[SE] or christ, hold me like a knife

// with our one foot in the grave //

He’s right but that doesn’t make it any better. All he can do is roll his eyes, deflate playfully, even as he gives the people what they dont want, by covering himself up at least halfway.

As Danta settles onto the bed beside him and starts to write, Astaroth snags a piece of paper and a pen as well, scribbling down a multitude of things he was still upset about. His weaknesses, his traumas, his inability thus far to be that terrible monster he had once been. And if there’s a crude drawing of the pale ancient with white ram horns, well, it’s hidden by the way he neatly folds it into true origami, a crow or raven by the looks of it.

Watching the vague shape of a tree Danta has folded, settle into the fire, Astaroth holds up his paper. “I don’t hate you for the record. Or Moira.” He admits, knowing it’s obvious but feeling inclined to say it anyway, staring at the crow shaped paper before he cradles it in his hands and guides a stream of fire over to start burning away the origami’s feet, swallowing it up whole and leaving his hands empty with a pile of ash.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

Danta pretends not to notice the crude doodle included in Astaroth's parchment, but the smirk on his face all but gives him away, and he's wondering what to start with on his next list (because of course there are multiple) when he spots the way the butcher's hands crease and fold the paper. Pausing, the Maverick watches with obvious fascination until, in place of a list, a little crow sits in the palm of Asta's hand, and Danta scrunches his nose in an attempt to hide his delight.

"I'll allow the generalisation, because it looks so good," he says, watching the flames consume the paper corvid before he flaps the next leaf of parchment towards Asta expectantly. "Where the fuck'd you learn how to do that?" he wants to know, the meaning behind his gestures somewhat obvious as he shifts to face the butcher properly. And more importantly, can you teach me how?

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

// with our one foot in the grave //

Dark honeyed eyes lift to Danta’s face as a small smirk tugs on the corner of his lips, revealing the sharp point of one of his canines. Unceremoniously wiping away the ash, as the next piece of paper is immediately handed to him, he hums a bit playfully under his breath. “I had a lot of paper and a lot of time when I wasn’t needed.” And rather than participate in the parties and orgies, Astaroth had found time passed quicker by hiding away in his room, reading and experimenting with paper shapes.

So, shifting to face Danta with the new sheets of paper, he ensures they start off as a square. “You want to start by making an ‘X’ shape.” Asta hums, showing Danta how to fold it perfectly from top to bottom, opening it, then left to right, opening it, then folding each corner of the paper into a diagonal shape.

He opens it up then inspects Danta’s own to see how he does. “Then, on the sides here,” he points to Danta’s own paper, “you will want to bring them together.” Then showing him how to flatten it, it makes a smaller square.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

"And here I thought you spent your time laying around imagining all the awful things you'd do to me and the rest of Morax's crew if you could," Danta purrs, feigning a half-swoon before the butcher's clever fingers are at work again, and they aren't even doing anything filthy this time around. Watching with a slight frown of concentration, the Maverick mimics Asta's folding of the paper, successfully creating the X shape he'd instructed and managing, if not rather clumsily, to execute the next fold along as well.

Glancing up after flattening the paper, he holds his own creation up next to Asta's as if to decide whether or not it's even deserving of comparison (he remembers to pull his tongue in, too - it had crept out as the intensity of his focus had grown). "I don't want to insult you," he says in a stage whisper almost ruined by the smile in his voice, "but this is the weirdest looking crow I've ever fucking seen so far."

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

// with our one foot in the grave //

The comment sparks a quiet chuckle, a toothy grin forming as they make their little shapes. “Oh, I did, but it certainly didn’t take all day.” Looking up at Danta, he flashes a wink. Most of his thoughts revolved around Morax anyway, now that he’s thinking about it. Danta was just the grunt to get through to get to her.

But anyway, that’s beside the point, because Danta holds up the square and the whisper in his voice sparks a snort and a tsk of his tongue, reaching out to put Danta’s hand back down to flatten the square. “You’re not done yet, darling. You’re simply making your stomach.” He sighs with an air of dramatic annoyance, showing him right after to pull the corners in at an angle, revealing a sort of cross looking shape, before folding the top down over it and opening those shapes back up to the square as well. Then, reversing said folds, it’s left looking like a diamond with a slit down the center, which, Astaroth already knows a particular comment that might escape the Maverick.

Already prepared to roll his eyes, he pushes through that portion quickly. “Fold the bottom point up and out, and now you have feet.”

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

"Mmhm, I usually have that effect on people," Danta drawls, winking right back at Asta. Listen, he knows the other man's desires are few and far between, and incredibly specific at that, but gods, surely he'd shoved his own hand down his pants once or twice in The Climb, right? Not that it really matters - the Maverick is here for every single dirty joke he can get away with regardless.

Speaking very much of which, as Danta sets down his StOMaCh and continues to make creases and folds, he's left with - yes, you guessed it, and so has Astaroth - a paper vagina. "I'm starting to understand exactly why you spent so much time up in your room doing this in The Climb," the Maverick says in a bone dry voice, though every single fibre of his body is dying to blurt out any number of salacious remarks.

"Ah yes, perfect," he says with a nod, and then under his breath, "My vagina has feet."

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

// with our one foot in the grave //

Hems only partially exasperated by Danta’s comments (and for the record, no, he hadn’t, having little desire or need to do such menial things as granting himself pleasure when he happened to get the most out of it in his bloodlust frenzies). But that’s neither here nor there, because he’s rushing to get past the very obviously folded diamond shape to move onto folding its feet, sighing immediately at the comment.

He knows well enough that Danta wishes to explode and he’d be lying if he wasn’t stubbornly trying to hide the twitch of his lips in a sly smile. “Keep going.” Astaroth all but demands, the butcher only moving on once Danta’s caught up with the feet, and he can’t keep the amusement to himself anymore as he chuckles a deep sound that nearly hurts against the bruising to his chest. “Shut up.” He says affectionately, dramatically sighing despite the smile not leaving his face.

“Fold the top down, flip it over, fold in half.” He starts running through the steps, folding the head of the crow down, then sets it in his lap to show Danta his final product. “Crow. Certainly not a vagina.” He drawls with an air of seriousness that he can’t keep despite how hard he’s trying to, shoulders twitching with the laugh he keeps tucked in his throat.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

"That's what she said," Danta hisses in response to Asta's instruction for him to keep going, his grin almost running off his face at this point, and he's at real risk of tearing his origami crow with the force of his own glee. Tittering to himself - if that can be counted as shutting up for the butcher's purposes, at least - he at least does as instructed, managing to create little feet and bending down a little beak, until he flips over the finished product.

And it is a crow, yes, even if it's not as neat as the other man's, and as Danta actually realises as much, he sits up a bit, chest puffing out with pride. "I did it," he announces, like Asta might be blind or needed to specifically be told. Listen, okay, as a creature of inherent entropy and chaos, it isn't often that Danta is actually responsible for creating anything. "Do we burn them now?" Ah, there it is.

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

// with our one foot in the grave //

“Fuck you.” Astaroth chuckles just as affectionately as anything else, amusement glittering in his gaze as they finish the origami and it settles in their hands, each one a pale white crow. Sighing a sound of pride for the Maverick just as he sees an air of the crow shift within him in the puffing of his chest, looking away for the moment to nod. “Of course, darling.” Smirking and revealing a particularly sharp canine, Astaroth guides the fire over to brush against Danta’s ear as he guides it to his own crow, obviously letting the Maverick take some for himself.

Letting it start to burn and crumple in his hands, he finds his dark eyes lingering on the other man’s face. “I also know how to make swans, bats, encantados, and frogs.” He offers conversationally, lips still quirked in that amused smirk. “Sometimes if you fold the frog just right you can make it jump.”

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

"Fuck me yourself, you coward," Danta quips back automatically, and he bounces his eyebrows at Asta for good measure. Able to ignite his own flames these days, he nonetheless tilts his head into the lick of fire that affectionately caresses across his ear and his cheek, before allowing the crow to spontaneously combust between his fingers seemingly of its own accord. Clasping his hands around the ashes and dusting them off over the side of the bed, it's with an air of utter satisfaction that the Maverick leans back on an elbow.

"We have known each other for how long now, and you are just telling me this," he drawls, as if Asta has been keeping incredibly important information from Danta all this time. He's been whiling away the hours in his office masturbating and napping, when he could have been filling it with weird origami frogs for Kia to find? Do better, Asta.

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

// with our one foot in the grave //

“I am not a coward if I’ve done it before.” He quips back with a roll of his eyes, nose twitching and scrunching playfully as he sighs and sinks back after depositing the ash in much the same way that Danta had. “Besides, I am in pain, darling.” Comes the air of an accented whine that almost seems to suggest take care of me, like Danta hadn’t just spent the whole fucking last half of the day and the whole night and the whole morning, doing precisely that.

Meeting the blues of Danta’s eyes with honey dark ones of his own, he chuckles a deep sound. “You would have bullied me so much more had you known I fold paper animals in my spare time, instead of devouring and fucking.” He answers as if it were common knowledge. “How many more fights would it have spurred, I wonder?” He nearly purrs, just to be an asshole.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

If that were true you'd be doing it right now is what wants to leave Danta's lips, of course, and the sly smile on his face as Asta settles back to join him says as much. But of course the butcher has to go and make a very good point, and it's with a sigh of acceptance and an affectionate roll of his eyes that he nods to the other man. 

"I fully expect you to make up for lost time when you're feeling better," he informs him, before he suddenly remembers something and reaches into his pocket, drawing out a couple of vials for Asta; one is a painkiller, the other is a sedative. "Here - you can take either or both at once, depending on how out of it you'd like to be today." He offers them out.

As for the bullying, it's with a snort of laughter that Danta absolutely agrees. "Gods, I'd have made your life hell," he says, if they hadn't already been doing just that to each other in The Climb already.

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //

// with our one foot in the grave //

H sure of how much of a good idea it was with the rollercoaster of the day, Astaroth instead settles into the bed a bit more comfortably, resting on an elbow as he watches Danta fiddle in his pocket for something. “You have a deal.” He smirks, that fang on display again before he focuses more intensely on the vials produced. Reaching up with a somewhat ashy hand, Astaroth collects both, seeing which is which, before settling on the painkillers. “I think I would like to go home and sleep.” He drawls, uncorking the painkiller and downing it in a swift movement, face scrunching up with annoyance at the taste despite the fact he knows it will help.

The sedative goes into his pocket for later.

“You would have!” He says suddenly, grinning and letting the laughter break through. “I had not even told Rayla or Zac. Not even Sari.” He admits with a shoulder shaking laugh, before he winces slightly as it tugs on bruised muscles. “My reputation would have never recovered.” Gentleman monster. Crafter of paper animals.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

// you've got a passion in those eyes //

"Now that sounds like a fine idea," Danta agrees, ensuring that Asta has both vials of drugs before he slips off the bed and stretches his arms above his head. "I'm sure there are carts and carriages headed towards the Inner Quarter from here pretty regularly. Someone will be willing to give us a ride back." Danta, of course, had travelled there initially on the wing, but given his companion and his proclivities, he's happy to take the long way back.

"What a shame - Sari would have loved a little murder of paper crows behind her bar," he says with a smirk, buttoning his shirt properly before taking up Asta's and holding it out so he might help the other man into it. He doesn't comment on the others - they had not exactly been Danta's favourite people in the world, even by virtue of not knowing them very well. "Your reputation will survive, as long as you teach me how to make a bat next." He grins.

Dantalion

// so aim it straight and true //