Sapphic DD December 2024: Charmed 2018 Fic

[peppermintpuppet]

 Title: And I Imagine That Somehow You're Going To Hear Me

Fandom: Charmed (2018)

Relationships: Mel Vera/Marisol Vera

Warnings: death

Medium: Fic
Rating: M

Prompt (if applicable): Sapphic Dead Dove December Week 1: Mother/daughter + Cannibalism

Mel is eight years old. Her mother wanted to take her out to dinner j u s t b e c a u s e—because Mel is growing up to be a big girl now and she’s been spending so much time with the new baby that they deserve some time alone together, just like it used to be. Just like it was before Maggie formed and took away Mel’s solace.

She grins in the IHOP booth, her feet dangling over the seat, as the smiley face pancake is lowered onto the table in front of her. It has strips of bacon for hair. Mel looks up at the waitress as she walks away; long dark hair that isn’t bacon, a mature face. She reminds Mel of her mother.

“Excuse me,” Mel says, catching the attention of their waitress as she departs. “Will you marry me when I’m older?”

Both her mother and the waitress laugh. Her mother looks embarrassed, but the waitress doesn’t. She only leans down, whispers back: “Tell you what. You focus on school until then and we’ll talk, okay?” And she ruffles Mel’s hair all nonchalant, chomps on the bubblegum in her mouth, leaves.

Her mother’s expression is indecipherable, her face hot and red. “Mel,” she says, nervous giggling, “it’s not appropriate to say things like that to strangers in public, okay?”

She watches them take her mother’s body away into the ambulance and feels time freeze around her, feels the Earth shake as if spun around in a cotton candy machine, endless and sweet. The reminder of her mother melts on her tongue like Michigan winter snow. She exhales, feels a similar cold to the one she felt when--

She tries to go home to Niko, but Niko breaks it off when Mel asks if she can call her mommy in bed, breathes out Marisol instead of anything normal and adjusted. It’s weird, Mel, she says, I know you’re grieving, but it’s weird. So Mel can’t even fuck the pain away with someone else.

Maggie gets to. Mel walks in on her with boyfriend too many times, hears her light little restrained gasps too many times. It makes her feel terminally ill, as if she could jump right out of their broken glass window along with her.

Mel is fifteen years old. “---I’m gay, mom.”

And her mother smiles wide, motions for her daughter’s embrace. Mel inhales the scent of her, lavender and black coffee and spices, an otherworldly aroma permeating their air. She smells so, so beautiful, Mel wants to marinate here.

“I know, sweetheart,” replies Marisol. “I’ve always known. And I love you no matter who you are or who you love.”

“I love you, mom,” Mel says back; the meaning only multiplies.

Mel goes to see her mother’s body one final time. She’s all shriveled up, all cold. Stiff. Mel wants to warm her, to get inside of her like small maggots and chomp down on the chill flesh, body heat inside of body heat, generating fire like the hands of the ancient hominids. Mel wants to consume her mother so that no one else can ever have her—so she has some control over the situation.

She can’t bring her mother back. The corpse only mocks her.