Kids

[old_csat]

*gruff* Family ain't something I can talk much about. Mostly because I don't have one. *tilts head* Might have, once, but if I did it's in that big blank space before the Asylum, and therefore gone now. So. No family. Just me and Isander.

I understand the idea, though. Sort of. The mini-version, anyway. The one with less ... people. Small. Small is good. Not small people, though. Not kids. I don't ...

*sighs heavily* I promised Richard I'd explain this some day. Why kids worry me so. Man's weirdly attached to them, you know. I promised him I'd explain why they ... scare me crapless, basically. The answer ...

Okay. Most of it is the energy. The, the jumping and the yelling and the weird innocence, and the way they look at you like they can see right through you, and the ... the fragility. You could break a kid between your hands, and they'd look at you, and they wouldn't understand, they just wouldn't know why, and that ...

Have you ever seen a kid stop? Stop ... stop being. When the Gestalt came ... whatever the hell the Gestalt was, it wasn't innocent. It wasn't young. And they saw it coming, I could swear they saw it coming, in a way the adults never did, and they saw it behind me when I came, saw it in me, and they didn't ... understand. They didn't understand, and it came and it broke them, it took away everything that makes a kid different from an adult, and when it stopped coming and was just there ... they still saw right through me with a look, but it wasn't them anymore.

I broke every kid I ever saw, and now every time I'm around them, every time they're all bouncy and noisy and full and innocent, and they look at me ... I have to leave. I have to leave before I have to meet their eyes, and the thing looking out at me isn't young, isn't innocent. I have to go before the thing looking out at me sees me and what ... what I've done ... I have to go before it looks at me and understands. Understands what kids were never supposed to understand, because whatever's in there isn't a kid anymore.

*pauses, rubs neck tiredly* I know it's stupid. I know it's not ... I mean, I've learned to block, to shield, to hold it inside where it can't touch them, and even if I hadn't, they're all ... there's no point anymore, but ...

*shrugs, looking baffled and sad* I've seen too many kids stop. I don't want to see it again. That's all.