deja vu

[gianna-foxwood]

I don't doubt that in the slightest, every one of us has a scar or two from the coven and how it was operated. It is... strange, looking back and seeing where we came from, but the life we have right now is turning out beautiful despite the setbacks. Your father's time is coming soon, and then the two of you will be free to live the life you truly want, free and in the open.

It takes a lot to move away from that mentality, Robin. I know the feeling well, and the fact that you're trusting my word is a big step. I wouldn't have suggested it if I believed helping with the issue was an inconvenience. Normally, I would have my brother assist with warding the mind, but since he's busy, perhaps we can get Cael involved. If that doesn't work, I'll consult my grimoires. We'll find a way to get him out, I promise.

[robinxellis]

Given the choice between growing up with the coven and being stuck doing grunt work in my vampire mafia family, I've no idea which I would choose. Not saying my life with just Valentin was never blissful, but we're both extroverts thriving on company. His time can't come soon enough, Mama Gi, I'm through living this nightmare.

Thus far, you haven't given me a reason to not trust you. You invited us here in our hour of need when we needed the protection, I wouldn't place Valentin's safety in the hands of just anyone. Grumpy Junior probably knows by now what happened to daddy dearest given how quick word travels, so I won't turn down his help. Now you won't grow bored under lockdown.

[valentin-kuznetsov]

Val shrugged lightly as he leaned back, propping an arm behind the dhampir. "Now you do have me curious to see if I can make you blush with just words alone." He gave Robin a lopsided grin, his hand moving to thread through his hair lightly, "I know I could always just stare, but if I don't have a book to focus on, I would get distracted really quick with other things."

[robinxellis]

Robin reached over and plucked the book Valentin was previously reading from his lap and flipped through a handful of pages, gaze catching a few sentences as he flickered, "You could insult me and I would still blush, it's not difficult." He slightly leaned into the wolf's touch while his own mind wandered, clearly understanding one reason for a distraction, but one he wouldn't think himself. "What kind of other things, Kuznetsov?" Instead, Robin intentionally allowed his fangs to poke through, raising his upper lip so they were on full display. "I'm actually feeling a little hungry." The tip of his tongue traced the pointy tip of his fangs before he retracted them, "Oh, guess I wasn't as starved as I thought. Shame."

[kaniel-thebutcher]

As much as it disgusts me to admit, I also don't hate my brother. He's just the biggest walking twat to ever exist and is annoying.

Smart dhampir. I don't know how you can flip or reverse a second without magic, but sure. Oh, so you're staying in the big green castle now? Old Ramsie is the one and only twat I call a brother. Sterling works very fast, and he may or may not have been egged on by my sister and me just to get on Ram's nerves. Sterling agreed since he has a thing for Ram's daughter, and the fact that Ramiel tried to kill him and all.

[robinxellis]

I can see how difficult it was for you to admit that to me, buddy, we're getting somewhere.

It's a song reference that very few would appreciate the humor in, tiger, but I am indeed staying at what we have all ordained Castle Envy. Simping simp to ever simp assassin Ramiel is your brother? Knowing what I know now about you and definitely another of Rammy's siblings, my brother doesn't need much egging on to be the little shit. I just can't believe this recent thing for Ram's daughter causes my man this much chaos. Sterling's chaotic, so he's obviously enjoying it.

[gianna-foxwood]

Oh, it's very sad. It was not a great childhood– really, it wasn't good until I sold my soul to Envy, and then by that point, it was only marginally better, since it was very rocky. The only good thing about that is my brothers. Just like you found your own happiness in Valentin.

I know that there are countless what-ifs, but if we allow ourselves to fall down that rabbit hole, then we'll never come back out the other side. We look at the facts, and the facts right now are that she's safe with Kai and Az. In the meantime, I can see if there is a way to block compulsion or keep him out of your head if that is something you would like me to look into.

[robinxellis]

From a guy who's seen the coven bend and shape to what it was before the First Son leveled it, no one came out unscathed. Knowing your and Envy's story, it sounds rocky as hell, but it's worth it if that led you to where you are now. You found your person in Envy, and I found mine with Val.

You expect the worst possible scenario in my family. Growing up the way I did, there wasn't a happy light at the end of the tunnel. And when the First Mother claims someone is safe in her brothers' hands, then we don't doubt her. You know that i would hate normally putting you at an inconvenience, Gianna, but desperate measures. I want him out of my head.

[kaniel-thebutcher]

I am a good sportsman when it is called for, and I will concede a draw. Sounds like your Mik and my Ramiel are in very similar situations, yet they both will hold it over our heads like we're still the ones making the stupid decisions. Older brothers. They never fail to annoy.

I'm afraid the only way to remove myself as an ally is to remove my mother from the equation... though that is a thought. Anything for my Baby Ari. If it wasn't you pissing your father off, it would be any other slew of your siblings, but at least one of your siblings is making out like a bandit. He's dating my niece– Ramiel's daughter. I actually think they're engaged at this point and expecting. It's really hard to keep up with all the development.

[robinxellis]

Game, set, and match. Right, right, they turn around their stupid decisions on us and redirect the blame. And it's not like I hate Mikail, you know, he's just a fucking dick so far up my father's ass that he could wear Henrik like a hat.

If anyone questions me about your mother's disappearance or death, I'll simply deny and tell them 'what mother?'. Let's put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it for a quick second. Are we talking about the same Ramiel living in my current abode and one of my brothers? Clearly, it isn't Mikki, he's too fucking whipped on a witch. How...how did Sterling have time to settle down and start popping out kids while I barely completed a full blink? It makes no sense.

[gianna-foxwood]

I can understand that. Sometimes when I was sad or upset, I would hone in on someone who was happy just to feel what it was like to be free.

She's very brave to a fault, it's true. After taking Marina, Bellora got the largest piece of leverage against my brothers that she didn't even know about, especially Azriel. I can't promise anything, but I know that my brothers wouldn't let anyone harm her. Not even your father.

[robinxellis]

You know how really sad that sounds, right? You sought out another's happiness to feel a semblance of it yourself. Not that I wasn't guilty doing the same thing in a different way.

I can't speak on much of your brothers' relationship with Marina, but I do know that girl talked nonstop about them. Bellora knew what she was doing deep down even if she didn't know it. My father possesses the power of compulsion, Mama Gi, that's the scary part. If he wanted her, he could manipulate your brothers to kill each other while he takes her from under their noses. I could hear his thoughts from miles away whenever he was...creating another sibling.

[gianna-foxwood]

There are some people who thrive in the quiet and some who do not, so I don't blame you for feeling that way.

About as well as you expect. Everyone here has come to care for Marina quite a bit, and her absence is felt deeply. The kids worry about her. I worry about her. Being in a chaotic goddess's clutches is not what I would wish for anyone.

[robinxellis]

I'm a social butterfly who spent every day and night at Val's bar. I always had the silence filled with heartbeats and laughs.

Marina had a fun sense of humor and she didn't seem afraid of much surrounded by demons and dhampirs and wolves, not anything Bellora's bound to appreciate. I heard your brothers stormed in after her. She'll be okay with them there, right? Especially if my father is hanging around too.

[valentin-kuznetsov]

My tears of boredom are about to morph into tears of joy. Our unholy trio of trashy novels will make our extended stay here that much better, though I would appreciate it most if you read them to me. And yes, it is a ploy so I can sit here and just stare at you instead of a book.

[robinxellis]

"It's my effervescent talent." Robin dropped the small brown backpack stuffed with their favorite books and began pulling them out one by one as he hummed an agreement to read them all to Valentin, pausing briefly at the wolf's last statement. "Val, babe, where did this romantic side come from? You'll make me blush." He plopped a seat next to the other and reached out a hand, running the back of his index finger against Val's jawline before slowly smiling, "If you wanted to stare at me, you could do that without the excuse of a book."

[gianna-foxwood]

Finding you was completely coincidental. If you want to be by yourself, I can go.

[robinxellis]

No, you can stay, Mama Gi. The quiet was starting to make me go insane anyway.

I haven't spoken to the rest of the house since blondie left. How's everything?

[robinxellis]

How is it I'm found in the one good hiding spot left in this fortress of solitude?

[valentin-kuznetsov]

Substance dry to the point that it will probably make me cry from boredom. Seriously, not a single trashy novel in here– just obscure historical texts that make my eyes bleed.

[robinxellis]

Luckily for you and your future tears of boredom, I have our favorite trashy novel contraband. Fifty Shades, the Game Changers series, even all three Twilight books for our twihard hearts.

[kaniel-thebutcher]

If I cared enough, I'd propose a contest between the two brothers, but honestly, that sounds insufferable. At least my brother fucked up and decided to bed the enemy, and so has the wrath of my mother on his tail. Before that, he did the very same thing as yours.

I don't want to be, but my mother is another story, and if I'm not careful, she will bring my baby sister into the mix, and I can't have that. So, you're the one he's after, other than getting his eternal rocks off.

[robinxellis]

We likely would not survive said contest before Mik and your brother kill us with how proverbially insufferable the are. I'm positive my brother bed the technical enemy too who was supposed to be long dead after making a witch his little blood bag, but it sounds like you won anyway.

Well, you can be the better brother than I was to my own siblings and take the chance of being his ally off the table to protect your baby sister. Yep, that's me, the runaway son who pissed him the fuck off.

[valentin-kuznetsov]

Not that I dislike the fact that there are multiple libraries, but did all their books have to be so dry?

[robinxellis]

Are you saying they're dry in substance or dry like they were, like, drowned in floodwater and the tears of the emotionally sensitive?

[varya-kuznetzova]

What are risky decisions if they do not hold a small bit of stupidity? Just as you had a life to lead, so do they. You cannot change the past, Robin. They may never understand why you left, or even accept you long after your father is gone, but if your father's reign ends here? They will have a future because you fought for it. Doesn't matter how long it took. You are and forever will be more than you give yourself credit for.

It was Naomi, and while family means doing everything within your power to protect those you care about, it also means keeping yourself alive, or else the family is not whole. Knowing my boy, he wouldn't have told me. It's just who Valentin is. The one who would rather carry the weight of the world on his shoulders than feel like he is a burden. Death is never easy to cope with when it comes to beings that are supposed to be immortal; it's why we are never supposed to know of our own expiration dates. A part of me knows I should sway you from ending your own life like this, for someone else, but a selfish part of me thinks of my son alone in the afterlife, and my heart aches at the thought. So, if that is how it ends up being, and I am not there to say goodbye to him before he goes, tell him for me, Robin. I cannot follow him as you can, but tell him that I will think of him for the rest of my days, that I was so incredibly lucky to have raised him, and that I will love him always.

[robinxellis]

Expecting forgiveness on a silver platter from them meant I thought I was worthy of it and I'm not. You switch our places and I'd want nothing to do with the sibling who turned his back on me for something happier. I will fight for it, though, the way I couldn't before. For my siblings, for me, for every person my father's hurt. I need to stop being a coward.

My sister lives by a 'survival of the fittest' mentality, the only person she cared about was Mikki. Valentin wasn't going to tell me either, Mama Varya, and I don't even know if I should be grateful he's sparing my feelings keeping me from spiraling or pissed like all Hell he thought I couldn't handle it. I don't want to die. I really don't, life can be...wonderful and worth the suffering sometimes when it's good, but what made it so incredible was because of your son. We had our little friend group, us and Lexi, and even the grumpy brothers. I told him he was the heart of everyone around him. Having him one day and losing him the next destroys the very gravity under my feet. If he does not know already how much you love him, Varya, I will give him your goodbyes. He was lucky having a mother like you, one that gives me hope there's still good in this world. No parent loves her child like you do.

[valentin-kuznetsov]

The wolf could feel the world shifting and crumbling beneath his feet, and yet he couldn't help but think maybe it was a weakness to feel such crushing weight dragging him downwards. Valentin always believed that he was anything but weak. He had the physical strength of his kind and the emotional strength from his mother, but this revelation was pushing him past limits he wasn't prepared for. Perhaps he had thought himself so far removed from the notion of death that it never occurred to him that his heart beat in a way that could be halted. It was an endless swirl of dark thoughts, the farther he fell down the rabbit hole. The coolness of Robin's hands on his face snapped Valentin out of his screaming mind enough for him to focus on the other's words, his brows furrowing the more he listened. His hands moved to cover Robin's, fingertips pressing into the dhampir's knuckles. The wolf could only manage to shake his head the longer Robin spoke, blinking hard as tears clouded his vision. There were no words he could say, no way that Val knew he could convince Robin outside of involving the very friends that he disliked divulging his secrets to in the first place. He remembered the very thoughts that ran through his head when he heard of his inevitable demise. Dying didn't scare him; it was being alone in an eternity. The moment his gaze found the fresh tears on Robin's face, his own could not be held back. His hands moved to Robin's cheeks as they stood there, simply absorbing the dhampir's presence as he shattered. "I didn't want to die and leave you behind," the wolf admitted through his own sobs, "but I don't think I can live with myself knowing that your life is contingent on mine. You don't realize how much people enjoy you being in their lives, how many people are willing to fight your family so that you have a way to live freely."

[robinxellis]

No matter what the realms and his father hurled in his direction, Robin promised himself he wouldn't be the one to fall apart as he did back then in the days leading up to the moment he left the family. What would be easiest on him and Valentin, truly? Staying hidden away with his wolf and wait until the storm completely passes while others perished in a war he himself brought to Ivy Hollow or handing over who Henrik traveled all the way here for? Nothing will stop his father from killing him and still taking over the city after crushing his disappointment of a son's bones to absolute dust. Death was a constant game, a threat, Henrik hung over the head of every child like this promise he wouldn't hesitate keeping. No one was safe. Perhaps, it's the reason he ran or he just ripped a page from his elder siblings' books of selfishness. Choosing his life above others so he could live another day. His thumbs lightly smoothed along Valentin's cheekbones, permitting any tears that needed to escape fall without bothering to wipe them away. "Val..." The sound of sobbing pierced through his heart, sending Robin stepping forward and wrapping his arms around the wolf tightly, a hand reaching up to gently stroke his hair in a calming manner. "That's what you don't understand. My life has always been contingent on yours since you and I met. Our friendship, this relationship whatever may come from it, linked our souls together. As silly as that sounds, Val, it goes deeper than anything I've ever felt. You go and I follow." Robin again repeated their mantra, the basis of who they are. "It's bigger than just me. I'm not claiming no one will miss me or you, trust that I know we both left our mark here, but I can't move forward when you aren't at my side."

[azriel-delacroix]

More like living in abusive households and needing to observe others to gauge the best way to not get hurt. I'm sure someone out there is working on it, so just stay out of sight. What do you mean 'destined to'?

[robinxellis]

I shouldn't relate to what resembled an abusive household, but I do. We were handed strict rules to stay inside so hence why I'm remaining put. At some point in the future as per a clairvoyant-seeing witch, Valentin will be killed. I don't know at whose hand, when, or even how, but it's a future set in stone I can't do anything about without fucking up a timeline.

[azriel-delacroix]

I know I was right. I'm generally more in tune with other people's feelings and emotions than my own. What are you going to do, then? There are probably about two choices going through your head. Stay and fight, or turn yourself in to your father so you can spare people.

[robinxellis]

I think your sister's empathy abilities are kind of rubbing off on you. Well, no one should trust my father as far as they can throw him, so nothing stops the bastard from killing everyone if I turned myself in. I'm currently staying and hiding until a solid enough plan is formed with people far more powerful than me. After that...I try surviving every day until my boyfriend's taken from me because he's destined to.