#// OOHH tess fiery

[sanguine-salvation]

♭ - grip my muse’s jaw to make them look yours in the eye

[FEEL FREE TO INFLICT HARM. Context blurb chilling out below like Tess still thinks Victor is Stranger Danger]

“Al d'ateft atfu'kh,” she breathed, the language rough on her tongue as she reached out, seizing the Alley Pervert's chin between thumb and forefinger, “v'sof m'tifaikh ytufun.”

A knot of repressed energy twisted within her, pulled tight as if to snap--

"Aramaic." Rabbi Hillel. Pirkei Avot. "From a story about a skull on the water." Gray rippled beneath one razor sharp cheekbone, pupils dilating, but she was still, still, still. "'Because you have drowned others, you were drowned. And in the end--"

Their eyes were bright and blue as she remembered; her own were blown wide and dark and cold. "In the end..." Her fingers tightened about his jaw, nails sinking into dirty skin as old, familiar words become intonation, ''those who drowned you will be drowned.'"

Oh, the drama.

( Manhandling symbol starters - ACCEPTING )

“Unf—!”

She was very much stronger than Viktor gave her credit for. And her touch was like nettles on their skin.

The unexpected touch of someone unallowed made goosebumps prickle over them and their eyes go wide as they were wrangled by the jaw, their muscles leaping and tight as they were made to look the pretty zombie in her cold, empty eyes being swallowed up in darkness as the ring of color grew smaller. Her hold on their chin commanded their attention, the hiss of her voice was more akin to steam burning them from a kettle’s mouth.

The words wrapped around their ears as she continued her half-told story in a language pretty but indecipherable to them. Their brain flickered to focusing on the twists of sounds, half out of pure fascination and half to distract themself from the insult to their flesh. Itch, itch, itch, heart pounds, the rotting touch, breath hitched in their throat as they bared their teeth in a wild-eyed, half-snarl of surprise. Their hood slipped back just a bit, exposing only a sliver of the scars and scarlet ink on the shorn sides of their scalp.

But as her grip on them grew tighter and her eyes colder, and the winding trail of her story veered into English, their bright wide eyes focused on her again rather than staring through her, and they raised their hand to wrap their fingers around her wrist. If she commanded them, they would command her right back, and they pressed their nails on her skin in response to hers digging into their face. Two hunters with their teeth around the other, but neither one yet crushing bone and blood and flesh. Not yet.

Then, they smiled. This awful, manic, toothy grin met her as they looked up. “And then they who drowned will be drowned, and then those who drowned them, and—” the grin faltered for a second against a wince. There was a giggle in their tone that teetered back and forth from frantic to calm, lilting in dreamy sing-song, “That’s all it is, isn’t it? A never ending cycle of condemned and condemners, dirtied hands are still dirtied, righteous or wicked.” Their eyes bubbled over with too many flavors of adrenaline. Fear, excitement, giddiness, yearning? “Are... you here to drown me?” They ran their tongue over their teeth, then leaned daringly into her hand even against the pain of her nails.

A glimmer of metal in their mouth, a glint in their eye. “Make sure my head is underwater first.” They raked their nails into her wrist, and body-warm steel slipped from their other sleeve, lunging out at her torso like a claw to force her away, take her filthy zombie hand from their aching skin, draw her blood, thrash against her waters.

#idle amusements || memes #dance with || fiddlingonthetympanic #|| dance with me on the blade of a knife || #tw knife #tw violence #// OOHH tess fiery #// I love this omgs #// always half a drabble half a starter with my dumb ass jahgjdfgfh #// vik I don't think that was entirely the point of the story