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"I miss you."
Clack.
"I know. I can feel it inside of you. I can feel you aching. Or maybe that's me. I can't tell the difference anymore."
Clack.
"Does it matter?"
Clack.
"No. I suppose not."
A sigh. Clack.
"Talk to me."
Clack.
"It's nothing."
Clack.
"Doesn't sound like nothing Warden."
A beat, then softly she adds. "Please."
Clack.
"I should've done better by you. I wish I could change things, go back and tell you-"
There's a burning in their eyes, hot molten stinging. He touches them and his fingers come back wet with tears.
"-Damn it all."
Clack.
Her chest feels heavy. Constricted in a way that she's unfortunately growing used to. Though it never gets eaiser. Her finger lingers on the record button, savouring the rements of his warmth as it leaks back into her.
"Warden, you will never be able to go back to do better. You have never done me any wrong."
Clack.
"I am doing wrong by you right now. I've taken you right to your life and more. I'm devouring you from the inside out Camilla."
Clack.
"Have you considered that I want you to?"
Clack.
Several beats pass before he responds. He absently thumbs at their collarbone, right where it peeks out of the shirt. The tips of their fingers delicately stroke along the skin he finds. Massages Camilla's shoulder, feels the knot residing there.
He had considered it, knows it to be true. He longs for her to do the same. Palamedes grieves the loss of her regardless, grieves for her face, her voice, her smile. Her touch.
"It doesn't take away the fact that I'm killing you."
Clack.
Camilla brings the hand on her shoulder closer, leans into the touch. If she shuts her eyes just that little bit tighter she can pretend it's him. She knows that he does the same.
"And I am killing you. Warden, I am your sword and shield. I am your hands, I am your word. I am yours in every way. If I am to be devoured let it be by you. It can only be by you."
Clack.
"You don't know how sorry I am. How much I need you to do the same. This feeling of- of I don't even know. The need to be consumed by you. It's overwhelming. I need you to be with me and yet I long for you next to me all the same."
Clack.
She smiles.
"Yes I do. I can feel it. We are one of the same, we always have been."
Clack.
"I miss you too."
Clack.
When she comes back she feels her arms wrapped around her legs, knees to chest. A soft embrace.
She sits there like that for a while. Somewhere inside of her he is there, sitting too. Her cheek rests against her knee and she sighs, feels her lungs expand, feels her ribs encapsulate them.
It hits her strongly then, harshly. The coldness around her, the absence of him. Camilla yerns to be engulfed, to be at his whim, his command, his needs and wants. Palamedes is her and she is him.
God, she misses him terribly.
"I cry for you. I long to hear your voice, to feel the warmth of your smile, to lose myself in your gaze. I ache for your touch."
She laughs, but it is devoid of humour.
"Sometimes I think I smell you. Sometimes the scent of flimsy and ink reaches me and I feel like we are back on the sixth. Safe. Secluded together. It makes my heart bleed."
Clack.
"I know the feeling."
Clack.
"I cannot breathe without you. I don't know how. Before I found Harrow I was lost. The days had blurred together. I held you. I had to search for you, through you. It was the worst pain I have ever felt."
Clack.
"Cam..."
Clack.
"Tell me your soul isn't where I belong. Tell me yours isn't with mine."
Clack.
"You know the answer, dear one. You have always known. We both have. You are my whole life Camilla Hect. What am I if not made to love you? I am beholden to you, then, now and always. You are my purpose, you are my flesh and my end. You are beyond words and worlds."
Clack.
"Don't ever leave me. One flesh, Palamedes."
Clack.
"Never. One end, my darling."
Clack.