[Open] And Did the Countenance Divine

[graveling]

Who: Angel and You
What: Properly priesting, or trying to at least
When: July
Where: Yes!
Warning(s): None yet

1. I will not cease from mental fight [Temple Matters]
With Degas on his sabbatical, Angel is taking on the full mantle of Priest of the Mothers. He’s wearing the brown robes of a priest and the green stole with braided knotwork patterns similar to Celtic designs along it, even though doing so makes him feel a little like a child in their father’s shoes.

Still, he’s here if you need guidance or blessing, trying to fill the role.


2. Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand [Milk and Honey]
As he’s trying to fill the role of full-time priest, Angel’s still in his robes as he brings products from Kasprak farm into town. Vegetables and fruits, eggs and goat’s milk. And, of course, honey, in small glass jars all with a wax stamp on top–a bee with a pair of stylized feathered wings.

He’s visiting stores and restaurants, but if you catch him on the carriage Arcadia’s pulling, you might get tossed a ripe tomato or offered a melon. There’s plenty to go around.


3. Till we have built Jerusalem [A Day Off]
Sometimes, it’s all a bit much. Angel occasionally runs away from his duties. Never on days when there are services planned, never when he’s scheduled for something. But when restlessness strikes, Angel’s feet take him to the wild parts of the island. Paradesium, Lockwood Forest near Elsie’s Tree, and even nosing around the cave near Tawny Beach, though it’s been caved in since he and River had their adventure. He isn’t wearing his robes, he hasn’t combed his hair, he might be up a tree or sitting on a rock, and he surely isn’t expecting company.

But still, if you approach, there’s a sheepish little nod and a wave.


4. In England's green and pleasant land [Wildcard]
[find me on discord at darkersolstice to plot]

Comments

[graveling]

"You look like shit." Well, perhaps that's not the proper priestly thing to say, but it's the words that come out of Angel as he walks over to retrieve the broom. "Do you need me to send for one of the doctors?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

He’s military, so at least it doesn’t startle him.

“Hm? O-oh. Oh. No, it’s alright.” He scrubs at his eyes, then sighs, not a little bitterly. “I’ve just been sleeping less, that’s all. It’s that awful dirt man.”

[graveling]

"You've been sleeping little enough that it's affecting your thinking and actions and reaction time and all that. So. We need to find a solution before you break down entirely. I think I remember reading somewhere that sleep deprivation is a form of torture."

Angel crosses his arms and fixes Mulcahy with a hard little look. "Talk to me."

[lovethyneighb_or]

Nothing worse than what I've already been put through, some part of him grumbles through gritted teeth, and it's such a foul thought that he shakes his head to try and clear it. But it clings.

Mulcahy glances over to one of the benches with a sort of longing look, but if he sits down to talk, he may fall asleep right there. So he stays, gently straining to stay upright.

"I've... taken up sleeping in the yard," he sighs. "I cannot stand the thought of anyone or anything breaking into my home, and I know that he can. If I am already sleeping outdoors, at least I can reasonably expect a stranger to be in my space. But if he breaks in--into my house, I..."

[graveling]

"And why haven't you told anyone or asked for help before now?"

Angel's voice is even rumblier than usual, thunder closer than normal.

"You can sleep in the sanctuary tonight. I'll even stay up and watch over you. I don't need to sleep like a human."

[lovethyneighb_or]

Because he didn't want anyone to know. It's another one of his hundred paranoias risen from the darkness of the last few years of his life, and every moment of his new life he wishes he could stop thinking about it, that it would stop haunting his every action. Now, worn down and exhausted, it hardly seems worth the fight. He just wants to sleep.

"And what of all the other nights? I can't possibly ask you to do that every time."

[graveling]

"Then don't ask, and let me offer." Angel says that like it's an obvious answer. Like Mulcahy's being a little silly, with his embarrassment, when this is no burden. Like he doesn't see this offer as a big deal.

Like he really means it.

[lovethyneighb_or]

"... But it isn't only him that keeps me up. There's also the nightmares. I've woken up screaming before. And often I'm simply restless."

He had also protested when Hawkeye offered his couch as a place to sleep besides the Oak & Iron until he got his own house, saying he wanted to look after him. Check up on him. Hawkeye had needed to jostle him to accept, but it didn't take much. Now his gut twists like a pit of vipers, and his sluggish mind can barely understand why now is so much worse, but he's been in this position enough times to remember this: he is unlovely, and he is a point of contrast in a lovely place.

[graveling]

"Okay. Aaaand. What part of this am I not supposed to be able to handle? I've got nightmares too, Father. About half the time when I sleep, I relive how this body died the first time. Before it became my body. Back when it belonged to a real person. I know about waking up screaming."

[lovethyneighb_or]

He winces slightly.

"I am not questioning whether or not you can handle it," he says carefully, quietly. "I'm very sure that you can. It's just that it's... unpleasant. I don't want to be unpleasant for you."

A beat of silence. Like he knows the answer to that already.

"... What if he comes here, Angel?"

[graveling]

Angel stares.

"What have you been through, that you feel so unworthy of care and attention? I know Catholicism comes with some guilt, but you're..." He trails off, reaching up toward Mulcahy's face.

"What if he doesn't come here? What if I protect you, if he does? What if you accept that I genuinely want to help? What if you deserve better than you've been getting, and I get to be the vehicle to provide that, for the moment?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

He flinches away, and regrets it the moment he does. Another wave of guilt to settle in his stomach with the rest.

There’s an animal in him that wants to bolt, to leave such a lovely and holy place—but he is also holy—and he would break yet another heart to turn away. Angel’s namesake does not bring to mind some rosy-cheeked cherub from blue skies, but the missives in the dark with a hand outstretched. He longs for the isolation of his house. It is a mercy to others to allow them to help. Does Angel understand that, with Mulcahy as he is, to offer such kindness is to offer to move his whole world from beneath his feet, and he isn’t sure he’ll survive the fall?

He wants to sleep so badly. He just wants to rest.

“Then…” He scrubs his face. What is it about Angel, he wonders, that he pulls tears from him so easily? Or maybe it’s something about himself. “… I suppose I’d go to bed.”

[graveling]

"Good. I've got blankets set aside already." To be fair, they weren't originally set aside for Mulcahy. Angel's slept in the sanctuary, and after Fever did the same, Angel just didn't put the bedding away fully, but kept it in a closet for anyone else who needs it. "So you just tell me when you're ready to go down for the night."

[lovethyneighb_or]

"Alright."

He sighs, then sniffs. "May I have the broom back?"

He finishes his work late, as usual. He visits home to retrieve his bedclothes and to do things such as brush his teeth and give his little Klefki dinner (rather like a lizard, it doesn't need to eat often at all, thankfully), before he returns to the Temple.

He warns Angel: that for the last 9 years he has lived in terrible places, and before that, he worked in hospitals. He has often been surrounded by death and he does not know what he might say in the night, after the hours it may take for him to fall asleep.

Sometime around 3 in the morning, he starts to mumble.

[graveling]

The time is irrelevant to Angel. He's sitting on the floor near Mulcahy with a single lit candle nearby in a candlestick like a nightlight, staring at nothing, thinking of nothing, not animating the body it inhabits until the muttering starts. It turns his head to listen, out of a morbid sort of curiosity.

But for the moment, he does not interrupt.

cw allusions to medical and psychiatric inpatient abuse & gaslighting

[lovethyneighb_or]

At first it isn't very intelligible. There's a scattering of a few odd words, like room and turkey, but for the most part, nothing.

A little later, though: "No." ... "No." ... "No. I'm sorry." ... "There's... it's enough. Yes. I'm quite sure."

... "But it's already been three weeks. I would like to go home."

His hand starts to tug at the sheets. "That can't be right. It's been three weeks, I'm sure. Please let me go."

[graveling]

Angel has the foresight, at least, to not touch Mulcahy and risk startling him. Instead what he does is draw on divine magic, changing the color of his candle flame to a silvery blue tone and making it brighter, hopefully bright enough to disturb the other priest's sleep in a less frightening way than shaking him awake. He brings the light closer, and waits for a reaction.

[lovethyneighb_or]

The muttering goes on for a little while longer, but then begins to taper off as the light lingers close to him. Restlessness falls to rest, then to a softer kind of stirring as Angel tugs him gently from sleep.

The last nine years have made him a light sleeper, but it was the military that did it first. Mulcahy blinks against the blurry and bright cold light; he knows it’s been years, but the first thing his mind still reaches for is, “Choppers?”

[graveling]

"No choppers. You're safe. You're at the Temple. You were having a nightmare. I'm here with you. I will keep you safe." And only after saying all that does Angel lean in to kiss Mulcahy on the forehead with cold lips. Because that's what someone's supposed to do when you wake up from a nightmare, right? Reassure you and kiss you on the forehead?

That's what Eddie always does for him.

[lovethyneighb_or]

“O—oh.”

He glances around. There is Angel. There is his little key-spirit, still asleep in a bundle nearby. There is the sanctuary. He can’t hear any music; no one is coming. Alone, Mulcahy would stew in his fears for another hour or so at least; but Angel has taken the opportunity away.

No choppers, no wounded, no rites, no bodies, no blood, no numbers, no surveillance, no white rooms, no shells, no ambushes, no snipers, no invasions, no danger. It’s astonishing. It seems wrong, to not wake up to some everyday catastrophe. He feels like he’s staring down the barrel of a gun, but there’s no gun at all, and what is he meant to do with that?

… Well. There is still the matter of Radar and Hawkeye.

Mulcahy settles back into the bed with a sigh. He’s still so tired.

“… Thank you. This is all incredibly kind of you, Angel. I had… forgotten what comfort it is, to not wake up alone.”

[graveling]

"I will remind you all night long. And anytime you need it again." That has the echo of a promise to it, one offered openly and intentionally. Angel allows the candle flame to return to normal, settles back into a proper sit.

"And once you're rested up, we can maybe talk long term. But not yet, not yet. Not until you've got wits about you."

[lovethyneighb_or]

"Alright."

Cura te ipsum.

"... I hope I wasn't very loud."

[graveling]

"Are you worried about anyone beside me hearing you, here?"

He's not going to bring up that the goddesses surely will hear, but it's just him and Klefki physically here.

[lovethyneighb_or]

"I always am."

A less worn-down, sleepy, and just-kissed-on-the-forehead Mulcahy would not have admitted this.

"What was it that I said?"

[graveling]

“You were talking about being somewhere for three weeks, and they wouldn’t let you go.”

Angel doesn’t have the full context, and he’s being rather pointed in not asking for it. It’s not something that he has somehow earned by bearing witness. It’s on Mulcahy to decide to share or not.