TW: Thoughts of Suicide
She could see the blood pooling at John's feet and feel it soaking her back as she looked onward, the grip on his gun slacking.
"Through the Eyes Of God, this man has done no such thing." The tone of her voice was deep and raw, like the threatening growl of a cornered animal. Though John stiffened in her grasp, all she could think of was the warmth under her hand- John's heartbeat dipping into her palm. The room silenced, their eyes widened. She looked to the gun expectantly, her wings tensely coiling around them both like a shield.
"You will leave this place in God's grace today," Booming and demanding, for a brief moment the men wondered if they were indeed hearing the voice of God. Her eyes darkened as she looked at him- at those men. Righteousness, justice- they were the words they adorned themselves with, but they were nothing of the sort. Humanity had no such thing for them. Her saliva pooled in the back of her throat as she threatened to toss away everything she had let herself be here. She had been gentle, and tame- would today be the day she wet her tongue in blood? 'Was that all I was good for?' she thought.
"Or leave by his back hand." Her right hand laced around the chains before a crack rang in the room, her hand pulling up the broken shackles before tossing them at the officer's feet. One wrong step and she would kill all of them- she didn't have to think too hard to know that.
"He is mine." They slowly looked to one another, breaking from their shock as they stepped away. Each second they wasted blinking was each second she grew closer to being the same beast they accused him of being. There were only six of them- only six, she told herself. She stood up and put John behind her, walking forward until she took the gun from the man's slack-grip. At that, he stumbled towards the door- his face pale and breath quick-paced.
"Sinners go to Hell," She reminded him, staring directly into his widened eyes. "Don't make me take you there."
He turned and trotted down the steps before throwing up, her menacing gaze flicking to the others as they wordlessly left the house. She watched them step into their carriage mutely, some of their eyes glossy with tears, some with guilt, others with unbridled fear. There was no way of knowing exactly what this shape meant to any of them- all that mattered was that it was effective. As she watched the carriage hastily turn and start down the drive, she pulled the double doors shut.
Nothing sounded except for their breathing, and the silence ate at her. She pressed her head to the cold wood of the door and closed her eyes, leaning into it weakly. She had a home here, and now he had gotten what he paid for. Her arms shook as the metal of the gun bit into her skin. 'Did I want anything beyond what I had here? I won't let myself be what I was to Sir M or The Doctor'. Her eyes slammed shut. The veins in her fingers tremored violently, and she swallowed the heavy feeling in her throat as she pressed the barrel of the gun into her chest. I won't let myself be what I was to Sir M, she repeated. If she was lucky, she bitterly mused to herself, this would be the only time she couldn't heal. Maybe if she willed it hard enough, she wouldn't. No- if there was a God, he would let her pass having known the freedom she gained from living here. He would spare her more suffering, and let her die justly and by her own hand. Her arms stilled as her finger stiffened against the trigger and tears started to spill over her cheeks.
'I never got to see your blue eyes.'
Her tongue felt dry in her mouth, and she opened her mouth to say her last words, but nothing except stale air fell from her lips. Thank you, she wanted to say. Thank you for showing me kindness- for being as patient as you were.
Patient- The word felt like a bullet in her heart.
Her lungs froze as a gentle touch tickled her skin, her wings twitching slightly. The cold metal of the gun was biting into her wax-palm as she stood there, unprepared for what was to come. Things were different here- maybe he wouldn't be like them. The hopeful thought was small, but there. Patient- it repeated in her mind... Perhaps, it was her turn to practice it. With a deep breath, she opened her eyes and slowly turned around.
How badly she wanted to see his face- just once. Tears clouded her vision as everything seemed to collapse- the entirety of the house resting upon her shoulders. Was this weight always there? Was it waiting in the vague crevices of the house, just waiting to pounce? Her hands coiling tighter around the gun, it began to burn her skin. What would she have done if he saw her like this four months ago? Would she have killed him? Just the idea caused her to shake her head slightly, the gun leaden with the weight of the entire sky.
"Viera..." He reached out, but she didn't know what to do. As the thoughts continued to claw into her, she dropped the gun as more tears fell from her face. She never wanted to disappear so badly in her life. A part of her wanted him to scream or runaway like they did- to cower or even attack her. If any of those things happened, she would know how to feel, but this? Somehow this hurt more than any of those possibilities did.
"You're afraid of me," She decided, the words thin whispers which felt too loud in the silence between them.
"No, I'm-"
"Yes you are!" The shout bounced around the room as she drew in a fractured inhale, her left hand covering half her face. "You are," She repeated. 'How could you not be, when I am?'
His hand fell limply to his side, uncertain. Nothing in his life prepared him for something like this, and he hated it. He hated that he didn't know what to say, he hated how the silence between them felt like a shattered link. And most of all, he hated that he was afraid. He was afraid those men would come back, and that next time, it would be for her.
Unable to string words together, he observed her shaking form, her pupils like headpin needles. He couldn't help his eyes wandering to the mouse-gray wings that softly brushed the floor, their tips dampened with her own blood. The deep scarlet seemed to shake him from his thoughts as a small voice caused his fingers to twitch, his mouth bent in a tight grimace and his heart pounding with a dull ache.
His fingers twitched once more before they slowly wandered to her right hand, his grip hanging on the edge of her fingertips and featherlight. Their actions became a timid waltz- as delicate as the petals of a musk rose. Her eyes were glued to his mask, but she let him hushedly guide her to the dining room. A silent gulp slicked his throat as his hand traveled up her arm like a vine reaching for sunlight, his palm hesitating before it rested on her shoulder and sat her down in one of the chairs.
Taking off his jacket, he avoided looking into her electric eyes as he wrapped it around her, his mind a garbled mess of questions and pessimistic thoughts. She's going to leave- perhaps that was the one that troubled him the most. For all the things he felt they had in common, it dawned on him that they could not be farther apart than the sea and the endless sky. They were fire and ice- both pained, but with drastically different scars. He chewed on the sentiment as he pulled out a handkerchief and placed it in her hands before briskly walking into the kitchen, the sounds of his footsteps soon followed by the sound of running water.
Left alone, she pulled the jacket closer around her, reminiscing in the faint smell of metallic ink and soft floral notes. Her fingers attempted to memorize the texture of the jacket; the smooth cast of a button. He's going to push me away, her shoulders caved. Flexing her cheeks bitterly, her thoughts were consumed by pains of the past, a triumphant voice repeating the phrases others once said. Nobody will ever want you, Esperus. How could anyone love an abomination like you- patchily stitched together? You're more dog than human- and listen to me, Esperus: I am your master.
The handkerchief felt cool against her hot tears. You have one purpose- fail to fulfill it, and I'll throw you away. You are less than a grain of sand, Esperus-
John swiftly returned with a basin of water and a rag, the basin clattering against the blood smeared floor as he set it down.
"You're right." He whispered, clenching his right hand into a fist to hide it from tremoring. "I am afraid- I'm afraid they'll come back and try to take you away. I'm afraid you'll leave the more you learn about me. That you'll be disgusted by me." His hand came up to his mask as if to cover his mouth that she couldn't see, but it didn't matter. The space beneath her heart quivering violently, it jumped up into her throat like a feral cat- its claws raking across her tongue.
"You don't have to be brave here- I made you a promise, didn't I?"
The space between her ears was scorching, the room which was encased by stark ice thawed into the most precious of springtides. Where her entire existence once felt like a demonic curse; a deadly secret never meant to be uttered out loud- it was now a delicate bird tenderly cupped in his gloved hands.
In a fleeting second, his eyes widened as she slid off her chair, her arms pulling him close as she embraced him tightly. A stiff inhale melted into a relieved sigh as he wrapped his arms around her. He closed his eyes as his hot breath fanned his face, tears soaking the cloth of his mask. So this was what it was like to hold someone and be held close. The tenseness in both of their muscles relaxed into the other as if they were melding into one being.
"No one is going to take me away from you, John Claire."
With her chin resting comfortably on his shoulder, he could feel how her jaw moved as she uttered those words, a deeply buried part of him soothed. For all the years of his life, he told himself connection was a weakness- a hindrance- but sitting there with her, he realized that he was starvingly craving it. Despite shunning that pitiful desire his whole existence, he found his insides hollow with the human want of affection. Love; the word felt as though it was too easily thrown from mouth to mouth, but his mind couldn't help but wander to the antiquated words of Edmund Spenser.
'My Love is like to ice, and I to fire: How comes it then that this her cold so great-Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But stronger grows the more I her entreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold, But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, and feel my flames augmented manifold? What more miraculous thing may be told; That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice. And ice, which is congeal'd with senseless cold, should kindle fire by wonderful device?'