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Losing the weight of the obol should feel like a loss, instead when Scott hands it over to Charon, he doesn’t feel it at all.
It’s not— why isn’t— Scott doesn’t feel anything at all.
A numbness has spread through him, there’s a static in his head like thick clouds, and wind is rushing in his ears like a raging storm. The last time he felt it to this degree was when—
Scott’s hand twists into the fabric of his collar, grasping tight hold of it. His fingers are trembling, he notes distantly, and he’s inhaling and exhaling strangely. Scott can’t seem to get a hold of it, as if he’s no longer in control of his own body, taking in slow, uneven breaths.
It’s… not right.
He’s vaguely aware that Charon has been trying to speak to him, but Scott can’t seem to find it in himself to listen, not even when he’s ushered forward and away from the boat. Everything feels like too much and too little at the same time, the overwhelming sensation of being watched by the wrong crowd, and the daunting knowledge that there’s no one watching at all. Scott doesn’t even notice it when Charon leaves, all he knows is that he stays, his heart unable to stop pounding in his chest, loud and thunderous.
It’s not until there’s an echo of footsteps in the distance that the haze wrapped around his mind seems to fade ever so slightly, at least enough that Scott realises he should start moving. He doesn’t— he doesn’t want anyone to see him like this, that much he knows.
Scott forcefully relaxes the grip of his fingers and drops his hand back to his side, then walks in the direction of the tunnel he had taken the first day. The heat emanating from the environment helps bring his breathing back under control, the air in his lungs a warm comfort.
A figure moves towards, and Scott brings a faint smile to his lips. There’s no feeling behind it, he can’t find it in himself to try and embody the role he so often plays, but it’s enough. It should be enough.
When the person draws closer, Scott can finally see what they look like. Curly hair, piercing eyes, sharp teeth. Black, red, gold.
Abolish.
That’s not… he’s not who Scott was expecting to see.
“Well, you’re taking your time,” Abolish states in lieu of a greeting, coming to a halt in front of him.
Was he? How long has he been down here? He can’t— Scott really isn’t sure. He meets Abolish’s eye and shrugs casually. “Yep, I wasn’t in a rush.”
“Riiight.” There’s a furrow in Abolish’s brow as his eyes sweep over Scott’s face, then down his body; there’s a flirty joke to be made there that Scott’s too tired to figure out. “So you’re… doing just fine?”
Scott bobs his head up and down with some added zest for flavour, and Abolish’s perceptive eyes narrow at him. “Of course! I’m alive, aren’t I? Why wouldn’t I be?” At the cost of a single coin, he’s come right back to life again, and he’s got more, so it’s so fine— Scott is fine.
“Why wouldn’t you be? You just got killed, for one,” Abolish points out flatly, face going blank.
The smile on his lips goes slightly strained, but before he can slip up completely—before Abolish can notice—Scott widens it instead. Fine, if that doesn’t work it’s time for a different tactic, a different mask. “It happens, handsome, it wasn’t our first time, and it won’t be our last either,” he says with a playful wink.
Abolish scoffs. “Right, sure, is that why you didn’t fight back?”
“I— What?” Scott asks, taken aback, the question a genuine shock. This isn’t— what’s going on? “You were right there, just watching like everyone else, you know I fought back,” he insists.
“If you call that pitiful display fighting back, you’re weaker than I thought.”
Like a flash of lightning, something cracks in his chest. His smile dims completely, and wind rushes in his ears as he looks at Abolish’s face, who’s— he’s— he looks bored. “Not everyone here knows how to fight, Abolish,” Scott says tightly, pressing his fingertips together to try and stay calm.
As he crosses his arms over his chest, Abolish rolls his eyes in the most dismissive way possible for extra measure. “The gods bestowed us with abilities, if you’re not capable of using them, maybe it’d be better to put you out of your misery now.”
Arrogant bastard.
Who does he think he is?
“I know how to use my powers,” Scott argues in a hiss of hot air. “Better than you, it seems, you didn’t even use them in the arena.”
Abolish waves him off. He’s not— he’s not even looking at Scott, gaze lazily drifting somewhere behind him. “Unlike you, I didn’t need ‘em.”
The frustration in his veins heats his insides like rising lava. “Why? Because you’re sooo much better than the rest of us?”
“Obviously I am,” Abolish states with a shrug. “I mean, I did think you’d beat Nikos, but you didn’t. How disappointing.”
He inhales sharply, heart pounding angrily in his chest. What in the world is his issue? Scott knows Abolish can be a jerk, that he cares about entertainment, about himself, and very little else, and Scott doesn’t have an issue with that—that’s just how Abolish is—but he’s never been this callous either. “Shut up, you know nothing about me.”
There’s a mocking twist to Abolish’s mouth that makes his blood boil. “Sure I don’t, but I know you’re going to lose, I know you’re gonna die a lonely death—”
“I said shut up!” Scott shouts, and with a sudden surge of wind, Abolish is launched backwards.
Before Scott can as much as blink, Abolish has hit the wall behind him with a resounding whack, the sound echoing through the large tunnel as he crumbles to the ground with a pained groan.
Oh gods, oh no, that wasn’t— Scott didn’t mean—
Panicked, Scott rushes towards Abolish just as he’s pushing himself up. There’s a bit of blood staining his lips, and he’s trying to get his breathing back under control—the sound is somewhat strained, or pained, even—but he is breathing. Scott feels relieved, and he feels guilty, but not enough to apologise, not when Abolish’s alive, not when he was acting like an asshole, and definitely not when he deserved to get the wind knocked out him.
It's just… Scott didn’t want to slam him into the wall, at least not like that, and definitely not with that much force.
Scott braces himself for the argument to continue, but what he’s not expecting is that, instead, Abolish starts to laugh. It’s not a nice sound, dark and amused, but even in his disbelief, Scott realises he kinda likes it anyway.
“Now that’s what fighting back looks like!” Abolish says with teeth like knives, the yellow of his eyes like blazes. He’s— that bastard, he’s not— he’s not upset, or angry, Abolish is smirking at him.
Oh.
That was…
“Next time I’m choking you,” Scott mutters petulantly, glaring right at Abolish’s smug, stupid face.
If anything, that just makes Abolish’s bloodied grin widen further, and he lets out a chuckle, the light in his eyes brightening with violent delight. He’s enjoying himself far too much for someone Scott just slapped against a wall. “Next time you should definitely do that in the arena,” he says pointedly.
Scott glowers at him. “Was that all you were trying to do? To get me to fight like you’d want me to?” To… be entertaining to Abolish?
Abolish huffs, then uses his thumb to wipe the blood off his mouth. Scott watches him lick it off. “Yep, and to get you to…” he cuts himself off, taking a moment to think of the right words, “well, to snap you out of the shock, I guess.”
“Shock,” he replies flatly. “I think I’m allowed to be a bit shocked when I got electrocuted, Abolish.”
Another chuckle, and Abolish actually looks at him this time. “You were out of it, I thought it’d drag you back to the land of the living, so to say.”
“Ah, right, so you thought being a bastard would help me?” Scott questions with a small frown.
He rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to pout, you know I was just helping— and besides, it worked, didn’t it?”
Begrudgingly, Scott has to agree. The detachment he’d felt had disappeared at some point early on in their argument, if you can call it that, and Scott hadn’t even realised it at the time. Whatever motif Abolish has to want to help him, Scott doesn’t know, nor does he particularly care. He feels… not normal, admittedly, but better.
Abolish made him feel better.
Scott looks away. At least his heart rate has come down to a normal level. Mostly. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he mumbles, definitely not pouting. Scott might forgive him, but he’s not going to forget it either. “Any of it.”
“I mean, sure, but you gotta realise that this will happen again,” Abolish says with a careless shrug. “Maybe it will be Shelby instead of Nikos, next time but—”
“It wasn’t that,” Scott interrupts, biting his lip. “It wasn’t— It being Nikos had nothing to do with it, not really, not… like that.” Maybe it made it worse, but it could have been anyone and Scott would have, well, struggled to fight them. It was his own fault, in the end, he knows that.
In the corner of his eye, Scott sees that Abolish’s eyes are firmly fixed on him. “So then what was it?”
“I’m not a fighter, Abolish, I told you this, but I thought…” Scott trails off, then shakes his head with a soft, amused huff. “I thought I could act like one, to take one of the roles I’d played in the past. Evidently, I picked the wrong one.”
“The wrong one?” he questions, tilting his head curiously.
Scott looks back up and smiles. “Yeah, I chose my last role, the one I played when I, well, when I—”
“When you died?” Abolish raises both his eyebrows. “You died during a play?”
He chuckles, almost fond. “Yep, and I put up quite the show too! The reviews were raving about me for weeks, the performance of a lifetime, they said. My last too, obviously—it’s not every day a prop sword gets swapped for a real one—but they only had lovely things to say about me!”
Abolish gives him a strange look, intense yellow eyes unreadable. It feels like they pierce right through him; Scott has come to prefer it when Abolish looks at him like that, like he’s seeing something others can’t. “Someone betrayed you,” he states slowly.
“It was just a jealous understudy, not someone I knew well,” Scott dismisses with a wave of his hand. “But hey, at least I died being loved! What more could I’ve asked for?”