#I’ve had the wood and the nails laying around since june i think | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

clansayeed · 4 years

Text

Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ― Chapter 25: The Faceless

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ⥽

While struggling with nightmares of lives she’s never lived, a shadow from the past looming over her city, and the proposed idea that her life may just be a little bit too weird to handle alone, Nadya makes sure to tell herself that everything is perfect just the way it is. If only. When the self-proclaimed King of Vampires (and Maker of her sometimes-girlfriend and always-boss, can’t forget that little tidbit) Gaius Augustine returns intent on claiming Manhattan as the throne that was promised, she and her friends find themselves forced into the task of saving the world. But with millennia-old vampires and an Order of hunters on their heels as well as allies hiding catastrophic secrets at their backs… it won’t be an easy task. Too bad destiny didn’t exactly ask for her input.

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off, Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

TAG LIST: @googlesentmehere, @cess02

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Destiny II tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

A shocking confession leaves Nadya confused and Serafine on edge. But now isn't the time for them to be divided. When a hidden threat makes itself known, the only way they're getting out of the City alive is together... or not at all.

[READ IT ON AO3]

“Cynbel, please let her go.”

It’s not her lack of oxygen that has them on edge. Serafine is a vampire, she doesn’t need to breathe. But something about the sight of her slender neck and how fragile it looks in his broad palm makes Nadya — at the very least — starkly aware of how easily he could separate her head from the rest of her.

Jax is still as stone in her periphery but Nadya hears the all-too-familiar hiss of his katana handle dislodging from the sheath. That very sound has saved her life more than a fair few times but now, of all times, it only fills her with dread.

“Don’t Jax — he doesn’t…” she wishes she hadn’t looked back to see Serafine’s nails digging long red grooves into the pale arm that holds her captive; it’ll haunt her for years to come, “he doesn’t…”

What? He doesn’t know what he’s doing? That’s too tall a tale, one even Nadya herself can’t muster the energy to believe. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

She took everything from him. He’s just returning the favor.

“This isn’t what I wanted… if I had known… if someone had told me this is what I’d learn…”

Nadya almost throws her heart up on the ballroom floor. “Cadence?”

Nothing makes sense. Nothing made sense when she woke up the first day she knew vampires were a real, actual thing and they just haven’t made sense every hour of every day following. Even more now when she takes into account where she is — what she is notwithstanding. And all this happening right in front of her isn’t the exception.

But she knows what it looks like when Cadence is… overtaken by something out of his control. It doesn’t look like this.

With literally no confidence in what she’s doing or that she’ll survive the sheer idiocy of the attempt Nadya starts slowly moving towards them.

Adrian practically chokes. “Nadya—what are you doing?”

“Get the fuck over here—” hisses Lily, too. But the only one who actually does anything is Jax. Classic Action Man.

“Don’t you d—” Jax’s words get cut off, like most angry declarations do, when the back of Nadya’s hand collides with his face. Not that it was her complete intention but it does the trick and gets him to back away. Still she can feel him fuming behind her; hear the full whistle of his sword meeting the open ballroom air and every time his teeth grind together as he thinks up new ways to drag her back just as she ends up too far out of his reach.

“I can do this.” Nadya reassures them, even if she sounds a little meek doing it.

There has never been a point in her entire life where Nadya was taller than the next average human. She has a dozen more things wrong with her to have a complex about; her height is not one of them. But standing at his back Nadya can’t help but feel smaller than she really is. He’s not just tall now, is he? He’s weighed down with thousands of years and no guilt to speak of.

No, Cadence isn’t. Remember that… she has to remember that.

Steeling herself, Nadya reaches up and out with a hand that has no business being that steady when she’s ready to jump out of her own skin… and lays her palm on his back. Even she’s surprised when she sighs in relief. Nothing’s changed yet; Serafine looks ready to claw him down to the bone in the next second or two. But somehow Nadya just knows this isn’t the nightmare scenario they really should have prepared for.

“I’m sorry I called you Cynbel. You’re not him, Cade.”

“On the contrary.”

Nadya’s brow furrows with resolve. “Let her go.”

“Why should I?” before Nadya can even open her mouth, “This is who I’m supposed to be, isn’t it? This is what’s expected of me…”

Serafine’s hands fly to her neck, wiggling two—three fingers in a gap that definitely wasn’t there before. She’s getting through to him. Weirdly, and pretty much solely on luck at this point, but she is.

She takes a moment, puts on her brave face, and presses her hand down hard enough for him to actually feel her touch.

“But is it what you want to do?”

She’s waiting for him to speak when she sees it; the barest flicker of his head from side to side. Whatever came over him to begin with is sucked out into the void just as fast. Cadence recoils far across the room before Serafine’s knees even hit the ground.

Adrian’s at her side immediately. “You’re okay… you’re okay…” Crooning in her ear, kissing the droplets of sweat from her temples and holding her so tight Nadya can see the strain of it on his muscles from here but if their situations were reversed… well she doesn’t comment, leave it at that.

“Adrian —” the woman hiccoughs his name; like there’s no other word that could even compare, “— Adrian I…”

“It’s okay. You’re safe.”

“Non, mon amour… none of us are.”

Serafine’s in good hands — some of the best and Nadya has personal testimony to back her case. But she still lied, and some part of Nadya can’t help but wonder what else she’s hiding behind the psychic walls she knows about and maybe the ones still there just out of her conscious reach. So she doesn’t feel any guilt about turning away from them and running across the room, leaping over broken hunks of wood and a few husks of armor until she’s skidding on her knees along the flagstones to where Cadence sits, huddled. His knees pressed to his chest and a not-so-strange emptiness in his eyes staring through her, rather than at her.

Nadya’s watched herself in the mirror too many times not to know what a panic attack looks like. Immortal or not.

“I’m not him — I’m not him I swear —”

“I know you’re not.”

“But I am. Somewhere I can’t reach — like an itch inside of me and all it takes it one little scratch and suddenly — suddenly I don’t know where I am, or what I’ve done, and there’s always so much blood…”

She tries to laugh it off, “well you are a vampire…” but that’s not helping so probably best to pretend that didn’t happen.

Sometimes all that can be done is nothing at all. So Nadya just sits there. Pulls her own legs up against her chest (though that’s more to keep warm than anything) and rests her chin on her knees while Cadence mumbles whatever he needs to tell himself to calm down. Some of it she recognizes; a litany chant of “I’m not him, I’m not him, I’m not him,” while others are languages she’s heard but doesn’t know, and a few she’s doubtful have been languages for a long time.

Twice Nadya glances over her shoulder and through her hair to check on the others. The first time Adrian and Serafine are right where she left them. The next; they’re gone. Jax and Lily are either too smart or think she’s too dumb to be left with him on her own and, sure, that’s fair. But hopefully the smile she tries to offer them conveys just how much they really mean to her.

A loud thud makes Nadya jump in her boots. Whirling her head around to see Cadence finally easing up in his limbs and a large crack in the stone where the crown of his head decided to take a break. Besides his closed eyes and absolutely no breathing whatsoever, though, he seems relatively unharmed. Physically, anyway.

But he’ll talk when he’s ready. She just waits. and waits. and has an awful lot of time to think about certain things while she’s waiting and none of them are exactly pleasant. Unfortunately the stretching silence is more than ample opportunity for Nadya to finally understand exactly what happened back there.

She kinda wishes she hadn’t.

When Nadya finally looks up again she’s met with the familiar sharp scrutiny of Cadence’s stare. Small blessings. But unfortunately that means no more waiting around.

“You know… don’t you.”

A long, stretched silence. Like Cadence would rather have waited out the decades it took for Nadya to grow old and wither and die just so he wouldn’t have to give her an answer.

Maybe that’s why she’s so surprised that he actually does. His voice so quiet; a whisper on the wind.

“I had my suspicions.”

“Since when?”

His eyes narrow in a glare. “Oh, not long. Just since Valdas showed up on my office doorstep with a bouquet of orchids in one hand and dinner reservations in the other. So… late May, early June?”

“Alright, cool it Sassmaster General. It’s a valid question.”

“… Fair enough. There’s a litany of other small things… ones that could be coincidence on their own but trying to call them that when put together just made me realize I wanted to stay ignorant. Can’t really do that now though, can I?”

Nadya can’t help the frown tugging at the corners of her lips. “Then… why ask me to help you figure it out? Why come all the way upstate to tell me I’m your ‘last chance?’”

Amused, Cadence huffs a wheezing, heartless little laugh. “Because that’s exactly what you were. I never lied — I swear to you on that. But so long as there was even the slightest lack of proof… so long as Kamilah Sayeed bit her tongue in her fear rather than confront me, or Valdas skirted around real truths and didn’t actually know what happened during the War; I could pretend all the signs pointing to me… were meant for someone else.”

With a long groan Nadya leans back, propped up with her palms on the dusty floor and head angled up to the dark-stained ceiling. “Well that’s… great.”

He arches a thick brow. “What is?”

“Oh, you know… Listening to you has me realizing that I owe pretty much everyone in my life giant apology fruit baskets when all this is over.” Rolling her head back to attention; “Because if I sounded half that delusional I have literally no idea how they put up with me.”

It’s more meant to settle her nerves than anything else but hey, the fact it gets the barest quirk of a smile out of him is just a bonus.

“I’m lucky there. Most of the time it’s only Kathy who has to. And she’s contractually obligated, so…”

“Yeah, but she’d be there anyway.”

“You know… I don’t think you’re wrong there.”

His dry laughter doesn’t last long. In fact, it dies out right in the middle — like a scratched record. Nadya looks up to see something pained crossing over Cadence’s expression, making him bite at his lower lip until he’s wiping blood from his chin before it stains his sweater.

“What do you know about him, Nadya?”

She doesn’t need to ask who.

Cadence finally looks her in the eyes again and immediately Nadya wishes he hadn’t. The pain bleeds from him into her soul in scalding waves of despair. “Have you shared in any of his memories? I’m… I’m so sorry if you have. Because from everything I could uncover, he was not the kind of man that someone like yourself would want to get to know. Not in the intimate way the Bloodkeeper can.”

“‘Someone like myself?’”

“Someone good. Someone kind, and caring, and empathetic, and filled with a desire to put their goodness out into the world and who always seeks out the chance to do better — to be better.”

And doesn’t that make her laugh. Nadya can’t really help it.

“Well that’s kind of loaded. You make me sound like some kinda altruistic angel. I’m definitely not.”

“You are compared to him,” the vampire insists; so fiercely and like the louder he speaks the more she’ll believe him — in a way she kind of does, “hell—everyone is compared to him. That’s what it looks like when you put an ordinary person side by side with a monster.”

Nadya thinks back; back to the memory Valdas had used her to relive, to the portraits hanging in the Musea Sanguis and in Marcel’s library, and then back farther still. To things she doesn’t remember—couldn’t be remembering, not with her own mind—times of strange, chaotic confusion. Where the rest of the world was full of noise but muted; empty and hollow and devoid of the things Nadya filled her existence with the most.

Life. Longing. Laughter. Love.

Them.

And all of it gone. No, not gone… something can’t be gone if it never existed in the first place. That’s what makes their arrival so jarring; so violent. Like a knife to her middle and the blade is made of something she needed but could only accept in a terrible, traumatizing way.

Before she knows it, Nadya’s crying. And not even Serafine’s kind of silent, lovely tears either; where she’s shrieking like a banshee but still somehow perfectly pristine. She’s heaving sobs and holding her sweater sleeves to her nose to keep from looking like a snot monster and thank god Cadence is there to hold her glasses to keep her tears from staining them all up. But they sting and burn in her eyes and she misses them so—so much it hurts—so much it’s going to crush her—so much she would rather be anything but conscious if it keeps her from feeling the ache of being apart from them—

He waits until all that awfulness is reduced down to, like, a two to hand Nadya back her glasses. She takes them gratefully, voice thick with a stuffy nose, and wishes there was any way in the world she could play this off as cool.

“Do you want to…”

“It wasn’t me,” Nadya clarifies before Cadence can even get the question out, “I mean… it was me, but it wasn’t… me. Anyway that doesn’t matter.”

He looks doubtful. Glances at something over her shoulder and Nadya’s sure she looks like a real mess but she’s grateful, for once, not to have someone else to shoulder her burdens. They’re never going away. She needs to learn to deal with them by herself too.

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” —a beat— “about that. But I’m not sure about what’s gonna happen going forward.”

His shoulders slump. “Right. Because I…”

“… attacked her, yeah.” Nadya groans and pinches the bridge of her nose. “We really have to stop trying to die before we even make it back up top.” We’re doing Gaius’ work for him.

“It won’t happen again, I assure you.”

Now it’s her turn to look doubtful. Cadence takes it in stride though; like a good trooper. “Honestly,” he continues to insist, “I… will admit I was a little out of sorts back there but, no offense, she’d done the very thing I was hoping no one would ever do.”

“And how can we be sure you won’t…” What’s a nice way to mime slamming one of the most powerful vampires in the world into the wall like she was a rag doll?

“Ah,” he clicks his tongue, suddenly unable to look Nadya in the eyes, “I see what you mean. Well luckily… there’s a simple way to avoid all of that trouble. I don’t fight, I don’t black out.”

Simple, he says, and even shrugs his shoulders like they’re talking about the freakin’ weather, or what to order for appetizers. And very much not about his tendency to go Ultimate Street Fighter on anyone who so much as looks at him the wrong way when he’s like that.

Though… it does tug on a few lightbulbs in her head. “When you saved us in the alley… that was you…”

He nods and finishes it for her; “— avoiding conflict, yes. As far as I can tell, brains over brawn is the best way to go. It doesn’t always happen; my blackouts. But there’s always the risk.”

Nadya sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. “And… if it were to accidentally happen anyway?”

She really doesn’t like the way Cadence’s face falls. At least he’s being honest though…

“As far as I’m aware, and I use the term loosely, Kathy is the only one who can bring me out of those… fits.”

“‘Fits’ being flashes of Cy—” But there’s suddenly a hand over her mouth that’s keeping her from saying the name. Cadence levels a stern frown right in her eyes. The intensity of it both jarring and a little cool at the same time.

“Please… for my sake, and yours, and probably everyone’s. Don’t… don’t say his name.”

“Just in case?”

“Just in case.”

Okay that’s… maybe half of one of their problems solved. Nadya can only hope that wherever Adrian and Serafine are they’re talking, you know with their mouths, and not… anything else. Adrian would vouch for him, right? He knows Cadence pretty well — he’s always at least liked the guy.

Cadence offers Nadya a hand and helps her up. All the color drains from her face in that exact moment; which is just bad timing more than anything.

“Are you alright?” he asks, that same concerned frown back in place like it had never left.

“Yup, peachy keen.”

Note to self!! Do not bring up Adrian’s weird One Nighter with the Bad Guys!!!

When the pair come back up on Lily and Jax, her friends exchange dual looks of ‘yeah, we’re not buying this.’ And it’s sweet — they’re sweet. The best friends a girl could ask for, really. Well… a best friend and a loose acquaintance who happened to be handy with a super sharp sword.

Before they can say anything though Nadya holds up her hands and takes the floor for her own. “Yeah, it’s weird — and yeah there’s a lot that still needs figuring out. But he’s still Cade, he’s still our friend… he’s just more our friend on the sidelines than our friend on the front lines. At least until we get back up to the surface and find this stupid Tree. Okay?”

Neither of them respond. Not an option. “I said o—kay?”

Lily sighs and nods… then leans in none-too-subtly. “This isn’t a Voldemort-and-Quirrell thing, is it?”

And Nadya can say it is with full confidence that she shakes her head. “Think Jekyll and Hyde.”

“You know I can hear you, right?”

They look up into Cadence’s not-at-all amused frown. Well… at least some things were kind of normal still.

Or they were.

Until a loud, hollow groan echoes across every wall and ceiling beam she can see.

GGGGHHHHHHRRRRRR…

Lily (rightfully, even if it stings) glances down at Nadya’s stomach. She throws her arm over it self-consciously. More than a little offended but fear is rapidly overtaking every other emotion she’s capable of.

“Was that —”

“No!”

GGGGGGGHHHHHHRRRRRR…

“Are you s—”

“It wasn’t my stomach, Lil’.”

Who groans beside her. “You couldn’t have pretended with me for like… a minute?” Touche.

GGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHRRRRRRNNNN…

By the third time nobody is moving. Necks craned up to the rafters, flashlights moving this way and that desperate to find the source. Even though, by that third time, they all know a universal truth.

That the noise—whatever it may be (that isn’t Revenge of the Canned Beans)—is way too loud to be coming from inside the Manor.

But not too loud to be echoing on repeat around the cavern just beyond the door.

Way to go Nadya. You just had to jinx it!

Like a group of teenage mystery solvers their gangs collide smack dab in the middle of the front foyer. Adrian and Serafine on one end, Nadya and the gang on the other; and for a brief moment the eerie howling in the distance is forgotten in the face of their more recent… revelations.

Serafine reaches up to her throat unconsciously. The sight makes Cadence swallow and avert his eyes.

“Bigger problems, guys.” Nadya stresses; emphasis on the stress.

Adrian’s frown deepens. “You heard it too then?”

“How could you not?” Jax looks to the gaping space that used to be the front doors as he says it. They’ve barely given it a thought since their arrival. But now… all Nadya can see is a giant hole in their defenses.

Tch, what defenses?

Nobody asked you.

All together (though with Serafine pointedly on one end and Cadence on the other — no complaints here) they empty out of the King’s Manor and into the cavern. The damp air leaves a chalky taste on her tongue, but taste isn’t the sense she needs most right now.

No one moves.

No one speaks.

Nadya doesn’t even give herself the luxury to breathe.

Finally, Lily breaks the silence; raising her voice to be heard over the nearby waterfall. “I can’t tell if I’m just hearing the echo in my head or…”

“I don’t understand…” While the rest of them look around aimlessly for any sign of the disturbing noise’s source, Serafine knows these caverns well. Eagle-eyed her head darts this way and that; locking on to the staircase they arrived from as well as others in the dark too dim for Nadya to see.

Jax scoffs. “What’s not to understand?”

“The Knights collapsed the old districts during their purge. Our path was the way through which I escaped; but the rest have been sealed off ever since.”

“But isn’t there even the slightest chance one of the tunnels could have been discovered?” asks Adrian, whose shoulders slump when she shakes her head.

“Non, not this far down.”

GGGGGGGHHHHHHRRRRRR…

Nadya’s stomach sinks. No matter where they look it all rings the same. The noise is coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once; reverberating through the stone until it isn’t just one sound, but a legion.

This time, Jax doesn’t wait until it fades to voice his frustrations. “Maybe back then it would have been, but we can’t rule anything out.”

“You think we did not anticipate the City lasting through centuries of innovation?”

“Well I sure don’t think a bunch of Dark Ages scavengers anticipated the light bulb.”

“Jax —”

“No, Adrian, he’s right.”

“I don’t recall asking your opinion, Monsieur D’or.”

Senseless arguing. The untraceable growl like an ever-present white noise. It all fades to wordless noise; something Nadya can hear but doesn’t take the time to process.

And through the cacophony of it all she hones in on one sound.

Dainty, whimsical laughter.

She looks back over her shoulder to the Manor’s depths. It suddenly seems so dark inside, which makes sense seeing as they—and their flashlights—are all out here. But the cavern has a natural glow to it. Phosphorescent mushrooms, maybe. Or the way their LEDs catch and sparkle all the way down the waterfall overhead.

It makes the way back in look like a yawning abyss. Beckoning her, calling out for Nadya and her alone.

She allows her feet to carry her back inside; trusts them to guide her to where she needs to be. Every step forward and the laughter grows louder — is joined by the ancient whine of a bow on strings and the pipes whistling in the background. Music fit for a grand party.

Nadya surprises even herself when she isn’t startled by the movement out of the corner of her eye. Maybe because she’s pretty sure at this point her eyes are about as untrustworthy as the rest of her senses. This is a memory. She’s certain of that. What she isn’t certain of, though, is to whom the memory belongs.

Their group is small; no more than five or so, all dressed in dark and rich fabrics and all wearing some form of mask. She only sees half a face; nothing more… and nothing less. Odd, translucent figures flit around them like they exist in some kind of bubble but those never last. Other than Nadya they are the only ones in the foyer but that’s in the here and now. Wherever they really are — whenever they really are — they are huddled away from curious attentions.

The closest figure to her is a man with eyes hidden with a more traditional mask design. If only that did something for bottom half of his face turned down into a frown so sour Nadya feels her own lips start to twitch.

“There’s an awful lot of Faceless here tonight,” says the sour-faced man; turning his nose up at party guests Nadya can’t see, “I would not have wasted my time with such a disparaging lack of prestige.”

Nadya’s brow wrinkles in confusion. Whatever that means. But by the way his entourage reacts he’s speaking boldly and way out of line.

“Really, Marquis?” asks one of his entourage in scandalous whisper.

“I would think not showing your face would be far worse.”

“Indeed.”

“Yes, yes.” Agreement ripples out among them in hushed tones. Nadya can’t see his eyebrows behind the mask covering his forehead but his eyes are definitely narrowed.

“So quick to judge me — yet I’m eager to see how many of you survive the waltz with such slim pickings!”

A woman passes by close enough for Nadya to imagine the tickle of lace trimming on the back of her hand. The Marquis’ crowd parts, unbidden, and allows her to settle at his side. Somehow Nadya knows before the woman even opens her mouth that she is the source of the ghostly laughter that drew Nadya in.

She regards the Marquis with cool expression defined in a waxing crescent of thin silver plating contoured perfectly to her every curve. The gathering shifts dynamics. No longer do they hang on every scathing insult from the Marquis. They would much rather hear what she has to say.

“Indeed Marquis,” comes her soft reply; her voice melodic and darkly alluring, “I share your sentiments. Of course, with the weight of prestige carried by one such as yourself you must not be worried about the inevitable tilt in scales this night.”

The Marquis bristles. Nadya’s arms break out in gooseflesh.

“And what makes the great Duchess say as such?”

“Why my dear Marquis; they do, of course.”

The Duchess points a slender, silk-gloved finger towards the doors leading to the ballroom. She, the Marquis, his adoring fan club — they all turn to witness the arrival of someone Nadya doesn’t get to see. Whoever it is exists outside of what’s left of this memory.

They vanish all at once; the candle blown out by a wind both real and not that carries around Nadya and leaves her… wrathful? No, that isn’t quite the word she’s looking for. Whatever it is it’s something she’s never felt before — and that’s probably not a good thing.

The only thing that comes close is—

“There you are.”

Relief washes the worry away from Adrian’s face when he sees her. If she wasn’t still trying to put a word to this new experience of hers she’d probably echo the sentiment. But her stomach aches — like physically, painfully aches — and she has to rub her palms into her eyes as a wave of exhaustion makes him go temporarily fuzzy.

Hands fall protective on her shoulders. “Please don’t wander off like that again, Nadya…” And for a man without breath he sure sounds like it was punched out of him.

“Sorry.” But it isn’t a sincere apology as much as it is an automatic response. Nadya knows it; worse still Adrian knows it. His grip tightens ever so slightly.

“Adrian?”

“Did you find her?!”

“We’re… in here.” He calls out to answer, and not a moment later the others file into the parlor with varied degrees of relief.

They’re her friends. They care about her. So why does the sight of their faces fill her with a passionate rage?

Something is very very wrong.

“Who are the Faceless?”

A muscle tenses in Serafine’s jaw. The brief, accusatory glance she throws Cadence’s way is about as subtle as a bullhorn.

“Where did you hear that name?”

“That’s not an answer. Who are they?”

On either side of her, Adrian and Lily exchange looks of surprise — and mutually melt into concern. Sure, Nadya will fully own up to the curt, harsh tone she has right now but if they knew what she was feeling… if they could understand even a fraction of the pain roiling in her belly right now they might just be a little testy too.

Realization dawns on the psychic’s face way too slow for Nadya’s current temperament.

“You saw something… a memory.” —and is that a flicker of fear hiding in those eyes?— “What — or who — did you see?”

“Answer the fucking question.”

“Nadya.” And she’s acting like a jerk; she knows that. But the bewildered way Lily accuses her with her own name feels like a knife to the chest.

“What?!”

“No — that’s my question. What is the matter with you?”

Nadya opens her mouth — she can feel a whole litany of insults and jibes right there on the tip of her tongue — so she bites down hard enough to break skin to keep them buried where they belong.

“I—I don’t know…” her words muddled around the stinging cut, “I… I just…”

I’m so…

Dammit! What word is she looking for?!

“The Faceless were the lowest tier of our society,” answers Serafine; finally, “and by all accounts they were the majority of them as well. By our rankings they were forbidden to wear a mask — a status symbol — that would show their face. To do so was a grave insult, with graver consequences.”

“Tch…” Jax shakes his head minutely. “Ridiculous…”

“Think what you will. But they were the foot soldiers the night of the purge; the first to die… for their betters.”

Faceless.

Nameless.

Ageless.

The Manor is suddenly maddeningly quiet.

“Hundreds of them…” she whispers, “hundreds on either side. He hated being seen with them, near them, even far away. What does it matter though? Hundreds of them and he outranked them all… There aren’t enough bodies.”

Cadence sucks in a breath; his teeth clenched. He’s gone pale; as dead on the outside as he technically is inside. “There aren’t enough bodies…” he repeats, each word weighed on his tongue heavy with truth.

The rest of them join him as the historian spins in a wild circle rooted in place. They had pushed the skeletons and their armor aside after that first walk through the Manor’s main passages. It kept them from tripping over scattered bones in the dark. It kept them from having to think about the weight of lost life.

It wasn’t the Marquis’ laughter that drew her back inside.

Nadya looks down at her trembling hands and chokes on her own scream.

The sight is enough to send her into a terrified frenzy. The bulging twisting spiderwebs of black that were now her veins, of greying skin so fragile it feels paper-thin, of talons yellowing with age and crusted with layers upon layers of dried blood…

Forcing a ragged sob through her chest is the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. Like pushing a mountain through a molehill, or mouthfuls of blood down her gullet where her hungry eyes were too big for her stomach. “Getthemoffme —” she shrieks, “— getthemoffmegetthemoffGETTHEMOFF!”

She’ll do it herself if they won’t. Teary, bloodshot eyes falling on the sword just out of reach but strong arms stop her in her tracks; hold her back, stop her from getting rid of these awful—rotting hands—

“NADYA!”

Lily’s always been able to scream louder than her. So loud the echo of it rings high-pitched in her ears long after her best friend has stopped shouting her name. She clutches Nadya’s hands with her own; a horrifying sight. And no matter how hard she pulls Lily doesn’t let go. Adrian doesn’t release her from the captivity of his embrace.

The chill of Lily’s smooth skin burrows a home in her muscles and bones. She squeezes them tightly; bordering on real pain. But nothing is more painful than what’s to come.

“Nadi’…” the way Lily says her name; thick and haggard and with wet tears on her lips, “Nadi’ you’re scaring the shit out of me…”

Good! “Don’t look—don’t look at them. Don’t Lil’ don’t…”

“At what —” her eyes widen in understanding, “— at your hands? Nadya, look.”

She blinks back her tears, her apologies, her pleas of desperation… and sees nothing but her own hands — clammy and shaking but so very human — cradled in Lily’s tender care.

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“They’re just hands, baby girl.”

“No—no they were…” But were they, really?

Nadya keens and doubles over as another wave of something tears through her middle. Her legs are ready to give out. Adrian—bless him—is the only thing holding her up now, so she accepts it and sags against his chest too exhausted to move.

Adrian presses a tender kiss to her temple. His lips like a cool palm against her feverish fit of pique. But he’s shaking, filled with a fear all his own. He can’t swallow it down forever.

“Serafine,” he pleads against the shell of Nadya’s ear, “help her… please.”

It’s kind of him to ask, Nadya thinks wistfully, even if it’s too late. Three hundred years—left behind left in the dark—made to flee from the fire—abandoned forgotten sacrificed—scouring endless paths for even a drop enough to slake the thirst—forced to guzzle down the same taint in shared blood over and over and over again—too late.

She can hear Serafine’s somber voice, muffled through the skin tight and calloused over her eardrums. If only Nadya remembered words enough to know what she’s saying.

Words… Finally, an eternity later; she has the right word to describe the pain.

“She feels empty.”

They left her there. Insolent, vainglorious things — and they just left her. Abandoned her despite her prestige, despite her beauty and wit and charm; condemned her to twist and wither both alone and surrounded by her kind.

They let this happen to her. They let her delicate hands warp into talons and did nothing to stop her alabaster skin from greying with disease. They were content to forget her while her long hair falls out in clumps, while her own bone tries to break free from her skin and mars her with protrusions like horns for lack of success.

They honored her in wretched memory. As her youth peeled away, sinking in and hollowing out, until what they remembered and what was left was no longer the same. Until all that was left was an insatiable hunger. A starvation that consumed her — mind, body, and soul.

Her only companion… an emptiness inside.

Until now.

There aren’t enough bodies among the dead. Where did they go?

Stumbling—staggering—starving. Scrambling endlessly through winding passages, surviving on the eternal cycle of their Taint. Unable to find freedom in the tangible darkness.

They didn’t go anywhere. They never left.

Outside the ancient and hallowed walls of the King’s Manor, the horde growls. Louder than before; and now—knowing what they know—far more menacing.

“Lily,” Adrian reacts quickly, motioning for the younger vampire to help him as they both take up on either side of Nadya, their combined strength and her arms over their shoulders practically lifting her off her feet.

“We’re too exposed here. We need to get deeper inside.”

And judging by his tone he knows that his suggestion is less than ideal. But what other choice do they have?

“Do we have any idea how many there could be?”

“Don’t look at me. Those two were the ones here when it happened.”

“Technically —”

“Yeah, I included you in this. Don’t gimme that look.”

“No doubt there were a fair few of those left behind who thought Turning the enemy would be a final insult… but all it takes is one of those vile creatures to breed a swarm.”

There’s a long pause. Then— “Trust me,” says Adrian, “I’ve seen it firsthand.”

Lily wasn’t there that night. At the Musea. She had the pleasure of roughing up Nicole, not going head to head with the things vampire horror stories are made about.

“So… theoretically. How good are our chances?”

Adrian chooses not to answer; and in that moment even the tiniest flicker of optimism is snuffed out.

They regrouped in a second-floor parlor of some kind. Filled with more burned wood than the rest of the Manor and a misshapen, disfigured lump in the corner Nadya comes to realize is a pile of painting canvases. Stacked one on top of the other then set ablaze. Though the smell of oil and paint has long since seeped into the wood, potent enough to make her feel a little woozy, they don’t have any immediate plans to father elsewhere.

This parlor is the only one with a window facing the network of tunnels leading far to the north of Paris. Their only way out.

“We must assume we cannot go back the way we came,” Serafine admits gravely, “even if we managed to slip by a few of them without being heard no doubt the torches have long since attracted them like moths.”

Jax grimaces. “We practically rolled out the red carpet for them, is what you’re saying.”

Nadya doesn’t turn away from the window; doesn’t think she has the strength to do something so strenuous as turn even the tiniest bit. But she sees Serafine’s reflection clear as day, and the woman’s curt nod makes her heart sink.

They probably shouldn’t have put her on lookout duty, all things considered. Not just because every shadow she sees out along the rocks makes her blood freeze in her veins, though that’s definitely a factor.

If I can’t trust my own eyes… how can they?

Talk about being under pressure.

Jax looks at Adrian. “You guys dealt with something similar at that Ball, didn’t you? How’d you take care of them then?”

“We nearly didn’t,” Adrian admits, and it occurs to Nadya this is the first time she’s ever heard him talk about the attack at the Awakening Ball, “and when we learned it was someone from Vega’s Clan who smuggled the initial wave in, our survival seemed less like luck and more like just another part of his plan.”

“But you still fought them off, you still won.” The younger vampire insists.

Frustration starts makes Adrian’s replies terse and forced. “Yes, we did, but that was with the combined strength of the entire Council—including Kamilah’s two thousand years of experience—and more than several of North America’s strongest vampires.

“Not to mention the Trinity.”

The last part he says like more of an afterthought; quieter and more to himself. A muscle ticks in Cadence’s jaw but he remains otherwise silent.

“Then our course is clear,” Serafine steps between them; practically a whole different person than the woman in the ballroom, “we wait for their attack to gauge their numbers. Then we do whatever we can to break through to the Northern Quarter.”

There’s a weight to her words that has nothing to do with the literal Feral horde practically on their doorstep. They don’t have any other choice; not a one of them. They’re the only ones who know what weapon will kill Gaius and if that means only one person pries their way back up to tell the ones fighting back home… so be it.

“I don’t like the thought of waiting them out.”

“You do not have to like it. We have no alternatives.”

“Rrragh!”

Behind her Jax lets out a short growl of frustration. The very sound makes Nadya flinch on her stool; shoulders hunched and shaking like a leaf. The scuffled sounds of his frantic pacing stops immediately. She can feel his eyes boring into her back, watching; waiting for her to break like a little glass figurine.

She’s caught by surprise though when Cadence unfolds his arms and approaches with loud and purposeful strides. She hears every step until he’s at her back like a wall — or a shield.

On the other side of the glass the shadows shift again. Like they sensed the tension easing from her soul for even a fraction of a second and have to make up for the lost time in terrifying her. Nadya decides then that’s more than enough of an excuse to turn her back on them.

When she can finally meet her friends’ eyes she looks up to find Serafine studying her intensely. “Wh-What?” she asks, voice wavering.

It doesn’t help she’s still too scared to look at her own freakin’ hands.

“You were inside the creature’s mind.” Gee, thanks for stating the obvious.

“I know. I was there.”

“Perhaps you could be again.”

“Perhaps you could shut up.”

Lily quirks an eyebrow at her in a silent question. No doubt they’re all wondering just how much of what Nadya says and does is in fact Nadya Al Jamil… and how much is the twisted madness of a starving Feral. But they don’t need to worry; she’s pushed that thing as far out of her little personal space bubble as she could. That anger is one hundred percent hers, and one hundred percent warranted.

Cadence clears his throat over her head. “Well if it’s any consolation, Jax, it won’t be a long wait…” Unprompted, he’s taken up Nadya’s vigil; eyes so wide she can see a thin ring of white around his blue irises and focused far in the cavern’s distance.

The shadows are moving faster now. They scuttle like spiders around shallow cliffs and down the many many staircases, descending on them in a frenzied haze until there aren’t many of them, but instead one big mama shadow heading their way.

There’s no deluding herself now… those aren’t shadows.

#bloodbound #bloodbound fanfiction #kamilah x mc #adrian raines #choices fanfiction #bloodbound mc #mc: nadya al jamil #lily spencer #jax matsuo #serafine dupont #oc: cadence smith #fic: oblivion bound #oblv: bound by destiny ii #oblv: new chapter #; my fics

11 notes · View notes

led-writes · 4 years

Text

To Skin A Cat

June 3rd

I’m so excited! Today is my first day working for Mrs. Gardner. It’s my first job and I get to spend everyday by myself, away from the city, taking care of a lovely country house. What more could I ask for?

There’s a lot that needs fixing. Some of it will take quite a while to take care of, but Mrs.Gardner told me to take as much time as I need. She likes to keep me company when I work; she sits next to me to drink her tea. Sometimes she comments on my work, but she only ever has good things to say.

Home is too far away to travel back and forth everyday, so Mrs.Gardner offered me the guest bedroom. A whole room to myself, can you believe it? There’s a large bed, big enough for two people, and a huge dresser with more than enough space to fit all my clothes. It takes up most of the wall! Unfortunately, the bedroom door is broken and won’t stay shut. There’s no window either, but that’s alright. The stars are so bright out here, they’d just keep me up at night.

Tomorrow, I’m fixing the lamp above the dining table, hanging some frames, and replacing the lock on the front door. Maybe, if I have time, I could start repainting the bathroom, or change the leaky pipes in the kitchen. Maybe I could even start a garden! God knows there’s enough space in the backyard for it. Ah, I can’t wait to get started! Tomorrow is going to be great, I can feel it!

June 11th

Well, my first week working for Mrs.Gardner is over. I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot already, yet there’s still so much to do! Thankfully, Mrs.Gardner is patient with me. She agreed to my garden idea -- I’ve already cleared out a lot of the brush and planted a few vegetables. I wanted flowers at first, but the field behind the house is already full of them! I went to pick out some red yarrows yesterday. Mrs. Gardner seemed very pleased, and even put them in a vase on the dining table. I’m glad she agreed to keep them, they really lighten up the house.

Despite how amazing this week has been, I can feel the exhaustion getting to me. The work itself isn’t too demanding; I may even be taking it a little too easy. No, the real issue is sleep.

The house is made of old wood and, at night, its noises become overwhelming, I find it almost impossible to fall asleep. I don’t really notice it during the day, but the moment I lay down and shut my eyes, it’s all I can hear. The floorboards creak something awful, and there are these strange knocking sounds coming from the pipes in the walls.

Mrs.Gardner isn’t affected by the noises at all. When I brought them up over breakfast, she just seemed confused. I think, in her old age, she’s lost some of her hearing. Good for her, I guess. At least one of us should be getting some rest.

June 14th

Mrs.Gardner has left town for a while. I get the house all to myself! I wanted to take this time to fix some things in her bedroom, but she locked the door on her way out. So instead, I’m redoing the tiling in the bathroom. It’s dirty work; there’s mold and muck everywhere, but it’s work that can’t be ignored forever. I’m trying to work as quickly as possible to make sure everything is done by the time Mrs.Gardner gets back.

I’m staying up much longer than I should working on this. It’s probably for the best; my sleeping hasn’t gotten any better. If anything, the house has gotten even noisier since Mrs.Gardner left. With the bathroom floor missing some layers, the popping from the pipes is deafening. The staircase sounds like it’s crumbling under its own weight. I go to bed late and get up early. It’s exhausting, but at least I’m getting good work done.

June 16th

I accidentally broke one of Mrs.Gardner’s glass trinkets while dusting the living room (I really hope she won’t be too upset). I had to lift the carpet to clean out the shards that slipped under and I found… a trap door! It looks exactly like it does in the cartoons, with the round metal handle and everything. Unfortunately, it’s locked pretty tight. It’s not condemned, though; there’s definitely something down there. I dropped a penny between the cracks, and it took three whole seconds to hit the ground.

I, of course, spent the rest of the evening trying to find the key. I’m ashamed to say I even tried prying it open with the crowbar I’d been using for the bathroom tiles. No dice. That door is closed and has no intention of opening anytime soon. I haven’t given up though. Giving it another shot will be my reward for finishing the bathroom before Mrs.Gardner comes back.

June 19th

Oh, peaceful sleep, how I miss thee! I spend my nights doing everything I can to drown out the sounds. I know it’s probably just a trick my ears are pulling on me, but I swear the noises have gotten even louder. Putting a pillow over my head doesn’t help anymore. I can feel my progress slowing, but I can’t help it. Fatigue is taking over as my concentration slips away from me.

Last night was the worst so far: I didn’t sleep a wink. Although, at some point during the night I landed in that delicate spot that sits right between sleep and consciousness., where dreams mix with reality just enough to mess with you. I remember looking up and seeing specks of red hovering in the space by the open door. I was so tired, and they were so blurry, but for a moment I mistook them for eyes, staring straight at me. The illusion disappeared soon after, but still, I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. Maybe I’ll try the couch tonight. Anything has to be better than this.

June 20th

As it turns out, the couch was a terrible idea. If I thought the knocking was loud in the bedroom, it’s nothing compared to the living room. I could barely hear myself think.

I feel like I didn’t sleep again, but I must have. The sun came around too quickly for me to have been up waiting all night. I was so tired, I probably didn’t even notice.

June 20th - in the evening

I wasn’t going to write this down at first. It feels too ridiculous to even consider, but it’s all I can think about. I have to tell someone, even if it’s just a piece of paper.

The red eyes came back last night. Staring at me from cracks in the trap door. They were a deep, deep red, with a slit pupil in the center. Like a snake. They didn’t blink, they just stared at me, and I could do nothing but stare right back. I was frozen. I felt like if I moved, even just a little, the door would open, and the eyes would come closer. I don’t know how long I laid there, looking at them, but eventually the sun rays came through the windows and the eyes were gone.

It was only a dream, I know. I only wish I could get myself to believe it.

June 22nd

I’m almost done fixing the tiling in the bathroom. I just need to nail a few more things down, and everything will be set! I just hope I tired myself out enough to actually be able to fall asleep.

June 24th

No luck getting any rest yesterday. I was so close, right at the edge of falling asleep, when I heard a loud knocking noise coming from downstairs. It was so much louder than the others before, I almost got up to make sure nothing had fallen over. Instead, I just sat up in my bed and turned on the bedside lamp. I used to think it was perfect, just dim enough to help me fall asleep. But last night I really wished it was brighter.

There’s never been any light in the hall outside my bedroom, but last night felt especially dark. I spent a few minutes staring right at the spot where the door hangs open, straight into pitch black, waiting for any other noise to follow the first one. The house stayed silent.

I told myself I would check on whatever had fallen the next morning and shut the light… But then, just as I was laying back down, another noise came from the staircase. It was one of its usual creaks, the familiar ones that have kept me up before. Somehow, this time, it kind of scared me. Like there was actually something coming up the stairs. So I turned the light back on, for even longer this time. Nothing.

When I shut the light again, I shut my eyes tight with it. There were a few seconds of peaceful silence, so I took the risk of opening my eyes again.

For the briefest second, I saw them. Sharp, red eyes with snake-like pupils, looking at me from where the door hung open.

I jumped up to switch the light back on. The eyes were gone. I was too afraid to turn it off, so I didn’t, and instead spent the night staring into the hallway.

Now, it’s almost noon, I’m sitting in the garden, and I feel ridiculous. The living room still looks like a mess from the few hours I spent trying to get the trap door open, but there was nothing broken, nothing out of place. Clearly, my tired imagination is getting the best of me.

June 25th

I fell asleep in the bathroom today, completely by accident, while working on the tiles. I guess I was more tired than I thought. Now, it’s nighttime, and I can’t fall asleep. There’s also a deep ache in my neck from where it rested against the bathroom wall during my nap.

I’m going to put this journal down now, and turn the light off. I’m not a child who needs a nightlight. Everything will be okay in the morning.

June 26th

There was a loud noise downstairs again last night. I could’ve sworn it sounded like the trap door opening. I didn’t bother going downstairs, but I slept with the light on, just in case.

This morning, I checked on the trap door. It was still, of course, locked tight. This is getting ludicrous. I’m like a kid who’s watched one too many scary movies. I need to calm down, and take control of myself.

June 27th

It’s not real. It’s not real.It’s not real.It’s not real It’s not real It’s not real It’s not real IT’S NOT REAL

June 28th

I tried dragging the couch over the trap door, but all I managed was to scratch the floor. The furniture in this house is large and heavy, and I’m nowhere near strong enough to even think of moving anything.

But that’s okay, really. The door is still locked, afterall. There’s nothing getting in, and nothing getting out. Right?

June 30th

I would like to write that the red eyes didn’t come to haunt me last night. I would like to write that I had a peaceful and dreamless sleep. That the red yarrows are still on the kitchen table. That I didn’t throw them out because seeing the colour out of the corner of my eye makes me wince.

I would like to write that I am not afraid. But I was never a very good liar.

July 1rst

I can’t pretend it’s just a dream anymore. I know it’s there, looking, staring, waiting for me to make a mistake, to slip up, to stop paying attention. I know it’s the one making the noises at night. I can hear it hitting the trap door from the inside as I try to fall asleep. I know the cracking noises I hear are from the door opening, from the snake crawling up the stairs and to my door. Its eyes stare at me, and I stare right back, trying not to blink, trying not to fall asleep.

When the sun rises, the red eyes go away. It’s only then that I dare going downstairs to check on the trap door. It’s always locked, like it was the morning before, like it’s always been.

Early July

I don’t know how many days I’ve stayed awake, but one thing’s for sure: the eyes have stopped coming. The hallway is simply dark at night, no red anywhere to be seen. I don’t think letting my guard down is a good idea, but I’m running out of options. I can’t stay awake forever. The noises are still there, as loud as ever, but I’m sure I’m tired enough to fall asleep despite them. My vision is getting blurry and I’ve had to stop working; my hands shake too much.

One night. One night of rest is all I’ll need.

Night

I’ve made a terrible mistake. I was never safe, not even for a minute.

I’m writing this with my back resting on my bedroom door, pressing my entire weight against it to try and hold it shut. Anything to stay busy. To keep myself from falling asleep.

The red eyes. I’ve called them snake-like for so long, it never even occurred to me that my impression of them could be wrong.

I had just shut the light for the first time in days, laying in my bed, eyes glued to the vacant space by the door, when they appeared. Red, and sharp, like a predator’s. And then-

Oh god, I can feel it pressing against the door. It isn’t a snake, I was wrong. Its eyes, they’re like a cat’s. When they see prey, the pupils widen, and the red iris disappear.

All those nights I thought I was finally alone…

The missing red wasn’t a sign of freedom. It was the first hint that the trap was closing in.

The floor behind the door is cracking so loudly. I’ll be okay, so long as I keep pressing the door closed. The eyes will go away, like they always do, the moment the sun comes up. I just hope I can keep myself awake until then.

#short story #short stories #horror #writing #suspense #thank you tumblr for making me post this 3 different ways

1 note · View note

singtotheskiies · 7 years

Text

Eight Summers

pairing: john laurens x reader modern au words: 7000 (yeah I got carried away a bit) warnings: fluff summary: follow yourself and John through eight summers as you become friends and mAyBe even fall in love. a/n: I've been wanting to do this forever (I can't believe I haven't done a John x reader yet) so let's see how this goes. the second summer contributes nothing whoops

❇❇❇summer one❇❇❇ You sighed, flopping back onto your front porch. You had been so excited for this summer, and now, midway through June, nothing was happening. "I'm so bored," you said to the clear blue sky. As if by magic, your thinking aloud was interrupted by the rumble of a large moving van. Sitting up, you watched as it came down your street, trailed by a blue SUV. Both the vehicles pulled into the driveway of the house across the street and diagonal from yours. The house had been up for sale for the better part of the year, and only recently had a sticker reading "SOLD" been slapped onto the advertisement in the front yard. It was a large, spacious house that edged a forest, and you had often wondered at its slow sale. The rumble of the two cars had dwindled to a stop, and two men got out of the moving van and proceeded to open the back of the large vehicle. Meanwhile, a couple emerged from the SUV. The woman had brown, curly hair and looked to be in her early thirties. Her husband, or so you supposed, looked to be a few years older and had the same shade of hair as the lady, except his was stick-straight and short. Both of them waved at you, and you waved back with a smile. Under normal circumstances, you would have gone over to say hi, but this was their moving-in time and you didn't want to distract from that. I wonder if they have any kids, you thought, and your question was soon answered when the back left door of the car opened and a boy stepped out. You couldn't see very well since his back was to you, but he looked to be about your height and had clearly inherited his mother's curls. They fell halfway to his shoulders, and you didn't think you had ever seen a boy with hair quite like that. He exchanged a few words with his parents, and his mom motioned to where you were sitting. He turned around and looked at you before looking back at her, but his hesitation was ended as she pushed him gently. Now he was headed across the street and up your driveway. You stood up. "Hi! What's your name?" you asked brightly. "John," he answered, biting his lip before looking at you. "D'you have a last name?" you inquired. "Doesn't everyone?" he pronounced the first word as if it contained no s. "I think so. What's yours?" "Laurens. I'm John Laurens." "I'm (Y/N) (L/N). Nice to meet you." You stuck out your hand and he took it with surprising firmness. You looked at him closer as you shook hands. His curly hair was shiny and soft-looking, and it framed a face with a honeyed caramel tint which was covered with a liberal dusting of freckles. His eyes were a vibrant green, and they met yours with an unwavering gaze. The features on his face were well-shaped and defined, although his cheeks still carried a roundness that hinted at youthful innocence. "How old are you?" he asked, releasing your hand. "I'm ten," you answered proudly. "So am I!" he exclaimed, his first real show of enthusiasm, and the two of you grinned at each other. His mouth quirked up to one side, bespeaking a hint of mischief that was confirmed by the sparkling in his eyes that matched his bright smile. His whole face transformed when he smiled, illuminating his face and stretching his freckled cheeks adorably. "But which one of us is older?" you wondered, and you compared birthdays. "Yes!" John exclaimed triumphantly, pumping his fist in victory when he learned that he was a full two months older than you. "It's only two months, though," you griped, crossing your arms as you felt some of the pride rubbing off. "Yeah, but I'm older!" he exclaimed. "I'm always one of the youngest in my classes and now I won't be the very last one!" "Oh, stop," you said, cuffing him playfully on the shoulder. "You'd think you won the Olympics or something." "Maybe I did," he retorted playfully. "The being-older-than-your-neighbor event is my thing." "Whatever," you said, rolling your eyes. "So this is your house?" he asked, looking up at it. "Uh-huh!" you answered proudly. "We'll be almost right across the street from each other, then," he observed. "I know! We'll have lots of fun," you resolved. "John!" A voice interrupted your conversation. The man was crossing the street. "Time to go. We need your help moving some boxes." "Okay, Dad." he sighed. "This is (Y/N). She's our neighbor and she's my age right now, although I'm two months older." Mr. Laurens smiled at you. "Nice to meet you, (Y/N)," he said. "I'm Henry Laurens. Thanks for being so welcoming. I know John was a little nervous that there wouldn't be any kids his age, but I guess that problem's solved, right, John?" "Yeah!" he responded. "Bye, (Y/N)! See you later!" "Okay! Friends?" you asked. "Friends." He smiled at you again before going back with his father. You smiled as you sat back on the porch. Summer just got a whole lot more interesting. ------ You didn't hear the conversation that went on between John and his father. "She's so nice, Dad, and friendly and pretty!" "I could tell, son. I'm glad you made a friend." Henry drew his son close to his side. "Yeah, me too." John couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day. ❇❇❇summer two❇❇❇ You were lying next to John, your back against the firm wood of his tree house, which was really nothing more than a few planks nailed together to form a floor-like object which was placed in a crook of a tree. It was secured to the branch by nails and was surprisingly very comfortable. "I can't believe you haven't told me about this yet," you said, turning your head to look at him. "Yeah. It's pretty great, isn't it?" It was. The tree was a tall one and all sounds of other people faded, giving way to birdsong and the occasional humming insect. It was a hot day, but the heat faded, impeded by the canopy of leaves stretched out above the two of you. The sun would poke through at different times whenever the leaves would drift apart, lifted by the cool breeze wafting through the forest. All was peaceful and you smiled at the calm that filled you as you lay there, John by your side. "Those leaves over there remind me of your eyes," you said with all the innocence of an eleven-year-old, pointing over to a part of the forest that was dappled with shade. John hummed in agreement. That was one thing about John. The two of you could maintain perfect silence without it feeling awkward or strange. You could still understand each other just as well through words than you could through none. He always seemed to know what you were thinking and vice versa, which was one of the things that made him your best friend. He always understood. Even at this young age, you knew that that was important in any close friendship. John was special and you were glad to know him. He never failed to make you happy and bring a smile to your face. And as you thought of him, a stirring arose in your heart, a new, unfamiliar feeling that wasn't necessarily uncomfortable. You didn't know what it was, but the future was sure to tell. ❇❇❇summer three❇❇❇ "C'mon, John!" you exclaimed, pulling insistently on his arm. John and his parents had come over for dinner, and now the adults were just talking on the back porch which served as an eating area. You wanted no part in it—the fireflies were out tonight, and you had never seen so many. "Hey, that rhymes!" he quipped, smiling that smile you knew so well. "Wow, great observation." You rolled your eyes. "I know. Aren't you glad your best friend is brilliant?" "You're about as brilliant as—" you paused, trying unsuccessfully to think of something dull— "as, well, never mind. But let's go, please? Those fireflies are just waiting to be caught." "Okay, okay, I'm coming. Hey, Mom!" he called. "Yes, sweetheart?" Mrs. Laurens replied. "(Y/N) and I are gonna catch some fireflies." "All right. Have fun, you two." She gave you a sweet smile. "I'll get the jars," you told John. "I'm pretty sure we've got two with holes already punched in the top." You went inside and emerged in a few minutes, carrying a jar in each hand. "We should make this a competition of who can catch the most," John said, taking his jar and looking at you mischievously. "Oh, definitely. You're on," you said, matching his grin. "Ready—" you drew out the word. "Set..." "Go!" you yelled together, running in opposite directions to spots where the insects illuminated the night with their flashes of light. You found a great spot right away, and you quickly grabbed the small bugs and let them crawl off your fingers into your jar, slamming the lid down when they had entered fully. The bugs tickled as their feet made their way down your fingers, and you giggled at the sensation. "You're going down!" you heard John yell from somewhere in the yard. "Nuh-uh!" you retorted, continuing your mad dash through the grass. ------ As the two of you ran around the yard, your parents watched you with smiles on their faces. "They're such great friends," your mom said. "Yeah, they really have a special bond," agreed Mr. Laurens. "There's not a day that goes by that John doesn't talk about (Y/N). There's always something exciting with those two." "He better not steal her heart in a few years," inserted your dad, jokingly but also with a hint of seriousness. "Well, I'm afraid (Y/N)'s on her way to doing that with John," Mrs. Laurens said. "He always tells me how pretty she is, although he's never hinted at a crush." "Well, if I had to choose anyone for my son, it'd be your daughter," Mr. Laurens told your parents. "She's really a great girl." "We could say the same for John," your mother replied. "That he's a wonderful boy and all. Not that he's a great girl!" The four laughed and turned back to watching you and John. ------ "Okay, I think that's enough time," you called to him, breathing slightly heavier than normal. "Aw, are you just tired?" he teased, coming over to you. "No, but I bet you are," you shot back, trying to suppress your heavy breathing. "Nope!" he boasted, tucking a piece of hair behind his ear. His curls were long enough to be put back in a short ponytail now, and you teased him about it occasionally. "Okay, well, let's count the other person's fireflies, and whoever wins gets the last two cookies," you said. "Sounds good," he replied, and you switched jars and began counting, which was a tricky job since the bugs kept crawling around and many were on the bottom of the lid so you had to tip the jar up to see them. "Fifty-one," you said when you had finished. John was just finishing up, his tongue stuck out slightly as he counted. "You have forty-two which means I won!" he shouted in joy. "All right, good job," you said, sticking out a hand. "A for effort." "Effort starts with E, stupid. Now let's go get your cookies," you replied, smacking him lightly on the shoulder. "Sounds good to me," he said, yelling, "I won!" when the two of you reached your parents. "So he gets the last two cookies," you explained, giving the prizes to him. As he contemplated his reward in his hand, he looked up at you. "I'll give you one," he conceded. "I could never let my best friend go hungry." "I appreciate it," you said, and sat down on the steps, setting your jar next to you. John sat down as well. "We should probably let them go," he said, and you agreed, opening your jar as he did. The fireflies flew into the night, releasing light as they went, and you watched them go. John glanced over at you, your face illuminated by the soft glow of the bugs, and felt his heart expand inside him. What a best friend. ❇❇❇summer four ❇❇❇ The August afternoon was drawing on to evening, and a coolness stole into the air, barely noticeable but still there. Fall would come soon, along with school, and you wanted to savor every last second with John. He lifted his head from his sketchbook as a breeze blew through the trees at the edge of the forest, where the two of you were sitting on an old blanket that John's parents kept for picnics and outdoor use. You were still unaware of what he was drawing, and didn't hear the quick scribbling of his pencil as you looked upward at a few golden-tinged leaves that had fallen due to the wind. "It's so pretty out here," you said, turning back to look at him. He was drawing a long, curving line but that was all you could tell as he had his sketchbook tilted away from you. "Mhm," he replied absentmindedly, a look of intense concentration on his face. He had a certain habit when he was drawing—he would bite his lip on one side and poke out his tongue on the other. You never figured out how he did it, and it was one of the endless unique things that made him John. As you watched his pencil move, his eyes flicked upwards to yours and you looked away quickly, your heart racing inexplicably. You had noticed that you seemed more shy around John. He was still your best friend and closer to you than anyone else, but something was changing. He wasn't the same boy anymore. His cheeks were still sprinkled with freckles, but they had lost much of their roundness, showing hints of defined cheekbones. His hair had grown out to a bit longer than shoulder length, and was usually tied back in a ponytail. He had grown nearly a foot in the past three years and now stood a full head taller than you, a fact he never failed to tease you about. He'd call you "small one" often, to which you would cross your arms and pout. He was growing up remarkably, and you couldn't help but think that he was getting handsomer every day. Although you didn't want to believe it, you could feel yourself becoming attracted to him and hated yourself for it. He's your best friend, you'd think. What's wrong with you? But all the berating in the world couldn't stop your feelings from developing more and more. "They're still not right," you heard him mutter, breaking you out of your thoughts. "What?" "The eyes. They're not right." He turned his sketchbook towards you and you gasped. There on the page were five sketches of your head and upper body in different positions, and they looked as if they could have come from real life. Everything was perfectly proportioned, and you marveled at how he could add such reality to the images with just a few lines of shading. "John," you breathed. He looked at you, hopefully, a hint of anxiety in his eyes. "Do you like them?" he asked, genuinely nervous. "Oh my god. They're beyond words," you said, still looking at them with awe. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. I just couldn't get your eyes right on this one," he said, pointing to a sketch of you looking up. "There's a certain light in them that I just can't duplicate." You looked at his face next to you, inches away. "I think they're amazing." He smiled at you, no hint of cockiness or self-assurance, just a warm smile that heated your cheeks. "Thank you," he said. "No, thank you," you answered. "Wow!" "Ah, it was nothing, just a few sketches." He rubbed the back of his neck as he tapped his pencil almost nervously on his leg. "I'm just glad you like them." Hit with a sudden impetuous desire, you threw your arms around him. He hugged back after a moment, clearly surprised, and you smiled at the feeling, the rightness of it. "You're the best," you whispered. "No, you are." "I'll fight you." A laugh, a change in tone. "Whatever you say, small one." ❇❇❇summer five❇❇❇ "But it's so cold," you complained. "(Y/N), it's sixty-three degrees. That hardly qualifies as cold," John answered you with a shake of his curls. "It does when it's summer and there's no sun. It feels like forty degrees and I don't care what you say it really is." You crossed your arms and shivered, even as you were standing on John's screened-in back porch. "So you insist on not coming." "Not if I'm going to freeze my butt off!" He sighed. "Fine, wait here. I'll be right back." He vanished into the house and you stood there alone, tapping your bare foot on the wooden boards. You heard him coming down the stairs a few moments later and he came out the door with something in hand. "What's that for?" "You. It's just one of my old sweatshirts you can wear so you're not as cold. It's got fleece on the inside, see?" You felt the shirt and agreed to put it on, your heart warming even as your body did. It smelled like John, a hint of lemons swirled in with cotton. It came well to your mid-thigh area and the sleeves enveloped your hands, forcing you to push them up a bit. "Thanks, John," you told him. He was looking at you in his sweatshirt and seemed to snap out of a trance as you spoke. "Oh, yeah, anything for you," he said, ruffling your hair. "You look nice in it." "Yeah, right. As if I look nice in anything," you said, rolling your eyes. "You do. Y'know, I almost got you a pair of my sweatpants since you seemed to be the most concerned with freezing your butt off, but somehow I deemed that inappropriate." The soft look in his eyes was briefly replaced with a hint of their usual roguish gleam. "Perv. Now let's go look at the freaking stars because you wanted to." You bumped him with your shoulder and smiled at him. "I think you secretly want to look at the stars as well," he teased, holding the patio door open for you. "Thank you. And maybe, maybe not. You'll never know." (You did.) The two of you stepped into the night, shivering slightly as you did so. The stars were bright and shed a soft light on John's wide backyard. You picked a spot and lay down on the grass. "Ooh, look, the Big Dipper!" you cried softly, pointing at the constellation above you. John smiled at the wonder reflected in your star-lit eyes. "There's the North Star," he replied, and thought that even though he had seen these basic constellations a million times before, they had never been quite so shining and clear as when you were there next to him. After a few minutes of picking out the images in the sky, you remarked, "I'm still cold." "C'mere, then," John answered, and drew you close. The warmth from his body seeped into yours as fingers of electricity washed over your body at the contact. He felt amazing and right, and you closed your eyes as you leaned against him. His heart was beating; you could hear it, and his chest rose and fell gently. He looked down at your form and sat there with you, the girl who made the stars shine brighter. ❇❇❇summer six❇❇❇ You looked at John warily. "You want me to ride in this? You literally got your license two days ago." Your voice was teasing. "And it was well-deserved. C'mon, (Y/N), just for a bit? It'll only take a few minutes and the sun will start setting soon anyway." "I'm just kidding. Of course I'll go." "Ah, so you do trust me." "Shut up and drive, Laurens." He made his way to the passenger door and held it open for you, making a sweeping gesture that was coupled with a mock bow. "My lady," he said. "Oh, stop." Your heart was secretly bursting within you at the chivalrous action, however lightly it was meant. John closed the door after you and walked to the driver's side. "Are you ready for the time of your life?" he asked you. "Ready as I'll ever be," you told him, and he turned the key in the ignition. "Then let's go." And with that, he pulled out of his driveway. ------ There was a road near your neighborhood that was mostly used for drivers' ed purposes. Since it was nearly school, classes in your community had ended and the road was empty. It was surrounded by trees on both sides and a few faint birds could still be heard deep inside the trees. As John turned onto the road, he looked at you with a smirk before stepping on the gas. "Oh my god, John!" you screamed as your hair was whipped every which way. "You're going sixty miles an hour!" "I know." "Just be careful!" you cried, even as a joyous whoop escaped you. John looked over at you again, and his heart flipped over. You were laughing, mouth wide open, and your hair was blowing around your face, tinted slightly by the now-setting sun. As you turned to look back at him, your cheeks were flushed and your hair was a mess, but John had never seen you look more beautiful. His gaze moved down your face, and he was unable to get enough of you. "Eyes on the road," you quipped. "Ah, yes, right," he nodded. "But I'd rather look at my beautiful best friend than a black stretch of asphalt." "Shut up," you told him, shocked inwardly at the compliment. "Watching the road will actually keep you alive." "Maybe I need you to live as well," he murmured. "What?" "Nothing." ❇❇❇summer seven❇❇❇ Every year, the Mulligans and Motiers, two families in your neighborhood, would get together and have a huge party. They would play music cranked up as loud as possible, and was audible on the other side of the subdivision, where you and John lived. Miraculously, none of the numerous complaints would deter them from their fun, and so the whole neighborhood suffered in unison for one long night. Tonight was the oh-so-joyful occasion, and you had invited John over, knowing that having him next to you was the only thing that would keep your sanity in one piece. He had had dinner with your family and the two of you were out in your backyard, where an old swingset stood. You were sitting on one, swinging your legs softly back and forth while John sat next to you, listening absentmindedly to the music while catching glimpses of you whenever you weren't looking. The current song ended and another began. "I love this song!" you cried, instantly recognizing "I Saw Her Standing There" by the Beatles. Well, she was just seventeen You know what I mean And the way she looked was way beyond compare "You're seventeen. Fancy that," said John. "And I must admit that you do look nice tonight." You looked down at your old clothes with a skeptical glance. "Yeah, right." "May I have this dance?" He held out a hand to you. "Of course." So how could I dance with another When I saw her standing there? You giggled as John twirled you around the yard, slowing when you were out of breath. He stepped with you slowly, your speed rapidly decreasing and then stopping altogether as you looked up at him to see him gazing down at you. Well she looked at me And I, I could see That before too long I'd fall in love with her She wouldn't dance with another Oh, when I saw her standing there "(Y/N)," he whispered, softer than you knew anyone could ever speak. "Y-yes?" "May I kiss you?" A shocked silence. "Of course." You finally overcame your shock. He bent down and you felt his breath on your cheek. And with a soft tilt forward, he captured your lips with his and the only thing that existed was him. It was pure and perfect and everything you had imagined and wanted it to be. As you pulled apart, you whispered, "I love you." "I think I loved you ever since I saw how adorable you were when you were mad at me being older," John confessed, rubbing his thumb gently over your bottom lip. You looked into his eyes, saw the love, the pure emotion, and knew you needed him, needed him desperately. He drew you in again, and the music was forgotten. ❇❇❇summer eight❇❇❇ "I can't believe this. Summer reading? Especially Shakespeare summer reading?" John lamented. "Well, some people actually like Romeo and Juliet and consider it a literary masterpiece," you commented. "And I happen to be one of them." "My own girlfriend," he groaned. After a year of owning that title, it never failed to give you butterflies when hearing it. The two of you were sitting in a clearing of his forest, and the sun shone in a dappled pattern on your languishing forms. "You should really get started on it," you told him. "I suppose you're already done." "I, for one, do not procrastinate." "Well, then, you leave me no choice but to begin." "You should read it to me." "Anything for you," he said, cupping the back of your neck and kissing your forehead before lying down and placing his head on your lap. "It'll be more comfortable this way." And with that, he began to read, and you listened to the voice you loved best read the classic tale of love. After the first act, your hands were begging for something to do, and so you gently pulled at his hair tie, releasing his long, bouncy curls which floated freely at their leisure. You wove your fingers through them, feeling their lush softness and kissing his shiny locks every now and then. After a few minutes, you parted his hair into three sections and began braiding, picking a few flowers to finish off the woven hairstyle. He was now at the balcony scene, your favorite part, and he paused. "You be Juliet. I'll read Romeo," he said. You laughed and held the book with him, your fingers entwining. The words were interrupted often for a kiss or two, and he smiled at you, thinking that you were the most beautiful thing to ever walk the earth. He finished the scene, and sat up slightly, running his fingers along the curves of your neck while you kissed his freckled cheeks. "How'd I ever get you?" he asked in pure, breathless wonder. You simply smiled before kissing him deeply, eliciting small noises from his throat. The book was pushed aside as he sat up fully, setting you on his lap. "I love you," you said. "And I you." And there you were, young and with your lives ahead of you. The future was yet unknown, but you could face it together as long as you were by each other's side. You looked into his eyes and both of you thought that you had never felt such perfect happiness.

#john laurens #john laurens x reader #john laurens imagine #john laurens headcanon #john laurens oneshot #hamilton #hamilton imagine #hamilton x reader #anthony ramos #anthony ramos x reader #anthony ramos inagine #philip hamilton #john laurens fanfic #broadway #broadway imagine

358 notes · View notes

everydaybrautigan · 7 years

Text

Revenge of the Lawn

My grandmother, in her own way, shines like a beacon down the stormy American past. She was a bootlegger in a little county up in the state of Washington. She was also a handsome woman, close to six feet tall who carried 190 pounds in the grand operatic manner of the early 1900s. And her specialty was bourbon, a little raw but a welcomed refreshment in those Volstead Act days.

She of course was no female Al Capone, but her bootlegging feats were the cornucopia of legend in her neck of the woods, as they say. She had the county in her pocket for years. The sheriff used to call her up every morning and give her the weather report and tell her how the chickens were laying.

I can imagine her talking to the sheriff: “Well, Sheriff, I hope your mother gets better soon. I had a cold and a bad sore throat last week myself. I’ve still got the sniffles. Tell her hello for me and to drop by the next time she’s down this way. And if you want that case, you can pick it up or I can have it sent over as soon as Jack gets back with the car. "No, I don’t know if I’m going to the firemen’s ball this year, but you know that my heart is with the firemen. If you don’t see me there tonight, you tell the boys that. No, I’ll try to get there, but I’m still not fully recovered from my cold. It kind of climbs on me in the evening.” My grandmother lived in a three-story house that was old even in those days. There was a pear tree in the front yard which was heavily eroded by rain from years of not having any lawn. The picket fence that once enclosed the lawn was gone, too, and people just drove their cars right up to the porch. In the winter the front yard was a mud hole and in the summer it was hard as a rock. Jack used to curse the front yard as if it were a living thing. He was the man who lived with my grandmother for thirty years. He was not my grandfather, but an Italian who came down the road one day selling lots in Florida. He was selling a vision of eternal oranges and sunshine door to door in a land where people ate apples and it rained a lot. Jack stopped at my grandmother’s house to sell her a lot just a stone’s throw from downtown Miami, and he was delivering her whiskey a week later. He stayed for thirty years and Florida went on without him. Jack hated the front yard because he thought it was against him. There had been a beautiful lawn there when Jack came along, but he let it wander off into nothing. He refused to water it or take care of it in any way. Now the ground was so hard that it gave his car flat tires in the summer. The yard was always finding a nail to put in one of his tires or the car was always sinking out of sight in the winter when the rains came on. The lawn had belonged to my grandfather who lived out the end of his life in an insane asylum. It had been his pride and joy and was said to be the place where his powers came from. My grandfather was a minor Washington mystic who in 1911 prophesied the exact date when World War I would start: June 28, 1914, but it had been too much for him. He never got to enjoy the fruit of his labor because they had to put him away in 1913 and he spent seventeen years in the state insane asylum believing he was a child and it was actually May 3, 1872. He believed that he was six years old and it was a cloudy day about to rain and his mother was baking a chocolate cake. It stayed May 3, 1872 for my grandfather until he died in 1930. It took seventeen years for that chocolate cake to be baked. There was a photograph of my grandfather. I look a great deal like him. The only difference being that I am over six feet tall and he was not quite five feet tall. He had a dark idea that being so short, so close to the earth and his lawn would help to prophesy the exact date when World War I would start. It was a shame that the war started without him. If only he could have held back his childhood for another year, avoided that chocolate cake, all of his dreams would have come true. There were always two large dents in my grandmother’s house that had never been repaired and one of them came about this way: In the autumn the pears would get ripe on the tree in the front yard and the pears would fall on the ground and rot and bees would gather by the hundreds to swarm on them. The bees somewhere along the line had picked up the habit of stinging Jack two or three times a year. They would sting him in the most ingenious ways. Once a bee got in his wallet and he went down to the store to buy some food for dinner, not knowing the mischief that he carried in his pocket. He took out his wallet to pay for the food. “That will be 72 cents,” the grocer said. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Jack replied, looking down to see a bee busy stinging him on the little finger. The first large dent in the house was brought about by still another bee landing on Jack’s cigar as he was driving the car into the front yard that peary autumn the stock market crashed. The bee ran down the cigar, Jack could only stare at it cross-eyed in terror, and stung him on the upper lip. His reaction to this was to drive the car immediately into the house. That front yard had quite a history after Jack let the lawn go to hell. One day in 1932 Jack was off running an errand or delivering something for my grandmother. She wanted to dump the old mash and get a new batch going. Because Jack was gone, she decided to do it herself. Grandmother put on a pair of railroad overalls that she used for working around the still and filled a wheelbarrow with mash and dumped it out in the front yard. She had a flock of snow-white geese that roamed outside the house and nested in the garage that had not been used to park the car since the time Jack had come along selling futures in Florida. Jack had some kind of idea that it was all wrong for a car to have a house. I think it was something that he had learned in the Old Country. The answer was in Italian because that was the only language Jack used when he talked about the garage. For everything else he used English, but it was only Italian for the garage. After Grandmother had dumped the mash on the ground near the pear tree, she went back to the still down in the basement and the geese all gathered around the mash and started talking it over. I guess they came to a mutually agreeable decision because they all started eating the mash. As they ate the mash their eyes got brighter and brighter and their voices, in appreciation of the mash, got louder and louder. After a while one of the geese stuck his head in the mash and forgot to take it out. Another one of the geese cackled madly and tried to stand on one leg and give a W. C. Fields imitation of a stork. He maintained that position for about a minute before he fell on his tail feathers. My grandmother found them all lying around the mash in the positions that they had fallen. They looked as if they had been machine-gunned. From the height of her operatic splendor she thought they were all dead. She responded to this by plucking all their feathers and piling their bald bodies in the wheelbarrow and wheeling them down to the basement. She had to make five trips to accommodate them. She stacked them like cordwood near the still and waited for Jack to return and dispose of them in a way that would provide a goose for dinner and a small profit by selling the rest of the flock in town. She went upstairs to take a nap after finishing with the still. It was about an hour later that the geese woke up. They had devastating hangovers. They had all kind of gathered themselves uselessly to their feet when suddenly one of the geese noticed that he did not have any feathers. He informed the other geese of their condition, too. They were all in despair. They paraded out of the basement in a forlorn and wobbly gang. They were all standing in a cluster near the pear tree when Jack drove into the front yard. The memory of the time he had been stung on the mouth by that bee must have come back to his mind when he saw the defeathered geese standing there, because suddenly like a madman he tore out the cigar he had stuck in his mouth and threw it away from him as hard as he could. This caused his hand to travel through the windshield. A feat that cost him thirty-two stitches. The geese stood by staring on like some helpless, primitive American advertisement for aspirin under the pear tree as Jack drove his car into the house for the second and last time in the Twentieth Century. The first time I remember anything in life occurred in my grandmother’s front yard. The year was either 1936 or 1937. I remember a man, probably Jack, cutting down the pear tree and soaking it with kerosene. It looked strange, even for a first memory of life, to watch a man pour gallons and gallons of kerosene all over a tree lying stretched out thirty feet or so on the ground, and then to set fire to it while the fruit was still green on the branches. -Richard Brautigan

#richard brautigan #brautigan #beat #poet #poem #revenge #lawn

1 note · View note