#ELIAS & ELEKTRA. ( ac. ) ( organic damage. ) ( princes speanut. v. 2. )

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TRANSFERRED FILE. ||  @ofsais // @tuppencetrinkets.   Elektra & Elias.   VERSE: altered carbon. au. ( princess peanut v. 2. ) 001. THREAD: to be named.

“I can’t stay... I- I can’t take her life from her. We had our shot, baby, and it isn’t fair but it was taken from us. I can’t do that to her.”  

break my muse’s heart.  elias & elektra. the princess and the pauper / princess peanut arc. v. 2

Pain was …  a way of life for him.  Always had been.  A constant reminder of everything that he’d endured.  Everything he’d survived.  Everything he’d done.  His whole life, he’d been burning.  Burnt away, carved away, one tiny molecule at a time, a yank here, a twist there. Angry words, harsh slaps, harder punches, icy stares, arrogant sneers, brittle slurs.  Every lie, every mistake, every fuckup, every stupid choice, every word said out of anger or despair, carving away who he could have been, might have been, building this …  monument of fury and guilt, this creature, this … GOLEM of vengeance and despair that wore his face.    She’d been his ..LIGHT. His angel, fallen from Heaven. His GRACE.  His redemption.  She’d seen him.  Seen past the bullshit bravado.  Seen past his devil-may-care attitude.  Seen all of him.  The broken pieces.  The raw edges, bleeding, oozing, twisted.  And she’d loved him, anyways, in spite of it all, in spite of the life he lived, in spite of the man he was, in spite of the fact that he was a CHUMP in comparison to the kind of man she deserved. Despite the fact that all he could offer her was him, and a simple gold band.  

And then she had been taken from him.  His life.  His world. He let her go, HE hadn’t know, HE hadn’t saved her – HE hadn’t found her until it was too late, until the damage was done.  Hours and hours.  DAYS of hell on earth, bleeding, suffering.   Because of HIM.   Because he hadn’t done his job.  He had let his guard down.  He had let himself get sucked into the delusion that someone like him might get something good, for once.  He had let himself get sidetracked.  Had let himself get talked down, let things slide, let things fall to the wayside.  Let himself feel SAFE.  He’d felt UNTOUCHABLE, four in the morning, he’d felt like THE GODS THEMSELVES, watching tiny fingers curl, and cling, wrinkled and red and soft and smelling like hope itself in human form.   I DID THAT.  He’d wanted to shout it from the rooftop, to thump his chest and crow in pride.   But that’s what happens, isn’t it?  You gotta rise before you fall.   HE’D BEEN SO TALL.  He’d felt so big.  He could do ANYTHING.

“Please.”  It was a ragged, broken thing, the word that choked its way past his lips.  He was crumbling.  Falling to pieces.  Ash by ash, scar by scar, thread by thread, he was coming undone.  Whatever he’d had, whatever reserves of strength or willpower or hope, those last vestiges of desperate NEED to keep moving, to put one foot after the other, to soldier on, to tough it out, to be A MAN – he was coming apart at the seams. Coming undone.  He’d lost her once, lost her to his own stupidity, his own arrogance, his ignorance.  It had killed him.  Gutted him, hollowed him out, leaving him empty.   Lizzie had been his only saving grace, his only reason for breathing, for bleeding, for not just blowing out his stack and leaving this world and all its bullshit misery behind.  He’d stuffed himself with that, built himself up, for that, for HER, to build up the mask of himself, this shell, this pretend self that could be what she needed.  And slowly, somehow, he’d found it helped.  He found himself breathing, a little easier, sometimes.  Moments, where there was just enough joy in watching her live that he could find a pretense of peace, in that. For that.  For her.  

He couldn’t do it again.  He couldn’t do it alone.  Not again. Not knowing that Elektra was RIGHT HERE, that she was standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM, that he could TOUCH her and SEE her and BREATH HER IN and it wasn’t just the echo of her that lived in his dreams and nightmares.  What RIGHT did he have?!  What right could he possibly have to stand here, and ask her to stay.  Ask her to LIVE with what had happened to her, with what she had SUFFERED – to live a life with HIM like she wouldn’t be reminded, every moment of every day that it was on HIM, that she had suffered, and died, and lost all this time, every moment of Lizzie’s life since that day, because of HIM.  “Please.” It was aching, and twisted, and dripping with guilt and loss and despair.  “I ca—”  A sharp, painful swallow, his tortured features twisting into a sharp grimace, his expression torn between rock-hard impassiveness and the torment that tore what was left of his heart to shreds.   “You don’t…. I’ll go.”  He forced the words past his lips, his heart clenching, pounding, seizing.  He wasn’t sure if it was going to break, or explode.   “You don’t …. Have to see me again. I’ll go.  Just – stay.  Please.” He swallowed back words, things that he might have said, could have said, once upon a time.  I love you.   I need you.   “You have –  a chance.  At a life – a real life, with Lizzie – she – “  She needs you.   She needs her mother.  She needs something real.  Something good.  Something better than HIM.

“HUGO NATCHIOS has an army of sleeves waiting for his daughter, he can spin her up, she won’t even bat a fucking eye –  to them it’s JUST A FUCKING SLEEVE –”  To him, to Lizzie … it was everything.  “I’ll get you … whatever you need.   Money.  Idents, a safe place to go, somewhere no one knows you, no one knows Lizzie, you can start over – you don’t have to do this.”   Aching, tight desperation, tears burning hot in the corners of his eyes as he tried to swallow it down, shove it down, tamp it down. Feel it later, let it burn and break and shatter, later, cold, now, cold and hard and unfeeling.  Just turn it off.  Do what you have to do.  JUST SAVE HER.  “You can’t leave her.  Not again.” Cheap, and dirty.  “You can’t just walk away.  You KNOW what that is, what that feels like.  All she’s ever had is a fucking GHOST – you’re standing right here.  Right now.   If you leave, now, this time?  It’s on you. Only you, YOUR CHOICE, to walk away.”