please don't go, i'll eat you whole } l&b&p

[d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris]

When he finds Larissa again, ever the shining beacon in Perry's dark waters, he cannot hide the smile that spreads across his features. "I was worried I wouldn't catch up to you until the finale," he says this warmly, playfully. He tosses a ball her way and doesn't bother to share with her that it's a bomb. The game is more fun to play when you take away the power of how awful it truly is. The laughter is louder than the ticking.

He's covered in a dead boy's blood, but that same shade of crimson is dripping from her clothes, too.

"You didn't think that I just up and left, did you?" He knows the path he took out of their camp very well, just as vividly as he remembers what the pixies whispered in his ears to coax him from his slumber. "I was just a puppet on strings, but not now. Not here." He sets down his bag and starts to loosen his armor, like this is a casual reunion, and not a young man wandering into a den of lions without his weapon drawn.

Truthfully, although he is aware the time for this is limited and fated to expire, he has no fear in the girl's presence. As surely as she could take him down, he knows the truth of what the three of them gave to each other. Perry, Larissa, and himself; a three-headed beast still on the conquest. So many people have become memories now, but his darlings are still standing in the flesh. They are still treasures glittering, and not enemies conspiring.

Until the light shifts and he sees them for what they are, obstacles, he will continue to allow himself to love them in this special way. "I can't make you stay, but if I start setting up my camp over yours, then you're forced to make the decision yourself." Tinker pokes his head out of Bellamy's wisteria basket, sniffing the air around Larissa before squeaking cutely. "I could do with some company, and it wouldn't hurt you to have those wounds checked out." He takes a tentative step closer, palm outstretched and fingers soft, clean, curled in invitation.

"Let me take care of you."

He says this as if the words will lure Perry out of the darkness and into their embrace again. It is true that he would live in this envy and lust and greed and wrath and sloth and gluttony and pride for all eternity if he could. Perhaps their love is a sin, yes. But so is everything else they do. This is what binds them.

Wicked things always come in three.

^{( maintenance incoming )}

[calla]

Barefoot and wild-eyed and feverish, Perry crashes through the trees like a particularly malevolent spirit. She's covered in blood, but not a speck of it her own. Her eyes are too dark and her teeth are too sharp, her hair tangled, her skin warm.

It's the voices that find her first, calling to that spitting angry part of her that can't help but thrash at the noise. Her rage licks at the spaces between her ribcage, fueling her, scorching her. The warmth that Bellamy still has for Larissa makes Perry burn unpleasantly. Her molars squeal from the force she clenches them with, a singular crack forming along one of her canines and then slicing through the inside of her cheek.

She reaches the edge of the camp just in time to hear his final - "Let me take care of you."

It does something horrible.

She doesn't take kindly to being left. Especially not after it happens twice. She has a complex about abandonment and betrayal and being cast aside - it eats at her until there's nothing left by bones and viscera. She's still at least a little bit human, after all. The last of her rational thought was dashed away days ago and all that's left is this horrifying thing that's taken her shape. Because for all she knows, Bellamy and Larissa left her, together, and have been here ever since. Together.

It's not so much jealousy that drives her forward. It's not self-consciousness either, because as a career that isn't a word that exists in her vocabulary. It's more so this deep-set and ancient hurt that sits low in her gut, sticking to her spine like tar and pulling it down to her feet. Foot. The disparity sets her off balance.

She should have never trusted them. She certainly never should have gotten attached.

But she's just killed a boy. The blood dripping down her throat is still warm.

She doesn't exactly have any qualms about doing it again.

The trees shake ferociously and then Perry's there like a storm, going immediately for Bellamy and taking him down to the ground with her. Her shoulder lands heavy in the dirt, her teeth snapping, she snarls and scrambles and gets her knees around his waist and the long length of her spear pressed against his neck, forcing his chin up and his head back. The entire forest goes still.

She could easily crush his windpipe like this, even with his hands pressed back up against the spear shaft, all she has to do is pitch the rest of her body weight forward and she'd be able to watch his skin redden and his eyes dull and hear the gasp gasp gasp of his last few breaths. It would be a gentle thing, akin to an embrace.

The closest beams of light coming off Larissa seem to leech into Perry, entranced by the black hole of her being.

"You little shit." Perry hisses, so unbearably close to Bellamy's face that she can see the shades of his irises change in real time. "I should kill you right now. Save everyone the trouble."

[dars]

Either an hour had passed or an infinity since Larissa became a taker of lives. It didn't take her long at all to follow the trail of blood leading to Xaahira's body. The remnants of a person, lying there in a bed of funeral flowers. This was adding insult to injury, she realized, hefting the girl up so she could slide her protective vest off of her. Larissa was no lion- only a scavenger, a vulture picking at bones. Even this girl's life wasn't enough- Larissa needed her medical supplies too.

Afterwards, she stumbled upon a pool of stagnant water and was able to rinse the blood away, but as she was washing her hands she felt the pull to do something she knew she could not do in front of cameras. Even if Aunt Eury said that fear could be power, and that to be a Le Roux was to command it. Larissa was making fear do her bidding enough- now that she was all alone and only the entire world could see her, she needed to stay strong for herself. She stripped of her clothes and stepped into the water, slowly wading out until she was completely submerged by the murky depths. People gave fresh bodies of water such a bad wrap- it was true that this one in particular was merely a part of a larger rotting swamp, but from below, she could look up and see the sky, and the tops of the trees, and the whole world from behind a watery veil. But no one could see her tears.

She stayed down until her lungs could hold no longer. When she broke the surface again, after catching her breath, she marched back onto dry land and re-dressed, and then she got to work setting up camp. Icarus flicked his head at her and began pawing at the dirt the way he only did when he wanted to go for a ride.

"Not tonight," she explained, readying herself for bed before it got too late for her to keep her eyes open, "maybe before sunrise. Okay?" He chirped indignantly, galloping back and forth around the edge of the quaint, mostly-dry clearing she'd decided to set-up for the evening. When she still refused, he finally got the hint and spread his wings, taking off in a gallop before flying away. Probably just hungry, she hoped. It would've been really sad if even the gryphon was done with her.

The fire crackled and she stared into it, giving it a run for its money for which of them could glow brighter. Slowly, the quiet began to fade and the forest began to realize she was there. The whispers started again, and for the first time Larissa didn't reach up and cover her ears. She didn't move at all, in fact. Just kept staring at the flames as they ate at the rotten, dried up sticks, watching the ashes fly high into the air, aided by purple plumes of smoke. She thought of death: Of Julian, and Emerson, and Xaahira. She thought of what it would've been like to be one of them, to join the ranks of the dead after living a life so sure that this time would be different, she would be different. Better. Stronger.

If that was the alternative to becoming a killer, then she made the right call. Career or not.

When she first heard the noise, she thought it was Icarus coming back from his hunt. But standing there, unavoidable, undeniable, alive: Bellamy Bravina and his stupid, charming smile.

"You didn't think that I just up and left, did you?"

Yes, actually. She did.

"Bellamy..."

She found herself at odds against herself. Part of her was relieved to see him, just as she'd worried she would be if she ran into either of the allies who'd abandoned her. The other half found it too hard to believe. But one thing all of her body and mind seemed to agree on was this: the numbers didn't lie. Whether it was on purpose or not wasn't the point anymore. Now, there were only a handful of them left. Finding him alive was somehow more cruel than seeing his face light up the sky.

"You can't just... We can't- It's too far in the game for us to just-"

"I can't make you stay, but if I start setting up my camp over yours, then you're forced to make the decision yourself."

She quirked an eyebrow, watched him as he started to unpack his things and make himself at home. He looked like he hadn't escaped the day unscathed either, but Larissa could tell just by looking at him that she was worse for wear than he. She had the realization that, had he wanted to, he could've made this interaction violent and in her current state, she wasn't as certain she could cut his ass off and feed it to him for trying. But he seemed genuine, at least on the surface. His eyes shifted colors and in the day's fading light it wasn't exactly easy to see what color they were. Finally, he seemed to realize what state Larissa was in.

"I could do with some company, and it wouldn't hurt you to have those wounds checked out. Let me take care of you."

She hesitated, allowing the crackling of the fire to fill the silence. Take care of her?

"Do you not realize that-"

At once, a shadow emerged from the trees. No, not a shadow, a monster. A mutt of some kind. No. Worse. Peregrine Gauthier with fury in her eyes. Even before she could register what was really happening, Perry tackled Bellamy to the ground. Larissa saw a comical cloud of dead leaves and dirt fly up around them as they rolled for a second before eventually coming to a stop with Perry's spear pressed directly to Bellamy's throat.

"You little shit! I should kill you right now. Save everyone the trouble."

That. Did Bellamy not realize that? That the alliance didn't matter anymore, because they'd left, and because they all wanted to live, and because they'd all do anything to win. For a moment, looking at the two of them there, all she could think about was the night she saw them kissing, and how long ago that felt.

"What is happening?"

She wasn't even sure anymore. What was she supposed to do, run? Please. Fight them both? She'd be dead in seconds. Instead, she placed her hands on her hips indignantly, stomped her foot, and sat down next to the fire. If they wanted to kill each other, fine. But she wasn't helping. She was just going to wait for Icarus to come back, and then she was going to pack her stuff, and-

"I cannot believe you two! Running away in the night while I'm zipped up in a fucking coffin so that we don't alert the entire arena to our presence, only to show up after the day is done and... make a pass at me, and then kill each other in front of me?"

Clearly, they'd both lost the plot. Or maybe this had been the story all along, and Larissa was just now opening her eyes to it.

"What do you want from me, anyway? Huh?"