CLOSED | prompt eight | RUIN

[dondarrion]

prompt eight | R U I N dressing-room style. closed to rog.

 

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[pseudoarchaeology]

[ He resists at first (habit, not conscious thought); he resists because it's engrained in him by now (too many times having been thrown out of conference rooms, out of restaurants and out of parties thrown by people who used to be his friends). Gene tugs his sleeve away, tries to throw the arm from off of his shoulders, but then, there's his name, spoken in an infinitely patient voice.

Confusion sets into his features as he looks at Nellie. It takes him a moment to remember. ] I didn't, Nellie. You'll tell them. Won't you?

[trailing]

[ (It's the worst when he doesn't recognize her. That confusion never lasts more than a few moments but it's still like being dunked underwater — there's no guarantee you'll come up. And though she trusts Gene — has come to trust him just as much as anyone else in her life — there isn't a time that Nellie doesn't fear he'll forget her entirely. What good is a junior mythologist to a man like him?)

Her hands, gentle as always, slip to his collar, fixing his jacket as she offers up a nod, gaze flickering between his jacket and his face. ]

I'm trying to, [ is what she manages. (Short of actually discovering Jesus' tomb, she doesn't know if there's anything that's going to restore his standing, not that she hasn't looked for an in.) ] I promise. Just sit tight for a little bit longer, okay?

[pseudoarchaeology]

[ Even he was young, a budding and bright star academia complete with meteoric rise, Gene hadn't been able to do much of anything by halves. Whatever he put his mind to, he did — a spiraling staircase to success that had crumbled away just as quickly when the ax had finally fallen. He had been brilliant with every fiber in his being as a young man and, now mad and old, he's just as crazy as he'd once been inspired. (And sometimes that means forgetting the one he trusts most; sometimes it means holding onto her for dear life and hoping she doesn't drown in the process.)

He looks down at his jacket and he follows suit, both hands coming to bat at the fabric as if having realized it offends Nellie somehow. ] Too kind, too good. Mustn't shout, not at Nellie. Drats.

[trailing]

[ He's still brilliant. That's the line Nellie maintains, at least. Crazy, sure, but still just as bright. She's too young to have been around the ACRG for the fall-out, but not so young that she doesn't remember the sort of weight that his name used to carry. It's through trying to keep up with him that she's gotten past both the old legend and the current reputation, and there's nothing in the patient tone in her voice that is feigned or insincere.

Gently, she pats his collar, shaking her head once. ]

It's okay. Can't scare Nellie away.