Original: Doubt
Title: Doubt
Series: Original (L'oiseau du Bonheur)
Characters/Pairings: Eleanor
Rating: G
Warnings: Shoujo manga alert?
Summary: Falling in love with humans is not practical.
She didn't think it was possible to be breathless once you stopped needing to breathe, but he has not stopped surprising her since they met. She always thought that it would be like in stories, where what mattered was your burning passion, or your meaningful glances, not friendship that made you want to be with him every second, even if that wasn't realistic or practical. He fills her with hopeful joy--the feeling like things didn't necessarily end when she died. It has occurred to her that maybe she's falling in love with him, but the idea seems so absolutely ridiculous that she doesn't want to think about it.
"Boys like him don't fall in love with dead girls anyway," Eleanor chides herself. She's sitting on the floor next to her bed, trying to concentrate on her new pictures of Gertrude Kingston and Marion Terry, but for some reason she keeps getting lost in her own head instead.
Tristan has other friends, far from here that he talks about now and then. She doesn't doubt that some of them are beautiful girls with shimmering lipstick smiles and modern clothes with actual colors. Maybe they have ringlets and dainty hands and could look at him in the coquettish way she knows she couldn't manage if she tried. When she thinks about it, she feels faintly envious, but she knows that's ridiculous. Liking him is not the same as being in love with him. Don't be silly. Vampires don't fall in love.
...but aren't vampires basically still just people? Adrian wouldn't think so if she bothered to ask him, but it's not like she herself stopped wanting things just because she was undead. It was more like she'd simply began trying to accept that she'd never have any of the things she'd hoped for when she was still alive.
When she was a very little girl, Pretend Eleanor in her head was a tall, slender, elegant woman who dressed like a princess and would be loved by a charming man who was like a prince. Real Eleanor, almost sixteen, dead, has more or less accepted by this point that her mostly average self is not actually interested in wearing glittering ballgowns or appealing to princes. Real Eleanor is, in fact, satisfied instead by stupid romance novels where she can live vicariously but briefly through someone else. Real Eleanor does not need to fall in love with the laughing eyes of Tristan Valois.
The thought of him in that context makes her cover her face in embarrassment, even though she knows she can't be blushing. She briefly considers mental images of him sweeping her up like the love interests in novels, kissing her in spite of her fangs, loving her in spite of the fact that she can never be warm again...
She reaches up and grabs the closest throw pillow off her bed and smushes her face into it to keep from screaming. Horrible, horrible, horrible. It's not even possible to predict how tremendously appalled he would probably be if he knew that his undead friend was alone in her bedroom at this very moment, fawning over impossible fantasies of them being together. She's still a person, but she's also a monster. It's not unthinkable for them to be friends, but even that is dangerous. It would be stupid to allow anything further.
Eleanor tries to calm herself with thoughts of things that need doing around the house, of Adrian being a ridiculous ham, of anything besides how badly she wants the next afternoon to come just so she can be with Tristan again, but it's hard.
"I'm not going to do this to myself," she thinks, hoping that her own efforts to sound decided will convince the rest of her that she's sure. "Nothing good can come of it."
Series: Original (L'oiseau du Bonheur)
Characters/Pairings: Eleanor
Rating: G
Warnings: Shoujo manga alert?
Summary: Falling in love with humans is not practical.
She didn't think it was possible to be breathless once you stopped needing to breathe, but he has not stopped surprising her since they met. She always thought that it would be like in stories, where what mattered was your burning passion, or your meaningful glances, not friendship that made you want to be with him every second, even if that wasn't realistic or practical. He fills her with hopeful joy--the feeling like things didn't necessarily end when she died. It has occurred to her that maybe she's falling in love with him, but the idea seems so absolutely ridiculous that she doesn't want to think about it.
"Boys like him don't fall in love with dead girls anyway," Eleanor chides herself. She's sitting on the floor next to her bed, trying to concentrate on her new pictures of Gertrude Kingston and Marion Terry, but for some reason she keeps getting lost in her own head instead.
Tristan has other friends, far from here that he talks about now and then. She doesn't doubt that some of them are beautiful girls with shimmering lipstick smiles and modern clothes with actual colors. Maybe they have ringlets and dainty hands and could look at him in the coquettish way she knows she couldn't manage if she tried. When she thinks about it, she feels faintly envious, but she knows that's ridiculous. Liking him is not the same as being in love with him. Don't be silly. Vampires don't fall in love.
...but aren't vampires basically still just people? Adrian wouldn't think so if she bothered to ask him, but it's not like she herself stopped wanting things just because she was undead. It was more like she'd simply began trying to accept that she'd never have any of the things she'd hoped for when she was still alive.
When she was a very little girl, Pretend Eleanor in her head was a tall, slender, elegant woman who dressed like a princess and would be loved by a charming man who was like a prince. Real Eleanor, almost sixteen, dead, has more or less accepted by this point that her mostly average self is not actually interested in wearing glittering ballgowns or appealing to princes. Real Eleanor is, in fact, satisfied instead by stupid romance novels where she can live vicariously but briefly through someone else. Real Eleanor does not need to fall in love with the laughing eyes of Tristan Valois.
The thought of him in that context makes her cover her face in embarrassment, even though she knows she can't be blushing. She briefly considers mental images of him sweeping her up like the love interests in novels, kissing her in spite of her fangs, loving her in spite of the fact that she can never be warm again...
She reaches up and grabs the closest throw pillow off her bed and smushes her face into it to keep from screaming. Horrible, horrible, horrible. It's not even possible to predict how tremendously appalled he would probably be if he knew that his undead friend was alone in her bedroom at this very moment, fawning over impossible fantasies of them being together. She's still a person, but she's also a monster. It's not unthinkable for them to be friends, but even that is dangerous. It would be stupid to allow anything further.
Eleanor tries to calm herself with thoughts of things that need doing around the house, of Adrian being a ridiculous ham, of anything besides how badly she wants the next afternoon to come just so she can be with Tristan again, but it's hard.
"I'm not going to do this to myself," she thinks, hoping that her own efforts to sound decided will convince the rest of her that she's sure. "Nothing good can come of it."