I Shall Keep Thee Still

In the silence that fell when their lips touched, Roxie drowned in Dianna.

She tasted like alcohol and cherry lipstick and hopes raised in the place where dreams were born. Roxie's heart thundered, wild and graceless, and she could feel Dianna's fingers tangling in the long fall of her hair, just above the scalp—close enough to make her shiver.

Dianna was pulling her closer.

It hurt.

And yet Roxie's body screamed for her to pull harder.

Some part of her still wailed that this was wrong. That she had to stop. But she could no more pull away from Dianna than the sun could fall from the sky or the birds forget their songs. Her soul tried and failed to drink all of this in—Dianna's fire, her hands, her breath—and for the longest moment, she was locked, frozen with fear.

And then, helplessly, shamelessly… she moaned into Dianna's mouth.

And Dianna granted her wish.

The Australian girl pulled harder with one hand, shifting her weight as Roxie clung to her. She lifted herself up with those dancer's thighs and pressed in close—firm, commanding—forcing Roxie's head back, her mouth open, her thoughts to static.

Dianna's hips shifted with practiced grace, until the curve of her ass rested directly in Roxie's hand.

And Roxie's brain shorted out entirely.

----

For a heartbeat, no one breathed.

And then the silence shattered.

"OH MY GOD, THAT'S SO HOT!"

Ashley's voice cracked like thunder through the loft, a bark-sob of emotion splitting the air. Then—a real bark. Deep, involuntary, and delighted. "I'm gonna be sick!"

Emily practically tackled her, wrapping her arms around the shuddering, tail-wagging girl and petting her like she might combust. "It's so beautiful," she gasped. "I'm gonna ralph. On your shoes. I don't even care. Ashley—you barked!"

"I know!" Ashley wailed, writhing on the cushions. "I can't help it!" Another bark ripped loose—guttural and joyful.

"Good girl," Emily crooned, pressing kisses into her hair.

"I am a good girl!" Ashley sobbed, tail thumping like a riot shield.

On the other end of the couch, Tiny didn't bark, but he did cry. Big, open-hearted tears that shimmered in his smile. "Good on ya, Big Momma," he said through the thick of it. "That ain't just a kiss. That's redemption." And with the reverence of a man witnessing an answered prayer, he began to slow clap.

Elizabeth exhaled through her nose. Quiet. Calm. Knowing. She raised her wine glass in one hand, her phone in the other, snapped a single picture of Dianna's fingers in Roxie's hair, and sent it off with no caption this time at all—just the image. She knew Jorge would understand.

It was beautiful.

It was ridiculous.

It was everything.

And still, they kissed.

Dianna's hands were tangled in Roxie's hair now, one thigh wedged between hers. Roxie, by contrast, looked stricken with wonder, eyes closed, letting herself be kissed like she was the one being saved. The Pack giggled and wept in equal measure.

And then—

A soft shimmer.

Just a glimmer at first. Like someone struck a tuning fork inside the air and it remembered how to glow.

A thin curl of blue light rose from Roxie's shoulders. Barely visible.

Then another. Then more.

It rose slowly, like heat from summer pavement. Like breath on glass. No spectacle, no storm. Just the slow bloom of something hidden. The kind of thing hearts weren't meant to hold inside forever.

Tiny leaned forward. "Y'all see that…?"

Ashley blinked. "Wait—is that—?"

Emily, tears forgotten, turned her head. "No way."

The glow thickened.

Soft cobalt light began to rise from Roxie's skin like mist. It caught in her lashes. Her hair. Her throat. Dianna hadn't noticed yet. She was still kissing her. Still holding her like the world ended last year and only just started again.

And then—

They rose.

Just a few inches. Then a foot. Then higher and higher still. As if Gravity gave a lazy shrug and wandered off.

And still, they kissed.

Until Dianna, eyes still closed, mumbled, "Hey… who the hell turned on the mood lighting…?"

She opened her eyes. There was no mood lighting. There was just Roxie.

Glowing. Floating. Arms trembling. Blue mist twisting around her spine like vines of light.

And as Dianna looked down... The floor was ten feet below them! "Oooohh shitting Christ."

She latched onto Roxie like a ferret riding a weather balloon.

"Hey! Roxie! Gorgeous! Sexy, beautiful woman—what the fuck is going on?!"

There were a lot of things Dianna Rodgers was good at.

Talking fast. Talking louder. Pushing through pain. Making a meal out of three ingredients and a stolen hotplate. Kissing a girl like the world was ending.

But nothing—nothing—had prepared her for kissing a girl who was actively defying gravity.

Every nerve in her body was screaming. Not with fear. No, this was something worse. It was… a glow. A divine kind of glow. Because every place that Roxie's light touched her skin felt like it was being kissed by the concept of hope. Like she was being gently electrocuted by the universe's horniest choir angel.

And it wasn't just her imagination—there was something growing out of Roxie's shoulders.

Not wings. No. Not like any angel she remembered from Sunday School or Hallmark cards.

They writhed.

They shimmered.

They pulsed with radiant cobalt light, thick and sinuous like celestial tentacles woven from thunderheads and secrets. Like if Lovecraft had ever stopped being crazy and twisted long enough to dream of something sacred.

And then Roxie opened her eyes. They weren't green anymore. No iris. No pupil. No white.

Just cobalt. Just stormfire. Like the color of a scream held in too long. Dianna's heart tried to leave her body and start a new life somewhere safe and normal, like Ohio.

"Uh," she said brilliantly. "Babe?"

Roxie blinked. Or… tried to. Her glowing void-eyes stayed open. "What?"

"You're, uh. Flying. We're flying. We're—"

"I know!!" Roxie shrieked, suddenly looking down. Her whole body jerked like she'd just remembered gravity existed. "I didn't mean to! I didn't know this would happen!"

Dianna instinctively clamped tighter around her. "You can fly?! Since fucking when?!

"Forever! I can't go down!!" Roxie was gasping now, the glow starting to pulse erratically. She tried to curl up, then straightened spastically. "My heart is killing me! I can't breathe! My feet have opinions!"

"What the hell does that mean?!" Dianna squawked.

"I don't know!" Roxie shrieked in answer. Her voice was too high, and she was losing control. "They won't listen!!

"Okay! Okay! What do you want me to do?!" Dianna asked putting her hands on Roxie's terrified face. "Talk to me."

"I don't know!!" Roxie wailed, shaking slightly under the rising storm of her own panic. "I can't think—Dianna, help me—I don't know how to make it stop!!"

And the wings flared again, broader now, luminous and terrifying. Like something divine had lost its mind and still wanted to be corporeal. The tentacle lashed out and slapped the chandelier causing it to careen wildly, dropping crystal teardrops from its hooks to smash on the floor below.

Then someone screamed and Roxie began to wail like a frightened child.

---

Elizabeth ducked instinctively, arms covering her head as the chandelier burst into a rain of crystal. But the impact never came.

Tiny had moved before the first shard fell. He threw his arms wide around all three girls on the couch, shielding them with his broad back like a living wall. It was instinctive, noble—utterly him.

But above them, Roxie started crying.

Not soft tears. Not weeping.

Wailing. And Elizabeth knew that sound.

That was panic. That was a person untethered. She recognized it not from textbooks, but from memory—sleepless nights spent in the psych library, reading Jung by phone light and trauma journals by the glow of her laptop. This wasn't just a girl floating and glowing. This was an enhanced person mid-panic attack, ten feet off the ground, and spiraling fast.

They didn't need awe right now. They didn't need fear or reverence or chaos.

They needed control and more importantly they needed Roxie's crush to fuckin talk.

So she slipped free of Tiny's arms despite his instinct to keep them close. She touched his shoulder once—thank you—then stood up and turned, calm and unshaken, to face the room.

And with a quiet authority honed across dozens of dorm breakdowns and one particularly awful finals week, Elizabeth said: "Everyone shut the fuck up."

The room froze. Even Ashley whimpered into silence.

Elizabeth took a breath, lifted her eyes toward Roxie—still glowing, still sobbing, wings flaring like a creature halfway between divinity and collapse—and softened her voice to velvet.

"Roxie, sweetheart. You're okay. Whatever you're feeling right now—it's okay."

Then, with a glance to Dianna—frantic, clinging, scared but still present—she gave clear instruction.

"Di, she's having a panic attack. You have to be her ground. Talk to her. Low and calm. She needs to hear your voice more than her own right now."

---

Dianna looked down and gave a tight little nod. She heard Elizabeth, she really did.

But what the hell was she supposed to say when the girl she'd just been making out with had turned into a glowing blue Eldritch angel whose misty aura was currently turning her entire reproductive system into a sentient creature with its own goddamn plans?

Her brain was trying to talk about calming breaths and grounding exercises.

Her vagina was drafting wedding vows and demanding a sacrifice.

Every place that blue light touched her skin sent tingles racing through her, tiny electric kisses that curled her toes and made her spine try to fold in half. And still—still—she knew this wasn't about her.

This wasn't about what that light did to her bones or her blood or the way her body kept whispering more. This was about Roxie.

And Roxie was terrified.

So Dianna did the only thing she could. She pushed the horny little demon in her head off a cliff and went quiet. She stopped clinging and started holding.

Soft, slow. An embrace. Not passion. Trust.

She tucked her head close and pressed a kiss—barely a breath—beneath Roxie's eye. Then one to her cheek. Her jaw. The side of her neck. Her collarbone. Each one light as mist, almost reverent.

And between them, again and again, she whispered: "It's okay. It's okay. It's okay."

She didn't try to fix it. Didn't ask for explanations. Didn't demand answers.

She just let her body say what her brain couldn't string into words:

I'm here. I'm still here. Let it out.

And miraculously… it worked.

The first kiss to Roxie's cheek startled her—like she hadn't realized Dianna was still with her—but Dianna didn't stop. She pressed on, gentle and grounding, no louder than breath and skin and the quiet language she'd learned to speak with her body.

She kissed her again, softer. Slower. Murmured wordless comforts in that low alto rasp of hers.

Her hands—scratched and chipped and strong—moved up the curve of Roxie's spine until they found that one maddening spot just below the nape of her neck. That place halter tops always made itch, no matter who you were.

Dianna scratched it for her. Just lightly. With the care of someone who noticed everything and remembered the important bits.

Then she kissed it better.

Then she stayed.

Roxie trembled. Then whimpered. Then slowly… began to breathe again.

The tentacles of light—those strange, celestial wings—shuddered once, twice, and then winked out like they'd never been there at all. The cobalt mist faded. Her skin cooled.

And finally, thank God, Dianna could think again without having to wrestle her own vagina into submission.

She exhaled in relief. Not too hard—Roxie was still cradled against her—but just enough to feel the weight lift from her chest.

"Hey, hey you," she whispered. "It's alright, love. We got this. You're okay. You're alright."

And as Dianna held her there, their bodies close and steady, gravity remembered its manners.

Together, they began to descend.

The moment her boots touched ground, Roxie made sure Dianna was steady.

She barely even breathed until she felt Dianna's weight shift and catch, safe on her feet. But the second that confirmation hit her—

She broke.

Her knees gave out with a soft, graceless thud, and she folded forward like wet paper, arms hugging her own ribs, hair falling in a curtain around her face.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm so—so sorry…"

The words kept tumbling. Like a scratched record, like a prayer recited through teeth.

"I didn't mean to. Please don't hate me. I broke the light—I'm sorry—I broke it—please…"

Her voice cracked.

"I'm so, so sorry."

And something inside Dianna broke too.

She didn't hesitate. She flopped down right there on the hardwood floor, legs crossed like she was about to do finger painting in Sunday school. Then she reached forward, grabbed her girlfriend by the waist, and hauled the trembling giant into her lap like she weighed nothing at all.

Roxie didn't resist.

She crumpled against Dianna's chest like she'd been waiting to fall apart in someone's arms.

"No," Dianna choked, burying her nose in the crown of Roxie's hair. "No, don't you do that. Fuck that light. I can get a new one. I'm rich, ya silly glowing cunt."

Roxie sobbed.

"I don't care about the chandelier, Rox. I care about you. Are you okay?"

She cupped the back of her girl's head and leaned in, forehead to temple, the words catching in her throat.

"Seriously, my angel. Are you okay?"

No one said a word.

Not Elizabeth. Not Tiny. Not Emily.

Not even Ashley.

They may as well have turned to stone.

The only sound in the loft was Roxie—sobbing. Shaking. Pouring it out into the hollow between Dianna's throat and collarbone like it was the only place left in the world where the truth could live.

"I've been lying since we met," she whispered, voice wrecked and raw. "It was killing me. I'm so sorry. I've told you a thousand lies… right to your face."

Dianna didn't move. Just cradled her tighter. Like the weight of the confession made Roxie heavier somehow, and she was glad to carry her.

"I'm not a good person," Roxie went on, choking on the words. "I'm a weapon. I run from everything. I'm always late or afraid or hiding. I don't get to be good. I'm a Cape. A weapon."

She hiccupped on the last word like it hurt just to say it. Like it scraped the soft places behind her ribs.

"I'm Titania," she said, voice trembling. "I'm so sorry. I didn't want you to find out. It's dangerous. You shouldn't know. You're not safe now. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to break the lamp—" She broke again on that last bit. On something so small. A lamp.

And still—no one moved. No one said a word. Not even Dianna.

She just held Roxie tighter.

Because maybe silence wasn't the absence of love. Maybe silence was what it sounded like when love finally listened.

Dianna didn't interrupt. Not at first.

She just sat in it.

In the truth. In the storm. In the words that fell like glass off Roxie's tongue—cutting, trembling, too fragile to touch. She didn't flinch when the word Titania hit the air. Didn't pull away when weapon hissed like a curse. She let Roxie say it all, every horrible thing she believed about herself, because Dianna knew what it felt like to be a girl who believed she was unworthy of being loved.

But then.

Then Roxie muttered something that ripped Dianna clean out of her own body.

"I'll just get my stuff and go. I'm sure you don't want a freak living near you anyway—"

No.

No, no, no.

Dianna moved before her brain could catch up. She flipped backward like her heart had been detonated, dragging Roxie with her in one brutal twist of motion. She locked her legs around Roxie's hips and pulled her down into a full guard, Jiu Jitsu-style, arms around her waist, thighs clamped, holding her like a fucking anchor.

Her voice cracked like a gunshot.

"No! You take that back right now!"

Roxie blinked, stunned, arms catching herself above Dianna on the floor. "Wh-what—?"

"You don't get to say that!" Dianna snarled, tears finally breaking loose, rolling sideways into her hair. "You don't get to call yourself a freak and pretend like I haven't been falling for you this whole damn time!"

She cupped Roxie's glowing face with both hands. Not gently. Not sweetly. But honestly.

"You're not leaving. You hear me? I don't care if you're Titania or God or the fuckin' Blue Power Ranger—you are not leaving me tonight."

And then, softer. Her voice cracked at the edges.

"So you put on a freaky light show when you get excited! So fuckin what?! You're not some label! You're Roxanna Shapiro. You love art and pasta and Jesus. You have a soul like a convent and arms like a myth. And I love you. So don't you dare try to take that away from me."

She let go of her face, just barely. Just enough to whisper: "You're mine. Mine now. Stay."

----

Roxie couldn't speak.

She couldn't run.

She simply collapsed. All seven feet and the weight of her grief and grace folded like a wave breaking over the girl who dared to hold her. Roxanna Paraveesh Shapiro, child of exile and sunrise and sorrow, buried her face in the hollow of Dianna's throat and cried.

Not in fear.

Not in shame.

But in awe.

For lo—did that beautiful creature whom God had made, who now lay beneath her like a covenant fulfilled, tremble. Not in terror of the power above her. Not at the storm, nor the blue fire, nor the wings that had bloomed and vanished like seraphic flame. But in the ancient, all-too-human fear of losing one most dear to them.

Of letting her go.

Of waking to find it had been a dream after all.

Roxie had spent so long—too long—wearing her other self like a hairshirt. Queen of Iron. Warden of the weak. A woman made to save but never to be saved. A weapon forged from fear and guilt and holy expectation. And she had hated that part of herself. Had caged The Queen in silence. Had crucified herself upon the altar of what she believed she must be.

And yet.

And yet.

Here was Dianna Rodgers. Mouth like blasphemy, heart like a cathedral set aflame. A woman smaller by far than she in body, but vaster in soul than Roxie could comprehend. A woman who saw not the Queen, nor the threat, nor the monster.

But Roxie.

Just her.

A girl who loved God and truth and paint and had never been kissed until tonight.

And Dianna said:

I shall keep thee still.

Stay with me.

I love you.

And Roxie wept.

Wept like the sky. Wept like everything inside her that had ever begged for kindness, finally had a place to rest.

And the Pack—

The strange, beautiful, blasphemous little court that had gathered round their fire...

Did bear witness to the night their infernal prince laid claim to an angel.

And the angel said yes.