APH | Before the Storm | Ch 3

WARNINGS: Cursing, dark themes, alcohol use (If there's anything I missed, please let me know!)

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Night time is the worst time in a world like this. The chances of thieves, marauders - and what's worse: paid mercenaries - coming to your door is heightened, especially around midnight. Transylvania, with a bit of force, guides me to the basement she prepared under her base. The sound of iron scraping against itself echoed around the chamber. Darkness surrounds us; the air sticky.



A flame comes to life on a large stick. She places the light source on the wall, illuminating the small room. There's a hammock draped from the ceiling and a sleeping roll on the floor. If the walls aren't lined with shelves filled to the brim with canned food and questionably fresh water, there are miscellaneous supplies of a medical or defensive sort against the metal enclosures.


"Impressive," I mumble, knowing she'd hear me anyway. "Build this yourself?"



She's silent for a moment. I can tell she's putting together her words carefully, as if not to piss me off. She's always been too intelligent for my liking.



"No, I captured this from the previous owners." She dropped the subject like it yesterday's trash. How curious. "Since you're my guest, you pick where you sleep. Hammock or sleeping roll?"




I narrow my gaze. Just as quick as she begins rolling her eyes, I ask, "What're you gonna do? Stab me while I sleep?" I yawn.




"So you're volunteering for the first shift? Good, I'll take the hammock and you keep your ears peeled for any bandits. Wake me up when you're too tired to function."




"We're not going to be sleeping at the same time?" I question as I rub the tiredness away in vain.




She shakes her head, "Too dangerous to do that." Transylvania begins shaking the dust off of the sleeping roll, sending thousands of particles off to scatter in the air. God, that thing looks comfortable. She then moves to the hammock and pats on it. That looks comfy, too. I put another inquiry on the table since we're obviously playing 20 Questions here. Not like we have anything better to do:




"Then what did you do when you were alone here?"




She stops in her tracks for a split second then makes eye contact with me. "I wasn't."




"Then-"




She cut me off. "Turkey. We were doing great for a few months - gathering supplies, slaying bandits who attacked us. All the good stuff. And we were really getting along as we always did since we met. But one day, he told me he had to leave. It was sudden and, honestly... I felt scared. It's hard for me to describe what fear feels like since I spend more time dishing it out to others than actually feeling it, but, it's not a feeling you get used to." Oh my god, she's rambling again. "And-"




I groan out loud. "Today, please."


She holds back something - whether it was an apology or a passive-aggressive comment, I can't figure it out. Her expression is a little odd. "Right. He had business to take care of in his country, so he had to leave."




"Is that how he put it?"




"Yes."




"And you believed him?"




"Of course."




If someone were to ask me for one of Transylvania's short comings, "Blissfully naïve," would be something that comes up early in the conversation, and it's always been something that bothered me. "Too trustworthy," could be another way to put it. I don't get it. When someone does something terrible to her, she forgives them. The amount of scars on her back from the Hungarian whip don't even come close to the number of times she's forgiven Hungary alone. I'm a firm believer that if someone does shit to you that you don't like, you don't have to forgive them. In fact, if it's bad enough, you shouldn't forgive them. Ever. I've been alive for long enough to notice how rarely people actually do change. In the small amount of times that people truly are, they're changing for the worse. It's easier to fall down a cliff than to climb back up it.




I roll my eyes.




I notice how my fatigue is slowly eating away at my consciousness. I feel like the only solution would be to collapse on the course but somehow comfortable fabric that made the hammock. Noticing the features of it - from its immense amount of detail to the colorful thread used - I conclude that Transylvania must've cut up one of her rugs to make it. That realization almost makes me emotional as I examine a few loose threads hang weakly and unevenly from the edges of the makeshift bed.




She notices me staring at the hammock. "You tired?"




While keeping my gaze turned away from her, I shake my head. Every movement I make slows more than the last. My eyes become weights and shut themselves, a movement that set itself stone. Beyond my control.




A feel a head rest on my chest and arms wrapping around me. This is nice. The hands start to stroke my back; smooth and delicate. My head droops and my nose collides with a head of hair. I let my forehead fall as well; my breathing slows. My thoughts drift beyond the present remind me of a past so far away I almost forgot it existed, when I could just hold Transylvania close to me and there'd be no threats stopping us. We could just lay there for hours and forget our problems. I always loved the feeling of her head on my chest; I can almost feel it now.




Wait. Oh hell no.




Without even thinking, I shove the smaller figure away from me. This caught her by surprise; she stumbles and fails to catch her fall. She ends up flat on her back. "Ireland," she retaliates, "what the hell?"




"Don't 'what the hell' me," I growl, "you took advantage of me and how tired I was!"




Transylvania rises from the floor and cracks her back. The gross sound of bones bounces off the surrounding metal walls. I involuntarily cringe at the noise.




"I realize that now, and I'm sorry. But I just," she pauses, "I want," she pauses again, "You know?"




I grimace. "What? Sex?"




Her eyes dart away from the side to meet with mine. She shakes her head and arms wildly, "NO, no no, that's not what I meant! I meant, uh, what we used to have? The, uh," as she stumbles to find her words, I begin to find her flustered face weirdly adorable. What am I, a weird fanfiction character? Christ. I start to mentally hit myself on the head as she's talking; I'm not even listening, but I chime back into reality when she says, "I missed you so much, and... I... hate how you're so angry at me. I just want to hold you again."




There was a long pause. Probably agonizing on her part. "Transylvania."




She locks eyes with me, desperateness painted over any other expression she once had. "Yes?"




"We can't," I begin, and I start to see her expression crumble. Whatever I was about to say next choked me, and I could only find myself focusing on her. I swallow. "I don't... I don't know, just. I'm going to sleep." With that, I climb in the hammock, being careful not to shake it so much that it would conceal itself around me.




The frigid temperature oozing off of the wall dribbles onto the tip of my nose. Every fiber of me that begs for me to feel pity for Transylvania is immediately repressed. I can't forgive her. But I know it'd be better if I did; God, everything would be better. Living in this hellish world would be better. I rub my temples with the arm that I don't have tucked under my waist.



"Ireland?"




I find myself turning over to face her. "What?" I say more aggressively than I wanted to. Fuck.




She forces a smile. "Is there anything you need?"




"Peace and quiet."




Despite looking unsatisfied by my answer, she nods and faces the floor. "I'll keep watch. I hope you sleep well." I can almost taste the awkwardness in the air.




I turn back over in silence, drifting off into sleep.



---






A finger is pressed lightly on my shoulder; it begins tapping. "Ireland?" a voice softly whispers. "I made breakfast."




Groggily, I adjust myself so I can face whomever is talking. A few strands of my hair whisk over my closed eyes. "I'll be there in a few seconds," I say, the raspy quality of my voice amplified by fatigue; words slurred together in some abstract word scramble. I rub my eyes; I find myself focusing on Transylvania. She looks quite entertained. "What're you smiling for, sugar fangs?" I begin to stretch.



She snorts; I see her shoulders relax as if my words lifted a weight off of her. "Gosh, you haven't called me that in a while," she mumbles. Sighing, she says, "Dunno, just smiling at how fucking cute you are."



I chuckle. Cute? Yeah right. Peering around the room, I realize where I am. I frown as reality sets in. I meet eyes with Transylvania; the happy aura around her irises dissipate and worry floods in. I miss how we used to joke around like we just did. A lot. "Hey, uh," I swallow my pride for the sake of my friendship with her, "I'm sorry about treating you like shit yesterday."



Transylvania smiles, relieved. "Already forgiven. And I'm sorry about shooting you. And... being desperate to hug you."



I play a half-smile and open my arms. "C'mere. We both need this."



Cautiously - to make sure she doesn't hurt me or make the hammock cause us both some back pain - she crawls onto me and tucks her head under my chin. I note how she's making my throat feel weird, so she apologizes and scoots her head downward and onto my chest. I wrap my arms around her as she lets hers droop off of the side of the hammock.



I never really preferred this cuddling method. I like spooning a bit more because it's easier to get as close to your partner as you can. But it goes without saying that spooning would be exceedingly difficult on a hammock; however, I let my preference go for now. Besides, I'm perfectly satisfied being able to hold her again. I always found it hard to be angry at her for long periods of time; the inability to remain angry is something that's very unusual and, even now after knowing her for over a hundred years, foreign to me.



"Breakfast is getting cold," she mutters. Judging by her tone, she doesn't want to get up either. Probably just trying to keep herself from falling asleep, as am I.



I let out a weird, "Eeeh," sound and proceed to run my fingers through her hair. "Fine."



Groaning, she picks herself up and off me. I follow in suit off the hammock and stretch again. We go up for breakfast.




She set up two plates on an old wooden table. By one plate lay a cup of coffee, and by the other a glass of water. "Well, aren't you privileged?" I jest.



Shrugging, she comments on how she's done a lot of pillaging. She didn't seem too proud of it, but who would be? I know I'm not proud of the pillaging I've done.



That's the topic that separates the survivors - or the good guys if you want to take it from me - from the bandits. Morals. Integrity. The idea of when and where to pillage. While the survivors understand and accept that it's essential for survival, the bandits pillage for fun and for profit. They stock up on all the items they can then pawn them off for other items and sometimes even slaughter the people that stand in their way in the process. I heard that Lithuania even traded in his pistol for a month's supply of food because him and the other Baltics were desperate. Basic needs over defense; I can understand that.



When the survivors pillage, they usually head to a bandit's hideout or pawn stand and steal from there; they take as much as they can carry. But there are points where worse comes to worse and you're forced to take from innocent people. In that case, survivors take as little as they can, but as much as they need to survive a few days. It's usually a matter of calculating: how many people live in the hideout you're taking from? How much would they need to last? Questions such as those lead to a conclusion that usually ends up having the robbing party take only a few cans of food and a couple bottles of water.



Transylvania tells me that the food with the coffee is mine. I chuckle.



"I don't suppose there's whiskey in that?"



"Actually, I used the last of the whiskey I had for your precious coffee," she informs, smirking.



I punch her arm playfully. "Wow, thanks," I grin.



We sit down to eat, chatting like we used to. Damn. It feels like I'm right back where I was ten years ago.



I tend not to promise things; you never know what the future holds and blah blah blah... but I feel more than confident in swearing that this is exactly where I want to be.