Paul slips his hand out of Midoriya's soundlessly, folding to his knees where he stands as he did on the beach. He has even less to work with now, nothing but his still sharp fishknife, a single cone of incense, and his own guilty blood. It will be enough. The Reckoning is not a god of subtlety.
"No, he doesn't," Paul says, with matching quiet solemnity, and something in him has given way. He sets out his incense and lights it with a flaring finger, not caring that he's seen to do it, only that the bright arc of pain that runs up his arm adds to the siren's call of his yet unopened veins.
"Neither do you." He traces a scorch circle in the grass around it, a tang of ozone blending with the faint trace of salt in the air. His voice rises, steadily, swelling up with resignation like a bruise. "You think I don't know that this is over?"
The house and everything that was built in it are coming apart, even if it stays standing. He can hear its bones being broken and its sinews being torn. They are shattered and scattering, with everything Paul had thought he had made safe ruined and destroyed. This, them, everything - all of it done, so much dust.
"Look at what I did to him. What I did to you. What I did to everyone else. And you think I should tell him that. I shouldn't even have said it to you." He sits back on his heels and lets his hands fall to his lap, head tipped back to stare up at the blank, pitiless sky. "But I can't help myself, can I? I ruin things. People. It's what I'm best at. Every time I try to do anything else -"
He shrugs. It's off-balance, one shoulder higher than the other. He rolls his head forward, his neck bowed, and he takes a long, slow breath, in and out.
no subject
"No, he doesn't," Paul says, with matching quiet solemnity, and something in him has given way. He sets out his incense and lights it with a flaring finger, not caring that he's seen to do it, only that the bright arc of pain that runs up his arm adds to the siren's call of his yet unopened veins.
"Neither do you." He traces a scorch circle in the grass around it, a tang of ozone blending with the faint trace of salt in the air. His voice rises, steadily, swelling up with resignation like a bruise. "You think I don't know that this is over?"
The house and everything that was built in it are coming apart, even if it stays standing. He can hear its bones being broken and its sinews being torn. They are shattered and scattering, with everything Paul had thought he had made safe ruined and destroyed. This, them, everything - all of it done, so much dust.
"Look at what I did to him. What I did to you. What I did to everyone else. And you think I should tell him that. I shouldn't even have said it to you." He sits back on his heels and lets his hands fall to his lap, head tipped back to stare up at the blank, pitiless sky. "But I can't help myself, can I? I ruin things. People. It's what I'm best at. Every time I try to do anything else -"
He shrugs. It's off-balance, one shoulder higher than the other. He rolls his head forward, his neck bowed, and he takes a long, slow breath, in and out.
"What do you think I'm afraid of?"