We're All Excited, We Don't Know Why, Maybe It's 'Cause, We're Gonna Die

[General Goose]

Nick pressed his foot onto the stone, gave it a slight push, watched it roll away a couple of inches before hitting against a bump in the ground it didn't have the momentum to climb over.

He felt Marco's hand on his shoulder. It was a nice feeling, being touched and not having to think of it as some kind of potential attack, some kind of threat that he had to be wary about. He could trust it now. And if he couldn't, well, he'd die. Whatever. Marco's loyalty was pretty much the only thing keeping him alive and keeping him motivated right now. That being withdrawn was as much of a death sentence as anything - so it was relaxing, then, nice and simple, to know that he could just view everything through that simple lens. There was something comforting about stripping away all that ambiguity. Like Nick was slightly insulated from him crazy, how vicious, this mess was for others.

Looking at Marco, Nick smiled. Marco was right. Teresa had been...it was like she hadn't been there. Yuka had been spared by a mixture of Marco's calming pragmatism and Nick's own preference for a petty form of emotional maiming rather than actually physically crippling her. Nick didn't get the impression she'd been intimidated or cowered, that she had been paralysed by fear or petrified with confusion. Nope. She'd just...not cared enough. Not cared enough to make any effort, just wanting to throw in a few stinging barbs on the way out. She was a bad friend. A terrible one. An even worse ally. Absolutely without value or redeeming feature.

"What a...what a fucking awful friend. I get the impression if we'd have killed Yuka, Teresa would have just..."

Nick sighed. He felt sorry for Yuka. "She'd have shrugged and just taken her stuff and trotted off and, urgh, I can't stand that kind of person." Yuka was an idiot. An impulsive traumatised idiot. Maybe she was something else before. Nick hadn't really known any of the triplets all that well. But she was an idiot on the island, and Teresa seemed like she was...not even exploiting Yuka for any kind of practical gain, but treating her as some sort of distraction. Entertainment. Perhaps, at his most charitable, some kind of project to pass the time. "Fucking awful person, she is," he mused, knowing how pointless and meaningless his condemnation was, how little ground that he had to criticise.

He kissed Marco on the forehead.

"Let's go. Have kinda lost my appetite for art now."

((Nick Ogilvie continued elsewhere.))

[Emprexx Plush]

They were in agreement and it made Marco sadder. Something so obvious to the two of them might never reach her, and he couldn't blame her. Looking over all the people he could have run into here, it was easy enough to imagine himself in the same position. Following along behind someone who treated him like garbage just so he wouldn't be alone. Less fear and more dependency mixed with the wrong person in those first couple of days and he could see it. He wondered how far he would have made it before he was discarded.

How far will you get before he discards you?

Marco didn't have time to answer before Nick kissed him. Gentle and unprompted. Affection that could not be mistaken for anything else.

He smiled and followed along without another noise in his thoughts.

((Marco Hart Continued In Princess of the Night))