if you could only see the beast you've made of me
If asked, Rahne wouldn't say that she's gotten soft. After years spent on various teams, she doesn't think it would be possible to lose that edge and the instincts that have been instilled in her, even in a place that isn't much more than a permanent vacation. What she has done, though, is begun to relax a little in the months she's been here. Even
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That doesn't mean she enjoys the cold, though, and she's so caught up in keeping herself from freezing that she almost misses it.
She doesn't know what's going on, but hearing someone say 'no' over and over like that can't mean anything good, and she's heading toward whomever it is before she can even think of it.
When she finds Rahne, Terry almost wishes she'd just kept walking.
"Faith and begorrah...Rahne?"
The sight's a little gruesome, but she still walks over eyes on Rahne and Rahne alone. "Jesus, Rahne, what's goin' on?"
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"Kill the angel," she murmurs, entirely to herself, "take his wings, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." A sob catches in her throat and it's like a lightbulb goes on, glassy eyes a little less vacant. She still doesn't, can't even glance at Terry, not wanting to see what the look on her face must be at the sight of this. It shouldn't be hard to piece it together, but she draws in a ragged breath and explains anyway, as simply as she can. "It was me."
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"Come on, love," she says gently, kneeling down next to Rahne to put an arm over her shoulders. "Let's get away from here." Even if it's only a few feet away, not having this...this mess in front of them has to be better.
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But sometimes -- just sometimes -- he stepped up. Because part of being the leader was making tough calls, and for all that he hedged and hesitated, making tough calls was something he'd proven better at than most. Morals don't mean much to a man who can see the value in both sides, and for all that he talked a mean game, the reality of the situation was that he was uncomfortably comfortable with the shades of gray their lifestyle provided ( ... )
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It takes her a good minute to tear her eyes away from the sight on the ground, almost too much in her own head to even realize where she is, but finally, finally she manages, doing as he tells her instead. Even before she says anything, it takes every ounce of strength she has left not to just fall forward against him, the fact that she stays upright something she pins on sheer luck. "My father," she chokes out, holding his gaze for a moment and then closing her eyes tight. If he needs to hear more than that to understand this, she doesn't know what she'll do. Telling the story once was bad enough, ( ... )
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Now, though, it was hard to focus on much else.
Reverend Craig was dead on arrival, but there was no blood on Rahne's hands -- not today, at least. Jamie chanced a glance over at the half-masticated corpse, then quickly looked away. It wasn't his first dead body. He doubted it would be his last.
"I'm getting you out of here," he said in a tone that brooked no argument, sliding his hands from her shoulders to her arms so that he could pull her up. "Come on."
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"I cannae -" she starts, a thought occurring to her once she's standing, and she glances back down at what's left of the body one more time, feeling like she could be sick all over again. "He shouldn't stay like this. Someone could see." People would probably assume that it had happened here, and she has enough guilt on her shoulders without adding to it like that.
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Which is why Alice finds the smell to be almost overwhelming after months with only faint glimmers of what she had before. Looking around her, she tries to find some trace of what she is sensing buried in the snow. The drops of blood lead her like a hound on a trail until she sees it, Rahne, everything.
"Oh mercy be," she gasps her stomach clenching and loosening at the once delightful slight of managled flesh and bones.
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"Christ," she breathes, hands balling into tight fists at her sides, leaving indentations of her fingernails in her palms. She wants to say something more, to try to explain herself, but no words come, and anyway, she doesn't deserve it. Anyone who could do this wouldn't. "Ye don't - this isn't -" is the best she can manage, and that isn't much at all.
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"It's okay," she says quickly, not sounding as upbeat as she normally does. "I'm like the army. I don't ask and I certainly don't tell."
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"I did this," she says, almost incredulous, as if seeing this for the first time. In a way, she is; she'd tried hard to block it out before, but now, that's clearly impossible. "How could I - this isn't supposed to be here."
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That did not mean it ever became better to see.
He knelt down next to her and rested one hand on her shoulder. "You need to get up, Rahne," he told her and his voice was steady and cold. The voice of someone addressing a soldier rather than a friend.
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"I did this," she says flatly, almost like a realization that's just dawning on her, though she's known it for months now. "It was me. I can't -" Can't get up is what she means to say, but the words don't come, so she stays there, dumbstruck again, instead, shaking her head minutely. There's no getting up from something like this.
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He couldn't tell yet if playing the drill sergeant rather than the den mother was the right tack to use but, at least, it was one he was used to. You gave them orders for the sake of it, to get them to focus on something that isn't the body. You got them up and moving and then you worried about everything else afterward. And, when you didn't know what was happening, you hoped that things were calm enough that there would be time for an afterward.
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"This isn't supposed to be here," she says, well aware that it probably sounds ridiculous. It's as much clarification as she can give, though, that it didn't happen here. That doesn't make it any better, of course. Nothing could.
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What I see when I round the corner, though, drives out thoughts of my chattering teeth and Disneyland alike. It's almost enough to drive out lunch.
I've seen awful things, awful, awful things, but I can't think of a time I saw anything laid out so bare, so brutal as this. I can't really think -- or move or look away.
"Rahne, oh my God -- are you okay? What -- Rahne?"
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"No," she says once more, as much to Nico now as to herself -- an answer to if she's okay, if she were to think about it, which she can't. "This isn't right, it's - it shouldn't be here, it can't be, I - I didn't mean to." Intents don't change a thing, though, and her father, what's left of him, is still dead in front of her, and to make matters worse, someone else has seen. She'd been a fool, to ever begin to put this behind her.
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It shouldn't be here, she's right about that. I've heard about things like this -- no, not like this, never exactly like this -- but things just turning up, sudden and unwelcome, unasked for. It would leave anyone in shock, but it sounds like she actually knows who this is. Was. Like she has a guess at the least, like she's maybe seen it before.
One second I'm standing there, staring blankly at the corpse and then at the air above it, and the next I'm nearer to the ground, arms wrapping around Rahne's shoulders, gaze turned toward the more forgiving red of her hair so I don't have to look, and I don't really know how I moved from point A to point B. "It's okay, it's okay. It's going to be alright. We'll take care of it." I don't even know what I'm saying.
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"I don't know what to do with him," she says, barely realizing as she changes pronouns. He can't just stay here like this, after all, it's too risky, but beyond that, she doesn't know what to do with herself, either. "I never meant to hurt anyone."
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