After AnimeCon: Darkest Night

    Although she’d decided on an impromptu plan of action for them just so that they weren’t all dawdling in despair by the graveside all night, it took several tense minutes for Kelly’s plan to get any traction. Rebecca wanted to heft Brian up piggyback and carry him back towards the camp because, she was the only one remotely capable of attempting it, but an unresponsive Stephanie had her arms locked tightly around Brian and was refusing to let go.

    Brian roused not long after, coming to his senses with everyone fussing over him in the dark.

    “Are you okay?!” Emily demanded. “Brian? Answer me.”

    “No,” Brian said. “Of course I’m not okay. Who would be okay with this?”

    His voice felt smaller somehow, defeated and angry, and although it wasn’t like he had snapped at Emily, his tone of voice cast a pall of despondence over the gathered girls all the same. Kelly and Rebecca helped him—and by extension Stephanie as well—up to their feet, but Brian seemed stiff and unsteady. No one seemed inclined to say anything more after that, and so Kelly simply began leading them back to the distant campfire light they could see through the trees.

    What had seemed like a brief stretch of woods in the panicked run over here in twilight turned into quite a hike in the darkness. Kelly tripped several times and nearly fell, swearing colorfully with each misstep, and Brian holding her hand was moving forward with slow steps as Stephanie shuffled along with him, both arms still hugging him tight. Rebecca kept pace with them without apparent problems, and when Kelly looked back over her shoulder at the grave site, all she could see was Emily’s angry shadow silhouetted by the flashlight that was directed down the hole in front of her.

    When they arrived back at campfire, the actual flames had petered out in their absence, and only the orange glow of coals beneath smoldering wood was illuminating the cabin clearing. The somber Brian was directed towards one of the seats around the fire, and then Kelly made sure Stephanie was situated to sit in his lap. She could see now that Steph’s cheeks were wet with tears, but wasn’t able to see much of the girl’s expression—she was hiding her face up against Brian.

    “I can set up the tents,” Rebecca offered in a low voice. “I know how—I can get them both up quick, even in the dark.”

    The young woman was crouched at the fireside, coaxing it back to life with a stick. Embers danced up into the air as Rebecca prodded the largest remnant of log, breaking away cracked chunks of char and turning unburned surfaces deeper into the coals until tongues of fire reappeared. Kelly watched firelight reflect in Brian’s eyes as he stared into it without seeming to really see it. His brow was furrowed and his jaw was set as though he was gritting his teeth, but his expression mostly seemed grim and at a loss to her.

    “I’ll help,” Kelly decided. “Brian—stay with Stephanie. Please.”

    “I can carry stuff up the hill,” Brian said, finally meeting her eyes.

    “I’d rather you hold onto Stephanie,” Kelly said. “Please.”

    “Okay.”

    With the atmosphere bleak and heavy, Kelly then followed Rebecca back down the tire rut path towards their vehicles. She wasn’t sure how to feel right now; she felt so many things but held each of those feelings at arms length and simply disassociated from dealing with any of it right now. There was anger and also relief, she was glad this was resolved, even as seeing Brian upset and Stephanie overwhelmed and unable to function was a kick to the gut that made her feel sick.

    In regards to whatever mechanics of magic had occurred, Kelly wasn’t really sure what had happened. Her ‘senses’ weren’t working very well, because she’d wicked away her personal well of magic showing off and summoning that speck of light on her fingertip earlier to prove that Rebecca was currently un-influenced by the charm—or at least had no magic in her right now. As a result, Kelly had been enjoying a stabbing migraine throughout all of this, and if they didn’t wind up force-feeding the whole jar of magic cum to Christine tonight, she would be asking for a sip or two.

    Brian didn’t seem particularly in the mood for kissing right now, and from the look of things he might not have much magic oomph to spare right now.

    “Are you okay?” Rebecca asked as they reached the bottom of the incline and stopped at the parked vehicles. “Kelly?”

    “Headache,” Kelly said.

    “Your head? Oh, I do have aspirins!” Rebecca said. “I keep a bottle right in the front, in the center console.”

    “No,” Kelly let out a bitter laugh. “It’s the kind of headache medicine can’t fix. Found that out the hard way. It’s a magic thing.”

    “Okay,” Rebecca seemed to simply accept that.

    “Hey, uh,” Kelly stopped the girl before she could unlock a car door. “Rebecca? Thank you.”

    “Oh, don’t mention it,” Rebecca brushed her off. “If you do need—”

    “No, stop,” Kelly shook her head. “I mean, you’ve done a lot for us. Without getting much of anything in return—you’re not even properly kissed in yet, and I definitely think you should be. Watching after Chloe all this time, staying out here for a whole fucking month… that’s a lot. Keeping her out here as a prisoner, taking care of her all this time, digging a fucking grave. In case of the worst. And, not even knowing when Brian would wake up or when we’d be back out here to, uh, to resolve everything. It’s a big fucking deal, and. Well. We appreciate it. A lot.”

    “You’re my friends,” Rebecca said with a shrug, sounding pleased but also embarrassed.

    “No,” Kelly said with finality. “We are not friends. Okay? The um, the ‘friends’ I used to have, outside of maybe Chelsea, I wouldn’t trust them enough to let them borrow my fucking hand lotion. For you to do all of this for us, we are not just friends. I don’t know what we are, but we’re a hell of a lot more than friends, and I promise that we’ll figure out exactly what as soon as we can. Okay?”

    “Thank you,” Rebecca let out a sigh. “I was honestly, um, I was honest not sure you even liked me very much!”

    “I didn’t,” Kelly admitted as Rebecca unlocked her car and then hit the button to pop open the rear hatch.

    Together they went around to the back, where Rebecca started tugging out the folding wooden frame of a viking tent, apparently complete with horse-shaped carved figureheads. The ceiling lights of Rebecca’s Suvaru revealed a smorgasbord of camping equipment and historical LARP stuff to Kelly’s gaze. Padded swords and shields were piled up overtop coolers, blankets, and dropcloths, with leather belts and buckles and shopping bags with bread and bananas and cans of soup.

    “You’re a weirdo and a goodie-two-shoes; I just wanted to belittle and look down on you,” Kelly said. “The more you stuck with Emily and Brian and didn’t flake out, the more I started to just resent you—and that doesn’t even really make sense, I know. It’s just, like—where the fuck was a friend like you back when I needed one?”

    “Hah,” Rebecca let out a good natured laugh at that. “That, I do get! ‘Where have you been? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! And what good is it that you come to me now? Where were you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am THIS?!’ It’s funny, thinking about it that way—I never thought I would be someone else’s unicorn.”

    “Unicorn?” Kelly asked with a frown. “What’s that from?”

    “We’ll have to have a movie night sometime with everyone, so we can show you!” Rebecca said. “Catch you up on the classics. Here, take this. It’s our ground tarp. Mine is a two-person tent, but you should be able to fit three in there, if you’re cozy. Four might be a squeeze, though!”

    With a lunging motion Rebecca ducked deep inside the rear of the hatchback and pulled out a bundle of heavy canvas to pile in Kelly’s arms, and then atop it she placed a large leather pouch that had a distinct jangle of metal upon metal from within it—presumably tent stakes or fixtures. Then, Rebecca started to move aside the grocery bags so that she could pull out another large bundle, this one clearly the tent cloth for her viking thing. The wooden frame itself needed eased out from beneath everything else back there, and Rebecca took a moment to carefully do so before taking it the whole way out and propping it up against the side of her car.

    “So you do realize that you’re a unicorn friend,” Kelly remarked. “Like, a real super loyal friend. That’s so rare these days that ‘unicorn’ might not even cut it.”

    “What about you?” Rebecca countered. “Aren’t you a unicorn, too? How rare is it for someone like you to stick with Brian and them through everything like you have?”

    “It’s not like I even had a choice,” Kelly chuckled. “Stephanie got her grubby little fingers on my heart, and then she was just so sure that I needed to trust Brian with it. And, when I did… yeah. What the fuck am I supposed to do, take all of that back? I’m the last person who I’d trust with my heart, or whatever’s left of it. They need to hold onto it, it really does belong to them. It’s like—it’s like, Steph and Brian and yeah, even Emily went… rooting around through my soul and found a bunch of good bits I didn’t even realize were still there. If I left them, nothing decent or worthwhile part of me would leave with me. Or even be left at that point, I don’t know. Nothing about myself I can stand living with, at least. The thought of not having them in my life anymore… terrifies me. I need them.”

    “Hmm, so you’re held captive by the magic of the charm, I see,” Rebecca surprised Kelly with a teasing tone.

    “I… guess so,” Kelly scowled. “But, it’s not even like that. It’s a lifeline that got thrown my way, and I’m just trying to hang onto it no matter what. A little worried that I’ll just wind up pulling everyone down with me, since yeah, I always do.”

    “You’re fine, you’re fine,” Rebecca assured her. “I was joking.”

    “I know. Just…” Kelly groaned. “You’ll see what I mean when you kiss into the group. Maybe. Maybe not? You don’t seem like the rest of us, you seem pretty uh, like you’ve got your shit together. While like the rest of us are incomplete without each other, we each had our issues and hangups and problems.”

    “We all have our part to play, and we all need each other,” Rebecca said. “You’re… I was going to uh, to try to talk to everyone individually, but you’re definitely okay with me joining the group? Being with Brian? Sharing into all of this?”

    “I guess I always just figured you would be in the first place,” Kelly said. “Like I said—none of this bullshit with Chloe would have worked out, if not for you taking care of everything. Kinda just took that for granted. Are you into Brian? And, are you bisexual at all? Because… yeah.”

    “Oh, Gods yes,” Rebecca laughed. “I didn’t want to say anything inappropriate, since everyone’s mood seems so down. I was a bit back and forth over the whole Brian thing over the past month, you know? Thinking about how I feel about him a lot, and just not really completely sure. Because I kept thinking—Brian really isn’t my type, is he?”

    “So—?” Kelly gave her an unsure look.

    “But then, I saw him punch Chloe, right in the kisser! Bam!” Rebecca tossed out a fist for emphasis. “And, watching him wrestle her up against the wall and just pin her, mmMmmhh. Turned me on so much. The best part, too? That he’s so conflicted about it! He didn’t want to hurt her, even when he had to! I mean Kelly, she bit him! Knowing that blood could possibly put her back on that very bad path and all vampire, again. She did it on purpose, too, she was trying to maybe kill him! I want to comfort him and smother him with affection and assurances, and then at the same time—yeah I want him to wrestle me up against something and uhhhh. Stuff. Yeah! I guess I just saw that he really does have it in him, he’s just maybe not to terms with it exactly yet, and that evokes all sorts of weird compulsions in me? Like, my mothering side and my primal side, both at once? Does that make any sense?! I guess in the end it turns out Brian just does have it in him after all, and now I really really want it in me.”

    There was a moment of stunned silence as Rebecca shouldered the viking tent frame and the two started back up the path towards the fire again.

    “Uhhh, yeah,” Kelly finally said. “We’re all definitely not gonna be just friends.”

* * *

    “Hey? Hey,” Brian gave Stephanie a squeeze. “Steph? S’gonna be alright. Okay?”

    You shouldn’t be comforting me!! Stephanie wanted to wail. We should have listened to Emily—we should have taken care of Chloe before you woke up from the healing trance. This SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN YOUR PROBLEM, shouldn’t have been your responsibility, this shouldn’t have all been on your conscience! Doing it this way—doing it like this—it was cruel to you, Brian. I hate that we did things this way. I hate it I hate it I hate it WHY DIDN’T WE LISTEN TO EMILY?!

    Everything felt like it was flipped upside down, and right now she didn’t understand at all why her past self had been so lenient and forgiving and wanted to suffer through some attempt at moral high ground. Stephanie hated how her naivete had hurt Brian here, she hated it hated it hated it! Any attempt at offering charity or mercy to Chloe was a mistake, it was cruel to everyone who suffered because of her words and deeds, and she had been blind to how her stupid ‘good intentions’ had simply been a complete misstep from the very start.

    “...She bit you,” Stephanie murmured hatefully against Brian’s chest.

    “What?” Brian shifted the knee she was perched on and gently tried to pull her away from himself enough that he could see her face. “Steph?”

     “She bit you,” Stephanie repeated, looking away from him.

    She was too ashamed to meet his eyes right now. Brian was the one that was really hurting, she could feel his pain radiating off of him in agonizing waves. He felt diminished by what he had just done to Chloe, he felt like he had crossed a line that was never meant to be touched upon and the simple act of kissing Chloe against her will here rendered him into irredeemable trash. The self-loathing he was experiencing right now was totally abhorrent to Stephanie because she loved him more than anything, and the only mental compromise she could accept to keep from going completely insane was to apply his feelings instead to herself.

    “Ah, yeah,” Brian let out a dry laugh. “It’s okay—just drew blood a tiny bit, not gonna kill me or anything. I’m sure we can clean it up fine. Rebecca probably has something we borrow to wrap it up in.”

    It’s NOT okay, Stephanie’s throat constricted but she managed to stifle the sob from coming out—instead she simply shook her head at him in firm denial. IT’S NOT OKAY. Okay?!

    There was too much tied into what Chloe had done for her to put into words right now. Chloe biting him couldn’t be treated as if she was a wayward toddler who didn’t know better, and they shouldn’t be acting as if it was simply an instance of domestic violence or assault, either. It was a total rejection of principles—Chloe saw before her the gateway to a life of magic codified into a path of love and a path of blood, and she directly rejected peace to choose blood. She would rather be a blood-sucking parasite, a killer, someone who stole life from others to survive, then live a life defined by people she loved.

    It was proof in Stephanie’s eyes that Chloe had never been capable of love.

    I don’t know anymore, Stephanie squeezed her eyes shut again and rocked forward to press her face against Brian’s shirt which was already wet with her tears. I-I can’t even think right now.

    Brian’s mood, his feelings, had always subconsciously been a stable foundation for Stephanie, and with them dropping out from under her and instead forming a terrible chasm of self-doubt and disgust it felt like the end of the world. Not too far away, Emily was boiling with rage that had no outlet, and Stephanie suspected the seething constant why didn’t we just fucking listen feeling that continued to throb out in pulses was emanating from her. From Kelly Stephanie could barely feel anything at all, and that terrified her, because she didn’t have any idea what that sort of detachment might mean, and the loss of her Kelly guiding stars above along with Brian the ground beneath her feet made it seem as though everything was over.

    “Hey. It’s okay, everything’s gonna be okay,” Brian’s voice was a low rumbling murmur, and his hand rubbed up and down her back. “Was just a normal bite, no magic or anything. Promise I won’t transform into Chloe every full moon or anything.”

    The joke interrupted Stephanie’s quiet sobs with a jerky exhalation that might have been a laugh, and she shook her head again and clung onto Brian even harder. On a personal level, she was not comfortable at all with him trying to console her when she should be consoling him—but also at the same time when he did so the yawing open wound in the ground didn’t feel quite so deep.

    It is helping him, Stephanie realized, fighting to blink away her tears. Just, just being able to comfort me helps him a lot. I-it maybe externalizes the issue, for him. A bit. He does know I’m feeling what he feels, but Brian just fundamentally can’t just tell himself that what happened, what he did was something he can be okay with. But, if it’s me—if it’s me, he can, kind of. Because he can just focus on wanting me to feel better.

    “Brian?” Stephanie’s voice was a hoarse croak. “Brian, you did the right thing. You did the right thing. O-okay?”

    “Did I?” Brian asked, and his voice had a distant, far away quality to it that Stephanie despised.

    “Yes!” Stephanie rocked back in his lap so that they were at arm’s length from each other and could properly address one another. “Yes, you did the right thing. Chloe chose this. This, th-this outcome, this happening the way it did—this was the choice she made. Okay?!”

    “Steph, I…” Brian closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m pretty sure I just took away her free will. Which means, for the rest of you, for us all, it means—”

    “No!” Stephanie shook her head in adamant refusal. “You didn’t. You didn’t. You didn’t. Okay? You didn’t. That’s not what happened. Sh-she bit you. She tried to steal your power, she chose blood. B-but, you see, that wasn’t her choice to make, because, because it is your power. Comes from you, from us.”

    “So if it wasn’t her choice to make, then doesn’t that mean—”

    “No, no, stop,” Stephanie wanted to burst into tears all over again. It was so frustrating that she wasn’t able to organize her thoughts into clear arguments the way Kelly seemed to do naturally.

    “I mean, what I mean is—her biting you, her trying to take that from you, she, sh-she didn’t get to choose the path she took, because that, that isn’t something she can take from you. A-and, um, it’s her trying to steal that that chose her consequences, because. Because at that point you can’t let her keep the freedom to try to take from others. T-to hurt people. I-it’s, what you had to do, it wasn’t like you mind control her or, or take her free will. You’re not a bad person! She is. She, she forfeited her freedom to keep hurting people right here with her choice. It’s like prison! Like prisons—people are in prison because they forfeited their, um, their certain rights. Right?”

    “I guess,” Brian blew out a long breath and gave her a squeeze. “Just, also no matter what… I don’t know. I can’t justify it. I mean, I get what you’re saying, and down there in the moment it really was like I didn’t have a choice doing it. Wasn’t too rich on options. But then also, trying to rationalize it will to some extent just always feel like I’m trying to make excuses for myself? I guess. Fuck, Steph, I’m real sorry about this. I know you’re uh, you’re kind of just forced into what I’m feeling right now, and I hate that.”

    “No,” Stephanie pressed her face against his chest again so that he wouldn’t see her face collapse into more tears. “No. No. No. I—I love you. I want to feel this. I, I hate it, but I don’t want to, to just not know. Not know what you’re going through, not be a part of it. Brian I love you.”

    “I love you too, Steph,” Brian ran fingers through her hair.

    Armed with more of a sense of purpose now, Stephanie’s inner flame felt less like a hateful fire that harmed everything it touched and more like a focused, purifying fire. More than anything she wanted to push all of her burning heat down into Brian and scorch away all of the horrible feelings somehow—but she didn’t know how to do that. So, she simply burned as bright as she could, because maybe she could at least be a light for him when his earthy substrate was collapsing down into caverns of grotesque darkness.

    He did feel a little better, and being able to feel that out was an enormous relief to her.

    I’m not sure this, this wound here will ever fully heal, Stephanie sniffled. But it WILL get better, I’ll make sure it gets better. With some time, and some love, and maybe once Kelly can, can I guess use how much better she is at explaining what I mean, it won’t be like there’s this giant ABYSS in my Brian’s heart, his magical presence. It’ll maybe just be like—like—

    Stephanie’s eyes snapped open, and she frowned against Brian’s shirt.

    Like a single grave.

    * * *

    “Bet you’re pretty fucking pleased with yourself?” Emily kicked another bit of dead leaves and dirt into the open grave so that they showered down upon the cowering Christine. “Yeah. You must be.”

    Emily wasn’t happy. Emily was discovering new depths of unhappiness that she wished she could have just remained ignorant of forever. She could accept sharing Brian with Stephanie and Kelly, they were fine. Maybe even Rebecca too, Emily didn’t really have any big problems with that. Emily had huge problems sharing her boyfriend with Chloe, and her inclusion already felt like it was immediately souring everything.

    “Fucking answer me,” Emily kicked more crap into the hole. 

    “You should kill me,” Christine pleaded. “So you can be sure. So that you all aren’t risking it. I should stay down here.”

    “Shut the fuck up,” Emily scowled. “I’m not buying it. I’m never going to fucking trust what you say, ever, and if you’re trying to evoke pity or sympathy from someone, you’re talking to the wrong fucking person.”

    Her own magic power was surging and roiling, but try as she might Emily was not able to channel it into a slicing beam of water pressure, or flash-flood the excavation here and drown Chloe, or take control of the water content of the girl’s body to blood-bend her into a grisly mangle. Not for lack of trying. With narrowed eyes and a grip on the borrowed phone so tight that her hand ached Emily was pushing at her power, but she just couldn’t get it to do anything.

    So fucking frustrating, Emily clenched her teeth. And like—what are we even supposed to DO with her? I say, the party we have here is full. Brian’s got a great line-up of Monsters, and any he catches into the harem after say, Rebecca, should just get automagically transferred to his Monster Battlers PC. To wait there trapped in silence forever. Rebecca’s cool though, she’s in.

    “You’re not ever having sex with him,” Emily spat. “He’s never going to love you or make love to you. Probably you have STDs anyways—fuck, we should have had you tested before he kissed you. Were you cheating on Brian? Seems like a total Chloe thing you would’ve done. Yeah, I bet you were.”

    “No,” Christine said in a small voice.

    “Shut the fuck up, nobody asked you,” Emily snarled. “Yeah, right. Like I’d believe anything you’d say. Just you wait. I’m gonna ask around. Investigate. It would’ve been guys around Seneca—somebody’ll know something.”

    “I was… she was just using Ryan to try to make Brian jealous,” Christine reported. “She wanted to hurt him, needed to emasculate him. Cuckold him.”

    “I fucking knew it!” Emily hissed, and for a moment the light of the phone turned this way and that as Emily searched the terrain around her for a handy-sized rock or something she could smash this traitor’s skull in with.

    “But, I never cheated,” Christine continued. “Didn’t kiss, didn’t touch. I just, she just—it was all leading guys on. Trying to use them. Ryan was easy to manipulate. Tried to turn Will against Brian too, but I-I think Michael realized and they must have talked. That all clamped down and shut me out.”

    “Fucking Will,” Emily raged. “Better fucking be putting bros before hoes. So, what was even the point of all of it?! Huh? Why, fucking why, why go through all of the stupid bullshit you pulled, what the actual fuck did Brian ever do to you?”

    “I…I don’t know,” Christine cried in a pleading voice. “Please, please just—kill me. I don’t want to be her again.”

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