~*~ Oh literary gods, please forgive my crappy titling and overused metaphors, and in return I will sacrifice the Twilight Saga in a fiery blaze.
So, yeah, crappy title and ridiculous amounts of Veser-angsting aside, I really like how this came out. This is my idea of what will happen when the team gets the pelt back. It's very vague for a reason, and it'll all be made clear later. The first part is Veser's POV, and the second part will be Conrad's.
No lie, when I'm not torturing Veser, I seriously love this character. If he went to my school I would stalk him.
Musical Muse: The Poet and the Pendulum by Nightwish
Warning: A swear word or two.
Disclaimer: Oh god I wish I owned Hanna is Not a Boy's Name. But alas, they belong to the amazing and accredited ~Tessa Stone~
~*~Ocean of Grief Chapter 1~*~
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Veser stared out at the grey water. Grey like the sky, grey like the sand he crouched on, grey like the sodden pelt he clutched in his hands. It was like the universe was backing away from him, inching away from the bomb in his chest. The bomb that had started ticking when Lee disappeared, had strengthened when he found Lee's body and ghost in the theater, and had become deafening when he had finally seen the bodies of his parents, lying side by side in the morgue. Now he sat on the beach, the roaring in his ears coming from inside his chest and from the ocean next to him.
They didn't deserve to be like that, a tiny thought in his mind said. His father didn't deserve to be on a cold slab next to his mother. He should be chopped into little bits rotting away in the ground. And she deserved to be set adrift on the ocean, her pelt returned to her, as tradition warranted.
The thought was gone, drowned out by the roaring loud ticking in his chest. The ticking reminded him of Ples, who had tried so hard to help the little group looking for the pelt. Ples had been there in the morgue with him, had called after him when he ran out with the pelt.
He was probably worried. He seemed like one of those nervous adults that always seemed nervous at all times. Probably organizing a search party out of the pitiful group that had gravitated around Hanna. Veser didn't care. Couldn't care.
As the ticking grew in strength and volume, it flowed into the ocean in his chest, becoming part of the constant roar in his mind. The ocean turned his chest colder and colder. It froze his breath, froze his voice, froze his tears. And now, out in the rain and elements, it froze his skin.
Maybe he would become a frozen lump here on the beach. Then the tide would come in and carry him out. Would the selkies accept a half-breed? No; his father's people didn't accept him; why should his mother's? Who wanted a freak with razor teeth and poison green eyes?
A seagull landed next to him and regarded him with its beady eyes. Did it wonder if he was edible? 'I'm too frozen to eat' Veser wanted to say, but his voice had frozen back in the morgue, and he couldn't say anything.
The gull left, and the almost-frozen ocean inside him told him the tide was receding. Lee left, his parents left, the gull had left, and now the ocean was leaving. All he had left was the frozen block in his chest.
He heard the gull cry over his head; heard one answer back. What were they saying? Did they gossip like the ladies at the supermarket, remarking about the sullen boy with unnatural eyes? Or did they talk about fish?
The seagull called again, but the other didn't answer. Was it asking where everyone had gone? Why it was now all alone?
The gull squawked next to him, suddenly turned into a voice repeating "Veser? Veser!" in his ear as hands pulled at his shoulders. Hands that were as cold as his own. A face moved in front of his, but he couldn't focus on it. He stared through it, at the ocean.
"Veser!" the voice was sharp and demanding. His father's voice turned that way when he was angry at him. He was always angry at him.
The hands grabbed his face, and he could finally focus on the face in front of him. Pale, sharp with worry. The seagull squawked in his face, hard and unforgiving. It wavered in front of his eyes, sliding out of focus as his eyes turned to the obstructed ocean. He knew it was there. It was always there. No matter how far inland he went, he could always feel the ocean, pulling and pushing the breath from his lungs.
The gull was shrieking to him again, but he couldn't hear over the roar of the ocean inside his head. It filled his head whenever his father hit him, pulled him into the depths of darkness with every strike. Sometimes he had wanted to sink into the cold black of his mind. But it had never happened.
If he remained frozen on the beach, would he eventually drown there?
Suddenly he was aware of his feet under him. The tingling in his legs reminded him of the first time he had been stung by a jellyfish, the first time his father had slapped him. The gull was pushing, pulling, pleading "For fuck's sake Veser walk would ya its freezing out here" barely heard over the ocean. But he was adrift in his mind, and shore was too far off.
A warm breath of air on his face, most of the wetness was gone. The physical ocean moving away, the one in his chest pulling him away from his surroundings. He heard the seagull cry, telling another gull about the frozen bit of flesh he had pulled from the beach. The ocean in him momentarily overwhelmed him and then he was aware of the waves pushing him to the surface, pulling him from the cold black and up to the warm shallows. The thieving gull tried to pull his mother's pelt from him, and he tried to hold on to it. But his hands were too frozen. His fingers lost their grip, and suddenly his own pelt was being stripped from him.
He wanted to struggle, feeling naked and helpless as layers of himself were removed. Had his mother felt like this the whole time she had been on land? It was horrible, like a part of him was removed from his whole self, and the ocean in him roared to be released. The gull cried continuously in the background "Stop being such a zombie move blink something"
A riptide suddenly overtook him, water splashing all around him. Warm, not-salty water flowed from above. The hot water landed on his skin, turning it red as a herring, but did not penetrate the frozen ocean in him. His chest tightened, the water moving to his lungs, constricting them, making it hard to breathe. Was he drowning at last?
He was finally pulled from the hot torrent, yanked onto the coarseness of the sand. His unprotected skin rubbed raw, uncomfortable feelings all around him. The seagull's voice right in his ear, changing from sharp cries to soft coos "Come on Ves come back warm up please" His mind struggled to get away from the hurt, go back into the cool waters inside him. Slowly he slipped down, further and further away from light and warmth and everything.
The surface world held nothing for him. He had always longed for the ocean, always felt its pull. Down, down, down; deep into the cool black. The gull's final cry echoed in his ears. "Come back Veser come back."
"Come back."
Come back?
Why should he go back? Nothing up there was for him. No one there wanted him. He sank deeper into his mind's ocean. So calm, so cool. So quiet. He could stay there forever.
A shaft of weak surface light penetrated the depths above him. Warm laughter, a bright blur bobbing like a fish in front of him. Voices, heated, grudging amused anger not directed at him, or spoken in a way to remove the sting. A ticking, not from the bomb adrift in open sea, but from a gentle machine warm from hands. Bright sparks that picked and poked at him, asking encouraging him to play.
It hurt up there. Things were sporadic erratic ever changing. The ocean was calm constant comforting.
"Come back."
The ocean didn't bother him, didn't drag him from his comfort and into more crazy situations. It didn't chastise him about shoes on the couch, about pop cans left on the floor, didn't growl at him he should be old enough not to be so stupid, didn't tease him about eating so much sushi.
He should just stay in the deep dark depths. He didn't want to- "Come back"
The light hurt his eyes, made him gasp. Water in his lungs, and suddenly the ocean turned against him, ripping at his chest, burning his throat. He struggled, gasping, choking, fighting toward the light, away from the crushing blackness. And then he was back on the shore of his mind, coughing up seawater that stung his eyes, made him scream. He could feel the warmth, the scratchiness of the sand, the harshness of the world away from the ocean.
The seagull was there again, calling his name, and suddenly it was Conrad, asking "are you alright breathe you little idiot you need to breathe" his hand on his back as he knelt next to him. He was in Conrad's apartment, covered in blankets, the ocean draining from his chest with every cough, with every shudder. It flowed unchecked from his eyes, and he couldn't get enough air in his lungs.
"Breathe breathe just breathe." Conrad kept repeating, his cold had rubbing circles on his back. "Breathe."
His mind, free from the ocean in his head, wanted to laugh about a vampire telling him to breathe, but he couldn't speak through the sharpness lodged in his chest. He could only manage short, sharp sounds that hurt like knives as he tensed and shuddered. His head hurt, his throat hurt, his eyes hurt, his chest his lungs his heart hurt. Everything hurt.
But he couldn't go back to the ocean, not back to that cold clammy nothingness. He remained marooned on the beach of his life and mind; on the floor of Conrad's living room, crying his ocean out while Conrad waited for him to come back to himself.
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