Airlocked R5 Case 5 Murder Log (CW: drug overdose)

[shikosuki]

[ It’s okay Choromatsu, you can do it... you can do this... That’s what he keeps having to tell himself anyway. Even though it’s not okay. It’s not okay at all.

His hands are shaking as he looks down at the plate of chocolate cookies. He made them earlier, iced them all cutely with various shapes, but also laced them with ground up oxycodone. If he’s right, it should be enough to kill someone with just one or two. All he has to do is find someone who will eat them, anyone, and the safety of his brothers and friends is guaranteed...

And yet his stomach is all in knots and he wants to vomit. Throw the cookies out and pretend none of this ever crossed his mind. But he can’t now, he’s too far along to back out. And he can’t risk his brothers or anyone else dying for real... so he has to stick to it. And look for someone still up and around to eat them... whoever he finds first... let them eat them and then just go to bed as if everything is fine. ]

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[shikosuki]

[ The tears are hot as they run down his face in fat goblets but finally he wipes them away and moves to gather up as much of the mess of cookies and broken plate as he can into his hoodie.

He stands again and looks one last time at Ardyn. ]

No, I'm... I'm the one that should... I know they will, I just...

[ a pause. ]

...I love my brothers more than anything in the whole world. [ A belated answer to what he said before. ] I'm them and they're me.

[ He looks back down ]

I'm so sorry.

[ And then takes off running out of the restaurant ]

[burninglight]

...Fraternitas ante omnia.

[He wondered if the picture might still have been on his PIP even outside the simulation--wondered if it had ever been real. Had a pair of twins ever been so close before one fell to darkness and the other rose to be the bearer of the world's light? Had they ever...just been brothers?]

[Of all the people to think about at a time like this, he caught himself thinking of Noctis and that stupid hat. Bickering like...like siblings probably did. In another world, another reality, some timeline where Ardyn and Izunia hadn't ruined it all before it began, could the Lucis Caelum line ever have been happy?]

[He didn't really think so. But...that was okay. He'd entrusted Noctis with his salvation once, twisted as it had been. The others would help him, would look after each other where Ardyn no longer could. This wouldn't--couldn't break them, not now.]

[And he had truly meant what he said. If it came down to one life sacrificed versus however many saved...if it had to be someone, let it be him. Not Church, Heart, Junpei--not anyone else. That was the fate Ardyn alone had always been destined to bear; his life was nothing, had always been nothing next to the safety of those he loved.]

[And that was a strangely comforting last thought to have, as he fell asleep not to awaken in the next morning.]