[Duncan/Missie] - good-byes
Who:
Duncan
Missie
When: Halloween, during ghost shenanigans
Where: Hour -> Missie's estate
Rating & Warnings: Baaawwww ;___;
Missie is excited about the ghosts! Until she talks to the wrong one...
Up until fifteen minutes ago, today had been the best day in the history of days. Even the Harvest Festival paled in comparison to haunts and spooks roaming the city. Missie was giddy to greet them, to speak with them, to invite over to share company when they had no one living to visit. Even Pia, so quiet and shy, was opening up to new friends.
And then Missie had gone to the Hour.
It wasn't that the ghosts were upset that bothered Missie, or even that some of them had their innards spilling out. A lot of ghosts were upset-- that made sense! And some of them just wanted someone to listen, she figured. But these. She did not want to listen to these. Not when she asked them to point who could have done the dreadful things they claimed to have been through.
When she couldn't find Duncan in his office, she went frantically through the halls, paling more with each passing moment. Missie considered asking anyone else at the Hour if they had seen him-- living or dead. But she didn't. Couldn't. What if that made things worse? What if it spread rumors (that couldn't be true) or-- or-- something. She would find him on her own.
And somehow, she did, nearly running into him. "Duncan." There were supposed to be more words there, but she couldn't find them.
Duncan didn't know what to do. He just felt hollow. Hollow except for the knot of anxiety in his stomach, which was tied so tightly that he felt sick. He'd chanced a glance at the ledgers and seen the comments talking about the ghosts--his victims. The Guard would know soon enough. And then...
Missie came out of nowhere, as he drifted down the hallway on his way toward the exit. He reeled back from her, terror flaring up for a brief second before he realized it was his sister and not another ghost.
He stared down at her for a moment, seeing the look on her face and not knowing what to say. What finally came out was, "...I'm sorry."
No, Duncan wasn't sorry because Duncan didn't do anything. Oh. Oh! He meant. He meant bumping into her. Of course that's what he meant. "I-It was my fault," she managed, swallowing. "Duncan." No, she said that already.
The couldn't-- shouldn't-- talk here. "Are you going back to the estate?" That was a good idea. Getting Duncan away from the Hour. Missie liked that idea.
Confusion flashed across his face until he realized they were talking about different things. Maybe she didn't know yet? ...He'd have to tell her. His heart sank at the idea. Telling Rayna was hard enough; he had no desire to re-experience it with his sister.
"I... Yeah," he answered, his thoughts sluggish and the words delayed. He'd been leaving the Hour. The Guard could find him at home when they wanted him. He wasn't waiting around at the Hour to listen to the ghosts until he was dragged off in chains.
No, wait, no. What if they were waiting for him there? No. They didn't know it was Duncan. Did they? Of course they didn't. Because Duncan was innocent. Not everyone in medicine had done that. Duncan wouldn't do that.
Her mind flashed back to the attack on the Hour. No, that was different. That was something else. (Maybe it wasn't.) She squeaked.
"Will you..." Where? Think of some place! The Valance residence? No, but-- "...Walk me home first? The ghosts. Um! It's frightening. Outside." Worst lie. Biggest lie. And worse, she planned to get lost on the way back, too. They would get lost somewhere quiet and without guards and cut open ghosts and oooh. Missie wished she were more clever.
She was up to something, he felt. She was lying, covering up, scheming--but he didn't care. This would be the last time they saw each other before he was executed. It would be his last moments with his sister.
"Alright," he answered, hollow and dull. He started walking, leading her toward the exit, his gaze on the ground but regularly shifting to make sure she was still with him.
Missie walked with him, but once they were outside the Hour gates, she took Duncan's hand to lead him away at a faster pace. In her mind, she was going to be sneakier than this. She would laugh casually and simply get them lost somewhere. But she realized she didn't trust any of the streets. Instead, she made a brisk pace to the Valance gardens. Was this too close? Would someone try to find him here? They wouldn't come here first. That was enough for now.
She stopped to catch her breath, more from growing fear than exertion, and finally turned to face Duncan again. "Duncan, the ghosts. They're saying--" He hadn't scowled at her or given her any looks or sarcasm or used any language. He probably already knew, so she didn't finish that sentence. "I think, maybe, you shouldn't go back tonight. To the Hour. Or the estate."
When Missie suddenly started dragging him, it snapped him out of his malaise at least long enough for him to be surprised by her behaviour. She was panicked, he thought. He didn't resist, matched her pace, and let her lead him to her home. He wanted to ask what had gotten into her, but he was pretty sure he already knew.
That was confirmed when she spoke. The knot in his stomach pulled itself tighter. He felt like he was going to be sick. He stared at her for a moment, not knowing what to say. Missie had found one of his victims. (Victims. Because they were people, and he'd murdered them.) She hadn't said as much, but he could tell. Why else would she react like this?
"Missie..." He couldn't continue. He didn't even know what came next.
"You didn't..." She couldn't finish. What if he did? No. He wouldn't. Duncan wouldn't. (What if he did?) Missie didn't want to know. If he had, she hoped he would lie. Then she wouldn't have to know and she could speak to him pretending she didn't.
"We could hide you here. For a while." They would probably check with family once they couldn't find him at home. But anything that was a little more time...
"Missie," he repeated, this time with a tone of protest to it, but it trailed off all the same.
You didn't. He had, though. How could she have so much faith in him? He wasn't worth that. A quiet sob escaped him, his eye clouding with tears. He lowered his head, pressing his hand over his eye. "Missie," he choked out, "I did."
Missie's breath stopped for a moment, caught. It felt like it might never start again. When it did, it came out with a strained utterance as she tried to fight back the tears, but it was too late to stop them. "No," she said, voice barely audible, "You didn't." The words broke as she spoke them. He did. She knew he did. It was like sinking as the world gave a small dip before she steadied herself.
He did it. There would be evidence. Maybe she could find it. Destroy it. But the ghosts...
Those weren't supposed to be her first thoughts and she knew that, somewhere, but also didn't care. "We have to-- to find... some place."
He shook his head, choking down another sob. "No, Missie, no. I'm sorry. I can't--" I can't hide forever. They'll find me sooner or later. I don't deserve to get away with this.
"Stop," he pleaded. He couldn't fight with her about it. He didn't have the strength or the will to.
"They're going to-- you can't--" Words were getting harder to form the more she fought with the urge to sob. She was already crying, so her throat shouldn't have been burning. Each attempt to speak was more broken than the last, voice struggling for volume. "I don't want you to go."
He stepped forward, wiping the tears out of his eye so he could see just well enough to step forward and wrap his arms around his sister. He pulled her close, held her tight. "I know." He would be dragged away in chains, locked in a cell just long enough for them to decide what to do with him, and then hanged or beheaded or some other death that was deemed suitable for somebody so reprehensible. He'd accepted that.
But seeing Missie's reaction made his heart constrict. He deserved to die, but he didn't want to, not when he thought about what it would do to her, or the rest of his family. He wished she hadn't found him in the hallway. She made it so much harder to be certain about what to do.
"I'm sorry," he told her. Because there was nothing they could do, because people would find out anyway, because his reputation and probably his whole family's would be ruined, because he wanted to die because he couldn't live with himself after this.
The hug was too much. Missie latched onto Duncan and let out a choked sob. Just one, she told herself, but then they didn't stop. Her fingers gripped him tighter as she buried her face into his shoulder, because that might muffle the sound. It did. A little.
"Don't--" Don't go. She didn't have say in that now. Neither did he. Because he had done it and they would catch him and no matter how much her thoughts scrambled, they couldn't find a way out.
Why wasn't Missie smarter? Or braver? Or maybe just kinder. She should worry about the victims, shouldn't she? She didn't. Couldn't. Not right now. Just Duncan. They were going to take Duncan away. He was her big brother. There had never not been Duncan.
All he could do was hold her and cry. There was nothing to say. Nothing to do but wait. He couldn't even explain himself to her. That would require putting all of his feelings into words, and admitting aloud what he'd already admitted to himself. Missie didn't need to hear him tell her that he was a murderer. She didn't need that among her final memories of him.
Missie tried and failed to compose herself, only crying harder and clinging tighter.
"Wh- what... can I do?" she managed through shaken sobs. Do to convince him not to go. Do to make it so they could keep anyone from finding him. Could she make this go away? That's what she wanted to say and wanted to mean, but those options were fading, if they had ever been real to start. What could she do for Duncan?
Nothing. There was nothing she could do to stop this from happening. It had been set in motion the day he'd first cut somebody open on a table.
But there was something she could do for him. Having already written himself off as a loss, Duncan's primary concern was for what happened to his family. He pulled himself together, wiping his eye on his sleeve without letting go of his sister. "Make sure--" He choked on the words and had to pause for a moment to collect himself before he could continue. "Make sure, if they come after our family, that they know none of you had anything to do with it. It was only me. Tell our parents to publicly disown me if they need to, but make sure Rayna and the boys are taken care of. And...people are going to say some really nasty things about me, so make sure Jon and Mirza don't believe any of it. Make sure they remember me."
Missie pressed her face harder against Duncan to quiet the wail that came the more he spoke. Even once he finished, she choked on a few more sobs before she could find her voice again, barely lifting her face from Duncan's shoulder.
Not just gone, but disowned. How could she tell them to do that? How could she do that?
But he asked. And she had to. "Okay," she said, voice weak and uncertain. "J-Jon and Mirza--" They were losing their father Duncan don't go "--They'll. They'll remember. I promise."
He held her head against his shoulder, his fingers buried in her hair. It hurt to think about what was going to happen to his family after he was gone, to think about his boys growing up without their father. But that was the reality of it. And it was important to have somebody who would make sure everything was taken care of.
"And make sure you read them the classics," he insisted. "Rayna will only read them textbooks. Somebody has to tell them stories." It was almost a joke. Except the sentiment behind it was serious.
That won a small smile out of Missie, but smiling just hurt, and even if she had calmed her convulsions, the tears were still falling. Her sleeves couldn't dry them fast enough. "I will," she said. And she didn't really know a lot about the classics, but she would still read them. And she would learn if she had to, if that would make Duncan happy. And maybe next year, the ghosts would come back again, and she could... tell him...
She brought her hands over her face to quiet the next sob.
He took a deep breath, mostly to keep himself from crying again. He waited until he was sure he could stay collected before speaking again. "Missie, I want--I need...to go see them. I'm sorry." They both knew the Evandros estate would be the first place the Guard looked. He'd be making it easy on them by staying there. But that wasn't the important thing right now. "You can come with me, if you want. I just...I can't..." He couldn't go without getting the chance to spend some of his last moments with his children. To say good-bye to them properly.
That was something Missie understood. She wished she didn't. She could argue with him more, then, but this was not something she knew how to fight. Missie's tears hadn't calmed, so she only nodded to Duncan while searching for her voice. "I. I'll come." It was all she could get out for the moment. By the time they got to the estate, she would be able to fake a smile.
Someone might need to be there when it happened. Missie didn't want to imagine what for, but she wanted to be there for whatever it might be. It would also be a few more hours with Duncan. Hours.
Duncan
Missie
When: Halloween, during ghost shenanigans
Where: Hour -> Missie's estate
Rating & Warnings: Baaawwww ;___;
Missie is excited about the ghosts! Until she talks to the wrong one...
Up until fifteen minutes ago, today had been the best day in the history of days. Even the Harvest Festival paled in comparison to haunts and spooks roaming the city. Missie was giddy to greet them, to speak with them, to invite over to share company when they had no one living to visit. Even Pia, so quiet and shy, was opening up to new friends.
And then Missie had gone to the Hour.
It wasn't that the ghosts were upset that bothered Missie, or even that some of them had their innards spilling out. A lot of ghosts were upset-- that made sense! And some of them just wanted someone to listen, she figured. But these. She did not want to listen to these. Not when she asked them to point who could have done the dreadful things they claimed to have been through.
When she couldn't find Duncan in his office, she went frantically through the halls, paling more with each passing moment. Missie considered asking anyone else at the Hour if they had seen him-- living or dead. But she didn't. Couldn't. What if that made things worse? What if it spread rumors (that couldn't be true) or-- or-- something. She would find him on her own.
And somehow, she did, nearly running into him. "Duncan." There were supposed to be more words there, but she couldn't find them.
Duncan didn't know what to do. He just felt hollow. Hollow except for the knot of anxiety in his stomach, which was tied so tightly that he felt sick. He'd chanced a glance at the ledgers and seen the comments talking about the ghosts--his victims. The Guard would know soon enough. And then...
Missie came out of nowhere, as he drifted down the hallway on his way toward the exit. He reeled back from her, terror flaring up for a brief second before he realized it was his sister and not another ghost.
He stared down at her for a moment, seeing the look on her face and not knowing what to say. What finally came out was, "...I'm sorry."
No, Duncan wasn't sorry because Duncan didn't do anything. Oh. Oh! He meant. He meant bumping into her. Of course that's what he meant. "I-It was my fault," she managed, swallowing. "Duncan." No, she said that already.
The couldn't-- shouldn't-- talk here. "Are you going back to the estate?" That was a good idea. Getting Duncan away from the Hour. Missie liked that idea.
Confusion flashed across his face until he realized they were talking about different things. Maybe she didn't know yet? ...He'd have to tell her. His heart sank at the idea. Telling Rayna was hard enough; he had no desire to re-experience it with his sister.
"I... Yeah," he answered, his thoughts sluggish and the words delayed. He'd been leaving the Hour. The Guard could find him at home when they wanted him. He wasn't waiting around at the Hour to listen to the ghosts until he was dragged off in chains.
No, wait, no. What if they were waiting for him there? No. They didn't know it was Duncan. Did they? Of course they didn't. Because Duncan was innocent. Not everyone in medicine had done that. Duncan wouldn't do that.
Her mind flashed back to the attack on the Hour. No, that was different. That was something else. (Maybe it wasn't.) She squeaked.
"Will you..." Where? Think of some place! The Valance residence? No, but-- "...Walk me home first? The ghosts. Um! It's frightening. Outside." Worst lie. Biggest lie. And worse, she planned to get lost on the way back, too. They would get lost somewhere quiet and without guards and cut open ghosts and oooh. Missie wished she were more clever.
She was up to something, he felt. She was lying, covering up, scheming--but he didn't care. This would be the last time they saw each other before he was executed. It would be his last moments with his sister.
"Alright," he answered, hollow and dull. He started walking, leading her toward the exit, his gaze on the ground but regularly shifting to make sure she was still with him.
Missie walked with him, but once they were outside the Hour gates, she took Duncan's hand to lead him away at a faster pace. In her mind, she was going to be sneakier than this. She would laugh casually and simply get them lost somewhere. But she realized she didn't trust any of the streets. Instead, she made a brisk pace to the Valance gardens. Was this too close? Would someone try to find him here? They wouldn't come here first. That was enough for now.
She stopped to catch her breath, more from growing fear than exertion, and finally turned to face Duncan again. "Duncan, the ghosts. They're saying--" He hadn't scowled at her or given her any looks or sarcasm or used any language. He probably already knew, so she didn't finish that sentence. "I think, maybe, you shouldn't go back tonight. To the Hour. Or the estate."
When Missie suddenly started dragging him, it snapped him out of his malaise at least long enough for him to be surprised by her behaviour. She was panicked, he thought. He didn't resist, matched her pace, and let her lead him to her home. He wanted to ask what had gotten into her, but he was pretty sure he already knew.
That was confirmed when she spoke. The knot in his stomach pulled itself tighter. He felt like he was going to be sick. He stared at her for a moment, not knowing what to say. Missie had found one of his victims. (Victims. Because they were people, and he'd murdered them.) She hadn't said as much, but he could tell. Why else would she react like this?
"Missie..." He couldn't continue. He didn't even know what came next.
"You didn't..." She couldn't finish. What if he did? No. He wouldn't. Duncan wouldn't. (What if he did?) Missie didn't want to know. If he had, she hoped he would lie. Then she wouldn't have to know and she could speak to him pretending she didn't.
"We could hide you here. For a while." They would probably check with family once they couldn't find him at home. But anything that was a little more time...
"Missie," he repeated, this time with a tone of protest to it, but it trailed off all the same.
You didn't. He had, though. How could she have so much faith in him? He wasn't worth that. A quiet sob escaped him, his eye clouding with tears. He lowered his head, pressing his hand over his eye. "Missie," he choked out, "I did."
Missie's breath stopped for a moment, caught. It felt like it might never start again. When it did, it came out with a strained utterance as she tried to fight back the tears, but it was too late to stop them. "No," she said, voice barely audible, "You didn't." The words broke as she spoke them. He did. She knew he did. It was like sinking as the world gave a small dip before she steadied herself.
He did it. There would be evidence. Maybe she could find it. Destroy it. But the ghosts...
Those weren't supposed to be her first thoughts and she knew that, somewhere, but also didn't care. "We have to-- to find... some place."
He shook his head, choking down another sob. "No, Missie, no. I'm sorry. I can't--" I can't hide forever. They'll find me sooner or later. I don't deserve to get away with this.
"Stop," he pleaded. He couldn't fight with her about it. He didn't have the strength or the will to.
"They're going to-- you can't--" Words were getting harder to form the more she fought with the urge to sob. She was already crying, so her throat shouldn't have been burning. Each attempt to speak was more broken than the last, voice struggling for volume. "I don't want you to go."
He stepped forward, wiping the tears out of his eye so he could see just well enough to step forward and wrap his arms around his sister. He pulled her close, held her tight. "I know." He would be dragged away in chains, locked in a cell just long enough for them to decide what to do with him, and then hanged or beheaded or some other death that was deemed suitable for somebody so reprehensible. He'd accepted that.
But seeing Missie's reaction made his heart constrict. He deserved to die, but he didn't want to, not when he thought about what it would do to her, or the rest of his family. He wished she hadn't found him in the hallway. She made it so much harder to be certain about what to do.
"I'm sorry," he told her. Because there was nothing they could do, because people would find out anyway, because his reputation and probably his whole family's would be ruined, because he wanted to die because he couldn't live with himself after this.
The hug was too much. Missie latched onto Duncan and let out a choked sob. Just one, she told herself, but then they didn't stop. Her fingers gripped him tighter as she buried her face into his shoulder, because that might muffle the sound. It did. A little.
"Don't--" Don't go. She didn't have say in that now. Neither did he. Because he had done it and they would catch him and no matter how much her thoughts scrambled, they couldn't find a way out.
Why wasn't Missie smarter? Or braver? Or maybe just kinder. She should worry about the victims, shouldn't she? She didn't. Couldn't. Not right now. Just Duncan. They were going to take Duncan away. He was her big brother. There had never not been Duncan.
All he could do was hold her and cry. There was nothing to say. Nothing to do but wait. He couldn't even explain himself to her. That would require putting all of his feelings into words, and admitting aloud what he'd already admitted to himself. Missie didn't need to hear him tell her that he was a murderer. She didn't need that among her final memories of him.
Missie tried and failed to compose herself, only crying harder and clinging tighter.
"Wh- what... can I do?" she managed through shaken sobs. Do to convince him not to go. Do to make it so they could keep anyone from finding him. Could she make this go away? That's what she wanted to say and wanted to mean, but those options were fading, if they had ever been real to start. What could she do for Duncan?
Nothing. There was nothing she could do to stop this from happening. It had been set in motion the day he'd first cut somebody open on a table.
But there was something she could do for him. Having already written himself off as a loss, Duncan's primary concern was for what happened to his family. He pulled himself together, wiping his eye on his sleeve without letting go of his sister. "Make sure--" He choked on the words and had to pause for a moment to collect himself before he could continue. "Make sure, if they come after our family, that they know none of you had anything to do with it. It was only me. Tell our parents to publicly disown me if they need to, but make sure Rayna and the boys are taken care of. And...people are going to say some really nasty things about me, so make sure Jon and Mirza don't believe any of it. Make sure they remember me."
Missie pressed her face harder against Duncan to quiet the wail that came the more he spoke. Even once he finished, she choked on a few more sobs before she could find her voice again, barely lifting her face from Duncan's shoulder.
Not just gone, but disowned. How could she tell them to do that? How could she do that?
But he asked. And she had to. "Okay," she said, voice weak and uncertain. "J-Jon and Mirza--" They were losing their father Duncan don't go "--They'll. They'll remember. I promise."
He held her head against his shoulder, his fingers buried in her hair. It hurt to think about what was going to happen to his family after he was gone, to think about his boys growing up without their father. But that was the reality of it. And it was important to have somebody who would make sure everything was taken care of.
"And make sure you read them the classics," he insisted. "Rayna will only read them textbooks. Somebody has to tell them stories." It was almost a joke. Except the sentiment behind it was serious.
That won a small smile out of Missie, but smiling just hurt, and even if she had calmed her convulsions, the tears were still falling. Her sleeves couldn't dry them fast enough. "I will," she said. And she didn't really know a lot about the classics, but she would still read them. And she would learn if she had to, if that would make Duncan happy. And maybe next year, the ghosts would come back again, and she could... tell him...
She brought her hands over her face to quiet the next sob.
He took a deep breath, mostly to keep himself from crying again. He waited until he was sure he could stay collected before speaking again. "Missie, I want--I need...to go see them. I'm sorry." They both knew the Evandros estate would be the first place the Guard looked. He'd be making it easy on them by staying there. But that wasn't the important thing right now. "You can come with me, if you want. I just...I can't..." He couldn't go without getting the chance to spend some of his last moments with his children. To say good-bye to them properly.
That was something Missie understood. She wished she didn't. She could argue with him more, then, but this was not something she knew how to fight. Missie's tears hadn't calmed, so she only nodded to Duncan while searching for her voice. "I. I'll come." It was all she could get out for the moment. By the time they got to the estate, she would be able to fake a smile.
Someone might need to be there when it happened. Missie didn't want to imagine what for, but she wanted to be there for whatever it might be. It would also be a few more hours with Duncan. Hours.