#instead now this imposter; this shell; the body he would had occupied; takes his place. he's a ghost and his body is the haunted house.

[martyrbat]

The Hellbound Heart – Clive Barker

[TEXT ID: Appalled, he shut his eyes. But there was more inside than out; memories whose violence shook him to the verge of senselessness. He sucked his mother's milk, and choked; felt his sibling's arms around him (a fight, was it, or a brotherly embrace? Either way, it suffocated). And more; so much more. A short lifetime of sensations, all writ in a perfect hand upon his cortex, and breaking him with their insistence that they be remembered.]

[sweetlangdon]

From Eden: Chapter 1

Notes: Evil Power Couple fic. It’s difficult to write a summary for this one, because I don’t want to give away the twists. (It’ll also include canon rewrite/divergence for the later half of the season.) It has plenty of angst and fluff, and a bit of character study.

Warnings: swearing, lots of murder, blood... 

The rest of this fic can be found on my masterlist and AO3. It’s currently in progress.

She was in the library, alone, when she heard his footsteps.

She knew it was him. It couldn’t be anyone else but him. He’d been here for little more than a day, but the hypnotic, precise cadence of his boots against the polished floors was unmistakable. Eighteen months of relative solitude, never knowing whether it was day or night—not that it mattered much anymore now that the Earth had become a ruined wasteland—had given her plenty of time to parse the sounds of Outpost 3. The whisper of the Grays, floating along balconies and down the narrow, sleek corridors like apparitions. The insistent tap of Ms. Venable’s cane as if it were a ticking clock, a warning, a threat. Ms. Mead’s practiced rhythm, heavy and quick, past their doors like some nocturnal predator on the hunt for a kill.

The other Purples were shuffling steps and clinking glasses, a crescendo of voices that echoed across the labyrinth of their underground shelter. They were all energy and rage with nowhere to run, so it slipped out into the quiet halls and rooms, an explosion of frayed nerves and short tempers.

Eighteen months had been a lifetime. It didn’t feel like surviving. It felt like a prison sentence, a slow and endless march on cracked glass wondering when it would break and where they would fall. That same restless anger had burned in her veins, too. Those nights where she lay awake listening to the crackle of the fire until it finally lulled her to sleep. Days when she couldn’t summon enough willpower to do anything but lock the door to her suite and cry until her chest ached. She found that it was easier to keep quiet, to bury the pain somewhere else when she wasn’t alone. Obey the rules, however ridiculous they were. Remain invisible and non-threatening.  

She’d been used to not drawing attention. She could’ve been a Gray, she thought, if fate were different. But she didn’t really know a damn thing about fate; nothing seemed to make sense anymore, so did it matter? Her parents had immediately pooled their funds, no questions asked. One hundred million dollars, she’d find out after the fact. She didn’t even know they’d had that much. And she didn’t have time to consider what it all meant, didn’t particularly give a fuck about being a part of the elite—she felt more like an imposter. Some outsider with enough luck to be born to parents who built their wealth, however meager it had been compared to the others, from the ground up.

The bare minimum of social interaction had gotten her this far at least. Amiable conversations traded across the table while they choked down their tasteless meal. A hushed exchange of words in a shadowed corridor with a passing Gray. Obligatory grumbling over the songs that broke through the static on relentless, agonizing loops, a ghostly thread to the world before all of this. Just enough to play whatever game they were trapped in and survive one more day, one more week, one more month.

Nothing was permanent here, and the last thing she wanted was to become entangled in their drama and end up on the outside. Left to the ravaged Earth as the radiation poisoned her body and the toxic air squeezed the breath from her lungs. Put down like some dying animal, the cold barrel of a gun pressed to the back of her head. Her parents didn’t sacrifice every last cent they’d owned for her to just fuck up her chances because of some dumbass mistake.

It was easier to be alone. The library wasn’t empty that often, but when the occasion arose, she took it. There was a shred of peace here. The faint scent of smoke mingled with the clean aroma of linen and beeswax from the candles. The spines of the books crammed in the shelves flickered back at her as golden light wavered over them. She’d tucked herself into a corner of one of the black leather couches, her knees drawn up under her gown. It was some kind of eighteenth century-inspired monstrosity in a deep shade of violet; she thought it might have been prettier if there weren’t so many ruffles. Lace dripped from the satin sleeves at her elbows. Her wardrobe was full of it—lace and voluminous layers of fabric, pleated and gathered into elegant styles from another time. She gave them credit for committing to the aesthetic. After a year and some months, it was beginning to grow on her.

Her mind had stayed occupied with help from the Outpost’s library. She had discovered early on that the shelves held an extensive collection of essential literary works. She’d almost expected them to be nothing but a decoration, an illusion of comfort. She read them slowly, savoring each page, each word, not knowing how long they would need to last. Before the world went straight to hell she’d been a year shy of graduation. Hunkering down in a room full of books felt familiar, as though she was back in the library on her manicured university campus studying for finals. As if this was normal for just a little while. As if their sequestered world wasn’t the only fucking thing left.

She turned a page, partially aware that she didn’t remember what she’d read in the past few minutes. Her focus was gone, the words turning into incomprehensible smudges of ink across the paper. His footsteps matched her pulse until all she could hear was the blood rushing through her ears. And then suddenly he was there in the threshold—she caught him on the edge of her periphery, a silent shadow. She stared at the book in her lap but the words still didn’t make sense and the awareness of him prickled along her spine.

Langdon terrified and fascinated her in equal measure. He was an abyss—dark, cold, offering nothing but vague notions of an imagined paradise. A safe haven they would have to compete for. Who was he, exactly, to determine whether they were worthy? It made her uneasy to know that he was the deciding factor, that he could leave her here to whatever horrors awaited them outside without knowing why. What deemed a person useful to The Cooperative? Was what he’d said about this sanctuary true, or just a load of bullshit?

“Loneliness is a comfort to you, not a burden.” Langdon’s voice filled the room, smooth and rich as dark honey.

It hadn’t been a question, but of course he was well aware of the truth already. She had seen a couple of the other Purples walk away from their encounters with him shell-shocked and trembling, hysterical about how he’d rifled through the parts of them they wanted to keep hidden. Their private thoughts and shameful secrets were little more than pawns in a game to him. He appeared to relish pulling them apart and leaving them shattered. She’d never seen Coco so quiet, her eyes wide and red-rimmed before she excused herself to her room for the rest of the evening.

Truthfully, she didn’t know whether to be horrified or in awe of him.

The book snapped shut. “I’m used to it,” she said, looking up at last. He moved with a preternatural grace, hands clasped behind his back as he rounded the couch opposite in a few long strides. “Aside from the Armageddon raging outside, this is just…more of the same. More minimalist, maybe, but…I’m used to being on my own.”

She figured it would be best to strive for honesty. She just hoped that she could keep the fear out of her voice.

He seemed to draw the shadows to him, and she couldn’t tell whether there’d been the barest hint of a smirk somewhere on his lips. The light from the fireplace made the lines of his cheekbones sharper, the color of his eyes darker. But she knew they weren’t dark at all—they were the brightest, clearest shade of blue she’d ever seen. Like ice from the glaciers that no longer existed.

Langdon’s lithe form melted into the arm of the couch opposite in such a fluid motion that she couldn’t tear her gaze away. He perched on the edge, cat-like, and crossed one leg over the other. Almost instinctively, she pushed the book aside, unfurling swathes of fabric as she inched closer to the edge of the leather cushion.

“Not so impressed with the other residents, then, I take it.”

She lifted one shoulder. “A bunch of entitled assholes don’t really strike me as the best candidates to keep humanity from dying out. If they’re all that’s left…” she shook her head, “I don’t know. I don’t. Aside from whatever…visionaries you’ve got at The Cooperative, and maybe those kids, humanity’s kinda screwed.” She sighed. “It’s unfair, I guess, that we bought our survival. We didn’t really survive at all, we just had the means to escape. And these people…they don’t know how to do much for themselves. How can the world depend on them?”

“Without them, the outposts wouldn’t exist. Their money—your money—”

“My parents’ money,” she corrected.

“None of you would be here if it weren’t for their wealth.” Langdon’s head titled to the side, amused. “You don’t consider yourself one of them?”

“My parents could afford my place here, I can’t deny that,” she said. “But I…” She couldn’t look at his demanding gaze, instead averting her eyes to where his hands rested on top of his knee. Slender, well-manicured fingers drummed absently on his kneecap, the opaque rings and jewels glinting in the light. “I know a thing or two about hardship, Mr. Langdon. I remember what it was like before.”

She didn’t mean the end of the world. No, it had been long before that, and Langdon knew it—she could see it in his face, those micro expressions that were gone the moment they appeared.

He leaned forward slightly. The light changed his face in remarkable ways, she realized; where before there had been something almost imperceptibly sinister about his features, now the candlelight had softened the harsh lines of shadow.

“Of course. There was a time when your family had to worry about money. It disappeared faster than you could earn it,” he answered. She didn’t dare to ask how he knew. Then again, it wasn’t altogether unreasonable to expect that The Cooperative might’ve done ridiculously detailed background checks. “Does that make you envious of them? That they were born into wealth? That they’ve…enjoyed it longer?”

“No.”

His lips curved into a delicate smirk. “You sound so sure of yourself,” Langdon said. “Why?”

“You think I’m lying.”

“Oh, I’d know if you were, and believe me, I’d tell you,” Langdon replied, his tone light and almost teasing. “No…I want to know why. It’s a simple question.”

“It gives me an advantage,” she answered. “These people are used to their cushy lives and it made them complacent. I never knew mine long enough to get to that point. I don’t envy them for one second.”

“Ruthless.” His smirk broadened into a grin, and her stomach did a somersault in response. “I admire that.”

“Don’t know if I’d call it that,” she countered.

“I would.” He narrowed those clear blue eyes, a look so piercing that she shifted in her seat, rearranging her skirts to try and avoid it.

“It’s just surviving. Figuring out who you’re up against.”

“You see them as opponents?”

“Sometimes.” She gathered the book from where it had fallen between the cushions and stood, tucking it against her chest, very aware of his gaze following her every movement. “People don’t last long here with the way Mead and Venable run things. All we can do is try to keep up. I’ve stayed quiet…done everything I can to mitigate the risk of being a problem for them.”

“And you’d do anything to make sure you’re not abandoned. Not again.” The way he said it, drawing out every syllable, made a knot form in the pit of her stomach. How could he have known something so personal? “No matter what it might cost you. Even if the price was your soul.”

One of her eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

Langdon tipped his head to the side again, his strawberry blond hair falling across one shoulder. “On the contrary, I think you know exactly what I mean.” He pushed off the arm of the couch to stand, lacing his fingers together in front of him.

“You have that spark of callousness within you—I can see it. It’s an ugly thing, but it’s there, because it’s a part of you. It’s always been a part of you. And you’d do whatever you need to with it, if it meant your salvation. Even if it left blood on your hands.”

The lilting, pleasant timbre of his voice suddenly turned to ice, that air of superiority and omnipotent power returning to lace his words. A storm gathered in his eyes and beneath his skin, something malicious that she’d suspected lurked in his veins, down to every fiber of his being. She didn’t know what it was about him. Part of her didn’t want to know, really, but a stubborn thread of curiosity still lingered.

She found herself gaping at him, mouth open, a coherent reply lost to the void. “I…I don’t know.”

Langdon closed his eyes, just for a moment. “Yes, you do.”

When he opened them again, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, dropping his arms to his sides. She watched the mesmerizing fluidity of his hands, the rigid way he carried himself. The same sense of amusement came crawling back as if there hadn’t ever been something terribly malicious in him in the first place. As if her trampling over the corpses of Outpost 3’s elite to garner her place at The Sanctuary was a topic of casual conversation.

Langdon continued to speak with his hands. “You can deny that part of you if that’s what you want, but it will find you eventually. Once chaos has taken over, you really can’t be sure what you’d be capable of, can you?”

“…I guess not.”

She turned away from him, the admission uncoiling something dark within her, though she didn’t want to acknowledge it. Her fingertips dug into the cover of the book until her knuckles blanched. This time, it was her footsteps that ricocheted off the walls, the staccato notes far too loud in her ears.

She felt the weight of his gaze down her back, but when she glanced over her shoulder he was already gone.

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