Archive of Our Own ^beta

Betrayal.

That’s what you thought you felt.

Laura had left you. She didn’t want to speak to you; instead she left you to talk to Raggedy Ann.

You knew you still had to go after her though. She had begged you after all to help save the university. She didn’t beg often, but you knew that when she did it was serious.

So you went after her. After her and all of her nitwit friends and the rest of the student body. You went up to do what Laura couldn’t, which was to kill the man that had created a mess of what was once tolerable.

You didn’t expect it to end like this. Captured and chained and led into your mother’s old apartment with a push from the old man that you wanted very much to rip the jugular out of.

But you couldn’t, instead you were going to die. You were going to die in front of Laura. She wouldn’t save you, how could she? She would have nothing to use, no mind to kill. She was all about saving people, even when she thought Mattie killed the newspaper students she didn’t want her dead. Laura was the sweetest most stubborn person you knew. She was idiotic and harebrained and ill equipped to save you, and why should she? You weren’t anything worth saving. You have been told time and time again just that. No one ever cared enough to protect you unless they wanted something from you in return. They only took, never gave. You were used to it. You had accepted it.

Now you sat on your knees in a room full of people you tolerated and Laura. Even now you still managed to love her, could still feel the pull in your chest as you looked up at her pained face. You knew she had to have cared for you at least a little bit. She probably loved you if she was stupid enough to. You wanted to tell her it was okay. You wanted to ensure her that it was your own fault that you were about to die, but you couldn’t, not when you were fighting with her.

The way she brushed off your execution hurt. You knew she couldn’t do much, but you didn’t expect complete and silent surrender. Not from her. You wanted her to fight, maybe because it was what she did or maybe because you wanted her to feel something other than disappointment towards you. So you picked a fight, one that was quickly silenced when you fell to your knees.

Maybe evil does win.

You couldn’t get the sound of Laura’s dead voice as she told you Danny had died out of your head. She was killed during the battle and you knew it could’ve been avoided if you hadn’t been captured. You could have saved her. You could have saved Laura the pain of a lost loved one like you had when Mattie died. A selfish part of you said Laura and you were now even. A bigger part of you was heartbroken for her though. You knew what it felt like to have loved and lost. You knew what it felt like to feel alone in a room full of people that claimed to care for you. You knew, which is why you grew silent as the old man went on a small tirade of how you must have wished you never killed his family.

You couldn’t regret that though. You were glad it happened. You were so near death you were at its doorstep so you chuckled. You shook your head while laughing lowly and spoke for what you assumed would be the last time. “I’d prefer dying.”

You didn’t want to die. You liked living to be perfectly honest. You enjoyed being a vampire, drinking blood was nothing compared to all that you got in return. You had lived a long time and had witnessed a lot and have learned even more. You liked that. You liked knowing rather than having to believe. Believing had never gotten you anywhere.

You didn’t want to die, but if you had, you were just glad it was you and not Laura. You had at least lived. She had barely done even that. You would offer your neck anytime for her, that you were sure.

In a perfect world you would have told Laura you loved her. You would have told her that you felt more alive than you had in centuries when you and her were dating for that short amount of time. But you didn’t because the world wasn’t perfect and neither was your timing.

Laura was standing though and talking quickly. Not like she hadn’t done a hundred times before, but there was a desperate air to her words, her face etched with worry and fear. She had something in her hands and she was threatening to destroy it.

You couldn’t think of what it could be but apparently it made the old man quick to want to kill you. You were ready to die when Laura snapped whatever it was over her knee. You were confused when the old man dropped his sword, and you were in awe when you realized what Laura had done. She had killed the old man for you. She had saved you. She had ruined everything she believed in about herself for you.

You were suddenly sure of knowing that believing never got you anywhere, not when you were involved.

You made Laura do crazy things, just as she made you want to die for her.

You wouldn’t let that idea get too far in your head though, burning the flame out before you could get ahead of yourself.

Right now you needed to do what you had originally set out to, save them.