Chapter Text
His tantrum cleared their dwelling quite quickly. In all her years of cohabiting with him, she’s never seen him treat someone so poorly, so disrespectfully—not the Prior who came to tell him that he wasn’t their daughter’s biological father, not even his own mother when she refused to understand his perspective on the current situations unfolding in the country or when she refused to accept his choice in mate.
His behavior has shocked even him.
After Landry was escorted, while complaining, from their home with one of those men in a suit holding his arm and guiding him to the door like a petulant child—the leader of this free country kept leaning back through the door and expressing more threats and expletives at them—when the house was entirely empty, Cameron stood stagnant in the living room, a blank expression on his face, his hands at his side—not balled into fists—and his body quaking on the weight of itself on his healing leg.
She waits for him to say something, to address her, to explain why he sent Landry away in such a rude manner, but he stays silent, his eyes focused on their dying pine tree in the corner of the living room, done up in tinsel and lights still, striving to hold on to it’s last strand of life as brown needles dot the ground around it.
When time passes and he refuses to speak, she nods, accepting that he’s not going to be saying anything about the matter anytime soon, and walks from the kitchen where the cookies she baked with care now sit cold and hard on wire racks, and into their room to grab a sweater as the weather has taken up a biting cold edge to it, and she intends to go for a walk.
If she overheats in the park, she can always unzip her winter jacket, the one they still haven’t found time to clean yet, that still has bits of her blood specked on the collar and smells like ash.
But something catches her eye—rather the lack of something on her vanity table. She squints, wondering if she perhaps left it somewhere else, but she remembers tidying up the table after applying her makeup, and making sure that the book was level with the corner.
Despite this, she crouches, searching under the table, then under the bed, sliding a hand around trying to feel for the object in blindness, then stands, the back of her neck growing sweaty, her body growing hot in the modest long-sleeved shirt and jeans she wore.
Dashing out of the bedroom, she finds Cameron very much in the same trance.
“Did you move my journal at all?” Standing in the doorway, she directs the question at him, hoping that it was retaliation for her moving his meds, the meds that he relies on far too much, the meds that cloud his system and make him irritable and prone to outbursts of rage.
When he doesn’t answer, she takes several more steps into the living room, but still keeping her distance from him, easily recognizing the symptoms of a man likely to lose himself to his own fury.
“Cameron, I know that you’re upset right now—”
“Were you going to kill him?”
She stops her conversation, still stuck on the pertinent matter of sensitive subjects being pilfered, but also not completely comprehending what he’s talking about. “Excuse me?”
“Were you going to kill Landry?”
His question is completely calm, but he wears a dangerously stoic expression on his face, like he doesn’t want her to know what he’s thinking—if he’s truly accusing her of that, or if he’s trying to make a joke at her expense. Perhaps it’s a compliment, that she’s cunning enough to pull off murdering the president before four of his guards.
“Are you serious?”
Asks a little nervous about the prospects of this turning into something it doesn’t have to be, about not feeling safe in her own home, which is a feeling she’s had all to often on this planet second only to regret.
In a disjointed voice that sounds more mechanical than human, he demands, “answer the question.”
“No, Cameron,” she huffs crossing her arms but turning her attention away from him. “I was not going to kill your president.”
“Then why were you staying in the kitchen?”
“What?”
“You stayed in the kitchen when the secret service searched our house, and Landry—”
“Because I was trying to stay out of the way.” Rolls her eyes at him, drifting into the kitchen and looking fruitlessly in the cupboards and drawers for her journal. “As you’ll remember, the last time I got in the way, I wasn’t treated so kindly.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
He’s standing at the counter now, somewhat looming over from the other side, his shadow in her light as she balances on the balls of her feet and sifts through various kitchen appliances that they’ve never used looking for a journal she hopes she will find but knows she won’t.
“Because you’re supposed to trust me.” Her words are a little uncouth, a little unrefined as she pops up, making him lean back into his own space, while she tugs out utensil and junk drawers, looking for the familiar sight of two little birds in the snow.
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t reaffirm that he trusts her, simply waits for her to give him a better answer.
Which she finally gives.
“Cameron, if I wanted him dead, he already would be.”