towerofanimus | Sinking

Entry tags:

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?"

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Why is it that almost every time when Lucifel is trying to distract himself by walking around he find Enoch in a state that is more than worrying? The floor they were on just screamed 'death wish' into everyone's face, he has read the floor guide. The archangel quickly got over to the scribe and grabbed him by the arm with his right hand and lifted his left, quickly flicking his fingers to get them off the floor before he could be affected by it as well.

They would find themselves at floor 81 in the next moment. But instead of using the chance to enjoy the view, Lucifel looked at Enoch. "Speak up."

The sudden change in environment didn't do anyone any favors. Enoch's numbed mind reeled, and it took him an abnormally long time to focus on Lucifel at last. When he did, there seemed to be no coherent thought in those eyes, no fire of determination, no sharpness of intelligence, no softness of empathy or even sorrow.

He didn't even seem to internalize Lucifel's command, staring into his eyes blankly. The only sign of recognition was that his free hand raised as if to touch him, but it didn't make it across his own body, his arm dropping limply over his stomach instead as the motivation to move failed him.

That's... alright, he has no idea what to say or what to do this time. He couldn't even read the look on the other's face it was that bad. That Enoch wasn't willing to speak made everything just harder.

"Enoch..."

The arm Lucifel was holding had blood splatter, very light, across it. Though it probably wasn't much of a clue, itself, considering it could have come from anything. That is, until the glamour flickered and it was blue - hard to see on his own blue frame but the absence of red notable. It wasn't monster's blood.

There was a little sound in the back of his throat as he opened his mouth as if about to speak, but gathering the idea of what happened into words just didn't work. He couldn't put it into words because he just couldn't think of it.

If Lucifel's hold on his arm was loose enough, he tried to slip out of it to take his hand instead. "Stay," he said quietly.

Lucifel stared at Enoch's arm when he decided to take his hand as the archangel's hold on him had loosened. The scribe isn't wounded. There isn't any red mixed in this either. It's not monster's blood. Which leaves only one possible conclusion.

It was the blood of one of the residents.

Unconsciously he gave Enoch's hand a squeeze. "I'm not going anywhere."

Enoch quieted at the repetition of the promise etched indelibly into his memory, his fingers going slack in Lucifel's grip. There was something more direct about his blank stare, a bit of focus returning to him, though it was still eerily void of any of the things that should be there, of most anything at all.

There was something important he had to talk to Lucifel about. But it was tied up in what happened, so he had a hard time focusing to try to remember what it was.

The archangel took a seat next to the scribe's head since he was still lying on one of the couches and it didn't look like the blond would get up any time soon. He also couldn't give him that so called 'shoulder to cry on' due to that. Enoch had said that he could have needed contact like that during the journey but it couldn't be provided as Lucifel had been intangible.

That one time where he collapsed from exhaustion came to his mind and how Enoch had taken care of him during that time... this may work just as well. He carefully lifted Enoch's head up and shifted his seat some, making him rest his head on his lap.

Now to get him to speak to him. The usual questions wouldn't work so he would have to think about how to word them. "Does the blood on you have a connection to what has happened?"

The extra contact prompts him to move closer, his cheek pressed against the angel's stomach as he looks up at him. He can feel the movement of his breathing, and that steady rhythm is comforting.

He opens his mouth. There's a flicker of something in the blankness, pain, and his mind tries to shrink away from it. He nods instead, a short movement.

"I see..." Lucifel tensed a little when Enoch pressed his head against his stomach but let one of his hands rest on the head of the other.

So something happened to someone... who though. "It's the blood of a resident, isn't it?"

There's another nod. "R-..."

He buried his face in Lucifel's stomach as if trying to hide. His fingertips hooked into the sheer fabric of one of the tails of Lucifel's shirt covering his hip.

Know anyone with a blue collar with a name beginning with that sound, Lucifel? Someone who might have reason to be injured lately? (Not that anyone needs reason to be injured in this tower...)

That was all he needed to hear actually. Lucifel quickly put two and two together, a frown appeared on is face. Why didn't he think of that at the very beginning?

"Rick... He had been acting strange towards you as well?" If Enoch was able to pick that up, Lucifel had spoken to him as well.

The answer was a damp sob, tears against the bare skin of his stomach, and a nod.

It was still too painful to talk. But he'd been dragged out of that protective mental fog that had left him vulnerable and mostly unable to communicate.

"You too, he said...." And that was as far as he could get before he choked out another sob. All this time, had he been hurting Lucifel with his mere presence in Heaven?

"..." Damn, this is what he had wanted to avoid the whole time. A break down with lots of tears. And he had no idea how to make him stop.

"Me too?" Him too...? ... Oh Rick better hasn't told Enoch about what he thinks he has... "What has he told you?"

"You were...you feared I meant..."

Enoch sobbed through his words, making it hard to understand much more than that.

"... He told you that there are things I fear?" Lucifel sounded displeased when he said that. Rick had really done so. And apparently that didn't help Enoch's state of mind to improve but made it even worse.

"'m not a threat... Never realized... I'm sorry..."

He's still half-coherent through his sobbing, his hand clenching in his shirt.

"What are you talking about Enoch?"

There had been a time where he worried about loosing his position as god's favorite, especially loosing it to Enoch. But he knows well enough that Enoch would never even dare to think of taking that away from him. Of course, that didn't make this fear go away.

For starters, he didn't mean he'd try to take it. Enoch.

"Love isn't limited, He wouldn't..." Several deep breaths to keep himself from hyperventilating. If Lucifel recognizes this defense mechanism here from the day he got the repressed memories of his return to Meridian opened up again, it might help.

"My favor doesn't...m-mean you lose yours...."

Lucifel remembers that day surprisingly well. Although this time it wasn't as awkward. The hand that rested on Enoch's head carefully pet him. It can be said for sure that he is learning quickly.

"Calm down... take a deep breath before you continue Enoch."

Rather than speak, Enoch went silent, feeling Lucifel's hand run through his hair. It should be easier to focus on that alone, to let all the pain slide back into the fog again... But he couldn't do that on command. He would have done so all the time if he could.

"I won't steal anything from you..."

"I know that." He continued to run his hand through his hair, his fingers pushed a few strands of hair that were out of place away.

Enoch quieted eventually, curling up on the couch as if trying to curl around Lucifel. His mind had taken the route it had always unconsciously taken, throwing itself at other peoples' problems to avoid Enoch's own.

It hadn't worked this time. There was no escaping the fact that he'd violated one of his deepest-set morals, already pushed and tested through the course of his mission. Ruana hadn't even messed with his mind this time. Rick had been possessed, but he was afraid, not attacking, running...

Oh Enoch, that's an unhealthy thing to do and Lucifel is not sure if it's taking self-destructive or self-preservative features.

Dealing with what he has done is the first step to being forgiven and to forgive himself. But as Enoch is right now the archangel thought that it might be better if the scribe got the chance to recover... although this place probably won't give him much of a chance to do so.

There is one thing he could do for him though... And perhaps for himself as well.

"The worst, when he spoke to me, was that he kept referring to me as mortal. How fragile and mortal I am..." Mortality is by far a greater fear of his, if not the greatest even.

When Lucifel began talking about what not-Rick said to him openly, Enoch looked up, propping himself up on a hand beside his leg. His eyes were full of silent tears, and he wasn't speaking, but he was attentive, worried.

He reached out to rub his arm reassuringly with the hand not holding him up. They would fix it. He wasn't totally confident in that, but he still felt they could do it. That they would find what they needed in time.

chaos himself did not usually come to this floor, as it showed him an old marketplace in a city where Mary, Jesus and he had preached with the others. It opened up far too many bittersweet memories, so chaos usually did his best to avoid it.

However, when he was approached by five shadow children while stargazing and thinking on the eighty-first floor. Puzzled, chaos had tried to speak with them and got nothing, other than a sense that he might have met them before. Curious and wanting to see if he could see anyone else who had met them, he had wandered upwards, only to be joined by one more shadow child. While they were slightly odd, they were not doing him any harm, so he let them follow him, even though he was curious about them.

When he saw, heard and sensed Enoch, he stopped on the stairs to speak to the person, only to have the shadows swarm around him as he did so.

"I do not truly know. I remember there being old tales of souls that looked like this and stalked the living, but in my universe, those tales were false. I get nothing from them, other than a sense of familiarity..but I am puzzled about them."

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Sinking

August 8, Floor 69 -> 81

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August 11th, Floor 100