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To say he was numb would be a misnomer. He felt the cold, biting past his clothing and latching onto his skin. He felt the steady drip of wetness coating his arms and hands, the splatter of it on his chest and face. He felt pain in his legs from his attacks, ice dug into flesh from reckless use. He was aware of the cuts, the bruises, the marks and rips and tears over him.

Marlo looks like a man haunted, hunted, ruined and broken. He was too weak to maintain his glamor, too weak to maintain his powered form- to weak to have retreated to his homeworld like Elzo so oft did when he needed sanctuary. Unfit for public eyes, unable to reach the hotel and sneak in. Not covered in blood. Not covered in death.
He shouldn't have gone to her home. He shouldn't have intruded. But her home was safe. It was secure, known, she would understand...? Maybe. He hoped she would understand.

Tears stung the corners of his eyes. He felt shame. Such a deep shame that it shook him to his core. He'd killed. He'd killed and a tiny, horrid part of him knew he didn't have to do it. But he had. He knew that he could accept nothing less, would risk nothing. He swore he'd get Hope back, he'd save their baby girl, be a better man for her- for both of them.
Yet the blood of his father stained his hands. A father that he'd not even known was his father until he'd seen the impending test results. Until he'd done his own tests. Until he'd looked the man he thought hated him because he was a b*****d cuckhold and known the cold truth of the twisted lie.

Govanni had known from the start, and he still hated him all the same.

So Marlo, drained, covered in his father's blood, managed to do what he'd done before- cover his tracks as blood dried to a tacky red-brown, and tossed a few pebbles at the window of the woman he had once promised to never hurt.
He knew he was going to hurt her tonight, hurt her with his pain, their pain, but for once in his life, he wanted to feel hurt. He wanted to feel the pain and be told he made the right decision.

He'd been looking at her window, staring really, when he saw her face come into view. She looked- she looked at him like he was something else. Other. Maybe he thought, he was now. Patricide. The sin old as primordial. Such a thing was bound to change a man. Not to mention-
He didn't want to think about it. He'd been so afraid last time, not knowing,m hoping, praying- but this time he'd seen it happen, heard it, felt it somewhere deep inside him as if it had been his own soul being crushed.

He wanted to drown, he wanted to fall away and sleep and never wake up. For this to be a nightmare. But no, the pain he felt was real, the blood, congealing and cooling was tacky and real. The ebb of pain in his limbs refused to end, and the scream echoed in his skull.

Looking up at the woman he loved, mother of his child, a reason he was soaked in his father's blood, (his father, his father, his father, real and solid and undeniable), Marlo answered her, voice shaking edged with fear.
"Jada." His voice was small, cracked, sorrow lacing his vocal chords and tears begging to flow but held back but numbness.
"I-" He stood there, stupidly, not knowing what to do. He a man who planned for everything, didn't know what to do.

"He's gone." Castor was gone. A entire acre of park covered in a frozen stasis. A crack that had torn through him that had pierced his soul along with the vile laughter of a knight who longed for power that was not his.
"And I-" Marlo smiled, as if it could hide the hard truth.
"I killed him." Marlo head shook, he didn't want to believe it, any of it.
"I killed Giovanni." Blue eyes looked to the one person he'd trust with Hope. The only person he knew would understand why he'd done it.

"I killed my father."

Marlo's mind was firing neurons but nothing was hitting it's mark.
All he felt was empty. It was alien, this empty hollowness that consumed everything. He should feel more. More than just such basic emotions that all clambered together but in the end they formed a void when he looked at jada and she beckoned him to come inside.

In a haze, he looked down at his blood cocvered self and could only think about how it would make a mess, leave a trail on her nice floors. It would make the twins ask questions and- if Hope saw him, what could he say? She was so young, so small- she barely understood the words he'd spoken to her, and she didn't know him. She didn't know he was-

His mouth opened, and he licked his lips, tasting the faint copper of his own blood from a split lip.
"I-" He lifted up his hands, stained dark umber in the low light.
"I'll leave a mess."

Blue eyes, lost and confused held Jada's purple.
"It might stain."

Somehow, the chance of bloodstains seemed so important in that moment than anything else.

A pained whimper left him, a tremor going through his entire body at the gentle but firm contact of Jada grasping his hands. He was supposed to be strong, stronger than this. He felt weak, hopeless, lost-
He felt like he'd failed.

"Okay." His words felt hollow, and he let he guide him inside, towards the bathroom. Once there, he moved with robotic detachment, stripping down with an open door, eyes unfocused and simply going through the motions. He managed to turn on the water, but lacking his normal mental process it was cold when he stepped in.
Still, all he did was flinch then proceed to stand under the spray, watching the water go from a dark burgundy to a faint pink. He'd been covered in blood before. His own, that on an enemy, that of a victim- hell, he'd once held Jada's own bloody body and felt the stain over his entire chest that night he'd realized how much he loved her and feared losing her for the first time.

Yet this was his father's blood.
This was the blood of the man that sired him. The man who rejected him and everything he was, up until the very end.

As the water slowly became less and less pink, gingerly he ran soap covered cloth over himself, washing away the traces of his crime. Patricide. Murder of the most foul and sinful.

His shower done as the remaining suds ran white and the water runnoff was clear, Marlo stepped out, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around himself, covering up for modesty and then-
He stood in her room. And for the first time in months-

Marlo Xanis felt uncertain if he even had a place here. Jada was the mother of his child- but what merit did that even matter to her?
He stared at the flood, a puddle forming under him.
He should have simply stayed away.

Bleary in his lost mindset, Marlo regarded Jada like she was something strange and unknown to him. Detachment from himself, rationally he knew that he was hurting, in pain, that he should have control and he was coming down and going into shock. He was-
He was breaking just like Giovanni said he would. His desire to break Marlo all his life, always failing- and only in death had the man managed to make his son snap in a way that left him stranded without a rope to hold onto. But there was a rope. A tiny one, and he clung to it, even as he found himself at a loss without his usual tether.

"I-" He licked his lips, uncertain how to form words anymore. What to say anymore. How did you tell someone everything? All the secrets all the lies, all the pain and suffering and anguish? How did you tell the woman you loved that you didn't know if there was anything to come back to now? That you had done something so horrible, you doubted you could keep her and your child safe?

"You got me-" Blue eyes widened a bit on her words, a faint blush when he realized his naked state and barely covered modesty. Her touch made the blush deepen and set his eyes to look away from her.
"Thank you. I'll dress myself." He took the clothes in one arm, shuffling into the bathroom to change. They were a big snug on him. They didn't fit right, but, there were clothes. They were clean. They helped make him feel a bit more whole.

He came out, wary and shy, confidence that came so easily to him stripped away. "Jada?" He softly called out to her, and finding her still there, visibly relaxed, walking over to her.
"Jada I-" Words became heavy, hard.
"I was scared." His voice hitched. "He knew we were senshi- he- he wanted to corrupt you." His hand reached out, hovering next to her face.
"He wanted to kill me and take you away, forever. To take Hope and-"

Words failed as his eyes watered as raw fear and sadness filled him, his face torn in million different ways.
"I couldn't let him do it. I couldn't let him kill Hope."
Not Jada.
He feared for his daughter, their daughter. The child he wanted to badly to be able to love.
"He would have killed Hope."

The tears, silent, stung at the corners of his eyes as Marlo fought to control. He knew he lacked it, that he had no control left. Everything was crumbling around him. Everything but Jada. But Hope. The twins. Yvaine. It wasn't fair. She'd given him so much and he felt the guilt that came so often as a child. He was a burden, an unwanted unwelcome thing that had encroached on something he wasn't party to. This was her home, her life, and once more he'd crashed into it without a single by your leave or permission.

It hurt, not because she was so strong, but because he was still so weak. So weak, and only able to do the more bare basic of protections for her. He could kill for her and their daughter- but what else could he do? What else could he provide?

"The thought of her- you-" Marlo held her face, relishing in the warmth of her touch, the softness in her skin. He wanted to lay down, wrap himself in her arms, pretend that none of this pain, these problems were real. That they were young again. That the evils they faced were still half a world away.
"I didn't want to lose you both."

His eyes downcast, Marlo sat on her bed, dutiful, hunched over, his hair sticking to his skin and the shirt. His hands now free they flexed open and closed, and he recalled the feeling of life leaving Giovanni's body, of killing his father.
He'd killed before. He'd kill someone else eventually. But none had been close, none had made him so afraid and desperate to kill as Giovanni's chilling words had been.
"He said he'd give Castor to them again- a gift to grant him title of king." Marlo started, eyes closing as he began to recount the events in his mind's eye.
"At first the battle we just expected him to be akin to a general, to yield under our combined power. But- he used chaos, embraced corruption and when Castor begged him to stop, to not repeat the past he-"

"What do I do Jada?" Marlo wasn't sure how to tell her.
"How do I tell Yvaine and the twins?"
The frozen field, the scream as crystal cracked and a royal fell from the sky.
How did he tell them it was likely that Castor was dead.

Marlo's entire body began to shake, a constant shake as his body worked overtime in an attempt to rid itself of the leftover adrenaline, of the chemicals wracking his body demanding action when no action could be taken.

"I heard it crack, I felt it-" His hands flexed open and closed. "It happened so fast cara, one second, he was there, pinning Lacedeamon down the next he was just- screaming. He was screaming and then I heard the crack and-"

He swallowed, the sound of bile being choked back. "The entire park was covered in ice. It- It hit me and hurt-" His hands clutched at his chest, where his own starseed laid. "I don't- what if he's alive cara? What if he needs me? He barely survived Alkaid and the rift and he told me he wouldn't survive it again and if his starseed is cracked-"

There were few ways to end a senshi forever. To end the rebirth cycle completely.
"I heard it crack and if it broke cara I- I can't. He's- he's Castor. My brother." They had always been brothers. They had always been reborn as a set, a pair. Not always blood, but by fate, by destiny.

"I don't know what to do Cara. I couldn't stop him. I could have stopped him. I was so close, I still had my magic and my power and-" He started to shake harder, tears finally running down his face in ugly waves.
"I wasn't there to protect him. It's my fault and now he might be dead cara. Castor might be dead and it's my fault."

"I killed by father and now my brother is dead too. It's all my fault. It's all my fault."

Hands tightened and flexed before reaching out, slowly wrapping themselves around Jada so he could embrace her, ground himself and hide his face in her soft curls. She smelled like home these days- she smelled like things he longed for but denied himself. Jada always had that sort of effect on him. And in the back of his mind, he knew fully well that he shouldn't be putting the burden on his grief upon her.

"He- He screamed Jada. Like when we children. Like when he was afraid Gio-Gio-" He stammered, the name making him weep. His father. "Giovanni would hurt me. He'd scream like that- helpless and scared and cara I don't know." Blue eyes looked at her own, red rimmed and much too vulnerable for the normally well composed man.
"He managed to go home I think but- he might not survive it. His world isn't tolerant of weakness. It might reject him. Mine would." He could never claim to be as close to his world as his brother, but Pollux was unforgiving of it's own. "How is this not my fault Jada?"

He was so.. angry. He was helpless, and as grief and fear faded it was growing to be guilt and anger.
"I could have stopped him years ago Jada. I should have- all those years ago, I could have killed him. I'd never have known he was my- I should have killed him. Then- You'd have Hope. The twins wouldn't have suffered. You wouldn't have suffered. Elzo would have been safer, happier. I could have killed him years ago Jada, but I didn't. How isn't this my fault?"