[ WEEK FOUR – KILL LOG (LUST) ]

[sheriffexe]

[ What a fine evening to have a drink, probably!

It's Thursday night and as usual, the hotel is a little tense and jumpy. Most haviing retired to their rooms at this point, trying to sleep until tomorrow's misery -- but some find themselves lingering, perhaps too restless to sleep and eyes wide open for any suspicious movements.

This is where we'll find Lust and, eventually, Chane. ]

Comments

[tightly]

[ It isn't uncommon for Chane to linger late in the evening. When the chaos has slowed down and the debris settled is when she likes this town best, she's finding -- when people aren't so eager to talk about the calamities. She grows tired of that, in particular, very quickly. This time, she's careful to sidle away before others and reappear once the room is more ghostly.

Perhaps a touch recklessly, she goes for a bottle of wine. It wouldn't be safe to be inebriated on a Thursday, ordinarily.

With nothing really toh her expression, Chane uncorks it - (it's fresh!) - and starts to pour herself a glass. Hey, Lust! ]

[a_sin_for_him]

[She ought to have just headed to bed. All things considered, this isn't a night to be dallying or to visiting into the long, dark hours. But it's too tempting to indulge in what has become all too common a habit. It's easier to sleep, if she drinks. Everything's easier, if she can blanket it all in a haze of liquor.]

[And apparently she isn't the only one with that idea. She watches Chane and lifts her own, nearly empty bottle in greeting and approval. She isn't drunk yet, but she's feeling the wine.]

Thank god they gave us drinks, hmm?

[tightly]

[ Over her shoulder, a nod. If Lust hasn't noticed yet that Chane is mute, she'll either figure it out quickly or take her silence as impolite reticence. Neither option bothers Chane overly, but her eyes skim Lust's bottle.

A bit more helpfully, she gestures to her own bottle and the tidy selection of empty glasses.

Would you like one, Lust? ]

[a_sin_for_him]

Oh, how kind of you. Yes, I think I could use one more nightcap.

[Lust assumes that's what the hand motions mean. She's aware that the woman is mute, by some physical affliction or choice. It hardly matters to her. Certainly not when the offer to share a drink is on the table. While Chane would hardly be her first choice in a drinking partner, any port in a storm as the cliche went.]

It's nice and emotionally numbing, isn't it? I miss being numb. Simply not caring.

[tightly]

[ Chane does too, honestly. A numbing agent would be a blessed balm in this town. There are times when the jagged edge of emotional investment makes her feel like she's barely treading water. When Xion is sad, when Jason is getting himself into trouble, when the possibility of Claire being compromised occurs to her nightmares...

She nods in answer as she's pouring, and it's uncharacteristically empathetic.

Two glasses are brought over. Chane sits down across from Lust, setting both down. Before taking a sip of her own, she pulls out her notepad and carefully writes something down in her fluid script. ]

Are you alright?

[ ... ]

[a_sin_for_him]

[Lust glances at the note and lets out a small breath, almost a laugh.]

Are any of us? I don't know. I don't think I've ever been 'alright', how on earth would I know? But I doubt it. Fighting for my entire remembered existence for freedom, and this is it? [Another sort. So much for equivalent exchange. She feels so stupid now, she'd honestly believed all of that.]

No, that's not alright. But that's what it is. Is there really any point to detailing all the ways this is miserable and upsetting and unfair? I just wish I didn't care, that's all. I never used to care.

[She lifts her drink, but only holds it for the moment, contemplating her own thoughts.]

[tightly]

[ Setting her notepad back down, Chane listens patiently. Upsetting, miserable, unfair... possibly. That doesn't take away from the fact that they have to play in this game now, by their will or not, and their choices range between ruthless survival and hapless resignation.

Never used to care-- Well, that too.

Chane shakes her head - "no, there is no point" - and, ostensibly goaded by Lust's words, lifts her glass to her lips. ]

[a_sin_for_him]

Mmm.

[Lust lifts her own glass, but raises a finger in pause as well.]

It's traditional to toast before sharing a drink. Not that there's much to toast to, but... [She considers, holding her glass half raised. She thinks back to the other night, with Eliot and actually smiles.] To a good moment. May we all have one, before the inevitable.

[It's the best she can do, and she raises her glass fully to Chane for a proper toast before drinking.]

[tightly]

[ For obvious reasons, she can only raise her glass, can't voice an addition to Lust's farfetched hope. Still, it doesn't stop Chane from participating as best she can. Glass lifting, she soundly clinks the rims together. The glass dings and it's almost a pleasant sound, prescient of nothing but a quiet moment and Lust's ... surprising friendliness.

The moment after, she brings the glass to her lips again and drinks -- ]

[a_sin_for_him]

[Full of wine as she is, Lust doesn't see any reason not to be friendly. They're all of them in the same position, more or less. All taken and trapped and forced into this madness. And it can be...nice, to be pleasant with others, she's learning. To simply enjoy companionship.]

[After the clinking of the glasses, she tips her head to Chane and takes a drink.]

[tightly]

[ -- that is, the liquor sloshes against her teeth and mostly closed lips. Her tongue will be numb for a few hours, but that's fine. It's not like she'll need it immediately.

For Lust, things will be considerably worse. It hadn't been difficult to mix in the tetrodotoxin with the wine and reseal the bottle by melting the cork, but the dosage is lethal upon oral ingestion. Within seconds, she will be unconscious as her body shuts down non-essential functioning to try and fight the foreign toxic substance. Paralysis will begin in the diaphragm; her death will come from respiratory failure soon after.

As it's already done, Chane sets down her glass and quietly waits.

Oddly, there's nothing triumphant about it. She takes no satisfaction from this, no sense of victory. What follows in Chane is a sense of necessary numbness, not dissimilar to what the other woman had been speaking out just seconds before, as she continues to climb this ... horrific, disdainful ladder.

No more, she knows. This is - the last. ]

[a_sin_for_him]

[It's almost immediate, the sensation that something is wrong. Lust's eyes widen, turning to the woman who'd shared the wine as her body begins to respond to the poison.]

[There isn't much time for thought, let alone words. Everything seems to be happening very quickly and very slowly all at once. There's a flash of accusatory surprise that turns to something close to resignation on Lust's face as the darkness flickers in. A sad sort of acceptance. She'd known she wouldn't survive this. But why her, of all people? Why now? It seems a cruel joke, but somehow fitting. This was what it all came to, all of the terrible mess here and before; a careless moment attempting to be friendly. She'd barely lived, and now it was over, just like that.]

[And she wouldn't even get to tell Eliot she'd told him so.]

[Whatever else her final thoughts are, they're blurred and buried as she loses consciousness and slips into the throes of death.]

[tightly]

[ Chane does a few things here. First, she wipes whatever of the poisoned wine may be lingering on her own lips -- although not until she's sure Lust's eyes are closed; there's no reason to condescend to the woman as she breathes her last. Secondly, she sits and waits, with only the ticking of the seconds and the indelicately loud thrumming of her own heartbeat to tell her how much time passes. At least five minutes, perhaps even ten.

Checking Lust's vitals quickly, finding the skin has already gone cold...

Well, that's the last thing Chane does. Here, at least. Standing straight and tall, she continues on. ]