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kadavernagh · 16 hours

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The Last Rabbit || Regan & Elias

TIMING: Current LOCATION: The tar pit, Farraige ba Buanachta PARTIES: Regan and Elias VERY IMPORTANT READING (many many references): The Dying Room SUMMARY: Plans of escape are thwarted when Cliodhna traps Regan, using Elias to make her granddaughter a better banshee. CONTENT: Domestic abuse, torture, parental death, some description of skinning an animal

Regan looked to Cliodhna, with the iron determination of a banshee who understood exactly what needed to be done.

It was Worm Remembrance Day. And Regan was going to get the ham child, Wynne, and Elias out of here. She would. (And–) (Maybe–)

As she’d told Wynne, the banshees would all be gathered by the worm statue to deliver eulogies for fallen worms. Not yet, though. At sunset. Hours had never crawled slower (than worms). Regan had checked the cars this morning, finding one set of keys: it was the rental she and Siobhan had taken here, with almost no gas remaining. But it would get them to the highway, to the open green hills, and wouldn’t anything feel possible out there?

For those in the car. (Which–)

The ham child was going to be the hardest to isolate and convince, with the way things had been left, and with Cliodhna hovered over her, preening and prepping her for something the child refused to hear about from the banshee who was actually attempting to help her.

Meanwhile, Cliodhna had given up on her granddaughter. Regan, she probably reasoned, knew everything she needed to, but some inherent weakness kept her from succeeding. The blood of a coward stains more than the carpet, she liked to say. Sometimes Cliodhna would deliver a directive or reminder with enough sting to match her impressive wasp's wings, and she would never stop expecting her granddaughter’s obedience, but her plan of shaping Regan into something to be proud of was dropped in pursuit of greater things, of Hamstring.

Regan was flawed. Not built correctly. Too tainted by her father. What Cliodhna thought Regan lacked, she seemed to find in Hamstring. Hamstring, who was so quickly swallowed up by the attention that the child wouldn’t listen to Regan any longer. Regan had pleaded. Pleaded. Re-broke her bones that this place had set into new, askew positions so that she could be human enough for the girl to listen. But Hamstring did not listen. And Cliodhna still thought the child was a banshee, did not realize that Hamstring was physiologically deficient in the way Regan’s heart shed metaphorical blood along with real blood. Both Hamstring and Cliodhna were betting poorly.

And somehow, Regan needed to make this work. Get the child. Throw them all in the car. Let Wynne drive away. (Could Wynne drive? Also, was Elias too tall to sit in a car?) Maybe even go with– not important. Get them out.

Regan shuffled out toward the clinic. It was where she was expected to be. She could talk to Elias, try to– okay, she really didn’t know. How could she convince others to do what she herself couldn’t do? It hadn’t worked for weeks, so why now? But the opportunity was now. Maybe he'd be frightened and furious enough to just leave. She had watched him grow timid and small during his time here. Regan would figure it out, because that was what she always did. Every cadaver, every autopsy, she figured it out. And what were humans but a collection of organs? (A lot more. She didn’t have to think on that for long before she self-corrected.)

The day was almost over when Cliodhna had requested her at Farraige na Buanachta. It had been Brenna who slammed open the clinic door and leaned in, a cat’s grin stretched across her face, not reaching her twinkling eyes, as she delivered that message to Regan (and two bleeding banshees in the waiting room): your grandmother is waiting. Doctor, she said as she left. Here, it took on the same meaning as leanbh.

This was probably something worm-related, given the holiday. The plan was still all organ systems go. Her grandmother didn’t especially like spending time with her (it reminded her of her own capacity to fail, in that she had produced such a shameful thing), and was unlikely to keep her long. But… if Regan couldn’t get away, would Wynne keep things in motion? They would, right? Regan had conveyed the urgency enough. Even if the ham child and Elias refused to move, Wynne would think of something. Regan trusted them.

She knew not to keep her grandmother waiting, though, so she dusted off the band-aid dispenser, dragged it into the waiting room for the two patients, and apologized. The crisp envelope next to her bag caught her eye. It wasn’t new. Wynne brought it, and Jade’s handwriting was impossible to ignore. But Regan did ignore it (if thinking about it twenty times a day was ignoring). So why did she stare at it now like she actually intended to keep it with her? It had been available to her for weeks, but right now, it took on a forbidden air, and even more so as Regan traced her fingers over where Jade’s pen had marked the paper.

"Break in case of emergency” and below that: “DO NOT break. OPEN.”

She wouldn’t open it. Ever, if she could help it. Either she would manage to help what remained of herself along with those here for her, or she would become part of this place, and any writing inside of the letter would fade with the centuries. Pulling her hand away was like fighting the inevitable, and wasn't that always the case between her and Jade? Regan closed her eyes, took a long breath, and ended up sliding the envelope into her jacket. It was close to her heart, fine, but hadn’t Regan decided she didn’t like metaphors?

———

Regan felt her grandmother before she could see her, like tiny knives stabbing into her pores. The north winds brought low-hanging fog rolling with them, and she had to wander closer to the tar pit before the harsh angles of her grandmother’s figure carved themselves out of the mist, her black eyes never straying from Regan. When Regan had arrived back in Saol Eile, all she had craved was for her grandmother to look at her. She had been desperate. She needed to hear she had made the right choice. Now all she craved was the opposite.

Cliodhna was not alone. Someone else was there by her feet, kneeling. But Regan only felt her grandmother. So who… it had to be a human.

Her pace and pulse quickened, and when she made out who the second person – person, not fae – was, a screech shot out of her. “Elias!” She was running now, boots slapping the ground, echoing through the fog. Elias looked grey and waxy and terrified, a clot of dried blood on his neck as if it had dribbled out of his ear earlier. If there was any ability to fight within him, he could not speak it, not through the gag. Elias– how– Regan tried to reach for her best friend, but her grandmother’s eyes seared like a slap across her cheek. They were seen. When Regan showed Elias this place, they had been seen. What had she done? Elias seemed alert enough. He could hear. She probably blasted him unconscious, and then–

Regan’s jaw refused to move. Her eyes, huge and filled with terror that matched her friend’s, were in every way the opposite of the black slits that lived on her grandmother’s face.

“I should have known when we started you on the animals,” her grandmother finally said, her grip tightening around Elias’s bound wrists. She was speaking in English. Cliodhna hated that, being accommodating for anything lesser, so there was a point to it. She intended Elias to hear this. “Your… what is it, the hypocrite oath? Do little harm. The dispenser took no such oath. The dispenser bludgeons better than you ever will.” Of course she could not fathom no harm. For the first time in many years, Regan’s grandmother swallowed an apparent lump that had formed in her pale throat. Not nerves. Never nerves. Regret, maybe. “I have gone about this the wrong way. Your shame is mine.” A concession.

In her other hand, Cliodhna brandished a dagger. Each of her blades had a purpose – banshees appreciated ritual like no others – and this knife that gleamed gold was ceremonial in nature. Regan was struck still; she could never forget this dagger. It was the one used on her dad eight years ago, the one that gave her this… this gift. No, not a gift. It was awful. It was awful. Right now, she could not pretend otherwise. Her grandmother would never use this knife on paltry animals, or in self-defense, or on any humans who crossed or inspired her. No, Cliodhna viewed this, right now, as the an chéad scread.

She intended the knife for Elias, but why? Regan was already an awakened banshee (despite–), and killing him would only turn her away from her duty, not push her into it. Pushing, always pushing. Had her grandmother recognized how lost Regan was, how she asked the impossible of her, and decided to move on to torment without necessity instead? Or… or she probably intended for Regan to be the one wielding it against Elias. Regan would never. Never. Her grandmother, who seemingly had limitless perception when it came to Regan, as she had with each and every tool she carried, hadn’t seen that? That couldn’t be right.

Regan’s jaw was still frozen, her eyes flicking between Elias and her grandmother. “What are you–” she barely managed to get half a question out.

“Yes, this is for your human. The first of them, anyway.” Cliodhna confirmed. Wynne. Did she mean– did she know? “Your face is soiled with emotion right now, leanbh.” Behind Cliodhna, the tar bubbled, starved to witness suffering when it could not exert its own. Cliodhna poked at Elias's stomach with a sharp nail. “So much unmarked flesh this human has. He is long. Oh, leanbh, your confusion is gan smaoineamh. I am going to stab him. You will look upon his anguish. You will not try to stop me and you will not scream. You will not turn away or close your eyes. You will not even blink or swallow. Your face will be still as the dead.” Now Regan understood. What this was, why her grandmother had made Elias hear it and feel such hopelessness, why Cliodhna thought she had failed Regan, too.

Cliodhna continued, her voice pleased with confidence that this, finally, would fix her granddaughter. “If you don’t remain still, I will stab him again. You will not be moved. If you are, we continue. I stop when you learn.” There it was. Regan looked only at Elias now, her eyes welling up with the water of a hundred bogs.

“So much unmarked flesh,” Cliodhna repeated, running her long fingers through Elias’s hair, scraping his scalp with her nails. “My cailín beag caillte, you do not care about your hands, your stomach, being drowned, being blinded. This is what you care about. And so, your shame is mine, for I did not see it.”

As Cliodhna’s dark eyes bore through Regan, they sent a clear message: you can stop this. His gag was yanked down.

She plunged the dagger into Elias’s shoulder.

Regan screamed with him.

———

Admittedly, Elias had closed himself off to Regan and Wynne and anyone else who tried to talk to him. He didn’t know why he’d suddenly become so angry, but he was just so tired of trying to care so deeply about something only for it to completely backfire on him. He was just so tired. He was in the clinic by himself, early, before Regan was there, when Cliodhna had arrived. Of course he knew of the woman, he knew that it was the one person that Regan needed validation from. Knew that it was because of her that Regan was even here. She was the root of all evil in Regan’s life. Elias didn’t hate people, but he hated Cliodhna.

It happened quickly. Before Elias could so much as look at the woman in front of him, she’d let out a scream that had rendered him unconscious. Upon waking up, he was kneeling on the ground by that fucking tar pit. Elias frowned, head pounding and mind swimming in confusion. In retrospect, Elias wasn’t so sure what he’d expected to happen upon showing up. He knew that Regan wasn’t going to come willingly, so why did he bother? Why was he so desperate to cling onto someone who was so willing to throw him away? Throw everyone away? Throw Jade away? Elias thought of every time he ran away from something because it became too real.

He’d run away from Regan before, moved back to California because he was so afraid of what he’d discovered. He’d run away from Marcus when he started trying to pursue him, because the idea of being in love with someone made his stomach turn. But despite the churning, he’d gone back to Wicked’s Rest, rekindled his friendship with Regan. He’d decided to try things out with Marcus. He’d fought against what his instincts told him to run. Always so afraid, he’d finally done something about it. Instead of letting Regan walk out of everyone’s life, he’d fought to get her back. He’d always fight for her. He’d always fight for everyone he considered close to. But it kept biting him in the ass every goddamn time.

Always so willing to run into the fire, but always the first one to get hurt because of it. That’s all Elias was. He was so sick and tired of being the proverbial punching bag of everyone’s story. That warden who needed answers? Stick a weapon in his face and threaten to kill him for the sake of his own answers. Regan leaves town? Let him get fucking kidnapped by a derranged banshee grandmother for the sake of his best friend. It just kept happening and he felt so out of control. He felt like someone falling from a terminal height, desperate to grab onto something but missing. He was freefalling to his own death and there was no one to grab a hold of, nothing to grab onto.

The woman was talking, but Elias barely heard it. He saw Regan running toward them, and knowing that it was a trap. His face fell in anguish as he realized that not only was he going to die here, but poor Regan was going to watch. He was going to be tortured, and Regan was meant to watch. Because Regan was weak, Elias was going to suffer. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the inevitable. The gag was yanked down and the dagger was plunged into his flesh. White hot pain burned through his shoulder as his eyes flew open and he let out a cry of agony. Regan screamed too, and it was so loud, so shattering that his ears rang. He couldn’t hear correctly. Everything hurt, the world threatened to swallow him into darkness.

All he could think of in that moment was how much of a colossal waste of space he was. How he was nothing more than a vehicle for others to get where they needed to go. Elias squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered, feeling so weak, so frail. And he didn’t want to be. He opened his eyes to look at Regan, shaking his head. He was so out of it that he spoke in a language only he understood. “Mainū marana di'ō.” He told Regan in his parent’s native tongue. Expression pleading as he translated into English. “Let me die.”

Maybe that’s all Elias’s life was supposed to be. Helping others. And if this was what it took for Regan to reach her true potential, then so be it. He took a deep breath, ignoring the searing pain in his shoulder and looked to Cliodhna, staring at her in defiance. He wanted to say something, tell her off, but all he could do was look his assailant in the eyes with a hardened stare. “Do it.” He growled out, teeth clenched together as the pain pulsed in his ears. He wanted to shout lies at the woman, tell her that he didn’t matter to Regan, that nothing she did to him would matter in the grand scheme of things, because that’s what Regan had told him time and time again back in Maine. They weren’t friends, and they never would be.

But it was so plain on her face, the agony that overtook Regan. Elias didn’t want to die here. And yet he was at peace with letting it happen. Regan had screamed, and that meant someone would die. And Elias knew deep in his heart that it was meant for him. He was going to die, but he was alright with it because it wasn’t going to be Wynne or Nora. It was going to be him. He was keeping his promise to Emilio. In the only time it mattered, Elias Kahtri was going to be brave.

———

Regan had seen hundreds of people die. Some in medicine, for death was an inevitable part of being a doctor; her dad, who escaped such a fate for as long as he could; others in the morgue, as she coaxed out visions of their final moments; among the worst were the deaths she had seen in Saol Eile, the slow agony of sinking into the tar pit, the sonic explosions, the sacrificed. But even here, she had never seen this kind of torture. Cliodhna was not going to kill Elias. There had been no real scream – other than the pitiful show of poor control from Regan that Elias reeled from. Cliodhna was going to torture him, because she knew that one stab wound on him dwarfed hundreds or thousands Regan could have ever inflicted on herself.

Regan couldn’t pull her eyes away from the blood seeping into Elias’s shirt, running down his sleeve, coating his hand red. She did what she always did when she saw an injury: she assessed. Not life threatening, not right now, but the blade had gone deep. She needed to approach, to kneel, to soothe, but the second Regan set one foot in front of the other, Cliodhna brought the blade up to Elias’s shoulder again – hovering, threatening.

Her grandmother looked down at the dagger, appraising the smooth, thin layer of blood. The gold gleamed through it. Once, she had told Regan that was why she had selected it for such a lofty purpose: it made for such a beautiful sacrifice, and what was more beautiful than a banshee claiming her birthright? (Regan could think of a few things and people.) If there was any beauty here, she was blind to it. Cliodhna never looked at her like that, the way she looked at that blade. And at Hamstring.

Regan was not ensnared in any kind of bind, her grandmother had no power over her in the way fae sometimes did. But being torn between knowing she needed to help Elias and knowing she would doom him if she tried, paralyzed her more than any promise. She had broken actual binds with more ease.

Let me die.

No. No. She was not going to let her friend die in front of her. “No!” Regan screeched again, vibration skimming across the bubbling tar. Her grandmother was as unmoving as Regan was supposed to be; she had anticipated every second of how this was playing out, and Regan couldn’t think of a single way to avoid it. How was she supposed to close her heart off now? After– she– at the lake, that was when she realized it, that she never could. She had been so certain. She started inviting rather than rejecting dreams of hatched plots and packed bags, of Jade’s love and her brothers’ forgiveness, which was a victory that felt only like a failure. Part of her knew, even then, that she would never have any of that. She would fail here and never see anything else. Anyone else. She couldn't believe she would ever be leaving with Wynne, Elias, and the child.

But they had come so close. She could have left. If things had worked, maybe she could have left. So close… and then...

She failed. And then she failed.

This was not about some future stakes that her grandmother insisted, over and over again, would befall on everyone around Regan if she did not learn control. This was about Elias, right here and right now, and Regan continued to fail. No echoed through her again. She wasn’t sure if she had screeched it a second time or if it was pumping like blood through her body. There was no pretending she didn’t care for Elias. That lie might kill her and Elias both; her grandmother was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them. The only thing that would be less effective than lying was begging. Regan felt the gold knife pressed against her, too.

Regan looked tearfully at Elias, who strained against the obvious pain he was in, who spoke words Regan did not understand, and who she wished had left weeks ago. He would and had moved mountains for her, and she caused him pain in return. She felt her own agony mirrored in his eyes, the weight of their shared suffering over them like a body bag. Every plea for death was like a blade in her own body. How could she witness this? How could she stand by and allow her friend to suffer at the hands of her own grandmother? He was blurry when she looked down at him, everything was. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can’t do it. I can’t just watch or let– I can’t.” The tears marked another failure, and they both knew it. Cliodhna was not going to let Elias die yet. She was not going to let him fall unconscious any time soon. She was not going to deprive her granddaughter of this opportunity to be righted, no matter how futile it all was.

Regan remembered being relieved to hear that, once.

“I–” Regan’s eyes were wet as they turned up to her grandmother, and there was no use trying to hide how profusely they leaked. Some banshee. “This won’t work. I’ll never– if you do this, I will never become what I need to. It won’t work. So pl–” An eyebrow lifting that might as well have been another slash of the blade. Regan tried to shore up her voice, which worked only until the next wave of tears struck. “There are other things we can try, right? There must be. I couldn’t have failed them all. I– there has to be–” Her grandmother’s eyes were so dark and deep they swallowed Regan. The dagger shined in her hand again, seeming to extract every streak of sunlight even through the fog. Her grandmother’s orange wings glowed in the minimal refracted light. Her tone was harsh and flat where Regan’s was desperate and human.

Cliodhna goaded, “This is a waste, then? Another one? If he serves no purpose to you, then we will end this now. Scoiltfidh mé a scornach agus déanfaidh mé bróga dá chraiceann. I will give him purpose.”

No. No no no. “Stop! This isn’t how I’ll learn! What about, um… what about positive–” Her grandmother cut in, now venomous, hissing in Irish, “I have seen that wretched, amaideacht thing on your finger, and you will repeat no human fantasies to me. They have filled your head with lies. You left here before we could even suture your fontanelles. Your head is soft. You were a body with not yet a single fly, one of Hamstring's white sheets before it was made beautiful. Instead these neamh-roghnaithe humans make your face flush and your knees weak. Your patella are not even fit for my collection.”

More tears prickled at the corner of Regan’s eyes, springing from glands she wished she did not have. She clutched her left hand, her ring, torn between concealing it and searching it for anything she could find. She did neither, and squeezed it.

Regan's grandmother looked at her as she looked at far lesser creatures. “Leanbh. Regan, I will strip you in the dying room. I will slice your skin, carving valleys into your dermis, until I am deep enough to pull out every festering ideal that has infected you since your birth, and you will be hung with the rabbits and the stoats until you are nothing but dry, beautiful bone, and no longer your father’s daughter.” Cliodhna turned the knife on its side, moving it closer to Elias, but still staring into Regan. She switched to English. “If there is beauty to be found in you, I have yet to see it, but we will try once more, because I will allow no child nor grandchild of mine to bleed across their pedigree.”

Cliodhna turned her head, as she often stood back and examined her delicate work, the way it opened for her and gleamed. “You never liked using the animals, more tender than even their flesh, but have you noticed? It is the last rabbit, the one who has seen its warren slaughtered in front of it, who bleeds the most, whose organs swell, who smells the sweetest, who will give the most upon its death.”

Cliodhna lowered herself to Elias, knowing she still remained above him in every way. She kept her eyes jabbed into Regan. “I have failed you, my leanbh, and I am correcting this. I am going to show you how you will give the most.” Cliodhna’s eyes somehow went even blacker, darker than the tar itself, as she turned the knife into Elias’s arm, cutting into her granddaughter too, because she knew exactly how to skin a rabbit.

———

The blood was running down his arm and pooling onto the ground beneath him, and he could hear the tar pit gurgling, yearning for sacrifice. Elias had told Regan that it’s what he wanted, and here he was. Being the key thing that would bring Regan to be the banshee her grandmother wanted to be. He was falling through the air and there was nothing to grab a hold of. He was falling, and there was no one to grab him. He was going to fall to his death and it’s because of his own complacency.

The two were talking, but Elias didn’t understand. He wasn’t sure if that was because they were conversing in Gaelic or because he was starting to become delirious from the pain. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Was he dizzy from pain or was he dizzy from blood loss? Could you pass out from this kind of stab wound, or was he just making it all up in his head? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

Regan was begging and pleading, so he opened his eyes to watch. He felt like he was out of his own body, as if he were watching this from a third person perspective instead of it actively happening to him and in front of him. Regan was desperate, she was so upset to see him like this. He didn’t need to speak Gaelic to know that Regan was pleading for him right now. He shook his head, letting his gaze fall to the ground.

He couldn’t help but think that it was foggy out. In the movies, it’s always raining and miserable when a character dies. But that wasn’t the case here. Instead, it was just fog. The world kept spinning because in the grand scheme of things, Elias was irrelevant. Funny how things worked out.

Cliodhna was speaking in English again, and he began to brace himself for another pierce of the knife, and it came straight into his arm, the blade flattened in his arm, and he felt a tearing sensation in his arm, the pain was agonizing. He felt the twist of the knife and his vision went white, he cried out, thrashing and trying to yank himself away from the knife, but it was no use. Someone had him in a vice grip he couldn’t escape.

He felt like he was going to pass out from pain, but he knew that this woman would be done with him the moment he did. So he stayed strong, though a wave of nausea washed over him as he fought against every instinct he had to stay alive. He took a deep breath through his nose, forcing himself to look up and meet Regan’s eyes. He thought of all those moments that had defined their friendship, how it had all started.

He remembered leaving the Mushroom Circle, Regan suspicious of him and questioning his motives. His vision whited out, he was being cut into again, more skin removed. Fuck, that hurt. There weren’t words to describe what he was feeling. Just white hot pain and the ringing in his ears blocked out all noise. Was that because of the shock or because Regan was screaming again? He didn’t know.

He was so out of his own body at that moment that he wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. Elias wasn’t built for torture. Well, no one was built for it, but especially not him. He wanted to cry, but he refused to be weak. So he just whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut, praying that it would end soon. All he wanted was his friend back, not said friend’s grandmother to torture him.

He couldn’t help but think of Marcus, how there was so much he hadn’t said to him out of fear, how much he wasn’t going to be able to tell him now that he had his life flashing before his eyes. He was so afraid to love, to go in that deep with a person that he was more willing to turn him away then ever let him in close. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He whimpered under his breath, thinking of Marcus, thinking of Regan, thinking of Jade and Wynne and everyone he’d ever met that had made living in Wicked’s Rest worthwhile.

He was never going to tell Marcus how he felt, he was too afraid. He was always too afraid. Why was he always so afraid? Was allowing people always going to end this way? Was he going to always get hurt because he dared to love? A sob escaped his lips and Elias opened his eyes. He’d let himself love someone and this is where it got him. Sure, he didn’t love Regan in a romantic sense, but he’d loved her like a sister, like family. And his worst fear that he’d be hurt was not only coming true, but made ten times worse than he could ever imagine.

Maybe it was a way of protecting himself from this exact moment, maybe it was precognition, a sixth sense. Maybe it was just sheer, dumb fucking luck that nothing ever worked out in Elias’s stupid little life. Good at robotics, hate the field. Find someone he can say that he genuinely loves and wants to be friends with forever? Grandma tortures him. What the fuck was going to happen if he fell for Marcus? Shit, had he already fallen? He thought of his stupid smile and stupid good looks. “He had a good body,” he remembered Regan saying, not realizing at the time she was referring to an actual corpse.

Shit, he was going to die without telling a soul how he felt about them. He was going to die and he was never going to be strong enough to tell Marcus how he felt. He loved Marcus, he loved Regan, he even loved Jade. He had built a community around himself and he was losing it. He was never going back home, his parents and siblings would never know what happened to him. He was going to die in Ireland for familial love. For once in his life he allowed himself not to be afraid, and now he was paying for it. “I’m sorry, Regan.” He whimpered out, staring directly into her eyes with tears welling in his eyes from emotional and physical pain. “Please, you need to tell Marcus I’m sorry, I…” his voice faltered when the blade came close to his face, silencing him.

———

Cliodhna’s black eyes became glassy; they glazed over like she was bored. Had she expected something else? Regan was soft, weak, her heart pumping blood that was too wet. Regan anticipated a speech about all of this, reminders about the most delicate pieces of her, the ones that would need to be hardened with scarring, but she was met with only boredom. Her pleading bored her grandmother. There was no emotion to appeal to. There never would be.

Blood pulsed out of Elias’s arm, forming a puddle beneath him, staining the knees of his jeans. The apology made Regan’s heart leak more, her jaw trembling as she could do nothing but watch. Why… why was he apologizing? Her eyes froze against his and welled with fear that she was no longer supposed to know. A request came from Elias. Like he was on his deathbed. “I… I will… I’ll tell him.” The lie was nothing compared to the way her body was already tearing apart, fissures across her skin, raw pinkness inside. She was on one of her grandmother’s hooks, dangling, ripe to eviscerate. She was not leaving Saol Eile, they would never let her leave now. They would know what she had tried to do, in helping humans. The wings had been pulled from any hope she let Wynne rekindle. There would be no telling Marcus anything.

Regan tried to kneel, to get a better look, to deliver any aid at all or look her friend in the eyes while they were next to each other, to stay with him through his suffering or his death, whatever would come, because the worst way to die was alone. But at the movement, her grandmother’s knife migrated from Elias’s arm up to his throat, and Regan’s pulse trembled like that of a human she could not be – quick and desperate – or perhaps like one of the animals she had been made to lay her hands over, when they could feel the lethal way her breathing shifted and knew they were about to come apart.

Regan's voice was a squeak (a crime in its own right). “You won’t.” She had never been more uncertain. Were her lungs not churning, wind kicking up? It was the very start of a storm, when the clouds choked out the light and the wind started rattling against everything it swept over. Only a breeze, but a harbinger of stronger drafts. At her grandmother’s boredom, Regan had an opportunity to say more if her mouth allowed it. “He– he will be impossible to replace.” For both of them.

Like Regan, her grandmother never laughed, but she did open her mouth, exhaling a dry bark, as if she had never heard anything so stupid. Her grandmother spoke in English again – she wanted it to be one of the last things this human heard. “Maine is no obstacle. There are others. There is another here, though I favor them for a true, more promising an chéad scread. They have that look about them, only fit for bleeding out for others.” Wynne. So she did know. Did other banshees? Was the ham child still safe? The blade glistened. Cliodhna glistened more, the boredom shaken from her at her granddaughter’s disobedience. “I will drag every one of your humans across the sea, and have you watch as I break them in front of you, one by one, until you learn to break.” She looked down at Elias with something like disgust in her dark eyes. “They are better at breaking than you. How náireach for me to be saying that of my granddaughter. But if you refuse to be built from my blood, you will be built from theirs.”

Regan went limp as Cliodhna continued, “You are not doing the human any favors. That means you are not beholden to him, at least. You give too much to them, the humans.” She paused, considering something, perhaps how her failed welp of a granddaughter never gave quite so much to her, to Saol Eile. “Let us see if we scream.” The knife was forced into Elias’s stomach, plunging into the bowels. There was a scream joining Elias's. Not a death scream, not yet, but Regan recognized it as her own, as faraway as it seemed. Her grandmother pulled the knife out, a steady flow of blood poured from the wound. If Elias could bear the pain, he might remain conscious for a while. But he would need medical care. Fast. Her grandmother did not look toward her, only at the knife in her hand. “Hold your lungs, leanbh.” The flash of gold stabbed into Elias again, a second wound next to the first.

Cliodhna turned to Regan while the knife remained in her friend, temporarily plugging the inevitable. Regan couldn’t move now. She did not react. No scream – not yet, not yet – and did not attempt to go to him. Her thoughts came to a grinding, blinding halt as everything played out in front of her without her there. Was this what Cliodhna wanted? Her gone? Her frozen solid like she herself was in the tar? She did it. Accomplished. Right? She had to be perfect, because Elias’s breath was growing shallow, his head lolling forward. She could be nothing so he could be something. A stirring force still hammered in her lungs, the only movement she could feel inside of her now. But Cliodhna’s eyes saw everything, every imperfection Regan possessed, everything keeping her from being what she had to be. Her eyes picked apart skin and muscle and snapped bone for the marrow inside. Regan knew how to save lives and how to understand death, how to let it speak to her. She spread ribs, she cracked skulls, she held every organ in her hands with every ounce of reverence as any other banshee here. But never had she looked at the living and wished to pull them apart.

There was a bloated silence as Elias kept emptying out.

Finally it broke. “Your mouth opened,” Cliodhna said flatly, and unsheathed the knife from Elias’s skin, releasing another heavy spurt of blood. Before Regan could object, gather her jaw and seal it in place with the cement she felt in her joints and her heart, the dagger plunged again.

———

It was getting harder to stay upright, harder to stay conscious. But Cliodhna held him firmly in place as she drove the dagger into his flesh, pain searing and like fire. Of everything he’d ever done in his life, he’d never expected to die like this, so brutally and from someone who had such hatred in their heart for his very existence. All this time he’d tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, give people a chance because you never knew what was going through their mind, what they’d been through in their life. But – Elias groaned, the pain becoming too much to bear as he felt his consciousness slip. He couldn’t keep his head upright, thoughts becoming more incoherent.

The dagger was plunged into him again, and he let out a gurgle of pain, unable to keep up with it all. This was it. He was eating the words he’d once told Regan, that he’d move mountains for her. He’d done that, and this is where it got him. This is where closeness got him. He’d always been big on forgiveness. Big on seeing the positives in the darkness. But this? There was no coming back from this.

Through the midst of torture and blood loss, Elias snapped. The part of him who was, that Elias was gone. Born from the blood and pain was someone else, someone twisted and angry and full of hate. He hated the banshees. He hated that this had happened, he hated himself for being stupid enough to follow Regan to Ireland. Most of all, he wanted to hate Regan. But he couldn’t. And he hated that he couldn’t.

Through the sheer agony, Elias forced himself to look up, to meet Regan’s gaze. “I chose this.” He gurgled out, eyes hard yet unfocused. “Don’t blame yourself for this. I chose this.” It was getting harder to speak, his words threatening to slur together as his consciousness dipped. “I love you, Regan. You’re family to me, a sister. You have so much more to–” the blade stabbed into him again, cutting off his words with a cry of agony.

No. He wasn’t going to leave Ireland, this is where it ended. Where consciousness threatened to give way to eternal darkness, which Elias had always feared. He’d always feared the end, feared death. But at this moment? He was at peace. He was ready to die.

———

She couldn’t do this. Elias was bleeding to death in front of her. She couldn’t do this. Everyone knew it, and she hadn’t listened, and now Elias was suffering for her trying to become something she could never be. Regan stood, shaking, as Cliodhna pulled the dagger from her friend again, followed by a ribbon of blood dripping from him. He looked only a breath away from losing consciousness, sweat dripping from his temples and out of his pores. A man nearing a terrible death. Regan’s heart shattered – and every second more that Elias had to endure this, a new layer or valve broke off. He was ready for his death but Regan was not.

She needed to tell Elias that she couldn’t bear to lose him, that his life meant more to her than he could ever know. But the words caught in her throat, suffocated by the weight of her own despair that she needed to trap so deeply inside of her that it didn’t show itself in a single twitch of her mouth, a blink of her eyes, or even a heartbeat. She would not be his death.

Her limbs were still locked in place. It wasn’t enough. Her grandmother looked at her, assessing, not needing to scrutinize for long before finding a long list of flaws. “Your eyes narrowed. And that mouth of yours opened again. What is it you would like to say, Regan? Speak it now.” Cliodhna was going to stab him again anyway. And again. Regan’s stomach iced over because it knew the only way this was going to end but she was fighting it anyway. She’d seen enough. Too much. This was all–

Her grandmother was waiting for an answer. Regan had only one. “Stop,” she whimpered, the word barely more than a breath. Defiance came at a cost here, when it dared surface at all. She knew that Cliodhna would not take kindly to insubordination, that there would be consequences for her actions. She was willing to face any punishment, any. Her grandmother made that dry barking noise again, the knife waving in her hand. “Anything else, leanbh?”

“Please!” Regan screeched. Defeat loosened her muscles, broke the rigor that held them, and before she could stop it, words started flying from her mouth. She thought before that begging would make things worse. There was no worse from here. So she would beg. She was not too proud for it, not now. “Don’t– please don’t– I’ll do anything. I’ll stay here for as long as I have to, I’ll do whatever is asked of me, he’s my best friend, stop, please!” A sob escaped. Then another. She didn’t have the ability to pretend they were anything else. “You can watch autopsies, I will give you thousands more mice, hundreds of pressed flowers, I’ll never hesitate again, I’ll make you proud, I’ll be everything you want me to be.” Old memories bubbled up like a putrid, infected open wound, one that she had neglected rather than treated. In that time it had run its course through veins and arteries and now it was bursting like an aneurysm. “I can’t do this again. Please don’t– my dad– this isn’t a gift! Please stop. I won’t be a child. I won’t be a failure. Please.”

Her grandmother looked at her like she had just swallowed something vile. She knelt, breathing cool air in Elias’s face. This time, the knife was not aimed at his arm, or his abdomen. It lay against his throat, threatening his jugular. This was the one that would end his life. “Leanbh is too generous for you. A child does not know better. You know what you are not.” The knife pressed in more, beads of blood forming around the blade. “Look at you. Listen to yourself. I see there will be no further progress made today, if there was any at all.” Her grandmother sighed sharply, the only external indication that she was once again disappointed. That was what Regan was. Disappointment between layers and layers of bloodshed. “You feel it in your lungs, don’t you?”

She did. Elias was about to die. He was asking to die. Telling her it wasn’t her fault (but how could it not be?). That he chose this (no, he chose her). Regan’s lungs expanded to hold that dark, gathering storm that demanded to come out. The gust she had felt before was now a whirlwind, a warning that death was here to collect and there was nothing that could be done about it. Her grandmother was going to kill him. But… Regan hadn’t screamed yet. Her body hadn’t insisted on it. Death was not ready to drag Elias away. There was only a second to change the course of things before Fate locked it all in place and made it pour from Regan’s lungs.

The whole reason Elias was here, in danger, about to die, went beyond what Cliodhna was doing today. Cliodhna was the reason Regan no longer had her dad; Cliodhna was the reason she became what she was; Cliodhna was the reason she had come here and brutalized herself for years; Cliodhna was the reason she forfeited all of her loved ones; the reason she would outlive them all; Cliodhna was the reason she didn't allow herself closeness, friends, love; the reason she couldn't love Jade like she had wanted to for so long; Cliodhna was the reason she didn't know how to want, how to be a person; Cliodhna was the reason she no longer recognized most of the emotions that passed through her heart. Cliodhna pushed her. She pushed and pushed and Regan backed up each time, giving up more of the future that stretched ahead of her with every step back.

She was ready to push forward.

Regan looked to Cliodhna, with the iron determination of a banshee who understood exactly what needed to be done. And it was not only for Elias.

Her grandmother soaked up the acceptance in Regan’s eyes, seeing only what she wanted. “Good girl. You–”

Regan’s certainty became action. She surged forward, not at Elias, but at Cliodhna. Never in her 500 years had her grandmother expected something like this, and certainly not from such a useless shame like Regan. Regan rammed herself at Cliodhna, her scarred palms flat against Cliodhna’s stomach as both of them were sent hurtling. There was a jab, a bite in Regan's upper arm, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see her grandmother’s golden knife – the one that had been carving up Elias, the one that was plunged into her dad’s heart – planted in her skin like a flag. Wings beat madly. Cliodhna flailed. One or both of them screamed. Cliodhna fell back, her foot grazing the surface of the tar. Regan nearly fell on top of her, but while her wings gave her enough lift to balance herself on the edge of the pit, her grandmother was not quick enough. Cliodhna managed to straighten herself in the air but not before the tar took her other ankle, locking her in place like an unfinished statue emerging from cold marble.

It was all over now. Cliodhna’s wings beat furiously, whining, faster and faster, but she couldn’t pull her feet from the tar pit, the place that had taken so many lives. Regan fully caught herself now, scrambling away from the edge. She stared at her struggling grandmother, but all she saw was that little boy she had screamed for 8 years ago, and all of the other humans her grandmother had turned into lessons.

Her grandmother’s Gaeilge boomed out as a yowl, like an animal being stripped of its skin. It was the first time Regan had ever heard such desperation in her voice. “Child! What have you done? Come back here. You will remove me from here! Now! I have given up much to help you, don’t you see? Twice, now, I have tried. You’ve turned an honor into a pitiful waste. You have always been worth nothing. You run like your father. You can't be human, you useless–”

Regan turned away from Cliodhna, practically ignoring her. She pulled the golden blade from her arm – the wound hurting as much as the fact it put a hole through Jade’s jacket – and watched her grandmother in the knife’s reflection. Regan hoped Cliodhna questioned if she had done the right thing. That would make one of them.

Twice now. Twice Regan had tried, too.

Regan’s forehead creased at her grandmother’s words, her body coming to life again, her mind beginning to stir with familiarity. Cliodhna had peeled and carved enough of her away that Regan could see what was beneath it all now. The last four weeks became harsh acid in her stomach, climbing up her throat, spraying in her grandmother’s direction with venom. It was caustic enough to burn her, too, but right now, she did not care. She saw it all plainly, no longer filtered through the dark windows of her grandmother’s home. Regan’s voice took on every ounce of poison she had saved up for 8 years. She spoke to Cliodhna, watching her struggle only through the reflection on the knife. “...What is it, grandmother? Do you have something to say? Don’t look so glum.” Regan paused, then said the last thing she would ever say to this wretched woman, her face as stoic as could be. “I broke myself for you, didn't I? I would expect you would have a... oh, you are unfamiliar with the word. We call it a smile.”

There was silence behind her, until her grandmother said her final piece, too. “When you are back here, which you will be, you will beg Fate that I still have my mouth and nose above this tar, because you will have killed whoever gave you that ring, or your brothers. You will kill everyone you will ever–” Disgust twisted her up. “–love. Everyone you will ever smile with. And you will come here, pleading with me to help you break yourself properly, and I will point out that this is the day you have gone against Fate. I will point out that others will suffer for what you have done, they will suffer for as long as you live, my shame, my stupid leanbh.”

The following scream that roared out of Cliodhna was explosive, and Regan jumped automatically, standing over Elias, hands pressed to his bleeding ears. Covered in his blood. It came from every part of him. It covered her shirt; it mixed with hers. She needed to get him out of here, or he would die; her lungs still told her as much, even if they still weren’t demanding a scream from her. A scream. Every banshee in Saol Eile would have heard her grandmother’s scream; they would swarm here in minutes.

Elias. Elias needed medical attention immediately. She was going to protect Elias and the ones she loved, no matter the cost. She’d get them all out of here even if she could never leave, even if her plan today had been a failure, like her. He was the one who had any chance of escaping. Not her. “Stay with me,” she pleaded, “I need to move you. I’m– I’m so–” No time for struggling to apologize now. Regan might have been pathetic, useless, all of the words her grandmother had hurled at her, but she still knew how to be a doctor. “Stay with me.”

———

Things were happening, but Elias was too far gone to hear it, to experience it. He was going to die, and he was going to die bitter and angry. He couldn’t, not after everything he’d ever been through. Even after having his reality shattered from under him, even after meeting someone that changed the course of his life so rapidly. He thought of the people in his life that made it worth living. As much as he felt a tug toward an unseeing force, he allowed himself to remember his memories with the people he loved. Even people he didn’t know too well that he wanted to know better. People like Cass, Sam, Burrow, and Frankie.

Jade.

The greeting cracked her up, and her shiny eyes danced between both figures. “Don’t say that, unless you’re totally cool with that’s what she said jokes”, she wiggled her eyebrows at the cloaked figure in an ‘am I right?’ type of gesture.

Regan.

“My bag is heavy,” Regan said, offering both a truthful statement and utterly unimportant one, “Um, but I don’t – I’m not saying I need help with it. Only that I was trying to rearrange my purchases. Distribute their weight more evenly. It doesn’t matter.”

A flash of light crossed his vision.

Marcus.

“Do you think selkies are in these waters?” He asked, tilting his head from side to side, not knowing who it was standing behind him. “There’s a cryptid I would love to see.” Elias thought aloud, knowing he probably sounded like a lunatic as he said it out loud. “What do you think, you think seal people exist?”

Regan had been forced from inaction to action all because of him. Her pleading fell on deaf ears, and she… she pushed her grandmother into the pit. She pushed her in and she did it for him. Another layer to tack on to the already building trauma he was experiencing in that moment. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a gurgling noise.

As badly as his body hurt, as loud as that light screamed to him, beckoning him forward, he couldn’t. He felt Regan’s hands on him, he heard her voice. He couldn’t understand her, there had been something that rendered him deafened. Maybe it was a scream, maybe it was just all the blood loss. But Regan hadn’t left him to die, even when he told her to. She hadn’t left him to drown like he was used to people doing time and time again.

He didn’t have much strength left, but he had enough to infer what she was begging him to do. To not sleep. What was that famous Shakespeare line?

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause

Elias Kahtri wasn’t going to die here.

One foot moved in front of the other, forcing himself to stay upright, to not collapse. To not run away again, he was done running. Another foot in front of the other. It was so hard to move, but he had to keep going. Two steps felt like they were impossible, like trudging through hardened concrete, but he couldn’t let himself run away from his life again. No, I won’t die here.

He felt like he was outside of his own body, watching as Regan helped him away from the scene. Watching himself struggle to walk, letting himself be half-dragged by Regan. He opened his mouth to speak, but blood coated his tongue, poured out from his lips. “Can’t…” He gurgled out, feeling the hot stickiness of blood sticking to his face before he snapped his mouth shut again. It hurt to talk. He had to tell her. “‘M not… leavin’ you.” He slurred, forcing his eyes open long enough to look her in the eyes, tears spilling from his eyes as he knew he couldn’t hold onto consciousness a second longer. “I don’ wan’ leave you.” A sob wracked his body as he felt the call towards that light again.

He had to hold on, he had to try. He had to do it for her, for Marcus. For once in his life, he had to do it for himself. A ragged breath escaped his mouth. More blood. “I’m dying.” He finally said, a feeling of dread overtaking his body, like hands were grabbing him and pushing him under. “I don’ wan’to die.” He whispered out with the last of his effort before going limp against Regan, eyes rolling into the back of his head before he was pulled under at last.

———

Elias was pale, his breath haggard, his wounds still spilling out blood on both of them. As Regan pushed herself underneath his arm, he actually stood. He shouldn’t have been able to, and it was probably going to make his wounds worse, the shock to his system more deadly, but there was no choice. They had to rush. But Regan still took it as slow as they could reasonably could, urging him along, when he shouldn’t have been doing anything but lying in an OR. That didn’t exist here. The best she had was the clinic, and even that… they couldn’t get there in time. Regan would be found first, and if that happened now, Elias really would be dead. Why did she have to push her grandmother into a tar pit on Worm Remembrance Day? Everyone would be gathered together by now. They’d come as a horde.

She led him as far as he could tolerate. He was mumbling, could barely speak or hear or probably even see. “You’re not dying. I am an expert on when someone is dying.” That emerging scream for Elias had receded, but despite her reassurance, she knew this didn’t mean he was out of the woods yet. He was literally in the woods. Also, he could still die. Elias needed medical attention, and Regan… it couldn’t be from her, and not even because of some stupid sense of guilt (which, fine, that was there; it had bled down and been soaked up the deepest tissues inside her). Between her and her grandmother, all of the screaming wouldn’t go unnoticed. She could still hear her grandmother howling, not far away. Regan took a long, deep breath, as she tried to summon bravery she did not have.

There were things that approached dying – and bleeding out, unconscious, in the middle of the woods with limited medical care was certainly one (or four) of them. Regan helped Elias down, stunned by his tenacity that had brought him this far, both in physical steps and surviving everything that had just happened. “Easy,” she said, leading him to somewhere he could be concealed, though she wasn’t sure he could hear her now. No. She was sure he didn’t. A spike of panic shot through her when he tumbled against her, no longer able to support his own weight. He was out. Regan took his pulse. Alive. Heartbeat slow. Alive.

Regan would do the best she could in the time she had. She pulled off Elias’s shirt, trying not to graze his wounds. Surprisingly, this idea was something she hadn’t tried before – Regan stretched the shirt between her hands and found that, unlike what all of those wilderness survival books said, tearing a shirt was actually quite difficult. (Jade probably could have done it.) Okay. Plan B. She balled the shirt up and pressed it against Elias’s stomach, where it was quickly soaking up his blood. For his other wounds, she tried to blot them with her own shirt, but there was always more blood, and cotton became saturated too quickly.

Her breath left her, and it felt like giving up, even though she knew what had to be done. “I’m so sorry.” Regan sat down next to him, propping him up as much as she could. She had a moment. It was important. Had Elias been conscious, she wondered if he would have squirmed away. But he wasn’t. And one way or another, this would be the last they saw of each other. Regan pushed closer to him, and she rested her head against his shoulder for just long enough to trade a smear of his blood for a patch of her tears. “I’m sorry. I’m going to get you out of here. I promise I will get you out of here alive.” She wasn’t sure if she could tether herself to someone who was unconscious – and if she could, a failure would probably mean she’d die with him – but she didn’t care. She meant every word.

Carefully, Regan lifted his hand and placed it over the balled up shirt, seeing if he would know to apply pressure, but of course, he remained just as limp as before. She tried to sob. She would have liked to, even, away from her grandmother and the other banshees, in the presence of her best friend. But Regan was empty. “I’m sorry,” she rasped, apologizing for that, too.

She rose to her feet, though she didn’t feel as though she had much to stand for. While all of the other banshees went to investigate what happened to Cliodhna, Regan sounded a scream of her own, trying – with all that she had left – to call over one of the two people in this town who would want to help. People who should have been driving through green hills and open skies right now.

Regan couldn’t stay. They would be looking for her soon, and she wasn’t going to draw them here so they could finish what her grandmother started. With one woefully wet final look at Elias, Regan took off back toward Farraige na Buanachta to meet her fate. She always did meet it in the end.

#writing #c elias #domestic abuse tw #torture tw #Parental death tw

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corpse-a-diem · 5 days

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Do You Believe In Magic? | Van & Erin

TIMING: Sometime in March PARTIES: Van ( @vanoincidence ) & Erin (@corpse-a-diem) LOCATION: Nichols' Funeral Home SUMMARY: Van stops by the funeral home, catching Erin arguing with a persistent ghost. CONTENT WARNINGS: parental death tw

“Miss–Miss!”

The timid but determined voice of the frail woman in Erin’s backyard continued to follow her, despite her very clear attempts to ignore it. There were few moments it felt like she had alone anymore, and as a woman who treasured her solitude, it was making her skin itch and her mind frizz with agitation. But still, the woman persisted. “Miss Nichols! I know you can hear me!”

A heavy sigh fell from Erin’s lips and she paused, realizing that the weeding in the back garden was going to be prolonged even further now. Glancing over her shoulder, Erin saw the feeble looking woman, hands clutching one another in front of her tightly. There was a slight hunch to her stance, making her seem even shorter than she already was and naturally watery eyes were hard locked onto the younger woman. “I can hear you, Helen,” she answered finally, exasperation in her voice, and she wondered if Helen was as stubborn in life as she was now. It would have been commendable if she hadn’t been so behind on even the little chores she needed to take care of around the house. “I told you, I will look for that book for you tomorrow. I have things I need to do today.” And if she stopped and took care of every little thing a new ghost that came to her with, her own life would cease to exist. The volume of them lately was almost overwhelming and she had to wonder if it had anything to do with her slow acceptance.

Helen wasn’t pleased with this answer, even less so when Erin turned back to freeing the weeds from the cold earth. She was cold and tired and this was already weeks out from when she wanted to begin. “You don’t understand! I need this book. It has–”

“It has to wait, Helen–” she started again, dropping her gloves and standing up properly to face her. As much as she could. Erin had over half a foot on the woman. “I am going to help you. You just have to give me–”

The rage that flashed across Helen’s face was fast and brutal and before Erin was able to react, the small towel in her grip flew out of her hand, hovering just in front of her threateningly. “Really?” she pleaded, and as frightening as this would have been a few months ago, she knew Helen had no real violent intentions. She was pretty sure. She reached for the towel and the woman made it move again, just out of reach. “Helen! Enough!”

–

After what had happened with Emilio, Van felt like she had a new lease on life. Maybe that was the wrong way of looking at it. She was more aware. Maybe that wasn’t right either, because she was still turning a blind eye to certain things– the kinds of things that she knew would keep her up at night, such as were my parents’ deaths supernatural in nature? She couldn’t be sure, but she figured beating around the question and picking Erin’s brain about what she remembered couldn’t hurt.

Except, when she arrived at Erin’s, she saw her talking to… nothing? Erin looked angry, and suddenly, a towel was being suspended in the air. Van stared ahead, jaw slackening slightly as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Hadn’t she agreed that nothing had to make sense? That some things were just… the way they were, especially here?

But Erin? Erin, with abilities? Erin, a magic user? Was that what this was? Would she have kept it from her for so long? Had her grandmother known? Was it why she pushed Erin to keep an eye on her, as if it were some kind of thing? Like a magician’s teacher or some shit? Van became irrationally angry as she charged forward. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but how could Erin keep this from her? It was so unfair!

“Erin!” Though she tried to be loud, her voice came out strained and uncertain, so she cleared her throat. “What–” The towel dropped to the ground almost comically and she looked over at the woman ahead of her. “How did you do that?”

–

Van’s voice wasn’t the loudest presence in her yard but it jolted through Erin like hot iron all the same. Shit. Shit. She saw the younger girl charging forward and panicked, leaning down and grabbing the towel, holding it behind her. Like that’d help. Like if Van no longer saw the towel, she’d have nothing to yell about. But she didn’t know what else to do. Maybe Van hadn’t seen it at all and was about to yell at her for something completely unrelated. That hope only held out for a few seconds. She glanced over to see Helen still standing there, still annoyed but clearly interested in the debacle Erin suddenly found herself in. “Angry little thing, isn’t she?” Erin glared when she heard a small chuckle. Why Van was angry was a little peculiar though, she suddenly realized.

“Do what?” Erin echoed immediately, squeezing the towel anxiously. She held it in front of her, narrowing her eyes. She was going to have to tell Van something, right? She could lie–gaslight her. Tell her she was seeing things. That thought lasted about a second. No. Absolutely not. But she wasn’t sure if she was ready to talk about this to the younger woman. “The–uh, the towel? That’s uh–” God, she was stammering and she took a breath before finally meeting Van’s eyes. “That wasn’t me.” Not a complete lie but not the whole truth either.��

–

“Do that!” Van was completely ignorant to the ghostly figure that stood between them, and her finger pushed through the air, directed at the very towel she’d first referenced. Erin looked panicked which didn’t really seem like her. Sometimes Erin got anxious, Van could tell that much, but panicked? She was an adult, usually cool, calm, and collected. Van wasn’t exactly the observant type, but she could see that Erin was working through what to tell her. Like that mattered, because Van had already seen for herself.

That wasn’t me.

“Bull! I saw the towel. You did that!” She grabbed the towel off of the ground and shoved it towards Erin. “Do it again. I want to see it.” She stared at Erin, hopeful that the woman standing across from her wouldn’t continue lying to her. The last thing that Van needed was to be lied to, especially about something like this. It seemed so silly, all things considered, but deep down, Van felt that if Erin were something like her, then maybe Erin would hate her a little less once she inevitably found out about the magic that she had. She thought very briefly about Emilio and her stomach twisted. It was only a matter of time before he decided to blab his mouth to everyone– he seemed like a gossip, anyway.

–

Fear bubbled in Erin’s stomach, rising to her chest, making it hard to ignore the pounding of her own heart. She had to tell Van the truth. Right? But what would she think? Would she even believe her? Especially if she thought that this was Erin doing the metaphysical work and not Helen. Helen, who Van couldn’t see or speak to, who she would have to convince was real. Years and years of being told that she was hallucinating, of no one believing her, of being told she was crazy or that there was something wrong with her hurled their way back into her mind, stunting most thoughts temporarily. But this was Van. This would be different. Surely, it would. Erin took the towel back wordlessly, knowing she was probably going to disappoint Van either way. “It wasn’t me, Van,” she repeated, glancing back to the elderly ghost eavesdropping on their conversation with more amusement than she appreciated.

“Oh, don’t mind me, dear. I can wait for that book for a few more minutes.”

Erin glared wordlessly at the mischievous smirk following Helen’s words before turning back to Van. She was gripping the towel for dear life at this point. “It really wasn’t. I’m not lying to you. It was–” her throat dried suddenly so she pointed to the space next to Van. “It was Helen. She’s mad I haven’t stopped my entire life to fetch some book for her and she threw this around in a little hissy fit even though I told her I’d get it later.”

“Well, I never–”

Erin continued, ignoring the older woman, though she found it impossible to meet Van’s eyes. “Helen is also dead.”

–

Erin looked to be going through some sort of internal struggle– one that matched the one Van was going through. It was a funny thing, to know somebody for so long, but not actually know them at all. They were allowed to keep their secrets and Van knew that– knew it was important to create boundaries, but what if Erin was like her?

But Erin continued to protest that it wasn’t her, and continued to lie. She wasn’t even sure levitation magic was a thing. Obviously it would be, it was in Charmed, wasn’t it? Van opened her mouth to tell Erin not to lie to her, and she felt heat rise to her cheeks.

But before she could say anything, Erin was explaining that somebody named Helen was doing it. Helen, who was not in front of either of them. About a book, and Van looked around, tried to see the book in question, but came up empty handed. She looked back over to Erin, then to the space surrounding them, as if searching for something.

Helen is also dead.

“You see dead people?” Van said it before she could stop it and she blinked at the woman across from her. Nora was a bugbear, there was a ghoul that had hunted her and Emilio, and she had magic– surely Erin seeing dead people made sense, right? “I–” She paused for a moment, brows knitting together, “is… is that like some kind of magic?” Because it had to be, for Van’s own sanity. There had to be some kind of common link between them. “I totally– I um, I do believe you, but–” Her anger faded and was replaced by a new kind of anxiety. What if Erin could see Debbie? What if Debbie told her everything? “Is Helen the only one you see?”

–

Erin watched Van look around for something she knew she wouldn’t be able to see. Could feel the nerves prickling more than ever before. This was it. This was where Erin went from ‘trusted authority figure’ in Van’s eyes to ‘lying madwoman’. But that’s not what happened. And Erin stood gaping embarrassingly for a moment as Van seemed to just… accept it. She saw dead people. She believed her. “You believe me?” She asked without even thinking. No doctor or therapist she’d ever seen in her life had believed her but this mind boggling 20 year old just accepted it as truth. To say she was suspicious but relieved was an understatement.

“I don’t know,” Erin answered earnestly. Magic. That felt… wrong. This wasn’t some sideshow trick or Criss Angel special. This was real life. Real people were affected by this. “It’s just something I’ve always been able to do. I can’t explain it. I wish I could, though, trust me.” Van’s next question was unexpected but she answered it anyway. She was already this far in. Couldn’t go back now. “I can see lots of people. Not everyone turns into a–you know. Ghost. But the ones that do, I can see and talk to.” Her brow raised slowly as she glanced at the younger woman again, unsure. “Why?” Was there someone Van wanted to talk to? The idea of disappointing her, of having to tell her that her parents had never come to Erin, sat heavy in her gut.

–

“I think so,” Van admitted. There was a sincerity in her expression– the kind she wished she’d been met with when her grandmother had pointed her down, asking what she was going through. Had her grandmother known what was happening the entire time? Had she known about Erin being able to see dead people? Van wanted to ask, but she kept the question held back, deciding that later would be a better time. Erin seeing dead people wasn’t as weird as watching her best friend turn into a bear and she knew it, and even if this was something new and scary she had learned about somebody she knew for more than half of her life, it was something she needed to accept, because it wasn’t like she was normal either. At least, not in the grand scheme of things.

Erin went on to explain that she didn’t think it was magic and Van couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Maybe she had hoped that like Milo, there’d be a world opening up at her feet– that she’d learn from somebody she knew and trusted, but it seemed like Erin was doubtful. That made Van wonder if she should even divulge her own abilities. “Not… everyone…” She nodded, grateful that it seemed like maybe Debbie hadn’t come to actually haunt them. Wouldn’t she feel it? Wouldn’t cabinet doors get closed on her fingers or something, like in the movies? “Okay, so you only see… some dead people.” Maybe Erin would think she was asking about her parents. That wasn’t that great either, but maybe it would make for a sob story rather than making Erin the person to solve a crime. Though, was it a crime? Nobody had come looking for Debbie, which, she had to admit– that was a little strange on its own.

“So you’re like that Bruce Willis guy, right?”

–

Van thinking she believed her was better than outright rejection, Erin supposed. She felt like she was still unsure, though, which was… understandable, at the very least. It’d taken Erin this long to believe it herself. She wasn’t sure what was going on in Van’s head, if she was being truthful. She seemed to be trying to absorb the information the best that she could but the uncertainty wasn’t helping Erin feel much better about it either. Maybe she needed to give her more? Opening up to people was hard. It was impossible when it came to this. But for Van, she could try. “I am sorry. That I never told you. I, uh–I winded up spending the better half of my childhood in psychiatrist offices so I’ve made it a point not to tell anyone. Ever. ” Her eyes fell back onto Helen's still figure beside them, who she really wished would leave right about now. Especially after the pitiful look she gave her following that confession. She glared, again, and wrung the dry towel in her hands.

She nodded. “I guess not everyone sticks around after they die. I definitely don’t know how that part works. Only that it depends on the person.” Bruce Willis? The question threw her for just a second before her whole body sagged and she rolled her eyes. “Bruce Willis was the ghost in that movie. I’m like… the kid. The little snotty one that’s always crying.”

Her brows narrowed and she looked up at Van again when a thought struck her suddenly. “You were mad when you came running up here. Why were you mad? Confused, I’d understand. Scared, even. But… mad?”

–

It wasn’t lost on Van that Erin seemed surprised to be believed. If she could reveal half of the things she’d seen in the past few months— or really, the past several years, then she was almost sure Erin wouldn’t believe her. How did she explain that her best friend was a bear, or that the woman whose apartment she was living in had wings? She had promised on both accounts, regardless of it being internally, that she’d never tell anyone about what she’d seen. Erin didn’t seem like an exception here, no matter how much Van trusted her. They weren’t her secrets to tell, and how would she tell if somebody had told Erin about her magic before she had? Though, she still wondered if her grandma had hinted at knowing something, or if her grandma knew anything at all.

Erin apologized and Van felt guilty. She knew what it was like to want to keep things to herself, especially the kinds of things that could make people look at you differently… but then again, people had been looking at her differently her whole life. What would be one more person?

“I get why you didn’t tell me.” Logistically, it made sense. Emotionally, Van felt a little betrayed.

Only that it depends on the person.

Maybe they’d given Debbie some kind of relief from her life. Maybe her anger had been what caused her to try and kill all of them. Van liked the thought of that, even if she didn’t think it was true.

“I’ve never seen the movie, I just know it’s a meme.” That was how she knew most media, to be fair. If she felt the urge to figure out the depths of said meme, she would, but she didn’t figure a movie about dead people was really in her wheelhouse, no matter the amount of dead people she had haunting her— visible or not.

At Erin’s question, Van felt her stomach sink. She wrung her hands together, looking anywhere but at Erin. “I— I thought you’d been lying to me about something, like you knew something and you weren’t telling me, and then I thought…” She took a deep breath and shook her head, “I just got mad because I thought that…” She couldn’t finish her sentence, the words were stuck in her throat. “I can shoot … well, not lasers, I dunhavelasersbuticanmeltthingsiwthmymind….” The words came out in a jumble, and she wasn’t even sure if Erin would be able to figure out what she said. The truth split between them– Erin’s truth already hanging in the balance. How would she react to magic? Van wasn’t sure if the older woman would even believe her, but she hoped she would. It’d do some good at confirming if her grandmother knew anything at all, either.

–

The air felt stilted and rigid on Erin’s skin, despite the relief of finally unloading this truth onto someone who wasn’t dead, or spoke to the dead, or her mother. Navigating her relationship with Van had never been smooth. The kid had been dealt some rough cards and there were tragedies behind her eyes Erin knew she’d never be able to understand. And for whatever reason, she’d seemed to like Erin. She’d grown fond of the quirky, sad girl who followed her around graveyards sometimes and would talk about the most nonsensical things Erin had ever heard. She deserved better than her only family left abandoning her and she questioned now, even if it was her secret to keep, that keeping it from Van felt like another betrayal.

Her eyes worried over Van as she seemed just as nervous as Erin had been just a few minutes ago. A muddle of words spewed out almost too fast for her to understand. Lasers–melt–mind was about all she caught. “You have lasers–I mean, not lasers–but you can… melt… stuff?”

Erin heard how ridiculous it sounded as she repeated what she could but she tried to give Van the benefit of the doubt, even if this felt like another one of Van’s off the wall comments. And for a moment, the confusion tipped towards anger until something suddenly clicked. She paused for a long moment before blurting out a question Van had never actually answered. “The table.”

–

“The table,” Van whispered, gathering her hands against herself, pads of her fingers pushing into her stomach as if to dispel the anxiety she was feeling. She looked up at Erin, eyebrows furrowed. She tried to remember if Erin’s expression matched her grandmother’s on the day she’d left. If her grandmother had looked at her this way– though, at the time, Van didn’t know if the older woman had suspected a thing… Now, looking back at it, Van had to believe that the knowledge of what she was capable of had been there all along, and it had been fear that drove her grandma out of Wicked’s Rest.

But Erin wasn’t running, and she was standing in front of her still. “It’s– um, it’s magic.” She almost choked on the word, could feel it lacerating her throat. It still felt foreign to say, felt wrong in a way, because how could somebody as simple as her be given something like magic.

Van chewed on the inside of her cheek as she looked up at Erin expectantly, waiting for the other true to drop.

–

“...Magic.” Erin repeated the word, slowly, like it was a foreign concept. Which, in all fairness, it was.

“Magic. Ha! Don’t tell me you actually believe that, dearie.” Helen chortled, looking at the two of them like they were crazy. Helen, the ghost.

“Oh for pete’s sake, Helen, I told youErin glared at her before reaching into her pocket. She didn’t like doing this and only did it when it was really necessary–and Erin considered this to be one of those times. This moment was fragile as it was without a nosy ghost commenting on the side. Van deserved her full attention.

“Oh, not again, I’m sorry! I’ll–” Helen instantly knew what was happening as soon as the salt packet came out. The ghost dispersed into silence as the salt flew threw her, leaving the air around them finally still. She’d be back–she always came back–and Lil had told her it didn’t hurt them, which helped with the guilt she always had when it came to this.

Erin turned back to Van, relieved and fully attentive once more. “Magic. Alright.” She nodded vigorously, like she was trying to rationalize it in her head, but inching steadfast towards acceptance, even if it felt a little overwhelming. “Yeah. Okay. You can do magic. I can see ghosts. That’s… that’s a thing.” A small smile crept up her cheeks despite herself. She didn’t know what else to do. “ You’re weird too. I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

–

Van waited for the other shoe to drop– for Erin to turn in disbelief, to laugh in her face. To do something other than approach her with any kind of kindness. This felt wrong, to tell Erin– to tell somebody within close proximity of her grandmother, but Van wanted to believe that the older woman wouldn’t run off and tell her grandma of what had been happening here. She hoped not, anyway.

Erin was speaking again, only it didn’t seem like it was to her. Van watched as she dug into her pocket, surprised to see salt. It littered the ground, and confusion wrote itself across her features as she looked back up to meet Erin’s gaze. What was that about? Was it about the ghost stuff? Probably. Yeah. Erin wouldn’t throw salt at her.

Van could tell that Erin was trying to rationalize what was being said to her– she saw this expression on most of the people she spoke to, whether it was actually about magic or not. She bit the inside of her cheek as she watched Erin’s expression change.

You’re weird too. I knew there was a reason I liked you.

She felt frozen, suspended in the air by the mere idea she might be punished for coming clean. Part of her had expected disbelief to take form on Erin’s features, but instead, she was met with something kinder. “I– um…” Van fiddled with a loose string on her sleeve, embarrassment cascading over the bridge of her nose in a blush. “Yeah, I’m like– we’re um, super weird. Definitely.” It felt odd to not be laughed at or yelled at by an adult, or to be looked at with an expression that begged what the fuck are you talking about.

This was new, and it was different, and for the first time in awhile, Van felt hope.

“Um… but… yeah, you uh, see ghosts– oh– do you… see my parents?” Maybe not the right thing to ask. Van rose her hands in defense, “you don’t need to like, answer that!”

–

Erin knew her face would answer Van’s question before she could disappoint her with her answer. Her smile slipped away and she shook her head. “No. I haven’t seen them,” she answered quietly, wishing she could give her something. Their funeral had been uneventful, she remembered, as far as most funerals went. Closed casket. The physical damage they’d endured from the fire had been too much for Erin to fix and she didn’t dare ask her father, not that he could have done much either–her parents had lost good friends that day too. So Erin stepped in and took the lead on that one. She couldn’t remember any ghosts, or hallucinations as she knew them then, but she did remember Van. Only fifteen, lost and grieving more than anyone should at that age.

“...But that’s a good thing,” she added, a tinge of hopefulness in her voice. If they had come back, Erin would have seen them. She was sure of it.“I-I know it might not seem like it but it is good because it means they probably moved on. That’s what’s supposed to happen. Being a ghost is just…–it’s just pain. It’s a painful, lonely existence. It’s good that they weren’t stuck here, lost, trying to settle unfinished business or watch their lives move on without them.” Like her father. Like Helen. Guilt clawed at her insides. She’d also save Van the details of how her parents would have had to co-exist, together but alone, staring at the charred remains of their partner until they moved on too. “You don’t want them to be ghosts. Even if you might think you do.”

Maybe it was because she’d done some growing up that Van felt glad Erin couldn’t see her parents. The little girl who had lost them at fifteen might have begged for Erin to reconsider– might have even pulled her to where they were buried to see if they might have been hanging around. But the twenty year old Van simply nodded, taking Erin’s answer for what it actually was.

“No, I–” Van took a deep breath and attempted a smile, though it fell a little short. “I think it’s um, a good thing, yeah.” The idea that being dead could be painful, even after the fact– how miserable of an existence was that? Van was afraid of death for good reason, and talking to Erin now about how remaining a ghostly apparition of oneself would only prolong that hurt did nothing to quell that fear. But that wasn’t the point here. The point was that her parents weren’t experiencing it. Would they look the same to her if they had? Would they exist as they had done so beneath the flames? Van tried her best to push them from her mind as Erin continued and she gave a firmer nod this time, “no, you’re right… I don’t want them to be here. I was just curious, and I wasn’t sure how your um, ghost senses worked, you know?” There were so many different ways that people interpreted those who could see ghosts across the board, but nothing was ever as it seemed, it appeared. “Thanks for being honest, Erin, about um, all of this.”

Van seemed… okay. More okay than what Erin’s fears were conjuring up after answering her question and miles better than the angry, betrayed storm that had trampled through her yard earlier. It made sense now. “Hey, no–thank you. For believing me. And for trusting me too.” The picture of the melted table flashed in Erin’s mind again, this time with Van at the helm. Van had magic. Magic existed. She supposed even if she couldn’t comprehend what that meant right now, it shouldn’t have felt as surreal as it did. It connected more things in her mind than it broke. It made sense. And that’s what terrified her. There was absolutely no pretending she had any idea what she was doing anymore.

“Are you hungry?” She asked suddenly, pulling herself out of the spiral she felt herself slipping down. This had been a lot for the both of them and she was sure Van needed a break as much as she did. “I’ve got some of those dinosaur nuggets you like.” She nodded approvingly of her own idea, ready to focus on something small and silly. “I think I’ll have some too.”

#wickedswriting #para #para: van #van #parental death tw

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gffa · 7 months

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I have never sent anyone to your blog, directly or indirectly, I have more than once explicitly said on my blog that I do not want people engaging with those who shit talk me behind my back, that anyone who does so is not on my side. In the two and a half years after I blocked you for hurling insults at me (because I liked a character you didn't), I have maintained strict radio silence about you. Even when you said I was like someone who would beat and starve their child and lock them in a cupboard, based on my Star Wars meta posts. Even then I still didn't call you out. But this was my father's death, this was a loss you knew was deeply personal to me and you wanted to use it against me. However, you're right that this has nothing to do with you, not my post earlier tonight (beyond that you're part of a bigger problem in Star Wars fandom, but it was about someone unrelated to you directly) or my father's death and his burial yesterday. What does have to do with you is your choice to not just ignore it once you learned about it, but instead to actively choose cruelty in making fun of me. To hear that I'm currently grieving and joke, "Besides, Jedi aren't supposed to mourn are they? Bad Jedi she is for doing that." Even if I had said I thought Yoda's words were literal (which I have not), instead of just leaving it at the rest of the post (which is whatever, I would have ignored it like I've ignored anything else I've seen you say about me, no matter how blatantly wrong you are about me), you chose to look at a situation where you knew I was freshly mourning and tried to use that to dunk on me. You tried to use my grief over my father's death and burial to take potshots at me. All because you don't like my opinions about Star Wars, a fictional series. That's literally it, that's what you hold so strongly against me, that I like the Jedi and I sometimes make fun of Anakin Skywalker, so you think it's fine to say that I'm a "bad Jedi" for having feelings when I just buried my father yesterday. You think it's fine to make fun of my mourning something that has nothing to do with Star Wars and make it about Star Wars. You think it's fine to hurl that at a real person over a fictional group of characters. You really said, when someone told you, "hey, she just lost her dad" and thought, "Yes! This is the time to make a Star Wars joke about it!" I think, underneath the anger I have about this, I'm genuinely upset that someone would hear that a person is grieving and think that it's time to make fun of them about Star Wars of all things. So just walk away from saying anything about me as a person already, that's all I want from you. I will continue to leave you alone, too. Two and a half YEARS of this shit is enough already. This is cruel and unacceptable to do to a real, living person who is not a fictional character. It's unacceptable to hold jokes about Star Wars, a fictional story, on the same level as someone's real life grief over losing their father. (And, for the upteenth time, if you know who this is, do NOT send her any messages on my behalf, do NOT engage with her about any of this, just leave her alone.)

#lumi.txt #parental death tw #death cw

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eponymous-rose · 6 months

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Grief tw - nothing new, I'm okay!

Vivid dream last night where I was just chatting with Mom, and I was thinking, "Wow, almost time for another yearly cancer check. I know there's a high chance of recurrence, but I'm glad we've made a point of enjoying the time we have." She was wearing a robe, and as we chatted, I could see the scars from the surgery she never stabilized enough to get. It was just a nice chat, is all, and I woke myself up absolutely sobbing with a worried cat cuddled up to me.

About 3 years and 9 months since her diagnosis, 3 years and 4 months since her death, and I'm doing better than just all right, but it hits every bit as hard every single time I remember she's gone. I miss her so badly.

#grief tw #parental death tw

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scorched-sunrise · 11 days

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TIMING: Current LOCATION: The Jones Household PARTIES: Ophelia (@scorched-sunrise) & Emilio (@mortemoppetere) SUMMARY: By chance, Emilio sees the letter left to Ophelia by the fae that abducted her father. This results in some very heartbreaking news for the young nymph. CONTENT WARNINGS: Parental death (mentions), child death (past, mentions)

—

Reluctant as she was to involve her surrogate uncle in the search for her father in any meaningful capacity, Ophelia recognized at length that she was making no actual progress and that her hope was wearing thin. She had nothing new or helpful to offer to him, and wondered what the purpose of this visit would even be, other than to say “I’m scared and upset”, because what else could he do to help outside of searching the mountains himself? It would amount to nothing, she knew, so she didn’t present the visit to the home he was staying in (his home, then?) on the Isle as a matter concerning her father, though it sat heavy in the back of her mind.

She’d been there an hour before her fingers dug into her pocket to retrieve the familiar piece of paper. It was the one that had been left on her mother’s bedside table, the one that detailed the fae plot to kidnap her father and the hardly regretful admission that they’d slain Mariela for attempting to stop them. She rubbed the corner between her thumb and forefinger, her eyes raking over the message for the millionth time. It always managed to light a fire in her belly, to reignite the embers that turned cold after days of no news and no discoveries.

The writing was a messy scrawl, distinct in its way. She wondered often who had been the one to write it—Barley, perhaps? He’d always eyed Rhett suspiciously, and had not even been overly fond of Mariela and her daughter when Solomon brought them to the aos sí. Outsiders, he’d called them for a while, before finally relenting after seven months. She wouldn’t put it past old Barley to do such a monstrous thing, not now. Not having seen the true brutality that her kind were capable of. She imagined his hand scribbling out the note she gripped tight, imagined the smile on his face as he did so… perhaps even the blood on his hands, creating the curious stains that dotted the paper here and there.

Emilio came back into the room after having stepped out a moment, and Ophelia looked up at him. Her gaze was hard and soft at the same time, bitter but glad to see him, glad to be near him, even though it hurt. She sighed, setting the paper on the coffee table in front of her and pulling her socked feet up onto the couch, hugging a pillow to her chest. Again she stared at the thing, shaking her head. “I’m never going to find him, am I?”

—

Family was a difficult thing to navigate. Emilio used to think himself good at it, arrogant enough to consider himself a professional. Every scar carved into his skin by someone he loved was a lesson, clusters of them forming classes worth of lectures and things learned. How many years did people go to school to achieve elaborate titles? Didn’t Emilio, with his thirty-two years worth of lessons in family, have them all beat? He used to think so, used to believe he was an expert. He’d been wrong.

It hadn’t been Lucio’s revelation that revealed this. It hadn’t even been his betrayal years before. No, the thing that made Emilio understand just how little he knew about family had been holding his daughter in his arms for the first time. She was such a tiny, fragile thing, and he’d felt so helpless. Nothing in his life had prepared him for it. Even helping his sister raise her son felt like poor practice compared to what was expected of him with Flora. There was no way to adequately ready yourself for parenthood, he thought. No amount of lessons in the world could make you ready for that.

He felt a similar cluelessness with Ophelia. It had grown since her mother’s death, since she showed up in town to tell him that Rhett was gone. She had so much hope, and Emilio had no idea how to approach it. He didn’t know if it was kinder to let her hold on to that desperate belief that they’d find Rhett alive or to rip the bandage off and tell her that he was certain they wouldn’t. He wasn’t sure either was the better answer. There seemed to be no approach that would spare her, no way to keep her from aching. And he hated that.

There was a heavy feeling hanging over the living room today. He got up to get a drink, but it was more of an excuse to escape that suffocation than it was anything else. He lingered in the kitchen, and he wished Teddy was there. They’d know what to do better than he did, he thought; they were better at being a person, even if they’d spent most of their life as something else. He gripped the counter for just a moment before nodding to himself, sucking his teeth to return to the living room. He would have been more comfortable walking into a battlefield; at least in a fight, things were simple.

Ophelia looked up as he reentered the room, setting something down on the coffee table. He moved to sit beside her, stiff and uncertain but trying all the same. She asked the question he didn’t want to answer, and he tried to find the best way to reply. He didn’t want to lie to her, but he didn’t want to hurt her, either. It was an impossible thing.

“What happened on that mountain…” He trailed off. “Rhett knew his odds going up there weren’t great. He must have known that.” He chose to go anyway. And Emilio couldn’t help but think that he wouldn’t have made that decision if not for the fight they’d had just before it, couldn’t help but wonder, as he always did, how much of this was his fault. He cleared his throat, trying to distract himself by letting his gaze wander to the paper she’d been clutching before he came in. He nodded to it. “What’s that?”

—

She closed her eyes and buried her face in the pillow for a moment, unwilling to let Emilio see the way pain flashed across her face. “I just don’t get it,” she said finally, lifting her chin again to instead prop it on her knee. “Why come to us if he knew it was so dangerous? Why not stay here?” She knew of the fight, of course. And that was probably it, wasn’t it? He’d felt abandoned, even though Emilio had begged him to stay, and he saw no other course. Such a fool. Ophelia heaved another sigh, knowing that Emilio would not and could not answer the question, knowing that they both had the same idea in their minds, though one inspired guilt where the other inspired anger. So instead she turned her attention to the letter that he was pointing out now, biting down on her lower lip for a moment before answering.

“The letter they left behind after—the one they left for someone to find. For me to find.” She glanced away again, feeling suddenly embarrassed for having carried it around all this time. “I should probably toss it out. There’s no reason to keep it, it just makes me angry and scared all over again. But I…” She didn’t know. “... maybe that’s why I keep it. To keep me motivated to find him.” Her gaze raked across the room as she turned her head to look at him, her eyes gleaming with the heartache of it all. “You… can read it, if you want. I don’t imagine it’ll help any, it’s just an account of what happened and why. Bullshit it may be.”

—

Guilt sliced through him like a knife, and the silence that followed on its heels was heavy and poignant. He could try to explain it to Ophelia, try to make sense of the tangled web of shit that had led to Rhett storming out of that apartment and marching off towards his doom without so much as a glance back in his brother’s direction, but what good would it do? There were things that couldn’t be held in words, explanations that would never quite fit the way they were meant to. To properly explain why Rhett left, Emilio would have to go back to the very beginning — to an angry teenager who didn’t know how to grieve properly and the angry man who slid into his family by feeling just the same. No words could fully encapsulate what it felt like for the both of them to love Flora, or what it felt like to lose her. Anything he said would come up woefully short.

So, he focused on the piece of paper instead. It had always felt like an odd piece of the puzzle, from the moment she’d told him about it. He’d chalked it up to not fully understanding fae customs, though there was still something undeniably strange about leaving a written confession when the perpetrators could have just as easily let Ophelia assume that her father was the culprit and avoid any retribution. He’d never pushed on it; it had seemed cruel to ask. But now, with it sitting in front of him, curiosity tugged at his chest. “Might give us some kind of clue,” he offered, leaning forward to pick it up but hesitating, looking to her for one last nod of permission.

—

For her own part, Ophelia had never considered it odd that the fae had left behind an explanation. Maybe they feared retribution upon their return, she thought—which was wise of them, because that had been her intention all along, but… they hadn’t returned. Or maybe it was more a matter of gloating. Barley, the assumed author of the note now sitting perilously between them, was one that would surely love to do this. I told you so, she could hear him saying. I told you that stray and her pup were nothing but trouble! Sun above, she should like to carve him open from sternum to pelvis, she thought, and then recoiled. That was a violent desire, even for her. Up to now, they’d all been nameless, descriptionless things. She didn’t spend the day imagining how she’d kill Barley and his company, only that she would, sun help them, if she ever found them.

“Might,” she muttered, watching his hand reach for it. At the pause, she met his gaze again and nodded, hugging the pillow closer to her.

She knew there was nothing helpful to be gleaned from that message, and yet her heart sped up as Emilio picked it up from the table, watching him intently as he read it, searching his expression for any kind of sign that he’d discovered some truth she’d overlooked. He was a detective, after all. She hugged the pillow even tighter still, realizing she was holding her breath when the look on his face changed. But it wasn’t to something that she’d hoped to see: the revelation, whatever it was, did not brighten him. No, instead it seemed to drag him down, and the young nymph felt fear rising from her gut. “What?” she barked impatiently. “What is it?”

—

He would have liked to have claimed he knew the moment he picked up the paper, like some invisible jolt went through him and revealed the truth all at once. He would have liked to have claimed he knew before then, even, and maybe a part of him had. After all, his mind had jumped to certain conclusions the moment Ophelia told him her mother was dead, even if he’d chased those conclusions away the best he knew how. He’d come to accept the version of events she placed before him regardless of the inconsistencies or puzzling questions, because it was easier. It was easier to live in a world where things were simple, where you could tell yourself that the heroes were the people you loved and the villains were the people you hated and there was no complexity beyond that.

But the world was not a simple place.

Emilio didn’t know the moment his hand touched the paper, but he knew the moment his eyes found the words. What was written didn’t matter. The letters on the page might as well have been hieroglyphics for all the difference they made. It was the handwriting that sent his heart plummeting down to his stomach, made his mouth go dry.

Rhett would never let Emilio claim that they’d lived together in Mexico. He’d had his van, and if he’d parked it outside Emilio and Juliana’s house so he could use their shower or eat whatever Juliana made in the kitchen that night, it wasn’t the same as living there. Emilio would roll his eyes, even if he’d known better to argue. And when Juliana noticed Rhett at her table more and more, she’d done things like demand he write down his favorite meals so she could make them from time to time. (Only when he deserved them, she’d say, pointing at him with a sly grin.) Those notes were always scattered around the house, Emilio laughing every time he found one. How the fuck is she even going to read this, man? This looks like you’ve never seen a pen before.

There had been others, too. Secret notes to Flora, left in the hollow space behind a brick on the porch. Emilio used to read them to her, pointed at the lettering on the page in hopes that she’d learn to read better than her father had, in hopes that she’d be more than barely literate the way most Cortezes were. Letters when he was away for long periods of time, little reassurances to his family that he wasn’t dead yet. Responses to the crude jokes Emilio scrawled by hand into the dust coating the outside of the van.

Suffice to say, Emilio knew his brother’s handwriting, knew it as surely as he knew his own.

He knew when he recognized it staring up at him from a page.

Ophelia was talking, was asking him what he saw, and he clearly wasn’t as good at schooling his features as he used to be. His hands trembled a little and he thought, with a bitter jolt, that Rhett would have made fun of him for that once. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to respond to his niece. The room felt tight around him. Her world had ended, and she didn’t know it. How did you inform someone of such an apocalypse?

“Who… Who did you say wrote this?” Maybe he was wrong. He clung to the idea, though he knew it wasn’t true. There was no mistaking this.

—

She wished she could decipher what it was in his expression that had him asking that question. Her gaze jumped from his face to the note and back again, trying and failing to make sense of his reaction. He was on the precipice of something, but she knew not what. He shook as whatever it was that he now understood settled in his mind, almost imperceptibly, but not for someone who was looking as frantically as Ophelia was. She searched, and he gave nothing. Nothing but dread, which she couldn’t understand. What was more dreadful in the note than what she already knew? The death of her mother and disappearance of her father, who she was feeling less and less certain would turn up alive with each day that passed? What could be worse than that? What?

“Barley,” the nymph answered slowly, terror constricting her throat. She was afraid to know what he knew. She didn’t want to share in whatever it was that had him questioning what he was seeing, but she also needed to. She couldn’t go another moment without knowing, and yet it seemed to be the worst thing she could ever hope for. “I… think. He never liked Rhett. Never liked us, either. Not really. He was a bastard, and he went missing that night.” She swallowed thickly, realizing that she was trembling just like her uncle. “Why? Why does it matter who wrote it? What does it mean?”

—

He wasn’t sure what he was hoping for in her response. Some piece of the puzzle that would make the picture it created into something less harrowing, some explanation that would make sense in a way that didn’t leave him gasping. But her answer wasn’t some magical key that unlocked a kinder truth. It was a guess at something she didn’t know, something she couldn’t know. How could she? Ophelia had never received letters from her father the way Emilio had in his absence in years past, had gotten no secret notes like the ones left for Flora or dinner requests like Juliana demanded. Ophelia knew her father, but only on the surface. She knew the parts of himself he chose to present to her, and it seemed that those parts weren’t as true as he’d let himself hope they might be.

It was funny, in a way; part of him could understand what she would feel when he answered her question. The part of him that still lived on those bloody streets in Mexico with his uncle murmuring useless apologies in front of him, the part of him whose hand still held the hilt of a blade that disappeared into the gut of the only father he’d ever known, that part of him knew exactly what it was to find a betrayal like this waiting for you at the end of an already harrowing experience. It wasn’t something he would have ever wished upon his niece; it wasn’t something he would have wished on anyone.

He struggled with how he could answer her question, tried to find words that would make sense. Would it be easier for her in Spanish, where his tongue better understood the syllables bouncing off of it? He sometimes thought that bad news should be delivered in a language you had a poorer grasp on. It made him sick, sometimes, the way the people who’d killed his daughter had done so screaming the same language he’d once used to read her the silly notes her uncle left in their secret hiding spot.

Would she even believe him if he said it? Ophelia trusted him, but Rhett was still her father. He was the only biological family she had left in the world, and now Emilio had to tell her that he was also the reason why. Deciding, as he usually did, that action was a thing he understood better than words, he set the note aside and reached into his pocket. He retrieved his wallet, fingers still trembling as he opened one of the folds.

He hadn’t always carried sentimental items like this. It was something he’d started after Flora’s birth, though he’d always been sure to keep it a hidden habit. His mother would have found some way to punish him for it, for daring to make some attempt to be something he wasn’t, something he couldn’t be. Even now, years after her death, it would have been difficult for someone who didn’t know what to look for to find the small cut in the worn leather of the wallet, to know to open it and slip their fingers inside. There was more there than there used to be, more than just the photo of Flora that sometimes felt like the only proof she’d ever existed at all. Things like notes from Wynne, Teddy, and Nora had joined it over the last year. There were a few other scaps — momentos from Xó and Jade and even one from Zane that he’d deny if pressed.

But the scrap of paper he pulled out now was older than those. Worn and faded, creased in a way that spoke of how many times it had been folded and unfolded. He unfolded it now, setting it down beside the one Ophelia had brought with her. It was one of those secret notes to Flora, her name scrawled out carefully at the top of the page. But, like the note Emilio had just finished reading, the content of it didn’t matter. It was the handwriting that was important. It was the way it sloped and sprawled in letters identical to the ones detailing the ‘truth’ of Ophelia’s mother’s death.

Emilio let the two pages lay side by side, damning Rhett and Ophelia and himself, too. He didn’t know what to say, how to add to it. No language seemed correct for something like this.

—

Confusion laced itself into her anxious expression as she watched Emilio take out his wallet. Her gaze jumped to see what he was digging for, but staring didn’t make it make any more sense. Eventually he pulled it free, and her dark eyes followed his hand movements as he unfolded it carefully, then leaned forward to set it beside the letter. He said nothing, and she squinted at the second piece of paper for a second before looking back at him.

“What…” Ophelia began, turning to the letter once more. She unfolded her legs, setting aside the pillow and leaning forward to get a better look. She jumped between the two of them, startled to find that the writing was the same.

No.

She read the second letter, the note left to Flora, Emilio’s dead daughter. Something Barley couldn’t have written, obviously. That made sense to her brain, but the rest didn’t. Then who? Who wrote the letter she herself had discovered in her mother’s bedroom? The answer was clear, of course. It was staring her in the face and she was squinting her eyes tightly shut, turning away, refusing to see it. But now it grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her to attention and forcing her to make the connection.

“No,” she breathed, drawing herself up from the couch, snatching both pieces of paper in her hands and comparing them a final time. Tears sprang to her eyes. “No! He can’t—he wouldn’t—” He would. She knew he would. He was a warden who did not let grudges go, and he’d been crossed by her mother. Apparently, in all that time he’d been chasing her, he’d become an excellent actor too. Good enough to fool both of them into thinking he had changed. And Mariela, sun above, she’d been right to be wary. For all Ophelia’s desperate insistence that he’d changed, that he was different from the man that had run her off decades ago… she’d been wrong. She’d been deadly wrong, and it had cost her both of her parents.

Barley would not be returning to the aos sí. None of the missing fae would. Her father, be he dead or alive, had seen to that. All this time she’d been harboring a hatred for the victims, and defending the man she’d called her father when he was the one who—the one who—

Ophelia wailed, dropping the papers to the floor and letting her hands fly to her face. All that anger was gone, replaced in a flash by a bottomless sorrow. She fidgeted on the spot, panicking and needing to flee. She didn’t want to desert Emilio like this, but how could she stay? How could she not be reminded of everything she’d lost and the lies she’d been fed any time she looked at him?

She looked at him. It hurt just as much as she expected. “I have to go,” she squeaked out, hurrying to gather her things. “I-I can’t stay here. I have to go.” She didn’t know where, she just knew away from this town. Away from this state. To some place her father had not touched, where his far reaching influence could haunt her no longer. “I’m sorry.” She was speaking quickly, throwing on her jacket and shouldering her bag. “I won’t bother you anymore. I’m sorry.”

—

He’d heard that when people witnessed tragedies, they later described it as feeling as though the events happened in slow motion. For the most part, that hadn’t been Emilio’s experience. The massacre in Mexico had happened in flashes, in blinks of an eye. His sister was screaming, and then he blinked and she was dead. His brother was running, and then he blinked and he was laying motionless on the ground. Lucio was apologizing, and then he blinked and there was a knife gripped in his hand and more blood under his nails. Tragedies that happened after that were always sprinkled with moments of bitter time travel. In the basement of the barn where Zane’s clan nearly killed Wynne and their roommates, Emilio had traveled from 2023 to 2021 with a brutal effortlessness. In the factory where Rhett lost his leg, Mexico and Wicked’s Rest existed in the same space. To Emilio, tragedy was a quick and savage thing. There was never even any time to flinch.

This one seemed slower. For the first time, he understood what people were talking about when they described car crashes as a thing that happened at half speed while you tried to look away. Her eyes darted between the two pages as metal grinded against metal, her eyes widened as airbags deployed. The realization that slammed into her seemed a physical force, a thing she couldn’t get away from. Emilio longed to pull her from the wreckage, to turn back the clock, but there was no use, was there? A factory, a barn basement, a living room. He was useless against every tragedy that struck, no matter how hard he tried not to be. He’d never been particularly good at rescues.

The thing he hated most, he thought, was that he should have known. He should have realized it from the very beginning, should have understood it right away. This story was one that had been written long before he’d even met Rhett. It was always going to end the same way. No hunter Emilio had ever known could let something like that go, no matter the circumstances. A tragedy was a tragedy was a tragedy, even when you dressed it up in something else’s clothes. A hunter was a hunter, even when he let you hold his hand.

“I — I’m sorry.” For what, he wondered? For telling her this, for not knowing how to make it easier? For loving the man who’d killed her mother, even now that the proof was on the table? For loving her, too, even when that only ever ended one way? She fell and she wailed and he didn’t know how to comfort her, didn’t know how to make things better. There was no recovery from a thing like this. There was no moving on. There was falling and there was wailing and that was it. That was all.

She looked at him, and he flinched as if her gaze was a fist swinging towards him. He thought he would have preferred a fist, would have been more comfortable with a physical blow over to look on her face. What was he to her now, he wondered? An uncle, still, even if the person who’d created that connection between them had likely relinquished his right to be called her father? Or a stranger who’d delivered to her the worst news of her life, the way he was to so many of his clients?

“You — You don’t have to…” He trailed off, unsure of what to say. How could he tell her she could stay when he knew how badly she wanted to leave? He wouldn’t have stayed in Mexico for anything, even if it had been safe for him there. No one could thrive in a ghost town, and wasn’t that all this could ever be to her now? “It’s not — You don’t bother me. I want…” He couldn’t say it, couldn’t figure out how the sentence ought to end. He wanted something, maybe, but he didn’t know what. He didn’t know how to ask for it. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “Opie, I’m sorry.”

—

Pinning her wrist over one of her eyes, Ophelia overflowed with agony that she tried in vain to shove back down into the pit. She suddenly hated everyone that had ever told her how much she reminded them of her father—they were mostly other hunters, anyway. Others who saw her as a curiosity more than a person, she realized now. Others who… who probably knew, somewhere deep down, what was to come.

Others like Emilio.

He was speaking to her, apologizing and telling her she didn’t have to leave, and she couldn’t decide if she felt angry or heartbroken. Both, probably. Deciding to lean into the latter, knowing that the former would only burn another bridge that didn’t deserve burning, she stopped in her frantic hurry to leave and walked over to him. “I know,” she said, misty-eyed as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “It’s—” It wasn’t okay, but… “It’s not your fault. It isn’t.” Her lower lip trembled and she sniffed, closing the distance to pull him into a tight hug. “You’re a good person. I know that. You are, no matter what you think.” Not like his brother. Not capable of such monstrous things. A good heart. A steady hand. A troubled but functional mind. He was fair, and kind when he chose to be, when it was the people that deserved it. Rhett’s kindness had been a mask. He was a faker, a fraud, a liar. Emilio might have guessed what had happened, might have worried about it after having met her, but he couldn’t have known. Rhett had fooled all of them into thinking he wanted to change, that he just wanted to have family again.

“I just… need space. From this town, from… anywhere he’s been. I’m sorry.” She moved back again, wanting to be able to smile for him and tell him she was okay, that everything was going to be all right, but she couldn’t. That would be a lie. She wasn’t a liar. She had no idea how she was going to make it through this, but she knew she couldn’t do it here. “Te amo. I wish… I was stronger.” But she wasn’t, and she needed to run. The girl stepped back, letting her arms fall from his shoulders. “I’ll… write you, okay? Once I find somewhere else to… be.” Running the back of her hand across her eyes, she kept her gaze turned down toward the floor. She had this address at least, so she could send a letter here, should she ever gather the courage to write one.

“Take care of yourself, tío.” There was nothing more to say and she couldn’t bear to stand there and give him more time to protest, so she just turned and headed for the front door, feeling her shoulders start to heave again the closer she got to it. Would the hurting ever stop?

—

She moved towards him, and Emilio stiffened the way he always did, froze like the only way anyone had ever touched him had been with the intention of making something hurt. But that hadn’t been true in a while now, and never with Ophelia. She wrapped her arms around him and it wasn’t a blow, but he ached, anyway. He thought of the world they lived in, of the shitty place where they all existed with no place else to go. He thought of his mother, who would have killed him no matter how much he told himself she’d cared. He thought of Ophelia’s father, who’d done something unforgivable and lied about it. He thought of his daughter, who would never be anything more than a ghost. How were any of them expected to live like this? Was this all there was? He wondered if everyone ached the way he did, or if he was just doing something wrong.

His throat felt tight as she spoke, like someone’s hand was closed around it and tightening more and more with each word. He didn’t believe her words, though he thought he might want to. He thought he might want to think that he was a decent man, even if he knew he wasn’t one. He thought he might wish the things she said sounded true, even if they felt as fantastical as a storybook. Rhett had lied to Ophelia, had done everything he could do to make her think he was something he wasn’t. And Emilio, without meaning to at all, had somehow done the same.

Maybe some things still ran in families, even if those families weren’t connected by blood.

“I understand.” He wished he didn’t. He wished neither of them knew this ache, but that wasn’t an option on the table. Other people made choices — people like Rhett, like Lucio — and they were the ones left to deal with the fallout. Emilio was still in that living room in Mexico. Ophelia was still in that house on the mountain. They could, both of them, travel nations and worlds away, but it wouldn’t matter. There were rooms you never left. There were moments you never forgot. He knew that.

He closed his eyes for a moment, nodding his head. “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. He wondered if she ever would send that letter, or if he was something that would be easier to forget, too. He wouldn’t blame her for it. “You take care of yourself, too. Okay, kid? You… You stay safe.”

And then, she was leaving. And Emilio hated himself for how much it felt like watching Rhett walk out of his apartment those months prior, hated the fact that, even now, he couldn’t help but think how much she looked like her father. He watched her go, watched the door shut, stared at it for a moment longer. The house was empty. Everything was silent. And he was alone.

Wasn’t that how this was always going to end?

#. thread ;#. with ; emilio cortez #. the truth comes when it must ;#parental death tw #child death tw

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