closed | may/june catch-all

[faithfall]

Who: adrian & ??
Where: various
When: may/june
What: catch-all for june & migrated TDM threads

Warnings: N/A for now?

Comments

[tirejacked]

[One problem at a time, probably.

He's weathered the weight of far worse criticism, so unsurprisingly he tanks that smack and that little tirade like a champ. Wandering over toward the front door of the convenience store and peering through the glass. Odds are anything resembling actual first aid or useful supplies will have been looted already, but maybe they'll get lucky. His tone, unlike the rest of them, tips incredibly dry.]

You're welcome, by the way.

[It's more ironic than angry. He doesn't really care if Adrian is all that grateful, but hey. He went out of his way to cave horrible eldritch sigils into himself. Don't be rude. Still, now that they've got a minute to sort themselves out—]

Jason.

[Distracted. The door isn't precisely locked but it does stick a bit when he tries it. He jimmies it a bit, then puts a shoulder into it, and it finally scrapes open. A bell above the doorframe jingles merrily. He glances back just in time to catch the shivering.]

C'mon, before you blow away.

[It's dry and a lot less windy inside. If nothing else, they could wait out the worst of the rain. He's a bit drier thanks to not having been drunked in the flooding building, and the leather of his jacket has repelled the rain, if not the bleeding. He shrugs out of it once he's inside, the sleeves of his shirt still rolled up to show the damage, blood still dripping down from his fingers to spot the floor.

Well, it sure looks worse than he remembers. Maybe Adrian has a point, actually.]

ambi just lmk if jason runs away before he can do this i can edit

[faithfall]

Before you bleed out on the floor. [ Adrian retorts, but he's grateful to be inside where at least the wind isn't cutting through his sodden clothing. When he speaks again, it's frank, but with an unreserved sincerity none the less. ] Thank you, truly. For not dying, and for saving my life. Now, if you don't mind...

[ He watches Jason shrug out of his jacket, then steps forward, reaching for his arm. The movement is slow and deliberate, one that might easily be brushed off, but if Jason allows him to take his wrist Adrian only holds his arm at an angle that allows him to better see the damage. If not... well, he really only needs to see it well enough. ]

This is deep, so there may be some unusual scarring, but I assure you it will be purely aesthetic. It will be bright for a moment.

[ Adrian's brows knit together, his expression focused. A circle of light blooms just behind his head, then a second wider circle, like an eye surrounded by radial spikes. When the light from his halo touches the wound, the blood that runs from Jason's veins turns molten gold. It eases the pain, knits the wound back together, repairs the damage done.

It might be healed entirely, or it might still require some treatment. It's always difficult to know with someone new. The remaining scars, too, might appear as if they're still filled with gold, though they will be ordinary flesh. (Choose your own adventure do you want kintsugi scars...)

The whole affair takes only six seconds. The halo disappears all at once, and Adrian takes a step back that's only slightly unsteady. After the night he's been having, the pain of using magic feels minimal. ]

That's all I have for now. How does it feel?

nah. fuck it we ball, how could I resist

[tirejacked]

[All initial dismissiveness aside, he doesn't fight it when Adrian first reaches for a better look at the bleeding. Easier to let someone else wrap him up than to try to do it one-handed, you know, and he's had enough hassle for the night. Of course, Adrian has other plans.

He probably ought to be a bit faster on the uptake.  His reflexes are, honestly, usually pretty good, even through a little bit of inconvenient blood loss. (Or like. Catatonia.) But the halo catches the lion’s share of his attention, understandably.  He's tracking it back to the flickering light he'd spotted through the window, frowning back as it glows and then changes, ringed by more strange patterns. All before it registers that Adrian's still holding on on him.

By the time his eyes flicker down, the bleeding around wound has gone to molten gold.  The temperature of it is all wrong, but for a second it knocks the breath out of him. Feezes him up.  (Irrational, instinctual.)  Close enough to the unnerving, unnatural gold (green? Gold.) glow of the Lazarus pit that it abruptly jerks him back there.  All at once, his stomach lurches in half-remembered, horrible recognition.

He shoves away a heartbeat too late.  The shapes of the cypher he'd scratched into himself had been torn raggedly open enough not to be recognizable in any way, thankfully. But the striped scarring there is engraved in alien gold.  

The snarl that swells up from his chest tugs the half-clotted split in his lip taut, and starts it bleeding again.  He swipes at his face (it comes away red. Thankfully.)  He has to stare down at it for a second before he recovers the wherewithal to jab a finger into Adrian’s face.]

You.  [Somehow the act of healing him has tipped him over into something tight and frayed and furious.  Even the life-or-death eldritch bullshit from earlier had been met with a level of devil-may-care nonsense.  Cheeky shrugs and casual self mutilation. Now, though— ] You don’t do that shit again.

[There’s an edge of sudden intensity to it.  It's not a request.]

ehehe

[faithfall]

[ He can't help it: he thinks of Fern watching him raise a corpse with a look of visceral disgust, demanding a promise that he would never do that to her. It's the same sudden intensity, the same revulsion lurking underneath.

Adrian swallows. For a foolish moment, he had let himself forget what he had become. Even his healing must look nightmarish to someone unfamiliar with it, the way it leaves a mark they can't refuse.

A part of him knows that this can't be just the healing, but even so... ]

I can't. [ He says, quietly. He looks up at Jason, meeting his gaze. ] My healing abilities have limits.

[ He doesn't think he needs to go into the details right at this moment. Despite the overt threat of violence, violence is something he's well accustomed to. He doesn't think that Jason would kill him, not the man who had just fought so hard to save his life, and anything short of death isn't worth worrying about. It isn't fear that needles at him, but his own shame and guilt.

He reaches for Jason's hand with both of his own — slowly, so as not to make things worse — and attempts to move it away from where it's come perilously close to touching his face. ]

I'm sorry that I didn't explain before proceeding.

[ But not sorry that he's done it, even so. Should they come to a crossroads where it's the only choice, Adrian will use his magic to heal Jason again without a second thought, but he doesn't like hurting people — physically or otherwise. It's just that it seems to be one of the few things he excels at. ] Is it all magic, or only that?

[tirejacked]

[It's really a shame, because Adrian was only really trying to help. Some people just don't want to be. (Can't be. Won't let themselves be. Somewhere in between.) No accounting for gratitude in the space future.

Even when he was much smaller and much less dangerous, his instinct for defense has always been offense. His reaction to feeling cornered has been to bite back. So his posture has squared up in undeniable threat as he clamps back down on the fuzzy feeling of flashback. All raw nerves and grit teeth. The ghost of some awful taste in his mouth, light buzzing behind his eyes. This time, when Adrian moves, he's ready for it.]

Don't.

[He wrests his hand roughly away and stalks off to where he'd left his jacket. (You don't get to just ask that. You don't get to pull that crap and apologize it away. Not right now.)

It's too small and too dark inside the shitty little convenience store, and he's suddenly feeling too exposed to care to deal with it. The rain is still pounding down outside, but it's suddenly a lot more inviting than sticking around in here.

He's already crossing the room as he pulls his jacket back on. He very clearly intends to just fuck off out the door.]

[faithfall]

[ Adrian lowers his empty hands with a barely audible sigh. He can only guess at what set Jason off, but he can tell that he's lost the man already, and crowding into his space any further won't do him much good. That look in his eyes is entirely too familiar. He's seen it in the eyes of other men, in other places.

Adrian watches him grab for his jacket and make for the door, but he doesn't try to stop him even as he leaves. He follows far enough to stop in the doorway, arms wrapped around himself again to ward off the damp cold. ]

You needn't feel obligated to stay. I can look after myself. [ Adrian calls after him, despite evidence to the contrary. He can call Fern to pick him up. ] Just — go somewhere safe, if you must?

[tirejacked]

[The dissonant little jingle of the bells above the door grates as he pushes through and out into the rain again, pulling his jacket back on as he does.

He stops, back turned and jaw locked when it registers that the door hasn’t closed. That Adrian has followed him far enough to tell him what he needn’t do.

His hands have pulled into fists at his sides of their own volition. Tight enough that his blunt nails are digging into his plans. He could almost feel his bones creaking. There’s a pressing need to spin back around to tell him to go to hell. That he’ll go where he damn likes even if it's right back to that stupid haunted facility. But it's competing with that fact that he also kind of wants to go find a quiet corner to empty his guts, so instead, he snatches up his helmet. (Red, whiteout eyes. An oddly complicated mechanism holding it together.) Digs for his keys. And starts his bike with a roar.

Good talk, bud.]