[log] Acceptable reasons for murder [closed]

[ecks]

Characters: Ecks, Mycroft, Dorian, and Kid
Location: Building 126
Date: late night 293/early morning 294
Summary: Ecks commits a murder in Doctor House's name again.
Warnings: Character injury and death

[126: A mostly ruined house--at first it looks as if it won't provide any shelter, but a closer inspection reveals a musty bedroom still seals up properly. There's a mattress to sleep on, but decorations are sparse. "ALPHONSE ELRIC, DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE, TRAVELLING WEST. IF ANY ASSISTANCE IS NEEDED CONTACT @LELRIC ANY TIME" is carved into the wall. "ALPHONSE ELRIC, DAY ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FOUR, CONTACT @LELRIC FOR ANY ASSISTANCE" is written on the wall. "ALPHONSE ELRIC, DAY ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY SEVEN, CONTACT @LELRIC FOR ANY ASSISTANCE" is written on the wall. "ALFIE SOLOMONS, 1922. Camden Town, London, England, UK, Europe, Earth. Day 184, March 14 or March 15" is carved on the wall.]

Comments

for Mycroft

[ecks]

On some level, Ecks is finally beginning to understand that defending Doctor House from injury and death is a losing proposition. And, too, she has learned that revenge does not bring satisfaction and she has decided that punishing others is not an acceptable reason for murdering them.

It is not revenge, though, that brings her creeping up on Mycroft in the dark, hatchet in hand. She's deathly quiet, moving confidently in the dark the way she did when once upon a time she did much the same to Royce as she plans to do to Mycroft now. This time, though, she hopes to prevent a murder rather than avenge one. She is capable of reading between the lines, and she knows full well that one does not need to kill with one's own hands to be responsible for a murder. She does not know who Mycroft Holmes may have sent to murder Doctor House, but if both he and she are very fortunate she might convince him to send a counter-order. She has nothing against Mycroft, save for what she believes he has done this night, but Doctor House is important to her and the life of someone who would choose to murder him is less so.

The light of his tablet still illuminates his sleeping face as Ecks settles in quite close beside him. A swift, assured movement places the blade of her weapon against his throat as the stump of her other forearm braces against his chest, ready to strike hard at his diaphragm with her elbow if it seems as though he is going to try to shout.

"Remain quiet." Her monotone is as steady as ever. "I am going to ask you several questions and I will hurt you if you do not cooperate."

[holmesice]

It's certainly a terrible way to wake up. He stirs, slightly, exhausted from the emotional fallout of the day's earlier events, he didn't even realize he'd fallen asleep over his tablet. However, the sensation of cold metal against his throat and Ecks' monotone voice, her forearm against his chest, wakes him up faster than being doused with icewater.

What was the meaning of this!?

His eyes are wide, calculating his options. If he yells right now--she was close enough and fast enough to injure and possibly kill him, and despite the size of the room they were in, there was no way anyone could be fast enough to prevent that.

Blast.

What was her reasoning? This was not a robbery or a random act of violence--it was too late or too early for a proper robbery, and if she wanted to randomly harm him she could have done so already.

Was this because of his comments to--ah. He didn't hit private, after all.

He tried to keep his face impassive, but it was clear from the furrowing of his brows that he was, in fact, anything but.

A careful nod.

[ecks]

She nods back. She does not glance at where the others are sleeping, though she is listening carefully for a change in the cadence of their breathing.

It will not do to act without verifying the facts and attempting to remedy the situation without unneeded violence. She watches his face carefully; she's not always very good at interpreting subtle facial expressions, but she has a mental catalog of typical responses against which she is constantly assessing what she sees. As she speaks, her voice remains as low as it first was, the blade still as steady.

"Was Doctor House's assumption that you plan to send someone to murder him a correct assumption?"

[holmesice]

Right.

Well, all things considered, he could easily lie, then try to ditch her in the upcoming hours. Whether that would be successful, he could not say.

He shakes his head slightly 'no', trying to keep his face perfectly impassive. Lying was his life, but there's the ever-so-slight nervous flick of his eyes towards the sleeping others.

Also his tablet was open to this message right next to his face.

Mycroft was hoping that Ecks was too stupid to bother looking down at his tablet. She was useful, of course, but she was just as much a goldfish as anyone else.

[ecks]

Ecks pauses where she is, surprised by his answer. She just sort of freezes in place, blinking at him a couple times as she processes. She can see that he is afraid but interprets his glance to mean that he is thinking of waking the others. Though even that simple lie is enough to make her doubt her purpose, his frightened glance is also enough to make her shift her weight in warning, bony elbow digging in at the base of his ribcage.

"If you are telling the truth --" she begins to say, about to reassure him despite her body language that he should have nothing to fear if he is innocent. The shift in position, though, has her squinting against the light of his tablet, and her irritated squint in its direction ends in another full-body freeze as she stares at the words on the screen.

The Joker. This close, Mycroft will feel the tremble of fear that doesn't reach her face. Her gaze shoots back to him, and her urgency is expressed solely in the increased speed of her speech. "How many? How many have you sent?"

[holmesice]

Blast.

His underestimation of her sank in his stomach, like an ice-cold rock. His brows furrowed, as he swallowed, the fear registering more keenly on his face. The answer was in those private messages, and he was unsure as to how her patience would handle another blatant lie with the truth right in front of her, should she command him to show her what they said or if she looked through them all herself.

"Several."

A whisper.

At this point, however, he could not keep the wavering sound out of his voice.

[ecks]

The tremble is over and gone as she presses the blade ever so slightly tighter against his threat.

"You will recall them. You will send a counter-order and you will prevent them from murdering Doctor House."

[holmesice]

...he can't believe he's saying this. But he couldn't. He wasn't going to waste precious time by giving a counter offer and pretending to recall them and then double-recalling them back, if they didn't get fed up with him in the first place and quit.

He'd do anything for Sherlock.

"Sorry. I don't think that's going to be possible."

[ecks]

"Incorrect."

Because he has contacted the Joker, she isn't so certain it is possible to undo what has been done. That is Mycroft's responsibility to figure out, though. "You will recall them or I will recall them in your name."

For Ecks

[whiteknightnecromancer]

Dorian struggled to wake. Some days it felt like it was getting harder all the time. He waited until he was too exhausted to remain awake and then lay in pain for a time before sleeping restlessly.

It meant that when he heard voices in the room with him, they remained merely noise at first. The sounds of violence brought him to wakefulness and rather than spring out of bed, he lay with his eyes closed until he was sure he could move with speed. Stnaidng in one motion, he felt the aches that never quite left and looked around the room, scowling.

The mess that was left of Mycroft made it rather obvious what had happened. "What the bloody fuck?" He grabbed for his staff, intending to be ready to defend himself.

cw blood, all the blood

[ecks]

Ecks freezes where she's sitting against a wall a short distance from what remains of Mycroft, her face illuminated by the light of his tablet. Her quiet tapping at the screen ceases from the moment that Dorian stands, and she sets it down in a smooth motion so she can put her hand on the handle of the hatchet instead, not lifting it yet.

"Defense of others is an acceptable reason for murder," she informs Dorian quietly. "As is defense of self."

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"Very true," Dorian said, mouth dry. "I don't see a weapon on him, however."

He looked at the hatchet in her hand and then focused on the set of her shoulders and the angle of her hips. If she came for him, those would be where it would be telegraphed first.

"So whose defense are we talking about?"

[ecks]

Sitting is not ideal in this situation, but sitting she is. Ecks doesn't shift to get up, but she's already calculating the distance between them and how quickly she could get to her feet if he were to make a move in her direction.

"The tablet is a weapon," she explains. "The Joker is a weapon. Mycroft Holmes would not rescind the order to murder Doctor House."

[whiteknightnecromancer]

He took a moment to follow her logic. "Ah." He relaxed slightly, letting the butt of his staff rest on the floor.

"Did this solve that issue?" he gestured vaguely at the dead body and bloody hatchet.

[ecks]

"I do not know yet," replies Ecks. "The Joker is unpredictable and I am not certain yet how many others he told to murder Doctor House."

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"That's... yes. He is the type." Dorian sighed and pinched his nose with his free hand. "If he would not take it back, then why not simply... Never mind. So, he's dead and I am a witness. What do you intend?"

[ecks]

"I intend to rescind the order," replies Ecks. "Either I will impersonate him or I will inform his assassins that he is dead. If he were alive he could reissue the order. Now he cannot."

For Ecks; cw: gore, blood

[equal_shots]

Kid hears murmuring, and it's muffled, his ears feeling like they're stuffed with cotton and head lazily spinning from cough medication and MN poisoning. None of it is new, but it doesn't make it any easier to wake, and it's only when he feels something soaking into his slacks that he even realizes something is actually wrong.

He can't see, and is forced to feel the sticky substance along the floor, cringing at the warmth as he does so. It only takes a moment for him to realize that his hands are in blood, and when he finally ends up next to Mycroft's still-warm corpse, it's only by feeling the clothes of the victim that he knows who he's beside. One hand is feeling for a wound while the other is frantically searching for a wrist to check for a pulse, and it's going to take him a long few moments before he realizes that there's nothing he can do.

But Kid shakes the man anyway, because he has to try. "Mr. Holmes?"

cw: gore, blood

[ecks]

"He is dead."

Kid cannot see and Ecks is nothing if not helpful. She is not particularly close to where Kid has found Mycroft's body.

"You should move away. You are getting blood on your clothing."

cw: gore, blood

[equal_shots]

Kid turns sharply to the voice, hands up and ready to swing if need be. When he realizes it's Ecks, he nervously scrubs his hands through his hair.

White, black and red stripes. Very nice.

He does not move from the blood on the floor. Something about her instruction does not immediately click with him, and blood continues to soak into his clothes.

"Ecks? What's--" he pauses, hesitates, starts again. "What happened?" He has no way to gauge the time. Is it still lockdown? Where is Dorian? Had someone come in and done this--or worse, had one of them done it?

cw: gore, blood

[ecks]

"I murdered Mycroft Holmes because he was offering to pay other people to murder Doctor House and he refused to rescind the order," explains Ecks, to whom this is all perfectly clear and acceptable. "Defense of others is an acceptable reason for murder."

[equal_shots]

Sorry, what?

In all his years, in all his experience--and he is currently under the impression that he has centuries of it--this is one of the plainest admissions of guilt he's ever been given. But that does not change that it is an admission of guilt, and she is certainly guilty if the blood on his hands and the silence of the corpse next to him is any proof.

"In theory, that is true." Kid turns slightly back to Mycroft's body, a familiar sorrow that he can't protect the soul as he should settling deep in his bones. Carefully, he ensures the man's arms are resting comfortably on his chest, that he's not splayed distastefully on the floor. "Has doing this achieved your goal?"

Shrugging out of his coat and then suit jacket, he lays his jacket over Mycroft's form. It's better than nothing, and he can collect it later when the body is spirited away.

"While this town repeatedly brings people back from death, that does not change that human life is precious, Ecks."

[ecks]

She has slept since speaking to Dorian, and so she has dreamed since then. She has been here such a long time as her own world crumbles and rots under the rule of its gods. That it seems both years and hours since she woke Mycroft in the night somehow does not strike her as contradictory.

"Doctor House's life is precious," she replies, uninterested in this old, old argument. "I have my rules. I did what was necessary to provide the highest chance of success and I acted within my rules the same as I always have."

[equal_shots]

"And Mr. Holmes' life is not?"

Kid stops only to wipe blood off on the fabric that he guess--correctly, thankfully--is Mycroft's slacks before crossing his arms. He still does not look angry, only thoughtful. Perhaps a bit morose, but that's a relatively common look for Death.

"If you had been able to achieve the same means without killing," his voice is quiet, and somewhat hoarse, as he sits back against the wall, "with a relatively high chance of success, would you have taken that opportunity instead?"

He coughs, wetly, into the crook of his elbow, before pressing on. "You have your rules. I have my father's, which in turn become mine. Neither Mr. Holmes nor Dr. House did anything that required death. They are not evil people."

[ecks]

"Mycroft Holmes would have been a murderer," says Ecks, who has long been a murderer herself. She hesitates -- she does not want to give a false impression, but she has not said anything that is not true.

"I attempted to resolve the problem without murdering him," she says slowly. "I questioned him to be certain I understood the situation correctly, and I told him to rescind the order. He refused to rescind the order and threatened to send it again if I rescinded it for him. He refused to agree to a solution that did not involve his death."