[ When Lisa finishes talking, Krouse wonders for a second, a second less split and more dissected on a mortuary slab, if this is what her power feels like. Not as a person on the receiving end, but as the one with this particular shard of an alien intelligence lodged in the brain, feeding a constant stream of unwelcome, unfiltered information into your head.
Because when it clicks, it clicks like a trigger, and he doesn't know how anyone could fucking live like this.
Reggie, his brain supplies, Reggie and Taylor. Her name used to be Sarah, but Sarah couldn't see it coming. Lisa could see it coming and she still couldn't stop it. And no one cares, because Taylor died for them, and they'd rather be alive than have her be alive, and everyone but you would rather she was dead and they weren't. And they don't care how much you loved her, and they don't say her name like you said it, and you burned everything in you like a star going out just so you could watch her die the way you knew would kill you.
And the answer to her question, at first, in the slide of unvibrated currents in the vent and the stale disinfectant in the air and the hum of fluorescent lights like a hospital, like a morgue, like police custody, is: I don't fucking know.
Krouse hunches over, his head hanging. ]
I keep trying to remember how to hate you.
[ He says, and he's thinking, you were fifteen. You were fifteen and you were sixteen and you were seventeen and how were you supposed to fucking know. And but you know that already. And you'll never stop thinking you should have known anyway. ]
I hated you. I hated you so fucking much. I spent every day in my first goddamn cell hating you.
[ His face is wet. He reaches up behind his head and unfastens his mask, peels it off his face with a slight sucking pop, and puts it in his lap. He rubs his nose on his sleeve like a little fucking kid. ]
Because I thought you pulled it off, and I didn't. I thought you - I thought you figured it out. You got out.
[ If they're both willing to keep pretending, the sound he makes is still like a laugh. ]
And I hated her because she was better than me. [ Lisa knows which her. ] Better leader. Better person. Better at - fuck. Long list.
[ He folds his sleeve over his hand and rubs his eyes, one at a time. ]
I don't know what we're supposed to fucking do.
[ He plants his hands beside him and draws his legs up, feet flat on the ground. He pushes forward, up, catching his mask by the eyeholes so it doesn't clatter off his lap on his way off the floor. ]
But I think I know what we're going to do. [ He tells her, quietly. A low battery alarm beeps. ] Unless you've decided you want to prove me right about something, for fucking once, so, hey. Be my guest. Give up. We can be cellblock neighbours. Just like old times.
[ And, quiet shading into something else: ] Come on.
cw: imprisonment, child abuse and exploitation, grief, suicide, brief description of suicide attempt
Because when it clicks, it clicks like a trigger, and he doesn't know how anyone could fucking live like this.
Reggie, his brain supplies, Reggie and Taylor. Her name used to be Sarah, but Sarah couldn't see it coming. Lisa could see it coming and she still couldn't stop it. And no one cares, because Taylor died for them, and they'd rather be alive than have her be alive, and everyone but you would rather she was dead and they weren't. And they don't care how much you loved her, and they don't say her name like you said it, and you burned everything in you like a star going out just so you could watch her die the way you knew would kill you.
And the answer to her question, at first, in the slide of unvibrated currents in the vent and the stale disinfectant in the air and the hum of fluorescent lights like a hospital, like a morgue, like police custody, is: I don't fucking know.
Krouse hunches over, his head hanging. ]
I keep trying to remember how to hate you.
[ He says, and he's thinking, you were fifteen. You were fifteen and you were sixteen and you were seventeen and how were you supposed to fucking know. And but you know that already. And you'll never stop thinking you should have known anyway. ]
I hated you. I hated you so fucking much. I spent every day in my first goddamn cell hating you.
[ His face is wet. He reaches up behind his head and unfastens his mask, peels it off his face with a slight sucking pop, and puts it in his lap. He rubs his nose on his sleeve like a little fucking kid. ]
Because I thought you pulled it off, and I didn't. I thought you - I thought you figured it out. You got out.
[ If they're both willing to keep pretending, the sound he makes is still like a laugh. ]
And I hated her because she was better than me. [ Lisa knows which her. ] Better leader. Better person. Better at - fuck. Long list.
[ He folds his sleeve over his hand and rubs his eyes, one at a time. ]
I don't know what we're supposed to fucking do.
[ He plants his hands beside him and draws his legs up, feet flat on the ground. He pushes forward, up, catching his mask by the eyeholes so it doesn't clatter off his lap on his way off the floor. ]
But I think I know what we're going to do. [ He tells her, quietly. A low battery alarm beeps. ] Unless you've decided you want to prove me right about something, for fucking once, so, hey. Be my guest. Give up. We can be cellblock neighbours. Just like old times.
[ And, quiet shading into something else: ] Come on.