Fairytale

15• Toxic for Thee

I can't think over the screaming. It's everywhere now, echoing wildly alongside the cutting edge of a blade covered in golden fairy wings and blood.

"Run, Giantess Delilah! Run!"

I cover my ears, squeezing my eyes shut and curl into a ball in the dark.
"Go away," I whisper to them. They grow louder, pushing past my hands until I'm screaming with them.

"Be quiet!" I order them in a plea, just wanting it to all stop. I want to go back to the way things were before, where my life was predictable, where things stayed the same. I don't want to be here in the nothingness, with the screams of the dead slowly driving me insane.

Abruptly, the screams stop.

I'm hesitant to open my eyes, sure it's a trick. Sure it's a lie.

And then soft lips like warm sunlight press against my own. I gasp, eyes blowing open. Mischievous yellow eyes twinkle as his lips pull away just enough to smirk at me. His tongue lazily snakes out of his mouth and licks from my lower to my upper lip. I jerk back, face turning so red my eyes water. He chuckles and kisses me again, his dissonant voice echoing around us, "Calm your heart, Delilah. Calm it and kiss me."

His warm hands on my cheeks pull me out of my head, and I find my eyes closing again to relish the feel of him against me. In all the chaos, I never considered they might like me in this way. I'm just a young human girl with really strange sleeping arrangements. All of them are old and powerful, both whimsical and insidious in nature if the folk tales are to be trusted. I'd been so sure they saw me more as a pet than someone to kiss or love. I adore them, I look up to them, I trust them, but our relationship has been rather shallow.

With Fakir pulling away, both of us open our eyes half mast and stare at one another. It's as his fingers trace my cheek that I make the decision to try to get to know them better. All they've done is save me over and over again, constantly shouldering my problems. I don't just want to be a guest in their home, I want to be their friend. I want to be more.

"Fakir...why...," I whisper in puzzlement. His yellow eyes literally glow with gleaming mischief. Then they turn sultry, and his hold languid. Those pretty lips part with a lewd smirk that taunts me as he leans in dangerously close. He only answers me when his lips graze mine, head moving just enough to seductively drag them back and forth over my own, "Because I wanted to."

I blush again. A stuttering mess, I blurt out, "Y-you want to k-kiss me?!"
His whole face brightens with humor, eyes squeezing close as he chuckles like a schoolboy enjoying his day very much. He's still grinning when he opens one eye, making me feel like I have a devil cradling me to its body instead of a princely fairy, "Oh, very much. It's nearly all I think about lately. But I especially want to kiss you when you look at me like this."

"Like what?" I watch him as he trails his fingers over my nose, gaze turning reverent, "All vulnerable and pitiful, like a little puppy."

The mood is gone, that alluring spell he'd cast on me dissipating. I even forget the nothingness surrounding us. With a huff, I bite out, " I'm not a puppy!"
So he really does see me as a sort of pet...

He blinks at me like he can't figure out what he said wrong, "But you are like one. You have big eyes and pout so adorably I just want to squeeze you to death."

That's not terrifying at all...

"Don't call me a puppy. It makes it sound like I'm the family pet," I grumble, officially insulted. I think it's then that he realizes where he went wrong, "Oh shit. NO. No. Absolutely not."