Killer Crane

Follow Arthur Valois on his last week with his husband, Duke Valois.

A/N 1: Hey everyone! I'm Jacqueline Rabbit, but a shortened version is Jacquie! This is my first published work on this website, and I am honestly very excited to get feedback! This story was made for my English class, and the assignment was writing a story based on the song Killer Crane by TV on the Radio. To me (and many others in my class), the song gave off a very sad vibe and seemed like someone was leaving. After figuring out the meaning behind it, we weren't exactly...wrong. You should look up the meaning and the song!

A/N 2: This story is based off of some characters my friend and I made. My characters are twins and so are hers. Mine are named Arthur Beethoven Valois and Elijah Chopin Valois. Hers are named Duke Matthew Conrad and Dean Tobias Conrad. The meaning behind the names is a bit difficult to explain, but it doesn't really matter. If you really want to know, then perhaps I can write their whole backstory which will cover that and more? ^^'

A/N 3: Anyway... I really hope that you enjoy this short story and give me some feedback! Be as blunt as you can, because I need it. I want to become a better writer, so what I need is criticism and practice!

A/N 4: Last one, I promise! Most of my ideas came from the anime/web comic Hetalia. I am in love with the characters, and I like all of the theories and such. So, with a lot of influence, I based this story on that little world. My writing style is a bit influenced by the amazing and wonderful writer Sunny Day in February. I am currently reading her fics Bottoms Up!, This Dance, And Three Makes Five, and some more of hers. They are all about the pairing Spamano (Spain and South Italy Romano), and is in the perspective of South Italy. Absolutely perfect, her stories. I sometimes stay up until the late hours of the night reading them when I have to attend class the next day. No regrets though!

Have you ever seen the rise and fall of an empire? No? Well, I guess you are not one of us. Someone like me. You see, I am an immortal. I have been around since the Paleolithic era. I watched, joined and helped them move across the land and bridges of ice. I have seen many die from natural causes to torture. It is not a pleasant thing, being alive for so long, but you just have to.

I have tried many times to die. Guns, swords, stretchers… You name it, I have most likely done it. Not even the gas chambers of the Holocaust could kill me. That is how cruel our God is. Do not get me wrong, it is interesting to watch humanity grow and shape itself to something completely different, however, it gets tiring.

Watching is so exhausting. Ha! Life is exhausting.

Oh! Fun little tangent. Ever heard of the torturing device that kills you by going up your butt? Well let me tell you something… There is a huge metal pyramid that they heat up as they slooooowly lower the person down, making the edge of the pyramid go up your butt. Fun stuff, really. Disgusting, but interesting.

…

Anyway.

Back to my whining. So throughout life (how many years has it been?), I have always been kind of a loner as some of you may say, but I have had my moments of friendship and flings. Twice, though, I have fallen in love. First, it was with Queen Elizabeth I. Even though she was married to England (the country, what else would I be talking about?), I fell in love. She was a crazy, passionate young woman, and my god could she make a family dinner interesting. Too bad she did not really like me because of her loyalty to the country, but it is okay. It happens.

After that I had many flings. Going to pubs, w***e houses, and the red light district, I found many people (women and men), to fool around with. Hey, a man needs some entertainment because people watching, books, and traveling just does not do it sometimes.

Sex is great. You have a physical connection with another human being. One that is pretty much unbreakable. Not to mention that the chemicals released are pretty fabulous as well. Like damn. Thank you happy chemicals.

Wait. Hold on. I forgot something. I am sorry, being alive for so long makes you all disoriented. Just please bear with me, okay?

Okay! Immortals! Well, there is not much to tell that is necessarily interesting. The science is pretty annoying along with all the gushing I get from the higher powers (aka those of the UN). We were set here on this earth to look over humanity. There are others - there is Elijah (my twin brother), Annabelle, Clyde, Levy - just to name a few; and we all take on the age of twenty five. We were "born" I guess to look over certain parts of the world. I got a chunk of Europe. I look over the land of what you now know as France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, England, Ireland, and Scotland with my twin, Elijah. It is a lot of land I admit, but hey, it is what I have to do.

To show just a bit of who I look over, I was named Arthur Valois. An English name with a French last name. Yeah. That is it. As a compromise I know every single language that ever took place within those countries. Yeah. I just became a hell of a lot cooler in your mind.

We are protectors and influence whether or not wars happen. There is a lot of other stuff that comes with the package but I do not want to talk about it because it is boring.

I bet that you are wondering who the second person I fell in love with. Well, it was - is - a guy named Duke. Duke Conrad. He is this tall dorkish guy who is obsessed with birds. Good god he's adorable. A bit of a pompous prick, but hey, it fits.

So I am not going to bore you with the long and romantic story of how we met, because our meeting was not as fantastic. I met him in a high school. That is right. A school. I needed a distraction, so my twin brother and I decided "Hey why the hell not?" So we signed ourselves up. I continued to do my flirting thing but I kinda decided to do more than the standard flirting and then asked him out on a date (which was us watching documentaries at my house as my "dad" stuck around). After a couple of dates, I kissed him. Then things got more and more serious.

Long story short, we got married in the spring in this beautiful garden and everything was perfect. Except for the fact that I am god damn immortal. Aka, I will not be able to spend the rest of my life with Duke Matthew Conrad because the world is cruel.

Wonderful~

After this wonderful double rainbow experience, a killer crane decided to come along and bring hell on earth.

Duke knew what I was. I told him ages ago (not literally because he has not been alive for as long so it is simply impossible), that it was impossible for me to die and that I will have to leave him some day because I would not be able to watch people I love die. I would rather leave. So, what I did every time I had a good connection with someone, I would leave. Like dandelion seeds in the wind. Slowly but yet surely I would dispers. Naturally, I would have to do that on some day, so I decided to give Duke the best week of his life. It all started on a Sunday morning.

Sunday: I woke up at 7 o'clock in the morning just to make Duke a breakfast of champions. Eggs, toast, pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage, and then it would be washed down with orange juice and milk. I was done at about 7:45 so I rushed to our bedroom with our german shepherd Leonard trailing behind me. I woke him up with a simple kiss and tug of his curls (it is hard to wake him up), and then lead him to the table. We sucked down all of the food - we even gave Leonard some food because he is just that cute - and then made our way to the living room with all of the plush furniture. With a big fluffy blanket wrapped around us, the TV all set up with dozens of documentaries, Leo on our lap (he is a puppy after all), we lazed around the whole day. We slept, cuddled, kissed a bit, and then repeated. It was relaxing and probably one of the days I will forever cherish. However, that night, when Duke was sleeping against my chest, I cried myself to sleep as Leonard looked at me with some knowing look. Did animals know about us? The look in his eyes just seemed so sympathetic, like he knew exactly what I was going through. My own dog. God, I could not handle those thoughts during the time, so I just cried harder.

Monday: With raw eyes and stained cheeks, I slowly woke up to the blinding worry Duke was projecting at me. Poor guy. I pulled him down on me, kissed him with reassurance and then gave him a smile. Nothing huge, but it got the point across. Duke was no fool, he knew something was wrong, but he decided that it would be for the better to ignore it all. We freshened ourselves up and then I got him into the car to come on a drive with me. Splendid! Now, I live in a small town in Germany, so we decided to go to Louhans because there is a huge market on Mondays and we decided just to check it out. We got their fairly early, and we were amazed of the beauty. Even Leonard thought it was amazing (just because he got to be in a new place though), and excitedly hopped around the back seat. Goodness gracious he was such a cutie. After finding a parking spot, we walked around the market hand in hand with a very eager puppy leading the way. That night, we got home really, really late, but that is okay. It was worth it.

Tuesday: This was the day where I decided to take my Duckie to a fancy dinner. In the morning we took showers and made sure our suits were nice and tidy, and then decided to sleep in again before we had to leave. Sadly, Leonard did not get to come, but at least he did not mind and was good enough to roam the house so he did not have to be stuck in a kennel. I drove us to the nice restaurant and got him and I in a fancy private room. In here, I got to play our favorite classical music (Duke loves Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky) while eating five star food. It was perfect and reminded me of when we would take the occasional day to act like we were made out of money. Once our dinner was over, I took him to one of the highest hills in our small town and looked at the stars. We crumbled our suits by laying on the wet grass, but who gave a s**t? I did not, and neither did Duke. We were just happy to be together. We held hands so much that day.

Wednesday: This day was always my favorite in the week I spoiled my husband. Although I woke up thrashing and crying which worried him, the day itself was beautiful. We got out of bed, ate breakfast, took showers, got Leonard all ready and then went into the car to go to the Bavarian Forest. It is a huge place with trees and grassy fields… Gorgeous and breathtaking. We let Leonard run free and play with other dogs as we watched him hand in hand being the proud parents we were. Then we had lunch at a little place run by an old couple (I forget the name. It has been a long time since I was in that part of Germany), then headed home. The couple even let Leonard into the building! It was quite wonderful. Once home, Duke and I treated ourselves with chocolate cake and some activities I rather not write about. It is something private and something I would only want to share with Duke. When I knew my husband was in a deep sleep, I ended up crying myself to sleep. He knew.

Thursday: Duke Matthew Valois, oh how I love you so. But damn could that smart side of him piss me off. One time we were having an argument on whether or not the Persian Empire was accepting of all people. Me, being around literally forever, thought that the empire was terrible and was not happy about other religions and languages being in their land. Guess who was right. Yeah… Duke was. Ugh. Anyway… I love the man to pieces, but it really ticked me off that he knew the reason why I was doing all of this in a span of a week. The poor guy knew. As we were lazing around in the living room, me reading Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and him reading some book I had no interest in, he confronted me. I will never forget it either. I remember the conversation word for word.

"So, Artie, you have to leave soon."

"What? What do you mean?" At this point I was shaking and Duke was getting frustrated. The wet kind of frustrated. The one where you start to cry and snot comes out of your nose. It shows that you cared too much and makes you seem weak. That kind.

He put the book down next to my head (my head was in his lap), and looked down at me. I will never forget the look in those blue eyes. He was so understanding. He understood why I had to leave. Duke was not angry (well he was because I did not tell him sooner), but he gave me a sad smile and just stared into my green orbs.

I remember reaching up to play with his brown curls as his hands made their way through my dark hair.

"Yes, my love. I have to leave."

After that, he held me as I cried like the little wimp I still am and kept on telling me that it was okay and that everything was fine and that he understood everything that was going on. Duke also kept on telling me that he loved me. Over and over again, I heard the phrase whispered in my ear as I sobbed.

Then my heart turned into dust.

"I will keep your last name, Artie. I will be Duke Matthew Valois until I die. That is how much I love you."

…

That day, we just cried and held each other.

Friday: This was my favorite day. It was the day Duke was going to remember. I took him to all of the places that would be bustling with birds. That is right, my Duke loved birds. I have no idea why, it could be something to do with his terrible past of abuse, I dunno. It was was his favorite animal though, so I decided to treat him with going bird watching. I hate bird watching, by the way. Just another fun fact about me. Well, nothing really interesting happened on this day. When we got home, we did some activities then slept. That is about it. Really.

Saturday: This was my last day with my husband (and our wedding anniversary), so we treated the day with a bunch of things. We went to a cute market, took Leonard (I really like to think of the little guy as our son), on a walk, went home, cuddled, watched documentaries, did some…stuff, and yeah. We pigged out on all of our favorite foods and that is seriously about it. The whole day I held onto Duke, and he held onto me. There was never a moment where we were not touching. This was my last day, so we had to make the most of it. We went to bed pretty late, and that was when Duke finally broke. I have never seen him cry so much. It still breaks my heart to this day, and I am so glad I held him through his whole ordeal. He cried himself to sleep that night, and with a heavy and broken heart, I said goodbye.

You know, some say that every time they have to leave someone that it is harder. Especially when they have to do it more than once. I do not believe that. For me, it is always easier. Maybe it is because I know that they will be okay once I am gone. I know they will be. All of my friends had good lives and they were always happy. How do I know this? Well I check up on people.

I was positive that Duke would make it through everything, and he did. He went to live with his brother Dean (he knew everything as well because he ended up marrying my brother), and they kept each other company. Like everyone in the world, they had bad times, but they kept each other going. Duke made it big as a professor, made plenty of friends, and even tried dating. You may think that him doing that would hurt me, but it did not. It meant he was happy and moving on. All four of us were.

When dating did not work out with Duke, he put his wedding ring back on, but refused to tell his friends who he was wed to. He made him a little story that I died in my sleep, and that is okay.

Wait. You are probably wondering how I know all of this. Well, I make sure Duke is okay by talking to his brother, Dean. The two of us were good friends, and he was happy that I still kept in touch with him. He understood why I should not talk to Duke, and he accepted it. Magnificent man, he was. In return, I would always tell him what Elijah was up to, and although his tone was sad, Dean was grateful for the news.

So my brother and I watched our husbands grow old from the sidelines. Depressing, sure, but it was an easy thing to do.

I would like to thank the spring breeze and smell for helping me write this. The sweet smells of blooming flowers calm my nerves, but as I continue to write, I would like to apologize for the tear stains. No matter how many years go by, it is hard for me to express my feelings for Duke. He was a part of my life and me. When I left him, I had left a piece of my heart with him.

I am probably not making this any easier on myself as I sit underneath the oak tree on the bench right in front of Duke's grave. God, the cold stone does not serve him justice.

Again, I am sorry for the tears.

This is my final and last story. For now, at least. I hope you now understand that living forever is a terrible thing.

This is a about Arthur Beethoven Valois, an immortal, and Duke Matthew Conrad, a mortal. Believe it if you wish, or just think that it was a twisted story. I do not mind how you view this story.