The Curse of Cain

•⋅✹⋆ Inferno ·♰· 5th Circle ⋆✹⋅•

The raw emerald eyes shimmered with anger, disbelief, and evident sadness.

"Do not do this," the being with black hair practically whispered, a request filled with melancholy and pain.

"Don't speak as if I'm wrong, as if I'm doing something bad," the redhead retorted, the words thrown like sharp knives toward that star-eyed demon with lowered shoulders.

"You're breaking up with me... How do you want me to speak?" The brunette seemed to try to measure his words, a weak murmur escaping his lips while his eyes were filled with a certain emptiness.

"Breaking up? Did we ever really have anything?" The redhead's voice now carried a peal of easy, lifeless laughter. "We never had anything beyond moments when you felt like being here," he struck, his eyes fixed on that pale countenance. "You came when you wanted, left when you got tired or displeased with something," he continued. "It was always like that with you, and it always was. Right? Because 'stars don't love.'"

"That's not the point, Caim," the brunette tried to say, one hand raised towards the young man.

"No!" The emerald-eyed one stepped back, his tearful face. "That's EXACTLY the point," his trembling lips curved into a smile he didn't want to give. "You don't love me and can't love ME."

"Stars don't love!" the infernal prince uttered, low and almost crushed in pain.

"Lie," the son of Lilith whispered. "Stars love, Astreae; it's you who doesn't want to love. It's you who doesn't want to love me."

Caim's voice was now wholly imbued with that tearful tone, the tone of a child wounded by something he wasn't sure he should have seen.

"You can love, Astreae," the redhead said as he stared at the dark floor of that place, of that room he had shared with the heir to the throne of hell for so many nights. "You will love, but... it won't be me."

"What are you talking about?" The star-eyed being seemed confused and lost as he stood there, waiting for permission that wouldn't come, so he could finally approach.

"I saw."

"Ah!" The poor prince's mind seemed to finally open up and expand as he understood where he had changed—where the threads had drifted from that future he had long awaited, the lot where he would sit on the throne of hell, where he would be with Caim by his side, smiling. A golden crown upon his red hair, the raw emerald eyes shimmering with the power of a newly crowned demon.

He didn't need prophecies, didn't need much to understand what it meant to be happy—because even though love for a star was like proclaiming its death—Astreae was willing, for one day, to love Caim truly.

To give him his heart.

"I've told you, prophecies can change. The threads can always change," the star-eyed demon murmured, his long, black, nail-covered hands now trembling as they hadn't even in times of war. "I-..."

"Threads can change..." Caim repeated, almost as if telling a joke. "But in none of them... do you choose me."

The demon's eyes widened.

"What...?"

"I'm tired," the redhead whispered. "I'm tired of always questioning what's wrong with me, of never being enough, and of... thinking that everything can get better with time." Those words were like darts cruelly plunged into the heart of the star-eyed being, and at that moment, even if he wanted to, Astreae could no longer speak or try to stop Caim—because he knew where it would lead; so, the redhead continued, "I don't want to make the same mistake anymore. I deserve more." The uncut emerald eyes shimmered with pain. "I deserve the love you can't give me. I deserve someone who can truly love me, and that someone isn't you."

"Isn't it?"

"No," the redhead murmured as a sentence. "No matter in which reality we'll be, no matter which thread we'll follow... you will never love me, Astreae."

"That's not true," the demon heard a voice screaming in his mind, but his mouth didn't move or open.

The delicate face, the rosy lips—the expression of Caim that he would spend so many hours awake just watching—everything seemed to be lost when the redhead turned his back to leave, to descend the stairs of that place.

"Caim..." Astrae's voice was like a ghost, the ghost of the singing and commonly lively tone. "Please... don't do this, please... don't go."

The redhead's body stiffened, his back seeming to bear a weight beyond what was bearable—but still, he didn't move. He didn't turn to face the star-filled eyes now filled with tears held back only by the remnants of pride he had left.

"I'm not doing anything," he murmured. "I'm just sincerely tired..."

"Don't go... Don't leave me..." It was a blatant plea, laden with a feeling of fear that the demon wasn't accustomed to feeling.

"Then say," the redhead let out in a scoffing tone. "Say that you can love me. Say that I'm wrong."

The brunette's mouth opened, his sharp nails sinking into the palms of his hands.

He wanted to say it, to grasp that small and fragile thread that still shimmered in the darkness of destiny—he wanted to tell Caim about the coronation, hell, both of them, his heart, fate, and potential love. He tried to tell him about the oath in that flower-filled cabin, about the meaning of each of his words—and at the same time, he wanted the redhead to understand.

Astreae didn't want to have to explain anything.

And like a too-weak string being pulled back and forth—the thread unraveled before his eyes.

"No..." the demon uttered, his voice laden with anguish and despair.

The emerald eyes widened as Caim's tears spilled down his warm, rosy cheeks.

This was indeed the end.

· ·⊶ ⋆❂⋆ ⊷· ·

•⋅✹⋆ London ·♰· 12th Century ⋆✹⋅•

Exchanged glances meant nothing — that's what Cain liked to remind himself as he walked among mortals, slipping through the tangle of bodies that constantly shifted their ways of thinking, dressing, and behaving.

"I heard that the youngest son of the count doesn't want to get married," one of the ladies said, low enough to be considered a polite comment and loud enough for those who wanted to hear to hear finally. "There are all those rumors, but in the end, we can't say anything for sure, can we?"

Nonsense, the redhead thought as he leaned against the dark stone wall. Like so many others, that lady was merely waiting for the first soul, unafraid of the consequences, to repeat a malicious comment so that she could finally unleash her own.

"Well, wasn't he engaged to the marquess's daughter?" another lady said with a wicked smile on her rosy lips.

"Engaged?&quo