This might end up in the third book of The Historian's Archives, but it's for the 100 themes challenge. The prompt was "Only Human"
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“You’re only human,” he told
her solemnly, not bothering to look at her as he spoke. No, he was too occupied
with the sketch book sitting on his lap; and he was only talking to her, after
all, why waste his time sparing her a glance as he pointed out what he
obviously felt to be her greatest shortcoming.
She gave him a look that she hoped
would burn his skin clean off his muscles and bones. “You like to throw that at
me, don’t you? Despite all of this stuff that you claim I’m supposed to
be able to do, all of these reasons why I have to fulfill your list of
requirements, you’re quick as fuck to throw my species back in my face whenever
it suits you.”
The vampire shrugged and rotated the
pencil and wedge eraser in his hand so that he could correct the paper. Then he
switched the positions of the two utensils again, and continued drawing. “You
remind me of it often enough when you want to make excuses for why you shouldn’t
have to do what you were clearly made to do, and yet you’re awfully
quick to forget it when it comes to something that you want to
do.”
Now he did look up at her,
mis-matched eyes meeting hers in a steady, calm gaze. “I can put emphasis on
key words, too, Ophelia. Your oratorical strategies have no effect on
me.”
The woman threw her hands in the
air. “Never mind.”
“Don’t worry, I had no plans
to.”
They sat in silence that would have
been worlds more comfortable if the woman weren’t radiating bitterness and
something precariously close to hatred in the general direction of her
companion. But the vampire, despite being acutely aware of the woman’s
emotions, made no attempt to ease the tension between them. For better or worse,
he was content to let her stew in her own dissatisfaction.
The woman, it seemed, was
considerably less so.
“It’s my damn life, Cavan. That’s
the difference. It should be my choice what I do with it, what my responsibilities
are, where I go and who with and why. I’m not your daughter, your sister—hell,
in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not even your friend—and I’m sure as a pixie’s
tiny bulbous bottom not your responsibility. You shouldn’t get to swan into my
world and tell me that I have to do A and B for the rest of my life, but that
I’m not allowed to do C and D because it’s not my place—not even if I happen to
have some freaky-deaky powers that no one has had in however many years.”
Scritch—scritch—scritch…
The damned pencil scribbling
its way across the paper was her only answer, and she wanted to take his sketch
book and beat him over the head with it. “Did you hear me, damn it?”
“Yes, mother, I heard you.”
She had just enough time to wonder
if the man was determined to out-tone her every time she opened her mouth
before the vampire put the book and the pencil down on the table next to his
chair. To the woman’s disappointment, she couldn’t see what had been so damn
interesting that he practically ignored her presence throughout the entire
conversation. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on who you were, she
didn’t have time to reflect on the dark blob of an image that she couldn’t
quite make out, because the vampire began talking.
“Your problem is that you still
think that you live in the same cutesy, safe little world that you’ve been
floating around in for the last twenty-something years. The world where you
teach ballet for pennies that you save up so that you can earn a degree in the
performing arts one measly class at a time—yeah, I know about that; I did my
homework—unlike you, by the way. You still don’t know shit about how to control
those powers of yours, and you’ve made a big show of not using
them—“
“To fight some creepy crawly dream
critter? Of course I haven’t, and you’re damn near crazy if you think I
will!”
“Honey, I’m a lot of things, but
crazy isn’t one of them. Unfortunately.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
He was looking at her intently, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front
of him. She couldn’t read his expression. Frankly, she didn’t know if she
wanted to.
“You think I’m selfish,” she said
dourly.
“No, I think you’re irresponsible.
You think you’re selfish—no, obviously you do, or you wouldn’t have accused me
of thinking you were.” He raised a hand to stop her from arguing. “I think that
you haven’t yet developed an understanding of why it’s important that you take
what you’ve been given and actually use it to its full potential, to do what
you were actually given the gift to do.”
“You want me to do that because you
think that it will make your job easier.” It was hard to keep the accusation
out of her voice, especially when he began to smile at her mid-sentence.
“Of course I do, darling. I don’t
want to keep running around cleaning up after the same beastie which could
easily be killed if I could actually get into the Dreamscape to kill it.” He
opened his hands and made a small shrugging motion. “But the fact is that it’s
just something you were meant to do; call yourself Buffy if that’s what gets
you through the day, but don’t live your life being dragged into one
supernatural mess after another, always surprised by it because you’re still
convincing yourself that things like that just don’t happen to people like
you.” He sat back again, picked up the sketchbook and continued drawing.
“I would have thought that you’d want to put yourself in control of your
situation.”
The words hung between them for a
few breaths.
“It’s just a lot to ask of me,” she
said quietly, bringing her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around
them. She put her chin on her knees and watched the vampire as he continued to
scribble. “I mean, you’re asking me to put myself in prominent danger every
time someone has a bad dream. How the hell am I supposed to actually get any
sort of sleep at night myself if suddenly I have to worry about everyone else’s
nightmares, too? I mean, sure, some of my abilities are really nifty; who
wouldn’t want to teleport some place instead of spending three hours on a
plane? But overall…I mean…It’s not like I’m immortal or harder to kill…I’ve
never weighed more than a hundred and twenty-five pounds in my life, I’ve only just
begun learning basic self-defense, and you’re asking me to take on monsters
that could be twice my size, more magically attuned than I’ll ever be, and
harder to kill than a grizzly when I only have a pocket knife. I mean, I don’t
know if it’s escaped your notice or anything, but I’m only—“ she paused and
pursed her lips.
Cavan, to his credit, said
nothing.
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