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I looked in the mirror. It was full bodied faced before me and the reflection shifted. I glanced and my eyes darkened. Blue and white to red and black. I shattered the mirror with a fist.
I gazed beyond the falling glass and into the mist. There was a figure on the other side of the clattering fragments. I squinted.
It was Weiss behind the mirror. She held this little bundle in her arms and I changed.
"Don't you want to hold him?" She asked. "Little Nebel?"
I shattered.
"Could you really stop me?" I asked her. Her blue eyes looked up at me for mercy. "If I told you to kill me because I was slipping. Could you really stop me?"
I brought my sword down like the hammer of a genetically engineered demigod on Myrtenaster.
"Please? Not the children!" She begged me. "Whatever you do, don't hurt the children."
"I have to know if you could stop me," I ordered."I don't trust you. You will lie to me. Won't you? You will. I have to know if you could stop me."
"With Ruby… I could..."
"But you couldn't stop me alone!" I flung a whirlwind at her that ripped at the mist. The finishing touch.
I looked down at myself to see Grimm black flesh covering my body.
I heartattack-awoke. Weiss was clutching at me. She looked every bit as panicked as she had in my dream. I threw myself off of her and to the hard floor.
"Cloud!"
I panted hard and clutched at my chest. Mother… Mother… she lured me into a false sense of security. She'd been leaving me alone and waiting for the moment to strike. Or had she? Maybe it was just a bad dream from my own temple of terrors. I couldn't tell. I had no way to know whether or not I was the one at the bottom of myself. I suffocated.
"Cloud?" Weiss whispered at a low murmur.
"Could you really stop me?" I asked.
"What?"
"If I told you I was slipping… if I had to go down… could you really stop me? If I turned on myself and the children could you save them from me?"
"With Ruby… I-"
"No! Ruby won't do it! She would never be able to strike me down! It has to be you. Weiss please. If I'm a monster you have to slay me. Please. You have to be willing to kill me. Please just kill me. I can't take another minute more."
"You're suffering... Your suffering… your mother has you all twisted up. Whatever you saw it wasn't real."
"It's real. It's unbearably, intolerably real. You're exactly the same now as you were in my dream. I dreamed I was coming for them. I dreamed I was coming for my own children. And you hesitated. You can't hesitate Weiss. You have to kill me. If you want me in on this whole shebang you have to be willing to kill me. Ruby isn't. Ruby won't. I'll kill Ruby and I'll kill you too if you let me. You have to be willing to stop me. You have got to put me down. If you aren't willing to put me down. I'm out. That's it. This trio is over."
I met her wide scared eyes.
"...I…" she started.
I looked away and let tears fall from my face.
"You hesitated!" I snapped.
"Wait… Cloud I- can we talk about this?"
"You hesitated. Just now you hesitated. How can I trust you to strike me down in that moment? How? You're hesitating over this conversation. It's over. You can't be trusted to kill me."
"Cloud this isn't fair! Where is this coming from? Please, let's talk it over. I don't know where your mind is at and I want to help you. You have to let me at least try. You have to let me at least try and save us. You have to let me at least try to save you. Please…" she begged me. And I knew… I knew I couldn't refuse to hear her out. I had to hear her case.
"Weiss. I'm not this thing that you think I am. I am a tentacle. Black and slimy and long and with sharp teeth at one end."
"Cloud you are a man. Who suffers like no one else. Come here. Let me hold you. What dreams did your mother send you? You are tormented. I will help you if you give me the chance. Cloud, for me. I'll do what I have to do to keep Ruby and our babies safe. I promise. But I need you too. Don't cut me out. Don't cut Ruby out either. You have to give a chance to save your soul. You have to. Please."
I slumped like a ragdoll. She crawled across the bed over to me and cupped my head in her hands. Gods above, her cold fingers felt so good on my face. It tasted sweet. Like custard. Some yellow treat that was thick and rich and sweet. And I could smell her. Honeyed cream and crisp crushed ice. It was so fine a thing against my flesh that I leaned into it and sighed aloud. She was like drinking a cold coffee. It woke me up. It set me down. It focused me.
"What did you dream?" She asked me so quietly I could hardly hear her.
"It was you. You were holding my son. There was a mirror and I saw myself looking back at me with my Mother's eyes and so I shattered it. I walked through and there you were. You held him out to me and asked if I wanted to hold him. And then I was bringing my weapon down on you. It was so fast. I asked if you could stop me. You told me that you could with Ruby. Then when I woke up you had that same panicked look. You responded to my questions the exact same way. Mother can see every part of me if she could see into how well I know you. She sees through me."
"For the first time in months? She left you alone thus far. Don't you think it's possible that it was just a dream?"
"They could all be just dreams, then."
"So?"
"'So?'" I wondered back.
"So what? You have PTSD for sure. Definitely. And maybe Schizophrenia. Totally. And you're quitting your drug of choice. You have to give the doctors a chance to work on your brain. You need to. We only just found Amanda. We haven't found a good drug for you yet. We knew it would be like this but you can't give in. We knew it would be hard. We knew it would be. But we can get through it together. Ruby will be joining us soon. We can plan out our wedding. It will be the three of us all together. Just like we always dreamed about it being. It can be. If you want. But you can't give in to that fear. Never give in to panic and terror. That's literally all your Mother wants. Have you considered that just maybe she has left you alone to make you miserable all these months? Why bother pushing your buttons if you are already dialed to eleven all the time. Be rational, Cloud. You're acting like a scared hurt animal because you are one. I can help you. But not if you push me away. For all that is holy and right in this world you have to trust me and you have to let me love you. I will let you know if you're fading into the darkness. I will. And if I have to I will stop you from hurting our children. Look at you! You're already terrified for them and they aren't even conceived."
She slid off the bed and into my lap. She still cupped my face with some scraggly facial hair in her soft, velvety hands. I let out a groan and whimper.
"You acted the same way in real life and in my dream and it threw me."
"I heard you."
"You were the exact same. Exactly the same. The way your body was positioned and the expressions on your face. It was my Mother's doing. It has to be."
"Or it was just a bad dream. You're allowed to have bad dreams. You've lived a traumatic and short life. Come here. Let me take care of you. Salem won't take you today. This might be a bad reaction to the meds…"
"It will be too early to tell. I'm not at a dose that people typically start responding well to it yet. They will have no idea whether to go up or down on it. They don't have the information. They're fumbling in the dark. Only it's with my brain. They're going to drop it once or twice."
"So let them without over reacting. I know it's hard. Your brain is a test tube. Of course it's hard to be patient with it. You want to feel better. I can't blame you for that. No one should and when Ruby get here she won't either. We'll look after you until you're feeling better. And if you have to take time off work, Glynda will understand. Let me take your place on one of the missions you're sending the students out on. I'm unassigned. Glynda will approve. She wants you to be healthy."
"Yeah. Nobody likes the thought of me being unhealthy."
"Yes. We're scared of your power in the wrong hands. But it's in your hands. It's in the best hands exactly because of this. You need to try and relax. Come. Relax with me. Life is scary and I'm sort of sickly glad you're afraid for our children. That's a good sign."
"I have serious enemies."
"But you know that. And you're taking serious steps against them without letting them dominate your life. That's real power and real strength. You're mastering yourself. You're unmaking and remaking yourself starting with your brain. Of course it's going to hurt. And I'm sorry I asked you to do this."
"I'd put Diana back together for you if you asked me to."
"You dumb blonde. I don't want you so far from me for a minute. So much energy wasted and for what? The view of the shattered moon is beautiful. Why would I do something about it when I have real problems at home. I have a shattered husband. And I will piece you together."
"The shit that's wrong with my brain isn't 'treatable' it's 'manageable' with medication. I'm not going to get better. Reckon on that."
"I will put you back together even if I have to use a needle and thread. You reckon on that. You were, once upon a time, not this broken. You were fake but you weren't broken. We can have both. You can be whole and honest. You can. I believe in you. I believe in your struggle. You will overcome Salem. You will master yourself. Because I'm putting you in a situation where you have no choice. And maybe that's cruel of Ruby and I. But I think you can do it. I wouldn't ask you to put your brain in the blender if I wasn't certain that you're strong enough for this. You are. You have no choice."
"You angry siren," I swore at her with some venom. But if I'd put the moon back together I could suffer this. Though it was agony of a sort and it did interfere with my ability to do my job to the fullest. But then so did the weed. The weed hadn't been ideal from the start. It was a short term fix Neo had hooked me on that was never going to be healthy long term or deal with the underlying issues. These drugs… they hopefully would let me hold my child in my arms. And a wretch like me couldn't really ask for more than that. There were poor fools in this very world who prayed for just that.
Still, my power worried me. Perhaps I could cripple myself somehow. Paralyze myself from the waist down and not get treated. That would set my mind at ease to pick apart my body. But I needed to be ready to face my sisters should the need arise. Or, gods forbid, Salem herself. If I was at anything less than my peak they'd pull apart the things I cherished most. The things I was putting my brain in the blender for were these exact things.
With what right could I call myself a man if I didn't do this? Manhood was earned and not given. Trauma didn't make me a man. It didn't make me a person. It hadn't even made me funnier. I had to work for that shit and I had to overcome. Even though at that moment I wanted nothing more than to torch my hand again or put a fork in my eye. I resisted. I rebelled against that desire. It wouldn't be true. It wouldn't complete me the way Weiss or Ruby did. I would then truly perish and, omitting my death, I would have never overcome anything.
Having two wives wouldn't make me a man or a better person. But the things I was willing to do for them did. It meant suffering and agony and as Weiss ran a hand through my hair I groaned.
"I like your hair…" she whispered. "You dumb handsome blonde. I worry about you. But I'm not afraid of you. I'm scared for you. Not of you. I love you and I worry."
"Don't worry so much. I'll get through it or I won't."
"Now, see, that's very concerning. I like having answers. I'm an overthinker too. If you don't give me an answer I'll come up with one."
"I… I'll do my best to give you your answers. Promptly."
She stroked my face and ran her other hand around my head and through my hair. I felt her still cool touch against my scalp. It was so nice I could pass out. Her aura was like a drug and I was hooked on it for life. Weed I could quit. Cocaine was just alright. But my mouth watered for Weiss. She bent in and kissed me on the lips. She pleaded with me until I moved my mouth against her's. I snaked my arms around her waist and pulled her into me.
"What makes you think our child hasn't been conceived?" I asked.
"I've been testing myself. It's pretty cheap."
"I see…"
"Though I'm starting to think I'm infertile."
"If anyone is firing blanks it's probably me. What with my biology and all. But it's like you to jump to the assumption that you're barren when it'll turn out to be my fault. Bet."
"It's like you to demand that I be ready to kill you. If anyone jumps the gun in this room, it's you. Little trigger happy? Cloud?"
"We need Ruby here…"
"We do," she agreed.
"Maybe I'm a little trigger happy. You really freaked me out. And you hesitated even at the question…"
"Don't. Don't psyche yourself out. And if we have to use a lab to get pregnant we will. Lots of people do it."
"But you have to admit that between the two of us I'm the one shooting dead ones."
"Maybe… we can use a lab. It's been difficult this last week on your meds. They're giving you sexual disfunction… we should bring it up when you next see Amanda."
For the past week I'd been able to get and maintain an erection but unable to climax. It was like I was constantly climbing a hill with no summit. It was an incredibly… frustrating experience. And I was further psyching myself out and causing performance issues which I felt confident were all psychological and had nothing to do with the meds exactly. It was a weird grey area but sex, one of those crisp warm pleasures I so rarely enjoyed, was dry and unsustainable.
I sighed as Weiss ran her fingers down my face and to my cheeks. She kissed both of my cheeks softly and then between my eyebrows she brushed with her lips. She was straddling me and she was so light. As light as a feather. I'd easily thrown her when we danced ten feet in the air and I could probably quadruple that if I meant it. She was so small. And so fragile. I felt like I might shatter her should I make the wrong move. I knew I wouldn't. She was a huntress. She was durable. But she was also sensitive. Durable but sensitive. Weird combination to really think about in earnest. But it was so womanly that sometimes all I could do was cower. Both she and Ruby terrified me in a way that was hard to explain. Even when I eclipsed them in power it was like that. Ruby was a glass cannon for damage per second. Weiss was a mage who really excelled with her ability to strengthen her allies. They were tough but they weren't built like tanks. Not like me. I was a weird flex-tank-dps hybrid with a strong grab-bag of powers which forced the enemy to approach me.
Together, well, I almost felt like I was part of a team again.
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-WG
