Dark & Darker Still: A Vane and Roc Origin Story

by Nikki St. Crowe

The Jabberwocky Precept Do not murder the time lest you devour everything in your wake.

Vane Maddred, unofficial prince of the Umbrage, is fucking me like he wants to bruise me. I’m sure he does. I clutch at him like he’s an oak plank in a churning sea. We never fuck like we like each other. Our movements are frenzied, a little punishing. I think we find ourselves like this most nights because we remind each other of things we hate about ourselves. He hates that he desires anything, and I hate that I desire one thing I can’t have. The fact that that one thing is his uncle is something neither of us will ever speak about.

Because Vane Maddred is a jabberwocky and jabberwockies need to drink to keep the monster at bay.

His god is time, the tick-tock of his pocket watch his prayer. But sometimes I think blood is his salvation.

Vane is possessive of his toys, and I am his favorite one, even if he likes to break me again and again.

All of the Maddred men are dark and dangerous and monstrous. And dark, monstrous things like to be in the company of other dark, monstrous things.

“Don’t lecture me on what’s healthy. You’re fucking half the Umbrage.” “Are you slut shaming me?”

“She needs no protection from the monsters when she has one in her bed.”

I’ve always been drawn to morally grey men because in the gray, I don’t have to be so afraid of my own shadows.

Living with the Madd brothers, I like to think I’ve grown immune to the disarming nature of extremely handsome men, but Nix is an exception. His black hair is on the longer side, but he usually keeps it tied back in a bun. His darker complexion reminds me of a desert at sunrise on a hazy morning. His eyes, too, remind me of the earth, too light to be brown, but too brown to be orange.

All extremes of feeling are allied with madness. And what’s more extreme than obsession?

Death comes for us all. A fact that cannot be argued.

Everything hurts, including my soul. It hurts in a way I didn’t think possible. But festering beneath the hurt is rage. And I think it’s the rage that is keeping my heart beating and my lungs expanding.