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[visibleclaude]

Claude hadn't shaved in a week.

He should have known better. Should have realized that one night of good sex wasn't enough to change his whole world view. That there was no such thing as closure. That everyone screws you over in the end, no matter how many times they've done it before, how many amends you've made

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[wishesandsmoke]

Eden stopped on the path when she saw him, standing still, expression all but blank. It had been too many days without word, but that was easy to put down to it being Bennet, who did these things, who did what he felt was necessary without warning, who told her what she needed to know and no more. He had a plan. She just didn't know what it was. That was all.

She stood there and looked at Claude, stumbling and unshaven and worse for wear, and didn't say a thing.

[visibleclaude]

"Bennet's gone," Claude said flatly, afraid that now he was going to be forced to Deal.

[wishesandsmoke]

It was terrifyingly like being thirteen years old again, as if her voice were somewhere beyond her.

"Gone where?" she asked finally, hearing the thin tension in her words from a distance. He couldn't just be gone, disappeared like anyone else. She crossed her arms, bit her lip and kept her gaze firmly on Claude.

[visibleclaude]

"Gone!" Claude snapped. "Gone, as in not here. As in disappeared like everyone else on this - "

Seeing her expression, he cut himself off and took a deep breath. "Okay, look." He pulled Bennet's gun out of his pocket, unwrapped it from the handkerchief he'd had it in. "He'd probably want you to have this. God knows I don't need another gun, and I'm sure he'd want you to be able to take care of yourself since he's not here."

[wishesandsmoke]

Eden had been ready to protest, and she could feel the argument rising still in her throat - he couldn't be gone because he was Bennet, this was just what he did. She knew, though, he wouldn't just leave his gun lying around. It was too careless for him.

Pressing her hand to her mouth, she closed her eyes for a moment, biting the tip of her tongue, steeling herself before she could reach for the gun. "Okay," she said. The word felt as heavy as the gun itself. "Okay." She took a deep breath and nodded, no longer able to look at him or the weapon she now held. "Thank you."

[visibleclaude]

"Be careful," Claude said. "I emptied the first chamber, but it's still loaded."

He felt like hell. He wondered if he looked worse than he felt because that would be something else.

He reached into his coat and pulled out a flask, the one he'd had with him when he arrived, but he'd filled it with the strongest thing he could find, of the swill that passed for liquor here.

"I could use a drink. You?"

[wishesandsmoke]

Eden blinked up at him and shook her head, swallowing again. "No," she said, "thank you. I... I quit." She'd been so good. Bennet had asked her, had checked in on that, over and over. She'd been good, she'd stay good.

Managing a small smile, she shrugged. "You go ahead, though."

It just didn't sit right, any of it. "At least he's gone back to Claire."