La Mia Bella Luna (Papa Emeritus IV x Reader) (HIATUS, read desc.)

Chapter 5: Guilty Pleasure

I could feel my head hanging back and flopping gently. I could hear people whispering around me. I opened my eyes to see Mountain was carrying me.

"Ah!" I exclaimed in surprise. Looking around me, I could see the rest of the Ghouls following behind him. We were outside of my room. He set me down and my legs wobbled. I felt a little bit more sober now.

"Finally awake, huh?" Mountain asked, looking down at me. I felt my face heating up from embarrassment.

"You know, you guys could have just woke me up, I could have walked myself..." I looked away, unlocking my door.

"Goodnight, (Y/N)!" Cumulus sang, waving her arm in the air.

"Goodnight, guys." I replied, entering my room and shutting the door. I started to take off my clothes to get dressed for bed and my phone buzzed. I slipped into my nightgown and picked up my phone. My heart dropped. The message was from my mom. I had somehow almost completely forgot about them already.

I fell back onto me bed, reluctantly opening the text. 'Your father and I had been waiting all day for you to come home, but then we went in your room to see you had taken all your things and run off. This is absolutely unacceptable. You will come home right now or don't expect to see any of your family ever again. Wherever you've gone off to now, you'll be nothing without us.' I felt my eyes beginning to water. My lips pursed and I curled up in my bed, quietly sobbing to myself.

'Am I doing the right thing right now? Will I stay here at the expense of my family? Fuck, they've already betrayed me, I can't let her convince me to wander back home. I'm an adult now, she can't force me to do anything. Should I respond or not?' I worried, gripping my pillow. I grabbed my phone with shaky hands. Tears clouded my vision, but I typed a response. 'That's fine.' I hit send and immediately panicked that I would regret saying this to her.

I cried for what felt like ages. My eyes were puffy from wiping them over and over. I had a headache now from crying so hard. 'There's no way I'm going to get to sleep now.' I blew my nose in the bathroom and put on my robe and shoes. I stood in the bathroom for a minute, just staring at myself in the mirror. 'What am I doing here?' I felt something coming, suddenly nauseous. I covered my mouth and ran over to the toilet, puking into the bowl. When I opened my eyes after the retching, I saw that the toilet was dark red. I panicked for a moment, and then remembered I had been drinking wine earlier. I flushed and trudged out of the bathroom. I felt a little better now.

I opened my door and the biting cold hit my face. I shivered and wrapped my robe tighter around me, stepping outside. The cold air felt refreshing in my lungs. I started walking down the path, through the arbors of hanging flowers. It looked so much different at night. I checked the time on my watch. 1:27 am.

I kept walking, trying to hold the tears back. I didn't know where I was going, but I just kept roaming farther into the vast garden. It was so dark, I could barely see where I was stepping. Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks. I thought I could hear the familiar strum of a guitar. It was coming from an area closer to the manor. The outside promenade was lit by lampposts. I couldn't see who was playing from where I was, so I drew closer out of curiosity. I tried to quiet my footsteps out of fear of disturbing them.

As my eyes focused a bit more, I could see a figure leaned over the shadow of a guitar. I heard a mans voice singing softly over the plucking of the guitar. Peeking out from behind a tall bush, I squinted to try to see who it was.

It was Papa. He hadn't seemed to notice me from where I was. I still couldn't hear the melody clearly, so I crept closer, still under the cover of the foliage. I could finally hear him, but I couldn't recognize the tune he was playing. He had a sweet voice. His words gave me a shiver down my spine.