darling, your eyes were full of darkness (requiem | matilda/sylvia)

[fiachairecht]

darling, your eyes were full of darkness. requiem, matilda/sylvia. sylvia survives, and sylvia waits, and the woods want to eat. 1k words, rated m. for snickfic in We Die Like Fen: Time Loop.

The walk up to Dean House is long. Graves would have driven her, of course, more out of a desire to keep an eye on her than out of any lingering altruism, but Tilly had declined. Pretending is exhausting, and it's not yet time for anything else to be revealed. Better to steal the moments alone that she can.

But the walk is still long enough that Tilly has time to wonder why she's doing this, long enough that the wings itching at her back fade away into a dull, throbbing pain that's more like a heartbeat. 

She doesn't know what the arcangel wants. She doesn't know what she wants, other than to be back in the woods — or, better yet, back onstage, her cello in her hands the audience, adoring, giving her a standing ovation.

But she's playing to a much, much smaller audience now. It will be worth it in the end — perhaps, Tilly thinks, a discordant note layered over the arcangel's it will — but until then ...

Until then she walks. Off the path, though she doesn't realise it until brambles start to snag at her jeans with enough determination to pierce first denim and then skin. When she looks up, she's made it to the woods, the canopy above closing over her head in a mimicry of safety.

There's no one coming. She knows, the angel knows, and Tilly still looks around before reaching down to touch the tear in her jeans. Her fingers come away crimson, but where the blood is beading up on her pale skin it's darker, duller — a perfectly shaped blackberry, the sort of thing that she feels she could almost pluck from a vine—

That she can pluck from her flesh. It comes away plump and purple-black, rests in her hand with a perfect weight. She holds it up to the light, watches the slight glimmer of sunlight off the sides of the fruit.

Eat it.

She obeys without thinking, and it's only when the berry bursts in her mouth — sweet fading to tart fading to blood — that she realises what she's done.

"Fuck off," she says aloud, and the whisper of the wind through the trees might even be an answer, or, at least, as close to an answer as she's going to get. "Where did that come from, even?"

But she knows. She's known since the moment she stepped off the path. Whether she'd wanted to know — well, that's not a question she wants to think too closely about. Not when she doesn't know who else is thinking about it.

**

She can't remember how she gets back to Dean House. One moment she's standing in the woods, bloodied fingers lifted to her mouth and the taste of iron burning on her tongue, the next, she's standing in the living room doorway, clinging to the edge of the bookshelf for support as Sylvia blinks up at her.

"Oh." She doesn't sound surprised, but then again, she never has. "I thought you'd be back earlier," she says.

Only then does Tilly notice the lamps are on, illuminating the room in soft golds and ambers, and the bottle of whisky that's sitting half empty by Sylvia's very empty glass. The curtains are drawn but if she pulled them back, she's sure, she'd see only the vast black expanse of the lawn spread out under the sort of night that clouds know better than to leave unprotected.

"I was at the hospital," she says, and the words feel harder than they should be. She hates - the angel needs — Sylvia. She wants — the angel needs — Sylvia. "I walked back. It was longer than it should've been."

Sylvia sets her book aside and gets up, crossing the room to Tilly in a few long strides. "The blackouts should have stopped," she says, brow furrowed in concern. "You're safe now Tilly, remember? They're here. They love you."

"I know," she says, because knowing isn't believing and it doesn't sound too much like a lie.

The arcangel is silent. She can't tell if that's a good thing.

"Oh, Tilly," Sylvia murmurs. She tucks a bit of hair behind Tilly's ear, and it feels wrong as it brushes her neck, but she doesn't have time to dwell on it because Sylvia's lips are on her mouth, cool and insistent.

She opens her mouth. What else could she do? She would open all of herself to Sylvia, mouth and eyes and legs and ribcage, all sawed apart with a cello bow strung with thorned stems of roses, and she would let Sylvia place the seeds of whatever Penllynth needed inside—

She wouldn't.

Tilly snaps back to herself, bites Sylvia's lips as hard as she can as she pulls away, breathing hard. She should say something else, but another berry blooms from the blood she brought to Sylvia's mouth.

"Hm." Sylvia prods at the blackberry with the tip of her tongue, and it falls easily into her hand. "I hadn't expected that." 

"They taste good," Tilly offers. It's all she can offer.

Sylvia pops the berry back in her mouth, eyes falling shut as she chews thoughtfully. "Don't they just," she says, and there's that wonder again — the sort of wonder that Tilly thinks could make her do dangerous, violent things and love them all. "I still expected you back hours ago."

"Okay, well, next time, you get to be the one to talk to Graves then," Tilly snaps.

Sylvia purses her lips, tilts her head. "Hm," she says, and Tilly's heart sinks despite herself. "You know, I think that might be one of the best ideas you've had in quite some time."

"Just talk," Tilly warns. She's still clinging to the bookshelf, still too close to Sylvia, and her fingers crack as she tries to pull them away. "We still need her."

It's harder to think, her thoughts slowing like stagnant water. There was something else she'd meant to say.

There's heather blooming in her palm when she pulls away from the bookshelf. No — from her palm, and she sways forwards into Sylvia's arms despite herself.

"Good," she can hear Sylvia's voice. Faint, and growing fainter. "You're becoming part of us."

It's the last thing she hears before she slips back into sleep; Sylvia's mouth once more on hers the last she feels.