notes: for leeshy (vanity sinning). i love you. (even if u arent bout getting da hood back 2getha)
listen to: never let me go – florence and the machine

v.

maria knows. she knows what's going on and what he's doing to her daughter. she knows and she's not sure which is worst: that it's happening or that she can't stop it. that she can't save her daughter from it the way she saved herself all those years ago.

deep down, though, maria knows.

there was nothing to save herself from back then. he loved her, could love her. there was no inner battle with himself. he opened is heart to her and she stomped on it and it all comes right back to her.

every single god damn time.

so she takes another sip of that expensive wine of hers and closes her eyes and it's easier this way.

she can't save jude, so she pretends she doesn't see.

iv.

dimitri doesn't know what to do.

his namesake is destroying his best friend's sister and he doesn't know what to do. he has no pull over the man.

he couldn't tell him to stay and he can't tell him to leave.

all he can do is hold on tight and close his eyes and wait for the impact to come. to pray that when it happens – when it comes, she manages to pull herself out of the wreckage.

she was always about self-preservation. maybe all she needs is to come a little too close to the edge to realize he's destroying her. to realize for seventeen years she didn't need him, and she doesn't need him now.

she's strong and she can survive this, he tells himself. but only if she's willing.

only if she can pull herself out.

iii.

declan finds himself at a loss.

she's his sister, one half of his whole. his baby sister, separated by only a few moments but in the end a few moments can really be a life time.

they started out with only a day apart. but that day turned into more days, which turned into years, and more years, and then there were centuries separating them.

centuries and dimitri casear coyne i.

there's nothing more to say because there's only one thing that matters: she needed him and he couldn't help her.

declan couldn't save her and he'd spend every day of the rest of his life hating himself for that.

ii.

he knows what he's doing.

he knows he's killing her. Knows his hands are around her neck and his knife is at her heart and he's shoving her under in that bathtub, blocking all air, ripping into her skin with his claws, tearing at every ounce of self preservation she's got.

he takes her independence away with the taste of his tongue, takes her need to be free away with the brush of his skin, steals away her ability to run with the feel of his fuck.

he ruins her. wrecks her.

and he knows what he's doing the entire time.

i.

here's the thing: she doesn't want to die, necessarily. she just needs to get away from him. she needs to breathe and she can't do it when he's near but she can't get away from him, because he follows her, finds her.

he always makes it seem like he's one step behind her, always close enough to reach out and just barely brush his finger tips against her skin. but the truth is, he's not one step behind her. He's one step ahead and she always runs right into him, every single time, and it's always her fault.

she can't get away.

until she can.