Work Text:
The first time he sees her, he finds her oddly familiar. Not in the same way a face stuck in the background of memory, but like an old friend. Someone who has shared confidences and would spill blood to defend. His hands know the shape of her though he knows he's never touched her.
His heart aches a little though he can't say why.
...
When she asks him to choose a tarot card, things only get stranger.
He knows what the card is before she flips it over. It's a call deep in his blood, deeper than his bones, tattooed on his soul. There is no other card in the deck. When her pale fingers touch the card something ancient seems to smile a sickly sweet smirk that once more seals their fate.
The Lovers.
He doesn't tell her that his stomach sinks with the certainty that lovers is the one thing that can never be.
…
He doesn't want to believe that she a reincarnation of some goddess from the beginning of time. But like the card, he already knows the truth. Maybe he always knew it.
Hound of God... He knows what that means too and he wonders at Vanessa's belief. Her ability to continue to pray to a god who had forsaken them centuries ago, burns at him.
He fears he can't save her. That he is here for one reason. Always that one reason.
Her terrors come in the form of a demon. His haunt his dreams and every waking minute with that ancient sickness that tears at his soul. Neither of them can outrun it, but when he catches her in a lucid moment he vows he won't give up while he has breath left in him.
So he dares to hope.
…
He doesn't tell her his secret. He can't. He doesn't want it to touch her. Her world is cloaked in so much pain and darkness, he doesn't want to pollute it any further with his sins. He doesn't want his darkness to ruin her.
This demon who seeks her doesn't know her. The light that begs to burst through her skin, and hides behind her eyes is blinding. Pure. Clean. Her sins don't trap her or chain her down. He believes in forgiveness when she smiles. Believes that if anyone deserves it, it's the angel she's hiding inside.
He is truly a creature of the night, meant to protect her and walk in her shadow. He can't drag her down with him. So he keeps his darkness and anguish inside, knowing she would want to save him. She would forget herself and try and rescue him, but he is beyond rescue. There is no going back for him and one day soon he will have to face the consequences of his past, but not until his work here is done.
He's determined to break the cycle that haunts him in the forgotten places of his soul. The one he can't name or remember, but that hangs over them like the shadow of a noose.
…
He loves her. It's a sickness in his blood, the ever present desire to have her next to him. To hold her, comfort her, become one. It stirs him to anger, makes him anxious and discontent until her hand rests on him once more.
The cottage is torture.
By now he knows every inch of her. Aches for every inch of her. Every night when she climbs the stairs and he sinks into his hard makeshift bed he prays for sleep and not the wakefulness that descends and leaves him counting her breath and the fantasies of flesh against flesh.
It's a fire that burns him every minute of every day. The only relief he finds is taking her in his arms and dancing. He knows it's just an excuse to feel her close and is grateful she continues to honor him even though it's clear by now that he no longer needs her as his tutor.
He tells himself that he can't have her. Over and over again into the long night, through the mornings that drag into afternoons and evenings.
She is not his. She can't be his. He will break her. She can not love him. She is a goddess and he is a tool of death and destruction. He swore to protect her. Even from himself.
But then she kisses him and he forgets anything but her lips and that need that burns them both.
Their love is a dark consuming inferno. It is forgetful and destructive. It will consume them.
He doesn't blame her for pushing him away.
…
He failed her.
He watches as blood and fur and helpless cries of anguish fill the night. Watches as that light dims just a little more and darkness wins another part of her soul. He can feel it in the air. That ancient wheel turning.
He is losing her.
Again.
There is nothing he can do.
…
He sees it in her eyes, the immediate forgiveness and recognition. She would sell her soul to buy back his. Even as this creature who has just torn out the throat of his friend.
He worried he would not be able to control himself. He worried he would hurt her, but she is safe now.
For the first time he comes back to himself while he is still a monster.
She does that.
Something about her makes him able to see the monster, control the monster for a minute or two. Long enough to run and hide.
It terrifies him that she has that kind of control over the beast and when he makes his way back to her the next day he knows what has to be done.
He can not stay. She will love him until he forgets.
Better he ends it before that happens.
...
There are too many things to tell her. They are out of time.
The wheel has finally come full circle again.
She knows it this time, he can see it in her eyes. Maybe she's always known it, just as he has. She has begged him for release before and he was too selfish to give it to her. This time she has ensured he has no choice.
If he doesn't take her life, everyone else will die.
He wants to hate her for it. For not waiting just a little longer. For not believing.
But he is just as guilty. His hands are stained with more than her blood.
His heart a messy broken lump of flesh continues to beat as hers slows and stops. His anguish is too deep to escape. The pain echos inside.
…
When she is cold and buried in the earth he becomes obsessed. Sir Malcolm wonders about reincarnation and he spits out the hurt bitterly.
“No.”
Please God, no. Not again. Don't do this to her again.
But he can't get it out of his head, or his heart. Or that ancient part of his soul that already knows the truth.
The wheel turns. Forever.
…
A knife. A sword. A bullet. The stake. A noose. Poison.
Different names. Different places. But always them. Always those haunted eyes, that sad soul.
Always by his treacherous hand.
He finds too that there is always a record, and he wonders who will write their story this time. Or who has been. He's bitter about the fact that they could not find the accounts before, or maybe that they did not recognize them for what they were.
Part of him longs for death. Weary of life without her. Anxious to start again with no memory. Hopeful that the next time he will not find her. Will not know her. Will not have to kill her again.
He tells himself he must learn all he can though, perhaps something will stick this time. Maybe he'll know how to stop the cycle if he can just remember why his soul knows her. Maybe if he learns all of their past mistakes he'll know what to do the next time around.
But it's miserable research and he's grateful when his past finally catches up to him for good and the darkness ends his suffering as he joins her in the ground three years later.
…
He finds her in Spain in 1918. She is so young and their time together is so short. He follows her only four months later.
He meets her again in Germany in 1944. She does not know him. He does not remember in time.
In 1976, he buries her in China after a six year struggle that nearly destroys them both.
The cycle remains unbroken. The wheel keeps turning and crushing everything in its path.
…
The next time he meets her they are in a pub. He recognizes her immediately. His blood burns as he makes his way through the dark crowded room.
“I know you,” she chokes on the words.
He doesn't know what is different this time. Doesn't in fact even realize what is happening. He only knows that his soul aches as he leans into her space and wraps a hand around the back of her neck.
“Where?” He wonders aloud.
She shakes her head unable to supply him with an answer. Her hand comes to rest on his arm and something in him breaks. He tugs her to his chest, burying his lips against her neck as he fights the unmanly urge to weep at the feeling of her pulse fluttering against his mouth.
They don't exchange names or numbers. They don't make pleasantries over the drink he doesn't buy her. She doesn't tell him about the darkness that plagues her past and he doesn't tell her about the bodies behind him.
He's already so heartsick in this incarnation that he's almost given in to the dark urge to end it. But as he holds her close to his heart, there is a light in her that makes him forget the ugliness of this life.
“I'm so tired,” she whispers into his neck, but he still somehow hears her and pulls back to meet her eyes.
“Let me take you home,” he murmurs and she nods. Her eyes are a glorious blue, and wet as if they are also about to run over.
He walks her to his truck and she thinks for a minute that she must really be crazy for getting into a strange man's truck and letting him drive her home. The thought fizzles as he opens the door for her and places his hand on the small of her back.
He's not a stranger. She knows him. Every part of her body responds to him, calls to him like some broken record player.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
She knows he will not hurt her.
When he pulls up in front of her apartment building he leans over and takes her hand.
“I don't want to let go again,” he mumbles and squeezes her fingers tightly.
She slides closer and places a kiss on his cheek and it shocks them both. She laughs nervously and he almost growls as he catches her face in his hands and leans his forehead against hers.
“Who are you?” he demands then throws caution out the window and seals his lips against hers.
They ignite.
Lips and tongues fast and furious. Hands grab and tear as she climbs in his lap.
Madly devouring each other as if answering for centuries of loss and need.
He can't catch his breath as her skin flushes in the pale moonlight. She can't keep her hands from shaking or stop the small whimpers that slip passed her lips and disappear in his throat.
The world shakes when he slips inside of her. A great tear in the curtain of time and memories flood her mind. So many lifetimes and him. Always him.
He calls out her name. Names.
He swears he can hear that damn wheel crack and shatter.
He laughs as he pulls her closer and she can't help but try and capture his laughter with her smile as she presses her lips against his again.
They don't last very long. She collapses against his chest and he groans.
“So...” he murmurs after a moment, his fingers tangling in her long dark hair.
“I would have fucked you silly a hundred times over, had I known the amazing results. Mr. Chandler.”
She punctuates her comment with small bites across his chest.
“I do recall many times I would have let you do that exact thing, Miss Ives,” he laughs as he pulls a cigarette from his pants and lights it, then hands it to her and watches as she leans back and takes it between her lips.
He still doesn't really smoke. But something had urged him to buy a pack. Or maybe someone.
“Over four thousand years, love,” he sighs then takes the cigarette from her and places it between his lips.
“To quit? Or to figure out how to break that awful cycle?” she teases as she takes the cigarette back. He laughs and rolls down the window to let some of the smoke escape.
“Maybe both.”
She throws the offending item out the window.
He raises his eyebrows and she shrugs.
“It's a brave new world, darling. Now take me inside and show me what four thousand years of longing looks like.”
He gladly obliges.