Just go

Who: December and Eric
Where: Martens Scrapyard
When: Late

Eric was ready, as ready as he could be. His arm was stronger, still healing but reliable, and his plans were set. Routes had been walked, schedules noted, backup plans established. Really, he could’ve moved tonight if all he needed was a finalized plan, but if this was the last piece of the puzzle? It needed to have both sides defined, Eric and the Tyger.

He was taking the advice that had been waiting for him, trying to put affairs in order and see to his last details, or that had been his initial intent. Problematically, he was also drinking. But it was a last hurrah before sobriety was a must, right? So when he’d uncovered an aged bottle of scotch in his footlocker while sorting out cleaning tools for his guns, Eric didn’t hesitate to break the seal and pour a glass.

And for the first two, he’d stayed on-mission, going over paperwork to pass on what he could, writing out letters that were as much confessions as they were goodbyes. Around the third glass, though, he’d tripped up, getting caught up sifting through a stack of old photos from the footlocker. They kept him there through the fourth, smiling with a pained air as he lingered on photos of men he’d long-outlived. By the fifth he was back on task, albeit with a swirl of emotions clinging as Eric sat at his little folding card table, his pistol broken down for cleaning in front of him, and his rifle and shotgun leaned against his chair where they waited for their own turns.

December had sobered up after her time with Mickey, dealt with corpses, seen people during the day...she'd been busy, she supposed. And she'd been avoiding. And if she was right, he had been too. It wasn't necessarily bravery that brought her to the scrap yard again, and more a sense of impending doom that she couldn't shake. And while she could have stayed home, maybe should have, the looming shadow of her own suspicions needed to be dealt with. So, she finally got there.

The dogs had let her in, of course. There'd been no issue there. And she'd gotten to where he spent his time easily enough, no longer looking for evidence. No, instead she just walked up, opened the door quietly, and slipped inside. She saw him at the card table, though didn't immediately put together what he was doing. She also realized she didn't have words. She had no idea what to say. Seeing the firearms leaned against the chair, they sort of broke her stillness. “That’s a lot of fire power.”

Working a small brush dutifully along the inner workings of his pistol’s slide, Eric glanced over when he heard her voice. He’d had enough to drink that he’d missed the entrance entirely, but his first look December’s way caught him in a bittersweet smile. He already knew how this would end, even if the finer points were a mystery. That hadn’t kept him from feeling hopeful even when he knew better. “I go shooting once a week out on the back acreage,” Eric finally said, setting the piece of his weapon aside.

“Always clean a piece after you use it, buildup’s the worst kind of enemy to ignore.” And technically it was true, he did take his weekly firing range session, and always cleaned his tools after, but at the same time? He wanted them ready for if his plans fell apart. “Glad you came out,” he went on, grabbing a rag to wipe at grease on his hands, “I figured I’d head your way soon here, but this works too. Seems like it’s been quiet in town lately, I thought it could mean a little more time for us.” While there was any to be had.

"Uh huh." December said, inflectionless. She watched him, not having a return smile like she should have. Mostly there was a vulnerability about her that she hated, that she normally didn't let anyone see. Hell, that normally wasn't even present. But right now? Yes. Very much yes. "There was a murder this morning." she pointed out.

“Yeah, I...” Eric started, frowning at the icy reception as he reached for his smokes on the table. “I saw that in the late edition of the Echo, didn’t sound like there was much to go on with the body, though. You have a long day?” He was clearly confused by this, brow lined with worry as he watched December. Of all the things he’d already done, how did he get accused of one of the few recent crimes he had no part in?

"There isn't much to go on. I'm doubting we'll catch a suspect." she said. "Random street violence. It happens. I'd guess crime of opportunity." she added. "And not so much a long day. A long while." she told him, walking further into the room, looking around like she had the first time, getting a feel for his space again even if she already knew it. It had been in here that he'd taken her virginity. Looking back at him, she really gave herself a long, long moment to take the details in, like she might not see him again. And really, she might not. Hell, if things went poorly? She might not make it out of this room. She had to understand that as a possibility.

Already aware of how quickly she might not want him there, Eric slipped from his seat anyway, starting over towards December. He only slowed in passing, reaching out to brush a hand along her arm. “Well, sit and see if you can’t do something about it, I’ll get you a glass,” he insisted, moving past her towards the open space of his kitchen. “You feel like explaining what’s been happening in this long while?” Eric called over, grabbing a glass and moving back for his table, “Or is it something that just bears waiting out?” Something was gnawing at her, and logically he knew there was a good chance that it was him, the truth about him.

That light touch was something that she felt almost as keenly as she would have a slap. It was soft, pleasant, the sort of thing she wanted from him. She even reached up to put her hand over where he'd touched her, like she could hold onto it or something ridiculous like that. She watched him where he walked, and was looking to see if there were any knives in ready reach. And she wondered if he was armed otherwise, though couldn't imagine he was. Not in his own home. She didn't know him as the type who went around carrying guns like a crazy person. Because Eric wasn't crazy. Or, the Eric she knew wasn't. And even if what was on her mind was true she still didn't think him insane. Just...a monster.

That swirl of emotions threatened to drown her again. This was why she'd been avoiding. Why she'd thrown herself into her drinking with Mickey the other night and everything else. When she thought about all of this, it threatened to drag her down into a bottomless pit of blackness. "Make it a double." she requested, walking closer.

He could’ve been armed, could’ve stashed a weapon under the unbuttoned work shirt he kept on just to cover his bandaged arm, but Eric wasn’t. She knew him well enough there, he didn’t need a weapon in this place, it was his own kingdom. “Careful now,” he murmured with an amused chuckle, pouring December a drink from the dusty bottle. “This here’s an ‘08 Montlach, best damn scotch on earth, but it packs a punch. Got it from an old friend in the service, I think I forgot I even had it up until tonight,” Eric recalled with a lighter laugh, reclaiming his own glass and tipping it back for a drink.

He was staring, he knew it, but he couldn’t help letting a warm gaze linger on December for a long, mournful moment before he sighed and went to refill his own glass. “Feel like learning how a .45 works?” Eric finally asked, stilling his mind against more treacherous, emotional questions as he sat back down, looking over the parts spread out in front of him. They weren’t where he wanted to be focused, but right now? Maybe that was a good thing.

"Does it get more potent with age?" she asked. She could feel his eyes on her, and wished this was a different time. Maybe back before she ever suspected anything. "Mind you I'm used to cheap rotgut whiskey that didn't last. The carnival folk and such were pretty bad at leaving a drop of alcohol in their near vicinity. So 'aged' isn't something I've dealt with." She took her glass and knocked back some, feeling that bright burn down her throat. Which right now was a good thing. "Yes, I do." she added. Though being right there with the firearms and all... Well, she was there. Even if it might be bordering on suicidally insane, depending on if she was about to be the biggest bitch in the world, or the saddest.

“Well the flavors get more defined, sharper and all. A cheap whiskey is all alcohol-burn, a good one is told in the notes you can pick out. Some folks say it’s like wine tasting, but I won’t let them drag down a good scotch like that,” he joked quietly, eyes ticking to December once again, just fleetingly. Eric’s hands were busy as he spoke, cigarette bouncing in his lips as he began to reassemble his pistol. “So, spring, firing pin, slide,” Eric explained, pointing out each as he began to fit them together.

“Get your pin and spring in place, then latch your slide on. Do it enough and you can pull one off of someone else’s gun in a blink, it’s a good way to disarm a bad situation.” He snapped the gun back together, clicking the empty slide into place with a nod of satisfaction before popping it right back off. Disassembling the gun all over again, Eric started laying the bits out by December, just to give her a better look as he waited and wondered if he was so wracked with guilt that this was all mental, or if tonight was what it felt like. “Give it a try,” he urged, looking to where the clip sat by the ashtray.

A light smile touched her lips at the joke, because one thing she'd always liked was his sense of humor. There'd been so much that drew her to him in the first place. And she couldn't help but feel like she was about to break it all down and there'd be no recovering from it. If she was wrong? Well. Who wanted to stick around with someone who accused them of being a prolific mass murderer? Yeah. That put a damper on things. And if she was right?

Still, she paid attention as he taught her, watching him put the firearm back together, and she sipped more of the scotch as he did so. When he told her to give it a shot, she set the glass down, and picked up the pieces, assembling the gun much more slowly than he did, and when she was unsure she looked back at him for confirmation that she wasn't fucking it up. Finally, however, she had it assembled, and she looked down at it in her hands, realizing quite quickly that she didn't like the weight of it in her hands. That emotion flickered over her features, her feeling so much closer to the surface tonight. "I don't think I like guns." she told him, voice much quieter than usual. And she set it down again, fully aware it meant she was putting a now assembled gun out of her own hands and as good as in his.

He nearly broke, watching as December worked. It was that one moment where she hesitated, looked up to him for correction, and needed none. She’d always been sharp, quite possibly what Eric had liked best about her even if he’d realized weeks ago that the same edge to her mind left no real chance of something good for them. But it had been, for a little while there... and for all of that to come back to him from the one look? He nearly broke.

“Can’t say they ever get any lighter, and I’d go with your gut if you don’t care for ‘em,” Eric told her as he took the pistol back, turning it to pop a clip with one shell in. Racking the slide back, Eric set it aside without another look, leaving it between them on the table. “More just you get used to the weight of them. Hell, spend enough time with a rifle in your hands and you feel funny when it’s gone.” Eric settled back in his chair, lighting a new smoke off of his old with a light frown. “But I doubt it’s just not liking guns that’s got you like this tonight. And the ‘fuck off, Eric’ option’s still on the table, but you know I’m not just going to pretend nothing’s up.”

She could understand that, even without experiencing it. She knew about weights that were there even when they weren't. Like that shadow in her mind when it came to churches. Even if she wanted to think about it (and she never did) it was a black mark in her head, a slash across her memory. And it was always there. And when she removed her piercings, when she made herself presentable to the world, she could still feel them there, the empty holes through her flesh. There were a lot of ways it could apply. So she understood what he meant. She watched as he loaded the gun and set it between them, and she wondered if she'd been made. If he knew she knew. Or maybe he had since she'd been questioning him the one day. Or maybe she'd made a mistake and left a trace when she'd gone there when he'd been out, seen things she wished she could scrub out of her head.

Propping her chin on her hand, elbow on the table, December took another drink of the scotch, then reached out and spun the gun on the table, just letting it wobble in a circle, alternating who it was pointing at. She was silent, watching it turn, turn, turn. "Sometimes thoughts are a little like diseases." she said when she spoke. "They start small, then they take root and pretty soon you're fucked. And everything feels sick, and everything aches, and nothing feels right anymore." Drawing in a deep breath, she saw the gun come to a stop, pointing at the space between the two of them. "And I had this thought. That maybe you weren't the man I thought you were. And I told myself for a while that I was being stupid. That one little thing is nothing that should be rattling me like that. But it did."

Reaching out, she downed the last of her scotch and finally turned her eyes on him. "So I came here when you were out, and had a look around. And I saw things that I know I shouldn't have. I'm guessing not everything. There was something big under a tarp that I know I didn't want to see." she continued, keeping her eyes on his. "And then I left, and I've been trying still to come up with excuses that fit. That work inside my mind, so that this doesn't end like I think it's going to. Only I can only distract myself so long and those excuses? They never did fit. So here I am." December stopped again, and she leaned a little closer, watching his eyes, still aware of the gun, even if she didn't believe she had any intentions on using it or even trying to. He would kill her if he wanted to. Flat out, he was more than skilled enough. She knew that. "Are you The Tyger?"

He wanted to reach out for her, to flip the table and grab her just to kiss her one more time. But every word leading to that final question told Eric the same thing, that ship had sailed, and he’d never have the chance without forcing it. And that wasn’t who he was, death-toll or no. “I...” Eric started, trailing off with a quiet sigh as his eyes slipped shut and he reached to rub the bridge of his nose. He probably could’ve lied, at least about the park, and maybe if he did? Maybe she’d understand, maybe see dead mobsters as something tolerable...

“I think you should go,” he eventually said, voice weak and harsh for once. “Take what you need to out of that and go. If you’ve got the sense I know you do, you won’t come back.” Which was as close as he could get to saying it in that moment, feeling the shame that he knew was waiting wash over him. There was already a mountain of guilt in Eric for the things he’d done, but the idea of facing another from someone who meant so much to him? It was terrifying, even to a man like him.

It was answer enough. A simple denial would have covered things, but a non-answer? That was a yes. Because anyone accused of the atrocities that she was laying out there...and he knew specifically that she linked the park in there. They'd talked about it. ...yeah. no man wouldn't take the opportunity to deny the hell out of it if he possibly could. Which meant he couldn't. And that sick, cold feeling in the pit of her stomach spread out, making her feel like she was filled with ice and stones. Heavy, immobile. And as she watched him, a microscopic flinch at his tone, she stayed where she was. "No." she said simply, voice far quieter than she wanted it to be. But she felt an ache in her chest that she hadn't anticipated. Even with her suspicions, apparently? There'd been a part of her that had really wanted it to turn out to be stupidity on her part.

Quiet for a long moment there, Eric was motionless, just listening to the soft burn and crackle of his cigarette in his fingers. He didn’t want her there when he opened his eyes, he wanted to be alone, to rage in solitude over the futility of it and the ending he’d known was coming since before he kissed her. But there she was, dark eyes fixed on him and flooded with a sort of pain Eric had never drawn from his victims. “It’s almost over,” was all he could say in that moment, a low rumble that sounded cheap to his own ears. What else could he say, though? That it was all for someone else? That he was giving up everything for a cause no one could even know about? That he knew just how twisted he had become? No, none of that would change anything. “I have to finish this, December. Whether I want to or not.”

She didn't know what that meant. Could have been a lot of things, she supposed. Unless he meant soon he'd stop, or something. She didn't know. Of course, she still might not be allowed to walk out, even if he'd already told her to leave. He had to know that wasn't a good idea. That she couldn't really just walk out and pretend she didn't know where the city's most notorious mass murdering serial killer was. That the man who'd been terrorizing the city at large, who'd made people fear just walking down the street...

"What is 'this'?" she asked. "What are you finishing?" She'd get to her other questions in a moment. Right now she needed to take things one little step at a time, because otherwise she was going to be sick.

Part of him wanted to laugh, to give some cheap sound of mirth over how little of the picture they still had. December and Brett had formed more of a picture than anyone else, as far as Eric knew, but apparently even that hadn’t gotten far. It was a testament to his skill, really, he’d just been that good in his one man war and game of misdirection. That didn’t make it feel good, though. Really, it made Eric wonder how far he could’ve taken it, if he could have sieged the whole city or torn down the DiGiovanni at the same time.

He realized even as he wondered that, though, that it wasn’t entirely him thinking about it. It was the other side, the warrior, the tactician who’d shown no mercy to anyone in his line of fire. It was the Tyger, and that had never been meant to be so real. “The Russians,” he finally answered, a growl of two words as he watched December. “The Syndicate, the whole damned thing. They’re going in the ground, to hell with the repercussions.”

She looked at her empty glass, then reached for the bottle to splash some more into it, killing it before she went on. But it wasn't done in a rush, and she was ignoring the tiny tremble to her hand. "Did you carry on with me just so you would be able to track the investigation from the inside?" she asked, looking back at him again. There was a deep hurt to that, but she had to ask. Because for all she knew it was the truth. And he'd just unfortunately slipped up a little with someone who was too fucking paranoid for her own good.

“No.” It was immediate, fierce, burning with more emphasis than a single word should’ve been able to as Eric’s eyes sparked with the same zeal in his voice. Maybe nothing could be salvaged here, maybe he had to sacrifice to see his mission through, but not on that point. Not even if it might have been easier to say otherwise and just be the monster for her. “Being with you was never about that, not before you were with me, not after, not now. I... I knew this day would come, that I’d have to do things that would make me a pariah to every person who knows me. I didn’t care about losing them,” he said, voice growing softer as Eric spoke. “Just you. And deep down, something told me to stay away for your sake, but I...” he trailed again, one hand knuckling up tight with frustration. “I forgot how it felt to want something good, or know I made someone else feel the same.”

December couldn't tell if it was idiotic or not, that she believed him. But she did. Maybe it was because they had built their relationship on truth, harsh or not. But right now, she guessed, he had no true reason to lie. Beyond that though, it was in his voice, in his eyes. And she hated that she could recognize it there. She looked down, away. It was hard to reconcile everything. In fact she was certain she was going to be reconciling things in her head for a long time if he let her live. She might never get over things. Who knew. "Am I right about the park? That it was you too, even if there's no evidence and the Tyger never claimed it?" she asked, hearing a sort of lifeless tone to her words. It matched how she was feeling, like someone had snipped something vibrant in her, but she couldn't help it. And she wasn't going to be pretending right now.

For the first time in his entire life, Eric Martens was a coward. From childhood on, as far as he could remember, he’d never backed down. Not from a fight, an argument, or a full-scale battlefield. But here and now? He felt like there was one thread left of the man she’d believed him to be, the same man he knew he was on some separate level from the bloodshed. And as much as she deserved the truth, he couldn’t do it. Maybe it was ego making him think it would hurt December too much, but mostly? Cowardice, and a refusal to let go of the only other part of the last decade that had made him feel alive.

“No,” he said again, head shaking solemnly as Eric looked December’s way, letting his misery mask the lie. “When it happened, I... I knew if I could tie what I was doing to it and find who’d caused it, I could aim the cops where they needed to be looking. I picked Blake’s poem for that, there were references I thought would tie in, and I started drawing focus on the Russians. Figured it had to be them or their boys in Chinatown, so I started hitting them, waiting for them to slip up in retaliation. Not doing that’s about the only thing they’ve gotten right,” he finished with a bitter, utterly humorless smirk.

There was a rush of relief through her system, even if it was drowned out quickly by the still present sorrow that was hitting her so hard. She nodded, still believing he had no reason to lie right now. So even if she'd suspected it, she'd been wrong. Which in some ways made her feel worse, because they still didn't have the culprit. "Do you know who did?" she asked. "I still see it sometimes when I sleep. The field when I got there."

He did know, of course, but Eric shook his head slowly, reaching for his glass and swirling the last drops of scotch around. “My money’s still on someone in Chinatown. Years back, a street thief I knew told me about plans for something that could’ve done it, a sort of crude missile battery. If he’s right? Well, it doesn’t narrow the search much.” Finally reaching for the bottle, Eric tipped another splash into his glass with a grim set to his lips. “I was going to see who got skittish after I finished the Russians, the way I hear it? They keep Chinatown pretty secure with their friends. And I couldn’t rightly blend in around there.”

His pained expression wasn’t letting up one bit, plausibly just from his confession, but in truth? Seeing (or even knowing) how much his bloodshed hurt December hurt Eric in kind, as he’d known it would. He could fight this war freely until it touched someone he knew and stopped being a faceless conflict. That had happened a while back, and at this point? He was as close as he thought he could get to abandoning his work. “Whoever did it needs to be stopped,” Eric added with a note of fire, meaning that bit wholeheartedly.

She heard him, listened to his words, but she wasn't truly hearing much after he said he didn't know. Chinatown, bla bla, it wasn't him. And he didn't know. Those were the parts that mattered. This wasn't just a light chat they were having, talking about the state of the city and the uproar it was in. About the bodies on her table that she'd even told him about. Told him how it made her feel. And he'd listened to all of that, when he'd been the one who landed them there. "So do you, Eric." she said, finally looking back up at him again. Her voice was quiet, pained, but there wasn't a hint of fragility to it. She meant that.

“You think I don’t know that?” he asked, almost incredulous but not quite. “How else would this end, December? I go back to running the yard and scrapping broken cars?” He gave the ghost of a laugh, shaking his head again as he grabbed another smoke, just fidgeting with it. “I never figured it’d be anything good. Hell, I don’t really think I’ll even make it out the other side in one piece, but if I did? There’s a price to pay for what I’ve done.” Prison, death, or disappearing: all sounded pretty final to him. “All I can do now is see this through and try not to flinch when it’s time to pay up, maybe hope that the gap I make in the city gets filled with something decent for once.”

"You don't get to be indignant about that! You don't get to sit there and bark about how whoever killed those people in the park needs to be stopped when you're out there slaughtering people yourself! And yeah, the mob sucks, and I get that, and they were all probably shitty fucking people that make this city an even worse place to live than it already is, but you do not get to take that high ground. You just don't." December snapped, for some reason his tone sparking up fire in her again, and that showed. "As for what happened next, if I hadn't figured it out, then you might still be in the clear! You were obviously functioning just fine in our time together, even while you listened to the details of what I went through with the autopsies. So, yeah. Probably you could have just gone back to your normal life, because clearly the part of you that plays with people's guts then sews poems inside them can just sleep for a little while when you're doing day to day shit." She stood up abruptly and walked away, shaking her head as that heavy, frozen feeling she'd been under shattered and she abruptly had more energy than she knew what to do with. "And let's talk about the end here, Eric. I'm curious about something. What happens to me?" she asked, rounding back on him. "Do I wind up buried under a scrap pile? Or maybe in that refrigerator you've got with the hose in it? Yeah, saw that. And that? Is blackly evil, by the way. Just in case you were fuzzy on where that line is."

That was a tirade worth flinching at, especially as the focus of it all, and a lot of it couldn’t be refuted in any honest way. Some of it, though? “You really think that you can judge how well I’m functioning? That I just wear it on my sleeve when torturing someone gets to me?” he asked rhetorically. She was gaining momentum, letting every horrid detail spur her onward, whereas for Eric, they just wore him down. “You have no idea what it’s like to be where I am, knowing you’ve got nothing but the mission left because it cost you everything else, and if you...” he stopped, jaw knotting as Eric fought down his temper, feeling it flare up in response. “I know where the line is, I know which side I’m on,” Eric said, standing his ground as she moved at him. “And I know that what happens to you is up to you. Walk out now, bring Brett around tomorrow with some uniforms if you want. No traps, you can walk right in and settle this whole thing. Or you can give me one more day. Or pick up that .45. But whatever happens to you won’t be my choice, I’ve done enough to you.”

"I think you kill people, and you can sit there, and listen to your girlfriend talk about the haunting details and make the right noises and nod in the right places, and never once let on that you were the one who did it in the first place." she told him. "The only reason I started suspecting you is because you fucked on the poem thing. I couldn't get over the fact that I know you're smarter than that. Sharper than that. You've showed me the pictures, you know your past really fucking well, Eric. And you knew that poem, but never mentioned it. Then all of a sudden you were commenting about it. It didn't add up. And I couldn't let it go." And now they were here. "But before then? No. It never would have occurred. Not you. Jesus christ, I care about you. You're the only person I've ever been with. My cousin, who by the way pretty much hates the entire world? Even he likes you. And also doesn't suspect you even if he's been on this investigation from the start. I think you excel at letting people see what you want them to. And I also think you don't get to cry poor me about what it feels like to 'only have the mission' when you did that to yourself. It didn't have to be like that. Like this. Like you said. You know what side you're on."

She crossed her arms and didn't even look at the gun when he mentioned it. Instead, she rolled her eyes. "Eric, do you really think I came here with this on my mind with some idiotic idea in my head that I was going to pull a weapon on you?" she ashed, though it was rhetorical. "I needed to know. I know one of us in the room is combat ready and it sure as hell isn't me. If anyone was going to not walk out of here it'd be me." she'd gone into things understanding those things. "Give me a reason why you should have one more day."

He was quiet at that, surprised by the request even if he’d expected it at the same time. She’d said once that people wanted a reason for the horrible things that happened, and December was no different in the right moment. But at the same time she was, because the right reason meant a cleaner chance of success than the wrong one. With any luck he wouldn’t be on the run and planning a hit at the same time. Eric reached for his smokes, striking a match up and puffing a fresh one to life as he looked at his gun on the table, sighing out his first exhale.,

“Because some people don’t realize how immediate the consequences of their actions can be, but I do,” he said, inspired by her own words and echoing his own. He’d told her that the night he’d fought O’Malley in the Round, the same night he’d slaughtered the church vigil, and she’d approved of the sentiment. Eric had meant it as much that night, knowing he’d already damned himself and anything good that might have happened in his life, but coming back to that conclusion now hurt. “I know I did this to myself, and I... I saw that it’d hurt people I knew in ways that don’t spill blood. But I had to,” he rumbled quietly, dimly realizing that the ever-present fire of his temper was gone for once, snuffed out by his cowardice and resignation. Was a promise worth it?

"What could possibly be so important that you'd say 'fuck everything else' and do all of this? Why didn't you go about it differently? If you wanted to take the mob down, do some digging. Help the cops get what they're obviously incapable of getting themselves. I would have helped, if you'd asked." Especially considering who one of her clients was. "You didn't have to do things like this, even if you did have your reasons." Because she did actually believe him when he said he had to. She didn't know the reason, but she believed his sentiment.

“I said it before you were here, like this,” he answered, taking another furtive look over at December. “When I realized that I’d spent all this time in the city with nearly nothing I’d miss if I had to give it up, or no one to notice if I was gone or ever here at all? Yeah, I said fuck it. I was...” Eric trailed, frowning deeply. He couldn’t mention Eily, of course, but there were other reasons that didn’t implicate her. “I don’t know, but I knew that if anything was ever going to change, it’d have to start bloody. You can’t use the system against the families, December, you have to fight on their terms and be willing to fight harder, to bleed more, and still stand back up and ask for seconds. It takes a demon to kill a demon.”

"Yeah, well, maybe that's true and maybe it isn't. But I think you might have signed up for more than just you to bleed on this little venture." December said, looking straight at him. "Know that. What you're doing here, you're not just taking you down. There's me too. And there's my cousin, who already hates everyone. You'll be handing him and me all the more reason to shut the world out. Apparently, even the good parts of it fucking suck."

That was where the resignation came from, clearly; he couldn’t change the damage that was already happening, couldn’t minimize it even if he stopped right now. And he wouldn’t, not until the last piece of the puzzle was set. “There’s no way to stop that now, in truth there never really was. I was pledged to this cause before you and I, before Brett would’ve called me a friend,” Eric muttered. He looked up, caught by the direct stare December was aiming at him. “I wasn’t strong enough to not want you, or to let it be more than what I told myself I had to do. I... I think it could’ve been.” Without the war, or the need for one inside of him? He could’ve imagined something like a life with her. And however little he regretted the torture and killings, he regretted that. “But there’s no forgiving some things, no excusing them either. I never expected different.”

As that sank in, December didn't let her gaze waver. "Then you're a selfish son of a bitch. Because if that's true, if this was always how it was going to go, and it was set in stone before you and I happened? Add me to your list of casualties. There's more than one way to torture someone. And the physical isn't even the worst. You even got it from two angles...I talked to you about it, I confided in you." She exhaled, a quiet sound. "None of this gives me reason to give you another day. If you don't want me going immediately to my cousin, then you'd best stop me walking out of here. So, moment of truth, Eric. What's more important? Am I leaving, or am I a body they never find?"

There was more than one false start there, a parting of his lips as if Eric was about to argue one point or another. Except that he couldn’t, there was no way she’d believe that listening to her darkness had been something different. Maybe it was true that she’d reminded Eric of his crimes, kept the guilt with him when he needed it there, and maybe he’d wanted to let her channel her strain and weariness. It didn’t matter, it wouldn’t be believed. “Go,” he murmured, looking away again. “If none of this is enough, nothing else I say will be. Just... just go. Stop expecting me to snap and hurt you and go.”

"How could it be enough?" she asked, though it was rhetorical. And just for a second, the anger wasn't present anymore, and instead there was just the wounded girl. The one who had let him in when she kept the rest of the world at arms length at least, the one who'd really believed she'd found someone she wanted to be with. Even if they didn't really nail things down in a way other people would have, she had considered them long term. She'd wanted to be with him, however long that might be. The crushing disappointment, the void it left in her from the loss and everything that went with it were clearly visible, in that vulnerable cast to her eyes. Then she turned, and walked away, unable to come up with words. Plus, in that moment, she wouldn't have trusted her voice.

He said nothing as she turned to go, only speaking up when he heard the door swing open. “Nothing could be,” Eric said, as much to himself as to December. There was no stopping now, no turning back or wondering over what-ifs. The hardest part was over, really. Reaching out across the table blindly, Eric felt his hand close on a box of .45 rounds, the tips on his fingers bringing a new focus.

There was work to do, final preparations and a dismantling of the hwancha out in his storage lot. Replacing it with an unworking trebuchet would probably create deniability to match his lie, but he’d have to do it fast. The time of night meant December’d have tough luck catching a taxi, so at a minimum? He had an hour to disappear from this place. “Not even time to mourn,” Eric rumbled to himself, looking back to his pistol on the table. All at once he snapped out a hand, flinging the empty bottle of scotch across the room to shatter on a wall, and when he heard the glass break? It was time to work, to finish what he’d started.