A sharp knife, a short life.

[The Honeless Beard]

((Dougie Sharpe, Sharpe and Clear and Pure and Gone))

The first thing that Dougie saw when he re-entered the room was that the sliding door was open.

He’d had this feeling, this sickness in his gut that had nothing to do with hunger gnawing at him or exhaustion permeating his bones. It was a twisting feeling, something that gripped his intestines in an iron gauntlet and refused to let up ever since he’d felt the bar smash into bone and screams emanated from a wounded girl. A feeling that something was definitely wrong.

And when he returned, and saw the glass door open, he somehow knew what he’d find when he walked through it.

Dougie froze, considered leaving, considered what would be worse - hearing about it from a stranger in a few tossed-away words or seeing it in the flesh. He wanted to turn around, walk back out, let things lie the way they were.

But he couldn’t. He took four steps towards the door, the fifth carrying him through it, and saw.

Pool of blood around Lily. Jewel sitting in a chair facing outwards. A corpse crumpled and curled around her.

"Oh no."

The words fell from his mouth, and he wanted to catch them and put them back as he found the scene. His knees threatened to buckle, sag under the weight of discovery before he recovered, found the miraculous strength to remain standing, in the face of crumpled form and dark hair and a body sat in a chair on the porch, cool as can be.

"Oh," she spoke, her voice sounding hollow, the noise not registering with him beyond a distant, dull roar in his ears. "Hey again."

Rage wasn’t the first emotion to fly to his chest - sadness either. All that remained in the pit that used to be him - used to be Dougie - was a burning sensation of fear and shame that snared up his spine and wrapped around his throat. He found it amazing that his body, whatever embers of emotional fire that lay within him, spoke without consent.

"So, that's it, huh?" His voice, his words, but he didn’t feel his throat making them, adding the sting behind them. "You did it."

"Yeah. I guess so," came her response, and this time the anger was blissfully, gloriously with him as he balled large fists, stared a hole into the back of her head as Lily lay at her feet. Lily, who’d stuck by him, been his rock as the world melted away. Lily, who he’d let leave in pursuit of his nobler goal.

Lily, who was now dead.

"Congratulations,” he bit out, his teeth clenched.

"I guess,"

“You guess,” the anger built along with the volume of his voice, incredulity sneaking into his tone. “"You've... you're doing- you've done a whole... fucking lot for an 'I guess'. Aren't you - you're not going to give them more?"

He pointed to the camera, because this had to be all for them, didn’t it? Weren’t there people sitting on the edges of their seats, waiting to see how this dramatic scene unfolded before them? Wasn’t there someone taking bets on who’d win the inevitable fight?

“More?” she asked, seeming to snap out of whatever daze she’d been in, “I’ve already-”

She stopped, dead, and Dougie motioned his hand in a circle, impatient now. He wanted it from her - the answer to the burning question of why.

“I don’t know,” she finished, and Dougie huffed in irritation, his fingers now dancing along his sweater pockets, searching for weaponry that wasn’t there.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” he snapped.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she choked out, voice thick with.. something that seemed like remorse, something that he weighed and ignored impatiently - “I don’t know what you want. I don’t know anything.”

Dougie moved then, gliding on the porch, his footfalls not making it past the roar in his ears, the red tinge to his peripherals.

“You killed people,” he stated, “Kids, families, and - you don’t know why? You’re not sure why?”

There was sudden bite in her as he moved closer, despite the fact that she was still facing away from him - her spine straightened, indignation finding voice. “Of course I know why.”

“Then tell - tell them why. Why did you murder them? What makes them -” his voice filled, and he swallowed back the lump, shook his head briefly, “why did you deserve to live?”

Her response was laughter, and if her previous hesitation, emotion, lack of answers had made him angry, that cold, soft laugh made his blood positively boil. In a flash, he saw himself wrapping his big hands around that neck, lifting her out of the chair, and holding her until the life left her form. Holding her there until she spilled all her secrets, told her half-truths, gave the reasons that allowed her to kill and take and destroy.

Instead, he clenched his hands, raised his boot, and slammed it against the back of the chair leg, the wood protesting and clattering with the force of it.

The laughter stopped cold. Dougie waited.

“I don’t think it would help,” she said.

At once, the anger fled his body, replacing it with a weariness that sank to his bones. At once, her explanation - once so important to him - didn’t matter. She didn’t matter, her life didn’t matter, the why’s and how’s and values of her mind didn’t matter.

Lily was gone.

He stepped around the chair, then, and gathered Lily’s lifeless body into his arms, crouching down to one knee to do so. He kept one eye on Jewel’s seated form, just in case - but he knew, just as he’d known what he’d find here, that she wouldn’t make another move. He pulled Lily to her back, tensed his legs, tried and failed to lift her dead weight and floppy limbs. He was too weak; she was too heavy. He wasn’t good enough.

He settled for dragging her away from Jewel a ways, laying her out so that her hands were folded over her chest, her face to the sky.

“I don’t think it matters,” Jewel added, and her voice went soft again.

“You don’t- okay,” he responded, and moved to lift Lily by the shoulders, to pull her into the house. Pausing, keeping his eyes on Lily, on the one person he’d wanted to protect, he spoke.

“Jewel, I hope-” he paused, breathed in, “I pity you. More than… them.”

He lifted his gaze to the back of her chair, squatted down more comfortably, shielding Lily from the cold. He imagined the powers of nature being held at bay by his back, by his hands around her shoulders, protecting her in a way that he couldn’t possibly do.

“Because you’re the most - pathetic person here. You need to - you’re going to wake up tomorrow, and still be you. And that’s - that’s a fucking miserable-”

He exhaled, glanced back down at Lily, cupped one cold cheek.

“You’re pathetic,” he said again, because he meant it. He repeated it, because she was, and he believed it now. She wasn’t a monster - Jewel wasn’t the bogeyman, or some sort of missed link in the evolutionary chain that allowed her to kill.

She was weak, pathetic, a little trembling mouse who couldn’t handle the emotion.

“And the only reason that - the reason you’re not joining her right now? You’re already… fucking gone. So I hope that whatever worthless fucking existence -”

He shook his head, realized he was done. “I hope you earn it.”

Dougie waited for a moment, waited for Jewel to respond, to react - anything - and was met only by the sound of sniffling.

He let the statement hang, lifted Lily by her armpits, and dragged her inside the open door. When she was fully inside, he walked to the door, slid it closed with a quiet click, adjusted the blinds.

Then, he folded himself over the small, skinny body of Lily, cradled her against him, and pressed his face into her neck. He stayed there, burrowed, until silent sobs wracked him and the floor beneath them was soaked in blood and tears.

At the end of all of this, Lily was gone.

Nothing else mattered.

[The Honeless Beard]

Dougie lost time for a while, there - lost it in the tears and the painful sobs wracking his body, evaporating it with the heat of his sadness, the fierceness of his loneliness. He wasn’t fully aware or in complete understanding of his actions, but he did know the feeling of Lily’s skin as he gently placed her arms over her chest, sliding her eyes closed. He did know the rasp of fabric as he tore it off of a ruined mattress and covered her with it.

He knew the sound of his own words as he said a pathetic eulogy that nobody heard to a girl they only cared about in the entertainment of her death.

I loved her - Lily, he had said, with the whole of my being, and she deserved a better end than this.

He didn’t enunciate through his own blubbering. Didn’t speak up so the cameras could hear. He kept his volume low, his face directed at her unblinking, lifeless, cold form.

The next thing he was fully aware of, he was re-seated on the arm of the couch, his gaze at the far wall. He was unsure how long he sat there, but his thighs were numb and he could feel pins and needles from the pattern of the arm rest crawling up his butt. His hands were loosely clasped in front of him, resting in a rapidly drying pool of blood that soaked the entire left half of his sweater and most of his jeans, some smeared on his neck, face, dotting his beanie from the force of his grief.

He made no move for a long time, and just let the tears dry up, his voice clear from emotion.

Then, suddenly, he spoke.

“You’re still watching.”

Revulsion, bile worming its way up his throat, clawing at his molars. He choked it back down.

“You helped me - or thought you did - with Vahka earlier. Why?”

[MurderWeasel]

A voice echoes from Dougie's collar.

"I helped you because I wanted to and was able to."

[The Honeless Beard]

"Okay."

A pause.

"How are my chances? Of taking it - taking it all?"

[MurderWeasel]

A voice echoes from Dougie's collar.

"Decent, if that's what you want and if you handle things the right way. Nothing is ever a sure bet, but you're in better overall shape than probably two thirds of the others, and roughly even with the rest. It's more a question of not falling behind than of pulling ahead. The best way to win is to be the last person to lose."

[The Honeless Beard]

Dougie straightened up, rising to a standing position in front of the chair and bending backwards so that his back cracked. The blood of Lily clung to him, the memories of her meaningless death hugging at his skin. He tugged his beanie over his eyebrows, slid large hands into wet, crimson stained jeans.

"I sure hope you enjoy that paycheck," he grunted, shaking his head, "because I could get better advice from a fucking magic 8 ball."

His gaze fell back upon Lily, upon the bloodied sheet that covered her.

"If that's what I want," he repeated - first under his breath, then louder, mocking.

"What I want."

At his feet lay the metal bar - the bar that shattered Jewel's kneecap, that had her sitting in the chair outside when he went to go confront her. With the toe of his boot, he dragged the metal from it's position - barely visible beneath the couch - and stooped to collect it. He stood, brandishing the bar, giving it a few experimental waves.

"Okay," he said, quietly, and then- "Alright. So if I - hear you correctly, you're just saying sit tight while the animals - the big monsters in the cage slaughter each other."

He tapped the metal bar against his palm, considering. Then, he shook his head, turned towards the entrance, and strode out - back into the cold.

"Fuck you."

((Dougie Sharpe, Backing up))