He could be grateful for Delilah’s first utterance, that was much was certain. It was a thing his rage could feed off of, a challenge which only served to ignite him further. It was almost as if Delilah thought she was calling his bluff, as if she thought that he could not finish what he had started. But with words such as those, it wasn’t nearly so difficult as she might have thought. It was possible to block out the affection and think only of his rage and the darkness.
However, what followed removed any certainty from him, for her emotion robbed him of the blinding rage and made him feel. It was almost unfair, that she could not just give him what he needed for once. For what more had he wanted than acknowledgement for her and some sign that she wasn’t simply the heartless creature she seemed to be now.
But he just wanted to choke on it. Choke on the rage, choke on the affection that was fighting the rage at every turn. He was a man, surely he was supposed to have better control of his emotions than this. Surely, he ought to be able to take care of business and do what needed doing, regardless of the emotional cost. After all, how many of the farm’s animals that they had once raised had he slaughtered simply because of the necessity of it, affection for the animals be damned? He simply had forced himself to ignore the feelings, close off anything except coldness and just do it for the greater benefit. Why couldn’t he apply the same principles to Delilah? Why was it not so simple, when there was a large part of him that very sincerely wanted to take care of business once and for all?
Was it not for the larger benefit?
Perhaps not. He held sneaky suspicion that it was might just something that was purely selfish, a desire to find himself freed one way or another. And if he were being truly honest, he was a touch appalled at the idea of committing a sin such as murder. Was it worth it? He wasn’t sure.
But even so as his resolve wavered, he didn’t remove the hand from Delilah’s neck or decrease the pressure in any meaningful fashion.
Instead, his left hand, one that had thus far laid inactive at his side moved into action, spurred on by the placement of her palm upon his cheek. Fingers brushed her cheek for a moment, a gesture of inherent fondness that lingered on for a moment longer than it perhaps ought to have. “You look just the same, smile just same. She is somewhere inside of you, Delilah. I know you could be her if only you would let yourself,” he said words surprisingly gentle for a man who still held a hand upon her throat.
But still, his own speech roused him some, reminded him of how he had come to be in this position in the very first place, tormented. It was Delilah who had been his ruin, and she was guilty. It wouldn’t be enough for her to be that woman now, not when she had dark wings upon her back. “But instead you’ve become a monster, and what’s worse is that you revel in it,” he said. This pronunciation sounded like a sentence and a verdict, all in one, because it was that. And upon the back of that pronunciation, he did what he had meant to do at the very start - he tightened his grip upon her throat in an effort to cut off her air once and for all. He had never done this before, obviously, and so was uncertain whether he was doing it right. But it hardly mattered, time would tell whether he she could still speak or whether her air supply was well and truly cut off.
They were frozen there, two fixed statutes; her hand upon his cheek, and his hands clutched around her throat. A display of explicit affection, and one of explicit violence. A touch in tenderness, and one in hatred. They were two individuals always in flux, constantly shifting between two diametrically opposed positions, two emotions separated by vast caverns, yet somehow only a breath away. Their places could have easily been reversed; instead her fingers – sharp-tipped, nails the black-red of dried blood – upon his neck, inching tighter and tighter like a constricting snake. Him touching her as he once had, as if she were the only being who existed on the planet. The only one he saw. The only woman he would ever need.
( She is somewhere inside of you. )
A statement she wanted to dismiss as pure fiction – as his naive, wishful thinking. A man lusting after a love who had never existed, a being whom she had crafted. It was true, she had created that woman; but Delilah, ever the skilled actress, lived and breathed her characters. Even after they had long exceeded their usefulness, long after their voices and their words and their mannerisms had grown stale from stagnation, she felt them. Dozens of masks mounted upon hooks, lining her bedroom walls. There was his Delilah, somewhere amongst the sea of them, just as there was Diane, and Donna, and Dahlia, and even Dauphine. The woman she had created after her mother’s likeness, an imagination of what the woman could have been had she survived Delilah’s violent creation. Delilah had brought tragedy into the world from the moment of her birth; her destruction had only continued, her destiny to demolish rather than erect. Each one of her porcelain facades was also a gravestone, a souvenir in memoriam.
She stifled a cackle, roaring low beneath his palms. His Delilah was a monster, just as the woman who stood before him. They were all monsters, merely dressed up in guises of purity and loveliness and warmth. They were venus fly-traps adorned with waxy petals in vibrant pinks and intoxicating reds. They were succubi, each and every one.
She had never been good. Within her, there was no potential for kindness. What kind of creature ravaged her own mother from within? What kind of beast was the destroyer of the being who gave her life?
She might have fooled him, once. Might have had him believing that her embraces were not merely blade-lashes in disguise. Might have concealed beneath her diamond smile the fangs fixed in her jaw. She might have done all that, had him rested neatly in the palm of her hand – but she had never been his Delilah. His Delilah was a simplification, a figure rendered in two dimensions. In all her three, she was messy – too messy to be loved. Too fragmented and contradictory for anything so absolute. This she told herself as he gripped her tighter, gaze boring into her own. She repeated it, her prayer, her mantra, her requiem hymn.
No, Delilah could not be good. But he – the man before her, irises ignited by hatred – oh, how bad he could be.
Corruption was easier than purification.
“You cling to the delusion of goodness within,” she wheezed out, voice merely a hiss at the back of her throat. “And I believe wholeheartedly in the wicked.” See how I’ve drawn it out of you?
The small channel of breath Delilah had was extinguished with another punctuating compression, until her gasps sputtered and struggled and still were empty. The air would not come. The world about her was cast in blinding white, fraying at the edges like age-worn textile. Washed out by a flashbulb. Painted into pastel by a gentle, adept hand. One like either of those at her throat – and yet they squeezed, strangled, pressing upon the column with force meant to kill. He had seen. He had finally seen. Delilah herself had escorted him, with only her tongue and her heeled feet, into revelation. She felt the resolution in the grip of his fingers, each one blindingly hot against her skin – she could count them, poised as they were upon her neck. Brands upon her flesh, already smarting. Above that, the satisfying horror of fading life. Alastair had performed the same move upon her many times, smothering her until an inch of death before easing up. Each time, she urged him to drive further. Until the hands beneath her prickled with lack of oxygen. Until the world erupted into sparks, like a final, lovely conflagration. Death delivered by Samson’s hands seemed sweet, a fantasy, in comparison to her first. A bookend to a tale that she could not resist. A climactic conclusion fit for a literary classic. It would not come to that, but Delilah was determined for it to come dangerously close. Let him see what he is capable of. She was at once incredibly sad, and unspeakably joyful. The joy won. He can trade his bare back for ink-black wings soon enough.
While she still felt her limbs beneath her, she was compelled to intensify her earlier demonstration – he tightened his grip upon her, and she in turn lifted both hands from her sides. Ivory palms pressed flat against his face, encompassing his features in the tenderness of her touch. In her eyes, all the solemnity and pride that was lingering within her. The apology, the steely stubbornness, all battling for control. Then the grin spread her face, devastating as a dagger knifing through flesh. It was dripping with pure, unadulterated, sadistic elation. It was the expression of one who had tackled an obstacle and triumphed. It was the shameless grin of a victor.
She still smiled, utterly the cat with the canary between her teeth, when movement at the edge of the flat expanse flashed in her periphery.
Around her, a world descended into chaos. Cells open, power off, angels running amok and demons turning expectedly, looking for orders that had not come. Assuming the role of leader, when so much was cast into doubt - Abaddon did as she saw fit, angels condemned to their new hell, demons sent to round up the humans and return them home, even so, order seemed a long way from completion - their resources spread thin. These damn humans, playing them until the last - taking a leaf from her book when it came to playing games. Around her, unconfirmed reports filtered through, some believing themselves to have seen Junia, others reporting she had, once again, gone away.
Spread too far, too fast, Abaddon fluttered between groups of people, lending a hand where needed. Their motive seemed to be damage control more than anything else, gather together the escaped Angels and return them where they belonged, suffering as little casualties as they did. Already, some seemed to forget the lesson of control - having had to tug Azriel off Dominic, only to knock him out herself, assigning a lower demon to take him home. She would call on him to collect her reward sooner rather than later, intending to exploit that advantage for all that it was worth.
Up ahead, two familiar figures came into sight, a tale as old as time - but not nearly as happy as you might have imagined. Samson and Delilah. Their names were familiar ones imprinted on her lips, he the strong figure she had come to despise, Delilah the woman made weapon, a vixen, slut shamed throughout history. Personally, she found her as someone worth admiring, even if the compliment was not yet to lace her lips. Sensing a standoff from their body position, Abaddon approached as a silent wolf, moving to stand next to the demon - eyes catching from side to side. “I figured you could use some help.”
