Who: Nic & Lem & Zania Where: The Castell House When: morning, Thursday, January 25th Status: complete
After breaking the news about Carson to Rylee, Nic didn’t want to come home. There was no scenario he could imagine where the conversation with her would end well, even if she understood that Vex had been literally sucking the life out of her. His stomach was in knots as he entered the house and he thought he might even throw up, but then found she was still sleeping where he’d left her. It gave him a chance to deal with his shoulder, which needed more attention than he’d been willing to admit. The bullet was lodged in the bone and it took Zania’s help to get it out. Even with magic, he needed stitches and it was likely going to leave a scar. It felt like nothing compared to the emotional toll the night had on him and everyone else.
Once he was patched up, he took a shower, then attempted to eat before settling down in the chair beside Lem. It didn’t even feel right to curl up with her, knowing the news he had to give her, and he wondered if she’d even stay. All that mattered was that she woke up. If she didn’t wake up, if the damage was permanent, he didn’t know what he’d do. It was too much to think about and he closed his eyes, praying to whatever gods would listen to bring some good out of this night because at the moment it felt like a total loss.
Something had shifted in Lem’s quality of sleep. Instead of being stuck in a formless black hole of unconsciousness, she started to dream. They weren’t nice peaceful dreams by far, most chaotic and confusing and scary, but it was like something in her brain started working again. She didn’t know how long it lasted, or what was going on outside of her, but when she rolled over and opened her eyes, Lem felt completely different. For one, she could actually move without every cell in her body protesting it. She pulled in a deep breath, her eyes drawn to the very faint light coming through the window before they moved to Nic. He was sitting in a chair by the bed and looking at her. Her first impulse was to smile, and it was kind of amazing how easily it came. She rolled on her side to face him, stretching her aching back with a little groan. “Hi,” she whispered. Her memories of what had happened before she’d woken up were still fuzzy and faraway, she just knew she felt so much better.
“Hey,” Nic said softly, unable to help smiling back at her just a little. It was such a relief to see her awake that for a second he forgot about everything else. Nic moved to sit on the edge of the bed, wanting just to be close to her, yet hesitant to wrap her up in his arms like he wanted. She still looked so small and frail, a shadow of the firecracker she’d been before. He had to keep reminding himself that Vex had done that to her just by being near her. He’d been hurting her, even if it had been unintentional. It was easy to tell himself, but he doubted Lem would have an easy time with it. It was all going to be made worse by the fact that Vex wasn’t there. “How are you feeling?” he asked, hoping to put the heavy stuff aside for just a few more minutes. She needed to heal and that would be so much harder from the pit of despair.
Lem hummed as she scooted in closer to Nic, curling around him without sitting up, her head resting against his thigh and her thighs pulled up to his lower back. She wanted him to lie down with her, to wrap around him and go back to sleep. Not because she was as tired as she had been, but just because it would be nice. “Better,” she murmured, turning her head a bit to look up at him. Her brow flexed a tiny bit as real thoughts started to rise to the surface. If she felt so much better, that meant something had changed. Lem’s eyes moved away from Nic’s face to briefly scan the room. They were the only ones there, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. “Did something happen?” Lem asked in a whisper, looking at her boyfriend again. He looked tired and unhappy, and a bad feeling started to grow in Lem’s stomach.
It was Nic that was tired now, drained from the events of the past twenty-four hours. As desperate as he was to curl up with Lem and put it all behind him, he knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. This had been going on for so long that Nic hadn’t thought he’d ever be rid of it. Now it was over and he wanted it all back, the mirror weirdness, the telepathy, even the dreams, just so he wouldn’t be here. He ran his fingers through her hair, surprised to see his hands were shaking slightly. “Yeah,” he whispered in response. “What do you remember?” He’d assumed she’d remember everything, but if her first concern wasn’t for Vex, considering how he’d left her, then asking was probably a good place to start. It would have been easier if she remembered Vex pointing a gun at him, but she’d been so out of it that it wouldn’t surprise him if that slipped her mind.
That was a good question. Lem’s subconscious didn’t really want to remember anything, she just wanted to rest and not be upset for a while. But Nic had asked, so Lem tried to think back to before she’d ended up in Nic’s bed. She remembered Vex, being manic about ... something ... someone? Someone having it out for him. Things started to come back to her more rapidly -- being so tired and trying to tell Vex that she was sick, him dragging her out of bed and carrying her outside, all of that cold ... and then Nic had shown up and there was lots of yelling ... “You two were arguing,” she murmured, her expression turning more concerned. “You and Vex. Over me? God, I felt so bad. But then ... he left? It’s all so jumbled, but is he back? What’s going on now?” Lem searched Nic’s tired eyes, that bad feeling growing worse by the second.
“Shit kinda hit the fan,” Nic sighed. “People all over town were either going mad or falling into a coma. A few even died. Everyone seemed to be affected but us and… and the people who were attacked in the fog.” He was caught between wanting to stall and knowing she needed to know what happened. It was hard to explain it all because he never felt like they had all the answers. Maybe they’d done what they were always intended to do, but that made him feel manipulated. And yet, if there was another way, they’d failed to find it. “We realized they were sucking the energy out of people. Or distorting it. I dunno. I don’t even know if they knew what they were doing, but we had to do something or…” Nic didn’t want to think about the alternative, even though it had been their driving motivation for acting. Lem might have never woken up. The whole town... would it have rotted and died? It was hard to tell now. “We tried to save them, to suck the bad out of them somehow. But it didn’t work.”
Lem felt like she had known what was happening to the town in a vague sense, or at least known that she wasn’t the only one feeling so run down and then eventually incapacitated. She just couldn’t remember any details about how she knew that, and after a certain point all of the days had started to blur together into a big lump of exhaustion. She listened to Nic, her brow furrowing further and further. She definitely felt like the energy had been sucked from her, and now she knew for sure that it had been coming from Vex. Or going into Vex, whatever. Lem was positive he hadn’t known what he was doing, he would never hurt her on purpose, but it was still distressing to hear. The last bit was ominous, and Lem pulled away from Nic so she could sit up and look at him more fully. Her head swam a bit with weariness and hunger, but it was nothing compared to how she’d been feeling, so it was easy enough to ignore. “What happened, Nic,” she asked, her voice soft and a little flat. She knew it was bad, she was trying to brace herself. “Where’s Vex?”
Nic could tell she was trying to prepare herself, but he didn’t think anyone was ever prepared for this kind of news. It was like having to tell her that Vex had died, except there was no body, no proof except his own word and a bizarre story that wouldn’t make much sense to anyone who hadn’t been there for it. But maybe she would understand. Lem had been with him the whole way, from the sleepwalking to the telepathy to the shared dreams. She’d even stepped into one with him. It wouldn’t soften the blow, but at least she’d know he never intended this to happen, that it wasn’t some twisted plan like Vex had believed. “We thought, if we opened the portal from where the bad energy came from, that it might go back. So we called them all together. But instead, the fog came back, and those creatures started to come out. And everyone who’d been injured by the fog fought back. It got all out of control and we had to close the portal. Vex and all the others… they got trapped inside. He’s in another world.”
As Nic started to speak, Lem pulled her knees up to her chest to hug them, more upset creeping into her expression with every word. She had already sensed this was going to be Bad News, and part of her was already certain that Vex was dead. But that wasn’t what Nic said. Lem’s brows drew together, her heart pounding sick and hard in her chest. “He’s in ... the god world?” she asked, even though she knew that Nic didn’t really believe in what they believed. It didn’t matter, it was still a real place, with real things in it, and now Vex was there. For a second, Lem was conflicted -- wasn’t that what he would want? Wouldn’t he be protected over there? He was chosen as a prophet, after all. But that meant Vex was gone, out of her reach. He was where the fog monsters were, and whether they were gods or not, that seemed like a dangerous place to be for a mortal man. Lem’s eyes started to turn a little desperate and her voice was a bit higher pitched when she spoke again. “But you can get him back, right? Open it back up and find him?”
Even though Nic didn’t believe what Lem and Vex believed, he wasn’t going to argue about it. If those creatures were gods, they were violent, vengeful ones that had it out for him and the others. If Vex had been chosen, if he was a prophet, then so was Nic, seeing two different views of the same future, one awake and one asleep. Neither of them had asked for it. Nic could almost see the wheels turning in her eyes and expected the question when it came, as Rylee had asked the same. “We can’t,” he tried to explain as gently as possible. “The fog monsters could come out. Or other things. Worse things. There’s no way of knowing where he is or how to find him. And even if we used magic or something to track him down, he still wouldn’t be himself. He’d suck the energy out of you, babe. He’d hurt you, even if he doesn’t mean to.” As crazy as Vex had seemed, he hadn’t seemed aware of what he was doing to Lem, that he was sure of.
Lem knew Nic was going to say no even before he did, and there were big tears in her eyes before he was done talking. Her hands crept up the sides of her head to clench in her messy short hair and she started shaking her head as it all sank in deeper. “No,” she murmured, though it wasn’t exactly directed at Nic. It was just a negation of this whole thing, like she could just will it away. Lem knew Vex had been the reason she’d felt so bad, and she maybe would’ve died if Nic hadn’t stepped in. If Vex had actually taken her away somewhere, she might’ve been a goner. But that didn’t matter at the moment, all that mattered was that Nic was saying he was gone for good. “No, no, no,” she started to wail, the tears spilling over as her face crumpled. “No, we can’t leave him there, Nic!” She knew he was saying they had to, but they couldn’t, Lem didn’t think she could handle that. Her breathing was speeding up and she was feeling more dizzy, like the bed was listing from side to side. Vex couldn’t be gone, he just couldn’t.
Nic reached for her, wanting to hold her, but also trying to give her the space to grieve. He’d known it was going to be bad, but he felt so useless, knowing nothing he could say would help things in the least. It was wrong to leave them there, but they didn’t have a better solution. If they brought them back, everything would just start up again. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, his heart breaking for her. “I’d bring him back if we could.” The cold, hard truth wasn’t very comforting, no matter how Nic tried to spin it and he’d spent the whole drive home trying to come up with something better to say. Everything felt very hollow. He owed her the truth, no matter how bad it was. They’d always been honest with each other and he didn’t want that to change, especially since it felt like everything else would.
Lem flinched back from Nic’s hands and started shoving the blankets off of her legs, her heart pounding as she started really sobbing. She didn’t want to be touched, she didn’t want comfort, she wanted Vex. She heard his voice in the back of her mind, soft and kind and not demanding like he had been the last time she’d seen him. Why so upset, firecracker? I’m with the gods now. But Lem knew that was just her imagination and not really him. That place was dangerous, chosen one or not, and now he was stranded there all alone. The gods didn’t care about humans, even the ones they liked. The Black Unicorn hadn’t led Vex there, it had been some other thing, some bad thing, and Nic had helped make it happen. Lem was starting to hyperventilate as she scrambled off of the bed, intending to run, out of the room, out of this house, back to her own space, but her legs were so weak that she collapsed onto the floor instead. Lem tried to scream, but all that came out was a thin wheeze. This couldn’t be real, she couldn’t accept it, something had to be done.
Nic pulled back, his heart breaking for her as she began to sob. Comfort was the only thing he could offer, but he understood why she'd reject it, especially from him of all people. A selfish part of him wanted to turn this around, point out how hard this had been on him, he'd been shot, for fuck's sake, and probably by Vex himself. But no amount of self pity could compare with the despair Lem was feeling. It was guilt that took hold instead, knowing he was the one to blame for Vex being gone. Maybe if they'd pushed themselves harder to understand what was happening they could have come up with a better solution, one that didn't break Lem. As she crumbled to the floor, Nic rushed to her side, but this time didn't try to pick her up. "Let me help you. Please," he said softly. "If you don't want me, let me get Zan."
She was beyond even noticing that Nic had been hurt, much less able to have sympathy for his pain. Lem felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest. Vex had saved her from the horrible cycle of psych wards, Vex had protected her, Vex had given her everything she’d needed for so long, she hadn’t been able to imagine life without him. In her mind, he was always going to be there, tall and strange and magical, showing her worlds that nobody else could fathom. He was her best friend and her anchor and now he was gone, and that meant she was absolutely lost at sea. Lem had grown feelings for Nic, the first other person to breach her walls, and in the back of her mind she knew she was hurting him with this reaction, but she couldn’t stop it yet. She also couldn’t breathe well enough to answer him, she just curled up into the fetal position, trying to be as small as possible as her body fought itself to sob and breathe at the same time. She didn’t want Nic or Zan or anyone but her prophet, and he was gone. Gone gone gone. What a horrible word. So tiny and simple for such a huge concept.
Nic crouched beside Lem, his head bowed as he struggled with how to move forward. He couldn't leave her there, drowning in sorrow and despair, but he understood that she might hate him now. He'd taken away the person who meant more to her than anyone else and that might not be something they could come back from. All he wanted at this point was for her to be okay, even if that meant he needed to give her some space. He waited a few minutes, his chest aching as Lem continued to cry, then quietly left her to go find his sister. She couldn't necessarily make things better, but at least she might be a neutral party, one who might not cause pain just by being there.
Zania didn't understand Lem and Vex's relationship as well as Nic did, but she still knew that Lem wasn't going to take the news well. She'd been in her room when she heard Lem start crying and immediately went downstairs to make her some tea. Maybe she wouldn't want it, but Zan thought she might need it. She was still in the kitchen when Nic came to find her and she followed him back up to his room, handing the tea over to him as she left him standing in the doorway. "Hey," she said softly, taking a seat on the floor next to Lem. She didn't say anything else, but began to gently rub her back, hoping it might calm her down. Lem's aura was dim and gray at the tips, but it looked better than it had when she'd been in a coma. Zan knew that was a good sign, regardless of how she might be feeling at the moment.
Lem felt like she could sob and wail for days on end, but her body simply didn’t have that kind of energy. Physically, she felt worlds better than she had when Nic had rescued her from Vex, but she was still drained from not eating and being in bed for days. She ran out of steam after Zan had been there for a few minutes, her noise dwindling down into soft whimpers as her eyes stopped streaming. Now on top of being tired, her head hurt and her nose was stuffed up and she just laid there for a little while with Zan rubbing her back. She wasn’t consciously blaming Nic for anything, she just felt hollow and lost now. The best friend she’d ever had was gone, along with her tether to her higher purpose. The Black Pegasus didn’t speak directly to her, how was she going to know what to do now? “I wanna go home,” she mumbled to no one in particular.
Nic was quiet as he waited, his eyes downcast and sad. It hurt to know he’d brought this upon her, even if it was for her own good. What if she couldn’t recover from the loss? She’d been such a little firecracker and he hated to think he was the one who’d snuffed out her fire. He knew it was still the right choice to make, that Lem wasn’t the only person affected by Vex and the others, but it still felt like such a high price to pay—a sacrifice of a dozen or more for the good of the town. Nic sighed softly at her request, a part of him expecting it. Of course she’d want to go.
Zania looked up at her brother, not all that sure how to respond. They couldn’t keep Lem there, she was welcome to leave, but she’d been in bed for days. She needed to eat and regain her strength. The idea of her being over in that house all alone, in her current state, didn’t sit right with Zania. “Can you walk?” she asked instead. She wouldn’t tell Lem no, but if her only choice was Nic carrying her, maybe that would keep her close a little longer. “Why don’t you have some tea, maybe something to eat, and as soon as you’re feeling up to it we’ll get you home,” she gently suggested.
That sounded reasonable, didn’t it? Lem’s legs were achy and had pins and needles from the way she’d curled on the floor, and she couldn’t exactly crawl across the street in the snow. Was it still snowing? Lem didn’t even know. She didn’t feel like she knew anything. Zania’s voice was soft and caring, at least. She’d always been nice to Lem. So had Nic, on even deeper levels, but Lem couldn’t think about him too much at the moment. There was a lot to work through all of the sudden, and she didn’t have room in her brain yet for any of it. There was only more grief than she’d ever felt in her young life. “Okay,” she whispered to Zania, and forced herself to uncurl. Lem sat up with some effort and leaned against the side of the bed. She wanted to pull the blanket off of it and wrap herself up in a cocoon to hide from everything, but she didn’t have the energy at the moment.
Zania gave Lem a small smile and offered her a hand up, pretty sure she’d need it if she wanted up off the floor. If not, she was welcome to stay on the floor, but that was far less comfortable in her opinion. She seemed to be getting her strength back, which was good, but it might take a bit longer before she had it in full. Lem had been closest to Vex, which meant she’d been drained more than anyone else. If he’d succeeded in taking her away, Zania was certain she wouldn’t even be alive. “I made you some tea,” she said, turning to Nic and taking it from him, then offering it to Lem. “It’ll help you feel better. And I’ll make you something to eat. You might want to take it easy for a few hours. You’ve been out for a while.” Even if she was starving, her stomach might revolt if she ate a real meal immediately. Zania thought oatmeal might be gentle enough. It wasn’t exactly exciting, but she doubted Lem cared at the moment.
Nic knew he was hovering, but he didn’t know what else to do. He hated to leave Lem, but he didn’t want to cause her anymore pain either. If she needed him, he wanted to be close. If she decided she wanted him to carry her home, he’d do it, but she might have to fight him to get him to leave. As exhausted as he was, his concern for her was greater and he worried that if he left her alone she would just curl up and cry. That was fine for a while, but he didn’t want to see her kill herself over this. Vex wouldn’t have wanted that either.
Lem’s legs felt kind of shaky, so she sat on the edge of the bed to accept the tea from Zania. It felt heavier than it should, but everything probably would until she got her strength back. If she ever did. At the moment Lem didn’t feel like anything would ever be the same as it had been. Unless she backslid into the mental state she’d been in when Vex had found her in the psych hospital, but that was worst-case scenario. Lem didn’t ever want to feel like that again. Lem nodded at Zan’s suggestion for food -- something she didn’t want but knew she needed -- and sipped carefully on the tea. It tasted good and it was nicely hot, but swallowing anything kind of hurt from the lump in her throat. She waited until Zan had left the room to presumably go make her some food, and then Lem’s gaze slid to Nic once more. Trying to think clearly was like wading through thick mud, but Lem did her best. “Are you all right?” she asked him, her voice soft and rusty.
Nic felt immensely better now that Lem was sitting up and drinking tea, though he kept his distance, careful not to make a move that might result in her breaking down again. Tea wasn't going to make things better, nor was food, but if there were words that would help they weren't coming easily. There was a numbness that kept trying to take over, but Nic fought against it, wanting to be present for Lem if he could be. "I'm alive," he answered and he figured that was good enough. Had the bullet hit him about six inches to the left, then he wouldn't have been quite so lucky. "It's been a long night. A long few days, actually.”
Now that Lem was looking at him, she was really looking and taking stock. For the first time she saw that his shirt was bloody. And it wasn’t the kind of blood that had obviously come from someone else. He’d gotten hurt in all of this. That gave Lem such mixed feelings that she had to look away again. Part of her wanted to go and comfort him, to kiss his wounds and stroke his hair and make sure he was more than just alive ... and part of her thought it served him right. It was a petty, vengeful part, but she couldn’t deny those feelings. Vex was worse than hurt. Vex might be dead by now. All of Lem’s insides railed against that idea -- she would know when he died, she felt absolutely sure ... but what if she’d slept through it? What if the barrier between them now was too thick, what if he was just gone forever? Her throat felt tight again, and she made herself swallow some more tea. “I’m glad you’re alive,” she managed to say, even though the words wavered.
It would've been nice to curl up with Lem and wish the past few months away, but Nic didn't expect it. At this point he should probably just be happy that she was speaking to him. It wasn't all that promising for their relationship, which upset him more than he was willing to show. At least she didn't want him dead. It left Nic speechless, unable to confide in her the horrors of the night before and the certainty he'd had that they were all going to die. "You too," he said softly. He hadn't in all honesty known if she was going to wake up, but he'd had to hope. Now he wasn't sure how to move forward. "If there's anything I can do," he said hesitantly. "Let me know."
Lem couldn’t think about forward yet, or their relationship. She could barely sort out all the chaotic emotions boiling inside of her. She kind of wished now that she hadn’t gotten better, so she could just keep sleeping through all of this. She wanted nothing more than to just wake up a few weeks from now and have everything set right. Life was never that easy though, was it? She had to be awake and painfully aware of everything. The only things Lem thought of when Nic made that offer involved opening the portal back up so she could charge in and find Vex, and she knew that wasn’t happening, so she just nodded a bit while she stared down into her tea. She hoped Zania hurried with the food so she could get out of there and have some privacy to break down some more without an audience.
Nic desperately wanted to be able to tell Lem it was going to be okay, but it was too big a lie to swallow. Vex was gone and she might never be okay. He couldn’t know. All he knew was that she was suffering now and that his presence wasn’t helping, so Nic swallowed the lump in his throat and forced himself to move on. “I’m gonna go see if Zan needs any help,” he said, despite being certain his sister could handle oatmeal without him hovering. It was an excuse to give her the privacy she probably wanted, the best he could do short of carrying her home. “Call if you need anything.” He gave her the tiniest of sad smiles, then slipped away, shutting the door behind him. It didn’t feel good to leave her alone, but nothing felt good right now and he knew it was probably the right decision.
She watched him leave, but kind of sideways, as she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Lem felt deficient all of the sudden, like she wasn’t reacting to this the ‘right’ way. It wasn’t Nic’s fault -- it was a feeling she was the most intimate with from the psych hospitals, with all of the doctors and their expectations and leading questions about her big emotions. Vex had never expected anything but honesty out of her, and she wished desperately that he was there in that moment. He would take her grief any way it came. Of course she wouldn’t be grieving if he was there, but whatever. Lem carefully set the tea down once she was alone and covered her eyes for another brief storm of tears. There was a hole in her world and she was already feeling it, and Lem knew enough about pain to know this was only the beginning.