Inspired by (i.e. shamelessly ripped off) the songs "O Princess" and "To Bring You Back" of the beautiful ConWorth fanmix, We All Need a Fix. Also, *spoiler*Robbicide's fanart for hinabn titled "graveyard". It was meant to be original but quickly changed to a ConWorth fic. Angsty and set quite some time after canon (hopefully not too cheesy). I know it's very vague but it's meant to be that way. Hopefully someone will enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it.
The singular orange glow of the streetlight from outside his window, distorted by slow moving trails of rain, makes his breath hitch. The rest of his apartment is dark, lightless, save for the open laptop in front of him. Without so much as glance at it, he shuts the thing and places it down on the floor beside him. The rain on his window glimmers as it crawls down the pane. He imagines he is absorbed by it, but when he opens his eyes again he is still there, waiting.
He is waiting for his killer. Waiting for his killer to come back home.
When his killer walks in the door he'll unleash all that he's been holding in since death, since before that even, because, dammit, he couldn't take this anymore, where the fuck was he?
He tries to imagine his killer standing outside under that light. He tries to imagine the flick of the lighter, those lips taking that first drag on the cigarette he's been hanging onto for days, and the puff of smoke curling upward towards the light and past, in a futile attempt to embrace the sky. It had been too long.
He pushes his fingers past his thick square-rimmed glasses, and rubs his eyes much more roughly than he should. He pinches the bridge of his nose and the glasses fall and clatter onto the floor. He makes no move to retrieve them. That orange glow from outside seems much more ethereal now, and he doesn't mind that one bit.
He's been dead a long time now. He tried counting the days, but he lost track anyway.
His killer would have kept track, not because it brought him personal pride or anything, but because his killer was always looking for new ways to kill him again. Hammering it all in would be a good way to do it.
Maybe that was too harsh. He wasn't a monster, he was just…
Fuck that, it wasn't harsh enough! Who was he kidding? That asshole had-
Dammit, he doesn't know what to think anymore, couldn't remember how to remember him. There wasn't an explicit right or wrong. No Disney-bullshit "follow your heart" notion was going to help him. He doesn't know what to do… except wait.
He's waiting for an attack. The last one to be specific. He's not sure how this one will go and who will cause it, but he imagines it will start with some crude remark.
"Th' fuck're you doin' sittin' in the dark, Princess? Waitin' fer me?"
He takes a deep unnecessary breath and exhales through his nose. That probably isn't right at all. He can't imagine his killer. His killer just is. Aside from calling him an asshole or a dick, that's probably as close as he'll get to describing him properly.
He swallows the burning pain in his too dry throat. Thing is, every time he thinks he's completely accepted being dead, it just turns around and hits him harder. He says "it" but of course he means that damn man.
He had always been good at denial; denial he was sick, denial that he wasn't, denial of his life, denial of his death. He'd been firmly stuck and settled in the middle of nowhere. But that man, that god damned bastard, cast a smug and mighty sneer and ripped him right out of that. It didn't matter that the initial death happened before they'd even met, that man killed him. Just by telling him he was dead. The fist he had landed across the man's jaw sealed the deal.
Then once that had sunk in some, that man (not to mention that crazy entourage that led him to his killer-literally and figuratively) showed him what life was actually about. The irony of all cruel fucking ironies. He wouldn't give the his killer so much credit that he was a better person- hell, he was worse, he was sure of that- and the man's methods were generally repulsive in one way or another, but he'd been living more than he had when his heart had still been beating. He guessed he owed his killer that. He mentioned it once to him. Not long after, his killer murdered him again, in a slightly different way than before.
And so was born the pattern. Live, die, live, die, live, die. Over and over and over. Always different in some way. Not necessarily even intentional if he was honest. But the man had still killed him.
He'd made sure to do a real good job of it this time too.
He hisses faintly, feeling blood roll down to his chin from where he has pierced his lip with two sharp fangs. He wipes if off with the side of his hand and contemplates whether to wash it off or lick up as much of it as he can. Between the singular orange glow in the darkness, and his own poor eye-sight, that smear resembles a thick tar. The smell, however, though not what he'd hoped for, is still easily convincing.
The light outside flickers. His head shoots up instantaneously, and he can't help himself from pressing into the glass window he is sitting against, and searching blindly for a familiar form behind the fogged, rain streaked plate of glass, and on the street below.
There is nothing. He feels a sickening heave in his chest. There is a pained gasp, a low keening whine, and suddenly a broken wail penetrates the long standing silence that his new apartment had been frozen in. His fingers clench and unclench against the glass, much like that of a newborn. The window is cold against his forehead.
He hates that man, so fucking much. He hates waiting. He hates waiting for a man who's never coming back. And it kills him over and over again that he keeps on waiting anyway.
It's late-or early, rather- when he realises he is still sitting there, pressed stupidly up against the glass. It is still dark but he can feel the sun will be up soon. He has a room with no windows; he can sleep there during the day. There is another room but it hasn't been used in a while.
He heaves himself off the window seat, away from the window, and grabs his glasses off the floor, sliding them on. He moves robotically across the room and peaks within the unused bedroom. He spots what he's looking for on the dresser and grabs the two items before heading back to stare out the window. Just in time, it seems, the orange glow of the street light putters out for the night. The apartment goes dark.
With a quick practiced movement, he flicks the once favoured lighter of his killer, takes that first slow drag of the cigarette he's been hanging onto for years, lets the toxic chemicals fill his already deceased lungs, and watches the ignited tip glow a soft orange.
He closes his eyes and takes in the smell. Yeah, he was good at denial. He just wasn't very good dying. Or living either.
He tries to imagine his killer holding the light in his fingers. He can't. His killer didn't grant last requests. Instead he imagines the puff of smoke, from what should've been his killer's. cigarette, curling upward past the light and beyond the ceiling. He imagines it reaching up to embrace the sky. He imagines, maybe, going with it.
When he opens his eyes again he is still there.
Waiting.