[SE] everybody is a book of blood

...hello, christ? I'm 'bout to sin again

The screaming rain is on one tonight, according to the Dusklight patrons, and Danta is inclined to agree. It's late - about the time he'd either be chatting shit behind the bar with Asta (and a few regulars or the barman, were it any other season) or helping to corral the last barflies out the door if they're not going to stay and fuck something. Instead, the lightning, thunder and endless shrieking has him slinking up to their rooms and calling it a night. Not to sleep - he's too wired for that - but to reduce his company down to a bottle of wine, a gentleman butcher, and whatever the next few hours hold.

A piercing scream flashes through their room as he opens the door, painting it in ghoulish shades of black and white, and the encore of thunder feels loud enough to shake the Dusklight to its foundations. "This is the sort of night where someone gets murdered," he remarks, immediately coaxing the fire up to something a little more cheerful (though in truth, it looks sinister against the storm and the rain lashing down outside).

Reaching up to unfasten his bowtie - he'd paired it with a lavishly embroidered waistcoat and a silk shirt this evening, dressing up for little more than shits and giggles - Danta finds himself drifting towards the window, head tilting up as if to catch the next agonised howl. "I think I'd like to be murdered in the sunshine, personally."

Dantalion

i said i love you to that man but i'm not feelin' him

/// sorry, but you just got in my way
i promise honey, i can feel your pain

The screaming rain certainly had a hold on the Dusklight this evening, enough that the butcher was at the very end of his leash when it comes to being social. After far too many glares and settling as far back from the groups of people as he can, the muzzle does not blot out the twitches in his smile that he has glued to his face as he took in the brothel’s company for the evening. It’s a masked façade that falls the second Danta’s heading toward their room – his back turned, his smile falling into something easier and less likely to make his cheeks ache from the force of keeping it up.

It is almost as if the two of them have swapped their fashion roles this evening – with Danta dressed up in quite the flattering silk shirt, a beautiful waistcoat, and the bowtie, it had been hard for Asta to keep his attention away from him. For the gentleman butcher himself, dark pants are paired with a billowy shirt, one that’s tight around his waist but floofs out his shoulders in a means of reducing restricting fabric. It’s a deep purple, silk chaffon shirt with a low enough v neck to see the edges of his scars peeking up and over the collar. It’s clear that the butcher is less of a fan of being swaddled up in a cage of his traditionally chosen attire this season.

That, paired with the silver muzzle that glints on his face, the butcher’s hair is kept back like usual, draped down his back and along his shoulders, still at that almost too long appearance. He doesn’t seem to pay it much mind as the door closes behind them in their room and the screaming rain thunders overhead again, shaking up the entirety of the building. Already, Asta’s undoing the muzzle with a few clicks of latches when he says, “I could go for that.” He sets the muzzle on the edge of the table before he’s approaching the Maverick at the windowsill, snorting softly to hear that he’d like to be murdered in sunshine.

The butcher settles at the little nook by the window as more light screams across the sky, getting comfortable before he’s tugging Danta into his lap so they both can comfortably stare out the window (and so he can help him undo all the prim and proper clothes he’s wearing). “It would suit you, I think.” He murmurs, obviously not wishing for his fiancé to be murdered. But if it had to happen, a sunny day was at the top of the list. “I would prefer the moonlight, I think.” A clear sky, regardless. The last thing he'd want is to go to Ludo's embrace with the annoyance of rain smattering his face and body.

Astaroth

and maybe i enjoy it just a little bit
does that make me insane? ///

...hello, christ? I'm 'bout to sin again

"Mm, I thought you might," Danta says dryly, flashing a grin over his shoulder towards the butcher as he unclasps the muzzle and sets it down. "You've been looking for a nice murder for the past few hours downstairs." Peering further up at the storm only to flinch back as the rain screeches unexpectedly, the Maverick scoffs out a laugh. "Not that I can blame you. This shit can put you on edge even when it's just the two of us."

With just enough time to toss aside his bowtie and kick off his shoes, Danta tumbles willingly into the little window nook and Asta's lap, the Maverick reaching up to brush his fingers across the scruff on his cheek, as if to get rid of the imprint of the muzzle. "Oh, well that will not do at all," he says, tutting and shaking his head. "I don't ever plan to die if it's not next to you, you see. So if you're being murdered in the moonlight, I'll have to come and join you."

He phrases it like it's as simple as asking for a wakeup call at an inn, Danta's hand straying back to thread through Asta's hair as they talk. "Some people do say the moon only glows because it's bouncing the sun's light down at us, you know. So it's basically the same."

Dantalion

i said i love you to that man but i'm not feelin' him

/// sorry, but you just got in my way
i promise honey, i can feel your pain

“I haaave and what a shame it was to result in nothing.” He drawls, all dramatics as he nestles into the window nook as rain continues to screech outside in sharp loud wailing cries. “Unfortunately, however, that is true.” He tacks on – because while he wasn’t afraid or worried about the rain or thunder for that matter, it was a scream that shook the bones. And while Asta was typically a fan of those kinds of screams, the luster did wear off after a time.

Tilting his head into the press of fingers along the scruff of his cheek over a relatively worn spot, the butcher’s arms sweep around Danta to keep him close as his tail winds around him in turn. The subject of just how they would be murdered is one that the butcher latches onto, snorting to hear Danta’s utmost refusal before he’s leaning in enough to press his bearded chin to his lover’s shoulder as his fingers sweep up his chest to start undoing the waistcoat. “A pact, then.” He hums, his hands stuttering a touch to feel Danta’s hand sink into the dark strands. “I could be convinced for sunshine. I suppose it would depend on just how we are to be murdered, no?” He asks, rousing himself enough to continue to unbutton the waistcoat, then his shirt, if only so he can feel the heat of the Maverick’s skin.

Considering it for a few moments longer, Asta loosens a soft laugh. “So, my darling, how might we be murdered?” Was there a thoughtful story behind it or would it be based purely off vibes? Or, a spooky story perhaps to coincide the feeling of being murdered in the sunlight?

Astaroth

and maybe i enjoy it just a little bit
does that make me insane? ///

...hello, christ? I'm 'bout to sin again

"There's always another day," Danta soothes, as if they're talking about a bad spot of luck fishing or birdwatching rather than literal murder. (And listen, during Leafchange, honestly who knows with Asta?)

Shifting almost automatically at this point to allow the butcher's arms to wind around him and for his clever touch to seek out buttons and tug at fabric, Danta relaxes against the other man and continues to feather his fingers through his dark tresses. He's practiced and gentle enough to seamlessly work out snags or tangles, head tipping down to press a soft kiss to Asta's crown.

"Oho, a pact? Now you're talking," he says through a grin, shifting just enough to allow for the tugging of his shirt and waistcoat, before he's relaxing into Asta's heat. "You mean we aren't murdering each other? Ugh, fine." Pondering for a moment - and punctuating each continued thought with another kiss to Asta's hair - eventually Danta seems satisfied.

"I think we'd be murdered by our own doppelgangers," he announces. "Have you heard of those?"

Dantalion

i said i love you to that man but i'm not feelin' him

/// sorry, but you just got in my way
i promise honey, i can feel your pain

It’s an unspoken tango they do, maneuvering with each other so seamlessly that it’s easy for Asta to start to work at the rest of his fiance’s clothes until he can feel his skin and all of its brilliant warmth – bolstered by the fire in their fireplace that casts sinister shadows on the walls with each dance of its flame. It isn’t helped by the lightning that streaks across again, overshadowing the room and making their shadows larger and infinitely spookier.

He grins as Danta picks up on the pact idea, even if it makes his cheeks ache to do so. The smile softens shortly after though as if remembering it did hurt a smidge to keep up the smile. “No, I believe we came to that conclusion ages ago that we definitely would not murder one another.” Lifting the hand with his diamond ring on it for emphasis, the butcher huffs a soft laugh before it falls back to smooth out and stroke his fiance’s skin.

“Doppelgangers.. A double of ourselves. The perfect look alikes. That is what you mean, sí?” He asks, indulging in the kiss pressed to his hair before he’s trying to scan Danta’s face to see if he’s correct. And if he is, then Danta wouldn’t miss the way his nose scrunches up with the thought of it.

Astaroth

and maybe i enjoy it just a little bit
does that make me insane? ///

...hello, christ? I'm 'bout to sin again

"Mm, that's exactly what I mean," Danta says, shifting enough to settle in Asta's lap while still being able to look down at him as they talk. Outside the world is a thrashing, screaming wall of darkness, lit up ghoulishly every now and then by the lightning, and it makes their firelit den seem all the cozier, all the more like a safe hideaway from the storm. "Think about it," he continues, twirling a lock of dark hair around his fingertip, voice lowering to something reminiscent of spooky stories around a campfire.

"We're out alone, for some reason or another. And who should we come across but ourselves." He grins, face briefly illuminated by the lightning. "What does our double want from us? They've got all our strengths, weaknesses, memories..." The answer seems clear, at least to Danta and especially based on the nature of doppelgangers: replacement. Murder. Violence.

"That's not the scariest part, though," he continues. "If we fought ourselves, killed ourselves, how would we even know which one really came out victorious? I could bump into you and carry on our lives like normal, and you'd never even know the real me was out there somewhere, rotting into the earth."

Dantalion

i said i love you to that man but i'm not feelin' him

/// sorry, but you just got in my way
i promise honey, i can feel your pain

“Mhmmm” Asta says as he settles in to listen, his arms loosely wrapping around the Maverick as he gets more comfortable and peers down at him to start to explain his spooky story. The lightning as it streaks across their faces paints them in a menacing light – not as menacing as the Climb’s volcanic lightning, but still just enough to sell the point as he listens. His tail flicks idly at the tip, brushing against Danta’s leg as he follows the train of thought.

Nodding along, but just enough he doesn’t dislodge the Maverick’s fingers in his hair, there’s a small amused smirk on his face to put the meaning into the words. “To seamlessly step into our lives.” And, the more he thinks about it, who would blame them? From where Asta’s sitting laying they’ve got far better lives than they had before.

Ah, but then it comes down to the never really knowing – and how could you if they knew everything about you? A code word or a unique memory would mean nothing. His nose wrinkles further, a little quiet sigh under his breath “odio eso,” before he’s sucking in a deep breath and leaning back a bit, arms squeezing tighter around him almost possessively given the terrible thought process Danta has sent him down. “There has to be a way to tell, no? What is to say that is not currently what has occurred?” He asks, surging forward to get into Danta’s face and study each and every line he can find in it as if that might explain whether this Danta is the real one or not.

Astaroth

and maybe i enjoy it just a little bit
does that make me insane? ///

...hello, christ? I'm 'bout to sin again

Nodding sagely, Danta releases the attempted curl through his fingers and shifts back just enough for Asta to get into his face. His grin spreads, grinch-like, across his lips, the Maverick shrugging with contradictory innocence. "You'll never know," he says in a saccharine tone, his own tail flicking idly in its amusement. "Not unless one day you stumble across a skull with some very fetching diamond horns. Or perhaps I'd have gotten rid of that so as to not risk being discovered. Maybe you've already crafted trinkets out of the real Danta's bones."

Leaning in to smek a tiny kiss to the tip of Asta's nose, Danta is evidently very pleased with his tale of terror as he sits back, gesturing down at himself. "Even if I am a doppelganger, I can assure you I love you just as much as the real version of me did. Er, does." He winks.

"Well? How do you think we'd die? Tell me a story all about our demise."

Dantalion

i said i love you to that man but i'm not feelin' him

/// sorry, but you just got in my way
i promise honey, i can feel your pain

Squinting at Danta as he proclaims that the butcher would never know, the saccharine tone and the almost impossibly wide smile that crosses his face certainly sell the point enough that he hums a soft little laugh. “Ah, yes, well, luckily for me, darling, I have a tendency to be a part of the whole process with my bones.” He bounces his brows playfully. “Straight from the source.” His grin is equally just as wide and sharp, even as the tiny kiss to the tip of his nose tries to derail him, Asta withdrawing back to his laying position with a bark of a laugh that’s as rich as it is amused.

“And I, too, love this version of you.” He winks, continuing the joke before Danta’s asking how he thinks they’d die. He hums thoughtfully, head tilting slightly as more lightning dances across the sky and illuminates them in a variety of flickering shades that only have his smiling shadow dancing with the movement of it. “A giant wolf shapeshifter.” He suggests, head tilting as he scans Danta’s face before he smirks.

His tail flicks against Danta’s leg again as he descends into the explanation. “We go out hunting, as we typically do, only this time there is a much larger target than we had been anticipating. Larger than a bear but with similar tells. And so, like the perfected hunters we are, we follow and follow.” His hand lifts from Danta’s lower back to his shoulder, up to his neck where his thumb brushes against his fiance’s jaw. “Until suddenly, we reach a deep cave. Within, it is not too unusual of a cave, at least. Not at first. It harbors plenty of routes to take where we believe we can cut off this massive creature. Except, it has only been bait the entire time. And before we have a chance to realize it, we have been trapped ourselves.” He leans in, because it’s absolutely a modified story of one from his upbringing. “And because we are trapped, we are forced into servitude. So either we would fight it to be free and perish, or we would end up murdering ourselves or each other.” Still horrifying for two men that have had far too much time essentially as servants. “A pact, you see.” Either they go down fighting the wolf or they go down at each other’s hands.

Astaroth

and maybe i enjoy it just a little bit
does that make me insane? ///

...hello, christ? I'm 'bout to sin again

"Ah, yes. Well, you've got me there," Danta concedes, waving an imperious hand towards all of Asta's bone creations around the room. "If you do ever have to kill me though, feel free to make something delightful." If he has time between their pact for mutually assured destruction, that is.

Smug and happy as he considers what a fine bowl or knife holder his skull might make, Danta settles to drape himself across the other man when he lays back, his head dropping to rest against Asta's chest and shoulder to hear his contribution to their death-stories. "Oooh, a shapeshifter?" he echoes, smirking and closing his eyes to better imagine it.

The butcher has always been a vivid storyteller, and tonight is no different. Between the lightning dancing across the sky out the window, the howls and shrieks of the rain, and the rumble of Asta's voice, the Maverick is transported to the dank cave and their bittersweet ending of one another, his brow creasing a little as he considers it. "...Or," he murmurs, peeking an eye open to gaze up at Asta, "we do kill the creature, and we become the new monsters in the cave."

Dantalion

i said i love you to that man but i'm not feelin' him

/// sorry, but you just got in my way
i promise honey, i can feel your pain

“Oh, mi amor, I would make such stunning creations out of you.” The purr is a vow and a promise, that if it did ever happen and he’d unfortunately had time to spend without the Maverick, that the other Ancient would never truly leave his side. Morbid in the perfectly macabre way the butcher often lived, it’s clear he seems quite content with the potential result of it.

But then the butcher is descending into storytelling, his voice a low rumble of the potential horror they may face one day in the future, far from now in a dank cave somewhere with a wolf as their owner. Danta’s head is a comfortable weight on his chest as he starts to finish the story, drawing quiet as Danta considers it and readjusts to peer up at him, met with the almost too dark gaze of the butcher smirking down at him.

Head tilting enough that one tine of his horns clacks against the window briefly, the butcher’s laugh is a gentle vibration that rumbles alongside the thunder that breaks outside. “I do prefer that answer the best, but that does not explain how we die, does it?” After all, Danta had asked him how he thought they’d die at the start of this story. And yes, he will be pedantic about it.

Astaroth

and maybe i enjoy it just a little bit
does that make me insane? ///

...hello, christ? I'm 'bout to sin again

"I believe it," Danta purrs back, his fingers skating gently down the butcher's chest as he gets comfortable, as if to feel his voice rumble against his hand as well as everywhere else they touch. And he's quite content with his defiance of their fates until Asta goes and reminds him exactly what kind of story they were meant to be telling, prompting the Maverick to groan dramatically and roll his eyes. "Ugh, fine, we can both die together fighting the thing. I don't feel like either of us would tolerate being forced into servitude for long enough to go out in a murder-suicide."

A double-suicide in a fight to the death, though? They could probably manage that. "Oh, I bet we could also be killed by like... a yeti in a snowstorm," he ventures suddenly, scrunching his nose like he can already feel the cold nipping at them. "Though I don't know if the yeti would get us before the cold did. You're pretty good at navigating in that sort of weather, so I feel like the yeti would have to pick us off."

Dantalion

i said i love you to that man but i'm not feelin' him

/// sorry, but you just got in my way
i promise honey, i can feel your pain

The warmth from Danta’s hand is a boon that Asta thrives off of, even if the weathering of their room is perfect. Sitting this close to the window, there is the brief coolness of the weather outside that cools the glass they sit beside, but with his fiancé pressed against him, he’s quite comfortable where he is even while he’s being pedantic. And as Danta rolls his eyes and dramatically groans, Asta’s laugh accompanies the sound. “I know that I would not tolerate it, and if I cannot, then it is less likely that you would.” He decides, his chin dropping to press a kiss to the crown of his golden hair and rainbow horns. His hand at his cheek and neck slip further back, toying with the little rogue small hairs at the nape of his neck.

Relaxing again as Danta starts to suggest other alternatives, the idea of a yeti has his nose wrinkling in obvious distaste. “It would not be hard for a yeti to destroy a statue.” Unfortunately for them. And something tells him a yeti wouldn’t be opposed to destroying a random shaped rock just for the sake of existing. Still, he’s quite proud that Danta thinks so highly of his tracking and survival skills, especially in the wastelands that are snowy landscapes. “I would love to see a yeti try, darling.” He loosens a bit more of his more feral side out as the words drip from his lips.

And with that hanging in the air, the butcher tilts his head and tugs his fingers in the blonde strands of his fiance’s hair to bully his way in for a real kiss, one adorned with the flicker of lightning as it streaks across the sky and rain continues to roll by their window.

Astaroth

and maybe i enjoy it just a little bit
does that make me insane? ///