Guilt
Rating: T
Summery: Liam uses desperate measures to escape Barma. Post Visit to Barma, Barma-centric.
Characters: Liam, Barma
Comments: While I was writing a chapter for Hare and Hatter I found myself wanting to use March Hare's powers (in Hare and Hatter March Hare has different powers than in cannon because I started that story before we found out what March Hare does). This idea eventually became this oneshot. I also realized that I usually show Barma as a pretty unrepentant and abusive person and wanted to show a side of him I don't get to in other stories. Feedback is always appreciated.
His servant was dead.
Lamplight made the blood on his face glisten wetly and put a fake spark back in blank eyes. He lay with one arm fallen to the side, fingers red and swollen from catching blows that had been strong enough to snap two of them. His glasses had been knocked askew by the fall, one lens cracked.
His expression was slightly surprised, as if the blow that had sent him to the floor, never to rise from it, had come as a surprise.
"… Liam?"
Barma lowered the fan he had raised. "Liam?" he asked again when the body did not move. His own breathing was short, sharp, but the fog of rage was receding now, letting him see what he had done. See the body on the floor.
Surely he had not hit him that hard. Had he? …had he?
His fan fell out his hand to clatter on the floor.
"Liam!"
He fell to his knees, hands stretched out to… to what? There was nothing he could do. He had killed him. He had…
"If you hit me one more time, Lord Barma, you will regret it."
…he had been warned, hadn't he? But… he had a temper, one that over the years he had had never perfected restraining and Liam had had the gall the stand there looking defiant after he had betrayed him and defended that criminal. His fan had impacted with the side of Liam's face before his mind waded through the rage though to realize what he was doing.
Liam's head had snapped to the side and he'd crumpled, one moment standing then next on the floor. He hadn't risen again.
"… Liam?"
Barma reached out to touch his servant's cheek -it was warm, but he could feel it cooling under his fingers, or perhaps that was just his mind playing tricks on him. His fingers went for the pulse in the neck, resting delicately over where it should have been… but wasn't.
He had- he had really-
But then the Dodo murmured in his ear, "I feel March Hare, master."
Barma's hand withdrew from Liam's neck and he sat back on his heels, frowning at the body.
Glassy eyes, limp body, no breath, no pulse -the perfect image of death. The perfect illusion of death.
If his chain hadn't been so adept at detecting traces of another chain working he would have thought -had thought…
"You little-" Barma began, but stopped when he realized his hand had already drawn back to deliver a blow.
Slowly he lowered his arm.
He had been about to strike a comatose man. He curled his arm into his chest. What was he doing? What had he already done?
This had been hardly the first time he had hit Liam, an action he always regretted afterward, but this time was the first he had done so with true rage. In fact, he'd been so angry that he'd been foolish when he was usually cautious, aiming blows where the marks would show and cause questions. A malicious pleasure had sparked in him when he'd struck his servant -pleasure, oh Abyss, he buried his head in his hands. What had he let himself become? What had he let himself do?
He had long ago instructed Liam never to use March Hare's power unless it was an emergency -or if it was a life or death situation.
Yet here he lay, in false death here on the wood parquet floor. Had he honestly thought Barma was going to seriously hurt him? …he had thought he would kill him? Had this been what Liam had thought was the safest option for himself?
Barma raised his head from his hands as he realized that, yes, he had been angry enough that… it had been possible that he might have…
"If you hit me one more time, Lord Barma, you will regret it."
He had and he did.
Regret. Not an emotion he was overly familiar with. But at this very moment, sitting on the floor next to his 'dead' servant, he regretted. He regretted… everything. All of it.
With a sigh he pushed a few stray strands of hair from his face. It was impossible to tell how long March Hare would keep Liam unconscious but for as many hours as it took, he would sit here.
And when Liam woke… when he woke… they would talk. Betrayal of loyalty or no, there was an apology he owed his servant.
Besides… perhaps an apology would begin that important process of winning said servant's loyalty back from that damn Xerxes Break. Priorities. One must always remember, priorities.
Even during guilt.
End.