Chapter Text
He couldn’t handle this contagion anymore. Everyday, he could feel it creeping up on him, every single time that godforsaken parasite cried instead of doing anything, anything of meaning, showed a complete lack of awareness of their fate - their horribly intertwined fate, well he’d just have to cut it out at the source, painstakingly strip that thread away until it was nice and orderly. And if he died? The three of them would die anyway, if this train kept carelessly screeching away at its path.
The trolley problem. Of all methodologies, perhaps Asimov’s three laws seemed more fitting to him in specific, but this theory was more relevant by far, because Mind was fucking sick of this, this violence planned and tracked out. Maybe that was the truth - maybe this wasn’t the best course of action, maybe he was simply jeopardizing everything, but god he couldn’t bring himself to care anymore.
It’s unceremonious. Why wouldn’t it be? Why would he give Heart time to react?
Those deep-purple eyes widened in shock as he turned will haunt him. It’s poetic that it’s one of Mind’s last sights. He doesn’t exactly care about the poetry, though.
…He missed. It’s pretty much the same result, he had thought, watching Heart’s blood pour out of him. He dropped, the same moment as the shot rang out, clutching his wound and attempting to say anything, because he would never fucking tire of talking. But eventually those wretched attempts petered out to silence.
The purple reaches out to stain Heart’s hoodie, stain the carpet below him, painting itself across that expanse of skin incessantly marred by lines of deliberate and not-so-deliberate scars.
Is he dying? Is this the last of him that Mind will ever experience, unable to speak, a spark of a man fading to nothing, without so much as a sound? What were his last words? Maybe they were a day ago, maybe a week, when he was being insufferable, complaining about something Mind didn’t care to catalog because it didn’t matter, but it did, after all. Of course it did, because no matter how insufferable Heart is - there’s still something to be found there, maybe? He doesn’t know. Was this a mistake? He had thought about it. Was this a mistake, because as he was standing there, watching the last of Heart it felt like it.
The signature footsteps of Soul were louder than the gunshot could ever have been, and in one singular moment Mind realized the implications of that act he had failed to consider, being - he had just taken away any chance Soul had at seeing them become Whole, something that was possibly the only reason Soul had to continue on. And he would be angry.
There’s no ceremony as Soul opens the room, not even a knock, not even caring to ask Mind why he did it as he carries Heart to safety. More immediate things, he supposes. He’s left there, of course he is, left to contemplate exactly what he did like a child. That makes it sound like it was purposeful, but it wasn’t.
Soul would never let Heart die. Say what you will about him, but he would never let his chance at harmony slip away like that, if nothing else [which there might not be by the scorn in his voice as he talks about the ids, the cysts]. And maybe, just maybe, Mind can’t quite fathom the idea of Heart just slipping away like that - no fight. Or the idea that he will never again hear that whiny voice, never argue with messy words spilling out of a thoughtless person such as him. Disdain seemed so distant as he considered a future where he would never see Heart light up at things he considered mundane again. So many things - an infinity unto itself, and when he started thinking about it he couldn’t stop-
“{Are you crying?}” An incredulous voice he didn’t care to dignify with a response.
“{After what you did, you think you have the right to cry?}” A soft hand wiped away his tears, but he knew fundamentally it was mocking.
“{Chin up, Mind, we’ve got things to talk about. Do you have anything to say for yourself?}”
He tries to line his thoughts up in a configuration that Soul will be convinced by, and fails. It doesn’t really matter what he said. Mind can’t remember anyway.
“{Alright then.}”
Unceremoniously - Mind doesn’t know why he keeps thinking about it, but he does, the fact that the most important acts in his life aren’t marked with anything, they’re just there, horribly, unnecessarily there. Unceremoniously, Soul stabs him.
He screams, as one is wont to do when they’re stabbed in the eyes and brain and their world is composed entirely of pain upon pain. His brain - his Mind, if you will, haha that’s so funny isn’t it [reminiscent of those puns Heart always makes] - takes a moment to comprehend he was stabbed in the eyes, and that this is Soul blinding him in revenge, and everything that’s going on.
He doesn’t know how long it takes before the pain fades and Soul is bandaging him, gently, as if he cares. Probably just so he doesn’t have to reckon with what he did. Then he’s left alone, to stumble to his room, realizing that he really is blind now and he’ll have to deal with that, realizing that he’ll never see anything again. Soul’s justice.