I've come to know the wishlist of my father [open]
[OOC: SO SORRY FOR ALL THE CURSING AND ASSHOLENESS IN THIS.]In all his fucking years alive, Adam never fucking expected that he'd be in Chicago for as long as he has been so far. It's not like this is the Best Place to be with all the shit that goes down here, all the fuckin' disasters that get this city talked about from one city to the next, all
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It's not like he expects other people to know that or to think about that. He was basically being an ass by making that comment, sole reason for making it.
Still it would have taken him by surprise to hear it in this part of town, it's not like everyone's tripping over themselves to be fucking polite and apologize for any comment made, for any reason.
It would have taken him by surprise if her very fucking existence wasn't taking him by surprise at the moment. It hits somewhere low, and it flashes through him like fire. His hand becomes a fist, and he feels something unfamiliar like bile, like bitterness rise up in his throat. His throat that tightens, and Adam discovers it is not such an unfamiliar feeling anymore.
Not since Katherine died, and she's dead so what is she doing here?
And now she's asking him if he's okay, she doesn't talk like Katherine talks, but she looks EXACTLY fucking like her. There's no lets pretend like well, same face, same eyes, same hair. No, it's fucking identical which is impossible, because Katherine didn't have any twin and she lived for a lot longer than this girl.
She looks younger than Katherine, and Adam is realizing that the longer that he stares, but it's still Katherine. It's a slightly younger version of Katherine, and there's something hollowed out in his chest where his heart should be. That's what it fucking feels like, like something just exploded and he can't... hear or speak or fucking think.
Jesus. Jesus. She's dead but she's living right beside him.
"I'm--" he says after a moment at the question, still thinking he's hallucinating this shit. What do psychotic fuckers do? Talk to their fucking hallucinations obviously, wait for them to talk back, and then go on murderous rampages. This is the best night, folks. Seriously. "It's Adam."
It's a wonder he can answer the question with how sick he feels, how much pain as shoved its way through him at the sight of her.
Adam looks up when the waitress steps back outside, half expecting her to yell at him again, but then she acknowledges the Girl that Looks Like Katherine beside him and shit. Not hallucinating. So. Folks, what the fuck does this mean?
Then the answer hits him, and he wants to slam his fist through a glass window. His hand slides over his face as he releases a low breath. "Jesus."
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Maybe because she's had people really be assholes to her like Carter, and in comparison, it honestly seems--or seemed--pretty harmless. She found herself curious and that can be a bad thing, but she's still wondering why he got tossed out of the bar, and why he looks the way he does, and why his reactions are what they are.
She isn't ignorant of how his hand becomes a fist, and it's the first sign that something's wrong. Sarah glances over at it before looking back at his face and inching away from him some. It was different that night Josef and Elizabeth died.
The man that recognized her was someone she could recognize in turn.
There's no way of knowing if he has recognized her in any way, and maybe it's just the being drunk and getting kicked out of a bar thing that's got his feather in a ruffle. It's still weird for some reason, and her instinct is telling her so.
She isn't one to ignore them.
"Adam," she repeats after him, studying him with more concern than curiosity at this point, and maybe a little more suspicion than what she'd had previously. He has an accent, so he's not from here originally, but who knows who he really is. "You don't look too good, and I'm sorry about your mom."
She's not inclined to give her name at this point, but she's going to play it cool here.
If only she knew half of it, but she doesn't.
She just knows he looked at her, and his tune immediately changed, and she's starting to remember why paranoid is not such a bad thing, and why being recognized could be. She waits for the waitress to step back inside before she takes a deep breath and slowly comes to her feet.
"I'm... gonna go now," she says, with an unsure sort of expression on her face. "You should get ice on that."
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He had no idea that someone that looked so much like Katherine even existed. It's more than just looking like her. It's like they're the same fucking person. All those months of searching, years of searching for this shit for his father and then for himself to fuck over his father, she's right here in front of him and she looks like Katherine.
She is Katherine. She's related to Katherine. She has to be. There's a part of Katherine within her. She's living still within this young girl that stands in front of him, and he wants to tears something apart, wants to tears his father- Jesusfuck. Jesus fuck. Katherine died-- she died so that he'd be fucked over, no witch, no doppleganger.
She has the blood of a witch in her. Shit. If his father ever ends up here, if he ever finds a way to this city for any fucking reason at all, what he'd do to her for looking like the witch that killed herself, escaped his grasp. What he'd do, especially now that he's never been more fucking psycho.
Jesus. There is very little that Adam has been able to process as he stands there, but he knows one thing. He failed miserably at protecting Katherine from most of what Lucien did to her, and he refuses to make that mistake again, refuses to let his father lead her to her death too. That's about the only thing he can think to do and like a wolf with a pack, it's what his purpose will revolve around.
He shakes his head when she apologizes about his mom. "No, it was a long time ago," Adam says as he searches for the right words. It's not like he wants to say Warning: Fucking Psycho Will turn you Into His Slave if he knows you exist.
Adam's an asshole but that's... that's pushing it even for him, and there's a part of Katherine inside of her. He's going to-- going to treat her right.
As right as he can fucking treat anyone.
"No, wait, you're--" He takes in a sharp breath. "You look like someone I knew, like someone that died. So fuck, sorry. Just-- just thought I was hallucinating. Jesus. You're not her."
She's not her but she might as well be with the world of trouble she's in for, just for sharing that face, sharing that blood with Katherine who is dead, who thought she'd be ending Lucien's chances and strength by killing herself. Now it's all to fucking waste.
There's no fucking way she can no, and he's not going to break the news to her unless he has to.
And knowing his fucking shit plate, it's going to be really fucking necessary at some point or another. Lucien 'always gets what he wants' except when it comes to Katherine.
Fuck, he hates that she's dead, hates it. It fucking hurts more than anything else has ever hurt him. But she seriously said a big Fuck you to that psychopath in doing so.
Can't help but make him smile a little even in a that pain.
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She knows next to nothing about her own mother, except her middle name is Mei after her.
She only ever knew her grandmother, a Chinese-American immigrant, whom Sarah often clashed heads with before she passed several years ago. She didn't believe Sarah understood the Chinese way of thinking, brought up entirely by an American father though he still shared some of her same values.
There were only two types of daughters, as far as they were concerned.
Those that obeyed their familial elders and those that did not, and under the roof of their house, the only type of daughter that could live there was the former, the only type of daughter that was allowed was the one that would obey without question.
To obey meant to respect their final word, to never ask questions, to never seek the answers on her own if she wasn't satisfied, to never be content with one's self if one was just good, and instead endeavor to become great. Sarah's mother disgraced her family before they ever moved to America and so she wasn't spoken of. Sarah learned to speak and write Chinese through her, but it was as if they never did speak in the same language.
If she ever so much as asked about her mother, she was painfully reminded why she should never do so.
"Time doesn't really change the sentiment," Sarah says.
Whether it's been months or years or centuries, a loss is a loss, whoever that person is. The reactions are really, really confusing her, and she's a step away from leaving altogether when his voice brings her to a halt.
Sarah looks back when he tells her to wait, uncertainty remaining in her expression.
Only a flicker of it. If you blink, you miss it.
She understands death, after all.
It's possibly one of the only things she understands really well, how it can paralyze you. She takes a few steps toward him once again, sitting down several feet away from him. "I'm not," she agrees, almost softly, and would apologize again but she wouldn't know exactly for what.
Reminding him of someone that clearly meant something to him?
"Did she die a long time ago, too?"
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It's one more reason that Adam is not... not going to jump at telling her that she looks so much like the person that he lost, that he is positive that they are fucking related. Adam won't tell her about it anytime soon at least, but he has a feeling that he'll have to eventually.
It's just how this all fucking works out, isn't it? Plus, Adam will want to do some poking around in her history to confirm this shit somehow, some way. There has to be some confirmation somewhere, and he'll find it to make sure he's not just losing his mind, thinking that Sarah is related to Katherine because he's imagining more similarities in their looks than what actually exists.
This is not like it's impossible. Adam fell into some fucking dark places after she died. He couldn't do anything but drink and barely function for such a long time.
And he wanted to see her again, kept think she'd be walking in through some fucking door, talk to him about his painted whores, smirk at him in that way with the deviousness in her gaze, that hint of something more like you'd never quite fucking know what to expect. All those years in that house, she was his only fucking friend and sure as fuck the only person he loved in all the time.
The one woman that he was in love with, and she was dead and he still has that fucking envelope and he hasn't opened it, hasn't been able to. Maybe because it was the last thing that she ever fucking said to him as long as he didn't open it up, there was still something left for her to say, still something left for him to connect to her with.
And now there's this girl.
"No, guess it doesn't," Adam says in response though he doesn't let himself think of it much.
Maybe because he can't really fucking afford to at the end of the day. He doesn't know. When he found out about his mom, it hurt but it couldn't really touch him when he hadn't seen her in so long as it was. It was hard to remember her past every fucking other thing that he was living through, all the people he was surrounded with who were absolutely nothing like her.
It was like some other world, some other kid.
It couldn't really fucking touch him even a little.
Adam sits on the sidewalk, and he can't manage to look at her when she sits down too. Because he knows it'll hit him all over again. He can't look at her but he has to, at the same time, one more time. "You're not," he repeats again, sliding a hand over his face.
His eyes burn, and he stares at the pavement under him.
"No, not at all. Few months? If that. Fucking time gets all mixed up and shit like that," he says, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "It feels a whole fucking lot longer than it is."
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She was never fit to be a mother, and keeping her was never part of the plan, certainly not after the man she had the baby with discovered her lies and left her for what she was.
It was for selfish reasons as much as she also did not want said child anywhere near Lucien, but she gave it up and she concocted some elaborate plan which ensured he'd think the baby was stillborn. It was long, long before Adam ever came into their lives--Katherine was over a century old, and she made the mistake of falling in love with the wrong person.
Lucien made sure she knew it was the wrong person also.
No one left him.
She never let herself be made a victim, Katherine. She was bound to him by supernatural reasons, the witch to his immortal, but she always found some way to stick it to him, regardless of his final word. For a whole century, he lived with the perceived knowledge she was the only one left within the lineage, and she could protect every other witch that came after so he would never, ever get his way.
That meant telling no one what she knew, pretend to believe what everyone thought was true--including Lucien, and including Adam.
Of course, life works in very mysterious ways.
Sarah never became a witch because her mother fell in love with an angel, and as always, it's a fifty-fifty chance, like the flip of a coin. She cannot be both if she is either, and she is an angel of death, albeit with the witch gene, which is all Lucien would really need.
And here she sits, completely unaware she is the only one left of this lineage, across a man with a foul mouth who does not seem to know how to act around her. Most people would've already been on their way, but Sarah is not most people, and something about the way he looks--it almost looks sad. Past the cursing and the reasons for being thrown out, which she has no doubt are founded, there was a moment where he looked sad, and almost sure he'd lost his mind.
It's something close to grief, the grief that comes from the dying, and she would know something about that.
"Time doesn't always feel as linear. Sometimes it's directly proportional to how much it hurts, how much you loved them, or just how many beers you've had," she quips, chin propped on her hand. The alcohol can be smelled a mile away, and it's something Katherine would remark upon, albeit in a very different way.
Sarah just has a feeling sympathy from a total stranger's not the way to get to this guy. Even if the stranger is someone that looks familiar.
"It's Sarah," she says finally. "My name. It's Sarah."
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He fell in love with her.
It was nothing he ever expected. It was nothing that he ever fucking planned to happen, because that shit doesn't happen to him. The people he's cared about have always been fucking limited, and they were mostly limited to a family he'd left behind at age eighteen, unaware at the time of leaving them that he'd never see any of them again (or so he'd thought for so many of those fifteen years)
It was a helpless thing falling in love with Katherine. It seemed to happen easily since Lucien had his own version of fucking obsession with her, Serena was in love with her, Philipe was in love with her, and then there as Adam who was also in love with her, but couldn't fucking show it or say it or express it in any way.
Then she was dead and expressing it didn't matter anymore... and here he is, seeking fucking revenge. It's not so much for himself anymore. It's for her, for everything that was done to her and how she ended up, dead, gone. Even if she said a big Fuck you to Lucien at the end of the fucking day. Lucien's weaker from that insanity, and Adam will do all he can to use it against him.
Falling in love with Katherine was something he couldn't control, something that happened without his fucking realizing until he was in too deep. It happened somewhere between her commenting on his hygiene and painted whores and him calling her a doll and the two of them bonding over their mutual hatred of Lucien, he did.
And it's with him fucking still.
Adam is running through all the ideas, all the thoughts in his head about how he should handle this, how best to keep her safe and away from Lucien. There's strength in the truth, but sometimes... sometimes it's good to let a kid enjoy as much of her happiness again. And he knows and understands again why Alek was kept in the dark, much as it hurt to see him... looking like that, fifteen fucking years later.
Right no, he thinks it'll only be necessary to say it if he gets word that Lucien's on his fucking way, and it's really only a matter of time. Whatever Lucien wants now, he's bound to find an avenue through it in this city but give this young girl who's part of Katherine and Katherine's part of her... give her some more time.
It's all he can do.
Adam doesn't wince outwardly when she comments on the alcohol, he's thinking of the same thing. It's something Katherine would and did remark on in a completely different way. "Yeah, don't know if the alcohol makes it... feel fucking longer or if that's what makes me feel fucking closer to it," he says after a moment, swallowing past that feeling in his throat.
He doesn't look over at her again until she reveals his name.
"You... already know mine. Hers was... Katherine."
He hasn't said it out loud since she died. How could he? And he lets out a breath. "So... not the same, and she was a lot fuckin' older than you too, not so nice as you. World did that to her though, usually fucking does."
If you live as long as her, if you live with Lucien.
"But she was fucking nice to me in her own way."
If she didn't look so much like her, if she didn't quip his way instead of stare at him with sympathy if he wasn't fucking plastered with alcohol, he might not say as much, might not say anything.
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The name doesn't ring a bell.
It doesn't evoke any feelings for her, and Sarah shows the lack of recognition in her own expression when he says it. There isn't anything about a Katherine that she knows, and she has no idea when Adam says Sarah looks like her, it's nearly identical to her.
Despite said lack of recognition, she nods because she respects this is someone that mattered to him. If it didn't, he wouldn't have reacted the way he did. "It's a very nice name," Sarah says. "I don't like my own much, but I like Katherine. One of my favorite books has a heroine named after her."
Not that there was anything heroic about Katherine, necessarily.
Sarah has been kept in the dark about plenty of things from her own family.
She's hated the lies, but even she understands why adults find the importance of them. There's a magnitude to these particular secrets that no one their age would be equipped to deal with, but sometimes there's no choice. The moments come whether you're prepared or not, and in those moments you discover who you really are.
"I've only ever been drunk one time. I'd say I don't understand the appeal but I think I do," Sarah says. It's nice to have the alcohol swimming in your brain so the thoughts are so muddled you can't remember them, until you feel numb enough you don't think to feel anything but the lack of balance and how your legs don't feel like yours.
Either way, if there wasn't an appeal, nobody would drink so much.
Sarah is quiet at first.
If she's surprised he's speaking of her, she doesn't show it. He's evidently drunk, and sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger than it is to talk to someone you know. That isn't... true for Sarah, as she finds it's easier to talk to Jeremy than anybody else, but it can be true for some people.
In some instances.
"You don't have to be nice to be capable of goodness, and you don't have to be 'good' to care about someone... just like being nice doesn't mean one's naive," Sarah says, as if it is simple, and in her mind it is. Good people are capable of cruelty. Bad people are capable of redemption. It's not all black and white for her, and it never really has been, and she doesn't judge much, probably because she's helped all kinds of people die.
People some would say are good and some would say are evil.
In the end of the day, there's both in most everyone.
No one escapes the world in any other way. Sometimes, she really hates it, but she doesn't like thinking about it that often in a context that can be applied to her. There's no way of going around being an angel of death, and the probabilities that come with it, the slim to almost no chance they are given from the moment they receive their wings.
Death becomes your shadow.
"I'm sorry if my looking like her makes you uncomfortable."
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It’s the main reason that he mentioned it. Just to see if she’d know the name, if Katherine did this on purpose, if Katherine knew, but no. She didn’t know that Sarah was out there.
They’re damned near identical, and Adam fucking knows that Lucien would know in an instant, that he would take Sarah… turn her into his bird to be broken, and it makes him fucking feel like retching at the thought. At the memories that cascade through his mind of a time when Katherine was nearly killed by his father, because he wanted so desperately to break her and hadn’t done so yet.
Hadn’t turned her into someone that was cowering in a corner from him, sanity broken. It’s what he wanted. Lucien wanted to own Katherine completely, body, mind, soul, break it into bits that belonged to him and him alone, but she got the last word in.
If nothing else, there’s that and it’s better than the fucking alternative that Adam wouldn’t have fucking ever been able to live with.
“I don’t know if she liked her name,” Adam says after a moment, staring at the pavement before he closes his eyes and forces the focus into now. He can’t afford to get this fucking trashed again, because now there’s Sarah.
And fuck, he doesn’t know if he can fucking process this.
This girl should never go through what Katherine did. She should not be turned into a fucking witch for Lucien to own as a slave, ruin Katherine’s sacrifice. Sometimes there’s no choice, and he won’t keep her in the dark forever about it, not when Lucien comes to town.
Psychobastard that he is would be able to sniff her fucking out of the crowd, sniff his brothers out of the crowd too, and his very carefully fucking built life where he has no one to care about and nothing to lose and everything to gain is being shattered all around him. His brothers are here.
Sarah (Katherine's descendant) is here.
It’s not simple anymore. It’s nowhere near simple, and he’s not going to be able to fucking protect all of them while trying to bring Lucien down all at once. There’s no fucking way that he can do it. He slides a hand over his face, closing his eyes.
“I get drunk fuckin’ frequently. Not for everyone. You can get so fucking drunk that nothing can fucking touch you or that’s how it feels, for a little while." It’s the passing out that’s the best part, because there’s nothing left of all the things that hurt, that anger, that leave you longing and aching and grieving and shoving and fighting for nothing.
It feels like for nothing sometimes.
Adam looks over at her. His head is pounding. The world’s sliding in and out of focus, but that’s that face, the face that’s nearly fucking identical. He can’t get that out of his head.
“Naivity’s a real fucking sweet thing, but it doesn’t fucking last long in this world and sometimes that’s for the best,” he says. If only because it makes people smart, makes people not make idiot choices like chasing after a father that hates how you came out and is the biggest fucking psychopath in the world. “I don’t think you’re naïve, wouldn’t want you to be.”
Not with what awaits her and he is not aware of how little sense that makes without that context in there.
There’s something strong about her, and even in his state, he can tell. Fuck, she’s out here in the dark at this time of the night, and she must have a fucking reason, a good one too. The world doesn’t leave anyone un-fucking-scathed, they’ve all got their own shit plates to bear.
“No, it doesn’t. It’s better.” Adam shakes his head, staring at the pavement under his feet. “She left me a letter, never fucking read it because it felt like once I fucking did, there’d be nothing fucking left of her, just gone, all in the wind, blown away. Now it’s like… it’s not.”
Again, context would help but out of context it makes sense. He can see her in other places, at other times, in other ways. He knows now that he can go back to the hotel he’s staying in, that he can finally read what she wrote to him, whatever it is and that won’t be the end of her.
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It's not as if she has any idea who this person is, any idea what she was to Adam or why he was drinking the way he was, if the two things were related, considering how recently her death was. Even if it hadn't been recent, death is a doorway forever closed to those that remain living.
It could be a day, years, decades, and sometimes, a memory will make the hurt come rushing back exactly the same way.
It's only been two months since Elizabeth died.
Of course, in Chicago, two months can feel like an eternity.
So much has happened in those two months alone she hasn't always had time to stop and feel it too much, stop and think about what happened, what was taken, how Elizabeth was lost to the world, but she does find a moment of every day to think about it.
To never forget what was done to her.
To never let it show that she remembers.
It's been a fine line, but she's done it, reminding herself what would be at stake if anyone had an inkling of her discovering some of the truth. Reminding herself what could happen to those around her if anyone found out that she knows the Society exists, and she knows the people that figured it out in the first place.
She has come to understand the importance of secrets.
"Isn't that worse?" she asks point blank. The answer of his is similar to what she'd been thinking, but it's illusory. It doesn't last. It only comforts in the moment, and then the world comes crashing down again when you wake up, and you have to drink all over again to reach the unreachable. "Then you have to wake up and remember that it's not real."
You have to remember that it still hurts.
Sarah looks at him when she senses he's finally looking back. It doesn't make much sense without context, no, but she's not taking it to heart.
For all she knows, he's confusing her with whoever he lost, and he's talking to her or about her, or mixing things up in his drunken state, and she's mostly leaving him be. "Maybe it's a sweet thing, but it's also a lie. It's not supposed to last. You're supposed to see the world for what it is, the good and the bad, and you can't if you're wearing blinders on."
Blinders on to not see the good. Blinders on to not see the bad.
"I'm an angel of death," she tells him honestly. It's not said sadly, it's not said with fear. She isn't scared of dying. She isn't scared of much anymore. It's just a truth, and he's speaking of someone that's dead, and this is something she can understand. "The only way nothing would be left of her is if you let it slip from your hands. It's never going to be enough because you had the living thing, I know, but it's true."
It does make sense, with or without the context.
"I can't tell you to read the letter or not read the letter, but if someone knows they're going to die, they usually start regretting the things they never did or never said. You owe it to yourself to know what that is. You might be left with more than you thought, even if it's just understanding."
That alone probably explains why she's out here.
People die all the time.
All the time and she's the last thing they'll ever see.
"... Do you need me to call you a cab or something?"
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It’s like being haunted but not in a bad way. It’s better than the alternative, the complete absence of her presence anymore. That’s not what happens when someone dies. They don’t just disappear completely. It’s not like Adam thinks about this all. He’s not one of those deep thinkers.
He feels a lot more than he shows. A whole fucking lot more, because that’s safe. A fine line. Yeah, that’s a pretty fucking good description of it and that’s how it was at Lucien castle. You care about nothing or you fucking are fucked. He can’t imagine how Lucien would have reacted if he had any inkling of Adam’s relationship with Katherine. Well, he probably has a fucking good idea about it more so now than before.
People deal with grief differently. Adam lives more, does all the shit that he usually does to an extended amount. Adam drinks. He has sex with any whore that wants to, and he’ll pay for sex much, much more he’ll try to get anyone to go back with him, and he should think about why that fucking is, but he doesn’t. Adam doesn’t think about a lot, doesn’t really look into it at all.
Taking some stranger home at night, it means that they might get the wrong impression and he has enough money usually to pay for shit though money is now tight. With whores, they know what it means. They know the sex is a one time fucking thing (sometimes multiple times), but it never means that it’s something fucking more than that.
If nothing fucking matters to him like he continuously tries to make his life, it shouldn’t matter if he hurts some random broad’s feelings with a random fucking, they want to be something more, something he can’t manage.
Not that many girls take him home because he is an asshole and that’s the kind of attitude that keeps most people away from him, but he still will usually go to whores instead of just the random bar pickup. Also, for reasons like this one, where he ended up on the street after pissing off the wrong chick, he tends to go to the whores as it’s sex. It’s all it is for both of them.
Isn’t that worse?
Adam keeps his eyes closed, leaned over his knees on the sidewalk. His head is still pounding, but it’s nothing that he can’t ignore. It’s said in a low, low voice, a mutter. “It’s all I got.”
It’s all he’s had for a great number of years, and he spends such a large portion of his day drunk that nothing hurts quite as much as it does when he’s sober. It’s not real, but illusion is better than nothing.
But it’s hard to explain all that when there’s no way people can understand what it’s like to live with Lucien, and Adam had so much more freedom than most of them, than Katherine did for instance.
Adam nods with what she does say. “It’s a big fucking lie, and no one should want to fucking view the world as a fucking lie, because you get fucked up if you don’t,” he says after a moment, resting against the pavement. “Leads to making some dumbass, fucking decisions. Leads you to a lot of dark fucking paces if you’re not careful, if you don’t fucking see. I know. It's why I wouldn't want you naive. Wouldn't want that for anybody.”
Hell, he hardly what most would call naïve when he left his family, but he was naïve where it fucking counted. He was naïve about his fucking father and how fucking bad it really could be, and she warned him, his mother. She warned him, but there’s just no fucking way to put that shit into words.
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“So that’s how fuckin' you lost yours, your naivety. Death'll fucking do that to you, huh? Fucking life and death,” he says after a moment. Angel of fucking death. Jesus, he shouldn’t look in her eyes, he has a habit of dying after all and that’d get her real fucking close to Lucien since it’s always by his fucking hand. Not like he’d think about that enough to stop from looking, he just doesn’t think enough to prevent shit like that, but he'll try. “Okay.”
Slight, slight pause before he does look at her again, he already has and she hasn’t seen anything so Lucien’s not going to find him this week at least. “Thanks,” he says, and he hasn’t thanked very many people, but he means it. If anyone knows about death, it’s angels of death. Despite dying all those times, he never really found out anything about it, never really understood it like she does and he can tell that. Jesus, how does someone so young know so fucking much already, know better than him?
It's not about age maybe. Who knows what the fuck their shit plates are about?
Adam nods then. He’s always wondered what could be waiting in that fucking letter, that he’s held on to but hasn’t been able to read. Maybe because he was afraid of just that, the regrets, the understanding that would come when there was nothing he could fucking do about it.
“Half fucking afraid to, but I might.”
Read the letter. Jesus. Maybe he wouldn’t have if he never met her, but something about her, reminded him that she’s not just fucking gone, Katherine is not just gone forever.
“Nah, I’ll… not too far-” Adam looks up at her, raising his eyebrows as he looks at him. “You gonna get home okay?”
Yeah, that would be the sudden protective feeling washing over him, sobering him up a bit. It’s not a real good fucking part of town and it’s late, and it’s a wonder she was here at all, but she must have helped someone die.
Jesus, this city.
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Why someone would find that safer.
For a long time, she had played it safe, both when it came to her Calling and when it came to her feelings. It was a way of protecting herself, from what is honestly inevitable--the insanity, the caring for others, the attachment that comes effortlessly when knowing them, the hurt that comes with that caring. It's all so inevitable, the only way to really postpone it, to shut it down, is to shut yourself down, and she did it for years, ever since she was very young.
It was easy to keep her distance.
It was easy to be the girl hiding behind a canvas, sitting on the sidelines, never quite looking in too deep.
Then she met Elizabeth. After Elizabeth, it was Jeremy. After Jeremy, it was Jess. After Jess, it was Harry and Dave and Dylan and they were all so distinct in their own way, and it's hard to care, but it's even harder to be alone. She's no longer someone that can do that, because she hates it. She hates being alone. It's not a weakness, like she thought it would be, even if she sometimes takes two steps backward, sometimes ten.
It was at an art exhibit.
His name was Adrien--and she has no idea that the name would be familiar to Adam--and he was there when Elizabeth wasn't. Elizabeth was supposed to be her plus one but she was dead, and she would never be able to go anywhere with Sarah again. It was simple. There was an attraction back then, probably, but there wasn't feelings that could make it messier. She was lonely, and she thinks maybe he was lonely too, and it was easier to be lonely together.
There wasn't ever a wrong impression.
There wasn't ever the erroneous belief it was more than what it was, but it still leaves you hollow afterward, because you know exactly what's missing.
It's all I got.
That hurts, somehow. It does, and she doesn't even know him.
"There can always be more," she says quietly.
She would understand so much more if she did know Lucien, but even knowing him, her answer probably wouldn't change. There can be more, and there should be more to the world than just surviving, than knowing how to live in it, than knowing that you can stand up no matter how many times you're pushed back down. It's important to learn all these things, but that can't be all that life is about.
She may very well lead a very short life.
Sarah would like to think she's more than a statistic, but there's never any way to know for sure--the greater probability is she will live a very short life, but she will have made it count. She will have made it significant somehow, and she is never, ever letting herself, or anyone else, keep her from doing what she believes she needs to do.
It's more important than being scared.
It's more important than protecting yourself from loneliness.
"You can do everything right and still end up in those places," Sarah points out to him softly. "You can make decisions that at the end of the day are 'right' and still end up 'fucked up.' The world's kind of unfair like that, but the best and worst thing about it is to live in it, I've found. It's still better than walking in the dark."
Sarah's watching him when he glances her way, and her expression isn't easily readable. There's understanding, and curiosity, but there's also just the fact she's listening without making up her mind yet one way or another. And she smiles at him, not a humorous or happy smile no, but she gives a small nod. "Yeah, I probably lost my ability to be naive with it. But I also gained a lot of nerve. It's probably ironic, but being an angel of death has taught me a lot about living."
In just a few months alone, she feels so much more different and older than she was in the summer.
She decided she would be the one to rule her life and not her fears, and ever since, she's known who she is.
No one can really take that from her.
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She wouldn't take back helping Elizabeth with her death, not for all the pain it caused.
"Hold it in your hands one more time. You'll know if you want to read it or not," Sarah suggests, before bringing herself to her feet. There's a faint smile at the question. For someone that was all about cursing and not giving a damn earlier, she does read some of that concern. She doesn't know the reasons, just that it's there--and she's glad she was proven right.
She was glad she was right to stay and talk to him.
"Yeah, don't worry about me. I already called someone to pick me up," she says, sticking her hands into her pockets. She studies him for a moment longer, and when she speaks, there's a faint riddle of a smile. "Good luck with that hangover, Adam."
The lingering scent of death washes over her as she walks away, boot-clad feet echoing across the pavement. There's that persistent cold, lonely feeling that's entirely the angel's. It always comes after the death but these days Sarah knows that it isn't true.
She's not alone at all.
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