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Roses on the Devil's Back

Summary:

It really had nothing to do with him taking her virginity, Kate just hates Seth for abandoning her on a lonely Mexican road. He knows that, too. He's willing to deal with her backlash when a prophecy forces them back together six years later — he just wasn't ready to meet their daughter in the process.

Notes:

Ah! Right. So this is my first real attempt at the FDTD series. I'm nervous.
Also, I'd like to say that this was very much inspired by the amazing "Carry The Ghost" by Imaginedfables. What a talented writer this person is. Hands down.

Chapter 1: The Loss

Chapter Text

As the preacher’s daughter Kate was not allowed to cast the first stone — even if her mama had taught her right from wrong, even if her daddy made her live a life true to the sacred scripture. That’s why when Brittany, her best friend, lost her virginity to Asher, a high school senior and quarterback, behind the bleachers after winning the homecoming game, Kate bit down on her tongue. She held back her disappointment and lectures of promised celibacy to the church when they were thirteen, and instead gasped and offered an ear like any good friend would. As such, Kate heard how it started as an innocent kiss that led to a hand under her shirt, and that led to her skirt being hiked up to her waist while Asher pressed into her, breaking past her barriers to make Brittany a woman.

“Did it hurt?” asked Kate curiously when Brittany said Asher made her feel full.

Brittany rolled her eyes as a response. Of course it had hurt, but she was alive, so it wasn’t like she had taken a bullet and had to get it out with rusty scissors; it was a tolerable pain. She reached for a freshly baked cookie Mrs. Fuller brought up alongside glasses of warm milk when Kate had asked permission for a sleepover.

“He said it gets better next time.”

“Next time?” returned Kate, unknowingly sounding uncertain that was the best choice her friend should make.

Brittany used Kate’s pink stuffed animal (a floppy bunny by the name of Sir Hopsalot) to hit her over the head with. “There’s no turning back now, Katie. Besides, I want to have sex again. I think it will feel better next time—and last longer, too. It was Asher’s first time, too, you know. He was excited. And before he....you know, at the end, it started to feel good.”

Kate hummed in response before taking a sip of her milk, feeling slightly awkward. She was not used to this sort of talk. She and Brittany had a brief conversation about these things last summer when Georgia Smith, their friend that lived down the block, was caught with a bag of condoms and Pastor Fuller had been called to the Smith home to pray for her soul. Instead of gossiping, Brittany and Kate wondered how their first times would be. It led to shared expectations and dreams for the momentous occasion.

“It’ll happen with you and Kyle Winthrope,” said Brittany, wiggling her brows as Kate turned bright pink, coughing. “I’ve seen you two flirting at church for a month now.”

“We’re just friends.” Kate knew it was somewhat of a lie, and if there was anyone she could talk about her crush it'd be with Brittany. Still, she cleared her throat and added, “Besides, I made a promise to keep myself pure until marriage.”

“Kate,” Brittany groaned, dragging out the world, “sex is not a sin.”

“It should be if your first time is behind some bleachers.”

“Maybe,” Brittany laughed, unbothered by the dig, “but it’s not like we had a free bed. You have to improvise sometimes.”

“I don’t want to improvise the first time I have sex,” whispered Kate when she heard her parents in the hallway outside her bedroom, heading to their own. When she heard their door close, she took a deep sigh of relief. Her daddy would not have tolerated such talk in his home. “I want it to be beautiful and sacred. I want it to mean something.”

Fast forward three years later and Kate will declare herself a downright liar. If she could, if she even had the possibility, she would call Brittany and confess that her behind-the-bleachers sex was far less condemnable than how Kate lost her virginity.

The day started without signs of her losing her innocence—at least not in that way.

Kate woke up tangled in sheets, a thin glaze of sweat on her skin, and the morning light pouring in orange through the open window. For a brief, delusional moment her mind tricked her into believing she was back in her own bedroom, back in Bethal, wrapped in clean, pink sheets, and God was blessing her with another beautiful day of grace. But the cocking of a gun at the corner of the room caused by a sleep-deprived, drunk criminal brought her back to reality. She was not home. She was stuck in a grimy, questionable motel—one of many over the course of seven months—with the infamous Seth Gecko.

“Morning, princess,” he said to her, voice thick with his usual snark while his dark gaze scanned her over as she stood from the bed, kicking off itchy sheets and rubbing away the excess sleep from her eyes. He did that ever so often, watching her intently. It happened after he learned to curb his addiction (for the month, at least). It was like reality in dream-state was still a blur; he had trouble remembering if she was real. Part of Kate thought he was afraid she would vanish before his eyes if he blinked.

She scoffed at him, reaching for the paper bag on the small table. She pulled out a plate of eggs, hash browns, and pancakes. It made her frown, looking up at him. “What do you want, Gecko?”

Seth put a pause to his gun cleaning. “What’d you mean?”

“You never bring me pancakes unless you want something.”

A glimmer of entertainment past Seth’s sharp features for a quick second. “There’s a club not too far from here—”

No,” hissed Kate immediately, sliding the bribery her breakfast was back in his direction. “You promised me we wouldn’t rob big locations after the bank fiasco last month.”

“Last month was an accident.”

“You don’t accidentally shoot someone, Seth! When we started robbing—when I agreed to all of this—my only condition was for no one to get hurt!”

“And no one has gotten hurt up until this point, Fuller. That motherfucker had it come, and you goddamn know it,” his voice grew louder, penetrating the walls with his deep baritone. “He fucking took a jab at you—or do you not remember your three broken ribs? I had to do what I had to do. Simple as that.”

Kate gritted her teeth to keep herself from yelling.

Her life was a twisted, unfathomable mess. She had been willingly trapped in Mexico for months with the man that kidnapped her. If her Stockholm Syndrome was not bad enough, she had started to understand his violent, destructive streaks and why they were sometimes necessary. Even if her morality told her there was nothing honorable about Seth, she knew his most terrible moments in their time together stemmed from him protecting her (and the rest was caused by his broken, grieving heart).

Ever since they left the Titty Twister there was an unspoken rule that they would never leave one another. They absolutely hated each other, that was undisputable, but they were also all they had. There was nothing back home for her, and Seth didn’t even have a home to mourn. Not to mention the money they stole from their petty gigs was hardly enough to promise them an individual bright, shiny future. When you had absolutely nothing but the breath in your chest and a partner beside you, a link grows with or without your consent. And that’s exactly what Seth Gecko and Kate Fuller were, partners. Even if they each were the last person on earth they had wanted to end up with, they had key components the other needed. It’s what kept them alive all these months. It’s what kept them sane in a world infested with gods and monsters.

Seth slowly slid back the plate to her. “We’re running low on funds,” he reminded. “Motels, weapons, and food don’t come cheap. And if you ever want to get to the beach for our next stop, we need this.”

It took a full minute before she released a sigh of defeat. “Fine,” she conceded, sitting at their crappy table and opening her meal, “but we are going to the beach next move, Gecko. You’re not cheating me out of that again, got it? And no one,” she warned with a pointed finger, “and I mean no one gets hurt.”

Seth grinned at her threat, returning to clean his gun. “It’ll be a piece of cake, princess.”

Never trust a fucking Gecko. Ever. Whenever they promised something, it was void from the start. There was never any intent from their part to keep true to their word. That was how Kate ended stumbling back into their motel room, lugging a wounded Seth with her.

With the physical strength granted to her by the fury and rush of adrenaline still pumping in her bloodstream, she managed to push him down onto an old chair. He groaned when his shoulder hit the back of it. Kate moved for the first aid kit that came with the room, snatching the two whiskey bottles Seth had left on the nightstand.

Her hands were painted red. It was a sight not uncommon for Kate in this life of slaying vampires, but it was never hers or Seth’s blood. Now it was all his. It burned her. It made something inside of her chest freeze and shatter. A reminder of so many things, both old and new.

She opened one of the whiskey bottles and drank back a giant gulp. She was heaving, Seth watching through his lashes, gritting his teeth from the bullet wound. She didn’t meet his eye when she carefully removed the shirt from his body. Once the exposed damage was facing her, Kate’s fingers tightened around the bottle. She was inclined to walk out and the drink the rest of her miserable night away. In the end she decided to pour the alcohol onto his wound, hearing him hiss and watching him squirm; she gave him the second bottle so the liquid could numb him before reaching for the scissors and knife she had set out on the table beside the first aid kit.

The job was running smoothly. Kate and Seth had gotten in the club without raising suspicion—mostly because the three guards were entirely hooked on Kate in a tight, hip-hugging black dress, flashing that sweet, innocent smile that enchanted every man with a black heart wanting to corrupt anything with light. They had gotten as far as getting their bags filled with whatever the club had scored in a day’s business, but getting to the other side of the exit had been interrupted when a shot was fired at Kate. She dodged it right on time, but Seth had not forgiven the intention.

After what seemed like an eternity (but was really two minutes) of gunshots, fist fighting, and (surprise, surprise) random culebras, the end came with sirens in the distance and Seth falling to his knees after a bullet made way into his shoulder. Kate had killed culebras time and time again, but that had been the first time she picked up her gun and shot at a man. She put five bullets into his chest until his gun fell. She didn’t spare the man a glance as she helped Seth out of the bar.

“It’s not as worse as it looks,” he attempted to assure her despite his clear look of pain when she managed to pull out the bullet and sew up the small hole it had left in his flesh. Kate momentarily turned away from him, silent. “Come on, princess. At least we got the money.”

She felt the sting before her hand collided with his cheek. “Money doesn’t matter!” she yelled. “You could’ve died tonight, do you even see that? It could’ve been your head instead of your shoulder!”

“But it wasn’t,” he growled back, standing to his full height, towering over her.

She was not intimidated. Not anymore. In the beginning he knew exactly how to scare her, how to get her to close her mouth, pout, and glare out the window. But now she knew much more about him than she would like; as such, she knew what he was capable of and what he was not. His looking down at her was as far as he would go to overpower her.

“What would have I done, then, Gecko?” she returned without lessening her anger. “What the hell would be the purpose to anything after that?”

“It’d give you the exit you always wanted,” he said without missing a beat, accusing her of thoughts he was sure she kept to herself.

Maybe it was the fury boiling in her veins that clouded her mind in vibrant shades of red. Maybe it was her frustration that never failed in making her act without thinking that finally became her downfall. Maybe it was her trying to prove that she was cursed with him and leaving him had never been in the cards. Or maybe it was her hidden, shameful desires finally coming out at the wrong place and time.

Whatever it was, Kate used her strength to push Seth back onto the chair, bending to his height to take his lips hostage, gripping the back of his hair. He was startled (to say the least), but recovered quickly.

As much of a bastard as he was, he was not a fucking bastard; he pushed her off, eyes wide, confused. But Kate had other plans that did not require his conscience to make a rare appearance. Her fingers reached the hem of her dress, slowly peeling it off her body. She threw it at his feet.

“Kate,” he murmured. She could have laughed at the underline of fear in his voice that contrasted with the dark, burning longing in his eyes.

Maybe it was that in seven months he had steered clear (and had no time) from women and the carnal activities that transpired between two humans. Maybe it was the bullet that had missed her by an inch and made him terrified of thinking about a life without her. Maybe it was how his own anger obscured his judgement. Maybe it was that he could no longer hide his secret, unwanted need for her that was now being fed and forced to come alive.

Whatever it was, Seth put his hands on her waist to pull her in.

There was nothing beautiful about the way Kate lost her virginity. When she once had dreamt of being stripped out of her beautiful, white wedding dress, a dirty, grimy black dress had been removed, leaving her in mismatched bra and panties. When she once had dreamt of a hotel room overlooking paradise, she got a rundown motel at the side of a lonely Mexican dirt road. When she once dreamt of feeling bliss, all she got was anger, hatred, and fear drowning her inside out. And although she had known there would be blood, she didn’t think majority of it would come from the man she gave herself to.

She purposely pressed the other side of his wound. He growled, biting into her neck just as viciously. Every movement was like that, deliciously cruel. She scraped her nails down his back and he pulled on her hair. His fingers moved sinfully in tune with his pumping and she held him inside of her, squeezing, making him groan. Her teeth tugged at his bottom lip and his tongue mercilessly teased her breasts. He pushed into her with zealous and she moved her hips in painfully slow circles.

They were at war with bodies intertwined.

Still, there was a glimmer of undiluted affection in their eyes that was never spoken of. They hated each other from the first day of this screwed up union, but they also irrevocably loved—needed—each other (even if they never acknowledged it aloud).

It was no surprise, then, that Kate climbed down from gritty pleasure with Seth’s arms wrapped around her, both closing their eyes and drifting off to blank dreams. All she didn’t count on when she woke up was for her bag to be packed, stack of cash and gun ready, while he screamed at her to leave and never come back.