Part of the fun of being in fandom consists of twisting canon to shape your needs and desires! And is there a better time for said shaping than All Hallow's Eve? In the spirit of adventure, I want to present the second foray into the supernatural that the Little Women fandom has to offer. I can only hope others enjoy the chill in this story... especially since, sadly, it'll be one of the last fics I can put up during this year.
Title: Scarlet and Ivory
Fandom: Little Women
Characters/Pairings: Jo/Laurie, Laurie/Amy, Cast
Rating: Hard R for very strong implied violence/licentiousness.
Summary: Blood, sin, spite, sex, and sisterly resentment. A tale of horror within the Little Women-verse for Halloween 2009!
Warning: This being a Halloween fic, it's deliberately written to be as disturbing as it can get. Be aware that the better angels of everyone's nature are not currently present. It also contains non-graphic violence and disturbing sexual innuendo. Please don't read if you feel you can't handle seeing this in a classic text!
When Laurie comes back from Europe, he brings with him strange dreams.
He is pale when he comes from the continent, first of all. Pale beyond anything. Within the black suits that he wears for Beth's mourning, pearl gleams between his glove and sleeve, and his fingers are as white as snow when he lays them down on the piano to play for them all gently.
His face reminds Jo of old, old stories now, stories dredged from memories won when fast asleep. Stories of boys and girls carved out of glass, with jewels for eyes and blood-red smiles, frosted over entirely.
She sees that face of his every night since he first came back, ready to claim a role in the March family. He comes every night, Amy rushing up to be by his side, his cloak on his back and his gloves in his hands and his eyes sometimes tracing Jo's form slowly.
Sometimes it feels as though he can look at her even when Jo knows he isn't there; even when Jo knows that he's already left her house entirely.
And sometimes Jo thinks, deep in the night, that Laurie never truly leaves.
He and Amy say they are engaged, though Jo does not know quite what to believe. Aunt March assents and her parents give warm smiles, but though a part of Jo wants desperately to think of this with pleasure, another part of her knows something rots within deeply.
She almost hopes, for a very long time, that it's merely jealousy.
But when Laurie smiles at her over Amy's bowed, golden head, she thinks it's not merely envy that roils in her gut, that makes her heart clench, that makes her tremble from brow to feet.
It should be envy. It ought to be envy. It would be foul and evil and terrible of her, but understandable entirely. For years, she has wondered at why Amy can take all she wants while she herself finds nothing. For years, she has wondered why she has to lose all that she loves, while Amy can effortlessly find everything. For years she has wondered why she was the moon to her sister's sun, why Amy was always held more dear.
For years, she has wondered if she has done something wrong to have lost everything she loved again and again. Why everything fled from her eventually.
But she also knows that when she sees her sister's wan little face at all hours of the night and day, she also feels pity.
Her only problem is that she cannot understand just why that is, and neither Laurie nor Amy will speak.
Laurie looks at her sometimes, with bright, avid eyes-- eyes that look nearly hungry. These are not the sort of eyes that ought to be turned to the sister of his soon-to-be bride, and though Jo's own breath catches in her throat at the moment, she knows this ought not be.
Yet his attentions are always decorous, always gentle, always as any mother would will others to see. He pays attention to Amy first and foremost, ever the gentleman with her hand in his, ever good and kind and sincere. And even when he does give Jo his attention, it's never as anything other than a brother, no matter what roils in Jo's gut when he smiles at her so sweetly.
He puts his cold, cold hand on Jo's shoulder and laughs at her jibes softly.
And she tries to tell herself that when she sees a flash of fire in his smile, she's merely exaggerating.
"I wish we could go back to the dreams of the past," he says one night, staring into the fire. "To our dreams of loving each other innocently. Even when I came to realize that I could never have you as you are in this life, I never stopped loving you, you know. I never stopped entirely."
Jo puts her hands in her lap, slicks sweaty palms against each other. She wishes desperately that Amy was here.
"I suppose," she tries, "we could... could always go back to being like brother and sister, as we once were. As we ought to be. When you m-marry--" (she hates her stutter, hates it) "--Amy, that is what it ought to be. We can romp around no longer but... but we shall be family and as family, we shall surely..."
"Of course," Laurie says, reassuring, his voice as smooth as velvet, the hand he places on one of her own as slender and chilly. "Everything shall be as it ought to be soon enough, Jo. Or don't you believe me?"
The trouble is that she does, and always has. And no matter how Laurie might have changed, she knows him enough to know that he's never enjoyed being thwarted in anything.
She sees him all the time now, in every single one of her dreams.
It doesn't matter when she sleeps, or how often she tries to fend them off, or how desperately she prays for peace. It doesn't matter what she keeps by her bed, be it bible or butcher knife, or what she does to remain wide awake during the drugged hours of nocturne drifting.
It only matters that when her eyes close inevitably-- as they always do-- he is all she sees.
She has dreamed of him before-- so many times before, so much more often than she wanted to admit to any other being. She has dreamed of him by her side, dreamed of him with her as his bride, dreamed of him in secret embraces and smiles, dreamed of him coming back to her, laughing and loving and dear.
She dreams of him now and it is wretched wonder, heaven and hell fused fused together, a paradise with dark skies that flame down upon her body. She dreams of him with her and in her, in every single single stretch of her, loving and wanton and good and greedy and ready to consume her fully. She dreams of him piercing her in half, cutting her open, doing all that was filthy and wretched and vile and desired, all that wouldn't stop haunting her yet.
She dreams of things she has no words for, dreams of blades and knives and flesh and fire, sharp edges shoved beneath her skin.
And when she wakes, her thighs shudder and flood, and the taste of copper on her tongue overwhelms time and again.
During Laurie and Amy's wedding, everything is ready and as perfect as they themselves could be. The groom is handsome and wealthy and well-mannered, and the bride is demure and lovely. He would care for all her desires, and she would tend to his hearth and peace. He would lead, and she would follow, and all would be good and dear. She would be the perfect wife that he would never have found in Jo, who could never have done what Amy had, could never have given up any of her dreams to be her husband's trophy.
They look like a matched set of dolls as they stand next to each other, pale and perfectly pretty. Everyone smiles during the ceremony and Jo attempts as well, hoping that the rot she sees is only in her heart, only in her own jealousy.
"Congratulations," Jo says, and her lips tremble as she looks from one to the other, knowing there was no place for her here. "I know you will be... be so happy in your new lives together. Happy beyond anything."
Amy inclines her head and smiles, going coy, triumph shining momentarily.
Laurie looks at Jo and smiles, just a little. Smiles so she cannot see his teeth.
"Oh, we will be," he murmurs, and Jo feels her heart clench and her stomach flutter. "Surely, in the end, we will be."
Afterward, she makes feverish plans, plotting hopelessly. She dreams of going to New York or even going abroad, leaving all this behind already. She thinks of reinventing herself as a new Jo March-- one who would not love her sister's husband, one who would not dream such terrible, terrible things.
She will make herself again anew, she promises, even as she puts her head in her hands and feels tears already forming.
Not that they matter; they don't. Not to her or to any other being.
It's only me, she thinks. It's always only been me. If I dream, I dream alone. I'm the only terrible being here. He's done nothing wrong at all. How dare I even believe such a thing?
She looks up at the sky, where the curtain of day has begun to fall; the sun is red and boiling.
No more after today, Jo thinks, prays. I can turn a new leaf. They're happy together and I can't stay and.. and I'll do what needs doing.
And though her heart nearly bends in half, she tries to draw strength from her resolve, tries to find a sort of peace.
God willing, she will live through this. God willing, she will eventually be happy.
That night, she wakes up to find her new brother in bed with her, and prays that she is still dreaming.
But then one set of his fingers finds her hair and the other locks tight around the crevice of her heart, palm tamping down slowly.
And just like that, Jo knows that this is one nightmare from which she will never wake from fully.
Laurie smiles as he sees realization dawn on her, smiles openly and affectionately. It is the smile of a child who has all he wants, who looks forward to untying all the presents at Christmas and opening them up already.
She sees the white tips of his teeth as he does so and all of a sudden, Jo finally realizes what's long been happening.
And Laurie's smile turns a crescent, and suddenly even the most wretched of her dreams from before would be a balm next to what he'll be doing.
"Hush," Laurie says, and that word had never before made her falter. "Hush and relax already. A part of you knew this was a long time in coming, didn't you? A part of you, even if it was just a little sliver of you, always looked forward to this ending."
She wants to reply but her tongue has gone cold, her breath squeezed out her lungs entirely. And with a sigh, her old, old friend gave her a knowing smile, and covered her heart with his palm once more, stealing its animal beat.
"I could see through you as though you were glass, Jo, and I could see everything. Your resentments and your anger and your fury and your disappointment... don't think I didn't realize they were in you all along, where even your Marmee couldn't reach. You've lived your lie all this time, trying to do the right thing and all of that effort was... for what? What did you gain, precisely?"
He's barely taller than she is, though he's filled out in the last few years. But his fingers pin her down with cold fire and a grip of steel, and she can't even struggle here.
"You lived by your mother's rules all your life," he went on, as vise-like fingers touched her cheeks and traced the tracks of her tears. "And what did it get you in the end, Jo March? What did all that struggling even mean? You mastered your temper and you always worked hard, but none of it meant anything. You still lost Europe, and you still lost Beth, and finally, you still lost even me..."
She wishes she could say no; she wishes she could refuse the meaning of his words entirely. Only the tears in her eyes are flowing faster, faster than even the pain from his grip on her throat, faster than in her fever dreams.
The worst of the devil's lies were with the truth, and what's now crouched on top of her knows that perfectly.
"It was all because you weren't beautiful," the thing that had once been Laurie tells her. "All because you weren't even pretty. Or did you think that Amy gained everything you loved because she was truly better as a human being? Despite that she stole your trip to Europe without even sparing a thought for how you'd supported her previously? Despite that she swore she'd marry never marry a pauper and be like your dear Marmee? Despite that she left a man who loved her for someone she knew you would envy? Despite that she gave up her artistic dreams because she'd rather be a lady than miss the lap of luxury?"
And Jo knows none of it was true; Jo knows none of it was real.
Only, she also knows that a part of her nearly wants to be seduced.
A part of her wants to believe.
As though it were salting a wound, it goes on, voice soft and merry and sweet. The sound of it like a boy she had once known and loved without even realizing.
"She took everything you wanted from you, and she took it easily. She took it because she could, because she was beautiful and elegant and a social ornament, and you couldn't be any of those things. And you hated her in the end, didn't you? You hated her desperately. But of course you wouldn't realize that, Jo March-- you'd swallow it all up eventually. Just like that perfect, precious Marmee of yours... that mother who swallowed down all her fury until she could deal with your father leaving time and again without constantly screaming."
Jo can at least lash out at that, at least, her limbs briefly cartwheeling through the air, striking absolutely nothing. The thing on her laughs and then presses a wet kiss to her brow, leaving long, dark streaks.
"Even now, you've a little fight left in you still. I knew I was right to come back here. Because you see, my dear Josephine... I used to be just as you were, but I was soon set free. I thought for so long that I'd have to live bound by such foolish rules, with only you as a possible relief. But then I met a man and I realized..."
It's all in the eyes, Jo then realizes. It's all in those dark, beautiful, glittering eyes, the eyes she'd once held so dear.
All in the eyes, in the absence in them. All in their dark, terrible need.
"I have a way of finding satisfaction," it says. "And it costs nearly nothing. Oh, Jo, won't you let me give almost everything you want back to you? Don't you want to take back your dreams?"
Its hands part her nightdress and find the bare, goose-pimpled curve of her breast.
And caresses, almost gently.
Jo closes her eyes and prays for death. But she knows it won't be so easy.
"You may have to give up your whole life," it concedes, "but you'll discover even better things."
By the time Jo feels teeth tear her throat to shreds, it almost comes as a relief.
Jo learns then that is is possible to drown even when one can still (just barely) breathe.
"Like a phoenix," it softly murmurs as she falls into muddied waters, only half-hearing the coming screams. "Like a phoenix rising up from the ashes. Rising up only for me."
And she is down down down and down, and there is blood between her teeth.
When the sun rises in the next morning, Meg is the only March left in the world to wonder of what may have happened to Jo's body.
Author's Note: Reviews are nice, reviews are fun, reviews lead to more fic in the long run. I'd love to know whether anyone besides my sick self actually enjoyed this story. ;)
And if you want to read more about Little Women and the supernatural, I would highly recommend checking out Elizabeth Harker's Braver Than We Are series. It's the sort of fic that only gets better and better as it goes along, leading to some utterly shattering scenes that highly inspired this fic. It's excellent and comes highly recommended!