prince_of_beasts | [come

"Ugh. No, me either."

Dimitri feels a little less like he's the one who just woke up from the dead. He levers himself upright, biting back a yawn.

If Darcy doesn't say anything, he'll ask, but he doesn't want to pressure her right out of the gate.

Darcy's already thinking about it, though. And there's no pressure he could put on her to speak that she isn't already putting on herself.

"Skulduggery... told me that the reason that the Captain isn't repairing the ship is that he found something out that's made him depressed. And... I'm fine, but it's been a rough month, so I've been thinking about what helped me in the past... Clarke- back before you arrived I think, on the camp- she... goaded me out of a spiral I was in. She told me it was alright to give up, knowing it would make me mad. And it did. So I tried to do that to him. I told him that it was totally fine if he gave up, and... some other stuff."

Details she can't share without tipping her hand, and she loves Dimitri like a brother but she knows his rage like her own and she knows the risks of telling him.

"He told me to decide how long I wanted my death to take, minimum five minutes. I said ten."

She rubs a hand anxiously over the side of her neck, slotting in to rest her thumb over her carotid.

"The Captain was going to strangle me for ten minutes. I apologized and I tried to-" deep breath that jostles the water in her lungs, "he let me go. He let me go, because of Skulduggery."

"Because of Skulduggery?" Dimitri asks, because everything else Darcy just said is under a protective ringing white haze. He can't process it right now or he'll explode. Something vital will break deep in the core of him and he'll vaporize the Serena Eterna in an expanding cloud of caustic steam. "What does this have to do with him?"

"I don't know."

That bit still doesn't make sense to her. Skulduggery is arguably the person whose gotten the closest, between seeing the bridge and the way Skulduggery seems to be able to handle him but... is that worth a life? Is that really worth staying the Captain's wrath?

"Honestly, I have no idea. I... guess I should be grateful. But..."

"But?"

Darcy goes very quiet.

"I just wish my life was mine. That if I fuck up I could just... fuck up on my own without other people getting dragged into it, even if it helps me. That's it."

"That's -- that's ... "

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. Here it comes, the fog rising, the blinding searing horror of an Abraxas --

Dimitri's voice cracks. "Ten minutes, Darcy."

"I didn't think he'd actually do it, okay?! I was trying to prove I wasn't scared of him."

Which she absolutely without a doubt totally isn't.

"But it's fine, he didn't do it, and I'm fine. It's fine."

"It's not fine!" Dimitri fists his hands in his hair, lacking anything safer to do with them. "That's -- that's not anything you need to prove! You should be scared of him! You're the one who told me he never lies! Did you -- did you even tell anyone before you went to do this?!"

Again, again, it burns like a brand in his mind, "Ten minutes!"

...right. She did tell him that.

"...no," Darcy admits, and visibly winces when Dimitri reminds her of how long it would've taken. The couple of seconds it took her to drown were agony enough, what would this have been like?

"I'm sorry," she can't bring herself to look at him, "I'm sorry."

"Darcy -- !"

Dimitri doesn't like getting upset, least of all with friends. Between his strength and his status, any emotional outburst turns people careful and quiet. One of those things doesn't matter here, but the other can never and will never leave him.

But what else can he do? How else can he feel? Knowing he could have returned from one friend's deathbed to find another's? With no idea what was happening, or any chance to stop it? His mind burns and he just, he just, he just --

"Why?"

"I already told you! I was- I was trying to help-"

Snapped back, but she really doesn't want to be lashing out like this at a friend.

"I'm sorry, I'm going to fix it and I've already been yelled at for it, okay!?"

"That isn't -- it's not -- it's not about you fixing it, it's -- "

He doesn't know what he's trying to say. It's selfish. Darcy's the one who was nearly killed, and Dimitri's making her reassure him when it should be the reverse.

"Why didn't you talk to someone? Anyone?"

Edited 2022-11-05 00:17 (UTC)

"Because I didn't. I had the idea, and I did it, I didn't stop to think or talk it out with anyone. I just did it."

Impulsive as a greyhound with a rabbit. It's going to get her killed one day and she knows it. And in any case, the whole thing was hinged on knowing what the Captain was. She couldn't have explained it.

"I'm not scared of dying if it would've helped, Dimiti."

Terror roars in Dimitri's chest, raw and all-consuming, visions flashing like lightning through his mind's eye -- a broken skull, the thunderous buzz of flies, the suffocating reek of rot from the dead-weight sprawled over him. Glenn died a knight's death, Rodrigue had tried to reassure him, but Rodrigue hadn't seen his son's body. He'd been in no shape to bring home.

"You should be!" Dimitri cries. "Enough not to -- to throw your life away like this! Enough not to seek it out!"

"I wasn't-"

Darcy flinches at the outburst, both hands going up to the back of her neck.

"I wasn't seeking it out. I was just... trying to help."

Has Darcy ever flinched from him before? Not that he remembers. Not that he's noticed. Dimitri freezes. Very slowly, he straightens, settles his shoulders, lowers his hands and folds them on his lap.

"I didn't," he says, halting, "I wasn't -- " He can't say he's not angry with her, because honestly, he is. But he wouldn't lash out. (Wouldn't he? Darcy seems to think so. When did Darcy start being afraid of him? How can he take it back?) "Please, Darcy. There are better ways for you to help. There are -- " Dimitri swallows. "You don't have to, to 'screw up' alone. That's what we're for."

("Bit hypocritical, wouldn't you say, old thing?")

It always comes back to this, doesn't it. That Skulduggery has cursed her to isolation with sensitive information. She did have to go it alone, and it's awful.

"Next time," she lies, "I'll tell you before I do anything to do with him. Okay?"

"Please. It doesn't have to be me. Just -- think first. Be more careful with your life," Dimitri begs. "It's too precious to waste."

"...one of my Krewemates used to say that the dead were superheroes. That you can do anything to them, since they don't feel pain anymore."

She doesn't look at Dimitri.

"It isn't precious; I don't die, even in my own world, so it doesn't matter if I do die here. I'm already dead. My life isn't my own anymore. I thought you'd get it."

"No. No, I don't 'get it'. The dead are gone. They can't act, or feel, or hope, or want. There's no strength or virtue in it. They're just dead. That's why we're left to lay them to rest, that's why we must fight to protect the living, I thought you understood that!"

Dimitri sniffs, glaring, his eyes bruised and bloodshot and so glassy with tears he can barely focus. He's not even trying to hold them back; he left that capacity with Ossie, and -- and maybe if Darcy sees, she'll understand.

"Even if we come back, it matters that we suffer. Ossie came back, but it matters that he died, because I found his fucking body! You're precious to me, and I would mourn you!" Dimitri wipes his eyes. He's not shouting, just pleading through his tears as his voice starts to crack. "Don't do that to me. Please. Don't let me fail you, too."

Corpses, Terre Mére had meant. Her Krewe were walking corpses, bulletproof only in the sense that bullets were meaningless to them. They always just got back up again.

Now that Dimitri isn't yelling, is swearing, it sinks in that he's scared. That the whole reason for all of this was just the want to not lose a friend. It's selfish, probably, but...

Darcy lays her hand out, palm-up, for him to take.

"'M not going anywhere. You're not going to fail me."

In a matter of days, the ghosts will make a liar out of her.

Dimitri's not taking that hand. Not yet. The fear is his, but this isn't about him. He needs Darcy to listen, not just offer reassurances, and -- and he doesn't know how to do that when he can't keep a grip on himself.

He sniffs again, wipes his eyes on his sleeve, swallows. The bitter memory sobers him.

"My godbrother. My best friend. Was killed the same day as my father. Felled by a blow that was meant for me. His body fell on top of mine, and so our attackers mistook me for dead." Dimitri wraps his arms around himself, staring into the middle distance. It's easier to tell this story than bare his feelings so directly. "It was three days before anyone found me. Three days, trapped under his body while it rotted."

He looks at Darcy again, his expression dull and dead-eyed. "His own father told me he was proud. That Glenn died nobly. A sacrifice for his lord, a death worthy of a true knight. He never saw his son's corpse. Glenn was in no state to be brought home. Am I making sense? Do you understand?"

Edited 2022-11-08 11:13 (UTC)

The story is bad enough, but the echo of the Captain's words freezes her to the bone. Twice now she's hurt without intending, such that those she hurt have had to explain to her in detail just what she's done. Again, Darcy is an ignorant ungrateful child left gawping at the depths of her own cruelty. She withdraws her hand and bites the crook of her index finger, images of Dimitri trapped under the body of his friend haunting her. The stench of rot she knows all too well. She can't answer him, her other hand reaching to tug hard at her hair. Oh God. It's only her own paralysis that stops her from fleeing the scene of the crime.

He's fucked it up again. Like he always does. Always making apologies, never simply not doing the fucking thing.

" ... Darcy?" Dimitri's hand flutters, uncertain. Seeing her this frozen, this quiet, is all wrong. If he had any sense, he'd stop talking, but he's too fucking stupid for that. "I'm sorry. I didn't tell you about Glenn to hurt you. I just -- " shut up shut up shut up shut up " -- there's nothing wrong with caring enough to commit your life to it. I'm the last person with any right to judge you. But you say these things, and I hear the people who told me not to mourn my friend, because his death was 'worthy'. That they would be glad to die like he did. I -- I don't want to lose you like that."

His hand flutters, uncertain. The last thing he needs to do is make this worse. He should cut their losses and let Darcy go, but -- Cichol help him, if he does Darcy will vanish into the Nothing, he knows this with the gut-wrenching certainty of a cliff's edge.

He splits the difference, and offers his own hand.

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