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mona wonders what it was about herself that scaramouche had taken such a fond liking to—thin fingers run down the bridge of her nose, deep red lips, delicate jaw, the dark purple marks that bloom on her pale neck—but there is nothing to love. where scaramouche is optimistic with a personality that could lift the droopy petals of a withered flower, mona wears a bitter smile. she is insidiously cruel and unloving, undeserving.
she almost feels sorry for a fool like scaramouche who believes in the greater good (read: love).
but then his deft touches are dancing on the exposed skin of her hipbone, and she allows herself to momentarily lose herself in the expanse of his love.
late nights. a dying city, jade eyes and an even jaded heart—tokyo bears witness to an explosion of colours and a scene of bleeding love. mona, who has kept too many things to herself in her heart, withers under affection; scaramouche struggles with keeping his most beloved flower alive. in the process they lose themselves to the bright glower of the flames, having loved and lost and hurt.
with no tears spared, they struggle to carry on like two aimless idiots: constantly falling, constantly picking themselves up again, constantly repeating the same pathetic cycle.
mona knows she should feel apologetic, for she is the one who is always wanting more even if she hasn’t given scaramouche her best. still, this is tokyo: bright lights, city scene, fast love, no regrets. scaramouche may have the face and the grace, but she knows that he has no place here. not when his heart is like glass and his eyes are these mellow blue orbs that send shivers down her spine.
“you’re beautiful,” he mumbles into her naked shoulder, mapping the expanse of her skin out with soft, dewy lips and sharp teeth. she does not say anything, only watches him as he raises his head up to look at her, the way his indigo eyes hold her in their stare as if she were his everything.
this is their beginning—silk sheets, diamond earring, warm blood, and bared fangs.
when mona looks into the mirror, the silhouette of a monster stares back at her. the apparition has cold eyes and a lifeless smile, a crown woven out of silver thorns sits high on her head. the robe on her shoulders is much too red, too heavy, symbolising the weight of the kingdom she was supposed to rule over, the burden that promised to suffocate her till she was black and blue.
and dead.
“mona?”
she can hear the light flutter of scaramouche’s footsteps making their way toward the living room, can smell the spearmint of his breath as it cascades down her neck. yet, she cannot find his reflection in the mirror.
“y—you’re not there,” she finds herself stuttering out even before her head can stop her from saying those words, hand reaching out to brush against the cool glass where scaramouche should have been pictured standing. he brings his own hand up and places it above hers on the mirror to lace their fingers together.
“does it matter?” mona hears the forlornness in his voice, and what seems like the corner of his lips settling into a sad, reminiscent smile. immediately, her heart lurches into guilt.
scaramouche, with all the love in his heart for the world—kind, compassionate, lonely scaramouche who’s been living like a dead man in the land of mortals for two centuries—should have been the one with a reflection.
he should’ve been granted the beauty of life instead of the bitterness of immortality.
“n-no,” mona finds herself choking out (angry at everything and everyone), her vision getting blurry. the tears pour down seamlessly when she turns to bury herself into his chest, muffling her breathy sobs by biting down on his grey shirt. there’s a cold but firm hand resting on the small of her back, and a soothing voice reminding her that it’s okay—
except it’s not.
mona is mad, she feels insufficient like she’s never going to be good enough even when scaramouche is always reassuring her that she is more than he can ever ask for. how could she ever be? when she is the one with hot blood rushing through her veins and his has laid dormant for centuries on end. when he, with the warm eyes and a smile that grew flowers in her heart, was more alive than she could ever hope to be.
how do you love a dead man walking?
she wants to ask him. the questions lay heavy on the tip of her tongue like a tsunami waiting to happen, to overwhelm, to destroy what they have between them.
if there is one thing she has learned in her years spent growing up in the royal court, it is to hold her tongue. until it stings, until the back of her throat burns with the desire to unravel all the secrets this blasted kingdom of hers hides. some things are better left, unknown.
she cannot learn the shape of scaramouche’s love for her.
the crown she wears is a heavy one that threatens to drown her. she knows that sooner or later, she will have to part ways with him and leave him lonely once more. if she does not speak, if she does not prod, then she does not have to unravel her fears and her longing for him. the familiarity behind his embrace, the intimacy—oh! the cursed way in which he swallows her whole in his wretched love, deluding her into thinking that she can stay and make a home with him.
that thought scares mona—all the what ifs and what wills—and she stiffens in scaramouche’s arms.
(even if he knows what is going through her mind, he doesn’t speak a word about it. he’s come to learn that some of her demons are unconquerable. they run in her blood and her birthrights. all she can do is to keep running from them.)
it is winter in tokyo when they make love on his bed—greedy lips, hooded eyes, careless hands, and promises of sweet nothings. scaramouche promises a love that lasts forever, so his darling flower reminds him that forever is a long time. while mona will die in the hands of her people and for the sake of her responsibilities, scaramouche is untouchable and will continue to live until the end of the world, apocalypse be damned.
in each other, they find their beginning—intertwined fates, long nights, daydreams, and the bittersweet taste of a love that was not meant to be.
it is also in each other that they’ll meet their untimely end.
(and she finds that she doesn’t mind. if it’s him, perhaps she’ll burn the world down to ashes with the power that thrum in her veins like electricity.)
extra.
it is in the early evening when the sun bathes their living room in streaks of melting gold, that scaramouche comes home to mona gliding about in their tiny kitchen, humming along softly to a song playing on the television. there are tiny white heathers woven through her dark blue hair to match the softness of mona’s eyes when they meet scaramouche’s own, and the latter beams, feeling warmth overflow from his unbeating heart.
the first thought that crosses his mind is how much he'd love for every day to be like this, where he comes home early from a whole day of dealing with cases to the great love of his life preparing dinner for the both of them.
the second is simpler: mona looks extremely pretty as she turns completely to greet him, her dark locks framing her brightened eyes and small smile.
however, it's the third one that hits him the hardest. it is unwanted, undesired, and there's a vileness in his throat that he struggles to keep down as he thinks, maybe they could have a better ending in another life. one where scaramouche is not selfishly hiding her from the life that she deserves; one where mona doesn't need to keep running away from everything that the world throws at her; one where scaramouche's feet are not scarred from trying to protect his precious flower.
but they live in this one, no matter how hard he wishes upon every falling star, where scaramouche is a modern-day vampire and mona is a runaway fae princess.
scaramouche is almost two centuries old. he's told himself that countless of times from the moment he met a runaway, frantic mona, still very much fae-like, with a silver wreath of cecilias placed crooked over her head. he's watched humankind almost wipe itself out, not once, not twice, but three times. he's seen glorious eras of victorian reign crumble into nothingness, legacy only remembered by strokes of ink and the tongues of people.
he has lived on this cursed earth as a vampire for close to two hundred years, yet he has never met anyone whose purity had not yet been tainted.
that is, until he runs into mona on the very first night of spring.
"you're not supposed to be here," was the first thing that scaramouche had blurted out when he spotted the fae princess crouching down in the middle of the park near his apartment complex, admiring the assortment of wildflowers that had grown beneath a huge oak tree. he had identified mona's royal status from the silver crown upon her head, his assumption confirmed when the fae turned to look up at the vampire, eyes—no, eye—a sparkling amethyst even under the pale moonlight.
a sign of the royal blood flowing through her veins deliciously.
the other eye was a comforting shade of green speckled with hints of moonlight, mellow and oddly human-like. scaramouche had found himself intrigued in more ways than one. especially when mona had risen to her full height, held herself with so much grace yet managed to look so small and fragile in his eyes.
perhaps it was the way mona had nervously caught her plush rose lips between a row of pearly white teeth or the way her tiny voice shakily spoke the words:
"y-you know who I am."
scaramouche was not heartless, but he was a vampire—cruel, and cold-blooded by nature. his first instinct was to bear his fangs at mona, not in a show of threat but more as a form of asserting dominance. he had thought that the dainty little thing would surely cower away in fear, might even run away in pure horror. however, mona did none of those, only stood there in all her glowing, ethereal beauty and looked at him with pleading eyes.
her hair had been black then, some strands falling over her eyes, curling just the slightest bit; the way scaramouche's still heart (that traitorous little thing) did a jump at the way mona had looked so soft, so pretty, just like a fairy tale character.
"you won't hurt me, i know you won't, " mona had whispered, sounding more like she was reassuring herself than she was assured of the implications of her statement.
"you're a smart one,” scaramouche had remarked. after all, it would be a grievously stupid mistake to have the royal blood of a fae stain his hands. it had not been easy for him to settle down into modern society, and he was not about to waste his efforts of assimilating into this comfortable life on a pointless territorial fight.
“did you lose your way home, princess?” he had asked and watched as she tugged on the hem of her dress nervously. at that time, he couldn’t quite decipher what sort of look she had on her face, maybe an equal mix of shame and fear.
later, however, he decided, that it might have just been hope.
“i have no more home.” was the answer she had settled for. puzzled, he shot her a quizzical look. he was sure she had been fae royalty, how could she not have a home? the kingdom must have been in shambles trying to search for their missing princess, yet here she was, somehow stranded in the middle of tokyo, rejecting the very idea of a place to be returned to.
“no home?” he repeated, and she nodded slowly.
she dared to raise her gaze to meet his, albeit pleading.
“then,” he started, slowly, cautiously.
“do you want to come home with me?”