![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
I'm a Ruin, I'll Ruin You [Closed]
WHO| Black Tom, Molotov and Clementine; Black Tom and Beth
WHAT| The power couple kills a kid, then Tom gets shanked by a teenage girl.
WHEN| Week 6
WHERE| Near the river.
WARNINGS| Child death. Evil bastard death.
I. Molotov and Clementine
Tom's expertise is in fires and plant life. When the meteor shower moves from a brilliant display to an actual threat, he spends a few moments on a rocky outcropping of the mountain, peering over the skyline and the pattern of trees with a keen eye, looking like some sort of figurehead planted upon the stone. He licks a finger and puts it in the air, testing the wind. After a few moments, he turns to Molotov with a wicked gleam in his eye.
"If we head to that part of the river-" he gestures with his hand to a crook, the narrowest part of the watery snake that traces its way through the trees- "we'll be able to pick off anyone trying to escape from the fire when it inevitably flares up over there."
And with that, they both head down, murder on their minds, until they're settled casually at the edge of the river, waiting for people to wade across.
II. Beth
He and Molotov split up after two encounters at the river, both looking to see if any stragglers escaped across a bridge of trees or somehow swam the more dangerous currents. That's when Tom, wet to the knee and splattered with blood, holding a knife, comes across Beth and her smoke-stinking clothes. And no allies in sight.
"Look at who it is. The little lass herself." He calls to her, walks purposefully in her direction.
WHAT| The power couple kills a kid, then Tom gets shanked by a teenage girl.
WHEN| Week 6
WHERE| Near the river.
WARNINGS| Child death. Evil bastard death.
I. Molotov and Clementine
Tom's expertise is in fires and plant life. When the meteor shower moves from a brilliant display to an actual threat, he spends a few moments on a rocky outcropping of the mountain, peering over the skyline and the pattern of trees with a keen eye, looking like some sort of figurehead planted upon the stone. He licks a finger and puts it in the air, testing the wind. After a few moments, he turns to Molotov with a wicked gleam in his eye.
"If we head to that part of the river-" he gestures with his hand to a crook, the narrowest part of the watery snake that traces its way through the trees- "we'll be able to pick off anyone trying to escape from the fire when it inevitably flares up over there."
And with that, they both head down, murder on their minds, until they're settled casually at the edge of the river, waiting for people to wade across.
II. Beth
He and Molotov split up after two encounters at the river, both looking to see if any stragglers escaped across a bridge of trees or somehow swam the more dangerous currents. That's when Tom, wet to the knee and splattered with blood, holding a knife, comes across Beth and her smoke-stinking clothes. And no allies in sight.
"Look at who it is. The little lass herself." He calls to her, walks purposefully in her direction.
no subject
He circles around, prepared to bludgeon Clementine down if she tries to run but knowing that her chances of escaping Molotov are pitiful at best. Molotov is a trained assassin, silent, lethal, practiced, professional, while Clementine's skill is made of scrapped-together survival instincts pounded into shape by the elements. It's different.
He crouches down in the undergrowth, watching, getting mud on the knees of his pants.
no subject
But if Molotov believed in souls, she'd know that hers is damned anyway, and that it's a greater thing to give Clementine a quick out now.
When Clementine looks the other way, Molotov comes flying down, jumping from the tree rather than climbing down. She bounces from branch to branch until she's on the ground, landing quietly, and she runs to catch the girl from behind, to cover her mouth with one hand if possible, and immobilize.
She's careful, though. Gentle. Refuses to hurt her.
no subject
Clementine's immediate reaction is to fight, struggling against the hold pinning her arms to her sides with muffled outrage, kicking her legs out. She can't see anything of her attack, the only thing she can guess at is that it's a woman, maybe and so fast, so quiet she didn't even hear them approach! Panic fills her, even as she tries to fight her way free and stay calm.
In a desperate move Clem opens her mouth to use a move that has helped her before and sinks her teeth down on the offending hand in front of her face.
no subject
It comes out before Molotov can stop herself, but she's wearing gloves, and the bite is nowhere as bad or painful as it could be. She keeps hold on Clementine, spreads her hand a bit to dig her fingers into the girl's cheeks to tighten her grip.
"Clementine, it's Molotov, stop."
They don't spend much time together, but two people can only spend so long living in the same quarters without having an awareness of each other. Molotov has certainly never been hostile toward her littlest roommate.
With a quick twist of her knee, she brings them both down to the ground, forcing Clementine, until they're in the mud and the girl is practically in her lap to hold her in place.
A few strands of hair have escaped Molotov's hat, and she's visibly distressed, but she leans close to Clementine, and speaks as softly as she can, as soothingly as she can.
"I'm sorry for this. But it's better than what other people will do to you. It's better than the Gamemakers will be, better than exposure. I'm so sorry, Clementine."
And she really is, her voice thick and even pained, but it doesn't stop her from readjusting her grip on Clementine's head and giving it a fast twist, a snap that she spent years learning how to execute properly. An instant, painless death, no time to think or fear or feel. From light to dark in a blink.
Molotov doesn't cry, but she does hold that limp little body in her lap, head bent forward over a small shoulder that doesn't move with inhales and exhales anymore. She's never killed a child before, never thought she would. Never bothered to apologize to a corpse before.
"When I get back, I'll make it up to you somehow."
no subject
Then she doesn't fight anymore.
Maybe she could see the logic but that didn't make any difference to the child in the end, who didn't want to die yet another time, who would argue that she could fight and survive still to the end if they just let her go. She'd never go down easy or quick if she could help it, with the promises and expectations of so many combined with her own burning need to keep going. In the end though she just wasn't strong or skilled enough against an opponent of Molotov's calibre.
This is the point where whether Molotov and Tom have been paying attention could make a difference. Right Clementine is a limp, still little body in the Molotov's lap but a broken neck isn't a head wound and if they don't act that might change soon. The infection she carried along with others from her world was never predictable in how long it would take to bring someone back from the dead, eager to sink their teeth into living flesh.
no subject
"She couldn't have asked for a quicker death, given what we have at our disposal," he says. Even that heavy accent fails to liven up the flatness of his tone. He crouches next to Molotov and though he doesn't grieve, he does feel the gravity of the occasion. He doesn't feel uncertainty about what they've done, but sometimes the weight of villainy seems to press down more heavily than others. Killing children that they know is one of those times.
He rankles even harder now at the 'child killer' names that have been attached to him and Molotov, as if he and she enjoyed it. He looks into Clementine's glassy eyes and something in his face goes loose and sorrowful.
no subject
It takes her a moment to clean the girl up, to stroke her hair down and comb it out with gloved fingers. When she's done, Molotov takes the body away from the river to where scraggly flowers are trying to grow in the dirt, tiny and yellow and delicate. She takes Clementine's supplies, because she can hear the body collectors coming, the whirring overhead, and then passes off the pink bow and arrows to Tom.
She kisses his cheek before sprinting and disappearing up a tree, heading away to deal with it, and she doesn't think she needs to tell Tom that she'll be back shortly.
High in a tree, a few hundred yards into the woods, she faces the trunk and presses her face to her knees so that no camera can see the tightness escaping her body, the rawness of whatever bit of her heart or soul was still tender enough to hurt so much from this.
no subject
He can't help but imagine that Clementine is his own little girl, whom he hasn't seen in years now, who won't speak to him anymore specifically because of actions like this.
Back home, or back in the Capitol, at least, they're likely thinking this is all some sort of ruse to rehabilitate their reputation. But the truth is that for a moment Tom honestly can't breathe without his throat tightening, without it hurting on the way in and passive back out like a sigh.
He doesn't rush Molotov. He just waits.
no subject
Her face is dry, but tight, like maybe she shed some tears into the knees of her leggings.
"Do we have any vodka left?" she asks quietly, letting her eye close as she reaches for his hand.
no subject
"We do." He takes her hand, the only part of her that's even a little rough and worn from climbing the trees and cutting up deer hides, and rubs his thumb over the back of it. He wants to apologize for making that call, but he truly believes it was the right one, and besides - anything he says will seem empty and self-serving. So he doesn't.
After a while he gets up, arm still around her. "Let's go drink it. There should be enough to go blind for a short while."
no subject
"Okay."