Just Punishment is Relative

[LuckyLadybug]

I wrote this for the prompt I'm already dead to you but I'm inclined to explain, on the Livejournal.com community 31_Days. I posted it there with a bit of a different title. I wasn't sure I'd be allowed to use that title here, so I modified it.

This is a Poisonous Posey-based fic. It hints at and outright uses some angles from my current multi-chapter fics, but I don't think anything here is confusing for those who haven't read them.


By Lucky_Ladybug

He knew he was dead the moment he stood up. Sprawled below him on the ice was a lifeless shell, West’s makeshift spear protruding from the chest. He raised his hands, feeling his own chest. There was nothing there.

Death was strange and surreal. He knew he was gone, but his mind felt clear and sharp. It did not seem possible that he could actually be dead. What kind of death was this? It wasn’t a dark void or even a fiery pit. He was right where he had been several minutes ago.

West and Gordon were climbing the ladder and leaving the icehouse. He moved to follow them. But instead of using the ladder, he suddenly appeared at the top of it when he drew closer. He spun about, staring over the side at the drop.

“Well, how about that,” he drawled. “I can get to where I want to go that much quicker.”

He hastened outside. West and Gordon were getting into a gunfight on the street with Brutus. He smirked. He would be of no use here; he would leave them to their devices.

He never even stopped to think about why he was so driven to keep going. All he could think about was that he had to get back to the hideout. And so, blindly almost, he strode in that direction, not letting anything deter him.

Lucrece was standing at the window, staring at the activity on the street. She was hard as nails and always had been from the moment he had met her. But something had flickered in her beautiful face for not more than a millisecond when she had seen West and Gordon and not Pinto emerge from the icehouse. She watched the ensuing battle with Brutus for a moment but turned away.

He was focused on that window. As he approached, calling to her, he phased through the solid wood and glass into the secret room that had served as her quarters whenever they were here.

She was hurrying about the room now, digging through both her closet and the chest of drawers. Finding a yellow dress that matched her hair, she took it out and spread it on the bed.

She knew he was dead. Somehow he knew that she knew. And she was betting that West and Gordon would manage to defeat the others. Her second-in-command was gone. She was preparing to leave too, using her femininity against the agents as she had used it against many others.

He stood where he was, transfixed as he watched her gather everything she felt she would need for her escape.

He had been with her when they had acquired the funeral parlor in Justice with the intention of making it their hideout. She had designed the majority of the additions and booby traps; he had always been partial to the rotating organ that fired bullets. He might be the one who had taken up a study of pain, but Lucrece could be pretty gosh darn sadistic herself, when she wanted to be.

They had stood at this concealed window many times, unseen by the residents of the town as they had watched and waited and plotted for the consolidation of worldwide crime. He was the regional leader for this area. While the others had spread out to their respective corners of the world, only he had remained, staying with Lucrece as he had always done.

He had taken her in his arms here, holding her close to him, kissing her passionately. He had grown to love her during their years together. She did not return his feelings; she could love no one. But she had nevertheless agreed to participate in a relationship with him. For her it was entertaining and satisfying; for him it was time spent with the only person in this whole wide world whom he loved.

Lucrece had paused now, standing by the dresser as she gazed out the window again. He came up behind her, as he had done so many times in the past, and reached to embrace her from behind. His arms only passed through her body.

The chill that rushed through him made him back up, his eyes wide. He stood, shaking, staring at her. She did not even notice that anything had happened at all. But for him the unquestioning, blind determination and drive had fallen away. He was dead.

Only now was it really sinking in. He hadn’t felt different before, so all true comprehension that he had passed on seemed so far away and distant, even though at the same time he had felt so detached from everything around him.

He approached her again, laying his hands just atop her shoulders and not allowing them to fall through. “Lucrece,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

She turned, looking up at him as it were. But she did not see him, not really.

She did not love him, but she had needed him for her plan. He had failed, had let her down.

He leaned down, kissing her cheek. It was pointless; he felt nothing. But she shivered, stepping away from the dresser. She looked back for one moment, as though to reassure herself that no one was there. Then she turned, taking the yellow dress and hurrying behind the screen to change.

He had always been a gentleman with her, so he did not follow. He waited, his emotions turning over and over within himself.

He did not see how she trembled as she threw off her Spanish blouse and pants, how her hands were shaking as she pulled on the fancy undergarments and the dress and adjusted its position. She had felt something. She was not sure what it meant, but she did not like how it made her feel. She did not like the strange prick in her heart that she had discovered when she looked out that window and realized he was dead. Whatever she had sensed by the dresser, it seemed to be tied up with that uncomfortable feeling. It was unknown and unwanted and unneeded. She would not allow herself to feel it any more.

He gazed at her beauty as she emerged from behind the screen, collecting the other items she wanted before heading to the door without so much as a final look back.

The quickest way to get to the door involved going past the dresser. But she avoided it at all costs, keeping near the opposite wall as she departed.

He stared after her. They could not communicate. He followed her, slowly at first but then gathering speed as they went through the building. She barked an order to Ascot Sam, the only other criminal left alive, and he ran ahead to deal with Gordon. Pinto stayed with her, smirking as she distracted West and turned the organ on him.

As they came outside, she hastened to the waiting stage. Gordon ran out, victorious from his fight with Sam, and noticed. But attired as a soft, delicate creature, she was unrecognizable to him.

Pinto laughed out loud when Gordon helped her into the carriage, entranced by her beauty and charm. Pinto followed her in as the driver snapped the reins. The stage took off, flying over the desert.

She kept to one side of the carriage, gazing impassively out the window. He watched her, not daring to make another move, not wanting to reach for her and find that nothing happened.

The stage passed over the town limits and through a strange, filmy force field. He yelped as he was thrown from the closed door, crashing and rolling in the sand. He fell against the field again and it was solid to his ghostly form.

Shaking the cobwebs from his mind he turned, only able to stare helplessly through the barrier as the stage continued over the desert.

Not only could he and Lucrece no longer communicate, he could not even stay with her. He was trapped in Justice.

He turned away when the carriage was out of sight. This was the punishment that had been dealt to him for the acts he committed in life.

This was his Hell.