bone tongue
i used to live on crumbs / but i too am a wants-to-be-touched thing — @rottenfrvit
x
blood. however thick. however controversial. it clings to skin, garments, weapons, hair and all. an unforgiving stain, putrid in the way her stomach clenches around the metallic stench. it normally doesn’t bother her. normally. but things could be considered differently when the source is from someone she’s previously lain with. in multitudes. when she could distinctly remember the slice of her skin, light fading from her eyes. roar of the crowd (or was it the monster wearing her skin) behind the lifeless corpse of one, formerly enthralling, sappho.
it’s strange. the peculiarities of emotions that dwindled in with every step away from the arena, into its connecting corridor and through to the waiting room. every step being the slightest bit more that viper would let slip through. relief. rage. regret (there will be no regret. there is nothing to regret when it is your life on the line). but more importantly, and this viper feels in rolling crashes against her battered body the moment her eyes lock with buttercup’s, sympathy.
it is her lover. it was her lover so you owe her something. the voice (let’s call it the remnants of a conscience) in her head chides, dauntingly plucks at her heartstrings. as if viper hasn’t reached in and wrung dry parts of herself for less. “buttercup.” her name escapes in a purr, head tilting to the side slightly in expectation.
it takes every fiber of her being not to move. not to suddenly react, self-conscious, to the blood splattered on her skin, caked in her hair, stains in her clothing. cuts and bruises that she hadn’t even bothered to tend to just yet—nothing quite matters just yet. nothing beyond the woman before her.
still, brazen, viper manages a ghost of a smile.
“you don’t look too happy to see me.” her brow arches. almost defiantly. self-destructively. mockingly.“expecting someone else?”