Who: Envy (bringthemlow) [Narrative] What: On too-long silences. When: X-Mas week. Where: Southern California. Warnings: Nothing major. Standard Sin stuff.
He ought to have been reveling, or close to it; now was a jump in Envy’s cycle, the annual plot of he, of two similar brother-beings before turning back to bitter, bilious Envy. Gluttony’s paper-thin pretense at holiday and family (“You can’t stand to be around them, can you?” A pause, a guilty glance about, then a shy, smiling stranger-confession: “No, I can’t.”) which so quickly ramped up into Greed’s season, the season of giving and take-take-taking from as many grasping hands as possible. He ought to have been reveling -- just around the corner now, more blood-thrumming almost-satisfaction of men’s hearts beating to his tune -- but. There was always a ‘but’.
There was a pattern to things, a plan -- not the ineffable capital-P sort, but close enough for hellbent Sins -- a play of light dappled across darkness wherein order and chaos lay side by side. Envy took pleasure from that, occasionally grounded himself in it in a way which almost approached reasserting sanity. (“I know exactly how you feel.” Doubt, fast washed away by a radiating sincerity so that she leaned in toward him for a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you? Sometimes I sort of hate mine.” Russell blinking where Envy’s serpentine eyes could not, Russ of the harmless face and the arresting voice reassuring she was not alone and oh, how he sympathized, empathized -- fantasized a conclusion, though that last was left off for decorum’s sake.) Order amidst the disorder was the name of his game, that swath of souls which Envy and his siblings cut through marching in neat lines down to Hell for processing and manhandling. Men were their trade, souls the cargo Sins dealt in, yet there were always and ever personal pet projects sitting and waiting to one side.
Family. (“I think everyone does and just avoids saying as much. Courtesy, you know.” Out came the mask, less cleverly applied than usual, but still old hat, still good enough to pass for man-not-monster. They’d trade names and embarrassing stories and eventually a phone number -- his, not hers, because the initiative was the initiative, and when she accepted it with the Eve-smile women wore when they thought they knew, Envy sat behind Russell’s face and studied her thin wrists, then thought of Famine.) Family remained an obsession, a fatal flaw in a creature comprised of nothing but: knots in wood and blemishes in jewels, these were the things Envy was made of. The desire to take his siblings close and rend them to shreds -- pull them in, wrap long arms around them each and every one, pour poison in their ears, take knife in hand and cut and cut and cut until each sibling-Sin was so much offal bleeding empty-useless at his feet. He’d be free of them then. The horn would blow and the Horsemen would ride, and Envy would not be satiate, but he would know silence masquerading as peace at last, thank Christ.
Gluttony. (She liked cocktails. Too much, enough to bring her guard down.) Then Sloth. (“Do you want to stay in? I don’t really--” “Yes, of course.”) Wrath. (The ranting she did, hot blood surface-close. Not real violence, but peel away the civility and yes, yes, yes.) Greed. (“It’s not fair, goddammit. I deserved better -- all of it, honestly, and it’s just-- argh! I want it.” “I know you do.”) Lust. (They all soft-focus transitioned from one to the other to the other until she was tipsy and straddling him on the sofa; it all came down to this same scene, precise as clockwork every time.) And oh, Pride. (He kissed her because that was part of the play, and she put his hands on her breasts but his mind was elsewhere, halfway across the city and awash in blood and blades and photoshoots.)
Pride called him out. Pride broke the pattern, said aloud things which weren’t to be spoken of, which should never hear light of day or warmth of breath. (“Tell me again, what you plan on doing to them.” “Russ. Russ, please, I need-- I--” “Tell me first.”) Pride took his plan and crushed it underfoot with absolute disinterest, perfect face implacable and Envy was just an insect, a weed, a thing beside him, and God the shock was white but the rage was red and the bile which pumped through his veins might still be green-eyed monster, Christmas-appropriate in this season of seasons but Envy fell silent as the grave because, because, because--
Because he had nothing. Ached for everything, achieved not a whit of it during these long ages as Invidia-then-Envy. She’d been weak in the heart and eyes and breast, stared up at Superbia-the-sun and shook for wanting. Unacceptable behavior. Be strong. Maintain dignity. Pride. Envy, then: tall, reed-thin, more prepared to guard against than evil-eyed she had been. (He left her loose-limbed and susceptible, armed and at the ready. She’d wake the next morning and have her own plan in mind, one which would drag everyone -- her family, her friends -- down to her level.) Spread long fingers wide to cast out influence like some vile fisherman’s net, to bring the world down into the mud. First men, then Sins, then Pride. All part of the plan; God would be amused and approve, he told himself. And when Yahweh was shoved to one side in favor of the best and worst and brightest of them all? When his carefully constructed piece-by-part was burned away by an idle observation?
Fuck it, he decided. If king of the inaccessible castle decided the rules were out, then Envy would reinvent them to his own liking. If this was to be their game, then the game would be played to his pleasure. Sins weren’t so far separated from the women or men who spawned them, after all, and men had their pride. So too.