Haven’t We Been Here Before? pv Valentin Finished

It was the night of the spring ball, but Valentin had left earlier than most of its banquet attendants. Picking his way alone along the lakeside as if his woes might flow away into its darkness, Valentin had no wand, no broom, and nothing but the clothes on his back. A void inside ached from the events of the ball, and he wondered if his pain was anything like Mikael’s. Although the seeker’s keen eyes had looked for the black-haired boy throughout the night, he’d never found him. Like collapsing into a sinkhole, a need pulled Valentin across the desolation – a need to find Mikael. If no one found Misha, Valentin knew it to be the same as losing himself. Mikael and Valentin were two sides of the same coin.

The sound of choking caught Valya’s mind, and even in the broken light at the treeline, a characteristic glimmer of sloshing moonlight called to him. Inside, Valentin knew it to be Mikael. There was no more perfect representation of the boy. This was simply a moment encapsulating the daily existence of Mikael’s condition, and Valentin would come to him.

An acute awareness of the hyperreal moment made the wind in his hair palpable as the seeker ran. The life-sucking chill of the water encompassed him as Valya plunged in. It was not about saving someone, no laudable act of bravery. One way or another, Valentin had to be with Mikael in this moment. There was no other way for them to be. These were the twin rivers of blood flowing from the same source, these were the light and void that comprised two boys that were not two.

Just let me accompany you in the blackness, prayed Valya, hands reaching through the turbulence. Any wizard of Val’s level could have just cast the bubblehead charm and be done with it, but Valentin was something else altogether. He couldn’t be a lighthouse nor a hero. Valentin needed to plunge into the turbid blackness and grasp Mikael with his bare hands for the sheer existence of such a moment. Under the surface, the two would meet again, and the dim glow of moonlight illuminated the albino brighter than anything. Pale arms and legs snaking around to grasp the black-haired boy’s torso, Valentin tried to hold onto Mikael and kick the water until they could breach the surface where the starlight could be seen anew in perfectly clear pinholes of white.

⋅ Inspiration ⋅ Outfit ⋅

Mikael felt heavy it was the only thing he could truly feel anymore. Heavy. His arms floated slightly in front of him. Useless in the cold water. His clothes stuck tightly to him. Pulling him down as if he were tied to a cinder block. A pressure built tightly in his throat, and the boy opened his mouth as he starved for oxygen. But instead of the sweet fresh air he so craved, he was met with stale lake water rushing into his mouth. A cough wracked deeply from his lungs as he attempted to expel the water, but no relief would come. The bubbles that had been escaping from him ferociously had all but ceased. The water calmed and the light from above grew softer and softer as the boy slipped downward. Mikael's brows furrowed weakly as the world edged black around him.

A part of him was worried about how calm he really was. The oppressive weight of the water surrounding his body should feel like his nightmares had come true. The boy attempted to move his arms. A last spark of energy pulled his muscles sharply as he tried to resurface. To escape the watery grave only a few feet below him. Had it all been for naught? To be saved only to die once again? Had Yefim not promised him eternal life as he lay still wet and shivering? Yefim had saved him for a reason. There was no tangible proof he was even slightly close to that purpose. How could the other leave him to die once more? As he sunk he could not help but will for Yefim to come to him. To save him or to at least let him die any other way. Anything else would be better than this again. Mikael felt tears leak out of his eyes. Mixing in with the water around him. The world darkened further as the boy drifted away. The boy's eyes slowly closed as he felt himself slowly drifting. The soft sounds of waves crashing against the cliffside of his home slowly filled the oppressive quietness of the water. A faint smile pulled at his lips.

His Mom was waiting for him.

His eyes flickered softly as a figure slowly appeared above him. At first, he hardly could register what it was. The water surrounding him making it difficult to see very far in front of him. Mikael's gaze widened slightly as gold and white filled his vision. The being. It was staring down at him harshly, and the boy wondered what he had done to make it so angry. Though, as he stared at the being with half-slited eyes he knew it was because he had gotten himself into this situation once again. His face twitched into a frown as he felt the being latch onto his outstretched wrist. Though, an overwhelming sense of calm flowed out of him. A faint smile pulled from his lips, as he was pulled upwards was strong and quick. Up into the safety of the white linen. His head bobbed down, unable to hold his head up, watching the bottom of the lake slowly disappear in the darkness of the water.

The cold air hit his face as he seemingly bounced around the surface of the water. A weak cough echoed out of his throat as the water came abruptly out of his throat. The treeline moved by as the boy was moved out of the lake and towards solid ground. Mikael's brows furrowed as he weakly attempted to move away. Hands wrapped tightly around him. Holding him fast as he struggled to push the other away. His hands weakly came up to grab at the pale fingers. Trying to pry them backward. Stronger coughs ripped out of his body as the boy coughed up more water. Breathing in raggedly he whipped his head to the right and left as what had just transpired had come back to him. "Don't leave me." he called out tiredly as he tried to find the being. It had just been here. Where had it gone? How badly he did not want to be alone again. To be left alone in the oppressive darkness of the lake. "Yefim... he keened softly through sputtering coughs. "Help." he muttered out again before the world rapidly darkened. The boy fell limp once more.

Interacting with: @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood
Mentions: @Flash Holmwood

As Valentin grasped Mikael to power him back up to the surface light, his pearl-skinned face flickered between expressions of grief, joy, and rage. Mostly he was mad at himself for not having stuck closer to Mik after their encounter over whether Yefim was an immortal god or not. It was that Mik had said he never wanted to see Valentin again, and on some level, Valya believed him. Now it all seemed like a piss-poor excuse. Even worse, Val thought, was after Yefim left – why hadn’t Valentin spent more time around Mik, then? They both needed it, clearly. With Val distracted over the situation with Romeo and Ginyami, let alone the growing responsibilities of becoming Durmstrang’s champion, it seemed that both he and Mik had been cut adrift in a sea of turbulence by Yefim’s departure. Blame and self-hate filled Valentin’s eyes before slingshotting back into pure gratitude that he had caught Misha in time, only to quickly soak in the sadness that this was what had become of them, and Val had not prevented this outcome.

Breaching the surface, Valentin recalled last December when he, himself, had nearly drowned in a frozen lake in Germany. Someone had come for him, then, even if it wasn’t Mikael… but this was different. Certainly both had been saved, but the pairing was not the same. One was an act of care and heroism. The other? Valentin could only understand pulling Mikael back up to the moonlight from a murky underworld as finding the way to where they were supposed to be. Somehow… this… this was exactly where Valentin felt most natural, plunging into a bleak nether dimension and grasping not just flesh, but soul, and pulling them both back into the pulse of Life. That it was Mikael to find that moment with felt like symmetry.

Once Valentin had dragged Mikael out and laid him on his side for the purging of the water from his lungs, the white seeker laid down on the shore as well. Wrapping his arms around Mikael, Valya ignored the attempts to pry him off. The more painful proved the resistance, the harder Valentin held on. Wet strands of Mikael’s hair struck his face, stinging him as the boy whipped his head to the side, but Valentin simply sank his forehead into the small of the other’s back as he refused to budge.

"Don't leave me." Mik’s voice recalled another time under the moonlight, and Valentin could almost hear the echo behind his words: "She.left.me." Back then, when Mikael had almost ended Valentin’s life, the broken seeker had also wrapped around the voidling’s back. Hadn’t they been here before? Valentin repeated the exact same words, his voice cracking with that old youthful tone.

“I won’t leave you. I won’t leave you, Misha. It’s not possible.”

"Yefim..." keened Mikael. "Help."

Pulling Mikael tighter until his arms shook from exertion, Valentin cried out in a warped shriek. “We fucking promised.” Gasping almost as much as Mikael for air, Valentin’s words echoed, loud, into the night air. “We fucking promised each other, we promised Yefim. We are one. We combined. That doesn’t just go away. It’s not possible for me to leave you, Mishka. I’m here. You’ll never be alone if you will just let me in. Yefim isn’t here with us now, just now, so we’ll have to be Yefim for each other instead. Misha…”

Perhaps it was a bodily reflex, perhaps exhaustion mental or physical, but Mikael’s body sank into the shore mud, limp.

“Mishka, don’t leave me… No, Mishka… I don’t want to be alone, without you… Mishka… Don’t go into that other place. I don’t yet know how to follow you there. Please, Misha, please…”

Laying the dark-haired boy onto his back, Valentin smoothed the hair out of Mikael’s eyes. The rise and fall of his chest showed that he was still breathing, but Valentin was not relieved. As on so many occasions when Mikael’s mind had gone to “some other place,” Valya still feared that Mik’s mind would one day not come back to move his body through life. The line between dissociation and coma and unconsciousness was far too blurry to feel at peace now.

“Mishka, stay with me… Mishka…”

⋅ Inspiration ⋅ Outfit ⋅

To Mikael, the world was no more, unable to feel the white-haired boy gripping him tightly. Or the feeling of the sand sticking to exposed wet skin. Even though he was up above the water, it still felt as if he were hundreds of meters below the surface. Wrapped up in the gauziness of unconsciousness. Unable to hear the anguished cries that flitted through the air. Muted by large trees. The boy's eyes twitched underneath closed lids. His breath entered and exited his slightly parted lips quietly. Moving his chest up and down in a mechanical way. A symbol of life as fleeting as it was. The white-haired boy's pleas would go unanswered as the boy rested in an unnatural way. Even if he had been awake, would he have truly answered?

Mikael was not too sure where he was, in truth, it was far too dark for him to really see. The boy turned his head slightly a frown pulling across his face. It was quiet. That was the first and only thing he could truly understand. It was quiet and it scared him. Mikael turned his head the other way, noticing the being sitting cross-legged next to him. Mesmerizing was the word that popped up into his head as he took in the soft illuminating figure next to him. Mikael wanted to speak, and yet he found himself unable to speak. The boy's gaze fell down slightly, locking onto a knee shrouded in the white tunic that rippled despite there being no wind. He was not sure how long he and the being sat there. A silence that neither seemed willing to break. At least that was what he guessed. It was a little strange, generally the being said something weird and cryptic to him. A thousand people speaking at once.

Maybe the being was truly mad at him. Though, for the life of him he found himself unable to truly recall what he had done. The boy's dark eyes glanced up towards the being from his prone position. The being seemed distracted by something. His eyes were unable to reach the being's blank eyes. A frown pulled across his lips as he turned his gaze back upwards. Looking up into the expanding darkness around them. His eyes unfocused slightly, there was nothing to look at anyway. A tiredness washed over him as he looked up.

“Mishka, stay with me… Mishka…”

Mikael blinked his ears perking slightly, who was that? The boy's fingers twitched slightly as he attempted to move into a seated position. Only to find himself unable to move. It seemed that the being did not want him to move. Maybe the other did not want him to get lost in the swelling shadows around them. Who knew what lurked in the confines where no one could see them? Mikael swallowed thickly looking back up towards what he assumed was the sky. His brows furrowed slightly as he realized there were now stars illuminating the sky in a dull glow. Mikael blinked at a leisurely pace as he watched the stars from his inclined position.

The boy blinked slowly his brows furrowing as he looked up towards white. It took him far too long to realize he was looking at Valentin crouched over him. Mikael coughed weakly as he opened his mouth trying to get words out. "Valentin?" he questioned. He would move upward slightly leaning up on his elbows as he struggled to sit up. A frown grew across his face as he looked from Valentin toward the lake. "What happened?" he would eventually say after a lengthy pause.

Interacting with: @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood
Mentions: @Flash Holmwood

“Mishka… Don’t go. Don’t go away.” Valentin grasped the delirious boy’s soaked clothes as Mikael’s head began lolling around.

“What do you see? Help me get to where you are. You don’t have to be alone. I’m here. Help me reach you.” Scanning the empty air the dark-haired boy was staring into, the seeker squinted in pain. “Is it the one from the mirror…? You can’t let him take you. Stay by my side. Stay with me.”

In time, Mikael seemed to come around, coughing and speaking Val’s name. Seeing the boy struggling to rise, Valentin put an arm under Mik’s shoulder to help him sit up. With their drenched garments stealing the boys’ heat away, a shiver ran across Valya’s skin just as Mik opened his mouth to speak.

"What happened?"

With a tremendous exhalation into the boy’s shoulder, Valentin could have wept at the sound of the boy’s voice. Was he back? Was Mikael really back?

“You almost drowned. I pulled you out. Do you remember how you got into the lake?” Around and around like a top, Valentin’s mind spun with premises each more useless than the last, but he had to understand the root of the problem if he was going to keep Mikael from joining his mother.

⋅ Inspiration ⋅ Outfit ⋅

Mikael grunted as he forced his body to move, and yet it continued to act out against him. As weak and belligerent as it was. A fruitless struggle against the surging tides threatening to steal him away out into the sea. The waves would crash violently into the cliffside of his home during storms. Screaming out their vengeance, their want for blood to be poured into their great maw. Mikael felt a shiver run through his numb body. The cold seemed to seep into his bones, chilling him to his very core. Had he not been dry before? The boy blinked haphazardly up towards the white-haired boy close to him. Baring down on him like the being as it had pulled him up from the water. Delivering him with a righteous fist. Mikael blinked a few times as Valentin grabbed at his wet clothing, wrinkling it beyond repair. Not that he particularly cared, he was far too occupied with the strength in which the boy seemed to command his ever-stubborn body.

The boy swallowed, pain stabbing its way down his throat as he did so. Mikael's brows furrowed slightly his eyes narrowed ever so slightly as a frown pulled upon his lips. "I'm not leaving." he mumbled out his hand moving to wrap around the boy's wrist, tugging uselessly at the hand that held him tight. Ignoring the very blatant fact that the other boy was the only reason he hadn't fallen to the sandy shore. His unpleasant facial expression increased downward as the other asked upon him the answers even he struggled with. He felt like a stray dog, coaxing with honey-sweet words. Hands held out low and smiles wide. Who was he to believe that the words spoken were from a place of truth? And yet.. he found himself allowing it, as crazy as it seemed. To let the white-haired boy grasp onto him and coax him with honey-laced poison. So sweet and yet a sense of dread filled his stomach. Sloshing about.

With the help of Valentin, Mikael was able to sit up in a more fully upright position. The clothes stuck to his skin oddly, and a small grimace would appear across his face before being wiped away by the tide. A sand castle that was all too soon crushed by the sea. Mikael paused at the boy's answer. It made sense, being drenched to the bone surely meant he had been in the great expanse of water before them. Mikael thought back on the dark-haired boy, it felt as if someone had slotted a piece of the puzzle into the correct place. "I saw a boy, he fell into the lake." he said slowly. His uncertainty grew with every founding word that slipped out of his mouth. "I think he left already." he added to fill the growing silence. It seemed stupid to be forcing words out of his mouth, and yet here he was doing just that. "I...yeah." he finished his mind blanking. Had it truly been the boy from the mirror? It seemed almost impossible, and yet the doubt clawed its way deeper into his brain. They looked fairly similar, albeit he did not get a close look at this boy's face. "Did you see...did you see him leave?" he asked. Slow and carefully like a child trying to ask his Mother if there was indeed a monster underneath his bed.

Interacting with: @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood

"I'm not leaving," mumbled Mikael as he wrapped his hand around Valentin’s wrist. Despite the tugging, the ivory-haired champion remained motionless as lines of tension melted from his face back into the smoothness of marble. It might have been Mikael's unwillingness to leave that would save them both.

“I wouldn’t let you, anyway. Even if I have to drag you by your hair out of the depths of hell, I’m not leaving you either.” Valentin had learned not to hope for gratitude. It would have cheapened the moment anyway. This wasn’t about being appreciated. The only thing that mattered was finding a way to find to pull Mikael out of his suffocation, which ran far deeper than the bottom of the black lake. At this rate, it would be no surprise if Mikael wore Valya away into dust, but the Tatar boy had forcibly removed his own defenses each time they rose like bile. It wasn’t as if someone had claimed Val for their own, and as he continued to give and give and give with no one doing much in return, the shadows gathered in the corners of each mirror to whisper the name of Death. It was a cold world without Yefim there to complete the boys' loop. No one stood to defend Valya from his own unfettered altruism. He knew the danger, truly, but he could not bring himself to give it up alone. Alone.

Looking out across the lake, Valentin saw no sign of a boy who’d fallen in, nor could he recall any sign of one other than Mikael when they were in it. How many boys were drowning in such a dark place alone without even a soul knowing, simply because there was no sign of it? Surely it was the silent ones who would not be saved.

Without complaint, Valentin stood, pulling on Mikael’s arm to make him stand. The seeker's eyes scanned the distance as if some hope might twinkle into existence through the gaps in the black spruce silhouettes, but nothing came to him. He had to get Mikael to shelter soon before the chill of the lake water began to sap his ward’s health.

“I did see a boy who’d fallen into the lake, but he did not leave, as I hold him now. That boy is you.”

⋅ Inspiration ⋅ Outfit ⋅

Mikael blinked slowly as he stared up at the boy. When had the other garnered a sense of resolve? The strength of old wood that stood tall against the elements that tore and destroyed those too young and foolish around it? Didn't the white-haired boy use to bend like a young sapling, pliable enough to create traps? Mikael's gaze would follow the white-haired boy's out towards the dimly lit lake. The moon cast its ever-elusive silvery glow onto the water. The soft ripples of insects touching the surface rippled into an ethereal dance. Taunting them with their beauty. Mikael could not help the feeling of unease that washed over him. Only moments before the calmness of the surface had held a suffocating weight. Pulling him downward and sucking the fear out of his maw.

The stench of unease scented the air like rain before a storm. His gaze flickered over to Valentin. Had his questioning put the other into a state? It appeared as if that were the case as the boy wordlessly pulled him upward. His legs shook slightly, still tired from the whole ordeal. A part of him wished to fall back onto the bank, to curl up amongst the soft grit. Burrow down and wait for fairer weather. Or maybe he would just wait till life did not seem to sap his very living breath out of him. His mind felt airy and yet his body felt as if it were made of stone.

He knew things were out of his control, like a sapling being forcefully bent at every breeze that blew its way. No longer was he in control of his life. Just a pawn to be used in another one's game. Mikael wanted to sigh out, and let go of the tiredness that settled deep in his ribs. Yet no noise would grace his lips as they cascaded outwards.

Mikael would glance upwards at the distant look in the white-haired boy's eyes. Sharp even when unfocused. It is what made him a good seeker, a gift bestowed upon him. His eyes widened slightly as the other finally spoke through the darkness. The finality in the statement felt as if he were back in the icy cold waters, drowning in the unknown. Though, it was far more likely that he was beginning to experience hypothermia. The boy's lips shook from the cold as he stared at the boy with a mixed expression on his face.

'That boy is you.'

The boy's mind echoed with the repetition of those four words, each iteration felt like a stab through the fogginess that seemed to cloud his ever-waking mind. The phrase reverberated through the stillness of the night, penetrating through every defense much too similar to Valentin's eyes.

Mikael glanced down toward the water, his reflection mockingly staring back at him. The silence between them seemed to stretch. Punctuated by the soft sounds of the woods around them. His breath hung in the air, unwilling to breathe out lest his mind break from the emptiness. Confusion, denial, and the worst feeling of all, a simmering flicker of recognition haunted his ever-waking mind. The long shadows seemed to grow around him as he stared at his reflection. "I'm the boy."he finally spoke as he found his voice. His words escaped like a soft wind, and the lake eagerly licked it clean.

"What does this mean?" he softly wondered. Like a child lost at the complexities of adult life. Mikael would look towards Valentin a complex look on his face. "We need to go inside." he said with a dead sense of finality. He was unsure if he was really concerned about hypothermia. As a part of him screamed to move far away from the lake.

Interacting with: @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood

Mikael stared back at Valentin, lips trembling and legs unsteady in the cold. As a trickle of understanding thawed visibly across the Norwegian’s face, the pale Tatar’s expression softened in response. It was a beautiful moment.

"I'm the boy," Mikael repeated back to the albino, who had indeed grown taller – and not just with age, but also under the sculpting pressures of becoming Durmstrang’s champion and quidditch captain. While still thin and elegant like a cypress, no longer did Valentin’s demeanor flitter as capriciously as a kite in the wind. The Tatar boy’s devotion to Mikael had become firmly rooted through the slow progression of their days together slipping by, and not a tremor of doubt could be found in his silky tenor.

“Yes, Mikael. That drowning boy is you, but you don’t have to stay under the water. Let’s change this. Come with me to a warmer place.” Valentin’s delicate seeker hand wrapped around the concave depression at Mikael’s elbow.

"What does this mean?"

“The world you grew up in is not all the world. The people you knew are not all the people. It’s time for a new chapter in your life. I’ll stay with you, but the moment has come when you need to step away from the past that is suffocating you. You’re alive, still breathing, and a new hunt is waiting for you, just as it is for me. We can’t stay like this or we will waste away. Escape with me. Run away. I’ll take care of you, Misha. You can’t stay where you are because you are drowning. Come away with me…”

Valentin pulled at Mikael's elbow, determination burning in each amethyst eye. If the other did not resist, Valentin would take Mikael back to the castle to get dry and warm up by a fire.