LIII: The Capitol - Rose Point Estate.
Tarquin Vierra, 16
Applicant #4
"You don't have to stay in here, you know."
"I, for one, am not," Soran informs him. "Someone has to keep at that stupid list, and none of you assholes are going to do it."
Evidently not, no. He doesn't plan on volunteering for that job tonight.
"Tell me to leave, then," Emmi mumbles into the three blankets that she's dragged onto the side of his bed. He'd feel bad if he did that, though. Doesn't she get that? He feels bad enough, like he could be sick or cry all over again. There's something inside him beyond repair, and maybe they all have a part like that, but his never stops hurting. It's hard to forget when it's all you can feel.
"You seriously going?" Icarus asks.
"Sure am."
Okay, so then they're down to four, at least until Soran comes back. He won't last all night. Someone will have to take over, and they probably won't ask it to be him.
That's still three other people crammed up in his room. It's not a small place, but he's still not used to it. They all keep looking at him, too. He wants to ask if they think he's about to crawl out the window again, but he doesn't think Ria would laugh.
He's on a leash now. He's being supervised.
It's not... all bad.
He's not sure what their plan is, though. Soran's gone, but what are the other four going to do? Stay in here until he falls asleep? Stay here all night? That's not going to be comfortable for everyone involved. Icarus is already laid out very dramatically across the ottoman at the end of his bed, face-down and dangling all four limbs out in different directions, each one brushing against the floor. He looks like a very disgruntled cat.
Speaking of, he's pretty sure Nyx was in here when they got back. If he was, he's hiding now.
Tarquin doesn't blame him.
"Seriously, if you want me to go, or any of us, just say so," Emmi says. So she's speaking for everyone, now. Icarus waves a thumbs up in his direction but stays put. Ria smiles again.
He doesn't say anything, just nods in stony-faced silence.
His eyes are still sore from earlier, and all the crying has gotten to his head. It's not enough of a headache to be truly annoying, but it's just present enough to remind him of the reason why. It would be best to just sleep and wake up in the morning feeling better, but he's not so sure.
Maybe he really ought to go talk to that therapist tomorrow, after they get back. Pandora said the sentencing was happening early in the morning. How he feels and his willingness to talk about it will probably ride a lot on the outcome.
It can only be as bad as he lets it get.
Sleep really would help.
He knows on a deeper level that Ria's right; he's handling this differently. A few hours of nightmares doesn't mean those pills Dr. Arranmore gave him aren't working - it just means it's going to take some time. Or he'll try something else, later, if this doesn't go anywhere.
It's his brain that's trying to constantly convince him otherwise, the traitorous thing. If only it would stop telling him he wants to be dead.
Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. That's probably part of accepting it.
It's not okay, there is no way in hell that that's okay, but he knows the feeling is there. He's aware of it, to say the least, and apparently everyone else is. He thinks everyone else feels the same, sometimes, and thinking that way doesn't mean anything's fundamentally wrong with them.
All that they went through spit them out way different than they were before. He'd be more alarmed if his brain was reacting normally.
You don't have the blood of thirteen people on your hands and come out normal. Sometimes he swears there's still ash in the back of his throat and it burns.
"Hey, you know something?" Emmi asks. She nudges him in the side for good measure. "Remember how you said you were wondering if any of your friends would show at the courthouse?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, they went looking for you today. Pandora got a hold of one of them. They checked out a few spots and we went to the rest."
"Who?"
"Three of them? I don't know who."
And it has to be the three that matter. He knows other people obviously, but none so close as those three, and none that would go looking so quickly with so little information. Pandora told them to and they just... did, without question. He'd do the same thing for them, but after all of this...
He didn't know if they would, anymore. If they even cared.
Icarus looks up. "You're going to make him cry again."
Okay, yes, his eyes are burning. He's familiar with the feeling.
"Good cry?" Emmi asks. He nods.
It's still not the ideal situation. Far from it. If this was a normal summer and he was still a normal person he wouldn't be crying over his friends at all, wouldn't have to worry about how they felt about him. He'd be doing another play, going to sleep at a regular time, waking up and doing it all over again.
It would be easy to wish for that, but he's grateful that he's still alive first and foremost.
Isn't that what it boils down to? Grateful to be alive but wondering if death is easier?
He knows it doesn't make any sense.
"They do care, if you were wondering," Ria says quietly. "They still do. They always will. And maybe you'll get to see them soon."
God, he hopes so. He can't even begin to imagine how it would go but he doesn't care. They might fill up a little bit of the stupid, gaping hole he has somewhere in him. He's not sure where it came from or what made it. It's just there and he can't get rid of that.
Maybe he'll learn to live with it
"If tomorrow goes well, that's what we're doing," Emmi announces. "We're taking a car and we're tracking them down."
"Sounds good," he says, voice thick. So he'll cry tomorrow too. Got it. That's how many days since they got out of the desert alive now? More than he can count, probably. There's so much optimistic thinking in this room; it's so very unlike them all. It's like someone knows tomorrow will be good, that the tears will be worth it. Just think of the things he could do if it does go well. He could get out of here. See his friends. Try for something resembling normalcy again.
It all seems sweet. Almost too sweet, but don't they deserve that?
What's that expression, though? Waiting for the other shoe to drop?
That's what it feels like. They'll have one thing one second, but something else will follow. Something else will come down.
He's just going to stick with hoping it's good.
Soran Faerber, 19
Applicant #8
It's the most work they've gotten done in a while.
Apparently sleep equals out to productivity - who would've thought?
Kestrel seems to have gotten through a lot this morning. Multiple names that he hadn't even looked at are crossed out, now, and Pandora sees good reason to believe that she's right. Confronting the idea that she might be isn't worth his time right now. They've got what, less than twelve hours until they have to go back out for sentencing?
He doesn't have the time to worry about it.
He considers going to trade off with someone else, but he can go a few more hours. Crynn dropped off and went to actually sleep in a bed, but Pandora is still up. For some reason that only heightens his obligation to stay up as well.
Who knows, maybe they could figure this out tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning things will be better.
He allows himself one break, first; meanders off to the bathroom and then all the way downstairs for a drink where he ends up leaving with a handful of cookies too. He'll give them this, they know how to eat here. Just about any standard of food would impress someone like him, he's aware. Eating literal trash for years will do that to you.
Still - they're some good cookies.
There's another voice present when he slips back into the library. Not Crynn, clearly. It doesn't sound like Evander, either, which basically leaves him empty in the names department. He didn't think anyone else would even be awake at this time, but apparently he was wrong. A passing by worker, maybe, or the doctor's getting particularly nosy.
He steps through the archway, catches sight of the computer he left, and then catches sight of everything else.
Namely the person, the person holding a gun leveled somewhere in the middle of Pandora's face, and then her eyes, which widen to near comical levels at the sight of him.
The gun stays right where it is, but the person turns to look at him. He knows that face, would recognize the voice if he opened his mouth to speak. He was looking at him in the courtroom this morning across the aisle this morning, watching him fight for a sentence that Soran probably won't like.
If only he bothered remembering his name.
"Oh," he says simply, mouth half full of cookie.
The gun swings towards him.
He stops thinking about eating.
He dives back, out of the way, in-between two stacks, and hits the floor with a thud. And he drops all the cookies too, for fuck's sake. The glass shatters long after he hits the ground, and he's back up before he sees where it even landed. A bullet slams into the shelf a foot behind him, and then another pings off the hardwood floor right when he throws himself around the corner at the end of the row.
The shots stop coming. Pandora is still shrieking something, but if it's any actual words he'd be mighty impressed. It certainly doesn't sound that way.
He flattens himself to the edge of the shelving unit, back pressed against it. This isn't good. This is very, very bad, in fact. Someone had to have heard that, right? Someone's in here shooting at him, or both of them. Someone had to have heard.
Or not. It's a big ass house.
If no one heard, he's on his own.
He needs a weapon. Apparently he should've been more focused on grabbing a knife out of the fucking kitchen instead of the cookies. If they get out of this that's next on his to-do list, and he's never, ever giving it back. That knife will belong to him now.
There are footsteps creaking steadily closer. If he goes back for the shattered glass he's going to end up with a bullet in him.
There's nothing useful out here. A book isn't going to kill someone with a gun. Everything he could probably use is in the actual office, and the aforementioned someone with the gun is standing in-between him and that. The closer he gets the less time Soran has to think. He drops almost to his knees and swings back around the next corner, quickly scuttling back to the main walkway, nearly silent. He won't be able to hear Soran moving around like that over his own footsteps.
He chances a peek. Pandora's gone. Clearly she's getting dragged along for the ride, then.
It's one of the fucking prosecutors, the guy. Since when are prosecutors looking to actively murder people with their bare hands?
It doesn't really matter.
He sees the shadows move from the opposite end of the stack, both of them, and throws himself out into the walkway and towards the office. He knows how much noise it makes; he knows it damn well. There's the sound of footsteps coming after him, loud and insistent, a muted struggle a second later. He doesn't have time to think about it.
He lunges for the first thing he sees, the first solution that prevents itself. The fireplace is on the opposite wall, the little tool rack teetering unevenly on the brickwork laid out around it. He doesn't have a name for anything he's looking at, but they're all long, look like solid metal, and most importantly of all - he can fucking hit someone with them.
Almost, anyway.
He doesn't quite get there.
The bastard is damn fast, turns out. He must have let go of Pandora and left her behind if she kept up fighting him. A hand locks around his elbow; nails dig into the skin there so hard he expects to see blood, but doesn't get the chance.
For a moment he's transported back to that ramshackle building back in the valley, alone, getting tossed around like a bouncy ball by that fucking Sentinel who might as well have eaten him for dinner. And he knows in that moment what he's dealing with. It's the same thing all over again, except Icarus isn't here to save his miserable life this time and the hand stops all the momentum he had gained from running.
This time, he turns around first. He doesn't let the momentum pull him back before he loses the chance.
He turns around - he's going to do something, god dammit, and then the gun cracks into his head.
Okay, nevermind.
He blinks once. Twice. Suddenly he's on the floor? That's interesting. He doesn't remember getting there at all.
His ears are ringing like someone's planted a bell inside them and everything is throbbing, his skull pulsating over and over. He can hear something, but he's not sure what. Whatever it is must be very far away.
He tries to roll over and something slams down in the middle of his back - it feels like a foot. That's not good. He can only crane his neck so far before the angle hurts too much; the fireplace isn't all that far away, and neither are the tools. They're out of reach from his hands, though, even if he stretched his arms out, and he won't be able to. The foot is pressing down too hard.
Is Pandora making the noise? It sounds like babbling, if he had to hazard a guess. Unless the prosecutor with the gun has suddenly turned into someone who babbles, it has to be her.
He raises up his head a fair few inches, as far as he can get it, and everything spins. His vision's all blurry. The babbling stops all at once at the same time something presses to the back of his skull, the cold barrel of the gun. It forces his head back down, directly into something sticky. Blood? It smells like blood, and it has to be his if he's face-planting into it.
Nothing makes sense the way he wishes it would. He's bleeding from somewhere, wherever the gun made contact. It feels like his forehead, but he can't be sure. If it hit him that hard and he doesn't remember getting here he must have blacked out for a second. And if he did get hit that hard then the bastard knows what he's doing, of course Soran was right when he didn't want to be. The last thing he wanted right now was to be right.
"You're gonna listen to me," he says. Okay then? It's not like he can argue that one, and he doesn't think Pandora is about to.
"Wait, hold on," Pandora interrupts. He really wishes she would stop that. "Andere, hold—"
Oh, Andere. Right. Doesn't make him any less of an asshole in this particular moment, but what can you do.
He's pretty sure Andere wasn't even on the fucking list, but it seems more and more likely by the moment that he had something to do with this. Soran can't see him having a gun to his head for no good reason right now.
They're arguing above him, squabbling like children. If it keeps him alive, he's not going to complain.
It's going too fast for him to keep up with it. He tries to take stock. Okay, he's probably concussed into another dimension. It definitely feels like he is. There's no weapons within reach except the gun that's being held to the back of his head, and that means that he can't move unless he wants a bullet in the brain, which he doesn't. He's not sure that Pandora has the power to do anything right now, and it doesn't feel like anyone else is coming to save them. They would have been here by now.
Which means he... still has to do something? Awesome.
He turns his head to the side; the gun slips, and then readjusts, pressing even harder to the exact same spot. Pandora comes into view, still blurry and too high up, but he can see her. Whatever she was about to say trickles off when she looks at him. She looks petrified to say the least, and the look increases tenfold in that moment.
Okay, so he's bleeding more than he thought. When is he not?
He wiggles, throws all four limbs out, and it does nothing. Andere stomps down on his back again like he's set on breaking his spine. The gun digs in a bit more. The cold is disappearing as it warms to his skin but it's still all he can feel, all he can think about.
If his finger even moves, Soran's dead. Really, actually, no hope of resuscitating dead.
He leaves his arm thrown out, though, and Andere does nothing to bring it back. He's less than two inches from ripping one of the tools off of its hook, the one that ends in a spike at the bottom. Pandora's eyes flicker, up to his arm and then back to his face. Not slow enough to betray it. He can get it, but this is on her. He's not going to be able move a muscle with Andere's eyes on him like this. She's not a threat, Soran knows that. She never, ever will be.
But what Andere doesn't know won't kill him, or hopefully it will.
She just has to look like one.
"Andere," she says slowly. "Just hear me out."
"I told you what you need to do."
"And I told you I'm not doing it. I'm not getting the others."
The others - nope, she absolutely isn't. He's in agreement with that. Not to be too full of himself here, but he's not sure how well anyone else would handle being held at gunpoint. He's doing pretty well if he's being honest, for someone that can barely think straight.
"You're going to."
"I'm not."
"Then I'll kill him first," he says, too casually. "Him, and then you, and I'll go find the other four once I'm done. We're getting the outcome we want."
"You can't seriously tell me you want this outcome. They didn't do anything to you. You don't want them dead."
"Oh, but I do."
"That's the President's brainwashing talking, you know."
He laughs, high and manic. "The President! You think I give a shit about the President? I've never answered to him. If I did I would've been dead a long time ago. We only listen to our kind."
He was right, he wants to scream, or sing, or whatever it appropriately loud enough. If ten Sentinels came out of the woodwork to kill them all what's a few more, right? If Andere's one of them, then the other woman has to be too. They work together, they came to the hospital together, and if it's not the President ordering them around...
It's someone else. And he's be willing to bet that someone is still on their list.
"I knew it," he says, muffled into the floor. "I knew one person couldn't have killed seven people in one night, not across the country like that."
"And does that satisfy you?" Andere asks, leaning down a bit. The pressure on his back is a little much. "I stayed here and did it, and she went out and dealt with the others. Happy now?"
"Very," he answers. Oh, this is going to be so satisfying now. Even more satisfying than he could have possibly imagined.
"You and who?" Pandora asks. "Eleine?"
Andere doesn't answer. It's pretty obvious, anyhow.
"Who told you to do it?" she continues. "I know it wasn't you. It wasn't Eleine either. Someone gave you orders, the same person that put this all together in the first place. Who was it, Andere? If you tell me—"
"If I tell you, what?" he shouts. "You'll let me go?"
Soran has no plans on letting him go. His fingers are so close now he can nearly feel it; he's got millimeters, if that. The pressure hasn't let up any but he's just not paying attention the way he should be. Soran's brain is admittedly moving slower than he'd like it to even on a bad day, but it's enough. He's going to get there any second now. Pandora's still talking, and he's going to get there.
His fingers, the very tips, brush against the edge of the stand.
He hooks one around it and pulls the whole thing over.
The stand tumbles over, and all the tools with it. Every single one of them comes crashing out over top of his arm but he still ends up going for the worst looking one, the poker of sorts. Andere jerks a little bit at the clatter and he heaves up the best he can, dislodging the foot for only a split second. A second is all he needs. He rolls to his side, sending him teetering him off-balance. The gun slips away - further, further.
It goes off an inch away from his head, rendering him nearly deaf. The bullet slams into the floor and creates a crack two feet long.
He tightens his grip on the poker, brings it up, and swings.
He has no idea where it connects, so he swings again. This time the gun hits the floor somewhere to his right, so he swings again. And again, and again, and again. He can barely fucking see. He can hardly hear what's going on.
He hits him again and Andere finally goes for the gun, wherever it's fallen. Suddenly there's a gap in front of him, free space to run, and that's exactly what he does. Pandora is still there, God only knows why. There's not an ounce of sense running through whatever this family has going on, and he can be lumped into that. He lunges up and nearly tilts over before she grabs his arm to pull him away even further.
He can't hear a word she says, but she looks very alarmed, off over his shoulder.
Andere has the gun again, he can see that much. He's half-focused on coming after them half fiddling with the gun, reloading or fixing it or pulling the safety back again. There's another bullet coming out any second now, and it's going to hit one of them.
And he really can't let that happen.
He hears himself free from her hold and her hand passes over his arm as she tries to grab hold again, but she's too late. He already knows what he's going to do; it's sharp enough. It has to work or this probably ends messier than he wants it to.
Andere looks up, finally. The safety clicks back again.
He rushes forward before he can get another step in and plunges the spike into his chest.
There's that brief, terrible moment of futile struggle. He forces it in further until it slides through easier; it must have come out the other side, but he can't see to tell. He won't let go and risk that.
The gun falls again, this time between the two of them, and he has enough frame of mind to nudge it away as gently as he possibly can.
Andere's full weight sags against him. He finally allows himself to let go, releases the metal handle where's there's already blood dripping over his own hands, warm and sticky between his fingers. Andere thuds to the floor at his feet, one hand reaching towards the stuck hole in his chest and the other stretching out towards the gun, but it's too far away.
He has a minute, if that. It went past the heart.
Pandora's hand curls around his arm again, just above the elbow, and she tugs him back a few paces. His whole body is thrumming with that nervous adrenaline but that doesn't overtake how badly she's shaking, practically clinging to his back like a limpet.
"Fuck," she says weakly, but she's so close he at least hears it.
Her other hand comes up to prod at the side of his head, like she's making sure the bullet missed. She sure would be able to tell if it hadn't, but there's no point in telling her that. If it had hit him he'd be dead no matter what. Even if it had by some miracle stayed the hell away from his brain the disorientation of it almost getting there would've put him in the grave. Andere would've gotten there first.
But he didn't. And now he's completely still on the floor.
"What do we do?" Pandora asks, nearly into his ear. Maybe she's figured it out. "Shit, what do we do?"
Why is he expected to know? He never had to worry about this before. He never had to get rid of a body. He just sort of, you know, killed and then pretended it didn't happen. That was how it works.
How does this work, though?
Maybe none of this is processing right because his brain feels like gelatin inside his skull. That would explain it.
"Go," he starts. "Go get someone. Evander, or whoever. I don't really care."
"What about you?"
"What about me?" he asks. "We need to do something with him... get rid of him."
"You're bleeding."
"Hadn't noticed. Please go get someone. And take the gun."
She still looks petrified. Her eyes are huge. Okay, maybe he should be nicer right now, but it's hard. Not everyone has experience in dealing with bodies or murdering them, he's aware of that. There's not enough time in the world to beat around the bush when all they need to do is get rid of them.
She lets go and he reaches for the edge of the desk before he can go spinning about. No need to concern her even more.
Pandora scoops the gun up, giving it a look as if she expects it to bite her, and then disappears at a near sprint.
Okay, so she's going to go get someone. That's good. One thing checked off the list.
He takes one huge step away from the desk, wobbling just a little bit. "Asshole," he mutters, planting a foot against his chest and reaching back for the poker, tearing it free from his chest with an ugly sounding squelch. She has the gun. She needs the gun. If Andere got in here somehow unscathed than there's no telling if someone else did, too.
With her gone he was hoping to work something out; a full-fledged plan, or even just an idea. Now that the adrenaline is wearing off though he's just unsteady, light-headed, leaning on the damned poker for support as he jabs it towards the ground. He needs more than that. The desk is right there, and the chair. That's what he needs. He's not going to collapse and black-out before someone gets back. He's hopefully not going to do it then, either.
He has to brace himself just to walk on his own. Every stationary object in the room goes spinning around him after two steps, and he blinks to clear some of the blood from his eyes. It's still coming, though. He gets rid of it and it's replaced by more a few seconds later. He allows himself to poke at his forehead for a few seconds until he finds the bloody cut jutting out from his temple, the skin torn outwards. No wonder his head hurts so bad.
He reaches for the chair and his hand passes through where he thinks it is three times over before he actually gets a hold of the armrest. He manages to scoot it even further away from himself first, tripping over his own two feet, and slams his hand into the desk in a desperate effort to stay standing.
An arm locks around his middle, stopping him from sliding to the floor in a pathetic, bloody little heap. The arm doesn't immediately try to fight him, so it has to be good.
Holy hell, though, that was fast. Or was it?
"No, no, I've got him," Evander says. Definitely good. He'll know what to do, maybe, probably. Not with the body, he's imagining, but maybe something to do with Soran's head. "Just get the chair."
Pandora grabs the chair he had been trying to desperately to get too and shoves it back towards him, directly underneath him. Evander deposits him in it but doesn't let go, grabbing his head before it can loll off the back of the chair.
"Please just deal with him," he tries. "Don't worry about me."
"Well he's clearly not going anywhere, so I'm going to worry about you for a minute."
Alright, fair. He can't argue that one when he put a hole in the guy's chest. If he gets back up and starts walking around Soran is going to blame it entirely on the state of his head and not on any sort of realism.
"Oh, God, why is he bleeding so much?" Pandora asks, hovering and waving her arms like a bird. It's not helping.
"Head wound," Evander says. "Hey, look at me."
"I can barely see you," he informs him. A sleeve passes over his eyes and he squints them shut while some of the blood is wiped away. Afterwards he presses his covered hand over top of the wound, and while it stings it at least stems some of the blood dripping down his face.
Evander doesn't look quite as horrified as Pandora still does, somehow, but it's pretty close if he had to guess. He doesn't know where to look, but he's lingering on the body more often than not.
"Just in case you were doubting the me killing people bit," he manages. "Thought I would confirm it."
"Thanks," Evander says flatly. "Fucking hell."
"We can take him to the doctor."
"And tell him what?"
"That he... fell?" Pandora tries.
"Pretty bad fall," he says, and gets flat out ignored. They're bickering about something, not in the way that she was with Andere, but bickering all the same. His head hurts too bad to focus on it. If Evander didn't have a hand on each side of his head to keep him facing forward he'd been out by now. And to think they have to go back to the courthouse tomorrow. Today, now. With one less prosecutor targeting them, no less. Eleine is not going to be pleased.
Oh God, he wants to laugh. They are not going to be impressed if he starts laughing.
He swallows it down, and rolls his head back a bit. Evander's hands come with him.
"Please go deal with him," he repeats. They better not make him beg. "You can't just leave him here."
"Well, what do you want me to do with him?"
"I don't know, take him out back and bury him? Dump him in the fucking creek? Does it look like I care?"
He really doesn't. If he had the steadiness backing him up he'd go and do it himself, but he doesn't. Pandora wouldn't be strong enough on her own to drag him out there. She'll have to supervise while Evander does the dragging and watch his back, but that's the extent of her participation. He doesn't know what he'll do in the meantime. Die, probably.
Evander shrugs off his sweater and presses it over top of the wound, flattening Soran's hand over it. "Keep that there."
He nods and listens, for the sake of everything going on. It's nice to be able to see.
Pandora grabs him, then, the second Evander gets up and moves on. They're all very handsy. "Listen to me. Stay here. As soon as he's outside I'll come right back."
He gives her a thumbs up with his free hand. She stares for a moment as if expecting him to launch himself out of the chair and run away from her. He'll admit, it would be tempting if he could run at all right now.
The second they're more than a few feet away he allows his head to roll back, taking some of the pressure off it. It feels like it's about to explode. He misses almost everything that happens and what exactly they're doing with the body. It's probably best that he doesn't know because then he'll never be able to answer questions. Questions, apparently, have gotten them in all the trouble in the world.
They leave, at long last. He chances a glance down at the risk of falling over; the body is gone. That's nice.
So that's one down. They have to deal with Eleine sometime, possibly tomorrow. Who knows what she's going to do when she realizes. There's still another person to consider as well. That third person is the real scary one, too, and the lesser of the two evils just tried to kill him. Or at least one did. He's beginning to realize just how bad this third person could be.
They're still trying. They tried to kill him, and they got the parents, and they're still trying.
That's an interesting thought. He got Andere, but what if...
What if he's not the only one here? If he's lucky the other four are still holed up in the same room, untouched, but it wouldn't take forever to find them. If Eleine's in here too, if the big bad third has finally decide to show their face, then this isn't over.
Okay, he didn't have any intentions to lie, but he's apparently lying.
And he's certainly not staying here.
Whoops.
Icarus Devereux, 17
Applicant #10
He keeps falling asleep in increasingly terrible places.
He's not sure what's worse; the floor of Emmi's room, or this uncomfortable as fuck ottoman at the end of Tarquin's bed. Both suck.
It's the ottoman that's keeping him from properly falling asleep. It's lumpy as hell, and there's hardly enough room to turn over. He sleeps for a span of a few minutes and he's awake, staring into the darkness of the room, and then he falls asleep again.
He's not sure if he's awake or asleep when he hears the door click open, but he blinks and rolls over to face it, nearly tipping off onto the floor. He can just make out the shape lurking in the few inch wide gap between the frame and the door itself. It looks like Soran, if a blurry, almost shapeless figure around his height could be confirmed as looking like him.
"Oh, good. Nothing's happened in here."
It is Soran. Nice. One point to him.
"What?" he asks blearily. He closes his eyes again, stretching his arm out. "Get over here."
There's nowhere near enough room for the both of them on this thing, but he really doesn't care. He really will roll onto the floor and drag Soran down with him if that's what it takes.
There's a very lengthy pause. "If I do, you'll freak out."
"What?" he repeats. "Don't be an asshole."
He will not freak out, thank you very much. Why would he freak out? He cracks his eyes open but Soran hasn't moved, and he can't make him out any more than he could a minute ago. There's movement behind him, the creak of the bed, and then Emmi half sits up, blinking in the direction of the door. He waits to get snapped at, or told to shut up, but it doesn't come.
"Are you bleeding?" she asks eventually, and he blinks dumbly for a few seconds before he realizes she's not addressing him.
So she's addressing Soran, then? Why?
He sits up in a not very casual sort of way. Emmi reaches over the bed and nearly knocks the lamp off the table before she manages to turn it on, and only then does he allow himself to turn back around.
Soran freezes in the doorway. There's blood all over his face and stained into the collar of his shirt, in-between his fingers and streaked up his arms in a few places.
"No?" he tries, a second later, and then smiles.
"What the fuck?" he demands without asking any sort of real question. He gets to his feet and nearly falls over as they come alive again, reawakening with vicious pins and needles. It must be better than Soran, though, who he realizes is clinging to the door's edge tighter than he ever could have noticed with the lights off. He doesn't want to know what would happen if he let go.
He repeats it again, and then again. Over and over. By the time he reaches him Emmi has gotten up too; she drags Soran in and then slams the door shut. Ria and Tarquin have to be awake by now.
"Be quiet, would you?"
Soran nearly falls flat on his face and Icarus snatches him up before he can get any further away. There's blood on his own hands the second he grabs onto him.
"Please don't do that," Soran begs. "I'll throw up."
"I'd rather you didn't."
Emmi nudges them both in the direction of the bathroom. He's right - Ria is awake, now, and her eyes are as wide as saucers peeking out from under the blanket. She doesn't look like she wants to come out very much. Tarquin, though, is still out cold. Really, now of all times? Of course he is. Icarus' jealously is way past the roof at this point - it's thirty thousand feet in the air.
He pulls him into the bathroom with zero cooperation. Soran grabs his arm before he can reach for the light.
"Guess who I just killed."
"What the fuck— no, why are you killing people?"
"Rich, coming from you. And you have to guess."
He ignores him and flips the light on. Soran's eyes squeeze shut. "Please turn that off."
"No, I need to see you."
"You see me literally every-day."
He hasn't been tempted to physically harm him in a very long time, but right now is coming pretty close. If he wasn't already covered in blood he'd feel more inclined to do it. Clearly someone already gave him a beating tonight, and it was apparently the person he killed? Oh, god. He'd be fine with literally anything else in the world happening right now, but not that.
He drops Soran on the edge of the tub and holds him up there until it appears he's gathered whatever remaining balance he has, which doesn't appear to be much at all. He's got one hand pressed to whatever must be stemming the flow of blood from his forehead and another shielding his eyes from the light now. Okay, so Icarus can't let go. He's not being responsible for dropping him backwards into the bathtub and killing him.
"You killed someone?" Emmi asks from the doorway.
"Sure did."
"Who? Why?"
"That bastard," he answers, which isn't at all helpful. "The fucking prosecutor guy, I can't remember his name again. And he tried to kill me first, okay, so it was totally justified."
"Wait, him?" Emmi asks. "Vukovic?
"Yeah, sure. I don't think he's actually a prosecutor. Or maybe he was. I didn't ask him. Definitely a Sentinel, though."
"Oh my god," he laments. "There's no way that's a thing."
"It is, though. Totally is. The girl too, guaranteed, so we should probably watch out for her tomorrow. Today. What time is it?"
"Like, one," Emmi answers.
"So today. That's gonna be fun."
Soran can't even stand on his own yet again. That's apparently their definition of fun considering it happens every single time they need to do something even remotely important.
"But the list, we gotta do the list," Soran continues. "Whoever gave them orders is on that list, guaranteed."
"Stop talking about the fucking list for a minute."
"Someone just tried to kill me, and Pandora, and then was going to kill all of you. No."
"Aw, that's almost touching," Emmi says. "You killed someone for her."
"I killed someone because I didn't want him to put a bullet in my head."
"Sure," Emmi drawls. "And then you came right here to check on us. You have emotions! Feelings!"
"They're going to be mad at me," he says. It's a good thing he apparently can't focus on much right now because Icarus gets the sense some sort of fight would have dissolved out of anyone in this room having feelings for more than a second. Even if it is true. He knows it's true.
"Who?"
"Pandora and Evander. They went to deal with the body. They told me to stay put."
Icarus makes a face. Deal with the body, whatever was left of it anyway. He still hasn't asked, and frankly, he's not going to. Most of this blood is Soran's own he thinks, except for what's on his lone free hand. It couldn't have been that garish. There would be more evidence of it. Is that evidence of character growth, that he's not absolutely brutalizing people? Maybe.
Soran wobbles a bit, and he steadies him again. He looks like he's in a completely different place now that he's stopped talking.
Icarus sighs. "How badly concussed are you right now?"
"Oh, badly."
Emmi snorts. "Sorry, shouldn't laugh. That's not funny. I'll go... find them, I guess. If I have to. I'll let them know you're here. In the meantime can you like, fix him or something? Stop getting blood everywhere."
There's not much of it spread around, but it really is everywhere. There's speckles of it on the carpet, it's smeared on the door and all over the edge of the tub. It's what's causing Ria to stay so far away, no doubt. She's up now and looking but not really - she's trying to avoid the worst of it. No matter what this has done for them all it hasn't changed her stance on blood. She'll help if he asks, but she won't be excited about it.
Neither will he. And Emmi leaves, so he kind of has to do it on his own.
Soran's looking off into nothing again though, so he leaves him be for a few seconds and just holds onto him. He gently lifts away the makeshift bandage from his head; the wound is long, but not that wide or deep. He doesn't think it's bleeding anymore either, but he carefully replaces the blood-soaked scrap with a clean towel from the nearest drawer and holds it there just a little longer.
Soran looks at him. It feels like a good sign. "He killed your parents."
"What?"
"He admitted it. He stayed here and she went out to Three and Eight."
Ria goes stock still ten feet away even though he spoke quietly. Something wraps around his lungs and nearly crushes the breath out of them, an invisible pair of hands. He nearly chokes and starts crying all within the span of five seconds.
Eleine is still alive, and God can only predict what she's doing, but the one who got his...
He's dead. He's dead because Soran killed him and he knew when he did it.
It was more than just fear, more than just the possibility of a bullet in the head.
It was personal.
He swallows. "You know, I'd totally kiss you right now if you weren't covered in blood."
"Fuck you. You're a chicken."
"I'm sorry I don't want the taste of blood in my mouth for the next few hours."
"You're still a chicken."
"Say it again and I'll drop you."
"You're a chicken, and you would never."
He wouldn't, and Soran clearly knows it. He sways again, though, and snaps one hand back into place at the edge of the tub. It doesn't really have to be there. Icarus can't and won't let go of him. He could probably fix this without anyone's help, without going to a doctor and trying to lie through his teeth about what had happened. It's not like he even really knows.
He could still cry at the thought of this all, a third over, maybe.
It's not all the way bad, though. He isn't sure why. It seems like it should be.
"I am dizzy as hell," Soran announces, like he hadn't made it obvious already. He slumps forward against his chest and tucks his head under Icarus' chin, leaning off the tub at a precarious angle. It takes a lot of rearranging to keep his arm propped up with pressure against the wound, but he makes it work. Normally he takes every little thing and treasures it, no matter how small the touch or gesture, but this is a whole lot more, especially coming from Soran of all people.
Soran who just nearly died again when he didn't have eyes on him and who apparently feels safe enough right now to do this, even if it only lasts a minute.
Safe is good. He rather likes safe.
So maybe he's right in thinking it, in saying it.
It's really not all bad.
Somehow with one less POV this ended up being the longest 'In The Capitol' chapter so far which both... delights me and infuriates me. Apologies for the mammoth POV. It was too fun to be unavoidable, though it did get longer than even I intended.
Until next time.