Vicodin | Victor Mannich (takeyourpain) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2013-06-06 18:15:00 |
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Current mood: | accomplished |
Entry tags: | datura, vicodin |
Who: Vicodin & Datura
What: Bringing her home
When: A couple hours after this
Where: Streets of NY, then Vicodin's home
She'd hadn't come home. The market closed at sundown, and she'd said she was coming right back. Midnight had come and gone, and she still hadn't come home. Vicodin had started pacing the kitchen, drinking too much and watching the hands of the clock slowly crawl around and around. Vicodin knew his Tante was a grown woman, but beneath her smiles, she was fragile. And he was not saying that to be sexist. Datura herself had said she rode the edge of madness more often than not, and it made him worried when she didn't at least call.
Finally, when he couldn't stand it any longer, he made half a dozen calls. They were all to people who worked for him, the ones he could trust to do a job well when he asked it of them. He gave them a short description of Datura, followed with both a threat and a promise. If any harm came to her at their hands, he'd kill them. If they found her alive and brought her back to him, he would reward them. He ended the final call and knocked back the last of his drink. You did not fuck with his family without consequences.
He took to the streets himself, going to places she'd mentioned to him, parks she liked, anything he could think of. But finally, around 2:30 a.m., he got a call from Brandon, his searcher in Chinatown. Datura was alive and intact, and they were waiting for him at a dim sum shop. Vicodin got the address and hailed a cab to take him there. Once he'd arrived, he found the shop mostly deserted except for the two of them. They were at a table, dim sum and tea arranged in front of them, but Brandon seemed to be the only one eating anything. Datura was seated on the bench across from him, her knees drawn up to her chest, her head resting on her knees. He looked over at Brandon, one eyebrow raised, but said nothing.
"This is how I found her," Brandon said. "Wandering down an alley, not really going anywhere. Figured I'd get us someplace inside, somewhere well-lit. I tried to get her to eat something, but she wouldn't."
Vicodin sighed, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "Danke," he said softly. He put a few bills on the table for the food. "I'll call you in a day or two, ja?"
"Sure thing," Brandon said, finishing his tea and standing. "See you around." He stepped outside and vanished into the night.
Vicodin looked back at Datura. "Tante?" he said softly.
She didn't look at him. "Please," she said, in a tiny, broken voice. "Please, whatever you want, I can have it. My family will get it for you. I just want to go home."
His heart broke a little at the way she sounded. "I'm your family, Tante," he told her, reaching for her hand. "I am, even if you don't remember."
She finally raised her head, her dark eyes scared and confused. "They all leave," she said in a hollow voice. "My family always leaves, so you can't be mine. They've all gone."
"Hush," he said, with just a touch of firmness. "We haven't all gone, Tante. You have a home with me, a room to yourself and a roof over your head. I promise you. I'm not going anywhere."
She was still looking at him warily, but she'd uncoiled and was looking at him more closely. Both eyes were sharper than before. "I was always a wanderer, no home to go back to. They took me where they would, and I couldn't go back, but what was there to go back to?" Her face fell. "I'm so tired," she said, her voice very small.
"Let's get you home," he said, helping her to stand. "You can sleep there."
She nodded slowly, and he spoke softly the whole cab ride home, careful not to spook her. Once they were back at the house, he let her go in first. He watched her eyes dart around the room, falling on a photograph of the two of them in front of the Statue of Liberty. They had their arms around each other, beaming into the camera. She picked up the picture and studied it, her face softening slightly. "You keep calling me Tante," she finally said. "What does it mean?"
"It's German for 'aunt'," he replied. "Our family is so complex, none of us can really wear just one label. But my father called you sister, or at least, acknowledged that one of his brothers did. So Tante you became."
"Mandrake," she said softly. "I remember him...bella, he said, but I never felt like it. I always felt like they were humoring me. Except for Henbell, my Henbane. But she's gone too."
He took a few steps toward her slowly, then gently pulled her into a hug. "Your family does care about you, Tante," he told her. "You've all scattered to the winds before, but you always find each other again. You'll see them again, I know you will." She felt light and brittle in his arms, and he could feel that she was quietly crying.
"Let's put you to bed," he said, a gentle arm around her shoulders. He led her to her room, showed her where the bathroom was. "If you need anything, I'll just be down the hall," he told her, pointing to his own bedroom door. "Sleep well."
"Good night," she replied, a small, shaky smile on her face as she closed the door.
Vicodin padded down to his own bedroom, shutting the door behind him and reaching for the liquor again. (He had bottles stashed in almost every room in the house.) He took a pull straight from the bottle, then groped for the remote and flipped on the TV. Criminal Minds started playing at half volume in the background, the noise helped to settle his rapidly spinning mind. Datura had been doing so well these past few months, even holding onto enough power to keep her new form. So what had changed? What had pushed her over the metaphorical edge? He'd seen her up close, she wasn't hurt, and there weren't any puncture marks that he could see.
That just left...other immortals. He watched his face darken in the mirror. He knew that, as far as power went, Datura wasn't very high up on the food chain. She was kept alive through religious offerings, rituals, people looking for a trip, and some alternative medicine. It probably wouldn't take much for even one of the Greeks to mess with her head.
His fist tightened around the neck of the bottle as he took another drink. He was not going to let this stand. If they wanted to fight, he'd give them a fight. They might be older than him, but he was more powerful, and he had money and connections, and a network of people throughout the five boroughs.
He'd get his answers, and then he'd get his revenge.