A/N-This is just a short prelude, but please let me know what you think.
I've never posted a story on ff.net, and it's been a long while since I've
worked in this fandom, so I'm very interested in how you think it's going.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, except a few I made up. I'm just writing this (hopefully) for the enjoyment of another fan.
Cry
Sebastian hated Louisiana. He hated the smell, the sounds, everything about it. Now, he was stuck sitting in some Baton Rouge café, slowly drinking horrible coffee and flipping though four-year old newspaper clippings while the nightshift watched him curiously. About fifteen minutes before, one of the waitresses had dropped the address of a local shelter on the table "accidentally." He couldn't blame her; he had been travelling from El Paso for entirely too long. He was wearing sweat pants and a battered flannel shirt that smelled like an old bus, and his hair hung in oily, dark strands to his shoulders. One more bus and he'd be in New Orleans. He could find a hotel, take a much-needed shower and wash the filth off his body. He picked up his coffee cup and raised it to his mouth. God, how he hated Louisiana.
But he loved his father more.
At the thought, the cup fell to the table and the liquid splashed across the table on onto his clothes. He muttered sharply to himself as the waitress hurried up to him. He smiled apologetically at her and tossed a ten-dollar bill onto the table before hurrying out the door. He could kill the next half an hour at the bus station.
He made it about two doors down from the café when the thought of his father invaded his mind. Sebastian didn't want to like the man. But he couldn't help it. For the first sixteen years of his life, he never knew anything about the man who ran out on his mother, Anna. All Sebastian knew was that he was alone, left to take care of a woman who was barely an adult herself. But everything changed the summer before he turned seventeen. He had come home from his after school job to find his mother sitting on the steps of their West Texas house with a strange man who looked like he had been to hell and back. Anna had been crying, that was obvious. And it looked like the older man had probably spent some time in tears, too. Sebastian only had to come within ten feet of him to see the resemblance, and know-soul to soul-that the man on the front steps was his father. He tried to resent him. Tried so hard to hate. But as time went by, they had developed a friendship, if not a parent/child relationship.
It had taken almost four years for Sebastian to grudgingly admit he loved the older man. And that brought him to two weeks ago, when his father's lifeless body was found in a gutter.
Sebastian paused at the bus station, as the cold recollection of that day flooded him again. He vaguely remembered Anna telling him what had happened. He only vaguely remembered the next few days. But suddenly, he found himself in his parent's closet, going through an old box the man had brought with him when he came to El Paso.
In that box were newspaper clippings of murders in Louisiana, the last of which coincided with his father's leaving the state. Under those was a thick notebook, written partly in English and partly in a language Sebastian didn't know. Then there were three pictures, all of the same person. She was young, maybe fifteen, and fairly pretty. The photos were all black and white, so he couldn't tell whether she was blonde or a redhead. And she would be about nineteen now anyway, so she could have jet- black hair for all he knew. All he did know was written in the notebook. "Don't let the demon get her," was written over and over again between the long entries he couldn't read. He knew that, whoever she was, she'd know what happened to his father.
And four years ago, she was in New Orleans. It was a needle in a haystack, he knew. But it was as good a place to start as any.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, except a few I made up. I'm just writing this (hopefully) for the enjoyment of another fan.
Cry
Sebastian hated Louisiana. He hated the smell, the sounds, everything about it. Now, he was stuck sitting in some Baton Rouge café, slowly drinking horrible coffee and flipping though four-year old newspaper clippings while the nightshift watched him curiously. About fifteen minutes before, one of the waitresses had dropped the address of a local shelter on the table "accidentally." He couldn't blame her; he had been travelling from El Paso for entirely too long. He was wearing sweat pants and a battered flannel shirt that smelled like an old bus, and his hair hung in oily, dark strands to his shoulders. One more bus and he'd be in New Orleans. He could find a hotel, take a much-needed shower and wash the filth off his body. He picked up his coffee cup and raised it to his mouth. God, how he hated Louisiana.
But he loved his father more.
At the thought, the cup fell to the table and the liquid splashed across the table on onto his clothes. He muttered sharply to himself as the waitress hurried up to him. He smiled apologetically at her and tossed a ten-dollar bill onto the table before hurrying out the door. He could kill the next half an hour at the bus station.
He made it about two doors down from the café when the thought of his father invaded his mind. Sebastian didn't want to like the man. But he couldn't help it. For the first sixteen years of his life, he never knew anything about the man who ran out on his mother, Anna. All Sebastian knew was that he was alone, left to take care of a woman who was barely an adult herself. But everything changed the summer before he turned seventeen. He had come home from his after school job to find his mother sitting on the steps of their West Texas house with a strange man who looked like he had been to hell and back. Anna had been crying, that was obvious. And it looked like the older man had probably spent some time in tears, too. Sebastian only had to come within ten feet of him to see the resemblance, and know-soul to soul-that the man on the front steps was his father. He tried to resent him. Tried so hard to hate. But as time went by, they had developed a friendship, if not a parent/child relationship.
It had taken almost four years for Sebastian to grudgingly admit he loved the older man. And that brought him to two weeks ago, when his father's lifeless body was found in a gutter.
Sebastian paused at the bus station, as the cold recollection of that day flooded him again. He vaguely remembered Anna telling him what had happened. He only vaguely remembered the next few days. But suddenly, he found himself in his parent's closet, going through an old box the man had brought with him when he came to El Paso.
In that box were newspaper clippings of murders in Louisiana, the last of which coincided with his father's leaving the state. Under those was a thick notebook, written partly in English and partly in a language Sebastian didn't know. Then there were three pictures, all of the same person. She was young, maybe fifteen, and fairly pretty. The photos were all black and white, so he couldn't tell whether she was blonde or a redhead. And she would be about nineteen now anyway, so she could have jet- black hair for all he knew. All he did know was written in the notebook. "Don't let the demon get her," was written over and over again between the long entries he couldn't read. He knew that, whoever she was, she'd know what happened to his father.
And four years ago, she was in New Orleans. It was a needle in a haystack, he knew. But it was as good a place to start as any.
