Upon them be peace [closed]

[etherthief]

Well, those texts were weirdly spaced out and not quite the responses she was expecting, but the good news is Gabe's coming and he's bringing booze. And that's what she needs right now. She told Rush she'd see him today but she is not ready, and he's gonna have to deal. She's still reeling after everything yesterday was, she's drained and still liable to get into fights, so yeah. Booze. Booze is what she needs.

She sighs and sets her phone down without answering, instead wandering around and making a cursory effort to clean the place up. Not that it matters. Just something to do.

She runs out of things to do pretty quickly, and is left just standing in the middle of her apartment staring at the floor for several moments before she resigns herself to slumping over at her worktable, dragging her arm up to set it on the table, all normal-like. Now there's just waiting.

Comments

[etherthief]

"Wh- oh." She blinks at him as he downs the entire goddamn bottle, refills it, and has a little more on top. Well. That bodes entirely well. She manages a faint smile at the thought of Johnny hurling Gabe's phone across the room, but it's hard to smile about anything right now, what with the haze of drunk and the intense foreboding of whatever he's about to show her.

She stares at the screen, brow furrowed, eyes wide, as the scene plays out horrifyingly - Gabe's wings are huge, and they'd be beautiful except they're so fucked up, oh god, he looks so-

The video ends and she shifts away, putting her face in her hand. She wishes she had both available for the motion.

"What was that," she whispers brokenly through her fingers. "Why did it - how did you-"

She's not sure she should be asking. It rings so familiar with what she experienced, and accounts for his initial reaction, and she wasn't prepared for how affecting it would be to see him like that. Like seeing a felled mythical creature. Something.

[has_a_horn]

"I jumped in," he says, without explaining why. As much as he enjoys Iman's company, he doesn't really feel ready to talk to her about a suicide attempt. Let her assume that he tried to kill himself, or let her think that he was trying to get back to his universe. Either way, he's not going to talk about the truth.

"It kept me. I think as a punishment. It was like..." He shrugs and sets the phone down on the table and leans back in his chair, removing his face momentarily from Iman's line of sight. Any metaphor he can think of doesn't really capture the extremes of being inside the rift, and describing what it really felt like is too much for him to say. It was like being in a living thunderstorm. One with mass and body and a terrible temper. It was like he was being punished my God."You wouldn't have survived as much."

[etherthief]

She levels a slow, unsteady gaze at him. But why. Did he think he could push his way back out? Not an unreasonable assumption, given his extremely powerful nature, but - that doesn't feel right, exactly. She doubts he'd just leave Johnny or the TARDIS behind like that. She doubts a lot of things right now. Punishment, he says.

She's not going to ask.

"No, I wouldn't have," she says quietly. "It gave Rush and Greta the opportunity to pull me out. It let them have me. It was a warning shot." She sighs heavily, staring at the table, trying not to think about it, failing entirely. "I know it would have killed me, and it almost did. But I'm okay. Nothing to do now but move forward, I guess."

Weirdly optimistic. She doesn't feel it, not really. She wants another drink, but she resists. She's had enough.

"I'm sorry," she says, abstractly, and rubs at her face with her hand, like trying to wake up. "Ugh. No more serious shit for now, okay? I'm fun. I swear." Oh, good, that doesn't sound desperate at all. Maybe he'll understand. "Can we move this to the couch and just cuddle or something. Or we could find something stupid to watch. I'm game for whatever."

She says it casually, because who cares, right? But now that she's said it, holy shit does that sound good. She hopes he doesn't mind. She needs something to take her mind away from his broken wings, her broken arm, Lucifer, and all of this.

[has_a_horn]

"You are very fun," he reassures her, then pushes himself to his feet. The little head rush he gets is unexpected, and he sets his hand down on the table for a moment before standing up all the way. Something of that tequila hit him it seems, though he hadn't felt any of it while he was still sitting down. This presents more of a challenge in actually getting to the couch than he'd been expecting, but they'll manage.

"And yes, we can move this to the couch. C'mon Asadi, I'll help you." He moves around to Iman's good side, then hefts her up and, with some effort and a fair amount of wobbling gets them both over to the couch.

He props himself in the corner against the armrest and opens his arms theatrically, allowing her room to settle in against him. "Cuddle time is a go."

[etherthief]

"Thanks, Jibra'il," she mumbles with a dopey smile as she curls up next to him. That is much more like it. She sighs, letting herself drift for a bit, listening to his heartbeat.

"I really needed a fucking break," she says after a moment. "Thanks for coming over."