CLOSED | prompt eight | RUIN

[dondarrion]

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

 

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[held]

[ His anger is like wood upon a fire, that bright curiosity in the Strangler's eyes becoming sharp and present beneath the milky film of her irises. Somewhere inside, Sara Connington cries stop, stop but that voice is swallowed and fed back to the Sprawl and from her desperation new life grows. ]

OUR UGLINESS IS MADE IN YOUR OWN LIKENESS. WE WERE SILENT AND STILL ONCE. BUT YOU BURNED US FIRST.

[ She leans forward and nods her head like a puppet pantomiming the gesture with the tug of a string. ]

YOU SAY YOU HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO GIVE. THEN ABANDON YOUR HOPE. LET THE WEEDS COME THROUGH. DO YOU NOT WISH TO MEET OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS? THEY WILL KISS YOU ON BOTH CHEEKS. JUST LIKE YOUR SWEET BOY.

[grooms]

You don't know anything about my son.

[ For an instant, the line of his jaw draws sharp. (More anger, tamped down again at length.) He hates it, still, whenever the Strangler chooses to use that particular line against him. It's a weak spot, one he can't cover up nor one that he thinks will ever truly heal, even though he knows the longer he allows it to poison his blood, the more of a chance the growth has of pulling him under. ]

And I don't want to meet any more of you than I have to.

[held]

WE KNOW HE IS MISSED. WE KNOW HE FORMS A LACK.

[ The Strangler widens her eyes to an unnatural size and then stares not only at Gavin but right through him — though what she sees and what she comprehends is most likely anathema to him. ]

WE KNOW YOU CRIED TO WATCH US TAKE ROOT. WOULD YOU CARE FOR US MORE, GAVIN KING. IF WE HAD EMBRACED HIM THE WAY WE EMBRACE THIS ONE?

[grooms]

You might have won, if you had, [ he offers, though the words seem to grate at him to speak at all.

No, he would not have cared for the Strangler more than he does now, but his hate might have consumed him instead of being held at bay as it is now. (It is a tall order, to ask a father to kill his own son, but there is nothing uglier than the Strangler in this manifestation, and no one for whom he feels more pity than Sara Connington.) ]