Astaroth
// i ride the edge, my speed goes in the red //
It’s clear she isn’t leaving, even though Astaroth in his inability to speak full sentences right now had thought he made it clear. And in between hacking and coughing and the pain that reverberates between his bruised body, he cannot move and cannot escape having to listen to her quiet acceptance of what he’s said, as if the only way to get through her thick skull was bringing him down to this level of insanity. And it burns so hard against the control he’s so carefully cultivated in himself, the loss of it, the inability to do better.
Yes, he was locked away in stone for so long that he’d grown weak. But he cannot allow himself to use that as an excuse.
Eventually, Astaroth curls in on himself, forehead to his knees, arms wound around his stomach as the silence stretches and he can pretend that he’s alone with nothing but the whisper of leaves in the wind and the occasional creature that meanders past.
Eventually, that too, is broken, and his eyes shut impossibly tight as he wheezes an inhale of breath at the audacity she harbors to ask him to be her keeper. And no longer does he let his tongue smooth over his temper, not here, not now, even with the inability to do anything about it. “I will kill you.” Comes the broken up threat, half a whisper and half projected from a throat so torn he tastes blood again.
Yes, he was locked away in stone for so long that he’d grown weak. But he cannot allow himself to use that as an excuse.
Eventually, Astaroth curls in on himself, forehead to his knees, arms wound around his stomach as the silence stretches and he can pretend that he’s alone with nothing but the whisper of leaves in the wind and the occasional creature that meanders past.
Eventually, that too, is broken, and his eyes shut impossibly tight as he wheezes an inhale of breath at the audacity she harbors to ask him to be her keeper. And no longer does he let his tongue smooth over his temper, not here, not now, even with the inability to do anything about it. “I will kill you.” Comes the broken up threat, half a whisper and half projected from a throat so torn he tastes blood again.
// hot blood, these veins, my pleasure is their pain //
