Little Lost Girl Road, Ch1: St. Esca’s Harbor

Fandom: Rule of Rose
Pairing: Clara/Diana
Summary: Clara takes a strange bus to an even stranger town.

---

Sugar Sugar Sugar
That man is bad
The road he drives you down
O sugar it’s a drag
That road it twists
That road is crossed
It’s down that road
A lot of little girls go lost

– “Sugar Sugar Sugar” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

The ache in her side hurt entirely too much to be merely from running; surely, she thought, in between ragged, gasping breaths, and desperate gulps of icy air, she’d been stabbed in the chaos?

Lifting her damp shirt, however, revealed only smooth skin and little constellations of bruises and scabbed chains of scratches.

Some new, some…

She smoothed the fabric back down with unsteady hands.

No blood, at least, and here in the near-dark, amidst the cracked pavement and the broken glass, and the phantom moan of the calliope bleeding through the silence, that would have to do.

Something like relief (but not quite, and not now, and maybe she wouldn’t recognize it even if it did come) unfurled inside of her, and she found herself slumping back against the wall, back against the chipped brick and the frayed rope, and the stained and tattered brown cloth that stretched and draped from building to building. A wet, strangled sound gurgled up in her throat, ghostly, broken laughter as she waited for her legs to stop trembling, fear peeling back to reveal the black core of exhaustion that pulsed within her like a second heart.

Hallelujah

Fandom: Rule of Rose
Pairing: Eleanor/Clara
Summary: Eleanor falls ill, and Clara tends to her.
A/N: This story is part of a 14-part album fic challenge, in which each song from a single album will serve as inspiration for the story. The album I chose is “And No More Shall We Part” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

---

It started with a sniffle —

No, that’s not right.

It started with a tickle in her throat —

No… no, not quite.

It started with a girl —

And a bird —

And a lie —

And a pillowcase faded and frayed with age —

And streaked with blood.

---

“It’s nothing,” she lied, voice thick with mucus.

Clara looked doubtful, but didn’t press the issue.

*                   *                   *

“I’m fine,” she lied, ignoring the low rumble in the hollow of her stomach. She hadn’t eaten in a little over a day, but she could hardly be blamed for that — the slop Miss Martha prepared in the kitchen was unappetizing under the best of circumstances, which admittedly, these were not.

But a sore throat was hardly the end of the world.

Clara left her alone.

*                   *                   *

“It’s…”

“A fever,” Clara said, bluntly, her hand falling away from Eleanor’s forehead. It returned a moment later with a scratchy bit of fabric to dab at the blood crusted beneath Eleanor’s nose.

“Come on, then,” she said, gently.

She was small for her age, Miss Clara. Four years older than Eleanor, but only five centimeters taller.

Petite, Mr. Hoffman called her, his mouth smiling, his eyes travelling.

Frail, Miss Martha insisted. There was something reproachful — accusatory — in her tone, as if though Clara had quite deliberately chosen her waifish constitution in order to be personally offensive to the cleaning witch, and Clara would bow her head apologetically.

Pathetic, Diana said, and Meg agreed, and Amanda giggled and panted after them, eager to prove to them that she — sturdy girl, good and solid — was just the opposite. That she was just like them.

Soft, Eleanor thought, as Clara pulled Eleanor closer, looping one of Eleanor’s arms across her own thin shoulders, and her arm around Eleanor’s waist. Under any other circumstances, Eleanor would have balked at another human being touching her, but at the moment, and it being Clara… she let herself be held.

Together, they trudged from the dormitory, down the hall, past Wendy’s room and into the Sick Bay, where a cot had been made up in preparation.

“Arms up,” Clara instructed, already reaching for the hem of Eleanor’s dress. Orange and brown with cute sailor accents, it was Eleanor’s favorite. She raised her arms obediently, although the motion made her sway and her vision swim.

Then the dress was gone, and Eleanor stood there in her thin white slip, shivering not from the cool, drafty air softly brushing against her hot skin, but from Clara’s fingertips straightening the slip at her knees, the straps at her shoulders, and brushing her hair from her face.

“That should help,” Clara said, surveying her efforts. Eleanor looked both pale and weak. A far cry from the blank little stoic she was known to be amongst the other children. Clara made a mental note to fetch a bucket in case the girl needed to vomit. “Let’s get you up on the cot so you can rest, now.”

Again, Eleanor did not resist her.

“There,” she said, pulling the blanket up to Eleanor’s chest. Eleanor looked at her through heavy lids, ringed with dark lashes and circles. “Get some rest, Eleanor. You’ll be good as new in no time.”

Clara tried not to be alarmed by the congested heave of Eleanor’s breathing as she gathered the girl’s dress — filthy and damp, reeking of sweat and sickness — to take it to the filth room.

Certainly, she would be fine.

Even sickly, broken Wendy was doing better nowadays, and Eleanor was much stronger than her.

Still, she worried.

---

The string tugged in her hand, pulled taut by the red bird at the other end.

She smiled as she looked up at it, straining against the tether, flapping its wings in frantic futility.

She held tight to her end.

It wouldn’t get away this time.

This time, it would take her to Forever Land.

---

“She’s faking it,” Diana told Meg as they huddled together in a bathroom stall.

“Of course,” Meg agreed. Of course. “She’d do anything for attention.”

“Even so, she’ll never be his favorite,” Diana sneered.

She’d gladly break every bone in Eleanor’s body if she thought the headmaster’s affections could be transferred through sheer misery alone.

“Surely not,” Meg said with a harsh bark of laughter. “A disgusting wretch like her would never be able to compete with a Duchess.”

Diana smiled down at Meg, her mind coiled and ready to strike.

---

“Are we almost there?” she called up to the bird.

“Soon,” it chirped back.

It was no longer straining at the lead.

---

“How is she?”

His hand on her shoulder did not comfort or reassure her, no matter how tender his touch.

“Tired,” she replied, and tried to focus on her needlework. Amanda had taken over the sewing room, made the space oppressive and unwelcome, so now Clara did her sewing by hand in the sick room. “Mostly she just sleeps.”

His thumb was working — rubbing and rubbing and rubbing — in circular motions.

Her shoulder now, but it would move lower.

Rubbing and rubbing and rubbing.

She could stab him — it was a fresh needle. Sharp.

Make him pull his hand away.

Make him send her away.

Make this whole charade go away.

She pulled the needle through the fabric and held it tightly between her fingers.

Oh, but where else was there for her to go?

The world was vast, and unknown, and she was so small —

Petite —

Frail —

Pathetic.

She turned the needle over in her fingers, plunged it deep into her own flesh, and they both jumped.

“Poor girl,” he said, sympathetically. “Let me help you with that.”

She left the needle in the folds of the fabric, gathered neatly into a bundle on the chair.

He led her first to the cabinet where they kept the bandaids and the ointment, and then back to his room, where he kept —

Rubbing and rubbing and rubbing.

---

The gates to Forever Land swung open as they approached.

She could see it on the other side.

All flowers and fairy lights.

Castles drifted past.

She could smell her father’s cologne.

Was he here?

Waiting?

Had he come here to find her in Forever Land?

---

Days slipped by unnoticed.

Clara spent most of them sitting beside the cot in the sick bay, sewing and reading and watching the girl grow pallid and gray in her fitful slumber.

When she ran out of things to mend and books to interest her, she scrubbed the floors and neatened the cabinets and wiped down the sink.

Eleanor slept, without waking, without eating or drinking, which was troubling; but she was there, and that was a comfort, as well.

When she ran out floors to scrub, and cabinets to tidy, and sinks to wipe, she pulled her chair closer to Eleanor, who didn’t move at all, and she began to talk.

She told her of her memories before the orphanage, which were few and obscured by shadows; she told her about the other children, and what trouble they’d caused that day; she told her about how the weather was changing, and how the skies were dark now, not only at night but always; she told her of her fears, which were vivid and immeasurable.

And when she ran out of banal patter, she told Eleanor about Mr. Hoffman, and how lucky she was to have dark hair and boyish features; she’d been disqualified from Hoffman’s favoritism by sheer genetic good fortune.

And when this confessional took its toll, she folded her arms upon the mattress beside the girl,  laid her head down and wept.

---

“There,” said Papa, holding her in his knee. He pointed one long, elegant finger.

Eleanor followed it with her eyes.

“The orphanage?” She asked, curious. “What about it, Papa?”

“Look closer, Ellie,” he said, and Eleanor found herself squinting down at the familiar building.

“What about it?” She asked, again.

“Do you see her?”

Her?

She saw Diana and Meg, practicing their courtesies in the attic.

“No, not like that,” Diana snapped at Meg. “Oh, you’re hopeless. Here, let me show you.”

Diana crossed her ankles, bent her knees slightly, gathered the folded pleats of her dress in each fist, and slowly, deliberately, lifted her skirt, higher and higher, until —

Eleanor looked away.

She saw Amanda, lurking just outside of the attic, watching the Duchess and the Baroness, her face contorting as emotions conflicted and collided; anger and longing churning into a poisonous sludge that roiled within her.

She saw Jennifer, kneeling beside a wash basin in the filth room.

She saw Wendy in the sick bay, out of bed for once.

She watched as Wendy knelt beside Peter’s cage with a fork, and after a long moment of contemplation, she jabbed at him, not quite understanding the excitement that built within her as the helpless creature cowered and cried, unable to escape her attention.

Eleanor, who had no fondness for animals, felt bad for Peter; it was hardly fair at all that Wendy should corner him like that.

She saw herself, lying on the cot in the sick room.

And she saw Clara, sitting next to her, with her head buried in her arms on the bed beside her.

“Why is Clara crying, Papa?”

Papa looked thoughtfully down at the child weeping beside the fragile form of his daughter. “Why did you cry when I went away?”

“Silly Papa! I cried because you are my papa!”

Papa laughed and kissed her gently on the crown of her head.

“Indeed, I am!” He said, smiling proudly. “But you cried, my darling, because when I went away to Forever Land, you lost the one person who cared about you. You cried because you were left alone in a world much too big for such a little you.”

“Poor Clara,” Eleanor said, looking back down at her friend. The only one she’d ever truly had.

“Yes,” said Papa. “Poor Clara.”

“Maybe she can come to Forever Land with me,” Eleanor said, immediately becoming attached to the idea of it. In Forever Land, Papa could take care of them both. They would be sisters.

Not like Sally and Mary, but real sisters, who never hurt each other.

“Perhaps someday,” Papa said. “But not now.”

“Why not?”

“She is not yet ready to come to Forever Land,” Papa explained, gently. “She has so much more to do before she comes to Forever Land.”

Eleanor, who had spent her entire life dreaming of Forever Land, did not understand why Clara would choose life at the orphanage over eternity in Forever Land.

“Will she be alright?” Eleanor asked Papa, who shrugged helplessly.

“It will be hard for her,” he said. “She has lost something dear to her that will not be easily replaced.”

“Me?”

“You.”

Eleanor sat there on Papa’s knee, and watched as Clara wept while she lay still and fragile and dying on the cot beside her.

On a table not too far away from them, the red bird began to trill and flutter restlessly in its golden cage, the string still dangling from its leg.

An open invitation.

---

After Clara had expelled all of her secrets, all of the sadness and the filth, and after she had cried for what had seemed like days, she felt not empty and refreshed, as she should have, but heavy and exhausted.

Sick, but not in a useful way, like Eleanor.

Only miserable and lost.

Eleanor had been the closest thing she’d had to a family — was likely the closest thing she ever would have.

What was she to do now?

The realization brought with it a fresh wave of tears.

And a hand —

Small and warm and uncertain —

Softly caressed her hair.

Clara raised her head, startled.

“Eleanor?”

“Don’t cry, Clara,” Eleanor whispered, the best she could do after so many, many days of silence. “It will be alright. Next time I go to Forever Land, you can go with me.”

---

Now, you might think it wise to risk it all
Throw caution to the reckless wind
But with her hot cocoa, and her medication
My nurse has been my one salvation
So I turned back home
I turned back home
I turned back home
Singing my song…

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah

Darker with the Day

x-posted @ my a03 account

Fandom: Rule of Rose
Pairing: Jennifer and Clara
Summary: Jennifer’s past eclipses the present and devours the future.
A/N: This story is part of a 14-part album fic challenge, in which each song from a single album will serve as inspiration for the story. The album I chose is “And No More Shall We Part” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

---

The gate shut slowly, not quite resistant but reluctant nonetheless, and she found herself pulling harder than was perhaps necessary.

And then it was closed, and the lock trembled in her hands, and her hands trembled from the weight of it.

And then it clicked, and her hands, flaked with rust and stained with – dirt – and she thought of the key in the drawer in the desk in the old man’s bedroom, locked inside with the rest of them.

Locked away with the rest of them.

And then there was Wendy, little fingers curled around the bars like a prisoner (what else was there for her except for an endless series of cages? What else was she if not trapped, first by illness, then madness, then vengeance, and now locked away forever behind the unyielding bars of forgiveness?), peering out at her with wide, sad eyes, shimmering with resignation, and then?

Then she wasn’t thinking at all.

---

The window was hot against her forehead, and the sunlight poured through it, puddling in her lap. She dipped her fingers in, cupped her hands together to fill with the warmth, the hideous afternoon afterglow, but even in her long sleeves and her long socks, she shivered from the cold wind that shuddered through her bones.

She closed her eyes, and the world went dark and everything was quiet.

---

Days passed. Sometimes slowly, seconds crawling along, minutes dragging themselves down the darkening path, hours bloated and expanding. Sometimes they were gone before she even noticed, leaving her dizzy and unsettled in a timeline she didn’t quite recognize.

Now that she remembered, she couldn’t seem to forget.

She couldn’t seem to think about anything else.

---

Summer fell away and autumn blew in on a frigid wind.

She stood at her window and watched the leaves turn brown and brittle. She left her rake in the side yard and let them collect on the steps.

She boiled water for tea and left it sitting on the stove.

Slowly, she forgot the little details, the unnecessary additions.

---

Winter came, hungry and insatiable, to strip the branches bare and leave the skeletons exposed.

So much like the trauma of a ravenous past.

She watched from her window as the skeletal remains bent and shivered and writhed, the wind pulling and tearing and howling with rage.

The rain came, too, and the leaves on the steps turned black and the rot softened and melted them and the rake in the side yard sat cemented in place, suspended in a grip of decay.

The smell of it was sickly and sweet and exactly what she remembered. The soft perfume of her childhood.

The rotten carpet of leaves and mud squished thickly and slid threateningly beneath her feet as she trudged along, bucket in hand.

It was a poor imitation, she thought, adjusting the bucket over the handle, but it would do for now.

---

At night, she dreamed.

A mermaid, tangled up in rope and scaled with scars.

Goat sisters, one black, and one white, bleating pitifully from their cramped enclosure. Diana stood on the other side, feeding them roses made of paper. They chewed through the crumpled petals with teeth made of thorns, scissor sharp and streaked with ink.

“Almost time, Jennifer,” Diana said, without turning around. She grabbed Sally’s muzzle and forced another handful of petals down into her throat.

A red bird, fluttering its wings as it sat perched on the railing of the balcony.

“Follow me,” it said, as she approached it. “Follow me to Forever Land,” and it turned and flew away, soaring through the gray sky and disappearing into a storm swollen cloud with a thunderous report.

Then came the rain, hot and red and terrible. She stood there in the growing darkness until her clothes were soaked and her face was — and her face —

A white rabbit in a coat and hat, a rather dapper fellow who introduced himself as Sir Peter. He might have tipped his hat to her, or removed it altogether, but, he explained apologetically, the blood and fur had fairly glued it to his head.

“Forgive me,” he said, closing his eyes as a shovel came down, flattening the hat and bursting his head like overripe fruit.

Amanda laughed, and raised the shovel again, this time aiming for her.

She awoke, not frightened and gasping and relieved, but aching and lost and —

and —

---

She made a rare trip into town.

She bought biscuits, and scones, and lollipops.

She bought a fish, a doll, a needle and thread.

She bought a red bird in a gold cage, and a white rabbit in a silver cage.

She bought paper, and bolt cutters and boxes and boxes of crayons.

---

The crayons half-filled the rubbish bin in the kitchen.

She selected a red one from the neat pile of red crayons she’d set aside, and pulled a clean sheet of paper closer to her.

Dear Clara, she began, and by the time she was finished, the crayon had been worn smooth against the teeth and claws of her words. She signed her name, folded the page, and slipped it carefully into an envelope.

She carefully selected another crayon from the pile and added that as well.

From the pile she pulled another crayon, and heated this one above the flame at the stove where the water for her tea still sat.

The seal was clumsy and unlikely to last long, but it would do for now.

---

The postbox reminded her of the gift box on the attic door.

She paused only a moment, wondering… and then dropped in the letter, and turned back into the rain.

---

By the time Clara arrived at the old, crumbling mansion with the letter and the crayon, she had already broken the lock and made her way back inside.

There was no electricity, no water, no heat.

She’d made her way up the stairs by candlelight, letting her memory guide her along the familiar path to the attic.

She wasn’t sure if Clara would come, but she’d left a trail of breadcrumbs, just in case.

Fish scales, and red feathers, and streaks of blood and fur.

It was quiet in the attic, everything was muffled and far away, but she could hear Clara’s voice ringing like a bell as she searched for her.

“Jennifer? Are you here, Jennifer?”

Diana and Meg giggled and mocked her.

O Jennifer, wherefore art thou, Jennifer?

“Please, Jennifer, it’s Clara — I got your letter!”

Eleanor caught her eye, then looked swiftly away. The golden birdcage dangled from her fist, the red bird fluttering at the bars. As helplessly restricted from Forever Land as the rest of them.

“If you can hear me, Jennifer, please, come out! I’m a nurse now — a real one! If you’ll let me, I can help you!”

A real nurse! Diana sneered, and Meg cackled.

“I’m worried about your, Jennifer! Your letter frightened me, you need to come out and let me help you.”

“I’m here, Clara,” she called. She waited a moment, listening for the sound of Clara’s footsteps. “In the attic.”

She shushed the others as the footsteps grew closer, showing particular irritation with Amanda who seemed entirely unable to control herself as she giggled and guffawed in gleeful anticipation.

The attic door creaked open, and a sliver of light — Clara had brought a torch, she saw, clever girl — sliced through the darkness.

“Jennifer?” She whispered, stepping hesitantly inside.

Congratulations, Prince Joshua, Wendy whispered, and she felt a peculiar kind of heat flood through her. You’re almost done.

“Clara,” she said, trying to keep her voice even as she slowly stood. She wondered how she must look to Clara, in her filthy clothes and her dirty skin. Would Clara run away, in fear, or rush forward, desperate to tend to her?

Either one would be fine.

Clara was here now.

She had successfully collected the monthly Gift as demanded by the Aristocrats.

They could finally finish their game.

Love Letter

x-posted @ my a03 account

Fandom: Rule of Rose
Pairing: Diana/Meg
Summary: Meg and her letters – a confession, a plea; a collection of childish hopes, perfumed with foolish devotion.
A/N: This story is part of a 14-part album fic challenge, in which each song from a single album will serve as inspiration for the story. The album I chose is “And No More Shall We Part” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

---

“O Diana, Diana! I love you with all my heart.”

Diana scoffed, repulsed by the very notion. What did that pathetic peon know about love? Nobody had ever loved her. Diana doubted seriously that anybody ever would. Meg just wasn’t all that likeable.

What was she even expecting, giving such a childish thing to her?

Had she thought Diana might like it? That Diana – a Duchess, for Heaven’s sake – would gaze upon Meg’s scrawled handwriting, the smudged letters and crinkled paper that Meg had mistaken for acceptable stationary, and… what, exactly?

Love her back?

She tore the letter in half.

 

---

 

“O Diana, Diana! I love you with all my heart.”

The blazing goat would not be coaxed. No matter how Diana shoved the now tattered paper into its stupid, wretched face, it would not eat.

No matter how she struck it, it just kept turning up its nose. Kept trying to retreat.

But there was nowhere to go.

Eventually, the anger subsided, and she felt better.

She stuffed the letter under Mary, who gave no response, and went to tell Wendy that she’d found the goat.

 

---

 

 “O Diana, Diana! I love you with all my heart.”

Meg was crying.

Her face was hot, and damp and unpleasant against Diana’s bare skin, but Diana held her close, anyway, stroking her short blonde hair. Resisting the urge to tangle her fingers in it and pull, to snap Meg’s head back by the roots.

But only just barely.

It was a terrible mess. The letter Meg had worked so hard on, torn in half. Her precious notebook that she labored over, ruined. Pages scattered, crumpled and ripped.

Diana couldn’t help but smile, just a little.

“Mary and Sally must’ve ate it,” she said softly, petting and coddling the younger girl. The frames of Meg’s glasses dug into her as Meg pressed herself even harder against Diana, trying desperately to derive some comfort from the charade.

Eleanor watched from the corner of her eye, her blank and vacant face stubbornly pointed at the wall. Did she disapprove of Diana’s behavior? It was always hard to know with Eleanor, but what difference did it make? Diana outranked her.

 

---

 

 “O Diana, Diana! I love you with all my heart.”

Diana rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position on the thin mattress. Her leg was bothering her again. Clara had changed the dressing that morning, and she’d done an absolutely rubbish job of it. Diana wondered why Mr. Hoffman kept her on; she was useless! She was much too old to be so clumsy; to be crying all the time. Diana was a full two years younger, and she never cried unless she had to.

She rolled onto her back, and then, finding no respite there, onto her other side.

She sighed, her thigh throbbing. If she didn’t get to sleep, she’d be every bit as useless as Clara in the morning.

The mattress beneath her squeaked and shifted. If she looked over the edge of her own bunk, she’d see Meg looking up at her, the words already on her lips: can I sleep with you?

Diana didn’t move. A moment later, the mattress squeaked again, and Meg sighed. A short time after that, the ghastly roar of Meg’s snoring.

A short time after that, Diana’s eyes shut, and she was gone.

 

---

 

 “O Diana, Diana! I love you with all my heart.”

That night she dreamed in slivers and fragments.

She dreamed of wings, and scales, and rain.

She dreamed she was on an airship, swimming through the stars.

She dreamed of red crayons that wrote in all the wrong colors, giving birth to words and shapes her hand hadn’t meant to write.

She dreamed she was in the garden, surrounded by roses.

Her mother was there, with seashells in her long red hair, and her legs knit together in a long, shimmering fish tail. She was singing a song Diana couldn’t remember when she was awake, no matter how hard she tried. She was waiting for Diana to bring her flowers, but Diana couldn’t seem to collect any. She picked and picked, but the roses withered and died in her hands, leaving her with a handful of thorns.

She went around to the other side of the garden to try a different bush, hoping that a different bush would offer better results, but found that the other bushes were broken and bare. She turned back to the first bushes she’d tried, and found them equally barren. She turned to her mother, who was growing impatient.

“It’s much too late now,” Mummy said, sadly. Diana thought she looked much older than she had when they’d first got there, and there was seaweed in her hair. “I’m afraid they found me first.”

Mary and Sally had appeared on either side of her long, glittery mermaid tail.

“This is your fault!” Diana cried, throwing the rose-less stems she’d been holding at the black and white goats. “I can’t find any flowers for my mummy now, thanks to you!”

“Sorry,” said Sally, her mouth filled with a waxy mash of petals and scales. “We must’ve eaten them.”

“We love you with all our heart,” said Mary, her own mouth filled with paper.

Diana watched in horror as Mary lowered her head, and tore off one of the silvery fins with a dry, papery rasp…

 

---

 

 “O Diana, Diana! I love you with all my heart.”

The letter was long gone, but the words Meg had written were like a curse.

Every time she saw Meg, she was reminded of them. She began to avoid the library, the cafeteria, the attic, anywhere she might be obligated to interact with the other girl.

It was not an entirely disagreeable arrangement.

She was even feeling a great deal better about the entire situation when she found it, carefully taped back together, at the foot of her bed.

There was a peculiar tightness in her chest this time as she tore it into so many pieces, it would never be put back together.

 

---

 

 “O Diana, Diana! I love you with all my heart.”

Oh, sure. Love.

Diana knew about Love.

She hadn’t really cared for Daddy, he was loud and cruel and smelled like the cage Wendy kept her rabbit in. It wasn’t until he got sick that she really got to spend time with him, and she had loved those hours beside his bed in the hospital. Watching him wither and grow frail, the way his skeleton had emerged beneath the skin. Bruises that mysteriously appeared on him, as they once had on her.

“I love you with all my heart,” he’d said, that last day as his eyes had fluttered shut and his mouth had struggled to form the words. He really thought he’d made things right. She’d reached out and pinched his nose until mummy had swatted her hand away.

Mummy had been quite the opposite; Mummy had loved her. Just not as much as she’d loved Diana’s new daddy. Her new daddy hadn’t loved her at all, and so mummy had brought her here… so a new mummy and daddy who both loved her would find her.

Only nobody had come looking.

“I love you with all my heart,” she’d said, her face hot and damp against the top of Diana’s head. Diana had tried to hold on to her, but Mummy had gently pried her arms apart and stepped back, out of her reach. Mr. Hoffman had held her close to him until her mummy was well out of the door.

She had hurt so much, she thought she might die from it.

But she hadn’t died.

She had grown older.

Nobody had loved her for a long time, and the pain had dulled and gone finally numb.

Then, slowly, Mr. Hoffman had come to love her.

“I love you with all my heart,” he said, leading her into his bedroom. Pulling her into his lap.

He loved her, and loved her and loved her, with one hand over her mouth, and the other binding, bruising her wrists. He loved her, oh, he did, he loved her so much it hurt.

Love, Diana was quite sure, was not a kind thing.

It was something that happened to bad girls who deserved it.

 

---

 

 “O Diana, Diana! I love you with all my heart.”

Meg gasped, her eyes wide with hurt surprise, and the rose fell, forsaken, to the dirty tile between her knees. She clutched at her finger, where a perfect bead of blood bloomed on the tip.

“Why?” She asked.

Diana smiled, and tilted her head.

“Because I love you with all my heart,” she lied, and lifted Meg’s injured finger to her lips.

We Came Along This Road

x-posted @ my a03 account

Fandom: Rule of Rose
Pairing: Wendy/Jennifer
Summary: On December 20, 1930, tragedy struck the Rose Garden Orphanage, leaving only one known survivor, nine-year-old Jennifer Brown. Years after the hideous event, Jennifer seeks to reopen the orphanage. News travels fast, and quickly piques the interest of a long lost dead girl who never forgot the promise made to her by her old friend.
A/N: This story is part of a 14-part album fic challenge, in which each song from a single album will serve as inspiration for the story. The album I chose is “And No More Shall We Part” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

WENDY
It was late, and the weather was poor. I should have been at home, half-finished with my nightly rituals, preparing myself for bed. Really, I should have been in my favorite nightgown, perhaps even crawling beneath the heavy blanket, sinking into the warm embrace of my glorious bed. Under less unusual circumstances, I certainly would have been.

Alas. I’m tired, but well awake, and instead of surrendering myself to the luxury of my soft bed, I have instead submitted myself to the indignity of the stiff, torn fabric of a bench seat at the back of a dreary bus. Trundling along at this indecent hour, looking for a girl I haven’t seen since I’d lead the dogman on the death march to the orphanage door, in the tender years of my own girlhood.

Jennifer.

Even now, her name fills me with such terrible longing.

If only she hadn’t betrayed me… chosen that filthy creature over me. Humiliating me not once, but twice. Without even trying, I still plainly remember the feel of her palm across my face, the heat in my injured cheek. The poisonous swill coursing through me, spilling black and viscous from the cracks in my heart, as I laid pinned beneath her on the floor, like a butterfly.

The memories are automatic, and unstoppable. The anger in her voice and the furious tears in her eyes as she demanded that I “give her back her friend”, even though I had not been taken from her, at all.

No… if only she’d understood, as I had, as all of the others had, that nothing of value had been lost to her… that the only friend she truly needed – after the lengths I had gone to just to prove to her the immeasurable depths of my devotion – was there already… everything could have been so much different.

We could have been so happy. All of us.

Royalty.

A family.

Instead, she’d been selfish. Cruel. Unbearably cruel. And in the end, it was she who was taken away from me, a second time.

I won’t lose her a third time, however. This time, she will be mine, and no one else’s, ever again.

I have been so patient.

Through the dirty, discolored window, there wasn’t much to see. Trees, mostly. The tedious landscape stumbled past on an endless loop. Trees and bushes, bushes and trees. How putrid. I sighed and turned my head away from the glass; I’d never really been one for the supposed beauty of nature.

Finally, the bus shudders to a halt alongside a bench I recognize immediately.

Once upon a time, I’d found a Stray Dog sitting there, waiting for his son.

I do not pause to linger on those memories. They are worthless to me. I leave the bench behind me without a second glance, as I follow the worn, dirt path up to the Rose Garden Orphanage.

The Sorrowful Wife

x-posted @ my a03 account

Fandom: Rule of Rose
Contains: Hoffman and Clara
Summary: Days, and years, and entire lifetimes have passed since Hoffman abandoned his post as the headmaster at the Rose Garden Orphanage, but those little brats are still a constant thorn in his side. But not Clara, his sweet Clara. His refuge, his salvation… his terrible sin. His sorrowful wife.
A/N: This story is part of a 14-part album fic challenge, in which each song from a single album will serve as inspiration for the story. The album I chose is “And No More Shall We Part” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

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8/17/22: It has come to my attention that some people are attempting to misrepresent this fic in a bid to stir up their fellow rage addicts. I recognize that I, unfortunately, tagged this as Hoffman/Clara, and that was a poor choice on my part. I accept and apologize for that and any cringe you may have experienced upon seeing it. Sadly, I didn’t fully consider the connotation of listing them as a “pairing” and merely followed the established format of all of my other fics.

The fic itself, however, was not written in support of Hoffman’s abuse of Clara, and I believe the ending makes that clear. It was simply an attempt at something Lolita-esque (although I recognize that I am no Vladimir Nabokov) meant to explore the diseased mind of a complete piece of shit. I want to explicitly state that I violently and unconditionally condemn pedophiles, MAPs, and child abusers. There is no lower form of filth undeserving of life. I wish only agony and suffering on anyone who would hurt a child.

And yes, you “minor-attracted” subhuman sewage, raping children hurts them; no, they cannot consent; and yes, you should die screaming.

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It has not been easy.

I have not slept well since it happened.

Since I left.

I see it in my dreams, that horrid building. It waits for me, crouched in the corners of my wandering mind, looming in the creases of my eyelids, so that when I lie down at night and close my eyes, it drops heavily into view. I see it plainly, every inch and every detail. The enormous, rusted lock on the gate. The rows of darkened windows punched into the grimy walls. That odd picture they’d drawn of the dog, candy spraying from its screaming mouth.

Stray Dog gives us sweets.

I took Diana by her shoulders and shook her until her head wobbled and her eyes filled with tears. “What is this “stray dog” nonsense?”

Stray Dog kidnaps kids.

“Answer me, damn you!” She cried out when I struck her, but only once. After that, there was only the sharp sound of my hand on her flesh, and the anger in my voice as I demanded an answer that she would not surrender.

The shame bubbles up in me, every memory is a slap to my own face. It is inescapable, what I have done.

Inescapable, yes. The irony of it. I left in the middle of the night like a coward and a monster, but I am still there. I can never go back, but I can never leave.

I am trapped there as surely as they were.

It has not been easy.

Mermaids, Part 2: Diana

Mermaids

Fandom: Rule of Rose

Summary: Diana and Jennifer are forced into a tentative partnership when the airship experiences mechanical difficulties.

Part 2: Diana

As a long time member of the upper echelon of the Red Crayon Aristocrats, Diana was not accustomed to being trod upon by anybody, let alone a miserable peon like the new girl.

Her lip curled as Jennifer continued mindlessly on her path, apparently unbothered by the prospect of collision. Her hands moved to her hips, a threatening pose she’d been working on to help better intimidate the underlings, but the foolish girl wasn’t paying mind enough to notice.

Stupid, filthy wretch. If she wrinkles my new dress, I’ll skin her alive.

Cindy’s Place

I finished it sooner than I thought I would, or else I wouldn’t have posted that preview. Oh well.

Warnings: It’s a horror story, so…

Cindy’s Place

Mother was always the secretive type.

She was for shit at hiding presents or keeping her opinions to herself, and if she was angry at Father, everybody heard about it, but Mother kept her secrets just fine.

Mother used to teach preschool, but had gotten married and twice pregnant in the span of four years, and became a stay-at-home mom instead. This was supposed to mean that childrearing was her new job, but unlike her stint as a preschool teacher, Mother didn’t seem to take this job seriously.

Still, the house was kept, the children fed, the dogs maintained, and because her moods were usually intolerable, her company wasn’t exactly missed when she took to her room and didn’t come out for hours at a time.

Nor did anyone complain when she left the house in the early afternoon without so much as a goodbye, only turning up again at dinner time, each hand clutching a greasy paper bag filled with cold food.

The kids – two of them, ages 7 and 8, both girls and neither possessing of any true fondness for the other – rarely even noticed her absences. They had their toys, TVs, books, dogs, and imaginations to keep them busy. Since they didn’t much care for each other, they kept to themselves, and so neither was able to engage the other in any speculation in regards to Mother’s whereabouts, or bond over their shared disdain for the woman who had, for whatever reason, given birth to them.

After a while, Mother became a concept, really, just a formality. Someone to heat the frozen dinners and sign the permission slips.

It was a perfectly fine arrangement, until Father fucked it up.

Hero, Part 3

No warnings.

Awake

October. The sneaking onset of darkness suggested a much later hour, but it was early yet. Too early for her to be in bed already, but what difference did the hour make anyway? She’d been lying there for days…

The light patter of rain tapping at the roof muffled his footsteps as he crept down the hall to her room. There was no reason to be quiet. But there was no reason to rampage through the house like an asshole, either. So he was quiet. Stealthy. Sneaky. Moving soundless toward the door to her room, and the only noise to be heard was the endless ticking of that weird little clock she kept beside her bed, even though she’d never bothered to set the time.

“What difference does it make?” She’d asked, and he’d shrugged his shoulders in response, because he wasn’t going to argue with her over a cheap thrift store cast off she shouldn’t have bought in the first place. He’d shrugged his shoulders, and left her alone with her useless clock with the hands keeping track of some alternate timeline, in another universe where maybe she gave some semblance of a shit, but probably not.

The room was dark. The heap of blankets in the middle of the bed was motionless, but he knew better than believe it.

She was awake. She was always awake. She hadn’t slept since the night in the basement. Nightmares on both sides of her eyelids now, but at least the ones while she was awake could be contained.

So he hoped, anyway.

Her skin had taken on a vaguely gray pallor, and her eyes stared at him, unblinking, from heavy, sleep-bruised lids. He could still see the faint stains of unwashed makeup crusted in her lashes, and her hair looked both dry and greasy. He imagined himself trying to touch it and having it tear away from her scalp, stuck to his fingers in clumps and tangles, raw strips of skin still hanging off the ends. A real horror show. Movie-worthy.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. It was a strange kind of perversion to think about his sister that way. Disturbing and filthy and unkind.

He just wanted to touch her. He knew, even before he reached out to her, that her old black shirt would be sweat damp, but she wouldn’t kick the blankets off. Even when they were kids, she had to have the blankets pulled up to her chest. The sweltering heat of summer couldn’t dissuade her; she’d just lie there and boil in her own sweat. Nobody fought her on it, because it was the only area of her life where she showed any determination.

So they let her suffer.

Looking at her now made him sick. She had to be miserable, lying there on her dirty sheets with her dirty hair and her bloodshot eyes that never closed. It had to be maddening to lie there and listen to the clock ticking and tocking as it sat there on the nightstand, lying about the time.

He didn’t talk to her as he gently touched her shoulder. He didn’t ask if she was hungry, or thirsty, or bored, or completely fucking insane, because she wouldn’t answer, and what difference did it make, anyway?

He didn’t say I’m sorry, or It was an accident, or I didn’t mean to. She already knew all of that. She had absolved him that same evening, tucked his hair behind his ear and kissed him softly on his forehead (just a feather light scrape of dry lips across his brow, because he wasn’t her favorite, wasn’t his twin, wasn’t her dog) and then she’d gone to her room to lie down and hadn’t gotten back up.

Instead, he just stood there, with his hand on her shoulder and felt the wet heat radiating off of her, felt her breathing even though he couldn’t hear it over the ticking and the pattering of the rain and the violent bloodstorm in his own head.

There was nothing to be done now, nothing that would make any difference. He just stood there, and stroked her hair and though it was almost gummy with filth, it didn’t detach from her skull in thick bleeding patches, and he let her suffer.