pushfall: (⚕ we've got our guns and horses)
claire bennet. | cheerleader ([personal profile] pushfall) wrote2020-01-21 09:13 pm

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SCI » 028 » 123
CLAIRE BENNET



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darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (it's a job)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-09 02:08 am (UTC)(link)
The Dark Lord's.

[ Severus borders on expressionless as he looks back at her. The irises of his eyes are black, a different shade and texture than his pupils, but still dark enough to be unsettling. ]

I was eleven when I started school and my seniors approached me. I was seventeen when I began participating in the war. I wanted it. I believed in it.

[ He looks away briefly, a flicker of something passing over his face, only seen in profile. He hands curl into fists, flex, relax again. He's composed when he looks back at her. ]

I'm good at dark magic-- I'm good at all magic, but dark magic is something else. [ Something else; something so grand and deep it made him a target for political seduction as an eleven year old. ] The only people who were kind to me were people who followed that path.
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (life is change)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-09 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
[ He doesn't flinch. Bigots and murderers and terrorists, oh my.

Yes. He is. ]


It turns out I do not actually have the stomach for genocide. [ Flatly. Severus knows this isn't the complete truth, but it is enough of the truth; his stomach twisted itself into knots more and more each day as he saw the heroic facade melt from the Dark Lord. Riddle, in his eyes, went from the great Lord who saved him from the gutters of wizardkind to a monster obsessed with only himself. ]

I hate the people I've defected to.

[ Severus lets those words burn. Lets them feel. ]

I've done more for their cause than all of them put together. Because it's the right thing to do. [ He tries not to spit that out with viciousness, and mostly succeeds, but the bitterness bleeds through. ] I know it. And I know that I should have been executed. My life belongs to someone else now, because I've done what I've done.
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (killers thieves and lawyers)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-09 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
It's not for you to say. [ His voice is firm, bordering on harsh. He looks right at her. ] Everyone knows. I was named by others and the reason why I'm not in prison was headline news.

[ There is no real forgiveness for Slytherins. There never will be. Severus knows that. Even before Voldemort, Salazar was the one who left, the one who stirred up dissent and thoughts of segregation.

They probably could have eliminated the house. Made new ones, or done away with the system. But it's easier for all those 'good' people to have someone to blame for everything ahead of time. Who cares if someone is children. ]


Black and his friends hated me before the war. Because I'm poor and ugly and smarter than they are. He's in prison now and the rest of them are dead or vagrants. They were always too stupid to take the war seriously.
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (i believed in died)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-10 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He lets her talk. Her simple understanding of the difference of people is-- well, simple, but at least it exists. Some part of Severus wishes he could believe she felt it, but most of him follows the only routine he's ever known, and just sees it as her rationalizing something too awful and convoluted to make any sense of.

His steeled gaze, dull inside from resentment so strong it's burned him up inside, doesn't waiver. ]


This is why.

[ Why he can't have friends, why he hates people, why he doesn't know what to do with her at best and why he shoves her away at worst. ]
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (to be good)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-11 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
[ Finally the iced-over surface cracks, anxious, frisson of tension twitching his shoulders as he sits up straighter. ]

What can possibly happen if you don't? [ Severus sounds just one side of strained strained. He can't make himself say yes or no. It's obvious. ]

Wanting-- why does-- [ He cuts himself off. Wanting doesn't matter. Not for him. Not anymore. Unusually, Severus doesn't even know how to articulate it. ] I don't want you to suffer harassment on my behalf, I don't want you to have to put up with-- me.
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (if you notice it at all)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-11 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know. You're bloody mental. [ --isn't hostile. Confused, slightly. At a loss. Severus doesn't understand it. ]

It's not me trying to make decisions for you, [ he tells her. His tone turns tired, in his bitterness. ] I've done enough harm.

[ Severus doesn't want people to suffer on his behalf. If he wants to hurt someone he'll hurt them, but he has so much weight pressing down on him from all the things he's done, it's just so hard to accept more.

(And he still doesn't really trust her. Why isn't she leaving? Who would be fine with all of this?) ]
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (and how we look the other way)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-11 06:25 am (UTC)(link)
Angles are easier.

[ He understands angles. He understands all of them enough to embrace plenty - he appreciates Nuala, and Nathan, and Kate, and his patients, and people who think he's useful and who treat him well enough so that they have continued access to his usefulness. He even understands Odessa who thinks she can fuck her way to power through him or William who hit his damn head on Arima.

Severus doesn't understand Claire. ]


I don't know.

[ No one's ever tried before. ]
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (i'd be doing)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-12 03:13 am (UTC)(link)
[ Maybe they are.

He doesn't know what that would mean for them any more than if they agreed on something, though.

For a while Severus is quiet. Arms linked around his knees, posture defensive. ]


What if I fuck it up?
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (you've got your hell's teeth)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-12 05:26 am (UTC)(link)
You have a life to fall back on.

[ Severus doesn't.

If he fucks up with her, she's someone else that hates him, or pities him (which is worse), just like everyone.

Everyone. ]
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (such a big temptation)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-12 06:16 am (UTC)(link)
[ Severus listens, and hears it like some people wouldn't, and the look in his eyes is one of understanding - he doesn't quite make it to sympathy, but he's just bot that sort of person.

He does respect what she's been through. He doesn't brush it off.

But

he can't flip a switch and change a lifetime's worth of conditioning. She has Nathan and Peter and a home somewhere, and even if that all burns, she still will have had it. Severus can't even imagine what that's like, and he can't begin to articulate why it's such a privilege.

He doesn't know what to say. He's suddenly exhausted. ]
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (there's a leak)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-12 10:19 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Silence ticks by.




Wow this is awkward they're both so great at people. ]


You should work in Agriculture.
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (how to be what you want)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-12 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)
It's not gardening. It's keeping the machinery running and making sure no one destroys anything. I think they might need to organize their own security soon, too, given how the security department is having endless fits over how hard walking patrols are.

[ Severus fidgets his hands, briefly, but forces himself to stop. This is a complete cop-out subject but also not. Secretly. ]
darkart: ( commission, dnt ) (gravity works slowly)

[personal profile] darkart 2014-08-12 11:33 pm (UTC)(link)
I suggested that to Nathan. The woman he has working on it doesn't seem to like me. [ Said without any accusation. Severus is pretty sure Nathan forgets to add a disclaimer about him when the older man tells people to go talk to him. Merlin only knows why. If Clara doesn't want to talk to him anymore because he's too unsympathetic about other passengers, that's her business. ]

If the oxygen garden dies we all die. And they don't have enough people.

[ Because people think it's gardening and take it for granted that they have vegetables and breathable air. ]

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