action; closed

[senseandcecilbility]

Date: October 1st
Location: Away from the Observatory
Character: Kevin & close CR who feels like dealing with sad and sick celestial beings.
Summary: The guardian angel of Britain is experiencing technical difficulties.
Warning: Transparent angels?

[Uriel doesn’t need to be at the Observatory. When the time comes, he discreetly slips away on unsteady feet, hand clasping his chest as his whole body is shaken by unremitting agony. Millions of prayers, millions of dreams, millions of lives binding him. Where are you, where are you at a time like this? Who will account for us? Who will take responsibility?

He stumbles into an empty room and falls to his knees. When the first bomb touches the ground, he feels the blast on his very skin. Every single scarred soul, every single pointless loss, he feels their screams perpetuate into infinity. His. He grasps empty air and reaches out for them, uselessly.

Uriel, on the other hand, makes no sound. He would not, even if all wind had not been knocked out of his lungs. His face becomes a mask of silent and desperate shrieking. And for a nanosecond, his divine aura explodes and surges across three different plans of existence, then collapses into itself and all but disappears. What is left is barely perceptible, a frayed and lacerated veil of light for those who can sense such things.

For a brief moment, his body becomes transparent around the edges, and that is when awareness deserts him. Right before his eyelids finally close, he gazes at the walls of the room he has taken as haven, now entirely coated with variegated crystals. ]


(ooc: Since the nuclear attack destroyed his alternate people and territory, Kevin will be a mess for a few days and then recover gradually.)
 

Comments

[soul_sister]

[It's almost a mirror of yesterday evening, when his eyes open again, there's a young woman kneeling next to him, her hand on his forehead, as if somehow, that could determine what was wrong.

Instead of vague guilt, her expression is a perfect mask of alarm and concern.]

... Hey. Are you... [She swallows "All right?"] awake?

[senseandcecilbility]

[W-why? Where? What has just happened? For a moment, Kevin believes that this is, indeed, yesterday evening, and is awfully confused when he cannot even raise his head from the floor.]

Rosette?...[He tries to turn his head to look around and fails again] The chair?

[soul_sister]

....

Not quite. Though it probably didn't help much.

[She slips her hands under his arms and starts to pull him up, carefully. There's something... extremely distressing about the fact that she can make out the blue of her dress through him. Moreso that she has no idea how to fix it.]

Are you hurt?

[senseandcecilbility]

[He is also rather weightless. Certainly not as heavy as a grown man should be. He concentrates on her face, still quite disoriented about what is going on. Why does he feel like crying?]

I think...Not hurt, no.

[And yet everything hurts.]

Weak.[He tries again.]Depleted. Something terrible...

[And then it all comes back to him.]

[soul_sister]

[She only watches the dawn of that expression. She doesn't know what's going on or really the fine details of why. There's no comment or question she even really feels like asking.

She just pulls him up and into a hug, face against her shoulder.]

[senseandcecilbility]

[He does not resist at all, but his breathing has become faster, frightened.]

[soul_sister]

It's going to be okay.

[It's not that she knew, or really had any ideas, but she kept her belief that if she just pushed hard enough, the world would bend and part where she needed it to.]

We're going to make it okay.

[senseandcecilbility]

[The angel manages to cover her hand with his own, lightly.]

There were...so many. You must be...upset too.

[crocodilesmiles]

( She notices the crystals first. It's strange, in all this darkness following the extinguishing of up to a half million people, after accompanying her boyfriend to his room, saying goodnight, finding herself worried and unable to sleep, surrounded by new faces and new griefs, she doesn't know what it is that had her roll this way.

But the crystals. They catch the scant light from the area and reflect it, break it into a million tiny pieces and reconstruct it back into something alien and strange. It draws her forward, inside -- and then she sees Kevin.

Only she doesn't know it's him, not until she's at his side and flicking her brakes on, frustrated that she can't reach his throat with how he's fallen. She wants a pulse, and she's better at reading it from the neck.

Down by his side, calling out for help twice before she concentrates on the man on the floor, it still takes her a moment to recognize those features in the dark. )

Kevin, you jerk, come on! You better be breathing! I don't do heart attacks well!

[senseandcecilbility]

[She might need to call him a few more times, but finally, finally there is some movement behind his eyelids. A crack of purple eyes turn up to stare at her blankly, with no apparent recognition. Instinctively, he moves his fingertips towards the wheelchair. Someone is upset. Someone is calling Kevin, but who is this Kevin again?

His fingertips are, of course, slightly transparent.]

[crocodilesmiles]

( He looks ghostly. Transparency leads toward spirits leads toward ghosts, and Collette doesn't know what to make of anything of that. Her hand darts forward after a moment of hesitation, seeing if she can take those not-so-solid to her eyes fingers in hand. )

Kevin, come on, can you talk? If you're in shock I'm going to need a lot more help or -- or -- or something, I don't have a morph that carry you easy without your help!

( Terri isn't big enough, and Caesar's smaller than Terri. )

[senseandcecilbility]

[In spite of their translucency, his fingers are solid enough. They are, however, much colder than the last time she touched them.

The word "help" is received with unadulterated apprehension. Help means more people, and - even in his current state - he is quite certain that is something he should do his utmost to avoid.]

N-no.

[crocodilesmiles]

( She pulls his cold hand to her chest. Her own hands don't have enough warmth to change that temperature; she hopes that might change, as she wraps her other hand around his. )

No?

( She snorts, feeling that worry gnaw all the more. There's relief, too: he can talk. Kevin can talk! Her smile is wobbly. )

I didn't think butlers learned how to talk back.

[senseandcecilbility]

[Warm hands? He tries to hold them tighter again, to no avail. His eyes turn towards her once more, this time with a shadow of recognition. A butler, she said?]

P-please, do not call…anyone.

[ Collette. Her name is Collette, and she shouldn’t be seeing him like this. She is a good girl and must be concerned, terribly concerned. He must…]

I-do..not worry, pl…

[crocodilesmiles]

Why not?

( She demands, voice fierce and low. )

Are all men this -- this stubborn?! You're not okay. Yuo're not, Kevin, that's when you're supposed to let people help you.

( She can't stop the pleading note from entering her voice. Please be okay, please let her, or someone, or anyone, help, because she's just lost so much, and she doesn't want to lose even more. Not another person, not another friend, not another moment that could be saved.

If she knew how he'd felt that same loss, those half million lives terminated, she would have had more empathy. But she can't know. All she does know is that she hurts, and he's not okay, and that maybe if she rubs her hand against his and holds on wiht the other she'll be ablel to make his flesh warm up again. Don't go cold. Don't die, semi-ghost butler guy! )

What can I do?

[senseandcecilbility]

[Angel of the element of earth: some would argue that stubbornness comes with the job description.

Her anxiety pulls his focus further in her direction. There was a time when he would have found the right detachment to ignore her human pleas, but that was thousands of years ago. Now he tries to apply pressure to her warm hand once more, trying to convey some comfort, some measure of assurance.]

P-please, close the door. I-I will recover. It is not…[He takes a deep shuddering breath.] Please.

[maddeninghatter]

[ Rosette having divulged Kevin's temporary address, Break turns up without fanfare, at the foot of Kevin's lower bunk: ]

You're really not cute. Not in the least.

1/2

[senseandcecilbility]

[For the last seven hours, Kevin has been quite concentrated on his greatest discovery since his arrival: online bingo. And so the unexpected shadow popping up out of nowhere is received with a silent - and rather pathetic - attempt at flailing.]

[senseandcecilbility]

[He falls back, looking very much like a boneless chicken, but his lack of stamina doesn't stop him from pointing an accusing finger at the trespasser.]

Mister...Break...what have I said about...knocking!

[maddeninghatter]

I'd had the idea you were some sort of elderly divine being...

[ He scoots back, making himself comfortable: back against the wall, legs stretched out along the foot of the bed. ]

A bit too wise for wallowing. Was I wrong?

[senseandcecilbility]

[He closes his eyes, his fingers becoming transparent for a couple of seconds, and then opaque again. Break, who is probably used to Kevin's aura by now, might feel how frayed and ragged it is - as if it had been thoroughly misused by a clowder of particularly mean cats. The angel is putting some serious effort into hiding it. ]

Everybody is wallowing, Mister Break.

[His voice clearly says: you too, sir.]

[maddeninghatter]

Hm.

[ Some of us are doing a better job of hiding it.

In any event, he is not well enough acquainted with auras to tell whether one is damaged or simply subject to a fit of pique - or despair. ]

I heard you were ill. How on earth - or on the moon - is that possible?

[senseandcecilbility]

[Some of us are better at being lying faces, it seems.

He avoids the comment about being ill. Even so, he sounds dutifully embarrassed.]

I told you...only God is truly immortal.

Britain is...hm, mine. Or it would be more accurate to say that I am theirs. It is a bit of a technicality. Exsilium is...well...[He shrugs. Britain by proxy?]

[He considers pushing those long legs off his bed, but knows very well he will not succeed.]

[maddeninghatter]

[ He takes all of this in, and turns it over in his mind. What keeps angels alive? Whence comes their longevity?

"I am theirs."

He had assumed that Kevin had wanted to stay behind out of some misguided self-sacrificial impulse, but - what if he knew he wouldn't survive such bloodshed? Saved from a quick, fiery death, but now doomed to dwindle and waste away in agony... ]

Yes. You did.

[ This is his fate: to make everything worse in trying to make it better. ]

[senseandcecilbility]

[He curses under his breath and tries to slap Break's leg. It is the saddest slap in the world.]

D-don't you dare make that face, sir! It is...not...It is not permanent.

[It probably would be, if this were his Britain, but Break doesn't need to know that.]

I---I will get better in a couple of days and...push you into that damn pool!

[He lets out a heavy sigh and closes his eyes again. This was the most exhausting outburst ever. Mister Break, you idiot.]