[Oswald clamps his hands around Alfred’s windpipe, his whole body shaking with the strain it's under. With the violence of existing for a singular, unwavering purpose. Ed wouldn’t have asked for this. Maybe he wouldn’t even have wanted it. But Ed’s not here any more.]
Fuck you!
[He jerks him around, snarling through teeth clenched so hard he can feel his molars grinding.
Alfred is supposed to fight - and lose. He’s supposed to suffer and die shocked, struggling to understand how this half-dead, skinny thing could have ever overpowered him. But Alfred is motionless, unresisting. He's already dead, Oswald realizes; he’s just waiting for his body to catch up.
He squeezes. His knuckles blanch, and the nerves in his finger, or what's left of it, spit fire. Blood spurts out, his grip growing slippery and weaker, somehow, the harder he tries to make Alfred hurt. It’s not fair – not fucking fair. He throws back his head, his eye filling. And he howls at the ceiling, into all that wide, empty space. Because nothing is ever easy for him. Because Alfred won't even give him a sliver of satisfaction when death is what he wants. When he welcomes it so calmly and on his own terms, as if he has the goddamn right. Oswald’s face wrenches up, a vein splitting his forehead.]
...fuck you!!
[He sobs, brokenly, sagging.
He can't do it. He won't.
His arms drop, and he crumples to his knees. Throbbing with hate, hate for himself and Alfred and Nyssa and Ed, and every wet, ragged gasp he can’t bite back. If he has to suffer, to live with this pain, then he won’t suffer alone.]
no subject
Fuck you!
[He jerks him around, snarling through teeth clenched so hard he can feel his molars grinding.
Alfred is supposed to fight - and lose. He’s supposed to suffer and die shocked, struggling to understand how this half-dead, skinny thing could have ever overpowered him. But Alfred is motionless, unresisting. He's already dead, Oswald realizes; he’s just waiting for his body to catch up.
He squeezes. His knuckles blanch, and the nerves in his finger, or what's left of it, spit fire. Blood spurts out, his grip growing slippery and weaker, somehow, the harder he tries to make Alfred hurt. It’s not fair – not fucking fair. He throws back his head, his eye filling. And he howls at the ceiling, into all that wide, empty space. Because nothing is ever easy for him. Because Alfred won't even give him a sliver of satisfaction when death is what he wants. When he welcomes it so calmly and on his own terms, as if he has the goddamn right. Oswald’s face wrenches up, a vein splitting his forehead.]
...fuck you!!
[He sobs, brokenly, sagging.
He can't do it. He won't.
His arms drop, and he crumples to his knees. Throbbing with hate, hate for himself and Alfred and Nyssa and Ed, and every wet, ragged gasp he can’t bite back. If he has to suffer, to live with this pain, then he won’t suffer alone.]