enjoythe_ride | btr-ish } { I'll tap your strength and drain it dry

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btr-ish } { I'll tap your strength and drain it dry

It happens the same way it happens the first time.

She and John are walking down the street, talking about something irrelevant, and all of the sudden, they’re somewhere else. Bela isn’t an idiot, she knows how the rifts work. One minute you’re one place and the next you’re in another. But this isn’t the same as when she had arrived in Chicago. This is like a piece of her life that she’s being forced back into, and she doesn’t want to be here.

She never wanted to be here again.

The clock sputters and the numbers ‘11:50’ snap into place on the bedside table. There are two blow up dolls with giant bullet holes in them sitting on the beds. Her gun is lying on the table next to the clock, the phone is lying off the hook on the floor, and it’s like she never left. She feels her chest tighten, the whole of her body stiffening. She has been placed back right where she started. She’s been returned to her world to die, and it’s not what she wants. She wants to go back to Chicago with the crazy monsters and the angels and demons. She wants to live. She doesn’t want to die.

She stumbles backwards, falling into the warm body behind her that’s cooler to the touch than most. John. Of course her bloody guardian is with her. There’s a part of her that’s grateful, but the majority of her brain is screaming at her to run because they have no time. In ten minutes, the door would fall, the beasts would be here, and she would be torn to pieces. It’s a bloody, gruesome death, and she doesn’t want it to happen to him, much less have him see it.

“You need to go,” she whispers, pushing him backwards towards the door. “You need to go now.”

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It is instinct to catch her.

Whether by angelic design or the fact they were friends before that, it is instinct to reach out and steady her when she is going to fall. He does no such thing she asks of him, of course. He holds onto her, hands gripping her shoulder blades to keep her upright, and his eyes sweep across the room to determine where they hell they are. The gun doesn't escape his notice, and neither does anything else about the room.

John is not a Wanderer. He has never fallen through Rifts. These kinds of things don't happen to him. The one thing he takes assurance in is the fact he fell through with Bela. He would not have survived her falling through with him left in the other world. He can't think about the fact that Sonny isn't here, his guardian instincts are far too strong and they've taken over.

"You're kidding me, right?" he asks, and he is completely unfazed by the tone she takes with him and the words she uses. "Like hell I'm leaving you alone now."

"John ... "

Her voice breaks because the edges of the fear are starting to climb up and she knows there's no way out this time. She has ten minutes. That's not enough time for them to find an answer. "You don't want to see this."

It will kill him. She knows it will. But he doesn't deserve to die like this trying to protect her from her own mistake. "Please."

"See what? Listen, even if I wanted to, I can't. I literally can't," he says, and he hopes that the fervency with which he speaks pierces through the panic that's starting to take over for her. He cannot leave her. Whether he wanted to or not--and he doesn't--he's bound to her for as long as she lives.

There's no way out of it, and he has to see this through.

Whatever it is.

"If I don't know what's going on, I can't help you, Bela. And I need to help you."

She knows this. She knew it already, and all he's doing is hammering home how terrible this whole mess is. Who winds up with a woman who sold her life away for a ward? What kind of luck is that? It's not what she wants for him, but she doesn't have a choice in the matter. She just hopes that he knows that.

She turns to face him, eyes wide and broken, and she flinches as the plastic numbers on the clock click again, counting down another minute. "In nine minutes, I'm going to die." Unless the rift picks them up again and she finds the timing of that highly unlikely.

John almost staggers backward at her words, as if he has been punched in the gut with no breath left in him. There's the man inside of him that screams against this, and the guardian that simply refuses to accept it. It's visceral and nearly physical, his reaction. The Calling has never been stronger, and he doesn't even think to consider this might also mean death for him. His mind is only on her.

"No, no," he shakes his head, cupping her face with both of his hands, forcing her to look at him. His voice is steady even if his heart's thundering painfully against his rib cage. "You are not dying tonight, okay? You're not dying on me."

She wants to believe him. She really does. She wishes that just his will for her to live would be enough to get her out of the mess she has dug herself into, but she knows it won't. Her hands fall to his sides and she shakes her head. "It's not that simple. I sold my soul."

She swallows and looks away. The clock is ticking so loudly in the back of her mind that she's trying to drown it out, while at the same time, she can't. This is how it's going to end.

"I was fourteen. I didn't know any better. I just needed to ... get away, and now I'm here, but there's nothing you can do. And I don't ... "

Her voice trails off, because she isn't sure she can put all the things she doesn't want into words. She's just so scared, and she hates feeling this way. She's always hated feeling this way.

John has a moment--it's only a sliver of a moment, but it's there--where his face nearly crumples. This world isn't at all like his, but it doesn't take much to figure out what she means and who would be coming for her. Who or... what.

His eyes burn and he has to push down on the bile that keeps threatening to rise up his throat, climb through it like a solid wall.

"Bela, Bela. I'm here with you," he says, his grip on her neck tightening, but not painfully so. John brings her closer, cupping the back of her head, his eyes darting almost madly across the room. They sweep through every inch of it as if he'll find a way, some way, to keep it all out. To keep it from harming her.

"If there's something to do, I'll find it. Whatever happens, you won't go through with it alone, okay? Do you hear me?"

She doesn't want him to be there, but the fact that she isn't alone is far more comforting than it should be. She sinks into him, nodding against his shoulder as tries to hold herself together. She probably doesn't have to. She's dying, there's really not a lot of room for her pride. She's still trying to hold herself together, as useless as it is.

She still should be telling him to go. She still should be trying to get him away from this. But she's human, and more than anything else, she just doesn't want to be alone.

John pulls her in closer, wrapping his arms around her. He lifts his gaze over to the clock and keeps it there, steady, waiting; like a hawk. He can almost feel the separation already, and somewhere inside his body is literally railing against it. The Calling remains caged as he pulls himself together, trying to be as strong for her as he can.

"Tell me something you want to do," John says, because he's not just going to let her sit there and wait for them to take her. "Tell me something you've always wanted to do, Bela."

There is a pause, not a long one because they don't have the time for it. "Everything," she says wistfully. "I wanted to do everything. I just never had the time."

She had to fight to live first, and that was a fight she never won. Twenty four years-old isn't enough time to do everything that a person wants to do. It isn't enough time to have a family or fall in love or do any of the things a person should do. And she wants them all. However, Bela Talbot has always been a woman who wanted what she couldn't have.

"You'll have the time. You'll have the time to do everything and I will be there with you," he assures her, and it doesn't sound like a lie when he is saying it. It sounds like a promise as it rings in his ears. John's heart drops to his feet once he hears it. He hears it. The hounds are coming for her and his grip on her tightens impossibly so, before he steps away and starts placing every heavy piece of furniture against the door.

His movements are frenzied, panicked, because there is this need to keep them away from her and it takes over above everything else.

There's nothing else.

"John."

He's fighting a losing battle. She knows what he's trying to do, knows that he can't help it. But she wants to stop him, because that's not what she needs. She needs him to just stand still for a moment.

"John, stop."

Her hand lands on his arm gently, trying to pull him back away from the door. She can hear them too, and there are better ways that he can be spending his time.

John does stop, if only because she wants him to, and he is not built to do something that goes against her wishes, despite the very insistent ringing in his ears that says protect her. Protect her no matter what.

"Bela, I can't just--"

And he stops. He stops as the room spins and the ground thunders beneath his feet. He grabs a hold of her again so they are not separated no matter what's going on.

The room shifts. The colors twist and turn into themselves. His vision explodes into blackness and when he opens his eyes again, they aren't in that hotel room all. Gasping in an attempt to seize a breath, he turns and hopes she's still there beside him. "Bela?"

"I'm here."

Her voice is quiet, unsure. But she can't hear the hounds anymore. She can't feel that dizzying out of control sensation that comes with landing at the end of the line. She feels ... normal, which could mean a lot of things she doesn't want to get into.

"Are you alright?"

They're at a lakehouse. The lakehouse is so familiar to him, and he realizes moments later it is. This is the lakehouse his parents would bring him to, every summer without fail, for the first ten years of his life.

The relief that comes with knowing she is here is battling with the emotion that is threatening to splinter something inside his chest.

"I don't know," he answers honestly, taking a deep breath. "I used to come here every summer as a kid. ... What's the Rift doing? Why take you to that horrible moment and pull us out at the last minute?"

"Does anyone ever know why the Rift does anything?"

There's a bitter edge to it as she speaks, but that's all she intends to say on the matter. She's mostly intent on putting it behind her, and moving on. They seem to be in a better place now. She'll take it.

"At least this place seems to have happier memories, yeah?"

She hopes, at least. She so desperately hopes.

John can't blame her for the bitterness in her voice, and he doesn't answer her question, only glances over at her steadily. He seems to understand she doesn't expect an answer, and even if there was one, he doesn't know it. There doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason with the Rifts.

There never has been.

It still doesn't mean he won't be confused as to why they were taken back to

"Yeah, it has some of them," he says quietly, leading them toward the actual lakehouse. "It also burned down years ago, but I'm gonna stop trying to find logic in what's happening."

Her head tips as she shifts to push herself to her feet, before turning and reaching for his hand. "Well, the rift picks people up from different points in time. No saying it can't ... juggle people around that way as well."

He takes her hand in his and tugs her forward, leading her into the lakehouse. Almost tentatively, he flips the switch on. Everything is as he remembers it. Or as he believes he remembers it.

John closes the door behind them and locks it, as if that will keep the Rifts from playing with them. "What happened back there, Bela?" he finally asks, voice low but firm. "Why were they after you?"

She doesn't answer right away. Bela Talbot carries her secrets like she's Fort Knox. There are things in her life she doesn't want to have to share, and she locks them away where no one can ever find them. She always knows where they are, but bringing them out, actually speaking what she feels is a whole other story.

She moves to the side, finding somewhere to sit. Her fingers idle slightly over a chair, almost as though she's checking if it's real before sinking down into the seat, burying her face in her hands. When she finally comes up for air, she rests her elbows on her knees her chin in her hands, and speaks softly, just loud enough for him to hear her.

"When I was fourteen, my father ... " Her voice cuts off again. "I sold my soul to get away from my father. A demon killed my parents, and in exchange, they would get my soul. I got ten years to live, and then they would come to collect. Those beasts, the hounds? Those are the debt collectors."

John can feel the thickness of it looming in the silence. He doesn't prod her for it, gives her the space and the time that she needs, and finds a seat close to her, but not too close. There's enough distance she won't feel uncomfortable, enough closeness he can reach out if he needs to. It hurts to see her reaction, to feel it swirl inside his own chest strongly. The ward link is intense.

It always has been.

It takes more effort to sit still in the silence than he can say. And when she finally does speak, it feels like being punched in the gut. He swallows hard at her pause, a thousand scenarios running across his mind. Who the hell makes a deal with a kid who doesn't know any better?

John does reach out, his hand slipping over hers. "If it's within my power, I'm not letting anything happen to you."

She turns her hand in his and gives it a squeeze, and when she looks at him, it's with tired eyes. She knows that it's more of his Calling talking than anything else, because logically, there isn't much you can do about this. Nothing short of being kidnapped by a Rift in time and space.

Her hand slips out of his and brushes against the side of his face, brushing her thumb against his cheek. "So long as the Rift doesn't send us back there, I should be fine."

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btr-ish } { I'll tap your strength and drain it dry

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