[closed] wrote you love notes on their headstones

[abduxel]

WHO: Abduxel and Elsa Brandt
WHERE: Elsa's apartment
WHEN: wee hours of the morning after the Fear gas swear in
WHAT: a complicit demon seeks refuge
WARNINGS: Abduxel. Elsa. There will be blood, nudity and maybe sexual situations.



[Skritch skritch skritch. Little scrabbling claws skitter over the glass of Elsa's bedroom window as a three-eyed bat clings awkwardly to the brick above, barely with enough purchase to dangle his wrinkled, hairless black face in view and tap his bony wing-finger for attention. Having an extra set of wings, effectively three sets of arms/legs, helps.

Skritch skritch -- it's interrupted by a commotion of desperate flapping as he nearly loses hold, claws scrabbling wildly.

He adjusts, gets secure.

Skritch skritch...]

Comments

[enustari]

[Lucky for him, Elsa is awake.

She went out bar-hopping for a while, though when news of the attack on the swear-in started rolling in on the network she excused herself—ostensibly in distress, needing to check up on friends who might have gone, you know, but in actuality so she could stop faking horrified reactions and simply absorb the information. A gas attack. Mass panic, hallucinations, violence. No, she's not sorry to have missed that.

When Abduxel comes scratching at the window, she's tucked into bed with a tumbler of liquor and a very full ashtray balanced on the mattress beside her, still poking through the aftermath online. There's a pinched look on her face as if staring at the comm for this long has given her a wicked headache.

His initial tapping is too quiet to get her attention. But when he nearly falls, the flurry of motion in her peripheral vision has her glancing over, and then she springs out of bed, knocking whiskey and cigarette butts everywhere, to shove open the window.]

You made it back!

[As soon as he's in, she'll slam the window back down.]

[abduxel]

[He crashes in through the window rather dramatically when she raises it, landing on the floor amongst the cigarette butts before almost immediately shapeshifting.

He loosens all his glamours, every bit of magic; he's wiped. Resisting the fear gas required physical manifestations that he's never before held for more than fifteen minutes at a time, at the same time as glamour-disguise. If this were physical activity, he would have torn a muscle, or gotten shin splits from overtraining too suddenly.

He sighs heavily on the floor, body limp, smiling up at her as best he can. His skin is slick with sweat and he's got an obviously fresh wound that runs from elbow to wrist, that looks like it was cut deep, deeper than anything he'd do intentionally for his magic. Due to his rate of healing, it doesn't look quite as fresh as it is. Faint marks give away all the magic he cast, too, a dozen or so fading stripes from shallow bloodletting. He probably has other cuts and bruises, too.

With all the energy of someone who just somehow managed to run a marathon they were quite underqualified for,]

I made it back.

[enustari]

[She turns and leans there against the window, taking in his sorry state. That gash on his arm looks nasty but not life-threatening; she can see he's already begun healing it and so it's nothing to fuss over. Not that she would anyway. She's not really the type to play nursemaid.

She makes a sort of tsk noise with her tongue and then, matter-of-fact,]

You look like shit.

[abduxel]

[He laughs, tiredly.]

You're sweet as ever, Elsa.

I think I'm dying, so get your fill while you can.

[He's just being dramatic.]

[enustari]

[She is super sweet, yes.]

So kind of you to do it on my bedroom floor. What will I do with the body?

[abduxel]

Whatever your corrupted little heart desires, I suppose.

[He spreads his limbs a little farther, cooling off, and heaves a great big sigh.]

Did you see what happened?

[enustari]

[Her 'corrupted little heart'—that gets a laugh.

She pushes off from the window and returns to the bed, sprawling across it on her stomach and dangling partway over the edge above him. The sheets are damp where her drink got knocked over, but whatever, she ignores it. Storytime.]

Only what was put online. Some sort of gas that had people attacking one another. Care to fill in the rest?

[abduxel]

[His head lolls towards her lazily, horn clunking on the floor and probably scraping it a little.]

Fear toxin.

[He smiles slowly.]

[enustari]

[That sounds familiar... It takes a moment for her to remember the context.]

That nutty psychiatrist? He was responsible?

[abduxel]

Yes. Doctor Crane. It was some big... experiment... I guess.

[enustari]

What, to see how many people he could fuck up at once? Sounds like it was effective.

What did he need you for?

[abduxel]

Well.

[He hesitates. He was there because Lucifer ordered him to help.]

I was just there to generally help.

It was chaos, really, you should have seen it. [Quick change the subject!] So much fighting!

[enustari]

[Of course he'd as good as admitted Lucifer was involved somehow when they spoke the night before, but she'll let him get away with evading the topic. For now.]

Mm, you'll just have to tell me all about it. [Said as she rolls onto her back. Still hanging off the bed, just upside-down now with her hair trailing onto the floor.]

See anyone we know?

[abduxel]

Kitty Jones, if you know her. She stabbed me, actually. [He laughs, gently touching his own arm where the large gash is.] Nysrog was there. I'd be surprised if she didn't kill someone.

I think I saw Dorian, too, but not up close. And his corpse lover, Tobias.

[enustari]

Corpse lover! So catty, Abduxel. [You can practically hear her mentally high-fiving herself for that pun.]

Speaking of which, no, I don't know this Kitty.

[abduxel]

Har-har. [He says it sarcastically like it totally isn't funny, but he's smiling because actually it is.] How does it even work, having sex with someone who's dead? Can he get hard?

[enustari]

[She laughs loudly, head tipped back.] I have no idea, but they definitely are fucking. I nearly walked in on them once! Toby was so flustered. Dorian, of course, didn't give a shit.

[abduxel]

[His smile broadens a little.] Well, then? Was it hard?

[enustari]

At the time, it didn't occur to me to check. If you're so curious, show up at Dorian's unannounced. You might see for yourself!

[abduxel]

[He laughs, but then huffs a sigh.] I'm not doing that just to catch a peek at a frozen boner. More attention-to-detail, next time, Elsa.

[enustari]

This is not about to become my personal mission. If it comes up, it comes up. [Phrasing... She snorts, or tries to, anyway. It's harder than you'd think when you're upside-down.]