[ It's disappointing, but Vergilius is a practical man, isn't he? Silco is as well, but Vampirism draws out a certain brashness and lack of practicality than he'd had before. They aren't seeping wounds, at least, but then again, the man is well used to open wounds, isn't he? That scar on his face only looks like it has new companions, littered on his neck. ]
Oh, well, we can't have that.
[ As if he hadn't tanked what little respect there was between them already, right? Silco was a vile little man, and he had done so little to hide it, but there had not been very many opportunities for the man that had existed in that previous world to emerge. A violent, mean creature, uninterested in making allies, derided by those who worked with him β hated by those fighting against him; and that was before he'd blotted out the sun with a squeeze of his hand.
This was not quite to that scale; he did not know if this world would allow for it, but... perhaps a bit of that ruthlessness had slipped from the cage.
To prove a point? Perhaps to show him just who he was before he was drug too deep into the depths. Yet, here he was. Checking in on him. ]
That is how it is in Zaun, as well. We learn to accept death early; but some of us learn to fight it, and it is an old shadow, right on our heels.
I've grown used to seeing death, even if it's never quite stuck. [ A smile, now. It actually stays on his lips. It only stayed when he spoke of unpleasant things. ] To the disappointment of many.
[Silco had smiled then too, with his blood on his lips. He had himself a feast back there, didn't he? The worst of him, brought out on a silver platter.]
[Does the man want to eat of such a rotten mess again? Signs point to yes. He knew already that Silco held a certain ugliness at his core, understandable and frightening. They resonated that way.]
[....Why is he here? What does this do for him? Is there a sense of relief in that Silco is doing well? Better than well?]
[Or did he, too, also want to come rub salt in the wounds]
I'm sure. And here you are, the fool taunting a Color like me. How strong is that self-preservation instinct, anyways? That knife was as useless as a toothpick.
[ Mismatched gaze drug to the way he favored one leg. ] I'll make sure to aim for something more damaging next time, hm? I didn't want to harm you permanently, after all.
Besides... [ He stares at him, unblinking eye like a black hole, focused on the man's faces, the scars there, the red gaze. It's always hard to remember that Silco has two eyes, when one draws attention like this, a dark thing, swallowing up all the light. Except for the pinprick of violent emotion at the center. Burning everything it consumes. ]
Aren't you the one who recognized that I'm just as capable without brute strength? Are we changing that narrative?
[ Was he here just to taunt him? Or was this something else? Had the man finally started to understand something? That he wanted someone to poke and prod at those nasty little weaknesses, and reveal them? Encourage him to snap and lash out? Silco believed that monsters should be let out, drug to the surface and unleashed, lest they become tame, weak things. That's what leashing them did. Holding back. ]
Aw. You're so nice. After turning me into a vampire and all.
[The condescension drips from his lips, but its not like he's turning on his heel and walking away, either. In his world, the Bloodfiends and their creations had a certain relationship - the kindred serving the ones who made them what they are.]
[It leaves a mildly bad taste in his mouth. He chooses to ignore it, staring at that dark hole of an eye.]
[It means to suck him in.]
Oh, you are. The narrative is still the same, Silco. And I will admit, you got the drop on me.
[But? But....]
What happens now? Have you had your fun with me? I almost feel like you always thirst for more.
[ There's a moment where he just... Stares at him. The weight of both of his eyes on Vergilius is enough to feel like that gravitational tug intensifies. It's heavy with implication. He doesn't even need to ask -- was it only me who did this? -- they both know Silco hadn't shoved his own blood down his throat.
Would he have, though? It's possible, he cannot say that it was something he'd considered, the moment a haze of blood rushing in his ears, hunger, and annoyance for once again being called weak.
His lips twitched, whether it was a smile or a grimace, it wasn't clear. ]
Did you think that was just for the fun of it? [ He moves from the doorframe, deeper in the dim room. ] It was to prove a point.
[ What point was that? Why, that he was worthy of respect, that he was a threat. That he wasn't just a pathetic blood starved fiend or a weak man withering behind muscle. No, he wanted Vergilius to understand that, before he thought him a fool. Perhaps it had all been foolish -- much of the encounter was -- but...
Well. He didn't think on it with distaste. Vergilius is right, he always thirsts for more, more respect, more power, more -- ]
So no, we aren't done, yet. I don't think we've finished that pact, have we?
[ Instinctively, his fingers reach for his throat, but he paused, halfway there. ] I certainly still don't fully understand you. Isn't that what you wanted?
[Of course it was. Silco doesn't just want to use his words. He'll use whatever he has at his disposal. Tooth and nail, hand and claw.]
And you feel like you've made your argument.
[Whether he agrees with it isn't clear. Either way, it pisses him off. In a way, it doesn't.]
[Silco recedes, Vergilius moves forward. Just a step. As if to broach the threshold, but he doesn't. A vampire needs to be invited in, after all. His large frame fills the doorframe, his posture slouched, eyes sunken.]
We haven't. You do still want it, do you? [His eyes flit, traitors, to the man's throat. He swears he can almost taste the man's blood. How sweet it was, at first.] Or have you changed your mind?
[ Silco was a stubborn man, vicious and willing to make any decision necessary, but once he did... That was, of course, why he often found himself at odds, wasn't it? Stubborn, never letting things go, revenge a fire that burned hot and undenfing. He remembered -- Fingers on his throat, squeezing tight --
He looked at him, watched him stop at the threshhold, and realized why only after a long, long moment. Unblinking stare in the dim light, Vergilius might feel the weight of it, that stare. He often forgets about the downsides, given that he had been in a place where they so often didn't matter. He wonders how long he would stand out there, staring in, leaving business for anyone who walked by to see. ]
I don't make a habit of open-door negotiations, and I do not intend to start now. [ He wondered if he left it at that, if he would still be stopped still. ]
[And so, the invitation is given. Vergilius moves like a colossus - a heavy, worn thing who has experienced more wear and tear than he perhaps deserves. He would argue himself he deserved it all. He deserved more.]
[Is this a good decision? No. But he moves, anyways.]
[He shifts inside, closes the door quietly, and moves into the room. He casts his gaze around, before - his eyes pause on something. A little gun-like device on the table. He points to it with a low grunt.]
[ The room is simple, and small. It fits Silco just fine, but with Vergilius in here, it suddenly feels crowded. Like there isn't enough space, and he's used to more cramped places than this, but he's also been acclimated to larger. He isn't used to sharing tight quarters with others. ]
Oh, that? Medication.
[ Of a sort. His personal shimmer variant. He tapped the skin beneath his eye, and even in the dim light it's hard to miss the needle poking out of the brass housing. It's easy to imagine how it's applied.
Without violence forcing honesty... It was difficult to know where to start. He looked at him for another moment that seemed to stretch out, before finally: ]
As for the argument, do you feel so lessened by what happened? I know how...little you think of them -- us. Do you still think that? Is control difficult to come by?
[ He asks, knowing he has done little to corral his own hunger.]
[He hovers over the table - not touching the device, no, he's polite enough for that - but he's frowning mildly when he looks over at Silco gesturing to his own eye. Huh. He didn't think that the eye was a problem, maybe something more aesthetic. Then again, that scar couldn't have come from nowhere. Still shows there's much to learn about the man.]
It bothers you? Your eye.
[And then, after a moment, comes the question. His own gaze drifts, fixes on some spot in the wall.]
....I don't look down on vampires, you know. Bloodfiends. No, those at home are....quite intelligent. These are pale imitations. Mindless beasts.
[A pause, almost certainly awkward.]
I feel lessened by you taking the choice from me forcefully. Without my consent. It isn't...actually about the hunger.
Yes. It's not exactly healed over, if you haven't noticed.
[ Stringy and vicious, like an open wound. He covers it, sure, but Vergilius has seen the make up streaked off, or missing. Just recently, he's been up close to it, hasn't he? ]
Ah, yes, apologies that I didn't stop you from biting me. It wasn't the expected response.
[ his lips twitch in dim light, and he looked him up and down. ]
You could have just stopped me. Maybe suffered a bite, but...
Why didn't you? If I'm to blame for your woes, perhaps you should enlighten me as to why.
[ Now, he does sit, crossed a slim ankle over his knee. Relaxed, or feigned relaxation. It's bold, sitting when he's so much taller, a subtle, unspoken message of his lack of fear. ]
[Or maybe it will not, given that Silco has to dose himself with medication. He wonders what it would be like untreated. Would that blackness consume into him further? Would it eat away at flesh? Would it rot the skin off his body?]
[The man moves to sit, languid and smooth as a cat. He turns to face him, now, a little twitch of displeasure in his stern features.]
I didn't think you were in your right mind. Perhaps you were thralled. Now I know I was wrong. Should have popped your head off from the beginning.
[ He only watches him with that unblinking gaze, as if to ask: what do you think?
He doesn't need to elaborate, he thinks he can imagine, what would happen, were he to stop whatever it was that worked to keep the toxins from chewing away at his nervous system and at the remaining flesh there. It had gotten worse, over the years. Starting as am infected cut, until it kept consuming more and more of him.
No, it's easy to guess, and his imagination isn't likely far from the truth.
His eyes still follow him, watching him sit, move like he's some predator invading in his space.]
But you didn't. Nor did you after.
[ He started fishing for a cigar, patting at his vest. ] You could have pulled me off, too. I think you could handle the injury.
No, I think you wanted to hurt me only just enough.
[So it's like that, huh. How painful must it be, especially with such drastic an application? If the man has to subsist on such suffering, it adds to the reasoning about why he is the way he is. Silco truly is a man molded by his circumstances.]
[Vergilius steps closer. He is a predator. Is Silco a bigger one? Hard to say. He would maybe bite down on an inch of pride to say that he shouldn't be. If anything, they're simply predators of different echelons, environments, meeting in a common field.]
...Backfired in what way, in your opinion? My bites? The way I choked you?
[My kiss?]
[He doesn't say it. But it hangs in the air, like a ghost yet to be acknowledged.]
[ He responds. It's difficult to say at first if that's all he's going to say.
He's quiet, even, which Silco rarely is. The man is quick to speak up and share his (clearly superior)(no) opinions, and hardly can halt himself from doing so when his ire is raised. That eye, too, staring, doesn't really offer much, glowing like it does, the only emotion of seems to carry is hate, and anger. In silence, it seems ineffective. Lacking. ]
Your bites were certainly unexpected. I hadn't thought you would fight back with such... Ferocity.
[ He places the cigar in his mouth, and out comes the lighter. At least he still has one vice. His next words come smoke infused. The small room feels smaller, the way the air is heavy with cigar smoke already.]
[To all of that. He can't help it really, tilt his head, let his bangs shift, a little more of his eerie gaze peek out from behind his bangs. The smoke tickles his nose, and he sniffs, but he doesn't cough or wheeze. Or even breathe, really.]
Weren't you taunting me into that? Or did you just expect me to lay pretty for you, Silco?
[He feels like they're dancing around a topic, here, like a tongue to briefly lick and taste something uncertain. He wants to see if Silco, too, will have a taste.]
[ He meets that gaze, unblinking, shrouded though it still was by bangs, like he was trying to hide it, whereas Silco's was always undiluted, and open. It's a little bit like challenging it, as he understands that his gaze is something of note, wasn't it? His title, too, carried the weight of his unblinking eye, so perhaps it was more like he matched him, one for one. ]
I expected nothing less than a fight. If I wanted someone to take it, I would have chosen someone more weak-willed.
[ That kind of fight, though? A twitch of a smile formed around the cigar between his lips, while he puffed on it, before he pulled it out, to speak, letting it dangle idly from his fingers. ]
Did you think I was goading you on?
[ He asked, leaning forward. Is he goading now? He hadn't β really thought all that far ahead, had he? For being such a planner, someone who liked to have everything meticulously arranged and sorted, Vergilius had already made a habit of acting outside of what he expected or planned for, then again, how much was he actually planning? ]
[More weak-willed, huh. Should he be honored? The great Silco, putting his black-eyed sight on him. See, there always was this thing people could rarely do. Look him in the eye.]
[Silco stares as if he means to pierce him through and through. As if his gaze should be held by him alone.
[It must be the latent hunger he now has to live with, scratching on the inside of his ribcage. He has half a mind to cross the distance, dig teeth in, and worry that mouth like a dog with a bone. He resists it, for now, but the twitch of his lips around ill-fitting fangs perhaps betrays it.]
You could have pulled away. Stabbed me earlier for good measure. And yet you didn't.
[A rattling sort of laugh, as he shifts on his feet here.]
Did you want to goad me on? Would it have been so terrible if you did?
[ That eye does not miss the way his mouth seems to move around fangs, he lingers there for only a split second, watching the way his lips move around fangs that are ill-adjsuted to human mouths, before he looked back at his solid gaze, just as bright as his own. It's like drowning in a sea of blood, when he stares at him. He cannot say that he minds that. He's drowned in far worse, hasn't he? ]
I could have, but can you blame a man for his curiosity?
[ Was that all it was? Curiosity? Was it curiosity that drove him to sink his fangs into him, or allow him the upper hand? That allowed him to bite back, and keep biting back? Or worse? When had he stopped him? When his hand had closed around his neck, a twisted mockery of too-manty times when a different person's hand had tightened around his neck, with the intention to kill, where Vergilius had...
Had he been trying to kill him? Truly? He did not think Vergilius was so toothless to only threaten what he would not do. ]
What if I did? [ From a side table, he brings out a knife, a familiar one, though the blade is folded. ] Who said I had stopped?
[ He'd plunged that knife into his flesh, but would he have stopped him, if he'd β done that again? ]
[About how much he should be pushed? Isn't that idiocy? Silco is not someone who could ever be anywhere near an idiot. And yet...and yet....he keeps thrusting that spindly little hand in the bars of the lion cage. He bears a knife as if that would provide even the slightest mote of protection.]
[And yet, this is a man who has bested a beast in one aspect. Who toyed with him enough until he bared his teeth.]
[Vergilius steps closer, now, shoulders hunching up more. He's always never had the best posture in the world.]
[The knife is laughable. So he laughs. A hard, gruff little ha-ha.]
...Put that away. If you really didn't want to stop, act with your hands, and your hands alone. Not pathetic tools. Unless you feel scared enough to hide behind it?
About what nature of beast lurks beneath your skin, of course.
[ He says it like it should be so obvious, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Silco respected power, he always had, but the manner of the type of power was always in question. When pushed into a corner, how did the beast react? When confronted with betrayal, or bloodshed, did the beast shirk away and hide in a corner, or seek out those with more power, or did they lash out, and excise the problem personally?
Silco was not a foolish man, but around such things, he so often lost his head in pursuit of power. He had no freedom to help buy for the people here, or product to peddle. He needed something else to pay for loyalty, because he has nothing else to supply. He wants to see this beast out of its cage β ideally with his hand at the leash β because there's something in the man that makes him hold back. Show restraint.
What is that that makes him pull back? Why is it that he hadn't crushed his head like a too-ripe fruit plucked from the refuse? What does he want out of this?
They'd sat on and talked about ending a world once; an opportunity Silco had held in his hands, and tried to cultivate for two years, fighting everything and everyone to ensure it happened, maddened by the one little thing he could protect, the only thing that mattered. His devotion had flayed his very soul, put it up for bargain for gods and demons, and now he was free, and he had even lost the only thing he was devoted to. Preserving that which was dead, because they weren't.
What does Vergilius see, when he looked at him? His unblinking stare kept on him, and he placed the knife back, never looking away. ]
I don't live in fear, Vergilius. Not of you, not of anything. I've met death so many times we are old friends now, but I always seem to slip away.
[ But he lifted those thin fingers, as if deciding where to act. ]
You want me to act, do you? [ He doesn't stand, but he doesn't have to. His fingers find that space on his thigh, where he knife had plunged in, and he pushes against it, fingers aimed to hurt. Even still, he didn't look away, like he wanted to see the pain on his face. ]
[A beast, huh? Now that's a bitter taste on his tongue if he ever tasted it. There's a brief flash of purple at the back of his eye - a snake-like woman standing above him, taunting him. Using him. In the end, the Purple Tear had her games, and he was merely a pawn in them.]
[Did she see him as a beast, too?]
[He stands still as the man's hands reach out. They broach the bars of the cage. They grasp the hide of the monster, and dig in their own monstrous nails.]
[He tries to keep his expression as placid as possible, but there's a low hiss of air that comes from between his teeth as the pain lances up into his muscles. Vergilius, as he said earlier, won't lay pretty.]
[His own hand reaches out to grasp Silco by the shoulder where he knows there was his own bite mark, sharp and deep. He draws forward, like a magnet, to hover his head above the other with gritted, animal-like teeth.]
[ Pain seared all the way down to his fingers, teeth gritted, a matching pair of fangs exposed by his lips pulling back around them, like he wanted to gnaw something in pain. There is an open wound there, skin ripped free from a bite that tore, a half-open wound that seeped blood when agitated. One of his eyes closed from the pain, but the other, it never wavers, staring at Vergilius as he presses in, causing pain like fire down to his fingers, arcing like a reminder of everything that his brain also hadn't quite forgotten.
How could it? ]
Of course, it isn't. I'm not done.
[ His tone forced out. He wondered if he wanted to hurt like this. Why else would he be back here? Was it because he wanted to let that monster out too? He'd said he wasn't hiding, but how often did he lash out? How often was Vergilius himself like Silco saw him? He wants to drag him out from the depths and just see what is there, vivisected and exposed. See what else could make a man as vile as he was?
He very nearly snapped his teeth at him, his finger digging in just a bit more, like he was trying to make him hurt. He reached up to press at the familiar space, where he'd sunk his fangs into, blood pooling into his mouth. Would it bleed, if he pressed at it? Would it open back up, and he'd smell blood again? He pushed with his fingers, his cigar still held between the two of them. The bright pinprick of it, heated, hovered near his jaw, like a little threat. ]
[Silco winces in pain. Vergilius presses in more. What does he want? Did he come here all the way just to hurt this man, make him cry and beg for mercy? Only a short time ago, he was merely checking in.]
[How did it get to here? How did his feet take him to his place? He doesn't want to kill Silco. Doesn't he? Does he?]
[The tip of the cigarette hovers. Silco pushes in, as if he can enter him and tear out his abominable roots. As if he could even manage to do half of that. You can bring a bucket to the blood-red sea. You can't empty it.]
[Only drown in it.]
...I'm not done, either.
[He says, his whisper scratching in the depths of his throat as the man pushed up with his fingers.]
[He twists to give him a little threat of his own. His mouth opens, before it dives down onto Silco's thumb, narrowly avoiding the tip of that cigar with the movement. His fang presses in as his tongue dives down, as if ready to lick up the blood yet to be spilled. And the key word is "yet".]
[The hunger is asking him to take away that "yet".]
What's wrong β [ He hissed out through tight gritted teeth. He was strong enough to handle it the pain. He'd weathered so much pain throughout his life, hadn't he? What was more? What couldn't he handle? ] β With wanting more?
[ How much more, he didn't know. He'd always been a hungry maw, desperately clawing and fighting for more, and more, and more. Respect, power, whatever his thin little fingers could claw together, first from the muck, then from the dredges of the undercity, and further and further; how hungry had he been in the world before? How much had he sliced off of everything for more and more shreds of it?
His eyes finally broke contact, only for a second, to dart to his fang pressed to his thumb. He hasn't even broken the skin, and his lips twitch, before he leaned forward, digging his fingers in harder. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
LMASF I DO NOTSEE IT π
Oh, well, we can't have that.
[ As if he hadn't tanked what little respect there was between them already, right? Silco was a vile little man, and he had done so little to hide it, but there had not been very many opportunities for the man that had existed in that previous world to emerge. A violent, mean creature, uninterested in making allies, derided by those who worked with him β hated by those fighting against him; and that was before he'd blotted out the sun with a squeeze of his hand.
This was not quite to that scale; he did not know if this world would allow for it, but... perhaps a bit of that ruthlessness had slipped from the cage.
To prove a point? Perhaps to show him just who he was before he was drug too deep into the depths. Yet, here he was. Checking in on him. ]
That is how it is in Zaun, as well. We learn to accept death early; but some of us learn to fight it, and it is an old shadow, right on our heels.
I've grown used to seeing death, even if it's never quite stuck. [ A smile, now. It actually stays on his lips. It only stayed when he spoke of unpleasant things. ] To the disappointment of many.
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[Does the man want to eat of such a rotten mess again? Signs point to yes. He knew already that Silco held a certain ugliness at his core, understandable and frightening. They resonated that way.]
[....Why is he here? What does this do for him? Is there a sense of relief in that Silco is doing well? Better than well?]
[Or did he, too, also want to come rub salt in the wounds]
I'm sure. And here you are, the fool taunting a Color like me. How strong is that self-preservation instinct, anyways? That knife was as useless as a toothpick.
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[ Mismatched gaze drug to the way he favored one leg. ] I'll make sure to aim for something more damaging next time, hm? I didn't want to harm you permanently, after all.
Besides... [ He stares at him, unblinking eye like a black hole, focused on the man's faces, the scars there, the red gaze. It's always hard to remember that Silco has two eyes, when one draws attention like this, a dark thing, swallowing up all the light. Except for the pinprick of violent emotion at the center. Burning everything it consumes. ]
Aren't you the one who recognized that I'm just as capable without brute strength? Are we changing that narrative?
[ Was he here just to taunt him? Or was this something else? Had the man finally started to understand something? That he wanted someone to poke and prod at those nasty little weaknesses, and reveal them? Encourage him to snap and lash out? Silco believed that monsters should be let out, drug to the surface and unleashed, lest they become tame, weak things. That's what leashing them did. Holding back. ]
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[The condescension drips from his lips, but its not like he's turning on his heel and walking away, either. In his world, the Bloodfiends and their creations had a certain relationship - the kindred serving the ones who made them what they are.]
[It leaves a mildly bad taste in his mouth. He chooses to ignore it, staring at that dark hole of an eye.]
[It means to suck him in.]
Oh, you are. The narrative is still the same, Silco. And I will admit, you got the drop on me.
[But? But....]
What happens now? Have you had your fun with me? I almost feel like you always thirst for more.
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Would he have, though? It's possible, he cannot say that it was something he'd considered, the moment a haze of blood rushing in his ears, hunger, and annoyance for once again being called weak.
His lips twitched, whether it was a smile or a grimace, it wasn't clear. ]
Did you think that was just for the fun of it? [ He moves from the doorframe, deeper in the dim room. ] It was to prove a point.
[ What point was that? Why, that he was worthy of respect, that he was a threat. That he wasn't just a pathetic blood starved fiend or a weak man withering behind muscle. No, he wanted Vergilius to understand that, before he thought him a fool. Perhaps it had all been foolish -- much of the encounter was -- but...
Well. He didn't think on it with distaste. Vergilius is right, he always thirsts for more, more respect, more power, more -- ]
So no, we aren't done, yet. I don't think we've finished that pact, have we?
[ Instinctively, his fingers reach for his throat, but he paused, halfway there. ] I certainly still don't fully understand you. Isn't that what you wanted?
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[Of course it was. Silco doesn't just want to use his words. He'll use whatever he has at his disposal. Tooth and nail, hand and claw.]
And you feel like you've made your argument.
[Whether he agrees with it isn't clear. Either way, it pisses him off. In a way, it doesn't.]
[Silco recedes, Vergilius moves forward. Just a step. As if to broach the threshold, but he doesn't. A vampire needs to be invited in, after all. His large frame fills the doorframe, his posture slouched, eyes sunken.]
We haven't. You do still want it, do you? [His eyes flit, traitors, to the man's throat. He swears he can almost taste the man's blood. How sweet it was, at first.] Or have you changed your mind?
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[ Silco was a stubborn man, vicious and willing to make any decision necessary, but once he did... That was, of course, why he often found himself at odds, wasn't it? Stubborn, never letting things go, revenge a fire that burned hot and undenfing. He remembered -- Fingers on his throat, squeezing tight --
He looked at him, watched him stop at the threshhold, and realized why only after a long, long moment. Unblinking stare in the dim light, Vergilius might feel the weight of it, that stare. He often forgets about the downsides, given that he had been in a place where they so often didn't matter. He wonders how long he would stand out there, staring in, leaving business for anyone who walked by to see. ]
I don't make a habit of open-door negotiations, and I do not intend to start now. [ He wondered if he left it at that, if he would still be stopped still. ]
So close the door if you're coming in.
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[Is this a good decision? No. But he moves, anyways.]
[He shifts inside, closes the door quietly, and moves into the room. He casts his gaze around, before - his eyes pause on something. A little gun-like device on the table. He points to it with a low grunt.]
What is that?
Cw....... Elusion to eye things
Oh, that? Medication.
[ Of a sort. His personal shimmer variant. He tapped the skin beneath his eye, and even in the dim light it's hard to miss the needle poking out of the brass housing. It's easy to imagine how it's applied.
Without violence forcing honesty... It was difficult to know where to start. He looked at him for another moment that seemed to stretch out, before finally: ]
As for the argument, do you feel so lessened by what happened? I know how...little you think of them -- us. Do you still think that? Is control difficult to come by?
[ He asks, knowing he has done little to corral his own hunger.]
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It bothers you? Your eye.
[And then, after a moment, comes the question. His own gaze drifts, fixes on some spot in the wall.]
....I don't look down on vampires, you know. Bloodfiends. No, those at home are....quite intelligent. These are pale imitations. Mindless beasts.
[A pause, almost certainly awkward.]
I feel lessened by you taking the choice from me forcefully. Without my consent. It isn't...actually about the hunger.
[He doesn't talk about the control.]
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Yes. It's not exactly healed over, if you haven't noticed.
[ Stringy and vicious, like an open wound. He covers it, sure, but Vergilius has seen the make up streaked off, or missing. Just recently, he's been up close to it, hasn't he? ]
Ah, yes, apologies that I didn't stop you from biting me. It wasn't the expected response.
[ his lips twitch in dim light, and he looked him up and down. ]
You could have just stopped me. Maybe suffered a bite, but...
Why didn't you? If I'm to blame for your woes, perhaps you should enlighten me as to why.
[ Now, he does sit, crossed a slim ankle over his knee. Relaxed, or feigned relaxation. It's bold, sitting when he's so much taller, a subtle, unspoken message of his lack of fear. ]
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[Or maybe it will not, given that Silco has to dose himself with medication. He wonders what it would be like untreated. Would that blackness consume into him further? Would it eat away at flesh? Would it rot the skin off his body?]
[The man moves to sit, languid and smooth as a cat. He turns to face him, now, a little twitch of displeasure in his stern features.]
I didn't think you were in your right mind. Perhaps you were thralled. Now I know I was wrong. Should have popped your head off from the beginning.
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[ He only watches him with that unblinking gaze, as if to ask: what do you think?
He doesn't need to elaborate, he thinks he can imagine, what would happen, were he to stop whatever it was that worked to keep the toxins from chewing away at his nervous system and at the remaining flesh there. It had gotten worse, over the years. Starting as am infected cut, until it kept consuming more and more of him.
No, it's easy to guess, and his imagination isn't likely far from the truth.
His eyes still follow him, watching him sit, move like he's some predator invading in his space.]
But you didn't. Nor did you after.
[ He started fishing for a cigar, patting at his vest. ] You could have pulled me off, too. I think you could handle the injury.
No, I think you wanted to hurt me only just enough.
Then it backfired.
[ As if he hadn't done the same in return.]
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[So it's like that, huh. How painful must it be, especially with such drastic an application? If the man has to subsist on such suffering, it adds to the reasoning about why he is the way he is. Silco truly is a man molded by his circumstances.]
[Vergilius steps closer. He is a predator. Is Silco a bigger one? Hard to say. He would maybe bite down on an inch of pride to say that he shouldn't be. If anything, they're simply predators of different echelons, environments, meeting in a common field.]
...Backfired in what way, in your opinion? My bites? The way I choked you?
[My kiss?]
[He doesn't say it. But it hangs in the air, like a ghost yet to be acknowledged.]
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[ He responds. It's difficult to say at first if that's all he's going to say.
He's quiet, even, which Silco rarely is. The man is quick to speak up and share his (clearly superior)(no) opinions, and hardly can halt himself from doing so when his ire is raised. That eye, too, staring, doesn't really offer much, glowing like it does, the only emotion of seems to carry is hate, and anger. In silence, it seems ineffective. Lacking. ]
Your bites were certainly unexpected. I hadn't thought you would fight back with such... Ferocity.
[ He places the cigar in his mouth, and out comes the lighter. At least he still has one vice. His next words come smoke infused. The small room feels smaller, the way the air is heavy with cigar smoke already.]
None of what you did was expected.
[ That was closer. ]
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[To all of that. He can't help it really, tilt his head, let his bangs shift, a little more of his eerie gaze peek out from behind his bangs. The smoke tickles his nose, and he sniffs, but he doesn't cough or wheeze. Or even breathe, really.]
Weren't you taunting me into that? Or did you just expect me to lay pretty for you, Silco?
[He feels like they're dancing around a topic, here, like a tongue to briefly lick and taste something uncertain. He wants to see if Silco, too, will have a taste.]
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I expected nothing less than a fight. If I wanted someone to take it, I would have chosen someone more weak-willed.
[ That kind of fight, though? A twitch of a smile formed around the cigar between his lips, while he puffed on it, before he pulled it out, to speak, letting it dangle idly from his fingers. ]
Did you think I was goading you on?
[ He asked, leaning forward. Is he goading now? He hadn't β really thought all that far ahead, had he? For being such a planner, someone who liked to have everything meticulously arranged and sorted, Vergilius had already made a habit of acting outside of what he expected or planned for, then again, how much was he actually planning? ]
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[Silco stares as if he means to pierce him through and through. As if his gaze should be held by him alone.
[It must be the latent hunger he now has to live with, scratching on the inside of his ribcage. He has half a mind to cross the distance, dig teeth in, and worry that mouth like a dog with a bone. He resists it, for now, but the twitch of his lips around ill-fitting fangs perhaps betrays it.]
You could have pulled away. Stabbed me earlier for good measure. And yet you didn't.
[A rattling sort of laugh, as he shifts on his feet here.]
Did you want to goad me on? Would it have been so terrible if you did?
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I could have, but can you blame a man for his curiosity?
[ Was that all it was? Curiosity? Was it curiosity that drove him to sink his fangs into him, or allow him the upper hand? That allowed him to bite back, and keep biting back? Or worse? When had he stopped him? When his hand had closed around his neck, a twisted mockery of too-manty times when a different person's hand had tightened around his neck, with the intention to kill, where Vergilius had...
Had he been trying to kill him? Truly? He did not think Vergilius was so toothless to only threaten what he would not do. ]
What if I did? [ From a side table, he brings out a knife, a familiar one, though the blade is folded. ] Who said I had stopped?
[ He'd plunged that knife into his flesh, but would he have stopped him, if he'd β done that again? ]
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[About how much he should be pushed? Isn't that idiocy? Silco is not someone who could ever be anywhere near an idiot. And yet...and yet....he keeps thrusting that spindly little hand in the bars of the lion cage. He bears a knife as if that would provide even the slightest mote of protection.]
[And yet, this is a man who has bested a beast in one aspect. Who toyed with him enough until he bared his teeth.]
[Vergilius steps closer, now, shoulders hunching up more. He's always never had the best posture in the world.]
[The knife is laughable. So he laughs. A hard, gruff little ha-ha.]
...Put that away. If you really didn't want to stop, act with your hands, and your hands alone. Not pathetic tools. Unless you feel scared enough to hide behind it?
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[ He says it like it should be so obvious, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Silco respected power, he always had, but the manner of the type of power was always in question. When pushed into a corner, how did the beast react? When confronted with betrayal, or bloodshed, did the beast shirk away and hide in a corner, or seek out those with more power, or did they lash out, and excise the problem personally?
Silco was not a foolish man, but around such things, he so often lost his head in pursuit of power. He had no freedom to help buy for the people here, or product to peddle. He needed something else to pay for loyalty, because he has nothing else to supply. He wants to see this beast out of its cage β ideally with his hand at the leash β because there's something in the man that makes him hold back. Show restraint.
What is that that makes him pull back? Why is it that he hadn't crushed his head like a too-ripe fruit plucked from the refuse? What does he want out of this?
They'd sat on and talked about ending a world once; an opportunity Silco had held in his hands, and tried to cultivate for two years, fighting everything and everyone to ensure it happened, maddened by the one little thing he could protect, the only thing that mattered. His devotion had flayed his very soul, put it up for bargain for gods and demons, and now he was free, and he had even lost the only thing he was devoted to. Preserving that which was dead, because they weren't.
What does Vergilius see, when he looked at him? His unblinking stare kept on him, and he placed the knife back, never looking away. ]
I don't live in fear, Vergilius. Not of you, not of anything. I've met death so many times we are old friends now, but I always seem to slip away.
[ But he lifted those thin fingers, as if deciding where to act. ]
You want me to act, do you? [ He doesn't stand, but he doesn't have to. His fingers find that space on his thigh, where he knife had plunged in, and he pushes against it, fingers aimed to hurt. Even still, he didn't look away, like he wanted to see the pain on his face. ]
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[Did she see him as a beast, too?]
[He stands still as the man's hands reach out. They broach the bars of the cage. They grasp the hide of the monster, and dig in their own monstrous nails.]
[He tries to keep his expression as placid as possible, but there's a low hiss of air that comes from between his teeth as the pain lances up into his muscles. Vergilius, as he said earlier, won't lay pretty.]
[His own hand reaches out to grasp Silco by the shoulder where he knows there was his own bite mark, sharp and deep. He draws forward, like a magnet, to hover his head above the other with gritted, animal-like teeth.]
Is that all?
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How could it? ]
Of course, it isn't. I'm not done.
[ His tone forced out. He wondered if he wanted to hurt like this. Why else would he be back here? Was it because he wanted to let that monster out too? He'd said he wasn't hiding, but how often did he lash out? How often was Vergilius himself like Silco saw him? He wants to drag him out from the depths and just see what is there, vivisected and exposed. See what else could make a man as vile as he was?
He very nearly snapped his teeth at him, his finger digging in just a bit more, like he was trying to make him hurt. He reached up to press at the familiar space, where he'd sunk his fangs into, blood pooling into his mouth. Would it bleed, if he pressed at it? Would it open back up, and he'd smell blood again? He pushed with his fingers, his cigar still held between the two of them. The bright pinprick of it, heated, hovered near his jaw, like a little threat. ]
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[Silco winces in pain. Vergilius presses in more. What does he want? Did he come here all the way just to hurt this man, make him cry and beg for mercy? Only a short time ago, he was merely checking in.]
[How did it get to here? How did his feet take him to his place? He doesn't want to kill Silco. Doesn't he? Does he?]
[The tip of the cigarette hovers. Silco pushes in, as if he can enter him and tear out his abominable roots. As if he could even manage to do half of that. You can bring a bucket to the blood-red sea. You can't empty it.]
[Only drown in it.]
...I'm not done, either.
[He says, his whisper scratching in the depths of his throat as the man pushed up with his fingers.]
[He twists to give him a little threat of his own. His mouth opens, before it dives down onto Silco's thumb, narrowly avoiding the tip of that cigar with the movement. His fang presses in as his tongue dives down, as if ready to lick up the blood yet to be spilled. And the key word is "yet".]
[The hunger is asking him to take away that "yet".]
[Patience, patience. Control, control.]
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[ How much more, he didn't know. He'd always been a hungry maw, desperately clawing and fighting for more, and more, and more. Respect, power, whatever his thin little fingers could claw together, first from the muck, then from the dredges of the undercity, and further and further; how hungry had he been in the world before? How much had he sliced off of everything for more and more shreds of it?
His eyes finally broke contact, only for a second, to dart to his fang pressed to his thumb. He hasn't even broken the skin, and his lips twitch, before he leaned forward, digging his fingers in harder. ]
What's stopping you?
[ Is he urging him to break? ]
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nsfwish...
coughs probably... the rest...
closing my damn eyes. Anyways. here be nsfw and yaoi
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