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atinymekanie · 29 days ago

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A Soul’s Burden

|| A Hunter mission goes horribly awry in a remote location, leaving Sylus to track down his love's whereabouts before it's too late... ||

|| TW & CW: Blood | Character Death | Hurt/No Comfort | Angst | Suicidal Thoughts | Suicide Attempt ||

AO3 Link

The leader of Onychinus stood at his desk, staring down at a sheet of paper with a bunch of figures, coordinates, and other information printed across it. His mind was not focused on the paper, however. A cell phone lay on the desk near the paper, silent and dark. The way it had been for hours. Sylus glanced over at the phone, the dim light from the fire in the large fireplace off to his right flickering over the dark screen. Normally it would be lighting up every so often with a message or a post or a picture, something, from her.

Sylus drew in a measured breath, turning away from the desk and pacing back over towards the fireplace, like a tiger in a cage. That was what it felt like, waiting for Mephisto to return with news of her whereabouts. All the power he had and nothing to do with it. Money could not buy an answer here, nor could physical force nor his Evol. She had said she was being sent on a mission and that she wouldn’t be able to answer the phone for a few hours. That it shouldn’t be a difficult mission, just in a remote area without much service. Even her Hunter’s watch might not work there, according to the Association’s intel.

Flames leapt and danced in the massive stone fireplace, their image reflected in his ruby eyes, turning them molten, his pupils swallowing some of the irises as they dilated in the ruddy light. Sylus clenched his fist, fingers curling and uncurling, nails pressing against his palm in a steady rhythm, the only visible betrayal of his internal turmoil. He knew that she would never tolerate him attempting to stop her from doing her job. And he didn’t want to stop her. Sylus loved how free-spirited she was, how daring and carefree she always seemed, despite the danger swirling around her. But damn, was she reckless sometimes.

Leaning forward, Sylus rested his left forearm on the mantel, then let his forehead press against the back of his arm as he closed his eyes. The warmth from the fire flared against the fabric of his silver dress shirt, the sensation almost like dragon’s breath, hot and suffocating. It did nothing to warm the cold feeling of dread in his stomach, nor did it untie the knot that was growing in his chest. She should have called by now.

Sylus was alone in the base; the twins having been sent out to gather intel on any Metaflux fluctuations in remote areas. Once the four-hour mark had passed, he had decided he couldn’t wait any longer. She had said the mission should take about two hours, three tops. Perhaps he was overreacting. Perhaps she was fine. But his instincts told him otherwise. They were connected, their souls bound in a way that only Sylus knew about, at least for now. Maybe one day, she would remember.

Emotions, too many to name, slid across the tall man’s visage, tightening the muscles in his sharp jaw and creating small lines between his dark grey eyebrows. Emotions he didn’t want to name, didn’t want to even think about, flickered in the depths of his heart. Sylus was not normally an expressive man, his words and tone always efficient. It was his eyes that betrayed his emotions, and even then, only to her. Always to her. But now those emotions were bubbling just beneath the surface – frustration, concern, helplessness, rage… fear. Not normal emotions for someone in his position as leader of Onychinus. But there they were, all the same.

A soft sound broke through the crackling of flames and the fog of emotions swirling inside the silver-haired man. Wings. Sylus turned immediately, his head lifting like a predator who sensed prey, his crimson eyes fixing on their target, his mechanical crow. The bird had flown in through the open window and settled on the desk, preening its feathers unnecessarily. An odd habit the creature had picked up from witnessing other crows do it, despite his feathers being inorganic. Seemingly in an instant, Sylus was by the desk, the crow hopping up onto his finger as the man spoke, his voice clipped and short, harsher than he normally spoke to his pet.

“Show me.” Immediately, a screen was projected from Mephisto’s eyes, a crackling image hanging in the air in front of Sylus’ face. Static flickered across the image, rendering it hard to make out. Sanguine eyes narrowed, trying to decipher what was being shown. A winding road, with dense trees on either side and the bay further off to the right. A motorcycle, the type issued by the Hunter’s Association, was parked in a small gravel area. There were no road signs, no identifying markers of any kind in the image. Dammit. A low sound of frustration, almost a growl, reverberated from his chest.

Wait. Sylus sucked in a breath; the inhalation sharp in the silence. There. In the upper left corner of the image was a tower of some kind, something mechanical, something important. Something recognizable. Anger coursed through him as he realized where she was, where she had been sent. It was a remote area of Starfall Forest, out along the coast, where just the one highway ambled along the curve of the bay. Almost no one lived out there, hence why there was almost no service. Even Mephisto hadn’t been able to transmit anything to him due to the interference from that blasted tower.

“They sent you there? Alone?” Sylus’ voice practically seethed with barely controlled ire and incredulity. He knew she was an impressive Hunter, one of the top Hunters in the city, but to send any Hunter to such a remote location alone seemed like an idiotic thing to do. Perhaps they had their reasons, but that didn’t make it an intelligent decision. Sylus was beginning to tire of how the Hunter’s Association seemed to treat the Hunters as if they were expendable. Especially when that Hunter was her.

Turning on his heel, the tall man left the room, Mephisto fluttering after him as he descended through the lower floors of the base. His stride was purposeful, just short of a jog, taking him as quickly as possible to the garage. After grabbing a set of keys, Sylus slid behind the wheel of a dark, sleek vehicle, bringing the engine roaring to life a moment later. Questions he didn’t have the answers to swirled in his mind, turning his knuckles white on the steering wheel as he maneuvered the car out of the garage.

Sylus drove with effortless precision, weaving through the streets of the N109 Zone and narrowly avoiding other vehicles. Calculating quickly, he decided on a route towards the location Mephisto had shown him and set his course. Once he had left the city behind, Sylus drove like a bat out of Hell. The phone on the seat next to him buzzed, but he ignored it, his only focus on narrowing the distance between himself and the woman he was trying to reach.

__________________________________________

The engine noise purred to a halt, the sound of gravel crunching beneath skidding tires replacing it. Still night air stirred with a faint breeze, blowing in off the bay to his right as Sylus stepped out of the car. There in front of him sat her motorcycle, resting on its kickstand, pallid moonlight dappling the seat from behind scudding clouds. He closed the car door, the soft thud’s echo lost in the dense trees to his left as he moved over to the motorcycle. Gently he dropped his palm to the seat, almost as if looking for some sense of the woman who had ridden it last.

Gazing out at the forest, Sylus tried to discern which way she might have gone, his eyes tracing over the foliage, looking for disturbances. His nostrils flared, similar to the way a wolf’s would when tracking a wounded mate, trying to suss out the familiar scent of their blood. But it wasn’t blood he was looking (or hoping) for, instead, it was the scent of cherry wine, the way she always smelled to him. Aha. Faint but unmistakable, it drifted on the wind, coming from the northwest, in the direction of that damnable tower.

Sylus set off, striding through the trees, thankful that the underbrush was scarce in this part of the forest. Less to impede the path. Following the scent, he moved as quickly as he dared in the darkness beneath the pine branches, trying to make sure he didn’t lose the trail. Eyesight wasn’t the problem, Sylus could see well in the dark - the issue was the faintness of her scent. Like it wasn’t connected to her anymore. Dread flowed through him at the thought, like a viscous liquid that stole the breath from his lungs and constricted his heart. It battled against his fervent desire to find her, the war raging inside him completely invisible on the outside, except for the tension in his shoulders and the length of his stride.

Desire was a constant in his life, not just Sylus’ own, but the desires of everyone around him. He could sense them, could see them in others’ eyes, in their movements, in the way they carried themselves. Desire lurked in every heart; skulked in every place he stepped foot. But not here. There was nothing here. No people, no desires… no nothing. The emptiness of it caused a shiver to run through his broad, muscular frame.

The scent trail wound on and on, and Sylus began to move faster the longer it continued, his stride lengthening into a jog, then to a run, his tall shape flickering through the forest like a shadow. At some point, he had realized he was also following a faint trail of disturbed forest floor detritus, presumably created by her path through the trees. Without warning, the trail became much more disturbed, earth torn and roots exposed. The trees ahead opened up onto a clearing and Sylus slowed to a halt, his eyes widening in alarm at the sight before him.

This was not a natural clearing. Trees were torn out of the ground, the tall pines tossed about like matchsticks, their trunks snapped. The sharp scent of pine resin filled the air, overpowering the faint scent Sylus had been tracking. An emotion that he wasn’t often familiar with pierced through him as his eyes roamed over the destruction before him. The only sound in the darkness was his breathing, no longer even or measured; it had become sharper, quicker, and more ragged after his run through the forest. The sight in front of him did nothing to calm his breathing, either.

Moonlight filtered down through the trees, faintly illuminating the broken branches and strewn pine needles. Crimson eyes glittered in the light as Sylus stepped forward into the clearing, his heart pounding, the thrum of it filling his ears and drowning out the sound of his own breathing. If he had thought the forest was still before, now it seemed positively frozen. No movement caught his eye, no scent but that of overpowering pine filled his nose, no sounds other than his heartbeat met his straining ears.

“Fuck.” He spit the curse word out like it tasted vile, the sound harsh and grating as it cut through the night. There was nothing. Nothing to follow. All of it was torn apart like the trees, the trail gone, the scent lost, all of it. It must have been a monster of a Wanderer, to cause such destruction. But if that was the case… Where was it? The clouds shifted again, another moonbeam dropping through the tree branches and causing something to glint in the light.

Sylus was on the item within seconds, kneeling to pick it up, examining it and turning it over in his lithe fingers. A Protocore. Fierce pride swelled inside him, almost blocking out all the other emotions for an instant. Almost. She had killed it. All alone, she had defeated a Wanderer that tore trees apart like firewood. She was his equal in every way. Curling his fingers around the Protocore, Sylus was about to stand when a sensation almost knocked him off his feet.

Desire. It was faint, but it was there. Desire for… him. Sylus’ breath caught in his throat, his whole body going still as he cast about for the source of it. It had to be her. The desire was weak and gentle in nature – not sexual, just the desire for a presence, for his presence. The sense of it permeated through him, a gentle knowing that made his heart swell and his stomach sink. She was here. She was here… And she was…

Sylus rose to his feet, turning in a circle, his eyes darting around the tortured glade, looking for any signs of her. That emotion from before flashed through him again – terror. It got the best of him, causing him to scream her name into the darkness, praying she could hear him, praying to any being in the universe that would listen, be it god, angel, demon, it didn’t matter to him at that point. For half a second the desire he felt surged, then faded. To the right.

Turning to the right, Sylus took a step forward, calling her name again, his voice strained by the panic rising inside him. He began operating on instinct alone, his mind zeroing in on the desire he felt. Slightly to the left now. The large, well-dressed man adjusted his course, stepping over branches, climbing over tree trunks, calling her name frantically each time the sense of desire began to fade. Fear and anxiety swirled through him, churning in his stomach as he picked his way through the smashed trees. He made his way through the destruction caused by the battle until he came across a huge tree trunk that had fallen askew on the far side of the clearing, held up by a small rock formation.

There, beneath it, lay the form of a woman, barely discernible in the shadows underneath the torn foliage. Sylus was beside her in an instant, his Evol flickering around him, his body dissolving into a dark red mist and reappearing next to her, the mist dissipating. She lay face down on the ground, her Hunter’s uniform torn and covered in blood and dirt. What little of it he could see, anyway.

Most of her was obscured by the tree trunk – it lay atop her body, crushing her against the ground. The only reason it hadn’t fully crushed her was due to the outcropping of rocks just a little way away, propping up the top of the tree and leaving the trunk at a slant. Her hair had fallen across her face and her left arm was outstretched, the Hunter’s watch on her wrist blinking dimly with the words “No Signal”.

Red mist swirled around the tree trunk, lifting it off the woman and hurling it away, the resulting crash barely registering in the man’s ears as he dropped to his knees in the dirt, an incoherent sound forcing its way out of his throat. Every emotion Sylus had kept at bay during his drive there, during his journey through the forest, all of them came crashing down on him, drowning his mind and heart. The sight of her broken body tore something inside him, something that couldn’t be repaired.

Trembling hands reached for her, hesitating for only a moment. Was it safe to move her? It had to be. No one else was there to help. Sylus slid his hands underneath her, lifting her as gently as he could and turning her over. The way her body moved in his arms wasn’t… right. Things shifted that shouldn’t shift, and he could feel warm blood on his hands, could feel it staining the pale silver of his shirt. The fear inside him swelled, engulfing him completely. He had known something was amiss when he felt how weak her desire was, but he had prayed he was wrong. Clearly, his prayers had not been answered. They never were. Sylus pulled the woman up into his arms, cradling her against his broad chest, his left arm supporting her head and her legs draped over his knees.

Raising his right hand, he brushed the hair away from her face with shaking fingers, revealing a cut across her temple that leaked blood into her hairline. As he did so, her eyelids fluttered, ever so slightly. The desire Sylus felt before flickered again, like a dying heart held in his palm, its beats faint and fading. The sensation of it sent him to the edge of his sanity, the feeling of her life force guttering out branded onto his soul. He choked out her name, his voice barely a whisper in the dark, his throat constricted by the horror that surged through him, thundering in his veins. A small smile turned up the corner of her mouth, recognition glimmering in her eyes at the sound of his voice.

“I’m here,” Sylus murmured, “I came.” The words were swallowed up by the forest around them, the same way his heart was being swallowed by anguish. He cupped her cheek in his large palm, turning her face towards his as he dropped his forehead down to meet hers, breathing in the scent of her. Or trying to. All he could smell was blood and pine. The metallic scent of her blood was so strong he could taste it, and for the first time in his life, it made him want to retch.

“Sy…lus…” Just two syllables, separated by a gasping breath. The two syllables that were gifted to him eons ago, in another time, another galaxy, another world. All because that version of her couldn’t pronounce his actual name. Sylus hadn’t minded. Because the name was a gift from her. Her voice, normally soft and gentle, or loud and firm, or commanding, or teasing… was barely audible now, the syllables of his name barely discernible around the blood that welled up in her throat and trickled from the corner of her lips. The torn part inside him tore even further, the sound of his name born from her failing breath ripping him open in a way Sylus couldn’t begin to comprehend.

“I’m h-ere.” His voice broke on the last word, the sound of it like whiplash as he gazed down at her limp form in his arms, the light in her eyes slowly dying. Like her.

Tears stung the backs of his eyes as a shudder ran through him, his arms tightening around her, clutching her closer to him as if by doing so he could stop her from slipping away. The sensation in his stinging, blurring eyes was unfamiliar, but it was barely background noise, unnoticed in the deathly quiet of the glade and the raging cacophony that had become Sylus’ mind.

A million things and nothing at all ran through his head. Sylus had messaged Luke and Kieran and told them where he was going, had told them to send Hunters, ambulances, anything, everything if he didn’t report back in a timely manner. He had fully expected to find her injured, but this? To find her by sensing the last desire in her mind as she lay dying on the forest floor? For that desire to have been to see him, one last time? Nothing could have prepared him for that.

Sylus watched in mute horror as the moonlight faded from her face, as the desire in her heart blinked out, like a candle snuffed by the same gentle breeze that tugged at the bloody strands of her hair. He felt that desire for him fade into nothingness as her life slipped away, the sensation etched into his heart. His grip on her tightened even further as his eyes widened, his face contorting as a sob ripped its way out of his chest. Sylus pressed his lips to hers, whispering her name as he did so, uncaring of the blood that stained his own lips in the process, trying to call her back to him. There was no answer. His large frame shook as another sob wracked him, both his arms curling around her as he bent forward over her fragile form, his lips parting in a silent scream.

Despair took him then. It stole in through his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his ears, tunneling into him, piercing through his heart in much the same way a great sword once had. This was far more excruciating, though. Half of his soul was torn asunder, ripped from him in an instant, the agony of it crushing the half of his soul that remained. It stole his breath and his sanity, devouring them. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the world to give back his breath. A void seemed to open inside him, yawning wide as it swallowed him whole.

There in the dark forest, amidst the aftermath of battle, a lone figure clutched the empty form of the woman he loved, cradling her against his chest as he rocked back and forth. The figure’s head was thrown back, silver hair shining in the wan moonlight, tears glistening on his cheeks and throat.

Shuddering sobs tore through him, each one breaking him apart as it carved its way out of his chest. The fingers of his right hand were tangled in the woman’s hair, pressing her face into the curve of his neck, her skin to his skin, as if he could somehow give her his own life force through touch and willpower alone. Sylus would have done it, too. All the power he had, all the money in the world, all the strength of his Evol, and yet he was helpless in the face of Death.

So, this was what she felt. The words echoed in his ravaged mind, battering against the destroyed remnants of his sanity. This was what he had consigned her to all those eons ago and lightyears away when he had taken his own life to spare hers. This was what she felt. No wonder she had hated him when they first met here, on this planet. This despair, this agony, this unyielding torment was unbearable. To think that he had left her like this… The way she was leaving him now… What little remained of his reason left him, pouring out of him along with blood-red mist that filled the glade, obscuring the destruction of both trees and man alike.

A tortured sound rose up through the forest, a keening wail that spoke of an anguish beyond mortal comprehension, beyond any human ability to understand. It drifted through the darkness, rising and falling with the wind, telling of a soul’s burden and a curse unbroken.

__________________________________________

A cold wind blew across the rooftop of the tallest building in the N109 Zone, lifting strands of sweat-damp silver hair from the brow of the most powerful man to exist in that criminal world. Sylus stood atop the 110th floor, staring out into the night. Emptiness consumed him, the world beneath him a dull, forgotten thing. A dark stain marred the pale fabric of his shirt and the pallid skin of his hands and face. It matched the color of his eyes, eyes red as blood. His face was ashen, the sharp lines of his jaw, his nose, his cheekbones seeming even harsher under the deep red of the moonlight.

The leather of his shoe scuffed against the cement of the wide balcony balustrade he was standing on, knocking a small pebble of concrete free. It made no further sound as it fell hundreds of feet to the ground below. Sylus dipped his head, watching it fall, his hair drifting into his face as he did so. Oh, to be like that pebble. To fall and disintegrate into nothingness, disappearing like ash on the wind.

Lifting a hand, Sylus watched as dark red tendrils swirled around his fingers. Maybe the curse would allow him to disintegrate, now that she was gone. Maybe he could be free of the terrible ache that had settled inside of him the minute he felt her soul leave this world. How far was it to the street below? Over 1,000 feet. How fast did a human fall? Thirty-two feet per second, squared, without air resistance. What was terminal velocity? One hundred and seventy-six feet per second. Sylus stared down at the ground far below, his numbed mind struggling with the math, something that would normally come easily to him.

Maybe it was better if he didn’t know. Normally when he used his Evol to descend from high places, he was able to stop himself right before he hit the ground, the red mist coalescing around himself and rematerializing his body. But what if he didn’t want to stop?

Maybe if he faced the other way. Sylus turned, placing his back towards the drop, staring out across the rooftop. She had been here once before, with him. Agony sliced through him at the thought of her, the feeling of her lifeless form weighing heavily in his arms flashing through his thoughts and searing his skin. He let it, not bothering to shove the thought away, allowing it to envelope him and drown him for a moment. Eventually, the agony diminished, leaving him empty and aching once more, a husk of what he had been.

Maybe if he counted to ten before using his Evol. That should be enough time. Sylus lifted his head, tilting it back until his face was exposed to the red moonlight above him. Tear tracks marred the skin of his cheeks, leaving them raw to the frigid wind. Without a sound, he let gravity take him, falling backward into the emptiness behind him. Better that, than the emptiness within.

One. Her face flickered before his eyes; anger written across her features as she tried to slice his face open. The wind rushed past him as he fell.

Two. She stood before him at a gala, dressed in a gorgeous evening gown, a brooch pinned to her neckline. The night sky wheeled above him as he fell.

Three. He felt her hands moving over his arm, wrapping a bandage around it, despite her overall insistence that she didn’t care for him at all. The stars twinkled in and out as he fell.

Four. Her voice drifted through his mind, calling his name from across the street, surprised to see him after a near miss. The cold air fluttered the fabric of his clothing as he fell.

Five. She smiled up at him as she handed him a small pouch embroidered with a crow, a strange shyness in her eyes. The moon stared down indifferently as he fell.

Six. He felt her lips on his as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down toward her before a fireplace. The sound of traffic grew louder as he fell.

Seven. His name echoed in his mind, the sound dripping from her lips like the blood that stained his skin. The ache in his chest ripped through him as he fell.

Eigh-- Dark red mist appeared around Sylus involuntarily, dematerializing his body just feet from the asphalt. He rematerialized a second later, his momentum arrested, his body falling the remaining distance with a heavy thud, displacing the water in a mud puddle as he landed.

Pain flashed through him at the impact, but it wasn't enough to take note of, the torment inside him rendering it negligible. Sylus opened his eyes, staring up at the night sky above him, framed by the buildings towering over him. He didn’t register the dampness from the puddle beneath him, nor the dirt that now marred his normally pristine clothes. All of it was meaningless in a world without her. Even in a world without her, his curse remained unbroken, his soul’s burden now his to bear alone. Just as it had been hers, all those eons ago.

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I wanted to explore how Sylus would cope with feeling what MC felt when he died. This is my first attempt at writing for Sylus, so please let me know your feedback!

*sets box of tissues out* Just in case ya'll need it.

(Please do keep in mind that MC does canonically revive after some time, but Sylus doesn't know that. Hence the despondency seen here. Hopefully, that eases some of the angst! lol)

Requested Tag: @seris-the-amious

#love and deepspace fic #love and deepspace #sylus #lads #sylus lads #sylus fic #sylus fanfiction #fanfiction #lads fanfiction #love and deepspace sylus #sylus qin #tw: sui attempt #tw: blood #tw: sui thoughts #tw: character death #A Souls Burden #angst #qin che

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so-long-soldier-writes · 1 year ago

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Dog Days Are Over

kai parker x reader

summary: the post-wedding heartbreak never ceases. without him, life seems to lose its meaning. but despite your best efforts to depart and chase the void that seems to call to you, somehow you're held back. someone refuses to let you go.

tags: tw: su1c1de attempt & thoughts, blood, blood drinking, vampirism / transition, heretics / siphoning, emotional hurt / comfort, light angst, heartache, anger / mild violence, slow recovery, domesticity, friendships, found family, canon divergence, loosely follows plot of seasons 7 & 8

word count: 8.2k

a/n: I'm obsessed with found family x heretics, if you can't tell. I've had this idea for months and finally was able to execute it! (and by execute, i mean write the whole thing in 10 hours & edit for 2 days)

A subtle weight rests on your body; a heaviness in your chest makes it hard to breathe. You don’t fight it. In a couple of minutes, it won’t matter anyway. The wound in your stomach bleeds, soiling your bright blue shirt with a dark red tint. Your heart rate slows, and your eyes flutter. The world around you is getting darker by the second. The end is near, and you swear you can taste it. To whether it’s heaven or hell you are headed, you don’t mind. Or maybe, it’s nothingness. A void. Either way, anything is better than here.

Your short gasps for breath begin to even out as your heart fails. Pumping no longer seems necessary, so the organ quits. It succumbs to the state that your brain has been in for weeks: numb. Cold. Dead.

A glimpse of life flashes before your wilting eyes. A figure running towards you, putting their hands on your cheek. Your lover, maybe, greeting you for an eternity of peaceful nothingness together. Your lips part in the joy of seeing him. Blood trickles from your mouth; the wound finally shutting down your body. Your eyes close and you welcome the darkness.

<•>

The next time you wake up, it’s still dark, and you automatically assume it’s the void that called you home. The Other Side collapsed over a year ago, but supernatural creatures have died since, and nobody ever knows where they go. Here, presumably. To the dark.

After a moment, your eyes begin to adjust and you move to sit up on your knees. The ground beneath you is hard and cold, like cement. It is not at all welcoming or comforting, but maybe that’s how death is supposed to feel. You shrug, not caring yet. Soon, you won’t feel anymore. Soon, you’ll enter the void, or cross the Styx, or whatever is the last necessary step of dying. Soon, you’ll be free.

You stand, then stumble. One minute, your mind and soul feel empty, but in the next, an insatiable hunger takes over your body. It knocks you back to your knees. A whine escapes your throat. Death should not feel this way. Death is supposed to be empty. Something’s wrong.

“Hello?” You call into the void, not expecting an answer.

Instead, you hear a far-off voice, talking not to you, but someone else. “She’s awake.”

Fear thumbs in your heart. You put a hand over it, only to realize after a couple seconds that it’s not beating. The hunger increases as the sound of footsteps approaches. This isn’t happening. You can’t be alive; shouldn’t be. You chose death. Wanted it. Sought it.

But someone had other plans.

<•>

“Hello?” A girl calls out, maybe to you. She waits, then pulls back a small window, letting a little light in your supposed void. “Where are you?”

“What do you want?” You ask, straining. Your voice comes out weaker than you like it to be.

“I brought you something.”

“Nora, turn on the light,” another girl says.

“Would you like a light?”

No, you think. You’d like to be dead. But… you’d also like to identify your captors. “Okay.”

An overhead light comes on a moment later. You shut your eyes tight as it floods your senses, then open it once you start to adjust.

“Too much?”

“Was there a lamp option?” You sass.

“I could find a lamp,” the second girl suggests.

“We’ll find her one in a moment,” the first turns back to you, “can you see us alright?”

Finally, you can. Two girls peek through a window, one brunette and one blonde. They seem sweet, not like the high school mean girls’ type, but you’re still cautious. “I can see you.”

“Good. We have something for you.”

The smell of blood attacks your senses. Your hunger grows.

You make two big strides to the pair, before realizing something. You weren’t a vampire before, so why should the smell of blood excite you now? You stop, shaking your head. “No.”

“You have to drink,” the blonde urges. You have to complete the transition, she doesn’t say, despite it on her mind.

“No, I wanted to die. I tried to die.” You lock eyes with the brunette. “One of you turned me.”

“Y/N, you can’t die. You-”

“How do you know my name?! Who are you?!”

“That doesn’t matter right now, what matters is that you drink.”

“No!”

“Y/N, please!” She holds the bag further out to you.

Your weak body begs for you to drink, but your mournful heart refuses. “No!” You shout again. “I’m not drinking your blood; I’m not transitioning!”

“You have to!” The blonde agrees with her friend. “You’re getting paler by the second.”

“Good. Then I’ll have lived and died a witch.”

“You’re too young to die, Y/N. You can’t give up. He wouldn’t want you to give up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Please, drink, and then we can talk.”

“No. You can’t make me.”

“I can,” she argues.

“You won’t come in here with me. With me so close to transitioning. That would be suicide.”

“Well we can’t let you die, either.”

You stand off with the two girls. They seem to communicate telepathically between themselves. It’s quite frightening to not know what they’re thinking. You stare at them, wondering who they are and why they care that you live.

“You’ll thank us later, Y/N, just drink.”

“I don’t want to live. If I wanted to, I wouldn’t have stabbed myself.��

“You won’t feel this heartbreak forever,” the blonde speaks, like a Hallmark card you didn’t ask to receive. You roll your eyes.

“I think we have to,” the first girl says, hand undoing the bag.

“I agree.”

Before you can ask about their apparent plan, they’re opening the door and swarming to you.

“Get out!” You cry. The blonde holds your left arm, while the brunette backs you up to the wall. “I don’t want it.”

“You’ll be grateful one day,” she sticks her promise to you again.

“If it’s not today, there’s no point. I can’t take this anymore.”

“Take it from someone who spent a hundred years in solitary confinement, I know loneliness. It hurts. It’s worse than a knife to the stomach,” she references your attempt. It’s still apparent on your clothes. “But life isn’t all sad. Sometimes it can be beautiful.”

“I’ve seen it beautiful,” you argue, tears forming in your eyes, “I've seen it, yet I’ll never see it again.”

“You have to trust us. Trust yourself. You can be happy again.”

“No.”

“Yes, Y/N, come on. Drink the blood.” The brunette holds the bag to your face, pinning you against the wall.

“No.” In a last ditch effort, you raise your free arm and smack the bag out of her hand. It flies, then hits the stone wall across from you and splatters. Her eyes go wide, and when she looks back at you, a triumphant look shines in your eyes.

“What did you do that for?!” The blonde shouts. “Waste a perfectly good bag!”

“It’s okay, Mary Louise, just means she’ll get a taste of the real stuff.” Before you can ask, the vampire before you is biting her wrist and shoving it between your lips. You fight, kicking and swinging, but the girls are much stronger. “Keep her still,” she nods to her friend, “just a little more.”

Your wrist starts to burn. You glance down for a second and see an orange glow emitting from the point of connection on your skin. “What-”

The brunette takes advantage of your parted lips and shoves her wrist further into your mouth. “Okay, stop,” she says, and the girl siphoning stops.

Your body is weak, but your heart feels strong. It doesn’t beat, but the blood filling your stomach powers it. The siphoning, however, tolls on your body. The girls let go of you, watch you daze, then gently help your body to the floor. You’re out like a light, asleep.

<•>

You’re much stronger the second time awake. Stronger, with a vengeance. First, you need to find out who those girls were, how they were able to siphon you, and why they wanted to keep you alive. Then, you need to find the nearest piece of wood and send your soul to the void like you had planned.

You look around, searching for anything sharp and anything wooden. You realize now that you’re in a cellar with absolutely nothing that could be used as a weapon, and the only thing in there with you is another blood bag. Angrily, you kick it and it splatters. The smell reaches your nose and you curse yourself for wasting it, now hungry. On the bright side, the violent act seems to let your captors know you’re awake. They walk gingerly down the stairs only a moment later, then switch on a lamp before opening the window.

“Y/N?” The brunette starts, tone cautious.

Your reply is bitter. “What?”

“I’m sorry we had to hold you down. We didn’t want it to come to that.”

“But you had to drink. We couldn’t let you die.”

“What do you care? And who are you?” Then, “and why could you siphon me?”

“If we let you out, will you run?”

“We can’t let her out, Mary. I don’t trust she won’t hurt herself.” You scoff. She turns back to you. “I’m Nora, this is Mary Louise.”

“And? How do you know me?”

“Well, we don’t, but we recognized you from pictures.”

“Pictures? What pictures?”

The girls hesitate. A name rests on their tongues, but they don’t utter it. Unbeknownst to you, they fear saying it out loud will drive you mad. Names have power, and in this case, a lot of it.

“Doesn’t matter right now,” the brunette, Nora, says instead. “What matters is that you get better.”

You laugh dryly. “I would’ve been better off dead.”

Mary Louise seems to get agitated at that. “Stop saying that! You have to live! He’d-”

“Mary, don’t say anything.” The girl quiets immediately.

“Why do you care so much if I live? Who’s he? Where am I?”

“Technically, you’re in the Salvatore house. The basement. We’d give you a room if we could trust you, but it’s too great a risk that you’d hurt yourself still.”

“Why the boarding house? Where’s Damon? Stefan? Do they know I’m here?”

The girls share glances but confess nothing. “You’re safe here. We are not going to hurt you.”

“That’s what people often say before hurting said captive.”

“You’re at more risk by your own hand than ours,” Mary retorts. “You stabbed yourself in an alley behind a dumpster. You’re lucky Nora and I sensed the blood.”

“Luck is not the term I’d use. If you couldn’t tell, I did it on purpose.”

They sigh as if they knew it was on purpose, but for some reason they’re not telling you, they still felt the need to save you.

You ask again, “why did you turn me? Why not just let me die?”

Nora hands you a new blood bag. “Drink this.”

Rolling your eyes more, you refuse. “No.”

“Drink, and we’ll give you answers.”

“C’mon, you’ve already transitioned,” Mary argues, “you might as well not dessicate.”

You know she’s right. Angrily, you snatch the bag and drink it down quickly. When you toss the bag back at Nora, she sighs.

“You’re a friend of a friend of ours,” she says vaguely. “He would want you to live. He’d want you to live your life and die naturally, rather than die young and heartbroken.”

“That ‘naturally’ part is no longer happening-”

“-which is not our fault,” Mary snaps, interrupting you.

“Mary,” the other calms, “patience. Yes, when you die, it will no longer be natural, but at least as a vampire, you have a shot at life again. In a sense, maybe, it’s a gift. You can leave if you want to leave. You can go where you want. You’re not bound by human laws or rules. You can be free.”

“I don’t want to be free. I don’t want anything if I can’t-” you stop yourself. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know. But someday, you’ll realize life is worth living, and you’ll be glad that you got a second chance. Take it from someone - both of us - who were given one.”

“Easy for you to say, you have each other. I have no one.”

“Maybe we can be someone for you, if you trust us.”

“Yeah, not likely.”

“Give it time, Y/N. We’ll bring you another bag later.”

As she shuts the window, you shout. “You didn’t even answer all my questions!” But they’re gone. The lamp remains on, but you’re left to your thoughts, alone.

<•>

The same cycle repeats for days. Weeks, even. The longer the mystery girls keep you locked up, the angrier you get. They arrive, open the window, practically force you a bag, spew bullshit about how you’ll get better, then leave. Two, sometimes three times a day. No one else ever visits, although one time, they had a third girl - Valerie - join them. She didn’t talk much, but she sure did seem to study you.

That day, after realizing there were more people in the house than just the two of them, you grow restless. Your mind is understimulated and bored. Your heart is broken and sore. You haven’t seen daylight in god knows how long. The next time Nora and Mary Louise come down, you’re ready to pick a fight.

You drink the bag without complaints, then send it flying back through the barred window along with a string of shouts and cuss words. They’ve given you the bare minimum of information, despite promising an explanation, and saving you from death just to lock you in a cellar seems cruel and unfair. They want you to live, yet treat you like a wild animal. They swear they’re protecting you, but you can’t see them as anything but kidnappers.

Nora remains calm throughout your rants, though Mary Louise looks on the verge of tears. It hurts, a little, to see her so upset, but if she could feel the agony you feel day-after-day, maybe she’d understand your pain.

After every last word on your mind is spat out to the girls, Nora gives you a look that you hate. It reads that she sympathizes; she cares, in her own way, but she keeps you confined for your own good. You hate to admit it, but she’s right. If they had even given you a pillow, you’d find a way to hurt yourself. Even if you kill yourself daily just to be unconscious most of the time. Still, you scream at them. How you didn’t ask to live; how you were ready to die; how you can’t live without him, and he’s gone. You think Nora doesn’t understand, but she does. They both do.

She doesn’t tell you she does until you settle. And when you do, she finally tells you all of it.

<•>

“Your silencing spells are weakening with her anger. She’s literally breaking them down, there’s so much pain in her screams,” Valerie tells the girls. “You better get her under control quickly, or Lily will have something to say about it.”

“She’s just facing the worst part of her transition. All the pain is hitting her at once, coupled with the fact that her lover is dead. Give her a break.”

“You shouldn’t have turned her at all, Nora.”

“Well I couldn’t very well let Kai’s girlfriend kill herself out of heartbreak. We owe it to him to save her.”

“Some people don’t want to be saved.”

“She doesn’t want to die,” Nora counters, “she just doesn’t want to live without him.”

“And now she’ll live forever without him.”

“I’m going to help her find happiness in this life. Even if he’s not here, she needs to know life is worth it to hold on and find something that makes you happy again.”

“A heartbroken vampire in love with a murdered sociopath can be a very dangerous thing.”

“So can a previously dessicated heretic still in love with her ex-lover from the eighteen hundreds,” Nora sasses. “She’ll be okay, she just needs time.”

“I bet Mary Louise won’t like you devoting so much time to a girl that’s not her.”

Mary enters the conversation from the kitchen. She leans against the doorframe, a small smirk on her lips. “Mary quite likes the girl, actually. She’s grateful to Kai for feeding us and busting us out of that god-awful prison world, and she knows how much Y/N meant to him. And, she likes seeing her girlfriend put so much effort into healing someone else’s broken heart.”

Valerie rolls her eyes, defeated. “Whatever. Just put up new silencing spells, because the neighbors will start to complain.”

<•>

That afternoon, the girls visit you and prepare themselves for a new string of cuss words. The modern day tongue seems to have many at the ready, and the pair are always surprised to hear the variations you spew at them. Although, when they open the window this time, they’re shocked to find you sitting criss-cross, in the middle of the floor, sobbing heavily. Your hands cover your face, and you seem to neglect to notice their presence. Nora’s heart breaks. In the moment, you remind her of Alice in Wonderland in her sea of tears. She recalls reading that book over a century ago and relating to lost little Alice. Now, she’s transported back in time as she looks at you.

“Y/N?” She asks cautiously. You look up, glance at her, but then dart your eyes back to the ground. “Are you okay?”

“How is life supposed to get better? How do I live after all this tragedy? Where do I go from here?”

“That’s something we’d like to help you find out, if you’d let us.”

“That’s why we turned you,” Mary adds, “so that you could find it, and have friends along the way. We want to help you.”

You raise your head back up to them. “I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough for it.”

“You are perfectly capable of living a life you can be proud of. You just need a little push to get there.”

“And how am I supposed to get there, living in here? In this cellar?”

“This is only temporary. This is for your safety, until you find it in yourself to want to live. ‘Til the desire to hurt yourself is gone, okay?”

“We have another bag for you,” Mary says, tossing it to you.

You drink it unquestioningly, and they prepare for the shouting. This time, however, it never comes. You only nod to the girls, then lie on your back and continue to cry.

<•>

A month after your transition, you finally settle. Most of the anger and tears have subsided, and the boundary and silencing spells hold without wavering. Nora and Mary Louise want nothing more than to tell you their full story, and they think you’re finally ready to hear it.

For the first time ever, you smile at them. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Nora says calmly. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I want to die,” you blurt out, but then sigh. “But okay. A bit numb.”

“You haven’t turned off your humanity, have you?” Mary jokes lightly.

“And be even more bored out of my skull? No.”

“Good. Bag?”

You shrug.

“Can we come in?”

Your eyes narrow at Nora’s request. The question is new to you. Usually, they stay beyond the cellar door. The last time they had come in with you, she force fed you her blood. But despite that memory, you don’t feel threatened by the girls anymore. They give you a strange sense of peace, like you could trust them, for reasons you don’t understand. “Sure,” you reply.

They join you on the ground, the three of you all sitting criss-crossed. Mary hands you the bag, which you accept and drink quietly.

“Y/N…” Nora starts, “we know you have a lot of questions. And while we didn’t want to give you any responses before, we think you’re ready to hear some answers now.”

You pause sipping your bag. “Really?”

“Well the hard part of your transition is over,” Mary says, “we’d really like you to trust us, and we’d like to have trust in you, too, so that we can let you out. But in order for that to happen, we have to know you’ll be safe in the world. No pointy objects, no wood.”

You turn to Nora. “Is that one of the questions you’ll answer? The real reason you want me alive?”

“It is.”

You nod. “I’m listening. And I promise, I’m okay right now. I’m not going to hurt you, or myself, unless I have reason. Truth be told, I don’t really have the mental strength for it.”

Nora nods, too, then, “why?”

“What?”

“Why is it that you don’t have the strength? What’s plaguing you? Why did you attempt to take your own life?”

“I…” your eyes already start to water again, “I can’t live without him. I don’t want to live without him.”

“And who is him?”

“I- I can’t say.”

“Can’t say because you fear our judgment, or can’t say his name out loud?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Might I say it, then?”

“I guess. If you know…”

“Y/N… we know it’s Kai. And we know because his… passing affects us, too.” Hearing his name out loud shatters your heart, but Nora saying she knew him catches your attention. You tilt your head at her. “The reason we were able to siphon you earlier is because we’re like him. We’re heretics.” You straighten. “We were trapped in the 1903 prison world. Kai fed us and let us out. We owe our survival to him.”

“He became a brother to us,” Mary adds, “was a brother to us. We’re all of the same family, with the same rejected gene, although a century apart. Besides each other, we’ve never had anyone understand us, and aside from Lily, no one’s ever cared to listen.”

“But how do you know me? You know,” your voice wavers, his name coming off your tongue weakly, “Kai. How do you know me?”

“Because, silly, he loved you,” Nora rolls her eyes gently, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Mary nods. “Once he knew we were trustworthy, he talked to us nonstop. Some of it was about the modern world or his own past, but he mostly talked about you. He had the strangest device, a phone, he called it, and would look at pictures of you until it died, and after that, he had one in his wallet.”

“And he’d tell stories. How kind you always were, how he came to trust you, and how you had started a relationship together.”

“The longer he spent there, the more worked up he was getting. He told us about 1994 and what had happened, and that he’d spent eighteen years in another prison world, just to end up in a colder, darker one. I think that’s where the wedding went wrong.”

You agree. “He told me his biggest fear was getting sent to one of those again. Being alone.”

“Not only being alone, but being without you,” Nora says. “We were there, but he still needed you.”

“And although we kept him company, it wasn’t the same.”

“Valerie didn’t help much,” Nora mutters.

“Valerie… the other one? Upstairs?”

“She didn’t approve of his crime to get locked in 1994. She seemed to have forgotten her own childhood, judging his like that. We all grew up similarly. Told we were abominations and cast away.”

You’re about to make a comment on that, but Mary beats you to speaking first,

“You didn’t flinch when I siphoned you.”

“Yeah, um,” you smile, a memory surfacing, “I used to let Kai siphon whenever he wanted.”

“It didn’t hurt?”

“I liked it.” You shrug. “Hurt a little, sometimes. Like a burn, but… I liked the feeling.”

“You say ‘whenever he wanted,’ so like, not only for spells?”

“Sometimes he just wanted to feel magic in his blood. I didn’t use my magic a lot, and knew he had been deprived of it, so regardless if he was performing a spell or not, yes, I’d let him siphon.”

“So…” Nora starts, “you said you didn’t use your magic a lot?”

“Not really.”

“So you won’t be too upset at losing it now that you’re a vampire?”

You give her a playful glare. “I’ll miss it, but I can live without it.” Her face lights up at your choice of words. “What?”

“‘You can live without it’. That’s exactly what I want to hear from you; that you know you can live, despite the tragedy, just like you said you fear.”

“Nora-”

“Sh, sh, sh, let me relish this moment.” Mary giggles at her girlfriend. “You want to fight the war inside your mind. You want to live.”

“I wanted to live with Kai,” you remind. “Alone…”

“You won’t be alone. We know what it’s like to be lonely. We won’t let you feel that way.”

“I just… it’s going to take some time for me to heal. I can’t promise it’ll be easy.”

“We’ve got your back, Y/N. Kai would have wanted you to live. We want that for you, too.”

You nod, still a bit unsure, but now aware that these girls aren’t going to let you out of their sight, so you might as well comply. “Can I stay here, then?”

“In the cellar or upstairs?”

“I don’t know.”

Mary rolls her eyes playfully. “C’mon, we have a room ready for you.”

<•>

Adjusting to your new life is hard. Living without Kai is hard. Living with the heretics, though, is surprisingly easy. They’ve taken you in as one of their own, filling in the void that Kai left, and treating you like family. Valerie is a little weary around you, perhaps wondering how you could love the man that killed his entire family, but Nora and Mary Louise don’t ever let her get far. She, too, deep down, is grateful for the escape that your lover brought them; she doesn’t let her disapproval of his crimes cloud that too much.

Beau is more similar to Valerie than the girls. He’s older than them and Kai, and has never been one to seek revenge, as told to you by Valerie. While Kai had a penchant for violence, and Nora had a heart craving retribution, the other heretics were much more level-headed. They wanted to distance themselves from their family more so than to make them pay. And although Mary Louise was one of these, she strongly supported her girlfriend’s needs, understanding how their coven’s treatment could make them turn cold.

Once awoken in 1903, Nora quickly admires Kai for his actions. Granted, he may have not gone about his revenge in the best way, but he refused to let his father win, and won himself. Nora wasn’t a twin, just a sibling in her particular line, but she had suffered as much isolation as Kai did. For him to break free from his father’s prison world, then complete the merge he was denied and become their leader, it didn’t take much convincing to get her involved in the break-free from 1903 plan. Mary, again, went along with her girlfriend. She was passive but had a similar childhood, and couldn’t help but see Kai as the brother she always wanted. She had one, but wasn’t allowed to speak to him, and so when Kai spoke nonstop to her, she felt adored by him. And it’s true, Kai loved them all like family, because they were.

Despite knowing most of the heretics, you never meet Malcomb, who was killed by Damon while you were still transitioning. Nor have you met Oscar, who is out running vague errands for Lily. Though you remain in the boarding house with the four until tensions start to rise between Lily and her sons.

Lily, rarely at the house, is nonetheless welcoming to you. She offers you a simple condolence when you thank her for giving Kai her blood. She says she wishes things turned out better, and regrets not being able to save his life. In a way, you tell her, she did, but that Damon took him away from both of you. All of you, rather, as Nora strokes your hair as you speak.

The warming party between Mystic Falls’ residents and the heretics is the day your new status as a vampire is revealed. The wistful shock in Damon’s eyes and the concerned delight in Bonnie’s is something you’ll never forget, although by this time, you’re too disheartened by either of them to address it. When Mary Louise whisks you away with a bottle of bourbon, you don’t fight. Enzo sends Bonnie a confused glance that you miss, but neither comment.

<•>

A lot happens in a short time following that night. Jo’s twins are confirmed to be alive with Caroline carrying them, something about which you’re still unsure. Valerie had a rendezvous with Stefan a century ago, and Julian’s confirmed a monster when his atrocious response slips from between her lips. For a moment, Mary Louise is hesitant to trust her, and Nora finds solace with Bonnie, but you, now permanently bonded to the two youngest heretics, pull them back together. Oscar is lost along the way, caught by the Salvatores who had just put down their own mother. Four funerals are held in a mere couple of months: Kai, Malcomb, Oscar, and Lily. One month after that, a fifth is held for Beau.

Caroline’s twins - well, Jo’s, ish - are born, with the help of the heretics. You watch from a distance, concerned way more for Caroline birthing two refusing siphons from her vampire womb, than for the twins themselves. In the end, only Beau is the one to not make it out. A previously estranged vampire hunter released from Alaric’s armory interrupts the introduction of life with a promise of death. Bonnie was the one to let her out, it’s revealed, so it’s only fair that she’s the one to get tangled in the mess and take her down. After that, Enzo and Damon are captured by sirens and made to perform the dirty work of the two ancient beings. Bonnie’s trapped in the middle of it, as is Caroline, and incidentally, as is everyone else in the town. Eventually, what’s left of the old Mystic Falls’ gang manages to rid themselves of the sirens, only to be faced with Cade, the Devil himself.

Though most of these details are blurry to you. Parts of the story are missing, like holes in a blanket. You’ve kept up with the general plot, but lost a lot of the story’s structure along the way.

That’s because seven years ago, right after the twins’ birth and Beau’s funeral, the heretics ran. Valerie escaped to Europe, and you, Nora, and Mary Louise headed south. You didn’t want to get mixed up in the turmoil, especially not with Rayna Cruz, then a vengeful Bonnie, on the loose, so the three of you disappeared with barely a trace. You’re still in contact with Caroline, and Valerie remembers to charge and connect her phone, she still talks to Nora and Mary Louise, but for the most part, you’re set far apart from your old life.

And surprisingly, you’re happy.

Life in the boarding house with the heretics was easy. Living with Nora and Mary Louise is even easier. You’ve taught them to adapt to the modern age, despite their unfamiliarity, but as it turns out, they blend in quite well. You have a thing for take-out; the girls love catching up on all the movies they’ve missed, so many nights are spent as movie nights, eating large amounts of take-out and binging movies all night. Of course, you also rotate cooking. Mary’s the worst. Nora’s the best. You’re in the middle, no talent of your own, for it’s Kai that taught you all you know about it.

Speaking of Kai… over time, you’ve been able to talk more about him. You open up your relationship to the heretics, sharing stories you’ve never told anyone, telling them things that most might consider TMI, but by this point in your friendship, there’s no such thing as secrets. They love it. They love laughing at the funny parts, and crying over sadder ones. They share memories and tragedies from their own pasts, sometimes relating to Kai, but sometimes, also, relating to you.

You share blankets on the couch and straws with drinks. You braid each other’s hair and rotate chores. You dance together in the kitchen, singing along to music both old and modern, with no neighbors to hear how undeniably loud you are. You’re happy.

<•>

It’s been a while since you’ve heard from Caroline, but when you finally do, she sends you a cryptic message that immediately pulls you to your feet.

Caroline: I need a favor. Call me when you get a chance.

Your eyes narrow at the text. Rarely does Caroline text with such seriousness, especially with such a long period of not speaking.

“What is it?” Nora asks, seeing tension on your face.

“Caroline… asking for a favor.”

“You don’t have to go back to Mystic Falls, do you? It’s dangerous there,” Mary worries. Talk of the Devil filled the last phone call you’ve had with the other blonde. Specifically, Kelly Donovan returned for one more dramatic entrance, a bell was rung, and the Devil got out. A second protection spell was put around the house, just in case, after that news.

“I’m not sure. One moment.” You dial her number, and only wait a second before she picks up. “Caroline?”

“Y/N? Hi.”

“Hi. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Kind of. I need you to come back to Mystic Falls as soon as possible.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s… it’s about the twins.”

You shoot the girls an anxious glance as they overhear the call.

“Is everything okay with them?”

Caroline hesitates. “How soon can you get here?”

“Caroline? Are they okay?”

“Y/N-”

“Overnight. I’ll be there by morning.”

“Okay. Come to the armory.”

You pack a quick bag and hug your friends, then leave immediately.

“Be careful,” they wish you. “Let us know if you need help.”

“I will. I’ll be back shortly.”

<•>

You burst into the armory quite loudly, calling for Caroline. She races to your side a moment later, a finger over her lips.

“What’s wrong? Where’s the twins?”

“The twins are fine. They’re-”

“What?! Caroline, what the fuck?! I drove all night. I-”

“Come with me. Please. And be quiet.”

Still worried, but now a little pissed, you follow her down the narrow, dark hallway to the cells. You’re about to ask more questions, but then you notice a person occupying one of the rooms. “Who-?”

She spins you around by the shoulders, forcing you to look at her. “Take him and go. Wherever you are with the heretics, bring him with you. I can’t let him hurt my girls, but if he’s with you, he’ll stay away from them.”

“Caroline, what-”

“Cade is looking for him, and Stefan and Damon want to send him back in exchange for Elena’s coffin, but I know how much he means to you and if I were in your shoes, I’d intervene, too. Hell, I’ve spent the last three days compelling Stefan’s victims that they’ve been seeing things. We’ve all done questionable things for the people we love, and so I’m telling you to do the same. Get him out of Mystic Falls, now.”

When you turn the corner, Kai Parker is on the other side of the glass. His hand is raised as he siphons the magic from the walls.

“Caroline, will-” he pauses, noticing you. “Y/N?”

Your breath hitches in your throat. “Kai?” You turn to Caroline, searching for answers.

“He escaped when the Maxwell bell rang.”

“That bell rang days ago, you said. He’s been here ever since?”

“Damon told me you were dead,” Kai says. The glass begins to crack under his hand.

“We don’t have time for this,” Caroline interrupts hurriedly, “Y/N, you need to go.” She waves in Kai’s direction. “Break the glass, make it look like you’ve escaped, and get out of here. Just don’t think about coming after my kids, or I’ll make you regret it.”

Kai sets his jaw, then shatters the glass. Caroline blocks the both of you from the shards, and in the next moment, you’re standing face to face with the man you’ve missed for years.

“Hi, princess,” he greets.

You waste no time jumping into his arms, legs around his waist, burying your face in his neck. You cling to him tightly, wrapped in an embrace, until he sets you down gently.

“Caroline,” you start, “thank you.”

She smiles sweetly. “I love you. Now, go!”

“I love you, too. I’ll call you when everything settles.”

“You better.”

You take Kai’s hand and drag him out of the armory. A series of turns leads you to a side exit; an emergency door, but with the sirens already blaring overhead, you’re not worried about it.

“Y/N,” he pauses the moment you get outside.

“My car’s over here, c’mon.”

He doesn’t budge. “But-”

“Kai!”

“You’re a vampire,” he says, clearly confused. “What happened? When’d you turn?”

“What? You don’t think I could look this young seven years later?” You joke, tugging more.

“No! I didn’t mean that-”

“I…” your grip weakens with the look he gives you. “Can we please get in the car? Alaric’s going to notice you’re gone, and-”

“When? When did you turn?”

“After you died,” you confess, face falling to the ground. You can’t look at him; can’t stand to see the sadness on your face.

“How? Did Damon-?”

“No, Damon didn’t do it. I… I couldn’t live without you. It was too hard. I didn’t want to. I tried… someone had other plans.”

“Princess…” his voice trails off as he realizes what you mean. Strong arms reach for yours to pull you into his chest. “You didn’t… oh. Oh my god.” He tilts your head up to face him, but you avoid his eyes. “Who turned you? Dam-”

“Again, not Damon. I, um, can we go? Ric’s gonna come any second, and-”

“Who turned you, Y/N?”

“Nora.”

“Nora? From-”

“1903? Yeah. “

“Is she-? Are the heretics-?” Kai’s interrupted by shouting coming from the armory. You grab his hand once more and drag him to your car. He climbs in the passenger seat without question, and you speed out of Mystic Falls as fast as you can.

Not until you’re fifteen minutes from the armory, do you finally answer the questions swarming his head. You lower your speed to follow the limit, then take a deep breath.

“Nora,” he beats you to it.

“I killed myself,” you confess, “attempted, I guess. She found me, fed me her blood right before I died. She and Mary Louise took me to the boarding house, where they had been staying.”

“Both of them?”

You nod. “I wasn’t an easy project. First I refused to transition, then I refused bags. She had to pin me to the wall to get me to drink; I still fought, and Mary had to siphon me to weaken me enough that Nora could complete the transition. After that, I’d scream and cuss at them for keeping me alive. Nora would give me this cold stare, and Mary would cry, but neither gave up on me. Then, I flipped a complete one-eighty and cried for weeks. Nora said I resembled Alice in Wonderland in her sea of tears.” You chuckle now, but Kai has a feeling you weren’t laughing then. He sure isn’t laughing at all as you retell the story. “But finally, after about a month, I settled. I realized I couldn’t die, and they wouldn’t let me die, and I had to figure out how to live, now, as a vampire. I let them give me bags without a fight, and with time, talked to them.”

“Why did they save you, do you know?”

“That’s something I begged them to tell me for weeks, but they refused to say until I was ready to hear it. They loved you,” you say, stealing a glimpse at him, “like a hero, like a brother. They loved you, and heard so many stories in the prison world about how you loved me, and when Nora found me in the alley, she knew she had to save me because you would’ve wanted me to live. She did it for you. She didn’t want me - your girl - to die ‘young and heartbroken’.” You sniffle, tears forming. “She wanted me to learn to live a life I could be proud of, and she wanted to honor her admiration for you by keeping me here.”

It’s a lot for Kai to take in; he’s quiet for a few minutes. As he thinks, though, his hand creeps towards yours and takes a hold of it. He squeezes gently, then kisses your knuckles.

“The heretics,” he says, “where are they now?”

“Val’s in Europe, traveling. She didn’t want to be near Mystic Falls; turns out she has history with Stefan. Damon and Bonnie killed Malcomb before I could meet him, and Damon and Stefan killed Oscar, also before I met him. Beau was killed by an ancient hunter, whilst protecting the twins after Caroline gave birth to them, and-”

“Mary Louise and Nora?”

“I live with them.”

“What?”

“We have a little house on the border. Just out of Virginia, but barely considered North Carolina. They’re still together; had some bumps in their relationship, but they’re happy now.”

“And you, are you happy?”

“It took me a long time, but I found happiness within myself and from them. So I would consider myself happy, I guess. As weird as it is to say.”

“And me… if I were to join you, would you still be happy, after all these years?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve learned to live without me. You’ve found your place in this world, and friends. You’ve built a life for yourself.”

Slowly, you pull over to give him your full attention. Kai watches carefully, curious at what you’ll say. “Not a day has gone by that I haven’t missed you. I think about you every day. I miss the feeling of holding your hand, and hugging you. Kissing you. Hell, I miss the feeling of you siphoning me. No matter how happy I’ve become, there’s always been a piece of me missing. I figured it would always be missing, but as I sit here and look at you, I realize it’s not anymore. I love you, Kai, and I want you in my life, with me. I always have. I’ve learned to live without you, yes, and I’ve found people and things within myself that contribute to my happiness, but I will never be as good as when I’m with you.”

“Y/N…”

“And if your next question is about Nora and Mary, just know that they adore you way more than you might ever know. Nora admires you, and to Mary, you’re the brother she never got to know. They saved my life because they were mourning you, and knew I was, too. We all saved each other, in a way, and we’re all brought together because of you.”

It takes another minute of focused staring to process your words. You follow his line of sight to the steering wheel, but the moment you catch his eye, he stutters a response. “I-I love you. I’ve missed you, too, every day, and the thought of you is what kept me strong when I was in Hell. I need you.”

“You have me.”

“I won’t be easy, either. I can’t promise I won’t have nightmares from all the shit that happened there, but I promise I won’t ever leave you again.”

“I’ll help you through them. It’ll be okay.”

“You sure you want me in your life?”

“I need you just as much as you say you need me. Don’t ever doubt that.”

He nods. “Take me home, then.” He smiles. “Wait, after a kiss first.” Kai moves towards you as you turn twice, once to the wheel, then back to him, and takes your face in his hands. He kisses you with a passion equally sweet and rough, fingers grazing your skin and tangling in your hair. Your own hands find his shoulders, pulling him closer. After a moment, he pulls back, needing to catch his breath after such a long time of not kissing you. “Good? You need any more convincing to keep me around?”

“Shut up,” you joke, lighting hitting his chest. “Convincing? No. But I am gonna need you to make up later for seven years apart.”

“Well that I can certainly do.”

<•>

Four hours later, you pull into the long driveway that is your home. It’s nestled peacefully in the woods, away from most people, yet not so much that anyone will assume it’s abandoned. It’s cute and dainty, with colored tulips in beds in the front, and a red wreath hanging on the door, all compliments of Mary Louise. A bowl of food and water rests on the porch, to which Kai makes a face, and you explain that Nora’s been feeding the stray cats. You, on the other hand, are responsible for the hammock on the wrap-around porch. It provides a perfect spot for reading, or, more often, a place to daydream what life would be like if Kai never left.

Just like this, you’d think, but he’d be beside you, softly kissing your neck.

You don’t knock before entering. However, Kai bumps into the doorway, and you let out a quiet giggle at his confused expression.

“Nora?” You call into the home. “I need you to let somebody in.”

The door is open wide enough that Kai can see into the house, but he can’t see the stairs. Nora trots down the stairs a moment later, asking to whom you could be referring before she sees him for herself.

“Just a friend Caroline wanted me to pick up. Kinda like a stray puppy, actually.”

Mary giggles, half-expecting an actual puppy. But then when Nora comes to the door and her heart begins to race, her girlfriend gets worried. “Nora?” She hurries to stand beside her. “Oh!”

“Kai?” Nora asks gently. It looks like him, but she can never be too sure. She looks to you for confirmation.

You nod. “It’s him.”

“Hi,” he greets, signature smile confirming his own identity.

“Kai,” she says, tone full of relief. She rushes into his arms for a hug he didn’t expect. Nevertheless, he hugs her back just as tightly as she holds him. “Come in,” she invites as soon as letting him go.

Mary gawks as he crosses the threshold. “Can I-?”

He opens his arms again for her to hug him, and the two share their own embrace.

“What happened?” Nora starts, “how’d you-? Where-?”

“As I told Damon, then Caroline told Y/N, I jumped out when the Maxwell bell was rung. Damon tried to keep me hidden from Y/N, but Caroline had other plans. She let Y/N take me as long as I didn’t hurt the twins, to which I’m happy to let those little Gemini gremlins go if it means being with her.”

“And Cade?”

“Caroline called on the way; Cade’s dead. And Kai ate on the way, so he’s feeling better.”

“Earlier I felt like I could still be slipping back into Hell, but Cade’s grip on me weakened, and her blood gave me strength, so I won and got my footing back on Earth. I am officially a live-dead man once again.”

Mary chuckles, but Nora’s attention catches on a word. “Her?” You glance at the ground, a blush rising to your cheeks. Nora smiles. “Not twelve hours, and the lovebirds are sharing blood.”

“Match made in Heaven,” Mary laughs more.

“Completely inseparable,” Nora agrees. “Well, Kai, I hope you’ve made plans to stay, because now that you’re back, we’re never letting you out of our sight again.”

“You want me to stay?”

Nora had turned, but now she whips back around to face him. “What? Of course. Did you and Y/N-”

“We talked in the car! I thought you were okay with staying.”

“But Nora’s the owner of the house, I have to ask her, too!”

“Of course you’re staying, dork!” She’d learned that word the last couple years and always said it fits Kai; now she gets to use it on him. “Now pull up a chair. I know you’re the cook around here, but I made dinner, and it’s pretty good!”

The four of you take to the table where Nora pours bowls of soup. You settle around the chairs like a family separated for too long, but finally joined back together, never to be apart again, and it’s good. Your hands connected with Kai’s underneath the table, and he squeezes. Across from you, the girls’ own hands are held in each other’s. The joy and laughter around the table is something you want to be a part of forever.

#malachai parker x reader #kai parker x reader #tvd fanfiction #tw: sui attempt #light bit of angst #angst with a happy ending #heretic kai parker

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