Memento Mori = "Remember that you must die."
James Barnes is a mysterious and handsome newcomer to the sleepy town of Graybrooke. Rumor has it that he's come to take over running the town's popular flower shop after the mysterious illness and disapp...
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CW: Masturbation, biting, dirty talk, oral sex, spanking, light bondage, praise kink. Also vampire!Steve being truly unhinged.
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"If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die, sweetly die--into mine." - J. Sheridan Le Fanu, "Carmilla"
James is still asleep as the day crawls on. It's nearly 2:00pm and she's still buried in her work.
She's perched at the kitchen table with her legs tucked beneath her and her coffee at her side as she gnaws on a piece of toast covered in cinnamon sugar and butter. It's lunch, and it was her favorite breakfast as a child. She could eat an entire loaf of bread dipped in cinnamon sugar and butter if she really wanted to.
Sometimes, she does.
Vada is pouring over the police report, trying to figure out what happened. It's not often that people are murdered in Greybrooke, or in the adjacent towns. The crime rate is fairly low and they haven't had a single murder since Vada has been living here.
Santa Cruz is the murder capital of the world, what with Ed Kemper and William Herbert Mullin terrorizing the residents. But nothing like that has ever touched Greybrooke.
People here mostly die of natural causes, drownings in the ocean, or by their own hand.
Vada stares at the suspected cause of death on the police report.
CLAW AND TEETH MARKS.
She takes a final bite of toast, a sip of her coffee, and grabs her cigarettes off the kitchen table, sparking one up as she finishes chewing her breakfast. Sam thinks it's disgusting when she does this, but she's in the privacy of her own home right now, so she's free to be as gross as she wants.
So long as James doesn't wake up.
She circles the suspected cause of death with a red pen. Most cops can't really tell what the cause of death is, and it's unusual that it would be written down, but Vada will find out more tomorrow. People's bodies are like a roadmap. They tell her about past trauma, injuries, vices. Bodies hold secrets, and despite what people might think, the dead do speak. Loudly.
Usually, when someone comes in to be embalmed, Vada isn't concerned about cause of death. How they wound up on her table doesn't matter, what matters is that they're cared for. It's a much more emotional job than her previous position as a coroner.
Vada twirls the red pen in her hand as she smokes, flipping the page.
"That's a neat trick," James's voice echoes through the kitchen.
