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[prince_of_beasts]

A synthesized woman's voice picks up the call.

"Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system. Two - Zero - Two - Nine - One - Eight - Two - One - Three - Two -- is not available now. At the tone, please record your message. When you've finished recording, you may hang up or press the # key for more options."

Dimitri hasn't figured out how to customize the thing yet.

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[prince_of_beasts]

"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."

[saltwaterlungs]

"...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."

[prince_of_beasts]

"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."

[saltwaterlungs]

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.

[prince_of_beasts]

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?"

[saltwaterlungs]

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.

[prince_of_beasts]

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.

[saltwaterlungs]

"I know, alright? I know death is just- sad and inglorious and everything, I know it is. I'm not-"

He offers his hand back and Darcy wrestles with herself to take it or not. This is the sort of disagreement that will come back to haunt them, one that won't be easily resolved without lying to him. And she can't. Not with Dimitri. She's never had an older brother before now, someone this invested in keeping a little martyr from the grave. She thinks on Glenn making the decision to end his own young life for Dimitri's sake and...

Can't imagine a world where she doesn't make the same choice. No greater love than to lay her life down for a friend.

Darcy sniffs and takes his hand despite herself.

"'m sorry. Love you. You're not going to lose me."

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri's fear's gone rancid; cold, bitter and clinging. That's all him, though. They're alright. For the moment, they're alright, and he can't ask anything more of Darcy. He closes his hand around hers; clammy with a nervous sweat, it's warm with the pounding of his dragon's heart.

(No greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend -- Dimitri would agree with her. But for him, it's never been that simple. Three months of freedom can't undo eighteen years of being told that it's duty that demands others sacrifice for him.)

"I love you, too," he says softly. He presses his face to Darcy's hair; swallows, takes a risk, and kisses the top of her head. "It's alright. You won't lose me, either."

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy stills at the kiss on her head. She'd been too terrified to think of rejection, but the reciprocation sets her heart at ease; it's a vulgar, ugly sentence in English, but the purpose serves. Dimitri is as close to family as she gets here. Simple and straightforward. Hers. Her responsibility to protect.

"Good," she squeezes his hand back, "good," she agrees, "we're fine as long as we have each other's backs."