Devil Inside

Everything.

*AN - the track for this chapter is Breathe Me by Sia, I just love this song*

Elsa watched Sebastian sleep as they flew home. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. They had both been covered in blood and ash when Marcus, Gray and Logan had found them, still wrapped in each other’s arms in the middle of the room where they had just killed Vincent. Now they were cleaned up and going home and Elsa was beginning to feel, for want of a better word, human again.

Sebastian looked calm and all his wounds had healed but he was still undernourished. She knew the time would come for him soon when he would need to satisfy the urges he hated so much, it was the only way he would properly get his strength back, get back to his old self. At least it used to be the only way. She had not told him about Hesper’s serum, about the possibility of a release from the prison of flesh and blood he had loathed for so long. She didn’t want to get his hopes up right now, he just needed to rest.

He was holding her hand softly; his muscles relaxed in sleep and his head leant against the window of the jet. She envied him his peace slightly, she had almost forgotten what it felt like to surrender to sleep and let all the horrors of the day drift away. There were images she couldn’t shift from her mind; she’d done such violent things, things she’d have never thought herself capable of. Some time ago, Hesper had offered to teach her to meditate as a way of overcoming the respite that sleep gave to humans. Elsa had felt she didn’t need it then, maybe now would be a good time to take Hesper up on her offer.

Her father appeared at her side and crouched next to her seat, “You ok?” he whispered.

Elsa smiled and nodded, glancing for a moment to Marcus before taking her eyes back to Sebastian, who had not stirred, “I will be,” she replied and Marcus place a hand over hers.

“What happened to the others,” he said, “There was nothing any of us could have done to predict that.”

How did he know what she was thinking? Was her guilt that obvious? She had wiped Sebastian’s blood from the floor with her fingers to give her an edge when she confronted Vincent. She couldn’t help reliving that moment over and over again in her head. Could she have shared it? She tried to remember exactly how much there’d been; if they’d all dipped a fingertip in, if there had been enough, the others would still be alive. Part of her knew that it wasn’t the case, there had been two tiny drops, almost congealed, barely a taste. But she knew that there would always be a part of her brain that would conspire against her, the human part that she held on to so tightly, that couldn’t always remember things exactly as they were and that told her she could have saved them.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Marcus insisted quietly and Elsa looked back at him to see the sincerity in his eyes. He truly believed what he was saying, he wasn’t just saying it to make her feel better and she took some comfort in that. It didn’t remove the fact that two people that had left England with them, were not coming back.

Marcus stood, lightly kissed her forehead and went back to his seat next to Katherine who was also sleeping, as were Gray and Logan. They were all exhausted. Elsa found her mind going over Vincent’s last words as he’d been trying to talk himself out of the inevitable. He’d told her she didn’t understand, that she didn’t know what had happened and she wondered what he’d been talking about, what excuses he had been about to make, what reason he was going to try and give her not to kill him. She closed her eyes against the memory but that just made it clearer, something in his tone bothered her now. She shook her head; she couldn’t decide if it was her human brain playing tricks on her or her vampire one giving her the facts. Vincent was dead; there was no going back now. It was what he’d deserved and she’d prevented him from having the last word, another comforting thought.

Sebastian stirred; his grip on her hand tightened slightly as he moved his head and opened his eyes. A moment’s confusion passed over his face then his eyes fell on Elsa and he became calm again, “Hey,” he said sleepily.

“Hey,” Elsa replied, “How are you feeling?”

“Hungry,” he said, his face clouding once more. Elsa knew what he meant. His body could only last so long before his demon’s hunger took over and he’d been weakened by his time as Vincent’s captive. She leaned over and kissed his lips softly, taking her hand to his face to stroke the stubble that was still there.

“Don’t worry about that now,” she said, “Everything is going to be fine.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian said sincerely, placing a hand over the one that caressed his face and looking deep into Elsa’s eyes. The intensity that always drew her in was back, his eyes clear and grey, his emotions raw and open for her to feel, “I don’t think I’ve said that yet.”

“You don’t need to,” she said.

“I do. I need to thank your father too. No-one had to come after me, my life wasn’t in danger.”

Elsa shook her head, “Yes it was,” she said, “Just because you can’t die doesn’t mean you should have to live like that. I hate to think what that must have been like for you, I just wish we could have-“

Sebastian placed a finger over her lips, “It’s over,” he said simply and all she could feel from him was his gratitude, his pain at his hunger and something else, something she felt too and something they would have to come back to later.

“How did you find the strength to stop Vincent?” Elsa asked, trying to distract her thoughts from where they’d been heading, “If you hadn’t ...”

“I was barely aware of what was happening at first,” Sebastian said, looking down at his hands, “Then there was so much blood, on the floor and all over me. I could taste it in my mouth and I started to come round. You know it’s what my body needs, instinct took over and I was drinking it up off the floor,” he looked disgusted with himself, “Nice right?”

“If I hadn’t of scraped a couple of drops of your blood off the floor we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Elsa said, “We both did what we had to do.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, Sebastian put his arm around Elsa and she leant into his shoulder, enjoying the warmth of his body and the now steady beat of his heart.

“So,” Sebastian said after a few minutes where Elsa could virtually hear the cogs turning in his brain, “Your dad knows about us now.”

“Yup,” Elsa replied and she lifted her head, turning to look around the seat at her father. He was asleep now too and Katherine’s head was resting on his shoulder in a way that gave Elsa a feeling she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She shrugged it off and turned back to Sebastian.

“He’s asleep,” she said smiling, “You won’t be getting the fatherly inquisition just yet.”

Sebastian grinned back. Oh how she’d missed seeing that smile on his face, a smile that only she seemed to be able to put there, “Then I guess he won’t notice this,” he said, leaning towards her and wrapping her in his arms. Elsa melted instantly and all the images that had been flashing through her mind, all the blood and the violence just dissolved. It was just Sebastian and her and she knew in that moment she had everything she would ever need.

*It's not over yet, just a few more chapters :) *