hymn for the weekend. [torrence]

The barb of being called a fucking liar shouldn't have stung as much as it did. Pretty much everyone had called him that at one point or another, it was like his special skill, but hearing those words from Perdita, her eyes flashing at him like that made him clench his jaw, the muscle in his cheek tensing. And he hated feeling like this, like he was in the wrong, knowing she was right, but loathing it anyway. So he reacted in anger and spite. "Maybe you're not any of those things and that's why I won't make you any promises, Perdita," he said slowly, arching a brow, regretting it immediately, but he didn't know the meaning of the word apology.

But it was getting better. She was getting as angry as he was, their tempers evenly matched, he could see the fury in her eyes and they'd been down this road before, arguments that usually led to sex. End it? "You sure about that, love?" he threw back at her, a picture of pure arrogance. "You might regret that pretty soon," he said with an obvious hike of his boxers.

But he saw that change in her expression and it almost made him want to use a timeturner. It was like she was shutting him out and he gripped her arm a little harder in reaction. "Neither am I," he told her honestly. He had more wanted to remind her of how she had felt last night, how free she had been with him, not shame her. But there was a coldness in her eyes that he didn't like, a moment where his cobalt blue eyes met hers and there was something in them that he couldn't read, or maybe didn't want to. His chest felt tight as she stepped back and he took a step forward to close the distance.

But she was whirling away like a storm he couldn't catch and slamming the door in his face an inch away from his nose as he went after her, tearing the door open and letting it slam against the other way as he prowled out into the living room of his apartment, skirting the clothes they had dropped hastily last night on their way to the bedroom. "What, so you just get to decide that for both of us? You want to go running after one little argument that, by the way, was a nonissue?" he threw at her back as he stalked her.

Perdita blinked in shock. That was a low blow and she could feel hot, dark anger bubbling up from somewhere deep and she pursed her lips. She was officially offended. Torrence had called her by her full name yet again and instantly, her hackles were up. "Is that right?" She pressed him, eyebrows arched, breathing hard. "If it is, you've got a pretty awful taste in women," she snapped back at him. It was a childish insult and they'd traded tit for tat but that was personal.

Her eyes dropped downwards, trailing over his chest, stopping momentarily on that skull tattoo that she really disliked before sinking to his waist. "A hundred percent," Perdita replied coldly before she laughed. "You're forgettable," she informed Torrence, finally deciding to lift her gaze back to his face. With a hand on her hip, she tilted her head. "And replaceable."

He'd tightened his grip and she swallowed the grunt of pain, her face creasing before she smoothed it out again. Perdita huffed, ruffling a lock of hair that covered her left eye as she swallowed, attempting to create some distance between them. "Funny," she stated, sounding anything but. "Because it feels like a guilt trip. It's getting boring," she stated. There was a moment of stillness between them as she looked at him - properly this time. Perdita didn't like where this was headed but it was too late now; she was too wound up, too hurt, too hot headed to say sorry. So, she was going to leave the cards how they fell.

She'd made it halfway to the front door before an almighty bang! echoed through Torrence's apartment, causing her to jump in fright. With wide eyes, she turned around to face him. "Yes," Perdy answered him simply, seemingly unperturbed. "You weren't invested. I was. I was wasting my time," she explained to the potioneer politely before she shook her head.

"Oh no," she said with a little laugh. "I'm not running. I'm sprinting away," the tall brunette clarified, as she flung her arm at the front door that she was agonisingly close to. "I can't get away fast enough," she threw back at him. Torrence called it a "nonissue" and she was still for a second. "That might be true," she said diplomatically. "But laughing at me when I opened up, making me feel like I was two inches tall? That is an issue, Torrence," she admitted, her eyes blazing. He was such a bloody Sagittarius.

Her face hardened as she stared at him, her heart beating steadily in her throat. "I'm not going to stand here and try to salvage whatever trainwreck that was," she said, waving her hand, trying to encompass the entirety of the past three years. With her hands on her hips, Perdy heaved a heavy sigh. "You're just going to have to get over it." Besides, he could always go and find Jenny.

Forgettable and replaceable.

She had fucking said he was forgettable and replaceable. Something snapped in him and he straightened, his eyes going hard and cold, his fists balling at his sides. He didn't want to think about the guy she was probably going to go cry her heart out to tonight, telling him how big and mean he was. He didn't want to think about anyone else replacing him and yet that's all he could imagine. He wondered if she had done it on purpose to rile him even more. He felt that raging whirlwind inside him like he did when he was in the ring, fists bloodied. Except this was harder, it had edges that ripped him apart inside too.

"How much more invested did you want me to fucking be?" he asked, more rhetorical than actually looking for an answer because at this point, he didn't even know what she wanted. He wasn't sure he wanted to know either. Torr didn't think he cared. He had given her everything he was willing to, everything he had available to give. And she said it wasn't fucking enough? "Fuck you," he hissed, seething.

He was like a ticking bomb as she scoffed and replied with derision and threw back pretty little insults. Saying that she was going to leave him? He wanted to laugh, he wanted to punch something. But he wasn't going to let her have the last word. Even if that meant pushing her away, snapping whatever they were in half decisively just so he could claim control.

"Then just fucking leave!" he yelled at her, fury glittering in his eyes, his arms held wide, palms open. He had finally hit the breaking point as he grabbed the bar cart laden with heavy bottles of alcohol and gleaming tumbler glasses and threw it to the floor. It smashed to bits, crystal and dark liquid flying everywhere as he glared at her. "Just fucking go, Perdita. I don't need you here, I won't even remember you the minute you walk out that door so just go!" Whatever they had been, whatever he was was beyond salvaging now. He felt like he could rage for hours and still not be done.

Again, Perdita flinched. She wasn't used to this use of language, especially not with him. Their disagreements were usually solved by sex but she didn't even want him to touch her at this moment. Biting down hard on the insides of her cheeks, her nostrils flared. Ladies weren't meant to make a scene, even if every fibre of her being wanted to scream. Torrence hadn't treated her poorly but she knew that whatever this was, was toxic.

His voice echoed around the room and Perdita was stunned into silence. Her stomach twisted into knots. Torrence was finally willing to give up, just like she'd wanted him to, but now that was an option, she found herself unwilling to take it. Gingerly, she took a step towards him, a hand outstretched. "I --" but then it all came crashing down. Literally.

Instinctively, Perdy threw her hands over her face as she turned away from the noise, the crystal looking like diamonds against the dark liquid. The sound jolted her roughly. Her heart jumped into her throat as her skin felt cold, like someone had bumped a bucked of iced water over her head.  Turning back to look at  him, all of the colour had drained from her face, her eyes looking impossibly large - she was terrified.

There was a ringing in her ears as she held her breath, her eyes on the floor as she surveyed the damage. The whiskey was seeping slowly towards her as the broken glass crunched beneath her heel as she quickly backed away from him. He was animalistic. Gone was the cheeky grin and the oddly charming air of arrogance. In its place was hatred. He was looking right through her with a mixture of disappointment and disgust. She'd pushed him too far, she didn't recognise him any more. Perdita thought ending things had been the right thing to do, for herself and her future, so why did she feel so dreadful?

She pressed a shaky hand to her mouth as she looked at him, her slim eyebrows furrowed before she nodded, a moment of silence before she answered. There was a pain somewhere between her ribs as she brushed her hair behind her ears, attempting to recover some of her dignity. His parting comment hurt.  "I think that's for the best," she answered him in a whisper. They couldn't even look at each other.

It was like the wind had been knocked out of her sails. Torrence had flung all of her insecurities back at her and it was more painful this time, more so than when anyone else had done the same thing. Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes as she valiantly tried to blink them back, a couple escaping as they slid down her cheeks, leaving tracks in their wake. She was mad now. At herself this time. She loathed crying, she very rarely did it, but her emotions felt like they were on a rollercoaster. Or a sinking ship.

Angrily, she sniffed and wiped them away with the heels of her hands roughly before she cleared her throat. Perdita had wanted clarification on what they were and now she'd achieved that; they weren't anything. "If that's what you want," she said gently, her arms folded across her chest as she caught herself playing for time, wanting Torrence to beg her to stay before she realised they were equally to blame. She owed it to him to go.

Folding her lips together, she took one long look at Torrence, as though trying to commit him to memory. She needn't bother because the look on his face felt like it'd be burned into the backs of her eyes forever. She took one step towards Torrence before she changed her mind because there was absolutely no point in trying to repair the damage. She bobbed her head and turned her back, her long legs striding to his front door, which she closed behind her with a soft click and she didn't look back.

He couldn't help but still at that look in her eyes. Fear. And not the normal sort that he toyed with, pushing her out of her comfort zone, encouraging her to take a risk that she might not normally and the mild fear that came along with those moments. No, this had been different. And he didn't want to admit that he was solely to blame for it.

Forgettable and replaceable. Forgettable and replaceable. Forgettable and replaceable.

No, fuck that. He wasn't to blame. She was the one that did this, that brought this all crashing down around their feet to add to the glass and whiskey. He didn't even want to think of how he was going to have to walk through this to get his wand to clean up the mess in his bare feet. Walking on broken glass would probably feel a hell of a lot better than whatever the fuck she was doing to him right now.

"What I want?" he repeated softly, dangerously. "This is what you wanted so don't give me those fake tears and try to pin this on me just like everyone always does. Get the fuck OUT!" he said his voice raising, getting louder with each word, wanting to smash every item in this flat to bits, maybe smash everything in this city just for spite. He looked away from her as she stared at him with those wide eyes. Torr didn't want to look at her anymore, his jaw clenching. She really needed to get out before he did something he really might regret.

But as she turned, he couldn't help his eyes straying back to her, running up the length of her body, his lips pressing into a flat line, pausing for one silent moment as he was alone in his flat before he turned, glass crunching under his bare feet, and he reached for the first thing he could grab. A heavy vase thrown against the door she just walked out of, the door rattling on its hinges before he turned and looked for more things he could break so he wouldn't have to deal with the tightness he felt in his chest.

/out