Veneration of Dreams // Ransom Drysdale

sixteen // stay with me

"I had no right to yell at you," Ransom murmured, his lips inches from her own. She could smell his drink like honey and spice on his breath and down his forearms where it had spilt. Her hand rested on his cheek, thumb quivering as she raised it to stroke a line back and forth down his cheekbone but her eyes were lower. They rested on the collar of his sweater because he finally seemed like he was going to open up and she had no idea what she would do if she looked any higher.

"After I killed that girl, it took weeks for me to realise what I had done. In the moment, it felt almost like someone else had done the job and I was only taking care of the cleanup but when it hit me in that prison that I was a murderer just like the drug addicts and serial killers I was locked up with, I couldn't stop throwing up. I wanted to end it, Katarina, I wanted to end everything and I know, if you'll believe me, I know what you've been going through so I am so, so sorry." He said, beginning to wish he hadn't thrown out that last glass of whiskey.

Katarina closed her eyes, bidding her stinging tears to disappear before she looked up at him and took his lips in her own, all-consumed by the flame burning between them. He softened beneath her touch in an instant, surrendering himself completely to the push of her tongue as she sought a passage between his lips.

His hands snaked beneath her shirt, travelling to the dip of her back as she shoved him against the mantlepiece, holding her tight so she too fell, her body colliding with his chest, lips twisted in a smirk. Then his hands were in her hair and her smile gave way for a moan that echoed in his ear, begging his head to dip beneath her jaw and graze at the skin of her neck, lining her collarbone with kisses. Her breath hitched as he pulled away, leaving what was undoubtedly going to form a mark by the next morning.

Not an hour later, the parted bedroom curtains illuminated Katarina's face in a sliver of moonlight as she turned on her side and listened to the running shower in the bathroom. He had put one of father's playlists on from the digital library connected to the speakers and Taylor Swift of all things was playing across the cabin.

"Did you change it?" Ransom mouthed as he walked out, only a white towel wrapped around his hips. Katarina shook her head, smiling. She grabbed his hand as he walked by and pulled him down on top of her.

"Where are you going?" She asked, as he rolled off her to his side of the bed.

"Well, I didn't want to fall asleep on top of you and suffocate you but if that's what you're into?"

"Shut up," Katarina whispered, resting her head against his arm. She fell asleep like that and although Ransom's hand began to sting with pins and needles some time after, he couldn't quite bring himself to move her.

Katarina woke up to see Ransom standing by the bed, pulling on his jeans. The light shone onto her face and she turned away, groaning into the pillow but before she could fall back asleep she heard the urgency in Ransom's voice.

"Police are outside." He hissed, prompting her to swing her legs off the bed in a rush.

"What?" Katarina asked, scrambling to pull on a shirt as she hurried to the adjacent window.

Until she saw the look on his face. Resisting the urge to throw one of the shoes she had been trying to stuff her feet into at him, she turned away in a huff.

"You ass."

"It got you out of bed, didn't it?" He asked, fully dressed and beaming at her like he'd just won their freedom. Katarina resisted the urge to sneak back under the thick duvet and donned the remainder of her discarded clothes, shaking her head at the memory of last night. Once she'd freshened her breath with a bottle of Listerine in the bathroom which she was insanely thankful for, she went and found him in the kitchen. She didn't know what she was expecting but the reminder that there was no food in the cabin and head stomach was aching disappointed her.