done to death

[alt_regulus]

I can't sleep. I can't scrub myself clean enough even to sit in my own flat, so I've been walking for hours. The locals are all closed now; I can't even hide in the depths of another glass of fire-whiskey in a smoky corner. I'm writing beneath a street lamp, but the page is swimming.

I didn't want to do that! None of it.

I don't want to have done it.

And I can't undo it now. Any of it.

If I could

Even if I could reach all the way back to when it was not yet done. When was that? A dozen years? More.

You knew what you were about when you limited my wand to block any self-harming spell. You know I won't top myself like a Muggle. Of course not. As though I'd care at all the moment it was done, but I'm too proud to be found like that. Too much a Black. Too much a wizard. Too much yours to do it at all.

But I want it. Oblivion. Pitch blackness. Rest.

I can see her. Jaw wrenched open and aside. Eyes wide, locked on mine. And I can hear her.

She begged me.

And I was stone. Like you.

'It makes it worse, begging,' I said. 'You save a shred of dignity if you can keep from doing that.' It's all shreds and tatters in the end, regardless.

I couldn't stand it. I can't.

I won't. Though that's ridiculous, because, of course, I did. Did it, hating it, cursing it, myself, him, you, her, all. Why do we do this? What do you want that I haven't given, proven, purged? What else?

I wish you wouldn't answer that, but you will. Whether I asked or not. The answer is coming. Worse if you are displeased, but no easier, really, if you found it praiseworthy. Each is worse, more impossible, more

There aren't words for this. But you'll know it whether I write or don't write, and the thoughts are clearer, I know. But the words are mine, for myself, to make it real. Finished.

It won't ever be finished.