finding God, and losing too

There were always two sides to a story and getting the other to Leah’s now was tying Cory’s gut in knots. In a circle of ash with a woman trapped in what had to be an expectant mother’s worst nightmare, he heard Leah’s fresh spill of half truths roll across the warehouse. He could’ve stuck his fingers in his ears like a kid and told him he didn’t want to hear them but it wouldn’t do anything. He’d heard her truth before and had trusted it enough to go to bat for her with the big man but now all he heard was the twisted lie in each word.

The woman had killed a man – apparently to protect the baby who was paying the price here, like Leah had tried to do to her brother before he’d killed her first. She hadn’t tried to hide it, tossing broken accusations back like he needed to hear them to help, while she was literally red handed.

No, no, he didn’t wanna look at that while he gathered her into him, didn’t want to think about the way the tiny bundle on the cold concrete floor squirmed against his hand. Cory knew he didn’t have every detail of both sides of that story now but what he’d seen of that other side was enough to leave him desperately praying for the first time in years. To fix her, to be able to pull off some sort of a miracle for the newest life Leah had taken.

Tears crested on his lashes as he dipped his head and took them both away from them. Cory squeezed his eyes tight shut against them, keeping the home they’d leapt into at bay for just a minute. Was he going to open them and see the nursery they’d maybe started setting up by now? Their dad had tried when he and Dani had been due, what little their parents had been able to scrape together made into a place for them, the best start they could manage. A promise of the future dashed just as bitterly as this one by a desperate, evil man with a gun.

Her thanks echoed in his ears as they settled there on the floor. Cory shook his head slightly as he opened his eyes and lifted his head. A living room, not too unlike the one they’d had when he’d been small. Comfortable, full of life – including a dog who stirred from the couch. He started, not scrambling away but definitely holding his breath until Destiny stirred from him and patted the dog. It wasn’t snarling, ready to tear his hand off. Although, if Leah had been the one to appear here maybe he would’ve done it – she would’ve deserved it, a punishment for the torment she’d put the dog’s mistress through.

Fingers curled into his palm, Cory offered his knuckles gingerly to the dog for a moment before he swallowed. His eyes darted up from the dog to Destiny. She wasn’t hesitating and he shouldn’t have been either. There was a little squawk from the floor at his side, heart breaking in the weakness of the cries. Too young – they couldn’t survive being born too early could they? Like there was some sort of cut off point that would’ve meant that nothing he could’ve done even ten minutes ago would’ve helped, wasn’t there?

Cory eased up on his knees, licking his lips anxiously. He held his hand out, close to her head like he was going to touch her but then she was keening out a string of curses and he was flinching away. ”Are you sure we shouldn’t be at the hospital doing this? You’re hurting … the doctors … they’re the ones that can fix …” The physical, and he was sure it was too late for what Destiny desperately wanted to save here.

He wanted to tell her she wasn’t okay, that none of this was fine, but Cory didn’t want to see her break and give in the dark that was sure to rise up with that cloud of grief. He didn’t want Leah to have taken two lives tonight.

The nod was sharp, more certain than he actually felt. He had no idea what Leah had done in the woman’s head, just that whatever it was had brought this on. Maybe there’d been an ounce of guilt in Leah at it, she wouldn’t have asked him to fix it otherwise. It was too little too late though, in so many ways. ”I … I think so. I’m sorry, I’m new at this. I’m gonna try, I swear but … I don’t know how badly she screwed things up. I could make it worse…” But Leah had trusted he wouldn’t. Falling back on a evil bitch’s faith in you at a time like this felt twisted but Cory did it anyway.

Eyes squeezed tight shut, forehead furrowing like he was already in pain, Cory finally settled his hands lightly around Destiny’s head. His fingers trembled slightly, his breathing going ragged as he tried to picture himself in her mind. The circle, the chair standing this time, Leah parading back and forth in the room like a model strutting the runway while she taunted. A flash … Leah in the circle, far smaller hands on what felt like his head. In Destiny’s mind. ”What did you see?” he asked in a whisper. ”What did she hurt you with Destiny?” The flash of it had him twitching like an electric shock, the man’s hands tight, vicious. Flashes of light, of motion, of pain. All of it jagged like a mirror had been smashed and the pieces had been put back together wrong, bits and pieces overlaid where they shouldn’t have been. Leah’s foul fingerprints over all of it for him to try and brush away. His own fingers shaking as he tried to start readjusting all those cutting pieces.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 991

Did the dog realise something was wrong? Cory stroked his knuckles down the dip in the dog’s head, scrubbing them between his ears for a moment before he smoothed a hand down the wriggling dog’s back. They were meant to, weren’t they? When you had a pet they bonded to you enough to know when you were sad, to be able to tell when you were sick. The smell of blood in the air probably would’ve been worrying enough to have the dog whining without that extra knowledge. There’d never been the money for a pet growing up but he and Dani had always been that barometer for each other. Twins who could sense something had happened to the other with just as much accuracy.

She’d have known what to do now, training and that motherly instinct kicking in. They’d have been screaming towards the hospital in a car, lights and sirens going, or blinking straight into the ER without a word of protest. He didn’t have Dani’s backbone though, had fallen victim to all of Leah’s games because he didn’t. She’d taken advantage of him but that was gonna be for the last time. He wasn’t gonna be poor, blind Cory anymore.

It shouldn’t have taken this to make him open his eyes to it all. The loss of a life before it had even started, the crushing grief of a mother-to-be whose future had been lost in that wash of blood. Cory knew the apologies would trip out of his throat later, with Leah’s mocking laugh ringing in his head. Why are you apologising when you didn’t have the balls to do anything like this, Cory? Because he was a decent person with a heart, not some marble statue without a heart, or the right sort of balls to stand up and admit that she’d fucked up beyond belief.

Cory didn’t think there was any fixing it, not in the way that Destiny would really want. Those tiny cries that had trailed off into the sort of whimpers that had him wanting to sob for them both said it was too late. The apology for what someone like him had done stuck like a fish bone in his throat, a painful stabbing sensation as he nodded mutely. It took a hard swallow to be able to force his voice past it, ragged and raw. ”Alright,” he rasped. ”But … if I can’t we go right away. I can’t fix all of this.” His head ticked back and forth in those little movements. She had to be wrapping herself in that shroud of denial, like not admitting something was really wrong would somehow mean it wasn’t happening. He knew what it was like, squeezing your eyes shut when those numbers on a print out were laid on the hospital bed in front of you, wanting to jam your fingers into your ears and sing la, la, la to avoid hearing the news that you might die from the doctor’s lips.

Dani had been there then, his strength, but now, alone, Cory settled back on his calves, trying to ignore the way Destiny soothed herself with that slide of hands over her bump before she settled her hands on his knees. Maybe her hope would be enough to perform some sort of miracle. She was gonna have to believe enough for both of them. ”I’m going to…” he started before he steadied himself with a salt scented inhalation, tears spilling out both of them. ”…all I can do.” He didn’t want to say what might happen if he couldn’t. Hope was all this woman seemed to have left.

Leah had erased everything else.

The oily smear of Leah’s touch on everything else almost had him heaving as he slipped into Destiny’s brain. With feet his size it was probably more a stomp but he tried to tip-toe into the minefield Leah had left behind. Was this what all brains were like? That complicated scatter of memories like one of those mirror mazes in a funhouse, everything overlaid, stretched, broken to pieces. No. Cory frowned at that, his stomach twisting as he saw those shards shift, the dark staining them like the blood that had pooled on that warehouse floor and stained Destiny’s hands.

Gingerly he’d been trying to put things back right but Cory didn’t know if he was doing anything that actually helped. The question slipped out like somehow Destiny could tell him what was supposed to be in those pictures. She was the jigsaw box, the guide that would let him click each piece into its right place. ”She squashed it all together,” he whispered. ”Wanted him to stain everything else.” Grey was the man with the bright blue eyes, not entirely unlike Leah’s. Cory felt his throat thicken as he picked up one piece that seemed lit with a flickering light. An apartment reflected in it, a jumpiness to the way things rolled out on that splintered screen until Grey curled his hands around Destiny’s bare thighs – he could almost feel the touch himself, on his own legs, that calm that came with it – pressing his face to her, their, stomach and making everything else slip away.

Another apartment, this one huge, glossy, another woman there. The heave and sway of the pregnant bulk rising out of the bed. Apologies tripping from their mouth, Grey’s sharp voice ordering the blonde away, the flicker of confusion in his eyes, the way he’d yelled their name as they’d left. Last night. The last time. Cory spread his fingers over the memory, brushing the darkness, the violence of swinging hands, of blooming pain and shock off of it like he would ashes from a fireplace. Time and time again Cory brushed at it, hands shaking as he tried to piece those mirrors back together. That little snick in his chest as each piece melted back together, less of the man with the searing temper and quick hands jammed up against the softer image of the new man, Petyr’s dad.

He felt the breath roll out of Destiny and something in his chest gave at it, like a dam giving way to relieve the pressure behind it. He hadn’t had a bloody clue what he was doing but maybe Leah hadn’t either, her clumsiness at trying to destroy her brother and everything he loved – that he did was obvious from all he’d seen – making it easier for him to fix it all again.

Cory drew in a breath of his own, letting his hands slowly slide away from Destiny’s temples, down her hair, meeting her smile with an anxious one of his own as his hands found her shoulders and squeezed. ”That makes two of us,” he admitted hoarsely. ”I’m not exactly experienced with any of this. I … I think so … I hope so…” That hadn’t been what she was asking for though. Petyr. The stirring of tiny fists beating the air in his peripheral vision had a fresh squeeze of that hand around his heart sending pain through him again.

Pressing his lips together, Cory shook his head. How did you tell a mother-to-be that it was too late for their child? ”I …. I don’t think so, Destiny. I can take you to the hospital, they can do things I can’t, maybe they can bring … I think he’s gone. I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do like I did for you but I … I don’t think I can.” Hearing that cry go up from the squirming bundle, unseen by his mother, by the dog, on the rug, Cory dropped his head, squeezed his eyes shut. Slowly, he extended his hand, pressing it lightly to the baby’s belly, its cheek, all small enough to fit right there in the curve of his hand.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 1311

She knew. Cory imagined it was the same way his mom had when the police had arrived at the door of the house that night. Staring down the rest of your life with that abstract nightmare standing between you and it. They didn’t have to say a word, something in your chest, your brain, was aware and maybe it shut down for a few minutes to keep your body going through what you needed it to do, but you knew. By the time the officers came to tell Dani what had happened to him he’d agreed to go with the reaper. He’d not seen the realisation strike her, or her face fall the same way Destiny’s did now. Like all the light had gone. By then he’d been up there with their dad, given something back that had meant so much in the midst of losing so much more.

Someone more poetic could’ve given her some comfort in it but Cory knew it wasn’t him. He was the sort of guy who stumbled through things, all puppy eagerness in his desire to help, but too clumsy, not experienced enough to be able to do as much as he wanted. If he’d called someone like Elias or Damien would they be able to do what he didn’t think he could? Maybe not Elias, he’d never break the rules to try and do something crazy and bring the baby back, Damien though … Should he?

Cory couldn’t look at the baby, to see the whole situation. His fingers were right there, the first Petyr would feel – maybe the last, although that felt so wrong. Hovering against the squirming bundle he imagined he could feel a warmth through, not that spine shaking chill that usually came. He swallowed hard as Destiny denied it again with that single, forceful word. Yes. No amount of sorries was gonna make it better. He could … once upon a time he’d begged Death to let Leah come over to their side, again he’d gone to him to explain what had happened with the professor and he’d gotten permission for it. Would Death let him keep crossing that line with permission, would he strip Augustus out of him and force him back to his heaven if he tried this without his nod?

From the corner of his eye he saw the baby curl towards him as if he felt him there. Did he have a chance if he did? He didn’t imagine that it could ever go back to being a normal pregnancy after all of this, which meant a baby that tiny being in one of those incubator things, fighting for his life with tubes and machines. Maybe. Medicine had kept him alive so he could … end up here. Tears scalded his eyes as Destiny sobbed her pain out, the dog pressing into her – he did know, he was sure of it – hands pressed to her face, the pain so raw he felt like it a knife through his own chest.

The burn of them was in Cory’s eyes, his sinuses, building like they would spill out as he reached his other hand out to Destiny, wanting to offer her some comfort that his words sure as hell weren’t bringing. ”I’m … I’m s-sorry, if there was anything, I’d do it. It’s not fair, I know…” Leah. The disgust rolled up on a wash of bile into his throat. She’d run, wrapped around the asshole who seemed to have stirred all of it before his brother had died in his place somehow. The tears broke over his lashes, filled the pale eyes that lifted to meet Destiny’s as her hands fell away. No apologies were gonna make this right, Leah had destroyed any chance of that and karma was never all it should’ve been, usually burdening people with the opposite. Taking the good, leaving the evil to carry on doing this.

Cory’s lashes fluttered, the tears spilling faster as he stroked his thumb over the tiny downy skull. It was so small, the baby so tiny that maybe there really would’ve no hope even if he could …. Tongue clamped between his teeth like it would somehow hold back that wash of his own grief – a drop compared to the ocean of Destiny’s, of the father’s that would be when this truth struck him true – Cory nodded mutely. Finally, he looked aside, feeling his heart tear through at the sight of the baby, as small as he’d felt he would be. Too small, he was sure. ”I couldn’t leave him there … I brought him with us.” Cory still wasn’t sure how any of this worked, they didn’t give you a manual for any of it, ad none of the souls he’d ever taken had been this small, but he knew it was his duty and nodded again.

He didn’t flinch away as Destiny rose up, although that shiver of worry went through him for her as she did. There was still so much blood, he couldn’t end up taking them both today, the baby was bad enough. Cory twisted his arm, gripping her hip to stop her from tumbling. ”No! No, he doesn’t … it doesn’t work that way. No matter what happened to get … it’s all about what they did and he hasn’t …” Had time to do anything. He hadn’t really even taken his first breath. Even now he was curled in that protective shield of his mom’s body, a shield that hadn’t been able to keep Leah and her destroying touch out. ”He’s gonna … he’ll go up. I’ll make sure he’s safe, taken care of.” Until they got up there Cory had no idea what that safety would look like but even if he had to spend every waking moment that he wasn’t … working … up there, he’d make sure.

Mouth pinched together, Cory sniffed in a breath and nodded. His lips trembled into something like a smile. Other than his size the baby looked perfect, like he imagined babies did. Little fingers, little toes … so little. He blinked at him, letting go of Destiny to ease both hands beneath and scoop the tiny form up against his chest. ”I think I can … you can see him …” Maybe it would be the straw that broke the camel’s back but if he was in Destiny’s place he’d want to. It had to be a reassurance, when everything else was so terrifying. He looked at the baby rather than at her face before he let that little wave of power roll through them both. It wasn’t that difference to blinking himself in and out of view but now Petyr’s tiny form was visible right there in his hands – they were almost big enough to cover him head to ten little toes with just one.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 1146

She was losing her son and yet she was thanking him? God. Cory felt his eyes fill further at it, tears shimmering in a lens that would break without the first blink but it was hard to do even that as he sat there with his hand curled around that tiny life that still felt so real to him, even if Destiny couldn’t see it, Cory could bring himself to even do that.

Leah had known he would do this, be the soft shoulder for Destiny to lean on, the reaper who desperately wanted to fix the messes instead of just shrugging and walking away from them. The blink came then and the tears rolled as his apologies spilled out. He couldn’t make promises, not even Augustus would’ve done that but Cory tried to offer some sort of reassurance before that admission that he hadn’t been able to leave the baby behind spilled out. What would have happened if he’d left him – Petyr – there in the warehouse while he tried to save his mom’s life? The thought left a sick feeling crawling up his throat for just a moment. He couldn’t have done, the baby didn’t deserve that, or any of this. Destiny didn’t either.

Wanting to give her something of her son despite the uncertainty that clawed at the back of his throat, Cory held onto her as he brought Petyr into sight. A breath shuddered out of him as he looked down at the baby. Was this what it had been like for his parents as Dani and then him had been born? A sudden realisation of everything that had grown and grown and been loved for nine months? The thought washed away as Destiny tumbled forward.

Cory would’ve let go to brace her as she dropped a hand on his shoulder but he had to keep a hold on the baby, was afraid of what might happen if he dropped him, even if he was … Perfect for now. He drew a wet breath in through his nose as Destiny’s fingers curled around his arm, so close to her baby but not touching. He didn’t know if she could. Tears made his vision swim but Cory drew his gaze up from Petyr to his mom as she spoke of her love for her baby, of his dad’s love for him. Those words hadn’t made it out of his mom’s mouth after his dad had died but all they’d said before had been wrapped around him like a kid with a security blanket he couldn’t bring himself to let go of even if what were the scraps of it could be balled up in one fist. He didn’t know if Petyr would get old enough up in Heaven to ever really hear it but Cory stored the words away in his mind, something to tell the boy again and again, even if the words would never cling or be understood – some things you just felt didn’t you?

A scarecrow’s gangly shoulders rose and fell awkwardly beneath the cover of his shirt. He wished he could give Destiny concrete answers, something more to make this better somehow. ”I don’t know,” he finally whispered hoarsely. ”maybe. It can’t…” Hurt. The word stuck in his throat as the baby’s eyes opened – blue like his mom’s, maybe, his dad’s – fixing on her in a way that had Cory smiling, something heartbroken in his expression. That was a laugh, he was sure it was, a little gift for a woman who was losing so many of them today. "I think he knows you’re here. Don’t you, Petyr?” he whispered softly, not wanting to disturb the moment between mother and son. Cory managed a ragged breath as his mom finally brushed her fingers over the curve of that tiny head, his tears a constant stream down his cheeks now, untouched.

Destiny bent to press a kiss to him, each gesture so loving and heart breaking at the same time. So much had scarred him since he’d started all of this but this was the worst of it, a loss Cory wasn’t sure he was ever gonna forget. Even the little moment with the dog, so soft despite his appearance, looking at that tiny bundle he wouldn’t get to see come home from the hospital, a little buddy of the sort he’d always wanted a pet to be for him.

Shit!

Cory froze as Destiny tensed and groaned, her hands squeezing at his arms. He held on to Petyr as carefully as he could but fear was already spilling through him. He wasn’t gonna end up taking both of them upstairs, Fuck Leah on that. ”Destiny…” Cory croaked, starting and uttering a ‘shit’ under his breath as there was a gush of fluid from her that dampened his jeans. ”I d-d-dunno if it is. She … she did some damage with what she did. I d-don’t want to lose you either, you hear me? We’ll come with you OK? Me and Petyr will be right there at the hospital. I’ll go with you before I … please? Can we go?” If it wasn’t fluid the next time what could he do? If there was some real healing ability with this he didn’t have a bloody clue how to use it. Settling Petyr carefully against his forearm so he could get his other hand free, Cory gripped Destiny’s upper arm lightly, a plea in his eyes.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 910