andras
i am angry.
i have nothing to say about it.
i am not sorry for the cost.
A
ndras coughs.Does it matter, Pilate asks, and his face splits into a grin, all teeth, like looking into a mirror. Andras laughs through his nose, just a breath or two, but doesn't respond-- his teeth are snapped too tightly together, digging into the answer that beats at the back of his tongue. It doesn't hold. Of course it doesn't hold. The drink sloshes around in his belly like it's laughing and it pushes his heart straight out of his mouth.
"No," he says, without meaning to, "I would have drained it anyway." Andras says as regret digs its hands into his chest and twists it around. As soon as he says it he knows it is too much, another tick on the fast-running clock of his desperate joy. Sometimes he thinks the only thing Pilate likes less than being honest himself is when Andras is. He looks down at his glass to bide time, fishing for one more second, two, three if he's greedy, to bask in the light cast off the sharp knife of his presence.
--and Pilate has the entire audacity to think Andras would do anything other than flay himself alive for Pilate's attention, if that's what it took, if he was given the choice.
Nervously, Andras turns the glass on the counter, its faces catching the glance of each hanging light until it looks like a handful of fireflies crushed into the surface, all different, dancing colors. There is some soft, slow-moving fear that winds around his ankles and the spaces between his wings and his ribs, first stealing all of his warmth then burning it back in and repeating the cycle until Andras is dizzy. The music is louder, now, and faster. More bodies, more fabric that touches his skin for just a moment, more voices, a dull roar in the distance-- all this, but Andras is looking at Pilate.
A sigh. A breath that Andras didn't know he was holding until he tried to gasp and there was no air to draw. He watches Pilate's eyes drop, his mouth move; even when Pilate says honest things they are lies.
He says it almost too quietly to hear, also, quietly enough that the warden has to lean in to listen, and when it comes out he is too close to hide (as if that were an option). You wouldn't want me. It's like watching him fall, a body plummeting out of the sky. It's like watching him drown and not having long enough arms to pull him back up. One wing lifts off his back-- for perhaps the first time in his life, Andras is struck with the desire, the absolute need, to gather someone close and protect them. He doesn't. He can't. Andras tucks his wing back into place. Gods, he wants to.
"That's-- no." he argues. "Absolutely wrong. The only thing I've ever wanted for myself, the only thing, is you. I want to know who you are." Andras clenches his teeth, and sets the glass aside, thunking louder this time. An almost aggressive sound, rife with the force of his need, his affection, the thing begging him to wrap his wings around Pilate and keep him safe, at all costs.
He groans without knowing he's groaning. For one bright, lucid moment, Andras remembers the party, the bodies, the strangers packed into the kitchen alongside him and his prince. He almost asks Pilate if they need to leave. His face says it for him.
Then, quietly: "I need another drink."
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
