andras
i am angry.
i have nothing to say about it.
i am not sorry for the cost.
E
verything is suddenly very warm-- the lights, the bodies both crammed together and still at respectful distances from one another, and, when Pilate turns his attention on him, Andras is suddenly very, very warm.At first, Pilate is scowling, which is one of the least surprising things he's seen, he thinks. At first, there are just the eyebrows pushed together and down, those bright amber eyes a shade or two darker under the lashes, the lips cut in something halfway between a frown and a sneer. Andras watches this, and he watches it smooth itself out as he approaches, and all at once the music, the winking lights, the bodies fade into the blur of the background.
He didn't want to come to the party.
He didn't.
But he watches Pilate learn against the bar in front of him, when he sees the row of snakes braided together and the light glancing off their scales, Andras realizes that he was always going to have come.
Warden, Pilate greets, since when have you cared about whether you're bothering me? and Andras leans forward, still all teeth. "Reconnaissance." he says, with levity, "So that I can bother you efficiently." As he leans back there is that warm thing in him again-- admiration, he thinks.
He is really not the type to drink, only at the suggestion of others and on exceedingly rare, special occasions; when Pilate slides the glass to him from across the bar, Andras looks at it for a moment, tiny bubbles rising and breaking open on the surface. It is an amber color, almost gold in the warm light of the party, with strings of red liquid as if it were a marble, polished to translucence except for the wave in the center.
Andras blinks, once, twice, summoning the courage, then lifts the glass to his lips and tips it back. It tastes cold, the sort of mint that drives into your tongue like the dead of winter. He licks the back of his teeth as he lowers the glass, watching it swirl before it settles back into its strange red-and-gold swirl.
Nothing but his eyes move as he looks up at Pilate, over the rim of his glasses. When the rest of his face does move it is only to crack into a smile. "While I'm already bothering you, I guess," here he pauses, swirls the drink one more time in punctuation, "you should have one, as well."
Andras huffs through his nose. A cut-off laugh.
"In honor of our friendship."
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
