fallingbackup | The time of our great undoing

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[fabulae_victoriana]

The time of our great undoing

When Kevin woke up alone for the first time in months, he knew almost immediately that Glen was gone. If he were still human, he'd have looked everywhere for the man until he'd at least tracked down one of his Chains, and gotten confirmation from them that he was no longer in the world with them. But as it was, he could smell that the very spot he was laying on was the spot where Glen's trail had gone cold. The duke had vanished from the bed they shared as the knight slept.

That was well over a week ago now and in his head, Kevin's been lost ever since. He's done the best he can to take over Glen's duties around the house, and the Jabberwock, for whatever reason, has let him do it. But no matter how he tells himself that he's only minding things until Glen returns, and that he will, the atmosphere in the house rankles against him. Young Gilbert doesn't accept him -- not like this. The little Lacie pities him for the depth of his sadness; Lottie scoffs at him for thinking he can even attempt to fill Glen's shoes, even if he knows perfectly well he's only providing a poor substitute. With every day that passes, he feels more and more withdrawn, and so, when he can, Kevin escapes. He can be found wandering the city, now and again, letting the noise of it drown out his own thoughts. Or he can be found patrolling the fences around the farmlands as usual, perhaps in the hopes that the familiar solitude of it will help keep him in his right mind. But the truth is that Kevin hasn't felt this out of place and unsettled in at least a year, since he'd come to live in Glen's house in the first place. He'd thought he was home at last, that he'd found a new family and even a little peace. Now, it seems that all of that peace was in Glen all along, and Kevin has no idea when or if the duke will return.

But the most upsetting part of it all is what he does know. If Glen has really gone home, he's no doubt living through the Tragedy. Right now, somewhere, Kevin's Oswald is staring at the man who's broken his heart, there are swords raised between them, and the duke is maybe just realizing that he's going to die on that blade because Jack Vessalius never did love him enough.

And Kevin can't do anything about it.

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"Oh, for the same reason one of the older ones did in the last place, I imagine," he says, equally flippant -- which, ironically, makes him sound precisely the same as the elder ones. "At least this one had the decency not to do it the very instant he realized I still have two eyeballs."

Kevin is a petulant child. In his defense, though, he'll never grow out of that. None of them ever really will. Not completely.

She glances down at him, her expression impassive. She's only half-focused on the Kevin in front of her, remembering that night when a little girl's voice had pulled her own out into the dark streets and nearly gotten him killed.

"Then you know what he lost, because he didn't learn when to give up, until it was too late. Because he let his anger rule him."

She looks away, contemplative.

"Suppose Big Brother had been standing nearby, while you were struggling, up there, even though you were properly bested. Suppose the chain had broken, and the blade had flown into him. What would've happened, if he were human, the way that little girl had been human."

The knight turns to look at her, finally, and there's just as much anger in his face as the other Kevin carries. On the one hand, of course she's right -- he's got a shitty temper, and he's not really any better at dealing with it than he ever has been. Part of the reason he'd kept struggling was simply that he'd been pitching a tantrum. But there's a difference between small bursts of anger, tiny fits that don't last, and the cold, calculating decision his elders made to launch themselves into a crazed, murderous fairy tale.

"Don't make up bullshit scenarios to try and teach me a lesson," he snaps. "I know exactly what he's lost, and I also know exactly what he's destroyed. You know, nobody told me what I am? I was with people who knew and didn't say a word about it for a year, and I found out what's supposed to happen to me when a Kevin who still had his Chain murdered Lady Shelly. Her Chain went for help, but I didn't get there in time to stop him. That whole time everyone was probably wondering if I was out on the streets murdering people every night, but they were too polite to mention it, I guess. Instead I got to see one of the people who loves me most lying dead at my own feet while the Break who also got there too late screamed at me about how stupid I am."

He laughs a little, bitterly, and turns away.

"It was your brother I ran to that night. That was when he took me in. And if he hadn't talked me through it and made me think I was something worth protecting, that maybe I could be someone who didn't follow in their footsteps, I'd have given up then. So yes, I struggled, because for all I knew I could get out of your damned chains. And don't you dare compare a fifteen second struggle to win a spar to murdering a hundred people one by one because a magical chunk of armor appeared out of the sky and said it would work."

And yet, despite the tenseness in him -- despite the fact that he clearly wants to get up and pace, just as the other one is -- he doesn't get up to leave.

The launch... probably not so cold and calculated as all that. A decision as stupid as that could not be made with cold calculation. That probably came later, once he realized how many lives it would have to take to get what he wanted, perhaps a near miss with the authorities. After all, this Kevin stands as perfect proof that he'd not been the monster he became, at the start. He'd grown into it.

Lacie listens to his tirade, expression still impassive, though his story about how he'd discovered what he was capable of does soften her gaze. She is not shamed. She's barely capable of that. But it does prick at the compassion that hides in her core.

"Whether or not I did isn't the point. The point is he did."

She nods back toward the house.

"I doubt either of you understands each other so well as you think. Kind of funny, isn't it?"

"Well, he doesn't get to accuse me of his tragedy just because I wear his damned face. I'm never going to be him. I'm never going to be Xerxes Break."

But even as he says it, he tears a bit of grass out of the ground and shreds the blades of it, letting the torn pieces fall onto his stomach. He doesn't understand them, no, because he won't get close enough. They've already made it completely clear that they aren't going to let him.

"And I hate them just as much as they hate me."

"Neither will he," Lacie says, with a shrug. "He'll be my Kevin, just like you're Big Brother's Kevin." She tilts her head contemplatively, as she watches the unicorns in their nearby paddock. "I suppose little-me will eventually want a little you of her own, the way things are going..."

She shakes her head, focusing back on him.

"I think it's enough for him that you were just one step away from having been him. That's all he sees, right now. Who he used to be. He doesn't know you for you yet, just like you don't know him for him... You just see another Xerxes Break."

Plucking up a few blades of grass, she helpfully sprinkles them onto his head.

"I brought you here so you wouldn't be lonely," she says, a little ruefully.

"...tch. If I didn't want to be lonely, I could just go home. It's not like the house is empty."

He fidgets, looking like he wants to roll over, and looks away so she won't see his expression too clearly.

"But he's not in it. And he's not here, either."

"But why would you want to be lonely?"

Even if she had never admitted it in her life--not even to herself--so much of what has motivated Lacie has been loneliness. Her tendency to befriend outcasts like herself, her promise to carry a child to the Core of the Abyss, her reluctant acceptance of Jack returning to the estate day after day, in the months leading up to her death... Even here, her choice to drag her own Kevin into her room, the day he'd appeared on her threshold. It had all come from her own suppressed feelings of isolation, her desire to bridge the gap between herself and others who were similarly alone.

Reaching down she brushes the grass out of his hair.

"No, he's not. But there are other people who'll miss my brother, along with you."

Considering the closeness of the siblings--a bond strong enough to even cause their adopted father (such as he was) to suggest there was something not entirely wholesome about it--Lacie possibly understands what Kevin is feeling better than anyone.

"...when you lose somebody, even if you become happy again, you...nothing will replace them. Nothing can. I have the Baskervilles now, but it's not like the Sinclairs don't matter to me anymore."

He doesn't pull away when she mucks in his hair, but he still won't turn back to her. What he's trying to say is that he could have all the friends in the world all gathered around him right now, and because none of them would be Glen, none of them would ease that particular ache. He still pines for the Sinclairs, too, even now. That hasn't gone away. It's just that he's grown so accustomed to carrying that pain that it doesn't really get in his way anymore.

"You just said it yourself. That -- I'm not that Kevin, and he's not me," he adds. "If that's true, then, if something happened to him, my company wouldn't make it any better for you. It would just mean there was more than one unhappy person in the same place."

"Nobody's trying to replace anyone," Lacie says, a frown creasing her brow. "But... I think it does make a difference, if there's someone who understands how you feel."

It's really only because of her Kevin's presence in her life that she's come to understand this. She'd gone through her old life resolutely alone--not because she wanted to be, precisely, but because it was the best way to go through the kind of life she'd had. Her new life is different in nearly every way it's possible to be different, and the contrast has taught her a few things.

She gathers her knees up to her chest, wrapping her other arm around them.

"I don't think he's gone forever. I'd know..."

"Ahaha -- you realize he's at home, living through the Tragedy, and he'll be back in -- who knows what sort of shape --"

Kevin has known this, but he hasn't wanted to admit it. He's aware of all the nasty details of what happens during the Tragedy. Gilbert cut down right in front of him, Jack's betrayal, other things he and Glen have both heard secondhand from the others. It had been his first realization when he woke up alone this morning and he's been trying to shove it down in his mind ever since.

Now it bubbles to the surface. Panting suddenly, trying not to panic, he presses the back of his hand to his mouth.

"-- and I'm here and he's there and I can't do a damn thing and even if I was home it wouldn't matter because he's dead, he's dead fifty years when I'm from, there's nothing I can do but be here if he comes back and I hate it --"

Lacie's hand on him slows, slightly. She had known it, but knowing something and hearing it spoken allowed by someone so deeply upset by it is another thing. She bows her head, and is silent for a long stretch. She can't contradict him, doesn't even try. After all, everything he's said is true.

It's hard knowledge. But that's what Baskervilles specialize in, isn't it?

"You know," she says, softly. "He and I, we knew for twenty years that I was going to be killed, that he was the one who was going to kill me. Glen told us, when we were children, the first day he took us in. We couldn't change it. We hated it. And we lived with it."

She glances at Kevin, her eyes somber.

"It's what you do, when you're a Baskerville. You're one of us, now. So, this is what you have to live with. And when he comes back, you'll be there for him. And so will I, and so will the others. And we'll make the best of the worst situation."

She sighs, softly.

"It's what we do. It's all we can do."

"This is exactly it, you know."

Unbeknownst to either of them, the other Kevin had finally crept back out to investigate as they spoke. He's leaning against the doorframe now, watching them. He wasn't able to catch all of the conversation, but he certainly caught enough to pick up on one thing.

"There's no way to fix what's happened. All you can do is get over it, and focus on what's in front of you," he says. He shakes his head, and for all the hatred he's displayed tonight, he stares at the other one earnestly. Some small part of him wants the other one to get it, wants him to prove that he can learn, because then at least this Kevin can know he's capable of it even if he himself failed. "What, do you think you can -- you can pop back into the past of your timeline, kill Jack Vessalius and take his place as the Hero? You'd fuck up as much as you fixed and you know it."

The werewolf glares at him, annoyed that his other self would pop up just to lord it over him that he's right. And he is right, and all of them do know it, and he can't be assed to argue about it anymore. If nothing else, one thing that is absolutely true in all of this is that all three of them are stubborn as hell. None of them are going to back down and it's useless to try to make it happen.

But there's a difference, he thinks, in indulging in your grief and letting it rule you, and he's convinced he's doing the former. He won't let them take that from him, either -- it's his right for loving the duke. The knight remains stubbornly silent.

Lacie is silent for a few moments, letting her lover's point sink in, her hand falling back into the soothing cadence of stroking the werewolf's hair.

"Look, stay with us tonight. You don't have to... play, if you don't want to, but come and sleep with us. Don't exhaust yourself wandering around the streets until he comes back. You'll need all you've got for him, then."

She glances down at him, her gaze impassive.

"Rest with us. Then go home, be with the others, and get everything ready for when he comes back. He'll feel better about that, than hearing that you left and walked around the city like you didn't have a home at all, while he was away."

She glances back at her Kevin, raising a questioning eyebrow. Is she getting through, or should they all fight again?

She's getting through, inasmuch as she's right that Glen wouldn't want him to roam. His hand moves, fingers wrapping around the license that hangs from his collar. Oswald got him this to keep him safe. He got him this so the world would know that the knight belonged somewhere, no matter how dangerous he seemed at first glance.

He doesn't express any verbal agreement, but by now, Lacie is probably well accustomed to the sorts of silent signals he gives off. If she gets up and goes back into the house now, he'll follow her.

She watches Kevin toy with his collar for a few beats, before nodding and getting up. Giving her own Kevin a somewhat weary smile, she holds out a hand to him, as she approaches him.

Whatever else happens, whatever the younger Kevin decides to do, the couple has each other. When she reaches the doorframe, she turns, holding her other hand out for their guest, if he wants to take it.

He doesn't, because that's gross.

...but that's same shit different day, really. Instead, sullenly, he bypasses her hand and latches on to the ruffle of her sleeve. He'll cling to that instead, out of some sort of defiant attachment.

The other Kevin snorts. The last person this one will be able to fool is Lacie. She knows all his stupid tricks by now.

Lacie has to purse her lips and look away to hide her urge to grin and snort, herself. Kevins can be such little boys when they are sullen. Nonetheless, she takes a breath and leads both of them into the warmth of the house.

"Well, I think it's been a long night for everyone," she announces. Glancing back at their guest, she raises a dark eyebrow. "Unless you'd like a hot bath."

"Are you saying I'm stinky?" he asks flatly.

"He will be, if you put him in the tub," the other Kevin points out. "I'm not sleeping in a bed that smells of wet dog."

"Heavens," says the wolf, in his snooty Break voice. "Perhaps I'll piss in your shoes before I go."

Lacie had better hope she manages to get them to fuck, because if not she gets to listen to this all night long.

... Llllacie is quickly coming to the same conclusion. Clearly the best way to get rid of tension is to treat it like sexual tension.

"I just thought it'd help you relax," she says, slipping a hand into his hair and then plucking a few blades of grass from it. "After the way we all exerted ourselves, we could probably all use one..."

"Won't all fit in the tub," the wolf grouses. Though a bath does sound nice. It'd be an opportunity to sit by himself and be calmly upset for a little while, if they'll let him use their bathroom on his own. Not that he's going to ask, because that would be far too logical and simple. The situation has a lot of nuances in it, you know. Not one Kevin but two to make life more complicated than it has to be.

The other one grunts and wonders if it'd be murder or suicide to drown your own doppleganger. Not because he intends to; Lacie would Frown™ and possibly Withhold Sex™. He's just considering the terminology.

"We could if we were creative about it," Lacie says philosophically. "It's a big tub."

While the men grunt and grouse, she promptly starts leading them up the stairs.

"Unless you'd like to take one on your own, while we make up the bed. We'll probably want extra pillows and blankets."

And she might have time to butter each one up individually a bit, before pulling them both into bed with her...

-- well, if she's offering.

"I suppose," he says. "Rather. Fighting does get a person all sweaty."

"Hn," agrees the other one.

Tsuntsuntsuntsuntsuntsuntsun.

Lacie shows the wolf to the room with the copper tub--complete with taps for cold and hot water, courtesy of their growing fortune. (When they'd first moved in, they'd had to heat the water on the stove and lug it up the stairs.) There she leaves him, for the time being, promising to bring him towels, after a bit.

Coming back to her Kevin, she slips into his arms, before bothering with the linen cupboard.

"Long night or not," she murmurs, grazing her lips along his jaw, "I'm not quite ready to sleep, yet. Are you?"

"No."

He never is, after a fight. Kevin's got a hilarious habit of dozing off right after sex, but after a fight, when someone's just been trying to kill him -- it's a different sort of adrenaline, and it takes him a while to come down from it. He leans into his lover's embrace gratefully, holding her close, nuzzling into her hair like an affectionate cat. Occasionally, they take other partners into their bed, but no one but Lacie gets these sorts of touches from him.

"I could use one of your back rubs," he says. Partially because he wants one, dammit, he never gets tired of them. Partially because he knows it'll please her if the werewolf walks in on such a thing -- intimate without being overtly sexual, probably exactly the sort of thing that will ping him. Kevin could live without his doppleganger in his bed, really, but if Lacie's going to seduce him for herself, this is the way they'll manage it. Show him all the things that aren't fucking that he's missing, by holding himself apart.

The time of our great undoing

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