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When Descole left the Triton house at 7:50, the house was still as could be. The lights were off, no one was downstairs. Just as it should be, considering the hour. The Triton child had gone to bed early, as usual, and he’d dismissed Beth after she set up for dinner. Everything was just as he’d left it.
Triton had attempted to get back to work after dinner, but Descole was quick to shut that down. It wouldn’t do for him to get burnt out more than he was, and it wasn’t as if he was behind on his work. Triton tried to argue with him, but quickly acquiesced and headed upstairs at quarter to 8.
Descole had finished cleaning up, and headed back to the place where he was staying with Raymond. He had his own work to do, of course, and even if Raymond protested, there were matters that simply couldn’t be put off. He was on sabbatical for research, so research he must do.
The bell chimed at half past eight. Someone was up. Descole ignored it, thinking it was most likely someone heading to the bathroom. No matter. He absorbed himself in his work again. The bell system was rigged to notify him on the movement within the Triton house. Even if he wasn’t near, he needed a way to ensure that the house was on lockdown. He couldn’t risk the mayor attempting to release Descole’s hostages, after all.
One of the first floor bells chimes. Descole mentally notes that it’s not the bell for the balcony or front door, then returns to work.
He’s not sure how much time passes before he realizes the bells haven’t rung again. Whoever left their room was still up. Furrowing his brow, Descole stands and moves to the bell system to check the log. There’s a bell for each room attached to the doors, and the pitch varies depending on the room. The frequency is recorded on a graph, which also notes the time, and displays which bell was rung.
Descole hums as he flips the page to check locations. At 8:30, there was a chime from Clark’s door. About a minute later, the bell to the cellar rang.
It’s been half an hour since then.
Triton wasn’t stupid enough to attempt breaking out his wife and butler, was he?
Nonetheless, Desmond slips on the mask, boa, and cloak, then heads into the streets. He’s intent on finding out just what the man had planned. Considering that the brat was usually sound asleep by this time, he doesn’t feel the need to get into disguise. Since Triton installed the curfew, there’d never anyone in the streets anyways, and the darkness of his cloak should disguise the rest within the mist.
The lights are off as he approaches, taking in the manor. With a huff, he hops through the parlor window, tapping down onto the rug softly and keeping his head up.
No noise. And the lights are off barring the sliver coming from under the blue door to the cellar.
“Triton,” he calls as he makes his way down the wooden steps, “what do you think you’re doing?”
There’s no response.
He’s not sure what he’s expecting as he gets to the bottom, but it’s sure as hell not Clark laying face down on the floor. There’s a bottle spilled next to him, as if he’d knocked it over and simply hadn’t bothered to pick it up.
“Triton.” Admittedly, Descole’s heart sped up as he quickens his pace.
He better not be dead.
As his shoes hit tile, he pauses to watch. The man was breathing, at least.
“Triton,” he approaches, and nudges Clark’s face with his foot. The man groans.
With a sigh, he squats, taking a closer look. What the hell even happened? Descole looks carefully at the flushed face of the man on the ground. His eyes are glassy, and he’s clearly trying his best to look back at him properly,
“Are you drunk?”
Triton just makes a vague whiny noise and tries to look away. Descole grabs his chin to stop him,
“You are!” He can’t help but chuckle in disbelief, “You’re drunk!”
“‘M not,” even his speech is slurred as he tries to bat away Descole’s hand from his face, “I’m just…” He hiccups and tries to roll onto his back.
Descole stands up and backs away a few steps. He can’t believe this. Clark really snuck down to the wine cellar to get drunk. All that worry for nothing! And what would it even matter if he’d simply let the man be?
Descole should be going upstairs right now. This is not his problem. He should be going back home and leaving this fool to wallow in his self pity.
But Clark is trying so pathetically to sit up that it’s more amusing than irritating.
“Where’s the…” Clark mumbles to himself while he moves, clearly nauseous. He’s getting his suit all dusty with his squirming. Descole watches silently, then,
“What are you even looking for?” He feels his irritation spike when Clark just continues to look like a lost puppy, rubbing his face and squinting. Descole hates being ignored, it’s probably the one thing that pisses him off the most, “Triton.”
“Mmh…?” The man turns to look at him, as if he’s totally forgotten that Descole was even there.
“What are you looking for?” He repeats himself, albeit this time, he’s less confused and more agitated. Who the hell does Clark think he is, anyway?
“The… the champagne,” the man mumbles, “I don’t remember where I put it.”
Descole scoffs, “if you’re drunk enough to not know, it’s probably for the best,” it’s said a bit sarcastically, as the bottle is only a few feet away.
“No,” Clark says strongly, squinting at him, “it’s important.”
“Oh yeah?” He resists rolling his eyes, knowing that the mayor couldn’t see it anyway, “and why’s that?”
“It’s for the anniversary.”
Descole blinks once, twice, “what?”
“It’s the champagne for our anniversary,” Clark slurs, and then hums when he spots it on the floor a feet away.
He’s surely out of his mind. Anniversary? What anniversary? The mayor is drunk and talking nonsense, but he can’t trust him to be alone in a cellar. With Descole’s luck, Triton will be stupid enough to open another bottle and give himself alcohol poisoning. Descole sighs, not exactly wanting to, but knowing he has to stop the idiot from getting himself killed. The scientist approaches the other man again, hooks his arms under Triton’s armpits, and lugs the man up.
The mayor was practically deadweight, and the minimal struggling he’s doing isn’t helping Descole carry him at all.
“Stop fighting me,” he hisses, “I’m trying to get you to bed, you fool.”
But Triton just continues to whine, so Descole lets him drop to the floor unceremoniously. For being so skinny, he was heavier than he looked. It wasn’t even that Descole was unfit, but rather that trying to get a very tall, very intoxicated man to his feet was difficult work.
The blue-suited man makes an unceremonious ‘oomf’ as he’s dropped on his ass, and squints up at Descole like he’s betrayed him. The scientist just smirks. He had it coming. If Triton doesn't want to be carried off to bed like a princess, he can sit on his ass in the basement all night.
“What was that for?”
“I told you to stop fighting.”
The man groans, and reaches for the discarded bottle. In doing so, he swipes his sleeve across the spilled champagne, to which he then seems to give up. It’s just out of reach anyways, but Clark doesn’t seem to have the coherency to think about moving just a few more inches. The mayor looks up at him, then his eyes drift around the room. He seems to have given up on his quest for liver failure.
Then his eyes fix on some crates behind Descole. Despite himself, he turns to see what has captured the intoxicated man’s attention of all things.
Another bottle of expensive looking champagne, and peeking out slightly behind is a bottle of pain medication. It’s half empty. Descole’s blood runs cold, and he drops to his knees next to Clark,
“You idiot,” he starts checking the man’s vital signs despite his protest, “You really must have no lights on upstairs. Do you even think at all? What about your son? What about your wife? How stupid can you be, to attempt something so- so-”
Descole is so agitated he can’t even think of another way to call the mayor foolish as he hovers over him.
The intoxicated man makes unintelligible whines and fights as Descole tries to check his glassy eyes. With a huff, he pins Clark’s wrist down so he stops pushing him away.
“Get off,” Clark whines,
“How many?”
Descole presses two fingers to the man’s neck next. His heart rate is elevated, though that could be due to stress. Triton tries to flail and kick at him, so Descole goes for the next best option, which is sitting on top of him.
Perhaps it’s childish for him to act in this manner, sitting on top of a drunk man, but Descole needs him to be still. Activity will increase his heart rate, and that will increase blood flow, which is not what he needs. Descole doesn’t know how bad the situation is yet, and whether or not he needs a hospital, but he’s making a judgement call.
It would be much easier if he stopped squirming like a hyperactive child.
“Answer me!” Descole grabs Triton’s jaw again, “how many did you take?”
“Huh?” Is the only response he gets.
“The pills. How many.” Descole grits his teeth. The mayor isn’t displaying any signs of overdose, so it must have been recent. Perhaps simply making the man throw up would do the trick.
Triton tries to pry his face away from Descole’s hand, but he just tightens his grip, “lemme go!”
“Not until you tell me.”
“I didn’t take any!”
“Then what are the pills doing next to the bottle? I know you’ve been drinking. And don’t you dare lie to me.”
“Was just gonna… I thought maybe…”
He pats Clark’s cheek harshly a few times, “speak up.”
“It was for later.” The man finally spits out, and Descole reiterates,
“So you haven’t taken anything?”
Triton weakly shakes his head, and Descole releases him, getting to his feet and pacing a circle around the cellar. A growl rises in his throat.
How dare that man even think of committing suicide? How dare he make Descole, Jean Descole, worry about him?
“What were you even thinking?” He doesn’t care that he’s shouting anymore, just turns on his heel and stalks the perimeter of the room. If he gets any closer to Triton he’s not sure he could refrain from wringing the man’s throat for this.
“Anniversary.” Is all Triton mumbles, pushing himself to sit up again.
“You keep saying that. What anniversary?” He’s getting tired of whatever little game the other man is playing.
“Wedding.”
Oh. Oh.
Clark ends up just laying back down, probably too nauseous and uncoordinated to sit up properly without support. Just how much did he drink?
Triton adds, “we got it a while ago. Before you were here. Brenda bought it for our anniversary.”
“And you decided to honor it by getting shit faced?”
The man just groans, “I’m as close to her as I can be, and I’m celebrating. Leave me alone.”
“Not happening.” Descole sits on the crate next to the one with the alcohol, and picks up the pill bottle.
It belongs to Triton’s wife, presumably for her migraines. The dosage is high, so if Triton really had taken any it wouldn’t be good.
And he was surely planning on it. Descole pushes away thoughts of similar experiences. He cannot feel empathy for Clark Triton. He refuses.
“Were you planning on taking any?” He can’t help but ask. But of course, Triton just makes a confused noise, so he rattles the little orange bottle.
“Oh. I dunno.”
“You ‘dunno’?”
“If it got bad tonight, yeah.”
This is troubling. Before tonight, he hadn’t quite considered the man’s mental state. He was well aware that Triton was afraid of him, and that he had some problems with anxiety.
Actually, ‘Some problems’ is an understatement. Triton was practically like a stray puppy, in all the ways that mattered. He seemed to want company, but could never be comfortable with other people. The man had just a little bit of fight in him, enough to snark back and threaten him back, but would quickly retreat. He seemed on the verge of a panic attack whenever Descole entered the room, and Descole was loathe to admit that he felt bad when he tipped Clark into spiraling. It wasn’t that he enjoyed making people terrified of him, but it was typically amusing to know he had such power over other people. Clark doesn’t make it fun. He makes it rather sad, actually.
Triton always flinched when Descole moved too quickly, though Descole had never hit him. To his knowledge, Clark had endured no physical abuse. Perhaps a product of his childhood?
And, like a dog, the mayor of Misthallery laying on the floor.
“Are you going to fight me if try and get you to bed again?”
Clark just mumbles. Of course.
Descole stands, setting the pills back down. Perhaps he’ll hide them to ensure nothing like this happens again.
He hadn’t considered that the man could be suicidal.
A stupid mistake, considering what happened with Barde. Anyone pushed too far could snap, and he’d been pushing Triton very hard. Perhaps he should give him a break? He’ll probably be hungover in the morning, and he’s been working nonstop for a few months now. Clark rarely takes breaks, even without Descole’s interference, but it’s most likely that the man is too intimidated to ask for time off.
There was an incident where his brat had gotten sick, but other than that, the mayor spent most of his time in the study.
Descole watches silently for a moment. He hates that he can understand where Clark is coming from. In theory, they should be too far apart for Descole to feel empathy for him. He should be able to keep his feelings disconnected.
But he knows what it’s like. He knows why Raymond kept a close eye on him when it was nearing the anniversary of his own family’s deaths.
Making his decision, he kneels next to Clark and helps the man up and to his feet. He’s more or less out of it by now, and doesn’t put up much struggle.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
He’d have to thank Raymond later, he thinks as he tries to maneuver the drunk man around. He’s not sure how Raymond deals with him when he’s had too much to drink, especially if he’s as half as annoying as Clark is now.
They’re in a weird half-hug, as Descole tries to support the man and Clark is half grabbing at his cloak, face planted in his boa. Clark would be taller, if he was standing up straight, and if Descole wasn’t wearing heeled shoes, but Clark is slumped into him.
“You smell fruity.”
“What?”
“I expected you to smell like… death or something.” Clark slurs, “but you smell sweet.”
Descole’s nose wrinkles as he can smell the champagne on the other man. He hopes Clark isn’t drooling on the feathers. The mayor is far too close for comfort, close enough to where he can feel the drunk man’s breath on his face as he leans into Descole’s shoulder.
“Be quiet, Triton. You’re lucky I haven’t decided to leave you down here to wallow in your self pity.” There’s surprisingly little bite in his words. Descole realizes uncomfortably that he’s not entirely opposed to being this close to the other man. It’s been a long time since he’s received this sort of touch. Raymond hugs him occasionally, but that’s only when Desmond gets drunk and sentimental and bawls like a child about all the bad things in his life.
But Descole isn’t one for affectionate touch. He’s built to hurt, to maim and destroy and be hurt where Desmond can’t. He’s made to take pain and give it out where a soft-hearted Sycamore cannot.
Clark shifts, and Descole’s hands move to his back to hold him. He’s hugging Clark Triton. Jean Descole is stood in the cellar above where he has kidnapped two people, holding a man that he’s been threatening. He’s hugging a very drunk man that just recognized the scent of his cologne. He’s hugging a man whose wife is below their feet. He’s hugging a man who contemplated ending his life tonight.
Jean Descole is hugging Clark Triton. And he doesn’t hate it.
What has his life come to?
“You don’t get it,” the man mumbles, “you don’t understand. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t do this anymore.”
And then Clark sniffles. Oh god. What is Descole meant to do if he starts crying?
But it’s too late, and the drunk man is grabbing his cloak like a lifeline while sobbing into his boa.
Oh god. He’s one of those drunk people. Descole is not the right person to be comforting someone, much less someone as fragile as Clark Triton.
What is he even meant to say to that? My condolences for kidnapping your wife? God, anything he does will make him look like a massive asshole.
“I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m so tired.”
“I know.”
Descole starts shuffling them towards the stairs. Hopefully Clark has the coordination to use them, because he does not want to have to carry him. It would be humiliating for the both of them, even if there’s a good chance that Clark won’t remember this in the morning.
“I miss Brenda.” He whines, and his grip tightens on Descole’s cloak. The poor man is shaking.
“I know.”
As Descole attempts to get the drunk man to walk up the stairs, he begins to struggle again, “wait, I don’t wanna… I want Brenda.”
He lets go of Descole’s cape to reach out towards the room, as if his wife would magically appear.
“No. You’re going to bed.”
This simply causes the man to cry more, and Descole winces.
“You’ll wake Luke up. Shush.” That’s probably the worst case scenario here. The Triton brat is far too smart for his own good, and Descole wouldn’t have an explanation ready if he comes downstairs to see his father drunk off his ass getting hauled up the stairs by a stranger.
“I don’t care. He hates me anyways. It’s not like I had any respect to lose.”
Descole tunes the man out as he gets rambling. It’s some self pitying woe-is-me type talking, and he’s not entirely sure if this is a reveal of something he’s kept bottled up, or if it’s just regular drunk talk.
After another few minutes of Descole’s awkward maneuvering, they’ve gotten to the halfway point. All that work and effort, and they’re only halfway to the main floor.
“You don’t get it.” He tunes back in as Clark tries to pull away from him, “you don’t know what it’s like to be a father.”
“That’s enough,” Descole hisses.
“What?” Clark bats at him, trying to get Descole’s hands off of him, but he just tightens his grip. The idiot would probably trip and crack his head on the floor.
“You don’t get to talk to me about family. You know nothing about me.” His voice is low and probably threatening, but Clark is far too intoxicated to be intimidated the way he usually is.
“It’s true, though. You’re not a father,” he laughs, “if you were, you wouldn’t be doing anything like this. No one with a family would do this.”
Somehow the man has missed the mark and hit the nail on the head at the same time. He’s not a father. Not anymore.
But he used to be. He knows the woes of parenthood. He’s been there.
How dare he? How dare Clark Triton say such a thing to him? Doesn’t he know what position they’re in? Descole has all the power. Descole holds the life of the mayor’s family in his hands, and yet Triton has the audacity to say such a thing to him?
Before he recognizes what he’s doing, he’s pushed Clark away from him. With a yelp, he tumbles back and back down the stairs.
How dare he? Descole stalks down and leans over the man, grabbing his tie and yanking him up so they’re face to face.
The mayor is wide eyed, face still streaked with drying tears and flushed from intoxication.
He doesn’t look nearly as scared as he should be.
“You don’t know a damn thing about me, Triton. And I wouldn’t act so casually.” Descole leans in, till their faces are just a few inches apart, “after all, you know very well what I’m capable of.”
He wishes he brought his sword. That would surely knock some sense into the fool. Instead, he lets the man go, his head thunking on the tile.
“‘M sorry,” the mayor babbles, finally starting to seem afraid.
“Not good enough.”
He stands, and simply watches as Clark gets more and more worked up. Clark’s eyes are wide and not quite focused, and his chest is moving faster, “I’m sorry. Please, I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t- I’m sorry.”
There he is. There’s the Clark that Descole is used to. A sniveling little fool. A lapdog and nothing more.
“I should leave you here. You’re pathetic, Triton.” Descole is mostly just saying what comes to mind now, without any real filter. He’s far too aggravated to think about the consequences of pushing the mayor like this, “I should have let you drink yourself to death tonight. Or maybe take those pills, hm? I’m sure everyone would be better off.”
“You’re right. You’re right, I’m sorry.” Triton covers his face with his hands, breath hitching and he curls in on himself a little, “I should- I don’t- I don’t deserve to live, I’m sorry.”
“Take a long walk off a short cliff, like your little friend Barde.” He hisses, before stomping up the stairs. He doesn’t care that he slams the little blue door, and that Triton’s wife’s flowers crunch under his feet as he hops back out the window.
Descole doesn’t care. His fists are clenched enough to hurt as he stalks away from the house, fuming. The thoughts in his head are a wild spiral and rage that all come down to cursing Triton and his entire bloodline for his transgressions. Is it perhaps a little much? Yes, but Descole doesn’t give a damn.
When he returns to the house, Raymond is waiting in the dark hall,
“Good evening, master. I trust all is well?”
“Hardly,” Descole scoffs. His hands are still shaking too badly to get his cape off, so he fumbles with it. Raymond watches silently, so he puts his hands down and begins to pace, trying to work off his agitation. There’s not much he can do in this state.
“If I may inquire…”
“No. You may not.”
“Very well.”
And his butler acquiesces, like he always does, and watches Descole stew in his anger.
Eventually it’s too much to keep bottled in, “Who does he think he is, anyway? ‘You don’t know how hard it is to be a father’- what bullshit!” His hands itch to throw something, but he refrains for now, knowing it’s a mess one of them will have to clean up later.
He continues, “What a fool! Who on earth would bring down pills when they’re planning on drinking! It’s a logical assumption for a man to assume that theyre going to commit. And for him to act as if I’m the crazy one for trying to keep him alive? What rubbish! Well, he can go die for all I care!”
He turns to shout at Raymond, “I don’t need him! I don’t need anyone!”
His butler regards him silently, then speaks quietly, “you’re bleeding.”
His chest heaves as he looks down at his hand, and the blood coming from his hands. Typically his nails were on the shorter side, but they’ve grown long enough that they punctured his skin with how hard he was balling his fists.
Descole hadn’t realized. When he looks back up, Raymond is already returning with a first aid kid.
He bites back a few colorful words when Raymond wipes down his hands with the antiseptic, and tries his best to calm down. Raymond quietly wraps a bandage around both of his palms, though Descole insists it isn’t necessary. It wasn’t deep, and it’s not like he hasn’t done it before. But Raymond insists, like he always does, that any injury he sustains must be dealt with properly.
Descole sits in silence afterwards, looking at the blood under his fingernails.
“May I get some context now?”
Right. Raymond probably deserves it after what he’s putting up with. Descole clears his voice, now a bit embarrassed about his outburst,
“Triton decided it was a good idea to drink half a bottle of champagne alone in the cellar.”
“And how does that relate to…” Raymond gestures at Descole with a raised eyebrow, “this.”
“He had his wife’s pill bottle, but hadn’t taken any- no matter. Either way, I tried getting him to bed, he said some things, so I left him there.”
He waters it down, because the more he looks at the situation, the more it looks like he’s the bad guy here.
“That’s not all, is it? He said something to you.”
“He said that I didn’t know how hard it was to be a father,” Descole says quietly. He turns his face away, not wanting to see his butler’s expression.
“Oh, Descole…”
“Don’t pity me. I don’t want it.”
“…Yes, sir. If I may ask, what was your reply to that? You know he doesn’t know.”
How to put it? He wasn’t going to tell the man that he pushed Triton down the stairs, threatened him, then told him to essentially off himself.
Holy shit.
A small sound rings in the silence. A bell.
“Shit.”
Descole stands and heads to the study, Raymond close behind. Almost frantically, he checks the log.
Sure enough, a minute ago there was a bell from the cellar, and just now, one from the front door.
He couldn’t seriously be taking Descole’s words to heart, could he? His heart drops to his stomach as he runs to the door,
“I’ll be back. Not sure when.”
Then he slams the door and runs through the foggy streets.
He’s shown suicidal inclinations tonight, and Descole has left him alone in a cellar full of alcohol. Triton’s last words were that he didn’t deserve to live. He had a pill bottle with him.
But Descole needs him alive. He needs it for the specter, for the archaeological knowledge of this town. And deeper down, if Descole were to examine it, he doesn’t want Clark to kill himself. He doesn’t want to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. He can’t afford to relive the Barde situation again.
Descole doesn’t want to have two families of children abandoned because of him. He can’t do it.
So he’s running like a bat out of hell trying to find a probably suicidal drunk man. He passes the crossroads, and spots someone on the bridge. Descole slows and tries to take some deep breaths. Even if Clark were to jump from the bridge, the worst is that he’d sprain an ankle jumping in the canal.
As he’d hoped, it’s Clark Triton. He was too drunk to make it very far, so he’s curled into a ball against the railing. His form is shaking, in a mixture of heaving breaths and sobs.
“…Clark.” Descole calls quietly, trying not to scare the man. Upon being given no response, he approaches, and kneels by the mayor’s side. It’s definitely a panic attack. Descole rarely pushes Clark over the edge, but unfortunately it’s relatively common for the poor man.
“I’m sorry,” Clark gasps out, and Descole shushes him.
“Shhh, just breathe.” He wants to try something. And it might work, and it might just make him spiral harder, but it tends to work for him and Raymond.
The mayor flinches when Descole’s hand comes near, and he hesitates, before ultimately deciding to grab his hand.
“Please don’t- don’t hurt me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
Descole is not built for comfort. His words are for manipulation, for destruction and ruin beyond repair. His hands are for wielding swords and machinery.
He’s not meant to speak so softly. He’s not meant to be taking Clark’s hand in his and guiding it to his chest.
This is Desmond’s job. Descole is a broken husk of a man. He’s not meant to feel such fickle things like empathy. It gets in the way of his goals. He cannot afford to lose sight of them.
But Clark can and will pass out if Descole doesn’t calm him.
Clark’s hand rests on his chest, and Descole takes deep, exaggerated breaths, trying to get Clark to follow him. He counts quietly until the mayor has regained some rhythm to his breathing, and then lets him go.
“There you are.”
“I’m sorry.” Clark mumbles, “I didn’t mean to offend you earlier. You were right.”
Descole really, really doesn’t want to admit that he was wrong. A product of his pride, perhaps, but one that he struggles to overcome nonetheless.
The poor man continues to ramble, “and you were right. I should just die. I’m useless- and- and-”
“Be quiet.”
Clark shuts his mouth with a flinch. Perhaps he came off a bit more aggressively than he meant to.
“I’m… You’re fine. But I don’t want to hear you talk like that about yourself. It’s not true.”
Clark still shivers intermittently, and hasn’t unfurled from his balled up position.
“Are you cold?”
“What?”
“You’re shaking. Are you cold?” If he was honest, Descole was trying to change the subject quickly. It’s oddly feeling as if his facade is shattering, that there’s some sense of vulnerability to him right now, and he can’t do that.
The mayor shrugs, but Descole takes off his cape, and tucks it around Clark’s shoulders anyway.
“We’re going inside. You’ll catch your death out here.”
It’s not really that cold, but being outside without his disguise for long periods isn’t a good idea.
For hopefully the final time, Descole helps Clark to his feet. The man grabs at his shoulders to steady himself, and that reveals a certain rattling from his fist.
So that’s it then. Clark really was planning on killing himself out here. And Descole isn’t foolish enough to believe it isn’t his fault. A weight settles in his chest, something sentimental and guilty. Descole very much will not be thinking about that ever, thank you very much.
Clark is much more compliant this time, following Descole back into the house and up the stairs.
Descole absolutely refuses to undress the man, and Clark seems to just want to collapse into his bed, but he wrestles the archeologist out of his blazer, anyway. The champagne is still drying on his sleeve, and will most likely stain, but Descole honestly couldn’t care less right now. He nudges the man into bed and tugs off his shoes, throwing them on the floor.
It’s late, he’s had a rather exhausting rollercoaster of unprocessed emotions, and Clark still won’t let go of the bottle. Or Descole’s cape, for that matter.
“Give me the bottle.” He holds his hand out for the pills, hoping this will go easily.
But like everything in Descole’s life, it doesn’t. Clark shakes his head and pulls the cape tighter, curling up in the bed and using it like a blanket.
Descole huffs. He’s too exhausted to be irritated right now. There’s still champagne to be cleaned up in the cellar, though at this point he’ll just clean it tomorrow. No one will be down there to see it.
“Don’t make me wrestle it from you. You’re not two. Just give me the damn pills and go to bed.”
“What if I need it?”
“You don’t. There’s no reason you need it, now or ever. They’re not yours, and you aren’t going to kill yourself. You don’t need them.”
His grip is relatively loose on them, so Descole just grabs them from Clark’s fist, ignoring the drunk protests.
“Go to sleep, Triton. You’re going to have a hell of a headache in the morning.”
For the first time, Clark just obeys, rolling over and shutting his eyes. Well that was easy.
So Descole reaches over the man, intent on grabbing his cloak and getting far far away from here. He hums, trying to retrieve the end from where it’s stuck under Clark’s shoulder.
His focus is so intent that he doesn’t see Clark’s hand until his mask is shifting away from his face.
By the time he grabs the drunk man’s wrist, the damage is done. His face is bare, and Clark is staring owlishly at the face of Desmond Sycamore.
“Oh.”
Descole snatches the mask and cape back and turns away, heart hammering as he settles the white mask over his eyes.
Fuck. Fuck.
As he’s readjusting the cloak, there’s a whisper, “Do I know you?”
“No,” Descole lies.
There’s a chance that Clark doesn’t know who Desmond is, despite being an archaeologist. However, that’s pretty slim.
Not to brag, but Desmond Sycamore is world renowned.
“Okay.”
He hears a shuffle, most likely Triton adjusting in bed.
“Goodnight, Triton.”
“G’night.”
He steps outside, shuts the door, and whispers almost inaudibly, “I’m sorry.”