[A soft sense of victory kindles in Stocke's chest, with the strain and the break and the fall - fed by sigh and gentle ringing of metal and the pulse of firelight, cupped carefully in his thoughts like something to be protected. From absences, from the troubles of rival factions, from all the rest of it; there's that, to worry about in good time, and then there's - this.]
[The shade's circuit-hum abates, receding back to that quiet, static pattern always circling his bones. He blinks slow, eyelids starting to drop once again; the Sin drawing back leaves him feeling slightly colder, and he leans into the graze of the demon's knuckles at his hip, the breath at his neck. Which almost answers Greed already, but -]
[The slur of words pulls that quirk from the edge of Stocke's mouth again. It changes, somehow, into a faint smile even with his eyes shut - small, soft, momentary, but solid as anything real. His tendrils wind slow.]
[Stocke's fingers brush over the brilliant-gold veins in the leather of Greed's wings.] I'll stay, [he says, but it sounds a little bit like an 'Of course.' After all the rest, he can burely call it a plunge.]
[He follows Greed with his eyes still closed, trusting sound and Sin as guides.]
no subject
[The shade's circuit-hum abates, receding back to that quiet, static pattern always circling his bones. He blinks slow, eyelids starting to drop once again; the Sin drawing back leaves him feeling slightly colder, and he leans into the graze of the demon's knuckles at his hip, the breath at his neck. Which almost answers Greed already, but -]
[The slur of words pulls that quirk from the edge of Stocke's mouth again. It changes, somehow, into a faint smile even with his eyes shut - small, soft, momentary, but solid as anything real. His tendrils wind slow.]
[Stocke's fingers brush over the brilliant-gold veins in the leather of Greed's wings.] I'll stay, [he says, but it sounds a little bit like an 'Of course.' After all the rest, he can burely call it a plunge.]
[He follows Greed with his eyes still closed, trusting sound and Sin as guides.]