got me thinking

Anybody else would’ve headed straight from the library to their bed after pulling an all nighter – with the librarian sent off to bed at 9.30 of course, because she wasn’t an entirely selfish bitch – but she wasn’t anybody else. She was the one walking down the front stairs of the building as others showed up for work. The librarian called after her, a thread of panic in her voice, like perhaps she’d left someone locked in all night. Phoebe tilted her head, considering it for one of her slow heartbeats before she raised her hand to flutter her fingers over her shoulder in farewell to the woman. She had locked her in, but she had asked for it after all. It wasn’t like she would’ve got that much work done in the chaos of the dorm, or perched on a bar stool at the club until Lawrence had finally finished up his shift and she’d been ready to exchange the Smart Phoebe façade for the Smartass Phoebe one.

Now the club stood dark, shuttered up against prying eyes until the doors were thrown open again later. Phoebe strolled past, the heels of her boots clicking on the sidewalk as she adjusted the weighty backpack on her shoulders. That would be her celebration for this afternoon’s exam, a little alcoholic pat on the back for acing it – there was no other possible result after all.

Cheating her way through law school would’ve been as easy as compelling a couple of professors, at best she’d have attended a couple of classes, just long enough to get herself established and then blip - ’you’ll give a 98 on every assignment and exam, I’m your best student’. It would’ve been easy, and galling. She might’ve lived up to the bitch reputation Teddy and others had clung onto, but that wasn’t her. If she was doing this, it was gonna be through blood and sweat and tears, the achievement hers to crow about afterwards, the pride hers to stay warm on. Phoebe Murphy, attorney-at-law, helping the cell door to slam shut on the assholes who’d skated far too often. She wouldn’t make the next Mother Theresa, but she’d never aspired to those sort of lofty heights.

Mother Theresa sure as hell wouldn’t have made a little stop on the way back towards her car and her 2pm exam. A pre-emptive celebration, maybe just a little symbolic to settle the nerves that rattled beneath her skin. It wasn’t like there hadn’t been enough little bumps in the last few months to throw her off her study game, some taking her down to her knees, leaving little scrapes and cuts on the heart that was reportedly heading towards being a coal like lump in her chest, impervious to the hurts everybody else suffered. Phoebe doesn’t have emotions. Bullshit, they were there even if she had them hidden behind that curtain she draped over her emotions most of the time.

She glanced at the bar when she walked into Campbell’s, purposefully bypassed the spot where she’d found Teddy that first night. This wasn’t gonna be a trip back down memory lane, although if they were trying to patch up some of those wounds that night had caused she wouldn’t have turned down a second time around. Another way to celebrate, one that would leave Lawrence desperately tearing out his eyes and ears so he wouldn’t have to hear it again.

Her lips curled faintly as she dropped her bag on the floor next to one of the little four tops and waved down a waitress who was carrying plates full of breakfast towards a table at the back, one of the few occupied at this time of day. ”A large glass of the house red, please.” The manners probably would’ve been tossed aside if it was the club, especially since Lawrence likely would’ve been the one serving her. Drinks came for free then, provided by a brother who had a good eighty years of rounds to make up for.

Phoebe tunnelled her hands through her hair. There’d been enough time for a shower when she got back, a change of clothes, something to give her a little boost when she stalked into that exam room, ready to ace it. She dragged her bag close, considered whether or not to go through her notes one more time. The rumble of the waiter’s voice – far deeper than the waitress’ had been a moment before had her glancing up.

Some part of her had quick frozen when she’d found Raik’s body in the freezer. Lawrence had told her someone was working on a way to bring him back, but that sort of thing was dangerous and she hadn’t really expected … ”Hey,” she croaked. It was a good thing Lawrence was already dead, because she would’ve throttled him for not bothering to break the news that someone had pulled it off. Surely he would’ve noticed that Raik was … gone.

Lawrence being a shitty brother apparently didn’t stop with bullshitting Teddy. His mere existence was apparently revealing the twists to her own. Phoebe’s lips curled into a small smile as she reached for her glass. ”I’d say it took a little practice too, but that wouldn’t exactly be true. It’s a small blessing.” As long as it wasn’t your profit margin she was cutting into when she partied all night. Tilting her head, Phoebe tossed her hair over her shoulder, like eternal life was something to beam about. ”I don’t look a day over twenty though, do I?” Her smile fell away though, her fingers curling tighter around the stem of the glass. ”You’re looking better than the last time I saw you. Your brother managed it then?” Or rather the reaper had. That thought still put a shiver down her spine and left her curling in around that icy center of herself as she took a gulp of the wine.

Tagged: RAIK DURMAZ * Word Count: 990

Of course Lawrence wouldn’t have noticed if Raik’s body had up and vanished from the freezer where it’d been tucked away, out of sight, out of mind – except for hers and perhaps that brother of his. Raik could’ve walked straight past him and Lawrence would barely have blinked. There’d been moments after her birthday when she’d considered going back there, curling up on the floor beside him so he wouldn’t be alone in there, but each time she’d brushed off the idea. Thanks to Lawrence and Teddy her heart was already raw, sitting with the body of a man she’d had some genuine affection for wasn’t going to have it healing over any faster.

Phoebe pressed her glass lightly against her chest, feeling some of the raw patches heal over as she studied Raik’s face. She’d have said he looked no worse the wear for what he’d gone through, but the mental and emotional scars didn’t heal half as fast as those physical ones. They carved themselves deep beneath the surface, biding their time before they opened again. Maybe the reaper had been able to paper over some, but she was in no doubt that Raik could feel where each wound was. He’d smile and exude all that warmth, but there would perhaps be those moments where his hand crept to his throat as though he’d be able to trace the line of whatever had cut off his air.

She avoided looking down at the spot now, pushing her own warmth, and relief, to the surface instead. There was the Phoebe they all expected, smiling, flirting, planning on how and when to bring this up to Lawrence. Would he splutter about it the same way he had when she’d revealed just what Teddy had done after he’d given his best friend the wrong impression of just what she’d done to the man she loved.

Tilting her head, Phoebe let her smile grow, her eyes narrowing so that those whiskey coloured irises peeked through the screen of dark lashes. ”You’re a flatterer,” she murmured, but the smile was already fading from Raik’s face, as though the thought that she was a century old but still looked just like the college student she currently was. The cloud of seriousness struck them both at the same time, dimming all that had been bright a second ago.

Swallowing hard at the thought of what it would’ve taken for a witch to bring him back, Phoebe shifted in her seat. That sort of magic was dangerous to meddle with. Their parents had made that clear enough when she’d suggested they could bring Lawrence back from the other side. It hadn’t mattered that it was sickness rather than some act of violence that had taken his life, it hadn’t meant that Lawrence had to be gone. ”Oh, I’m sure it was a little more than that,” Phoebe said with just a touch of strain in her voice. She took a deep swallow from her glass, feeling her throat constrict around each swallow.

The glass clinked lightly against the table as she set it down just a little too hard. She glanced around the room, the move looking casual despite it being anything but. Talking about this stuff too loudly could reach the wrong ears. Bringing people back from the dead wasn’t just risky for the witch performing the spell. There were plenty of people out there who’d love to leverage that sort of move.

Phoebe shook her head as she looked back at Raik, the smile that usually would’ve been pasted in place absolutely absent as she shook her head. ”If I did, I don’t remember anything about it. We … it’s fast. You’re not really aware of what’s happened once it’s started. If you’re lucky you get a choice, if not …” She shrugged her shoulders, one arm wrapping around herself as though she was trying to hold that cold feeling speaking of her own death brought at bay. ”One minute I was a kind-hearted witch, the next minute I was …” Phoebe gestured down at herself in demonstration. ”You didn’t go there…” It was more statement than question, Raik wasn’t like his brother. He’d seemed to be human, that meant going to heaven or hell, or lingering in that plane between life and death and if he’d been there, had he seen her in the freezer?

Tagged: RAIK DURMAZ * Word Count: 732

Spells like the resurrection one might have been on her parents ‘don’t you dare’ list, but she’d still known the broadest strokes of how it was done. Unfortunately any ability she once might have had to ignore their warnings – something she’d done regularly enough when there was still magic in her veins – had vanished the moment the vampire had killed her. If losing Lawrence had felt like she’d lost a limb, losing her magic had been like being paralysed. All that had animated her just a short time before had vanished, leaving nothing but a numbness to her body and fear (an entirely new emotion, at least in those proportions) behind. With it she likely wouldn’t still be alive now. Her parents would never have informed her that Lawrence wasn’t dead, she’d have taken his spot, had children probably, spent a handful of decades, or perhaps a little more, trapped in the valley. That would’ve been a death all of its own, slow and achingly painful.

If, though, she’d held onto it all, cast the immortality spell at some point (before she’d wrinkled to prune proportions and become the oldest non-immortal drinker at the club), and found her way here to try and stop her brother from continuing a life of bad decisions and bad luck, she’d have cast of all those warnings to bring life back into a good man’s body. Of course, he wouldn’t have slept with her before that had happened – alluring she might always have been, but even someone as polite as Raik would’ve had their limits with sleeping with a truly geriatric cougar. Screw the ancestors and the attention it might’ve drawn (like she’d ever been bothered about that), the world was a cruel place for those who were good, and if it smudged a little black against her soul to mitigate it, she’d take the mark.

The strain that had been in her voice broke on a laugh. Phoebe narrowed her eyes at Raik, a finger peeling from her glass to point at him. ”Former witch, it was definitely more than that.” The strain on them all – including whatever witch they’d convinced to perform the spell – had to have been immense. She could feel an imagined echo of it in her bones and squirmed at the thought. She would’ve if she could’ve and would have endured Lawrence’s disapproval afterwards too.

A sense of protectiveness over the witch who’d done it, Lawrence, the people she’d come to care about her … herself, striking deep enough that her discomfort over the topic of conversation had her looking around. Former didn’t mean much when people wanted to exploit you, or treat you like the cockroach you weren’t and stamp you out. Catching Raik do the same, Phoebe reached out with fingers cooled by her glass to touch his forearm and assure him it was alright.

Phoebe smiled wryly, although with less intensity than usual, as she looked back. Raik was a sweetheart, something that could be taken advantage of just as easily as someone would the witch who had brought him back from the dead. "There are plenty of people who'd argue that," she told him. Teddy would lead the charge on that, despite his little visit when Lawrence had been in London, he’d probably still swear that at some point in her turning she’d lost her heart, and unlike the Tin Man she didn’t deserve one.

It was still there, aching in her chest with enough regularity that she could swear blind to its existence. She pressed her lips together, swallowed hard, needed another larger drink, but she wasn’t about to send Raik away to grab one for her. ”You could’ve gone anyway. There has to be more than one reaper out there, doesn’t there?” If there was only the one who’d stashed Raik in the freezer like a joint of meat, then the world would’ve been neck deep in bodies and ghosts long ago. ”You had a choice in it, didn’t you? But I’m guessing you stayed for him … your brother. I would’ve done if it was Lawrence. I’d have told him it was so I could haunt him forever, stop him from making the worst choices from beyond the grave.” Perhaps a sore subject given that Raik’s brother was even worse in that regard than Lawrence. It had never been an option for her though, witches, vampires, werewolves, whatever else was out there, they didn’t get the same sort of afterlife.

Tagged: RAIK DURMAZ * Word Count: 748