a/n- wassup? it be tobn here with (finally) a new chapter of 'love is to hate'!
and what a long time it has been, huh? i am the one who should be doing apologies, my dearest fanfic buddy has nothing to do with my absence! i have been away for a very long time, writing just hasn't been on the top of my mind because of all the school work, work, and relationship stuff i've had to juggle, heh. i really wish i had more time for it because honestly? writing this chapter reminded me of how much joy writing gives me. here's to hopefully being less slow, heh.
anyway, my dearest fanfic buddy really blew it away with the last chapter, huh? and i am sure you folk have all been anxiously waiting to see what happens next. well, i will tell you all that in this chapter!
but first, of course, shoutouts to...
bennyweirlover17- yes ! soulmates have to be rescued, like, PRONTO! whether or not that happens i suppose will be answered in this chapter ;) thank you for all your reviews, dear friend! i am super glad you're enjoying the story :D
guest- jake peralta ROCKS! my goodo detective boy, tryin his best! i am glad you're enjoying the story, fren! :D
allpinkkandyellow- ah! thank you so so so so much! i'm glad you like the lil story my dearest fanfic buddy and i are telling! it means a lot that you say all those nice things, heh. i hope we are able to keep the ball rollin and you keep likin what we're writing, heh!
alrightie! without further ado, let's DO this thing!
disclaimer: we don't own mbav or its characters. just the plot is ours, heh :)
ENJOY!
(p.s- i thought really long and hard about the title. i thought it was funny – it'll make sense later :pp)
Love Is To Hate
By: TiredOfBeingNice & MBAV fan66
Chapter 7: Vent-ing Frustration
Alrighty! So, I know last time was a bit of a cliffhanger. Well...I mean, literally no time has passed, I just got up to grab a soda from the vending machine. Did you know this place has a vending machine? It's pretty dope.
...yeah, well no DOI! Of course I can leave halfway through a storytime! I am the reader! I am the boss man! I am the one who runs the world; Beyoncé can eat my as– *ahem* butt.
Anyway! Complain all you want, but that's just going to forlong the wait for the story to continue. I can sit here all day!
...no wait. I can't, I totally can't, E is going to return any second now and we need to get this show on the road! Now who's with me?!
...no one?
...seriously?
UGH! Whatever. I don't need your permission to start again. So I'm gonna start again. Right after slurping this soda.
...HOO boy, that stuff is good. Okay! Onwards!
When Ethan opened his eyes,
Benny was no longer beside him.
Instead, hovering above him were three vampires, all with worried looks on their faces. He blinked, his vision clearing up each time his eyes fluttered open and closed.
"G...Guys?" He slowly sat up from his position on the ground, rubbing his head. "What...what ha–"
His eyes suddenly widened. There were only three vampires. There was no spellmaster…?
"Benny!" He shot up onto his feet, frantically looking around him. "Guys, where's Benny?! What did she do?! Where is—"
"Hey, dorktopia," Erica cut him off, wincing. "Keep it down, will ya? For all we know, Hannah is watching us and is going to kidnap us next."
"Kid...nap…?" Ethan stared at her with wide eyes. Erica crossed her arms. Sarah looked like she averted her eyes, and before Rory blurt out anything, Erica made sure to speak up first.
"Uh, yeah," she said. Her tone may have been annoyed, but even Ethan was unsettled by the tinge of worry attached to her voice. "She took Benny, Ethan."
Ethan's heart dropped.
"She…" The words got stuck in his throat. More softly, he added, "What is she going to do with him?"
Oh, my dear kiddos.
Him and I were in the same exact position in that very moment.
And I doubt either of us liked it.
When Benny opened his eyes,
the first thing he wanted to do was close them again.
"Where…" His words were slurred as his vision slowly cleared on a thin layer of a red haze on his arm, which was also bound to a chair; like he was.
He immediately shook his head to clear the coming lines in his sight, his head feeling heavier with each second that passed.
"Tired, sweetie?" a voice drawled out from the shadows. Benny squinted to get a better look and when he did, he immediately closed his eyes again.
Out of spite, ahahaha– get it? I'm a DICK to DICKS.
"Really?" Benny opened one eye to see Hannah grin. "Oh come on, darling. I'm not all that bad of a sight. Dearest Ethie would probably agree."
"Fuck off," Benny spat at her. "With all the ugly you're radiating right now, I somewhat doubt it."
Hannah rose an eyebrow and Benny grimaced, almost sheepishly.
"Er," he added, "not like you're ugly or whatever. I'm...look, I'm known to be pretty gay nowadays, but like, I pretended to be straight for half my life, I know what's ugly and what's not." Benny frowned. "B-But...but what you're doing is– is ugly! It's mean– you're meeeeean." A pause. "But not...but not not hot."
...okay, I may be a dick to dicks,
but I am a gentleman above all that.
"You don't know when to shut up, do you?" She flicked her wrist, and the red haze on his arm intensified. It almost felt like he was getting blood sucked out of him. Benny groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as he felt himself being drained.
Bits of green found its way upwards from his skin up towards Hannah; who, Benny now noticed, was holding the pink candle, that was now fused with tints of emerald green. His eyes widened.
"What the hell are you doing?" It meant to sound tougher, sure, but even Benny couldn't stop his voice from leaking out the tight feeling in his chest. Hannah grinned.
"Just getting some support from one spellmaster to another spellmaster," Hannah hummed, trailing her finger along the tray holding the pink candle. Benny's head felt dizzy, but not from the fumes this time; from something else.
It all clicked.
"You're...running out of...magic," Benny said slowly, not able to fight off a smug smile. Hannah glared at him.
"Am not!"
"Am...too– wait, we can't do this right now," Benny muttered, mustering all his energy to stay awake. "You're running out of magic. This...this is all going to be done soon because you'll burn out–" He managed a smirk– "pun intended." More smugly, he stated, "You'll have no magic to fuel the candle."
He frowned at Hannah's returned, coy smile. "But...you're not worried about that because…"
Benny looked back at his arm, and thought back to the draining feeling running through his entire being. His eyes widened, almost afraid.
"You're taking mine," he whispered. Hannah laughed.
"There ya go!" she cooed, a grin on her face. "You've saved me the mockery that would have come out of monologuing– I am a fantastic villain, after all. Not a stupid one." she boasted. "And once I'm done stealing your magic, I'll set my sights on stealing your little vampire friends magic, as well. Considering vampires are creatures of magic, too."
She grinned, leaning closer to him, the candle mere inches from his face. Benny's eyes fluttered closed and he took a deep breath, not willingly; between feeling drained and the images of Ethan popping into his mind, he was beyond drowsy and dreary. Any minute now...
"Ah-ah! Someone's gettin' a little tired, are we?" Hannah tapped his cheek lightly. "Are you giving up, Weir? You were bound to eventually — it's very clear who will be the winner now."
"You're not…"
"Getting away with this?" Hannah laughed. "Oh, darling. I already have."
She trailed her hand down to his chest and the last thing Benny saw was a glint of red in her eye.
And then, he screamed.
It was as if someone grabbed his heart and ripped it right now; a stream of green surrounded his vision as she cackled, and his vision returned to black once more.
"Did someone bite him?" Rory asked, exasperated, as he, Sarah, and Erica followed Ethan down the hall, watching him flip doors open manically. "Because he is moving a lot faster than I can handle."
"You're just slow," Erica muttered.
"No, he's in love," Sarah snapped. "Can you both stop bickering? We'd be faster if you two were helping him."
Erica stopped in her tracks, crossing her arms. "If you're so helpful," she said snidely, "then why are you back here with us?"
A beat of silence. Ignoring Rory's quiet airhorn, Sarah glared at Erica and rolled her eyes, speeding far, far past the two to get to Ethan.
"Hey," she said, before jumping back at the sound of Ethan slamming yet another door closed. "Hey, let's calm down and think of a plan before we storm into unmarked territories, yeah?"
"Plan, what plan," Ethan grumbled as he continued to march on. "We didn't have one before, why do we need one now? End this fast, remember?"
"Ethan..." Sarah's voice bridged on worry. Ethan bit his lip.
"This is my fault," Ethan muttered.
"You know, there really is no way I can see this being your fault."
"It really is," Ethan snapped, averting his glance from Sarah. "I should've been more insistent on a plan earlier; or at least, made a plan to reinforce just in case."
"Oh stop that," Sarah said, grabbing him by his shoulder and spinning him around to face her. "What's more important right now is that we think about this carefully. We're not only saving Benny here, okay?"
Ethan grimaced. "Do you think Hannah...do you think she knows?"
Sarah sighed. "I'm not sure. But we can't hurt her, that's for sure. And all the anger you're showing here? It's not going to save Benny."
"And what will?"
A beat of silence.
"Patience," she finally said. "We just need to be patient."
Slam!
Ethan and Sarah jumped at the sudden sound of something slamming into a locker, frantically turning around and their eyes widening.
"Holy–"
"–Shit." Sarah finished.
Now kiddos. This is where things apparently got a bit weird. So I'm going to like, try and describe it as kid-friendly as I can because it even makes me wanna throw up.
Rory was...hugging Erica! A bit...roughly into the locker. They were very close and whispering positive affirmations to each other.
And pink fumes surrounded them.
"Where the hell…" Ethan trailed off as soon as Sarah's eyes widened, following her hand to the place she pointed at.
"The vents," she whispered. And lo and behold, she was right; lazy streams of pink fumes sifted their way through the vents, slowly filling up the space around Erica and Rory until they were practically engulfed in it.
"There's so much of it now," Ethan muttered, before his eyes widened. "And it's coming from the vents. Which means–"
"–Hannah is still in the basement," Sarah finished off for him. "She had taken him to where she was probably making the candle!"
"It's so much stronger now…" Ethan's voice teetered, not able to stop himself from thinking about what Hannah must have been doing to make it that strong — and how Benny had anything to do with it.
"It's going to keep spreading until it fills this entire hall," Sarah said urgently. "If it diffuses throughout the whole hallway, we can kiss our victory goodbye."
Ethan looked at Sarah, deadpanned. A flash of recognition wiped across her face and she grinned sheepishly, softly adding, "Oops."
"Come on, we don't have time for this," Ethan said, hesitantly grabbing her hand. "You need to speed us to the basement."
"But Erica and Rory–"
"Sarah, we have to go. Now." Ethan's grip tightened. "We need to be here if we have any chance of winning so come on– AHHHHHHHH!"
Before he knew it, Ethan was sped off in the direction of the basement; far, far away from the pink fumes.
He turned around for a split second to watch the fumes chase the two of them as the silhouette of two sleeping vampires faded off in his view.
As soon as Ethan and Sarah arrived at the top of the staircase, they already knew something was wrong.
Other than the fact that Ethan didn't throw up this time, heh.
You're not allowed to tell him I joked about that. He's very embarrassed about that sort of stuff.
"Come on," Sarah whispered, leading Ethan down the stairs. Ethan nodded firmly, closing his eyes and walking down the stairs behind her.
As soon as they peeked to see what was beyond the staircase corridor, Ethan couldn't help but feel his heart sink.
Benny was strapped in a chair, unconscious. He was alone in the room — a room surrounded with papers and old books and some pink, melted wax on the surface of the table.
"We're clear," Sarah muttered, but Ethan was already off before the words left her mouth.
"Benny!" he hissed, the words hastily said under his breath. He quickly untied Benny from the confinements of his chair as Sarah hesitantly followed suit.
"Benny, come on," Ethan whispered frantically, brushing hair out of his closed eyes and holding his limp body close. He began to stir, mumbling and squeezing his eyes shut. Ethan's breath quickened.
"Come on, B," he said quietly. "We need to get you out of here, everything's going to be oka—"
"Not so fast!"
Before anyone could say anything else, a stream of red shot out from the depths of the basement and shot Sarah in the chest. With a scream, Sarah was blasted backwards, crashing into a wall, knocked out cold.
"Sarah!" Ethan exclaimed, hoisting Benny up to his feet.
"E...than…" Benny slurred, slowly growing more conscious. Ethan looked up to see the source of the candle and his eyes narrowed.
"Hannah," he said, slowly resting Benny against a bookshelf. He approached her cautiously. "Hannah, you don't need to do this."
"Oh, Ethie," she cackled, her arm still outstretched from the shot of magic. "It's just us. How...how romantic."
"There is no us, Hannah!" Ethan tried to reason. "Look, I'm sorry if you feel that way– there's nothing wrong with feeling the way you do! And if you want to be friends, I would love to be your friend. I can still love you– just in a different way! Please just listen to me; this isn't who you are."
A beat of silence.
"You're wrong," she finally growled. "This is me. You know why?"
She grinned, and fear shot through Ethan's body like static.
"It's because I'm nobody's perfect, goody-two shoes."
Without warning, she fired another shot of magic towards Ethan, who dodged out of the fiery red stream's path with a startled yelp.
"Hannah, you don't have to do this!" Ethan exclaimed again, ducking his head under the streams of magic from Hannah, trying to get closer to her. His eyes flickered between her and Sarah and Benny.
Benny.
"If I can't love you," Hannah roared, "then nobody will!"
"What are you–"
Suddenly, pink fumes started to seep into the room. Ethan's eyes widened, the fumes surrounding his feet. He looked up to see something he had missed before, in his rush to reach Benny:
A pink candle.
I'll be honest, kiddos? Being a teenager is hard. Emphasis on that last word too, heh.
I'll be honest? I am a pretty controlled kinda dude. Or at least, I think so.
...okay, I may be lying. But I can at least keep it in my pants on a mission — especially missions such as these.
Furthermore, I know how spells affect people, after all, so I can handle any aftermath. It's happened a bunch of times on our team before — people are manipulated to harming each other, or they're drowned in fear that it makes them defenseless. Around those situations? I can keep my cool. I can separate a person from the spell they're under. I am a professional, after all.
...that being said,
I'm not really that proud of what happens next.
When Benny's eyes finally opened,
he found himself leaning against a bookshelf…
...with Ethan right next to him,
a glint of pink in his eye.
(get it? because the pink smoke was comin out of the vents, and ethan was venting to sarah? ahahahahaha im FUNNY)
a/n- oOOoOOOOOOooHH!
well hopefully you know what's about to go down because i am EXCITED! this is going to be fun! fanfic buddy, take it away!
and until i see you all next time; leave a review if you liked it if you like! talk to ya soon *hand heart*
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