![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
not sparkly
More of Unimaginable
Alive
Reason
not mine
Alex heard her, a soft lilting voice singing outside his nightmares. He didn't have the strength to open his eyes but he knew the face that went along with the voice--shy, pretty, too serious, and it filled him with relief to hear it. When the nightmares came for him again, somehow his burden had been lightened and he was able to fight them more strongly.
Her voice stayed with him through the hallucinations, joined more and more frequently by another, a British public school tenor with a steely resolve under the precise ennunciation. Alex knew that face, too, but only from a split-second glimpse in final seconds of his memories and he wondered why it was these two who could push back the terrors in his head.
Even when the nightmares retreated, the voices were there--a murmur of encouragement, a softly sung ballad--and Alex fought hard to stay with them. They were the only safe haven in this strange world where his old friends--the silo, the forest, the parking garage--were pushed aside by blood that spurted blue and froze what it touched and claws that left a trail of literal fire in their wake.
---
"...w-wish we knew more about the side effects of the poison. I don't know if I should be happy that he's calm."
Drowsily, Alex wondered which of the cast of thousands who wanted him dead had found out that he wasn't. He thought he should be more worried about his situation, but really couldn't find the energy to do more than let her voice drift through his head.
"Given that there are no known survivors of a Vrukhal demon attack, it doesn't surprise me that details are sketchy as to how the poison works. The usual course of action seems to have been to burn the bodies where they lay."
Belatedly, Alex realized that he was actually concious and not just in a calm spot between nightmares, and tried to think where he might be. He searched his memory but found only jumbled flashes of a dark-paneled coffee house and the pretty blonde girl--the one whose voice had been keeping him sane lately--backed into a corner, holding an even younger girl, one with long dark hair and sad eyes, and reaching out purposefully to clasp hands with a tiny redhead. He remembered the sickening crunch of his collarbone giving way as he hit one of the creatures from his nightmares in a diving tackle before it could attack and he remembered the cool blue eyes of the British public school voice just before his mind went black.
He pushed for more, but was distracted by what sounded like a not-too-distant riot breaking out. Much colorful language was being shouted in an accent that was decidedly not from a public school and being answered by some shrieking that Alex was happy to at least be able to recognize as belonging to the youngest of the girls in the coffee house.
There was a sigh, and then Alex's British voice said, "Dawn would appear to be home from the mall and not in the mood to watch Passions."
"I m-made rice krispie treats this morning." Alex could tell she was smiling. "Spike likes them with his afternoon blood--should I go distract them? W-will you be ok here?"
"Plea--"
A door slammed open and the noise spilled into the room followed quickly by the participants and Alex couldn't make any sense of the shouting.
His curiosity finally drove him to open his eyes and the man from the last seconds of the coffee house met his gaze with a bemused expression. "The things they don't teach in watcher-training," he said dryly.
Nothing made sense to Alex, but it didn't matter. The argument was settled by the distribution of tea, blood and pastries; the combatants were herded out of the room, and Alex was allowed cautious sips of water that nevertheless tasted like ambrosia.
Later, he would blame his sudden sentimentality on the effects of Vrukhal poison added to the disorientation of waking up to a witch, a mystical energy source, and a vampire in an otherwise perfectly ordinary bedroom, but when he opened his eyes and met that unwavering gaze, he could only feel that he was finally--after years of dancing to the Consortium's tune and months more of presumed death--alive.
Alive
Reason
not mine
Alex heard her, a soft lilting voice singing outside his nightmares. He didn't have the strength to open his eyes but he knew the face that went along with the voice--shy, pretty, too serious, and it filled him with relief to hear it. When the nightmares came for him again, somehow his burden had been lightened and he was able to fight them more strongly.
Her voice stayed with him through the hallucinations, joined more and more frequently by another, a British public school tenor with a steely resolve under the precise ennunciation. Alex knew that face, too, but only from a split-second glimpse in final seconds of his memories and he wondered why it was these two who could push back the terrors in his head.
Even when the nightmares retreated, the voices were there--a murmur of encouragement, a softly sung ballad--and Alex fought hard to stay with them. They were the only safe haven in this strange world where his old friends--the silo, the forest, the parking garage--were pushed aside by blood that spurted blue and froze what it touched and claws that left a trail of literal fire in their wake.
---
"...w-wish we knew more about the side effects of the poison. I don't know if I should be happy that he's calm."
Drowsily, Alex wondered which of the cast of thousands who wanted him dead had found out that he wasn't. He thought he should be more worried about his situation, but really couldn't find the energy to do more than let her voice drift through his head.
"Given that there are no known survivors of a Vrukhal demon attack, it doesn't surprise me that details are sketchy as to how the poison works. The usual course of action seems to have been to burn the bodies where they lay."
Belatedly, Alex realized that he was actually concious and not just in a calm spot between nightmares, and tried to think where he might be. He searched his memory but found only jumbled flashes of a dark-paneled coffee house and the pretty blonde girl--the one whose voice had been keeping him sane lately--backed into a corner, holding an even younger girl, one with long dark hair and sad eyes, and reaching out purposefully to clasp hands with a tiny redhead. He remembered the sickening crunch of his collarbone giving way as he hit one of the creatures from his nightmares in a diving tackle before it could attack and he remembered the cool blue eyes of the British public school voice just before his mind went black.
He pushed for more, but was distracted by what sounded like a not-too-distant riot breaking out. Much colorful language was being shouted in an accent that was decidedly not from a public school and being answered by some shrieking that Alex was happy to at least be able to recognize as belonging to the youngest of the girls in the coffee house.
There was a sigh, and then Alex's British voice said, "Dawn would appear to be home from the mall and not in the mood to watch Passions."
"I m-made rice krispie treats this morning." Alex could tell she was smiling. "Spike likes them with his afternoon blood--should I go distract them? W-will you be ok here?"
"Plea--"
A door slammed open and the noise spilled into the room followed quickly by the participants and Alex couldn't make any sense of the shouting.
His curiosity finally drove him to open his eyes and the man from the last seconds of the coffee house met his gaze with a bemused expression. "The things they don't teach in watcher-training," he said dryly.
Nothing made sense to Alex, but it didn't matter. The argument was settled by the distribution of tea, blood and pastries; the combatants were herded out of the room, and Alex was allowed cautious sips of water that nevertheless tasted like ambrosia.
Later, he would blame his sudden sentimentality on the effects of Vrukhal poison added to the disorientation of waking up to a witch, a mystical energy source, and a vampire in an otherwise perfectly ordinary bedroom, but when he opened his eyes and met that unwavering gaze, he could only feel that he was finally--after years of dancing to the Consortium's tune and months more of presumed death--alive.