@tornp4ge said: ❝but i know better now. & if you think for a second that there’s anything left in me that gives a damn about what happens to you, then you’re more delusional than i thought. ❞ cont'd.
there is an unsettling silence our black dog of kandahar allows to seep in between them, turning the atmosphere into more discomfort. there was hostility in the air—indistinct, but sharp. like a knife spinning between them, no telling where it would land, or who would bleed first. billy doesn't flinch with her directness. he doesn't even blink.
she comes at him like a bullet wrapped in silk—soft in appearance, sharp in truth, rips clean through. every syllable pronounced—every word that she lets escape past her lips lands where she intends it. unopposed. succinct. she’s always been good at that: butchering without raising her voice into a battle cry. but that's fine. that's the point.
billy lets her look at him. lets her stoke the flames of her hate, stew in her vitriol. it's awfully human of her. he lets her flay him open with hideous memory and hindsight and that cheap, brittle righteousness humans wear when they're desperately not trying to drown in guilt.
when he felt it was time, he finally opened his mouth—and when he did, it smooth as butter beneath a gentle flame. the mockery it could've delivered wouldn't be present. but there was still an underlying ugliness.
❝ how mean, karen. ❞ he watched her closely, wondering which parent she took this fire from. was it her mother or father that she was prometheus to? her audacity was admirable. it'd be almost a shame to watch it get snuffed out. god help the world if he ever stops protecting a woman like this.
❝ nobody asked you to care, karen. i certainly didn't. ❞ he takes a pregnant pause. ❝ that mistake is not anyone else but your own. you made that choice. that's the beauty of freewill: we can choose what to do with it. ❞
his gaze sharpens—not in cruelty, but like a surgeon inspecting a wound that won’t close—trying to find where he still lives inside her memory.
billy takes a slow, non-threatening step forward. just close enough for karen to see it—the look behind his dollishly beady black eyes. the one that never quite left the bedroom in the orphanage, and the one that never quite left the battlefield.
❝ but while we all love a good narrative, don't rewrite the story just to make it easier to hate me. it's not good for your health. ❞ it wasn't a disguised threat. he's looking out for her. ❝ i showed you exactly me. you just didn't want to see the rest. I'm sure I'm not the first one to tell you this. ❞
billy exhaled, but it was barely a breath. the silence returns, a heavy load and surgical. she should allow this to marinate.
❝ ok, you think i'm delusional? fair enough. been called worst—shit, I've probably earned worst. ❞ a slight shift in his tone—dry like a desert. like he's tired of explaining the anatomy of a car crash.
❝ but don't stand there shaking with whatever this is, ❞ his eyes drop to her hands, still clenched, and pointed at them. ❝ and try to play me and yourself by trying to convince is that you don't give a damn. ❞
billy doesn't wait for her to formulate her next response. he's already turning away from her—like her rage, disgust, and her closeted grief is just another thing he knows how to survive and wear like a coat to keep him warm on the coldest of new york nights.
like he's done it a thousand times already.
