Red Thread of Hate

Silence is golden, Duck Tape is silver

  You knew married couples had quiet days, but what was happening was a joke.

Apart from the fact that it was a set up marriage between you and Alastor, the fact that you two had these 'quiet days' since the last fight was worse than if you were actually a couple. Several days passed in which a heavy, suffocating silence, thick as fog, tormented you and followed you like a stalker wherever you went. And you couldn't stop thinking about the urge that had arisen in you several times to stop it. But you didn't do it.

Considering you lived with a chatterbox, a man who loved to talk constantly and whose mouth almost never closed, the silence in the house was unnatural. You didn't know what you would prefer, if you were arguing constantly, letting your anger throw insults and accusations in all directions, or what was happening now. Because the silence was terrible, making you feel like you were both walking on thin ice, careful with every step you took.
But you could feel a little respite, a little relief that you didn't have to fight, you didn't have to be ready to defend yourself. But you knew this kind of silence very well and I just prayed to all the demons and devils that it would not be the calm before the storm. Because after all, it is the words that cut the air like lightning through the sky that can cause harm.

And you swore that the silence was like a hand wrapping around your throat, telling you not to break it. Whenever you were in the same room as Alastor, you walked on your tiptoes and were careful not to make the slightest sound that might draw his attention to you. But you believed that the silence was worse than the quarrels themselves, so why were you afraid to break it? What could possibly happen that would be worse than what was happening? Would whatever it was be so bad that it would be nicer to have these quiet reminders of how apart you were? After all, you despised him, every part of him was causing your anger to build and your irritation grew with every word he said. But now that he wasn't saying anything, he was even more unbearable. The empty rooms seemed to lose their life, wishing they would be filled again with your snarky comments and irritated sentences. And you guess you felt just like them, not knowing what to do with yourself, because you couldn't stand in a house where the silence was worse than the heated arguments. At least when you were arguing, your emotions had an outlet, what had built up in you over the time since the previous exchange of words could finally evaporate along with the words thrown towards the red haired man. You've started quarrels many times yourself, not so much because you're angry at him, but simply because you're irritated with everything around you, or at least because of some unrelated situation. And instead of throwing your frustration and tears into your pillow at night, you preferred to do it by screaming at him, having a strange feeling that even if he despised you, he listened to what you said. You swore that the number of times he alluded to old things you mentioned in his nastiness and comments was more frequent than the fact that someone you liked remembered them. True, it was probably just the result of the fact that he was meticulous in following the lives of people he hated so that it would be easier to abuse them, but there was still something comforting about it.

Or maybe it was just you who was sick.

You wondered if he, too, felt so crushed by the weight of silence. Or maybe instead of feeling tortured, he enjoyed it, taking a break from you? Or maybe he had already noticed that you were on the damn edge, and that made him in a much better mood, even if he was also tortured by the emptiness? You weren't able to find out or guess it, because as usual, Alastor was an unpredictable person in every sense of the word.

And in your mad thoughts, you often tried to find some recognition in his voice. His words, even if laced with venom, were strangely detailed, referring to things no one else remembered. Alastor remembered details you had mentioned before, usually in passing, and your sick need to be noticed was rejoicing, even if the words stung and cut deep. Sometimes when you were talking about something, your friends would usually just nod their heads, but when you asked them for their opinion, they often didn't even know what you were talking about a moment ago. You weren't surprised, you knew that no one really absorbed what you said, with exceptions of course. But Alastor remembered the things you had said weeks earlier and was only using them as ammunition in your verbal battles. It was irritating, of course, but at least he was listening. And he was your lifeline, something you were glad no one knew about. How strange it was that in the fiery moments of arguments  you felt most alive, even though you had long since died. You had no idea why he didn't ignore you, if he just liked to argue, or if he couldn't stand someone talking bad about him. You had already heard about his famous quarrels with Lucifer himself, and you felt a little proud that you were on the same level as the King of Hell when it came to irritating Alastor with your mere existence.