Dracosa Presscot, Modern Day

Something is off.

There is something that screams not right between her and Ami:

But when are things ever right?

That's the thought that hums in Dracosa's mind as she sits in her favorite cafe, dressed like a saint, but deep inside still a sinner. She feels the familiar aching of not belonging here; as she attempts to pretend that she doesn't hear the whispers of 'Why are you staring at her?', and women sitting so that their men don't have a clear view of her. Dracosa feels the familiar sting that should bring tears, but it's been a long time since she could cry.

The dreams haven't stopped.

And Dracosa wishes they would stop because she can't put up with this anymore. She's beginning to feel torn apart and sometimes can't distinguish her memories and life from the vivid snapshots left by the dreams, but furthermore, the lingering emotions. The dreams teeter between loving moments, blossoming life, and fear. There is a terror beginning to enter the dreams that Dracosa can't grasp, but it lingers.

She almost can't be alone because the fear feels like a presence that's always in the shadows and growing when no one is about.

"Hello, Miss Presscot."

She looks up, her book folded and pages down on the table, as she finds herself suddenly snapped into the cafe. "Leo,"

He doesn't smile, but he isn't unpleasant, unbuttoning his suit jacket and taking a seat. "It's early."

She nods and swallows hard.

Dracosa's eyes flutter, the lashes slightly moist, but no true tears. She breathes deeply as though more air can paint a smile on her lips. It works as something that conceals the embarrassment of her emotional state and mimics a smile does gently bending her lips.

"I couldn't sleep." There is sudden warmth in her tone.

"Touche." He remarks, his white cup lifting, and the warm aroma of black quality coffee now reaches Dracosa's nose.

"What is it about dreams that grip us so?" Dracosa rests her chin on her open palm, elbow on the table, and gazes longingly out of the window.

"What is it about life that makes us feel so eluded by what it's said to be?"

Dracosa's eyes gently closed as her nose scrunched at Leo's question as an answer, and yet once again, he's right. Life isn't what Dracosa believes it should be, and she's always felt separate from it. Maybe she had to be separate from it to survive, like how can be present in the things she's been through, and it be still something you are very meshed with; life?

"We haven't spoken for some time, is all alright?" She sips her warm drink.

He clears his throat. "Ami, she doesn't trust me."

It's not a question.

"She knows that I pick my friends."

"Am I a friend?" His voice was flat.

She swallows hard. "You are my friend."

Leo's glasses hide his eyes, but Dracosa feels something from him that makes her heart pound just a little faster and harder.

"Ami invited me to meet some of your friends. She says it's nothing formal but that there is someone she would like for me to meet." There is a challenge in his voice.

"Yes, we discussed it, but I thought she forgot because she hadn't brought it up." Dracosa feels a little brighter. "Was that not a good idea?"

He stares a little, the silence feels loud, but the pause isn't long enough to feel eerie. "It could be a good idea. You always remark on how young I am and how I should try to meet someone. Maybe this could be a way I meet someone."

Something about the way his voice rises and falls makes Dracosa feel exposed. His words feel like a cool cloth against a damp body on a summer still-warm day. A day where there is no breeze or comfort, and then that cloth, so cool and moist, slides over heated skin and the sudden relief....

"Maybe, Persephone is a nice young lady." Dracosa traces the edge of her mug with her fingertip.

"I am sure she is." Leo offers a bit of a smile.

"You sound simply thrilled." Dracosa bites back a smile.

"Should I be frank?" He raises an eyebrow.

This is dangerous territory, and she knows it, but her gut yearns to hear what she's suspected to know.

"You should, aren't we always?" She stares at him, daring him to address the line they shouldn't cross.

"You Dracosa..." His voice slightly rasps and breaks on the last syllables of her name. "You're the only lady I'm interested in, young or otherwise, and you know it. So, why are you playing this game?"

"I wish for you to be happy." She quickly offers.

"No, you wish for me to be distracted so you aren't accountable. And, I can do that, my dear." His smile deepens in one corner, only by a dimple. "I can become so distracted, entangled even, and you'll burn. We know you will,l and what will that accomplish?"

"Well, it would work to remind us that I am not on the market?" She tries to offer something that makes sense, but it doesn't.

I could leave her, and I could be with him.

Leo would have her, and it would be easy, but Leo is a man, and that is something that gives Dracosa pause. Dracosa knows that the love of a man is like the blowing of the wind. The wind can blow strongly one day and then not at all. The wind can blow in one direction and then only in the other. The wind can be a cool comfort, or it can bring a devastating storm with it, and so are men. Nothing she's been through with Ami has been like what she's been through with men.

"You are." Leo's sure tone flips her stomach. "I wouldn't push you off the ledge, but I would be there to catch you if you attempted to fall."

Silence.

They sit in silence, and the silence is comfortable and calculated. He knows her mind whirls, and she knows that he's proving his effect on her. Dracosa doesn't want to run or desire to run; she carefully considers.

"Shouldn't you wish I wouldn't be at the ledge at all? Shouldn't you talk me from it?" She doesn't meet his eyes as her eyebrows knit and her voice carries accusation.

"Dear Dracosa, the difference between Ami and me, I know that to live, something must die. You aren't happy the way you are. I could easily move you from the ledge, but you would simply find your way back, and that would be exhausting. I prefer that you would leap, and you would find that you are enough and you are happy on the other side."

"That feels threatening, Leo." It's sheer honesty.

Dracosa's reaction to Leo's words comes in fear. She works hard not to be seen in such a way; clear. Her calculated makeup and immaculate hair are so that the lust majority never conquer will gently blur their views like a social media beauty mode, an image. She sings well and always works, so they see that and not her pain and misery.

And here is this boy, he's only a boy, and yet he sees her the way a man refuses. He sees her the way the love of her life has refused, and he challenges her only the way God or Satan would. And her stomach is tight, her fingernails dig into her palms. A thin sheen of sweat touches her hairline, and her skin slightly reddens.

"You know, I find there is a thin line between danger and something that we want really badly." He looks at her hand with an energy that makes her wonder what his lips would feel like on her palm.

He smiles.

She looks away.

She tries to get the image out of her head and rubs her palm against her thigh to get the sensation out of her flesh.

"Kisses that would melt the ice, and mark the flesh/ bruises that would free the soul/ touches that would make what's dry moist/ sensual/ inviting/ a mouth that only softer could be a rose/ and eyes made to stare in when passion is rode." Leo's voice takes on a lullaby tone.

A deep and harmonious chesty sound that makes Dracosa break out in goosebumps with baited breath because she knows that he wrote that, somewhere or he even thought these words just now, but what makes her begin to tremble...

These are the words from her dreams, and how, how could he know them?

"I'm going to play your game, Dracosa." He licks his lips with a look that sends aching through her body. "And believe it or not, she knows. She knows what this is between us, and she's playing her part in it. So, I'll meet Persephone. I'll show you what you want to see."

"What do I want to see?" Dracosa stares at him, working to hide the effect he has on her.

"You want to see if this is special or if I can make anyone feel like this." Leo chuckles. "I can Dracosa, I can make anyone fall in love with me, but the thing you're going to see, what I want you to see, is that not many I make fall are going to burn the way you will burn when you see someone else fall for me. Then...that moment; the moment you can't take it anymore...is when you will give yourself to me. You will see that it's me that you've been pretending is her."

"You're insane, Leo, and why am I only noticing?" She chuckles nervously.

"I asked you if I should be frank." He reaches out, caressing her hand. "You are pretending. You know that I want you and the way I want you isn't friendly, but you say 'he's just a friend',"

"Young man, are you quoting classic hip hop?" Dracsoa can't stop the laugh that bubbles up.

"Is it working?"

She nods through her charmed laugh. "It may be working just a little bit. I can't believe you."

"Dracosa," Never has a name been said with more longing than when a man wants a woman, "I want you to, to believe me."

Her eyes are wide, and her hand trembles within his hold.

How do you see me?

He speaks directly to her fear. Her mind is speaking, telling her there is no man to trust. There is no man to believe in, and there is no love to believe in. This is why she settles for Ami and fights for Ami, because this belief has ruined her and ruined her from the beginning. The beginning is when you believe your parents would fight and do anything for you, and then they don't.

"I don't know if I can." She simply states.

"But I know that even now you do and that even then, you will." He kisses the back of her hand the way one would kiss the feet of a blessed prophet.