Some Devil Is Stuck Inside Of Me
Who: Daisychain!Aya Brea and Kyle Madigan.
What: “Always and forever” is such a long and lonely time.
Where: Eames Aya’s townhouse.
When: Late Sunday night.
Warnings: Jearing.
Notes: Soundtrack Start.
( Because what we had was so beautiful... )
What: “Always and forever” is such a long and lonely time.
Where: Eames Aya’s townhouse.
When: Late Sunday night.
Warnings: Jearing.
Notes: Soundtrack Start.
( Because what we had was so beautiful... )
worthless, they chime.
And so, he sat on the couch, waiting. For what, he wasn't sure. Aya left days ago and there was nothing he could do to stop her, to keep her here; he couldn't protect her from that monster that came from the depths of hell itself. There was nothing he could do but watch her tremble in fear, watch her apologize for his death, speak of things he couldn't even comprehend-the things that haunted him, stuck to his mind, kept him up-until she decided to leave.
(I should have gone, the words echoed through his mind. Guilt swallowing him up, consuming every part of him. He should have protected her, kept her safe, but he was too busy facing things he couldn't explain. I should have gone after her.
-I was looking for you.)
His fingers slowly edged out to curl around half-empty glass of water on the table in front of him, fingertips firmly pressed against the smooth surface. (The image of the dark masked creature standing over him-laughing) In a fury, he stood up, gripping the glass and throwing it against the nearest wall.
It shattered, breaking into a million little pieces as it hit the wall. He watched the water spill against the surface of the wall, trickling it's way down like blood as silence enveloped the house and all he could hear was his heartbeat in his own ears.
That is, until he heard the loud slam of the front door, pulling him out of his daze. He reared his head toward the sound, keeping still.
"Aya?" his voice echoed in the dark. "Is that you?"
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Slowly, she crept around the corner of the doorway, half of her face staring back at him. Her heart begun to sink in her chest, a lump forming in her throat. To anyone else, it was just Kyle Madigan. To her, it was like looking at a ghost.
Don’t be foolish. This one’s alive.
Her shoulders slumped, her words caught in her throat when her mind raced to think of a reply.
This was not possible.
i watched you die...
Little by little, she shuffled from the corner, glancing around the room, and then back at Kyle. Her mouth opened to speak, but once again the words were swallowed by the cloud inside her mind.
There was so much she wanted to tell him.
Funny... This almost looks like where we used to live.
Afraid to speak, too scared of saying the wrong thing... all she could do was nod.
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"I..." he took a step forward, the words twist in his mouth. He's unsure of what he should say.
i've missed you, he wants to say.
but it doesn't sound like him.
It doesn't take long for him to realize that there's something different about her, something in her eyes that he couldn't quite explain, but there was a sense of sadness he hadn't seen before. Even shrouded in the darkness, he could see that this Aya did not belong to him-it was one that he had only briefly encountered before-who now stood before him.
This wasn't their house.
I'm sorry, she says.for what?
"Are you alright?"
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It was more than just seeing a ghost. As she stepped forward, her eyes adjusting to the light, she began to notice something different about him as well. He spoke in that same voice she always remembered, and that’s when it hit her...
What’s the last thing you remember?
I remember you Aya. I remember lots of stars.
“I’m fine...”
Did Kyle run away?
Once she was close enough to, her hands reached up. Tentative, as though she feared that if she didn’t handle this with any amount of delicacy, the mirage standing before her might very well shatter to pieces-gone from her grasp forever.
He did not shatter to pieces when her rough fingertips met his face. Her distant eyes studied his, reading every feature of his that she had learned by heart throughout the years she had been with him.
Finally, she breathed. “You’re younger.”
Just like her...
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For once in his life, he wasn't sure what to do. While this Aya was different than he one he knew, it wasn't the same. A sense of disappointment rose in him and his eyes lowered to the ground.
(her touch is different-reserved for him, but a different version of him that she lost. it's not the touch of the woman he knew, the one he woke up to every morning, the one he worked with. it's not her.)
"I am," his voice was gentle as he brought his eyes to look into hers.
but that's not me
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Every little bit was just like she remembered; even his hair felt the same. Seeing him again. Talking to him again. The experience would almost be unbelievable if she had not already seen this kind of thing happen before.
just like the memory where she held the little girl in her arms, sobbing into the corpse’s shoulder whilst apologizing profusely that she had failed to make it to her in time before the monsters came
they will meet again and she is in the form of that young girl from the desert
“I’m sorry... I was so shaken the last time we spoke. I just... I never thought that I’d see you again.” She forced a pained laugh despite herself.
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The woman before him made him realize how much he wanted her to be safe, to be free from the masked creature that haunted the both of them. There was nothing more he cared about in the world than her.
And that scared him.
"Heh... it's alright," he was at a loss of words. How was one supposed to speak to someone from another lifetime, to someone who lived a completely different outcome? It made him feel helpless, all the information he was so used to having filled in was gone. There was nothing for him to work from.
And so, he did what he did best-
he put on his mask
and played his part.
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As much as she wanted to believe him and lie to herself, she knew that she had already done enough of that already. She’d done more damage to herself without the help of that monster who, throughout the week, had hurt her so badly that she had been forced to retreat within herself. Whatever it was that happened during her encounter with that creature, the dreamer continued to dream, asleep. Until she awoke, however, she wanted her chance.
She couldn’t afford to hold back any longer. This was her last chance.
Her hands slid from his face. She wanted to cling to him, but at the same time she feared of driving him away; watching him die in the same manner she had already lost him. She wouldn’t know what to do if she had to go through that Hell all over again.
Biting her lip, her eyes tore away. His image burned in the back of her mind, the back of her eyelids as she closed them. “It’s funny, you know...? For all the time that I’d known you, after all we had been through... I’d never once thought to tell you how much I loved you. I’d come to trust you with everything... You had my back, but... I didn’t have yours, I suppose.” Her voice began to break, her hands drawn up to her face even though no tears were threatened to fall. “I’m sorry, Kyle. I messed up... I’m so sorry.”
it is like an echo of something that has already been said
she just does not remember it
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But instead of letting this moment pass, instead of letting the guilt eat him, he reached his hands out to grab her wrists and draw them away from her eyes. He brought his hand up and brushed the bangs from her face, keeping his gaze locked on her own.
they were in love,
it was a concept that sounded so odd to him.
so out of place.
and yet-in some way he could not explain,
it made sense.
"I forgive you," he said, not because he knew it was what she wanted to hear, but because he knew. He knew that it was the truth, that this was eating her up from the inside, but he understood. He had always understood, whether it was Dryfield, the confines of their home, or the minute she was forced to kill him to end Legato's reign, that they cared for each other, they trusted each other, and he knew-even in the universe that didn't exist in this world-that whatever she had done, whatever she did, she still loved him in the end.
If someone asked him to explain it, he wouldn't know how. Nor did he care. It was just something that felt right.
He brushed his thumb across her cheek and smiled.
"You did what you had to."
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Words had escaped her, but she was happy. Even if her rational mind was exclaiming this isn’t the same person just as his was, just hearing him speak, in his voice-that alone set her terrified heart at ease.
she feels as though she is one step closer to redemption
Perhaps his words were comfort enough that even the sleeper would remember them, as well.
God, she sure hoped so, for her own sake...
In this instant, she reached up, her fingers curling over the arm that touched her face. She did not cry; did not dare expose that side of herself to him (she had to be strong-for Eve, and for everyone who relied on her back home. That much was important to her, as stupidly prideful as it may be); she had promised herself that she had buried her tears a long time ago. By now there were no tears left to shed down her scarred cheeks.
“Thank you...” She exhaled, her brows furrowing as she slowly opened her eyes to meet his gaze; to memorize every little trace of him even if she had to burn it into her retinas. “I’m grateful that I got a second chance, and that’s what matters. Not many people get that.”
And it was true in both realms... Afterwards, when all of this was over, whether she remembered this or not, she would return to Eve, the little girl who was alive.
Her second chance to make things right in her life again. Even if Kyle couldn’t be there to share that second life with them, she had this moment.
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Second chances-that's what this was all about. After missing for a year, leaving her in the dark, he had come back. He had disappeared without a trace to remove every single aspect of his life from the government, to become nonexistent, to come back to her.
He had died (she had killed him) and in the revelation of his death, realized that second chances wrung over his head, pushing themselves like knives into his skin.
"But you deserve it."
Maybe blood would always be on their hands no matter what universe they existed in, maybe both of them would be considered monsters in their own right, but if someone like him was able to have a second chance, then thought that being here for her, letting her apologize for everything she had done, was the only thing he could allow.
Because deep down inside he knew that if it were him, she would have done the same exact thing.
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For what it was worth, for what she’d managed to get back the things she had lost, she realized that she was fortunate. Probably one of the most fortunate people in the world. She wanted him to know that-although they would be divided by two completely different worlds, they would be okay.
“So do you.” She reached up, gently touching his face again. Even though she had long since realized that this Kyle was not the same man she had fallen in love with over time, that he still had a little ways to go, she saw more to him. “I know that things are a little different here between us, but I can tell you’ve been through a lot here, too. Somehow... I doubt much has changed.”
She swallowed hard, and sighed. The lump in her throat began to hurt.
“I hope the best for you in this life, Kyle.”
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Now standing here, faced with the woman he cared for so much with the mind of her own self in far off, nearly untouchable universe, those words sunk in deeper than anything he had ever heard in his entire life.
He bowed his head, trying to hide his bashful (yet confused) grin, "Heh... thanks..."
It took him a moment to compose his thoughts. There were no charming words or horrifically cheesy jokes to fill in the moments of silence that wedged it's way between them, they were two completely different people from two completely different worlds, and yet-they both existed. Where his Aya was at the moment, he wasn't sure, but he was glad to know that she wasn't lost forever to the creature that had tried to hard to take her away.
(because he isn't sure that he could be without her anymore
-without her, nothing would make sense)
He lifted up his head to look at her again, enjoying the touch of her fingers tracing his face. It was something comforting, even in his moment of confusion.
"You're still beautiful when you smile, you know."
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i miss you
At any rate, she could sense it. The internal struggle, while still waging, was no longer as intense as it had once been. Her presence here was no longer required in order to keep the sleeper safe from insanity. Although she had no way of knowing for certain, it was a feeling she got-a kind of peace that she hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. She did not need to know anything; she simply knew.
Kyle’s shameless compliment didn’t even fluster her like it used to. Not a blush or a stutter, but a small laugh was inspired from it. She’d heard him say stuff like that too many times to be surprised by them anymore. “So you’ve always told me.”
Her fingers lingered on his face for a few moments, eying his clean-shaven chin and jawline before a smile crept across her lips.
“You should try growing some hair out here a little sometime. You looked surprisingly good like that. Very rugged.”
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There was no more running away, no more disappearing, becoming non-existent. Another version of him had settled down with her, stuck with her even until death (and that's what it always said, right?-until death do us part).
(forever is a long time.)
There was no turning back for him now, and he was perfectly fine with that.
(the masked creatures bellow:
is it really that easy to lie to yourself?)
"You think?" he said with a grin as he ran his knuckles against his jaw. "Never saw myself as that kinda guy. Guess I'll have to look into it now."
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No one else was closer to her quite like he was; this all was occurring to her all of a sudden. Losing Kyle, burying Eve-she’d never told these things to anyone before. Never even mentioned that she had ever married.
Just never came up in conversation. It didn’t last long, anyway.
“I’m sure I’ll like it.” She then feigned a serious frown, holding up a finger to emphasize a point. “Just a little bit, though. Not a full out beard. That would look weird... and God forbid you tarnish your boyish good looks.”
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