Author's Note: So, ever since I randomly decided to watch From Dusk 'Til Dawn on Netflix, my mind has been playing with the ideas of Bella and the Gecko Brothers. Meaning, I totally couldn't help myself and came up with this! It wouldn't go away, and I couldn't get any work done on my other stories because it kept hounding me. That being said, this is the last of my new stories coming up for a while (aside from some possible one-shots) until I can make some decent headway on finishing up and editing chapters for all my others. So enjoy!
Pairing: Definite Bella/Richie, endgame might be Richie/Bella/Seth- we will see!
*Other Side Pairings to be determined.
Rating: Fiction M- for language, violence, gore, bloodplay, adult situations/themes, etc. (If you've seen the show, you understand.)
Timeline: Set during New Moon-ish, though with an altered timeline. It's been two years since the Cullen's departure and no Eclipse events...yet. Dun dun dunnn? :)
*Warning!: This is a Twilight/From Dusk 'Til Dawn (TV Series) crossover, so it is definitely full of AU-ness. Bella will be OOC compared to Twilight's Bella, so if you don't like that you might want to turn back now. This story will have some darker themes to it, given the way Richie is and the way I'm playing Bella after being affected by the Cullen's leaving. I'm still unsure how they might come into play, but I know they will. If any of the things described above in the Rating put you off or act as triggers, you might want to X-out. If not, happy reading!
*I've read both Original Sister's and GoWithTheFlo20's stories, I Put A Spell On You and Gods and Monsters, and loved them both! They're great pieces, so if you enjoy the Bella/Richie goodness, check them out!
Feel free to leave a review, favorite and follow the story! Support in all forms is encouraged, except flames. No need to provoke Richie and his trigger finger!
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Twilight (novels/movies), its characters, or any recognizable material from them. I also do NOT own From Dusk 'Til Dawn (Movies/TV Series), its characters, or any recognizable material from them. I only claim my personal plot bunnies that come out to play with their characters and any original characters that might make an appearance.
Bloody Whispers
~Prologue~
She said that it wasn't her fault.
.~.
A strange sound roused her from unconsciousness, pulling her back from the wake of an ocean of inky blackness that she was more than used to lately. She was always slipping into darkness, or caught tight in the grasp of daydreams that were beginning to tamper with her reality. With a shake of her head and a small groan at the stiffness in her muscles, she became aware of the coarse surface beneath her. She frowned, recognizing crinkled leaves that cracked with their dryness and tiny twigs that snapped under the weight of her hand…
Dirt, she was laying in dirt- though with the way it squelched underneath her, it seemed more along the lines of mud really.
Her eyes flew wide open; the hazy fog that had been blurring her vision receded, leaving the dark expanse of Texas night sky above her. Her mind raced, trying in vain to establish a timeline for the hours before, something that could explain why she was on her back in squishy Texas dirt and staring up at twinkling stars that shone down through the gaps of the treetops. She could vaguely remember making a stop in a small town, celebrating the fact that she had finally crossed over the state borderline after days of driving. There had been a small bar and barbecue joint, a few beers and some damn good potato salad…and that pompous ass that just wouldn't leave her be.
A snort escaped her, rich boys and their entitlement issues; she didn't have time for that shit anymore. Not after him.
The sound that had pulled her back into the waking world filled her ears again, closer this time, and her eyes widened as her mind finally connected the dots, recognizing the noise for what it was. She had heard it plenty of times in the Arizona desert.
Hissing…
The hissing of snakes.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly, the panic setting into her very bones as she turned her head to the left, her eyes dropping down over the tall and thick trunks of the surrounding trees in the wooded area she lay in; the thick underbrush, the mounds of old and decaying leaves…and finally, they connected with the narrowed, vertical pupils of the creature in front of her. The eyes seemed to glow eerily in the dark, almost as if they were a pulsing beacon, and she felt a scream build in her throat as it stared back at her.
And it wasn't alone.
Now familiar with the noise, her ears picked up on the sound of echoing hisses in the clearing around her, the slight rustling of leaves and undergrowth. She knew if she looked away from the gaze that pinned her to the ground, she would find that she was surrounded.
She wanted to run.
She wanted to cry.
She had wandered barefoot (when had she realized she no longer wore any shoes?) and barely clothed (what happened to the lightweight dress she had worn?), deep into the Texas wood at night in all her stupidity, right into a snake pit apparently, and she was going to die. It would strike, and there was no way she would find her way back to civilization before the poison took to her veins.
Ironic, she thought, trading one creature's venom for another to be her death sentence.
With a harsh swallow through her tight throat, her eyes began to slide shut in resignation, a small gratefulness that at least she would be done running, that those she loved would be safe, finally came over her. She had been toying with the line of death so long now; it might even be a relief. Finally, she would be able to relax.
To simply breathe.
Another hiss provoked her eyes to flutter back open however, the sound almost soothing, low and slippery instead of aggressive and territorial. Even more puzzling was the warmth the sound provided, a gentle comfort the leeched the panic and fear from her very blood. It was echoed again, bringing more warmth to her and a bizarre sense of belonging that she couldn't even begin to explain; like coming home. Her brows furrowed in wonder, leaving her eyes to widen comically when she had become too distracted to realize what was happening.
The snake…it wound itself around her.
Wrapping around her waist as she had lifted herself into a sitting position, it curled and slithered its way up her body, sliding across bare and slick skin before coming to rest at her shoulder…nuzzling her neck. Despite being sure that she would die by its fang only moments previously, a small smile tugged at her lips as the reptilian creature proceeded to make itself comfortable, and it wasn't the only one. They all came, slipping and sliding over her outstretched limbs and winding themselves around her; almost protectively, she decided.
It was only as she turned her head to the right, that she found out why.
.~.
She had been doing what it took to stay alive, the woman said; she had only been protecting herself. Anyone else would do the same, she assured her, and doing so did not make her a monster like she seemed to fear.
.~.
It laid there.
The body.
Some ten, maybe fifteen feet away, crumpled in a pile of dirt and leaves that had been raked up from their dormant positions on the Earth's floor in an obvious struggle. The moonlight glinted off of now discolored skin, warped by the stain of blood and the palled color that hinted of death. A rising need to throw up built within her belly, but the low hiss of the snake draped over her shoulder soothed the reaction. It almost seemed to blink at the sight before it, then turned back to tickle the side of her neck with its forked tongue.
She was too shocked by the scene in front of her to even contemplate the strangeness of such a thing.
Her hands shook violently as she let her eyes wander, tracing the body from her position away from it. A man, somewhere in his late twenties most likely. His dark colored hair was stained darker with blood and messy, out of place as bits of leaves and twig knotted within it. He looked to be at least six foot tall in height, a lean but muscled frame that would have complimented such a thing. His oversized t-shirt was marred with blood spatter, ripped and torn, hanging off of his now eternally still body.
He seemed…familiar.
It was only as she blinked repeatedly, working desperately to clear her head, that she understood why he seemed that way. The asshole from the bar that couldn't keep his hands to himself and proclaimed himself to be God's gift to women; the complete dick who couldn't take no for an answer and had followed her to the parking lot instead, attempting to shove her up against his fancy car before she kneed him in the groin and took off at a dead run into the trees, following not long after her.
This was him.
Her breaths were rushed and shallow, new panic setting in even as the hissing of the snakes surrounding her continued, their efforts to calm her going ignored.
She killed him.
There wasn't a single doubt in her mind that she'd done so, even without being able to remember it, she could feel it deep down in her bones. She had ripped into his skin, drawn blood, taken his life.
"You did the right thing."
Her head whipped up…and up.
When she connected her eyes with the striking blue ones that peered down at her, his gaze so intense yet laced with a hidden worry, her lungs ceased their panicked spasms and her heartbeat stuttered in her chest. His skin looked flawless, a faint sun kissed tone offsetting his paleness, and his hair was rumpled like he had fallen out of bed, a dark brown color and thick. Sharp, chiseled, and angled features were held in his unblinking, almost stern expression, a hint of fury lurking in the icy blueness of his eyes as he glanced down toward the body at his feet in disgust. He seemed to be dressed in slacks, though his shirt was left open and his feet left bare, much like hers. Her lip twitched slightly as she raked her eyes over his exposed abdomen and chest, lingering on the muscles that defined his abdominals and led two pronounced lines downward, the point of the V-shape disappearing beneath his waistband.
Heat filled her, pouring through her veins and drowning her from the inside out as she licked and then bit down on her lip while the inexplicable feeling took her over.
And he smirked.
Her eyes narrowed instantly, indignation filling her being as she rose from the ground much more quickly and gracefully than she would ever have expected. The snakes hissed slightly as she jostled them before settling around her frame once again, wrapping around her to cover any exposed bits and settling around her feet that squished in the dirt.
It was his turn to lick at his lips.
A muscle twitched in his strong, defined jaw.
The burning feeling still resided in her, making her almost uncomfortable in her skin, and she glanced down at herself, taking in her appearance fully for the first time. Her breath caught and died in her chest, her heart stilling before taking off at a thunderous pace, and her eyes could not have opened any wider as her mouth dropped open in a silent scream.
All she saw, was red.
.~.
Still, there was so much blood. Trying to tell her she mustn't think of herself as a monster, someone who was unhinged and balancing the line of sanity precariously, was pointless. Seeing what she saw, how could she not?
.~.
"Oh god," She croaked out, her throat dry and voice raspy. "Oh god, oh god, oh my fucking god."
Hands scrabbling at bare skin, ignoring hissed protests as she rubbed at the places she could in vain, it did nothing to dispel of the new color her skin had taken on.
Red, deep red.
Seductively stained, from lighter shades to deeply sinful hues, blood red.
A strangled cry escaped her throat as she wiped at it, only smearing and spreading it along. She understood now why her skin had felt slick and sticky, why the scales of the snakes wound around her body had slipped so easily over her skin.
The blood covered her, nearly head to toe.
Staining her hands, seeping into the skin of her arms and legs; it was what made the dirt beneath her feet feel more mud-like in quality after it had soaked into the ground. It was smeared over her stomach that her shredded dress barely covered, and with a nauseated thought, she realized the only way it could come to look like that was if she had caused it. She choked, pushing down the bile that threatened to rise in her esophagus.
It…it was as if she had bathed in it.
"You did."
The stranger stood next to her now, nearly touching but not quite, his hands clenched at his sides in fists as if he was holding himself back from doing so. She had almost forgotten about him. He stared down at her, his gaze fierce as he murmured to her, his voice low and reassuring as he attempted to calm her.
"We always said that we would." He muttered. "We take the blood of those who move against us, we said, those who defy us…and we bathe in it."
She swallowed convulsively, cringing at both the familiarity his words spoken brought and the utter confusion that consumed her mind and body. Her eyes remained glued to his frame, watching as a fire ignited in his gaze, as his features twisted with hate while he spoke of the mangled body at their feet.
"He deserved his death." He snarled, glaring down at the body once more. "No one comes after you or harms you, and gets away with it, Isabella."
Her eyes flew wide open for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, heart pounding as his words echoed within her ears. No one harms you, Isabella.
Isabella, Isabella, Isabella.
"How do you know my name?" She whispered.
The blue-eyed man clenched his jaw, frustration flickering over his features as he dropped back a step away from her. He looked loathe to do so, and she tried to push away the sudden pang of striking pain in her chest when he did. She gazed up at him beseechingly, desperate for an answer.
But he remained silent.
"How do you know my name!" She screeched then, her voice high and panicked at the idea of the unknown.
It was too much.
Snakes, bodies, blood, and him.
Her body crumpled to the ground and she rocked on her knees, ignoring the worried hissing and his voice as he called her name. She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands in fists, leaving her nails to bite into the soft skin of her palms. The scent of fresh blood hit her, but the usual wave of dizziness that came with it was absent. Her blood, a deep red color, mixed with that which already stained her skin.
"Dream," She whispered brokenly, clutching at the sides of her head. "It's a dream, just a dream. You aren't crazy, you aren't a killer, and this is just a dream…"
"Isabella-" He sighed.
"Dream! It's all a dream!" She cut him off, scrambling away. "This isn't real, none of it is real. It's time to wake up. Wake up, wake up, wake up!"
.~.
The other brunette stroked her hair as she lay there, staring off into space. She hummed lowly in her throat, a soothing tone and rhythm that was strangely familiar, like so many other things she had seen and heard recently.
"Todo será como debe ser. Pronto, usted verá." She whispered, watching as the girl's eyes fluttered with sleep. "Princesa de la Noche."
Translations: (Using Google Translate, if any mistakes!)
"Todo será como debe ser. Pronto, usted verá." - Everything will be as it should be. Soon, you will see.
"Princesa de la Noche." - Princess of the Night.
