Weeping Willow - The Hush Sound
LaFontaine insisted that before they left, they had tohold a memorial for JP. He deserved it, they said, with tears stinging theireye and hurting their empty eyesocket. And he did, you had to agree, despite how little you’d liked him the firstfew weeks he’d been around. Now you were grateful for him helping LaFontainewhen you were gone, but your whole chest ached hollowly at the thought of him.He had been tortured by the Dean in your body for information before being killed equally painfully all because he was trying to help everyone save the world. A task that hadtaken him a hundred and forty-two years ever since he was sucked into thelibrary catalogue by the Dean back in eighteen-seventy-four, until he waskilled by her only a few daysago. He had been a hero, spending more than a lifetime trying to save the worldand the school from the Dean’s grasp. He had succeeded, but now he was gone.Sucked out of existence before graduating, unable to physically do anythinguntil more than a hundred years later when he entered a vampire body where hewas first tortured with starvation and then actual torture from the Dean’sgoons. He had barelylived at all, and what he had, he had given to a world that he was barely evenpart of.
LaFontaine said as much in their speech, and you feltsilent tears slipping down your cheeks as they spoke. They had made a cross andput it down where the original library had stood, and gathered their friendsand Sherman around it. You could see how much their own crying was hurtingthem, not just emotionally but physically, and you ached to change the bandagearound their head. They would probably get an infection soon, and you didn’tknow if you could handle that. You could barely handle anything at all as itwas.
Not much could really describe the exhaustion you felt after the Dean left your body. Like you were actually empty,although you knew you weren’t – you were back in your own body, without theDean, you had to remember that - but an actual god had inhabited you forseveral months. LaFontaine had said it would be strange if you didn’t feelempty for a bit. Empty and tired and strange. Like you weren’t actually surehow much was left of you, your own soul and your control over yourself. It wasstrange to be scared every time you closed your eyes that you may not open themagain, may somehow illogically fall back into the Dean’s grasp. It wasterrifying.
Having LaFontaine there as you slept helped. You twoweren’t new to sharing a bed, after all, and LaF didn’t mind being able to keepan eye on you at all times—
Their only eye. Sometimes you thought you’d getused to it, but you hadn’t yet. The sight still made you sick, not because ofthe gory sight, but because your body could remember how it felt to tear itout, and you wanted to throw up each time. Looking at the empty socket, youcould feel the texture of the eyeball and hear the ‘pop’ as it popped out ontothe stone floor.
And it wasn’t like looking away helped. Every way youturned, there was destruction and sorrow where your feet had walked, where theDean had used your body to strike down and ruin and destroy. JP was deadbecause of you. LaFontaine was half blind because of you. Danny was gone, notattending the memorial because of you.
You supposed it wasn’t so strange how tired you were,after all. Destroying so much had to take it out of you a bit.
After the memorial was over, everyone left but LaF,who stayed and stared with an empty look at the lonely cross. They hadn’t beenable to find JP’s body, but you had a feeling it was better that way. You wentto stand beside them, wrapping your fingers around theirs tightly. They leanedtheir head on your shoulder, dampening it slightly. You both stayed silent,well aware that nothing either of you could say would make the other feelbetter. You knew how bad it was, for different reasons. You hadn’t had the samekind of relationship with JP that LaFontaine had – you hadn’t actually brought him back to life – and LaFontainecould to some extent understand being possessed, but not for as long as youhad, and not by a demi-god.
It was familiar, to hold their hand, and you knewthat, but still you felt like your body was harder, less inclined to physicalcontact than before. Habit, you supposed, but it was disorienting to say theleast. You could barely remember how it felt to be that Lola Perry. That girl whohad been so full of anxiety and some sort of hope that if she kept things inorder, the world would make sense again, Fairy Queens wouldn’t demandsacrifices and the Otherworld was a secret, hidden but good place
Now, you couldn’t feel any purpose or joy in thethought of starting to clean up the mess of the school, or even wiping the dustoff the counters in LaF’s lab. Everything was already ruined, you hadalmost ended the world, things were as messy as they could possibly be and youdidn’t feel any desire to start picking the pieces up. Problem was, you didn’tknow who you were or what to do if you didn’t feel the desire to fix things.That had been your goal for so long – to fix the world into something that wasgood and made sense. Then this happened to you.
LaFontaine interruptedyour train of thought by speaking softly, throat audibly raspy after the tears. “I think he would’ve been okay with dying.But he deserved better than this.”
You nodded slowly. Hehad been around for so long, but had he even wanted to live a real life, you didn’t think he would have wanted to continueexistence as a vampire. “He did. But you know if we could ask him, he would sayit was okay. He’s okay.”
They nodded slightly, breathingslowing down a bit. You watched them, and knew that no matter how lost andempty you felt, you would always have a purpose by their side. Loving LaF wassomething you’d done your whole life, and the only thing you felt you knew howto do anymore. Being there for them, protecting them when you could, and makingsure they didn’t catch on fire every time an experiment went wrong. Not to mentiontaking care of their eye.
Tomorrow would be hard,and the next day, and the next. But LaFontaine needed you by their side, andyou would stay there, no matter how hard it was or would become. Just as theysignified the innocent times of your life – playing monsters with them andreminding them of homework – you knew they’d bring light even as you darkenedand couldn’t stay so obsessively positive anymore. You belonged together, afterall. They were going to go on, and so would you. Limping, perhaps, but youwould go on. They weren’t a crutch, but they were what you loved most of all inthe world, and they needed you, just as you needed them and always would. Youweren’t broken, but if anyone could fix you, it was LaFontaine.