towerofanimus | Sinking

Characters: Enoch and anyone (one prompt closed to Urotsuki, one closed to Lucifel)
Setting: Various floors in the tower, August 2, August 6 and August 8. More prompts to come pending Individuation and infiltration results, watch this space!
Format: Starting in prose, but it doesn't matter.
Summary: Enoch makes an attempt to help someone in particular, and then has a complete and utter breakdown two days later
Warnings: Mentions of character death?

August 2, Floor 101

a - open: Anyone on the hanging gardens floor who happened to be passing under a rather tall palm might have a few dates fall at their feet. Or on their heads - thankfully the palm in question wasn't a coconut palm! Looking up would reveal someone's up there - Enoch, with ropes made of braided gauze and stone weights helping him scale the trunk, making his way down slowly with a bunch of dates awkwardly held in one hand. Maybe he'd share!

b - closed to first responder: Something had caught Enoch's eye as he headed back to the stairs with his new harvest in hand - a Succubus, hovering patiently where she could catch nearly anybody passing through. At first, Enoch seemed curious by her lack of aggression, though still wary. As the monster fluttered over to take one of the dates from the bunch in his hand, all his wariness and curiosity gave way to a dazed calm. Seeing this, the Succubus dropped the fruit, useless to her, and took Enoch's arm to lead him off. Anyone care to try to snap him out of it or attack the Succubus before she kills him?

August 6, Floor 12(locked to chainsawn)

Enoch had managed to avoid seeing Kidou's gravestone until now, that part of the graveyard already cared for by his fellow gravekeepers. It figures that on the day he saw it, he would get that note from Urotsuki. He'd asked to meet her on her favorite floor, and it was sure she would be the one waiting for him. He entered the floor, into the swirling galaxies of destruction, keeping an eye out for the girl.

August 8, Floor 69, later 81 (Locked to brbtalkingtogod)

It didn't matter that Rick had been possessed. He still hadn't been trying to attack him. He had been running. And all the same...

Enoch wandered, his gaze a far away, troubled one. He didn't seem to have any idea where he was going, following staircases and riding elevators. He passed people without acknowledging them. Everything the monster in control of Rick still stung, mixing with the guilt of killing him, churning in his gut and filling him with numbness. It was only a matter of time before he stepped where there wasn't a step, tumbling off into the soft clouds of the floor below.

The pain began to abate. Dazed, Enoch stared straight up, already unwilling to move let alone what the floor would do to him. Even the peaceful air of this floor couldn't pierce the defensive numbness yet, only counteract the pain and guilt, so it left him with a detached sort of feeling, one in which nothing quite seemed to matter.

August 8, Floor 81

Lucifel had moved Enoch away from that floor, and while it seemed he would stay with the scribe all day, even he had to leave for various mundane things like food and drink. While his guardian wasn't there, Enoch lay in the bulges of the windows, facing up to look at the stars above. He appeared vulnerable, hugging himself and staring out at the alien constellations distantly, his back propped slightly against the incline so he wasn't lying flat, cradled in the bulge of the window. He had to apologize to Rick, but he had no motivation to even move. To think more on that thought. He let his mind empty again. He doesn't acknowledge anyone who simply approaches (unless their names are Patrick Dawn or Lucifel), but he will respond to conversation attempts, though it may take a try or two to get his attention.

August 11, Floor 100

Well, he hadn't meant to do anything on this floor. But when four shadow children walked up to him and grinned unsettlingly, ultimately trapping him on the stairs, he had to jump off, floating to the room below with his Arch.

It took him a moment, in the sudden sharp pain of seeing the house in Meridian again, wound torn open by his prior encounter with the thing that had possessed Rick, to realize the shadow children weren't attacking him. Instead, they'd followed him off the stairs and gathered around him. He reached out to gently push one out of his way, and his hand went right through it.

He had to wonder if he was hallucinating. On seeing someone else pass by on the stairs with their own in tow, he asked, "Ah...do you know what these are?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Constellations?" Enoch asked, his tone almost absent. He didn't focus on Lucifel as he normally would when awaiting an explanation. Instead, he continued to stare up at the stars.

"Yeah. Like pictures in the sky, you just need to connect the stars with lines to see them." Lucifel lifted his left hand, his for finger pointed out to draw lines.

"Some are only visible during certain seasons. The summer triangle is one for example."

"What is it?" Absently, Enoch began to trace lines between the stars against the glass, but his imagination wasn't cooperating.

"A lyre, an eagle and a swan. The brightest stars of these constellations form the triangle, which are Vega, Altair and Deneb." There was a story to them as well, but he wasn't so sure if Enoch would like to hear one.

"Where are they?"

Not in this sky, but at least it was keeping Enoch engaged. Coincidentally, also distracted. That much wasn't such a good thing, but it was better than the sort of distraction his mind came up for itself before.

"They are at the northern hemisphere, but they can be seen in the south as well. They are just upside down from there."

Lucifel still tried his best to locate at least one constellation. Some world's skies should have similarity to their own, shouldn't they?

Lucifel would find nothing recognizable.

Enoch made a sound of acknowledgment and pressed his palm against the window again.

He had to wonder again how it was possible to be homesick for a place he couldn't clearly remember.

Oh well, it couldn't be helped then. The sight was still a wonderful one to look at.

Had the angel known what Enoch was thinking then he would have told him that it was probably only natural for him to feel this way.

Enoch's hand trembled a bit.

"...Do you think anyone's out there?"

"..." Lucifel placed his hand over Enoch's and gave it a light squeeze.

"I'm sure there is."

Enoch sagged against the window's curve. Here he was, doing exactly what he'd warned Tohko against doing - assuming they could be saved from outside. Certainly they were like the Freemen, but he's certain their situation is where it ends. There's no God left to send a warrior to help free them and something tells him Dax can't ever come back.

"I hope they never see us here."

"We can't get lost in 'what if' situations Enoch. Nor will it do any of us any good if we keep burying everything that burdens us deep inside. Doing so doesn't make it go away, it just gets delayed until everything becomes too much."

And the chances of all these issues getting used against them aren't small either.

"I know..."

Enoch pressed his cheek to the glass, the hand beneath Lucifel's clenching into a fist. He knew what Lucifel was getting at and knew he had to face it, but...

...well. No "but"s. He couldn't let Lucifel down by ignoring him.

"I... I killed him..."

Lucifel gave Enoch's hand a squeeze when he admitted to him what he had done. Having done so was a step in the right direction.

"I don't want to say it was right or wrong. But maybe it was what had to be done in order to free him from what possessed him."

"It must have been. But he..." A deep breath to keep from crying again. "He wasn't attacking. He never attacked..."

"... He had been trying to get away from me as quickly as possible after he said everything he needed to say." Lucifel had tried stopping him. "He had tried to provoke me when I didn't let him leave."

"He was even running...I didn't think..."

Enoch looked down at the fog-covered world below, curling up a little save the hand still beneath Lucifel's.

"..." It looks like another hug is in need. What should he tell Enoch to do? Back at home they were able to avoid situations like that because Lucifel possessed more of his powers there than he did here.

More like Enoch never encountered a situation quite like this. There was killing to prevent deaths and save others as with the Grigori and in alarmingly increasing likelihood Ruana, there was killing in self defense or defense of others, as with the Martyrs and the drones, there was killing in mercy, as with Nesir when she'd been a drone, and then there was...

...this. Barely excusable to him if at all. It had been that last moment, when the real Rick came to his senses just in time to realize he was dying and he'd looked at Enoch with all the fear of death...

Enoch leaned into the hug, continuing to weep all the tears he'd numbed before.

Sinking

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