It's the Price Paid

[vesper_verde]

Vesper was out on one of his nightly patrols. He was hoping for plain, normal criminals. After a few supernatural run-ins with the Defenders, he was hoping for normalcy. Though demonic infestations of mystical doodads was apparently good at making the lesser evils hide out. The city air felt vibrant but wrong as Vesper banked alongside a building. He was scanning the neighborhoods for some sort of heroics to do.

He was just about ready to turn toward home when he caught a faint voice on the edge of his hearing.

"-do you got it? I got the money."

Vesper slowly wheeled toward the sound. It was late enough at night for whatever was being purchased to be of an illicit nature. Something he could stop on his own. Something he could control. After the last six months, he desperatly needed that.

It took a little night-sky circling, but he found the alleyway where the dealing was happening. He silently landed on a rooftop and peered over the edge. Looked like a dealer and two addicts. When he briefly dropped his silence field, sounded like it, too. Vesper put his silence field back up before he carefully scaled down a fire escape. A few quick checks as he went and it looked like the drugs were getting paid for.

Vesper launched himself off the last platform to the pavement below. He hit the ground on the other side of a dumpster and rolled. He came up smoothly and flexed his fingers. Time to go to work. He stepped out into the alley more as he dropped the silence field. Vesper opened his mouth to call out and paused.

In unison, all three people looked at him. It wasn't being noticed that made a cold chill run down his spine. It was because all three sets of eyes reflected light back at him. He was positive he didn't just walk into dogs and cats dealing drugs.

The human shapes of the three bodies down the alley grew blurry. The druggie on the left moved forward a step, the human guise disappearing. A wave of uncertainty washed over him as the demon clacked his teeth together. Vesper was about to take a step back when the druggie on the right, moved closer. The human guise dropped to reveal another demon. Its appearance hit him in the gut with how much he reviled it. He grit his teeth and clenched his fists. Vesper raised his arm to fire from one of his bracers as the dealer moved toward him as well. Its appearance changed as six appendages grew out of the demon's back. With every twitch of the legs on the back of his torso, Vesper grew more confident he could take these demons. He was one of the Defenders; they did this all the time lately.

He wasn't immediately overwhelmed when all three demons attacked him at once. He fired with both bracers. The sonic attack reverberated between the close buildings. Though three attackers at once started to slip through his defenses. One of the spindly, spidery legs darted across one of the pouches on his thigh. It ripped right through the pouch and sent the contents spilling out across the concrete. Thankfully, the armor under the pouch was stronger, but the disposable cell in the pouch clattered against the ground.

Two of the demons redoubled their attacks on Vesper while the Pride Demon bent over to pick the phone off the pavement. It tilted its head left and right. It hit the one number programmed into the phone.

Comments

[pyroprincess]

Stephanie took her bottle of wine and sat down on one of their couches, picking up the bottle and guzzling it like a sorority girl, only setting it down when about a third of the bottle had disappeared. She turned towards Marcelo, watching him, but not really knowing what, if anything to say to him.

As if summoned, Sancho hopped onto her lap, the oversized cat sprawling upon her, demanding to be petted. With the hand that wasn't holding a bottle of wine, she softly stroked Sancho's fur.

That at least, was a simple act that could be enjoyed, that made her feel a little better. She took another drink right out of the bottle and continued petting her cat.

[vesper_verde]

Marcelo picked up his glass and closed the cabinet. He looked down at the golden liquid in his glass. He brought it up toward his mouth, but the glass never quite made contact with his lip. He lowered it and glanced at Sancho.

Well, at least the cat was one thing he did right. He took in a breath to try to say something. He knew he should, felt he needed to. Just on the chance he could keep Stephanie in his life.

"Eu sinto muito," came out above a whisper, but it was all he could manage.

[pyroprincess]

Sancho for his part had decided to purr as loudly as he could, whether it was because he was peaceful and happy himself or because he thought it might help Stephanie- he wasn't about to say. The cat's eyes were closed as Stephanie continued to stroke him softly.

She looked up at Marcelo again.

"Don't apologize. You didn't do this." Stephanie replied, barely above a whisper herself, before sucking back another solid third of the bottle of wine.

She took a deep breath.

"We need to get out of here. New York. We need to step outside this madness. If it's not you, it's me. We need to get out of here and regroup."

[vesper_verde]

"Can you? With the business, the shelter, school, the New Mutants? Can I?" He didn't know. He gently swirled his drink in his glass. He could skip out at work, but the pressing demon invasion issue didn't go away. Then again, he could not be as important in that.

He had learned that tonight. As good as he thought he was, he wasn't going to achieve what he pledged to do.

[pyroprincess]

"I have to." Stephanie replied. "So do you. We have to find a way to make it work, or we're going to be crushed by all this." She took a deep, slightly shuddering breath. "We're also probably going to both become raging alcoholics." She laughed, but there was no real mirth in it. "Fuck, I've downed nearly three-quarters of this bottle already." She punctuated the sentiment by downing the rest and then looking at him again, setting down the bottle.

"We have to. Or one of us is going to get killed or ..." Stephanie stopped and looked down for a moment. "We're going to go crazy. We're not going to be good to anyone like this. We need to step outside of this."

[vesper_verde]

He looked at the bottle she downed then back at the drink he hadn't even had a drop of. Marcelo hadn't really been extremely drunk since the night of the Hellfire soiree, and even then his pain meds at the time had made sure he paid for it. He really wanted to be now. Just find momentary oblivion at the bottom of a glass.

"I'm not good to anyone anyway. I've failed." He stood there, looking into his drink.

[pyroprincess]

"Failed at what? We defeated those demons." Stephanie reminded him, feeling the warmth of the alcohol soak into her muscles and bones. It felt good for now, though she wondered how she might feel in the morning after having another bottle as she was inclined to do right now. "At protecting me? I don't need a bodyguard. I need a husband. And you need, and deserve, a wife." She polished off the bottle.

"If you're talking about your mission, you can't win at that. There's no endgame to it. It's the struggle that matters. It's every life you save, every person who doesn't fall into the abyss- whether it's fucking demons or drugs. You save people almost every night. You can't save everyone. No one can.

But you can't save anyone if you're dead. And I can't make the world a better place if I'm completely burnt out.

So I say we take a vacation. So we can recover a little and actually face the things we have to face with some energy."

[vesper_verde]

"You defeated most of them. I was just fucking useless bait." He watched the liquid in the glass start to tremble. The more he willed his hand to stop, the more it shook.

His eyes finally snapped up. He looked her right in the eye. "You've made it abundantly fucking clear I am useless and weak when it comes to protecting you. Everything I try is 'don't do that, it'll kill you.' Or stay here while you go miles away without saying a goddamn thing to me. I want to be your equal, but we both know I'm not."

[pyroprincess]

"That's not how I remember it going down." Stephanie replied evenly.

Then he looked her right in the eye and started berating her. She was tempted to yell back at him, but she knew it wouldn't help. However mad he may have been at her, she knew he was giving voice to his own self-hatred as much as anything else.

"I didn't say that." Stephanie replied, forcing herself to stay calm. "But you know what? If yelling at me makes you admit these things you keep bottled up? Go for it. Get it out.

Let's get it all out into the fucking open like we should've done from day one."

[vesper_verde]

He forced hot breath out between clenched teeth. His eyes narrowed before he set the glass on the coffee table before he shattered it in his hand. Then again, he doubted he could do even that.

"Should've done from day one," he repeated slowly. His voice was terminally flat. "Right. Fine. You married a liar. And continue calling me a boy even though I absolutely hate it. Because I never stopped being that ten year old pinned under his mother's body. I never stopped trying to do her memory proud even though I fucking fail every night. Because she probably wouldn't want a vigilante for a son, but it's the only fucking thing I know how to do. And every time something goes absolutely horribly wrong for you, continue to not even trust me to help. You've got people and friends elsewhere who understand you better."

His eyes finally fell away from hers. He shook his head a bit.

[pyroprincess]

Stephanie wanted to break down and cry. She wanted to scream and yell at him and fight with him, to defend herself. She forced herself to breathe, in and out. Stephanie had to remind herself that this was good, that even though it hurt, it was good for them in the long run.

"You don't fail every night." Stephanie said softly. "I don't know what she would have wanted, I never got to meet her. She probably wouldn't want me for a daughter, for that matter." Tears began to fall, but she forced herself to keep it together. "It's not about trust. I promise it's not about trust. It's about fear. And maybe I shouldn't try to protect you so much. And I promise I won't call you 'boy' again. But you should know that I've never thought of you as anything other than a man. A strong man who saved my life.

That demon showed me a face of someone I could have become. Evil and ruthless. I have that demon inside me, in my blood. It's ... I'm sorry you lost your mother, but at least you can have some happy memories of her. What do I have?" She sniffed deeply but forced herself to keep it together. "I have a mother who abused me. There. I said it. I'm a survivor of abuse. I was terrorized my whole childhood and then my father tried to turn me into a monster, to turn that anger of mine and make it into a weapon to hurt his enemies.

You are the first person who ever loved me and if you can't grasp how important that is, how much more important that is than anything else to me ..." She took a deep breath. "I don't know."

Her voice sounded oddly tiny. "I don't know."

[vesper_verde]

Logically, he knew he should go over there and hold her. It was something he had done many times. Shove what he felt aside and make her feel better. Because he would always lose a who had it worse match, and she needed him.

But he felt so hollow and ashamed.

He swiped angrily at his eyes. They were betraying him. He didn't need to show how horrible he felt. He said it already.

He said it and hurt the one person who truly mattered to him. He loved his father very much, but Stephanie was his whole world.

"I apologized," he said as his voice cracked. He closed his eyes and tapped his forehead with his index an middle finger. "Because if the dark mess that's in here hadn't been around. You wouldn't... I wouldn't have hurt you."

[pyroprincess]

"We've both got angry dark messes in our pasts." Stephanie replied quietly, mustering as much dignity as she could. "It's one of the reasons we can't ... it's one of the reasons we need each other so much."

"For what it's worth, apology accepted. I'm sorry too."

She wiped at her own eyes. "What they want is for us to fight and drift apart and be miserable and give in to all the deepest, darkest parts of our selves. They're demons, right? That's what they do. We can't let them, we're not going to. Because we're people that take our vows seriously." She held up her ring. "For better or for worse."

[vesper_verde]

He stared blankly at the ring. His thumb rubbed his own as if reminding him that he was still tied by that symbol of their union. Even though he took it off to go on patrol every night, every time he came home, he automatically put it back on.

He tried to will his legs to move, but they just got shaky on him. He couldn't make himself cross the room, so he managed a few unsteady steps to an arm chair. He sank into the seat and slumped.

[pyroprincess]

Stephanie got up, even at the expense of setting Sancho aside for the moment and walked towards him. She sat herself right on his lap and snuggled in as closely as she could, putting her arms around him and holding him close.

"I love you, Marcelo. I always will." She whispered softly into his ear, planting a gentle kiss on his jaw.

[vesper_verde]

His breath hitched at her declaration. He moved his lips to say something, but nothing more than an unsteady breath came out. Tears flowed freely down his cheeks as his shoulders shook.

He made no move to try to get her off his lap. Instead, he leaned into her as he cried.

[pyroprincess]

Stephanie held him tight and let herself cry too.

"Let it out, mi amor." She whispered gently as she softly kissed his jaw and neck.

[vesper_verde]

Once he had started, he couldn't stop. His body was wracked with sobs. Pain he had been carrying for so long refused to stay bottled up any longer. He tried his best to cling to Stephanie of just his fingers wrapped tightly in the back of her shirt.

Slowly, eventually, it tapered off. His breathing still hitched but it wasn't with sobs. He needed to wipe his nose on something.

He restrained himself from using Stephanie's shirt.