andras
i am angry.
i have nothing to say about it.
i am not sorry for the cost.
A
ndras tries to crack an ice cube between his teeth quietly enough to go unnoticed.The drink settles into his stomach like cold, sometimes interrupted by the sting of strong liquor. Around him things are a comfortable blur, like everything is just slightly unfocused except for the tingling that begins at the tips of his wings, the glass in his hand, strangely heavy once he remembers he’s holding it, and Pilate, scowling down at him like he's a child, or a particularly headstrong dog, wallowing through the trash.
Andras wants to be angry. He wants to spark and pop and belch smoke and feel anything but the sick warmth in his chest or what feels like a balloon trying to float its way out of his throat. Instead he is almost giddy when Pilate admonishes him; there is something comfortable and strangely familiar about it, like it was never a question what Pilate thought or how he would react. He would love to know without having to guess. The longer he goes the more questions he has, and no time to ask them.
It’s almost predictable. The razor’s edge slit of his pupils in the pit of his fossil-bright eyes is probably Andras’ closest friend. He would worry if he had it in him to care. There is never enough time to care. Andras will say one, two, maybe three sentences and then Pilate will push him away.
He wonders if he will get tired of pulling him back. (He doubts it.)
Let Pilate scowl if he wants. For his part, Andras is smiling. "Outhouse liquor!" he laughs, with his tongue on the back of his teeth, "Is that what you think of me?" It would be so much easier to be angry. It would be so much more comfortable. But still Andras is warm and open and watches Pilate down his own drink, he assumes, as an example: this is how to be .
The warden swallows one half of the ice cube, thinking, and then he next when Pilate speaks. I made this, he says. Andras stares at him.
”What’s in it?” he says, almost too softly. The tingling in the tips of his wings has spread now to his ankles. Andras finally sets his mostly-empty glass on the counter and sighs. Around him the music has gone quiet, and even the cold skin of strangers, as they brush against his ribs or the backs of his wings of his hocks in passing, don't draw his attention.
A part of him wishes it was like this all the time, his world reduced to one point of focus: the prince, and his one little piece of the bar, and his Warden, staring at him like he's the last breathtaking thing on earth.
”Are you this hard to figure on purpose?" Andras asks. "Or is it just how you are?"
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
