fic: and somehow i knew i could find my way back to you. — ivory & winter. — original.

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She possesses a mechanical heart, drives her mad right from the start. Makes her insane with want dripping with desire. The ebb and flow of these things jab and poke and tear apart, everything she’s built.

Fractured stone, she stands before the building taking in everything, a brilliant shining cacphony of sights and sounds and smells that hit her all at once. Diffterent textures and colours swirling about her, taunting her, daring her to take another step further.

Fallen down that rabbit hole.

The dizzying effects causes her head to explode, setting her senses on overload at the slightest touch, as the energy becomes too much and not enough all at once. It’s the driving force, pushing and pulling, knocking her down and bringing her back up so high she can’t let go, can’t taper this euphoric thrall.

Ivory stands in pitch black darkness alone, still and quiet, brighter than anything she’s ever known, and still she finds she’s nothing more than casual molded clay, hardened and turned to stone.

A bit rough around the edges, with few cracks in the foundation, her feet rooted to the very spot she doesn’t move forward and can’t look behind. Always, straight ahead on a straight path laid before her.

Winter bleeds her heart dry.

fic: she paints her porcelain heart black & puts daggers in her eyes. – september & october. – original.

she paints her porcelain heart black & puts daggers in her eyes. september + october ; ( original ). 375 words. pg-13.| september comes as a surprise to october. | not yet beta’d.

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September comes as a surprise to her, warmth rushes over her skin, and she shares a smile. It’s the first time since the institute that she’s seeing her – really seeing her – and she can’t believe how amazing she looks, how happy she seems. It’s a far cry from the state she’d left her in, as she walked away in the biting wind and rain.

It was as if the worn out tattered sky had opened up and poured out all of the miserable contents belonging to a small wounded soul, battle scarred, and crying out in terminal anguish.

The guilt had eaten her up, but she’d had no choice. They had told her if she loved her, this is what was best for her. Sometimes you have to do the hard thing and just let go. It had been painful and she’d spent many sleepless nights roaming the corridors of her empty heart, wondering if what she had done had been the best decision for the both of them.

The last time she saw her, she had been crouched half hidden in a corner, staining the cold hard clinical tiles with crimson blinking out of this life, possibly on her way to the after.

She’s beautiful, in the way her raven colored curls fall across her shoulders and her green eyes shine so vividly with life that had been virtually vacant mere months beforehand. The daughter of May, September had always been a force to be reckoned with, and sometimes October had had to hold on tight and let her run her course.

With her, it was always spring in the summer and fall in the winter.

She leads with her heart and loses her head. Paints her porcelain heart black, puts daggers in her eyes, and gets dressed up to enjoy funerals.

September manages to gracefully lace up the stitches and disquiet October’s rueful soul with a thousand and one paper cuts meant to wound. It’s the only way she knows how to say, “thank you, for what you did. I love you, but I really fucking hate you now.”

And it’s enough to just see her through a hazy crowd of people and never really get to see her, at all.

fic: eviscerate your fragile frame and spill it out in the ragged floor; a thousand different versions of yourself – caronline & sage – original fiction

They tell me I’m crazy
But you told me
I’m golden

 

 

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She’s lost time, so much of it already that she’s not even sure she can turn around and go back the way she came. Caroline stands in the midst of her own mess, the complicated mistakes of the past that haunt her doggedly every day. She can feel the erratic beat of her heart; can almost hear the thrumming of the blood pulsing through her veins, as she struggles to wake up from this nightmare. Her voice is muffled, cut off by strangulation, and she can feel her whole body fighting to survive.

Sins that lay tangled in the shadows grip her tightly and threaten to pull her back towards the darkness, as she’s searching out that last glimmer of light she could have sworn was there. It’s hard, being pulled down by the undertow, and never really knowing how to reach up out of the rubble and live to feel the sunshine on her face another day, to breathe in the heady earth scents, and know that she’s lucky – so very lucky – to be alive and in one piece. Or is she?

The tattered bits of the fragile sacred happiness she tries to glue back together become infected by the screaming voices she hears in her head, echoes through her hollow attempts at sorting the mess. She keeps searching for it, trying to desperately uncover that which was stolen from her, but in her futile attempts she finds herself still falling, falling, sinking deeper, never reaching the surface long enough to breathe before she’s pulled back under and it’s tumbling, coming crashing down around her.

Sage took over long ago and pushed her back into her tiny shell, deeply embedded in the cobwebs of her vividly mangled psyche. She endures most of the pain and agony of carrying the weight of so much anger around. The scars are thick and layered, ranging from emotional to physical, and she breathes strangled air and swallows bits of broken promises that settle in the pit of her stomach and scatter across the floors of her bruised heart.

Sage tells Caroline that she should be so lucky that she doesn’t have to endure what she deals with on a daily basis, doesn’t have to withstand the humiliation of being beaten down, ripped apart, and verbally assaulted every day. She must struggle to endure the pain for her, because Caroline is far too fragile to deal with any of the remnants of it. She would break and cease to exist.

She’s already catatonic, not normal, came back all wrong and so very scattered amongst the mess in her head. The ghost inside the fire doesn’t die, it can never die, as long as Sage survives and keeps Caroline safe, the ghost will never be gone – she will never be far from where she is now. The voice she hears is beautiful, a glorious symphony of Angel’s singing.

Maybe Caroline is the ghost and Sage is the fractured one, she’s just as damaged. She promised her that day in the courtyard that she would always be there for her, that she would never let anything happen to her, and then promises burned to hot ashes, and she grew cold over the years and life itself began to take on no meaning. The mess inside her head grew heavier as the days went on and the nights became nothing but shadows illuminated by small sparks of light that she tried so desperately to hold onto, but was unsuccessful in every way failing in every attempt to keep the sins that threatened to spill over and burn away.

Every day has become hell for her, just getting through one and moving onto the next, and she’s grown so small that she refuses to talk on some days until one day, she just stopped talking at all, and sat there in silence mourning the loss of her head and the heart that followed afterwards.

She listens to the whispers around her wondering if, “she’s mentally cracked.” She feels gone, obliterated, blown away by the sands of time. Caroline has become trapped between the veil of light and darkness, ever still dancing on the periphery in between the balance of love and fear. It’s hollow; the emptiness that accompanies this strange feeling, this odd absurdity that Sage could save Caroline by promising things that were never going to live to see the light of day and could only be uncovered in darkness alone.

She couldn’t save herself and when it counted, when it really mattered, she couldn’t save Caroline either as crimson stained the courtyard and the rain had pelted down overhead ripping wildly and tearing across the tattered sky, drowning Sage in her own rotten despair as she furiously tried to blot it away, to bring the light back before fade to black, and keep the darkness at bay.
This life had been hers and now she lay hopelessly lost on the cold hard ground, pawing around and trying in vain to salvage any shred of goodness that she had found. It’s her lies, her secrets, and her alone that had caused this. It was her fear that gunned them both down and stopped them in the midst of this chaotic fight for something that neither one of them was ever really ready for.

Winter’s chill set in and had all but torn away every bit of the warmth that Sage had sought comfort in, what little bit of happiness that she had found and cherished and held onto as if her very life depended on it. Caroline was the air that she breathed every morning she awoke and the last face that she wanted to see when she closed her eyes to the world.

When she closes her eyes, she pictures a still window frame and a bright courtyard shining brilliantly in the lazy summer sun. She can feel the warmth of the sun’s radiance skittering, almost dancing across Caroline’s skin as she recalls the beauty in the smile of her eyes, the way her bare feet skips across the pavement to the song in her head oblivious to the heat and the rest of her surroundings. There is only light and laughter and hope and sun kissed bare shoulders and the two of them.

For just a short while, that window is open and she can feel the breeze stirring the billowing curtains about, stirring the soft waves of Caroline’s hair where lazy curls lay against her shoulders, an upturned face with eyes downcast and a smile meant only for Sage.
Fear bears down, forces the window closed, as it creeps into the inky crevices of her heart leaving her reckless and abandoned, filled with nothing but sorrow.

Why did she come here, when she knew there was nothing left for her?

It’s as if she’s constantly punishing herself, for the things that she cannot change and avoiding the things that she can. In the shallow pockets of her heart, she feels numbness where life once flourished. The stirring echoes of abandoned whispers, prayers that would get them out of this mess, prayers that would save them – save her – save whatever it was that was dying.

Shameful pride had kept her away, where she had been needed the most. It was almost as if the dagger had pierced her own skin, dragging the blade across it, and spilled all of her insides out onto the cold hard pavement. She had been a damn fool to think anything could have been different, that they could have been different. Different was never a good thing, she should have known better than this. Going against the grain, staunchly daring to be the polar opposite of what she normally was and tempting the hand of fate, is what had thrown her headlong into this tailspin of disparaging downfall.

In the darkness she feels too much, too fast. She can feel it rushing over her, sinking through her skin, pouring out of the cracks in her heart, pushing through her rib cage until the bones snap and splinter. She’s fighting to love, fighting against the voices and the whispers in the darkness, the mess inside her guilt spun mind.

It’s too close, she let it get too close and now she doesn’t know what to do with it.

Anger. Lust. Fear. Bitterness.  Hate. Happiness. Tiredness. Hope. Love.  Silence. Faith.

They’re all screaming and she can’t stop it, can’t keep it from pouring out of her, pushing to the surface and spewing all of its rotten contents out onto the floor beneath her. Bits strewn about here and there, faces and names, angry red marks that bleed through skin to paper and paper to white walls, and everything is so stark white and clinical that it’s blinding and they’re all shoving in on her, and she can’t breathe can’t stop to think through the lies in her head.

Except, they’re not all lies, and this is the happiest she’s ever been – the closest. Sage knows this is the undoing of her, that Caroline’s coming apart as she crumples beneath the weight of caring this much, of feeling this euphoria that’s pulling her apart, stretching her to the brink of insanity. She’s not right she knows she’s never been right. There’s always been a special sort of quality about her, something so powerful and strong that sets her apart from the rest.

Love is just too much for her to handle. That rush of undeniable euphoric happiness, thrumming through her veins, the beating of her heart pulsing loudly in her ears, the feeling of nothing but sublime energy crackling all around her snapping her synapses in half, and carving its words all over her heart. The cracks are getting bigger now the light is flooding out, while the darkness finds itself seeping in deeper and deeper.

“I love you,” is the breath of a fragile whisper fallen from her lips.

“But, I’ve chosen darkness,” cracks the heavy silence in the hollow corridors and echoes deafeningly on the wind.

fic: you have to go on living so one of us is living – btvs – tara mcclay

Winter’s snow had fallen quietly to the ground, icicles crunched softly beneath the pretty blonde’s feet as she walked towards what looked to be a large building resembling that of a hotel in the near distance. Drawing in a breath and tightening her coat about her slender yet slightly curvy frame, she stuffed her freezing hands into the deep pockets of her long winter’s coat and continued to trudge on into the darkness. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold wind, her lips chapped, and she was shivering and doing her best to think of anything else but that.

As she approached the building, she realized that her assumptions had been right along and it was a hotel. A small smile crossed her delicate features as she cast her eyes downward eyeing the ground in front of her and the small clumps of snow that were now being squished beneath her feet. Was she imagining things or had she just found herself following another lonely trail of desperate footsteps leading to warmth just within the reach of those walls?

Though she wore a nice warm inviting smile on her face, the young blond carried a weight of sorrow and grief behind her blue eyes. It wasn’t as easy as it looked; always having to be the one to shoulder the burden of something that was beyond her own personal control. It wasn’t easy to know that she lived with the constant threat of who she really was lingering just beneath her skin, gnawing at her bones, and rattling her from the inside out.

She wasn’t really supposed to be here, yet she couldn’t figure out how she came to be, when the light had flashed and she found herself wandering alone down a long dark and deserted highway leading her towards the very hotel building she was now standing in front of hesitating before ascending the stairs that would lead her inside to warmth and a modicum of comfort she supposed.

The truth was, Tara Maclay, had died six years ago when a bullet had pierced her skin, entering her heart and setting about a chain of events that even she couldn’t believe would follow in the wake of her own death. Now, she was only left with the haunting memories that clouded her mind and filled her body with an aching sorrow bone-deep and stretching the whole canvas of her being, not to mention was all too confusing as hell.

She’d seen power, she’d seen the dead resurrected before, hell she had even participated in the ritual but now things were so different – she was different – and that’s why she needed to shed the old Tara and become a newer version of herself. No one would really know her here and it looked like the perfect place for her to re-invent who she was and possibly meet new people along the road to a higher plane of self-discovery.

Shaking the snow out of her hair, she ascended the last step as she stood in front of the door. One hand resting on the knob as if to turn it and walk inside to make her presence known, while the other one came up shaking the snowflakes that had fallen into her hair free from their confinement and sent them cascading down her heavy wool winter’s coat.

Tara drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, as she turned the knob and stepped inside quietly.

“Hello,” her voice echoed all around her as she was met with faint darkness and the small glow of a light ghosting over what looked to be a check-in desk off to her right. It looked quite nice and felt warm as well or well a lot warmer than she had been outside a few moments before. Still though, there was something in the air around her that left it feeling a bit haunted in that hollowed out and abandoned sort of way.

She was about to give up and step back outside to continue on her journey, until she saw a strange figure approaching from her left. Panic filled her senses for a second and she found herself stepping backwards slightly away from it, until she realized it was just a man inquiring as to if she’d be staying for the night and she nodded as she stuttered, “Y-yes, sir.”

She hadn’t done that in a while, which felt a bit odd and sort of out of place for her. It had taken her quite a while to get her head wrapped around the fact that she had been dead and now she was alive and back amongst the living. Everyone that she loved or had ever cared for had no clue that she was back and that it was tied to some pretty wicked magics.

The strange man interrupted her flow of thoughts once more as he motioned for her to follow him just over to the desk, so that she could sign in, get her key, and begin to settle into her room for the night. As she complied with his wishes, Tara found herself wondering aloud if anyone else was staying here for the night or if she was just the one and only. Shrugging her shoulders, she took the key that he offered to her and began to make way toward the stairs that she had seen a little off to the left.

The narrow corridor and hallways were dark, but illuminated with just enough of a flicker of light that she was able to see her way there. Once inside, she shrugged off her winter coat and toed off her shoes. There was a bit of chill in the damp air, so she opted to keep her sweater on instead of pulling it off, thanking the Goddess above that she had the good sense and decency to dress in layers.
Her room was pretty simple and kept up in a neat and orderly disarray of comfort much to her own standards of housekeeping. She spied off to her right, a small to medium-sized bookshelf filled to the brim with various books on magic, ritualistic customs and spells, anything pertaining to telekinesis and people’s aura’s. In a small drawer to the left as she pulled it open and peered inside, Tara saw there were little bottles of different powders, a few vials of what looked to be potions in them, and some other little magical elements such as crystals, a moonstone, various other stones, and other magical elementals used to implement spells and things of that nature.

As she closed the drawer quietly, she began to survey the rest of her surroundings. The room came equipped and furnished with everything that she would need, various articles of clothing had been found hanging in the closet, at the end of her bed there was a heavy oak chest filled with the rest of whatever magical elements and supplies that she would need, a lamp set on top of a small nightstand just to the left of the bed tucked away in a corner of the room and a picture of someone she’d long since thought she’d ever see again was hidden away inside another small drawer – a picture that hurt every fiber of her being to look at.

It was buried inside that darkness, as if to say that’s what you do when someone dies. You bury them. But this person wasn’t dead, Tara had been dead, and now she was alive again. This person still believed she was dead and Tara wasn’t going to give them the opportunity to do anything to rectify those thoughts if the notion took them and she knew that it would – she had been a willing participant the last time it had happened and she had vowed after that she would no longer ever be a participant again.

As she stepped back away from the mirror, where she saw the image before herself she whispered quietly to no one and someone in particular, “I know now, what I must do.”

Yes, this was just the place she needed to be, a place where she could learn how to re-invent herself and possibly those around her. And she was just about to set off to do just that, by doing a little light exploring as she went off in search of a late night snack, before settling in for a nice long rest.