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chiconzin · 3 years

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The unbearable smell of oranges

Maybe it was her untied black hair, maybe it was her strange demeanour, or the history of tragedy surrounding the house she lived in. Or maybe it was something more apparent that caused repulsion amongst the small group of children we used to play with: her smell. Eurydice was constantly surrounded by an unmistakable smell, no one could agree on what it was. It was like the smell of citrus, like the smell of rotten oranges. It took me my whole life to identify the source of that smell; that’s what this story is about.

Eurydice belonged to one of the old wealthy families in town. She lived with her grandmother, until one day, she presumably died from tuberculosis. Who were Eurydice’s parents or their whereabouts, no one knew. And because of her strange characteristics and behaviour, she remained an orphan, living in the same decaying old house.

Many of the details of Eurydice’s life and origin remains unknown because of her compulsive habit of lying. Lying was the thing she was best at, and throughout her life, it allowed her to live relatively comfortably without any family. She had a talent with words; she could convince anyone the sky was green if she wanted. Eurydice had a gifted writer’s soul; her stories were capable of stripping people of their most prized possessions. It was a strange relationship between the town and Eurydice. They had a terrific pity for her, but never enough to make a simple quick act of charity. She was an outcast, forever an outcast.

One day, while we were playing, the topic of reading and writing came up. We all were pretty amazed to discover Eurydice could do either. She said she formerly had a private tutor and that she had mastered the art of reading to perfection. Not believing her, I asked Eurydice to give me reading lessons. Surprisingly, she accepted and set a date to meet at her house. I didn’t know what to make out of this in the beginning, but I ended up going. After all, what was the scheme behind teaching someone to read?

It was one of the hottest days of the year, not a single soul was on the streets, not even birds would sing. It didn’t take me a lot to find where Eurydice’s home was, after all, it was one of the biggest in town. Like most old buildings, it was made of quarry and tezontle. It was two stories and what seemed like a thousand rooms. It almost looked like a cloister. Above the massive engraved wooden door was a family shield so eroded it was unrecognizable. A hot current of wind was flowing under the door and inside the building, like it was breathing very slowly. Fear travelled through my body as I felt I was in front of an enormous ancient beast. After knocking several times and not receiving an answer, I entered. When I got to the courtyard, I finally saw her.

She was laying on a hammock, reading with that dirty nightgown she invariably displayed, under the most immense orange tree my eyes have ever laid upon. The tree branches grew and spread throughout the balconies without a care in the world and there were thousands of oranges laying on the floor everywhere. The air was saturated by the orange’s scent, an unusual warm smell, maybe a little sweeter than the characteristic orange’s perfume.

This would be the end of the story if the orange tree was the reason behind Eurydice’s fragrance. Although similar, the aroma and aura from the house and the one emanating from Eurydice couldn’t be more different. The house fragrance was old and nostalgic, Eurydice’s one was longing, but a yearning for something not yet experienced.

Eurydice gestured for me to come and join her, so I did. She started by teaching me the alphabet and the sound of each letter, then she made me try to read some old children’s rhymes. She was a completely different person inside that house. Her charismatic tales, her spillable tenderness, and her infinite patience allured me quickly, and soon enough we became good friends. It wasn’t long before I started taking daily lessons with her.

I enjoyed how weirdly affectionate she was towards me and her even stranger ways of showing it. She would do and undo my braid over and over sometimes, other times while we lied on the hammock, she would curiously touch my face as I was the first human being she ever saw. I didn’t like when Eurydice did that. I was an insecure child growing up and my smallpox scars made me inhibited. But thanks to her tenderness, as time went by I started cherishing more of those times of idleness.

III

When I reached my teenage years, I finally started reading my first novel, I was a quick learner after all. As there wasn’t much Eurydice could teach me anymore, the moments of boredom and frivolity in the hammock during her lessons became more frequent. One of those days of sopor, Eurydice started touching my face again, caressing it rather, that’s when it happened. It was so faint and so light I didn’t read it as a kiss until she started engulfing me in them. Without knowing what was happening and unsure of what to do next, I lowered my head and stayed very still. She took notice after a while of my reaction and then abruptly stopped. The air became heavy, the atmosphere unbearably unpleasant and uncomfortable so the lesson of the day was cut short. After that, I stopped hanging with her for a while.

I tried resuming my daily life, but something ensued after I left that decaying house. Slowly but surely I was being excluded from the local social activities, like the atmosphere Eurydice brought with her was always following.My old-time friends started drifting away, and soon people began treating me as a foreigner. As I became more isolated, I started perceiving it too: the smell of rotten oranges. Eurydice’s garden had followed me.

Initially, I thought it was in my hair, in the braid she often did and undid, so I cut it. Next, I thought the odour was emanating from the books she had gifted me throughout our lessons, so I burned them. I started getting rid of anything in my life that was associated with her in hopes the curse would stop. The scent became unbearable; it wouldn’t go away no matter how many times I washed my clothes or myself. I couldn’t eat anything as everything tasted like those unduly sweet oranges, I couldn’t sleep at night as the warm smell suffocated me and made me feel dizzy.

There was only one thing I could do: seek help with Eurydice.

The day I returned to Eurydice’s house the smell stopped. When I entered, she was in crisis. The young girl told me horrible tales of what happened after I had left. Tales blurring the line between fiction and reality. She was delirious! All her charismatic lying started to flop as she would often confuse events described in the horror novels she often read with daily occurrences without order or logic.

I led her to the hammock and started reading to her as we would always do. I held her tight, as if I released her I would lose her forever. As the lecture continued, and we began to be absorbed in the dull descriptions of that badly written book, I finally found peace. The atmosphere didn’t smell like anything in particular, nor anything felt special in a singular way. At that moment I felt like I could deal with Eurydice’s extravagances and daylight nightmares, I could even deal with being labelled as an outcast by the rest of the town just for little moments of peace like that.

After months of not seeing each other, I finally answered to the incident that made me run away from her and kissed her forehead as we lay under the orange tree.

As one often wishes while reminiscing of tales from the youth, I wish I could have made wiser decisions.

We would play pretend like when we were children, we would play to pretend to be in love with each other. Her particular talent in lying made her especially good at this. We would become the protagonist in her romantic novels to spend the infinite time that isolation offered us inside the house. The line between fiction and reality was non-existent in Eurydice’s rotten orange garden.

At first, it was fine when it was just Eurydice and me in the bliss of youth, until I had to coexist with the ghosts of her past and her made-up spectres. The more open she became of her past and the enigmatic characters that were her violent parents and intrinsic family drama, the more confusing and inconsistent the overall narrative became.

On one thing she was saner than me: she wanted to abandon the house. But I wasn’t ready to confront the overwhelming smell of the outside world again. After all, wasn’t my fear of the aromatic curse the reason I bear with such a questionable character?

As years passed by, Eurydice’s starchy whiteness started to become more spectral, and her body acquired more translucent properties. Her coal-black hair had grown so much it dragged like the tail of a dress, and when she bent her head to kiss me, I felt like a black rain poured on me. Her sentences didn’t even make sense anymore, and sometimes she would call me by strangers’ names.

She didn’t even remember who she was anymore. Sometimes Eurydice would stay still looking at something that didn’t quite exist. She was tired, a Quijote tired of hunting imaginary giants and offering love poems to Dulcineas.

And just like that, she stopped existing…

…. if she ever existed.

VII

When she was gone, I started repeatedly reading the badly written book that I read to her the day of my return to the house. Always the same story, always the same place. And just like that, one day I again felt Eurydice’s scent now merged together with the scent of the house. I felt the weight of another person in the hammock, but I didn’t care to see who it was as it is useless to talk with those who have already left.

Just then I understood that Eurydice’s scent was the perfume that loneliness wears.

#short story #orange tree #vintage #horror #love story?#writting #writrblr #short fiction #orange #fiction #fic #original writing #original art #criticism #perfume #nightgown #loneliness

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dumbwaves · 5 years

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words mean more at night

jeremy knox/jean moreau (1.4k)

the english is shit, there are a lot of mental health trigger warnings but it’s my firstborn and i’m proud // read it on ao3

Jean Moreau woke up in a cold sweat. His chest ached as if someone had repeatedly bashed a racquet against his solar plexus. His lungs were burning like hell fire, and he couldn’t for the life of him breathe.

It was so dark. The kind of darkness that made him believe that there never would be light again. At least for him. He gasped, but all it did was make him feel daggers all over his chest. He felt torn open. ‘This is how I die’ he thought desperately ‘this is how it all turns to nothing’.

And then Jean saw him -- it. Standing at the darkest corner of the room. It was mean-spirited and horrendous looking. It wanted Jean, and it spoke to him in the deepest crests of his mind. And Jean took its words like gospel.

‘Your master will return soon’ the shadow-figure spoke in a cruel, mocking tone ‘He will return and take what is his by right’ its words were prophecy-like.

Dread curled in Jean’s spine. His lungs still gave their last struggle to breathe. It hurt so much. His eyes were hot with tears, his tongue felt made of cotton inside his dry mouth.

“Il est mort” Jean choked out, his skin crawling “He is rotting in hell”.

It laughed darkly, and Jean could feel in the tips of his fingers the impending doom of what was coming for him. And he felt it all: the darkness, the pain, the hopelessness, the sorrow. His chest was going to combust, and he’d die. And Riko would be there, waiting for him in hell with a sadistic smile and the promise of blood on his lips. Jean wailed a desperate, broken sound.

And as if in a holy revelation, there was light. A faint thing, in the corner of his eye. He snapped his head so fast to see what it was that his neck ached. The bedside lamp had been turned on. Its faint yellowed glow illuminating the golden fingers attached to its button. Jean’s tear-blurred eyes watched the fingers move, the hand withdraw, the wrist flex. The long arm curled forward, trying to reach Jean. He looked at the strong shoulder, the freckles in the naked chest. Jeremy’s worried face greeted him like an old friend.

“Baby” Jeremy whispered “Baby, hey.” he tried again, frowning at how Jean’s eyes were unfocused and his breathing erratic.

Jeremy took Jean’s stone cold hand. And his touch was so tender and so warm it made Jean want to cry. Jeremy guided Jean’s fingers to his tanned chest, placing them on top of his heart.

“Lets breathe together, shall we?” Jeremy offered “Feel my heart, feel my lungs”

Jean shut his eyes tight and focused on the steady beat of Jeremy’s heart. It thumped in a bold rhythm. At that moment, Jean could’ve sworn he heard the drumming of that man’s heart inside his own body. He let out a long, painful gust of air. Jean tried to tune the faint whisper of his heart to the steady beat of Jeremy’s.

His other hand was guided to Jeremy’s belly, which fluttered with each slow breath he took. Jean tried to focus on mirroring Jeremy’s breathing while the constant symphony of his heartbeats soothed his thoughts.

Jean didn’t know how long they stayed like that. It could’ve been years, or even centuries. He felt a never-ending sense of belonging.

“You did so great, baby” Jeremy gave him a kind smile, placing his hands on top of Jean’s scarred ones. He displaced them, squeezing them a few times “I love you”.

Those words felt like a punch to his gut. Jean let out a heart-wrenching sound. His throat ached from how much he had already struggled for air, and now Jean’s crying punished it a bit more. He pushed his arms out and embraced Jeremy so close, so tight. Their chest collided with a hollow sound and Jean tucked his nose in Jeremy’s sweet-smelling neck.

“It’s all right” Jeremy’s sweet southern drawl assured him.

Jean felt fingers lightly tracing the bumps of his curled spine, the soft pads brushing against his thorn skin. Jeremy held the back of Jean’s neck with his other hand, playing with the short wisps of Jean’s still growing hair. It was in an awkward length after having to buzz it all off to treat the patches of skin where Riko had ripped his hair out. His hair was now a few inches long, at least long enough to curl wildly around the nape of his neck and stick up from his temples.

“Hey” Jeremy held Jean’s soft, swollen face in his hands.

“Hello” Jean croaked. “I’m sorry for waking you up. Again” guilt soared through Jeans chest like an arrow.

“I know you are” Jeremy said with a sad smile “And I won’t ever get tired of telling you that I don’t mind. I love you” he repeated like a prayer.

“I love you” Jean whispered.

Jean was still scared that he’d been living in delusions, that Jeremy didn’t really love him, that all the love he was being given with such open-hearted devotion was a byproduct of his trauma and his psychotic symptoms. Everytime Jeremy said something like that to him, Jean looked at his lips, to see if they were really moving. To check if it was all real.

Jean layed back down on their small shared bed, feeling the softness of the sheets against his still trembling body. He tugged Jeremy with him, so they were facing each other. Jeremy tangled their ankles together, and pressed a hand to Jean hair, petting it lovingly.

“You have this wild look on your face” he said carefully “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Jean gulped. Jeremy knew about his trauma and some bits of what happened in the nest. He knew about Jean’s diagnosis. The PTSD and the depression with psychotic features. Hell, he was the one who suggested Jean should look into a mental health professional. He knew about the voices, the paranoia and The Shadow. But it still hurt to tell him, because it felt like he was crazy and flawed and hopeless and… Wrong.

“A nightmare I don’t really remember. Panic attack. Then, The Shadow came to have a nice little night-time chat” Jean muttered bitterly. He felt pressure at the back of his head, like he was about to start crying again. This time it was out of embarrassment.

Jeremy hummed, brushing Jean’s hair away from his face.

“At least I know he is dead, you know? It doesn’t get me as paranoid as before.” Jean added.

He had talked about it with his psychiatrist/psychotherapist in their last session. The meds seemed to be working alright to subdue his psychotic symptoms, mostly the delusions and the paranoia. But at night he hallucinated a lot. The meds for his depression were helping as well, making the numbness and anedonia a little less overwhelming.

And the man laying beside him helped too, a lot. Jean had never been loved in his entire life, and experiencing it for the first time was like a never-ending sky-dive which he wasn’t afraid to hit the ground. Jeremy had so much love and kindness in him that it bewildered Jean. At first he thought the man was one more penance he would have to get through in life, with his sunny smiles and jokes. He seemed ignorant to what life was really about.

But he was not. Jeremy despite his young age was wise. He seemed one thousand years old, he felt god-like. He talked with passion, he had a sparkle in his eye and quirk in his mouth. He knew about love and friendship and family. He sang and he laughed and he enjoyed life with a ferocity that was foreign to Jean. He tugged at Jean’s heartstrings like he was poorly tuned chord instrument. ‘Dieu du Soleil’ Jean often thought. He was golden all over, freckled and glowing by the sun’s hand. He carried joy in his words and hope in his hands. He was a divine intervention in Jean’s life.

“I feel like I know you…” Jean confessed faintly “From a lifetime ago”.

“You are a very silly man, Jean Moreau” Jeremy teased, his eyes crinkling with delight. Jeremy loved any kind sweet talk.

“I might as well be, mon coeur” Jean conceded, indulging Jeremy “I might be silly. And psychotic. But I know what I feel. There’s a lifeline between us. You pull on my heart like the moon pulls on the sea”.

Jeremy gave a weak laugh, his cheeks pinking prettily. His hand never stopped petting Jean’s hair.

#jerejean #jean moreau #jeremy knox #jerejean fic #aftg #mine #wrt

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justjen523 · 7 years

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A Child With the Gods

Chapter 7

(Series Rating E 18+)

Within the Light

About halfway into my second trimester I was beginning to feel a little off. At this point I knew better than to keep it from the others so I had gone to them right away. Unsurprisingly I was forced to spend the remainder of my pregnancy on leave from work.

After that night with Zyglavis we had kept our distance from one another in order to prevent any unnecessary drama from flooding the mansion. The strange visions I had experienced with Karno and Zyglavis hadn’t stopped. Quite the opposite in fact, with the exception of a few I had seen what my future would/could have been with each of them.

Due to this strange phenomena many secrets that were never meant to be known were shockingly exposed to me leaving me in a precarious situation. The things I had seen in my visions made me uneasy around many of them knowing so much that I shouldn’t. Luckily there had been only one that was catastrophic and life changing and that was a special case where everyone absolutely stepped in, even the King himself. While I knew he was reformed it did nothing to truly ease my sadness when I learned the truth. The only positive thing that I guess you could say was that we learned Partheno was definitely not the Father.

All of us had actually been able to help narrow it down a bit leaving mixed emotions upon discovery. Relief and sadness seemed to be the recurring theme. So far we knew for certain that my child did not belong to Partheno, Krioff, Aigonorous or Tauxolouve.

I had never seen a regular doctor throughout my pregnancy due to the delicacy of said situation. The King himself oversaw everything and was able to monitor the progress without the need for human technology. Up until now everything seemed to be going according to plan.

The last few days I had been staying in a guest room at the mansion where everyone could keep and eye on me and tend to my every need. This morning however I was unable to get out of bed.

An awful nearly crippling pain coursed through my womb and terrified for the baby I screamed out for help. They were all there in a flash looking positively panicked. Unable to handle the idea of anything bad happening to me or the child Zyglavis was gone in an instant before reappearing a moment later with the King himself. Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I protectively clutched my stomach.

“Y-You’re Highness....Please...please save my baby! I don’t care what happens to me, just save my child I beg you!” The King looking as unreadable and passive as ever gently places a hand over my womb instantly taking the pain away and helping me to relax. While he says nothing his hand begins to glow causing the surrounding area to do the same. The King smiles knowingly as the entirety of my womb fills with light showing all of us the miracle within. Only none of us foresaw such an unexpected development.

“O-Oh my gosh! T-There are...two?!” I’m completely unprepared for this life altering news and therefore fall speechless as I simply stare in amazement at the two peacefully sleeping little ones nestled tightly against each other. Indescribable joy wells up inside as I stare down at these two beautiful and perfect looking little miracles.

“D-Did she say twins?” For some reason everyone immediately looks at Dui making him nearly faint in a panic. The King finding all of this ridiculously entertaining smiles brightly watching his sons fret.

“You knew all along you trickster, why wait till now to unveil your big surprise?” Leon is pissed. Not that the King once again used us all for his entertainment, no. He was pissed because the thought of me having to suffer unnecessarily was more than enough. The expression on his face was downright terrifying. Simply observing the state all of his sons were in the King eventually turns back to me.

“I am sorry that you have found yourself in such a predicament but I assure you both of your children are perfectly healthy. However, as I consultation, I suppose I can offer you one answer so ask carefully what question is weighing heaviest at this moment.” It’s actually a lot harder of a decision than I thought. I could ask the sex of the children, who if any of these gods would I end up with or more importantly who is the Father? The latter is obvious the one I must choose. Not for me so much as them. My eyes glance around the room at the concern and care decorating each face. Before I can even bother asking the King smiles and answers.

“While it is true that I know the parentage I’m afraid telling you at this time would take away the entertainment my sons have so graciously provided me in this situation. However, your selfless concern for their well being over your own is moving therefore I will tell you this instead. Your children while they are indeed twins are also dizygotic. Something you humans call fraternal twins. However something truly unique and unexpected happened in this particular case. Your children do not belong to the same Father.” Confused at his words I simply stare blinking my eyes repeatedly trying to piece together what he means.

“To better explain it, each child has it’s own Father.” Things just got infinitely more complicated. Even the gods for once are speechless as they stare at the King in the same say I had been.

“As for your reward for such selflessness I will put your mind to rest regarding two of my children. Dui, Teorus please step forward.” Color drains from their faces as they stand before me, eyes wavering.

“Neither of you are the Father.” That’s all the King says before abruptly disappearing. My heart breaks at the crestfallen expressions on Dui and Teo’s faces and obviously disappointed they quickly leave the room to go and handle the news their own way. Down to six and two of them are actually the Father to my children. On Earth this sort of thing would be a prime candidate for a scandalous talk show.

As the gods all mingle discussing the nights turn of events I look around and observe the six would be Fathers. What a group to be narrowed down to. Three from each department. The two Ministers, the two Vice Ministers, Ichthys and Hue. Any one of those combinations seem...terrifying.

Feeling my eyes on him Zyglavis glances in my direction and greets my smile with a smile of his own. There is a sort of bittersweet happiness knowing that the chances of him being the Father to one of them just went up. I was surprised when he broke away from Scorpio to come and sit beside me smiling sweetly all the while.

“Zyglavis. I’ve....I’ve missed you.” I whisper quietly. His grin only widens as he gently runs his fingers through my hair.

“I know. Me too.” I want so desperately to throw my arms around him and snuggle into his broad chest. To be surrounded by his scent and comforted by his warmth. But I can’t. At least, not yet. Without words we seem to communicate this to each other and conforming my suspicions he simply offers me a one word response.

“Soon.”

Descending into my final trimester I am getting enormous. My self esteem is at an all time low despite the fact that the gods all seem to find me “gorgeous”. I’ve lost track of how many times I have been told that a woman with-child is the most beautiful woman of all. I can tell they all mean what they say too. I can see it behind their eyes.

Feels quite a bit different on this end though. Nothing feels beautiful anymore. Not my aching back, my painfully swollen boobs, not my giant butt and certainly not my tender feet. Everything is now a challenge. I can’t even put my socks on anymore without help and I have considered simply moving in the bathroom seeing as I already spend a hopeless amount of time constantly having to pee. I may be carrying divine beings but I am constantly reminded that I myself am not one.

One afternoon I am comfortably sprawled out on the couch in the living room watching Dui, Teo and Ichthys play cards. Zyglavis is close by looking over some reports with Scorpio and Leon is in his usual chair quietly sipping wine. With my hand resting atop the beach ball that is now my tummy I feel my little one’s moving and kicking.

“Awww...poor little one.” I say comfortingly rubbing my hand in a circle. The gods all stop and stare with worry until I smile at them reassuring them nothing is the matter.

“Someone has the hiccups.” I giggle feeling each one happen in nearly perfect intervals.

“Woah for real!? You can actually feel that?”

“Mmhmm. Wanna feel?” Ichthys, Dui and Teo all take turns pressing their hands to feel it.

“Scorpy come feel this it’s soooo cute!” This would be the part where Scorpio always cuts in calling Teo something like a blabbermouth prince but not today. His cheeks are a fierce shade of pink but to my surprise he too joins the unruly trio to feel the baby’s cute hiccups. My eyes unintentionally fall on Zyglavis. He hesitates a moment but sighs and makes his way over playing the part of the stern Minister of Punishments perfectly in front of the others. Only I know how he really feels and I can barely contain the way it makes me feel when he touches me. It’s been such a long time it feels as if my whole body is reacting simply desperate to be near him. I know I’m probably smiling more than I should be when our eyes meet, his hand still resting against me.

“W-Woah! What is that?!” Ichthys’ sudden comment quickly brings us back to reality. Everyone in the room is now staring at us wide-eyed and it doesn’t take long to see why. Zyglavis’ hand is surrounded in a warm light as it presses against my belly. Suddenly aware of the unusual sensation he quickly pulls his hand away. What follows instantly changes everything.

Though his hand is no longer there, where he had been touching glows brighter for a moment. Upon lifting my shirt enough to see the skin we are all in awe to find the tiniest little hand pressing against me from within. It seems it too missed the touch of it’s daddy.

#star crossed myth #scm #scm fanfic #scm smut.

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