SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

The right thing. Her or us. The right thing.

Caedyn had nodded to him.

She didn't give you any choice. The right thing.

Caedyn was speaking, still, speaking normally, as if he wasn't covered in someone else's blood.

Jane was dangerous.

Caedyn's tone was soothing, making his stomach twist, squeeze.

You saved both of us.

The gun came back up, pointed at Caedyn, now, and his eyes followed.

"I want you to leave."

Now. Now he chooses to grow a spine? Just all of the sudden? No. It didn't work that way. Oskar didn't know what he wanted, and that's why he had her.

"No you don't," she said quietly. "You really, really don't."

She didn't move. Just kept staring at him, at his gun, and trying not to tremble. "They're going to tell everyone tomorrow, just like they did today. Everyone will know what you did. And nobody will ever trust you again."

Her tongue slipped out to lick her dry lips as she stared him down. "Nobody but me. You don't want me to go. 'cuz I'm all you're gonna get. Do you wanna die alone, Oskar?"

He could act tough. He could hold up his gun and stare her down and make demands, but she'd seen him retch. She'd watched him tremble and stutter and founder, waiting for her acceptance and permission. He wasn't a tough guy. He wasn't even a killer without her, and without Jane being a stupid bitch. Oskar wouldn't shoot her. He just needed to be put in his place.

There were tears now, mixing with the drying gore on his face and mingling with the salt on his skin. They fell in between big gulping sobs, shaking his shoulders and making his lips curl inwards.

"I don't need," he said, but he did. Too much.

"Why is this happening."

That's it. Let all those big, baby tears out to show what you really are. If she wasn't so deep in her role already, she would have grinned. Instead, she kept her face twisted up in comforting understanding. "Let it out. It's okay." She came just a little closer to him, keeping the pace slow and steady as the blood and tears mixed together to drip down from his face.

"Nobody knows why it's happening, okay? It's...it's just fucking crazy, right?" A little more. If he let her in, she could get her hooks nice and deep and make this something worth having. He wasn't her first, and he wasn't gonna be her last, even if the context was muddled up from normal.  "But it's happening. It's still happening, and that means you need me Oskar." Sell it home with a little vulnerability, sister. "I need you too. I'm not gonna abandon you."

Caedyn offered a hand to him, nice and easy. "Take care of me, and I'll take care of you. Promise."

"Promise," he spat through dazed lips, and looked at her hand, wide eyed through ugly tears that made it longer, blurrier.

He didn't take it, but he let the gun fall further to his side, stared at the ground.

"Okay," he said, his voice quiet and watery.

That's a good boy. It took quite a bit of self control to keep from saying that alone, or letting her warm smile turn smug. It wasn't time for that yet though. Right now, he was still vulnerable. He needed time to settle, but he would with the proper handling and an eye for more problems. This would work out splendidly.

"Promise," she cooed reassuringly, before turning her offered hand into a beckoning one. "Let's find somewhere a little less exposed. You deserve some rest."

Her eyes came to rest briefly on Jane's corpse as she paused.

"After I change."

((Caedyn Miller Continued In 血塗れ桜))

He turned his back, then, to allow Caedyn the privacy to change into a dead girl's clothes, eyes trained at the sky.

The sounds of corpse desecration filled his ears.

((Oskar Pearce, elsewhere)