Elizabeth closes her eyes when he rests his chin on her shoulder. She's quiet, and her hands drift over his, sliding along his knuckles to his wrists.
She nods at the answer. When she looks out the window, she doesn't know what she sees. A different world, it feels like. This place here is protected. It's theirs. The place out there is a different world that needs the angel, and it's taking time and effort to remind herself she's not in that other world.
It's his question that reminds her. There's blood on her clothes, on her shoes. She cleaned off the blood on her hands, she thinks. Some of it. It's the details after the deaths that muddle together. Sometimes she cleans herself there. Sometimes she waits. Sometimes--
He asked her a question, and she winces because she knows why he asks but the truth is...
"Nothing really." She helped someone die. She did her duty, her destiny. It's right. It should all be right, but she knows why he asks so she elaborates. "100. Today, the second one, he was... number one hundred."
Before the plagues, she helped seven. The plagues really changed everything in a big way. It was that shift that she can't deny. So many people. So much death. She knew how and where to look for it. She knows now.
It's right about now he notices the blood on her clothing. It's not hers, he knows right off the bat it's not hers or his reaction would be far different, but he notices and the tightening in his chest returns. Death, in some form or another, is always something that he's used to; blood, there's always blood.
It's dark red this time, contrasting against the pale of Elizabeth's hands. He never wanted it to be something she'd look so comfortable with, inevitable as it may be. It's her Calling, and it costs her in different ways that it does him.
He takes a step back, without breaking the quiet moment, never fully releasing her from his hold.
Tugging on her hand gently, he leads her to the bathroom past the hallway. The lights are off, save but one, and it's enough to let him see where he's going. He slips the towel over his shoulder, heading over to the sink.
The rush of water is the only sound that breaks through.
Her hands do have blood on them still. He places them directly below the faucet, his thumbs wiping at the surface of her knuckles.
Elizabeth follows where he tugs. Right now, she'd go anywhere he led her without question. She trusts him with her life, with everything, and there's no fight in her. The angel is leaving. Elizabeth is trying to find her way back, trying to hold on again. It's easier with him holding her.
Her hands go under the water, and she closes her eyes as the water washes over the blood. Blood is so easy to wash away. The deaths aren't. The heaviness isn't.
It's just a number.
"I know," she says, and she does. She forces her eyes to open. "I'm... okay. I just-- I remember... every single one, and it's--"
Elizabeth shakes her head again, not sure where she's going with it. She watches the blood wash out into the drain, and she takes a deep, heavy breath. Elizabeth looks up at him, and she smiles. It's soft, as reassuring as she can make it.
"I know."
The water washes away the blood, and her throat tightens. Real emotion hitting her for the first time, and it's maybe how she starts to realize that she's at the forefront again. Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Does she remember what it's like to be that person in those moment? She doesn't, and they're one and the same. The angel is Elizabeth and isn't, and--
"Sometimes, not a whole lot or anything. Like hardly ever, not even very much, but... sometimes I want to be-- I wish I could just--" she says or tries to, and even the partial admittance is difficult, painful, and shameful. Like a crack through the center of her self, and it's wrong.
It already feels like she's so unstable, and she's only a year into this thing. She doesn't mind dying, but she doesn't want to lose her mind, doesn't want to slip through cracks.
"If it wasn't for you, I don't... I don't know what I'd be." She wouldn't be Elizabeth. She would hardly be angel either. Maybe she'd only be cracks or pieces.
He remembers having to pick her up that day of the plagues. She'd helped so many die, she couldn't stand on her own two feet. The day of the Conrad's destruction, it had been similar. It's why he was so hellbent on that not happening at the fair, no matter how infuriated she may be for it.
Josef sees the toll every death takes on her.
Because it matters to her. Because she's not like him. She can't shut it off, can't turn away from the responsibility, considers it a responsibility in the first place.
She carries the deaths that she's helped with and she carries the guilt of his own deaths. Josef sleeps peacefully at night, no conscience to keep the slumber at bay. Sometimes there are memories, wounding and crushing reminders, but more often than not he--he can shut it off.
It's when he can't that it's worrisome.
It when he slips and slips almost to the point of irrevocable that he worries.
"Just be normal?" Josef asks, thumbs still wiping away whatever trace of blood is left. Once he's done, he dries them off with the towel. "There's nothing wrong with wondering. It doesn't mean you're any less of who you are. You're not a puppet, being randomly controlled by the strings. There's more to you than the angel and it wonders. It's fine, Elizabeth."
He kneels down in front of her, throat suddenly as tight as his chest. He is...in such a different place in his life right now than he thought he'd be a year ago.
Even the presence of his uncle hasn't managed to change that.
It's powerful and he knows it's because of her. Without her, he'd have given into whatever is being asked of him. He wouldn't be alive, that much he knows.
"I know exactly what I'd be without you," he says, voice rough and uneven. "It isn't something I want."
Clearing his throat, he looks back down at the white towel, now smeared with someone else's blood.
Josef turns it over to the other side, using the corner of it to softly wipe at her cheek. "It's not wrong to wonder."
Elizabeth watches as he works on her hands. She has to wonder why it's always her hands, how it's come that he's taking care of them so often, how good he is at taking care of them. There are those burns that remain. She slammed them to the wall after her father took her to juvie. Even the super glued banana, he's had to time and again take her hands, gently get them clean.
She wonders if it means anything or if it just... is. Either way, she's grateful for it. It means something. Maybe it means everything even. It always means something to know now that no matter what happens, she has someone to come home to, that will want to take care of her even when she doesn't want to take care of herself. It's a relief to know that no matter how angry either of them get, it doesn't change the love under it all. She doesn't have to worry about messing up or being smart enough or anything else. The love will be there.
It feels as if it's been awhile since she had that, if she ever did. It's been like walking on eggshells with her father since she was old enough to look like her mother. He couldn't look at her. He hated how stupid she was, not that he ever used that word with her, but she felt it when he looked at her report card or when she told him how she was struggling. Elizabeth, you need to focus. This is important. Elizabeth, these need to be A's. Elizabeth. Elizabeth.
And she felt that if she were smarter, if she had A's, her dad might be able to look at her again. Love isn't about that, however. It's something that she didn't learn until she loved Josef and found that he loved her too. She's an open book in general, but he still knows her better than anyone else can or could. He sees the things that she doesn't always talk about. He knows when somethings wrong before she even opens her mouth.
Josef recognizes that angel part, and she thinks so many of the other people she knows, they wouldn't. They wouldn't be able to tell, because she shares so much of only that one part of her but she shares almost everything with him.
"Yeah," she admits when he fills in the sentence that she couldn't finish, and it's still hard to admit it. Even saying the yeah as affirmation as opposed to saying the words herself is hard. He says that it's fine, and she knows that it is, but the angel is saying it's not. The angel says a lot that she hasn't listened to.
"I wouldn't want to be normal from the start." Because then she would never have met him and that's not acceptable. She swallows thickly and clears her throat. "Just for like a week or to have like a switch to turn it off sometimes when it gets... like this. But I know it's me. It's separate but it's not. I don't--"
Elizabeth knows that he understands. It's impossible to describe, but she knows that he gets it so she stops trying to put it into words. It's too frustrating to keep trying when it doesn't really matter.
He kneels in front of her, and she can't help but feel like she should be on her knees too. It's weird to be standing when he's kneeling, and she doesn't last long in a standing position. After a second, she slides down on her knees too. And then he's speaking, and her focus is back on him and him only. The sound of his voice pulls her forward. The words make her chest tighten again, and it's for a different reason this time.
She places her hands on either side of his face. There's only love in her gaze as she looks at him, not heaviness, not the darkness still clinging to her ribs like oil. Sticky, thick. Elizabeth leans in and presses her lips against his, lingering there. For once, she is the one that can't say anything in response or describe what that means to her to know, to hear him say.
I... despair of her.pplrunincirclesJuly 20 2010, 08:38:30 UTC
It's nothing that she wants either. A life with him, how ever short it may be, is all that she wants at this point. She doesn't think very far into the future. There's no career that she wants to pursue. There isn't really anything that she feels she's missing in her life. It's strange to feel that her life's complete at seventeen, but she can't think of what more to add to it. Friends. She can always have more friends, but she doesn't need anything more than what she currently has.
He cleans her cheek, and she manages another smile. "Okay." Another deep, solid breath, and she slips her hands into her curls, closing her eyes for a moment.
nuuuu /snuggles her :>destroytheotherJuly 20 2010, 17:56:01 UTC
Josef barely takes notice of the faint scars that remain from the burns. It isn't that he doesn't notice, because he'll never forget that day and he'll never forget the way she looked when he found her. And God, they always do find each other in those moments, don't they? It's just a part of her now, those hands with those scars, and with time they've faded.
It doesn't make her hands any less beautiful in his eyes.
If anyone can understand there's more to scars than the marks they leave, it's Josef.
He's quiet while she fumbles for the words. He's quiet because he can't really say anything. What he may want to say is glued to his throat. He can deny it as much as he wants, but it's something he's wondered about, too. He's wondered who he'd be without the Calling, how much of him would change, what kind of life he may have led if he'd just been normal. How many lives would have been spared because of that difference.
It isn't something he ever thought of until Elizabeth. At first he resented her for it, sent her away countless times because of what she made him aware of, awareness that he wasn't comfortable with, not at first. But it doesn't change anything. She doesn't have to be smarter and he doesn't have to be good, and somehow they still love each other.
He'll never understand how it's possible, but it is, and he's given up trying to find logic where there might be none.
"It'd be nice if there was a switch," he agrees, surprisingly low. He's still drying off what blood he can see, whether it's on her arms or her face. Her clothing will be taken care of later. They'll burn it if that's what she wants. Maybe she wants the reminder, he doesn't know, but he'll get her new clothes. Callings in general are a terrible thing unless once has embraced them the way Josef has, but--for a Temelechus like him, it'd...it'd be nice to have that switch.
The moment you feel your own brain splintering, if there was some way to turn it off, to take that natural step back that the Calling otherwise doesn't let you. Parts of them are not their own, controlled by something else, loathe as he is to admit it. He's twenty-five and he feels like he's fifty some days, bones weighted by years he has not lived yet.
He can't imagine what it's like for her, someone that feels it deeply, that actually gives a damn about this fucking world and the bastards that live in it.
Josef smiles at that look on her face. It's more than the angel, but it's always Elizabeth. Her hands touch his face, and no one has ever really touched him like this before, with nothing but love in their intent. He doesn't hold her face back, but his hands do find her own again, holding them in his. His kiss is insistent, but not demanding this time. It's comfort, as much comfort as he can give.
He wasn't able to give any at all before her.
"Let's get you changed, Sparky," he says in a low voice, unfurling to his full height and bringing her with him. "You should also eat something. I ordered in a few hours ago."
._____- :/ *emoticonal response*pplrunincirclesJuly 21 2010, 00:22:02 UTC
It's highly unlikely that there is any logic to it. There aren't always reasons for love. For why two people who are so different can be friends, let alone what they are to each other. It makes no sense, but Elizabeth has never tried to understand the world around her. For the most part, she accepts everything as it is.
She loves him, and she doesn't have to think of why, not anymore. There may have been a part of her that wondered and questioned when it first happened. Why did she love someone who does what he does? Why couldn't she stop? She remembers thinking those things, begging for answers when there were none. She remembers crying herself to sleep, looking for answers, praying like God would shove them into her head somehow.
She loves him for the way he looks at her, the way that he makes her feel, the way his hands hold hers. She loves him, because he's attractive, because he's funny and smart and suave and sets the world around her on fire, because he's always paying attention to everything, because he's safe, because he knows so much, because he's The Man, and because he's always taken her seriously. There are many, many reasons, but the biggest reason is that she loves him, because he's Josef, even if him being Josef means the demon too. And she no longer feels any guilt for loving him.
If there is judgment upon death (and she knows that there isn't), she'll take it without regret.
Elizabeth nods when he says it'd be nice if there was a switch. He understands, and she knows that he does. If there was a switch, it'd be easier but there's not.
And when have they ever been about what's easy?
They were not built to have easy lives. They were not built to have long lives either.
She stands when he brings her up with him. Elizabeth is more tired than she'd realized, but her thoughts are still running together in her head. It's heavy. Her body is just heavy, but her mind is awake. She takes in another deep breath, letting go of him to pull her shoes off of her feet. There are Power Ranger socks underneath, and she smiles offhandedly. She'd forgotten that she put on those...whenever she put them on.
The pants slide off next. She is no longer uncomfortable or shy about undressing in front of him. It's hard to be when he knows her body so well, better than she knows it even, and she knows that he finds it beautiful. Plus, it's just normal... after all this time. It's ordinary to undress and dress in his presence.
Elizabeth doesn't really want to eat, but she's not going to argue it right now.
She looks up at him, quiet, almost shy in the asking even if she doesn't have to be. "Can I borrow one of your shirts?" She always feels better wearing his clothes, safer somehow.
Safety has never been anything that he's promised her, but she's found it with him anyway.
He notes the exhaustion. Josef may be starting to lose count of the people he inflicts his Calling on, but there will never be a detail that goes amiss when it comes to her. He catalogs each and every one in his mind. There are different levels of exhaustion, and considering the occasion it could be worse.
It still isn't something that lets the tightening in his chest subside, and he won't feel better about it until she's finally gotten rest. Even if he knows sleep will be hard to come by. Josef's back to being quiet, it's not like that time at the bar when the words spilled forth and he couldn't stop them.
He doesn't have words this time, and more surprising, neither doe she. The silence isn't something that's awkward. It's fitting, in a way. There's nothing to explain when it's all understood in one way or another.
They both know where this will all end. They both know that they can't expect more of what they've already been given. He is what he is and she is who she is and that won't change. They'll never change and they don't want to. She's proud of the angel and he's decided on the demon and that's that.
Except there's more. There's always been more, and maybe he just hadn't been made aware of it. There's more to Josef than the demon. The demon is nowhere to be found in this bathroom.
It's nowhere to be found in their bedroom, which he leads her to, while helping shed her of her clothes. His fingers are warm but they're careful, and he slips the shirt over her head and doesn't watch it fall back to the ground.
Josef hugs her to him, bare that she is, and for once makes no crack. No innuendo. There isn't the deviousness there might be otherwise.
He isn't a hobag at all as he normally would be in her state of undress. He presses a kiss to the side of her face, a hand sliding up her naked back. He knows every part of her body now. Knows it better than he knows his own.
Josef looks down as she looks up, and her face makes his chest constrict again. "Of course you can," he says, stepping back only to retrieve a shirt for her. It's a faded gray sweatshirt, but it's one of his favorites. It's older than he is, he thinks, he can't recall that either.
Things are lost in the newer spaces of time.
Josef helps put the shirt on, lets it slide back down her body. It dwarfs her whole, and something about that makes him smile. "There's mac and cheese in the oven. I'll go get it for you. Can't say I never was a gentleman."
It's teasing, the latter part, and he's gone before she can answer.
[ ;____; ] *clings back*pplrunincirclesJuly 21 2010, 03:45:36 UTC
Elizabeth doesn't have words at all. None come to mind as she closes her eyes, loses herself to the feel of his hands against her skin as he pulls the clothes from her too. She's too tired to think of sex even, to let the touch of his hands fill her with anything other than warmth, love, and safety, which is what she needs now, in the face of all that cold, in the frozen weight pressing deep within her chest.
He hugs her, and she slips her arms around him too, resting her head against him and closing her eyes. For a moment, everything hurts, hands and chest and head and heart and every bone and every muscle, and then the hurt fades too like the embrace is healing it all. And maybe it is. She slips her hands away and smiles when he tells her that she can. She didn't think he'd say no, but. She had to ask. It was necessary to ask instead of just taking. She doesn't know why, but he said that she could so it doesn't matter. She doesn't question why she acts a certain way or feels a certain way sometimes. Emotions are impossible for her to explain, as impossible as that calling, despite the fact that she's been working on understanding them better in therapy. The understanding hasn't really come.
Elizabeth drowns in the sweatshirt, and it's a good drowning. Her hands don't even come out of the sleeves, because her arms are so much shorter than his. The collar sits low on her chest, and she sinks back on to the bed, pulling her knees up against her chest under the sweatshirt.
He's gone before she can answer him, but she rests her chin on her knees. Her arms, covered by the sleeves, are wrapped around her legs. She closes her eyes, breathing in the smell of the sweatshirt, the fabric, the him in it.
Memories float through her head. They're not all of the dead and the dying. She wants to write... She wants to write down all the names, all the details that she remembers about those whose names she never knew. It's something to do later. It's something to do when her mind and body catch up with one another, when she's done just existing and wants to do again.
Her hair falls in front of her face which is buried against her knees. It's not until he comes back that she lifts it up again and even smiles. There still aren't any words at all, and she wants them but it's nothing. There's nothing at first. And then there is but it takes longer than it should, and she smiles a little more.
Josef doesn't lose the calmness, not in his features and not in his movements, until he's out the door. It's only then he stops, in the middle of the hallway, at somewhat of a loss. He turns back a fraction, staring at the open doorway, feeling heavier than he did an hour ago. Two hours ago.
There are many things he's perfectly adept at handling and these has never been one of them. Caring for someone's well-being over his own. Wanting to make it better and knowing this is only a temporary fix. Because she won't stop and he can't stop, either. Because a hundred deaths for her will turn into two hundred, and those will turn into however many she can take before--
And that's that, isn't it?
The elastic band will only go for so long before they snap.
One day they will. The when of it is irrelevant. She thought it'd be today. Today she is saved, but--Josef shakes his head, keeps moving, walks over to the kitchen. The bowl of mac and cheese is warm enough to eat in the microwave. The Orange Soda she favors above any other drink is in the refrigerator, cold and ready.
Josef places both things down on the counter, flattening his hands against the marble. He covers his face with his hand, which is, infuriatingly enough, not very steady. He waits until it is steady to pick the food and the beverage up to take it back to her.
"I am, I am pleased you see it, too." He smiles back, without very much feeling like it at first. It comes more naturally seconds later, sitting down next to her on the bed. He places the food in front of her. She only has to eat what she can manage but it's--it's the only thing he can think of to do right now.
"You want to watch a movie? Think we still got some from the day we all but rented out the whole store."
Elizabeth notices the lack of feeling that first time that he smiles. She can't really blame him for it. They both got whacked in the head (for lack of better terms) with the truth that they already knew, but now it's here. Now it's at the forefront of this, and it can't be shoved to the side. They may embrace their callings, but that means snapping. Someday.
It means there will be a time when it's too much, and she hopes she dies before that happens. She doesn't want to lose her mind. She doesn't want him to lose his either. But someone has to lose their mind first. Someone has to die first, and it's not fair.
She spent so long-- She spent so much time unable to understand why angels of death never last very long, why she's never met another one, why people were surprised that someone like her could be one. She used to get offended by it. She used to feel like maybe people thought someone like her was wrong for the part.
But now she understands.
She gets it.
And a small part of her wishes she didn't.
He once told her that the problem with questions is they have answers. Ignorance is bliss. And she understands that now too.
Elizabeth leans against him when he sits down beside her. She buries her face against his arm, breathing in that scene too. She breathes and then breathes again before she pulls back, turning her face up to him to smile again as reassuringly as she can, though her throat is tightening. It may be too tight for her to swallow.
"Thank you."
She piles noodles together in the bowl, takes in a deep breath, tries to remember how to eat, and tries not to cry for God's sake.
Her chest feels like it's on fire. Don't think too far ahead. Don't worry about the future and what you can't control. She tries to fight it back, pressing her teeth into her lip, focusing on that pain instead.
"Yeah, we should watch... like... The Godfather now that I'm actually paying attention," she says. "Cause I think you may have distracted me a bit. Last time."
Josef's met a few other Temes. They can only feed on fear so long before it takes them over. They need it, and then it's what's used against them. Some might say that's poetic justice in the end, he doesn't know.
He does know one day his head will break with the sounds of the dying caused by his hand. The screams and the names and the begging will all lace together until it forms a knot in his head and doesn't let go.
Josef has always known.
Deep down, it's what's motivated so many of his decisions.
Go home, Elizabeth.
Part of him wishes he'd insisted more often, shown the uglier sides of him more often so maybe she'd listened. It isn't often he wishes this anymore, just when he remembers what they've got to lose and he grows cowardly at the prospect.
For the most part, he's no longer the coward that doesn't want anything real. He's here, and he doesn't plan to leave her, couldn't no matter what happens. No matter where this ends up.
There's the cutting realization she has to fight back the urge to cry, and his own chest feels like it's on fire.
He sits up, back supported by the headboard, pulling her toward him. His lips rest against the crown of her hair, breathing her in, too. I love you, he says with it. And God, he does.
Josef smiles against the red strands slightly at the mention of the Godfather. "I believe we were mutually distracting each other," he says lightly.
"I can play the theme song on the piano," he says, almost absently. "It used to be my father's favorite. You'll see."
And she will. He presses play and then he goes back to sit where he was, a hand around her waist to pull her closer. He doesn't really plan to see the movie. He'll keep talking to her if it soothes her. Anything to just...make it better.
Elizabeth would rather risk losing him first than never having him at all. She'd rather risk the insanity that would drive her to than to never have met him to begin with. There are never moments where she wishes that she'd left when he told her to. There are moments where she wishes she'd die first, but they are few and far between.
His life has been more difficult than hers, and when he does die, she wants-- she needs to help him through that, whatever the cost. She can't imagine she'd live long afterwards anyway, but she is terrified of when it comes, terrified of whose band will snap first, and terrified of him dying.
The fear isn't hitting her as much as the worry, as much as the pain and the grief for something that hasn't happened yet. Elizabeth isn't used to worrying so much about the future, but she feels like losing her mind, like him losing his mind-- it feels like there should be tears over it, and she'll be gone or he'll be gone and she won't get to--
Josef pulls her close, and she shuts her eyes, tears slipping down her face, bowl of macaroni and cheese in her lap. Elizabeth hears what he says in that movement, and she makes a soft noise. She can't help it. It's that grief that's hitting her, tearing into her heart.
She eats a bite of the mac and cheese, and the bites mix with the tears that keep slipping down, and her chest still feels like it's on fire, burning away. She keeps her head down, hair in front of her face, sticking to her cheeks a little.
"Well, you're very distracting... in general," Elizabeth says back, forcing the lightness because she needs it and she craves it and she doesn't want to linger on what can't be changed. "And I never try to be distracting... it just happens when you get all distracty."
And she smiles when he mentions his father, because she can count on her hands how many times that he has. She always likes to hear those little details, and she'll remember them. She'll remember them as well as she remembers those names, far past when the band snaps, far past everything. She doesn't hope it, but she knows. She knows that he will remain in her heart and mine, even when the rest is gone.
"I bet you could play any song on the piano," she says, but she wants to listen if it's his father's favorite. If it used to be.
She can't be sure he'll die before her. Josef isn't as emotionally strong as she is. He's never had the opportunity to build any sort of strength when it comes to what you feel when you love somebody. If she snaps first, if she dies first--he already knows what would happen.
It's something he's also come to terms with. It's not like it hit him recently or something he didn't think of the moment he got involved with her.
Josef studies all angles. He dissects every possible outcome.
Even with the studying and the dissecting, it's not like he'll be prepared, but he never once walked into any of this blind.
"Sometimes," he allows, and it isn't with cocky intent that he agrees. Josef's got a good ear. He can figure out how to play a song after having just heard it once. It's all mechanics. It's all a chess board of its own, in an entirely different way. "It's easy when you play by ear."
That he actually puts feeling to it, well--that's another thing entirely.
Josef's thumb wipes at her cheeks again. He's not fooled by the hair, Elizabeth. He knows you're crying and he's trying very hard not to act like it makes it hard to breathe. The room is stifling, for a moment, and the air doesn't come easily. "Elizabeth," he says, pulling her closer.
If she wants to cry, she should cry. Let it all out. It's not like he'll think any less of her. She's still the strong, beautiful Elizabeth he's come to know.
This isn't about him, though. There've been times when she's placed aside so much of herself to give him what he needs. He can do that, too. It might not come as easily, he's not the type of person she is, but he can.
"Do you have a favorite song?" he asks, fingers spearing into her hair. He plays with the strands, the television only a kaleidoscope of colors and sounds he doesn't distinguish.
Elizabeth knows that she can't be sure of that. It's part of what's so scary about the future. She knew-- She knew going in that there was no way that it could end well, that it would end in death if nothing else. She's never fully understood however the gravity of what that means until she thought she'd lost him at the park, until she felt the bending of her mind like never before at death number one hundred.
Up until this point, it was something she knew but didn't understand.
She understands it now. She understands what insanity means now.
She understands it and that's what's hitting her, simply trying to grapple with the truth of it, with the understanding of what that all really means.
There's nothing that she would change about her decisions. She doesn't wish that she'd pulled back, that she'd left any of those one hundred people to elongate this process, to make this last longer.
"I never got what that meant," Elizabeth says, eating another bite of her macaroni and cheese. "Playing by ear, but I've never really..." She wrinkles her nose thoughtfully. "I mean I'm not musically inclined like that. I like to sing, but..."
She closes her eyes when he says her name. Elizabeth knows why he's saying it. She takes in a deep breath, pulling the hair behind her shoulders and resting her face against his chest again. It's not that she doesn't want him to see her crying. She just-- She doesn't want to be crying at all, but she can't stop it.
Like so many other things. Her throat tightens and she rests her damp face on his chest again, listening to him breathe, feeling that heartbeat, reminding herself that it's there. He's there. Their minds are still intact. They're still here beside one another.
Elizabeth swallows thickly and has another bite from her fork. "This is really good mac and cheese," she says, instead of saying what she could say, what he already knows anyway, instead of crying as hard as some part of her is on the verge of.
She nods at the question, finally turning her head to look at him. For a second, her chest eases. The pain in it fades. She's with him. He's warm against her, her body resting against his, and she feels safe. Whatever happens in the future, this moment is safe, and she allows it to comfort her, to distract her from that grief.
She nods at the answer. When she looks out the window, she doesn't know what she sees. A different world, it feels like. This place here is protected. It's theirs. The place out there is a different world that needs the angel, and it's taking time and effort to remind herself she's not in that other world.
It's his question that reminds her. There's blood on her clothes, on her shoes. She cleaned off the blood on her hands, she thinks. Some of it. It's the details after the deaths that muddle together. Sometimes she cleans herself there. Sometimes she waits. Sometimes--
He asked her a question, and she winces because she knows why he asks but the truth is...
"Nothing really." She helped someone die. She did her duty, her destiny. It's right. It should all be right, but she knows why he asks so she elaborates. "100. Today, the second one, he was... number one hundred."
Before the plagues, she helped seven. The plagues really changed everything in a big way. It was that shift that she can't deny. So many people. So much death. She knew how and where to look for it. She knows now.
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It's dark red this time, contrasting against the pale of Elizabeth's hands. He never wanted it to be something she'd look so comfortable with, inevitable as it may be. It's her Calling, and it costs her in different ways that it does him.
He takes a step back, without breaking the quiet moment, never fully releasing her from his hold.
Tugging on her hand gently, he leads her to the bathroom past the hallway. The lights are off, save but one, and it's enough to let him see where he's going. He slips the towel over his shoulder, heading over to the sink.
The rush of water is the only sound that breaks through.
Her hands do have blood on them still. He places them directly below the faucet, his thumbs wiping at the surface of her knuckles.
"It's just a number, Elizabeth."
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Her hands go under the water, and she closes her eyes as the water washes over the blood. Blood is so easy to wash away. The deaths aren't. The heaviness isn't.
It's just a number.
"I know," she says, and she does. She forces her eyes to open. "I'm... okay. I just-- I remember... every single one, and it's--"
Elizabeth shakes her head again, not sure where she's going with it. She watches the blood wash out into the drain, and she takes a deep, heavy breath. Elizabeth looks up at him, and she smiles. It's soft, as reassuring as she can make it.
"I know."
The water washes away the blood, and her throat tightens. Real emotion hitting her for the first time, and it's maybe how she starts to realize that she's at the forefront again. Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Does she remember what it's like to be that person in those moment? She doesn't, and they're one and the same. The angel is Elizabeth and isn't, and--
"Sometimes, not a whole lot or anything. Like hardly ever, not even very much, but... sometimes I want to be-- I wish I could just--" she says or tries to, and even the partial admittance is difficult, painful, and shameful. Like a crack through the center of her self, and it's wrong.
It already feels like she's so unstable, and she's only a year into this thing. She doesn't mind dying, but she doesn't want to lose her mind, doesn't want to slip through cracks.
"If it wasn't for you, I don't... I don't know what I'd be." She wouldn't be Elizabeth. She would hardly be angel either. Maybe she'd only be cracks or pieces.
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Josef sees the toll every death takes on her.
Because it matters to her. Because she's not like him. She can't shut it off, can't turn away from the responsibility, considers it a responsibility in the first place.
She carries the deaths that she's helped with and she carries the guilt of his own deaths. Josef sleeps peacefully at night, no conscience to keep the slumber at bay. Sometimes there are memories, wounding and crushing reminders, but more often than not he--he can shut it off.
It's when he can't that it's worrisome.
It when he slips and slips almost to the point of irrevocable that he worries.
"Just be normal?" Josef asks, thumbs still wiping away whatever trace of blood is left. Once he's done, he dries them off with the towel. "There's nothing wrong with wondering. It doesn't mean you're any less of who you are. You're not a puppet, being randomly controlled by the strings. There's more to you than the angel and it wonders. It's fine, Elizabeth."
He kneels down in front of her, throat suddenly as tight as his chest. He is...in such a different place in his life right now than he thought he'd be a year ago.
Even the presence of his uncle hasn't managed to change that.
It's powerful and he knows it's because of her. Without her, he'd have given into whatever is being asked of him. He wouldn't be alive, that much he knows.
"I know exactly what I'd be without you," he says, voice rough and uneven. "It isn't something I want."
Clearing his throat, he looks back down at the white towel, now smeared with someone else's blood.
Josef turns it over to the other side, using the corner of it to softly wipe at her cheek. "It's not wrong to wonder."
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She wonders if it means anything or if it just... is. Either way, she's grateful for it. It means something. Maybe it means everything even. It always means something to know now that no matter what happens, she has someone to come home to, that will want to take care of her even when she doesn't want to take care of herself. It's a relief to know that no matter how angry either of them get, it doesn't change the love under it all. She doesn't have to worry about messing up or being smart enough or anything else. The love will be there.
It feels as if it's been awhile since she had that, if she ever did. It's been like walking on eggshells with her father since she was old enough to look like her mother. He couldn't look at her. He hated how stupid she was, not that he ever used that word with her, but she felt it when he looked at her report card or when she told him how she was struggling. Elizabeth, you need to focus. This is important. Elizabeth, these need to be A's. Elizabeth. Elizabeth.
And she felt that if she were smarter, if she had A's, her dad might be able to look at her again. Love isn't about that, however. It's something that she didn't learn until she loved Josef and found that he loved her too. She's an open book in general, but he still knows her better than anyone else can or could. He sees the things that she doesn't always talk about. He knows when somethings wrong before she even opens her mouth.
Josef recognizes that angel part, and she thinks so many of the other people she knows, they wouldn't. They wouldn't be able to tell, because she shares so much of only that one part of her but she shares almost everything with him.
"Yeah," she admits when he fills in the sentence that she couldn't finish, and it's still hard to admit it. Even saying the yeah as affirmation as opposed to saying the words herself is hard. He says that it's fine, and she knows that it is, but the angel is saying it's not. The angel says a lot that she hasn't listened to.
"I wouldn't want to be normal from the start." Because then she would never have met him and that's not acceptable. She swallows thickly and clears her throat. "Just for like a week or to have like a switch to turn it off sometimes when it gets... like this. But I know it's me. It's separate but it's not. I don't--"
Elizabeth knows that he understands. It's impossible to describe, but she knows that he gets it so she stops trying to put it into words. It's too frustrating to keep trying when it doesn't really matter.
He kneels in front of her, and she can't help but feel like she should be on her knees too. It's weird to be standing when he's kneeling, and she doesn't last long in a standing position. After a second, she slides down on her knees too. And then he's speaking, and her focus is back on him and him only. The sound of his voice pulls her forward. The words make her chest tighten again, and it's for a different reason this time.
She places her hands on either side of his face. There's only love in her gaze as she looks at him, not heaviness, not the darkness still clinging to her ribs like oil. Sticky, thick. Elizabeth leans in and presses her lips against his, lingering there. For once, she is the one that can't say anything in response or describe what that means to her to know, to hear him say.
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It's nothing that she wants either. A life with him, how ever short it may be, is all that she wants at this point. She doesn't think very far into the future. There's no career that she wants to pursue. There isn't really anything that she feels she's missing in her life. It's strange to feel that her life's complete at seventeen, but she can't think of what more to add to it. Friends. She can always have more friends, but she doesn't need anything more than what she currently has.
He cleans her cheek, and she manages another smile. "Okay." Another deep, solid breath, and she slips her hands into her curls, closing her eyes for a moment.
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It doesn't make her hands any less beautiful in his eyes.
If anyone can understand there's more to scars than the marks they leave, it's Josef.
He's quiet while she fumbles for the words. He's quiet because he can't really say anything. What he may want to say is glued to his throat. He can deny it as much as he wants, but it's something he's wondered about, too. He's wondered who he'd be without the Calling, how much of him would change, what kind of life he may have led if he'd just been normal. How many lives would have been spared because of that difference.
It isn't something he ever thought of until Elizabeth. At first he resented her for it, sent her away countless times because of what she made him aware of, awareness that he wasn't comfortable with, not at first. But it doesn't change anything. She doesn't have to be smarter and he doesn't have to be good, and somehow they still love each other.
He'll never understand how it's possible, but it is, and he's given up trying to find logic where there might be none.
"It'd be nice if there was a switch," he agrees, surprisingly low. He's still drying off what blood he can see, whether it's on her arms or her face. Her clothing will be taken care of later. They'll burn it if that's what she wants. Maybe she wants the reminder, he doesn't know, but he'll get her new clothes. Callings in general are a terrible thing unless once has embraced them the way Josef has, but--for a Temelechus like him, it'd...it'd be nice to have that switch.
The moment you feel your own brain splintering, if there was some way to turn it off, to take that natural step back that the Calling otherwise doesn't let you. Parts of them are not their own, controlled by something else, loathe as he is to admit it. He's twenty-five and he feels like he's fifty some days, bones weighted by years he has not lived yet.
He can't imagine what it's like for her, someone that feels it deeply, that actually gives a damn about this fucking world and the bastards that live in it.
Josef smiles at that look on her face. It's more than the angel, but it's always Elizabeth. Her hands touch his face, and no one has ever really touched him like this before, with nothing but love in their intent. He doesn't hold her face back, but his hands do find her own again, holding them in his. His kiss is insistent, but not demanding this time. It's comfort, as much comfort as he can give.
He wasn't able to give any at all before her.
"Let's get you changed, Sparky," he says in a low voice, unfurling to his full height and bringing her with him. "You should also eat something. I ordered in a few hours ago."
No, that doesn't really leave room for argument.
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She loves him, and she doesn't have to think of why, not anymore. There may have been a part of her that wondered and questioned when it first happened. Why did she love someone who does what he does? Why couldn't she stop? She remembers thinking those things, begging for answers when there were none. She remembers crying herself to sleep, looking for answers, praying like God would shove them into her head somehow.
She loves him for the way he looks at her, the way that he makes her feel, the way his hands hold hers. She loves him, because he's attractive, because he's funny and smart and suave and sets the world around her on fire, because he's always paying attention to everything, because he's safe, because he knows so much, because he's The Man, and because he's always taken her seriously. There are many, many reasons, but the biggest reason is that she loves him, because he's Josef, even if him being Josef means the demon too. And she no longer feels any guilt for loving him.
If there is judgment upon death (and she knows that there isn't), she'll take it without regret.
Elizabeth nods when he says it'd be nice if there was a switch. He understands, and she knows that he does. If there was a switch, it'd be easier but there's not.
And when have they ever been about what's easy?
They were not built to have easy lives. They were not built to have long lives either.
She stands when he brings her up with him. Elizabeth is more tired than she'd realized, but her thoughts are still running together in her head. It's heavy. Her body is just heavy, but her mind is awake. She takes in another deep breath, letting go of him to pull her shoes off of her feet. There are Power Ranger socks underneath, and she smiles offhandedly. She'd forgotten that she put on those...whenever she put them on.
The pants slide off next. She is no longer uncomfortable or shy about undressing in front of him. It's hard to be when he knows her body so well, better than she knows it even, and she knows that he finds it beautiful. Plus, it's just normal... after all this time. It's ordinary to undress and dress in his presence.
Elizabeth doesn't really want to eat, but she's not going to argue it right now.
She looks up at him, quiet, almost shy in the asking even if she doesn't have to be. "Can I borrow one of your shirts?" She always feels better wearing his clothes, safer somehow.
Safety has never been anything that he's promised her, but she's found it with him anyway.
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It still isn't something that lets the tightening in his chest subside, and he won't feel better about it until she's finally gotten rest. Even if he knows sleep will be hard to come by. Josef's back to being quiet, it's not like that time at the bar when the words spilled forth and he couldn't stop them.
He doesn't have words this time, and more surprising, neither doe she. The silence isn't something that's awkward. It's fitting, in a way. There's nothing to explain when it's all understood in one way or another.
They both know where this will all end. They both know that they can't expect more of what they've already been given. He is what he is and she is who she is and that won't change. They'll never change and they don't want to. She's proud of the angel and he's decided on the demon and that's that.
Except there's more. There's always been more, and maybe he just hadn't been made aware of it. There's more to Josef than the demon. The demon is nowhere to be found in this bathroom.
It's nowhere to be found in their bedroom, which he leads her to, while helping shed her of her clothes. His fingers are warm but they're careful, and he slips the shirt over her head and doesn't watch it fall back to the ground.
Josef hugs her to him, bare that she is, and for once makes no crack. No innuendo. There isn't the deviousness there might be otherwise.
He isn't a hobag at all as he normally would be in her state of undress. He presses a kiss to the side of her face, a hand sliding up her naked back. He knows every part of her body now. Knows it better than he knows his own.
Josef looks down as she looks up, and her face makes his chest constrict again. "Of course you can," he says, stepping back only to retrieve a shirt for her. It's a faded gray sweatshirt, but it's one of his favorites. It's older than he is, he thinks, he can't recall that either.
Things are lost in the newer spaces of time.
Josef helps put the shirt on, lets it slide back down her body. It dwarfs her whole, and something about that makes him smile. "There's mac and cheese in the oven. I'll go get it for you. Can't say I never was a gentleman."
It's teasing, the latter part, and he's gone before she can answer.
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He hugs her, and she slips her arms around him too, resting her head against him and closing her eyes. For a moment, everything hurts, hands and chest and head and heart and every bone and every muscle, and then the hurt fades too like the embrace is healing it all. And maybe it is. She slips her hands away and smiles when he tells her that she can. She didn't think he'd say no, but. She had to ask. It was necessary to ask instead of just taking. She doesn't know why, but he said that she could so it doesn't matter. She doesn't question why she acts a certain way or feels a certain way sometimes. Emotions are impossible for her to explain, as impossible as that calling, despite the fact that she's been working on understanding them better in therapy. The understanding hasn't really come.
Elizabeth drowns in the sweatshirt, and it's a good drowning. Her hands don't even come out of the sleeves, because her arms are so much shorter than his. The collar sits low on her chest, and she sinks back on to the bed, pulling her knees up against her chest under the sweatshirt.
He's gone before she can answer him, but she rests her chin on her knees. Her arms, covered by the sleeves, are wrapped around her legs. She closes her eyes, breathing in the smell of the sweatshirt, the fabric, the him in it.
Memories float through her head. They're not all of the dead and the dying. She wants to write... She wants to write down all the names, all the details that she remembers about those whose names she never knew. It's something to do later. It's something to do when her mind and body catch up with one another, when she's done just existing and wants to do again.
Her hair falls in front of her face which is buried against her knees. It's not until he comes back that she lifts it up again and even smiles. There still aren't any words at all, and she wants them but it's nothing. There's nothing at first. And then there is but it takes longer than it should, and she smiles a little more.
"You are a gentleman."
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There are many things he's perfectly adept at handling and these has never been one of them. Caring for someone's well-being over his own. Wanting to make it better and knowing this is only a temporary fix. Because she won't stop and he can't stop, either. Because a hundred deaths for her will turn into two hundred, and those will turn into however many she can take before--
And that's that, isn't it?
The elastic band will only go for so long before they snap.
One day they will. The when of it is irrelevant. She thought it'd be today. Today she is saved, but--Josef shakes his head, keeps moving, walks over to the kitchen. The bowl of mac and cheese is warm enough to eat in the microwave. The Orange Soda she favors above any other drink is in the refrigerator, cold and ready.
Josef places both things down on the counter, flattening his hands against the marble. He covers his face with his hand, which is, infuriatingly enough, not very steady. He waits until it is steady to pick the food and the beverage up to take it back to her.
"I am, I am pleased you see it, too." He smiles back, without very much feeling like it at first. It comes more naturally seconds later, sitting down next to her on the bed. He places the food in front of her. She only has to eat what she can manage but it's--it's the only thing he can think of to do right now.
"You want to watch a movie? Think we still got some from the day we all but rented out the whole store."
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It means there will be a time when it's too much, and she hopes she dies before that happens. She doesn't want to lose her mind. She doesn't want him to lose his either. But someone has to lose their mind first. Someone has to die first, and it's not fair.
She spent so long-- She spent so much time unable to understand why angels of death never last very long, why she's never met another one, why people were surprised that someone like her could be one. She used to get offended by it. She used to feel like maybe people thought someone like her was wrong for the part.
But now she understands.
She gets it.
And a small part of her wishes she didn't.
He once told her that the problem with questions is they have answers. Ignorance is bliss. And she understands that now too.
Elizabeth leans against him when he sits down beside her. She buries her face against his arm, breathing in that scene too. She breathes and then breathes again before she pulls back, turning her face up to him to smile again as reassuringly as she can, though her throat is tightening. It may be too tight for her to swallow.
"Thank you."
She piles noodles together in the bowl, takes in a deep breath, tries to remember how to eat, and tries not to cry for God's sake.
Her chest feels like it's on fire. Don't think too far ahead. Don't worry about the future and what you can't control. She tries to fight it back, pressing her teeth into her lip, focusing on that pain instead.
"Yeah, we should watch... like... The Godfather now that I'm actually paying attention," she says. "Cause I think you may have distracted me a bit. Last time."
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He does know one day his head will break with the sounds of the dying caused by his hand. The screams and the names and the begging will all lace together until it forms a knot in his head and doesn't let go.
Josef has always known.
Deep down, it's what's motivated so many of his decisions.
Go home, Elizabeth.
Part of him wishes he'd insisted more often, shown the uglier sides of him more often so maybe she'd listened. It isn't often he wishes this anymore, just when he remembers what they've got to lose and he grows cowardly at the prospect.
For the most part, he's no longer the coward that doesn't want anything real. He's here, and he doesn't plan to leave her, couldn't no matter what happens. No matter where this ends up.
There's the cutting realization she has to fight back the urge to cry, and his own chest feels like it's on fire.
He sits up, back supported by the headboard, pulling her toward him. His lips rest against the crown of her hair, breathing her in, too. I love you, he says with it. And God, he does.
Josef smiles against the red strands slightly at the mention of the Godfather. "I believe we were mutually distracting each other," he says lightly.
"I can play the theme song on the piano," he says, almost absently. "It used to be my father's favorite. You'll see."
And she will. He presses play and then he goes back to sit where he was, a hand around her waist to pull her closer. He doesn't really plan to see the movie. He'll keep talking to her if it soothes her. Anything to just...make it better.
He has to make it better.
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His life has been more difficult than hers, and when he does die, she wants-- she needs to help him through that, whatever the cost. She can't imagine she'd live long afterwards anyway, but she is terrified of when it comes, terrified of whose band will snap first, and terrified of him dying.
The fear isn't hitting her as much as the worry, as much as the pain and the grief for something that hasn't happened yet. Elizabeth isn't used to worrying so much about the future, but she feels like losing her mind, like him losing his mind-- it feels like there should be tears over it, and she'll be gone or he'll be gone and she won't get to--
Josef pulls her close, and she shuts her eyes, tears slipping down her face, bowl of macaroni and cheese in her lap. Elizabeth hears what he says in that movement, and she makes a soft noise. She can't help it. It's that grief that's hitting her, tearing into her heart.
She eats a bite of the mac and cheese, and the bites mix with the tears that keep slipping down, and her chest still feels like it's on fire, burning away. She keeps her head down, hair in front of her face, sticking to her cheeks a little.
"Well, you're very distracting... in general," Elizabeth says back, forcing the lightness because she needs it and she craves it and she doesn't want to linger on what can't be changed. "And I never try to be distracting... it just happens when you get all distracty."
And she smiles when he mentions his father, because she can count on her hands how many times that he has. She always likes to hear those little details, and she'll remember them. She'll remember them as well as she remembers those names, far past when the band snaps, far past everything. She doesn't hope it, but she knows. She knows that he will remain in her heart and mine, even when the rest is gone.
"I bet you could play any song on the piano," she says, but she wants to listen if it's his father's favorite. If it used to be.
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It's something he's also come to terms with. It's not like it hit him recently or something he didn't think of the moment he got involved with her.
Josef studies all angles. He dissects every possible outcome.
Even with the studying and the dissecting, it's not like he'll be prepared, but he never once walked into any of this blind.
"Sometimes," he allows, and it isn't with cocky intent that he agrees. Josef's got a good ear. He can figure out how to play a song after having just heard it once. It's all mechanics. It's all a chess board of its own, in an entirely different way. "It's easy when you play by ear."
That he actually puts feeling to it, well--that's another thing entirely.
Josef's thumb wipes at her cheeks again. He's not fooled by the hair, Elizabeth. He knows you're crying and he's trying very hard not to act like it makes it hard to breathe. The room is stifling, for a moment, and the air doesn't come easily. "Elizabeth," he says, pulling her closer.
If she wants to cry, she should cry. Let it all out. It's not like he'll think any less of her. She's still the strong, beautiful Elizabeth he's come to know.
This isn't about him, though. There've been times when she's placed aside so much of herself to give him what he needs. He can do that, too. It might not come as easily, he's not the type of person she is, but he can.
"Do you have a favorite song?" he asks, fingers spearing into her hair. He plays with the strands, the television only a kaleidoscope of colors and sounds he doesn't distinguish.
He isn't paying attention again.
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Up until this point, it was something she knew but didn't understand.
She understands it now. She understands what insanity means now.
She understands it and that's what's hitting her, simply trying to grapple with the truth of it, with the understanding of what that all really means.
There's nothing that she would change about her decisions. She doesn't wish that she'd pulled back, that she'd left any of those one hundred people to elongate this process, to make this last longer.
"I never got what that meant," Elizabeth says, eating another bite of her macaroni and cheese. "Playing by ear, but I've never really..." She wrinkles her nose thoughtfully. "I mean I'm not musically inclined like that. I like to sing, but..."
She closes her eyes when he says her name. Elizabeth knows why he's saying it. She takes in a deep breath, pulling the hair behind her shoulders and resting her face against his chest again. It's not that she doesn't want him to see her crying. She just-- She doesn't want to be crying at all, but she can't stop it.
Like so many other things. Her throat tightens and she rests her damp face on his chest again, listening to him breathe, feeling that heartbeat, reminding herself that it's there. He's there. Their minds are still intact. They're still here beside one another.
Elizabeth swallows thickly and has another bite from her fork. "This is really good mac and cheese," she says, instead of saying what she could say, what he already knows anyway, instead of crying as hard as some part of her is on the verge of.
She nods at the question, finally turning her head to look at him. For a second, her chest eases. The pain in it fades. She's with him. He's warm against her, her body resting against his, and she feels safe. Whatever happens in the future, this moment is safe, and she allows it to comfort her, to distract her from that grief.
"My Granny used to sing to me... like sing me to sleep, I mean. Probably until way past the age that any kid should get a lullaby, but... the song she sang to me. It's still my favorite. It makes me feel better whenever I hear it, no matter what." Elizabeth rests her head on his chest again and sings a few verses. Her voice is hoarse, trembling a little. The emotion remains in each word. "Say nighty-night and kiss me, just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me. While I'm alone and blue as can be, dream a little dream of me."
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