Work Text:
They say to kill a man by law is crueller than the crime he’s committed. Because it’s worse, isn’t it? To die knowing you will, rather than die with the withstanding hope you won’t.
That’s sad, don’t you think, Jack? Maybe they deserve it, if what they’ve done is horrible enough, but, death doesn’t sound pleasant at all. Imagine that, dying and all you can think about is the fact that it’s happening. You can’t even be comforted by the idea of comfort, because it’s not there, it’s all death death death—
What was it? Point one of those war guns at a grown up’s head and he will still hope, but read the same grown up’s death sentence to him and he will go mad. Or, something like that.
Ralph doesn’t quite remember the phrasing. But capital punishment seems very, very bad.
Jack regards him curiously, stilling his blade against sharper wood. “Didn’t think you were interested in that sort of thing,” he says after a bit of silence, a tilted tone to his words, a question somewhere there.
He’s right, is the thing. Ralph doesn’t like talking about death so much at all. He has no idea why he does it.
He ducks his head to hide the rising flush of his cheeks. “Well,” his voice is too loud, now, too childish, “Simon talks so much while we build the huts. Sometimes I listen.” Raising his head again, he’s a little calmer, less sheepish. “But that’s— that’s a little interesting, isn’t it?”
Isn’t it?
“I suppose so,” shrugs Jack, adjusting the grip on the handle of his knife.