Chapter 0 - ghost

Lissa can’t really explain how she ended up like this, in this strange arrangement she never expected to have with anyone, and with a man that she has every reason to hate, and no reason to forgive. She doesn’t know how she allowed it to come to be, or why she allows it to continue, or why she enjoys it so much more than she should. The only thing she does know is that if Chrom were to find out, he’d probably kill Gangrel for real this time.

The fallen king is like a different person than the one Lissa once faced on the battlefield, but in some ways, he is exactly the same. He’s still cocky and loud, with a bad sense of humor and poor social skills, but behind that, there is a sadness in his eyes and the way he carries himself, and he speaks, sometimes, of wanting to die. Gangrel, it seems, is only keeping up the ghost of an image of himself, but no longer believes that he is truly so great. In so many ways, it seems as if he is already dead- as if he is already a ghost.

And Lissa never intends to get close to him. She tries to understand Chrom giving the former mad king a chance to redeem himself, and even believes that he might be capable of change because she tries to see the best in everyone and everything. It’s what Emmeryn would have done and what Emmeryn would have wanted, so she tries to believe that anyone can change. But she does try to keep away from him at first, because it is hard to look at him without remembering the pain of what happened so many years ago.

She doesn’t know when she starts to notice the changes and starts to realize that he is a ghost, but that is when her resolve breaks, and she begins to get closer to him than intended. He teases her and jokes with her, and even outright asks why she would want to talk to someone like him, and she has no answers but she does talk to him, and she starts to get to know him. In the back of her mind, she thinks that this is what Emmeryn would have wanted.

But would Emmeryn have wanted what comes next? Would she have wanted Lissa to let their hands touch for too long, or for Lissa to put her face too close to his one day, almost in invitation? Would she want Lissa to return his kiss when he accepted that invitation, or for her to disappear with him so that he could show her what she has been missing while the other girls in the army paired off with men and she remained single?

Lissa doesn’t want to think about it any more than she has to, but she’s pretty sure that she’s taken things much farther than simple forgiveness.

But, despite knowing this, and despite knowing that she could end this whenever she wanted, she allows it to continue. She wants him, even though she knows she shouldn’t, and if she let herself think about it for too long she might think she’s falling for him, so she doesn’t think about it. In the moment, she does what she wants with him and lets him do what he wants with her, and when they are apart, she tries not to think about him outside of a few wayward fantasies that cause a heat to spread through her body.

“You’ve been thinking about me today,” he observes one evening, a spark of life in his eyes that she is seeing more and more often in him. More and more often, he is seeming less like a ghost; when she can touch him, she knows that he isn’t a ghost, and she knows that a ghost could never make her feel the things that he has made her feel.

Now, he is touching her with one finger, taking note of how wet she already is, and he gives her a wide, almost twisted grin. “Haven’t you, princess?”

“I don’t know,” she breathes, trying to play coy. “Have I?”

“Now, now, I think that’s obvious. Unless you’ve been thinking of someone else?” He feigns shock. “If that’s the case, I may have to punish you for your wandering eye.”

“Do your worst,” she challenges, because she knows that he knows that she can handle it. Because she knows that he knows that she can fight back, and that things are all the more fun whenever she does.

In a flash, he has her pinned with her arms above her head, his nails digging into her wrists so hard that she wonders if she will have fresh bruises to heal before she can face anyone. She also wonders at what point she became the kind of person who likes that sort of thing, but those thoughts fade as Gangrel grinds his clothed body against hers; a task that is only possible because she removed the wire frame of her dress once they had their privacy.

He wants to see the rest of her clothes go, though, and once he’s teased the both of them to the point that their both panting with need, he wastes no time in getting her naked. His eyes linger on her body, not looking dead at all now, because there’s no way a ghost could look so hungry. He is not patient enough to fully undress himself, and only works to free his cock before he pins her again and, with one, rough thrust, forces himself inside of her.

She thinks, if she asked him, that he would be capable of being gentle. In fact, she doesn’t think he would mind being gentle with her, but she knows that, like this, she can see more life in his eyes, and she doesn’t want to risk trying something new, only to discover that he’s died again, right in front of her. Lissa is bringing him back to life the only way she can, and that would be enough for her, even if she didn’t enjoy it much more than she ever should.

She likes it when it hurts, and she likes how hard he fucks her, how absolutely reckless and wild he becomes, when mad is the only way that she can describe him. Madness suits him more than it should suit any man, and he is somehow beautiful with a wild look in his eyes, with a grin twisting his lips as he pounds into her with no mercy. If he raises a hand to her, she knows it is only because he knows she will raise one back; he likes it when it hurts as well, always has.

I’m a true sadomasochist, he once told her, and laughed when she didn’t know what that meant. Well, she certainly knows now.
He likes it when she digs her nails in his back as well, and there have been times when she has clawed him hard enough to draw blood. She was surprised then, not sure what possessed her to do something like that, but now it is a goal. Now, she wants to see how much damage she can do, and she wonders if she hasn’t gone a little mad herself.

This can’t be what Emmeryn- or anyone, for that matter- would have wanted for her, but she doesn’t think about that in the moment.

She doesn’t know how he does it, but Gangrel always brings her to orgasm first, no matter how she claws at him, no matter how she teases him, no matter how she tries to win against him, even once. His endurance is better due to experience, he tells her; his skill in pleasing a woman as well. Even so, this time, he is not so far behind her, and she counts that as a little bit of a victory.

They will keep this up, she knows, and she doesn’t bothering asking herself tonight why she doesn’t put a stop to it. Whether she understands it tonight or not, she is not going to stop. Not until life permanently returns to his eyes, not until he stops behaving like a ghost, and perhaps, even, not after that.

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