Nope, they're still not mine. Still Roger Kumble's.
Part One
Here I'm pinned between darkness and light
Bleached and blinded by these nights
Where I'm tossing and tortured till dawn
I view visions of you, then you're gone
The shock bleeds the red from my face
When I hear someone has taken my place
How could love be so thoughtless, so cruel?
When all, all that I did was for you
-From Autumn to Ashes
I am not a goddamn child.
Blaine's watching me out of the corner of his eye like he's expecting me to do something crazy. In fact, the queer looked about ready to restrain me should I suddenly jump up from bed and go over the balcony. He thinks I don't notice it, but I do. His lame 'I was just around the neighborhood and thought you'd like to try that new drug' reason for arriving at my doorstep is about as transparent as plastic.
Hmm. There's that word. Plastic. Cheaply made, hard, and empty on the inside.
I glance at the clock, its steady ticking a cruel taunt and proof of the hours that have signified the lapse of the time my stepbrother has been hanging by a thread while he struggled to stay alive. Blaine catches the shift in my stare but he doesn't say anything. He continues puffing on his cigarette but even then I can sense the concern.
"He's going to be okay, Kathryn." He talks quietly. The plain sight of the blue pills he'd wanted me to try earlier remains unnoticed on the table.
"I don't care about it. I'm just concerned what he's told that blonde twit."
Liar, liar. Don't lie, Kathryn. It's bad for one's health.
"I've called the hospital and I spoke with Annette, he's… He's undergoing surgery right now but he should be alright, the doctors told her that he has a chance…"
I pause. I tilt my neck from where I'd been lying down on my bed to glance at him.
"I said I didn't care, Blaine."
The clock continues its ticking and Blaine stays for a few more hours. Once or twice he'd attempt to console me, but I would brush him off. I didn't care. I didn't give a damn at all. Maybe Sebastian's dead to me. Maybe he was dead to me the moment the word love escaped his mouth and on to Annette.
Nighttime falls. The phone stays silent. My entire room is engulfed in darkness save for the miniscule moonlight that passed through the windows. Everything is as still as a graveyard.
I open my eyes. I blink. It's still dark. The last word lingers in my mind like a nasty aftertaste.
Graveyard. I shouldn't have said that. Fuck. I shouldn't have…
The outline of the phone is clear in the dark as soon as my eyes grow accustomed to it. I loathe its silence not because I was concerned, but because I knew that the little bitch wouldn't even call to inform me whether or not the pussywhipped hero of the day made it or not. She hates me. She's read that fucking journal. She knows about me and will most likely have some sort of pathetic revenge scheme plotted to avenge her and her stupid boyfriend.
Should I be worried? Perturbed?
No. I can bury her alive if I wanted to. Besides, what can she do? Can she drag me and cast dirt on my good name and upstanding reputation? No. She can't. I'm Kathryn Merteuil and I'm bigger than life itself. It'll take more than that to hurt me.
Sleep has lost its appeal. I feel restless, but I don't know what to do. Isn't that odd? I've always known what to do. It's why I've become this successful; I always had a backup plan for every little thing. I've always had things go my way.
But this time it doesn't. The silence is my companion but it will never be my friend. Our parents have been contacted and they're due to return tomorrow. His fornicating father and my blasé frigid mother. I cringe. Tomorrow morning we'll go to the hospital to see him, the paradigm of the perfect family in times of turmoil.
The cab driver feels horrible. I saw him earlier when I was at the hospital, impressing people because of my distraught look at the state of my stepbrother. No. I called him my brother. My voice had shaken and there were hints of tears in my eyes. Perfect. They all felt sorry for me. They have no idea I was the instigator of all the chaos that Sebastian, Annette, Ronald, Cecile, and probably the cab driver have been facing. Annette had given me a death glare, which I did not shy away from. In fact, if I wasn't supposed to be distressed, I would have laughed out loud. It isn't that the hateful ice embedded in her blue eyes wouldn't have threatened any other person. It just didn't threaten me. Very few people did. Very few people can get under my skin.
I wanted to slap the fuckwit for stepping on the brakes too late. Sometimes I wish he'd never stopped at all.
I turn on my side and wrap an arm around a thick pillow, placing my cheek to feel the silk covering.
Most of all, I wish he had never been there. Not the driver. Sebastian. If he hadn't been there this would have never happened. If he'd been in my bed fucking me to oblivion, he wouldn't be lying down with a machine helping him breathe. His leg wouldn't be fractured and he wouldn't be asleep in an uncomfortable hospital bed.
But it isn't my fault. Nothing ever is. It's his fault. His fault for even reading that magazine article in the first place. How the fuck did he even his get hands on a copy? He read Tolstoy for fuck's sake! I mean, Sebastian Valmont and Seventeen magazine. Christ. If it didn't actually happen I would have asked you to go fuck yourself for even putting that laughable and ludicrous notion in my head.
Granted, Annette is marginally pretty. If you're into that whole uptight blonde thing, which apparently my stepbrother is. I don't get it. He's in love with me and I'm all the things that virgin will never be. How can he go after her instead of pursuing me? Had he finally grown tired? But he'll never tire of me. He said that once, when he was drunk and I was trying my best not to kick him because he had turned into a blithering idiot. He told me I was his girl and that he'd wait for as long as he possibly can.
But then again, Valmont is like me. We both have a patience that's as long as an eyelash… Or like Court Reynolds' peewee dick.
I can't help it. I smile. A real smile the makes the corners of my mouth turn up slightly. Thankfully the physical weariness comes over me and finally, I allow myself to succumb to sleep.
---
The morning comes and I am up at promptly seven am. My body is wired like that. Even when I've had a long night of drinking and doing God knew what with God knew who, I'd still be up early. Our parents are arriving in an hour.
I hurry to the bathroom and fix myself up. Mother's coming.
---
She watches me critically while my stepfather remains silent and stoic. This is why I hate having them around. I feel tense and awkward in front of my mother, as though I was still in my early years of her snapping at me and telling me to sit up straight. Sometimes I think she would have had steel implants in my spinal cord if it had been possible. She never tolerated any form of slouching. She never tolerated anything at all.
Which is why she's out of the country most of the time. I think a part of her knows what I've really been doing. I think a part of her knows that I've slept around. She'd rather be ignorant of my activities. It's fine by me, I've pretty much hated her ever since I could think for myself. Once, she caught me looking at Sebastian after he'd stepped out from the pool. She'd taken my wrist and told me something nice about the weather in front of all her friends, but her hand remained cold and her nails left impressions on my skin.
I smiled and secretly winced, excusing myself. I ran into Valmont and he noticed my hand. He had this smile like he knew it was his fault and I had rolled my eyes and told him to go fuck himself.
We were fifteen then. He grabbed my hips and started kissing me, it took me about five seconds of kissing him back with equal hunger before rationality got the best of me and I slapped him. He caught my hand and his gaze burned into mine.
Sometimes I think he loved me even before our parents got married. That kind of untold passion lingering in his gaze told me that.
I felt his lips on the nail marks and he disappeared before I could say anything.
"What happened, Kathryn?" she talks to me like she is talking to a stranger. But then again, she probably is.
"He was having a fist fight with Ronald Clifford and Annette Hargrove came to break it up, but… She was accidentally shoved into the street… He…"
These words will taste bitter in my mouth. I keep trying to refrain from saying it but I know that this is Mother and that I have to say it because she is the one asking me questions and if it's her, I must always answer.
"Sebastian saved her."
My stepfather looks from the window and our eyes meet. He looks like an older version of Sebastian, only with dark, graying hair. Once I told Sebastian I caught his father checking me out while I was getting a tan and then continued on that it actually wouldn't be bad fucking him because Edward really is good looking for someone his age. Sebastian had this hurt look on his face and he spent the rest of the day ignoring me.
Later on, Blaine told me that when Sebastian had been fourteen, he had a seventeen year old girlfriend whom he almost loved only to find his father diddling the little whore in his room. For reasons incomprehensible to me, I found Valmont later on and told him that I saw Edward fucking my mother and that I almost threw up. I also told him I realized that because of that sight, I was permanently scarred and would never even think of fucking the old man.
He'd shrugged it off and made a dry, amused comment about it but I can tell something changed. He talked to me again after that. I still think Edward's handsome, but in reality I would never even think of fucking him. Too many complications. Besides, secretly lusting over one family member is enough.
Alright, so I'm decent enough to admit it. It doesn't make me weak, does it? I mean, who hasn't lusted over him at one point? Though I'd never admit it to his face, the boy's too good looking for his own good.
Edward frowns slightly and his blue eyes probe into mine, oddly the way Sebastian's would every time he wanted something from me.
"Saved her." He repeats this like he is doubtful. I had been doubtful too.
"Yes." I nearly run out of the limo as soon as it arrives at the hospital. Annette and her father are both waiting for us. Pleasantries are exchanged. Annette painfully manages a hello for me but I ignore her. Her face falls and then turns stony. Bitch. I didn't care if her entire fucking face fell off. It had been loathe at that first glance of the magazine article for me.
"How is he?" My mother's talking to Annette and I can tell that she doesn't like the virgin either. There is that disapproving tone Mother reserves for people she thinks is common and undeserving of her attention but absolutely has no choice but to talk to.
"… He's…"
I don't hear her. I don't hear any of them because I don't care for all their bullshit. Tell me, God. Have you made me an unlikely murderer?
I walk quickly and I know that Annette wants to stop me but realizes that she can't. Despite my involvement in this, I am still his sister. She can't do a goddamn thing to stop me. Like I said, I can bury her alive if I wanted to.
I open the door and find him asleep, looking pale and unlike him at all. His lips are dry and peeling. He has a bandage wrapped around his head and there is a spot of blood seeping through the gauze.
I knew he wouldn't die. I knew it.
I sit down on the chair where Annette had sat and just look at him. I don't take his hand or anything because… Well, because I couldn't.
Okay, so he still is handsome as hell. I don't know what they've done to fix him, but I'm glad that they have. It's such a shame for that face to cease to stop existing.
His eyes open and I feel my heart inadvertently jump. As he blinks quietly for a while, I am reminded of a newborn that is seeing everything for the first time.
"Welcome back." I speak first. I wish I could say that to him in a different context.
He turns his neck and our eyes meet. A long time ago, I would have seen fondness and lust, but now it's blank.
"What the fuck are you doing here? Come to kill me, have you? The driver didn't succeed so I'm sure you're here to finish what you started."
"Oh, come on, Sebastian. Aren't you overreacting a bit?"
"Overreacting?" his voice starts getting louder. The machine monitoring his heart picks up as his anger fills him up. "I got run over, you manipulative whore!"
Beepbeepbeepbeep. He's going to have a heart attack soon if he doesn't stop.
But I'm not one to appease.
"Well, you're alive aren't you? Stop whining and don't be a fag, for crying out loud. You do know it's your fault, right? Nobody ever told you to go have a fist fight out on the street."
His mouth opens and closes. His eyes are filled with hatred and I feel a chill. I want him to roll his eyes and respond with an amused comment like he always did.
Then something happens.
He just has this look. Like he was a child who got disappointed upon realizing the Santa Claus didn't exist. He looks disappointed and hurt that I almost apologized.
"Leave me alone, Kathryn." He finally says quietly, turning away from me. "It's over."
"No, it's not. Your bitch girlfriend's probably planning to take me down and I have every intention of getting my hands on that journal." I reply. Something feels very strange to me at that point. Like I'm watching another tragic accident unfold and I can't do a single thing to stop it.
"I should help her, you know."
"Are you going to?"
I ask this because I need to know. If he is, then I'll have to hurt him too.
He still looks at me like he's sad about something. Like he's reading my thoughts and knows that I'm willing to inflict further pain. Maybe he's sad about me. Maybe I'm like Santa Claus, maybe I'm like a myth he's built up in his head only to realize the ugly, gory truth that I'm not as perfect as he thinks.
"I'd like to," he whispers. "But I can't. I can't do that to you. I respect you and I loved you very much, but it's over. Annette's not going to do anything to hurt your precious reputation but we're over, Kathryn. Please don't ever talk to me again."
He closes his eyes and he sleeps. I stay for a few outraged minutes, wondering whether or not I should shake him or do something to make him react. But there's nothing. No idea. No evil and cruel thing to do. Nothing else but to leave.
So I do.
I leave the hospital in a daze. Blaine picks me up a few blocks from the hospital and is surprised to see that I walked. I lean against the headrest of his car and we don't speak for the rest of the way home.
Words have lost its appeal as well.
A/N: This isn't a one shot but it won't be very long either. I just realized I didn't have a fic from Kathryn's point of view and well, you know me. I don't like having limitations. ;-) Woohoo I'm on a roll! Okay, so I'm sleepy. I'm getting my Christmas gift tomorrow so I felt terribly inspired to share the love. But sorry, just one person because I have no way of replying back to her unlike with Katie and B and Celeste. ;-) So if she's reading this:
a reader: Yes, I am a bad author for doing this with Christmas coming up but I realized I've always had happy endings for them. I didn't want to be predictable. ;-) Anyway, I'm glad you liked it despite the sad ending and I wanted to thank you for revieiwing my other stories as well. Reviews are always greatly appreciated. Merry Christmas!