Abaddon (first_woe) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2009-05-04 09:54:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | abaddon, goth |
Who: Goth and Abaddon
Where: Abaddon's Condo
When: Early Monday Morning
What: The aftermath (Finished narrative)
Warnings: Blood/Violence/Locusts, Language
She was humming quietly under her breath as she made her way from a puddle of streetlight to the next, the play of light and shadow in the false dawn of a beauty she found impossible to describe. The song echoed that inside of her, a buzz of a billion students finally relieved from their finals mingled with a murmur of sweet bliss and pleasure and wanting and needing, knotted and interwoven with her own personal music.
She had called them both to her dance floors, pleading for some of that energy to be spent with her, to rebound off the walls and floor and weave into her. She wanted some of that worship, wanted the followers the three of them shared to use it while they drank, danced, flirted, lost themselves in the beat of their own hearts in time to Bauhaus and Fields of the Nephilim.
What she hadn’t expected was how the night had developed. What started with not-so-innocent dancing and teasing, with approaching and holding them both close so she could be heard over the music, had soon become much more than that. Goth had woven threads of power in and around College and Adonis, directing the energy of her people through them before it flowed into her; the link between them and their own energy determined that flirting with the two gods wasn’t enough. It had been a fair trade, power for power.
Several hours later, as she made her way back to the angel’s home, the two gods’ energy was still flowing through her, flooding her senses with it, making everything clearer and brighter, almost painfully so. She had cleared all but the faintest traces of absinthe from her body, leaving just enough to make every movement a dance. Even the friendly ‘ding’ of the elevator was added to that song, as Goth stepped out of the cabin and opened the door to Abaddon’s condo.
The air was cold in the condo – at least ten degrees cooler than that of the hallway before it. All of the lights had been shut off or enshrouded in darkness so that not even the glow of the city could be seen through the windows. There was no sound – not even the hum of the refrigerator – but for the clicking, chirping and hungry hisses of the lord’s children.
Did she think he was so blind? That that energy of his he had sewn into her very skin would not feel the presence of others taking what belonged to him? The flash of light from the doorway would show the angel’s pale figure and broad wings in silhouette, before the door slammed shut behind her, as if pulled from the other side, tearing it from her grasp if needed. He was perched upon the arm of the couch facing the doorway, and those severe eyes were black.
“Whore.”
One single word, spit with the bile of a thousand curses. The locusts sang louder, skittering in their confinement, crawling the walls, trying to escape under the door to exercise the will of their lord.
The sudden change in the atmosphere hit her like a punch. What giddiness and empowerment she felt fled, leaving her frozen where she was. The memory of light and the remembered silhouette in front of her burned an afterimage in her eyes, telling her where the angel stood – or where he had stood before darkness enshrouded her.
Inside her, the song skipped a beat, then restarted fiercer, wilder, taking in the rhythm of the locusts, the sound prodding for something that was already there and trying to push the two most recent beats away from her. She clawed at it, keeping it there but at bay, wanting the three. They were all part of her, and the Goddess wouldn’t willingly part with none.
It was either flee or face him, and tonight she was powerful. Tonight she had been blessed by her people and two other gods, gods that weren’t a trend like she was, gods that didn’t claim proof or a connection before accepting her as she was.
“You know what I am,” she spat just as violently, though her fists trembled at her sides. He had known very well who and what he had involved himself with, and that she would not martyr herself for him. She could not defy her own nature, no matter how the locusts sang terror into her.
“You–”
He started calm, cold and distant. The voice was focused where the after-burn of his body was on her retina.
“–are–”
Still calm, though with a touch of growl. The voice was moving, but the darkness cloaked his energy, so it was hard to judge where he was at any given point now.
“MINE.”
The voice comes from everywhere around her, covering several spectrums, both growled and hissed, high and low, reverberated and dark. It seems even the locusts cried it, as their terrifying melody after it is spoken takes a beat to pick back up. It is as if hell itself tore into her, the word an assault all of its own.
She tried to cloak herself with her power, summon the defiance and steadfastness that kept her fighting throughout the years, the rebellion that kept her people sneering at the mainstream, defining theirs and her personality. But as his voice moved, as it flooded her already overloaded feelings, the Goddess cringed in pain. It clashed and ravaged through her, tearing the strings of her tune and seizing them possessively and destructively.
Still she fought for control, to maintain her own dignity and self. She was no-one’s but herself, mistress of her own people. If anyone could claim some measure of ownership, it would be the ones who created her, who tugged at old styles and crafted their own single, original one. If anyone could claim to own her, it would be her beliefs and ideals. If there was a power higher than herself, it would be God, even being a Goddess herself. He had no right.
Yet she could not voice those complaints, could barely keep herself from pressing against the door in fright. It was taking every shred of control and knowledge of the self to stay where she was, all muscles cramping as she pulled her chin up. No-one’s property but herself’s.
Somewhere in the darkness, his fingers curled, and the white feather at her hip churned, beginning to pull, tugging out of her skin as the black that made it attempted to retch itself from her form.
That voice comes again, not screaming this time as it did the last, though just as dark, just as intense. His true voice. Somewhere in that silence against the locusts, there was the gentle melody of thin, sharp metal jingling gently off of each other.
“Godless slut.” He mocks, harshly. “You defy me now? After what has been risked for you? After what has been sacrificed?” He is there, then, a breath from her, keeping her body against the door without touching. The next movement is unseen until it’s completed, not even the flash of steel seen in the dark.
Tearing through fabric and flesh, through muscle, between bone and finally colliding with the door behind her, the heavenly steel of the angel’s blessed sword. The wound is precise, cutting through lung and chest, but mere millimeters below the trembling beat of her heart. So swift and sudden, so sharp, that it is unlikely at first she’ll even truly realize what happened.
“You are mine.”
Again, no word managed to come forth from her mouth. She was who she was, had been accepted by him as such, had tugged and tore at herself to be with him, and–
She couldn’t move.
She was pinned to the door.
By a sword. Driven through her.
Driven through her, Christ.
Her form was mortal, no matter how resilient and quick of healing. And there was a sword driven through her chest. There was blood pooling onto her wired corset. There was beautiful, wine-red blood pouring out of a clean sword wound, marring the pearly white silk of her skin, there was–
A sword driven through her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even think. Her mind was too busy conjuring images of sheer beauty, of the aesthetics of blood and steel, to bother about the condition of her body. Defiance turned to blankness. This wasn’t happening – she could picture the entry and exit wounds exactly in her mind, marvel at the perfection of them, rejoice on the artistry of the image. An angel from Hell pinning an upstart goth girl to the door behind her with a gleaming sword, their pale skin and his wings shining in the darkness though there was no light. It was wondrous – it wasn’t happening, she thought, as severed arteries poured blood into her organs.
The darkness poured in through that perfect, clean, precise wound in her chest, sinking his energy into her body. She would feel death, but not be allowed to die, would not be allowed to pass away into shock, either. She was to feel every nerve-ending die off, the cold that followed, the encroaching darkness with full clarity.
“Did they feel good inside of you, Victoria? Did you feel whole? Something that I could not give you?” though the reverberation is still on his words, the play of his lips near her ear is the dulcet whisper she had torn herself asunder for. That blade twisted ninety degrees in its new sheath of her chest. The pain must be exquisite. “Was it worth it?”
Her song changed into an unfinished requiem, skipping notes as if playing off a scratched vinyl; others were dissonant, blaring discord into her, strings pulled haphazard and carelessly, continuing to play just for the sake of playing, to keep her breathing throughout it all even though her lungs filled with blood.
Her legs threatened to fold beneath her, to crumble into nothingness. All that kept her up was the thought of that blade millimeters from her heart, a stubborn resistance to just give up and let him have her. She relinquished the torture, the blissful agony, she would not cower before him, she–
The sword twisted inside her, and everything fled but the throes of agony. She didn’t want this, didn’t want the pain, didn’t want to die! In reckless desperation, she clawed at the holy blade with bare hands, wanting it off, wanting the pain to end just as she screamed a plead for release from the suffering.
She began to struggle, to scream, though the same cloak of darkness that kept the noise and light of the world out, would keep her screams in. No one would hear her. He drew back suddenly, taking the blade with him, letting her crumple as her body demands her to.
Oh, but there would be no blissful black to take her pain before she passes on, nor would she be allowed that release, oh no. Killing her dead would do nothing but start a war that neither pantheon wanted. This was punishment, pure and simple, and it was between them alone. She held the closest thing that any would ever give to his heart, and she was more than careless with it. Hiding behind her pride too much to be able to admit that what she did… who she fornicated with… was wrong.
Her scream was punctuated by the sound of metal breaking, and the door broke open. His children poured forth through the darkness like a wave – hundreds of them, though only a handful compared to their numbers within his pit. They skittered into the room, crawling over each other, embracing his pale ankles and diving for her, and the blood as it pooled upon his carpet.
Though it was not her flesh they feasted on, it was the blood, the tears, the agony. He would not let them pick her bones clean – she would need them to recover, eventually – but it is to feel their horrific presence, to be consumed while still utterly conscious to experience it, that he allows them to feed now.
She crumbled in a heap as the sword withdrew, savaged fingers desperately pressing at the wound beneath her breasts while blood pumped out of it.
The Goddess wanted to plead, to beg his forgiveness, to ask for mercy, but all sound that would leave her mouth was a coughed gurgle, a rasped whimper as her own blood threatened to suffocate her. She had needed this, needed their power to heal from him; she didn’t want it to become thus, didn’t ask for it, she swore! The words ran through her mind in a endless loop, slowing down as numbness became to creep at her limbs, making each desperate effort to move and stop the bleeding sluggish.
Her body was striving to heal itself already, in a desperate struggle to become whole, a cry for a need of worship, for life, for her people and for him. But a sword wound, delivered by the angel that was her lover, was nothing that desperation could heal, something inside her realized as she retched up blood.
She wasn’t even aware of the locusts at first, the agony too much to notice the legs skittering on her skin. When she did, in that bleakness beyond the screaming torment of her savaged body and mind, she recoiled from them. Not physically, as her body refused to be linked with her mind, but mentally, the knowledge of what the winged insects meant terrifying by itself.
Some part within her cared only about the tear in her clothes, ignoring the whole horrifying experience.
As her blood soaked the carpet, he stepped back, lifting himself to perch on the edge of the coffee table. The point of the sword rested on the floor in front of him, his hands loosely stacked on the pommel. He watched in the pitch as she writhed and suffered – not because he enjoyed it, but because she deserved it, and his grip on her life had to be held or he’d have a bigger mess to clean up than simply some blood on his carpet.
He allowed her to bleed out, until her body was cold, until her lungs would no longer take air, and clouded her mind. The nightmares he’d give her were simply visions of hell, things that he himself had seen. He would make her believe he’s let her slip on, delving into the very depths of that infernal place for what she had done to him.
For him, he pulls her body out from under the grip of his children, and effortlessly lifts it while they drop away, to continue to swarm along the carpet, always staying out from under foot. She would be undressed then, and washed down, that single sword wound bandaged, and redressed again in the softest silken pajama set he owns.
She would be laid to rest upon his bed then, and he takes up vigil on the foot board, perched, keeping the light out, waiting while her natural ability to recover reconstructs her body while he keeps her alive, aware that it might take a while.
It doesn’t take as long as it normally would for her to recover from such a savaging to her mortal body; despite having used most of her power from the night spent with College and Adonis on that standing, vain defiance, she has her own reserves and the relentless desire to live to see her through. The mortals rarely let a trend die when they are not yet done with it, and the angel has a firm hold on her life as well. Nevertheless, several hours elapse before she regains consciousness from the horrible nightmarish visions of where he has sent her.
The first sense to return, always the same from the beginning of her existence, is sound. She can hear her own heartbeat and breath, rasping through half-healed organs that she cannot yet feel. There is a muffled tune playing on the background, strangely muted, and she has trouble recognizing it as her own, cannot reach it however far her mind stretches. Her feeling of an immortal close by returns next, with the song adapting to include the sound of violin-like legs, the buzz and clicks she knows to represent the angel.
Then returns pain, as the message from her nerves kicks into her brain. It’s dull, faded, but as it mingles with memory of what seems to just have happened, she panics. However, the muscles refuse to answer her cry to run, to flee the Hell she has just been through, with him and later on the place itself. She recognizes the feel of the bed all too well, and the presence beside her. When her body started awakening, she had thought it was over – and it had just betrayed her, she is still on his hands.
“Please…” she cries, or attempts to. What comes out is a strangled croak, whimpered through parched lips and tongue.
He awoke from the half-sleep he had fallen into during her vigil. She was holding her own, unsteadily, but he didn’t need to keep her alive all on his own now. When she croaked, he moved from his post at the end of the bed and drifted off into the kitchen. A bowl of cool water is run, with a clean cloth. He sits beside her, without actually lowering the bed with his weight. She’s in enough pain as it is. The cloth is soaked in the water and brushed over her brow soothingly. He rings it out and soaks it, this time drizzling over her lips, squeezing the cloth so the water runs into her mouth, along her parched throat – a slow trickle she can easily swallow.
He says nothing, just tends to her with all of the loving care of any of his angelic brethren.
She is aware of her vision returning, but darkness encroaches her still. When she feels the angel leave the room, there is a tentative struggle to rise; however, not even her hands will answer her call, much less the rest of her body. For all she knows her eyes are working, darkness surrounds her, being all too close to the Hell she has seen for comfort.
In his room, in his bed, but why? He had run her through with a sword. She didn’t even know if she would be revived once her mortal body was killed, had never been through that situation, but still being in his condo was something the Goddess did not expect at all. She wanted to cry, to beg his forgiveness, to run away and collapse in his arms. Last night… should never have happened.
When he returned, she winced instinctively, the gesture making her gasp. Even blinking was painful in ways she didn’t know until now. He had skewered her with a sword, and she was still there. What torture could he possibly be planning to set upon her, now?
For all the terror and panic, the cooling water at her brow and the trickle running down her throat were sheer bliss, and the Goddess licked her lips for every drop of water, sweeter than any juice can ever hope to be.
Why? Because he was still one of God’s own. Because he wanted to avoid a war. Because he wanted to punish her, not kill her for good, and to die on his sword was the only way to quell the need for blood that her betrayal inspired. She hurt him, and he wanted to hurt her back.
Show her who she belonged to, regardless of her drunken protests.
He allows her to drink from the drizzle off the cloth, and when it warms, he rings it out and gathers fresh, cold and clear to run over her lips once more. After she’s had another drink he wipes her brow again, letting the cold water run off along her scalp, wiping her eyes as well. The darkness has lightened some – enough that vague shapes can be made out, but dark enough that her eyes don’t hurt so badly as her optic nerves heal.
Each cooling droplet brings relief, not nearly enough from the pain but a start, and she clings on to it desperately. If he is taking care of her, will he hurt her later? Is he just waiting for her to be conscious enough so the pain will be all the more exquisite?
She wants to flinch away from that soothing hand, while craving each bit of the easing it gives. She wants his touch, to tell her everything was alright, and dreaded it like the pest, like death itself now that she had walked that line. She wants to grab his hand and beg forgiveness, kiss it while she abashed herself at his feet and her mind screamed it belonged to no-one.
Survival called out the loudest. Being there, on the brink, had shown her what not to do. Defiance was obviously not the way to survive him. How she longed for him, and wanted to run to the hills.
Wetting her lips, green eyes slightly out of focus, she rasped an intelligible word. A wheeze, and the Goddess tried again. “Sorry.” It wasn’t even a whisper, barely a slurred word, but it was there, for all that it was worth.
“I wish I could believe you.”
This is said gently, but deadpan. He offers her more water, and reaches under the blanket to check her wound with the palm of his hand, before withdrawing it again. The cloth is rung out again and draped over the edge of the bowl. He seems to be waiting for another need to move him into action again. He’s not good at this caring thing naturally.
She takes in the water fervently, as her throat burns just for speaking that one word. Her breath is unsteady, the lung tissue still damaged, but she can feel it healing, can feel the power pouring into her and making her whole once more. It’s a painful process, and such energy is used in physical recovery shall leave her followers drained for quite a while. The wound was clean until he twisted the sword, and while the holy blade is incredibly sharp, the healing process will be long. The mental injuries will take longer, and the memories will stay with her.
There is a coppery twang in her throat, proof that there are still broken vessels. She wants to reply to him, to make her point, to explain what happened, but her judgment is still clouded by fear and confusion, and her vocal chords cannot handle the stress of speaking just yet.
Looking at him, knowing what he has done, is… painful. No matter what she did, he ran her through with a holy sword. No justifications on her side, she wants to stay alive after all this is done, and is truly sorry. They know each other. Her eyes try to convey that feeling for a moment, but it doesn’t take long before she has to look away from him, eyelids closing. She belongs to no-one.
When she is well, she will be let free. He will no more take her into his arms. She has hurt him, he has hurt her in return, and now he will let her go. There would be no more words from him as he kept her alive, let her heal, got her back on her feet. He’d collect her things and pack them, and he would arrange a place for her to go.
If she will not be his, she will be out of his life, and he will wash his hands clean of her.
It takes a long while for her to gather her words, and a longer one to be able to speak. Her eyes turn toward the bowl, asking for more water. When he accedes to her wish, the Goddess lets the liquid in her mouth for a long moment, letting it soak the still dry tissues. She must explain, must make things clear. And definitely must do something to prevent such an event from happening again. Getting skewered wasn’t exactly Goth’s idea of a field day, no matter how entranced she could be on the aesthetics of blood, red flowing down steel, pale skin rent – stop it.
Finally swallowing, she cleared her throat; the gesture wasn’t kind on her battered chest. A few moments of breathing lightly and quickly, and she spoke up. “I wronged you. I… sorry. My fault.”
“And you have paid the price for doing so. I want you gone as soon as you are healthy again.”
This is said simply and stoically, even though his eyes and fingers are still tinged with the blackness of his true form, his wings lying behind him. That infernal voice has quieted, but there was still some reverberation to his words.
“You have hurt me. I have returned the favor. We are even.”
It is perhaps good that her body refuses to be responsive, for all she wants at the moment is to bury her face at his throat, plead for forgiveness and understanding though she deserves none. As it comes into focus, her mind realizes just how much she has thrown away for a night of power. She does not expect mercy from him, has already had a second chance with the angel and squandered it away. Nevertheless, she must try for it.
Her tune is coming to its regular beat as her mind clears, lending her strength. It seems unfair that she cannot tell him how much she wants him, how much he needs him – not because of her failing voice, but because she feels it will drive him away just as quickly as last night’s events did.
“No matter if you believe or not, I’m sorry, and would offer reparation.” It is delivered in slow, drawn out breaths. She will fight for him, to keep him, but will go if he shuns her. What he has failed to see, she cannot tell him – she will not belong to him; if to anyone, she belongs to her God.
“I feel nothing for you.”
It’s the truth, cold, hard and harsh. He knows he’ll see it in her journal later, the whining tramp. She brought it on herself. She had what she wanted, but it wasn’t enough, so for one night, she threw everything she had sacrificed a lot of her friends for… away.
His fingers dip into the water, and he traces a cross on her forehead, before his hands slide underneath her and pull her up and forward so he might pile pillows behind her and prop her up upon them. It’ll be painful but at least she’ll be sitting.
He leaves the room then, to return a few moments later with a travel cup with a long straw, placing it upon her chest, gently, he helps one of her hands to hold it moving the straw within easy access of her mouth.
“We will speak on this no more, Victoria. Repay me by parting from my company without the dramatics, please. It is all I ask.”
He had said it before. “I feel nothing for you,” and “whether you love me or you do not is irrelevant to me.” She was expecting it, but it still hurt. She wouldn’t fight it, didn’t want yet another scene, didn’t want to risk another trip to that place – he was perfectly capable of doing so, as she saw it.
She winces as the angel moves her, not at his touch but at the physical pain. Now that she faces abandonment by her own fault, the voice that screamed for her to run has fallen silent, and she cherishes each touch, devoid of emotion as it is. Sucking eagerly on the straw, she works some more moisture into her throat. At least her voice was easing up, small relief as it was.
“I will,” she says simply. “There’s… one thing.” Stepping over the line, yet she has to, grasping at straws to keep him there. “You said I was yours.” No longer, certainly. But now she could, she wishes everything but to run.
“You were.” His reply is simple, his gaze blank and unreadable.
“I would repay you for what I did.” She is insisting, going against what he had asked her to already. And she has no idea how to go about that compensation, just that she wants to do it, needs to. She doesn’t want to lose him for one night of sheer idiocy, no matter how she deserves it. “That night, on the roof…” If only that could amount for something. She doubts it, yet every bit, everything she can grab at without begging, she will have. The moment he steps out of that room, she knows she will lose him.
She cannot express what she wants, cannot say what she is willing to sacrifice for him. With the lack of anything else comes the inevitable, giving up what she had never wanted to. “I’m yours, if you’ll have me.” It tore at her soul, at every part of her being. She belonged to her people, to her makers, to those she would dance and drink with for an hour before moving away again to share with others. A culture, not anyone’s property but the whole’s. But she had sacrificed him for that and regretted it, and thus would now sacrifice the others for him again.
His head shook simply, and he moved to take the bowl of water out of the room. No. She had her second chance, and she stomped all over what little of his heart he showed to her. She would not get another change. All he asked is was for her to go peaceably. Quietly. Please. Leave the pantheons out of it, leave the whining out of it… just… go.
There is something worn about those severe features, and though his eyes are blank, one can practically feel the pain in his aura. Fierce and beautiful, he was still an angel. No different from Gabriel in ways he didn’t want to admit to anyone. Not even himself.
The pain his sword had inflicted is nothing compared to the pain she feels now, nor the pain she knows to be in him. Quietly, discreetly, her song has changed into a lament. They have been together for merely a week, but it feels much longer. In that time, she has struggled to keep comfortable, to accept him and herself for what they were, and has spectacularly failed. For once, what pains her so much was not her own sorrow, but his. It was her fault, and she clearly sees it. He wouldn’t miss her, would want her out of her life, and she had intentionally caused it without ever looking at what she was doing.
She has nothing more to give him, not even tears. She has given and taken away, burned away whatever chances they might have had of being together. Nothing more to offer.
“I’ll go.” It sounded strangled, forced. She was fighting herself every step of the way; she didn’t deserve him, had ignored him, and she was the one to blame, had no right to tears herself. “Don’t worry about the drama.” Her green eyes are filled with sorrow and understanding – all the while, she had figured she would be the one ending up hurt, but she has no right to that pain now, not after what she has done.
No, she had no right to those tears. Those were his tears. He had sacrificed everything, had stood to his own family, in the face of his God to protect her, to take her as his own, to possesses what they both seemed to need, and she had spent the second half of the week restless to the point where he could feel it. He had allowed her to concert, and declined joining her. The angel had planned a dinner for her for tonight to try to make up for it, in his way. There were fresh lobsters in a pot of cold water in the fridge waiting to be cooked.
She had everything she could have wanted, and she squandered it for a simple fuck. Stupid bitch.
“It is all I ask.”
“I won’t.” She wants to reassure him, to let him know he won’t have to deal with anger or dramatics from her anymore. Or anything to do with her, really. No matter how she wants to stay there, to be with him, she cannot face his disappointment.
She has failed one of His angels, when he had given her not one, but two opportunities. No right to ask for more, no right to complain about it. The Goddess wants to keep him with her more than anything, to hold him, to share his sorrow, and she traded that chance for a single night. The shame and loss is her fault only; she wants to beat at herself for it – the bleakness and pain will not allow even that.
“For all it’s worth… I’ll miss you.” Even if he wouldn’t miss her, and even if she didn’t have a right to feel anything for him anymore. “Thank you.” One of His, and she was a heathen. She could never hope to be worthy of him, and last night had proved it. “I failed you. I’ll go.”
He takes up vigil again, perching once more, this time on the edge of the chair by the window, gazing out through the shroud of shadow to the city below. She’s babbling, it’s beginning to irritate him.
“Rest. The sooner you are better, the sooner you can make good on your word.”
He does not look to her then, his tones once more dulcet, though she still hears that true voice, at least a little. He’s too tired, too heavy with sorrow to mask it, or himself from her eyes.
She nods briefly, the automatic gesture bringing pain to the back of her neck. It doesn’t require a reply, and she has said all she could. There was nothing to hope for anymore, the moment she stepped into the house and its shroud of darkness.
Nudging the travel cup away from her, she sets it on the duvet, propped against her side. Moving enough to put it on the bedside table would be a torment, and it isn’t likely she can move from that position in any case.
For all that had happened, it had been a long day and longer night, and the Goddess collapses into slumber instants after closing her eyes.