deercountry | and my heart went 'boom!'

and my heart went 'boom!'

FEBRUARY 2023 EVENT

Due to the cyclical nature of Trench, prompts from the PREVIOUS FEBRUARY are available for use again. Please note when you are using this years prompts vs last years prompts when plotting or writing top-levels to avoid confusion.

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: A broken mirror with a woman looking into it, pressing her fingers against the glass. ]
[Image Two: A rose lit up like embers. ]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Neon hearts glowing on a wall. ]
[Image Two: A pocket watch on top of a book page. ]

Prompt Three
[Image One: A young woman with dark hair standing in the snow with red flowers. ]
[Image Two: Footprints in the snow. ]

[NAVIGATION]

Prompt 1 • Prompt 2 • Prompt 3 • Plotting • Newsletter

[JUMP TO COMMENTS]

BAD LUCK OF THE EARLY WORM

WHEN: February
WHERE: All around the city
CONTENT WARNINGS: Curses, violence, danger, misfortune

Everyone has their own streak of bad times. There are some days or weeks whre it feels like nothing is going right. Most people would try and tell say that it's just the tendency to focus on the negative. That it can be relieved by writing down all the good things that happen in our lives, because we have a tendency to only ever focus on the bad. And maybe most of the time, people are right! Maybe the idea of luck really is just perspective.

But not in Trench. Not this month.

No matter what way it's looked at, bad luck seems to be clinging to some people. It might start out small, with simple things like knocking over a favorite drink or snack, or ruining a project that had hours invested into it. Then it might become bigger. A person might start to trip over things and injuring themselves, they might get lost in a blizzard and nearly freeze before finding their way home or to someone they know. Eventually, it could even become undeniably dangerous. The person impacted by bad luck could start to notice corruption levels rising quickly, they could start to turn into a beast at random, they could start to attract violent beasts to them and put themselves or others at risk with heavy battles. The possibilities seem to be endless and none of them are good. Did someone break a mirror? Or twenty?

It will be easy to see that this isn't just impacting one person. Sleepers and Trenchies alike seem to be being plagued by streaks of bad luck across the board. Luckily, the locals seem to know what to do about it. Bad luck pops up from time to time, and of course there would be a ritual to help cleanse it.

Small vendors will start to pop up through the city selling wooden carvings that they promise will absorb all the bad luck that's been going around and dispell it with a simple ritual. A drop of blood from the person impacted and a drop of blood from someone they are close should be placed upon the carving. The blood types of the persons involved should not match (i.e. Coldblood/Coldblood would not work, but Coldblood/Warmblood would). It must be left to soak into the wood overnight, leaving behind deep red stains. The carving must then be placed with a fully bloomed rose and burned in the entrance doorway to the home of the inflicted. The ashes should then be placed into a container and kept somewhere in the home for the duration of February, to make sure that the bad luck stays away.

It seems like it really works! The tricky part is making sure that the bad luck following doesn't get in the way of the ritual while the blood is soaking over night. It may be best for both parties involved to hunker down together until morning, just in case. Time to break out the small talk. Or the deep, meaningful conversations that can sometimes happen in the middle of the night.

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

GETTING TO KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU

WHEN: February
WHERE: A magic room in the city.
CONTENT WARNINGS: Reference to mild shocks. Forced honesty. Embarrassment. Lots and lots of embarrassment.

Honestly, after being in Trench for so long, people should be used to not ending up in the destination they initially intended for. This month, it seems like the city is trying to encourage people to social, to form new bonds, whether they're romantic, platonic, familial, or any other option one could think of. The bright idea this month for that sort of thing?

Speed dating.

It's not traditional speed dating, necessarily. No one is here to exclusively seek romantic partners, although there are certainly options for it. And it's not something people are signing up for out of their own free will. Instead, people seem to simply show up at the event, with no real recollection of how they got there. Maybe they just woke up on one of the comfy couches and found a "Hi, my name is..." sticker slapped on them. Or maybe they were wandering in the snow and got lost, ending up finding shelter in this strange place, and are now forced to participate until the blizzard passes. All in all, it's harmless fun, isn't it? Who doesn't need a few new friends.

Each person will have a small information blurb given about them that can't be seen by the naked eye, but will appear as soon as someone looks at the other party through their omni. What the blurb says is unique to each person, but it might become clear pretty quickly that they didn't write it themselves... Deerington survivors may find themselves having flashbacks to the days of DeerlyBeloved.

Pairings are completely random. People will be given a series of random questions they can ask one another or they can always feel free to make up their own. Anyone who tries to lie or avoid answering a question might feel a small shock from the chair they're sitting in, one that gets stronger with every lie they tell. The after effects of the shock seem to encourage the need to answer the question with full transparency. It's important to tell the truth when getting to know someone, after all.

After five minutes, both parties can either press a button beside their chair to continue talking to the person they're paired with, or they can move on to the next pairing. Both parties have to press the button in order to stay where they are.

Have fun and remember to always be honest!

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

LONELY HEARTS CLUB

WHEN: February
WHERE: Trenchwood and throughout the city.
CONTENT WARNINGS: Violence, abuse of power, jealousy, possession, supernatural events, possible death from elemental exposure

There's a tale that comes up around this time of year, one that seems to be an old favorite in Trench. Long ago, in the heart of a blizzard, a young woman was found wandering in Trenchwood. She wore only thin fabrics to keep herself warm and had no shoes. Her skin felt cold as ice. The Hunters who found her quickly brought her into town, giving her shelter in a local in to try and get her warm. She stayed for many nights and it didn't take long for the inn keeper to fall in love with her. But she did not seem to return to his feelings and so he was heartbroken and jealous of all the other men who gave her attention. He demanded she offer him something in trade for her stay and when she could offer nothing, he threw her back out into the snow. The woman went back to the woods and some could hear her howling in anguish, carried through on the strong winds of the blizzard. The Hunters tried to find her, following her cries, but they were unable to, and had to return home before they too might freeze to death. The innkeeper was shunned from the town and forced to leave the city for his cruelty, but nothing stopped the howls of the snow woman.

Throughout the month of February, people will start to hear that the sound of the wind blowing strongly through the streets is starting to sound a little more human-like. The woman's cries will be heard in empty alleys, will be loudest near the edge of the woods, and can even penetrate into dreams. The cries might sometimes sound like cries for help, begging for someone to help save her from the cold. There will be a compulsion that sets deep into the bones of some and many will find it hard to resist her call. Eventually, they may even go looking for her in the woods, trying to brave the winter storms to help the lost snow woman.

Those who give in to that temptation will eventually find the snow woman, but she will not be friendly when found. Her skin has turned a pale white, her lips blue, her eyes glowing a bright red, her long hair blowing every which way in the wind. She will rush at whoever she sees, but instead of giving a physical blow to guard against, she will go through any solid objects and latch on to the soul of her target, possessing their bodies. Male or female, it doesn't seem to matter, she simply wants a chance at life again.

Those who are possessed by the snow woman will not realize they are possessed. They will forget why it was they came out into the woods looking for and will return to the city in a daze. As time passes, they will find that they become irritated by any signs of affection, will become physically aggressive towards couples they see around them, and will attack those who care about them most. The spirit does not necessarily hate love: instead, they see affection as a possible risk for all those who love others. Jealousy kills and she wants to save everyone around her from it, as well as keeping herself safe from losing this new chance at life.

Signs of possession outside of the aggression can be noticed by others. The possessed person will have: ice cold skin, blue-tinged lips, they might shiver even when inside where it's warm, and an aversion to fire or warm/hot water.

Information on how to banish the snow woman from another's body can be found in a book of local legends. This book is sold in stores or can be found in the Archives. To save someone from the snow woman, people must tell the possessed person the things they love most about them. It will cause the possessed person to react violently, so it is suggested that they be restrained during the process. The longer they are forced to hear the positive messages about love, the feelings that they can stir up in another (whether platonic or romantic), and the safety that can be found in that love, the more weakened the hold from the snow woman will be. When the possessed person eventually stops struggling, a cut must be made on the back of their neck, before a cloth soaked in warm rose water must be placed on top of the wound. Their skin will begin to steam before a large gust of snow will pour from their mouth, swirling around the room, and smash through the window. It's suggested to leave it open if you'd like to save the glass.

[JUMP TO TOP]

CODING

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sharon turns to him at the greeting, offering him a small, tense smile in return. It would be a lie to say she wasn't a little disappointed but, at the same time, she was a little glad to see him, pale-skinned, in that familiar cloak of his. This was Mayerling and Johan was gone. She hopes he's returned to his Charlotte and is living the best life he can far from the insanity of this world.

She opens her mouth to take in a breath before she responds but immediately something is wrong. Off. Her lungs don't want to work. The panic is instantaneous. Her hands shoot up to her chest and her throat, flat against them as if she were trying to find the problem, and then she presses. She opens and closes her mouth like a fish out of water.

"I can't," is the only thing she manages to push out with the last of the air in her lungs. There is a mindless desperation in her eyes as she stumbles towards Mayerling.

"Sharon!" Mayerling shouts, sharp and concerned. He cannot breath either, and his body rebels at the choking sensation. Panic threatens, but Mayerling ignores it. Danger has come, and someone else's life hangs in the balance, not merely his own. While his steps are heavy and staggering, Mayerling's cloak ripples as living metal. One hand grasps an edge, and Mayerling flicks it out and around Sharon to draw her close to him.

His mouth stays closed, and Mayerling rests his hand over one of hers. In that instant, he can breath. He does, nearly gasping for the sweet taste of air. More importantly, Sharon breaths as well. Mayerling hears her heart pumping and feels the oxygenated push of red blood cells around her body. Good. Good.

"I have you, Sharon," Mayerling tells her softly. "I will not let you go until you can breath on your own." His own ability not a concern. He will not force her to stay for his sake. They are far closer than they have been in some time, since she collapsed in the snow to trick him to come closer to ensure she was okay. No other world forms around them. It's not that kind of trickery, though Mayerling would have done the same even if it were.

Each breath she takes is short and pinched as she tries to process what's happened and why. Normally, she'd pull herself away from him but, in addition to being able to breathe, there's comfort in the touch and physical closeness. She leans in closer to him without even considering the action.

"What the fuck happened, Mayerling?" she asks as she looks up at him, "It was like my lungs stopped working when I saw you."

It sounds like something out of some stupid, cheesy romance novel and Sharon would laugh if it didn't scare the shit out of her. "Could you breathe?"

Mayerling lightly provides Sharon the one armed hug, ready to catch her should she fall. However, for all she leans into him, he wants her to know it's her choice, that he will not trap her. He wishes he could give her something to the same effect. He would readily give her the hand that lays over hers would it help, but her avoidance since the hunt, since the way it ended, all but ensures she would hate that gift. For now, all he can give her is the affection she leans into.

"If I knew the answer, I would gift it to you as complete as I understood it," Mayerling says, "You stole my breath away as surely as I did yours, for what little good that did either of us."

The only grace is that they are not underwater as Mayerling and D found themselves two short months and one human lifetime ago. "I will not let you perish."

"I know," she breathes out, her voice small. It is a kindness she does not feel she deserves, not after the cruelty she demonstrated. Her willingness to hunt him down, to trick him, is an action that haunts her; that reminds her of what she's capable of to even those she's grown to care for. With enough pressure from this world, she can be every bit of the demon the people of Silent Hill thought her to be (knew her to be).

"Do you think if we..." she takes in a deep, gulping breath and slips her hand out from under his, and steps away. This action isn't born from a desire to distance herself but a test. The moment her lungs seize up in her chest, she reaches for him and takes his hand in hers, grasping it tightly, and says with a grimace, "That answers that."

"I wonder if there's something we need to do." Already, she's thinking of ways to fix this but, at the same time, she's relishing in their closeness; the relief and comfort it brings, "I got trapped underwater a few months back but the answer to that had been pretty obvious."

Even as his head pounds from the lack of oxygen and a vice grips his chest, Mayerling's more concerned at the face Sharon makes. He can survive a little asphyxiation and come back from the dead. It's not that hard. Sharon is far more easily broken. Humans always are. Sleepers return from the dead, but Mayerling does not wish for Sharon to experience it needlessly if at all.

"Once was enough," Mayerling says. He holds her hand as they stand transfixed by the experience where they found each other in the house. Some other matters first since the house is a relatively safe location.

"I was similarly trapped, unable to get out until I found and worked with D," Mayerling says. "That was a test of our ability to survive. This, without any danger unless we separate, testifies that it is within ourselves we must look, not the environment."

It's a long-winded way to say 'it's not you, it's us.' He glances at her, even now waiting Sharon's permission to breach the conversation they sorely need. It will not go better for forcing the matter harshly.

Sharon chews on her lower lip in consideration of the statement, recognizing instantly what he's saying to her, but she's visibly discomfited by the idea. She can see the logic in it, though, and after a pause, she nods. Her grip on his hand tightens. That look on his face tells her what he thinks they need to discuss and her lungs knot in her chest but not from a lack of air this time around.

"I kinda don't want to," she admits after an uncomfortable swallow, throat tight, a waiver of a laugh in her voice, her gaze wide but laid upon their hands instead of his face. There's a reason she's been avoiding him. She knows he knows, it's not like it wasn't obvious. She thought her feelings would have lessened after some time but the guilt still twisted in her, compounded after the last few months of using the Otherworld.

Finally, she sighs and looks back up at him, "I don't know how to address it, Mayerling, " not Johan, not anymore, and she misses the easiness that had been there. She knows she and Mayerling can achieve that same friendly easiness, though, if she'd just let them, "I still feel fucking awful about everything. I thought I'd get over it but I guess that's not something I have an easy time doing."

Mayerling understands the discomfort of the conversation, even if it's a different reason than those behind the conversations he and D aren't having. Oh yes, his mind has reasons for that, explanations that sound reasonable. They may not to others' ears. However, given D is a private person and Mayerling too is unused to asking advice of others on such matters, he hasn't sought anyone else's opinion. Things ought to be easier given Mayerling now knows D spared his and Charlotte's lives in the timeline or universe he comes from. However, D knew that and knew he came from another timeline and said nothing. Someday they'll need to talk.

Sharon, however, gets his focus as she talks. They're finally having more conversation—them, not Sharon and Johan. It's not much, but it's a beginning.

"Shutting the feelings away and ignoring them doesn't get rid of guilt," Mayerling says, "That only lets them fester. You feel awful for everything? What is everything? Hunting me while under Pthumerian influence? Taking me to that other dimension while doing so? Avoiding me since then? All of that? Tell me if I missed something."

Mayerling pauses, in case Sharon might skip over something. "I remember Johan's time here." Fondly, he might add.

Sharon is too used to keeping everything to herself. She doesn't like to address her feelings, let alone the heavier ones, and it's always been easier to just stuff them into the back of her mind and let them live there like dust bunnies. Mayerling voices the things she doesn't want to voice, each question a bullseye that makes her twitch, a silent affirmative, and she's uncomfortable.

Even if he missed something, she'd never tell him that.

"Yes," she grinds out with all the frustration and mild embarrassment of a teenager in the wrong and when he brings up Johan, her gaze slips past his face, her attention on the stairs behind him. She suddenly very much wants this conversation to end even if she knows, deep down, it's necessary, "I knew that was a possibility. It's why I encouraged him to do certain things."

Like, watching the sunset and the sunrise. Explore the city during the day. She'd wanted him to experience things he can't experience now. In a way, it was her attempt to make up for her mistakes.

"I didn't fuck that up too much, did I?" suddenly, visibly, uncertain. Her and Johan's initial encounter had gotten a little rocky but she thought they'd smoothed things over once they got over some of their miscommunications.

The beat of Sharon's heart tells him as much as her words. He listens to it because he cannot help but hear it. Vampire hearing is sharp and sensitive and not something flipped off like a switch. Instead, Mayerling offers the illusion of privacy humans expect of one another. If only she heard his in return it would be easier. Except he knows no way of that which rises above terrible tragedy. So it is what it is, and they are what they are.

"You did right by me with that," Mayerling admits, slight color to his cheeks. "Johan enjoyed his time with you. I believe you did well enough by him as well. For myself, I—

"In six thousand years I had not experienced what you two did in six hours. I have dreamed so long of what the ocean looks like in daylight, of the colors of plants in softly dappled light, of the littlest pleasure that five seconds in your company gave him... gave me."

His smile is warm and longing. A vampire from birth, Mayerling's never known daylight except with the pure agony of immolation. "I appreciate it, Sharon."

Sharon holds his gaze as he speaks, reading into every little shift in his expression. The flutter of his lash, the color on his cheeks. She searches for a lie and finds none; she knew she wouldn't. One day, she may stop trying to find reasons to force distance from those she's come to like.

And then comes the gratitude: warm and genuine. It loosens something in her. A stiffness in her back that tightens up, a need to fight it, and then it's gone. Her expression flickers, confused and uncertain before it softens like melting ice.

"It was nothing," she's quick to wave it off, both touched and made uncomfortable by his sincerity, "I'm glad you remember. I wouldn't have regretted doing it if you hadn't but," she sighs and then shakes it off, eyes on their hands the moment she begins to feel too raw, "Whatever. you know what I mean."

Her goal there had been to build memories. It wouldn't have been a loss if Mayerling didn't remember, her time with Johan was something she would cherish, but she'd have been a little disappointed.

Nothing? A soliloquy forms on his lips, an ode to the manifold expression of the narrow band of light defining the visible range to humans, the gentle warmth of sun that does not drive one mad with pain, and to the unfulfilled and previously unfulfillable longing in his soul. Whatever. They both understand that.

She gets it. She did it for him. Emotion swells even larger, the crescendo of his feelings impressing even him with their amplitude. Mayerling turns sideways and starts to raise his hand (their interlocked hands) toward his face. The steady pulse of blood beneath her skin stops him. The contact they need, not even a step away to attenuate the intensity of feeling that surely must pulse off of him like the echolocation of a bat. It is all so much. Mayerling's chin hits his throat, and he barely swallows air.

"All that is far greater a means of amends than you needed offer for the attempt on my life, yet you have given me a far greater gift, one that saves me from despair for a realization Johan did not mean to uncover. It was before my very eyes had I only ever looked. If I had, if I had found D's memory of my death—a death I did not suffer—along with Charlotte's," Mayerling's voice cracks as he says her name and acknowledges aloud two realities where Charlotte died, where she lived up to her threat on the bridge, "and did not also know of a life where we are together healthy and hale, healthy and human and hale at that, I don't know whether I would have the heart to go on. You sought my heart when you first hunted me, but rather than take it, this kindness saved it trembling and beating in your hands, though you may not have realized the extent to which you could have crushed it then and there. I forgive you, Sharon. More than that, I trust you with it."

A sappy emotional and dramatic line, but Mayerling means it. If Sharon hasn't realized it yet, this is the heart of vampires, emotions so strong and sure and sudden.

"Whatever debt or guilt you still feel in your heart, please know and accept that you have repaid upon it far more than you needed. Should such arithmetic be needed to close the distance between us, let it be enough. Let it wash away. This means that much to me."

Mayerling's heart is on his sleeve, visible through his eyes, and it carries on each word that falls from his lips. It strikes her. Stuns her. It has her straightening her back up as she listens as if to bring herself closer to the raw intensity of it. He has taken her breath from her without even letting go of her hand.

Her nose starts to tickle and sting as tears begin to pool in her eyes, an almost knee-jerk response to his sincerity. All of it overwhelms her. She bites at her lower lip to keep it from trembling, conscious of not breaking the flesh. There was no reason to make this closeness any harder on him than it need be.

"I took photos," the words bubble up and out her throat and spill from her mouth, a strange need to flood the space between them with words and thoughts and fill it; sandbags against the emotions that feel too real and weigh much too heavily upon her to think properly. A distraction. A way to calm the rising tide, "and videos. In case you forgot. So you can have more than just a memory."

But even as she speaks, certain things he's said stick in the folds of her brain; of a memory and a death and Charlotte. Johan saw and so Mayerling saw. Her grip on his hand tightens and she steps in closer, pulling his hand down to her chest so as to cradle it there, covering it with her other hand.

Sharon's reactions first worry Mayerling that they may reflect his feelings, rather than her own. Such is the appeal of vampires. He senses the wide field of his emotions and pulls back on the tether. Sharon should still sense his feelings without being overwhelmed by them.

His heart is so full of love and connection it's richer than he's felt in a thousand years, with the natural and unmovable caveat of his time with Charlotte, every heartbeat. Mayerling knows it's what Charlotte would want, at least these other tones overlaying the grief and pain, it's what Ange said is the healthy way to move on, the way that does best by everyone (himself and Charlotte included). It's... a step up out of the existential grind toward extinction, if such a thing is truly possible.

It could be shifting sands, he knows, when the suffocating weight of grief and loss return to crush it. For a moment, a brief moment, however, the world doesn't crush his heart, the way that holding Sharon's hand in this moment keeps the world from crushing his lungs. The parallel's clear to him, and Mayerling wonders if this is the point, a face to face, heart to heart, hand in hand... What is the loss of breathing compared to this? He offers a silent prayer, not above his belief in the ancient ancestor, but of gratitude to the Doorway.

Sharon sets his hand on her chest. Her heart beats below his palm. Skin, flesh, and bone lay between them, nothing more than tissue paper should a vampire decide to hold it literally. Mayerling rests there, feeling every pulse of her heart. Her veins light up his vision, and he watches the flow of blood around her whole body, emotions and feelings as readable in the pulse of blood as the words.

Tears of appreciation and joy slip down his face as he steadies his breath there. Steady. Steady. Steady. Slowly Mayerling controls the fade of that view of her arteries and veins from his vision. With that, he can better trust himself to open his mouth.

"I know not how to communicate how much this all means to me," Mayerling says, "Even these words fall far short—the finger pointing toward the moon, not the moon itself. For at least this moment, my eventual demise and the extinction of vampires—the good so long buried beneath the bad—are merely present, not the foremost emotional sway always a breath away. I had not realized that was possible or would ever be possible again."

He raises his eyes, lashes moist with his tears, to her face. "Each and every photo and video means the world to me. Your kindness means more than you know. In failing words, know that you are important to me, and should you need me, even should the sun ignite the sky, call out to me, and I will come."

The air she breathes feels so heavy, her lungs tight and hungry but every breath she takes doesn't feed them the way she's used to. In some ways, it reminds her of a panic attack. Breathless, heart pounding, blood rushing. Overloaded.

The tears catch her off-guard. They break her heart and mend it again. Thoughtlessly, she reaches one hand up to touch his cheek and gently wipes the trail with the pad of her thumb. He has so much emotion within him that it overflows and she could drown in it. She never once thought that her actions, her actions, could have this kind of profound effect on someone; that they could mean so much. It overwhelms her; it embarrasses her; it satisfies her.

"I think I get it," she breathes out, the smile on her lips shy, damp gaze filled with a tender understanding. How could she not understand? His words were more than enough to move her but it's his reaction, powerful and raw, that pierces her; that touches and shocks her and really nails it home. She made him feel this way. Her actions did this.

"Thank you," she squeaks out, throat laced up tight with feelings she's not used to. She licks her lips, "I wish I could put into words how much that means to me." But unlike him, she is not eloquent. For someone so driven by her emotions, Sharon does not know how to best communicate them. She simply feels them and then acts upon them. Or feels them and then drowns them. Her heart is a graveyard filled with the bones of emotions she couldn't address.

Mayerling smiles softly at Sharon. This close, it's harder not to notice the physical signals that always provide some context. It's one of the interesting aspects of living among people, all the little day to day information he cannot help but know. Sharon drowns out that ocean of information, so close and connected. Her hitched breathing, the elevated rhythm to her heart, the very chemicals released into her system and the way they affect her internal organs. It's all so much but in the end comes down to one simple truth: Mayerling understands how she feels.

"You're welcome," Mayerling says, his deep voice thick with emotion. So little in so few words, but surely it nears enough.

Pinning her hand against her chest, Mayerling straightens his hand where it is over her heart. "You need not use words, Sharon," he tells her, "I can feel it."

For a moment, Mayerling stands there, Sharon's huge waves of emotion making him all the more comfortable and safe feeling in his. Then he adds, "You may burn with the fury of a thousand suns yet too as warm as dappled sunlight on a winter's day. You contain as much kindness as hatred. You need so strongly you yearn, though it may rarely be satisfied. You are a multiplicity of emotion, and I accept and care for all of it, for all of you. You astound me."

His smile below sparkled damp eyes shines true.

Before him, she realizes, she must well and truly be an open book, her heart out on full display for him. The realization hits her like a weight. It makes her feel naked. Vulnerable. A fish in the hands of an angler. For as startling as this revelation is, some tiny, hungry part of her relishes in this knowledge for no other reason than that she is safe like this with him.

Even with his hand upon her chest, right above her heart, she is safe.

Again, he's stolen her breath from her with words alone. He sees her rage, a seemingly endless pit that boils within her and accepts it. He sees it and so much more. That flusters her. Unbalances her. Her brow knits together in her confusion and her lips pinch and twist as if she can't decide how to settle them but it's her eyes that speak. Wide and wet, pupils dilated, black ringed with blue, lashes damp but tears stubborn to fall.

With warning, or hesitation, without a single thought beyond a sudden overwhelming sense of gratitude for him, she presses forward, slipping her hand out from beneath his to hook under his arm. The hand that had been on his cheek travels to the back of his head and settles on the back of his neck. She buries her face into his shoulder, not too much shorter than him and mumbles, "I'm thankful I met you."

The circle of people she loves has just gotten a little bigger.

Even the risk is mitigated by his knowledge of her. Yes, human reactions can shift in an instant, but Mayerling has known Sharon and paid attention to the minutiae of her feelings and reactions since they first met and every moment since. He paid attention while she hunted him and found peace with the forced situation much sooner for it.

Mayerling stands and lets Sharon settle herself against him before he wraps an arm around her to gently hold her against him, to support her. "I am too, Sharon," Mayerling says, "Even among all the people in Trench, you are a singular woman."

He only does emotions strongly and with a large heart. Mayerling doesn't know how one does caution—as he does with D perhaps? That's the closest he comes to it. Their connection runs deep but conflicted, there for what they need each other for but with distance as well.

Mayerling and Sharon still stand in the entrance way of the house. "Not to be forward," Mayerling begins, "Not to suggest—" He flushes. "So long as we must remain touching, might we be more comfortable somewhere else? My coffin could comfortably fit us if you don't mind this level of intimacy... lying down."

The question startles her, heart fluttering in her chest as she pulls away from him just a fraction to look him in the eyes. She doesn't need to search his face for some sign of an ulterior motive. Mayerling, though they've only known one another a handful of months, has never struck her as the type of man to take advantage of a situation like this one.

Granted, she's been wrong before, but Mayerling isn't like Vincent. With that certainty in mind, she dips her head, "If you try anything funny, I will stab you." But there is something light to the threat. More teasing than anything else but it's also a reminder that she's not helpless; that there is a weapon on her hip.

"Maybe you can explain to me why vampires sleep in coffins. It's kinda grim," it's one thing about vampire lore she's never understood. Back home, she always thought it was all about the spooky vibes. She knows that's not the case now but she's never gotten an adequate explanation.

Mayerling waits, his heartbeat steady and calm under her gaze. He's in no rush. They've been here some time. If Sharon wishes, he will stand here with her the entire time. His greatest concern with a refusal would be her concern with his character, with her safety with him.

"I assure you, Sharon, I would never try anything funny," Mayerling says in an overly serious voice, "I have been told repeatedly I lack a sense of humor."

Deadpan.

More seriously, Mayerling sighs and shakes his head. "I courted Charlotte before we kissed, before we did anything... funny," Mayerling says.

He pauses, blushing a scarlet red, as he realizes belatedly that, as he is a vampire, Sharon likely meant a different kind of funny. "I never fed on her. I don't feed on humans. That's not— I have asked D to kill me should I ever do such a thing."

"We can work on your humor," she tells him lightly, something of a grin snaking its way into her tone, lips quirking lopsidedly. Her own sense of humor had a tendency to lean towards self-deprecation. Something about being able to poke fun at herself felt easy, though that was largely in part due to the mild self-hatred she grappled with.

But then he's speaking of Charlotte. Her head tilts curiously to the side as his pale cheeks turn a deep shade of red. Oh. Oh!

"I didn't even—" the words spill out as she flushes a berry color. Her mind didn't even touch upon the fact that he was a vampire, "I was thinking 'wandering hands' rather than the whole," she unwinds her hand from the back of his neck to bring it to her mouth, using her index and middle fingers to imitate a pair of fangs briefly, "vampire thing."

"I kinda forgot about it, honestly," sheepish and then her eyes go wide and round like saucers, "Just don't tell D I said that. He'd give me a look that would... make me rethink my existence for a moment."

Sharon knows how dangerous vampires can be, especially the ones from Mayerling and D's own world, but nothing can compare to the potential threat of a man to her. She's been attacked by a vampire here, has been bit, but it doesn't haunt her like Colin does.

A hunter and a Noble, both of them blushing terribly. Such dangerous creatures. It's laughable in that moment, never mind that they are touching lest they lose the ability to breath.

Mayerling eyes her imitation of vampire fangs, amused that those are meant to look anything like a set of vampire feeding fangs. All the better if Sharon has no intimate knowledge of what those are like. It is the highest compliment to him that Sharon feels so safe with him that her mind did not consider being fed upon as a threat. At least, as a threat of grave concern.

It concerns him, however, from the way Sharon speaks of wandering hands, from the way she doesn't want D to know because she knows how dangerous vampires can be (surely D has educated her on the fates of those bitten by vampires from their world, the reason for which Mayerling has obtained D's promise, the reason for which the vampire hunter can be trusted to follow through whether Mayerling asked or didn't), from the signals he senses in her body, that something in her past, something traumatic and personal and experienced... outweighs any other potential horror. Such is the way of horror.

"On my life, I swear to you, I will never make physical advancement upon you without your free, enthusiastic consent, Sharon," Mayerling says, "I am a gentleman and a romantic. I have had four romances in my long life, and outside of romance, I have no interest in otherwise engaging in physical intimacy of a sexual nature." His cheeks still rival the colors used for blush on a stage, but the need to assure Sharon outweighs his potential embarrassment.

Should he find it necessary due to bloodlust, he would approach D, as the only appropriate potential partner in Trench. D would hate it, Mayerling suspects, but consider it if the alternatives were worse. He also knows that D suffers from the same bloodlust. Besides, that wouldn't necessarily be sex but biting. He feels no compunction to explain that briarpatch of a situation, however.

Edited 2023-03-10 00:40 (UTC)

From her point of view, Mayerling is fantastically, and beautifully unique. Unusual. And, for the umpteenth time since she'd walked into this poor excuse of a home, he's taken her breath from her. Shocked her. Her lips press together as she soaks in his declaration; memorizes it and the heat upon his cheeks, even as her own ears burn under her mop of bleached hair.

He is embarrassed by his own words and yet he still chose to say them; a sacrifice to assure her. She laughs and it's breathy and unweighted, "I know. I was just teasing. I didn't think you'd ever..." she can't quite bring herself to finish that sentence though and lets it hang there, ears still hot, "I trust you, Mayerling."

Mayerling has never done anything to make her question him and every conversation they've had has only made her more and more certain of his character. And here he was, assuring her, without any hint of sleaze or ulterior motive. She unwraps herself from him only so much as to take him by the hand, intertwining their fingers together, and then begins to move towards the stairs.

"Coffin is up here, right?" She doesn't really need to ask. She's spent enough time here, crashing in D's strange, opulent coffin tower, to know the general layout and location of everything inside the house. As she moves, leading the way like she owns the place, she continues, "So, four romances, huh? Haven't you been around thousands of years? I'm kind of surprised you haven't had more."

The blood continues to flow hot to the surface. Though the air wicks away heat, Mayerling's embarrassment generates more than that cooling system can keep up with. "Thank you," Mayerling says. He pauses. "As I admitted before, I have been accused of taking everything seriously. It is born of millennia alone, wherein most of my interactions have been with people whose decision to attempt to kill me may hinge upon the very words I choose. A habit so long born is not readily shed, even among someone I trust with my life."

He lets her take the lead, having no need to prove some manly dominance or any vampire superiority. Sharon knows her way around the house and wants to show him to his own coffin? Honestly, Mayerling finds it delightful. He nods and moves silently after her, practically sliding up the steps like his cape behind him.

"My romance with another vampire was tumultuous at best, not in the healthy way portrayed in the better romance novels, not even in the unhealthy ways portrayed in the worse romance novels. Though he claimed to share... if not my exact values, the same outcome of them, toward humans, (he said that feeding on them created a dependency upon humans, a weakness that could be exploited), in he end, he could not resist the bloodlust, could not stand by his own values, and thought that he could introduce a human into our lives and our relationship, someone who would be nothing more than a source of blood," Mayerling explains.

He stops explaining to catch his emotions, to calm himself, because to grow to angry about this matter thousands of years in the past, would only make his bloodlust stronger. Mayerling clenches his jaw shut.

"He thought if he kept the person around long enough, I wouldn't be able to resist. We would have our new relationship dynamic, and everything would be fine," Mayerling continues, haughtily calm, "that did not work out for him."

He hangs his head as they reach the room with both coffins. "In my youth and my ignorance, I did not realize he would take it out on the human village where the young man came from. When I learned what he did, when I learned that he was on his way to the next village, that his heartbreak and anger knew no bounds," Mayerling himself sounds sad and heartbroken, "I fought him, and I killed him. It was the only way to stop the murder and carnage. After that, I never courted a vampire again. I decided I would only court humans."

Mayerling leaves that be for the moment. If Sharon needs to ask, he will explain how difficult it is to find a human who doesn't either try to kill a vampire or flee from one. From there, to actually like the rare person you meet from the very small pool of potential partners... Well, it's not something that happens frequently. He lifts the lid of his coffin to reveal a large, well padded space within.

"I am... large and heavy, so I recommend I climb in first," he says.

A millennia alone. The statement sticks to her and burrows down deep in her brain. She knew what life was like alone but her decades couldn't compare to his centuries. Still, she found herself able to relate to him a little. There was nothing so awful as always being on the outside looking in. The longing it could breed. The pain. It was an injury you grew accustomed to and only ever realized it still hurt when you found someone.

As she leads the way, she listens, glancing back at him only once when he has to stop himself, her expression solemn and understanding. She gives his hand a delicate squeeze — a tiny show of support; an offer of silent comfort. She doesn't know what it's like to fall in love like that; to see the beginnings of cracks in a foundation you thought would last.

Not only did his first love give in to his baser desires, but he also lashed out when their relationship rightfully came to an end. She stares into the open coffin as she soaks in that knowledge, thoughts spiraling. Rage and heartbreak could make a monster out of anyone. A human could do damage, too, but nothing compared to a Noble. Mayerling chose to love humans instead, chose heartbreak and loss, to avoid ever experiencing that again. To love a human as a vampire was to love someone knowing it would end but he would continue on.

"In you go," she sounds so much less nervous than she feels. She's always been good at masking. It was a necessity growing up. She was a pretender, not an actress, but there's no hiding the flutter of her heart or how her blood rushes through her body, cold as ice. The coffin had just been an idea moments ago and now it was a reality right before her.

The moment he is in and settled, she joins him, ignoring the butterflies that were trying to fly up and out her throat. It's been a long time since she's felt like this.

"This is kinda weird," she confesses but somehow touching him, being this close, provides her with a strange, foreign sort of comfort and the hummingbird beat of her heart settles as she does. She snuggles into him, lets herself relax, and lays her head on his chest.

"So," she starts as one hand reaches across him to find the edge of his cape, pinching it with her thumb and index finger, "isn't it hard to love a human? They can be just as cruel when their hearts are broken."

"And then there's the whole bloodlust thing you have to control and-and the long-lived/short-lived thing," she cranes her neck to look up at him, "How do you manage it? It feels like loving a human would be setting yourself up for tragedy."

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