Twelve years later
He was pitched back into the fragments of reality with a jolt, struggling for breath as though he really had just been floundering through the murky swamp of memory. Held underwater by a subconscious search for clarity where there was none. Its poison lingering in his lungs and seeping thickly into his head.
The clock called it six thirty-four in the morning – whatever that meant anymore. If anything, it probably meant little more than another endless stretch of daylight, reaching through the windows to curl its fingers around him and drag him in yet again. He wanted darkness. He wanted silence. He didn't want to see anything, and he couldn't stand to be seen. Or reminded.
(Most of all, he wanted to wake up next to her, to be greeted with her face inches from his own the instant his eyes opened.)
Not that time had ever given a damn what he wanted. It simply went on ticking.
The heels of his hands pressed deep into his eyelids until all he could see was spots of colour, melding into one another like some poor imitation of an artist's palette. Breathing in ashes, exhaling the kind of dreams that thrive off a dwindling will to live.
Then unbidden into the room came a hammering noise that sent tendrils of splitting pain shooting across his forehead, along with the impatient call of a name that sounded like his, as if there was something that mattered.
A raspy half-growl, half-groan scraped its way out of his mouth. It took several long moments to identify both the voice and the noise as someone pounding on the crooked rectangle of rusted metal that, although it could barely be called a door, at least provided some form of separation between the dilapidated building (really, why should he bother trying to call it a home? If home is where one's heart is, then what happens when one's heart has not only gone where it can never be reached again but has been gone for what feels like mere days and entire centuries all at once?) and the bleak, dark, shattered reality that awaited outside.
He shoved all such thoughts to the back of his mind where he no longer had to look at them. Where they belonged.
The door was jerked open to reveal an unkempt young woman, whose only reaction was to raise a fire-red eyebrow at him.
"You're late," Ivor ground out, the words grating in his throat.
Petra spared him a shrug, meeting his glower head-on with an unimpressed look. "All good things are worth waiting for." Wisely not wasting either of their time with further useless preamble, she pushed her way past him into the poorly lit dwelling. Her eyes fell almost immediately upon a glass vial sitting atop a chest pushed carelessly against the nearest wall, its contents glowing a luminous purple in the gloom.
"Don't touch that," growled Ivor, snatching the bottle away before her hand could do more than twitch towards it.
She rolled her eyes (a mannerism that had been honed to perfection over all the years he'd known her), but let her hand drop all the same.
With an eye roll of his own, accompanied by a muttered curse or two, he turned his back on her, stalking over to his shelves and none-too-gently setting the vial down onto the top one as he spoke. "I assume you're going to tell me what you've been doing that's so important that you turn up here a day late and clearly haven't got any of the things I told you to bring to me?"
Her eyebrows knitted themselves into a scowl. "What do you think?" she demanded around a clenched jaw. "Stella still has my sword – the one with all the enchantments and stuff. Won't let me have it until she thinks I've done enough to-" She imitated Stella's nauseatingly sugary voice. "-earn it back."
"Why would she? It sounds like she has exactly what she needs," Ivor drawled. "And you have exactly what you earned."
Petra's face flushed, arms crossing and jaw tightening still further until she wouldn't have been all that surprised if the few people standing around in the street outside could hear her teeth grinding. "I thought she just wanted to display it; I thought I could still use it!"
Ivor said nothing, merely curled his lip in disdain at such stupidity. She pulled a sour face back at him, refusing to be put at a disadvantage, before continuing.
"And then on my way here, I had this run-in with Aiden. Turns out Stella's been pretty busy. She's gotten Isa more outside connections than we thought." She let out a mirthless snort. "Though why either of them would actually want to work with that tool and his stupid goons..."
"Aiden?" Ivor repeated, his brows lowering. "The Ocelots' Aiden?"
"How many other Aidens do we know?" she deadpanned. "I already knew you were going senile, but come on..."
His features immediately twisted themselves into a responding sneer, all but out of patience. God only knew why he'd even kept the stubborn, snarky fool around for as long as he had. Certainly not out of any sort of sense of obligation to his former friend. It wasn't as though Gabriel wanted or cared about anything anymore, after all.
"But…" Petra held up her hands as though to placate him, though an amused gleam remained in her eyes. "I know exactly where we can find that little slimeball."
Ah, that was right. It was because she was useful – when she wanted to be.
Ivor stilled briefly, hand instinctively drifting to the assortment of vials attached to his belt. "Do you, now?"
Her lips twitched into a faint, satisfied smile at his tone. "You're damn right I do." Her expression darkened with that familiar determination – and for a fleeting moment, Ivor saw her father's eyes. "Which means I'll get to settle a few scores and he'll tell me where Stella's keeping my sword and how we can track Isa down whether he likes it or not."
Ivor was already striding towards the doorway she'd conveniently left open, requiring no further prompting. "There's no 'I' in 'team', Petra," he said over his shoulder, in a manner that could be light if it wasn't so utterly devoid of mirth or warmth. But why pretend? She knew as well as he did that he was far from some sentimental team player, but the prospect of another person to revenge himself against, another person upon whom to force some fraction of what he experienced every day of his life, often changed things in that regard - however temporarily and capriciously it was.
"No, but there is a 'me' in 'I'm gonna kick their butts'," Petra darted back, her face and voice filled with the same dark promise as he was.
...yeah.
This was...short. I wanted to take it up to Ivor and Petra finding their way out of the quarantine zone so as to hunt Aiden down, but...well, it's something, anyway.
If you could take the time to drop a review, even if it's just to remind me that I suck, then you'd be making a silly dweeb very happy.
Bye for now – and have a lovely week.
(*awkwardly tips hat*)
~ Rainy