lakshmi patil (patill) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-04-15 15:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | lakshmi patil, victoria mulciber |
WHO: Lakshmi Patil & Vic Mulciber.
WHAT: Not Lakshmi’s wisest move.
WHEN: April 15th, early evening.
WHERE: Vic’s flat, London
WARNINGS: Violence. Mind Control.
It was incredibly stupid. There was no sane way to reason that this was a good idea, but Lakshmi Patil didn’t care. Not anymore. She’d apparated just outside the door to Vic Mulciber’s flat. Still in a haze with a myriad of swirling emotions, Lakshmi’s mind kept going over each impossible thing that had happened in the last week alone. Clement was probably Death Eater. Byron’s murder. Consoling Lumos. Her own grief over Byron. Her torture and near-murder at the hands of someone she thought was a friend. Witnessing another friend kill said evil friend. Leaving home, losing everything in a blaze. Rhys’ public drowning in retaliation. They’d taken her friends and her home and her trust from her, but they’d ripped Lumos and Nora apart from their soulmates. It all mounted and her feelings were oppressive and began leaking out in the worst of ways; she couldn’t cope anymore. She was so close to snapping. Sleeplessness had only compounded the strong lack of judgment, and done nothing for the unanswered questions. Was it only (probably) Clement and Keats, or was it more of them? No, it wasn’t only them, and Lakshmi Patil wanted answers one way or another. It was incredibly stupid. But she needed to know. They all needed to know and she felt far too much guilt, far too much everything to hide behind her Auror friends, behind Maddie or John or Jasper any longer; they’d done and sacrificed more than enough for her and everyone else. They all needed to know just what Victoria Mulciber was once and for all, and Lakshmi Patil intended to find out. She knocked on the door. “Vic!” To say that Vic was not expecting company was an understatement. Keats was gone. Layla had abandoned her. Her siblings had never even set foot inside of the building, and after her fight with Dante over Rhys, he wouldn’t be either. No one else ever came to her flat unless by invitation, and Vic had retreated in the last few days, taciturn in her grief and avoiding everyone who might sling entirely accurate and deserved accusations in her face. (Coward). Lakshmi was one of them. She knew they weren’t stupid, they could only blame Clement for so long, but with Keats dead and Byron’s article still in print, why wouldn’t they make the correct conclusion. (She hadn’t said a word to Lumos, hadn’t tried to offer condolences like the others, couldn’t. She had to know, she had to.) Keats had come to a conclusion on his own and paid for it with his life. Maddie had taken it from him. It was early evening and Vic looked as ragged as she felt, but hearing Lakshmi’s voice beyond the door was like being doused in ice water. Keats had gone after Lakshmi for a reason and now he was dead. Lakshmi, who Vic had watched bite back on the journals and who was so very obviously in hiding. Pulse hammering, Vic tucked her wand into her sleeve and went for the door, suspicion overriding her rage and demanding caution. “ What are you doing here?” One hand was on the emergency portkey in Lakshmi’s coat pocket, but the other was free. “I came to see how you were doing,” she answered, which was half the truth. “It’s been—” a tired pause “— a week.” Vic stared at Lakshmi in disbelief. Did the woman’s politeness know no bounds? “A week?” She gave a huff of laughter devoid of humour, a knife’s edge from hysterical. “I’m doing great, thank you for asking. And you?” It was a pointed, knowing comment and Vic’s gaze was assessing and hard. “I know,” Lakshmi answered wearily, looking Vic in the eyes herself to see what she could determine. “I know it’s shit, Vic. Everything is terrible and shockingly I’ve had a terrible, terrible week too.” She very rarely brought out attitude, but she was at the end of her rope. “People are saying things about you, and I—” she paused again trying to figure out how to say this “— want you to look me in the eye and tell me they’re not true.” She didn’t make any move to get closer or have seek to enter Vic’s flat, that was silly. Vic’s eyes flickered down to where Lakshmi kept her hand stuffed in her pocket before looking her coworker directly in the eyes. “You came here to confirm what exactly Lakshmi? I’ve been a little out of the loop so it’ll be difficult for me to deny anything until I know what the lot of you have been spreading like a bloody disease.” Her jaw was so taut from the strain of keeping herself in check that the muscles visibly flexed. “What was Keats doing in your flat,” she countered and her gaze could have pinned Lakshmi to the wall. “Like a disease?” Lakshmi snapped. She was trying not to be angry, but it was so difficult not to be here. “Are you a Death Eater, Vic? Or are you helping them? Because everything that’s happened to Byron, to me, seems to be centered on that article accusing you.” But damn if there weren’t tears welling her eyes. Not solely because of the betrayal she felt was accurate, but because of the emotions building and threatening to burst from her that she’d been keeping down over the last week. “Avery was in my flat because he wanted to shut me up. Did you tell him that I probably said something about you?” Vic’s nostrils flared, the reminder that all of this — Byron, Keats — was because of her, was a palpable hit. And Vic couldn’t look at Lakshmi’s wide, tearful, pleading eyes without feeling her chest twist with that guilt. So she chose anger. With an almighty wrench, Vic tugged Lakshmi into her apartment, using the woman’s lack of balance to her advantage as she turned on her the moment the door was shut. Whatever was in her pocket, she wouldn’t be reaching for it. “I didn’t say anything about you,” she spat. “I trusted you. But Keats figured it out didn’t he. He knew you were the one feeding that information to Byron.” And he was her best friend, he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. Vic’s grip wavered slightly, eyes burning. There was a garbled gasp of surprise as Lakshmi found herself stumbling forward in Vic’s iron grasp, pulled into the apartment where the door slammed, trapping her. Her hands were outside her pockets now, away from both her wand and her portkey. Except she didn’t care. All that mattered was her overwhelming emotions; her world had been shattered and wildly broken in the last several days, as had her best friend’s. There was no sense of any self preservation. Despite the tears, she glared right back, hurt and angry. Victoria hadn’t even denied it. She was only angry about Avery. “I trusted you!” she yelled, surprising herself with her volume. “I trusted you weren’t like your sister; I defended you all the time! I only told Byron that it was totally possible, and that some connections—” She stopped herself from rambling, and her eyes bore down into Mulciber’s. The third Mulciber Death Eater. “And you’re one of them anyway, Mulciber. And you’ve ruined all our lives!” “I’m nothing like my sister,” Vic shouted back, pulse frantic, sick with desperation. Lakshmi called her Mulciber, like she was nothing. She supposed she was nothing but some murderous bitch to them now. A Death Eater. This isn’t a game Victoria, Rose had said, sneering at her weaknesses. She was weak. Whatever she had been drowning in for the past week was weakness. “That’s what I th—” “Crucio,” Vic roared. Rose probably would have approved. The torture curse flashed between them and in a second Lakshmi was sliding down the wall to the ground, trembling and thrashing uncontrollably under the effects of Victoria’s rage. If she’d thought Avery’s half-hearted Cruciatus hurt, this was a whole new quidditch pitch. Screaming as her back and limbs arched and contorted awkwardly as her nerves burned, she withered underneath the Death Eater’s curse. The screams, the pain should have sustained her, and there was the bitter grief-stricken part that did and demanded more. Vic couldn’t tear Maddie to pieces but Lakshmi was responsible for Keats’ death too and stupid enough to come to her home. This wasn’t even really about Lakshmi; it was years of pain and frustration, a rage she’d lived with her entire life, a fear that she’d lost everything. But there was no real satisfaction as she tortured the last person who had ever looked at Vic and thought her better than she was, who believed the lie she herself had been so desperately telling herself since she’d traded herself for the power and opportunity being a Death Eater granted her. The guilt carved more out of her with every rage-filled pulse of the curse. Lakshmi screamed, begged, and Vic bit down so hard she could taste the blood in her own mouth. There was something wet on her face and she lost her concentration for a moment. Tears. Vic gasped wetly. Layla had been right. None of this had been worth it, none of it. The meager scraps of approval from her mother hadn’t been worth murdering Byron, of losing whatever woven and barely reached aspirations she’d claimed by fucking over anyone she could. Nothing would ever be worth Keats dying. Nothing. She and Keats had given everything for absolutely nothing. The Death Eaters had barely blinked at Layla’s supposed betrayal, hadn’t even remembered who she was. Vic was as unimportant to them all, her utility proven in the number of detractors, friends she’d murder for some fuckwad she didn’t even care about. Her mother’s poor attempts at comfort were more a command to fall back in line. She wasn’t even really sorry for half of the things she’d done to get her what she’d wanted. She deserved those things and she would always do what was necessary to put herself first. She was sorry it had bled her dry and left her a disgusting twisted thing, guilt eating her alive. It had been for nothing. Vic sobbed, wand falling out of her hand, breaking the curse she had Lakshmi under. She shook, breathing laboured and sank to her knees. It was a while before Lakshmi stirred beyond the spasms and quakes her nerves and muscles gave in the after-effects of one of the Unforgivable curses. She sobbed there on the ground, a mess of tears, sweat, and blood trickling from her mouth where she’d bitten into her tongue during her screams. Her throat was raw, her breath incredibly ragged. She didn’t know how long she’d been lying there in Vic Mulciber’s flat, or that her former friend had broken down herself, but she knew she had to get out. Her muscles practically screamed in protest as she shifted, attempting to prop herself up and reach her wand or portkey. Vic watched her struggle through blurred vision. She was tired, so fucking tired. So sick of herself. Lakshmi was bleeding, in pain and pathetic, another classmate whose life Vic had destroyed. Fuck, what was she, 4 for 6? Vic choked back another pathetic sob. Rose would be mildly impressed, moreso if Vic finished the job. Death Eater, that’s what she was now. That’s what she would be if she let Lakshmi walk out of here. Vic had had no problem taking up the title in secret, taking advantage of all the power it gave her to achieve what she’d wanted, and show her mother that she was worthy of more than ambivalence. She’d mocked the Death Eaters, one of them but not really one of them. She’d used the excuse that she was more effective masked than unmasked, and had privately enjoyed people like Gawain Robards telling her she was more than her family. But in the end this is what she would be, a Death Eater. No better, never better than Rose. “No. I can’t - I can’t let you leave.” Lakshmi said nothing as she pushed, straining past all the blistering pain and after-effects of the curse she’d been subjected to; the brunt of her former classmate’s twisted unbridled rage. Her eyes flicked up and caught her torturer’s for a split second, showing what she should have been showing towards Victoria Mulciber the whole time. Fear. Pushing herself backwards as best she could, a hand with a smear of blood on it reached in for her wand, fumbling and trembling all the while. “S—stay away,” she choked, sobbing in abject fear and hurt. Vic took it in and felt a shudder of revulsion snake its way down her spine. This was what she’d wanted wasn’t it? This is how someone looked at a Death Eater. This was the bed she’d made. Vic closed her eyes, swallowing the lump in her throat as she picked up her own wand with a numb sort of detachment, rage having hollowed her out. “I’m a Death Eater,” she confirmed, and it rang hoarse and despondent in her ears. “I didn’t w— I didn’t—” she cleared her throat; there was no use in explaining herself. Her reasons were worthless. “I’m sorry. Imperio.” Sorry or not the curse sank over the other woman, awkwardly, incorrectly, and as unrefined as its caster’s mood. |