Blood and Memories (Ivy Tamwood, Hollows series, PG-13)
Title: Blood and Memories
Author: opheliet
Fandom: The Hollows series
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: dark themes, violence, vampires (hey, I know some people have had it up to their ears with them, though these most assuredly don't sparkle), allusions to and results of an emotionally abusive/manipulative relationship
Prompt: 13) If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down, these women together ought to be able to turn it right side up again.--Sojourner Truth (1797 - November 26, 1883), African-American abolitionist, women's rights activist, advocate for prison reform, anti-capital punishment activist, lecturer and saint of the Episcopal Church.
Summary: Ivy can't tell which way is up anymore.
Author's Notes: First of all, massive, enormous, truck-full-of-cupcakes thanks to tearlit , my amazing, wonderful beta. Without her this would probably just be scrawlings on a napkin. Her magic beta brush is awesome, and any mistakes in here are most certainly mine. Love, thanks for everything ;)
The quote in the beginning is from the song Tightrope by Art of Chaos.
Also, many many thanks and cupcakes to gehayi for running this amazing fest every year.
In case it's important to anyone, no spoilers for any of the books within.
Such impossible heights
these painted versions of life,
have become the way to survive.
Soul lost in the lie's abyss,
let the tightrope break.
Let the tightrope break.
Ivy opens her eyes and she's got blood on her hands, which doesn't make sense because the last thing she remembers is getting out of the car in front of the house and now she's in a dark room with blood on her hands and she's cold.
There's a candle flickering across the room, by the bed, and it illuminates the body lying across the sheets, and even though Ivy doesn't remember she knows somewhere deep down that the woman is dead, and something very quiet in her mind whispers that she did it, that she made all those bite marks, but she can't remember so maybe it's all just a dream and she'll wake up soon.
Besides, she's cold and she thinks she might be bleeding so she stands up and looks for her clothes, because she's naked although she doesn't know why. Her clothes are bloody too, bloody like her arms and legs and stomach, but she puts them on anyway. The candle keeps shedding light over the body and Ivy doesn't want to look at her anymore, so she tips the candle over onto the bed, and slowly the sheets start to burn but she's still cold so she goes out to find some orange juice. The rest of the house is quiet, and it's still night outside. Ivy takes the carton from the fridge and drinks from it, looking out of the front window and spotting a car parked by the curb. It's the car she arrived in, so it must be here to pick her up, but she can't remember who drove her. She goes outside anyway and leans against the car, smiling petulantly when the woman rolls down the window and looks at her.
″Are you ready to go?″ the woman asks, and Ivy pouts, because Piscary always told her she should take her time, and this woman is trying to rush her, but she's still got blood on her hands and the cold is creeping into her bones so she gets in the back and shuts the door. The house is glowing behind them, orange and gold and red and the woman keeps looking in the rear view mirror while she talks on a cell phone but Ivy doesn't care, so she sits back and closes her eyes.
One day she's with Kisten and they're supposed to be having fun, because they always have fun together, like old times, but tonight he doesn't want to play with the witch they found. Instead he keeps asking her questions and making her look at him, and Ivy doesn't want to. She wants blood, needs it, and he doesn't understand. She wants to be perfect for Piscary, and Kisten is trying to stop her. He wants to be perfect first. She tells him he is jealous and there is hurt in his eyes that makes Ivy laugh because she hurt like that too, before she learned how to turn it all off.
Nothing hurts anymore and it makes Ivy pause as Kisten keeps talking, pain in his voice as he asks her to please look at him. He hurts, but she doesn't. She wonders if she should feel pain, because she and Kisten always shared everything and if he hurts then she should too. But then she remembers he's trying to get her to stop, trying to take her away from here and she looks at him and smiles, because he is pleading with her and she knows that he is weak.
″You're just a little boy,″ she tells him, laughing delightedly when he gets angry, but this time instead of yelling he leaves, slamming the door, and she hears his car speeds down the road. The woman on the bed is making soft sounds, and somewhere in Ivy's mind she realizes that the woman has lost a lot of blood, and that Kisten wanted to take her to the doctor, but she smells good and so she leans over the woman and smiles, not knowing if the sounds are from pain or pleasure and deciding it doesn't make a difference.
She calls Kisten the next day, because her head is fuzzy and she can't remember exactly what he said, but he doesn't answer. She waits a few days and calls again, but he doesn't answer then either, so she throws her phone at the wall and breaks it and pushes him to the back of her mind.
Later that night she goes to Piscary and she tells him that the nights blur into one another, and she isn't sure what really happens anymore and what she makes up. Sometimes she feels like it's all a long dream but it's okay because in dreams you're invincible and that's what she feels like. That's what Piscary tells her as he examines a new bite mark he just put in her neck. She's invincible, but she's not perfect, not yet. Ivy fidgets then, because she tries to do everything right, but he always says she isn't perfect, she's never perfect yet. She tries to ask him why, to find out what she's doing wrong, but he shushes her. It's okay, he tells her again, and he strokes her hair when he says it which tickles a memory in her mind. She remembers Kisten, stroking her hair when she was young and crying because she didn't want to go to Piscary's anymore, but Ivy narrows her eyes and pushes it away because that doesn't make any sense and, anyway, she doesn't like remembering. Kisten left and so she pushes the memories of him away too, because he isn't strong enough to be with her.
Piscary senses her emotions like a cat smells milk and asks her what's wrong with his Ivy girl. She looks at him and tries to explain about the memory, because he will surely understand and explain it to her, why she still feels like she did something wrong to make Kisten go away, but he just laughs and strokes her hair again, telling her not to worry.
″My Ivy girl doesn't need to worry about things like that,″ he says, and she believes him, because he loves her.
-
She starts waking up alone more often in her room with blood on her hands and smeared over her body, war paint from a battle she can't remember. When she showers the water hits scars she doesn't remember getting, but it feels good when the water hits them so she doesn't mind.
There are classes at the university every Tuesday and Thursday, and Ivy remembers those clearly. She gets her work done and she gets excellent grades, but everything else is blurry and she thinks it's because she's going out with Piscary so much, but she's stopped thinking about things like that. When she's in class she thinks about the future, working at the top of her field in the I.S. just like her mother did, and she imagines a life outside of going out every night bleeding whoever she feels like. She thinks of investigating crime scenes and bringing in the bad guys, and it sparks something in her stomach, but classes end and everything goes back to being blurry.
Instead she walks the streets feeling like a queen, and people stop to look at her because she's beautiful and she's like an undead, except she doesn't have rules. She can be in the sun and she could walk in a church if she wanted to, and she's got power that other people don't have, not even Kisten and he's scion. She's fast and graceful and, best of all, she's Piscary's favorite. He tells her so, at times when she starts to feel funny, after their nights out are over and Ivy sees the people on the beds, bleeding and bruised. Sometimes her hands shake but he holds her and tells her that she is beautiful, and that he is only doing what is best. Doesn't she want to be perfect? And she does, so she nods and smiles.
She isn't sure how long it's been since the world turned upside down because time is strange, now. She sees the flowers blooming and feels the sun on her skin, so she thinks winter is over but she hasn't slept in a long time and doesn't remember having her birthday. She knows her birthday is in the winter because Kisten's birthday is in the winter too and they would always celebrate together. But Kisten is gone, gone somewhere away from her, because he isn't strong like she is, he doesn't want to be great like she is. Because he's afraid.
The sun is warm, and Ivy shifts seductively in her short skirt, a small niggling feeling in her mind, but she ignores it and walks to the restaurant instead, because Piscary wants to see her.
-
Ivy opens her eyes and she's got blood on her hands, all over her bare skin, and she looks at the bed to see a lifeless body lying there, golden hair splayed out and limbs at strange angles.
You did this, a voice in her head says, and suddenly everything slams into Ivy. She stumbles backwards, her back hitting the wall, as her senses come alive and she sees everything, feels everything. She sees her clothes in a pile in the corner and the scars decorating the woman's body. She sees the bite marks in the woman's skin and the blood on the sheets and smells the lust and sex and ecstasy in the air. Piscary was here, she can smell him, but he's gone now and she looks around wildly.
You did this, the voice says again, and Ivy swallows, suddenly unable to catch her breath. She realizes she doesn't know what day it is, and hasn't for a long time, not since classes ended for the summer.
She gasps in air and crosses the room, snatching up her clothes and pulling them on. She needs to get out of here. Something is wrong.
Like a lightning bolt from heaven something crashes into Ivy and she sits down on the floor, her head between her knees as she tries to breathe and memories begin pouring into her head.
″Stop, stop, stop,″ she mutters, but it won't turn off anymore. She's done terrible things, and she remembers and it hurts. It's clear as a movie in her mind, replaying over and over until her stomach twists, and she retches, vomiting all over the floor. It's all blood and she begins shaking because she can't remember the last time she ate.
He said he loved her. Piscary told her he loved her and wanted her to be perfect. But this wasn't perfect. This was a monster. What had she let him turn her into? He was undead, he couldn't feel love, why had she ever thought he could?
She needed to fix this. She needed to go back to being who she was before.
Who had she been before?
There is a bracelet around her ankle and she touches it with her fingers, smearing blood on her skin, and she remembers being a scared girl, flying to California to get away. She remembers sitting in her room making plans to escape, and making promises that she wouldn't let him change her. That she wouldn't let him make her forget herself.
Kisten had given her the bracelet. She suddenly gets an image of him clasping it around her wrist the night before she went to California. ″To remember,″ he had said. What else had he said? She tries to think, her fingers running over the chain as she struggles to cling to the memory. ″You know you're more than what he wants you to be. You can do so much more,″ he had said. And she had promised not to forget it, to remember that she wasn't a toy to be played with.
But she had forgotten after all, and suddenly guilt begins pouring into her like acid, filling her chest until she is gagging again.
She has a sister. She remembers coming home to help her sister, to protect her from Piscary, and she remembers something else, too, being fifteen and scared and in pain and wanting to keep her sister from ever having to go through that. And she knows, then, that all the horrible things are true because Piscary had hurt her first, hurt her the most, and that wasn't love. She isn't sure she even knows what love is, but it can't be this.
Kisten. Kisten would remember who she was, because they had grown up together and knew each other better than anyone. Maybe he would help her, even if he hated her. She didn't have anyone else to go to, so she would go to him.
Ivy stands up carefully and smooths her hair down, straightening her skirt even though her hands are still covered with blood and her fingers are trembling, and she leaves the room.
-
Ivy washed the last plate from dinner and set it neatly in the dish rack to dry, the sounds of jazz music carrying into the kitchen from the living room calming her.
It had been a week since she'd shown up on Kisten's kitchen floor sobbing and out of her mind, and she was still trying to get better. She wanted to go back to her old self, when she felt fear and pain and anger, because that was part of being alive and she couldn't deny that anymore.
She picked up a dish towel and set to work drying the dishes as she thought things over. She remembered the days blurring together, the world turned upside down, and she didn't want that anymore.
Piscary wasn't going to drag her down into that world again, ever. She had made that choice and she was going to stand by it. Kisten had agreed to help her, had let her stay with him, but he had warned her, gently, ″I can help you as much as I can, love, but you're going to have to fight. You're going to have to fight to find yourself again, and I'll be there for you, but it's your battle.″
It was. She knew that. She set the plates in the cabinet with a soft clink and turned to lean against the counter, closing her eyes. She was going to fight like hell, and she would come out on top. She wouldn't be the person Piscary wanted her to be, she was going to be the person she knew could be, the person she'd always wanted to be, and nothing- nothing- was going to stand in her way of that.
Author: opheliet
Fandom: The Hollows series
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: dark themes, violence, vampires (hey, I know some people have had it up to their ears with them, though these most assuredly don't sparkle), allusions to and results of an emotionally abusive/manipulative relationship
Prompt: 13) If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down, these women together ought to be able to turn it right side up again.--Sojourner Truth (1797 - November 26, 1883), African-American abolitionist, women's rights activist, advocate for prison reform, anti-capital punishment activist, lecturer and saint of the Episcopal Church.
Summary: Ivy can't tell which way is up anymore.
Author's Notes: First of all, massive, enormous, truck-full-of-cupcakes thanks to tearlit , my amazing, wonderful beta. Without her this would probably just be scrawlings on a napkin. Her magic beta brush is awesome, and any mistakes in here are most certainly mine. Love, thanks for everything ;)
The quote in the beginning is from the song Tightrope by Art of Chaos.
Also, many many thanks and cupcakes to gehayi for running this amazing fest every year.
In case it's important to anyone, no spoilers for any of the books within.
Such impossible heights
these painted versions of life,
have become the way to survive.
Soul lost in the lie's abyss,
let the tightrope break.
Let the tightrope break.
Ivy opens her eyes and she's got blood on her hands, which doesn't make sense because the last thing she remembers is getting out of the car in front of the house and now she's in a dark room with blood on her hands and she's cold.
There's a candle flickering across the room, by the bed, and it illuminates the body lying across the sheets, and even though Ivy doesn't remember she knows somewhere deep down that the woman is dead, and something very quiet in her mind whispers that she did it, that she made all those bite marks, but she can't remember so maybe it's all just a dream and she'll wake up soon.
Besides, she's cold and she thinks she might be bleeding so she stands up and looks for her clothes, because she's naked although she doesn't know why. Her clothes are bloody too, bloody like her arms and legs and stomach, but she puts them on anyway. The candle keeps shedding light over the body and Ivy doesn't want to look at her anymore, so she tips the candle over onto the bed, and slowly the sheets start to burn but she's still cold so she goes out to find some orange juice. The rest of the house is quiet, and it's still night outside. Ivy takes the carton from the fridge and drinks from it, looking out of the front window and spotting a car parked by the curb. It's the car she arrived in, so it must be here to pick her up, but she can't remember who drove her. She goes outside anyway and leans against the car, smiling petulantly when the woman rolls down the window and looks at her.
″Are you ready to go?″ the woman asks, and Ivy pouts, because Piscary always told her she should take her time, and this woman is trying to rush her, but she's still got blood on her hands and the cold is creeping into her bones so she gets in the back and shuts the door. The house is glowing behind them, orange and gold and red and the woman keeps looking in the rear view mirror while she talks on a cell phone but Ivy doesn't care, so she sits back and closes her eyes.
One day she's with Kisten and they're supposed to be having fun, because they always have fun together, like old times, but tonight he doesn't want to play with the witch they found. Instead he keeps asking her questions and making her look at him, and Ivy doesn't want to. She wants blood, needs it, and he doesn't understand. She wants to be perfect for Piscary, and Kisten is trying to stop her. He wants to be perfect first. She tells him he is jealous and there is hurt in his eyes that makes Ivy laugh because she hurt like that too, before she learned how to turn it all off.
Nothing hurts anymore and it makes Ivy pause as Kisten keeps talking, pain in his voice as he asks her to please look at him. He hurts, but she doesn't. She wonders if she should feel pain, because she and Kisten always shared everything and if he hurts then she should too. But then she remembers he's trying to get her to stop, trying to take her away from here and she looks at him and smiles, because he is pleading with her and she knows that he is weak.
″You're just a little boy,″ she tells him, laughing delightedly when he gets angry, but this time instead of yelling he leaves, slamming the door, and she hears his car speeds down the road. The woman on the bed is making soft sounds, and somewhere in Ivy's mind she realizes that the woman has lost a lot of blood, and that Kisten wanted to take her to the doctor, but she smells good and so she leans over the woman and smiles, not knowing if the sounds are from pain or pleasure and deciding it doesn't make a difference.
She calls Kisten the next day, because her head is fuzzy and she can't remember exactly what he said, but he doesn't answer. She waits a few days and calls again, but he doesn't answer then either, so she throws her phone at the wall and breaks it and pushes him to the back of her mind.
Later that night she goes to Piscary and she tells him that the nights blur into one another, and she isn't sure what really happens anymore and what she makes up. Sometimes she feels like it's all a long dream but it's okay because in dreams you're invincible and that's what she feels like. That's what Piscary tells her as he examines a new bite mark he just put in her neck. She's invincible, but she's not perfect, not yet. Ivy fidgets then, because she tries to do everything right, but he always says she isn't perfect, she's never perfect yet. She tries to ask him why, to find out what she's doing wrong, but he shushes her. It's okay, he tells her again, and he strokes her hair when he says it which tickles a memory in her mind. She remembers Kisten, stroking her hair when she was young and crying because she didn't want to go to Piscary's anymore, but Ivy narrows her eyes and pushes it away because that doesn't make any sense and, anyway, she doesn't like remembering. Kisten left and so she pushes the memories of him away too, because he isn't strong enough to be with her.
Piscary senses her emotions like a cat smells milk and asks her what's wrong with his Ivy girl. She looks at him and tries to explain about the memory, because he will surely understand and explain it to her, why she still feels like she did something wrong to make Kisten go away, but he just laughs and strokes her hair again, telling her not to worry.
″My Ivy girl doesn't need to worry about things like that,″ he says, and she believes him, because he loves her.
-
She starts waking up alone more often in her room with blood on her hands and smeared over her body, war paint from a battle she can't remember. When she showers the water hits scars she doesn't remember getting, but it feels good when the water hits them so she doesn't mind.
There are classes at the university every Tuesday and Thursday, and Ivy remembers those clearly. She gets her work done and she gets excellent grades, but everything else is blurry and she thinks it's because she's going out with Piscary so much, but she's stopped thinking about things like that. When she's in class she thinks about the future, working at the top of her field in the I.S. just like her mother did, and she imagines a life outside of going out every night bleeding whoever she feels like. She thinks of investigating crime scenes and bringing in the bad guys, and it sparks something in her stomach, but classes end and everything goes back to being blurry.
Instead she walks the streets feeling like a queen, and people stop to look at her because she's beautiful and she's like an undead, except she doesn't have rules. She can be in the sun and she could walk in a church if she wanted to, and she's got power that other people don't have, not even Kisten and he's scion. She's fast and graceful and, best of all, she's Piscary's favorite. He tells her so, at times when she starts to feel funny, after their nights out are over and Ivy sees the people on the beds, bleeding and bruised. Sometimes her hands shake but he holds her and tells her that she is beautiful, and that he is only doing what is best. Doesn't she want to be perfect? And she does, so she nods and smiles.
She isn't sure how long it's been since the world turned upside down because time is strange, now. She sees the flowers blooming and feels the sun on her skin, so she thinks winter is over but she hasn't slept in a long time and doesn't remember having her birthday. She knows her birthday is in the winter because Kisten's birthday is in the winter too and they would always celebrate together. But Kisten is gone, gone somewhere away from her, because he isn't strong like she is, he doesn't want to be great like she is. Because he's afraid.
The sun is warm, and Ivy shifts seductively in her short skirt, a small niggling feeling in her mind, but she ignores it and walks to the restaurant instead, because Piscary wants to see her.
-
Ivy opens her eyes and she's got blood on her hands, all over her bare skin, and she looks at the bed to see a lifeless body lying there, golden hair splayed out and limbs at strange angles.
You did this, a voice in her head says, and suddenly everything slams into Ivy. She stumbles backwards, her back hitting the wall, as her senses come alive and she sees everything, feels everything. She sees her clothes in a pile in the corner and the scars decorating the woman's body. She sees the bite marks in the woman's skin and the blood on the sheets and smells the lust and sex and ecstasy in the air. Piscary was here, she can smell him, but he's gone now and she looks around wildly.
You did this, the voice says again, and Ivy swallows, suddenly unable to catch her breath. She realizes she doesn't know what day it is, and hasn't for a long time, not since classes ended for the summer.
She gasps in air and crosses the room, snatching up her clothes and pulling them on. She needs to get out of here. Something is wrong.
Like a lightning bolt from heaven something crashes into Ivy and she sits down on the floor, her head between her knees as she tries to breathe and memories begin pouring into her head.
″Stop, stop, stop,″ she mutters, but it won't turn off anymore. She's done terrible things, and she remembers and it hurts. It's clear as a movie in her mind, replaying over and over until her stomach twists, and she retches, vomiting all over the floor. It's all blood and she begins shaking because she can't remember the last time she ate.
He said he loved her. Piscary told her he loved her and wanted her to be perfect. But this wasn't perfect. This was a monster. What had she let him turn her into? He was undead, he couldn't feel love, why had she ever thought he could?
She needed to fix this. She needed to go back to being who she was before.
Who had she been before?
There is a bracelet around her ankle and she touches it with her fingers, smearing blood on her skin, and she remembers being a scared girl, flying to California to get away. She remembers sitting in her room making plans to escape, and making promises that she wouldn't let him change her. That she wouldn't let him make her forget herself.
Kisten had given her the bracelet. She suddenly gets an image of him clasping it around her wrist the night before she went to California. ″To remember,″ he had said. What else had he said? She tries to think, her fingers running over the chain as she struggles to cling to the memory. ″You know you're more than what he wants you to be. You can do so much more,″ he had said. And she had promised not to forget it, to remember that she wasn't a toy to be played with.
But she had forgotten after all, and suddenly guilt begins pouring into her like acid, filling her chest until she is gagging again.
She has a sister. She remembers coming home to help her sister, to protect her from Piscary, and she remembers something else, too, being fifteen and scared and in pain and wanting to keep her sister from ever having to go through that. And she knows, then, that all the horrible things are true because Piscary had hurt her first, hurt her the most, and that wasn't love. She isn't sure she even knows what love is, but it can't be this.
Kisten. Kisten would remember who she was, because they had grown up together and knew each other better than anyone. Maybe he would help her, even if he hated her. She didn't have anyone else to go to, so she would go to him.
Ivy stands up carefully and smooths her hair down, straightening her skirt even though her hands are still covered with blood and her fingers are trembling, and she leaves the room.
-
Ivy washed the last plate from dinner and set it neatly in the dish rack to dry, the sounds of jazz music carrying into the kitchen from the living room calming her.
It had been a week since she'd shown up on Kisten's kitchen floor sobbing and out of her mind, and she was still trying to get better. She wanted to go back to her old self, when she felt fear and pain and anger, because that was part of being alive and she couldn't deny that anymore.
She picked up a dish towel and set to work drying the dishes as she thought things over. She remembered the days blurring together, the world turned upside down, and she didn't want that anymore.
Piscary wasn't going to drag her down into that world again, ever. She had made that choice and she was going to stand by it. Kisten had agreed to help her, had let her stay with him, but he had warned her, gently, ″I can help you as much as I can, love, but you're going to have to fight. You're going to have to fight to find yourself again, and I'll be there for you, but it's your battle.″
It was. She knew that. She set the plates in the cabinet with a soft clink and turned to lean against the counter, closing her eyes. She was going to fight like hell, and she would come out on top. She wouldn't be the person Piscary wanted her to be, she was going to be the person she knew could be, the person she'd always wanted to be, and nothing- nothing- was going to stand in her way of that.