Work Text:
Wood was solid, hard and reliable, but it could also be flexible and hold its own under pressure.
Avid held the cross to his heart, hands squeezing around it.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
He focused on how the bark felt against his palm, coarse and rugged but almost unyielding, in a way.
He focused on its shape. The cross, the bane of vampires, the bane of evil. The faint, earthy oak smell that still lingered on the old thing.
Focus on it, instead of how hard his heart was beating. Instead of the memories, the searing guilt, the palpitations of regret and maybe a sense that he could’ve cured her.
Focus on the cold — but not in the dead, unforgiving way like monsters. No, like solid ground, like a soothing ice pack — and how it’d probably give him a splinter. Anything but remembering.
He’d woken up in the middle of the night, ridden with sweat, a dying sob in the back of his throat, tamped and pressed down and lost to the past.
Avid remembered everything. So painfully much, remembered too much. So much.
How it felt as his fingers tightened around the stake, the way her flesh gave way to the wood, the sound of muscle tearing and the crunch of bone as the stake drove straight into her chest.
The way blood sprayed across his clothing, his face, his hands. It wasn’t messy. It was a cleaner kill than most.
But it left his mind nothing short of cacophony, hardly able to focus on the thud of her body hitting the ground, of life leaving her body.
He shut his eyes tight, gritting his teeth and clenching his hand around the cross.
One, two, three.
Keep levelheaded.
One, two, three.
Focus on the strength of the cross.
Focus on its stability, its flexibility.
Maybe, if he could keep that strength and resilience and reliability he used to know all too well, he could fill that gap in his chest again.
It’d almost be like she was alive again.