Pain of the Past (a Preminger fanfiction)

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The courtyard was filled with color. Ribbons streamed throughout the air, red as blood and yellow bright as fire streaking across the sky. There was music playing but if fell on deaf ears. The roast that was being served only smelled like smoke.

Preminger stood for a long moment, rooted to the spot as the scene around him shifted from execution to banquet festival. His eyes were fixed on the smudge of black against the stone ground, soot that was all that remained of the morbid scene. His heart was hammering so loud in his chest he was certain all the world could hear it.

William was dead.

It had not been a day since he'd seen him last, since they'd been trekking together through the snow, since his gaze had warmed Preminger's insides against the chill of winter. He had been right here, only moments ago, tied to the pyre with breath in his lungs and fire in his eyes. But he was gone. And now, as the serving men swept at the ground with old stick brooms, not even the soot remained.

Suddenly, the colors here were too bright. The laughter and shouts that rose from the crowds sounded sadistic. They were laughing at him, celebrating their depravity while streams of wine spilled from their lips like blood. And so he ran.

Stumbling numbly, he pushed through the people, running toward the stone walls, through the cobbled streets, past the guards. He ran until he had no breath in his lungs, until the streets became less stone and more rough and uneven dirt, until the fresh painted homes became the warped frames of rotting buildings and he was once again in the lower town.

There was blood in the snow. His blood he realized as he looked down at his scraped hands. He'd fallen and he hadn't even seen.

This hadn't been the plan. They were supposed to rescue Addams, or die trying. But they were supposed to do it together. They should have died together. A loud voice in the back of his head reminded him that they would have. That the only reason he was still alive was because he had ensured it. He had abandoned William in the end.

That was the only thought his mind could cling to all the way back into town. It was all he could feel when he turned up at Madame Carp's doorstep, alone and empty handed. It burned vile and cold in the pit of his stomach when the twins took him into a relieved hug. He felt it screaming in the back of his mind when Vanessa's eyes grew wide and her hands covered her mouth in disbelief, when Erik dropped his gaze just as Preminger caught the gleam of tears.

In the months that stretched on after that fateful day, Preminger found himself crippled by a haze of guilt and sorrow that hung heavier than the grey of winter outside his window. Most afternoons he could hear numbly through the floorboards Madam Carp and Erik, shouting about money and loyalties and the men in uniform who made much more frequent rounds throughout the town.

The king had expanded his reach into most of the lower kingdom, sending his soldiers to flesh out what was left of the rebellion. Horror stories had made their way around, of course, of brutal and sudden executions in the streets. Peasants who'd been suspected of treason being pulled from their fields and their homes and slaughtered without mercy. Every day the King proved himself to be more of a tyrant, and Preminger found he did not care. He hated the King, with every fiber of his being, down to every last bone, but he couldn't find it in himself to care anymore. Where there should have been room for empathy in his heart there was now just bitter sadness.

Nick and Nack would keep him company most days when they weren't out looking for work. The economy was thin in the winter years, but they made enough scraping by. Doing what, Preminger couldnt tell. Some days he didn't even notice they'd been there, sitting by his side, trying to rouse him to speak. He didn't notice much of anything anymore. So when Nack stopped coming by, he was surprised to find the room felt much more empty.

"Where is your brother?" he asked one day, lifting his head from the straw pillow he seldom separated with. Nick looked at him with soft eyes, a quiet gladness gleaming in his irises at seeing Preminger rise.

"He's around." He answered quietly. "He stays busy. We both do. Its been a hard winter."

Preminger blinked at him, the grey sunlight making his friends hair look ghostly and sallow. There was so little of the young boy he'd met all those years ago left in him. Where his eyes had once been lined with laughter now just looked old and worn. He'd had so many dreams, so many ambitions. They both had; Nick and Nack had been a breath of fresh air in that gloomy town where dreams went to die. They should have grown up and chased their dreams right out of the city, out of the kingdom, into the rolling fields and all the way across the seas. But instead they'd crossed paths with Preminger, and he'd kept them to himself, drained them of their light until they sat before him, bitter and worn thin. Just like him.

Nick was saying something, something about Erik and Vanessa and the spring. But Preminger wasn't listening. He'd sunk back into that straw pillow and let the night consume him again.