[OPEN] Moving

[graveling]

Who: Angel and Y'all
What: Moving Day and the Surrounding
When: Early December
Where: Yeah!
Warning(s):

1. So take your shaking bones
Eddie leaves on the ferry on a cold misty autumn morning, and Angel spends longer waiting for him to return to the farmhouse than it'll admit to afterwards, keeping a kettle warm on the stove for afternoon tea until the water's all boiled away and it's clear that how many lumps Eddie takes in a cup is irrelevant now, irrelevant ever again and Angel still doesn't want to admit it until it has to.

It has to.

And taking care of the farm, the bees and the temple all by itself just isn't going to be possible, it's not, even if its heart was hale and whole and beating in sync with Eddie's still, so something has to give.

Something has to.

Angel decides that it is going to move.

There are appointments with town hall to discuss possible new houses and apartments and townhouses (not homes, yet), and discussions of its beehives being transported into town, and paperwork to be filled out in a heavy, stiff, blocky hand as it figures out the work of transition, hoping that living in the city will be a replacement for the bustle of clucking hens and the nagging goat and it's going to need to get a stable situation set up for Arcadia, if the horse will forgive the relocation.

Angel is alone.

This is not work to be doing alone.

And that's before we get to the process of packing, of sorting through the debris of a life and a love and the twinge that reminds it that it can't cry every time it comes across a favored book or a shirt that still smells like Eddie, and that twinge is deeply painful enough to make it stop moving for seconds, perhaps minutes before it finds something to push it past inertia, even as it feels like some vital spark inside it is guttering and dimming.

This is not work to be doing alone.


2. And step out on your own
A sign on the bulletin board:

HELP WANTED MOVING. STANDARD PAY OFFERED: PIZZA AFTER WORK COMPLETE


3. Oh, the winter never stops
[This is your wildcard. It was meant for you.]

Comments

reaches

[abhorrently]

It is not work to be done alone. So it won't be. Appointments cancelled, a ride and a walk in the right direction, movement while winter slowly, slowly comes, step by step. A sharp knocking at the door, if it is not open, the very evening of the day that Angel comes to town to discuss relocation.

Do they need to exchange greetings, or can one simply tug the other over in her arms, holding fast, holding it to the present moment. Not alone. Not right now.

[graveling]

Angel dead fishes her hug, silent and still and stiff and every bit the corpse it feels like right now. Doesn't push her away or nothing, but it isn't holding back, because getting attached means someone might leave you.

[abhorrently]

Yeah. That's the risk you take. That's the risk she took anyway, with an almost certainty that people will leave her. The days will end, but to deny having at all? No, better to be selfish and have.

"Tell me everything. When you can."

She won't make it speak or move before it's ready.

Step out on your own

[impostor_syndrome]

Purple hasn't had a good pizza since... well, there was some at the casino, but if demonic pizza is excluded then since before they took the job at the Company. Also, they have the day off and nothing better to do. And so here they are, in front of a stranger's house.

[graveling]

The starting point is one of the farms on the edge of Northwest Hollow. And Angel has moved all the boxes and crates and borrowed trunks to the entryway.

"We're loading onto the cart hitched to my horse. Might be a few trips. Several trips." Angel is notably dead, but he's very polite about it.

[impostor_syndrome]

They don't visibly react to getting their instructions from a walking, talking corpse, although any staring or squinting or confused blinking wouldn't show from inside the diving helmet.

"That's a lot of stuff," they comment, hoisting the nearest box onto their shoulder. "What's even in here?"

Maybe this is a normal amount of stuff for people who live on a planet and reside within horsing distance of their job to have, and they're the weird one.

bones (cw: mentions of death, bodies, gore)

[lovethyneighb_or]

Hundreds of wounded soldiers processed at a time. Two and a half years of it. No matter what their efficacy rate was, the 4077th always had dead to process, whether they arrived that way or it was just too late; the fight was done. There were other losses, too. Limbs and organs to bury. Blood to mop. Abilities dissipated. Minds and innocence fractured and swept away like so much bombed-out glass.

Sole chaplain to a camp of hundreds; Mulcahy had long settled into his duty as psychopomp. The missing cannot be passed without help.

It is... a while, before Mulcahy sees it. He's still a recluse. (Still faded.) But he does, eventually, when Angel is moving hives to the Temple; and the air of grief, that manner of the overcome, no matter how stiff and cadaverlike Angel is, is unmistakable. There has been too much loss around and in him to miss it.

He approaches, soft-footed as he ever is, wraithlike with his pale self and heavy dark winter cloak over his black robes. Gently he puts a hand to its elbow.

[graveling]

Angel turns, and grabs ahold of Mulcahy with the strength his undead body summons from wherever strength originates, and holds on with a desperation he doesn't have easy words for, except these.

"Don't leave me. Please."

[lovethyneighb_or]

It’s a testament to the trust he places in Angel that no part of him flinches to be so suddenly restrained. Instead he reaches back with the strength that he has left.

He has been tossed and kicked about far too many times to be able to promise that the whims of fate won’t separate them. (Henry went. Radar went. Hawkeye—) No, the cavern in his heart is too deep for that. But.

”Not if I can help it.” Never, if he gets a choice.

[lordoftheozarks]

Just as soon as he spots that message on the board, he races to the farmstead. Already, his senses confirm the worst. No human heartbeats detected.

Erik knocks on the door and calls out, "Angel? Are you in?"

[graveling]

Angel opens the door and nods at Erik quietly.

"I'm here. Eddie is gone."

His rumbling low voice is quieter and more broken than usual. His hair is mussed and his expression is blank and there are boxes behind him. And trunks, borrowed from locals. To move his life off the farm.

1

[amourtician]

Anzu comes by, with Lev, to help Angel sort through the remnants of its life with Eddie; Snowflake tags along, but her contribution to the proceedings mostly consists of sniffing at random things, trying to eat paper bags and napping on the furniture.

Lev retreats into the kitchen to make tea and figure out if there's enough ingredients that he could induce Anzu to bake something, or at least make blintzes. Anzu helps Angel sort through books and clothes and tshotshkes; he says little at first, but noticing Angel's inertia, its retreat into itself, he decides to chance striking up conversation.

"Thou could'st just throw the lot away, nu, darling?" he says, gently. "If seeing it is too painful. Or lock it up in a shed, let some future Angel deal with it all in a decade's time."

[graveling]

"A decade? That's like forever."

It's the odd reminder that Angel hasn't seen the end of his first decade yet. That wide expanse of time is hard for him to hold in mind, the same way it is for a child. It's not somethinf he can hold up to a fraction of his past and comprehend.

and step out on your own

[not_a_traitor]

When Angel opens the door for one particular knock --

"Hi," says another stranger. (Or as much of a stranger as one can be in a small island town, where the general milling of life means seeing familiar faces along familiar paths here and there.) "I, ah, saw the sign posted downtown. Do you still need help moving? I'm... not sure how much heavy lifting I can do," here he wiggles his cane for emphasis, "but I can direct traffic or finish any packing."

[graveling]

"Can you wrap breakables in newspaper and put them carefully in boxes?"

Because there's still so much kitchen to get through. Angel's not sure he's planning on hosting anything anytime, he might not need so many plates. But something needs to be done with them.

Bones

[pineapplesalmon]

Word travels fast in the farming community, and it isn't long before someone's calling up César to let him know what happened. He calls Magne about the situation, and she quickly volunteers to help with the move, too. She agrees to not tell Rex. Not yet. He gets the same promises from his farm hands as they work out schedule changes during a quick emergency staff meeting.

César then comes up with some things to keep his baby brother occupied. Rex is too young and just moved in with basically a new family in a new life; his emotions would be unmanageable. He'll be told once he's more secure.

And with all that handled, César gets on Estrella and heads over to Eddie and Angel's farm. It's a familiar place that... he soon will be not seeing very often anymore. Ah. The animals, plants, and experiments will need to be distributed among the other farmers. Logistics that César can handle with the other farmers. That's not something Angel has to figure out on his own.

He knocks at the farmhouse door, gentle but firm, in the same rhythm he always uses. "Angel, it's César. I'm here."

Re: Bones

[graveling]

Angel answers the door looking like a hollow shell. Looking like the spark that animates him is a mere dying ember. Face blank. Eyes empty; he is a walking corpse right now.

"You're here."

3

[tehilim127_1]

Zivia comes by the farm as soon as she hears; the day after Fever handles things at Town Hall, as it turns out. She's carrying a stuffed-looking bag, wearing a heavy coat and a long purple scarf, and looking deeply concerned.

If the door isn't open (and she knows better than to expect it to be; this isn't a shiva, even if maybe it should be), she'll knock.

[graveling]

Ah, yes. This meeting should have been a shiva.

The door is open, but that's because Angel and Eddie weren't in the habit of locking their door. Anyone coming out to the farm to see them is welcome in their home, and anyone looking to steal on this island probably needs it more than them. Angel is in the living room, going through the books there. Or. Trying to.

step out

[medekh]

Artemy doesn't know who's left the sign out on the bulletin board, or even what pizza is. All he sees is someone who's in need of help, and, well.

The Haruspex has nothing but free time nowadays.

So he shows up at the farmhouse, and is actually kind of surprised to see Angel there. Though at this point Artemy has gotten to know a good chunk of the townsfolks, he shouldn't be too shocked. Still, it's good to see a friendly face.

Angel doesn't look particularly happy to be in his current situation, but Artemy figures they aren't exactly close enough for him to ask about his current emotional state, so he instead just offers to help with the current physical task at hand.

"I saw that you need help moving?" He asks quietly.

[graveling]

"Yes. I need help moving. I am packing everything up and moving into town. Someone else will see to the animals and the plants on the farm. It's just what's in the house."

He's already started on most of the work, things in trunks and boxes.

"We'll load onto the cart out beside the house. Cady will bring it all to town for me."

Step Out

[lovinglefthand]

And of course First Aid shows up too, both to help with the moving and to decide what should be done with the penicillin project.

"I don't mind taking over the greenhouse," First Aid tells Angel sadly. "It'll be a bit of a trek with no one else to see out here, but I'm the one best suited to make it. But I wonder if we shouldn't make plans to move it...if someone else comes along to take over the farm, they might want the space for their own projects..."

[graveling]

"I don't care who gets the greenhouse, so long as someone keeps the peppers growing. Eddie grew those because he knew I liked them. I got a pepper plant tattoo, even." Of all the stuff he's willing to put into storage, this symbol of lasting love will remain. Somewhere.

bones

[littlefairytale]

Some things, you become familiar with without realising. The way the Kaspbrak farm felt as she passed by on her way to and from her own family's farmhouse, when it was occupied by two souls, is one of those things. Something is different, and it stalls Ruby enough that she ends up at the door, knocking and calling in, "Angel?"

[graveling]

"Door's unlocked. I'm in here."

It's late enough in the day that he's given up on packing, but he doesn't really have other plans for how to fill the time, so he's just. Sitting on the couch, staring at the wall.