[RP] Dark was the night, cold was the ground, I could barely make out the sound...

[uberboned]

All's quiet on Chicago streets. There's snow on the ground, ice clinging to places where the salt trucks can't get to, and at this hour most people are in bed like any sane person should be.

Sane is relative in Chicago, of course.

In front of the Empress Theater, a Rift springs to life and 5'7 worth of Biblical Archangel-slash-Trickster God practically rolls out of it, hits the curb, and then scrambles to his feet just as the damn thing closes again. There's a silver stiletto blade in his hands and there's blood on it, which probably had a lot to with the fact that on the other side of that particular Rift, there's a dead archangel.

Raphael never did fucking know when to quit.

"Your timing is fantastic," Gabriel, because he stopped calling himself the Trickster a long time ago, spits at where the Rift should be. He wobbles a bit. He's not hurt terribly bad for an angel, but for something that passes as human, he sort of looks like he got on the bad end of a really vicious fight.

Probably because he totally did.

Comments

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

"No clue!" Gabriel beams over his shoulder. And it's not nearly as awesome as she makes it out to be, by the way, but whatever. "And you already filled your stupidity quotient, so you've lost all right to tellin' me what to do, okay? So suck it up."

He turns back to the skinwalker when it speaks, slowly, only to have a smirk start playing on his lips. It's not a pleasant expression. "Here we are now," he says, completely serious.

For one sickening moment, it looks like he's playing chicken with the thing, unmoving, expression steadily growing into an even wickeder smile, and then at the last possible moment, he grabs Murphy around the waist and snaps.

And suddenly they're up on the catwalk and tiny's about to become best buddies with the wall, now that it's way too late for it to alter its course.

"Entertain us," he calls down over the edge of the catwalk with a victorious whoop.

....Yeah, Murphy. You have a type.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

It plows straight into the wall--and starts scaling it, leaping up the side of the theatre like an animal moving over flat and open ground. Real dislike shows on its face as it rockets past, hitting the roof and using it as a springboard to launch at them both.

"Fucking fuck," Murphy grits. "Why do men always try to compare penis size with monsters?"

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

....Oh hey, that's actually kind of terrifying.

When the Archangel Gabriel is staring at something like it might eat his face, then you know you're in trouble.

He grabs Murphy's shoulders without a word and brings them back down to the middle of the theater, the effort of that many rapidfire teleports taking enough out of them that they both wind up sprawled in the aisle, tangled up in each other.

"Okay, new plan," he says with a groan, trying to clamber to his feet before that thing figures out where they are and comes after them again. "What the hell kills those things? Silver? Iron? A well choreographed production number? A hooker with a heart of gold? Name it."

The fact that he can't get a read off of it, but it can get a read off him is bugging him more than he'll admit.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

"I don't know." The muscles in her jaw twitch as she grits her teeth. "The sword hurts it. It's the only reason I'm still alive. It would have skewered me the first time I fought it if the light and the blade weren't at least uncomfortable. But I don't even know what it is." She uses the chairs of the theatre to help herself to her feet.

There's a roar and a screech of metal. The mangled catwalk crashes down onto the stage.

"Little mice." The creature's voice is almost painful. "Your holes are too shallow."

The curtains blast away from the stage as it careens through the overhang holding them up, a massive and sick parody of a hawk, feathers too thin, beak too sharp, each claw the size of Murphy's forearm. She holds the blade low, keeping its light to a minimum as it thunders down on them again.

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

He stares at her, utterly incredulous and still on the floor and trying to get his bearings. "That's so helpful," he says, more than a little snarky. He staggers to his feet around the time the beast starts speaking and just glowers at it. "How about you shut it, huh? The lady and I are tryin' to- Oh shit." He grabs Murphy again and teleports one more time, ending up back up in the rafters in a little balcony area where crew members can stand and keep watch over the stage from a higher vantage.

It's enough to keep them hidden for a few minutes anyway.

Gabriel makes a pained noise and sinks down to the floor of the balcony. "I'll stop. I'll stop," he mutters scathingly to no one in particular. "Geez."

He exhales, more frustrated than anything. "Catch a guy on his off day and suddenly everyone's a badass."

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

She crouches next to him, worry on her face. "Gabriel."

Murphy glances over her shoulder as the creature gives a bellow of irritation and starts tearing the floor of the theatre apart. She knows what it looks like when someone's on his last legs. Murphy presses a hand to the angel's neck to check his pulse without really thinking that his pulse might not be, you know, anywhere near a human equivalent. Either way, it's quick and thready under her fingers. "You're overreaching."

She brushes a hand through his hair. "I'm not the only one who doesn't get to die today, mister."

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

"Just a little," he says, sarcastically. This wouldn't happen if he was home- he'd have all his powers, things would make sense, and he wouldn't be sitting here on his last legs, hiding like a fucking dog. He's an Archangel for Christ's sake- an archangel and a god for that matter. That thing oughta be halfway to Hell by now.

"The way we're headin' I don't think we're gettin' much choice," he says, trying to keep some of the light sarcasm in his voice, although it's fading. For a moment, he just stares at her, not quite defeated, but desperate, all the same. It's the same shaky look he gave her back in her room before it turned into something else.

It's also gone just as quickly. He grimaces and sits up a bit. "This day sucks."

He glances out towards where the skinwalker's searching for them and frowns. "Okay, new plan. One that doesn't put our insides on our outsides. Got any of those, Lancelot?"

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

Murphy lays the sword across her knees. "The rift. It's our only shot. If we can get it to dive into the rift--apparently those things tear you to pieces if you go into them the wrong way. Not even... that can come back from being pureed."

She hopes. That's pretty heavily implied in her tone, the hope.

She kind of wants to kiss him again. Just in case.

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

He laughs, wheezy and almost condescending. "'Course that's your plan. That sounds like a Karrin Murphy plan." The laughter breaks off into a sigh and his voice goes a lot quieter. "I've got one left in me. Maybe two if I push it. After that, I ain't goin' anywhere for awhile. Not when I'm like this, anyway."

Cut off, injured, weak, still reeling from the last fight he had... Yeah, he needs to give himself time before he kills himself.

He stares at her for a moment, wondering why in the hell some stupid mortal woman had to go and get in his head like that. Like he's ever gave that much of a damn about anything that wasn't the stupid family he abandoned.

Maybe three months of finally buckling down and taking the damn Winchesters' side made him soft. Oh, sentimentality- it don't look good on him at all.

"You got one shot, sister. If you get killed, I'm going to be sooo pissed off at you," he finally says, shaking his head a bit.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

Murphy kisses him, slow and sweet despite the lack of time.

If she's going out, she's not going half-assed, by God. She rests her forehead against Gabriel's.

"I'll bet make-up sex with an angel is fantastic," she murmurs, a tiny spark of wickedness in her eyes.

She stands up. "Let's do this, then."

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

"Oh God, you're a tease," he groans melodramatically in her face when she pulls away. "Did I mention the part where if you die, I'll be soo pissed?"

He grimaces and stands up, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer, all while being far more consciously aware of her injuries than he'd want anyone to notice. "It is, by the way."

He snaps and falters when they hit the stage right in front of the Rift and he has to hold onto to Murphy's shoulder to involve sliding down into the hole. He takes a deep breath and then whistles again.

"Where's your cornball monster dialogue now, you sorry piece of closet-lurking shit?" He shouts, the snark and mockery coming to him even as he's hanging by the end of a thread right now. "I mean, c'mon. I've tussled with things that woulda had you stuffed and mounted on their fireplace if they ever got their teeth into you, so why don't you come over here and kiss my angelic ass."

He's still holding onto Murphy and praying that if Dad's listening, now would be the moment to really, really give him a break. He'll totally be a better son... Not cutting the sex out though. If anything, he actually deserves it, at this point.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

She braces him up as best she can, her nerves spun tight enough to snap at any moment.

Please, God, she thinks. Let him be okay.

The skinwalker's head swivels around slowly. It's a bison, now, if a bison had claws, but even as they watch it changes, becoming something like a wolf and so very not like one at all. Its eyes are red, Murphy notices with a kind of chilly interest.

It leaps.

Nothing should be able to jump that far. From the middle of the auditorium to the edge of the stage with ease, too-long limbs folding tidily under it as it lands. It cants its head to one side, rumbling. Laughing again. Murphy grabs a fistful of Gabriel's shirt near the small of his back to steady herself, the other hand still holding the hilt of her curved blade.

"If we're going to die," she says to it, "we should at least get to know what's killing us."

It grins.

There are too many teeth. Way, way too many teeth. "Naagloshii."

It takes another leap.

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

"Not today, bucko," Gabriel sneers, snapping just as soon as it leaps. He manages to get to the back of the auditorium and collapses in a heap, clearly spent, although he does manage to sit up enough to see the skinwalker come back out of the Rift as so much horrific monster puree.

That settled he collapses again, this time just from exhaustion and rolls over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. "Here's an idea," he says pointedly. "Let's never do that ever again."

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

Murphy sits down, more by necessity than from desire. She's breathing heavily, shuddering from combined adrenaline, pain and fatigue.

She doesn't really believe it's dead. She's still ill at ease, still sure something is wrong.

"...We should move," she says.

Something shifts--she reaches for Gabriel's hand as her center of balance seems to do a one-eighty, dumping her on her side--but she's falling, still falling, because there's no floor where the floor should be.

She manages to fix Gabriel with one startled look, manages to think Oh for fuck's sake, before she tumbles into the alley beyond the rift that opened under her, hits her head against a dumpster and blacks out.

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

Gabriel scrambles back into sitting position with enough speed to make his head spin, completely stunned into a lack of further movement by the sight of.... That. His kneejerk response is to go in after her and beat the tar out of whatever the hell thought that was a good idea, but it's closed just as he thinks about making a move.

And then all is quiet in the theater again and, for a moment, all he can do is stare.

And then he shouts at the ceiling with enough fervor to echo in the empty theater, "Son of a bitch."