𝕊𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 ℂ𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 ➶

𝕋𝕨𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕪: 𝔻𝕠𝕚𝕟' 𝕋𝕚𝕞𝕖

Valentina was not one who cried easily. This Morticia knew.

She much preferred to bottle up her emotions, pouring all her sadness and hurt into little vials and putting them on a shelf somewhere inside herself. But eventually the shelf broke under the weight of them all and all those neat little bottles fell down and shattered at her feet.

As a result, she sometimes burst into tears over little things. Like after she put on too much blush in the morning and had to wipe off all her make-up and start over, or when a teacher raised their voice to her in class. These minor stressors were just the straw that broke the camel's back.

Morticia didn't like that. No, she didn't like that one bit. She wanted to be the one responsible for all her tears, be they pleasure or pain. She was willing to share that privilege with Gomez, but no one else.

She had never seen her like this before, though. Valentina was borderline hysterical. She couldn't string together a coherent sentence, could barely breathe through all her sobbing.

The only thing she managed to get out, over and over again like a record on loop, was "Deuuuce... He-- He-- He--" followed by more whimpering. Morticia didn't know what Deuce had said or done to Valentina, but she didn't need to know. Just like that, the boy had all but signed his death warrant.

She didn't say this to her valentine. No one plans a murder out loud. Instead, she just helped the girl out of her dress and into her soft pajamas before putting her to bed with Strawberry Milk Baphomet.

Morticia didn't follow her into dreamland, though. Instead, she waited up for Gomez to return. Which he did, a little after sunrise, through the window as always.

"Thank God, you found her," he sighed in relief, rushing over to Valentina's bedside and smoothing a hand over her hair. The girl murmured in her sleep and hugged her stuffed animal a little bit closer.

"We've got a problem," Morticia answered.

~~~

The next day at lunch, Valentina tried to pretend as if the Rave'N had never even happened. A difficult task, given that it was all the Nightshades could talk about.

"Tish, you and Gomez looked absolutely exquisite," Blair gushed. "So regal and refined! Your entrance is etched into the back of my eyelids. I'm certain I'll remember it for the rest of my life."

"Thank you. You're too kind," she hummed in return.

"I wish I had been allowed to bring my camera," Gomez groused. "I'm sure the photographer that the school hired did an excellent job, but I wanted more shots of my girls."

"That's right..." Like the rest of the Nightshades, Blair rarely tried to engage with the freshmen at their table. Doing so only made her fidgety and nervous. But here she said, "Val, you'll have to tell me where you got your dress. It was so pretty!"

Valentina looked up from her plate with a surprised expression. Her mouth formed a perfect 'o,' like one of those baby dolls you could feed. "Thank you," she said, simply but honestly. 'Pretty' paled in comparison to 'exquisite,' but a compliment was still a compliment.

But Blair continued, "Pink, though? That was a bold choice when both of your dates were wearing black." Ah. So that's why she had praised her: to soften the blow of her next, pointed question.

Valentina didn't answer, just let out an anxious little laugh and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. Then, as if thinking better of it, she untucked the lock, combed her fingers through her hair to make it fall naturally again.

She looked uncomfortable, but Morticia learned right quick that uncomfortable was her default feeling.

She was constantly ​​making minor adjustments to her hair, makeup, or clothes, always messing with some aspect of her appearance. So much so that it was obvious that she was in a constant battle with herself. It looked exhausting.

Morticia and Gomez did their fair share of grooming, but they understood that not everything had to be perfect all the time. Valentina obviously didn't.

She needed to learn that, as long as she cared about what other people thought about her, she would forever be their slave, their prisoner. If that was something that could be taught, she would teach her.

Hopefully it was a stage she would grow out of. Adolescence was the age where people tended to be the most self-conscious, the hungriest for the acceptance of their peers.

And, to be honest, Morticia found it a little endearing. She was like a scared little rabbit that couldn't help but tremble and shake when being watched or held. She took a great deal of pride in how easily she could embarrass the girl.

Humiliation was its own form of torture, after all. Using her words to make Valentina blush and stammer was just as much fun as using a riding crop to make Gomez gasp and moan.

"I didn't think about how... Disjointed... The three of us would look, walking in together," Valentina said at last, after the following silence proved that Blair wasn't going to let her laugh off the question. "I'll be sure to remember it for next time."

The Nightshades stared at her a short while before looking to Morticia. They had been giving her similar looks since she first introduced her newest flame. Why her? Their faces read. And then Larissa's, Why her, and not me?

She asked herself the same thing when she first started having visions of Valentina before returning to Nevermore. She couldn't blame them for their doubts anymore than she could blame herself for her own.

Put together, Morticia and Valentina seemed like a mess of contradictions, but really they were two sides of the same coin. Like... Summer.

One day, summer could be full of fresh linens and lawn clippings, the sea and bright sunshine, cherries and children's laughter. Valentina was a fille naive. She floated through life like a piece of dandelion fluff, disconnected and light, dreamy but distant.

Another day, summer could be full of honey and venom, rose gardens and thunderstorms, pomegranates and unkept promises. Morticia was a femme fatale. Her world was cinematic and dark. She existed in a trance of melancholy, feeling passionately but feigning detachment.

Similarly, one day she felt less than nothing for the younger girl, so little that she began to doubt the authenticity of her future sight. And the next she felt all too much for her.

Love could be blinding. She didn't connect the points between the arrow she took to the shoulder and her sudden, unshakeable desire for Valentina... At least, not until Gomez took an arrow in the arm and was filled with the same craving.

It didn't matter if this love was natural. In fact, the knowledge that it wasn't made it all the more exciting. Meddling with true love was quite the crime, but they forgave her. Others, though, they would be less lenient with.

Morticia eyed Deuce Petropolus at the stoners' table across the quad like a lioness might examine a wounded gazelle. She could feel Gomez's eyes on her in turn, following the direction of her gaze.

Naturally, he took her stare to be the sharpened dagger --the pointed finger-- it was... And went to work.