A/N: I REALLY love this pairig. Complete and utter crack, I suppose, but I like making it seem serious. Unbeta'd, so don't judge.
Title: The Dying Light
Prompt: Var. 4, #14, Inevitable
Characters/pairings: Eve/Cutler, Hal,Tom, Annie
Word count:1,753
Summary: a 6 and 2, because I don't like rules. Six times Eve Sands meets Nick Cutler in the alternate future, and twice in the next world.
I:
The first time they met was not actually the first. Actually, the first time they met, she was an infant, and therefore holds no memory of that meeting. The first meeting she can remember, however, took place during the Eighth London Blitz (Often sarcastically referred to as the Great Panic of '23.). She was twelve.
They were all hidden underground, each clutching their various and sundry possessions and crosses and such. Some were praying, some crying. Eve just wished they'd all shut up. What if vampires really did have amazing hearing? They'd all be doomed. Actually, they were all probably doomed anyway. She sighed, leaning against what passed for a doorway. Most twelve-year-olds her age were either locked up in the camps or dead or worse. It was only thanks to Tom and Annie she wasn't any of those things.
"GAH! Oh, oh god," A voice cried out. She started, moving away from her post, and around the doorway into the actual hallway.
"Hello?" She called softly, pale hair curtaining her face. She saw a man flinching back, dark coat collar covering his face. He was shaking and shivering in pain. Looking up, she ascertained the cross above the entrance was in place and quite the cause of the man's pain. Ah, vampire then. She kept her arms crossed, one hand quietly drawing the stake from under her arm. Apparently he heard her though, because he immediately called out.
"I'm not here to kill anyone!" He cried, turning his back to her, hunched over. He huffed a bit, putting his hands on his knees. "If anything, they're here to kill me." He chuckled pleasantly, ruefully.
"Why?" She asked, cautiously, cautiously. "Why would other vampires want to kill you?" She quickly tossed a stray cloth over the cross. He visibly relaxed.
"Because I did something... Unforgivable," He sighed resignedly, straightening up a bit and stretching. "I saved the War Child..." Eve cocked her head, blonde hair falling careless across her nose and eyes, blocking parts of her vision. Her hand imperceptibly tightened on the stake. He continued. "I usually wouldn't care about killing kids, but really, a baby! She didn't even get a year before they went after her." He tutted thoughtfully. "Shame."
"I'm going to have to uncover the cross." She called, causing him to pause, turn in his dark coat. If it weren't for the lock of hair in her eye, she'd be able to see his face. She sort of liked this though, this half-vision. A vampire's identity obscured by a sunny strand of gold. She continued, softly. "In case of other vampires, you see. I'm dreadfully sorry." Her voice sounded blank and dreamy to her own ears.
"That's all right." The man said softly. "I understand."
"I think I should go now." She said quietly, pulling the cloth off of the cross and shutting the door between her and the strange vampire who had saved her life.
She never told Annie or Tom about it.
II:
The second time she met him she learned his name. She was fourteen.
Annie was crying on the beach, knee deep in sand. Digging a grave for Tom. Eve had said they could bury him at sea, but this only seemed to upset her more and so Eve shut up.
Eve was at the top of a hill, driftwood and rocks piled about her feet like sea-smooth bones. She was alone, arms crossed and then suddenly she wasn't alone and the man in the dark coat was next to her. He didn't say anything until the grave was up to Annie's waist.
"I'm sorry." He shifted, wood cracking and splintering like thunder and ice beneath his feet. She smirked.
"I'm not." He looked at her sideways, startled. She looked back up at him. "You learn not to care after a while." She added simply. "You learn that they all die, sooner or later, and that it's easier for them to die sooner." He nodded, stuck out a hand.
"Nick Cutler."
III:
The third time, two years later, she had just been branded with that hated H. He was there on inspection, simply glancing this way or that, fidgety and uncomfortable in this new, barren world. The minute he saw her, though, bleeding and burned, he stopped dead. He swallowed, a flash of pain and revulsion on his face. He took a half-step towards her. She turned away.
"I'm sorry." It was barely a whisper against her ear, a meaningless sentiment on the wind. But she felt his lips brush the desecrated skin. Though Eve would never admit it, the cool touch lessened the pain, just a bit.
IV:
The next time was when she was eighteen, and they didn't really meet. She was out of breath and on the edge of a cliff, just waiting to be pushed off. Hal had attacked her, thus far, by proxy. But here he was, this time. In all his Dark Lordliness.
"Going to kill me, Harry dear?" She called, hair whipping in the wind. He smirked. She could hear screaming, faintly. It didn't affect her. Hadn't for years. Hal just looked over his houlder a bit, then back.
"Not today, dear." He called up at her. "You friend Nicholas made me a deal. One I simply couldn't refuse." Eve tried not to react. She was sure he must've seen her face twitch, though, because he smirked even more widely, wider than she would have thought possible. "Ooh, you care, don't you?" She shook her head unconvincingly.
"Doesn't matter, does it?" SHe called back. "He'll be dead by tommorrow."
"Oh, no dear," Hal answered smoothly. "He'll be dead by nightfall."
She never liked heights after that.
V:
As it turns out, Cutler didn't die by nightfall. In fact, he didn't die at all that day. He had some help from a very unexpected quarter. From a group of werewolf rebels who were very pissed off and incredibly willing to ruin Hal's plans.
The fifth time (or technically sixth) that Eve and Nick met, she was twenty-one. It was also the first time they kissed.
"Are we going too die?" Huffed Nick, head back against the wall.
"Everybody dies, Nick." Eve reminded him. He puffed out a laugh, turning so his forehead was against the wall. Eve looked over at Nick and said softly, " I'm glad we die together, anyway." He looked back at her, eyes half-closed, mouth a bit open, cocked into a half-smile. "Screw it." Hissed Eve, launching herslef sideways to land on Nick. She smashed their mouths together, breathing harshly through her mouth, stealing whatever air was left in his long-dead lungs. He reached up, hands running through her hair and resting on either side of her face. She broke away and drew back. "Off to die together, then?" She reached out a hand. He took it.
"Of course." He pulled her close, kissing the top of her head and resting his chin there.
Now, this is all romantic and everything, but it was about then that they heard the werewolves and assorted humans breaking free of the cages Eve and Nick had sabotaged. They grinned mirthlessly at each other, a shared laugh at surviving death, yet again.
Onwards.
VI:
They met many times between then and here, but the last time they met was much like the first. Only this time Eve was already dead. Their first kiss had not been their last, but that first chance, last chance, to say they loved each other... It had passed and gone without their knowing. Eve lay bleeding on the ground, eyes wide open and mouth ajar.
"Oh, Eve." And Nick Cutler kneeled for a second time at the deathbed of a lover.
I:
She wasn't used to this time travel schtick. She had meant to appear to Leo, Pearl, and Hal, but somehow she had ended up here, a dirty warehouse filled with vampires and the fascinatingly disturbing strains of music from the eighties. She turned in circles, looking desperately for a door, or even a Door, back to the afterlife if she could just regroup. Instead she found herself facing a very familiar man.
"Nick!" She gasped, throwing herself forward, locking her arms around his neck. She smiled, breathing in that same familiar scent of copper and wool and mist. She almost laughed too, before realizing that this world was not her own. this Nick Cutler had never met her. Never loved her. She stepped back, and, suppressing a smile at his shocked face, simply said:
"Sorry. Wrong time."
Then she dashed out of the warehouse.
II:
The Door glowed white, a silver-pale shade that wasn't quite transparent, but awfully close. Eve smiled, waiting to fade. She closed her eyes and felt tndrils of mist at her hand. Only that wasn't mist...
"Hello, Eve." Her eyes flashed open, and she twirled around to grab onto that same, faithful black coat that had followed her for sixteen years.
"You're not supposed to be here." she mumbled half-heartedly into his neck.
"Neither are you, but I'm not complaining, am I?" He complained amusedly.
"Well, I'd stake you if you did, wouldn't I?" She said, affronted.
"Well, yeah, there is that..." He complied jokingly, twirling her around. She pulled herself back into his chest, holding him for all she was worth. (Rest assured, quite a bit.)
And they went into the light.
Together.