Once, there was an island.... // MPHFPC one shots, imagines, and misc !

Blood in the Wine { Enoch O'Connor & Jolyne Stoker}

hes miserable. im miserable. what a wack ass combo!!

( this is totally mostly second person practice. im totally not rereading Harrow the Ninth instead of finishing The Hollow Boy, no, not at all)

(by the time this actually gets published i'll probably be finished with both Lockwood & Co. and the Empirium trilogy. because i'm clinically insane and have nothing else to do but work and read this summer)//

𓅃

You are eighteen years old when the woman shows up at your door.

Eighteen years, two months, and twelve days. You know, because your younger brother has grown an obsession with dates, and he reminds you every morning. You know, because your older sister collects calendars, and allows your younger brother to track everything in a large, leather backed dated journal that she had given him for his own birthday, just a few months before your own.

You are eighteen years, two months, and twelve days old when your world is shattered into a million shards of glass.

You had always known you were different— your mother calls it special, but you know that isn't what it is, what it is can't be described so simply— and you had always known this difference would one day drag you away, but you hadn't known it would be so soon. So soon after your father had finally agreed that you had spine. So soon after your mother had recovered from the illness that had wrecked her body since you were fourteen, the illness that made her tired and made you angry. So soon after you had grown to accept your fate.

The woman stands in your doorway, dressed neatly and professionally, reminding you of a bitter old nanny you had as a child, now made young and pretty, even with the lines framing her eyes and creases bracketing her smile. She speaks to your mother in polite, gentle tones, and your mother nods and picks at her bottom lip, where you can see the brittle dead skin upon the typical pink.

You watch from the kitchen, taking slow sips from a glass of water you've been nursing all day. You watch, knowing this is the turning point. You watch your mother heave a sigh and you hear her call your name, and you love your mother, so you go to her.

She tells you, "Honey, you know I love you."

You say, "Yeah."

"You know I only want what is best for you."

"Yeah."

"This," Your mother gestures to the prim woman, "is Dulcinea Swan. She takes care of people like you."

The woman offers her hand to you, and you don't want to take it, but your mother is there and you love your mother, so you do anyway. Her hands are soft and frail, and you can feel every bone beneath her ashen skin, and you try your best to look passive. You come from a family embedded with emotion, and passive is near unheard of in your household. It is not easy.

"It's a pleasure, Mr O'Connor. An Irish name, isn't it?"

You tell her, "Yes, it is," and, "My family held the throne until 1475." and, "It's nice to meet you, Miss Swan."

Even though you don't really mean any of it, and you aren't sure your O'Connor line is the same as the noble O'Connor line, and you don't think it's very nice to meet her at all.