singinghuntress | IC Inbox: Duplicity

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You have reached the inbox of Rip van Winkle. Leave a message so I can get back to you later~.

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I agree we should talk.

I'm at the bookstore. just come upstairs to the apartment when you get here.

I'll be there shortly.

It takes him a small while to get there and when he does there's the sound of the shop door opening and then a strangely slow and unsteady tread up the stairs. Then a pause before he eases the door open, stepping inside.

He looks dreadful. Not as frighteningly so as he did when escaping the fort, but his face is even paler than usual, his eyes red-rimmed and dilated and not entirely focussed. He's unsteady on his feet and carrying a bottle of brandy, but closer inspection reveals the bottle is unopened and there's no smell of alcohol to him. He sets it on a nearby table.

If anything, he looks drugged or possibly unwell. He pushes a hand through his unkempt hair, all frizz instead of waves, and just... gazes at her as though she were the one thing in the world that's real.

While she was waiting for his arrival, she set on a kettle of water for tea on her small stove top and pulled out two mugs and a small assortment of teas. Nothing very fancy just.. it was something. Since she really didn't eat, she didn't exactly keep food in the apartment, just things she could mix with blood to add a little flavor.

So by the time he showed up, Rip was.. quiet. She seemed a little more sure of herself, maybe even seemingly a little stronger but, she was also wary and worried. Her own appearance was casual with a black tanktop and grey yoga pants instead of her usual suits. Even her hair was pulled back in a long braid.

But his appearance.. Rip's eyes flickered from his unkempt features to the unopened bottle of brandy in his hands. Has he been drinking...? No, she couldn't smell the alcohol. Nor could she smell smoke or any other drugs on him and yet he looked like he's been on a bender since they last saw each other at the hotel.

"Azvel?" The way he looked at her.. Rip's heart might as well be pounding in her chest right now. She couldn't lie, what they experienced.. Rip couldn't get the 'what ifs' out of her mind. Nor the feeling of..

She hesitantly took a few steps towards him. The one thing she knew she would never doubt was the feelings she experienced whenever they were together so.. he wasn't having second thoughts about loving her, was he? She really hoped not.

He closes the distance and wraps his arms around her tightly. He's shaking. For all his humour and bravado, scenery-chewing grandiosity and insatiable appetites, he's not as strong as he works so hard to appear.

"I... I've missed you," he whispers, his words slightly slurred. "I've had too many thoughts... I can't chase them off any longer. Not when... staring at the future. And I've stared at it... even though it was taken from us."

He pulls back just far enough to look at her. "They... taunted us... me. Us. Showing me a future I cannot have...."

She relaxed into his hold, hugging him back just as tightly. He was shaking.. and That had Rip trembling a little as she held him a little tighter. He'd been thinking about the same things that had been haunting her since the hotel left. She could have been the mother of his children.. if things had been different.

If.. IF. Rip was gazing back at him as he pulled back to look at her and for once, she allowed her worry and sorrow over loosing what could have been their future. "A future neizher of us can haf. Not in zhis place.. und not in our own vorlds." She pulled him back to her, clinging to him as she pressed her face against his shoulders. It's only now she was allowing herself to shed some tears.

"I could haf been a mozher...ve could haf had children if..." If a million and one things had been different for them.

He holds her and strokes her hair as she weeps, tears in his own eyes. "We could have," he whispers. "And they would have been beautiful... and brilliant." He closes his eyes, pain and loss washing over him again. Words flee and he gives an exhausted sob, arms tightening around her.

Tears were flowing freely from her as she wept into his shoulder. Now that he was here with her, the dam she built to keep them at bay had finally broken. Rip had been distracting herself from those very thoughts since that night..

She couldn't run from them anymore. Not with him mourning the same loss she was. He was right, their children could have been beautiful and brilliant, a wonderful legacy for both of them to have left behind.

Eventually her tears slowed and so did her quiet sobs against his shoulder. Rip pulled back to wipe tears from her eyes before moving to press her forehead against his. "Two.. I vould vant two...a boy und a girl if ve could haf managed it." Her voice was quiet and watery from crying

He doesn't shush her weeping at all, doesn't murmur platitudes or promises. He simply holds her, letting her cry it out, somehow suspecting she's been fighting doing so for long enough. He strokes her hair, ignoring his own tears. He'd wept too many to pay them any mind any longer.

When she pulls back and then rests her forehead against his he lifts a hand and places it on the side of her face, thumb rubbing her cheekbone.

Azwel smiles a watery smile of his own. "Fewer than I'm used to, I had four siblings... but... it sounds perfect." He wobbles slightly, eyes half-open. "It... sounds much more manageable...."

He steps back, then stumbles toward her sofa to sit down before he falls down.

She tenses a little as he steps back and watches him with worry as he stumbles towards the small sofa and sits down. After a few moments she was following him, settling at his feet as she leaned forward against his knees to reach out and touch his cheek.

"It vould haf been a start... if ve had more after zhem, I vould haf loved zhem all zhe same." But, she knew it would never happen. "I vas an only child so I don't know vat it vas like to grow up vith siblings." Would it have changed her fate? Who really knew.

But.. giving him children would have been a blessing regardless of how many they ended up with. "But, at zhe least.. I vanted two." After a breath or two she was shifting to settle on the couch next to him, leaning against his side. "I zhink... ve vould haf been happy."

He watches her, his gaze soft and still slightly unfocussed, and when she joins him on the sofa he curls his arm around her. "We would have been, yes," he whispers, his eyes falling shut again. There's a pause where he goes quiet, and one might think he'd fallen asleep or passed out but he speaks again after a moment, words interspersed with deep, slow breaths. "Would have... left this place... had a... a home, somewhere else."

There's another pause and he sighs slowly. "Though I... have to confess this isn't... the only thing... on my mind...."

Rip curled up a little more against him, drawing her long legs against her chest as she rested her head on his shoulder as he curled his arm around her. Right now, this was exactly where she needed to be.

"Zomevhere ve could haf lived peacefully." She felt him sigh beneath her as she closed her eyes, still mourning what could have been. However, when he spoke, she opened her eyes to glance up at him, worried and curious about what else was on his mind. "Vat else haf you been zhinking about?"

It's a moment or so before he replies, and when he does his words are slow. "It's... getting worse. More... difficult to chase away, to... distract myself from. Takes... more, now."

His hand curls around hers. "J'ss... want to stay here f'r'a while. With you."

The way he was speaking, slow and slurred worried her as she gently squeezed his hand and tilted her head to look at him. "Azvel? Vat's wrong..?Vat did you take?"

Can he hear the worry in her voice? She didn't smell any alcohol or anything smokeable. So, that left...A lot of different types of drugs actually. Rip shifted to sit up more and gently grasp his chin to have him look at her. "You can stay here az long as you need. I'd never send you avay. Just tell me vat's wrong und how to help."

He wants to sleep so very badly, but he does hear the worry in her voice, and sees it in her eyes. He blinks heavily and rubs his face.

"Mmmmhhhh... 'S'a painkiller draft. Simply... took more than usual and... it's kicked in a little... harder'n I thought it would do."

He swallows thickly. "Just need to... sleep for a bit... Then I'll be right as rain.". Here he manages a vague smile

She tenses a little when he said he took some sort of painkiller and a little more than he should have. Rip may not know much about medicine, but.. she was aware that could be dangerous.

"I'm vorried about letting you sleep." She was studying him intensely and definitely very worried. "Because I swear zhe only corpse in zhis relationship should be me."

"I don't think I have a choice... about sleeping," he murmurs. "Just for a short while. 'V'e done this before. Be all right..."

He leans against her, clearly having surrendered the fight against sleep.

With him out like this, she didn't have a choice but to get comfortable as he slept. Though, Rip.. might be making sure he still has a pulse from time to time while she patiently waits for this to wear off.

She's a little too worried to even attempt sleep so...

It's about an hour before he stirs again. The whole time, his pulse was slow but steady, his breathing deep. It's doubtful he even dreamed, as he'd remained motionless.

Presently he pulls in a slow, deep breath and sighs, sitting up blearily, and has the good grace to look sheepish.

"I... well. That was a miscalculation," he sighs. At least now he sounds reasonably lucid.

After checking his pulse a few times and finding him slow but steady, Rip finally and very reluctantly relaxed and just... waited.

An hour later when he started to stir, she was still there with him leaning on her. Though by now she was gently threading her fingers through his hair. "A miscalculation."

Her words were just blunt. "Exactly, vat vere you trying to do?" Though she had a sneaking suspicion.

Oh, dear. Azwel can't wriggle his way out of this conversation. Not that he could bring himself to. He leans into her touch for a moment and then sighs.

"I'd been taking it for weeks, now, but recently, I..." he pauses, looking for the the words that would best explain it, "I'd been using more of it since that night. Only a drop more than usual, but today the pain was especially severe and my own mind especially tormented that I... didn't pay sufficient attention to how much I'd added."

The motion of her fingers stilled as he mentioned that he had been taking something for pain. That she could understand but..

His mind had been tormented over their loss, must like hers had been. Rip will admit she might have done something stupid in her own way since that night but, nothing like that.

...Not... that drugs really affected her that much anymore anyway.

"You overdosed. Because of..." The child they lost. Rip couldn't even bring herself to say it as she resumed running her fingers through his hair for now.

Azwel lets his eyes fall shut.

"It was one loss too many," he whispers. "A pain in my soul as though pain in my body and mind weren't enough."

The loss of their child was the last blow, cracking that facade of strength. He shudders, pulling in an unsteady breath, tears rolling from his eyes despite the weary expressionlessness of his face.

Rip nodded and then drew him into her arms and held him, her head resting against his. She understood what he meant, she'd been feeling the ache deep within her but, had been trying her hardest to distract herself with something else.

... Like her time with Alucard, the very reason she disappeared for a few days afterwards. Rip wasn't exactly the best at coping with things either. She became just as self-destructive, just in different ways.

After a few moments, she pressed a kiss to his hair as he cried against her. A few of her own tears were trailing down her cheeks again as she tried not to think about their loss. "Ve've both lost a lot in our lives. Zhis was.." her hold on him tightened slightly. "Ve haf each ozher still."

They're just going to keep making each other weep if they continue like this. Azwel sniffs, rubbing his wet nose, slowly realising his tears have left wet spots on Rip's shirt. He's pretty certain she doesn't mind any more than he minded hers, but he still takes several deep breaths in an attempt to stop. It's exhausting and he's already feeling terrible.

"We do," he murmurs into her shoulder. "And we will... for as long as we can." He pauses, hesitating over whether he should air the rest of his thoughts. They're vague notions, untested and thus unproven, and yet they can't be reasoned away.

She could hear the hesitation and knew there was more he wanted to say. It was just... a question of him being ready to share his thoughts with her. Rip kept running her fingers through his hair for now, letting him have a little time to breathe before she spoke again

“For however long ve are here und hope neither one of us get sent home.” Which was a death sentence for both of them in reality. Rip fell silent for a few more moments... “ .. ve can deal vith vatever gets throw at us.”