some kinda freak show

Title: Witness
Fandom: Johannes Cabal - Jonathan L Howard
Characters: Johannes Cabal, Horst Cabal, Leonie Barrow
Relationships: Johannes Cabal/Horst Cabal
Rating: Mature
Length: ~180
Summary: A detective pieces clues towards a curious affair.
Status: Complete
Notes: This was written at 2am several months ago and needed some place to call home besides unhinged discord DMs. So here it is.

Part 4 of folie à deux.

It was at this point Leonie Barrow noticed Cabal had been crying, and that revelation– more than soul-stealing carnivals, more than murderous aeroship journeys, more than the horrors of Maple Durham– chilled her to the bone like nothing else ever had. The necromancer's eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, signature spectacles thrown haphazardly on the floor towards the opposite end of the cabin. Directly to his side on the bed sat Horst. His own eyes had glazed over, staring into a middle distance that began and ended with beige wallpaper. Cabal's hands fretfully bunched at the knee of Horst's trousers, and the elder of the two rested a listless palm on the back of the younger, as if unsure of what else to do with a physical body. Their eerie silence left only the rhythmically dull thrum of train tracks.

It was at this point she noticed the bite wound peeking beneath Cabal's undone cravat.

The blood at the corners of Horst's lips.

The distinctly acrid smell of something else.

And then, Leonie Barrow understood.

"Oh, dear God. Cabal, what have you two done?"