[ Well. There goes the cat, running right out of the bag. He's been considering what he'll do in these circumstances for a couple of days now, when the distracted miscalculation of a hole in the ground proved his first big slip. Now, the failure to account for their resident necromantic Death Warden's thorough approach to what is already too much work marks his second. Maybe his last.
He could stay quiet. In silence, who's to say his own body's not out there somewhere, framed and hidden? ]
[ it's only when he responds that she realizes she'd somehow held out a foolish hope that there was some misunderstanding. that any of this could be misconstrued. but no, he doubles down.
it's the kind of thing that really makes you want to burn a guy's clothes on the lawn. ]
i don't care what sick fuck justification you came up with
[ Again that fear, a sharpness to it now, acrid with a desperation that tips it into - ]
I know. I know what it looks like. I know what it is. I know.
[ Frantic, desperate to be heard. For her to hear him. The tremulous panic of a man who had once sat on the edge of a bathtub and tried to make it clear that he would not leave her alone. Once creased himself over the edge of another tub to breathe for her after he'd frozen her lungs in her chest - ]
It had to be like that. We had to go, Nami. We have to stay gone—
[ Another abrupt cut stops that word dead in its tracks. For the time being, he's empty air. ]
Edited (can't believe my mdash betrayed me) 2024-01-16 04:03 (UTC)
[ Another two minutes. A buffer. When he speaks again there's a thread of sadness to it, resignation. But it's undercut and overrun by the firm precision of what he has to say. ]
If you find me, follow through. Quickly. Do not hesitate.
[ this, of all things, makes her hesitate. she thinks of kovacs, telling her not to trust anyone, even him. she thinks of how stupid she'd felt, having trusted anyone in the first place.
most of all, she hopes that she doesn't find him. hopes that he doesn't come back. ]
cw: in case it wasn't abundantly clear the above CW is in effect Throughout
[ Two minutes, nothing. Ten, nothing. At fifteen though, the flash of a remembered image shared briefly across their connection.
It's a small leaf of paper, maybe just the torn corner piece from a page of a book (if she searches hard enough later, she'll find a corner missing from one of a few borrowed volumes she's left strewn across his bed in the aftermath of her ransack of his half of the room - the book has nothing significant to say, aside perhaps from being a romance). A piece of paper scarred fingers are tucking into a skirt pocket.
If she goes looking, she'll find it where he left it. A small corner of paper, on which an imagined constellation is sketched unsteadily in a style he's tried hard to emulate. It contains no meaning. It contains all the meaning any little piece of paper tucked away like a secret could ever hope to express. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
2/2 i accidentally hit post
because if i'm the first one to find you, you're gonna wish that was your corpse, you psycho
1/2
He could stay quiet. In silence, who's to say his own body's not out there somewhere, framed and hidden? ]
no subject
I had to.
[ Tension, fear billows out around those toneless words, cut off sharp as he locks his thoughts back into the box of his mind. Hiding. Hiding.
(It's not a hard sense to conjure. All he has to do is think back a week, when the woods became a nightmare and the nightmare became home.) ]
no subject
it's the kind of thing that really makes you want to burn a guy's clothes on the lawn. ]
i don't care what sick fuck justification you came up with
cw: gaslighting/attempted manipulation
[ Again that fear, a sharpness to it now, acrid with a desperation that tips it into - ]
I know. I know what it looks like. I know what it is. I know.
[ Frantic, desperate to be heard. For her to hear him. The tremulous panic of a man who had once sat on the edge of a bathtub and tried to make it clear that he would not leave her alone. Once creased himself over the edge of another tub to breathe for her after he'd frozen her lungs in her chest - ]
It had to be like that. We had to go, Nami. We have to stay gone—
[ Another abrupt cut stops that word dead in its tracks. For the time being, he's empty air. ]
no subject
You do? Both of you? [ she speaks quickly, earnestly, as if she's following along but it's just a little too strong.
then, flatly: ] So she's in on it too. Good to know. It was kind of a toss-up on if she was just some innocent you'd grabbed.
no subject
I'm sorry. I can't talk long. Just snatches. I don't know if it can hear.
no subject
You're just embarrassing yourself, at this point. And wasting both of our time.
no subject
If you find me, follow through. Quickly. Do not hesitate.
[ And back to empty nothing. ]
no subject
most of all, she hopes that she doesn't find him. hopes that he doesn't come back. ]
cw: in case it wasn't abundantly clear the above CW is in effect Throughout
It's a small leaf of paper, maybe just the torn corner piece from a page of a book (if she searches hard enough later, she'll find a corner missing from one of a few borrowed volumes she's left strewn across his bed in the aftermath of her ransack of his half of the room - the book has nothing significant to say, aside perhaps from being a romance). A piece of paper scarred fingers are tucking into a skirt pocket.
If she goes looking, she'll find it where he left it. A small corner of paper, on which an imagined constellation is sketched unsteadily in a style he's tried hard to emulate. It contains no meaning. It contains all the meaning any little piece of paper tucked away like a secret could ever hope to express. ]