Digital Devil Saga 2 -- Roland/Angel -- 13:4
Title: 13:4
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Digital Devil Saga 2
Characters: Roland, Angel
Rating: R. Violence. Torture, even.
Words: 1100
Spoilers: vague, for Angel’s connection to the Lokapala and for a certain pre-game terrorist attack.
Prompt: 14 June-- Digital Devil Saga 2, Roland/Angel: so this is his enemy
13:4
digital devil saga 2
Mithrigil Galtirglin
This time, she wakes him up with a kick to the jaw. His chair flies across the room, his handcuffed wrists crunch into the wall, and his scream is half masochistic laughter and half voiceless grunt.
“At this point, I don’t care where you’re hiding out,” Angel says-that voice swarms through Roland’s head like a concussion. He might have one, actually, at this point. “I don’t care who your new leader is. I don’t care how many more attacks you plan to launch or how important you are within the organization,” and that’s a contemptuous word, Roland thinks, in the part of him that isn’t a knot of adrenaline, “I just want to know how.”
He groans, lets the pain force the world to make sense. His mouth and nose bleed all over the white of her boot. Pleather. Synthetic. “How-how what?”
-Pleather. Synthetic. Sand, dirt, stone, she doesn’t clean the soles of her shoes, and why should she bother? “How you expected to do this and live with yourself.”
I can’t answer with your foot in my mouth, Roland thinks. And even if I could.
-
maybe fifty hours earlier:
Roland was conscious when they hauled him in. Barely. He could see but not orient, could hear but only the voices in his head. He was hung over and tired as fuck and the adrenaline was going down and if he had the energy for it he would have been cranky.
The Karma guards hurled him into a chair-hurled was the word then, still is now, verbs don’t change-and strapped him to it. He thought it was the electric kind until he realized that the only thing hard and sticky on his head was blood. Grime. Both inside and both out.
Before he passed out, he wondered if he was still alive because Greg had made it out too.
-
None of his teeth come out with the sole of her shoe, though at least one really wants to. It’s a sharp pain, but that’s starting to just not register, just blur into the dozens of others.
She asks it again. This time it’s actually a question. Her voice is low like scent is low, like anything heavier than air being drawn to the floor, denied the sky. “How can you live with yourself?”
If he doesn’t answer it, she can only hurt him more. Then again, he’d rather use the words before he loses them. “Because I’m-more solution than problem,” he tells the diagonal slant of the filth-tile floor. “Because we-we’ve already gone to Hell.” Hell is other people, he thinks, Hell is you, Jenna Angel, you and the syndrome you caused.
Her toe taps in a pool of his spit and blood. One, two, three, four. It makes a very human sound.
-
more than thirty, less than fifty hours ago, because he slept somewhere in between and didn’t have food inside himself to vomit up:
She was a silhouette in the open door, black, and then she was white. It was probably the light that actually shocked him awake, not the shadow. Her hair was a curly Mediterranean black that looked like it had been alive at one point, the black that doesn’t get rendered in comics as blue. And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Wait, not really.
“Roland Marks,” she said. Like she was calling him into the dentist’s office.
“Can’t confirm and can’t deny,” he said. “The guards took my wallet.”
She cocked her head appraisingly. His esophagus lunged without something to feel sick with. “There’s no need to confirm or deny. We found Gregory White’s wallet on a body that had the same face as his driver’s license. You’re not him, so you must be you.”
-
“You killed the idealists,” she says, up above him. “You killed the ones who were hanging on for a cure. The doctors who were keeping them alive. The patients who were keeping themselves alive.”
The stain drips down the curve of her shoe, starts in two trails, bends at a seam and drips into one. “If you care so much, shouldn’t you be in mourning?”
“I skipped disbelief and went straight to anger.”
“Convenient.” It’s getting easier to speak. Maybe he’s angry by now too. “Lose anyone you know?”
This time, she stamps down on his shoulder. Yeah, it does get easier.
-
less than a day ago if you’re counting the hours, which he can’t:
“You’re Angel,” he said, and sounded thirsty because he was. There was something funny and social-sciences about saying that. He suspected that the names had come up together at some point, Angel and Marks, in something he studied back when schools were for more than tennis court riots and literal library raids.
In a play, she’d fling his own words back at him. She didn’t. “Yes.”
He laughed, because he was right, because he was dizzy, because he needed to or else he would get salt on the earth, maybe turn into a pillar of it. Oh fuck, mixed metaphors. “So this is how you get an audience with the local gods.”
She backhanded him. The chair slid. He deserved it.
-
“You know,” she says, drilling her heel into him enough that there’s probably a crack in his bone, “the cruelest thing I can do right now is turn you loose. Let your resistance live on. Give you no excuse not to get revenge on me. Let you exist.”
The ceiling light is white, her shadow is black against it, twisting, the abyss of the birds and oh for john’s sake he’s conflating himself with Fuck. I only had three officers, Mister Beer. “You’re going to,” he groans, “aren’t you.”
“Worse,” she says. “I’m going to be your informant on the inside, just so you can’t kill me.”
-
when the fuck ever ago:
Who is like unto the whore? Roland thought, Who is able to make war with her?
-
Pleather, Synthetic. Sand, dirt, stone. Is the muck on her shoe the shed skin of the corpses outside? Greg’s? Greg’s. Is she lying about Greg being dead? Does it matter?
Her heel definitely cracked the bone-it still hurts when she leaves him there, walks out of one haze and into another. Roland wonders if he’ll cry, probably not, he’s too thirsty. Something to drink, something to drink maybe, whether it’s true or not. Aren’t you supposed to know when it’s true, when someone close to you dies? Isn’t it supposed to hurt?
Then again, at this point, he can’t tell one pain from another.
---
-
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Digital Devil Saga 2
Characters: Roland, Angel
Rating: R. Violence. Torture, even.
Words: 1100
Spoilers: vague, for Angel’s connection to the Lokapala and for a certain pre-game terrorist attack.
Prompt: 14 June-- Digital Devil Saga 2, Roland/Angel: so this is his enemy
13:4
digital devil saga 2
Mithrigil Galtirglin
This time, she wakes him up with a kick to the jaw. His chair flies across the room, his handcuffed wrists crunch into the wall, and his scream is half masochistic laughter and half voiceless grunt.
“At this point, I don’t care where you’re hiding out,” Angel says-that voice swarms through Roland’s head like a concussion. He might have one, actually, at this point. “I don’t care who your new leader is. I don’t care how many more attacks you plan to launch or how important you are within the organization,” and that’s a contemptuous word, Roland thinks, in the part of him that isn’t a knot of adrenaline, “I just want to know how.”
He groans, lets the pain force the world to make sense. His mouth and nose bleed all over the white of her boot. Pleather. Synthetic. “How-how what?”
-Pleather. Synthetic. Sand, dirt, stone, she doesn’t clean the soles of her shoes, and why should she bother? “How you expected to do this and live with yourself.”
I can’t answer with your foot in my mouth, Roland thinks. And even if I could.
-
maybe fifty hours earlier:
Roland was conscious when they hauled him in. Barely. He could see but not orient, could hear but only the voices in his head. He was hung over and tired as fuck and the adrenaline was going down and if he had the energy for it he would have been cranky.
The Karma guards hurled him into a chair-hurled was the word then, still is now, verbs don’t change-and strapped him to it. He thought it was the electric kind until he realized that the only thing hard and sticky on his head was blood. Grime. Both inside and both out.
Before he passed out, he wondered if he was still alive because Greg had made it out too.
-
None of his teeth come out with the sole of her shoe, though at least one really wants to. It’s a sharp pain, but that’s starting to just not register, just blur into the dozens of others.
She asks it again. This time it’s actually a question. Her voice is low like scent is low, like anything heavier than air being drawn to the floor, denied the sky. “How can you live with yourself?”
If he doesn’t answer it, she can only hurt him more. Then again, he’d rather use the words before he loses them. “Because I’m-more solution than problem,” he tells the diagonal slant of the filth-tile floor. “Because we-we’ve already gone to Hell.” Hell is other people, he thinks, Hell is you, Jenna Angel, you and the syndrome you caused.
Her toe taps in a pool of his spit and blood. One, two, three, four. It makes a very human sound.
-
more than thirty, less than fifty hours ago, because he slept somewhere in between and didn’t have food inside himself to vomit up:
She was a silhouette in the open door, black, and then she was white. It was probably the light that actually shocked him awake, not the shadow. Her hair was a curly Mediterranean black that looked like it had been alive at one point, the black that doesn’t get rendered in comics as blue. And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Wait, not really.
“Roland Marks,” she said. Like she was calling him into the dentist’s office.
“Can’t confirm and can’t deny,” he said. “The guards took my wallet.”
She cocked her head appraisingly. His esophagus lunged without something to feel sick with. “There’s no need to confirm or deny. We found Gregory White’s wallet on a body that had the same face as his driver’s license. You’re not him, so you must be you.”
-
“You killed the idealists,” she says, up above him. “You killed the ones who were hanging on for a cure. The doctors who were keeping them alive. The patients who were keeping themselves alive.”
The stain drips down the curve of her shoe, starts in two trails, bends at a seam and drips into one. “If you care so much, shouldn’t you be in mourning?”
“I skipped disbelief and went straight to anger.”
“Convenient.” It’s getting easier to speak. Maybe he’s angry by now too. “Lose anyone you know?”
This time, she stamps down on his shoulder. Yeah, it does get easier.
-
less than a day ago if you’re counting the hours, which he can’t:
“You’re Angel,” he said, and sounded thirsty because he was. There was something funny and social-sciences about saying that. He suspected that the names had come up together at some point, Angel and Marks, in something he studied back when schools were for more than tennis court riots and literal library raids.
In a play, she’d fling his own words back at him. She didn’t. “Yes.”
He laughed, because he was right, because he was dizzy, because he needed to or else he would get salt on the earth, maybe turn into a pillar of it. Oh fuck, mixed metaphors. “So this is how you get an audience with the local gods.”
She backhanded him. The chair slid. He deserved it.
-
“You know,” she says, drilling her heel into him enough that there’s probably a crack in his bone, “the cruelest thing I can do right now is turn you loose. Let your resistance live on. Give you no excuse not to get revenge on me. Let you exist.”
The ceiling light is white, her shadow is black against it, twisting, the abyss of the birds and oh for john’s sake he’s conflating himself with Fuck. I only had three officers, Mister Beer. “You’re going to,” he groans, “aren’t you.”
“Worse,” she says. “I’m going to be your informant on the inside, just so you can’t kill me.”
-
when the fuck ever ago:
Who is like unto the whore? Roland thought, Who is able to make war with her?
-
Pleather, Synthetic. Sand, dirt, stone. Is the muck on her shoe the shed skin of the corpses outside? Greg’s? Greg’s. Is she lying about Greg being dead? Does it matter?
Her heel definitely cracked the bone-it still hurts when she leaves him there, walks out of one haze and into another. Roland wonders if he’ll cry, probably not, he’s too thirsty. Something to drink, something to drink maybe, whether it’s true or not. Aren’t you supposed to know when it’s true, when someone close to you dies? Isn’t it supposed to hurt?
Then again, at this point, he can’t tell one pain from another.
---
-