open ☾ When people run in circles, it's...
[OOC: edging towards insanity. ;_; I know it's hard to tag and might be until she snaps out of it for anyone that decides to thread w/ her. Since I know it's confusing, there's only demon blood and it's on her hands and shirt and specks on her face.]
a mad world
I am an angel of death. You only see me before you die.An angel of death walks down a ( Read more... )
a mad world
I am an angel of death. You only see me before you die.An angel of death walks down a ( Read more... )
She knew it. Elizabeth knew it over a year ago when she first really felt what it's like to find the edges in her mind. It hurts. It hurts even more knowing that there's no way to go but spiraling down. She'll come out of it now maybe a little bit. It's hard to tell in her head with the blurring and the thudding.
Elizabeth swallows, holding on to the words that he is giving to her. Every word. She feels the truth of it in the tone of his voice and can feel it reaching into her heart, gripping hold of something in there that strengthens. It's more powerful than screaming and blurring.
She looks up at him again and nods. "I am. I'm proud. I'm so proud of it. I'm most happy... that I could help you, and I--" Her breath hitches, and she presses her lips together. "You've helped me too. So much. I know what love is and that's mine. Only... It's only mine."
The angel stuff is hers too, but this is separate and she has so much that is separate, but this has been strongest. Strongest of all. Her feelings for him have been strongest, and it is him that's brought her back and it is her that has brought him back. It is powerful, but one day... one day, it too will fail like so many other things.
Elizabeth holds him even tighter. She's clutching to him, and her face is buried against his neck, breathing in and out and in and out. She tries to work through it but can't.
Elizabeth. Her name strengthens her own resolve and focus. "Yes. Before. We have to live. Just live. It's not about dying, and it--"
She presses her lips together. It cannot be only madness either. They don't have much time. It's not about an expiration date. It just is. An angel of death is so familiar with endings, and she just knows-- knows that her mind is fraying at the edges.
That at any time he could follow or dive in farther first. It just is. It just is.
Elizabeth nods, pressing her lips into his. It's a kiss. It's a kiss that's so familiar, and it brings her back to the first time that she kissed him, that brief moment and everything shifted. "We do. We do. I know. It feels... it feels so different this time. I don't remember-- I don't know what I was doing before you found me. I can't remember anything-- anything before that."
And her breath hitches again at the sound of those words that she has never needed but always means so much for her to hear. I love you. Elizabeth nods against him. "I love you too," she'll say it again to make up for when she forgets herself and him and all of it. And you are still here. She is.
She is or she wouldn't be having this conversation. She wouldn't remember him. She wouldn't spend time with him unless he was dying.
Elizabeth is quiet against him, trying to work through the fog in her head, and it's-- it's so hard to do that. "...remember when-- when I first asked if I could move in?"
It seems like decades ago. She feels so old and so young right now, so lost and so found, and she buries herself closer to him, pressing up against his chest.
She won't be pretending. She-- she can't hold back, doesn't have the energy and he always gave her the safety to express herself, to be whoever she was because he loves her either way.
"I want to protect us from this. I want to be human and I want you to be human with me and I want us to be together as long as humans can live, and I know we can't and I know we wouldn't have ever met if it were true and it doesn't change anything, but I had to say it." It feels wrong, like something grating across the ribs in her chest. "Just once. I had to say it."
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Not when it's such a big part of him.
"You've helped me more than anyone ever has in my whole life," he says, picking up her hand and bringing it to his lips. He holds it there, before he slips his other hand over it as well, both hands covering her own. Smaller, more fragile. In between his two hands. "You taught me more than anyone else has. I'm who I am because of you, Elizabeth."
And it has nothing to do with death or fear. It hasn't had much to do with his Calling or hers. It's often been in spite of it, even. In spite of how different they are, how different they have always been.
"It's not just about dying," he corrects her. Death has been a big part of her life, but no, it's not all of it. She is more than the angel. She is also Elizabeth, and he will always remind her of it, until the time that he can't. It's not tonight, and it's literally all he has to hold on to. "There is always more. There's us."
Josef swallows thickly once he's drawn away from the kiss, tucking a strand of hair over her ear and nodding, listening despite that urge once again to rail against it, to protest and shout and break whatever he can get his hands on. "You... were probably helping someone die," he says quietly. "There was blood on you."
Demon blood. He won't ever forget the look of her, the way she was walking, the look in her eye. Everything about that moment he found her on the street isn't one he is going to forget. It'll haunt him.
There have been so many moments in between.
From the moment she first kissed him, in what seems so long ago, to the moment he is kissing her, there has been so much. Crammed in between pages that remain frayed at the edges, as the rest of her. He cannot conceive it all just ending. The life of someone that is beautiful and good, who has done nothing but reach out and help and smile and love--he doesn't understand how that can just end.
She is so young. Disregarding the wisdom she is often capable of, through her keen understanding of death, she is so young. She is only eighteen years old. There should be so much more to life and there won't be, there won't be and it isn't fatalism keeping him from seeing otherwise.
Josef knows. Here and now, holding her between his hands, he knows.
At the question, he forces himself away from the thoughts swirling around in his head, from the fear that thuds inside of him and almost blots out everything else. He focuses on her, until there's only her, and he nods, almost smiling. "Of course I do," he says quietly, fingers tangling gently in her hair. "You never even had to ask."
It wasn't really home until she moved in.
There's been laughter and there's been lights strewn across the living room, and there's been lunches and dinners and movies and always, always just the two of them.
It's almost something he doesn't want to hear. The impossibility of it slides through him in painful jolts, and he almost doesn't want to hear. But he does, because she had to say it, because she needs him to listen, and because it's something she deserves.
"I'm here to listen," he says instead, so quietly his voice drops to a whisper. He's worried if he speaks any louder, his voice will crack. "I'm here to listen to anything you want to say, once, twice. A hundred times. Anything at all."
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There's no one to fight against. It is what it is, what it always would be. From the very start.
"I love... who you are," Elizabeth says as she looks at him, and she can still smile because of that, because of what he has said and what it means. "You helped me most too. I woulda been-- I wouldn't have made it this long." Not without him.
And she has had such wonderful memories, wonderful experiences in that time with him and with other people. She's been able to help more people because of him, which is important to her. It is so important to her even when she hates it and she's angry about it.
"It's never... just any one thing," she agrees, closing her eyes but needing that reminder too. It's not just death. It won't be just death. It's not all her life is and it's not all she is. Her hand finds his again, sliding over the familiarity of it. "There's us too."
There's the two of them, and it has always been such a strengthening thing to him.
She watches him, closing her eyes and opening them again to look at him as he speaks through it. His hand in her hair feels good. It always has from the start. Her hand rests against his chest, sliding over it before she slips her arm around him so that her hand rests against his back.
Elizabeth rests her chin on his shoulder for a moment, body pressed up against his so there is no space at all between them. "You're right. I think. I don't remember it. I don't know how many people I helped. I don't need to remember."
She won't let that be something else that she worries about and hates. When all she really wants to remember is him and herself, it's all she needs and that isn't given to her either, but for now, she remembers and it's enough to get through this night.
There aren't many nights left at all. They've lived through so much together, and they've grown so much and they've been happy-- happy more often than sad. She's been happy far more frequently than she's been sad or angry or near insane.
They have to be far more important than what's left and what this all will come to. It is more important on so many levels.
Elizabeth pulls back enough to look at him though she is still so close to him, barely any room between them and that's how she wants it. She breathes in and she knows he is near to her, and it is easier to focus and push away the rest. She smiles, lopsidedly, tilting her head to the side. "I asked and said it was cause I wanted my panties to be here so I wouldn't have to change somewhere else." She laughs. "I remember."
It comes back to her more easily than anything else does or can.
She releases the breath caught up within her chest but she nods, resting her face against him and holding him tight. "I'm here to listen too. I want to listen while I... while we still can. I love you, and I'm angry and I'm grieving and I'm... I want more time, but we've had so much and done so much. More than even... I thought that's pretty--" Elizabeth breathes in but that hurts. "That's something."
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He doesn't think there ever would've been anyone else that could've accepted or understood him the way she has, as much as they've struggled with the difference in their Callings, in the differences within themselves. She has loved him through so much and despite many things, many things that he has done, and it's saved him.
"Neither of us would, I don't think," he whispers. He wouldn't have made it as long, either. He'd have been lost that night, that last night of the plagues and if not then, shortly after his uncle arrived to Chicago, hellbent on destroying him. Without Elizabeth, Nikolas would've accomplished just that, and Josef knows exactly where he'd have ended up.
It's a miracle he didn't. And a lot of it is because of her.
His hand slips around her waist and pulls her closer to him as her own travels down his back. It's a solid reminder, her hands and his hands and just having her with him, reminding himself that she is real, and maybe not whole, but she is still here with him, she can still fight it.
Not forever, but she can fight it and has fought it tonight.
"As long as you remember what's important," Josef whispers with a nod. "As long as you remember you did help, whether it's one person or a thousand. It's meant something to you. It's made it worth it. That--that shouldn't change now."
He knows her. He knows her better than he's ever known anyone else, and she wouldn't want that to change. She wouldn't want it to demean the destiny she has embraced, the Calling she has believed in with every part of her, and the understanding of what that meant. There are moments when the unfairness of it hits, when they've a right to scream and shout and hate it for what it is, but she shouldn't forget what she's believed in, what she's helped him believe in, too.
"Of course you do," he says, and he means to be teasing, but it's subdued in its intent. He says it anyway, because it's what he'd say under normal circumstances. These are not normal circumstances but he can try. He can try while she's laughing and while she can still think back on it. "Of course you remember. I'm remarkable in that way."
Josef doesn't know how long he has before he himself starts showing those cracks. An angel of death always has a shorter lifespan and he's known that. He's measured that along with every impossible odd and despite his own knowledge of what could come. It's not something he could've prepared for, as much as he made the attempt.
Nothing could prepare him for this moment, holding her and knowing her mind is finally splintering. There is just nothing that could've had him ready for it, that would've given him one shred of an inkling of what it would feel like, of what it would be.
There is just nothing.
Josef presses a kiss to the top of her head and pulls her closer, almost cradling her to him. He'll later carry her to their room once she wants to sleep but for now he won't move her. For now, they can stay like this and it doesn't have to change, not this instant, and that has to be enough. It's not, and it never will be, not when he wants so much more, but she's always been right in that respect. It is what it is. "I love you, too," he says hoarsely.
It's the strongest and truest thing that he knows, that he's ever known, the one thing that hasn't changed when so much else has. "We'll always want more time," he says, and it hurts to admit but it hurts not to. It just hurts either way. "It is, Elizabeth. It's more than I thought I'd ever have. People can live a really long time and... not have what we've had."
His eyes burn but the tears don't fall. They burn and they linger on her, and he wills himself to accept the words that he is saying, that he knows are true despite the loud and insistent voice the screams it's not, that it is not and never would come close to being enough.
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She loves him so much, beyond measure, beyond words. It's in everything she knows and does and feels, and it is always-- it is always with her. If Elizabeth is present, her love for him is present too stronger than nearly anything.
"No, I don't think so either," Elizabeth says softly as she looks at his face and knows what he is speaking of without him needing to elaborate at the moment. It's nice that it--- that this comes back to her so easily when nothing else does. It is amazing to her to have this strengthen her.
There is no space between. They hold on to each other, and she rests her chin against his shoulder, closing her eyes. She breathes him in, focusing on the sensation that she can still feel. Her hands aren't numb to it, to him, to the heat and the strength and the feel of him against her. Her heart hasn't ceased feeling what it does for him.
These are all necessary reminders like rewriting endless truths across her skin until they sink in as they should. It will sink in. She's not lost yet, but it was so painfully and powerfully close that she can hardly bare to think about it.
Elizabeth nods against him. Tears fill her eyes again, and they burn and her throat tightens, and it's hard to breathe. "I will. I'll remember," she says quietly through the hoarseness in her voice, and he knows her so well because that is exactly what she would never want to happen. "I helped. A lot of people weren't alone when they died because of me."
And that means so much to her, and she needs to be reminded of it because it will always mean so much to her. It is an integral part of her that she doesn't want to let go of, doesn't want to not have within her grasps. And he is right in saying she has always believed in it and always counted on it.
Elizabeth smiles. It tugs at her lips despite how subdued it sounds, what he's saying. It is a helpless expression of how she's feeling, and it tugs gently across her lips. "You're amazing," she confirms, tracing his face with her hands coolness against the heat.
So familiar to her. She keeps her eyes closed against him, breathing him in and out. It is impossible to be prepared. It hits and it is like a tidal wave that cannot be escaped and that no one knows what it's going to feel like until it thunders over you and consumes you whole.
I love you too, and she hears the truth of it and the hoarseness in his voice. There are already tears in her eyes, but they spill again at how he sounds right now. It's a terrible, painful way for it all to end, and she wants to die as herself-- not this. Not this instead. She rests against him only pulling back when he speaks again.
There's all this pain, and she can sense it. One way or another, it hurts. It hurts them both, and she hates that. Elizabeth pulls back and sees his eyes burning with tears, and she leans in to press her lips against his because it is all she has. There are no words to fix it. There are no words to help him accept it. There is nothing to fight against but a slow, mad descent winding down.
She places her hands against his face and leans in, kissing him intensely. Elizabeth still remembers. This is still Elizabeth, and he is still Josef, and they're here tonight and she doesn't want to say goodbye yet. Even if it is inevitable.
Not ready. She'll never be ready.
"I'm gonna stay in for as long as I can, and I-- I'll just get as much-" Elizabeth lets out a heavy breath, shaking her head against his neck. Her hands slide along his skin as she buries her face there in the crook of his neck.
She lets out a shuddering breath again. Her throat's tightened up once more, and she presses a kiss against him.
"I'm so tired."
But the angel never tires and there is the ever internal battle.
"Tired of the screaming and the blood and the pain and the dying and--" Elizabeth shakes her head, resting her forehead against his for a moment. "You told me that once years ago. That you were tired."
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He can sense the tears, the pain and the loss, and it's not something that they can fix. Some things really are inevitable, and it doesn't matter how much you fight or try. You can do everything absolutely right, and you can still lose. He closes his eyes as she speaks, releasing a soundless breath.
"You did. You've done real good, Sparky," he says softly, and despite the heaviness inside his heart there's fondness in his voice, too. There's fondness and almost awe that there is someone as good and selfless as she is, who didn't have to give a crap no matter what the Calling dictated of her but she always has, and she's embraced it with everything in her and people who could've been scared and alone while they took their last breath weren't.
Because of her.
Angels of death are the rarest of her species, and it's why she's always believed it's that much more important for her to do what she believes she was meant to do, and be who she was meant to be.
Josef wouldn't let her forget that. The part of her that's still there wouldn't let her forget it, either. It would be cruel if she did, if she forgot why she believed this was worth it, why her mind becoming what it's becoming is worth it. It's not as if he puts much stock in what is just and what is deserved, but if anyone deserves at least that much, it's her.
You're amazing.
That pulls a smile across his lips, and it's as helpless as her own. Her forehead rests against hers while her hands trace his face, and he allows her fingers the exploration. He remains still against her, just breathing her in. "You're pretty amazing yourself," he says quietly, and he doesn't think that begins to cover it, but he doesn't know if there are words that would.
He doesn't allow himself the rest of what he's feeling. He can sense it, distantly, like the slow start of thunder, the anger, the hatred, the helplessness that creeps in whenever he allows himself to think of it, whenever he's confronted with the reality of what they face, what she faces.
There isn't any room for it now, not while she's quiet and breathing against him, remembering and feeling more like Elizabeth than she did only hours ago.
He won't let it in, and he keeps instead the love, the steadiness, the need to be a comfort, something steady while the rest feels shaky, while it feels like the ground may be ripped from under her at any given moment. He can't exactly know what it was like for her, there's no way for anyone to know but he can be there, the way she has always been there for him.
The way she was there for him in those church steps all those months ago.
Josef leans into the kiss as well, matching its intensity, sensing the need in it and it strikes a chord within the need of his own. It is just as familiar and amazing as it always has been, and that's more of a comfort to him than anything else.
This is still Elizabeth he is holding, Elizabeth he is kissing, and he doesn't have to say goodbye just yet.
He nods against her, forehead brushing against her own, cupping the back of her head with a hand. "You can stay in for as long as you'd like. I'd stay with you. Stock up on food, rent you all the movies you'd like, just... taking it easy for a while," he says, relieved he's able to keep his voice from growing too shaky, but his face threatens to crumple when she hides her own face in his neck and she can no longer see it.
The hand that was resting at the low of her back slips upward until it's cradling the back of her head again, in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. The words ram into him with strength, and they're painful, and also so very familiar.
He can remember saying them. He can remember what the reset felt like, how the edges of his mind began to peel away and how he couldn't focus, how scared he'd been because control wasn't there anymore, and he was tired, and now she is tired, and they are so young to be this tired.
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"I did," he says with another nod, clearing his throat, holding her closer, as close as he possibly can. "I did say that to you. I think it's okay for us to be tired from time to time. It's okay for you to be tired and hate it even if it doesn't last, even if it's just for that moment. You're allowed and it isn't wrong. It might feel that way but it's not wrong, Elizabeth. It's only human. You're human, too."
If she didn't, it wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't feel like it does now.
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She was exhausted, but her mind wasn't like what it is like now, and she told him that he was warm and safe. Elizabeth could have fallen asleep against him while they were standing up on the sidewalk. She could have fallen asleep. It feels that way too.
You did real good, Sparky.
Elizabeth smiles against him. There are tears burning in her eyes too, but she smiles against him mostly at the nickname that he has used with her since the very first day they met. It has such meaning to her. She loves the sound of it. She loves hearing him call her that. "Thanks, Man," she says hoarsely, pressing a kiss against his neck and smiling there.
No, as long as there is still a piece of her within this body, it won't let herself forget. She won't let herself forget. The reminder helps. The reminder helps when she's overwhelmed with hate and grief for what's to come and how she doesn't want this to end, not like this.
Never like this.
Elizabeth doesn't know that she will ever move. She obviously will. She has to at some point, but as painful as it all feels, this feels so much better than how she felt before. It's surrounded with love and strength and warmth, and she feels so blessed to have him, to have him holding on to her, and loving her when she's broken or when she's not.
Always.
It hasn't changed. The one constant in an ever changing city filled with living and dying. They lose people. They lose things. They suffer, but there has always been this, constant and steady. The strength of her feelings has only grown, and she grabs hold of that, aware that whatever comes that there has been this for years.
Love does not run.
She has never run, not even when he tried to make her.
And he has never run, never left her.
Despite how painful it has gotten, despite how much they have been through, despite how it became clear how this would all end one way or another. One way or another.
He never left her, not when she was in need. She is reminded of that when he agrees to them staying in and assures her that he will stay with her. Elizabeth knows he will even though he does important, dangerous work, because it's what he has always done before, because they are more important to each other than anything else.
She lets her hand rest against the side of his face, thumb following his cheek bone before her hand slips back into his hair. "Thank you. We could do anything at all, but I think just a lot of bed and movies and random food. I want to cook and back some more like... I haven't done enough of that." And there's a soft laugh but there's always room for more.
There's never enough, and she doesn't know the last time that she slept or ate, but her body feels as weak as her mind. She can't stop her mind from fraying and being destroyed, but she can focus on that and she can take this time while the angel has quieted into something that's manageable.
But still there.
Whispering and standing and pushing.
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There's still a her.
It's not fair at all. It's not fair, and she hates it as much as she has embraced it too. She hates how it feels to have her mind splintering.
"I think it's okay too. Even if it's not, I... I can't stop it," Elizabeth says, taking in a deep breath as she rests her face against him. She closes her eyes, every part of her feels heavy like lead, like heavy weights that she can't lift. "We can be tired together... as long as we're together."
As long as they can be.
"Okay?"
She's going to fall asleep soon, but she's more happy than she can say despite the pain and the grief that she's falling asleep in his arms as her.
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When he does, it's with crystal clarity. It's almost a comfort he can remember it so perfectly. There were times when things in general seemed like a blur, when picking a memory from all of the others seemed an impossibility, when trying to reach for them felt like too much effort but the plagues--Josef remembers all about the plagues.
It was when everything changed for them.
It was when they first kissed, and it was also when she finally saw the demon at his lowest, so close to that window of insanity. If it hadn't been for her presence, as much as he regrets hurting her the way that he did, pushing her the way that he did, he wouldn't have pulled himself back from the brink. It was the end of something and the beginning of something, in more ways than one, and he'd never understood the extent of it until much later.
In a sense, he is still experiencing the full weight and extent of those changes. There was so much death and so much fear in those ten days alone. Sometimes, it feels like they're the two strongest things in the city. That's not true, of course. She has taught him that is not true, but it's felt that way, and it's led to so much exhaustion and those edges in her mind.
"You're welcome," he says, just as hoarsely, pulling her closer and resting his lips against her temple. His arms wrap around her, holding her tight, and he remembering his nickname for her, replying with her nickname for him, is one more example of how there's still Elizabeth in her, and she was able to be reached. He doesn't want to think of the day where she won't.
But he already knows that it's coming soon, and he can't begin to deal with that.
Nothing will hurt more than this.
Nothing, not his mother, not his uncle, not every betrayal and mistake he's carried on his back for as long as he can remember. Nothing will hurt more than knowing, as he holds her, that she will be lost to him and soon.
Josef won't force her to move. Not for the rest of the night, if it comes to that. She can stay there without moving, just resting, for as long as she wants, and he's going to be right there with her for as long as that takes. He doesn't want her to be alone when she wakes up, and he doesn't want to leave. There is nothing that is more important than her. Not a meeting, not an obligation, not a need more important.
This is where he's going to be until she wants to leave the apartment.
The work he has been involved in, knee-deep as of late, isn't even a thought in his mind at the moment. Even if it was, it wouldn't change his decision. It's the first time in a long time Josef trusts someone else to inform him if he's needed, be it by Damon or Sonny, and Josef still wouldn't leave if they can take care of it for themselves.
They don't have a lot of time. He can almost feel the clock ticking, and he doesn't want to waste any of it chasing around ghosts, chasing around something that ultimately is just not as important. He loves her, more than anything. More than his need to see through his latest investigation, more than his need to tie loose ends left by his uncle's death.
"You'll have time now," he says, his lips still against her temple, the words breath across her skin. She'll have time to cook and bake and do things she's wanted to do that the angel and Calling has not let her do. It's safe here within these walls. There isn't death reminding her she must always be standing, must always be seeing it through, must take it all on and break her mind further.
There's only a home, and the time to rest. He will make sure that she gets that. He'll take care of her the way she has taken care of him. Once she wakes up he'll have food at the ready in case she's hungry. Even if she's not, he's going to pry a little so that she does eat since he can't be sure of how long it was since she last ate, either.
That's important, too.
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Josef nods at the Okay?, saying nothing further, wanting her to get the rest she hasn't gotten in who knows how long. He waits until he is positively certain she is asleep before his face twists into something painful, tears finally slipping down his cheek. The side of his face hides in her hair and he forces it back down.
The grief and the anger and the insolent rage that does not need to be felt now, even if he does. He feels it all, right at the center of his chest, and once he's shoved it back down, he's steady and still again. He can take whatever comes next because she is here and they are still here.
Elizabeth is sleeping and she is still here with him.
And that is all that matters.
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