Prompt: What if Sharon did a violent thing?
Rating: T
Warnings: Mentions of violence, lots of angst.
More specifically, we were doing a randomized Hunger Games simulator thing and Sharon strangled Celestia Ludenburg. So I wrote a reaction.
It's alright for him to be a monster—it's always been alright, as he's already been ruined by battle and dyed red by violence—but that's exactly why she should never have to stain her hands with blood.
In his eye, Sharon is purity; she is delicate and beautiful, the warm and innocent sunlight which permeated the darkness that had consumed him long ago. He is more than skilled enough to be her shield, more than violent enough to be her sword; if there is any corruption that she should need, for whatever purposes people need it in to survive this corrupt world, Xerxes can shoulder it, already tainted and rotten as he is.
The sight of her with such violence in her eyes is too much to bear.
Something makes his gut twist up, something else makes him shudder, something else yet makes his breath halt and his stare grow wide; he thinks one of those things is fear, one of them is guilt, and one of them is, disgustingly enough, exhilaration. There is something wholly breathtaking about her like that, grown and capable and terrifying—but she is not, not to him. She is a child, something he wishes to protect, and he cannot protect her from herself or from himself if those things become dangerous to her like this.
He falters, stepping back as he plants his feet, not allowing himself to run away—he'll face his guilt head on, for once, for her.
She stumbles back from her victim, falls as she moves to approach him, and she's so pleased with herself in her awfully warped state and no, no she should at least be crying and sick with herself (no, no she shouldn't be guilty that would be even worse). He'd rush to her side, but he's afraid of being near her disheveled and bloody as she is, so all he can do is take a few hesitant steps; he'd kneel beside her, but he's afraid that if he touches her he'll only make the corruption spread more.
So he slumps to his knees in place, as she looks up at him from the ground where she lays; her dress is torn and her hair is wild, but her gaze is almost-innocent, wondering, worried. She's fallen in more ways than one; he knows better than anyone that she won't be able to get back what she's lost today, but he's sort of happy in an awful and wrong way that she's strong but he wishes being strong didn't have to mean becoming broken.
Broken—of course, wasn't that inevitable? He destroys everything around him eventually—it was only a matter of time before she broke as well.
Weakly, a laugh cracks out from his throat, a suitably broken sound; there's really something funny about it all, or maybe that's just the pain speaking—he can't really tell, at this point. He holds his face as though it's going to fall apart behind his bangs, and perhaps it is—his smiling face is so fragile and false, barely hiding the broken inside that she doesn't need to see.
The past can't be changed; what's broken will remain such. But if he must, then he'll teach her to pretend she's whole—even if that's all he can do for her, then he'll still do anything at all.