[left to die] one character leaves the other to die somewhere
Ciro could leave Alexei to die somewhere. I'm not sure what context this would happen in but he could genuinely think, Alexei is going to die here if I can't move him, and he'd think, I Can't Move Him. And Alexei would be telling Ciro to go, there is no removing this heavy (abc) in time, get out of here before the fire comes. and Ciro would say, I don't want to leave you.
"Da. But you will." And as much as Alexei likes to pretend his English is bad - prefers the Russian cadence - they both know that it is not a mistake that he says will. No value judgement, no comment on Ciro's character, no conviction Alexei has that he is inherently leavable: just that Alexei knows that Ciro needs the permission to go, and this is his permission. He WILL go. He WILL survive. He WILL get home to his father.
"Don't be an asshole," Ciro says. Rejects. Argues.
"It will not move." If it would, Alexei would already have shoved Ciro out of this room. He would already have thrown him kicking and screaming out of the only clear way out (the window) that is left. He would have followed.
But it will not move, and he cannot follow, and Ciro needs to go on his own.
"You go," Alexei says, as Ciro tries feebly anyway to make it move - disappears briefly to look for something he can use as leverage, anything, he needs to get this off of Alexei so that they can get out, he needs --
"What if we cut it off?" Ciro is ignoring him. It is desperate. He could cut Alexei's lower leg off. It might give them the space to move in that they could get the rest of him out, if they just - he could just - Ciro's hands are sweaty and already burned and they slip and slide as he struggles to find the pocket knife the Volpes gave him for his thirteenth birthday, a knife that's been embedded in his birth father and in Alexei before (sorry, Alexei), and he just - it isn't sharp enough, he knows. They don't have the angle to break the bone. Alexei would just be in pain while he died.
"What if-" he starts again, having dismissed his own thought.
"Ciro," Alexei tells him. The air is thick with smoke. They swim through it together, breathing in the burnt plastic and ashy metal of the apartment building, and Alexei catches his hand. "I take. I will try. Thank you." It is an easier exit than choking on the smoke until he dies, he thinks, or waiting for the fire to claim him. He will take the pocket knife and use it when he needs it. "Go to your father." A father who will die if he loses another child.
"No." He is not unkind. But no.
"You're my big brother," Ciro half-sobs, half-begs, half-reaches, half-argues. But it's only a quarter argument anymore. He releases the knife when Alexei's fingers close around it; permission to take it. To try himself. Because Ciro can't for him.
"Da." Alexei knows. "I know."
"Alexei," Ciro asks. The proper name. The full name.
"Lusha," Alexei trades. "Is waste time. Go."
Ciro swallows something terrible, awful, horrible, the worst thing he has ever done waiting to happen, the hardest thing he's ever done coming to a head, and he kisses Alexei's temple and makes him promise to try, please try, cut it off or - or - he doesn't know, just get OUT, OK?
"Okay." Alexei is lying and they both know it.
Ciro takes off his own shirt before he goes, peels off the water-soaked material to give it to Alexei and offer him some protection from the heat and the smoke and the Awful. He peels off his belt, "You can tourniquet it," even though he knows that it won't work. It won't work. He's going to die here. Ciro is going to leave him to die here and he's going to do it knowingly and he hates this. He says, "Lorenzo--"
"We're gonna take care of Petr," Ciro says. "OK? He's gonna have someone. He's my nephew." His brother's son.
Alexei has not cried in front of Ciro before and it is too hot to do so here.
Alexei says, "Thank you."
And then Ciro leaves him for dead.
HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME
