I tremble, I tremble
They're gonna eat me alive
If I stumble
They're gonna eat me alive
Can you hear my heart
Beating like a hammer
Beating like a hammer...
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The transient music flows through everything, shaking and rocking the barriers, like a warning sound. Strobe lights illuminate her skin like shooting stars across a night sky as she moves among the mass of shapeless bodies, the black close-fitting dress glitters so that everything about her looks alive. Like water or fire she flickers on the dance floor below him and he can't help but be taken- drinking in her very essence that had long been absent from his life. He takes a heavy sip from his glass as the tempo rises, and she moves accordingly. Her eyes are heavy lidded and he can tell she's not really there, in the club, her mind is elsewhere and she is beautiful.
The last of the drink burns its way down his throat as he works up the courage to speak to her.
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2 AND A HALF YEARS EARLIER:
As his mother used to say Ethan was never very good a keeping his nose clean, so his extended sentence in prison is no real surprise to anyone, except maybe one. But even her he couldn't be sure about. When he was taken into custody he wasn't sent to Pentonville, as it was nearing maximum capacity. Instead he is sent to a minimum security prison on the outskirts of Perry, New York. Almost six hours away.
His father makes the journey now and then, but more often Nikolas or Lucky will come in his place... Lulu is the only one who comes regularly. Every sunday afternoon like clockwork. Sometimes she brings food from Kelly's, though the first few times it was either cold or stale by the time she made it to the prison, since then she'd purchased a special container that hooked up to the cigarette lighter in her car. In spite of all her own problems she never missed a day. She usually stayed for a few hours, to make the drive really worth it. She'd update him while they shared the meal she brought. Though he ate most of it as she picked at it like a bird, if only to appease him when he said eating while she watched and talked made him feel awkward and rude.
At first they didn't have much to talk about, he knew mostly everything as Kristina would write to him daily. She'd write bits throughout her day, between classes and sometimes during. And at the end of the day when the sky grew dark and the wind would pick up she'd walk them to the primitive little mailbox that stood weathered but proud at the end of the long dusty lane to her lake house. She'd tell him everything, not just about herself but things she heard about his family but his favorite was when she told him what she was thinking or when she'd recall a moment they'd had together, and he'd get to see it through her eyes instead of his own.
Those letters are the most faded, he'd re-read them so often to himself that the ink was bleached by his fingertips and the paper itself felt as thin as a tissue. He never wrote back...
She'd written consistently for a few months with no response, which was diligent of her and, he thought, rather impressive. But slowly the letters came further and further apart until they stopped coming altogether. That was the hardest part, when he'd bug the mail guy like an idiot everyday for weeks, asking if there were any letters for him but to no avail.
Eventually Lulu caught on to the reason for his sober mood when she let slip that Kristina had graduated early and Ethan's eyes immediately came back into focus, something bittersweet lurking just beneath the surface. So she talks to Sam more often when she's home, gathering news about Kristina, and casually relaying it back to Ethan as though Kristina were simply another inhabitant of Port Charles who was being reported on, and not someone who he...
It's this way that he founds out that in addition to graduating early, she'd also been excepted into Yale. That she took a semester abroad, to where he still doesn't know. And that it had been awhile since she'd been back to Port Charles. That every time she bumped into Lulu, she'd ask about him. If he was okay.
He had wanted to write back more than anything. To tell her how he missed her, and how he thought about her all the time. He wanted to joke around with her, play a simple game of poker... But the longer he stayed the harder it was to keep himself apart from her life, he had to remind himself everyday that she was better off.
His sentence is extended when he runs low on trading supplies- Luke went on a month long binge to God-knows-where, leaving Ethan with nothing to trade for protection- and he gets crap kicked out of him by some very angry bastards. The second fight he gets in, Ethan ends up temporarily crippling another inmate. It just all kind of went downhill from there. He'd be a liar if he said he didn't panic a little when they threw him in solitary for a week. He'd heard some went crazy after a few days while others hardly noticed the difference. He was lucky, slept for most of it and convinced himself everyday that he was sane. That all of this was no big deal.
They release him a few months later after that.
Lulu, ever the faithful sister, is waiting to take him home when he walks past the automated gates of the prison. The drive back is long and he sleeps the whole way. Mike, as an inadvertent thank you for defending Kristina way back when, offers him a room over the diner until he can get back on his feet. His job at the Haunted Star is still waiting for him and in that moment it feels like very little has changed. Like waking up from a dream, the heavy past only a few hours behind him.
The only real difference is that certain people are more careful at the sight of him while others look at him more fondly and thank him. Kristina's absence is notable as well. But maybe its because he dreamed so often that the day he would be released he'd somehow run into her or- if he's honest with himself- that she'd have been the one waiting for him outside the gates instead of his sister. But it takes days for Mike to let something slip, Ethan hadn't had the courage to ask anyone- afraid that maybe she'd run off to Paris or Greece. Or worse, that she'd gotten over him...
Michael walks in from the summer heat one afternoon to pick up some food and strikes up a conversation with Mike. Mike greets his grandson with a tight hug and through they're pleasantries Ethan catches a mention of her in Michael's story. "... Yeah, picked up Krissy this morning from the airport. We're, uh, surprising dad with a lunch slash dinner sort of thing. Your welcome to join us its ..."
But Ethan didn't get to hear the rest. He was too busy feeling too much all at once. His heart lifted at the prospect of having her so close but his head brought the rest of him back down to earth- and perhaps lower. He'd let go of her because prison and what he knew he was becoming simply weren't good enough for. Who he was and ho he lived his life just didn't leave room for someone like her, someone important. Now that he was out he wasn't sure it changed anything between them. Or if it even mattered what he wanted, would she still want him?
"Ethan!" Mike's voice called him from his reverie so that he nearly dropped the mug he'd been drying for the past ten minutes.
"Yeah?" Mike tossed a set of keys to him and smiled.
"Lock up for me will ya?" Ethan nodded, tight lipped and oddly relieved as the old man walked out of Kelley's after his grandson. Maybe being tethered to the diner for the night would keep him from wondering to all her old haunts, hoping to casually bump into her. Ethan tucked the keys into his pocket and set to work on the rest of the mugs dripping monotonously in the sink.
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At eleven thirty he'd chased the last caffeine bum from the place but it wasn't until well past midnight that he'd finished clean up and prepared to head upstairs for a drink. Ethan pauses at the steps, surrounded by darkness when he thinks quietly that there is nothing more depressing than drinking alone his temporary room thinking about a girl from his past. Resigned he turns back toward the door, pulling his lather jacket from the rack as he goes and twisting the key in the lock behind him.
He walks until he comes to the nearest bar but before he can even twist the knob Johnny Zacarra comes walking out, the strut that let everyone know not only did he own the room he had the power to kill you and make it look like an accident if you got on his bad side. Johnny smiles and stretches out his hand toward Ethan, "I heard you'd got out, how've you been?"
"Decent, working at Kelley's. Mike's lending me the place upstairs."
"That's great. Hey come have a drink with me."
"Yeah sure." Ethan starts to head into the bar Johnny just vacated before the other man stops.
"Oh no, not this dump." Ethan laughs because he knows the so called 'dump' is a small piece of Johnny's territory. "No, just revamped the old club. Gotta check and make sure things are running smoothly."
"Doesn't hurt to get a bit smashed while doing so?"
Johnny laughs knowingly as he'd done it once or twice before. "More or less."
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A/N: I'm so sorry the update to so freaking long and that its so short. I really do apologize, I thought the summer free time would be all I needed but unfortunately the creative juices just would not flow. So I hope you liked it. I promise I will not abandon this fic! On a few side notes this fic is going to focus solely on Kristina and Ethan as much as I can manage. Outside story lines are just too much to keep up with much less incorporate into this AU fic. So if you have any questions just leave it in a PM or a review and I'll respond to clarify.