riverviewlogs | { Born Fighting }

who: Vincent Phantomhive & Open
what: TDM: Dream a Little Dream
when: Late January through early February.
where: In dreams.
warnings: Violence/gore, death (and the issues surrounding it) and madness. { Vague spoilers for latest Black Butler reveals. }

The dreams started the moment he slipped into slumber. Vincent was held prisoner by them, following each uneasy transition against his will. Care to join him?

Good luck.

{ A }

The high-pitched giggling of children playing echoed through the halls of the manor. Vincent was sitting at his desk, reviewing a letter sent by Her Majesty, yet the words stopped having any meaning. They might as well have been written in a language he didn't know. He quickly lost interest in trying to decipher any of it and the paper fluttered from his grip. He then rose from his seat to walk to the window.

Outside, his sons were enjoying a rare day of health and sunshine. Their cousin was with them, her golden hair shining as she pulled one of the boys into a dance. Vincent could not help but smile, however it was...strange...

He could hear their laughter - their voices - so clearly. He closed his eyes, just enjoying the sound of them.

A hand clasped his shoulder, causing him to jump and turn...

{ B }

Behind him was a void. A yawning mouth of pitch dark beckoned him where his door should be. Inside the shadow, the laughter had turned to screams. His heart clenched and he ran forward without a thought; without a pause. If his family needed him, he would be there.

As the shadows swallowed him, he felt a soft, warm weight in his arms. He knew the identity of the precious bundle immediately and he embraced the baby to his chest.

"I love you. I will always love you."

The baby gurgled and settled - always so good and so sweet. Vincent continued on his journey forward, querying:

"Where is your brother?"

At the question, the baby in his arms disappeared, leaving blood on his hands...his arms...his chest.

The screaming intensified and then he heard her voice, loud and clear:

"Vincent!"

{ C }

The pain was brief and intense. His chest was hot - burning - and there was a copper taste on his tongue. He could feel Rachel, but he couldn't move to comfort her. He couldn't even really...see...

"Vincent, wake up~"

He blinked and stirred in his four poster bed. Claudia, his mother, was standing over him, stroking his hair. There was a sad smile on her lips and he didn't know how to make her...happier. Could he? Or was he the sole cause of her pain?

Lifting tiny arms, he embraced her around her neck and was lifted into her embrace. Nothing could be better, surely. They would always be together.

Distantly, a church's bells were tolling.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

a

It felt too real to be any kind of dream. Maybe he had been sent back home at last, he thought, and a brief moment of alarm took him until he looked out the window nearest to him and heard more than saw the children playing in the yard. Alarm shifted to relief shifted to confusion. The boy was safe, but something was wrong. Why were they so young? Had the portal not worked?

He looked around the room, trying to find something, anything, and poor eyesight landed on what could only be Vincent sitting at the desk. He knew then, without a doubt, something was wrong, and quiet alarm returned. In that, he approached the man, sorry to have to do so from behind at this angle, but reached out a hand to touch his shoulder. "Milord?"

Oop. Seems he had startled the man.

b

There wasn't much to be seen, and it was the least of his concerns. What he could see in front of him was Vincent, again, and his heart tore in two as the screams around them continued. The Earl had with him one of the boys - how was the child younger still? - and held him close, and Undertaker could only watch, seeing color and movement and little else, but it was enough for him to decipher the scene.

He wanted to approach. He wanted to do something, anything, and the realization sunk in that he couldn't move, not because of a lack of wanting or anything holding him down, but because when this happened the first time, he hadn't done anything then either. He had been asleep in his bed, warm by a dying fire, where he had no right to be while all of everything that he had left in this world was ripped to shreds only a few miles away.

Then the child vanished from his son's arms, to be replaced by a blot of red. He tensed, finally able to move, and stepped forward. And stopped as the screams escalated. Her screams turned his head. Despite his enhanced hearing, he couldn't locate the direction of her voice.

"Not again." In one movement, he had his scythe in his hand and he turned, listening, feeling, waiting for the source, what was causing them to scream, to show itself. If it did, it would find him there this time.

Vincent saw the flash of the scythe's blade and he acted without thinking. He moved between the Undertaker and the source of the screams, willing to do whatever it took to make them end. Stab wounds appeared on his chest - almost immediately - matching the wounds inflicted on him before the fire reduced the manor to ashes.

Then...he fell, hitting the floor with a wheezing gasp. His lungs were punctured and blood tinged his lips as he fought for every breath. However he could see Undertaker at last.

He recognized him.

"Go."

Save his family. Their family.

No.

He could see things happening, his own body betraying him, feeling like so much cold water against his skin, making his reactions difficult and sluggish until it was all too late. Stab wounds appeared all across Vincent's chest, what they must have been like to end the man's life if it had been blades and not the flames, and Undertaker stood there, eyes wide and wild with agony of a different kind, helpless to stop it.

As soon as Vincent hit the ground, he could move again freely, and he was crashing to the man's side on a knee in an instant, scythe in one hand, Vincent cradled in the other as gently as he could manage. Around him, he kept hearing "No" repeated over and over, and only then did he realize it was his own voice.

Go? He couldn't. This would happen again and this time he was here. Could he really do nothing to stop it, even knowing what he did, how it would go?

The scythe vanished at his back and he cradled Vincent to him as carefully as he could, lifting the man with ease, vision blurred with tears shed and unshed. "With you." Always with Vincent. This time, it could be different. This time, it could change. Tightening his grip, he turned and bolted away from the voices, looking for... something. Anything. The children. Rachel. The way out.

Anything.

The blood was soaking through his shirt, leaving him cold and shivering. He hurt and there would be no end to it. Vincent accepted he was dying, but how could he let go when his family was terrified and crying out for help all around him. He closed his eyes, groaning when he was lifted.

"Undertaker..." he wanted to call him something else, but he remembered the other man's preference. Instead of murmuring that name, he gave his father - the one he had unknowingly sought for years - a small, loving smile.

Yes. With him. He lifted an arm and embraced Undertaker around his neck. The scenery around them whirled, moving much faster than it should. Yet Vincent wasn't feeling worse - he wasn't fading. Instead, he was feeling better.

His clothes had changed too - he was wearing his school's uniform. Weston College. The Sapphire Owls. He was a teenager again and he felt no reason to question it. Anything was better than dying, right?

"It looks like we're in for a journey."

The sun was shining and they were not far from the gazebo where the other Prefects met for tea. It was an incredibly nostalgic scene and he was happy to share it with someone who had come to mean so much to him.

"Have you ever visited Weston?"

Around him, things changed, and as it did, he began to slow down, recognizing the campus grounds. He looked down and saw Vincent had changed with it, as had his own clothing. In place of the mortician's robes, he wore the sharp suit and white gloves, hair bundled up under the top hat on his head. Somehow that seemed perfectly normal, and in place of the fright and urgency, he found relief.

Journey? What journey?

Where were they going? The gazebo was just there in front of them. He remembered what he had been doing at the college and why and it gave him pause, but he shook his head and toed a chair over and gently sat Vincent down in it, then took the chair beside him. "Once, when you were about this age. I wanted to see you, to be sure. And later, to follow your son here."

{ Born Fighting }

two for one!

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