Nicholas Rush (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lottawork) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bigapplesauce2015-08-07 11:41 pm
lottawork) wrote in bigapplesauce2015-08-07 11:41 pm
Entry tags:
I hope you blink before I do [closed]
He is tired, but this is not atypical for him.
He has a headache. This is also not atypical for him.
Rush walks the dog and he thinks of physics and he thinks of electromagnetism and he thinks of the Rift and he does not think of Asadi or of her arm or of the Devil.
He thinks of the Rift. The Rift.
He is aware he has been avoiding Central Park since that unfortunate encounter, and whether this personal decision was made unconsciously or subconsciously or semi-consciously, he does not care to examine. He prefers anonymous streets. He does. He's fairly certain he should institute this as a policy of his, fair fucking soon.
He'd been fucking brilliant, hadn't he, with his brazen confrontation of Satan and his handling of the problem and Rush tightens his grip on the leash and he is walking slightly faster but his breathing is steady and his headache lingers but he often has a headache and he has established that this is a perfectly natural state of events for him.
He is getting distracted.
He turns his mind back to centralized issue.
The Rift. Or the Devil, possibly.
One of the two. Possibly both.
He looks at the dog as it pants at him, flanks heaving, and stops. He kneels in front of it, scratching it behind its ears absently.
Its panting lapses into a low growl, muscles taut beneath his hand, and Rush sighs. The merits of dog ownership are becoming increasingly clear to him, most prominently in the fact that he will never get a fucking moment's peace when said dog is apparently acutely aware of sensing extraplanar beings.
Rising to his feet in a smooth, controlled shifting of weight, Rush wearily turns to face it.
He has a headache. This is also not atypical for him.
Rush walks the dog and he thinks of physics and he thinks of electromagnetism and he thinks of the Rift and he does not think of Asadi or of her arm or of the Devil.
He thinks of the Rift. The Rift.
He is aware he has been avoiding Central Park since that unfortunate encounter, and whether this personal decision was made unconsciously or subconsciously or semi-consciously, he does not care to examine. He prefers anonymous streets. He does. He's fairly certain he should institute this as a policy of his, fair fucking soon.
He'd been fucking brilliant, hadn't he, with his brazen confrontation of Satan and his handling of the problem and Rush tightens his grip on the leash and he is walking slightly faster but his breathing is steady and his headache lingers but he often has a headache and he has established that this is a perfectly natural state of events for him.
He is getting distracted.
He turns his mind back to centralized issue.
The Rift. Or the Devil, possibly.
One of the two. Possibly both.
He looks at the dog as it pants at him, flanks heaving, and stops. He kneels in front of it, scratching it behind its ears absently.
Its panting lapses into a low growl, muscles taut beneath his hand, and Rush sighs. The merits of dog ownership are becoming increasingly clear to him, most prominently in the fact that he will never get a fucking moment's peace when said dog is apparently acutely aware of sensing extraplanar beings.
Rising to his feet in a smooth, controlled shifting of weight, Rush wearily turns to face it.
no subject
"Hello," he says. "Nicholas, wasn't it?"
no subject
The dog's growl degenerates into a whine, then silence.
He makes an abortive movement with one hand to rake it through the overlong hair he has forgotten and continuously forgets to cut but opts instead to simply shake it from his eyes, professional composure slotting neatly over the tension lingering in the set of his shoulders.
"Satan," he says evenly, the word an unperturbed hiss. "Unless you prefer 'Nick'."
no subject
'Satan' always made him think of horns and cloven hooves. Terrible imagery, really, he doesn't look like that at all.
"Lovely day for a walk, isn't it, Nicholas?"
no subject
That certainly bodes well for all parties involved.
Rush looks away, the skin around his jaw growing taut under the pressure of the muscle there that tics in inescapable repetition.
He meets the eyes of the thing clad in human fell, and finds nothing that would indicate its nature.
"I find myself rather lacking the patience for pleasantries," he says shortly. "You want something. What is it."
no subject
That's fine with him; Lucifer can only tolerate so much of human pleasantries, anyway. And he's terrible at it, too.
"I want the information that you have on the Rift and Iman's injuries. The two of you have been having a your little science conferences without me, and I feel all sorts of left out. If I didn't know better, I'd think that there were some trust issues going on."
Because why wouldn't he be trusted? He's just your friendly neighborhood Satan.
no subject
"What do you want, a bulleted list?" he says waspishly. "Prefer this sort information conveniently preorganized, do you?"
He has no idea in what form Satan would prefer to evaluate Rift-based information, nor is he wholly interested in devoting a great deal of time to contemplating Satan's present concerns. He can be fair fucking subversive when it suits him, and he finds himself entirely unwilling to be anything but seditious, recusant, goddamned untrustworthy bastard people tend to assume he is.
no subject
Because Satan can analyze data faster and more efficiently, of course. He doesn't want silly human meddling getting in the way of what he can do better on his own. Which is everything, because he's an angel and Rush is a mere mortal.
And he wholly expects to be obeyed, after the demonstration he'd given Rush before. How did that feel, not being able to speak? It must have been awful.
no subject
Said dog is not currently walking, nor does it seem eager to continue along their spontaneous route as of this encounter, but that is both irrelevant and completely incidental.
"Unless," he says with as much insouciant self-possession as he can possibly bring to bear, "you'd rather trust me to retrieve it from where I'm staying, as that particular building seems to be somewhat beyond your limits."
no subject
"It's so good to hear, though, that my little brother hasn't forgotten all the little things I've taught him, even if warding is such a very small and basic use of our powers."
The building is off-limits to him in a certain sense; he can't go walking in while the ward's up, but that doesn't mean that he can't affect the building in other ways. It is just a building, after all, and he is an archangel, and if he wants to he could bring the whole thing down around Rush's ears. He could set it on fire and burn it to the ground. He could do a great many things to gain access to the building, even if he can only get access once it-- and everyone inside-- has been destroyed.
no subject
He leads the dog with a neat tug of the leash, making no attempt to mask his intent to resume his walk free of interruption. The dog offers immediate resistance, paws sliding reluctantly over the cement, growling faintly, subsiding only with a further firm flick of the leash.
no subject
"I believe you misunderstand me," he says, walking leisurely until he's even with Rush again. "I'm not asking. You will give me your information, in whatever manner your limitations allow. If you try to keep it from me, I will get in, ward or not, and I will be very angry when I do."
He examines his nails like they're far more interesting than the man before him. "Let's be reasonable here, Nicholas."
no subject
His sense of balance becomes considerably less adept than he remembers.
The dog whines.
He can delineate the sensation of falling, the sting of asphalt to cheek, gravity's unrelenting pull, the press of two surfaces aligning.
When he next bcomes fully cognizant, he places himself relative to his surroundings - sprawled unevenly over the ground, legs inanimate and refusing response to nerve signals as if stricken by some mass fucking crural axonotmesis. His back arches in counterpoint to the ground, teeth gritted against the agonizing lack of pressure or sensation in his lower body.
"I am perfectly fucking reasonable," Rush gasps into the floor. He levers himself onto his elbows, employing traction and friction in a slow, painful, unidirectional drag over concrete away from the uncooperative, profound source of his irritation.
no subject
"They say that pride is a deadly sin," he says conversationally, "and that it comes before a fall. What do you think about that?"
He brings his foot down on one of Rush's hands, putting enough weigh to be painful, but not enough to break anything. Yet.
tw: mild finger trauma
His heart leaps in his chest in an anticipatory increase in rate and pressure.
He is nearly vibrating with the desire to crawl away from the thing in front of him, resolve paralyzed in the miserably literal sense as he lacks the requisite means to do so.
"Pot," he rasps out indistinctly with far more effort than should be possible or necessary, pain contorting his features, the words subtly slurred, "kettle. Black. Perhaps you've heard of the expression."
no subject
He looks down at Rush with something like pity and condescension; what a miserable little thing he is. So fragile, so weak, and so wrongfully proud. It's like there's something wrong with his sense of self preservation, like there's a hole where his caution should be that never got filled in.
no subject
He grins at the Devil, ragged and desolate, his eyes lit with a hard, feral glint.
"I take it you're not familiar with the concept of human brinksmanship," he whispers.
He cocks his head, expression vaguely curious beneath the pained clench of his jaw and the tremble of agonized, oscillating muscle. He draws the words out slowly, his interest glittering and thinly-concealed. "And what makes you think any data I possess will have any bearing on an end result?"
no subject
Lucifer exerts just slightly more pressure on Rush's captured hand and continues, "This is not the Cold War, Nicholas, and you aren't a nuclear power."
Then he steps back, freeing his hand from underneath Lucifer's shoe.
"Your data may be helpful, it may not. I won't know until I have it, as I'm sure you're aware."
no subject
His fingers ache.
This is going to make typing pure hell.
His hand flexes at it is freed, curling fingers into a fist in a rapid clenching and unclenching of bone and muscle, his tone implicating the encounter as little more than a particularly annoying inconvenience rather than any threat to his life. "I'll send you a fucking email, given that you're so terribly interested."
no subject
And when Rush finally acquiesces, he crouches down in front of him so that they're closer to eye level.
"Oh thank you so very much," he says, his voice is dry enough to desiccate oceans. "It's so very kind of you. I'll be waiting with bated breath."
He seems to consider things for a moment, idly tilting his head back and forth like he's weighing one option versus another, and then snaps his fingers. He disappears immediately after-- no reason to stick around now that his objective is fulfilled.
Rush's legs are functional again, but Lucifer didn't fix the ache in his hand.
no subject
This was not a situation in which a positive outcome could be facilitated.
He has an email to compose.