#meme: clarissa's reaction to your muse's death

[rebelracket]

💐??

Send 💐 for my muse’s reaction to your muse’s death (accepting)

Since that day, the mood in the base is…strange. And it’s real hard for Clarissa to put a gloved finger on why.

Nobody could say that the Executive’s death had been a shock. A bullet to the skull will do that, you know, and all good field agents know their days are numbered. But was Proton’s death even particularly sad?

Rockets have a particular relationship with death: With the exception of those whose work keeps them deep in the base (they might consider themselves lucky, maybe sneer amongst themselves about being indispensable, but the hard truth is their lengthier lives only shine less brightly), everyone has to make peace with the fragility of their own little life so that it doesn’t get snuffed out prematurely. When death comes to your door, don’t freeze. Be expecting that motherfucker with a wrench behind your back and no regrets in your heart.

You’ll get lucky a couple of times, maybe more, but everyone gets caught out in the end. Death’s just part of the job, so you find your own ways of dealing with the loss of your coworkers and sometimes friends. There’s barely ever longer than five minutes to grieve, so you learn to make your peace quickly. So that the ones you lost don’t drag you down with them.

But it’s only when Clarissa catches the hushed whispers in the corridor that she realises how little she’s heard anyone speak about Proton’s death. After the initial administrative upheaval, work carried on mostly as normal. Mostly. Yet the atmosphere in the base feels heavy. Thick with the unspoken absence of relief from those who once feared Rocket’s most fearsome. She can smell it. The fear of what monsters exist out there that could be bigger than the one that had filled this void.

It’s all stupid.

Sometimes just pouring out a drink with your thoughts doesn’t feel like enough. …Hence this haphazard little shrine set up on the roof, which Clarissa currently stands over with a bunch of battered flowers grasped uncertainly in her hand. A trip to the junk store had yielded some cheap-ass candles that don’t want to stay lit. They surround a printout of Proton’s file photo, its cold, flat eyes staring out somewhat unnervingly from off of the paper. She’s surprised to see someone else has already come here while she’s been gone and laid flowers of their own (of course she hadn’t told anyone about this embarrassing project), so she sets hers down among them and sets about bringing some life back into the ring of candles.

“Yeah, yeah. I already know you think this is a retarded idea. So don’t fucking tell me.” She speaks as easily as if she thinks the photo can actually hear her as she waves her lighter over a particularly stubborn tealight. “I didn’t know what to else to do, though…”

She doesn’t really know why any of this seemed like a good idea. She doesn’t even really know what this man was to her, not really. Somewhere between a mentor and a friend and a complete stranger, and yet…

She misses him.

She sits and watches the flames a while longer before her pager buzzes. She heads back to work.

[rebelracket]

💐. slaughter me.

Send 💐 for my muse’s reaction to your muse’s death (accepting)

The path back to her room is like picking her way through a war zone. There are grunts wailing on the stairs, blocking her path to the upper floor—they don’t seem to notice or care as Clarissa steps right over them. Their pain is static to her ears, and when she reaches her door and shuts it she clicks the lock behind her. The outpouring of grief suffocates down to a muffle. Still audible.

She braces her hand against the wood and leans into it heavily, the fingertips of the hand that locked the door still lingering at the metal. She’s cold all over, and in the privacy of her borrowed space, her shoulders start to shake. Plumeria, no.

Her knees give out first, then her heart. She can’t pinpoint the moment she ended up on the floor, but away from the wet, pleading eyes of the rest of the Team Skull, her shell starts to crack. The shudder in her grows and takes hold of her entire body as big, fat tears start splashing onto her jeans as she gasps and chokes. She’s hyperventilating too hard to scream. Plumeria— No, no, no, NO.

She’s losing everything again. She let herself be vulnerable, cracked her ribcage open to dig out her demons, because of Plumeria. She opened herself up and her bloody, beating insides were struck with a dagger. How could you do this to me? How could I let you do this to me?

Habit draws her hand to the half-empty bottle of cheap vodka lying on its side beneath the bed. Clarissa pulls it toward her, tilting it in her grasp and watching its contents swirl before she slams it into the adjacent wall.

She doesn’t know how long has passed when she comes to surrounded by broken glass, the inside of her throat in shreds, her cheeks taut with dried tear-tracks. As she lies there in silence, her mind slowly unfurls itself and attempts to start picking through the pieces. There would be funeral arrangements to make. Somebody had to know Plumeria’s favourite flowers, the records in her room would make a good place to start picking the music. Then there are the obligations Plumeria had filled as caretaker to the residents here…

She could run. She could climb straight out the window and disappear. Instead she presses herself to her feet, pads a little unsteadily into her en suite and runs her face under the cold water. She grabs her jacket, dons her snapback, and steps out into her home.

[rebelracket]

💐 (for Jared, I honestly don't know what to expect from this)

Send 💐 for my muse’s reaction to your muse’s death (accepting)

And another one bites the dust.

Twin bottles of beer hang heavily between Clarissa’s fingers, the jaggedy metal edges of the caps digging into her skin as she ascends the steps up to the roof. It’s only 10am, but death isn’t kind enough to wait til happy hour.

The update to her pager had been so god damn dry. Name, ID, Rank. Deceased. She hops up onto the ledge, swinging her feet over so that she can look out across the city. She believes the Boss when he promises her they’ll have dominion over this place one day. Shame there’ll be one fewer of their own here to see it.

This one hits her between the ribs in a way she hadn’t expected. (If she had expected it at all. Her spouting off about how the reckless son of a bitch was “gonna get himself killed one day” weren’t exactly meant to be sage prophecies or what-not). Why…? They were never the best of buds. Maybe, because…they were ever together at all.

It feels so alien. Not being adjacent to the dead, but above them. The grunts, they put their heads together, and they cross themselves, they make their tearful speeches over rounds after hours, and hope they’re not next. That’s not her world anymore, and sitting on this roof she finds her head swilling with new and frightening questions that hit her like vertigo: is this on her? Could she have done more? Did she and/or her fellow agents fail him in some way?

Questions only waiting-and-seeing can answer. Damn it. There’ll be an inquest, however shallow, but until then…

She cracks the caps off each bottle with her teeth and takes a heavy swig. This is same ritual she’s had ever since she was a new recruit, staring down death for the first time. Rockets never die, though, not really. Holding out the one of the two bottles that’s still full, she pours its contents out over the seat next to her. Jared never did respect her as an agent, did he. But that’s why she knows she can’t let herself just forget about his death. Like crap she will.

There’s still work to do. She still needs to brief her squad. Maybe after she’ll check in on the brother Jared is survived by. Alex, or something like it. The empty bottles are left side by side on the roof as Clarissa hurries back down the stairs. Duty calls.

See you again sometime.