Saint Agatha (shallnotmove) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2012-03-19 06:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | saint agatha, satan |
Who: Satan, Agatha
Where: Satan's penthouse
When: Monday
What: Hey, listen to my problems or I'll kill your friends.
Satan's penthouse was still a wreck, the majority of the furniture still smashed from his argument with Lucifer. The floor was littered with torn leather, stuffing, broken glass, and fractured bits of woods and plastic. Satan had contemplated cleaning it, or making one of the minions do it as punishment, but in the end he had left the place as it was. No sense in putting furniture back together that he would just smash in the same day.
Instead, he sat on the balcony, stretched out in a lounge chair. There were two bottles of wine sitting next to him in buckets of ice, and he'd already cracked one open. He didn't like drinking, he really didn't, but he was able to appreciate its benefits. Besides, watching Agatha drink would be entertaining.
Agatha muttered angrily under her breath as she got changed into something a little less comfortable than her pajamas - in this case jeans and a sweater - and wished she could work out what on earth the point of all this was.
To be honest Agatha wouldn't have gone at all if Satan hadn't pulled out the trump card: Judas. Agatha was so proud of how well he was doing recently and she'd promised him that while he lived under her roof she would do whatever it took to keep him safe and that she wouldn't draw attention from Lucifer and Satan.
So she told Judas she needed to go out and meet some people - not technically a lie at all - and called a cab to take her to the address Satan had given her. It felt gross and wrong to be walking right into whatever was waiting for her, but what choice did she have?
She pushed open the door when she got there but didn't step inside any further than a few steps. She surveyed the mess, refusing as yet to even look properly at Satan where she could see him on a balcony. "You have a terrible decorator," she said.
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 05:11 pm UTC (link) Track This
"Don't be ridiculous," Satan responded, not even turning to look at her. "Destruction never goes out of style. Nice to see you again, Agatha. How's our mutual friend Judas working out as a roommate."
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-19 05:20 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha wanted to keep Judas out of this as much as possible - to hold to that promise she'd made - and so when she walked over towards the balcony, arms crossed and lips tight, what she said instead was, "what do you want, Satan?"
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 05:21 pm UTC (link) Track This
"Sit down," Satan said, nudging the chair next to him with his foot. "Have a drink. I feel like we haven't bonded enough. I occasionally follow your fellow saints around, but you never do anything interesting enough to warrant it."
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-19 05:28 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha sighed and sat down on the edge of the chair, uncomfortable and not uncrossing her arms. "I'm not drinking," she told him coolly, watching the skyline instead of him. "And I'm not going to apologize for being uninteresting." (Agatha was perfectly interesting enough, she thought. Her friends liked her and she did good work - what more did she need? Satan's version of interesting didn't mesh with hers.)
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 07:15 pm UTC (link) Track This
"Yes, you are, because those are the conditions of this little talk." Satan reached down and grabbed the bottle of wine before more or less shoving it into her hands. "So, speaking of your fellow saints, what do you do when they irritate you? On a profound level, I mean. The level that makes you want to tear their skin off and wear them as a fancy coat."
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-19 07:22 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha held the bottle in her hands as though it might bite her, but she didn't yet take a drink.
She shook her head at Satan's question. "They don't."
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 07:25 pm UTC (link) Track This
"Then the people you work with who you can't otherwise avoid," Satan said, growing frustrated. "Saint or not, you're still human. How do you react to the people who annoy you?"
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-19 07:32 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha sighed, wishing she was at home in bed and not sitting here with Satan. But he was being non-murderous so she might as well keep it that way. "I take a deep breath and remind myself that they're only human as well and that I've had 1600 years to be bigger person and react rationally. There's always people you won't get on with even at the best of times but it's not worth getting upset over." She didn't think any of this was concepts Satan could understand though.
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 07:36 pm UTC (link) Track This
Satan considered that for a moment before shaking his head. "No, that won't work at all. You're useless." He glared. "Drink. You might give better advice then. In vino veritas."
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-19 07:38 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
"I'm not drinking," Agatha told him, serious and annoyed. "I already told you, I don't drink and being drunk won't make me give you whatever lunatic advice you've brought me here to tell you."
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 07:42 pm UTC (link) Track This
Satan looked Heavenward. Why did He make them so annoying? What purpose could that extra layer of stubbornness possibly have besides making his life more difficult?
"You're going to, Aggie, or I'm going to see how far I can shove this corkscrew into your lower intestine before it becomes fatal."
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-19 07:45 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha looked at the corkscrew thoughtfully and then, very pointedly, put the bottle down beside herself and crossed her arms again. "I thought you wanted to talk," she countered.
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 07:52 pm UTC (link) Track This
"I am, but you're being a terrible conversational partner," Satan said. He twirled the corkscrew between his fingers. "And I refuse to believe the saints don't have spats amongst themselves. What about your little Sebastian? He's an unrepentant sodomite. Drink. Unburden yourself. It'll be like confession."
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-19 07:56 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
"Sebastian is none of your business," Agatha snapped, perhaps a little too quickly. She noticed it herself though and reached out to take the bottle but didn't drink, instead just resting it on her lap.
"I don't give my confessions to the Devil," Agatha said, forcing her voice to be more level, fearing she'd revealed too much with just one sentence.
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 08:06 pm UTC (link) Track This
"Why not?" Satan smirked. "I keep all sorts of secrets for people. It's a perk, knowing something that only God would know otherwise. I think that's why priests enjoy confessions, really. So, once more with feeling. What's the correct course of action when someone you can't cut out of your life is being obnoxious?"
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-19 08:10 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
"Sebastian isn't obnoxious," Agatha said and then took a swig from the bottle, because she did not want to talk about Sebastian, her Sebastian, with the Devil. The alcohol tasted as bad as she remembered and she put the bottle down again.
"And even if he was, there's nothing in the world that would make me cut him out of my life. He's like my son. Sebastian is my family." Her words were fierce and her eyes were locked on Satan's now. Sebastian was hers and she would gut Satan - or at least try to - if he tried to go after him.
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 08:17 pm UTC (link) Track This
"No, he's fairly low-key," Satan conceded, taking a drink himself. "But please, it's easy to get rid of a son for a while. I do it whenever mine is annoying. Children are replaceable. Why do you think God had so many?"
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-19 08:20 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha rolled her eyes. "Talking about family with you is like talking about... I don't even have an analogy for it," she said, shaking her head. "You can't feel love or compassion. Anything you have can never be a true family."
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 08:26 pm UTC (link) Track This
"And why would I want to feel love or compassion?" Satan said, gesturing sharply with the wine bottle. "It would get in the way of what I'm supposed to be doing. For example, what if I had decided I liked Lucifer too much to let him Fall? Who knows what could have happened? He'd probably still be an asshole, though."
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-19 08:32 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha just sighed and lifted the bottle. "Actually, I think I will get drunk," she told him with annoyance. "It's the only way I'm going to be able to sit here and listen to you complain all night." She took a long drink and made a quick face at the taste. "For the Prince of Darkness you sound like a child," she said, leaning in towards him, feeling like she was his teacher and he was an unruly kindergartener. "A brat and a broken record."
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-19 10:30 pm UTC (link) Track This
Satan smiled sweetly at her, before darting forward, quick as a snake. He grabbed the hand that wasn't hold the wine and drove the corkscrew through the skin between her thumb and index finger.
"Let's not forget who we're speaking with, hmm?"
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-20 05:05 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha cried out before clamping her mouth shut to kill the sound. Breathing quickly through her teeth she lifted her eyes from her hand and glared at him before hissing, "uncreative." She had been a nineteen-year-old girl once and - between her screams of agony - she had laughed in the face of a man who cut her body to pieces. She knew only defiance in the face of pain.
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-20 11:41 am UTC (link) Track This
Satan just grinned at her, teeth looking sharper than usual, before clinking their wine bottles together.
"Drinking ought to help you ignore that little lovetap, too. You perk up quite a bit when people shove sharp things into you, do you know that?"
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-20 08:21 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha didn't quite know how to re3spond to that with pain shooting through her hand. "You don't know anything about me," Agatha told him, taking quick breaths as she tried to keep herself calm. With her undamaged hand she grabbed the bottle and took another long drink, tipping it up and putting it down only when the bottle was empty.
Instead of letting it fall though, Agatha swung it at Satan's head.
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-21 11:51 am UTC (link) Track This
Satan laughed, delighted, and caught the bottle mid-swing.
"You know," he said coversationally, "I'm not generally allowed to inflict real damage on people who haven't sold themselves to me. But there is a self-defense clause."
He punched Agatha squarely in the face.
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-21 08:10 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha grunted in pain as her vision went bright for a moment at the force of the blow, hands moving automatically to her face.
But along with the pain came the feeling of rightness. This is what she had been made for. Agatha didn't talk about it much, but she did know that she wasn't like George or Patrick. As much as she remembered having a life in Sicily, hers was one of the stories wholly created by the church as a lesson, and the lesson was: strand strong in yourself even in the face of impossible tortures. It could hardly come as a surprise that Agatha therefore somewhat enjoyed that pain.
She dropped her hands and glared at Satan, feeling a little strange with the bottle of alcohol starting to work through her system. "I'm so glad I came," she deadpanned. "We're having so much fun already."
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-22 12:19 am UTC (link) Track This
"I'm actually feeling much better," Satan said, standing up and stretching languidly. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, and he'd made a saint bleed. This day was turning out so well.
Experimentally, Satan reached out and shoved her backwards. Hmm. Nothing to stop him. He tilted his head curiously. "For someone who's going to have a bruise the size of an orange, you're rather chipper."
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-22 12:32 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha sat up straighter after the shove - although the world felt a little wobbly... that was probably alcohol - and then she stood up as well, trying not to sway on her feet but wanting to meet him as equals - at least, as much as that could ever be possible between a human being and the Deceiver. "You expect me to whimper and whine or something?" she asked him seriously. "Because I don't. This is what I was made for."
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-22 12:50 am UTC (link) Track This
Satan let out a surprised little laugh. "So that's what you and your little sodomite protege have in common."
He brought his foot down sharply on the empty wine bottle, shattering it beneath him. Not taking his eyes off Agatha, he knelt and scooped up a shard, using his shirtsleeve to shield his palm from the glass. With a hand around Agatha's neck, he shoved her back against the wall and rested the shard against her arm, digging in just hard enough to break the skin. "You poor thing, never suffering the way you should. Tell me to stop."
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-22 01:11 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha knew right away that she'd given away too much of herself to Satan.
He shoved her against the wall and she wished that she was sober, that she was in her own mind for this. The alcohol seemed to dull the pain but was that right? Dulling the pain seemed like cheating.
She flinched at the touch of the glass but kept her eyes on his. "Never," she hissed through her teeth. "I'm not afraid of you or anything you can do to me. God watches over me."
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-22 03:46 pm UTC (link) Track This
"And to think, I was planning to spend the afternoon complaining," Satan said with a smile. "God truly moves in mysterious ways."
And it was hard not to interpret this as a gift of some kind. A saint that he could cut into, one that he could actually hurt and not be stopped midway through by their Father's arcane rules. With another laugh, Satan threw her inside the penthouse, letting Agatha crash down onto the wreckage of the couch.
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-22 03:55 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha hit what was left of the couch's arm with her back and grunted, rolling quickly to grab whatever she could find at hand to work as a weapon. The sharp piece of ceramic had probably been part of a lamp, she figured, and Agatha wrapped her hand around it, ready to slice into Satan as soon as he came close enough.
"My head is spinning," she said to herself as she blinked and then to him she spat, "I hate you."
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-23 03:28 pm UTC (link) Track This
"I'd tell you to just lie down and be a good girl, but that would really defeat the whole purpose for you, wouldn't it?" Satan said. He began circling her, still wearing a giant and overly-sharp grin.
This was more fun than he'd had the whole year.
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[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-23 09:53 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
She held the shard of lamp hard enough that it was cutting into her hand already, but she barely noticed. She moved less quickly than she imagined she would, trying to slash at him with her improvised weapon. But the alcohol - why did people do this to themselves? Agatha was having trouble even moving properly, let alone cutting into Satan himself.
"You don't know anything about me," Agatha said. But she'd revealed too much of herself and now she was drunk. She was half-convinced that the Lord was punishing her for coming to Satan willingly, for drinking willingly.
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I thought I had responded to this like two days ago *facepalm*
[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-28 01:53 am UTC (link) Track This
"I know enough," Satan said, circling her. Her movements were slowed and clumsy, but he felt a little glimmer of respect for her nonetheless. As much as he hated humans, he had to admit that they were often fearless. Fearless enough to try and knife-fight the Devil, anyway.
He lashed out, opening a long, shallow cut along her stomach. "It must be hard, that urge to suffer lurking just under your skin."
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Not a problem!
[info]shallnotmove
2012-03-28 10:34 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This
Agatha hissed her breath, arching her stomach away from the sharp edge. Silently she began to pray for protection, to be saved from suffering, to be kept safe from harm. But was it a prayer she really meant? What did it matter to her if this body was damaged? Truly, all that Agatha cared for was its purity, and even Satan himself couldn't take that from her. God had blessed her with inviolability after all her trials and every prayer only made that stronger.
"Suffering," Agatha said, managing to get to her feet so she could back away. "You don't understand what suffering is, not like we can."
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[info]ancientserpent
2012-03-28 08:52 pm UTC (link) Track This
Satan laughed, but it was far from an amused sound. His emotions were rushing, anger mixing with elation. "You think you know suffering? Some pain, some loneliness, and you think you understand it? You arrogant little brat, I walked with God and now I'm cast down to your world for doing my job. You don't know the first thing about suffering."
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