{save tonight}

[Marisol]

tag: Jesse & Clover

{marisol}
Her hands shook as she stared without seeing the ashes remained in the middle of the floor. The woman that lay against the wall didn’t move, nor did the candlestick that had cracked against her skull. The crimson stained her skin, some belonged to her, some to the other, but most of it was his. It pissed her off that he had called her to his aid like he had, but as Marisol sat staring at the ashes, she couldn’t muster up any hate. The stickiness against her skin bothered her, the layer already beginning to dry and itch against the bare skin and where it had splattered.

“You crazy *****!” Her throat felt raw and hurt, but it wasn’t comparable to the pain in her side. As she slowly shifted to her knees, Marisol was reminded about the gunshot that had tore through her flesh. Her hands flew immediately to the jagged edges as she screamed out, her right elbow crashing against the wooden flooring. She could see stars. Her breathing was ragged, tears staining her face. She didn’t know what caused them. There were too many variables. There was a soft groan that drew her attention to the petite redhead that was the source of the pain.

Gritting her teeth, Marisol tried to think of who to call as she began to crawl towards the pile of ash. Her former master’s clothes remained, bloodied and bullet ridden. She couldn’t help but think that Logan had been a fuckin’ fool, getting them into that mess, but as soon as she thought the words, her vision blurred and she wanted to cry. Even though she hated the ******** and plotted his demise, she had cared for him after all. Mariah made another noise just as Marisol reached the clothes and her fingertips brushed against the bloodied pockets. They probed the material, still ice cold from where they had touched once warm flesh, until she found his cell phone and searched through the contacts.

Spaz, Rhett. She wanted to shove her heel up his *** as she scrolled past ‘C.B.’ which she knew to be reference to herself, and then lingered at the sight of two names. Jesse and Clover. There weren't many that Logan had spoken about in Fforde other than his sire or sibling, but as she debated, she carefully typed out a text. Need help. Badly wounded. As cryptic as it was, it wasn’t a lie as she pressed send - ignoring the red smear that had been her fingerprint before she searched for the tome that Logan carried.



JESSE FFORDE
Time had started to move at an unnoticeable pace. Each night was much like the last -- familiar faces were few and far between, but Jesse had given up looking for them. He’d given up caring if he saw them or not. He’d given up checking his phone for messages from anyone but Clover, or Kaelyn on certain occasions. And when he was with Clover he barely bothered to check it at all. Rather than the numerous absences sending Jesse into a spiral of suicidal despair, however, this time he couldn’t be happier. There was nothing more freeing than cutting loose the cares that were rarely appreciated.

Although text messages had been sent to the majority of those he knew to be kind-of around after the revelation of vampirekind to humanity, Logan had been left off the list. Jesse couldn’t really say why -- or hadn’t dwelled upon the reasons -- though if pushed for an answer he might have admitted that it had to do with Clover. Jealousy was a mean monster, and he did not like how close Logan and Clover had become. Besides, when was the last time he had heard from the guy?

Cerberus’s floor was covered with newspaper -- the corner that Jesse and Clover occupied, anyway. One section of the spraypainted wall had always bothered Jesse. The perfectionist that he was, he needed it to be perfect. He was re-doing the scene, with Clover’s help. Wearing only track pants with his upper torso naked and spattered with excess spray paint -- the colour even decorated his hair -- he took a couple of steps back to survey the art and the way it had transformed. He dropped to the floor beside Clover, a rough sigh scratching his throat as he canted his head toward her.

“It’s missing something…” he muttered. His phone had been discarded amongst the different bottles of spraypaint and sponges. The light was flashing in the corner, indicating that he had a message. Wiping his hands on his pants, he reached for the device and swiped the screen, a frown creasing his brow as he read the message. He tilted the phone toward his wife.

“I suppose we should be concerned…”



CLOVER  
Logan only occupied her mind when thoughts of gatherings occupied her mind. Logan only occupied her mind when she needed an escape from her mind. No, there were the in-between moments when he holed up in her thoughts and dragged her toward himself. Remember me, his imaginary voice called to her. And so she did.

On that night, she didn’t think of him. She was too busy looking between the fresh paint on the wall and the dried paint on her husband. Her white shirt was stained a vibrant shade of green, somewhere between lime and neon, and a dots of red paint created a new design on her black skinny-jeans. She looked an interesting sight, if anyone other than Jesse saw her, but she didn’t really worry about such a thing happening. It was her time. It was their time. And then her phone began humming, playing an old-school Blink-182 song, just something to identify the sender.

Logan.

Clo wondered if he needed her in the way that she’d needed him. Perhaps she’d have to take a raincheck and go boxing with the man. If not, perhaps she’d have to make plans for such an occasion. Instead of going to her discarded jacket, she waited for Jesse to get his phone and read over the message. As he did so, she made a show of putting two large X’s on the wall, just something to offset the general scheme of things. When he showed her the phone, she set the can of paint down and leaned in to read the words.

“You know he wouldn’t ask for help unless he really needed it. He’s a stubborn recluse.” Clo looked at the text message for a moment longer before she snagged Jesse’s phone. She told him to come back to Circle, if he could. It was simple enough. Use the tome. Receive help. Bid goodbye. “If he’s too injured, I’ll go and get him,” she volunteered, “but he’s going to owe me money. I was having fun.”

Clover rubbed her palms on the thighs of her jeans, scrubbing some of the dried paint from her skin, and then she went to retrieve her own phone. Sure enough, she’d received the same message. She didn’t want to reply again, so she tucked the phone back into her jacket and dropped it back onto the floor. She didn’t think she needed to say anything when she went to get the first-aid kit, but she still wanted to alert Jesse that she’d be back, that she wasn’t just running off to rescue Logan--as if Logan needed that sort of rescuing.

“I’m going to get the first-aid kit.”

[Clover]

{marisol}
Where the hell did he put the tome? Her side throbbed in agony as she threw the pair of jeans away from her. An angry hiss escaped past her lips as she set her hand against the ground. Her vision went blurry, whether from tears or… Marisol didn’t want to think of the latter. She took a deep breath, paused. She tried to think of where Logan had left it. He had been emptying things out into the truck console before they'd driven - the console. A low growl of frustration rumbled in her throat. Why did the universe hate her?

Her amber gaze moved over to Mariah, frowning. She considered about ending her life right there but… there was a throb of pain at her side that didn’t allow her to finish that sentence. She needed help. And Logan… his family, his Sire would surely know what to do. Her fingertips ran through the ashes, finding the keys that were in his pocket. The substance stuck to her bloodied skin, making her want to gag as she recalled the blue eyed devil she'd been forced to put up with. Dead. It was a concept that Marisol couldn't quite see.

He had died to save her.

Surely had he not gotten in the way, the bullet would have killed her instantly, redirected by muscle. After the keys were shoved into her pocket, the ashy, bloodied mess staining her jeans, Marisol forced herself to her feet. A wave of nausea told her very quickly how it was a bad idea, but she bit down on the inside of her cheek. Her movements slow, she shuffled to the wall and collapsed against it, a smear of blood from her hands sliding along the ugly, canary yellow wallpaper.

In her pocket, the phone vibrated. Once, twice. She ignored it as she made her way out of the room. Blood stained every other few feet. A dent in a wall, a broken table. Marisol found the bullet hole in the wall from where another had missed her. She really hated Mariah. And, the other woman’s death would surely be a slow one. Seconds turned to minutes, one minute turned into five, and then ten before she reached the front door. Each step was as if she'd been stabbed, the knife twisted, and stabbed again.

Her hand shook as she collected the phone. Jesse's message was simple and it worked. However, Marisol leaned on the door just a bit too much and it swung open, causing the woman to stumble out the doorway. Her foot caught something and as she let out a yelp of surprise, followed by a hiss of pain, she found the tome she had needed. It had fallen from Logan’s pocket, it seemed, as it was bloodied and battered. Immediately, her fingers curled over it. She spoke the words Logan had told her, and almost instantly, she regretted every word. Her body did not appreciate the sudden movement, nor did her injuries.

Marisol swore loudly as she fell to one knee, her hand moving firmly to press against her wound. The nausea rolled over her once more and as her vision blurred once more, Marisol could only wonder how much worse things were to be before she died?



JESSE FFORDE
Clover didn’t have to run off anywhere to tug at that green, slimy beast that lived within Jesse. Yes, if he was being reasonable he’d understand that the two were just friends, and that he too would and could be spending time with Logan if he reached out and asked for it. The term stubborn recluse didn’t apply to only one of them, however. Jesse was as stubborn as they came, and he believed in a road that travelled both ways. And, god help him, he was sick of being the only one to ever reach out.

Logan was probably half being punished for the non-deeds of others, but the general feeling curled and tightened in Jesse’s gut until he had become much of a recluse himself. Well, not so much a recluse but a workaholic, with reclusiveness as a hobby.

Clover was all too eager to get up and help, to organise, to bustle. While she ran off to get the first-aid kit, Jesse just sighed and rolled his eyes, remaining where he was to stare at the wall in front of him for a few moments longer. He debated leaving Clover to it -- she could help Logan, if they were so ******* close. Eventually, Jesse moved. He rolled onto his feet and felt the bones pop in his back and shoulders as he stretched and meandered toward the elevator. If and when Logan used the tome, he was going to be dropped on the bottom floor. Limbo. So it was to Limbo that Jesse went.

When he got there, he expected to see Logan already. Instead, there was a human. A wounded human. The stench of human blood rolled across the space between the elevator and the fallen. Jesse’s nostrils flared, fists clenched, eyes flashing as he took a deep, deep breath. And then held on to it.

Although his feet carried him a couple of steps closer, he remained at a wary distance.

“Clover…!” he called. Why? She was going to have the same issue he had. There was a human bleeding in their midst and all he could think about was dinner. There was a tome, he noticed, clutched in her bloodied fingers. Where the **** was Logan?!



CLOVER
There were different scenarios that flashed through her mind. Hunters. Vampires. Sunlight. Suicide. If he'd tried killing himself, she wasn't sure what she'd do, not beyond patching him up and sending him on his way. And what if he'd been foolish enough to greet the day, leaving him a burnt mess of a man? What was she supposed to do? None of her scenarios resulted in shouting or lecturing, even though both options made the most sense. Logan was a grown man and handled his own business. He wasn't her husband, a man she could tell at, a man she could lecture. If Logan had done something wrong, perhaps Jesse was the one to handle the business. After all, Clover wasn't Logan’s sire. She really had no place in the equation, other than the one provided by some sort of forged friendship.

When she reached the bathroom, Clover sat down on the edge of the tub and rubbed at her face. She let out a loud sigh, one accompanied by a tiny groan. Logan just had to get into trouble. Logan just had to bring back memories of the last time one of the family members was in trouble. She wanted to be there when Logan arrived at Circle, to be right near the drop point. Clo wanted to tell him how selfish he was being, simply because he'd been clumsy enough to her himself hurt. But her logic was warped, tainted by the last time she'd been left with a mess. The situations were entirely different. Logan wasn't Victor. Logan had reached out for help. He wasn't the type to kill himself or the type to get himself killed. Logan was a completely different person.

Jesse called her name, and she felt the surge of emotions all over again. Logan was bleeding out. Logan was dying. Bang. He'd killed himself. He'd used everything he had just to transport himself back, only to die right in front of them. Clover couldn't take the waiting, but she hesitated. She couldn't take knowing. If he'd killed himself, if he'd gotten himself injured beyond repair, what would she do? What could she do? Clo didn't want to pick up the pieces again. Clo didn't want to pretend someone didn't exist again. When Jesse called her name, Clo watched the scenarios play out all over again, and then she took large steps out of the bathroom and out of the apartment. She'd gone there for the best kit, the one with needles, the one with brand new boxes of bandages. When was the last time they'd ever needed such things?

The first thing she noticed was the overwhelming aroma of fresh blood. The air was heavy with the scent of human blood. Age swallowed hard, clearing the venom that had begun to fill her mouth. The whole place seemed filmed with the smell; the whole room seemed saturated with the smell. Logan should have been at the tome’s drop point, but Logan wasn't in sight. Instead of Logan, they'd received a battered human.

M-something.

Clover couldn't remember the woman's name, but Clo had seen the woman around before. She'd seen the woman at the gym. She'd heard of the woman. But the woman wasn't on good enough terms to show up in their home, especially not smelling so good, looking so good. Clover took slow steps forward, as if she were stalking her prey. The first-aid kit fell from her hands and clattered to the floor. Somewhere between her first few steps, she'd abandoned any idea of helping. Logan wasn't there. They had no reason to help. Humans were snacks. The woman before Clover was obviously a treat, a quick dinner.

She didn't know when the clear thoughts appeared or when she noticed some form of hesitation, but she stood over the woman and looked down at the tome as if she were looking at a headstone. “What did you do? What the **** did you do?” The urge to kill the woman resurfaced, and Clo reached to grab the woman.

[Jesse Fforde]

{marisol}
What the **** did you do? Had her stomach not had a bullet hole in it, and the pain wasn't currently radiating from her head to her toes, Marisol would have laughed. Why did people assume she did something? Why did they assume she could do something? Her hand pressed into her wound, watching Jesse and Clover from underneath her lashes. She didn’t know them well, no. She knew of them, though. “Not me. Mariah.” She hoped they would know the name. She was sure they did.

While the man was a womanizer, he had hid behind his marriage to the ***** that would kill him long enough. It had stopped him from happiness and now, it had stopped him from living. Wasn't that nice? “Mariah killed Logan. I sent the text.” She winced, sitting up properly. Her fingertips tightened around the tome and as Clover moved to grab her, Marisol tried jerking out of her reach. It was not the best of ideas. A white-hot pain shot through her body, it felt as if the edges of the gunshot wound tore more - where it had begun to scab, maybe? She cried out, tears rolling down her cheeks. Again, that darkness pulled at the edges of her sight.

“He showed me… months ago. How to use this. Where it would take me.” Whether or not Clover would grab at her again, Marisol leaned forward to try and ease the pain. It was only in her head that it worked. “I’m his thrall. Marisol.” Was she still his thrall? She couldn’t feel that annoying desire to do everything that she was asked, or told to do. Hell, she didn't even sense the ********. His presence was just… gone. She glanced up at the two, weary. “I… I need help.” Swallowing, she straightened up some.

The cloth of her blouse was soaked. It clung to her skin in some places and itched like crazy in others. There was a wave of nausea and she resisted the urge to vomit, but the dizziness stayed. Her blood volume was low… “Please turn me. One of you.” Marisol knew that she was dying. She hated that she needed to ask, but… “He would do it but she killed him. Bullet got him and hit me. Shoved me behind him.” The room was spinning as she closed her eyes, hoping it would slow the dizzying sensation. She could feel the desire to sleep slowly becoming more and more desireable. The pain slowly subsiding.

While it was a comforting sensation, it terrified her.



JESSE FFORDE
Mariah. The name did sound familiar. It sounded like a name that Logan had mentioned. Yes, he had mentioned it paired with the word wife, and a bunch of other words that hadn’t always been kind. Had they ever been kind? Why the **** had he married that woman to begin with? Now, she had apparently killed him. A single human woman had managed to kill a vampire.

Jesse didn’t know what he was supposed to feel. He didn’t dare look at Clover; he knew that in her he would see horror, or anger, or concern, or a weird concoction of all three. And yet Jesse had carefully and painstakingly rebuilt the garden of his soul in such a way that only poison grew there. Each plant had a defensive purpose, with vines to curl around his unbeating heart that cut off all feeling -- or at least shielded him from it. Logan was dead. So what? It didn’t mean anything. Logan was a vampire and he would come back, eventually. It would be his first trip to the Shadow Realm; Jesse would probably go down and find him, tell him how to get out, help him to rid himself of the wounds that had got him there. Tease the **** out of him that he was killed by his wife. Just his wife. A single woman who, as far as Jesse knew, was not at all trained.

He almost laughed.

Until Marisol uttered her request, which only managed to silence Jesse’s laughter for two seconds. Two seconds, and then he did laugh. Now, he did look at Clover, brow arched in silent question. Was she serious? Jesse might have once jumped on the opportunity. Someone asking him to be turned would have been a dream come true. Now, he was only filled with a peculiar kind of dread. He felt the tendrils of those plants thriving in his soul twisting, curling tighter in on themselves. The laughter was a mask.

“Is it something that Logan would do?” he asked, not only of Marisol but of Clover. It was a veiled question. A simple one, that asked so much more. Was Marisol special to Logan, and was this something they should do out of the kindness of their hearts? It was also a question he asked himself -- did he care about what Logan might what? Should he? His attention shifted to Clover, brow still arched in steady amusement.

“Would he be pissed off if he came back to find out we’d made a meal out of his thrall? Do we care…?” he asked.



CLOVER
Bang.

Mariah killed Logan.

Clover’s mouth suddenly felt so dry, incapable of forming the words necessary to deny the woman’s claim. Clo wanted to shout out “liar,” to demand that Marisol tell the truth, the whole truth. Logan wasn’t dead. Something had happened, but Logan wasn’t dead. It was impossible. It was improbable. And yet, the woman had taken the tome in her hands and transported herself to Circle, to a place with vampires. The woman had risked the last moments of her life by thrusting herself right into the arms of two vampires.

Her eyes darted to Jesse, but he didn’t seem to wear the same startled expression. Maybe he was used to losing people, but she wasn’t. The thought of never seeing Logan, the thought of never hearing from Logan, made her stomach drop. Hadn’t they been friends? Hadn’t he been there for her when she needed to escape?

Mariah killed Logan.

She saw red, so much red. Mariah deserved to suffer. Mariah deserved to spend the rest of her days suffering. But what about Marisol? The woman’s request for turning upset Clover, as if Logan’s passing mattered much less than Marisol’s survival. What if Logan never came back? What if he disappeared, just like Victor? What if Mariah had actually killed him?

“We don’t care,” Clo answered. When Logan returned, if Logan returned, Clo assumed she could talk any frustration away. If she couldn’t justify the fact that they killed the woman, then she’d just dismiss Logan’s anger and go on about her day. Clover did what she wanted. Even though she’d answered Jesse, Marisol’s request went unanswered. Should they honestly respond to her request? Was it worth a response?

“Let’s just finish her off. I’m not turning the *****.” Clover shrugged her shoulders. “If she wasn’t strong enough to defend her master, she’s not strong enough to survive the bite. She’s not worth it.” The words were spoken as if Marisol weren’t present. The truth was that Logan had done what was necessary to save Marisol’s life, and what had that gotten him, where had that gotten him? Marisol should have died. That’s all that went through Clover’s mind. Marisol should have sacrificed herself. And if she’d shown up, riddled with bullet holes, Clo would have been the first to step forward and turn the woman. Instead, Clo stepped forward to deny the woman. “You aren’t worth it,” Clo finally addressed Marisol. “You’re just as responsible for his death.”


{marisol}
She wondered why she bothered. Why Logan had ever bothered saving her life? Marisol didn’t expect them to help her. She had seen Clover around, felt the woman was decent as a friend to Logan, but she had no ties to these people. These bastards. They were all like him, weren’t they? She closed her eyes and swallowed. Afterwards, she hiccuped - there was a seering pain in her abdomen and then, she could taste a metallic lingering in the back of her throat. She spat it out, her amber eyes opening to take in the bloody saliva that was now at their feet. Oh well.

“He won't be ******* happy if I’m dead.”

If he was coming back.

Marisol could feel that he wasn't. Didn't they understand that? She was his thrall, damn it. Or she had been. It was confusing, her emotions almost as uncontrollable as the tears that began to fall. Clover’s words had a bitter laugh escape past her lips. She wasn’t worth it? They weren’t anything new to the model. She had felt that from the moment Logan had gotten shot. From the moment his ashes coated her clothes, from the moment his blood stained her shirt before that. She didn’t understand what was so special that he felt she deserved to live.

“That's the understatement of the century.”

She muttered knowing damn well they could hear her. She moved her hand then, the blood having it slide as she tried to keep herself up as she swayed. The tome clattered against the floor, the phone chiming lightly in her pocket. From the ring tone, she knew it was her sister. Chrys. She would be wanting to know how things went with the psycho ex. At that moment, Marisol closed her eyes once more and let herself slump to the ground. She squeezed them shut. “So much for him telling me to trust you.” And with that, she wondered if they’d put her out of her misery quicker.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and looked past them. She didn’t know what she was looking at, but there was a mild rift in the distance. Marisol wondered if she died, could she haunt them for eternity? That would be nice. Her eyes fell shut once more and didn't open again as she couldn’t bring herself to stay conscious.



JESSE FFORDE
Jesse and Clover were sharks in a b-grade thriller. They were circling their bleeding prey, waiting for the kill, wanting to lunge and bite her in half, chew through flesh until they met bone. Clover’s feelings on the matter were different to Jesse’s; Jesse had so very little fucks to give, and yet he could tell that Clover was upset. By the look on her face and the things that she said, Logan meant something to her and his death struck a chord.

Could Jesse even feel it? When Mickey had died, he’d felt it. Mickey had left the city and he’d disappeared, and Jesse felt it like a resounding death knell in his chest. It had floored him. Shouldn’t Logan’s death floor him, too? Or had things changed too much? The curse was gone, the connections feeble and weak. Weak, unless given reason not to be. Such lack of care was born of two states of mind -- it was prominent in those who lacked empathy, but also in those who’d given too much. On the one hand, such lack of care was natural, on the other it was forced.

Jesse’s actions could be blamed on the latter. His lack of care was forced, a defense mechanism. If he lacked care due to lack of empathy, Marisol would already be dead. There’d have been no conversation. He’d already have ripped her throat out to drain what remained of her precious life force.

It probably had something to do with her quip. So much for him telling me to trust you. She’d already passed out -- she’d already lost a lot of blood. Without a word to Clover he dropped down beside Marisol, crossing his legs as he lifted his wrist to his mouth and tore a substantial hole in the skin over the vein. He forced Marisol’s lips around the wound; if she had any life left in her, she would swallow, eventually. Her body would react by instinct. Jesse turned to Clover, then, his eyes dull and a shrug sloping his shoulders. “You said it yourself. We’ll see if she’s strong enough,” he said. It’d be a week of hell for the woman, if this worked, if he wasn’t already too late.

Deep down he only hoped that this time, things would be different.