a blouse more or less at random, she begins wandering towards the kitchen. It's an oversized white shirt, a man's shirt, undoubtedly one or the other husband's. She is a pilfering wretch at times, but only when it comes to oversized shirts laden with their scents. Now she inhales, deeply, closing her eyes in contentment.
     "Dessert," Fiona announces. "Sugar. Sweetness. But what?"

     There is a rhythm to all things...
     The sun rises, the sun sets. Rhodri is with you during your days; Davydd, your nights. With the trading off, it is beginning to seem as if each husband were simply different aspects of the same Man. Never existing at the same place, at the same time.
     When dusk begins, and twilight calls an end to the Day, Rhodri has to leave. He, as much as his Darker Half, does not like to surrender to the greater rhythm that has you all caught up in its motion. But like the dawn, he is helpless to do anything but follow the course of the day.
     Evening comes with all its mysterious sounds, its shadows and dark places of intrigue. Its romance. Romance is truly a nocturnal creature. While overtures may be made during the day, such expressions lack weight when sunlight casts its spotlight on them. By the time one wakes up to what the day promises, it is twilight all over again.
     For once, Davydd would concur that there is an advantage to being a nocturnal creature, a cousin to Romance.
     There are no tromping steps, no screeching of tires, no incessant knocking -- none of the usual signals that would bespeak of the arrival of Davydd ap Owain. There is your languor. There is the soft hush of an evening full of possibilities. And then there is this: Open the window, love, do...

     It calls to her, as you do, the night, that promise of mystery. Of Romance. Of Danger. Her fingers freeze on her buttons, her feet pause in their steps, and then she turns. The pink and languid smile of self-satisfaction widens, with a skipping of her pulse. Suddenly, it is as if Time itself has been wheeled back.
     Will you have transformed yourself? Will you be floating in mid-air? Will you simply be Below, or are you Above, preparing to lower yourself? The hairs on the back of her neck prickle pleasurably, anticipation with that tingle of almost-fear.
     You are out there, in the Darkness. And she is inside, where there is warmth and light. What will she do?
     She does as she has always done, flinging the window open wide to let in the cold and the darkness, facing any potential fear with a straight-on gaze, shirt hanging open so that pink and black lace is more revealed than not. "Where are you?" Fiona asks the air outside her window. "Why can't I see you?"

     He has not the power of invisibility. It is not possible for a comet such as he to be unseen. But blackbirds against the evening sky are a bit hard to pick out. Soon enough, however, you see the raven -- see it as it squats on the window sill. It looks at you squarely with a black eye and then hops down into the MUCH warmer confines of your London apartment.
     The air shudders with magic, recoiling slightly as Davydd stands there, brushing errant feathers off his black turtleneck. He's in black from head to toe. A thick-cabled black turtleneck is paired with a pair of black wool tailored trousers and formidable black shoes. It makes his hair seem like its on fire, his skin look pale, and his eyes blaring boastful green. He must have gotten warm at some point -- the sleeves of his sweater re pushed up to his elbows, revealing the Holly King tattoos that cover the whole of his left arm, and the other surrounding just his right wrist. His fiery hair has been cut short (again) and is styled to be mussed -- or maybe that's just the way the wind shaped it in his flight.
     Davydd rakes his gaze up and down you, standing in your pink lacy underthings, and what appears to be one of Rhodri's shirts. And he just left. You can see that he can tell he did. Night is hard on the heels of Day. "Because it's darker than the Devil's Arse out there," he quips, his mouth forming a slanting, immediate grin. It is a streak of fire across his expression, lighting his eyes with the residue of stars as he moves to kiss you in greeting.
     You can feel the charge on the air. That coppery tinge of jealousy. He has been here, your other man. I can smell him, I can still feel him. You and he... what we you doing all day? "Still wearing his shirt," Davydd mutters, a hand sliding the fabric away from one of your shoulders. "I know he's not still here," his voice is simmering. "I thought about it the minute I woke. His hands on you," his voice is quiet, earthy. It has a roughness that Rhodri's lacks.

     She is glad to see you, even though your appearance is somehow all the more dramatic. More dramatic than usual, for she takes a quick breath as she turns to where you transform from bird to man; blue eyes, traveling over your black-clad form, the red of your hair, the pallid chill of your features. And those eyes, which seem to be only on her.
     Only on her. She smiles at you, reaching back to slowly, slowly push the window down. Closing out the night air; closing herself inside. With you.
     You move to kiss her, and she rises on tiptoe, as if to let you dance her off her feet; her palms to your shoulders, fingertips sliding against the black cloth of your turtleneck. She shivers as you slip cotton from her shoulder, and she allows her head to roll back a little, staring up at you. "He isn't still here," Fiona tells you in a low voice. "Only I'm here, now."
     Whether she admits it or not, even to herself, she is attracted to that jealous note in your voice, tonight, at least. Less heartbreak than usual. "Do you see hands on me?" Fiona asks, staring up at you as her hands slide down your cable-covered chest. "Feel free to look in the closet and under the bed, if you like. But you won't find him. You'll only find me here tonight."

     A part of him revels in it, the torture of his flesh, his being, his hunger (which is obvious in his complexion) that jealousy provides. It is there, embers in his soul that the breath of his words fan. There is not the hurt, the true hurt beneath it that has existed in previous episodes. There is possession, thorough and complete, undeniable.
     "I don't need to look," Davydd lilts, his eyes lifting from you to dart glances quickly around the room. "I'll trust he's smart enough to know when it's time to go. Is Peter here," he wonders quietly, his gaze following the path of his hand as it skims your upper arm and shoulder. He reaches to touch the pink fabric, unable to help himself.
     "I need a drink," he announces, it is a pressing need made obvious, given breath and voice and freed. "I need to drown out all these ...pictures squirming around in my brain tonight. Going somewhere?" he wonders suddenly, almost idly -- were it not for the fingers plucking at the pink and black lace bustier. His dark eyes focus where his fingers tug, then lift to your face.
     It's just like in the movies. You've let a vampire into your house. Your cross and garlic nowhere to be found and now his hand is tugging at your elaborate, Victorian styled undergarment.

     You are watched, but covertly, from under half-lowered eyelashes. It is the possession which she enjoys, which enables her to enjoy your jealousy at all; it is the same thread which makes her want to dress provocatively in Davy's or some other pub, and let nature take its course. That it will be your hands (or Rhodri's) upon her at the end of the night, and not some simian with pretensions to manhood who you've no doubt smashed in proof of your possession.
     "Peter's in Wales," Fiona tells you quickly, her eyes following the track of your hand before looking back up at your face. As if she can read the future in your expression. She can read some futures, alright; she is staying in tonight, even if she had otherwise intended not. "There's just me here."
     A drink. She looks at you, trying not to squirm with you so close. You don't mean whiskey, do you. There is only one kind of drink which could have you so close, so focused, and it is of the river of her blood that pours through her veins. You tug, and she shivers, and almost reluctantly, she looks up at your eyes as you look at her.
     She knows where this is going. But that doesn't make it any more possible for her to look away. "I was thinking of going to Davy's," Fiona begins, then, abruptly she blushes. Without even knowing why. One small hand lifts to her cleavage, feeling for her necklace, fidgeting with the chain. "...Unless you had other plans."

     Those eyes glitter hotly. "Dressed like this?" He gruffs. "I don't think so," Davydd answers, eyebrows arching upward. "I'd have to kill somebody." His mouth quirks just at the corners as his eyes resume their hard grip on you. As sure as a hand on your arm. "Did you sleep with him today?" He does not accuse you of doing so. It wouldn't be much of an accusation as you likely have. And, besides, his rival is your other husband, his son.
     His strong hand, his left hand, the ruling hand tugs at your bustier again, a snap or two coming free. Davydd's gaze focuses on your flesh now, instead of your face. He is in the grip of hunger. There will be no dissuading him, even if you wanted to. You let him in. You let the creature in.
     He acknowledges your blush not with a knowing smile, a quipping tease, but with an intensifying focus. Your blood calls. The vampire answers. "It makes me crazy," his voice deepens, "... when I close my eyes, when the sun forces me to leave you. I have to give you up to him. To know that he is pleasing you, romancing you, loving you, showing you the world illuminated." Davydd's hand tugs again and the bustier loosens another notch, two. "And he has asked me to give up a night or two... so he can take you to dinner, to the opera. He is greedy. He wants you night and day. It is... enough he has you in the middle of the day... on that sofa, on the table, tied up in the room, dangling from the swing."
     Davydd tugs you by the lace, pulling you to him for a sudden kiss. Wild, without sweetness, fueled by his own self-torture, masturbatory jealousy. "I have other plans, Alice," he teases you with a sudden, sharp-toothed grin. "I'm going to eat you..."

     "I wasn't fully dressed yet," Fiona murmurs, but her pout is definitely put on. A hint of a sly grin curves up at the corners of her mouth as she looks at you. "But even if I were - you say it like that's a bad thing."
     She is purely female, right now, and reveling in it. It's hard to remember she is a modern woman, right now; there is that thrill, the idea that you might kill a man for looking at her. "And what if I did?" Fiona lifts a hand to push her hair back from her face, then gasps as you tug at her bustier. Lace gives way as if it were antique instead of modern, certainly.
     You pull her in for that kiss, and she goes to you as if she had no choice. Does she? Blue eyes are tinted by silvery grey, her mouth parting with astonishment before your kiss. "He wants me night and day," she agrees, a bit shakily. "But he doesn't get me both night and day, does he? What do you mean - you're going to eat me?"
     She is curious as a cat, and almost nervous in her excitement. With you ... she can never be certain.

     "What does it sound like I mean?" the vampire gruffs out, incredulous he's even being asked. "I mean it just like it sounds," Davydd laughs suddenly, his eyes crinkling in the corners, his eternal near-on forty year old face quite delighting in itself and humor. "Literally, metaphorically. You are dressed like treacle. You can't seem to be treacle and then complain when someone comes along and wants to eat you."
     You are lifted. Isn't that what at least a part of you wanted? To be lifted, carried from the living room to the bedroom.
     "Well," Davydd croons, "... he can't have you night and day. If I can only have you at night, he will have to be contented with the day. While I might compromise and give a night... what sort of compromise could be made for me?"
     Let alone what YOU might wish. That doesn't seem to enter the picture.
     Davydd sets you on your feet again. "He will steal you away one night," he whispers. "And he will force me to track you down. Just like the song. You will leave your husband, your baby to run off with the Black Jack Davy..."

     She shivers a little, but her arms go fast around your neck as you lift her, and she buries her face in your shoulder. "Well," Fiona murmurs finally, "if I must be eaten, then at least it is going to be by you. You'll just have to bring me dessert in bed, after, so that I can have my sweet."
     You are many things, after all - but sweet is seldom among them. Her arms tighten around your neck, and she shivers again, as if the window again has opened to let the cold night air trickle along her back.
     "I could never do that," Fiona whispers in your ear - even as you are setting her down. "Because the original Black Jack Davy never comes to take me away. He visits me at night only, and leaves me at the break of day. Alone ... cold ... desolate."
     Fiona looks up at you, her hands slow to slip from your shoulders. "What would I do without you, Davy? My own Black Jack. I love you..."

     As one son takes over the crowns of a kingdom, and another embodies the son, he has begun to stretch his arms over the only kingdom left to him: that of darkness, blood. It would be no more blatant if Davydd were wearing a crown of holly on his head. Babies and self doubt distracted this energy from where it pooled around your ankles in the bowels of Powis Castle, where you were taken, a naked maiden, your skin slashed and your blood filling a bowl...
     His hand touches your cheek, his fingers padding your flesh, your warmth. He looks at you as you plead your case, his dark green eyes a thick forest so few could traverse it. A tangle of vines, of brambles too...
     "Am I not sweet enough?" His mouth makes a sudden quirking smile, quicksilver in the low light. He is not sweet at all. All savory venison, dark gravy and earthy roots, this meal of a man. "You didn't answer my question earlier," the Welsh lilts and lifts, drags and grunts its way from his mouth. "Did you sleep with him today? His hands... do you remember where they were, his mouth?"
     It is an inquisition, and you are becoming as naked as Joan of Arc in front of your husband-inquisitor. His hands gather at your bustier, breaking the clasps free until the fabric gives way entirely. He lets the pink and black lace fall to the floor. "Did he whisper wild poems in your ear and did your moans... turn them into songs?"
     You can see the glimmer in the glade of his eyes. He is not asking to punish himself as in years past. He is toying with his own hunger, perhaps even keeping it in check out of concern for your own safety. For he is as pale as the winter moon.

     She is not trembling yet. Not yet; but shivers still make themselves known as you reveal this to her. Her skin is very pink and flushed with life; her hair, a rippling stream down her back. She watches you, eyes gone from wide to half-closed, as if you have her hypnotized.
     She has seen that tangle of briars before, and she has gone there, to your forest. More than once, she has gone there, in that other world. But never here.
     "You are smoky; heavy, resinous, clinging to the back of my tongue. When you fill me," and she blushes, the colour springing up suddenly; she has to avert her eyes all of a sudden, a schoolgirl embarrassment hitting so suddenly, surprising her, shocking her. "When you fill me, it is complete. It isn't something I can turn away from. It isn't something from which there's any coming back."
     Your question. She blushes again, looking up and then away, then down with eyes wide as you so suddenly divest her of her clothing. Her hands fly instinctively upwards to cover her bared skin, her exposed breasts. "Yes, I slept with him," Fiona snaps at you. Her eyes are suddenly blazing, the colour a riot in her cheeks. "Without poetry or music. We went out to lunch and stayed in for dinner. Why? Were you wanting it on video?"
     Even with the rising energy, she is still the girl she used to be. Perhaps it just took the danger and the fear to bring it out...

     He puckers his lips slightly. It's not really an expression of thought or consideration. He's trying to keep himself from saying: Well, it'd be a start. But his mouth relaxes as the moment passes. It is the following moment that has him more intrigued. If I had taken you to this room right after I grabbed your hand and yanked you off the concrete, I fancy it would have gone a bit like this.
     Davydd doesn't apologize. He smells your blood, your blushing, and he does the very opposite of apologize: he smiles. A chuckle rumbles in his throat as you cover yourself. Your hands are occupied (he'll tend to those later), but you offer yourself little protection for what clothing remains. Looping a finger in the waistband of your jeans, Davydd tugs you forward, sliding a woolen thigh between your own.
     "Don't get so angry, sweetheart," he smiles, his gaze going from your eyes to where your hands clasp. "I just wanted to know how thick I was going to have to pour it on." He lifts his thigh slightly, his hand sliding into the denim. "But I like you a little angry, oes? I can't help myself," he husks. "I want you to the point where your almost spitting, almost hitting, then watch you dissolve on my tongue like sugar in bourbon. "I can feel your blush from here," Davydd whispers. "Did you know that I could smell it? Smell your anger, smell your excitement..."
     His thick fingers press against you, sliding and roughly feeling their way. "I can smell ...hear... taste when your blood wants to jump free of your skin. But ... I don't want to drink too soon. I've been waiting a week for this." His breath hisses as he finds what he was looking for, and he kisses you, his sharper edged teeth threatening your flesh.

     The blush is staying, like a coat of paint. Clinging thickly to the other side of her skin as she watches you with half-wary, half-frightened eyes that do nothing to dispel her desire. You pull her forward, and she gasps as your thigh slides between her own. Denim-clad or no, the shock is electric - erotic - has her belly suddenly quivering.
     And oh, she would be damned before she would admit it to you...
     "How thick you were going to have to pour it on? For what?" You've lost her; her look to you is mystified. But you are sliding forward, and her words dissolve into a low moan, her teeth scraping against her lower lip as she squirms against you. "Stop it," Fiona mutters. She is torn between staying in your grasp and escaping, and trying to cover herself all the same. "Why would you want me angry? B-because if I have to, I'll b-bite YOU for a change, you know!"
     Feeble threat, and she knows it, what's more. Blue eyes stare up at you, and her mouth parts beneath your kiss all the same. The moan becomes trapped in her throat, a low whimper. She bumps up against you - harder than she usually would, belligerence adding to it. "Jerk," Fiona mutters. "Davy..."

     "Jerk," he grunts, a grin edging out to break the kiss -- only a moment before it begins again. Fingers and thigh roll in opposite circles; thigh clockwise, fingers counter-clockwise. "Bastard," he hisses, then chuckles. "Isn't that what I am, darlin? A first rate, fucking bastard. That's what you used to call me." His tongue, his kiss is a tangle of vines, the fangs pricking you like the thorns of brambles. "You can bite me... scratch me... kick me if you want," he chuckles a moan, his fingers quickening. "It won't make you any less wet."
     With a trotting bump between your legs, his thigh slides away. His fingers slide away from the juncture of your thighs, both hands going to the clasps of your jeans. Are you grateful for their unfastening? "You hate me, you love me, can't get enough of me," he grins, his eyes glinting with the truth and the teasing of it. "It's been like that from the beginning. You wanted that guy in the leather coat and cigarettes, spoutin' off witticisms in the middle of the street..."
     Davydd breaks the kiss, sucking the flavors of you from his lower lip as his gaze goes to his hands, to the sliding of the denim off your hips. "I wanted you," he whispers. "Sitting on the other side of the table when you took my hand and read my fucking life. No one did that to me, but you. I wanted to kill you for doing it. reaching in and touching me, brazen as you fucking please. I'm glad I didn't. You're much more fun to fuck than kill," he chuckles, eyebrows lifting as the worn denim falls to your ankles.

Posted by rowan at December 02, 2006 09:52 PM