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Vampires couldn’t sleep. He knew that well enough to last hundreds of years beyond. 200 years and he’d ingrained that into his being. He took breaths with that knowledge hanging in his heart, in this throat, his lungs. He didn’t need to sleep. But that didn’t stop the tiredness wracking a body. Or the burning in someone’s throat. It just made it a constant. Something to push to the background. Something to almost forget.
Owen knew he didn’t need to sleep, that he couldn’t, really. But he knew how to drift. Just for a less-than-hollow breath. Some may have called it daydreaming, spacing out, detached. He simply called it relief.
If he could call it that at all.
He looked up at the ceiling, newly built and towering. The floor beneath him was glossed and hard. Shelby had finished it in some sort of feeble attempt at gaining forgiveness from them; a feeble attempt at looking busy, as Scott had put it to him. And yet the latter had forgiven her anyway. She was a pet to them; who could stay mad at a dog long enough for it to matter? Him, he supposed. He had every right to be angry about this, betrayal. But he couldn’t find that rage right now. Not in any way that mattered. He had nobody to deliver it onto, nobody to release it. There were never enough to let it out right anyways.
All this time being angry, and sometimes, sometimes he couldn’t bear the feeling. It was easy to throw it onto others, to blame them for their hypocrisy, their exemplifying words, their twisted faces. He knew how to be angry with others, to remember and to piece together a bloodied puzzle. He knew how to fill his throat with bile and let his tongue speak for him. To make them hurt. Just as they deserved.
But here, on the floor of a half-built manor he could barely call his? He couldn’t help but let it settle. He was alone, as he always was. This wasn’t peace, or calmness; it was simmering. He couldn’t find contentness in the quiet anymore.
He let out a choked breath and closed his eyes, turning himself on his side. No matter what he did, he ended up in that hole again. He and the night breeze were well acquainted, the smell of dirt and stone and heat and cold singed their way into his nose.
No day was spent without hearing more than just wind rushing through the cracks in the tower above him.
No night was spent without wishing he couldn’t feel the sensation of dried tears etching themselves into his skin.
And nothing could make the feeling of actual ones any better.
He pulled himself closer. How pathetic was it to tremble like this, like he was a small child in need of rescuing. His claws dug deeper into his arm in an attempt at control. As if that had ever worked.
His grief was one of retribution, of anger. He'd had hundreds of years to cry, to smell wet dirt under his fingernails, to try and forget, replace, the smell of a pyre burning.
The red light of the moon shone through the windows around him. He was so tired of being bathed in red. He was so tired of this foul place. These people. These, memories.
He was just, tired.
Owen couldn’t sleep anymore.
But he could drift far enough, long enough, to breathe with gasping for relief.
It was never quite the same each time he let it happen.
It was always something to stumble through, always unfamiliar.
And something that was never long enough for his liking.
He took a breath.
This time, he lay on his back, a pale purple sky above him. On all sides of him was a dark, soft substance. One he knew well; dirt. This time, it wasn’t gathered beneath his nails or intertwined in his hair. He simply lie there. He was used to the unpredictability of these waking dreams, how quickly they could come and go. A moment too short. As they always were.
Owen closed his eyes and turned on his side. He’d go back again after a moment. Back to the sinking hole in his chest. Back to his anger. Back to the incessant yammering and all those “talks” amongst “sides”. Back to the burning in his lungs.
For now, he was in what he could assume was his own grave. Dug loosely and haphazardly. He watched as rocks crumbled from unsecured clusters of dirt. But who needed thought for burying someone who was lucky to have one in the first place? He’d always hoped for one. Before, he wished for enough care to be put into him to make him mean something. So many times on death’s door left one wondering if anyone would find the body before it was just bone and decay. After, he’d carried out the steps himself. He just couldn’t seem to die. Too rooted in the ground around him.
No mercy or pleasantries would’ve been afforded to him. But at least he’d have somewhere to let go. Reclaimed by the very things he felled. Though that might have been too peaceful an end for him.
Then something hit him.
As in literally hit him.
He grunted and furrowed his brows, sitting up as whatever had fallen in slipped beside him. A flower? He turned the stem in his fingers. It was a purple hyacinth. They’d bloomed in the forests of Oakhurst after most of the winter’s snow had turned to water. He liked to use them for decoration, from time to time. A small thing, maybe, but human habits always were.
Another one fell. Blue, this time. And a humming above. A tune he failed to recognize. But a voice he didn’t.
A part of him wanted to scream. Crawl out of this god forsaken grave just to do what he should have done the moment that their “trust” had run its course. But he couldn’t will himself to do more than grab the other flower and seethe. He couldn’t even escape him here. After everything. After that damn Doctor’s stupidity, and, and arrogance, and—
The flowers sat limply in his hands, petals half decayed, leaving a trail wherever they dared to land.
“Hyacinths are your favorite?”
Owen shuddered. The words didn’t carry his voice anymore, they barely carried the warmth they’d been spoken with. But there was an echo there. And he had been so very confused. Meanings of flowers had always escaped him. He had found more enjoyment in arranging them than learning something meant “love”. That knowledge set had never been needed before that.
Seeking forgiveness and sorrow. Sincerity in words spoken.
He’d laughed when Owen said how befitting it was to have a flower like that be his favorite.
Owen held the flowers gently, his claws curling around the petals' soft, wilting edges.
Seeking forgiveness and sorrow. Sincerity in words spoken.
The humming had stopped, but a shadow sat stretched across his grave. Whatever sun that was there was starting to give way to a starless sky.
Owen lay back down, letting the flowers rest next to him. No petals would fall there. No memories would slip away. Forgiveness wasn’t something he knew how to give anymore. That was far past him now. But he would leave them there.
And maybe he could decay along with everything they represented. Or maybe he could hold them like every body seemed to do far into death.
How long could a flower wilt before it lost all its meaning?
He closed his eyes.
“Pssst, Owennn, how long exactly do you plan on laying near face-first on the ground, hm?”
Scott’s voice startled him, his eyes sharply focusing on the heeled boots in front of him.
“Thereee you are,” He sounding unbothered, mildly amused at best. “Y’know, I know the others keep the manor relatively clean but, a bit strange to lay on the floor when I gave you a perfectly good bed, yes?”
Owen scowled and sat up, not looking Scott in the eye. It was better he was interrupted anyways. He was wasting precious time. The doctor's words drummed in his ears.
“Were you doing one of your brooding things or just,” Scott paused, muttering something in a language Owen didn’t know. “Right, that's the word: dissociating. Was that it?”
That infuriatingly condescending tone he always had with the people he saw beneath him. Who was Owen kidding? Scott saw everyone as someone beneath him.
Owen snorted, ignoring the cracking on his face with every word he spoke.
“What? Are you telling me it’s a crime to lay on the floor without reason?” He looked at Scott and flashed an irritated grin.
Something shifted in Scott’s eyes ever so slightly. His smile grew a little wider.
“It could be, who knows?”
Scott stood, reaching out a hand for Owen to take.
“Would you like to acquaint yourself with something that isn’t a few splinters?”
Owen stood, hitting the other’s hand as he did so.
“If I wanted splinters, I would acquaint myself with a stake.”
The corner of Scott’s mouth twitched as he brushed off his hand.
“Well you should honestly, I hear they’re all the rage these days.”
Ha.
“I’m going to go get some backup supplies. See you when the sun comes up, Scott,” He turned to the door into the main hall. “Wouldn’t wanna miss you.”