So this is part one of the 'tea' series, which I've been contemplating for awhile. In French class, I learned about this Moroccan tea tradition - you drink three cups of tea in a row, each with varying amounts of sugar. The first has no sugar, called 'amer comme la mort', or 'bitter like death', and that's how this began. ALSO THIS IS ALL FOR TONYA (IT'SAPLACEHOLDER) WHO IS THE BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD I LOVE YOU.
Matthew Morgan dies with a smile on his face, lips turned up at the world and the heavens.
His eyes are trained on the clouds peeping through a hole in the battered roof, and in that calm, serene moment with his life draining out of him onto the knobby wooden floor, he lets himself look for shapes in the clouds like he once did on the desolate, lonely plains of Nebraska.
Never did he think that he would die so far from home, so far away from Rachel and Cammie, but really, he was a fool to think that he wouldn't - a death on the home front is a rare thing in his line of work, and he is at least grateful that he isn't in a muggy cave in some remote province of Afghanistan.
And in that moment, he knows, and that's okay. He's ready. He wouldn't have chained anything. Everything is sharp, clear, like he is seeing it all again for the first time. He watches the dust particles glisten when they float by as the sun finally breaks through the overcast.
He dies with their names on his lips, and the light washing over his face at last.
Rachel Morgan doesn't die the day Matt fails to come home.
She dies the day three teenage girls place a worn packet of paper on her desk, and stare at her with unshed tears in their eyes.
She has lost everything - her parents, her husband, her career, her sister, Joe - and now her daughter, the only reason she hasn't lost her mind already. A little piece inside her shatters, and all of a sudden, she is nothing.
She spends her days lounging lackadaisical on the couch, wondering how in the world someone could be so unlucky. She lets herself wallow in self-pity - it's a habit, that she finds melancholy kind of beautiful. It's like she's now the sad heroine in her own tragedy, like the ones she would obsess over when she was younger. Oddly enough, though, it is not nearly as dramatic and epic as she thought it would be.
No; the real death that she feels cannot be written and replicated on print. It is not darkly whimsical, the plotline of an Oscar-award winning drama filmed in black and white. It is deep and penetrating and clings to her wherever she goes. It's tiring and miserable and the fact her daughter is off somewhere, in danger makes her that little piece not just shatter, but explode.
But Rachel is, in fact, a romantic, so she will remain in her depressing novel-like idealism, waiting to be saved.
Abigail Cameron dies scratching at frozen ground, with her hands coated in blood.
The icy wind whips through her hair, and for the first time in as long as she can remember, tears drip down her face, running through her mascara and freezing black on her reddened cheeks.
Your fault rings through her head like a Gregorian chant. She is anything if not loyal, but yet she has failed one of the most important people to her because she wasn't there. After awhile, her hands are numb and red and she can't feel anything at all. Everything about her is frozen and cold and dead.
And she's really decided that she's never going to leave that place - lay down on the ground and watch the world turn by, forget everything in her life and just apologize. She knows that it will never be enough, though. Nothing can change. No one can repeat the past. But instead of moving on, like she knows she should, she punishes herself by dwelling on it and blaming herself.
She deserves the blame, she thinks. She deserves the pain and the guilt and all those awful, dark feelings. All of it crushes her, suffocates her in a meadow in the mountains.
She still believes it is all her burden to bear.
Edward Townsend dies staring into emerald eyes.
They're not emerald, exactly, but a mix of hazel and emerald and jade and a deep forest green. When she's happy or excited, they're bright and shining, but today they're dark and painful. Her eyes say the words she can't.
"I'm so sorry, but I can't." She whispers, her words floating up, up, and away. "I'm so sorry."
Something inside of him begins to change at the moment, clicking and turning like clockwork. She dug under his skin like a parasite, working her way into every system and invading his life - every single wall he had spent years and years fortifying and making sure was impenetrable, she crumbled down with a flick of her shiny hair and a soft grin.
He would have given up everything for her, and in some ways he did. And now, with one sentence, she destroyed all of that.
The gears stop turning. His heart is once again made out of stone; his walls have come shooting up, patching up the cracks she's caused. He's finally got the antidote for her, and now hopefully, he's immune.
"Edward?" She murmurs.
Never again, he thinks as he walks away. Never again.
Joe Solomon doesn't die when he's outed as a traitor.
He doesn't die when one of his best friends blames him for her husband's death.
He doesn't die when Matthew Morgan goes missing on a mission he should've been on.
He dies the second he meets Catherine Goode, lets her take his hand and drag him into a world that he never thought he would be caught up. Part of himself just blames it all on the fact that he was a dumb teenager, but he knows better than that. He wanted adventure, to be part of something so much bigger than himself, and he wanted her.
Really, he was dead before his life even truly started. He was tricked by her easy smirks and hot lips.
But he doesn't regret it. He was never afraid of death. From that second, he knew the pain she would cause, the trouble she would bring - yet he followed her anyway. He always knew that she would be his undoing.
After all, she was death personified.
Catherine Goode dies in a sea of blackness.
She came from nothing, and she has nothing once again. She is bitter and weak and cruel and evil, and the two things she has put faith in (her son and that son of a bitch Joe Solomon) have betrayed her.
Her soul had always been dark and decaying, but she had revelled in it - now, it's consuming her. She drowning in it, letting it swallow her up and she just drowns.
Her hands grip the countertop until her knuckles are white, body trembling and the demons in her mind raging, when she screams and finally lets out a choked sob, shoulders shaking and hair falling over her face.
Her eyes meet her reflection in the mirror, eyeliner smudged around her eyes, skin flushed and pale. Her hands grasp and knot in her hair, closing her eyes and trying to steady her rapid, gasping breaths.
But when she shuts her eyes, all she can see are her past horrors - nightmares, really, filled with blood and pain and death. Everywhere she goes, it seems, is filled with those things lately. But she lets herself sink to the floor, eyes still shut, and pull her knees up to her chest, and stares up at the ceiling, trying to focus on the pattering of rain outside.
Yet there is something deadly in death, something dangerous; you know longer have anything to loose - after all, what's the worst that could happen? You're already dead.
She opens her eyes, and she smiles.