milliways_bar | (no subject)

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ruin

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It's been a week. Really. A really boring, difficult, long week.

Hence the Charlie sitting in a very comfortable hammock near the Caribbean inlet. Watching the waves, when he's not reading his book. It's a relaxing idea, the sitting-and-watching-nothing idea.

Charlie sees how people can enjoy this.

[tiny tag: Charlie Monroe]
[OOC: part of the 'Duet for Claws and Swords' plot; open forever.]

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"So I've been told," he says. "But you didn't answer my question. Are you hurting, now?"

This would have been easier if Ruin had come to him for this purpose, but he didn't. "I'm not here to judge you."

He snorts.

"It's going to be difficult to hate me if you know me," he warns.

Ruin is not accustomed to talking about himself, which was why he'd hostilely told Teja the brief bits of his past as he had.

"I don't hate you. I'll admit I had every intention of doing so, given Teja was upset after he said you'd talked to him..." he pauses a minute.

"But I find myself wanting to know you, and help you if I can."

"Help me?"

Ruin's brow furrows.

"Why on earth would you want to do that?"

"I have no idea myself, in all honesty," he smiles. "But I do. The question now is if you'll let me."

"I think I'm beyond help."

Bane noses at Charlie's leg this time.

"Anything you and I say, it goes no further than where we are." He pauses, frowning a moment. "What do you want to know?"

"No one is beyond help," he says carefully, reaching out to the coyote when his leg is nosed.

"I won't push you to tell me what you don't want to, but I would like to know everything you feel comfortable telling me."

Bane licks Charlie's hand.

"I don't usually talk to anyone about myself other than my wife and family."

He wouldn't even know how to begin.

Charlie smiles a little, nearly giving a laugh. "Then talk to me like I'm one of them," he says, gently petting Bane's head. "Nothing you say will go beyond here and now."

"We talk about business. Except me and Legs. We tend to intersperse business with sex."

Ruin gives Bane a nudge, and the coyote grins up at both of them.

"I do things I don't much like. I do things I'm ashamed of because it's my job. I remember who I was, and I know who I was wouldn't be happy with who he's become. I am viciously protective of my family."

"Well two of those things are good," Charlie says, nodding. "I can understand not being happy with your job, and still having to do it anyway. Why do you have to do this job, do you know?"

He wants to ask who Legs is, but that will wait till later.

"Because the job is what I am. It's what I embody. I can no more ignore it than cease breathing," he says. "At the time I became Ruin, it was pretty much death or this. This seemed a lot better suited to me than being dead."

"I have to say you're much more attractive than your average corpse, yes," Charlie says with a light grin.

"What is making you unhappy about being Ruin? Do you have another name you go by, or went by at one time?"

"I was Ciaran."

He doesn't know why he tells Charlie that.

"I bring about painful things." Ruin's jaw clenches for a moment. "Depending on the individual, things can becomes very... dark. Unpleasant. Things that give nightmares nightmares."

"I hope you don't mind if I call you Ciaran instead of Ruin," he says. "You said earlier you present choices, that might bring about painful things. The choice lies with someone else."

Obviously Ruin knows this; but still, being told it's not your fault does a lot of good sometimes.

"The choices, yes. I'm the catalyst."

Ruin stares out at the water.

"I liked working with my hands. Loved when it was time to plant the barely. Coira would tend the sheep and cattle. It would always be long, hard days in the sun or rain, but in the end, I paid my taxes, had food, and owned my own land. It was simple. I had no one's future but my own to worry about. And now, I have every sentient being in existence's future in my head, all screaming for the space, all demanding I do what needs to be done."

"I can help you plant a garden, to give you a little peace, maybe," he says. he has no idea what to tell someone about having too many voices in their head; that's something he's never had come up before.

"I'm sorry you have to do this, Ciaran. Tell me what you want."

He chuckles.

"I am long past planting, Charlie. You can't go back. If hundreds of years doing this has taught me anything, it's that: you can only go forward, never back."

Ruin shakes his head slowly.

"What I want? I... have no idea. Maybe to be done with this. See Jason and Teja through the mess and have everyone come out as unscathed as possible. But," he smiles at Charlie, "I'm a realist. I know that's not going to happen. I see the paths, the choices, and I know I earn my hatred and disgust. I'll bear it until time ends with as much pride as I can because I know I've done my duty and those sentients grasped the rung on that ladder and hauled themselves up and out of the stinking shit their lives had become because I gave them a small boost."

"I can help you try to find happiness, at least a little. But you've got to work with me..." he trails off when Ruin starts talking about earning hatred, and takes a chance, grasping his chin to turn his head toward him.

"You're not hated. But you're right, you help people. You should be a little happy for that," he says. "Don't tell yourself you earn hatred and disgust, because that's not going to make it any better."

Someone is touching him.

Someone not his family.

Someone not intent on making him bleed. At least, not physically.

"I can't stop what will happen to them, Charlie. I can't. I need it to happen as much as they do. This interest in who I am doesn't change that."

"No, it doesn't, and I'm well aware of that. As unpleasant as it may well end up being, if it needs to happen it needs to happen." He's had a little experience with this himself and it is not happy to think back on.

He's not happy it's going to have to happen to anyone else, least of all two people he cares about, but... "I'm not talking to you to get you to stop doing your job. I'm trying to help you."

"Help me become a happy, well-adjusted personification of ruination and hopelessness?" he asks.

Charlie lets go and gives him a level look, raising an eyebrow. "Do I really look that idealistic to you?" He shouldn't ask that, but then he has been wondering lately.

"I want to help you learn how to be happy, because you're not now. 'Well-adjusted' isn't a feasible state of being. There is no endpoint to adjusting, you'll be doing it the rest of your life."

He laughs, shaking his head.

"If you're gonna take me on, you're gonna have to do it pro bono, 'cause there is no way I could afford the number of hours of therapy that it's gonna take, Charlie."

Charlie laughs after a second. "Buy me a drink when we inside and we'll call it even. I'll take you on, but there's gonna be some interesting moments, I'm sure."