Fulfilling A Prophecy
Chapter 4: Deconstruction (Lorne's POV)
by Hollywood Phoenix
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There's no place like L.A.
I'm breathing in that plastic air again, emitted by the fake boobs and vacuous bodies, and dream-only-to-climb-trees. I've been roaming around this side of the world since I left my only home and no where else have I seen such outrageously scene-stealing demons. New York can't hold a candle and Toronto only has vamps. I'm feeling good to be back in this hell-forsaken town.
Except for one small detail. The fact that I came back for a funeral.
It's short. It's a simple affair. Parents arrive. Friends from a long forgotten past come to watch. Everyone wonders what happened to her taste after all these years. If only they knew.
She lies there, in her porcelian white skin, with her mahogany brown tresses, hiding scars under those shut eyes and pouty lips that will never be in the spotlight again. She was a pretty little kitten, highly intelligent, insightful, god forbid anyone to call her sweet, and attracted to pretty little things.
Not one of these people out in this open space knows of the real darkness within her.
Reason being that everyone besides myself who even glimpsed this never believed it or is gone now. Then again, I wonder if she ever let anyone really see it. The dual horrors she experienced from the past, the terrifyingly cold gift of foreshadowing she possessed. Her can't-get-me down attitude battling with the naive disappointment of her world.
That disappointment was something we all seemed to share.
What a shame she didn't stay a pretty little thing.
I don't even bother listening to the minister as I stand there in the back, in my black shades, absurd fedora and trench coat. Sure, half the guests know what I'm not, but it's comforting for me to be anonymous.
I think he feels that way too.
Obscured underneath a tree in broad daylight, he's watching a tiny and extremely nervous red-headed chickadee lean on a slightly larger brown-haired fluff-pie. He's gaging the look of shock and sorrow on their faces as they blindly stumble away from the manicured greens and stone walls. The darkness emanating from him is so palpable, you could fry a hundred evil demons. Make that a thousand.
I consider seeking him out, calling him 'sweet nuthin' or something to get some other reaction from him. But I don't need to, because suddenly he's standing there with me, gazing at the shiny headstone, the only two figures still in front of a fresh grave-site.
Here I was worried he wouldn't be stealth-like anymore.
With the sun bearing fully down on him, standing so much closer to me, I study him. He's aged quite a bit over the years, hunching over a bit more, losing that roguish boyishness that sent many hearts aflutter and broke countless more. He's lost the inner liveliness that I want to remember.
I don't think I'll be asking him to sing for me.
Just like I don't know what to say to him. To tell him I'm sorry for his loss would just be mocking him. Knowing what I know, I can't pull a single useless piece of advice out of my ass. So I start opening and closing my mouth. Letting air in and out. Ranting about how no one appreciates the underdog anymore. Maybe that's the reason why my last comedy routine didn't do so well. All the while wondering how much longer I have to keep this farce up.
Luckily for me, not for long. He cuts to the chase, telling me he's found a way to end this nightmare.
I know how he's going to do it. There's only one way to bring her back the way she was, so I find myself asking him what impossible answers he's going to give to their very probable questions. Looking the way he does, how will he convince her not to make him do it all over again? And how is he not going to touch her, now that he finally can?
It's all pouring out of his mouth now. He's telling me how useless he was to her. How she saved him but he couldn't do the same for her. That he just as good as killed her. Because he destroyed himself first.
I never drank to get high or down or anything. But if there's a time I need a good stiff drink, it's now.
I'm a good listener. Reading auras was my thing.
He's saying that he never knew what real redemption was until he had it, then lost it. He's jabbering nonsense about fulfilling a prophecy now, about finding a way to kill his humanity. He's telling me that he'll lie and tell the hidden truth; that having his son back will be enough for him.
I try to tell him that prophecies are tricky things. But he's made up his mind already.
He's just shaking his head non-stop, jammering on about dimming the bright lights and inner redemption and how he'll keep getting screwed over by the Powers That Be and those divinations disguised as prophecies.
Even without striking a tune, I feel his pain all too well. Now I'm just shaking my head and laughing insanely at how this life never changes and screaming one word over and over again.
No.
He stops. I look up. I didn't say that.
A hooded figure in an almost black cloak is floating over towards us. In the warmth of day, a chill freezes over.
It speaks again, telling him that he's in denial. That he has to start at the beginning. Deconstruct the prophecy. That he should accept it and stop wasting his time.
She's forming a cold, hard truth.
Strange how I can tell it's a she. Stranger still that I'm feeling safe and comforted again.
Her assured words mean nothing to me. But the colours and sounds she's uttering are peace.
She's holding out a hand. She's asking him to listen. She's pleading with him to understand.
She wants him to trust her.
Like a pesky firefly, he brushes her away and readies himself to make his second leap into oblivion. He's only looking back at the bright lights and forward at the total darkness.
Before my ruby red irises, he's suddenly disappeared and when I look for my would-be savior, she is gone too. Taking this as a cue, I head for the well-marked exit. If everyone else leaves a burning building, I'm not brave enough to be the only one to stick around.
As I turn my back away from the cemetary, this city, this life, I keep trying to tell myself that once upon a time, LA used to be mine.
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A/N: Okay, this is hurting even my head. I don't know how I'm gonna keep this up much longer, giving out little clues here and there. If you're trying to get the timeline straight, I'm very sorry because I just knocked out a curveball. Let me know if you want me to finish the whole thing first and then post it all at once. BTW, thanks everyone, for bearing with me and encouraging me even though you're probably just as confused as our poor beleaguered hero(es). And I guess we've established that I'm a sucker for character depression.
Disclaimers: Don't own it.
(c) March 20, 2002
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