#faeblood

“Look at me, Elle,” he says. I hesitantly look up, slowly tracing the distance from his gray shoes, up past his jeans and across the navy plaid flannel he wears. I stop, right at his chin. I can’t meet his eyes for more that a split second. It’s too hard to do, even if it’s such a silly thing to not be able to do. I’m really good at not being able to do simple things, I know that much at least. He must see my discomfort, because he frowns at me. “I mean, you don’t have to look at me. I just-- hell, just listen to what I’m trying to say, okay? You were raised to fear magic and were kept away from it because of your parents’ views, and because of the way your parents raised you, you feel pressured to excel in magic even though there’s no reason for you to be as advanced as other people who grew up learning this stuff when you only just started learning.”

“Vincent, I don’t want to feel like I’m being left behind. I felt like that in school and now I’m feeling it again now. That’s so scary to me.” I meet his eyes for a few seconds, long enough to see something in his face change, before looking back down at his shirt. Bitterly, I add, “Besides, I bet you never had any problems with magic.”

He sighs again, deeper this time. “When I was ten and I officially started my lessons, I couldn’t conjure up enough fire to light a candle.”

I blink, taking that in. It’s a surprise. I thought Vincent was the kind of guy to grasp something as soon as he started it. At least, that’s how it seems now.

“My dad was mad at me. Too mad, honestly, considering I was a ten year old and there were other kids in my class who were having the exact same issue. And there were other kids who were having different issues. I don’t think there was a single kid who got magic right off the bat. But, I’m a Michaelson. I’m my father’s son.” His voice drops, getting quieter and more distracted as he goes back to those lessons and, presumably, the harsh criticism his father gave him. “I’m from a long line of Faeblood. Our family has remained almost entirely fire elementalists, which is rare for a lot of families. Usually people with different types of magic marry, but I guess ours just didn’t. Might’ve been a coincidence, but it was probably because they thought the purer the blood the stronger the magic or some shit like that. Anyways, because of that strong bloodline, I was always brought up to be a magic-wielder. And when I didn’t show off the ‘gift’ passed down through my blood, my dad flipped his shit. You don’t get to be a Michaelson and be a failure. Even if you’re just a kid.”

I slowly raise my eyes a bit, but he’s no longer looking at me. Instead, he has his arms crossed in front of him and is looking out across the parking lot with empty eyes. The student driver is still going, jumping back and forth between driving and halting suddenly enough to give everybody in the car whiplash. “That’s harsh.”

He laughed at that, dry and cool. “Well, yeah. Anything less than perfection is mediocre, and mediocrity is failure. You know how it is.”

I do.

“The point is, my dad was mad at me because he set up unrealistic expectations for me. And I was a kid, and I was told those expectations were the only true thing. So those unrealistic expectations of his became my own. So I pushed myself until I was better than everybody else in my class--except for fucking Kara, she never could let me have first without a fight--and eventually I was doing magic that was advanced for my age. My dad was happy. Uh, happier. The guy’s face is literally set into a frown permanently.” He shook his head, his smile as warm as winter. “I was not happy. I used to like magic and my lessons. Learning to use this incredible thing the universe had given me made me feel like I was a god or a superhero. Then, when he shoved that competitive crap into my head, it became a job. It sucked all the joy I found in learning to control my magic right out of me. I went to my lessons and I wasn’t excited to learn anything new anymore. I was terrified. Terrified I wouldn’t be able to get it right away. Terrified of what my dad would think of me if I wasn’t perfect. Just... terrified.”

All I can think of is my own dad; The way he talked to me about magic and how using it was against nature; The way he guilted me on every single thing I ever did, not just with magic but with everything in my life, and how it made me hate myself. I understood Vincent, even if our situations were completely reversed when it came to magic.

“I still don’t feel the way everybody else does about magic.” His voice breaks off, a creak at the end of his sentence. It’s just barely there, but with somebody who speaks so steadily it’s hard not to notice. He closes his eyes and shakes his head quickly, as if to shake whatever is floating around in his head and making him upset out. I figure me trying to reach out and touch his shoulder or something would just be awkward. I don’t like receiving touches when I’m upset, and I sure as hell don’t like giving them either. So I let him stand there for a moment. He composes himself fairly quickly, his eyebrows pulling together as he turns to me. “You are just starting out. It’s natural for you to not be great at it, and you have a disadvantage because of the way your parents raised you and what they taught you about how you were supposed to feel about magic. Does that mean you’ll have to work a little harder to make up for it? Probably. But you’re capable. You just can’t compare yourself to other people. That’s how learning magic turns into a job or an assignment. And once you start thinking about learning magic like that, it is very hard to come back from that and feel anything good about it again.”

We watch the student driver screech to a halt on the other side of the parking lot. The driving instructor slams his door open, ducks his head out of the car, and spills his guts out onto the asphalt while the student driver apologizes repeatedly.

“You should talk more,” I murmur finally, meeting his eyes. It would be nice to hear him talk more when I wasn’t having a total mental breakdown. It would also be nice to hear him talk when it wasn’t about things that obviously upset him.

“That’s funny,” he replies wryly, a smile creeping across his face. It looks like he knows he got his point across. He seems relieved. “Kara always tells me I need to shut the fuck up more often than not.”

“Well, that’s Kara.” He gives a breathy chuckle at that. I need to say something to him. Literally anything to let him know I’m grateful for talking to me. All I manage to croak out is a measly “thank you.”

It’s not like they need to talk anyways. How long have they known each other? Kindergarten? She thinks it over, blowing another ring of smoke out. No, they didn’t meet that early. They met in first grade, and it had been like introducing fire to gasoline. Their teachers hated them up until seventh grade, always complaining about them being placed in the same class when all they ever did was fight.

Oh, the poor teachers they tormented. She smirked. They ruined so many alphabetical seating charts. Mai and Michaelson were rarely seated next to each other for more than a week.

She leans back and runs her left hand through the fountain water. It’s warm from the August sun, but not unpleasant. He keeps on playing his game, dodging obstacles on his little 2d platformer. She feels herself zoning out, lost in the way his fingers work over the screen. It’s relaxing. Vincent has a knack for latching onto something and perfecting it quickly, so she isn’t surprised as she watches him effortlessly navigate the levels. She always admired that trait in him, even when she disliked Vincent himself.

She admires a lot of things about him.

She has a thought. A silly thought. A depressing thought. She’s had it before, but she’s never told anybody before. It came to her for the first time after watching him get almost gutted in that warehouse back in Minneapolis, sitting next to him in the faeblood hospital while his little brother tried to arrange transportation to get out to the Twin Cities to check on him with so little notice. Their father was dismissive when she called him to tell him Vincent had been hurt, telling her that his son should’ve been smart enough to know not to play Nancy Drew with her and the others. It had made her blood boil, and she’d only stopped herself from losing it by thinking about how Vincent didn’t need her help in making his dad pissed off at him.

“You know,” she breathes the words out, smoke pooling out from between her lips alongside them. With a sigh, she grinds her cigarette into the side of the fountain, extinguishing it. “I would die for you. I would die for any of you. But mostly for you.”

“Do me a favor.” The tiny character he controls comes to a brutal end, crushed between a horde of monsters and a cliff. He’d been fine a moment ago. He frowns, staring down at his phone as the failure message pops up. “Don’t.”

She picks up the box of cigarettes next to her, rattling it a little and watching the way they shift inside of it. She flicks the top shut, sliding it back into the pocket of her jacket along with her lighter. Kara smiles slowly. “Aw, Vinnie. Let me have my angsty teen bullshit moment.”

He closes the app so it goes back to his home screen. She’s not surprised with how organized it is. Apps filed away under marked folders. Everything is in its place. It’s so very... Vincent. “I don’t like it when you talk like that.”

“Cole is right.” She’s not sure whether or not her own smile is real. “You are the mom friend.”

“Good,” he says, locking his phone and slipping it into his pocket. “You people need one.”

“Really? ‘You people’?” She raises an eyebrow.

“I love you guys,” he sighs. “God only knows why.”

He stands up, brushing imaginary dirt off his jeans. She glances up at the sky, squinting against the harsh light of the setting sun. At least it will finally cool down once night comes. She directs her eyes back to him. “Hey, Vin?”

“Yeah?”

“Call me.”

“Okay.”

She watches him walk off in the direction of the parking lot, gaze trailing after him until he vanishes behind the bushes that block her line of sight from the fountain. There’s silence for a moment, then the sound of the van’s door closing followed shortly by the sound of the engine coming to life. She listens as he pulls out of the parking lot and heads back to his house, probably to check on his little brother.

Kara, alone once more, sighs before pulling her cigarettes out again. She looks down at the box, turning it over in her hands and thinking. Revulsion fills her stomach as she looks down at the box in her hands. The feeling only grows as she plucks out one last cigarette and lights it up, the disgust bubbling up through her throat even as she tucks it back into her pocket.

One more, she thinks sullenly.