CLOSED | prompt eight | RUIN

[dondarrion]

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

 

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[escapings]

[ Sad but understanding. To a degree, it's the way all castaways are. They aren't made to be happy, but to bring happiness, and there's not a one of them that doesn't understand what the others have gone through. It's a part of their title, after all.

Nellie's mood doesn't seem to ease, a flush finding her cheeks as she continues to avoid Penn's gaze. ]

If it wasn't, then it— it is, now. He's coming after me because I shouldn't— because I should be—

[ Because I shouldn't exist and my little boy is going to make sure that I don't. ]

That's my responsibility. Kind of.

[cremations]

Your responsibility, [ she says, patient as ever. ] You're only responsibility, from the very beginning— [ Penn leans forward a little, covers Nellie's hand with his own, his chin craning just far enough to try and catch her gaze. ] —was to care about him. And you did.

[ You do, he thinks might be more accurate, but he won't put those words in her mouth and her heart, not when it sits too close to an open wound.

In a way, they're not so different — Penn and Nellie's kid. They're both wishful boys who grew up to be lonely men, and they both kill memories in the hopes of purging their own — one out of empathy, the other out of bitterness. (He doesn't want to destroy Nellie, but Penn will if she asks.) ]