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 Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 3:38 pm
Aftermath [2074 words] (Originally posted Apr 24, 2014)
Chase collapses to the ground, knees colliding with the polished wooden floor while his fingers grip at the fabric stretched across his chest. They tangle themselves in the cloth, pulling then tearing it apart. His chest aches, no burns, in the space where one would find his starseed (if they could reach it). He tugs and pulls, desperate to free himself of his shirt, reveling the sick tearing sound as the threads are forced in opposite directions.
At last, it’s torn in two with a groan and his fingers begin to claw at his skin, the middle of his chest just right of his heart. They leave red marks that trail across the expanse of his pecs but do little to relieve him of the agony wracking his body. Eventually he throws himself backwards, sprawling out across the ground screaming in agony.
He can’t focus on anything but the burning sensation that is seeping through him, extending from the center of his chest and flowing out filling every part of him. Resisting it has done him no good so he goes limp and lets the pain flow through him. His muscles twitch and his face contorts in pain while he struggles to relax.
Pain is an illusion, it is only temporary. It will pass. He tells himself, silently. He tries to focus on that single stream of consciousness before pain overtakes him and he jerks up clutching his heart. His vision goes white and for a moment, he forgets how to breath but then it clears and he’s gasping for air.
The pain has begun to subside so he picks himself off of the floor and leans against the wall for support. He drags himself to the one of the guest rooms, shoulder sliding along the wall, and staggers to the bed. He barely makes it to the edge of the mattress before he’s falling forward, sinking into the comforter. He falls asleep like that, the burning feeling reduced to an ache that throbs with every breath but he’s too exhausted to pay it heed.
Two hours later and he wakes with a start. His face is pressed against the blankets when his amber eyes flutter open and a fresh wave of pain shoots through him. His hands slide up until they’re level with his shoulders and he pushes himself up and settles back on his knees. Again his fingers slither across the skin of his chest and rest on the same, nail-marked, space as before.
He gasps, lurching forward as another wave strikes him and he tries to combat it by closing his eyes and focusing on his breathing. It’s unsuccessful and he is panting by the time the pain subsides. It has returned to the dull ache that manages to pulse with the beat of his heart. His face is drenched in sweat and his limbs weak but he gets off the bed anyway.
He moves slowly but soon enough he is standing before a full length mirror staring at his worn-ragged body. The skin of his chest is still a bright red, a mixture of his nails scraping across it and whatever Iris did when she pulled out her crystal. The bags under his eyes are dark, deep and for the first time in a while, Chase feels as ragged as he looks.
It makes him sick.
Pain shoots through him again so he leans forward, pressing his forehead against the mirror’s cool glass along with his right arm for support. This time he keeps his breathing steady and slow. The pain passes quicker this time.
He wonders how much damage she did to his starseed.
His mind flashes back to the brawl; Parth losing the fight, Iris coming to his rescue, Iris pulling out her crystal and attempting to force purification upon him and failing. Trying to force purification upon him and failing. Why did she fail? If a General-King or Queen attempted to forcibly bring someone to their side, they would have been successful. Iris could not do the same thing, but why?
Her senshi powers were on par with his leaders yet she could not successfully turn him.
Too many question fill his thoughts and he can no longer separate them so he pushes them away. They are questions he must contemplate later, when he is not suffering from the side-effects of her failure. The recurring pain fogs his mind, renders him unable to concentrate.
He must get rid of it.
So he wracks his brain for an escape or a way to cure it and naturally his brain leads him to the memory of his first--and only victory against the senshi of rainbows. Particularly the part where he ingested a starseed to give him a power boost and a heightened resiliency. The ability to heal quicker.
That is it!
Consuming a starseed would help calm the ache, dissolve it even. Well, perhaps not one but a few. The starseeds would come at the cost of civilian lives, but if it meant that he recovered quicker...it would be worth it.
He pushes back, away from the mirror so he could peer at his reflection. His sweat had left smudges on the glass, obscuring his face but he ignored them. Instead he turns and staggers out of the room.
Darkness welcomes him when he finally steps out of his house, wincing as he tugs a jacket on. Few stars twinkle in the expanse of the night sky and the moon is half covered by dark grey clouds that threaten rain. Still, he tilts his head back and stares at it’s light as though he’s mesmerized.
Pain jerks him out of his daze, making him swallow dryly and blink when he pulls his gaze away. He forces his feet forward moving in any direction that will take him away from his house. The further he goes the better, he has enough suspicion following him--a result of his father’s death, even in death the man looms over him-- so he doesn’t want all the fingers pointing his way when multiple bodies are found, scattered throughout the streets.
He tells himself that he will only take as many starseeds as he needs, no more. There are enough dead in Destiny City and hardly any of them are the ones who should be (senshi) but he lacks the strength and energy required to hunt, and kill, one so he will settle for easy prey.
By the end of the night, when he finally collapses again, he will have told himself a hundred times that sacrifices have to be made, lives will always be lost and that death is inevitable. He has murmured those phrases to himself countless times before, but tonight will be the night he convinces himself that it’s true.
Death is inevitable and he is one of it’s grim reapers.
He doesn’t remember when he powers up again, letting chaos flow through his veins and instill him with power he isn’t sure he would ever give up, nor does he remember slipping into a club engaging in meaningless conversation with some pretty brunette(he doesn’t hit on blondes any more, brings up too many poor memories). The residual pain of his damaged starseed still ails him and more often he is too caught up in suppressing it that he only hears the sound of her voice and not the words.
He tries quickly of her high-pitched voice and pulls her out back, pressing her up against the wall with his lips on hers. His kisses are meaningless, just a means to distract her as his hand slide up her waist and over her breast. His hand lingers for a minute because he hesitates, suddenly unsure of who he is and what he is doing but a spike of pain pushes his hand forward reaching into the cavity only the negaverse could find. He pulls the starseed out with no remorse and backs away watching, with mild amusement, as her eyes go dim and her body falls to the ground.
His expression molds into one of contemplation and thoughtfulness as he wonders when he became so insensitive to death before lifting the glowing shard to his lips and devouring it in one swallow.
He’s gone before the brunette’s friend peeks out the door to find her dead body. He isn’t so far away that he doesn’t hear the frantic screams and shouts that follow. The smirk that finds his lips would be unsettling to anyone that saw him but to Chase, it’s perfectly normal. It reflects the effects chaos has on his personality. Death has become the norm, the constant, in his life and he accepts it readily.
The second starseed he steals is from another young woman who made the mistake of flirting with him at the bar. She’s a redhead with green eyes and briefly he is reminded of Fiona, the friend he abandoned after Samuel died. Though he has no ill-wishes towards the girl he doesn’t hesitate to rip her starseed from her chest once he gets her alone, again distracting her with a line of kisses down her neck and promises of a good time.
This time the starseed passes through his lips after he slips out of the bar bathroom, the heels of his boots clicking against the pavement as he walks away.
He feels his strength returning and it shows in the briskness of his steps, the straightness of his back but there is the dullest of aches in his starseed cavity(and he swears he can feels the cracks). He considers returning home so sleep can heal the rest but he’s already claimed two lives, one more wouldn’t hurt.
The quickness of his decision makes him wonder when he stopped valuing civilian life. Still, he moves forward with purpose and enters another bar. This time however, he doesn’t pick up another girl and instead gets into a bar fight.
During the brawl he takes a hard punch to his jaw, a jab to his stomach and an elbow to the temple. In turn he delivers a knee to the man’s gut, a fist to his chin and a heel to his knee. His opponent falls to his knees, staring up at Labyrinthite with a look that is a mixture of fear and horror. The captain thrusts his palm forward, colliding with the man’s sternum --or rather that’s what it looks like but instead his hand is reaching inside and pulling the starseed free-- and the man falls back. Fellow patrons gasp in horror, gathering around the body to check if the man is still breathing. He is not, of course, but Laby takes the opportunity to disappear into the crowd. He blends into the crowd easily, slips out the backdoor and checks his surroundings before powering down.
He looks smug as he ventures back to his house, hands shoved into his jacket pocket. His fingers are curled tightly around his prize as though it were a trophy and not a means to heal his damaged heart --starseed. Heart, starseed. Same thing. He would die without either one.
He seems content to simply tote it around with him merrily when the burning sensations returns, rearing it’s ugly head with full force, and he finds himself on his knees with his hands splayed out before him barely supporting his weight. His arms shake and his fingers curl tightly against the dimly lit shard. His gaze fixes upon the ground and he breathes unevenly.
Minutes pass before he feels stable enough to lift his hand and pop the starseed into his mouth. Instead of swallowing immediately, as he had with the others, he pushes it between his molars and crunches down until it splinters into several pieces. He chews it slowly, carefully then swallows letting the surge of energy overtake him. The warmth spreads from his stomach to the tips of his fingers then down to his toes and he stands, rejuvenated.
The dull ache has gone, vanished by the healing powers of the starseeds and he has never felt more alive.
By the time he reaches his house and makes his way to his room, the energy has left him and he falls onto the bed. Sleep claims him quickly and for the first time since he threw Iris off a building, he sleeps without dreaming.
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Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 3:39 pm
Morality [1077 words] (Originally posted Apr 30, 2014)
Captain Labyrinthite had not been among those who had been gathered, and punished, by General-King Zinkentite, but he knew they had suffered and a part of him felt guilty that he had slipped away unnoticed. The other part of him felt smug, clever even for getting away unscathed, with a reflective dark mirror starseed to boot. Of course, karma had come around and kicked his a** in the form of one Princess Iris and her attempted purification.
Sometimes, when he wakes in the middle of the night with his hand pressed against his chest, he feels his starseed being pulled in the wrong direction. Phantom pain plagues his sleep, though he doesn’t mind waking in random intervals as he has never been friends with sleep anyway. He does mind, however, that Iris haunts his dreams beause when he wakes, he finds himself uncertain and drenched in sweat.
They’re never fighting in his dreams, not physically, but they are always arguing. She challenges him, questions everything he stands for and most of the time...he lacks the answers to her questions. She’s never angry either, which is probably what bothers him the most.
The question she asks that gets him the most is: Why are you fighting alongside the Negaverse? and when she asks, she almost sounds sad and so very, very unlike the Iris he knows.
If he were to be completely honest, he joined the Negaverse for purely selfish reasons. For revenge, against the rainbow senshi that scarred his ankle. His reasons for diving deeper into the folds of chaos were selfish too, because if Kaia was lost to darkness, he wanted to be lost too.
Of course, he’d never been attacked prior to Iris’s intervention, despite running around willy at all hours of the night back then.
Then again, he had been attacked by a youma which was a weapon of the negaverse and Iris had] saved him.
What did that mean about them, the negaverse? Did that make them the bad guys?
The thought made him nauseous.
They were the defenders of the Earth, the soldiers awakened to protect it. Weren’t they?
It was then that he is thankful that he’s seated, resting against his bed’s headboard, when he thinks that question because the light headedness that overcomes his is strong enough to knock him off his feet.
Iris always asks, What are you fighting for? and he can’t ever answer immediately either.
What is he fighting for?
It used to be for selfish reasons; to get back at Iris, to get back at the senshi wreaking havoc on his city, and, perhaps most selfishly, for the heart of a girl who was, arguably, perhaps the only girl he ever really loved but now?
He’s not sure he knows anymore.
He likes to think that he’s fighting for the Earth, for the only home he’s ever known. He likes to believe that what he’s doing is right and necessary, after all he told himself a million times that night sacrifices have to be made but had he been simply making excuses for his actions.
It makes his head hurt, questioning his very being. His beliefs.
They’re all he’s got left now, his faith and certainty in what the Negaverse was doing. His father is dead, his mother is dying and he lost the only girl he loved years ago. Kaia doesn’t exist any more, and really neither does Chase. He’s Labyrinthite more than he’s Chase nowadays.
If he’s fighting for the bad guys, what happens if he stops?
Would they come and kill him? (Probably) Would Iris try and save him if he asked?
What would that mean for him? Could he start over, start fresh? And more importantly, did he want to?
His head is a swirling vortex of confusion, too many emotions and unsettlement. He doesn’t want to think about it anymore but he does, because he’s always been a glutton for punishment.
Chaos, the negaverse, Metallia...all they’ve done for him has been provide him with power, the ability to fight back, conquer and protect. To stand against those pesky sailor scouts who do nothing but wreak havoc on his city. The ones who tried to take over the heart of the Earth, Elysion. The ones who wounded Gently and the ones that forced Kaia so far away that he lost her permanently.
Senshi took his father away from him too.
Had that girl not come in, thinking she could get away with robbing them, then Samuel would have still been alive. He would have been making Chase’s life miserable still, but he would have been alive and then Lara would not be sick. He wouldn’t be in risk of losing both of this parents.
Senshi had robbed him of his family, while the Negaverse provided him with a new one. A dysfunctional one where disobeying orders could cost you your life, but a family none the less. Was he willing to give that up?
No.
Was he willing to give up the ferocity that chaos had instilled within him?
No.
Besides, Iris had attempted to alter his starseed, force him down a path he did not chose and she had failed and that itself created a whole new train of thoughts that added to the clutter in his head.
Chaos can be forced upon a person, he knew that. He hadn’t seen it first hand, well he had seen the aftermath, but he knew it could happen. Naomi, Sailor Eos, was a prime example of that. He had come upon her shortly after her forced corruption and he had seen how it tore her apart (And he hadn’t helped. No, he probably made it worse.) but he’d also seen how it built her back up, though it had been from a distance. (Because burning bridges had become a specialty of his it seemed.)
Order couldn’t be forced upon the unwilling.
Did that make Chaos the stronger force?
Yes, or at least he thought so.
Didn’t he want to ally with the stronger side?
Of course.
But there was still too much uncertainty, cloudiness within him. He needed to stop thinking about it, it was only wearing him out and he was so, so exhausted.
For once, sleep sounded better than being awake, so sleep he did.
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Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 3:40 pm
Meticulous [1060 words]
Sleeping doesn't help, if anything it aggravates his problem because, once again, Iris plagues his dreams. When he wakes in the morning, he's drenched in sweat, his two-toned hair matted and plastered to his skin, and he swears he can feel the color draining from his face. His heart thumps against his ribcage with the rapidness of a hummingbird's wings and it takes him seven minutes to calm it.
The worst part about the dreams is that they aren't nightmares, no nightmares would be preferable to this philosophical bullshit that makes him question the very fiber of his being. He doesn't feel like laying in bed and contemplating his life choices again, he is far too antsy to do that. No, he'll go crazy if he doesn't get out of his house and do something so he drags himself out of bed and into the shower.
The water is probably too hot, because his skin is burning, but it reminds him that he's awake so it stays that way. The shower itself is short, because he doesn't know how to take a long one anymore but the rest of his getting ready process seems to last ages.
Picking out an outfit takes him at least half an hour because he isn't picking between suits or anything business casual. In the end he settled on gray skinny jeans, a bright blue t-shirt with some band name scribbled across it, a purple zip-up hoodie and his black leather jacket. It's probably too hot for so many layers but that's what he wants.
It'll help him focus.
Once he settles on an outfit he moves on to his hair, spending another thirty minutes on that. He takes his time carefully shaping it upward into the fohawk style he prefers. He is slow and meticulous because concentrating so hard keeps his mind off of his potentially wavering beliefs. When he finishes, not a single hair is out of place.
He takes a moment to look in the mirror, staring at his reflection for too long. He takes in the deep bags under his eyes, further aggravated by his restless sleep and his insomnia, and he sees, for the first time, how gaunt his features are. His skin is tight against his cheekbones and jaw line, almost too tight.
When did he get so thin?
He's starting to look as bad as did right before he ended up in the hospital. He had been on track to getting better, filling out properly so what happened?
His mother got sick, their ambush against the Dark Mirror senshi failed, and Iris had attempted to "purify" him. The stress of all three likely kept him from eating like he should and he'd been sleeping a lot, well a normal amount but much more than his body was accustomed to.
Something needed to change.
He tears himself away from the mirror and his carefully chosen outfit comes of in waves of shedded clothing. He tears through his drawers until he finds a tank and some gym shorts and he pulls them on, messing up the fohawk he so carefully instructed. He tugs his hoodie and leather jacket back on, then his sneakers and swipes his keys to Hermes off the top of his dresser and takes off with a purpose.
It takes him twelve minutes to get to the gym.
It's been about three months since he'd been there. Between his training sessions and his participation in the White Phoenix plot, he hadn't had time for personal workouts. Maybe that was why it seemed like his muscle definition had begun to fade.
He needed to focus on himself right now, he would never stop with doubting himself if he didn't.
Being at the gym is nice, familiar and he falls into his old routine like he never stopped. An hour of cardio on the treadmill followed by squats, leg lifts and ending with push ups. The song he listens to on repeat is Stronger by Kanye West and it reminds him of the night he decided to give everything he was to the Negaverse.
He had never doubted his faith before.
The exercise clears his head, wipes the fog from his mind, and allows him to focus a little better. He’s thinking about all of Iris’s questions and the questions he asked himself the day before.
What is he fighting for?
Himself, the Earth, Metallia and to keep senshi from overtaking the city, or the world.
What has Chaos given him, how has it empowered him?
Strength, power, advantage, a family, and purpose. He’d been skating by before, moving around aimlessly, rebelliously because he didn’t know how to act otherwise.
Could he part with the only semblance of family he has left?
Senshi had cost him his father, his father’s death was costing him his mother and the war had cost him his relationships. Without senshi, there would be no war, he would still have both of his parents fully functional and very much alive, and perhaps he would have a proper, functioning relationship.
Now, the only living family (he didn’t think of his comatose mother as alive anymore) he had left were his fellow agents. They were a dysfunctional family, but the connections he had made were ones that would last a lifetime. He looked out for his and he, believed, they looked out for him.
He couldn’t give that up. Metallia, the general-queens, they had given him so much. How could he forsake them? They had given him life, who was he to be so disloyal that he would turn his back on them. He wasn’t ungrateful, he knew their goal was true. Yes, lives were lost but wasn’t that the cost of war? He was grateful that he had been gifted with enough strength to stand strong against their opposing forces.
No, he would not turn his back on his Negaverse. On chaos. He could never turn his back on it.
Instead, he would get back at Iris for making him ever question his faith, his beliefs or his loyalties. The senshi of rainbows would die for her mistakes. He was not one who would change and she would regret trying to force him for the rest of her life, if he didn’t kill her first.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2014 10:29 pm
Mentality [1291 words]
His head hurt, pounded at his temples like a hammer against a nail. Talking to Iris, having a conversation with Iris, and treating Iris like a human being has muddled his head even more so. He left with no answers and more questions that he imagined.
It hurts to think about it and the ghost pains of Iris’s crystal liked to rear it’s ugly head whenever he thought too much about it. It always ached with enough force to bring him to his knees.
He hates that she refuses to kill him.
And he wonders why she refuses. Does she think herself better than him? Does it make her better than him?
No, no. It can’t. It doesn’t. No.
He’s just willing to make the sacrifice of taking a life. They’re in the middle of a war, without sacrifices neither side would get ahead. Or was his morality just skewed enough that he had convinced himself that was the truth?
Yes. No. Maybe. Probably. He didn’t know.
He is thankful that he is home alone, though the emptiness of his house is a frequent reminder of the fact his mother is dying, because when he collapses to his knees from the weight of the phantom pain and the throbbing between his temples he screams. It starts out soft, but grows in volume and is filled with all of the pain he’s bottled up throughout the years. He falls to the ground with his fingers laced in hair, tugging at the strands as he tries to contain himself. He doesn’t get quieter, only louder as he rolls onto his back and squirms on the ground. He screams louder and louder until he finally stops making any noise, though his mouth is still open and, really, he’s still screaming.
His lungs begin to burn before he stops his silent screams and when he does stop, he dissolves into sobs. He can’t stop the tears that gather in his eyes and stream down his face nor can he stop the frantic gasps for air or the way his hands grab at his chest.
He’s spiraling into a state of insanity he never predicted. One he cannot hope to control, not until he can figure out why he’s so muddled.
He thought he had figured himself out and then Iris came and unraveled him again. Made him question himself. Made him beg for death when he never imagine he would crave it.
She denied him. She always denied him. A perpetual roadblock he hadn’t yet figured out how to get by.
He hated her.
That was the only thing he was certain of any more, his hatred for her. It had fueled him for so long, kept him strong and determined. Now he was a mere shell of the soldier he had once been. A mighty warrior no more.
He needed to become that person again, that strong soldier who could weather the storm. Stand against any obstacle and be a champion for his cause.
He still believes in the cause, their cause. His cause. Didn’t he?
Of course, of course, of course.
It defined him, made him the man he was. Gave him the power and strength to survive and soldier on. He had potential, he could be brilliant if only that perpetual thorn in side could be removed.
He had told the senshi that he didn’t want to change, that he had chosen chaos willingly. Proudly. He didn’t regret his choice. (He didn’t, he didn’t.) Regret would mean death.
There was no escape from death if he were marked a traitor, he knew that. Understood that. Accepted that. He would want nothing less, because he, himself, thought that all traitors needed to be executed regardless of what side they ended up on in the end.
Traitors were always traitors, that would never change.
Allies of traitors were traitors and traitors needed to be punished. Made examples of.
Thinking, even deliriously, that he wanted to change or take the opportunity Iris had tried to force upon him had nearly branded him a traitor by his own definition. Labyrinthite was no traitor. He couldn’t turn his back on the Negaverse, not when they had given him so much.
He might be foolish at times, but Chase had never been ungrateful.
He always repaid his debts and he owed the Negaverse the greatest debt of all, his life.
He would never be done paying that debt.
He falls asleep with his hands grasping the fabric of his t-shirt in the middle of living room. He had been too exhausted to move, to even think about moving.
When he wakes, he’ll have wished he had at least pulled himself onto the couch rather than sleeping on the floor because his neck will be stiff and his shoulders sore.
And he dreams, like every night before, of Sailor Iris. No, that’s not quite right. He dreams of Princess Iris instead. They’re in the middle of blank space, tinted the pale yellow of her dress, with her white wings spread out behind her. Her hands are folded before her and she wears a deep, disapproving frown on her face as she looks down at him.
He’s on the ground, with his knees pressed to his chest and his arms hugging the limbs tightly. He’s half Chase and half Labyrinthite in this dream. Half suit and half uniform.
“What do you stand for captain?” The dream princess asks stoically. He hates that he can’t read her expression ever. Not when she acts like this, when she acts the a princess and not the tomboy he’s familiar with.
“What do you mean what do I stand for?” He asks.
“What. Do. You. Stand. For.” It’s no longer a question, it’s a demand. She’s demanding answers from him.
He swallows, slowly rising to his feet. They’re the same height, he thinks, and he refuses to feel small in her company. It’s not until he’s standing that he realizes that they’re not the same height. She is a few inches taller and he curses.
“You know what I stand for,” he replies, straightening his posture so he can at least pretend like he doesn’t have to tilt his chin slightly to look her directly in the eye.
“Then say it.”
“Always have to get what you want don’t you?” He replies cheekily, smirking at her. “I stand for the Negaverse. For planet Earth.” His voice is a little shaky at first, but as he talks he sounds more confident. “For me.” He swallows and says it louder. “I stand for myself. I stand for myself,” he shouts at her. “I am chaotic, I have never been good. I am mischief and cunning and I am a soldier of chaos.” These words come out in hisses as he moves forward, shoving a finger into the flesh between her collarbones.
“Chaos means rejecting everything you’ve ever learned,” he tell her, body shaking as that dark sinister grin spreads across his mouth. “Chaos means being yourself. It is who I AM.”
He stepped back, shaking his head slowly at her before spitting at her feet. “That will never change Iris. Never.”
He wakes in a cold sweat, jolting upward and clutching at his chest. The watch on his wrist reads 2:25 am and his hand runs over his face as he picks himself up off the floor. He cracks his neck in hopes it’ll relieve the stiffness and then rolls his shoulders to reduce the pain. It doesn’t really help, but it’s a distraction none the less.
When he crawls into bed at 2:34 am, he falls asleep without hesitation and doesn’t dream again.
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 9:34 pm
Medicinal (1114 words)
After his talk with Iris, Chase loses the inability to even pretend to focus on work. His days at the office often result in him just sitting at his desk staring blankly at his computer screen like the work would finish itself if he just kept looking at it. It, eventually, gets to the point where he puts in for a leave of absence, claiming a medical one where he has to become the caretaker of his comatose mother. They accept it without question and even offer to pay him throughout it, which he doesn’t expect but accepts anyway. (Not that he needs it, he doesn’t but he figures it won’t hurt to tuck it away.)
He doesn’t mention that he doesn’t think he’ll be returning. (Because really, if his mother passes Chase wouldn’t have to work another day in his life if he doesn’t want to. Samuel kept their life insurance favorably high.)
Despite his inability to focus for extended periods of time, Chase manages to dedicate three full days of undivided attention on legal papers, medical reports, bills and other finance related paperwork. He hadn’t lied about needing to sort out his mother’s affairs, especially since he doesn’t think she’ll ever get better. (Spoiler, he’d long since given up on that idea.)
It takes him at least a day to even remotely understand what half of the medical reports are telling him --he’s probably made four different phone calls and looked up half-a-dozen terms in the last thirty minutes-- but he finally wades through them all and moves on to the legal documents, like Lara’s will. It’s structured very similarly to Samuels, where he (Chase) is the primary benefactor but, unlike his father’s, there’s a request to donate at least a fourth of the money from her life insurance to a charity. She doesn’t specify which, but he knows where she’s want it to go.
He promises that he’ll donate at least half to the charity if, no when, she dies.
But then he gets a phone call that changes everything. Savages, by Breathe Carolina, blares from his phone and when he looks at the illuminated screen, it’s a number he doesn’t recognize so he answers cautiously. “This is Chase.”
“Mr. Black?” A lady asks.
“This is him,” he replies, a feeling of dread welling up inside of him.
“This is the Destiny City Hospital calling about your mother, Mrs. Laralee Black.”
He swallows dryly and nods before realizing that he’s on the phone and she can’t see him. “Okay.”
“She’s,” the woman pauses and he swears, if he was in front of her he would have strangled her by now. “She’s woken up and would really like to see you.”
He exhales sharply, unaware that he’d been holding his breath in the first place, and it takes him a minute to say anything. His heart is thundering against his chest, rattling his ribcage and making each breath sting, and his head is a swirl of mixed emotions. He doesn’t know how to feel, because he’d long since given up on his mother getting better, but here was this lady telling him she was awake.
His mother was awake. Awake and asking for him.
He never thought he would see the day. “Okay,” he says, breathless because he’s already moving about gathering his things so he can go see her. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” He hangs up before the nurse, receptionist or whatever, can get another word in.
He nearly takes off on Hermes, but thinks better of it right before he peels out of the long driveway. He can’t take his mother out on his bike, she might be awake but it’s unlikely that she’s in a position to safely ride a motorcycle. He opts for the Camaro instead and heads off towards the hospital like a bat out of hell.
Once he reaches the hospital, he wastes no time marching in and basically demanding to be taken to his mother’s room. The lady at the desk recognizes him from the last time he intimidated her into letting him see his mother and this time hardly puts up a fuss. “She’s in room 313,” she tells him without even looking up.
It’s easier to just let him go than deal with proper procedure, he caused too much of a fuss last time.
He bursts through her door without abandon, gold eyes bright and wide as he exclaims, “Mom!”
His mother is sitting up, with a fruit cup in her hands, when he comes flying through the door and turns at the sound of his voice. Her head tilts slightly and once she realizes that it’s her sun, the sweetest smile spreads across her lips. “Chase, honey. Oh, god.” The fruit cup falls from her hands, clattering against the metal frame of the bed and splattering across the floor as her hands fly up and cover her open mouth. “Baby, I’m so glad you’re okay.” Tears have sprung up in the corners of her eyes as she reaches out for him, desperate to pull him close and reassure herself that he’s really there.
That he’s alive and okay.
“Mom,” he whispers, but it comes out in a strangled mess and he’s moving forward before he can stop himself, letting himself be gathered up in her embrace. He clings to her like she’s going to fade away from him at any moment because, really, she could and for the first time he realizes how terrifying of an idea that is to him. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he whispers, burying his face in her hair. “I’m okay, because you’re okay,” he tells her.
And it’s true, because she’s the last thing he’s got left to hold on to her. He isn’t sure what kind of person he would be without his last life line.
The senshi have taken a lot from him in the last three years, he won’t let them take her too. (If she dies, it’s all his fault because he’s the reason Samuel is dead and that’s the reason she’s sick.) He would do anything to keep Lara safe and that means no mercy.
The senshi were a threat to her safety and he would not have that which meant he needed to eliminate them. Embracing chaos, being reminded that chaos was the way to do so, is the only way to do that and suddenly, Chase is filled with a clarity he hadn’t known since before his father died.
He’s renewed with purpose.
“We’re okay and we’ll stay okay, promise,” he swears, holding on to her tightly. “Okay mom?
“Okay.”
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Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 3:18 pm
Memories (1320 words) -- Originally posted May 21, 2015
(This is backdated to the end of January, beginning of February)
Things were supposed to be better; his mother was out of the hospital, he didn’t have to work, legalities regarding his mother’s illness had been sorted and for all intents and purposes things were going fine as far as his nitty, gritty soldier duties were concerned but things aren’t better.
They are worse.
He wakes, jolting upright with his chest heaving and his body coated in a sheen of sweat. His heart is rattling against his ribcage and his hair is sticking to his skin while he tries to breathe, tries to calm the panic flooding through him. His eyes squeeze shut as he lurches forward, hands spreading out on the comforter wrapped around him until his fingers start to curl into his palms.
He swallows hard, forces himself to breathe and keeps his eyes closed until the rise and fall of his chest isn’t so rapid. He knows how to control this, or to regain control. Nightmares weren’t so uncommon as a child and have resurfaced within the last year.
Nevermind that it’s been nearly a year since his last nightmare.
His eyes flutter open once he thinks he can breath again and his grip on his covers loosens. His fingers are stiff, his palms marked in small half moons. His body remains tense; shoulders hunched forward, lips pursed together, and his brows knitted, focused.
If he fixates on the wrinkle in the sheets, he can distract himself.
A minute passes, then a few more before he blinks and his gaze refocuses. He breathes in deeply now that his heart doesn’t feel like a jackhammer against his chest.
Faintly, in the edges of his vision, he sees dark red. He swallows dryly, head turning ever so slightly and runs his tongue against the roof of his mouth. You’re okay, it’s probably nothing. You’re okay. He tells himself as he continues to shift his gaze but his mantra crumbles when he sees the thick letters painted on the white of his walls.
Come out and plaaaay!
He knows he is imagining it, but something strikes him hard in the gut and he swears he can hear laughter, his laughter, and it sends a shudder down his spine.
Bright eyes stare, fixated upon the words drawn on the wall in sloppy familiar writing (he knows it’s his, but he doesn’t know what or where it’s from) and suddenly he’s screaming. The noise rips from him before he realizes it, the sound tragic and pained, and he’s lurching forward, scrambling at the sheets.
He’s falling off his bed, blankets tangled around his legs, and he’s twisting his hands into his hair. He keeps screaming, body rocking forward until his forehead is pressed to his knees and the screams are muffled. He shakes his head back and forth, squeezing his eyes shut as a flicker of a memory jolts through him.
A woman with white hair piled on top of her head, screaming, pleading while he takes the blade of his scythe and cuts up her mouth.
He rocks back and forth, tugs at his hair, and grinds his teeth together in an attempt to force back the memory.
She screaming, begging, pleading that he stop and he laughsat her and her pain.
He feels sick, disgusted to the core, and he can feel the bile in his belly churn and rise.
His gloved hand’s reaching into her mouth, grabbing her tongue, and he’s forcing her torn mouth open. He’s leaning close, breath in her ear and a cheshire cat grin on his face, No more silver tongue for you knight. he says before he takes her tongue from her with steel and force and blood.
His body retches forward, eyes shooting open as the contents of his stomach empty themselves all over the floor, the blanket still tangled around him. His hands find purchase on the ground but his limbs are shaking and he can’t stop puking.
He’s sick, he’s sick, he’s sick.
A knock on his door jolts him from his focused trembling and he can hear his mother’s soft, worried voice through the voices in his head. “Chase? Honey, I heard you screaming,” she says tentatively and through his haze, Chase can hear how small she is and it makes him laugh. The sound ripping out of him hoarse and raw, and his throat hurts and his mouth tastes like ashes but he laughs anyway.
“Go away,” he croaks, lips curling in a smile made of madness. “Stay away, I’ll be fine,” he orders and he can picture her hesitating, with her hand on the doorknob before he hears her sigh and mutter an okay. His mother doesn’t need to see him in his madness, not like this, because he’s an utter wreck with vomit across his floor, scratches down his cheek, and manic laughter spilling from his lips whenever he loses track of what is reality and what is not.
“I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine,” he repeats to himself like a broken record, shaking his head in time with his words. “I’ll be fine,” he croaks, tossing himself backwards until his spine hits the frame of his bed and he can pull his legs towards him.
He manages to take a minute to untangle himself and push the vomit-stained comforter away from himself so that he can breath a little more freely. His eyes fixate upon a point in the ceiling as he makes an attempt to calm him before another wave of false memories flood him.
Are you ready for one final dance? The words echo in his head. Perhaps to the death, love?
His head is spinning from hearing a voice that is but isn’t his. His sides ache from vomiting and his head throbs from the overload. He only wants peace, he wants to be able to sleep and not be plagued with haunting memories of a future that may not be true.
He’s not even sure if these are memories or something his mind conjured to punish him, but his exhaustion has settled bone deep and he is so weary. He just wants to rest and not feel like a madman who dabbles in death, but Chase often doesn’t get what he wants.
So he spends the rest of the night with his but not his haunting voice whispering in his ear. With the screams of his victims sending chills down his spine and with visions of too much blood on his hands until the sun breaks over the horizon and his mother enters his room.
“I thought I told you to stay away,” he croaks, throat burning from the stomach acid.
“You did, but I am your mother and I’ll be damned if I let my son suffer the aftereffects of night terrors completely alone,” Lara says, holding herself more strongly than she was. “Drink this,” she instructs, handing him a glass of water before picking up the soiled blanket and transferring it to his laundry basket. “You are going to shower and then you are going to meet me downstairs in the kitchen and eat something. I am not letting you fall back into old habits.” Her voice is strong but it wavers near the end. “I cannot lose you too,” she whispers. “The maids will need to clean up your mess.”
Chase sighs but picks himself up off the ground, swaying slightly as his body protests his movements. “Okay,” he replies, because what else is there to say?
He lets Lara mother him, because it distracts him from his nightmares and he’ll take the small break even known that they’ll just flare when the sun sinks under the horizon.
He doesn’t want to be a monster, but his memories make him such.
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