@frightening-fall-fic Week 1: Bad Decisions Were Made
so, I really was going to try and write some horror (I like horror!) but my attempt turned into, uh, something I’m pretty sure is a Practical Magic AU instead?
Ragnor took one look at them on his doorstep, took in the circles under Cat's eyes, the heavy weight of her arm over Magnus' shoulders, the tremble in Magnus' hands he couldn't hold still, and lifted his own hands, palms out, as if to push them away.
"Don't tell me," he said even as he stepped back to let them through the door. "I do not want to know."
"At least not while sober?" Cat managed to joke, sort of, though her voice was too tired for it to be remotely convincing.
Magnus held in a wince, but Ragnor shrugged something like agreement.
Well then. Magnus could get behind that plan. He didn't try and say anything, just walked toward the kitchen. (Ragnor was a creature of habit, and he habitually kept his liquor above the fridge.)
Only Cat swerved toward the stairs, instead, her arm too heavy to slip out from under, so Magnus was forced to swerve too. She ignored the sad whine that was the most Magnus could manage in protest.
Magnus snorted. Or, well, he tried. What came out was more of a sad whimper. He was mostly sure that if he tried to sleep sober he was going to have nightmares, was going to relive the look on Camille's face as her nails dug into his throat, her eyes just as bright and delighted as they'd been when they'd met, even when she was about to kill him.
Especially when she was about to kill him?
But he didn't argue with Cat.
Couldn't, considering she'd saved his life.
Literally, this time. He'd gotten himself into this mess, and Cat had gotten him out, and even beyond the fact that Cat was annoyingly usually right about almost everything, he owed her too much to argue now.
He'd known Camille would never let him leave.
That's why he hadn't tried, until Cat came for him, asked for him, needed him.
Fat lot of good he was going to do her now.
He couldn't believe she'd...
He was grateful to be alive. Lucky. They were both so lucky. Cat had a very large purse full of very heavy necessities (including at least one book at all times) and very good aim to go along with a very strong arm. Cat had swung, when Camille's fingers had dug in and her smiled had widened, and Camille's skull had cracked as loud as any home run.
Magnus wasn't sure he'd ever enjoy a baseball game again.
Cat's fingers dug into his shoulder, and he blinked back to the present, swayed in front of the familiar door to the guest bathroom. She pushed, more gently than he probably deserved, and he let her. He didn't bother to lock the door before he stripped, shoving the pile of clothes in the corner.
He'd burn them tomorrow. They'd never feel clean enough to wear again.
He turned on the water, and stepped into the shower even before it warmed up, shivering under the cold spray.
Magnus wondered how he'd let it go so far, at which point he'd made the choice to endure rather than escape, at which point drugging his own girlfriend so she'd sleep and he could have a little peace had seemed like a good idea, had seemed normal enough that he'd stayed while she dreamed the night away, that he'd waited for her to wake up every morning.
At which point had he chosen to give up on his own life, and let Camille take it all?
(He knew exactly when, and he knew he'd made the wrong decision, and he knew he'd do it again in a heart-beat. Cat would never forgive him. He could never tell her.)
He tried not to remember the blank stare of Camille's eyes looking up at him as they'd shoveled dirt over her body. Normally they would have burned her, but neither of them could trust their own magic for something like that, not in the shape they were in, and burning a body was a hell of a lot harder than TV made it look if all you had was kindling and a few gallons of siphoned gas.
He failed, entirely, but he tried.
Eventually the water was too hot, and he let it stay there as he scrubbed, and rinsed, and scrubbed again.
He came out to find his old clothes gone, a set of spare flannel pajamas that lived in Ragnor's linen closet waiting for him on the counter.
He couldn't find a spare toothbrush, but he rinsed with the mouthwash, spitting a few more times than necessary into the sink, and staggered off to bed.
It wasn't the nightmares that woke him up.
It was a familiar voice whispering his name, the sharp tink-scrape of fingernails against glass, the lilt of a once warm laugh turned cold and mocking.
He sat up too fast, blankets clutched around him as his head spun. He couldn't relax, even as the world settled around him, different than it had been before, even as his breath caught and his hands gripped tighter, and he couldn't make himself move.
Camille smiled at him through the third-story window.
There was dirt in her hair, smudged across too-pale cheeks, and when her smile widened at the sight of him, awake and trembling, he could see the glint of fangs between her lips.
"You didn't think it'd be that easy to get rid of me, did you darling?"