someone says: i have forgotten how to pray; this is not to say that there is no divinity between us, in this; merely that i do not know what to do with it.
He steps forward. The store is alive with the sound of his breathing, a noise that fills every corner until it fades into the same myopic blur as everything else. The only thing clear is the drum of his heart as it clunks away in his chest, clumsily scrambling for purchase in the cave of his deep, dark want. The only crisp line is the bend of his knee as he takes another step, then another, creeping with the patience of a cat: not quite patient at all, really, just a slowness in opposition to the tight line of his back, or the thing that is coiled in his stomach, cold and heavy.
The thing is named, "Pilate," a name he says again, and again, because it feels good in some entirely unwholesome way. If he wasn't overcome, suddenly, by a bigger, deeper need than the rest to see what his own name looks like when it's said by a prince, it may never have occured to him at all that Pilate doesn't know his.
It matters so little, really; what is Andras? An animal? A warden? A fool?
It matters so little, except that now he can think of nothing but the mouth saying his name, in that voice that makes him clench his jaw, either because he hates it or he doesn't.
The room is as quiet as a church, now. Andras pulls a breath that is smooth and lets it back out in a way that is entirely too graceful to be natural. He imagines Pilate doing the same, breathing for silence, lungs filling so slow they hurt, the manic smile of someone either getting away with murder, or trapping a boy in a store with his whole soul in his throat--they're about the same, considering.
Through the fog of the room, the uneven shapes, the faded discs of light that are no more an object than they are a color with no lens to filter them through, Andras feels a pinch, and a tug, that jolts straight up his spine in a crackling wave. It hurts like a thing in him falling into place, loudly. He half-expects Pilate to react to the sound, it's so loud. Fuck, he thinks for the hundredth time, though it sounds more like a prayer than a curse in his head.
Andras turns, either ripping his tail out of Pilate's grip or breaking the hair between his teeth. It seems fitting that Pilate is the one thing he sees clearly; behind him there is the sharp blur of the bookshelf and beyond that the dark shapes of the corner. Beyond that everything is an indiscriminate smudge of color--but he can see Pilate, the sharp lines of his face, the snakes that smile as well as any snake can. Andras' own face is sharp and dark, tucked into a humorless frown, that grows into the tiniest smile when he sees that one of Pilate's snakes is holding his glasses.
Andras untucks his wings and leans forward, reaching for the frames with the tip of one. He hates this game, hates the tension, hates that each inch winds him tighter, and tighter, until--
"Please," he whispers, "can I have my fucking glasses back."
It doesn't sound so much like begging as it is.
all you want to do is dance out of your skin into another song not quite about heroes, but still a song where you can lift the spear and say yes as it flashes.
@
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
