send me ₪ for a drabble of our muses
hold you down and tear you open, live inside you vampire!cassandra &. priest!castor
i’ve got you now, i’ll show you alli’ll kick out the chair, let you dangle slow in the back of the bus all of us like the coats in cloak rooms
and if you rise again, take a form i know the river will boil, then overflow and the houses you’re haunting will tremble with temporal hoodoo
- we know where you sleep, the paper chase
Damp. The wet slide of leather shoes against stone and metal. Castor adjusts the collar of his cassock, opens the door to the thin underground cell. Little light shines here, but his eyes have long adjusted to the dark from the journey.
There is a creature waiting for him, in the unlit chamber, chained by its hands and feet, shackled to the wall by cold iron. And the entirety of the cell is padded with iron, sunk deep into the earth.
The creature is still. Doubtless it had heard his arrival not long ago- sound carried, in the underground. Pity there was nobody else to listen.
How long has it been again- a week, perhaps more?
He takes another step forwards, sets his lamp close to the door. He can see fine enough without it, though the creature has no need to know of that.
“Still alive?” He asks, conversationally. The smile that curves his lips is soft.
It remains motionless, still- if he didn’t know better, he really might think it dead. After all, such creatures have no heartbeat to tell of life.
A smile slants on his lips as he steps closer. His hands tangle in its hair, wrenches its head up by the hair until the beast is looking at him- and its eyes are open, gaze colder than ice- wild as a caged animal though it makes no other movement. There is nothing of intelligence in that gaze, nothing but animal hatred. It’s nothing more than a mindless beast, a creature shed of all human pretence.
( well, he supposes that is his fault as well. whoops. )
He smiles, a pleased hum on his lips. “Need to feed?”
He waits a beat for the reply that never comes, smile widening a fraction. “I guessed.”
( question: what is it that separates humanity from beasts?
intelligence is the first. autonomy is the second. and perhaps lastly, god.
there are steps to breaking a person. remove their control, take away their autonomy. deprive them of everything but a beast’s collar, and they will learn to forget language. )
( ‘look at you, a beast pretending to be human. that’s unacceptable, wouldn’t you agree?’ )
He kneels down beside the creature, hand settled on the back of its neck, almost tender. And the girl- for that is what its form takes, glares up at him. Her teeth pull into a snarl, the first movement she’s made- fangs glinting white in the darkness. A truly pointless effort. It makes a warm spot of pleasure flare in him, pride in his work.He supposes he has her to thank for that.
None of the others had gotten this far, much less kept their will.
Gently, he pulls back the collar of his cossack, watches her pupils dilate with faint curiousity.
“Well?” He murmurs, “Do you want to live, or do you want to die here.”
Perhaps, as they both know, he uses a rather loose term of the word die. And for the same reason as she will drink his blood, she will know better than to tear out his throat.
There is no-one else here, after all. There is no way to get free.
He waits, fingers sunk in the fabric of his robe. In the end, she bends. He has half a second of awareness to watch her mouth open the barest millimeter more- and then she’s lunged forwards with animalistic desperation, her teeth are in his neck and she’s struggling at the chains to have better reach at him. A breathless laugh escapes Castor’s lips, a wave of pleasure washes over him alongside the sting of the bite, and he’s leaning forwards, curling his fingers through the girl’s hair as he waits for her to drink her fill.
It’s almost intimate- this- the pain mixing with the pleasure, the manner the vampire drinks from him as if she has known nothing but hunger all her life, as if she is trying to devour his soul itself. Aren’t the both of them almost lovers, in the proximity of the moment, skin on skin, surely in this moment his heart is beating for her alone. There’s a haze over his vision, a flush taken to his cheeks- he’d laugh again, if he could. She owes a debt, she will never forget the taste of his blood.
( blood and debt, and perhaps they are one and the same. you are born with debt. debt to the womb that birthed you, debt to the earth on which you came to being- debt to the god who gave you life. blood given, and blood taken, and she owes.
but debt, and isn’t it a funny thing. he had been a debt child, though she would not know this. she is more alike to him than she would suppose. the church that took him as its own, given him its cross and raised ash to his lips as a newborn.
but mortal hands could not exchange souls, his heart beat an unholy rhythm in his chest, behind his . )
His strength saps, and then- as if something to strike him from his daze, dizziness coming in a crash on his conscious and he has a moment of clarity again- the haze of his vision fading to darkness.
He grits his teeth, brings his cross up in an swift, abrupt motion, presses it against the flesh of the vampire’s throat, pushes her back. There’s a cry of pain, the hiss of burning flesh and rot in the dark- and the creature’s teeth have loosened from his neck, she’s jerking away from him but really- there’s nowhere to go. Perhaps due to intent, perhaps due to thoughtlessness- he does not relent, he can hear the sizzle of flesh and the smell of ash in the air.She’s struggling but she’s weak, her chains are cold iron and there is no strength in her to fight.
Dazed, he watches his blood fall to the ground, stain on the creature’s teeth in a deep crimson- he has the momentary, indistinct thought that it’s a mesmerizing sight. And suddenly it’s no longer necessity that stays his hand- it’s that ceaseless, hungry curiousity for more, to examine even as she struggles, jaw locked and still wordless cries emitting from her red, red lips– how would she look as she thrashed in her dying moments, the final vestiges of consciousness to be extinguished, the echo of her trapped soul twisting from the rot of the lingering undead to the dark of a demon’s flame.
No. Stop. Stop. Remember yourself. She’s the only one that’s lasted this long. You’re not finished with her yet. You’ll have to find another if she dies.
He lets his palm fall. She twitches on the floor, voiceless, unable to control her sensory system as she convulses. Castor clumsily wipes blood from his neck, sticky and slick, licks it from his fingertips. Metal taints his tongue, he sways a little- there’s blood on his cassock, blood staining the white of his collar.
“Sorry about that,” Castor murmurs, a faint, apologetic smile touching his lips though it’s a little woozy. His surroundings are a haze as he staggers to his feet, he straightens his collar over the sluggishly bleeding wound.
Silence. She’s shaking, unable to control her reaction as she spasms on the cold ground, kept semi-upright from the chains. As it is Castor is still lightheaded; if he had waited any longer to wrench away it might be a very different set of circumstances awaiting them.
But for now he looks down at the creature. She will heal- albeit slowly, her regenerative abilities dulled by thirst and the cold iron. Metal lingers in the air, thick and sweet as it dries. He’ll have to be a little more careful next time. Perhaps he needs to feed the creature more often, her sense of control is getting abysmal.
His strength returns, piece by unwilling piece, and a slow smile flickers across his lips. He steps closer, hand hovering over her head for a moment- the girl doesn’t even seem to notice- and then his wet fingers are pulling through her hair. As if petting a dog, he runs his bloodied hand through her scalp, a little ways short of tender.
"I’ll see you later,” he murmurs, and his fingertips curl before he steps away. “Cassandra.”
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