07-21-2020, 12:30 AM
“I know when you go
down all your darkest roads
I would have followed all the way
to the graveyard.”
down all your darkest roads
I would have followed all the way
to the graveyard.”
He has already split her open and yet he doesn’t stop. Even though she does not retaliate, even though she does not point out the hypocrisy of his statements, he keeps going. He is no longer chipping away at her – he is destroying her. Every word, every blow, widens the wedge that he insists on placing between them, until it is a chasm so deep she does not know if it will ever close.
She has learned, over the years, to be content with what small affections she is offered. She has learned to purposely read too much into small gestures, to accept that she may not ever get any kind of affirming words, but that she had to instead place her trust in other things.
Such as him bringing her here at all, or the way that he has touched her and held her.
She has known all along that there was a risk to this. That she could be reading it wrong, because men like Atrox didn’t love women like her. Not when he had already had someone that matched all his strength and ferocity; Twinge was everything sharp and unyielding, and she was anything but.
He dismantles every romanticized notion with every word that he speaks, he tears everything down with the precision of the predator she had known him to be.
What a fool she must be, to be surprised when the predator finally turned on its prey.
She is silent for most of it, having effectively closed herself off enough that even when he reminds her that they are nothing she does not react (it burrows into her mind though, like a thorn, where she will pick and overanalyze it later), until he needles her with mentioning her string of relationships, if they could even be called that. That is enough to make her flinch, to spur the tears that had been trapped in her throat to spill tracks down her porcelain cheeks, shimmering beneath the light of her halo. “I already know what I am, Atrox,” she says, painfully soft, the words watery with the tears that she chokes down. “You think you’re the first one to tell me I’m a slut? You think I don’t know there is usually only one reason anyone wants anything to do with me?”
By now she has taken several steps back, trembling as she struggles for breath against the panic that continues to close around her chest. One last time, her tear-soaked gaze locks with his, and the strength in her voice entirely betrays the way she is so clearly falling apart. “Of course I won’t worry about you,” she tells him, and there is a rare, almost unheard of edge to her voice, “even when you don’t have a woman next to you, I know you’ll have your pride to keep you warm.”
Another step back, and a glance towards the path that will lead her back to Taiga. Her common sense tells her that leaving Illum and Taiga had been a mistake; that she had been stupid for missing Atrox, for thinking any of this was real. She looks at him again, and that fleeting moment of anger fades, replaced entirely again by pain. Because in a single glance she remembers the feel of him holding her against his chest, the look on his face when he was trying not to smile or pretending to only be half-interested in what she was saying. She looks at him, and she remembers why she had been convinced it was real, and does not understand why he is suddenly pretending it wasn’t, but she knows that today it is going to be a losing battle.
“You’re going to miss me,” she whispers to him, all the sorrow again on her tongue, bittersweet like the tears that sting her throat, “and I only hope you eventually realize that you miss me more than you love your ego.”
She doesn’t give him the chance to answer. She turns, and she disappears, reluctantly taking all the pieces of her that he broke with her.
She has learned, over the years, to be content with what small affections she is offered. She has learned to purposely read too much into small gestures, to accept that she may not ever get any kind of affirming words, but that she had to instead place her trust in other things.
Such as him bringing her here at all, or the way that he has touched her and held her.
She has known all along that there was a risk to this. That she could be reading it wrong, because men like Atrox didn’t love women like her. Not when he had already had someone that matched all his strength and ferocity; Twinge was everything sharp and unyielding, and she was anything but.
He dismantles every romanticized notion with every word that he speaks, he tears everything down with the precision of the predator she had known him to be.
What a fool she must be, to be surprised when the predator finally turned on its prey.
She is silent for most of it, having effectively closed herself off enough that even when he reminds her that they are nothing she does not react (it burrows into her mind though, like a thorn, where she will pick and overanalyze it later), until he needles her with mentioning her string of relationships, if they could even be called that. That is enough to make her flinch, to spur the tears that had been trapped in her throat to spill tracks down her porcelain cheeks, shimmering beneath the light of her halo. “I already know what I am, Atrox,” she says, painfully soft, the words watery with the tears that she chokes down. “You think you’re the first one to tell me I’m a slut? You think I don’t know there is usually only one reason anyone wants anything to do with me?”
By now she has taken several steps back, trembling as she struggles for breath against the panic that continues to close around her chest. One last time, her tear-soaked gaze locks with his, and the strength in her voice entirely betrays the way she is so clearly falling apart. “Of course I won’t worry about you,” she tells him, and there is a rare, almost unheard of edge to her voice, “even when you don’t have a woman next to you, I know you’ll have your pride to keep you warm.”
Another step back, and a glance towards the path that will lead her back to Taiga. Her common sense tells her that leaving Illum and Taiga had been a mistake; that she had been stupid for missing Atrox, for thinking any of this was real. She looks at him again, and that fleeting moment of anger fades, replaced entirely again by pain. Because in a single glance she remembers the feel of him holding her against his chest, the look on his face when he was trying not to smile or pretending to only be half-interested in what she was saying. She looks at him, and she remembers why she had been convinced it was real, and does not understand why he is suddenly pretending it wasn’t, but she knows that today it is going to be a losing battle.
“You’re going to miss me,” she whispers to him, all the sorrow again on her tongue, bittersweet like the tears that sting her throat, “and I only hope you eventually realize that you miss me more than you love your ego.”
She doesn’t give him the chance to answer. She turns, and she disappears, reluctantly taking all the pieces of her that he broke with her.
ryatah