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clickerflight · 7 months ago

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Clove: Part 33 - Home

Author's note: We're almost to the end. The next chapter will be the epilogue. I have so many feels. It will feel good to finish writing a story.

Masterlist - Part 32

Content: Vampire whumpee, vaguely referenced sexual abuse, emotional angst, lost time

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Hyrum ran ahead of the group through the trees, still in that huge wolfdog form, barking and howling with excitement, tail wagging behind himself as he bounded over streams and logs. Ephraim, who had Benny’s arm over his shoulder, felt his energy coming back just watching the pup enjoy the sun streaming through the leaves.

Kortops and Halia walked, arms linked, deft flaps of their wings getting them over obstructions.

Benny had been very quiet since waking up and Ephraim assumed he needed some time to think while he healed from the fight they had. Ephraim didn't mind. He needed time to think as well.

Besides, it was wonderful to look at the normal plantlife, hearing the soft sounds of birds and water, no mists to obscure their vision. It looked like time had moved strangely while they were in the fae realm. That was to be expected. It was well into summer, now, when it had been autumn when he left. He hoped everyone was okay. He hoped that Margaret was still alive.

“How long has it been?” Benny asked softly, apparently having a similar thought process.

“About 53 years if it’s July now,” Ephraim said, and Benny’s head hung a little lower. “It’s not your fault.”

“Feels like it,” he whispered. “If I had been a little stronger. I knew what was happening was wrong. I didn’t even like being her husband, but-”

“You were charmed,” Ephraim said firmly. “And now we can move on. We’re home. You’re home.”

Benny lifted his head, and Ephraim felt sick to his stomach seeing the tears streaming down his cheeks. “Ephraim, I don’t think I belong here anymore. I’m…. I’ve been….”

Ephraim could see the words that wouldn’t come out. Defiled, disgusting, corrupted, sickened, a completely different man lost in a familiar world.

Ephraim sighed. “Benny, do you remember what I told you after you’d recovered from being turned?”

Benny frowned, trying to remember, but his charm-addled mind had caused the memory to completely leave him. His shoulders hitched with a sob as he shook his head.

“That’s okay. I want to tell you,” Ephraim said warmly, trying to keep any worry out of his voice, rubbing his thumb over Benny’s neck. “We live for a very long time, Benny, if everything goes well for us. That gives us a lot of time to change. We are never going to be the same person as we were a decade ago, okay? And that’s okay. It takes a lot of bravery to face that, to try and keep up with the ever changing world and with the change within ourselves. We will live to see horrors beyond anything most mortals can comprehend, and we have to learn how to handle it, okay? I am so sorry it happened so early. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from being taken that day, but we have to take this in stride and we have to keep going.”

Benny was silent for a long moment and Ephraim took another breath. “You know that I was a gladiator once. A long time ago.”

Benny nodded. He felt more awake, especially at the mention of the part of Ephraim’s life that the older vampire quite often refused to talk about. It was still hard to imagine Ephraim as a gladiator. Maybe that was just because Benny had seen him plant too many sunflowers.

“I didn’t want to be a gladiator,” Ephraim sighed. “I had been captured for being a vampire and sold around until I ended up in a gladiator ring. I was trapped there for years, Benny. Fighting and killing just so I could have a meal once every few days. I was sick, but still stronger than the humans they kept sending in to fight me, trying to slay me like some monster…. It took me a long time after I’d won my freedom to figure myself out. I couldn’t make friends for a long time, I acted like the monster they’d trained me to be, and I didn’t even have a safe place to sleep. I know how you feel, and you have to remember that you are the only one in charge of your emotions and actions. You have to take your life into your hands and make it what you will.”

“But I don’t know what-”

“You don’t have to right now. And I’ll let you in on a secret. You never will. You just have to decide what you like from life, what you think it would be fun to be, and go for it.”

Benny thought about that for a moment. That seemed easier said than done, and he didn’t like how lost it still made him feel, but Ephraim was right, Ephraim was almost always right. He’d been around long enough to know things like this.

“Thank you. For the advice and for….. Getting me out of there.”

“Not sure how much help I actually was for that,” Ephraim said with a chuckle. “There’s the cottage.”

Benny looked up and his knees nearly gave out, seeing the beautiful cottage, the garden fairly well tended. It seemed Ephraim had been away for a while but someone had taken the time to put the garden in order.

He saw Hyrum run into the garden, sniffing at everything, stopping to roll in the grass before getting up and dashing into the house, turning into a human on the way in through the door.

Benny could hear voices inside and soon enough Hyrum came back out, wrapped in a blanket. It seemed that his clothing got shredded when he took his large wolf form.

“Eef! Margaret is here!”

Benny perked up, gathering his energy to let go of Ephraim, walking on his own as a man who smelled like herbs and teas stepped out, surprised. Benny felt a pang of sadness, realizing this man was old enough to have kids, but he couldn’t have been alive when Benny left. He would only know the old members of the village.

He pushed that thought inside. He needed to see Margaret.

He stumbled up, past the garden, past the two fae who stopped to look at the flowers, giggling to one another, past the pup and to the cottage stoop, leaning hard on the railing.

He faintly heard Ephraim commenting on everything new as the man stepped aside, surprised.

Benny stepped up onto the stoop, which hadn’t been there before, and through the door.

He looked around so quickly, it made him dizzy. Finally, he spotted a wizened old woman on the couch, only the faintest traces of who she had been marked on her face.

“Margie?” he whispered, looking at who was once his younger sister. Younger? Really? How could he possibly be older!?

She looked up from the medicine pouches she was assembling with a deep frown, only for her eyes to dull with confusion when she looked at him.

“Who…. no…. Benny?”

Benny nodded with a sob, stepping across to the couch where he sat down heavily, wrapping his arms around his sister, kissing the thinning grey hairs on the top of her head.

She grabbed his arm with a gnarled claw, grunting as she weakly pushed him off.

She looked him over more critically. “In the name of Lady Death, Benjamin Ashmaker. What are you wearing?”

He looked down at the tight leathers, split and torn in places from his fight and smelling of werewolf slobber. “I…. I’m not sure, anymore. I’ll change as soon as I can.”

Ephraim stepped through the front door, a tired little smile on his face and Margie looked angry at him more than anything. “There’s the slacker. Where in the world have you been, then? Something to do with Benny here?”

“Yeah. That Sorcerer, Jack, he kidnapped Hyrum and we ended up in the fae realm. Your brother’s been playing spouse to the Queen all this time. Good thing he did, too, or he would have been killed.”

Ephraim came to kneel on the floor, taking Margie’s spotted hands. Benny swallowed hard against tears that tried to rise up when he saw that. She was so…. Old. Lady Death was standing behind her, practically. Ephraim had warned him about this part of being a vampire, and he had been ready to handle it when he thought he would be able to spend all of these years watching these people, his sister, grow old. But no. He’d been taken, gone for what felt like 16 years and came back to find his sister about to return home to the great beyond.

There wasn't enough time.

Margie turned her eyes back to Benjamin, hardened with time and grief, but still the same woman who always called him foolish and a ‘man who attracts trouble like seeds attract birds.’ And despite the pain he saw there, he was glad to see her eyes and mind were clear. “Benny…. I have an apology to make to you and to Ephraim. I had thought you dead. I had lost hope. I am sorry. I should have believed…..”

Ephraim put a hand on her knee. “Don’t you worry, Margie. Hope is painful, and I hoped enough for the both of us.”

“If it helps at all,” Benny said, almost in a whisper, “I… I didn’t feel abandoned.”

“PSHAW! Probably because you were charmed out of your mind!” she said in a high croaking voice. “Foolish man! Trouble maker, that you are. Spouse of the Queen, indeed. Foolish. So very foolish!”

Tears were spilling from her eyes, following the creases and wrinkles as she slowly leaned forward, bones popping and creaking as she wrapped her arms around Benny.

Benny buried his face in her shoulder, the tears and sobs fully escaping. He didn’t want to mourn the lost time. He needed to focus on the time he had now with his sister, with his mentor. But it just wasn’t fair. He’d lost so much time, so much blood and memory, so much innocence, so much of himself, and for what!? For what!?

He felt Ephraim rub his back as he cried. Ephraim understood. He always seemed to understand. It was a small comfort in the abyss of grief and confusion Benny found himself in.

And maybe it would be enough. He wasn’t alone. Not anymore. And he still had time with Margie. He was so very lucky to have been found before she… before-

The man he’d passed at the door cleared his throat. “So, ah, are those fae out in the garden with Hyrum?”

Ephraim started. “Oh, yes. I’ll need to explain that. You two catch up, alright? I’ll come bug you later, Margie. Looks like there’s no rest for the wicked.”

“I should hope not,” Margie huffed. “Making us all worry all winter and spring. You have a lot to answer for.”

Ephraim left with a laugh and a wave, and the door closed on Benny and Margie, years apart and yet still as close as the day Benny was taken to the fae realms.

Epilogue

Hey you! Yes you! I want to have a sort of askathon about this story once this is done. Have questions about this story? Meta or clarifications on cannon? Please send them so I can answer some as a celebration of finishing this series. Thank you so so much for reading this series, and I hope you will enjoy the epilogue. If you are reading this way after the series is over, still feel free to send in asks. It is good for a writer to remember the stories they have created, even if they are over. <3

Clove Taglist: @wolfeyedwitch @the-blind-one-speaks @whumpsday @extrabitterbrain @inkkswhumpandstuff

@honeycollectswhump @whump-blog-reblogs @pigeonwhumps @mj-or-say10 @percy-frayer

@currentlyinthesprial @scoundrelwithboba @whumps-and-bumps @hellodecisionparalysis @scatteriskity

#writing #whump writing #vampire whumpee #clove #ephraim #hyrum #benjamin #emotional angst #lost time #outliving siblings #ahhhhhhhh #guyyyyysssssssss please!#It's almost done!#So bitter sweet #There are so many ideas in my head to continue this #but I know this is the end #This is the story that needed to be told #alas

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