Oct 29, 2009 23:58
Midnight passes again
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julian sark,
cy,
captain jack harkness,
josef soltini,
the baron,
elizabeth jules,
plot: ten plagues,
jamie d'vart,
avery campbell,
ruvin,
den varlis,
amity mackenzie,
fred burkle,
robin rice,
michael westen,
plot: game-wide,
babel,
kelly peyton,
ianto jones,
phoebe donovan,
sam tyler,
luke roberts,
tomei wolf,
aniki forfrysning,
csp-04,
jack bristow
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One week ago this would be cause for alarm but people are out on the streets all the time now. People and corpses and whatever else. It's chaos on the streets. No one has time to bother with a girl sleeping outside against a building in downtown Chicago. Her left arm is bandaged and the sleeve is torn away from when she helped a few members of a family die when they were being eaten by a monster. Luckily, it took one bite out of her arm when she became visible to it and didn't seem to like the taste of angel.
She might not have needed to contact Josef at all but she has doubts about her ability to stay asleep long here even if she is beyond exhausted and thirsty and hungry and can't stand and achy- And she's getting whiny in her head. She should stop that.
It was her own choice not to stop looking in peoples gazes but it's less choice and more compulsion, need. People are dying whether she sees it or not. No one should be alone when they die. No one should have to suffer like that. She helped twelve people already this week, and she's going to help so many more.
Elizabeth glances at her journal, flipping it open again. She really wishes Aaron would respond. She's worried about him. Archangels have a tendency to get into fights. There have been lots of fighting and monsters- And even more dying. She doesn't want Aaron to die especially if it's alone.
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He lost count as to how many lives he took. The rest of the days have been taken up largely by apathy. Everywhere he looks there is chaos. Everyone is steeling themselves for the final plague. Josef is a first born, and probably one of the few looking forward to it.
He was apathetic, yes. Up until Elizabeth locked something for him in her journal. He didn't want to answer her at first. Didn't want to care. They're all damned as it is anyway. Let her stay where she is. Let someone else go for her, someone that actually can take care of her. He couldn't just leave her there and he knows deep down why that is.
Josef notices she's commented once again to the journal entry but he doesn't write back. There's no point in writing back when he's only a few feet away from her.
He kneels down, brushing her hair out of her face. "Of course you took on more deaths than you should have."
You can argue with him all you want, Elizabeth. Josef knows he is right.
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"No, I didn't!" She opens her eyes and gives him a very defiant, stubborn look though the blush hasn't left her face. He's still really, really close. "Every person that I helped needed help dying. It's not like I had that much of a choice! I'd start to walk home, but everybody is dying, and it's what I was made to do so I do it. I help them, and it's not so bad when they die cause I'm there. I feel their pain. I answer their questions! I give them somebody to hold hands with when they're scared and bleeding. I'm not going to just say no, no one on this street gets to have help if they're dying cause this might be too much for me right now. I mean geeze-la-Petes."
She pauses realizing how she sounds. Even if it is how she feels, she doesn't want to get in an argument with him especially one that might result in him leaving her here because she really doesn't think she can walk for long on her own and she has a long way to go before she gets home.
"Uhm... Sorry. I am appreciative of you coming all this way in like really dangerous times, and I hope you didn't run into any trouble while you were being so nice as to help me."
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He'd expected this reaction reaction from her.
He is also nonplussed about it, Elizabeth. Sorry about that.
"You do sound very appreciative. So appreciate that I'm all aflutter," he answers with a solemn nod, holding out a hand to help get back on her feet. "Come on, Sparky. Keep telling me how wrong I am on the way over."
Josef should probably be freaking out along with the rest of Chicago.
Josef is not quite like most.
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"I don't think you get aflutter. Ever. Do you? You're like un-aflutterable. It's only me who gets all aflutter all the time with the... tripping on words and the stomach tripping and the face getting all-" Yeah, she should not have asked him over. She has almost no filter on her mouth right now.
She reaches up to grab hold of his hand. The help getting back on her feet is ridiculously necessary. She even wobbles when she reaches to get her backpack and throws that over her shoulder. The effort and weight of the backpack almost tips her over backwards.
"Can't you at least pretend to agree with me? And then I can tell you how wrong you are on some other day when I'm more rested and can formulate better reasons for why you are oh so wrong! The wrongest of wrongers... wrong people. Which you are. I know you're the Man, but even the Man has his limits and you have like reached them and run over them and tripped on them and got stuck. So ha."
Elizabeth's exhaustion only makes her rambling worse and more incoherent than before. Apologies, Josef.
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There is no way Josef is letting her carry anything in her current state, try as she may to protest it.
He takes one look at that backpack and removes it from her shoulder, throwing it over his own. Then an arm loops around her waist to effortlessly carry half her weight.
"Did you just 'ha' me?" Josef asks, almost teasingly. He realizes it's the exhaustion talking, to a certain point. But as long as she is talking he can keep her awake long enough to get to his penthouse.
"Very mature. I'm duly chastised and completely in the wrong here. Wrongest of wrongers, I may need a plaque for that to remind myself of it constantly."
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She does open her mouth to protest. It's her backpack. She can take care of it and once it's on her back it won't make her trip and fall over. But all those words die in her mouth when he slips his arm around her waist and half carries her. Oh my. This position next to him is making her all... aflutter. Her heart starts tripping over its own beats and her stomach fills with butterflies and that still so new feeling of want slips into every other portion of her body until she thinks the proximity between the two of them might cause her to faint.
Elizabeth swallows, clearing her throat and trying not to look at him as she's sure that her face resembles a lobster.
"Oh, no. Never. I'd never 'ha' you that would just be wrong. You're the Man and I'm just a young girl." After a moment, she takes one sideways look at him and smiles. "Ha."
She's still smiling. Her head is ducked as she's pressed up against him. Her arm slid around his waist after a moment so she could balance herself. Never mind that her fingers are shaking a bit with nerves and all that emotion balled up inside of her. It's a nice distraction from plagues and helping people die but she almost thinks she'd rather think about that. Elizabeth understands that as well as anyone can in her position. It's familiar and most of it's instinct.
This though? It's like flailing in the dark with nowhere to land.
"I'm completely mature, and I'll be sure to get a plaque for you at some point ya know when all these plagues aren't happening. You can put it like over your door so you see it every time you come home." Assuming they don't all die of the last plague.
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He doesn't stop to realize he's just actually defined it as a relationship, whatever that means. Josef tsks as he slips his sleek gunmetal aviators back on. What? Plagues and sunless weather isn't going to stop Josef Soltini from being stylish and...well, Josef.
He grins, and because he's the soul of maturity himself he fires back, "I'll see your 'ha' and raise you a 'pfft.'"
He frowns slightly once Elizabeth goes quiet--because that is a sign something is wrong, he's come to learn--and notices her face is flushed. It's a lovely sight, and Josef has to continuously remind himself aside from the fact she's impossibly young, he has nothing to offer but demons to pile up on top of each other until they're so great they'd threaten drown her along with him in the sea of madness.
Not that it matters if you're gonna die anyway, a voice inside him beckons traitorously.
Clearing his throat, the amusement fades away for a helpless moment. "This is the part where I ask if you have an older sibling and you tell me you do, isn't it?"
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Elizabeth mouth does fall open when he puts those aviators on. It's... hot. She cannot look at his face long or she'll get all incoherent and trip over every word. Again.
"I kinda wish I had some of those cause then I could be cool like the Man," she says with a sideways smirk, keeping her gaze pointedly forward. So she can speak. It's necessary, okay?
She smiles wide and even manages to look at that grin on his face as much as it sends her heart soaring and her stomach twisting with excitement. Elizabeth manages to turn that smile into a smirk to act like she totally has her cool in his presence and isn't at all affected by the gorgeous looks on his face, how great it is to see him grin like that.
"You're silly," she says finally though has to turn her attention head again to manage the words.
Her face still feels so hot. She'd hope that when she was this exhausted that she'd be too tired to blush. Apparently, she was wrong. It seems to be far too easy to blush despite how exhausted she feels; maybe because of how exhausted she feels.
Elizabeth grows serious when he does, glancing at him curiously. It means something to her that he wants her to be a second born child even if he's already made it clear that he would rather her not be hurt or killed. Still. It's nice to hear, again. She shakes her head though she doesn't seem too sad about it.
"No, I guess it's not. I'm an only child," she says. "It's okay though. If I die, it's my time. I'm not really scared or anything."
And then her heart freezes up. She bites on her lower lip until she has the strength to speak.
"...what about you?" Yes, that's a worried tone to her voice. She can accept that it's her time to die but not the people she cares about.
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"That can and will be arranged," he says grandly, giving her a quick salute.
While she looks straight ahead with a smile on her face, Josef is making sure she remains upright. He isn't the least bit affected by that bright smile, of course not. A hand is still wrapped firmly around her waist. He doesn't answer her claim that he is silly because he honestly isn't, honestly wasn't, until he met her.
It's easier to be silly and careless around her.
It's harder, too.
When she tells him she's an only child, it feels like he's been rammed into by a truck. He hadn't expected this vehement reaction but there it is. "Oh."
It's all he can manage. A faint and quiet oh. She's so accepting of it, too. Death is her calling, but that doesn't mean that it's okay. It is not okay that she could die in five days. He--
"My parents weren't in love." His lips twist into something bitter. "I'm all they had."
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She may have to give him a gift as well but that is not an issue at all. The gift giving probably would have happened even if he didn't get her aviators of her own.
Elizabeth is trying to not be affected by his arm around her waist or his body against hers. It's nearly impossible though. Every now and then, it sends a quick thrill through her and she has to bite down on her tongue to keep any silly noise from being uttered. If she looks at him too long, she gets this ridiculous urge to kiss him, and he's older and a demon and- She needs to stop feeling this way but she can't. There's no switch to turn it off. She wishes there was.
She's not sure what to make of his reaction except that he does care about her. It's been proven time and time, again, but every time something else comes along to reaffirm it... it makes her heart flutter and her stomach twist and every part of her light up with hope and a silly, young happiness. She can't help wanting to mean something to him any more than she can help how attractive she finds him, how much being close to him makes her feel... so many emotions that she's never even thought about before. It's wrong probably to be glad that her death can affect him but it's human, and she can't help the emotion as much as she wishes he wouldn't be sad about it at the same time.
It's the knowledge that he's set on her shoulders that hurts though. He's an only child, too. She looks down because it brings helpless tears to her eyes and a lump to her throat. The idea of him dying is not something she's very capable of handling. After a few moments, she manages to swallow past the tightness in her throat even if she can't pull the tears back, too.
"I'm sorry. I mean, it must've been kind of rough having parents that weren't in love. My parents were in love like super-duper head over their heels in love with each other, but my mom put so much energy into pushing me out of her womb that it killed her. It's kind of why my dad hates me so much I guess. Ya know so my granny raised me instead cause he couldn't... uhm. Anyway," Elizabeth winces, pressing her lips tightly together to keep more words from spilling out of her mouth without a filter.
She hasn't admitted to anyone else in her whole life that she thinks her dad hates her. It's easy to say that he's not glad to have her around, that he's too busy for her, that she's too painful to be near but hate is something she has never been able to admit before.
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The only thing he's aware of is that expression on her face that he catches before she looks down. She's nearly crying, when seconds ago she was telling him she could accept her own fate.
It hurts. Josef doesn't want it to hurt but it does. He can't find words to answer her. Because it hits him then, all at once, this big whoosh of sharp air, that no matter how wrong it is, he has deep feelings for this girl.
"I can't imagine anyone hating you," he says softly, so softly it's almost lost in the wind. But he can imagine hatred between family. He experienced it. There are chains that bond those that are already tied to each other by blood, and hate can be so much stronger than love.
He hated his own father, didn't he? Ruined his own mother, killed her in the end.
Still, Josef can't imagine anyone looking into Elizabeth's beautiful face and hating her.
"It was rough for other reasons," he says carefully, after a moment's hesitation. It hangs thick in the air, the pause, enough to slice through the memories that come with it.
He stops walking momentarily, drawing her even closer to him. "...I'm sorry."
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"I don't think he wanted to, but mom was his ward and I was what killed her so." It always comes back to that, to callings and who they make a person in to.
How much of it is the individual and how much is what they're made to be by whatever greater power has it all under control? And she has to believe there's someone out there, up there that has a greater plan in mind. She has to. Without that belief, she'd be lost. Callings would have no meaning. They'd be accidental, purposeless. She has to believe there's a greater good to fight for or toward, that every person she helps to die is another step in the right direction. Just as every time a guardian angel who protects their ward from attach or an archangel destroys a monster is one more step.
Elizabeth presses her face against him when he draws her closer still, taking in the smell of his clothes, focusing on that when it'd be so easy to get lost in what could have been. She's lost in thoughts bigger than her, than this moment so the movement doesn't even make her blush deepen for once. Her heart thuds heavy and quickly in her chest but that's mostly from the emotion, not closeness. She thinks.
"I'm sorry, too. No one should have a rough childhood. Mine wasn't so bad really even with dad never being around. My Granny took really good care of me," Elizabeth assures him, and with her face pressed up against him and them not walking anymore, it would be really easy to fall asleep even with the air hanging so thickly and the emotion in her heart.
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He realizes it's falling apart now, the safety of the life he's always known. And yes, it's easier being around Elizabeth, but it's also messy. There's no easy way out, no simple solution. Everything is so much harder when there's something at stake.
There is a line between them. A line that's there by the simple fact they are who they are. Angel and demon. It's deepened by the age difference between them, the inherent goodness in her heart and the inherent malice inside of his.
It has taken a surprising amount of self-control to make sure the line remains uncrossed. It isn't a choice he's made in hopes it will ennoble him. Heroes, real heroes, they aren't meant for this world. Not for long.
How utterly pathetic. How weak of you, Josef.
"Rarely does one get what they deserve. I knew love, in whatever form it was given to me by my parents, and I have not wanted for more." A pause. "We're almost there," he says in a tight voice. He looks down at her, sensing she's a breath away from collapsing. "Can you walk the rest of the way?"
He will literally carry her in his arms if he has to.
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She's loves him even if it's a different kind of love... maybe it'll bring more to his heart, warm him. She doesn't think she'd mind if he wanted more of it from her.
"Mmmhmm," Elizabeth says softly, forcing her head away from his chest even if it leaves her face feeling colder than it ever has before. "I'll be fine when we start walking, again. Promise. You're very..." She trails off. The blush makes her face heat right back up. "Warm, safe, soft. Easy to sleep against even standing up."
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Not like Elizabeth believes it to be a lie, would have no reason to consider him anything but how she is describing him. But hearing her say he is warm and safe is almost painful, physically.
"Almost there, Sparky."
He careens her gently, helping her walk the last few blocks. Once they're in front of his apartment complex, protest or no Josef intends to carry her up the flight of stairs.
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