(no subject)
It had actually been quite a long time since Jesse had seen his sister last, and when he had, he was watching her leave their shared home on that Venus colony, to go rush off to transfer to Red Dwarf as soon as she could. He had told her that her plan would backfire, that she'd fuck it up, that she'd come out hurt. He had bragged about it, leered at her, reminded her that her sacrifice was for nothing if she went ahead and went through with this. But she went anyway. He had spent that time holding down a job, sleeping with as many women as he could, and setting up ties to his father's cult here and there. The cults worshipped Trigon, and offered sacrifices that kept him and his sons strong - the only reason Raven didn't benefit was because she rejected the prayers made to her. Jesse wasn't about to lose this form he was born with. He didn't want to keep jumping bodies like his ridiculous sister, and two small cults later, he was able to maintain it in peak condition. So what if a few people died along the way, slain in the name of Trigon the Almighty? It also had the little benefit of Dad never knocking on his door, telling him to come home and do his work for him.
Jesse assumed he'd never have to see his sister ever again.
Yet she came trudging back home with a numb expression, and dull, dead eyes, and hadn't even said a word when he asked what she was doing back. Even his lopsided smirk, and taunts about how he was right didn't rile her up. She seemed to be completely devastated. It only took a few days for him to figure out why - or at least, what he assumed to be why... news leaked out of the accident on Red Dwarf. Her one husband was now dead, and both husbands were well on their way to being millions of years out into deep space... yet she was here, and not on board, dead with the rest of the crew. For some reason, whatever reason, she had left before the accident. She let time progress without her. Maybe she had listened to him after all?
It took a month for her to admit that she had left for 'her own reasons', then she fell back into silence, spending most of her time in her small bedroom, staring at the ceiling, or keeping herself in a long, deep trance. She had failed to save them, failed to find a way to stay with them, and in her mind, had lost them forever. Now she had no reason to keep going... and Jesse didn't know what to do about it. He spent his entire life, at least the part with the knowledge of his big sister, being jealous of her, envious of the life she got to have, and for the first time he was feeling... pity.
The pity grew deeper as a few more weeks ticked by, and the reality of her situation began to sink in. It happened one morning when she dared to come out of the back hall to share breakfast with him, and Jesse sensed a secondary presense in the room, that seemed to have possession of his sister. No... no it was too small and frail of a trace for that, it had to be--- no. No, she couldn't have...
But she had, and a couple of months later, Raven's room had a particular corner of it decorated in baby blues, and she was fussing over not being able to fit into her old clothes anymore. Jesse watched as her lack of a will to live slowly turned into something... even more depressing. She was living so that she could have a little piece of one of the men she loved, that one little piece that was now inside her, and liked to kick her when she was trying to rest.
What bothered him the most, though, was that she still remained almost completely silent, a contrast from the almost bubble nature she seemed to have when they first started this little adventure. Now she was withdrawn, and seemed to only talk to her stomach, or sometimes some blurry picture she managed to get of her two boys when she was back on Red Dwarf - without their consent, of course. Even when he tried to insult her unborn child, talk about how he was going to wind up dead just because he was an idiot like his dad, she didn't seem to pay any mind, and continued to carry on the conversation with the little baby growing inside of her.
To all outside appearances, the baby made her happy, and gave her a reason to live. To anyone with empathy, like her brother, or who knew her well enough, it was obvious that the baby was slowly killing her spirit, far more than losing her boys ever did. It was one thing to lose her boys - maybe in a few centuries she'd recover enough to try and move on with her life. It was another to have a child, who would inevitably share his father's traits, who she would have to raise and see every single day. Giving the child away wasn't an option, not after how long she and Arnold had talked about wanting children one day. This was the child he'd never get to meet, but had always wanted with her... it was her job to raise the baby the best she could.
The baby was born on a perfect day - perfect because the fake atmosphere made it perfect. Raven explained about a half a dozen times that she was a 'widow', and that the baby didn't have a father. No, the guy out there looking irritated was the uncle. No, there wouldn't be anyone signing the birth certificate with her...
Then the baby was in her arms, clean, awake and alert, and with thick brown curls that made Raven's heart rip viciously from her chest every time she laid eyes on him. Even the nurses noticed that she wouldn't look at the little baby boy when she had to nurse him or take care of him, doing her best to look away with tears in her eyes. Still, she never abandoned the child, never ignored him, and did her best to love him as much as she could... he'd have to understand one day why mommy cried so much around him.
Over the months, the pain was replaced with a devotion the likes Jesse had never seen before - Michael, as she called him, seemed to be a completely content and happy baby, and all the sadness in Raven's eyes was replaced with loved and a terrible sense of needing to protect him. If the boy even sneezed, Raven freaked out, and wanted to take him to the doctor. A single fuss, and she was doing everything in her power to silence it, and make him laugh - she succeeded more often than not, but even Jesse knew that was because of her powers.
It was becoming increasingly hard for Jesse to ignore the similiarities between this, and his own life. His mother had committed suicide shortly after he was born, and Brother Blood's cult had plucked him up and taken him in, via instruction from Trigon himself. A certain young woman, a new recruit to the cult, had taken a shining to him, and she was placed as his 'mother', to raise and nurture him, and teach him the ways of the dark lord. She didn't just love him in the worshipping-of-a-god sense the others did... she loved him as her own, and tried her best to do everything for him, until she was sacrificed like the others at the hand of Brother Blood. ... okay, so it wasn't identical. But he knew that love, he knew what it felt like to be held when he cried, or to have a woman with those loving eyes stare down at him. The only thing he never had was a real father - only one he got to see depictions of, or heard the fantastic stories about.
It hit him the hardest when he overheard his sister reciting the tales of Arnold Rimmer a few years later, and how wonderful and brave he was. No, he'd heard the stories from his sister, the real ones, with the dumbass coward who barely scraped by and somehow won her heart despite being a moron most of the time. Still, here she was, with a toddler eagerly hanging on every word his mother told him as she put him to bed, reciting these fantastic tales, firmly believing that he'd never get to meet his real father anyway - might as well throw in some fancy thoughts. Jesse was 90% sure that Rimmer had never actually faced an army of scary aliens single-handedly. Or been an officer. He was completely sure the guy never actually had friends call him 'Duke', but whatever.
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"Pack your things."
"What?" Raven's eyes lifted from her work - trying to avoid having Michael get sticky jam all over himself from breakfast that morning. Two seconds of looking away, and half of the jar was all over the table, his one half of toast, and the new blue button-up shirt his mother had just put on him. An 'oops' left the little three-year-old's mouth, but Raven wasn't angry, just sighed and gave him a look, and began the process of cleaning up. Michael, on the other hand, promptly began eating his smothered-in-jam toast.
"Pack things for you and the brat, you're leavin' today."
Another strange look crossed Raven's face, and this time she stopped dead, standing up a bit straighter to stare at her brother. Jesse was perched on a chair across from Michael, with his feet up on the table, leaning back in his chair so that the front legs extended into the air. He put his arms behind his head, and shrugged at her.
"Look, I know you're not stupid, so lemme try this one more time, n'kay?" he lowered one arm, just enough to use his finger to point. "You," he pointed at her, "and the squirt," he pointed at Michael, who grinned through the dark berry jam that stained his mouth, "are leavin'."
"Where, may I ask?" not why, Jesse owned this place, not her, she was lucky he had let her stay this long. She went back to cleaning up the table, and then, with a fresh, wet, warm cloth, began to clean her son's face. He protested loudly, but it didn't phase her.
"Cut a deal with dad, you're going wherever the fuck---" Raven's glare pierced through him, and he groaned, "... 'frick', whatever you want me to say there instead... the kid's dad is."
Raven turned a hesitant stare to her brother, and didn't look like she believed him. Why should she? The only thing Jesse ever did for her, aside from letting her live here when she got back, was bitch at her about how much of an idiot she was. "What kind of deal?"
"Look, doesn't matter, okay? I just did what I had to do, he said he'd send you into that future, wherever they are, and he'd send the kid too."
Now Raven was believing him just a bit more, although she didn't seem to act like it. Her mind had begun to race with the possibilities of what would happen if what he was stating was true...
"Why should I---"
"Believe me? I'm gettin' tired of sticky shit everywhere, trippin' over the brat's toys, I can't have any women over with you two around. I'm miserable, I want you out. You won't come back if you get what you want, right?"
Raven knew it was a lie, and still...
"... what kind of deal?"
"Nothin' I wasn't already doing here, and it's none of your business. Just take the kid, get what you want, and go. I'm making the circle for you in two hours. You ain't there, I ain't bothering to complete it or ever make it again, got it?" a burst of almost desperation filled Raven's mind at the blink of an eye, and that made her start, stand up straight, and give a horrified look in her brother's direction.
She already knew that the planet she stood on probably wouldn't even be here within the next week, if Jesse had made the deal she thought he had. Maybe this entire solar system would be gone... or at least enslaved, in return for Raven being out of their hair again. Jesse had a good hundred years to establish cults on various planets, now it was time to harvest the souls of both his followers, and the innocent. Raven almost, for a moment, debated on staying and fighting, but she knew she wouldn't be able to. She was out of practice, hadn't battled her father's cults in over a century, and now she had a baby boy to take care of.
N-No... she had to leave. She had to go far away, where it wouldn't matter what happened back here, and find her husbands. ... and introduce one of them in particular to his son.
"O-Okay," she managed, and quickly plucked her little boy out of his chair, and ushered him into the bathroom for a very quick bath, before she began the process of preparing for the transport. She wasn't going to ask any more questions, or have any more doubts. She knew Trigon had the power to send her and Michael where they wanted to be...
Two hours later, Raven watched as, in the blood of a woman Jesse had randomly pulled off the streets in front of their home, he formed the ritual circle. She knew the circle, it really was what he said it would be - transport - but only if Trigon willed it to happen. Covering her baby's eyes from the massacre, and juggling a rather large bag filled with mostly his clothes, toys, and what he'd need (maybe a thing or two of her own), she stepped into the center of that circle.
"Jesse, I---"
"Shut up and just go, before I change my mind." their eyes met, and for a moment, Jesse's hard exterior wavered. "... take care of the brat, okay? And kill the rat bastard of a husband you've got if he doesn't accept him, he's an okay kid..."
That was the best 'I love you' that Raven could ever expect to get out of her brothers, and her eyes filled with tears. She nodded quickly, before Jesse had the opportunity to turn away and begin the loud, piercing chant to his father.
The blood sizzled, bubbled, and parts even began to smoke, and she could simply feel the evil surrounding her and her baby boy. Her arms automatically tightened around Michael, who had begun to fuss out of fear of what was going on. Even someone without a sensitivity to demons would have been able to feel the darkness filling the room.
Raven and Jesse were immediately blinded by a piercing red light, that quickly turned into a supernova of white, and then Raven and Michael were gone, leaving Jesse to stumble back against the wall, catching his breath from the shock of how fast that had gone. Really... he hadn't even gotten halfway through the chant, it was as if Trigon had actually been the---
"Begin the harvest."
Jesse stood up a bit straighter at the deep voice that boomed throughout the home, and he nodded feebly, scrambling off to start the long process of acquiring lost souls for his father's consumption. ... she'd better damn well appreciate this...