Chapter Text
~*~*~
Before the War
Fort Salem
The late afternoon sun is creeping through the half-open windows, painting every part of Scylla’s room gold. She’s sitting at the desk, several books and sheets of paper in front of her along with a small candle, its beam blending with the sunlight. She’s writing a report on her latest assignment about how certain types of fungi react to fire judging by the color of the flames.
She actually found this experiment in a book for Necros on the third level of War College, as it apparently helps to determine which substances can be used in a bomb, how toxic they are, and what damage their explosion results in. All the fascinating things Scylla just couldn’t wait to learn about.
Raelle was observing her intently at first, sprawled on Scylla's bed on her belly, chin propped on the pillow squeezed in her arms, but soon enough the hypnotizing view of her girlfriend working almost lulled her to sleep.
She flinches awake when suddenly Scylla gasps at the green flames and sparks going out of the piece of mushroom she's just lit on fire. She quickly drops it into a cup of water before the reaction gets out of control.
"Are you sure Izadora would assign you an experiment that could potentially blow up the whole Madea? Shouldn't it be, like, forbidden?" Raelle frowns from the bed.
"She didn't. This isn't exactly in our curriculum… yet." Scylla murmurs, taking essential notes about the reaction.
"Soon you're gonna be better than her and teach your own class," Raelle teases, turning around and dropping onto her back.
"They wish," Scylla huffs in response. She turns around and tilts her head at Raelle whose eyes close as she sighs and relaxes further into Scylla's sheets.
Scylla knows that Raelle is just patiently waiting for her to finish. She won't interrupt no matter how bored she gets or how long it takes. Sometimes she actually asks about Scylla’s little projects despite not understanding that much about them, which always ends up in Scylla ranting for no less than thirty minutes and showing Raelle tricks that Izadora would never assign them to learn but were too fun not to try. But sometimes Scylla gets so engrossed in her work that hours can pass without her standing up from the desk. Now as she's observing Raelle, a pang of guilt goes through her chest. The girl has been waiting all evening for her and now she's falling asleep without receiving much attention. Scylla promptly decides she's done with experiments for the day and starts thinking about how to compensate Raelle for her patience.
She puts away the notebooks and the samples, blows out the candle, then approaches the bed and swiftly climbs onto Raelle's lap, hovering above her with arms propped on either side of her head. She watches as Raelle's lips stretch into a grin without her eyes opening. Her hands catch up to the new position, landing under Scylla's thighs and tugging gently.
"Am I dreaming already?" She chuckles and bites her lip.
"There's one way to find out," Scylla smirks and before Raelle can open her eyes, she makes a quick move to take off her own shirt.
Raelle's smile grows wider when she finally takes a look at Scylla. A dangerous glint flashes through her eyes as they roam over Scylla's black bra and lightly flushed chest, then focus back on her face. "If this ain't a dream then angels must be real," she drawls.
Scylla can actually feel the tips of her ears turn red as she ducks her head and giggles. In an instant, there's a palm cupping her cheek, and Raelle lifts herself just enough to capture her lips and bring her body down to melt with Raelle's. Scylla doesn't even notice when Raelle unclasps her bra, she just senses as it slides down her arms. She throws it off and tugs at Raelle's shirt blindly, trying hard not to break the kiss.
Once her shirt falls to the floor, Raelle doesn’t give Scylla two seconds to appreciate the view before flipping them over swiftly and landing on top of Scylla, catching her off guard. As Scylla gets successfully pinned to the mattress with both hands above her head, she moans deeply into the kiss. Their bodies are touching in all the right places, but she wants more, needs more. More of Raelle.
She senses that Raelle wants to take control but doesn’t let her. She pushes them up to a sitting position, landing at the perfect height to ravish Raelle’s neck with kisses, one arm around her waist, feeling as Raelle arches into her chest and tilts her head back to give her more access. Scylla quickly finds the button of her trousers but doesn’t want to waste time making Raelle take the pants off completely. Once she’s able to fit her hand through the front, her fingers immediately find Raelle’s center. She smiles into the blonde’s neck. Raelle is seriously wet already.
Raelle's breath is getting shaky as she gasps and moans in reaction to every movement of Scylla’s fingers, especially the purposeful gliding right through her folds. Eventually, Raelle can’t resist and grinds into Scylla’s hand, eagerly confessing what she needs the most.
“Please, Scyl… Inside,” she groans, holding for her dear life onto Scylla’s shoulders, wanting to bring her closer, closer, closer .
Scylla doesn’t make her wait this time. With the next jerk of Raelle’s hips, she pushes two fingers inside, curling them immediately while her teeth nip almost painfully at Raelle’s pulse point. She feels Raelle’s body go rigid for a long moment, breath caught in both of their lungs. Finally, Raelle relaxes and sinks into Scylla’s fingers with a stuttered sigh.
As her hips resume the movement, Raelle urges Scylla’s head up to kiss her so deeply and yet so tenderly that it floods Scylla’s chest with a wave of warmth and makes her nails dig into Raelle’s shoulder blade, where she tries to hold the girl steady against herself. The kiss turns a bit sloppy when Scylla draws out her thumb to circle it around Raelle’s clit. Suddenly it becomes very hard for Raelle to focus on anything else but the tides of pleasure that keep pushing her closer and closer towards release, like a ship towards a shore.
“Faster,” she gasps into Scylla’s lips, joining their foreheads and trying to keep her eyes open and locked with Scylla’s.
She quickly fails when the pace increases and with it Raelle’s desperate thrusting that only turns them both on even more. She hisses at the sudden pain of Scylla’s fingernails scratching all the way down her spine. At the same time, the sensation sends her this much closer to the edge that several more strokes and curled fingers become almost too much.
She manages to kiss Scylla briefly one more time right before coming completely undone in her arms. Every muscle in Raelle’s body tenses as she arches once more into Scylla’s lips, suspended in ecstasy. Scylla holds her closely, biting teasingly at her neck, eliciting one more moan, one more drag of Raelle’s hips over her fingers. She smiles letting Raelle ride the high until she’s too spent to hold herself upright.
“Come here,” Scylla murmurs.
With hazy eyes and labored breath, Raelle looks down at Scylla again, her lips immediately forming a soft smile. Scylla kisses the side of her neck again, then her chin, then finally catches her lips and lets the softness of the kiss make her feel all kinds of fuzzy inside and turned on beyond measure. She resists the urge to grab Raelle’s hand and guide it where the heat and pressure are starting to get really distracting. Instead, she interlaces their fingers and tugs her forward.
They fall onto the mattress entangled in each other. Raelle promptly nuzzles in the space under Scylla’s chin, lying completely on top of her, and Scylla hugs her closer and presses a kiss to the top of Raelle’s head.
“Sorry I kept you waiting,” she whispers against the blond strands.
Raelle kisses her collarbone. “Totally worth it.”
Scylla chuckles lightly and it resonates in Raelle’s ear that’s pressed against her chest. They both sigh in contentment, while their eyelids start getting heavy. With a familiar now sense of calmness, Scylla realizes that the sun has almost completely gone down. Several of the pink and orange beams still reflect off a lamp or a doorknob, but most of the room has gone dark, only the chirping of the evening birds audible through the cracked-open window. She knows it’s too early to fall asleep yet. But all she wants right now is to never let go of the girl in her arms, fall asleep and wake up with Raelle somewhere safe, somewhere without the army, the drills, the Spree...
The more she thinks about it, the more it dawns on her how impossible it is for them to just disappear. Soon, the helpless anger creeps into her brain, making her heart start to pick up its pace. She breathes in deeply and draws small circles on Raelle’s back to calm the nagging thoughts, but it takes her a moment to realize that the faster beating isn’t coming from her own chest anymore.
With a frown, she tilts her head to look at Raelle who clearly isn’t falling asleep but mulling something over in her head as well, and getting nervous. Before Scylla can ask what’s wrong, Raelle speaks.
“Scyl?”
“Yeah?”
Raelle lifts her head to rest her chin on Scylla’s chest and boldly meets her eyes as if she’s just decided to rip the bandaid off and say what’s on her mind before she chickens out.
“Come to the Cession with me.”
It’s not a question. It’s a hopeful, gentle request, a proposition to make the thoughts of a safer place come true, even if just for a moment. It stuns Scylla briefly. Then she smiles softly. “I’d love to.”
Even if they never get there, even if they never get a chance to leave Fort Salem for anything else but a mission, the way Raelle’s eyes light up in that moment makes it all so worth it, pronouncing this fragile promise.
“You should see it during autumn. The leaves all turn yellow and red, and it rains sometimes for so long that there’s water flowing in that stream near our house again. It usually dries in the summer… “ Raelle keeps rambling, laying her head again on Scylla’s chest. “Sometimes we go mushroom picking, Pop loves it.” Scylla can hear in her voice that she’s smiling. ”I’ve never really been good at it, so when I was younger I'd just follow him around the forest, and he'd walk past some of the mushrooms on purpose just so I could find them. But you know what was the best?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “He'd always help me find the perfect stick to walk around with. A trip to the forest ain’t a trip without a stick, you gotta make yourself feel like a proper forager , he would say.” Raelle drawls like her father would, and chuckles. “You would have loved that…”
Scylla nods against her hair, not trusting her voice to answer. Her throat stings. She wonders for a moment what is so universal about the joy of having a stick accompany someone during a long walk because she remembers always begging her parents to help her find one, too, when they would walk from one safe house to another, sometimes for several days in a row.
“I think so, too,” she whispers, simply.
A moment later, she feels Raelle’s hands slide down her sides lazily exploring, contemplating.
“Or maybe we should go during summer. I’d kill to see you in a bathing suit,” she purrs.
The mood change is immediate. Scylla smirks as the neglected heat at the bottom of her stomach sparks into life again.
“Why a bathing suit, and why summer,” she starts threading her fingers through Raelle’s hair, “when you can have me now,” she lowers her voice to a sultry whisper, ”naked.”
She can feel Raelle’s grin on her lips the moment she kisses her slowly, teasingly. Then Raele whispers back, “Good point.”
In one quick push up she’s hovering above Scylla and undoing the buckle of her belt. When she starts fumbling with the button of her pants, Scylla giggles. She takes Raelle’s hands and entwines their fingers, making the girl stop instantly and look Scylla in the eyes.
"I love you," Scylla says, hoping to fit everything she's feeling into those three simple words.
"I love you, too," Raelle smiles. She knows.
~*~*~
After the War
The Cession
That was the first time Raelle had ever asked her to come to the Cession, and the only time Scylla needed to have a seed of hope planted secretly inside her heart. She began wishing that someday they would actually make it there.
And at last - here they are. Driving in a military pickup truck that sways and jumps on the bumpy, long unrepaired roads leading them through golden fields and almost impenetrable to the eye forests.
Not for the first time Scylla has the chance to admire the beauty of the Cession landscapes. She has seen its nature up close when she traveled with her parents on foot, but the change in perspective while watching it from the car makes it much more distant and intimidating.
She falls asleep once when it’s Raelle’s turn to sit behind the wheel. They have decided to make the long trip from Fort Salem to Raelle’s home in one day, so they’ve been switching between the driver and the passenger seat every few hours. Honestly, Scylla is still surprised that they even managed to leave. After making sure five times they wouldn’t be needed at Fort Salem - also ready to argue with anyone who would try to stop them because having gone through everything that happened there, they deserve a vacation - they took one of the military trucks, said their goodbyes, and at sunrise, took off on the little road trip.
As Scylla observes with half-lidded eyes the blurred shapes behind the window, she realizes that they have long passed the evergreen plains and are currently deep into the passages of hills and lower mountains. Besides nature, the weather has changed as well. From the pleasurable heat of the late summer or early autumn, the sunlight, and the relatively warm breeze, they have entered a bit more gloomy scenery with clouds covering the sky tightly, constantly threatening a downpour. Scylla thinks how perfectly it mixes with the sight of the dense, dark green forests that cover almost every visible surface ahead of them. It looks wild. She likes it.
While the humid, chill air starts creeping into the cabin of the truck, they are forced to put on their jackets, since the heating obviously isn’t working.
But Raelle feels like she can finally breathe again. The smell of the rain, the sight of the woods, and the hint of frost slightly biting the tip of her nose - it all feels familiar. It all feels like home. At last.
She recognizes the beat-up road that leads to her village almost immediately and takes a turn to drive off the asphalt. The truck struggles through the mud and holes, as Raelle prays for it not to get stuck in the dirt.
After a while, they slow down. Raelle's throat stings at the sight of the old houses with white worn-out porches. It's been too long.
She turns her head to look at Scylla when she feels a hand rest on her knee. She gives her a small smile in response to the silent question. She's okay.
"We're here," she confirms.
She stops the truck at the end of the road, where the white fence begins; where her home stands like it did when she left it almost a year ago. So many things have happened during those several months. So much has changed. But the address plate is still hanging on one nail instead of two. The front door is still open despite the cool air, as always, because neither Edwin nor Raelle ever minds the Cession temperatures in the house. And the light still shines through the window, as if she never left, as if her father never turned it off. As if it was supposed to be her lighthouse, a beacon that would guide her back home.
She smiles at the metaphor and almost shares it with Scylla but then her father is stepping out onto the porch and smiling this fond, crooked grin, and she forgets about lights and shores.
"Pop!" In a flash, she's out of the truck and runs into Edwin's arms, meeting him at the bottom of the small stairs.
"Rae," he groans, when Raelle hugs him maybe a bit too tightly, then he laughs, "Missed your face, kiddo. But ya gonna squeeze your old man to death."
She finally untangles from him but still holds him for a moment by the shoulders. "I missed you, too, dad." Then she turns to Scylla who's been patiently watching their reunion from several feet away. "Dad, I want you to meet Scylla, my girlfriend."
Scylla doesn't have the time to contemplate how warm it feels to hear Raelle say these words, because she's immediately pulled into a bone-crushing hug. Now, she thinks, she knows where Raelle got that manner from.
"It's great to finally meet you, sir," Scylla says when he lets her go.
"Pleasure is all mine. And, please, call me Edwin. Now, c'mon, girls. Got something special planned for tonight." He takes the bags from the trunk of the car and leads them inside.
Scylla reaches for Raelle’s hand as they walk in, glad to notice that her shoulders have lifted a bit and relaxed.
The whole ride Raelle couldn’t get any rest, every time she tried to fall asleep while it was Scylla’s turn to drive, she jerked awake at the next bump in the road or someone else’s headlights flashing from the opposite direction. After a number of attempts, she gave up and sagged in the seat with a sigh. Scylla held her hand whenever she didn’t have to keep it on the gear.
It’s like a switch, the way Raelle’s posture and energy change. Right away, she sets into a lighthearted banter with her dad about the things he promised to fix but didn’t and catches up briefly on the wellbeing of their neighbors. Raelle moves around the house with ease, while Scylla stands in the middle and wanders with her gaze over the pictures on the walls and the old furniture.
“Maybe I didn’t carry out some big renovation here, but you’re gonna be glad about what I did manage to do,” Edwin says.
Raelle smiles knowingly when she looks down the corridor. “You finally installed a proper door in my room.”
“You’re welcome,” Edwin grins and puffs his chest.
“Thanks, Pop,” she matches the grin and leads Scylla to the room.
As they put down the bags, it strikes Scylla once again how much space the girl can occupy if she has it all for herself, and how much she can make it her own. Every inch of the room screams Raelle . From the walls half covered in letters, sketches, and pictures, to the whole rack of flannels hanging in an open wardrobe. Scylla smirks at the sight of them.
“That’s so gay, Collar.”
Raelle chuckles, “Careful, or I won’t let you borrow.”
Before Scylla can retort, Edwin’s voice reaches them again from the living room.
“Was thinking I could bring that air mattress from the garage-”
“That won’t be necessary, dad, thanks!" Raelle shouts back, then looks at Scylla and adds quietly. "We can both take the bed. Unless you want to…"
"Bed is good," Scylla nods awkwardly. She wonders if Raelle asked only out of courtesy or does she seriously still doubt, after all this time, if Scylla will want to sleep with her in the same bed. She doesn’t ask, though.
~~~~~
The “something special” Edwin mentioned turns out to be a bonfire. He leads them to the small backyard where he’s prepared wood and dinner to cook over the fire, claiming he even managed to buy Raelle's favorite marshmallows, at which Raelle's eyes shine like a kid's on Christmas.
“Seriously??”
“Think I left them in the cabinet. Go get them, and we’ll start the fire.” He turns to Scylla, who has already started placing the wood into a neat stack. “I think Scylla over here knows what she’s doing.”
Raelle jogs back into the house and immediately finds the right cabinet, but as she’s ready to leave, something catches her eye. Next to her father’s favorite armchair stands an old guitar case. She approaches curiously. Her father must have been using it because the last place she saw it was on the top shelf in the garage. She opens the case and brushes over the strings gently, a fond smile forming on her lips. They're in tune, which means he definitely has been playing.
Raelle's throat stings again. Edwin has been doing better and it shows. He may not have renovated the house, but it is visibly cleaner than when she left. And he did try his best to prepare for her arrival, planning the evening and taking care of her room, and she hasn't missed that when he smiles it reaches his eyes, after all this time. She knows he's happier, she knows he's been moving on.
Raelle is thankful for how little he actually knew about the events during the war. He watched the news and worried about her, waited for every call hoping to hear Raelle's voice on the other side, not some sergeant passing her condolences. They spoke several times, but Raelle kept her answers brief and tried to distract them both by asking about the neighbors’ fruit garden and Edwin's old car, whether it was working yet or not. She didn't mention Willa even once. She couldn't. She didn't feel like it was her place to break the news, besides all the anger boiling her blood at every thought of her mother didn't let the words leave her mouth. How does one tell someone that the love of their life actually isn't dead but has been working for a terrorist organization that kills civilians like them? How does one tell-
No.
Raelle shakes her head. Her father has been doing better, unaware of all the secrets, the betrayals, the deaths. He doesn't deserve to go through this again, he deserves to be happy.
Raelle stares at the guitar for a few more seconds then quickly decides to bring it to the bonfire. Before she leaves the house, she looks out the window at Scylla and Edwin, already nursing a small nest of kindling, and in a matter of seconds turning it into a full-size bonfire, probably with Scylla’s tricky help. The fire brightens up their proud faces and Raelle smiles at the sight.
At the same time, Scylla catches her staring through the window and waves at her. That's when Raelle notices that Scylla is wearing a short-sleeved shirt. On her way out, she snatches Scylla’s jacket from the hanger by the door.
She slides it over Scylla's shoulders as she approaches her by the fire.
"Thanks," Scylla smiles and hands her a beer.
As they sit comfortably on the leftover logs, Raelle sets the guitar aside.
"Didn't know you could play," Scylla frowns.
Raelle shrugs, "It's not like the army ever held a talent show or anythin'…" She turns to her father. "Remember when you used to teach me, pop?"
Edwin smiles and nods. "She was actually pretty good," he tells Scylla. "Once she even replaced the guitarist in our local band when he got too drunk, fell down the stage, and broke his arm. She gave a hell of a show playing Wonderwall for the crowd of other questionably sober teenagers."
Scylla grins. "Wonderwall?"
Raelle blushes.
"When was that, though?" Edwin continues. "I remember extra bottles of moonshine but not the occasion."
"That was on Scott's birthday." Raelle takes a long sip of her beer.
"Damn right, Scott! Back then, I thought Rae wanted to impress him, but it was never ‘bout that poor boy."
Raelle shakes her head and points at Scylla with the bottle. "Nope, it was about his sister. And it did require a glass or two of that liquid courage."
Scylla laughs and eyes the drink. "Well, since we've got that one covered, why don't you give us a show?"
The reaction is priceless, Scylla actually wishes she could take a photo. Raelle freezes with the bottle halfway to her lips and her eyes go wide.
"No. No, no, no-"
"C'mon, please."
Edwin laughs. "C'mon, kid. It worked out pretty well last time if I remember right."
Raelle glares at him in a silent warning.
Scylla's eyebrows rise at the comment. "Why am I not surprised?" She nudges Raelle in the ribs. “C’mooon, please? For me?”
Raelle sighs in defeat. How could she deny this girl anything?
“Alright… But only because you asked so nicely.”
Reaching with dramatic sluggishness for the guitar, she hears Edwin murmur something that sounds embarrassingly close to “ You’re such a goner, kid.”
And honestly? Yeah… For Scylla, she is.
It takes her a few tries to remember the chords, but when she catches it, a moment later her voice joins the upbeat melody and all Scylla can do is stare. She can’t remember the last time Raelle looked so happy and relaxed. She watches her getting carried away by the song, all the shyness gone, a carefree smile painted on her face instead. At some point, Edwin joins in, but Scylla can hear only Raelle’s voice, the lyrics, and the meaning behind them reflected in Raelle’s eyes, which stay locked on Scylla as she sings:
Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me,
Cause after all you’re my Wonderwall…
~*~*~
During the War
Fort Salem
The second time Raelle asks her to come to the Cession is far less serene than the first. It’s actually quite the opposite.
Another explosion bursts a pile of dirt and debris into the air just to make it rain on Raelle and Scylla’s heads. They duck quickly under a nearby table, miraculously still standing in the middle of the half-destroyed common room of Circe barracks. From what Raelle can tell, they are heavily surrounded by the Camarilla.
Everyone else has fallen back, hidden safely in the underground Necro facilities to be out of the range of the witchbomb. The witchbomb that Raelle and Scylla have agreed to set off only because it’s their last chance at defeating the Camarilla who, with stolen seeds and brutal force, have breached the gates of Fort Salem.
While trying to defy Abigail and Tally’s objections, Raelle also wished it wouldn’t have come down to this. She thought she’d always have a choice. But between the screams of fallen witches ringing in her ears, between the blood of the ones she fixed still covering her hands and uniform, between the rubble and the dust, and the dread of knowing that the Camarilla are out there on the same grounds she used to run through during drills or while coming back from Scylla’s dorm… She knows there’s no going back, now. They either blow them all up or die trying to save this place.
But she still needs something to hope for, something to live for, just in case they actually make it.
So as she hears the enemies closing in on their trap, she turns to Scylla with half-lidded eyes and a face covered in mud, sweat, and blood. Scylla immediately reaches out for her hand.
“Scyl, when this is all over… Will you come home with me? To the Cession?”
Just like the first time, Scylla is stunned for a moment by Raelle’s words. She looks back at her with wide eyes, but quickly her expression softens.
Raelle keeps on rambling, “We could spend the summer there and then go on a road trip. My dad would be so happy to finally have a reason to fix that old truck. And mom would make us some apple pie on the road… I really miss her apple pies.”
She grabs Raelle’s hand tighter and leans in to join their foreheads. “Of course, I will come home with you.”
Raelle smiles nervously. "I love you, Scyl."
Scylla feels tears pricking at her eyes. “I love you.”
With one last kiss and one last nod of encouragement, they step out from behind the debris hand in hand. The overwhelming power of the mycelium starts building up as Raelle’s voice layers louder and louder into a continuous screech. Scylla harmonizes with it and links with Raelle. The current of energy hits her like a freight train, rushing from their joined hands. But through the cloud of dust, a movement catches her eye.
A Camarilla soldier running in their direction, a scythe glinting in his hand.
She wants to windstrike him or scream to warn Raelle, but the man is getting too close too fast and the mycelium is draining her so quickly.
Suddenly, the man drops dead, split into two halves right at their feet. She only notices another silhouette in the distance before the energy strains her veins, curls within her chest for one more paralyzing second…
And then erupts.
In one moment, they can’t feel anything. The cathartic release suspends them in a burst of blinding light.
In the next, it turns into darkness.