Portrait in Scarlet

Danny talked for what felt like hours. The officers and orderlies had listened with morbid fascination. He enjoyed the way they paled and some had disappeared from the room as he went into vivid detail of the murders. He spared no details. He intensely described how it felt to be so deeply inside Nicola while covered in the blood of their latest victim or the ecstasy he felt when those teeth clamped down on his shoulder. The recollections were strong enough to bring him to the edge of his desires and he regretted that his hands were shackled in such a way that he could not relieve his tension.

He didn't remember ever entangling with the bodies. He did admit that he grew to enjoy the taste of their blood and his mingling inside of Nicola's mouth with other more intimate desires. But as his testimony pulled more of his thoughts forward, the images became more vivid.

He tasted the bile and copper on his tongue. He felt the weight and squeeze of a partner that was not there. He shivered as phantom claws tore his sweaty skin. The room stank of sex, death, and industrial disinfectant.

When his mouth became dry and his pants damp, the officers hit stop on the recorder. Grim, disgusted faces glared at him. He got the impression they both pitied and hated him. He had fallen so far from acceptable society that nothing else waited for him. He could only wait for death in the cold absence of Nicola's light. Where had she gone? Didn't he see her just earlier only to watch her turn her back on him and abandon him?

It was agony. She was making him suffer by punishing him by denying him her disapproving gaze. It was what he asked for but not the way he wanted. He wanted to be beneath her, to serve her, to feed her not whatever this was. He was shackled to the table and floor wearing paper thin clothing. It concealed nothing. He never felt alone with his thoughts.

When the officers cycled out and in his lawyer appeared in front of him, haggard with a long typed document he felt empty. They were making a plea deal, they claimed he'd snapped from stress and was not in his right mind. The document infuriated him with its insistence that Nicola and her lush studio apartment didn't exist. It was all an elaborate fantasy to cope with the resounding failure of his painting career.

Danny hung his head. How could she not exist? He could paint the road map of her body. He could detail all the intimacies of the canvas of her body if they allowed him a canvas and brush once more. Why did they not understand that Nicola existed?!

Reluctantly, he signed the document and watched the lawyer scurry away like he was afraid that insanity was catching. Leanan sidhe... leanan sidhe. He considered what he knew. Muses that took a lover and then the lover lost their grip. Why would he lose touch with reality? He existed, saw and felt everything there was about Nicola.

"By reason of insanity."

"Not fit to stand trial."

Were the phrases that denied him even the permanent embrace of eternity as one of the slaugh sidhe that followed Nicola. Danny needed to find a solution but his mind was hazy from his cocktail of medications to keep him calm and his arms were restrained by a restricting straightjacket to prevent him from harming himself or others. The vivid clarity of his dreams was mollified to bleak nothingness of exhaustion.

The days and nights blended together in dull sterility. Was this the fate of the fae when consumed by the modern world? Wasting away into oblivion because no one believed?

One day, Danny woke to see a familiar face smiling at him. The clear masculine features and crisp scent of his woodsy cologne of Ashton was there with him.

"Tell them. Dear god, please tell them at she exists," Danny pleaded, unable to reach his friend's arm to clutch it.

Ashton leaned against a white padded wall, pulling a cigarette from his leather jacket. His mouth was moving but Danny couldn't hear. The cigarette moved with the animated fingers before settling in the man's mouth. Ashton's lighter sparked and caught the end of the cigarette, filling the room with the stench of tobacco.

"Ashton... I can't understand you." Danny whimpered as he sank to his knees in front of his well dressed companion.

Ashton blew a smoke ring in Danny's direction, his lips mutely moving in respond with a sly grin. When the ring burst around Danny, he felt something pop in his ears.

"Is that better?" Ashton asked. His voice was still muffled like Danny's ears were stuffed with cotton but it was better than nothing.

"I can hear you. How?" Danny squinted at Ashton who seemed more perfect than possible. How had he not noticed in all the years of knowing him?

"Flattery will get you no where," Ashton laughed, gently reminding Danny that he could hear his thoughts. "I said, that I can't convince them at Nicola exists."

"Why not? Just introduce her to them like you did for me?"

Ashton rolled his eyes. "Do you realize how ridiculous it sounds? Hey Mr. Police, this woman is really a legendary fairy lover that eats humans in exchange for granting dreams of past and of the fairy realm."

"It's not that insane."

"Danny." Ashton ran his hand over his hair. "You told them you f*cked her next to the bodies of your victims and got hard while doing it. You don't get to determine what is sane or not any more."

"Then tell them that she's real!" Danny tore at his hair in frustration.

"None of us are real, according to your mortal laws," Ashton commented with a dismissive shrug.

"What does that even mean?" Danny whined.

Ashton closed his eyes as his head touched the wall. "I guess you could say that we're illegals. Some of the Aos Si migrated and took up residence in this realm. There are some side effects but I enjoy seeing some of what humans have to offer." He grinned, flashing Danny a set of razer sharp teeth.

Danny whimpered, retreating against a wall.

Ashton rolled his eyes again. "So dull now. Listen, if you want out, we can make a deal. You are pretty much f*cked with this deal you have with Niki. I require much less. What do you say? You have about a minute before the offer expires." His cigarette between his fingers as he watched Danny with growing interest.

"What's your price?" Danny sighed. He didn't have many options in the monotony of therapy and his imprisonment.

"I just need you to cause a little chaos. You don't even have to kill anyone this time. What do you say?"