RP:Out Of The Black
Part of the The Day I Tried To Live Arc
Summary: Khitti's memories return and Brand's lies unravel as the threat of doom and gloom connected to their child loom over their heads.
The Tranquility, Cenril Wharf
For several weeks, Khitti’d been dreaming. She’d been dreaming a lot of dark things lately--even moreso now that Kahran had gone and made himself known. It’d just become like clockwork; every morning around three, she’d wake up. Cold sweat and tears were the only consolation she had for there were no new memories, just glimpses and fog. Not even Brand’s presence, now that she’d moved into his room, helped at all. And then one morning, the fog had cleared. Khitti remembered everything.
Khitti was disoriented at first. She’d managed to make it to the washroom nearby to vomit up last night’s dinner--it was nothing new with this pregnancy, and Brand likely wouldn’t wake up from it now. It was probably better that way. For hours she was disoriented, felt like her mind was ripping in two. It was as if someone plucked the Khitti from this timeline and one from another, where she’d actually lived a decent life without the interference from necromancers, and smooshed the two together to form one being.
Whenever Brand finally awoke, Khitti wouldn’t be there beside him. There’d be no breakfast cooking, no fresh coffee to greet him or the rest of the crew. It would almost seem like Khitti was still dead if her clothing hadn’t still been clearly in their shared wardrobe. And, well, if she hadn’t been sitting there at the table in the darkness, staring daggers at the Catalian.
Brand awoke with a sense of dark foreboding. He’d dreamed angry skies had opened up above him, pouring a torrential rain of blood and melted silver. He’d been sticky with it as he tried to turn the Tranquility’s wheel, to turn her out of the storm and bring her under clearer skies, but his fingers had gotten glued to the handles and he’d been unable to pull them free. He could go nowhere, and he could do nothing. He was alone on the topdeck, and yet all this time he felt eyes watching him, watching and waiting to deliver some final judgment.
So when he stirred and lit a candle only to find Khitti staring so viciously from the corner, he just about jumped out of his skin. “Red,” he exclaimed the moment he recalled how to breathe, “the frak’re you doin’ lurkin’ the darkness like that? Are you okay? Is something wrong?” ...Why did he get the feeling that was a dangerous question to ask?
Khitti grinned. She grinned, and she laughed like she were insane, as if he’d said something hilarious. It was nothing at all pleasant sounding, but it soon ceased and her face returned to that stoney look. “It’s funny you should ask, little spider. It’s quite the web you’ve built. I’m actually impressed. But, I think I should be asking -you- the questions. Because there is something incredibly wrong. And I’m not okay… Peach.” She conjured up a shard of shadow-ice and sent it in his direction with a flick of her wrist, the shard just barely missing his head and hitting the wall behind him.
Khitti stood up from the chair and took a step or two towards him. The redhead paused momentarily, her eyes closing, a sort of mental strain obviously going on within her head, her features contorting with the pain that arose, and would continue to arise every so often until everything in her head was finished sorting itself. When it subsided, she took another step towards him, “Do you know what’s wrong, kiwi? Is it… that… you’re… a liar?” The shadows crawled and danced across the walls as she spoke. Or maybe they didn’t. They wouldn’t still be moving if Brand dared to look. Maybe this was still part of his dream? Maybe. It’s likely he’d prefer that right now, instead of dealing with the very angry woman in front of him.
Brand said nothing to interrupt her, even in her moment of silence. From the moment she’d said ‘peach,’ he’d been convinced he was still dreaming. Khitti didn’t know. Khitti knew barely anything. This was a dream, a bad dream. And when he was aware of a bad dream, he knew well enough how to escape it. He simply had to change the scenery, or do something absurd. So up he rose, out of the bed, brushing past the actually-quite-real Khitti and throwing open the bedroom door. Beyond were precisely the usual things: the hall and several doors, dimly lit due to the late hour. Brand looked up and down the hall, huffed, and closed it, thereafter wheeling around to face Khitti again. “Waffles,” he said decisively. “Blueberry waffles with bacon and pimento cheese.” He then scrunched his eyes closed and hoped that when he opened them again, he’d look upon a different scene.
Sorry, Brand. There was no blueberry waffles. No bacon. No cheese. Just an even more irate girlfriend. It’d surpassed the normal level of angry, where one would normally just set things on fire. Now, there were tears--tears that he himself had managed to make appear on several occasions.
Khitti just stared at him, her features shifting to something akin to sadness, but worse, and shook her head. “You’re not dreaming. And you’re not dead. But you’ve done something far worse than anything you’ve ever done before. You lied… and you drug Lionel and Meri down into the muck with you. Why?” Her bottom lip quivered a little, and that rage came back as she aimed to push him into the door, hands flying out to meet his chest,“Why?!” And then it subsided again, the pain in her head, and her heart, pushing past the anger again, making her cry harder. “Why…?”
Brand ’s mouth flapped noiselessly, and his brows knit together and apart again in some strange acrobatic dance. He was beginning to realize what has happening, albeit at a painfully slow clip. “Khitti,” he said eventually, “Khitti...? The real Khitti?” He was too flabbergasted to deal with the fact that she was crying just yet, nor had he yet given thought to her accusations even with his back up against the door.
“You frakking idiot,” is all she said before Khitti walked away and sank down onto the bed, her hands finding her face to wipe away her tears. “It’s always been me. It’s always been me… and not me. Or something. I don’t frakking know. It’s like there’s two of me. Two sets of memories trying to fit itself together.” What was the point in yelling at him anymore if he wasn’t going to say anything--he was clearly too busy opening and closing his mouth like a beached fish trying desperately to get back into the water. “If you didn’t think it -was- me, why did you even stay? Why did you bring me here? Why did you--”
Khitti shook her head and sighed. “This is not what you wanted. You didn’t want this life… or this chi--.” She couldn’t even say it, but she motioned to her stomach where their baby was busy growing, unconcerned with whatever its parents were talking about. “You didn’t want the ‘domestic whatevers’ and you didn’t want -me-. So why is seven hells am I here? On this ship? With you? You could’ve had the life you wanted and moved on. But instead you bring me here, and you lie to me, and I fall in love with you all over again.”
But, that last bit was a lie, and she cringed because of it. “No. Not again. It never went away. I thought of you as I burned… from my own fire and Arkhen’s Light.” Khitti covered her face entirely, trying to will herself away, her voice muffled, “I thought of you when I was in the darkness. You were my last bit of light in the world, but even you were gone too. And then you weren’t. You weren’t and I wanted so badly to remember you and you wouldn’t tell me...” She was crying again, her emotions likely made worse thanks to the aforementioned kid.
Brand was something close to crying himself, at the moment, as he fell onto the bed beside her. He couldn’t look at her but instead sat leaning forward, staring at his clasped hands. He was fighting the urge to hug her; it just didn’t seem like the right time, after all that yelling. “Well… frak, peach.” It felt good to say that again, after weeks of avoiding the name. “You were dead. And I had the thought to die with you, but --”
Brand , too, shook his head and sighed. “Several weeks you were gone. And then you show up outta the blue, and Onyx brings me to you, n’ you don’t remember a thing. And all I could think of was your letter. ‘This cure was a mistake,’ you said. You made so many deals with so many devils and you talked about how it hadn’t even been worth it in the end. That, plus for so much of the time I’d known you, you’d hated what you were.” Even now he avoided calling her a vampire, as if the mere mention of it might turn her back into one. “And I thought, frakkin’ idiot that I am, that maybe I could spare you all that heartache.” He paused, for the space of a single heartbeat. “What was it like, to die? Is there anything out there? Do you remember? Or were you never really dead?”
Khitti had been wanting to hug him since she first woke up, despite the anger and the sadness and whatever other various emotions this whole thing managed to stir up, but she still resisted, much like he was. “I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t the Shadow Plane. Arkhen’s Light… it purified me. I think I was human before I even died.” She paused for a moment, her mind going over all the things that happened since she was found, up until now. Only two things stuck out, and despite all the other questions she asked, it was the only two that mattered, “Did you mean what you said?” Her voice cracked, tears welling up in her eyes again, “Do you really love me? Do you really want to figure this out with me? Because I need to know right now. No more lies.”
“Woah, hold it.” Khitti had very important things she wanted to know, yes, but Brand was in the middle of a revelation of his own. “So you were dead, really dead. But you think you were human before the end, even? And then something… brought you back. And you’re obviously not undead, now, cuz…” His eyes went straight to her gut. “Frak. Are all these gods you’d been makin’ deals with the real deal, then? Cuz then you n’ I’ve got a very big problem.” Brand gave her stomach a solid two blinks. “Well. A very small problem right now, but it sure as frak isn’t gonna stay that way.”
Leave it to Brand to ruin the moment. Oh well. She -did- hear him say ‘I love you’ before and it probably won’t happen again. Best to not get her hopes up. “Don’t you think I know that?” Khitti let out another drawn out, heavy sigh as she stood up again before either of them could consider hugging the other. “And it wasn’t ‘something’ that brought me back. You and I both know exactly ‘who’ did it. If me being here right in front of you doesn’t prove to you that, yeah the gods are frakking real, then I don’t know what will. It wasn’t all dark magic from Facilier and Gevurah.” She paced a little, just as she used to when she was worried, concern plastered on her features, “Sure as hell wish I could drink right now.” After some time of thinking to herself, she stopped and pivoted towards Brand, frowning, “There’s options, but I don’t like them and you probably won’t either.”
Brand flashed Khitti a vexed sort of half-smile. “Probably won’t. I’ve had more time to think about this than you, remember.” And that’s partially your fault, Brand. “I haven’t come up with anything I’d be willin’ to put either of us through, but maybe you’ve got ideas I don’t.” In his own way, that was his answer to Khitti’s pressing questions. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Khitti squinted at the Catalian, her lips twisting into a disdainful-looking smirk, “Yeah, well, if you would’ve frakking told me anything, I wouldn’t even be like this.” Sigh. “I can leave. I can go live with Larewen, get her body problem sorted out, and she protect me there. Ghosts pouring out the Shadow Plane will be the least of their concerns considering what sort of place it is--especially if there’s some sort of conflict going on between the vampire houses. Or--” Khitti frowned and shook her head. She wasn’t gonna say it--didn’t -want- to say it--but knew she needed to, “--we do away with it.” She didn’t look at him, and instead turned away again, and went to sit in the chair, hiding the rest of the sadness that surfaced at the thought. “I’m sure there’s some sort of magic way that isn’t so physically painful.” Khitti had no clue about the emotional pain, however. “Either way, whatever way is decided, you shouldn’t have to deal with it. I made the choice because I couldn’t leave well enough alone. This isn’t on you.”
“No. And--” Brand rose and wrapped his hands around her hips. “Listen. I’ve had a lot of time to think since you died. About… priorities.” There was Onyx’s word creeping up in his mind again. “I want what will make you happy. That was all not tellin’ you your past was about. And I know you’ve wanted this kid for a long time.” With me. For some frakkin’ reason. “It’s not an option. We’ll find another way. You can still go to Larewen if you need to, but it’ll be to train up your skills. Maybe we’ll best this Vakmathras or Gevurah or Facilier at their own game somehow, yeah? Or, frak. We pit one against another. Maybe there’s a fix from Arkhen, or… someone.” Sorry, gods. Brand doesn’t know your names.
Khitti peered up at Brand, studying him for awhile, even after he finished speaking. “Who are you,” she said at length, green eyes still fixed on him, “and what’ve you done with my Brand?” A hand reached up, lightly grazing his cheek, “It’s not about just me, though. You have to be happy too, priorities be damned. If this kid comes, and you’re not happy, you don’t have to stay. I don’t want you to go, but I’m not gonna pin you down to something you don’t want. Yeah, I did want this… but I just didn’t think it was gonna happen so soon, if ever. I-I don’t even know if -I’m- ready.” Is anyone ever -really- ready when the whole children thing actually happens?
Khitti finally did hug him. She hugged him for long enough, and tightly enough, that she almost didn’t seem like she was gonna let him go. “Sorry.” The redhead took a step back, pulling out of whatever hold he might still have on her as she eyed him again, “I know you hate this mushy stuff, heh.”
"Yeah. No. It’s… fine?” Apparently, Brand was as capable of an awkward laugh as anyone else. “Got myself into this. Could’ve just not gone to Mrs. Mallard’s that one day, I guess, and the whole thing would’ve never happened.” That… was not really the starting point of this. “Or you could’ve not gotten your cure, or…” Brand shrugged, then seemed to realize how very like Dominic he was being. “I’mma lay back down now. I take it this means you’re not gonna murder me in my sleep like you were plottin’ when I woke up?”
Khitti might’ve noticed he was acting like Dominic too, but she’s nice enough now that she wasn’t going to say anything. That and she really didn’t want to talk about Dominic still anyway. Now that she remembered everything, it was still a bit of a touchy subject. “Oh no. I’m still going to kill you. Maybe just not yet, but soon.” She ever so carefully pushed him backwards towards the bed. “Just think, you’ll never know if I poisoned your whiskey or your cheesecake or not. Or maybe you’ll wake up with your body covered in ice and some of your organs are missing. Or maybe--” She let her murderous thoughts trail off for now; it was enough to keep him thinking twice about lying to her again, hopefully. Khitti grinned innocently at the blonde, giving him a shove just barely hard enough to get him back onto the bed. “But, I think you and I have something to take care of before you go back to sleep. See, you’re kind of a frakking awful, lying jerkface and you should probably try to make it up to me before I run off and have myself turned into a mermaid or something.” That smirk was still there, in hopes of letting him know that she didn’t -entirely- hate him for lying. Just a little.
Brand’s fear possessed an undertone of playfulness. “Poison is one of the worst ways to go, y’know.” She shoved and he obliged, falling back on the bed with an inviting smirk of his own. “But really, I’ll be expectin’ it now. Otherwise I think I’m gettin’ off too easy.” Dammit Brand, you and your double entendres need to stop.
Underneath the wardrobe where a stretch of shadow made its home, a stone flashed sanguine and evaporated.