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Standing at the foot of an open grave, Fortune can't help but think of what little she has left. Before her mother’s suicide, her husband’s death, before the life that grew inside her withered away, she’ll forever remember that this was the moment the first bell tolled. Looking the empty casket, the moment feels insincere.
There are no tears in her eyes only a heavy, hard feeling in her stomach. The dirt in her hand is cool and gritty, spilling through the gaps between fingers as she waits to cast it down on varnished oak. Vamp stands somewhere behind her, black overcoat rustling with the wind. They cut two sharp figures against a grey sky.
Who could have known that he'd be the only one to stay by her side.
She'd inherited many things from her father. A loving and caring man, he'd taught her discipline, sympathy and honor. Before she’d enrolled, how often had his careful words spilled from her throat, his thoughtful actions informed her own.
Without him she doesn’t feel bereft, doesn’t weep the tears her mother does, only stiffens slightly as her heart grows stony and cold. The following blows are a distant echo after the death of her father, merely ripples in the water after the first stone cast. Serpents twist and slither through her dreams night after night.
Fortune sifts through his belongings with reverence, all the while conscious of the presence she never could quite escape. Vamp haunts her movements with the dedication of a loyal hound, allowing her slight discretion only when he feels it necessary. Eternal and cold, he's always been a given in her world.
His sleek figure is as constant as the turning of the seasons, as the undying folktales of the undead themselves.
Never one to step too loudly, even Vamp’s most careful footsteps rang too loudly for her mother’s ears. She’d felt the discordance grow between her parents as her father fell deeper and deeper in love with him.
To her mother’s ire, he'd been introduced to Fortune when she was young, watched her grow from girl to a woman with dangerous interest. Her mother had always sought to keep them apart, to shelter Fortune from her father’s infidelities, but even as a child Fortune was fearless, trapping Vamp’s darks eyes with own, questioning.
When she was older, she’d catch him watching her through bedroom windows of temporary lovers, outside of her car during some of her riskier trysts. Looming in the shadows, his eyes communicated a smirking knowledge, a flicker of hunger. They never spoke of it. Vamp knew well enough where their boundaries lay.
As she carefully removes her father's old army box, his presence behind her feels more like a fate than anything so callous as choice. The Beretta gleams shiny in it's case. She reaches to touch it, but instinctively pulls back, the memory of her father’s stern admonishment white-hot in her mind.
They stood in that same study twenty years ago, sunlight dappling against her father’s broad shoulders as she watched him with the wide eyes of a child. If she thinks hard enough she can almost recite her father's melodic cautions of the dangers of firearms, of the importance of protection. The gun was a jumping point for larger issues of concern, of the value of human life.
“That's what I'm here for,” he said smiling warmly, “to keep you safe.”
The memory makes bile rise in her throat. It wasn’t long after that she discovered how true his words were, the way he’d shield her from anything from touching her skin. Since his death she’d become impenetrable, his love transforming her into fortress.
Neither bullets nor the elements of themselves could level her, not anymore
She carefully shuts the weathered army box, the Beretta still firmly in place. Vamp watches as she returns it to the desk drawer, locks it shut with a small key. He doesn’t question the decision, or add any commentary. He merely follows her footsteps as they leave her family home for the last time.
Years drift by, Vamp remains by her side as she is assailed again and again by the harsh blows of tragedy. She doesn’t cry at the funerals, but she doesn’t resist when Vamp holds her close afterward. Clinging to his breast bone, it’s the smallest she’s felt in a long time.
Over the course of their service in Dead Cell, Fortune sees the violent extent of his immortality. The wounds he charges into only to revive later. It takes a gust of wind from her lungs, seeing him in action. She wonders if her father knew him like this, or if this is a side of him only she’s been privy to.
She doesn’t take lovers anymore. There’s nothing left inside her to pretend, to deny the nihilism that’s wrapped heavy around her throat. Instead, she finds herself trailing Vamp when he goes to pick up his one night stands, the men and women he deems worthy to grace his bed.
Frustration grips her when she can find no common themes in his quarry, no demonstrable connections between his dalliances and his past life. Anger keeps her company over the long nights as she waits to see the paramours clearly under the warm orange-red light of dawn.
If her hand drifts downward while she listens to them rutting, she thinks little of it.
One night she declares the importance of focus for the team, suggests the barring of romantic entanglements while with the squad. There is no interference, but Vamp’s eyes drag on her figure with inquisitive fascination.
“Didn’t enjoy the performance?” he says casually, behind her. There’s no accusation in his voice, it’s merely a question. She doesn’t reply, but the remark lingers in her mind days later.
Weeks go by, they continue to fight by side by the tension’s grown now into a beast of it’s own. Fortune feels Vamp’s glances heavier than ever, his face and voice piercing her dreams with wild frequency. He doesn’t make overtures, he’s never needed to.
He’s always drawn her to him, a siren song begging herself to destroy herself against the rocks.
It’s a cold day when she stops resisting fate, the weather as tumultuous and unforgiving as the world around her. He rises to greet her when she comes to his room, but an upheld hand stays his approach. There are ground rules, codes of conduct to be established.
Fortune’s long learned that though fate isn’t one to be denied, but that there are forces even more sacred to consider.
Vamp is never to touch her. His hands on her body border too close to sacrilege, flickers with a level of danger that even Fortune doesn’t care to invite. Superstitious or not, he follows the rules, his hands deflecting from her form with the speed of bullets. He finds new handholds on her clothing, the walls around her.
Instead she takes him roughly, the straps of her harness too tight as she bucks into him at a punishing pace. The strap-on offers her control, the illusion of separation. It isn’t real though, she gets off as quickly as he does, the chaos of their union leaves her wet and shaking afterwards.
She’s still too young to be playing with her father’s things, but she can no longer find the will to resist. She wonders if it’s her own weakness or another gift from her father.
Almost nightly she finds Vamp between her knees. She starts wearing fishnets stockings up her toned legs so his hands can travel up their length, staying only a breath away from raw skin as he bobs up and down on the dildo. All the while he peers up at her through thick lashes, his tongue occasionally wrapping around the head with devious invitation.
For his part, he moves through the agreement with grace and care. There is a level of tenderness beneath the possessive lust. He gives her exactly what she needs without hesitation. Let’s her fuck his throat till it burns electric and he almost blacks out, rides him until agony and pleasure blur a kaleidoscope of sensation.
She takes his long silky hair in her hand, twisting it tight before jerking his head back one night. Gets a good look at her fate. Panting, the look he returns is debauchery incarnate, his mouth parted as she finds the right place again and again. Fortunes feels like a woman on fire, her own cruel grin meeting his own.
She never asks about his feelings. Knows as well as he does that this was going to happen from the first time they met, only wondered when fate would intervene. There’s always been something between them, obstacles as well.
Collapsing onto his bed, she can’t help but think of the Beretta she’d left in the desk. The stand she had tried to make, the gesture to show good faith to a ghost. She wants Vamp more than she fears superstition, more than the wicked disdain of her father or the taunts of fate itself. Next shore leave, she’ll retrieve the Beretta she decides. And next time she’ll let Vamp have his way.
Watching him rest beside her, she can’t help but muse over the things she’d inherited from her father.