RattleSnakes (GD chapter ?? excerpt)
You don't feel anything most days. It's not true numbness, no, more so the buzzing pin-needles of a broken limb refusing to heal right. It's become a familiar thing to you, the empty, thick weight in your chest, the flesh-brightened darkness of your remaining eye, which continues to fail you, and this numbness.
You could care less, about the days that pass, or the gnawing hunger in your gut. You sleep, when you aren't hunting. You lay there, staring at the star-sparks in the black of your vision, when you aren't sleeping. You can't tell the difference anymore, your dreams too fleeting, and your waking plauged the same.
Bachus brings some relief, in his own, strange way. It brings him some odd joy to see how far he can take a joke before you finally laugh at it, and to test your own humor in response. You are grateful for him, and his increasing presence in your life. You wish you could stay like this, curl in on yourself and crawl between his ribs so you wouldn't ever have to move on your own again. You are so tired of moving.
He's returned to you once more, for maybe a fifth time in this last wipe, crawling in through your window, contorting like some tar-pitch spectre in the out field of your spatial awareness. You don't have the energy to lift your head tonight, but you give a soft exhale when he calls out to you. You think he says your name, not that it feels like it anymore. It's just another ugly noise that no longer fits between your teeth.
He grasps your jaw, lifting your head to stare sightlessly up at him. You take in the cool flesh of his palm, and the light scrape of his claws on your face. You cannot see him, but you do not need to. He clicks his tongue, turning your face slightly to look you over. He could snap your neck with a flick of his wrist. You almost wish he would.
"Up an throwin something tonight," he mutters, "JJ is, not me. Got the whole church all losin their shit, all bacchanalian like." You don't respond immediately, so he tries again.
"A motherfucker could use some company, shit's sposed to get wild." It's not a request. You don't want to go, you think, you're so tired. You want to sleep, you want him to let you sleep.
You go anyway, clinging to Bachus like you're goin to get swept away if you don't. You might. The Big Top is huge, and crowded as ever. The others mill around you, drunken and hollering. The air reeks of blood, and that's all good for you. Jauqle and his twin are nowhere to be seen, for now.
Rude of them to miss their own party, you think. But, none of your business, so you snatch a drink from someone's hands, and press into Bachus' side. He chortles, pulling you against him.
The party drones on from there, and your drunken haze leaves you barely aware of yourself.
Until a chorus of screaming laughter rings through your head, and you look over at the middle of the big top. The crowd that's gathered keeps you from getting a good look, until you hear the unmistakable rev of engines. Bachus is on his feet before you are, and you scramble to get your footing as he pulls you towards the middle of the crowd.
JJ's main event, it turns out, is an execution. There's a screaming indigo laying sprawled in the dirt, his blood-stench rolling off him in waves, burning your nose almost as bad as the bikes. A sharp click tells you he's tied to the bikes, a chain on each limb, and one wrapped around his neck.
You're not listening as Jaekel and her twin roar to the crowd, you could barely hear her anyway, over the baying honks of the rest of the church.
The buzzing in your skull is gone with the rev of an engine, agonized screeches and wails, and the rattle of chains pulling taut before going slack again, taking all the noise with it.
The clowns go silent as Jaekel dismounts. You hear her scrabble in the dirt for a moment, before bolting back upright, whooping sharply as she no doubt holds the head aloft.
The air trembles with the sudden roaring applause. They're laughing, all of them. Laughing, howling, and screeching in rapturous joy.
Bachus wraps an arm around you, and something gives. You scream, long and loud, and scream, and scream, until your throat's raw to bloodied. And it's good, then. You're alive, in this carnage. You're alive as Jaekel and Jauqle saunter over, cheering themselves on, and only growing louder as they spot you.
You snap at Bachus as he leans to kiss your temple, but it's in fun, in jest. He likes it, enough to lock his teeth around your horn and shake you. You pull loose, and scramble away from him, chuffing a laugh. He snaps his jaws, and you hear the air hiss through his clenched teeth.
You let him chase you, and you let him catch you, and it is good, good, good. You are awake, and dreaming, and hunting all at once and you are alive.
And then Jaekel is holding your face, smearing grease paint on you in clumsy frevor, and Jauqle is laughing, and helping you chug your drink, and Bachus is clinging to you, and you think he's rutting into you, ruining your clothes, and you don't care-
Because the sticky sweat and slick and grease and dirt all feel so much better than the aching numbness outside this place. There's heat and fly buzzing and you're drunk, so, so fucking drunk, and more than drunk, even, and you never want it to stop.
And then it's the next-next evening, and your head doesn't hurt, so you must have slept off your hangover. Bachus is holding you still, and JJ lay sprawled out around you. You almost laugh. Of course this was what it took. Of course this is what you needed.
You stumble into the ablution block. The face staring back at you in the mirror is new to you. New, because you shouldn't be able to see it. But then, impossible things happen all the time in this place.
You look less tired. Less dead. Your scars are healing over, jagged and raw, but manageable. Your eye is gone. This is fine. You do not need it, not anymore. Your hair is longer, trailing past your shoulders in loose curls you'd forgotten you had.
The paint is more important to you for now, though. The grayed smear over your muzzle bridge and cheeks, blending into your hairline, and the pale of your lower face. The dark of your cheek hollows, the white around your sockets. The pale stripe up your nose bridge. The black on your upper cheekbones.
You look like yourself for once. Bachus stalks in behind you, humming. His arms find their way over your shoulders, and he nuzzles you, purring.
You are alive, and this is good.
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