I Wish

Chapter 34

I mentioned that I never thought that anyone would make me as angry as Ivy, yeah? You remember my trips to crazy town during her arguments? It wasn’t looking so bad now. I never wanted to sink my teeth into the part of her face where her jaw bone met her jaw and see if I could pull the whole lower bone clean from her face like I did this guy. The idea of the blood splatter only makes it more appealing. This asshole made me want to see if the claims they made in Charmed, where a big enough puncture wound to the back of the skull would cause someone’s brain to spill out on the floor, were actually plausible. Mythbusters style, and he’s the crash test dummy. It seemed like a perfect time to wonder if shoving my thumbs in Kaede’s eye sockets would feel like some kind of bizarre jelly that managed to keep its consistency while hot. 

“I think we both know that’s my queen now,” I responded regardless of the issues that Ivy and I had together, “But whatever crazy float’s your boat.” That seemed to irk him, which made me glad I hadn’t hit him. It didn’t make me want to any less, but it helped with the whole not following through thing. I was quite proud of myself, I didn’t think I sounded half as angry as I was. Although it wasn’t the believable cool indifference I had been aiming for, I felt it was close.

“Trust me, he doesn’t mind,” Ivy fake whispered in my ear, as we all came to sit in our own small group. Feeling particularly defensive, for reasons that I was partially unsure of, I placed myself so I was sort of draped across Ivy’s lap. Her arms wound possessively around me and that was where I screwed up. I relaxed, all the muscles in my body going practically limp as Ivy became integral in my chances to remain upright. They talked to each other. It was snide, and he was mocking. I didn’t catch very many words, but the tone came across perfectly. I sort of lay there vaguely and stare at the other people around us. The group of three had a man and a woman lying across a fairy’s chest, whispering to each other softly, but for the most part. The other pair were curled together, and one was feeding the other grapes. It was all a very ancient world picture being painted.

“He really is a snake,” I said blankly, listening to him hiss and rattle at her. She laughs, and my whole body shakes with it. It doesn't seem to matter that it’s heavier than normal. 

“Ha, and you thought you had a shot,” Ivy crowed, acknowledging my words if not me, “You never learn do you?” Huh, was it really too much to ask that they could have made some kind of sense, because they argued over this for a while. Ivy’s grip tightening the more time it took.

“I do. You haven’t pulled it off yet, and if you think I don’t know the gossip of my own castle you’re mistaken,” Kaede replied coldly. I wasn't really focusing on him though. I was more preoccupied with the way the stars were making everything glitter. 

“You know you have no chance, the past only proves it,” she said back scathingly, stroking a hand through my hair. Ooooooooh, that was nice. Helplessly I let out a small yawn that refused to be stifled. Ivy humming as I did so.

“You don’t really believe that. If you were sure, why are you here? Why risk breaking her?” he retorted with a delighted malice, “You fear that you can’t pull this off, and you’re right to. Who do you imagine would allow it? There are many more of us than there are of the two of you.” It was blood-chillingly creepy, and not the end of the conversation but the end of anything I was able to understand. I just kept blinking until my eyes didn’t open anymore, something that took a pitifully short time.

When I woke up I was back in Ivy’s bed. The other woman spread out on the other side and was half asleep. I didn’t pay much attention to that after my initial observation. I was too busy wondering how I was not dead, because I was so hung over that death was starting to make a case for being the preferable option.

“Are you awake?” Ivy mumbled into her pillow. If I could move, my foot would have already reached out and kicked her in the gut already. Sound was not welcome here, light could go jump off a cliff, and my stomach could quit its whining. There was no need for everything in it to be almost jumping at the opportunity to get out. 

“No. I died, I’m dead. This is miserable,” I croaked. Everything was just so sharply there and present, it assaulted all my senses to the point of pain, and any of the easy calm I’d been experiencing in… I remembered where we’d been. I knew what it was called, I did. I was… going to have to ask.

“Big baby,” she muttered, crawling closer to me to pull me into a hug. Moving wasn’t pleasant, but as she touched me I started to squirm away. It felt like being rubbed with sandpaper, if you had sunburn that is, and I was flipping out. “Hey, hey. It’s okay,” she promised in a whisper, sitting up and holding her hands up in surrender. It didn’t make it any better, it just left me feeling hollow and alone.

“Something’s wrong,” I panted haltingly with tears building up in my eyes, “This isn’t. I don’t… What’s wrong with me. Touch hurts, and being alone is awful.” Her hand freezes half way between us, a deer in the headlights expression plastered across her face.

“You’re just coming down,” Ivy said with confidence that would have been far more believable if it wasn’t for the fact that she couldn’t look me in the eye. Coming down, the only way I’d ever heard that expression used was with drugs I thought, forcing my brain into pulling itself together. 

“I don’t seem to remember taking drugs,” I said icily, and pinning her with the biggest glare I could pull off and not lose the battle with my stomach.

“Oh, that’s right,” Ivy said, snapping her fingers in a way my pounding head didn’t appreciate, “ You don’t know. It’s mind-bending up there, so to preserve sanity the higher up you go the higher you get. It stops the newbies from having their brains melt out of their ears.” See that I remember thinking was about to happen at any given moment.

“What?” I asked flatly, “Are you trying to tell me that I wasn’t roofied, you just popped us on your horse to go on a literal drug trip? How long were we even in there?” I was way too exhausted to be finding the will to ask this question, let alone hear the answer. Judging by how guilty her expression was I’d say a lot.

“Eighteen days?” Ivy said, frowning a little as she tried to pin down actual dates. Eighteen days? We had been there for? Oh. Oh no. What did you do Ivy?

“I am going back to sleep,” I said, doing the bare minimum to get as close to comfort as I could, “You can… I don’t know, sit here and think about the many-many things wrong with this whole scenario.” 

“Can you please just admit that for a good chunk of time we were happy up there,” she sighed, and yeah I could have but I wasn’t going to.

“Drugged. Eighteen days,” I reminded her, “You don’t get a vote.” And with that I buried my head into my pillows, and drifted back into a sleep that quality wise was less helpful and more the cementing of facts that I didn’t particularly want to hear. Like it or not, there wasn’t anything I could do about this right now.