solemnity

Ms. Beaufort returns on a Monday, her purse in front of her like a shield, spindly fingers clenching down tightly on it. She stumbles in the door with circles under her eyes big enough for him to see even with the distance, and she draws up short when she sees the two customers already browsing through the store. Mrs. Mallery, who's debating between the same two painkillers that she always does, glances at the girl and chirps a jaunty, "Good morning!" The young woman flinches. "Morning," sh

Raymond's home is an old three-story townhouse. It's weathered several decades and it shows it, but it does so with charm. Unlike Wayne's ratty old apartment. The house is tall and narrow, but it stretches far deeper in then it seems from outside. The garden is quaint, but well-taken care of, and the gate is locked. Across the street, a fellow member is sitting on a bench, pretending very badly to be reading a newspaper. The kid's new, but Wayne supposes everybody's got to start somewhere.

Thank you for reading @Jjeffalch! Im glad you find the start compelling. And yep, this is a dark romance (i couldn't find that genre in the genre list 😅) so obsession is definitely there, lol.

"Drag it out to the dogs," Raymond Townsend tells the room, adjusting his gold cuff-links as he steps over the rapidly cooling corpse. Mutilated and broken, blood seeps into the hardwood floors, Raymond's pointed leather shoes squelching as they step in it. Raymond doesn't pause. Resting a gloved hand on the back of his neck, Raymond's gaze is calm as he tilts his head to the left until there's an audible crack from the neck. His eyes consume the darkness surrounding them, eating it un

For twenty years, Wayne's worked under Raymond Townsend, the most brutal, cold-hearted person he's ever met. Raymond doesn't shy away from blood and guts, and has made a career out of extinguishing the people in his way. He might just be a big fish in a small pond, but he rules with an iron-fist and without remorse. Wayne's hopelessly in love with him. And he's tired of hiding it. For once, he's going after what he wants. Wayne knows Raymond better than he knows himself, and he's done with being just an employee. Just an underling. Just an after-thought. Wayne is going to marry Raymond, if it kills him.

Later in the morning, Vance returns to his lonely home and his empty shop. He watches the sky as he walks, never quite making eye-contact with the eye but still keeping it in sight out of the corner of his eyes. He doesn't really know why he keeps from looking directly at it, can't really explain the sudden shyness when for so long he's been almost cavalier about it. But he keeps it in his sight, aware the whole way home of its gaze upon him. It's looking, he thinks. It's looking, it's look

Despite the morning's strange visitor, Vance still has a job to do. So after a hearty breakfast, a thorough read of the newspaper, and a strangely long time before the mirror, Vance heads out with his professional briefcase in hand. It's not raining much, anymore, just stray drops dribbling down every now and then from rooftops and the like. The streetlights cast yellow light that he passes under, walking around puddles to avoid drenching his feet. The ground feels slippery beneath his boot

There's a heavy weight on his chest. Vance, half-way between sleeping and dreaming, shoves at it with sleep-laden limbs, and when this accomplishes nothing, he groans—a tired sound barely audible in the tiny bedroom. He shoves again, like it'll somehow work this time, but the heaviness doesn't dissipate, only seems to cling on tighter. It's not squeezing him, not making it hard for him to breathe; he doesn't need to, anyway. But it is heavy, and it is pulling him from a very pleasant dream,

At four in the afternoon, Vance sits down at his favorite bar's counter, dropping his head onto the slightly sticky wood, and grimaces. He sighs loudly. When nothing happens, he sighs louder yet. The bar is hardly packed; it's a slow night and sounds as such. Most people here right now are having quiet conversations in their own little worlds, but there are plenty of people alone, as well. Vance fits right in, his suit jacket hanging on the high chair's backrest, and his bare hands tap

As ever, the man reading the newspaper is right there on the usual bench when Vance opens his shop's door the next day. He glances around, up and down and to every side; determined not to get caught by surprise again. But there's no package waiting for him, no strange or unexpected letters. Just the evening newspaper, the one only delivered once a week. As far as Vance has noticed, the man on the bench has been reading the exact same newspaper for four years now. It's never changed; he's ne

Opening his door in the early morning to get the newspaper, he freezes. There’s a package on his doorstep, suspiciously innocuous. Vance eyes it, narrowing his eyes, and glances around—but can only see the usual folk this early in the morning. There's the man with the newspaper, who’s been there every day for the past four years, there's a person walking their dog, an alcoholic trudging home to get yelled at by his husband again. Vance has heard them sometimes, when he passes their house. T

Stepping through the apothecary's front door, Vance is greeted by Morgen's grinning face. "Good day?" Vance asks, raising an eyebrow. Glee is practically emanating from Morgen, the man fiddling with something in his hands. "You're here early," Morgen replies, beaming. He drops his spinning toy and leans against the counter. "That means your potions—" "Concoctions." "—exploded again." Vance narrows his eyes. "They didn't explode they just... went wrong." It's a somewhat simpli

Once more, Vance awakens to the eye in the sky staring at him. Breath still, lungs unmoving, he gazes back out the window, wondering again why he didn't close the curtains. They're tall, reaching all the way to the floor, and they're heavy and thick and can easily block out the eye's reach entirely. But he didn't close them last night. Hiding half his face in the pillow, he looks out with one. singular eye. He stays unmoving, still, on the bed, waiting for the alarm clock to ring shril

Vance isn’t a good alchemist. This is a fact; Vance sells mostly painkillers, muscle-relaxes, and minor diseases. He sells the basics, the easiest to make, with the cheapest ingredients. He sells the products where it's okay if he blows up the concoction as he's making it because the ingredients are cheap and he has plenty more. So Vance isn't a good alchemist, and he's well aware of this. But he leans into his strengths, always has, and it's never really been a problem. Over

Vance wakes slowly, cautiously, his eyelids fluttering open almost a dozen times before he manages to keep them that way. His hands clench on the wool sheets, the blue fabric beneath him blurry for a moment until his eyes adjusts, and the world comes into focus. The window curtains are open, he realizes as he shoves his face deeper into the plush pillow, groaning as he moves. Stiff limbs twitch weakly as he stares right back out at the eye in the sky. It's staring at him. Or—so he