#me? using too many italics? its more likely than youd fix

[charlieism]

The Horror Of Staying Alive

AU where Owen murders Curt in their final confrontation on that staircase.

Read on AO3!

Excerpt: This is the end result of all Owen's suffering, plotting and patience; this is the ideal outcome; this is the plan gone right. Owen should be celebrating, or fizzing with joy, or at the very least feeling vaguely relieved or successful.

So why does he feel numb, staring at the mess of splayed limbs and the steadily increasing puddle of blood on the floor at the bottom of the stairs?

It's an awfully familiar sight.

--

"Taking your advice," Curt says, and takes a step closer, the barrel of his gun lining up perfectly with the centre of Owen's forehead exactly the way Owen knows he was trained to do. Owen... Owen didn't expect that, actually. For a second he suddenly thinks that perhaps Curt has changed, in those four long, painful, bitter years apart. Owen, it appears, is no longer one step ahead. Curt has taken the lead; his grip is steady on the gun even as his hand trembles, his eyes are staring directly into Owen's as if he's trying to burn their exact shape into his memory (Owen never forgot what Curt's eyes looked like; they haven't changed at all, they're just shining with some unfamiliar emotion now) and Owen barely has time to tense as Curt's fingers tighten on the gun until his knuckles fade to white. Owen prepares himself for the pull of the trigger—for a scarlet flash of blood and brain he won't be alive long enough to see—and keeps his eyes open. He can't bring himself to look away from the American agent. He hates him so much, rage burns like molten rock behind his ribs just at the sight of the man, of the bastard who is responsible for all Owen's pain and suffering and agony these last four years. The scars of old injuries burn and the phantom ache of long-broken bones resurface, just from looking at the person who broke Owen's heart by leaving him equally as broken under that fucking staircase.

Owen thinks there's probably poetry in the fact that their final confrontation is also on a set of stairs. He's probably meant to see it as some grand metaphor, or whatever. Mostly he just hates it. Hates everything. Hates this entire shitty situation. Hates the fact that Curt's about to kill him—is this really how his story ends? He just hates Curt. Hates him more than he's ever hated anything in his soon-to-be-over life. Hates the fact that he can't tear his eyes away from Curt's gaze, even as he hears his shaky inhale, even as the gun trigger practically creaks. Hates the waiting, why the fuck is it taking so long? Owen doesn't want to die, but his brain should've been blown out seconds ago. Curt is hesitating, taking too long to act. Owen knows the other man is four years out of practice, but this is just sloppy.

His eyes flicker down to Curt's grip on the gun of their own accord. It's... shakier, than it was before. Less sure. He looks back up, and Curt's eyes are suddenly brimming with unshed tears.

"Damn it," the American grits out through clenched teeth, and... huh.

It seems that personal history truly does have its benefits.

 Owen's always been the better spy. He sees an opportunity, he snatches it without even having to think about it; that's what MI6 and Chimera have trained him to do. Moments before Curt's resolve can return and his handle on the gun can strengthen, before he can shoot the killing bullet, Owen darts forward. He grapples with the gun, twisting it from Curt's fingers with a cry of pain and shock from the other spy and yanking it towards himself, effortlessly spinning it and levelling it at Curt's head (not his heart, this time. If there was poetry in that one, Owen wants it ripped up, shredded, burned, and never ever read). Owen takes another step back, rising to a higher level than the other spy. There's probably also something metaphorically important there; he couldn't give less of a shit right now. He's too focused on Curt's reaction.

Curt's hand is still outstretched, but he pulls it back to cradle his fingers. He's still staring at Owen, those infuriatingly familiar eyes wide and swirling with emotion. Even after all these years Owen can read him like a book. Curt's surprised, angry, intensely sad (heartbroken, pipes up a little voice in Owen's head that he always ignores), and... something else. Something flat, and tired, and aching.

Acceptance, Owen realises.

Resignation.

"You almost got me, old boy," Owen automatically forces a cocky laugh, trying to recover the situation with blustery bravado and his confident persona. "But, alas, I'm still the better spy."

"You always were," Curt whispers softly, sadly, and— Owen's almost confused. The Curt Mega he knows would never have admitted that.

"Glad to see you finally realise it, at the end of your life," Owen spits. Curt just watches him. Owen frowns, shifts, tightens his grip on the gun. "What, no fancy last words? No last witty retort from the great Agent Curt Mega?" he sneers. He's not— unsettled, he's just... well, the plan is back on track, but the situation was derailed for a moment there and he just needs to get back to grips.

"I kind of already gave my heartfelt speech back there," Curt says, "and it did nothing. And you already got my gun back, so really, what else can I do? How can I convince you to stop?" he asks, and his tone turns pleading, begging. It's satisfying to hear. It's not enough.

"I'll never stop. I'm going to fix this corrupt shithole of a world, and I'm going to start with you." Owen hisses. Curt opens his mouth as if he's about to argue (typical, predictable), but then he just... stops. Closes his mouth. And then closes his eyes.

 Owen doesn't like that at all. It's the first time Curt's broken eye contact since he batted the British man's gun away. Owen doesn't know why but it irks him, tugs something sharp and vicious loose in his chest.

"Don't you get it, you idiot? I'm going to kill you!" he rampages, fury bracing his voice with steel. It works, though, as Curt's eyes flutter open.

Hazel. Tired, gleaming, grieving. Familiar. Owen knows the exact shade, hue, and shape of those old eyes.

"Better you than anybody else," Curt says quietly. Owen is too well-trained to let his grip loosen on the gun; not again. But...

"What?"

"With everything we've been through with one another, with how our history is weaved together... if anyone is going to kill me, Owen, it makes sense that it's you. You're the only person I can see doing it. And I... I don't win here. And it's not okay, but it's. It's how this ends. And it's my fault. And for what it's worth... I'm sorry," Curt says simply, and Owen—

Owen rages. His chest burns with fury, gut roils with disbelief, hand trembles with the amount of pure hatred rushing through his veins. How dare he. How fucking dare he! He's apologising?! After all this time, all this pain, all this— after every 'evil' thing Owen's done, Agent Curt Mega is apologising to him?! Curt Mega is a brash, self-centred brute and he never apologises, because he's never wrong even when he is, so what the hell is this?! Owen can't— Owen hates him.

He hates him, he hates him, he hates him.

Curt is staring at him, but it's not a hopeful look. He doesn't look like he's attempting one last-ditch effort to convince Owen to leave Chimera or, trying to lure him back to Curt's side. No, his gaze is just... wide-eyed and taking Owen in.

Owen is shaking.

This was not a part of the plan.

 Owen has been planning to kill Curt for so long now. He has the final words he'll say to Curt planned out, flowing scripts written in his head, a million options for a million different situations with a million different outcomes. He's learned all his lines over and over, has righteous speeches scratched into his very bones, vicious parting words scorched into what's left of his heart.

And yet, in this moment, he can remember none of them. Points and feelings and words he'd thought had become an essential part of his very being have disappeared, chased out of his head by the man they were planned for himself.

Owen doesn't know what to say, so he pulls the trigger instead.

It means he's watching as Curt's glittering eyes, still staring into his own, lose the vibrancy of life. He sees the spray of crimson blood, white bone, and grey matter explode outwards, watches Curt's corpse tumble backwards and down, rolling and knocking against each step until he's lying at the bottom of the staircase, crumpled and broken and very much dead.

Owen's been waiting four years for this moment. The picture of Curt's death was what he had lived for. His traitor ex-love, his mortal enemy, his arch nemesis, finally beaten and gone. This is the end result of all Owen's suffering, plotting and patience; this is the ideal outcome; this is the plan gone . Owen should be celebrating, or fizzing with joy, or at the very least feeling vaguely relieved or successful.

So why does he feel numb, staring at the mess of splayed limbs and the steadily increasing puddle of blood on the floor below him?

It's an awfully familiar sight.

He rips himself away from the scene and holsters his gun as he stumbles away. He doesn't vomit, but it's a shockingly near thing.

He should finally be happy.

So why does he feel as dead inside as Curt Mega finally truly is?

Chimera wins. They topple the spy agencies, and Owen feels nothing when he should feel elated. He thinks, deep down, that maybe if he gave himself the chance he would feel something, but he's afraid to linger on what those feelings might be. (They'd be the wrong ones.)

Everything is going according to plan, except for Owen.

Curt Mega haunts him, his presence lingering on just as strongly in death as it did in life. Owen can't stop thinking about their final encounter: about how Curt had acted; the things he'd said; the way he'd managed to surprise Owen again and again. There's a horrible, ever-present thought hovering in the furthest back corners of Owen's mind. Had Curt changed? If so, how? What was he truly like, after those four terrible years apart? Owen had thought he was still predictable, and in a way he was, but he'd also seemed... different, somehow.

Owen doesn't like to think too hard about it. He's afraid of the consequences of doing so.

He sees Curt's eyes in his final moments every time his own eyelids slide shut. The way they'd shone and stared and swirled with emotion was imprinted onto Owen's retinas. He tortured himself trying to decipher exactly what Curt had been thinking and feeling in those last moments; he could pick out most of Curt's emotions in those final few minutes, but there had been something strong in his eyes that eluded him, that Owen wasn't able to place. It was frustratingly, painfully, horribly familiar.

(Love, the tiny part of his brain screamed, and Owen screamed hoarsely back at it before boxing it up and forgetting it completely. He refused to think about... he refused.)

Owen followed Curt's lead and began to drink. He drank too much, too often, just because it meant he could forget. Forget that he'd seen Curt Mega die, watched the culmination of all his dreams for four long years come true and have it bring him no joy; forget the way that, despite the numbness, he was still feeling too much. He could forget how he was still hurting. He could forget everything.

In some sick, twisted way, he understands Curt better now.

He wonders what would've happened if Curt had done what he'd been about to and killed Owen right then and there. Wonders what might have happened if neither of them had stuck to the plan, and Curt had arrested Owen instead. He asks Cynthia Houston about it, once they've broken down the United States Secret Service. She spits at him and screams at him and cusses him out; her outrage almost manages to make him feel sad, surprisingly enough. He'd liked her, once.

She names him a traitor and evil and the scum of the earth, and right before he kills her she calls him out for what he did to Curt. Her whip-like tongue cuts into him for all the pain he caused, for how dirty and low-down what he did was, for how long her best agent mourned and ruined himself with grief. That punches through the nothingness encompassing Owen and hurts. It shouldn't, but it does.

Her death brings no satisfaction either.

He shouldn't care about what she says, anyway; she was the head of the United States’ Secret Service, was in control of the entire American spy agency, and Owen knows that the spy agencies are the real enemy.

That makes him wonder, though, on rare occasions, how much of the blame he pinned on the single American spy should've instead been thrown at the spy agencies. If his hate was directed to the wrong target the whole time, if that's why he feels like this. If what he felt had even been hatred.

He drinks so he doesn't have to think like that anymore.

It doesn't work.

Owen Carvour hates Curt Mega. That hatred was his entire existence for four long years, except it wasn't just hatred. Curt had made Owen feel so many different things, bad and good and somewhere in between, for so long that Owen doesn't think the words to describe those experiences even exist.

He hated Curt so violently. He did. But did he really? He was so angry and hurt and betrayed, what else could he have possibly felt towards the other man, after all that had happened?

(Love, the voice cries, and Owen cries with it.)

Owen watches the world burn in a fire his own hands helped spark, and feels tired. He's exhausted, and sad, and can't even dredge up the will to be angry anymore. That anger died with the other spy. After all this time, all this pain, he's been broken.

The realisation that it was Curt goddamn Mega's death that finally broke him is a hideous twist of cosmic irony that makes Owen laugh until he's crying and staring at the bottom of a bottle.

Owen looks at the new, open world; thinks about Curt Mega and their personal history; finally lets himself feel all the conflicted and complicated and strong feelings he has towards the other man; and wonders if Curt would've ever forgiven him.

Then he thinks about the look in Curt's eyes right before Owen shot him and knows, deep in his heart, that the other man already had.

Owen will never see those eyes again, and it's his own fault. He shouldn't crave forgiveness from a man he murdered. He shouldn't hate the world that is the result of his own plans coming to fruition. He shouldn't miss Curt. He should feel good.

But in the end, he just feels heartbroken.

There's probably something symbolic in that; Owen mainly just thinks it's cruel.