CLOSED | prompt eight | RUIN

[dondarrion]

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

 

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BARRYMORE | boogeymen, g2

[unravelled]

[ There's a large ugly stain on the floor of Barrymore's living room, so bad that it's soaked through the rug and under the varnish of the wood. Spatter on the ceilings and across two of the windows. (Needing new curtains are the last of her worries.)

As for Barrymore herself, she's tucked in the corner, behind the far end of the couch, her face and hands all red. It was an accident. She swears. ]

[coursed]

[ One knock, two in a row, one again. (It's me, open up.) Kirn has his own way of knocking, by this point, and the fact of the matter is that he doesn't always need Verona to tell him when he's needed.

(One of the big reasons why: there really isn't a time when he isn't.) ]

[unravelled]

[ Barrymore's voice comes through at length. ]

I'm— I'm good, Kirn. Promise. You can just— y-you can go away now.

[ Liar, liar, pants on fire. (She only says she's good when she's at her worst. When she doesn't even have it in herself to accept his help. ] —I-I've got it covered.

[coursed]

[ He knows it's a lie, and that is — just maybe — the worst part. Worse than the blood, worse than the torn flesh, worse than her tears. Because he wishes, more than anything else, that she could be good. She's got a good heart, he knows that. Just the wrong monster in the closet. ]

Barrymore —

[ Not exasperation, not anger, not cloy. ]

— just let me in. Just for a second, please?

[unravelled]

[ There are times when she hates how patient he is with her (like they've got all the time in the world, and maybe they do, but Barrymore'll never last that long). It makes it harder to push him away, to put her foot down and to rave and tell him Kirn, no, because what has he ever asked of her except take a breather. What has he ever taken from her except pain and paranoia and anxiety (go ahead and sleep, I'm not leaving; promise).

No answer, but there is the muffled sound of movement as she turns to look at the door for a long moment and the slowly, slowly make her way across the living room floor on hands and knees. Even then, as she crawls, Barrymore fights it: ] I— I don't wanna talk, Kirn, I m-mean it. Don't fuck with me. [ Her voice grows ugly — monster claw, bat bite — and then disintegrates again into hiccuping sobs.

M'sorry, m-m'sorry. F-fuck, sorry.

[coursed]

[ Barrymore will never last that long and the truth is that, once she's gone, Kirn won't take too much time in following after. (He suspects he'd have been gone sooner if it wasn't for her. There's not really much point in living like this, and it isn't as if the next prophet won't also come to realize that time is a pretty relative concept.) He'll close up shop and play the game the way it's meant to be, not the way that every generation of boogeymen seems to have decided to — taking their time to live in ways they hadn't when they'd still been alive. ]

We don't have to talk if you don't want to, [ comes his voice again. ] I won't say anything.

[ Once more: ] Just let me in.