be careful what you wish for

━━━━━━━━ ꧁ ♡ ꧂ ━━━━━━━━

"I almost forgot about this," Y/N murmured aloud when her eyes chanced on the stone within her palm. It had fallen out of the pocket of her sweater dress when she changed her clothes. 

Knowing that the little stone had been given for luck brought her comfort.

The palm then pocketed the stone, feeling the rock graze her Swiss knife's hidden blade.

She could feel the coil of rope she had placed in her coat pocket seemingly tighten itself around her fingers with a vice-like grip as her fist twitched, loosening and then slipping out of her pocket before turning towards the cat who had been waiting in the doorway.

"Ready?"

The black cat meowed and lead her towards the drawing room itself. She blew a breath, looking back before closing the door to face the damp, musky tunnel.

"I shan't hope to worry you, but this tunnel makes me feel..." Cold, she couldn't say it. She felt like it was swallowing her whole. A rush of cold air blew. She could feel the goosebumps rise on her skin. The cat seemed agitated, black fur bristling. It felt like the hallway was inhaling deeply, and exhaling as Y/N felt her dress swirl forward towards the end of the tunnel.

"It's alright. But we better hasten up." Ah. The cat finally spoke. Yet somehow the tunnel seemed longer. No sooner than that, Y/N spoke again.

"There used to be this little stream by the hillside where we lived before. Felicia was still in her diapers and Aidan wore glasses back then. We left her with my mum and my brother, Garrett. It was just so I urged Aidan to explore the area,"

Seemingly growing bored with the growing chit-chat, the cat stopped in the middle to lick its fur as if it wasn't urging her to quicken her pace. Still, she continued on and nudged the cat gently so it could walk while she continued on talking.

"It wasn't the best place to go for a walk. Out of all places possibly, it was one of the worst, with hidden bogs you had to be careful not to step on or great big toads with hideous warts that'll splat on your eyes and make you go blind. I didn't care before. I just wanted to go on exploring."

"We walked on for an hour. I was partially enjoying it, because Aidan wouldn't stop complaining. There's this hill we walked up, past some trees with some branches that had fallen from the storm days past. I stepped on some by accident, yet I continued on because there's just so much to explore rather than to linger in one spot. Aidan had grabbed my hand, told me to run back down the hill in an urgent manner. I asked him why, and he told me it wasn't the time to ask questions and ushered me down. I waited for him for several minutes, until he came back all swollen and bitten on his knees,"

"'It was all the snake's fault!' was what he said. I must've disturbed the snake's sleep when I stepped on the branch earlier. We hurried on home, and thankfully nothing was poisonous at all,"

"I realized the purse I brought was missing. I must've left it while we ran down the hill. I told him to leave it be. It was more important that he was safe. He told me he was going to get it anyways and I didn't believe him. The next morning, I awoke to find a plate of breakfast pancakes and my purse on the bedside table, and him holding out a mug of morning tea for me to take. He didn't say anything. He just held my hand and watched me eat breakfast. I treated his bites right after we washed the plates and headed home,"

Would I have thanked him? Given him a hug, stroked his face, kissed his lips?

"Actions spoke louder than words. Then I realized, he must've loved me all this time. He's practically a stranger to the concept of it, but he's just as great as knowledgeable of it in what he does."

He just didn't know how to say it in words. It's the little acts of service, the touch that mattered to him as long as we both permitted to it.

"'It's honestly cute, the way he asks me for permission to do something. I felt, and I know now that it had been my mistake to overlook it as his husbandly duty to do so."

The cat whom had been silent all this time, finally spoke up.

"... Then, what about him?"

The woman held the other door knob and twisted it. The door gave way with a loud clunk.

No warm lights or ice cold hands greeted her. Only darkness.

She made no move to walk through the door. Her lips pursed as she answered the cat truthfully.

"Him. He gives his gifts. And I receive them. But when he asks for something, he takes it."

Was it her fault? Was it his? She doesn't know. All she knows is that everything had happened because of her foolishness, her naivety to change and the ignorance to how the other husband's doings to her had affected her and the people around her.

Yet for all her naivety, she noticed his advances sooner than she thought.

She knew better than to trust his hungry gaze now.

Y/N steps forward into the other world's drawing room. The portrait of the lady holding her fan made her grip around the stone in her pocket tighter as she finally noticed the woman's button eyes.

She looked behind her at the old door. The cat had disappeared. A sound from the kitchen caught her ears as deep humming permeated through the otherwise still air.

"Welcome back, dearest." 

White teeth gleamed in the dim light. Pale smooth fingers tousled through black locks while another set of fingers held a platter of roasted chicken, glazed with honey, parsley and Eastern spices that somehow didn't make her hungry. Button eyes locked on to her E/C gaze, petrifying her to the floor as it almost took her breath away.

"Adonis," she breathed, eyes strengthening her resolve even as her body stayed rooted to her spot. His grin didn't falter and he only raised his platter of chicken to her.

"Come in. The food won't stay hot for long," Her eyes hardened at his nonchalant reply.

"I won't delay anything longer. Where is he?"

"Who might you be talking about, beloved?"

"You know exactly who I'm talking about."

He hums, leading her towards the desk by the fireplace. The old key rests on top of the wooden surface. The male picks it up and stores it in the breastpocket of his black shirt before she could snatch it. The plate of chicken rested on the table as he smiled at her, as if he knew what she was talking about despite his denial to answer her question. Pallid hands drifting from his pockets to present the black buttons and needle that had been waiting for her on the desk. 

"Then you can forget about him and stay with me instead. You'll let me sew them for you won't you?"

"No."

"Come on. I promise I'll be gentle."

Y/N knew as a child that when grown-ups told you that when something wouldn't hurt it almost always did. She shook her head firmly.

"I won't. I've made up my mind. I am not going to let you sew them in."

Y/N could finally see him twitch, expression shifting from pleased to irritated in a span of a second. He pursed his lips and takes her hand; leads her towards the hallway where the mirror was. The reflection showing her disgruntled self shimmered, revealing Aidan and Felicia smiling and laughing.

"What a great vacation that was. Don't you think so, Feli?"

"Yes! Mommy's gone now, so I feel happy all the time!"

"So am I. I've never loved her at all, and I feel even happier that she has somebody else now. Then we can both take our time and travel like we always wanted to."

"Without her!" Felicia cheered.

"Without her," Aidan echoed her words, and so did it ring through Y/N's eardrums over and over.

"See?" Adonis clicks his tongue, arms folded while satisfaction oozed from his countenance. She badly wanted to disbelieve him, but a small resentful part of her told her to waver; to doubt like a maggot slowly tearing away at an apple. Still, the h/cette held her head high up.

"I don't believe it, and I don't believe you."

Pure anger began to show on his face. His impatience trickled like water in a broken dam, and she immediately knew that the thing he showed her was ultimately an illusion. No sooner than that, his real face melted as well, swelling and then deflating. Black shadows ghosted over his face, neck and arms until she realized they were patches of bone marrow blackened to ash and swarming with rot, white face tinged with purple-black like a victim of suffocation.

Y/N was petrified. He seized her by the neck like a wolf would to the scruff of its prey and she screamed, kicked, cried and wailed all the while as he threw her in dark room past the mirror with his claws and glared at her as she attempted to kick him once more.

"A bitch that bites its owner doesn't deserve to be called his pet anymore. You'll come out when you've become a good, obedient wife," he sneered and left her, teary eyed and shaking in the dark corner with no husband, no daughter, nothing.

What even is real?  She asks herself.

I don't want to think anymore.

So she succumbs to the hopelessness, the dreams of her family drifting farther and farther away as the damp musty smell overcomes her senses. Tears pricked through swollen, bitter eyes as she wept, and wept, and wept.

━━━━━━━━ ꧁ ♡ ꧂ ━━━━━━━━

*screams in 1.7k words* i only update once a month or once in two months so you better bear with me unless you want halfheartedly written chapters :/

anyway, i think the one thing almost all of you had not realized is that throughout the interactions with the other husband, y/n hasn't given consent to what adonis had been doing to her, whether it be giving her extravagant gifts or putting his arm around her waist to kissing her when she fell asleep. no clear 'yes', and no clear 'no'. 

a man who doesn't ask for your consent, now doesn't that give you a red flag?