It’s like a scene from a horror movie. Dani bursts into the bathroom, stumbling on her heels, the world a merry-go-round that she can’t get off of, the rest a blur. She sees Leon, and wishes to recoil. She sees Z, and he’s something monstrous with a wand in his hand. And she sees Archie, in the midst of it all, bleeding out. There’s so much blood. There’s so much blood. There’s so much blood. Dani sways. Sinks down against the wall. She’s quite sure she’s crying. Alcohol has blurred her mind and turned the world into something unrecognisable.
She can hardly register it all. She wants to crawl over and hold Archie’s hand and clutch him close to her and scream for help. She wants to run from this place, but has nowhere left to run to. She wants to scream what the fuck happened, or just scream endlessly, but her throat is a closed thing. In stead she sits crumpled on the bathroom floor and stares.
It feels like hours pass by in those few seconds. The merry-go-round has slowed as the rest of the world goes on. Time slips from her fingers as she watches Archie’s body fall. It feels like hours. But before Dani can do anything, can say anything, can even understand what she has walked in on, Leon has grabbed Archie and apparated.
All that is left is the blood on the tiles and Z with a wand in his hand and Dani’s endless mascara tears.
“ what do you see when you look into my eyes? ” ( archie & lily )
“Brown.” Lily responds immediately, voice clipped. “Not a pretty brown either. A SHIT-COLORED brown.” She’s clearly deflecting, not wanting to answer the real question Archie is asking her. Why should she? It’s not like they’re friends, not anymore. As far as Lily’s concerned, it’s a little too late for him to be asking these sorts of questions -- about five years too late, actually. It ENRAGES her, that he’s waited until now to finally try -- to give a damn about her -- so she can’t help herself from digging in the knife further. “I see a spineless coward. A selfish prick. A Death Eater. Just an overall pathetic excuse of a person.” she continues. “I don’t need your pity or whatever the fuck this is. I’m fine. I’ve long moved past Theo and you and -- and your brother, but that doesn’t mean that I forgive you or want to see you. So if you really want to pretend like you care about me, just leave me the fuck alone already.”
“ you deserve more than i could ever give you. ” + “ you can stay with me tonight. ” + “ i don’t care what happens to me. as long as you’re safe. ” ( rahim & archie )
“ you deserve more than i could ever give you. ”
Archie didn’t love him. Would never love him. Rahim could barely even focus on what he was saying now, just heard the gentle tone, the gentle words, and felt his heart get ripped out all over again. Archie was being nice - as if that made any sense. Archie was never nice, at least not in words. Archie was pushy and aggressive and often hostile, sometimes in Rahim’s space so much he couldn’t breathe with him around, and sometimes barely even letting him get close. He wasn’t nice . Rahim didn’t want this from him.
( He wanted the Archie who was sharp angles and sullen eyes back, who didn’t pity him, didn’t use soft words at all, like that day at the hospital, when he’d fought against Rahim trying to help him, but then had let Rahim take care of him. Him above anyone else. It had felt like Archie was saying, no, I want you. Maybe Rahim had liked not being able to get too close. But he’d also liked it when he did, and the difference between that day, and this- )
If this was what he meant when he said Rahim could have better, Rahim didn’t want better. He didn’t want this Archie. But he knew what this really was. “Don’t,” Rahim spoke for the first time, hurt twisting his tone into a distorted echo. “I know what being left behind is. It’s not because you think I deserve better.”
He still had enough of a clear mind to be bitter, to know it was Theo that Archie wanted instead of him. As if it hadn’t hurt enough once. But he’d never expected Lily to as much as look at him. (He’d wanted it, but never expected it). Not really, not excepting hate. Archie had been the one person who’d looked at him like he cared. Rahim had thought he’d cared. He’d believed it, counted on it, needed him before he’d even realised he was doing it.
Archie looking at him now, still as if he did care, heightened all that pain so much Rahim couldn’t stand it. “Just leave! I’m not going with you. You think I’d ever, ever choose you over my father?” His unbalanced laugh seemed to come from outside of his body, from someone else. He shook himself out of it, let himself turn cold and precise. “You’re right. I don’t want you.”
“ you can stay with me tonight. ”
It amazed Rahim that he could go on a mission like they just had and hold himself as steel through it all, but then only a handful of words from Archie was what undid him, made him feel weak. But there was nothing Rahim had wanted more than to take up the offer. He didn’t want to go home right now, not really, but for once it wasn’t the inexplicable aversion that had been growing lately to being there that was the reason. No, it was this: Archie still had blood on his neck, and it wasn’t his own, but Rahim’s eyes lingered on his collarbones anyway, an ache of wanting stirring in his stomach. He was the safest place Rahim knew. “I guess I probably should,” he began slowly. “As your Healer. You did take some hits back there. You might have a head injury,” he added, mouth twisting into a small smile, not sure if he was trying to tease ( flirt ) ( as if he knew how to do that ), or truly nervous. “I should, you know, make sure you don’t close your eyes, don’t fall asleep for a few hours, that sort of thing.”
He followed him inside, feeling the tightly held frame of his shoulders soften. He wasn’t even looking around in curiosity. All he saw was Archie anyway. It had been getting worse, this inability to stop thinking about him. It made him decide - or maybe he’d already decided to do this the second Archie had asked him to stay. He’d wanted it for longer. “Actually, forget what I said. Close your eyes,” Rahim instructed. He could hear his own voice shaking.
He could already see Archie opening his mouth to argue. It was so typical he would have smiled, if his heart hadn’t been beating so fast he could barely focus on anything else. “Archie, just do what I say for once. Please.” Rahim stepped closer, his hand falling to the side of Archie’s neck and covering the blood there with a brush of his fingers. They were now so close that he could feel Archie’s breath on his face, see every one of his eyelashes. He was beautiful, Rahim thought, before he closed his own eyes, half-afraid. “It’ll be easier for me to do this if you’re not watching me.”
“ i don’t care what happens to me. as long as you’re safe. ”
He hadn’t thought it’d hurt this much, that it’d still feel like before, to hear Archie say things like that. He supposed that if you had adored someone once, they always had that power over you. To keep you hoping. “That’s a stupid thing to say. You know they’re coming after you. People like my grandmother ... she spent decades in Azkaban because she stayed loyal. She hates traitors. She hates her own sister-” Rahim stopped, shaking his head. This wasn’t what he’d come here to talk about anyway. It didn’t even make him angry anymore to hear Archie not give a damn about his own life. Not since he had a plan to keep him safe. It meant going to his grandmother, and she’d probably want something in return but ... he guessed Archie was worth the price to him.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m where I’m supposed to be. Like you are. With him, right?” He regretted mentioning Theo the second he let the words fall out, but there it was. He almost revelled in letting Archie see the pain of it, the ugliness, before he changed his mind, softened that bitter twist to his mouth. It wasn’t Archie’s fault. And he didn’t really want to hear the confirmation, either. It burned enough not knowing for sure. “I’m safe, really. My dad protects me. I just ... I didn’t want what I said before to be the last thing I ever ...” Rahim cut himself off, took a breath, gathering up his strength to say this and then let go. “I still-” Love you. A bit. Maybe a lot. Maybe I’m getting over it. Maybe I never will. Maybe I want you, maybe I just want someone. “Feel what I did before. I just wanted you to know that, alright?”
“I just feel calmer. When I’m with you.” + “What are you doing up? Come to bed.” ( dove & dae )
“I just feel calmer. When I’m with you.”
Dove pulls Dae closer. “Same here.” She has never been one for sickly sweet romance, has always been distant and something much too hard – like stone – for things like these. And yet there’s Dae. Who smooths out her edges, or rather accepts them, sharpness and all. Whose arms she feels comfortable in, more comfortable than she has ever felt in anyone else’s.
“I’m glad, by the way.” Glad that somehow she can have an effect like that on a person, and especially on someone like Dae. Sometimes she thinks they are made of the same stuff, and maybe that should startle her, considering the ways she so often despises herself, but it’s a comfort in stead. She buries her head in the nook of his neck. “I’m glad.”
“What are you doing up? Come to bed.”
She turns her head to face Dae. “Can’t stop thinking about it,” she mutters. Dove doesn’t have to say, she thinks, what she means by that. If there’s anyone who understands how she feels about the lives she has taken, it might be them. How she feels simultaneously weighed down and light because of it, how bone-tired it makes her. How if anyone has to carry the burden of bringing death, it has to be her, and him too, maybe.
And yet, in moments like these – when the world has slowed down and there’s nothing but the humming of distant cars to keep her company – she’s afraid she can no longer carry it, that burden. She grows petrified that she’ll lose more than she’ll win, and while that always seemed like a price she was willing to pay, she sometimes feels doubt. There’s no going back.
Dove lets her gaze drop, shrugs. “What if we’re wrong, Dae? What if we’re wrong about all this?” She gets up from the sofa, moves over to Dae. She imagines a life of normalcy for them, and can hardly picture it. Maybe they were meant for something like this. It infuriates her. “Sorry. I know it’s late.” She runs a hand over her head, lets out a sigh. “We don’t have to do this now.” Or ever, preferably.
who do you think would be most disappointed in you for killing at the carnival? ( for dove )
Dove crosses her arms, defensively, defiantly. “No one?” She knows it’s untrue, which is why she poses it as a question. A moment, she stares with angry eyes, and then she turns inward, as if she’s imploding. “Lydia. Or dad. I don’t know.” She shrugs her shoulders, arms still crossed, her entire body moving because of the gesture. For a moment, she buries her teeth in her lips, because as soon as she starts looking at what she did through their eyes, it starts looking really bad.
It starts looking crushingly bad. She forces them from her mind, and finds that part of her – that fatal self righteousness – that makes it all seem okay. “Fuck that.”
👻 …someone my muse considers a best friend. –– dani
Archie. Z. Val. Don’t ask Dani to choose, please –– she loves all these people so very, very much. They all fulfill a bit of a different role in her life, but they are all people she considers best friends. Val in the most traditional sense, I suppose, the two of them having been joined at the hip since early youth. Archie in a sense that together they just work so very well, that the chaos that comes from them together makes Dani feel almost sane. Z has given her more than she thinks she can ever repay him, but she would follow him to hell if she has to.
Honorary mentions are Pippa and Rahim and Theo.
💘 …someone my muse has a crush on. –– dani
Val. Who else but Val. Dani has had a crush on Val for fucking years, I think, but she’s only recently been admitting it to herself. Luckily, it seems the sentiment is returned.
👻 …someone my muse considers a best friend. –– penny
Natalia. It used to be Natalia and Annette, of course, a package deal of friends that matched perfectly with her and Rafe, but now it’s just Natalia. That hasn’t changed.
Rafe is also her best friend, but that’s a given.
💘 …someone my muse has a crush on. –– dani
Uh, well. Orpheus Oddpick from the chestnut stand. She doesn’t even like chestnuts that much but he’s so pretty! Lily Potter when she wears red lipstick. I’m pretty sure she’s had a crush on all three of the Potter siblings at one point, to be completely fair, but right now it’s Lily. Penny isn’t sure if she has a crush on Olive and Molly or if she’s jealous of what they have. She has a crush on both Lucy and Leander, of course, though it doesn’t run that deep. And above all, she has a crush on Natalia, though that’s something she won’t admit to herself just yet.
do you really think you're brave enough for the order and, when the times comes again, to protect rafe from harm? don't you think you're just going to get in the way? ( for penny )
“I’ll do anything for Rafe,” Penny says, and she sounds determined despite the quiver in her voice. “I - I’ve seen what it does to a person, to lose a twin. I don’t want that. Not for me, not for him.” She pushes her lips together at the suggestion that she’d be in the way, because it’s not like she’s not considered that herself. “I know I’m not as brave or skilled as some of the other members. I know that.” She tries to keep herself together, to proof that she can do this, that she has the strength to be part of the Order. Her doubts are vicious, though, only fed by these suggestive words. “But I’ll try. That’s better than just standing by, isn’t it?”
“He is magnetic. Dark. I’ve found him attractive since we first met, but it’s been very illuminating to learn more about his...entrepreneurial ventures.”
