#and it made him so angry he didn't want to weld anymore | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

border-spam · 3 years

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Leech Lord - Nobody loves me like you

It was so late it felt like time itself had passed out, that void somewhere in the AM between being tired enough to fall asleep where you stand and feeling the nervous energy of dawn approaching.

The air in the Mechanicum was crisp with night chill when the E-Dev in her pocket vibrated, and Saint Ur-Machina's heart sunk in her chest as she grimaced under her welding mask. No need to check who it was, she'd known before he'd even sent the message.

The God-King was angry.

She sighed, rubbing oily hands into oilier overalls, and frowned at how pointless a gesture trying to clean them had been at all, picking bits of filth out from under her nails as she leaned against the rough wall of the hangar. Pointless maybe, but a distraction, and Seifa needed one of those right now.

The God-King was angry with himself, and that meant the people he cared about the most would take the rage.

The workfloor clock read 3:56AM where it hung from the rafter above her station, clunky ticking echoing across the empty bay. No one but her still working, and she shouldn't really have been there either considering the hour, but that had stopped feeling like it mattered a long time ago. She was always there now. Always working, like she haunted the place. Funny, she used to be so good about managing her time...

The welding mask threw a cloud of sawdust as it bounced across the floor towards the machine she'd kicked it at. She didn't even know what to call the horrible thing that loomed in front of her, some juggernaut of sleek metal she'd been ordered to run performance checks on, jagged lines illuminated by the sickly floor lamps she'd arranged around its skeleton.

Warmachines. Unnamed projects with stacks of paperwork marking them as highly classified, Troy's insignia and the same word she kept seeing over and over in confidential documentation - Uroboros. Tasted like a bad idea, reeked of poor decisions, and she'd always sniffed those out like a Skag.

What the hell did Seifa A'Rosk know about warmachines anyway? They used to build Technicals here, outriders. COV custom Cyclones for stream events, this wasn't what she signed up for, none of it was. Managing the engineering crew should never have shifted into whatever the fuck THIS was.

The steel monster in front of her bled oil silently into the sawdust, refusing to give an answer. Whatever this was, it was for Gods and Sirens, and that was a world she wasn't part of, not really. She wasn't a Saint, she was just a ghost, caught repeating the same mistakes over and over till she faded away.

The E-Dev in her pocket vibrated again, and she tapped the back of her head against the plate steel wall, trying to convince herself she wasn't ready to vomit as she squinted up towards the hangar's ceiling, lost to the night murk the lights around her couldn't quite cut through.

She figured she should answer, making him wait was just going to make this worse.

Jak-Knife had already warned her, a curt ping earlier today to "sstay ou t of his way it s bad seiifa". Ven too when he'd dropped by in the afternoon with the excuse of worrying about if she'd eaten yet and half a bag of something spicy and dripping in grease. He'd said the Cathedral staff were noose tight and whispering nervously about an incident a few hours before, something had gone wrong in a talk with visiting sponsors - with the twins. Word on the rumour mill was it had nearly turned vicious, the suits looking ready to brick themselves as they'd all but ran through the meeting room's doors after Troy had flung them open hard enough to unhinge one, and according to priests who'd been on hand? Tyreen had really embarrassed him.

Sei had winced as Ven explained, both painfully aware of this behaviour pattern and what it meant for everyone he was close to. Why the God Queen had been going out of her way to put her brother down in front of high-value clients recently was impossible to guess - no one could really get into her head or understand her decisions lately, but this wasn't the first time, and if anything it was getting worse. Little insults. Little knife-sharp jokes that weren't jokes at all, and mockeries masked behind a paper thin smile like it made them less deadly. She'd imply he was a burden, or undermine his expertise in ways so cleverly worded that the officials would have no choice but to laugh awkwardly as Troy seethed while his twin continued with negotiations.

Today she'd apparently told him to make himself actually useful and fetch their guests some drinks, right in front of servant crew and moments after he'd finished a grueling breakdown of growth projections and profit expectations for this quarter to a rapt audience. It's hard to tell if him snapping had actually surprised her or had been exactly what she wanted, but the staff who'd been there were terrified, and insisted the Vault Mother had looked genuinely shocked when the desk he threw had missed her head by barely a few inches.

He'd stalked out of the meeting and vanished into the upper cloister, and now it was the middle of the night and her E-Dev pinged for a third time.

She closed her eyes and tried to breathe out the fear coiling through her ribs in a shaky exhale. She knew exactly what was happening, it was the same as always with him. Enraged, dripping with self-loathing, and lost somewhere in that toxic mood somewhere between vicious and pitiful - looking for something to hurt, looking for a way to vent the pain as he paced like a snarling monster, muttering like he was arguing something with himself, a back and forth of accusations and desperate apologies to something no one else could see.

Tyreen couldn't eat him alive with her powers but she could do it with her words... and maybe that's what had changed. Maybe she'd realised a new way to control her twin with manipulations that left him so emasculated and damaged in confidence that he wanted to tear something he loved apart just so he could turn the hatred on himself after.

Of course it was going to be her.

The same dance every time now, the same frustrating steps that she'd memorised by this point, trying to break him out of his deadly spiral as he'd rant at rave at her, till he'd attack her somehow, then skulk into the shadows when he was done foaming at the mouth, leaving her to carry everything he'd piled onto her shoulders - the threats, the hate, the aggression, only to beg for her forgiveness the next day and be ignored.

He'd spend a week desperately apologising, showing how much he understood how pathetically wrong what he had done had been, sending ridiculous gifts to the mechanicum where he knew they'd have to be accepted under his sigil, reassure over and over in messages that it wouldn't happen again, that he'd just been under so much pressure, that he'd just snapped, that it wasn't right and she hadn't deserved it and how much her friendship mattered.

The E-Dev pinged one last time, and Seifa straightened, dusting off her overalls and adjusting the toolbelt slung around her waist.

God-King Calypso demanded a sacrifice - self harm masked as a blade he'd lash at someone he loved so it would cut him all the deeper. She'd take it, better her than someone else. She could handle him.

She always had.

It was raining again, felt like that hadn't stopped at all this month. Pandora had wet seasons, it's just that the water never seemed to go anywhere. The acrid dust absorbed it almost as fast as it could fall, but in the city it flooded the streets as it rushed down gutters. Neon light reflected from gaudy signs in pools of colour that swam across the uneven paving stones as she slowly made her way towards the Cathedral, a waterproof canvas thrown around her shoulders protecting from the downpour.

Even at this time of night, the city was still alive. It never really stilled anymore, too many deals going down in alleys and money changing hands in clubs for it to ever actually sleep, and as she picked her way past huddled locals far too engrossed in their own business to pay her any mind, Seifa wondered when it was things had changed like this.

This place had been a shanty town, hadn't it? When she'd arrived to take over the engineering division there had been maybe one, two thousand COV followers camped around the cathedral in rickety shelters. Bandits mostly, erecting camps and functional living quarters with expertise alien to any outsider. It was a city now, fuck, it was a metropolis. She'd overseen the building of half of the major apartment systems in the inner ring around the holy quarter, so how did it still feel like it had grown of out nowhere?

Sei huffed out a steamy breath into the chill night air as the cathedral began to come into view, bass music and laughter fading as it was swallowed into the drumming of the rain on the buildings she left behind her.

She used to be so proud when she saw it, the awesome majesty of its twisted spires and jutting angles framed against the rocky outcrop that loomed behind it. Nowadays it just looked like something grotesque, a mirror of what it contained maybe. The COV was rotting from within, and everyone knew the source.

She'd been warned by friends more willing to face the harsh realities of the twin's decline that time was running out.

Tonight, tomorrow, a week from now, it didn't matter why it was going to happen, just that it would, and as much as she hated admitting it to anyone, Seifa knew she wasn't strong enough to do this much longer.

He was killing her.

Anything could set him off now, it was constant. Numbers under-performing this week, an underhanded comment from Tyreen that tipped the balance, not enough sleep, too many stims, not gaining weight, an article mocking his appearance, anything. It could have been any of them he had summoned, her, Ven, JK, the why or who was inconsequential because the desired outcome was always the same.

Troy wanted to hurt himself, not them, but he didn’t know how. The pressure would build and build till he broke down, lost logic, went wild-eyed and shaking in barely controlled rage. He hated being Troy Calypso so much there were times he wanted to tear his own skin off, he'd told her as much on nights alone and open in shared sadness, but there was no escape. It was this, or starving in a manner she couldn’t even comprehend, and when he'd asked before if maybe that would be the better option?

...She'd not known what to say. She'd failed him then, tripping over the words catching in her lungs as he desperately waited for an answer that would make sense of things, and she'd never been able to give one. Just sat next to him as they both sank deeper into the trap of their titles and the horrible reality that there was no clear way out.

He was waiting in the throne room for her, just like she'd imagined. Pacing back and forth across the dias as the city light streamed through the stained glass windows, glinting sharply off the rattling gold spines his ritual gear was decorated with as he moved.

She'd stood in silence, watching, trying to catch what he was asking himself as he'd snap a muttered retort in spite, but not able to ever make out the questions. Like an animal snared in gilded chains she figured, or something else maybe - an idol pretending to be something living? A shiver had ran through her as she waited for him to turn his frantic attention to her, quietly waiting for the blow to come. No one had even been there to greet her or open the doors to the throne room, they were ajar, the staff knowing better than to risk being in his presence when he was like this... she smirked, knowing better than her, anyway.

He'd shifted attention to her so smoothly it felt like the rant he'd been hissing to himself just continued directly into her as he'd turned, beckoning her closer with a quirk of those horrible claws. She'd bit her lip and swallowed down how much that enraged her, being summoned like a fucking dog when this man so often made clear he viewed himself as dirt in comparison to her, but months of dealing with him had tempered the reaction. Easier to go along with it, placate him, nod and let him vent out the bile till he realised how much of a fucking asshole he was and came crawling back later.

It was the same dance as usual, the exact same steps. She could feel where he was going with each shift in direction, jumping topic to topic in an attempt to place blame and becoming more enraged with each simple refute she could offer. She never made it easy, that wasn't her nature in the end, she'd calmly reply back to each accusation with logic that left him shaking harder as the fury built, like a caged predator or roid-mad Psycho desperate to attack but not getting the opening. She could play this game for hours, long enough to make sure he worked for the satisfaction, even if it left her exhausted.

She'd always been petty, after all.

He threw snarled jabs at Mechanicum performance, raised complaints that she knew weren't true, accused "concerns" about output she could disarm easily, the same as always, till suddenly he shifted.. and everything went wrong.

She could handle him with spines raised and teeth bared, she could stand unflinching as he aimed blows that he never really landed, but she hadn't been prepared for him to suddenly relax. He'd stood straight, rolling the weight of the prosthetic on a shoulder all casual and friendly like suddenly he wasn't seething under the grin his snarl melted into, and she'd felt a jolt of fear. This was something new, this was something... worse, she could feel it like electricity crackling up her spine, and for the first time that night her heart began to pick up a stuttered pounding as cool sweat beaded down her back. He took a step closer, and for just a second, there was a question flittering across the back of her mind that screamed something she couldn't ignore before it vanished into her practiced calm.

For a split second, Seifa questioned if this was Troy.

"You know, it's funny, Sei..."

She opened her mouth to warn him to stop, the atmosphere was at fever point, he was going to go too far, something in how terrified his eyes looked against he vicious curve of his smile sent panic through her chest.

"Troy" her voice cracked "Come on, Troy you know you shouldn't keep going, this is -"

He cut her off with a tsk and raise of a bladed finger, bending to lower his face closer to hers from where he towered above her.

"Rude Seifa, I was talking."

He was near enough to feel the body heat glowing from his chest, and her voice choked in her throat as the point of a talon tapped gently against her nose as if he was chiding some kid.

"Funny isn't it?" He cooed, and it wasn't.

"You used to have so much time for me, didn't you. We used to really spend time together..." the lack of his stutter was a warning she knew him too well to ignore.

"... but nowadays you're so desperate to get out of my presence that I can literally see your skin crawl while you're forced to be around me. It's happening right now Sei... ain't it."

That was a lie, and she wanted to slap his hand away from where it pointed towards her chest, push him back towards the throne behind him and tell him how stupid an attack that was. She's always had time for him, she gave him infinite time, she gave him so much of herself that she'd been crumbling, she wanted to tell him the truth of it, that how much she gave him had been killing her, but she couldn't, he didn't give her the chance.

"You've got allllll the energy in the world for your little friends though, don't you. You've got laughter and happiness to pour all over them, fill them up with, show them how much you care, but not me, not anymore. And you know, that's got me thinking recently!"

The smile was fake but the monster behind it wasn't. He may as well have been snarling, and she was fully aware he wasn't really attempting to hide that at all.

He stepped a fraction closer again, close enough for her to reach and press a warning hand against his chest as he leaned further down to meet her eyes, the veneer of his calm cracking under the weight of the now haggard, panting breathes he whistled through that vicious smile, the terror in his eyes. She didn't understand any of this, why was he so afraid when it was him pressing this onwards, why was he so panicked when the act was so calm? His skin was like fucking fire under her hand and the push she gave to try and move him back did nothing.

"Made me realise, maybe I was never your friend really - maybe I was just something you held onto like a lifeline in the storm of your shitty life choices, huh?" She felt tears rise, this wasn't fair, this was too real now, this was being aimed at his friend not his employee, but he wouldn't stop.

"Taken for a ride while you lead me on all these years. That would explain it, right? How much you got for them, how much you'll give them, when I'm just a burden to you. Or..."

His mouth was next to her ear and she wanted to beg him to stop before it was too late, before he did what she knew he was about to do. To stop before he decimated everything, but the words were caught behind the sob she refused to let spill as he drove the knife home with one last twist.

"Maybe the real problem here Seifa, is they are more than friends, hmm? Because that's your real operation method, isn't it. That's how you get what you want, everyone knows it. Maybe they met your standards, but you just never saw me as good enough to fuck."

The crack of his jaw against her fist echoed through the stone throne room for long enough to make the silence that came after all the more horrible.

She remembers that, that noise and the pain ripping through her hand in burning waves, but she doesn't really remember the rest.

She doesn't fully remember what she saw, the flash of those glaring, monstrous eyes that burned down on them both as Troy reeled in horrified shock, cradling his face in confusion like he couldn't understand why she'd just hit him, she doesn't remember the flicker of Siren wings or the laughter that echoed somewhere in the back of her mind but made no sound.

It's a daze. Whatever he whispered pleadingly after, teary-eyed and shaking, she didn't hear.

She doesn't remember leaving and how she stormed down the Cathedral halls and into the freezing night air, doesn't remember who saw her or if clergy had been there. Doesn't remember the way she'd mindlessly picked towards the hi-rise Ven's quarters were in before realising she was walking the wrong way, or how effortlessly she'd flipped the ignition in her ship, or how prepped she'd been to jump out of Pandora's orbit soon as she hit safe distance, doesn't remember any of it.

But the pain in her hand and the look in his eyes after, she fucking remembers that.

#borderlands #borderlands 3 #bl3 #troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #seifa #leech lord #sbsart

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accordingtosarahh-blog · 7 years

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Leave The Past In The Past...

The past three years have been nothing like I expected it to be... When I said I wanted to fall in love I meant like those romantic movies... Ya know without the sad part in the end.... Which all of the romantic movies have had... When I fell in love three years ago I didn't think with that love would come with addiction, a kid or more issues then I had originally started with.... When you fall in love with someone who loves you back... You think just that... That your life is amazing and you’ll wake up every morning to breakfast and kisses on the forehead and cuddling to a movie every night... That's what I thought too... The love I experienced was anything but that... More like soul crushing, heart aching, why am I still here if he treats me like shit kind of love. There would be months of notes left on my desk at work telling me how much he loved me or flowers I came home to on the dining room table and sometimes if I was lucky forehead kisses that would make me smile from ear to ear...But those months didn't last... Once addiction crept its ugly pathetic head in again and tempted him that's when he wasn't the man I fell in love with anymore. He had changed completely. He would go days without saying a word to me, weeks without even touching me or kissing me. We lived in the same house so you ask how is this possible... He was pushing me away once he started using again. At the time I was four months pregnant and he made me feel like less of a woman... He made me feel like a low life who didn't deserve his love... I would sit on the front porch debating if I wanted to continue a relationship and let a child into this world with a relationship like that.. But the abuse got worse as the addiction was growing more inside of him reminding him how it felt to escape... There were nights i would be on the bathroom floor crying, pleading to God asking him why he would allow this to happen to me why he would allow me to love a man who treated me as if I was the problem and like I was the one who was hard to love... And you know what that man didn’t care... That man didn't care about the fact that I was sitting there tears streaming down my face as he would call me “ugly” or “a whore” or even telling me how fat I was when I was the one carrying his child. That man didn’t care about me or his child inside of me punching me in the stomach saying the most hurtful things about me as I curled up in a ball trying to guard my stomach from the attacks of a man that I loved with everything I had and wanted so badly to be the man I fell in love with once again... But you know what? I still loved him... The abuse continually got worse once our son was born.. And I started finding needles in our towel closet and asking him about it and he finally told me about this drug that made him escape from life.. I wanted so badly to escape life also.. I had a 2 month old baby and had suffered from depression since the age of thirteen and was now suffering post partum depression on top of it.. I wanted to feel happy once again... He seemed so happy lately... So I tried it... Speaking promises I knew I didn't mean like “Just this one time.” But “just this one time” turned into “Okay this is fun we can do this every other weekend”... and then “only on the weekends” to “we can do this everyday and well be fine”... But we weren't fine... He started to escape more as did I... But I didn't know I was also trying to cling on to the man I fell in love with. There would be nights we would be screaming at each other as my son cried because he couldn't take the animosity and couldn't handle the fact mommy was crying... I swore to myself if he ever hit me I would leave... Then the night came that my son wouldn't stop crying because of the fighting... I was holding him as I was pleading to the man I loved to calm down pleading that if he would just calm down and stop screaming everything would be okay... I didn't want to make him angry because I knew where it would lead to... As I was shooshing my son to stay quiet and not make his father even more angry then before that's when it happened... As I was holding my son... I was slapped in the face for the first time.... Tears welded up in my eyes as he started yelling “I'm sorry it wont happen again!” “Please don't leave me. I am so sorry!” That stupid thing is I believed him... We continue to use drugs... We continued to try and escape... Me even more so to try and forget about that night...The addiction over took our lives and we lost our son... DCF finally took him away... At that point we gave our lives completely to the devil... this drug so that we could escape and forget about the pain... We ended up homeless and jobless and sleeping in our car... He introduced me to panhandling so that we could afford our drug money... One night I was tired and decided I didn't want to panhandle.. I didn't want to cheat people out of there money any longer that night... He got mad... We started arguing and he full fledge punched me in the lip... As my eyes started watering and my lip dripped with blood and swelled up like a balloon he grabbed me and pleaded for me not to leave him again... Apologizing up and down saying he’d never do it again.. So again I believed him... From that point I started walking on egg shells....Doing anything I could to try and make him happy... He didn't see it... I could never do enough. i could never get enough money for the drugs he so desperately needed for him to at least stay content... The name calling turned into him accusing me of cheating.. Regardless of the fact that we were always together... One night he believed that i cheated with one of his friends and got so angry and as i was sitting there yelling to just believe me. To believe id never hurt him like that regardless of his past and his mistakes regardless of how insecure he was being... Again he balled up his fists and did the one thing he said he’d never do again... But this time it was far worse... He hit me to the point my eye was as black as the night sky and i bled so much that i just hoped i would die and stop feeling the pain.... As blood was pouring out of my fand and my eye was so swollen I couldn't open it he grabbed me, told me he loved me and apologize promising he’d never do it again... Again I forgave him and believed him... I continued to love him as the emotional and mental abuse continued... I continued to love him as my self esteem was being demolished. And I continued to love him as I felt like no matter what I did it would never be good enough... At this point he was in and out of jail.. We promised each other we would both stay clean... We moved into a house that had roommates and slowly was getting our shit together... But the addiction came back... This time with full force... Our arguments got a lot worse... The hitting became more constant to the point where he would just be beating me as i layed on the floor yelling, screaming and begging with everything I had for him to stop... While he was yelling “no one could love you like I do.” “I saw you first... No one loved you but me when you were ugly and fat!” Beating me to the point I had bruises all over my body at one point and our roommates were asking if he killed me yet... But still I was the one apologizing... Apologizing and telling him I would be a better fiancé... A better person and a better mother... Promising I would treat him better... Even though I was the one being treated so horribly... He was in and out of jail... And I was holding on for dear life... believing his words that no one could ever love me like he loved me.... Believing he would change and be a better man to me... Until one day we were both sick in different hospital for weeks... With the same thing... MRSA... We gave it to each other by sharing needles... I got to the point where I could finally be alone with my thoughts and I realized everything... It took me a week to realize that one day... Maybe not that day i could be a lot happier... Happier without the abuse, happier without the drugs, and happier without him... I finally after three year had the balls to call him up and end things.. It hurt it really did... Its been three months and it still hurts... But everyday I am growing stronger... Everyday I was growing self esteem and everyday I am learning to live life without him... There are nights I still lay in bed and every bone in my body aches from the thought of him and I cry till there are no longer tears coming out of my eyes.... Or should I say the memory of who he use to be.. Memories period... There are days when I still want to call him up and just want to hear the sound of his voice and make sure he’s okay... And there are still days I think maybe I should just say fuck it and just allow him back into my life... But those days are now far and few between and I realize I am no longer in love with him anymore... I am in love with who I thought he was and I'm in love with the happy memories... So I don't call him, I don't ask him to be apart of my life and I wipe the tears and put a smile on my face and remind myself everything is going to be okay... Maybe not today but one day these things wont hurt so much and one day I can finally be happy without this aching in my chest... One day I will be able to wake up in the arms of my husband in our bed in our house on a Saturday morning and hear our kids fighting that there sibling is touching them and my hair will be a mess and ill have no make up on and my husband will look at me and still tell me I'm beautiful... And that day all of this hurt... Will be worth it...

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