That night Claire found herself in an unfamiliar place. She was standing several feet off from a house she had never even visited during her two centuries living in Los Angeles. Though someone else she knew and loved had spent much of his time there in years past. She took a moment to brace herself before moving up the path to the door and raising her pale, somewhat shaking fist, to knock lightly.
Only, before her knuckles made contact with the door, it opened in front of her. Startled a bit, she looked up at the extremely attractive man whom she had only ever really seen at a safe distance, and on very few occasions over the years. He had been a resident of L.A. For a long time, but their paths rarely if ever had crossed in the time since Claire’s return home after her long trip overseas, and then across America with Eliot and Lucian.
He was nearing forty, if not older, but there were obvious enchantments in place that made him appear much younger. Though when looking into his grayish eyes, his age and experience became more obvious. That is, once she could focus enough through the aura that somehow sparkled even more brightly than Eliot’s had. Or maybe she was just remembering it wrong, considering the last time she had even had the pleasure of seeing Eliot in a conscious state. Though that had been a long while indeed.
“Can’t say I expected this visit tonight” Douglas greeted her in an unreadable tone, his eyes moving over her as though trying to hide any reaction he too had to the presence that infected any mortal she met. If he and Eliot even did still fit into that category. “Then again, I haven’t been spending nearly as much time making myself into a psychic as some others have” he couldn’t help adding with a bit of what almost sounded like bitterness.
Trying to push past his frosty welcome, Claire found her voice. “Though you don’t seem overly surprised to find me at your door tonight after all.”
“I have wards that let me know any time I have any visitor.” A pause. “And Eliot has been gone more than he’s been here in the last few years. I figured it would only be a matter of time before one of you came asking for my opinion on that matter” he stated in the same tone of forced indifference as he cautiously stepped aside to allow her to enter his home.
One of you. Claire bristled slightly at the tone with which he uttered that phrase, and swallowed a lump in her throat. Though the continued coolness in his demeanor was indeed something she had expected, considering what she knew of Douglas’ opinion of she and her kind.
When Douglas closed the door behind her, he moved to pour himself a drink, waiting for her to be the one to speak next. Claire almost nervously remained silent as she moved her eyes around the home, not looking for anything in particular except possibly her own voice.
After regarding her for a few more moments of silence, Douglas spoke again. “I would offer you a drink, but I somehow doubt I’d have much that would appeal to your tastes. Well perhaps one thing, but we don’t know each other quite that well.” He smirked as he finished his statement, proving that his time as a ghoul made him quite aware of exactly what kind of experience it would be to offer her that specific brand of drink.
Claire took another moment to make her voice work. “I know you didn’t think that the ritual would succeed at all, with me” she added more quietly. “So believe me when I say it’s very hard for me to even come here to speak with you about what’s happening now” she stated warily, once again squinting her eyes slightly at the sparkle of his aura that was filled with not many positive emotions directed her way at all, though none of those were outwardly malicious, just not very friendly, or trusting.
“Well, the ritual obviously worked, even better than expected” though on that last bit, there was almost venom in his voice. But he soon pushed onward, “so there, I was wrong and Eliot was right. I can admit it. Will that be all?” he asked in the same cool tone as he took another long drink.
“Please, Douglas, I can tell you’re upset and angry. I’m upset too. But I....”
“Angry?” he scoffed loudly. “I suppose that’s one word.”
“Please, I don’t know who else to even talk to about this. You’re the only one who even understands how this power you and Eliot have actually works...”
He shook his head again. “Wrong. I only thought I understood what would happen. I thought it would be an utter failure and his dreams of saving you would just die, and I'd have to pick up the pieces. Which, I actually didn’t want to see happen, believe it or not. I know how he feels about you and I didn’t wanna see how broken he would be if he failed to help you live even longer than you already have. But little did I know what would actually happen. And believe me, I spend every day that he’s gone regretting that lack of foresight.”
Claire was silenced for another long moment as she let his words sink in, all of them. She then finally made herself look back at him. “Have you talked to him at all since he started traveling?”
Douglas shook his head again, and took another drink. “Probably more than he’s talked to you” he admitted.
Claire’s eyes came up quickly at that statement. She was equally hurt and relieved somehow. She had been terrified that Eliot had cut off all contact with everyone, but apparently that wasn’t actually the case.
“So, you know what’s happening to him then?” she whispered, trying to keep the stammer out of her voice.
“You mean the part about your soul or whatever giving him the power to do things that shouldn’t be done at all. Or the part about his mind practically breaking apart at the thought of ever trying to be with the one person he’s actually doing this all to save? Yeah, a little bit.”
Claire closed her eyes hard against the sting of his words. “Breaking apart?” she whispered.
“The human mind wasn’t made to survive in several different times and places at once. He doesn’t even know how to interact with the actual people in his actual life anymore. His reality is now more of a memory he’s just reliving. And he can’t do anything but wait for it to pass so that his mind gets even a bit closer to realigning with the future he already has in his head. It’s not meant to work like that.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Even you and your centuries’ long life is all a bunch of memories that you aren’t forced to try and be part of again when your mind is years and years away. Your past is your past, your future is unknown. Can you imagine having to go live in your own past again, with the memories of everything that you know now? How would you even function in that time when it no longer feels real to you at all?” he asked her accusingly. “That my dear, is precisely the power your soul gave to the man you say you love. That is what he’s going through just to try and save you. Is it any wonder he can’t be with you anymore? When that’s what he’s enduring every second he tries to spend in his actual life now? Yeah, I’d say angry is one word for how I feel about that. How do you feel about it, Claire?”
----------------------------------------
“Come back. Now!” Sean’s angry voice was the first thing Eliot was aware of upon his next return to his own timeline. Only it wasn’t his choice to make the return that night. Something forced his consciousness to be yanked back into his body as he sprung upwards to find Sean’s angry ice blue eyes watching him.
“What? How?” were the first words that came to his mind as he found Sean there next to his bed.
“Funny thing about psychic abilities, they work even better on unconscious people. And you definitely take unconscious to an entirely new level when you make these trips of yours."
“You compelled me to come back?” Eliot swallowed, his voice hoarse from lack of use, as it usually was upon any of his returns from those long trips of his.
“Seems so” Sean said in the same cool tone. “Didn’t even know if I could. Now I do.”
Eliot shook his head with confusion and quite a bit of worry. “That shouldn’t even be possible.”
“Apparently it is” Sean said in that same tone, arms crossed over his chest as he held Eliot in his gaze.
“I wasn’t ready to come back yet though” he managed as he tried to gain his bearings there in his real life once more, forced back into it though he was.
“Seems you’re never ready to come back. But too bad” Sean bit back at him.
“I don’t know what I’ve done to make you so...” Eliot began, then just shook his head, sensing the words would be futile in light of Sean’s mood as well as the drastic measures he had employed to get Eliot back to their own time, against his will as it was. He then looked back at Sean, getting the distinct feeling that he was trying to rip all his thoughts right out of his head at that moment in time. “You know,” Eliot forced more words to his lips, “you didn’t used to be like this.”
Sean narrowed his eyes at the statement. “Not like you and I ever really spent a lot of time together, you must admit.”
“I mean before all this. Before me even. Back when you were still human, when you first fell in love with her. What would that version of you think of who you are now, Sean?” he made himself ask, though his voice trembled as he did. As powerful as Eliot was, it was still impossible for him not to balk at the very real anger Sean seemed to be feeling that night.
And amazing as it was to see, there was that crack in Sean’s steel composure; that spark of humanity that he kept so well hidden through necessity alone. But he hid it as quickly as it peered out from behind those angry eyes.
“That me is dead. Has been for nearly three hundred years. As you are well aware.” That was Sean’s only response, spoken quietly as it was.
“Seems like only yesterday I saw him find a girl in the woods. And not long after that, defiantly defending her from the hurt her own parents had heaped onto her for all of her life” Eliot prodded, not able to keep from picking at that crack now that it had appeared at last.
Sean bit back more emotions as Eliot recalled parts of his human life that only one other soul was even aware of. “Then I gave her a new life. And here we are” he finished sharply. “And I thought you were supposed to be searching her future, not her past.”
Eliot knew that he could not push Sean much farther right then, so he allowed the slight change of subject, but only partially. “Past, present, future? They do all tend to blend together for me these days. And it’s a bit hard to search anything with you forcing me back to myself like you apparently did tonight.”
“Your little trips are done, Eliot. You stay here, in this time, from now on. Until you finally forget all those other times and places that are apparently fucking you up so badly. Understood?” Sean issued the order as if there were nothing further to be said on the matter.
Eliot just scoffed, “you can’t seriously believe that I’m going to just stop trying to find the time and place that lets me save her. And why the hell would you even ask me to?” he added with disbelief.
“Because saving her is destroying you” Sean stated bluntly.
Eliot gave him another look of disbelief. “And when did you start caring so much about me, Sean? What have I missed?”
That’s when Sean’s frustration, worry, and even fear suddenly came flooding over those walls he had painstakingly built around himself since becoming who he now was. “Do you know what happened today? Here, in this time? In the real fucking world? Do you have any idea?” Sean asked him angrily.
“Not the snakes?” Eliot asked with his own fear replacing any other emotions he had been feeling moments earlier.
Sean just shook his head, “well prophecies are fucked up at best. They never mean what you think they mean. So maybe this was fate’s twisted way of having you save her from the goddamned snakes after all.”
Eliot shook his head trying to follow the fragmented information Sean was now giving him. “What are you talking about? What happened, Sean?”
“There won’t be any fucking snakes devouring her if there’s nothing left of her to devour. Mission nearly accomplished this very morning. You can stay home now.”
“What?” Eliot asked with further confusion as he finally stood, wishing like hell that he had Sean’s ability to read thoughts right then too.
Sean took a long moment before forcing himself to give Eliot any of that clarification his dark eyes were begging him for. “Claire apparently got it into her head that you trying to save her was going to kill you, one way or another. So, in typical Claire fashion, she decided she would do whatever it takes to save someone she cares about. Only, in typical Claire fashion, the way she thought she could save them was by trading her life for theirs. For yours. If she took her own life, you wouldn’t have to save her anymore, right?”
“She did what?” Eliot breathed the words, feeling his own heart nearly stop right then. But without pause, Sean just continued on.
“But of course, then you’d lose her, and I’d lose her, and we’d both be destroyed, but somehow Claire doesn’t think that way. She hates herself, so how could we love her, miss her, be destroyed by losing her, right? Welcome to the way her mind works. The eternal refrain of, if only I was gone everything and everyone would be better for it.
“It’s always been that same song playing in her head, and I’ve tried to shut it off for three fucking centuries. Then, hearing that you were tearing your own mind apart to save her; well, that just started that song blaring through her mind at deafening levels all over again!”
“What? What did she do Sean? What happened?” Eliot asked in desperation.
Sean took another long pause to try and find any bit of that composure he had lost in trying to explain what had actually happened that day. “What happened was that she tried to sneak out onto the balcony right before the sun rose. She was just going to go out there and let it take her. Our servants barely got her inside in time. The burns are still healing as we speak. And it’s all because she thought that if she was gone, you wouldn’t be destroying your own mind to save her. Never mind how badly destroyed either of us who love her would be when we lost her. That’s the one thing she’ll never understand. And that’s why you have to stop doing what you’re doing, Eliot; before this prophecy devours all of us after all.”