She doesn't open her eyes, taking slow deep breaths against the pillow. "Have you never heard of letting people dream?" It's laughed out, rattling along her throat and shoulders. Like the sick are capable of. The slow way people die now. An adjustment of hours.
Perhaps she is just the same. If she were anyone else, she'd let it linger, feel the bite, feel the sickness, drag herself down to level of the living, hang there at the very edge, almost dead. "Besides, you know time has nothing to do with it."
He turns to her, slow and grim, like a door swinging stuck on its hinges. "You wanna die?"
His tone is judgmental. There's a right answer to this question. No flowery speech, no poetics. He'd prefer to cut through the shit, especially with Rani, who learned in fine palaces to hide in the spaces between words. If that ever worked on him, it doesn't anymore.
"It has nothing to do with that. I accept my death long before you drew breath, you cannot change that." It's snapped, direct - he wants her to be blunt with it. She will be, she supposes she owes him that much.
If he doesn't want to hear it - then that's that.
"It has nothing to do with my wants, do I wish to rest? Of course, I do. But do you not understand you are the only one I can trust?" Trust with her human parts, these soft weak things that live hunted under the skin like a wounded animal.
He looks down at her, sitting on the bed, warm and soft and alive. "Bullshit."
He knows her penchant for flowery words. Daryl dislikes them because of how easily they can hide the truth. Rani folds her true self up in pretty ideas and ancient stories and hides behind the past. Her age is her shield, and she uses it to lie to everyone and herself.
But she can't lie to him.
"You can trust all of us," he says. "You're afraid."
It occurs to him that he should be kinder. Maybe she wants comforting words? Maybe she wants comfort. That's probably what that kiss meant. But it's too late for that now.
It occurs her in that all too paranoid way that the others cannot be far from this closed room and these walls are not so thick - that they will hear this argument when it piques. Neither of their tempers are their best traits. How well they suit, she thinks grimly, when they're growling like dogs with teeth in each other's throats. ( Refusing to let go, she wonders because they are too stubborn, or because neither of them knows how. )
"Of course I'm afraid." It's barked, snapped, pushing up on the bed, bedraggled still, dressed down to where she's got the blanket tucked under arm to keep herself covered. Maybe that's for the best. "But you are the one that doesn't want to hear so much as a word of truth, you're too busy in pretending that you feel nothing that you can't handle so much as a breath of my death."
Which would be -- sweet, if it wasn't irritating her, she can't afford to be precious, not about the black water.
Daryl's expression turns hard, cold. Where he was impassive before, his hackles raise. How dare she call him a coward, after all he's done? All they've done together?
(Does she really think so little of him?)
No longer caring who hears-- if he even cared to begin with-- he barks back, "Lost my taste for death, but if you're so hot for it, go ahead." He turns to leave, his steps quick and angry.
Bites back, like she wants to rip the words out of his mouth. "If I do, it will be no business of yours or anyone else to decide whether I should or not." Cursed at his back, watching him walk away from her.
She doesn't mean it, of course she doesn't. But it hardly mattered, not now, when they're were spitting up bile.
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no subject
"Ain't your time." Maybe it will never be.
no subject
Perhaps she is just the same. If she were anyone else, she'd let it linger, feel the bite, feel the sickness, drag herself down to level of the living, hang there at the very edge, almost dead. "Besides, you know time has nothing to do with it."
no subject
His tone is judgmental. There's a right answer to this question. No flowery speech, no poetics. He'd prefer to cut through the shit, especially with Rani, who learned in fine palaces to hide in the spaces between words. If that ever worked on him, it doesn't anymore.
"Gonna let this world beat you?"
no subject
If he doesn't want to hear it - then that's that.
"It has nothing to do with my wants, do I wish to rest? Of course, I do. But do you not understand you are the only one I can trust?" Trust with her human parts, these soft weak things that live hunted under the skin like a wounded animal.
no subject
He knows her penchant for flowery words. Daryl dislikes them because of how easily they can hide the truth. Rani folds her true self up in pretty ideas and ancient stories and hides behind the past. Her age is her shield, and she uses it to lie to everyone and herself.
But she can't lie to him.
"You can trust all of us," he says. "You're afraid."
It occurs to him that he should be kinder. Maybe she wants comforting words? Maybe she wants comfort. That's probably what that kiss meant. But it's too late for that now.
no subject
"Of course I'm afraid." It's barked, snapped, pushing up on the bed, bedraggled still, dressed down to where she's got the blanket tucked under arm to keep herself covered. Maybe that's for the best. "But you are the one that doesn't want to hear so much as a word of truth, you're too busy in pretending that you feel nothing that you can't handle so much as a breath of my death."
Which would be -- sweet, if it wasn't irritating her, she can't afford to be precious, not about the black water.
no subject
(Does she really think so little of him?)
No longer caring who hears-- if he even cared to begin with-- he barks back, "Lost my taste for death, but if you're so hot for it, go ahead." He turns to leave, his steps quick and angry.
no subject
She doesn't mean it, of course she doesn't. But it hardly mattered, not now, when they're were spitting up bile.