flameguard | kill log: w3 thursday

[she's so desensitized to corpses, it shouldn't be an issue to see another one today. but even so, there's still something about watching someone's final moments play out that sends her heart plummeting down to an icy pit at the bottom of her stomach. something about the death rattle, the light leaving their eyes.

it doesn't help at all that she's watching someone she's gotten to know die. it's easier when they're only a stranger.

rondo swipes the glass across camille's jugular, and asa sucks in a sharp breath before averting her eyes a few seconds later. allows her hand to linger on camille's shoulder and waits, for however long it takes for her to pass.

and while she waits, her eyes land on the spilled decanter and discarded glass camille had been drinking from earlier. something she'll have to pick up and take with her once they're finished here so nobody will link this spot to where camille's body will ultimately be found.]

[ death isn't anything new - this is hardly the first death he's been involved with, been at least in part responsible for. and it's not even the first time he's had to figure out how to deal with someone who is no longer themselves - taken over by some monster that drives them to violence and madness.

he is not so grand-minded as to not be afraid or think of it purely as a mercy. it is in some ways, but in others it is an act of fear. what if she hurts someone else, what if she hurts herself, is it not just more torture to wait? the waiting is the worst part. the directive of duty. waiting this long already was probably a cruelty in more than one way, but they had to be sure.

Meaningless. the worst part of this is there is no meaning to it, nothing but the pain of this place and all the ways in which it manages to crawl underneath the skin and find the softest parts to dig the knife in. he isn't sure he's willing to commit her soul to anywhere other than where she hopes it will go, but he can't help but think of aerith's planet. to return to whence we came. ]

Rest well.

[The cut is deeper than she knows. Pain is grounding, except when dug too deep.

Camille can see the spritz of her blood. Can feel their arms around her, bracing hands. Somewhere in this drunken depressive haze a new urge awakens.

Live.

She kicks out. Reaches up, useless, soggy handed as she presses her fingers to the open gape of her throat. It's wet. It burns, sears, screams at her. She wants to live.

She wants to see Curry. Where is he? Is it his or Eileen's turn to tuck her in? A couple only a dozen years off retirement, reparenting a thirty-something fuck-up who can't be trusted with booze or scissors. Who's going to tell them? Who's going to tell them she didn't do it?

She didn't mean to.

She didn't do it herself.

Cloud, in the smoke, wheezing, sweating out the tablespoon of mother's medicine she slipped him at curfew. Swinging that sword, bewildered. Needing to live.

She didn't mean to.

The limbs slow. Squirming body, voiceless words mouthed, scrabbling to cover her throat. It all stops. Camille rests in Rondo's arms, eyes glassy and mouth dropped open in a gape. Shocked at the cruelty, like a child being punished.

Camille Preaker is dead.]

[ he can't look, and maybe that's more cowardly than anything.

holding camille tightly, rondo can feel the way her hand comes up to the injury. he can feel her struggling, squirming, every single motion, and he holds on anyway, strong enough to make sure she doesn't make it worse, she doesn't draw it out, to keep her from flailing free in her desperate struggle for life, and he trembles with every passing second that the life leaves her body but never falters, never lets go. ]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

[ in hell, last week - the hot, awful manor, the house of hope and the room with the pool, he'd killed sazantos. the move then was accidental, and it wasn't him - in fact, it was only successful, because it wasn't him - but the carnage was the same. the gore. the blood. the betrayed eyes. the voiceless mouth. you did this. you did this. it doesn't matter that it's temporary. it doesn't matter, that it was to kill a monster that wasn't even camille. it doesn't matter that she killed cloud. it doesn't matter that they'll be able to - that she'll be able to come back. that they're going to make sure she gets to come right back.

it doesn't make it any easier. it doesn't make it any less horrifying. rondo's crying before he even realizes it, holding onto the glass so tightly that he'd cut himself if he wasn't wearing gloves, and he takes a deep, shaking, shuddering breath as he just. sits there for a second, holding camille in his arms and just quietly repeating - i'm sorry. i'm so sorry.

(Oh, kid. You're a mess.)

there's still more to be done: they have to get the rest of the plan finished. maybe this is the moment most where he needs that adult. ]

[...

slowly, she rises to her feet and makes her way over to the discarded cup. takes the spilled decanter, too, while she's at it and wipes some of the spilled wine away. it's a bit of a juggling game between her hand and the crook of her elbow, but she somehow manages to do it with minimal effort. it's good to have take care of simple tasks like these. it's good to shove the horror of camille's gasping and flailing deep, deep down because there's still work to do. besides, everybody dies some day.

their heart was in the right place. she was miserable. the monster could have forced her hand again. there's a multitude of reasons they decided to go through with this plan, and not all of them are due to the sudden confidence boost from the week.

so... so...]

Rondo. [quietly. camille is still in his arms. she doesn't turn to look at him.] We have to go.

kill log: w3 thursday

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