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In a dark room on a strange planet with the bodies of two total strangers lying dead at his feet, and the living corpses of who knew how many more cowering behind his back, Tactus looked at the razor in his hand, and wondered if he'd ever been anything but useless.
His back had scarred, from that day so many years ago, when he'd first thought to test the Reaper. Back when he'd been foolish enough to think he could find the Reaper wanting. Shifting, he rubbed his shoulder into the interior of his suit, trying to feel the crenellations of the scars--and with it, relive the memory. (Blood brothers, you little shit).
"Was I?"
He looks up to see Darrow, plainclothed, razor in hand. He's trying to keep his voice calm, as though Tactus were some kind of animal about to bolt, and Tactus is bitter over it. Darrow's voice is kind, friendly almost, and if Tactus closed his eyes he could almost ignore the edge of fear in it, and pretend that this--all of this--had not happened. Was not happening. That he was not an idiot who threw things away when he needed them the most. (Like the Stradivarius. He hadn't thrown it away, not really, he'd gotten it again, but there were some things you couldn't buy back...)
But it was happening. And he could not trust Darrow's voice, because Darrow was afraid--afraid of the razor, for the children's sake, and for the razor's sake, for the children's, he would be gentle, and friendly, until he could strike. Tactus hated the lie.
But not enough to drop the razor and see the truth.
"You know that answer," Tactus said, wishing he was not such a coward, such a fool.
Throwing things away. Breaking them. Forever a child stuck in something that was half nightmare and half temper tantrum; how did Darrow keep so calm?
"Am I still?" Darrow asked, carefully, as if that mattered. As if it mattered, and nothing else did.
Blood brothers. Tactus nodded, feeling the pain seep through him, the shredded skin, the bruises and the cuts, and feeling then drain him of any will to keep up this act.
"Always," he says.
As if it mattered.
A second later, Darrow's voice has lost its soothing taint. He sounds like himself again, and the words shock Tactus like a splash of water to the face.
"What if I let you live?"
Tactus starts. The offer was cruel. Impossible.
"What if I let you come back?"
And they had entered the realm of ridicule.
"What?" He asks, because he is angry and he has no hope left.
"What if I forgave you?"
And he turns, slightly, because maybe there is a little hope left, and snaps, "You're lying," because hope is foolish and painful and he does not want it, even when it blossoms in his chest like a sunrise. Especially then.
"I'm not lying. I know there's good in you."
And this, this is too cruel, because the things that Darrow says are made to stoke that hope, to fire it. You're not a monster, he says; come back to me, you'll carry my standard--
"But you can't wear that ugly armor," he finishes, and it's the joke that does it. Tactus knows, deep in the sliver-sharp part of his soul, that this is a lie and that Darrow will run him through the second he gets the chance, because he is a traitor and traitors do not mend, but suddenly, he does not care. He is done with this. With all of it. Darrow was the only good in the world for him, and if he can die by his hand, then he will die better than he might have lived, otherwise.
Almost spent, Tactus tries an apology again. They come out twisted, his apologies.
"We all make mistakes," he says, seeing Darrow's eyes flick softly to the children behind him and knowing that the second he lays down his razor, he's a dead man.
"We all make mistakes. Just come back. I won't hurt you." There's a clang as the razor drops. "Neither will Arcos."
(Ha, says the sliver in his heart).
Come home, the Reaper says, and Tactus breaks. There's a cry of relief around them. Children crying, being shushed and hummed and escorted to safety. Kneeling in blood, Tactus wonders just what it is he almost did.
And ah, then, the boots in the concrete, the Reaper coming for his due. Tactus wonders if he should close his eyes.
But the footsteps, and Darrow, stop, and Tactus's still-open eyes see a hand, open-palmed and offering to help him rise.
The Reaper was all that was good in the world, and with a cracking in his chest and an ache in his bones, Tactus stood and clung to him, hardly caring if he was thrust off or knifed in the gut for his trouble.
But Darrow was the man who gave things that he shouldn't, and after a moment Tactus felt arms tighten kindly around his own shoulders.
"I'm sorry," he splutters, ineloquent but for once untwisted. "I'm sorry."
He's held silently. But he's not let go.
He expected this, Tactus tries to tell himself when the razor finally makes its killing stroke. He knew it would come.
He hadn't expected it from the old man.
He hadn't expected it to hurt so badly, and he hadn't expected to be this afraid.
He'd expected to be alone.
But Darrow, who crumpled to the ground alongside him--Darrow, who'd called for a Yellow as if his ridiculous promises of forgiveness had ever been meant--Darrow who had dived, true panic in his eyes, to stop the old man's final thrust--was there. Silent, shock-eyed, holding Tactus as though he had meant something, once. Almost as though he still did.
He'd expected something a whole lot worse than this, he thought as the world faded, turning dark, then bright, and finally--
Into something else altogether.