beacon of hope

Frank might’ve told him to make himself at home but the put up bed in Frank’s office wasn’t his. The living room only felt halfway to right when the place was full of the waifs and strays Kit and Frank seemed to have built up around themselves. Home was on the other side of the damn country. Bodhi’s might have been a shit hole when Bodhi had willed it to him but he’d made it his, turning that stretch of sand into something closer to home than he’d had since he’d moved to LA practically full time.

By the time he’d dragged himself out of not-his-bed, the house had been quiet again. Kace had padded out to the kitchen bare foot, tossing his phone down on the coffee table as he passed, out of sight, out of mind while he brewed coffee and dug through the fridge for something other than toast. A meal, something to make this feel like it was more than just a stop-gap until they turned this ‘surprise, I’m back from the dead’ thing into something official. It was just a breakfast sandwich – only one level less shitty than the toast Kit had crabbed about to Katja the other morning – that he carried back to the living room and that timebomb sitting on the table.

Gage. Ronni. Fucking Kandice. How was he gonna tell any of them about this? Kace put his feet up on the edge of the coffee table, staring down into the cup of coffee as he rued not pouring a slug from whatever bottles were left after last night’s pickling in it. None of them had a clue any of this weird shit existed. They hadn’t curled in the corner of a cell to see Kit change on the full moon, his brother disappearing, this freaking animal appearing. They hadn’t seen Kit fall apart when he was him, what he’d done shattering the brother he’d known. They’d just pointed fingers instead. Cutting Kit out like he’d died too. God, he wanted to patch it up for Kit as much as he did himself but what if there was no way to get everything back the way it’d been before?

If he’d gone to some head shrinker the way he’d wanted Kit before the … before … they’d have told him he needed to take some time. Kace laughed wryly as he downed the rest of the coffee and stood. Time to do what? Figure out how to tell your sister she might one day end up a werewolf? Or maybe her kid? To figure out how to tell her you weren’t dead to start with? Somehow it felt like that would be easier to come clean to Kamilla with – screwed up as that was. Maybe he should do that instead, let her find some way to spin it and spread the news to the world. ’My beloved son has come back to us. It’s a miracle.’ Maybe the fucking morons would buy it too but ‘til then he couldn’t sit around here every day while Frank was out playing Professor and Kit was … staring down every coping mechanism he’d found at the club.

Fuck, he needed a job. Some way of providing here that hadn’t come straight out of Kit’s pocket. Maybe it’d put a different spin on it. Just a different spin all together.

An hour later Kace was halfway across town. Damp strands of dirty blond hair shoved back behind his ears, a CV – what fucking use that was gonna do him with bullshitted references tacked on the bottom, cause ya know, all he needed was someone calling him a dead man down the phone – rolled up and shoved in his pocket. Campbell’s, the Coffee Bean – the crater faced kid manning the counter at least – and some bakery had already shot him down. No vacancies, especially none that might come cash in hand. Heading past the Ruby Slipper, Kace had hesitated a minute. Kit would shit a brick if he tried talking his vampire boss into letting him work there, but at least he wouldn’t have to lie about where he’d been the last couple of years. Nah. He’d keep it as a last resort. There was still that Grill place on the square, the diner too. Options.

Kace cut down an alley towards some pizza place barely bigger than a hole in the wall that he’d picked dinner up from the other night. Shoving his hair back again. Pizza delivery boy was practically fucking demeaning but it’d put a couple of bucks in his pocket and might at least come with some wheels of his own.

The light was dying, by now the queue outside the club would be snaking towards the corner. Kit’d be reigning behind the bar, shooting orders at the other bartenders like a drill sergeant. Kace raked teeth over his lip, cursing under his breath. Surely Kit wouldn’t bitch too much about him ending up there, the Brothers Clarke shoulder to shoulder again. Fuck. He was turning back, ready to skirt the back door and head round to the front to have a word with the bouncer.

Halfway there he was dragged back. What the fuck. Kace made to tear his arm free, every sense screaming at him to bolt as the memory of that punch of the blade to his chest reared up. Not Kit, no dull ache spreading through him, locking his breath in lungs that wouldn’t work right suddenly. Curves. A tumble of blonde hair. Some woman in the queue shot him a look, sudden interest sprouting – shit, she’d been here Tuesday night, luring him back here the way he was being dragged now. Fumbling hands, liquor soaked breath panting in his ear to push him on for the first time since …

Her face fell at the bark of his abductor, painted lips pursing. Kace shook his head, his other hand flailing out towards her but then he was in the alleyway, the piss yellow light overhead shining down on … fuck. His hands were up immediately as Leah released them. ”No, I’m not, and I better fucking stay that way OK. You still don’t have my permission, to … you know …” The fist around his throat squeezed tight as Kace gestured up, then down. ”No one else around here seems to be either. So, what are you doing here?” Was it like waiting for a bus? Did … reapers … just stand around hoping someone was gonna drop? Kace went still as he remembered the conversation they’d had when the girl had died. Leah hadn’t known of a way back, she didn’t know witches could drag you out of whatever between place you ended up if you said no and shove you back in your body.

Tagged: LEAH SIVAN * Word Count: 1138 (soz)

Did Theo still wake up in the night thinking he was dead? Even after sixteen years – it seemed fucking mind blowing that it had been anything more than a handful of years since Kit had rammed that blade into his chest and in one fiery breath he’d realised his brother had killed him – he seemed remarkably fucking well adjusted to it all. Dead for months on end before I came back and got my white picket fence and my happy ever after with two kids – well, one and a half – and yet none of that nightmare had stuck.

Kace could almost feel it like cobwebs sometimes – on his skin, leaving him shuddering, in his head, leaving him gasping awake with Frank’s cheap sheets sticking to his skin. Death had let go of him but it was like he hadn’t gotten far out of its sight. How long more did resurrection get you anyway? Was there like an end date for it all? You get a certain measure of happiness, and then that’s it. A heart attack stopping your heart with a bomb or cancer eating away at the spot where that blade had gone in. It was all fuel for his nightmares, like he didn’t have enough of those from just trying to get his life back.

Maybe he wasn’t the only one still feeling those cobwebs clinging. It wasn’t like he’d gotten back here and Kit had immediately flipped off that self-destructive switch in his head. Maybe there were fewer women giggling in the middle of the night, maybe he didn’t see the signs of blown pupils and Kit knuckling under his nose as often anymore either, but neither had stopped entirely. Something was still holding Kit back and fuck, neither one of them was talking enough to start brushing it off. His big brother was as big a coward as he was those words to have all this melting away not coming to either one of them. With all that it was easier to just reach for another bottle. Melt it all away with booze, especially if the job hunt ended up as shitty as he thought it would. Mystic Falls was strange as fuck in some ways but it wasn’t a real paradise.

There were things here, what lurked in his DNA, the same way it had done in Kit’s until he’d … killed … other things too. Banshees – who the fuck knew – psychics, witches (Cassie was a blessing despite all the rest of the shit that went with this) … the things that lurked around waiting to scoop up the souls that ended up floating out there, cut free of their bodies by … shit.

His heart, now capable of actually fucking exploding in his chest again, made a leap for his throat as he was dragged back. The blessings were meant to last a while, not get cut off by the first son of a bitch who saw a meal in the weak looking little human. Leah wouldn’t bother with that of course, one hint of agreement and maybe she would still whip him off towards … Kace squirmed back, far as he could get, hands remaining hitched in the air as her comment had him freezing up. His fingers curled slightly as he shrugged at her. ”You think I’ve got a clue about how of that works? I told you no last time and you left it … take this as a no again, huh?” Just in case. He wasn’t ready, he didn’t wanna go and leave that gaping hole in his brother’s world again just because he’d mouthed off to a reaper one time.

The laugh that rolled out of him was a little strained maybe but it broke that spell and left Kace scooping his hair back behind his ears again. His hands slid down to the back of his neck, just a little damp with something more than the hair he’d left wet as he’d walked out of Frank’s place. ”I guess even reapers need a night off, although this place seems more like a busman’s holiday.” People died there. He’d seen the bodies the night there’d been some sort of fight down in the club, had Leah slid in on that to scoop them up or had there been some other reaper in there, clocking him while he’d lurked in the shadows listening to Kit’s boss and the others bicker over whose fuck up had let it happen.

Sandy brows hitched as he studied Leah, not flinching away from it. Like her? Did she think he’d … another laugh, this one a little louder as he shook his head. He’d rather have taken that offered hand and gone on that spent the next God only knew how many centuries scooping up people like him to give them their just desserts. ”An angel? Are you shitting me?” He frowned at her, shaking his head. ”You honestly tellin’ me it’s like they say? You go up there and get judged by a bunch of freakin’ saints.” Like if you didn’t measure up there’d been no choice in the matter, it’d be a short trip down. Kace swallowed and shook his head again. ”Human, whatever I was before … you were wrong you know? When you didn’t think people got to…” He made a popping sound with his mouth, jerking a thumb in the air like it was popping from one side of that invisible wall to the other. There was no way in hell he was just gonna drop Cassie’s name in all of this … the kid had ended up bleeding from bringing him back, he wasn’t putting that on her again.

Tagged: LEAH SIVAN * Word Count: 951

He hadn’t been one of those guys growing up knowing all about this death, howling at the moon, woo-woo shit. If Kamilla or their dad had any clue of what was waiting for them neither one of the had said anything – and Kamilla couldn’t exactly keep her mouth shut, especially if there was a camera right there. She played to that sort of thing, preened in the spotlight and revealed every emotion for everybody to see (usually with the addition of a crocodile tear or a hand flutter for emphasis). Naw, he’d been on his own and so had Kit. Kace felt that twist in his gut as his brother came to mind. He’d watched that first turning after Kit had been locked up and had felt his blood turn to ice in his veins as he’d wondered whether that was some fucking sign of karma.

It wasn’t like he’d been able to touch anything on this side of the veil then but he’d soaked up everything he’d seen anyway. Man there’d been some screwed up stuff, the vampires draining that woman before Leah had shown up the last time not nearly the worst of it. It’d been another moment of education he’d never wanted, even if it had meant some company at the time. Someone who could see him, someone to open that door to maybe coming back a little more at the time, although Leah had practically warned him that getting through it was pretty much impossible. She’d been wrong of course and he guessed she didn’t like that now.

Tough luck honey, someone had been willing to fight hard enough and he wasn’t going back. If he had to cling onto the side of the building by his fingernails and look like a damn crackpot while he did it then he would. There was no way in hell he was being dragged away to prove a point.

Kace scowled back at Leah as her pretty face screwed up, bristling faintly at the huff. An education didn’t mean he knew everything about all of this and it was pretty damn obvious she didn’t either. His mouth, in that surround of scruffy beard, pursed, little lines springing up between his brows. ”And you’re acting a little crazy. How ‘bout the next time you lead with that when you drag me off the street and start making demands.” If he had been the damn Queen there’d have been some circle of security around him instead of him just standing here feeling like his ass was hanging out in a seriously chill wind.

If she didn’t come for the living then what the hell, man?

It wasn’t like that revelation had him relaxing altogether, there was still a strain in the laugh that rolled out of him as those lines were drawn – he was safe but some sort of interrogation was still coming his way cause even with a chick who took souls up to heaven or … down … this wasn’t normal. Kace huffed out a breath, shifting uneasily until he was leaning back against the brick wall that lined the alleyway. ”So if I’d said yes to you I wouldn’t have had any say in where you ended up dragging me?” He wasn’t about to ask whether she’d be able to tell then. This might’ve been some sort of miracle but it was still only a temporary two fingers up to Death. At some point he’d come rolling around again – hopefully when he was 90 and so damn decrepit he’d be happy to toddle off with someone like Leah, clinging on to his walker and what memories he had left of the good shit he’d been able to have cause of Cassie.

Kace’s shoulders stiffened his arms coming up to cross over his chest like they’d be any sort of a shield against a woman who had the power to drag souls off to hell. He pressed his tongue against his upper lip before he snorted. ”Told me maybe but I guess you forgot all the details. You didn’t tell me a witch could bring me back.” And he wasn’t confirming it now. If Leah had known she could’ve spoken up. He shut his mouth now while she mirrored his posture, a huff rolling out as she suddenly decided she was gonna be honest with him. It stuck in Kace’s throat though, your own brother making a huge mistake and killing you instead of some imagined enemy was one thing, a sacrifice though? Jesus.

His hands gripped his biceps like that’d somehow get rid of the chill that rolled through him. She was describing a guy who could’ve been Kit. Did she know? Had he mentioned what his brother was like that last time. Kace felt his throat thicken, like it was trying to choke the words off. ”If you wanna help why not just do what you think I did? Find a witch. Pretty damn sure I’m proof it’ll work. What do you need me for?” Because he obviously knew one. Loyalty lodged like a fist beneath the lump in his throat. It had taken a lot out of Cassie to get him back. Was this power like a battery, once you drained it there was no getting it back? If it was he wasn’t about to throw her into this to get her drained, not after everything she’d done for him.

Tagged: LEAH SIVAN * Word Count: 904

Coming back from the dead wasn’t supposed to be easy – that was why there weren’t millions of resurrected people walking round the streets like they’d never smashed up their car or been shot during a robbery – it had to be difficult, it had to cost you something. He’d felt it, coming to in the coffin they’d buried him in, half sure he was still underground. Kit had already paid for what he’d done, months in a cell that had to feel just like that coffin, years slowly dying after while everybody around him was living. It was enough, the worst of it put behind them.

Still, there were those hurdles in front of him. Gage, Ronni, Kamilla, Kandice, his dad, how did you just call people up and say that they could kiss goodbye to their grief because something magical – literally had happened – and he got to come back. In Mystic Falls that was weird enough, outside of this strange little town with its screwed up horror movie population, it felt nearly impossible. His sister had already cut off Kit for what he’d done, how was she gonna cope with all of this? Crazy wouldn’t be the word for it then, either Kandice wouldn’t believe what she was hearing with her own ears, or shit was gonna get nuts on a different level.

Kace let out a long breath, one that shook faintly with suppressed amusement. Naw, there were still prices to be paid and he’d get to them … when he’d settled. He wasn’t gonna be able to do that when he was on the verge of filling his pants constantly. Blue eyes rolled up warily to meet Leah’s, his frown deepening. He was nervy for good reason, especially here.

It took some self-control not to cover his face with his hands and send off some quiet plea like maybe he could change the past and Kit could’ve stayed in California when she shit had hit the fan. It would’ve changed everything, maybe made it so he was still dead and Kit had gone too far too, it definitely would’ve made it so it wouldn’t have been Cassie that brought him back, but things would’ve been relatively normal. Was that what he was craving? Get a little taste of something like what he’d had in LA and maybe the cobwebs clinging to him, still giving him shivers, would finally brush off. This, Leah, sure as hell wasn’t helping. It just had Kace’s nuts trying to crawl up somewhere beneath his ribs for protection.

He swallowed, like that was gonna stop his gorge from rushing straight up his throat. Leah had assured him he wasn’t gonna be snatched off to wherever he was meant to go before – this wasn’t an either side of the veil thing – but she still wasn’t backing off. Drawing in another, slower breath, he rubbed a hand uneasily over his chest. The laugh was strained when it bubbled up. ”You don’t wanna risk all of them running off when they find out the truth. That’s smart.” And self-serving. Saved Leah the trouble of having to sweet talk them all around with that non-existent bed side manner. She was blunt in a sledgehammer kinda way smashing right through everything until that fragile core was exposed and she could take a swing at that too.

Getting Cassie involved wasn’t gonna happen. It didn’t matter if Leah used all her reaper ju-ju and threatened to take him back – way to go, telling that she couldn’t, and screwing herself out of the real meat of the threat. Witch was about as close as she was gonna get. Kace still folded in on himself, snorting now as his mouth twisted wryly. She was frustrated, obviously as desperate as he’d been. ”That’s pretty obvious now,” he tossed out. He still twitched when her jaw started to clench though. Was that some warning sign that Vesuvius here was about to blow?

He straightened up, his brows flicking up and down as he forced a smile. Of course, even in Mystic Falls, you couldn’t just toss a dart in the street and be guaranteed of hitting a witch – apparently that shit was secret, even here, for a reason. ”You do that. Hope you manage to track someone down and get back the saint. Best of luck.” Kace could feel the tremors starting in the pit of his stomach as he took a step backwards up the alleyway, his shoulders tightening as he rammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans to stop them from shaking.

That was when the begging started and he stopped. A muscle jumped in Kace’s jaw, half hidden by the scruff of his beard. She could’ve been describing Kit, before. Before the convoy had been blown up and his brother had been forced to try and save his team, only succeeding with some of them. He hadn’t been hurt the same way, but there were still scars in his mind that there was no easy fix for. Was this part of the price they were gonna pay to fix that? One good deed earning them another? ”You mean it about the guy? He’s not meant to …” He pulled a hand free, jerking a thumb downwards before he swore.

”Fuck. If I give you a name, you let me talk to them first? You can’t do this with force, she’s just a kid, she doesn’t deserve gettin’ hurt to make this happen.” His throat roughened at the idea, wondering if he’d be able to get hold of Cassie first and ask. ”Cassie,” he breathed, staring down at the floor like this somehow made him guilty for something. ”There’s a store across the street, J. Reid’s …” At least if Leah found Cassie there Nicky would be there. Maybe he could do something to protect her if this shit went sideways.

Tagged: LEAH SIVAN * Word Count: 981