Swollen Glands

Lily’s jaw aches, just below the corners of her wide lips. A full sensation, more like a bloated stomach than a sore tooth. It’s been there all day, ever since she woke from a dream of delicious release, but in the last hour it’s grown near intolerable.

Admittedly, that could just be the lecture she’s been trying to listen to. Professor Tarwater is by far the worst teacher in applied theology, utterly incapable of speaking about her subject without tangling sentences into knots, stuffed full of sub-clauses and dangling participles and ambiguous pronouns. Any apparent burst of meaning has even odds of leading the unwary listener down a garden path’s tempting curves before depositing them in a rocky pit of incomprehension. And the strained metaphors!

Students mostly come away from her classes understanding less than they did before, which is a horrible fit for a course that’s supposed to be absolutely vital for their final masterwork projects. As far as anyone’s been able to tell, she’s either incapable of recognizing what she’s doing or an incredible and malicious actress.

Still, Lily has to admit that she’s remarkably easy to look at. The curve of her neck as it emerges between her sweater’s wide cowl and her day-mask’s painted edge, the flutter of her pulse beneath her skin, the way the hollow of her throat looks so fragile, so breakable …

“… in any case, such situations are far from uncommon (perhaps even intentionally so) though their influence upon them is unclear by nature and opaque by design, sitting as it does between conflicting domains without benefitting from that inherent tension, an observation I am sure some of you will benefit from just as much as they were unable to, although I see we have come toward the end of our allotted time (a fate which many wish upon those fallen powers), so are there any questions before we’re done for the day?”

She blinks and stares expectantly at her audience. Someone coughs.

“Well, I will see all of you next week, then. Check your syllabus for the reading. Lily, could I have a word?”

Lily reluctantly picks her way forward through the dazed crowd, careful not to take up too much space in the aisle. “Did it help?” someone asks, momentarily next to her. She glances over at the large, hollow-eyed woman, though it’s obvious that it wasn’t directed at her. A moment later, a murmured reply, “yes, actually. More than I thought. It’s good weed, too,” the words fading into illegibility as they pass.

There’s a small table to the side of the stage, well away from the whiteboards that Tarwater never bothers to use. She’s standing by it, now, flicking through the contents of an accordion folder.

“… what’s up?”

“Mhmm.” She pulls out a handful of familiar-looking sheets, stapled together. “I was rather impressed by your latest writeup. One never knows for sure, of course, but certainly something of the spark of potential shines through, as it does so few of your fellows, assuming, of course, that you are not exaggerating your results?”

“Uh. No, just, uh, accurately reporting them.”

“Good, good. Well! Then I won’t keep you; I’m sure you’re eager to implement some of what I’ve discussed today. It wouldn’t do to fall into the cracks, you understand.”

“Sure? Thank you? Oh, I was wondering,” Lily dissembles, “do you happen to have any suggestions for additional reading on the subject? Just to, uh, reference for myself.”

“Hmm. You might, perhaps, consider the Interloper paper in the syllabus for the week after next. Psychic Backlash and Empty Shells. Of course the reading for today is more directly related, in particular Conceptual Drift in Chaotic Minds, but you’ve already read that, as I can tell from your report, so you have the necessary context to move forward with proper stabilization, or at least establishing a temporarily equilibrium. So many students do not, I am sad to say.”

“Yes, uh,” Lily has absolutely not done the reading, “it was. Enlightening, you know? I’ll just be on my way, then. Thanks!”

She can feel Tarwater watch her leave. And the hot blood in her throat, waiting, calling …

Most students flee the dorms as soon as they can, making whatever compromises they must to claim a more pleasant slice of Corrade. Those old buildings overlooking the mire, slowly being torn apart by their denizens’ conflicting ontologies, hardly make for a pleasant environment even before you begin to consider the predators forced into such close proximity within them.

Lily is one of the only people in her cohort who still live in the dorms. In deference to her seniority the dorm geists gave her one of the most desirable suites, a basement studio with an exterior and interior door, but it’s still a dorm room, mildewy and humid in the summer and oscillating between too hot and too cold in the winter. Her horizontal neighbors regularly fill their shared hallway with unexpected smells, not always unpleasant, and the rooms directly above her are occupied by people she has never met but knows are both impressively athletic and unashamedly vocal.

Sometimes her friends ask her why she’s stuck around. She always gives them some pablum about the convenience of getting to class, which is true enough; staying in the dorms is the only way to avoid a half-hour commute.

The real reason is waiting for her when she gets back that afternoon, right outside her door.

“Lily! Omigosh I have had the worst day, you wouldn’t believe it! Jeremiah—you know Jeremiah, you met him at the party last week, the one you gave me that lovely gold-trimmed mask to wear to—was only dating me to get to Kelly! That bastard, you know? But Kelly went for it! So now I don’t know what I’m going to do, she’s going to be completely useless all week, like dolls always are during NRE, and you know I can’t blame her, but, ugh!” Fireflies prettily stomps her foot, leaving a small crater in the concrete patio.

“Yeah, uh, that sucks. Bastard doesn’t deserve you.” Lily rubs the side of her face “My jaw’s been hurting all day, it’s been rough.”

“Oh no! I was going to say that we should go out to drown my sorrows, but if you’re not up to it I can ask someone else. Do you need to go to the nurse?”

“No, no, I’m,” someone’s heart is beating in Lily’s ears, unbearably loud. It doesn’t sound like her own. “I’m good. I could use a drink. Half an hour?”

“Great! I’ll meet you in the atrium.” Fireflies reaches up to pat Lily on the shoulder, giving her one of the warm, welcoming smiles that are collectively responsible for half the time Lily’s spends yearning. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

Long-forgotten Fireflies is always like this. Free with her affection, an unwitting locus of interpersonal drama, and aggressively, bafflingly, straight. She might be the only straight witchling in the entire city. It’s enough to make a dyke cry.

Lily doesn’t cry, though, not this time. Just changes clothes, ices her jaw and carefully, one-handedly does enough makeup to feel presentable, thick eyeliner and a few thorny vines wrapping around her face’s contours. Expressing the idea of a mask without actually wearing one; a decade ago the idea was dangerously avant-garde, and even now it draws attention.

She dresses cozily, otherwise. Low-cut sweater-dress, leggings, boots. A serpent-patterned capelet, the result of the experiment that Tarwater was so impressed by. Fireflies is always cuddly when she’s drunk and single, and Lily sees no reason to discourage her.

Well. She sees some reasons.

But there’s no harm in a bit of unrequited love, right? It’s not like it’s hurting anyone except her.

Lily is fully aware that this train of thought doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. If she told her other friends about any of it they’d spend an hour making fun of her and then find a way to get her laid in hope that a good fucking—preferably by someone similar to Fireflies, short and curvy and shockingly strong—could exorcise her demons. It would be embarrassing—falling for a straight girl! Really!—but …

But there’s the way she always feels when she’s around Fireflies, that ache in her heart, like a compass turning towards a magnet’s inescapable pull. There’s how fun it is to spend time together, the way that Fireflies never seems to ask anything of her except her presence and conversation, so comfortable in contrast to her queer friends’ ever-shifting web of relationships and allegiances. There’s how unbearably pretty Fireflies always is, effortless, everything that Lily wishes she was …

She’s got it bad.

And, wow, thinking about Fireflies so much is making her jaw throb.

There’s a strange, spicy-sweet taste in her mouth. Tangy. Earthy. Utterly unfamiliar.

And she needs to—fuck, she needs to bite something. Where’s that coming from, huh? What’s that urge? Her memory foam pillow isn’t the right sort of thing at all, but at least she’s able to sink her teeth in, biting down hard, feeling herself slip into it through fresh holes, throbbing, leaking, needing.

Release, when it comes, is pale and unsatisfying, a momentary lessening of the ache in her jaw. Her body knows that the pillow isn’t alive. But, gods above, it feels so good to bite—

“Hey!” Knocking at her door. “You okay in there, Lily?”

She glances at her clock. Fuck. No, don’t think about what that was, just toss the pillow on the bed and rush to rinse the taste out of her mouth, fangs sliding back into that aching fullness—

“Yeah! Sorry, I just lost track of time. Long day, you know?”

“Mmm, I get it. You should have said something, though, I was waiting!”

“I’m sorry! I’ll be,” swish and rinse, “ready in a sec. Just need to get my shoes!”

Out the door.

The pillow lies forgotten on her bed, damp with saliva and marred by two fresh holes, one at either end of the indentations her teeth left in its surface. Its venom-swollen heart slowly starts to melt.

“You’re the besht, Lily! I just feel so comf, comf … uh, good! around you.”

“Yeah, me too! We should do this more often, y’know? Just the two of us, paintin’ the town red.”

“Mhmm,” Fireflies hiccups, “but we don’ have any paint?”

“Jusht a turn of phrase, don’t worry abo’ it …”

They’re three bars in, stumbling towards a fourth. The elaborate cocktails Fireflies prefers hit her hard; it’s the new liqueurs that do it, infused with kava or cannabis, perfect for a student in need of inspiration and distraction. Lily isn’t far behind. Her tastes run cheaper, sure, but how can she say no when Fireflies offers her a taste of the latest concoction? How can she resist when Fireflies’s lipstick marks the condensation-beaded glass, glowing with the warmth of her fragrant blood?

She can’t say no. Couldn’t even consider refusing.

Maybe if she was sober. Maybe if there was someone to notice how pathetic she’s being. Maybe if her jaw didn’t hurt so damn much. Lily is pretty sure you can’t die from not biting something, but … well, who knows? Stranger things have happened.

“Hey, Fireflies, wanna go get burgers somewhere? I could ushe a bite,” the alcohol flush covers her blush, “to, uh, eat.”

“Oh, yes, let’s!”

Even so late in the year, the streets around Corrade’s university are well supplied with restaurants. Other parts of the city begin to succumb to hibernation, dreaming long slow dreams as they wait for the thaw, but the university’s eternal flames keep the cold at bay and its hungry students (fewer now than at the semester’s start) clamor for meat and blood and fat. Eager minds make eager mouths, or so they say.

So it’s not hard to find a place serving burgers.

More problematic is finding a place serving burgers which both of them are willing to eat.

Fireflies refuses synthmeat, dollflesh, and angel, ruling out the first and third places they consider. “It would be like eating one of my friends!”, she says, sending Lily’s brain into hungry paroxysms.

The second restaurant exclusively serves mushroom-based foods. Delicious, sure, but Lily wants blood. She wants fatty gristle and the sizzle of meat on a hot griddle, and also some bacon and a fried egg, if at all possible. Probably she could think of a way to explain this to Fireflies if she was sober, but she’s worried that if she tries she’ll end up explaining how she’s been struggling to think about anything except the way Fireflies’ shoulder would feel under her teeth, and, uh.

There are some things you just don’t say.

“I don’t really like mushrooms” will have to do.

Sometime after their third attempt they’re sitting on a bench, Fireflies sprawled back staring at the stars and Lily hunched over, massaging her jaw in hope of relief. So far it’s just brought the taste back, newly familiar.

“Y’know,” Fireflies says, “I sorta envy you. You’re so happy by yourself! And here I am, bouncing from jerk to asshole.” She sighs. “Fucking Jeremiah. I liked him, and now …”

“Hey. He didn’t deserve you.”

“That’s a cliche, Lily. I wanted him. Don’t I deserve stuff?”

“… you deserve better than him. Like, fuck, if you liked girls too, I’d—” Lily’s mouth snaps shut. That’s a dangerous thread to pull. “Sorry, I mean, uh …”

Fireflies tilts her head toward Lily, neck shifting alluringly in the streetlight. It’s right there, she could just, just—but Fireflies noticed what she said, she definitely did, she’s ruined everything, fuck, better just leave now before things get any worse, what was she thinking, getting drunk when her body’s being so weird at her, stupid, stupid, stupid—

“Oh,” Fireflies says, and Lily’s heart breaks. “I didn’t realize.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean,” Lily starts to stand, “I’ll go. I’m so sorry.”

“Ugh. Just sit down, okay? No running off.” Her tone is gentle, conciliatory; the tone one uses to reassure a terrified beast right before doing something that it’s going to hate no matter how necessary it is. “I just didn’t realize. Sort of … puts some things into context, you know?”

Lily sits, face full of shame, absent-mindedly massaging her jaw.

“And, I mean, I really value our friendship? I like you, as a friend. But I just, I’m not into girls like that, really, I’ve tried—is your jaw okay?”

“Uh. Not really, I think? Honestly it’s pretty painful.”

“… open your mouth for me, okay? I just want to check.”

“I—yeah, sure.”

She opens her mouth. It keeps opening, cavernous, full of slick red tissue and shining teeth. Her tongue twitches in its depths and involuntarily darts out, tasting the air. The city’s cold clean winter-smell cut with distant smoke and closer sewage, the drunken sweat rising from both their bodies, the caramel-and-rose sweetness of Fireflies’ fading perfume, the sour hint of alcohol on her breath as she leans closer; so much. Too much.

Lily thinks she could probably keep on going. It doesn’t feel like she’s reached a limit, but any wider and she’ll bump into her chest and have to start tilting her head back, and that doesn’t sound nice. She’d rather watch Fireflies’ expression, the way that first burst of fear curdled into witchy fascination. Concern warring with hunger.

Her fangs swing into place with a wet, syrupy noise, and Fireflies gasps. They’re shiny, the bone coated by the pearly sheen of venom mixed with saliva, slicker than the thick liquid beading at their tips. It feels so good to have them out, so close to finally emptying her swollen glands, even if the frisson of Fireflies staring at them is not entirely pleasant, especially after—well. After.

“… this is new, right?”

Lily’s mouth closes with a snap, and Fireflies jumps. It takes a moment for Lily to get everything back in place to speak. “Yeah.”

“No family history or anything?”

“Of being part snake? No. You know that, you’ve met my moms.”

“Hmm.” Fireflies’ eyes flick down to Lily’s capelet, its pattern thick with emerald-eyed serpents. “… it’s the ritual you did, then, isn’t it? The, uh, invocation?”

Lily stares, dumbfounded. Of course it is. She’d spent months carefully cultivating a colony of mice and the snakes they were fed to, inoculating both communities with fragments of belief culled from larger divinities. Eventually they gave rise to two twinned and competing gods, serpent and prey, and she harvested them both. Not the simplest project, as the introduction of feeling beings into a system causes unpredictability and instability, but, really?

“That doesn’t—how would it have anchored to me? I was really careful when I instantiated them!”

Fireflies taps the smooth surface of her mask, a delicate, glassy tangle that captures and refracts the light around her eyes, and then the faux-mask painted onto Lily’s face. Her fingertip is soft and warm, the touch coaxing more blood into Lily’s flush. A moment later, as Fireflies speaks, Lily gets the point. “PPE, Lily.”

“… I wear PPE in the lab? Coats and gloves and masks. I’m not stupid, Fireflies.”

“Every time?”

“Oh. Damn it,” the snakes saw her and the mice saw her and she got tangled up with their beliefs, “damn it, I’m so fucking stupid! That’s so obvious—”

“Hey.” Fireflies is standing in front of her, arms spread, hazy through the tears beading in Lily’s eyes. “It’s okay, you’ll figure it out,” Lily slumps forward and Fireflies’ arms wrap around her, warm and comforting, “you’re good at this sort of stuff. It’s fine,” her hands stroke her hair, her face rests against the curve of her neck, “it’s fine …”

Fireflies’ neck is so warm. So soft. Lily’s tongue flicks out, involuntarily, tasting Fireflies’ skin, the last dregs of her perfume, the warm, metallic blood rushing through her arteries.

She doesn’t mean to bite.

Take a moment to sit with that.

Let yourself linger on the feeling of Lily’s fangs punching through Fireflies’ skin, sinking through soft fat and firm muscle and taut tendons as if they were hardly there, as if they know exactly where to go. The membranes resist for a moment, stretching and deforming, and then—! A sickening pop; a rush of warmth on her tips.

It feels so good.

It’s the best thing she’s ever felt, truly. Better than warm lips cradling her clit and a finger inside her, coaxing out another long, shuddering orgasm; better by far than the long-ago rush of her first, fumbling kiss, hiding behind the gym skipping class, her fingers tangled in the other girls hair and the hungry flush in her chest, the certain knowledge that this is who she was, who she is. That this is what she needs.

Her jaw spasms, new muscles contracting around her venom glands, forcing it out. Flooding Fireflies’ neck with it. One of her fangs has lodged in her carotid; the other is halfway through her jugular. Perfect, perfect—

At first Fireflies tries to struggle. She’s strong, but badly positioned to push Lily off, and by the time she thinks to use magic the venom is already sapping her strength and it comes out in an anemic trickle, a burst of static too weak to penetrate Lily’s skin. Her scream becomes a gasping whimper, and finally dies.

“Uh, Fireflies?”

The witchling’s body is limp and unresponsive. Beads of blood decorate her neck.

“Look, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just—I couldn’t help myself, you know?”

She’s still breathing, but only just. Lily rests two fingers on her neck, and finds her pulse weak and fluttering, fragile as a dying moth.

“You’re, you’re okay, right? It’s—you’ll be fine. You have to be.”

The world was so colorful, a few minutes ago. Now it’s grey. Mist creeps up the street to lap at Lily’s boots. A distant bell marks the threshold between 12:59 and 1:00.

“I—I didn’t mean to …”

At least her jaw doesn’t hurt any more. Her venom glands are utterly empty.

Lily moves out of the dorms right after finals.

There’s not much she wants to take with her, honestly. Things seem less important than they used to. She’s been staying with some of her friends, though, and they come along to help out and force her to pack her life into boxes instead of tossing it away.

They’ve been helping a lot.

Each day is a struggle; even with the depression fading she still hates herself. She is—was—so stupid. It could have been so much worse. She nailed her finals, though, and wrote a paper dissecting every mistake she made and proposing new procedures to prevent inadvertent entanglement with experimental pantheons. Professor Tarwater was quite impressed, though she seemed more excited about its appendix: a few scattered paragraphs gesturing towards ways to exploit what Lily has decided to call “micro-apotheosis”.

She’s got a device for milking her venom, too. Big snakes aren’t that uncommon. One of her friends helps her with it, sometimes. It’s the only time she can bear to be touched: her fangs lodged in the device, unable to close her mouth. Maybe that’s a new kink starting to grow, but being helpless is reassuring. It’s the one time she knows that she can’t hurt anyone.

Her friend is into it, anyway. Into her. Weird, huh?

After they’re done packing she goes to sit in the atrium. Leaving without saying goodbye would be worse, somehow. Like refusing to face her mistakes. And she owes that much, doesn’t she?

This time of year the dorms are pretty quiet. Not many people stay in them past Sun’s-death-waiting, in those long dreary weeks when the whole world seems to hold its breath, eager for the solstice’s bonfires and revelry. Just the ones who don’t have a choice, and the ones who need a bit more space to figure things out.

The bench isn’t comfortable. She’s lost weight; isn’t as padded as she used to be. Something she’ll fix, with time, but …

“Hey, Lily,” Fireflies says, sitting on the other end of the bench. Lily didn’t notice her arrive. “You leaving already?”

“Yeah. Uh. Just thought I should wait a bit, in case you wanted to say goodbye …”

“Didn’t think to text me, though? I’m only here because your friend told me—her name’s Abigail, right? She’s really nice. Don’t break her heart, okay? Anyway if she hadn’t I’d still be in my room; as it is I can’t spare much time, I left Kelly all tied up! You really should have said something, Lils.”

Lily glances over at Fireflies. She looks good. Full-face mask trimmed with gold, big hat, fishnet and leather visible beneath a noticeably wrinkled button-down shirt. The shirt’s familiar.

“Sorry. I, uh. I didn’t want to intrude. In case you didn’t want to see me.”

“… gods, why do you have to be so dramatic about this? I’m the dramatic one! Sure, it was scary, but I’m fine. Better than fine. You just changed a few things.”

“I, I know, but … I thought I killed you! I—it’s a miracle it wasn’t fatal, Fireflies! It took me months to understand why it wasn’t!”

“Mhmm. But, again, it wasn’t.” Lily slumps over, cradling her head in her hands. Fireflies starts to move, catches herself. “No touching, right?”

“No touching. Sorry.”

Fireflies shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway! You’ll be around for classes, right? And I hear Tarwater’s got you working in her lab, now. We have to hang out again, Lils.”

“I will be, yeah. I’m just. Not feeling social these days, you know?”

“… you’re still my friend. You know that, right? So I’m not going to let you crawl into a hole and die. You’re dangerous?” Fireflies is standing, voice raised. “So what? I’m dangerous! I’ll be a proper witch after the solstice, and, trust me, the first thing I’m going to do is reshape my internal ontology so that I’m immune to your venom and you stop treating me like I’m a fucking victim!” Lily stares at her, and Fireflies coughs, blushing. “I’ve, uh, already derived the formula for that. It’ll be easy.”

“Y-you have? I didn’t realize you were even working on that …”

“Yeah, uh. I wanted it to be a surprise, y’know?” She shrugs. “Not gonna be one now, but whatever. You’re my friend, Lily. I don’t want that to change.”

“I—thank you,” Lily mumbles, teary-eyed. “Really.”

“Mmm, any time. But, uh, I should really get back to Kelly. She, uh. I think I got the knots right, and she’s really durable, but, uh. Look. Let’s hang at new years, okay? There’s gonna be a rager at the lake house.”

“Maybe? That, uh. That could be nice.”

“Perfect! I’ll text you the deets.” Fireflies turns to leave, takes a step and stops, turns back towards her. “Oh! Before I forget—do you want the shirt back, Lils? You left it at my places ages ago, one of the nights we got drunk watching old movies, I think.”

“N-no. It’s fine, I don’t—it looks good on you.”

“Thanks! Anyway, see you soon!”

“… yeah.” The ghost of a smile settles onto Lily’s lips, the familiar ache starting to grow in her jaw. “Soon.”