@gvbricl: Cont. from here
Metallic is the taste on his tongue, and one can’t help to wonder if it is because of the blood staining his teeth, or the acrid broil of bitterness and insecurity in his chest.
Those were words he himself has entertained far too often, and far too long.
“Hate to… break it to you, Starshine… but the world can’t spin without information.”
It’s a cold comfort, really. Frigid in the face of someone familiar, and yet so entirely unrecognisable. Gabriel doesn’t believe this was anyone he’s ever met before, he can’t.
So he hides in the knowledge of ‘he’s been around since the world was born’, and denies to himself and his own Grace that the one who is HURTING him could have once been anyone precious.
“What about you, hm? Acting rentboy… to the sick desires of mankind? Quite a-uh, twisted way to stay relevant, if you ask me~.”
So he’ll do it until he hides from himself.
The Ba’al kept his glance fixed on the angel, giving the impression he was indeed waiting for more to come. The fact he eventually averted his gaze in an all too disgusted manner though painted the Fallen’s whole act a more derogative shade.
Lowest expectations unmet.
Beside his play of facial expression Berith at last deigned to give a reply in his ever so honeyed deep voice. Sweet and soothing, yet never enough to belie the poison in meaning:
“Information, but no shred of intelligence to use it. Of course you’d confuse prostitution with bargaining.”
He tsked at the mental image his words invoked and leaned onto his walking cane, towering over Gabriel. “I’d call you a disgrace if there was anything left for you to defile. Degradation has taken hold, hasn’t it?” And was it devotion or habit or plain stupidity which kept his former brothers from meeting the same fate as he did?! He wondered.
“Ah, but now you are here. Forsaken. And wouldn’t you bargain to better your situation?”