Evangelinerrative (I know. It doesn't work. Still.) Who: Evangeline Sablier - with a special guest appearance written by Angel (TY, LOVE!!!) Where: Silent Hill When: After being in the door for a bit, en route to the apartment, but before Jack and Luke show up to help them find a way out. What: Oh. Hanging out in Silent Hill. Cool shit happens? Warnings: It's a little gross for a minute.
She had a map, Wren wasn’t talking, or saying anything, and as she led them in the way the map said, and followed all the directions, doing exactly what she was told. Hiding them when they needed hiding, fighting when there needed to be fighting. Running and tugging and pulling her along when there needed to be running.
Right now they were hiding, and had been for an hour, maybe more. Wren wasn’t making any noise and Evie was just talking to her gently, talking about nothing interesting. Remembering the names of stars, singing a song quietly. Willing her friend to rest, while they hid. She was resting her feet but she knew she couldn’t risk resting her eyes. If the waking nightmares here were as bad as all this, the ever changing faces of blondes and brunettes that didn’t know their names. Mothers that couldn’t find their babies. Babies that couldn’t find their fathers. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if she actually fell asleep.
She felt rather than saw the manifestation at first. She felt it next to her and she wasn’t afraid. She looked over to Wren to see if she noticed - and she didn’t so she dared to look over. She knew it would be him. Nothing so far had been. Nothing so far had needed to be. She didn’t need to fight it, would never be able to fight him, this could be their undoing. This moment right here. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. It looked like him for the briefest moment. Looked like how she remembered, but she saw the blood on his shirt next. Dried and old. She saw his gaunt features. Eyes that radiated warmth and cold at the same time. It made no sense to her, and she was afraid to talk. Afraid to speak, she didn’t know if Wren would hear her.
He looked at her. Still and unmoving at first, like a great rock rooted to the ground. Tall and broad as he ever was in life, he stood next to her and looked. Carved in decaying stone for the longest moment of a lifetime until his chest rose with a single, hollow-wet breath to carry words.
"You're alone."
The voice - it was the same voice. His voice. A voice that had murmured love into her ear and gave her easy laughter when times were good. A voice that had held anger and sadness and gone quiet when her own had offered anger or comfort in return. It was the same voice, but it rasped and whistled from somewhere behind the forming bloodstain on his shirt. The words were question and confirmation all at once. Alone. The nightmares were there, but they weren't hers. Wren was there, but silent and disconnected. He was there, but he had been gone for days almost uncountable. Long, wrenching, painful days.
He was there. But she was alone.
His statement, while true - and everyone knew it, was still heavy from those lips, in that voice. That part of her that lied to Daisy and told her that her father was always there and they were never alone was called out in that moment. She was laid out as flat and vulnerable in that moment as she’d been so many times before in her life, and while the pain wasn’t the same - it ripped and tore at the same parts of her and she nodded. “You know I am. There was never going to be another outcome.” Said out loud, for the first time, though she’d accepted and acknowledged it the very day, the very moment, she’d seen him lying there lifeless well over a year ago. No one would have wanted to hear that, no one would have accepted it, so she’d never said it. Not in so many words, because she couldn’t stand to defend the point of view she held.
Short raven hair sat atop her head where long blonde locks had once been, but she supposed it didn’t matter, no matter what her hair was doing the strands were matted with blood and goop. She kept her eyes on Wren, and her ears on Will. Ashamed to look at him, to let him see what she’d become. She’d promised to be his strength time and time again and she couldn’t even do it for herself anymore. Even now she fought for Wren, and she fought for Daisy. Luke would be here soon to fight for Wren, and Jack would fight for Luke, and Evie would ride out on their coattails and get back for Daisy. It had to work. She wanted to ask Will if he was there to rescue her. To save her. If he was there to fight for her, and for Daisy, because she didn’t know if she could. But the question just hung there. Somehow she figured she knew the answer, and somehow she figured she didn’t need to ask at all. He knew.
The hollow dark of his eyes took in her changed hair almost as soon as her thoughts skittered past it, like he needed the subtle prompt in order to react to it. Though his face was gaunt and hungry, it shifted into the beginning twist of disgust. "Look at you." The rasp of his voice went wetter, and though his shoulders hunched forward, those flat eyes remained locked on her as he leaned forward just enough to cough out a black clot of blood at her feet. It twisted there on itself until he stepped forward, the sole of his bare foot squelching down on it. Closer, he smelled of old iron and the dark decay of the forest.
"It should have been you." He breathed out, close enough to be damp humidity on her face, reeking of the small creatures that died in the walls of condemned buildings. "No one is here for you. No one will come. Because it should have been you instead of me." The sound of his voice began to waver after the first sentence, the sopping schlep of it like mucus caught in the back of an infected throat. The stain spread on his shirt, though the color was too dark to be fresh, the words spreading the same slick over his teeth.
Evie was not grossed out easily, or at all really - she never had been. No, gross things and painful things only made her feel empathetic. Maybe that would have made her a bad doctor in the end, but the urge to reach over and fix him was strong. As it always had been. Until she understood that he hadn’t needed fixing from her, just loving. The same as her really. And that had worked out really really well. But now he was sick, and she wanted to fix it.
When he spoke though her shoulders fell and she closed her eyes. Those words weren’t meant to be said aloud. No one was supposed to hear that, and her eyes darted over to where Wren was sitting silently and prayed - though she didn’t believe in God - to whoever that Wren hadn’t heard that. I know. I know. I know. She knew. As illogical as it was she knew, because he would have picked himself up. No one would have expected him to, and he would have. And she couldn’t. It was scary, and risks used to excite her. It was dangerous, and nothing used to scare her. “I know. I’m alone and no one is coming because it should have been me,” she nodded and spoke quietly. But she knew he’d hear. “You were so beautiful. I had perfect and didn’t protect it. And now I have it again,” the name Daisy almost sang in the air on the wind, but with a loud crash and the familiar cry of a baby she knew had her turning her head abruptly. But as quick as it was there it was gone, her breasts ached in the familiar way they did whenever Daisy cried or needed something. A reaction that hadn’t quite worn off yet despite the slow weaning that was taking place. “And here I am far away from her. You’d have never left her.”
As she was speaking, he changed again, as if her disregard of his appearance brought it on. The stain remained on his shirt, he still looked too thin and too rough, but the decay and the visible horror faded. His eyes were sad, tired, like they had been before, during, and directly after his stints in rehab. Drawn out and needing quiet and rest. He looked like himself, smelled like himself, sounded like himself.
"You left me to die. All I wanted to do was to love you. To stay by your side and raise our daughter. I wanted to be with you forever, but I ended up dying without you even there. You're alone because you let me die alone. It's why you always will be." His voice was quiet again, smooth and low. And he lifted a hand to push back hair that should be long and blonde, frowning when there was nothing there long enough to twist his fingers through. "It's why you'll lose Daisy too, in the end. Why she'll grow up to hate you. She'll find out what happened, what sort of person you really are, and she'll leave. I only hope it's before you kill her, too."
Instead of a touch to her hair, he leaned down to be closer to her ear, his breath warm and with no hint of decay. "If I could tell her now, I would. I'd tell her how I ended up in rehab those times because I couldn't stand to stay with you without the drugs."
When she looked at him again, this time he seemed real. Tangible. Not the sickening sight of death, but the sad sight of a man she had loved and was having a hell of a time learning how to live without. But here, and now, it seemed she didn’t have to. The stark reminders of his untimely demise were washed clean, and she was beginning to question her earlier assessment that he’d been fake. That he hadn’t really been there. She looked over at Wren and opened her mouth to speak, a smile spread across her teeth white, eyes rimmed red and cheeks rosy with hope. They were going to be fine. He’d come for her after all.
As she opened her mouth, a sound didn’t escape it - because instead of her voice she heard his, he was speaking to her again. Her worst fears laid bare, and she wondered again if he wasn’t real. He wouldn’t say those things? Would he? Not unless he knew. And maybe he did just know. She wanted to run away from him and lean into him and say she was sorry and force him back to help her set it right. She’d disappear forever. But she couldn’t do that either.
It wasn’t until he started in on why he was high, or why he had to get sober. A thought that had never crossed her mind. A worry that had never settled, nothing that had even tried to take hold in her heart or mind. Not even now after he was gone. There was one thing she had always, always, been sure of. Will had loved her, and that is why he stayed. But now. Now he couldn’t stand her. And every mistake, every word she’d ever said was replaying over and over in her mind and once again she was convinced he was real.
Convinced because repeating her own fears to her in a place like this made sense. It’s what she would do if she were and evil spirit. But he was telling her the truth as he saw it. Some of it wasn’t from her. She curled her knees up closed to her chest and rested her head on her knees willing him to go away. She said it out loud over and over again.
But when she felt him start to fade away into his own laughter her head popped back up and she was asking him to stop, asking him to stay. Telling him she was sorry and that she needed him to stay. He laughed more. And faded slower, but faded just the same. Until all that was left was a cruel cheshire cat grin and and a laugh on the wind. She begged, and cried for him to come back, and there was another vague laugh from halfway up the street, he’d see her later. Good. She thought. Good.