fembuck | Fic: Eyes Wide Shut (Rachel/Ivy, The Hollows 3/5)

Title: Eyes Wide Shut
Author: Janine
Fandom: The Hollow
Pairing: Rachel/Ivy, some Rachel/Kisten
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Summary: An uncomfortable incident leads to Rachel being forced to deal with her feelings for Ivy.

Eyes Wide Shut - Part One
Eyes Wide Shut - Part Two

PART III

Three Weeks Later

I moved into the living room from the kitchen, my hand gently brushing against Ivy’s back before I paused behind her and pressed my lips against her shoulder. She released a soft, content sound and turned so that I could reach up and brush my lips gently against hers. We shared a soft kiss, and when we pulled apart she smiled at me. I blushed and kissed her neck quickly, and then I continued on my way to the couch, spell book in hand. Ivy watched me for a moment, and then she turned back to the pool table and began to calculate her next shot.

I plopped onto the couch nosily, but didn’t open my book. I didn’t really want to read it. I was just searching for a distraction. My eyes tracked back over to Ivy, watching as she moved sleekly and gracefully around the table, a soft smile coming to my face when she bent over to take a shot.

“What?” she asked, her lips curving up playfully as she glanced at me.

“Nothing,” I said smiling at her, probably a bit too widely, but I couldn’t help it. I was smitten. “Continue being sexy,” I said munificently waving at her to carry on.

She rolled her eyes at me, but went back to playing, and as she lined up her next shot my mind wandered back to the morning after we had first made love. I wish I could say that it had been a beautiful morning; that I’d awoken to the sun streaming into the room warming my face as Ivy smiled down at me happily and kissed me into wakefulness. But, it hadn’t been a beautiful morning. I hadn’t woken up with the sun warming my face, or Ivy smiling down at me, kissing me awake. I had woken up alone in a cold bed.

At first I had assumed that Ivy was just in the shower, or maybe even in the kitchen playing with her computer as she so often was. But, after dragging my butt out of her bed, brushing my teeth and throwing on a robe, I had wandered through the church to find that it was empty. I’d been devastated to find her gone, and when Jenks had flown in after his afternoon nap to find me curled up in Ivy’s chair crying, it had taken him almost half an hour to calm me down enough that he could understand what I was saying through my tears.

He’d been livid when he found out that we had finally been together only for Ivy to take off while I was asleep, without so much as leaving a note. His wings had been a blur of movement as black dust flew off of him. He darted back and forth, unable to stay still in all of his outrage. It had been kind of cathartic for me seeing that since I myself hadn’t been able to call up any anger. I’d simply been heartbroken and numb and confused.

It wasn’t until thirty hours after I had woken up alone, that I found out why she had left.

I controlled the urge to sigh as I ran my fingers through my frizzy hair. I didn’t want Ivy to hear the exhalation and figure out the dark alley my thoughts had turned down. She was relatively calm today, almost happy and I wanted her to stay that way. We’d both been too heartbroken lately, and we had to take the moments of happiness we could find.

I should have realized why she had left without telling me. I should have known that she wouldn’t have voluntarily left me, but love is not a reasonable emotion and I wasn’t thinking reasonable things when I woke up without her. We hadn’t really had a chance to talk that night, only touch, and so I hadn’t known where she had disappeared to after leaving the church after the encounter in the sanctuary. I should have guessed that it had something to do with Piscary. I knew that he was out of jail, but all I had been able to do was wonder what I had done to chase her off. But it hadn’t been anything I had done. I hadn’t scared her away, or upset her enough that she had to run away from me. She had been scared, but not of me. She had been scared for me … which I discovered at Trent’s cluster-fuck of a wedding.

When I saw her sitting beside Piscary at the wedding, her face blank but for the traces of pain she couldn’t quite erase from her eyes, I knew that Piscary was the reason I had woken up alone. Later, in the calm after the storm, I learned that he had felt it when our souls had merged as Ivy fed from me. Aura’s mixing was common during feeding, but aura’s combining completely to become one was unheard of. It was powerful when we came together like that, powerful enough for Piscary to feel through his connection to Ivy even though he hadn’t actively been trying to read her.

He hadn’t been able to get into Ivy’s brain when we were making love, her emotions had created an impenetrable shield giving us that little bit of time together. But once we stopped and had fallen asleep, Piscary had entered her brain and called her back to him. She had refused, but he had threatened my life and so she followed his orders until she could of a way to be with me without Piscary coming after me.

He had smiled at me as I glared at him from the stage, knowing that he had taken Ivy from me at the most painful time possible. He had taken her hand in his possessively, gloating, and I was certain that if hatred could have been turned into a physical force that the power of mine would have ripped Piscary into tiny little pieces and then pounded them into a jam.

And the day had only gotten worse, because as much as I loathed the toad-stool I needed him. I hadn’t wanted to deal with Piscary. The only thing I wanted to do to Piscary was toss him into the ever-after so that he would know what it was like to deal with monsters, but I needed the Ivy-stealing bastard to protect the Focus.

I shuddered at the thought of the man, and opened my eyes to focus my gaze on Ivy. I watched the pool cue slide easily through her fingers, and saw her lips curve up slightly as the ball she had been aiming for was knocked into the pocket. She knew that I was watching her, and she tilted her head to the side to meet my eyes, showing off her mad skills. I smiled at her, and placed my hand over my heart pretending to faint and she grinned showing some fang before she turned back to the pool table.

Ivy was okay. I was okay. Piscary was dead and he wouldn’t be able to hurt either of us again. Skimmer was to thank for that, and I was completely and unequivocally grateful to her for it. Ivy had snapped out of her stupor when Piscary attacked me after I handed over the Focus. She had launched herself at him and began to fight him with a terrifying intensity that I had never seen before. But he was a master vampire, and even with the strength being his scion gave her, Ivy was no match for him. He released me, but he turned his fury on her and as I scrambled for my bag trying to find something in it that would bring him down, or at least slow him down, he unleashed his raw power upon Ivy. She had defied him again for me, and he was entirely focused on making her pay for it. It was horrifying to watch, but it was that single-minded focus on punishing Ivy for loving me that allowed Skimmer to come up behind him and pound him with a paper weight until his head and his body were in two separate places.

Skimmer hated me with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns, and I was only a little less contemptuous of her, but she loved Ivy. She loved Ivy and she had saved Ivy’s life despite the fact that Ivy had chosen me over her, and for that I would always be grateful that she existed, no matter how vile she was.

That being said, Skimmer had been arrested after things had calmed down and I was extremely happy, nay elated that she was in jail. Skimmer wasn’t the physical threat that Piscary was. Ivy could easily handle her in a fight. But I still didn’t want a jilted vampire out for my blood walking the streets. Despite how she tried, Ivy couldn’t be around me twenty-four seven and staying on holy ground wouldn’t save me from Skimmer’s living-vampire ass, which meant that her being in jail was a very, very good thing for me.

“You’re thinking unhappy thoughts.”

I looked up surprised to find Ivy standing above me. I hadn’t heard her move, but then again that wasn’t anything usual.

I made a non-committal sound in my throat and reached out my hand for her. She’d been doing her thing before I came into the room, and I didn’t want to call her away from it, but she’d left the pool table of her own volition and come over to me, and I wanted her to stay.

“Chase them away?” I asked grasping her hand.

“I’ll bury them,” she said staring at me seriously, her eyes narrowing as she swore the words like a solemn oath.

I smiled knowing that she was joking, trying to cheer me up. Despite everything that had happened, Ivy had been making an attempt to be less intense over the past few weeks, and I was enjoying the more playful side of her. We hadn’t been able to joke around much without me triggering her vampiric instincts before, but now that I could take care of any passions I stirred up in her, we were free to be at ease with each other.

She slipped onto the couch beside me, and I curled myself around her, breathing in her incense.

“Kisten?” she asked. Her voice was soft as she spoke his name and I could hear the pain in it.

“Everything,” I said kissing her neck softly, careful to avoid any scars. I didn’t want to excite her, only comfort her.

The last time I had seen Kisten alive was when he had told me to go to Ivy. I had tried to call him after she had disappeared again, but he didn’t respond to any of my messages and I stopped leaving them. I figured that he needed some time to process everything that had happened, and I didn’t want to bother him. He had sacrificed a lot for me, and for Ivy, and I wanted to try and protect his feelings as much as I could in the aftermath.

“I should have checked on him,” I said, my thoughts on Kisten now that Ivy had mentioned his name.

“It was a master vampire,” Ivy breathed out softly, her voice soft and anguished. She was trying to tell me that I couldn’t have done anything, but I knew that she was thinking the same thing I was. I knew that she wished she could have been there and maybe helped him. She was thinking that two vampires, one a scion of Piscary, probably could have taken whoever it was that attacked and killed Kisten. “You wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

“I could have helped him hide, given him some protection charms. Something,” I said miserably. “If I’d talked to him, I might have been able to help, but I didn’t even know he was in trouble.”

Ivy was silent beside me, and I knew that it was guilt that was keeping her quiet. She hadn’t known either. After she had gone back to Piscary she had sublimated her personality so completely that she had barely been aware what was going on around her. Numbing herself had been the only way she knew to hold onto her sanity. After what we had shared the night before, being back at Piscary’s side was too much for her, and she needed the protective shell of emptiness to make it through their time together. She’d done what she had to survive, but I knew that she wished that she had been alert, that she hadn’t forced herself to go so numb in order to get through her time with him. She thought that if she had been more present that she might have heard something and been able to do something, but the truth was the only thing she would have likely been able to do was get beaten or worse, killed.

Ivy shuddered beside me, and I wrapped my arms more tightly around her and kissed her cheek and then her lips, drinking her tears as they dripped into our kiss. Holding each other, kissing each other, making love to each other and sharing blood couldn’t erase the pain we both felt at losing him, but it did make it easier to deal with. Being able to touch made the pain manageable. Kisten was gone, but before he died he had done something beautiful for us.

I brought my hand to Ivy’s face and deepened our kiss, relaxing against her when she gave into it. I shifted, manipulating our bodies so that Ivy was resting on top of me. Ivy was strong and powerful, but vampires didn’t have any more mass than humans and she was relatively slight. I couldn’t exactly carry her to our room, but I was able to lift her for short intervals of time. Her lips fell from mine as she settled on top of me, and I tilted my neck to the side, bearing it to her.

She shivered, and dropped her head to my neck, placing a soft kiss over the scar she had given me. We had made love often since Kisten’s death, but sex wasn’t always the answer when grief overwhelmed us so entirely. We needed to be close to each other, to love each other, but it was sometimes difficult to make love when sadness and heartache weighed heavily upon us, as it did at that moment. We’d taken to sharing blood at moments like that, the act giving us the closeness we needed, binding us together and bathing us in each others love without trying to force arousal. Ivy had told me before about how sharing blood could be an act of comfort, how it could simply be about being there for someone you loved and offering a part of yourself to them to show that you cared. But with us in the past, it had always been tied to desire and physical ecstasy, no matter how much I had tried to deny that in the past. Over the last few weeks, I had learned about the less amorous but equally beautiful nature of blood sharing.

I sighed as Ivy’s fangs slipped into me. My fingers tangled in her hair, holding her against me like a new born to its mother’s breast, and her arms wrapped around my waist, holding me securely. My blood began to flow into her, and soon I felt the warmth of her aura sliding towards me, and tears formed in my eyes. Her lips shifted against my neck, and my fingers moved against her scalp, massaging gently in a way I had discovered made her literally purr. Her fangs dug in a little deeper, and I sighed in contentment. This is love, I thought as her tongue played against the broken flesh at my neck. I gasped as warmth spread throughout me, and I felt our aura’s merge into one. This is perfection.

Ivy’s lips stopped working at my raised flesh, but she did not remove her lips or fangs from me. We lay there, connected spiritually and physically and I felt myself relax, something deep inside of me easing and ebbing away. I knew that the pain would come back eventually, but for a moment I was at peace.

Once Ivy stopped drinking, our auras couldn’t maintain the connection for long. The longest we had ever remained connected once the feeding stopped was three minutes. I felt as if we were nearing that this time, and thought that we might go longer. The more we merged like that, the longer we seemed to be able to hold together the next time.

We didn’t get to test our limit, however. Almost as soon as I wondered if we would be able to go longer, Ivy’s aura began to pull away from me and when I was able to open my eyes again I found her glaring over the arm of the couch into the hallway.

“What is it?” I asked, still a little shaky and breathless.

“Someone’s at the door,” she muttered darkly, an adorable pout touching her lips.

“I didn’t hear any …” I started to say, but the doorbell bonged interrupting my words. “Oh,” I muttered, and she turned to look at me and smiled.

I leaned forward and pressed my lips against hers, kissing her despite the blood that lingered on them. She had tried to stop me from kissing her after she had bitten me at first, and I had humored her in the beginning. But it began to be too much for me, and I decided to try it even though she said not to. It was strange the first time, there was more blood on her lips than I had tasted when I had bitten Kisten, but I didn’t mind it and I’d kissed her ever since.

Ivy struggled against me, but instead of letting her go I fought back maintaining the contact between us. Stupid vampire, I thought. I wasn’t going to not kiss her just because she had a bit of blood on her lips.

“Rachel,” she moaned piteously, and I could hear a touch of desire in her voice. I trembled slightly as I realized that my struggling was exciting her. Midnight black eyes met mine, and I felt a jolt between my legs at the sight of her naked desire. It had been a couple days since we had been together physically, and I suddenly wanted something beside her fangs inside of me very badly.

“If it’s important whoever it is will come back, or call,” I said kissing her as I brought my hand up to play with one of her scars. “Calling before showing up actually would be the polite thing to do,” I muttered against her lips as she shivered and moaned.

“Inside … already,” Ivy panted, desire robbing her of her usually eloquent speech.

“Not yet, but soon. I promise,” I teased, surprised to see Ivy’s eyes lift from mine and move behind me. Oh! I thought. Oh! She meant that whoever was at the door was already in the church.

I frowned. Who would do that? It was incredibly rude, not to mention dangerous. Ivy was a Tamwood vampire. People didn’t just walk into our church whenever they wanted unless they had a death wish or were a demon. Even Ceri always rang the bell.

“Oops!” An amused voice rang out. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt!”

My eyes widened in horror and Ivy backed away from me like I had tapped a ley line and was looking to loose it upon her.

“Mom?” I said, almost terrified to turn around. I glanced at Ivy, but she had settled herself at the other end of the couch and was sitting demurely, avoiding my eyes as she tried to surreptitiously dab the last of my blood from her lips.

Oh god, it was my mom! I mean, I knew it was my mom, I knew her voice, but seeing Ivy so flustered made it real. If it was anyone besides my mom there, the intruder would have discovered six feet of sexually frustrated, pissed off vampire in front of them and would have been lucky to only end up in traction after Ivy was done with them.

I turned my head to see my mother staring down at me with an amused smile. I felt like crying and was certain that I was going to, but my mom distracted me by holding out a handkerchief.

I stared at it blankly for a moment, utterly confused.

“I don’t have a cold,” I started to say, and then my eyes widened as I realized why she was holding it out for me. My neck was still bleeding! I was sure there wasn’t much blood, Ivy always bit me cleanly, but there was usually some leakage afterwards. Usually, Ivy would lick my neck gently until it stopped, but … Oh god! I slapped my hand to the side of my neck covering the wound from my mother and then promptly turned an unflattering shade of red.

“Oh don’t be ridiculous,” my mother said shaking her head at me as I stared at her and contemplated tapping a line and trying to fling myself ever-after to escape the horror.

We weren’t naked, but she had just walked in on Ivy and me. She knew what we had been doing because of my neck, and if she had seen Ivy’s black eyes when Ivy looked at her before scampering off of me, she knew exactly what we were about to do.

My eyes widened, and I wondered if she had heard me teasing Ivy about being inside of her. I had to think that she hadn’t. I would never be able to look at my mother in the eyes again if I thought that she had heard me promise to finger my girlfriend. Ignorance was bliss, even if it was forced ignorance, and I was going to hold onto mine like it was the only thing standing between me and Al.

“That’s not going to work,” Mom continued removing my hand from my neck and placing the handkerchief in it before she placed it back against the raised skin at my neck. I was too mortified to think, and simply lay there holding her handkerchief to my neck as I blinked at her blankly.

“Oh!” she declared a moment later, her eyes tracking back over to Ivy. What now? What now? I thought piteously. “I’m sorry, that was terribly rude of me,” Mom continued, and despite my own embarrassment a little smile spread across my face as I saw Ivy flush under my mother’s gaze. “I should have checked with you first. I could go busy myself in the kitchen if you want to take care of it,” she said her eyes still on Ivy before they shifted back over to my neck. Oh god, she knew about the licking! How? Why? What kind of world was this!?!

Ivy’s lips parted but no sound came out. She stared at my mother with her with unnaturally wide brown eyes, and then, with her lips still parted, she shook her head slowly and then looked down at her lap.

“She’s shy,” my mother whispered to me, sounding utterly charmed by Ivy’s bashfulness.

She was speaking softly, but Ivy was close enough that she could hear everything and she flushed an even deeper shade of red, and fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Mom, she can hear you,” I complained shifting into a seated position on the couch. “You’re embarrassing her,” I muttered.

“No I’m not,” Mom declared as if that settled that, though it actually settled nothing. She moved around the couch and sat between Ivy and I, and I just wanted to die. “It’s perfectly natural, isn’t it?” she said turning to look at Ivy who nodded though I was certain she had no idea what my mother was talking about. I knew I didn’t.

“What are you talking about?” I moaned pathetically, wondering why I asked the second it was out of my mouth. I didn’t want to know, I really didn’t want to know, but I’d asked and I knew I was going to get an answer.

“Sharing blood,” my mother responded sounding surprised. She looked at me searchingly and I really wished that David or Ceri, or hell, even Al or Minias would show up. Where were the cast of crazies that usually took over my life? Crazies? Crazies where are you? I sighed. Nothing ever went wrong when I actually wanted it to.

“It’s a beautiful way to express your feelings for each other,” my mother said. I looked around but the crazies weren’t coming, at least not any crazies that hadn’t given birth to me. “It’s also a very effective method of foreplay,” my mother continued slyly. Oh God, strike me down now! “She must have had you in quite a state,” Mom went on laughing, reaching over to squeeze Ivy’s shoulder teasingly.

Ivy blinked and looked over at me helpless. “Ah,” she managed to choke out, but before she could get anything else out she gave up and went back to staring at her lap.

“Mom!” I exclaimed my outrage even more pronounced because I had been working Ivy into quite a state before she had shown up. I did not want my mother knowing things like that! And I certainly didn’t want her joking with Ivy about all of the different ways I managed to turn Ivy on! It was creepy, dammit! It wasn’t right!

“Oh, she’s an attractive girl,” my mother said waving a dismissive hand at me. “Very attractive,” she added almost as an afterthought. “You two might live in a church but I don’t expect that you live like nuns,” she said her gaze drifted pointedly over to the coffee table.

Ivy caught her look and though I didn’t think it was possible she managed to blush more. Surprised by her look of horror I followed her gaze, my heart dropping as I looked at the coffee table. A magazine of Ivy’s was lying on it, and the cover story was SIX WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LIVE-IN BEGGING AND BREATHING. A week ago I had been praising that magazine as the greatest thing ever written after Ivy had used a few of the techniques it recommended on me. But this time I looked up at the ceiling and begged for Gaia to open a giant hole and swallow me up in it. My mother did not need to know these things about us!

“There’s a book too, you know,” my mother said looking over at Ivy. She sounded like she was telling someone that she had a sugar-free lemon square recipe that was to die for, not recommending sex aids to my girlfriend. I shuddered. I was never going to be able to wash myself clean. I could never unhear this, no matter how hard I tried.

“Rachel has it already,” Ivy said speaking for the first time since my mother had entered the room. I glared at her. If that was going to be her contribution to the conversation she could as well have not spoken at all. Oh, yes Alice. Rachel already has the vampire sex guide. I gave it to her the day after she moved in so that she’d have plenty of time to study it before we studied each other … naked! Bow chicka bow wow. I narrowed my eyes at Ivy, intensifying my glare. My mother didn’t need to know these things about us!

My mother nodded as if that made perfect sense. Ivy continued to stare at her like a Were caught in headlights.

“I do hope you’re eating your cookies,” my mother said turning to look at me.

My mouth fell open. “How do you know about those?” I asked looking over at Ivy accusatorily. However, when I got a good look at her face I knew that she hadn’t been the one to tell my mother. She looked just as mortified as I did. The Brimstone metabolism booster’s were a bit of a secret. Vampires didn’t really want it to be known that they had to give their live-ins and shadows metabolism boosters to keep them healthy enough to drink from.

I sighed. My mother probably didn’t need Ivy to tell her about the Brimstone laced metabolism boosters. She seemed to have a wealth of knowledge already about being in a relationship with a vampire, I thought sourly as I remembered her offering to leave so Ivy could tend to my neck. Still, she had called them cookies, which Ivy had only done to get me to eat them the first time I had been bitten, and my mother wouldn’t have called them that unless …

“Jenks,” I whispered, my head shooting to look in the direction of the backyard. I was going to throttle him. I didn’t know how, since he was four inches tall, but I would find a way. I’d turn him big again if I had to!

“It’s all fun and games, until someone is hospitalized due to exhaustion,” Mom said, her tone almost philosophical. “And I don’t think it’ll be her,” Mom continued shoving her thumb in Ivy’s direction.

“I’m very careful, Mrs. Morgan,” Ivy said straightening a little, my mother’s insinuation that she would one day drink me into the hospital getting her hackles up. She was telling the truth. Once we had shared blood with love, Ivy hadn’t had a problem controlling herself. In fact, she usually stopped drinking before I wanted her to. Most of the time she took so little blood that I didn’t even need the cookies. “And I make sure she eats them. Even though she complains … all the time,” Ivy continued moodily, the very last part being tacked on for my benefit.

My mother stared at Ivy for a moment, and then nodded to herself before saying, “Good girl.” She then patted Ivy reassuringly on the arm, apparently mollified by Ivy’s answer, “As long as you’re being responsible.”

She parted her lips to say something else, and I cringed in anticipation of whatever was going to come out of her mouth next. However, before my mother could mortify us any more the doorbell bonged and Ivy moved into a standing position with vampire quickness.

“I’ll get it,” she said, smiling pleasantly at my mother before she disappeared from sight. Damn her! She was free!

“So,” Mom said lightly once Ivy was out of the room. I bit my lip and tried not to whimper. Whatever she was going to say would be something I didn’t want to hear, I knew it, I just knew it. “She’s probably a tiger in the sack,” Mom said, smirking as she knocked my arm like we were drinking buddies.

I moaned softly and wondered how many extra runs I would need to do a month to pay for a therapist.

To be continued ...

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From: (Anonymous)

Okay, that was hysterical and awkward all rolled into one and I loved it! I wonder how much I'm going to have to work overtime to pay my medical bills from breaking a rib because I was laughing so hard.
"Crazies? Crazies where are you?"
Internet access: 100$
Reading ability: years worth of school.
Watching Rachel slowly die of embarassment: priceless

From:

Best Damn Tapper!

Fic: Eyes Wide Shut (Rachel/Ivy, The Hollows 3/5)

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