For a moment, she's silent, looking at him. The expression in her eyes is complex, being handed something precious and indescribably valuable. This trust, this request - it is no burden, but she's still shocked. Protective, he calls her, when she remembers her own undead self tearing into him, leaving him dying. Decisive, he says, when she flies on her own instincts, following what she wants to do.
Do you want him dead, nearly crosses her lips. That is the sort of creature she is, the sort of being he's asking to act like a watchdog.
"Going wrong like what?"
Of course she'll do it. Of course she'll look. If he'll have her for it, she will.
“I’m not sure. With things like this, it’s difficult to know the shape of it before it happens. It will change, constantly, and… I may become complicit in hiding what he does.” This much he’s learned in his years at the Village: the way of the twisting, lying serpent.
“I can only tell you this. If it seems like my attachment to him is doing me more harm than good… if he starts to keep me away from all of my friends, for example, especially Zivia… please, become suspicious. If he traps me, I will not be able to get out by myself. I may not even realize that I need to.”
Great trust has been broken between Mulcahy and Gaeta; between Mulcahy and himself. If he cannot trust himself, he must trust someone else.
Fever helped break open the Village. She caught him during the casino and offered safety at the gala. Over and over, he has watched her rise to the island’s defense. He can think of no one better to save him one more time.
She assumes so. But it feels better than asking if he wants the rift to be utterly permanent without repair. If something feels wrong, then - if Mulcahy seems like he's hiding not out of his own volition. If something just seems too amiss. She'd like to think better of Felix, and for this to never come to pass.
But when you cannot trust yourself to know safety, someone else must. A lifeline, a fallback that will engage without you needing to ask. A way out.
It is a testament to the depths of his terror and his knowledge of this danger that he does not immediately and unequivocally say, yes. His hesitation sickens him. The thought of a life cut on his behalf is nothing short of vile—and yet he will not simply assume that the worst outcome will never happen. It could. Always.
"I beg you to make every attempt to. Do everything that you can. I want for him every second chance. He should be given time and mercy, no matter what happens. But if he becomes... truly, truly monstrous one day... then I trust you will do what you must."
He hunches over and turns away, leaning a hand on the back of the bench. "Oh, God, I disgust myself."
It would be easy to dispense justice on Mulcahy's behalf far before that point was ever reached, if it did happen. She could claim it was impossible to recover Gaeta from this state, and then see just how much it took to bring him down now that he was no longer something human. She wouldn't use the same method as last time, that's for sure. But. This is a thought she lets pass over her, pulled across her body and removed. Her hands will be still, if the time ever comes, until they're absolutely needed.
"Only if he stops being Felix. Only if this thing takes him so deep that he ceases to be himself. Only if the Web kills him first."
Only if he became a thing that no longer recognized Mulcahy. Because then Gaeta was not there to be spared in the first place. Then will her hands move to violence again.
The blood drains from his limbs at the thought; weakly, he sits down on the bench, hunched and small. Oh, God. It could happen. It could always happen, and he won’t see it coming. Mulcahy is going to—could, lose him. Could.
She takes the cue to sit next to him, slowly putting a hand on his shoulder. He's not going to have to do this on his own. He'll have another set of eyes at his back, making sure he can navigate this.
"...There are others in his same situation. Living with it long before they came to these shores. The power need not consume him. He can still be himself."
It would be hard, and it would require Gaeta to keep trying. To keep choosing otherwise, when it would be easy to let go. But he has a reason to keep trying, doesn't he? He has things to keep being as close to human as he can manage. There's every reason to hope.
And, a contract she'll take as seriously as that of anyone who asked her to kill them, should they get out of hand.
“I know. I’ve met them. I know that nothing may happen—but it could, and even if the worst never comes to pass, I fear the change this will bring to our bond. He drinks from me. I have already seen it.”
He’s done it himself, going drunk on others’ fear. He always knew that Gaeta would do the same with him, and now he’s seen the look on his face when he does. He recognized it when he opened the door and saw him on the porch.
"I don't know. I think so. I could, or I was told that I could, back when the Lonely claimed me, but it is—horribly addictive, and I will never stop being a temptation. I make it too easy for him."
His hands move to clasp the back of his neck. "Yes. I... yes."
He takes another deep breath. "Fever. I don't know how to tell you how much this means to me. What you promise is not just my protection, it is... the guarantee that I will live. I can exist with the certainty of my continuation."
No matter what happens with Gaeta. Fever will do what has to be done to make sure that he goes on. The Village left him with no more strength to withstand manipulation, and so he will not have to rely on his own.
No one can do it alone.
(When was the last time he had any kind of safeguard against his own destruction? … Before Korea, he thinks. A decade ago.)
The breeze blows, salt-scented, ruffling her hair, and she looks over the potter's field. It takes a moment to put her feelings into words, to express how all of this is. It's not bad in any way, merely...different, to try to hold it and not say you think better of me than I do myself, unwinding the coiled spring of that reflex. Some have asked her to strike them down should they go beyond any hope of retrieval, asking for the safety of others. Here, Mulcahy asks her for his own, to preserve a life instead of taking it. And she finds that she can look at her hands and have every capability of saying yes.
What is this power good for? To know when to go and when to stop. When to destroy and when to defend. I hurt you once before. Are you sure? Does it make sense to doubt him when he doubts himself? Looking at him, she sees the scars in his hands. Fever hopes they no longer pain him.
Thank you for your faith. I'll see it won't go to waste.
"...You're my friend," she says, feeling herself get stuck past that point. The emotion is simply too big to fit through the narrow passageway of her throat and to find its way outside to be expressed. Making light of it feels impossible. "And you shouldn't be caged again."
(She thinks Mother would be proud of them both for making plans rooted in life.)
He knows in some distant, abstract way that one of his violent deaths was because of some kind of Fever. His logic knows this. But his memories don’t hold that connection: he remembers the dead thing standing in the doorway, wearing Fever’s face but so cold and cruel as to be unrecognizable, and then he remembers a cloud of pain—and that is all. In any case, he had snapped his own murderous double’s neck that month. It’s difficult to blame Fever for his mutilation and he has no interest in trying. Loving one more person than one less is a much, much nicer way to live.
It’s a simple assertion she makes. It touches him all the same. “Thank you,” he says, thickly.
But one more point of business. “Please don’t tell him about any of this. If you must act, then better he never sees it coming, and if you never do, then… then better he doesn’t know that I ever asked.” A beat of hesitation; a memory. “Un—unless you think otherwise…?”
"No. It's best that he doesn't know - your instincts are correct. If he knew I was keeping an eye out, he could very easily work to deceive me to hide himself. And if nothing at all happens, then there's no need to burden him with the idea that he needed to be watched. This matter is between you and me, and it'll stay that way."
It's not as though she's unused to keeping secrets from Gaeta. Sometimes it's not about lying, and more about someone else's peace of mind. What would either of them gain, if she told him why she slit his throat those months ago? What would it do for them? Not everyone needs to know everything.
"If you find you need anything else...I'm staying with Lyubov and Anzu currently, and they've been kind with me having visitors. I know you'd be welcome if you wanted to come by." A tiny, tiny beat. "You said you were sealed away from companionship, and I hope you don't feel like that now."
He appreciates her reassuring judgement more than most would, he thinks. He's spent too long having his own questioned, twisted, and beguiled.
But she speaks again, and he smiles ruefully, looking down at his lap where his hands fidget with one another. "Truth be told, I... I believe that such loneliness is a feeling I will be living with all my life. Though I'm working on gathering evidence to the contrary. Today will be a nice addition, I think."
Lev, Anzu, and Fever all in one place. It sounds like a place he may be very fussed over, which makes him nervous, but a lot of good company besides. It is a good thing, to be worried about. He'll have to learn how to readjust to the discomfort of attention.
"If it's possible, I hope that there will be many more days like today. Many more pieces of evidence to contradict it."
Many more times that someone reaches out in one way or another, to have the word friend said and not contradicted. It's an ongoing process, Fever knows - there's never quite a cure for things like this. But there's patience, and there's those who will provide a safety net, and it's a little easier to breathe with both of those things there. Winter's coming soon, anyway, and that'll lighten the load some as well.
May she never need to act on this promise made. May it remain a possibility, and not an intervention she'll have to execute. May the loneliness, if it doesn't leave, become outweighed on the regular. May he remember he's cared for, by many souls.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Do you want him dead, nearly crosses her lips. That is the sort of creature she is, the sort of being he's asking to act like a watchdog.
"Going wrong like what?"
Of course she'll do it. Of course she'll look. If he'll have her for it, she will.
no subject
“I can only tell you this. If it seems like my attachment to him is doing me more harm than good… if he starts to keep me away from all of my friends, for example, especially Zivia… please, become suspicious. If he traps me, I will not be able to get out by myself. I may not even realize that I need to.”
Great trust has been broken between Mulcahy and Gaeta; between Mulcahy and himself. If he cannot trust himself, he must trust someone else.
Fever helped break open the Village. She caught him during the casino and offered safety at the gala. Over and over, he has watched her rise to the island’s defense. He can think of no one better to save him one more time.
no subject
She assumes so. But it feels better than asking if he wants the rift to be utterly permanent without repair. If something feels wrong, then - if Mulcahy seems like he's hiding not out of his own volition. If something just seems too amiss. She'd like to think better of Felix, and for this to never come to pass.
But when you cannot trust yourself to know safety, someone else must. A lifeline, a fallback that will engage without you needing to ask. A way out.
no subject
"I beg you to make every attempt to. Do everything that you can. I want for him every second chance. He should be given time and mercy, no matter what happens. But if he becomes... truly, truly monstrous one day... then I trust you will do what you must."
He hunches over and turns away, leaning a hand on the back of the bench. "Oh, God, I disgust myself."
no subject
"Only if he stops being Felix. Only if this thing takes him so deep that he ceases to be himself. Only if the Web kills him first."
Only if he became a thing that no longer recognized Mulcahy. Because then Gaeta was not there to be spared in the first place. Then will her hands move to violence again.
no subject
“Exactly. Yes.”
He says yes, and puts his face into his hands.
no subject
"...There are others in his same situation. Living with it long before they came to these shores. The power need not consume him. He can still be himself."
It would be hard, and it would require Gaeta to keep trying. To keep choosing otherwise, when it would be easy to let go. But he has a reason to keep trying, doesn't he? He has things to keep being as close to human as he can manage. There's every reason to hope.
And, a contract she'll take as seriously as that of anyone who asked her to kill them, should they get out of hand.
no subject
He’s done it himself, going drunk on others’ fear. He always knew that Gaeta would do the same with him, and now he’s seen the look on his face when he does. He recognized it when he opened the door and saw him on the porch.
no subject
There has to be a way for him to control himself. The bond is already changed. Even vampires can find alternate sources of food.
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"Then you know exactly what he's fighting against, and what he needs to hold himself to. And if he doesn't...I'll intervene. I promise you this."
no subject
He takes another deep breath. "Fever. I don't know how to tell you how much this means to me. What you promise is not just my protection, it is... the guarantee that I will live. I can exist with the certainty of my continuation."
No matter what happens with Gaeta. Fever will do what has to be done to make sure that he goes on. The Village left him with no more strength to withstand manipulation, and so he will not have to rely on his own.
No one can do it alone.
(When was the last time he had any kind of safeguard against his own destruction? … Before Korea, he thinks. A decade ago.)
no subject
What is this power good for? To know when to go and when to stop. When to destroy and when to defend. I hurt you once before. Are you sure? Does it make sense to doubt him when he doubts himself? Looking at him, she sees the scars in his hands. Fever hopes they no longer pain him.
Thank you for your faith. I'll see it won't go to waste.
"...You're my friend," she says, feeling herself get stuck past that point. The emotion is simply too big to fit through the narrow passageway of her throat and to find its way outside to be expressed. Making light of it feels impossible. "And you shouldn't be caged again."
(She thinks Mother would be proud of them both for making plans rooted in life.)
no subject
It’s a simple assertion she makes. It touches him all the same. “Thank you,” he says, thickly.
But one more point of business. “Please don’t tell him about any of this. If you must act, then better he never sees it coming, and if you never do, then… then better he doesn’t know that I ever asked.” A beat of hesitation; a memory. “Un—unless you think otherwise…?”
no subject
It's not as though she's unused to keeping secrets from Gaeta. Sometimes it's not about lying, and more about someone else's peace of mind. What would either of them gain, if she told him why she slit his throat those months ago? What would it do for them? Not everyone needs to know everything.
"If you find you need anything else...I'm staying with Lyubov and Anzu currently, and they've been kind with me having visitors. I know you'd be welcome if you wanted to come by." A tiny, tiny beat. "You said you were sealed away from companionship, and I hope you don't feel like that now."
no subject
But she speaks again, and he smiles ruefully, looking down at his lap where his hands fidget with one another. "Truth be told, I... I believe that such loneliness is a feeling I will be living with all my life. Though I'm working on gathering evidence to the contrary. Today will be a nice addition, I think."
Lev, Anzu, and Fever all in one place. It sounds like a place he may be very fussed over, which makes him nervous, but a lot of good company besides. It is a good thing, to be worried about. He'll have to learn how to readjust to the discomfort of attention.
wrap.
Many more times that someone reaches out in one way or another, to have the word friend said and not contradicted. It's an ongoing process, Fever knows - there's never quite a cure for things like this. But there's patience, and there's those who will provide a safety net, and it's a little easier to breathe with both of those things there. Winter's coming soon, anyway, and that'll lighten the load some as well.
May she never need to act on this promise made. May it remain a possibility, and not an intervention she'll have to execute. May the loneliness, if it doesn't leave, become outweighed on the regular. May he remember he's cared for, by many souls.