[CLOSED] sing for the damage we've done

[silentabyss]

who: Noah & Childe
what: Post-Disney murder :)
when: Last day of the field trip
where: Didney worl, specifically Noah's hotel room
warnings: This is an unfun post. Discussions of trauma & suicide, mercy killings, uhh... yeah, just don't go here


[Noah has been looking at the knife he was given way too long for it to be healthy.

The thing about this whole "die to get back to the school" thing is that he doesn't want to kill himself, because he'd tried so many times before in the clocktower in September and that wound up with him living through something like thirty attempts and getting into a suicide pact with Nene, which is the last thing he wanted. The sensation of dying, too, is not something that's ever pleasant.

He swore he'd get better. He has gotten better since then, so why does he have to regress like this?

Still, the number of students here is thinning out little by little. People are dying some way or another to return to the school, and Noah knows he has to suck it up...

His hotel room door is open and he's just sort of sitting on the bed, holding the dagger, debating what to do with it. Where to hit to make it quick, so that he doesn't feel anything, so that he can return to the school and hopefully just... forget.]

Comments

[devouringdeep]

[He’s breathing out a quiet laugh, tilting his head back to look up at the ceiling as he draws his hand away from Noah’s neck. It’s a subtle kind of movement, one that might just be written off as a fidget to get more comfortable in sitting here on the edge of this hotel bed. His other hand shifts to rest on his hip, covering his vision with his palm to hide the dull pulse it gives as his blade solidifies in his grip.]

I can confirm that peaches don’t just “do that,” no. [His tone is bright, cheerful. Probably because he continues to reside in that version of his mind that’s entirely disconnected from the situation. The planning has been done, there’s nothing left to think about. Now he just needs to do it. Carry it out.

Briefly, he wonders if the Teucer he’s seen in the reflections of this place was right to be afraid of him. Wonders if the whispers from the mouths of Zhongli and the Traveler and anyone else he’s grown to miss were right to label him a monster.

And then he stops the wondering, because of course the answer is yes. It’s been yes since the day the Abyss spat him back out, since he murdered Ajax for survival and was reborn something else. Something twisted and wrong, who looked at the people he knew he loved and wanted to hurt them to feel something. Who savored the feeling of flesh tearing beneath his fingers, who’s favorite sound had become the snapping and cracking of bones rendered useless beneath his strength.

It had taken some time to tame the urges, to redirect them somewhere more less destructive. To tell himself that it was enough to thrive off of the adrenaline battle wrought, to savor combat and the power it afforded him. To love how it made him stronger. And if death happened to occur within, well... That was simply a consequence he’d have to make peace with, and not the result he truly yearned to carry out. It was enough. It was enough.

Except it never really was.]

I’m glad you two got better in regards to your relationship to one another, though. I don’t think I’d like to see a version of you where you couldn’t stand each other.

[silentabyss]

[Noah, completely oblivious to the pulsing vision or the blade of water, simply continues talking. When he's disinterested in something, he never has much to say — something Clamor pointed out to him a long time ago, something Noah never knew he did until then. Here, now, he's almost talking up a storm, putting aside his fears and anxieties and hopes of not regressing to tell Childe a story.

He's someone who loves deeply. When all's said and done, he'll forgive Childe, even if Childe won't forgive himself. He'll forgive Childe because he knows better than to think anything that's going to happen is out of malice. Because if it came down to it, Noah, too, would mercy kill someone he loves.]

Yeah... me neither. It would've been hard anyway, since... well, Yuria said something like, when I first picked Clamor up as a weapon that our magic wavelengths and our souls... synced, or something?

[Noah's desperately trying to explain spirit pacts without actually knowing how they work.]

It made us partners beyond just the name, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I can't imagine having a combat partner that hates me, or that I hate. I don't think it would've worked out.

[devouringdeep]

[He’s letting out a soft laugh, humming thoughtfully to himself.] No, I can definitely say I agree. It’s more fulfilling to have one that understands you, that knows how to push you to your strongest. A mutual relationship of competition suits better than a rivalry built off of hatred.

[It’s mid conversation that he strikes, words coming off just the slightest bit strained as his arm jerks forward to stab his blade into the back of Noah’s neck. He really sinks his strength into the action, not wanting to leave any room for error. If he screws this up the kid’s gonna suffer, and that defeats the whole purpose of all of this.

He’s a good shot. His aim is fairly reliable. All the same, Noah probably has just the briefest moment to notice before that deadly hydro energy breaks the skin.

His other hand comes up to catch Noah’s forehead, not wanting him to flop forward and onto the floor or anything of the sort.]

I’ll have to tell you all about the Traveler once we’re back, I think. [He keeps talking, eyes fixated on the far wall as he lets out another contemplative noise.] I know I’ve mentioned them before, but passing comments don’t really do our battle justice. It truly was something spectacular... And I’m sure that our promised rematch can get that much better. World ending. Cataclysmic, perhaps.

[He’s the one babbling now and he knows it.]

[silentabyss]

[It's brief, like a blink, maybe quicker — he has no time to register what happened nor to feel any pain nor to even think that, hey, he was in the middle of a story here. There's the murky blackness of death that clouds his vision, something Noah's all too used to. Something a kid his age shouldn't be used to, really.

He doesn't get up again. His moonstone is back at the school, so there's no chance of that happening, no chance of the deja vu that'll make Childe have to suffer this twice. When he goes down, he barely makes a sound other than his voice croaking and giving out; it really is quite lucky that Childe's there to catch him before he hits the floor. Unfortunate, though, that the man has to be covered in blood moments after, as there's no way a wound of that calibre will end in anything less than a smattering of gore across the sheets and Childe himself.

Somewhere, Noah's soul is travelling the great expanse to get back to the school proper, and he'll wake up wondering when Childe will come back and join him so that he can say thanks. Thanks for saving him the shame of having to regress back into old habits. Thanks for taking pity on him. Thanks for caring enough to talk him down from his anxieties. Just... thanks.]