/ After spending the week with my girlfriend, here's a very fluffy chapter. Surely, Fiona and Myrtle need to have a bit of a conversation, too, don't they? Please enjoy, and feel free to leave (constructive) feedback. /
Burn, Witch, Burn
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Chapter VI: Don't Think It's All About You
"You don't hate me?"
Myrtle Snow's question lingered in the air for a few seconds – unanswered. Deep within, she had known the answer to her own question all along. Yes, she had concluded that Fiona Goode did not hate her, and yet, now that she was sat right here with Fiona – all her certainty seemed to crumble. Could it truly be that this woman who had hidden from her for a month and pretended to have died at the hand of her own lover actually felt the same for Myrtle?
It seemed surreal; it appeared to be a low probability.
"For Christ's sake, Myrt, has the gasoline smell burnt your brain cells away? No, I don't hate you. I really thought you had figured that much after I kissed you."
With the roll of her eyes and a sigh of annoyance slipping through her lips, Fiona leaned to the side to pick up a half empty wine bottle from the floor. Pouring another drink, the Supreme, once she bottle was settled on the parquet again, offered the glass to Myrtle.
"And you can't tell me you hate me either because damn, your tongue was quite eager to climb down my throat. Now have a drink and relax, you're stiff as a stick."
Myrtle was rendered speechless. Why, though? Because Fiona was talking about what had happened as if it wasn't anything that should be considered questionable? Or merely because this sounded as though Fiona Goode herself was, in a more or less romantic way, admitting her feelings for Myrtle?
Clearing her throat once, the flame-haired woman took the wine tumbler from the Supreme, her fingers briefly brushing against the other's before lifting the glass to her lips and taking a moderate sip of the dark red liquid.
"Cat got your tongue, Myrt?" A suggestive smirk played on Fiona's lips.
"A little, to be fair", admitted the redheaded witch eventually, her eyes on the blonde. "I'm quite stunned by your confession, dear. But before we talk about that any further, I'd be interested to know why exactly you are still alive – or rather how."
Another roll of Fiona's eyes was the answer.
"Well, where do I begin to explain so that you'll understand?" The Supreme rested her head back against the headboard of her bed, exhaling audibly. "You see, Myrt, you were wondering why I've consumed so much more alcohol recently – it was because of him. Christ's sake, I enjoyed this whole thing I had with him in the beginning, but you made me realise that he'd never stay until the very end." Now, the woman paused for a minute, Myrtle sitting beside her and waiting patiently for her to continue. "And I realised he wasn't who I wanted to stay until the very end. He began to annoy me, with his silly farmhouse and catfish. Just the thought of living with him like that makes me cringe. So I put a little spell on him to make him and every single one of you believe he had killed me. In the meantime, I jetted off to Paris for a while, enjoyed myself or whatever you want to call it."
"Fiona, are you implying that you were hoping for him to die?"
"No, I was implying that I counted on those little witches to kill him."
"Typical. You let others do the dirty work. But what for?" Furrowing her eyebrows in question, the redhead eventually set the wine glass back onto the nightstand once it was empty. Her mind was filled with questions – she still couldn't quite understand any of this. Why had Fiona wanted to get rid of the Axeman? Why had she gone into hiding for one entire month?
"What for? Use your brain, Myrt. I told you he wasn't the one I wanted to stay until the very end", said the blonde lowly, her brown orbs closing as she relaxed.
"Does that mean there is someone else whom you want to stay until the very end? Oh, that's such a romantic idea, don't you think?"
Not that Myrtle expected a satisfying response to her question, yet there was a small hint of hope lingering within her heart for now – while awaiting Fiona's next words, partly expecting a sarcastic remark about the redhead's hopeless sense of romance.
This moment of waiting seemed to last for an eternity. Fiona took her time to ponder, shape useful sentences in her mind that her tongue would be able to perform. In the end, the blonde opened her orbs and raised her head just lightly to give her nemesis a suggestive look.
"Our kiss made me realise that who I want to stay until the very end is the one who has been there from day one."
"Are you saying-"
"You, Myrtle. I've never seen it until I kissed you. I was convinced men gave me what I wanted and needed without realising I had it right in front of me all my life. Holy shit, I probably sound deluded right now, don't I? Must be the meds."
Yet again, Myrtle was speechless.
"What? Do you want to sit there and stare at me like a retard all evening?"
"Fiona …"
"Would you stop gaping at my mouth and kiss me?"
Myrtle did not need to hear this request more than once – without hesitation, the redheaded witch, her heart racing twice as fast as usual, shifted a little closer next to Fiona's upper body as she rested her palms on either side of the blonde's head. She leaned forward slowly but gradually, watching how her face approached the Supreme's before her blue eyes went shut and she gently pressed her lips upon Fiona's.
The Guardian of Veracity in the Vernacular could not help but lose herself in the taste of Fiona's plump lips, oh so sweet but bitter from the wine at the same time. She sensed a slender hand moving around her nape and resting in the back of her neck, pulling her just a little closer into the kiss.
This time it was Myrtle whose lips were soon penetrated by the other woman's tongue, their kiss growing more passionate with each second passing, with each gentle lap of her own tongue against Fiona's – her body unintentionally leaning closer into the Supreme, pressing her chest up against the other's lightly. One of the redhead's hands carefully slipped underneath Fiona's back at her waist, her free hand tenderly cupping the blonde's cheek.
The kiss went on for another moment, Fiona seemingly urging the redhead closer, forcing their bodies to press tightly against one another whilst she intensified the kiss more and more, like she was a lioness hungrily working on her prey.
Myrtle Snow, however, interrupted Fiona's rather unbridled demeanour as she brought a bit of space between their mouths again. Opening her eyes, she looked down at the Supreme, rather breathless, her fingers still holding on to the woman's cheek as she began to caress her soft skin swiftly.
There was a hint of salty fluids in her orbs.
"Fiona – why did you have to make me believe you were dead?"
Silence. How Myrtle despised these moments of silence between the two witches, this tension, the irritating period of waiting. It made her nervous – whenever Fiona Goode did not have a snappy comment ready right away, something surely bugged her, something made her ponder, or maybe she was planning how to dispose of Myrtle's body.
"Fiona?" Myrtle's voice was low, almost comfortingly sweet.
"I needed time", said the Supreme in the end, her expression once again appearing colder than it was supposed to, her voice sounding rougher and more emotionless than what the blonde had meant to express with her words.
"Time?"
"Time to think, consider things, make sure what I felt was … real. I had to get away. Maybe I would have never returned, tried to forget about it, convince myself this wasn't allowed to be. And just spend the remainders of my days in Paris – my plan was amazing."
The Supreme swallowed the lump in her throat away – Myrtle, on the other hand, was feeling just that growing inside, restricting her from speaking her mind as straightforwardly as she usually did. Only Fiona Goode could ever have such effect on the flame-haired witch, make her shut up this easily, and make her weak to her knees.
"But you have returned." With that, Myrtle retracted from the other, sitting upright and eyeing her from a slightly further distance – her fingers moving away from the blonde's cheek right afterwards. There was no doubt, the redhead was willed to hear a plausible explanation. She wanted the truth.
"Because I heard what was going to happen to you, Myrt." Fiona rolled her eyes now. "I thought you were stronger, darling. I didn't think you'd want to burn at the stake simply because I was dead."
"I wanted to burn because I have committed unspeakable crimes, Fiona, don't think it's all about you."
"Oh, but it is", said the Supreme and an amused chuckle escaped her dry lips which interrupted her speech for a moment, "You should have thought this through. I know you couldn't wait to get off the stake again once you saw me. Otherwise you would have insisted to burn, no matter what. I know you, Myrtle Snow."
Once again, Fiona Goode managed oh so easily to weaken Myrtle and make her feel humiliated. Her lack of persistence earlier that day was what had betrayed her. Without even noticing, the redhead had given the Supreme the satisfaction, given her exactly what she wanted – as always, the worst Supreme the coven had ever had got her way in the end.
Myrtle looked away from Fiona for just a moment, but then another thought came to her mind. Turning to face the blonde one more time, the ginger now gave a rather sarcastic smile in return.
"Fiona, dear, you should have thought this through yourself. You simply could not stand the idea of losing me, that's why you've returned. You couldn't bear the thought that I was going to burn to death, this time for real. You realised you could never live without me – don't deny it. I know you, Fiona Goode."
That was it, or wasn't it?
Feeling accomplished to have come to this conclusion, Myrtle Snow smiled triumphantly at the Supreme, watching closely how the other woman's facial features shifted. Fiona pursed her lips slightly before her chocolate brown eyes went shut.
"Knowing you were going to die made me realise that those feelings I've been battling for months were real." Fiona gulped once. Her lids soon opened again, her eyes obviously wet from appearing tears. "I'm tired of fighting, Myrt. I'm dying, and I don't want to spend those few weeks I have left feeling like shit. I didn't want to give up on my only chance of … happiness."
"Your only chance of happiness?" Myrtle was taken aback, she was surprised – oh, she could not hide her thoroughly stunned yet gratified emotions any longer, her expression giving away what she felt. "You're saying I am your only chance of happiness, Fiona?"
"For Christ's sake, yes. Whatever this is between us, it's not hate, and it's been going on for a while now, maybe even longer than I want to admit, and you know it. You feel the same. Myrt, I've come to realise that I want you to be there until I finally bite the dust, and I should've realised earlier that you wanted to be there all this time – when you said no man would ever stay until the very end. I should have seen the truth – that you wouldn't leave, that with you, I'm not going to die alone."
In the meantime, Myrtle had lifted her hand back to the Supreme's cheek carefully, tenderly wiping her thumb underneath the blonde's eye to rid of those few tears that dared to escape Fiona's orbs.
"The meds have really made you sentimental, Fiona."
The blonde only responded with a crooked smile and another, slightly exaggerated roll of her brown eyes before gazing directly into the blue of the redhead's orbs.
"Will you stay with me, Myrt?"
"You know my answer, dear."