Chapter Text
Tuesday evening.
Tuesday evening.
How would that be possible?
She took every single dose on time.
Granted, she did overdose a few times but she thought there would be just enough?
She was so caught up on her thoughts that she almost didn’t hear the ringing of her phone. But the moment she saw who it was from, the ringing was deafening.
Her darling
Her beauty
Her grace
She slowly picked up the phone, her shaky finger tapping the green button on the screen. The ever so sweet, drug like voice flowed through the phone speakers. What she said didn’t matter.
“Red-sole, that found information about Metry’s death”
Oh. Maybe it did matter. Red knew that this could either be really good news or really bad news. At least in her own terms.
“Her… uh… teammates… found something in her diary”
Good news. Good news.
She put on her best concerned voice, even through her own blindness of obsessive lust, “oh dear, what did they find? Hopefully it wasn’t too bad…”
“Depends on what you think is ‘that bad’,” she totally fell for it, “it was her last entry, dating the day she was found in her room. It was a… suicide note. Technically.”
Red felt a little more excited as her darling continued, yet nothing showed in her voice.
“The entry wrote that she couldn’t feel appreciated a-a-and no one respected her for who she i-is now b-but she wanted her team to stay strong a-and- and- and-” her voice got more shaky as she kept talking.
“Hey, hey, hey, slow down. Calm down. Breath.” All Red wanted to do to her was hold her in her arms, use this rare moment of weakness to comfort her, use it to her advantage. Such a rare thing, seeing her dalringest break down, feeling pathetic. And, Great zapfish, to think she was technically the one to do this to her, she felt high on obsession.
She could hear her on the other end doing her best to steady herself until she eventually just stopped. “I should go.”
Red suddenly panicked “no, no! You should keep talking, I’m fine with it!” She was quite literally way more than fine, considering that she was the only one keeping her stable.
“No, I have to go,” her monotone like voice had slowly returned “sorry, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The flatline echoed through the room.
She knew what the next step had to be.
She brought her phone back up and searched through her contacts, dialing up another number.
She spoke through a fake sweet sugar tone, but it was the poison that was about to kill.
“Pacey! Come over soon would ya? I got a plan! Don’t tell anyone you’re coming. It’ll spoil the whole thing!”
{…}
She shoved her rug into the closet after replacing it with an older one she wouldn’t mind having to burn. She had earlier switched out the couch covers also to something she would much rather burn. The cups she picked out weren’t fancy, they were actually just old mugs along with just her usual teakettle. Definitely not as fancy as N-pacer would set it, but as long as it got the job done, it would be fine.
Red made sure to start boiling the water as she chopped up different flowers and plants, taking a mental note not to cook with this kitchen knife anymore. She stuffed the little tea capsule with the chopped up plants, making sure to wrap any left over in foil and store for later as there was no safe way to burn them without creating some type of hazardous fatal chemical smoke. She could use them later, it’s fine.
Her phone sat on the couch, unbothered, until it lit up with a brand new message. The message read “I’m here, where’s your door?”
It was N-pacer and she obviously didn’t know about the various alleyways and back paths it took just to get to the only true entrance.
She had only seen the message a few minutes later when she set everything down on her coffee table.
She sighed, getting up and putting on her slippers, and walking out. She was met by the beauty of a partially maintained alleyway, roots and plants growing around and through cracks that she kept maintained, broken down decorations from last squidmas which she forgot to take down, and cobwebs in every corner.
Every twist and turn to get out was memorized for her, but for anyone else, it would almost be a maze to get through, would they ever be able to get out? She had explored the other paths before, most met dead ends, but few led to side or back doors of different buildings.
Finally, she had made it out, having to go all the way around the block to get N-pacer.
“Pacey!” She exclaimed, “So sorry to keep you waiting, something like this always happens, it’s a lil’ weird!” She explained as if she were talking casually to any friend, keeping people passing by unknowing.
N-pacer seemed unbothered, that focused expression from turf wars had changed to a more relaxed peaceful one, “It’s not a problem, really, I’m a patient woman, and I don’t have anything else to do today.” She wore something simple, a white sleeveless turtleneck and tight light blue jeans.
“C’mon, girlie, we’re gonna have to walk a bit.”
They both went back around the block and into the alleyway. While N-pacer stepped carefully, avoiding cobwebs and dust puddles, Red-sole skipped along through the concrete maze with ease, avoid any sorts of hazards and obstacles.
Once the pair finally got there, N-pacer took in the sight of the ‘front’ of the house. “What’s with the broken squidmas decorations?”
“Oh yeah, no one really ever sees the front of my house anyways, there’s not really a point of keeping it maintained.”
N-pacer stayed weary yet followed her in, stepping over deep cracks and and piles of dirt from broken pots.
“Just put your shoes to the side” Red-sole gestured to the little spot next to her door where she kept her shoes. Instead of just kicking them off like most cephalopods would, N-pacer bent down and carefully slipped them off. ‘Perfect, a perfectly clean trophy’ Red-sole thought, looking at the shoes that would be next to go into her drawer full of her trophies. Then she’d just have one more trophy to capture. Or- technically two. Three? That would depend on what you’d see as a trophy. This is getting off topic.
She guided her to the couch, letting her sit there with two empty cups on the coffee table. “I’ll just be a moment,” she took the kettle off of he stove where she had kept it while had gone out to get N-pacer. Carefully, she placed a quark coaster on the table and gently poured hot water into both cups, then placed the kettle on the quark coaster. She walked quickly back to her small kitchen and grabbed the two fresh tea capsules she had prepared.
She rushed back to the couch, gently placing one next to N-pacer. “Sorry, this isn’t as good as you’d do it, but I thought trying to make a little homemade tea capsule would be nice!”
N-pacer gently held it and examined it, “interesting, what plants are in here?”
Red-sole just giggled, not wanting to give her plan away, “it’s a surprise! If it tastes good then it’ll be my own special recipe!”
N-pacer chuckled at her remark, dipping the little metal mesh capsule into the hot water, carefully stirring in the flavor with her spoon. Red-sole made sure to only dip hers once and let it sit, to be safe from chemical filled steam.
“So, I’m assuming this urgent meet up is about Emperor.” Red-sole almost forgot her cover up story. She froze in thought for a few moments, “This IS about the whole Emperor and me thing, right?”
“W-well yes it is, but who says girls can’t just bond over tea? A-anyways, I want you to try it first. The tea, I mean. I want to know someone else’s opinion first.”
N-pacer swished the tea around and took a gentle sip. A wide smile ran across Red-sole’s face. “So how does it taste?”
“It’s like a combination of bitter and sweet, unique, but also conflicting. Like the bitterness wants to take the sweet for itself, for its own benefit and to try to calm down the sweetness. Almost like it’s toxic.”
Red-sole just laughed, “N-pacer, it’s tea, it’s not that deep. But interesting input maybe I’ll try making it sweeter next time.” Now she just had to watch and wait. It wouldn’t take long for the poison to take effect.
“Soooo how are things going with you and Emp?” Red-sole changed the topic, going back to her cover story.
“Oh! Yes, I guess it’s been going kind of well. I’ve talked about it to Prince, he just laughed and told me that I’ll be fine, whatever he means by that.”
“That sounds positive! Maybe you have a chance with him if his brother really thinks you’ll be fine!”
‘I feel dizzy, probably just a headache…’ N-pacer thought. She took another sip of the hot flavored water.
“…and like you two work really well together, and Junior seems like he always tries to push you together besides you’re… doesn’t matter… by yourself…” what was Red-sole saying? She couldn’t focus on any of the words.
“R-red…” “but like that’s… for you… great…” Red-sole was completely ignoring her. Was she going crazy? She started coughing violently, but Red-sole kept talking. She held her hand against her mouth. She was getting weaker and weaker.
“…don’t know if I… someone else… you… but like…” She felt something on her hand. When she looked down, there was a blotch of blue on her hand. Her throat swelled and her mouth spurted blue. More blood spilled out of her mouth staining her white sleeveless turtleneck. Everything was weak, she could barely breath.
“R-red… sole…?” She couldn’t hear anything she said anymore. Was this a hallucination? It all felt too real though. She turned back to where she was sitting and she didn’t see herself anywhere. Yet, Red-sole just kept talking to the same empty spot where she had been sitting. She could hear both her heart rates desperately increase, trying to keep her blood flowing properly, yet cerulean blue kept spurting, she kept choking on her own blood. Then she vomited. Puke and blood mixed together on the rug. Surely Red-sole had seen that.
No. She was still talking, at least it seemed like it. It was too blurry to tell if her mouth was moving. Was she really dying? Is this what it was like to die? You have to watch life go on while you die? She could barely breathe anymore with the amount of blood that filled her throat. Everything kept getting more blurry, black spots clouded her vision. Cod, she really was dying.
She tried to mutter out something, her final words? A call for help? She couldn’t tell what it was herself. “Junior… P-Prince… Emp… por…er…” she vomited again, feeling like her entire body was empty, one of her hearts had stopped completely and the other almost slowed, close to a stop. She could only see a little bit, and what a shame it was that the last thing she saw before her second heart stopped was Red-sole never one acknowledging her, still talking to no one.