"KENNA!"
I gave a weak smile at CC as he practically threw himself off the bus steps and hurtled towards me, staggering to a stop as he hugged me, surprisingly gentle. I hesitated, then patted his back, letting myself rest on him for only a few seconds before pulling away.
"I didn’t think I would ever miss anyone like I did you," he said as he stepped away from me, taking me over in one flick of his eyes. "How are you feeling?"
"I’m okay," I brushed my hair behind my ears, aware it was still damp from the shower I'd taken a few minutes ago. I just couldn’t seem to get myself in gear, and I was moving so slowly it was ridiculous.
I was so tired.
Ashlan was mostly patient with me, and he was standing behind me, on the phone with all of our bags piled around his feet. He was barking something at someone very angrily, which is what he had been doing all morning.
I let my eyes rove to CC, seeing he look well-rested and chipper as always, almost hyper-active.
I sighed, knowing I had to look awful in comparison.
The last time I'd caught a glimpse of myself, my hair was sort of straggling, and black circles were decorating the skin below my eyes. I looked like I hadn't slept in days, despite that's all I had been doing.
And I was getting low on pain meds again.
My insides were a dull ache, but nothing compared to the pain I'd felt before. I could walk around and do things by myself, but I just... I felt so tired now.
It was like everything was exhausting.
"Well, come on, let's get you loaded on the bus!" CC said, glancing around behind us. I followed his gaze, seeing there was a mob starting to build of younger girls, oggling the Black Veil Brides tour bus as it sat parked in front of our hotel.
I turned to look back at Ashlan, and I saw him slip his phone into his pockets, his sunglasses hiding his eyes from me as he lifted our bags up into his arms.
"Let's load up, I'm ready," he grunted, and I nodded, letting CC get on first. I followed him, gripping tightly onto the safety rails, each step a little more difficult. It shouldn’t be, I wasn’t sure why walking was becoming such an issue for me, but it was.
I just wanted to lie down.
"Hey, Kenna," Jake smiled at me from where he sat in one of the chairs, and I sent him my best version of one back.
"Hey, Jake."
"How are you feeling?" Jinxx asked, appearing from the back. "You look tired."
"I am. But I'm okay. I'm just... just gonna go lie down for a while," I mumbled, running my fingers through my tangled hair.
"All right. We'll be at the airport in a few days, and then we'll finally be home again," Jake looked relieved. "I'm missing my dogs."
"I'm sure they miss you too," I heard CC comment as I stared at the stairs, wondering if I could even make it up them. Maybe I should just bed down on the couch and not even have to worry about them.
"Come on, I'll take you," Ashlan murmured in my ear, and I let my eyes slowly rove to his face, feeling resigned.
"I can't make it up those," I muttered, turning towards him. "It hurts."
He hesitated, lifting his glasses off his eyes and letting them rest in his hair. "Still?"
I nodded, feeling like my entire body wanted to do nothing but sink onto the floor. If I went down, I don’t think I would be moving again.
I felt his fingers brush softly through my hair, and then he tugged on me, pulling my arm abruptly over his shoulder before abruptly lifting me up, and I clung to him immediately.
"Ash ---."
"Hush, I'll take you up there."
I frowned, but it wasn’t like I could argue with him. I leaned my head against his shoulder with a sigh, and let him carry me up the stairs back to where my bunk waited, all my things exactly as I'd left them when we entered the small space.
He carefully sat me on my feet, and I heard a thunk as he let all my bags drop off his shoulder into the messy floor.
"Get some rest, I'll bring you up something to eat in a few hours," he said, tossing the sheets back on my bunk and ushering me towards it. "If you need me yell, I'll be right downstairs. Here's your phone. Don’t do anything to stress your body right now, got it?"
I nodded, too exhausted to bother fighting with him, and I crawled into my bunk as ordered, feeling him pull my shoes off for me and tuck the sheets around my shoulders.
"Just yell if you need me."


Ashlandil

She was bad off right now.
Beyond bad, really.
She was completely exhausted and I had no fucking clue how to help her.
I sighed as I descended the stairs, wanting to do nothing more then take a nap myself. I knew she was getting low on pain meds, and I was glad; she was almost impossible to deal with when they were in her system, and I doubted I could take another few weeks of it.
I was hoping she wouldn’t need anymore, would just get to feeling better.
I felt the bus start up just as I made it downstairs, and I glanced around, seeing everyone was staring at me as I opened the fridge.
"What?"
"She looks bad." CC spoke immediately, staring me down. "She is, isnt she? Andy said the doctors couldn’t find out what was wrong."
"Yeah." Where the fuck was he, anyway? I figured he wouldve been out here to see her, welcome her back, but no, the little bitch was hiding. "Where is he, anyway?"
"He's got another cold, he's sleeping it off in his bunk," Jake shook his head. "Prepping for the plane ride, I guess."
i'm sure that's what it was.
"How long till we make it to the airport?"
"A couple days. Driving." Jinxx looked annoyed. "They don’t put them here like they do in the states."
Unfortunately.
It almost makes me wish I could just fly myself again.
My lips paused around the bottle of water, remembering how her lips had felt against my scars, how soft and supple they were.
I wanted her to get better.
I wanted her better so we could get rid of the problem.
"What are you guys... gonna do when you get back?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, she was living with you, wasn’t she?" CC stared at me, his chin propped on his fist where he sat at the table with Jake. "What's ---?"
"She can still live with me, I'm not going to kick her out when she just got out of the hospital," I muttered, turning around to lean against the counters. "She doesn’t have anyone to take care of her."
"What about those friends of hers?"
"What friends?"
"You remember, the girl with the pink hair."
Theda.
"She's... not around anymore," I muttered, my eyes flicking over to where I knew Cronus was. He was in the very back of the bus, in the den, listening to everything that was being said. Kenali had killed Theda, and I'd killed Raza. we'd killed both of his friends, though they had gone dark and were trying to murder us first.
"Oh. Man, what about her family? Did she run away from them or something?"
"What? Why would you ask that?"
"Because you guys are so weird about it when they're mentioned." CC was frowning. "I remember one time her dad got brought up, and you basically had a meltdown. It sounds like she's running away from them. We don’t even know her last name."
"Her last name doesn’t matter," I scowled, tightening my hold around the bottle in my hand. "Why do you guys even care? As soon as we're back in the states you won't have to see her again."
"Ash, that's not what I meant ---."
"Whatever." I tossed the bottle in the trash, growing more and more annoyed with them. All they fucking did was bitch, nothing was ever perfect, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone's shit.
All I wanted was for her to get better.
I wasn’t sure what was going to happen after that, but I wasn’t about to let her go anyway, not when she was carrying that bastards spawn inside of her. It needed to go, as soon as possible, before she had too much time to think about it.
Andy didn’t need to know about it period.
We just had to get rid of it, somehow.


Kenali

I stared up at the bunk above me, my hand resting on my stomach. There was a life growing there, a small piece of me and Andy together. I couldn’t feel anything there, there didn’t seem to be any indication that anything was different.
But, I was pregnant.
I was going to have a child.
Or not, as Ashlandil would prefer.
He didn’t think I should have it, I could tell by the expression on his face every time it was mentioned. He thought I should get rid of it, and I had to agree with him, that would be the best option.
I couldn’t raise a child that would age and die, where I would stay the same forever.
But if I gave it away, I would think about it often, want to see it and make sure its life wasn’t unhappy.
Like Ashlandil was going to do with his.
What made his child more important then mine?
Why did he get to keep his human offpsring, but I didn’t?
Irked, I sat up, my hair falling down around my shoulders.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I became.
He just didn’t want me to have it because it belonged to Andiel, that was what his concern was. He didn’t want me to have a piece of him, anything to remind me of him.
Because he was in love with me, right?
Because he didn’t want a reminder that I loved someone else.
When had all this become so complicated?
I wanted nothing more then to go back to the beginning when we hated each other and my sole purpose was to keep Seraphine away.
There hadn't been any sign of her since then, and I doubted she would come around again as long as I was here. I'd proven I was stronger then her, despite how much younger I was, and I had no issues with destroying her. I'd given her the only warning she would ever get.
And if I had this child, if she found out about it, she might hurt it. She might come after it because she knew how much I would care about it.
It wouldn’t be safe.
So really, giving up the child would be putting it in more danger then just keeping it.
I could keep it, I suppose, raise it and just tell it the truth, let it know why I didn’t age...
But would that even be acceptable?
Wouldn’t it just be cruel?
I wasn’t sure I could stand to watch it grow up and then wither away with the seasons.
What was I going to do?
I didn’t want to lose my baby, not now that I had it.
I pressed my hand tighter against my stomach, an irrtational urge to protect it swelling through my body.
I couldn’t get rid of Iit, I just couldn’t.
All children were a blessing.
To destroy it now would prevent a soul from being born, from ever entering this world. Souls didn’t enter the bodies until birth, just as they didn’t leave until death, and though I would only be destroying a vessel, it didn’t seem right.
no, in its own way, perhaps this baby was a blessing.
The only thing Andiel and I could ever share, the only thing we could create together. If he fell as an angel, this would never be possible. But as a human? We could actually have something.
We could have a family.
Well, I suppose I could.
I didn’t expect him to Fall for me as I did him, that hope didn’t even seem plausable anymore. I couldn’t help but doubt his love, no matter how many times he'd proven to me he did care for me, appearing to me when I needed him most. I couldn’t help but think about what Seraphine had told me, how she'd Fell and had been abandoned.
Love was an awful curse.;
I was cursed for it for eternity.
And I would never really know if he loved me or not.
If he Fell, that would be the only way I would be sure, and that was absolutely the last thing I wanted him to do. I didn’t want him to be trapped here, suffering along with the rest of us in this cruel shitpile they wanted to call a world.
So why did I want to bring a baby into it? Why did I wanted to curse another life with this miserable place of pain and emotions?
I was so conflicted on what to do.
And there wasn’t anyone I could ask.
I didn’t dare let anyone know I was carrying a child, lest it get to ears that meant ill. I wasn’t going to tell Cronus, I wasn’t even sure...
What was Ashlandil going to do with me?
I couldn’t stay with him and carry someone else's child, but I couldn’t go on right now without him; I just couldn’t make it, I was so weak.
What was I going to do?
I could see what the easiest course would be, to just get rid of it and not deal with any of the consequences, but...
But I didn’t want too.
I wanted this child, almost as much as I wanted Andiel's love.
I wanted to take care of it, cherish it and make sure it knew it was loved beyond a doubt. I wanted to make sure that it felt safe and protected, and how could I want to do that and want to destroy it as well?
Why was this so hard?
I groaned, pressing my hands up against my face, feeling a headache brewing behind my eyes.
This was absurd!
"Kenali?!"
I jerked, raising my head as my door was shoved open, Ashlandil immediately appearing, a worried look on his face.
"Are you okay!?"
"Wh---, I'm fine," I said hastily, dropping my hands slightly. "I'm sorry, did I ---?"
"Are you sure you're okay? Do you need something? You're looking peekish," he muttered, abruptly kneeling beside me, his shirt tails fluttering around his hips; his shirt was open, merely hanging on his shoulders and showing off his tattoos. My eyes trailed down them absently, and I couldn’t even begin to count all of the times I'd kissed them, how many times I'd trailed down his body....
Why was I thinking about that?
I turned my gaze away sharply, frazzled.
"Kenali?"
"I don’t need anything," I mumbled quickly, shaking my head. "Don’t worry about me, Ashlandil. Worry about ---."
"I don’t want to worry about anything else," he muttered, his fingers brushing my chin and making me look at him. "You're my concern right now. You're not feeling better, and I want you to be. So if there's anything I can do, you let me know, alright?"
"So if I asked you to slaughter twenty virgins and let me bathe in their blood ---?"
"Then I would slaughter twenty virgins and have a tub ready for you."
I wrinkled my nose, my lips quirking.
That wasn’t what I'd wanted to hear exactly.
He chuckled, and his lips grazed my cheek before he leaned away from me, standing up. I looked up at him, then reached out my hand thoughtlessly, threading my fingers through his.
"Will you.... stay with me for a little while?" I asked carefully, biting the inside of my cheek.
He didn’t even hesitate.
He nodded, and sat down beside me, letting my rest my head against his shoulder. I sighed, letting my eyes ghost close, a numb feeling coming over my body as I felt his fingers tangle in my hair, holding me against him.
"I'm so tired, Ashlan...."
"I know, love, but... it'll be all right."
"How do you know?"
"I just do," he murmured, pressing his lips against my red curls. "When we get home, I'll get you an appointment set up, and we'll get all of this fixed."
What if I didn’t want it fixed?
What if I didn’t want an appointment?
I hesitated, and let my eyes open.
"What if I.... what if I don’t want an appointment?"
He stiffened. "Why wouldn’t you?"
"Well, I..." I wasn’t sure why I wouldn’t, to be honest. "I don’t know, it's just... it seems wrong to do something like that."
"Well, it's not. You're not hurting anything but a vessel. it's not murder, the soul isn't even there. And it's the best case scenario for someone in your condition."
"But, Ashlan ---."
"You're tired right now, don’t think about it," he interrupted me, abruptly standing. "Now's not the time to talk about it at all."
"But ---."
"Not. Now. Kenali."
I gazed up at him a second, my gaze wavering before I dropped it completely, shrugging my shoulders and staring down at my pale hands. "Fine."
I wasn’t having any appointment.
And when I felt better, I would explain to him exactly how I felt..

Notes

Hi guys!
So, I have the worst fucking headcold imaginable right now, complete with stuffy/runny/raw nose, watering eyes, a hellacious wildebeast cough, and a sore throat.
Fucking hate it.
I'm suffering.
But, since I'm sick and home, I'm going to try to work on some updates, but no promises. I'll probably just continue to sit on my couch with my demon cat and play Sims or watch Youtube videos. And think about writing, which is almost as good, right?
*sighs into tissue*
Hope you guys dont get any colds like this!