Work Text:
The rain pounded against the trees, thick and heavy, drowning the forest in darkness. Cecilia’s breath came in ragged gasps as she staggered through the underbrush, her heartbeat roaring in her ears.
She’d followed the trail all night—claw marks on tree trunks, torn leaves, the distant, haunting howl that had raised every instinct in her to prepare for a hunt.
And then, there she was.
Gigi stood in the clearing, soaked to the bone, her form silhouetted by the streaks of lightning flashing through the sky. Her eyes glowed an unnatural yellow, wild and feral, and Cecilia felt her chest tighten painfully.
It was her—her friend, her confidante, the one she’d slowly started to let into her life and her heart.
And now, the monstrous truth.
“Gigi…” Cecilia whispered, her name slipping from her lips.
Gigi’s eyes were flicking between Cecilia and her own hands, as if trying to piece together a nightmare. She took a step back, shaking her head, looking torn between fleeing and approaching.
“Gigi, please,” Cecilia choked, her voice trembling with something raw, something she couldn’t keep contained. It was a jagged mix of disbelief, pain, and something else; something so painfully vulnerable it almost broke her. “What… what are you?”
Gigi swallowed hard, her breath shallow as she tried to find the right words to make sense of what was unraveling between them. But no explanation seemed strong enough, no apology big enough to bridge the gulf that had suddenly opened up.
Cecilia took a shaky breath, her expression hardening like a shield, as if she could will away the feelings inside her. She straightened, pushing past whatever crack in her armour had shown a moment before.
But even as she did, the tension in her voice betrayed her, her words coming out like shattered glass.
“What are you?”
It wasn’t a question.
Not really.
It was a demand, an accusation wrapped in the raw pain of everything she couldn’t yet understand.
Gigi shook her head, her voice soft, almost pleading.
“I’m still me, Cece. I can… I can explain…”
Her words trailed off, and Gigi looked down, her shoulders slumping under the weight of the truth she could no longer hide. She reached out, as if to bridge the space between them, but Cecilia was unmoving, her face a mask of anger and hurt.
"I'm not a monster.”
Cecilia let the moment hang in the air.
The rain poured down relentlessly around them, soaking through their clothes and mingling with the silence. She stood there, her chest heaving with each breath, before a bitter laugh broke free.
“You are a monster,” each syllable dripped with years of hatred and fear Cecilia had been taught to carry. “That’s… that’s what you are.”
Gigi’s heart sank, her breath faltering.
“You… you know about werewolves?” she whispered, her voice barely audible above the storm.
Cecilia’s gaze burned with something akin to betrayal, her jaw clenched so tightly that it looked painful.
“You were mocking me, weren’t you?” she said, her words as sharp as the dagger in her hand. “Laughing with me, pretending, while I had no idea what you really were. How could you even think I wouldn’t find out eventually?”
Her eyes flared with anger, and her voice cracked.
“You made me look like a fool, Gigi.”
“No, I—I had no idea,” Gigi said, the words a soft plea, but Cecilia’s eyes were filled with something else.
She took a step back, the space between them growing wider with each passing second, and Cecilia’s lips pressed together in a thin line as she took a long breath.
“You didn’t have to deceive me, Gigi,” she muttered wryly. “But this is what you are. You’ve shown me. You were just waiting for me to be stupid enough to trust you.”
“Cece…” Gigi began, but Cecilia cut her off with a cold, dismissive wave of her hand.
“No,” she said, her voice breaking on the last syllable. “You don’t get to say that.”
A mirthless laugh escaped Cecilia, her face crumpling as she struggled to hold her emotions at bay.
Gigi couldn’t tell if it was the rain or tears falling from her eyes.
“I wanted so badly for this to be a lie,” Cecilia murmured, her voice breaking. “I wanted to believe that you were… that we were…”
Cecilia couldn’t take it anymore.
Her hands trembled at her sides as she pressed them to her forehead, as if trying to stop the pain from tearing her apart. Her breath came in shallow gasps, her chest tight with emotions she couldn’t control.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but when Cecilia opened them again, all she could see was her.
Cecilia’s eyes met Gigi’s, and for a heartbeat, the memories flooded her—laughter over school, stolen glances, the warmth of her hand in hers.
Everything felt so real then.
But Cecilia pushed it away.
No. She couldn’t let herself feel that now.
Not when everything was built on a lie.
With a frustrated sob, Cecilia took a step back, her face warped in agony.
“You used me, and I was too blind to see it…”
Cecilia’s voice cracked with frustration, feeling herself drown under the wave that had collapsed onto her. Her hands moved wildly, pointing toward the ground, the sky, anything but Gigi. Her gaze darted everywhere, desperate for anything to hold on to, anything but the truth that was standing right in front of her.
“You think it’s all so simple, don’t you?”
Cecilia paced in small, quick steps, like she was trying to outrun the reality.
“You think you can just play with people’s lives like it doesn’t matter.”
She ran a hand through her hair, her movements jerky, as if she could shake the thoughts out of her head.
“I can’t… I can’t do this,” Cecilia said to herself, her voice cracking as she turned away, desperate to escape the suffocating weight of it all.
Her legs moved on their own, pulling her further from Gigi, as if running would somehow make the pain easier to bear.
But then, Gigi’s voice cut through the storm, carrying a desperation that shook Cecilia to her core.
“Please don’t go, Cece.”
The words froze her in place, as if they had a power of their own. Cecilia’s body stiffened, and despite everything, despite the anger, the confusion, and the betrayal, she couldn’t move.
With a sudden, furious motion, Cecilia spun back around, her blade raised, closing the distance between them in an instant. Gigi barely had time to react before Cecilia’s dagger was at her throat, the metal biting into her skin just enough for her to feel its edge, her body thrown to the floor at the sheer force of it. Cecilia’s other hand gripped Gigi’s shoulder, fingers digging in, as if trying to hold herself together.
Gigi felt her heart hammering wildly as she looked into Cecilia’s eyes. She could feel her hand tremble, could see her grip on the knife that was unfamiliar and awkward. For a moment, they were locked there, suspended in a space filled with equal parts danger and heartbreak, neither of them daring to move or breathe.
“What do you want from me?” Cecilia spat. “You don’t get to do this to me, Gigi. You don’t get to make me feel like this… and then just expect me to move on.”
Gigi felt something prick at her eyes, her breath catching. “I’m still me. I will always be me. ”
But there was something in her gaze—something raw, something torn.
Cecilia faltered, just for a second, her breath unsteady as she grappled with the storm inside her, each emotion fighting against a softer pull, something that refused to fade.
Cecilia’s grip on her shoulder tightened, and Gigi braced herself, half-expecting Cecilia to finally give in to her anger and let the cold metal sink into her skin.
But something in Cecilia’s gaze softened.
Cecilia let out a shuddering breath, her hand lifting from Gigi’s shoulder to cradle her face, fingers brushing against her rain-soaked skin. The knife hovered for an agonising heartbeat before Cecilia’s hand went limp, her blade catching the faint moonlight before it clattered to the ground, landing with a soft thud in the wet grass.
Then, in one swift, desperate motion, Cecilia’s lips were on hers.
Gigi felt herself melt, her pulse a drumbeat in her ears, a hand reaching up to grip Cecilia’s arm, steadying herself as the world seemed to blur around them.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t pull away.
It was frantic, urgent; a clash of feelings too tangled to unravel.
A kiss of something deeper that refused to die.
When they finally parted, Cecilia’s voice was strained, laced with a quiet anguish.
“Why does it have to be you?”
Cecilia’s face twisted into an emotion Gigi could never describe.
“You know I really hate werewolves.”
And before any other words could be said, Cecilia pushed herself off of her—her gaze lingering on Gigi for one heart-stopping second, filled with equal parts longing and regret, before she turned away, her shoulders rigid.
Without looking back, Cecilia ran into the darkness.