AN: Check the end of the story for a trigger warning
Carlisle was on his knees, sitting back on his heels, numb and empty. His hand kept reaching to his chest unconsciously, looking for his cross.
He couldn't do it anymore, he thought.
God please... Please that is enough...
He was tired and disappointed and he didn't want to try anymore.
Please, no one will miss me, please...
He wasn't sure if he was trying to bargain or beg. He was only sure that god wasn't listening.
I can't live without him, please...
He rubbed his ring finger, feeling it terribly empty.
Aro had gotten better, energy seemed a little easier to control. He paced and paced and moved it between his fingers, moved it from hand to hand, passed it to Kleo when asked, received it back and all the while keeping an ear to the mortal realm. Carlisle was whispering, but the words weren't meant for Aro so he couldn't understand them. He listened instead to Carlisle's muffled cries and sobs, he listened to the violent convulsions of his body, he listened to the irregular breathing and he listened for hours on end as his soulmate cried his heart's worth out.
Do you still love me? He would have asked Aro.
Nothing in this world can change how much I love you, Aro would say.
What should I do? Carlisle would ask.
Escape, Aro had already told him.
Was I a bad friend? Carlisle wanted to ask Aro, for he was the only one he had ever dared bare his soul to.
No, he wanted Aro to say.
.
Garrett!
"You didn't really send him to Slovakia, did you agent?" Carlisle asked facing the shower head, foam on his hair. He could hear the agent's blood pressure change as he was pulled from his own thoughts and called to speak. Carlisle hated how clearer everything sounded, how more intense everything smelled, how brighter everything looked.
"No," the agent answered after a long moment.
Carlisle nodded and continued his drawn out, doomed from the start mission to cleanse his skin.
.
Ungrateful. You don't deserve friends.
Of course you do, Aro would have said.
But Aro wasn't here. No. It was Carlisle who had to pull himself through this alone.
He turned the water off, wrapped the towel around himself, struggled to keep his eyes off the mirror. He quickly lost the battle and met the red gaze that was staring back at him, hard and unyielding.
.
God forgive him, he hated the man in the mirror so much. He was a fool and fools are doomed to repeat their mistakes over and over. Who had said that life is a circle? They were absolutely right. Life was a circle, never-ending and pointless.
Everything he had done after that godforsaken day in Volterra was so that he wouldn't find himself in the same position, yet here he was again. In a similar place, with similar thoughts. Except now, he didn't have Aro to pull him to his feet, to tell him he would be alright again, to tell him he loved him.
His gaze found the ruined bite mark on his collarbone and his fists clenched around nothing. By God, he hated the man in the mirror.
.
"There is a story that says when an angel disobeys, they are banished to a life of pain and suffering. And yet, we wonder why children are born screaming," Carlisle said. Pitiful thing trapped in me... You'll never get to see heaven again.
There was silence for a while, the agent thinking around the vampire's words. "I suggest you let go of the poor sink," he called from the entrance of the bathroom, gun in hand, pointed at the vampire.
Carlisle turned to him, looking everything like the demon he believed he was. The agent shouldn't have felt so scared by a man of Carlisle's size walking slowly towards him with only a towel around his waist, but here was, hands shaking and threatening to miss if he pulled the trigger.
Carlisle stilled in front of him. "Go ahead, agent. Make sure to aim right, make sure not to miss and maybe you can see for yourself, Death has forgotten about me," he said.
The agent stood frozen, keenly aware that the gun wouldn't save him if the vampire truly meant to harm him. Carlisle walked past him, leaving the bathroom, leaving him to struggle to calm his heart.
"You have the keys agent, are you coming?"
Can you give me my cross back, agent? I make my worst decisions when I'm not wearing it, Carlisle had said just before the heavy door slid shut.
Talk to me then, the agent had replied and leaned his forehead at the protective metal as soon as it stopped moving.
He had gone home that night, hadn't slept for longer than a few minutes as was the usual now.
.
It wasn't good. He was getting paranoid, he was losing touch with reality, seeing black silhouettes in the corner of his eye, feeling he was followed by a scarlet gaze everywhere he went.
They kept finding people with suicide notes for that man, Aro. The agent was ordered to find something out, anything and it was phrased in a way that meant if the agent didn't succeed, well, unforeseen consequences may occur.
The agent felt his hands shake as he gripped the door knob and he forced himself to calm down.
.
He entered the room, heartbeat steady and took his usual seat. The vampire was still, less than usual, the agent noticed with some relief. He appeared a little more human than the last time. He didn't lift his eyes to meet him and the agent let another minute pass like this, him staring at the less-than-usual pale face and the vampire staring at his cuffed hands.
"How are you feeling?" he asked cautiously.
"Stable." The answer came after an extended moment.
"Good." He leaned back to his chair, faking ease, deciding to be straightforward and blunt to have space to adjust according to the vampire's reactions, fixed on taking the conversation where he wanted to this time. "I need you to tell me about Aro."
Carlisle nodded. "What about him?"
The agent hid his surprise at the immediate cooperation. Was the vamp up to something? "Let's start with whether or not he was a good man." The letters, the notes, the scars, he reminded himself where this conversation should lead.
Carlisle tilted his head, pretending to inspect his handcuffs. "To some people I suppose."
The agent hummed, keeping the conversation calm. "People seem to like him."
Carlisle idly wondered who could have spoken about Aro in a positive manner and came up with no names. The ones who would speak had nothing good to say, and the ones who had, wouldn't speak.
"Mortals?" he asked.
"I'm assuming so." The agent crossed his legs. "He has international supporters who claim the absolute worst thing we could have done is kill Aro of Volterra," he said, wanting to stir Carlisle's curiosity. If the vampire asked questions, they could come to an agreement regarding answers.
You didn't kill him, he let himself be killed. "I suppose it could get messy, but I have faith the peace will remain."
The agent stared at a corner, behind Carlisle, taking some time to decipher this sentence. The peace? Perhaps the other two vamps, the brothers. Volterra? God, he was too tired.
"What's in Volterra?" the agent asked.
"What do you think there is?"
The agent bit his tongue, reminding himself to keep the conversation peaceful. Reminding himself an angry vampire led to panic attacks and nightmares and insomnia. "I went to the palace, looked around. There was nothing of interest, nothing suspicious, all the people were human."
A hint of a smile made its way to Carlisle's lips, the first emotional expression he showed that day, the agent noted. This could go somewhere.
"The palace is what it is, agent. What were you expecting?"
"I wasn't expecting it to be a normal place, where apparently normal people live."
"Perhaps we are far more like people than you assumed." Carlisle flicked up his eyebrows for a moment, before he schooled his face back to neutrality.
"What about the basements?"
"The sublevels are open to the public, agent, I'm sure you could go and check them as well."
"I was told the underground and the third floor rooms were the personnel's living quarters. Is it true?"
"To an extent."
Come one vamp, speak.
"I checked a few. Nothing out of the ordinary."
Carlisle smiled again, wondering who had remained in the palace. He knew the entire guard had evacuated a few months ago and that mortal allies had moved in in their place. But someone had to have remained to keep the operation running. Was it Heidi? It probably was Heidi.
.
The agent let another moment pass, making sure the vampire wouldn't respond.
"Who was he?" he asked, deliberately avoiding speaking his name.
Carlisle blinked, pressed his lips tight, squirmed in his seat to get more comfortable. "Aro was powerful," he started and fought to find words. "No one wanted to be against him."
"He was feared?" the agent wondered aloud. The people who ended their lives, could they have done it out of fear?
"He had no inhibitions," Carlisle paused, considering his next words. "He was feared because he was powerful and selfish at times. Some would call him unfair." He paused again, wanting to ask the agent what he wanted to know specifically. This unspecified conversation wouldn't give him any answers.
"But, he never claimed to be the voice of neither justice nor fairness. He did what he did for his own reasons. Never denied anyone his help. He wasn't liked by most vampires but he was respected and people were loyal to him, because he valued loyalty."
The agent narrowed his eyes, studying the vampire intensely. Something was different, something must have happened. Carlisle wouldn't reveal so much before. What was different? Was it the blood?
The letters, the notes, the scars, he repeated in his head and after a moment's consideration he added blood to the list.
"I want to show you a picture, and I need you to tell me some things about it," he said and part of him hoped the vampire would finally look up, would finally let his red eyes meet the agents'.
Carlisle nodded.
The agent quickly retrieved a brown folder and took out a photograph, placing it on the table upside down. "It's a photo of some symbols we found on Aro's body," he said carefully, displaying a facade of nonchalance while his hand was itching to reach for his gun at the slightest reaction.
Carlisle only nodded. "He had many, which ones do you mean?"
The agent stared at him, swallowed and forced himself to relax. "Most of them we recognise as a type of tattoo marking," he said. "Or at least that is what we assume," he added as an afterthought.
Carlisle nodded again.
"There were two that we know are words," he turned the photograph around, "What do they mean?" he asked, feeling as tense as a bow string about to break. He slid the photo towards the vampire carefully, scrutinising his every move and twitch and squirm. Carlisle looked at the image, the agent noticed his jaw locking, his lashes fluttering, the absolute stillness he adopted. Whoever printed out the image had been smart enough to crop everything but the symbols out. God, he regretted showing this to Carlisle, it was cruel and insensitive.
"The bottom one is my name," Carlisle said in a steady but empty voice. More or less, he thought. God, no one else called him Lilo, he'd never hear it again...
"The top one is his sister's." He looked away.
.
I have her name over my heart, because she was my blood and cheer, I have yours over my gut, because you are my weakness and vitality, Aro had told him once. It had been a night without the moon's company, after a day of heavy rain.
.
The agent pulled the picture back, relieved to be done with it, but deeply unsatisfied and unnerved. His name? His sister's name? What the fuck...
But then, what did he expect?
"Thank you," he said, wanting the vampire to know he recognised this was hard for him and he appreciated it.
Carlisle looked at him, stealing his voice and unsetting his heart beat.
"The letters are pointless, they won't tell you anything. It was just a check up on things."
The agent couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't speak until the vampire released him from the scarlet hold.
"Can you translate them to me anyway?" he asked as soon as he could.
Carlisle sighed. "Sure."
The agent pulled out copies of the letters and pushed within Carlisle's reach. The vampire flipped through them, getting to the oldest one and let his eyes take in the information. He hadn't read them before, he knew only what Aro had told him they said. He quickly scanned the first one finding it as he thought, a simple check up.
"All is done. Waiting for you. Calm," Carlisle began pointing at the symbols and the sequence they were read as. "Priest back, I think that is what it says. Arrangement," he frowned looking at the lines closer. "I don't know this one, it probably is a name, so I suppose that person misses you. Noise. Sekhmet. Be careful. Another name probably, agreement."
The agent watched carefully, noticing how Carlisle was skipping over symbols, coming back to them, ignoring entire lines.
"Are you sure that's what it says?"
Carlisle looked at him again. "It's a difficult language and one I'm not supposed to know. I am afraid I can only recognise specific symbols. You understand the core message though, do you not?"
"What language is it?"
"Aro's."
The agent met his gaze now, slightly used to it, a little less frozen.
"It doesn't exist anymore."
"What about the other one?" the agent pointed to the next letter, needing the vampire to stop looking at him.
Carlisle frowned at the page. This one he understood less, but he saw his full name and an encouragement to wait. What? Was he supposed to have read this before?
"Rain, sorrow, be careful. Short time, which I think means that the time to do something is nearing. Ready, empty, sorrow again." He pretended to think about the next few symbols when he was looking at the ending of the letter, where he was absolutely certain it said "Carlisle, wait for me. Remember to trust me." What? How had he missed this?
"This one says Come home soon, I'm sure of it. This one has something to do with money, so I guess Caius either sent or received money. Happiness, so I assume it is a wish, of sorts." He finished and inched the pages back to the agent.
The agent watched him carefully, having noted precisely the hopefully-accurate concepts of each symbol and meaning to pass the information to their linguists and maybe figure out what on earth was happening.
"You said Sekhmet? Like the goddess?" he asked, accepting the letters back, folding them and putting them in the brown folder, leaning back on his chair.
Carlisle chuckled. "Aro's cat."
"Oh yeah! We found cat food at your place." It was so unexpected the agent had forgotten to mention it before. "What happened to it? Or was it an emergency snack?" he joked but regretted it instantly.
Carlisle chuckled again, much to the agent's relief. "It left a few days before-" he hesitated but his light smile remained. "Before Aro-" he tried again, swallowed, but was unable to finish.
He didn't want to believe what Aro was saying about that cat. How she was the same cat every time, which is why he always called her Sekhmet. He didn't want to believe that the cat was anything but an animal, a pet, even though Aro swore she entered his life during important periods and left just before things settled ever since he was mortal. All the evidence was right there, but he didn't want to believe it.
.
The agent felt solemn, and he knew that reasonably he shouldn't share in the vampire's grief so much and yet...
"Um, what are the other scars?" he asked, hesitating on purpose.
Carlisle sighed, tilted his head to the side, thinking. "Um, most were reminders," he began, "The ones on his calves he inflicted because he hadn't been fast enough one time and he lost many people because of it. His shoulders he scarred honouring a sun god. His arms were covered in battle scars," he mentioned the markings as they came to memory.
"What about his palms?"
Carlisle swallowed, thought for a moment how to go around the concept of gifts. A straight lie was probably the easiest way. "Those were cosmetic and they traveled around his arms to meet on his collarbones." The line used to cross Carlisle's bite mark on Aro, the blond remembered perfectly and felt his stomach rise to his throat.
"And the one on his chest?"
Carlisle blinked. "What?"
"The one here," the agent pressed his fingers to his own chest, right in the middle, in the dip of his ribs. "It looked like a flower, I think."
Carlisle blinked again. A new one, he wondered. "Flowers are offerings," he said quietly. Of course... He had offered himself.
"Offerings? He offered himself to us, you mean?" the agent asked, incredulous. Carlisle met his eyes for a second before looking away.
Not you, he wanted to say, but held his tongue.
.
The agent straightened up, crossed his arms over his chest. Something wasn't right, something didn't add up.
He sighed, relaxed back against his chair. "Why blood?"
"I don't know," Carlisle answered, eager to leave the subject of Aro.
"You must have some ideas, doctor."
"You're not going to like it," he said and squirmed in his seat again, trying to get more comfortable and failing. "I don't like it either."
The agent smiled, curious. "Oh please do tell."
"If you're looking for a scientific explanation, I'm afraid I don't have it," Carlisle squirmed again.
"Well I am not a man of science."
Carlisle gave him a look, but relented. "Blood has energy. Life energy. I think that is what we cannot create on our own."
The agent nodded, this wasn't the outrageous statement the vamp was making it out to be. Or maybe he was steadily driven to insanity and insane statements made perfect sense.
"And animal blood?"
Carlisle sighed. "These are all mere hypotheses, but perhaps humans have more life energy than animals, thus, making animal blood weaker, less nutritious if you will. I can only speculate that the reason is human awareness of life and death. Keep in mind I have tried few species, but my experience tells me, animal blood is more or less the same."
The agent pursed his lips, nodded, carefully placed both hands on the table, one on top of the other. "So human blood is better."
"Yes," Carlisle said, eyes fixed on his cuffs again.
The agent tapped idly his palms on the metal surface, the stolen rings he was wearing echoed loudly. "Then why do you do it?"
Carlisle chuckled, breathless and with no real humor. "I don't know."
"I think we didn't handle the children very well. I'm thinking they could prove useful," Aro was trying to keep his tone leveled.
"Aro, we just returned and found a new religion on the rise. We must not provoke the people's curiosity. They are suspicious of their own shadows and you suggest we take their children?" Caius was always hard to persuade.
"I'm saying, I have new ideas."
"Forget your ideas and maybe think about what your entity is asking of you. You still haven't reached them and I think at this point, you are merely avoiding it."
.
Aro was furious. No, he was absolutely not scared to make contact with Kleo, what a ridiculous claim. He simply wanted to test a new idea, before calling them and Caius was being too rational.
He covered himself with a thick black cloak, needing to walk the streets of Volterra.
Sekhmet found herself walking between his legs, wrapping her tail around his calf, purring.
"No, Sekhmet, I'm only going for a walk," he said and pulled the hood of his cloak over his face.
The cat rubbed her cheek against his shoe, looked up at him, meowed.
"I am not!" He stepped back, turned to leave. Sekhmet tangled herself between his feet again, meowing louder.
Aro growled, grabbed the animal, lifting it in the air. "I will do as I please," he hissed, fangs lowered and threatening.
The cat gave another weak meow and Aro lost it. He sank his teeth to the thick fur, ripping the little beast apart.
Fur stuck together in lumps, blood drenched Aro's hands and he pulled back.
Gods, what did I do?
He let go of the small animal and it fell to the floor with a sick thump. He stepped back, she only ever looked out for me. Gods, what did I do? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
He quickly removed his cloak, meaning to wrap the animal in it and take it out to a river, beg for the gods' forgiveness.
He caught a glimpse of Marcus at his door. He froze, stared at his brother in silence. Standing with blood on his hands, blood on his face and his cat, his cat, dead on the floor in front of him. There was nothing to explain.
Marcus was staring at him and Aro saw enough fear in his eyes to make his stomach twist. He bent over, emptying his body of the blasphemous meal.
AN: This chapter contains an animal death in a pretty sick way