Afterlife - Ch.7
Title: Afterlife - Ch.7
Author: pimprevster
Pairing: Matt/Jimmy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, and as far as I know, none of this really happened.
Summary:
I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand the thought of being trapped in an oversized cellar with this demon for any longer than I already had. I couldn’t stand the idea of my closest friends accepting me as dead and gone, when I wasn’t. I was stuck here, in this dream world, this limbo...hell, I don’t even know what it was. We had already done that once to Jimmy, and I was beginning to understand how it felt. It was so...lonely. Forlorn. Hopeless. Secluded. So much so that it infuriated me.
I locked myself in the room the footsteps came from and rested my head against the door to catch my breath, as if a simple lock would deter Arturo from materializing right behind me. It wouldn’t, but at least it gave me a sense of privacy.
Then I heard his voice mocking me, and it was all around me, as if he was already in the room with me. Or rather, he was omnipresent. “Wrong door, Matthew. Better get out of there quick.”
I turned around, and my mouth hung open in fear but nothing came out. An animate, hissing darkness was snaking up the walls and spreading across the floor, rapidly progressing toward my feet. Overpowering fear of being consumed by it was implanted in me; it took over my body so that my shaking fingers struggled to unlock the door. As soon as I crashed face-first into the cold floor, I realized that the darkness was an illusion. Even when he was about to be murdered, Arturo thought it amusing to play games with my mind.
“You motherfucking asshole!” I screamed in rage, my fists clenching as I returned to my feet. I was at the top of the steps again and the door behind me was closed, as if I had never even been in there.
“Matt! Get down here and help us!”
The thought crossed my mind that what I recognized as Brian’s panicked voice could be another one of Arturo’s conjurations, but I decided that the risk was worth it. Within seconds, I was on the first floor of the manor. The scene before me was horrific.
Three bristling tendrils of vine coiled around the demon’s body, piercing his gaunt skin and pinning him to the wall behind. The blood that seeped from him was black, and his face had become twisted and fiendish in anger. He held Jimmy’s jaw in his hand so that they were both suspended a few inches above the floor. The enchanted vines gripped tighter with every second, but the demon refused to relinquish his grip.
Brian was on the side of them, scratching and pulling with all his might at the arm that held our best friend’s life in a vise. The pale forearm was black with wounds, but it did not even tremble.
I saw Jimmy’s hands fall limp to his sides, and something inside me cracked.
Everything in my field of vision became part of a calculation, an algorithm for victory in battle. I went berserk. I was a breathing war machine. My survey was complete in a fraction of a second.
Bare hands were no good, as Brian’s attempts proved. The furniture around me was too blunt and heavy. There was an impressive weapon case at the end of the hallway upstairs, but I didn’t have time for that, not to mention it was most likely locked. Then there was the kitchen.
Although Arturo did not have to prepare his food, I assumed that his kitchen was equipped with everything a normal kitchen in the human realm would have, in order to make me feel as much at home as possible. This was the case with most of the rooms in the manor. Despite this, I had always asked him for an instant meal when I got hungry, and my captor obliged, so I hadn’t been through the drawers. Still, it was my best bet. I sprinted into the kitchen a few yards to my left and yanked every drawer out of its hinge, praying that this kitchen was also equipped with the most common household weapon.
“MATT! IT’S NOT SNACK TIME, IF YOU COULDN’T FUCKING TELL!” Brian called, his voice strained. The last thing I needed to think about was a clever response, so I ignored him.
Silverware and other supplies scattered clear across the room in a cacophonous symphony of metal. There was only one drawer left. I pulled the drawer...and there it was. My golden tool of destruction. I grabbed the meat cleaver and allowed all the other knives fall to the floor as I exited the kitchen.
With an inhuman scream that was anything but my own, I shoved Brian aside, raised the cleaver above my head, and sliced downward all the way to the floor. There was the smack of a body hitting the floor, indicating that I had been successful. A severed arm rolled limply to my feet, and I would have been sickened if not for my frenzied state of mind.
The fiend seeping black bellowed in agony, thorns now ripping through his skin, and still it wasn’t enough for me. I held the tip of the cleaver to his throat and whispered, “What do you say about violence now, asshole?”
He was in too much pain to speak back. Black blood oozed from the side of his neck, and I angled the knife further..
Jimmy pulled me away. He was on his knees, only half-conscious, tugging my arm weakly with everything he had left. “Don’t...Matt...he’s dead already...” Then he collapsed. I discarded my weapon and was at his side in moments. Brian as well.
“The vines are from that coffin we saw when we first got here. They’re enchanted, like the fog, so we could use them to our advantage. It turns out that the coffin was the entrance all along,” he explained, placing a hand over Jimmy’s heart. “He’s breathing. That bastard up there should dissipate in minutes. Let’s get out of here.”
---
We relocated to an empty guest room where Arturo’s dying moans were hardly audible. They stopped suddenly after a short period of time, so I assumed the vines had pulled tight enough and he was dead.
Jimmy was laid across one side of an extravagant four-poster bed. I was sitting beside him holding his hand. He’d grasped it in his slumber and I hadn’t objected. The color had finally returned to his face, and he was regaining consciousness. He smiled as soon as he saw me.
“Morning, beautiful,” he murmured. I wasn’t how to react, so I just smiled back. I reasoned that either he was still woozy, or the comment was meant to be funny.
“Are you...feeling alright?” I asked, helping him sit up. He looked remarkably unharmed, just disheveled.
“Yeah. Are you?”
I glanced downward, pausing before I answered. “Never better.”
A nagging voice came from the doorway, where Brian was situated with his arms crossed and his back to us. “Come on, guys. We defeated the evil mastermind, so the restriction should be off now, right? There’s a reason I’m turned around. Go ahead and get it over with.”
“Get what over with?” I asked, perplexed. Jimmy put his hand under my chin and turned me to him. I hardly had time to register how close he was to me before we made contact, and then I registered that it was his lips...pressed against my lips, and...
“Jimmy, what the hell?!” I shoved him off of me. “What are you doing?!”
He was devastated. The words I heard next were so timid and helpless that I could hardly believe they came out of Jimmy Sullivan’s mouth. “Wh...What do you mean...?”
“I mean, what the hell were you doing?! Yeah, it’s great we’re all together again; actually, I’m overjoyed! But there’s no need to fucking kiss me about it!”
Brian had turned around and he was staring at me with an expression that was a mix of confusion, terror, and stupefaction. I glanced around to see Jimmy shaking his head. His eyes were glazed over.
“You don’t remember..” he stated, his voice quivering.
“Remember what?”
“Us...”
Somehow, I could hear his entire world crammed into that one syllable. Us. All I could do was stare back at him and try to comprehend what it meant.
“No...” I responded. “You’re...my best friend?”
His hands rose to his face. For the first time I could remember since grade school, Jimmy started crying.
All I could do was put my arm around him and try to remember, when I wasn’t sure what I was trying to remember in the first place.
-----
Author: pimprevster
Pairing: Matt/Jimmy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, and as far as I know, none of this really happened.
Summary:
I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand the thought of being trapped in an oversized cellar with this demon for any longer than I already had. I couldn’t stand the idea of my closest friends accepting me as dead and gone, when I wasn’t. I was stuck here, in this dream world, this limbo...hell, I don’t even know what it was. We had already done that once to Jimmy, and I was beginning to understand how it felt. It was so...lonely. Forlorn. Hopeless. Secluded. So much so that it infuriated me.
I locked myself in the room the footsteps came from and rested my head against the door to catch my breath, as if a simple lock would deter Arturo from materializing right behind me. It wouldn’t, but at least it gave me a sense of privacy.
Then I heard his voice mocking me, and it was all around me, as if he was already in the room with me. Or rather, he was omnipresent. “Wrong door, Matthew. Better get out of there quick.”
I turned around, and my mouth hung open in fear but nothing came out. An animate, hissing darkness was snaking up the walls and spreading across the floor, rapidly progressing toward my feet. Overpowering fear of being consumed by it was implanted in me; it took over my body so that my shaking fingers struggled to unlock the door. As soon as I crashed face-first into the cold floor, I realized that the darkness was an illusion. Even when he was about to be murdered, Arturo thought it amusing to play games with my mind.
“You motherfucking asshole!” I screamed in rage, my fists clenching as I returned to my feet. I was at the top of the steps again and the door behind me was closed, as if I had never even been in there.
“Matt! Get down here and help us!”
The thought crossed my mind that what I recognized as Brian’s panicked voice could be another one of Arturo’s conjurations, but I decided that the risk was worth it. Within seconds, I was on the first floor of the manor. The scene before me was horrific.
Three bristling tendrils of vine coiled around the demon’s body, piercing his gaunt skin and pinning him to the wall behind. The blood that seeped from him was black, and his face had become twisted and fiendish in anger. He held Jimmy’s jaw in his hand so that they were both suspended a few inches above the floor. The enchanted vines gripped tighter with every second, but the demon refused to relinquish his grip.
Brian was on the side of them, scratching and pulling with all his might at the arm that held our best friend’s life in a vise. The pale forearm was black with wounds, but it did not even tremble.
I saw Jimmy’s hands fall limp to his sides, and something inside me cracked.
Everything in my field of vision became part of a calculation, an algorithm for victory in battle. I went berserk. I was a breathing war machine. My survey was complete in a fraction of a second.
Bare hands were no good, as Brian’s attempts proved. The furniture around me was too blunt and heavy. There was an impressive weapon case at the end of the hallway upstairs, but I didn’t have time for that, not to mention it was most likely locked. Then there was the kitchen.
Although Arturo did not have to prepare his food, I assumed that his kitchen was equipped with everything a normal kitchen in the human realm would have, in order to make me feel as much at home as possible. This was the case with most of the rooms in the manor. Despite this, I had always asked him for an instant meal when I got hungry, and my captor obliged, so I hadn’t been through the drawers. Still, it was my best bet. I sprinted into the kitchen a few yards to my left and yanked every drawer out of its hinge, praying that this kitchen was also equipped with the most common household weapon.
“MATT! IT’S NOT SNACK TIME, IF YOU COULDN’T FUCKING TELL!” Brian called, his voice strained. The last thing I needed to think about was a clever response, so I ignored him.
Silverware and other supplies scattered clear across the room in a cacophonous symphony of metal. There was only one drawer left. I pulled the drawer...and there it was. My golden tool of destruction. I grabbed the meat cleaver and allowed all the other knives fall to the floor as I exited the kitchen.
With an inhuman scream that was anything but my own, I shoved Brian aside, raised the cleaver above my head, and sliced downward all the way to the floor. There was the smack of a body hitting the floor, indicating that I had been successful. A severed arm rolled limply to my feet, and I would have been sickened if not for my frenzied state of mind.
The fiend seeping black bellowed in agony, thorns now ripping through his skin, and still it wasn’t enough for me. I held the tip of the cleaver to his throat and whispered, “What do you say about violence now, asshole?”
He was in too much pain to speak back. Black blood oozed from the side of his neck, and I angled the knife further..
Jimmy pulled me away. He was on his knees, only half-conscious, tugging my arm weakly with everything he had left. “Don’t...Matt...he’s dead already...” Then he collapsed. I discarded my weapon and was at his side in moments. Brian as well.
“The vines are from that coffin we saw when we first got here. They’re enchanted, like the fog, so we could use them to our advantage. It turns out that the coffin was the entrance all along,” he explained, placing a hand over Jimmy’s heart. “He’s breathing. That bastard up there should dissipate in minutes. Let’s get out of here.”
---
We relocated to an empty guest room where Arturo’s dying moans were hardly audible. They stopped suddenly after a short period of time, so I assumed the vines had pulled tight enough and he was dead.
Jimmy was laid across one side of an extravagant four-poster bed. I was sitting beside him holding his hand. He’d grasped it in his slumber and I hadn’t objected. The color had finally returned to his face, and he was regaining consciousness. He smiled as soon as he saw me.
“Morning, beautiful,” he murmured. I wasn’t how to react, so I just smiled back. I reasoned that either he was still woozy, or the comment was meant to be funny.
“Are you...feeling alright?” I asked, helping him sit up. He looked remarkably unharmed, just disheveled.
“Yeah. Are you?”
I glanced downward, pausing before I answered. “Never better.”
A nagging voice came from the doorway, where Brian was situated with his arms crossed and his back to us. “Come on, guys. We defeated the evil mastermind, so the restriction should be off now, right? There’s a reason I’m turned around. Go ahead and get it over with.”
“Get what over with?” I asked, perplexed. Jimmy put his hand under my chin and turned me to him. I hardly had time to register how close he was to me before we made contact, and then I registered that it was his lips...pressed against my lips, and...
“Jimmy, what the hell?!” I shoved him off of me. “What are you doing?!”
He was devastated. The words I heard next were so timid and helpless that I could hardly believe they came out of Jimmy Sullivan’s mouth. “Wh...What do you mean...?”
“I mean, what the hell were you doing?! Yeah, it’s great we’re all together again; actually, I’m overjoyed! But there’s no need to fucking kiss me about it!”
Brian had turned around and he was staring at me with an expression that was a mix of confusion, terror, and stupefaction. I glanced around to see Jimmy shaking his head. His eyes were glazed over.
“You don’t remember..” he stated, his voice quivering.
“Remember what?”
“Us...”
Somehow, I could hear his entire world crammed into that one syllable. Us. All I could do was stare back at him and try to comprehend what it meant.
“No...” I responded. “You’re...my best friend?”
His hands rose to his face. For the first time I could remember since grade school, Jimmy started crying.
All I could do was put my arm around him and try to remember, when I wasn’t sure what I was trying to remember in the first place.
-----