Work Text:
Paula sat in front of the camera, the one he used in his old streams and the one she had to dig out of his closet’s mountain of things. The messy apartment had Camille’s fingerprints all over it. Regardless, she cleared her throat; the phone trembled in her hands, as she read out and recorded one last video for him. “What’s up, chat? Camille here—” Something wet blurred her vision; she pressed on anyways.. “—and if you are watching this, then I am dead.”
Any Association fixer was well acquainted with the sterile white walls of the medical room. But, this was the first time she was subject to complete and abject silence; the laughter, the bickering, the “Don’t they know who I am?”, all of it subsided. Replaced by the beep, beep, beep of a heartbeat monitor, and the faint singing of the parade. Paula left La Manchaland with tattered armor and the remnants of her pride—’your shield’ couldn’t protect anyone, not the client, or the civilians, or him,
The memory pricked at her throat, and no amount of water was enough to drown it out, nor did being confined in the too soft hospital sheets do her any favors. The memories of Camille clashed against the words of her old Director, the lesson she was taught after her first taste of death.
”Death’s just part of the business. I’ve seen too many of you just come, and go, destroyed by their own grief. But mourning won’t stop the morning, alright? Just move on to the next contract.”
She shifted up and leaned on the cold metal bedframe. The window was next to her bed, and outside was the morning sky’s light blue (same as the highlights of his hair), and the clouds (white as his hat and fur coat), and the sun, bright as ever (golden, like the trims of his outfit), as if his shining face hadn’t been devoured by the roses. How was she meant to forget? Everything was a memory, a memory laced with the copper of blood, and those blood-drenched roses. The morning bled into the afternoon, and the various tests and medical procedures kept her busy until she returned to her bed in the evening; the hospital gown was far heavier than her armor ever was. She turned to the sky, and she saw it starless.
A fellow Zwei fixer peeked their head through the door. “Ah, miss Paula. As you’ve requested, here is your phone. Don’t push yourself too hard, alright? Just rest easy.” They quickly shuffled out of the room, so Paula turned her attention to the device now in her hands. She hardly considered it anything more than a tool meant for communication. it was where her Director would send any announcements regarding new contracts, or new guidelines that the Zwei had implemented; anything work-related, really. Never understood why he treated and talked to it like some toy. As expected, her phone had blown up with new messages; concerned colleagues, rent notices, and also medical bill. She decided to deal with it all later.
For now, Paula turned her attention to the phone’s ‘Gallery’. She never took any pictures herself. Didn’t see any point in them. The dozens of pictures here were all taken by Camille only; and to think, she was this close to deleting them, since this cheap thing hardly had any storage. A lot of them were taken in secret, during times where she had to either give up her phone or simply was not looking—she remembered where each one of them was. Like this one, where Camille stood dramatically among a field of dead S Corp Syndicate members; one of their first join expeditions, they were tasked to protect a farmer’s fields from the thugs who had been terrorizing him, a mundane mission on the surface. But for better, and for worse, Camille, and the ten-thousand he dragged along with him, always made a mission more interesting than it had to be. She thought his smirk was insufferable at the time. The most recent picture was a picture taken only a day before the La Manchaland mission.
It was a cold, rainy night, and they were on a taxi on the way to the WARP Train to P Corp. She usually prided herself on her efficiency—yet here she was, sleeping on the fur coat and on his shoulders. She hadn’t remembered this at all. That smirk—he didn’t tell her at all about this, despite it being the kind of thing he’d absolutely hold over her. Was he waiting for her to see this? His self-satisfied smile of his was still insufferable; for different reasons, now. She scanned the gallery over and over again, as if she could will new photos into existence; his phone must’ve had hundreds, if not thousands of pictures. All of them devoured by La Manchaland. In her mind was but one thought, ringing, frustrating, and true:
I should’ve taken more pictures of you.
Paula left the app and went back to the messages. Work was never over, and she was already getting messages from her Director regarding a new contract Section 3 was assigned to. But, buried beneath the messages from her employers, the bank, and news agencies—was a message from someone who should’ve been dead. From Camille. Impossible, impossible, impossible—how did he even have the time to write a message while the roses breathed down his neck? She opened the message.
And then she put the phone back down.
Against all of the doctors’ insistence, Paula got discharged, and she boarded the WARP train and headed west, to Camille’s old and messy apartment. He invited her here often, whether it was for streams or… other reasons. Regardless, it appeared she had blanked out for a little while—she wiped her eyes with her arm, and then delivered the final remnants of his message.
“So let’s have one final chat. Not as Camille, the streamer, but as myself. Camille.
“It’s only been a few years since I’ve started streaming, and wow—if I hadn’t turned on that camera, then I would’ve been stuck as some lousy no-name Grade 9 fixer. Oh, what a tragedy that would’ve been.
“I hope that my content, the character of Camille—I hope he made you laugh, made you smile, or made you forget somewhat about a particularly bad day. If it was enough to bring you joy, for even but a small fleeting moment, then… that is enough. For me, at least.
“Sorry for selling out so hard in the past year or so. I was trying to save up enough money to let a certain someone devote less hours to work, and more to me, but still, you’ve all supported me throughout out all of it, whether it be through the merch, the donations, or even just a simple chat message and subscription. That support is the same one which had kept my dream alive throughout all these years.
“Bit of an anticlimactic end to the journey of the great journey of Camille, but… I had fun. I loved being Camille, up to the bitter and bloody, bloody end. Might be gone now, but keep living good and prosperous lives, ‘kay? Au revoir, everyone.”
Paula took a deep breath. Her palms had grown sweaty, and the small phone more cumbersome with each word, however, she did finish it. She could’ve gotten up and end the recording there. But she didn’t. Because she still had words of her own, words she wanted to say. To them. To him.
“My name is Paula, and I was an associate of his during the La Manchaland mission; some of you may even recognize me as a guest of the stream,” she said, her voice laden with something rough and raw and everything else she hadn’t dared to name. “As he died, he texted me all of this, and asked me to relay it to all of you here. He sacrificed himself to save my life, despite all of his talk about the ‘contract’, and the ‘content’, and he used the last of his strength to write this message to you. He was a polarizing man, to be certain, but he was also an honorable one.
“To Camille, I… you didn’t have to do anything more. You've done so much, for me, and for so many other people in the City. You don’t need to apologize, alright? I hope you knew how much I loved you. And I hope the people watching this never forget how much you truly cared. You were the best associate I could’ve asked for. Tu peux te reposer maintenant. Salut."
Her voice was swollen, gurgled, and her chest was clenched tight enough for her heart to burst, if it hadn’t already. “Thank you to all of you. You and your love for him, his content—everything. You all meant a lot to him. Know that he chased his dreams up to the very end, and died as a valiant fixer should. In battle, protecting the lives of the others.”
Unlike me.
That was enough. She got up, and stopped the recording.
Paula had a lot of thoughts, still, but for now, she made her way to his bedroom, and she nested herself within the sheets of his bed. But if it was just her and her thoughts alone, then she may have never fallen asleep, so she took her phone and headed to his channel, and she put on one of his past streams. She was glad to have something, anything—this small little piece of his life, though she knew it would never full the gaping hole inside of her heart, it was enough to stop the bleeding, if only until tomorrow.
She would fall asleep to his voice, and the echoes of the final part of his message—the one she left out of the recording. For it was for Paula, and Paula alone.
And finally, Paula, mon amour, mon cher amour… it’s so, so unfair. This hardly feels like enough. But, je t'aime, et je ne vais pas voir ailleurs. I started streaming for me, but I kept going for you. Wanted to get enough money so you and I could retire, and then spend the rest of my days annoying you. And maybe an occasional stream or two.
Sorry for dying like this. I really do love you, you know; I really hope that you knew. I made sure to say it before every mission, how you gave me the happiest few years of my life. Sorry, again, that the money couldn’t come any sooner, so you could forget about all of this nasty fixer work. Might be my only regret. Better keep kicking ass while I’m gone. And… I’m sorry. I lov e you, hear me? I lov you. I l v yo—