feel_nevermore | Raven's IC contact (Adstringendum)

Oh, yes, you twisted my arm.

[He frowns slightly and decides to forego the joking-eating part of the evening. Or the joking part, anyway.]

What's wrong?

[Something shifts in her eyes and she looks away.]

Did you know that in some worlds, people think that when a wizard kills someone, it's such an awful act that it tears the wizard's soul in two?

I hadn't heard that.

[But he hopes it's not true. If it is, Johannes's soul must be gossamer by now.]

...It doesn't feel like my soul was cut in two. It just feels heavier. [A pause.] And before you say it, yes I'm aware of how cliché that sounds.

[There's no such thought in his mind. He's still stuck on the idea that Raven has killed someone, and he takes her hand and gently pulls her closer.]

Raven, what happened?

[As he takes her hand, she starts trembling. And it's nothing to do with the way she shivers when he usually holds her or kisses her. She tries to pull her hand back to hide it.]

You know what happened. I killed Alex so that he would get his heart back. I did what I had to do.

[It's stammered, defensively, her jaw clenched. As if she was trying to convince herself.]

[He puts his arm around her instead, hugging her to him.]

I know you did. [But she doesn't seem to know it, and he understands how irrational guilt can be. So he'll let her talk as slowly as she needs.]

[She's about to get up, to try and escape when he pulls her into a hug. She squirms for a bit before settling against him and asks grumpily.] So why are you asking?

[And if she did what she had to do, then why did she feel so bad... and empty? Why did she feel like she was going to break down like some weak little girl? She couldn't stand it. The confusion... The guilt... No matter how hard she tried to suppress those feelings, they always came back to nag her.]

What kind of... [Friend] ally would I be if I can't do what needs to be done? Also I already did it in the post. [Stopped people who weren't themselves, but she'd never killed anyone.]

Because doing what you have to do doesn't make it easy. Doing the right thing doesn't always make you feel like a hero. [He hasn't, in his world, killed himself for Johannes. But he's begun to consider it and the fact he can't do it yet just makes him admire Raven all the more.]

And because taking another life is always such a heavy thing. I do know that.

You know? [That makes her pause.] You've already killed someone back home?

[he gestures weakly at the scar on his throat.] I had to. She would have killed me. And I told myself it didn't count, she was a vampire...but if I'm a person still, then so was she.

And it always felt like murder, to me. Even though it was the right thing for me to do.

[On a whim, she kisses his scar.] Of course it was the right thing to do. She had already taken so much away from you [The possibility for him to have a normal life, and enjoy a sunny day.] You couldn't have let her kill you on top of that.

[But even if Alex had been shooting at Raven and had even managed to injure her before she had finally killed him, it doesn't seem to be the same situation for her.]

[He smiles softly and tucks her hair behind her ear.]

Talk me through what happened with Alex.

[She tenses. She's about to refuse. She would have said no to almost anyone else. But to him, she just can't.]

Alright. But promise me you won't tell anyone about what I'll tell you about him. Okay?

[She's never promised Alex to keep it a secret but she cares about the boy.]

[Horst nods, and leads her to the battered furniture so they can sit down and he can keep an arm around her.]

I promise.

[She let him lead her. He could have carried her, it'd probably have felt the same. She was pretty much on auto pilot. As she sat next to him, she instinctively nestled against him and sighed.]

And forgive me. For ruining that date.

Well we know how I hold grudges. [Teasing her, curling her up close.] I confess, half this date was to try to get you to tell me what's wrong.

So it was a trap, then? [A barely there smirk but it's still something.] At least half of it.

What did I do to deserve a boyfriend like you? [Half-grateful, half-teasing. But she knows she's stalling too.

So she braces herself and sighs.] Alex is a bit like me. He's not an empath per se but he's sensitive to emotions. He can see other people's negative emotions. Only the negative ones.

You must have stepped on God's toes, clearly. Maybe you spat in His eye and so He sent me to you.

[He babbles that way, to let her gather her thoughts. When she speaks he's very quiet, just listening, still holding her.]

That must be hell for him.

Well that's not the worst part of it, actually. Not only can he see them but he kinda needs to feed off of those. He absorbs them, the way I take pain when I heal people. And the more he absorbs... the stronger his Shadow gets.

His...Shadow? [Horst has never seen Alex in person, so he has never noticed anything odd about him.]

The entity inside of Alex that feeds itself of negative emotions. Not sure you could see it but I do. ...It's a bit like an inner demon of sorts.

[He might be able to; he'll know to keep an eye out for anything odd, if he sees Alex in person and if the Shadow still exists.] Is that what you had to face?

Once. A little while ago. His Shadow took over and I defeated it... Or rather my demon self did. ...The excess of negative feelings tend to pull it to the surface.

But this time, it was different. Alex had lost his heart to the Heartless. And so he couldn't feel anything anymore. And he... he seemed content that way. [She shifts uncomfortably against him.]

[He nods, sympathetic to her, empathetic to Alex.]

Going so long feeling other people's negative emotions must be...exhausting. If he felt nothing, though, then he was simply numb. He wasn't living, merely existing.

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