[ 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. ]
[He's angry. He's so angry. That anger has always been there, simmering, and Silco has done nothing but dredge it up. Oh, he's tempted.]
[A little snap of the jaw, and that would be it. A crushing of bone. And that thumb would be removed as easy as anything.]
[He could do it.]
[He could.]
[The pain sinks into him, and his eyes flicker, like agitated fireflies-
before he pulls back with a hoarse cough. No, he's not backing off completely.]
[His hand moves from his shoulder to find Silco's hair and yank it back. Vergilius presses in his mouth to the crux of his jaw, sighing - he's shaking. He's trying to calm down, his words murmured into his pale skin.]
....I don't want to kill you. You dimwitted bastard.
[ His voice snaked out through a strained neck that still ached from the bruise that still lay there, a soft vibration against his lips. Low, coupled with something that isn't quite a chuckle, but there's a thrum of tension there, half like he's egging him on. Did he really want to kill him that badly? ]
Are you tempted?
[ He doesn't want to die, of course, but... Vergilius had Come here. He'd checked in on him. He'd stepped into his den, and now wanted nothing more than to kill him. He could feel the shake against his skin. Was it restraint, or was it something else? He doesn't understand him, and it leaves him agitated that he can be so confusing. He's used to sliding individuals away in neat little boxes, based on who they were. What buttons he could push, or direct. How to make them mad, or slip away silently. Why was it he didn't react exactly the way he'd thought?
He's used to his life being threatened.
So why didn't he?
His fingers never stopped digging. As if he could open them back up, expose the parts of him he wanted to see. He wonders if he should push them open more? The hand on his thigh is lean, and bony, but while he presses his fingers into the wound, his thumb moves, just slightly, brushing against his inner thigh. ]
[To be with Silco feels like a whirlwind, like throwing caution into a tornado. He feels broken, put back together, unsure where his emotions start and where they end.]
[He doesn't even feel all that conscious of his own body, as if its a wild thing of his own. His breath hitches in his chest from...is it the pain? Or the sudden shift against his inner thigh? Vergilius is taking deep breaths against Silco, as if to swallow whatever is left. It serves to cut down on the shaking, at least.]
...I am tempted.
[For what? He doesn't elaborate, here. His hand in Silco's hair holds him steadily as he takes in in another breath, before sucking in a kiss against that beautiful bruised skin.]
[ He'd thought the first time was a fluke, but Vergilius was such a deliberate man, and Silco knew that as well. He'd made up that it was a fluke, and maybe it was so that he didn't have to consider what it meant, and maybe it was another reason, and his mind wound around that like a question, over and over again, like that same puzzle he couldn't exactly figure out where all the pieces went.
No, it wasn't a fluke, was it?
This was a second? Third time? The whole... of everything was such a haze of blood and pain and everything else that he almost couldn't remember one moment from the next. It had been good, finding weak spots and pulling violence out of him, just like now, it felt like he was trying to drown in a sea of blood, looking for the vortex of violence in the middle. Like he could drag it out from the depths, and make sense of it in the light.
But can he, when he keeps throwing these changes into the mix? He doesn't know whether to be angry, or... or...
He realized only belatedly that he'd forgotten to breathe, and he'd done it without even squeezing his hands around his throat again. His fingers had stilled, and gone slack, still pressed to his wounds. He remembered to breathe, the sound too-loud in his ears.
He swallowed, the motion of it moved against his lips. ]
By?
[ He almost doesn't ask it, but he can't help but question it. He can't move his head much, held down like that, but his fingers seek out his free hand, fishing for it, to grasp it with long, thin fingers. ]
[It's only one word. But what a potent word it is. What is he tempted by? These vicious urges? Other desires that spike through his spine, sharp yet heavy?]
[He misses Malkuth. He misses the way she held him so dear, with warm hands that curved around his face, trailed down scarred skin. He's thirsty for a lot in this world. A better world. The laughter of children. And touch, yes, touch. It tears him apart. It grounds him.]
[Silco's hands thread through his. With his mouth where it is, he can feel Silco's heartbeat so distinctly that he almost feels like his teeth should be at his chest again. What is he tempted by? Does he even know? What answer should he give?]
[Does he even want this, or is this pure restless urge?]
[Vergilius sighs. The way they hold hands remind him of that time in the labryinth, two men standing at the precipice of everything. Well, he supposes he has an answer, as his grip squeezes, and he hisses into the other's ear.]
[ What manner of man comes to him here, after what he did, and says something like that? He hated what he'd done to him, or so he fails. He wanted to look him, didn't he? Or was it that aggression that came from something else, that want he hissed into his ear? He could imagine that he could hear the blood rushing in his ears, and he could almost imagine he could hear the blood thudding in his veins too.
Their fingers interlaced, just like that night when he'd thought he could pull the skin apart and look at the man -- a beast -- beneath it. His grip tightens to match his, stronger than his lean frame suggests. ]
Ah - [ It's somewhere between a surprised... Something and... A low note that almost sounds pleased. More honest than he intended, perhaps. He hadn't expected him to admit it, it was easier to ignore when it was unspoken, a trend that he could pretend he was imagining to see.
He lifted joined hands -- still held down, with his lips at his neck, he didn't dare move his head -- forced his wrist close to mouth, fang scraped against flesh, and maybe he drug it out for longer than necessary. He liked that, pinning him in place without holding him down; forcing him to dangle over a precipice. Did he know the kind of power he'd just given him? Over him? This is a sort of power that he's is unused to, but it still evokes that sharp tingle of excitement at the rush of it.
He bit into him, fangs sinking deep into his wrist. It's a contrast, not gentle or kind, but sharp, all points and rough edges, his hand holding him still, as if he couldn't rip his wrist away. Hot blood flooded into his mouth, one of his eyes closed from the rush. Did it taste better, knowing how much power he holds? ]
[Of course Silco is sharp. Of course there's no real warmth to find here. There's no comfort. It's akin to taking thorns to swallow inside of him, hoping to bleed internally.]
[It's what I deserve. For my hypocrisy. For my deception.]
[That familiar voice stands the test of time. Vergilius feels the man's mouth dig in as if its always belonged at his wrist, and a low noise vibrates out of his chest. Maybe it's a groan. Maybe it's the sound of a dog whose been cowed.]
[Yes, of course, the anger is there, and even though he's been leashed like this, this feral dog still has some bite. He will chew on the hand that feeds, and petty, spiteful emotion makes him lower his head. He sucks another bruise into the bouquet of the others, before he bites into...well, at least not his carotid, but its close. Too close.]
[He gasps at the flow of blood, but its such a contrast to the hands below - they hold each other tightly, but the way his thumb strokes upward is almost, vaguely, tender.]
[ His neck is already aching from the bruises; they seem to keep multiplying around him β as if he'd known what a weak spot it was β but his breath gasped in a sudden burst, when he broke skin, his fingers white-knuckled against his, fighting for composure that seemed to keep slipping through his fingers. The blood was a small salve on the loss of his own, but this wasn't really about consumption, was it? Not really.
It was about something else, maybe something like reminding each other about the danger they were both in from each other β Silco from physical danger, Vergilius from the danger of being wrapped up in Silco's little plans and plots β but Silco knew exactly the kind of danger he was in, and hadn't sought to step back; he'd so often had his life threatened that it almost seemed to be nothing β and yet here he was, allowing him close. Closer than he'd even allowed the demon he'd sold his soul to.
This was foolish for how dangerous it was, but there was the power too. Like he had that feral dog's leash, even if it snapped back at him and bit him. When had he ever wanted safe, or kind things? No, he knew that Vergilius could kill him, and wasn't half of the rush the fact that he survived? Escaped with only puncture wounds and bruises that he made sure to match?
He isn't satisfied with one wound on his wrist, he pulls his fangs free, but the blood pooling in the twin wounds draws his mouth back to the wound, his tongue pressed to the puncture wounds, and did the blood just keep coming? Was his heart pounding that hard?
He bit him again, a second mark just a touch higher than the first, the blood smearing over his lips and cheek, a soft, satisfied sound seemed to escape from somewhere in him, when he sank his fangs back in. The scent of blood hanging in the air between them just made him want more of it, to leave a series of bites down his arm so he couldn't cover all of them up and hide them away. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.]
no subject
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.]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
[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.
no subject
[ 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.]
no subject
[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.]
no subject
[ 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. ]
no subject
[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.]
no subject
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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[A little snap of the jaw, and that would be it. A crushing of bone. And that thumb would be removed as easy as anything.]
[He could do it.]
[He could.]
[The pain sinks into him, and his eyes flicker, like agitated fireflies-
before he pulls back with a hoarse cough. No, he's not backing off completely.]
[His hand moves from his shoulder to find Silco's hair and yank it back. Vergilius presses in his mouth to the crux of his jaw, sighing - he's shaking. He's trying to calm down, his words murmured into his pale skin.]
....I don't want to kill you. You dimwitted bastard.
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[ His voice snaked out through a strained neck that still ached from the bruise that still lay there, a soft vibration against his lips. Low, coupled with something that isn't quite a chuckle, but there's a thrum of tension there, half like he's egging him on. Did he really want to kill him that badly? ]
Are you tempted?
[ He doesn't want to die, of course, but... Vergilius had Come here. He'd checked in on him. He'd stepped into his den, and now wanted nothing more than to kill him. He could feel the shake against his skin. Was it restraint, or was it something else? He doesn't understand him, and it leaves him agitated that he can be so confusing. He's used to sliding individuals away in neat little boxes, based on who they were. What buttons he could push, or direct. How to make them mad, or slip away silently. Why was it he didn't react exactly the way he'd thought?
He's used to his life being threatened.
So why didn't he?
His fingers never stopped digging. As if he could open them back up, expose the parts of him he wanted to see. He wonders if he should push them open more? The hand on his thigh is lean, and bony, but while he presses his fingers into the wound, his thumb moves, just slightly, brushing against his inner thigh. ]
Or is there something else you want?
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[To be with Silco feels like a whirlwind, like throwing caution into a tornado. He feels broken, put back together, unsure where his emotions start and where they end.]
[He doesn't even feel all that conscious of his own body, as if its a wild thing of his own. His breath hitches in his chest from...is it the pain? Or the sudden shift against his inner thigh? Vergilius is taking deep breaths against Silco, as if to swallow whatever is left. It serves to cut down on the shaking, at least.]
...I am tempted.
[For what? He doesn't elaborate, here. His hand in Silco's hair holds him steadily as he takes in in another breath, before sucking in a kiss against that beautiful bruised skin.]
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No, it wasn't a fluke, was it?
This was a second? Third time? The whole... of everything was such a haze of blood and pain and everything else that he almost couldn't remember one moment from the next. It had been good, finding weak spots and pulling violence out of him, just like now, it felt like he was trying to drown in a sea of blood, looking for the vortex of violence in the middle. Like he could drag it out from the depths, and make sense of it in the light.
But can he, when he keeps throwing these changes into the mix? He doesn't know whether to be angry, or... or...
He realized only belatedly that he'd forgotten to breathe, and he'd done it without even squeezing his hands around his throat again. His fingers had stilled, and gone slack, still pressed to his wounds. He remembered to breathe, the sound too-loud in his ears.
He swallowed, the motion of it moved against his lips. ]
By?
[ He almost doesn't ask it, but he can't help but question it. He can't move his head much, held down like that, but his fingers seek out his free hand, fishing for it, to grasp it with long, thin fingers. ]
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[He misses Malkuth. He misses the way she held him so dear, with warm hands that curved around his face, trailed down scarred skin. He's thirsty for a lot in this world. A better world. The laughter of children. And touch, yes, touch. It tears him apart. It grounds him.]
[Silco's hands thread through his. With his mouth where it is, he can feel Silco's heartbeat so distinctly that he almost feels like his teeth should be at his chest again. What is he tempted by? Does he even know? What answer should he give?]
[Does he even want this, or is this pure restless urge?]
[Vergilius sighs. The way they hold hands remind him of that time in the labryinth, two men standing at the precipice of everything. Well, he supposes he has an answer, as his grip squeezes, and he hisses into the other's ear.]
You.
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Their fingers interlaced, just like that night when he'd thought he could pull the skin apart and look at the man -- a beast -- beneath it. His grip tightens to match his, stronger than his lean frame suggests. ]
Ah - [ It's somewhere between a surprised... Something and... A low note that almost sounds pleased. More honest than he intended, perhaps. He hadn't expected him to admit it, it was easier to ignore when it was unspoken, a trend that he could pretend he was imagining to see.
He lifted joined hands -- still held down, with his lips at his neck, he didn't dare move his head -- forced his wrist close to mouth, fang scraped against flesh, and maybe he drug it out for longer than necessary. He liked that, pinning him in place without holding him down; forcing him to dangle over a precipice. Did he know the kind of power he'd just given him? Over him? This is a sort of power that he's is unused to, but it still evokes that sharp tingle of excitement at the rush of it.
He bit into him, fangs sinking deep into his wrist. It's a contrast, not gentle or kind, but sharp, all points and rough edges, his hand holding him still, as if he couldn't rip his wrist away. Hot blood flooded into his mouth, one of his eyes closed from the rush. Did it taste better, knowing how much power he holds? ]
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[It's what I deserve. For my hypocrisy. For my deception.]
[That familiar voice stands the test of time. Vergilius feels the man's mouth dig in as if its always belonged at his wrist, and a low noise vibrates out of his chest. Maybe it's a groan. Maybe it's the sound of a dog whose been cowed.]
[Yes, of course, the anger is there, and even though he's been leashed like this, this feral dog still has some bite. He will chew on the hand that feeds, and petty, spiteful emotion makes him lower his head. He sucks another bruise into the bouquet of the others, before he bites into...well, at least not his carotid, but its close. Too close.]
[He gasps at the flow of blood, but its such a contrast to the hands below - they hold each other tightly, but the way his thumb strokes upward is almost, vaguely, tender.]
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It was about something else, maybe something like reminding each other about the danger they were both in from each other β Silco from physical danger, Vergilius from the danger of being wrapped up in Silco's little plans and plots β but Silco knew exactly the kind of danger he was in, and hadn't sought to step back; he'd so often had his life threatened that it almost seemed to be nothing β and yet here he was, allowing him close. Closer than he'd even allowed the demon he'd sold his soul to.
This was foolish for how dangerous it was, but there was the power too. Like he had that feral dog's leash, even if it snapped back at him and bit him. When had he ever wanted safe, or kind things? No, he knew that Vergilius could kill him, and wasn't half of the rush the fact that he survived? Escaped with only puncture wounds and bruises that he made sure to match?
He isn't satisfied with one wound on his wrist, he pulls his fangs free, but the blood pooling in the twin wounds draws his mouth back to the wound, his tongue pressed to the puncture wounds, and did the blood just keep coming? Was his heart pounding that hard?
He bit him again, a second mark just a touch higher than the first, the blood smearing over his lips and cheek, a soft, satisfied sound seemed to escape from somewhere in him, when he sank his fangs back in. The scent of blood hanging in the air between them just made him want more of it, to leave a series of bites down his arm so he couldn't cover all of them up and hide them away. ]
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nsfwish...
coughs probably... the rest...
closing my damn eyes. Anyways. here be nsfw and yaoi
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