Supernova

Chapter Eighty Five - Night Changes

A/N: I feel like my authors note for every chapter should be sorry but yeah things are just going to be depressing for a while idk what to tell you.

The car waiting for me outside the school grounds took me to some hoity toity restaurant where Elias was already waiting for me, ready to kiss my hands and cheeks and tell me how stunning I looked, even though I was just in some stupid ass generic nice dress that I'd had to shimmy into in the backseat of the car. I'd been annoyed and nearly refused, but figured my days of refusing things simply because I wished it were more than over. Unfortunately for my stupid ass self, I'd gone and fallen in love and for as long as Katsuki was living, I was a slave to whoever had the nerve to hold his life against me.

It was worth more than mine, always.

I realized there was a method to the madness when we'd gotten there and there were already fruity drinks waiting at our window table and Priscilla was there with some photographer ready to shoot some stupid ass pictures for her and my dad to post all over my social media page I don't bother checking or even thinking about so all the other monarchy families will see Heir Edric Stronghold's legacy was well in the making.

I wanted to fucking rampage.

But I did not. I let brainwashed to death Elias pull out my chair, lay a hand on my shoulder, kiss my cheek, and order for me. Then we gazed across the table at each other while the clicks of the camera threatened to deafen me.

At least the food was good, and we were rich enough to be able to eat a lot of it.

"I missed you," Elias told me between polite, tactful bites. Mine were not so. I was shoveling food down desperately.

"You too," I told him. "Last night felt like forever ago."

"Indeed," he agreed. "You really do look beautiful, you know."

"Thank you," I said. "You look lovely as well."

"You're so splendid," he said.

"Thank you," I said. "That's kind of you to say."

If I had the ability to rip my hair out, I swear to me that I would have. God, this version of Elias was so fucking boring! Sure, when he was at least halfway himself, he was sinister and cruel and borderline psychopathic, but at least he was interesting and smart and fun. This version of him, which I assumed was Insanity's image of a perfect husband, was so stupid and bland and genuinely made me want to kill him more than the real him ever had.

And in case you haven't been paying attention, I'd been fighting the urge pretty much since I'd met him.

After lunch, there was another car, or maybe it was the same one, because I didn't care and therefore didn't bother paying attention, and it took us both back to the Stronghold house. Elias was going to be staying there until my school year finished out in a few months. Which was weird, but I didn't dwell on it, because I was just fucking ecstatic that I didn't have to stay there too. The house my father had built here was massive, but there was not a house large enough in the world to tolerate that.

I wondered what the Claeson manor was like. I chased the thoughts out of my head just as fast. That was a problem for later. That was something to learn to tolerate later.

"I have an interesting idea of what we could do together," he told me, leading me into the lounge by my hand.

Hearing that phrase, that string of words together, despite the voice that was so starkly not his, sounded like it might have been formed by the version of him that he once was, and it broke my heart. I wondered how much of him was left. You know, percentage wise. Five? Ten, maybe? When I saw his face, waiting for me to react or acknowledge him, I once again recognized the stranger he was, and more than that, I was taken aback. I genuinely hoped he wasn't suggesting what I thought he was.