shiromirai | This turned out longer than I thought

Fandom: Original - Hinta'verse
Characters/Pairing: Cel/ Nik & Payne / Hugues
Prompt: (Table)
Rating: PG - PG -13
Notes: Any comments/ critiques/ etc. would be welcome. All mistakes are mine.
Summary: Redemption never happens twice.

#11 – Covenant

It was never spoken between them, at least not in words though Cel's glare was louder than any bull-horn and Nik's frown tolled heavier than the Church's iron-cast bells. Hugues, bleeding heart liberal that he is, would probably have set out on knee-caps-breaking rampages if such an occurrence ever happened. Payne, the most volatile of the four, had her own reasons, her own experiences and though it'll probably take unspeakable tortures for her to admit it, had the most protective instincts among the four.

It was folly perhaps, to think they can protect the Horde from the Slums, from the world, from leaving the innocence of childhood. But for some reason that none of them would acknowledge, no matter how late Cel stumbled in at night, blood dripping (not her own) - no matter how strong Nik brought with him the stench of rotting flesh and sour drugs, Hugues his clean, perfectly manicure hands clutching another report (his legacy of bitterness) and Payne her new tattoo (her new kill) - no matter that they had to break into their own bedroom balcony (their neighbors were long used to such behavior and have stopped calling the cops years ago) - no matter what, the next morning, they sat down to breakfast, clean, perfumed in some cases, and smiled with the children.

They never spoke of what they each had to do to keep this slice of heaven. And they never had to. The sinner never gets redemption twice.

#14 - Desecrate

When Hugues tentatively kissed Payne for the first time, she began to cry.

Not because she was so disgustingly happy that it felt so right, but because it felt so damn wrong. She shouldn’t have felt as though she was contaminating him by just by touch alone, shouldn’t feel as though her impurity was seeping from her skin to his.

It wasn't as though any of them were by any means clean let alone pure, but Hugues was the closest they got. When he decided that he loved her, he became like them, like her, and she will never forgive herself for that.

#23 - Apocalypses

It had started with firestorms and hail all at the same time. That’s when they realized something was wrong, but no one realized exactly how wrong until the dawn of That Day.

First it was the water, which turned to blood the moment it was touched. The people in the slums simply shrugged it off and resumed not bathing like they have always done. Cel, being the neat fanatic that she was, threw a small fit which almost destroyed half the house before she realized that throwing in salt ‘purified’ the water enough for her to have a proper soak.

Then there were the frogs. They came out of nowhere and filled up the lower half of the city, their croaks echoing in the streets. Within the day, there were only bones left. In the slums, there never was enough to eat.

A few hours later, four men on horseback were sighted along the city’s edge. After a few minutes, the police received a report on a mugging on Hell Street (there was a reason for the name) and before Nik could check it out, one of the horses was well on its way to the nearest black market. The red one had, according to what news he managed to gather from his online sources, looked like fine horseflesh- a fiery and proud stallion, which would bring a good price.

The rest were turned into glue since one of them was surprisingly bony, one was sick as a dog and the last one just didn’t look right. Too white, almost shroud-like one could say.

Cel and Nik bundled up the children – it was a surprisingly cold day for summer – and sent them out like usual. The house was unusually quiet with the Horde gone; Hugues had received reports on the sudden demise of several very very important financial investments and consequently disappeared to his office. Payne…did what Payne did everyday. Cel and Nik comforted themselves with the fact that no major newspaper had reported any huge leaps in body count down at the morgue. Therefore, whatever she’s doing can’t be all that bad.

Someone – probably Cel since Nik didn’t believe in receiving news unless it was delivered a full 48 hours ahead – switched on the telly. According to Channel 8, there was a sudden wave of infections and deaths of first-born sons this morning, but since the majority were in the slums everyone expected the report numbers to be skewed. (Up on The Hill, most of the first-borns were already dead - either assassinated or met mysterious ends at the hands of less-than-caring siblings who wanted to be the heir just a little too much.)

The numbers, for once, were not skewed. They should have known then – that was more authentic then any other proof what was happening. But it was only until people started disappearing by massive numbers that they, along the rest of humanity, bought a clue.

It seemed that there really was Someone up there after all,

And when all the kids suddenly popped out of existence in the backyard, Cel and Nik looked calmly at each other and set down their coffee and newspaper respectively. He slipped a hand into hers and she brushed a knuckle down his cheek.

They never let go.

#24 - God

Hugues was raised a Catholic – you could tell at a glance; he felt guilt for every act of humanity ever done, was being done and would be done. Of course, he also tended to take matters into his own hands and whatever troubled Hugues usually didn’t trouble him for long. One way or another.

“I thought Catholics were suppose to be loving, self-sacrificing, kind people,” Cel had commented one day as Hugues cleaned his weapons in the kitchen. It had almost seemed homely for a second, if that was there wasn’t such a huge amount of blood being studiously wiped off.

Nik had stared at her like she was crazy and began mumbling something about crusades as he brewed the first pot of coffee of the day. Hugues had simply smiled at her, and commented, “Modern thinking actually tends to like guns, if in the right hands. It lends weight to moral arguments.”

Cel had never really understood this whole faith thing – she was raised to be a survivor. When certain people dressed in white turned up at her door with crosses and hammers and nails and possible life-threatening weaponry, she was Christian to the core. When certain people dressed in midnight blue showed up with graveyard dirt and voodoo dolls and a goat to sacrifice, she had been a Wiccan all her life. (After all, goats tasted much better than the rats and stray cats that were part of her usual diet.)

She did what she had to in order to get by and she figured if the Guy upstairs decided to take it personally, there wasn’t much she could do about it anyway.

That’s what she had figured.

HUGUES LARUE

There had to be someone there – well actually there was quite a huge amount of people in front and behind her, forming a perfectly straight line– but what she meant was that the voice had to come from somewhere. But so far, she hasn’t been able to see him (or maybe it was a her or a her pretending to be a he but she was pretty sure one wasn’t suppose to think of celestial beings in correlation with transvestites).

But whatever the case, Hugues cast her a quick grin and squeezed her hand for comfort that she hadn't realized that she needed until now.

"You'll see me in a jiffy." He told her easily, extorting a promise from her that if she saw Payne she would give the difficult girl a hug from him.

And then Hugues had stepped away and disappeared as though he had never been there in the first place. And Cel suddenly wondered what exactly would happen if she tried to shove through the crowd with her extraordinary strength.

That was when she realized that several feet away, there was a second line. Except this one wasn't comprised of souls waiting for Heaven or Hell, it was a line of angels, beautiful in their serenity and utterly terrifying with the flaming swords held comfortably in their hands.

Superhuman strength or not, she was relatively sure that she could still burn.

So she waited her turn patiently - for an hour or a minute, she still wasn't sure. Nevertheless, her name was called and it gave her a strang chill of apprehension to step forward as an angel stepped out of the other line and took her hand in his. Hers. Its. She felt the urge to say something, but then it smiled at her and she blinked.

And found herself in a small office, standing across from someone whose features she couldn't quite describe. It was rather hard to keep focused on er...Him. Because he seemed to be every single man, woman, and child at once. Just as she could swear that he was white, another part of her mind would call him African, another section screaming that he was 100% Asian.

WELL?

"Well?" Cel blinked and frowned at him, caught off guard that the Being or whatever it was that He could be rightfully called had spoken. But all he did was smile and nod.

WELL?

"Well what?" And then all the nervousness that Cel hadn’t allowed herself to feel (because if she knew if she showed the slightest evidence of being nervous, Nik would have tried to be manly and protective - not that he hadn’t tried already - but then she would have to sedate him for his own good and that just wouldn't end well) poured out and she began to ramble.

She wasn’t sure what she said, but it was pretty much everything and everything that went with that, and she ranted like she had never do so before – of how she had killed people and kissed people and why hadn't He been there for any of that and where were her kids that she so adored and just why was she telling him about all this anyway? She told him about Payne and Hugues and that night with Nik that she'd never told anyone else and that damnable being that He was, He just listened. But for some probably-ridiculous emotional reason, it felt like a load off her chest, and she could breath a lot easier now that finally, finally, someone knows. And so she kept rambling until she had repeated herself at least twice, and then-

I KNOW.

Well. That had been a waste of breath. Of course He knew. He was God (probably, not that she believed in him, but overwhelming evidence as it is…). He was supposed to know. Cel sunk down into a chair that just magically seemed to appear and covered her face. "Well that's just great, isn't it?"

NO. IT ISN'T.

"That was sarcasm."

I KNOW.

"...well damn."

HELL WILL NOT BE KIND TO YOU.

Cel looked up. "Then that's that? You're just going to send me and Hugues and Payne and Nik to Hell? That’s it? Nothing about anything remotely good that we've ever done? Ever?"

YOU MISUNDERSTAND.

"Then what?"

HUGUES WILL NOT BE ACCOMPANYING YOU. PAYNE HAS YET TO BE MEASURED, LIKWISE FOR YOURSELF AND NIK.

"...I'm confused."

MOST PEOPLE ARE WHEN I SPEAK TO THEM.

"Then you should be less confusing."

OR YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND BETTER.

Ouch. Ouch, touché God, touché.

WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU SHOULD GO.

"Heaven."

REALLY?

Was it possible for God to sound sarcastic? Because he was doing a good job of that right now.

"No. I'm headed towards Hell."

WHY?

"Haven't you been listening?

I HEAR EVERYTHING.

“Yes, yes I got that.”

SO, NOW THAT I HAVE HEARD EVERYTHING. AGAIN. WHY DID YOU DO ALL THAT?

“Why?” Cel would have laughed, if even she herself thought laughing at God might be a tad too presumptuous. And of course, the fact that he just destroyed the world might have been a factor.

“Don’t you already know? No, no, rhetorical question, don’t answer that. You want to know why? You want to know why?” For some reason, she wasn’t as…intimidated as she was before. This was the guy that was the cause for everything, the answer to every why – this is The Man. The one supposedly with all the answers. And how dare he just sit there and view her life, as if…as if it was not personal. As if she was not personal to him.

“Why? Because the world was a shitty place when it still existed and if I didn’t do all that, if I didn’t protect them, those kids wouldn’t have stood a chance. They would not have the life they have now. Before I met Nik, I had no excuses but that my life is more important to me than anything else and I did what I had to to survive. I survived!”

The sound of that last word echoed in the room, as if they were in a cavernous hall rather than a small office. The loudness of it shocked her, brought her back from the brink of fury. Cel closed her eyes and took some deep breaths to steady herself.

“Afer Nik…after Nik, it was to keep him safe. Everything was to keep him, and the kids, and Hugues and Payne and…and everyone safe. Someone had to. You don’t know what it’s like in the Slums – no wait don’t say anything, you do, right I got that - but it wasn’t like you sent Jesus down to our place.”

There was a long pause, and Cel tried her best to stare Him in the eye. It was rather hard, especially since he kept on changing like that, and she wasn’t quite sure where his eyes were, but she figured it had to be in the general vicinity of he upper portion of his head.

I SHOULD NOT HAVE NEEDED TO SEND HIM DOWN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Cel deflated and looked away but she could feel those evershifting eyes boring into her skull, "Then what?" She demanded, the gravity of the situation weighing down on her once more. "What do you expect from us? We're not perfect. We did what we could. You didn't do anything." She could hear the faint whinge of a whine entering her voice, but she didn't care anymore, couldn't. "And even now. You're not doing anything. So just put me back with Nik and Payne and Hugues and the kids and we'll just get out of your way, forever."

HELL IS NOT THAT KIND. IN HELL, YOU'LL BE ALONE. YOU WILL NEVER SEE NIKOLAI, NIKOLAI WILL NEVER SEE YOU.

"That's cruel."

THAT'S HELL.

"Why won't you just let me go? I don't want to be here."

YOU AREN'T LEAVING UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND.

"Understand? Understand what?"

YOU DIDN'T DO IT JUST BECAUSE. ONE WORD. YOU DID IT ALL FOR ONE THING.

"No." Cel stared in disbelief. "We're not getting into some cheesy conversation here."

TOO LATE.

Cel stared and refused to speak. They stared silently at each other, unmoving, unblinking. For all she knew, lifetimes passed and finally, she accepted he just might wait there for eternity. He had the time. She still had that that hug from Hugues to give to Payne after all.

"Love, all right? Damn it, I did it for love. I love those brats. I love Nik, I love the kids, and if they'll let me, I love Payne and Hugues. That's why I did the things I did."

AND SO YOU DID IT FOR ME.

"No. Wait. What?"

ANYTHING DONE OUT OF LOVE, IS DONE FOR ME AND IN ME. BE SILENT CELOSIA, AND LISTEN. I AM LOVE AND EVERYTHING WITHIN IT. TO PROTECT, I WILL DO ANYTHING. I HAVE DROWNED A WORLD, DESTROYED CITIES TO PROTECT MY PEOPLE. AND THEN I DIED SO THAT EVERYONE MIGHT BE MINE TO LOVE, TO CHERISH. ALL THE LOVE THAT YOU HAVE EVER GOTTEN FROM NIK, FROM THE CHILDREN AND FROM YOUR FRIENDS HUGUES AND PAYNE, NONE OF IT COMPARES TO THE LOVE I HAVE GIVEN EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU.

Cel was silent. She understood what he was saying, wanted to be a part of it in some odd way. But she couldn't let herself. If she broke down like that, she wouldn't be Cel anymore. "I don't see how that applies to me."

YOU DON'T HAVE TO. ALL YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND IS THAT THERE IS A CHOICE.

"A choice?"

A CHOICE. I HAVE GIVEN EVERYONE A CHOICE. DO YOU CHOOSE THIS?

The room shifted and she saw Nik and Hugues and Payne and the children all around her. She reached forward, longing, and they disappeared into a brilliant light, returning her to the office. She turned on Him, swallowing hard and he laid a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. It was warm and gentle and she couldn't bring herself to recoil.

OR DO YOU CHOOSE ME?

She looked up into His changing eyes, looked into herself into a dream of Payne/Nik/and Hugues and closed her eyes.

She chose.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
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13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Sorry I'm late

I got lost on the path of life.

This turned out longer than I thought

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December 2009

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