Demon spawn…so it’s not her fault. Of course, it’s not her fault. He can’t give up on her…
Your girlfriend will not be the exception.
“I…I can’t understand.” He replies, taking a hesitant step closer. With one shaking hand, he reaches out, intending to gently trail his fingers over one furry limb.
“You attacked me—you killed me the day we met, but you’re talking to me now. I—how much control do you have over this?”
She offers him a clawed hand, docile and harmless compared to her usual violence in this form. These claws which rend flesh now rest placidly in his fingers.
Then, she changes again. The challenge of talking in this form proving inconvenient. The hand shrinks back to its normal size, but this time, the flesh is blue. Her long hair returns, but still black, and her horns and wings remain. As do her blue eyes.
"That's complicated," she replies honestly. "I won't lie to you--- I control most of it. I decide when to transform, who to eat, and am fully myself when I attack. I explicitly chose you the night I attacked you because I didn't really know you then, but I knew from our conversation that you'd be walking home after dark, and where you'd be going, and that you were unarmed at the time. So it would be an easy night. But I don't get a choice about when I get hungry or for what. I have a biological need to eat humans. Specifically human offal. And if I don't--- Well, it's at least easy enough to say it's anemia. But it'd kill me after too long. And my father, my real father, wouldn't really allow that."
She pauses.
"Tiefling. That's what I'm called. Do you know that word?"
Ianto shakes his head, staring at her hand in his, very carefully, very gently meshing their fingers together—human pink to unnatural…tiefling blue.
The metal scrape of the blade. The smell of blood, so much blood…
“I was nearly slaughtered by cannibals once.” He admits softly, the tears standing in his eyes falling free even as his stomach rolls dangerously at the memory. “The blade was at my throat…I still have nightmares about the people who did it. How they looked at me…how they saw me. Saw us—played with us like toys. Beat me within an inch of my life to…to tenderize the meat.”
He draws a shaky breath, then brings her hand to his lips and kisses her palm, as soft and as tender as he ever has before he steps closer, pressing her palm to his cheek. His eyes move over her features, from horns to lips, and even despite the horrors of the memory, the affection he feels for her is visible in his eyes.
I love her.
This is where these things start. Small decisions that become mass slaughter.
“I still have trouble, sometimes. Eating meat, smelling meat…remembering my life means anything more than just—just so much…meat.” he whispers, clinging to her hand just a little bit tighter, hoping to feel something in it.
Hoping, praying for something, anything, that can reconcile the woman he loves with the monster that devoured him that terrible night.
"...That honestly just sounds like one of my father's dinner parties," she confesses, almost bland in her delivery. Neither enthusiasm nor disgust, just... acceptance. "Japhet Leeds raised me, but... more as an act of servitude than any paternal connection. My father is Aster, Prince of the Dark Feast, ruler of the domain of consumption, manipulation, and gluttony. I am the granddaughter of the current King of Hell. A tiefling is someone born of the union of a demon and a human."
She lets out a long sigh, rubbing her thumb on his. Her fingernails, manicured and neat as always, are dark blue in this form with golden tips. She is austere in her inhumanity, keeping stiff posture to hold her buck antler crown aloft. "I know this is complicated. I... can't stop, Ianto. This is what I am. I try to at least look on the bright side... no one is really dying."
Ianto’s eyes slip shut with a sigh as he lets those words sink in, turns his head to nuzzle her palm.
No one is really dying.
Lifting his gaze to hers, the tears continue to rise in his eyes and spill forth, even as he smiles softly—even as he feels himself dying slowly inside.
“This form—it’s quite striking.” He observes softly. Releasing her hand, he caresses her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Still beautiful.”
The girl you loved is gone. Your loyalty is to us now.
And yet…he can’t…
For a second his features twist with anguish, the combination of certainty and the ghosts of—God, what a stupid argument in light of this!—how they fell out before he left overwhelming him.
“Dahlia…that fight we had—I’m sorry, cariad, I’m so sorry…”
Dahlia just listens to him speak and watches him emote coldly, like a doll. Much like how she was standing on the beach the night of the sending off ceremony. The warm glow of lantern light replaced by the dim, icy lights of the wine cellar lamps emphasizes the distance. That far away feeling she used to have, before being drawn in close by love and friendship and community. And suddenly the reason for that distance is given sickening clarity.
She doesn't feel human. She is resigned to her fate, an infernal princess with a dark heart of ice. Dahlia's connection to humanity was pulled until it snapped, and now she's just so tired.
"Choice isn't something that has ever come easily to me," she explains, a bit forlorn. "There are so many things about my life that I didn't want. Didn't ask for. That I must do. I didn't want to feel like that again. Not with you. But I couldn't explain it in a way you'd understand... and I felt so angry and lost. Then you were gone. You kept walking away before I had a chance to speak."
Looking into her face—it only makes the pain worse, because he has to tell her. He has to explain the things he’s done…
For the first time, he lets himself consider the possibility that she might not understand.
“Lisa—I told you, ‘round when I first got here, that her life ended.” He explains softly, trying to force the agony away.
Later. He can hurt later—once this is done.
Once he knows whether or not he’s alone.
“What I didn’t tell you was that…she was like you. As you are—a mechanized version. Not by birth, and she was wholly human once…but she was changed. Something not human, and she was cruel. Cold—she couldn’t feel, and she killed people. In trying to save her, to shelter her, I let that happen. I betrayed people I cared for to help her…I was disloyal, and people died, including her.”
He pauses, frowning, searching her face for some sign of comprehension.
“What I did…I wasn’t trying to force your hand. I was…Dahlia, d’you understand that I felt angry and lost, too, when you accused me of using you?” He asks quietly, gently. “That’s why I kept walking away, I was so hurt and so lost myself. Do you not see that? That what I did, what I asked of you, I only asked because I thought you knew that I would say ‘yes’ if the positions were reversed? That I would never ask you to do anything I wouldn’t gladly do myself—do for you in return? I thought I was giving you a choice…not to act or not to act, but—to trust me, or to not trust me, do you understand that?”
Dahlia's eyes narrow. "Ianto, you were promising resources that weren't yours to give, and putting me in a position where I had to say yes whether I wanted to or not. If I declined, I would look like a monster. And if I accepted, then it wasn't even by my own choice. You weren't offering me a choice, you were saddling me with an obligation. And apparently, according to you, a test of my trust in you as well. Both of which were unfair. Especially when you could have just trusted me to say yes to you if you were to just ask me like an equal partner with her own autonomy."
Her frown deepens and her eyes grow colder.
"In me, you see a mirror that reflects everyone you've lost back at you. And you are so focused on these images that you no longer see me. Even now, as I show you the core of myself, you see Lisa, and you think that we're the same. And that my story will end the same way."
"I can feel, Ianto. And for a while, with you, I was warm and I was kind and I felt human. Now I just feel like another tragic monster from one of your stories of lost love."
She takes a step back from him. "Maybe I am. Maybe that's all I'm capable of."
“Have I?” He asks, and for a second he can’t breathe around how bad it hurts. “Lost your love?”
He steps forward again, looking into her eyes…and in spite of everything, he finds himself silently asking for help again.
If you’re real, give me this. Give her back to me, Celestine.
“I was wrong, Dahlia—and I am truly sorry for what I did, how badly I handled my own pain. If you can feel, if you love me as much as I love you, I’m not asking you to overlook that. I’m asking for forgiveness—a gift or a goal, I’m willing to earn it.”
Taking a deep breath, he rolls his lips together and reaches for her hand again.
“You’re right—I’ve lost, but my time away from here made me realize I haven’t lost everything. You may be a monster, but that means nothing. I’m a monster, and not all monsters do monstrous things. You’re not a mirror of my losses, you’re a reminder that there’s hope, there is always hope. I promised Celestine my life if she would save yours, and…you’re better. You killed me the day we met, and tonight you put your taloned hand in mine. That means something to me…if it means anything to you, then please, give me a chance. Not a pass, but a chance. I didn’t ask Lisa if she wanted my help, I just did it and damn the consequences. I’m asking you now…please. Please, will you let me help you?”
"I am well because my grandfather decided to put me back whole, because he was satisfied with his betrayal of the deal made to permanently kill me. Once I could transform again, I ate. Grandfather was never going to put me in any real danger, but Celestine couldn't have helped me. The divine can't touch the infernal."
Still, she considers his question. "I---" She starts to speak, but realizes she doesn't know what to say. Can she be helped? Does she want to be? Is she worth it?
Feeling too exposed in this form she so rarely wears, Dahlia shifts back to her normal appearance. A disguise, but it feels safer with the mask back on. Less naked and raw.
"I have to eat. Even separating me from the Pine Devil didn't make that not true, it just made me sick. I was born this way, and choosing not to means death. I'm sorry, but until something changes, this is the most ethical version of this situation that doesn't result in me killing myself. And I don't--- I don't know how I feel. About anything or anyone right now. You decided I didn't love you without asking, and told me so without letting me speak at the community gathering. And then you were gone. I had no choice but to let go of you that day. I already mourned the end of that relationship, I don't... know... what I want now."
"Besides. I know you've been very interested in this... 'free agent' business you posted about on the bulletin board. Considering I'm one of the groups you're looking to be free of, it's not exactly particularly neutral of you to be at my side. I wouldn't want to put a damper on your conscientious objection." There's some disdain in her voice at that. "Go be free."
It's a cord of desperation winding through him, a chant in his head that he can't stop--water and blood spilling over his fingers as she changes back to the face he knows now isn't real. However cold, distant, unsure, that strange and alien and lovely face is her and he finds himself wounded suddenly by its absence.
He thinks of seeing Jack rise from a bullet to the head, that gut-check moment of horror at the unnatural, and the wash of gratitude. Of holding him again after Abaddon claimed him...
Abaddon. The great devourer...Ianto smiles then, small but sincere.
"So you were separated from that part of you which needed to feed." he sighs. "You got sick...but you could recover. There's a way."
The smile turns to laughter as he advances a step--but it's a small one, preserving her personal space.
"I can't let you hurt anyone else--but I'm not giving up on you. I love you--and I won't be free of you. I promise: when you get hungry? When you need to feed? I'll be there."
Whether you like it or not. he adds silently as he takes a steadying breath and folds his hands in front of him.
"And as dismissals go, that won't do. I won't walk away from you again, not unless you tell me you don't want to see or speak to me."
Dahlia scoffs. "Stubborn. Fine. We'll do this your way."
Taking a step forward, she takes a fist full of his shirt and suddenly the reason for her striking physical strength despite her size snaps into place. She's been holding back.
Dahlia meets his eye, holding onto his shirt so tightly that the fabric strains. "You are dismissed. Vacate the premises and maintain a respectful distance until I say otherwise. And if I find out you've spread around what was discussed here today, or you interfere with my business in any way, I will see to it that you scream."
Then, she lets him go. Her stomach churns, hating who she has become.
Ianto’s expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t react to her strength.
When she lets him go, he smiles softly—and shakes his head.
“No.” He replies quietly. “I love you—I won’t betray you. And truthfully, I apologize if I wasn’t clear: I won't walk away from you again unless you tell me you don't want to see or speak to me."
"I am asking you to give me space. That means, for the moment, I do not want to see you. Is that sufficient?" She's getting irritated. But she's being dodgy about repeating his exact words, as if they cut her too.
The evasion does not go unnoticed, but he concedes ground to her in good faith by taking a couple of steps back towards the exit.
“I will phone. I will write. I will send others to inquire about your welfare.” He replies, still smiling.
He even takes another step back.
“Unless you tell me that you don’t want to speak to me. And I shall come to your door once a week to ask if you wish to see me—and I will do so unless you tell me you never want to see me again. Look in my eyes. Speak the words to my face…I love you, and I will do what makes you happy. But you must look in my eyes, and you must tell me it’s what you want.”
Her temper finally snaps and out of nowhere she is screaming at him, an otherworldly growl underneath the shout.
"YOU left ME! YOU'RE the one who left!YOU'RE the one who left the house when I just needed to breathe! YOU'RE the one who HUMILIATED ME in front of EVERYONE and then VANISHED! I already cried for you! Just get out of my FUCKING FACE!"
Dahlia grabs a full bottle of expensive vintage wine that's older than she is and hurls it at Ianto's feet, shattering it. That's a warning shot. She's already got another.
Sorry, Ianto, this is what happens when you date a demon girl with issues.
Ianto doesn’t flinch, but it’s a very near thing as tears flood his eyes.
Because he can see worlds in her rage. He can see a future in the screaming, the ranting—even in the danger.
She still won’t say it. And if she can excise her hurt…there’s hope.
Her pain still makes him ache, so he doesn’t try to stop the tears as they spill free.
“I hurt you. I was so wrong to do that.”
Another step back.
“I’m so very sorry, and I will do whatever it takes to earn your forgiveness. Words can’t fix it, but they can be true.”
Another step. Another smile. He has a couple more before his hand will find the railing, before he will finally have no choice but to turn around and do as he is bid.
“I’ll leave. For a while…but you’ll never be alone, Dahlia. My heart is in your hands.”
One more step.
“Beating as you work. Feeling as you try to kill anyone that isn’t me. Loving you, no matter what you’re doing.”
One more step. He reaches back for the railing.
“You’re wrong, you know. The infernal can touch the divine. After all…I’ve touched you.”
He smiles one more time before he turns and, with deliberate slowness, begins his climb up the stairs.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thethirteenthchild
no subject
Date: 2024-02-21 02:13 am (UTC)"Always been... like this," she grumbles. "Demon spawn."
no subject
Date: 2024-02-21 02:23 am (UTC)Your girlfriend will not be the exception.
“I…I can’t understand.” He replies, taking a hesitant step closer. With one shaking hand, he reaches out, intending to gently trail his fingers over one furry limb.
“You attacked me—you killed me the day we met, but you’re talking to me now. I—how much control do you have over this?”
no subject
Date: 2024-02-21 02:40 am (UTC)Then, she changes again. The challenge of talking in this form proving inconvenient. The hand shrinks back to its normal size, but this time, the flesh is blue. Her long hair returns, but still black, and her horns and wings remain. As do her blue eyes.
"That's complicated," she replies honestly. "I won't lie to you--- I control most of it. I decide when to transform, who to eat, and am fully myself when I attack. I explicitly chose you the night I attacked you because I didn't really know you then, but I knew from our conversation that you'd be walking home after dark, and where you'd be going, and that you were unarmed at the time. So it would be an easy night. But I don't get a choice about when I get hungry or for what. I have a biological need to eat humans. Specifically human offal. And if I don't--- Well, it's at least easy enough to say it's anemia. But it'd kill me after too long. And my father, my real father, wouldn't really allow that."
She pauses.
"Tiefling. That's what I'm called. Do you know that word?"
CW: non-fantasy cannibalism, non-graphic references to suicidal ideation
Date: 2024-02-21 03:00 am (UTC)The metal scrape of the blade. The smell of blood, so much blood…
“I was nearly slaughtered by cannibals once.”
He admits softly, the tears standing in his eyes falling free even as his stomach rolls dangerously at the memory. “The blade was at my throat…I still have nightmares about the people who did it. How they looked at me…how they saw me. Saw us—played with us like toys. Beat me within an inch of my life to…to tenderize the meat.”
He draws a shaky breath, then brings her hand to his lips and kisses her palm, as soft and as tender as he ever has before he steps closer, pressing her palm to his cheek. His eyes move over her features, from horns to lips, and even despite the horrors of the memory, the affection he feels for her is visible in his eyes.
I love her.
This is where these things start. Small decisions that become mass slaughter.
“I still have trouble, sometimes. Eating meat, smelling meat…remembering my life means anything more than just—just so much…meat.” he whispers, clinging to her hand just a little bit tighter, hoping to feel something in it.
Hoping, praying for something, anything, that can reconcile the woman he loves with the monster that devoured him that terrible night.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-21 03:43 am (UTC)She lets out a long sigh, rubbing her thumb on his. Her fingernails, manicured and neat as always, are dark blue in this form with golden tips. She is austere in her inhumanity, keeping stiff posture to hold her buck antler crown aloft. "I know this is complicated. I... can't stop, Ianto. This is what I am. I try to at least look on the bright side... no one is really dying."
no subject
Date: 2024-02-21 04:00 am (UTC)No one is really dying.
Lifting his gaze to hers, the tears continue to rise in his eyes and spill forth, even as he smiles softly—even as he feels himself dying slowly inside.
“This form—it’s quite striking.” He observes softly. Releasing her hand, he caresses her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Still beautiful.”
The girl you loved is gone. Your loyalty is to us now.
And yet…he can’t…
For a second his features twist with anguish, the combination of certainty and the ghosts of—God, what a stupid argument in light of this!—how they fell out before he left overwhelming him.
“Dahlia…that fight we had—I’m sorry, cariad, I’m so sorry…”
no subject
Date: 2024-02-22 12:16 am (UTC)She doesn't feel human. She is resigned to her fate, an infernal princess with a dark heart of ice. Dahlia's connection to humanity was pulled until it snapped, and now she's just so tired.
"Choice isn't something that has ever come easily to me," she explains, a bit forlorn. "There are so many things about my life that I didn't want. Didn't ask for. That I must do. I didn't want to feel like that again. Not with you. But I couldn't explain it in a way you'd understand... and I felt so angry and lost. Then you were gone. You kept walking away before I had a chance to speak."
"Why did you do that?"
no subject
Date: 2024-02-22 01:16 am (UTC)For the first time, he lets himself consider the possibility that she might not understand.
“Lisa—I told you, ‘round when I first got here, that her life ended.” He explains softly, trying to force the agony away.
Later. He can hurt later—once this is done.
Once he knows whether or not he’s alone.
“What I didn’t tell you was that…she was like you. As you are—a mechanized version. Not by birth, and she was wholly human once…but she was changed. Something not human, and she was cruel. Cold—she couldn’t feel, and she killed people. In trying to save her, to shelter her, I let that happen. I betrayed people I cared for to help her…I was disloyal, and people died, including her.”
He pauses, frowning, searching her face for some sign of comprehension.
“What I did…I wasn’t trying to force your hand. I was…Dahlia, d’you understand that I felt angry and lost, too, when you accused me of using you?” He asks quietly, gently. “That’s why I kept walking away, I was so hurt and so lost myself. Do you not see that? That what I did, what I asked of you, I only asked because I thought you knew that I would say ‘yes’ if the positions were reversed? That I would never ask you to do anything I wouldn’t gladly do myself—do for you in return? I thought I was giving you a choice…not to act or not to act, but—to trust me, or to not trust me, do you understand that?”
no subject
Date: 2024-02-22 03:05 am (UTC)Her frown deepens and her eyes grow colder.
"In me, you see a mirror that reflects everyone you've lost back at you. And you are so focused on these images that you no longer see me. Even now, as I show you the core of myself, you see Lisa, and you think that we're the same. And that my story will end the same way."
"I can feel, Ianto. And for a while, with you, I was warm and I was kind and I felt human. Now I just feel like another tragic monster from one of your stories of lost love."
She takes a step back from him. "Maybe I am. Maybe that's all I'm capable of."
no subject
Date: 2024-02-22 04:00 am (UTC)He steps forward again, looking into her eyes…and in spite of everything, he finds himself silently asking for help again.
If you’re real, give me this. Give her back to me, Celestine.
“I was wrong, Dahlia—and I am truly sorry for what I did, how badly I handled my own pain. If you can feel, if you love me as much as I love you, I’m not asking you to overlook that. I’m asking for forgiveness—a gift or a goal, I’m willing to earn it.”
Taking a deep breath, he rolls his lips together and reaches for her hand again.
“You’re right—I’ve lost, but my time away from here made me realize I haven’t lost everything. You may be a monster, but that means nothing. I’m a monster, and not all monsters do monstrous things. You’re not a mirror of my losses, you’re a reminder that there’s hope, there is always hope. I promised Celestine my life if she would save yours, and…you’re better. You killed me the day we met, and tonight you put your taloned hand in mine. That means something to me…if it means anything to you, then please, give me a chance. Not a pass, but a chance. I didn’t ask Lisa if she wanted my help, I just did it and damn the consequences. I’m asking you now…please. Please, will you let me help you?”
Let's keep these two messy for just a little bit longer ;3
Date: 2024-02-23 02:51 am (UTC)Still, she considers his question. "I---" She starts to speak, but realizes she doesn't know what to say. Can she be helped? Does she want to be? Is she worth it?
Feeling too exposed in this form she so rarely wears, Dahlia shifts back to her normal appearance. A disguise, but it feels safer with the mask back on. Less naked and raw.
"I have to eat. Even separating me from the Pine Devil didn't make that not true, it just made me sick. I was born this way, and choosing not to means death. I'm sorry, but until something changes, this is the most ethical version of this situation that doesn't result in me killing myself. And I don't--- I don't know how I feel. About anything or anyone right now. You decided I didn't love you without asking, and told me so without letting me speak at the community gathering. And then you were gone. I had no choice but to let go of you that day. I already mourned the end of that relationship, I don't... know... what I want now."
"Besides. I know you've been very interested in this... 'free agent' business you posted about on the bulletin board. Considering I'm one of the groups you're looking to be free of, it's not exactly particularly neutral of you to be at my side. I wouldn't want to put a damper on your conscientious objection." There's some disdain in her voice at that. "Go be free."
my heart. MY HEART. XD
Date: 2024-02-23 05:52 pm (UTC)It's a cord of desperation winding through him, a chant in his head that he can't stop--water and blood spilling over his fingers as she changes back to the face he knows now isn't real. However cold, distant, unsure, that strange and alien and lovely face is her and he finds himself wounded suddenly by its absence.
He thinks of seeing Jack rise from a bullet to the head, that gut-check moment of horror at the unnatural, and the wash of gratitude. Of holding him again after Abaddon claimed him...
Abaddon. The great devourer...Ianto smiles then, small but sincere.
"So you were separated from that part of you which needed to feed." he sighs. "You got sick...but you could recover. There's a way."
The smile turns to laughter as he advances a step--but it's a small one, preserving her personal space.
"I can't let you hurt anyone else--but I'm not giving up on you. I love you--and I won't be free of you. I promise: when you get hungry? When you need to feed? I'll be there."
Whether you like it or not. he adds silently as he takes a steadying breath and folds his hands in front of him.
"And as dismissals go, that won't do. I won't walk away from you again, not unless you tell me you don't want to see or speak to me."
Re: my heart. MY HEART. XD
Date: 2024-02-24 01:42 am (UTC)Taking a step forward, she takes a fist full of his shirt and suddenly the reason for her striking physical strength despite her size snaps into place. She's been holding back.
Dahlia meets his eye, holding onto his shirt so tightly that the fabric strains. "You are dismissed. Vacate the premises and maintain a respectful distance until I say otherwise. And if I find out you've spread around what was discussed here today, or you interfere with my business in any way, I will see to it that you scream."
Then, she lets him go. Her stomach churns, hating who she has become.
Re: my heart. MY HEART. XD
Date: 2024-02-24 01:50 am (UTC)When she lets him go, he smiles softly—and shakes his head.
“No.” He replies quietly. “I love you—I won’t betray you. And truthfully, I apologize if I wasn’t clear: I won't walk away from you again unless you tell me you don't want to see or speak to me."
no subject
Date: 2024-02-24 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-24 02:05 am (UTC)“I will phone. I will write. I will send others to inquire about your welfare.” He replies, still smiling.
He even takes another step back.
“Unless you tell me that you don’t want to speak to me. And I shall come to your door once a week to ask if you wish to see me—and I will do so unless you tell me you never want to see me again. Look in my eyes. Speak the words to my face…I love you, and I will do what makes you happy. But you must look in my eyes, and you must tell me it’s what you want.”
no subject
Date: 2024-02-24 03:23 am (UTC)Her temper finally snaps and out of nowhere she is screaming at him, an otherworldly growl underneath the shout.
"YOU left ME! YOU'RE the one who left!YOU'RE the one who left the house when I just needed to breathe! YOU'RE the one who HUMILIATED ME in front of EVERYONE and then VANISHED! I already cried for you! Just get out of my FUCKING FACE!"
Dahlia grabs a full bottle of expensive vintage wine that's older than she is and hurls it at Ianto's feet, shattering it. That's a warning shot. She's already got another.
Sorry, Ianto, this is what happens when you date a demon girl with issues.no subject
Date: 2024-02-24 03:41 am (UTC)Because he can see worlds in her rage. He can see a future in the screaming, the ranting—even in the danger.
She still won’t say it. And if she can excise her hurt…there’s hope.
Her pain still makes him ache, so he doesn’t try to stop the tears as they spill free.
“I hurt you. I was so wrong to do that.”
Another step back.
“I’m so very sorry, and I will do whatever it takes to earn your forgiveness. Words can’t fix it, but they can be true.”
Another step. Another smile. He has a couple more before his hand will find the railing, before he will finally have no choice but to turn around and do as he is bid.
“I’ll leave. For a while…but you’ll never be alone, Dahlia. My heart is in your hands.”
One more step.
“Beating as you work. Feeling as you try to kill anyone that isn’t me. Loving you, no matter what you’re doing.”
One more step. He reaches back for the railing.
“You’re wrong, you know. The infernal can touch the divine. After all…I’ve touched you.”
He smiles one more time before he turns and, with deliberate slowness, begins his climb up the stairs.