Shame

Wine. Who even drinks wine at six in the morning? Pride, apparently, and it can’t be good for him. I tiptoe into the living room, and quickly peck him on the cheek, before sitting down next to him on the couch. His head snaps towards me, hand flying to his cheek.

“Y-You kissed me!” he squeaks “Why would you do that?!

“What?” I ask, frowning, confused “You kissed me last night.”

“No I didn’t,” Pride insists shortly, shooting me a dirty glare while his face turns a subtle pink.

With an annoyed sigh, I scoot down the couch, away from him. Pride finishes his glass, setting it down shakily on the end table, and then picks up the bottle, bringing it to his lips.

“Pace yourself!” I cry, leaning over and making a grab for the glossy bottle, only to find it weighs practically nothing in my hand, almost empty “Did… did you drink all of this?”

“Maybe,” he mutters, wiping his mouth on his white sleeve, leaving a slight red stain.

“No wonder you can’t remember anything! For shame, Pride,” my scolding is only acknowledged with a shrug, which causes my indignance to grow hotter in my chest for a moment before concern clouds over it.

“I hold my alcohol well,” he remarks quietly, not daring to look at me, perhaps because he’d rather really forgetting about the night prior.

If he isn’t drunk now, then he probably wasn’t drunk before either, leaving very little reason for him lock lips with me. We’d been getting along absurdly well in the past week, and it’s very likely that he may have jumped the gun and then regretted it. Perhaps he was hoping for a one night stand, but if that’s what he was pushing for then I must have missed a cue. Before he kissed me, he had been giving off signs, getting affectionately close to me, and when our hands accidentally brushed, they ended up staying in soft contact.

Right before our first kiss, he had been watching me with a fond but peculiar look in his brown eyes, taking me in as if for the first time, curiously studying my face, gaze wandering down to my lips. The other three others in the room were preoccupied, leaving us two in our own private space. We were on the couch as we are now, and Pride’s advance happened suddenly, a tender but fumbling kiss. He had pulled away quickly, staring at me with an anxious excitement, waiting for a reaction. I returned the gesture swiftly, drawing the fresh kiss out longer, savoring the closeness despite Pride’s clear inexperience.

Greed, Gluttony, and Wrath never even noticed us, until we parted, and Gluttony called me over to be judge of his competitive video gaming against Greed. Everyone knows better than to challenge Wrath at anything, due to his explosive nature, but he wasn't much better as a referee. At some point Pride slipped away, going back to his room, and I didn’t see him again until now, at six, emptying a whole bottle of wine. Pride gets up, and makes his way to the kitchen, a hint of a stagger in his step, steadying himself on the counter as he walks to the refrigerator.

He opens the door silently, and retrieves Lust’s half empty pineapple flavored vodka from the back, not waiting to even close the door before opening it with a flick of the cap that leaves it ricocheting onto the floor, tipping his head back and taking three large gulps before I can stop him. As fast as I can, I stand and hurry over to him, taking the bottle from him.

“You’re going to poison yourself, Pride,” I speak softly despite my growing worry, watching him sheepishly pick up the cap, and allows me to retrieve it from his hand with little resistance on his part “I’m sorry if I overstepped your boundaries last night, but that doesn’t mean you ought to drink yourself into oblivion.”

“You didn’t overstep anything, Holly,” Pride pushes up his glasses to roughly rub both of his eyes with his palms, perhaps to avoid eye contact “I shouldn’t have done that. I really shouldn’t have done that.”

“What do you mean? It wasn’t bad, I liked it. You’ve been very kind to me,” I guide him back over to the couch, keeping a light touch on his back, rubbing it as we sit down.

“Don’t say that. I don’t want to hear that,” he leans in towards me, before jerkily pulling away, slumping back against the cushion behind him, so that I have to move my hand “We can’t have that kind of relationship. I’m not human. It is so… wrong, for a demon to become involved with one of your kind.”

“I don’t understand. Lust gets intimate with humans all the time. What about you is different?” I ask, to which Pride shakes his head, looking down into the ground.

“He doesn’t care about them. He just uses them for sex,” Pride’s voice has picked up a slight slur “I need… I need you to hurt me. I need you to punch me, hard. Ruin this.”

“Why would I punch you?!” my words echo with my concern, to which Pride turns to me with a kind of franticness to his face.

“If you hit me, you don’t care. Don’t care, Holl. You've gotta help me end this,” Pride grabs my wrist, lifting it and trying to get me to smack him.

Heartbroken for his sake, I don't move my hand, to hit him or otherwise, holding it there gently where it rests at his head, until he lets go of me, focusing downwards with tears welling up in his eyes. The undignified display of emotion is something I wouldn't expect of Pride sober, but even for the amount of alcohol he can and has consumed, it's still a shock. I try to comfort him, stroking the side of his face, then bringing my arm around him to hug him, but at this he starts to cry.

“It's alright, Pride, you shouldn't have to be embarrassed because you... like me,” I reach up and ease his glasses off of his face, to which he looks up at me tearfully.

“I’m not embarrassed,” his voice is choked, and quiet “I want this so, so bad, but I can’t have it. Can you imagine what the others would think of me if they found out?”

“So what if they don’t like us together? They’re living in my house, they’re going to need to put up with my choices,” I reassure him, setting his glasses down on the coffee table, and then leaning in, taking his face in my hands, and kissing him on the eyelid.

He sniffles, and pulls me into a hug, letting out a muffled sob in response. I comb through his brown hair, trying to sooth him with gentleness, but he remains distraught in our situation.