we have it all

Did the concept of being off the clock even exist when Death held your choke chain in his hands? Maybe once upon a time it had, but what was happening in Mystic Falls had shifted the parameters of the job. The only one probably enjoying it was Elias, and that was because that douche seemed to relish. Not scooping up the souls perhaps, that required a little humanity after all, but holding his work ethic over everybody else. That holier than thou attitude obviously the only thing keeping him warm at night.

The rest of them got pissed at being yanked back and forth. One foot outside the narrowly drawn perimeters risking a slap on the wrist at best. For weeks after Elias had found him talking to Sonny in that alleyway, cleaning up a mess his brother hadn’t started for once, Damien had found himself looking over his shoulder constantly. Just waiting for Death’s cold, bony hand to clamp on his shoulder, or that constipated face to reappear so Elias could deliver the ‘I told you so’ himself.

He'd been so sure it would come after he’d gotten Aurora out of the hunter’s house. ‘Returning to the scene of the crime’ would’ve been the line Elias tried to smack him round the face with, even if the bodies that had littered that house weeks before hadn’t been Aurora’s work.

Would the hunter have been so hot to try and blame Aurora for it all if he’d seen how his wife had drained each of the bodies there? He’d been the one to kill after all, he should’ve seen it, or maybe that was the problem, he had and he hadn’t wanted to see how the blame had lain entirely with the woman who’d stood by and watched as he’d scooped up every soul from that house. She hadn’t been his problem and so he’d left her to it, a hellhound would’ve come for her eventually. His issue had been Aurora, getting her out of there before the hunter took a lucky shot.

Damien rubbed his fingers together as he appeared behind one of the pillars on the steps of the building. He remembered the way Aurora’s blood had been on them. Too close. That iron band had tightened around his chest when he’d gotten her out of there, his hands searching her for some sign that she was hurt, at least until she’d pushed him away and had bolted. It had stayed tight until she’d eventually answered his invitation. Taking her somewhere public was probably just another red flag, an opportunity for the hunter, or the brother he’d heard about repeatedly, but it was also a ploy. It was harder to bolt at vampire speeds when you were in a crowd. And he wanted to make sure for himself. Fingers on skin, his eyes on hers, everything laid bare again.

He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, smiling occasionally as people drifting past, his expression rapidly settling back into its mask like lines. This was the sort of thing he and Sonny had talked about shifting into when the FBI had started sniffing too close. Nowhere near as much security at these things and almost as much in money. It dripped around people’s throats, wrists and hung from their ears. Jewels turning folks into works of art – or maybe just Aurora.

Damien stirred as she stepped out of the taxi. An ivory dress clinging to her, just a few shades paler than her skin, her red hair bright against it. He slowly inched down the stairs as she paid the guy off and approached. Smiling at least, like what had happened with the hunter had just been a bad dream. ”Had to make an effort when I knew you were gonna look stunning,” he told her. The tuxedo had come straight out of one of the stores on the square, not exactly legally, but what was the point in all these ‘blessings’ being a reaper gave you if you weren’t gonna use them. His hand found the curve of her waist, his lips lingering on hers. ”I’m glad you decided to come … I wasn’t sure.” After everything that had happened, not that he was bringing that up now. ”Will you accompany me inside?” A formal invite, his crooked arm held out to her.

Tagged: AURORA DE MARTEL * Word Count: 728

Vengeance wasn’t supposed to come into it. No taking retribution, no throwing a fit over the slaughter you cleaned up after, no hatred, no stubbornness. Be a good little choir boy and you too could be a reaper for an eternity. Elias might have happily taken all of that on board, hoping for a gold star from Death himself, but the rest of them, from what Damien had seen, were struggling with it some way or another. Even twitchy, naïve little Cory – although Leah probably had as much to do with that as anything else.

Seeing Aurora’s blood staining the house where he’d already left a blood bath behind once, Damien had felt that rage rise up inside of him. The carpets and walls, the human little lives that had been lived there before the vampire wife had slipped, had given way to marble floors. Weapons sounding, impacts punching, blood starting to pool. It didn’t matter that Sonny had already been shoved into a corner of his own mind when that bullet had hit and killed him, just that he’d seen his brother bleeding out there right on the ground. Broken the way Connie had been a handful of years before that. Flickering images of Aurora the same way stuttering across his vision then and a half dozen times since as she’d stubbornly avoided him. He’d have had to be Elias to avoid feeling after all of that.

Just two nights ago he’d stood outside the warehouse where the hunter had gone to ground with another. Smoke wreathing from the cigarette held between his fingers. A single heartbeat to be in there, the touch of just one fingertip and it would’ve been done. Messing with the natural order, sticking two fingers up at Elias and that ice man persona he wore, as though there wasn’t a real boy buried in that hulking form. Maybe if Aurora hadn’t answered his call he’d have done it. Another slap on the wrist that he’d ignore like the half dozen others he’d received since he’d signed on the dotted line.

He watched as she emerged from the car. Blue eyes studying her through the thick lenses of glasses worn habitually now rather than out of any sort of need. Seeking out the spots where the hunter had laid her open, wanting to run his fingers over them now to search for some lingering sign of what he knew would have healed almost instantly. It was what vampires did. Unless a killing blow laid them flat they always returned to that perfect state, the one they’d been in whenever they’d been turned. Physically and mentally suspended in time like those creatures they found buried in amber. Beautiful to look at, but forever trapped.

His gaze dropped to where the diamond necklace lay head at her throat. Damien smiled, remembering the way he’d laid it around her throat. He could already imagine the outrage rolling through the crowd if the owner was here tonight. Bad luck, it was a case of finder’s keepers and no matter the trouble boiling up around them like storm clouds, Damien intended on extending that claim to Aurora, even if her brother and Death chose to take issue with it.

Damien imagined he could feel the warmth of that blush against his skin as they kissed, just as he did her touch did whenever her fingers found him. His voice was a low rumble as he inched back. ”No, thank you.” For agreeing to come, for giving him that quick bite of relief, even as it stuttered slightly with Aurora’s aborted words.

No need to rewind, she was taking his offered arm, her palm settling on his forearm in a way that told him the claim wasn’t one sided, hadn’t been even when she’d run from him. They took the last couple of stairs, sweeping into the place as graceful as any of the blue bloods who called this place home. Aurora seemed to study them for a moment before she turned to him. Dark brows drawing together above the thick rims of his glasses he settled his other hand at her elbow, his thumb sweeping over the tender skin of the inside of it, a reassuring brush.

Apologising. Like she had any reason to. Damien was shaking his head instantly, his frown deepening as he drew her close. It probably broke some sort of protocol in here but he was pressing his lips to her forehead, her temple, his lips finding her ear to speak directly to her and not to the dozens of sets of ears that could likely hear a pin drop in here. ”You’ve never been weak, not to me. Your mind might try and tell you somethin’ else, but it’s wrong.” The hunter had come too close, but that wasn’t because Aurora was weak. The man was trying to find some way to get revenge for his wife’s death – that shouldn’t have been Aurora. ”You’re better than he deserves, or than I deserve. I considered doing the same, killing him for laying his hands on you.” He wasn’t one to open himself up, to admit to all he’d done putting blood on his hands. Damien breathed out slow, pressing one last kiss to her temple. ”It scared me, finding that he’d hurt you.” Worrying that Aurora had bolted just to die out of sight, the way animals did. That she had bolted from him – just as gutting.

Tagged: AURORA DE MARTEL * Word Count: 911

Two people he’d loved had already bled out in front of him. Sonny might’ve come back with that thing inside of him, but he’d still watched his brother die, and Connie had never been herself again after the car had crashed. Grief had hollowed him out, allowing something else to grow in that space. Something dark, something brittle, although he hadn’t felt the shell that was left threaten to shatter until he’d seen Aurora tied to that chair, bloodied, smoking, just waiting for another grieving man to put one of those bolts through her heart.

Damien knew that Aurora had been hollowed out by the same events, but instead of trying to fill that void, she’d run from it. From him. Some part of him should’ve been bitter at it, he hadn’t been though. Fear and anger had taken the place of his grief instead, leaving him walking a knife edge that could’ve sent him over to the wrong side, adding to the town’s body count instead of helping to clean up after it. So close to slipping, until Aurora had agreed to tonight. The hunter should’ve been thanking her instead of trying to slaughter her.

Fat chance.

The hunter wouldn’t get another opportunity to touch the beautiful creature before him. He’d stand in the way, an impenetrable shield between Aurora and the slings and arrows of the world. Damien had felt the gratitude for him doing it before shame, or fear, embarrassment, or the bitter combination of all of them had sent Aurora running from him. Now she was back with the apology that he didn’t need to consider before he accepted it, letting those shields fall for just a moment again before him.

Damien’s hand squeezed her elbow lightly, a reassurance he echoed with the words he murmured against her skin. The old crones in here were probably clucking and clutching at their pearls – they certainly would’ve been if they’d known the triple threat standing right before them (vampire, thief, reaper of their wizened old spirits). He felt the tension melt out of Aurora, to be replaced by that quiet laugh. ”I was always pretty good at mazes. No matter how twisty it gets in there, I’m gonna find my way to the centre of it OK, you’re not gonna stay lost in there.” A promise he maybe wouldn’t be able to keep, but it was whispered with every intention that he would. He knew what it was like to have thoughts that twisted on themselves until they were a knot you didn’t think you could fight your way out of it.

Sofia’s husband had tied himself up in knots just as bad and the man didn’t have a blade to cut himself free of the Gordian mess of it. He’d have stranged the man with it, but it seemed as though Aurora finally had a use for her brother other than as some sort of rabid sheep dog, herding her life deeper into those mazes. ”Do you want him to know just how much trouble you’ve found here in town?” he asked, despite knowing he - and Aurora – would rest easier if the hunter joined his wife in the ground. Revenge could be the hands on those knots, pulling you until you were like one of those stretchy dolls he'd seen kids play with long after his own childhood had passed. Limbs stretching so far before they snapped, the gooey innards oozing out.

For centuries Aurora’s brother had tried to keep her safe, but there was no denying he’d been the architect of those mazes in that time. Without him in town it had seemed like there was nothing to push Aurora in directions she didn’t want to go. Damien shook his head, drawing back to look down into those forest green eyes as she draped her arms around his neck. His hand slid to the small of her waist, his thumb sweeping across her dress. ”You can’t let his fight keep controlling you. This is better than looking for revenge, isn’t it?” He wasn’t just a temporary distraction though, the last year had to have started proving that to Aurora. Reapers only came and went in the blink of an eye for one reason, and it wasn’t romantic entanglements.

Trying to shrug off Aurora’s reiterated gratitude, Damien ended up smiling crookedly down at her. It had been selfish as much as anything to save her life. He wasn’t prepared to lose her, to let something like the hunter take her away. ”I’m just sorry it took me so long. There were … there was work.” This wasn’t the place to go into the saga of Robbie and Annie, love’s young nightmare. Damien swallowed hard as he imagined one of those fiery bastards coming to swoop on Aurora’s soul. ”I think Clyde would’ve had to go solo. There’s no replacing Bonnie. I’m glad you’re here.” In more ways than one.

Damien wrapped his arms tighter around Aurora, drawing her in until he could press his lips to the top of her head. Something bubbled and squeezed in his chest, but he couldn’t say the words, not yet, managing just a ”do you wanna dance with me?” against her hair. It was easy to forget the way she’d looked when he held her this close.

Tagged: AURORA DE MARTEL * Word Count: 888