[OPEN] Maddening Shroud

[graveling]

Who: Angel and Company
What: Month two of solo priesting
When: August, both before and after the Blight
Where: Yes
Warning(s): Discussion of death, murder, Angel's nature

1. Some days my strength walks out [The Temple]
Degas did not return, when August came. Oh, he gave Angel ample encouragement and appreciation for its work, but his sabbatical continued. So the priest of the goddesses labors alone. Perhaps you've come for a blessing or to discuss theology, or to visit one of the altars or the shrines to other gods.

Or perhaps you've realized it's 11:45pm and the lights are still on, as if someone has yet to go home. Much to do, much to do.


2. Some days I can't go on [Therapy Grave]
There's a pair of graves in the woods, Erin's work, maintained for anyone who needs to rest in cool dirt. Angel never had a grave to lie in before. It rose at the beginning of its lonely existence from a shallow ditch, hardly a proper grave.

It's Angel's day off. It is in the woods, in a grave. Or perhaps it's in the woods walking too or from the grave. Really, this is just an excuse for people to find it on a day off, or an off day.


3. It is for real, we can walk about [Wildcard]
Find me on Discord to plot, or just throw anything at me. I'm easy.

Comments

before the blight; wildcard

[lovethyneighb_or]

It is night, and it is quiet, and Mulcahy is awake.

Their arrangement is still ongoing. He still isn't well-rested, but it's far better than he could have possibly been without; at least he can have peace while he lies awake in the dark and silent night, knowing he has kind company. It's funny. Though Angel has promised to stand vigil, he isn't the least bothered by the fact that he seems to have fallen asleep.

He turns over in his bed, listening to the crickets.

[graveling]

Angel is so good at being still, isn't he? Which makes it likely all the more startling when he turns and crumples into a ball, letting out a helpless whimpering sound in his sleep.

"No, no, no, please, I didn't do anything! I'll do anything! Where--where are you t--" His voice isn't his own, not Angel's usual rumble of distant thunder and lion's chuckle, but something wholly human. Human and scared.

[lovethyneighb_or]

He jolts from the suddenness of it. Trying to wave off the fog of fatigue, it takes him a moment to parse what it is that he's hearing, and a few more to remember what Angel had told him about his own trouble with sleep.

"Dear, oh dear," he mutters to himself. Mulcahy sits upright, fumbling for his glasses. Finding them, he stands up and fumbles for matches to light a candle. Light, that's how Angel would wake him whenever he started having visible terrors--though this may not even work, as he could do things with the flame that Mulcahy certainly couldn't. And that's only if he can even find those matches in the first place.

[graveling]

While Mulcahy is searching for the matches, the pleading continues, more desperate, before he lets out a bloodcurdling scream...and then is still again, limp like a corpse.

cw christmas hymn

[lovethyneighb_or]

He'd like to say he'd tuned it out. He's done it many times before, but that only really works when you have other people moving around you with other things to worry about. There is, at least, this: it is slightly easier to not be so haunted by listening to a man die when you've done it at least a thousand times.

The matches aren't where he'd expected them to be, it's far too dark in here, and the noise has stopped anyway. Mulcahy shuffles back to sit on the bed, an unlit candle in his lap. His teeth worry at his cheek. No racket still doesn't mean no nightmare.

He looks up at the dim impression of the Mothers in the windows.

Whether Angel stirs again or not, he sighs a deep breath, and tries to sing.

"Silent night..."

[graveling]

It's a while (perhaps a minute, perhaps three or four) before there's any response. Angel opens his eyes, speaks. He sounds like himself again, when he does.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have fallen asleep. I...you shouldn't have had to deal with me. I'm here to help you. I was supposed to be here to help you."

[lovethyneighb_or]

“That’s my line,” he quips.

He pads over to Angel and settles down alongside. Daringly, he reaches out, fingers brushing against his arm. “I may be in need of help, but that doesn’t make me helpless. It’s alright. I’m only sorry for the nightmare, and glad to see you awake and safe.”

[graveling]

Angel is much colder than he usually is--instead of just not-warm, he's actively chill to the touch.

"Of course I'm safe. It's only a dream." He doesn't bother to try to sound particularly convincing there.

[lovethyneighb_or]

"It's awful work, trying to convince the heart of that."

His hand settles a little more firmly on Angel's arm.

"Would it help if I gave you a hug?"

[graveling]

"Yes, probably. Eddie tends to do that. He's the only other person I've slept around."

Angel doesn't look toward Mulcahy. Oh, sure, it's not like he doesn't know what disturbs the other priest's sleep, but.

...but.

cw descriptions of war wounds

[lovethyneighb_or]

...

"I do come from a military background, Angel. I was the chaplain for a mobile army surgical hospital three or four miles from the front, and the war was in an age after the invention of the nuclear warhead. We were often short of hands--you would always be, processing hundreds of wounded men at a time, who had all been shot full of enough shrapnel to build another tank. I helped process the dying and the dead, and ministered to those of us who kept living. I saw many things. The surgeons saw even more. You would be crazy to not go mad."

He looks up at the ceiling, again.

"That is to say... this is hardly the hardest thing I've ever done, or the worst nightmare I've ever mistakenly overheard. I'm sorry to have done so. But it is our nature to burden one another, and offer support in turn. Or else we would have no reason to love each other."

[graveling]

"It's not my death. It's his death." He pats his chest, frustration written on his pale face. "It's fucking stupid, you know? He was a person, a whole-ass person, and I have to exist in the shadow of his death, and I don't even know who he was, except for how he died. I walk around, wearing his tattoos and his scars and his face, and dreaming his fucking death. And there ain't shit I can do for him, ever."

[lovethyneighb_or]

His head tilts gently.

"Elaborate for me on 'stupid,' Angel. Are you frustrated that there's nothing you can do for a stranger's suffering, and it feels unfair? For you, him, or both of you?"

Some days I can't go on

[blindwatchersees]

It starts with a single butterfly. Then a few more arrive. Then, there are about a dozen. And before Angel knows it, the nearby trees have transformed into columns of stained glass, technicolor wings fluttering softly.

They aren't still, the butterflies. They move from tree to tree, exchanging places, and oftentimes they pass close by Angel. They seem curious, as much as anyone can gauge a butterfly's motives.

[graveling]

Angel doesn't say anything to them, lying in that grave with all the stillness of a very realistic Proper Corpse, but he does, with his blank-eyed stare notice them and their colors.

[blindwatchersees]

One by one, they begin to settle on him, their proboscises gently nuzzling his flesh. There’s something there, undefinable, ephemeral, abstract lurking in their collective mass, but for now it’s silent, just as Angel is silent.

A Proper Corpse covered by a Proper Flock of Butterflies.

[graveling]

It is well over an hour before he moves at all. And that, just to gently nudge one off his nose.

"Don't tickle me, corpses aren't ticklish."

[blindwatchersees]

We can't help it, the butterflies respond.

A beat.

... Well, we can, sort of, but it'd be on your end, not ours.

[graveling]

"Aaaaand you talk." Well, now Angel's fully awake. "I'd half-convinced myself you were a visitation from Serranai. Though you're not quite fierce enough for me to believe it."

[blindwatchersees]

We can be fierce, they insist.

But you’re not here for fierce. You’re here to be a dead thing.

[graveling]

"Are you going to judge me for that want, swarm-of-butterflies?"

The question is only half-serious. What does a butterflies' judgment matter, anyway?

[blindwatchersees]

No, of course not! We're here to help you with being dead!

[graveling]

Angel doesn't respond to that for several minutes, playing the part of a corpse very well.

"Did I need the help?"

[blindwatchersees]

Well, you were doing a pretty good job, but we thought maybe you could be a little more convinced. You know, a sort of therapeutic dose of Cotard’s Syndrome?

[graveling]

"Sort of what?" Angel has no context at all.