Archive of Our Own ^beta

There was a knock on the door.

That was, in and of itself, not such a strange thing. This was a house usually filled with lots of people after all, and even though most other rooms probably had more people knock on them on a daily basis, what with Quentin having far too many, far too loud friends and someone seemingly always wanting something or other from Toby. But this knock was different. It didn’t sound like August (who rarely knocked anyway, this was her room too after all) and it didn’t sound like Quentin, come to ask her if she wanted to join them for video games – she always said no, no matter how much she wanted to say yes. She knew she wouldn’t fit in with Quentin’s friends, he was just asking to be polite, but Maeve’s ass, it hurt to realize that he was only a few years younger than her and he had friends and hobbies and people who cared about him and she…. She had never had any of that.

The knock sounded again. It was still strange. It sounded like Toby but…. Hesitant? Toby never sounded hesitant.

“Raysel?”, Toby’s voice, sounding hesitant and cautious, which was even weirder than hesitance, “are you there? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Toby sounding cautious and hesitant couldn’t possibly mean anything good but other than pretending not to exist there wasn’t much Raysel could do and she’d done enough pretending not to exist in the years in the darkness, thinking that if she didn’t exist, she couldn’t possibly be hurting.

“Yes, I’m here”, she got up from her moping spot on the bed and approached the door, opening it slightly, “what do you want?”

“I… Raysel, I need you to know that you can say no, okay? You don’t have to come down if you don’t want to.” She sounded worried. What could worry Toby like that?

“Toby, can you please just tell me what it is, you’re freaking me out here”

“It’s your parents Raysel, they’re downstairs, they want to talk to you, May’s keeping them from coming up. I don’t know how long she can stall them, but if you don’t want to talk to them, we WILL make them go, I promise.” She was utterly sincere, Raysel knew that, just as she knew that unless she wanted to stay locked in her room forever – which was what she was largely doing right now anyway, but she was working towards changing that – she’d have to talk to them eventually.

Well. At least that explained why Toby was worried.

When Toby had claimed offence after Raysel’s trial and demanded she live with her for a year, it hadn’t gone over well with her parents. Somehow Raysel admitting that her cousin had done so because she’d asked her to had gone over even worse. Luna had raged at Toby demanding how she could dare to take her daughter from her, asking what Toby had done to Raysel to make her think she could want this. She hadn’t listened to Raysel’s protests, had barely even looked at her, insisting that Toby must have “done something while shifting your blood”, saying “I should never have let her touch you” (never mind that she was the one who had made Toby shift her, never mind that that shift had done more to help Raysel regain her sanity than anything else her parents had ever done). Her father had mostly just looked sad and asked her what they’d done wrong, never once asking what he could do to make it right.

In the end she hadn’t even gone back to Shadowed Hills to collect her things for fear that her mother might elfshoot her and put her in another glass coffin. A phone call to Chelsea on the way to Toby’s house and she had gotten her possessions – not that she had many she cared about.

Raysel hadn’t spoken to her parents since.

There was no guarantee they wouldn’t try to take her home now. Actually, there was a high probability that they would.

She stepped past Toby, closing the door behind her.

“Rayseline!”, her mother noticed her first, stopping her berating of May to rush towards her, Sylvester not far behind her. It was too much, too overwhelming, they were coming too fast; Raysel took a step back and Toby took a step to the side, putting herself between her and her parents.

Luna stopped, barely an inch from Toby’s face and bristled: “Let me through! You won’t keep my daughter from me any longer!”

Toby stared calmly back: “I told you I’d ask her if she wanted to talk to you. She’s come down to do just that. If she doesn’t want you to touch her that’s up to her, not to me and not to you”

“I’m her MOTHER!”

“Yes, and you put her in a glass coffin and forced me to shift her blood when she couldn’t even fully consent. I wish I could trust you not to harm her, Luna, I really do, but I can’t and I won’t let you touch her unless she asks me to”, she looked towards Sylvester “that goes for you too. If you try to do anything she doesn’t agree to, I’ll get Tybalt to drag you onto the shadow roads and out of my house and I won’t let you back in”. She still sounded deadly calm. Tybalt, who was sitting in cat form on her shoulder – probably so he didn’t have to talk to her parents – yawned, showing an impressive number of sharp teeth.

It helped that they were so calm, helped that she knew they’d protect her, wouldn’t let her parents take her form them. It was almost enough to ease the pain that came with knowing that that protection was necessary. Almost.

“I’m still your liege, you know, October.” Said her father, almost conversationally, “I could order you to let me to my daughter”

“You could”, Toby agreed and Raysel’s heart sank, “And if you do, then I will disobey you and I will ask you to release me from my oaths. Arden will be pleased; she’s been trying to get me to switch to her court ever since I forced her to take her throne. Am I going to have to call her and tell her she finally gets what she wanted, Your Grace?”

Sylvester deflated at that. He had played his last card and lost and only now did he turn to look at Raysel: “Will you truly not give your parents a hug at least? It’s been too long, we’ve missed you”

Raysel stepped out from behind Toby, but stopped next to her, close enough that her cousin could shove herself between them, should her parents try to grab her again. “No. No I won’t hug you, not when trying to convince me is your last resort when you can’t get Toby to let you make me. Not when you supposedly came here to talk to me and then barely greet me before arguing with Toby again. I’ll hug you when you manage to ask me before demanding or grabbing and when I want to. Now, what do you want?”

Finally, Luna too, turned her attention on Raysel “We want you to come home sweetie! We understand, you’re confused and October did some horrible things to you when she shifted your blood – I should have known, you screamed so much, she was hurting you, I’m so sorry I didn’t realize sooner”, she shot Toby a glare that made Raysel very glad that looks couldn’t kill, “but at least your crimes, as much as they can be called that, got cleaned up so you can be free! You can come home, we’ll take care of you!”, she sounded so sincere, like she really believed what she was saying was true. It would have been tempting, to return to the comfort of a home she knew and parents who loved her, if it wasn’t so clear that while her mother may love her, she did not understand her at all, did not understand the severity of either her crimes or her trauma.

Raysel was suddenly very tired.

“I won’t come home. I can’t – Toby claimed offense against me, remember?”

Before Luna could start yelling at Toby again, Raysel shot one arm out and took her hand, “I need to heal mom. I never left the Darkness, not really and I don’t think you did either and dad never fully believed we were back to stay or understood that we were back changed. I can’t do that anymore. I need to be with other people, I need live somewhere that isn’t inhabited by the ghost of the little girl I was before the Darkness. I am exactly where I need to be and I’m sorry, but that means I can’t be with you”, she withdrew her hand before Luna could decide that yanking on it might be a good idea and waited for her mothers reaction, hoping, despite everything, that maybe she would understand.

“I see.”, said Luna and then turned to Toby again, snarling “curse you October. As if you had not taken enough from me, as if you had not damaged my family enough, now you take my daughter? What did I do to you to deserve that, what did I do to make you hate me so? What-“

Suddenly Tybalt was standing between Luna and Toby, smiling tightly, exposing his far too sharp teeth, “If threats and accusations are all you have left to say, I think it is better you waited outside”

Luna hesitated, looking as if she might launch herself at Toby, but then relented, looking towards Raysel: “She has ensnared your mind. Please try to break free, for my sake, if nothing else.” With that she turned and strode out the door. May followed her and closed the door behind her.

Raysel looked to her father, who was still staring after his wife

He looked back at her: “So you truly won’t come with us?”

She shook her head. “No. I already told you why, so please stop asking.”

Sylvester nodded and turned, slowly, to leave. Was he really not even going to say goodbye or wish her well?

No. He stopped at the door and turned towards her again, looking sad “Are you really happy here?”

It was too much. She suddenly wished he had simply left, wished he had never come, wished she had just stayed in her room.

“Happy?” she laughed, but it might as well have been a sob, “No, I am not happy. I am not even okay. But I am so much closer to it than I’ve been in years, closer than I ever was living with you since I came back from the Darkness.” She took a step towards him, looking him in the eyes, willing him to see all the hurt and anger and pain that she was feeling, “And it really says a lot, that you ask me if I’m happy and sound so sad doing it, as if my happiness is only a goal worth seeking if the seeking happens under your roof”, her voice broke on the last word, tears swimming in her eyes. She did not let them fall.

Raysel turned away, walking back up the stairs, not looking back even as she heard the door open and close again.

Spike rushed toward her, having hidden from Luna which was probably the smart thing to do. She picked it up, walking with it to her room and letting it curl on her chest as she lay down.

She was so tired.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey Raysel”, Quentin said interrupting her dark thoughts with a knock on the doorframe, “would you like to play videogames with me?”

Raysel sighed, “You don’t have to keep asking Quentin, I don’t need your pity or politeness or whatever this is”

“Actually, it’s an invitation to video games. You know what those are, right? I’m sure I explained it at some point.”

She was almost annoyed enough to sit up at that. Almost. “What about Raj or Dean or Chelsea or one of your other friends?”

Quentin held up his hand, counting on his fingers “Raj is busy being princely, Dean is busy being a count, Chelsea is busy with…. I don’t know, actually, maybe magic lessons or maybe we could ask her to join us. Cass is babysitting her siblings so her parents can have a date night for once.”

Raysel closed her eyes, “See, call Chelsea, I’m sure she’s got time. Or Gillian, she definitely wouldn’t want to play with me”

Quentin sighed: “I don’t think you get this, I actually really want to play with you. You’re my knight’s cousin that makes you, I don’t know, my aunt or something? Anyway we live together and you’re not much older than me, you have to know about videogames, it’s shameful that you don’t”, he sounded so put out that it actually startled a laugh from Raysel.

“You’re not gonna leave me alone, are you?”

“Nope.”, he sounded smug.

“Are you gonna leave me alone if I try it once and don’t like it?”

“Only if you really give it an honest try, but yes, if you really don’t like it, I won’t bother you with videogames again”, he promised solemnly.

“Raysel sighed again, but sat, up dislodging Spike who had still been sitting on her chest, “Deal. Show me what’s so great about these games so I can get back to lying in darkness and being sad”

Quentin laughed, “okay do you think you’d rather play something roleplaying based or something where you can just hit stuff or….”

Raysel did not get back to lying on her bed and being sad that night. Videogames were surprisingly fun and kept her up well into the morning hours.

She still wasn’t happy or fine or okay, there were still a million hurts screaming in her mind, but -

But videogames were fun, and Quentin was actually really good company and May baked them cookies and as long as she just focused on the sound of his laughter and the feel of the controller in her hands and the taste of sugar in her mouth, she could ignore the screaming for a little bit.

The darkness would still be here tomorrow, after all.