open | prompt six | DEMONS

[wrens]

prompt six | D E M O N S be careful in casting out your devil ‘lest you cast out the best thing about you. ( friedrich nietzsche )

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[complicit]

[ Ruth just stares at him for a long while. Silent but acknolwedging. (They're each other's devils as well as their salvation.) ]

Thank goodness.

[duplicit]

[ It's a tricky balance, all things told, to be both the best and the worst of each other, though, for the most part, he still considers himself the worst half if only because his crimes are so much more easily visible. But they manage — they always have. (They do better than just manage, frankly, but that is a discussion for another time and another day.) They manage, bound together by blood and the sort of love and devotion that isn't always guaranteed by familial ties. For creatures like them, it's an impressive feat.

In the sort of voice that makes it clear this is not a complaint: ] Think you had a lot more to do with it than anything so abstract, sissy.

[complicit]

[ His crimes are more readily seen which, in turn, make her own that much worse. While Saul had been born temperamental and brash, Ruth had been quiet but empty, her face fashioned into a mask that concealed the hollowness (the lack of feeling) which lay inside. That she care for him at all, brother or not, is a greater miracle than most can even conceive (though care she does, wildly and without restraint). ]

Couldn't just leave you to your own devices, could I?

[duplicit]

[ Now, finally, a smile. ]

I'd die if you did.

[ It's the furthest thing from a joke that he could tell. Because they stand on such opposite ends of the spectrum, they need each other in a way that means that one will run him or herself into the ground without the other. When it comes to care, he burns quickly but brightly, like a comet, and she — his sister — is the only exception. For her, that flame is constant, never wavering. ]

[complicit]

[ Again, the juxtaposition. Saul smiles rarely but, during those times, genuinely; Ruth, however, smiles often, but more often than not those smiles are false. Instead, there is a quietness that falls over her expression whenever she feels most sincere. She rewards no one such insight, save Saul — a grace that he did nothing to earn beyond simply be born.

Her attention lingers on his mouth, tracing the shape of that smile with her eyes. ] Terribly morbid, Sally.

[duplicit]

[ The smile still doesn't leave his face, instead twisting this way and that in vaguely half-hearted attempts not to look so amused. ]

Thought you liked morbid.

[complicit]

[ Something colors her voice, low and dangerous (heady), when Ruth speaks again. ] I like you. Arguably, it's something of a prerequisite. [ Them being siblings and all. ]

You just happen to be morbid at the same time.

[duplicit]

It's suggested reading.

[ Still, he doesn't pursue the argument, reaching out to adjust the shoulder of her blouse. ]

Morbid or not, doesn't make it any less true.

[complicit]

[ He adjusts the shoulder of her blouse and Ruth lowers her gaze to survey his handiwork, reaching up to catch his wrist with one hand while readjusting the silken slip with the other. ]

It'll never happen and we both know that. Which means the point is moot and all we're doing is wasting one another's time, trying to look clever or be difficult or both. ] Her fingers tighten around Saul's wrist — not painful, but vaguely possessive. ] Mmm?

[duplicit]

[ Her grasp upon his wrist tightens but he doesn't try to shake her loose, instead raising his other hand to run his fingers along the line of her jaw, pressing dangerously close as his gaze flickers between hers and the bow of her lips. ]

Just making sure, sis.