Work Text:
There is only endless red.
Red sky and red dust and red smoke that fills her lungs as Corinne shuffles through the mountains of rubble. Cass' warm little hand is in hers, shuffling along at her left, but Corinne can't turn her head to see. She walks and their footsteps echo in the crimson expanse. Blocks of rubble around them turn into pavement beneath their feet and pillars shooting up high into the murky sky, holding up what Corinne knows is the Unity Bridge.
The red smoke fills her nose. In with each breath. Choking and clogging her lungs. Out in clouds of dust that dissipate in the air around them. A chill creeps down Corinne’s spine, a cold hand constricting her heart in a vice grip before she even sees the bodies. But she knows they're there, hidden in the murk. As if she can sense their presence.
Her parents' bodies lie strewn across the wreckage. Debris covers their lower bodies, pinning them in a granite grave. Caitlyn lies on her back, single blue eye open and unblinking. The sharp vibrance is gone, leaving a dull gray behind. A vacant stare cast into the sky. Her other eye, the scar Corinne has always known, is torn. Fresh and bloodied, a crimson slash that splits her face in two.
Corinne's breath catches in her chest, heart slamming painfully against her ribs. She can't breath past the sob clogging her throat. And then she sees Vi. But her face is hidden, pressed into Caitlyn’s shoulder. One limp arm draped across her, as if in a final defiant act to protect.
Cass' hand squeezes her own but Corinne still can't turn to see her. Without moving her feet, Corinne suddenly finds herself at her parents’ side. Dropping to her knees, she dares to rest a hand on her mother’s shoulder, fingers pressed into the dark ink of her tattoo. She shoves, shakes, but Vi's body barely moves. She's always been strong, unyielding, larger than life. But now her weight is cold and heavy, immovable without life to guide her limbs.
Corinne's voice echoes in her own ears, bouncing off the dusty pillars and red clouds that surround them.
‘Mama…’
Her voice cracks around a sob, strangled on the hope that Vi will open her eyes.
‘Mama…Get up. Please.’
The bodies before her don't move and panic rises in Corinne's chest like a tidal wave. Smothering, crushing. Drowning her in a pit she can't swim out of.
‘We have to go home,’ she begs. ‘Please. Please get up.’
Now Cass’ hand is gone, as is her presence, leaving Corinne alone as she shakes the limp body in front of her and pleads and sobs.
The world is quiet save for her own screams for help echoing off the beams. She's only seven, and she doesn't know what to do without her parents who lie before her unmoving. And they'll be here forever unmoving and Corinne is alone and what is she supposed to do –
Corinne startles awake at the sound of her own breaths. Sharp, ragged, rapid gasps through her nose. Eyes snapping open, Corinne stares into the calm darkness around her. Her heart races, head throbs, breath dragging like a knife through her lungs. There's no more red smoke, but the empty dark is somehow more terrifying. More alone.
Throwing off her sheets, Corinne stumbles to her feet, fumbling for the bedside lamp and knocking the shade instead. It falls to the floor with a loud clatter. But Corinne stumbles past it, arms thrown out to find her bedroom door in the dark. She reaches the knob after a few tries and finds it below her. Waist level. She's not seven. Her eighteenth birthday was only a few months ago. She’s not a child anymore, but she feels as helpless and frightened as one as she shoves the door open and stumbles into the hall. Her mind still swims with a panicked fog and all she can think of is her parent's broken bodies. She needs to see them. Just to be sure. To know that she hasn't lived a decade long dream that they're alive in order to cope with their loss.
The hallway is brighter. Easier to navigate by the soft light of the moon drifting in through the large windows. Her parent's room is close, only down the hallway from hers. She stumbles over the carpet, loses her balance against a wall and finally falls against their closed bedroom door. It's silent inside, no light creeping out beneath the door. Pushing inside, Corinne finds her way to their bedside, using the moonlight from their window as a guide.
The heavy limp arm barely moves beneath her hand.
Moving to Vi's side, Corinne spots the round lump beneath the blankets and immediately presses her palm to it. Her hand trembles, shaking so hard that she's sure the vibration alone will wake Vi. The blankets shift beneath her hand the second it rests there. Emboldened by the slight movement, Corinne presses harder and shakes, firm. Probably too firm, as Vi grumbles and rolls toward Corinne, one hand flailing for the bedside lamp. She flicks the lever with much more finesse than Corinne had managed and both of their slightly terrified faces are illuminated by a gentle orange glow.
“Cori–?” Vi’s voice is rough and low, slightly slurred in her half conscious state. She squints into the light, pressing the heel of one palm into her eye to rub the sleep from it. “What’re you –”
She might not be fully awake but she is alive and the weight of Corinne’s nightmare comes crashing down, buckling her knees and tearing a single cry from her throat. Vi’s eyes fly open, startled into full awareness as she pushes herself up and catches Corinne on her way to the floor.
“Hey, easy,” she murmurs, pulling her daughter onto the mattress, draped sideways across her lap. Corinne is too big for a hold like this, she’s outgrown both of her mother’s arms many years ago. But Vi cradles her torso to her chest, tucking Corinne’s face against her shoulder. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Hey… Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
Curling in on herself, Corinne draws her too long legs up onto the edge of the mattress, tucking her arms to her chest and allowing herself to feel small. Small but safe. Not alone on that haunted bridge. Her mother is alive. Corinne can feel her rapid heartbeat, heavy and thudding beneath her ear. The overwhelming warmth that always radiates from her skin warms the cold that has settled deep in Corinne’s bones. She smells like she always does - cardamom and cedar - the earth following her into sleep after a day spent in the gardens.
Despite the comfort, Corinne can’t stop her sobs. They flow out of her, hiccuping and hysterical. She can’t shake the images of their bodies broken on the ground. Staring unseeing into her own eyes. The same way Vi had described how her own parents had looked the last time she’d ever seen them. It was a story Corinne had asked to know for a long time. And a few hours prior, Vi had finally acquiesced. Now, selfishly, Corinne wishes she hadn’t. She wishes she’d never asked.
“Cori, talk to me. Please? Are you hurt?”
Corinne manages a small shake of her head, realizing she should at least reassure her mother there’s nothing wrong save for a small panic attack brought on by a nightmare she’s too old to be afraid of.
“Okay,” Vi breaths the word out as a sigh against the top of her head, rocking them both gently.
Before she can press further, the mattress shifts and a groggy “Vi?” hangs in the air.
The red bleeds into Corinne's mind. A bright slash cutting through otherwise unmarred skin. Splitting the first face she’d ever seen in a gruesome smile. She squeezes her eyes shut and heaves another wordless sob.
Another warm glow lights up the room and then the mattress dips again, followed by a brief shuffle of sheets. Soft hair tickles her cheek and then another hand lands there, gently pulling away the sweaty strands of her own hair that cling there. Corinne shudders as Caitlyn’s cheek lands against the top of her head.
“Cori…” she murmurs into mussed lavender hair. “What’s the matter, love?”
Cradled between them, Corinne’s chest finally loosens, cries quieting until she can finally force words through her aching throat.
“I had a nightmare,” she murmurs, wincing at how small she sounds. “About what you told us…”
Vi stills, stiffens, as she understands. And then her chest expands with a heavy sigh.
“I saw both of you, on the bridge. You were–” Corinne squeezes her eyes shut at the same time Vi’s arms tighten around her.
“It wasn’t real,” she murmurs gently.
Caitlyn’s hand stops moving through her hair and the backs of her cool fingers brush over the apple of Corinne’s cheek. “We’re right here, darling.”
Corinne sniffs and suddenly a quiet creak of floorboards startles all three of them. Peering over her shoulder, Corinne sees her sister standing in the doorway. Thin frame illuminated by the moonlight behind her. Just like Corinne, she seems smaller all of a sudden. A childlike fear hunching her shoulders.
She takes in the scene with wide eyes, fidgeting in the doorway. “I couldn’t sleep. And I heard a loud noise…”
Corinne remembers the lamp she’d knocked off the bedside table and the walls she’d practically slammed into. But Cass remains still as if awaiting an invitation to interrupt the moment. As if she doesn’t belong in it any more than Corinne does. But Vi jerks her chin and Caitlyn twists, opening her arms and Cass practically flies across the room. Bounding onto the bed, she scrambles across the huge mattress, burrowing herself between Corinne’s back and the safe haven of Caitlyn’s embrace. Pressed back to back, Corinne recalls her dream. How her sister’s presence had been small, but safe. An anchor to hang onto in the fear until suddenly she was gone too. The four of them sit there in silence for a while, listening to the gentle night time breeze outside, the quiet shared breaths and heartbeats. Until finally, the stillness and position she’d held makes Corinne’s legs cramp. She stretches slightly, huffing a laugh as she realizes how ridiculous she must look.
“I’m too big,” she grouses as her knees nearly slide off the edge of the mattress again.
“Never,” Vi insists, gathering her back up and moving her own legs beneath the blankets so that there’s room for Corinne to fold hers. “I don’t care how big you two get. You’ll never outgrow mom hugs. Got it?”
Corinne hums and when she closes her eyes now, it’s a comforting dark rather than a burning, toxic red. Cass’ back expands against her own as she inhales and then pushes out a single heavy breath. Caitlyn’s hand brushes against Corinne’s shirt as she draws it comfortingly up and down Cass’ shoulders.
“How did you stand it?” Corinne asks after another silence. “Losing them?”
She directs the question at both of them and she means more than just her grandparents. She means Vander and her mother’s brothers, all of them. She means friends and their aunt before she’d come back. The only one to escape the curse of death that surrounded her parents, haunting them around every corner.
“I don’t know,” Vi sighs. “I guess it was just that–”
“-there was always someone else to live for,” Caitlyn finishes for her.
Corinne rolls the words around in her head, feeling Vi’s chin lift as she assumes her mothers’ exchange one of those silent looks that says everything for them. Their telepathy can be annoying at times, but now it feels comforting.
“I don’t… I'm afraid.” She pauses, closing her eyes. “I couldn’t take care of Cass the way you took care of –”
“You'll never have to do that,” Vi interrupts with a firm squeeze. “Even if something happened to us. You'll have uncle Ekko, and your aunts, you'll have your teachers and your friends and their families. You'll have your grandpa. You're never going to be alone. And you're never going to be responsible for each other the way we were.”
Corinne blinks slowly, staring at the lamp on the bedside table. She knows her mother is right. They wouldn't be alone, struggling for survival like she and auntie Jinx had. But even with the large group of friends and family around to raise them, if needed, it wouldn’t be the same.
“But it won't be you,” she whispers, quiet enough that she thinks Vi might not hear.
Strong arms pull her in tighter, a kiss landing on top of her head. “No. It won't. And that's scary to think about, I know. But you don't have to worry about that… We're not leaving you two until we're old and gray.”
Cass chooses that moment to engage in the conversation. “But Mum is already gray.”
Caitlyn makes a strangled noise, halfway between a scoff and a choke. Vi chuckles, bouncing Cori against her chest.
“Hey, go easy on your Mom,” Vi admonishes, using her grip on Corinne to bump both of their shoulders against Cass’. “You two are responsible for half of those gray hairs anyway.”
“Forty-six isn' t even that old,” Caitlyn grumbles to herself. Then she lowers her hands from Cass’ shoulder to deviously dip her fingers into her ribs in retaliation.
Cass squeals, curling inward like a shellfish and bursting into giggles. Corinne ignores the sharp heels digging into her back and tries to memorize the sound of her family's laughter instead. No one can know what tomorrow will bring. Her parents can't promise her they'll live to be old and gray. They can't promise her that any of them will be here tomorrow. Or that something won't happen to her aunts and uncle or grandfather. Her friends. But living in fear won't protect her either. And Corinne realizes, with a pang in her heart, that she's had more years with her parents than Vi ever did with hers. And in a few more years, Caitlyn as well.
The giggles quiet as Cass is released from her torture. The bed is huge, but somehow they've all found themselves cuddled together in a small huddle against the very edge. They were lucky, Corinne thinks. Lucky that their parents were strong enough to provide them with the life they should have had when they were younger. The wind outside rattles the shutters and the girls settle deeper into their parents’ comforting embraces. Vi begins to hum, a familiar tune that Corinne knows the words to. As she closes her eyes and welcomes sleep, Corinne sings them silently to herself:
‘Dear friend across the river…’