[Peeling back defenses, picking open lock after lock. Or perhaps it's the other way round - Stocke unstrapping shield and sword, setting them aside. He'd call it letting down his own defenses.]
[Maybe it's all in how you look at it.]
[It's sure that he follows the Sin's touches easy as a whisper, twisting with the finger trailing down his spine. Step back, let go, ride every moment with the tick of the clock - the shade feels his tendrils flow through something behind him. Cabinet? Wall? Who can tell? Pull back another half an inch as Greed's wings flare out and he'd be able to brace his elbows against it, but he doesn't yet move.]
[It's contact he wants. He's been gone too long, parasite forcing him away and lashing him with a feeling of empty isolation all at once, a mess of push and pull and... And he's too much a monster now, too much a shadow. Maybe someday Ryslig will give up on him, send him back to Alistel and the end of being sacrificed or onward into the dark, but it's here he wants to stay.]
[The Sin's teeth skim over his throat, and Stocke cuts off the low, quiet groan he makes almost before it begins. But the way he slants his head at an angle, baring his neck even without the push of Greed's thumb, is harder to hide. Nor does he try. One hand tangles at the back of Greed's head.]
[No heartbeat, no true pulse, but crashing waves of static at the Sin's fingers, under Stocke's skin like a tide. A static feeling in the air to follow, a cold taste like the snap of the forest after snowfall. Or, perhaps, in fog.]
[Stocke's head rises slightly at the demon's careless apology, eyes slitting barely open. They watch Greed tear through leather, still that same too-bright; the shade's breath catches at the tip of the Sin's claws trailing down the bare skin underneath.]
[It takes him a moment or two, and his voice is rough, raggedy-edged:] Could've just asked, [Stocke says, amused. But he doesn't seem to truly mind.]
[There's two knives hidden underneath, strapped at one side - the shade's fingers skitter over the buckle holding them there blind, catch on it and thumb it open. Belt and sheathes drop to the floor, hitting the wood with a muffled thud. And below that - scars, a criss-cross of old swords and shrapnel, even one round and jagged as though he'd once been impaled. Some of them oddly like an echo, one scar layered almost exactly over another as if by design.]
[Stocke pays them no mind, two of his fingers curling around the edge of Greed's vest. A light tug - that's hardly fair, is it?]
no subject
[Maybe it's all in how you look at it.]
[It's sure that he follows the Sin's touches easy as a whisper, twisting with the finger trailing down his spine. Step back, let go, ride every moment with the tick of the clock - the shade feels his tendrils flow through something behind him. Cabinet? Wall? Who can tell? Pull back another half an inch as Greed's wings flare out and he'd be able to brace his elbows against it, but he doesn't yet move.]
[It's contact he wants. He's been gone too long, parasite forcing him away and lashing him with a feeling of empty isolation all at once, a mess of push and pull and... And he's too much a monster now, too much a shadow. Maybe someday Ryslig will give up on him, send him back to Alistel and the end of being sacrificed or onward into the dark, but it's here he wants to stay.]
[The Sin's teeth skim over his throat, and Stocke cuts off the low, quiet groan he makes almost before it begins. But the way he slants his head at an angle, baring his neck even without the push of Greed's thumb, is harder to hide. Nor does he try. One hand tangles at the back of Greed's head.]
[No heartbeat, no true pulse, but crashing waves of static at the Sin's fingers, under Stocke's skin like a tide. A static feeling in the air to follow, a cold taste like the snap of the forest after snowfall. Or, perhaps, in fog.]
[Stocke's head rises slightly at the demon's careless apology, eyes slitting barely open. They watch Greed tear through leather, still that same too-bright; the shade's breath catches at the tip of the Sin's claws trailing down the bare skin underneath.]
[It takes him a moment or two, and his voice is rough, raggedy-edged:] Could've just asked, [Stocke says, amused. But he doesn't seem to truly mind.]
[There's two knives hidden underneath, strapped at one side - the shade's fingers skitter over the buckle holding them there blind, catch on it and thumb it open. Belt and sheathes drop to the floor, hitting the wood with a muffled thud. And below that - scars, a criss-cross of old swords and shrapnel, even one round and jagged as though he'd once been impaled. Some of them oddly like an echo, one scar layered almost exactly over another as if by design.]
[Stocke pays them no mind, two of his fingers curling around the edge of Greed's vest. A light tug - that's hardly fair, is it?]