Work Text:
It wasn’t exactly out of character for Helen to go hours without speaking a word. Sometimes it would be days, if her stress levels were particularly high.
Madeline didn’t always mind. Between the two of them, she was the talker, anyways. The chronic chatter. The incessant gum-chewer. The classically-trained singer. The one with the lips and teeth and tongue born to move into sound.
(The one with the practically diagnosable oral fixation, if Helen had anything to say about it.)
If the house ever grew completely quiet during waking hours, Helen knew to worry; or perhaps sigh with relief if she had a work deadline to hit. Her own quiet brought calm. Madeline’s quiet usually brought chaos.
But on this icy Tuesday of all days—the Tuesday before Christmas—Madeline knew for a fact that Helen had no deadline in sight; her publishers had so kindly released her from editing hell to enjoy the last few weeks of the year. Helen, of course, had the good sense to remain cordial and grateful, rather than inform them that the New Year took on rather a lack of meaning when one was immortal, and had every new year in their future.
Upon waking up wrapped in warm freckled arms and messy blonde locks, Helen had wordlessly peeled herself from Madeline’s embrace, leaving her side of the bed cold with unanswered questions.
In their eternity, Madeline had grown more spoiled than usual. How that was even possible, Helen often wondered aloud, but it was true: mornings didn’t feel worth confronting if Madeline wasn’t greeted with Helen peppering kisses over her shoulders and neck, and sometimes more.
It started as an apology of sorts, an attempt to smooth over the sticky mess of murder. Helen took the time to approach Madeline’s neck with care, and Madeline did the same with the sealed and clay-filled wound in her stomach.
Making good use of eternal time, Helen called it. Madeline had to agree—even if they continued to slap and hit, tease and taunt.
Such was life, in death.
Now entirely used to, and even expectant of Helen’s morning affections, Madeline felt nearly offended at this Tuesday standoffishness. She had even called out Helen’s name when getting ready in her oversized closet—her dress unzipped enough to leave her practically naked—in hopes of luring her beloved redhead into at least an acknowledgement of presence.
No response.
The lack of attention from Helen left Madeline with a hole no one else could fill.
Before, maybe. At most points throughout her life, if Madeline could secure attention with the swipe of a credit card, she would qualify for an account with unlimited spending.
Helen was different, of course: she didn’t take bribes.
Had she said something to upset Helen? They hadn’t had a substantial argument in two days, Madeline estimated.
(Two days was their new record.)
Had she forgotten the birthday of one of Helen’s favorite writers? Unlikely. In a rare moment of crafty selflessness, Madeline had hand-written a calendar to put on the wall opposite Helen’s desk, complete with listed birthdays of Helen’s literary muses—and Madeline herself, naturally.
It was December 20th. Days past Austen. Madeline had checked just an evening prior; there were no notable birthdays until after the New Year.
Interesting.
When Madeline padded down the grand staircase clad in a red satin robe with white fur cuffs (Mad, you look like Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas if she was twenty years older, had bigger tits, and a broken neck…) she spotted Helen standing over the kitchen stove, back turned.
She was stirring something, and why, Madeline didn’t quite know. Food was a bit performative for them these days.
“Hosting a dinner party without sending me an invitation?” Madeline murmured as she approached Helen from behind, pressing hip to hip.
“Ah!” Helen jumped, dropping the wooden spoon. She turned to face Madeline, pushing her glasses on top of her head.
Madeline bit her lip. Helen looked adorably disheveled, errant curls falling around her face, bouncier than usual with the kitchen humidity.
She wore a thick cabled sweater, snow white in color. High-necked, conservative. Black lounge pants. Faux-fur leopard slippers. The garment choices would make sense if they didn’t live in California. Madeline’s eyebrow lifted in curiosity.
“Hello, Rosemary.”
“Ha ha, Hel.” Madeline couldn’t help but twirl in a circle, red robe billowing out like a Christmas tree skirt. “I guess we’re both feeling festive this morning.” She pointed to the pot bubbling on the stovetop. “Smells good.”
“Lavender.” Helen replied with a small smile. “It’ll be tea soon enough.”
“You’ve been awfully quiet this morning.”
“Hm. Guess so.”
Cherry-red lips nuzzled in close. “Something on your mind?” Madeline breathed into Helen’s ear as she returned her attention to the stove, feeling her skin warm—never mind her current proximity to the kitchen.
She couldn’t help herself. Helen’s sweater was so soft, the fabric hugging her curves in a way which made Madeline’s mouth water, that Madeline’s hands were firmly wrapped around her waist from behind before Helen could conjure up an answer.
“Mmph—Mad…” Helen stumbled, hand slipping off the spoon. “I—”
“Something on your mind?” Madeline planted a kiss to the side of Helen’s cheek, firmly trapping her between her own body and the counter.
“Well, yes. I’m trying to make tea, so, really I should watch—”
“I thought hot liquids were out of the question these days.” Madeline drew a hand to Helen’s chin, tilting her gaze until their eyes met.
Blue into green. Madeline’s breath would hitch every time, without fail.
“Perhaps. But all things in moderation, as they say.”
The scent of sugar hit Madeline’s nose. Sweet, like candy. Did Helen buy a new perfume? How unlike her if she did, Madeline thought—she typically preferred the saccharine on Madeline, and Madeline only.
“You smell sweet, baby.” Madeline murmured, kissing Helen once, then twice, then three times when twice wasn’t enough.
Helen’s eyes widened. “D–do I?” She looked around, a slight fluster coloring the tone of her voice. “The tea, probably.”
“Did you make cookies?” Madeline asked, batting her eyelashes with a pouty lip thrown in for good measure. “For me?”
“Not at this moment, Mad. Apologies.” Helen flexed her palms. In, and back out again—a methodical repetition that Madeline knew was a dead giveaway for nervousness. She’d known it since college, since Ernest, since she noticed the very same flex mere seconds before being slapped within an inch of her life.
For what, Madeline didn’t quite remember. Helen quite enjoyed slapping her, at times.
Warm hands moved of their own accord, firmly intent on prying out of Helen what exactly had her so timid and anxious on an innocuous winter morning.
Madeline’s breath hitched as she trailed her fingers up and across Helen’s stomach, around the curve of her torso, inching closer to the impossibly-addictive swell of her—
“Hey!” A sharp hand swatted her away. Madeline pulled her head back, scorned, but remained pressed firmly behind Helen.
“Hey yourself!” Helen retorted, unable to stop a smirk from pulling across her mouth. “Open flame, Mad. Try not to light me on fire, maybe?”
Oh, I’ll light you on fire alright. Madeline frowned. Her fingers had been millimeters away from locating the back seam of Helen’s bra, which, when pulled and snapped back, typically produced a delightful series of noises from Helen’s throat, in varying degrees of murderous tones.
What would it take for Helen to actually turn around and pay good attention to her? Madeline was interested in finding out.
Was Helen even wearing a bra? Madeline was interested in finding that out, too.
While Helen returned to stirring (what, in particular, Madeline still had no idea), Madeline took a different approach. And a generous step back.
“Hey, Hel?”
“Yes?”
“Would you be a sweetie and grab me a mug? I’m not wearing my heels.”
Helen turned her head around, gaze wandering towards Madeline’s feet. She wasn’t lying; in her sudden rush to find out what the hell Helen was so occupied with, she’d fled down the stairs without so much as a kitten heel.
“Well, aren’t you a damsel in distress.” Helen said dryly, mouth flattening into a thin line. Madeline smiled, eyes wide.
“Pretty please?”
Green eyes rolled spectacularly upwards. “Fine. Consider it a Christmas present.” Helen turned around to open the cupboard above the stove.
Her first mistake. Madeline pounced.
Needy fingers found their way back to Helen’s chest, palming with intent. Mouths exhaled twin groans. But Madeline’s hands stopped roaming before Helen could even launch a formal protest.
Something felt…different. More…textured. Rougher. Hard. Did Helen sneak out of the house for a slew of nipple piercings and body modifications in between waking up and putting lavender tea on the stove?
Unlikely.
Unless she—
“Helen Sharp, you’re hiding something!”
Helen finally turned around, mug in hand, an entirely unreadable expression haunting her face.
“W—what?”
“You’re hiding something.” Madeline repeated, crossing her arms, eyes narrowed, an incredulous smile beginning to spread.
“What the—Mad, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Take off your sweater.”
“Excuse me?”
“C’mon, Hel. Take off your sweater. Show me your tits.”
“Madeline!”
“Helen!” Madeline mocked in a near-perfect imitation of Helen’s upper register. “Frankly, this isn’t something you would usually oppose.”
“Mad, it’s ten o’clock in the morning!”
Madeline scoffed. “So? It’s just time. We’re not exactly running out of it.” She stared at Helen, attempting with all of her might to suddenly adopt the powers of x-ray vision. “Unless you want me to, uh—find out for myself what exactly is going on under there?”
Helen’s lips parted, hands gripping the sides of the counter as she stood before Madeline, frozen. The lavender tea was, naturally, forgotten. What a shame.
“Just—just—”
“Just what, Hel?” Madeline stepped closer, lacing her fingers together behind her back.
An olive branch for desperate times.
“Just—fine. Fine. But keep your hands behind your back. Can you do that?”
Madeline shrugged her shoulders, playing coy. “Possibly.”
Helen’s eyes flashed dangerously, beginning to smolder. She was caught in broad daylight, and she seemed to be partially enjoying it. A thrill pulled at Madeline’s belly button.
“Well. We’ll see about that.”
All before Madeline could blink, Helen placed her glasses aside on the counter, crossed her arms, and pulled the thick sweater up and off her head.
Suddenly, Madeline could do nothing but blink.
Helen wasn’t wearing a bra. No, she was wearing something far more interesting, and far more edible.
It was the tiniest bikini top Madeline had ever seen, made entirely of candy.
Madeline’s jaw dropped. Comically. “Uh—um—uh—”
“Well said, Mad.” Helen murmured, eyes twinkling, caught somewhere between entirely too cocky and entirely too shy.
Madeline couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Probably seconds away from passing out and dropping to the floor in a helpless, red satin heap.
“Hel—”
“Don’t say I don’t ever surprise you.” Helen inhaled deeply, taking her breasts with her.
In. Out. They practically glowed in front of Madeline’s face, so perfectly round and full and frankly, ridiculous that Madeline had to gather the strength of a four-star military general just to drag her eyes up to meet Helen’s stare.
She hiccuped. “Hel, oh my God—”
“Madeline, you’re drooling. Literally.”
Unfortunately, Helen told the truth. Cheeks burning, cunt suddenly throbbing, Madeline swiped a hand across her lips, which returned to her mortifyingly slick.
“Helly,” she whimpered pathetically. “When did you—”
Helen smiled. “That’s my little secret. H–hopefully it's not too much?”
Madeline shook her head so violently it might as well have fallen clean off. “No, Hel, no. God, can I—I mean—in what world would it ever be—”
“You want to eat it off me, don’t you?”
“Isn’t that kind of the point?” Madeline responded with a weak laugh, still wrapping her mind around the fact that she wasn’t standing in a dream.
“I suppose.” Helen blushed, toying a finger around the thin halter strap. One sharp pull from either of them, and it would all rain down, leaving Madeline to devour on what she was truly hungry for.
Her mouth nearly hurt in anticipation. She needed even more than she wanted to kiss, suck, lick, and bite—all in fantastic and devotional succession.
Standing in front of Helen, arms locked behind her back in a sweaty grip, Madeline torturously awaited a next instruction.
“Please, baby.” Madeline whispered.
Helen’s eyebrow raised in amusement. “Begging already? That’s new.”
“I—”
“Don’t be embarrassed, honey.” Helen murmured fondly, leaning her elbows back on the counter, putting herself on full display. “Wanna touch?”
“Yes, Hel—” Madeline groaned, ungluing her feet from the ground to surge forward in a flurry of impatience. She tried her best not to knock Helen into the stove’s flame, and half-succeeded: Helen’s grip on the counter was enough to counterbalance them both, and Madeline all but fell into Helen’s arms, kissing her fiercely.
Madeline could normally spend (and had spent, on many occasions) hours delighting in the feel of Helen’s lips against hers, but the rough texture of sugar-beaded glory rubbing against her own breasts quickly brought Madeline back to reality.
She needed to touch. Now.
Helen coughed. “Ahem…”
“What, Hel?” Madeleine whined, her fingers hovering mere centimeters from the cups of the bra. Just one movement and she could feast, she could—
“Hands behind your back.” Helen’s eyes darkened, apparently relishing the power she had—at certain times, that is—to melt Madeline down into a syrupy mess. “Use your pretty mouth instead.”
Madeline nodded around a choked moan, hands reaching around Helen’s waist to hold.
Helen allowed it.
Madeline didn’t quite know where to start, still overwhelmed with the idea of Helen wearing such a thing in the first place.
Her Helen—her cardigan-wearing, book-reading, Catholic-raised, that top is a little low for a first audition, Mad Helen Sharp was a freak.
A certified freak. Madeline grinned, and dove in anyway. Christmas had come early.
A surprised moan escaped from Helen’s lips at the first snap! of candy bitten off the string. Madeline carved her path around each nipple with admirable focus, nipping at the hard flesh when at last it presented itself to her.
There wasn’t exactly a lack of surface area with which to work. Before long, Helen had slipped a hand into the back of a curled blonde head, scratching Madeline’s scalp in time with each movement of her mouth against sticky skin.
For once, Helen didn’t appear to have it within herself to protest the mess.
“God, Maddie—”
Madeline whined, grinning up at Helen through a mouth entirely full. “Mm?” She crouched lower, almost on her knees now, aware that Helen could likely see the pearly lingerie peeking out from beneath her robe.
(She truly hadn’t known what Helen was up to, but needs must. It was always better, in Madeline’s not-so-humble opinion, to be prepared. Just in case.)
Helen’s hips jerked forward, the heat between her legs answering Madeline’s question. “I—need you—need you—”
Madeline slowly pulled the strap of the candied bra down, letting Helen’s breasts spill out, marked from top to bottom with lipstick and sugared spit.
“Tell me, Helly. Whatever you want.”
Helen peered down at Madeline, a wild and near-incredulous look in her eyes. She appeared almost on the edge of self-conscious laughter, and in hindsight—when Madeline repeatedly conjured up this magnificent memory for all of the nights and mornings to come—Madeline understood why.
She cautiously pulled her fingers back from Helen’s waist, hooking them in the waistband of her pants; not to cheat Helen’s cheeky little assessment of Madeline’s self-control, but as an anchor for what Madeline knew would undoubtedly become a feast for the ages.
“Well…” Helen panted slowly, cheeks re-coloring. A blossom of promise. She avoided Madeline’s eyes, unable to place her focus. “Let’s just say I hope you’re still hungry.”
“Wha—”
Madeline didn’t manage to get it out, before they both simultaneously slid black spandex down Madeline’s favorite pair of thighs.
Madeline gasped, a profusely melodramatic sound which bounced between kitchen cupboards.
A matching set. Candied underwear. A thong, to be more specific. Satin strings, little bows, twitching muscles and wet lips and everything Helen Sharp didn’t seem on the surface, but apparently loved Madeline enough to become. For her.
Madeline was so turned on that she started to consider the likelihood that this development might shatter the effectiveness of Viola’s immortality potion.
“Mad, if you don’t do something in the next second or so, I might wake up to my own delusions and run for the hills.”
Madeline laughed, wrapping lips around the string of candy at Helen’s waistband and snapping it back. Helen groaned.
“Sure thing, Hel Belle. Remember when you found out I could knot a cherry stem with my tongue?”
Helen nodded in jerky movement, swallowing thickly. “Oh, God.”
“Don’t be scared, baby.” Madeline nearly whimpered, so gone herself that she marveled at her own ability to keep somewhat upright. “You’re too sweet for that.”
Helen’s hand returned to grip Madeline’s hair in place before long, pressing her head between decorated legs, dripping with want. Madeline swirled, sucked, swooned over Helen’s clit, snapping her way through the candy in the process.
Her teeth grazed sensitive skin more than once, but Helen didn’t hiss or complain. She just moaned louder.
In death, sometimes, if they were lucky, pain turned delightfully into pleasure.
Unsurprisingly, Madeline’s impatience eventually won over and she yanked the half-eaten thong down and off Helen’s legs, burying herself in uncovered desire, eating as if on the brink of starvation.
“Fuck, Mad, baby. More.” Freckled hips ground harder against Madeline’s face, heaven-sent.
Madeline sucked harder, an answer to Helen’s plea that she knew would be received with an endeared scoff.
“Y–yes and no.” Helen groaned as she pulled Madeline’s head back enough to look at her, red waves tumbling around her shoulders in loose motion.
“But Hel…” Madeline teased, sticking out her tongue and letting Helen grind freely for one precious moment. “I thought you wanted my hands behind my back.”
A sharp jaw clenched, growing sharper. “Shut up.”
“Is that what you really want, Helen?” Madeline breathed, taunt creeping into her tone. “You want my fingers and my tongue in your pussy?”
Helen nodded almost imperceptibly, momentarily speechless.
Madeline kept going.
“You want me to fuck you until you see stars at 10 o’clock in the morning?”
A squeak, and a rush of wetness into Madeline’s waiting mouth.
“You want your Maddie to make you come?”
Helen whimpered, launching one hand from its place on the countertop to grasp her own breast, rolling a nipple between needy fingers.
Between the two of them, Madeline released the words into the air, but Helen caught them and swallowed, putting them on paper—or in this case, deep in a brain cavity—with care and reverence and the type of patience to which Madeline was not always particularly attuned.
Most moments, their reverence existed only for each other.
Madeline smiled, dipping her head to redouble the effort as she pushed three fingers into Helen, a perfect stretch.
“Maddie, please. Make me c—” Helen arched her back, lips falling open, cunt clenching around Madeline.
Beat you to it, Hel, Madeline internalized with cocky glee.
Helen came apart with a strangled gasp, flooding Madeline’s senses in more than one sense. Her taste was sweeter than honey and bitter as sin and everything Madeline craved—everything she might get to enjoy for eternity.
She nearly cried.
“Helly, you’re beautiful. You’re everything.” Madeline murmured, soothing Helen’s high with a soft wash of tongue and fingers stroking, seeking, pulling out every last bit of pleasure she could.
When glazed green eyes fluttered open, dazed but certainly not confused, Madeline rose from kneeling to hold her face in both hands, brushing back rebellious curls of hair.
“My Christmas angel.” Helen smiled against Madeline’s lips. She looked utterly fucked-out, and Madeline could only rejoice in the mess.
“Hel, this is the best idea you’ve ever had. Next time, don’t be so quiet about it.” Madeline admitted with a laugh. She batted her eyelashes, keenly aware of Helen’s weakened defenses at a moment such as this.
“I don’t suppose you have another set of edible underwear for me?”
Helen smirked, bringing Madeline’s hands back to her chest to hold, squeeze, play. Gentle touch born from the morbid, morbid forever in their future.
“That depends, Mad. You might want to go look at what I put under the tree."