a/n: a really cool idea inspired by /canute/. my brain is weird at night.
~|eden|~
He knew a girl, once. She had hair like the earth and eyes that yearned for adventure and skin tanned golden-brown from the sun and a spirit that was always free, flying over mountains, over the world, over galaxies. She was a raging storm barely contained by the shell of her being.
Where she walked, the ground burst into flames, and when they touched, winter met summer and birthed spring, that time of lingering coldness yet with a hint of life about to burst from the snow-touched soil, the scent of blossoming plants redolent in the air and intermingled with melting snow. Decay and rebirth.
He remembers that they met in an orchard, under an apple tree.
He gave her an apple, and she took the first bite of destruction.
"Hello," she says, her breath frosting in the chilly autumn air. He stands silently, shaded from the still-bright sunbeams under the cover of the tree's branches. She stands across from him, her hair bundled into messy knots and her hands wrapped around a wicker basket.
"Do you mind if I pick some apples?"
He says nothing.
She takes it as her cue and walks boldly up to the tree, and they are standing side by side, and although she should know who he is, what he is by now, she doesn't show the fear. Absently, she fingers a silver crucifix wrapped around her ned, a red gemstone gleaming in the center.
(her heart is going thump-thump-thump and he can smell her blood, rich and sweet like an aged wine)
"Do you know what I am?" he asks her, his voice quiet.
"Yes," she answers, without a waver in her voice.
"And yet you are unafraid?"
"I am."
He taps the trunk lightly, and an apple falls from the branch directly above her and into her basket, landing with a muffled thud. Its skin is glossy and red, and when she takes a bite, juice runs down her chin and onto her woolen jacket. Inadvertently, his fangs pop up, elongating from his incisors until they protrude slightly from his mouth, and he runs his tongue over the sharp points.
"You are a strange girl," he muses, circling around her once, twice, thrice in the blink of an eye before resuming his previous position. "Many would have run from me by now. Yet, you persist in staying. All to pick a few apples."
"Fall is the best season for apples," she answers, smiling. "And pumpkins, as well. I'm planning to make some pies with the fruit here."
"Sounds delicious," he mutters dryly.
"But not as good as me, right?" She laughs at her own joke, and strangely, he feels his lips lifting upwards into a smile.
"Correct. Although..." He crosses the distance between them in a single, blurred step and takes a vial from her pocket all in one fluid motion. The vial is filled with clear water, and he swings it between his fingers before crushing it and letting the water run onto the ground. "... this isn't holy water. Your priest, whoever he is, doesn't have sincere intentions when blessing items." He flicks the shards of glass like they are bits of dust. "Blessing isn't only about saying a few incantations. It takes conviction, as well."
"How interesting," she remarks sarcastically.
"And another thing. Contrary to the popular belief, having a single holy relic around your neck only guards the area where it is worn. I can touch your arm," he runs his finger along her shoulders, "your face," his fingers skim her cheekbones, "and your lips," he concludes, tapping her full mouth lightly.
Her smile only widens. "You've been playing the game for a long time, haven't you?"
"Longer than you can even imagine, girl."
"How long, though?"
Idly, he settled himself in a crook on the tree, lacing his fingers behind his head. "Over three centuries."
"Wow," she says, popping her lips on the 'o', and she realizes she is mocking him lightly. This amuses him more.
"Why aren't you afraid, human?" he asks, crushing a leaf and scattering it into the wind. "You know my kind are capable of dangerous things, but you continue to remain."
She touches the crucifix, then gazes up at him. "Why should I be afraid? Fear is only a condition spawned by not knowing. Now that I've taken away the mask from the wolf, I know exactly who you are, vampire, and there's no point in fearing what you already know," she ends with a shrug.
"A well-worded philosophical view with some merit, but it sounds like-"
"-utter and complete bullshit?" She giggles. "Yeah, it sounds lame and has a few flaws here and there. I made it up on the spot. I hear vampires are supposed to be hugely cultured intellectuals from spending years of immortality in study."
"And you wanted to impress me with smart-sounding but ultimately extemporaneous bullshit?"
"Yes."
"You're intriguing," he muses, sitting up straighter and peering down at her. "Unusual."
"Well, how clever of you to observe such a blatant fact," she says sweetly. "Now, could you tap the tree again and give me a few more apples?"
Still bemused, he raps his knuckles against the branches and an entire cavalcade of apples tumbles down, rolling free and undeterred down the hill like marbles out of a jar. She watches in dismay as the red fruit disappears, but he jumps and scoops all of the apples up in mere seconds, dropping an armful into her basket.
"There," he says. "Enough for you?"
"Yes," she answers with a smile. "Thank you, you're very kind."
This time, she speaks with actual gratitude in her voice, and he is taken aback.
"You really are a strange girl," he murmurs. "And I must be even stranger for helping a human like you."
"Or, you could just be a really nice guy."
"Perhaps."
The wind blows, and the branches above them shake gently. He doesn't feel the cold, but she shivers.
When it is time for her to leave, she waves once at him.
He simply stares after her.
There is a tap on her window.
"Let me in," he asks.
She looks up and shakes her head regretfully, and he leaves.
Fall quickly fades into winter, where the whole land is blanketed in freezing mounds of white and the trees are bone-thin skeletons with their arm-like branches raised to the gunmetal skies as if in supplication to a god. He still sits on the apple tree, snow falling into his hair and remaining. Because he does not have body heat; rather, he has body coldness.
He exhales and there is no cloud.
Then, miraculously, his ears pick out the sound of footsteps, and his keen eyes reveal the source of the noise. It's the girl again, trudging up the snow-covered hill in a heavy winter coat, jeans, boots, and ridiculous earmuffs with cartoonish faces and hanging tassels that she seems to be in a habit of deliberately swinging back and forth, like cotton pendulums.
"What are you doing?" he asks, slightly worried that she's out in conditions such as these. He reaches out and scoops her up, ignoring her gasp of surprise, and carries her over to the apple tree.
"Thanks," she says, a little breathily. "How romantically chivalrous of you."
"Never been swept off your feet before, I presume?"
"Not by a boy."
"Was it enjoyable for you?"
She smiles, her cheeks red against the cold. "Somewhat."
And the two of them sit in the shade of the apple tree, snowflakes raining from the sky and melting in the girl's hair while remaining solid and substantial against the boy's skin.
"What is your name?" the vampire asks.
The girl replies, "Touko. My name is Touko."
"It sounds outlandish," he says. "Japanese?"
"Yeah."
"I thought as much."
She smiles at him. "My family, we're of mixed ethnicities. My dad could be considered European, I guess, and he says that he's a mix of German and French, but my mom is a Japanese woman through and through. I'm a combination of them; well, me and my sister."
"You have a sister?"
She nods. "Her name's Mei, and she's kind of scared of strangers." Touko laughs. "I can't even imagine how she'd react if a vampire came into our house."
"Would you let me into your house?" he asks, brushing snow off her hair.
"Maybe," she remarks cryptically, and they leave it at that. Neither of them is sure of how far their relationship has progressed-is it still a budding friendship, or beyond even that?-and it would be better to put off the subject until they are sure, really sure if they want to continue.
Later that night, though, she goes back home and scrubs off some of the wards painted on her bedroom window and stares at the full moon, glowing bright in the night sky like a disc of flesh.
There is a tap on her window.
"Let me in," he asks.
She hesitates, then begins to undo the latch.
The gloom of winter disappears and is replaced by spring. Bit by bit, the frost and the snow begin to retreat, leaving in their wake waterlogged leaves still stuck in various stages of decay, dead, soggy earth, limp grass, and animals just starting to rise from their hibernation. Fruit-bearing trees start to fill with lovely blossoms in pink or white or something else, the smell of it deliciously enticing. In a few more months, the actual fruit may begin to grow.
He remembers the apples, shining red and juicy in their scarlet skins, ready to be plucked and eaten, whether directly or via some pastry, as in the case of the pies. But not all of them land safely; some of them simply fall and lie on the ground, rotting slowly but surely, their gleaming skins dulling and growing blacker and blacker with each passing second.
Because decay travels fast.
She comes to him with her usual smile in place, and by now he has come to welcome her presence with open arms. From a market, he has brought an apple for her, keeping it cool in an icebox, and now he takes it out and hands it to her and she accepts it gratefully, biting into the chilled skin with a small sigh of pleasure. Apples are Touko's favorite fruit, he learns.
"What's wrong?" he asks her, detecting sadness even as she munches on her fruit. She exhales and turns to him, her eyes very wide and wet.
"Can you keep a secret?"
"Of course," he says, feeling worried.
So, she spills it all. How she went to the doctor earlier that day-one of the only doctors in the area-and he diagnosed her with inoperable brain cancer. How she sat very still and took in his grim words with little nods and punctuated their silence with mundane, silly questions she already knew the answer to. His verdict was maybe a year, maybe less. Perhaps she would be lucky and have two more years with which to spend her time in the company of her beloved.
He listens quietly as she tells her tale, and when it is over, he places his cold hand over her warm one, looks into her, and says, "I could save you, you know."
She knows, yes she does. As the sightings became more common, as the vampires emerged, their hunting methods became elementary knowledge, dredged up from campfire tales and legends where they had previously lain, collecting dust, and brought into the modern world to be used as a defense. The smart are pragmatic, after all.
A vampire either kills a human entirely by drinking all their blood or, should they feel compelled to transform the victim into another one of their kind, will inject their own immortal blood into the human's now-empty bloodstream, altering their DNA and infusing them with all the standard vampiric benefits: eternal longevity, enhanced senses and reflexes, and a desire to be nourished by the blood of the living.
She knows.
"If you want it, of course," he adds, seeing how she turns away from him and toward the flower-dotted fields. "It would have to be a decision made with your entire consent, and probably that of your family's, but I just want to let you know that if you do-if you want to keep living, I'll do it for you."
She draws in a breath, and locks her brown eyes with his red ones. "I know you would. But... I don't know. Living forever? It doesn't sound all that interesting, and besides, what would I do once I kept living and my family died? I'd like to go out with them, if you know what I mean."
"I could turn them, too, if you'd like. You could all be together." He does not realize the desperation in his voice until she quiets him by pressing a finger to his lips.
"No," she whispers, sadly. "We wouldn't."
"Yes, you would. Your father, sister, your mo-"
"My mother isn't with us anymore." She plucks at the still-growing grass as she says it. "She passed away from fever three years ago."
The news hits him like a blow. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." She gives him a wry smile. "It's not your fault. I never understand why people say that, anyway. Unless they had some part in it, they've got no reason to be apologizing, do they?"
"Maybe they feel bad for you."
"Maybe."
"Promise me you'll think about it, though." He clasps her hands together. "Promise."
"Red, I don't know..."
"The offer will stand forever. When you decide, when you're really sure... tell me. Whatever you choose, I'll respect your decision."
She nods. "I think a little more time would be good. I'll think about it, okay?"
"Okay."
"And Red?"
"Yes?"
She looks solemn. "I think it's time I told my family about you."
He feels an unexpected pang of pain at that, but he manages to make himself agree with her and to come to her house later that evening.
There is a tap on her window.
"Let me in," he asks.
Without sparing a single moment to think, she blurts, "Red, I allow you into my house!"
The window bangs open and he slides, sinuous as smoke, onto her bed, hugging her fiercely. She is still in her pajamas and her hair is a mess, but he thinks she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. They kiss, and her lips smell like apples.
They kiss, and a fire is ignited between them, burning hot and cold and sending pleasurable shivers down her spine.
"I love you," she tells him in between kisses.
"And I love you," he answers.
Summer. The worst season of the year, in his opinion. Not just because of the constant sunlight isolating his maneuverability to a few select locations, but because the girl he loves is dying of a terminal illness.
Dying. The word sounds so strange to his ears, a word he has never thought of much until now. Dying.
Like the bruised apples that fall from the tree and rot on the ground, the decay has continued to spread further, until the doctors have tried to hold it back with all their primitive medicines and anesthetics and drugs, pumping her full of chemicals until she is a glassy-eyed android who, in her lapses, does not recognize him. Him, the boy with the red eyes and charcoal hair and a touch so cold it could freeze water.
It makes his heart, dead as it is, feel sharp twinges of pain cutting through it.
He visits her in her hospital room, where her sister and father have cried painful tears over their daughter who is rapidly slipping away from them like a fish into the ocean, where doctors in medical scrubs have whispered consoling words like, "It's okay; she no longer recognizes you, she can't feel the pain of loss."
Oh, how cold and callous men of science can be.
He weaves through the orderlies, through the white linoleum hallways, until he reaches her room, shrouded by a cloth barrier. She sits in the center, hooked up to outdated machines barely serving the functions for which they were constructed, her breathing labored. When he strokes her cheek, her eyes flutter open, and, with a burst of happiness, he senses recognition in her morphine-addled gaze.
She remembers. That is all that matters.
"Red?" she croaks, trying to smile. "You came... I'm so glad..."
"I've always been there, haven't I?" he tries to joke, but it comes out sounding wheezy and dry, and that's shocking, because he doesn't need to breathe, but at the moment it feels like all the air has been forcibly removed from his lungs. The heart monitor gives occasional beeps, but the machine is so old that it's hardly reliable anymore, and he's afraid that she'll slip away between the beats.
Touko coughs, and he strokes her hair, brushing her bangs away from her eyes.
"Thanks," she rasps.
"Have you thought about it?" he asks her. "Do you... do you know what you want?"
"Yes," she replies. "I've had lots of time, you know, cooped up in this hospital, although my thoughts... are not what they once were." She grimaces. "It's disorienting. The cancer... the doctors don't say much, but it looks like the two year estimate was wrong, huh?"
"Do your parents know?"
"No. I haven't told them."
"Why?" he blurts out, sounding impatient but distressed. "Why? It's supposed to be a consensus, they should know that there's another option! You know what I promised you: that I'd save your entire family if I had to. If it was what you wanted." The terrible realization occurs to him, and he chokes out, "You... you don't intend to..."
"No, Red." Even in her pain, through the cobweb folds of her illness, there is determination set in her features, and a sort of peacefulness in her eyes which isn't a result of the drugs, but rather her own will. "No, I don't intend you. You've been so gracious, so kind, you've done more than I could have ever hoped, but... I'm afraid I have to turn you down."
"Why?" he questions her, gripping the bedposts so tightly that they bend and his fingers leave indentations in the metal. "Don't you love me? Don't you want to be with me?"
She reaches up with one frail hand and touches his cold cheek, tracing the contours of his face tenderly. "I do love you, Red. You're the only boy I've truly ever loved, you know. And even now, when I'm here and dying-"
"Don't say that."
"-thinking about you helps me get through it sometimes." She smiles benignly, the smile of a woman (a girl) who has resigned herself to the inevitable and is calm with all in the world. "When I pass on, I'll still love you. I'll love you until forever."
"Then stay with me until forever," he pleads. "I can save you."
"What you're offering me... it's amazing. But I can't do it. And even if you were to ignore me and drain my bloodstream and fill me with your own blood, I'd die at this stage of the disease. The cancer has taken over. It's taken over a lot."
"The blood would reverse the effects-"
"We both know that by then, it would be too late. I'm corrupted, Red, can't you see? The blood would take at least 24 hours to have effect, and by then, I don't think I'd be able to sustain myself."
He bites down on his lip, holding back tears, because there is an undeniable logic in her words. A logic that is terrible and as dark as midnight, the time of the night children. His brothers and sisters.
"All things must come to an end. That's what my mother used to say. You vampires have a free pass on death, but humans don't. Even though you once existed as humans, you're all different now. You abide by different rules. I still have to abide by my rules. The rules of the living."
"You don't have to."
"I must." She settles back, still staring up at him, her mouth curved into a small grin. "Don't be sad, Red. Live on. You have the whole world ahead of you. You don't need to be burdened down by a human like me."
He feels tears pooling in his eyes, and for the first time in centuries, they run down his cheeks, chilling into ice immediately. He understands, now, that she cannot see what he sees; that she is the most utterly perfect thing the world has to offer, and she perceives herself more as dead weight than an angel allowing him to finally ascend.
It makes his heart break.
They share only one last, passionate kiss before her heart stops beating and the heart monitor hums its death-hum and his vision fades to crimson.
There is a tap on her window.
"Let me in," he asks.
But there is no one to open it.
He stands at the foot of the apple tree, filled with the gaudy red fruits once again. Autumn has returned full-circle, and these fruits are the last of the crop until next season.
Underneath it, a single tombstone sits on the spot where the two of them once sat, side-by-side as more than friends and yet not enough to be lovers. Flowers have been placed in front of the marker, and there they have remained until they decay into piles of perfumed garbage and he tosses them away, where they will seep into the earth and be used to nourish future growth.
Reaching, he takes a single apple from the tree and bites into it, juice bursting onto his tongue and flavor coursing through his taste buds. The flesh is juicy and crisp.
He removes the seed from the center, digs a hole in the earth, and places the seed into it, filling it with water from a cracked clay jug and covering it back up. From it, he hopes, another tree will spring.
An apple tree. Her favorite fruit, if he recalls correctly.
"I love you."
He knew a girl, once. They met under the apple tree in autumn, and she understood him and he understood her (he thought).
Time has blurred for him, centuries and decades trickling by like seconds, like grains of sand in an infinite hourglass. But her memory still remains crystal-clear. Her brown hair, her warm skin, the way she laughed.
She is perfect.
Always.
The smoke curls thick in the air, dark tendrils wavering with the wind. Fire dances in front of him, wood crackles, and he feels his flesh begin to blister.
But that is alright.
He steps in, and immediately, white-hot pain burns through him. He hisses, but continues, bathing himself in flame until his clothes are burned to ashes and his body is experiencing the same. He closes his eyes, ignoring the heat, and thinks of her.
Everything must have an end.
Including him.
There is a tap on her window.
In a white gown, not a flaw on her body, she unlatches the window and lets in the wind.
He is there, perched outside, and his eyes are the same red color that they were when she last saw him. But now, he is smiling again, and so is she, and he steps through and embraces her in a place where the dead live on.
This is their forever.
fin
Mei enters her sister's room cautiously, staring at the familiar bed and the faded, time-worn posters on the walls. If she closes her eyes, she can almost pretend that Touko is still here.
There is a tap on the window.
With careful steps, she walks over and looks outside.
There is nothing but the wind.
a/n: so, yeah. read and review, please?