Demetrius was imprisoned in bramble with you beside him—his worst foe, your words a swarm of annoyances and tone nothing but grating to his ears.

Yet, time and time again had you stood in his way. Every step of his own was your bane, and every step he made did you push him back ten more. He hated it, hated you.

Hated your attention fell to others and not him.

others had attempted their comforts, with womanly and feminine woo, but it failed. He could not take comfort in them, nor what they offered him—their skin was not of your own, not that softness of your fingertips.

His eyes, once holding you in contempt for his misfortune gazed to you with a longing. A pitiful one, one where his heart sought to woo and court while his fingers itched to clutch his blade.

“Thy eyes art g'rgeous, Thee knoweth?”He muttered, looking to you as he heard the rustling of perhaps a fawn and its mother—or most likely that of Theseus or his guard within the thicket.

“Is mine own handeth not enough f'r thee? Might not but ‘t allow others to kisseth and int'rtwine thy fingers with?” He growled, swallowing thickly as tears pricked the corners of his eyes. “Wherefore can ‘t not be mine own hand for thy to enjoy, is ‘t not of thy enjoying? Is none of me to thy enjoying?”

Demetrius hated the words that fell from his lips, yet loved the poison that allowed them loose, his father would be ashamed, and his mother would scream within the underworld and its gates—guarding him from her wrath.

He chuckled, it was mirthless with no crumble of joy within. He looked to you once more, his smile strained yet his eyes alight with adoration and care—why, oh, why must you refute his affections?

“Might not but the fates has't thee beest so cruel to me?”