Chapter Nine
Vivien balanced the tray against her hip and knocked lightly on the massive oak door. The muffled curse from within made her snicker. She hadn't expected much else in the way of communication. It was late, the servants had already been around with a dinner tray and no one else was expected (or tolerated) to be wandering the castle at night.
Slipping into the chamber Vivien slid the tray onto a table she could just make out in the moonlight.
"You couldn't even light a candle?" she demanded as she fumbled in the dark and cursed when she banged her leg against some sharp metal. Which, in this room, could be anything.
"I can barely move." The groan from the bed wasn't exactly apologetic. Vivien rolled her eyes and found the lanterns and flint. She had to light three before the dimness of the room began to lift. Taking one closer to the bed she could now make out the pitiable form. He'd collapsed face down onto the blankets, only half his armor stripped off. The exposed shoulder and arm was swollen from shoulder blade to fingertip and what she could see of his back was discolored with bruises.
"Another glorious victory?" Vivien teased and began undoing the rest of the armor. He'd obviously wrestled off everything he could with his good hand and arm but the rest had to be done with both hands and the right one was completely useless. He hissed as she pulled the rest of the chainmail away, the dried blood ripping like skin. She winced in sympathy and grabbed the bowl of water and rags from her tray. This had become a ritual.
"It kind of loses the glory when you hurt so much you're scared to piss." The grumbling reply had a trace of chuckle at the end. His sense of humor was undefeatable.
"You came back alive, that's victory enough." Vivien pointed out as she washed and dressed the wounds. The gashes and bruises were easy enough. It was the damage underneath that always worried her. The broken bones, moved ribs, mysterious lumps and swellings that she could feel but not see. She needed to be able to treat beyond the surface. She rested one hand on the swollen shoulder, wondering if the Mistress was asleep or distracted enough that she wouldn't notice a small spell.
"Don't even think about it." Her patient didn't even open his eyes. He knew exactly what she was contemplating.
"It would be so much quicker!" Vivien protested. One healing spell! She'd known these since she was a child! There was nothing the Mistress could teach her about healing. She'd just wanted to learn everything else.
"And she'd know you did it. If not immediately, then tomorrow when I can mysteriously wield a sword without wincing. She's evil, not stupid." He opened one eye to watch her nod in surrender.
"She's your damn aunt, you'd think she'd want you well." Vivien put the bloodied rags back on the tray, wiping off her own hands in disgust as though she were somehow tainted with the same guilt.
"She wants to win. That's all. By my sword or your spells, I don't think it matters which." He tried to push himself up but some internal pain shot across his face and he collapsed again. Vivien immediately was back at his side, brushing the hair away from his face. It was well past his shoulders and blacker even than their Mistress' soul. At least he managed to keep the blood out of it this time.
"Where does it hurt?" she gently ran a sensing hand over his back, trying to find the hidden injuries. The swelling and heat was always indication enough that the body was trying to protect or heal something. Except he was swollen –
"Everywhere." He confirmed her grim prognosis. She rose to grab a few more things from her medicine tray.
"Wait! I'm wrong," he suddenly corrected himself, lifting his head a little off the pillow, "Three of the toes on my left foot feel great."
He grinned and wiggled his toes, satisfied to hear her laugh in response. She knew he tried to keep things light for her benefit. It was one of their many unspoken agreements. They were both caught in a hopeless, wretched situation but they could at least help each other. Vivien would always do what she could to heal his injuries. He would do whatever he could to keep her smiling. He liked to try to protect her. He was a little older than her, in this life anyway. Every now and then she had to remind him that she'd been around since before his grandparents shared their first licentious eye contact. Hell, if she'd had any kind of prescience she could've watched the day the Mistress was born. And then strangled her on the spot and spared everyone a lot of pain.
"I made something new today, I think it will help." Vivien shook her head clear of the darker thoughts and lifted a bottle of ointment from the tray.
"Not one of hers." At first he pulled away. He had always been adamant that he didn't want any of his aunt's potions or spells anywhere near him.
"Of course not," Vivien rolled her eyes, "She'd never be able to make anything like this. My sisters taught me the original recipe. I've been making some improvements."
She uncorked the bottle and poured the oil onto his back. The smell filled the room as she began working the balm over the skin, gently guiding it to all the swollen and bruised areas. No, the Mistress would never be able to make a healing potion like this because it had no cost. All her spells and magics came with a price. The cures and balms of her sisters were born of their natural abilities, they came free.
"That does feel good. Like being in the warm sun and having a cool breeze at the same time." He let out a contented sigh. The swelling was definitely going down and the bruises lightening in color. The breaks, fractures and damages underneath would still take a while to heal but he'd be in less pain.
"When did you become such a poet?" Vivien mocked as she climbed onto the bed to reach all the way down his damaged arm.
"I think it was the last time I had you on top of me." The playful tone wasn't quite enough warning before he spun underneath her, catching her with his good hand before she could fall off the bed. Vivien always knew he was feeling better when he started pulling tricks like this. She upbraided him for moving so fast with injuries but that was just for show. It was always easy to slip into his embrace. So easy that she knew it wasn't safe. Nothing that could make you this happy could last.
She broke away in the middle of a kiss, her chest suddenly tight with fear.
"You know if she finds out she'll kill us." Vivien had to point out the danger. It was always the shadow to the lightness of any moment they shared. It wasn't just because Vivien belonged to a Mistress who was demonically possessive of her playthings. It wasn't just because he was her nephew and it would constitute a massive betrayal. It was because the Mistress would despise their happiness. Pleasure untainted by pain was completely foreign to her and she would destroy it out of bitter jealousy.
"Don't be ridiculous." Her lover laughed and kissed her again, "She'd only kill one of us. She'd want to watch the other suffer."
"Oh, perfect. Much better." Vivien growled but couldn't quite bring back the sense of alarm that had spiked so furiously moments ago. He was too good at coaxing her away from such thoughts. Perhaps it was because he faced mortal peril and danger every day. He never seemed as worried about death as she. Maybe that was part of being human? Knowing you would die? More likely it was just him.
Vivien had once seen a performer who juggled knives and swords. He smiled and laughed and made deadly steel twirl and dance around himself while never even seeming to notice the risk. He'd made jokes and kept everyone so entertained they almost forgot to be fascinated by his peril. Vivien had wondered at such casual flirtation with death. She had never quite decided whether he was an example of superbly trained control or just supremely good luck.
The memory came back to her as she rose to get dressed and her lover caught her arm, sleepily insisting she stay. He was the juggler; smiling, entertaining, trifling with dangers he could barely control. She smiled and kissed him goodnight to silence his complaint about cold sheets and loneliness. She truly hoped he had some sort of divine good fortune. She gathered up her tray and exited back into the silent castle corridor. He needed to be lucky. Because if he was the juggler then she was the knife.
Vivien listened to the steady pace of her New Balance sneakers slapping against the concrete. If she timed her gait right she could create a perfectly synchronized rhythm between her heartbeat and her running footsteps. If she focused on the sounds from inside and outside her body, focused on the trivialities of nearly nonexistent noise, she could forget the dreams.
The nightmares had been consistent ever since the curse broke. But they'd changed flavor. At first it was all the bad memories; the first time she was beaten, her first night used in bed, her worst night used in bed, the blood (so much blood!) hers and everyone else's. The first death, first murder, first person who begged for the relief of dying; they all lined up into a never ending parade of horror that was even worse because it was all true. It had all been real once.
Lately they had changed. She was dreaming of the happy moments. Her subconscious had decided to switch up tortures and was rolling out memories that were so close to being good that they stabbed and hurt worse when she woke. The good times had been so short lived and their taste lingered to form a contrast with the realities that followed. She couldn't think of . . .of him without remembering how it went wrong. She didn't dare let herself remember. If she ever let those thoughts bleed into her mind she knew her head would just crack open.
As it was she woke in the early morning hours either sweating or sobbing and wondered how she could hurt so much and not be bleeding. So many mornings she wiped at the warm wetness around her eyes and expected to see her fingers stained red. But when there was no blood, no gaping physical wound to explain the constant pain, she simply rose and ran. She had a 6 mile route that could keep her mind off everything. She could make it longer or shorter depending on her energy and schedule. No matter how she changed the route she made sure one thing was always the same: the halfway point was Granny's Diner.
She could see it halfway down the block now. She hated carrying a water bottle so it was perfect to be able to stop and slake her thirst before continuing. She'd even managed to time it so that she arrived around the time –
The door to Granny's opened and a hand holding a huge glass of orange juice extended itself.
–They opened for the day. Vivien took her last three steps and closed the distance, accepting the glass of juice from Ruby who was leaning against the open door with a self-satisfied grin.
"Am I getting that predictable?" Lake finally demanded after she'd downed half the glass. She knew her timing had been pretty spot-on the last few mornings but she hadn't imagined anyone else was keeping track.
"Don't be silly. I could smell you coming from a block away." Ruby shook her head. They'd enjoyed shooting the breeze for a few minutes each morning before Granny yelled for her granddaughter's attention, or customers showed up or some other interruption came along and reminded them both that they had jobs to take care of. In StoryBrooke at dawn it was easy to forget the obligations of time.
"Smell?" Vivien took a horrified sniff of her shirt. She knew she was sweating but her deodorant usually held up well through a run!
"Not like that, stupid!" Ruby laughed, "Your smell. Everyone has their own and yours is pretty distinct. Easy to pick up even from a distance."
"What do I smell like?" she wasn't even entirely sure she wanted to know but the curiosity would kill her if she didn't ask.
"Hand sanitizer and freshly mown grass." Ruby shrugged as though it were normal to identify people by their smell as much as their looks. Oh, Jim? Yeah, green eyes, brown hair and the constant aroma of chamomile tea.
"Alcohol and chlorophyll. Yummy." Vivien frowned. Maybe it was a waste of time buying 'powder fresh' scented deodorant when there was a werewolf in town.
"Trust me, it could be worse. The dwarves all smell like the mines. Iron, clay, copper mud, caliche and so on."
"Very alluvial." Lake couldn't really think of anything else to say. She'd been having more surreal conversations these days. Just last night she'd met a woman named Bianca at the Rabbit Hole who kept her martini glass perpetually frosted by the touch of her hand. Being a Snow Queen had its perks.
"That's what makes smells interesting. They're a blend of what you are, what you do, what you absorb, what you make part of yourself." Ruby's expression gazed into the distance. Vivien had never really thought of people in such terms, or imagined wolves to be so philosophical. But nature, beauty and art tended to all get tightly wound together into a subjective tangle, she wasn't going to criticize anyone's method of deciphering such complexity.
"So what does Charming smell like?" She emptied the glass of juice and set it down, sliding into a runners stretch to take advantage of the time.
"He's a funny one. He hasn't been on a farm in years but he still smells like wool and milk."
"Marshall?"
"Lubricating oil. He doesn't even smell like metal."
"Jefferson?"
"Mercury. I think he's absorbed a lot of it over the years with the hat making."
"I didn't know mercury had a smell." Vivien switched to the other leg.
"Everything has a smell." Ruby sounded like she was correcting a child who'd read the wrong word in their primer. Vivien just chuckled. Her pocket vibrated and she pulled out her phone. The text message wasn't entirely unexpected. She'd been checking on Regina every day, most often nothing more than a Hello to remind her that someone was paying attention. The Mayor had seen through the tactic completely and was now pre-empting Vivien's attempts at concern by giving her a terse status update each morning.
"Awake. Angry. Therefore, alive." The impassive digital words still managed to completely convey the Queen's attitude. Vivien stifled a small laugh. It could be rearranged many ways: Angry and alive, therefore awake; Alive and awake, therefore angry. In fact, it was probably a confluence of all those things at once.
"She smells like apples. Unless she's mad, then it's just fire." Ruby commented almost absently. Vivien looked up at her in confusion. The waitress hadn't even glanced at the phone. She obviously saw the question in Lake's face.
"Your smell changes. I've noticed it before. When you're talking to Regina or thinking about the past or doing magic. Your smell always changes, like you're a different person at those times." Ruby shrugged again, her universal gesture to convey that she didn't think anything was weird about it so why should anyone else?
A different person? Who you were before, obviously. Most of the time she lived, thought and apparently smelled like Vivien Lake, PT of StoryBrooke. There were many moments, though, when she was someone else from longer ago. It was paralyzing to think there was an audience that witnessed such changes.
"What does it smell like?" Vivien knew her voice was a little strangled. Probably blood, Dearest. Heaven knows you absorbed enough of that. The voice in her mind was too controlled to be cackling but there was a definite edge of gleeful malice about the words. The wicked old witch stirring a cauldron full of boiling babies had nothing on the sound of happy evil that the Mistress could convey when she was in control of someone else's misery. Blood. What else could it be? Did tears have a smell? Maybe she'd smell like the streaks of salt that were left behind on people's cheeks. Hell, she could probably smell like the piss of a thousand people who'd been in so much fear or pain that they'd lost control of themselves.
"Water. Like a fresh spring, or a really heavy running river. It's almost an anti-scent because when it comes it washes out any other smell in the area. Everything just smells clean." Ruby struggled to find words to explain. This was one smell that apparently had very few parallels in the physical world.
Vivien almost burst out laughing in tears. That was her smell when she went back? Even with all the sins and pains and sacrifices that should've destroyed any vestige of her first life, she still had the smell of innocence? It was almost too impossible to consider. But Ruby couldn't be lying. The waitress couldn't even know what she was describing so how could she make it up?
"Ruby, you're amazing." Vivien finally managed to pull herself together and hugged the brunette.
"Woman by day, wolf by night; not always optional – there had to be some compensations, right?" the waitress smiled, not quite sure of what made her gift as incredible as all that but happy to get a compliment. Not to mention a hug.
"Red! Get in here! I told you to roll out the biscuits ten minutes ago!" Granny's voice had all the qualities of an alarm clock: perfectly timed and too jarring to be ignored.
"Thanks for the juice. Put it on my tab and I'll come in tonight to settle up." Vivien smiled and handed Ruby the empty glass. Red returned the smile, along with a slightly annoyed eye roll as Granny went into full rant mode. As Vivien began jogging away, picking up speed, she could hear the percolating argument escalate to a full fight that faded in the distance.
Texting while running could be a bit harder but Vivien knew Regina would be expecting a reply. The one day she'd waited until evening to check on the Queen had earned her a very testy comment assuming she'd been dead. Regina had very subtle ways of letting people know she liked them. It was almost reverse psychology.
"Glad to hear good news on 2 out of 3. Once it hits 5pm we add another A for alcohol and the rest becomes far more tolerable." She tapped in her response and sent it off. It was just hitting 6 am. What was Regina doing awake so early? Vivien frowned because the answer was pretty obvious. She was escaping nightmares of her own. Her phone vibrated a reply before she even had it back in her pocket.
"Before you drown yourself and your sorrows in an irreversible alcoholic deluge: stop by the library."
"Thanks, Regina." Vivien always addressed her by name whenever she could. It made everything feel a bit more sincere. 'Thank you' was easy enough to offer up to anyone but Lake doubted there were very many people who could screw up the nerve to genuinely say 'Thank you, Regina.'
"No cocktails amongst the books." Regina Mills didn't need emoticons. She could wink through words.