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coccineum-vocatorem · 2 months

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vmbral:

There was no hope to stay planted where he stood, even if he had had the inclination. Astreul’s whole frame felt limp, and he did not so much register the loud clap of the lock or the creaking of the door’s hinges more than he felt the overbearing heat hitting his own cold features. The realization of stumbling inside did not land, either — although there was some semblance of self-awareness in the way he was left to stand there, for a moment, head hanging between drooping shoulders.

Before he felt her weight against his. The whole of her. A tad too forcefully — or was that his knee giving where it should not? Perhaps that was him, slumping like a rope against the insistence of his dear friend’s clinging, like he had wanted to do since…

He did not remember. Always. Most of the night, most nights. The ragged, bursting sigh that threatened to escape him at the sound of his name would have to be wrestled back inside, or else he would surely bend the knee and take her down with him. His head was hanging next to hers as it was, the damp, black tendrils that kept sticking to his skin surely staining hers in turn.

A good thing for Latielle that they were not alone. The realization startled him to a degree, on his part, had him jolt into whatever drop of steadiness he had left like some sort of wounded animal. It could only be Pivienne, he did at least retain the awareness to know as much; although the shape of her was nothing more than a shadow in his periphery, shrouded in the dimness that made her residence. Astreul made to look at the blotch of it from under his slackening brow, his sights blurred with the sudden heat that crawled on his skin until he thought he was sweating. There would be no expression to speak of on his face. Nothing but the fading need to flinch at her, his temple still whistling inside in spite of his clambering tiredness.

There was, still, the urge to remain on edge.

Pivienne took the need with her somewhat, her steps creaking in the darkness until Astreul could hear his own breathing over their muffled pattern. No sense in focusing on them — he could barely acknowledge the prickling of Latielle’s eyes, scouring him from under his gaze with a sharpness he, himself, lacked. Astreul blinked slowly and drunkenly in acknowledgement, but his stare remained unseeing in spite of his attempts to breach the surface. Such honesty, to him, this moment. Such weakness. He could not even muster the embrace she had granted him, no matter how much he had wanted to give her just that, and so often — his arms hanging limply to each side of him.

But he lacked even the will to berate himself for it. That would come later. For now he endured the analyzing quality of her closeness, almost obediently. Astreul had come as he was, had he not — soiled to whatever extent suited the deed. No moment had been wasted in checking if his knees were damp with mud and other filth, no beat spent cleaning his features or removing the stains that marked him for what he had done. Not even the sweat he was sparing her.

Latielle, as ever, did not seem to care. Or chose to keep her cheeky berating in favor of tugging at his hand, as she often did. Sit, she ordered, eventually, and Astreul’s head snapped toward her like he held any confusion as to where. It was only that her voice felt some level of strange when all he could focus on was the weight of his boot on the wooden floor.

And the corpse’s gurgling.

It replayed in her absence, again and again. If there was anything that could breach his mind’s insistence, or the last whiff of piss and sewer that clung fiercely to the inside of his nose, then surely it was what she poured before him as he gnawed his own thoughts. Astreul’s nose scrunched as if spurred by fear itself, and a false fear he would have shown were he not so utterly defeated. It was just a touch, now, the slightest flinch of his closing fist atop his thigh; the sideways glance that he would pretend was his pondering as she sat to his side, for a moment, then in his lap.

He did not want to say that if he went and downed the stuff, whatever remained in his stomach would come right out. As if his face must not have been enough to give it away. The palest, feeblest attempt of a smile appeared at the corner of his lip, shivery and pathetic, but there. Something had hardened on top of his cheek —sweat? Dust? Something else?—, and it cracked tautly the moment he made to move his mouth. Astreul wanted so much to laugh about it all; so much, so hard. He wanted his voice to come out of his lungs and grant him some manner of purchase. Or anything. Anything that would have him sever the line of his stare, again, when it fell on hers more so than stayed steady upon her violet eyes. Or grant it the means to show what he could not voice.

To say that her weight on his was comforting did not quite cover it. It was more akin to clinging to her, what he was doing. Only missing the shivering of his chin, his pupils traversed the scouring expanse of her irises, as unsteady as his own mind. Every last word that could occur to him was mangled, incomplete. Each of them fought with the image of Theomont’s crusty, soot-soiled scalp against wet cobblestone, and for each sound his mind conjured up, there came his ghastly wheezing to drown it before they could form.

It all seemed either too distant for it to be a memory, or too recent. Too raw, despite his mind’s unwillingness to place it in time. However much time had passed since the fact, Astreul’s pulse thrummed still, and he could notice it now in the quivering of his fingertips. Did it drum so for what he did? He could not quite know if the rush accosted him for the sin it had been. The crime. Should he have not done more? The thought of the man’s ruined scalp did only bring an itch to bash it in, after all. The drowned sound of his pleas did only make him wish they were still there so he could shut them up again.

Why did he feel so… displaced, then? Why could he feel not a hint of pride, the way he had the moment Latielle had admitted to not loving the man at all? To even place her words seemed all too similar to grasping at sand, at this moment. Why did he feel this… tiredness.

So he clung to her gaze, scoured her tightening, worried expression to find some manner of poise.

Until she, and nothing else, had him finally give. He should have known. It would’ve been idiocy not to expect some manner of softness from her — but the issue was that he could not have expected it to this extent. Or this brand of it. Some fussing, Astreul could have lived with; some manner of scolding to yank him back on his feet and have him laughing at the whole of it, the way his own did. What he got instead was the feathery cupping of her fingers around his face, softer yet than any touch he could give her.

What he got was Latielle’s questioning writ all over the worried crinkle between her brows, the answer to which he could not muster, but one she must have gauged already, so clever she was. Either way, she did not comment on it. Her voice and gesture had his features blanching, regardless, and the rest of his softening — but that was more his own inability to look at the way her smile made her squint and not fall apart in the process. Or perhaps his need to finally crumble, and bend under the weight of all that he had kept wrapped up inside to be discarded.

It did almost have him lurching, his hazel stare widening with the first drops of desperation he could not quite hide before he did finally wrap his arms around her to cling to her with all that he was. Astreul pressed the burning behind his eyelashes to her neck with full intent, would have to apologize later for how utterly disgusting he must feel against her skin.

But he had no other choice, did he. The weight of how much he missed her had him set to burst at the seams, to the point where he must have surely trembled.

With each thank you, too. Like he was owed anything. The wit to give her a cheeky ‘whatever for’ escaped him right that moment, but that did not mean he could not retaliate to whatever degree his state allowed. “Don’t be silly,” Astreul spoke, finally, too late to wipe the initial swell in his voice away, at first. “I’d have done it much sooner.”

And he would have. She must know this, and perhaps the rest of what he was going to say as well, though he muttered it with all the foulness it brought forth from his chest.

“I should have.”

To prod, he could point at her silence. Was it not in his nature — to poke fun, and have her see just how indignant he felt about being kept in the dark about something? Anything? Even as a way to request that she never do it again? Should he not be insufferable about this, as he was about everything else?

It was so unlike him, was it not. Not to put the man out of his misery —although he had never done it alone, and certainly not for anyone outside of the brothel—, but the strident, turbulent torrent of all that had his jaw clamped shut lest he screamed. There was something else churning inside of him, twisting his stomach into knots and blanching his skin, keeping him shivering even in the smothering warmth of this place and her. It was not Theomont’s last moments, those he would chew on in silence.

It was fear.

Fear, like the one that had had the bastard whimpering under his boot, and just as violent. It set his jaw against her neck for a moment, and he felt the burning behind his lids grow more and more broiling, but he spilled nothing. Astreul swallowed, his throat bobbing not without difficulty. His grip must’ve surely turned bruising in his struggling.

“If he had done more, I—” he began. The constriction at the back of his throat did not quite let him breathe, so ironic things were, but that mattered little against putting his point across.

The point being that there would have been nothing he could have done, if she had kept her silence longer. If it had not been a fist, but a jab to the rib. A set of hands clenching around her throat for her misconducts, or whatever it was that had driven him to this. The notion felt more bitter yet than anything he might be able to stomach, more so than what he had grown accustomed to in the months she had been away. Had the man not been such a viper, Astreul might have taken comfort in simply having her near. He might have been able to live with the scraps if that meant he could have been granted some portion of what she was, and leave it at that.

But to be without—

Again he shivered, but he did not cry. Astreul simply clung to his dearest friend, his heart hammering as if it were unwilling to believe that nothing was wrong at all. That she was there, still. Bruised, but there.

“I don’t know.”

coccineum-vocatorem:

Silly, he had the gall to call her. After what he had done–

Or perhaps not that. Was that the crux of the issue, truly? That he had done it? No, she didn’t think so. She should have expected he would do it, and yes, she should have said something earlier instead of being silly and keeping him in the dark in regards to… Everything. That she could admit she was silly for.

But not for thanking him. Not with the toll the deed looked to have taken on him, as she went on to voice in an indignant complaint, “You don’t get to come back looking like… Like this, and call me silly.” Heated, her voice, though she did naught more than wrap her arms around him as he was wrapping himself all around her. Was it concern that prompted her to scold him in such a manner? Of course. Was he alright? Her friend seemed so far from alright that she felt fully and utterly justified in being a little concerned over him, and for it to then be suggested that she should have taken his actions for granted..!

No. Unacceptable. She was going to be unimaginably grateful if she wanted to be and he was just going to have to live with her gratitude and everything it was prompting—such as her worry over his state of mind, even if he looked whole in body. Soiled, but had Theomont put up much of a fight at all? From what she had been able to see, Astreul looked unharmed.

Physically. Whatever was going on in his head? She never wanted to see him so affected by… Anything, but especially not this. Especially not something done for her sake.

So, for now she ignored the grime covering him to brush her fingers through his hair where his face was pressed to her neck—it wasn’t as if she was unused to the shit filthying so many areas of this place. She had grown up playing in the dirt, sullying her skin and her clothes both, and though her adult self tried to take a bit more care of her appearance, the impossibility of staying as pleasantly, disgustingly perfumed as the nobles of the Pillars… That remained. Her upbringing, the days entertaining herself by digging through the filth, that remained.

It could all be washed, but what would wash away what was on his mind? What would return him to normalcy? Latielle was not going to so much as entertain the thought that this had somehow cracked him, broken a part of him—no, no. He would bounce back. She would see to it. He would regain his ease and his jest and be back to normal in no time at all.

He hinted towards what was bothering him so with what he said as he held her all the tighter, as if afraid she would suddenly disappear from his grasp if he let his hold loosen any, undone out of existence as easily as a bubble burst. She swallowed a small noise of complaint over the tightness of his grip, because… It didn’t seem like the best of times for such childish whining. Not when he was feeling like this. Acting like this.

What if Theomont had done more? How far would that man have gone, if given the chance? If Latielle continued to refuse to bend and break, continued to hiss at him when he tried to get her to step back in line and do as told… How far? How far could she have pushed him?

She didn’t know and didn’t want to know, and she never would have. Thanks to Astreul, no such thing would come to pass, now. Theomont was squarely gone, never to bother her again with his unreasonable demands and his quickly sparking anger that had proven to give way to violence when pushed far enough. Whatever possibilities her mind wanted to entertain, those venomous what ifs that would have utterly destroyed her peace of mind, surely–

Those she put a stop to before they could run completely rampant and trample every good thought of hers under their ugly hooves.

It seemed Astreul wasn’t as successful at making them cease before they could take over and stifle everything else. Where she wanted to focus on her gratefulness, on the success of the act that his arrival had spelled—not that she’d ever doubted he would return to her from that adventure deadly to another, had she?—he was… Upset. Some manner of upset; trapped in his head when she wanted him here, with her, in the present.

He didn’t know, he said. Didn’t know what he would have done if Theomont had not been stopped when he had. “Astreul,” she said softly, her hand clenching in his hair to rub her fingertips on his scalp. Was her tone the smallest, most gentle of admonishments? A little bid to have him stop this spiral of his thoughts? “You don’t have to know, now.” No more. No more was Theomont any manner of danger; a threat to no one, he was. Some might mourn him, wonder what a good, virtuous man such as him had done to deserve such a fate, but she would not be one of them. She could not be fooled after seeing what the bastard was really like.

Not a single tear would she shed for him. Not a single thing did she feel over his demise, besides the positive. Relief. Gladness.

Relief that her life had been freed in such manner. Gladness that she could spend her time as she wanted to, again, without having to worry about what someone would think of it and however he might try to make her regret anything his lordship did not approve of.

What now? Now she could go back to her life as it was before this misadventure, spend her days as carefree as she could, with Astreul–

That was the important part. With her friend. And… That part. Would that stay the same? Did she want it to stay the same?

Did he want it to stay the same?

Those questions would need to be answered, but first. First. Tending to him. “You need a bath,” she said, stated that very undeniable truth with as much as conviction as she would state the sky was blue, because it was so very true. “You stink.

“And you’re slimy.” Or whatever word one might want to use of him right now. Crusty. Sticky.

So. A bath. A bath was in tall order, not only for his physical cleanliness, but… Would it ease his mind as well? A little? Help him relax and put the negative thoughts behind him? She dearly, dearly hoped so, if only to get him to return to her in mind as he had in body. After that, rest. Or perhaps a bite to eat, if he could stomach something. Right now he didn’t seem capable of enough stability of any kind to manage that.

Considering the state she would have surely been in in his shoes, she wasn’t sure she could blame him—but then again, it was known in quite a few circles that she did not do well around things like blood. Death. Gaping injuries. Those were the matter of the day quite often, and yet she had next to no ability to withstand them—their looks or their smells. It was only the grace of the sewage stench he was covered by that helped her ignore the iron smell of blood under it.

But she would prefer there was no stench at all on him. “Will you wait here if I prepare one?” she asked, a touch more softly than she had stated his need of the bath she wanted to give him. Was going to give him, rather—she had no intention of giving him a say in the matter in the utter state he was in. He needed a wash for the physical as well as the hope that the cleanliness in body would help cleanse his mind a little as well.

A bath there would be, and the only question was where he wanted to spend his time while she set the water. He could sit peacefully right here, and that was perhaps the option she would most prefer, for he did not seem quite… Steady in body. One might call him a little shaky, even. Having him safely seated somewhere was her preference, but at the same time, he was holding onto her so tightly she wasn’t completely convinced he would accept much distance or a severed line of sight with her.

Whatever his preference, she would work around it, but bathe him she would.

#threads: astielle #threads #vmbral

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