PEACE BROTHER PEACE | CORY

It had been an eeny, meeny, miny, moe choice made on his fingers that morning – his thumb stay in the motel room, the one that had weirdly felt too big after Dani had headed out town, his index finger a table at the Grill, middle Campbell’s, his ring finger the library, his little finger trying to talk the client into letting him work out of their office. Client. The word had been enough to leave Cory feeling breathless as he’d rolled up the plans and slipped them into the battered cylindrical document case he’d bought out of the advance the lawyer had given him to redesign his office. His first client, his first real paying job outside of the internship he’d picked up one summer in college. His first outside of reaping souls since Augustus had opened the door to let him out of heaven.

Out of the cage. It had been a pretty one, he’d give God that, Cory thought as he hunched over the large table at the back of the library. He squinted at the neat lines he’d spent the morning marking up on one sheet – the before, marked with care down to the millimetre – huffed out a breath. One meant for him to live in happily forever after, like he’d pootle around up there, blithely working his way through the decades until his sister joined him. The other half of him, grey and old like she was meant to get.

Cory frowned, his teeth raking over his lower lip. That was the way it should’ve been. His life had been cut short just as it had really started, the witch hadn’t meant for any of it to happen but actions always had consequences and if the universe had a hate on for you those consequences snowballed. He pushed the pencil away, twisting his neck left and right like that pall like feeling over the past could be cracked out like a reluctant joint.

Getting out of Heaven had left him in Death’s employment – always first and foremost now – and Dani’s own path had led her right to the fangs of a vampire. The reason she wouldn’t get old and grey, the event that had torn his sister’s life apart for a third time. He swallowed hard, slumping back in the chair. A burden he wasn’t sure he could help his sister carry, no matter how hard he tried.

Teeth raked at his lower lip, pale eyes cutting aside to the phone he’d left on the corner of the table. Supposedly a crappy disposable thing but it didn’t matter, there were only a few people who needed it to contact him … everybody else … Cory grimaced, reaching up to shove his hair back from his face, to drag a palm down it tiredly, pinching at the bridge of his nose. Everybody else had him on a string, ready to jerk him whenever someone died here in Mystic Falls. A town where it felt like he was being pinballed around ten times a day.

There was a faint buzz, that cheap plastic against the scarred table top. Quiet enough that most wouldn’t have been able to hear it but Cory was already snatching it up, thumb drumming against the screen to get into the message as he saw Dani’s name on the screen. She’d been gone too long, her absence starting to tear a hole in the heart of him that slowly filled with worry. Thank God she was back now, the request to meet in town square a band aid slapped over that wound finally.

Maybe there was a little care to it but the sheets of paper were rapidly rolled, shoved into the case again with the rest of his stuff. If he’d still been gawky purely human Cory he’d have rushed out, gangly limbs slightly uncoordinated as he scrambled down the street to the square. If. He wasn’t that Cory anymore, the witch’s revelation to her husband sending one of consequences snowballing until his life had been smashed in the avalanche of it. Now it was a blink of an eye, a dark corner of the library to the middle of the square.

Cory’s shoulder’s hunched as he emerged from behind one of the trees, eyes skittering around as though someone would’ve seen him appear from nowhere a yard behind his sister. A blink of an eye was all it took, being caught as simple as a glance if he wasn’t careful and he didn’t want this to shatter like his last life … not again.

Throat thick, Cory stepped up behind his sister. He set the case down over the back of the bench, leaned down from behind to hug her and press a kiss to the top of her head. ”Hi,” he breathed, mustering up a smile as he scrambled over the back of the bench, another band aid slapped on as that fear tried to bubble out at the look on her face. ”Wasn’t sure when you were getting back. Never thought I’d miss the sound of you snoring again…” He elbowed her lightly, the expression flickering on his face as that worry churned harder. ”You OK?” The question was hoarse, the answer pretty obvious before he’d asked it. To him at least. The other half of his soul fitting against his in a way that let him feel every ounce of doubt, pain and anxiety as if it churned in his own stomach.

Tagged: DANIELLE COLLIER * Word Count: 913

As kids it had been the knowledge that Dani was sleeping just down the hall that had helped keep the nightmares at bay. As though her presence in the house would mean that nothing could happen to her, or him, or even their mom, what had been left of her after the robbery that had taken their dad’s life had left her searching for her own oblivion at the bottom of a bottle. When the nightmares would hit he’d slip into the hallway, scooting down on the floor to sit outside of her door and steady himself with the sound of his twin’s breathing. Dani was there. When he’d been diagnosed and the chemo had kicked in he’d lay in his bed, afternoons, evenings, wrung out and clammy, listening to her downstairs and he’d known that at some point the treatment would work and he’d be the one down there, making her soup, taking care of her. Life was a bitch though, Cory thought as he scrambled to repack his stuff after the text message, it saw those dreams and instead of just putting up roadblocks it blew gaping holes in the road just before you hit there.

Coming back, finally finding that story about Dani in the paper, he’d rushed to town hoping to find his way back to that life they’d had before. An apartment here maybe, him promising to keep the place neat as a pin while she’d gone out to work … and he’d lingered waiting for that tug in the pit of his stomach. Things hadn’t worked out that way though. One of those gaping holes in the road, his sister turned into something as unthinkable as he had been himself. Those murmured admissions in the motel room as he’d explained how he’d gotten back. No matter what, she was still his sister, but Cory knew it hadn’t been easy for her. Vampirism was a far bigger burden than his own. He could try and understand it all he wanted but at the end of the day he wasn’t sure how he could take the weight of it off of her.

Worry had filled his stomach, squeezed a fist around his heart periodically while she’d been out of town. Was she alright out there? Could he get to her in an instant if he needed to? What he was let him do a lot but that worry was still there in the pitof his stomach that it wouldn’t be enough and he couldn’t lose her again.

Reassurance didn’t release that grip on his heart until he was emerging from the shadows in the park and he could see Dani sitting there on a bench alone. Here and safe by the looks of things. Not a mark he could sense on her as he’d bent down to greet her with a hand, the touch his lips on top of her head, possible even when she was standing with him stretching inches over her. Cory studied her face as he looked over at her, the Hi he’d gotten back not giving away much. Dani was smiling though, for just a second it had been there until he’d brought up her being gone.

Teeth sank into his lower lip, one hand stretching out to settle on her arm. He could’ve kept him mouth shut about it, just said he’d been glad she was back instead of letting it sound like he was trying to pile the guilt on. ”Hey, you don’t have to apologise … I didn’t mean …” Crap. He drew in a breath, let it out as he swivelled slightly towards her. Long fingers squeezed her forearm again. ”I’m glad you’re back, I just missed you.” Years apart and that ache had been there but it had only taken weeks being back together again for that ache to cut deep and worry to settle like molten lead in his gut when Dani was out there on her own.

That feeling was back in Cory’s stomach as he hitched a knee up on the edge of the bench. The frown was deeper now, his hand slipping away from his sister’s arm for his palm to flatten on his knee. Oliver. Brooke’s brother. Dani’s husband. Dani’s dead husband. Another of those revelations offered up in broken parts in the articles he’d used to track the two of them down here in the first place. ”What do you mean you got a lead on him, Dani?” Doubt in his voice, spilling up from that hot, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Once upon a time he would’ve believed that dead was dead, you didn’t get to come back, it was just it. Then Augustus had come along, an interloper in the Heaven he hadn’t entirely been in peace in, opening his eyes to so much more than he’d ever been able to see before. ”Where did you go? What happened? You … you never really said what happened. I didn’t wanna pry … there was already so much.” On his part as well as Dani’s. There was only so much you could purge in one go without being hollowed out by it all.

Tagged: DANIELLE COLLIER * Word Count: 866

It had never been about babying him, not in the way some snide voices in high school had suggested it was. He wasn’t some toddler being held on a set of reins to stop him from running headlong into danger, no cooing or patting him on the head, the poor kid who needed to be babysat at all times. Not even in those low moments when he hadn’t the strength to even take a step across his hospital room to pour a cup of water or, hell, even pick up the glass in hands that’d felt like they’d never stop shaking, had it felt like Dani was treating him like some fragile little thing that had to be protected at all costs. When he’d thought about it that first night after he’d found his sister here, he’d almost laughed out loud. Catching himself, he’d glanced aside at her sleeping form in the room’s other bed and had thought that even if she’d tried it that way Brooke wouldn’t have let it continue. Where Dani had supported him, been the scaffolding that had held him up, Brooke had been that kid kicking at those poles, pushing him to get a good grip and keep himself up.

Both of them had gotten him through high school, through the cancer that had almost cut his life far shorter than it had ultimately been and every day he’d been back had been thanks to that gritty determination beneath the marshmallow surface, the opposite of what most were. Stay-puft soft on the outside. Heart aching for his sister even as it filled with forgiveness now.

Cory’s half smile emerged at the touch of her hand on his, a layer of reassurance for each of them. That comfort only a twin could give. The smile twitched with the convulsively swallow, his head dipping in a half nod. She would be sorry for it, no matter how much forgiveness he offered for it. Cory let his own hand slide away, his forearm settling on the knee he hitched up. ”That’s a relief,” he managed in a hoarse half-joke. ”Was worried you might’ve got tired of sharing a room with me already. I was gonna lie and say I’m sure the snoring won’t be too bad for too long.” It wasn’t that he woke in the night too though, even with Dani there. The nightmares were always good for a gasp away, the silence adding another layer of sleeplessness when Dani hadn’t been there.

Her presence beside him was almost a weight on his skin down the side of his body closest to her. A security blanket he’d been without in heaven and those months it had taken for him to find her here. Cory felt his brain try and clamp a hand on it now, wanting to reel it in with that bond and keep his sister protected from whatever had put that tone in her body. His throat was dry, his fingers moving restlessly over the thigh of his jeans until his fingers bit into his knee. ”You told me…” his voice was a rasp. Chin ticking back and forth he shook his head, even though he knew how easily that could change. This didn’t feel like some semi-kindly soul had gone and yanked him back from wherever he’d been. The stories had half been there when he’d managed to search the newspaper stories and track Dani here. She’d been Danielle Collier-Everett. Everett like Brooke, like Oliver.

Brows beetling Cory met his sister’s eyes for just a heartbeat, then his gaze stayed on her face, watching for each twitch, each emotion that shimmered there, trying to find what was worrying her in all of it and feeling it like a sucker punch to the gut when the truth finally came. Pitch black eyes, Augustus’ voice in the back of his head chuckling in a way that had him flinching as he crooned demon. ”It’s … it’s what they do …” he whispered, his throat suddenly dry. ”Augustus … he … I’ve heard about them. They like to torture people, to twist them up. Did he hurt you?” Fear threaded through his chest like bright shiny wires them, pulling tight enough to squeeze the air of his chest, like a garrot for his lungs.

Dani wasn’t done though, his questions feeling like they were about to be swept away in front of a tidal wave. Before that night. Had Oliver known that something was coming for him? He’d never imagined Brooke or any of her family had any knowledge of any of this, Brooke was so … God, he didn’t know what made you qualified to call yourself an expert on any of this, Cory just knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t him. ”He knew something was coming … knew what Brooke would do. Does she know now? Did she ever find out?” He couldn’t have imagined Brooke ever would’ve been here in Mystic Falls for more than five minutes if she did. She’d have ended up beyond fierce, her determination never flagging until she had him back … which was likely why Oliver had wrung that promise out of Dani.

Twisting his leg back down to the ground, Cory curled forward, elbows on his knees, hands sliding over his face. Was there anything he could do to help with this? Probably not, not even with the help of the reaper riding around in him like some passenger, using him when he wanted. Cory swallowed hand, a hand slipping past one ear to fist In his hair as he stared at Dani again. ”Did you find him?” Given the fact that Dani was here alone he doubted it but God did he want it for her now. ”I would’ve come … if you’d said. I wanna help, Dani. I can … I’m not that skinny weak kid anymore, I know there are things out there, wherever you go to try and find him … I wanna go.” The please went unsaid but after all they’d been through, the idea that she was out there trying to track down a demon on her own was turning his gut into the gordian knot.

Tagged: DANIELLE COLLIER * Word Count: 1035

Years lost. It hadn’t felt it on that other side. There’d been a gulf, a separation between him and Dani he knew he couldn’t just reach out and cross. She wasn’t coming to him, wasn’t supposed to die until she’d lived a long and happy life. Mind drifting for those days on end he’d spent with his dad it had been easy for Cory to convince himself that Dani was getting that life down there. Blithe thinking that was a comfort for him, one that probably went both ways. You believed people were going to a better place when you lost them. Trusted that there were white fluffy clouds and all the people that had been lost before them to greet them. Wherever they were they didn’t hurt anymore, they didn’t want for anything but God, he had.

For Dani to be happy, for her to have someone. Love. Laughter. A family one day maybe, kids just like their mom. Ones who’d hear about the uncle they’d never met. Dani would’ve been incredible as a mom. She hadn’t had the best role model but she’d been the one to raise him in the end.

That’s why it felt like someone had cut part of him out when he saw her like this. Barely able to muster up a smile even when he was doing his best to make it happen. They were close enough to feel the echoes of each other’s pain and this wasn’t the Dani who’d never made him feel a burden when that was all he must’ve been to her. This was a shadow of her and all he wanted to do was reach out and shine that light on her again.

It wasn’t light that spilled on her though. While he’d been upstairs, caught in something that wouldn’t have been that different to most people’s idea of true heaven. A blithe spirit unaware while all of that darkness had crept up around his sister down here, taking what she did have and pulling her down to something worse. Turning her. Cory could still remember the way those veins had crept under her eyes when she’d first shown him. Had it been like that for her when Oliver’s eyes had flashed black?

So much worse could’ve happened. Augustus was proving it now, that low, ominous chuckle giving way to flickering images of hell itself that left Cory’s stomach pitching. If anything had touched his sister like that … What are you going to do if they did, Cory? Augustus’ voice almost touched with the croon of Leah’s now. He wanted to shake his head, to tear the thought out but it wouldn’t let go. ”You’re sure?” Desperation in his voice now, fingers curling in so he didn’t reach up to touch Dani’s cheek, to make her look him in the eye to say that. ”It just wanted him?” Doubt joining that desperation. What the hell had Oliver been into? More than that, had Brooke known about all of this too?

She’d been Dani’s friend for as long as he could remember. The mouthy kid in the dance class, the one to zone right in on him when him and their dad had gone to pick Dani up from her classes, before it had just been him heading them on his own. Brooke had been the one to break him out of his hospital room during his treatment, the devil on his shoulder, the hands on the wheelchair. She didn’t deserve to be kept in the dark but …. Cory knotted his hands together between his knees, teeth deep in his lip as Dani shrugged at him. No more answers there, just more of those greasy secrets that left him feeling queasy. ”Maybe if she knew … you’d know …” Brooke obviously knew enough to immediately go heat seeking missile on this, obviously what Oliver was trying to make sure didn’t happen. Cory shifted, his knee coming back up on the bench as he reached out to set a hand on Dani’s shoulder, comfort, support, he didn’t know if he could offer either. ”So maybe Brooke’s found out on her own? Did you ever think she might be out there on her own digging into this? You know what she’s like Dani, if she found out it’d be like trying to get a pitbull’s jaws to unlock.” Brooke wouldn’t quit and she wouldn’t care how much it cost her to get the answers.

Maybe Brooke didn’t know. Whatever trail Dani was following was thin, probably almost invisible, but surely if Brooke was on the same one they would’ve crossed paths in the months, years, since Oliver had died. She’d probably have come looking for Dani, that fierce blow-torch burn in her eyes, blame on angry lips. Cory’s hand peeled away from his sister’s arm, the back of it nuzzling against his mouth as she said she hadn’t found Oliver, with that hopelessness hidden beneath her scrubbing palms. For a moment he thought she was going to tell him he had to stay put, poor Cory, too sickly, too fragile, no good in a fight. That wasn’t him now, not since Augustus had suckered that boy into becoming what he was.

A breathless smile at her agreement and he was turning his hand over in hers, squeezing tight. ”Nothing’s going to happen to me, Dani, I promise you, this time’s going to be different. I wouldn’t be able to live with losing you either. It’s why we do this together.” Pulling on her hand, he dragged her in, both arms going around her to squeeze tightly. His lips found the side of her head and held there a moment, his voice stirring those blonde strands when he spoke again. ”How do we do this? Have you got anywhere else to start from?” There are demons here, Cory. Found yourself one, drag the information out of them. Augustus’ voice, as seductive as ever, making it all seem so easy, but it couldn’t be, could it?

Tagged: DANIELLE COLLIER * Word Count: 1005

He wanted to grab her, to check her. Each finger, each toe, like a terrified parent making sure their child had been born whole. No scars etched deep, no bruises mottling, no wounds slicing through her even now. Dani would’ve protected him from it all, as she’d always done. Cory frowned at the thought, concern hollowing him out as he studied his sister’s face, the part she was allowing him to see, like not meeting his eye would keep the part that would scare him hidden away. Younger than her by only minutes but always the one to protect against all the horrors out there. Only he knew too much about what was there now, what they could do.

What they could take from him.

Cory’s throat went tight as he fisted his hand. Needing to be comforted again, desperately wanting to take Dani at her word, knowing that she wouldn’t lie to him but not all hurts left physical reminders. Just those mental ones that could twist you up just as bad. Cory’s frown deepened, his head ticking back and forth like somehow it was suddenly going to make more sense. ”It doesn’t make sense. They don’t … “ Not that the explanations Augustus tumbled through his head made any more sense. ”Had Ollie ever told you anything else? Anything about knowing, something coming.” She would’ve said. He knew that but the questions were burning in his throat. A demon hopping in, taunting, running from someone who had no idea. Odd wasn’t the word for it, but he was betting that Brooke would know what was.

Only she had to be kept at an arm’s reach. A hothead who would rush right in for family without a second thought. Brooke who’d pushed him, who loved her own family just as much. Fierce in a way he’d never seen anybody else be, but just as soft at the core. Oliver trying to protect his sister, drawing those lines around her to stopper the words up in Dani’s throat until now. Cory’s fingers squeezed lightly, his thumb sweeping over her upper arm. ”Maybe deep inside she knows something was wrong with it all. He didn’t want her to dig but it doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have felt it.” And if Brooke had nothing would ever stop her. A sarcastic force of nature that it had felt like nothing would stop.

Now it could of course, that force snuffed out in an instant if something went wrong. Changed. A shudder ran through him at that. Oliver had been, Dani, him, the only one of them still wholly who they had been was Brooke but even the strongest walls could be bought down. Knowing that the fear had to be in mind Dani’s mind too, Cory dipped his head a thread of iron working through his voice. ”It’s going to hurt her, but she wouldn’t, not Oliver, not you. No matter what you are. Brooke loves you too much.” Water under the bridge or not he refused to believe that Brooke’s hand would be on the weapon that tried to take his sister from him. He managed a smile he wasn’t sure ran through to the core. ”And she’d have to get through me to make that happen and I’m never gonna let anybody hurt you again Dani.” A brother’s vow. A body that could handle that fight now, not the fragile boy he’d been.

Whether any of them could see it or not.

He hadn’t taken no for an answer about stepping in to help now. He could do it, stand up beside his sister and find Oliver. Walk out the other side again, whole, his sister whole too because she’d have him looking out for her. Arms locked around her, he made the promise. ”The Collier twins against the world.” Like they would be an unstoppable force. Maybe now he was, Cory thought, with what he had inside of him, the deal perhaps bringing him something finally.

Voice rough he’d asked how far Dani had gotten. She’d been gone, had been trying to track down those breadcrumbs but she’d come home with nothing, not the Dani he’d known and that worried him more than anything right now. Cory breathed deep, nodding as he pulled back. ”They’d likely sell each other out if they knew anything at all. There are others who might know. Like … the reapers. If he’s done anything they’d be the ones cleaning it up. I could ask. See if there’s anybody with any clue? If we can just find another starting point … I’ll take off with you again. No matter what it ends up taking us.” He drew back, slipping his hand back into Dani’s. Mystic Falls had started to become another home in a way but if it meant leaving here to get Oliver back, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

Tagged: DANIELLE COLLIER * Word Count: 816

He was the kid burying his face in his hands when the inevitable horror films had been reeled out in the dorms. The one whose cheeks would burn a tell tale scarlet when someone noticed what he thought were inconspicuous attempts to block out the screen. Girls were always understanding, one his junior year slipping her hand into his and squeezing gratefully when he’d given that rueful chuckle about being a total wimp. Her face had turned into his chest then, Cory finding his own drawn down to hers as she’d whispered to him quietly. She hadn’t been bothered by the fact that he’d been bothered, it just proved what a sweetheart he was right? The blush that had risen then had been for another reason. Soft pink remaining infused up to his cheekbones even after the lights had come up and they’d scattered, the girl heading back to her dorm with her friends, him to his room to lament what the film had given while it was trying to take away any hint of masculinity he might’ve had.

It hadn’t been a cheesy Stephen King flick that had dragged the horror back into his life that handful of years later. No amount of spread fingers or clutched cushions blocking his view as Augustus had strolled into a blood smeared alleyway to greet the demon standing over the bodies of two old men like they were nothing but yesterday’s newspapers crumped on the ground. Those empty black eyes had seemed to penetrate whatever screen Augustus himself threw up, grinning as he’d retold exactly what had happened when Brucey Balmain had decided to take his rival for Agnes Setrakian’s love’s head. Only Gene hadn’t been so easy to knock down, not with a demon in him.

Him. Cory flinched slightly as Dani pushed for him to fill that space in his speech, remembering the way the demon’s fist had thumped into the chest of the poor sap who’d stumbled out from behind a dumpster in the middle of that fight. He swallowed hard, his eyes skittering back to his sister before his voice emerged hoarsely. ”They don’t just walk about if they can hurt you. It’s … it’s all they do. They want to hurt you, make you do things so you end up … down there.” Those blue eyes scooting down to glance at the strip of path beneath his feet before he shuddered. Whoever had been in Oliver, they’d turned away from everything he knew their kind did.

From everything he remembered of Brooke’s brother Oliver never would’ve laid a hand on Dani – maybe like him on Augustus, some part of Oliver had held on, staying the demon’s hand. He’d taken the time to warn Dani, to stop her from doing something that would get her hurt if anything happened – he cared. Cory’s face screwed up, his body twisting on the bench as he tried to cut off the maudlin thought running through his sister’s mind. ”It’s not. Dani, we can still have one, you still can. Oliver can too. Past or not, there’s a way through this.” To what, he thought, sucking in a breath as he left that thought hanging too, a normal twisted beyond almost anybody’s definition of the word? Oliver had a demon rolling around him, if he was even … Dani had been turned, he’d bargained his way into this and Brooke …

The thought of being left out in the cold like she was – like he had been before – hit like a punch in the gut. It was for Brooke’s own good, everybody who loved her seemed to agree on that but still, he knew what it was like to be lingering there on the edges, knowing something was happening without being able to throw back whatever was hiding it and actually see. Knowing Brooke she wouldn’t just toss the curtain aside, she’d burn it to ash at the first glimpse behind it.

Hand on his sister’s arm, Cory tried to put himself in Brooke’s shoes and reassure his sister at the same time. Until he’d been brought back he never would’ve had the guts to plunge after the demon in Oliver, but Brooke … Brooke had always been fierce enough to do it without hesitation, had sneered enough at the world not to believe her brother had gone that easily. His mouth twitched faintly, empathy softening his eyes as he wrapped his arm around Dani and settled her in against him as she rested her head on his shoulder. ”If she comes, she’ll have me standing right there between the two of you,” he promised, his voice dropping a notch. ”You’re still you and I’ll make her see that.” He let out a long breath, touching his lips to the side of her head. ”Still watching out for me.” It was what had gotten him through more than a decade of his life before something his sister couldn’t fight had finally knocked him down.

Under his own steam he’d come back, even though he’d screwed up a little in the process. Cory let her go as Dani sat up, his promise still stamped on curved lips. Settling back against the bench, he worked his hand into his sister’s, thumb sweeping over the back of hers until Dani squeezed it. They weren’t fumbling entirely in the dark thanks to Augustus. ”We’ll find some new ones. Nobody can vanish entirely and when we find them, we’ll go together. Come on.” Cory pushed to his feet, looming over his sister as he tugged at their joined hands. ”There’s some other reapers in town. You wanna see if we can track one down now?” It was a rush, a plunge forward into all of this but now he knew … there was no way he was gonna hold himself back. Leah, Damien, even Death himself, there was a chance one of them would just have a few breadcrumbs to toss out for them to start following.

Tagged: DANIELLE COLLIER * Word Count: 1000

Their family wasn’t blessed. They hadn’t skated through happy and wealthy, strolling over the troubles fate threw out like beads off of a Mardi Gras float like they could remain six inches above it all instead drowning in it the way they had. He hadn’t reached his mid-twenties with his parents retired to some fancy mansion, cooling their heels as they started reaching the age where they could relax somewhere warm every winter. He hadn’t even reached his teenage years with his dad there at all. Fate had started slapping the Colliers around before he and Dani had even been born.

Had it all been for him to come back? Cory frowned faintly, concern for his sister still knotting his gut. Had all that pain and struggle been for that one blessing? For him to be pulled out of heaven and Dani to somehow escape from a demon who’d slithered into husband. No. He shook his head slightly, brow furrowing deeper. Death and what he’d become had shown him so much more of the world than he ever could’ve imagined he would’ve experienced if they had been given one of those blithe existences but everything he seen and heard would seem to contradict what Dani had told him.

His sister had always been the one to make sure he wouldn’t give up hope – telling him he they were gonna be OK after their dad had died, as their mom had retreated so she nursed a bottle with more care than she did her own children, telling him he was gonna come through the cancer. Dani had been right each time, holding him up when he would’ve fallen to bony knees and given in. now Cory intended to do the same. Trying to hold his sister up the same way she had him, Cory turned towards her, optimism on his lips, burning candle bright in his chest. ”Seem to remember you having plenty for me,” he murmured honestly. He covered her hand for a moment, squeezed. If necessary he’d have enough optimism for the both of them now.

With Dani there he could be. His hand on her arm, that bit of himself that had felt hollow while she’d been gone filled in. There was still fear there for him, even for Brooke, although she’d have called him a sap for it. He’d take the label, there was nothing to be ashamed of in it. Cory drew Dani in until her head was resting against his shoulder. ”I’m trying to be. Brooke might kick my ass though. She’ll just have to feel guilty about it later.” Skinny Cory, looking like he’d be blown over in a breeze standing tall now. Sure of himself in a way he’d never been, sure of his sister in a way he’d always been. He kept his head dipped, cheek touching Dani’s hair. ”We’ve both changed but I know the one thing I’m always gonna be sure of is you, Dani.” It was a solidity in his chest, a steel core to his mind. Grit, determination, a fire in his belly that’d always threatened to sputter out in that breeze before.

Always. Cory grinned crookedly at his sister as she looked up. A faint shimmer of tears in pale blue eyes. They’d been able to fight against everything before, it was going to change with the changes in them now. What he was tore at him at times, the things he had to see, the people he had to reap but there was some good side to this. Cory stood, drawing her up with him. That smile slanted further. He’d started sprouting far faster than her while he’d still been a kid, big feet and gawky elbows to grow into and he had. Somehow.

Cory shook his head slightly as Dani gestured for him to lead the way. They were going a different way. ”Hold on for this … I dunno what it’s like with someone who isn’t … you know.” Dead dead. He drew her back off of the path, the way he’d come, a nervous look around confirming no one could see them. Blue eyes fluttered shut, a frown setting in a heartbeat before they were moving. Shifting from the square, the birds chirping in the trees, to the dim space of the club. Already half filled despite the early hour. The dance floor was mainly empty as he opened his eyes but music played low, people’s voices audible over it for once. Cory turned, keeping Dani’s hand in his but he stopped. The suited figure at the bar. Bingo on the first go. Without a word to Dani he was tugging her forward, long legs eating up the ground.

By the time he reached the bar Damien was already watching the two of them in the mirror. He raised a brow over his glasses, lifting his glass to sip as he watched. A moment later he was sighing, setting it down. ”What are you doing Cory? You know she’s not dead right. Not our sort at least. Who are you?” There was a slow swivel then, booted feet adjusting their grip on the seat as the reaper eyed Dani steadily.

Tagged: DANIELLE COLLIER * Word Count: 867