Naturally. Don't you ever doubt it. What happened to Corrival, Erskine?
[Without even missing a beat, as he opens cupboards and puts things away. It has to be due to Corrival; that's who Anton was referring to, and he seemed to recall Skulduggery saying he was dead by Skulduggery's timeline. But Anton didn't know the details.]
[His movements gradually slow, like a clock winding down. Anton knows, or at least strongly suspects. There's really no way to save face in this conversation short of coming clean, is there?
He presses his eyes tightly closed for a second, fighting a surge of something that's either bile or panic or maybe both.
How many of his crimes can he confess to before it's too many? Before even Anton gives up on him?]
[Whatever Anton's been saying, he doesn't expect that, and it makes him pause. Somehow ... it just doesn't add up. If Corrival had been assassinated, Skulduggery would have added his name to the accusation, but he didn't. And it was in the Remnant invasion ...
[... Oh. Anton goes back to stacking tins.]
While you were possessed, you mean. Why?
[If he remembers that much, and it's rare to remember that much after a possession, does he even remember the why?]
[He'd been possessed, yes, but it didn't make it any less a murder just because he couldn't remember it. Tanith certainly seemed to retain much of her old personality, her old interests, even after the Remnant was a permanent, settled part of herself. Erskine could only assume he'd felt the same when the Remnant had taken control of him.
He'd known Corrival, seen something in him that couldn't be allowed to continue, and fixed it the way the Remnant-possessed knew best.]
I don't know. Probably because he'd been named Grand Mage. He'd have been an obstacle. I remember fighting you and Corrival and Wreath in Ghastly's shop before the Remnant came at me, and I remember waking up with Corrival dead in front of me.
[Ah. So he didn't actively remember. In a way that was worse--waking up to implication, and never quite knowing, but nevertheless knowing. Anton wonders how he reacted to the Remnant inside him. The chance that they couldn't take him was one of the reasons they'd been imprisoned in the Hotel.
[Apparently they could.
[But he still doesn't turn around, if only to give Erskine some space without being in the spotlight. The tins are three high, now.]
Then it wasn't you who killed him. It was the result of you and the Remnant combined. If not someone else.
It doesn't feel like the distinction really matters. It feels like I murdered him. I'd be dead or a... a vampire if it weren't for him, probably several times over, and his blood is on my hands.
[Erskine lets out a pained laugh.]
Let's just say, if many more people arrive from our world I may never be able to leave the Hotel.
[And honestly, that's ... actually relieving. Erskine is grieving. He's guilty. It helps, to know that. If Anton were Larrikin or nearly any other Dead Man he probably would have given Erskine a hug. Since he wasn't, he finished stacking the tins and went to pick up some more groceries, and put a hand on Erskine's shoulder, and squeezed it.]
At least then I would be in good company. That goes in the fridge on the end.
[He nods at the milk and then steps away to fill one of the jars with oats.]
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[Without even missing a beat, as he opens cupboards and puts things away. It has to be due to Corrival; that's who Anton was referring to, and he seemed to recall Skulduggery saying he was dead by Skulduggery's timeline. But Anton didn't know the details.]
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He's dead. During the Remnant invasion.
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[Sugar in the cupboard, rice a shelf up.]
I want to know why his death would make you flinch so.
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Apart from the fact that he was like a father to me for almost four hundred years? Am I not allowed to care when people die anymore?
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[Tins in the cupboard. Dry goods too.]
But people dying don't usually result in you cutting off a conversation, and subsequently trying to avoid its resumption.
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He presses his eyes tightly closed for a second, fighting a surge of something that's either bile or panic or maybe both.
How many of his crimes can he confess to before it's too many? Before even Anton gives up on him?]
I killed him.
no subject
[... Oh. Anton goes back to stacking tins.]
While you were possessed, you mean. Why?
[If he remembers that much, and it's rare to remember that much after a possession, does he even remember the why?]
no subject
He'd known Corrival, seen something in him that couldn't be allowed to continue, and fixed it the way the Remnant-possessed knew best.]
I don't know. Probably because he'd been named Grand Mage. He'd have been an obstacle. I remember fighting you and Corrival and Wreath in Ghastly's shop before the Remnant came at me, and I remember waking up with Corrival dead in front of me.
no subject
[Apparently they could.
[But he still doesn't turn around, if only to give Erskine some space without being in the spotlight. The tins are three high, now.]
Then it wasn't you who killed him. It was the result of you and the Remnant combined. If not someone else.
no subject
It doesn't feel like the distinction really matters. It feels like I murdered him. I'd be dead or a... a vampire if it weren't for him, probably several times over, and his blood is on my hands.
[Erskine lets out a pained laugh.]
Let's just say, if many more people arrive from our world I may never be able to leave the Hotel.
no subject
[Quietly.]
I suppose it doesn't, to you.
[And honestly, that's ... actually relieving. Erskine is grieving. He's guilty. It helps, to know that. If Anton were Larrikin or nearly any other Dead Man he probably would have given Erskine a hug. Since he wasn't, he finished stacking the tins and went to pick up some more groceries, and put a hand on Erskine's shoulder, and squeezed it.]
At least then I would be in good company. That goes in the fridge on the end.
[He nods at the milk and then steps away to fill one of the jars with oats.]
no subject
Right, boss.
[It does feel better to get that off of his chest. Not much better, but he'll take what he can get these days.]