tell me what you need

// standing, stomping in the damage and the ruins of a slip of tongue //

Asta doesn’t even have a smart ass remark to make to the Maverick for his agreement – he knows what he acts like, and it had seemed like moving mountains to get this far (and half the bottle of liquor), the butcher settles in the chair and nods quietly as Danta offers what the butcher can expect – and while the Maverick is taking her outside he tops off Danta’s glass and fills a new one for himself, sagging in pure relief when Danta returns without the corvid and stretches out the tension.

“This is Halovian.” He comments about the liquor, dark gaze lifting toward Danta, the entirety of the argument earlier tonight far past him as he focuses on something else. “It reminds me of before I became Ancient.” Much better than they’d had back then, but the taste was similar. He can pick out the notes. “I think… I think it helped.” He admits, swirling the liquor in the glass before lifting it to his lips, taking a sip and setting the glass down before he leans back and sighs his own relieved tension, shoulders slumping and his impeccable posture suddenly slouched.

Astaroth

// with tragic consequences, i think that we've all made our gravest mistakes //

// there's shadows on the walls //

"Mm...? Yes, it is. I had it imported after I tried some down in King's End," Danta confirms. "Definitely warms you up more than some of our liquors." Unsurprising to be honest, when one considers the climate Halo works with. Plopping down into his seat and smiling gratefully at the new drink, Danta lifts his glass and gently clinks it against Asta's, the fight similarly forgotten. (Though not the fallout).

"Oh? Nostalgic, are we?" Danta grins, sipping at his drink before setting it down and slumping in his chair in an unconscious mimic of the butcher's posture. "Gods, I don't know about you but I am exhausted after all this." It's true that the drinks have helped with it, but keeping his companion under such a tight leash as well as all the other not-so-pleasant circumstances have taxed Danta's mental reserves considerably.

Dantalion

// of moments far too troubling to recall //

// standing, stomping in the damage and the ruins of a slip of tongue //

“Mm, yes. It has to.” When there’s nothing but permafrost everywhere you go, you certainly needed something that would keep the body warm and running at an optimized temperature. Either way, the butcher’s dark gaze lands on Danta as they clink their glass, briefly before he sags in the seat after his own sip, snorting softly. “A bit.” He murmurs gently, huffing out a sigh, seeing how the Maverick mirrors Asta’s posture.

Reaching up to run a hand through his dark hair, his fingers snagging on a tangle, the butcher nods his agreement. “I am admittedly quite inebriated and quite exhausted.” A slow blink is accompanied with the words before he stifles a yawn and sits up a bit to finish his drink, content to leave the glasses there (sure someone would come and clean it up). “Shall we go to bed?” He asks, cocking his head toward Danta, waiting for the inevitable yes before they stand to head back to where it had all started.

Astaroth

// with tragic consequences, i think that we've all made our gravest mistakes //

// there's shadows on the walls //

"It'll pass," Danta says of the nostalgia, a sharp smile on his face. It clearly isn't an emotion he puts much stock into, but even the Maverick and his admittedly awful experience growing up in The Climb can occasionally feel homesick for the familiar, however bad it might have been. Taking another sip of his drink and feeling his limbs grow warm and heavy (he might not be as inebriated as Asta, but he's well on his way if he keeps this up), Danta nods across to the other man.

"Mm, let's. I think drunk and exhausted is something worth sleeping off," he agrees, finishing his liquor and rising to his feet, trusting the butcher to still be able to follow him (though he'll soon find out).

Padding out of the office and back out to the bar, the Maverick makes sure to engage in some small-talk and banter with the bartenders, the regulars, one of the passing waitresses - he's good at it, by now, gliding through the Dusklight without making it obvious where he's going and with whom. Regardless, it isn't long before he's headed back up to his rooms, and it's of little surprise that, when he gets there, the wine and glass has already been cleared up, and there is a neat assortment of finger bones and jewellery on a side table, ready for reassembly.

Dantalion

// of moments far too troubling to recall //

// standing, stomping in the damage and the ruins of a slip of tongue //

“It typically does.” He agrees with a soft edge of weariness, Nostalgia did not come too often to the butcher, at least not until he had come across more Halovian things as of late. A specific Ancient from a newer sect of Whitebrim had sparked the feeling as well, though he’s too drunk to talk about that whole ordeal as well. Instead, the butcher shifts to cork the bottle, right on the heels of Danta’s agreement.

He stands after a moment and realizes the world spins quite quickly for him, allocating for a slight death grip on the table before he rummages for the cane, sure that he will need it to steady himself. Astaroth is slow going behind Danta, a bit wobbly but more watchful than anything of how the Maverick interacts with those around, ensuring that everything is fine even if he doesn’t use those particular words.

And thankfully they end up back at the room after some struggle of getting up the stairs. The glass and wine are cleaned up from earlier, the shattered hand put in a bowl to be reassembled, and Astaroth immediately swoops in like a shadow to sit on Danta’s bed for the stability of it, leaving the cane off to the side and immediately loosening the top few buttons of his shirt. “It looks like they got all the pieces.” He comments quietly, looking at the wreckage on the side table.

Astaroth

// with tragic consequences, i think that we've all made our gravest mistakes //

// there's shadows on the walls //

"Mm, it does," Danta agrees with a soft smile tinged with sadness as he gazes into the bowl of bone fragments and rings, before he sighs and sets it aside. "Good. It means I should be able to try and repair it." It's quietly spoken but nonetheless tinged with determination; this is his mistake, and he'll be the one to fix it, even if it doesn't come naturally to him.

Drifting across the room to stand before Asta, he reaches out to take over with the buttons of his vest and then his shirt, until the other man can simply shrug out of the garments. Unable to fold them quite as beautifully as the butcher, Danta does at least drape them over the back of a chair where they won't get wrinkled, before he slinks into bed himself.

"It will be Longnight soon," he remarks almost absently. "We'll have to prepare for that too, I imagine."

Dantalion

// of moments far too troubling to recall //

// standing, stomping in the damage and the ruins of a slip of tongue //

He isn’t sure how many times he’s heard determination settle in the Maverick’s voice, but it’s a welcome sight as he watches numbly as Danta steps toward him and helps to unbutton the shirt and vest, adjusting himself this way and that to slip out of the garments. “I will help on the condition you don’t throw something I’ve made, again.” His dark gaze lifts to look up at the blonde as his clothes are draped over the back of a chair, an edge of seriousness to his dark gaze but a soft smile tugs at the corner of his lips as if they’ve both come to an understanding of what exactly not to do to one another.

Which is equally a strange feeling in and of itself.

Danta slinks into the bed and Astaroth shifts to follow suit, curling up against the pillow and the other man. “We will need firewood mostly.” He says equally absently, shoulders and body sagging into the bed and the other man, tail shifting to wind around Danta’s leg. “More food and drinks too, perhaps.”

Astaroth

// with tragic consequences, i think that we've all made our gravest mistakes //

// there's shadows on the walls //

"I won't," Danta assures him, sounding quietly certain about it, and as the other man sinks into bed as well, the Maverick soon finds himself with his limbs comfortably tangled with Asta's, head tucked into the crook of his neck. "Mm, firewood. I didn't consider that so much," he admits. "Food and drink more so."

Especially with how strong their magic is becoming, Danta is reasonably certain he can provide fire enough for the Dusklight, provided he's able to keep his own energy up. But Asta makes good points (as usual) and the Maverick makes a mental note to start gathering such supplies in the next few days to ensure they are covered over Longnight.

"Wake me if you need anything," he mutters to the butcher; he expects Asta's subconscious to have a different opinion of Moira than the man himself, and if his sleep isn't a peaceful one, Danta feels partially responsible for it.

Dantalion

// of moments far too troubling to recall //

// standing, stomping in the damage and the ruins of a slip of tongue //

It’s a vow he’s fully going to keep the Maverick accountable for, just in case it is broken down the line. For the moment, however, Astaroth is too comfortable tangled up with the other man – and a part of him feeling guilty for having ruined the night Danta was intending to have – that he seems almost a bit distracted when he nods just enough for the Maverick to be able to feel the gesture from where his head rests into the crook of his neck. “I still require a source of fire to utilize my magic, so, it cannot hurt to have more.” Reasonably so, and in a way that meant he wouldn’t have to focus so much on keeping the fires lit in the first place.

He wants LongNight to be a relaxing time, not aware of what those in the Grounds typically dealt with in the past. And with his attempts to get used to Moira, well, perhaps he could succeed in having a relatively uneventful time. He does immediately realize he needs to get a stash of his own favored food, though, but he’s too drunk to comment or delve further into planning than the bare minimum of the thought itself.

“I will.” He vows quietly in turn to Danta’s request, and it doesn’t take long for the butcher to fall asleep, as drunk as he is, and while he typically has quite an uneventful sleep of hardly moving, Danta’s right in that his subconscious seems to toy with him. It takes some time of nothing but a immoveable sleep, but the arms wrapped around the Maverick tighten, fingertips clutching at the sheets and blankets with a white knuckled death grip, jaw tight enough that the muscle will be sore in the morning, still too far asleep to even realize that it is only a dream.

Astaroth

// with tragic consequences, i think that we've all made our gravest mistakes //

// there's shadows on the walls //

Danta has been pleasantly dozing himself - it's true that this isn't the night he intended to have, but all of Deepfrost has been a battle to stay awake, it feels, given the weather outside and the fact that they aren't in a tropical climate or the volcanic reaches of The Climb. Either way, it means he only really stirs as he feels the other man's grip tighten around him.

Used to treating Astaroth as an unmoving source of heat - because that's usually how it goes - Danta's eyes blink open and he shifts enough to get an elbow under himself. "Hey," he mutters softly, reaching out to gently thread his fingers through Asta's dark hair. "Hey, wake up. It's just a dream." Finding one of the butcher's dark horns, he gives it a gentle tug - it seems like a smarter idea than shaking him by the shoulder, given what he knows of Asta's past.

Dantalion

// of moments far too troubling to recall //

// standing, stomping in the damage and the ruins of a slip of tongue //

It is a very good thing that the butcher doesn’t have his illusion magic at the moment like he used to, but it only serves to make this moment less frightening as his grip tightens into the sheets, a hissed out sound as Danta moves, as hands find his hair in a gentle touch that should soothe his panic, but only serves to make him that much more tense. His tail has unraveled from the Maverick’s leg, lashing about beneath the blankets that cover them, and as his horn is tugged, Astaroth in his subconscious manages to twist enough to get his own elbow under him, pausing however briefly in a moment of stillness before he uses his freehand to grasp at Danta in some harried attempt to pin him, to snap his teeth, to wake with the sound and the confusion and realization that he’s in a bed.

It causes a scramble, a hissed out “oh fuck” as he promptly scrambles, a blanket wound around him as he scoots back and pushes himself away from Danta without any realization of where he is on the bed, only to promptly fall right off the edge onto the wooden floor with a loud thump. He doesn’t move, though, and if Danta scoots to the edge of the bed he’d see Asta with his hands covering his face, rubbing away some of the lingering dread of the nightmare.

Astaroth

// with tragic consequences, i think that we've all made our gravest mistakes //

// there's shadows on the walls //

Honestly, Danta ought to have expected something like this from someone called the butcher of Whitebrim - a moniker not given lightly, and the Maverick knows it. Even so his eyes widen a fraction to find himself suddenly pinned against the bed with sharp teeth very close to his throat, only for Asta to suddenly be gone again, and Danta has to spend a couple of seconds disentangling himself from the rest of the blankets before going searching for the other man.

Peering over the side of the bed, it's with a soft frown that he slips onto the floor to join Asta, apparently thinking nothing of it (they've both slept on harder surfaces after all). Coaxing the fire up a little to reduce the darkness and shadows in the room, Danta gently bullies his arms around the other man so he can melt against Asta's back and shoulders, as if to cover the places so badly scarred by gore crows.

"We don't have to talk about it," he murmurs into his dark hair. "You know that." The Maverick isn't moving either way.

Dantalion

// of moments far too troubling to recall //

// standing, stomping in the damage and the ruins of a slip of tongue //

There was a reason Astaroth always had his own space, especially in the Climb. It was also why he kept to himself night after night, untrusting of any lapses. Since his time in stone, however, he’d certainly adjusted to it, and since then had no issues up until now much to his surprise. So much so, that when it does happen and he scrambles back from Danta only to fall onto the floor, does he suddenly find himself full of regrets and confusion, trying desperately to put the pieces back together.

He doesn’t see Danta’s approach, but he can hear as the Maverick slips onto the floor with him (they both have slept on harder surfaces, it’s true), that he can feel the fire grow and allows himself to be bullied into letting Danta’s arms wind around him, tense and yet somehow boneless, Astaroth heaves a trembly sigh as his hands start to fall away from his face, twitchy and uncertain. “I’m sorry.” He says quietly, unsure what else to say for the moment, warring with himself to try and relax even if nausea spikes in his gut from the lingering nightmare.

Astaroth

// with tragic consequences, i think that we've all made our gravest mistakes //

// there's shadows on the walls //

"For what?" Danta asks with a shrug, having drawn the other man back and against his chest, curling around him as best he's able. "You didn't do anything wrong." Far from it - for all intents and purposes Asta has just been fighting for his life, whether or not it was just a nightmare.

"Let me know if there's anything I can get you." More booze might be both tempting and also a terrible idea, but Danta is sure he has some dreamdust lying around should the other man want to knock himself the fuck out for a period of time. And if not, he's clearly not going anywhere until Asta decides they are good and ready.

Reaching out to snag one of the butcher's hands, Danta noses into his dark hair and lets out a quiet sigh. "Listen to the fire, to the Last Whisper outside," he murmurs, squeezing his fingers. "It's quiet. Nothing out there." No gore crows, anyway.

Dantalion

// of moments far too troubling to recall //