I.
A plucking summoned Brittany from sleep, a blind walker tripping across her threadwork, the smell of hunger preceding her.
The dreaming girl blundered into Brittany's web. All that work, she thought. All that work. But what is the web for if not to trap someone to feed on?
As if puberty wasn't complicated enough, fae adolescents got hit with the double whammy of having to learn how to feed as well. She wasn't used to it yet. And it was confusing. Like, it's okay to feed on humans, but you have to have a fae's consent? Really?
She listened to the confused girl, to her movements, her rhythms pinging through the threads. The girl was fae. The girl was fae and had no idea how to feed. Something was dreadfully wrong. Was she an orphan? Why had nobody taught her?
Which family's daughter would grow up blind? Who could find it suitable to raise her mute? Or could it be-?
Could she have been born of humans? Or raised by them?
Brittany sat up to clear her mind. This girl. This impossibly beautiful girl remained, with her long dark hair and fine smooth skin, smelling of sweat and rust and something else- maybe cinnamon? The girl stayed in her mind... and in her web.
Brittany closed her eyes and began, slowly, patiently, to untangle the girl. As she went, she scented information, and, yes, she'd have to admit, she supped a bit. She didn't mean to. Just reaching out to the girl seemed to recharge Brittany, made it easier to understand her. But the truth is, even if she didn't expressly say no, neither did she say yes.
(The girl didn't know she was fae, so it wasn't cheating, right?)
But Brittany knew she needed to atone for it.
She would teach her to feed, in the least shocking, the least invasive way she could. The way she knew best- in her dreams.
A clue once meant a ball of yarn used to get through a labyrinth. This girl was certainly a maze, and Brittany had to get a clue about her. She crawled across the strands as she worked her little magic, loosening, untangling- and gleaning information.
In untangling her, Brittany found her name- Santana- and her family- human- and her crenellated walnut heart.
She found secrets, and it was unfair. And wrong. And cheating.
She attached, through her dreams, a thread to Santana, and this thread, invisible, unbreakable, and weightless, allowed Brittany to locate and to guide Santana. At first it was clumsy, a child's string-and-cup telephone, remote, tinny, awkward. But Brittany found the dream-wind just right and tugged the thread precisely. She flew Santana like a kite, through the fields high as corn. She led her to a hitchhiker, and- instinct took over. When Santana was sated, the body fell away, and she dissolved out of the dream, leaving Brittany alone, surprisingly bereft, out on one of her night-walks, to deal with the cleanup on her own.
Something struck her wrong about her adolescent self cleaning up a kill solo. But she did it anyway, not wanting the fae authorities involved.
There was too much out of kilter here. It was time to talk with her parents. One last tug on Santana's thread to make sure it didn't fall free, and she returned home.
"What interests you about her?" asked her father, "I mean, it's kind of you to help her out, but it's not your job…"
Brittany bit her lip.
"Nobody's looking out for her. She has to learn it on her own. Nobody warned her. She's so little. And pretty. And terrifying. And strong." Brittany could not keep the dopey grin or the blush from bubbling up.
Her mother smiled and tipped her head. Her father took the cue.
"Sounds like she needs a friend. Brittany, I think you did the exact right thing," he said.
II.
So. She was a succubus, according to Brittany's parents. Brittany needed to understand Santana, in order to help build her dream.
Brittany began visiting Santana, unseen, in her dreams, night after night. A tiny tug on the line here and there was all she needed. Brittany would watch undercover as dreaming Santana shifted her tactics unbidden, untaught. Twining the line about her pinkie finger drew a warmth into her, the reverse of any venom.
As if-
As if even being in some hidden, remote contact with Santana made her whole, removed her own taint, made her smarter- then she realized she'd been feeding, accidentally, again.
"You haven't met her yet- I mean, beyond the dreaming?" asked her father.
"No," said Brittany, staring at the floor. Then she told them of her shame.
"Honesty is the best policy," he said, "Maybe you could..."
"Ya, I will, I just have to find the right time." She had to play the right game.
They attended different schools, but Brittany could sense her all the way across the football field when their teams met. As if the air got clearer. As if something twisted in her mind wound down, allowing laser focus. There she was, atop the pyramid, then flying, then down.
Across the field, her spiced aura drifted toward Brittany and surrounded her as she was lifted by her co-captain Mike.
"Are you okay?" he said, "You seem suddenly lighter."
"I'm fine," she said, "I'm fine."
And at the Halloween party afterwards, in her silver lobster Gaga costume, she noticed the black satin ribbon Gaga across the room. She may have smelled her first, still rust and sweat, but now with a tinge of cardamom (and tequila). She hid her eyes and let their thread tell her about Santana's movements. Brittany would sneak peeks at her around Mike.
As usual, the headdress was both the best part of the costume and the most uncomfortable. She was about to remove it when Santana tugged on the thread. Their eyes met. Warmth surged through both of them, rocking them backwards a bit.
Brittany had to turn away. She fled, promising herself she would come clean in the dreams.
III.
Santana had moved on from stalking and feeding in dreams. The more she fed in the flesh, the more leaden her scent became. She tasted sharp and dull at the same time- heavy. Yes, Brittany still grazed on her from time to time, but just because so little went such a long way. That's what she told herself, but she knew it was a lie. She longed to quit her, but her need for the succubus had bitten her and fed her and drained her enough that the very stuff she was made of seemed to need the essence of that girl. That one girl.
Gently, one night, she whispered into Santana's dream, everybody thinks you're a bad person but you're not, she thought, you're the awesomest girl I know. Then she withdrew.
Out for one of her night-walks she stopped suddenly, as if-
As if she'd run into a tree or a light pole. The leaden, rusty scent drifted past her. Santana, hunting. Her proximity warmed Brittany, soothed Brittany, gave her the sensation of embrace, sending her systems into alarm.
Santana hadn't touched her, there was no harm. But what was Santana gleaning? What, if anything, did it mean?
Santana finished her kill, then spotted Brittany. Caught. Eye-contact zinged through them both. They froze. One, two, three heartbeats. Santana shuddered. She ran.
The thread tugged Brittany by her heart.
Nothing remained but to follow.
IV.
As their flesh met, some of their thoughts slid into each other's head. Brittany had to remind herself that Santana didn't know her. You are, she thought, you are the awesomest girl I know.
Santana pulled away, startled. Brittany spun warmth into Santana, a girl unused to having others' thoughts in her head. That warmth touched something tough in Santana, surrounded it, and slowly began to soften its edges. She began blinking her eyes rapidly and tipped her face to the sky, forcing air into her frozen lungs.
"You are what you are," said Brittany, "and you are—" She leaned in and kissed Santana's cheek. "—delicious."
I can help you. You can learn to feed without killing.
Heat flooded Santana's cheeks and from there, spread into her limbs, her chest, her gut.
Brittany noticed a sweetening of her scent.
Yes, that's it. And yes, I want you to feed on me.
Santana pulled away, her eyes wide.
I could sup on her forever. Brittany heard.
Drizzle began to float down.
My parents are having a Halloween party tonight. Want to come?
"I- I don't have a costume."
Brittany smiled. "In my house, you don't need a mask. In my house, you don't have to hide."
Can I feed on you? It slipped out.
"I- I will."