A/N: Survived the hurricane and figured I'd post the final chapter. Thank you all for the ridiculous love on what is quite possibly my favorite project ever! I'm sorry to see it end, but thrilled to move on to new projects!
Then the raw hunk of meat that used to be my enemy makes a sound, and I know where his mouth is. And I think the word he's trying to say is please. - pg. 340
pain darkness empty Clove please
Maybe, if he were weaker, he'd feel remorse.
pain
So many deaths. He's killed so many people. Stale blood is smeared behind his ears and on the back of his neck and underneath his fingernails, but his ears are gnawed to a pulp and the tissue of his throat is exposed to the sky and his fingernails are long gone, swallowed by the mutts along with the rest of his hands. He can still feel their blood coating him, a phantom itch he can't scratch. He isn't sure he'd want to, if he could.
darkness
He tries to muster up enough spite to hate the people he killed for being so weak, so unprepared, so unwilling to live that they just about fell on his sword and the only reason he's credited with their deaths is that he was holding the blade, but he can't. It's not weakness, of course. He just can't be bothered to think of them as anything more than lumps of meat, cobblestones lining the path to victory, that's all. It's not that his mind is on a constant loop of pain darkness empty Clove please that drowns out everything else.
empty
And it's not regret, it's not weakness (pain), it's not exhaustion that makes him beg for death (darkness), it's not. He's not so tired of seeing blood that he just wants to fall asleep and never wake up again. There's not a hollow (empty) space at his side where Clove (Clove) used to fit and now her mutt claws at his skin. He's just not an idiot, that's all, and he's fought all his life and he knows when he's not going to win and he knows when it's better to let himself lose (please) and now is one of those times.
Clove
And it's not mercy, it's not kindness, it's not pity that sends the arrow flying through his skull, because he is the enemy and even she wouldn't feel sorry for someone who's only getting what he deserves; she's just being pragmatic, ending it all now instead of waiting for him to finish bleeding out because her lover is on death's door himself and she needs to win now if she wants any chance of bringing them both home together. He understands. He almost doesn't hate her for it.
please
He almost doesn't hate himself for everything else.
pain darkness empty Clove- "Please."