If this had been one of their normal rows, Dulce would have quailed beneath the raw anger spelled out on his f-- Greed's face. He would have known to stop, to cut his losses and suck up his pride and beg for forgiveness, to promise he'd stop being so insubordinate and shamefully lustful.
This time... he was farther past the point of no return than he'd ever been before and was much too out of it to recognize the life-threatening trouble he was getting himself into. As such, he barely flinched or winced as he was forced to look at the demon before him face-to-face, his teal eyes darkened to a deep purple in his madness. He pulled his lips back in another animalistic snarl, but before he could once again curse the demon out with slurred, somewhat incoherent insults, his features twisted into a look of pained, slightly uncomprehending bemusement at Marco's rage-filled words.
New mantras were added to the sanity-destroying ones of pure obsession over Micah, ones that had been a source of inner civil war for the Sin ever since he could remember-- to be a good, obedient first-born son or his dearest baby brother's champion.
Of course, time and time again he'd chosen the latter, and yet... there was always that part of him that wished he could have remained that sweet, unquestioning child, the boy that had followed his father without hesitation or doubt.
That boy was never beaten as harshly or loathed as much as Dulce was today.
That boy was loved, wanted.
That boy was human.
He was roughly broken out of his identity-shattering epiphanies as Greed came to a decision on his punishment. However, rather than dragging him-- in a considerably painful manner too, as the demon had quite the grip on his hair-- to his room, as was normal, they made their way towards the basement door.
Had he been in his right mind, he would've been quiet spooked at this change. As it were, he merely began thrashing against Marco's hold, pitiful in his attempts to get at least one blow to land on the significantly stronger male. He hadn't even realized what was happening until he was tumbling roughly down the stairs, giving a sharp cry as he landed on his right arm with a sickening crack.
Right before his still crazed eyes, the last sliver of light was cruelly taken away as the door was slammed shut, Greed's rolling tenor giving dark life to the spell that Dulce had come to know quite intimately.
With another howl, the sound unstable and fundamentally broken, he launched himself up the stairs-- or rather, as well as he could in his state. He ignored the burn the movement brought to his battered body, or the way sharp shocks of pain shook his body as the broken bones in his arm ground against each other. He stumbled his way up, a right mess by the time he got to the door and began pounding on it as loudly and threateningly as he could. Wordless snarls and growls escaped his chapped lips, his more demonic powers leaking through the shattering shards of his mind.
This only got him a lance of lightning-like pain from the barrier that had sprung up, causing him to tumble down the stairs once again. He curled into a ball, unintelligible mutterings falling from his lips in his mindless rage, and yet, the reality of it all finally began filtering in.
The realization that he'd been left alone in utter darkness, no way out, a complete lack of contact.
As he realized he was left truly alone for most likely the first time in his life, something gave way, bending, bending, bending until it--
— broke.
A coughing giggle.
A whining chuckle.
A husky chortle.
A full-bodied laugh.
A cackle that embodied all that Dulce had become-- or rather, all that was completely and utterly destroyed within Dulce.
It was just as Greed said. He was a Sin. This life had been nothing but a mockery, a suppression of his true self in order to play house with a bunch of mentally unstable demons. It was a facade, a play written by Fate with all of them as the foolish, unknowing actors.
How pitiful.
As Dulce spiraled down to the very depths of the abyss known as insanity, he was completely unaware of the voices beginning to murmur around him-- yet he was just as physically alone in that basement as Greed had wanted him to be.
"A few more moments and he'll never be able to recover-- wait, what--!!"
"He's attempting to lock up his 'human' side, while... while simultaneously reaching out for--"
"The ritual. He instinctively knows there's something he can use in desperate times, and to him, this is as desperate as it gets."
"First, what are we going to do? You know there's a greater chance of him killing himself than successfully performing the rituals, regardless of the necessary ingredients-- it's too early!"
There was complete silence, then a strong baritone, full of power and authority. "There is no choice. He must go through his inheritance now or we risk losing forever what makes 'Dulce' himself-- he wishes now only to exist as the Sin of Lust."
{{The many colors of Lust}}
This time... he was farther past the point of no return than he'd ever been before and was much too out of it to recognize the life-threatening trouble he was getting himself into. As such, he barely flinched or winced as he was forced to look at the demon before him face-to-face, his teal eyes darkened to a deep purple in his madness. He pulled his lips back in another animalistic snarl, but before he could once again curse the demon out with slurred, somewhat incoherent insults, his features twisted into a look of pained, slightly uncomprehending bemusement at Marco's rage-filled words.
New mantras were added to the sanity-destroying ones of pure obsession over Micah, ones that had been a source of inner civil war for the Sin ever since he could remember-- to be a good, obedient first-born son or his dearest baby brother's champion.
Of course, time and time again he'd chosen the latter, and yet... there was always that part of him that wished he could have remained that sweet, unquestioning child, the boy that had followed his father without hesitation or doubt.
That boy was never beaten as harshly or loathed as much as Dulce was today.
That boy was loved, wanted.
That boy was human.
He was roughly broken out of his identity-shattering epiphanies as Greed came to a decision on his punishment. However, rather than dragging him-- in a considerably painful manner too, as the demon had quite the grip on his hair-- to his room, as was normal, they made their way towards the basement door.
Had he been in his right mind, he would've been quiet spooked at this change. As it were, he merely began thrashing against Marco's hold, pitiful in his attempts to get at least one blow to land on the significantly stronger male. He hadn't even realized what was happening until he was tumbling roughly down the stairs, giving a sharp cry as he landed on his right arm with a sickening crack.
Right before his still crazed eyes, the last sliver of light was cruelly taken away as the door was slammed shut, Greed's rolling tenor giving dark life to the spell that Dulce had come to know quite intimately.
With another howl, the sound unstable and fundamentally broken, he launched himself up the stairs-- or rather, as well as he could in his state. He ignored the burn the movement brought to his battered body, or the way sharp shocks of pain shook his body as the broken bones in his arm ground against each other. He stumbled his way up, a right mess by the time he got to the door and began pounding on it as loudly and threateningly as he could. Wordless snarls and growls escaped his chapped lips, his more demonic powers leaking through the shattering shards of his mind.
This only got him a lance of lightning-like pain from the barrier that had sprung up, causing him to tumble down the stairs once again. He curled into a ball, unintelligible mutterings falling from his lips in his mindless rage, and yet, the reality of it all finally began filtering in.
The realization that he'd been left alone in utter darkness, no way out, a complete lack of contact.
As he realized he was left truly alone for most likely the first time in his life, something gave way, bending, bending, bending until it--
— broke.
A coughing giggle.
A whining chuckle.
A husky chortle.
A full-bodied laugh.
A cackle that embodied all that Dulce had become-- or rather, all that was completely and utterly destroyed within Dulce.
It was just as Greed said. He was a Sin. This life had been nothing but a mockery, a suppression of his true self in order to play house with a bunch of mentally unstable demons. It was a facade, a play written by Fate with all of them as the foolish, unknowing actors.
How pitiful.
As Dulce spiraled down to the very depths of the abyss known as insanity, he was completely unaware of the voices beginning to murmur around him-- yet he was just as physically alone in that basement as Greed had wanted him to be.
"A few more moments and he'll never be able to recover-- wait, what--!!"
"He's attempting to lock up his 'human' side, while... while simultaneously reaching out for--"
"The ritual. He instinctively knows there's something he can use in desperate times, and to him, this is as desperate as it gets."
"First, what are we going to do? You know there's a greater chance of him killing himself than successfully performing the rituals, regardless of the necessary ingredients-- it's too early!"
There was complete silence, then a strong baritone, full of power and authority. "There is no choice. He must go through his inheritance now or we risk losing forever what makes 'Dulce' himself-- he wishes now only to exist as the Sin of Lust."
{{The many colors of Lust}}