ﾟ･stars were made for falling ﾟ･ (original)

15- the archer's arrow

When they first got home, Casper and Leo went to do their usual chores, while Miles explained what happened to Liz and Ivan, who was sitting at the dining table, eating lunch. Casper gave Liz a strangely sad look as they passed by, but she didn't notice. Leo internalized it, wondering just what Casper had seen when he'd been hallucinating. After he'd finally managed to get Hemlock to stop screaming, he'd heard Casper crying from the front of the store. Of course, by the time Leo had gotten there, he'd stopped, but it still concerned him. On the way home, Miles had explained seeing some pretty absurd things, like cotton candy people dancing and cannibalizing themselves. Leo was just quietly grateful he hadn't drunk any of that tea, though he wasn't proud of what he'd done after.

He couldn't get it out of his head that night, the way his knife had so easily slid into Lady Hemlock's neck, the way she was screaming, gurgling, choking on her own blood. He curled into a ball, pulling his legs up into his chest and trying not to scream at the repeated image. She was screaming, why couldn't he? He was pretty sure he had, he faintly remembered screaming. He was just like Archer, he was a murderer, a shitty person. And one day, he'd get his, just like Archer had. He-

"Leo, are you crying?" The amount of concern in Casper's voice caught him off guard, making him freeze. Across the room, he could hear Casper get up, but instead of sitting in his usual spot on the floor, he sat at the foot of Leo's bed, shaking his shoulder a little.

"Lee, hey, you awake?"

Leo slowly sat up, feeling even more surprised to see Casper sitting there, as if it hadn't fully sunken in where he was. Casper examined his face in the dim light of the moon, almost frowning as he did so. It was hard to really see anything in the darkness, but he wondered if he could tell he'd actually been crying.

"...Killing her rattled you pretty badly, huh?" His voice wasn't unkind- it was almost gentle.

Leo shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant about the whole thing. "I did what I had to do, and we're all alive because of it. It's what Halley told me, y'know? I did..." His voice broke a little, but he forced himself to continue. "I did what was best. And we're alive."

"Yeah, but are you okay? Killing someone is hard. I mean, you saw what it did to me."

Leo shrugged limply, not sure what to say; he wasn't okay, but Casper had enough to worry about, didn't he? He couldn't depend solely on Casper to make it okay, he couldn't expect him to make Leo feel better every single time he was upset. And yet... it was so tempting to just fall over onto him, to try and see if Casper could at least be a good distraction from his problems. He wasn't a remedy for the hell his mind had become, but a decent temporary fix.

When he didn't reply, Casper sighed quietly, moving back in the bed a little so that his back rested against the wall. Leo just watched him, not sure what to do, until Casper spoke again, his voice just as weirdly gentle.

"Just try to sleep, okay? I'm not going anywhere. I mean, I don't have anywhere else to go, do I?"

Leo just nodded, laying back down and curling up again. Casper's legs stretched across the bed made it impossible for him to stretch his out- it was only a twin size, it wasn't anything massive. Really, it was only big enough for one person, but he didn't mind Casper sitting there. He laid there in silence, listening to the sound of the freezing wind blowing outside, his eyes closed. In an undertone, he heard Casper begin to hum to himself, slowly beginning to mutter soft words to a song Leo had never heard- the melody was familiar, but also not, like he'd heard it in a half-forgotten dream somewhere.

The words also had the same strange feeling to them, almost alien but known like the back of his hand. He could just barely make them out as Casper traced small circles on the blanket with his finger, his mind seemingly elsewhere.