This is a companion piece to The Game, which means that this is based on the events that have transpired in that particular fic so it might be confusing to you if you haven't read The Game yet... So please please please read that first. ☺
Something told me we'd be happy forever
I don't see how this could change any of that
I will follow your ghost as it climbs up the rockface
And lie with you on the grass above
And I'd like to change all this
And I'd like to wake up from this
By your side
-Snow Patrol
I.
You are Sebastian Valmont at seventeen years old.
You are happy.
Not in a general sense of happiness that one would feel when someone is having a good day or if somebody has just woken up with an inexplicable sense of contentment at how one's life is going. No, for you it was deeper than that. You feel it in your system, in each blood cell and each bone and vein in your body. You feel giddy and alive as your head spins and you find yourself in that familiar place that you often go to whenever you take your new friend with you. That liquid source of bliss and that which is supposed to be bad for you, which you don't understand because as soon as the clear blue liquid enters your body through the tiny needle you inject yourself with, it doesn't feel like it's bad. It doesn't feel like it's harmful and that it will corrupt your nervous system the way Blaine Tuttle has eventually warned you when he realized that you were taking too much of it too fast.
You never listened to him. Nobody ever saw the effects it had on you, because despite the abuse of drugs and alcohol your depression has led you to, you still remained as handsome as you ever were. If not more…
Perhaps the guilt suited you. Perhaps the tragedy has made you some sort of hero and that the death of the one girl who ever made you feel so happy has turned your eyes bluer and your gaze more meaningful and intense. Perhaps you've grown into the grief and it had an adverse effect on you. It's like the lesser you felt, the more your features became sculpted and pronounced.
Your entire bedroom turns misty before your eyes and your skin feels cold and clammy, but by now you're used to it. It is like the other few instances this has happened, your head will hurt like hell as your view adjusts itself, you will feel cold and your teeth will chatter. You'll pull up your blankets up to your chin but it won't help.
Kathryn is dead. That is the reality. You don't want this reality. You can't accept it. Every night is a struggle for you and nobody knows it. They don't know that when you pursue each debutante and socialite, you see her in your mind. Smiling at you. Teasing you. When you succeed in your conquest, it is your stepsister who is touching you. It is your stepsister who is kissing your mouth, it is your stepsister you fuck and sometimes, when a particular conquest becomes attached to you, you would like to think that it is Kathryn who tells you that she wants to love you and to be with you.
It is unhealthy. It is a sick obsession to want the dead. You know that her body is rotting six feet under and that the only marker of her existence is a white marble crypt that bore her name. There was a statue of an angel on top of marble rectangular slab, made by the most gifted sculptor you could find. You've never believed in God and neither did your family (and Kathryn's mother), but you had it built for her. You wanted someone to watch over her when you couldn't. The angel wore a simple tunic, not like the other angels. It was a little boy angel, with finely detailed curls and a serious look on his chubby face. It stared directly at the doorway of her resting place, as though he wanted to protect her.
A laughable thought. How do you protect someone who was already dead?
You had it made for another reason. One that nobody would ever notice. The safest decision you've made because you didn't want people to know that you loved her more than a brother would love his sister. The angel held a book in one hand while the other held a sword. Nobody else knew what it meant.
You did. Maybe she did as well. Maybe if she was there and she could see the statue, she would only smile. She would get it. She would remember that when you were younger, she said you had a wonderful face. Ethereal and golden and warm, like an angel. You liked that thought. You remembered it when she was dead and you watched as they placed her casket inside the marble case. You were with Annette and there were somber looking faces in the crowd. No one was crying. Annette had her hand inside yours and she watched you carefully, the concern is apparent all over her face. You didn't acknowledge her. You only watched as your stepsister, the love of your extremely fucked up life, was finally laid to rest. You wanted to stay with her and live in that crypt. But you couldn't. You really couldn't, because she is gone but you are still there. You can't stay there. People expected things from you. People expected you to move on just like they would do.
So you had the angel built. It was based on a photograph of the two of you when you were children. You found it in her room when you were rummaging through her stuff in order to make sure that when her mother had her things removed, she wouldn't find anything to taint Kathryn's reputation. It had been in her drawer. You gasped when you found it and spent a few minutes on her bed just staring at it. It's just a photo. There was nothing written on the back, no flowery scripts or inscriptions. You touched the little girl's face in the picture. Her rosy cheeks, her dark green eyes, her light brown hair swept up with a red ribbon. The boy beside her (that's you, although it feels as though you were never really that small or that innocent) was holding a book and a plastic sword for a play. You were appearing in a play you didn't want to be in (only she made you because she wanted to be on the stage with you and have fun by playing other people) and you were scowling while she had her arms around you. She was smiling widely for the camera, dressed in a fairy pink costume. What kind of play was that? A play with angels and fairies? You didn't remember. You only remembered her and that day. You'd forgotten your lines. You totally fucked it up and you felt like a moron. You were annoyed at her for making you do it but then afterwards, she met you backstage and she kissed your cheek while smiling sweetly. Then it made it alright again. The statue was based on that picture. It was you. You'd like to think it was a part of you that stayed with her at all times, keeping constant vigilance so that nothing and nobody would hurt her or disturb her.
Dead. Gone. Her flesh was probably rotting. Decaying. Her brown hair was probably stiff and dry, her skin was probably wrinkled and shriveled up. Or maybe not. Maybe she was like one of those saints whose bodies forever remained fresh… But then again, she wasn't a saint, was she?
The chills are spreading now, your eyes are watery and bloodshot and your clothes are soaked with sweat. It is like viewing a movie, particularly one filled with special effects wherein the colors change before your eyes and everything moves slower than usual. Slow. Fast. Slow. Fast. Your heart beats faster. Your pupils dilate. You reach for the alcohol by your bedside (scotch), and take a swig of it.
Please come. Please come. Please let this be one of those nights.
Sometimes your friend comes through for you. Sometimes it brings her to you, sometimes it doesn't. When she comes to you, the happiness you feel intensifies and when she doesn't, you just stay like that and somehow you dream of better days.
Pathetic. That's what she'd say. You aren't like this 24/7. The night cloaks your real sadness, because when you wake up to a new day, you go about your life as if you were okay. You are Sebastian Valmont. Wealthy, handsome, and intelligent. Always put together. Always calm and rational. There are some nights wherein you become her brother. Her lost frustrated lover. Pleading. Begging. Desperate for something of her.
The transition is nearly complete. The room is foggy and cold now, and the sweating has stopped. Hesitantly you shove the blankets away from your body and you stare at the puncture on your arm. That little red dot.
The door opens and she's there. You smile. You don't cry… You just smile. This will be one of those nights you get to be with her. Your heart pounds. She looks beautiful just like always. She isn't a rotten corpse. She isn't a saint either. She's just… Kathryn. You're not sure if this is her spirit of if this is just a hallucination. To be honest, you have never really believed in life after death, but for her sake you do. You would like to think that she's still there somehow, because death couldn't be the end of her. You would like to think that she still lives and that she hasn't changed. She's still charming people. She's still beautiful, envied, and adored. Men still want her, women still want to be her, and she knows it. You would like to think that she lives in a mansion somewhere and that she misses you on days when she doesn't have a man on her bed and she's alone. You would like to imagine that she has a balcony and that it overlooks the ocean, and that when she is out there, she remembers you. You would very much like to think that she's just stuck somewhere and that there is no way for her to reach you. No phones, no email (emails are for geeks and pedophiles but you would have taken that if you were given a chance), and no way to send letters or telegrams. Sometimes you wonder if she was bored enough to feel whimsical, and she stuffed a letter inside a bottle and threw it on the ocean overlooking her balcony. You wonder how the bottle will get to you. As of right now, it's still being played with by the waves. Biding its time. It's a clear green bottle. Wine. Red wine, her favorite.
She's not wearing the dress they buried her in. She's wearing the dress you thought looked good on her. Ivory colored, not tight enough to make her look like a slut and yet not loose enough to make her look virginal and pure. You know she isn't. You love that she isn't. Her hair isn't stiff and dry, it's long and gloriously soft and beautiful. Like spun silk. She frowns slightly as she approaches you and you sit up and wipe your eyes as if you had been asleep.
"Brother." She whispers, her smile is soft and wistful. She reaches down and touches your cheek with her hand. You close your eyes. She is dead, but you're not afraid of her standing before you. Her hand feels real as it caresses your face, as though you had just experienced a nightmare and she was soothing your nerves. Now she isn't dead. When she is in your room, you are in a different reality now.
You stare at her. You cover her hand with yours and you kiss it reverently. She's not a saint but you adored her. Oh, God… Did you adore her…
"Will you stay longer? Will you please stay longer this time?"
She smirks. That familiar smirk…
"Can't live without me, Valmont?"
"I can." You tug on her hand and she climbs on top of you willingly, straddling you. Looking at you with affection while you stroke her hair. "I just don't want to."
Her teasing look disappears and is replaced by a more serious one while she succumbs to your caring. Her face goes slack and she stares at you.
"I miss you." Kathryn says quietly. "Everyday, Bastian. Everyday."
You nod and suddenly she frowns. She places her hands on your chest and feels the dampness from your sweat.
"Get this off. You're soaked." She pulls your shirt over your head and you raise your arms willingly.
"You just want to take my clothes off."
Her laughter is a wonderful sound.
Her eyebrows rise. "Oh? You're still so arrogant, aren't you? You haven't changed at all."
"Neither will you."
She throws your shirt to the side.
"Yes, I will. I'll be ugly and putrid soon… It's only a matter of time."
Her eyes are closed. She isn't breathing. She's surrounded by darkness. Confined space of her coffin. You don't want to think about it. You only want to think of the angel boy that watched over her.
"No! No, it's not!"
She smiles complacently, "Little angel boy, my big brother. You always did want to protect me even when I didn't need it."
"You won't change. Not for me."
"I'm a corpse."
"No."
"I'm dead, Sebastian."
"You're beautiful and perfect. You'll never age."
"Never age." She echoes faintly, getting off your lap. She takes the bottle of scotch and sits beside you, taking a dainty sip of scotch.
"Yes."
She nuzzles your neck and then rests her head on your shoulder.
"But I want to age."
"Well, you can't."
"Because I'm dead."
"No. Will you stop saying that?"
"You can't keep doing this."
"Yes, I can."
She strokes the puncture wound on your arm.
"You're not built for this, Sebastian."
"What am I built for?"
She kisses your jaw, "I don't know."
You feign shock, "You don't know? But you had all the answers in the world! The great Kathryn Merteuil doesn't know??"
You chuckle. Your heart feels constricted, but still, you chuckle. She scowls and hits your shoulder lightly.
"Jerk."
"Well, you do. You know everything about everybody, so why don't you know about me?"
"Yes, I do. I do know you."
"Really?"
She nods.
"What do you know about me?"
"I know that you're my favorite out of everybody else I've ever been with, even though we never really fucked."
"That can be changed…"
"You want to fuck?"
"Not… tonight. Not tonight."
"What do you want to do?"
"Just talk."
"Really?"
"Yes. I miss how we talked."
"We talked all the other times I was here."
She smiles slightly like she had a pleasant memory. You wonder if it's the same as what you were thinking of right now. You wonder if she's smiling at the time when you first used that drug. You wonder if she's remembering the time when you just sobbed like a pathetic moron when the drug brought your hallucinations to a whole new level and she came to your room. You had jumped up and swept her up with a loud surprised cry and she hugged you back just as tightly, like you had been separated for decades and only had that moment to see each other again. You told her that you loved her and that you were sorry over and over again and she only shook her head and kissed you like it didn't matter anymore.
You take her hand and she doesn't resist. Her fingers curl around yours and you both watch how you are intertwined. She's still leaning on your shoulder and you kiss her forehead, smiling at the thought. At how you must both probably looked. You, with your shirt off and your handsome self while the one you've always ever really wanted and loved right beside you, not putting up any resistance at all. She's leaning against you and you're holding her hand. You wanted so badly for this to be real.
"You weren't here every time."
You sound petulant and jealous. Like you were her boyfriend and you felt neglected when you were drugged out of your mind and she failed to appear in front of you.
"Oh, don't be needy. I had things to do."
"But I am. When it comes to you, I am. Because you're gone and you're never really coming back. Because your room's empty and they've taken all your things away now… It doesn't even feel like it's yours anymore… When I go there it's just… nothing. Just a room… You're not here all the time and I need you to be here because I need this… I need—"
"They took my things out?" She interrupts, frowning slightly. "Sebastian, I have things there…"
"What, like your sex tapes?"
She looks scandalized, "Do you honestly think I'd be stupid enough to keep a video of my indiscretions—"
She stops because when she looks at you, she notices the laughter in your eyes and the smile you were trying not to show.
"My other things, Sebastian. What happened to them?"
"I took care of it."
"My necklace. Where is it?"
You reach under your pillow and pull it out, handing it to her.
"Thank you."
She takes a bump of coke and before you can stop yourself, you reprimand her on her drug use. She only laughs at that.
"I'm dead, brother. I think I'm entitled to all the coke I want."
"Sometimes I forget."
"Do you really? I wish I could forget it too. I didn't plan on dying, you know. Do you think of me differently? Do you think I'm some sort of saint after the accident? I didn't mean to die. I just acted on impulse. I didn't think. I just didn't want to lose you like that."
"Why couldn't we have talked like this when you were still really here?"
"And what? Fall in love, spend every waking day together, and formally announce that we were a couple in front of our family?"
She rolls her eyes, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her reply. The bitterness lingers in her words and you could almost taste it the way you swore you could almost taste her mouth when you kissed other women. You feel hurt at her reply and you only remain quiet. You don't look at her.
"Yes." You eventually reply. "I would have liked that very much."
She openly gapes at you, as though she hadn't expected that answer.
"How's the virgin?" She says after a moment's hesitation, changing the topic.
"It's been over with her for a long time, Kathryn."
"Really?" She looks interested, particularly in the gory details. That was Kathryn, alright. "Did she bawl like a pathetic little bitch when you broke her heart?"
"She knows about you."
"She knows what?"
She's immediately guarded and suspicious, "Does she know who I really was?"
"Am."
"Excuse me?"
"'Does she know who I really am.' Not was."
"I'm dead, Sebastian. It's only proper that I used was."
"You are not dead."
She withdraws her hand from yours and waves the denial away impatiently, already used to it. "Does she know about me the way I think she does?"
"She knows I've been a fucking wreck when you…"
"When I what?"
"were gone."
"Sebastian…" her voice softens and she places her hands on your jaw, bumping your forehead together. "you have to say it."
"No, I don't." Somewhere at the back of your mind, the more lucid and rational one, knows that she is right. But you can't say it in front of her because you're worried that when you do, she will just disappear and never come back. Maybe if you believed that she is still alive, then she will keep coming back to you.
"Listen," she cuts you off with a kiss, which you eagerly return. You were hungry for it. You were hungry for her in all the ways a man could be hungry for a woman he could never really have. "you have to. You can't… You can't do this, okay?"
"I don't care." You mumble foolishly, kissing her neck. She wraps her arm around your neck and whimpers.
"Listen to me." She strokes your hair, playing with it. "it's sweet and somewhat insane what you're doing, really. I do love it. Don't get me wrong, but this isn't really healthy anymore."
"Oh, like you're the one to lecture me on drug usage."
You pull away and rest on the bed, pulling her close. If you had continued kissing her, you would have eventually slept with her and you didn't want the sex because it only speeds up time. You wanted to make it last for as long as it can possibly last.
She spies the photograph of you as children on the side table and takes it, playing with it.
"I liked this picture."
"Like."
"I swear if you correct me one more time I'm going to bash your skull in with this picture frame."
You only grin. It isn't Kathryn if she didn't threaten you from time to time.
"I had a statue built in your…"
Crypt. You can't say it out loud because it would mean that she's dead and she isn't! She isn't dead! She's just come back to you and it means that she's not a corpse!
"I know. I saw it. It looks like you... Just a little. The statue was better looking. You had a funny shaped nose when we were children. I used to think you were ugly. The statue had a better nose."
"What!"
"Well, you did! But that's not the point. As if you can't get any more self-absorbed, you have a statue built in your image. In my crypt, nonetheless! Why couldn't you have had the sculptor build it in my image?"
"Because I quite like the idea of still being able to protect you."
She softens. "Protect me from what?"
"Demons. Angels. I don't know."
"There are none of those." She replies quietly, resting her head on your chest. She always did that when she came. Once she told you it was because the beating of your heart reassured her somehow.
"Really? Well, there must be something else I can protect you from."
"No angels and demons, Sebastian." She strokes your abdomen absentmindedly. "Just an unending amount of frustration. You can't protect me from that."
"It's my fault."
"Yes."
You shoot her a dirty look, "You didn't have to agree with me. I thought you were supposed to be all knowing and kind now?"
"Please. And be boring and suddenly glow and sprout wings?"
"I don't know… You would have looked hot with wings."
"And a glow?"
You laugh. You want to cry, but you don't. You stay like that with her, pausing once in a while to kiss her head or her forehead. Pausing to stroke her arm and run your fingers down her back, just how she liked it.
"Yes. And a glow."
"I don't know… You might get freaked out. God knows you already have a few loose screws in that head of yours."
"None looser than yours, sis."
She pinches the skin on your stomach and you wince.
"Are you seeing anybody?" She asks casually, but you can sense the underlying tone into it. Mild jealousy. You loved that she was still jealous.
"Yes. A lot of 'anybodys'."
"Hmm… You're back to being a womanizing prick again."
"Wouldn't you prefer me this way?"
"Considering Annette, yes. But considering how you've become a pathetic womanizing prick with a drug and alcohol problem, I'm already contemplating a change of mind. I don't prefer you this way, Sebastian. Do you have a death wish?"
"Why not?" You sound hurt again, "You don't want to talk to me anymore?"
"You're hallucinating. We're not even supposed to be able to talk anymore and this isn't real."
"So what?"
"So Blaine better help you the fuck out or I'm going to kill him myself. You can't use that!" she takes the syringe and looks at it with disgust, "You're not like that and you know it."
"What am I like?"
"You're a hell of a lot stronger than you think. That's what you're like. You don't need these."
"I know I don't. But I get to see you and talk to you when I do all those things. I need you. I fucking need you. How can I make that any clearer?"
"I think at this point you've made it as clear as it can possibly be." She looks up at you, grinning. "Hey, look at this."
She shakes her head and you watch in wonder as the strands of her hair turn into golden yellow, first at the roots and then it spreads to the tips until she becomes a blonde.
"What do you think?" She tosses her hair, smiling coquettishly. "I think I can pull it off better than your hick ex girlfriend."
You reach out and run your fingers through the golden strands and she's just watching you.
"Spun silk." You whisper. "I don't care what color it is. If it's yours, I like it."
She kisses your palm and her hair turns back into that familiar brown you would often look for in a crowd.
"Sometimes I think you're just traveling… And that you're in this mansion somewhere just living an entirely different life."
"Really? What's it like?"
You touch the back of her neck and place your mouth near her ear so that both your eyes are closed. She places her thin arms around your neck and you feel her shake slightly while she presses her lips against your skin in a kiss.
"It's beautiful." You begin, your voice is raspy and sometimes you get choked up because she is there with you and you have missed her terribly. "It never rains and the days and nights are always perfect. Sometimes it gets foggy at night, but you don't feel too cold. When the sun's out, you feel the warmth on your skin and your cheeks turn slightly red. It's a two-story mansion and the furniture's like the ones you have in your room… There's a balcony in your bedroom that overlooks the ocean and sometimes you like it out there. When you don't feel like getting a tan on the beach, which by the way, has the smoothest and smallest grains of white sand you'd ever seen, you stand out there just thinking. You have an entire staff of servants to fulfill your every whim, and I know that you have a lot."
She chuckles but you shush her gently, rubbing her back in circles.
"You have neighbors, too. So you don't get bored… And it's just like New York. Just like what you had here. They all envy and adore you. You attend parties and everybody wants to talk to you because they find you fascinating. You pick the one you'd bring home for the night, just to sleep with him. Just to spend the night with another warm body, but they'd really be idiotic losers. Oh, they'd be handsome sure. You'll make sure of that. But they won't look at you the way I do. They won't want you the way I do."
"That sounds right."
"It does."
You lower the straps of her dress and slowly unzip the back while she begins to get an idea of what you had in mind. She squirms out of her dress and nestles against you, completely trusting and pliant.
"And that place you're living in right now… I can't find it. I have a clear view of it in my head but I don't know where it is. I'd like to visit you sometime, and I would if I could… Sometimes I even think about moving there—"
"Don't."
"Why not?"
She curls her fingers against your back, clawing at the skin.
"Just don't." She answers simply.
You want her so badly too badly it hurts everywhere and yet you feel numbed at the same time. You want to bleed for her to heal her and bring her back. Will they allow it if you shared your blood with her? Would they allow it if you lent her your heart just so you would hear something thumping in her chest again? She's kissing you now and you want to start crying but your tear ducts have dried up so all you can do is lie back down and crush her fragile body against you. Tightly and possessively, but then you loosen it a bit because you're scared of hurting her. As her mouth moves from the place where your neck and shoulders meet, you suddenly feel a wave of nausea as was the custom when your high is slowly diminishing.
No! NO NO NO!
You groan out loud and clutch your head. The excessive perspiration is back. Everything hurts again. Kathryn stops and you look at each other.
"Ifeelsleepy…" You mumble. Your words are jumbled up and you're nearly incoherent.
As you close your eyes, the darkness creeps upon you like a mischievous predator. The last thing you feel is her hand squeezing yours lightly before you surrender to the very human (and weak) state of sleeping.
You wake up in the middle of the night gasping her name from a dream you had. Her name. Just hers. Not the blonde's. Not any blonde. Just hers.
She is dead.
You reach for the bottle. You stare at the drug. The blue liquid somehow reminds you of the ocean you had created for her. Maybe she is back in her two-story mansion with her servants and her perfect white sand. Does she love the sand? You hope she does. You think she does. You remembered that when you were children she liked squishing it between her toes. What about the perfect days and the wispy white clouds? The blue skies? Will she ever tire of it? And the nights? Will the darkness remind her of how alone she really is? Please don't let her feel lonely. Please let her have fun and be adored and envied the way she was meant to be. You know that she is beautiful and that she will always have the best dresses and the most charming smile. You know that when she's out on her balcony she might even think of you. At least, you want her to think of you. It's only fair. You thought of her all the time.
Kathryn. You love her so much.
You hope the next time it happens, she will stay longer.
I keep continuing the most unlikely of stories. It's so odd. Don't worry I'm keeping it very short. And no one's coming back from the dead. I've gone down that road before.