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Alana feels like a walking dead person.
She has half a mind to start watching horror movies again while she lays in bed and watches her body try to heal. Something with zombies feels right. A slasher would be more appropriate, though. The thought gives her a rush of amusement that she barely recognizes anymore. She tries to hold onto that, the relief of making lighthearted out of something in her life when it feels so impossible otherwise. Her life isn’t funny. For the first time in her life, she can barely stand to face her own reality.
Therapy is what she needs, obviously, obviously, she knows this and she would tell it to anyone in her position. Despite every contact in her phone and contacts through those contacts, she can’t bear to lift her arm even that distance.
No, she needs something less conventional than that.
It isn’t like the average therapist will have experience with what she's dealing with. She’s the one with the trauma that outshines everyone else in the room with an uncomfortable weight, knocking everything over in her path so that she can’t even go on silently to the next. She’s worked with many patients in this same position.
Abigail. Abigail was in this position before.
A horror movie might not be such a bad idea, as far as unconventional therapy goes. She grew up watching them, all of her friends screaming shrilly in her basement until her dad scolded them. It was a time to hold her best friend’s hands and giggle at their own fears. The image of blood and deformed faces and ripping nails have stayed with her beyond it all, the scenes she never should have seen so young. At that time they were fascinating in a silly way that dwindled as she ventured deeper into studying real trauma.
Something else that’s unconventional will have to do the trick. She might not be able to stand the thought of seeing violence these days but that doesn’t mean she can’t aid in it behind the scenes. Her values have adapted.
It’s for the sake of self-preservation, she tells herself, as if she doesn't feel like she's passed to the other side already.
-
She’s lost but it’s beautiful. It’s grey and cold and yet there’s a horse galloping through woods big enough to get lost in.
Margot Verger is almost—but not quite—enough to distract her from what she needs to do. It’s innuendo that she said just then, wasn’t it? Alana might have doubted her intentions if it weren’t for Margot’s flicking eyes. Women are hard to read sometimes, more a function of self-doubt if anything, but Alana isn’t stupid.
She thinks about how nice it was to hold her best friend’s soft hands when she watched horror movies as a kid, arms overlapping when they didn’t have to.
The place doesn’t really have a witchy beauty, does it?
-
She’s trembling slightly when she finally walks away from Mason. She’s proud that no man has been able to gain satisfaction from getting under her skin for years, but it doesn’t mean her insides aren’t crumbling still. It doesn’t help that a dull ache is spreading out from the base of her spine. There will be no respite; some days it just hurts more.
Margot is still in the stables when she walks through, her hair out of pigtails so it fans around her shoulders with a curly notch where the helmet once pressed down. She appears to be doing nothing but giving gentle strokes to her horse’s mane. Alana slows not of her own accord and a few seconds pass in silence blissfully free of awkwardness.
“Any questions?” Margot asks.
Alana studies her for a moment. “Hm? Oh, no. Mason and I seem to be on the same page.”
Margot ambles a bit closer. “Is that so?”
Alana nods once, trying to keep her smile steady and polite. Margot’s eyes are shining something intense.
“I can understand rage, too,” she says in a tone that suggests agreement, her voice softer than before.
Margot stares at her hips. It takes Alana a moment to remember the cane she’s holding there.
“I don’t know if rage is what I have.”
“It’s there,” Margot says with certainty, and then a hand brushes the back of Alana’s hand. “Let’s sit. What do you drink?”
“Is this an offer in the realm of coffee or tea or is this for something stronger?”
“Give me some of your time and I’m sure we could fit in both.”
“Good thing all I have is time,” Alana says, smiling.
-
It’s always such pretty girls running through the woods, tripping over roots, holding their guts in with their hands and moaning prettily in the movies. Alana remembers moaning while she laid on the ground. It was a conscious decision she made after heavy footsteps walked right past her. He wasn’t going to finish the job. Not right then and there. That meant the pain would last and linger.
It would have hurt to scream, but a childish whimper came easily. The slight vibration along her throat soothed something deep inside of her, like little wisps of pain escaping. All psychological, of course. Sometimes it was worse to be so self-aware.
Girls in the movies also bleed a lot. Alana didn’t bleed. It all stayed inside, and it’s still inside of her. A scream would feel good if it didn’t rattle her ribs. It’s got to come out somehow, she thinks.
At first, there was a quiet sense of power in appearing level and strong, but it doesn’t fit her quite right. She looks the part, she knows she does, but when she finds herself alone with Margot in their spot on the balcony her composure starts to slip.
She misses tenderness and laughing and the kind of fluttering joy of seeing the people she cares for. It isn’t possible now, not when every stranger could be a monster below. Not when the people she works with barely hide the monsters they are.
Margot’s different. It’s not that she isn’t a monster, too. There’s something that scares even Alana. It sizzles and crackles and makes Margot’s eye twitch. Her back trembles just like Alana’s does sometimes. She thinks the energy between them might just rumble and blow one of these days, be so different from how they look small and curled on their bench at the edge of the grass.
Alana isn’t opposed to being small. It’s only the fact that they aren’t really alone. There’s always someone to be on guard for, and for that, she needs to be big and tall. Alana doesn’t know if a safe place exists on this earth for them.
It slips because sometimes being next to Margot feels so good and safe.
Margot never pulls away from affection but she never moves into it either despite the flirtation. Alana tries not to cross their unspoken boundaries, the ones that say don’t get too close now, but it feels near impossible some days. Her fingers are already tangled in Margot’s hair and it’s taking everything in her not to pull closer.
“Alana…” Margot says like a warning. She looks over her shoulder.
“You know I like you a lot?” Alana asks.
Alana sure knows it. She’s been ‘assessing’ those feelings for a few weeks now, filling her free time with something she can almost grasp.
“If you like me so much then take me to a Four Seasons and buy me a whiskey,” she says. Alana tenses at the sudden seductiveness in her voice that comes across strangely harsh. It hadn’t been what she meant but she still finds herself grasping for real human words for a few moments.
“Is that what you want?” she asks, trying to keep her voice level.
“I’d say I’m more than partial to it.” Margot’s eyes flick downward and linger. A small smirk twitches her lip.
“Is that all you want?”
Margot’s smile falls and they meet eyes again.
“You really don’t want my in-laws.”
“No. I want you.”
Margot stands and walks a couple of feet away. She sighs heavily, lifting and dropping her shoulders.
“Well, we can’t all have what we want, can we?”
“We can try.”
She turns. “This isn’t a love story, Alana. Not with me, it isn’t.”
Alana just barely stops herself from protesting when she sees the look of desperation in Margot’s eyes, a look that says please, don’t.
-
In her dreams, she can’t run. Her feet don’t lift high enough to get over even one step and she falls forward. She’s not a pretty twenty-year-old running for her life in the woods, she’s in her mid-thirties and hurting and crumbling and he’s coming.
And then she’s awake and he’s not here. She shouldn’t still look for him. She doesn’t know if it’s out of fear or desire that her head whips to the right side of the bed, not in those first few seconds.
The best way to forget about it is to imagine Margot there instead, but it only goes so far before she feels the lack of arms around her like a visceral pain, and nothing feels quite safe.
She wakes at 3 am and sits at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and her laptop.
Her own tastes change with research. It’s nibbling on the escargot out of curiosity and learning every little detail about the best Italian suits. She thought she might resent the fact that he has influenced her in this way but it doesn’t feel like him when she drapes the blazers over her shoulders. She’s taking control back and using what’s his to do it. She’s taking her newfound confidence to express herself in exactly the way she was always scared to.
It isn’t like she can just forget about him, anyway. She’s at Muskrat Farms on the daily to research, a room filled with artifacts and documents she meticulously codes for searches.
There’s research, and there’s sitting with Margot for the rest of the evening, lavishing in the riches she has without shame, silently dreaming.
Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t. It’s enough. Alana dreams about making everything better, going against every rational thought in her mind telling her to stop doing that before it makes things worse. Not everyone can be fixed, but God if she’s ever wanted anything more than to halt her and Margot’s hurt.
She moves to a room with carpet and completes her difficult routine of physiotherapy as the sun rises out the window.
-
“I got you something,” Margot says the instant she walks into the room, and a little gift bag with shining paper sticking out of it is already in Alana’s hands.
“Thank you,” Alana smiles but Margot isn’t looking, as though she can’t bear to watch her own kindness.
Alana weighs the bag for a moment more. In her hands is at least a piece of what Margot sees in her, and it feels like a much bigger deal than it perhaps should.
She pulls out a small bottle of perfume, ice-cold and smooth in her palm. Probably exorbitantly expensive, and exuding so much beauty and elegance she doesn't know if she deserves it.
Margot is preoccupied staring out across the rolling fields but her eyes are slightly wider than usual.
Alana tabs some on her wrist and then rubs against her throat, breathing in deeply.
“It’s incredible.”
Margot looks back at her, and Alana leans in slightly, waiting. Margot comes in until her nose just barely brushes Alana’s throat and then breathes in slowly.
She stays there and Alana lets her cheek rest against Margot’s forehead and closes her eyes. Margot’s hand skims across her thigh palm open and the nerves come alive in Alana’s skin.
“I don’t just want to have sex with you, Margot,” Alana whispers. “The way that I am—”
Margot’s presence leaves so suddenly that Alana forgets to speak. She wishes she hadn’t said it. She wishes Margot would come back, so desperately, so achingly, that her stomach is suddenly on the floor. Perhaps she should leave behind her old values and give into the nice indulgences. It’s not like she’s the person she once was. Who is she to expect a wholly healthy relationship with a life like this?
“I’m sorry,” Alana says softly.
“It’s fine.”
“I appreciate the gift, but why did you buy this for me?”
“It reminded me of you. I also bought you some clothes but I left those inside because it’s starting to feel a tad bit obsessive,” Margot deadpans.
It’s Alana who has to put her head down on Margot’s shoulder next. A feeling like this shouldn’t hurt so much.
Everything hurts these days. The expectation of hurting hurts. It’s him, it’s Hannibal and Hannibal and Hannibal in her future making it hurt, making her know where she ends up next, chewed up and metabolized into nutrients running through his veins, the tiniest, most insignificant particles she could be. It’s losing Margot, the comfort that she doesn’t even have, to the grasp of different sadists. And of course it will happen. The energy bubbling below her skin doesn’t translate into actual power.
Alana straightens up.
“You’re important to me, Margot,” she starts and has to gulp back whatever is building up in her chest, though her eyes are already wet. “And I’m not saying this because I want to be around you less. I'm saying this because I want to be around you as much as possible, really. Your friendship is the best thing in my life right now, and right now all I need to say is I’m feeling overwhelmed and I need to spend a day alone. Do you understand?”
Alana clutches her gift bag close. She tries desperately to avoid the thought that it might hurt too much to stay one day.
“I understand.” Margot stares at the ground, her voice too clipped for Alana’s liking.
Alana squeezes her arms until Margot looks up at her. No words come out and Alana knows she needs to leave before she finds out if it’s possible to genuinely fall apart because of an aching for something to be different.
“I’ll be back, okay?” she chokes out, and then walks off. She didn’t think she needed her cane today but everything is tensing up inside of her and any crutch would be helpful.
She gets halfway to her vehicle, hobbling and holding back tears for a few more moments before the sound of heels clicking on pavement follows her. She spins and Margot’s shining eyes stare at her accusingly.
“Come back,” Margot says, still walking, and then sniffs and says, “No, don’t. I’m coming with you.”
Alana is already nodding and reaching out. Margot comes forward but instead takes Alana’s car keys right out of her hand.
“You just relax,” she says, and runs a hand down Alana’s shoulder, stopping at her wrist.
Then Margot is climbing into the car and Alana is at least relieved that they don’t need to be apart. It isn’t what she wants, not really.
Margot drives fast, bumping over the rivets in the road until Alana grabs the handle and winces, then Margot drives a bit too slow and carefully. Tears flow past her cheeks and she breathes through it and then wipes the smudged mascara away in the side mirror.
It isn’t for a long while that Alana realizes Margot doesn’t know where she lives, but still, she drives and drives and Alana tries to memorize the songs Margot plays so she can listen to them later and think about the woman next to her when her bed is too empty to feel comfortable in. Their hands entwine over the centre console.
Margot pulls up to a towering hotel with tall glass windows and gives Alana’s car keys to the valet without another word. Alana raises her eyebrows. She could easily refuse or question Margot but she's decided the New Alana doesn't want to do that.
She leans back against the counter as Margot books a room and hands over a black credit card.
They’re quiet today, and it feels heavier than their usual silence. Margot goes for the fridge while Alana goes for the view. She’s been privileged and successful in her life but she’s never experienced close to the riches that the Verger family has. There’s something both comforting and stifling about the life.
Margot is passing Alana a glass, standing close. They finally meet eyes as they sip their wine, and then Margot takes back the glasses and sets them to the side.
It almost feels like they don’t need to speak anymore, and Alana isn’t sure if she wants to. With Margot standing so close in her heels, she has to tilt her chin up high to look her in the eyes. Margot’s fingers graze against Alana’s cheek slowly.
“It isn’t that I want to just have sex with you,” Margot whispers.
“I know,” Alana says. She sticks her finger in the belt loop of Margot's skirt.
“He takes everything from me.”
Alana gulps. “I know.”
“I don’t know if there’s any saving you now anyway, not after the search for Hannibal is done at least.” She whispers it like it’s a secret.
“We’ll figure out something.”
“But Mason—”
Alana’s hands move to grasp either side of Margot’s face. “No. If there’s something, anything we can do for you to escape then we will.”
Margot’s eyes flutter and she leans in slightly.
“Even run away. I know it’s a lot to lose but—”
“You’d be there,” Margot finishes for her. Alana’s heart flutters so intensely that she feels dizzy for a moment. Margot’s eyes are wide like she’s pleading for something, anything.
“I’ll be here no matter what,” Alana says and she knows she means it. Her fingertips brush against Margot’s hair. Soft. Everything is soft. And no one knows they’re here, she realizes with a start.
“I want just this one good thing in my life. Even if we can’t be everything, will you just let me..?” Margot asks. Fingers press against the buttons on her blazer.
Alana already knows. She kisses Margot’s neck first because her heart is beating at a worrying speed and she needs to press her face against that warm skin and breathe in. She leaves little lipstick marks on her way up until Margot is meeting her with an open mouth and all Alana can think is beautiful, beautiful, everything is beautiful.
Margot leads her to the bed and Alana is worried that she’s going to be treated like glass but then Margot is throwing a leg over her hips and laying down to lick into Alana’s mouth. The sound of their breathing fills the air until a moan escapes from Margot’s lips and cuts into the room. Alana twitches like it stabbed right through her and starts tugging the back of Margot’s shirt until she can find skin.
Margot sits back to pull her shirt off entirely and Alana follows. Her legs tremble when she ruts against Alana’s thigh.
She spreads her hands across Margot’s back to pull her close. She feels subtle bumps of scar tissue and presses the tips of her fingers against them.
“You deserve everything, Margot,” Alana says, breathless. Margot works to get her clothes off but Alana doesn’t make it easy pulling them so close together.
“Everything? You’re going to give it to me?” Margot asks suggestively, letting her eyes rake downward when she reveals where Alana is braless under her blouse. Her hand glides down her collar and Alana feels her skin erupt into goosebumps as she shrugs her clothes off her shoulders.
“I want to give you everything.”
Margot meets her eyes sharply and starts to move back. “Don’t do this to save me, now.”
Alana grabs her hips and pulls her in roughly, making a gasp escape from Margot, but she stares down at Alana reverently.
Alana shakes her head quickly but falls quiet. Wanting to fix people is a bad habit of hers, she knows this, but the determination of the dream is intoxicating. She leans forward to kiss Margot’s neck, a distraction that she isn’t proud of making. She forgets all about her own guilt when Margot’s head falls backward.
Her hand slides up Margot’s skirt past soft skin and grazes over the feeling of silk, just slightly damp. Margot ruts down harder and Alana pushes the fabric aside.
It’s instantaneous the reaction she gets, it’s everywhere and it’s everything. It’s all Alana can do to keep her hand pressed tight as Margot moves for the both of them, grinding her hips with a fervour that’s almost animalistic and punctuated by high-pitched breathing. She clutches onto Alana’s shoulders and lets her mouth fall open and Alana sees the monster.
It’s the fire behind her eyes and the snarl in her lip, the shaking of her shoulders and the clenching of her thighs, it's raging in Margot and so unbearably close to getting out. Alana can’t breathe, can’t remember how to breathe, and doesn’t care when Margot ruts faster and harder and glides against her fingers.
Margot groans and it’s so desperate for relief that Alana’s chest starts to burn up. Everything, she wants to give Margot everything, she wants them to have everything, and they will, they will.
When Margot comes her eyes are wide and alert and betraying something more passive than Alana has ever seen from the woman, something that says I’m yours, take me, hold me well. I need you.
Even with trembling thighs and a breath she can’t seem to catch, Margot doesn’t break before kissing down Alana’s chest, crawling backward on her knees. Alana collapses back onto the pillow and lifts her hips so her pants can come down. The instant a warm mouth covers her she moans and arches her back with an ache that doesn’t feel so bad right now.
This, she decides, she’s taking for the rest of her life. It’s hers and it’s going to be hers, and suddenly she’s so convinced she’ll win that she feels all of the tension burst right out of her until all that’s left is a fiery bliss.