[P] ninety-nine problems

[Andras]

and i was a hand grenade
that never stopped exploding

The last dregs of electricity slough off his skin in lazy sparks, bouncing along at his heels until they, too, are inevitably snuffed out. Andras remembers now he is tired, marrow-deep fatigue that, now that he is not propped up by his anger or his magic, leaves him cold and spent, like so many rags on the ground. The shelf of books is a dreamy blur, much too far for Andras to see even with his glasses, but he reads them as best as he can, looking at something--anything--that is not this man with his heavy orange eyes and a smile like his snakes. Enticing. Dangerous. Andras wonders why he thinks words like enticing and why it is not then but when he thinks dangerous that whatever shoddy scaffolding is holding him up starts to creak under his weight.

There is nothing in particular that screams 'dangerous' about Pilate, no defining feature that Andras can point to and say 'eureka,' not the incalculable patience or the gold of his eyes or the white winter light on his scales. When there is movement out of the corner of his eye, either as small as a blink or as large as an inclination of the head--to watch Andras now that Andras is not, in turn, watching Pilate--he does not think that he is of any particular danger.

Danger, his heart says, lying. Maybe he wishes it wasn't. Maybe it isn't. He cannot find it in him to care.

The man unfolds his legs and rolls to a stand, the bones of his lurching shoulders peeking over the fabric that falls to the side, floating momentarily on the cold winter air. He stretches--languid, catlike--with each dark leg straightened like a prayer, or a sin, or some entirely other entity altogether, a god he doesn't know with a name he can't say. 

He doesn't realize he is staring--not so much like a lech as a person reading a particularly intetresting book or drinking a particularly tasty wine--until it is far, far too late, and even though Andras knits his brow and looks away he cannot deny that it happened.

Pilate, he says, with one side of his mouth curling into a wicked sickle. It sounds like the dry desert sun, like courtyards and servants and the ungodly fire of his eyes. He is coming closer now, so slowly that Andras stiffens when he takes the first step, smiling the way dogs smile, unkindly and full of teeth. A challenge? A threat? He cannot tell.

"Sweet?" he says, slowly. He has lost track of his eyes. Are they staring? Does he care? "I sincerely hope you're being sarcastic."  The laugh that comes out of Andras is unexpected and tense, the way children laugh in a purportedly haunted house. He has never felt more like a haunted house in his life, with every ghost singing yes in unison, but instead of the drum of his rage he can hear only his heart. Pounding. Pounding. On its own walls, its own door, everywhere.

Andras thinks, fuck.

@Pilate