#thread: dots connected | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eliaskahtri · 2 months

Text

LOCATION: Elias's apartment TIMING: After returning from Ireland PARTIES: Elias & Emilio (@mortemoppetere) SUMMARY: Emilio brings Elias a bottle of wine over as thanks for Ireland. CONTENT WARNINGS: Alcoholism tw, child death tw,

“I just want information. I want to know what I’m up against, what’s out there. I’m tired of being kept in the dark for my own ‘safety’.”

The bottle of wine cost $40. It was probably the stupidest purchase Emilio had ever made, for a lot of reasons. He didn’t drink wine. He had no idea if Elias drank wine, though he struck Emilio as more of a wine guy than a whiskey guy. He had no idea if $40 wine actually tasted any different than $2 wine. He was pretty sure Elias didn’t like him. Most people did not consider alcohol to be a suitable reward for being stabbed. The list went on and on, repeating in Emilio’s mind as he stood at the door with a stupid $40 bottle of wine in hand.

He stood outside of it for a moment, debating just dropping the wine by the door and making a break for it, but Jade had made a decent point. Elias had gone through some shit. Emilio had asked him to protect his —- to protect Nora and Wynne, and his determination to do this properly had probably added to the shit he’d gone through. Nora and Wynne got out physically undamaged. Elias hadn’t. Emilio owed Elias, and he owed him a lot more than a $40 bottle of wine. The least he could do, probably, was deliver it in person.

So, he knocked on the stupid door. He shifted his weight off his bad leg. He clung to the stupid wine and wished it was whiskey and open and currently being poured down his throat. And then, the door opened, and Emilio thrust the wine forwards. “This is yours,” he said. “Uh, from me. For… I bought it.”

—

Most days, Elias sat in the dark of his apartment, the only light that came in was the light from outside. It was miserable, but he couldn’t get himself to stop doing it. It was easier to rot in bed all day instead of dealing with the real world. He needed something else that wasn’t researching dead ends or grasping at thin air for an answer that simply didn’t want to be found.

He was interrupted from his thoughts by a knock on his front door. Elias frowned, debating on ignoring it before forcing himself to be a person for once and get up and answer it. He turned a light on so it looked like he wasn’t sitting around in total darkness before answering the front door. It was Emilio, someone he didn’t expect to ever see at his door. Elias’s brow furrowed in confusion and looked down at the wine that was thrust into his hands.

Admittedly, Elias wasn’t a wine guy. He wasn’t really an alcohol guy at all, really. Still, Emilio had gone out of his way to bring it to him so he’d drink it. Eventually. Elias drowned looking back into his apartment to see books and newspaper headlines scattered all over the coffee table. One look and Emilio would figure out how bad Elias was spiraling. “Um. Thanks?” He finally spoke, unsure what to think of this. “Uh, come in.” Elias finally opened the door wide, exposing the chaos of searching for something unknowable. “Why did you… buy this?”

—

Elias’s apartment was a mess, but it was hard for Emilio to recognize it. His own living space looked similar most days, the floor scattered with things that seemed like too much work to pick up. Sometimes, at Teddy’s, things were cleaned when he wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t know if Teddy did it, or Wynne, or Gabagool, or if he did it himself when he was too out of it to be aware of what his body was up to. His eyes darted around what he could see of Elias’s apartment, making note of the articles and the papers on the floor but not really registering what they might mean or why they were there.

There was a buzzing in the back of his head as he settled, a static that almost made him miss the way Elias opened the door a little wider with an invite. He hadn’t been expecting that, and it showed with the look of confusion that crossed his face, the way he hesitated a moment before limping uncertainly towards the door. He crossed the threshold into the apartment, and he wasn’t really sure what to do once inside of it. He stood like an uneasy fixture against the wall, eyes darting around briefly without really landing on anything until Elias spoke again and pulled Emilio’s attention back to him.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I — Jade thought I should get you something. To say thanks. Because — Because I am grateful.” He wasn’t good at this, at… words. He felt like he was trying to grasp at mist and turn it into something tangible; it must have looked just as ridiculous as it felt. “And I don’t know you, very well. So I don’t know what… I’m supposed to say thank you with. But I —” I like to drink. I probably drink too much. Most of my friends say I should drink less, actually, so maybe it’s a little fucked up that I got you alcohol to fix you when it hasn’t done a very good job at fixing me, but I’m kind of shit, anyway, so it’s probably expected. “I got wine,” he finished lamely. “So you can drink it.”

—

A million thoughts went through Elias’s mind as he stared down at the bottle of wine. He didn’t know anyone who would drink it, so it’d probably just sit somewhere untouched until he eventually moved out. He wouldn’t tell Emilio that, it was the thought that counted, or whatever. Elias shifted his weight from foot to foot, unsure what to say or ask. He had inside knowledge on how Wynne and Nora were doing, and that was something that mattered to Elias. “How are… Wynne and Nora?” He asked, expression wilting from closed-off confusion to open worry.

“Last I heard of Nora, she was gone.” He continued, scratching at the side of his face as he walked over to the table, staring down at the article that talked about a vampire attack, something everyone else had brushed off as a crazy journalist just trying to get a few eyes on their paper. But Elias saw through it. Jade had kind of told him what she did. And she knew Emilio. And he knew Emilio knew things from their previous run-in. He carried blades on his person, seemed prepared for these things.

It wasn’t why Emilio was here, but Elias needed to know. So he picked up the article and thrust it into Emilio’s grasp before he could realize what was happening. “Tell me what you know about the supernatural,” Elias spoke instead, gaze hardened and unyielding. “If you want to thank me for helping make sure your kids didn’t get killed, tell me what you know.” It was a desperate attempt at knowledge, but an attempt all the same.

Everything felt heavy. It was a silly thought, because everything always felt heavy. There were days when all Emilio could do was marvel at the fact that he’d yet to be crushed under the weight of it, days where his bed was a casket already six feet below the earth and nailed shut to contain him. Elias asked about Wynne and Nora, and he swore there was dirt falling on his head, swore that he was already up to his neck in it. “They’re…” He trailed off, mouth full of grave dirt. They were alive, but they were alive in the same way as flowers sprouting in a cemetery. They hadn’t been stabbed or sliced into the way Elias had, but they’d returned with scars they’d never be able to shake all the same. And Emilio felt like a failure admitting it, felt like he was back in that living room in Mexico cradling a corpse small enough to fit in the crook of his elbow.

He swallowed some of the dirt in his mouth, inhaled it into his lungs. How long before it suffocated him? How much air was in his coffin? “She’s back now.” He forced the words above ground, wondering if they really sounded muffled or if that was just in his head, too. “But she…” Did Elias know? Emilio realized that he had no idea how much Elias was aware of what had happened to Nora, realized that he didn’t know how the timing of it all lined up. Was Elias hurt before or after Declan died? Had they known one another? “She won’t be the same,” he said flatly, realizing he hadn’t finished his sentence. “I don’t think anyone will be. But Nora…” He trailed off again, unable to find the words he needed. Emilio knew, intimately, what it was like to love someone the way Nora had loved Declan and lose them in an instant. So few people knew about Juliana; her name was as much a ghost as Flora’s was, hanging over his head and haunting every step he took. The ring around his finger was the heaviest thing in the room now. Emilio’s thumb rubbed against it absently.

The sudden appearance of a paper in his hand stopped the motion, and his brows furrowed as he looked down at it. An article, it seemed, about a vampire attack. Was it one Emilio had been involved in cleaning up after? It was hard to say. Things blurred together, sometimes. But Elias didn’t seem to be asking about this specific attack — his question was a lot more vague. Emilio’s brows knit together as he looked back up at the man, head tilting to the side in question. “I know… a lot,” he replied. “We would be here a very long time. What do you want to know? Do you have specifics?” If this was what Elias wanted in exchange for what he’d done in Ireland, Emilio would grant it to him. It was a very small price.

—

Elias’s eyes flitted from Emilio’s face to the ring he rubbed on his ring finger. He struggled to talk about Nora’s situation, struggled to talk about all of it. A lightbulb moment occurred and Elias nodded his head slowly. So that’s how it was. “Listen, I’m sorry for your loss, and I’m sorry for Nora’s as well. I was pretty out of it when she came by to get his… body.” Elias blinked, remembering how reserved and quiet Nora had been. “No, I don’t think any of us will be either.” Elias decided before going back to the task at hand. It was clear that Emilio didn’t want to talk about it any more than Elias wanted to hear about it. So he moved on.

“You know a lot. Do you like her? A… hunter?” Elias’s brows furrowed, pointing to the article. “I just want information. I want to know what I’m up against, what’s out there. I’m tired of being kept in the dark for my own ‘safety’.” he put air quotes around the word safety, rolling his eyes. “How am I safe if I don’t know how to defend myself?” He ranted, pointing to the articles he had sprawled out. Animal attack after animal attack was the cause for these killings, but all of them had been strange and inconclusive. “Vampires are real. What else is it? What else is out there?” Elias needed to know, the need for knowledge fueling himself ever forward. Because if he stopped, he’d finally fall apart, and he couldn’t risk it. He needed to keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other even if it killed him.

Elias was quicker than most, picking up on the subtle motion of Emilio’s thumb on his wedding band in a way other people missed. Emilio felt uncomfortably seen for a moment, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Not the kind of thing you get past,” he said with a shrug, unsure if he was talking about Nora or himself now. Elias’s statement gave him more information about the timeline of things, at least, though he didn’t know what to do with it now. What did it matter the order in which a tragedy occurred? It didn’t make a difference to know that Elias had already been hurt when Declan died any more than it would have made a difference to know whether Juliana died before Flora or vice versa. The window was already shattered. The glass was on the floor. You couldn’t pick up the shards and piece them back together, no matter how hard you tried. All you’d ever really get in the process was bloody fingers.

It was a relief, in a way, to move on to another topic. It might have been more of a relief if he’d had any idea what was expected of him with it. “Like who?” He questioned. He could guess, but he wouldn’t out Jade without knowing for certain that Elias already knew what she was. A hunter was a dangerous thing to be. Emilio knew that better than most. “I’m a slayer. We hunt the undead. My family focused on vampires, but they’re not… they weren’t picky.” In his pocket, his thumb rubbed the wedding band again. “You’re right. A lot of hunters think people are more protected if they don’t know what’s out there. I don’t.” Not anymore, at least. A lot of civilians had died in San Agustín Etla. Maybe if they’d been more informed, that number would have been smaller. He exhaled heavily through his nose at Elias’s question, shaking his head slightly. “How much time do you have? It’s not a short list. There’s more out there than I could tell you about in one day, or two. I’m happy to tell you, to teach you how to take care of yourself. Just… It isn’t the kind of thing you can know overnight. I’ve been fighting this fight since I learned how to walk, and there are things I still don’t know.” He’d realized, only recently, just how little he knew about banshees.

—

Elias was quick to breeze past the trauma that was clearly hiding behind Emilio’s haunted eyes. He wasn’t the person to unpack that with him, and he wasn’t equipped to talk about his own baggage, he wasn’t about to ask someone else to do so. So instead of mentioning it, he ignored it completely and moved on. Relief flooded Elias as he realized he was right on the money. Finally, someone who could give him answers. He knew there were more than fae, he knew there were things more dangerous that lurked where he didn’t think to look. Emilio knew, Emilio was trained on it. And here was Elias, kept in the dark for the sake of “protecting” him. How was that protecting him?

“I… quit my job,” Elias confessed, looking at all the newspaper headlines he’d cut out. “So needless to say, I’ve got all the time in the world.” He spoke, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t think they deserve to be cut down, not all of them anyway. Just like regular humans, some aren’t good people, some are. I think there’s a balance that can be found in this.” He explained, clearly about to launch into some sort of neutrality spiel. He stopped himself before he bumbled forward with it.

“Whatever you can teach me so I can just know. Whatever you can teach me to defend myself. Anything, I’ll take it.” Elias spoke, gaze pleading and grateful. “Whatever you think you could teach me, I’d be grateful.” He explained, putting the headline down at last. “And if I have questions, could I ask you if I think of things later?” Elias frowned, thinking. “And if I learn anything useful down the line, I’ll be sure to return the favor.”

This was probably some kind of a crisis. Emilio wasn’t particularly well versed in how to handle those, but he had enough experience to recognize them. Quitting your job, cutting out newspaper headlines and spreading them around your apartment, demanding answers from a near stranger who had really only wanted to bring you a very nice bottle of wine and then slink back to his own home to get spectacularly drunk and forget about the interaction entirely… All seemed to point to some kind of breakdown that Emilio wasn’t equipped to handle. Part of him just wanted to leave. He probably would have followed that impulse if not for the nagging voice in the back of his head reminding him that he owed this man. Debts were a hard thing to repay; Emilio would, quite frankly, much rather just die for the guy and get it over with in dramatic fashion.

But that wasn’t what Elias was asking for. He was asking for answers. Emilio figured he’d just have to try to give him those instead.

(Maybe he’d let him take the wine back, then. It had been expensive.)

“I agree,” he acknowledged with a nod. “For the record. There are people who are bad. Some of them are human, some of them aren’t. And there are people who are good. Some of them are human, and some aren’t. I’ve known both.” He thought of Lucio, of Parker, and maybe of Rhett, too. Sometimes, the monster was a hunter. Or sometimes… it was someone more like Inge, or Siobhan, or the vampires who stormed his home and killed his wife and daughter. Sometimes, it was someone like the banshee who’d used Elias like a pincushion. Monsters could be anything, anyone. Emilio knew that better than most.

Hesitating a moment, he reached into his pocket and retrieved a few things: a stake, a crucifix, a vial of holy water. “Undead,” he said, setting each down on the coffee table in front of Elias. “Vampires, mostly. Stake to the heart will kill them. Holy water will burn them. Cross drives them away. You keep these, just in case.” He fished around a little more, his jacket a bottomless thing filled with sharp objects. An iron knife joined the collection on the table. “Iron for fae. It hurts all fae. Maybe you knew this already.” Another knife, silver, was added to the pile. “Silver for werewolves, but shifters aren’t as hard to take out.” He thought of Nora with a pang. “These are only for the bad ones. Because there are bad ones. But there are good ones, too. Like you said, yeah?” He pursed his lips, looking at the small arsenal. “There are different… kinds of each. Undead, fae, shifters. There are things that aren’t any of those, too. But the ones that walk and talk, usually they fit in there. Like I said, I know most about the undead. Vampires and zombies, you probably know a little. People say there are movies about them. Mares and furies, you probably don’t know much about.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, uncertain. “I can teach you,” he agreed. “Whatever you need to know, I can help teach you. You can ask questions, I can answer them. I can show you how to take care of yourself, too, how to throw a punch. But I’m not — I’m not a good teacher.” If he were, he thought, his daughter would probably be alive now. “And it’s like I said, there are things I don’t know. I know more about shifters and fae than some slayers would, but only because of people I’ve known who taught me.” He thought of Juliana and Rhett with a quiet ache. “But I’ll do what I can. Okay? Ask me what you want to know.”

—

Elias blinked as Emilio began to produce item after item that would keep him safe. It was more than he could have hoped for, but Emilio seemed to be on a similar wavelength as Elias on this. Just because they weren’t human didn’t mean they were innately bad. Anyone was capable of anything, no matter their makeup. He nodded his head as Emilio explained all the tools to keep vampires at bay. “I need to get pants with better pockets,” he muttered to himself as Emilio continued to produce more items, like an iron knife, not dissimilar to the one that Regan had given him. He still wore the iron ring, just in case.

Werewolves. Silver. So some of the things that people wrote about in fiction were true. “I don’t want to kill anyone, I just… want to be able to protect myself.” Elias stared at the knives and other items that Emilio had produced from his person. “I want to understand, just as anyone else. I don’t know if that means writing an encyclopedia of different species or what, but I just… I need to know. I don’t know what it is I need to know, other than I’ll stop at nothing to learn it.”

“I know how to fight,” Elias admitted, thinking back to the self-defense classes he’d taken before he’d hiked the Pacific Crest trail. He’d taken them because he didn’t know what he would run into when hitchhiking or camping in the middle of nowhere. He knew, but to fight against things ten times his strength or worse? Maybe he could use some help. “I mean, against regular people. If there are better tips against fighting other things, then… I’m all ears.” He decided with a slow nod of his head.

“I… what are mares and furies?” He decided once Emilio requested him to ask questions. Of course, he had questions. But when asked about what they were, his mind went blank. “What do they do, how to I defend myself?” He clasped his hands together, hanging off of every last word Emilio would give him.

“Bigger pockets,” Emilio agreed, sounding almost pleased. His own pockets tended to grow overcrowded with the number of weapons he lined them with; it was lucky that he was the sort of man who remained cold year round in a way that allowed him to wear a light jacket, even in the warmer months. “Good to keep them other places, too. In your boot. Small things in the lining of your clothes. Never know when you might lose what’s in your pockets.” More than once, he’d been in positions where he was searched and stripped of most of his weaponry. He’d rarely ever been stripped of all of it. Emilio tended to exist as a walking arsenal. He was a hard man to disarm.

He shrugged at Elias’s statement, fingers tapping together absently where his hand had returned to his pocket. “Sometimes, the only way to protect yourself is to kill something. I think… this is an important lesson to learn. There are things you can’t avoid if you want to get deeper into this world without dying.” Maybe he was biased. Violence had been a part of Emilio for as long as he’d lived. It was etched into his skin, was the first language he’d ever learned. He couldn’t imagine surviving in this world as something gentle. He’d seen what happened to gentle things. He still felt the blood under his fingernails.

Elias claimed to know how to fight, and Emilio tilted his head slightly. “Is a good starting point,” he allowed. “Fighting against regular people. But fighting against things like this will be different. Regular people aren’t as strong, aren’t as hard to hurt. And they probably won’t rip your throat out with their teeth.” He considered this for a moment. “Not as their first move, at least.” Tips were hard to verbalize; for Emilio, most things were. “Easier to show you than tell you. Won’t be able to do it all in one day. Maybe…” He trailed off for a moment. “You could come along sometime. When I’m hunting the easy stuff. Just to see.” Would that help, he wondered? Would seeing a spawn explode into dust make Elias understand a little better? It was hard to say.

An easy question to start off with. Emilio nodded, more to himself than to Elias. “Mares make nightmares,” he said. “You can ward them off with salt. Salt circle around the bed when you sleep, always a good idea. Bright lights hurt them, too. They can be starved.” He grimaced a little, remembering Rhett and Ariadne and that goddamn van. “But easier to cut their head off. That’s the best way to kill one. You can hurt them the same way you hurt people, if you need to. They don’t have fast healing, but they’ll bounce back eventually as long as they’re fed. They, uh…” He waved a hand in the air, unsure what word he was looking for. “Move quickly at night. Hop into the astral plane, move from one place to another right away. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. “But only at night. Can’t do that during the day. Can’t do it if they’re in a salt circle, either, or if you… ground them.” He thought of Inge with a sword sticking her to the wall. “Salt is easier.”

Hesitation prefaced the next statement, a quiet uncertainty. “I know less about furies. They’re rare. They’re made by dying angry. Heal fast, feed on vengeance. Make things happen. Can only kill them by cutting off their head, but it’s dangerous. You can hurt them normal ways, too, but they heal faster than mares. Maybe if you run into one, you just try to avoid them. But I don’t know. Maybe you just won’t run into one.”

—

Elias held back the urge to roll his eyes, knowing full well he wasn’t going to get bigger pockets, even if Emilio seemed rather keen on it being a very good idea. He’d figure something out, put stuff in various pockets, maybe keep a hoodie on him, like he already did seeing as how he was a California boy born and raised. “Note to self, get boots,” Elias muttered to himself, crossing his arms over his chest as he observed the items that Emilio had placed on the table. “I’ll do my best,” he decided to say with a gentle nod of his head.

The idea of killing anyone left him with a strange feeling in his chest. He thought of the giant rodent, of the giant snake. He’d had to kill before, but not something as sentient as a person. It made his stomach churn just thinking about it. “I… hope it never comes to that,” Elias spoke in earnest, eyes still resolutely on the items in front of him, reaching a hand out to play with the knife.

Letting out a sigh, Elias knew that Emilio was right. He needed better training. “Okay, we can set something up, you can show me.” Elias decided, finally tearing his gaze from the weaponry to look at Emilio, his expression distant but determined. “I… will try to be as out of your way as possible.” He then added on, feeling strange about the idea of watching a hunter at work. Killing was their job, and it was unsettling. Why didn’t these creatures get a fair trial like humans did? Why did hunters get to decide who lived and who died instead of an unbiased jury of peers?

“Salt around my bed, don’t piss them off,” Elias repeated, listing the steps on his fingers as he spoke. “I… thank you, for sharing all this.” Elias found himself saying, feeling a lot unlike himself than he had in quite some time. It was one thing to suspect things, another entirely to be handed answers after so long of being told to look away and not be involved. “Thank you for… telling me. Not everyone has been so forthcoming with information as you have.”

Didn’t it always come to that, in the end? If you immersed yourself in the world of the supernatural, wouldn’t you have to kill something that looked far more human than you’d like it to sooner or later? Emilio thought of all the dangerous undead he’d run into over the years, the ones who cared so little for human life that taking it felt almost like a game to them. He thought of his daughter, four years old and killed for what she might become someday. There were a lot of hunters who went too hard, who killed without reason — it was hard not to think of Rhett, even if he didn’t want to — but Emilio still wasn’t sure that hunters as a whole were an unnecessary thing. There was no other choice, sometimes.

He didn’t say it, even if he knew the silence would hang heavy. Elias probably knew the odds; he was a smart guy. He’d experienced the things he’d experienced in Ireland, he knew how bad it could get. Some part of him must have known that, someday, he’d have something sharp in his hand and a choice to make. Emilio hoped he’d make the right one, but… You never knew, did you? Until the moment it happened, you never knew what you’d do in that situation.

“I’m not a good teacher,” he warned. “I don’t know how to… make it simple. I’ve been learning these things since before I can remember. Hard to teach something like that. I’ll try, but I’m not — I don’t think I’m very good at it.” Zane was getting better at fighting under Emilio’s tutelage, but Zane also had the benefit of being undead. Elias was human — the kind without extra strength or night vision. Emilio wasn’t sure how well he’d be able to help someone like that. But if the guy wanted to learn, they could at least give it a shot, couldn’t they? He couldn’t say Emilio hadn’t warned him that he was shitty.

He shrugged off the gratitude, trying not to think of how angry his mother would have been. Sharing things like this with normal humans wasn’t exactly a thing hunters were supposed to do. But… “I owe you. For Ireland.” Without Elias, who knew if Wynne or Nora would have made it back alive? If this was how he wanted that debt repaid, Emilio would pay it without question. “Any other questions for now?”

—

Elias listened as Emilio tried to explain that he wasn’t a teacher, that he wasn’t built for it, and gave a simple shrug in response. “Good thing I’m not looking for a teacher, just an explanation.” Elias shrugged again, brows lifting as he did so. Elias thought about the wounds he’d taken, about how he was now indebted to Wynne for saving his life. He still wasn’t talking to the people he needed to be talking to. It made everything too real, too painful. It was easy to push past it and ignore it. It always had been.

“You don’t owe me shit,” Elias responded. “I would have gone regardless of anyone else’s input.” He explained, shaking his head and waving Emilio off without so much as another thought. “I… Nah, I got nothing.” Elias finally decided, sucking on his teeth passively as he struggled to think of anything to ask him. Of course, he had other questions, but none of them came to mind when prompted, wasn’t that how it always went?

He took a few strides to the front door, opening it to allow Emilio passage to leave. “I appreciate you stopping by.” Elias spoke, nodding his head in thanks. It wasn’t needed, they both knew it, but it was still nice. It made Elias think of Regan, wondering how she was doing. It made his heart ache, wondering how she was dealing. She’d had the worst hand out of everyone there (not that he would admit that to any of them, they were all suffering for very different reasons). That was something she thought she belonged to, only to realize that it wasn’t right, wasn’t what she deserved. But coming to that realization came with a lifetime of pain, and fae lived a damn long time, didn’t they?

As soon as Emilio left out the door, Elias closed it gently behind the slayer, eyes downcast on the ground, his chaotic organization piles of papers that only Elias understood glaring him in the face. This wasn’t sustainable, he couldn’t keep this up and he knew it. Walking over to the kitchen table, Elias started to go through the newly printed-out papers to begin sorting through them. He’d find answers.

#Connecting Dots #threads #mortemoppetere #alcoholism tw #child death tw

6 notes · View notes