Acrimonia Black | Wrath (acrimonia) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2011-10-28 08:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | saint george, wrath |
Who: George and Wrath
Where: George's workplace
When: Friday
What: Hello, you. (Originally posted by George)
George had been feeling something right on the edges of his senses for a few days now, along with a feeling of being watched. That actually wasn't too unusual, considering the immortals he hung out with sometimes, but this was different. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once, and not entirely unpleasant.
It took him a few days to place what exactly the feeling was, but it finally clicked. Wrath. The kind that sparked low in his stomach and shot up his spine and left the entire world a red haze. It wasn't very strong right now, more of a tiny flame than the inferno George remembered, but it was still unmistakeable. And it wasn't a particularly bad feeling either, which probably should have worried him more than it did.
His patience held until Friday, when he finally got tired of his stalker. So on his lunchbreak he strolled out of his building and headed down the street, ducking into an alley after a few minutes. Then he waited.
Wrath was impulsive and angry, but when she really wanted something, she was unendingly patient. When George ducked into the alley, she was around the corner smoking. She felt his presence draw nearer and she smirked to herself and appeared in front of him, smoke curling away from her lips.
"Georgius. Been waiting for you."
George crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. It was, he reflected, probably a good idea that he'd never run into Wrath and War simultaneously. That sort of thing was how massacres got started.
"I thought I felt something familiar. Are you enjoying being my shadow?"
"Not as much as you're enjoying having me be your shadow," she said, flicking the cigarette away. "I know you can feel me, burning away inside. You were always my favourite saint, Georgius."
"Every time someone tells me that, I end up getting punched by them," George said, rocking on the balls of his feet. This was going to be tricky to get out of. His normal instinct when he had an unwanted follower was to threaten violence anyway, and it had always been hard to tell how much of that was Wrath and how much of that was just...him.
"If I punch a coworker, I'm gonna assume that's your fault."
"Do you want to punch a co-worker?" Wrath said, arching her eyebrows at George. She had no plans to punch him herself, but then sometimes she did things she hadn't planned on. "If you had to pick one of them to punch, who would it be?"
"It wouldn't actually be a coworker at all, it would be the hot dog vendor three blocks down from here that charges for condiments," George said. "Who does that?"
Joking helped remind him that he really, really needed to keep a lid on his anger, especially with Wrath around. He didn't even have anything to be angry about right now. So he took a deep breath, counted down from ten (it was cliche, but it had always worked), and smiled. "So, what've you been up to, besides watching me do paperwork?"
Wrath actually snorted and she gave George her half-smile she reserved for the few people in the world she didn't hate.
"Nothing. Been up to nothing. This city sucks."
"Ah, it's not so bad," George said, the tension easing out of his shoulders. Wrath didn't seem to want a fight, which helped with the relaxing. "It'll start growing on you after a while. Come on, I'll buy you lunch and pester you about the places you should visit."
"If you buy me lunch from the hot dog vendor who charges, he might lose his head," Wrath warned, seriously. Still, she found herself stepping forward anyway. Stupid saint. For some reason, she had never hated him like she did most of the rest of his worthless hoarde of do-gooders.
"Can we go somewhere quiet? I don't like too many people."
"No, he doesn't get any of our money today," George said, heading out of the alley. There was a pizza place down the street that was usually dead quiet at this hour of the day. "And hey, neither do I. Crowds are creepy. It's why I haven't been to a concert in years. That, and I'm pretty sure I'd accidentally break someone's nose in a mosh pit."
Wrath didn't see the problem with punching someone in a mosh pit, but she kept that to herself.
"Sounds fine," she said with a shrug. "I just don't like people looking at me. Makes me want to kill them."
"Yeah, try not to do that," George said, falling into step next to her. "I've got friends on the police force and an all-immortal version of COPS seems like it would end really badly for everyone." He tilted his head, considering. "Although it would also be the coolest thing I've ever seen, so hmm."
Wrath raised her eyebrows at that. "Yeah, wouldn't want your cop friends to end up dead too." She strolled beside him, her hair shading her face from view.
"Have I been making you feel funny at work?" she asked, hopeful.
"A little," George said. Wrath's presence would explain the stapler he'd accidentally broken the other day. "I'm edgier than normal, anyway. But if you want to hang around, don't do it at my office. We've got visitors that have just come back from Iraq, they need all the emotional stability they can get." He smiled at her. "Make me take you out for food instead, like now."
He was giving her an open invitation? Almost without thinking, and entirely without malice she blurted out, "why would you bother?"
George tilted his head, considering the best way to explain without making her think he felt sorry for her. He did feel sorry for her, sometimes, but if she was anything like him, she might react...aggressively if she thought someone was pitying her. He hated it when people pitied him.
"You know, sometimes when I'm just, like, standing on the subway or in the produce aisle at the grocery store, I start scanning the place for enemies and wanting to bash in heads. For no other reason then that it's a big crowd of people I don't know and one of them might be an enemy. And if they are an enemy, I want to scare them so bad they'll never come near me again. Because so many people go to pick up oranges and start blood feuds with strangers, right? But I still feel it. It's a pain in the ass and it's hard to explain it to people without coming off like a budding serial killer. That ever happen to you?"
Wrath nodded quietly. "Every day," she admitted. "Everyone is an enemy. Even-" Wrath looked up at him from under dark hair, "even me."
"Then that's why we should meet more often," George said firmly. "Talking about that stuff means it's not inside of you, festering and popping up at terrible times."
Wrath wasn't so sure she had a chance. "I don't know if talking about shit like a crybaby will help. But I get that you saints all need to say things like that."
"It does help," George insisted. The pizza place was within sight, and the smell of baking bread and cheese drifted down the street. "Talking to people gives you a way to vent and keeps you from smashing things in a rage because you got cut off in traffic. At least, it's helped me."
Wrath shrugged as they headed towards the pizzeria. "I just take it out on myself."
George blinked, closed his eyes for a brief second, and then nodded. He held the door open for her as they reached the restaraunt.
"Tell me about that?"
Why did he care? Wrath walked to a table and she sat down, staring absently at the menu while she said, "I don't expect you to care. I know you're placating me so I don't rip your face off. It's okay."
George actually laughed at that. "Wrath, I've had people threaten to rip my face off. I've had people actually rip my face off. If I thought you were aiming to hurt me, I'd have started clawing at you in that alley. I care because I don't like seeing people in pain, and you seem to be in pain."
"Pain is what I am," she countered. "You think you know suffering because you're a martyr? You don't know anything. I embody hate. It's all-consuming self-loathing. And wouldn't you know it? Sins can't die, no matter how hard they fucking try." She could die but considering how prevalent wrath was, she never stayed gone for long. A couple minutes at most.
"You think I haven't wanted to die?" George asked. "You think I haven't tried to die? I didn't always throw myself into battle because I thought it would be tons of fun." He leaned back, took a deep breath. "I can't understand you completely, I'm not a Sin. But I can understand you. I know what it's like to hate everything, including yourself. And that's a terrible place to be."
The urge to shove the parmesan shaker down his throat was rising. Instead Wrath just rolled up her sleeves, showing off her slashed up arms and she arched her eyebrow at him, as if daring him to say something to her about it. It wouldn't stop her. Nothing could. It was who she was. "You wanting to die? That's me inside you. Amplify it times one hundred. A thousand. Then you'll know what I feel every minute of every day."
George stared down at her arms, at the red slashes and fading scars. He wanted to say something, but knew that there weren't words that made that kind of pain better. He had a flashback, sudden and unwanted, to Sebastian curled in a ball on the couch in their old apartment, biting his lip and picking at the stigmata on his hands.
Instead, he just said, "I want to help you feel better. Even if it's just for a minute. Even if it involves punching me in the head."
Wrath snorted at that, rolling her sleeves back down. "You're offering to let me punch you in the head? It's not fun if you let me. You can't make me feel better, George. If you think my arms are bad you should see the rest of me. This is what I am. Though what I am would like some fuckin' pizza."
"Let's get some pizza then," George said, flagging down a waitress. He let Wrath order, picking at his fingernails until the waitress was gone.
"You made me strong, you know," George said quietly. "Strong when I didn't think I could be. You kept me going. You keep a lot of people going when they'd fall otherwise."
What was he talking about? "I don't understand what you mean. How could I make people feel anything but weak?"
George cocked his head. "Really? I--okay, here, an example from when I was human. After they killed Sebastian, I was all alone. Just me and a Roman army that hated Christians and was fond of setting them on fire. And I'd like to say I convinced them that I was harmless and pagan by being very smooth and convincing, but I didn't have a smooth or convincing bone in my body. Instead, I was just pissed. They had killed the person I loved, they'd killed friends of mine, and they'd kill me if they had even the slightest reason to suspect who I really was. So every time someone tried to goad me or scare me, I just unleashed all that anger in me and attacked. And that kept me alive."
George took a swig of the Coke the waitress had brought. "Love and honor and courage are all good emotions, but sometimes what gets a person through the bad moments is pure fury that something bad is happening to them."
That made sense, she supposed. "What if all you have is the fury? No honour or love or courage. Just fury. What then?"
George was tempted to argue that she obviously had something besides fury, or she'd be Hulk-smashing everything in sight all the time. But he wasn't sure that would go over well, either. So instead, he just said, "Then you find a way to focus it. An outlet. Something that isn't yourself."