Chicago is So Two Years Ago

[eighthphase.livejournal.com]

Title: Time, or Chicago is So Two Years Ago
World: Exanimare
Summary: Azel's night starts with Malcolm and ends with Malcolm's dead girlfriend.
Notes: The bridge of Fall Out Boy's Chicago is So Two Years Ago inspired this - or at least it inspired the second half, which was going to be its own story but worked well with the first half, which I already had. Azel's seventeen in this, so it takes place about two years after Introduction.

All eyes were on the clock hanging on the back wall, its second hand tick-tick-ticking away as life became just that much shorter. Minutes came and went as the hour drew to a close, as the ticking of the clock became tangible; sensations rather than sounds that welled up within their chests and sent shivers up their spines. No one’s gaze broke free to look toward the door, or the empty chair directly underneath the clock. The seconds counted down to the end.

Ten… nine… eight… seven, six, five, four three two one—

“He’s late.”

The illusionist had it right, not that anyone wanted to admit it.

“He’s not late,” the pyrokinetic argued. “He can’t be late.”

“He’s not here, Alex,” the melodist retorted. “Something must have happened.”

“It’s probably nothing,” the illusionist added. “Lost track of time, or what have you. Happens to everyone.” She just barely managed to mask the nervousness in her voice.

“But he’s not everyone!” Alex insisted. “He’s—”

The door slammed open; on the threshold stood a young man dressed entirely in black, his usually spiked hair weighed down with rain to hang around his face. Put simply, he looked dead. It was fitting; he was, more or less, death itself.

“I’m not late, am I?” he asked with a cocky grin. That was right before he collapsed.

The three of them rushed forward to catch him before he hit the ground; Alex got there first.

“He’s freezing,” said Alex worriedly. “He shouldn’t be this cold.”

“It’s a good thing you’ve got him then, isn’t it, space heater?” Azel responded. It could almost have been a joke.

“Malcolm.” Melissa knelt beside him, cupping his cheek. “Mal. Come on, wake up. I need your apartment key.”

The necromancer groaned and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a key. Too weak to manage passing it to Melissa, his hand fell against Alex’s foot. Melissa extracted the key from his fingers before standing.

“Red, you’re with me,” she said. “Alex, keep him safe.”

Alex nodded.

“Wait, shouldn’t I stay—” Azel began.

“No.” Melissa’s voice was uncharacteristically firm. “We’re searching his apartment. It’ll go faster with two people.”

Confused, Azel glanced back at Alex, still holding Malcolm’s unconscious form, and followed Melissa out.

Azel had never been to Malcolm’s apartment before. She had an idea of what it might be like, based on what she’d heard from him and how she knew he tended to treat places, but—

“Uhm, Melissa?” she asked hesitantly. “Are you sure this is the right apartment?”

The melodist gave her a look she couldn’t identify. “The key worked, didn’t it?” she replied.

“Oh. …right.” Azel had watched Malcolm take the key from his pocket; of course the apartment was his.

Still, it wasn’t what she expected. It was so… so… clean. Malcolm’s corner of the storage room was the messiest place in the whole building, and there was a nightclub upstairs!

She turned around again and saw Melissa going through a chest of drawers.

“So… what are we looking for, anyway?” Azel asked.

“You’ll know when you find it,” Melissa answered, flipping through a stack of papers with the ease that can only come from doing something far too many times. “I’ll look in the kitchen; you go through and check his bedroom.

The illusionist walked into the bedroom and sighed in relief. This was more like what she expected: the carpet couldn’t be seen for the clothes, extra-large fast food drink cups rested on every surface, and the smell of things that really should have been washed last month hung over the whole room. It was, startlingly, homey — so long as she left the cups alone. Knowing Malcolm, there was no telling what could be in them.

“I’ll know what I’m looking for when I find it?” she muttered to herself. “That’s sure helpful…
Maybe I should help him do laundry or something every Sunday,” she added as she tried in vain to navigate the room without stepping on all the clothes. Azel felt a little guilty at that; she remembered that he asked her about that once.

Some pots clanged together in the kitchen, reminding her that she was there for a reason. She started sifting through the clothes, making her way over to the nightstand. Once there, she opened up the first drawer and picked through its contents.

“…What was that?”

She tapped against the bottom of the drawer again, and it responded with the same hollow thunk.

“There’s a false bottom in this drawer…”

She tipped the contents out onto the bed, and inspected the drawer more thoroughly. There was a small symbol etched into the center of it, one that Azel recognized as an aura spell. If Malcolm were to touch it, the bottom would come free, opening up the secret compartment. Of course, they couldn’t wait for Malcolm to open it; the necromancer was currently dying in the basement of the Netslum. But how else could it be opened?

“…Would that work?”

Azel remembered a spell she’d tried a few months ago for mimicking another person’s aura. She still remembered how to do it, and she definitely had enough to work with… She took a breath and closed her eyes, concentrating. The room was filled with Malcolm’s essence, which would enable her to replicate his aura… in theory. She had never been able to make it work before.

“You can do this, Azel,” she whispered. “You have to do this, for Malcolm, and Melissa, and Alex…”

She reached out to touch the sign on the wood, and felt it click open. There was a small sword pendant on a leather cord in the compartment, and she instantly knew that it was what she was looking for.

“Melissa!” she called. “I’ve got it!”

The melodist poked her head into the room. “Let’s go, then.” She paused, thoughtful. “There’s some sausage mushroom pizza in the fridge. Do you want any?”

“Wha… No! Of course — wait, did you say sausage mushroom?”

“Mhm.”

“…yeah, okay. He owes us for this, anyway.”

The two craft-users made their way back to the nightclub. Azel, just finishing her pilfered pizza, choked on the last bit of crust when she saw the necromancer.

“He looks like a corpse!” she said; then, realizing what that could mean, began, “Is… Is he…?”

Alex shook his head. “I’ve been trying to keep him warm,” he said. “It’s difficult, though, like his body doesn’t want to retain heat.” He looked at her – actually at her, instead of through her as usual. “Did you find it?”

“Yeah,” she replied, pulling the trinket from her pocket. “I don’t get why it’s so important, though…”

“He never told anyone,” Melissa said. “Just that if anything were to happen to him, we needed to get it to him.”

Azel caught the impatience in her tone, and, nodding, pressed the pendant into Malcolm’s hand. His grip tightened around it, and his whole body shuddered, then settled.

“His breathing is evening out,” Alex said.

“Then he’s going to be okay?” Melissa asked.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded.

The two of them seemed relieved, and Azel could only share the feeling. Still, she wondered if there wasn’t something more to it. Why did he show up half-dead in the first place? What was up with that sword pendant? She had no idea, and she was sure no one else knew, either.

No one but Malcolm.

“Well, that was stressful enough for the entire week,” she announced. “I'm going to take a nap. Someone wake me up when he comes to?”

Melissa nodded agreement, and Azel settled into the pile of blankets and pillows in her corner of the basement.

Maybe this’ll make more sense once I’ve woken up, she thought as she closed her eyes



Azel woke with a start and an undignified squeak. She looked around wildly until she saw Malcolm, grinning down at her. She aimed a punch at his shoulder; he dodged it and poked her in the side again.

“Don’t do that!” she protested, flinching.

“It woke you up, love, didn’t it?” he replied calmly.

“Well, yeah, but there are better ways you could do that,” she said crossly.

“Yes,” he agreed, “but you wouldn’t have reacted so amusingly to anything else.” He pulled aside some of her pillows and arranged them so that he could lie back against them.

“You’re such an ass,” she scoffed.

“I know,” he grinned. After a pause, during which he stretched out and laid on his back, he said, “Thank you.”

Azel blinked. “What, for calling you an ass?” she asked, confused. “You could get anyone to do that.”

“No, for earlier.” At her blank stare, he clarified, “You’re the only one who could have gotten this out, love, excepting myself.”

He was talking about the pendant, she realized. He wore it now; it strangely suited him.

“What, did you plan it that way?” she teased. “Keep talking; Alex might get jealous.”

“He’s not here to overhear,” Malcolm murmured. “Neither of them is; I sent them home.”

“One might think you had less than noble intentions. Are you planning on violating me?”

He rolled on top of her, pinning her underneath him. “And if I was?” he asked.

She smirked. “Even if I wanted you to – no, even if you wanted to, you wouldn’t. It’s not who you are.”

He grinned, head bent low enough in amusement to send the pendant around his neck swinging above her face. “You’re right, of course,” he agreed. “At least in your own case, love.”

“I think it’s more common than that,” she said, and her voice didn’t come from beneath him. He turned his head, saw her lying where he had been before, and chuckled as he watched the illusion under him dissipate.

“You’re getting good at that,” he noted, shifting to lie on his side. “I didn’t even notice.”

“I’ve had practice,” Azel replied, rolling over until her back was pressed against his chest. “More importantly, I have some questions for you. About earlier.”

Malcolm’s pause was not only noticeable, but awkward. Finally he sighed. “You’re entitled to as much, I suppose. Okay, shoot.”

“I want to know if you’ll answer truthfully, first,” she insisted. “There’s no point in asking anything if you’ll just feed me lies.”

“Come now, love; I’m not that cruel!” he protested, sounding slightly hurt. “You’re entitled to the real answers, then, okay?”

“Mhm.” She let out a breath, blinked lazily. “Firstly, then – what happened?”

“I have enemies, as you know,” he said. “One of them got the jump on me. I wasn’t expecting it.”

“You weren’t bleeding or anything,” she pointed out.

“It was a mental assault,” he responded. “By manipulating a person’s mind, one can wreak all sorts of havoc on their body. You’re aware of that, love?”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, blushing just a little. She did know that. It was something every illusionist learned.

“At any rate, the only reason they didn’t kill me right off is…”

He trailed off, reaching an arm over her body to grasp one of her hands.

“Is…?” she prompted, squeezing his hand in what she hoped was a reassuring manner.

“Next question,” he said.

“But–!”

“Next question.”

“Okay,fine,” she grumbled, tilting her head away from his hand as he tried to play with her hair. “Melissa told me that you told them that if anything were to happen to you, they needed to get that pendant to you. But I never heard anything of the sort, so you must have told them before I came around. And that spell had been in place for a pretty long time, definitely before I even met you. So why would you put it in a place where only yourself or a fairly talented illusionist could get to it if you didn’t have an illusionist?”

“I could have opened it if they brought the drawer to me,” he answered easily. “I didn’t want anyone finding out about this if they didn’t have to.”

“They wouldn’t have known it was what they were looking for in the first place,” she shot back. “I didn’t even know, not until I opened it up; even then, I only suspected because you’re not the type to put false bottoms in drawers and then lock them with aura spells. Which brings me to my next question: what is that, anyway?”

“Whatever do you mean?” he asked, the picture of innocence.

“You were dying, Mal,” she stated. “And once you had that pendant, you weren’t. Is there some sort of super-secret necromancer spell on it or something?”

“It’s… something like that. Sort of. You see, I… I had a girlfriend, once.”

Malcolm’s voice was soft and hesitant. Azel let him twine his fingers with hers and pull her closer against him.

“Her name was Elizabeth,” he said. “She was beautiful, smart, and perfect in every way… but she wasn’t a craft user. She didn’t know about my powers, and I didn’t want her to. Necromancers aren’t exactly accepted, not even within our own society. This necklace was the first thing she ever gave me – she said it reminded her of me, dangerous and alluring.” He smiled sadly. “It was the last thing she ever gave me, as well. There were people after me even then. I had to use my magic to defend myself; one night she saw it. It… repulsed her. She left me that night.”

Azel listened to his breathing as he spoke. She could tell from that alone that it was a difficult topic for him; it was no wonder that he never talked about it.

“I still loved her, after. And apparently my enemies knew that – they killed her, three weeks after we broke up. It was hard on me. I… I tried bringing her back.” He swallowed. “I brought her back, but she didn’t want the life I gave her. She was too… She couldn’t do it. So I… I killed her. Again. I kissed her and she died.”

“And… the necklace?” Azel asked quietly. “Where does that come in?”

“I am no ordinary necromancer,” he said slowly. “I am the closest thing to death itself to exist among mortals... I'm barely mortal myself. After I…” He paused, trying to even out his breathing.
“I still love her, even now. It’s been years, but I can’t forget her. I could never forget her. She was too… She was everything, to me. I put my life-force into this necklace, the only gift I have from her, because I will never forget her as long as I live, and this way, assuming something doesn’t kill me first, I may live forever.”

Azel closed her eyes and leaned into Malcolm; his arm tightened appreciatively around her. He had needed to tell this to someone, that much was certain, and Azel was the only person he could trust with it.

“So, because your life is in the pendant, having it healed your body?” she asked.

She felt him nod, and she made a note of it in her mind in case she needed the information again. Knowing Malcolm, she probably would.

He fell asleep holding her, and she let him, because she knew she could keep him from dreaming; or, at the very least, give him the dreams she wanted him to have. As long as she was there, his past couldn’t haunt him.

She sighed. He was another person for her to care for, along with Alex and Melissa. Azel didn’t seem to attract very mentally healthy people, but she would do her best to keep them safe. They were her family, after all, and that was what family did.