nestled in between

“...What do you mean?”

fire or water mother or father to hurt or be hurt eerie or gory unrequited love or no love

Luka thinks she’s fond of him.  Must remind her of someone from before, when she could take in a breath and live.  Fingers move through his hair, barely there but noticeable enough that it’s the first thing he wakes to.  Not the light that cascades into the room, gold and inevitable.  Like a whisper of a muscle memory, he brings his fingers to cover the phantom touch.   But there is no one there.  Nothing.   In the back of his mind, he hears the giggle from the spirit, as if it were a game.  And then she’s gone; floats somewhere else until the next morning, he’s sure.  So he breathes in, tensing as he sits up in the bed, skipping the part where he readies himself for the day, physically and mentally, and simply heads to his dresser to pull out an outfit for the day.   Radana’s ghosts.  That’s what he calls them.  He likes to call them that because he’s never felt them so prominent before in his life.  Radana has lived quite some time, has trudged up enough death and life to have lost souls follow her aimlessly.  Like she’ll answer them, like she answers the living.  They’re drawn to her, as everyone is in this world.  Everyone gravitates towards her in some fashion and it makes sense to Luka that ghosts would too. He’s in the shower when it runs cold.  It takes him a moment to realize it’s not the water but him.  Just beneath his skin, his blood beats ice water and he holds his breath on instinct.   “You’re warm, so warm,” says one of her ghosts, lips against his right ear. Warm like the sun that shines gold in his room, nearly unwelcome.  Warm like the hands that took his cold dead ones that night.  Warm like his sister’s smile, the third time he saw her after the flames because now she knew he was tangible, not going anywhere.  Warm like Carlos’ little hands that gripped his.  Warm like the blood that ran down his nose when he dipped into the Other Side, calling out for a father who didn’t want to be found. He shifts, feeling the presence stagnant in the air around him.  Air.  It’s always been the element he could depend on; the element that he held fiercely to his chest, as if it were to be stolen away.  But it’s never been his.  Luka knows it.  It’s not the element meant for him, despite how much he’d like to keep it. You’re cold, he thinks to the spirit, Cold and sad.  Like the end of the first day of winter, gone and alone. It leaves him with a brush of his jaw, one touch before the water burns his skin and he rushes to adjust the setting.   --- “Your mind is wandering.” He snaps his gaze to her then.  It will take him a few moments before responding to her.  But Radana, great, oh powerful Radana, is so patient for whatever reason.  She doesn’t snap, doesn’t seem irritated.  And he knows partially why, though he doesn’t want to lean into that reason too much. He can feel her, on the edges of his mind, stealing however much she can from him, to leave him with just enough.  She’ll never take too much, like she can with Dominik.  Luka would be left with nothing with bones inside if she did.  Dom gave everything to Radana because he could, all of what he felt.  Dom loved and hated with every cell in his body and she scooped him up.  Dom offered everything.  Until Dom didn’t.  And Dom was no longer Radana’s. He sees himself looking at Radana now, with one of her ghosts to his left, laughing about a crush (But you have it wrong, there’s no love here, he says to it) and he wants to ask her if she thinks he’ll be her new Dom.  Her new everything, a everlasting fountain she could thrive on and he’ll be okay with it because it’s Radana and everyone centers their damn world around her. “Sorry,” he murmurs instead, still staring at her, still listening to the light laughter of a spirit that has the wrong idea.  “What were you saying, Ma’am?” Radana blinks, tilting her head.  There’s jest in her tone when she says,  “I worry for you.”  Another ghost flits between them, whispering Liar but if she notices, she doesn’t react.  But that’d be just like her, Luka realizes.  Nothing phases Radana.  Nothing bothers her.  Not pretty immortals that orbit her, somehow.  And especially not when they leave her. “Don’t have to be.  Not for me,” Luka assures her.  And he looks away then, as if by instinct.  A type of submission he’s used to.  Like with his father.  Or maybe someone else but he can’t remember.   “All right.  Finish the translation.  I will be upstairs.” He doesn’t answer her.  Not to be disrespectful but because another one of her ghosts prods at his shoulder and he slightly moves at the sensation.  As if to tell him to follow her.  But the ghost doesn’t understand.  It’s not like that.  He’d follow Radana to the ends of the damn earth, he’s realized, but not to stand where Dom stood.  Not where others have before.  He’d follow her because he didn’t follow another witch before.  Someone he should have a long time ago. --- Greta’s the metaphors he still can’t quite place.  If she is the waning crescent, he is the waning gibbous, rushing to to fit where she may have been, to fill in the gaps.   On lonesome nights, he’d stare up at the stars, sixteen years old and without ambition but somehow full of life.  A fire inside him that would be the death of him a few months later.  He’d lean against the old family car while Jonas was inside the hotel room, reading over grimoires, calling up connections, or whatever he did so that he wouldn’t have a conversation with his son for a moment.  Luka would look up, watching the odd fade and spark of the lights above, the twinkle poems mentioned.  He remembers how it actually reminded him more of the ocean at night.  How the moon’s reflection scattered over the surface, brighter than stars.  He remembers the water, how it fit him like a puzzle piece.  The element that wanted to be his but he rejected it long ago, chasing the wind instead.  Choosing to breathe the toxins that came with it.   He remembers wondering if his sister thought about the stars in a similar fashion.  And then kicking off the hood of the car, thinking No, that’s bullshit, Greta’s somewhere else, somewhere happy because she wasn’t happy here. I’m not happy, he remembers thinking.  But a pretty girl named Bonnie Bennett smiled at him a few months later and he thought he could be. --- The same spirit traces the line of his face.  Another morning, another one of Radana’s damn ghosts, leaving consciousness in her wake because she has nothing better to do.  This one stays with him the most, however.  Because, honestly, she’s one of the firsts to show up in his second life.  It’s because of Radana and how everyone and every damned thing orbits her. Not her, honey.  You’re such a fool. A fool he used to be, Luka would like to believe.  A fool to chase a Bennett out of the frying pan and into the fire.  A fool to listen to his father when he said You’re acting like your sister.  A fool to not at least ask Greta if he could come with her.  But he isn’t a fool now.  Because he watches Carlos, does little things to keep him safe.  Because he follows Greta now.  Follows the Thorned Witch and listens.  Because he’s not in love, he’s safe.  Not a fool, not a fool, not a fool. The touches pause and he’d like to open his eyes, look at the phantom that haunts him the most, wakes him up to the sun when he doesn’t want to.  But he doesn’t.  Instead the spirit chuckles and he feels lips upon his temple as he lays there in bed, too tired to bat the ghost away.  Radana’s ghost.  Hers.   Not hers, the voice says but it’s more of a feeling that leaves him with a dull ache, a void.  Yours.  Oh, honey, you’re a fool. --- He lets Radana take whatever he feels that morning.  Tosses that ache towards her in spite.  And he wonders why he feels that towards her.  His savior, the one who he first woke up to, explained he was here and no one knew why.  But he’s spiteful and he thinks it has something to do with the ghost that wakes him every morning, reminds him he’s still fucking here, not on the Other Side, where he should be.   And there it is.  He almost misses it. A jolt in her movements.  Like a reflex.  Like he’d actually thrown something physically at her, as if he could hurt her.  And he instantly recoils, still watching but he feels smaller. But she seems smaller somehow too.  Her eyes, just a fraction wider, bore into him.  When he blinks, she’s back to the cool Thorned Witch, nothing could hurt her.  Nothing is there, not even the whispers of souls that tell him he’s done something, that Did you see that?  She saw you.  Something’s wrong.  The moment passes and she greets him, brushing past, her fingers on his shoulder and it feels searing hot, like she’d branded him there. Yours, he remembers the Morning Ghost saying, sweetly but sadly.  Yours like how he’d follow Radana anywhere, how he should have followed another.  Yours like how Dom must have said over the years, only to leave small traces of him for her to find.  Yours like Bonnie Bonnett and her beautiful smile.  Yours like the first embrace he gave to his sister, after the flames and when he cried because it was kinda true.   Or Yours like the whispers from this morning.  He was waning gibbous and he couldn’t claim the element he wanted to because another claimed him awhile back.  He was that scattered moonlight, the sixteen year old that grinned far too much, with a fire inside his chest.  But now he’s the stagnant pond that sits waiting for ripples and moonlight, with ghosts in his ear and a wandering mind, a fool.   Yours yours yours yours yours yours--- “Mine,” he says the ghosts that cut through the air.  Because now they were his, for whatever reason.  They showed up, not as much as first, but now they were the air he breathes.  And he just wants to be the scattered light upon the waves, broken down so that they can’t find him.  So that Radana can’t say what he fears she’ll say because he won’t deny her.  And he’s mad at himself for it, mad at Dominik for a moment and wants to fling his frustration her way again, find her and let her scoop it up.  But he doesn’t.  Because Luka Martin doesn’t feel all that much anymore and he lets it go all too much.   The ghosts are his, in some way.  He doesn’t know why or when it happened but he’ll accept it for now.  Like he accepts everything.  Luka thinks that’s okay as long as everyone else is.