Things with Serafina had felt so natural. It was for that reason why he felt that fire between them would make it easy, well easy enough to rekindle all that had been lost. Time had a way of changing people somehow, had a way of eroding and chiselling a person. Had her hatred truly corroded everything she had once felt for him? Yes, they weren't together for that long, but there were people, some very rare connections that made you feel unstoppable, like anything was possible. Brennan was not the settle down kind of guy, he was not that hero in shinning armour. But for her, he would have been anything that she wanted or needed from him, at least he would have tried to anyways. How desperate and hopeless Brennan truly was. It was arguable to determine if she was the fuel that aided him to survive that hellish place. Without a doubt in his mind, she was.
He could feel that flame between them, the unspoken laws of attraction at work. It was the way that her eyes lingered on his body, the way he gazed at her more like she was still his, the way she moved captivating him. Every sultry hypnotic sway of those hips that could make him weak in the knees was like a bait and lure. It was not surprising that he followed her into a room he once knew far too well. So many memories.

Now they felt more painful and distant, even though they felt tangible and dangerously close to the Irish man. There were potent memories of littered, scrawled out on every inch, every wall, the bed, the bathroom, the kitchen.

It may have only been a mere sliver of time that he had to devour the expanse of her body with those brooding blue-grey eyes of his. They rove shamelessly over those curves he had once memorized, the way her raven locks kissed her back, the way it felt against his bare skin. It felt so right to look and her and yet he felt wrong somehow. How could he possibly feel wrong? She was his once. But it was the once that stirred something dangerous and toxic within man, he felt it roil to life within him like a caged animal. He was certain of this and yet she seemed far less entertained by him. He knew she was a fickle woman, complicated in all the ways that only helplessly captured him further. He hadn't even thought of another, not in the same way that she had bespelled him, her hooks were still fastened deep within his very marrow.

He was doomed.

He was a ship lost at sea within stormy waters. She once was his lighthouse and now he struggled to find that light. Without that light he felt as though he were about to crash upon that rocky impending shore.

She slipped on baggy, comfortable pajamas and the man nearly scoffed, did she really think that would deter him? He already knew what was underneath that thin, silky fabric. Hell his strong hands could easily remove it. He was a faithless man, he was a ruthless when he needed to be, but now, he nothing but tortured and lost. Serafina was his tormentor.

Did she truly feel nothing for him?

Reluctantly, they made their way back downstairs, the question of coffee or tea was the equivalent of Serafina dumping sobering ice over his head. He nearly dragged his feet as he trailed behind her, his mind filled with endless questions and suffocating doubt. At least he knew the warm burn of whisky would dull the torment that still waged within. He was all raw emotions, his mind still half in that barren hellish world. He was hardly accustomed to that constant deafening buzz of this world just yet and the impending realisation that he had lost his one reason that made him strong. He looked down at the steps, as if somehow it would give him answers and received nothing.

It was then, halfway down the stairs that Serafina's voice entered his mind once more bringing him back from the white noise within his head. A harsh sound close to a snort escaped him at her question. She truly had no idea of the hell he had lived in, the hell her mentor put him in. "Love, there was no electricity or the luxuries we take for granted of here. No pubs, no showers, no people. At least there was whiskey." Just like that he summoned a simple amber coloured bottle, filled and unopened of something undoubtedly expensive, even though it lacked a label. After all he created it with his powers, summoning whatever his mind concocted. It appeared within his hand as soon as he touched the object with his mind. It came in handy when it came to food and weapons, but that was all. His powers had flourished under the duress and need for survival, that he couldn't question. He placed the bottle unceremoniously upon the table so Serafina could use it to make their drinks.

She asked him to start a fire, at least he could busy his hands and he could put a little bit of distance between them. It was not the fire he wanted to light but it would have to do while they talked. He nearly shuddered at the thought of talking about all that had happened. Talking was what teenage girls did when they gushed about what they did on the weekend. Talking was always too complicated and he was never quite good at talking about the important stuff. "You got it, love." Her uttered roughly, his voice somehow more unrefined, his irish lilt, still strong as ever, reaching for her.

While she made the drinks, he moved over to the fire place, placing dry logs by calling upon his affinity. He did what he had done every single night he was in that dreadful place. But somehow, being in a home after so long felt constricting, felt strange. It was no surprise that those deft fingers made short work of the fire, setting flame to the kindling. It was then that he realised his normally strong hands were shaking, his nerves shot. He needed that whisky more than he'd realised.

Making his way back to the kitchen where Serafina had finished making their beverages. She was waiting for him with those big steaming mugs. The sight made him take in hitched a breath, hesitating a moment before meeting her at the table. Seeing her like this felt almost entirely surreal. He pulled out the chair next to her where what he assumed was his drink. He sat uncharacteristically quiet, knowing well enough he would have explaining to do. His hands wrapping around that hot, near scalding drink.

How long it was to truly talk to someone let alone talk to her about something so serious. What he would have given to put all that pent energy into earning his way back into her life, by showing what she was missing and just what his body was capable of doing. Yeah, he was still pretty hung up over that rejection. It weighed on him more than any other.

What she said he hasn't anticipated, not for a fat second. It made something inside his gut wrench. It almost choked the words from him as an anger clawed at its way to the surface. She cried? The woman never cried, she was more stoic than a well trained warrior and more sensual than siren. God, she was very near perfection in his eyes. That rare touch of vulnerability made his heart feel like a demon creature pummelled it into dust. In a way he wished it did, so he didn't have to feel so vulnerable. "You know I would have never left you if I had a choice. Only a complete fool would leave you, Sera." His voice darkened and the desire to break something or drink rose to the surface. He peered up at her with dark, haunted eyes, void of his normal snarky light, perhaps darker in some way. He wish he had the balls to say he was sorry, but he felt less of a man somehow knowing how she was left alone without a word, even if it wasn't his fault.

The memory punched him in the face, a cold memory he could recall crystal clear, even on his dying day. "I don't know how much you remember from that night. I was on my way to pick you up and take you out somewhere nice. But your prick of a mentor had other plans. The stalker that he was intercepted me on the way to your home. It was like he knew where I was going to be and he was so pissed. It was amusing to see all that anger directed at me, he turned a red purple like a fat man choking on a chicken bone. I thought he was going to try to punch me in the face. But I think we both know how well that would have ended." If it had been a fight he wanted, he would have happily obliged. But he was not a man at all and hid behind his magic. The Irishman felt his hands scrunch into fists, as if squeezing the life out of something. He paused for a moment, a roguish smirk sprawled across his lips yet somehow peppered with an anger that had been festering within him.

"Before I could tell him he looked like a monkeys ass, I wasn't here anymore... Not on my way to you, I wasn't even on this bloody planet. I was somewhere else, like I suddenly woke up from a dream and found a new reality. I questioned my own sanity, I wondered if I had a psychotic break. I questioned what was real and what wasn't. Every day was a fight of life and death. I hardly slept, I hardly did anything else besides attempt to survive." It was a language he understood, far better than he would have liked to admit. If it were not for his powers, it would make his life even harder. He called upon his gift, leaning back playing a precious stone from that place upon a table. It looked like a pitch black stone, but it was iridescent and transparent all at the same time as if an ocean lay within the stone. It swirled, a varied of iridescent colour. It felt alive as if the stone was heated and fueled by an energy source from within.

He eyed the stone he produced from nothing. "This place was no paradise, it may have looked like it. But everything is trying to kill you. Creatures you could never even make up in your wildest dreams world were trying to make a lunch out of me. Stupid buggers they were though. To think I would taste any good, not when my blood probably tastes like shitty moonshine." Not to mention how chewy and gamey he would have tasted. The man didn't have an ounce of fat on his battle-battered body.

"I wanted to give up, but I couldn't. Its like my mind was done but at the last minute it changed its mind. I think time works differently there then it does here, slower even. Hell if I know.." The Irish warlock muttered. He left out a few valuable things, one of them being that she was one of the reasons why he didn't give up.

He cleared his throat, eyes lingering a little too long at her dark hair and how it framed her face perfectly. He looked away, well aware of what a hopeless fool he was."One night I was woken from a sleep the sound of my... pet crying out in pain. I had a pet dog looking thing while I was there. He helped me keep my sanity. I took him in at a young pup after his mum was killed. I fed him, trained him. He was loyal and strong as he grew. He never left my side. One night, he woke up just in time to be ripped to shreds, his cries woke me. They still haunt me.. I knew I was next, so I went to attack the creature. To get revenge on murdering the only companion I had left. This creature wasn't like the rest, it was far too strong and I was choked with but an inch of my life. At that point I think I was ready to embrace what I have been hoping for, what I knew was a long time coming. That was when the demon appeared. I had seen him before in my dreams, he lay to waste the creature that was slicing and dicing me, with a shift of his eye, but there wasn't much left to save. One minute he was attacking me the next he was simply gone. I felt my consciousness fade, but that's when he showed his face. The demon. It healed me and offered me a deal.. I have no idea why. Why he just didn't let me die, I will never know. I took the deal without thinking. The thing just obliterated my strongest enemy and promised me a way home." What he didn't say was that he took that chance to return to a world that he knew she existed within. He was hardly aware of the words that left his lips, they seemed to fall out of him unbidden. It was a story of a deadman, a story he never thought he would be able to tell, not in a million years.

Brennan O'Connell