A/N: This is a connective piece for Vespertine, set some 10 years before Vespertine takes place. It's the rather odd backstory of a minor character that has yet to make an appearance in that story, but for some reason, I liked it so I busted out this ridiculously long one-shot.
The Blue Hour
"Oh hell. Alexander, you have to eat. This isn't doing anything but making you dangerous and getting Delilah upset." Elias was starting to sound upset himself as he begged me to move from the spot I'd been occupying for the last 28 days, 11 hours, 9 minutes and 16, 17, 18 seconds. I didn't even bother to open my eyes anymore.
Ah, Delilah. We couldn't have poor little Delilah upset could we? No matter what I wanted; we couldn't go around making the stupid little bitch cry, could we? Couldn't just leave me alone because Delilah was so damn sure I was meant to join them, be part of their family. Couldn't just fucking let me die because Delilah wanted whatever it was she wanted. Blah, blah, fucking blah. I'd heard the lecture, Elias had explained to me time and again about Delilah only meaning well, but I was done with her and him. Wanting to kill the girl who had broken my heart didn't have anything remotely to do with 'meaning well.'
"Leave me alone." The snarl that should have sounded menacing was weakening, the lack of food this past month starting to tax the inital surge of strength the transformation had granted me. I refused to feed. Not when the crazy little bitch could intentionally steer me toward her, and I knew full well that Elias would cave to her when she turned her eyes on him. I knew in a deep-down way, like one of the flashes of intuition I sometimes got when I was... more normal. Less monster, anyway.
I could hear Elias rise from his crouch and walk out of the bathroom and into the livingroom, his steps making tiny, tiny sounds that gave his movements away, too quiet for the human ear to pick up but crystal clear to me. Delilah was in the other room, spreading the pieces to a 5000 piece puzzle across the livingroom floor and the rustling of the cardboard pieces was loud in my ears as her hands gently spread them out so they were in a single layer. Then, she flipped them all face side up, one by one. Three thousand, seven hundred and two pieces were flipped, one by one. Seventy four point oh four percent face down.
Abruptly, rage bubbled up at the thought of anything related to Delilah, adding to the fury already there, and I quickly diverted my attention, reaching out farther in an attempt to distract myself. I was always more rash, easier to bend when I was angry around Delilah and she took advantage of that. I needed something else to focus on. Anything. I concentrated on any sounds I could hear, ignoring the feathery-raspy sound of the cardboard pieces. A mouse ran through the wall of one of the apartments below us. Some kid was playing a video game somewhere. I could hear the people in the next apartment talking, bringing into focus the sound of a dozen heartbeats that surrounded me in the apartment building and I couldn't help the flooding of my mouth as I went off on a tangent imagining what those humans must taste like, what it would be like to go from room to room and kill them, each in a different way.
It would be easy to revel in the fear and pain. Maybe it would help ease the pain a little, to cause other people hurt.
I jerked out of my fantasy, shutting down that instinct as soon as I realized what I was doing. No, I refused. I wouldn't eat, if at least because it was what Delilah wanted. She wanted to take me into her family, treat me as her son and once I caved to that, it was only a matter of time until she sought revenge on the girl who tore me to pieces. I wouldn't allow it. As long as she hovered over me, anxiously asking Elias to beg me to eat, she wasn't out there looking for... her.
Maybe I was acting childish, but what else was I supposed to do? The only weapon I had in my possession was playing off of Delilah's obsessive need to play the mother figure and Elias's inability to deny her anything. As much as I hated her, she was the key to this whole situation. There was bitter humor in that; she had started this whole thing by turning me, and now she would be the end of it. I knew she planned on keeping me alive, and I refused to allow that. There was no way I could live, even in this appropriate half-life.
I allowed a moment to think of the reason for this whole situation, the girl who had shared my life, every single moment, for the last twelve years and then shattered that life with a careless sentence. I allowed the human memories to wash over me, taking them out and examining them carefully, like precious photographs, each one more valuable to me than my life ever could be. The first time I ever saw her, missing her two front teeth and swinging an Eek! the Cat lunchbox on the first day of school. The first night she stayed overnight, the smell of chocolate chip cookies and milk filling my little room and mixing with the smell of newly washed bedding as we laughed together, quietly trying to push the twin beds together.
I laughed silently at her first failed attempt to sneak into my bedroom window and the broken arm that had resulted in an ER visit. From then on, there was a standing invitation from my mom to stay over any time she wanted. And from then on we slept wrapped tangled around each other like puppies.
They came, faster, deeper memories. The first physical therapy session with her there, the endless skin graphings, and the way she tried to make me laugh even when I was near incoherent with pain medication. Birthdays and baseball games, pep rallies, trick or treating, school dances, Christmas pageants. Our first and only kiss, disastrous and drunken, after some party freshman year. Every wrinkled nose, stuck out tongue, and playful insult. They were all taken out, one by one, each moment lovingly touched and filed away again.
I sighed. They were all I had left of her. She had made it perfectly clear how she felt about me that morning. I would never see her again.
For a moment, I wallowed in the pain I'd been denying myself, recalling the worst memory of them all, the memory of her telling me she hated what we had become - what I had become to her.
Maybe I'm tired of the way this is going, Alex. Did you ever think of that?
The echo of her words cut deep mental wounds, far worse than the healed bite on my shoulder where the burn scars once were. I shoved it away, denying the hurt I had thought would be cathartic. But once I summoned the image of Cecilia, it wouldn't leave and the ache in my chest spread; a terrible emotional ache, seemingly weaker but more insidious than the changing pain. It cut deeper, lasted longer, a slow burn, matching the burn in my throat and mouth.
I would never see her again. God. I let myself see her that one last time, standing in my bedroom in yesterday's clothes, face red with sleep and the beginning of tears, mouth forming the words.
Did you ever think of that?
Thirty-two days, 13 hours, 7 minutes and 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 seconds since that moment. An eternity and one lifetime ago.
At least I can say that the days leading up to my demise were happy ones. Cecilia and I were seniors - finally! - and we were high on the giddiness of the knowledge that we would soon be out from under the thumbs of our mothers and into the wide world together. Always together. Since the day she marched into my life in the second grade all missing teeth and mismatched eyes, we'd been together - her, the new girl with funny eyes and I, the scarred freak show.
It was breathlessly hot the October of our last year of high school and I decided not to take the heavy leather jackets my mother insisted we wear when we took my old scrap heap of a dirt bike to school. She had a car - an old Sentra her mom bought her - but the AC didn't work, so the scrap heap on wheels was the choice for days like this.
We lived only two doors down from each other, and so all it took was a shout from my porch to warn her it was time to go. Luckily, it was a rare quick morning and she scrambled out her front door and cut across the front yard of old Nervie, the crotchety old woman that lived between us. I reconsidered the jackets when I got a look at what she was wearing - a pair of my old cargo shorts and a baseball shirt from the 7th grade, both of which screamed a serious case of road rash if I had to lay the bike down. I was more sensibly dressed in jeans and heavy work boots, although my t-shirt wouldn't be much protection. But that wasn't the point.
She shrugged at my raised eyebrow when she got to my driveway, bringing up a hand to shade her left eye as she grinned up at me. "What? It'll be hot at school and you know it. They never turn the AC's on."
"Oh?" I leaned my elbows against the railing of the porch casually, throwing one foot through the wide cast iron bars and leaning my weight on the other leg. "And what about if I wipe out and you go a-tumbling down the road? You'll look like ground hamburger dressed like that." I didn't really think I'd get her to change her clothes, and I knew there was no way I'd get the jacket on her, but it was funny to watch her try to be upset with me, an impossible thing and we both knew it.
"Hmph." She crossed her arms and turned away from me. "Fine, if you want to be that way, I'll just walk to school." And just like that, she set off down the sidewalk. I didn't expect that and jumped down from the porch, stumbling and catching myself before I did a face plant on the asphalt of the driveway. Grumbling, I ran around behind the garage to get my bike, trying not to trip over my own feet in my hurry, and tried to kickstart it to life. I was rewarded me with a roar that made me smile, which quickly stuttered out. I tried again. It, of course, rumbled and died on me again.
Throwing down some of the worse words I knew and fighting the urge to kick the damn thing for choosing this time - of all times - to not start, I put my back into the next one and was rewarded when it coughed itself to life. Still cussing, I jumped on and took off down the street.
What did I do this time? I swear I didn't do anything. I knew she wasn't really mad, but she could use stuff like this to get her way with other things, like making me watch a movie I didn't like or forcing me to eat marshmallows. Not that I wouldn't cave if she really pushed, but things like this just made it that much easier.
Cecilia was two blocks away before I caught up to her, humming the latest single to hit the radio waves out here in No Where, Wyoming and swinging her arms like a 5 year old. I hit the brake to bring the bike down to a speed somewhere between keeping up with her and keeping the bike upright and pouted at her.
"C'mon, Cece. You know you can't stay mad at me. Hell, there's nothing to even be mad at me for!"
She just shrugged and didn't look at me, still humming as she strolled down the sidewalk. I pulled out my cell phone and glanced at the time. 8:38. Shit. "Cece, as much as I would like to play 'guess what silly shit Alex did to upset lovely little Cecilia,' we're late for school and I know Mr. Schillingler is already on you for your tardies for first period."
She dropped her act and looked at her own watch, yelping when she saw I was right. I brought the bike to a complete stop and grinned when she sprinted over and jumped on, her arms winding tight around my waist and face buried into the back of t-shirt as I opened the throttle and sped toward the high school. It was a nice feeling, and I couldn't help but notice it like I did every time we ended up like this. Just me, Cecilia and, if I pretended hard enough, nothing but open road. I grinned; that thought reminded me of a song.
"Yesterday," I half sang, half hummed, just loud and on tune enough for Cecilia to hear me. "All my troubles seemed so far away."
I felt her answering smile against my back as she immediately picked up the rest of the verse in her little girl soprano, like I knew she would. "Now it looks as if they're here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday." I smiled wider, weaving into a space left between a big truck and a hatchback. The honk of a horn sounded out. She'd sing the whole song, if it was one she liked - it was one of our games, created in the endless boredom of waiting rooms.
I couldn't wait to get out of here and go to college, but it was the summer I was looking forward to the most. We were going to travel a bit, just her and me. My mom promised me if I got good enough grades and a nice scholarship, she would get me a real motorcycle - nothing fancy, but something a step above my little wannabe bike which only pushed 60 mph on a nice cool day, had a tendency to stall on steep hills, and the tranny jammed up if you didn't bang the shifter with your heel real good before kicking it into 2nd.
We made it to the high school in record time, Cecilia jumping off at a dead run before I had the bike to a full stop. Of course, she tripped on the curb and did a weird, extended fall, the look on her face priceless. She twisted around to her left and wobbled for a moment, skipped a step or two forward and spun again, landing hard on her ass, all the while blue and green eyes frozen open in a wide, shocked look and mouth hanging open in an expression somewhere between bruised ego and incomprehension.
I couldn't help it.
I laughed. Loudly. But it wasn't just a laugh - it was a roar, a gut-busting, tear-inducing laugh that had me doubled over, helplessly holding my stomach and pointing at her. I laughed until I ran out of air and then I stood there squeaking, torn between the pain of suffocating to death and the hilarity of my graceful friend's stretched out fall. Every time I thought I could stop and take a breath, I would see the expression on her face again and I would curl up tighter with the pain of laughing. Her stamping her foot like a 5 year old didn't help much, and neither did the "Aleeeex, stop it! It's not FUNNY!"
Finally, she growled and pushed me over and I was able to stop laughing long enough to get a large enough breath in to stop the little black spots from taking over my vision. I laid there, spread eagle on the hot concrete and breathed, occasionally giggling like a pothead as I saw the fall again like it was in slo-mo and then her expression. Cecilia pouted and put her sneaker on my stomach, frowning down at me with her arms crossed. I couldn't help admire the view up her shorts - blue today - but she either didn't notice or didn't care.
"I hate you." She pouted. Probably didn't care, then. "You made me late and now people are staring. And I hate you."
I raised my head and looked toward the school. Sure enough, there were kids crowded around the windows, staring at us. They were never sure how to take us, the freaks of the school and this situation probably didn't help. I could see the principal, a slightly overweight man with a full head of iron-grey hair. He already had sweat stains on his overly starched shirt. Ah well, it was getting hot laying on the concrete, anyway.
I gently pushed Cece's shoe off my chest and sat up, running a hand through my sweaty hair. Damn, it was hot. And now I had a dusty, size 6 shoe print on my favorite shirt. I tried half heartedly to get the dirt off of Bazooka Joe's face. Poor Joe. Oh well.
"Alexander Cornwell, what are you doing? Classes started 20 minutes ago. And you, Ms Greene. I understand that Mr Schillingler has been concerned about your recent tardies to his class. Just because you're seniors doesn't mean you should slack..." And on went the mute button. I'd heard this before and I knew they wouldn't even give us detention. Cecilia was a master at turning on the water works when we got in trouble. I mean, who could resist her trembling lip and little tears coming from her unfortunate eyes? And she knew how to use my scars, too. She was a manipulative little wench, that was for sure and that was one of the many reasons I loved her.
I glanced at her and saw she was already turning on the sad, pitiful look, the tears starting to gather in the corners of her eyes and that bottom lip poking out. I worked with her, tilting my head slightly to the left, scrunching up my cheek a little and turning toward the sunlight so the ugly burn scars stood out more prominently if the idiot looked at me.
"We didn't mean to," she mumbled. "We were running late and my head was hurting this morning because of the vision test they did over the weekend and Alex was just helping me get here. I didn't mean to disrupt anything." She hiccuped and Mr Frusch started to dart his eyes around, desperate to escape the near future because he could clearly see it involved a crying teenaged girl and himself and that never ended well for him. Cecilia had been doing this a long time. "We're sorry! Please don't punish us!" She was in full sob-mode now and I grinned to myself. Game, set, match.
"T-That's ok, Cecilia. No need to cry. J-Just please get to class and we'll all just forget about this, how's that? Just don't do it again, um... ok?" He was stuttering worse than usual. She was good.
She sniffled and nodded, dragging a wrist across her nose. I took that as my cue and slung an arm around her, steering her into the school. Shit, she was right. They hadn't turned on the AC.
"That was possibly your best performance to date, love," I murmured to her, walking down the deserted halls to our lockers.
"Shhh! He's catching on. He's been watching us, so save your praise." She sniffled loudly to make her point and I patted her back, throwing a glare over my shoulder to see if she was right. Yep, ole Faithfully Idiotic was watching us walk away, what was probably supposed to be a calculating look on his face. It looked like he ate a bad sunflower seed.
We made it to our respective first periods without causing the end of the world, at least. After I made sure she got to Psych, I walked to the wood shop slowly, knowing the teacher assigned to us was never around to check on us anyway. We marked down our own attendance and graded our projects as a class, whch was of course rigged with bribes. One of the guys would've marked me down as here before school even started. Not that any of the guys in first period shop were buddies with me, but we all had an understanding of sorts. Everyone was here every day, even the kid who dropped out last month on the second day of school. It worked and there didn't need to be any fights involving planers. Those fuckers hurt. Whoever's bright idea it was to let teenaged boys around so many dangerous tools without proper supervision oughta get their head checked.
You know how much damage can do with an awl? I didn't, either, until old Tim Jackson grabbed one and pegged Reggie Jones in the shoulder. Went in til it hit bone and they had to call an ambulance. And yet, they still let Drunkie McDrunkerson teach shop. I snorted as I swung the heavy shop door open and stepped inside. Immediately, the distinctive sounds of Wood Shop Jousting fell quiet and there was a quick scramble as everyone hid their two-by-fours and dropped the plastic trashcan lids they'd stolen from the cafeteria.
"Chill, guys. It's just Alex." Walter Jenkins, the ring leader of most of the madness, stooped to pick up his board again, not even giving me a second look. That was fine with me - better to be ignored than on the receiving end of 7 feet of well seasoned pine board. Curtis, a small junior that never bothered me, shrugged and flipped the table saw on, lining the sheet of plywood up before sending it through with practiced ease, a set of rollers on the other end to act as catcher. He was the only one out of the mob of shop kids that ever actually did any work and he had a nice deal going with most of the class: $150 a project, at least an A- guaranteed, and you paid for the materials.
The other two boneheads - LJ and AJ Rosco - were twins and both shot me a grin before picking up the boards and trash can lids and restarting the interrupted game of Wood Shop Jousting. I hopped up on one of the large square work benches and rubbed my neck where the worst of the scars were. They sometimes ached, especially when it was hot. AJ scored a hit on Tim Jackson and crowed, waving the trash can lid around and doing his best imitation of a gladiator. I think.
A headache started behind my eyes. I couldn't wait until I was out of here.
Second period dragged, too. Ugh, Algebra II. I'd flunked this class twice because I didn't really care, and I had the math credits I needed to graduate. Luckily, it wouldn't impact my total GPA, since it counted as college-prep class after I got my two required math credits. Gotta love the public school system - set up to let the losers win. Third period was better, because Cecilia was there, but in ways it was more painful; I swear, who can't read in the fucking 12th grade? I winced as some kid stumbled through Last of the Mohican's. Advanced English my ass. I snorted under my breath and Cecilia smirked at me, peacefully reading one of her fantasy books while I had to be content scribbling in my notebook.
Teacher's Pet. I wrote and held it up to her, making a face. She just smiled again. The English teacher, Mrs. Mahoney, loved Cecilia - probably because she was the best read person in the whole school. The girl had hundreds of books scattered between her house and mine and she was always getting more. She soaked up knowledge like a sponge, retaining almost everything she read. Despite that, she was delightfully inept sometimes; just one of the many reasons I loved her.
I settled for doodling until the bell rang and we were off to the library for study hall. Lunch passed in a blur, and so did AmGov, Biology II, but the last period of the day, another study hall, dragged forever. Mrs. K watched us swelter in the library with a smile for our melodramatics. Even with the windows open it was boiling. Cecilia slumped over one of the couches, panting and I sat at her feet, head back and dripping sweat, one of her hands caught tightly in mine. She didn't even bother to give me a funny look like she did a period ago. A few girls from our class crowded around one of the large study table, whispering, but I didn't care. Some guys were looking up porn on the internet from the computers. I couldn't work up the energy to scoff.
It was a relief to get out and on my bike again, even better to feel the little arms around my waist. I had a daydream during AmGov that scared the living shit out of me, but I couldn't remember what exactly it was about. Just that I'd scared the blonde haired girl with how quickly I'd grabbed her hand when she met me in the hall after she got out of Band. The uneasy feeling was fully banished by the feel of her sitting in the seat behind me, flush against me as I wove in and out of traffic.
I pulled the bike into the garage this time; the sticky shifter was really pissing me off, so it'd have to be worked on again. Cecilia hopped off, blowing me a kiss as she sprinted up the steps to my place. "Hi, Mom!" she called cheerfully to my mother as she barged in. I heard my mom greet her with a laugh as she dashed up to my room, probably for a shower. Her mom wouldn't be home until late tonight, so it was yet another night she would stay over.
I went inside, calling out to my mom as I trudged up the stairs, and found the blonde haired girl rummaging through her half of my closet.
"What are you looking for?" I pulled my tshirt off and tossed it in the hamper, grimacing at my sticky undershirt. "Hey, look for another wife beater in there for me, will you?"
"I'm looking for that old Frogger shirt. You know, the one that's like ten times too big for me?" An undershirt came flying out of the closet and I caught it, yanking my wet one off. "I want to take a shower, but everything I have over here is too hot."
"It's probably downstairs." I pulled on the shirt and collapsed on the bed, which was really two twins beds side by side, the legs tied together and a couple large blankets thrown across. She huffed and ran down the stairs and back up at a ridiculous pace, stopping in the doorway to blow me another kiss before dashing into the bathroom across the hall from my room.
I laid perfectly still, listening to the water run, and thought, of course, about sex. Cecilia and I had never made it past first base together, although we each had our own experiences outside of our weird relationship; we were teenagers, after all. But, despite more than a decade of nights spent together, nothing ever happened. Not that I was opposed to letting something happen if it happened to happen, of course. It was just... it would change our happy little world if things went wrong and neither one of us was willing to risk our escape from the bad things for something we could easily get elsewhere.
Not that any of that thinking helped when Cecilia pulled some shit like she did the next moment, waltzing into my bedroom in nothing but a towel, humming some song I hated.
Hell, I was a teenager. And there was a gorgeous girl with nothing on under her towel dancing around my room like a fool, singing the chorus to a Gwen Stefani song over and over, grinning at me. I sat up but she just giggled and dove into the closet, closing one door and getting dressed.
Fuuuuck.
I threw myself back down on the bed(s) and pouted like a 5 year old until she danced out of the closet in a huge green Hulk shirt and a pair of my boxers. She jumped on the bed, bouncing a few times, and laughed at me.
"Serves you right."
"Yeah, yeah. Shut up."
"No, you do deserve it after this morning. I wasn't kidding. I do hate you."
"You've hated me before." I rolled on my side so I was facing her.
"Yeah, well now I hate you again." This time she pouted and I laughed, now sure she was messing with me and I was rewarded when her pout dissolved into the smile she was trying to hold back.
"Come here, rugrat." She bounced once more and then hurled herself at me, chuckling. I hugged her close and just went still for a moment, content for the first time that day. She was silent for a moment.
"Landon is going to pick me up from school tomorrow."
I felt all my muscles lock. So much for content. Of all the people she could choose... I ground my teeth together. Of course she had to pick this one to stage a repeat with. It was a real effort not to get up and hunt the bastard down.
She was quiet and still, obviously waiting for my response.
"Oh?" I managed not to growl. Barely.
"Yeah," she said softly to my shoulder. "He wants to take me out after school and hang out." She slowly looked up at me, two eyes, one blue and one green, looking at me sadly. It was times like these I wanted to say, screw the sactuary. It wasn't worth this. It never was. But, neither one of us expected the other to stay pure and chaste because that was unrealistic if it was one thing we both knew, it was how much of a motherfucker reality could be.
At least I thought I knew. I always thought I knew, until this situation came up again. I knew I was being jealous and possessive and as melodramatic as a junior high girl, but I couldn't help it, especially when she chose the ones I didn't like. But what did I expect? She was a pretty girl, even if some people thought her eyes were strange or weird, and boys certainly could sing a different tune when she made use of our "arrangement." It pissed me off the way those fuckers would call her names, make jokes about her and then turn around and be all smiles and teenaged hormones when she let them know they were chosen.
Chosen to do something we could never bring ourselves to do, that I was never allowed to do.
Maybe that's why it stung so much. Not the fact that she would sleep with other guys, but the fact that by some long standing, unspoken agreement made after our first few drunken kisses I was barred from ever even trying to be that for her.
I sat up and moved away before I accidentally hurt her. Landon was the worst, though. We'd known each other since kindergarten and he had been the most vicious when it came to my scars, especially early on. We didn't have much contact these days, because whoever set the high school schedules knew better than to let us both within 50 feet of each other, but old wounds still stung.
At least she's telling you right now and not letting you find out later. Yeah, that was one thing to be thankful for. Just let her do it, get it out of her system and things will go back to normal.
And so, I put on a good face, forced a smile and nodded my consent. Cecilia eyed me, not fooled for a second, but accepted the nod and quietly left the room.
We had a complicated relationship, Cecilia and I. And it never did get simpler.
And so, I rode my hunk of junk to school alone that day, and didn't see Cecilia all day. She wasn't in third period, or in the first study hall. Lunch came and went with no Cecilia. I impatiently sat through my afternoon classes, hoping she would be in the second study hall but again she was absent.
Cecilia was often late, but she was never absent without me knowing, especially when it was a day she informed me she would be with a boy.
Distantly, I felt the foundation I'd based my whole life on tremble.
Strangely, I wasn't really worried. I was just... numb. Every time I expected to see her and didn't, I went a little more numb. By the time the final bell released us for the day, I felt like someone had dipped me in Oragel. It was hard to make my legs lift high enough to walk. Forcing my hands to open and close to undo the lock was very nearly impossible and traffic was a nightmare, even though looking back it was lighter than usual. It took me twice as long to get home, and when I did I stumbled upstairs to my room, trying not to think of the way she'd left this morning without a backwards look as she got into that shitty Ford truck Landon's whoring daddy bought him for his birthday. I think my mom asked me what was wrong, but I didn't bother to answer her worried questions.
I collapsed on the bed face down and just laid there.
Eventually, bright afternoon light faded to dusk and from where I was laying I could see through my open window as the sun disappeared, dropping below the horizon and creating a halo of yellow-pink-orange banding in the deep royal blue of the Wyoming sky. A memory from some long-forgotten art class nudged me and I remembered the term for this time of day: l'heure bleue. The Blue Hour.
The sun steadily disappeared and the room got darker. I didn't move. I probably passed out, because I woke up to the room lightening, still in my face down collapse. Only this time, a small body was tucked against my side and familiar legs twisted around the wooden blocks I'm sure were supposed to be my legs. The world spun for a crazy moment as I tried to remember.
Cecilia murmured and twitched, drool staining the sheet under her open mouth and I stiffly moved my head to see her better. She looked alright. More relaxed, like she always did after a night out alone. Not so alone. Anger came back, all the stronger thanks to the lack of emotion I'd had yesterday and I growled.
She twitched again and opened her eyes slowly, the expression on her face clearly showing she knew she was in trouble.
"Alex, before you freak, please let me explain."
I forced my arms under me and pushed myself upright, jumping off the bed and wobbling unsteadily. "Ok," I laughed a little hysterically. "Please explain. Where the fuck were you, Cecilia?"
She sat up, wincing at my tone and watched me pace my room, eyes solemn. "I was with Landon."
"You have a phone. No call to let your dear Alex know you were playing hooky for a fuck? How about returning to school when you were done? How bout that? Or coming home? What time did you get home, by the way?" I was ranting now, but I could hear that far off sound, like tectonic plates shifting, and I knew that somehow my world was no longer as secure as I'd like it. I always had flashes of intuition, a sixth sense, my mom called it and right now it was going haywire, telling me the way my best friend was acting was wrong and that whatever she had done or was going to do was going to make my life hell on earth.
Her somber expression disappeared, anger replacing it and flashing in her eyes. "What about you?" she spat. "You have a phone. You could've called to make sure I was alright." She stood herself, eyes wide with a rare rage. "Maybe I'm tired of the way this is going, Alex. Did you ever think of that? About how I don't like the way you're always trying to keep me close, to keep everyone away? Maybe I want to have other friends, like I would if you would stop being such a caveman and leave me alone for five fucking seconds!" She grabbed two handfuls of hair and pulled in frustration. "Arrrgh! You are so controlling and it's making me crazy! Did you ever think that our stupid sex arrangement was my way of trying to get away from you?" She clapped a hand over her mouth, anger gone and replaced with genuine horror.
I froze.
Was that what it was? An escape?
The numbness descended again, a ringing in my head accompanying it this time as I stared at her and she stared at me, face frozen in that terrible expression. I waited for her to take it back, to tell me it was a joke and that somewhere along the way she hadn't stopped being my best friend, my flip side, the Batman to my Robin.
My first and only love.
But she just stood there, like a statue while the words hung between us and echoed around the room and it seemed that with each imaginary echo things started to fall into place. The stuff I'd overlooked as her just being odd. All the classes we used to share and didn't this year; the way she'd said "I hate you." in front of the school a few days ago; the weird mood swing she'd pulled on me that same morning... And farther back than just a few days - the unusual amount of "arrangements" she requested; the way she'd fall silent sometimes for no reason at all and snap back into the moment with a strange smile; the unusual amount of new clothes she bought, with a decided bent to the feminine, so unusual for my tomboy better half.
It all came back, every little thing she did differently, stacking up in my mind and accusing me. Mocking me. She was saying something now, face panicked, but the ringing was so loud and the foundations of my world cracked, the ground shuddered under me and I stumbled blindly toward my door, leaving Cecilia in my room. I didn't notice it was barely 4am, a false dawn breaking in the east behind my house. I didn't notice I was barefoot and dressed only in jeans and an undershirt as I staggered down the driveway and following the sidewalk without really knowing where I was going.
My way of trying to get away from you.
Her confession careened crazily in my brain, giving me a pounding headache that the ringing wasn't helping. I couldn't see anything other than her face twisted in anger, tears starting in her eyes - real tears this time, not the fake ones I'd seen so often. I made her cry. That bothered me a lot, until I remembered she didn't like me being around anyway.
I headed downtown in the pre-dawn, the irony of the time only barely registering. Another Blue Hour. Highly appropriate. I think I laughed. I drifted in and out of awareness, eventually finding myself slumped against a Dumpster and staring at crumbling brickwork. For a second, everything was clear, the ringing falling silent and my mind snapping back to normality. For a moment, everything was alright, and I'd had one hell of a trip - I probably shouldn't borrow pills off of Georgie Magee. And then the world tumbled down again and I remember the fight Cecilia and I had and the ringing started back up.
I choked on a laugh that was more sob. Maybe I was going crazy. I was probably overreacting. But I had built my life on Cecilia, I rebuilt it using whatever was left after that pot of boiling water fell on me, leaving scars deeper than the surface. She had been there through every painful surgery, every therapy session. She had never told me it was silly for a boy to cry; she cried with me and for me, even if she didn't fully understand. I had come to depend on her and that was my mistake; she was strong, but she wasn't strong enough for the both of us. She was an outcast because of me, but she wasn't built for it like I was.
I rapped my head against the Dumpster in frustration and agony and guilt. It had all happened so goddamn fast. Where were my big, flashing warning signs? Where had I missed the obvious ones. One moment she's the same old Cecilia I'd known for 11 years and the next she was screaming at me, telling me I was smothering her with my inability to let her go.
Where had I gone wrong?
I was too twisted up in my own pathetic thoughts that I didn't hear the light, dancing steps approaching me. It was slightly lighter now, true dawn on its way. It was light enough for me to see her when she giggled, startling me into spinning around, momentarily shocked out of my spiral of self recrimination.
Delilah was very small, smaller than Cecilia, very thin but lithe with it. She had deep red hair that hung to her waist in perfectly spiraled curls and it framed the lovely face of a woman in her early thirty's, her attractiveness somewhat diminished by the predatory twist to her features and the menacing red color of her eyes. She chuckled again, flashing her teeth, but I sank back into my depression.
"Go ahead," I said. "Kill me. I deserve it after what I did to her."
Her features smoothed in confusion, and she cocked her head to the side. "What?" Her voice was smooth, the word very well articulated. A random thought skittered across my mind: She'd obviously taken voice lessons at some point in her life.
"I said kill me. She doesn't want me back, so I don't want to live." I laughed, soundly slightly more than a little hysterical and unhinged. Curiosity replaced the last remaining traces of the hunter's look on her face.
"Elias," she called softly. "Come look what I found."
Elias seemed to appear out of thin air, a tall, lanky figure with a shaggy mop of brown hair and a look of perpetual unconcern on his face. "What have you found now, Delilah? Another pet?"
She shrugged. "Maybe. He's interesting. Do you think he'll survive?"
I stopped paying attention, returning to my thoughts, until strong hands gripped my upper arms tightly and searing pain jabbed into my left shoulder, sharp teeth piercing my skin and the disturbing feeling of blood leaving my veins. I screamed. I screamed for a long time while the pain gripped me, changing pain, even as the teeth left my shoulder. I didn't notice when they moved me. I didn't notice anything; my body was on fire, I was being eaten alive from the inside out for centuries, each gasp of breath a decade of agony, each heartbeat a year of torture.
I'm not sure when it faded, but eventually I came back to myself laying on the floor, acutely aware that there were two people in the room with me and they were definitely not conducive to my survival. I had the sense not to attack them, but when Delilah crouched down beside me and cheerfully explained what I was and why she changed me, I don't think I'd ever been so mad.
Which brings me back to where we started.
Delilah was almost done with the puzzle, Elias sitting next to her and, by the sounds of it, playing with her hair. I knew when she was done, she would come and try to convince me to hunt, just like she had for the past month. After the first week of promising to avenge my broken heart - she'd found the details out during my millennium of pain - she realized that wasn't what I wanted and started promising a good life for me if I would just eat. They'd even brought me a few bodies, hoping to prod the frenzy and get me to act on instinct. Thankfully it didn't work. Now, it was just the pleading, every 5 hours like clockwork.
I wished I could sleep, just to pass the time.
I maintained my pose for a few hours more, until I heard it.
I heard her.
I was on my feet and at the apartment door before I realized what I was doing. I should've been dizzy, after staying still for so long, but I wasn't. I could hear her, just down the hall and my hand was on the doorknob. All it would take was for me to twist it and be out the door and I would be face to face with her.
Cecilia.
I could hear her voice. "Are you sure you haven't seen him?"
A woman's voice I recognized from my bored eavesdropping replied disinterestedly. "Nope, haven't seen him."
Cecilia's voice again. "Alright, thank you. Can you please take this flyer in case you do-?" The sound of a slamming door cut her off and I broke the handle off the door. How dare that bitch treat Cecilia like that? How DARE she? A snarl started in my chest.
Elias's arms wrapped around me, yanking me backwards and back into the bathroom. I tried to struggle, but I was weak from being pigheaded.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
"I guess that's her, finally come to search for her heartbroken puppy." Delilah's voice was unpleasant. I growled.
Elias replied with a grunt - I wasn't making it easy on him. "Del, don't hurt her. At least not right-" I couldn't help it. I roared at the implication in his words that Delilah would ever hurt Cecilia, breaking out of his grasp and going for his throat. I was weak, but I had the reserves of my own human blood to call on; I hadn't moved much since the change. The sudden surge of strength let me overpower him, and I tore deeply into Elias's most vulnerable spot, ripping giant chunks of psuedo-flesh out of his neck and shoulder. Delilah shrieked and attacked me, the pain of her bites and sting of the venom nothing compared to the hole that had ripped in my chest at the thought of Cecilia being hurt. When Elias was nothing more than twitching chunks on the floor, I turned on Delilah.
Only to freeze.
Behind Delilah, in the doorway, stood Cecilia. There was a hole where the broken knob had fallen off and the door swung open, and there she was, frozen. I hadn't even heard her footsteps, running toward the sounds of struggle. Stupid. She was so smart and so, so stupid. Always was.
She was a mess, long blonde hair tangled like she hadn't brushed it in forever. Dark circles were smudged under her beautiful mismatched eyes and it looked like she'd been crying for a month.
She looked awful - broken down. Was this because I left?
But she wanted me to leave.
She told me she didn't need me anymore, not like I needed her. I remembered the words.
My way of trying to get away from you.
That's all she was trying to do; get away from me.
And yet, she stood in the hall of the apartment building, flyers scattered around her feet and her mouth hanging open and staring at me like I was a tap dancing shark.
All that passed in the blink of an eye and then Delilah was spinning around, all her rage at Elias's defeat centered on Cecilia. Human Cecilia. The redhead sprang, but I was just a little quicker and tackled her out of the air, sinking my teeth into her back. She screamed, struggling against my grasp and clawing her way toward Cecilia, who was still standing in the hallway gaping.
"Cecilia, get the hell out of here if you want to live." That was all I could spare, because then Delilah was away from me, turning and lunging at me, the girl forgotten.
"You killed him!" she shrieked. "You killed Elias! How could you? WE MADE YOU!" She ripped a large hunk of flesh from my arm as I tried to wrestle her to the ground and I grunted. Cecilia was gone, thankfully. I couldn't hear her heartbeat over the screams of the building's other residents; vampires didn't fight quietly.
She wasn't as easy to pin down as Elias had been; he hadn't been expecting my attack, and Delilah was a hellcat, biting with wickedly accurate teeth, clawing at my face and wiggling out of my grasp. Just as I went for her throat, she twisted away from me, dashing out the doorway and I followed on her heels, once again cursing the fact I had refused to feed.
She vaulted the railing to the stairwell, dropping four stories and once again taking off at a dead run, obviously following Cecilia's scent. It was like it always was - soap and sweet - just magnified. I growled and followed Delilah's lead, jumping the railing and hitting the ground at a dead run. The unique trail Cecilia left us was clear, swirled with the smell of Delilah. I wove through the streets, just aware they were strangely empty for it being barely evening.
Blue Hour. If I had the time, I'd laugh.
I swerved down an alleyway, catching a glimpse of Delilah's red hair rounding a corner and weaving deeper into downtown, where streets were barely big enough for two cars and more people walked rather than take a car. I bore down and put on an impossible burst of speed, bringing the hateful bitch in my sights.
With a growl I leapt, taking her down in a twist of limbs and teeth, tearing strips from her as she shrieked. She wiggled away, delivering a painful bite to my shoulder. I howled more in surprise than pain and grabbed her, flinging her over my shoulder and into the wall of the narrow alley. She jumped to her feet, growling at me as she feinted to the side. Anger, bright and hot, took over as I watched her try to dart past me and follow the trail.
"Bitch," I spat. "Just die already."
"I saved you," she snarled right back, dodging to the left. I matched her step for step, feint for feint. "You should be grateful I'd stoop to killing that whore who broke your heart." She barked what was supposed to be laughter. "You called for her the entire time you changed, you know that. Like a little girl."
She jumped at me, this time not a feint and I rolled backwards, toward the way Cecilia went, with her tearing at me. Bright flashes of pain broke out when she got me and I howled, hurling her off and falling on her, tearing pieces out of her and hearing them hit the paved ground. Most of my left arm was gone, somewhere in the apartment or down the alley, but she was worse off, and with one last wrench of my jaw, I decapitated her, her red hair fluttering as her head hit the ground and rolled, coming to rest against a pair of grey sneakers with holes in them. A disembodied voice, clearly female, came from above them.
"You should burn the pieces. The only way to kill our kind, you know."
The owner of the shoes kicked the head aside casually, strolling up to me where I knelt on the ground, finally feeling the magnitude of my injuries. There wasn't a place I didn't hurt.
"Who are you?" I croaked, trying to gather my thoughts enough to decide if I should attack or give in to the urge to lie down and die.
I heard the smile in her voice. "The name's Mora. You're lucky we found you before anyone else. Others aren't going to be so nice as me and Cort are about to be." I looked up.
Mora was a girl of about 24, about average height with short brown hair and red eyes like Delilah's. She was dressed in ragged jeans and a coat that had seen much better days, but it was easy for me to see she was inhuman; her face was sickeningly perfect, delicate bone structure marred by the frown she directed at me. Or maybe at my injuries. I couldn't tell. The man, who I assumed was Cort, rounded the corner a few steps behind her, tall and lean with white hair that was just long enough to look somewhat shabby and a prominent scar scoring his jaw. He moved with the easy grace that Delilah and Elias had possessed, stopping a half step behind and to the left of his shorter mate.
Cort took in the scene without blinking - me slumped to my knees with Mora standing above me amid the remains of Delilah - and set to work gathering up Delilah's pieces, pulling a lighter and some paper out of the pocket of his jean jacket. He moved the way someone did when they were performing a task they had long been familiar with.
While he worked, his companion knelt beside me, running her hands over my wounds and I was amazed to see the pale, faintly gray flesh knit back together under her touch. Cort picked up a mangled piece and sniffed it before tossing it to Mora. She gently set it back into place on my leg and healed me. They worked like this for barely a minute and I was good as new. It was more than I could say for my maker; there was a merry blaze consuming her, the man producing more paper and carefully feeding them to the fire.
"Are there any others in her coven?" Mora watched Cort tend the fire impassively, but the stench that rolled from the smoke made me gag.
"One more, a guy, Elias. Back in the apartment." I coughed reflexively. It didn't help.
"I bet you didn't set him on fire," Cort murmured, fishing a cigarette from his jacket and sticking it in his mouth, lighting it with the lighter he still held. He took a deep drag and let the gray-blue smoke trail out of his mouth, eying me. I shook my head.
"I didn't know."
"You're SOL, then," Mora remarked, gliding to Cort's side and giving me a look identical to the one he gave me. "Your prey doubled back to the way you came, toward the apartments that way. He probably already got her if he was quick about putting himself back together."
It took a moment for her words to sink in. Prey?
God no.
"Cecilia!"
I was on my feet and running before either of them could blink, retracing our steps, desperate. This couldn't happen. Not after what I just went through. Not after I found out she was looking for me. She couldn't want me gone that badly if she was looking for me, right? I had to believe it would work out all right. I had to.
I could hear the newcomers following me, could almost feel their curiosity as we reentered the apartment buildings. Luckily, the police hadn't been called; or maybe they just didn't bother, but in any case no one was there to witness me jump four stories straight up in the air as I reached the stairwell. Apparently the denizens of this part of town knew better than to put their nose in someone's business when that someone was making such a huge racket. I was vaguely glad.
The pair followed my example and jumped, but I knew it was already too late. I could smell the blood, like the finest dinner ever laid out, tantalizing and sweet, tickling the part of my brain that urged me to act on animal instinct rather than reason. I ran down the hallway to the room where we had been staying and stopped dead.
Blood, everywhere. On the floor, the ceiling, the walls.
Cecilia, broken in half, eyes wide in surprise, blue and green, blood leaking out of her open mouth and staining her pale cheeks.
Elias, rage and retribution in his eyes as he looked up from where he was crouched over her, Cecilia's lifeblood staining his grinning face.
"How does it feel, newborn?" he roared triumphantly. "How does it feel to have your other half taken from you?"
I battled with myself. The deeper part of me, the more animal side urged me to join my brother in feasting. I hadn't fed since I was turned and it was almost overpowering. I wavered, torn as he bent his head to a pool of blood trapped in the hollow of her throat. And then I saw her eyes again, one blue, one green, wide and glassy in death and I felt the weaker side of me scream in agony.
I would never see Cecilia alive again. I would never kiss her warm mouth, listen to her breathe when I had trouble sleeping. I would never tease her again. I would never get to say I was sorry for being an ass and thinking only of myself.
I would never see that glint in her eye when she was bluffing at poker and I would never see her hold a child, mine or someone else's. She would never walk down the aisle dressed in white, or hold her first grandchild. We would never dance in the kitchen to the Beatles while my mother laughed at our antics. Her mother would never see her again.
And it was ALL my fault.
I roared, guilt overpowering my hunger and I tore into Elias, shredding him in my fury. He killed her, and I would make him pay. He took my other half, the heads to my tails and I would make him suffer. She was never supposed to be part of this and he killed her; he didn't even have time to fight back.
I don't know how I stopped, but I think the pair, Mora and Cort, helped. Once again, Cort carefully gathered the pieces, getting any stray parts of Delilah, and set another careful blaze, all the while sucking on his cigarette. I watched him numbly, the dry sobs catching in my throat, wondering if that was why he was so calm.
"No, nicotine doesn't affect us," he said quietly, the ashes from the cigarette falling onto a particularly unrecognizable piece of Elias. "We're just no strangers to the aftermath of groups like this collapsing on themselves." His face turned bitter for a moment.
I blinked. Was he a mind reader like Mora seemed to be a healer?
"You spoke out loud," Mora told me.
Oh.
I watched them work. They were doing an admirable job about resisting the gore that covered the room. I didn't dwell on it, feeling the irrational, disgusting thirst roar to the front of my mind. I wanted to tear my hair out for thinking of such a thing while Cecilia was right there.
Mora carefully gathered Cecilia's sundered body and laid her out on the floor on a dust sheet commandeered from the furniture in another apartment, gently closing the glassy mismatched eyes and folding the white sheet over. I watched, grateful for the numbness this time as her face was hidden away from me for the last time.
"Cece," I moaned, wishing I could really cry for her. I knew I had to go, get away. I wondered if it was possible for a vampire to commit suicide. An image of Cecilia rose in my mind, face angry that I would even contemplate something like that. It hurt. She shook her head, scolding me for depending on her so much. The image faded. That hurt so much more, and I twitched.
Mora laid a hand one the cloth covered head for a moment, gravely silent as she knelt by the body with her head bowed and lips moving in a silent prayer. Cort stood behind her, his face pained as he ran a gentle hand over Mora's brown hair.
"We should move the body before the fire spreads," Cort spoke up, reluctantly interrupting her. He gave me another one of his appraising looks. "And you should feed. You look like shit."
I laugh hollowly. I supposed I should. No one to protect now, right?
"You can come with us, if you like. We're headed for Denver." Mora's voice was gentle, her red eyes sad.
I didn't answer. Any plan was better than no plan.
Carefully she picked up the shell of the center of my world, now gone, and motioned for Cort. The white haired man gently took my arm and led me out of the apartment, still sticky with Cecilia's blood. A rapidly spreading fire was in the middle of the living room, slowly burning a 5000 piece puzzle of a sunset that had mostly survived the previous destruction of the room. The box for the puzzle ignited as the fire lapped it and the title was briefly visible before it was consumed.
The Blue Hour.
The blue hour comes from a French expression (l'heure bleue) which refers to the hour experienced between the hours of daylight and darkness (i.e., Dusk).
- Wikipedia
A/N: Dear sweet Eru. Almost 11 THOUSAND words. The longest one shot I've ever done.